#good amounts of lesbianism in evidence but unfortunately very little in the way of good poetry

[lotrmusical]

never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱

#was calling beckett and scouring the works of eliza cook looking for lesbianism #good amounts of lesbianism in evidence but unfortunately very little in the way of good poetry #APART from this worm one which DOES NOT MISS #eliza cook #is there a thriving eliza cook tag on tumblr. somehow i doubt it #the hand of the giant and the heart of the brave / must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave! #not an original theme ofc but GOD the treatment is delightful. so fresh so gleeful some rlly nice use of sound. rlly solidly constructed #words #gay belligerence

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

why do you ship chell and glados if glados is basically her mom

Okay this is actually a pretty common misconception in the fandom that unfortunately a lot of people have taken as canon, but I’m feeling nice so I’ll answer your question.

Basically, anon is referencing a theory from around 2012 that Caroline is Chell’s mom. The evidence for the theory is as follows:

- The turret opera calls Chell “bambina”, which means “little girl” in Italian

- Chell’s name can be found on a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day science project

- GLaDOS references the possibility of Chell being adopted multiple times

- GLaDOS is significantly nicer to Chell after discovering she’s Caroline 

And, anon, you’re right, it does sound like a pretty good argument at first glance. The problem is that a lot of these points don’t actually hold up to scrutiny.

For example, although “bambina” literally translates to “little girl,” it’s often used in the same way “baby girl” is used in English - it can mean child, but contextually it’s usually a flirtatious term. (Source: Cambridge Dictionary)

For Chell’s science project, it doesn’t work as evidence for the theory because GLaDOS killed the scientists around 1998-ish, when Caroline had presumably been uploaded several years earlier and Cave was already dead. Also, Chell’s in her 20′s, and since we know from Lab Rat/Portal 2 that people don’t age in stasis, and that Doug put Chell at the top of the test subject list only weeks after the takeover, Chell was 28 at the time of the takeover. The science project is really only an Easter egg and doesn’t actually fit into the canon timeline let alone prove anything about Caroline and Cave. 

GLaDOS talking about Chell being adopted is a pretty strong point, I’ll admit, but also it’s important to remember that maybe half of what GLaDOS says is true. And even if we take what she says at face value, she also says there’s a man and a woman in stasis with Chell’s last name, which could not have been Cave and Caroline because they were already dead at that point. And the official book Final Hours Of Portal 2 confirms Cave and Caroline were not married and could not have shared the same name anyway. It was also the 50′s, an an unmarried couple of two likely famous people having a child would’ve been scandalous, and yet we see no hint of something like this affecting their company. 

Also, although GLaDOS is nicer to Chell after the Caroline reveal, that’s not necessarily indicative of a mother-daughter relationship, and neither is any of their interactions. It’s just. GLaDOS being friendlier. 

Finally, when this theory was made (and let’s be honest - it still is happening) Chell was constantly whitewashed to hell and back. 

Chell is Japanese-Brazilian, and Cave and Caroline are white, so it would be a near impossibility for her to be their biological child (and insisting otherwise is kinda. just. whitewashing). And although people will cry “adoption!”, based on what I’ve previously proven, that’s pretty much impossible. This theory that somehow she’s Cave and Caroline’s daughter erases an important part of her identity. [Disclaimer, I am white, but this is what I’ve heard from around the fandom]

With all that said, the idea that she’s the daughter of Cave and Caroline really doesn’t hold weight when you really analyze the canon. It’s surface level analysis that doesn’t hold up. And honestly? The idea kinda cheapens the story. It’s much more powerful that GLaDOS learns to care about Chell and becomes kinder than just. Oh, she remembered she’s related to Chell. 

But to actually answer your ask. 

Why do I ship them?

Well, they aren’t mother and daughter, I think that’s pretty obvious now. But if you actually look at a lot of subtext in Portal 2, without the lens of the mother theory, it’s actually pretty romantic! 

I know that sounds ridiculous, but bear with me!

Now - it’s totally okay if you don’t ship them. I get it. Their interactions in Portal 1 and the first half of Portal 2 are toxic if not outright well. Y’know. Murderous. I completely understand why that turns people off from shipping them, and ultimately, shipping is a personal thing. To each his own. 

But before you judge me, let me present my case.

Exhibit A: Portal 

Portal is kinda gay. No, really. Chell and GLaDOS are enemies in this game, but the entire focus is on their relationship (good or not) and the power struggle between them. They are opposites, two sides of the same coin, different representations of opposite ideologies. People have analyzed Portal as a relationship metaphor, or as a metaphor about women’s role in society - either way, the heart of Portal is the complicated dynamic between Chell and GLaDOS. 

That’s not necessarily enough to code a romance, but a lot of popular (and especially popular queer ones) ships begin with opposite ideologies, symbolic powers colliding. Portal cements their relationship as a toxic one, something on the verge of falling apart and hurting both parties in the end. The ending image, of Chell and GLaDOS side by side after the battle, reinforces the symbolic parallels between the two. 

The companion cube is also pretty symbolically important to this interpretation. It’s literally a representation of someone’s heart, and you are told to protect it and preserve it under GLaDOS’ orders, and then you have to destroy it regardless of how you actually feel about doing that. You are destroying GLaDOS’ heart, so to speak. 

There’s also the ending song, Still Alive. The lyrics speak for themselves.

They hint that GLaDOS’ feelings about Chell are more complicated than they may appear (if she’s not being sarcastic...) and she literally talks about Chell breaking her heart (also, think back to the companion cube. Yeah.). The entire song is structurally similar to many a breakup number, with the laments of “I’m glad it happened, but also leave.” 

At the end, we also see that the long promised cake GLaDOS was supposedly lying about was real the whole time. Before Portal 2 came out, it was mostly interpreted as a stinger ending (along with the nicer lyrics of Still Alive) to make you question GLaDOS’ true motives and intentions.

She actually did have a real cake waiting for you. (Side note - not really evidence, but in Argentina, “torta” means cake in Spanish. It’s also a slang term for lesbians. So. Do with that what you will). The cake is what GLaDOS offers you to lull you into the sense that she cares about you, so discovering that “the cake is a lie” wakes you up to the realization that she doesn’t. Except then the idea is subverted one last time, at the very end, showing that the cake is real and at least some of what she said she meant. 

You also see the companion cube. You know, GLaDOS’ symbolic heart?

Now, okay, you might be thinking I’m extrapolating a bit too much. And you might be right. But Portal is not the only game in the series, and if you’re asking me about Cave and Caroline you obviously know about Portal 2.

Exhibit B: Portal 2

If you thought Portal was gay, Portal 2 turns that up to 11.

Even before GLaDOS wakes up, you’re treated to some visual subtext. A few of Rattmann’s drawings representing the events of Portal 2 focus a lot on the relationship between GLaDOS and Chell, with more of the cake symbolism.

In this, you can see a face layered on top of GLaDOS. This could be foreshadowing about Caroline, and likely is, but also resembles his other drawing of Chell. It insists that Chell is a part of GLaDOS, or reinforces parallels between Chell and Caroline, hinting at something either way. 

In this picture, we also see Chell standing on top of GLaDOS, in the same position where the overlay of the feminine face was, again referencing the parallel. It also presents them as opposites, fundamental parts of the same thing and both connected to the same basis, but on opposing sides. 

When GLaDOS wakes up, she returns to her antagonistic role, but there are more hints to something deeper just like in Portal. 

Here, in her awakening lines, she references Chell not unlike an estranged ex. Also worth noting that GLaDOS is pretty much the personification of testing (in a sense, she is testing since she can control all of Aperture like an extension of her body), and insinuates that Chell loves to test. And that she reciprocates that feeling.

In test chamber 10, she says this:

It’s supposed to be threatening, but it does read as almost... sentimental. 

There’s also another chamber with companion cubes in Portal 2. I already talked about their symbolism in Portal, and the same pretty much applies to them here. However, GLaDOS says something interesting about them during this level:

Once again, meant to be intimidating, ends up coming off as “well, GLaDOS, why were you going to give Chell a heart shaped representation of yourself that says ‘I love you?’” And you might think I’m stretching the GLaDOS’ heart metaphor thing a little far here, and I might agree, if the companion cubes didn’t literally sing Cara Mia for you. 

Cara Mia is the turret opera from the end of the game, which is all about how much GLaDOS cares about Chell. More on that later. But the companion cubes play a song called Love as A Construct, and when you get close to them, they sing a specific part of the song that has the tune of Cara Mia. These things literally exist to sing about GLaDOS’ feelings. 

Which makes this line a lot more. For lack of a better term. Tsundere-ish.

Then, right before the escape, she starts talking about the confetti from her fake surprise. 

I really don’t have to explain this one. What else does GLaDOS consider an inconvenience but might miss anyway? Or, more aptly, who else?

Then, during the escape, she teases a (fake) final test chamber in front of you, and forms the panels in the shape of a heart. No, really. 

Up to this point, a lot of the points I’ve presented are interspersed with a fair amount of antagonization on GLaDOS’ behalf, more Foe Yay than anything actually hinting at something deeper than GLaDOS being conflicted about whether she loves or hates Chell. But things really ramp up after Wheatley’s betrayal, when the two of them are forced to team up. (I should also note here that “enemies to lovers” is a pretty classic queer romance trope.)

Here, GLaDOS is put on an equal level with Chell and they have to rely on each other if they want to survive. For the rest of the singleplayer campaign, GLaDOS becomes a lot nicer and even friendly to Chell. There comes a point where she starts referring to Chell as a teammate, calling them “we.” She begins to consider them one unit, two opposites unified. Here’s what she says after the lemon rant:

You can not only see her using we, but actively talking about how her and Chell are going to fight Wheatley together. There’s also that last line - “let’s explode with some dignity.” GLaDOS has fully accepted the very likely possibility that she and Chell might die together. That she might die on the same level, and the same team as Chell. And she seems... surprisingly okay with that, as long as she and Chell go together. 

It’s during the Old Aperture levels that Chell and GLaDOS also discover that they have a lot in common. This is the part of the game where GLaDOS figures out she’s Caroline, that she’s human. Or, that she’s like Chell. And Chell discovers (from what we can tell anyway) that Caroline is kind, that she’s funny and smart and so many of these things she never noticed about GLaDOS before. Now also with the knowledge she is fighting alongside another human being. 

You can also draw parallels between Chell and Caroline, both intelligent women ultimately betrayed by their seemingly innocuous male friends before being trapped in Aperture and forced to team up with one another in a way that will free both of them. We see that really, GLaDOS isn’t that different from Chell - she too has been imprisoned in this place against her will, but in a completely different way. Once again, the idea of two sides of the same coin applies here. 

I’ve written another meta about this before, but I also think the whole idea of repressing a part of your identity and hating it, before bonding with another woman and then realizing that it’s okay to be like her and to be on her side. It’s okay to be yourself and meeting her is what helps you discover this new part of yourself. Is kinda inherently gay. GLaDOS’ discovery of her own humanity just fits so well into a queer realization narrative, to me at least.

Then, Chell and GLaDOS escape Old Aperture and have to get through Wheatley’s tests. 

Here, GLaDOS isn’t just begrudgingly on Chell’s team. She’s actively helpful. She wants to help Chell solve tests, defends her from Wheatley’s insults, and makes jokes to lighten the mood. Things that can really only be explained by her caring about Chell, especially the part about the insults. See below.

After the two escape Wheatley’s testing track, right before the boss fight GLaDOS has a few other things to say.

GLaDOS is not going to betray Chell, because of some kind of conscience. But she could easily ignore that back in her body, and yet? Here she’s deciding not to, and for no good reason. She didn’t have to say that to Chell, but she did, because she cares and she wants Chell to live.

And then, moments before the fight:

The final lines imply that GLaDOS does not think of Chell as an enemy anymore, and that it doesn’t matter what Chell thinks because they are in this together and they are getting revenge together. It’s pretty heartwarming to be honest, to know that even in a fight that will almost certainly kill you, she is there rooting for you and caring about you, even if you don’t feel the same way about her. It no longer matters to GLaDOS whether you even reciprocate - you staying alive, you making it through is enough for her.

So Chell fights Wheatley and sends him into space, all well and good, and at this point, GLaDOS has the option to kill Chell. But not only does she not, she actively saves Chell, and holds her hand in the process. If you don’t believe me:

And not only that, but when Chell goes unconscious from her injuries, GLaDOS sits and waits for her to wake up. It’s also implied that GLaDOS carries her to the elevator, since it’s where she wakes up but not where she passed out. In the scene where Chell blacks out, you can also hear the part of Love As A Construct that sounds like Cara Mia. Yeah. Yeah.

If you think that this cannot possibly get any gayer, you are wrong again, because then GLaDOS makes her final speech. Which is really just a love confession, let’s be honest.

The “surge of emotion?” Do you mean love, GLaDOS? And the idea of GLaDOS considering Chell her best friend, despite everything these two have done to each other? The idea that GLaDOS, out of all people, forgives someone?

Except this isn’t even Chell’s final send-off. GLaDOS writes her an entire opera of turrets, that sing a literal love song. (Note what I said earlier about the use of the word “bambina”).

It really can’t get any more obvious than that. “My (affectionate romantic term here), my dear, I adore you.” How. Is. That. Heterosexual. In. Any. Way.

So Chell goes to the surface, set free by GLaDOS (think of the saying “if you love something, set it free), and you think that’s the end. Until GLaDOS gives you a companion cube so you aren’t alone on the journey, and from the burn marks, you know it’s your first companion cube. Her original heart, her first gift to you, a piece of her that she wants you to carry with you to remind you that she does care about you after everything. It also gives the lyrics to Still Alive a much more genuine meaning. 

Portal 2 ends, and then the ending song, another GLaDOS number plays. Just like Still Alive, Want You Gone is structurally a break up song and very obviously about GLaDOS missing Chell and “counting on” (read: caring about/loving) Chell’s tendencies and quirks. 

She’s accepted Chell completely, and yet also given Chell the one thing she wants most. Only wanting Chell gone can mean GLaDOS not wanting Chell in her life anymore, but can also mean she wants to give Chell the freedom she’s wanted for so, so long. It’s the best thing she can give.

In the co-op campaign, GLaDOS also references still caring about Chell.

And that’s the end of the Portal series. Except. Brace yourself. Despite the games being over, there is STILL more subtext somehow. It gets. Even gayer.

Exhibit C: Supplemental Evidence

Valve has made a lot of extra/cut content for the Portal series, and I’ll be looking at some of it below.

This official valentine from Valve shows GLaDOS offering a romantic partner cake, which as we’ve established before, is very symbolic of GLaDOS’ feelings about and/or relationship with Chell. 

There’s a lot of other concept art and official art that emphasizes their relationship too. See below.

There’s also some cut GLaDOS lines that are even gayer than the source material and again, sound like confessions or references to a breakup:

The idea of “discovering things about someone”... how much more obvious can it get?

The developers have even confirmed a lot of my commentary on Chell and GLaDOS’ relationship in The Final Hours Of Portal 2. See these quotes from the book/this post:

The devs literally describe it as a romance. They use terms like “cheating,” they wanted to write a romantic duet, JoCo purposefully wrote the endings like love songs. It is literally, blatantly said by the creators of the game that their relationship is interpreted romantically. By the creators of the game. 

