#that does still bring me happiness

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Why The Ending Sucks

Ok I figured it out. Hear me out:

The entire comic has a running theme best summed up as "who is controlling the narrative, and why are we listening to them?"

Hussie plays a caricaturized version of himself that he describes as "buffoonish" and "oafish". Caricature!Hussie is well-meaning, but a dumb idiot who's incredibly biased in favor of certain characters and in disfavor of others (the most obvious example being his "love" of Vriska, but there's also the way he constantly disparages Eridan). As a result, you have to be VERY SKEPTICAL and VERY CAREFUL when approaching Homestuck's narration, because even when the "best" narrator is at the helm, he's not 100% trustworthy and incapable of giving the readers an unbiased view of the story.

I say "best" because, importantly, Hussie isn't the story's only narrator. He and Doc Scratch explicitly fight over control of the story - Doc Scratch, the child abusing predator who engineered Alternia's fascist murder society, whose shaping of its history is explicitly described by character!Hussie as "fanfic". He is then killed by Lord English, who is described by Hussie as embodying the "toxically masculine" and by extension, the patriarchy, and Caliborn explicitly takes control of the story. John even grapples with Caliborn's version of events, calling out how sexist and misogynistic and shitty it is.

So if we're keeping score: control over the narrative is LITERALLY wrested away from Hussie (who was already struggling to be unbiased) by fascists, abusers, and the patriarchy. It's stressed multiple times that Caliborn/LE are responsible for literally everything that ever happens; the reason the Game Over timeline ends the way that it does is because the alpha timeline is, in essence, the narrative LE is telling: the forces of fascism get to claim the new universe, thereby propogating itself, while friendship dies and all hope is lost.

Who's in control of the narrative, and why are we listening to them?

There are other minor examples of this, too: Aranea is an exposition fairy, and she's biased as fuck and wrong ALL THE TIME about her own teammates. Karkat's explanations and rationalizations are constantly tinged with his own self-loathing and self-blame. Sollux and Meulin are both prophets as per their Mage class, but are both so bogged down by their own emotional issues that the futures they pick out are actively harmful. So on and so on. At nearly every turn, you have to interrogate who's telling the story, what their motivations are, and what they're overlooking or deliberately obfuscating.

So given that this theme is so prevalent, and so thoroughly weighted toward "well, actually, maybe you shouldn't take narration at face value and should interrogate it and come to your own conclusions," it would be Really Weird for the story to go "actually, you can totally trust the narrative now because everyone gets a happy ending".

So, I know that it makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but here's my genuine take on Homestuck's ending:

The ending is shitty on purpose because the viewer is intended to take it as a dare to refute the narration and make something better.

Why are we letting character!Hussie tell the story? He's a biased idiot. Why are we letting the various avatars of LE and Caliborn tell the story? They're fascist, misogynistic, predatory assholes.

And - because Homestuck is a story about life - why are we letting idiots, assholes, abusers, and creeps dictate the story of real life? The world is full of forces that would try to take control of the story and make everyone else play along, represented in microcosm within the text of Homestuck. We cannot let those forces win.

So please go out and do something kind and hopeful and loving in the world today. Thanks for reading.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

my greatest achievement in DA2 is maxing out Carver's friendship

and all it took was begrudgingly kissing a little templar ass in act 1 because Carver didn't want to plan a prison break if my Hawke got his ass arrested for being stupid.

[kingofanemptyworld]

Suo’s Team:

Mienshao (Partner Pokemon)

Dragonair

Mawile

Vulpix

Plusle

Suo’s another rookie taking on the Gym Challenge in the same year as Sakura, and his party is (I think) a pretty good reflection of who he is as a person. Or, anyway, who he wants people to think he is. (With the exception of Plusle but we’ll get to that in a moment)

Mienshao as his partner pokemon hit me like a slap in the face, not gonna lie. Like, it was the first concrete thing I had for him and the image of them pulling matching fighting poses would not leave my mind. So it had to happen. And if you can look me in the eye and tell me they weren’t made for each other �� then we’ll duel at dawn, I guess. Bring your switch and we can go at each other in Sword/Shield.

The rest of the team is what prompted some enterprising magazine to dub him “Most Elegant Rookie,” with each one more beautiful and stylish than the last. He’s likely not interested in evolving his Dragonair at this point, and Dragonair’s more than fine with that. It gets around fine whether it’s on land, in the water, or in the air. Mawile’s a charming addition with a very literal “hidden side” so you know I had fun giving it to Suo. Vulpix is the little princess of the team, and the one Nirei dotes on the most. You can usually find it on Suo’s shoulder or cuddled in Nirei’s arms, or poking out of one of their backpacks as they travel together. It’s Suo’s youngest Pokemon, having hatched from an egg (which he obtained from winning a contest he chose to join on a whim) fairly recently.

Plusle is a match to Nirei’s Minun! They caught them together on one of Nirei’s research expeditions he asked Suo to join him on, and on the rare occasions they double battle with another set of trainers, Suo always brings his Plusle out so they can support one another. Y’know, the whole hand clapping deal, because it’s cute as fuck and was the second suo-related thing I couldn’t get out of my head.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[roseofcards90]

I will make a cup of hot chocolate to lift my spirits up I guess

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Magneto would love lumpia meanwhile Charles would have his Bibingka and Puto Bungbong hehe

Happy Holidays!

asks that remind me my bitchass friend kayla promised to make me *puto two years ago and she still hasnt

*puto is a filipino rice cake i do know it also means 'bitch' in spanish we do not have to address that thank you

[aeolianblues]

I’ve only just watched the first episode of the new Taskmaster today, and the thing is, everyone’s rightfully cracking up at John’s line about the 2 hours spent working out health and safety and insurance with the producers, it’s very funny, but it genuinely took me a little while to remember how funny it is. It’s the John exposure. As a regular listener to the Elis and John radio shows over the years, you just know that this is genuinely how John is. He’ll mention—and probably even get excited to go over the nerdy details of what counts in the car insurance, I can swear he’s done that on Radio X before. He’s the guy that will do an hour long standup special concerning slotted spoons (with a side of anxiety). He’s wildly funny, but to listeners of the Elis and John shows, this is just Friday afternoon.

