#2nd person is the easier to go it’s the homestuck in me

[rocketandonuts]

Trying to figure my characters out short fic:

“Just making sure” you asked the boy next to you, who’s currently tangling his arm around yours, resting his head on ur shoulder, “… you’re not making a move on me, are you?”

You guys were sitting on your bed. Before this moment, he was just comfortably curling up to you as he watches his little video on his phone. It was an animated video explaining smth biology, and you can tell that he was really trying to watch it by the way he kept rewinding repeatedly whenever smth came up that he didnt follow.

Now the video is paused. And he’s looking at you. His eyes. Widened. Whatever he was trying to consume probably all got thrown outta the window bc of your impromptu question. You feel a little bad.

Next moment, he let go of your arm.

“S-s-sorry! Am I too close? Am I gross??”

“No no it’s fine it’s fine! Im just asking!”

He hopped off your bed, panicked. You followed by, grabbed him, and sit him down back to your bed again.

“I’m just curious… cuz it always seem like you really like to touch me? A lot?” It’s hard to not make that sounds hella awkward. He gets what ur saying tho.

“I-I’m just a touch-starved dumb loser dude! I really like you you’re my friend and I thought you’re fine with it-“

“I Am fine with it!” You pull him into a hug to reassure. You really are fine with it. More than fine, actually. It’s kinda adorable. Like a puppy.

“Im not grossed out, alright? See? Not one bit. Was just wondering.”

“Heh… heheheh…” he laughed nervously. “Silly! Ofc i wouldn’t be making a movey move on you when- … you know! I-I told you about th-the-the guy from work-“

“Yeah yeah I know about that guy. Jules. That guy is srsly wayyy too old for you!”

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. Your lovely friend here kept developing fruitless crushes at his part time jobs. So far there’s been 2 straight guys, a lesbian, and now this “Fine gentlemen who shows up on Sunday mornings and one time accidentally spilled his coffee.”

“I know I know! I just think he’s kinda cute! I’m not making a move on anybody! You know I never had done that anyway!”

“But… Idk I just wonder...” if he likes you and likes to touch you, then what really makes it different? “Like, why aren’t you into me the same way? Am I not your type? Not into fat chicks?”

“Y-you’re my best friend, Ricky! And you’re great! You look good… okay fine! Since you wanna know so bad I’ll tell you!” He cracked, flustered.

“I-I probably did have a lil bit crush on you before! But it’s not like you’d actually like that…!”

“Huh.”

“And I wouldn’t wanna risk changing anything between us, okay?? I like being friends with you!”

“Aww hehehe” you went in for another tight hug “That’s so sweet of you, bud”

“… I really like being friends with you, Ricky.”

“Me too” your best friend is so warm. You decided to turn the fan on for both of you. “Tbh I wouldn’t be too mad if you like me that way. It’s just would be a shame that i don’t think I can reciprocate it.”

“Pffft yeah yeah you like being the charming asshole don’t you? You know you would be uncomfortable if I’m still harboring that type of feelings towards you!”

“Huh? Why would I be uncomfortable?”

“Cuz you’re not into me, obviously! Dumbass! You just said it yourself!”

It’s strange. There’s nothing “romantic” going on between you two, but you kinda get the feeling that he may be hurt a little by your wording earlier. The air is feeling kinda dense.

Even more strangely, you’re also feeling a little heartache.

“… But here’s a thing, man” you’re a bit bothered by this… idea. You don’t want anything between you two to change, either. But you’re willing to share a little bit more of yourself to heal this thing as for right now. “I think I could kiss you. Probably.”

“…W-W-WHA-!”

He’s once again trying to squirm his way out of your hold. You make sure he couldn’t.

“STOP PLAYING WITH ME YOU BITCH!!”

“I mean what I said! Geez chill! I think about kissing you sometimes jules what about it!!”

“But-but- … why…???”

“Idk. Why do you watch science videos when you often get outta them still totally confused and unsatisfied?”

“C-cuz I’m curious…?”

“There you go.”

You smile at him. His face is all flushed. You felt the air has shifted to another kind of denseness. The kind that you don’t really hate that much. The kind that somehow would put even more smiles on you when you’re already smiling. Maybe you are a little bit of an asshole indeed.

Not to mention the positions you’re currently taking. Thats pretty damn cliché.

“So do you… do you w-wanna… t-try it? … Now?” He said hesitantly, eyes closed, wrinkles between his eyebrows. This would be a hell of a time to pull a godawful prank, but you managed to hold it back.

“…Nah man, as much as it’s tempting. Hehehe~” instead you helped him sit up again. “I don’t have the heart to steal your first kiss out of pure curiosity. I know how much you’d value those junk.”

“… Ha. Haha.” He laughed nervously. Half-relieved, half-disappointed, but didn’t look too upset “Coward.”

“Ah Jules. My man my buddy. I hope one day you’ll get your first time with someone you have a hell ride of a romantic crush on with each other.”

“Hey let’s not get our hopes up…” this time, he took ur hand. “Hey wanna still try smth?”

“Hm?”

“Im curious too!” He said as he started to play with your hand. He made u do a finger gun gesture, with ur index & middle finger aligning together.