And if Word of God confirmation isn’t enough for you, have a song written for a cut alternate ending by GLaDOS’ voice actress, Ellen McClain. The song is literally nothing but GLaDOS talking about caring about Chell, about not wanting her to die/leave GLaDOS alone, about wanting to bake a cake with Chell, about waiting for Chell to wake her up. It’s so genuinely sweet and sad, and really, really romantic in the most heartwrenching way possible. 

JoCo also came back for the Portal levels in Lego Dimensions, writing one final breakup song for GLaDOS to sing about Chell. It comes off as GLaDOS not wanting to admit she misses Chell even though she obviously does, trying to replace their relationship but failing, and even explicitly forgiving Chell/wanting her to come back.

Also, the “finally I understand,” as if only now GLaDOS understands just how deep her feelings for Chell are... What else can I say?

In Lego Dimensions, GLaDOS also outright rejects anyone who isn’t Chell.

In Conclusion:

Why do I ship Chell and GLaDOS? 

Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether I ship them. 

Because I think it’s glaringly obvious Portal does.

#chelldos #chell #glados #portal #portal 2 #tw fatphobia #whitewashing #fandom racism #long post

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Review — Whisper Me A Love Song Vol 1-3

A Joyous Exploration of Love that Strikes a Chord

It is by no means a stretch to call Eku Takeshima's Whisper Me a Love Song one of the most popular Yuri manga series of the moment. Last Summer, the manga won second place in Yuri Navi's Fourth Yuri Manga Sousenkyo behind only the ever-popular Bloom Into You. Indeed many draw connections and comparisons between the work and Nakatani's near-worshiped bestseller, and for good reason, as the high school romances explore similar themes of discovery and question what love is. I have been saving this series for some time, and with Kodansha's recent release of volume three, it seemed the perfect time to dive deep into a review and reading of not one, not two, but three volumes of the beloved series.

Whisper Me a Love Song follows energetic first-year high school student Himari. On her first day at school, she sees a performance by the school's band and is instantly captivated by the music and the band's fill-in lead singer, Yori. When Himari confesses her "love" to Yori, she is surprised when the senpai returns her feelings. However, the two have different ideas of love and struggle to reconcile with their feelings of affection and admiration for each other.

A central theme for the first three volumes of Whisper Me a Love Song is exploring what love means. While Yori feels a romantic attraction towards Himari and wants to start dating her, Himari's love is not amorous. She loves Yori's music, loves spending time with her senpai, and loves the idea of seeing her perform with the band again, all of which are valid forms of affection, but she does not know how to return Yori's feelings. The first three volumes see the two characters explore the meaning of love and relationships. It feels very appropriate and fitting in terms of a theme for the school-aged characters, like something a real youth may experience. Figuring out what love means to you is something many adolescents, particularly queer ones, will undoubtedly experience.

Takeshima tackles the subject matter of Whisper Me a Love Song's exploration of love deftly. For one, there is a complex myriad of emotions for both characters to feel and express. For example, Himari feels appropriately confused and conflicted during much of the series. She wants to spend time with Yori and enjoys her company, but also wracked with guilt over not returning Yori's affection, especially once Yori's bandmate Aki confesses that she is in love with Yori requests Himari stand aside to let Yori off the hook. The best part of Himari's journey is unquestionably when she seeks advice, whether from family or another older student, Momoka Satomiya. One particular conversation with her mother resonates well. As she explains to the child, love is something you can grow into, and you may date someone without being completely enamored by them. It may feel like an obvious lesson, but one we rarely hear or see expressed in romance narratives.

ori's journey is a bit less complex and compelling than Himari's. While in the first volume, she struggles to give voice to her feelings and drives much of the story, in the later story, she is mainly reactionary to Himari. For example, when Himari begins spending time with Momoka, she feels jealous and worried. While her character lacks some agency in the second and third books, her stories are still compelling and her growth noticeable. Himari's love of seeing her perform with the band causes her to confront her stage fright and join them full time. Her steadfast conviction that she can write an enchanting love song to get Himari to fall for her is likewise adorable and has the perfect amount of youthful, fanciful optimism.

However, the best part of Whisper Me a Love Song is the sheer joy Himari and Yori get from spending time together. The bubbly younger girl is constantly bouncing off the walls and eager to see Yori and get to listen to her music, and for Yori's part, her passion and excitement, whenever she sees Himari, is evident. It is a lovely change from the typical aloof and damaged star pupil we expect from the senpai in a Yuri series. Chapters featuring the girls going out shopping together or picking outfits became standouts for me, not for their Sapphic content but merely the contagious happiness and pleasure both girls show. Other notable elements of the series include its supporting cast, who are thrilled by Yori and Himari's struggle and enthusiastically encourage both girls with a furious lesbian ride-or-dieism one usually expects to find only in liberal arts colleges.

While the series has many strengths, it does stumble on multiple occasions and has a few points against it. For one, it misses a huge opportunity to explore LGBTQ+ identity. This feature would have been the perfect accompaniment to Himari's journey to understand love and its different forms. While outright discussion of same-sex romance is unusual for Yuri, its absence here is somewhat more prominent because of its subject matter.

Furthermore, Whisper Me a Love Song has some struggles with pacing. Despite being relatively long for a Yuri manga, it moves quickly from one issue to the next while not always taking time to explore them fully. For example, the first two volumes effectively build and foreshadow the revelation that another girl loves Yori. Only for the plot to just as quickly come the next book, with Aki, the girl who once asked Himari to let her have Yori, suddenly changing her character and encouraging their relationship to develop. The one advantage of this quick pace is that it allows for the series to have turmoil and emotion without becoming too steeped in melodrama.

Sadly, the series' faults are highlighted a bit more due to its unfortunate similarity to Bloom Into You. Comparing the two Yuri series is understandable, as they deal with the analogous subject matter, and Takeshima's series began hitting its stride shortly after Bloom Into You was winding down. However, the latter has the advantage of being much more fleshed out, with eight volumes, a (phenomenal) light novel spin-off, two anthologies, and an anime series. While both series appear to survey many familiar Yuri tropes, Bloom Into You, for the most part, manipulated these in subversive and exciting ways, especially when it came to Sayaka. Whisper Me a Love Song does not have any such achievements, although there is still time for the continuing series. I will say, though, Himari's journey of exploring love and seeking advice from different sources about what it can mean is both more exciting and realistic than Yuu's "come to lesbian Jesus" moment at the end of her series.

Whisper Me a Love Song is a delightful school romance series. Takeshima brilliantly chose to put two characters feeling different forms of affection and admiration together, and the result is a passionate and fast-paced exploration of what love means. The main characters, Himari and Yori, are so delightfully passionate and excited by each other that it is hard not to get swept up in their emotions and pure gleefulness. The series has some issues with pacing and being a little too predictable and safe. However, the compelling central relationship will entice most readers. Hopefully, once it has a bit more time to do its own thing and delve a bit deeper, this uncut gem of a series will shine like a polished jewel. I can unequivocally say that I am now a dedicated fan and am very excited for volume 4, especially given the end of the third book. But if you want to find out more about that, you will have to pick up this series for yourself.

Special thanks to translator Kevin Steinbach, letterer Jennifer Skarupa, editors Tiff Joshua and TJ Ferentini, and the rest of the team at Kodansha Comics for their excellent work on Whisper Me a Love Song.

Ratings: Story – 8 Characters – 8 Art – 7 LGBTQ – 4 Sexual Content – 1 Final – 8

Check out Whisper Me a Love Song Volumes 1-3 in English digitally and in paperback: https://amzn.to/3idOaAy

#Yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+ #queer #gay #reviews #whisper me a love song #manga #anime #gl #girls love #wlw

[anti-porn-unicorn]

I’m a girl (18 now) who got exposed/addicted to pornography at a really young age, and I wanted to share my specific story on this blog so that the platform can get it out there.

Under the cut is my full story, and it’s a little long winded, so if you don’t want to read the whole thing, I bolded in purple the general topic/idea of that section. Just look for whichever of those interests you and the section will be about that. The first and last paragraph are good for context and end goal, though.

Thank you.

I don't fully remember my first exposure to porn. I know I was in third grade (6-7 yrs old, I had skipped a grade). The reason I had wanted to share my story, in fact, is because I don't see many stories with circumstances similar to mine. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. 1. The person is a victim of CSA/grooming. 2. The person was at a generally pubescent age (~11-14). And/or 3. The person experienced porn as a quick disturbance. To be clear, these stories are as valid and important as mine, and I simply think more perspectives make evidence of the effects of porn more airtight. I've never been the victim of SA, harassment, or grooming, ever in my life. My story shows the effects of exclusively porn.

The first memory I can recall about this was actually the first time I got caught. I was 6 yrs old, and very into video games,so on this day, I was playing a 3D porn game on my crappy hand-me-down laptop. I kind of knew that what I was doing wasn't acceptable, so I was sitting in my room in the corner as far from my door as possible. My mom walked in so I just slammed the laptop shut because I wasn't that good at hiding things. My mom obviously asked what I was doing, and I tried to keep her from looking, but it was right there when she reopened it. This is where the battle of it begins.

From ages 6-14 I don't have a good timeline of events but a few pop out that exemplify the severity of the issue. These are very probably out of order.

I got an iPod Touch for Christmas (~6-7), and every night I would watch porn on it until they caught on. I literally still remember some names of the sites, most that don't even exist anymore. My parents have always been amazingly caring. I couldn't ask for more. During the earlier ages (~6-8) I was put with a child therapist for fear of a deeper issue. My parents started either taking technology away in the night and/or setting restrictions on the internet. Unfortunately, between my slight tech-savvy, and my crazed addiction at this point, this wasn't a solution.

The addiction got DEEP. It warped my brain. When I had no technology, I used everything I could find.

Whenever I had access to less restricted internet, I used it. Once I asked my older cousin to use her iPod and watched it on there.(she noticed and told my mom. I remember my mom had asked me "Is there anything you need to tell me?", and I knew what she meant, but I just said "nope!" and walked away. At one point my dad's work provided him with a Blackberry, and I asked him could I play one of the built in little games. Once I had it, I watched porn. (when I gave it back to him he pressed the "back" button, and I was caught.)

I used Youtube. This was when YouTube was way less moderated (back when the app was a little old timey TV). I learned I could look up "striptease" and "nip-slip" and other stuff like that, finding more soft-core videos that could suffice when the internet in general was locked down.

I straight-up found out ways to disable the restrictions. Once I found out my mom's PIN for the controls, I went and disabled them, but changed the PIN so it would look like they were still on, and so that she couldn’t access and re-enable them. (I made it 7399. Spells "sexy". My mind was a mess.)

My parents bought a book called "The Classical Tradition". I'm just learning now as I'm looking it up that it was a Harvard Reference Library book (probably why it was so damn thick) about ancient Greek and Roman culture. I didn't know that. I had realized that sprinkled throughout the book there were pages that were more glossy than the rest, which you could see from the sides of the pages (the book was HUGE). These were the photo paper, which had the classical paintings and sculptures. And because these had nudity (Think "The Birth of Venus" type) I would regularly flip through this book when I needed a "fix". Absurd.

My parents got me an American Girl book that was made to ease worries about the developmental years. The pages on breast development / the anatomy of the vagina were what I looked at the most. When my parents had gotten me the child therapist, there was the logical fear that I might have been molested. The therapist gave me a book where there was a page with two cartoon mice, a boy and a girl. They were wearing swimwear/underwear and the point of that was "anywhere the clothing is covering is somewhere that adults can't touch you without telling.” They might as well have been stick figures, there was NO detail. But since they were in ‘underwear’ I'd always look at that page a lot. Anything barely vaguely sexual.

During this part of my life, I got no real pleasure out of this, I was just obsessed. For the first year I even watched it on mute out of fear of being caught. The lowest point during this period was when I very unfortunately filmed a video of me touching myself. I got nothing out of it and had no intent on ever sending or posting it. I was just emulating what I had been seeing. I deleted it the next day. I was 9 then.

From puberty until now (11-18) is when my sexuality was shaped by it. The addiction was far more controllable, I could spend a couple weeks to a couple months without it, but I'd always come back. Because it was now tied to my body. And while my need for it to be constant was gone, now I had to deal with the tolerance issue.

Over time what I watched became more and more depraved. I had the personal preference of hating anything amateur, because of the low quality, so I managed to avoid anything obviously non-consensual or involving visibly underaged girls, but that doesn't really mean much with the stuff the studios were putting out. During the middle points it got REALLY violent and disturbing. Bordering on torture (extreme kink) and even bodily deformation. As a young woman, I couldn't really tolerate any of the role based Kinks (father-daughter, babysitter, schoolgirl), so more extreme for me meant more extreme acts. Just absolute destruction of women's bodies for the purposes of sex. I moved away from that when tumblr banned porn and I started using reddit for it, and also during that time I was realizing how fucked up of an addiction that this was, even before I found feminism/anti-porn. I actively started trying to quit it, for good. But I always went back.

One big effect is heavy confusion with my sexual orientation. A lot of people face this, but the addition of porn for me really throws things off. Like: Am I bi, and a form of comphet/denial/inexperience keeps me from seeing women in a romantic way? Is it a mix of that and porn? (relatively likely) Or am I just straight, and the porn has completley shaped my mind (likely). 90% of the time I watched solo female content or lesbian content, and could only stand to watch certain specific forms if it included men at all. In real life I find a fair amount of men attractive but their bodies in a sexual sense are tolerable at best, but usually cringe inducing. l've never been attracted to a woman romantically, but exclusively women's bodies are sexual to me. It feels like everything in my brain that I would have been able to use in order to figure myself out has been permanently overwritten with incorrect information. Because of porn.

I've still got it bad. Every once in a while, I’ll read something vaguely sexual, or see a woman in a risque photo, and then the seed is planted. I'll always say "I'm not going to do it, I always feel disgusting after, it’s not even really enjoyable at this point, I can do better than this”. I always give in the end of the night. I'm 7 days off of it. I've been on this earth for 18 years. 12 of those years I've been cripplingly addicted to pornography. Two thirds of my life, and for as long as I can remember. I can never undo it. Just like an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, only able to achieve remission, I will always be a porn addict. I have to be careful. But I have to hope for the future. And with finding the community that is speaking the truth about this, I'm heartened to do better. To no longer be held down by an addiction to consuming my own oppression.

