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dahniwitchoflight · 3 years

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Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

#Homesquared #june egbert #john egbert #yeah theres no way there not gonna bring up June Egbert as a apossibility now #Roxy couldn't have quirked her eyebrows harder at the fourth wall if they had tried #Homestuck #I'm basically convinced now lol #that plus my reaction to chapter 14

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nerdpiggy · 4 years

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Tell us about your ocs!! I'm genuinely curios bc of the tags

[ID: Meme of Hatsune Miku smiling. Top text reads "Thanks for sending me a message". Bottom text reads "You're very cute and I will be replying to you".]

Robin "Robbie" Fuller: The character i play in a DND campaign.

they/them pronouns. they're nonbinary and asexual and don't care to label their romantic attraction.

They're 22 years old and 5'9" (175cm)

Their birthday is November 12th. they're a scorpio

They started off as a Mundane MOTW character and they're now a level 7 warlock in DND. They're a human

They live in a small coastal town in massachusetts called Holyoak and they go to the local college to learn culinary. They live in a single dorm and they have a cute widdle black cat named Chickadee

One day (for various reasons) their life was flip-turned upside down with discovering the existence of monsters, portals, different dimensions, and rifts in spacetime

One of the reasons for them discovering all of this was them meeting a man named Thomas who's a human from a different dimension called the Palisades. He's a well-known Judge over there. (Thomas is @bevtastic 's character)

Robbie gets an offer to join the Interdimensional Defence Agency (IDA), says fuck it and accepts, and Robbie and Thomas stay friends by virtue of their similar jobs.

Robbie is tasked to go to a different dimension (A half-medieval half-wild west desert town called Argyle) to stop a threat that was growing there. Threat turned out to be a massive mind-controlling dragon who wanted revenge for the rest of her dragon species that were killed off by medieval "heroes". Robbie was not cut out for this as their first job. They (with help) subdue the dragon eventually but not before she burned down multiple towns including Argyle to a crisp. Robbie feels very bad about this.

Robbie, Thomas, and the rest of the party receive a mysterious letter leading them to an old abandoned mansion in Holyoak and get roped into a rescue mission to save Thomas's old friend Percy who has apparently been bodysnatched by a bad guy and trapped somewhere for what felt like thousands of years. This is the arc where we switched from Monster of the Week to DND, and Robbie gets connected to a nature deity Adelaide through a purple necklace. They also get a familiar, who is an owl with pitch-black feathers and glowing yellow pupilless eyes that Robbie named Mr. Muffins.

Robbie and Thomas become very good friends :)

Thomas dies.

Robbie goes to the Palisades to find out what happened to him. Turns out he wanted to reveal the secret of interdimensional travel to the public and work to make it open, free, and safe. The people in charge did not allow him to do this by legal means so he aimed to do it illegally, which was when he was murdered by a group of bandits.

On top of that, one of the main reasons why he wanted to reveal the different dimensions is because there is a HUGE interdimensional threat coming our way, and we need to act on it if we want to live.

Percy finds Robbie and asks them to help with this threat, who apparently is a singular person named Siris that has been locked in a prison for thousands of years and somehow got out. Robbie doesn't have much of a choice and accepts.

In the Palisades, there are monsters called Behemoths. they emerge from people who get bitten by a behemoth or who touch the black tar-like substance that runs like rivers in certain areas of the Palisades. During a battle, Robbie gets bitten by a Behemoth, and now they're a candidate for Behemism (aka turning into big giant monster syndrome).

Because Robbie has Behemism and Siris is part of the reason for Behemism existing, they're mind roommates now. Robbie and Siris do not get along very well.

There's more to Robbie but this is their main backstory!!!

[ID: a drawing of Robbie holding a chrysanthemum. They have short pink curly hair, and they're wearing a yellow floral button-up and a purple necklace. They have bandages on their freckled face and they're looking down at the chrysanthemum with a neutral expression.]

Emile Azarel: A character i play in a different campaign that does MOTW.

He/him pronouns, he's trans, demisexual, and demiromantic.

He's 19 and he's 5'3

He doesn't know his actual birthday but the day he celebrates is January 23rd

His MOTW class is The Expert. He's a fire genasi

He was born in central Russia but he doesn't know his parents well because when he was ~8 months old there was a big monster attack that unfortunately killed his parents. A monster hunter named Avery Azarel found Emile, took him in and raised him.

Emile learned to hunt monsters with Avery and the two traveled around together as monster hunters.

Eventually Emile wished to have a solid place to live rather than constantly traveling, because he wanted friends. He found a town in the pacific northwest called Salmon Peak that had everything he wanted: Russian culture, a fairly small easy-to-get-around layout, and some very weird mysteries going on. (Just because Emile wanted to settle didnt mean he wanted to stop monster hunting!)

He moved to Salmon Peak and has met a bunch of new friends! He's also learning more and more about the town, which is turning out to be somehow even weirder than he expected.

Emile is a very sweet, polite boy, but considering the fact that he's only ever been around one person mainly for his entire life, he has a bit of a ways to go when it comes to interacting with people. The monster hunting life means that when there's a monster, you kill it and that usually solves all your problems. Emile has transferred this logic to people as well (if they're a monster, kill em!) and he's learning through friend influence that maybe human lives are a bit more sacred than that.

His favorite color is blue because he loves the sky!

A lot of people underestimate his skills because he's little and looks very young, but he is a very good monster hunter. Because of Avery (the best monster hunter in the biz), his last name has a bit of a reputation.

Emile is blind, autistic, and has vitiligo!

I have much more planned for Emile but I can't say it here because it is MAJOR spoilers!

[ID: a drawing of Emile walking forward. He is wearing a blue shirt with stars on it, blue jeans, a fluffy white jacket, a belt with a star on it, star earrings, a moon necklace, and black shoes. His blue hair is swaying behind him and he's holding a white cane with a red tip. He's smiling slightly.]

Avery Azarel: Emile's parent! I've not played them as a character yet but I've made a character sheet for them.

they/them pronouns. They're agender, aromantic, and pansexual

their age is (???) and their height is 5'7

they have a birthday but nobody knows when it is

Their MOTW class is The Chosen. they appear human

They're widely considered the best monster hunter in the biz. Their name is well-known and they're requested for help all around the world

Because of this, they're constantly traveling and having a house would not make sense. They just pack their things, stay at motels/hotels/etc., camp in the woods and move around to wherever people need them.

Since they've been pretty much everywhere, they always seem to know at least one person from each town. They never seem to get too close to anyone, though

They are fluent in many different languages!

In the past they were paired up with another monster hunter and they made a great duo. That was a couple decades ago; they go solo now.

Years ago, an unexpected and incredibly destructive monster rampaged a small town in Central Russia. Avery came as fast as they could (they were nearby in the area) but they still couldn't finish off the beast before it tore the whole town to shreds. Dozens of homes were crushed, but surprisingly most people survived, with the exception of a couple of people who died under the rubble. Avery felt awful (this was their biggest failure in a while), and as they were searching through the rubble for any more casualties they found little baby Emile, miraculously unscathed. They took him in and raised him from then on.

Nobody, not even Emile, knows very many details about Avery's childhood, their family, their age, or really any information about them. (Emile has been trying to figure out Avery's birthday for AGES so they can celebrate, but Avery has refused to budge)

Their main weapon is 2 pairs of bolas! those are those chains with 2 balls on either end, usually made to be thrown at people's legs to restrain and trip them. they use the bolas both as restraining tools and as their main weapon, because i think weapons where you spin them really fast in front of you are cool

There's a scar over their left eye; whenever someone asks how they got it they always spin a different elaborate tale of an epic monster battle. Nobody knows which (if any) is the true story

there is a WHOLE LOT that I am leaving out if you couldn't tell. There's a huge chunk of their past that I'm leaving out because it's all a big bundle of spoilers. Someday I will be able to elaborate more on Avery!

[ID: a picrew made by djarn of Avery. They're smiling, their head is tilted slightly, and there's a scar over their left eye. Their hair is tied half-up half-down. They're wearing a black shirt with "òwó" on it and a blue jacket with an aromantic flag pin and a pansexual flag pin. the background is an agender flag.]

These are my main OC's! I have more (Orion, Nottwyrm, "Noodlearms", etc.) but these 3 are the main ones that I post about. :3 thank u for asking!!!

If you have any questions about any of my characters I always welcome asks!!! 💖

#oc robbie fuller #oc emile azarel #oc avery azarel #pinned post #i have never used a read more before and idk if i did it right #GOD i hope it works #if it doesn't im so sorry #thank u so much for asking !!!

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potteresque-ire · 4 years

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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - My Rambling Review

This is a book that at times floors me, at times frustrates me.

(Under the cut, because 1) rambling and 2) spoilers)

I’ll lay out my frustrations first — then, I’ll do a 180 degrees turn around and explain why these frustrations also make the book such a haunting, powerful read for me. All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It’s just that, while reading, I also kept thinking:

This book is a several edits away from a masterpiece.

I’ll begin with this. I can’t say how much I adore Suzanne Collins’ dedication in driving home the themes of the Hunger Games in TBOSAS. The nature of war and how it serves a tool for those who want to retain power, the opposing view of whether human nature is inherently good or violent or self-destructive.

Control, chaos, contract.

But this is also why, I think, the book stumbles in places. The themes are given such a strong, at times heavy-handed treatment that they threaten to swallow up other elements of storytelling. The plot, the characterisations etc have all at times given way to serve the themes, and the story’s believability is compromised. The Hunger Games, as a series, requires more believability to work than a novel about our world because of the sheer brutality of the games, both inside and outside the arena. This requires a sure hand in the writing. Suzanne Collins accomplished that in the original trilogy — I never doubted the existence of these games, and the horror that is the Capitol that has created and enjoyed them. But I did have moments of doubt while reading TBOSAS.

I think, if I have to sum up the shortcomings of TBOSAS, it is this: everything in this book is about war and totalitarianism. Every plot point speaks to these themes. Every major character is a walking symbol of a set of ideals related to these themes. Everything they think and do, every backdrop of their thoughts and actions including the imageries, the songs, the objects (compact, compass, snakes etc), all serve the themes in some way. This undermines plausibility of the story because actual human beings aren’t like that. Actual events don’t happen like that. Our lives are pulled in multiple directions by numerous purposes, most of them trivial. The trivialities may not serve any larger themes but they round us, complete us as humans. They provide the context, the texture of who we are.

