#the trolling is her reason for existing at this point

[hallucinateonpaperspines]

What would have happened if Ashley had been transporter to the bayvers insted of prime?

...

You know Optimus's slow descent from hopeful leader, to violent road rager, to bitter mid-life divorcee? Yeah, Ashlyn went through that within the first half hour of realizing what universe she was in.

She's graduated into the wine aunt stage of giving a shit. Afternoons are dedicated to posting "visions" of the future and dragging every character she can still remember online. Girl is listening to a Beethoven remix as she graffiti's the world and Cybetronians that think they're subtle in their vehicle modes.

Both, Optimus and Megatron are a bit more clued into her importance, so the treasure hunt IS ON for the chaotic organic, poor Sam being taken along for the ride (or accidental hijacking- she's not sorry).

Ashlyn is Agent Simmons's nemesis. There is a wall covered in blurry photos, red string, and thumbtacks within Sector Seven and the man is even worse than JA332 with the conspiracy theories. He has no idea the human cryptid and online seer are the same people.

Soundwave knows and is in so much pain. He refuses to come down to earth on principle.

"There's gotta be a connection- there has to be one! Selling alien scrap to a wannabe inventor in Texas, spray painting an unregistered police car, and publically threatening the CEO of Hotchkiss Gould Investments in his own damn lobby! What's next? Knocking on the Hoover Dam?!?!?" "Sir your mother's calling. Apparently, someone put in a delivery order for you at her deli... it's for this address." "Dammit" "Also that blog you've been following updated again. They're saying there's an English Lord with an alien robot butler, and they're part of a secret society that has been observing these aliens for generations. And a bee fought the Nazis." "They're hiding their genius with insanity."

Thank you for reading!

[themostefficientwaywithwater]

I sincerely hope that Gamefreak didn't debunk the fandom's main two theories (possessed Kieran and the imagination one) just because of this trend that if your public manages to predict a plot point by following the clues you been throwing at them then it means it's a BAD story and the ending must be changed at the last second to keep the shock factor. Because everyone knows a good story must have a ~*plotwist*~ rather than a fullfilling, cohesive ending.

Like I don't mind that the imagination theory isn't canon, and I think that Kieran not being possessed makes him a more interesting character since his actions come from his own flaws rather than from a random third party. What annoys me, however, is that by debunking said theories, the many plotholes the story has have remained unanswered. And it's not like Gamefreak doesn't know about them - they literally pointed them out to make them obvious to the player (Arven mentions that it doesn't make sense that Heath found paradoxes in Area Zero before the time machine was built, Carmine points out that we still don't know how the loyal three revived after Kieran punched their shrine). You don't point out your own story's flaws unless you actually have a proper explanation for them and you're hinting your public "yeah, we know this doesn't make sense, but it will in the future ;)". This is why the Indigo Disk/Mochi Mayhem was a letdown for most of us: we expected answers, and instead we got... nothing. Maybe even more questions that probably will remain unanswered (unless we get some video like pecharunt, which is the laziest option. you need to explain your story during the story, not after!).

I'm not trying to throw shade at these games because I hated them - I liked them in fact! And I wouldn't be so annoyed if they were capital-s Shit tier games, because I would have expected nothing. But it hurts me that a pokémon game has the skeleton of a good story and completely wastes it, and I don't even know why would they do that. Maybe they want to exploit the ""hidden lore"" to promote later games, a future remake or legends-like game, attracting the fans who think it'll finally explain""the truth"" (spoiler: it won't, and if they do, it'll be a retcon).

I don't know if Gamefreak truly has some sort of explanation for the paradoxes, the loyal three revival or Kieran's dark hand aura. If they do, they'll probably save them for another game (remake or a legends-like game), the anime, or just release another video (unlikely if they haven't done it yet). But, in my opinion, the probably don't have any, and if they ever had one, it was one or both of the aforementioned theories and they decided to scrap them for some reason. If that's so, I don't think we're getting an explanation and they'll expect us to just forget about it.

I said it before and I'm going to said it again: I liked the game. I liked the DLCs. Hell I even liked the epilogue, even with it's flaws. But you can't argue me that it seems that, at some point during the development of the Indigo Disk, they decided to change the course of the story. The Area Zero-Terapagos quest was rushed, we get nothing explained about Pecharunt-the loyal three and their connection is only hinted by a few interactions, their resurrection it's not even explained in it's video. And I refuse to believe Kieran's aura was unintentional: you can see the purple glow both when he punches the shrine (with the camera focused on his fist) and in the ID promotional art, and the camera often focuses on his affected hand, specially when he feels frustration against the player. I don't know, maybe I'm grasping at straws, but to me it looks like they had something in mind that they dedided to scrap at the last moment, for whatever reason, and they didn't have the time to create a new ending that made sense.

I don't know what happened but I sincerelly hope they didn't truly "troll us" because if they made a plotwist specifically to "troll" us I'm going to be so mad at Gamefreak I'm exploding

[lawbreaker13]

Alright, I'm about to have a Trolls moment. Please ignore me if you will.

So I'm starting to have a meltdown over Branch's brothers' understanding of who he is as a person.

Like, they were fully absent during his entire childhood and young adulthood, of course. And we all keep making jokes about how they didn't tease him enough about his relationship because, duh, that's what brothers do. But what I have yet to see discussed is his confidence as an individual, how he interacts with the audience as a band member, and how his brothers are simply not interacting with a person they've ever met before.

Like, there's the whole "boy band members are so suave so as to properly appeal to their audience" thing, and Branch, post-World Tour, has gained a lot of confidence. Yes, most of his audience interaction is aimed at the band's biggest fan, his own girlfriend, but he does so very smoothly. The level of confidence that Branch has gained since the first movie is immense and it's actually so heartwarming to watch the two movies back-to-back to see, but beyond that, his interactions with Poppy, as her boyfriend and also as a band member, are very confident, flirtatious, and charming. He's playing up the persona when he's on stage of course, but they also flirt a lot on their own as seen in this movie. And while yes, his brothers being his brothers would probably off-screen tease him about flirting with his girlfriend, they also have no idea how he is as a band member. Because the last time they were in a band together, Branch was IN DIAPERS. Spruce was the Heartthrob, the flirt, the tease, and Branch was a BABY. But now Bruce is married, he's checked out of that life. And even if it's all directed at Poppy because Branch is a very loyal boy (clearly), he still has never exhibited those specific behaviors in front of his brothers. It's funny and easy to make fun of when it's with his girlfriend, but when he does it as a band member? Then it's a persona. And he's absolutely killing the game.

The boys have never met this suave, confident adult. They've never seen Band Member Branch with his own personality, with character traits, with the ability to make decisions for himself in any form. So his new band persona is, apparently, to some extent, the flirt. And his brothers must be reeling from that, because WHO is this guy??

I don't have a point. My point is just the idea that once upon a time, when Branch was in the band originally, he was just Some Kid™. And now he's not just some kid, he is A Boy Band Member™. And kind of the new leader, to boot. Beyond that, to Poppy, he was just Some Depressed Guy™ for so long. And once again, look at him now. The character development combined with character perception is just so absolutely fascinating to me and the lack of time to elaborate on it is very much the reason why fanfiction exists.

I don't know, man. Big Trolls fan over here. I love Branch so much.

[thewertsearch]

TG: oh so this is the trollplanet TG: pretty cool not really what i pictured AA: what did you picture […] TG: a bunch of trolls flying around in little grub pods constantly screaming at each other through bullhorns shaped like buckets AA: thats very silly and a little perverse […] AA: but actually that sounds like what it might have been like on some parts of the planet sooo

Aradia lived out in the boonies, so she's not much of an authority on cosmopolitan life in Alternia. Sollux is the city boy, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was what his area was like.

