#yeah so this is just some basic stuff pffff

[totaldramafan-lauri]

Some strange facts about some random anon like me!

I keep checking everyday those past few months when the update came when I still didn't find your tumbler account so I didn't have any knowledge of what was going on but I didn't stop doing that even though I found your Tumblr account everyday because apparently it became a habit.. checking and refreshing my browser page to see if getting updates was the best thing that happens to me with the chapters .. like chapter 8 I think got released on my birthday so I was very happy that I think I got it as a gift from you even though you didn't knew! So even if you didn't know that fact thank you ^-^!

I keep re-reading the parts where Golden cheese is angry because that was kinda a little attractive!.. You made it so well that I was surprised, just a question.. were you getting possessed when you were writing golden cheese or something because you did her so well lol!

I like her firm and dominating.. I just want to imagine it and I'm already getting sleepy due to the high overlord in my mind XD..

Like reader share some of that light- ahem!.. went overboard there..but what I said was true.. I got attach to golden cheese even with the lack of content when I found your fic :))...

I'm happy and kinda sad about the fic ending now.. like I mean I have been here since chapter 3-4.. even though I think that's not kinda long..I think?.. I basically got attached since that's too long that I will eventually get attached! Even if it's just writing! I waited for it.. I waited even if my time was wasted, I waited and it was worth it.. I was happy!.. I'm happy reader have found golden cheese cookie again at ending 2.. now I don't know where I should find another golden cheese fic again because apparently.. no one write her much since all the attention went to Burnt cheese due to his natural attractive nature with that long hair..

I would eat and gamble all that yummy food that people would write fics about golden cheese because it's the most delicious thing I can have in crk for awhile.. since I recently just join because I was raging at the lag months ago so-..

Take care by the way! I hope this brightens your mood like the other anons!

AAAAAA, h-holy crap! Yeah, this did make me happy! Thank you so much! I was already feeling a lot better about myself today, so you didn't have to do anything to cheer me up, s-so don't worry about that.....I-I was just a bit stuck in my head yesterday....^^;

Y-yeah, it's a shame that she doesn't get a lotta X Reader fics....I checked that tag recently, and the whole thing was me, like ONE other fic, and some older compilation stuff from pre-her release (when most of her characterization was just people speculating cuz we knew so little about her). She deserves so much more! Sh-she's just SUCH a cool character....! B-but sadly, I did see it coming, cuz back during her update, i-it really did immediately seem like Burnt got all the simps....I-it felt like I was in my own corner.....Wh-which is why it's such a pleasant surprise to me that my fic's gotten as much love as it has!

I-I do have ideas for other fics about her, and....i-if I ever do get to those, it'll probably be just for the sake of giving my fellow simps more food, cuz.....th-there's so little of it.....>///////>

A-also, the whole "it felt like you were possessed by the character while you were writing them" is SUUUUUCH a good compliment to give a fic writer, you have no idea....I-I really had so much fun writing her after I got the hang of it, so hearing that I did that good a job makes me feel very.....very good.....Cuz, I DID try to make her as in-character as I could, even if I got a bit indulgent in the last few chapters......X//////D

R-really, thanks so much for sticking with me for so long....( If you're telling the truth that chapter 8 was posted on your birthday, then wow, that's VERY lucky, cuz that was a really important chapter, for....o-obvious reasons, pffff.....) I-it's good to know that I was able to keep someone's interest for this long....Now, if CRK sticks true to their word and we DO see her again in canon soon, the game'll do the work for you while I take a rest from writing for a while! We'll see when that happens tho....So....y-yeah, thank you....!

[electricrogue]

Got tagged by @tinknevertalks and @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter and fianlly got around to do this, so thank you (and sorry it took me so long)

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

72 apparently :D

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

244.448 - whew that was a pain to add up. But it is also scary from other points of view (but also fun) so worth it.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Sanctuary the most though I did some other stuff as well historically speaking xD.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Keep in mind the kudos are 100% based on how big the fandom is I guess so hmmm not sure it's fair. Here it goes anyway:

Mysterious Ways - Fleabag with Fleabag/Priest which is the only fic I wrote in that fandom funnily enough.

Confessions - La Casa de Papel with The Professor/Raquel

Reunion - same

Five Times Randall Came Up With Vermish Theories And One Time It Got Confirmed - this is The Order with Vera/Hamish and yeah it's basically the kids finding out their sexy boss is fucking (around) with someone they shouldn't but it's The Order and not Sanctuary for some reason :))

Meeting Someone Big - Again Vera/Hamish from the order and funnily enough this is one I would have done a lot better if I were into werewolves but I'm not so it turned fluffy and yeah xD.

See? 5 of them and none Sanctuary it's a good thing I don't write for kudos because I would have been pissed otherwise. I mean I loved these when I wrote them don't get me wrong but... Sanctuary is my baby ok. It's just that it's a very small fandom so yeah.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes I mean come on people do their best to leave them (never got nasty ones not really) so it's the least I can do

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't do angst not on ao3. Should have been Love in Perpetuity I started that one wanting to kill Helen but it's not ended because I couldn't bring myself to do it so yeah does it really count?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Either The Secret Beneath The Ice or Dear Stranger I guess (I mean Teslen is basically either engaged or with kids at the end so yeah)

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not really

9. Do you write smut?

At some point I did it enough that it had kinda become my go to thing xD

10. Do you write crossovers?

Did my share of those as well

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes - London Miracles got translated into Russian partially.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh I did a lot more than that only not on AO3 xD. Me and some other girls had a porn writing club if you can call it that? And we did some Teslen stuff together. It's on fanfiction.net because we didn't know about ao3 at that point and at least two of us were hormonal teenagers and that's pretty much the only excuse I have for it existing xD. Look it up on your own risk

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Teslen all the way

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Pffff that's a lot of them. London Miracles is the one I feel the worst about because I liked it but I haven't written in ages for it so not sure I can start over. Plus I am taken mostly writing wise for the next year so yeah. Not optimistic about this.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm better at writing dialogue than anything else (which can also get to be a major pain sometimes)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I hate descriptions with a passion especially if it's clothes (filled under why the hell did I sign up for some stuff Jesus Christ)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Me or other people? xD. I know like 4 languages in various degrees but I could get some sentences written in all of them. But French is too cliche, Romanian who the fuck speaks that, Dutch... well doesn't make sense with any of the fandoms I am in (except one but that's not fic writing material I said like the biggest liar in the world) and English is what I am writing fics in in the first place.

Other people writing this? More power to them :). Though if they mess up Romanian (which is the only one I know well enough to know if they do) I would gently point it out.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Tom and Jerry crossover with Chip and Dale. I was like 5 and I shipped Jerry with one of the squirrels not sure what that says about me xD.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

The Admins Know Better. Ooor Feather-Like Messages. They're the most me fics I ever wrote (as in they have a lot of stuff I like, I mean the first one is subtle but I know and this is what matters).

Tagging... hmm. Not sure who wasn't tagged yet from the people I know so I will go with @xbleeple, @zebsfloppyears, and whoever else wants to do it :)

[deathsquiggles]

YO

YOU MAKE MAPS FOR YOUR FICS AND AUs TOO????

I'VE BEEN DOING THAT FOR YEARS, THIS IS SO COOL THAT MY FAV AUTHOR DOES IT TOO OMG

yeah it’s a great way to get to know the setting!! im kind of a huge nerd about mapping lmao, i’m not that good at it but i like to at least have a rough map made for any stories that involve multiple locations of significance, or where travel is important to the plot in some way.

in the case of manhunt au, travel times are genuinely a critical plot component lmfao. these boys run all over the goddamn place and it takes them a long time to do it— more than 50 days!! i definitely needed a solid base for working out travel times to keep their movements sensical and understandable lmao. there are actually several versions of the map i posted, including this one which shows one character’s full path across the entire fic (mild spoilers i guess, but i don’t know how much you could even derive without context):

so basically i think maps are cool and fun and i don’t care about being good at them because that’s not what they’re forrrrr. they’re for being silly and drawing lines and going “heeheehoo that’s where my little guy walks”

also being called someone’s favorite author is actually bananas. i’m honored!! but it’s hard to even conceptualize that as an idea lmao?? it always blows my mind when someone says they reread my stuff. it shouldn’t, considering i reread fic all the time, but it’s always so surprising. but man to be someone’s Favorite Author…….. that’s just wild. im getting impostor syndrome over the stories i write about the little gay people in my phone. what the hell even pffff

anyway. thank you. maps are cool af.

[thenexusofsouls]

Tony blinked. "Well... yeah, they do. That's their job. But they don't do it for bad reasons. They're entertainers. They do it to amuse people and make them happy. This guy, for example," he pointed to the picture of Christopher Lee as Dracula, "was actually a really interesting and intelligent dude. He spoke several languages fluently, he was in the Royal Air Force, he helped bring bad guys to justice in World War II, he loved music and sang opera, he wrote books, and he's been in hundreds of movies and television shows. He's not a bad guy at all."

"I guess- Yeah, okay, you're right, acting is a profession that hinges on being able to pretend to be someone you're not. I guess that is deception in its basic form," Tony said with a conceding shrug. "But he have used his skills of deception to cheat people, or to steal from them, or to do any number of bad things... and instead he chose to entertain them. To make them smile and laugh and escape their troubles for a while. I think that's pretty damn awesome, don't you?"

"No, you- Pffff..." Tony said, letting loose a high-pitched chuckle as he facepalmed. "Okay, I think you've eaten enough of the decorations. Some of them should end up on the actual cookies," he said. He could honestly say he'd never seen anyone just take an entire handful of sprinkles and stuff it in their mouth before. Mantis was certainly full of surprises.

Friendly? They're not friendly, they're monsters that kill people... But Tony wasn't going to burst her bubble. She was just... too adorable, and he just couldn't do it. Yeah, sure, friendly. Why the hell not? He also couldn't get over how she was talking about these creatures as if they were real, but... hey, he was game. "Nah, he actually can't talk. He lives underwater, so. I don't know, I just always rooted for him as a kid. You know, he's very active, he's a great swimmer, chicks love athletic types, right? He's an environmentalist too, very progressive guy. And all he wants is a girlfriend. But he just..." He shrugged. "Can't get one. Women always scream when they see him, he accidentally comes on too strong, they want nothing to do with him, he even comes out of the water and walks on dry land for them, they're not impressed... I dunno, I feel bad for the guy. He's just lookin' for love. He deserved better, in my opinion."

@thenexusofsouls continued from here

Mantis always enjoyed baking, but with someone as fun as Tony Stark it was even more entertaining. She had learned how to bake shortly after she joined the Guardians, wanting to repay Groot for his kindness since he gave her flowers to welcome her into the team. Groot was no longer a baby, but Mantis still loved to bake, especially when she could decorate the cookies, shaping them like stars, planets or comets.

Learning that Terrans decorated cookies for special occasions sparked her curiosity. Quill had mentioned 'Christmas' and 'Halloween' as sources of happiness and wonder during the first eight years of his life, so naturally Mantis wanted to learn more. If something mattered to her friends, then it mattered to her.

"Oh..." Mantis nodded when Tony explained that eating decorations was part of the process, and she started to mimic his actions, taking a handful of M&Ms and stuffing her cheeks. She stilled when Tony mentioned blood as an ingredient. "Wh– B-Bddd?" Mantis blinked, unable to pronounce the word correctly with her mouth full. She placed her palm over her chest in a relieved gesture at his clarification. Once she had chewed and swallowed the food, she laughed it off. "Drax would not have waited. He would have picked up his knives before running off to retrieve the blood."

The empath shook her head. "I have never heard of Halloween before, so I suppose it is a Terran tradition. Terran means... of Earth. But other planets do have similar festivities. Some of them include honoring their departed, and some include indulging children with treats, but I hear Halloween includes both! How wonderful," she beamed. Taking the small bottle of blood-that-wasn't-blood, Mantis frowned. Did he say Dracula-faced cookies? That sounded familiar. "What is a Dracula? Quill has occasionally used that term to describe creatures with really sharp teeth." Perhaps Dracula was a dental condition, Mantis thought.

[jingerhead]

I just saw that post so I'm gonna ask - tell me about your OCs! But, like, only if you want to. No pressure 🖤

~ Nem

You....you wish to know about my OCs??? Are you sure you wanna open that can of worms??? ;-; Oh man uhhh I rarely talk about them so I'm not sure how well I'll do at explaining them but I will do my best!

So, the basic premise of my original story is that I made it because I don't believe it's possible that a world of magic could exist without regular people noticing it, so I wanted to kind of explore what an urban fantasy world would be like if the magical world was mixed with the human world. There's obviously a lot of tension that goes with that, because there comes a point when humans suddenly go, "oh shit, these people could wipe us out 'cause they have MAGIC. We gotta do something about that!"

To solve this problem, humans attempt to rule over magical creatures, which obviously doesn't go over very well. There's a lot of fights and constant tension between the two groups, and the biggest conflict between them is when the actual story takes place.

Another thing I wanted to do with this was write it from the POV of someone who, in any other story, would've been a side character. Someone who has no relation to the antagonist other than the antagonist did something horrible to them in the past. I also didn't want to make my main character likable at first, leaving lots of room for character development so that they could be in the end. This story has A LOT of characters, but here's a few if you're interested in meeting them!

Main: Ian Hart

Age: 22

Pronouns: He/Him

Backstory: Ian is the last known survivor from the Guardian massacres, in which all the families that had acted as 'guardians' to keep peace between humans and magical creatures were mysteriously wiped out. He lost his entire family and had to be put in this world's version of witness protection. He was given a new name and sent to a new family(since this happened when he was a child), but the Magical Regulations Office(MRO) that the previous Guardians had worked for still trained him to one day be one as they worked as quickly as they could to remake the group. Ian is convinced his family was killed by magical creatures that had been pissed about the Guardians working with the MRO. Because of this, he has a huge bias about magical creatures since he himself is human, and willingly does whatever the MRO wants him to do.

Main 2: Marilyn Jackson

Age: 23

Pronouns: she/her

Backstory: Marilyn grew up in a small suburban town with her parents, who adopted Ian Hart when she was 12 years old. Her and Ian grew up together and grew close. Marilyn is studying to become a biomedical engineer at the start of the story, but never finishes her education. She's sympathetic to a fault and has a crude sense of humor that works well with her brother's. Unlike her brother, she wants to help anyone she can, and is willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to do so, even when she doesn't know what she's doing.

Main 3: Steven Champion

Age: 23

Pronouns: he/him

Backstory: Steven is the grandson of a unicorn and son of a demon, making him a 'cross between 2 worlds'. He appears to be human, dyes his hair pink after his mother dyes her's blue. His weapon of choice are blades of any kind, his favorites being twin daggers. Steven is one of those guys that appears to be kindhearted and welcoming to all, but cross him once and you might not live to talk about it. He's extremely protective over the people he's close to, and has a great relationship with his mother and all of his relatives (except his father, who is honestly just a piece of shit).

Main 4: Andrea Eastcott

Age: 23

Pronouns: she/her

Backstory: Andrea is from a very large family, all with magical powers thanks to one of her ancestors being a 'demigod'. Her entire family are lawyers, and she was the 'oddball' that decided to not join the family business. She has huge trust issues and sometimes gets too into her own head, but is also extremely intelligent. She's the one that can create a plan in 5 seconds, has an amazing memory and is great at advocating for herself and others. She and Ian attempted a relationship, but as much as she was too in her own head, he was too in his as well. She needs someone to help bring her out and encourage her to become less of what her family wants her to be, but who she wants to be.

Main 5: Luke Avignone

Age: 22

Pronouns: he/him

Backstory: Luke is a shapeshifter, like everyone in his family. His parents weren't able to raise him, so he was raised by his grandmother from a very young age, who is a fashion designer and taught him how to cook. Luke would love to be a famous chef, is very outgoing and a complete himbo. His goal is to make the people around him happy, but is capable of being serious when the time calls for it. His favorite thing to turn into is a bear - just a giant brown bear, sometimes for no reason. He also has the biggest and most obvious crush on Andrea.