Because only the aspects of them connected to the themes are told/emphasised, The characters in TBOSAS are prone to reading flat, textureless. Dr Gaul (DG) is the most extreme of examples. She feels no more than a voice (not a human) for the singular purposes of bringing up questions about the themes. Other major characters are relatively spared, but the issue is still evident in places. The thoughts of Coriolanus Snow (CS) are too focused on several issues (poverty; the three Cs; how the Plinths offend him, for example). Lucy Grey (LG) is somewhat saved by her songs and her mystery is her draw, but the same mystery also prevents us from engaging emotionally with her. Sejanus Plinth (SP) repeatedly tries to defy the Capitol, which is noble, but does little else that we’re aware of. His presence seems to serve as a contrast to CS rather than being a person on his own. The secondary characters suffer even more under the weight of the themes: the mentors, for example, are so similarly unlikeable that they border on cartoonish for me. It makes sense in the trilogy that Katniss doesn’t know much about those in the arena with her and their mentors; it makes sense that her descriptions of them veer towards two-dimensional and therein lies the tragedy of the Games — Katniss and Peeta are fully aware that every tribute is a human being but they’re robbed of any chance to treat them as such. In contrast, the mentors in TBOSAS are CS’s childhood friends. CS may be self-centred and calculating, but he’s too observant to see his friends as all alike. Symbolically, I can understand why the mentors share certain traits — they will be the audience for the next 65 Hunger Games, after all — but the implausibility of these mentors undermines the plausibility of the 10th Hunger Games itself, as CS sits among them.

The shortcomings in characterisations are reflected in the plot. The romantic scenes between CS and LG tend to get into the discussions of the nature of the Games, of Panem and the Capitol’s rule very quickly (for example, the one by the Lake, the one during their final trip out of District 12). It allows a direct compare-and-contrast between his views and hers, but at the plot level, it makes their romance, healthy or not, difficult to believe, which makes some of CS’ decisions hard to believe. Sometimes, I almost sense a disinterest in the writing, a hastening in the pace at what are significant plot points that don’t directly serve the themes (for example, the confrontation in the shed). And there are many of such beautiful plot points in this book, fantastic moments when things don’t go as expected or the writing nails the scene and brings the emotions to the max (The last hanging. * Sigh*). But this book, like CS, isn’t interested in lingering in those moments. This book, like CS, doesn’t allow itself to veer out of emotional control.

Related to the plot too is that I feel the treatment of the tributes before 10th Hunger Games is a bit too heavy handed, and as a result, fail to achieve the chilling effects of the games in the original trilogy. How the tributes are dumped in a zoo and treated with veterinarians, how they’re treated in the funerals etc … the cold-heartedness of these acts, the villainous nature of the Capitol is so overt that it’s difficult to imagine the Capitol’s citizens going along with them (watching the tributes at the zoo, for example; the fans outside the arena during the games). The luxury offered to the tributes before the Games in the original trilogy adds on a whole layer of brutality, because it’s there to appease the conscience of the Capitol citizens, because it’s equivalent to fattening the pig before slaughtering it. The 10th Hunger Games misses that. Like everything else, I understand this choice of presentation at the symbolic level (more on that later), but it also makes some of these sequences read almost caricature, if the Games were a human. It’s Evil spelled out for all to see; it’s evil for evil’s sake.

Okay, so this seems to be a long list of complaints. If you get here, you must be wondering, how come I said I enjoyed the book? What is there left to be enjoyed, if the characterisations, the plot and the pacing all have somethings left to be desired?

And my answer is: this book is a very different book if I adjust my perspective, think of everything in terms of its themes and symbols. After this adjustment, TBOSAS becomes a very different read.

It’s also brilliant.

My thoughts are rough — I’m not familiar with the Hobbesian theories, but I’ll try to explain my alternate view of TBOSAS via my understanding of the 4 major characters, Coriolanus Snow (CS), Lucy Grey (LG), Sejanus Plinth (SP), and Dr Gaul (DG). I think of them as the major characters because I feel they each represent a set of perspectives regarding totalitarianism and the wars and chaos associated with it. In the books, these perspectives are engaged in a Hunger Games of their own, a battle raged because the governing set of perspectives, the one of Dr Gaul, is failing. The victor of this Game doesn’t get the Plinth Prize, but decides the fate of the Districts and Panem. I’d summarise the 4 perspectives as follows:

DG (Dr Gaul) is the closest to the classic villain. She views the line between the Capitol and the Districts as not the line between good and evil, but between winners and losers, who are violent animals without the line. The line is rigid and unmovable and must be maintained via constant war. She wants to make a totalitarian regime.

SP (Sejanus Plinth) is the closest to the classic hero. He also sees the line between the Capitol and the Districts, and as clearly and insistently as Dr Gaul (he insists he’s from District 2 throughout the book). The difference is, he sees it as the line between the oppressors and the oppressed, the evil and the good. He wants to break the totalitarian regime, make the line obsolete by making one side disappear. The road to achieve his ideals also involves war.

LG (Lucy Grey) refuses to acknowledge the line between the Capitol and the Districts. She has no trouble becoming friends / lovers with those who are from the Capitol as long as they do not commit the same brutality, while her sympathies also lie with the rebels who’re brutally treated. She has no interest in wars, in the making or breaking of any regime. She is her own judge of who’s good and who’s evil, who’s the oppressor and the oppressed and contrary to DG (and eventually, CS), she believes humans are inherently good.

CS (Coriolanus Snow), on the surface, also sees the line between the Capitol and the Districts. Unlike DG and SP, however, he sees it as something fluid, which can be erased and redrawn to suit a purpose. The line CS sees doesn’t demarcate good vs evil, or winners vs losers. It separates CS and what CS wants. Like LG, CS has no true loyalty to the Capitol or the Districts, has no inherent interest in wars or making or breaking a regime. Unlike LG, however, he is open to participating in them as long as there are rewards to be reaped. As such, CS has no qualms cheating in the Games, which does far more damage to the Capitol’s image of strength and control than anything else (by making LG a victor despite her unthinkable odds but more importantly, making her a person instead of an animal), or later on, taking over SP’s place in the Plinth’s family.

DG, despite being the game maker, is the first loser of this Hunger Games between the ideologies. Her control is cracking. Her Games are a bore, and discontent and hunger have lent chaos to the Districts, like the fight in the dark in District 12. Chaos is also in the Capitol when CS, discontent and hungry in his own way, begins to erase the line between the Capitol and the Districts by showing up in the train station with a rose. Despite her powerful façade, DG is also weak against LG and SP. LG defeats DG’s snake mutts easily in the arena. DG has to give SP chance after chance, given his father’s ammunition empire.

DG’s strength is that she’s aware of her weaknesses, and willing to adjust her tactics in exchange for the control she craves. I don’t think she’s grooming CS as much as she sees something in him that she doesn’t have. The something that is symbolised by the compact — the remaining humanity in CS after the war that allows him to gain the trust of LG and SP. DG fails to even pretend to have that. Like the 10th Hunger Games she’d staged, like her dumping the tributes in the zoo and abusing them, her intent is too obvious, her distaste too overt and … tasteless. Even the Capitol audience aren’t keen on her designs; they go to the zoo to watch the tributes but skip the Games. She needs a CS who knows how to re-package the Games as something that appears fun and harmless and beautiful, like LG. LG who can make tributes in a cage look dignified, who can entertain and sing DG’s snake mutts into oblivion.

SP’s strength is, of course, his moral fibre, which is also his weaknesses. He’s too idealistic; his inability to accept compromises, especially when he’s still too young to bring about actual changes to the Capitol, render him useless towards his goal — even if he doesn’t meet his end, what good can he do for the Districts, for Panem, once he heads North (with the likes of Billy Taupe)? I find myself agreeing with CS when he talks SP out of the arena — morality is of limited use if it can’t be translated into meaningful actions. I also (somewhat shamefully) find myself agreeing with CS’s frustration / bitterness about SP’s constant, vocal insistence that he’s District, if only because I find it disrespectful to the actual suffering the District 2 folks must be going through. As the Plinth heir, SP is in a very powerful position to bring about reforms to Panem if he can be a little more patient, a little more scheming, … a little more CS. Instead, he constantly engages himself in largely performative acts that compromises his own potential. Acting out in front of Dr Gaul. The bread crumbs for Marcus, even. It’s touching, yes, but does it change anything? No. The bread ritual isn’t the same as Katniss’s funeral for Rue; Katniss and Rue are both tributes. SP gets out of the arena because of the privilege he has in spades but fails to see in himself. He should also know, because he’s seen it before, what happens to whichever tribute who would’ve killed him if CS doesn’t show up.

That said, it doesn’t mean SP doesn’t do any good; it’s just that the good he’s done isn’t what he’s intended, which, perhaps, makes SP’s end even more tragic than it is. I think SP and his idealism have inspired CS to be a better person. I believe CS, despite himself, like SP more than he admits and SP delays his final turn for at least a while. SP may not have helped anyone in the Districts as he’s wished, but he’s close to changing the mind of someone who’ll one day decide the fate of everyone in the Districts.

LG. Her strength is her independent thinking. She isn’t naive about the Capitol-Districts line she refuses to acknowledge — she knows where the snakes are. She knows that better than anyone else. On the surface, she appears to be the weakest among the four, the girl in a rainbow dress whose only survival skill is her ability to manipulate snakes. But someone can sense evil and manipulate it to their advantage is a threat; someone who doesn’t buy into the Capitol’s propaganda is a threat, especially those who remember that the cruel laws and “traditions” (the Games) the Capitol attempts to pass as “lessons” are artefacts and therefore, transient. Transient things are weak; subservience to them is then an option, not a must. LG and her kind can be even more threatening to the Capitol than the rebels, because while the latter can be rid of with sentences of treason, the LGs of Panem cannot be removed the same way because they haven’t acted against the regime. They cannot be sentenced for singing songs about the good and bad in humans, about human emotions, about the day to day sightings of their human neighbours, dead and alive, about the humans that arch between reality and imagination and prophecy. They cannot be hanged for knowing songs that predate Panem and the Capitol, for being the mockingjays that still have the jabberjays in them but nonetheless find a way to sing whatever they choose.

DG, I believe, fails to fully grasp the danger of LG, but CS does. His biggest fear of LG is that she can locate snakes, that she can see through him. They bond at first as they both sees themselves above the Capitol-Districts line, but once the Games are over, the cracks between them almost immediately begin to show. She thinks of her knowledge of snakes as self defence. He sees it as something she’ll coil around him one day. Like a hope — LG is CS’s chance of getting back the humanity he lost in the war — and also like a rope.