TG: so what am i supposed to do now that im dead […] TG: where are the fucking hauntoffs at is what im asking AA: i dont know about hauntoffs AA: but there is plenty of time to satisfy various curiosities you might have about existence and whatnot

I guess even this neighbourhood has a Janet.

... man, I miss The Good Place. I’ve been rewatching clips from the show this week, and it's actually got a lot in common with Homestuck. They're both character-driven stories with enormous scope, centered around a bizarre institution which governs all of reality.

AA: there are all sorts of friends to meet AA: ones you already know and ones you dont

Is Aradia referring to members of her own team, or are there ghosts from entirely different sessions floating around the Bubbles?

Feferi was prophesized to unite only two races, something she's achieved through the Horrorterrors. This implies we won't be seeing any other alien species, but we could see other human Players. Technically, it also means we could see other trolls, but that's pretty unlikely. As far as we're aware, Alternia only spawned a single session.

Anyway - the more I think about these Dream Bubbles, the more I'm starting to realize how much strategic potential they have. Affinity for the Furthest Ring is a genuine boon, and being a Derse Dreamer is more advantageous than I thought.

AA: time is like a game […] AA: and games are fun but sometimes you dont realize how much fun you were having until theyre all over AA: and sometimes you look back and realize for some stupid reason you werent having any fun at all!

What an interesting sentiment that I’m sure is not at all autobiographical.

Aradia spent the entire session as a robot with zero agency, and never got to use her powers for her sake, instead of the timeline's. It makes perfect sense that she didn't have fun with her Aspect.

Tavros! My man, Tavros!

Alright, this is actually fantastic. Tavros died before he could reveal Vriska's batshit plan to the team, but Aradia has handed him a second chance. All he has to d-

AT: lOOKS LIKE i FOUND ANOTHER POINT IN TIME TO BOTHER YOU, AT: wHEN, i GUESS, AT: yOU ARE MORE EMOTIONALLY SUSCEPTIBLE, […] TG: are those sick fires youre packing there TG: you best not be bringin that fire into my bubble less you plan on dropping that shit

-he's just here to rap, isn't he.

[narutouzumakiarchive]

https://x.com/sasusakutruther/status/1775968313656713359?s=46

I will never understand why that fandom wants those damn novels to be canon so bad. Do they realize that it makes their ship look incredibly corny or?😭

They want the novels to be canon because they're the only things that substantiate their ship, and a corny retconned novel is much better than the pitiful lovelessness that Kishimoto portrayed in Gaiden.

It is quite funny to see them reveal that the absurdity that undergirds their notion of canonicity is the same ridiculousness that's present in their shipping dynamic though.

SS always use their bastardized understanding of authorial intent as a shield ("Sasuke and Sakura are canon because Kishimoto made ot like that so they are a good ship") while easily disregarding it when it suits them, which is pretty much all the time, by encroaching on Naruto/Sasuke's narrative since SS is completely devoid of meaningful content.

Let's take this particular user as a small case study and compare the fanon that they peddle from extracanon material to Kishimoto's actual work.

Their fanon: Sakura is Sasuke's "spring sun" according to Hiden.

The actual canon: Kishimoto made Naruto Sasuke's sun and it's supposed to be equivalent to how Team 7, but Iruka and Sasuke especially saved Naruto from the darkness of loneliness and questioning his existence. They have a beautiful, mutual and reciprocal dynamic.

Their fanon: Sakura is Sasuke's "pink." Something that signifies love, protection, and loving someone to the point that it hurts.

This is particularly funny. SS fans having to make up symbolism because SS was never given any in the actual narrative. Said symbolism being taken from Urban Dictionary, a notoriously unreliable website used for trolling. The non canon art they had to use because the Gaiden equivalent was embarassing and Sasuke looked miserable. Them using a definition that would enable a subtle dig at Naruto ("stronger than being someone's yellow" — gee I wonder who that's about) because they're resentful of Naruto and Sasuke's bond.

Now let's look at the canon: It is Naruto, who is explicitly associated with Sasuke's sharingan of love on multiple occasions, not Sakura.

Made even worse by the fact that Kishimoto could have easily thrown a sharingan transformation Sakura's way since Naruto would have already had a sharingan transformation and still been associated with the mangekyō sharingan anyway; Sasuke and Sakura's moment before Sasuke left the village would have been the perfect moment to do so. Yet, Sasuke could only think of Sakura as a comrade, even after she individuated him and stated that even though she had friends and family she would still feel alone if he left. Then Kishimoto replicated the same scenario of Naruto confessing the weight of his his feelings and intentionally made Sasuke be extremely moved to the point of evolving his sharingan and repeating Sakura's words to Naruto.

This brings me to my next point. Sasuke cared about Sakura as a comrade. He felt pain for her as a comrade. But there is a reason why Naruto is textually/visually isolated when the topic of pain comes up.

And that is because once Sasuke left and that comradeship with Team 7 ended, it was only Naruto who he retained his care for and feelings of pain for, to the point that it hurt, because it is only Naruto who held importance for Sasuke outside of Team 7.

There are panels upon panels of Sasuke experiencing pain for Naruto, getting angry at seeing Naruto emotionally despair, and all around being associated with feelings of pain regarding Naruto. Naruto and Sasuke's entire resolution in 698 hinges on their shared feelings of pain. If being someone's pink is stronger than being someone's yellow, where is the Sasuke and Sakura dynamic associated with a shared pain in the narrative? There is not one mention of Sakura because Sasuke cannot individuate as her an individual entity and reflect on her importance to him, because she isn't.

Now compare that to Sasuke not caring enough to save Sakura from being blown up during the 10 tails bomb that was going to obliterate the shinobi alliance or even expressing any concern for her, being okay with using Sakura as bait to get to Madara and not expressing any concern when she was distraught, putting her in a crueler genjutsu than he put the tailed beasts in, and more. I mean it's not even a competition.

And this isn't even including this user's other greatest hits like, "Sasuke was smiling at Sakura here" while showing a picture of Sasuke saying "usuratonkachi," you know, the nickname specifically reserved for Naruto Uzumaki alone.

I limited my post to this user but this behavior is reflective of how SS shippers act as a whole. Their version of sasusaku is not the ship as presented in Kishimoto's writing, but a smorgasbord of things from filler, databooks, merchandise art, fanart, statements from people who aren't Kishimoto, Naruto and Sasuke's canon dynamic, and of course, novels copy pasted onto characters that only resemble Sasuke and Sakura in likeness. There's no use in expecting sensibility from them.

[nekropsii]

Ok, don't get me wrong, i think your opinions/analysis have arguments, so you have reasons.

But i can't stop thinking, when you talk about fandom not interpreting things correctly, mostly dancestors, it feels like:

Fanon: i love the dancestors! They are all so nice!

You: aCTUALLY, they are all ASSHOLES, except mituna, latula, and porrim. The rest is crap and here is a long and detailed list with why:

And a the end of the list :but this is what makes them great as characters, because they have a narrative function to it!

Yep. And I stand by that. Firmly. What’s the problem here?

The Alpha Trolls - not the Dancestors, that’s literally every character in Homestuck - are largely not good people. Calling them nice is blatantly false and outright disregards almost every single scrap of text we are given. Mituna’s a good dude in a bad situation full of people he doesn’t really like, as is Damara. Latula’s literally never done anything wrong. Porrim’s just a regular person. Aranea’s pretty nice, and her actions during Game Over were a result of eternities of torment and desperation to be seen + heard, and is therefore not fully representative of her. Meenah’s cute, but a major fuckup that has committed some absolutely egregious crimes. That’s it, really.

The Alpha Trolls are Good Characters and (mostly) Bad People.

Are you maybe experiencing some kind of difficulty in understanding that there’s a difference between a character and a person? Because a fuck ton of people in fandom definitely do have that problem, for some reason.