[tuff-and-fluff-archives]

Okay before I try to sleep, here's what I've come up with as a possible story for my ship with Alexei Shostakov, aka Red Guardian 🥺💖 Uhhhh I guess I'll put this under a read more cuz it might get kinda long and also ig spoilers for the end of Black Widow pffff

OK HERE GOES So the idea I had is that we would meet AFTER the events of the film. So after the movie ends, Alexei would join his "daughter" Yelena to search for the remaining brainwashed Widows and give them that anti-brainwash serum to give them their free will back. As for his fake wife who he supposedly still had feelings for, I really didn't see a lot of chemistry between them (i mean she named a pig after him) so I feel like they'd stay friends and/or allies but not really be involved romantically.

Now as for my s/i, this is where the details are a bit rougher (I mean I just came up with this story hehe) but I like the idea that I would be some kind of hacker or informant who came across a government conspiracy for some random country, so their government hires some of the remaining Widows to assassinate me, but Yelena finds that out and figures that my information-hunting skills will be a big help to ger mission, plus I'll basically be a Widow magnet for a while so that will be a good opportunity to capture those assassins and un-brainwash them. Two birds with one stone!

Okay finally, this is how we'd meet! So Yelena sends Alexei to "retrieve" me and keep me safe from the assassins coming after me, but he gets a bit annoyed that he has to be on what he calls "babysitting duty" and that he can't have a mission that's more exciting (basically he just wants to punch stuff 🙄), and I'm not really given any warning beforehand so he kind of just breaks into my house and tries to kidnap me??

He was supposed to introduce himself and explain the situation to me before escorting me to safety but he just wanted to get the mission over with so yeah. My first meeting with him is him breaking down my door in the middle of the night and throwing me over his shoulder, and of course I try to fight back (but there's no way I'd be a match for his super soldier strength uwu) but as he's trying to get me in the car, one of the Widow assassins show up and it quickly becomes clear that he's the one trying to protect me, so I finally comply and let him take me to safety, and as we're escaping he also gets into a fistfight with a few of the assassins and gets to really have some fun and kinda relive his glory days of fighting, and also I get to see that he's seriously the real deal and in that moment I secretly start to go 😳 over him as well. I also end up driving us out of there to safety and I pull off some pretty good maneuvers that I didn't even think I was capable of, so he gets to see that I'm not entirely powerless either and in a way I get to save his skin as much as he saved me 🥺💖

So, sorry if this is an abrupt ending BUT he gets me to safety to join up with Yelena and the other liberated Widows, who recruit me to help them in their mission of freeing all the Widows and I absolutely agree, but because of that very first mission where Alexei came to my rescue, we ended up really forming a bond and getting close with each other, pretty much because I'm the only one willing to listen to his crazy stories and I kind of love praising him up because he definitely shows his appreciation for that in return 🥺💖💖💖

[scrollll]

Nice^.^ but also: holy fucking shit, if you ever thought "nahhh, the basic raikantopeni talk about the warnings and adult themes is just stuff they need to say because of laws" yeah, with some series this may be the case but the trigger warnings of Playboyy... my sib from another crib, they are a CHECKLIST. I took them very lightly like, fr, every single one CAN'T happen, pffff, how dark can it really be?

Yeah. Yeah, no. I learned it the hard way. Everything they warn you about will happen. Also a lots of shit gets clearer the more you watch it, so don't be confused if a lot of stuff seems out of place, you get to know the hows and whys early enough.

But for real, take care and if you need someone to talk and rant about, the tag is filled with nice people, you can shout in the void and it will answer ^^

i need to start watching playboyy but i don't have the time to do so 😩😩😩

[sincerelyreidburke]

ben & cole plz for vday vignettes 💗

[AnythingForYouBeyoncé.gif]

ICYMI, I’m taking submissions to my ask box for Kiersey ships (either romance or friendships) to see in little Valentine’s Day snippets. Hit me up!

FYI: this isn’t really NSFW, but does feature Shirtless Ben Shaley trying to put the moves on, so read at your own risk.

february 14th | 5 years after (cole’s) graduation

When Cole wakes up on February 14th, the first problem is that Ben isn’t right next to him.

He rolls over, and grumbles a little, as his mostly-blind feeling around in the covers comes up short. He may have just woken up, but he knows a lack of Ben when he feels one. Pretty much the first thing he does every single morning is roll over and try to find Ben, and then complain when Ben has to get out of bed to go to work. Because Ben has, like, an actual adult job, and actual adult responsibilities. Cole guesses we can’t all be full-time musicians, but, like, still. A guy has needs. And his needs include at least a little bit of cuddle before the day starts.

So today, that’s an extra problem. Because Ben isn’t in bed at all. And it only takes him a minute or so after he wakes up to remember that it’s Valentine’s Day. So Ben should be here.

He sits up in bed. “B?” he calls— or at least tries to call, as he feels around on the nightstand for his glasses. His voice comes out kind of raspy, and when he finally gets his glasses, he clears his throat as he slides them on. Outside the bedroom’s window wall, it’s broad daylight in Providence. Shit. Cole may have slept in.

But that’s okay, right? Like, he has nothing to do today, and neither does Ben. It’s Saturday. They have today all to themselves.

Which is pretty cool. And would be even cooler if, like, Ben were actually in this room right now. “Ben?” he tries again, in a fuller voice this time, and smooths his hair out of his eyes. It’s getting long. Maybe too long. He’ll give it a good lopping off before tour, but that’s still three months away, so he might have to get a trim before then.

Still nothing, though, on the Ben front. He swings his legs off the side of their bed, which is a bad decision, because it’s kind of cold outside the comfort of the duvet. “Beeeen,” he tries, to no avail. He sighs, and gets up. He’s going to have to investigate.

He’s kind of sore from last night, and still cold, which is probably because he’s just wearing Ben’s boxers. He yanks a Kiersey Hockey sweatshirt out of the dresser, and puts on a pair of Nike socks before he braves the apartment beyond their bedroom. Pulling the drawstrings with the hood over his head, he’s a little more satisfied with the temperature, and he shuffles out into the kitchen— where he finds his answer.

Ben is awake, and out here, hard at work. Cole has to halt, as he takes in the sight of him. It’s not just that Ben is awake— he’s walking around the kitchen, putting stuff on a tray, like he’s getting breakfast ready. Cole’s box of Trix and a little carton of milk are sitting on it, plus a bowl, a glass of water, and a cloth napkin, for some reason. Then you add in Ben himself, who is currently dressed in only a pair of black joggers, with his hair down, and chest on full display, and, uh, well.

Cole might need a second to process.

“Oh, shit!” Ben cries, as he walks into the kitchen, and dashes in front of the breakfast tray like he wants to obstruct Cole’s view of it. “You’re up!”

Cole tucks his hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt, and does his best not to let the fact that Ben looks very very very (very) hot right now distract him. “Well, yeah, I’m up,” he says, and folds his arms before he adds, “You weren’t in bed, so I had to look for you.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” Ben replies, with a laugh. He cards through his own hair, and shakes it out a little. “I was trying to get breakfast to you before you got out of bed.”

“Oh.” Cole pauses, a second, and leans to the side, to look past him to the tray again. Ben moves like he’s going to block it again, then gives up. “You— were gonna bring me breakfast?” he asks, taking a few steps toward him.

“Well, yeah,” Ben says, and then laughs again, as if at himself. They meet in the middle of the kitchen. “But if you’d rather eat out here, that’s okay.”

Cole waits, as Ben stops in front of him, for just a breath— and then he can’t resist. He steps forward, winds his arms around his neck, and pulls him into a kiss— long, tender, and a very good way to say good morning. Ben responds in kind, and Cole takes a gentle handful of his hair.

When they come up for air, Cole smiles thinly at him. “Hi,” he mumbles.

“Hey.” Ben’s smile is so much to handle. Then again, Ben is so much to handle. Cole still has trouble believing he’s his, sometimes. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“You, too,” Cole replies, and gives him another kiss for good measure. This time, Ben slides a careful hand up under the sweatshirt, and his touch sends sparks through Cole’s body. This time, when they pause, he keeps his arms hooked around his neck, and asks him, “How long have you been up?”

“Not that long,” Ben assures him, and then— in one quick, effortless motion, lifts him clean off the ground, and sets him on the edge of the marble counter. Cole laughs, and holds on tight, for the duration. When he’s steady on the surface, Ben stands between his legs, and remarks, “It’s a big day for us, baby. It’s basically our anniversary.”

“Wrong,” Cole remarks, swinging one leg off the counter. “That’s next week.”

“Pffff, I said basically,” Ben replies, and Cole laughs. He guesses it’s kind of true. Their first kiss was a year ago today. It was a long, long time coming.

“Sorry I wasn’t in bed,” Ben adds. The smile on his face is just a little sly. Cole has grown very used to that smile, and knows what it means. “I realize now that I probably should’ve been.”

“You could come back to bed,” Cole offers, with a shrug and a cheeky smile.

Ben nods, and hums, as both his hands find their way under the sweatshirt. Cole returns the favor, except he doesn’t have to go under clothes to find bare skin on him. He traces the shoulder part of the sleeve of tattoos on Ben’s left arm.

Hot damn.

“I could do that,” Ben mutters, and kisses his neck just once, before he lifts his head to meet his eyes. Cole thinks he could write an entire song just about Ben’s eyes— so green, so full of life, and so pretty. He hates love songs, but maybe he should. Right now, there’s a question in them, but Ben says nothing.

Cole can play this game. He tips back on the counter, and raises both eyebrows. “You’re missing your window of opportunity.”

“Babe,” Ben laughs, and he presses forward to kiss him, long and intentional. Cole will never, never take this for granted— the known, famed king of casual, Ben Shaley, has been tied down. He is his. Cole gets to have this boy— and all of him, not just the sexy parts. He gets his dorky, his domestic, his stressed, his messy, his imperfect. Cole wouldn’t trade a single piece of Ben for the world.

Today, one year since they kissed for the first time, Ben is Cole’s Valentine. And that is the best way Cole could possibly want to spend his Saturday.

He can even forgive him for waking up alone.

[one-piece-dumpster-fire]

So like I have a few ideas for Oc's that I'll prolly never develop but like I also like them so now u gotta read about it... unless you stop, that is, which is cool, I ain't gonna make u read shit

1. So like gonna be a basic bitch and have that canon sibling thing. So like Gerdaline is a big ol girl. Like. Gigantic, mostly because she's a giant. And as it turns out, good ol Gramps decided to yeet her on the bandits and basically she grew up with ASL untill, of course as demaned by angst, she gets kidnapped. She frees herself but is too far from home to go back, so she just, chills, I guess, joins a crew n shit until one day she just appears outta fuck all and kicks, literally kicks Akainu away from her bros. Happy reunion!

Amd these two were legit made from one off jokes n ideas

2. Raisin gets married! Yay! Said wifey has some whack ass powers that knock out Mama every time she gets angry. V useful, they live a long n happy life with many smooches n a dog called Yapper

3. The only idea I have for her is that Wire's cremates just beg him not to piss off his gf after she just demolished an army of enemies with just a touch of her hand and a throw. Wire is looking respectfully

That's it, that's all there's to em, now I shall dissappear into the night and never be heard from again, making people wonder if I ever existed in the first place, only to strike again years later

'Course I'm gonna read it like I always say I'm excited to see what OC's other people cook up👀🙏🏻

A giant named Geraldine sounds incredibly friendly and wholesome ngl. And I've seen many ASL sister OC's but I don't think there was ever a giant among them?!?!?! Lmao she probably could have kicked all their asses as kids🤣 While struggling with 'simple' stuff like hiding or running away because she's so big that enemies can spot her from far away? Lmao imagine a giant girl crouching after ASL to avoid being detected, or ripping out a whole tree to hide behind pffff

Wait what number 2 got ass powers that knock out Big Mom- hold up you're not saying,,,, no way,,, fart devil fruit awufnwqlsöslwmwn-?!?!

And a kickass girlfriend for Wire!!! Hell yeah! Of course he's only looking respectfully I would too with such a kickass gf by my side huhu XD

Altogether your OC's sound real fun, thanks for sharing them with us^^!!!

[abundantchewtoys]

HS^2 Bonus: The Influencers, Part 2

Time to read another bonus page!

Ooh, cool, the page has been organized a little better. Just like the adventures on homestuck.com, each bonus storyline now has it's own icon! I assume none will run too long for there to be a need for separate "plot" pages.

And it's The Influencers Part Two, next!

I assume they'll all choose to leave and not support the cover-up story that the school principal wants them to endorse.

But then what? I don't think the rebellion has a PR department they could join up with. Then again, maybe they can found it! :D And try turning public opinion around with it.

I mean, they're The Influencers, are they not? :P

Heheh, so the overview page is visible even for non-patreons. Well, it's good for giving them an idea of the subject matter AND an idea of how big one part of a story is.

> Page 12

Right, rereading page 10 reminded me how the kids didn't use the same text & clothes colour. In Homestuck, that's pretty dang confusing. :P

Let's see now, what will they do?

> Page 13

Well, those lines by Imode was at least more legible than when they flew off the handle there on page 10. :P

> Page 15

Hah, so okay, they all choose to fly. And like Teacher said, just in the nick of time.

> Page 16

Is that smoke from Vriska's escapades near Harry's house? Just how long were they held in that office? :P

And of course Crocker-controlled police and/or news agencies fly red helicopters. Unless those are (the human type of) drones, of course.

> Page 17

So Avril's a triathlete. Wonder what other hidden depths & skills the trio might have. Pffff, that bit about them being NPCs. True, but meta.

And Silas stopped catching her breath to check her phone, hahahahahah.

> Page 18

Nice, I don't think we saw John arriving at the tower in the main storyline. Pffff, nice to get this outsider perspective (literally and figuratively) on him and the lore about him on Earth. #wherearetheynow

So.... Did the trio get up there and link up with the other kids? Or did John send them off? Or were they not on time to do anything?

... What if they're able to help them escape from Jane's troops, "influencing" the plot in the process, but no-one on either side knew about it?

> Page 19

Either that tower is smaller than I would have thought, or that is a really big pasture. :P

Now Avril is feeling the pull of relevance too! Let's see how it takes for Silas.

> Page 20

Hahah! Their relevance to the plot will amount to unlocking the door for Harry & the rest! Feeling kind of bad for Imode though, if she really didn't link up with her friend Harry afterwards...

> Page 21

Hah, so yeah, a lot of stuff in the kingdom is probably alchemized, and therefore there's a lot of carbon copies of everything. Including locks.

At least, that's how I explain what Avril says here. :P He basically has a master key to public maintenance infrastructure.

> Page 22

Pffff. Mission complete. Time for them to merge back into obscurity. Basically, this whole story was made to fill what people might have considered a plothole.

That's some Star Wars Legends-level kind of story right there.

> Page 23

Oooh! So this is the end of this part but NOT the end of the storyline. A bit surprised if I'm honest. :P

[totaldramafan-lauri]

Make room for....squid-shrooms? I dunno....

It was painful, but I chose to skip out on my first Saturday K.K concert to play Splatfest instead....Just my luck that I unlocked him THIS WEEK of all weeks....XD

Well, first of all, my new Pro Controller? I can’t use it.....I’m an idiot and didn’t look stuff up before asking for one, so I had no idea that you needed your Switch to be docked to use a Pro Controller! And we already know that I CAN’T DOCK cuz my TV’s too old! So I’ll need to get a new TV, or.....this cool discontinued Spla2n controller will just sit there looking pretty, pffff....

But on to the Splatfest!

So far so good! I’m playing a LOT better than I expected to after so long! I played for two rotations, and I got to play on stages I really like (Camp Triggerfish and Blackbelly Skatepark, two stages I haven’t played on in AGES)! There were bad games still, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve also had some pretty good games. I like how the Shifty Station rotates like the other stages do, unlike the repeat fests that only use one. The ones I got were.....sorry, I forget their names.....but the one with the bounce pads, and unfortunately, the one with the containments (it’s not a bad stage, I just say “unfortunately” because it’s arguably the worst Station to snipe at, unless I’m forgetting one)

....Oh yeah, I never said what team I’m on, didn’t I? Uh, sorry....