[outofthiisworld]

👽// tentative lil’ break & pseudo semi-hiatus for the holidays! feelin’ a lil burnt out but nothing a small break can’t remedy. uuuuh obligatory i.nfinity n.ikki screenshot below

[ciderjacks]

argh. This comic writing is taking me way longer than usual. I keep editing things and it doesn’t feel right.

[marc--chilton]

(mgv) it goes to show that house is respected and strangely likable by how kutner, a beta, tries so hard to befriend house. house's sparing pack treatment of thirteen and chase isn't unnoticed, and he wants in but like. he doesn't want to be another pup, he just wants the camaraderie to the point of pushing his luck by lingering around house or thirteen on the last days before house goes on leave in hopes of getting runoff attention. thirteen's aware and makes fun of him for it but given that it tends to work in his favor without repercussions for the rest of them, she doesn't mind this weird middleman position so long as they still get work done

[formerprincewille]

I love Simon so much and understand every decision he’s made & don’t judge him. Wille is still my fave and my baby cuz I relate to him too hard. When Simon gets hate I get mad and defend him, but when Wille gets hate I’m ready to meet people in the pit to fight to the death. Like it makes me feral. I feel like the vast majority of viewers and fandom members are understanding and supportive of both of them even though I have seen people overly critical of both of them as well. What frustrated me about some of the criticism for Wille in s3 is that people are very sympathetic to what Simon is going through- losing love for his interests, kind of disappearing, being sad- and almost blaming Wille for it. Instead of remembering and understanding that THIS IS WHAT WILLE HAS DEALT WITH HIS ENTIRE LIFE. He has not lost interests because he hasn’t even had the opportunity to discover what he’s really interested in. He lost himself a long time ago, when he was still a child and it’s only continued. Meeting Simon was where he began to really FIND himself. He never wanted the life that he was given, and particularly did not want to be forced into the role of Crown Prince. But he’s also had no opportunity to just figure himself out and find out all the things that he might love and the things that he might want to do. It’s just so SAD. I would never judge Simon from making the decisions that he felt were right for him, I completely understand it and do not blame him at all. I just get really touchy about when I see people claiming that Wille was “dragging Simon down”. Simon had to deal with this for a few months and look how it negatively affected him. Wille has had to deal with it his whole life, and it only got worse when he became crown prince. Simon had a choice and Wille didn’t feel that he did. But he was wrong. Sometimes it just takes someone else from the outside to help you gain perspective and realize that you truly do have a choice.

[mad-hunts]

barton being awkward at first or even completely throughout a whole interaction whenever he's trying to comfort people is so in character for him TBH and let me tell y'all why because i think it's important to his character:

he can fake a lot of things. barton can fake being nice to people, he can fake being innocent, and he can even fake having a much stronger sense of morality around people if he wants to — but whenever it comes to empathizing with someone on an emotional level... barton finds himself often struggling with faking it because of the nature of it. and this is due to it being different than whenever he's trying to feign something easily comprehensible like innocence. but empathy is something that's usually viewed as innate in us as humans and has to do with love, which doesn't depend on logic. it's something that comes from within, so it doesn't have clear parameters as to how you should do it, so whenever barton tries to fake it in the event that he's trying to make someone feel better; he'll stumble. and so although barton can cognitively empathize with someone, his efforts to actually put himself in other people's shoes fall flat, as he just can't physically imagine himself being in someone else's position probably more than half the time.

so if your muse were to ever come to him seeming upset, barton would likely not know what to do / how to comfort them, at least for a bit before referencing back on how he's seen other people do it. because i hate to say it (i don't, in reality, but y'all know what i mean LOL) but barton does actively mimic behaviors that he sees people do whenever he feels the absence of a certain emotion. he especially does this whenever he's trying to appear charming to other people, but like i said, he'll also try to use what he's seen his peers do as a guide as for what he should do in regards to empathy. and sometimes he may even seem a bit flustered before he's able to do this because he knows that it is expected of him to be able to empathize with people and can identify it in other people BUT knowing how to approach faking it has always been sort of hard for him even as an adult.

but yeahhh, that's just my own two cents about how barton sometimes break character that he is quote unquote ' normal, ' though he does try to mask this around people who aren't really familiar with him as simply being social awkwardness. however, it is part of a larger thing with him as despite the fact that he can blend in with the population REALLY well and also is pretty good at manipulating others, i suppose you could say that barton is still not an expert at ' constructing empathy ' because whenever someone is visibly hurt in front of him... he is more liable to act like he isn't sure what to do, than to put on an act immediately since he is likely to feel nothing first before anything else. and i realize that that is a rather unsettling thought, but i think that he is a lot more suspectible to doing this with people he doesn't know well / who he isn't particularly close to, as he's got a lot more practice with being falsely empathetic towards friends and/or sometimes even family members.

[faaun]

the forest looks like heaven today i woke up feeling the heaviest weight at the top of my heart

[sysig]

I also made a card for him (Patreon)

[brutalmasks]

bunny mask is literally the living embodiment of songs like ' dog days are over ' by florence + the machine and ' rebel girl ' by bikini kill. and no, i will not be taking criticism

[pois0ncandy]

so like umm what the fuck are we supposed to do with our lives