The weakness of LG is, of course, that she’s after all, just a girl in a rainbow dress. Even if she wants/needs to, she doesn’t have the power to make any changes to the Capitol. She can only run once perceived as a threat, but she can’t fight back.

She can’t fight CS, the ultimate winner.

All through the book, I keep shifting my own mind lens to see how I would perceive CS if I cannot read his thoughts, if I’m like everyone else around him. And I realise how he … smells like roses through a significant portion of the book, given how unifying awful his classmates are except SP. He’s the first mentor to treat a tribute like a human. He helps his classmates (Arachne and Clemensia; the mutts attack on the latter isn’t his intention). He’s the only Academy student who’s kind to SP and while he’s forced to save the latter, he does so with tact and an understanding of SP’s thought processes that can only come from friendship. Do we judge a person with his actions or his thoughts? I’d say, his actions, and from an outsider’s perspective, CS does seem to be the one who can change Panem for the better. He does seem to be the one who can fix the Capitol from within, who can get it to rethink its treatment of the Districts while preserving its own dignity as the ruling class. And herein lies the greatest strength of CS—he’s a diplomat; he’s all about soft power. He knows how to work within a system (eg. his cheating), how to wage a war without firing a shot. He can be everyone’s ally and at the same time: while he’s making a major contribution to the Hunger Games by his betting proposal, he’s also destroying the Games at its foundation by equalising his Capitol self and his District tribute (picnicking with LG at the zoo in front of the camera, for example). When DG says she destroyed the records of the Games because the mentors’ death makes the Capitol look weak, I wonder if it’s a lie. Aside from my suspicion that DG staged the arena attack — her intention being to remind the Capitol of the Districts’ “evilness” and draw the Capitol to watch the Games as revenge — I believe DG is aware that CS and LG are chiefly responsible for making the Capitol look weak during the Games. The invention she’s proud / confident enough of to go on an interview right before its introduction into the arena turns out to be pets in their collective hands.

My understanding is, DG sees CS as both her potential successor and potential threat. Her campaign is to find out where he stands and to get him on her side: her extra homework for him, the breadcrumbs she lays down for him (the peacekeeper-ship, the officership) are all to corner him to out of his diplomatic exterior and to force him take a stand, to bait him to take her stand.

The ones doing the tug of war with DG are SP and LG — if this is a war for CS’s soul, then SP represents his conscience, and LG, his humanity.

SP loses first. Between conscience and safety, CS picks the latter. This is a decision I can understand on some level; many in our world, too, have opted for safety (from being ratted out, punished by association) instead of speaking out against injustice, especially when the injustice is committed by those in power, especially when the association is also protected by power (CS is not entirely wrong in thinking that SP may be able to buy his way out of the jabberjay incident, given his privilege). LG goes second and last. The choice between humanity and power isn’t as much a more difficult decision to make as it is reserved for relatively few, for those already with power within their reach.

CS is aware of that.

It takes a 500+ page journey for CS to make a conscious choice of giving up his humanity. He misses it, and I believe his pain is real. He misses the humanity he lost during the war, symbolised by the loss of his mother who left him with the rose powder in the compact. The rose powder he smells for comfort. I think Suzanne Collins deserve major kudos for using CS as the sole narrator of TBOSAS. It’s a risky move and doesn’t always pay off, but it offers a unique, in-depth perspective in how real world villains come about. CS starts out as talented but also mundane in that on the scale of morality, he starts out as neither exceptionally evil nor exceptionally good. He’s neither the classic villain nor the misunderstood villain. His views of the world is still being shaped, and the book doesn’t shy away from the messiness of the process, the back and forth between CS’s better and worse thoughts, the discrepancies between his thoughts — including what he perceives as his motivation — and his actions.

CS so desperately wants to be believe he’s in love with LG and the renewed, post-war humanity she represents. He’s so convinced that he’s already in love. But he never truly is (he dislikes LG’s songs), because the rewards LG can offer him turns out to be far from enough. The rewards humanity can offer him turns out to be far from enough, not in a world where war, where the Capitol and the likes of DG have already so de-valued humanity. A life with LG will be about digging worms from the soil. Free, but poor in every other way. It may satisfy his conscience, but SP has already been killed at the Hanging Tree.

CS fails to kill his humanity as he did with his conscience. CS cannot fully divorce himself from humanity, being human himself. And so LG disappears into the woods.

With all this in my mind, the climax of the book, in which CS hunts for LG by the Lake, is both emotionally and intellectually intense. As his actions become more and more threatening, as he starts with a seemingly concerned search for LG and ends with firing shots at the echos of “The Hanging Tree”, his taking the stand of DG is complete. As a reader, his decision has been evident for a while, but this is when he faces and owns his decision himself, and the chapter is haunting as it is powerful. At that moment, CS turns into DG’s most powerful mutt, a human mutt but with its humanity left only as a veneer, like the compact he’ll get back from Casca Highbottom with his mother’s rose powder long disposed in the trash, with his only hope of a new rose powder — his renewed humanity in the form of LG — long banished into the unknown by his peacekeeper’s rifle. CS becomes an actualisation of DG’s and his own belief that he’s but an animal that requires constant control, which in turn requires with constant war. It’s an apt end for TBOSAS because by then, the fate of the Districts, of Panem for the next six decades is sealed. Because by then, the return of humanity into the Capitol, in the form of Katniss Everdeen, is also sealed.

No matter how much jabberjays there is in them, mockingjays will find a way to sing whatever they choose.

#pie metas #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #thg

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asteroiideae · 4 years

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You know for that character thing I gotta ask you about Jyn Erso.

I’m reasonably sure I did Cassian the last time one of these went around, so this seems only right! lol How I feel about this character: I don’t know that I have enough room in this ask to list out all of the reasons that I love Jyn Erso, because there are just so many but I’ll do my best! From the first trailer we saw, I knew that she was going to be special to me; this angry, destructive, person who rebels felt so much like who I felt like inside (if not on the outside) at the time that I felt an instant, genuine, kinship with her. I love the way she is allowed to be angry; not righteous, passionate, productive angry like Leia - which is valid, but also the only kind of angry female protagonists are universally allowed to be. Jyn is let the world burn kind of angry, the kind of anger that comes from being wronged and deciding that you’re just going to fuck off about it. I love that we get to explore the complexity of fathers and daughters, of that very special kind of anger, the way you can love someone and hate them at the exact same time. The way it feels to have to grapple with that while there are other, seemingly more important events going on. I love that even though Jyn is angry, it hasn’t robbed her of her compassion, that she sees the vulnerability in other people and knows how it feels, so she does her best to save the little girl in the way she wished she had been saved. I related so much to Jyn that I went home from the first (of so many) theatre viewing of Rogue One and laid awake in bed just vibrating with how much I felt seen, and heard, and represented in a Star Wars film. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Okay, I’m super boring here, but I exclusively ship Jyn with Cassian. As a personal preference I like having my ships make canonical sense, and to me between Rebel Rising and Rogue One it just feels unlikely that Jyn opens up (often, or easily, or at all) to people. I also tend to headcanon her as a demiromantic asexual person, partially because I like to give myself that kind of reputation, but also because I think it makes sense for her and her trauma. It’s pretty obvious she’s bonded hard to Cassian, but I think she would have difficulty making that kind of bond with other people. (disclaimer: any other ships y’all may have with Jyn are fun and valid and I fully encourage it lol) My non-romantic OTP for this character: My top #1, ride-or-die, can’t write a singular piece of Rogue One fanfic without it platonic ship is Jyn and Bodhi; brotp forever. I love this idea that they’re two people, utterly orphaned, who share the truth that Galen Erso has given them the opportunity to be better people, and now they’re siblings about it. I can’t help myself, I love platonic ships as much as romantic ones, and the one between Bodhi and Jyn writes itself so well. Aside from those two, I enjoy writing Jyn off of literally every other member of the Rogue One crew, because they’re a found family that just fits together so perfectly and easily that it’s too much fun not to write them all bouncing around off of each other. (K2 and Jyn is a very close second though, or maybe Saw and Jyn.) My unpopular opinion about this character: I don’t know that I have any unpopular fanon headcanons about Jyn. I do think I read her relationship with Galen post-Rogue One as being a little more fraught and complicated (and still a touch angry) than most of the fics that I’ve read? I guess I think it’s difficult to go from 10-12 years of hating someone and pretending they’re dead to loving them without complication. (Or it’s just my daddy issues showing through, who knows lol!) I think if there’s a commonly-used Jyn trope from fandom that I dislike (as another way of looking at this question,) it’s probably how early on there were a LOT of fics where Jyn was deep in substance abuse, and I don’t really like that for her as a character. But I think those are the closest to unpopular opinions I have about her! One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I don’t think I would change anything about the film, Rogue One is pretty much my personal perfect Star Wars story and, though I’d love to see the cut/alternate scenes, I wouldn’t want it to be canonically different. I think I would take the romance out of Rebel Rising (it felt a bit forced, like one more check box for the YA crowd that had to be hit,) but I think that’s the only critique I have of it. I would LOVE to see Rebel Rising expanded and turned into a Disney+ series, either animated (with Felicity voicing Jyn,) or live-action, though I think it’d be more difficult to bring Felicity back for that and it would be such a shame. Or maybe turn Rebel Rising into a comic series? Or both??? tl;dr I just want more Jyn Erso okay? (Or more Lyra - okay wait no, that’s my critique. Catalyst sets Lyra up as the more present parent for most of Jyn’s upbringing but we almost NEVER see anything about their relationship in either the film OR in Rebel Rising and honestly my girl Lyra deserves better than that.) If anyone else would like to see me rant about a character - literally any character! - this is the post here and you can just yeet your choice right into my asks. :D

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chronicallylatetotheparty · 5 years

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After the Fall Ch. 3 Veil

LoganLight, AO3

"Why are you avoiding her anyway?" Kagami asked suddenly.

Adrien looked up from his homework in surprise, "W-what?"

As Adrien had struggled to slowly build a new normal she'd noticed him avoiding the girl currently at the other end of the school library.

"Marinette." She was the reason Adrien was here instead of with Nino, whose girlfriend Marinette was best friends with. The three of them had looked puzzled when Adrien declined their invitation to study together. Kagami, however, had expected it. "Why are you avoiding her?"

A shadow passed across Adrien's face as he looked down. " . . . Shame, I guess . . ."

"You feel ashamed of yourself in front of your crush? Is that why you started stuttering in front of her?" Kagami waited for him to deny any romantic feelings for Marinette as he did every time it came up . . . But he didn't.

