#get your hands off my homestuck franchise

[laindependencialuna1899]

damn they out here judging HS2??? like the new update??? why????

#it smells like old fans who no longer like the new content #it stinks #you can leave #hussie is not holding you hostage??? #??? #get your hands off my homestuck franchise #homestuck

[superhumanfoods]

We need to talk about Sending Rocks.

You probably don't understand what that means. That's fine. It's a weird little example I made up, and I'll explain.

I'm the creator of the near-future cyberpunk podcast SINKHOLE. SINKHOLE is weird, short-form, nearly impossible to explain to people, and utterly unmonetizable. It's also got a very healthy listenership for something so esoteric. (I promise season three is coming; life just keeps happening, constantly.)

Because of that, I have a reputation as a weird little indie creator. And if I were to run a crowdfund, I could set up a donation tier that was literally just

"I will go outside, find a rock on the ground, and mail it to you."

and most people would find that funny and charming. I think, at worst, people might find it puzzling, but they'd still opt in out of curiosity.

A lot of you would let me send you rocks.

Now we need to talk about the re: Dracula crowdfund- about the zines. A handful of people got very upset about the perceived lack of quality present in the zines.

That caught me off-guard. To me, a zine should always be kind of janky. You should be able to tell exactly how far down the pile your specific zine was based purely on how committed to hitting the fold lines the person folding it was. Zines are handmade and should feel handmade.

So it seemed like people were complaining about the zines being zines, and I didn't get it.

And then I realized something: it's not about the zines. It's about the fact that they were coming from Tal Minear.

If Tal Minear ran a crowdfund and set up a donation tier that was just

"I will go outside, find a rock on the ground, and mail it to you."

I would give it about a day before someone found a way to turn that specifically into a talking point about how Tal doesn't respect the audio drama community.

Tal Minear cannot send rocks. The zine was never the problem. The way people think about Tal is the problem.

We need to talk about how this community keeps trying to reinvent classism based on nothing but vibes and follower numbers.

I'm going to tell you something you already know but probably don't want to admit: the independent audio drama scene is to the independent film scene what a fish tank in a dentist's office is to the ocean.

The biggest names in this community are just a step up from being nobodies.

If you went outside right now and spoke to the first person you saw on the street, the only non-BBC fiction podcasts you would have any realistic hope of them knowing are Welcome to Night Vale or Archive 81- and the latter only because it got turned into a Netflix show, which means that they might not even realize it was a podcast first. There's also a chance they'll have heard of The Magnus Archives, but it's not a guarantee by any means.

Now, this last one I've mentioned to a few people, and was surprised to get a lot of pushback. There seems to be this thought that no, of course everyone has heard of The Magnus Archives.

No. No, man.

You're doing the Homestuck thing. I hate to hurt you like this, but you're doing that thing people did where they assumed everyone had at least heard of Homestuck.

There are people in your life that have never heard of Homestuck.

The Magnus Archives was a mini-zeitgeist in which the fandom engaged in wild speculating, plentiful shipping, and lots and lots of aligning yourself with a specific Fear.

And it was never as big as Homestuck.

I'm sorry. Jonny Sims is not a household name. That's simply the truth.

He is also in this fish tank with us. As far as I am aware, he has not escaped to begin acting in feature films or begun voicing characters in massive video game franchises. Slay the Princess was pretty cool. It's not exactly fucking Assassin's Creed, though.

He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

And notice how my metric for breakout success involved going to other, better-known mediums? That's because a breakout success in this community involves getting a blurb on Buzzfeed or in Cosmo. There is no audio fiction podcasting elite. The idea is hilarious.

Even Markiplier doesn't count, because he's YouTube royalty. He's not famous because of The Edge of Sleep. The same is true of any celebrity. They're visitors. They didn't get their break here.

Tal Minear is not your landlord. They're a slightly bigger fish in the same tank as you that likes to poke around in the muck a bit more than you personally enjoy. And, well, you cannot argue that Tal's position as showrunner of re: Dracula justifies framing them that way.

Because the thing is, I'm not just the creator of SINKHOLE. I'm also the showrunner and head writer of Mayfair Watchers Society as of season two. Showrunning and writing is most of my income these days. Tal and I are very comparable in terms of the material power we wield. This isn't a secret.

And yet, a lot of you would still let me send you rocks.

Now the actually important thing.

We need to talk about how this exact illusion, this fanciful idea that there are real industry goliaths in this fishbowl, has already been used to justify the mistreatment of marginalized people.

When Tonia Ransom brought up the issues she had with how the AnonymousAD tumblr had characterized her crowdfunding campaign, this is the reason why people felt they could dismiss and ignore her. Because yes, she's a black woman speaking out about having been wronged, but she's also a "Big Creator," and therefore it evens out.

It doesn't even out.

A lot of the most successful creators you know in this space still have day jobs. I spent yesterday and today doing inventory at my retail job. I spent hours poring over shitty little badly printed tags and biting back swear words because our owner will not let us close, so there were still customers in the store, actively buying the things we were trying to count.

This Us vs Them shit has got to stop. It's nothing. It's a parody and a sham. If you tried to explain it to your grandmother, she'd give you the exact same reaction as if you had tried to tell her about drama in the Homestuck fandom.

Because it's the same.

And you don't get to use it to justify being shitty to someone who you know perfectly well would deserve your humility and understanding if you weren't pretending they were your boss.

Who can send rocks is not and has never been a reflection of real power or privilege. Deciding someone cannot send rocks is just a convenient excuse to disregard their perspective when it makes you angry or uncomfortable.

At best, it's tilting at windmills. At worst, it is punishing your peers for daring to defend themselves or speak out against injustice while being marginally more successful than you.

#audio drama #enough of this #it's been going on for a while and getting progressively worse #none of this Big Name Fan shit #this is fandom toxicity #and we're not even a goddamn fandom

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

I just saw your post on tmnt crossover fics so please go ahead and ignore my last message😓. But (if you don’t already have it posted somewhere on your blog) do you have recommendations for tmnt crossovers with different franchises?

Oh, it's fine! Let's see...

City Chase by GoblinCatKC -- Batman/TMNT, Bruce Wayne takes a trip to New York and ends up caught up in a severe misunderstanding with a local turtle in blue (warnings for fear, canon-typical violence, near-death experiences)

High Energy by PrincessFreak - Batman/TMNT, post-movie story where the Batfamily have to come to terms with some of the turtles' more taboo habits (warnings for tcest, sexual content, misunderstandings)

bloodlines by Kay the Cricketed - Star Wars/TMNT, a really great fandom fusion starring Leo as a Jedi Palawan unable to forget the brothers he left behind (tw family separation)

A Tale of Spirits by unorthodoxx - ATLA/ROTTMNT, four turtle brothers get scattered across the bending world and uniformly mistaken for spirits (tw family separation, mistrust, hurt/comfort, past/current child abuse because ATLA)

Vunerable by DiscowingSuit - Batman/TMNT, only a first chapter, but a good looking one, where the turtles' attempt to save their brother Shredder's clutches leads them to Gotham City (tw kidnapping, graphic depictions of violence, abuse, medical experimentation)

the hogwarts remix aka screaming and magic at all times by cxlesstial, HeyAssbuttImBatman - Harry Potter/TMNT, a fandom fusion with a human!Hamato clan's adventures in the wizarding world (tw angst, hurt/comfort, fantastic racism)

Wands in hand. by SpectrumWriting - Harry Potter/TMNT, another fandom fusion, this time in a series, including Slytherin Mikey, Leosagi, and Shinirai (warnings for fantastic racism)

Casey Lalonde by SpectrumWriting - Homestuck/TMNT, where Casey's relationship with his turtle family is knocked off its axis following the sudden appearance of his very peculiar, extended human family (tw trauma, angst, hurt/comfort, alcoholism, child abuse, child neglect, mistrust, dysfunctional family)

you'll find your way and may death find you alive by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters - Ghostbusters/TMNT, one of my very own fics starring the much-overlooked Kylie Griffin and Jennika in the aftermath of a one-night stand (tw insecurity, past violence, trauma, species dysphoria, sexual content, self-doubt)

sew this hole up that you ripped in my head by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters - Samurai Rabbit/TMNT, Leo and Yuichi come to terms with the very different things the past means to each other them (tw past rape/noncon, past csa, trauma, explicit language)

(Note: this list doesn't include crossovers with Usagi Yojimbo, because they've crossed over so many times in-canon I wasn't sure if they counted. If you are interested in such crossovers, my list of Leosagi fics would be probably serve you pretty well)

I wish you the best!

#tmnt #tmnt fanfiction recs #tmnt fanfic recs #tmnt 2k12 #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2k18 #tmnt 2018 #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #leonardo #leo #leosagi #samurai rabbit #atla #avatar the last airbender #raphael #raph #donatello #donnie #michelangelo #mikey #miyamoto usagi #usagi #star wars #dc #batman #harry potter #teenage mutant ninja turtles #homestuck

[winterdying]

1, 2, 12, 13, 21

"Some questions to get to know the mun’s rping habits!"

When did you start writing on Tumblr?

i've been on tumblr (on my main blog) since about 2011, but i didn't actually start writing or roleplaying on tumblr until i was i believe 20! i had a few independent blogs that really just fell off lol. this is my first time ever seriously writing in a structured group tho lol

2. Who was your first muse?

...i think it was vriska from homestuck LOL?;; i was 12 or 13 and roleplaying on iscribble.net

12. Have you any old muses that you’d love to bring back?

oh tons!! right now i'm super content just trying to navigate tumblr with mithra (since he's such a handful in of and himself) but having roleplayed since i was 12 that means i have a thousand and one muses!! for a long while i was known for roleplaying the character haise sasaki from tokyo ghoul, so if i brought back anyone, he'd be the top of the list!

13. What’s one random headcanon about your muse that people mightn’t know?

ooh yes!! i have lots of these!! >:3c so, mithra's actual physical design incorporates a lot of sort of 'halloweeny' horror elements and he really resembles a mad scientist in a lot of aspects. he has large stitches/scars along his body, so i love to headcanon that he's a little bit more zombie/frankenstein-like with his stitches: patches of skin sewn on that are discolored, the edges still raw and ragged, etc. mithra's one of the oldest wizards in his franchise, and i love giving the older wizards a lot of monstery aspects to make them more scary haha

21. Are there certain characters that you gravitate towards?

oh god for sure. i'm an absolute sucker for the "delinquent with a heart of gold" trope which... mithra... doesn't quite fit (he's more of a jerkass LOL;;) but there is a character that fits that bill that's actually quite a good pal of mithra's named bradley. i love villains and bastards, but if they have some sort of soft nerve running through them, i am WEAK!!