A character is a plot device. It is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. A person is a person. The difference between a bad person and a bad character is that a bad character isn’t fulfilling the role and function they are supposed to perform, and a bad person is just a shitty guy I do not want to be around. Conflating the two leads to bad analysis, and is also a primary contributor to apologetics, and all those god awful fanonizations that sand down every edge the character has until they’re pleasant people and totally unrecognizable. People think they have to like a character as a human being in order to like them as a character. Which is completely untrue, and is totally naïve to the fact that villains are popular for a reason.

A character can be a bad person and a good character - they fill their role and serve their purpose very well, but would absolutely suck to be around. Meenah, Vriska, Cronus, and Caliborn all fit under that label. This isn’t always a villain role, but it does tend to get taken up by villains. And anti-heroes, of course. Vriska is there, after all

A character can be a good person but a bad character - they’d be pleasant to talk to in real life, but they suck at fulfilling their narrative purpose. Just about every fanon version of a character is this. It’s more of a fanfiction thing than an actual real literature thing.

I am the biggest fan + defender of the Alpha Trolls you can find. The Alpha Trolls largely are not good people, but they serve their function very well. This is not a controversial statement because it is entirely true. Fanon is dogshit and totally wrong, 100% of the time. This is a hill I’m willing to die on because I’m literally just correct. There is not a scrap of text on this planet that you could procure to say Cronus Ampora is a good person - anything you could scrounge up is just baseless fanfiction and total garbage.

I do not see the confusion, nor do I understand the point you’re trying to make. These are facts that can and do coexist, quite regularly. Even within Homestuck. Again, Vriska exists. What now?

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Wait what was that that Beforus Eridan being Kankri’s culler? What? How? Does that mean that candy red includes aquatic mutations?

Okay, so, this is PURE speculative headcanon and I debated over whether or not I should even say it, but it's pretty fucking hilarious so I figured I'd mention it with the heavy caveat that I made it all up & not to take it seriously, it's just a headcanon I believe because it's a really funny idea to me, and i do not at all consider this "canon" the way some of my other theories are. i hope you also find it funny

So the big difference between Feferi and Meenah's troll society is what "culling" entails; where on Alternia, culling means killing off the weak, orphaned, disabled, and/or lower classes, on Beforus, it means taking care of them. So the characters on Alternia that would've been slated for culling would, on Beforus, actually have lived very cushy lives where a highblood provides for them. It's still another way of enforcing the class divide, so it's still shitty, but I guess it's better than people being killed all the time.

Karkat is one of the most cullable trolls on Alternia for being a mutant not on the hemospectrum, and the only reason he has a symbol and lusus at all is because the Signless's followers prepared them for him. This is why Kankri doesn't seem to have a symbol or lusus, because a situation similar to the Signless never happened on Beforus, and instead, Kankri (and presumably Karkat as well) would've been culled, AKA taken care of by a highblood.

Another part of Kankri's characterization is that he fucking loves sea dwellers - he's actually pretty polite to Meenah, even trying to ingratiate himself to her via nautical references, and desperately, desperately wants to be pale with Cronus. This leads me to infer that Kankri was specifically culled by a sea dweller, and the law of conservation of detail (not a real thing, it's a trope name) leads me to further infer that Kankri was culled by one of our KNOWN sea dwellers, either Feferi or Eridan. And since Feferi was busy managing Meenah, it seems like the task would've fallen onto Eridan.

Now, I have a whole set of headcanons for what Beforus!Eridan was like, but as I tend not to speculate too much on AUs divested too far from canon, I'm only going to note the pertinent details:

Beforus!Eridan was very well-regarded by the population and had the same kind of standing as a major celebrity,

Many hundreds of sweeps ago, Karlkat Marx Karkat Vantas used to be Eridan's freeloader. Their relationship was extremely difficult to classify, and nobody really understood it (many assumed Eridan was culling him, but Eridan vehemently denied this, insisting Karkat just lived on his sofa rent-free and all expenses paid, like this was a normal thing for them to be doing),

Karkat was generally an absolute disaster in the romance department, having a long string of relationships up and down the hemocaste with his trademark Blurry Quadrant Bullshit, always sadly slinking back to Eridan's sofa at the end of his wild, vascillatory flings,

Karkat would write a massive scathing critique of Beforan society, its consumer capitalism, its casteism and classism, its power structure, etc. etc., which Eridan distributed posthumously, because unfortunately Karkat had the lifespan of a lime & passed away long before Eridan was even at the halfway point of his own lifespan,

Eridan was never the same, and while his public persona remained widely beloved, he became an interpersonal disaster in his private life, and Feferi handed him Kankri as a wiggler to cull in the hopes that it would get him out of his funk,

This Did Not Work At All and in fact fucked up a perfectly good wiggler

I mean, honestly, I don't think there exists such a thing as a "bad class," but I do think Princes should not be raising kids.

So Eridan, who, even in the best case scenario, has disastrous social skills and a fucked up sponge, had literally 0 idea what to do with this kid, and pretty much just threw money at it. It was pretty inevitable for Kankri to remind Eridan of Karkat, so most of what few conversations they'd actually have revolved around Karkat, especially Karkat's extremely fucked up romantic affairs, the recounting of which slowly shrivelled the Seer of Blood up like a raisin and made him decide that romance was really, truly not worth it.

At the same time, Kankri craved an emotional bond with his fucked-up adoptive dad, and the spark would sometimes come into Eridan's eyes whenever Kankri started talking about hemocaste equality. The guy who used to live on his couch would say things like that...

But this would also mean that Eridan was alive at the same time as his descendent, Cronus, so I'm pleased to inform you all that he managed to neglect TWO children, both his biokid and his adopted one. Hooray! As Eridan was universally beloved, Cronus always had a lot to live up to, and very little opportunity to be his own person, divorced of his status as a sea dweller or his ancestor's shadow. Hooray!

But the way it comes full circle is this: Canon!Eridan actually outright admits that his typing quirk is fake, calling it "weird" and dropping it when he's trying to be emotionally sincere. Thus, to me, it stands to reason that it's something he would stop using after he has his character development, and he stops caring about how a "sea dweller" is "supposed to" act. We see it happen with the other trolls, losing/changing their quirks to reflect big life events - Aradia dropping her 0s because she's not doomed anymore, Sollux losing his 2's when he loses his li2p. I've been struggling for a while with what Eridan would replace his quirk with after he drops his ww/vvs because it'd be kind of lame if he just had, like, basically nothing.

Also, I lowkey don't really vibe with Karkat ever using the sym69ls in text - he already resented his ancestor, and he'd especially hate the idea of using them after meeting Kankri. Hell, he's pretty reluctant to even type in his blood color even after everybody knows what it is. But then I realized - Eridan is already the guy on the team who dresses up in the colors of his dating partners. What if he replaced his ww/vv quirk with the sym69ls to show his support for Karkat?

Like yeah Karkat would hate it but it would also be literally so funny, and I think Karkat would be secretly comforted by the way Eridan would stubbornly insist that he's doing it FOR KARKAT, and not for the Signless or whatever, he's literally called Signless, that was like his whole thing idiot, this is Kar's symbol, shut the fuck up.

And also, genuinely, one of the things I'm most sad about missing out on was a conversation between Kankri and post-character-development!Eridan, because... can you fucking imagine? Here's Kankri, who actually loves sea dwellers and the caste system, who wants to be pale with Cronus so so so badly, yet is celibate by choice because he's a slut shamer (and in this headcanon, because he heard too many terrible stories about his ancestor's hellish dating life), who uses "social justice" as a cudgel and couches outright contempt for his friends in "polite" mealymouth language about equality...

... And then Eridan "these are my emotional support slurs" Ampora rocks up to the chat.

Even without the culler stuff, it'd be fucking hilarious, right? Eridan's insane and makes a lot of wild assumptions, but he's usually kind of right (he assumes Kanaya doesn't want to c3< him and Vriska because she's in <3 with Vriska, and he's at least right about the latter; he assumes Rose is highborn nobility, and, like, she IS a rich girl). Despite posturing about supporting the caste system, he doesn't actually give a shit about it, and arguing with him is basically a huge waste of time because he doesn't listen to people.