Adrien blushed, still avoiding her gaze. "She needed help and I . . . couldn't help her. Every time I look at her the guilt ties my stomach into knots. B-besides, I asked and she said she wasn't interested . . ."

Baka.

Whether that was directed at Adrien or Marinette she couldn't say.

Wait.

"So, Marinette is the mysterious partner you went on about?"

Adrien looked up at her with wide eyes. "What? No, she- She's not- I . . ." Confusion clouded his face. "Marinette." He let out a joyless laugh. "I'm such a-"

Kagami grabbed both sides of his face as his breathing accelerated. "Adrien Agreste, you look at me. Focus on me." She was not about to let him break down in the middle of school again.

As he regained his composure she tried to figure out what exactly had set him off.

Marinette?

Adrien let out a slow sigh, his gaze softened. "Thank you, Kagami."

She swallowed at the vulnerability in his eyes. "You're welcome."

"Bro, you okay?"

Kagami jerked her hands away from Adrien's face. Nino, Alya, and Marinette were standing beside the bookcase's far corner. The latter giving her an odd look. All three appeared worried.

With good reason.

Adrien stared at them like he didn't know who they were.

Marinette stepped forward. "Adrien, are you alright?"

"He's a bit shaken up right now." Kagami stood up. "He should be good in a-"

"I can speak for myself," Adrien's soft reprimand surprised her, but she nodded. He stood and turned a shaky smile to his friends. "I'm fine. Just had a- A moment is all."

Marinette seemed to deflate a bit at his deflection, "Oh, okay."

Nino walked up to Adrien and gave him a brief hug before holding him by the shoulders. Y'know you can talk to me about anything, right? I'm here for you, dude."

Adrien's smile became sadder and a touch . . . pained? "I know, Nino. I need some time to sort things out. I . . . Thank you," he turned to take in the others. "All of you."

Kagami noted that Nino didn't look convinced.

"A-anyway, free period's almost over. We should get back to class." If anyone else noticed Adrien changing the subject they didn't say.

"Right, bro. See you after school?"

"Father wants me back at the house for another session."

"Oh, well, text me when you're done, yeah?"

". . . Sure."

As they left Kagami briefly caught Alya's eye. She had a calculating look about her. The same look Kagami sees when she's trying to fit seemingly incongruous puzzle pieces together. It's then that Kagami realized she'd been uncharacteristically silent, not saying a word throughout her friends' short exchange.

"Of course it's you," Adrien whispered to their backs.

Kagami glanced at him in confusion and wondered if she imagined the bitterness in his voice.

------------------------------------------------------------

"Plagg? Plagg!"

"Hey, kid."

Adrien reached out and pulled Plagg to the boy's chest, cradling him.

"P-Plagg," the boy's voice broke as tears began to fall. "I- I thought I'd never- I missed you!"

Plagg purred as Adrien let out his sorrow in shuddering sobs. The small vibrations lending a familiar comfort to the boy. They stayed that way for a while, simply taking in the other's presence.

". . . W-what are you doing here?" Adrien finally asked.

"Can't a kwami visit his kid?" Plagg grumbled, flying out of the boy's hands. "You got any cheese?"

Adrien smiled at Plagg's singular focus and his body relaxed as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders. "There should still be some in the mini-fridge."

Plagg swooped forward with a cry of, "Come to me, my precious Camembert!" Earning another brief smile.

Adrien wiped at his eyes as Plagg gorged himself.

"It's been so long!" Plagg bemoaned. "Can you believe I only get one wedge of Camembert every day? Oh, the indignity!"

"Well, Luka's family isn't as rich as us and that stuff is expensive," Adrien pointed out reasonably.

Plagg stopped chewing. "What?"

"I'm just saying that the Couffaine's aren't as well off as-"

"Not that!" Plagg zoomed to a stop in front of Adrien's face. "Luka! How did you know about Luka?"

Adrien blinked at him. "I . . . don't know? The first time I saw Panthera I just . . . recognized him."

". . . What happened after Weredad took the ring?"

Fear flashed across Adrien's face before he forced his features into an expressionless mask. "I fell off the tower . . . And woke up on the ground."

Plagg's ears drooped as he gazed at the boy. "Have you recognized anyone else?"

". . . Marinette is Ladybug," Adrien responded softly. "And . . . I know who Rena Rouge and Carapace are . . . Plagg, why didn't- Why can I see them? It's so obvious, so clear."

". . . Your system got quite the shock. Basically it jarred certain ideas you held dear. Having the foundation of your core beliefs shaken makes you question things. Previously unthinkable notions become not so unbelievable. Once you had all the evidence your subconscious made the connections."

"So anyone can just look at us- Them and-"

"No. You have hands on experience with a Miraculous. You know the ring, you know Luka, you know what traits the wielder of Destruction should have."

"He's the perfect choice," Adrien bit out bitterly.

"No, you were the perfect choice! And I don't care what Fu or Wayzz or you have to say about it!"

Adrien shook his head in denial of his words. "It's been three months. Three months of akuma attacks and Panthera hasn't been brainwashed, c-captured, petrified, or . . . or killed. Not even once."

"That's because she's being careful!" Plagg shouted. "Much more careful than she ever was with you!"

Adrien flinched. "It . . . It doesn't matter. They work well together. She l-likes him, I can tell . . ."

". . . She misses you, you know. She won't call Panthera any nicknames and every time you come up she only has good things to say."

"Liar," Adrien accused half-heartedly.

"Fine. Don't believe me." Plagg crossed his small arms. ". . . How're you dealing with the secret identities thing and finally figuring out Marinette is the 'love of your life', anyway?"

Pain flared in the boy's eyes and he breathed thickly. "Not- Not well . . ." Plagg swore he could hear Adrien's heart accelerating as the boy tried to keep the flood of emotions at bay. "I thought knowing who was behind the mask would be freeing, that it would bring us closer. Instead I feel like I never really knew her . . . She said she loved me. But it wasn't true. She was lying. All of it was just a ruse to protect her identity . . . From me! Wh-who does that? Was it really so terrible that I would find out!?"

Adrien curled up on his bed and squeezed his eyes shut as the tears started up again. Plagg settled into the boy's hair. "Ladybugs tend to follow the rules to a fault, kid. They can't help themselves. It's got nothing to do with you and everything to do with her."

Adrien made no response as Plagg began to purr. They both knew that he would be gone by morning, like a pleasant dream. But Plagg was here now, and for right now, that was enough.

Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 10 Ch.11 Ch.12 Ch.13 Ch.14 Ch.15 Ch.16 Ch.17 Ch.18 Ch.19 Ch.20 Ch.21 Ch.22

#after the fall #adrien agreste #kagami tsurugi #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #ml au #ml angst #adrien angst #plagg #adrien and plagg #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #ao3 fic #one-sided reveal #identity reveal

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cryptid-bloodhound · 4 years

Note

can i just have some fluffy gibby and octane??? that's all i need in my life tbh

IM LATE BUT I GOTCHU FAM!

Thoughts Like Thorns

Ao3

Octavio was bored again. When he was bored, bad things tended to happen. He didn’t mean to cause so much havoc, honest! Well, most of the time he didn’t mean it. All that destruction and chaos was simply a byproduct of his endless hunt for his next adrenaline rush. He really couldn’t help it. That desire to do something - anything - was almost pervasive. It was a gnawing, clawing need that guided his day-to-day life. When he sat idle for just a moment too long, that feeling would well up inside of him again, like nails down his spine. If he didn’t know any better, he’d compare the uncomfortable sensation to anxiousness. It was like something inside of him telling him to ‘ go go go!’ and not doing that was something really quite awful.

Those quiet moments between drops when there was nowhere for him to run and video games just weren’t cutting it was horrible. He’d bounce in place, jump around, and use his fellow Legends as makeshift springboards. Anything to alleviate that need. For the most part, the others tolerated his constant frenetic energy. Sometimes, if the mood was bright enough, they’d join in on his reckless little games. It usually wasn’t a problem for the adrenaline junkie. Hell, he loved the rush so chasing these little highs was awesome! But, there were moments when it was all a little too much. When his attention felt like it was being ripped in every direction and his mind buzzed like a nest of angry hornets. When nothing could satisfy that need of his. It seemed like today was one of those unlucky days.

He was pacing back and forth in the complex, muttering under his breath rapidly as if he could chase away this feeling through cursing alone. His hands flexed, clenched, and beat an uneven tempo against his thighs as he moved on an endless loop. Sometimes he felt like clawing at himself because surely that would feel better than whatever this sensation was crawling under his skin, but he refrained. The last time he did, Ajay scolded him and gave him that ‘I’m-unhappy-but-also-worried’ look he’s so familiar with. He tried playing games but nothing would hold his attention or quell that buzzing. He tried hanging out with the others but found himself too...raw to handle them right now. This uneasy restlessness was killing him.

“Ughh, estoy a punto de enloquecer!”

Octavio was so engrossed in his own static-filled mind that he didn’t notice the rather large figure walking through the door. Really, it should be a feat all on its own to have Makoa Gibraltar of all people sneak up on you. The giant of a man wasn’t the type to sneak around. So, when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, the borderline shriek that left his lips was all the more embarrassing. Gibraltar looked torn between amused and mildly worried. That expression made Octavio want to shrug the hand off of his shoulder and bolt for the door.

“You alright there, bruddah?”

It was a simple question. It should have been easy to answer. Should . But the nonstop racing thoughts and aching in his nerves told him otherwise.

“Yes. No. Yes! ...Maybe. UGH, I don’t know!”

His hands went from tapping his thighs to gripping at his hair as he fought himself for a moment of respite. After seeing the almost volatile reaction to his touch earlier, Makoa resisted the urge to lay a reassuring hand on the younger Legend. It wasn’t often that Octavio had a bad day like this but it happened just enough for Makoa to recognize the signs. After a moment of thought, Gibraltar shifted his presence, expression dropping from openly worried to casual friendliness. That same sort of warmth colored over the darker tones of his voice. He didn’t want Octavio focusing on the bad - especially if it was thanks to the way he was acting.

“Hey, I seen you’re pretty good at art, yeah?”

The question was so unexpected and lax that it actually threw Octavio for a bit of a loop. His grip loosened and he squinted in slight confusion at Makoa. When he spoke, his answer was drawn out and pitched as if it was a question.

“...Yes?”

That seemed to brighten up Makoa’s disposition immediately. He gave one of his famous thousand-watt grins and threw open his arms in a grand gesture.