Then he pressed his lips on them horizontally, giving them a peck.

“Haha dude! what was that??”

“A simulation of kissing on the lips, obviously!”

“Couldn’t u just do that with ur own hand?”

“Then you wouldn’t be able to get a feel of my hot juicy mouth! …how did it feel?”

“Dry and scratchy.”

“Oh really? Oh now let me rate yours then you ass! Close your eyes!”

Sure. Why not. You closed your eyes and waited for his groundbreaking virtual reality romance simulation game.

And that son of a bitch pinched your mouth.

#2nd person is the easier to go it’s the homestuck in me #oh bro I went hog wild #I’m surprised tumble app didn’t crash when I keep going on an off for the past hours writing this long as oc fiction

[caparrucia]

11) What perspective do you write from most and/or least and why? (1st, 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient, deep pov, etc)

11) What perspective do you write from most and/or least and why? (1st, 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient, deep pov, etc)

I despise 1st person, because I think it's the hardest one to write convincingly as fanfic. 1st person betrays all your hangups and headcanons and it's super easy to throw people off and eject them violently out of the story if it turns out they do not share your interpretation of the character to the T. I commend people who write it, but I kind of side eye the people who don't understand that 1st person is not a self-insert, but the closest, purest act of character creation, where the I needs to be strong and distinct enough for it to be their own person, and not the reader.

I'm biased but I feel reader insert fic fails on the premise that you cannot leave a gap wide enough for any reader to insert themselves in it. You only leave the outline and it becomes a sieve where only those who fit your notion of reader get to pass, and everyone else gets bounced off and held back. In the worst scenarios, the sieve is shaped in such a way that not only are you ejected from the story, you get a bonus round of bigotry alongside it. Every time your "reader" character describes themselves as white, as cis, as straight, I know your reader is not me or mine, and that you've clearly decided you don't want me or mine reading your work.

I think 2nd person is a fascinating exercise in creating two characters at once, a narrator that is personified in their word choice and tone, and the character they address, who might or might not match what the narrator says. 2nd person is fantastic to highlight the tension of the narrator and the narrated, a great way to explore the contrast between external forces and internal strength, as well as the discrepancies between internal process and external action. It's woefully underutilized, primarily because there's a fucking stupid misconception that all 2nd person fiction is speaking to the reader. That every single you is exclusively the purview of the asinine idiot holding the page with arrogant self-obsession, and not the halting brushstrokes trying to draw out the entirety of someone else's everything.

I am salty about 2nd person, yes.

I also did spend half a decade reading homestuck.

So there's that.

I'm most comfortable with 3rd person, unless I'm trying to be clever or experimental, and probably failing at both. Limited or omniscient is not about the characters, but the reader, and what will have the best effect long term: knowing what the characters don't, or discovering things alongside them. Either way, 3rd person is my go to and the one I'm most comfortable with, because it's the one I have the most shortcuts and tricks to make my life easier for.

#rie answers #darkpuck

[ghoste-catte]

A H I E for fandom asks!

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)  

So, obviously my #1 all time OTP is GaaLee, and has been off and on for ... close to fifteen years. I think this is self-evident. Probably my second and third favorite ships for Naruto are KakaGai and SakuIno, though I don’t write either of them that often (and honestly don’t read a ton of SakuIno, but if anyone has recs I’m all ears!) For a lot of other fandoms I enjoy, I don’t really actively ship anything? I just sort of enjoy the material and then like looking at pretty fanart, but I don’t have, like, a burning need for More Content of These Characters Specifically. There’s some where I’m like “Oh, this has cute potential”, but I’m not, like, passionate about it like I am with GaaLee. My 2nd biggest fandom right now is ~probably~ BNHA, in that I keep up with the manga, and I think there’s plenty of relationships that are, like, cute--and I do have drafts of fic that I probably will never get around to finishing for that fandom--but I don’t actively seek out content for them at the moment. Likewise with MP100 or One Punch Man--I like SeriRei and SaiGenos conceptually, but I don’t go out of my way to find or make content for them. Umm, I like Daisira from The Magnus Archives. I was reallllly into Cecilos from Welcome to Nightvale for a while. Pynch from The Raven Cycle. Rosemary and any combo of Davekat+/-John from Homestuck, though I haven’t really read Homestuck stuff actively in a long-ass time (because of the, y’know, post-canon shitshow). I watched The Dragon Prince recently and I really liked Janaya as a ship but there’s not tons of content for them? I’ve been slowly making my way through SPOP and the canon ships are good, but my main ship there is Huntara/me (joking, but seriously I loved her). Most other fandoms I straight up just don’t have any particular ships for. 

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?  

I’ve written a couple ... not quite crack but crack-adjacent fics? I wouldn’t call them “hilarious”, but they are meant to give you a chuckle. Like the one where Lee and Gaara get stuck in a donut case together, or the one where Gaara tries to ask Lee on a date while Team Gai is trapped in a three-man, six-armed Maito Suit, or the one where Kankuro causes a small housefire by fucking around with a robot on Zoom. 

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?  

