#ranting about the importance of Hal?

[lukecastellanshandholder]

Another thing to add to the list of “things that Rick dropped the ball on” is…

You mean to tell me that throughout the entirety of The Trials of Apollo, the 5 book long series from Apollo’s POV, that Hal wasn’t referenced ONCE?

Ya know, Hal, the son of Apollo who was imprisoned and tortured for at least 90% of his life because he used the powers inherited from his father to save someone? The one who was the main catalyst in the start of Luke’s rebellion that almost destroyed Olympus? The son who sacrificed himself in Apollo’s name just to save other demigods so that they could hopefully live happy, long lives?

Because I’m not just gonna simplify it down to, “well Apollo probably didn’t know what they did to Hal so he wouldn’t think about it that much.” No way, with how Zeus is, AND how he blamed Apollo for what Octavian did? Apollo definitely knew about it, and if he wasn’t someone that helped set up that trap that Hal was in, he at very least got an earful from Zeus about it.

So… why didn’t Rick include even just one scene of Apollo thinking about Hal, especially near the end of the series when he’s beginning to understand that the lives of the demigods matter too. When he learns how it is to truly feel human? It would’ve been a perfect addition and an even further showing on just how much Hal’s ghost haunts the narrative of everything in the Percy Jackson Universe.

In this essay I will…

[snikt111]

hi hi hi hi I found out about Hal Jordan TODAY and am going so autistic over him it’s insane can you please give me a rundown on what his deal is I think you’re the Tumblr Green Lantern guy

omg hi, insane compliment btw, tysm! i'm glad to give you a rundown!! also definitely check out @katmaatui for more hal info, red is SUPER knowledgable abt him. @rillette, @catboyollie, @halcarols, @starsapphire and @yellowcorps (along with so many others that i cant think to tag off the top of my head) have some great hal takes too! (edited the post just to tag more ppl)

apologies if this is a bit rushed/messy, i'm doing this while i smelt stone in minecraft LMAO

that being said... i think this will be a long one, so more below the cut :3

(cw for light mentions of pedophilia, abuse, canon typical violence)

okay, so hal jordan is the first human green lantern of the GREEN LANTERN CORPS. it's important to note that there was technically a human green lantern before him (alan scott, originally from earth two/the justice society, but integrated into main DC canon after crisis), but his power comes from a different source- which is a whole different ballpark that would take ages to explain, lol, so i'll move on from that.

hal was originally introduced in a showcase issue in 1959, but ended up getting a solo run in the mid 60s because of his showcase issues doing well. he's been a test pilot, middle brother, compassionate, rule follower (although being surprisingly liberal for the time) with an interesting relationship with star sapphire carol ferris since those first appearances. for the first 20 odd years of his appearances we had no information on his parents, but we got a lot from other family members, such as uncle titus, cousin hal jr (aka airwave), younger brother jim jordan and older brother jack jordan. through the 60s and 70s those members of his family were developed along with him; with the audience learning that jim's wife sue thought jim was green lantern, rather than hal, and hal himself training his cousin, hal jr.

the most known version of how hal got the ring in the first place is probably based off of geoff john's rewrite in the mid 00s, reiterating the original story of abin sur crashing onto earth and dying, leaving hal with his ring to be trained by sinestro and the rest of the glc, while also changing miniscule details that had been developed in emerald dawn 1 & 2 (which was released in the 90s, more on that later). the main premise of abin sur's crash has stayed the same, but the story around hal's current life, job, family and stability keep changing. for instance, the original comic with abin sur in showcase only showed hal getting the ring, the guardians choosing him. the first rewrite i can think of was emerald dawn volume 1, published in 1989 and continued in emerald dawn v2 (1991). here we get the classic hal watches his father die in a plane crash with carol ferris beside him as a pre adolescent, and some of the biggest implications of the mistreatment from his father. we also get introduced to hal, despite his stick to the rules, straight edge attitude, making some serious mistakes and putting people in danger and even death- with the implication of alcohol abuse. the audience HAS known hal used to be in the air force since sometime in the late 60s or early 70s (sorry, i don't remember the exact issue!), but emerald dawn shows us that hal's moved on from the air force and into test piloting, and that his mother keeps having to bail him out for making mistakes. emerald dawn vol 1 shows the abin sur moment, followed by fights that cost hal's friends life, and is followed up by sinestro training hal in emerald dawn vol 2, where we get to see the iconic scenes of hal finding out about sinestro and his... dictatorship.

along with that; how the guardians and rings are treated and hal and the glc's perception of them is vastly changed over time. in the early days of gl in the 60s, the guardians were really never to be seen. hal was repeatedly summoned to them and then had his memory almost fully wiped- only leaving a vague notion of his orders. the guardian's called hal to them at seemingly the worst times, ending up with him almost getting injured, getting in trouble at work, and even ending up jobless and homeless. the chaos of being a green lantern has been around the WHOLE time, but originally, the green lanterns didnt really... fight it. the guardian's were their masters (and even father figures, to hal) and not to be questioned. the rings in the 60s were also much more powerful, despite the yellow weakness (the yellow weakness is the notion that from about the 60s to the mid 90s the green lantern rings were completely unable to be used against anything yellow). time travel, phasing, teleporting, etc were all very viable and common things- as well as forceful shapeshifting, invisibility, mind control, mind reading, etc etc. these days, writers have dampened these powers down to mostly shooting light and constructs.

okay, it's parallax time. the emerald twilight arc from the mid 90s wasn't an arc that was as thoroughly planned out over a long period of time as it probably should have been. a lot of fans at the time (and even now) hated what happened there, and claimed it ruined hal's character entirely. i can understand why! but, at it's core, the parallax arc is a story about a broken man pushed to the limit, fully grieving his home and family (originally, he lost his brother jim in the destruction of coast city, along with a lot of other family members) and being goddamn fed up with how his "masters" treated him and the rest of the corps. the so called "perfect lantern" (no, he wasn't that much of a rebel, despite what johns wants you to think) snapped and essentially tried to gain as much power as he could to bring back coast city. when the guardians stripped him of his powers so he couldn't, hal became enraged and took down every lantern in his path, just to get to the guardians and that power. long story short, he kills the guardians and absorbs all the energy from the central power battery on oa, becoming parallax- essentially a god. this marks the start of zero hour, an event made by dc to restructure and reset; giving the comics a new generation of heroes. hal destroys the world and remakes it, but is ultimately taken down by kyle rayner, the new green lantern, with the help of the jla, jsa and associates. there are a few more run ins with parallax after this, before kyle convinces parallax/hal that he can make up for all of this by reigniting the sun after it went out- aka killing himself. hal does it, is stuck in limbo for awhile and then becomes the spectre to continue to make up for the horrible things he did as parallax. the spectre is the spirit of god's wrath and vengeance, a weapon used to drag sinners to their very own, self made hells, and scare the shit out of people. the spectre, from it's very first appearance, is a ghost like spirit that takes on a host, and is primarily described using christian terms and is used in a very... christian ideology. HOWEVER, the spectre 2001 confirms that hal is jewish (jewish mom, catholic dad) and that belief system, plus his personality as a whole, literally makes him change the spirit of vengeance into the spirit of redemption, for at least as long as they are bonded. the whole parallax to spectre arc is about grief, pain, cycles of abuse and terror, redemption and guilt. it is NOT about a fear bug that possess hal. (im so serious though, the spectre 2001 is one of the best comics ive ever read. amazing. changed my world view) but... geoff johns changed all of it, decanonized the spectre, and ruined the legacy of parallax and hal's growth as a person by releasing green lantern: rebirth in 2004/2005. this retcons hal's breakdown and journey through grief into him BEING POSSESSED BY AN ENTITY CONTROLLED BY SINESTRO THAT FULLY CHANGES PREVIOUS GREEN LANTERN CANON AND IMPLICATIONS. also, fucks up the importance of kyle becoming ion, but whatever. geoff johns writes hal (and even more so, carol) so very wrong, and change their stories so vastly in ways that go against the stories very meanings.