“Perfect! I got a cake here that needs some serious decoratin’ and you’re just the guy for the job!”

There wasn’t a singular part of this shift in conversation that didn’t confuse Octavio. Granted there were a great many things that did confuse him. In his defense, however, he rarely bothered enough to pay attention to, well, anything really. So, he just let his arms drop back to his sides as bewilderment overtook his features. Seeing the shift, Makoa kept on going. Anything to keep him distracted was good in his books. As he spoke, he subtly herded Octavio toward the kitchen area where a tasty but objectively plain cake sat. Next to it was a slew of decoration tools and what looked like a rough image of what Gibraltar wanted on it. It was pretty, certainly something he could imagine giving to a significant other if he were feeling romantic. But his way of drawing was a bit more, ah, stylized than what was pictured. As he started imagining what it’d look like in his own design, Makoa continued on.

“It’s my anniversary soon and I wanted to do somethin’ nice. I made a cake but I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. Figured I’d ask ya for help, shortstack. We can work on it togetha ‘n you could tell me what’s botherin’ ya.”

At the reminded of his earlier unending nerves, Octavio frowned. Without meaning to he started bouncing back and forth on his feet as that prickling sensation started taking over his attention once more. Without wasting a second, Makoa barreled on as if nothing changed.

“Or, I could tell ya about that time I stole my dad’s motorcycle to go on a joyride with my boyfriend.”

Again, the switch up blindsided the younger Legend. The mental image of The Gibraltar doing something so reckless and immature as stealing his dad’s motorcycle absolutely floored Octavio. His jaw dropped and that jittery discomfort was replaced with a sort of giddiness. That sounded like something he would do and not the unofficial Team Dad.

“No. Way.”

“Way.”

There was a smug sort of smile pulling wide at Gibraltar’s lips as Octavio stared at him with wide eyes. He figured if there was a story to draw him out of a bad spot, it’d be a crazy one he could relate to. The air was filled with the rapid little ‘tinks’ of his feet as he danced in place with all that pent up energy he was so well-known for. He wanted to hear more about this crazy tale. It was drawing his mind away from all those sharp, intangible edges he could never figure out.

“Let’s do it!”

And so they did. They set up their impromptu cake station as Makoa spoke about the shenanigans he managed to get himself into in his wilder days. Of course, he left out the darker parts. No need to drag the kid back down. It warmed something in his heart to see Octavio calming down. His mind was distracted by the story and attention needed to detail the cake while his hands were busy drawing out lines of frosting. It was engaging enough to keep him entertained without being self-destructive (or any kind of destructive, which was a step up). So, when that story ended, Makoa conjured another, and then another, and another. However many it took until that frantic tension melted away from Octavio.

“So, when ya gonna pop the question amigo? Time ain’t waitin’ for any of us! We won’t stay this young and good lookin’ forever. Well, you won’t. I’ll always be this gorgeous. ”

It was Makoa’s turn to be surprised at the unexpected words. Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was the cocky, over-the-top attitude, or maybe it was just the irony that the usually oblivious one here hit the nail on the head. Whatever the case, Makoa let out a deep belly laugh and clapped Octavio on the shoulder. The force behind the gesture was still enough to cause the much smaller man to jolt forward.

“Ha! Keep it up, shortstack. I’ll remember that next time we’re on a team and the enemies are lookin’ for a punchin’ bag.”

Rather than respond verbally, Octavio just stuck his tongue out and gave a rather colorful hand gesture. Though the way his lips turned up at the corners in a grin spoke volumes of his current bright mood. After a moment, Makoa sighed in a way that Octavio could have sworn would be considered ‘dreamily’. He did very little to hide the amused snort at the action. ‘What a big softy.’

“To tell ya the truth, I been thinkin’ ‘bout it. I wanna do it soon. Hey, how’d you like to come ‘n help me pick out a ring, huh?”

The invitation was a surprise. Seems like today was full of those - mostly good, at least. It made Octavio smile wider than he has in a long time. Again, he couldn’t help but do an excited little jig in place, prompting Makoa to laugh at his antics once more.

“Hells yeah!”

His brain was already rushing ten thousand miles a minute picturing all sorts of expensive and fantastical bands. That led to him also picturing crazy wedding ideas and - ‘Oh! Wonder if I’ll get to be a groomsman!’ His colorful and exciting daydreams were interrupted by Makoa as he peered over his shoulder at the cake and spoke up.

“This looks great, Octavio, but uh...you spelled his name wrong.”

Sure enough, when he looked at the wonderfully decorated (in his humble opinion) cake, he had forgotten a letter in Makoa’s boyfriend’s name. With a groan, he slapped a hand to his forehead and accidentally smeared icing on his face.

“Mierda.”

#Apex Legends #Gibraltar (Apex)#Octane (Apex)#My Writing #Makoa Gibraltar #Octavio Silva #Gibraltar is a Dad #Octane gets overstimulated and needs help sometimes #also he's good at art bcus i said so #Cake is involved #Anonymous

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fanfiction-writers · 6 years

Text

Lies and Discoveries

Pairing: Toshinori Yagi (All Might)x Reader

Words: 2k

Summary: You've been in a relationship with Toshinori Yagi for a while now, but you're just now realizing that he's been lying to you. Trying to get the truth out of the man is difficult when you can barely get ahold of him, let alone have a conversation with him...

Warnings: None

A/N: I saw a bunch of Toshinori headcannons and prompts on tumblr and decided I wanted to write something as well. Plus, I need more people to scream with regarding this show, it's my new obsession. This is also my first bnha/mha fic I've ever written and I've pretty much only seen the anime so I hope everyone's in character.

Here was the thing about Toshinori Yagi: He was literally one of the most genuinely good people you had met. You weren’t sure how he did it all the time. He was always a gentlemen, always looking out for other people, always being good.

You could tell because that’s how your quirk worked: Your quirk was a sort of empathy quirk. You could feel others’ emotions and get a general sense of them. Further down the line as you matured, you learned that your quirk could also manipulate different emotions to an extent. While you had never wanted to be a Hero, your quirk did help you with helping the Pro Heroes with any therapy or helping them cope with any particularly horrific incidents. So after some training and obtaining a hero license, you had your own therapist gig going with some of the heroes in the city. You were honestly surprised at how many Heroes had jumped at the chance while you had worked with Recovery Girl for a short while. It had started out with just you helping your friends, but then turned into a whole operation.

Which takes you back to Toshinori Yagi.

Feeling people’s emotions could sometimes backfire. You could usually tell if people were lying. There was something to be said when you could see people’s faces and feel their emotions exuding the exact opposite when they lied.

And Toshinori Yagi, your boyfriend, lied to you a lot. It had taken a while for you to notice, though. Usually when he had to cancel on your plans, he had called you over the phone, promising another attempt at a date later. You had known he was a teacher at the infamous hero school as the go-between for All Might; meaning he was usually busy so it wasn’t a problem. Usually. Until you noticed the lies when he’d make some impromptu excuse and dart off…

“Do you wanna cook dinner, or should I?” you asked, juggling the bags of groceries in your arms.

Toshinori held his own bags in his arms and walked beside you with a small smile. “You can, it always tastes better when you cook it.”

“Mm hmm,” you hum, side-eyeing him. “I think you just don’t want to cook, Toshinori.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll set the table and do the clean-up. Promise.” Thanks to your quirk, you could feel the general happiness practically radiate off the man as he walked beside you. You weren’t going to lie, you loved it. And loved him, but neither of you had said it yet. You could feel it from him, and you knew what you felt, so you hadn’t pushed the issue at all. Words were pretty useless to you anyway.

Later on, you were mostly through with cooking, only finishing up the last touches. Toshinori had started to help, but had gotten a phone call while he set the table. You felt his happiness slowly seep into apprehension before he told you he had to get back to the school for something quickly and that he’d be back.

He hadn’t come back, and the plates had gotten cold with dinner before you gave up waiting. You had wrapped his plate and put it in the fridge. In the end, you had gone to bed, alone and a bit frustrated. When you had woken up, you were still alone but the kitchen was cleaned up and Toshinori was nowhere in the house. He did leave you a little note on the fridge in apology, and explaining classes were beginning earlier today so he would be gone before you woke. There was a little cheesy over exaggerated smile drawn hastily in the bottom corner that seemed to melt the aggravation away, replaced with a fondness for the humongous dork you called boyfriend.

However, the fondness soon reverted to aggravation when this happened at least four times a week. Every time you asked, Toshinori exclaimed that the kids were at it again, or he got caught up in traffic, or some other coincidental thing that happened to prevent him staying home or spending time with you.

You sighed as you put down your phone, having just gotten a quick text from him, saying he couldn’t be by to pick you up on your way home.

“Figures,” you mutter under your breath, twiddling the phone in your hand. At this point, you weren’t even surprised.

“Let’s go see a movie tonight!” you told Toshinori, excited over the new comedy romance flick that had come out. Normally men would scoff at films like that, but Toshinori had agreed with a smile. That was back in the early stages of your relationship. You had soon found out that he was a totally hopeless romantic at heart. Another fact that you had adored about him.

When the time came for the movie, you had been waiting outside the theater for about twenty minutes before you had given up and taken a cab home. Back to an empty house. Alone. He hadn’t even texted that time or called.

Several instances like that, little in singularity but they added to a long and annoying list of occurrences.

While sitting at your desk, you could hear the distant rumbling of some villain attack a few blocks over. Suddenly, the foundation of your building began trembling from the aftershocks of an explosion. Shrieks from some of your coworkers could be heard as everything on your desk was knocked off. There were also plenty of screams from outside in the panic of people trying to run away from the danger.

“Everyone out, quickly! We’ll be alright, just watch your step and get outside!” you shout, running outside your office. Panic and fear were nearly choking you, but it wasn’t just yours. Thankfully, your building was only two stories, so everyone made it out quickly and safely, just one person falling on the way out over some kick-knacks that had fallen. You used your quirk to help her from becoming unresponsive in her panic, getting her outside without further incident.

“Are you alright?” a cop asked, running over to you. There were several others that were herding people away from the couple of buildings that had collapsed.

“Yes, please get them somewhere safe,” you told the man before the ground shook once more. The building directly across the street collapsed after a small explosion, causing you and the cop to block your faces from the dust and debris that got sent flying. Stepping over some debris came a villain, laughing at the destruction.

“Run, go!” you tell the police officer. He hesitated only for a moment before taking the few others in your office away.

“Lookie, another Hero!” the villain clapped slowly. The villain was an older man, probably around his thirties or forties.