When I look at my “big” fandoms they seem to mostly be shonen anime/manga. Normally I will watch an anime, and the way I know if it’s something I really like is if I run out of anime episodes and go looking for the manga. But other than that my fandoms are a pretty mixed bag. The one thing I would say I don’t particularly like is live-action dramas? I don’t mind live-action comedy (I looooved What We Do in the Shadows, for example), but anything that’s got real human people + Very Serious Subject Matter just doesn’t really do it for me. I get really distracted and just find it boring. I think that’s partially because I’m not particularly good at reading irl human facial expressions--animation has a very standard set of expressions that everyone shares, so it’s much easier for me to understand what the character’s face is saying--and partially because the types of narratives that consume TV For Adults (tm) don’t especially interest me. I do not, for example, care very much at all about marital drama or will-they-won’t-they romances or grittily realistic fight scenes. I have a hard time following plot threads in televised/movie drama ... and I also feel like the actors often look so similar that I struggle to visually distinguish them, lol. If there’s more than one blonde woman, my mind just slots them into place as the same person. I had the hardest time following The Great Destiel Kerfuffle of 2020 because I literally could not tell the 3 actors apart. 

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?  

Hahaha, this question is great. Honestly, not really. I very actively curate the people I engage with and I follow and unfollow liberally (I have hit the 5k blog follow limit several times), so my dashboard is both very active and it’s very easy for me to just peace out if someone posts content I’m not interested in. I kind of low-key enjoy watching fandom drama from the sidelines (because it is so frequently absolutely absurdist), but I don’t ever put my fingers in it if I can help it. I also spent literal decades as a very, very passive consumer of fandom/a “lurker”, so it doesn’t feel like it costs me anything to just ... shut up and not engage with firebrands. If something really pisses me off I usually shriek about it to my wife and then I’m done. I will say, though, that I did start watching Voltron and was pretty annoyed that I could hardly find any content for the characters I actually liked (Hunk and Pidge), because everyone was so obsessed with shipping wars, but really what soured me on the show was that the color palette and animation was grating and the plot quickly got very boring for me. Steven Universe was kind of like that too, minus the color scheme issue. It was a pretty show but I just got bored of it, and it became increasingly hard to find the content I wanted (pretty fanart) because of all the discourse. Plus the episode schedule was ... frankly stupid, and made it really hard to keep up with the show. 

Fandom Asks! Send me some letters!

#answered #anonymous #ask meme #Anonymous

[meraki-sunset]

2nd Part of what i think it’s coming on hiveswap (check part 1 <3)

I tried to calculate how old  this guy could be if they were human according to what they described that they knew and to what temporary time on earth he belonged.

I wanted to know if they belonged to the time period of Joey (14) and jude (12) (1994) or to John, Dave, Rose and Jade (13) (2009)

They mentions both memes and blockbusters as something of their everyday life, along with vage claims about going to highscool and katare clases and never anything specific.

In the end with the revelation that reader may not be human and their memories may be false (this timeline is now irrelevant -_-) everything makes sense, all the information they have about the earth comes from the internet.

That's why they can not stop referring to everything with references from famous movies and viral jokes, instead of personal experiences,

They are a dumping ground of human pop culture, all processed and squeezed inside their brain to make them believe that they really came from earth when in reality they are an alien both on alternia and earth. They’ve never been there

(That actually makes them in my opinion the perfect homestuck reader. Homestuck it’s an internet culture dumpster, and for Reader to have their sense of identity surrounding that, seems pretty symbolic)

The reality is that doc sratch needed some points to connect and needed a pawn (pun intended all over) in alternia for that to happen. The reader’s actions on the planet saved the lives of some trolls and connected others with each other. In one way or another, they encouraged a rebellious vein in many of them and helped everyone grow as individuals.

So they can all be ready and motivated when  dammek’s revelion takes place

Dammeks revelion it’s crucial, as we’ll see later.

Doc had to restart several times because reader died many times trying to carry out his plan. Maybe with the help of the handmaid or by his own hand. Like moving the threads from behind, causing disasters that would make it easier for the reader to make friends with the trolls after helping them

Then again the word  PAWN is not just for aesthetics, pawns are sacrificed during the game of chess, trying to get to victory. The pawns can not retreat, just advance, in the same way that peregrine mendicant could not back down in her series of errands and tasks that were assigned to her, no matter what  

no mater how dangerous they are, Reader can not stop making friends and can not retreat no matter what kind of danger they have in front of them, and if they do Doc Scratch just restarts the time line until they move correctly.

Besides, Doc has “rewired” their brain in a way that if they ever try to go against their “befriending order” they begin to feel sick or that something its wrong. And they have to repeat themselves constantly what his life story is, and dismiss any idea that could indicate otherwise.