#ooc #ask meme answers

[yoitscro]

HOMESTUCK RAMBLE

The most troubling thing about the Sarah Z situation is that everything felt like damage control, tactical intimidation, and knee-jerked censorship. Right off the cuff of Hussie’s patreon message*.

(*Does anyone ever notice how Hussie only talks to the fandom when some kind of trouble eventually boils over, usually pointing a finger in one direction, versus addressing things earlier or addressing things period? Such as him having the power to speak against the actual anti queer jargon toward his employees prior to them leaving when things got worse? Or him mentioning the concerns of HS2 that people only found out through word of mouth and were reasonably upset about, such as them getting rid of the content warnings, or the fact that Hiveswap Act 2 was released without credits?

Would certainly make me less irritated if I didn’t know that that message is probably going to be one of his only few that he chooses to write and not mention other things, such as the returned antagonism toward fans. 

But this is also the same guy who continues to write passive aggressive messages in his comic and game scripts that calls everyone else a loser for still being mad about the racism and ableism. (Seriously, Psycholonials is just a vague post in game form and it’s chaotic as fuck to do things like using riots (racially prominent a year ago) in the toned environment of 2020 as goofy plot points. I thought we were suppose to do BETTER after Skaia Net.)

Idc if he’s not apart of WP anymore. Even then, he certainly left a lot of baggage for other people to handle. It’s incredibly irresponsible.

Anyways.)

Those journals have existed forever. Whether right or wrong, they have. They’ve gone unaddressed despite being known for existing. A big name youtuber giving an auditory version that doesn’t take up all the video probably shouldn’t have been the reason that fans finally got some kind of answer, and it’s blatantly transparent that it was to protect the IP from having it’s name tarnished. As if Homestuck doesn’t already have issues that it refuses to acknowledge after a decade that everyone else has talked about.

I can imagine that some kind of NDA was keeping them from talking about Hiveswap to their kickstarter backers, but the convenience of that expiring once Sarah said something gives me an inkling that the people who’ve actually stuck around to support Homestuck could’ve heard sooner. Not to mention that before this big blowout, people just wanted to know that the game was being worked on period. There was actually no NDA preventing that communication.

People wonder why there’s such a rift between WP and the homestuck community, and it’s stuff like that. The fact that Hussie only comes down to address damage when it piles up to a breaking point, rather than earlier. The fact that if you have one criticism, friends or associates of the people who write their favorite characters will maul you in the name of whatever marginalized group they happen isolate you from.

And at the end of it all, it’s almost like some big, surface level moral, because no one cared 3 days after Sarah’s video. Everyone treated it like usual youtube commentary essays about troubling developments and moved on.

Instead, now, still, everyone cares about the fact that an opinion video about Homestuck was getting legal threats during 4/13. After years of a troubled relationship with it’s fandom, this was the last thing they needed to do. I’m trying to wrap my head around what the favorable outcome was here; to look GOOD?

I can’t even imagine what this stunt looks like to other studios and IP groups. I wonder if Homestuck is secretly blacklisted at this point because so much bad behavior has been normalized instead of having a healthy blend between criticism and sympathy.

BC again, a transphobic bigot sending death threats bc homestuck “isn’t what it use to be”, and responding to that rightfully, isn’t the same as someone thinking that more jarring post-canon content and execution of things like toblerone wishes suck some, and figureheads deciding to insult minors, stir character drama, and call other bulk criticisms from the queer community homophobic or transphobic. That in fact loses support, money, and causes infighting, actually.

I’ve never seen a fandom decline in stable activity as hard as 2019-2020 Homestuck.

This is the part where I say that my caliginous crush from wanting to see this IP improve itself flares up from time to time, but is starting to die down knowing that, unless there’s a massive overhaul on how things are run, things aren’t changing...seriously. There are things HS can do even without Viz Media’s overbearing presence, but it doesn’t want to. Starting a feud on your holiday wasn’t one of those things to do, maybe, actually.

I think it’s telling that it’s actually bad enough that I usually refrain from talking as much as I am now, because some part of me knows that some ex WP member, or a friend of one, is reading this and potentially sharing it in whatever snotty chat to once more emphasize how evil of a person I am for saying what everyone else is thinking, lmao.

I think that if anyone wants to pride themselves in not being “terminally online” and in fandom, they should refrain from putting their hands on a story that’s literally embedded and literally about it’s fandom. Go join a private discord instead, or try a different franchise. Maybe have some self awareness. Just a thought.

Anyways, the trust is tainted. The fallout has been followed by quiet, and the current members are reshaping the ground of this community before the weeds eventually rear their heads again.

#buzzcull #i should honestly just make a tag for long rambles like this #crojournal #that sounds terrible but. #someones gonna think im anti hs with this; nah im just saying it how it is. #again i dont have to kiss ass all the time and frankly i did that a lot in the pass. if i get accused as being a centrist #then i might as well speak one sided occasionally. #also again i have no reason to restrain myself and be nice about some who personally hurt me so :)

[stormsbourne]

Which fandom of yours (current or former) had the wildest antis

homestuck with absolutely no doubt in my mind

homestuck was sort of a wild time specifically because its rising popularity coincided with the rise of anti discourse so you had all these people who hadn’t really been in adult fandoms before, carrying heavy baggage, angry about x ship or x concept or how x character was in a lot of porn when they were a minor or whatever. as fandoms do, homestuck was full of porn, and I think the first stirrings of antis I saw were all really Upset about how these 13/16 year old characters had aus where they were adults with sex lives

leaving aside the fact that homestuck doesn’t write teenagers like teenagers, but like disaffected 20somethings, you also saw the standbys about inc*st and the like. there’s actually a very funny story about how before eoa4, the big ships were john/jade and dave/rose and if you shipped anything else you were a weirdo. then the big reveal happened and at once, the inc*st iron curtain slammed down on the mspaforums, you weren’t allowed to even discuss that ship

wild

anyway as the time went on and antis diversified themselves you saw their arguments change and evolve, often shaped by shit they picked up in other fandoms, often while hs was on hiatus. they would wander off to other fandoms full of different kinds of crackpots and then wander back in, dragging those other strange arguments with them. this is how you got frankly bonkers stuff like all those people who were really convinced that calling dirk gay was a hate crime because he didn’t like labels, dragging something solely relevant to real life people into a fucking fandom setting where the dude was gay (also I mean, homophobia, but in addition,)

by the time hs ended (and by ended I mean act 7, but it continued to distort and change and become weirder up until the epilogues, after which point all but either the most porny or the most worshipful left the fandom in disgrace), you had people using roleplay sites to make weird psas about how r*pe was BAD, you guys, etc. you had stupid wars going all ways in the fandom about whether disliking vriska was homophobic. in its ultimate nadir, you had k*te who was basically just an anti handed full power, but antis didn’t like her either! so as she’s sitting on her throne denouncing all gamzee fans as evil, other antis are hounding and harassing her for ... I forget what exactly? I think they were all still mad about v/ipgd’s inc*st fic? 

which was part of the real frustrating thing, is anytime you tried to complain about the ending or the epilogues or k*te you’d get grouped in with antis who hated that shit for frankly stupid reasons. 

anyway second place goes to fe3h, where no one can comprehend that ed*lgard is a flawed and sometimes badly written character and you must stan or you hate lesbians, and also all these newcomers to this franchise are infuriated by inc*st when there’s been at least one inc*st ship per game pretty much for as long as the series has existed. also they really hate one specific dad character whose writing is sometimes a bit sloppy (it’s fire emblem, it happens) and have decided he’s abusive because his son frequently acts like an embarrassed teenager around him

that’s only brushing the surface of fe antis but they’re fucking goddamn insane

#Anonymous

[me-and-my-gaster]

Cryptid Doodle February

Hello, my delightful monster-lovers!

It is true that January is a Monday of the year, at least to me. It’s a little later, I know, but I’m once again launching a Doodle Event here!

My fantastic Patrons have chosen the theme for this month. And it’s...

CRYPTID REDESIGNS

Send me a character and an ORIGINAL cryptid creature idea for me to redesign! Cans collecting cryptid? Rainbow smoke cryptid? Wardrobe cryptid that eats your socks when you clean their favorite spot? Your pick!

Rules:

1. Be nice to me! Say hello! Tell me something about yourself! Connect with me! I don’t want to feel like a cheap art printer, so please, make me feel even a little appreciated for what I’m doing.

2. Please stick to original ideas and don’t reuse the already known and famous cryptids. For those who might have trouble coming up with ideas, I’ve found some generators here and here that might help.

3. One character per ask, one cryptid per ask. If you’re not certain which configuration you want, ask your friends or ask your local cryptid for help.

4. Tell me what this cryptid does and why. Do they hang out in dark alleys to scare off cats in the most time-appropriate moments? Do they sit in front of the local mall and hand out pamphlets that are all black but nobody dares to throw them out? Do they sneeze glitter? Go wild!

5. No OCs, no obscure AUs. Redesigning is already a lot of work, please don’t make me do additional time on research.

6. FANDOMS I’M FAMILIAR WITH AND I’M WILLING TO DRAW FOR:

She-Ra reboot

Deltarune, and Undertale (Original™️, Underfell, Underswap, Swapfell, Horrortale, Outertale, Outerfell, Seaswap, Lilytale, and Humanswitch)

Homestuck in the purest vanilla form without PQ, Epilogues and the likes (yes PLEASE)

7. Make sure to be clear which character from which franchise you have in mind. 

The asks that brake those teeny-tiny rules will be fed to the Void. And she’s always hungry.

Doodles will be posted as often as I can this month. Gotta get back in the routine.

The tag for the event is #cryptid doodle february for those who want to follow it OR who want to blacklist it.

