#though i one hundred percent get if someone wouldnt want to watch now knowing these things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

homespork-review · 4 years

Text

Homespork Act 4, Part 2: Flight of the Paradox Groans

BRIGHT: Remember Spades Slick being bizarrely aware he was in a comic, back in the Intermission? Buckle up, things are about to get even more fourth-wall-breaking. Appropriately, this starts by the comic focusing on an actual fourth wall, which activates to show...Andrew Hussie.

Hussie’s MS Paint avatar notices the audience watching him, laments that his side of the wall doesn’t have an off switch, and then recaps the first year of Homestuck.

Now, in all fairness: The recap is thorough, full of links, and explains things fairly well. It’s quite long, but given how much territory it has to cover I’m not sure it could be any shorter. So it does its job well, and it’s a boon if you’re getting lost with the plot.

As for the author insertion...on this occasion I don’t mind it. It comes across as tongue-in-cheek, but framed more as the author talking to the reader than as the author inserting himself into the narrative. It’s definitely very Homestuck.

Anyway, AH gets back to work, and after a couple of false starts we return to John!

John is still flying around with his jet pack. GC trolls him to offer him a world map of LOWAS and tell him she feels awful about killing him, although in literally the next line she tells him that technically he never even died so she doesn’t understand why he’s so upset. John understandably finds this disturbing. They have a brief nonsensical discussion about Jesus/Jegus, and then John agrees to go take a look at what’s on the other side of his Second Gate. Yes, on the advice of someone whose previous advice got him killed.

CHEL: Almost a shame we didn’t set up a Too Dumb To Live count, but then to be fair that was a separate timeline and he’s probably not thinking of it as something that “really” happened. This is supported by his later dialogue.

FAILURE ARTIST: The word Jegus is really popular in the Homestuck fandom, used far more often than it is in the canon. Gets quite annoying, in my opinion. Actually, a rather Jesus-like figure does appear, but he’s not called “Jegus”.

CHEL: Yeah, I think only Terezi, John, and Dave ever use the term, but it somehow became latched onto as an actual term used by trolls in general, even though in canon it isn’t.

BRIGHT: Fortunately, this time GC appears to be playing nice. John flies though the Second Gate and emerges...into LOLAR?

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie does an amusing trick where he has what looks like a loading screen for a flash but it’s actually a still image eternally at 2%.

BRIGHT: Yes, it’s LOLAR. John promptly crashes into Rose’s house, smashing through a wall and into her bedroom, where Rose is still snoozing in her knitting pile. Apart from briefly being stuck upside down, he does not appear injured by this collision.

Rose has somehow slept through the commotion. John decides to let her rest and borrows her computer to talk to Dave.

The first one he talks to is actually Davesprite, who points out how moronic John was to listen to GC again. No arguments here! Then he explains how the Gate system works: Odd-numbered Gates, above players’ houses, lead to somewhere on their planets. Even-numbered Gates lead to other players’ planets, exiting over their houses. Normally they aren’t meant to go through even-numbered Gates until the houses are built up, so they don’t fall to their deaths, but fortunately John has a jetpack workaround. So far Davesprite is living up to his promise of being straightforward.

John realises he’s talking to Future Dave, and asks “do you think i could talk to the real dave for a second?”

...ouch, John.

Davesprite goes off on a tear, ranting that he is a real Dave — arguably the realest Dave, since he’s been running around LOHAC for months trying to get enough information to save everyone. John apologises sincerely.

CHEL: This won’t be the last we hear of this theme, though.

EB: i think i pissed off your future self. TG: what did you do EB: i said he wasn't the real dave. TG: ahahahahaha EB: i think i might have really hurt his feelings though! TG: pff TG: dont worry about it EB: why not? TG: cause i wouldnt give a shit TG: and hes me

BRIGHT: Not a hundred percent sure I believe Dave, there.

CHEL: Dave uses John to snoop around Rose’s room and get the captcha code for her journals. Classy, Dave. Not a SLAMMER point, however, as this does come back to bite him very soon.

Rose’s dreamself has awoken on Derse, the purple planet, and flies across to the opposite tower. Dave’s dreamself appears to be awake, sitting upright in his computer chair; the room is entirely an unsettling bloody red colour apart from the SBaHJ cartoons on the walls, and… oh shit, there’s Lil Cal again, now in a long purple nightdress and hopping around the room on his own. If Rose was having nightmares because of dreamself issues, I can only imagine how Dave’s nightmares must look. Rose throws a ball of yarn at Dave’s dreamself, alerting him, and causing the awake Dave to pass out.

Back in Rose’s room, it seems that Charles Barkley quote was not misattributed:

FAILURE ARTIST: Another SBaHJ reference in the book quote. Is that where Dave got it?

Still, I don’t recall this book ever coming up again. Just another item that seems like a Chekhov's Gun but isn’t.

CHEL: John feels guilty about opening his birthday gift from Rose, but reasons that it’s technically now his anyway, so he does, finding another bunny, this one black and filthy-looking except for the pristine knitted purple patches repairing it, though its shape is eerily familiar.

The gift in this box is a resurrection. I used your present to thread life anew into a tattered heirloom. As long as I can remember, its black, greasy appendages have been tethered limply to its ratty, porous carriage. Too delicate to wash, too dear to discard. I used to love this rabbit. Now he's yours. I trust you'll find this to be adequately sentimental. Happy birthday.

Oh my gosh, awwwwww. Even if you don’t ship them romantically how can you not love their interactions? Definitely one of the comic’s strong points. Also I need to go hug my childhood teddy bear.

John puts the bunny back in the box again and the box in his sylladex, freeing Casey the salamander while he’s at it. And let’s just take a minute to feel utter horror because dead John still had Casey in his sylladex, so the best option is that she died too, and the worst is that we have an And I Must Scream situation on for a baby salamander. Gah.

FAILURE ARTIST: Thanks, I’d never thought of that and I never want to again.

You aren't actually sure if she is a girl though. You don't even know if salamanders can be girls. Aren't they hermaphrodites or something?

CHEL: No, for the record. Though some frogs can switch from one to the other.

FAILURE ARTIST: Casey is very popular as a name for an OC child of John (often having Rose as the mother).

CHEL: John answers Rose’s Pesterchum, upon which GA is half-heartedly sending antagonistic messages. John answers on Rose’s account, saying that Rose is asleep, which GA takes for Human Sarcasm, prompting John to pretend to be Rose.

GA: I Should Figure Out How The Viewport Feature Of This Application Works GA: So I Can See What Such A Primitive Creature Looks Like TT: haha, well i know what you guys look like. TT: you look kind of like... TT: howie mandel from little monsters.

Wait, how does he know? Am I forgetting a point at which he saw them?

BRIGHT: I always assumed that he was just goofing around and his guess happened to land in the right ballpark, but thinking about it, I’m not sure the kids ever express surprise at the trolls’ appearance.

CHEL: John, pretending to be Rose, talks about how awesome John is.

GA: He Is Either The Leader Of Your Party Or You Hold Whatever The Human Equivalent Of Mating Fondness For Him Is

CHEL: Both. Both is good!

FAILURE ARTIST: Knowing what we do of troll culture later this is an odd statement. Heck, it’s just an odd statement. Maybe this is why people think trolls don’t do friendship.

CHEL: John apparently confuses GA by saying it’s because Rose is thoughtful and John appreciates his gift, and suggests GA talk to John.

TT: why don't you pick the time that will make the most complicated mess out of everything imaginable?

GA sounds very annoyed, and leaves, intending to have the conversation with John that she had previously. We see her, GC, and the horns of AT and an unknown troll in the grey room, now revealed to be a computer laboratory. For some reason she chats via Pesterchum with another troll instead of just walking over to talk to them. This new troll is twinArmageddons, an appropriate name for the circumstances, who type2 iin yellow text liike thii2; he is, as it turns out, the hacker guy GC mentioned earlier. TA is busy setting up the network and seems irritable in general, and is not willing to help GA work her viewport.

TA: iif ii 2ee one more 2narl of wiire2. TA: kiind of juttiing out and beiing tangled or whatever. TA: ii am goiing two perform 2ome 2ort of athletiic fuckiing 2omer2ault off the deep end and get a call from the pre2iident or 2ome 2hiit.

Nice callback, but trolls, as we’ll later find out, don’t have presidents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 14

GA wonders why TA doesn’t want to talk to her, and TA complains that he knew in advance the trolls were doomed and no one believed him. He refuses to troll the humans himself but is setting up the system so the others can in order to get them to leave him alone. GA asks again for help, to no avail.

TA: iif you cant fiigure 2hiit out by fuckiing around you dont belong near computer2. TA: kiind of liike wiith regii2tered 2ex offender2 and 2chool2. TA: iif you move two a new town you have two go up two your neiighbor2 door and warn them about how 2tupiid you are. TA: and giive them a chance two hiide all theiir iinnocent technology. TA: and vandaliize your hou2e.

Ooh, a threefer plus one! Tacky simile for the Problematykks. As for WSP, we’ll later find out that 1) trolls kill all their criminals, 2) trolls don’t give a shit about the welfare of their children, and 3) trolls don’t appear to actually go to school. These two counts are neck and neck in the lead now!

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 17

BRIGHT: As with much of Homestuck, the trolls give the impression of being made up as Hussie went along. That’s not entirely a bad thing -- it certainly makes the comic pretty unique -- but it does lead to some out-of-place slip-ups.

Anyway, GA chucks her F1 key at TA’s head and then starts poking him. We also see CG in the lab.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think I recall GA/TA were a popular ship before we learned more about GA. It does seem like they have a Rose & Dave dynamic going on.

BRIGHT: Back on Derse, Rose and Dave have a dance party to Dave’s music while accompanied by some crows and Lil Cal, who keeps teleporting around the room. Rose eventually gets tired of Cal’s shenanigans and hurls him out of the window, to the relief of many.

FAILURE ARTIST: The flash originally included music by Bill Bolin. In fact, it was his unfinished music being included here that caused all the drama in the first place.

BRIGHT: Time for some random interludes! First up is Maplehoof the pony, who is following Rose’s mother through a large cave which, judging by the grist lying around, recently contained very dangerous monsters.

FAILURE ARTIST: Apparently pets can collect grist for their masters...and know what grist is despite being a normal(?) animal.

BRIGHT: First Mom, and then Maplehoof, stand on a transportaliser platform and disappear. Second is Dad, who has just acquired a replacement shoe and hat (which showed up in the walkaround game, way back at the beginning of the Act), when he encounters a familiar-looking stranger with a Colonel Sassacre book, who leads him to another transportalizer platform. Both of these interludes do become relevant later, but at the time they seem a tad unnecessary.

Meanwhile, John uses Rose’s alchemiter and a code Davesprite gave him mid-rant to produce a truly epic hammer called FEAR NO ANVIL. It’s far too big for John to wield, but fortunately he can use the scaling upgrade on the alchemiter to reduce it to a more useable size. ...wait. When did Rose’s alchemiter get a scaling upgrade? Dave and Jade added a lot of modifications to his, but Rose’s should be the original edition. Sigh.

EB: so what is this? EB: the thing the code made... TG: really powerful hammer EB: how do you know? EB: i thought you couldn't use hammers. TG: i cant TG: better be though TG: got it from hephaestus EB: who's that? TG: really tough to kill dude EB: you killed him for it? TG: nope EB: how'd you get it then? TG: shenanigans EB: ok.

...and we’re back to sprite evasiveness. Davesprite is being less than forthcoming here, although it’s less obvious than with Nannasprite because it superficially imitates John and Dave’s bantering.

CHEL: Now, this would be a good way of keeping us interested if we were eventually going to see how he did it, and also they have a time limit, so not going off into a long anecdote would be understandable. However, we’ll see how his evasiveness level proceeds in the future.

BRIGHT: Dream Rose and Dave see John using Rose’s alchemiter on Dream Dave’s computer. Rose wakes up.

FAILURE ARTIST: It is interesting how early Homestuck avoided having characters have face-to-face conversations. Would have been unique if it kept up throughout the entire comic.

BRIGHT: Back in the meteor, GA hassles TA into opening the viewport on her computer. This turns out to be as simple as clicking on the point in Rose’s timeline that she wants to see. No wonder TA was frustrated!

Of course, by this point, the only one left in the room is Rose, now awake, and the young salamander. Rose hurries to catch up with John, but he blasts off to explore before she can reach him, taking her mutated kitten with him.

CHEL: John renames Vodka Mutini to Dr Meowgon Spengler, and Rose renames Casey to Viceroy Bubbles von Salamancer. Interesting link to the themes of identities which are starting to crop up, though it’s not really a direct analogue. The animals are the same animals with different names; the alternate timeline characters have the same names and superficially the same identities, but are they really the same people after their new experiences?

BRIGHT: Back on Derse, Lil Cal inexplicably lands on a stray rocket board, catching the attention of AR.

You're not sure which laws are being broken, but it is probably a lot.

AR follows Cal to yet another transportaliser, and they both dematerialise.

We jump back to John, who spies a boat on one of the islands dotting LOLAR and lands to investigate. He follows hoofprints in the sand into a subterranean hallway filled with monsters. Fortunately his new hammer has time powers, which stun the monsters long enough for John to kill them. Further on, he finds the transportaliser Mom used. John, naturally, stands on it, and is transported to a meteor in the Veil.

Actually, it’s not just a meteor; it’s one of the laboratories where the Skaian troops are produced. John, along with the cat and Maplehoof, finds a bunch of chess guys being grown in glass jars on a giant podium. Most of them are the standard carapaces we’re familiar with, but there are also a few larger pieces, apparently based on knights and rooks. He also finds a JUNIOR ECTOBIOLOGIST’S LAB SUIT, and another of those strange house-shaped sets of monitors.

On Prospit, PM is preparing to board a shuttle to Skaia when a COURTYARD DROLL sneaks up behind her. Unaccountably, she fails to notice him, despite the fact that he’s wearing a hat larger than he is. CD successfully pickpockets the White Queen’s ring, and PM departs for Skaia, none the wiser.

CD radios the DRACONIAN DIGNITARY to report mission success, and is told that he doesn’t need to keep wearing his ridiculous outfit, per orders from Jack Noir, who is now going by the SOVEREIGN SLAYER. CD says he’d rather keep wearing the outfit. Apart from the sword-through-the-chest part, it is a very nice outfit, so I’m with CD on this one.

Catastrophe is averted by Jade delivering a flying kick to CD’s head and following up with a very efficient smackdown. Her robot body replicates this back on Earth, beating the stuffing out of her mummified grandfather. Jade retrieves the ring, and puts it on her fingers to remind herself to give it back to PM later. Unfortunately, this doesn’t cause Jade to sprout wings and tentacles. Seems the rings don’t work on humans like that.

Meanwhile, in a Timeless Expanse, a WARWEARY VILLEIN is getting tired of the battle between Derse and Prospit. The next animation is called “WV?: Rise Up” and it’s one of my favorites! When I first read Homestuck I had to watch it a few times before I understood what was going on, but it is a very neat video.

Watch on YouTube

The Battlefield has been prototyped three times, and is now spherical. The forces of Derse and Prospit meet. The usual carapaces with swords are backed up by larger pieces -- some of them very strange -- and by battleships clashing in the sky. In the chaos, WV, who is farming peacefully on Skaia, has his home and farm burned down. He raises a flag and addresses the troops of both armies. Elsewhere, Jack Noir appears, flying over the Battlefield in search of the Black King.

WV rallies the armies and tells them that their real enemies are the monarchs, who are responsible for the war. Encouraged, the Dersite and Prospitan troops band together and march on the Black King.