Also, even if now they are “programed ” to dismiss all signals that something it’s wrong to keep making friends non stop, they still feels like they are following a script made by someone else and that there are patterns in his actions that repeat

and also ignore basic weird stuff regarding their body like not needing to eat or their bones healing way faster that whats normal for a human

And the more time they spends on Alternia, the more they feel that something it’s wrong. They are tired, they are becoming aware and feels they won’t be able to go on for much longer

The only time thay regain control and get’s free from Doc Sratch’s control while being on alternia it’s when they DIE on karako’s bad ending. And then, while doc it’s loosing his grip on their mind, reader questions everything they have been doing, and why the hell are they acting that way, and wonders if it’s all plotted by a higher entity

in the end, their ability to remember multiple timelines due to all the resets and how they began to become aware of being part of something else was something Doc scratch hadn’t planed

Where i’m trying to get with all this it’s that This guy is important. Their mind is way stronger than what it seems. Doc Sratch is an omnicient beeing, and even him was taken back by Reader’s actions and capacity to understand his situation despite the mind control.

Then they had a collapse, after Doc brings them to his lair on the green moon and deactivates their urge to make friends.

their identity is falling apart and they can not feel any appreciation for the memories he made in alternia. they don’t feel that the people they met are their friends. The memories they made with everybody now feel cold. They want to feel again what they felt when they thought of them, they feel uneasy now that they doesn’t have a script to follow, but  they want answers. He wants to understand.

And that's when the important things begin.

they are trapped

but at the same time they are free for the first time

They will now read homestuck and learn about the whole context about doc scratch, alternia and the end of everything.

In fact scratch leaves them alone to read the comic because he has more important issues to attend, because there is someone else who is about to arrive.

Reader makes an “appearance” on homestuck, when the second disc breaks and needs to go to doc scratch to get it fixed. that explains how the reader (that now is considered an actual character) was in doc scratch’s moon in the first place, disc in hand

(now, i don’t remember fully about this, but i’m not sure if doc sratch ever told anybody to call him that? i remember everybody just calling him white text guy. i could be wrong but maybe that’s just how reader refers to him, due to him fixing the disc. i don’t know, i’m probably wrong but would it be cool if that was the case)

And this text I think it’s important 

he doesn’t say “I am an exelent host” he says “I continue to be an exelent host” because he has been hosting reader for a while, they hadn’t just arrived, they arrived a while ago (i don’t know about ya’ll but reading all homestuck took me a couple months) reader was just in a diferent room (that place is hella big. Hussie got lost in there) and had no choice but to go to back scratch’s apartment and ask for help

Also, this text makes a lot more sense to me now, because reader DID influenced the story at some extent

And the somebody that scratch it’s waiting for is spades slick who will attack him, and later Snowball, they will both then make a huge mess fighting, make out and slick will shoot her

Now this is what I believe will follow. From this point on it’s even more speculative but bear with me. There is a lot of plot holes left to fill

Reading the comic and adding 2 plus 2 Reader will discover that they are not human, learn where they come from, and that his friends are going to die permanently when the events of the hivebent happen, the meteors begin to collide with the planet, the 12 trolls enter sburb and the vast glub kills all trolls in the universe

they will also discover at the very end of homestuck, at the Act 7, that there is a safe planet in another dimension, where humans, trolls and Carapacians live together in peace. (yes i know reader is confirmed not a carapace, this theory it’s old) They will have to find a way to get there and take everyone with him there

They will escape and go back to alternia (probably there will be some time shenanigans with the window portal and some time has probably passed since he left) 

and there, eventually at some point, they will encounter Joey

But i’ll explain more of that on the third part of the theory

*Pronouns fixed*

Thanks everybody for all your support and suggestions!

Part 1 - Part 2 (you’re here) - Part 3

#homestuck #hiveswap #friendsim #homestuck theory

[egg2k16]

40 Fanfic Q’s Answered

the server wants answers, and they want them now!!! from this post

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Smut and pining all the way. Also, falling in love via laughing

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Eh...I don’t think so, I’m always 100% self-indulgent, so what u see is what I want

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Anything that has to do w mega sadness, I just Don’t. I can’t write anything sad, and if I do, there’s certainly gonna be A Lot of comfort afterwards

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

I have 91 wips, motherfuckers!!! My latest wip is a daddy month fic!

5. Share one of your strengths.

I think, since I’ve been trying to be sparser in my words, I’ve been able to better emphasize what isn’t being said

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

No action scenes from me are ever good, lmao

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It was late at night, when he started to cry.

He didn't want to cry, but he did.

It's been years since he's last let himself feel, or was it since he was last allowed to feel?

He choked on his sobs, uncomfortable with his tears. He's forgotten how to properly cry. His entire body is shaking, and the connections between flesh and wire hurts.

He stops crying. He starts crying again.

This continues for another few minutes, until he feels as if he can't possibly have any more tears.

He wipes his face, pulls the covers up to his chin, and falls asleep.

(from Twilight on the Sea) I really like this bcus I don’t think I’ve ever really typed out crying in this way, n I tried to make it feel like it was a lot

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Cass was quiet for a moment. “... you know what? Maybe I’ll just go up there and surprise you.”

“If you do, then you already ruined the surprise, haven’t you?”

“Eh, I dunno about that. Seeing my beautiful face is a shock for many people.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, Koda? I don’t know about you, but it’s really late here.”

“Really?” Koda asks, then remembers that time zones exist. “Oh crap, what time is it over there?”