What I'm saying is, Kankri would be like "excellent, another sea dweller to befriend" + "finally, emotional validation from my distant father" & Eridan would immediately call Kankri a slur, ignore his arguments and rebut with something crazy like how "royal-v" is actually a more offensive term than "wader" because the former assumes sea dwellers have such delicate feelings that they can't stand not to have their globes kissed every five seconds, call Kankri a wader, ask Kankri why Kankri is hitting on him (Kankri isn't), proclaim that he and Karkat make out despite being moirails, and then start insisting that Kankri has to stop using his quirk because it's a quirk for Karkat and Karkat doesn't even like Kankri so Kankri doesn't get to use it anymore.

I think Kankri would start crying. Especially because a crowd has gathered and Kankri accidentally calls Eridan "dad" and Eridan is like i Don't know what that is.

Anyway the point that im making is the sym69ls were originally Beforus!Eridan's quirk because that was how he and Karkat used to curl up on the sofa together. 69. All cozy like. And that's where Kankri got them from and he decided to match his whistles to the motif. And after bullying Kankri into not using them anymore and taking them on himself, they go back to being Eridan's quirk. In a beautiful and stupid time loop of karma, the likes of which Homestuck is so fond of. Amen

[dingodad]

personally the vriska calling him a pedophile bit wasnt out of place for me. Canonically vriska doesnt shy away from saying that scratch is a sexual predator, she does state outright to his face that he gets off on manipulating little girls in the comic.

i think "would it be in character for vriska to say that" and "does it make sense in the context of the story for her to say that" are two subtly but crucially different questions, though.

like, on the one hand: it has always been textually clear that doc scratch is not LITERALLY a pedophile. he's a completely asexual organism. by using that word to describe him, you're making the subtextual textual. and this kind of "saying the quiet part out loud" is something the HICU have done very deliberately since they took the helm of hs2; they are intimately aware, i think, of the fact that they are fans in charge of deconstructing homestuck for the entertainment of other fans, and that in service of that aim sometimes you need to be willing to have mature discussions out in the open. a lot of the time this has worked for them quite well, especially in terms of getting old readers back on board with a story which has in the past been overly subtle to the point of excruciating boredom. but sometimes it teeters close to the edge of "characters talking like they're fully aware they're getting therapy", and i think this example leans somewhat toward the latter. like, is there really anyone reading hs2 at this point who doesn't already have some understanding that scratch is a predator? who exactly did it serve to make that already blatant comparison that much more overt?

on the other hand... i get the impression that vriska is actually aware of this distinction, on some level? like emphasising the fact that scratch is a child predator is almost a sort of shield for her. the name of vriska's game in this chapter is minimisation; while it's super cool and heroic to admit that part of your tragic backstory involves a sick spider monster and a badass lady pirate, by trying to paint scratch as nothing more than a pathetic kiddy fiddler what she's really saying is that because he never actually molested her then she was never really abused, that she was never really a victim and therefore he was never actually a significant presence in her life at all. that's how she lives with it, by role playing as the predator to forget the fact that she was ever prey.

i think what i question about this is possibly that vriska would even know to use that word at all? writing dialogue that actually feels authentically like stuff trolls would say is another thing i think hs2 has had a rough time with ("that is a completely normal human sentence"?). the gay joke in the tavros chapter was funny because it had been a long time since we heard caliborn and jake do the same gag but it feels like they tried to capture that same energy with vriska calling tavros a "pussy" in this chapter and it fell flat. and it felt just as unnatural for a troll to say the word "pussy" as it did for her to say the word "pedophile". i think what makes alternia and its traumatic knock-on effects so effective is that it's often more insidious than it is explicit; trolls barely have the language to describe all the institutionalised neglect and abuse that is happening around them all the time because to them it's just how the world works! yeah sollux has that line about sex offenders and schools, but i think that basically serves to illustrate my point, because for the most part we all seem to understand that trolls don't have what we would be able to identify as "school" either: sexual abuse and education are concepts that, in the world of homestuck, exist entirely in the abstract; tropes to be evoked but not things that ever actually happen.

that being said, alternia is designed to reflect the structure of homestuck as a whole, and the reason alternia doesn't have sex offenders or schools is because homestuck in general does not explicitly concern itself with these topics. we understand that escaping homestuck and settling down on Earth C means settling down in the "real world", replacing the threat of time-travelling demons with real struggles and real problems, and as a continuation of the homestuck epilogues hs2 naturally IS going to continue to touch on sex and politics and all the other stuff that was delegated mostly to the subtextual in the original comic. i think the structure of this chapter even kind of alludes to this; tavros and erisol beckon vriska to relax for a moment and play childish games with them like she used to do when she was a kid on alternia, but by choosing to forge on ahead with her personal growth vriska is immediately confronted with the fact that becoming an adult is NOT like a webcomic, it's NOT all allegories and RPG battles; it can be sick and it can be hurtful and it can stop you right in your tracks just as you thought you were "making progress" toward "winning".

i just feel that by having vriska apply Earth C vocabulary to an Alternian experience right off the bat, we've skipped over a key part of her transition from homestuck to the real world. would this chapter have been any easier to stomach if it had been about vriska coming to grips with the fact that scratch was a predator in the first place? no, of course not LOL. i think my gripe here might literally just be with the word choice. like i believe the writers have it in them to express what they were trying to express here in a much more interesting way than simply having vriska say "lol he's a pedophile". yes, addressing something literally that has only ever been mentioned before in symbols and whispers is part of the impact of this update, but i don't think that has to come at the expense of the dialogue actually feeling like it belongs in the mouths of these characters

[neyafromfrance95]

If there is actually a kiss it has to be with Sauron. It can work if it’s a vision or the temptation (to not piss off the fanbros too much). We know Celeborn isn’t in this season. All other options don’t make any sense. Unless they are trolling us and the kiss is not romantic, and its only a kiss on the cheek or the hand from one of Galadriel’s friends. If it’s actually Elrond I’m going to be pissed 😂

yeah, it'd be funny (and underwhelming) if the kiss turns out a friendly cheek kiss or smtng.

the only reason i still consider elrond as a possibility, more or less, is bc we've seen a shot of him touching galadriel's face in one of the promos. maybe holding onto nenya corrupts him for a moment and tarnishes his intentions? idk.

on the other hand, there is simply 0 romantic undertones underlying their dynamic. not just that but it would overcomplicate galadriel's relationships. i could see them replacing celeborn with elrond for convenience and erasing celebrian, but the thing is that celeborn's existence in trop canon is already confirmed and he will probably appear even if near the finale. so it would overcomplicate the romantic mix.

now i hope celeborn appears as late as possible. i personally don't see celebrian having a role in this story as it would still be too weird with how they're developing galadriel and elrond's relationship. i can't imagine them making elrond babysit his future wife while celeborn is unavailable for some reason and galadriel is out there ruling or mind-skyping her dark lord mistress 😆 simply her presence would be a reminder that elrond, her mother's slutshaming bestie, is the babydaddy of her (several) children and that would make the general audiences quite uncomfortable. also, no celebrian would mean that galadriel and celeborn being tight is not a point in the show, yk?

so the kiss would make the most sense if it's with someone they have established as galadriel's primarily "romantic" dynamic (even if they don't call it that, galadriel x sauron *is* romantic) and will continue to be one till the end of the show.

or it's a shock kiss with adar which for some reason makes sense to me as well. would be really controversial and i imagine the intention would be to piss sauron off which could be fun to watch.

[justenjoythegossip]

THE SHOWER PORN AND A FEW FICTITIOUS MYTHS…

Recently again, I have come across the fictitious myth that Alba posted her shower porn to deflect from her racist and antisemitic stuff that was uncovered by (more likely leaked to) Chris’ fandom a few days earlier. 