Meanwhile, PM has reached the White King and discovers that she no longer has the White Queen’s ring. The White King listens to her and hands over his scepter, which seems to represent Skaia and serves a similar function to the Queens’ rings. Behind a nearby hill, the Hegemonic Brute radios somebody to report the transfer.

As WV and the united armies reach the Black King, Jack arrives and slices the Black King’s scepter in half, nullifying its powers and turning the Black King back into a normal carapace. PM is attacked by HB, who knocks the White King’s scepter out of her hand; it falls down a waterfall. Jack Noir beheads the Black King and turns to WV, and the animation ends.

...okay, much as I love it, I have to admit there’s a glaring question here: Namely, the kids started playing the Game less than a day ago and Dave’s kernelsprite has been prototyped for a few hours max. The second prototyping made the Battlefield more complex and the third took it into its current form. That’s a very short time to instigate a cross-faction revolution, organise the troops, and march on a monarch. For that matter, how long has WV been a farmer? The inhabitants of Derse and Prospit have obviously been doing their thing all the kids’ lives, but the Battlefield was supposedly a static, rudimentary space until John entered the Medium, so what gives?

Then again, the timeline in the Medium is supposed to be distinct from the timeline on Earth, so maybe that explains it?

CHEL: An interesting point is also raised by WV’s revolution. Namely, Derse is presented as a kingdom of darkness and evil by the game, while Prospit is presented as good. However, while PM is good, WV and AR are demonstrably not bad people either. In this animation, we see carapaces of both sides apparently don’t want to be involved in the war and are willing to rise up against the Black King. The rank-and-file carapaces on both sides, it seems, are decent people who are just following orders. (Not to mention very cute.) Jack Noir and his gang are nasty pieces of work, except CD who’s also just kind of going along with it, but there’s nothing saying white carapaces couldn’t also be… And is that a Problematykks point, presenting the black-coloured people as bad and the white-coloured ones as good? I know they’re chess pieces, but still.

This raises the question, however, what’s Derse’s motive? Are its rulers and archagents simply destroying for the evulz? I wonder. I also wonder how much Skaia itself is involved in this and how aware it is. Skaia is called the crucible of creation, and it’s responsible for the creation of the carapaces too. References are made to it “seeing” and “knowing”; it’s quite possibly sentient, though maybe not sapient. On top of that, SBurb is specifically a game, and a game needs an objective, and an adventure-type game needs enemies. Derse, it seems likely, was created and presented the way it is in order to give the players something to battle against even if its people don’t want to be their enemies. No wonder WV’s pissed!

BRIGHT: Yup. Hmm, thinking about it...the imps and other enemies we saw attacking John’s house early on were obviously Dersite, but the ones we’ve seen in Rose’s seem to be Prospitian, if anything? The colour scheme looks that way, at least. But Nanna said earlier that Derse was the enemy, nothing about Prospit.

Perhaps it has something to do with Rose being a Derse dreamer, while John is a Prospit dreamer? But in that case I’d have expected it to come up in the text. Instead it just goes unremarked.

Rose goes on a massive alchemising spree and ends up creating the Thorns of Oglogoth, a pair of wands.

The needles seem to shiver with the dark desires of THE DEEP ONE. Any sane adventurer would cast these instruments of the occult into the FURTHEST RING and forget they ever existed.

Instead of throwing the wands away, Rose takes on the enemies camping all over her house, with style.

Meanwhile, Dave goes on another, less visibly productive alchemising spree.

GET ON WITH IT!: 18

FAILURE ARTIST: The SBaHJifier could be considered productive in that it provides foreshadowing cartoons. Wish Dave’s Brain in a Jar came up again.

BRIGHT: Once he’s done creating smuppet variations to disturb the monsters encroaching on his house, he sits down to take a look at those two journals he copied from Rose earlier. One of them is called ‘MEOW’, and is literally just those same four letters, repeated over and over in different orders. The second is ‘Complacency of the Learned’.

There is no way to adequately recap the beauty of ‘Complacency of the Learned’, so we’re just going to show the whole thing:

Frigglish bothered his beard, as if unkinking a hitch in a long silk windsock. A more pedestrian audience would parse the exhibit as nervous compulsion. Behavior to petition contempt among the reasonable. He was however not surrounded by the reasonable, but the wise, a distinction in men that would forever be the difference in history's garland of treasured follies. As a matter of fact, his cadre of fellow wizards were all putting similar moves on their beards as well. The practice would evince thoughtfulness - sagacity, even - if they didn't do it all the time. Standing in line at the bank. Shooing squirrels from bird feeders. Few occasions were safe. Zazzerpan inspected the clue. A single piece of evidence cradled in his coriaceous old man palms. It was a human bone, not striking in the tale it told alone so much as that told by the thousands like it festooning the marshy soil of the mass grave. The grisly expanse bore the texture of a decadent dessert, like one of Smarny's formidable custard trifles wobbled out on wheels for the holidays, to the dismay of a small nation. "You're certain of this?" asked Frigglish. Despite what he was doing with his beard, he was, in fact, immersed in meaningful contemplation. "I am afraid I am becoming more so with each terrible tick groused by that gaudy timepiece slung around your neck." In case it wasn't clear, Frigglish wore a clock Zazzerpan didn't care for. It was magic. "The massacre of Syrs Gnelph was not as written." "What has you convinced it was the hand of our disciples in this blackness?" Executus chimed in. "I believe... I..." a fat face stammered, eyes darting with the guilt of a thief in the throes of an unraveling alibi. "I can summon a... more pressing line of inquiry..." No, Smarny. Nobody was in the mood for a sticky bundt loaf just now. Zazzerpan's ears fell insubstantial to any line of inquiry, pastry-oriented or otherwise. His abstruse contour carved a pondering shape in the fog carpeting centuries-dead. His eleven contemporaries too embraced the muted consternation of their great Predicant Scholar. Few wizards kept sharper adumbratives or read them with such lucidity. When Zazzerpan treated men with silence it was seldom unrepaid by the wise and reasonable alike. It was harrowing to entertain. Zazzerpan the Learned's storied Complacency of Wizards was marked for grander descendence. Disciples hand-picked, vetted by Ockite the Bonafide and tested by Gastrell the Munificent. The twelve sweetest, most studious children a pair of elderly eyes could give their sparkle. Not the ragged guttersnipe so oft-harvested by the common Obscenity, those vituperative little beggars with hearts to corrupt as dropped bananas brown. That these chosen youngsters would turn was not merely unthinkable, but something of a roundhouse to the temporal bones of the Upper Indifference's high chamber of Softskulled Prophets. His wisdom-savaged brow pruned further with recount of his many lessons to wouldbe successors. Lessons to advance humanity's elucidation and prosperity, an outcome this bleak trail now painfully obviated. There were few puzzles The Learned could not suspend and dissect in the recondite manifold beneath his extremely expensive pointy hat. Daring to pitch his cherished pupils in with the foul melange of history's rogues, the heretofore abstract scourge that built up civilizations with ungodly magic and tore them down with joyful malice, would prove an intellectual trespass to make his calcium-deficient bones quake. And more daring yet was the only question that now mattered. Could a bunch of bearded, scraggly old men in preposterous outfits hunt them down? He didn't have an answer. Only a simple observation so blunt and uncharacteristically jejune for the lauded sage it was breathtaking in its selfevidency. "We're going to need more wands." (Wow. Think of something better.)

Wow.

Dave is understandably intimidated by this, and decides to stop reading for now. He puts his copy of the SBURB Beta in the notebook to act as a bookmark, and leaves both books in his room for later.

Then he checks in on Rose, who is burning her version of the MEOW book.

CHEL: Dave inquires about the wizard story.

TG: i thought you hated wizards TG: whats the deal with that TT: I like wizards. TT: What I don't like is my mother's obsession with feigning interest in them to antagonize me. TG: oh man thats so messed up TG: that you think that TG: she probably digs wizards for real just like you and youre blowing shit out of proportion like pretty much always

Once again, we see exactly how fucked-up Rose’s relationship with her mother is. Mom Lalonde has somehow managed to raise a child in such a way that Rose interprets everything her mother does as an attempt to mock and provoke her.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 16

TIER: The Lalondes are pretty damn dysfunctional as a family unit, and considering the zany nature of early Homestuck and its world's weird logic that is saying something indeed.

CHEL: As for the MEOW book, it turns out the gods from the Furthest Ring informed Rose while she was sleeping that the book’s contents are highly dangerous and must be destroyed. Said gods dwell in the sky above Derse; Dave’s never heard or seen them, but Rose points out his dreamself is always wearing shades, listening to music, and distracted by Cal.

TT: You're the prince of the moon. TG: ........ TT: I'm sure they've been meaning to seek a royal audience. TG: ..........................

Davesprite chats to Rose next. She protests at being spied on by two people, but Davesprite asks her why she burned the codebook. She didn’t need to in the future, but according to her future memories of the gods absorbed from her future dreamself, Davesprite appeared to make it relevant by traveling to the past. A sinister and familiar face watches through Dave’s window, soon proving to be the Draconian Dignitary, while Dave and Davesprite awkwardly spout elaborate mixed metaphors about how safe they are, until Dave, embarrassed, says "so i guess ill go back down and burn that book".

As any savvy reader could guess, he’s too late. The prompt suggests that he should go back in time to stop the books from being stolen, but, well...

It looks like you already tried that. GORE GALORE: 10

Dave looks completely undisturbed, but whether he is undisturbed is a different matter. He flings the corpse out the window into the lava, claiming it would freak Jade out.

John, in the lab, presses a button, causing the first monitor to depict his town, shortly before his birth. There is a Betty Crocker factory and a shopping mall, neither of which are in the town now. Zooming in locks a target over Nanna Egbert, who is taking a stroll with Dad. A meteor looms; this looks like it’s going to go very badly, considering the target lock, but it hits the factory instead. When John presses the glowing blue button, a PARADOX GHOST IMPRINT of Nanna is created; refer back to Rose’s experimentation in the lab and the green slime blobs. This time, the slime is sucked into a tube.

The next monitor does something similar with Grandpa Harley on his ship, and the next the same with Bro Strider, who stands over a meteor crater on an unseasonably warm day; something of an understatement, as the sky is the same lurid red and the sun the same glowing spiral that they were during the Strider bros’ battle even though it’s December. Bro is, regardless, prepared for the occasion with a small pair of outrageously awesome shades. What he needs these for will soon be revealed.

The fourth monitor goes back to John’s home town, a gigantic crater where the factory once was. In the shopping mall, Dad Egbert stands outside a joke shop, while Nanna apparently remains inside, busying herself with a tall bookshelf, a ladder, and a rather hefty unabridged joke book.

Mom Lalonde, clutching the infant Rose and wearing a rather snazzy long Jaspersprite-pink scarf, has come to town to study the meteor impact at the request of Grandpa Harley while he explores elsewhere. Unfortunately, now is the time a meteor chooses to strike Nanna’s location, destroying the shop.

An old mother lost today, but a new son gained.

Wait for it.

Mom Lalonde flees, dropping her scarf, which Dad Egbert picks up and slightly creepily sniffs. The monitor continues tracking her, and John captures her paradox imprint too, starting the machines whirring away...

Four babies abruptly appear on the pad, already diapered and bespectacled and old enough to sit up unaided. Convenient, no?

When the kitten jumps on a green button, the slime is blended in pairs; Nanna’s and Grandpa’s, and Mom’s and Bro’s. More blinking lights ensue, and another four extremely familiar-looking babies appear.

BRIGHT: I will say this: These kids are adorable.

While babies clamber over him, John vaults up his echeladder to the rank of Ectobiolobabysitter, acquiring one million Boondollars in the process. This automatically converts itself to a Boonbuck, the weight of which smashes his Porkhollow.

Finding out just what is going on here will have to wait, as the comic takes a brief detour to a battleship navigating the Medium nearby. There’s someone very familiar at the wheel…

An old man has much to do before he returns to Earth, dies, gets stuffed by his adopted-yet-biological daughter-slash-grand-daughter, and stuck in front of a fireplace.

Also aboard the ship are Dad Egbert and Mom Lalonde. Dad returns Mom’s scarf, and the two of them hold hands as Grandpa Harley pilots the ship towards Skaia.

We return to the lab, where John has his hands full with the babies. One of them has managed to break one of the paradox slime jars from earlier, but appears uninjured. Also, CG’s trolling him again.

CHEL: CG makes mention of the ULTIMATE RIDDLE, but John is confused because CG hasn’t told him about that yet. He uses an ableist description in explaining.

CG: SEE I KIND OF PAINTED MYSELF INTO A CORNER. CG: I STARTED TROLLING YOU AT THE END, JUST BEFORE THE RIFT. CG: AND THEN JUMPED BACK A LITTLE. CG: AND NOW I GUESS I'VE BECOME RAILROADED INTO WORKING BACKWARDS HERE. CG: UNLESS I WANT TO DO THE SORT OF DUMB SCHIZOPHRENIC HOPPING AROUND LIKE THE OTHERS. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 18

… why wouldn’t you just hop right back to the start and work in a linear fashion from there?

TIER: Because CG excels at making things complicated for himself and is fundamentally rather stubborn and set in his ways/actions. Like he's made his bed, he's gonna lie in it.

CHEL: Anyway, CG banters with John for a bit, and then informs him that he (John) has arrived in the Veil and created infant versions of the players and their guardians.

EB: so they are like cloned copies of us? CG: NO. CG: THEY ARE LITERALLY YOU AND YOUR GUARDIANS. CG: PARADOX CLONES.

A paradox clone, we are informed, is A CORRECTLY CLONED DUPLICATE THAT WILL INEVITABLY GO BACK IN TIME AND BECOME THE ORIGINAL TARGET THAT WAS CLONED. The game worlds contain many clues hinting at the ultimate destiny of the players to create their own selves through the game, and the only way things could possibly go involved the players creating themselves, or else the game session would never happen.

CG: WHICH IS ESPECIALLY PATHETIC SINCE PARADOX SPACE APPARENTLY WENT TO ALL THIS TROUBLE TO MAKE YOU JUST TO HAVE YOU FAIL AND DIE. CG: REALLY THERE'S NOTHING MORE TRAGIC THAN THESE NULL SESSIONS FULL OF KIDS ENTERING THE GAME AND FULFILLING SOME COSMIC DESTINY SHIT JUST TO GET WIPED OUT AND LEAVE BEHIND AN EMPTY POINTLESS INCIPISPHERE FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Tragic and completely unnecessary, when there are millions of perfectly good humans already in existence who could just as easily create winning game sessions without this aspect of it. Here we see another aspect of Homestuck which hasn’t come up quite so clearly before; an extremely weird take on determinism. I’m not sure if this is meant as a parody of Chosen One plotlines or if Hussie just thought it sounded cool, but it’s uncomfortable. As it turns out, only clones created by SBurb have a hope in hell of winning the game, and even they fail most of the time. Regular people who enter the game to save themselves from the destruction of the planet will fail and die there, which honestly is not really selling this game as a good thing, since it’s what causes the destruction of the planet in the first place. I’ve had actual, legitimate, honest-to-God nightmares about this aspect of SBurb, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think many fans wish to play SBurb. There’s lots of fan sessions and fake GameFAQs and custom Lands. Yet in reality SBurb is not a fun time. This is cosmic horror. I think Hussie is sometimes playing it for horror and sometimes he ignores the implications.

Then again, some people want to live on the troll planet, which is straight-up dystopia.

CHEL: Again, it isn’t really clear what he’s going for. Is it supposed to be terrifying or did he just think it would be clever? Does even Hussie know what he was going for? While it’s not exactly a joke, I think it’s worth another point here:

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 17

It might be a joke. As I said, I could see it as a parody of or playing with the Chosen One narrative. In this case, literally only the chosen ones have any hope, for reasons that are not down to any merit of their own. But if it is, there isn’t really much made of it.