#cryptid doodle february #mamg does a thing #*rubs tentacles in wait* #GIMME

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 Liveblog, Part 3 

(See older parts here or on Tumblr here)

Chapter 3: How Are your feelings

We’ve got a new ship, which appears to have sails for some reason, and it’s either rocketing forward with determination, or crashing. Presumably, this is the ship containing the Meatworld Crew, who set out to rescue Rose from Dirk’s mind control. God, this plot is so complicated.

In anyone else’s hands, this is just a microphone. In my hands it’s a pipe boat. 

The one spoiler I had for this chapter was that the ship design was stupid, and...yes. That says “Grandpa Harley” a lot more than the Theseus did, though I don’t think Canon Jake ever smoked.

Oh boy, the narration text is in the first person. It’s also lowercase, so one presumes this is Calliope, in Jade’s body? I thought Calliope was trying to maintain the role of invisible narrator, though, and she’s calling attention to herself more obviously than any of the other narrators.

Me on my way to steal your girl by possessing her and floating around all creepy for three years

JADE: the prince’s power grows.

KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST!

Heh. This art is really nice. Jade’s speaking in Calliope’s red text, so she is indeed possessed by Calliope. Poor Jade. Homestuck proper is 8,192 pages. The epilogue is 100,000 words, and we’re 100 pages into Homestuck 2. Jade has been stuck on a boat, possessed, unconscious, dead,possessed again, or otherwise out of the story since Cascade, all the way back on page 4,109. No wonder she became a hedonist. Of course, who’s fault is it that Jade missed the final battle.

(From Homestuck 1). 

I always read this as foreshadowing that Jade would get a big moment, and it never happened. Hopefully someone on the writing team remembers that Jade is supposed to roar to life and show everyone who’s the real master. But for now, alas, the real master is Calliope, hypocritically fighting for the free will of all by taking Jade out of the story again. Anyway, that was a long tangent and a lot of search (give me back the .txt file of the whole comic, Viz!) back to Homestuck 2.

Oh hey, DaveKat is canon now, I forgot. It’s mildly annoying that Dave and Calliope are in the same scene with the same text color, but whatev.

Aww, Karkat’s wearing Dave’s shirt. How cute. Less cute: Calliope’s added her red to Jade’s outfit, including her logo. She’s really just as evil as Dirk, isn’t she?

Also, I don’t know if this sprite style quite works for a “leaning up in bed pose”

This just looks odd. Probably doesn’t help that we’re see Dave without shades for I believe the first time ever.

KARKAT: OH, PARDON THE FUCK OUT OF ME FOR OVERREACTING A LITTLE WHEN MY GOOD FRIEND "POSSESSED JADE" BUSTS INTO MY RESPITEBLOCK AT 5 AM!

Aw, I missed this, a Karkat tantrum.

I like this dynamic. But if they’ve been on this boat as long as Dirk has been on his, Jade’s been possessed for three years.

Why are Dirk and Calliope’s powers growing, though? Especially Calliope, shouldn’t she be maxed out by now? She literally ate Lord Engl-

....

Oh

Calliope is powerful enough to escape Candyland because she ate Lord English, and Lord English is partially comprised of Dirk, so there’s quite literally a little bit of Dirk inside Calliope right now. That’s maybe something to keep in the back of our minds, but now I’m theorycrafting. 

The only way twenty-somethings can afford an apartment this night is if they live somewhere with a killer commute, which is why it takes three years to get anywhere

Okay, phew. So this Roxy is trans, but the Roxy on Candyland isn’t. That’s something I’m going to have to be careful to remember lest I use the wrong pronoun for the wrong one and everyone gets mad at me.

Dirk, like the coffee, getting roasted here

So, has this crew not been chasing Dirk for three years, or has Dave just been all “I sure am comfortable with you being trans now” incessantly from age 23 to age 26? I guess that’s pretty in-character for him. Everyone seems to not be used to a situation they should be used to be now so far, but maybe that’s just for our benefit as readers who can’t remember all this nonsense? 

I love how Kanaya the Fashion Troll is basically the only character in the entire franchise to go “Fuck I haven’t been onscreen in over ten years I should change my look”. The big bow is Rose’s from way back when her and Kanaya first met, which is a cute nod. 

Okay I get that they want to remind these things to the reader, but Dave. Dude. She’s your sister-in-law. She’s been your sister-in-law for 7 to 10 years depending on how long you’ve been on that boat and she’s been a vampire that whole time. Someone give this boy a set of flash cards, Jesus Christ! 

OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING ALERT: This story is about a “young prince”, and this is going to be a metaphor. The young prince is Dirk, the Prince of Time, and the Rose is....Rose. 

Aww, this is cute. I should have put on Kanaya’s Theme while reading this, it fits the mood of the scene really well.

Oh man, none of these people know John’s dead

fffffffffffffffff

Okay, so that’s 7 years between the end of Homestuck 1 and the Homestuck Epilogues. Dirk’s been on his boat for three years, but we’re with the Meat Crew at the start of their journey, (which means Roxy only recently came out as trans, which I guess makes it less weird that Dave is still processing it).

But god, this is a lot of timelines to keep track of. I guess it’s fun in a way, being intensely convoluted was part of the fun of trying to piece together Homestuck 1′s plot, but I think I’m this close to busting out a white board where and how old everyone is actually fuck it

God as my witness, I will one day have a vague understanding of what the fuck is going on in Homestuck and I will die trying! 

This seems metatextual, in that the characters are more complete when they have like a goal and stuff. Or it might be the Homestuck 2 writers taking a subtle jab at the Epilogue writers, that everyone’s better off having left the epilogues behind and moving on to Homestuck 2. That might be reading too much into it. 

Of course, as soon as I say that we cut from Dave talking about how everything’s better to Karkat talking about how everything’s worse.

Wait, non-god Calliope is on the ship? UGH, the whiteboard already needs to be updated! The epilogues implied she was too scared of god-Calliope to leave her room, so I’d assumed she’d stayed behind. Damn it.

Heh. Also: Huh? Karkat is making a lot of assumptions here, given that Terezi, Sollux, and Aradia are all alive, he never saw Gamzee die, and Vriska dying just made her more powerful.

And that’s the update! I like these character interactions, even though they’re mostly just sitting around and naval-gazing like in Act 6 and the epilogues, because at least it’s got some jokes it feels like it’s all going somewhere. And starting next month, it’s going to be going there twice as fast

#Homestuck #Homestuck 2 #Homestuck 2 Liveblog

[clonerightsagenda]

The epilogues look terrible and I don’t want to spend my time reading them... but I love + trust your judgement and your takes on things. Could you summarize them? (No pressure if you don’t want to)

OK, it’s been a few weeks since i read it, but I will do my best.NOTE: This is probably not comprehensive and definitely not objective. As a supplement, I did some poking around, and the MSPA wiki has some bullet points. I also eventually found another  summary on tumblr, albeit by someone who also didn’t like it, so it is probably biased as well. 

ANOTHER NOTE: Those content warnings weren’t a joke. Below are references to sexual content, assault, suicide, sexism, transphobia, character death, and probably some other stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED:

In the prologue, Rose summons John to inform him that he needs to defeat Lord English right now, or they will all experience terrible consequences. These are mostly meta consequences you can interpret as ‘if we don’t produce new Homestuck content on its 10th anniversary, everyone will give up on this franchise for real, and also canon doesn’t seem stable when the big bad never got beaten’. John goes to visit Roxy and Calliope before he leaves and is given the option to eat either meet or candy. This represents a choice he is supposed to make, and that choice creates two timelines.

In MEAT, John travels back in time and gathers three 16 year old versions of his friends. They confront Caliborn in the battle he represented in his Masterpiece and are sucked into the house juju. Vriska activates it, but not before being pulled into the black hole. Rose and Jade die immediately, with Rose’s body being destroyed and Jade’s falling into the black hole, because why should women get to fight the story’s biggest misogynist. Dave lands a solid hit on English before having his head bitten off Mami from PMMM style. John gets chomped on as well and a gold tooth ends up embedded in his chest. Davepeta appears and drags the wounded LE into the black hole. John finds his father’s wallet, retrieves his car, and slumps inside. Terezi appears, in bad shape after a long time wandering the ring. She seems confused at his state (explained because in CANDY she has been texting that version of him for years). She removes the tooth from his chest and they have sex.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dave and Karkat have avoided talking about being a relationship for seven years, while Jade harasses them about becoming a threesome. This is explicitly tied to her abandonment issues but also she is referred to as a slut so like. Don’t love that. Jane is running for president, and Dave thinks this is terrible because she’s a woman fascist and doesn’t understand the economy and Karkat should run instead. Other shit is happening but I lost track. Rose is ill because she’s becoming her ‘Ultimate Self’ and seeing all timelines. Dirk claims he’s overcome the same problem and offers to help her but ends up controlling her and revealing he is the one actually writing this narrative.  There is a bit where the narration starts addressing the reader directly and then turns orange which I admit is genuinely cool and might have been interesting if done with characters I didn’t actually care about.

Dirk amps up controlling the narrative, directly forcing people to do and think certain things. (For example, he sequesters Rose away in his workshop and tells Kanaya via narration she believes Rose is better off with him, and she uncomfortably agrees without understanding why she thinks that.) He supports Jane’s bid for the presidency, even though she wants to crack down on trolls because they are naturally violent and reproduce too fast. Everyone tries to get Jake’s endorsement because he’s popular, which includes Jane attempting to seduce him in a very uncomfortable scene.Then Jade slips into a nice coma, because it’s not Homestuck without Jade losing her agency, and alt!Calliope starts using her as an avatar to take control of the narrative away from Dirk. They have some back and forth arguments before he is pushed out which, again, is genuinely clever but would be more enjoyable without all the edgy bullshit. Dirk eventually tricks alt!Callie and sedates Jade, taking back control of the story. Jane wins the presidency. Also at some point Meat!Roxy and Callie ID as nonbinary and start using they/them, and narrator!Dirk freaks out about it and misgenders them a lot, which is character assassination bc everyone knows Dirk is a trans icon. Anyway. Dave and Karkat have an awkward talk about their relationship where they keep dancing around things and Dirk tries to force Dave to kiss him. Dave gets frustrated because he’s aware someone is trying to make him do something (like with the Aimless Renegade), and eventually yells at Dirk to get out of his head before kissing Karkat. Terezi brings John back to Earth, and he begins to fade, since apparently LE’s tooth was poisoned with something more powerful than god tier that makes you irrelevant. Possibly a meta commentary on the hero or story not being needed once the big bad is gone. Terezi is sad about this and listens to him bleed while she smells him die. Then Dirk contacts her via narration and implies he can help her. She gets a text (later revealed to be Vriska). Dirk gets a spaceship from Jake after forcing him via narration to grovel about how much he loves him and then rejecting him and flying away with Rose and Terezi in tow. Jade wakes up long enough to tell everyone Dirk’s gone bad before she gets repossessed and starts pointing in his direction, prompting everyone to give chase. 