SIGH.

now... time to get started on some rougher stuff. hal jordan misconceptions. i'm saving that arc for last.

- hal jordan wasn't much of a rule breaker or rebel until the 70s/80s, where he BEGAN (very slowly, mind you) to be radicalized by oliver queen during denny o'neil's green lantern/green arrow. hal was painted as more of a conservative during this period (which, admittedly, kind of goes against previous canon... he's always been relatively central to liberal, not to any extremes like ollie though, lol) but gets more and more understanding of how power structures work and how lower classes are mistreated during this time- which ends up opening his eyes a bit to how shitty the guardians are. (this is helped by the guardians literally just. leaving. the green lanterns and kind of disbanding them so they can go fuck the zamarons, lmao). geoff johns tried to change this narrative into making hal a very... maverick-from-top-gun type of character, who punched his way out of the military (when, in reality, the original story during emerald knights in the late 90s was that hal had been framed for stealing a jet and was dishonorably discharged, which he took the punishment for because he knew someone had to) and hits on women constantly and gets ladies and allat (which, funnily enough hal was awful at getting carol to like him for a long time, since carol fell for green lantern rather than hal. not to mention the awkwardness of carol's proposals or hal's many, many failed relationships). hal has always been insecure and lowkey boyfailure, he is NOT a top gun maverick tom cruise sorta guy! fuck you jeremy adams!

- hes not that much of an idiot asshole. hal can be a real dick, he's had that going for him since the beginning, but he isn't what you read in batfam fics. he's not stupid and shouldn't be the laughingstock of the justice league. i assume this idea started from the obsession with batfam and the fact that the jla has quite the history of ignoring hal and his issues (as well as. all of their issues. theyre not so great at work life balance), but it's gone too far. hal isn't making fun of the robins and pissing bruce off bc of that. hal isnt fooling around on the job 24/7 (he takes being a gl and pilot VERY seriously, although he does enjoy some danger and high stakes) or slacking off to get girls. again. not top gun maverick.

- hal has not been a creep since the beginnings. hal was not weird with carol in the 60s. things were weird between them, yeah, but that's based off circumstance and the craziness of star sapphire and green lantern. he was NOT being horribly sleazy! i hate that i even need to say this, but i see this take too much not to

- going off of what was said above, lets discuss the arisia arc. if you want to be a real hal fan, this is unfortunately something you need to know about. in action comics, after crisis and the guardians left to go fuck the zamarons, most of the green lanterns fell apart and seperated. a small group went to earth- led by hal and consisting of hal, john stewart, katma tui, kilowog, salaakk, ch'p and arisia rrab. (also sometimes guy gardner, but that's complicated) previously to this arc, hal treated 14 year old arisia like a beloved little sister, welcoming her and leading her into the corps just like everyone else. things started to change once the timeline gets closer and closer to crisis, where arisia starts showing that she has a crush on hal (who is roughly 30s at this point). any advances made by arisia are shut down by hal at the beginning, because she's a child. now, it's unfortunately a common thing to just call hal a "pedophile" because of what happens in this arc- but it really isn't that simple. still weird and icky, but definitely not to the degree of which some fans like to act like it is- esp to attack hal fans for, which is... an odd choice regarding how many fucked up things every character (esp male characters) did back in the day. arisia ends up using her power ring to artifically age herself up, making her body AND MIND into that of a young adult (the comic makes this very clear). once this happens... hal stops rejecting her. they get together, they kiss. the only person in the group of green latnerns who actually has an issue with it is john (salaakk is meh about it, but he just doesn't like human-esque romance no matter what), and katma even directly encourages their relationship. kilowog ends up crushing on arisia as well, and guy gardner hits on her repeatedly throughout the whole period. eventually, hal and arisia break up, but this legacy (thank so much englehart, for wrtiting this. /sarc) is a big controversy among the comics crowd. "is hal jordan a predator?" personally, and i know a lot of friends/mutuals/other gl fans choose to erase the arisia arc entirely (versus how canon ended up retconning it to be 14 earth years is equal to that of an adult and she didn't really get super ages up, or whatever) and go with the familial relationship between hal and her. that's my preferred version! i know red (@katmaatui) has explored that version as well as an alternate version where the arisia arc did happen, and how it affects arisia in particular, which is really depressing but super interesting. anyway, it's complicated and weird and nuanced, but that whole occurence doesn't mean hal's a bad character or person (cause yk. retcons) and it's certainly not bad to like his character. (definitely ignore any guy gardner fans who try to bitch about this arc. cough cough. guy was ALSO into her and hit on her repeatedly. smfh) most people who bring this up to demonize fans didn't even read the arc, and don't know the nuance or the other weird shit that happens in it. (hal is not a horse, sigh)

OVERALL NOTES!

hal jordan is a super complicated character with an extensive history spanning from the 60s to his worse written appearances in modern age. it's okay to like any version of the character, but it is important to note the changes that have been made, the storylines butchered and lost, and more. he has quite the legacy, and he's particularly interesting as from a moral standpoint. hal's a real sweetie though, when it gets down to it! he's neurodivergent coded (imo at least.. his dad very much gets onto him for being disrtracted, hes kinda shit at social interaction (and then amazing at it the other half of the time) etc etc. "spacecase") and his dad is an abusive asshole, who he desperately doesnt want to be like but thinks he NEEDS to be like!

[derseprinceoftbd]

This is a rant I've been meaning to get off my chest for a while, but the conception on Tumblr, AO3, and sometimes here, that Jake is capable of "teasing" Dirk, and all that implies, irks me deeply.

Let me be clear: Jake English is not self-aware. He, in Canon, never does anything resembling self-awareness, maturity, emotional boldness, or anything else that requires a spinal column. This includes apologizing to anyone, talking about his problems in a way that doesn't end up being selfish, teasing someone, particularly Dirk, or transitioning. (I maintain this especially; he does not have the boldness, maturity, self-awareness, or nerve to have transitioned his gender presentation pre-Act-6.)

He has an *understanding* of pranks, if we allow Paradox Space as evidence, but that's it. He makes *Tavros* look like a fully-roleplayed-into-Class-shift Lord.