Of course, the reasons people want to live on the troll planet are reasonable when taken alone, but a) contradicted every alternate scene and b) not a fair trade for everything else that’s going on there. But we’ll get to that when we actually see it. And I admit, SBurb powers would be fun, but not worth the loss of my entire species.

TIER: To me at least it's fun in the same way wondering how I'd fare as a wizard during Harry Potter's years at Hogwarts, or a ninja in Naruto is. Fundamentally you'd rather want to never encounter this sorta stuff even if you get some swanky I guess powers, but the mental exercise of it is quite honestly, really fun. The game has quite a lot of interesting things to poke around with, from lands to quests to what your co-players are up to. And I'm def guilty of playing trollsona games, because the world presented is just really fascinating in its gruesome glory.

Never want to have to actually go through it, Lord knows I'd be dead within the first ten minutes if I'm super lucky, but stories about it are pretty neat.

CHEL: That’s true, but the paradox clones thing seems almost to be taunting us for having that mentality. We can pretend we’d be the super-smart strong competent ones who make it, but in this universe if we demonstrably have parents we’re doomed to die for nothing and there’s nothing we can do about it.

BRIGHT: Another fun thing about this is that it fundamentally isolates the players from the rest of humanity. If you think about it, unless they have children with a non-player, they are completely unrelated to anyone else on Earth.

CHEL: And they can’t have kids with a non-player unless something thoroughly horrible happened, because as is stated later SBurb specifically takes its players away and destroys their planet around the point of their puberty.

BRIGHT: Although I think John is actually related to Dad — as far as we’re told, Dad is in fact Nanna’s biological son, which makes him genetically John’s half-brother.

They also miss out on (going by how active the babies are) the first couple of years of life. Those two years are crucial in terms of brain development. SBURB probably controls for that, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there were negative consequences.

Oh, and if you’re a player, your existence means your civilisation is doomed. Lovely!

CHEL: And do the players ever feel any guilt or conflict over this? Do they hell. It doesn’t even occur to them, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t occur to Hussie either.

TIER: Welcome to the hell game that is SBURB; it's fundamentally pretty fucked up! It runs on a hellish scale of "things have already been predetermined" and I am Big Fear™.

CHEL: That’ll come up later, too, but there it’s obviously intentional nightmare fuel, and not at all a bad use of time travel as a story device.

CG, meanwhile, explains that he was the one to create his session’s players. With twelve of them it was a bit more complicated, but troll lineages are complicated anyway, and we’ll find out how later.

The babies are still getting all over the lab. Note that they're repeatedly referred to as "little pink monkeys". Then again, calling a non-white child a monkey really wouldn't be good.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 18

John’s infant self has latched onto the Sassacre book, while his infant Nanna is sitting in Dad Egbert’s old hat. Baby Bro is napping in the lap of Lil Cal; that baby’s braver than I am, I can tell you that. Baby Dave is sitting on Maplehoof, and baby Grandpa has found a pair of pistols. John does not take them away from him, or even seem to notice he has them.

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 7

BRIGHT: Earlier baby Bro broke one of the paradox slime cylinders and was sitting in it. John is pretty astoundingly bad at keeping babies away from obvious hazards.

TIER: That or the equipment is probably not sturdy enough to make it past an inspection into faulty management.

CHEL: But then he’s distracted by CG trolling him again, at least this time moving forward in time from the last conversation.

CG, like GA, apparently fails to grasp sarcasm...

EB: we had this great dare going. EB: to see who could be the least helpful and informative. EB: and you totally lost, dude! EB: you were hella helpful. CG: I WAS OBVIOUSLY JUST SPITING YOUR STUPID POINTLESS HUMAN DARE. [...] CG: ANYWAY, HOW COULD WE HAVE MADE A DARE IF I'M MOVING BACKWARDS ON YOUR TIMELINE.

… which is weird because moments later he uses it himself.

EB: do you even have elves? CG: YES, LET'S COMPARE WHICH FANTASY CREATURES THAT DON'T EXIST WE BOTH DO OR DON'T NOT HAVE. CG: WHAT A GREAT FUCKING IDEA, JOHN!

Hussie seems to waver back and forth a lot on whether trolls get sarcasm or not, in general. Since he’s contradicting himself with troll worldbuilding, that’s a point.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 19

Banter aside, he informs John that the babies are sent to Earth via meteors during the Reckoning.

BRIGHT: How do they survive the impact? Some of those meteor strikes destroy buildings. Those are some ridiculously resilient kids.

CHEL: Cut to AR, who is still having fun on the rocketboard, until he runs into a frog temple atop a meteor. This is apparently horrifying and illegal by his standards.

You are going to throw whoever is responsible into the slammer. You always call jail the slammer when you are extra angry at crimes.

Inside, he finds an empty time capsule, like Jade’s, some complicated machinery, and a monitor screen showing a greyscale house with a very familiar bespectacled female infant and dirty old hat in it. The year depicted, says the monitor, is 1910. Enter none other than Colonel Sassacre himself.

Eight days prior, the orphan girl was taken in by an aristocratic southern colonel and legendary humorist. He recovered the young lady from a crater where a bakery once stood, operated by the man's wife, a notable baked goods baroness.

An explosion outside leads them both to a crater, where once stood the doghouse of the colonel’s pet, Halley, but before the Colonel can investigate further he’s shot through the heart.

This is exactly why babies should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols.

BRIGHT: I remain baffled as to how Baby Grandpa can even lift those things, let alone pull the triggers.

CHEL: Baby Grandpa crawls from the crater, and Halley the dog turns out to be alive.

The young boy has difficulty pronouncing the name though. Sounds more like "Harley" when he says it.

How does he know it? The colonel died before he even noticed the baby was there. Is baby Nanna speaking well enough to tell him yet? I guess he could be told later, as Sassacre wasn’t in fact their only sapient guardian...

Thirteen years later, the boy develops a taste for adventure. He and his guardian bid farewell. His sister is sad. She will be left all alone with the wicked pastry baroness. She can handle it, he tells her. He believes in her.

It isn’t clear why she didn’t go with him, or leave under her own power. They don’t seem to be imprisoned, as the panel depicts them outside on grass with no restraints or guards over them, so it’s not a matter of only one of them being able to get out. That’s a point for Nanna not trying and a point for Grandpa not bringing her:

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 9

That dog is also remarkably lively, considering it, unlike Bec, is an entirely normal dog, it was an adult thirteen years previously, and it’s somehow supporting the weight of an entire teenager on its back (again, please don’t try this at home, you can break the dog’s spine that way).

FAILURE ARTIST: As we’ve said, Colonel Sassacre is a thinly-veiled Mark Twain expy. The real Mark Twain died in 1910 at the same time Halley’s Comet was in the sky. It’s a cute historical gag having him be literally killed by a comet but it does muck up the timeline. Nanna must have been a senior citizen when Dad was born. Perhaps he’s adopted?

CHEL: The other option is that Dad is a senior citizen now, but surely John would have wondered why his dad is so ridiculously old. I think it’s just that thing in mainstream comics and cartoons where adults are split into Old and Not Old, and the parents are normal ages for parents but the grandparents would have to be in their hundreds going by the gags. See how Scrooge McDuck in the DuckTales reboot is over a hundred and forty years old yet his sister’s son is still a youngish adult.

AR notes that the appearifier is centred over Halley the dog, but hears someone coming. It proves to be the Draconian Dignitary. AR hides and watches, noting that DD is carrying Rose’s notebooks and Dave’s beta envelopes. DD keeps the MEOW book, but throws away the other items. Complacency of the Learned lands on the floor, and the envelopes land in the time capsule, which sets to bloom in four hundred and thirteen million years.

Meanwhile, John talks to CG while infant Mom Lalonde pets the mutant kitten. John asks if there’s any way to delay the Reckoning, but nope; CG warns him that the smallest meteors will start going in only a few minutes.

EB: ok, well you keep saying how doomed we are and how all this bad stuff happens sooner, but you never say why! EB: what happens in our game that's different from yours that makes things go so badly? CG: JACK NOIR.

The Jack Noir from the trolls’ game session allied with them and helped them dethrone and exile the Black Queen, while the one from the humans’ session, as you may recall, killed the Black Monarchs and gained their powers, and is currently rampaging through the Incipisphere. John asks if it’s the same Jack Noir, but CG explains.

CG: SO LET'S SAY YOU PLAY YOUR BANDICOOT AND I PLAY MY BANDICOOT. CG: THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME BANDICOOT, SAME APPEARANCE AND DESIGN AND BEHAVIORS. CG: BUT THEY ARE STILL COMPLETELY SEPARATE BANDICOOTS ON SEPARATE SCREENS. CG: SO WE BOTH HAVE OUR OWN ASS BANDICOOTS TO OURSELVES, THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT. CG: OUR JACKS ARE THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT TOO. CG: SAME GUY, DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES AND OUTCOMES. CG: OUR JACK TRUMPED THE QUEEN, BUT GOT NO FURTHER. CG: YOUR JACK GOT THE BEST OF BOTH OF THEM, AND IS NOW SOMETHING HIGHER THAN A QUEEN OR A KING… EB: like an ace? CG: SURE OK.

The trolls don’t know what went so differently to cause the two Jacks to behave so differently, but CG doesn’t think it matters by now. John interrupts him, deciding to do yet another Con Air ending re-enactment.

Watch on YouTube

Recap: montage of Con Air posters and images to the tune of “How Do I Live Without You”. John hands the thoroughly disgusting Con Air bunny to the protesting baby Rose, while CG watches huffily on his monitor. Jade demands a toy too, so John hands her the bunny he received from Rose in an excessively dramatic fashion. CG frustratedly hits himself in the head. In scribbly crayon-like drawings, Casey the salamander performs a drum solo with glowing blue mushrooms for drums and the Con Air plane crashes. More Con Air imagery, John embraces baby Jade and the baby Lalondes while sobbing; GC points and laughs at him over CG’s shoulder and they have a slapfight. John imagines himself in Nic Cage’s iconic wifebeater and mullet and performs an air guitar solo.

TIER: Lemme tell ya, as someone who's only experience with this darn movie is whatever pops up courtesy of John this sequence is just a trip and a half. Possibly a higher number.

CHEL: Cut to end-of-act curtains; they open on the next page, declaring a PSYCHE; there are more pages to go.

Cut to Dave’s hands, covered in the dead Dave’s blood. I… guess he’s supposed to be staring at them in shock? It’s impossible to tell through his shades. For all I know he could be worried about the cleanup. GC trolls him and they banter creepily, with her demanding to know what his blood smells like and him taunting her about her blindness.

TG: just him and me TG: havin a see party TG: like a couple of eagle eyed bros peepin shit up into the wee hours GC: D4V3 GC: C4N 1 COM3 TO YOUR S33 P4RTY? TG: i guess but youll have to be careful not to stumble around bumping into all the gorgeous masterpieces hanging around everywhere TG: god so beautiful to look at with my perfect eyesight GC: C4N 1 L1CK TH3 P41NT1NGS? TG: yeah thats fine

Neither of them seems to take it particularly hard. If there was narrative around the dialogue, I think we’d get a better grasp of how Dave feels. Lacking much body language or punctuation, tone is a bit tricky to get.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s a character later who gets a lot of grief for insulting her blindness but reading what John, Dave, and CG say I don’t know how that character could be worse.

CHEL: AT, meanwhile, is trolling Jade, rather politely. He even takes time to ask if she’s having a good nap. She’s worried about John’s dreamself not waking, and AT scrolls into his view of the future timeline, but can’t find John awake, nor see into his dreams. Jade, however, will wake up soon, and she thanks him for this report. Unfortunately, when Jade wakes up she will be in danger, and AT can’t see any further. He tells her CG wants to talk to her about her exploding robot. He can’t see whether it exploded or not because there are a lot of explosions, but asking future Jade shows it did, and that she declared CG to be a pretty nice guy, which surprises AT since he doesn’t think CG is particularly nice. Jade says she thinks AT is nice too, and asks why he’s the only one who talks to her while she’s asleep.

AT: bECAUSE YOU HAVE A ROBOT, tO LET YOU SAY THINGS THAT HAPPEN, oN PROSPIT, AT: aND i'M CURIOUS, AT: bECAUSE THE ONLY TIME i EVER HAD FUN PLAYING THIS GAME WAS WHEN i WAS ASLEEP, AT: bUT NOW ALL OUR DREAM SELVES ARE DEAD, AT: }:'(

AT happily remembers his own time on Prospit, and we cut back to Rose, being trolled by GA despite the fact that Rose is obviously in the middle of an epic magic battle. The conversation is understandably chilly, and GA still hasn’t figured out that “Dumb Rose” as opposed to “Smart Rose” was John rather than a bizarre roleplaying scenario.

GC continues trolling Dave. He asks her how she operates a computer without sight.

GC: 1M SORRY D4V3 TH4T YOU W1LL N3V3R 3XP3R13NC3 TH3 S3NSORY BOUQU3T TH4T 1 3NJOY 3V3RY D4Y GC: TH4T 1 3NSCONC3 MYS3LF 1N L1K3 4 W4RM 4ND COMFY B4THROB3 M4D3 OF FL4VOR 4ND M3LODY TG: oh ok TG: so the dumbest and most far fetched explanation imaginable ok got it

Yes, pretty much. This brings me to a Problematykks point; GC is supposed to be blind, but it really doesn’t seem to affect her in any way at all. Its workaround is ridiculously convenient and effective, and while I’m not blind myself, I know many people with physical disabilities hate it when fiction does this. I know I would be pissed off if a piece of fiction showed an easy and convenient way to not have autism anymore. (Horrible, horrible memories of someone back in the days of Livejournal’s Fanficrants of a fic in which autism was somehow cured by having a foursome. I don’t remember how that was supposed to work.) “She’s a space alien” only goes so far in explaining it. Why even bother making her blind if it’s not going to affect her in any way?

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 19

FAILURE ARTIST: She’s the least blind blind person in media. Characters like Daredevil from Marvel Comics and Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender have a Disability Superpower but at the end of the day they still can’t do things like read printed text. GC has no disadvantages.

BRIGHT: She can apparently smell and taste photons.

Which raises the question why none of the other trolls ever show a heightened sense of smell or taste. If GC can learn to interpret smells as colours, her sense of smell must have been that strong all along, and there’s no indication in the text that she’s biologically more sensitive than her companions. Trolls must be better at following a trail than bloodhounds.

CHEL: Synaesthesia which makes one strongly associate colours with smells is a thing, and synaesthesia is generally the word the fandom uses to explain Terezi’s ability, but you still have to actually see the colours for that to work. If she was only mostly blind and was picking up blurry colour patches, I could buy it (and that is how the fandom tends to do it with human AUs), but not if she’s supposed to be completely blind, and she still wouldn’t be able to read text that way.

BRIGHT: Time for another animation, and for a hop back into the recent past.

Watch on YouTube

As the meteor locked onto Dave’s house approaches, Dave climbs up the tower to retrieve his cruxite egg from the nest his sprite made. Unfortunately the sprite attacks him, knocking him and the egg off the tower. Bro Strider appears on top of the approaching meteor and slices it in half with his katana; the two halves are diverted by the blow and strike different areas of the city. Dave’s fall is broken by a rocket board, which is presumably how Bro got up to the meteor in the first place. (How did he manage to aim it to intercept Dave’s fall? Wouldn’t it take longer to get from the meteor to Dave than it takes for Dave to fall from the top of the tower to the roof of the building? We shall never know.) The egg hatches, and Dave is transported into the Medium. There’s no sign of what happens to Bro.

CHEL: Yet more cartoon physics around the Strider bros.