There is a final scene that will make more sense later, so I’ll add it later.

CANDY

John decides not to go fight LE. Roxy is delighted, and they began dating. Calliope tells John it is time to let Gamzee out of the fridge. Gamzee pops out and claims he is redeemed in a long speech making fun of sloppy redemption arcs. He then proceeds to be terrible for the rest of the story.Candy essentially satirizes Harry Potter epilogue style fics. Jane marries Jake (it’s implied she essentially roofies him with the trickster lollipop) and has Gamzee on the side. They have a son named Tavros. John and Roxy have a son named Harry. Rose and Kanaya adopt a troll clone of Vriska and name her Vriska. Jade, Karkat, and Dave are all dating, but Dave and Karkat are miserable. Dirk kills himself when he realizes the timeline went off kilter. Jade’s corpse from the Meat timeline crashes to earth, and in the middle of the funeral (which was genuinely a good scene) she sits up, possessed by alt!Calliope. Alt!Callie sequesters herself on the old meteor, now landed, and explains to Aradia and Sollux that this timeline is a dead end and she is protecting it from the influence of the prince. She also, in a parallel to Dirk’s reveal in Meat, talks about how every narrator has an agenda even if the text is formatted to make you not realize that.Jane becomes a fascist dictator and begins oppressing trolls. Karkat eventually get sick of being in a trio and runs off to be a resistance leader, including getting a sick eye patch (reference to Summer Teen Romance). Meenah stole the Ring of Life from Meat John and lands in the session; she and Karkat begin dating. Other ghosts begin falling from the sky as well, and Gamzee converts them to his redemption religion.John feels like something is really off.  His only solace is texting Terezi a lot, and he seems closer to her than he is to his wife. He and Roxy break up for a while and then (non-romantically) reconcile. Jake eventually leaves Jane and takes Tavros with him. Jade and Dave become rebels as well, then Dave meets a hologram of Obama, who helps him attain his ultimate self, putting his soul in a new robot body. 

Oh, also Vriska falls out of the sky, has hatesex with Gamzee, kills him, and then talks with Rose and Kanaya’s Vriska about how she loves Terezi. Then she texts her, as seen in the Meat timeline. Isn’t Vriska 13 and Gamzee an adult at this point? Probably. There’s a lot of questionable age stuff in this.

I’m sure I missed some details. Can you tell I’m losing steam.

Anyway, the two last chapters of each section reference the other storyline. At the end of Meat, Lord English’s body falls out of the sky, and alt!Callie (still in Jade’s body) devours it, becoming powerful enough to battle Dirk. Candy!Davebot arrives and he and Aradia jump into the black hole in pursuit.At the end of Candy, Dirk’s ship nears a new planet where he intends a new game of SBURB to be played. Rose is in a robot body serving as his handmaid essentially, and Terezi’s also on board.  

TAKEAWAYS:

There are a lot of different interpretations of the epilogue. A mockery of the two extremes of fanfic. Andrew Hussie continuing the theme of ‘all authors are tyrants by nature’ and using his self-insert to display how he hates his own story but also can’t stop telling it. Dirk trying to create conflict by making himself a villain because otherwise they’ll lose relevance and disappear. Musing on how being arbitrarily labeled 'grown up’ when you’re not ready (aka handed godhood by a game that doesn’t understand people) can fuck you up, and there is no single winning screen in life. Just a big old meta experiment on unreliable narrators. I can see where some of this is coming from, but frankly, I found it disturbingly sexist (even if it is intended to be so for effect). A lot of the sex and violence felt over the top and graphic just to be #ow the edge rather than serving any narrative purpose. Also, authors can do what they want with their texts, and they’re allowed to write tragedies, but after Hussie’s self-insert informs Caliborn that the most important stories are about friendship and teamwork and the fandom (that I’ve seen anyway) really responding to the bonds between characters, it felt cruel. That’s my feeling. Not everyone shares it. But hey, I’ve got my solution.

#Anonymous #homestuck// #bluh bluh huge bitching alert

[jinjojess]

DR Kirigiri Vol. 5 Summary Part I

God, does it feel so nice to back with the characters and storyline that’s arguably my favorite of the franchise.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

So to refresh your memory of DRK4, Yadorigi--seeking revenge for the death of his partner Uosumi in DRK2--solved a case with a bunch of mystery dweebs at an old abandoned school in the mountains and was picked up by Lico via helicopter, Samidare felt up some girls who were tied up in coffins in an abandoned girls’ school, and Kirigiri figured out that Tsutsumi had done a sloppy job of setting up a mystery at the Center for Twin Research which forced him to call her bluff and crash his car off a bridge. Last we left, Babygiri was unconscious and at the mercy of a literal killer.

So clearly we pick back up with Samidare at the girls’ school, because why wouldn’t we?

Honestly, I’m pretty happy with this, since I don’t want the Kirigiri plotline resolved too soon in this book (remember, I need Samidare to think she’s dead for awhile and grieve) and Lico and Yadorigi wasn’t a huge cliffhanger or anything.

Anyway, when we last left Samidare, she had discovered two high school girls tied up in coffins at Libra Girls’ Academy after chasing a black-caped suspect into the room only for them to disappear.  The two girls in question are Nada Tsukiyo, a loud-mouthed brat with traditionally Japanese features like long black hair and pale skin, and her friend and classmate Tooakitsu “Naz” Nazuna, the red-headed, bob cut-sporting calm and polite one. Their physical appearances are both supposed to be ironic given their personalities. Another classmate of theirs, Takezaki Hana, was found dead by Samidare right after she woke up.

Chapter 1 The Mania of Existence: Libra Girls’ Academy - Samidare Yui

In this book, Samidare spends a few moments musing over what the hell Ryuuzouji’s true goal is with these cases, which I also want to know about as well since, as I’ve pointed out before, the rules here make no sense from a dude trying to win or even be fair. Samidare remembers a few things that Ryuuzouji said to her in DRK3 when he wanted her to become his apprentice, like how they both hate evil and will do anything to stop it, and how to do the right thing, sacrifices must be made.

Samidare thinks that’s bullshit though. She hates evil, it’s true, especially since her sister’s death, but she’s nothing like Ryuuzouji. His whole “sacrifice is necessary for the greater good” kind of thinking only makes sense if you’re operating on the kind of genius-level a Triple Zero detective would have; to regular old Samidare, she thinks there are better alternatives.

This is actually really interesting, not only because in the last book Yadorigi has that self-introspection moment where he acknowledges that he’s becoming just as bad at the Committee in the name of vengeance. It’s also because there’s that implication that Samidare could have gone to Kibougamine if she’d continued in high jumping/athletics in general, but she chose not to in order to be a detective, which she considers much more fulfilling given the whole sister abduction trauma she’s got going on. It really highlights the whole culture of excellence that the DRverse is subsumed in and I like that DRK is tackling similar issues as the rest of the mainline series but in a more subtle and personal choice-based way.

It makes Samidare kind of like the anti-Hinata in a way--she rejects her natural talents to do something else she feels is right. I just find that fascinating.

Anyway, Samidare suspects that part of the challenge in these twelve cases is to prove that she’s distinctly different from Ryuuzouji in world view, but she’s got to solve the case in front of her before she can do anything else.

While last time Tsukiyo and Nazuna were accusing Samidare of being the one who tied them up, this time they decide to try and figure out what the last thing they remember is. Turns out, both of them remember hopping a taxi to get to school because of bus delays and not wanting to be late to school. Samidare posits that the Committee might have been behind the traffic jams so that they could get both girls into cabs driven by their operatives and bring them here.

Privately, Samidare considers Nazuna a little too calm and rational under the circumstances, which makes her suspicious, but there isn’t much else to go on at this point.

Tsukiyo muses over why anyone would want to kidnap her. Is it because her parents have money? “You’re rich?” Samidare asks, to which Tsukiyo replies that there are richer people around her. Nazuna also reveals that Takezaki, the victim Samidare found when she woke up, was in the lower caste of their class, so it doesn’t make much sense why she’d be targeted. Samidare also muses that shitty cliques between girls are apparently ubiquitous.

Nazuna is also not believing that Takezaki is really dead without seeing a body, but she can’t exactly stroll over to the other room with her hands and feet bound as they are. Tsukiyo demands that Samidare let them free, but the issue is that the key is nowhere to be found. Samidare tells them to be good while she goes to search for a key.

“What else are we going to do? Hurry up. And while you’re out there, look for a bathroom. You’d better not make me hold it,” Tsukiyo adds.

On her way out of the room, Samidare notes a couple of interesting things: first, the door is a sliding door that closes on its own, similar to sliding doors in hospitals; and there’s no sign of a keyhole or locking mechanism. Since the sliding door rail is on the inside of the room, Samidare wonders if maybe the culprit put a bar in to keep the door closed after they ran inside, but there was no sign of anything holding the door open in the room. And it couldn’t be that the caped figure was just holding the door closed, since Samidare was pulling on it the entire time and they wouldn’t have time to hide.

Huh.

The girls start to yell at her to get going already, so Samidare takes stock of the building. There’s the small, round room with the coffins, connected to the larger chapel with a small hallway. Directly across the way is another narrow corridor that leads to the other round room with the corpse where Samidare woke up. At six o’clock there’s the main entrance, boarded up with thick planks Samidare doesn’t think she could pry off by herself. The chapel itself has about twenty pews plus a pulpit and a raised area with a statue of the Virgin Mary on it and a cross on the wall. There’s also two bathrooms, for men and women, each of which have windows, but they’re boarded up as well. There are no windows anywhere else, all the light provided by bulbs set into the walls.

Samidare notes that the building is in a cross shape, which is common in religious buildings (I personally see it more as an upsidedown capital T, but hey.)