You know what the popular Fandom perception of Jake, as a member of a DirkJake relationship, lines up with? *John*, before his main writing trait became a deep, all-consuming depression and repression thing.

Like, John’s original Act 5 and earlier characterization before his underreaction to his dad's death and the spiral that sent him down towards his current "transition would not save her" characterization is what people use for Jake (charming, funny, actually seems to have his shit together enough to maybe be transmasc (man, remember *transmasc John*?), and, most importantly, seemingly capable of dealing with the levels of vaguely sociopathic bullshit that an even-close-to-accurate Dirk would throw at him), but DirkJohn/JohnDirk is less popular, to the point of not having a consensus order, simply because Jake and Dirk are *coded* as liking each other.

I think a lot of people miss that DirkJake is fundamentally the Equius of relationships; Hussie isn't one of those writers that feels pride in finding pathos in the ridiculous, but spiteful glee and humor. He genuinely does not care if he accidentally touches people's hearts in a way that doesn't involve Dave, or *maybe* Vriska. The fact is, DirkJake is a joke relationship, which is spelled out very clearly in their conversation.

You know, their conversation. The one they have together. The time we see someone who is actual Dirk Strider, not Hal pretending, not Aranea co-opting a memory, not a Brain Ghost, talking to Jake. That time.

Yeah, that doesn't exist. DirkJohn has as much conversational basis as DirkJake.

Edit:

LESS! GAME OVER! "I FAILED"! LESS!!!

DirkJake is a joke, a long, subtle one being made on everyone who saw Dirk's affections and immediately wanted him to get together with his disabled(?) ongoing harassment victim. Hussie was having a lot of fun making it seem like Jake found it important in the Masterpiece, I'll tell you that much.

@thelifetimechannel/@geejaysmith/@clonerightsagenda did magnificently wringing blood from this stone, I really do mean that, their Alphas are genuinely written better than Canon for 3/4, but that's all it ever was; every DirkJake writer is the YouTube comments under [this video](https://youtu.be/B7bpv5xyrOY?si=wYTCFDHM5ZzOY8fp) saying Equius could ever have been more than what he was.

TL:DR

1, Jake is pathetic, and we should remember this.

2, Hussie is a jackass who hates us one and all for the sin of caring and everything he has done with this franchise since maybe EOY2 has had an ulterior motive, and we should remember this.

3, Most people who write longfics set in SBURBless AUs, whether normalcy or fantasy, and want to ship Dirk and Jake should really be shipping Dirk with John, since now that history of Dirk-Jake interactions that justifies the ship in-Universe is gone at the Author's leasure, John would have the dynamic they want, and they talk *exactly as much*.

4, If you want to trans Jake, [there's a sensible way to do that](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619856), but there's no in-character way to make him transmasc.

5, Read DDOTA, I beseecheth of you. Like yeah the Striders are emotional to a kinda weird degree but apart from that they really got everyone down right.

[prismuffin]

Heya, wanted to do an ask, as well as your inbox still says you're taking requests. Didn't know if you wanted to change that.

How do you think the justice league boys, (Superman, Batman, Green lantern ( Hal Jordan), the flash, etc.) and John Constantine would react to an alien Reader?

Better explanation: So the reader has patterns or something that changes based on their mood, so how do you think they would react if they were talking to the Reader and Reader's colours changed to love?

Reminds me of Koro Sensei so I'm gonna use his color palette to dignify the readers colors! Also thanks for letting me know abt my inbox LMFAO- Anyways I think

Batman was just ranting to you about his recent expedition with Hal, enjoying how your face would change colors based on your reactions to certain parts of the story. A deep blue with white outlines when you were shocked, green when you were happy and lilac when relieved. It was a simple and straightforward way of knowing how you felt and he liked about you. He had all your colors and their meanings memorized not only in his mind but in his database too. So it was quite the shock when you'd started to turn a light pink, the areas of your cheeks being a bit darker. You looked lovesick with a lopsided smile on your face and he stopped talking as it all really hit him. At the sudden silence your face went gray and neutral signifying your confusion. He chuckled and decided not to tell you the real reason why he stopped. But now that he's aware of your little crush he may act on his own.

Superman would also probably have most of your colors memorized though he still doesn't know what all of them mean. So when you turn a light shade of pink while you both were talking he was confused because it wasn't a color he could relate to anything. When he asked your pink color turned into a salmon color as you got embarrassed, that one he knew. He had to ask Batman what you turning pink meant in the end because he wanted to know just in case it happens again. When he figures out the emotion behind it he's very flattered and likes to see how easily he can make you turn pink.

Hal would be similar to Superman in the sense that he would only know what some of your colors meant. He's never asked he's just picked up on a few from just being around you. He likes to have knowledge on things though, so whenever a color comes up that he doesn't know he wouldn't mind asking you about it. You usually have no problem explaining to him what you're feeling but right now when he caught you turning bright pink when talking to him you seemed to shut down. Your pink turned salmon which luckily he knew so he asked why you were embarrassed which only deepened your color. He wasn't able to get an explanation out of you that day but after observing your behavior (and color) around him while comparing it to others he was able to easily catch on.

Barry would make an effort to know all of your colors. He struggles! But he's trying and that's the important thing. When having a conversation with you he usually tries to take it slow so that he can fully develop an understanding of what all your colors mean, he's honestly very fascinated. He tries to make guesses on what the colors he doesn't know mean based on context clues. So when you suddenly turn pink his brain is immediately in analyzing mode! It takes a couple of interactions with you for him to figure out exactly what it means, it's only a hunch but it's enough to give him the confidence to ask you out!

John has a mental library of what all your colors mean. Even colors you think he doesn't know he knows ok? So when you turn pink and he doesn't immediately know what it means he starts using the process of elimination to figure it out. After maybe two interaction with you turning pink around him and he's clocked the emotion behind it. Similarly to Superman he likes to tease you and see just how pink he can make you. His goal is to make you turn hot pink, he thinks it's cute.

———

Directory

[driftingmagician]

Even though it has been years since I've beaten Echoes of the Eye, it's still hard to stop thinking about the Outer Wilds. And today I just realized how well the game uses different mediums of communication. Sorry if my rambling is incoherent, I just need to rant.

Spoilers for the main game and the DLC below!

One of the first instruments you get is the signalscope. Its purpose is to listen to signals. And producing the most noise in the system are the Hearthians. All of your fellow explorers play their own instruments for you and home to listen to. And it communicates important info through audio, even if it is "just music".

You are then introduced to the translator. A device built to read. You and Hal made it to translate the writings of the Nomai people. And the Nomai wrote a lot. They documented meticulously, everything from operating procedures to casual conversation. But for almost the entire game you can't speak with any, they're all gone. So it feels amazing when you finally meet Solanum and she uses a staff to write in front of you so that you may communicate, and even then she is essentially a living ghost.