“What do you want?” you asked, trying to stall for time. He wasn’t close enough for you to use your quirk on him to calm him down and subdue him. You really hoped he didn’t have some crazy ass quirk that you had no hope for fighting against.

“Nice try, little Hero,” the man grinned before running at you, small knives in his hands. He didn’t seem to have any extra strengths from his quirk, neither speed nor strength, but he was still dangerous as he ran at you.

You make a mental note to thank the Pro Hero Gunhead for the lessons in self-defense over the years since he began seeing you. You made quick work of the villain, but before you could completely incapacitate him, another person grabbed you from behind and tossed you backwards.

Great, now there’s two of them, you think. He must’ve had a duplication quirk of some kind.

Facing two enemies was a bit more difficult, especially since you hadn’t had to truly fight someone in a long time. Sure, you were a Hero, but not at combat. You didn’t go leaping into danger unless you absolutely had to, knowing there were far more capable heroes out there that could fight.

Both of them came at you, wielding a blade a piece, the first one having shared with the second. You spend most of your time dodging the knife attacks, only getting cut a few times minorly. Twisting and pivoting, you keep it up for about two minutes. Eventually, you trip the two into each other, pushing your quirk to completely overtake their emotions to put them in a trance-like state. Not quite unconscious but definitely unresponsive.

You were definitely sending Gunhead a gift basket full of goodies.

“NEVER FEAR FOR I AM…Here?” All Might’s voice boomed and nearly echoed through the empty street as he leapt in and slid to where you were. His voice ended in a question when he saw you had taken the two villains down. You feel a strong rush of protectiveness and pride from the number one hero as he looked at you with his giant smile. “Well done! You’ve subdued the villain!”

“For now, but they’ll wake up soon,” you told him, feeling their muddied feelings through your quirk. “Is everyone else alright?”

“Everyone is safe and sound!” he proclaimed, giving you a big thumbs up. You feel a sudden rush of love from his emotions as he grins at you.

Love?

What?

Before you have time to think about it, the dull connection with the villain breaks as their bodies disintegrate into nothing, leaving clothes and a pile of ashes in their wake. It was while you took a step closer that you heard the beeping.

“Shit!” you gasp, turning on your heel and running towards All Might with a shout to run. Faster than you can register what happened, you realize you were in All Might’s arms and flying through the air while smoke trailed behind the two of you.

“Are you alright?!” All Might asked sharply, setting you down and looking over you. Slightly shaky, you nod. Your breathing was quicker, and your stomach felt nauseous from flying so suddenly but you were alive and in one piece thanks to the hero. It wasn’t until you tried to take a step back to get some air that you noticed one of your legs were burned from the calf down fairly bad, adrenaline and shock preventing you from feeling it.

All Might caught you before you fell, keeping you upright and steady as you found your balance on one good leg. You felt a sharp pang of regret and anguish from All Might as he kept one hand on your back. “I’m alright,” you tell him. “It’s just a burn.” It could have been way worse if not for him, anyway. Fumbling in your pocket, you pull out your phone to see the last text message Toshinori had sent you.

Toshinori!

“Pick up, pick up! You better be alright,” you mutter as you try to keep your balance on one leg. You feel a quick flash of surprise as All Might flinches slightly, but you didn’t have time to worry about it. “Toshinori Yagi, I swear we are going to have words when I see you next,” you grumble before trying one last time to call him. “Dammit.”

��Don’t worry,” All Might smiled, although it didn’t seem as bright as it was earlier. “No one was seriously hurt in the attacks. Just minor bruises and burns like yours.”

You purse your lips. “I hope he’s alright, he’s supposed to be at the school. He’s already going to panic when he sees my leg. Hey,” you look up at him, squinting in the light. “Is there any way you can get me to Recovery Girl really fast? Maybe she can heal it and it won’t look so bad, so he doesn’t freak out.”

A dull sadness shot through All Might’s overall relief and emotions that still felt suspiciously like love. You weren’t sure they were meant for you, so you tried to ignore his feelings. Maybe he was thinking about someone in his life… and you were keeping him from them even longer than necessary… Not to mention most people thought that your quirk was an invasion of privacy, even if sometimes you could just sense emotions without meaning too.

“Absolutely!” he agreed, smile a little brighter than before. “Hang on tight!”

Soon after, you were still being carried through the halls of U.A. despite telling the pro hero that you could walk perfectly fine, albeit not very fast. When All Might flung the door open to the nurse’s office, Recovery Girl turned quickly in surprise, most likely expecting an emergency. Instead, you gave a pitiful wave to your old friend and pointed to your burned leg.

“What happened?” she asked you, shooing All Might out of the way of the bed he set you down carefully on.

“Explosion from a bomb,” you tell her, wincing at the burnt skin. “It would’ve killed me had All Might not grabbed me. Thank you for that, by the way,” you tell All Might with a smile. He still smiled at you, though somehow he seemed sad.

“We’ll have to get rid of the dead skin first, then I should be able to heal you good as new. It was good you got to her so quickly,” Recovery Girl told the number one hero.

“Not fast enough,” All Might muttered under his breath so no could hear him.

Recovery Girl gave you another pat on the knee before leaving the room to get the necessary supplies and things she needed. “All Might, can I talk with you for a second? In the hall?”

“Oh, of course! It was nice to meet you,” All Might said to you, before following Recovery Girl out into the hall. You smile as he sent you a little wave as he shut the door. Then you laughed outright when he opened the door again almost immediately after. “I am sorry about your leg!” Recovery Girl’s hand shot out and pulled him away from the door before you could respond, so you got situated on the bed and waited for your friend to come back.

#bnha #mha #toshinori yagi #toshinori yagi x reader #all might #kristen

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recommendedlisten · 5 years

Text

Summertime marks the halfway point of the year, and while other publications are already tabulating the best albums of 2019 so far, Recommended Listen always takes this moment to recognize the best slept-on and unheralded releases since its spring recap. As always, there’s way more music for a one-human site to applaud than just that written about within the proper review space. This season’s observations pick right up where the first quarter predicted in strange patterns and immaculate sounds continuing to rise to the foreground, with the best fresh heavy listens adding unavoidable vigor to the mix. Here’s a summer dozen of recommended listens to get far, far away with...

Abuse of Power - What On Earth Can We Do? [Triple B Records]

The unofficial season of hardcore kicks off with the debut from Atlanta’s Abuse of Power. The five-piece, who’ve amassed a cult following in DIY circles in recent years thanks to a string of lauded self-released singles, tapes, and ask-a-punk word of mouth recommendation join the growing ranks of Boston purist label Triple B Records for their debut full-length What On Earth Can We Do?, and make a heavy opening statement with it. Like another one of the year’s recommended hardcore efforts you’ll read about later down this list, Abuse of Power grind melodic aggression into unrestrained velocity, but with metallic pistons at bay. Te tempered heat of vocalist Kaleb Purdue, these pit anthems take on an even bigger life when framed around themes of identity, isolation, and the political nightmares we’re trying to survive. Their solution is to keep tearing down walls in search of resolution.

Ava Luna - Pigments EP [Self-released]

The eccentricities brandished outwardly by Ava Luna play a huge part in the Brooklyn avant-pop group creating something of remarkable singularity out there in the universe. There’s no other act out there who turn a chorus’ corner or find a groovy pocket in the places they do, and it’s that strive for new discovery within the energy’s that makes their music a cosmic allure. Not even a year removed from the space age smooth moves of their great listmaking third LP Moon 2, those eccentricities again shape-shift in perhaps the band’s most ornate offering yet in the short form format Pigment. The four-song EP is reflective of the season’s air through compositions of warm woven acoustic arpeggios, dub percussion in rippled water effect and keys warped beneath the sun. Felicia Douglass and Becca Kauffman are at their coolest wrapped within the humidity’s beat, and the conversational guests stepping in and out of the scene plays like a summer night without plans other than to authentically chill.

Baroness - Gold & Grey [Abraxan Hymns]

Gold & Gray marks the conclusive end of a long chapter in Baroness’ reimagination of metal as a lifeblood throughout the course of several hues on the color prism. In one sense, their fifth studio effort achieves everything they set out to do in changing the way listeners perceive what the genre can become, and another, the context is rife with even further questions as to what comes next through the existentialist ponderings of frontman John Baizley as he howls deep into the void about where the timeline ends. Those questions reverberate through another expansion in Baroness’ universe through psychedelic patterns, magnetic waves and hollowed out transmissions responding from unknown depths in the black hole. It’s the Philadelphia-by-way-of-Savannah’s heaviest onslaught yet, though not in the decibel sense that you’d expect. Every wrinkle in their latest timeline is transcendent. To where needs to be answered at all.

Control Top - Covert Contracts [Get Better Records]

Post-punk has become a bit of a reductive cliche lately lacking in spikes, but Philly trio Control Top are razor sharp and full of fire in their delivery with their debut full-length Covert Contracts. It’s an extreme case of the personal, political and technologically terrifying being brought to the forefront of the conversation as well as attacking our senses, with lead singer and bassist Ali Carter acting as the live wire mouthpiece with a maximalist current from drummer Alex Lichtenauer and guitarist Al Creedon downloading a surge of dark truths from the secret server. In the age of information, Control Top are here to tear down the consumerism and the algorithms set up to pocket millions off of it one piece of the hate machine at a time, and when it’s over, Covert Contracts has hopefully hacked your brain as well.

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - NOCEBO [The Flenser]

There really aren’t any concrete shapes or sounds in the heavy music world to describe what Elizabeth Colour Wheel create. Regardless of that, the Boston five-piece’s debut full-length NOCEBO pulls in a whirlwind onslaught of harsher elements from the post-hardcore, black metal, experimental noise, and shoegaze soundscapes and siphons them through the tour de force that is their frontperson Lane Shi. As the album title -- a nod to a medical term to describe a detrimental effect on health produced by psychological or psychosomatic factors -- might suggest, Shi and her bandmates master the art of devastation through cataclysmic eruptions and momentary elegies for what’s been lost in their wake. Nothing’s left without ruin in this listen, and that could very well be the key as to why Elizabeth Colour Wheel leave no corner of the heavy music world undiscovered in their path of destruction.

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It [Carpark Records]

It has been six years since Emily Reo released her last album Olive Juice, but that doesn’t mean the Brooklyn-based independent scene star hasn’t been busy in the meantime. The long stretch has seen her tirelessly hone her perfectionism and discipline in every way, as a multi-instrumentalist, live performer, producer and engineer not just in her own capacity, but in the work of her peers as well. On Only You Can See It, her contributions to the entire musical community shine through audibly on top of and beneath the surface of her idiosyncratic pop sound. It’s a multi-faceted collection of songs that Reo has mined over with meticulous dedication that amounts to each carrying their own degree of sparkle. Once they’ve your eye, Reo uses her pop medium to brandish think bubbles on gender equality, bad behavior and self-care that stick with you because the music does, too.