The fact that she’s trapped with no phone or any other way to contact the outside world could be worse, Samidare thinks, since they have that check in call thing set up from the last book around midnight, and once she doesn’t check in, the others will come to her aid. 

Well, so long as every other detective on this case isn’t ALSO trapped in the Duel Noir venue.

Shit.

Congrats, Samidare! You lasted ten whole pages to start worrying about Kirigiri!

...Was Kirigiri-chan okay?

There probably wasn’t any reason to worry she wouldn’t solve her own case. Then I remembered that something bad might happen to her during her dogged pursuit of truth and started worrying again.

I figured it was stemming from my fear that she might disappear forever someday.

I’d get out of here somehow and Kirigiri-chan and I would go back home to the dorm together.

I needed to hurry up and solve this case.

Oh, I’ve missed you, you big insecure gay disaster.

All this thinking of Kirigiri suddenly has made Samidare remember what she said to her on the train before they parted ways in a melodramatic fashion in the last book--keep an eye on zodiac signs.

Oh yeah, guys, did you forget that Ryuuzouji is a Homestuck? Cause I didn’t.

This causes an issue though, since Tsukiyo’s birthday is July 30th and Nazuna’s is August 21st, which makes neither of them Libras. The victim isn’t a Libra either, so either their student ID cards are forged/incorrect, or none of them is the culprit. 

Could it be that the zodiac signs don’t have anything to do with the case? But if Kirigiri has given the theory such serious consideration, Samidare can’t just ignore it.

Trying to figure out where the culprit in the black cape could have gone, Samidare checks under the pulpit at the front of the chapel, but to no avail. She inspects the Mary statue next, only to find that oddly enough this Holy Virgin is sporting some bling...oh no, wait, it’s a key!!

...Too bad the chain is in too small a loop to fit over Mary’s head.

Samidare considers bringing the other two girls into the chapel to the statue, but it would tricky to use the key on such a short chain and such a raised platform on their hands AND feet, so there has to be another way.

Maybe I could get the key if I broke the head off the statue?

There was no way I could do something so blasphemous, though. The Virgin Mary watched over all the students at the school I attended too, so I mentally couldn’t bring myself to break her.

Jesus Christ, Samidare. 

Junko: Which will you choose, Yui-san? Kirigiri or this statue of the Virgin Mother? One of them is going into this volcano one way or another.

Samidare: Errrr...

Kirigiri: Onee-sama, are you serious?

Samidare: Leave me alone! I’m thinking!

Anyway, the good news for Samidare’s eternal soul is that there’s a wheeled platform in the corner that she use to transport Mary into the other room with the key.

The only problem is that when she gets back, announcing she has the key, both girls are missing.

Before she has time to process this though, Tsukiyo tackles Samidare to the ground and shouts for Nazuna to steal the key from her. They’re both pretty shocked and upset to see that Samidare doesn’t have a key on her (though good on them for getting back at her for the unsolicited pat down).

“There’s no key? So you lied to us?”

“It wasn’t a lie,” I groaned. “If you hadn’t attacked me like this, I’d have just handed over the key!”

“Quit your complaining, you kidnapper!”

“I’m not a kidnapper!” Of all the things in the world I could be accused of, that was the one thing I wanted to be called least. “I’m a detective!”

I shoved Tsukiyo off of me and stood up. She gazed up at me from the floor, cowering and looking terrified. Nazuna also looked upset, kneeling on the floor.

Dusting off the sleeve of my coat, I adjusted my collar and took a deep breath to collect myself.

“My name is Samidare Yui. I haven’t told you yet, have I? You may not trust me, but...honestly, I still find the two of you pretty suspicious. So let’s keep an eye on each other and call a truce for now. Is that okay?”

The other two nodded silently.

Samidare then uses the key on the Mary statue to free Tsukiyo, who thanks god and does the sign of the cross. After Tsukiyo frees Nazuna, Samidare gives them the reader’s digest version of the situation they’re in and suggests that since Takezaki is already dead but the case isn’t over and they’re still trapped, the two of them aren’t out of the woods yet and could still be targets. They need to prioritize getting out before anything happens to them.

Nazuna requests to see Takezaki’s body for herself, which Tsukiyo doesn’t seem interested in until Nazuna appeals to her by saying they owe it to a fellow classmate. 

Samidare leads the way back to the other room, chatting about the chapel and everyone confirming that they haven’t been there before, but the school looks pretty good for having been abandoned for 17 years (longer than they’ve been alive, heh...), but Samidare explains that the Committee probably spruced it up to be the set for the Duel Noir.

The two girls also say that they get the feeling that they may have felt someone else’s presence in the room before Samidare opened the coffins, but they couldn’t be sure.

Once they reach hallway to the room where Takezaki is, Samidare has this horrible feeling--she can see that the door, which should have shut automatically--is wide open and showing an empty room. There aren’t even any bloodstains or anything left behind.

Samidare starts having a breakdown about this, throwing out the possibility that the culprit moved the body while she was checking the bathrooms, while Tsukiyo gets disgruntled and wants to look for a way out so she can make her violin lesson on time. 

Too bad the door to the small room isn’t opening.

Nazuna tries it too but can’t open it either.

Tsukiyo at this point loses her shit.

“Th-This can’t be happening? We’re trapped in here, with no TV or phones or anything?” Tsukiyo said, aghast. “Ah, I didn’t even get to go to the bathroom yet!”

“Uh oh, we may be stuck in here for the whole time...”

“What do you mean ‘the whole time’? How long is that?”

“Worst case scenario...six days.”

If the other detectives didn’t come to my rescue, and the culprit intended to win by time out, then we might have to resign ourselves to being stuck here for six days.

“NO! If we stay here for six days, I will die!” Tsukiyo pounded her fists on the door in a panic. “At least bring us food and water! But not hard tap water! Make it soft mineral water! And let me go to the toilet first!”

Nazuna meanwhile is more puzzled by how the door isn’t opening given it doesn’t have a lock on it. That’s when Samidare notices that unlike the other room, the track for this door is on the outside, on the hallway side. She and the girls muse that the caped culprit locked them inside by setting up a bar to prevent the door from being slid open.

Well then.

Samidare’s ego is taking quite a blow.

I guess I really couldn’t do anything by myself.

What would Kirigiri-chan do in this situation?

She was always thinking one step ahead.

And she’d never stopped her trek toward the truth.

That’s right, she’d never avert her eyes from the case in front of her...

I couldn’t give up.

I had to get up and keep going.

“The only thing I can think of is that the culprit’s using some kind of trick.” I stepped away from the door and looked around the room. “I don’t think the body going missing and us being trapped here are unrelated. There’s got to be a secret hidden here that we haven’t found yet.”

“A secret?” Tsukiyo and Nazuna asked in unison, looking over their shoulders at me.

I nodded.

“I will definitely figure out the secret to this mystery,” I announced, not only to myself, but to the culprit who could also be listening.

Part 1 End

I’m so glad the moral of this chapter was WWKD (What Would Kirigiri Do).

Apologies for any typos or anything you may find. I’ll edit a bit later on.

Guys, I am having so much fun reading DRK again. This was a good plan.

See you soon!

NEXT PART >

#DR Kirigiri #DRK5 #DRK5 summary #Samidare Yui #translations #long post #DRK updates on Father's Day is peak irony

[boglog]

Wholesome Questionare Tag Meme

Tagged by @80sglamcowboy Rules are: -Post the rules -Answer the questions given to you by the tagger -Write eleven questions of your own -Tag eleven people

This is long as Hell, friends and I apologise.

One inquisitive bitch has asked me:

1. Name one person (real or fictional) that you think you could 100% take on in a fight

Foaming mouth guy from Avatar. He’s got no stamina, barely any health, no skill. He’s unfocused and weak and my noodley nerd-ass could take him. (Though I am a little concerned he has rabies.)

2. What’s your favourite snack rn

Grilled cheese w veggies, mustard, and grilled tofu w a side of ketchup made by my roommate. It’s honestly the purest thing.

3. Which apocalypse do you think you’d do the best in? (i.e. Nuclear winter/ robot uprising/ Too many vampires, etc)

O man. I love apocalypse movies and I love survival horror (that one episode of the X Files where they’re trapped in a cabin, anybody?). I also genuinely love camping and I’m a bit of a medical hobbyist. I also watched an unreasonable amount of prepper videos on YouTube. That said, as mentioned above, I am a couch potato weekling. Furthermore, I don’t do well in conflict so if the world hierarchy collapses into a power vacuum where you have to Orange is the New Black-style intimidate ppl for supplies, I would melt and die quickly.

My best bet, it would seem, is an Arrival-esque alien apocalypse where the ones who have enough patience and sci fi knowledge to communicate w aliens are at the top of the food chain. And worst case scenario it’s better for my ego to die at the hands of an alien than a human.

Sci go apocalypses are just cleaner y'know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


4. Best and worst fandom you’ve been in? Or have you somehow managed to avoid fandom completely?

Worst has to be Steven Universe. I regret not just moving on after I got bored. Ah well.

(I also think celebrity/real ppl fandoms are a dead end.)

My other fandoms all have various pros and cons and it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Adventure Time has great fanart, great meta and ppl have yet to descend into Homestuck-ian chaos. That said, they’re quiet af. People also fixate way too much on the fake fanfic AU Fionna and Cake. I have yet to read a really good Bonny/Marcy fic and that is a tragedy (a few have come close tho). Bottom line for AT tho is that it’s my go to wholesome cartoonist fandom. I like that it has depth but that it’s generally very simple and fun and that the fans are mostly shut in animation adults.

AtLA/LoK fandom’s biggest pro is that it’s huge and you literally never ran out of quality content. I’ve even made a few friends via this decade old franchise. It’s also enjoyably rich and complex. One of my favourite (now inactive) blogs was one that connected world building and little background Easter eggs to real Chinese history and culture. That wAs so cool!! I defs think as a Chinese person it allowed me to connect to non-western culture in a socially acceptable way.

The downsides tho are many: it can be overwhelmingly complicated (esp as someone who knows jack shit abt Chinese history), people take it too seriously, The Great Shipping Wars, it’s so big it’s a little lonely, the show itself has so many flaws upon greater inspection you wonder why you wasted your time on anything related to it, it’s an Asian themed story created by white dudes who make fun of their fans, the best parts of the show were written by other writers but those same white guys get k the credit. Also as w any fandom related to POC culture, racism happens. Anyways most of you know this already. IMO the best thing to have happened do the fandom is korrasami. Now it’s just abt Asian lesbians ruling the world.