But I would argue that this explanation for her posting herself stripping in the shower has little to no credibility. I will explain why, share my theory about what likely went down and the clues that point to it. I will also use this opportunity to debunk a few myths that have plagued this fandom for a very long time…

Usual disclaimer: I have no insider knowledge and have 0 contact familiar with this shitshow and the protagonists.

Her posting a shower porn was likely an act of retaliation to embarrass Chris…

When someone posts their nudes online, it can be either accidental or purposeful. If the posting is purposeful, it cannot be about deflecting from an existing PR crisis for the sole reason that the distraction would only work temporarily. The thing you are trying to deflect from would come back and bite you (on the butt) very quickly AND you would have added a sex scandal to the mix. Not the greatest move. Especially when you are a woman. Men tend to go unscathed or even end up benefitting from such scandals, but it’s rarely the case for women because… double standards and misogyny, you know? 

So the reason someone would post their nudes, a sex tape or in this instance a shower porn is to find elsewhere. It is most likely to get attention. The question is: what kind of attention and from whom?

I suspect it was actually Chris’ side that leaked the receipts showing her to associate with racist/antisemitic people in what turned out to be a successful effort to silence her. The reason his team likely tried to keep her quiet is probably because she had made a couple of very costly mistakes prior to that.

What made Chris’ team want to silence her and get her under control…

Her first mistake was to post the now debunked fake yoga certificate so that she could place herself in Atlanta with Chris. It probably forced his team into damage control mode, as they had to get assistance from a yoga studio based in Atlanta and a couple of its members that helped corroborate Alba’s claims. But her most aggravating mistake was posting her mother’s age on Instagram, very shortly after people commented on the fact that Chris was closer in age to Alba’s mom than to Alba herself. It was a catastrophic move on her part because, it showed she and his team were lurking on SM, it showed how thin-skinned and rash she is and worse it drew more attention to the age difference and terrible optics of this “relationship”. 

Leaking her problematic stuff likely served as a warning shot to behave and stay quiet or else she would be destroyed. And that’s probably why she posted that shower porn, to embarrass Chris and get a semblance of revenge. I believe she felt safe doing that anyway because a marriage was already in the pipeline.

But notice that she has kept quiet since then. You can compare her SM activity before that event and after she came back to Insta, and it differs greatly. And of course, her problematic stuff never reached the general public. 

Do people remember the GQ event in Portugal where she refused to talk to the media and was said to be rude? It was most likely because that poor Nazi troll wasn’t allowed to speak. Her only job was to flash “her” ring in order to honor one of their sponsors and that was it. 

But she did manage to post a video of the rings with her soulmate Justin to try and embarrass Chris once more. 

Why a talent agency would seemingly work against its client’s best interests…

Of course, some people might think this theory has little credibility because leaking her problematic stuff doesn’t reflect on Chris well. But I believe that not only did the talent agency not mind this little problem, but they actually welcomed it. First of all, they made sure her problematic stuff never reached the general public, as this information was only destined to his fandom. But more importantly, why not charge more hours to your client to manage a crisis you have created yourself? That’s actually quite the smart savvy business model and that’s “capitalism” for you. 

It might be too cynical for some but we are talking about a company that allegedly dabbled in sex trafficking by providing actresses to a famous disgraced producer so that he could sexually assault them. They then allegedly helped cover the scandal by helping him destroy the lives of the women who dared speak up. So this shitshow, that would be kids’ stuff for them, wouldn’t it?  

Of course, such tactics have helped decrease Chris’ market value or help accelerate it but as you have noticed, all of his upcoming projects (excluding Red One) are CAA-backed, so they basically get him for cheaper. And Marvel is likely the only place where he can still get huge paychecks these days but they will get a big chunk of that anyway so basically it is a win-win situation for the talent agency. 

Of course, it’s difficult to know what is happening behind the scenes and it’s just speculation on my part but I suspect they no longer have much faith in Chris’ career and future. A few critically panned projects and commercial flops may have helped reinforce their strategy and it seems like that they are trying to squeeze as much money out of Chris as quickly as they can. 

The legend that Chris’ fandom is like the FBI is a great cover story…

Rumors are that the fandom uncovered Alba’s past and exposed her, like they have uncovered so much of Chris’ business over the years. But I suspect this is a lie. A very practical lie by the way. 

Because the legend that Chris’ fandom possesses the most amazing investigative skills has served two purposes. First of all, it has enabled the fandom to feel good about themselves as they could pat themselves on the back for being such great detectives. And yes, I would argue, it was a good thing to try to make a loyal fanbase feel good about themselves, especially when they are so easily and so often thrown under the bus. But more importantly, this legend has been used to cover the fact that this fandom has been infiltrated for years and has been fed information directly from his team. On this platform (which sponsored his NY con) and other SM platform. I have discussed it previously and have used many examples to illustrate that. 

Like a Team Real blog having a picture of Chris’ dog at the daycare center. Like a blog which made a (non)sensical U-turn from Team PR to Team Real (a very practical trajectory that I explained in a previous post) who allegedly recognized a hotel room in Finland or in… Lisbon!

Let’s talk for a second about the video Chris did in his hotel room in Lisbon for that teacher. Isn’t it amazing how quickly people found out where Chris had shot this video? Isn’t it tragic how that poor teacher allegedly had to quit her job because Chris’ crazy stalker fans harassed her? 

People would be smart to question the veracity of this story as it is likely totally fictional. It did serve at least 2 purposes. First, it helped reinforce the crazy fan narrative that has been shoved down our throats for years and more importantly it helped place Chris in Portugal, which was the whole point of this little video. His team leaked where Chris was (something they have done very often) to breadcrumb his relationship to Alba, so that his fans could connect the dots. Do people remember the first articles that came out after Chris and Alba became official? They all put so much emphasis on the fact that his fans figured it all out and put 2 and 2 together when Chris and Alba were trying so hard to be private. Because private people always breadcrumb their relationship on Social Media, don't they?

But it was nothing new for Chris as he was flirting very ostentatiously and so privately with Jenny on Twitter back in the day...

[pale-opal]

Hear Me Out:

I know that image and what I'm about to say has a chance of being incredibly niche, because I have no idea how much overlap there is between the Homestuck and Mega Man fandoms. But if there's anything I've learned from the internet, it's that no matter what fandom you're in, it's almost guaranteed that someone in said fandom has read Homestuck before. So I think someone out there will understand the rant I'm about to go on. But for everyone who hasn't read Homestuck before, here's a quick explanation: Homestuck is a webcomic that was written and published by a man named Andrew Hussie. It ran from 2009-2016. It follows the misadventures of four kids as they play a game called Sburb with the help of twelve other kids known as "trolls." Together, they go on a quest to complete the game, as the initiation of it has caused the world to end (so even if they wanted to quit, they couldn't. Whoops). It is currently available to read on mspaintadventures.com, however I do NOT recommend reading it if you are a minor, or if you have sensitivity to content that contains violence, strong language, etc. - There were also two (technically one?) epilogues produced afterward, as well as a sequel called "Homestuck^2". - The disclaimer above applies to those works as well.

Okay. Now that I've explained what Homestuck is, let's get into why I put these four Doctors in the squares that I did.