I’m on Team Super Mushroom. This was a last-minute decision for me. As someone who’s pretty indifferent to the main Mario series and doesn’t play any of it, I basically asked a friend of mine what team he’s on. XD His case was that Super Stars have a timer while Mushrooms stick around for as long as you don’t get hit. And....yeah, I’ll take that. Stars are definitely flashier though, so I’m not surprised at all that I’ve yet to have a mirror match.

I’ll try to be back later to reach Queen!

[garden-ghoul]

This week on Overground: Evil City we find out what a union station actually is, hammer out some of the material impacts of the Evil City, name the worst subway line in existence, and, uh, assassinate some labor rights activists. Episode is 53 minutes, sorry, we have cannot shut up disease. Transcript below the cut!

GHOUL: Okay, we are rec-ording.

VERA: Yahaa.

GHOUL: Let’s do our welcome.

VERA: Nyee.

GHOUL: I’m from Boston.

VERA: And I’m from Newark.

BOTH: Welcome…

GHOUL: …to the Overground.

VERA: [at the same time] …to the Evil City. [wheezes]

GHOUL: No, we’ll keep that.

[Theme plays: ‘Bolt Cutter’ by Doomtree]

GHOUL: Aaaall right. So, last time we made one TRULY horrible subway line, [Vera laughing] which is bad, very, very bad. And properly should be two separate subway lines, but isn’t.

VERA: Mhm!

GHOUL: And the trains, you know, are each other. And we added a couple of subway stops too. As is our…

VERA: [with relish] Municipal Intersection.

GHOUL: Ahh! Municipal Intersection.

VERA: Not named for an intersection of streets.

GHOUL: But an intersection of buildings.

VERA: Horrible.

GHOUL: And… as is our custom, we were thinking about, but not actually creating content for, this evil city, you know, out of respect for the listeners. So Vera actually wrote down in their notes some questions that we’re going to consider today.

VERA: I did.

GHOUL: So, what order do you want to do these questions in?

VERA: I can just read all of them out. …That’s stupid.

GHOUL: Pick one that’s cool. Yeah, don’t read all of them out at once. Overwhelm the listeners.

VERA: [softly, sinisterly] Yeess.

GHOUL: Oh, I do think first we should place Union Station, and we should talk about what happened to the union railroad.

VERA: Yeeeeeesssssss. Yes.

GHOUL: We might need another rail line. Would you like to draw it?

VERA: I think it would be fun if it was like [awful creaking noise that indicates Vera is drawing a line, probably northward from downtown]. I don’t know. Maybe just [shorter awful creaking noise that probably indicates the line is shorter]. That’s kind of dumb. I don’t know.

GHOUL: Partially make it stupid, but also think about where it would be useful to have rail lines, and where there’s a lot of high density of stuff.

VERA: Uhh, what were we saying were places that stuff was? We’ve got… downtown… we’ve got… the Silver City over there. [presumably the Palisades]

GHOUL: Here we have refineries and industry.

VERA: And…

GHOUL: Where was the place where all the railroads met up?

VERA: You’d think that freight rail would have a lot of stuff in the industrial sector, and passenger rail might be downtown.

GHOUL: I assume the passenger rail goes along the coast. Obviously there’s also something upriver, but. You know.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: I mean, upriver I would assume there’s mountains and I would assume there’s mines, because that’s how rivers work. But maybe that’s just me being partially from the mountains.

VERA: Aaah.

GHOUL: Railroad bridges!!

VERA: Huhuhuhuhuu.

GHOUL: This is the city of bridges.

VERA: Yeah, it has so many fucking stupid bridges. I kind of want to notate some of them.

GHOUL: Oh, yeah, sure.

VERA: Obviously we’ve got bridges there and there… [pointing out two of the five bridges already on the map]

GHOUL: And one at 9th Crossing Boulevard.

VERA: There and there…

GHOUL: …3, 4, 5… so we need… at least three more…

VERA: At least four… Yeah, and then I’m not sure all of these are ‘crossings.’

GHOUL: Right, some of them are just bridges. [laughs]

VERA: Like that one?

GHOUL: What, Nusquam Street Bridge?

VERA: Clearly it’s called Nusquam Street Bridge, not, I don’t know, Third Crossing or whatever. So.

GHOUL: Hang on, is this over here [the bridge north of Municipal Intersection] the First Crossing?

VERA: Hmmm.

GHOUL: Or is there one even further downriver that’s really annoying when steamships try to come into harbor?

VERA: Yes. Yes! This is Evil City, and it’s very stupid.

GHOUL: Do you call those trestle bridges, the ones that can rise up? [looks it up and cuts the audio lol] Okay, the thing we’re thinking of is a bascule bridge.

VERA: Sometimes referred to as a drawbridge. Okay.

GHOUL: So I think First Crossing should be a drawbridge. And they have to stop traffic so often because ships are always trying to come into the harbor between 1st and 2nd Crossings. [laughing]

VERA: Ahh, that’s so stupid. I love it.

GHOUL: Also, where… union stations are generally a little ways out of downtown, right?

VERA: Mmmm. [again, but in the intonation of ‘I dunno’] Mmmm. I don’t know because there isn’t one in Newark. There is just Penn Station and Broad Street Station.

GHOUL: Where am I thinking of…? Worcester! I don’t think there’s one in Boston either, but there’s one in Worcester.

VERA: Hm. And it’s a little ways out of downtown?

GHOUL: No, Union Station actually is downtown because it’s where you come into if… it’s like the hub for passenger trains.

VERA: Yeah. That’s kind of what I figured it would be. So, yeah, okay.

GHOUL: You know, South Station Boston might actually be a union station, but there’s two of them so they had to call them North and South Station instead of Union Station. I… probably should look that up.

[looks it up]

GHOUL: A union—! A union station is not a station built by a union railroad company, it’s a union of railroads. Did you know that and you didn’t tell me?

VERA: I didn’t know it, but now that you say it it makes a lot of sense.

GHOUL: Ohhh, my gosh. Okay, in that case, what that means is we have to postulate the existence of a bunch of local railroads from the 1800s or whatever that all unionized at Union Station. Which would basically just be somewhere that three or four different railroads would all want to go. Which would probably be downtown.

VERA: Yeah. I do feel like maybe we should just move Municipal Intersection a ways down one of the lines and have that spot…

GHOUL: Or we could just make more horrible intersections of different lines.

VERA: That’s a much better plan, you’re so right.

GHOUL: I was thinking we could put Union Station just north of Municipal Intersection on the north side of the river.

VERA: Mm.

GHOUL: And then have another line going through there.

VERA: Yeah, yeah, sure.

GHOUL: The problem is there’s nowhere non-stupid for this line to go, so it has to go somewhere stupid.

VERA: [sarcastically] Oh nooo.

GHOUL: I was just thinking of a drawbridge that sometimes has a train on it, and going insane.

VERA: Oh, that’s so stupid.

GHOUL: But I think it goes under the river there. [at 1st Crossing] It’s okay. [laughs]

VERA: You know, that’s extra funny, because that’s like ‘yeah, we bored a tunnel for the rail but cars can’t use it, they still have to go over the stupid drawbridge.

GHOUL: Yeah! Does it intersect with the green line again, or does it… it’s possible that the terminus of the green line is just another stop on this. Soon it’s going to be time to tape another couple pieces of paper on the bottom.

VERA: You know, maybe we should do that now.

GHOUL: Sure.

GHOUL: Hi, we’re back. We taped two more pieces of paper and doubled the size of the map. I… [laughing] I think that we should make the green line from the Palisades go down to a beach.

VERA: You’re right.

GHOUL: ‘Cause that’d be just fucking typical.

VERA: You’re so right. Eugh. [sarcastically soft and sweet voice—henceforth ‘rich person voice’] The fucking Coastal Line.

GHOUL: Eeuugh.

VERA: [continued rich person voice] Isn’t it beautiful?

GHOUL: And in fact it is. What’s the beach called? What’s a good terminus name, because this is going to be Palisades to Something Beach or whatever. Um, it could be named after a town that was down there, and now it’s part of the Evil City but it used to be a town.

VERA: I just keep thinking ‘Bramble.’ See, Bramble Beach is like, mm, that’s a good beach, but it’s not the kind of beach that rich people love to go to.

GHOUL: Although if a town was fucking brambly it could be called Bramble Hill or something.

VERA: Mm. Brambling Hill?

GHOUL: Brambling Hill. [both crack up] That’s too Rich People. Sorry, did rich people found this town actually? They want to live out of town, but close enough that they can drive there in a carriage.

VERA: Right. [rich person voice] ‘And I want a seaside view…’

GHOUL:  [likewise rich person voice] ‘Like they have at the Palisaades, darling.’

VERA: [lol] Now imagine… [train driver PA announcement voice] Coastline… Palisades to Brambling Hill.

GHOUL: Is it Brambling Hill or Brambling Hill Beach?

VERA: Brambling Hill.

GHOUL: Maybe the stop north of Brambling Hill is Brambling Hill Beach.

VERA: Oh, that’s bad, I love it. Yes. …Oh, I was also thinking that the orange line could have some stupid branch thing going on.

GHOUL: YEAH stupid branches baybeeee!

VERA: [laughing] Yeah, I know, you’re from Boston.

GHOUL: [pffff] All right, would you like to draw a stupid branch of the orange line?

VERA: Yes.

GHOUL: Well, we can… we should mix our systems here. We should also have one that, downtown it’s the same fucking train and for most of it it’s the same fucking train, but they’re still called two different lines.

VERA: [very softly] Yes. [Ghoul chuckling wickedly] YES. The worst of both worlds.

GHOUL: The worst of both worlds. …Mmm. Vera is drawing a highly stupid kind of hook-shaped nonsense. This subway line thinks it’s the river.

VERA: [hmhm laugh]

GHOUL: And I will be clear, on a map there is no reason for it to look like this. We’re not drawing a map that is to scale. [laughing] Aahh I really like that one of the branches is super long and awful and the other one has three stops on it.

VERA: Mhm! Mhm!

GHOUL: Okay, okay, now we have a plan, what are the lines that are—is there a line that’s almost exactly the same as the long orange line but it’s a different color?

VERA: Mmmyes. [Ghoul laughing] Yeah, goes that way at the end. [don’t know what way this is because we didn’t keep this] Also, is it part of the heretofore-unnamed-and-colored line that’s at Union Station or…

GHOUL: When you say part of… hang on, does it go like this? [outlines the monstrously stupid yellow line loop that crosses both 1st and 2nd Crossings]

[a beat, and then both start laughing like loons]

GHOUL: Oh, that’s bad, baby.

VERA: Oh, that’s so dumb.

GHOUL: It takes a small detour to serve this area up here. [weird yellow shark fin thing in south Evil City]

VERA: Mhm. Oh, I love it.

GHOUL: [laughing while trying to talk] What if they have the same terminus too!!

VERA: Ehh! Yes!

GHOUL: Where’s the other terminus.

VERA: Hmm. Hmmmmm. [‘here?’ intonation] Mm?

GHOUL: [wheezingly] Also a stop on the orange line.

VERA: Is that too much?

GHOUL: Evil City!

[both laughing]

VERA: Ah, I love it.

GHOUL: But it’s the terminus, so if you get this train it’s not going to go on.

VERA: No.

GHOUL: Right.

VERA: No. Also, you can’t transfer for free.

GHOUL: No. Obviously not.

VERA: They’re going in different directions! You have to cross the platform!

GHOUL: Fuck. That’s true. And you think it’s like, oh, X Station to Y Station, yeah, there’s track between those stations. Nooooo. You have to go around the loooong wayyy. [laughing]

VERA: Uh-huhhhh.

GHOUL: All right, so now we have the yellow line, which goes south and is mostly the same as the southern 2/3 of the orange line.

VERA: However, Worse.

GHOUL: Mhmmm [chef’s kiss].

VERA: Oh, this is great. Folks, you love to see it.

GHOUL: We love to draw it.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: Um, I want to name the termini of the yellow line.

VERA: [heheheehee] Yeahhh. Yeah. Yeah. Same.

GHOUL: Also, I think at this stop [probably the western end of the orange line from before we drew the extension] you can transfer to a commuter rail, but you know, it’s a different… oh, my gosh, have you seen… there’s this really stupid part of the Red Line in Boston.

VERA: Oh, I have not.

GHOUL: [laughing] I need to show it to you. [typing as ghoul looks up a map] Okay, you see down here, so Ashmont is actually the terminus of this line. You say, ‘going to Ashmont/Braintree.’ Right.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: But! There is more Red Line after that that goes to Mattapan! [almost incoherent with laughter] You just have to transfer!

VERA: Oh, that’s so dumb.

GHOUL: Also, see, between Park Street and Downtown Crossing you can just walk there. So it’s a different station but you can walk to it. Ashmont is just two stations and you have to walk between them and the trains don’t go there! [nearly weeping with laughter] That’s some Evil City bullshit right there, Boston.

[editor’s note: having looked this up since then, I THINK you can just take the lift up one level to catch the Mattapan Trolley, like a normal transfer between lines. But it’s still pretty funny. The Mattapan Trolley is a tiny little one-car orange trolley and it’s the cutest thing.]

VERA: Mmm. Oh, that’s delightful. That’s delightful, thank you. Thank you for showing me things about Boston that are dumb. I love to see them. I told you about things in New York that were dumb last session, so.

GHOUL: Yes. So that’s what I’m proposing we do with one of the lines on here. I think either the red line or the stupid little nub of the orange line.

VERA: Mmm. Mm. They both have extreme merits. I feel like the red line is already just soo stupid. Like it kind of stands on its own.

GHOUL: [laughing] All right. We’ll do the orange line, then. But it’s also quite short after that.

VERA: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

GHOUL: So it’s like,

VERA: Still extremely useless. …uh, so.

GHOUL: We really need to name some more termini, my friend.

VERA: Yes, we have got to. We’re just drawing lines willy-nilly like ‘Oh! We never have to do anything that’s not this!’

GHOUL: Yellow/orange terminus. What’s down here?

VERA: Mmm. I feel like down there is a city that’s really kind of a city in its own right but it is…

GHOUL: It’s still very much part of the Evil City Metro Area.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: Because there’s a subway that goes right downtown to there.

VERA: Right. It does have its own downtown, but…

GHOUL: But we scoff at it like we scoff at Worcester.

VERA: [laughs] You scoff at Worcester, I don’t know enough about Worcester to scoff at it.

GHOUL: One day you’ll scoff.

[both laughing]

GHOUL: Right, and I think it’s a former industrial city that was just founded to have a place to put the foundries or whatever. But now… if it weren’t part of the Evil City Metro commuter radius… You know how they’re trying to rebrand Durham as hip and happening?

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: So they’re trying to rebrand themselves as hip and happening, but everyone’s just like ‘Oh, that’s in Evil City, right? That’s like, a neighhborhood in Evil City.’ ‘Nooo! We’re our own city!’

GHOUL: Um, and… what is that city called.

VERA: Hmm. Okay. So, it was founded for industrial reasons.

GHOUL: Yeah.

VERA: Horrible, horrible, horrible.

GHOUL: What are some suburbs of Newark called? [Vera hesitates] If you don’t know any suburbs—if you like Newark so much, name 5 of their suburbs.

VERA: Well, Belleville and Bloomfield…

GHOUL: What the fuck, stop naming things pretty names!

VERA: Nutley, Montclair… Maplewood… Orange, South Orange, um, West Orange, [audibly smiling] East Orange, no North Orange.

GHOUL: [whispered] Stupid.

VERA: Yeah! I don’t know, the thing is that I do feel like even cities that are just founded to be horrible garbage dumps … [ghoul laughing] Like, they don’t name them Horrible Garbage Dump #1, Horrible Garbage Dump #2.

GHOUL: Well, maybe they do in the Evil City! [both laughing] No, we should strive for realism.

VERA: Realism in all things… except… what our subway maps look like.

GHOUL: It’s… it’s called… fucking Blossomtown or some shit. But it’s also based around an iron foundry.

VERA: Something less dumb.

GHOUL: Oh my gosh, the people from this town really hate that Evil City used to have the nickname Silver City, because it actually came from the really, really nice steel products that this iron foundry put out. [Vera laughing delightedly] And they’re like ‘No, Evil City didn’t make those! We made them! We’re not part of Evil City! They can’t just have their name based on our products!’ But they did.