“It’s midnight. What about you?”

“It’s eight o’clock. Only four hours difference?”

“Oh hey, that’s not so bad.”

“It reduces our time,” Koda said, a bit whining.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What are you going to do? Move here? Send for me?”

“You’ll see.”

(from Together) This was a gift for one my best friends on here, @suncatchr​ , and it’s about his ocs!!! I love this a lot bcus while it’s a soulmate au, it’s not ur average soulmate au, and I tried making it as original as possible! And this blurb, I just wanted them to effuse so much love w/o having to say love...cries

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

If this is by posted fics, then I remember writing Look What You’ve Done to Me was very very difficult, bcus, since it’s also a gift, for @daniel-bryan​ , I wanted to write it Good, n since my buddy usually wrote from the love interest’s pov, I felt a weird pressure to write Daniel Bryan’s pov as good as I could

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

2 of my fics in Spanish!!! My oc centric one, Rayos y Centellas, and my shyan one, oye cariño, solo pienso en ti ! Turns out writing in ur native tongue makes everything easier

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

It’s a very passionate hobby!!! I just!!! try to pour all of my love into everything I write!!!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

I’m not sure!!! I just watch movies n quietly scream to my gay lonesome bcus No One Ever Watches Movies ;-;

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

To just keep writing n not stop for details or forgotten lore, bcus it’s important to write down what’s firing u up Right Now. Of course, it’s very difficult following that ;;-;;

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

“No adverbs!” “No ‘said’!” “It has to make grammatical sense!” sometimes things Need those

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Was gonna say my rewrite of the end of The Rover, but actually, my SPN fic Ube . Shit was peak inspired

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Eridirk (Eridan Ampora/Dirk Strider from Homestuck) all the way. The one otp that’s stayed thru thick n thin <3

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

A little mix of both, and tbh it depends on the fic, but I tend to write chronologically

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I’ve started bullet pointing my ideas out before writing my fics, and so far, it’s been helping me be more streamlined n get my things written out faster n clearer!

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Is the need for representation in all the niche movies I keep watching a muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

In my dark room, w music blasting from my laptop, the TV w a soft hum, I have the perfect playlist to get the mood right, curled up in my blankies, n my plushie Sweet Pea by my side

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Zero, we rely on autocorrect & editing while typing and die like men

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

YOU DON’T SEEM SCARED.

Del Rio shrugs. “Working as a cop, it makes you numb to some things. It’s good, it lets you react to things as you should, and not how you’d want to.”

YOU SOUND SAD ABOUT THAT.

He makes a noncommittal noise. “It is what it is.” He eats another spoonful of his ice cream, then gets a thought.

“Can you show up?”

HOW SO?

“Can you,” he tries, waving his spoon around, “Manifest?”

I DON’T KNOW. I’LL TRY.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Del Rio assures, and he can feel the air around him smile. The...world, he thinks, around him shifts just slightly, and there seems to be a chink in the armor for a moment before it goes away, as if someone had wiped the glass clear. He realizes that this is her, trying to show up in a physical form, step out of the phone.

He doesn’t know where to look, but then his confusion wanes when a butterfly shows up, fluttering towards him. It lands near his phone, skitters a bit, flaps its wings.

“Lucy?” he asks, transfixed on the butterfly. Its orange wings are bright under the sunlight.

I THOUGHT I’D TRY SMALL, FOR MY FIRST TRIAL.

“Well, you certainly nailed it.” He smiled warmly at the butterfly, and he had the crazy notion that it smiled back at him.

(adapted from The Policeman , the first fic I posted!)

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Yeah, probably The Policeman lmao, I remember it today n I cringe a little at the very obvious refs to other fandoms I made. Despite that, it continues being one of my best hits!

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Never

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I’m just thankful to have gotten a beta in general in life at all

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I beta’ed once, and since English is my 2nd language, I pointed out syntax confusion, typos, n continuity errors

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

Can be done, it’s just that I am frightened. Tried doing that, it fell thru, n the new thing that came up, I still have to hold up my end of the bargain ;;-;;

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

cries omg ok so!!! Chancy_Lurking ( @lurkerviolin​ ) is one of my faves, n we’ve become friends, n their Felix+ Sense8 series is the reason for it all, and u know it’s good if it managed to make a friendship that’s last its good while, and also they’re so nice, and we vibe so well!!! thegoatz ( @daniel-bryan​ ) is also now one of my bestest friends ever, and I wuv him so much, he is such a good kid, n he’s so enthusiastic about writing, and I hope that spark never goes out!!! And adamwhatareyouevendoing ( @skatingthinandice​ ) bcus she’s doing a rewrite of The Last Kingdom where it’s all gay where it should be and vnjkdfsnvkd God, what a wonderful friend!!!

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I actually technically am working on a sequel to @rettaroo​ ‘s A New Kind of Touch ! Another promise I have to hold up eventually ;;;-;;;

30. Do you accept prompts?

Sure!

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I try to follow canon as much as I possibly can!