#thank you for sharing #you’re not alone in this #I’m glad you escaped the addiction! #submission

[yukippe]

with one glimpse

this is inspired by and for @silima bc i saw her reychel art yesterday and went oh!! ao3

reyna meets rachel at the worst possible time. 

she’s losing her influence over the people that she’s done her best to hold onto at the seams for years. her sister has dealt with coups before, but there is something to be said about being a twenty two year old queen who has never had her authority truly questioned before versus a sixteen year old praetor on her second year of her term that has constantly been filled with thinly veiled insults and redirections to the opinions of her male counterparts. 

she is the only one willing to see rachel elizabeth dare, oracle of camp halfblood and her companion grover underwood, the apparent new lord of the wild. she does it because she knows that something is wrong. the greeks may have attacked camp jupiter, but it never felt right. 

reyna meets rachel at the worst possible time. rachel leaves an impression, of course, she is a legitimate oracle and all reyna has known when it comes to fate and prophecy is whatever octavian does with the teddy bears he cuts up. and, well. rachel is also someone that likely leaves an impression everywhere she goes. her bright red hair and paint stained jeans and nails with chipped, multicoloured polish make a clear picture in reyna’s head. if things had been different rachel wouldn’t have been able to leave reyna’s thoughts. 

but, it is a war and reyna is trying desperately to hold everything together when all the legion seems to want to do is follow the words of a power hungry augur who has never won a sparring match. and then the message rachel dare and grover underwood came to deliver sends reyna all the way to greece.

after everything, reyna knows no lost love for eros or venus, both deities having wreaked pain for her and nico. nico, however, reyna thinks is better than a godsend. 

seven months after the end of the giant war nico visits camp jupiter with the promise of setting her up on a blind date. 

at first reyna is skeptical. nico is a fourteen year old boy who spends every other weekend in the underworld and the rest of the time avoiding reyna’s questions about whether or not he’s going to high school. but, nico does have a very nice boyfriend and he claims that will has “an infinite supply” of lesbian friends her age. so reyna agrees to one blind date, on the condition that nico tours the campus of the high schools in new rome with her. percy likes to cut it on their iris messages to say things about how annabeth is going to have a high school set up in no time, but reyna always reminds him that not even new rome was built in a day.

the two of them are getting hot chocolate in reyna’s favourite cafe by the park with cherry trees that reyna likes to watch and keep track of the blooming patterns. nico is texting will under the table while reyna pretends to be interested in people watching the passerby on the other side of the window they’re seated by. a little girl spies reyna’s purple shirt and the golden laurel in her hair and waves, reyna winks at her. 

“ha, you spying new recruits?” nico asks, evidently finished making fun of whatever will sent him. 

reyna raises an eyebrow at him, “you were at the senate meeting where frank and i raised the age of voluntary service to sixteen. if she is interested in the legion, i will likely be long retired by the time she’s old enough to join.”

nico makes a face at her. reyna sticks her tongue out in return. most of the time she behaves better, but nico’s company makes her act like a child. could be the shared trauma, or the fact that they were both gay. nico’s phone buzzes again and saves reyna from embarrassing herself further in public. she looks over at the display of pastries at the front of the cafe and considers them carefully. hm. she walks over and orders a chocolate croissant for herself and an oatmeal raisin cookie for nico. his tastebuds are strange, but reyna’s learned better than to try and help him in months of their friendship. 

when she returns to their table she plucks his phone out of his hands and pockets it. she ignores his protests and grabby hands, “so. this blind date.”

nico retracts his hands and grins, she doesn’t trust it at all. “she’s going to be holding a blue hairbrush,” he pauses to snicker for no apparent reason. “and she’ll meet you at the library. she told me she’s going to pick a really weird statue to stand next to so you’ll have to make conversation while it’s staring down at you.”

reyna blinks at that. all the statues near the library are odd, so that won’t help very much. but the blue hairbrush should be enough to identify her. 

“what’s she like?” reyna asks. nico shrugs at her, so she pulls out the cookie she hid under a napkin and waves it at him. 

“she likes art and loud noise,” nico tells her as he reaches over the table and grabs the cookie from her hand. reyna lets him because she doesn’t feel like fighting him in the cafe for it. besides, by nico’s cagey standards that’s a decent amount of information.

she asks him if any of the friends he’s made at camp half blood would be interested in joining them on the tour they’re taking of high schools in new rome in a few weeks and he shoves his cookie into his mouth to avoid answering her. reyna lets him avoid her questions as she tries her croissant.

weeks later after a successful tour of colosseum high school with ten of camp half bloods young and at risk to monster attack teenagers, nico hands her a library book he forgot to return that she’s supposed to use for the girl he’s setting her up with to recognize her with.

“you’re going to get your library card revoked,” she tells him. “do you know how long it took me to get you one? you don’t even live in new rome yet.”

“i don’t like the sound of ‘yet’,” nico says. reyna bares her teeth as she smiles at him, but then she leaves him with his friends and a map to wander new rome for the rest of the day and makes her way over to the library. 

reyna has only been on a date that mattered once before. before the unsettling conversation she had with venus, she had tried to feel things for the boys who she knew she should like. no demigod will heal your heart. she is not thankful for venus, the goddess had been cruel and cruelty is not what reyna had needed when the goddess of love had pulled her away after reyna had risked everything on hope and her faith in her ability to survive. 

after the war, though, venus’s words had haunted her. reyna has never had time to think about attraction in depth, but piper’s reassurances that she might love a mortal or a god did not seem to be what venus had been alluding to. reyna has no interest in letting someone else heal her heart, and even less interest in any immortal figure. and. reyna had pieced it together with the help of her inability to tear her gaze away from piper’s beautiful brown eyes that fundamentally she couldn’t love a boy. 

she’d gone to lunch with a centurion who had a pretty singing voice and liked card games. it had been fun, but the other girl hadn’t really been able to separate reyna as herself and reyna as praetor. 

nico’s friend is from camp half blood and reyna has found since the giant war that she is very fond of the looseness of the greeks. she doesn’t like to jinx things, but reyna thinks today will be at least a day of fun. 

rachel elizabeth dare, oracle of camp half blood, is sitting at the feet of a particularly ugly statue of emperor constantine holding a blue hairbrush. reyna pauses in her tracks. a memory of the shape of rachel’s mouth as she said reyna’s full name the first time they met, months ago, plays in the back of reyna’s head. 

reyna met rachel at the worst possible time. nico’s given her a second chance. 

rachel is tormenting the pigeons near her when reyna walks up to her. rachel’s hair is cropped shorter than it was the last time reyna saw her. her nails are less chipped, and it looks like they’re painted in a rainbow pattern. 

“hello,” reyna says. she feels awkward, but she wants to try her best to be charming. everything about rachel is breathtaking. 

rachel looks up from the pigeons she was making faces at and sways. reyna reaches out to steady her. “are you okay?” reyna asks, concerned. 

“uh,” rachel laughs lightly and reyna wants to hear that sound many, many more times. “yeah! i’m find. nico didn’t seem to think to tell me it was you.”

reyna doesn’t quite understand why that made rachel swoon but she smiles at her, because she really wants to smile at rachel and it seems like it fits. “i tried to get nico to tell me who you were going to be, but he can be a bother when he wants to. i have to return a library book of his, but i’ll be right back.”

rachel grins back at her, “sounds good. hey, do you know who this unfortunate statue if of?” rachel points up at constantine and mimes a sick face. 

reyna can’t help but laugh, “yeah. emperor constantine.”

“wonder what he did to piss off the artist,” rachel muses. reyna laughs again and does her best to rush to return nico’s book without looking like she’s running to get back to rachel. 

when she returns she and rachel decide to walk though the park nearby and then go for something sweet after. rachel tells her she’s vegan and reyna plots a path in her head that will lead them to a gelato place. 

“so,” reyna says. “nico said you like art and loud noise?”

rachel blushes, it’s a little splotchy and it hides some of her freckles. reyna wants a picture of it. “uh yeah, i paint a lot and i think i’m going to apply to scad and some other more realistic schools.” she gestures to her denim shorts and reyna looks closer to see paint stains similar to the ones rachel wore when they first met.

“what do you like to paint?” reyna asks her. she wants to know everything rachel wants to tell her. 

rachel smiles at her and reyna can tell she asked the right question. as they walk rachel tells her about how they realized she was meant to be the oracle of delphi because she started to paint the future. now, rachel paints things to send a message or make people smile. reyna gets rachel to show her an oil painting she did of annabeth and thalia that percy commissioned her for for annabeth’s birthday. “he’s paying me in baked goods,” rachel tells her. “his mom’s blue chocolate chip cookies are better than ambrosia.”

reyna pauses her at that, “can you eat ambrosia?”

rachel winks at her, “no!”

rachel proceeds to ask her about her dogs, and reyna loves to talk about aurum and argentum. she’s telling rachel about how they like to steal her food even though they’re made of metal when rachel plucks a blue flower and tucks it into her braid. reyna trails off as she watches reyna, and her breath catches when rachel’s hand brushes against her jaw. 

rachel’s hand drops to her side and she meets reyna’s eyes. “reyna,” rachel asks, her eyes sparkling and her mouth quirking at the side. “this is a first date and all, but can i kiss you?”

reyna remembers how to breathe, somehow and nods. “yes,” reyna says, smiling. “i’d like that. i like you.”

rachel blushes again, and she places one hand gently on reyna’s cheek, and the other on rachel’s shoulder. reyna puts her hands on rachel’s waist and hooks a finger into one of rachel’s belt loops, she pulls rachel closer and she thinks rachel must be able to hear her heartbeat. 

gently, rachel presses her lips against hers and reyna sinks into the touch. reyna can’t think of anything else other than rachel. 

they break apart and reyna can feel a giant grin fill her face, it grows even more when she realizes rachel’s smile is just as big. rachel’s hands drop down and reyna lets go of rachel’s waist so she can hold rachel’s hand. 

“what’s your favourite flavour sorbet?” reyna asks her. 

rachel blinks, “hm?”

“we’re headed to a gelato place,” reyna says. she pulls rachel along the path. rachel laughs as they go and they talk about rachel’s strange taste in music and reyna’s guilty pleasure of badly made action movies. rachel’s hand is soft and reyna thinks the feeling of it against her skin is maybe the best thing ever.

#pjo #hoo #reychel #rachel elizabeth dare #reyna avila ramirez arellano #rey's writering

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 4, Part 1: Blight of the Paradox Clones

BRIGHT: Act 4 opens on a loading sequence titled ‘GATE 1’, and then there’s a short pan down through firefly-dotted clouds to a dim blue landscape called the Land of Wind and Shade. John manifests at ground-level and it’s time for another walk-around game!

The icon in the upper right corner opens a conversation with Nannasprite, who’s still back in the house. Apparently she can’t accompany John around the Land, but she can certainly give him puzzling half-answers to any questions he might have. John asks her point-blank if she was always cryptic and evasive or if that’s a sprite thing, but she predictably avoids answering.

John wanders around the Land, getting into fights with (oddly non-aggressive) imps for grist. The Land is very atmospheric, with glowing blue mushrooms and odd pipes everywhere. It’s also inhabited by large, excitable, bipedal orange salamanders who blow bubbles and dispense information about the Land. One of them has acquired John’s bedsheets and is now calling itself a wizard.

A salamander standing by one of the pipes explains that it’s called a Parcel Pyxis. If you need something, you can chisel a picture of whatever it is into a stone tablet and drop it into a Parcel Pyxis. If you find a tablet, and you have what’s carved into it, it’s polite to drop it into the Pyxis and the Breeze will take it where it needs to go. (Just what the Breeze is isn’t explained yet, but given the name of the Land, it’s fair to assume an explanation will be forthcoming in due time, and it’s thematically consistent.)

While wandering, John finds a telescope. Looking through it, he sees his house, perched waaaaaay at the top of a very tall, very narrow rocky crag. He also finds a very large pipe sunk into the ground. He can hear something very, very big breathing at the bottom.

There are definite pros and cons to these games, but on the whole I like them. They’re more immersive than the usual comic panels, and it’s nice to do some self-directed wandering. On the other hand, it’s easy to miss something in a walk-around game, which hardly ever happens with comic panels…

FAILURE ARTIST: The Salamanders crack me up. Good parody of NPC chatter.

CHEL: Comic panels of the walkaround are included later on, so if you really hate the games you can read it straightforwardly.

John is confused by now being below his house when he went through a portal above it; Nanna cryptically claims that “To ascend, you must first descend!”

BRIGHT: With the game out of the way (it doesn’t really have a defined end point), we return to normal comic panels — and also to the future. AR is embroiled in a shootout with the snakes from PM’s ship, which are now firing laser beams. A stray blast decapitates the frog temple. AR returns fire with a rocket launcher. His first shot takes out the snake. The second knocks WV flying. WV lands behind a rock, and the carved pumpkin lands on his head. AR lines up his next shot...and pauses.

The carved image of Bec’s head seems to mean something to AR, because he immediately ceases fire and comes down to start yelling at WV. This turns out to be a poor move on his part: PM still has her sword, and she is not pleased.

I really, really like PM as a character. She has no dialogue whatsoever and still projects massive amounts of integrity.

The comic returns to Jade. She’s retrieved Dave’s Sburb discs from the time capsule, which is clearly going to move the plot along...

Looks like the TIME CAPSULE has reset itself. It is sprouting a new bud. Presumably something else will come out when it blooms again in about 400 years. Too bad you won't be around to find out what it is!

...aaaaaaand we go into sylladex shenanigans again.

I will say this for sylladex tomfoolery: It absolutely can break up tension and provide some lighter stretches in the plot. The problem is that these don’t always feel natural. I find them less annoying now and can appreciate the humour, but they really bugged me the first time around.

Still, Jade’s use of her sylladex does at least speak to her character.

Jade eventually settles on Pictionary modus, which means she has to draw a picture of whatever she wants to captchalogue. If she doesn’t have the drawn item to hand, her modus instead captures a “ghost image” of the item on a card, complete with alchemiter code. Handy! Unfortunately the modus has some trouble understanding Jade’s drawings, interpreting her picture of her eclectic bass as a regular electric bass.

Bec then catches up and teleports Jade back to her room. In a demonstration of unusual good sense, Jade promptly gets on with installing the Sburb Beta.

Back in the Land of Wind and Shade, John pesters Rose to ask if she’s here on the other side of the gate, in the “spooky glowy place with oily rivers and stuff”. She doesn’t respond. He does however get pestered by Jade, who is now awake and therefore fully aware of what Sburb is (much to John’s confusion). She tells him to go get his copy of the game so he can be her server player. John is convinced Jade is psychic, but she tells him that he has access to all the information she does, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Meanwhile, Dave is also trying to get in touch with Rose, also to no effect. Jade pesters him and they have a cute conversation in which Jade forgets how a reference goes, but Dave assures her she got it anyway. She tells him she’s setting up as his server player and shows him a picture of the meteor aimed at his house. There are no size comparison points available but Jade assures him that it’s really, really big.

TG: well as if like one the size of a bus wouldnt kill me anyway

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave describes his beating from his Guardian as “i got served like a dude on butler island” and Jade says it’s “(DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)”. It’s hard to take the abuse seriously when none of the characters do.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 14

BRIGHT: In the Medium, John is getting pestered by carcinoGeneticist again. We now have a picture icon for CG. Look familiar? Yup, it’s the guy from the end of the Intermission.

So I guess this is the first time in the main comic that we get confirmed, visual proof that the trolls are aliens? It’s hard to point to, since the trolls get introduced gradually.

I’ve no idea how this was received in fandom when it first happened, but by the time I got to Homestuck, the fact that the trolls were grey folks with horns was probably the most famous feature of the canon, so...not so much of an impact. Still pretty cool though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish I could remember how the fandom took it.

The trolls in these early acts make a big deal all the time about how they are alien and the kids are human. It’s an amusing parody of the way aliens act in fiction but it is weird when the trolls become actual characters and we find out their psychology is surprisingly human most of the time.

CHEL: Hence the WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM count. That’ll spike later.

BRIGHT: CG is unexpectedly friendly this time. Apparently he’s been trolling John backwards through time, which is frustrating as each earlier John knows less and less, so CG keeps having to repeat himself. (Which...doesn’t make much sense? He’d have to explain more obvious stuff, sure, but John would remember things he was told in later-from-CG’s-perspective conversations, so...ugh, time travel!) Despite this frustration, however, John’s relentless friendliness apparently wore the trolls down and now they’re friends. Or at least CG thinks they are. John is less than convinced.