When you reach the Stranger for the first time and land in the hangar, you have to turn on your flashlight, and quickly learn that light is the primary way to navigate this strange new place. You find a strange lamp that, unknown to you then, will be the only tool you use aboard the Stranger. The inhabitants of the Stranger recorded their history on slide reels that you use your lamp to watch. Much like the Nomai, you are unable to communicate with the inhabitants. You finally find the only one of their kind who is able to do so, and they use a staff to communicate by showing visions. And here too are they essentially a living ghost.

Through the Outer Wilds and Echoes of the Eye you will listen and read and watch to understand and learn and it is truly a one of a kind experience.

[queensectonia]

last night i was reminded of one of my extremely few Hater Moments (lighthearted) about this series and i never got around to fully articulating my thoughts on it, so it is once again time for our regularly-scheduled kirby rant:

the spider sectonia reveal was poorly-executed on every level.

to start with, this plot element was introduced when the series was in its worst throes of Not Putting The Fucking Lore In The Fucking Games, but I will happily concede that this reveal was at least in a game; just not the game it should have been in.

I almost wonder if the Sectonia Clone as a whole was a leftover from the fact that Robobot started out development as Triple Deluxe 2, but considering that a) TD2 was dropped pretty early on and b) Robobot is just full to the brim with fanservice and callbacks anyway, I don't feel there's much evidence for such a theory.

at any rate, reducing the otherwise very intriguing reveal of Sectonia's prior form to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it easter egg in an entirely different game is pretty... underwhelming. we've had plenty of "reveals" or cool nods and expansions to other lorebits in similar easter eggs, but none of them were nearly as important as "oh, by the way, here's what the character whose whole arc revolves around personal and physical image used to look like! in a totally unrelated game!"

but that's the tamest complaint. that's just the accessibility of this information, which could have been better but certainly could have been worse.

the biggest problem is Sectonia's design. it's bad. it is just not good, fellas. she is literally just genderbent Taranza. it fails visually, it fails conceptually, and it fails really hard story-wise.

this design was so uninspired that when people in the EN sphere first saw it, tons of people thought it just was Taranza. then when we got screenshots, model rips, etc., it was still so painfully similar to Taranza that it made people assume HAL was saying Taranza and Sectonia were related - which turned into just as much of a shitfight as you might think.

even if this weren't attached to such a crucial character reveal, it's just downright a bad design! instead of taking even the slightest efforts to differentiate Sectonia from Taranza, they did the laziest, most barebones "uhhhhhh what if taranza But Girl" design shift possible. she's wearing the exact same outfit as Taranza, just palette-swapped. so little effort went into both the concepting stage and the modelling stage. she's just Taranza's model with the merest tweaks to make sure you know this is a Girl Spider.

genuinely, I would be a hundred times more amenable to this entire plot point if HAL had just bothered to give her an actual design.

but the problem is, making Sectonia a spider kind of just fucks everything about her story and contradicts itself at multiple points.

the aesthetic and theme language in TD is very clear. this is one of the biggest strengths that both it and Robobot share - the identity and literary through-lines of both games pervade every single visual element of them. Robobot tells its tale of capitalistic tech-fuelled colonialism through every part of the game from level backgrounds, to enemy designs, right down to surgical decisions like mechanising the pinwheel tree that was such a fond image from KRtD. every tiny thing bore the mark of the HWC, whether metaphorically or literally, such that you spent the entire game never forgetting that there was one unified force behind all of this, and Haltmann at the end of the game was the culmination of this aesthetic.

TD did the exact same. every part of TD sells that it's a fantastical fairytale romp through a series of themed locations with a connecting thread of the invading Antr* force.

*(this is a way better romanisation than "antler" this is my hill)

if anything, I'd argue that TD's design language in this respect is tighter than Robobot's, because Robobot had a fairly broad theme of "industrialisation and hi-tech space future sci-fi" to draw its foes from, whereas TD had to condense its antagonists under the stricter banner of "evil insect army".

and they did incredibly. every point of design about the Antrs points straight to Sectonia and draws from her in some way or another. it's absolutely seamless. she's the perfect logical endpoint of Antr design from every angle: she's the literal queen bee of this insect hive and the perfect expression of their anatomy. she's bigger than the biggest Antr. she's more developed. she's more powerful. they were so careful and thorough about this design conceit that Antrs have multiple stages that all march straight up to Sectonia. we go from the tiny bronto burt and waddle dee clones with their little wings and eyes that seem so familiar, to the Antr soldiers, all the way up to the Lord Antrs who are one step away from Sectonia. they have stripes and facial markings to echo hers. it's all wrapped up with the genius bow of combining ants, bees, and wasps: they're all hymenoptera! the metaphor goes even deeper than that because there's a species of wasp that parasitizes spiders! controls them, even!

... except no actually, we've decided she's a spider too and all of that buildup and artful design means nothing.

it's awful. it's taking what is far and away one of the best-executed designs in the series and saying that all of that buildup and blatant connection of ideas meant nothing.

but that's just the visual end of it. Sectonia actually being a spider makes no sense in the lore, either.

first of all, TD's incredible design sense and artistic direction applies to Taranza as well. while he's obviously derivative of Magolor, within the context of TD he's clearly meant to evoke the sky fairies. he's designed to look much more like them than any of the insect characters. he's got the same body type, he moves the same way as them, he's a sky fairy with a spider theme. the game draws visual parallels between him and the sky fairies more than once; this is not unintentional.

this is part of what makes Taranza's role as Sectonia's right hand more impactful: he's only insect adjacent, and the design language would have you believe he's more closely related to the fairies than the insects, so him being with the bad guys is notable and interesting.

so why would a spider character be the ruling monarch of the insect hive? why would the line go ant, bigger ant, fancy ant, armoured ant, spider, wasp?

I mean, shit dude, the miiverse posts directly tell us that Sectonia used to "look like her insect underlings". it really feels like the decision to make her be a spider was a total spur-of-the-moment one, between how badly it interacts with the rest of the story and how lazy the design was. Sectonia's backstory had a couple of holes in it regarding the actual timeline of things, but those were just mysteries regarding what order everything happened in. she was both a bodyjacker and a good queen at one point, which don't exactly jive, so it becomes interesting to think about how those two facts coexist. on the other hand, her being a spider just gets shoehorned in there for no apparent reason other than to... heighten her connection to Taranza?

and that just dovetails into the complete mockery HAL made of Taranza's character development after TD, and THAT is a rant for another time.

there was just no point to it all. Sectonia being a spider adds nothing, removes a bunch of nuance and intrigue, and muddies both her story and the background world of TD.

[beinghymen]

Quick Being Human rant- regarding my Asexual headcanons, and also my mom for some reason.

Every time it comes up that I have an ace headcanon for Hal and Tom, my mom gives me this blank stare that tells me she has no clue why I connect to these characters so strongly. And I can't really tell my mom WHY without guilting her. But I figure if there's anywhere I can share it, it's going to be here. So:

The surface level reasoning for my headcanon is that Hal and Tom just remind me so much of myself regarding dating. When they talk about why they can't or shouldn't date, it reads, to me at least, like the lies that I have to tell to people when I don't feel safe explaining my sexuality.