32. How do you feel about smut?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

33. How do you feel about crack?

Eh, it’s alright. I don’t normally look for it, so I don’t really have a solid opinion on it

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

I don’t want to read it, but I have so far encountered it twice very amicably: once here in a ficlet, and another in a longer fic on AO3, and they were both very good

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Probably not, I don’t like sad things!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3! I’m RedLlamas on it!

37. Talk about your current wips.

Lmao which one. The one I’m currently working on is an impregnation kink turned “oh no I actually do wanna have a family” feelings fic!

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Gonna be real w u, the best comments I’ve gotten have mainly been from my friends, who either write a paragraph or two going into detail of the fic, or just send a one sentence comment that’s just “screams!” I’ve gotten very few paragraphs from other people, n they’re always so!!!

My friends are the realest :’)

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

The perks of being a rarepair writer is that the only people who read my fics are the ones actively looking for content!!! And they can’t complain about my work because No One Else Is Writing For It!!!!!!

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

All my fics are masterpieces, so I’ll do a summary change! For don’t you just know (exactly what they’re thinking?)

Dakota finds himself in unexpected heartbreak, and the universe decides to bring him in the direction of a night club with a dancer with stars on his skin.

#post #about #sbbookclub #writing be like

[house-bound]

Small comp of phrases that make no sense to exist on Alternian society and made me cringe a little bit first time I read Homestuck last year.

There are two get-arounds here:

1-While wanting to make Alternia a stupidly hellish planet, Doc Scrath, the worst being ever, actively installed a series of prejudices in troll society.

2-These are throw away lines written by a (I assume) cishet man in early 2010s. 

I’ve been reading the author comments on the HS books and he pretty much admits to the 2nd, he says this on the first example with Eridan and Feferi:

“ You could look at this in a couple ways. I could just be getting a little lazy sometimes, and I'm just letting human-centric worldviews, customs, verbal patterns, etc., leak into the text because it's just easier doing it that way (YA GOT ME). Or you could view it as a more critical choice to keep characters, interactions, and situations more relatable, more tonally in keeping with presenting this arc as a loosely crafted, humorous sci-fi romp, and shifting the focus toward other elements besides some maniacally constructed xenosociological study. Personally, I tend to gravitate toward explanations for things that make me sound like less of a shithead.”

So y’know, cishet man writing gay characters in 2010. I don’t want to demonize him here, but I just want to show like, real world biases affecting fiction. Just to remind that it’s basically impossible to create a world removed from real life context and these biases will most likely go unnoticed, specially when you’re a cishet man in 2010 who really likes using a certain word that starts with R.

(Also his explanation for Karkat’s line is that he meant “STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS, THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS” on account of only girls playing FLARP with Tavros. Which wow, nice save)

And btw this bit from HS^2 is what made me remember my feelings towards the lines above.

Although here it seems more of a significant fact about these characters and their upbringings, rather than an unintentional author slip. Specially because this is Harry being worried about being “Feminine” and Vrissy not making fun of him for it, for obvious reasons. Although it’s surprising that any guy in Earth C would be made fun of for having a stereotypically feminine hobby, since it’s a whole new planet that does not need to have our Earth’s prejudices, so we’re looping back to the thing I said last paragraph. But y’know, now we do have LGBT writers, so it feels like there’s more reason to put it here, commenting on Kid’s repeating prejudices from the world they left behind for no other reason than it’s all that they know. 

So conclusion: HS has flaws sometimes. HS in general, like, as a whole. Things have flaws sometimes and that’s okay I guess, just gotta like, know they exist.

#my meta #homestuck #hs^2 #homestuck^2

[ardenttheories]

@fun-with-colors

I saw your tags. I’m here to theorise. 

Knights of Light, for as long as I’ve been able to understand them, have always seemed to me to be the type that just come across Knowledge. There’s no real intention on their part to find it; it just happens to be right there, waiting for them. 

They’re the kind that get messages from the Horrorterrors in their dreams, though they’re never aware that their dreams are from other beings. They can’t fully comprehend what they’re seeing, even in a dreaming state, and as a result transfer it into something they can analyse, find meaning in, and understand. 

For instance, when I originally had Dane (from my AU Ectostuck) classpected as a Knight of Light, one of his biggest theories was “mothman is real”. He got this information from the revelation in his dreams that he was going to be prototyped with a Mothsprite, and that he would die early into the game. In technicality, this would make him a Moth Man. 

If we want to go wholly narrative with this, then we can assume that a Knight of Light is physically capable of hearing or interacting with the narrative. They’re likely able to dream about it as if it’s an open book, or can just innately recognise it in the back of their head, as if it’s transcribed somewhere and playing out in a voice that their subconscious can hear. 

They might not be fully aware of what it is, and as such, they’re more likely to assume that they’re just good at Knowing things. But this also means that they can use the narrative in an exploitative way.

If the Knight of Light is a few steps ahead in the narrative and can “read” that their next reaction is to bow to a person they actually don’t like, they can completely avoid that outcome. They can exploit it by knowing what’s going to happen, and doing something else. 

Lets say that Terezi were a Knight of Light instead of a Seer of Mind. If she knew that killing Vriska on the meteor would much, much later on lead to a doomed timeline, and that letting her live would get them all killed, all because she had the narrative playing out in the back of her head at all times, then she’d know immediately that she’d just have to get the drop on Vriska and knock her out. 