VERA: They diiid.

GHOUL: I want to call it Birchbrake for some reason.

VERA: Hm, I like it.

GHOUL: All right, we’re calling it Birchbrake.

VERA: I also like that it’s called Birchbrake when I feel like birch is one of the worst possible things to make a firebrake out of? On account of it’s wildly flammable?

GHOUL: Maybe it’s a brake for the birches, so that you surround the birches with a firebrake. But it’s actually not named after that, it’s named after a guy named Birchbrake.

VERA: Ahh. Typical.

GHOUL: All right. So we know that Birchbrake is famous for—I mean, it’s famous for being a suburb of the Evil City—but it’s famous for its iron foundry and its really cool—I think they actually do steel jewelry and it got really popular at some point.

VERA: Mmm, I like that, I like that. Uh, want to name some other stupid bullshit.

GHOUL: Yeah! Yeah, baby!

VERA: How about the other yellow line terminus, which is also just…

GHOUL: A normal stop on the yellow line.

VERA: And a normal stop on the orange line.

GHOUL: Okay, so what’s there?

VERA: So far we’ve got some real industrial areas up north by the river and down south by Birchbrake.

GHOUL: I imagine that between those two things there is or used to be a lot of woods.

VERA: Yeah. Right, it’s probably pretty… well, I don’t know, it’s in the city really, still. The thing is that I’m still thinking a bit… I still have the subway/commuter rail distinction very… in my head, which is probably not true?

GHOUL: Right, in fact large parts of the Green Line in Boston are aboveground. Most of the Green Line is aboveground.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: So it really is more of a commuter rail, but here’s the key thing. It doesn’t cost as much as the commuter rail.

VERA: Ha-ha! Yeees! I definitely have that distinction a lot clearer in my head, ‘cause when you transfer from the commuter rail into New York City to the New York City subway it’s like, these are two very different experiences.

GHOUL: Right, right, I do… the thing that I like about the Newark Metro Area’s public transportation and rail system is that it’s still a patchwork of several different systems.

VERA: Yeah, it really is.

GHOUL: Right, you’ve got PATH, you’ve got the actual metro, you’ve got Long Island Rail Road, there’s a bunch of shit.

VERA: You’ve got NJ Transit Rail, which is the one I would actually take into the city if I wasn’t taking PATH.

GHOUL: Yeah, that’s like four fucking railroads. Do they all appear on the same map?

VERA: No.

GHOUL: Because they’re run by different companies.

VERA: Right, also they operate on extremely different scales.

GHOUL: Hm. But would you, on a map of the New York City Metro, just mark stations where you can transfer to any of the three or four other railroads?

VERA: Yeah. Yeah, you definitely would be like ‘Yeah these are some PATH transfer stops…’ Grand Central you can take the LIRR… Penn Station I think could take the LIRR or NJ Transit.

GHOUL: I like how it sounds like ‘Lear.’ The point is that we were trying to figure out what is between Birchbrake and the Evil City proper. And we were saying it used to be all forest but now it’s probably towns. I think it’s good if there’s just small stands of trees still and they just have them? But there’s sort of a weird town soup also.

VERA: Yeah!

GHOUL: There should be a place where there’s still a patch of forest and it’s really dense and tangly and impossible to walk through and just no-one’s bothered to cut it down because it’s in a weird place between town boundaries and nobody actually wants to claim it because it’s going to be a whole bunch of work to actually develop that… So it’s just not part of town and it’s a weird little patch of forest that’s not part of a town.

VERA: Mhm. Although also I am kind of finding it difficult to conceptualize that this whole area has not been clearcut several times in the past hundred years.

GHOUL: But the thing is, it’s like three acres though.

VERA: Yeah—maybe it’s also kind of down a ravine or something?

GHOUL: Yeah, yeah, it’s three acres, it’s in a ravine, no-one wants to try to develop that. Someone—they tried to cut it for fuel a while back but people kept getting lost in there. [Vera laughing] Small but incredibly dense.

VERA: [happily] Mm. A little forest that eats people!

GHOUL: [likewise happily and sweetly] A little forest that eats people!

VERA: In the middle of a big old city that eats people.

GHOUL: It’s perfect.

VERA: I love it now.

GHOUL: People found towns 1) as a place to live, or 2) as a place to make stuff.

VERA: You know, maybe it was agricultural.

GHOUL: [smiling] Agriculture! Aw! Right, and they did clearcut a whole bunch of forest and it was fucked up.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: And the forest got really angry at them.

VERA: Mhm. [reading end of storybook to 4-year-olds voice] And now there’s just one little bit of forest!

GHOUL: That really hates them~~!

VERA: And it will eat you if you go in there.

GHOUL: Right, it condensed all the anger of an entire forest that got clearcut into one extremely tiny three-acre plot in a ravine.

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: There’s a huge chain link fence around that forest with barbed wire on top, because everyone who fucking goes in there vanishes!

VERA: [pfft!] Aaah.

GHOUL: [laughing] And they’re just not dealing with it! …Um, okay, so, agricultural town. What if we invent a stupid name and then tweak it until it’s less stupid?

[editor’s note: there was a WHOLE diversion here about the town called Crowsfield near Anisport and corvids playing chess, which I have omitted for everyone’s sanity. Just trust me that this next thing does not come from nowhere.]

GHOUL: All right, it’s called Bishop. —Wait, do we want to postulate the existence of Christians? I’m not sure about that.

VERA: Right, yeah.

GHOUL: We name it after a different chess piece… not rook. It could just be called Castle, though. A town that’s called Castle inexplicably is pretty good. They founded it as a small homesteading town, right, and they just named it Castle.

VERA: Kind of as a joke.

GHOUL: Kind of as a joke. But then it stuck.

VERA: Yeahh. And people are like ‘Okay, where’s the fucking castle?’ [through gritted teeth] ‘It was a jo~oke.’

GHOUL: They had to build a castle. But it fucking sucks and it’s a casino.

[both cracking up]

VERA: [lovingly] Oh, of course it sucks and it’s a casino. There we go, thank you.

GHOUL: Yeah! [laughing] Um, I do want it to have some stupid bullshit like, ‘This is Castle, it’s the smallest one, then there’s North Castle, West Castle, South Castle.’

VERA: [adoring sigh] I like this.

GHOUL: Which is the main one? Like, if you say you’re going to Castle, people are like, ‘Oh you mean North Castle?’. Or…

VERA: West…

GHOUL: West Castle.

VERA: Yes.

[pen uncapping noise, scribbling sounds]

VERA: West Castle to Birchbrake…

GHOUL: Yeah, and then we have, Ninth Crossing to Birchbrake. Hang on. Which… direction… is the orange branch a branch of. Is it a—like, can you get there [Valentine Institute] from Birchbrake or can you get there from Ninth Crossing.

VERA: Um…

GHOUL: Or! Is that the parent branch. And you can get both of those places but you can’t get—[laughing]

VERA: Oh… Yeeees.

GHOUL: [while still laughing] Like, if you want to—

VERA: That tiny little three stop line is the parent line.

GHOUL: And if you want to get from Birchbrake to Ninth Crossing, you have to transfer. At this stop that’s just southwest of Linden.

VERA: Delightful.

GHOUL: And obviously, you have to pay another fare.

VERA: Obviously.

GHOUL: Unless you go all the way of the orange line. So, it’s such a short thing that most people just do that usually.

VERA: Yes.

GHOUL: That’s the only station where you don’t have to pay to transfer from the south orange line to the north orange line. [laughing again]

VERA: Ahhh… [ghoul still laughing] Folks… you love to see it.

GHOUL: Alright. I wanna name the terminus and the transfer station. ‘Cause that’s some good bad bullshit.

VERA: Mhm. Mhm.

GHOUL: I think… It’s quite possible that what’s down here [spoilers: Valentine Institute] is actually suburb?

VERA: Yeah. —Oh! There’s got to be some universities somewhere.

GHOUL: Oooo! It would be highly stupid and cute if that were a university. You just like—to transfer from one half of the station to the other, you have to actually walk through some of the tunnels that like, belong to the university? Because the branch was built after the university, and like, they couldn’t—they couldn’t actually get permission to build through the university’s underground space. So they just have people walk through the existing tunnels under the university.

VERA: [sharp inhale] Yes. [ghoul starts laughing] It is a free transfer though.

GHOUL: [still cracking up] It is a free transfer though!

VERA: The only one!

GHOUL: There are some other free transfers.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: It’s just like, half and half and you never know if it’s going to be free or not? So sometimes if you’re planning an unfamilar route you just have to like, google how many transfers you’re going to have to make, and whether they’ll be free?

VERA: Mhm.

GHOUL: So that you know how much money to put on your fare card.

VERA: Mhm, mhm. Because of course half the fare machines don’t work.

GHOUL: Of course! I mean, a lot of stations just don’t have fare machines, also.

VERA: Yes.

GHOUL: Or! Here’s the thing: if you want to use the fare machine in a station, you have to go out, use the fare machine, and then come back in, paying a fare. Which is how it is, in fact.

VERA: Yes…

GHOUL: Like, there’s never fare machines in the station past the turnstiles. You have to leave the station to use the fare machine.

VERA: Of course…

GHOUL: A lot of the transfer stations that aren’t free just don’t have fare machines.

VERA: Yeah. [ghoul starts laughing] What a garbage fucking city…

GHOUL: Charlie Off The MTA.

[both cry-laughing fondly]

GHOUL: Okay, what’s the university called.

VERA: Um…

GHOUL: Is it named after a town, or does it have, some kind of like, stupid, like you know how some universities are named after like, allegories or some shit?

VERA: Mm.

GHOUL: Like, The University of the Incarnate Word. Right?

VERA: Christ.

GHOUL: That’s in San Antonio.

VERA: Mmm, normal.

GHOUL: [laughing] I know, right? Like, what does that fucking mean? It sounds cool as shit, but I love a university with a dumb allegory name.

VERA: Right. Um. I mean, that’s definitely a Christian university.

GHOUL: Right. But like, you could—or like, from Night Vale, the University of What It Is?

VERA: Good.

GHOUL: It doesn’t have to be an allegory, it could just be named after a town.

VERA: Right, see, you know the college I went to was called the New Jersey Institute of Technology, which is—

GHOUL: That’s normal.

VERA: Just the normalest possible name.

GHOUL: Right. But we haven’t named the Evil City, or the ?state? it’s ?in?. So, we can’t really do that, we’d have to name it after a town.

VERA: Right, and we don’t want to do that. Um… Hmmm…

GHOUL: It could be named after a person, but then we’d have to make a person.

VERA: I mean, we could come up with some other fucking… stupid-ass old rich families that suck.

GHOUL: [emphatically] Mm!

VERA: See, that’s the one thing we can name.

GHOUL: The Valentines.

VERA: [snorts] Are you perhaps thinking of the Ballantines? From Newark?

GHOUL: Yeah, no that’s why I said that.

VERA: Oh okay.

GHOUL: I was trying to disguise it!

VERA: Ah! Valentine University… Oh, we were also tossing around other…

GHOUL: Valentine Institute of Science and Technology… VIST… Wait, what if it’s the Valentine Institute of Science Technology and Arts and everyone calls it VISTA.

VERA: Well, okay! There we go.

GHOUL: Is the stop. Called VISTA. Or is it called Valentine Institute of Science Technology and Arts. Or is it just called Valentine.

VERA: Or is it called Valentine Institute.

GHOUL: Valentine Institute.

VERA: Imagine you’re looking at a subway map. Which looks weird and eviller: VISTA, all caps, or Valentine Institute.

GHOUL: I think, it’s not called VISTA because that’s what people call it in colloquial speech.

VERA: Mmhm.

GHOUL: So if someone was like, ‘Oh, yeah, you just have to take the train down to VISTA and transfer to the nub line or whatever,’ and you’re like, ‘There’s not a stop called that…?’

VERA: Right, and you try to ask someone else on the train and they’re like, ‘Just get off at VISTA.’

GHOUL: And you’re just like ‘what???’ You would think that people would call this stop Valentine, but they don’t.

VERA: No, they call it VISTA.

GHOUL: It’s not like they’re looking at the subway map,

VERA: No.

GHOUL: and nicknaming the subway stops from that.

VERA: No.

GHOUL: Alright, wonderful. So we have Ninth Crossing to Valentine Institute, and Valentine Institute to Birchbrake. [Vera laughs a bit] That’s some good shit.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: What’s the nub terminus?

VERA: Hm. Let’s see. It’s in the bend of the river, or the, not the bend, the,

GHOUL: Yeah.

VERA: the bit.

GHOUL: We could definitely have a stop called Riverbend that’s like, not the terminus but it’s in there.

VERA: Oh, yeah. [snorts] I mean, we could have like seven stops named Riverbend. The river just keeps bending.

GHOUL: [overlapping] Right, and that’s why it’s funny that there’s only one stop named Riverbend, they had to fight for it. [Vera laughs] Or, we put the one stop named Riverbend in a place the river doesn’t bend. I was thinking like, out here. [at the bottom of the orange/yellow lines]

VERA: Oh, good. [ghoul laughing] You know, another thing that’s stupid about the red line? Is that it doesn’t go through Union Station.

GHOUL: Yeah, that is stupid.

VERA: Mmhm.

GHOUL: I mean, to be fair, Municipal Intersection is also a very major transfer station. But, I think this maybe implies that the red line, was like, not owned by one of the railroad companies that, you know, made the union.

VERA: Mm.

GHOUL: It was owned by a separate railroad company that refused to join the union. Or, I don’t fucking know how the metro works.

VERA: [giggle cackle thing]

GHOUL: Whatever.

VERA: Yeah, I’ve definitely read about the formation of the MTA from however many companies used to own different parts of the subway in New York City, but—

GHOUL: Okay, so, it did not start off as, the subway was a government owned thing.

VERA: No.

GHOUL: Okay, great, perfect. So the red line was just owned by a company that refused to join the union, and may in fact still be a different company? And they have a slightly different fare?

VERA: I mean, slightly different fare is one thing, the same fare but a different fare card is another thing.

GHOUL: [gleeful] Yessssss! You do have to have two different fare cards if you want to transfer onto the red line.

VERA: [blissfully] Ah, that’s so stupid.

GHOUL: Also, this means we can reasonably put more stupid branches on the red line, because like, it’s a whole subway system.

VERA: Mmhm, mmhm! Oh good. Well, we need to do that. Obviously, we’re going to do that.

GHOUL: Right, and like, at any point when you transfer from the red line to another line, you cannot transfer for free, because, you—they’re—you pay the fares with different cards! [wheezes quietly]

VERA: Right!

GHOUL: Often they’re not, like, on the map they’ll be the same station, but you do actually have to walk from, like there’s this stupid little corridor.

VERA: Mmhm,

GHOUL: Where you have to walk from one station to another.

VERA: Mmhm. Yeah, there’s this stupid little corridor and it goes kind of halfway through a building…

GHOUL: Halfway through a building?

VERA: There’s this one, um, stop I’m thinking about in New York City where, I think—it was the way you got from the 6 to the E?

GHOUL: Sure.

VERA: Um, and I don’t remember exactly what was going on there, but I do remember, getting off the 6, and, having to go over to one side of the platform, not out of the gates, but instead, down an escalator,

GHOUL: Okay,

VERA: Like, through, like this ground floor bit of, or maybe, maybe, even deeper, I don’t…

GHOUL: So, you went down an escalator to the ground floor, is this an elevated train?

VERA: No, not at ground floor, I guess, then—

GHOUL: The basement.

VERA: To the basement of a building, [ghoul laughing] over a bit, up some stairs?

GHOUL: In the building.

VERA: In the building. [ghoul giggles delightedly] And I think at one point you could see out the ground floor windows, is what I was thinking of. [ghoul is still laughing but it’s so breathless it’s almost inaudible] Um, I think there was also an elevator somewhere you could take—

GHOUL: This is SO stupid, I love it!!!

VERA: Oh yeah, no, no no no, and don’t worry—and then, when you’d gone up the stairs, then, you walk over a little more, and go down an Even larger, really REALLY long dumb escalator.

GHOUL: Good. Good.