(Though I also thoroughly enjoy the Family Rivalry part of the fandom. There are so mNy dysfunctional families to choose from!)

Rick and Morty is technically speaking my newest fandom. It’s got a lot of obvious cons (pickle Rick sexists, Szechuan sauce racists, asfhkkh incest) but one other con is just how pedantic and overly analytical people are abt the world building. I can’t breathe wo being corrected. RM has a misleadingly complicated high sci fi aesthetic that begets the kind of overanalysing my brand of overanalytical nerdiness can’t handle. Too many alternate universes. It’s just too complicated.

However one thing I like is that conversely I can overanalyse the writing and characters’ psychology/relationships (which I LOVE) and ppl take me very seriously. (At least they used to.) it’s kinda validating to have your 3k word essay on an old man’s bedroom and what that signifies for his depression get over 1k notes.

Rm also attracts the fun, super talented animation crowd so there’s boundless fanart and memes. I never knew I would like a gravity falls crossover retirement home AU btwn Rick and Stan so much but the art is objectively gorgeous?? So ??

I really dislike the lack of attention the female characters get from fandom bc they’re all really great? Female rep is limited but both canon and fic really do their 2-3 tokens justice. Also the jerry hatred is getting old (that male aggression… Like… Calm down, Jake) but it’s a refreshing departure drom when Megg from family guy was the butt of the joke.

Harry Potter, one of the pillars of nerd society, has both changed my life and irreconcilably annoyed me to death. (W no thanks to the racist creator herself!) One can’t underestimate how huge the hp fandom is which offers you as many reasons to love it as reasons not to. Harry Potter’s canon has complex world building that’s also charming enough not to take itself too seriously and much the same could b said of fanon. To a degree. Certain corners of the fanbase are fantastic shitposters and meme-ers and can draw you back in like a black hole. Casually enjoying Harry potter imo is where it’s at. The fanfic is probably one of the most impressively vast. Strangers at Drakesaugh, believe it or not, still updates and not only that, I still read it.

Not casually enjoying Harry potter is, um, yikes? HP and Hunger Games love to insert themselves appropriately in real life political traumas and honestly the dedication of the fandom can be overwhelming.

The HP fanart corner of deviantart circa 2010-12 and @flocc HP comics however are the best.

Meet the Robinsons, Ye Olde Fandom, still stands to this day. (Thanks in part to me ngl) As Iroh might say, they are a proud people. MTR is so bizarre and tiny it’s the only fandom I was able to read EVERY fic summary in existence (ones published on obscure sites excepted). The fandom has never ceased to surprise me for better or worse and mostly due to its age range. The original movie was intended for 8-12 yr olds and their (jaded) parents which means that now, ten years later, the fans are anywhere between 12 and 25. It has approximately 20 pieces of professional-grade fanart and fic and I am downright serious abt the quality and thoughtful complexity of this minority of fanart. Like I shit you not some of it’s almost too dark. However, tragically, one can’t talk abt obscure Disney fandoms wo also mentioning the incest ships (this is what happens when middleschoolers have to resort to cartoons to explore their sexuality in an anti sex ed world), the disorganised crossovers, and the blinding lack of imagination. Nonetheless, that a fandom of any kind could sprout from a 90 min cgi movie before the recession, based off an obscure but objectively fascinating children’s book, is still impressive. The fandoms smallness can in many wars work to everybody’s benefit: it’s a tightly knit community w little to no drama. And lots of memes (that I mostly make) to enjoy sincerely or ironically.

I’m also going to mention, very briefly, the Twin Peaks fandom, most of whom, even the die hards, are v casual when it comes to fan content (I need more fic damnit). Nonetheless it’s a decidedly cool art kid crowd for an art house show and I really enjoy befriending twin peaks watchers.

5. What’s one hot food that you prefer cold? (or, alternatively, one cold food you like hot)

Is it snobby to say I like food to be the temperature God intended?

Like I like cold pizza and salad-y pasta but I wouldn’t mind if everything were room temperature as long as the food itself was well made.

6. ya like jazz? What music do you enjoy listening to? Can you recommend any songs/ artists from that genre?

I think in some contexts I can like jazz. It’s very cosy and nostalgic, it can make you feel like a grand dame stepping out of your limo into your martini filled mansion as records pop around you and your fur carpeted living room. I also occasionally like jazz covers and alternate genres of jazz like electro swing etc.

Generally though I also think jazz is a little antiquated and a little all over the place. I lean more towards the ambiguous minimalism of mellow techno music like Jonna Lee, Grimes, Björk, early Lorde, Yasmine Hamdan, Austra, TRST, etc

I mean I don’t stick to just one genre (I imagine most ppl don’t). I like alternative (Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Joanna Newsom) and some musicians who seem to completely exist outside of genre like iMonster and the Gorillaz. Not to mention straight up pop like broods, Ellie goulding, lady gaga and Lana del rey. (I mean technically Ldr isn’t pop but u get the ideer)

7. What binge worthy show do you like?

So many man. There are so many out there! Twin peaks, Transparent, Love, Grace and Frankie, Adventure Time, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Girls, Broad City, Black Mirror, Avatar TLA, 6Teen, Chowder, Over the Garden Wall, Flapjack, the first season of Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, etc

The list goes on. I’m a TV fiend.

8. What’s an old meme that you miss and wish would be brought back?

Always liked the Gothic [x town or whatever] meme. It was like a text post version of the cursed images meme. Currently I’m really enjoying the song from another room meme and I hope even after it gets old it’ll make a comeback.

9. Tell me your aesthetic



O man. That’s a can of worms! Okay. Deep breath.

I like futurism, of all kinds. I like strong lines and clear shapes. I like colour blocking and minimalism and glass and holographic LED neons. I like white Japanese urban tiled buildings. I like aliens and ruins and cubes and white and colour blocking and black. I like technology and aliens and Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake. Rooms that are empty but for one light and one window and one plant. Love that.

I like the midcentury cubism and Mod and 30’s futurism. Clear and strong industrial shapes and curves and post modernist abstractionism.

I also love nature, I love most every Björk and Iamamiwhoami music video. I love the mountains and the forests and the desert and the winter tundra and most of all I love the water. A vast expanse of sky and sea w so many colours and textures. I love the 2000s and funny blob shapes and y2k’s obsession w secondary colours and shiny round things. Love pink. I am a grown adult who will never tire of pink. (Though I don’t really like when people overdo pink.) I love cursed image family photos taken with flash in a suburb. I love the grime and the sanitary aesthetic of suburbs and hospitals and brutalist office spaces. The fluorescent lights of the institution but with purple carpeting!

I love 70s mod and I love colorful 80s brutalism I like it when houses are shaped weirdly and they have carpets and polished curved wooden countertops and spacious nothingness where everything looks clean and cosy and bizarrely ugly and it all looks like an art gallery w too many plants.

I also really love maximalism and wood and detail and fur and velvet and embroidery and silk and windows and wood carvings.

I love 70s kitsch like John waters movies and Shrimps designer fake fur CDG17 where they just piled on knickknack after knickknack onto white dresses w food long trains. Toys and novelty items and lamps shaped like a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking. (See also: most Tim burton movies, wes Anderson, Carrie fishers house)

An overwhelming mishmash of wool patterns with clean cubic 70s architecture and so many plants and windows and wallpaper and candles and cobwebs. Also really like witchy mourning jewelry and essentially every house in Harry potter. Love the unfortunately racist boho/hippie aesthetic. Any house designed by bill kirsch is a masterpiece. Woven baskets on the ceiling piles of hats and art supplies everywhere. Stuff!! Everywhere! Hidden passageways reading nooks fireplaces the Pink Palace from Coraline!

Everything!!!

I’m a cartoonist who’s a nerd for design so I like when concepts are taken to the extreme in a humourously charming and clear-minded way. Whatever aesthetic someone chooses, they should go all out and really dedicate themselves to the highest form of that aesthetic. It has to be perfect without being sanitary of fake. It has to be alive yet beautiful, frozen in one perfect moment.

10. Favourite time of day and why?

Dusk. I think it’s a nostalgia thing. I loved the hours before bed time as well the hours before dinner when it was getting dark and the sun was reflecting freaky colours along the horizon while I ran around the grass. It’s cozy but it’s spacious and adventurous. So many things can happen at dusk!



11. You have the choice to live in any fictional universe - which one do you pick and why?

Harry Potter!!! You get the best of both worlds: magical, over-romanticised Victorian/medievalism, wish-fulfillment surrealism and wifi. It’s great. Likelihood of dying is so low, medicine is so advanced and even then ppls n°1 choice of lethal weapon (Avada Kedavra) is painless. Me and Luna could hang in her garden. I’d never have to pay for the subway again. I could live a nomadic life in a tent w infinite space. If you chose to live as a wizard amongst Muggles you’re basically god and you can cheat capitalism. Gravity is my bitch! And I’m not gna lie my dream house has always been a combination of The Burrow, the Lovegood house, and Shell Cottage.

My turn to pick your brain:

1 Favourite texture?

2 Favourite smell?

3 Favourite children’s book/children’s TV show? (I’m talking about the bizarre abstract ones for toddlers)

4 Best and worst prank you’ve ever pulled?

5 Weirdest beginning of a friendship?

6 When you’ve been in fandom for a while you start to notice you’ve a habit of staying in the same corners. What corner are you in? Are you part of the fluffy ship corner? The intense world building spec meta corner? The shitpost comic fanart corner? Etc

7 If you could invent a class that would be obligatory for all high schools across your country what would it be?

8 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve gotten at Halloween while trick or treating?

9 Weirdest family tradition of yours?

10 Describe your significant other (or your crush, or your dream partner or if you’re aromantic your fave person) through only TV references.

11 Favourite piece of dialogue in a movie?

I don’t know 11 ppl but nonetheless tagging: @that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat @skairheart @nochangenohope @eventheslightestrayofsunshine@autistic-jaredkleinman@phoenixkluke

…and YOU (if you were not mentioned above and so choose to accept this mission)

#tag meme #u #food m ?