Tom said, "I'm waiting for the right woman," which echoes so strongly all the lies I told to people who wondered why I wasn't trying to have sex- which, at least where I'm from, was the most important thing in the world for everyone around me. But "I'm waiting til marriage," or "I'm trying to focus on school right now," was enough of an excuse to get people off my back, even though I was lying through my teeth.

The deeper reason as to why these characters (and generally why ANY 'monstrous' character who wants to 'become human') resonates me, I can define down to a single event when I was still figuring myself out- probably between 11-13. I realized that the entire world revolves around sex. I was listening to the radio with my mom and I broke down crying, because I realized that my favorite song was about sex, and I was quickly coming to the realization that I'd have to live in a world that wasn't built to suit me.

My mom saw me crying, and I explained why, and she laughed. She said that sex is just a part of life, a part of what makes you human, and that I should get used to it. And I just felt so betrayed. I internalized what she said. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was missing some fundamental piece of my humanity.

Along comes this stupid little British monster show, following all these characters who feel inadequate, who feel they are missing some quality that would make them human. And the finale gut-punched me with the most uplifting, lovely, and deeply touching message:

"To want it is to have it."

It hit me then that I'm really not broken, I'm not inadequate. I am human, not because I met some arbitrary standard, but for the simple fact that I want to be human. To want it is to have it, and I have it.

I want to be, therefore I am.

[jaxxsoxxn]

Wait, wait wait that one scene in cinderella3

When Prince charming jumped out the window to go save Cinderella when his father told him he wasn’t allowed to go down the stairs, so he jumped out of the window 

But imagine it it’s with flash and wonder woman and Superman 

Wonder, woman : flash I am not gonna let you rescue that villain. I forbid you to go down these stairs, 

Flash looking at wonder, woman, and Superman and the stairs and looked at the window : mm you know when the woman I never really understood why people jumped out the windows the same people they love, but I see now and now I understand why 

Wonder, woman and Superman : wait what ?

(Flash jumps out the window )

Wonder, woman and Superman : Barry !

I adore the fact that JLA n Rouges are trying their best to keep these two apparat (and failing to do so)

"Barry you know better than to date a villain"

"What about Batman and Catwoman?"

"...I said you know better not that he knows better."

Captain Cold learns that he agrees with any supes and goes absolutely 90 degrees in the other way, suddenly the biggest Boomerflash supporter. It lasts half of the week.

Golden glider talking to Wonder Woman like they're besties while actively being against Harley because, just like her brother, she thinks she took her place and is bitter.

Boomer doesn't want them to think that, especially since he didn't talk to them only because he forgot that he could finally.

Trickster Jr. And Wally have beef for no reason, Axel just says he's not funny, Wally rants about how fucking annoying the villain is or stays completely silent.

Weather Wizard says one time "just kiss already" after they fight near him and the scream they scrum made speedy run to them in fear. Mark doesn't care.

August who back stabbed the Rouges, coming back onto their good side by also being not a fan of Suicide Squad. Floyd said one snarky thing about anyone close to him, and he got into a mood.

"That's why all criminals should die" YOU'RE A MURDERER!! U KILLED PEOPLE!!!

Can you see who's my fave characters? Probably yeah.

Usually Flash wouldn't even let them stop him, especially since his lover was in danger, but Wonder Woman wasn't typically one to be out of her mind like today. "What do you mean by I shouldn't help him?!" he couldn't help and raised his voice, bitterness already growing in his chest. "Diana, I need you to move." "Barry, you need to understand - he's Wallers. Not only will that make problems for us, if she'll learn that you will save him, she'll throw him in more dangerous situations. It's better for both of you if you'll stay put." her tone sounded slightly concerned, her eyes jumping from him to other JLA members for support. "You're not even sure if he's not using your feelings here for a lift or something alike-" "He's bleeding out. I am wasting my important time and his blood is wasting on the floor because you believe that Floyd Lawton- Not even Digger, sent me a message by Hack because they needed a lift. Deadshot, the same man that would rather kill himself than let any supe help." his work tone was slowly sneaking it's way into his speech, not being able to stop it. "Wonder Woman, on everything you love, you'll move out of my way." A quick lip bite was all hesitation he got from her, before she stood in front of him with all her might, Superman slightly more undecided, but also standing next to her. "Flash, as a JLA member you know better. I will not let you take one more step down these stairs." her tone was clearly informing him of the truth of this statement. "You are forbidden from saving this rogue." Within seconds Barry relaxed, stretching his hands above his head, confusing people around them, above few who already shot him amused stares. Hal even showing a thumb up, changing it into some form of scratching his chin to remain unnoticed. "You're right- I won't take a step down these stairs." Barry finally said, his voice having that "costumer service polite" in it, making Wonder Woman just more suspicious. "It must be love pushing me to do stupid things." "Why do you say it like that-" The only other sound that accompanied his flight out of the window next to him was Jordan's loud laughter, which he couldn't hold in any longer. It wasn't the first or last time he was falling from surprising heights, so with ease he landed as trained and ran trough the city towards his home.

Get it, because Digger is his home-

No art today bc amma also write the Boomerflash hcs and hopefully end the Boomer centric ones! <3 Anywho, please ask about other rouges n their relationships with Boomer/Flash/their relationship/ JUST ANYTHING

(I will continue to baby Axel, he done nothing wrong ever [lie])

[butchviking]

I miss the Hal who didn't care about celebrities and thought it was weird to care about that lame shit, now you're judging Frank Iero's outfit on the Internet. Not to mention the sexuality speculation - on the public Internet. All the while he's a straight but you as a lesbian were just saying how you're uncomfortable when your girlfriends talk about men they're attracted to. Sooooo.... they're opinions bother you and you can't have a conversation about that but public speculation about a straight man's fake homosexuality is OK because he can perform gay on stage... you can't have a conversation any friends should be able to have,, but you're wondering if those jumpscare ugly moids had sex or not... Got it. One rule for thee but not for me I guess... lame Hal

oh nooooo some anonymous weirdo on the internet misses the version of me they made up in their head 🥺🥺 as though i was not a fandom blogger for years before i ever heard of radblr as though i have not always been obsessed with some celebrity or other as though i have not been frerard speculating since i was 10. u dont know me. grow up.

u also obviously terribly misunderstood something about that little rant of mine the other day bc i was in fact not so much complaining that women in my life talk about men theyre attracted to. i was complaining that i as a lesbian feel left out and wish i could be part of those conversations and i still struggle with accepting that i never can be and it makes me sad <3 and i talked about how that very much relates to my interest in whoever my current Celebrity Guys are because i struggle to have conversations about them even with many other fans because they simply experience things that i cannot and it makes me feel terribly like im missing out on something and like im missing out on bonding moments w other female fans bc they say things and all i can do is wrinkle up my nose and be like 'um well thats nice'.

also yeah frank & gerard are both probably straight and almost definitely never fucked but their stage gay shit was an anti-homophobia stand and did in fact have a very significant impact on me as a child. its important to me. sorry if thats lame to you but yeah it shaped me as a person to see two guys kissing on stage and getting booed and bottled for it it shaped me as a person to experience the reaction i got in catholic school reading the download 2007 review with the frerard kiss image it shaped me as a person to see them get called fags again and again and to take this stand anyway again and again. im very very serious about this i genuinely do not take their stage gay antics lightly and i am forever and ever grateful. it meant a lot. gay people in my kerrang magazine..