CHEL:

John asks if the trolls are in his land, but CG berates him for self-centredness:

CG: WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DUMB LITTLE WINDY PLANET OR YOUR PETTY LITTLE QUESTS. CG: OR FOR THAT MATTER YOUR ENTIRE GAME SESSION. CG: YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONES PLAYING THE GAME. CG: EVERY GROUP OF PLAYERS GETS THEIR OWN DISTINCT, BLANK SLATE SESSION. CG: AS WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU MANY TIMES.

He instructs John to relay an apology for the trolling to Jade and to tell her to GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES. John says he’s a bit focused on his own quest right now, and sets off to find his father’s car.

TIER: While that's happening, we cut back to the gaggle of aliens having a grand old time around a campfire with some good food. A familiar pair of squiddles, now old, is visible as well.

FAILURE ARTIST: AR/PM/WV was a popular OT3 back in the day but you never see it anymore.

CHEL: Pity. It’s adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Dave’s place, where Jade is setting things up for the game. The air conditioning unit helps with the process, but the birds everywhere don’t. Dave drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 16

Rose also talks with Dave as this is going on. She says this to him.

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day. TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee. TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I’ve seen this quoted as Rose/Jade Lesbian Power but I wish we had more scenes where the two actually talked to each other.

CHEL: Being happy that one of your friends is competent means you’re in love with them now? And yet if someone used that as evidence for a het ship they’d be run out of the fandom. Anyway, Jade removes Dave’s bed to make room.

TT: And there she goes. TT: She HAS the karma.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose has been talking to a troll, but she doesn’t know the gender so uses “he/she/it”. Funny to think there was a time when we didn’t know the trolls’ gender. Particularly the gender of Rose’s favorite troll...

Jade tries to tidy up the apartment using “a woman’s touch” a.k.a. a towel drenched in toilet water. Which begs the question of how her home is spotless.

CHEL: Because Hussie is again not thinking through the implications of the living situations as presented, and/or trying to present things as simultaneously a joke and serious. To be fair, considering the dreambot, she could have a super hi-tech cleaning system, or Bec could teleport the dirt away, but if so, we ought to see that.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 10 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15

FAILURE ARTIST: In doing so, she accidentally rips the toilet out and drops an F-bomb.

CHEL: We now get a video of Rose’s location, the LAND OF LIGHT AND RAIN. Her house is now perched on a tiny island surrounded by glimmering pastel oil-slick-looking water, a waterfall pouring down out of nowhere beside it, with golden clouds scattered around pouring rain. It’s very pretty!

We again see the carapaces finding things in the ruins, and WV brings PM to see inside the bunker. The blast earlier formed an entry into the third room which had been locked, which contains further devices, this one with more spirographs and a frog picture on it; WV doesn’t know what this one does and the power’s too low to use it anyway. Back in the room with the monitors, PM is impressed by WV’s drawings and he offers her the pack of chalk. AR, meanwhile, cooks food.

PM recognises the monitor as similar to the one in her own station, though hers was watching a girl. Here, we get the static panels of the runaround game, from PM’s point of view.

Back in LoLaR, a mysterious textbox in cursive addresses Rose as Seer, suggesting she explore. Recall that the book mentioned the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Witch of Space, and the Knight of Time. Since Jade is the one who’s been doing the Seer-ing so far, I’ve seen readers assume she was the Seer and Rose the Witch, but it seems not; further explanations of what those titles really mean are forthcoming.

Sudden cut back to John’s land, where the village is under attack! Huts are aflame, and much bigger and more powerful monsters have arrived.

In Dave’s apartment, Jade opens the cruxtruder by dropping the displaced toilet on it, splashing water everywhere, much to Dave’s aggravation since all that juice was going to come back to haunt me. He’s relieved to see the countdown gives him four hours, but Jade doesn’t know till what, and he realises she’s sleep-messaging him again. He orders her not to watch him pee, and dont put anything weird in the seizure kernel.

TG: the last thing i need is for your weird brain webcam to be snapping shots of my dong TG: your grandpa was a sick fuck why would he build a voyeurbot for a little girl CALL CPA PLEASE: 8

Well, he is kinda right. Anyway, Dave spends a couple of pages elaborately planning misuse of the apple juice bottle and tricking John into drinking from the alchemised bottle, but he dismisses it as too much trouble and goes in the shower, kicking out the puppet. Good thing it was only his bladder that was the problem, if you get my drift. Some fans have speculated that this puppet also had a camera in it, but I can’t see evidence of that; I guess if you squint the eyes might look like a camera lens? I feel if that was the case it would have been shown. Hussie didn’t shy away from the weird shit with Dave’s living situation earlier.

Jade is upset to find the bisected bird from earlier, and decides to help the bird by putting it in the Kernelsprite, angering Dave again. He figures she’ll be more helpful when she’s awake, so he instructs her to slap the air to her side; the dreambot mimics her movements and whacks the real Jade in the face, waking her up.

BRIGHT: I burst out laughing the first time I saw that panel. It’s pretty clever of Dave. (Though obviously not kind, but of a variety that’s in keeping with the story.)

CHEL: Cut to the carapace camp, where they’re burning empty crates for a campfire. AR decides to use the Squiddles to Win over that fine carapace in grey, which seems to distress WV and Serenity. PM takes a Squiddle, but rather than being won over is vaguely reminded of something.

TIER: We then jump back into the past, where we find a totalled car and what looks like AR?

CHEL: Yep, though here he’s going by Authority Regulator instead of Aimless Renegade.

TIER: Whatever the case, this dude is not happy with this traffic violation. Another thing he's not happy with? Unauthorized parcels. Which brings us to the Parcel Mistress, who's been looking for this particular package for a while apparently. Now how to get it?

With that we jump back to John! Who's doing decent enough in his clobbering of game enemies. Just when things ain't looking too hot though, a mysterious stranger shoots and kills them with extreme prejudice. He looks familiar ain't he?

And even if he's not, that gigantic book under his arm can only be the work of the ol’ Colonel Sassacre, which John helpfully points out.

CHEL: Meanwhile in some other time period, PM suddenly remembers she must deliver a message to John. Back in the present, Parcel Mistress, for it is she, finds a tablet carved (badly) by John, depicting the SBurb envelope. The prompt suggests PM ready her sword, but she has none, and claims she would never resort to violence. Instead, she tries asking politely. Despite their lands’ enmity, AR finds her attractive and doffs his hat so furiously you are in danger of starting a HAT FIRE. His civility does not extend to handing over contraband, though. The tablet is sufficient evidence for him to give her the envelope, but to get the green parcel she must ask his bosses. PM puts the envelope in a pyxis, trusting the Breeze to move it, and follows AR.

John plans to follow the man, who he does not yet recognise as Jade’s Grandpa, to get his book back, but first he must help put out the fire in the salamander village. He flings the BARBASOL BOMB he made earlier into the volcano.

The cooling lather should work its magic in no time…

OH GOD HOW CAN SHAVING CREAM BE SO FLAMMABLE

Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. The salamanders declare John a hero, though he’s just confused.

FAILURE ARTIST: A prompt (PM) asks John if he still has the tablet and if he wants to carve something on it. So, in another time loop, he does that.

Back at LOLAR, a very elegant and mysterious prompt ask Rose to find Jaspersprite. Rose cannot find him, but she does find footprints leading to the mausoleum. The mausoleum isn’t there anymore, but the underground passage is still there. Rose takes it down to a pier where someone has recently taken a boat and left a martini. The mysterious prompt says “A mother will do whatever is best for her children.” Nobody ever said “a brother will do whatever is best for his siblings”.

In the future, WV becomes the Mayor of Exile Town. The peace is disturbed when a “huge eggy looking thing” appears in the sky.

Cut to Jade giving the punch card of an “eggy loking thign (sic)”. Guess someone on the forum had bad spelling?

CHEL: It’s a callback to Rose describing the other unfinished GameFAQs entries, which were typed in haste. One described their entry item that way.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave creates a huge red bird with a huge red egg. When he tries to use the egg, the crow sprite takes it and puts it in a nest made of smuppets, swords, and Lil Cal.

Dave doesn’t have enough grist to do anything. He fusses around building what he can. That done, he goes inside and installs gristTorrent to steal grist from John. Who exactly made that software?

Meanwhile, in LOLAR, Rose has set up shop on the pier. The mysterious prompter tells her to consult with the Heir and in the pesterlog we see she’s chatting with John. They catch up on the trolls and various things. Unfortunately, Rose is harassed by a gallowsCalibrator who tells her in 133t speak that her mother hates her and left her forever. Amazing that GC eventually becomes a beloved character since they are such a little shit right now. GC has synesthesia and jokes about their species communicating through “CLOUDS OF FR4GR4NT G4S3S”. They want to be helpful, but they deny wanting to be friends, though later they say they are becoming something called “H4T3FR13NDS”.

CHEL: Rose asks if I'm being courted or trolled here, which with further reveals about the trolls will become somewhat ironic. Other trolls are jumping around in time but GC is ST4Y1NG L1N34R [...] C4US3 W31RD T1M3 STUFF G1V3S ME A H34D4CHE, though will jump forward in the timeline so they don’t have to wait too long between conversations.

BRIGHT: GC isn’t the only one...

FAILURE ARTIST: GC explains the voices in the players’ heads are from the Exiles on Earth. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilization with them. With that important information, GC bids adieu for now.

TT: So the exiles are on Earth? Does that mean our goal is to get back there too? To resurrect it somehow? GC: NO NO NO GC: S33 1RON1C4LLY TH3Y G3T TO DO TH4T GC: 4FT3R TH3YR3 DON3 H3LP1NG YOU TH4T 1S GC: YOUR JOB 1S OF GR34T3R CONS3QU3NC3 TO S4Y TH3 L34ST GC: BUT P4RT OF TH31R JOB 1S TO R3BU1LD L1F3 4ND C1V1L1Z4T1ON TH3R3 GC: 4ND 1F TH3YR3 SUCC3SSFUL 1N THOUS4NDS OR M1LL1ONS OF Y34RS TH3 T3CHNOLOGY 1S UN34RTH3D 4ND TH3 PL4N3T 1S R1P3 FOR S33D1NG 4LL OV3R 4G41N TT: You never answered the question. Where were they exiled from? GC: FROM TH3 TWO K1NGDOMS 1N TH3 1NC1P1SPH3R3 GC: 3XP4TR14T3D DUR1NG TH3 R3CKON1NG

CHEL: We now know who and what the Exiles are, so let’s lop off a point for that:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: Back in the past, when John went by ghostyTrickster, he tries to have a conversation with Jade but it’s interrupted by CG warning her that her robot will explode. After CG leaves, Jade and John talk about the trolls. Seems blocking does no good. John drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17

We cut to CG being gray and angry in some mysterious grey room.

Then, back to Jade. Her package from her pen-pal appears again.

Cut to ghostyTrickster John. GC trolls him, outs herself as female and blind, and threatens to cut his throat “4ND L1ST3N TO YOU BL33D WH1L3 1 SM3LL YOU D13”. John is naturally unnerved by this, but he also takes inspiration from her taunt that he’s bad at ectobiology.

CHEL: He takes for his new username a term that the trolls introduced him to, and is surprised when they immediately find him? Maybe we DID need a Too Dumb To Live count.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to a troll like CG, but with red glasses and a Libra sign on her shirt. This is our first look at gallowsCallibrator.

CHEL: Okay, does the death threat qualify for SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER? It’s a bit extreme considering at this point in his timeline John has done nothing to offend her. Then again, maybe not; the narrative doesn’t present this as being the right and proper thing to do.

Back in the present, PM arrives in enemy territory, with the parking citation as a ready excuse for her presence. Imps and agents she passes now have features from Jaspersprite; cat faces, princess hats, and we see a DD-like figure wearing a cat-ear headband. PM follows a red carpet, only to be confronted at the end by this eldritch-looking majesty:

PM is naturally trembling, but is merely instructed to speak to the Archagent, who we’ve met before; Jack Noir. We see a ring with four pearl-like orbs on the monarch’s hand; this will become important later.

Rose’s Exile voice bids her farewell, telling her to Find your sprite. Realise your purpose. No longer guided, Rose decides to start making her own decisions, beginning with a sip of martini.

In the desert, A WINDSWEPT QUESTANT suddenly appears, this being a tall white carapace with a feminine figure and narrow eyes, from the eggy lokin thign, with the unsound effect EGG! WV and AR appear disconcerted, while PM is busy telling John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis.

Back in Jack Noir’s office, PM attempts to grab the green box and leave, but Jack appears suddenly behind her, making her jump, and tells her she’d better have the ticket payment or you are wasting valuable time he could otherwise spend shirking his clerical duties. PM nervously explains she’s actually here for the package, and Jack points out she doesn’t have the right courier forms.

In spite of how he's supposed to be dressed now but isn't, he ain't nobody's fool.

However, instead, she could always do an errand for him. Specifically, following his HIT LIST, which is two pictures of white crowns recognisable as the tops of the king and queen chess pieces. He also gives her the enormous black sword we saw her future self use. PM, terrified, departs, and Jack wonders if she’s actually stupid enough to try it.

You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office.

Curious, he opens the package, and stares into it in surprise.

At Dave’s apartment, Jade has put the Punch Designix in the hallway, making it rather hard to navigate, but regardless Dave’s busy alchemising. He plays with a few add-ons which temporarily render the machines unusable, but eventually manages to use a jumper shunty thing to consolidate all the machines into one. Jade draws some components, gets the captcha codes of their ghost images, and sends the codes to Dave, who plugs them into the machine. Useful, but could probably be compressed into fewer pages, especially when he follows it up by playing with the new machinery. This is adding to my conviction that the machines should have been simplified severely in the first place.

GET ON WITH IT!: 15

John finds the wrecked car with no dad, package, or game, and gets trolled by GC again. She offers to help him, claiming she wants to H3LP YOU 4DV4NC3 MOR3 QU1CKLY because she’s bored watching his long adventure and wants to help him skip ahead. John points out she could just skip forward on the timeline as she has before, and she admits that she just wants to see if she can change the timeline, as her friends don’t believe they can. She offers him a map, which he accepts.

John complains, naturally, and she relents and offers to guide him directly to the pipe which will help him skip to the next Gate. Honestly, he has reason to complain; her smellovision allows her to read text on a screen, yet not to draw?

Rose, back in LOLAR, battles monsters, doing surprisingly well considering she only has knitting needles for a weapon, culminating in an epic sequence in which she stabs both needles into an ogre’s eyes, flips onto its back, and uses her knitting as reins to ride it down the waterfall. Dave informs her he’s out of grist, but she finds the idea of killing the ogre for supplies when it’s unconscious to be distasteful. He’s interrupted by grimAuxiliatrix, The Troll Who Talks Like This, asking about Rose. The conversation is awkward as GA seems unable to read Dave’s sarcasm.

GA: She Perhaps Even Regards You With Uh GA: Endearment TG: you have no idea dude she is so in my grill TG: like a stray hotdog that rolled down there TG: and now its too much trouble to fish out with the tongs TG: so you just watch it like crack and turn black GA: Um Is This GA: A Common Sort Of Practice In Human Courtship GA: Watching Oblong Meat Products Tumble Into Places They Dont Belong

adiosToreador, meanwhile, does the same to Rose about Dave, with a similar lack of comprehension of Rose’s loquaciousness. GA contacts Rose again, and a confusing conversation about temporal mechanics ensues. Afterwards, we see GA, who proves to be a short-haired troll girl with pronged horns, a Virgo shirt symbol (my troll!), and cute little vampire teeth.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s been too long for me to remember the fandom reaction, but I feel like the reveal that GA is a girl was framed like a surprise. Surprise! This troll is a lesbian! But I might be mistaken. Still, this isn’t like Dave’s (mock?) offended reaction to AT. Hussie, like many straight men, is more comfortable with lesbians than gay men.