[some-triangles]

MORE HIVESWAP CONTENT PER YOUR REQUEST

Hiveswap is calculated in a way that Homestuck wasn’t.  This is a natural consequence of the way the game was produced.  You can’t expect the debut game from a new studio - a game that was written and produced by the employees of said studio in response to a specific assignment and with the longevity of its founding franchise in mind - not to feel like the product of a committee.  And there’s nothing wrong with that - a studio in that position should be taking its target audience into account, and I think they’ve done a good job.  Nothing they’ve come up with feels like pandering, either to the pre-existing audience or to the new one the game is trying to reach. They’ve taken the basic themes that make Homestuck itself (kids, peril, error, systems jokes, complicated worldbuilding, dysfunctional families, online friendship) and cleaned them all up a bit, made them presentable and digestible.  A lot of this cleanup is practical, a consequence of their distribution and marketing setup - I understand why there’s no blood or swearing - but the streamlining goes deeper than that.

The characters we’ve met so far are Homestuck archetypes who have already been partially solved for our convenience.  Joey is a John/Jane figure except most of her personal work has already been done - she understands and explains to the audience that her father’s a deadbeat and her babysitter’s a drunk.  Maybe there’ll be a payoff for her unreachably perfect mom down the line, but when it comes, I’m sure the game will make sure we notice.  Jude has some of the social difficulties of a Jake or an Equius but the downside is mostly missing.  Xefros feels like.. gosh, Xefros feels like a decision, doesn’t he?  Take Tavros and strip away everything creepy and this is what you get.  All the upside from a marketing perspective with none of the bother.  These characters feel like refinements of the originals in the sense that the storytelling around them is clearer, but also in the sense that all their rough edges have been sanded off.

So on the one hand I’m missing the complexity and on the other I’m missing the mess.  I liked Homestuck because it was an indie project which overperformed, a scrappy, personal thing which made points that you didn’t expect and took narrative left turns even at the cost of its own coherence.  I was excited when it did its flash stuff and its video game stuff and hit new baselines of legitimacy partially because you could tell there were no professionals involved, which meant that even as the comic got more ambitious and surefooted things could (and did) go outside the lines at any time.   Which, don’t get me wrong, led to some awful storytelling, and eventually to total structural prolapse.  But it kept me complaining - it kept my interest - and at least up to this point there isn’t anything in Hiveswap that’s even worth getting upset about.

Hiveswap feels like it’s genuinely a thing for kids, that the point of it is to be for kids, which is fine, but isn’t actually what I’m interested in as a reader, y’know?  So I’m not gonna spend a lot of time talking about it unless it evolves into something weirder.

[itsclydebitches]

Summary:

“He likes this song.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

In which Cisco is given seven months to fall in love with Barry Allen. It’s admittedly a little weird - what with Barry being unconscious and all - but since when was anything normal nowadays?

Fandom: The Flash (TV show)

Words: Through Chapter Three: 8,213 (will be around 12k total)