She wouldn’t know why, per se, knocking Vriska out is the best option, but she’d know that it has to be done - and in doing so, she’d completely skip any of the events that led to Game Over. 

Of course, Knights of Light would also be able to tell if a narrative speaker is present, and they’d be able to exploit that voiced narrative in order to trick the narrator. 

A Knight of Light in Meat could’ve easily gotten the drop on Dirk because they’d have known almost instantly that Dirk was in control of the narrative. They could then use that Information and play along until such a point that Dirk can’t fight them back, and while they wouldn’t know he was the narrator or that he was using the narrative specifically, they’d be able to guess that Dirk had been controlling everyone the entire time and wouldn’t be swayed by his influence. 

(In other words, much like Dave, they’d hear Dirk’s voice in the back of their mind - but they’d hear it in full clarity, and they’d be able to decide what they do and don’t do, how much they give away.) 

Hell, a really good Knight of Light could be able to control the narrative itself without meaning to. If they exploited it to the full, they’d be able to change that narrative in their head - the actual narrative that they’re being exposed to - the same way that Dirk changes the narrative of Pony Pals. The original narrative would still be there, but you’d have sections crossed out or written over by the Knight of Light, subconciously or completely intentionally. 

I mean, this could even be done physically. Think of the book Calliope reads that details the story of the Alpha and Beta kids. If a Knight of Light got their hands on that and actually wrote over it, the things they wrote would come True. 

Light has so much to do with the Plot and Importance, it’s very easy to say that a Knight of Light would become the main character of any narrative they’re present in - likely turning something like Homestuck from the 2nd persona to the 1st - and that they’d have a significant effect on the narrative as a whole. I think, however, they’d never be fully aware of it.

Like, they’d get the idea and the concepts, but they’d see it as just that; concepts. A way to visualise what they’re doing rather than what’s actually happening. They’d only realise that as Truth if they ever become a Realised player or (more likely) the Ultimate Self, but even then I’d say it’s more lowkey. 

After all, Rose is a Light player - a literal Seer of the Plot - and she doesn’t have as much of a narrative grasp as Dave does (being that she isn’t aware that Dirk’s controlling the narrative in Meat, and doesn’t host any concern to the physical text during Candy, either. She sees the plot and the story, but not the words). It’d make sense that the Knight can interact, but can’t actually see. 

Of course, Light is a more metaphysical aspect - one of the idealist ones, rather than the realist Aspects, such as Time - so it’s always going to be a fact that it’s easier for a Light player to mess with the out-of-universe things. 

In that sense... A Knight of Light could be the player to recongise that they’re in a story, but see it as a sort of “alternate universe” sort of deal. I don’t think they’d realise that there’s a narrator - that Andrew Hussie, for instance, is writing Homestuck itself - but they’d know that there’s people who can see, and people who can help. They could likely exploit that by interacting with a real-world audience. They’d be 4th wall breakers, if they got really good at it. Knowing that something’s there, but maybe not wholly what. 

They’d also be able to exploit the things the narrative doesn’t focus on. I think I mentioned this before, but I’ll go over it again with a deeper focus; Dave has always loved breadsticks, but this wasn’t relevant enough for us to know, and thus wasn’t written in the narrative. There’s likely a thousand other things he likes that we don’t see - and it’s logical to think that there’s a thousand things he does that we don’t see, either.

For instance, we know that all the characters collect the Grist that drops from the monsters. We don’t see them do it, but they must do, because their Grist counter goes up.

We also know that they must eat and pee. It’s just... human biology. We don’t see it because watching that isn’t relevant to the story, but surely they must do. 

We also know that they must walk places without us actually seeing them do it. We don’t see every step of their travels; sometimes we just see where they end up. Maybe they picked a flower while walking. We’ll never see that flower, but it’s still there, on their person. 

Maybe they give that flower to someone else. We still won’t see that flower, because it’s not imporant. This flower could move from person to person and we’d never know. 

In the same vein, we’ll never know what happened between Dirk and Jake during their relationship word for word. We missed a lot of that. The build up wasn’t as important as the actual breakup and fallout; so there’s a thousand things they could have done and said to each other during that time that we’ll never see. 

Naturally, a Knight of Light could exploit this. Imagine they just randomly brandish an incredibly powerful item that the narrative isn’t prepared for, all because they did the quest for it off-screen. Imagine that they take detours all across the map whenever we’re not focused on them so that they can avoid specific points of confrontation later in the narrative, or so that they can help set up something off screen that ends up being invaluable later. 

A lot of what they do would have to have some sort of on-screen significance - it’d be a Knight of Void, probably, who hides things that’re never seen again within the narrative, and only they who can stop it from ever being revealled, thereby creating their own purposeful plotholes (that only stay irrelevant for as long as even the author doesn’t mention or explain it) - but they could exploit those lapses within the narrative wholly. 