We’ll see more of Rose’s and GA’s relationship as the comic goes on. Some non-Homestucks here might already be spoiled due to the numerous fanart of the two.

CHEL: I wasn’t surprised by her being a girl; maybe I’m stereotyping, but the prissy nature of her dialogue and quirk sounded feminine to me from the start, not to mention the “trix” ending of her username is a feminine one - if she was male, it would be “auxiliator”. Not sure how many people paid attention to that though. I was surprised by the later information that (SPOILER) she actually was interested in Rose, because facetious declarations of romantic intention are kind of a thing for the human kids at this point and her flustered reaction could be taken either way here.

Dave, meanwhile, is trolled by AT, with the most cringe-inducing text-rap I’ve ever seen (and text-rapping is pretty cringy to begin with). I gotta praise Hussie, it takes skill to make something this awful.

AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE,

Since we’ll later find out trolls don’t have the concept of police in the same way humans do, and nor do they call animals by the same names we do, I think this is worth some WSP points. Did he watch Dave’s life closely enough to pick up those concepts?

BRIGHT: I get the distinct impression none of the trolls watched anything like enough of the kids’ lives to pick up the concept of the police, particularly since as we’ll see later they missed a few things that are rather more obvious -- such as, say, parents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 11

CHEL: He also namedrops Prospit and Derse, which I’m not really spoiling anything by saying are the names of the two warring chess kingdoms, though I don’t think those names have been applied to them yet. I don’t know why, it’s not like keeping them secret makes a big difference - did Hussie only just think of them? The quality of his rhymes aside, AT appears very proud of himself; he’s a troll with enormous bull-like horns, a mohawk, and a Taurus symbol. I thought he was really creepy-looking the first time I saw him, but he rather grew on me.

Back on LOWAS, John is squirted out of a pipe with a gush of oil. Ew. The Con Air bunny goes flying and lands in an oil river, and he catches it with the Ghost Gauntlets. An adult and child pair of salamanders happen to be standing nearby, prompting a movie re-enactment, much to the salamanders’ confusion.

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CG is unimpressed, though he agrees with John that Con Air sounds entertaining. CG claims to have been watching the whole of John’s life and Con Air is supposed to be one of John’s favourite movies; how come CG hasn’t seen any of it before, especially since he says he has seen a movie John hates?

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION.

Lovely. Though I gotta say the dialogue and ridiculous extended metaphors are one of the best parts of Homestuck. Wish I could pull those off. However, one point here; if they’re aliens, it seems odd that they would use human idioms such as “olive branch” with the same meaning we do. There is a possible explanation later on, but since they only ever use American/Western phrases like this and it’s clear from other things they say that they didn’t pick up anything much about human culture from watching the kids, I’m upping the count anyway.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 12

BRIGHT: We also discover that troll movies are titled very differently to human movies, such as the classic

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS;(BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY;6 TO 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

Apparently after thousands of years of film history, you start running out of movie titles.

Also, note that despite their being aliens, quite possibly with different gender roles, the romantic tension is explicitly provided by attractive female leads.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13

CG thinks that Earth civilisation’s lack of maturity might explain why the players are (apparently) doing so badly. John retorts that GC is helping him, so they can’t be doing THAT badly. Apparently this wasn’t in the plan; CG goes to talk to GC about it, and she punches him. Seems she’s talking to a future John at the moment, and he asked her to. CG gives John a message to pass on to GC in reply.

CG: TELL HER TO POLISH MY HEAVING BONE BULGE AND SET A TABLE FOR FUCKING TWO ON IT. CG: IT’S FOR OUR CANDLELIT HATE DATE.

John comments that it’s like they’re trolling each other through him now, and asks if CG has talked to Jade. CG is surprised that he’d want to talk to her. John offers to paste the chatlog; CG refuses, and John heads off to talk to GC.

CHEL: Precisely what a bone bulge is is never explained. Context makes it clear it’s an unsavoury body part, and it sounds like a term for one’s dick, even though the boner does not in fact contain bones in humans. The assumption early in the fandom was that the trolls had primarily human anatomy, which seems odd to me considering Kanaya’s complete obliviousness to her Oblong Meat Products comment - most teenagers familiar with human penises would be on that instantly. Anyway, there soon came a phase of experimentation, and by now we seem to have settled on the “functional-hermaphrodites with tentacle dicks” theory. Which is weird, because a tentacle doesn’t sound like something which would be referred to with the word “bone”, does it?

GC’s laughing mouth is reflected in John’s glasses as they speak in what I desperately hope is a shoutout to the Corinthian. She calls John STUP1DLY 4DOR4BLE (minor typo on the comic’s part as the E in her quirk should be a 3) and laughs at CG’s frustration. John relays an approximation of CG’s message:

EB: he wants you to touch his bone lump or something. GC: WH4T!!! EB: and that he's pretty much basically in love with you.

GC asks him to copy-paste the convo for proof but John refuses, saying it was a private conversation, and informs GC that she’s going to punch CG soon. In other news, referring to these characters with only their handle initials when I know their actual names is hard.

On GC’s instructions, John turns around, to discover this hard-to-miss landmark:

This, according to GC, is the D3N1Z3NS P4L4C3, in which the Denizen sleeps on a grist hoard so big their alchemising could never make a dent in it.

GC: USU4LLY HOW 1TS SUPPOS3D TO GO 1S GC: OV3R TH3 COURS3 OF YOUR QU3ST GC: YOU W1LL W4K3 TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND TH3N F1N4LLY YOU GO THROUGH TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY W4Y 1NTO TH3 P4L4C3 GC: TH3N YOU GO DOWN 4ND F1GHT TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND K1LL 1T GC: R3L3AS1NG TH3 HO4RD EB: so what's my advantage? GC: YOU WONT BOTH3R W4K1NG 1T GC: W3 W1LL SK1P R1GHT TO TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: F1ND 1TS L41R GC: 4ND K1LL 1T 1N 1TS SL33P

The grist hoard, GC claims, is for the ULT1M4T3 4LCH3MY, but she won’t explain what this is yet, and she leads John to a R3TURN NOD3 which takes him back to his home to prepare.

In the desert, AR and WV hammer some metal to make a gift for the Windswept Questant, which proves to be a crown. PM is shocked to see this, and emerges from the bunker, sword in hand.

Meanwhile, in a long-discarded memory… A PARCEL MISTRESS seeks audience with royalty.

It seems Windswept Questant is in fact, of course, the White Queen.

PM explains recent events and seeks her queen’s advice, showing her the hit list requesting the white monarchs’ crowns. WQ is wearing a ring similar to that of the monarch we met earlier, the Black Queen. Four orbs are attached to it, two light and two dark. On removing it, WQ loses all her elaborate prototyping accoutrements and becomes the normal-looking carapace we saw in her Windswept Questant identity. WQ seems to have a plan; instead of requiring PM to kill her to finish her fetch quest, she simply hands over her crown and ring, and instructs PM to find the White King on the battlefield. Flashing forward to the desert, WQ places her new crown on PM’s head, much to the astonishment of their companions.

On LOLAR, beneath waterfalls pouring from hovering pink turtle shells, Rose frustratedly consults with Jaspersprite, who will apparently only meow. However, when asked a direct question, Jaspersprite is able to respond. He is attempting to fish with his tentacles, but there are no fish, because her Denizen ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. Being as cryptic as Nannasprite, he won’t, however, explain what the message he gave to young Rose meant, saying she’ll understand when she wakes up.

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie is very good at writing the dialogue of a kitten turned into a game NPC, you’ve got to hand it to him.

CHEL: It’s also worth noting that his colours have stopped flashing pink and purple, and he’s settled on pink.

Rose asks Jade for further information, and learns that all four of the kids have a dream self which must awaken; Rose deduces Jade’s has been awake as long as they’ve known each other. Jade is in fact asleep now, and can only message at the moment because of her robot. Rose’s dream self is dreaming troubled dreams, causing the real Rose to suffer nightmares all her life, and to stop this she must discover how to wake her dream self.

GG: maybe the stuff you wrote on your walls can give you a clue? TT: What stuff? GG: the.... GG: er GG: didnt dave tell you?

Utterly heartwarming moment; we see in John’s dream tower, and Jade has drawn over the LAME KID messages and creepy clown faces on John’s walls with a big bright yellow heart and the message wake up john!!! you can do it!!!

Rose wants to know what’s going on, but Dave is unavailable. The meteor is about to land and he’s scrambling his way up the tower to his kernelsprite’s nest to retrieve the entry egg.

Back at John’s house, he finds the useless rocket-pack-combined-with-junk he experimentally alchemised earlier; GC tells him that the trolls’ resident hacker, who we haven’t met yet, can use its code to create a usable jetpack. Said hacker doesn’t want to talk to them but WONT B3 4BL3 TO R3S1ST TH3 CH4LL3NG3.

John sends the mishmash code…

GC: OK B3 B4CK IN L3SS TH4N ON3 S3COND GC: PCHOOOOO EB: hello? GC: WH4T EB: it thought you said you'd be back in less than a second? GC: 1 W4S GC: 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 COD3 GC: 1TS PCHOOOOO

Hee. The misunderstanding leads into a brief argument, GC claiming that 3V3N YOU 4ND YOUR UND3RD3V3LOP3D BON3 NOOK W1LL B3 4BL3 TO F1GUR3 OUT WH4T TO DO. Once again, we don’t know what a bone nook is. Context could imply either an obscene body part or a brain-related one. Common fanon holds that it’s the vagina, others have objected and said it surely must mean anus; neither of those sound like a “bone” anything to me, and in fact bone would be horribly counterproductive for organs which have to perform peristalsis. Someone did point out to me that it could mean a place to put the metaphorical bone, but that wasn’t what I immediately thought.

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t think the phrase “bone nook” ever comes up again, though the word “nook” by itself does and it can be replaced with the word “ass” in those cases. Basically, trolls aren’t a fictional species crafted with any care. Hussie wanted some annoying alien characters with a visual callback to “Little Monsters” and it somehow got out of control.

CHEL: Actually, I believe it does come up in Hiveswap Act 1! But we’ll get to that.

John answers a message from Dave, who now claims to be in the Medium, saying it took him four hours. He asks for advice, saying his sprite wants him to prototype it again, and Rose is randomly asleep.

TG: ok fine but TG: it seems to be suggesting something here TG: and TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion EB: i don't know, just do what it says! EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...

Not a good sign. John decides to Take dear, sweet Casey (the baby salamander) into protective custody by captchaloguing her, and blasts off for the gate.

Cut to an animated sequence in The Land of Heat and Clockwork, a nightmarish lava-scape covered in machinery (convection schmonvection), where Dave is being extremely badass and surprisingly successful for someone with only half a sword. In fact, multiple Daves appear to be present. We also see, unfortunately, exactly what he prototyped:

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Calsprite is even less helpful than the other two, providing a constant soundtrack of creepy laughter while Dave begs him to shut up. According to Dave’s ensuing convo with Rose, this has been going on for four months. That’s… pretty terrifying even before we hear everything that went wrong. John was unsurprisingly instantly slain by his Denizen, and thus couldn’t save Jade from her meteor. Dave, however, has now mastered the art of time travel via the magical turntables he’s created, and intends to go back and prevent all that from happening, now that they’ve spent four months gathering information their past selves can use. Rose is afraid of ceasing to exist; Dave assures her that their dream selves exist outside the standard passage of time, and this will help her dream self wake sooner.

FAILURE ARTIST: The trolls also stopped “trolling” Dave and Rose after John died. This isn’t the end of the trolls, of course.

Dave uses his turntables to go to the past. We cut to a conversation we just saw, where Dave has just entered the Medium and John is about to go pchooooo, except this time from Dave’s roof.

GET ON WITH IT!: 16

Except at the end, Dave tells John not to go. See, Dave from the future just arrived on Dave from the present’s roof. John refuses to believe that this is happening, thinking it’s just a prank. Not even putting future!Dave on the line convinces John. So, future!Dave unloads everything he has in a stack and flips back into the Crowsprite to become a new characters: Davesprite.

CHEL: Note that, instead of Dave’s theme colour of red, Davesprite is orange. I did wonder if this was potentially supposed to show that Bro (whose theme colour is orange) is overwriting/overshadowing Dave’s real self, but since the sprites of the others aren’t the theme colours of their respective kids (Nannasprite is teal to John’s dark blue and Jaspersprite pink to Rose’s purple) I don’t think this is really a reliable sign. Pin in the colours, though, that’ll come up later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Meanwhile, John blasts off with the words “THIS IS STUPID”.

Present!Rose tries to pester Dave, and we get another repeated conversation.

GET ON WITH IT!: 17

Present!Rose decides to nap, and at that moment, Future Dream Rose ceases to exist and becomes absorbed by Present!Rose. I think.

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9

Davesprite pesters GC to tell her not to talk to John anymore. GC first reacts by saying “YOU SM3LL L1K3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S” but then finds out she killed John. She had assumed since she could talk to John in the future, he hadn’t died, but she guessed there was a chance he could die. She’s a little put-out and wants to apologize, but she’s not as sad as you’d expect someone who accidentally killed someone to be. Davesprite asks who is in charge of timeline management.

GC: SH3 DO3SNT W4NT TO T4LK TO 4NY OF YOU GC: 4ND H4S M1SG1V1NGS 4BOUT TH1S WHOL3 TH1NG GC: NOT 4LL OF US 4R3 TH4T 3NTHUS1AST1C 4BOUT TROLL1NG YOU GUYS GC: 4ND TH3 ON3S WHO 4R3 SORT OF SUCK 4T 1T >:|

We do get to meet her, but not until the next act when we meet all the trolls.

Davesprite gives GC permission to talk to John if she cuts out her “coy bullshit antics”. GC mocks his threatening tone and points out she’s higher on the echeladder, from the future, and blind. Davesprite says his self-prototyping gave him great powers and GC says that was a bad idea. They then engage in some banter over GC posting screencaps of Wheeler from Captain Planet (which she calls a “soap opera”). Davesprite and GC end the conversation with mutual respect. Which is honestly really weird after all future!Dave had to go through because of GC.

CHEL: Does this count for SLAMMER points? I think it does. Here’s the first of our new count, then!

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1

This will go up whenever a character does something awful and neither the narrative nor the other characters seem to care.

This also brings us into another point. We’ve seen only hints of it, but alternate timelines are a big theme of this comic. Davesprite in particular is a major focus of said theme, specifically the nature of his personhood separately from the focal or “alpha” Dave. However, as we see here, not even the Dave from the dead John’s timeline particularly seems to mind that John just died in an alternate timeline. At the moment, they appear to feel that because there is an alive John, everything is okay. Let’s see how that progresses.

FAILURE ARTIST: Davesprite and present!Dave (who I guess we can just call Dave at this point) talk. Davespite says as a sprite he has lots of knowledge but is obligated to put it in riddles. However, he says he doesn’t feel like it so he’ll answer Dave straight.