Warnings: None

Pairings: Barry/Cisco

Where to Read it: Below the cut or on AO3 (AO3 recommended for formatting) 

~~~

Worth the Wait: Chapter Three

Could you know someone you’d never spoken to? Really get them based purely on their presence and a public profile? Cisco was starting to wonder.

It was freaking him out just a bit. Because the longer Barry just lay there the longer Cisco searched for him online, and the more he searched the more he felt like they’d known each other for years. Barry posted update statuses filled with enough science jargon that all his friends sent exasperated emojis and his former teachers liked the posts with pride. There were silly Vine attempts and one memorable home video, basically laying out for the world that Barry Allen would never be an actor. Barry posted more selfies than the stereotypical teenage girl (all of them stunning), wept about his food, glorified his job (which he didn’t need, he was a goddamn hero in Cisco’s eyes), comforted anyone about anything, sent heartfelt messages on everyone’s birthday, and accompanied those tear-jerkers with presents—despite his slightly iffy bank account.

He was like a ray of sunlight personified.

Cisco knew, intellectually, that a digital footprint was just one small part of a person’s whole. That they were never truly what they posted online. That, really, Barry couldn’t be this sunny, smart, gracious, and heroic in real life. Constructs like this just didn’t exist.

Except then he’d look over at the guy’s still form and think, maybe.

What cinched it for him was another real life person suddenly appearing in, what had become, his otherwise digitalized world. Cisco came into the Lab Thursday morning with bedhead and a packet of chocolate donuts, thinking about how he wanted to test the Suit’s resistance to acid and read more about whether coma patients experienced smell as well as sound. Cisco was lost enough in his thoughts that he nearly ran into Caitlin as she rounded the corner out of the Cortex. They exchanged a silent, rapid-fire conversation—Donut? No, already ate. You okay? Yeah. Sure? There’s a Thing. A Thing??—and Cisco was still trying to decipher what kind of a Thing that hand gesture meant when he spotted the woman sitting at Barry’s bedside.

Oh. That kind of a Thing.

Cisco recognized her. He’d seen her name on the Labs’ entrance logs a few times before and he had vague memories of her standing on the periphery of the action the day they’d moved Barry here. Mostly Cisco knew her from Barry’s pictures though. She was in nearly all of them.

“Hi, Iris,” he said and she turned to smile at him, the both of them totally ignoring the fact that they’d never technically met before. That was refreshing.

“Hey, Cisco.”

“Donut?”

“God yes. Chai latte?”

“Not worried about my cooties?”

“Nah. Go for it.”

She passed over her drink and he set the box on Barry’s blankets, kind of liking how some of the sprinkles spilled over. It gave him a less sterile look. Like a dude who’d actually been munching rather than just...lying there.

The chai was spicy on Cisco’s tongue. He could see the smears of Iris’ lipstick around the cup’s edge.

It was kind of amazing how put together she looked in the face of this ongoing tragedy, and Cisco had to give her points for style. He had his own sort of look going on, sure, but he also know that if his bestie/brother got struck by freaking lightning and refused to wake up he’d be sporting nothing but comfort PJs and tear stains. Cisco tried uselessly to untangle his hair.

“He loves these, you know,” Iris said, holding up one of the donuts. She tilted it so Barry could see. “He always eats the icing first though, scooping it off like—” she demonstrated, scattering more crumbs across the bed.

Cisco pulled a face. “Okay. That’s wrong.”

“Right? You need to see him eat a cupcake. He pulls it apart and like, makes a sandwich out of it. Or nachos! Jesus, he’s always complaining about not getting all the toppings in one bite. I told him to just lift, but he claims the weight is too much for a single chip, and... ”

Iris trailed off, shaking her head. Maybe she was thinking about the implications: that hopefully someday Cisco would get to see Barry and his ridiculous eating habits.

“Food is priority #1,” Cisco said. “He’s a guy after my own heart.”

As soon as he said it Cisco ducked his head, realizing the implications of that, but Iris didn’t even bat an eye.

She just took another donut.Cisco let her.

“You know I’ve started talking to him,” he shared after a few moments of silence. Iris’ smile begged him to continue. “Uh huh. I must look like a real nut on all the security footage. But I read that coma patients can, you know, hear and stuff. Sometimes. So I figured why not? Might as well give Barry something to focus on other than this insistent beeping.” It actually wasn’t even that bad--Caitlin had removed most of the equipment on the third day, growling that it wasn’t doing enough for Barry anyway—but the point remained the same.

Iris snatched her drink back. “What do you talk about?”

“Oh, you know... stuff. Gossip mostly. I complain a lot. Just... things.”

Iris was still smiling. “He likes movies,” she said. “Put Star Wars on sometime.”

“...right.” Cisco very much didn’t voice that the Star Wars franchise was his be-all and end-all fave.

Iris stood then, reaching over to smooth the hair out of Barry’s face. “You gotta wake up,” she whispered and Cisco had to turn away, recognizing the private moment. He didn’t comment on how long it took her to speak again, or the thick quality of Iris’ voice when she did.

Cisco did clasp her arm though as she took up her purse. “Work,” she explained. “I’ll come back tonight?”

“I’m sure not stopping you.” Cisco spread his arms in a welcoming gesture.

Iris seemed to consider him then. One of those cataloguing looks that made Cisco wish he’d actually used a comb this morning. Or worn something other than his Homestuck t-shirt. Whatever Iris found though didn’t seem to be too bad.

“He’ll like you,” she said and it felt like a promise.

Cisco nodded, slowly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He definitely will.”

They both appreciated the future tense.

Iris left him then with too many thoughts and just the right amount of donuts. Cisco sighed, taking the place she’d vacated (no, it wasn’t his spot, no matter what Caitlin was starting to say) and booted up his laptop, enjoying this new routine.

Cisco pulled up Chrome in one window and a stream of A New Hope in the other. He wafted a donut under Barry’s nose as the story’s scroll began.

“Smell that, dude? Glazed glory, right here. Gonna wake up for it?”

Barry breathed even and deep. His eyes moved briefly beneath his lids. That was all.

“Your loss.”

Cisco was nothing if not gracious though. He patted Barry’s knee while taking a massive bite.

“I’ll buy you more when you do get your lazy ass out of bed,” he garbled. “Promise.”

***

Taking care of a coma patient was, sadly, not all movies and one-sided conversations. Cisco was endlessly glad that Barry gave them all something to focus on (Caitlin in particular, gushing daily now about the ever growing changes in Barry’s DNA. “It’s fascinating, Cisco!” “Uh huh. Sure, Spock.”) but there were some things that just shouldn’t have been a part of the job. Or at least, not part of Cisco’s job.

He so didn’t sign up for this when he applied to STAR Labs.

“You want me to what now?”

Dr. Wells gave him a Look. It was the particular one that was a combination of “I expected more of you” and “please leave your immaturity outside of my facility.” The last time Cisco had gotten the Look he’d accidentally set Level 8’s workroom on fire trying to create goggles that replicated heat vision.

Emphasis on ‘accidentally.’

“I have a meeting with Larson—yes, yes, of rheology fame.” Dr. Wells shook his head. “Please wipe that look off your face, Dr. Snow. She’s not nearly as impressive in person as her autobiography suggests.”

“You read her autobiography?” Caitlin teased, but she did school her features. Dr. Wells waved her off like an errant fly.

“Look, I would honestly like nothing better than to skip this lunch and remain here, but Larson is insistent that we discuss the work our two labs were conducting prior to the explosion. I have… admittedly been putting it off.” Dr. Wells took of his glasses to rub at his eyes. Cisco felt a pang. “I fear you’re the only one available for this shift.”

Cisco looked imploringly at Caitlin.

“Grandpa’s birthday,” she said, apologetic. “It’s literally the one family gathering I can’t miss.”

“Joe?” Cisco suggested, remembering the strong, fatherly man who had accompanied Iris on numerous visits.

“Working.”

“Iris?”

“Also working.”

“And look who else is in his place of employment, on the clock no less,” Dr. Wells gave him another pointed look.

Cisco felt something like panic inching its way up his throat. “And this can’t wait?”

“Don’t be cruel. You’ll be fine,” and with that utterly useless bit of confidence they just abandoned him, like two totally awful, abandoning people.

“I will have my revenge,” Cisco whispered, because really, he was not cut out for this.

Clipping toe and fingernails was one thing. Swapping out full catheter bags was ew, gross, but doable. Turning the guy to avoid bed soars was a piece of cake. But sponge baths?

Cisco looked at Barry. Barry (he imagined) was looking back, with his eyes closed. Judging. Cisco thought about how he’d feel if he was stuck in bed for months without access to a shower.

He shivered. Fine.

Getting the supplies took longer than he’d anticipated, though it gave Cisco time to calm down a bit and, as Caitlin might say, stop being such a big baby about it. He got two tubs of water ready—one for washing, one for rinsing—and made sure that the bath water was nice and hot. It wasn’t like the Cortex was freezing, but who the hell wanted a lukewarm bath?

Easy to wash away soap. Baby shampoo that smelled liked lavenders. Lots of washcloths; even more towels. It took Cisco ten goddamn minutes to find the special basin for washing hair because who the hell had put it with the old microscopes?

By the time he was ready the bath water was no longer scalding and Cisco’s heart wasn’t a freaking jackrabbit anymore. Progress.

“I hope you know,” he intoned, “that this completely solidifies our friendship. I expect best man-level status when you wake up, dude. Got it?”

Barry breathed.

“Damn straight. C’mon now...”

He’d moved Barry before, and despite the muscle developing he was still surprisingly light. Cisco got him on his side pretty easily and slid a couple of towels underneath, really not wanting to change the sheets yet if he could help it. Barry had been going shirtless most of the time anyway, so all he really had to do clothes-wise was tug the pajama pants carefully off his legs.

Cisco definitely did not look at the toned thighs as he did.

“Don’t be a perv about this,” he muttered. “Do not be a perv...”

And for the most part he wasn’t, because he was an adult, and a decent person, okay? Cisco had always viewed his nerd status as at least preferable to the Nice Guy douches, and he was perfectly capable of separating romantic situations from professional ones.

This was definitely the latter.

Even if Barry did have the most fantastic abs. Ever.

Cisco clucked, soaping up a washcloth to run over Barry’s arms and chest. “I should really hate you, you know? I should be jealous here, Mr. Lays in Bed All Day and Somehow Gets Buff. But I am the bigger man here. Even if you’re a freaking giraffe. I’m still bigger. Metaphorically. Okay?”

Talking to Barry had gotten easy over the last few weeks. It was sort of worrying Cisco a bit. He didn’t know if the guy was that good a conversationalist even while comatose, or if he was just that lonely (ha). But sometime between not startling every time he caught sight of the new edition and donuts with Iris, Cisco had let his talking get a little more... personal. Less Jitters gossip and more family drama. Then less family drama and more, ‘Hey, could we actually be buds when you finally decide to wake up?’

Part of Cisco was terrified that Barry would remember all this someday. Another part worried that he wouldn’t be nearly as cool in real life as he was on paper.

The realistic part said he would, but would also 100% not give a shit about Cisco.

“And why should you, man?” he said, carefully going over Barry’s stomach, then his back. “I mean, we just sort of got landed with you. Not that I’m complaining. But it means you got landed with us too. You didn’t ask to get struck by lightning, or delve into an extended nap, or become Dr. Wells’ charity case. You’ve got every right to ditch our asses once you’re up and about.” Cisco regarded the soapy washcloth. “Not gonna hang with your nurse, right? How lame is that.”

He was nearly done with Barry’s upper body now. “But... if you did want to hang...well. I’d be cool with that. Just so you know.”

Cisco stopped. Shook his head. He spent another ten minutes changing the water.

He paused again before removing the blankets around Barry’s legs. “Don’t make this weird,” he admonished.

In the list of things Cisco had planned and expected to do with his life, cleaning another man’s genitals wasn’t anywhere on the list. Outside of sexy-shower fantasies at least. He really shouldn’t have worried though. Barry might have been gorgeous, but there wasn’t anything sexy about a non-consenting partner that made you think more about necrophilia than second dates.

It didn’t stop Cisco from taking his time though. He didn’t like what he was doing—it wasn’t what he was starting to want it to be—but he’d sure as hell do it right.

“There,” he announced, patting Barry dry and pulling the blankets back up. “I’ve saved the best for last. Can’t promise not to get soap in your eyes though.”

It was sort of soothing, washing someone else’s hair. Cisco liked the texture of it beneath his fingers and he tried to get all fancy, like the women did in salons with their massages. He wondered if Barry was in there somewhere, appreciating it. He hoped so.

Cisco found himself smiling as he made little tufts of his hair stick up. “Aww. Look at you. Take note: you would make an excellent penguin. Feels good, huh?”

Barry drew in a slightly longer breath—

—and promptly began seizing.

“Holy—!”

Cisco stumbled back, knocking the basin as he went and sending water everywhere. The motion knocked Barry’s head as well, causing it to loll as the rest of his body jerked horrendously. The blanket he’d so carefully tucked in slipped off to the side. Bits of soap began decorating Cisco’s shirt.

He just stood there, useless.

It was Barry’s right arm flying off the bed (limp, pale like a dead fish) that finally sent him into motion. Cisco’s first instinct was to throw himself atop Barry and stop that godawful movement, but a vague, oddly calm voice in the back of his mind reminded him that you didn’t do that. No. That was bad. But what did you do instead?

“Dr. Wells!”

That’s what he did. He got help; got his mentor. Cisco scrambled over to the Lab’s sound system and slammed his hand over the button with enough force to leave an outline on his palm. “Dr. Wells get up here!” He must have shouted it more than he’d thought, because by the time Cisco remembered that Dr. Wells had left his voice was feeling terribly raw.

Dr. Wells was gone. He was out, for the first time in ages. Because of course this happens. Cisco pulled at his hair, trying to get his useless brain to function for two goddamn seconds. He couldn’t call Dr. Wells. He didn’t know his number. The three of them had practically been living together for four months and he didn’t know the man’s goddamn cell number.

“Oh my god, oh fuck—fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Cisco whirled on the monitors, trying to get all his training in engineering to somehow translate into medical knowledge. He was halfway through a muddled translation of the meds Caitlin had been feeding into Barry this week when one piece of equipment finally made sense.

The steady beat of Barry’s heart—a sound that had become a necessary part of Cisco’s world—suddenly stopped. Rapid beeps became a long whine that sounded like a scream.

“No,” Cisco whispered.

In the same moment he thought, Call Caitlin.

Because he did have her number. They’d swapped months ago. He was her emergency contact, now that Ronnie was gone.

Barry’s not Ronnie, Cisco insisted and dove for his cell. He had it ringing while he grabbed for his Macbook too, screaming as Siri to find him tutorials on CPR.

“Why the fuck didn’t I take that summer class?” Cisco shrieked, trying to get the bed to go flat.

“Why didn’t you what?”

And there it was, Caitlin’s voice, a godsend that cut straight through Cisco’s panic. Even so, he couldn’t recall exactly what he said to her then, only that his breathy ramblings seemed to make some sort of sense, because he was able to toss Siri aside (useless) and follow Caitlin’s instructions instead. He had the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, Barry’s heart directly beneath his hands.

Cisco spotted a drop of water. It might have been from the bath. It was probably because he was crying.

“It’s not—he’s not—” he kept gulping, feeling like he was about to pass out. There were actual spots in Cisco’s vision when he was suddenly wrenched off the bed, hard enough that he fell straight onto his ass.

Caitlin was here, impossibly. She looked calm and doctor-y and Cisco sucked in a massive breath.

“How?” he managed and she said something about her and her mother getting into a fight. She’d come back here and, oh Jesus, Cisco was so glad she had.

The relief was sort lived though. Barry was still coding.

Which made Caitlin’s next action all the more shocking. She just...stopped. She even stepped back, regarding Barry while every machine attached to him screamed that he was dying.

“What are you doing?” Cisco hissed.

Caitlin looked up. Her expression was awe. It was the first and only time Cisco had seen the true definition of the word: reverence mixed with fear.

“He heart hasn’t stopped,” she whispered. “It’s... tachycardia. It’s beating so fast the machine can’t pick it up.”

Barry stopped.

Instantly. Like the conclusion of a puzzle when you’d finally found the answer, he just stopped. From 60 back to 0 they had their sleepy, peaceful looking guy again.

The monitor began a steady rhythm. Beep, beep, beep.

“God,” Cisco said. Still on the floor he crawled the last few inches to the bed, heedless of how soaked his jeans were getting. He reached up and took Barry’s hand in his. Unbidden, Caitlin did the same.

That’s how Dr. Wells found them twenty minutes later—still wet, still holding onto Barry. Caitlin told him in a shell-shocked voice about the impossible heart rate; how the ‘seizing’ Cisco had seen was actually vibration, Barry’s body moving at a frequency she just couldn’t explain. When Dr. Wells reached them Cisco expected a thorough questioning on this phenomenon. He expected the scientist.

Instead Dr. Wells raised a hand of his own. He hesitated only a moment before laying it on Barry’s arm.

“But he’s okay?” he asked. Dr. Wells raised his gaze, taking in the three of them at once. “You’re okay?”

“Mmm hmm,” Caitlin agreed, a little watery. Cisco nodded.

“Good... good. Let’s get this place cleaned up.”

It was while Dr. Wells was bundling Barry’s soaked sheets that Cisco stopped him, daring to lay his on hand on his mentor’s shoulder. When Dr. Wells didn't brush him off—didn’t even flinch—Cisco mustered up a smile.

“Hey. So I really need your number.”

#Flash #The Flash #Barry/Cisco #Barry Allen #Cisco Ramon #flashfic