Dr. Cossack: Has read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - He just seems like the kind of man who casually knows a lot about a lot of things. - A "nerd," if you will. - I can see him reading this in college and subsequently getting totally invested. - He relates to John Egbert (one of the four kids I mentioned earlier) on a personal level. - He did not like the epilogues. - He likes Homestuck^2, though. Dr. Light: Has Read Homestuck, Doesn't Know What Homestuck Is - I imagine that Light was introduced to Homestuck through Cossack while they were in college. - Like, what if Light got sick at some point, and Cossack came over and showed him this random webcomic he found in an attempt to make him feel better, only for Light to wake up the next day, convinced the whole thing was a fever dream? - Cut to many years later, after the birth of Proto Man. - Light and Cossack are having a conversation on the phone: - Cossack: "Hey, Thomas. Do you remember Homestuck?" - Light: "...Homestuck?" - Cossack: "You know, that webcomic I showed you when you got the flu back in college?" - Light: "I'm not sure I-" - Cossack: "The one with the little gray people?" - Light: "Little gray- wait. Wait, that was real?!" - He has not read the epilogues or Homestuck^2. Dr. LaLinde: Has Not Read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - I think that Dr. Cossack would go on many coffee-fueled 2 a.m. rants to her during last-minute attempts to finish projects on time when the two of them were in college. - LaLinde would always listen respectfully, and as a result knows the entire lore behind Homestuck despite never reading it. - One day, she decided to give it a go. Here's how that went: - LaLinde: "Okay, let's see here- what? Eight thousand (8000) pages? Where am I going to find the time to read all of that?" - And so, she has to this day never read the darn thing. Dr. Wily: Has Not Read Homestuck, Does Not Know What Homestuck Is - The reasoning behind this is simple: he just couldn't get into it. - Dr. Cossack tried several times while they were in college to convince him to read it, but it sounded really convoluted to him. - Dr. Light tried to get him to read it before the whole "Dr. Wily becomes evil and takes over the world" thing after he remembered what it was. - That didn't work either. - Plus, the whole thing just seemed too long. - He eventually just forgot it existed once Light stopped trying to get him to read it. But here's something else about the Doctors: they all had kids. Kids who all grew up with different levels of parental involvement. Kids who would've probably heard their parents talk about this strange little webcomic at one time or another. Which brings me to my next point:

Blues: Has Read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - I imagine that he heard the aforementioned phone call between Light and Cossack, and asked Dr. Light about what they were talking about. - Light straight up tells him that he's not allowed to read it. - Blues accepts this. - Cut to Blues' life after he runs away from home. He's at the library. - He's also in the midst of his "I hate my dad" arc, and as a result is more than willing to go and read this comic Dr. Light told him was off-limits. - He spends a whole day reading the webcomic, its epilogues, and its sequel. - He is there from the time the library opens to the time it closes. - And once everything is said and done, he is a changed man. - His favorite character is Dave Strider. - He also used to like Dirk Strider and Jane Crocker, but then he read the epilogues. Bass: Has Read Homestuck, Doesn't Know What Homestuck is - Bass was just minding his business, until he finds Proto Man broke into his house... again. - I like to think Blues breaks into Wily Fortress sometimes, just because he can. As a treat. - And to visit any Wilybots he's friends with. - He goes to confront Blues, only to find him in the midst of his third reread of Homestuck. - He asks what he's doing. - Blues tells him to pull up a chair. - He starts the reread over so that Bass can understand what's going on. - Bass, too, ends up a changed man. Even if he has no idea what he just read. - His favorite character is Karkat Vantas. - He made a trollsona (basically a troll OC), but has never told a living soul about it. - Also, he will never admit it, but "[S] Game Over" messed him up on an emotional level (if you don't know what "[S] Game Over" is, don't worry about it. Don't look it up. It's okay. Just forget I said anything). Tempo: Has Not Read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - Quake Woman has not read Homestuck for the same reason her mother hasn't read it: She's simply too busy. - Blues tries to convince her to read it, though. - But here's the thing: Vesper Woman HAS read it... but she just thought it was just alright. This leads to conversation like this happening: - Vesper: "Don't listen to him, Tempo. It's okay at best." - Blues: "..." - Blues: "...would you like to elaborate on that?" - They get into arguments about different aspects of the plot a LOT. - Tempo just listens quietly while she works. - Out of curiosity, she ended up looking it up one day when she had free time, and ended up stumbling across Hiveswap instead. - Hiveswap is a spin-off game that takes place in Homestuck's universe. The first Act was released in 2017, and the second was released in 2020. - I will admit that I haven't played Hiveswap, so I'm not sure if the disclaimer I provided for Homestuck applies here. Kalinka Cossack: Has Never Read Homestuck, Does Not Know What Homestuck Is - My reasoning behind this is even more simple than Dr. Wily's: - Dr. Cossack does not let her know that Homestuck exists in an effort to keep her innocence in tact. - That's it. That's the reasoning. You can all go home n-. - ...wait. Is that ANOTHER image down there?

You see, there's one more set of characters that I want to discuss in this long, long post. Characters that wouldn't be influenced by their parents, meaning that whether or not they've read Homestuck would be more up to happenstance:

...I can explain.

Zero: Has Read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - Part of the reason I put him here is because he ended up being the opposite of what Wily wanted him to be. He wanted a ruthless killing machine, and instead he got someone who helps save the world on multiple occasions. So why not have him be the opposite of his creator in Homestuck knowledge as well? - (Although if you think about it, Zero is technically a ruthless killing machine, but that's not what we're here to talk about). - Another other part of the reasoning is that I thought it was funny. - Zero had trouble getting invested until Act 5. - After he reached that point, he was locked in. - He sees a little bit of himself in Rose Lalonde and Dirk Strider. - He has never read the epilogues, or the sequel. Once he saw the Snapchat bonus content, he thought that was it. - Zero successfully got Iris into the comic as well. - Her favorite character was also Rose. - I like to think he and Layer also became friends after realizing they were both Homestuck fans.

Axl: Has Read Homestuck, Doesn't Know What Homestuck Is - He found a dub of the series on YouTube on day while watching random videos. - He was invested almost immediately. - Axl would talk about it with the other Red Alert members a lot - especially to Red and Tornado. - But there was one problem: He didn't know the name of it. It just completely slipped his mind at one point, and he wasn't able to get it back. This led to stuff like this: - Axl: "And THEN John and his friends are losing to the Condescence, but-" - Red: "That's nice and all, but what's this webcomic you read called?" - Axl: "Uh... I dunno. I can't remember." - Red: "Are you sure you didn't just make it up?" - Axl: "Wha- Yes! Yes, I'm sure!" - Red: "...sure thing, little buddy." - After joining the Maverick Hunters, Axl casually brings up the plot of this comic he can't remember the name of. Zero soon says this: - Zero: "...are you talking about Homestuck?" - Axl: "That's what it's called?!" - He made a trollsona like Bass did, but is a lot less shy about sharing it. - His favorite character is Roxy Lalonde. - Axl got Palette into it as well. X: Has Not Read Homestuck, Knows What Homestuck Is - He heard Zero talk about it with Iris a lot, but it sounded a bit too violent for his tastes. - He did play the Pesterquest visual novel, though. - Yes, the disclaimer does apply for this visual novel. - I like to think that at some point in X7, X complains about Zero and Axl's interest in "overly violent media" and asks if Zero has started "corrupting the youth." - He is promptly told to shut up. - X is more open to the idea of reading Homestuck by the time X8 comes around though. But it isn't until Axl is recovering from the game's ending that he actually starts considering it, since he knows it'll make Axl happy. - Speaking of which: will Capcom ever give us X9? - I just want to know if Axl is really okay, or if Lumine messed him up somehow. - It's been almost 20 years since the game released. 20 years is a long time to leave part of a video game franchise on a cliffhanger (but then again, Mega Man Legends fans have been waiting for 24 years...) Sigma: Has Not Read Homestuck, Does Not Know What Homestuck Is - The reason Sigma is in this category is very easy to explain: - He deserves nothing that could give him any semblance of happiness. - Also, I hate him.

Alright, rant over.

The inspiration for this post, as well as the original template, can be found here.

...now you can all go home.

[mam-te-moc]

Do you remember Open Gates Festival story ?

There is a second part that starts exactly where the first one ended.