DAVE: alright DAVE: here goes DAVE: why are we so fucking awesome DAVESPRITE: thats the best fucking question anybody ever asked

After that best fucking question, Dave asks if John will be alright. Davesprite says that’s up to John, and if John doesn’t listen they’ll just bail him out again. Davesprite says the gear he piled up will help Dave get to the next gate. The two versions of Dave decide to collaborate on a SBaHJ comic and fist “bunp”.

Meanwhile, “hundreds of pages ago”, John gets his bunny from Dave. We see Dave’s note and it’s cool how each of the kids have their own style of handwriting. There’s a very prophetic sentence in this sweet note:

one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.

We cut to the present, where John is blasting off. The human emotion of friendship causes him to reconsider his action. John pesters Dave and tells him he’s just flying around and not going to the gate. Crisis averted.

This might seem like a cul de sac, but it created a new character (Davesprite) and introduced many concepts, so it really isn’t.

CHEL: Primarily, it introduced the theme of jumping around in time in the literal sense as well as just hopping between apparently-disconnected scenes. The latter’s not a generally well-advised style of writing, but considering the time travel motif of the comic, I think it actually works fine here. Also, as a webcomic, if one spends too long on one group of characters then by the time you get back to the other ones the readers will probably not remember what happened, so shorter scenes for each group are probably more acceptable than in a novel or movie.

CG trolls John again, and after a discussion of their becoming reverse anti-mutual friends, John complains that CG hasn’t really answered his questions.

CG: SO GO AHEAD, ASK ME ANYTHING. EB: ok... EB: what's the point of the game. CG: ASK SOMETHING ELSE. CG: ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT.

John asks where they are now in their Medium, and CG explains they’re HIDING IN THE VEIL, a meteor belt between the two planets. To clarify the layout for our readers, Skaia the big ball of sky is in the centre, with Prospit the golden planet orbiting it closely enough for its moon to enter Skaia during the “eclipse” where Jade gets her visions. Then there are the players’ Lands, their little adventure planets where the consorts live, the consorts being the little NPC creatures (in John’s case, the salamanders). Every player has a Land of Something and Something. Beyond the Lands is the Veil, and beyond that is the Furthest Ring, the orbit of Derse, the dark planet.

CG: OK, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN BLACK INEVITABLY BEATS WHITE CG: ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE CENTER OF SKAIA CG: THE WHITE KING IS CAPTURED OR KILLED OR SOMETHING CG: THAT'S WHEN THE RECKONING STARTS. EB: ok... CG: THE RULERS OF DERSE CG: THE BLACK KING AND QUEEN CG: GET THE POWER TO SEND THE VEIL TOWARD SKAIA CG: TO DESTROY IT CG: THAT KIND OF STARTS YOUR BIG "COUNTDOWN" CG: WHEN SHIT GETS SERIOUS. EB: so then it's up to us to save it? CG: YEAH, YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO KILL THE BLACK QUEEN AND KING CG: AND SKAIA ITSELF SORT OF BUYS YOU SOME TIME CG: BY ACTIVATING ITS DEFENSE PORTALS CG: TO CATCH SOME OF THE METEORS

Ordinarily, the players would have plenty of time before this happens, but something done by the human players has caused things to go wrong, and now they’ve not only ruined their own chance of winning, but somehow affected the trolls’ game too. CG refuses to explain how, because he’s already told him again.

John asks if they’re hiding in a crater or something, but no, CG explains there are buildings in the Veil. It’s considered neutral ground, and both sides have laboratories there where they genetically engineer new soldiers and agents. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try”, but he refuses.

Now comes the mid-point animation of the act, “[S] Jack: Ascend”. I thought it was an ending animation, but no, there’s still more. If you don’t want to or can’t watch video I’ll explain the content, but I do recommend it.

Watch on YouTube

Pan over the Skaian system, from LOWAS to the Veil to the purple towers of Derse. Four towers are close together, topped by orbs. On three of them, we see the silhouettes of the sprites, while the fourth is dark. Jack Noir sits at his desk, doing paperwork, a pink princess dress on a stand next to it. He doodles on a parking ticket, declaring the Black Queen to be a HUGE BITCH. Closeup on BQ’s hips as she approaches, because we totally needed gratuitous sex appeal. She’s remarkably curvy for a probably-non-mammal. Still, we’ll forgive the standard scifi tropes. Jack watches on the Fenestrated Wall, until BQ appears and hacks it in half. She waves the dress and a pink pointed hat at him; apparently, now that the princess doll has been prototyped, the carapaces must represent it in their clothing as well as the jester. Jack is understandably displeased, and after a quick-fire montage of various outfits representing the sprites’ themes, he tears the final colourful tunic up.

Meanwhile, Rose’s dreamself has awoken, and discovers what she wrote on her walls; the word MEOW and other arrangements of the letters M, E, O, and W, over and over again, over every inch of the walls except the part covered by her bed. She finally remembers what Jaspers said to her, which was, of course, MEOW. This seems like nonsense, but as she looks, the letters switch to G, C, A, and T, the letters used to denote DNA nucleotides. It’s a genetic code.

The guardians, meanwhile, are battling enormous monsters; Mom and Dad respectively punch out a three-eyed spider-like giant and a rock cyclops, Dad pausing afterwards to carve a hat on a pyxis tablet, and Bro swordfights against a lava-dwelling tentacle beast.

Back to Jack, matters have got worse; not only are the carapaces required to dress like the sprites, but Davesprite still has the sword sticking through his torso, so now so must Jack. Considering what else we’ve seen carapaces survive, he’d probably be fine, but he’s still understandably hesitant. BQ offers him a sword, but he slices off her ring-bearing finger, which… causes her to explode? Jack puts on the ring, which causes Derse to glow white and him to sprout the features of the sprites; a sword grows from him without him having to fall on it, and wings and tentacles emerge. End scene.

So, approximately, human children have possibly caused the destruction of an alien civilisation’s last hope by putting a cat in a princess dress. Whatever else you think of Homestuck, you can’t say it’s not inventive.

BRIGHT: It is that, among other things.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 GET ON WITH IT!: 17 GORE GALORE: 9 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 6 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13 TOTAL: 111

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck

[dbh-is-a-crime]

All Dbh Chapters

@kaydel your reply to my ask has inspired me to give my thoughts on each of the chapters.

Chapter 1: The Hostage

Is honestly a good first chapter, the tension and stakes are high, it pulls you in. There's a reason people who played the demo were hyped for the game. And regardless of what I think of Cage's writing, it's not the first time he's done a solid intro to a game. (Swiftly followed by garbage but I digress..)

We learn something about deviancy and how it starts, we get a sequence of dialogue based gameplay to set up how important it is to the story, and we get a taste of Connor’s somewhat underdeveloped investigation gameplay. 

I will admit that there are several lines I kind of like in this scene (’You can’t kill me, I’m not alive’ I’d like this even better if Bryan didn’t love it so much) And most of the outcomes are very cool! 

Chapter 2: Opening

Is not a chapter, it's the opening credits. It's not really interesting, but it's not as bad as Heavy Rain's, only because it's about half as long. Kara was robbed.

Chapter 3: Shades of Color

What a title am I right! And no, it's not just because of the paints. This chapter, title aside, isn't bad! We don't learn anything about Markus but it sets the world up nicely. It's one of the cooler open areas. It shows off the graphics nicely. 

And all of that is promptly ruined by the overly heavy-handed scene with the protesters. With the follow up of the back of the bus! Also the preacher guy is weird what was the point of that.

Chapter 4: A New Home

Easily one of the most (if not The Most) boring chapters in the game. Mundane QTEs? We all looooooove those! At the end of the chapter you get some exposition to a very nice composition (this game really would be nothing without the music) and that part is actually ok. But the mundane housework gameplay doesn’t get a pass, even if it is to give context for what the life of an android is like. Would be 100% better if there was 40% less housework.

Chapter 5: The Painter

A solid chapter! Learning about Markus through his interactions with Carl? An actual good narrative device? Unbelievable. At surface level their relationship is sweet and Carl is so supportive of Markus growing beyond his programming. Though there is a darker undertone that mirrors the caged android birds. And that it’s all a gilded cage. And I like both of those interpretations, they’re interesting. 

The music mini game is interesting the first time you do it but after that I’m never picking it again, chess it is from now on.

Chapter 6: Partners

Connor’s return after 5 chapters. I think that might be the longest break between appearances for any of them. Anyway this chapter is mostly fine. It sets up Hank and Connor’s troubled partnership and shows us what most of Connor’s gameplay is going to be. (Detective work and trying to reason with Hank) It would be interesting if there was an option to let Ortiz’ android go, seeing as there if a version of the scene where you don’t find him. But I guess it’s too early for Connor to be disobeying.

Chapter 7: Stormy Night

Classic David Cage has women being abused by men! Unfortunately this is one of Kara’s best chapters. The tension from the very first moment if real, and as soon as Alice runs up stairs, you just know what’s going to happen. Without fail, every person I’ve ever watched, immediately tries to follow her. Honestly? Solid way to make me care about the kid. 

I know some folks have problems with showing child abuse on screen, but my opinion is that they kept the worst of it as implied, like in the failed ending of the chapter, you don’t see it actually happen. So I’m personally okay with it, but I can understand why some may disagree.

10/10 for the chase/escape scene. It’s stressful as hell but honestly the music just makes it...like idk the moment Kara deviates? I nearly, literally screamed the first time. The build up to it is so good, and you as the player are determined to protect Alice and will fight through the programming to do it.

Chapter 8: Broken

Gonna be honest, Markus’ deviating scene falls a little flatter for me. I’ve watched several people play for the first time and actively not want to break programming and retaliate. Which makes the fact that its a scripted event you can’t avoid frustrating to them. I guess we just haven’t seen any anger from him yet so it doesn’t feel like the reaction you expect? (I get that it’s supposed to be him finally cracking, the story just...doesn’t convey that very well.)

Also the fact that you get punished for staying silent with Carl dying is shitty.

Chapter 9: The Interrogation 

Talk about fucking tense! This scene is a real challenge, in either difficulty. Unless you don’t care about the android self-destructing? 

I don’t have much else to say, it’s not a bad scene but there’s not a lot of substance to it. The ‘the day will come when we will no longer be slaves’ line is...the start of the truly terrible writing choices in this game.

Chapter 10: Fugitives

Not a bad scene. Getting to choose to steal a bunch of stuff is fun, and the fact that you can steal all this shit and then go and sleep in the car is pretty funny. I don’t like the house or Ralph, just because it’s another chance to put a female character at risk from a male character. 7/10 I’m never picking the house. (Also did you know you can fail to steal from that guy in the laundromat and he wakes up lmao)

Chapter 11: From The Dead

Ok this is going to be kind of a controversial opinion...but I’m tired of this scene. While it’s true that no scene in the game holds up on the 20th watch/play, this scene lost most of it’s shock value on the 3rd watch. Now that being said, the sound design in the scene is brilliant. And putting the audio processor back in does still give me chills, but the rest of the scene? I mean, I guess cannibalising other androids is a pretty powerful story action. But the fact that you can take all of the things you need from dead androids if you search hard enough kind of ruins that for me. 

Also idk why but everyone collectively thinks that Markus screams when he reaches the top of the slope and I have no idea why.

Chapter 12: Waiting For Hank

Boooooooring. Ok, getting beat up by Gavin after refusing to make him coffee is mildly interesting. But the fact that Hank just hates you in the scene is honestly quite tiring. Like, his opinion of Connor will inevitably go down at least once, you can’t avoid that. Also there’s nothing to explore in the office so...

Chapter 13: On The Run

Both versions of this scene are very tense. And not in...a super fun way. Like ok, Kara has that empowering woman moment where she cuts her hair, great, but the rest of the scene isn’t that good. (And the version with Ralph is downright disturbing.) 

Chapter 14: Jericho

Oh god let’s players cannot do this part. And the amount of time I’ve spent watching people run around clueless because they weren’t paying even the slightest attention or follow the obvious path, makes me hate this chapter. I also hate it because the gameplay isn’t very interesting. Markus’ precog is mildly interesting, but that’s really it. (The end of this chapter has some pretty stunning visuals tho)

Chapter 15: The Nest

Ok, the opening conversation with Hank is cute if Connor is trying to be nice. Though the actual chase is pretty tense. The music is on point as always, because the composers for this game were very overqualified for the job. Also the fact that you get punished for not saving Hank both amuses and vexes me. You don’t catch the guy because you were a shitty partner. But what was the point of taking the risk with Hank if there’s no reward? (Yes I know he still ends up in evidence lock up but that’s hardly reward enough for risking your partner’s life)

I mean okay the pigeons flying through the roof is pretty funny, but the investigation in the apartment isn’t all that interesting. Also I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned the Zen Garden once but honestly most of the scenes there aren’t that interesting anyway.

Chapter 16: Time To Decide

Wow where do I start on how uninteresting this chapter is. You learn very little about Markus’ companions, you get to have a conversation with a magical minority, and you get a line about an android being dragged behind the back of a car. (After reading the wiki about James Byrd I feel genuinely sick and could not be more disgusted that this was used so clumsily in the game.)

Chapter 17: Zlatko

His name sounds like a brand. Also this is my least favourite Kara chapter. They go to his place for almost no reason (just so they can get caught) and we get a 20 minute scene of Zlatko being a cartoonish monster of a man. Also this has been pointed out and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Why is Kara scared of Luther when she sees him? Like...??? Anyway re-finding her memories is boring, finding Alice is also boring, and hiding from Zlatko is just stressful. Nothing interesting to the story happens here, except that Luther joins Kara and Alice.

Chapter 18: Russian Roulette 

Perhaps the shortest chapter in the game. It’s not like...super boring, but it’s not interesting either. Also don’t forget to notice the picture on the table or you’ll have no chance of getting the good ending later! Seriously, they should have made it a requirement for the scene to move on if it’s going to be that important.

Chapter 19: Spare Parts

The whole freerunning thing at the start is lame. And the fact that you have to grab the android and then release him to get the best outcome is confusing as hell. (I have seen many folks fuck this up.) The part where you sneak around in the guard house is actually kind of cool. Also North go down if you’re nice to people....I love this game.

Chapter 20: The Eden Club

Pity the lesbian sexworker androids!!! In all seriousness though this is a chapter I do not like. The endings are unfulfilling, the whole storyline is gross, poorly written and very Cage-esque. (Also why would you make the two android lovers the same model?! Just make one of them one of the other 8 female WR800 models you have!) I mean I guess I can say that the glowly design of the sexclub is nice or whatever.

Chapter 21: Pirate’s Cove

Ok this is a personal one but I don’t like this chapter. Something about the family dynamic between the three falls flat for me and so the whole scene being about them makes it...ehh. Also Kara under threat again! Woohoo! The scene on the carousel is kind of cute and the scene composition is nice, but the fact that all the Jerrys are standing around watching is a little weird. Also bait us with rA9 crap why don’t you! we’ll just never learn anything about this i guess

Chapter 22: The Bridge

I like this chapter to be honest. I know Pirate’s Cove is meant to be relaxed but I find this chapter more relaxing. Even if it ends with a gun to Connor’s head. I mean it’s not that hard to not get shot really. And seeing Hank start to care and question their mission is interesting. I don’t know, I guess I just like the visuals of the snow and the bridge. (Anyone notices that it goes from raining to snowing like three days later, wtf)

Chapter 23: The Stratford Tower

Now this one is complicated. Because I like the breaking in and getting up to the broadcast department part, I even like the pre-speech tension. Markus carrying the weight of history and knowing his words will shape what people across the world think of androids. 