VERA: And that was how you got to the E.

GHOUL: [as if about to cry] Ah! Yes, wonderful, effervescent!

VERA: Mmhm!

GHOUL: [laughs] I feel like we do need to have another branch of the red line, like maybe it intersects with the orange line, somewhere in the Valentine region?

VERA: Yeah, I think it’s good if it intersects specifically with the stupid nub line.

GHOUL: Yes. Wonderful. Um, are we—

VERA: Because it’s just like, doubly useless.

GHOUL: Righ— [wheezes] You can transfer in two places, you can transfer at one of three stops downtown, OR you can transfer at this stupid nubbin, where you’d have to… [starts laughing]

VERA: Pay another fucking fare to get back on the regular orange lines. Wouldn’t you?

GHOUL: No, the Valentine Institute is a free transfer.

VERA: Okay, okay, I just—

GHOUL: It’s also called VISTA.

VERA: Right

GHOUL: It’s obvious that I’m a tourist here.

VERA: Right, okay, so the VISTA stop, like, even that stupid thing, over to the nub end, is also a free transfer, but it’s like, a dumb one?

GHOUL: It’s—so, the 6 to the E, is that a free transfer?

VERA: Yes.

GHOUL: Okay. I think, if a transfer is dumb enough, it should also be free. They pay in inconvenience.

VERA: [guffaws] Right, Eskew has rules.

GHOUL: [high pitched giggle] So what I was wondering, was, when you transfer from the red line to the orange nub, is that, we’re extending from the terminus? Or are we extending from this stupid elbow here?

VERA: Right, I was thinking the same thing, and I was thinking, ‘stupid elbow, right?’

GHOUL: Where does it go after that? Is that the terminus, like, you can transfer there and that’s all that’s for?

VERA: I kind of like if it also goes, like, kind of almost to the yellow stupid bend here? [the shark fin thing]

GHOUL: Uh-huh.

VERA: But, doesn’t, like that’s not a transfer you can make.

GHOUL: Right, you can walk—

VERA: I mean, you can walk over—

BOTH: a couple blocks,

VERA: But,

GHOUL: It’s not a ‘transfer.’ I mean, it’s actually easier than the transfer to the orange line, though.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: Because you don’t have to go through a fucking basement.

[both laugh]

VERA: Oh, is the transfer from—over by the Institute? I think we should save that for a place that actually Could have a stupid free transfer through a stupid complicated bullshit, because the red line to the orange line is never going to be free.

GHOUL: That’s true. It’s just a transfer. But it is in the middle of nowhere, so.

VERA: Right, it could definitely be through, the, like, maximum amount of dumb, you have to pay AND it’s stupid. Like, you know.

GHOUL: I mean, I think it’s—I like the idea that the red line, because it’s run by a separate private company, trying to discourage anyone from actually transfering off of it? Which is, a complete misunderstanding of how and why people use the subway system.

VERA: Right.

GHOUL: But they do do that.

VERA: Oh, I love that. Oh man, we should think more about, like, we should look at this and think about layers.

GHOUL: Yes yes yes. Brambling Hill Beach is also only in the Silver City, right?

VERA: Oh yeah, Silver City.

GHOUL: Maybe you could transfer there from business. Suit City.

VERA: You know actually, maybe you can’t, but you can from Brambling Hill. I’m not sure we’re thinking of the same thing as a transfer.

GHOUL: No. What I’m saying is that like, if you live in Suit City or in Silver City, or, if you’re coming from there, or if you’re in there or whatever, you can get off at Brambling Hill Beach. If you’re in the Undercity, that stop just doesn’t happen. I mean I don’t know if you can get on the green line at all if you’re in the Undercity. You can get on the green line to transfer from Union Station to Municipal Intersection and that’s IT. [laughing] It’s like a pointless two-stop subway line.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: But it’s—it’s just basically there if, um, if the orange line isn’t coming.

VERA: It’d be just typical of the green line to have like, pretty good service times.

GHOUL: Like a lot of the subways stop service at like, eleven?

VERA: Mmhm.

GHOUL: But the green line actually runs until 1am.

VERA: [sighs] No…

GHOUL: But here’s the catch: [increasingly laughing] you can only go from Union Station to Municipal Intersection.

VERA: Unless you’re loaded, in which case you could go to a couple other, still pretty useless places for rich people.

GHOUL: [still laughing] At 1 AM.

VERA: At 1 AM. Oh, this is great.

GHOUL: [laughing so hard they start coughing]

VERA: Who stops service at 11 PM??? Okay,

GHOUL: Just the red line. [laughing]

VERA: Oh… Okay.

GHOUL: Just the red line stops service at 11 PM.

VERA: Okay. That’s good.

GHOUL: [laughing] They’re like, ‘We’re an independent company, and we can go to bed when we want.’

VERA: You’re not my real mom, commuters who have to get to work. At night?

GHOUL: At 11 PM? Does the night shift start at 11 or 12? No, it starts at like 10, right?

VERA: People have to get home from their really late shifts.

GHOUL: Well, they can’t fucking take the red line, so good luck.

VERA: Right. Hope you live somewhere else!

GHOUL: Which sucks because the area the red line serves is specifically the area mostly full of people who are gonna have late shifts.

VERA: Yeah… Christ!

GHOUL: Like, people who live in Brambling Hill don’t fucking need that.

VERA: They don’t!

GHOUL: There’s, there’s like—there’s like One train that runs at midnight. The midnight train, right? And if you don’t catch it, you just don’t get to go home tonight.

VERA: The midnight train…

GHOUL: So you can—the midnight train. And if you, like, I think there should be a local phrase like, ‘missed the midnight train.’ [Vera squawks in delight] Which is like, a narrow window of opportunity, that was left by people who hate you?

VERA: MM!

GHOUL: Right? And so, you can always find like, like half a dozen people sleeping in a lot of red line stations at night, [Vera gasps] because they can’t get home ‘cause they missed the midnight train.

VERA: Yeah… yeah…

GHOUL: Also, I want to name the red line. Like,

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: I assume that like Long Island Railroad, it’s named after one of the termini? ‘Cause that’s the town that it was sort of half based in?

VERA: Right, which is fun, ‘cause we have not named any of the termini of the red line yet.

GHOUL: Ah, I think it should be That terminus. [spoilers: it’s called Trestle]

VERA: Mmhm. That makes sense.

GHOUL: And it should just be like a town, and it should be called the Town Name Railroad. But, we should name the town so that it makes a good acronym.

VERA: So, we’ve got Rail Road…

GHOUL: Could call it SORR… Like, fuckin sore from sleeping on the floor all night.

VERA: TARR,

GHOUL: [laughing] TARR… Yeah, missed the midnight train, so I have to sleep on the TARR. That’s pretty good.

VERA: That’s pretty good…

GHOUL: All right. TARR then.

VERA: Okay. So T-A… Trench and Ale Rail Road.

GHOUL: Trestle. Town called Trestle.

VERA: That’s…

GHOUL: The Trestle Allendale Rail Road.

VERA: [quietly] Is Allendale a real town?

GHOUL: There’s definitely a town somewhere called Allendale.

VERA: Yes, there’s at least one in Pennyslvania.

GHOUL: There you go. See it’s not, this city’s not in New Jersey.

[both laugh]

GHOUL: The city of Trestle is called that because of their fucking famous trestle bridges or some shit, and it’s all because there’s a railroad there. [laughs] It’s kind of like a chicken and egg thing. Like did they build the railroad that the town was named after first, or did they build the town that the railroad was named after first. [laughs] It’s one of those mysteries. Are we doing Allendale, or what?

VERA: Um… Well I’m just gonna name this place Trestle.

GHOUL: Yeah, sure. It’s named after this bridge, right here.

VERA: Right here? [pointing at the bridge just south of the western TARR crossing] Which is extra funny because the red line doesn’t—the TARR does Not go—

GHOUL: I mean, I was actually pointing at the crossing, where the TARR crosses the river.

VERA: Oh.

GHOUL: But, we just went ahead and did that, so whatever.

VERA: I mean, there could just be a bunch.

GHOUL: What if there’s an intersection over the river? Like, they built two bridges over the river at right angles to each other?

VERA: Well that would be wildly dumb. I like it.

GHOUL: Mm, it can’t be the Trestle crossing, though. It has to be like, here. [black plus sign north of Burning River] It only counts as one crossing, though. That’s just the double crossing.

[pen uncapping noise]

VERA: Yeah. Ummm…

GHOUL: Sixth Crossing, or just the Double Crossing.

VERA: [guffaws]

GHOUL: What does the A stand for, Vera?

VERA: Ah, fuck—umm,

GHOUL: Is it Allendale or not?

VERA: Uh, you also said Ainsdale [mumbles] Which I liked.

GHOUL: I said Ainsdale.

VERA: I kinda like Ainsdale.

GHOUL: Okay. [mumbles] We’ll use Ainsdale. [aloud] The Trestle-Ainsdale Railroad. Or TARR. And none of the component lines of TARR are named, or have distinct names. It’s just named after the terminus and one of them is, you know, just like, oh yeah, the loop, right.

VERA: G-d, what a garbage fucking—

GHOUL: There’s TARR loop, there’s TARR to Trestle—

VERA: And there’s TARR—presumably a couple other stupid bits, that aren’t on the maps, yet, but are not ‘written’ down.

GHOUL: I think we might be done with this episode.

VERA: Yeah…

GHOUL: I’m really hungry, I only had two breakfasts.

VERA: Right, you left your other breakfast on the—

GHOUL: I left my other breakfast.

VERA: Mm. I did wanna talk about what the city is mourning and why it is alone in its grief…

GHOUL: Ffffuck! Euch. What is the ci—okay. What is the city mourning? I think this actually ties into the question about immigration and geopolitics, though.

VERA: Mhm, mhm. Right, I know you’ve been thinking about a war, because, you like to have it.

GHOUL: I like, well, partially, because I really want to reuse the song ‘Oh, Nightingale,’ which has the really good verse about the war.

VERA: Yes. Which is super—yeah. I do also like for the city to be mourning internal fuckery? Because, for one thing, although it is apparently not true that a Union Station is built by a Railroad Union of railroad workers—

GHOUL: There is some union busting shit in there.

VERA: Yeah. There is nevertheless Definitely some union busting shit in the Evil City’s history.

GHOUL: Right, there was, there was definitely like a steelworker’s union that got brutally crushed.

VERA: Yeugh.

GHOUL: I assume like a dockworker’s union?

VERA: Yeah…

GHOUL: They might still have that, just in like a pathetic weak reduced form.

VERA: Yeah…

GHOUL: Where it’s like a union in name only, and they don’t actually exercise any power because they know the city will squash them flat if they try?

VERA: Right.

GHOUL: I think, like the city could be mourning its previous economic prosperity and cultural prosperity, that was like, it was made possible by the people by, you know, community organizations like unions, like neighborhood associations, that the lords of the city are now suppressing. And they’re like, [does stupid voice] ‘I don’t know why our city sucks now’. It’s like, bro. It’s ‘cause you killed it.

VERA: Yeah! Yes! That’s what—that’s the shit I like.

GHOUL: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah—

VERA: —yeah—

GHOUL: —yeah. I assume because this is partially based on New England that there have been some textile mills. You know, how it is,

VERA: Yeah, I know how it is with you.

GHOUL: The… Pentagon… Shirtwaist Factory.

VERA: [wheezes out a laugh] That’s too derivative.

GHOUL: You’re right.

VERA: The Trapezoid Pantwaist Factory [busts out laughing as soon as they get through saying it]

GHOUL: Got it! Honestly, if we have a stop called ‘Trapezoid’ that kinda rules.

VERA: [one big ol’ shriek of laughter]

GHOUL: But no-one actually remembers why it’s called that, because obviously, the factory burned down. [both laughing]

VERA: Right, the factory burned down and… was, was not successfully used as a labor rights warning story for the next forever.

GHOUL: No. No.

VERA: It just burned down.

GHOUL: It just burned down and tons of people died.

VERA: Yeah.

GHOUL: And, they covered it up.

VERA: Yup.

GHOUL: It was not actually reported in any major news outlets, that people died there. It was like, popularly known, ‘cause like, where the fuck else did my loved one die.

VERA: Mmhm.

GHOUL: Than at the place where they work, where it is known that they keep the doors locked,

VERA: Where—that just burned down.

GHOUL: I feel like, that was one of the events that kind of started the destruction of the—I don’t know if they had a union. Like maybe they were trying to form one. And then there was this, terrible fire, completely unrelated.

VERA: [inhales loudly] Chhhrist. G-d, fucking typical though.

GHOUL: Yeah. There have been, SO many assassinations of union leaders in Evil City. So many.

VERA: [sighs] Yeah…

GHOUL: So many assassinations. Blackthorn has definitely had people assassinated.

VERA: Oh yes.

GHOUL: Oh my gosh.

VERA: Oh yes.

GHOUL: And now, on the site where the factory used to be, there’s just like, a trapezoid-shaped plaque on the ground? And everyone assumes that the station is named after that.

VERA: Oh my G-d…

GHOUL: You know, that’s like. Misdirection to, help people forget.

VERA: Oh, I thought that like, um—I thought it’d be fun if—before they got assassinated, some of the factory workers’ loved ones, uh, who were trying to—uh, did a plaque, among other things. I don’t know that ‘plaque’ is the first thing I’d go for, if I was—

GHOUL: No, I would start an independent newspaper, or like sell the story to an independent newspaper.

VERA: Right.

GHOUL: But now it’s just like, this plaza that’s sort of like a weird little park, and it’s in between two factories? Or office buildings that used to be factories And it’s like, this is a super weird place for a little park that’s also a plaza.

VERA: Yeah. [ghoul laughs] Mmm!

GHOUL: And it has this, trapezoid shaped thing. Which is, I assume, why we call it the Trapezoid.

VERA: Right. You know, maybe it’s a fucking. Blank, completely sanded down, bronze trapezoidal plaque.

GHOUL: Right! It used to have ‘In memorial of the 87 people who died in the Trapezoid Pantwaist Fire.’

VERA: Right. [sarcastically bright] It doesn’t anymore.

GHOUL: It doesn’t anymore. It was sanded down.

VERA: Pretty quickly!

GHOUL: Very—[audibly covers face] fuck, I’m so sad, no wonder the city’s grieving.

VERA: Right, this sucks!

GHOUL: Two other fun facts about the Trapezoid. One, it is often referred to by locals as ‘the trap.’ [Vera exhales punched-ly] Just, as a nickname, [Vera laughs weakly] no relation. Two: if you go there from the Ghost City, it’s still on fire. [Vera laughs weakly AGAIN] There’s a lot of things that are still on fire in the Ghost City.

VERA: It’s just that kind of city!

GHOUL: It’s just that kind of city. [wheezing] Yikes!!!

[both making noises of astonished yikes-ness]

GHOUL: Yeah, okay!

VERA: Okay!

GHOUL: Good—good talk!

VERA: Good talk! [both laughing grimacingly]

GHOUL: And with that, I think we’ll sign off for this episode, thanks for listening, Lee.

VERA: [laughing] Yeah, thanks for listening, Lee! [suddenly stops being high-pitched] Right, no—

GHOUL: Okay, bye!

VERA: Mmm, bye-bye…

[outro plays, from Bolt Cutter by Doomtree]

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 15 - Candy Page 34

==>

John finally decides to let the relevance of his story end, and enjoy that he’s made at least some of his other friends happy with his choice.  Time to read Page 34...

VRISKA: Pfft, yeah, wh8tever. I’m basically Immortal, bitch.

Preeeetty sure you’re confusing yourself with one of your parents.

Pff, actual healthy kismesis with a Tavros?  Wow, we’re getting all sorts of redemption by not-really-Vriska proxy here.

HARRY ANDERSON: he’s always getting all weepy whenever i talk to him anyway. HARRY ANDERSON: i don’t think i could have taken another round of him choking back tears while apologizing to me about “what happened with me and your mother, harry.” HARRY ANDERSON: i mean, god. he’s not even fucking DRUNK when he does this. HARRY ANDERSON: that might actually be the most embarrassing part.

.......