[homestuckconfession]

originally i had a several paragraph long rant here about how the hs fandom puts female characters on a weird praising pedestal but i think the fact that i put a hal quote as my senior quote (slash my equivalent of such) because its my little scrimblo. specifically one from page 5,642 is more important to me

it was specifically:

"TT: I understand you are disgusted with me. TT: As an unpalatable expression of yourself. TT: I would feel the same way if I was in your situation. TT: Which I am. TT: As such, I know that you know this is wrong."

which i dunno if that says a lot about me or about how i wanted to choose a strider quote as my senior quote since i read hs for the first time when i was in middle school and going through one of the worst times of my life or whatever but like. damn girl that robot sure can ai until it gets screwed by the narrative

.

[technicianuprisingau]

Drawing the Rest of the Copy Ability Stars... Round 2!!

Me: Okay I think I should draw Round 2 first before I go and reboot the Technician Modes Me, realizing that I was so invested in Round 1, that I draw nearly all of them but 3 (minus the Contact Abilities): Me: ...YOU'RE TELLING ME HAD I DIDN'T STOP I WOULD'VE FINISHED THIS IN ONE ROUND?!

*SIGH* Let's get this over with. Here's Part 1 if you're confused.

Burning - This ability is kinda useless but uh, again, I guess Fire is offense and Burning is speed, so they can co-exist! Had to steal all the icons from Nightmare in Dreamland, Canvas Curse, and 64 just to make this. I hope it's sufficient and it's not just FIRE 2!!!

Ranger - I mean, I certainly didn't expect this ability to appear. But okay, sure! Kirby with a gun supremacy. It looks fun to play in Forgotten Land. I just decided to look at its illustration and have it the icon of the gun shooting a star... I might redo this in the future, it looks... Eh...

Drill - Ah yes, the ability that ruined Technician Uprising's canon standing. Before this ability was revealed, I deadset that Kirby's Technician ability would be Pure, which means he has capabilities unique to him only, in this case copying (and of course Robobot Armor shares that too with him due to partnership clause). Sure, the drill itself (which IS his weapon) was already in 64 but as a power combo which, as you may know, I made that state in 64 as a puberty state, which means that's not legit! So hell yeah, Kirby gets to use a drill. Bring on the Gurren Lagann references, people, he can thrive in it. BUT THEN FORGOTTEN LAND CAME. THEN THE DRILL ABILITY CAME. And so everything is ruined, the drill symbolism is no longer unique to poor Kirby. Thanks, HAL! Now I have to grasp at straws! I tried making the best of it though, all bias aside. It gave me a lesson to be more careful with making Technician Modes in the future though, as if the weapon matches the newest ability, I would be effectively screwed. WAHOO! Anyways stealing the ability hat for this one isn't it obvious.

Technician - My beloved. This design has not changed too much, even in its old days. Nothing much to say here.

Hypernova - Okay hear me out it technically has an icon but... The main reason I wanted to change it is because the Miracle Fruit is so mesmerizing. So I decided, screw canon, canon can eat my ass. In fact, I could've made it colorful too, but I restricted myself to three colors because Contact Abilities aren't supposed to exist! So it makes sense for it to break the rules! Yet I still want some boundaries.

Kabuki - Oh god I do not want to remember what the anime did to this ability. I have ranted about this ability before. So now, it's my responsibility to make it real. But the thing is, before I finalized what it would look like, I needed something to represent their magic, and no I do not want it to be Baton 2.0, so uh. Will-o-wisps! The supernatural Japanese thingies! I love will-o-wisps. So uh... yay.

Well, that means everything is settled... though I will have to do some minor edits to the spreadsheet, because GUESS WHAT?! I checked every file and realized that since I stacked each star one above the other, a small part of the other stars got into the imported picture. Now I have to redo everything AGAIN!!!!!

That being said. Please do enjoy.

[lalondeisms]

If you haven't already! I would like to read your rant about addiction in homestuck

so i dont have any like, pre-written essays on it or anything its more like i just make scattered posts when it pops into my head + try to include it in fics (ive got a list of things i wanna take notes on during my next reread and addiction in general is one of them) but i am going to freestyle throw some thoughts down here 

breaking down addiction in homestuck requires:

-identifying the main addicts (gamzee = sopor, roxy & rose = alcohol)

-identifying how these characters are treated by the narrative* (are they allowed a voice? are they allowed to be sympathetic? dimensional?) (in gamzees case the answer is almost always no)

*not the characters. the characters can be cruel and dismissive of each other w/o it being the true takeaway of an exchange etc etc etc

there are certain things that pop up again and again in homestuck as an undesirable trait (in this case using undesirable as a negative quality that is not seen as deserving sympathy or care). addiction is one of them! reflecting on the root of the addiction isnt so important to the text as the ability to mock them for their perceived weakness and stupidity is.

roxy and gamzee in particular have similar bases to their addiction: theyre isolated, which, while a common trait in homestuck (the solitude of their irl spaces vs online spaces), is a unique isolation. theyre both without guardians to oversee them and more alienated (against their own desire not to be) from their friends than others.

roxy is one of only two humans on a post apocalyptic earth and, even tho she love love loves her friends she fades into the bg often (fitting for a void player). jane jake and dirk have their love triangle. dirk cant love her the way she wants him to and lil hal is ultimately untouchable. jane struggles to truly understand her. calliope has to interact with her through even more barriers (tangible and social, being a cherub). she just wants to feel close to someone! she wants to be put first. its sad. its painful. she doesnt want to wallow in it, and she doesnt want to potentially drive away her friends by not being silly bubbly roxy. so she turns to alcohol which helps keep her distracted and as a bonus, knocks her out for long stretches of time. it also could serve as a connection to her mother, given thats how she had access in the first place (oh, rose...).

so, roxy is the primary focus on addiction in homestuck but is she a well written example? debatable.

i love her of course and find her decently written up to a point--one point being how extremely rushed her recovery felt. the majority of act 6 is rushed. simply TOO MUCH is happening off screen. and this is where id really need a reread & notes to refresh…ive got a major in gamzeeism minor in lalondeism here. and gamzees addiction is easier to talk about bc he is initially a stoner joke, then an ableist psychotic stereotype, and ultimately blamed for every shortcoming both sober and high. no route is a win for him, no option would make the narrative more sympathetic to him.

idk how to end this post. uh. hope this was at all what you were hoping for. peace

[sunnyscript]

Here are some important tags if you want to go through my stuff:

All post made by me are tagged under #sunnyscript

For posts made by me that have image description are under #with id

For sharing stuff about myself or ideas I have it's #sunnyscriptshare

My art is under #sunnyscriptart

For tag rants it's #sunnyscripttags

For posting stuff like pictures or videos or memes or even jokes it's #sunnyscriptpost

For fic recs it's #sunnyscriptficrecs

For things i wrote (fics for example or snippets) it's #sunnyscriptwrite

Talking about comics is under #comics posting

Talking about books is under #bookreading

for specific comics or characters:

For the flash 1987 #the flash 1987 or even #flash 1987

For babygirl Hal moments #my babygirl my hal

For Hal fanart (made by me) #halart

For my Bart Allen fanart #bartart

For Kon it will be either #konart

Palestinian tag is فلسطين# or الاحتلال الصهيوني#

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Not sure how to do this but...