The music as he gets ready to start the speech is....just so good. But then he starts talking and.....mmmmm press x for civil right yes please! Press square to end slavery? Absolutely! God...the writing in this scene is Bad. Which is a shame! Because it squanders the carefully crafted tension built up until this point. I like the energy going into this scene, the idea that they’re about to take a stand, make history. But it is unfortunately ruined for the sake of a poorly executed racism allegory.

Chapter 24: Public Enemy

Ok, going to investigate the crime scene of what you just did as Markus is pretty good. Its not an original idea, that was the opening sequence for Indigo Prophecy, but it still works I’m not going to lie. Also the cop from the Hostage showing up to thank you if you saved him is cute. The fact that Hank is starting to question Connor and look for signs of deviancy in him is also nice! Also I hate it but going after Simon gives you a more cohesive storyline if you’re going for a deviant Connor route. (Can I get an F for Simon? He can die so many different ways)

Chapter 25: Midnight Train

Can’t believe that the chapter about the underground railroad is literally called Midnight Train. Yeah the dialogue in this? Shocking, terrible, absolutely unforgivable. Rose I am so sorry this happened to you. Also a cop arrives to....put Kara in peril at the hands of a male character again! Can’t go a chapter without that!

Chapter 26: Capitol Park

Hmmmmmmmmm. ‘We have a dream’? ‘I can’t breathe, but I’m still alive’? Hi, yes, hello? David Cage is doing it again, yeah he’s co-opting black history for his story about androids, somebody needs to stop him. Why did no one stop him.  

Ok, most of this chapter other than that is ok. It’s not particularly good, but it’s ok. (wiLL yOu bE gOoD oR eViL?!?!1)

Chapter 27: Meet Kamski

Ok this man is so creepy and emotionally manipulative and as a narrative tool I’ve actually come to love it. Like the tone of this chapter is such a breath of fresh air. Maybe it’s just the fact that they added a new character after such a long time and that he knows more than he ever lets on. rA9 baited again...

Also this is Connor’s turning point in a way. You can still choose to change your path later on, but this is the real moment of truth where a character pushes him to reveal where he’s at. (Also the fucking MUSIC)

Chapter 28: Freedom March

Oh no. I’m so sorry Markus you deserve better. I hate this chapter if you can’t tell. The combo of the black history slogans and the jesus music is too much for me. Also the good ending is locked behind Simon being alive/Spare Parts success route??? Also F for that random android who’s name is John that we hear about twice.

Chapter 29: Last Chance, Connor

I usually keep a low profile with Gavin so I miss out on the beatdown unfortunately. But having the option is hilarious. If you don’t sacrifice at the march, Simon is alive, interrogation bad end, Rupert and the Tracis escape....can you even find Jericho?

Just a thought, anyway this is short but tense chapter. Don’t hate it.

Chapter 30: Crossroads

Kara’s part of this is dumb as hell. The Alice twist literally destroys the storyline but anyway...

Markus has very little to do until the end. His version is ok, but Jesse’s line delivery leaves something to be desired. (You’re one of us....)

Connor’s is easily the most interesting of the three concurrent stories at this point. Going in to capture Markus/North, chasing them through the hold if ur a machine..very good. 

And....going deviant. Okay yes that still gets me, I did actually shout YES!! out loud the first time I witnessed it. The music’s slow build in the scene, and most of the dialogue (if you choose carefully) swells to this point and...and..it happens!! 

Like idk I’ve only been slowly building up to this for 9 hours, sue me.

Chapter 31: Night Of The Soul

I like this chapter! Or Markus’ version anyway. Connor’s...well the Hank version is just sad. The Jericho version is fine.

But Markus? Visiting Carl’s grave or the man himself is such an emotional moment for the character. And the single humanising moment he’s had in several chapters. The conversation is so weighted with his doubts and fears and Jesse Williams gives a beautiful performance! (Also as I’ve said, the alarm system saying ‘welcome home markus’ kills me on impact)

Chapter 32: Battle For Detroit

Is a good chapter. What, did you expect me to say it isn’t? Cause it is. Or some versions of it are.

The tension in all three characters stories, regardless of which version, is perfectly hit at this point.

Kara’s....ah fuck idk I mean the border version is ok? The others....kind of suck? The guy letting them through with high public opinion and Markus doing a peaceful demonstration is kind of cute and sort of makes sense in a way.

Markus’ versions (both in which he is alive) are pretty cool. The revolution is hard, and I do like that it ends with him saying that they haven’t won, they’ve only started a war. The demonstration is kind of dumb, and I actually prefer them getting shot and then the news anchors suggesting that maybe androids are people in their own right that humans refused to acknowledge. (Feels more real, ya know?) Also black folk song!! Why??

Gonna be real, most of Connor’s versions of this scene are pretty good. Cyberlife tower is tense as hell but he’s a fucking badass. Machine Connor on the roof gives us the best line in the game. ‘What’s up lieutenant, ran out of whiskey so you came here looking for trouble?’  

So that’s some of my thoughts on each of the chapters of dbh, I could go into more depth but my eyes hurt and I’ll probably hit post limit soon.

#dbh meta #ramblings #mine

[princess-faelivrin]

It’s a very abridged list of characters, BUT I wanted to make a post about my interpretations of some of the CoH characters despite the fact that Nobody Asked. Apologies in advance for 100000 blocks of text and yelling. 

TÚRIN

Call it projecting, ‘cause I guess it is, but Túrin has always been half-Asian in my head, in terms of appearance. I don’t know if I do a good enough job of showing it in my art, but Morwen reminds me of my Taiwanese mom and Húrin of my white-passing dad, so my Túrin takes after his mom. He’s stated to have grey eyes, so grey eyes he will have, but I tend to draw them dark enough that they almost look black. Aside from that, he’s tallish with unruly also-almost-black hair and a tendency to wear dark colors, which... might also be projection except for the tall part. It is what it is. 

Anyway, personality-wise... I mean this with all the love in my heart, but Túrin’s a dumb emo. Actually I partially take that back-- he’s a smart emo, smart and charismatic enough to be a natural leader with a good head for battle, but a ridiculous emo nonetheless. 

As stated in the Childhood of Túrin, he was kind of a weird kid, too old for his age and slightly unsettling, with a quick temper and an ability to hold grudges, but he cared deeply for the feelings of those around him and had a strong protective instinct for his little sis Lalaith. He’s also shown to have a leaning towards pity throughout his life, for anyone hurt or sad or at a disadvantage, which is really sweet and kinda makes me want to cry. 

Later on, Túrin is clearly pretty impulsive and can be ruled by anger, like when he smacked Saeros in the nose with a cup (which is valid) and lashed out at Beleg when he tried to give him bread. He felt bad about that second one pretty quickly, but I think it’s mentioned a couple times throughout CoH that people are scared of Túrin because of how quickly his mood can go south. 

On the other hand, despite the fact that he keeps directly and indirectly killing them, Túrin actually does really love his friends. Obvs he loves Beleg, and he loved Sador and probably Nellas too, and during the Nargothrond chapter he tries his best to look after Gwindor and Finduilas and try to figure out what’s making both of them so damned sad all the time. He fails, of course, because he’s too oblivious to notice the romantic tension so thick you’d have to use Gurthang to cut it, but he tries and that’s what counts. 

BELEG

I think it might just be because of fanart, but Beleg as I see him has silver hair. Between Beleg and Mablung, the consensus seems to be that one of them has dark hair and the other silver, so my Beleg is the silver one. I have actually no idea what color his eyes are, though. Hazel? Who knows. He’s taller than Túrin, that’s for sure, with long legs and broad shoulders. I like drawing him with a little white flower pin on his clothes. 

He seems to be a pretty cheerful dude, probably the most cheerful in all of CoH, which is good for him, I guess. He laughs when the outlaws see him and go “oh shit, who is that?” and lets them be in suspense for a second or two before going “haha, sike, it’s me! Beleg! I have food for y’all starving dudes.” Thus, he’s a good foil/companion to Túrin’s depressing nature and his death removes a lot of the scant happiness in Túrin’s life. 

Something I love about Beleg is that he’s very forgiving and just like... a ridiculously nice person for the situation. Beleg doesn’t hold anything against Túrin, doesn’t hold anything against Andróg either (which is pretty impressive,) and immediately decides to give Gwindor lembas and take him along for the ride after finding him under a tree in the forest. 

The big important thing to Beleg’s personality, imo, is that he’s very loyal (to Túrin specifically.) Despite being told it’s a dangerous idea, he goes and looks for Túrin in the wilderness, and even Thingol is well aware he won’t be stopped. It also outright says that where Túrin is concerned, Beleg “yield[s] to his love against his wisdom” to be with him. He’s straight up referred to as the most steadfast of friends, which is really sad because it’s like a sentence after he dies, but there it is-- Beleg is a good friend and a loyal one. 

TÚRIN’S FAMILY

I already mentioned the fact that Túrin’s family reminds me a lot of mine, which definitely influences my perception of them, but anyway: 

Morwen is a fairly angular lady, who has dark dark hair pulled into a chopstick bun behind her head and a pair of raven-feather earrings that gleam in low light. She’s the parent that Túrin got his unsettling edgy aura from, and her Displeased Face is enough to scare any intruder out of her house. She loves her kids and her husband, but she’s stern so sometimes it’s hard to tell. 

Húrin is the neighborhood guy who knows everyone and who everyone knows in return. He’s kind of a square-looking blond guy, like Van Hohenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist except happier and more of a jock. He apparently can play the harp, which is cool, and he probably has lots of stories from being out and about with the elf-host. He loves his kids and his wife and likes to joke around sometimes with Túrin because he’s so straightforward and less inclined to humor. 

Niënor outstripped her parents and her brother in height, and ended up the tallest of the family. She has her dad’s blonde hair, and is slightly more square shaped than her mom or her brother. She’s also half-Asian, but you have to squint. She doesn’t fight like her brother, and is acutely aware of the Túrin-shaped hole in her mother’s life and heart and the matching shadow cast over her own life. However unlike Túrin she is in some ways, she has the same occasional fiery stubbornness and penchant for anguished theatrics, albeit on a smaller scale. 

Lalaith... poor kid. She was charming and cute but didn’t last long. 

MABLUNG

My Mablung has wavy-ish dark hair in a similar style to Beleg’s, and has a slightly less willowy build, for lack of a better way to compare them. He’s got dark eyebrows to better express how utterly unimpressed he is with whatever dumb shit is going down in Doriath, and probably a few not-too-flashy piercings. He’s very dignified in posture and appearance, but not like... pretentious, because he fights people in the woods on a regular basis. 

Out of Túrin’s friends, Mablung is probably the most akin to the Responsible One, with Gwindor at a close second. He’s less willing than Beleg to drop everything for a friend, and requires more evidence to support it, but he’ll still do it after thinking it over and will probably beat himself up about not having gone for it sooner. 

On that point, poor guy takes too much onto his own shoulders and ends up feeling shitty and miserable when he fails at something that he could not have possibly succeeded at. This is demonstrated in terrible, heartwrenching fashion throughout the story, when Mablung asks Thingol to fire him because he lost Morwen and Niënor, to which Thingol says “what no, you’re too good, we need you” and Melian says “don’t feel too bad about it, ok?” (he ignores the last part and continues to feel bad enough about it that he looks for Niënor for Literal Years.) Also on that topic is the scene in which Mablung sees Túrin dead and stands there like some sort of Beleriand Benvolio, realizing that all his friends are dead and that “thus with words have I slain one that I loved.” 

NELLAS

I almost forgot her, can you imagine? You probably can, because she’s a minor character who disappeared like a third of the way through the story, but let’s not talk about that. She’s a forest girl, so I imagine she likes to wear a lot of nice leaves on her head, and/or make a bunch of flower crowns and then drop them in fright if anyone happens to find her in the process. She has dark brown hair and big, curious eyes, and is short and slight even by human standards. 

Nellas has... hardcore dirt lesbian energy. It’s implied that she had a crush on Túrin, but honestly, I doubt that very much. In my head, she and Túrin were just really close pals, and she taught him about how to live in the woods and how to rescue worms from the rain. Her moment of glory, basically, is going into the city once and immediately proceeding to freeze up from anxiety in front of the king. Is that a mood? Yeah and I love her. I hope she’s okay.  

ANDRÓG

I realize he’s another minor character, but he is a very compelling one to me specifically, so. As I imagine him, he’s a fairly lean young dude with a hungry-wolf look about him, which is sort of a mixture of desperation, suspicion, and plain snappishness. He has dark eyes and hair a little darker than what could be called ‘mousy brown,’ tied back in a short ponytail. He also has a frequent scowl and generally is a little bit scary, although he isn’t exactly physically imposing in the ‘tall and buff’ sense. 

There really is no other way to describe Andróg’s personality than ‘he’s a particularly mean tsundere.’ He’s just... full of rage and repressed Feelings for Túrin and possibly also Beleg. Unfortunately, these feelings manifest in Being A Bitch And Generally Not Nice. It takes him so long to admit he can’t actually hate Beleg that he literally just up and dies after doing one (1) nice thing. Why do I like him? It’s anyone’s guess tbh. 

GWINDOR

Ah... yes...... the character who nobody talks about but who I love with my whole heart and soul. To start off with appearance, the only canon things about what he looks like is that he has dark hair and looks older than he would otherwise because torture. Immediately post-imprisonment and during it, I imagine his hair is short, but beforehand and a while after, it gets back to being long. He has a bunch of scars from all that too, and generally has the bearing and amount of grey hairs as a substitute teacher who nobody listens to. I draw him with grey eyes usually, but saw @bisexualturin‘s hc of him having had violet eyes before and I’m kinda in love thanks. 

In terms of who he is as a person, we don’t know much of what he was like before the Nirnaeth, but as I see him, he’s always had a fiery streak and a slightly acerbic sense of humor. Being tormented for 14 years forced him to mellow out some, by which I mean a) how the hell are you supposed to keep your sense of humor after that and b) as shown in his arguments with Túrin over tactics, he’s now extremely wary of head-on battle. 

He’s fundamentally someone who wants the best for the people around him, and who loves both Finduilas and Túrin very much despite feeling hurt and miserable over the fact that his opinion is now worth nothing to those in charge and the sense that he’s not good enough for anyone (much less his two best friends) in his current state. Overall, his dying speech is emblematic of the very Oof Ouch and Complicated feelings he ended up having toward Túrin, namely “you’re a dumbass and probably should have listened to me, but I love you and I am going to try my damndest to give both you and Finduilas as much of a chance at life as I can, even here as I bleed out in your arms.” 

Which brings us to... 

FINDUILAS

Finduilas is sweet like honey chamomile tea and her whole being radiates soft sunlight. In my mind, she’s somewhat round-faced, with really fluffy golden hair, sparkly freckles on tan skin, and a liking for wearing light blue clothes that match her eyes. She smiles a lot and possibly gives off actual light??? Also my heart is full of affection for chubby Finduilas. General consensus is Soft. 

Canon-wise, whether she’s more introverted or extroverted is kind of up to interpretation, as all we’re really given is that she worries about Túrin when he’s out fighting and “wishe[s] not to add one tear to [Gwindor’s] suffering.” I tend to think of her as sunny and gregarious, with way more game than her dad, and with endless reserves of empathy, sympathy, and compassion for the people she loves. 