BRIGHT: I don’t know if we mentioned this earlier, but although Dave and Bro live in an apartment block that presumably housed multiple people, only Dave’s apartment gets transported into the Medium. Everyone else in the complex is left to die on Earth. SBURB is sociopathic.

Elsewhere in the Medium, back in the present, Grandpa’s ship is approaching Skaia, with Mom Lalonde and Dad Egbert on board.

Down on Skaia, Jack Noir draws his sword and slaughters the army WV raised to march on the Black King. WV cowers, but Jack leaves him alive. He then uses the Black Queen’s ring to send some sort of giant red tentacle attack through Skaia, slaughtering Dersite and Prospitian forces indiscriminately.

CHEL: Are they tentacles? I always thought of them as some sort of lightning lasers.

BRIGHT: That makes a lot more sense!

In the ectobiology lab, as the clock ticks down to the Reckoning, the babies are teleported to asteroids around the lab. There must be an air supply in this asteroid belt — characters are consistently shown as being able to survive outside.

CHEL: Maybe it’s just the players’ natural badassery. Batman Can Breathe In Space.

BRIGHT: On Skaia, CD makes his way through Jack’s slaughter fest, which has now ravaged a sizeable chunk of planet, and hands him the White King’s sceptre. Jack raises the sceptre and initiates the Reckoning. The meteorites start to vanish into Skaia’s defence portals. In the frog temple, DD somehow combines the MEOW genetic code with a paradox clone of Halley, creating Jade’s guardian Bec. Bec’s creation damages the laboratory equipment in the temple.

Cut to Jade, who is snoozing peacefully while her dream self explores Prospit. She looks up at Skaia, to see Jack’s shadow passing in front of it. Jack launches his tentacle attack on Prospit, slaughtering the inhabitants, then severs the chain attaching Prospit’s moon to the planet. The moon begins falling towards Skaia.

Jack then flies to LOHAC, where he encounters Bro Strider on one of the turntable mesas. Unexpectedly, Bro is able to give Jack an even fight. After a few exchanges, he drives his katana into the mesa; some sort of golden light emanates from the crack, and Bro absconds.

Wait, how did Bro get onto LOHAC? How did he survive the meteor impacts?

TIER: The ol' "rule of cool". As long as something is sufficiently "absolutely kickass!!" the rules of reality and physics can go sit on the bleachers twiddling their thumbs for all they fucking matter. There's a reason early fandom pinned down Bro as an unorthodox but immensely cool older brother type guy for so long. Because with what little information was available before we got bludgeoned with "No actually he was the absolute fucking worst thing to happen to Dave and fucked him up for life" that was the general impression he gave off.

CHEL: This and the meteor splitting are yet more reason not to take Bro’s treatment of Dave seriously; this is a world in which ludicrous animesque badassery rules the day, and physically impossible feats of battle occur every five minutes. Forcing a child to go through extensive and excessive sword training in brutal heat in a precarious place, possibly every day, ought by rights to be normal there, and I can’t believe he was physically hurt by swordfighting when he survived a meteor collision as an infant. Besides, training that extensive quite possibly could be the only thing that would keep Dave alive in these circumstances.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 18

BRIGHT: There’s a random Squiddles interlude, and then we return to Skaia.

John’s unconscious dream self has fallen out of Prospit’s moon as it plummets towards Skaia. Jade tries shaking him awake, and then slaps him, but to no avail. At the last moment, she throws him out of the path of the moon, and her dream self is then killed when it lands on her. Back on Earth, her dreambot overloads and explodes.

CHEL: Taking her tower room with it; Jade’s sleeping body plummets towards the earth.

BRIGHT: The moon leaves a gigantic crater in Skaia. John’s now-conscious dreamself hovers above it.

The babies vanish through the defence portals to Earth.

CHEL: Each takes an item with them. John takes the Sassacre book, Rose the first Con Air bunny, Dave rides Maplehoof, Jade takes the bunny Rose gave to John (which is in fact the Con Air bunny plus several years and repairs), Nanna sits inside Dad’s old hat, Mom takes the mutant kitten, Bro sleeps in the lap of Li’l Cal, and Grandpa dual wields the flintlock pistols he should not be allowed.

BRIGHT: Dave and Rose reach the Gates above their houses and set out to explore their Lands. We close on an eerie shot of Bec outside the frog temple on Jade’s island at night.

CHEL: Jade’s tower room is blown to bits, and a truly enormous meteor hovers over the scene.

Curtains close. End of Act 4. Before Act 5, we receive a message from Rose, via her GameFAQ.

[ZZZZ] Rose: Egress. This is my final entry. My co-players and I have made every earnest attempt, with occasional relapse, to play this game the right way.

Really? You haven’t been in the game for more than a couple of hours and Jade still isn’t in at all! Maybe consider that the fact that not all your players are in the game yet when you wonder why it isn’t working?

I have been meticulous in documenting the process to help our peers and successors through the trials should we fail. In my hubris I believed these classes were relegated to the Earth-bound, but in even this quaint supposition I was in error. Our otherworldly antagonists have assured us of our inevitable failure repeatedly, while the gods whisper corroboration in my sleep. I believe them now. I just blew up my first gate. I’m not sure why I did it, really. I am not playing by the rules anymore. I will fly around this candy-coated rock and comb the white sand until I find answers. No one can tell me our fate can’t be repaired. We’ve come too far. I jumped out of the way of a burning fucking tree, for God’s sake.

I can see her point. The game is horrible and should be stopped. On the other hand, I’d at least attempt to spend more than one day investigating it before trying to break it. Randomly destroying shit is more likely to make things much worse than anything else.

I have used a spell to rip this walkthrough from Earth’s decaying network, and sealed it in one of the servers floating in the Furthest Ring. The gods may disperse the signal throughout the cosmos as they wish. Perhaps it will be of use to past or future species who like us have been ensnared by Skaia’s malevolent tendrils. In case it wasn’t clear, magic is real. Pardon my egress. You’re on your own now.

This note is signed with a glowing multicoloured “RL” and revealed to be emitted from a purple box with an aerial, floating in space. It seems that’s how their internet’s still working.

FAILURE ARTIST: The internet seems to be a magical dimension in Homestuck and not something that’s part of physical infrastructure.

CHEL: Hours in the future, WV lands in the desert remains of Earth, wrapped up in John’s old ghost-patterned bedsheet, which is still white. A villein becomes a vagabond. In his memory, he tears up an effigy of Jack Noir… where’d he get it? Did the game create it for some reason? Anyway, John’s blanket falls on him from the sky as Prospit plummets; WV calls it a RAG OF SOULS. Adorably melodramatic.

John’s awoken dreamself gazes sadly at Jade’s deceased one, which for some reason isn’t actually under the rubble of Prospit and appears to still be three-dimensional. There’s no excessive blood splatter like with the dead Dave, which is good, not too over the top. He retrieves the Queen’s ring from her hand. Was he told at any point that it’s important? Because if he doesn’t know, I’m not sure robbing the dead is very heroic. He sees an image of himself flying over the battlefield in a large cloud above him; in the vision he’s near a castle, so he goes to seek it out.

On Earth, PM wraps herself up in an old Prospit banner. A mistress becomes a mendicant. In her memories, she has beheaded the Hegemonic Brute and is arranging a meeting with Jack Noir. He arrives and she presents the crowns; smirking evilly, he honours their bargain, and the Courtyard Droll brings her the green parcel. She brings it to the castle from John’s vision as he arrives there, hands over the box, and angrily walks away.

FAILURE ARTIST: She’s Honor Before Reason (maybe she’s programmed that way) but she has the right reaction. This is a lot to go through to deliver a package.

CHEL: Inside the box is a letter from Jade’s unknown pen pal, who writes in dark green and a distinctive jolly-hockey-sticks dialect, with a tendency to ramble off on tangents about movies and wrestling.

Anyway you should listen to jade from here on out john because she sure seems to know whats best for you. Whatever your adventure throws at you im sure shell tell you you can handle it. She believes in you.

And another letter from Jade.

even though its super late and you probably went through a lot of trouble to get it, i really hope this present cheers you up! you looked so sad while you were reading my letter. um... which is to say, the one you are reading now.

She explains that in her dreams she goes to Prospit and John’s sleeping dream self is there, and that’s where she gets her visions. She hopes he likes his present, and says her penpal is fun…

john i am REALLY looking forward to seeing you when you wake up!!!!! its been nice playing with my prospitian friends and all, but also kind of lonely knowing you were in the other tower sleeping and having lousy dreams. :( im not sure where i am when you are reading this but im sure ill make it down to where you are soon! (jeez how did you get down there??? oh well ill find out) i cant wait to fly around the moon with you and show you all my favorite places. itll be so much fun!!!!!!!!! :D <3 jade

Ow. I think this is the only time John cries in the entire comic.

A Single Tear(™) is a bit of an understated reaction to the death of one of your best friends who you just recently learned is also your twin sister, but to be fair, John isn’t left with very much time to react, as next panel Jack Noir’s sword is pointed at his face.

BRIGHT: John knows about dream selves and waking selves by now, I think?

CHEL: He knows they’re a thing but I don’t think he knows they count as backup lives. AT told Jade dream selves can die separately from regular selves but I don’t think anyone told John.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jack Noir wants the ring, but then he’s stopped by Jade’s gift: a robotic bunny wielding multiple weapons.

They line up for a fight.

Hours in the future, on a destroyed planet, AR wraps police tape around himself and becomes a Aimless Renegade. Before the disaster, he went to the Veil, where he found a sleeping John. He saves John by putting him on a rocket board.

Back to the robotic bunny. Jack Noir flies away from the fight. Grandpa’s battleship lands and Grandpa takes away Jade’s body. Mom and Dad disembark the ship and wave goodbye as it leaves. Grandpa cries a Single Tear as he transports Jade’s already taxidermed body. Did he have a machine?

CHEL: For that matter, why isn’t he helping anyone who’s actually still alive while he’s there?

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 10

FAILURE ARTIST: Nope, transporting a dead body is more important.

Again going back, White Queen leaves Prospit. On landing, she becomes Windswept Questant and wanders the Earth. We go forward years later. She repairs the laboratory and meets up with AR, WV, and PM. WV’s homemade spear hides the ring.

John watches this scene through the clouds of Skaia. He looks at the ring in his hand. In another cloud, there’s Jade’s laboratory. We close in on it and inside is The Fourth Wall. It isn’t turned on, but we are still lead to Andrew Hussie, banging away on a computer keyboard as he recaps the plot for a second time.

CHEL: Which we shall do as well when we’re done with this section, because it’s insanely hard to keep track of everything.

FAILURE ARTIST: Andrew Hussie says Nanna’s comet landed 99 years before John’s “birth” so he has some clue about the age but still doesn’t see it odd that a woman that age has a son who is probably only in his thirties.

CHEL: As I said, it’s also possible Dad was really old too, but that’s never really suggested. Not to mention, since they were brought into existence as toddlers, shouldn’t the kids be noticeably older than the ages given for them? John should be biologically fourteen to fifteen by now and at that age that can make a visible difference. I know the art style doesn’t really give clues, but no one I’ve seen has ever pointed that out in fanfic either.

FAILURE ARTIST: Newborns aren’t distinctive looking and can’t really do the cute things toddlers do. People in TV and movies regularly give birth to six month old infants so it’s not strange.

CHEL: True, but this isn’t TV, it’s a comic, and they don’t have to use an actual infant as a prop here.

BRIGHT: Possibly it’s intentional. Among other things, we see the newly-created players survive short trips through vacuum, crash-land on Earth without even minor injuries, and handle weapons they shouldn’t be able to lift for another four or five years. This could work if players have superhuman abilities (that is, beyond the classpect system). If that was the intent then it really should be made more explicit, though.

Of course, what it really boils down to is that Homestuck runs off Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny, and occasionally breaks down on examination as a result.

On the whole this is a solid Act, I think! We have a lot of new stuff happening, more characters get introduced, and we find out some more about the trolls. It’s much less rambling than Act 1.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 18 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 19 GET ON WITH IT!: 18 GORE GALORE: 10 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 10 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 19 TOTAL: 127

#homestuck #Let's read #homestuck meta #reread #literary critique #sporking #Homespork

7 notes · View notes

niixell · 4 years

Note

"lets get personal." answer as many as you wanna! if thats meands allof them tn go for it!!!

Hell Yeah imma do all of them!!!! ty!!!!! sorry some of the answers are really boring or short

1. you and Jennifer-bulow, Chlorine-twenty one pilots, missing you-all time low, water fountain-Alec Benjamin, blame it on my youth-blink-182. It was difficult to choose 6 songs cause usually i just put a playlist on shuffle, but this is pretty good representation of whats in it

2. uhhhh, probably Phil Lester cause I look up to him alot and I want to know what’d he’d be like in person

3. ofc it was “this book is gay” the line is “wowsers, this whole gay thing is a lot more complicated then Glee lead us to believe”

4. ngl, how fucking gay i am for certain people

5. pretty boring, it’s “yeahhh”

6. not completely naked, but not in full pajamas

7. i can pop 3 of my fingers completely in and out of their socket

8. Girls, guys, and non-binary pals are fucking attractive and pretty and nice and im rlly fuckin gay.

9. yup, one of my ex’s did, it was rlly sweet

10. no clue, air drums woulda been yesterday though

11. not rlly, nope!

12. probably, not that i remember though

13. don’t got one

14. wanting to go inside or im at the ocean

15. behind behind behind, i hate being on camera

16. currently...uhhhhhhh......P!ATD probably

17. How are you? “I’m ok”

18. not rlly nope, do believe some people defiantly deserve it though

19. its extreamly complicated. Toby’s my name, and I’m bored

20. Weakness is probably my anxiety. Strength would be...... I can pick up new talents up pretty quicky i guess

21. don’t have one. got people i admire, but not a crush

22. yup, in the lake during the summer once

23. Now that I think about it....I don’t know

24. so, so, so many things. I am an absolute gremlin

25. depending on the people, only time im on the phone is playing mc though so. phone ig

26. maybe? im still “becoming”

27. love: the crunch of refrozen snow. hate: the bus engine which sucks cause i gotta ride it every day

28. what if I fail

29. Ghosts yes, 99% sure my house is haunted as it used to be a doctors office in the 1920s. Aliens 100%. youd have to be an idiot to think that theres not some sort of other life in the entire universe

30. My computer that im typing this on with both arms

31. apple pie filling that I made

32. alberta

33. west west west west west

34. i don’t have an opposite gender

35. the meaning of my life is to study some fucking orcas

36. creation of something new

37. sometimes!

38. pretty grey and boring. maybe rainy, im not sure, im not by any windows

39. 4:28, though it feels like 7. today has gone so slowly

40. Yes and yes. though i only bumped someones truck while learning to park so it wasnt to bad

41. the book needed for # 3!!

42. enh, kinda?

43. not rlly.

44. film? idk but watching something? im watching bnha right now for the 3rd time

45. ive broken my arm and sprained my ankle but im not sure what was worse

46. yeah!! i was in mexico and they would come land on me!

47. well. Orcas. Bnha. thats pretty much my entire personality

48. Panromanic Demisexual

49. that I cheated on my ex which is compleate bullshit

50. yes!!!

51. sometimes and depends on the situation

52. Aquarius!

53. i need to save it but i spend it. im sucky at saving

54. some food cause im a hungry bitch

55. love<3

56. nope

57. 3 as of current

58. yup!!