Fury - Failed Entertainment [Run for Cover Records]

Groove-ridden hardcore indebted to its ‘90s tidal waves has hit the scene hard this last coupling of years, and California’s Fury are part of the reason for that. Akin to their contemporaries in Baltimore’s Turnstile and Boston’s Fiddlehead, the five-piece came up through DIY circles and nothing but word of mouth recommendation before signing with Run for Cover Records for their sophomore effort Failed Entertainment. The album marks the next chapter in Fury’s evolution, however, as they’ve grabbed their relentless aggression with a firm grip, and have found new ways to tear into it using dense layers of melodic hardcore and sinewy, grungy alt-rock that leaves behind a charred impression just the same. Ethical existentialism framed lyrically at its center, lead screamer Jeremy Stith doesn’t falter at the chance at making Fury’s most visible statement to date a resounding one. These punks, in short, make every move count.

Greys - Age Hasn’t Spoiled You [Carpark Records]

Greys have come a long way since their beginnings as a noisy post-hardcore band, and their third full-length effort Age Hasn’t Spoiled You is the furthest indication that the Toronto band have discovered their own layer within the static, and while it’s devoid of much of the clamour and chaos of yesteryears, it’s even more thrilling in its design. Over a collection of 11 tracks, the four-piece disassemble their sonic limbs and reconstruct them through textures that are both strange yet awe-inducing, like what you might imagine if the cord between the astronaut and the space shuttle detached, and further alienated a body even further from their connection with Earth. It’s the channeling of a fraught energy for these times in feeling apart from this world, as if Greys’ sound now exists in its own vacuum where particles still collide, yet only they know the deafening sound it can create.

Jamila Woods - LEGACY! LEGACY! [Jagjaguwar Records]

Chicago’s contemporary R&B scene is shining brightly thanks to the creative wisdoms shared by Jamila Woods, and even more so with her sophomore effort LEGACY! LEGACY! The songwriter, poet and activist scribed a sense of empowerment as both a woman and a member of the black community with her listmaking debut album HEAVN, an album that made homage to her Chi-town roots and its potential as it also did to gifting her an identity, and with her latest listen, she pays it forward backward through songs inspired by the heroes who helped pushed boundaries in the right direction before she was given her own platform to so. Embellished by a sparkling production of an alive energy in its instrumental arrangements, Woods voice is the vessel for a higher power in gratitude and self-love. LEGACY! LEGACY! lifts her every being even further up with it.

Jenny Lewis - On the Line [Warner Bros. Records]

On the Line confirms what we’ve already know about Jenny Lewis, and that’s how she’s a masterful songwriter beyond just the Los Angeles indie rock diamonds in the rough which her crystal powers were originally unearthed. Four albums into her career as a solo musician following her years fronting Rilo Kiley, Lewis’ songwriting craft only continue to polish itself clearly in the Laurel Canyon breeze and the stoner-eyed, sun-blinding glares of her travel stories of poets, romantic vagabonds, boys named Bobby, girls named Caroline, and plenty of drugs. Each comes to life vividly as if they were her own to live (perhaps even they are...) and though backed by an ensemble of rock virtuosos such as Don Was, Benmont Trench, Beck, and Ringo Starr, Lewis holds the spotlight all her own.

PRIESTS - The Seduction of Kansas [Sister Polygon Records]

Like their peers in Control Top, PRIESTS’ 2017 debut album Nothing Feels Natural weaponized the use of punk ethos to make a bigger statement from the sociopolitical forefront. That agenda hasn’t changed on their sophomore follow-up The Seduction of Kansas, though it’s been refined to resonate much more deeper while reaching further into this country’s past fuck ups beyond just those of the last three years. They’ve also discovered how the use of movement can be used as a medium to make Katie Alice-Greer’s musings into bonafide sonic sculptures, as the angular fleshtones of Nothing Feels Natural have now given way to shattered shimmers under the dance punk mirror ball. Through the production of John Congleton, PRIESTS have been emboldened in a new found current of electricity.

Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else - Hot Spring [Run for Cover Records]

The best part about Spencer Radcliffe’s music is how he keeps his cards close to his chest, and with Hot Spring, his latest effort with his band & Everyone Else, the Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist invites us into his world where clocks and seasons are held up to question by his queries of the future, much like that he did on 2017′s listmaker Enjoy the Great Outdoors, but in a sense where the escape is less a destination and rather into the wild at large. The album buzzes with the sound of insects and birds chirping as Radcliffe’s hazy scenery is filled in with rich detail of the world’s beauties in both a natural and humanistic sense on the brink of a point of no return for the worse. Time is the enemy, yet Radcliffe is in no hurry to dig through its decay to appreciate life’s wonders on his own atc. At least, while we’re still here.

#lists #abuse of power #ava luna #control top #elizabeth colour wheel #greys #emily reo #fury #jamila woods #jenny lewis #priests #spencer radcliffe & everyone else #spencer radcliffe #baroness #features

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popmitzvah · 7 years

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Now I Am Become Slut, Destroyer of Worlds

The host is alive. She is sentient. She is self-aware. And she knows you have programmed her to attack herself and the others.

Nope! Not a blog about Westworld! At least, most of it isn’t. I want to talk about The Bachelor and I want to explain why this show is the place to be, if you’re into the shock of watching creations outsmart their creator-controllers. The more I read this Bach season as a rumination on feeling fictional and clawing for “reality,” the more I was reminded of HBO’s ambitious series on gnosticism, humanity, and the function of storytelling. Might even go so far to say that these two shows share a soul; Dolores Abernathy would be right at home at a rose ceremony!

Please follow me, down into a fake mansion that houses a harem, where we can take a closer look at the things that made The Bachelor so distinctive in its 21st season: existential female anxiety, textual reflexivity, and the peculiar journey of Corinne, a single trope that managed to awaken and rewrite herself.

Born into an apocalyptic Trumpworld, this iteration of The Bachelor became something kind of dark, dreadful, and a little bit out-of-control. Of course, The Bachelor is always a circus, and that’s why so many people hate it: for a television fan, it takes a strong set of stones to follow something so vapid, so dependent on tired stereotypes and romantic wish-fulfillment, so misogynistic, so corporate and disingenuous. How many different ways can producers arrange 30 beautiful women in a Love Thunderdome as they compete for the affections of one bland white man? But there was something poisonous in American culture at large that made Season 21 into something else, something crazier. Perhaps the 2016 election left a vacuum of hope that encouraged The Bachelor producers to lean into self-destruction as an aesthetic. Perhaps we, the audience, are evolving to watch ourselves watching TV, and we prefer everything to be kind of about storytelling – ergo the timely popularity of diverse “meta” shows like Westworld, American Horror Story, Fleabag.

Either way, the new Bachelor was defined by these new and distinctive notes:

Contestants who bristled inside their assigned story cages and pointedly drew attention to the process of being written as characters.

The season’s primary “villain,” Corinne, who transcended the confines of the Bach with a Joker-like sense of chaotic sexuality and stunningly re-branded her arc as sex-positive feminist heroism.

An unwilling Bachelor whose weird charisma relied on his apathy, nihilism, and constant critique of the format. Nick undermined our reception of the Bachelor experience by positioning himself as a bored observer – distancing himself from the contestants and the ideological underpinnings of the show.

First, I want to take on Bullet Number One – the Westworldian crises of self that entered this season of the Bachelor early on and began the process of destabilizing narratives and the women forced to live them. Take a look at what happened to Jasmine G on Night 1. Now, it’s not unusual for Bachelor women to immediately recoil from the uncanniness of this environment – to be a Bachelor contestant, to be on a reality dating competition, is to be subjected to spirit-breaking. These women are tested every moment with the pressures of self-criticism, of being filmed, of being beautiful, of being charming, of systematically attacking and defeating your stunning competitors. But something about Jasmine G’s body language and wording struck me as a crisis of self, a dissociative episode which bespeaks her sudden awareness that she is performing and this whole thing – maybe any love-hunt – is theater without meaning.

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“It doesn’t matter. It’s out of my control. There’s nothing I can do. Holy shit. Who the fuck am I? I’m blown away right now. Who am I?”

Night 1 would be the first of Jasmine’s many system failures, glitches in her personality and physical affect which provided an alarming counterpoint to the self-policing composure we’re used to seeing on these women. Nick eliminated her because of her unpleasant urge to question the “realism” of herself, of him, of the experience. And this was not the only instance of unusual meta-awareness amongst the women. Many of the others expressed a certain repugnance at the roles in which they were pigeonholed – at their status as storylines. Liz’s only mission, with mounting desperation, was to rewrite her way from Nick’s opportunistic ex-fling all the way to romantic legitimacy. Taylor realized too late that her Bachelor persona and “real” professional life were being mapped onto one another and she’d dug herself into the “bitch bully” hole (with the help of her nemesis Corinne). Taylor also literally theorized that some women are better-programmed for love! What could be more Westworld than attempting to parse the resident slut’s “emotional intelligence”?

So there was a significant change in the show here, in which the women’s grasp or ignorance of “being produced” was of paramount importance to how we perceived them. To compare these women to WW characters like Dolores and Maeve – remaining basic, guileless, and easily overwritten ensured a measure of success in the competition and preserved their classic Bachelor likeability factor.

So with that said, I’m dying to get back to Corinne. Here was a contestant who really jumped off the screen for reasons I’ve never seen an antagonist “pop” before. Unlike a villain such as, say, Season 20’s Olivia, Corinne worked to distinguish herself as a breakout character – not just through behavior but through actual world-building. Starting the show out by mentioning her current nanny Raquel was a stroke of genius; Raquel was a framing device that indicated Corinne inhabited a bizarre fantasy world inside and outside the show. In so many ways. Corinne deliberately ate endless blocks of cheese on camera. She feigned naps, eyes closed, smiling beatifically as she “dreamed” of Nick. She self-consciously and joyfully delivered dialogue she knew would light up the internet. Clutching her breasts and huffing, “Does this seem like someone who’s immature?” Staring soullessly into the lens and intoning, “My heart is gold, but my vagine is platinum.” Luring Nick into an inexplicable bounce house and toplessly dry-humping him with abandon. Corinne’s promiscuity, and her persona, were over-the-top but deliberately, defiantly, and delightfully self-choreographed. We know the floozy never wins, but when the floozy knows it, ignores it, and enjoys her role, she transcends happy endings.