On the way back home from Valley of Living Rock they discussed how to celebrate the tenth anniversary of open gates. "Before we had no contact with our subjects and they didn't know us" Elsa said. "And then was a turn" Anna realized.

Along the bridge citizens of Arendelle welcomed both queens with lit candles.

Anna invited everyone for next day festivities.

Then they sent invitations via Gale mail. (It's interesting that everyone got invitations but Northuldra. They don't exist in this story... again)

Guests started to arrive. "I have a feeling that this will be a great party" said Elsa while holding Anna's hand.

Then Anna and kids recreated scenes we know from various songs.

Kids asked Ice Queen to make magic and she created snow.

"Do you want to build a snowman?" called Anna and everyone started playing with snow.

Also kids were fascinated by Nokk's beauty (if they only knew 😂) . Meanwhile Bruni (consistently going by she/her) got stressed by a big crowd and statred to burn.

Elsa distinguished the fire and took care of Bruni. Meanwhile Earth Giants arrived causing a little earthquake which almost closed the gates. The sisters ran to keep the gates open and with the help of trolls they did.

Some notes:

Sorry, I don't have time so the translation is not full and precise.

This is interesting that at this point these stories seem to show that Anna and Elsa are co-queens of Arendelle 🤔.

Also the constant absence of Northuldra brings a question if this is a result of a deal Disney made with Saami (as in consultation of a story that includes Northuldra and stories in comics are too small to start the procedure) or Disney put a ban on them for other reasons (like after F1 there was a ban on Hans and Elsa's love life).

Here's a bonus poster "Festival of friendship" 😏

[icedragonlizard]

What if dream friends had dialogue in Star Allies?

I suppose it could've been a lot of unnecessary work for HAL to do, but I still think it could be highly fun and imaginative to think about.

How cool would it be if the game's plot actually acknowledged the existence of the dream friends? The things they'd say in-game, etc...

I think it would be especially fun to think about what all the different dream friends might saying during the mage sister fights. Like, y'know, the points of the game where there's dialogue. What they all might say to the mage sisters in response to their words....

... I'm not going to go over what I think every dream friend would say in these moments, but I think I'd like to focus on ones such as Susie, Magolor, Marx, Taranza and Daroach. Why these ones in particular? Because I think they'd probably be the more entertaining ones in what they'd have to say in their dialogue during the mage battles.

How funny would it be that Marx and Magolor just troll the shit out of the mages? How funny would it be that Susie acts condescending when talking to them? How funny would it be that Taranza joke-flirts with them, he doesn't actually mean it as he's just doing it to get them riled up? How funny would it be that Daroach tells them to watch out before he steals from them? This stuff is fanfiction-worthy! Heck, this might be the biggest reason why I might attempt my adaptation of Star Allies into a fanfiction in the future, although I've got many other fics planned beforehand so it'd be a long while.

But still! There could be endless potential when thinking about this.

Let me demonstrate an example. First, let's look at the part where the game first introduces Flamberge, and she's really angry.

"HEY, YOU! Stubby little...pink thing! Yes, YOU! I have a buuuurning question for you! You're the one who was so rude to sweet Francisca, aren't you?! Don't you dare try to deny it!"

"Ohohohohohohoho! We sure put that crazy blue lady in her place! What are you gonna do about it? Throw a temper tantrum? Go so berserk that you lose control and we can easily beat you?"

Wanna guess who said that? Hahahaha... the purple text probably made it obvious. In this interpretation, it's Marx who said that. There's no way he wouldn't just totally mock them and rub it in their faces. At the very least in my interpretation of Marx, it'd be like him to do that.

And by the way, I'm one that actually headcanons Marx becoming friends with the mage sisters post-HiAD because he loves how chaotic they are, and loves that they're willing to join him in doing insane shit (especially Francisca). But during Star Allies when the mages were the enemy? I bet he totally mocked the shit out of them!

Magolor, too. Here's a good example of Magolor having dialogue against one of the mages:

"Bonjam. I am Zan Partizanne, the eldest of the three generals of magic."

"Woah... Zan what? I didn't hear that thoroughly! I think I'll call you Zan Parmesan Cheese, though!"

".... I absolutely HATE that you ended up getting my name more right than a lot of other fools have."

It'd be hilarious to see a lot of dream friends trying to say her name. All the different ways they could say it wrong.

Here's a Taranza example:

"This must be the fiery flames of fate at work! Ooooh yeaaaah! My flames and I are fully stoked now!"

"Golly, you're really hot, good ma'am!" with a trollish look on his face.

"... Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?"

"Hahahahahaha! Am I making you overheat too much, fool?"

I think Taranza deserves to be depicted as silly sometimes.

A Daroach example:

"We wish to assemble the dark Jamba Heart pieces that were scattered across the universe."

"Woah... you want them all? That's a big bummer! What if I want to steal some of them? Maybe I'll still do it out of spite, teehee!"

I hate the limited amount of colors allowed for tumblr posts. To make it clear, for this example, the blue text is Francisca while the red text is Daroach. While, of course, Flamberge was the red text in the examples with Marx and Taranza, while Magolor was the blue text in the example with Zan.

And now, let me demonstrate a couple examples with Susie. I think she'd delightfully fire off on them like the feisty cheeky woman she is.

"I shall now turn this pink ball of nice into a frozen block of ice!"

"No you won't. This 'pink ball of nice' is a force of pure destruction, and you're going to defrost by daring to harm the universe with all of this insolent nonsense. You must be destroyed!"

"... Very well. But I won't go down without a fight, so you best watch out that you all might become ice sculptures this time. I can more than make sure of it!"

"We will more than make sure to obliterate you, just like the rest of your barbaric cult! Let's put her in her place, Pinky!"

Susie example with Zan:

"I did not expect you to survive your visit to Jambastion."

"You thought that would've gotten us? Pfft! We've all been through worse than that. You're going to have to try harder than that if you really want to eliminate us for good."

"Really, you survived worse? Well, that doesn't matter, because your luck has run out."

"No. Your luck has run out. We're going to exterminate all of you like the savages you are!"

This works out well with my interpretation that Susie's Japanese SA pause description containing the words "exterminate the savages!" is referring to the Jambastion cult when they were still the enemy. I headcanon that she's slowly in the process of unpacking baggage, and "savages" is just a thing she calls people she views as enemies.

And uh... to be honest, the cult kind of deserved to be called words like that during Star Allies when they were threatening everything.

I've done a lot of examples of a few dream friends having dialogue during the mage battles. But what about when confronting Hyness?

I think all the dream friends would be horrified at the moments that Hyness knocks Zan out of the way, weaponize all three mage sisters' bodies in his second phase of the fight, and then sacrificing them and himself to Void Termina. It would make them just flabbergasted.

Although I bet Marx would probably laugh at how unhinged he is.

"It seems... we do not have enough energy... to revive our Dark Lord... Must we... allow ourselves... to fall... into oblivion?"

"Yes, you should do that!"

"No."

"Yes."

"NO!"

"YES!"

"No no no no no!"

"Yes yes yes yes yes!"

"*goes on his giant unhinged rant*"

"*laughs hysterically* Look at you go off! It's hilarious!"

Marx is just... lmao.

Sorry that I don't have examples with every dream friend having dialogue in this post. But you get the general idea! Perhaps if you have ideas as to what the other dream friends could say in these moments, feel free to mention them in the notes!

Although I'll leave you here with a King Dedede example, just cuz:

"For what you've done, I'll scorch you to such a degree that... that... even tasty, toasty marshmallows will seem like ice cubes compared to you!"

"You ain't gonna be scorchin' any of us, ya hot fiery slimeball! We'll put you in your place like we did to the blue look-a-like of ya!"

Hahaha... ha... I interpret southern accent Dedede. Sue me.

Thanks for reading the post if you did! Let me know about more ideas of dream friend dialogue you have in the notes. I'd be curious what else you think in this broad, interesting concept.