59. at school and at work. glad thats over

60. a pan flag hanging on my ceiling

61. yeah. my feet are cold

62. ORCAS

63. i dont really have one. i just hang out with people who like the same stuff and we bond over that

64. shes probably at her house while talking to me on discord rn. hey look @krarshadow, youre part of the asks I told you about

65. @seriously--fuck--you @krarshadow @official-lucifers-child @thatsthat24 @kitkatthegaybean

66. no clue

67. having a shower i think

68. morningstar

69. nah

70. some of the time. other times im an annoying little shit who shouldn’t be allowed to interact with anyone

71. save the dog and run to work on time. then get fired for refusing to get rid of the dog

72. tell certain people, hang out in my friends classes and not bother with my own, enh, id just be sad I wouldnt see my friends again

73. love as love builds trust

74. I really dont know. I have a playlist called “calming???” and that helps make me not sad

75. ***-***-2083

76. communication. this goes for any kind of relationship, not just romantic

77. i dont know!!!! romantic stuff is confusing and telling the different between liking someone and liking someone is sometimes fucking difficult

78. oh hell yes. one hundred percent

79. wanting to study orcas as a tiny child. its given me something to always look towards and work for

80. 8-91/2

81. i don’t want on. mix my ashes with glitter and throw me into the ocean

82. Sonder, its a pretty boring word but the meaning is cool. “ The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it. “

83. blood

84. *screams are heard in the distance*

85. You and Jennifer apparently

86. blue. but like a Logan Sanders or Tuesday blue

87.

88. my dad

89. situational. there are ones i don’t want to answer, but nothing i can think of where im scared of the truth

90. kill all but one and strap that one on a table and unwrap and dissect it

91. shapeshifting (gotta love that definatly creative answer from a trans person right there)

92. seeing orcas

93. my fucking childhood trauma

94. what the fuck. do people actually wanna sleep with them???? thats creepy as fuck man

95. Tofino, BC (no surprise there, its really easy to see orcas off the coast)

96. Its my fatherrrrrrrr

97. uhhhhh, no, but i did right after getting out of the car once

98. many times! real fun! i quite like plane rides if i get my own space

99. Fuck terfs. Trans rights

3 notes · View notes

ghostydoof-blog · 6 years

Text

OOCly viewed chatlog you know the drill.

-- technicalGyrations [TG] began pestering eggBoy [EB] at 08:16 --

[08:16] TG: egg BOY

[08:17] EB: egg boy.

[08:18] TG: egg boi

[08:18] EB: that's me.

[08:18] TG: like soulja boy

[08:18] EB: one hundred percent farmland fresh egg boy.

[08:18] TG: but with eggs

[08:19] EB: hot off the truck and into market, soon to be on your breakfast plate at denny's when it's 2am and you're feeling down.

[08:20] EB: we should go to denny's sometime at 2am when we're feeling down.

[08:20] TG: we could go to dennys right now if youre feeling down

[08:21] EB: it's not 2am yet and i've been up since six making myself homemade mac and cheese.

[08:22] TG: okay instead of dennys come to my work and eat mac n cheesy with me and tell me whats going on

[08:24] EB: i can't, legs are broken.

[08:25] EB: my face hurts.

[08:25] TG: JOHN

[08:25] TG: JOHN!!!

[08:25] EB: suddenly my fingers are broken too, my skin is paper and my bones glass.

[08:25] TG: JOHN EGBERT YOURE KILING ME

[08:26] EB: it happens.

[08:26] EB: you are way too excitable for this time of morning, dave.

[08:27] TG: i have to be im at work and i gotta be excitable so i dont fall asleep

[08:27] TG: so i got music playin and im knitting and drinking some tea

[08:27] EB: i'll accept that.

[08:27] TG: you could be energized too if yall came here

[08:27] EB: i've got a pot of coffee on the table next to my bed and i have been playing threshers 2 all morning.

[08:28] EB: i need to get human games so i can stop playing this.

[08:28] EB: i.

[08:28] EB: ugh.

[08:28] TG: are you havin fun with it at least

[08:29] TG: whats wrong dude

[08:29] EB: i do.

[08:29] EB: i guess?

[08:29] EB: it just upsets me.

[08:29] TG: why?

[08:29] EB: actually a lot of things upset me lately apparently.

[08:29] EB: i'm worried about sollux.

[08:30] EB: apparently i had a family that i don't remember.

[08:30] EB: oh and we're from the same earth i accept that ok?

[08:30] EB: apparently your shades are from me.

[08:30] EB: somehow we forgot these things.

[08:30] TG: i need a second to process this

[08:30] TG: okay im starting the process

[08:30] EB: so i mean i haven't been able to talk about any of it and i'm losing my mind over it!

[08:30] TG: who told you this?

[08:31] EB: rose.

[08:31] TG: how do they know??

[08:31] EB: she's the only one that i've met that will just TELL me about myself.

[08:32] EB: she knew a john that she played that god awful game with.

[08:32] EB: her john knew a dave.

[08:32] TG: and her john gave her dave the same pair of shades i have

[08:32] TG: ?

[08:32] EB: they all played that game together.

[08:32] EB: yeah.

[08:33] TG: i have a feeling that we played that game together too

[08:33] EB: how?

[08:34] EB: everyone that has KNOWS they have.

[08:34] EB: how do you forget DYING?

[08:34] EB: or being a god or something?

[08:34] TG: when i talked to sky about some of this he basically said that what my dream was lines up with some stuff that happens in it and if youre from the same place as ME then we would have HAVE to played it together or someting like that

[08:34] TG: i think were remembering it though

[08:34] TG: since meeting each other

[08:35] EB: :/

[08:35] EB: i can barely sleep anymore, my dreams are so weird they wake me up now. i can't remember them but ugh.

[08:35] EB: they leave me in a cold sweat.

[08:36] TG: ive just been having a lot of migraines lately about all of this stuff

[08:36] EB: ugh.

[08:36] EB: yeah.

[08:36] TG: no dreams i can remember besides the one of someone giving me my shades

[08:36] TG: which is now you

[08:37] EB: when rose was telling me about the shades it hurt, and when she was trying to tell me about my family i?

[08:37] EB: i had a family, dave.

[08:37] EB: a dad.

[08:37] EB: you saw me give you your shades?

[08:37] TG: in a dream, yea, but it wasnt you in my dream just some shadowy ass lookin figure

[08:37] TG: a dad

[08:38] TG: is there any way you could find him?

[08:38] EB: he doesn't exist. the actual address on my id also does not exist.

[08:38] EB: the street does, but there isn't that number house on it.

[08:39] EB: i guess he did something shitty with baked goods and that's why i still don't like them though.

[08:39] EB: so maybe it's not that much of a loss.

[08:40] TG: i had the same thing happen to me address wise like they looked it up and theyre like shit my dude you dont exist

[08:40] TG: and that makes sense i guess

[08:40] TG: some shit like that probably stayed latent in your brain and surfaces without your control

[08:40] EB: yeah.

[08:40] EB: it still sucks!

[08:40] EB: i want him back, dave.

[08:41] EB: i'm grown now but i didn't want to be stuck in foster care for two years! i hated it.

[08:41] TG: i want you to find him so he can explain where the hell hes been all these years

[08:42] EB: he's dead.

[08:42] EB: if i remember correctly, it's been mentioned that he died.

[08:42] TG: WHAT

[08:42] TG: what the fuck

[08:42] EB: or disappeared into the game, if we really did play it.

[08:42] TG: thats even worse

[08:42] TG: but if he disappeared into the game like us wouldnt he be back if were back? this is so fucked up dude

[08:43] TG: do you think if you have a dad

[08:43] TG: that i have a dad

[08:43] TG: ?

[08:44] EB: probably! rose mentioned having a mom too i think.

[08:44] EB: or someone else had a mom. or something?

[08:44] EB: i can't tell if i know this stuff or if someone told me anymore.

[08:45] TG: i mean i guess the only thing we can do is ask rose more

[08:45] TG: if she doesnt mind?

[08:45] EB: she says she doesn't but i wouldn't want to push it.

[08:45] EB: she has a key to my apartment so if you want to meet her you could use my place.

[08:45] TG: we could talk to her together

[08:45] TG: just a meeting betwen all yall

[08:46] EB: i don't know dave she's really nervous about people still.

[08:46] EB: sort of a one on one kind of girl.

[08:46] TG: i could sit in the bathroom while we talk so she doesnt have to see me

[08:47] EB: oh my god dave no.

[08:47] EB: then we'd have to be in my bedroom!

[08:47] EB: what am i going to do, text her up and be like hey rose want to hang out in my BED?

[08:47] TG: dude weve hung out in your BED before

[08:48] EB: yeah but we're also more accustomed to that sort of thing.

[08:48] EB: she's been really alone for a long time, i don't think she's quite ready for THAT.

[08:48] TG: you have seen my shirtless bod before so were past that level of friendship

[08:49] TG: okay new plan: i can hide behind the couch while all yall are on the couch and i can talk from there

[08:50] EB: she might kill you if you do that.

[08:50] EB: but it's your ass not mine.

[08:50] EB: also your body is fine dave.

[08:50] TG: okay new plan: you can facetime me and we can talk from there

[08:50] TG: my body is,

[08:52] EB: how about this?

[08:52] EB: i talk to rose and ask if she'll meet you.

[08:52] TG: that also works

[08:53] EB: no deception and you guys can still use my place.

[08:53] EB: and dave.

[08:53] EB: your body is fine.

[08:53] TG: IT IS,

[08:53] EB: it IS, yes.

[08:53] TG: im yellin

[08:53] TG: youre too nice to me

[08:53] EB: i'm telling the fucking truth you goon.

[08:54] TG: youre STILL too nice to me you goon

[08:54] EB: if i wasn't armpit deep in my clinically diagnosed depression i would come kick your ass.

[08:56] TG: i mean i want to come over to kick your ass out of your armpit deep clinical depression but im at work and also armpit deep in my clinical depression

[08:56] EB: well look at us both stuck in this quicksand of sadness.

[09:03] TG: well pull each other out eventually

[09:03] TG: just gotta wallow for a bit til we feel better

[09:03] EB: i was doing ok until the shit hit the fan.

[09:03] EB: is it bad that it bothered me less when i didn't have friends?

[09:04] TG: i mean same but thats cause you have your own ways to deal with things and when friends get involved you feel like you gotta blab to them about everything and it messes up the coping

[09:04] TG: at least thats my theory

[09:05] EB: no.

[09:05] TG: ?

[09:06] EB: it's because i had nothing to worry about. i worked, a came home to my apartment. i ate and slept and watched movies and had nothing to think about but the next day.

[09:06] EB: now?

[09:06] EB: now i'm worried about my troll friends because they might just die for no reason.

[09:07] TG: and thats making you feel worse combined with your own stuff you got on your mind

[09:07] TG: i gotcha

[09:07] EB: i worry about my human friends because some of them are so sad that i just want to hug them and tell them it will be ok.

[09:07] EB: and yet no one wants me to care.

[09:07] EB: so i'm trying to not care.

[09:07] EB: it's hard.

[09:08] TG: hey if it means anything i want you to care about me

[09:08] TG: and i bet all your friends appreciate you caring even if it seems like they dont

[09:08] EB: congrats you're the only one that does!

[09:09] EB: between troll dave shitting on me for being empathetic and me royally fucking it with sollux i'm ?

[09:09] EB: trolls?

[09:09] EB: what are they?

[09:09] EB: why are they?

[09:09] TG: trolls are strange as hell and they have different views on emotions than humans do

[09:09] TG: makes em a bit complicated

[09:10] EB: i noticed.

[09:10] EB: apparently i messed up and started doing some weird quadrant stuff at sollux.

[09:10] EB: but it doesn't matter, he says it doesn't bother him.

[09:10] EB: (spoiler alert: it does.)

[09:10] EB: and i know it does.

[09:11] TG: i mean id be surprised if it DIDNT bother him

[09:11] EB: but if i don't say anything about it and act normal maybe it will be ok.

[09:11] TG: hes probably just making it seem like it doesnt bother him both for you and for himself

[09:11] EB: but i can't bring myself to talk to him because i don't want him to stop being my friend.

[09:12] TG: you should still at least talk to him if hes your friend dude

[09:12] TG: but i also think you should talk about the pale stuff too

[09:13] EB: i tried to.

[09:14] EB: but everyone else seems to want to get their nose so deep into my business there's no room left for me. i appreciate spanky but uh...he's way too nosy for someone i don't know.

[09:15] EB: i also don't get the subtle difference in what changes being his best friend to being his pale...whatever it's called.

[09:16] TG: theres only one way to find out and thats asking him about it

[09:16] TG: but id think it over before you do

[09:16] TG: i dont completely understand troll stuff either even though i live with two of them

[09:16] TG: and dude if you need me to back off just let me know ok

[09:17] EB: well, karkat told me he doesn't want any quadrants right now so i mean i don't want to poke that hornet's nest and bite the dust on it yet.

[09:17] EB: there's also the uh.

[09:17] EB: looming possibility that he's going to die.

[09:18] EB: so that's a thing i'm supposed to probably pretend that it doesn't bother me.

[09:18] TG: um what

[09:18] EB: he's messing with that game, dave!

[09:18] EB: and something is wrong with it! like really wrong!

[09:18] TG: nothing good ever comes from that goddamn hell game

[09:18] EB: it's not like i pour over every single post of his but i see enough to know that something bad is going to happen.

[09:19] TG: you definitely pour over all his posts

[09:19] TG: callout

[09:19] TG: and yea

[09:19] EB: i do not!

[09:19] TG: i have a bad feeling about this

[09:19] EB: he's not even denying it anymore, dave.

[09:21] TG: i think cause he realizes shit is going to hit the goddamn fan

[09:22] EB: i know.

[09:22] EB: i should just let other people do things for him.

[09:23] TG: john

[09:23] TG: why

[09:23] TG: ?

[09:24] EB: because.

[09:25] EB: i don't know anything useful to him. i don't know about the game.

[09:25] EB: i don't know anything about trolls.

[09:25] EB: or their romance.

[09:25] EB: or their society.

[09:25] EB: the more i learn the more worried i get.

[09:25] EB: the more i wish i could just pull him here.

[09:25] EB: give him a hug, tell him it's ok!

[09:25] TG: once he gets into the game he might be able to get here though

[09:26] TG: transportalizers are normally a game thing i think from what ive seen

[09:26] EB: i don't want him to ever go into that goddamn game dave!

[09:26] TG: rossea didnt play and she had to build her own

[09:26] EB: i want him to stop messing with it before it's too late.

[09:26] EB: he's going to die.

[09:26] EB: and i'm going to lose my best friend.

[09:26] EB: i'm...

[09:27] TG: john

[09:27] EB: i'm sorry.

[09:27] TG: i dont think hes going to stop messing with it

[09:27] EB: i know.

[09:27] EB: i know he's not.

[09:27] TG: so you can at least hope that he finds a transportalizer and get the hell out of there

[09:27] EB: i do hope.

[09:28] EB: but we didn't.

[09:28] EB: did we?

[09:28] EB: you died.

[09:28] TG: i

[09:28] EB: and so did our friends.

[09:28] TG: i dont know

[09:29] EB: we didn't survive that game.

[09:29] EB: not the same way other people have.

[09:29] EB: did we?

[09:29] TG: i dont think so

[09:29] TG: ?

[09:30] TG: but i dont know what happened at all

[09:30] EB: well my dream says everyone died.

-- eggBoy [EB] is now an idle chum! --

[09:42] TG: my dream says at least me died so i believe your dream

-- eggBoy [EB] is now an idle chum! --

[09:44] EB: it doesn't make it any better.

[09:45] EB: i have a lot of worries ok?

[09:45] EB: i'm sorry for suddenly dumping them on you but they just keep coming.

[09:47] TG: dude john

[09:47] TG: dont be sorry at all

[09:47] TG: were friends right?

[09:47] TG: thats what friends are for

[09:47] EB: yeah!

[09:47] EB: still.

[09:48] EB: i kind of exploded there.

[09:48] EB: hey dave.

[09:48] TG: what

[09:48] TG: ?