There’s a lot that can come from the narrative when you really think about it, and I’m so glad I always read tags so I didn’t miss that! This post got so much longer than I intended it to be, all because I kept thinking of more and more that a Knight of Light could exploit within the narrative. I think I need to end it here, though, in case it gets too long. But, for a final thought:

When you read this text, you are essentially reading my voice. I am influencing the way you read things in a very clear and precise way. However, if you didn’t know that this was, in and of itself, a form of narrative, you wouldn’t maybe focus on the fact that I am a real person writing these words with a specific purpose. You wouldn’t know that every word is being transcribed from my thoughts onto a page, and that there is an overarching figure to contend with. You would know that there is a narrative being made, and that is as far as you’d be able to get. This is the experience of the Knight of Light.

They would be able to understand my arguments, and they would be able to garner everything they needed from them - but they wouldn’t know that these words have an author. They’d interact with the narrative, change it, disobey it - but they wouldn’t talk as if they knew that a wider figure, a god-like figure, is writing it all down.

In Homestuck, Rose knows there’s a plot but doesn’t focus on the idea of finding the author in order to change things, even though there is still an author physically writing their story even after Hussie (the character) has died, and their narrative focuses more on them as real people than as fictional characters. In some ways, this is because that would get too meta. A character who knows there’s a conceptual “story” is one thing; a character who knows they don’t truly exist, because everything they say is being written down by someone else, someone bigger, is another. 

So when you think about the Knight of Light, it’s always best to imagine that their influence ends with the in-universe understanding. They can break the 4th wall, but not come through it; they can exploit the plot, but not the author; they can recognise that a story’s being told, but not that there is someone responsible for it - at the very least, not someone who isn’t already present within the universe. 

#homestuck #ardenttheories #knight of light #classpect analysis #classpect powers #fun-with-colours

[notedchampagne]

Do you have any tips on writing fanfiction? asking this bc i wanna start writing fanfiction now lol

im pretty new at writing myself lmao but i got a few!

> if youre the type to have thought out a whole outline before writing i highly suggest you open up a google doc and start writing down as many details and plot points as you can (personally i like putting down plot points first and then pressing tab for the smaller bpoints for details etc etc) which includes maybe a few lines or details etc etc its highly unlikely youll ever fully stick to the script but its a great reference to keep yourself motivated and to know what to write next so you dont get caught up in a block

> referencing dialogue to write certain characters is really helpful! esp just taking a few lines and noting down if they use conjunctions/how they exaggerate/how they express emotion and it makes thing a lot easier overall

> this is just a me thing but if youre going homestuck 2nd person style try avoiding “you [action]” a lot it feels pretty repetitive and more like youre doing things action by action rather than being immersed into things if that makes sense? instead i usually like to do “opening the door to the kitchen, you [action]” so that way its setting the scene in an action youre already doing while transitioning into the next bit! this also goes for dialogue where instead of going [name] says you can go “[name] waves their hands around, indignant. ‘blah blah blah slonko’” which adds in some nice variation c:

>describe feelings like uncomfortable metaphors. i cant elaborate on this i have no idea how to its just Like That but anyway good luck!! the hardest part is getting started kdlsajflkasjdlfds

#talking back

[testifytime]

Epilogues I read before homestuck + kinda blasted through them (read candy in a night, same w/ meat) so the points you've made on narrative importance whoosed right on by. Overall thought it wasnt bad and could be appreciated as it's own story. Re: marley- kinda bland, you didn't miss much

Honestly, the narrative importance really only sticks out if you’re a fucking nerd like me who enjoys Homestuck and literature to entirely irrational degrees. It’s been really fun trying to pick that shit apart, and it’s also made accepting the Epilogues a lot easier. 

Beyond that, it’s also just fun as fuck to figure out. Like, Meat being written in the 2nd person narrative because it’s much more internal than any other, and has always been used in literature to issue commands/suggestions and advice? And Dirk, being a Heart player, needing a much more internal medium through which to force his will, especially when he’s banking on his commands/suggestions going undetected? Him having no control over a narrative that’s much more external, simply because it’s at odds with his Classpect and too distanced for his will to work through people unnoticed?

I fucking love it. 

They’re definitely good stories that I enjoy as experimental pieces, but at the same time..? I’m not sure I liked that they were Homestuck’s Epilogue. Particularly since Hussie’s assertations that “they’re written in a fanfic format to ensure that they’re noncanon, so the fandom can make something that’s just as real” is skewed by the fact that he’s the author, he’s written it, and it’s the official ending in most regards. 

Although it does make Pesterquest a lot more interesting, since the MSPA Reader is pretty much doing the exact same thing that a lot of us have done for years; rewriting Homestuck from the ground up because we thought certain things were bullshit. A friend of mine even pointed that out with some humour yesterday. We’re literally seeing the MSPA Reader fix canon, except the MSPA Reader is a little incompetend and I think is probably actually fucking things up a lot more. 

But this isn’t my theory blog so shh lets pretend I’m not rambling my goddamn ass off.

Re: Marley - shit, is this a case of the movie being better than the book? That doesn’t happen a lot. Would you recommend watching the movie the whole way through, or are both kinda passable at best?

#heartless prince rambles #Anonymous