And most interestingly, Corinne elevated her self-awareness and self-programming into a magnificent final act. During “The Women Tell All” (a reunion episode which airs before the finale) Corinne, in one fell swoop, ret-conned her entire Bachelor journey as a feminist rumspringa. “I was just doing me,” she demurely insisted, while the other contestants fought to defend her sexual agency. They leaped to defend the resident slut as the bravest and most authentic person amongst them. Corinne sat, resplendent, her eyes bearing no trace of the mischief and malevolence that had been her character cornerstones. She’d accomplished a rewrite akin to “it was all a dream.” Later, women sobbed while Liz declared her sexual encounter with Nick had not “defined” her, and they took turns praising their sister for her humanitarian work. The thematic tide-turn from “a search for true love” to “an inner journey toward female unity and empowerment” made for the most overtly political and topical episode The Bachelor has had, maybe ever – and it bespoke the malleability of reality fiction in a way the show has never previously approached.

In many ways, it was Bachelor Nick’s abdication of his role that allowed the TV text to refocus itself on the women “waking up” and growing through their relationships to one another. It’s hard, as a viewer, to engage with story about passive female players being driven toward romantic fulfillment, when the end-goal is a guy who’d be content to go home immediately and eat cold pizza. As we know, the guy had already been through two seasons of The Bachelorette and one summer of Bachelor in Paradise – his entire narrative was “last-ditch effort for love.” Nick made it his business to call out the fakery of The Bachelor, and the futility of it: “Let’s try to be as normal as possible in an abnormal environment.” “I’ve been in their shoes, and I know how much it sucks.” I certainly like Nick as a person – I like that he cries when he feels stuff, and I like that he hates being The Bachelor but loves being famous, and I like that he let women who were too good for him go, so they could fly and be free and be the first black Bachelorette. But if Nick did anything other than represent a neat resolution of the presented Bachelor narrative, he effectively denied our suspension of disbelief and exposed this particular season as “reality farce with no point.” Prince Charming was just in it for the international travel and the free food. I sympathize. And it’s fun to watch The Bachelor pretend that this isn’t a huge problem.

SO! I posit here that, at least for this season, The Bachelor evolved beyond the story of single women and their search for love. You might say that instead of being about singlehood, this show became about “the singularity” – that moment when program/character/trope/story/world comes alive and begins to adapt and change itself. I wonder: is it a better ride for the reality-consuming audience, when “we know they know”? At what point does watching a character with meta-awareness become confusing, or tiresome, rather than thrilling? And most importantly, what are the differences between watching reality television and prestige drama when we’re grappling with these issues? This question, perhaps, is of paramount importance for TV fans as we go forward; if there’s something in the water that’s poisoning every genre of narrative experience (or making it tastier), we have to put our fingers on it. Why do I watch so much television about women in traps, whose self-actualization and creative escapes are catalyzed by patriarchal violence? Why is it so easy to find that story?

I think it’s easy to brush aside shows like The Bachelor precisely because they are so heavily consumed, across political and cultural lines, and “mass appeal” television has the reputation of reifying harmful structures of power. For really good reason. But it’s important to locate these small moments of medium-transcendence within these TV texts. More and more, the characters we use and abuse are turning directly towards us. These fictional delights have real ends, and it’s never, never about the final rose.

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#westworld #the bachelor #corinne #nick viall #media studies #narrative theory

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

Text

Candy 12-14

Even Jake’s having his proverbial love triangle troubles

It’s clear he genuinely cares for both Jane and Dirk, but if he’s being honest with himself, the one he romantically loves would be Dirk, the one he would prefer to be with, who he’d choose if they were equal options, would be Dirk

But he’s also right that it’s not like Jane’s a bad choice either, sure it’s not his preference if he’s being honest, but he’s also not about to look the gift horse in the mouth if it falls right into his lap

13 is where we start start to see the unraveling happen I suppose though

Again, everyone is acting so drugged up in Candy

Jane and Jake getting literally inebriated and Dave acting like he’s going through Dirk withdrawal

Then Gamzee being the weird ugly poster child of both drugs and candy, honestly it really did make sense to shove him into this timeline in a weird and uncomfortable ham fisted way, it gets that “are you fucking high right now” feeling across really well

Gamzee really being the cloud cuckoolander here though

hold on let me un-gamzee-ify it just reading his text quirk makes me feel like im on drugs

Gamzee: you don’t got any need to go and concern yourself with his mortal flesh body out here in this candycane whirlpool beyond the infinite black wink of the wicked singularity, my ninja.

Gamzee: a sack of meat and bones in one life or the next is only a means to the final totality that will damn and raise us all in brilliant apotheosis.

Gamzee seems clearly meta aware of the situation he’s in which is interesting, This is indeed a candy swirled timeline hidden inside an infinite black hole singularity

the second line seems to be describing the meat timeline in a way though too

a sack of meat sounds worthless, but it is apparently only a means to a truer end, it has to happen for something else to happen

Essential, but irrelevant, again

funnily enough he’s also seems to be referencing gnostic concepts, not that i’m surprised really at this point

one sack of meat, or, one body in one life or the next

so reincarnation

is only a means to an end that both damns and raises a person into apotheosis, or their “zenith” their highest point

which, i mean, yeah, you live life again and again, differently each time, becoming closer to ascension, and ultimate consumation of every version of you is the basic tenet of the reincarnation gnosticisms

Also, a lot of text was put into describing Gamzee haphazardly crashing into things and setting off rube goldberg machines, which I guess sort of describes his escapades through Homestuck lol

“cinder block, crusty puppet, and Japanese sword in a tornado’s radius off balance and avalanching them catastrophically onto the hapless clown’s torso. “

So the Sword is Dirk (or AR) the crusty puppet is Caliborn (because Lil Cal) which I guess leaves the cinder block as Equius? He’s built like a brick shithouse? eh only problem sleuth stuff comes up so 2/3 ain’t bad

Speaking of Equius, oh look, A feminine half finished robot in Dirk’s basement

the uncomfortable Equius vibes ping once again though I don’t think this is robo-Aradia, but likely something meant to serve a similar purpose and almost DEFINITELY Rose related if reading meat wasn’t already obvious and if the skull for an inner head thing wasn’t immediately referring to the headaches Rose was known to have

though it’s also uncomfortably a symbol of her Doom

---14---

“A flip of the cosmic coin has rendered your entire life completely inessential.”

yup what did I just say, Meat is representing the essential bits of the story, candy is decidedly, not

hm, Dirk’s going to kill himself for the supposed greater good of his own making again

not unsurprising, but a guy like him always like to make an escape rather than give up, is he thinking death will unlock this part of his conciousness and send the memories back to the ultimate self? probably

“and one final act of relevance that can bequeath your meager energies to the cosmic well from whence they came.”

yup!

Though as much as he keeps saying none of this matters he did leave an explanatory note specifically for his friends to find, so there’s still something in him that cares

Don’t like how the bigger blacker text is basically instructing this version of Dirk to kill himself though, that again implies there’s part of Dirk that are subservient to other parts, so again it’s a question of if his ultimate self got tainted through the connecting pieces of Arquisprite > Lord English > Doc Scratch, then who’s actually pulling the strings in Dirk’s Ultimate Self and directing the behaviour of “Dirk” in general

Is it Dirk Strider? Or Doc Scratch? and does that even matter anymore since it’s all DS all the same anyway?

“In a certain sense, you’ve never felt so free.

> Kill yourself.”

That’s hilariously also a JailBreak reference, I think, but definitely played for the morbs instead of as a joke lol

https://www.homestuck.com/jailbreak/109

Literally this MC kills himself when his friend dies and he’s now alone in a vast cosmic emptiness and the text is:

“Yes! Finally! Free at last!

Though the victory is bitersweet. Your friend has died of blood loss.

This is no victory. The feeling is vast emptiness. You are no longer bound by bars or concrete, but you feel more incarcerated than ever. You come to the heartwrenching conclusion that the only true prison... is loneliness.

There is only one thing left to do.

> Continue”

and it just resets him back to the first panel but this time he makes choices differently

ironic that Dirk does literal the exact same thing but comes to exactly zero of the same conclusions

“Just as your epiphany occured at sunset, your death must occur at sunrise to complete the ouroboros of symbological harmonic resonance that is your personal arc. It is the very last moment of narratively consequential action that will happen in this whole, barren world.”

I wonder what about this death makes it so narratively significant? just because it passes along the knowledge of what not to do back to the Ultimate Self so he can avoid it? Probably nothing more than that

“but there really are no words that can adequately express the sound someone makes when they die. It’s a phenomenon that happens on two levels. First, there is the literal termination of organic processes, which is to say, the destruction of the meat. Then follows the dissolution of the ego. And you have quite the ego to dissolve, one that has flown so high above the forest that not only can it no longer see the trees, it cannot even conceive of the trees as material substance with objective meaning.”

funny it mentions a forest which is also where that happened in JailBreak

Basically describes how death in general works in Homestuck, the body dies but can leave a ghost/ego behind, but eventually that dissolves as well

Again though, making a compariosn between the Meat and the Body/Flesh and the Candy and the Spirit or Ghost

or another pun between Candy and Drugs if you take Spirit to mean alcoholic spirits

Candy seems ironically and symbolically the place where Breath Meets Void, no wonder John and Roxy hook up here lol

Does that make Meat then the place where Blood and Light meet? I have before put significance into the crossover of those symbolisms in Homestuck before, but couldn’t really conceptulize it as a solid symbolic thing and the Meat and epilogues in general did a really good job of conjoining them into the idea of the story what with the Narrative having importance but also Veins and the idea of Karkat as being reliable narrator etc etc

Meat’s as good a symbol as any for that I suppose

“ When you think so little of yourself as a moral character, any act of self-termination will result in a death that is Just. “

so this line seems to imply that Dirk’s death was permanent and Just here because he thought so little of his own moral character aka deep down he knew he was terrible person, amount of remorse felt over that not applicable, and because of that perception of his, the clock tick tocked over on to Just

Again reinforcing that the Clock is less of an ultimate moral judgment from down on high and much more like an influenceable moral compass, given form by the person affecting it at the moment

I actually kinda like the new spin on that it gives Vriska’s original just death, since that slow ticking of the clock was not just a decision, but a battle of wills between herself and Terezi, it could have easily gone either way depending on how each saw Vriska

neat!

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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