[09:48] EB: denny's date tonight?

[09:48] TG: of course : *

[09:49] EB: good.

[09:49] EB: because i feel like sobbing into a grand slamwich.

[10:09] TG: you can sob into as many grand slamwiches as you want bud

[10:09] EB: i can only maybe handle one.

[10:10] EB: they're kind of gross.

[10:10] TG: perfect to cry into then

[10:10] EB: exactly.

[10:10] EB: you've witnessed me crying, i'm gross.

[10:11] TG: DUDE youve witnessed ME crying

[10:12] EB: then we're even.

[10:30] TG: : *

[10:30] EB: right back at you buddy.

#pesterings #viewed oocly #long post //#mentioned:#keedlez2

3 notes · View notes

bronzeflower · 7 years

Text

Who The Fuck Writes A Ten-Page Rant?????

Also on ao3

-----

Chapter 10: Romantic Advice And The Greatest Rap Battle In History

-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

CG: HEY, DAVE. CG: I TRIED TO TROLL YOU YESTERDAY, BUT IT SAID YOU WERE IDLE. CG: ARE YOU HERE NOW?

TG: you bet your bottom dollar im here TG: sorry for not answering yesterday btw TG: got distracted by a bunch of other people pestering and trolling me

CG: IT’S FINE. CG: WE ALL GET BOMBARDED BY OTHERS AT SOME POINT OR ANOTHER. CG: WHO DID YOU TALK TO?

TG: some of my friends who you also apparently know or knew TG: i learned a lot of shit yesterday TG: namely that all of my friends know who you are TG: jade knows who you are TG: john knows who you are TG: terezi knows who you are but that was kind of expected but i did not expect that you were friends with her since fucking kindergarten TG: and then also aradia apparently was friends with you in middle school????

CG: WHAT? CG: YOU TALKED TO ARADIA? CG: GEEZ, I HAVEN'T TALKED TO HER IN AGES. CG: HAS SHE DIED YET?

TG: not that i know of TG: as far as i know she is as nice and cheerful as ever

CG: CHEERFUL? CG: CLEARLY WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SAME ARADIA.

TG: so you arent talking about aradia megido here

CG: I AM, BUT CHEERFUL IS PROBABLY THE LAST WORD I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE HER. CG: SHE WAS ALWAYS KIND OF CREEPY, AND SHE ACTED DEAD HALF THE TIME. CG: SHE ALSO DID A BUNCH OF CRAZY SHIT AS IF SHE COULDN'T DIE. CG: IT WAS, FRANKLY, EXTREMLY CONCERNING.

TG: that doesnt sound like the ara i know at all TG: except for the crazy shit part TG: she still does crazy shit TG: the ara i know is super fucking cheerful and happy TG: wait when you say she acted dead what do you mean

CG: I MEAN SHE ACTED LIKE EVERYTHING WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN. CG: IT WAS HONESTLY SUPER CREEPY. CG: THE ONLY TIME I REMEMBER THAT SHE SHOWED SOME EMOTION WAS WHEN EQUIUS TRIED TO ASK HER OUT. CG: TO BE FAIR, HE DIDN'T EXACTLY DO IT IN THE BEST WAY. CG: HE KIND OF DESERVED TO GET BEAT UP.

TG: holy shit TG: i dont know who the fuck equius is but what was the damage

CG: HE HAD A BROKEN BONE OR TWO, AND HE ALSO HAD TWO BLACK EYES. CG: WHICH WAS REALLY FUCKING IMPRESSIVE SINCE HE WAS SUPER FUCKING BUFF AND KNEW MARTIAL ARTS.

TG: can a middle school child be buff

CG: YES. APPARANTLY. CG: AND, AS MUCH AS NEPETA THOUGHT THE PAIRING WAS CUTE, SHE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE TO ADMIT THAT THE WAY EQUIUS ASKED ARADIA OUT WAS CREEPY.

TG: how did he even ask her out

CG: IT'S A MEMORY I PREFER TO KEEP REPRESSED.

TG: that bad

CG: YES. CG: IT WAS HORRIBLE TO WATCH, AND THEN ARADIA GOT SUSPENDED FOR AN AMOUNT OF TIME.

TG: she did it at school???

CG: SHE DID. CG: SHE ALSO DIDN'T OFFER ANY MERCY. CG: THE ONLY REASON THAT SHE STOPPED BEATING UP EQUIUS IS BECAUSE A TEACHER MANAGED TO PRY HER OFF HIM.

TG: jesus christ TG: i wasnt even sure that aradia was capable of being angry TG: she was clearly a very different kind of person when she knew you

CG: CLEARLY.

TG: also i dont know who nepeta is either

CG: SHE WAS EQUIUS'S MOIRAIL. CG: SHE STILL IS, AS FAR AS I KNOW. CG: I TALK TO HER SEMI-OFTEN. CG: I SHOULD PROBABLY TALK TO HER MORE.

TG: how many of your friends from middle school do you still even know and talk to

CG: WELL, I STILL TALK TO NEPETA, KANAYA, TEREZI, SOLLUX, AND ERIDAN. CG: SOMETIMES I HAVE THE DISPLEASURE OF TALKING TO EQUIUS. CG: GAMZEE STILL CONTACTS ME SOMETIMES, BUT I TRY TO AVOID TALKING WITH HIM BECAUSE OF THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST. CG: I'VE BARELY HEARD ABOUT VRISKA SINCE SHE WENT TO JAIL FOR SOMETHING. CG: I CAN'T, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, REMEMBER FOR WHAT, BUT I THINK IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FOR STEALING SOMETHING. CG: AND THEN I DON'T REALLY TALK TO FEFERI, TAVROS, OR ARADIA ANYMORE. CG: I THINK THAT'S BASICALLY EVERYONE I WAS FRIENDS WITH IN MIDDLE SCHOOL.

TG: holy shit thats a shit ton of people TG: when i was in middle school i was only friends with john jade and rose TG: and rose was my fucking twin and john and jade lived miles and miles away from me TG: and you still talk to a bunch of them TG: even if i dont know who most of them are but will probably find out eventually TG: i think john once dated a girl named vriska TG: dont know if it is the same one

CG: WAS SHE WEIRDLY OBSESSED WITH SPIDERS AND THE NUMBER EIGHT?

TG: she was actually

CG: THEN IT WAS THE SAME ONE I KNEW.

TG: shit TG: john still has lingering effects of her influence TG: like typing out eight characters when drawing words out

CG: WELL, SHE WASN'T DATING JOHN WHEN I MET HIM, SO SHE MUST HAVE GOTTEN OUT OF JAIL.

TG: well i guess that development is settled TG: i apparently know a fair amount of the people you knew TG: who would have guessed

CG: PROBABLY ANYONE WHO KNEW BOTH OF US CG: ALSO, COULD I ASK YOU FOR ARADIA'S TROLLHANDLE? CG: I WAS BEING SERIOUS WHEN I SAID I HADN'T TALKED TO HER IN AGES. CG: AND I DON'T KNOW IF SHE STILL HAS THE SAME TROLLHANDLE.

TG: sure thing dude TG: her trollhandle is apocalypsearisen

CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S STILL THE SAME. CG: I COULD HAVE CONTACTED HER AT ANY FUCKING TIME.

TG: i wouldnt worry about it that much TG: you probably just didnt want to risk contacting someone super weird who you didnt actually know anything about

CG: I GUESS, BUT STILL.

TG: besides it is super hard to get a hold of her at all so i only really ever talk to her like once every few months TG: she does all this archeology shit so half the time she is in a place with no internet

CG: OH. CG: I GUESS THAT MAKES SENSE. CG: ARCHEOLOGY IS PRETTY COOL THOUGH.

TG: yeah she gets to lead expeditions and shit now its pretty fucking awesome TG: going around licking shit to see if something is a rock or a bone

CG: WHY THE FLYING FUCK WOULD YOU GO AROUND LICKING RANDOM THINGS TO SEE IF IT IS A ROCK OR A BONE?

TG: because if it is a bone then your tongue will stick TG: thats how you know its not going to be useless if you shove it into a museum

CG: THAT'S REALLY WEIRD.

TG: you havent even heard about licking some thousand or something year old honey to see if it was still good TG: spoilers TG: it was because honey never spoils

CG: THAT SOUNDS LIKE BULLSHIT.

TG: no man its one hundred percent true TG: complete and absolute fact

CG: I'M STILL GOING TO CALL BULLSHIT.

TG: dont say i didnt warn ya TG: one day youre going to be arguing with someone and then youll both look it up on wikipedia to see whos right TG: and low and behold you were wrong TG: you will have to live with that humiliation for the rest of your life

CG: I THINK I'LL GET OVER IT.

TG: wow okay

CG: ANYWAY, I'M GLAD ARADIA IS DOING SOMETHING THAT SHE PRESUMABLY ENJOYS WITH HER LIFE. CG: SHE DOES ENJOY HER JOB, RIGHT?

TG: hell yeah she does TG: every time i contact her we trade stories about things that have happened in the past few months TG: sometimes really dumb shit happens that we tell to our other friends TG: while others are closely guarded secrets that we only tell one another and they never see the light of day

CG: WHAT KIND OF SECRETS?

TG: secret secrets TG: the most secrety kind of secrets you could ever conceivably have and share with another living thing that has the capability to tell others your secret TG: except that you trust them enough not to tell anybody about it

CG: ARE YOU SURE YOU ONLY TALK TO HER ONCE EVERY FEW MONTHS?

TG: yeah i would like to talk to her more but she is a busy person and so am i TG: our schedules dont always line up TG: particularly because of her going to places where she doesnt have internet and is therefore unable to contact anybody

CG: THAT SOUNDS PRETTY SHITTY. CG: I CAN'T IMAGINE NOT TALKING TO KANAYA FOR MONTHS AT A TIME.

TG: its a system that works just fine for aradia and i TG: it would be nice to see her in person every now and then tho

CG: WAIT, I HAVE A QUESTION. CG: HOWEVER, IT MAY BE KIND OF PERSONAL, SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.

TG: ill answer depending on the question so go ahead and shoot

CG: ARE YOU MOIRAILS WITH ARADIA? CG: BECAUSE A LOT OF THE STUFF YOU DESCRIBED TALKING TO HER ABOUT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING YOU WOULD ONLY EVER TELL YOUR MOIRAIL.

TG: oh um TG: moirail is like the intimate best friend right TG: like pale and shit

CG: YES. THAT IS THE QUADRANT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

TG: ... TG: i actually have no idea

CG: OKAY, SO IF YOU TWO AREN'T OFFICIAL MOIRAILS YET, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HER?

TG: shit man i dont know TG: i just kind of think that shes a cool person who i would prefer to hang out with more TG: but like i know that her job is important to her

CG: YES?

TG: i dont know its just like TG: it would be nice to hear more from her TG: just to know that shes alive and doing well and safe and shit TG: you know

CG: YES, I DO KNOW. CG: BECAUSE I HAVE A MOIRAIL, SO I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT HERE.

TG: oh TG: huh TG: i feel like my previous definition is an intimate friend was kind of correct then TG: but like also kind of not TG: im not exactly sure how serious this kind of relationship is though

CG: IT JUST DEPENDS ON WHO YOU DECIDE TO BE MOIRAILS WITH. CG: FOR SOME PEOPLE, IT'S A VERY SERIOUS COMMITMENT, BUT, FOR OTHERS, IT'S MORE CASUAL. CG: SOME EVEN WANT TO HAVE AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP, WHICH IS MORE COMMON WITH HUMANS, BUT WHATEVER. CG: REALLY, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY TALK TO ARADIA ABOUT THIS AND TELL HER HOW YOU FEEL. CG: IF THE TWO OF YOU HAVE BEEN SHARING SECRETS LIKE YOU SAID YOU WERE, THEN SHE PROBABLY FEELS THE SAME WAY. CG: ALTHOUGH, THE RELATIONSHIP MAY BE DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN BECAUSE OF DISTANCE. CG: ON THE OTHER HAND, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HER HASN'T BEEN DIMINISHED FROM TIME AND DISTANCE, SO IT MIGHT HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO TURN INTO A STRONG MOIRALLEGIANCE.

TG: i think im going to think on it for a bit longer TG: but thanks anyway for the relationship advice

CG: OF COURSE. CG: ROMANCE IS MY FORTE.

TG: speaking of romance though TG: talk to me about your novel TG: it sounds pretty interesting from what little i have heard about it TG: and based on the amount of writing i have read from you its really good TG: so you should totally yell at the top of your lungs about it TG: shout your passions to the world and if anyone gives you shit about it punch them

CG: I DO THAT ANYWAYS. CG: I HAVE PUNCHED MULTIPLE PEOPLE. CG: THERE IS REALLY NO NEED TO ENCOURAGE IT.

TG: thats the spirit TG: so novel time TG: lay out your outline of novel in amazing detail for me TG: or whatever amount you feel comfortable with TG: really there isnt any pressure or anything

CG: FINE, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE SO INSISTENT. CG: THE BASIC SETTING OF MY NOVEL IS THAT TWO INDIVIDUALS MEET WHILE IN COLLEGE. CG: THEY MEET IN A TEA SHOP BECAUSE I CAN DO WHAT I WANT. CG: SO ANYWAY, WHEN THEY FIRST MEET, THEY FUCKING HATE EACH OTHER. CG: THEY'RE JUST COMPLETE OPPOSITES, BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT A BUNCH OF THEIR FRIENDS ARE FRIENDS WITH EACH OTHER, SO THEY END UP SPENDING MORE TIME TOGETHER. CG: THE MORE TIME THEY SPEND TOGETHER, THE MORE THEY REALIZE THAT THEY ACTUALLY LIKE THE OTHER PERSON. CG: WHICH EVENTUALLY LEADS TO THEM FALLING IN LOVE AND BEGINNING TO DATE.

TG: that sounds super interesting TG: infinitely better than that bullshit in romance novels where they fall in love with each other instantly and then spend most of the novel skirting around each other and beating around the bush TG: i havent actually read any romance novels but im pretty sure that is how it goes

CG: THAT'S PRETTY MUCH HOW IT GOES USUALLY. CG: AS MUCH AS A LOVE ROMANCE BOOKS AND MOVIES, THAT TROPE IS PRETTY FUCKING ANNOYING. CG: IT'S LIKE, JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER, YOU COMPLETE DOUCHNOZZLES! CG: OKAY, SO I MAY NOT BE THE BEST PERSON TO SAY THAT, BUT STILL! CG: I GOT BETTER! CG: I ASKED OUT KANAYA, AND IT WAS GREAT!

TG: really

CG: YES. CG: PEOPLE ALWAYS SEEM TO THINK THAT KANAYA WAS THE ONE WHO ASKED ME OUT, BUT THAT IS NOT THE CASE. CG: I GATHERED UP THE NERVE, AND I TOLD HER THAT I WAS PALE FOR HER. CG: YEAH, *SOME* PEOPLE MAY CALL MY APPROACH A TAD BIT EXTRA, BUT I WAS TRYING TO BE ROMANTIC, GODDAMNIT!