As a Finwean princess, she absolutely has the capacity for badassery, which makes me very into the idea of Túrin rescuing her post-Nargothrond as per Gwindor’s request and the two of them going on a road trip of doom. But unfortunately, we don’t get to see another side of her in the book. 

I usually just put the book down and cry after the sack of Nargothrond, so I’ll just do one more character: 

ORODRETH

Ok, so Finduilas has to have gotten her Vanyarin hair from her dad, clearly. But since Elves can probably change their appearances based on willpower to some degree, Orodreth’s hair is nowhere near as fluffy, and is a darker honey-blonde than Finduilas’ gold. He’s one of the plainest-looking Finweans by virtue of the fact that he perpetually has this look on his face that makes him seem like he wants to melt into the floor and go back to Aman. Which he kinda does. 

Unfortunately, Orodreth didn’t do much in the story except be a doormat to like five different people and then die, but I still like him for whatever reason. Way early on, before Húrin or his kids were a thing, Orodreth was still himself, aka someone who asked nicely for people to not make bad decisions, and predictably didn’t get listened to. Sure, some of Fëanor’s terrible boys took over his hidden elf city, but what was he going to do? Fight them? No. He’d rather just Not. 

...I feel bad for him. He literally did not ask for Any Of That. 

that’s all y’all, I am so sorry for making you read the entirety of the inside of my head as it has been for the past four months 

#the children of hurin #turin turambar #beleg cuthalion #morwen #hurin #nienor niniel #mablung #nellas #androg #gwindor #finduilas #orodreth #blazie .txt #this is so much text i am so sorry #i wrote it all in one go so like idk if there's typos

[onetenthoddity]

A Big Personal Post

So word of warning, this is gonna be a very long tl;dr post about my struggles with my sexuality and I’m gonna get into some real TMI stuff. Also, while it is Pride Month (Happy Pride Month to any LGBT people reading this by the way!!), this is completely unrelated to that and has nothing to do with my sexual orientation or gender identity or anything similar. I’m just a boring cis straight guy. Sorry men, you just don’t do it for me.

This might seem like a weird and unexpected post coming from me, but I constantly keep all this locked away tight and it’s been eating at me for years and years and years and it’s gotten really bad recently, to the point of real emotional distress and depression, so I think I need to just let it out already. So that’s what I’m gonna do.

I’m just gonna jump right into it; I have a very high sex drive. I like sexual stuff; fanservice, big titty anime girls, lots of nsfw art and artists, the dreaded sexualized depictions of women, you know. The usual suspects. And it’s not like any of that is bad. Humans are sexual creatures, it’s biologically wired into us to have a sex drive and experience sexual attraction and desire. Pretending that’s not the case/telling people it’s wrong to feel that way is honestly absurd and really harmful. The real problem is I feel really bad about all of it; I have a huge amount of shame and guilt and embarrassment towards my sexuality. I never really talk about sex or sexual things with anyone, and I get uncomfortable whenever it gets brought up. Like I said, I bottle it all up, and that only makes me feel worse about it all. I’m not even religious at all by the way, I’ve been to church for religious purposes a grand total of once in my entire existence. But unfortunately the US is still a sexually repressive society whether you’re religious or not thanks to those good ol’ puritan roots that still fuck everyone over to this very day, so it was still hammered into me that sex is bad and something to be ashamed of. It’s so ridiculous; I live in an extremely liberal town right outside Boston, my family is full of accepting people, I actually got a good sexual education from school, and yet here we are. Even though I logically know it’s a load of shit, I just can’t seem to get rid of the idea that sex and sexual desire is inherently harmful or wrong. 

But that’s not the only reason I feel so negative about my sexuality; as one of my exes once put it, I perhaps drank TOO much respect women juice. And while I lean very left/am a very progressive person in general, it’s not like I’m one of those male feminists that seem like they’re just trying to get brownie points or moral superiority, nor am I a “nice guy”. No; for most of my life I’ve just been around women. When I was little me and my older sister spent all our time together; she’s even the one taught me how to read. From middle school and beyond basically all of my closest friends were all girls. And since I was an art boy, I took a lot of art classes and went to art club, which were demographically mostly female. Hell, I was the only boy in my AP Portfolio class, and like one of three total in art club. And after that I went to an art college with a 30/70 male to female ratio. No exaggeration, for the past decade I have not had any close male friends, and for the past four or five years I haven’t had any at all. I feel much more comfortable around women than men; I actually have trouble talking to guys, especially guys who are more stereotypically masculine (which I am not at all nor care to ever be). I don’t just like girls from an attraction standpoint, I genuinely like and care about women as people. But because I have such a high sex drive and I like women in a sexual manner too, it kinda makes me feel like a hypocrite; like I’m betraying that fact. There’s always so much talk about how sexualizing women is wrong and harmful, and women face so much sexual abuse from men, that I feel like I’m a bad person for liking things like fanservice or porn or whatever. It makes me feel like I’m contributing to the problem. But of course, this too is absurd; sexualization and sexual objectification aren’t the same thing. You can both depict and view someone in a sexual manner without dehumanizing them, and to think just by making someone sexual you also objectify them is honestly kinda crazy. Once again, a lot of this thinking also stems from repressive religious ideologies. Men being shitty to women is much more a problem of gender and cultural norms. But even more importantly; I am absolutely not a bad person. I don’t harass women and I’ve never sexually mistreated anyone, and I have no desire to in the first place. I don’t try and make friends or relationships or do favors just for sex. I’m not a “nice guy;” I’m a genuinely good person. And I know I’m a good person because I can never admit to myself that I’m a good person despite literally overwhelming evidence.

The final problem is that I have built up an extreme amount of sexual frustration. I am a super introverted person with a lot of social anxiety and self esteem issues, or, as a therapist might put it, a very lonely person. I don’t have a huge desire to be social and I spend most of my time at home, and my anxiety tends to prevent me from being social when I actually want to. So, shockingly, I’ve never had sex. I’ve had a grand total of two relationships, both recent. One lasted four years and another four months, and while both had a sexual component to them neither went all the way. The four year one was especially frustrating, and in the last year of that relationship we basically stopped doing anything sexual, which really piled on the stress/guilt/shame for me (it turns out she was actually a lesbian; we had an amicable break and we’re still friends to this day). I’m also not interested in casual sex at all; I’m one of those truly disgusting people that needs an emotional connection and genuine feeling and such, which really doesn’t help matters. It feels like my sexual frustration is completely out of my control, and a lot of the time I feel like I’ll just never have sex. Like it’s something for me to admire from afar and never get to participate in myself, no matter how much I want to. I also feel like I’m just not very sexually attractive; the idea that someone would want to have sex with me doesn’t seem believable to me (if you knew what I looked like you would probably smack me upside the head for saying that, by the way). I do my best to try and manage my frustration on my own, but in the end I can only do so much. All of this frustration just ends up making me resent my sexuality, which just makes me feel more shame. It also makes me feel lonelier than I already am, especially in a romantic sense.

I made a deviantArt where I post NSFW art (along with my usual stuff) as an attempt to channel my frustrations and to try and accept and express my sexuality, but I don’t know if it’s helped that much, and honestly I’m terrified of someone close to me finding out. The link was on my tumblr before, but I tried to not draw attention to it because, you know, the shame and embarrassment and stuff. You can find it here: https://www.deviantart.com/asaragi

I think that’s everything I wanted to get off my chest. As I said my negativity towards my sexuality has been growing and gnawing at me from inside for a very long time, and combined with my sexual frustration it has really impacted my mental health recently. I’ve made a lot of positive changes in my life recently, and by all accounts I should be feeling a lot better yet I keep falling back in a depressive low, and I keep having trouble sleeping. I knew this was a problem but I was hoping I could just ignore it, that I could work on the other areas of my life that were causing stress and that would fix my depression. I was really hoping that the other stressors were just exaggerating my sex issues. I didn’t wanna face my shame or talk about it with anyone; I can’t even talk about it to my therapist. But no more; it’s time that I accept myself. I’m never gonna get past this if I don’t, and besides, it’s not healthy to hate yourself. If there’s one thing I’ve really come to understand recently, it’s to be kind to yourself and embrace yourself. My sexuality is an important part of who I am. It’s not something for me to be ashamed of, and it doesn’t make me a bad person. It’s simply part of being human.

This was really hard for me to write, so if you read it all, thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day, and remember to be kind to yourself <3

#personal #tl;dr #tmi #text post

[multi-fandomtrashtm]

Time to compare Big 3 and FT!Part 1

Now that FT has ended, I can do a full(er) evaluation of this. Yay. 

As you know, the big 3 are One Piece, Bleach and Naruto. 

FT is like..a rank or two below them in terms of popularity and sales except Bleach. Anyway, it’s still up there so time to compare and contrast. Characters, fights, story are all being judged. This post is all about characters.

Obvious spoilers for all series mentioned above. Because One Piece isn’t even close to being done yet, I’m only evaluating up until Dressrosa arc.

Character Basics Designwise:

I’d say that FT falls behind in this department, but isn’t last. In terms of design, One Piece wins by leaps and bounds in term of design diversity. Oda has made literally hundreds of characters and has interesting designs and personalities for each of them. He gives a lot of them good backstories and relationships with other characters. 

Bleach has some interesting characters as well. Most of them have interesting abilities and cool designs, but not to the degree of the sheer outlandishness of Oda’s designs. The hollows look very good, though.

The designs in Naruto are kind of plain even for the villains. It’s understandable for the less fantastical setting I suppose, but it really feels like the designs could be spiced up a little at times. However, most characters have some kind of depth to them and decent backstories. 

Fairy Tail has decent designs,kind of like Bleach in terms of creativity/complexity. It’s kind of odd at times because you’ll have human people wearing normal things then there’s just that one guy with the bizarre design. With such a fantastical setting, you’d think you’d see a lot more wild designs but nah. Unfortunately, FT has a bad streak of following basic tropes when it comes to villians. Later in the series, it’s the Psycho Lesbian(?), the battle enthusiast(s), that one cool intelligent guy and/or an Ice Guy/muscle dude. Earlier on, there was more variety in types. Backstories are alright. 

Main Characters:

Seeing as how they’re all following the Jump formula, let’s just get it out of the way. 

Orihime/Lucy/Nami/Sakura: Main-ish girl character who can technically fight but almost never does (if she does, she rarely wins).

Robin/Rukia?/Erza: Typically more mature mentor-like character who engages in some of the main group’s hyjinx anyway.

Uryuu/Zoro/Gray/Sasuke: Somewhat angsty/edgy main character’s best friend/rival (Zoro is the only exception to the angst/edge and rival). Typically smarter than the main character and more cool headed except when they’re not. 

Happy/Kon/Chopper: Cute animal sidekick for plushies.

Natsu/Luffy/Ichigo/Naruto: The main character who is basically a child in a teenager’s body with an insatiable hunger, no intelligence except in battle and little to no sex drive despite all of the beautiful (mostly half naked) women constantly around them. So basically Goku clones. Ichigo and Naruto thankfully dodged this or, in Naruto’s case, grew out of it. 

In terms of development of the main characters, I’d say Naruto absolutely wins this. Naruto and Sakura grew into great young adults and developed pleasantly along the way. Naruto stopped being so reckless and kind of a mess. We got some great looks into his psych with the whole Kuruma issue and dead parents thing.

Sakura eventually stopped being such a damsel and got the powers that she really needed. Although, I really did appreciate when she cut her hair and tries to protect her friends even though she was really weak. Listen, I don’t give a damn what you say, Sakura accomplished great things in Shippuden and does not deserve even half of the hate she gets from the fandom. Now I’m fully wiling to acknowledge that her persistent love for Sasuke got pretty ridiculous. But the same could be said for Naruto’s persistence, so I think that’s on the writer. I don’t think that it’s too much of a problem, though. 

Sasuke..is an odd case. I don’t think he really developed that much in Shippuden until near the end-ish. It was more like he had a breakdown in slow motion? Idk, the whole thing was really strange. Him being stoic or batshit crazy for most of it made it hard to tell. If anyone has some solid evidence of development I’ll take it, but his case is just really strange. 

Bleach is also an odd case. I’m certain that the main cast changed, I’m just not sure how. It was quite subtle. I suppose Orihime got a bit more confident in her abilities and Ichigo, Uryuu and Chad got stronger. Again, I’m open to some enlightenment on this. 

One of the most glaring problems is how the human characters tend to get sidelined quite a bit. Orihime is especially bad about this because of how she’s written. Her powers are the most game breaking ones in story-she’s basically a God and she does almost nothing when it comes to battles. At best, she’s defense and a medic. Her main ability is essentially to “reject” parts of reality i.e rather than healing someone’s arm, she just “rejects” that it got injured in the first place. There’s no known limit to her abilities except that if she doesn’t believe that can do it,then she can’t. It’s the worst restriction possible because she doesn’t have cripplingly low self esteem or anything. That kind of restriction is just begging for her to be hated. 

Chad just kind of faded into the background as time went on. It’d be really easy to forget who he is if you hadn’t read Bleach in a while.

In One Piece, I feel like the crew was pretty static outside of their individual character arcs except maybe Chopper. I’m very, very glad that Chopper is presented as more of a part of the group than a cute mascot. All of them got stronger after the timeskip and Sanji got a new gag. And I’m certain that Usopp got more competent and manly?/confident, too. Luffy definitely matured at least a little because of a certain incident with Ace. As sad as it was, it was kind of neat to see Luffy at his lowest point. 

But, because grouping (The Coward Trio, the Power Trio,etc.) Nami especially got shafted after the arc right after the timeskip. It’s like...she showed off her abilities then and it was cool, then she got moved to the backseat by just about everyone else on the crew and barely seems to use them anymore. Anyway, all of the crew have good backstories despite like half of them making me cry like a bitch. Brook’s backstory is both depressing and horrifying. 

I wish that the groups would be mixed up more often, though. 

Fairy Tail has the absolute minimum amount of character development for the main characters. Out of all of them, Wendy is the most developed. She grew more confident and powerful over time. Lucy has stayed just about the same over the entire series. Well, I guess she got less vain and more confident, I suppose. With Erza, it was a combo of character depths and development that got her to show her goofy self after the Tower of Heaven. After that, her characterization just got strange because of the romance subplot with Jellal. She just grew more and more into being just a love interest around him rather than being a character who happens to be in love.  

Gray did develop a bit, although its kind of hard to tell most of the time. By the time Tartaros hits, he’s learned his lesson about trying to whip out Iced Shell when things get tough. At least, that’s what I thought he learned until he decided that it’s better to kill yourself and erase your existence while trying to be a hero rather than just getting strong enough to have to drop to that point and wanting to live the very next big arc. 

Natsu has not changed at all. He is the exact same guy he was at chapter 545 and at chapter 1. Despite his dad dying, his very existence being a lie AND his family history being shoved in his face, he has not changed at all. 

Happy, for the most part, is a cute mascot character. He had his character depth/development in Edolas arc, but it vanished right after. He is occasionally shown to be Natsu’s support, but that’s about it. 

It’s a real problem when almost all of your main characters have barely changed outside of their respective character arcs. What’s equally irritating is that their character designs have not changed except for Lucy’s and Wendy’s. After two timeskips! Natsu, Gray and Erza all look exactly the same as when they started. Outfits don’t count with this series because the characters frequently change their attire anyway except Erza. Erza has had the same outfit for 500 chapters except the GMG. 

I think that’s it for this post. It’s gotten quite long. Next time I’ll do side characters and villains.

#fairy tail #shounen manga/anime #naruto #bleach