But welcome to this blog. I speak english, french and arabic fluently and I understand spanish decently(?).

I don't care about discourses but this blog is a safe space. This is a blog I made to have fun with. I am by nature not a hater (call it the lover mindset /hj) but I am critical of what I watch/do.

I don't have a dni you can interact as much as you like, but I will block you if you're an asshole or a person with downright horrible opinions. i.e Zionists can go fuck themselves.

I still haven't tagged some things properly so there my be some untagged flash warnings. Avoid gifs in my blog if you have photosensitivity.

Tis blog is neurodiverse safe

This blog is cluster B safe. Cluster a safe. Cluster c safe... etc etc

Safe space for weird genders haver, neopronoun users...

This blog is religion safe so never feel weird talking about it and thought I don't often post things about that I am myself religious. I am muslim.

Also, we're on the internet so I can't stop people from doing things but I'd rather you not comment on a thing I made with things "like X is a god" "I am a god" ...etc etc

Aspec folk please interact.

I don't really care for labels but I'll respect yours. I'm not educated on everything but I try bring kind.

[gr1555]

Decided to branch out a bit and post about my second favorite comics Green Lantern with some of thse genuinely being unpopular opinions.

1. I think the concept is interesting but in the end disliked the Parallax arc and was glad they rebooted it even if it was explained by an evil space bug (that could just be because I love the older comics though) 2. Similarly, I like the concept behind Kyle Rayner but hate him as a character. I can tolerate him as a semi important side character but can't stand the stories where he's the main character or main side character and hated him as the white lantern. (I could go into a whole rant about this because I really do like the concept of Kyle but can't stand him in the actual comics and Kyle fans don't make it any better with the 'he's the most perfect and specialist character' type attitude). 3. I like the concept of Hal being the Spectre and wouldn't mind seeing him as such again, but dislike the execution. It felt like someone was trying to write something biblical without actually knowing anything about the actual bible (take this in a more broad sense of trying to write about something but not quite hitting the mark because I personally wouldn't classify it as biblical). I also wish they showed Hal having some form of connection to it even after he was resurrected. 4. I think Carol Ferris works better as a villain who still loves Hal. 5. Both Hal AND Carol are incredibly toxic to one another. 6. Though some of his stories were kind of rough (which is true for nearly every hero), I never found Hal to be a boring character. 7. Alan, Hal, and Jess are my favorite lanterns. 8. Silver age Hal was a lot more creative with his ring than any modern day lantern even if the art wasn't as creative. 9. Kyle has the most creative designs for his constructs, but how he utilized his ring wasn't any more creative than the other lanterns. 10. John was overrated in Justice League Unlimited but has massive potential in the comics that often isn't used. 11. Alan and Hal is the best lantern team up with John and Hal being a close second. 12. Alan should have the closest relationship to Hal. 13. Teen Lantern was awful (I don't know enough about the others to make my final judgement on them yet but I have seen a few scans with the other girl, Jo I think, and she seems interesting). 14. Jess is amazing. I would love to see more of her and Hal interactions just from how different their relationship with fear is. 15. Hal should be incredibly smart and a good fighter even without his ring. 16. I like Hal and Superman's friendship more than Burce and Clark. 17. The comics should stop with the whole "Batman is the reason Hal stopped being Parallax." 18. Again, Jess is amazing and Hal and Alan make the best lantern duo because both of those need to be said twice.

[calciumcryptid]

Me: Hey, filing Oliver down to a haha trio with Hal and Barry diminishes the fact he is an upfront and confrontational individual who is known to fight with Bruce regularly. Also, ignoring the rebuilt relationship between Oliver and Roy in the name of shipping angst is kind of gross along with the sidelining of Jade as an important figure in both Roy and Lian's life.

Some Commenter: I understand your rant but in a fanfiction I'm going to write I am going to commit to demonizing Oliver and his relationship with Roy to have shipping angst and I'm going to erase Jade entirely from existence to have Lian be a clone baby of Jason and Roy's (not registering the fact it would erase Lian being half-asian). To a previous commenter, don't worry about the Flashfam they get along great with my fanfictions Batfam which was not your criticism at all (it was how Wally gets regulated Dick's Best Friend™ or Love Interest™ and nothing more).

Me:

[tipsygnostalgy]

I AM SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A *MEETING TRYING NOT TO IMPLODE RIGHT NOW. "mildly entertaining" i am amused as all cringlefuck this shits straight up bewitching to me

sorry im writing an ult dirkjake scene right now and "cringlefuck" is refusing to leave my brain anyway

i like your second take on why dirk insists that hal's not sentient because for him to accept that hal's made a better contribution than him is just so fucking miserable isn't it?? like in that case (much like beta dave) HAL isn't perfect either but he's still BETTER than dirk ykwim? like at that point it's purely dirk's fault that he's not enough and we all know what he'd rather do than accept that idea

and dirk's avoidance to negative emotion is very jake-englishian they're so important to each other god god!!!

i wish i could've incorporated roxykisser's classpect post more but i took one look at it and immediately realized if i ever tried that thing would never be fucking published so here's my follow up rant to that:

what i love about ultimate selves is that they tie into the character so inherently in the sense that the character becomes destroyed in the process of trying to merge them into one like dirk strider ceases to be One Dirk Strider hes now The Dirk Strider and if theres anything that ties together all the dirk striders in the universe it'd be the title of prince of heart because that's how deeply classpects are woven into these characters

this is why i think bgd escaped The Merging like he's fused partially with jake—he isn't just a prince of heart anymore but a secret third thing but i dunno it's a very inchoate idea

i also like to think arquiusprite (wherever he may be...) escaped the Merging too for that reason and maybe ult dirk encounters him later god i'd love for dirk to get an epic beatdown in which hal gets so fucking disappointed in him that it momentarily separates him from the merged state of spriteness and verbally annihilates him

finally just based on everything so far i think you'll very much enjoy my later takes on what ult dirk and ult jake would respectively look like in terms of romance and growth and i also look forward to your jake takes as well thank you for this incredible addition have a lovely night

@tipsygnostalgy HELLO HI UH THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE VERSION. i snipped out some bits because im throwing down anxiety in.the ring even posting this. im frankly a little embarrassed i can't give everything tonight even what i have down as okay to upload is not my top form at all, im just really really excitedaaaa i'll probably reblog the lovers post with a complete version eventually, but for now this is the best thanks i can offer for the nigh lethal dose of dopamine you've shot into my skull.