TG: how exactly are you supposed to be romantic with pale romance

CG: I GAVE HER SOME FLOWERS, WHICH CAN BE USED TO EXPRESS FEELINGS FOR ANY AND ALL THE QUADRANTS. CG: TYPICALLY PEOPLE JUST WRAP THE BOUQUET OF FLOWERS IN A COLORED WRAP THAT REPRESENTS THEIR FEELINGS. CG: RED FOR RED, PINK FOR PALE, BLACK FOR BLACK, AND GRAY FOR ASHEN. CG: I HAPPENED TO ALSO CHOOSE FLOWERS THAT WERE MEANINGFUL AS WELL, SO THE BOUQUET OF FLOWERS I GAVE KANAYA HAD YELLOW ROSES, AND IT ALSO HAD SOME CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

TG: what do those mean

CG: YELLOW ROSES MEAN FRIENDSHIP, WHILE CHRYSANTHEMUMS MEAN SUPPORT. CG: I TRIED TO AVOID ANY FLOWERS THAT MEANT LONGEVITY AND STUFF LIKE THAT BECAUSE THOSE CAN MAKE YOU LOOK DESPERATE. CG: YOU ONLY GIVE THOSE SORTS OF FLOWERS TO SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN YOUR MOIRAIL FOR A REALLY LONG TIME. CG: IT IS ALSO TRADITIONAL FOR THE BOUQUET OF FLOWERS TO BE TIED WITH TWO RIBBONS, ONE WITH YOUR BLOOD COLOR, AND THE OTHER WITH THE OTHER'S BLOOD COLOR. CG: SOME PEOPLE DO DIFFERENT KNOTS TO REPRESENT DIFFERENT THINGS, BUT I WON'T GET INTO THAT.

TG: this all sounds really fucking complicated

CG: YEAH, WELL THAT IS PROBABLY WHY PEOPLE CALLED ME EXTRA. CG: BUT, IN ADDITION TO THE FLOWERS, IT IS ROMANTIC TO BRING THE PALE ROMANTIC INTEREST THEIR COMFORT FOOD, ALONG WITH ONE OF THEIR FAVORITE MOVIES OR BOOKS. CG: IT SHOWS THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW THE PERSON FAIRLY WELL, AND WOULD LIKE TO PURSUE A PALE RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM. CG: SO, I BROUGHT KANAYA HER COMFORT FOOD AND HER FAVORITE BOOK.

TG: i assume she responded positively since you two are now moirails

CG: YES. CG: WE HAD A VERY ENJOYABLE DATE.

TG: are there any nuances about the other quadrants i should know about

CG: IT DEPENDS ON WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE WILLING TO DO A BLACK OR ASHEN RELATIONSHIP. CG: MOST PARTICIPATE IN THE MORE RED QUADRANTS, BUT MANY FEEL WEIRD ABOUT THE DARKER ONES. CG: TO BE FAIR, THEY ARE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO KEEP UP BECAUSE THEY REQUIRE A PROPER RIVALRY. CG: THE BASIC STIRRINGS OF BLACK FEELINGS IS A FEELING OF RESPECT FOR THE OTHER PERSON. CG: YOU CAN'T HAVE A PROPER RIVALRY IF YOU DON'T RESPECT THE OTHER PERSON AND RECOGNIZE THAT THEY HAVE GOOD TRAITS. CG: THE MORE MAJOR FEELINGS THAT TEND TO GET UP PLAYED ARE THE FEELINGS OF ANIMOSITY TOWARDS THE OTHER PERSON. CG: HOWEVER, PEOPLE SEEM TO FORGET THAT THE RESPECT PLAYS A HUGE PART IN BLACK ROMANCE. CG: THE ASHEN QUADRANT IS EVEN MORE DIFFICULT BECAUSE IT TAKES THE BLACK QUADRANT AND ADDS ANOTHER PERSON TO MAKE SURE THAT THE KISMESISES DON'T KILL EACH OTHER. CG: SOMETIMES, THE HAPPENINGS OF A PITCH RELATIONSHIP IS DEPENDENT ON HOW GOOD THE AUSPISTICE IS. CG: AND THERE ARE VERY FEW GOOD AUSPISTICES, MUCH LESS PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTING IN BEING ONE. CG: KANAYA IS ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE I KNOW WHO ACTUALLY HOLDS AN INTEREST IN BEING AN AUSPISTICE, SO SHE KNOWS MORE ABOUT IT.

TG: well thats a shit ton of information TG: i think i need my info a bit more spread out and a bit more simply worded TG: although it might just be because i have a hard time wrapping my mind around this black romance stuff TG: i think ill stick with the red quadrants thank you very much

CG: WELL, IF YOU EVER NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT QUADRANTS AND THE ROMANCE ASSOCIATED WITH EACH OF THEM, THEN I'M THE PERSON TO GO TO.

TG: i think i got that with the first word about quadrants that decided to waterfall out of your mouth

CG: THAT IS BECAUSE I AM SUPERIOR WHEN IT COMES TO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT QUADRANTS.

TG: yes you are TG: bow down to the great king of quadrants everybody TG: his greatness and might are too glorious to behold TG: youve got to fuckin look in the corner of your eyes to even begin to behold his beauty and glory TG: all hail the king of the quadrants

CG: FUCK YES. CG: BOW DOWN TO ME, PEASANTS, FOR I AM YOUR GOD. CG: QUIVER BEFORE MY MIGHT.

TG: they quiver before you my liege TG: they are fearful of the power you possess

CG: OKAY, THIS IS SOUNDING WAY TOO MUCH LIKE ONE OF NEPETA'S ROLEPLAYS, SO I'M GOING TO PUT A STOP TO IT HERE. CG: JUST, STOP.

TG: oh shit if nepeta does this kind of roleplay shit im going to need a way to contact her

CG: WHY THE FUCK WOULD I EVER WANT TO GIVE YOU THE MEANS TO TALK TO HER.

TG: because you want your friends to meet each other

CG: NOT REALLY. CG: ANYTIME THAT HAPPENS, THE TWO END UP GETTING ALONG INSUFFERABLY WELL, AND THEY END UP MAKING ME SUFFER.

TG: i guess ill just have to find another way to get her contact information

CG: GOOD FUCKING LUCK WITH THAT. CG: BUT SERIOUSLY, IF YOU END UP TALKING TO NEPETA, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TALK TO EQUIUS AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER. CG: THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS EXTREMELY SERIOUS. CG: THE TWO ARE SO PALE FOR EACH OTHER IT'S ALMOST SICKENING. CG: YOU MIGHT END UP WITH A BROKEN HAND.

TG: what for talking to nepeta TG: that seems like a dick move

CG: NO, IT WON'T BE FOR TALKING TO NEPETA. CG: IT WILL JUST BE FOR MEETING HIM. CG: HE HAS A REALLY STRONG HANDSHAKE. CG: DO NOT USE YOUR DOMINATE HAND WHEN GIVING HIM A HANDSHAKE.

TG: ... TG: ill keep that in mind TG: btw i want to know something TG: has rose pestered you yet

CG: WHY WOULD SHE PESTER ME?

TG: so she hasnt TG: she found out it was going to be kanayas bday soon and she was freaking out about it TG: because she didnt know what to get kanaya TG: i told her to contact you since you are moirails with kanaya

CG: KANAYA WOULD BE OVERJOYED JUST BEING GIVEN A GIFT FROM ROSE. CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT ROSE IS FREAKING OUT ABOUT.

TG: thats what i said TG: but yeah you should probably message her just to make sure she hasnt gone into solitude about it

CG: HAS SHE ACTUALLY GONE INTO SOLITUDE FOR THINGS LIKE THAT?

TG: no TG: she mostly goes into solitude near a book deadline TG: but still TG: it is a concern of mine

CG: ALRIGHT. CG: I'LL TRY TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO HER. CG: WHAT'S HER HANDLE?

TG: tentacletherapist

CG: I GUESS I'LL GO MESSAGE HER NOW. CG: I'LL TALK TO YOU LATER.

TG: see ya my dude

-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

You begin to brainstorm ideas for possible videos for your channel in the future, and you kept this up for about an hour before someone started messaging you.

-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

GA: This Is Dave Correct GA: I Am Kanaya Just In Case You Did Not Recognize My Handle

TG: yep this is dave TG: whats up kanaya what do you need

GA: I Do Not Actually Need Anything From You GA: I Simply Wanted To Make Sure That I Had The Handle Right Before Contacting You In The Future GA: However I Would Not Be Adverse To A Conversation

TG: well lets see what could we possibly talk about TG: there are a shit ton of potential topics we could discuss TG: and yet my brain is coming up blank TG: despite all my swank this shit aint ready to bank TG: the topics at hand are inside the void TG: were reaching for them grabbing at them TG: but we miss more than a storm trooper droid TG: we pick up a topic and were like oh shit we grabbed it TG: only for it to slip out of our hands and end up cracking it

GA: Do You Happen To Partake In The Art Of Slam Poetry

TG: thats like the troll way of saying rap right TG: hell fucking yeah i do TG: do you want to do a rap battle with me

GA: I Do Not Do This Sort Of Thing Very Often But I Would Like To Accept Your Challenge GA: Would You Rather You Or I Go First

TG: if youre feeling up to it you can go first

GA: If You Insist GA: Here I Go GA: The World Was Created A Long Time Ago GA: And Yet It Has No Time For Your Parlor Tricks GA: All They Do Is Make Us Sick GA: The Stars Align And They Make Me Shine GA: Far Brighter Than The Sun That I Have Claimed As Mine GA: You Seem To Have The Belief That You Are Better Than I GA: But I Regret To Inform You That I Will Make You Cry

TG: holy shit that was great TG: but frankly i have to reiterate TG: my rhymes are slick and holding to a beat TG: theres not a lot of thinking that goes into what im bringing TG: theres no time to think no time to meet TG: just listen to the words here that i here am singing TG: youve got to have more than rhymes to kick my ass TG: and frankly based on that youre not gonna last TG: cause my beats are sick so sick in fact TG: that my old raps are practically some cool artifact

GA: That Youre Raps Are An Artifact You Have Correct GA: But I Have To Inform You That You Need To Double Check GA: What You Think It Means At Least GA: For I Believe They Were Thrown In The Garbage Yesterday GA: You Should Feel Horrid If That Is The Case GA: That Is Where They Were Meant To Be Anyway GA: Mine However Are The Hottest You Ever Will See GA: And If You Say Otherwise All Will Disagree

TG: my rhymes may be trash but theyre ironically shitty TG: just wait and see if you can reach my level of petty TG: my beats made of coal and with enough pressure and heat TG: my beats will be the most beautiful diamonds on the street TG: ill be forever engrained in the earth TG: youll be the one always waiting around for a rebirth

GA: Im Going To Have To Say I Agree Your Rhymes Are Shitty GA: Theyre Gritty And Im Pretty GA: And Im Worth More Than Being Just Petty GA: Youre Admitting That Your Trash GA: You Might As Well Be Ash GA: Ive Won Already So I Hope That You Are Ready GA: Your Diamonds Are Fake As Is Your Declaration GA: Just Pack Up Your Bags Youre Leaving The Station

TG: okay okay i yield TG: leaving the station now TG: didnt even pack my bags thats how roasted my ass got TG: your rhymes are too sick for me to handle TG: like holy shit where did you learn to rap like that

GA: I Dabble In The Art Of Slam Poetry And The Art Of Poetry Alike GA: Not As Often As I Would Like Though GA: Perhaps We Can Do This Again Another Time

TG: i will totally take you up on your offer TG: its been a while since ive had a worthy opponent TG: especially one that beat me into the ground so soundly

GA: I Will Continue Honing My Skills

TG: and ill do the same over here

GA: It Was Enjoyable Talking With You GA: Or In This Case Slamming With You GA: I Will Contact You In The Future

TG: wait hold on before you go TG: karkat mentioned a friend named nepeta and i want to get her contact info TG: do you have this information

GA: Her Trollhandle Is ArsenicCatnip GA: However I Do Not Know Why Karkat Would Withhold This Information From You

TG: i think he might have been worried how well we would get along

GA: I Still Do Not Understand GA: I Should Be Going Now GA: I Will Message You Again In The Future

-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

Well, you guess it’s time to message Nepeta for the first time.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering arsenicCatnip [AC] --

TG: yo youre nepeta right TG: i heard about you from my friend karkat who is also your friend TG: i got your handle from kanaya tho because karkat refused TG: he said he didnt want to bring the powers that we have together TG: well i said fuck that and so here i am pestering you

AC: :33 < i am nepeta, but who are mew?

TG: oh shit TG: i guess i completely forgot to introduce my awesome self TG: im dave TG: nice to meet you

AC: :33 < its nice to m33t you too! AC: :33 < how did you and karcat meet? AC: :33 < he doesnt really talk to anyone outside his furiend group

TG: i met him at his work and i kinda rambled a shit ton like i always do TG: and i made him laugh and i gave him my chumhandle

AC: :33 < ! AC: :33 < you made him laugh? AC: :33 < i almost nefur hear him laugh beclaws he just wants to be all grumpy all the time

TG: it might of just been because he was at work and didnt feel like risking yelling at me TG: which he does all the time TG: anyway i heard you like roleplaying with people

AC: :33 < i do! AC: :33 < would mew like to rolepurrlay with me?

TG: hell yes

AC: :33 < i usually rolepurrlay as a cat AC: :33 < what would mew like to be?

TG: shit if were going to be doing animals and shit then i want to be a crow TG: crows are the shit TG: you can start if you want to

AC: :33 < *ac crouches behind some bushes, watching her unsuspecting prey*

TG: *tg stands there pecking at the ground or some shit*

AC: :33 < *when ac is sure the crow isnt suspecting it, she pounces!*

TG: *tg squawks as ac attacks him he is completely fucking oblivious to how this could have possibly happened*

AC: :33 < *ac successfurlly holds the crow in her claws, purrparing to eat her dinner*

TG: *tg begs that ac does not eat him over and over he shouts to not be eaten by her*

AC: :33 < *ac carefurlly considers not eating the crow* AC: :33 < *in the end, howefur, ac opens her maw and asks if the crow would like to watch a documentary about animals!*

TG: *tg stares in disbelief at his tactic of begging actually working* TG: *not wanting to give ac any reason to eat him he accepts her invitation* TG: *he says that he would love to*

AC: :33 < *ac says that this rolepurrlay was furry fun!*

TG: *tg says ditto and would like to do this again sometime*

AC: :33 < *ac agrees but must go now so she will troll you again in the furture*

-- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --

Well, that was pretty fun. Soon enough, you both will be able to use your powers for evil. And by evil, you mean to annoy Karkat, at least a little bit. Maybe you could invite them both out at some point.

You hear the doorbell ring, and you go to the door to find a package at your doorstep. Sweet. More stuff to review for your channel. As if you didn’t have enough shit already.

You set up your recording stuff and start recording. You open the box in absolute silence and slowly pull out the merchandise. It’s a rug. A very, very soft rug.

“The first carpet industry was made in 1791 by a dude named William Sprague in Philadelphia. However, it isn’t the United States that make the best rugs. Eastern counties actually have the best carpets, like India. They make a hell of a lot of rugs. This rug isn’t from India though. It’s just a really soft rug. Look how soft that shit is. Softer than the nicest goddamned silk in the world.”

You rub the carpet against your face.

“Just be sure to take off all the tags so you can get the full sensory experience of the rug. Now, of course, I can’t just keep rubbing my face against this lovely carpet. I’ve got to put it on the floor where it can do what it’s supposed to do. Be a rug.”

You place the carpet on the floor and step on it. You wriggle around your toes.

“Still just as amazing on my feet as it was on my face. Though, you might not want it to rub your face against it once you’ve rubbed your feet on it. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. I’m not judging. But you might want to wash it.”

After a few more minutes of rambling on about the texture and color and other sensory stuff about the carpet before stopping the recording.

Time to edit the fuck out of this shit. After you find a place for the pink carpet you bought. It was way too nice to throw away, and pink is a great color.

#davekat #aradave #pale aradave #karkat vantas #dave strider #homestuck #kanaya maryam #nepeta leijon

10 notes · View notes

blueflamebird · 7 years

Text

10 days Lawlu: T is for “Thank you”

pairing: Lawlu (duh)

fandom: One Piece

rating: G

summary: after doffy’s defeat, law reflects

ao3

note: I know i didnt do the other days but…heres the one that wouldnt leave me alone :)

Law’s eyes shot open, the daylight that snuck through his closed door giving enough light for him to confirm that no, he was not locked in that chest from all those years ago.