Okay, having grown up with a father who suffered from serious depression and would break into tears embarrassingly easily, uh.  I can relate?  But also fuck you, that’s inconsiderate.

--Dammit, new Vriska is catching wind of old Vriska.

Vriska and (Vriska) both start shrieking at a pitch John’s only ever heard one time before. It was a sound that once accompanied the end of everything. A sound once heard the night he dreamt in anime.

Oh that’s brilliant.  If the entire Candy arc ended here it’d be great, though I know it’s not quite over yet.

==>

...Oh shit, we actually get to see what happens immediately next.

Interesting introspective thoughts!  Or, trying her best NOT to be introspective and failing.

Oh my god, SHUT UP Gamzee.  Vriska, just kill him already??

PFFF HE SENT A PIC OF IT TO KARKAT :D

Pfff.  Yeah, Vriska, TRY and ignore what just happened and how it was almost entirely your idea.

(Vriska) is so furious, she has no way of pinpointing the exact moment her intent stopped being intimidating him into silence and started being guaranteeing his silence, forever.

Thank FUCKING goodness, PLEASE kill him.

YAY he’s dead! :D  (Even though he’ll probably revive anyway because bullshit.)

Heheh. NOW we get a cross-Vriska heart to heart.

==>

Alright, a bit more John moping.  Man... this Candy section is a whole lot easier to swallow AFTER Meat than I imagine it would have been before.

.....heck.  EITHER of these epilogue branches are really fucking hard to swallow the first time around without the other’s context.

Oh huh, it’s his house from the Medium then?  Relocated and stuff?

Jake, hm.  Is Jake going to try and leave his son with John like that failed kidnapping in reverse or?

Jake snaps the elastic on his pair of red underpants. It’s the only thing he’s wearing.

Oooookay then.

JAKE: She had a certain way she liked me kipped out and well, i didnt want to bring anything that belonged to her when i left. Nothing she er, might miss. TAVROS: You took me,

Jake winces.

TAVROS: And,,, you took you,

Jake’s wince deepens.

Oh, so that’s what this is!  Jake fleeing with his son from an abusive relationship.  About gosh darn time.  .....geez, how bad did it get for JAKE to finally muster the gumption to do that himself after all these years???

Jake is one whole wince now

I know THAT feeling.  Or at least feel like I do.

John you dedicate your life to keeping this child happy

JOHN: it’s just been kind of a rough forever.

:C

JAKE: Maybe you should blame me? JAKE: Maybe i need someone to blame me. For once. JOHN: ...huh? JAKE: I think im starting to realize that ive been going through life with the mindset that nothing has ever really been within my control.

YES.

This is how Vriska broke Tavros way back in the comic, by constantly denying him agency.  Jake’s been battered down the same way too, and it’s not too late to pick up the reins.  He’s already DONE that by finally leaving his genocidal wife.

There’s a bit of Page of Hope-yness to this whole disastrous Candy timeline, come to think of it?  People fulfilling others’ desires out of obligation constantly, doing what they think others want?  Roxy, Jake, Dave and Karkat... all fucked over at the aggressive whims of more active folk, rolling over when they really shouldn’t have?  Or in Roxy’s case, her CHARACTER basically SHOULD NOT HAVE IN THE SLIGHTEST?

JAKE: Havent you ever wanted to let someone make the tough choices for you?

Huh.

Or maybe he is doing exactly what Jake has always done. In a certain light, isn’t ascribing all this mess to some unconscious influence he might have had over the metaphysical shape of reality just a way to brush off his simpler failures as a man and a father?

Yes.  You can act and change this too, John.  You almost did with the kidnapping before!  Go and take down the new Batterwitch.

Hm, Hopey thing?

JAKE: John. JOHN: yeah? JAKE: Take my hand. JOHN: what? why?

Oh shit.  Are they going to be able to FIX some of this BS with some sort of hopey thing??? :D  Probably too much to hope for but still!

Being flung from Jake’s orbit of Hope and Change

Pffff.  Had to throw in an Obama didn’t you.

...Oh.  Oh wow.  Oh we get to figure out what the fuck was up with Roxy all this time.  Oh boy.

JAKE: So what if it doesnt change anything? Wont it matter to your family to see you care? JAKE: Wont it make you feel better to try?

:D

Heheh, Hope aspecty stuff.  The ability to believe that something matters even when you “know” it doesn’t.

==>

...Yeah, it’s pretty easy to relax on a dead Gamzee.

Oh cool.  These Vriskas are alike enough to bond!  New Vriska is still in her teenage unbalanced go-for-it stage, and old Vriska has been knocked down a peg by the clown incident, putting them on a close enough level to not want to instantly disown each other, unlike old Vriska and ghost Vriska.

VRISKA: The Mayor’s dead, dude.

HOW did the Mayor die?!??  Did I just FORGET that from the end of Homestuck or something??

(I mean, probably.)

Callback to the clouds in that first Jade dream John had.

(VRISKA): Or may8e the truth just makes me kind of nervous. VRISKA: What “Truth”? (VRISKA): Don’t tell him I said this, 8ut, I think John is just an extremely powerful 8eing. Even when he sucks. (VRISKA): And he certainly does appear to suck in this reality. (VRISKA): And yet, the uneasy feeling is there. (VRISKA): It’s a vague feeling I’ve had in the 8ack of my mind for a long time, 8ut it really hit me when I was talking to him earlier. (VRISKA): It’s distur8ing to think a8out that much power 8ottled up in one stupid nerd who’ll never understand it. VRISKA: What Power are you even talking a8out? VRISKA: Like, lame Wind Powers? (VRISKA): No, I mean... (VRISKA): The power to shape reality. Even without intending to.

FUCK did he really cause all this??? Even the Roxy shit?!???  D:  D:  D:

It’s being left vague but it IS sounding like John was actually RIGHT about all that stuff.  FUCK, if the “villain” who messed up Roxy is actually just John’s subconscious...  :C

Even if the epilogue ends right here, though, with John about to call Roxy, I can imagine it working out, though.  It’s on a right enough track there.

(VRISKA): I’ve spent so long caring so much a8out what other people thought of me. Mainly that they saw me as important, or making a “difference.”

Mhmm mhmm.  Light n stuff.

Yeah, realizing that importance isn’t ALL that’s “important” is really, um.  Important.  Ahem.

Hm, other Vriska, that smile had seven pairs of dots, not eight.  :?

(VRISKA): The POINT is, I was so mad at her. (VRISKA): That happy ghost version of myself, who was free of everything. (VRISKA): I was pro8a8ly mad 8ecause she got to 8e who she really was, without stressing a8out it, which is something I never felt like I was allowed to have.

Indeed.

(VRISKA): I guess I mean there’s someone specifically I fell out of touch with, who it feels like I’ll never see again.

Too bad, only ghost Vriska got her reunite with ‘Rezi.  :P

(VRISKA): On some level I knew she was right. She was happy and honest with herself. And that’s what made her... (VRISKA): A version of myself who was actually worthy of someone I cared a8out.

Yyyep.  As I said.  :)

VRISKA: You’re just talking a8out The Girl You 8linded that one time, aren’t you? (VRISKA): Ummmmmmmm.

Heheh.  Yeah, you’re not going to hide that sort of thing from your sharp near-clone.

Oh cool!  She gets to see all those messages and feel turboguilt or something.

...oh shit.  Is a message going to actually get to her?  It-- oh shit.  Didn’t Terezi have her phone buzzing in her pocket and ignored it in the end of Meat or something?  Or at SOMEONE did and I thought it conspicuous but it didn’t get addressed in that side of the story and-- FFFFuck is she eventually going to see it or??!  D:

She’s GOT to have seen it before running all the way off with villain Dirk, right?? D:

==>

Okay.  You seem to be thinking clearly, Roxy.  What’s going through your head? Give us some answers.  Don’t fuck this up too much, John.

but she knows by now that it’s not her job to make him happy. That was something she gave up on years ago. But wanting to? That feeling is still as fresh as it always was.

FUCK was this all just a placid feeling of obligation to make John happy for all he did to ensure victory or something??? D: D: D:

She’s still working through what she feels about distancing herself from Jane

Yesssss

If he’s truly about to be real with her for the first time in forever,

Gosh fucking DARNIT John, you could have fixed all this DECADES AGO if you had a real talk with her ONCE!!!!!

ROXY: the more i thought abt it the more i figured holdin on to that one thing made me lose out on some other shit ROXY: u might relate JOHN: haha, you got me there i guess.

:c

JOHN: i’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how things got to be like they are. JOHN: i guess i’ll just come out and say it. JOHN: i completed fucked up your entire life. JOHN: i’m not going to pretend like there are two sides here. it’s my bad, totally. JOHN: like, not just what happened to our marriage, though it’s also true that that’s completely my fault. JOHN: but even before that... JOHN: i think i fucked up on just this massive, fundamental level, and it’s what i did— JOHN: or, well, what i didn’t do— JOHN: that caused every stupid bullshit thing about the way this world is.

...Huh.

That may not actually be true, and Roxy might be about to prove how self-absorbedly reductive that is.

ROXY: oh nah ill stop u rite there my man

Okay YES.  If this wasn’t him, then SET HIM THE FUCK STRAIGHT.  :D

She knows more than he does, and she doesn’t need to hear it.

TELL US TELL US TELL US

YES TEAR INTO HIM he’s wanted that for so long stand up for yourself and tell us what the fuck happened and why

He’s been looking at her, really looking at her, and she doesn’t want to blink, just in case that shatters it.

Yes because he was looking for the real Roxy that would call out his BS

JOHN: i used to be so angry that you wouldn’t tell me what you really thought, before. JOHN: not like i wanted to FIGHT fight, but like. JOHN: i’m just not used to this flavor of roxy. ROXY: hm ROXY: sounds to me like u just disproved ur own hotshot theory then genius JOHN: huh? ROXY: you wished i was one way the whole time we were married ROXY: but i wasnt

YES!!! Yes his theory’s disproven!  He never WANTED Roxy to just act that way, he wasn’t the cause of this, I was hoping for that!  :D

ROXY: i was bad at standin up for myself then and im learnin to be good at it now

D:

That’s....... sad, if that’s the explanation.  But it’s better than mind control I guess.  :(

JOHN: but... JOHN: you were never like that before i... ROXY: dude ROXY: where tf do u get off trying to decide what is or isnt me being “like me” enuff ROXY: do u think ppl stay the same their whole damn lives or what

Oh wow.  Now Andrew’s slamming SLAMMING of fanfics.  He’s saying “who are you to know for SURE that they wouldn’t act that way”??  That’s pretty good.

ROXY: i like the way things turned out just fuckin fine ROXY: so maybe u could stop wastin precious eternity thinkin ur so special that its ur fault everyones not perfectly happy

:’)

Mhmm, and they’re free from the heroic design arcs or what have you.  Or... were, until Dirk tore them back in again.  Tossed aside their fucking victory with his selfish... ugh.

Mhmm, Roxy’s the perfect person to explain that not being in a canon, Light-filled timeline isn’t really a bad thing.

ROXY: i just do things the best way i think to do em and then shrug n hope it works out?

Roxy thinks about time and the spirals of choice that hang just outside her periphery, and the vertigo grows.

Good advice, and hm.  Maybe there’s some Void sight kind of playing into this as well, making it easy for her to get paralyzed by indecision and she’s had to learn to work through it.

...Ooh, that was a really cool non-binary gender diatribe in the narrative text.  That’s some nice stuff.  I felt like that was missing from the Meat side, glad we got it here at least.  :D

JOHN: there’s literally nothing to do but keep moving forward. JOHN: i may as well not be a big fucking downer about it if i don’t have to be.

Thank goodness.

YES, JOHN SHOWING HIMSELF STRAIGHT-BACKED FOR HIS SON!!! :D

Man, I wish my dad had done that instead of all the other shit he did.  At least he’s dead.  :)

(Here’s a hint in case you’re wondering why I was relieved when my Dad offed himself.)

But that’s off topic.  Let’s wrap up this epilogue already!!

==>

Page 39... only three or so pages left, right?

Pff, Karkat’s keeping them safe.

Heheh, more shitty Liberty statues.

Heheh, using them for weapons caches.

Gosh I hope they actually love each other and are mostly happy.  Jade seems happy, at least.  :(

Dammit, there go the doubts.  He wouldn’t have had those doubts with Karkat. :C

He’s standing in the Oval Office of the White House.

Oh heck yes.  Please tell me...

And over there... is something he doesn’t quite recognize. It doesn’t seem to fit in. He steps closer to investigate, wiping away at the layers of moss and dirt to reveal a surface he most certainly does recognize. It’s a transportalizer.

YES

Dave doesn’t waste any time. You don’t find something like this in the Oval Office and start agonizing over whether or not to use it. He steps on the platform, and in a blink his surroundings are completely different. The centuries of overgrowth are gone, and he appears to be in some sort of crypt, boxed in by walls of smooth, golden stone. At the far side of the room, something is hanging on the wall, encased in a sort of display. It’s a mounted god tier costume, about the size an adult male would wear. He recognizes the symbol. It’s the same one Jake used to wear when they were teens. It is the symbol for Hope.

HELL FUCKING YES

YES OBAMA

OBAMA: Hello, Mr. Strider. OBAMA: I’ve been waiting a long time for you to show up.

Dave’s jaw hangs open. The legends have been confirmed. As well as several key headcanons of his. Without thinking, he drops to one knee and bows his head.

DAVE: m... mr president DAVE: its an honor sir

Man, forget my past stomach clenching.  Forget my hesitations, my turbulent emotions, all the ups and downs the various facets of these Epilogue chapters have given me.  THIS is the best.  THIS makes it all worth it.  This is the best thing to have ever happened, and if I ever feel any regrets about ANYTHING that transpired in the Epilogues, I’ll feel infinitely better the moment I remember it gave us THIS.

The most beautiful scene I’ve ever witnessed.  All my liberal, economy-ranting hopes and dreams confirmed.  It’s glorious.

OBAMA: Come on now, Dave. We can’t be having that. OBAMA: I’m nobody’s king. I’m a democratically elected representative who took an oath to serve his country and his people. People like you, Dave. OBAMA: If anything, I should be the one bowing.

OBAMA.  I MISSED YOU OBAMA.  I CAN HEAR YOUR VOICE THROUGH YOUR TEXT AND ITS SO COMFORTING AND UPLIFTING

DAVE: mr president what i mean is im a huge fan of yours and i hope this doesnt sound fucked up but on some level i feel like ive been waiting my whole life for this moment?? OBAMA: I know, Dave.

Yes, yes you have.  Yes, we can.

OBAMA: Most people thought I was gone. But I was keeping an eye on events. OBAMA: Wouldn’t miss it for anything.

I, too, would like to have the feeling that Obama is still out there, keeping an eye on things.  Watching, smiling... providing some last background of Hope as things seem so temporarily sour.  That feeling would be amazing.

...I mean he’s still alive IRL, sure, but not Obama watermark smiling lovingly from the sky or anything like it should be.

Yes, back to reading.  Back to this glorious, definitely canon moment.  The moment we learned that Obama was with us the whole time.  :’)

DAVE: sorry if this is nosy but if you didnt die when you disappeared then how did you die OBAMA: Most of that is classified, Dave.

Pfffffff  :D

OBAMA: When I was a boy living in Hawaii, on my thirteenth birthday I was visited by a mysterious stranger. OBAMA: He was an older man with a mustache. Kind of a corny, old-fashioned, adventuring type. He tried to convince me we were related. Of course, I thought he was full of shit. OBAMA: To this day, I’m not sure about that. Maybe he was. I didn’t think much of his tall tale at the time, but what did pique my interest was his story. OBAMA: He was voyaging all over the Pacific looking for a mysterious island, which supposedly had all the answers he’d spent his whole life searching for. OBAMA: During his travels, he set up outposts all over the ocean to help with his search. Such as one near where I lived as a boy. The outpost had a laboratory, an archeological dig site, a network of underground tunnels, the works. OBAMA: One time, I snuck in there and did some exploration of my own. Somewhere in the maze of underground ruins, I found a transporter pad, just like the one that brought you here. OBAMA: It sent me to a new realm. A place they called the Medium.

Grandpa Jake of Earth A, thank you SO much for bringing us this gift.  The gift of Obama.