apologies in advance for my verbosity it's chronic

im posting dirk's half first because i definitely talked too much on jake's. it's almost double the length. i think it's partially because ive chewed through dirk so much i can make it through a considerable amount of his sections without dissolving completely. and i'm impatient!

note: my interactions with philosophy are limited to the two month bonanza i spent when i was 14 which i barely remember due to my general memory issues because my philosophy teacher was shit at his job and i took matters into my own hands, and uh. dirkjake! and one character from one other fandom. yeah. i am a nerd who loves breaking shit down, i love information, and i love philosophy nonetheless but i am So unqualified to be doing any of this

entry 1:

can i scream? i'm screaming. out loud. in real life. holy two fucks and a half. what do i even say it's So Good. dirk could excuse his inadequacy with the minute comfort that the brother he idolizes is functionally perfect in a way he could never conceivably live up to be. everything is shattered when he meets a version of him who is on the same footing. Yes. i literally have a post typed up about it.

im copypasting a small segment here but it's so close to exactly what you said im almost unnerved. mostly excited tho i am SHAKING

the most devastating thing to know is that dave is just a guy. dave strider, 16 year old. human and flawed and still enough in ways dirk never could be. what he did for his team his friends the things dirk couldn't, he is made to serve and no matter how hard dirk tries he cannot live up to be the same because this is not his role.

words? words. that's so much many words.

this is not his class. he is doomed to be selfish, his thread is already in the tapestry and he falls right into the path no matter how much he fights it. what can be counted as him indirectly the plot was created at the service/detriment to himself (hal) and what is himself directly aiding his party is in fact orchestrated by other more helpful, more selfless people and he hates it so much.

YES IT'S EXACTLY THAT RIGHT THERE RIGHT RIGHT THERE dirk is so so So aware that he is selfish that he cannot help the people he cares about oh so deeply and the knowledge that dave on his own, after being hurt so much "more" than dirk direct abuse he was able to pull through, he was still enough. shit man !!!!!!!

funnily enough i think dirk might have been able to learned new skills to do with his classpect besides the passive narrative bend it has on everything he does to destroy. this is entirely theory but your classpect and your development with it helps you develop as a person. it's like a muscle if you think about it; the more you use it, the closer you get to its core, the more you learn to bend ithad he tried to use it (resisting the urge to say like dave did because that will stomp on the shattered pieces of my heart) i think he would have gotten a bit more control over his position in the narrative if it makes sense.

ironically, i think learning how to direct the destructice force his classpect gives him might have allowed him to get a hold on said narrative bending, and stop unintentionally wrecking shit. but doing Anything as a prince is the last thing dirk wants.

(god it's so tragic this theory is so tragic without it dirk was always doomed to the inevitable but with it he could have done better in his eyes nevermind that destruction of selves isn't always bad if you know how to direct it, see bgd @ aranea, but it literally requires him to take the path he's trying to hard to fight. you define how your classpect changes you. oh dirk.)

i think a lot about this if you can't tell

FUCK IM GETTING OFF TRACK. STOP OKAY CAN THE THEORIES FUCK.

[insert 2 paragraphs more of me screaming about the katana line hally lieu yeah]

entry 2:

HAL MY FAVOURITE KENTUCKY FRIED FUCKER HELLOOOO HELLO OOHOHOGO

god my old hyperfixation on deep learning models is coming back to bite me in the jungular. delightful slash gen

dirk does love his control mhmm mhmm god im gonna go dig up that picture my friend sent me once one sec

that's who he wants to be. so badly

he Hates not understanding shit prides himself on being the (im quite sure it's part of how he gauges his use. he has a very utilitarian view on it. being the one to pull the strings thus being useful by virtue of organizing their success. proceeds to eat gcatshit trying)

i think a part of why dirk insists so fucking much that hal is Not him and Not alive could be one of two 2 reasons, beyond the already tangled pumpkin patch of conflict.

1) not taking credit for hal's contributions. the fact that hal has served the team without dirk's direct orders + dirk's objective pride about being the puppetmaster, he wouldn't want this tied to him

i doubt this one honestly, it's incoherently explained on its own because it's really late but also it just there's a lot of holes in the logic here. the second one breaks my heart a little:

2) if he accepts hal to be sentient, he has to accept he has created a new conscious person. he cannot cling to any notion that he did help his friends, he created an intelligent AI and that tool he made in turn was used to aid and guide his friends. he is still in control here. he still helped, he built that bot and it helped.

right?

[cutoff point 2. im rushing. im so sorry ajsjaj]

entry 3:

killing me

"He likes emotion, he likes people, he just wants to be completely perfect when interacting with them so that he’ll never lose them." YES. YES. YES YES YES yes okay yes exactly Yes

this is one of the things i headbutt against in dirk fandom stuff a lot (even borzoi's take once i think correct me if im wrong) it's the fact that i think dirk likes people. he's been alone his whole life yet he delights in dialectics and dialogue, he's socially awkward and introverted but he's not socially averse. i am not gonna let myself run over the hills and far away with this tangent but i am hushdhsj AAAAA

what he doesn't like is feeling inadequate interacting with people. he doesn't like being inadequate in general he reflects on his flaws near constantly and the biting reminder of his alternate selves' sins in the back of his mind doesn't help, but with people he Cares About interacting with them he does not like not knowing what to do, he does not like being unable to navigate these situations. he likes being human and experiencing emotions and connection and he hates the fact that it requires error to the trials, he just wants to be entirely logical while still having a metaphorical right brain totally not a big thing to ask for ahshdhskjrh[explodes]

AHAAAAA SISYPHUS YYYES YES YRS EYSBEYDHHWHEHSHEHD FUCK YES oh man i am much more a theatrical literature person so this is ringing off bells in the wrong direction than intended but im reading reading reading chewing

"upon facing the question of the absurd in the fullest extent, one can either choose to kill themselves or make a ‘reply.’" hogh

two roads: become god, or kill yourself. jesus fuck that's a screwed up twitter thread if ive seen one. and of course he picks the secret third option: Both. absolute DiStri Moment™

fuckitweballkind that's joining my regular vocabulary holy shit your language is amazing

this feels like an extension of dirk's dilemma between subjective experience with objective control; coming to grapple with the unpredictability of his absurdist existence and his solution being to take control of the narrative entirely. i feel like there are a lot more dots i could connect here. i will sleep on this

[addition i feel is important even though it has minimal connection as of right Now:

roxykisser put out something about classpects and the ult self being the literal narrative very recently and how they tie into the narrative and it's That it's that. my take is partly influenced by past fandoms but it has always ruined me that in order to god tier, quite literally, you're killing the person you were before the embrace the narrative role. you the actor are giving up your freedom to the performance, and the closer you get to your classpect the more you embrace the narrative. in return, you gain more flexibility and control in said narrative, more ways to use your classpect. to become the ult self is to become the role. you kill the person, you become the role, but at the cost of your self, your mind may be driven by the consciousness of an amalgamation of every You, but your core is now your role.

im incorporating and altering this with my consumption]

really hope this is like at least mildly entertaining i have no idea what im doing but!!!! I Am So Abnormal About Everything i love this i love you i love love this so Much