[marunalu]

Apologies for disturbing you, and I promise this won’t be a natural occurrence, but I just remember the post you said about how a “particular individual” doesn’t read the chapters that doesn’t have Bakugou, and is so wrapped in her own delusions with her favorite ship, that I just HAD to add more to the fact she really is so caught up in her own fantasy land that she had THIS tweet.

Like…does she not remember what DEKU was? She is either the master of trolls, and is pulling us all for the ride, or she is so far gone and is a complete joke.

Oh dont worry, you are not disturbing me at all! 🤗

Oh my god I remember that post of hers and back then my reaction was a mix of this

This

And this

And the most moronic thing about this is that not only does she ignore that the nickname "deku" bakugou gave izuku is like one of the cruelest insults you can give a person with a physical disability, she also ignores that it was OCHAKO who turned that horrible nickname into something positive which inspired izuku and that THIS is the reason why he IMMEDIATELY tells ochako that she can call him deku from now on (while clearly showing his huge crush on her), because NOW thanks to OCHAKO the name means something positiv, but when bakugou calls him by that nickname he has NOTHING positiv in mind!

She pretends that it was bakugou who gave the name "deku" that positiv meaning because in her delulu bakudeku fantasy world bakugou was always in love with izuku so he never meant the nickname as an insult despite the story CLEARLY pointing that out! And the saddest part is that her hivemind of a follwership on xitter actually buys all of that! Its already bad enough if you have one of them spreading all that nonsense, but even more if a few hundred people clearly show that their reading comprehension is also as non existent!

[thewertsearch]

This is a particularly great visual. It really sells the importance of what we’re trying to do here.

TT: Then the Scratch will be implemented later, by either John or Dave I presume? TT: You used a male pronoun. Yes.

‘Yes, John or Dave will initiate the Scratch’, or ‘Yes, I used a male pronoun?’ Because if we hadn't already seen John here, I would have assumed Jade was our Scratcher. The needles come from her Denizen, after all.

I think John is a better narrative choice, in any case. He's our 'leader', after all - it makes symbolic sense that he'd be the one to scrub the session.

TT: I guess it makes sense that it would happen later. My understanding is that Jack will not be banished from this session until near the end of the reckoning. Yes, Jack will exit your session later, but this has nothing to do with the Scratch. […] TT: I thought that was the point of the Scratch, to open a rift in spacetime as it were, and banish him into the trolls' session. […] That is not the purpose of the Scratch at all. The Scratch does not open a rift in spacetime.

Hang on a second. Doesn’t that contradict an earlier statement from Aradia?

She described the spacetime rift Jack emerged from as a ‘catalogued’ game phenomenon – and that the game’s inhabitants directly refer to it as a Scratch. It certainly sounds like Sburb considers it to be a rift in spacetime.

Maybe Doc is using a semantic trick here. If the Scratch is a rift, it doesn't really make sense to say it 'opens' a rift. That's like saying a door works by 'opening' a hole in the wall.

TT: I think it's disingenuous for you to behave as if I have not been misled.

And I’m worried that this is the first time you’ve noticed this.

TT: You say you don't lie, but what about lies of omission? Lies of omission do not exist. The concept is a very human one. It is the product of your story writing again. You have written a story about the truth, making emotional demands of it, and in particular, of those in possession of it. Your demands are based on a feeling of entitlement to the facts, which is very childish. You can never know all of the facts. Only I can. And since it's impossible for me to reveal all facts to you, it is my discretion alone that decides which facts will be revealed in the finite time we have.

Lies of omission aren’t direct falsehoods, no – but they do exist, and they’re referred to as lies for a reason. If you present factual information in a matter that intentionally misleads people, you’re deliberately deceiving them. Sure, it’s not a lie, but it does the work of one.

On the other hand, this paragraph feels less like a point Scratch is making to Rose, and more like something Hussie's saying to us. This is apparently a problem of 'story writing', and feels like an extension of the Scratch-as-author stuff that I brought up yesterday.

As readers, we want to know everything that it’s possible to know about our favourite setting – but that’s always going to be impossible. All stories are bounded, even ones as long as Homestuck, as Hussie has only a finite amount of time to narrate the thing. Scratch simply can’t give Rose all the facts, the same way Hussie can’t exhaustively list all of Homestuck’s lore.

[spotlightlowlife]

Alastor hazbin let down

By overhype and a lack of tone setting.

He isn't creepy

Try as they may, the glitchy effects just tell me that this is a quirky character, only most of the cast are quirky in character just not too flashy.

Nobody is particularly menacing, including Alastor who so far has been a bit menacing to a character who isn't going anywhere and unnamed extras who not even Charlie 'everyone is worthy', 'these are my people/family' cared about.

His secrets mean nothing to anyone

Where has he been for seven years? The same absence period of Lilith? Who cares?

What Alastor knows is what the audience and clueless Charlie doesn't, but others do.

All someone else's talk

In the pilot it was Vaggie who let us know who exactly Alastor was and ehat he was capable of, she wanted no part of him around, but nothing to loose, no opinion in the matter Charlie did.

Mimzy in her passing visit told us more about him, she actually bought his character down to earth a little which was actually a good thing, Mimzy let us know that Alastor could be fun, reminded us that he had a whole life, she offered us a time frame of his existence and let us know he has friends/acquaintances/connections.

Though the 'bringing down to earth' negative aspect would happen too this episode, through no doing of Mimzys but entirely of Alastors. Unfortunately Alastor appears to have cut off Mimzy as a friend, leaving him with a shorter reach.

Any other reputable character steals his spotlight

Alastair was outshone by Mimzy, who literally interpreted his song baiting the actual devil. In this episode he showed that he wasn't all too composed when not in control of the situation or when outclassed, his attitude to Lucifer case in point, who he can't possibly topple any time soon in any way. All would be fine if we got to see what he did about it when he had time to himself or what he would do when things escalated, a missed opportunity being in the last episode he would lose to Adam, which was great, Alastor gave off overconfidence and lack of interest as usual, but by now we have seen how much he wishes to insert himself among those higher, only for him to treat Adam like a nobody - how did he feel about the looming danger he was in and not being in the same ballpark as someone who felt confident enough to challenge? Who knows, he as good as drifted away like piss in the ocean.

We didn't learn of any particular interest or reason for lack of in Adam, for someone who does so much research.

Between these encounters, Rosie too managed to stand out more than him as his confidant who successfully run an operation, had a clear goal, seemed unconditionally helpful, a people person and got through to Charlie with nice enough advice and a ear to listen.

He struggles to keep up an act, something that's not utilized at all when it could be

Being overactive to Lucifer, showing dislike for no apparent reason and dropping the bomb seems like it was meant to get a laugh out of the audience, only for Alastor to go on to continue tormenting Charlie's dad and to build a rivalry. If a rivalry was the intention then the usual composed attitude would have fit. If there's a reason for a hatred he struggles to contain, it's a shame the time wasn't made to delve into this.

Significant characters could have done with more time in general honesty.

In other media we have Good omens had composed and sweet angel Azraphale drop an unexpected but very understandable fbomb (which may have been the first of the series) when he accidentally lost his body of 6000 years. There was a build up of the looming end of the world, years of preventative work going to waste, nobody listening and a pest in his home.

HH really missed a beat in having a character like Alastor first snap for no particular reason.

In other media, Durarara did excellent at deconstructing and humbling an unbothered and mysterious troll character, this being Izaya. In this supernatural series he would manage to stand out and consistently be a strong villain/antihero, managing to not become lesser dispite going from a menace holding a number of cards who claimed to love humans, to being proven to be a human with the introduction of his sisters, his very uncomplex backstory and generally getting dealt with by the series's most illusive gangsters.

Coherence could make things work, hopefully there's less going on next time and the ensemble cast can be dispersed out a bit better.

Better luck next time Alastor