OBAMA: Hey, why don’t we take a walk. You’ll have a chance to collect yourself. And there’s something I’d like you to see.

:O :O :O

I am shivering with anticipation.

Ah, leave it to Obama to help Dave with the final steps of his character arc.

OBAMA: Are you sure that’s all he is, Dave?

FIX THINGS OBAMA!!!! :D :D :D

Wait, what if Obama can turn things into an actually legitimate DaveKatJade?  That would be a miracle only a god of Hope could pull off.

OBAMA: I’ve had my share of doubts about all that, just like any other man. OBAMA: And I’ve had plenty of the same kind of struggles as you, Dave. DAVE: wait DAVE: you...

Obama nods, smiles wistfully. Dave arches his eyebrows high above his shades. They stare at each other, and in the look they exchange, they seem to say all that needs to be said between two grown men on the matter.

:’)

OBAMA: Believing is the key to understanding the truth underlying the words, the truth underlying the ideas they represent, and the truth underlying who we are as individuals. OBAMA: The power of belief, the power of Hope, that’s what endows that which is intangible, ephemeral, or uncertain with a sense of reality. OBAMA: It brings focus to the insubstantial, the mirages of the mind, the multiplicity of what is possible, of what could be, and isolates it—concentrates it—to turn it into that which is. OBAMA: And the result of that, Dave, is what we call truth.

I didn’t think we’d be learning more about the Hope aspect straight from the mouth of Barack Obama.

OBAMA: He taught me about many things. Combat, philosophy, life, love... DAVE: love??? DAVE: hold on are you saying DAVE: that...

PFFFFFFFF :D :D :D

OBAMA: She’s settled happily into the specific. That’s her path now. OBAMA: All of you have embraced that life, in this safely sequestered version of planet Earth. OBAMA: All of you until now, Dave. OBAMA: This is why you’re here. OBAMA: I believe you’re ready to wake up. DAVE: ...

:O

...this is suddenly possibly going to be getting slightly sad isn’t it.  D:

--Oh shit, so THIS is where Davebot came from.

How is he going to break things off with Jade though???  D: D: D:

...Oh my GOSH he’s just going to suddenly vanish and abandon her isn’t he.  D:

...alright, merging with his other selves, et cetera...

It defers to its greatest knight, risen anew.

Yeah that’s nice but am I supposed to pretend you’re going to say goodbye to Jade offscreen or

--ah that’s why the bot didn’t have shades, gotta use the genuine Stiller ones

==>

Page 40, and the start of this sounds a lot like the Postscript.  But we’re getting more this time, thank god.

ARADIA: when i watched as everything broke apart ARADIA: and got swallowed up by the black hole ARADIA: which is where i ended up too ARADIA: that black hole... ARADIA: thats basically you right JADE: yes. ARADIA: and when you speak of your brother ARADIA: thats lord english JADE: yes. ARADIA: and hes dead JADE: not just yet.

Oh shit.  John’s final blow didn’t kill Lord English did it.  Alt!Callie is going to strike the very last killing blow herself isn’t she.

JADE: lesser beings have so much trouble perceiving divinity in the uncanny.

Divinity?  Like, Lollipop-style divinity?  I mean, I guess this IS the Candy branch...?  But what made this so “perfect” to begin with?

JADE: this world, unlike the canonical horrors from which it is hermetically insulated, will always fail to meet the combined criteria for truth, relevance, and essentiality that would endow this realm with any real gravity. JADE: its own naturally occurring supply of gravity, rather than the artificial supply i have given it. JADE: as such, what transpires here is characterized by experiential frivolity. JADE: physically, it is cordoned off by the black hole’s event horizon. it is safe. untouchable. JADE: inescapable. ARADIA: that sounds ominous

Oh.  So this outside-of-canon timeline-verse whatever that Candy takes place in is like a trap?  For Lord English to be trapped in forever, inside not just his OWN story like we thought before but into a place where he’ll be forever irrelevant, while, like... the “Prince” and others following him for pursuit or camaraderie reasons manage to escape somewhere even different?  --No wait those people are OUTSIDE this place, in the “real” timeline/universe of Earth C. So Dirk’s destination is somewhere completely different; oh, and alt!Callie is the only one with the power to escape the black hole, to bring Davebot and Aradia with her back to quote-unquote “canon” or the closest thing to it to bring bastard Dirkbro down.

Or... something.

JADE: one could describe it as a phantasmal projection confined within my horizon. JADE: it was created by a choice that made it possible for that horizon to expand infinitely, to consume infinitely. JADE: and since that choice could not coexist with canon events, this place manifested to here to support its consequences. JADE: if this world were capable of anything either essential, relevant, or true in some stable combination, then it would perpetuate a corrosive paradox. JADE: as such, insulation from what is out there, and the inescapable well it rests in, is what protects all it holds inside. JADE: and since i am the embodiment of the black hole in which it rests, JADE: i am the one protecting this world.

Oh huh.  So when we saw alt!Callie creating the black hole out of the Sun, she was actually using John’s “choice” and his timeline split to engineer the paradox that drove that singularity’s expansion?  And so she’s going to be the lord and safeguard of all that is Non-Canon, and also seek to guide the heroes trying to save what IS Canon?

Hm!

JADE: physical destruction is one thing. JADE: obliteration of the entire canvas for all of reality over a given cosmic span is another. JADE: and yet there are even more insidious forms of destruction and subversion of life to consider. JADE: methods that are difficult to grasp for those on your plane.

Yep, destroying Heart.  Destroying Soul.  Destroying the uniqueness that drives individual agency and choices, and suborning people completely to your will and ideals without their consent or choice.

Hmm....

JADE: but longer stories have the power to draw consciousness into them. they possess arresting and hypnotic qualities which can be used by their tellers to alter the awareness of the listener.

Yep, like a biased narrator with their claws on the > prompt for characters.

JADE: i brought to your attention that the story you were listening to had a speaker with a specific identity. JADE: and where there is an identity, there can also be an agenda.

Yep yep.  And by commandeering the story to his own agenda, Dirk’s been robbing everyone of a fundamental right to their own existences.

JADE: this is the sort of corruption i now must dedicate my existence in this new body to ending once and for all.

Heck Yes; returning the narrative to as objective a speakerless-ness as can be attained or simulated, and divesting the bias from agenda’d narrators that can wrest all control from the participants in a story, enslaving them and making them the author’s puppets instead of true to themselves as characters, people, etc.

--Oh my GOSH, was Dead!Jade eating the remains of Lord English at the end of that Postscript???  She was, wasn’t she?  :D :D :D

That’s pretty fucking awesome.  And a pretty fucking fair fate for him to get cannibalized by his sister.

JADE: consume his body. JADE: absorb his essence. JADE: and then using this host, i will generate enough power to move beyond the staggering pull of the event horizon encasing this world. JADE: a prison of my own making, which can be escaped only through the supreme unification with my other half. JADE: it is crucial to the cosmos that i succeed. JADE: the prince of heart has to be stopped.

:D :D :D :D :D

Pretty awesome!  A decent setup to a story that probably shouldn’t be told, the implied sequel that Meat invites up or whatever.  And... oh phew.

Oh PHEW.

OH FUCKING PHEW. HOLD ON.

So.  The very last line of the epilogue, the last bit:

The hole leaves behind an absence in the sky so calm that continuing to call it a sky wouldn’t seem to do it justice. It’s a perfectly neutral expanse into which anything one can imagine might be summoned. And for a while, anything was. But not anymore. Where the hole gaped just moments ago, there now exists an imaginary line.

Above this line resides all that matters. Below exists all else. Never again the twain shall meet.

Okay!  :D :D :D

So, when I read that last line, I was INCREDIBLY disheartened.  I thought that Andrew was declaring that canon would never interfere with anything again, that this was the FINAL WORD on Homestuck and everything to do with it as far as canon was concerned, and that Dirk’s crimes and such would forever go unresolved and left to the imagination.

But that’s not what the line meant.

What’s INSIDE the singularity, and thus “under” the imaginary line, is everything non-canon, all the possibility and fanfiction and dead ghosts and such who are trapped in this safeguarded realm alt!Callie created to protect them, away from the influence of any future plot danger beyond the mundane issues they create for themselves.

And what’s OUTSIDE the singularity, above the line, is canon.  A canon which actually continues, and which this line doesn’t necessarily cut short.

I don’t know if Andrew will ever continue this nonsense, maybe to show me a Rose who’s actually happy as a robot or something?  But... er, that’s not the point.  The point is that even though the story “isn’t over”, it’s left so it CAN continue, so that the final state of these ISN’T a permanent cliffhanger to be left forever unfulfilled intentionally.  I’ll still be traumatized by the state some of these characters are left in, until Andrew maybe possibly chooses to resolve some of this nonsense with later content, which he probably won’t.  Heck, this actually might be easier for him to create a new work with, given how much baggage has been left behind on old Earth and in the singularity, so all you have is a much relatively smaller cast of characters on a chase to wherever Dirk is planning to go?  But, like.  When I read that Postscript, I stopped believing anyone I saw suggesting we’d get anything after this.  Any sort of work of... you know... continuing, er, Homestuckiness from Andrew, no matter what it was.  But even just... leaving it open even if he isn’t going to DO anything about it, and having that final line NOT be an aggressive cutoff?  Is just nice.  Nicer, anyway.

And this singularity is kept safe for us to enjoy ALL of the old stuff, the multitude of possibility that the in-singularity version of Roxy glimpses out of the side of her eye.  That--

Oh my Gosh.  THAT’S also what the final line means.

Above this line resides all that matters. Below exists all else. Never again the twain shall meet.

Homestuck fanfiction is now COMPLETELY FREE FROM CANON.

Within this singularity, nothing has to stay true to absolutely every underpinning of the earlier comic.  Nothing has to make sense.  Nothing has to be narratively consistent with anything else, though it’s obviously more enjoyable if it is.  Truth, essentiality, and relevance may all be FLEXED as much as any individual fanfic writer needs to!  And... and earlier, before this epilogue.  When we would get Snapchat stuff of the story on Earth C.  And even before that when all we had was the ending flash.  There was still a FEAR on many parts that there was more to canon that Andrew wasn’t telling us, that whatever was in our imaginations about what may have happened was “wrong”, that any fanfic you wrote was liable to be disproven formally.  But that’s not the case anymore.  Because with that line, with alt!Callie sealing off this realm and taking just a last few soon-to-be canon-impactors out of one of its timelines, Andrew has left ALL of the earlier trappings of Homestuck, of Earth, of all these characters and ghosts and fragmented possibilities, permanently free from canon influence from the rest of time.  Meaning no Homestuck fanfic that takes place in this singularity-granted realm may EVER be busted by Andrew’s future work.  He’s done what he first aspired to do when he declared all fantrolls in existence canon.  He’s finally “killed the author”.  He’s made the very FACT of an author an enemy, to be pursued in its own canon story outside of all this.  He’s set EVERYTHING free.

Wow.  So that’s what all the point of all this was, huh?  :D

Let me read the last few pages of Candy anyway.  Where was I again?

Oh, about to click the last page.  ==>

Oh my GOD.  This Postscript is about the end of MEAT, where the Meat Postscript showed us the end of CANDY!!!  :D

Let’s hear where this shit is all going!  I’ve been wondering what realm Dirk is actually heading towards to try and start fucking up.  Reading...

...Oh, okay.  I thought I glimpsed someone mentioning something about Rose “doing Dirk’s laundry”, and I thought I just missed some narrative comment on laundry made when Dirk took Rose out of the apartment on that final trip out to Jake’s for a spaceship?  But I guess this was the scene they were talking about.  Fuck you, Dirk.

One of her more reckless shipmates chipped a tooth trying one, despite repeated warnings to stay away from the stuff.

So Terezi IS there?  And probably received that final message from Vriska to think about.

It’s a stray ruby slipper. The other is about ten feet away, down the hall. No sign of their owner anywhere.

Yep, that’s definitely Terezi.

...Oh cool, Rose’s body isn’t quite dead?  She could be returned to it or a souped-up version of it if she’s ever brought to her senses outside Dirk’s corrosive influence.

A new planet is within sensor range. She studies the millions of statistics all pouring in at once.

They’re heading for a planet?  Somewhere else in Universe C?

It’s an M-Class planet. The right size, right age, right distance from the sun. There’s no advanced life yet. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for all these years.

Shit, a NEW planet?  For all this shit to go down on?  Maybe I don’t need to see what happens next, that sounds potentially a little boring.  The future adventure this story entails COULD just be implied and never followed up on.

Once the new race has established

What race??? Human, hybrid?? It’s not TROLL, y’all would have brought Aradia if that was the case, right?  Or is this why there are tons of trolls in Universe C that Caliborn and Calliope’s parent trolls got to incinerate ages later, seeded across planets by these assholes?

The ones who get the chance to play what will arguably be the most important session in the history of Sburb?

Ahhh.  Okay.  So this may INDEED be something interesting, something worth seeing.  A new session, one where Dirk is the villain, Rosebot is enthralled, and old heroes are on their way to help see him thwarted.  Along with the mystery participants of a session we’ve yet to see.

Enough time goes by that she begins to wonder if he’s asleep. But no. It’s just the irritated silence of a man who knows he isn’t currently dressed well enough to attend to something important.

DIRK: Are my fucking pantaloons ready yet?

Yeah, fuck you and your anime pantaloons straight in the Yaois, Dirk Smartass.

Okay!

So that’s the end of the epilogue.  BOTH epilogues.  And... I like it.

I don’t know why.  I mean it was all excellent before, and my stomach’s still a BIT clenchy, but I like it now.  I misinterpreted things from the Meat ending, and now everything... everything makes a little more sense.  Some things seem resolved, others earned...

And... in a way I feel like I could actually oddly accept, even if there’s never anything that touches on this ever again...

It doesn’t seem “over”.  :)

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 3

Live reaction to page 3 of the Meat Epiloge beneath the Read More.

Let's see if my theory was correct that the next page will show John's first stop on his new journey... Let's see if he indeed ends up in the B2 session just prior to the events of [S] GAME OVER taking place or if there's some kind of psyche!

==>

Yessss, we're indeed following John again!

"It takes you a moment to recognize where you are, even though Rose’s instructions were very specific. A place bright and gaudy and filled with the stench of teenage ennui."

Well, that explains basically nothing. :P

"It’s your old living room on the gold battleship, where you spent three years caught up in a lot of weird, furry romantic drama while learning to unlove everything you once held sacred."

Oh man, on the Prospitian Battleship!

Well, that's indeed on LOMAX like I theorized earlier, though not the exact spot I was imagining. I was imagining it would have been on a place featuring both John and Rose, when they'd all just met up on LOMAX.

Well, alright then. In that case, the question is: when is this taking place? Is this indeed around the time of [S] GAME OVER, or is it sometime earlier?

I mean, if for some reason he had to go back all the way to the 3-year trip, "punch her in the face" could still account for Jade or Nannasprite, but I highly doubt it. :P

Then that leaves indeed my original theory... Aranea! The question is, does he need to punch her HERE, or was the battleship just an anchoring point for John now to leave and go outside to LOMAX or something?

Because if John does have to punch her here... then it seems like this will be taking place IMMEDIATELY after Aranea just got turned back to life! So just prior to when she could set all her plans into motion, well, other than having Gamzee deliver the ring to her.

Which reminds me... Gamzee will be here too then! Oh man, but if John punches Aranea in the face HERE... then Aranea will lose her concentration and lose control over Gamzee right? Which would allow him to break free far earlier than he originally did... Oh dear.

"Years that, technically speaking, never even happened, now that you think of it. You have the very retcon powers that just brought you back here to thank for that."

I was kind of confused what he meant here, but yeah, he's actually referring to his post-retcon self who never actually spent much time here. It doesn't really refer to himself of course, who did spend 3 years on that ship, with the pre-retcon version of Jade.

"You barely have time to take in the sick, nostalgic feeling that all the globes and Tangle Buddies and avant-garde mime art evokes. The fridge pops open and out roll Aranea and Gamzee. Gamzee honks and his codpiece jiggles ominously"

OH SNAP, HERE THEY ARE!!!! It's indeed this EXACT moment!

Oh boy... where is this gonna go???

I mean, if John punches Aranea, then what? What does he need to do next? Simply go find his friends, round them up, and go after Lord English?

"Aranea staggers to her feet, looking rather pleased with herself. Until she notices you and gapes in bewilderment. ARANEA: What are you doing here?!"

And here we go!!! Right then and there this version of Aranea's plan falls completely into the water.

"You make a fist, and sort of flinch and look away when you do it. No matter how many years you’ve spent living on a planet with absolute gender parity, this feels wrong. Still, you hit Aranea pretty fucking hard, underestimating your own strength just as badly as you did the last time you clobbered a hapless Serket. She goes flying back, hits the couch, and KOs instantly into a pile of Smuppets."

I love how this description makes it perfectly clear just what a normal Homestuck panel would be portraying right here. As in, the often reused image of someone punching someone else in the face, sending them sliding (Kanaya with Vriska, Vriska with Andrew, John with Vriska...)

"You then take her wrist in your hand, slide the ring off her finger"

WHOA HOLD THE FUCK ON THERE.

John's REMOVING the Ring of Life from Aranea... this means we're instantly going to get an answer to the million dollar question everyone's been asking for a long time: what happens if the Ring of Life is removed from a person who was revived from the dead?

It was made deliberately unclear in the Game Over timeline whether removing the Ring of Life from Aranea would have sufficed for The Condesce to kill Aranea or not.

And we've never known if technically Calliope could be capable of removing the ring and staying alive.

So that's something we're probably gonna find out right now!!!

Also, I have a feeling that by the time John turns around to address Gamzee, the clown's already gone running.

Next question to ask by the way: what will John do with the Ring of Life???? It's not gonna be used for Aranea NOR for Calliope this time around, so who will it belong to now? Did Rose have a plan for that?

"> Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?"

GAMZEE FUCKING MAKARA. DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON HIM.

"Gamzee stares up at you with his horrible, limpid eyes. There’s something serene, sinister, and sensual all at once about the look he’s laying on you"

Phew, he hasn't gone running yet!

But... huh? So he hasn't snapped out of the mindcontrol yet?

Also, yeah, I can imagine exactly what look he's making right now, the one he continuously made while under mind control.

"Do everyone a favor and put an end to his preposterous narrative relevance."

UUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHMMMMM

Jooooooohn

You're not going to do what I think you're gonna do, right? This is going to fail spectacularly, right?

"You wisely decide that this clown will lend nothing valuable to the narrative whatsoever if he is allowed to remain outside of your childhood refrigerator."

Pffff, okay. So he decided to do the same thing that Vriska did to him in the post-retcon timeline.

"He goes easily, issuing only a pair of weak honks in protest. You slam the fridge shut and resolve to never think about Gamzee Makara again."

...Really? That's gonna be the last of him?

I...I'm not even sure. They kind of did that exact thing in the post-retcon timeline, but the question is if that's gonna work this time. :P

"> Zap to the next plot point."

Wait whaaaaat? So John's not staying here in this moment?

Where the hell is he off to next? This is kind of like Terezi's retcon quest for John all over again.

Okay, I really got no clue where John's going next. But it seems like all he truly needed from this timeframe was the Ring of Life!

I do wonder if we're at some point gonna go back to this new retconned timeline however. Does John perhaps need to change some other factors about the original pre-retconned timeline?

But wow, that was the end of this page! This was a short one.

I bet that next page we'll be back to stuff happening on Earth C? Kind of like how during John's retcon quest with Terezi we also kept switching to stuff in the Dreambubbles.

I wonder if we're gonna continue with Karkat's run for presidency, or if we're gonna get a look at someone else now.

[askblueberrymuffin]

REALLY LONG CHARACTER SURVEY.

RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog  !  good  luck  !

TAGGED. @vertebralheights sorta? TAGGING. I dunno, do what u want

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Sans Gaster

NICKNAME:  Blueberry, Muffin, Blue

AGE: 23

BIRTHDAY: July 1st, 20XX

ETHNIC GROUP: Skeleton/Shadow Monster

NATIONALITY: Underground??

LANGUAGE(S): English, Wingdings(?)

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Asexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS:  Forever alone Single

CLASS: Middle class? Maybe upper middle when their mom was around?

HOMETOWN / AREA: Snowdin

CURRENT HOME: Still Snowdin, same house and everything

PROFESSION: Sentry, but he’ll likely pursue higher education soon

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Skeleton?

EYES: Usually cerulean blue.

NOSE:  Nope

FACE:  Boney (har har)

LIPS:  Still skeleton

COMPLEXION: Guess what? Skeleton

WEIGHT:  Like, 9 lbs.

BUILD: Bony boi

FEATURES:  Solid shadow? In skull and ribcage? Also tiny nubby tail

ALLERGIES: Straight up a magic skeleton

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: No?

USUAL FACE LOOK: A bright smile

USUAL CLOTHING: So many sweaters. Too many sweaters. And baggy pants. And cerulean boots. Of course all topped off with his scarf, tied as a bandana.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR(S): His brothers dying, Cake killing himself(again), Cake self harming(more), being abandoned, hurting others, using others, being alone, fire, being burned, the kitchen, ice picks, chisels, sledge hammers, lighters, people getting hurt because of him, people dying because of him-- *SLAPS ROOF OF SANS* THIS BAD BOI CAN FIT SO MANY FEARS and he hides them all so they never get any better, someone help him oh my god--

ASPIRATION(S) : He wants to help others however he can. He also would really like to be come a scientist, but he puts that aside for the former

POSITIVE TRAITS: Excitable, loving, affectionate, intelligent, optimistic, resourceful, adaptable, perseverance, determination, overwhelming kindness and forgiveness

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Depressed, fakes many emotions, fakes many situations, fakes his persona, shoves his own feelings aside constantly, takes all the blame, always takes the fall, forgives instantly, never blames anyone, too trusting, can be absent minded, easily distracted, never honest about his own feelings to other or to himself, won’t tell people when they’re hurting him, will do almost anything you tell him, he’s entirely too codependent, his entire life revolves around his brothers, if you take that away he doesn’t know who he is anymore, he’s content now but if he were to ever not be, that is a very, very steep slope with no coming back. Get this baby a therapist, someone.

ZODIAC: A hecking crab Cancer

TEMPERAMENT: He only gets upset when bad stuff happens to others or they talk bad about themselves. Otherwise you could literally stab him and-- WAIT people literally did torture him and he was not at all upset! Ahhh--

SOUL TYPE(S):  Monster Soul?

ANIMALS:  Probably some kind of dog. He’d be the goodest good boy.

VICE  HABIT(S): He stress bakes and stress cleans. Don’t take that for innocence as he’s tried other things. A lot of other things. But he has 1 HP, hates the choking feel of smoke and can’t get drunk if his life depended on it. ...Perhaps it isn’t so innocent though, looking at all he does.

FAITH: Who needs gods when you’re a massive science nerd

GHOSTS?: Yes?

AFTERLIFE?: He believes there is none. A part of him hopes he is wrong.

REINCARNATION?: He’s a science nerd, he hasn’t put much thought into this stuff.

ALIENS?: He believes with the vastness of the universe, likely? He wants to meet one.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: Heavy shrugging? He only wishes the Queen were more open.

ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE: None in particular

SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION: He’s content where things are.

EDUCATION LEVEL: High school. He hopes to change this now that they actually have money--

FAMILY.

FATHER: Wingdings Gaster

MOTHER: D̵̀́͟͜r̶̶̶̛̕.̴̀ ̷̡̨̢P̶̧e̢̡̕n̷̷̨̧u̴̶m̡̛͘͠͠b̧͞͠r̴̷̨͞ą̧̛͘ ̸̨G̴̡͜͜͠a̵͜s̢̀͜t̢e͠҉̕͟r̷͏̢̢̀

SIBLINGS: Papyrus ‘Cake’ Gaster (younger), Papyrus ‘Rex’ (older)

EXTENDED FAMILY: Sakura Shalie (niece), Martin Magnus (nephew)

NAME MEANING(S): I dunno, ask their mom OH WAIT-- (imsorry)

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: His mom was the royal scientist, while his dad killed the human who possessed the soul of integrity. Perhaps in certain timelines caused by a certain human, he may have been more historically important (winkwinknudgenudge)

FAVORITES.

BOOK: Pffff-- Textbooks, old scientific studies, non-fiction, history texts, books on space, really just picture anything nerdy. He loves it. Oh yeah, and sci-fi.

MOVIE: The first Star Wars film, he will fight

5 SONGS: Dollhouse, Sleeping Powder, More Than Words, Squid Melody [Blue Version], Cut My Hair

DEITY: Can I just put Phil Swift here? I’m doing it.

HOLIDAY: Christmas

MONTH:  July. Birthday time!

SEASON: Indifferent. They all seem the same to him.

PLACE: Quiet places no one else can reach

WEATHER: Storms. Rain storms on the surface.

SOUND: Laughter

SCENT(S):  Laundry, baking, cooking

TASTE(S): He loves tomatoes? In juice, sandwiches, food in general? Yeah.

FEEL(S):  Warm, soft, physical contact with other living beings.

ANIMAL(S): He loves dogs? All dogs. So many dogs. He wants to pet them all. All dogs.

NUMBER: 9 now. XD

COLORS: He likes orange and blue. He says his favourite colours are his dad’s eyes. Which sounds adorable tbh--

EXTRA.

TALENTS: He’s a little smarty pants with a good memory. Helpful for science, helpful for reloads. He’s decent at cooking and is much, much to physically strong for his 1 HP?? He also has quite the great handle on his magic. Fighting him isn’t fun, at all. He’s only been fairly beaten once. He’s empathetic, great at reading people and a masterful deceiver. He could be a super villain with his manipulation abilities tbh, but he just hates the idea of using people.

BAD AT:  He acts before he thinks. He switches from topic to topic and overpowers conversation. He’s quick to defend others and gets himself hurt like this more often than not, and mentally he’s an absolute wreck. He can be overbearing and clingy though, especially to those close to him. The more paranoid he becomes, the more annoying he seems in these ways.

HOBBIES: Reading, cooking, cleaning. He’s starting to get back into actual hobbies like reading with Rex around. He used to just not have them.

TROPES:  He is about the best supporting ally and mom friend one can be. His best quality is being able to lift people up high. He however, cannot do this to himself.

AESTHETIC TAGS:  #space , #baking

GPOY  QUOTES: ((I don’t know what this is--))

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC(S): No

ALT FC(S): Nope

OLDER FC(S): Nuh-uh

YOUNGER  FC(S): Nadda

VOICE CLAIM(S): ((I have no idea?? The closest would be Cryaotic but I honestly have no idea the specifics))

GENDERBENT FC(S): Nah

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1: if you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?:  If I were to write it??? It would turn into something psychological or horror related. Blue would fit wonderfully in a deconstruction of the human(or i guess skeleton??) mind. Hopefully it’d be about him seeming alright but being an absolute mess and managing to realize there is indeed a problem and work through his issues with friends, family and some professional help. That’d be lovely.

Q2: what would their soundtrack / score sound like?:  He listens to anything catchy, though likes chiptune and electronica. He’d probably make his own soundtrack out of other video game soundtracks though, he’s a doofus.

Q3: why did you start writing this character?: I... Don’t know?? Huh. Guess I did a little bit about... Three years back? I didn’t do a whole lot with him, but that’s around when he met his niece and nephew. Hm.

Q4: what first attracted you to this character?:  Papyrus is my favourite undertale character. Sans is my second favourite. Mash them together and what do you get? A cool science boy! A sad cool science boy that covers his pain with laughter and smiles. Someone help him.

Q5: describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse: He won’t let anyone in, in any way that matters. He’s affectionate to everyone and it would be so easy to use and abuse him. He so strong in some areas and so weak in others. His whole life is his brothers and I’m often lost as to what I should make him do as he doesn’t keep hobbies really due to being busy. He never sleeps, works himself to exhaustion and picks everyone up despite being hurt himself. He thinks he knows what he is but he’s wrong. He thinks he’s fine but he’s not. He denies these problems in himself so hard that even he’s deceived by his act. It’s frustrating in a way even if it is interesting? As a writer I want to break him apart and crush him but as a person I want someone, anyone to finally see through this and HELP him. But no matter the hints I give or things I mention, no one has tried. I suppose he just hides it too well. Ahh...

Q6: what do you have in common with your muse?: Super depressed! Uh-- Ha, put up a mask. Hide pain with jokes. Try to see the silver lining in situations. Loooove space. And science. Psychology’s a huge yes.

Q8: what characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?: Citrus is always neat. Rex and him also have an extremely interesting dynamic. Fluff and him are adorable and fun, and I want so much more of them. Sakura’s is hilarious because she’s literally a god in her multiverse and she’s just accepted him as being able to break all laws of space and time

Q9: what gives you inspiration to write your muse?:  The interactions and dynamics he creates with other characters as well as the unique story and plot aspects that can be created!

Q10: how long did this take you to complete?:  At least two hours. Maybe longer. Oh jeez--

[dyrwoodan]

idk why, it’s been like this for a while now, but i’ve been.. subconsciously (now consciously) distancing myself from the dai community/fandom/whatever it is. like… dao and da2? fine. i love them. i love sharing stuff about my ocs. even from skyrim, while we’re at it. but when it comes to dai and my ocs i’m for some reason like…. nah. i often want to say something about them because i do love them as much as i love the others but dai is so…………… hm. and the people. here on tumbererl dot com. it's almost like.. i don't want to be "related" to dai but don't take me very seriously here. idk they just analyze so much, put everything into boxes, they assume and never ask, they judge so quickly… but i only feel like this about dai. dao and da2 are fine? at least now everything seems fine, i follow less people and my dash is nice. but still when it comes to dai i’m just….. when i want to write about my lavellans instead i feel like writing “lave/lans” or something JUST IN CASE, because i don’t want it to be found by the dai fandom. you know what im sayin here? like yeah yeah, generally i'm all about "i don't care what people think i'm gonna do my own thing regardless of their assumptions" etc etc. i really am like this, 100%, with everything, irl and on the internet as well. but still... sometimes..... there are things (/people too).... you just don't want to be seen with?? does that make sense

and now dai in general. dai as a game. moving on from my ocs the fandom. i’ve recently had to reinstall my windows so i also had to reinstall all my games again. and i’ve installed all of them…. except for dai. like i just don’t feel connected to it anymore. or something? i miss the time when i first played this game and i loved it SO MUCH. it was my life for a long time, i was living and breathing dai 24/7. but now i’m….. hm. i just mostly feel annoyed while playing it? the characters that i REALLY like and that i also like to interact with are… very few. basically only dorian, sera and blackwall. maybe solas. (because he is an interesting character not because i love him. and see? i feel like making this disclaimer because people are quick to assume and speculate and if you like solas then you completely LOVE him or whatever. like you can’t just like a character because they are complex and intriguing. whatever.) the rest of dai? i’m either very indifferent towards them, thus playing it is boring for me, or i straight up dislike/hate them and that is just unpleasant. why would i play something that just makes me feel annoyed and angry, ya feel? yes there is a mage/templar conflict in da2, yes i hate the templars, BUT playing da2 is still so enjoyable. idk i thought that me not being interested in dai was because i’ve played it SO many times that it’s simply boring for me now. but…. i’ve also played dao, da2, dishonored, skyrim…? many many many times? and i still love those games and i still play them over and over again. so this doesn’t seem true anymore. dai is just… it’s just bad. i'm gonna be real here. i remember loving it, i love my ocs, i love the locations, i enjoy some quests but overall….. yeah uh nah fam, thanks for the memories pffff

i don't think this means i'm now completely burying dai, i'm gonna return to it at some point i think. out of nostalgia and love for my ocs, i think. also, if you love dai, that's great! i wish i could too, but i only remember loving it, that feeling is not really present. and sorry for saying "it's just bad" but 'tis how i feel about it and you're free to disagree, of course. what made me write this long ass thing? so i've already uploaded the interview meme for ravell and caiwyn. i made it for my other ocs too and i was ready to upload kaz finally but... idk i just started thinking. for some reason. i'm gonna upload that interview tho, idk when.