He rolled over in his bed, still warm sheets despite the missing person chased away the last of the recurring nightmare he’s had since he was 13.

Instead, he allowed himself to wonder briefly where Luffy wandered off to. The Strawhat captain insisted that they sleep together - “you shouldn’t be alone so much Torao! I’ll keep you company tonight!” - and the look in Luffy’s normally childish eyes silenced any complaints. If anyone asked, Law would just say he was still too sore to try to fight off Luffy’s rubbery limbs. The fact most of the strawhats would see right through that lie was besides the point.

Besides, it wasn’t that bad sleeping besides another person. Even if that person snored and kicked in his sleep. But Luffy was endearing in a way, and Law couldn’t help but think he’d easily be dead right now had Luffy not been there. To think at one point he saved the Strawhat on a whim…

Law found himself thinking back to Marineford. Just being there would have ruined his plans, had Doflamingo seen him there. Instead he was driven by…something. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it was that drove him, the will of D or some sort of divine intervention, to save Luffy.

Operating on him had been one of the hardest, and one of his most favorite, operations to do. Luffy was still in shock, and the adrenaline running through his body kept him alive long enough for Law to get him in stable condition. And even then, the amount of injuries he sustained alone should have killed a normal person.

Except, by now, Law was well aware Luffy wasn’t just a normal person.

And even with all those injuries, Luffy survived, he lived.

Law glanced over at the nightstand, where his own hat rested but the straw hat he was looking for was gone, probably with its owner wherever he wandered off to.

Again, Marineford came back to Law’s mind, catching the infamous straw hat in his hands after Buggy the Clown threw it to him before going back underwater. He remembers holding it, looking at the stitching pattern, obvious fixes from the adventures Luffy and Shanks before him put the hat through. This one hat meant so much to Luffy, started his journey as a pirate.

And what was Law’s own reason? To get back at the people who killed his family before the Amber Lead poisoning took his own life? To work under Doflamingo long enough to put his plan into action and kill him for killing Cora-san?

Law felt himself shudder as the nightmare threatened to resurface. Banging against the chest, hearing the gunshots, Cora-san falling against the chest Law was in-

Law tore his gaze away from his hat, taking measured breaths as he forced the thoughts out of his head.

It was all over. Cora-san was avenged, all thanks to Luffy.

Luffy, who thought their alliance was a friendship and threw a metaphorical wrench into his carefully thought out plans.

Luffy, who took down Doflamingo for him.

Luffy, who Law initially insisted they were enemies, only for Law to be willing to die for him, since Luffy was so willing to help him achieve his dreams.

It was amazing how Luffy went from another pirate he’d have to beat to the One Piece to someone so important to him. To someone he managed to love since Cora-san.

His arm tingled with phantom pain of being cut off, and Law lifted his hand, flexing and stretching his fingers a bit. Still stiff. With some practice motor function should be back to the way it was before.

“Ah! Torao is awake!”

It didn’t matter how long he knew Luffy, the nickname, and the excitement Luffy always spoke of him always had Law’s heart hammering in his chest. Law allowed a small smile to grace his features as he dropped his hand, pain forgotten as Luffy let himself in, shutting the door behind him with a leg as he carefully carried a tray to the bed Law still lazed in.

“Good morning, Mugiwara-ya.”

Luffy grinned, placing the tray carefully on Law’s lap as the Heart captain sat up, feeling his body stretch and crack from sleep.

“Sanji made breakfast!-” Ah, so that’s where he was- “I was going to bring you some! But I got hungry on the way here and the bacon looked so good and you couldn’t have eggs without bacon so I just ate that too…BUT I brought your coffee!”

Law smiled again, gratefully accepting the coffee and not the least bit surprised his breakfast didn’t make it here. Maybe he could ask Sanji for a quick snack if he got hungry, but the coffee will do just fine.

“Thank you, Luffy-ya.”

Luffy sat at the edge of the bed, watching as Law drank his coffee, as patient as Luffy could be. When Luffy started shifting on the bed, Law had just finished the cup, putting it and the tray to the side so Luffy could bounce around without spilling anything.

Sure enough, once the tray was out of the way Luffy vaulted himself on top of Law, suddenly bringing them face to face.

Law grimaced. “Luffy-ya, were both still recovering! Be careful!”

“You slept ok right? No nightmares?”

Law fell silent, looking into Luffy’s serious and determined dark eyes. Even though Law knew the reason Luffy insisted on sharing a bed, having the reason put in the form of concerned questioning still took him by surprise. Luffy was nothing but blunt, but so kind and caring. Law had to swallow before answering.

“You don’t have to worry about it.” Luffy’s face fell and Law quickly had to add. “I slept better with you here, though.”

Luffy perked up almost as fast as he got disappointed, and Law had to wonder for the millionth time how someone so childish managed to run a ship as grand as the Sunny.

“Good! You don’t have to worry about Mingo anymore! Because I told you I’d help you kick his ass and I did! You’re free!”

Law felt his throat get dry. He wondered if Cora-san could see him now…would he be proud? He achieved Cora’s dream thanks to Luffy.

“Yeah…I know that Luffy-ya. But you know it will just get more dangerous from here, right? Kaido is much stronger than Doflamingo.”

Luffy grinned. “We’ll just have to kick his ass too!”

This was the boy who managed to get a grand fleet, Law thought. Because as simple as the words were, Law felt himself be reassured. Luffy was kind, but once he set his sights on something, he did it, no matter the cost. And not for the first time, Law found himself thinking, he would gladly die for Luffy.

“Huh? Torao?”

Law must have been silent for too long, but instead of deflecting as he normally would, he simply buried his face in the crook of Luffy’s neck. The Strawhat captain wasted no time in bringing his arms around to hold Law.

They stayed in their rather intimate embrace for a while. But once Law found his voice again and was confident it wouldn’t shake, he finally spoke.

“Thank you, Luffy-ya.”

Luffy giggled. “I should be thanking you, Torao! Without you saving me when I lost…when I lost Ace, I wouldn’t have been able to kick Mingo’s ass, and I wouldn’t have been able to see Sabo again. So thank you again, Torao!”

Luffy pulled back, holding Law up by his shoulders to look into his eyes, flashing a wide, rubbery grin. “As long as we’re nakama, no one can stop us!”

Law chuckled, repeating the same thing he’s had to since their alliance became less than professional. “Nakama don’t kiss and do half the things we do, Mugiwara-ya.”

Luffy, as always, tilted his head to the side, confused. “But I care about you and the talking bear and your crew! Well, maybe not as much as my crew, or how I care for Ace and Sabo. And I don’t want to kiss anyone else…BUT I STILL CARE!”

Law leaned in and silenced him with a kiss. Luffy gently returned it, probably worried about irritating their injuries. When Law pulled back, Luffy pouted. Law smiled.

“I know, Luffy-ya. Now let’s go. You ate my breakfast and I’m actually hungry.”

Luffy’s pout was replaced by excitement and Law had all of a second to prepare as Luffy bodily dragged him out of bed and out of the room, screaming “SANJI!!! BREAKFAST!!” at the top of his lungs.

Law wouldn’t change this for anything.

#lawlu #10 days of lawlu #blueflamebird writes

10 notes · View notes

backfist · 7 years

Note

1-104 d:

going to compress this for the people on mobile

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say?

“how in the world did i end up in texas? also what’s good you hungry?” @littytittymanda

2. What’s going on between you and the last person you kissed?

we haven’t talked too much recently, she’s busy with school as am i

3. If your boyfriend or girlfriend was into drugs, would you care?

depends on the drug, and depends on how it affects them. but i care about them regardless so yes.

4. Is your last name longer than six letters?

way too long yes

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober?

sober

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up?

too many times

7. What does your last received text say?

“how evil” about this ask, also from @littytittymanda

8. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed?

a lot actually lol, good hundred or 2 at least

9. Where was your last kiss at?

in a car behind a sushi restaraunt

10. When is the last time you saw your sister?

when im an only child

11. What do you drink in the morning?

hella water, so much water

12. Where did you sleep last night?

in my bed

13. Do you think relationships are hard?

they dont have to be!

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you?

oh a few things, definitely. school wise, people wise, etc.

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, any problems?

not really, we would just talk about life

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy?

rain! my favourite!!

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you?

i dont think so? at least off the top of the dome

18. Are you wearing jeans,sweatpants,or pajama pants?

none ;D

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now?

i could see it

20. Does anyone like you?

seems like they do!

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S?

yes indeed, 2 people

22. Is the last person you kissed gay?

i dont think she is

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand?

indeed! ugh, i wish it wasnt that way

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?

considered, yes, but unsure about the importance of it later in life

25. In the past week have you cried?

yes once

26. What breed was the last dog you saw?

MY CHIHUAHUA

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower?

in the shower of course?? why would you do it out?

28. Have you ever kissed a football player?

if you count powderpuff games lmao, but no

29. Do you think you’re old?

not relatively but this is the oldest ive ever been so

30. Do you like text messaging?

yeah, its fun

31. What type of day are you having?

decent is the best word, nothing TOO big

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced?

no, never!

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

cold over warm is where i like to be, a mild 50 is perfect

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?

of course.

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling?

right now a fling because why not? but i definitely want a relationship in the future

36. Are you a simple or complicated person?

i would say simple on the outside, but complex at least to myself

37. What song are you listening to?

right now..nothing, but the commentary of the Raptors vs Bucks game

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it?

always. i hate being the cause of someone’s pain or anger.

39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you?

@say-tonic

40. What made you start liking the person you like now?

i like a lot of people, and they’re all great

41. When did you last receive a text message?

just this instant

42. What is wrong with you right now?

eh who knows

43. How well do you know the last female you texted?

decently? we only started talking a few weeks ago, so not much time but a good time

44. Does anyone disgust you?

LOL yes

45. Would you date someone right now if they asked?

no, not right now

46. Are you in a good mood right now?

id say so yes! (:

47. Who was the last person you talked to in person?

my buddy Chuck from work

48. What color shirt are you wearing?

im...not? there’s a pattern here

49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear?

UH yeah, nothing too harsh though

50. Anyone you’re giving up on?

sadly. a friend that has given up on trying to be successful in life.

51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for?

not at all.

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t?

YES YES THIS IS A MISTAKEWEED NEGATIVITY OUT

53. Do you like rain?

UH ITS MY FAV BRING ME THE RAIN DAY AND NIGHT EVERY DAY

54. Do you care if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks?

not particularly, unless if becomes a problem

55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them?

AHAHAHA YES YES

56. Do you like to cuddle?

WHO DOESNT ARE YOU SERIOUS

57. Are you shy?

somewhat, more introverted but im a lot more open with people i feel comfortable with

58. Do you get along with girls?

id say so. i feel like i’m a very respectful person overall and that goes a long way

59. Have you dated the person you texted last?

nope lol

60. What do you carry with you at all times?

my phone and wallet and keys

61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you?

i will spend a month in there give me a flashlight and some food

62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months?

i CAN but will i? thats the question

63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship?

no no

64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute?

hella

65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week?

not really from what i can remember! oh well lmao

66. How old are the last three people you kissed?

wow 3? gotta think about this one hmm.

22 / 24 / 22

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself?

shoot im paying, need an expert

68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print?

both gaudy, but zebra

69. Do you have any stickers on your car?

i dont have my own car!!!!! :(

70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne?

i hate country so by default lil wayne

71. Blackberry, Anroid, or iPhone?

ANDROID 5000

72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?

wow at least like..5/6 years ago. pizza hut is overrated

73. Do you like diet soda?

bad soda bad yuck

74. What color are the walls in your room?

beige

75. Are you 16 or older?

NAH SON IM 11

76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars?

watched it once, was decent, dont think id watch again

77. Do you have a job?

heck yeah! get the money

78. What are your initials?

J D K

79. Did you ever have braces?

you said i got gum stuck in them all the time? heck yeah

80. Are you from the south?

no im from M I C H I G A N

81. What does your last status on facebook say?

“PC Gamers; what steam games do you reccommend?”

82. Do you still talk to the first person you ever kissed?

heck yeah! we’re cool (:

83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad?

mom 100000 percent

84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics?

gymnastics when i was just a BABY BOY

85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?

oh gosh uh..that would have to have been..not the current one, but the last Fast and Furious movie

86. Do you smoke?

not about it!

87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops?

FLIP MY FLOP

88. Is your phone touch screen?

HECK YEAH I LOV IT

89. Do you normally wear your hair straight or curly?

straight because it’s so damn shorty

90. Have you ever snuck out of your house?

almost impossible, i live on the second floor

91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool?

POOLNEVER IN LAKE OR RIVERS I CANT NOPE

92. Have you ever made out in a car?

you betcha, it was pretty great

93. …Had sex in a car?

lol haven’t had sex

94. Are you single or in a relationship?

single

95. What were you doing last night at midnight?

talking to a friend and on here DUH

96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks?

4th of july last year i think

97. Do you like the camera on your phone?

its pretty good! i take too many selfies to end up deleting them

98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?

kind of, yeah. an ex that was a best friend that becamne that, and then back to being good friends

99. Have you ever passed out from drinking?

LMAO no i’ve only drank twice

100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate?

i dont think so? that’s pointless

101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare?

L M A O NOPE I WOULDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO

102. Name your favorite Kesha song:

the acoustic version of Die Young

103. Do you have any tan lines right now?

hasn’t been sunny enough so no!

104. Would you ever wear cowboy boots with shorts?

LMAO WHY NOT CALL ME THE SHERIFF

0 notes

smartwebhostingblog · 6 years

Text

Looking Back, Michael Phelps Wouldn't Change a Thing (But He Does Want You To Make 1 Small Change)

New Post has been published on http://www.1701host.com/cloud-hosting/looking-back-michael-phelps-wouldnt-change-a-thing-but-he-does-want-you-to-make-1-small-change/

Looking Back, Michael Phelps Wouldn't Change a Thing (But He Does Want You To Make 1 Small Change)

Imagine you just bought a case of bottled water. Would you idly open and pour 10 or 15 bottles down the drain? Of course not. That would be wasteful. That would be stupid.

But for years that is exactly what I did: I left the faucet on when I brushed my teeth. There was no specific reason. Like many things in life, that’s just what I did — even though I had heard the statistics, like how in the U.S. alone we can save hundreds of millions of gallons of water a year if we all turn off the faucet while we brush our teeth.

That’s a huge number — yet like with many statistics that show the impact of an aggregate change, I didn’t feel a personal connection.

But the idea of dumping brand-new bottles of water down the drain? I could definitely connect with that image.

Now, turning off the water while I brush my teeth is just what I do. So yeah: Michael Phelps got in my head.

And for good reason.

The United Nations estimates that close to half of the world’s population will live in countries with limited water supplies by the year 2030. That’s why this is Michael’s second year as global ambassador for Colgate’s #EveryDropCounts campaign.

Studies show that nearly 75 percent of Americans who were aware of Colgate’s campaign say it influenced their personal actions in terms of saving water, and almost 60 percent say they turn off the faucet more often when brushing their teeth.

Each time you turn off the faucet you can save between 2 and 4 gallons of water, which is between 15 and 30 bottled waters… and if we all do, well over 500 million gallons of water a day.

Which, even though math is not my friend, adds up to over 31 million plastic bottles of water.

I talked with Michael about why life after swimming and why he’s so involved in water conservation — and also about motivation, achieving huge goals, and his struggles with anxiety and depression.

There are tons of things you could have gotten involved in, and with your profile, tons of organizations that would welcome your involvement. So why water conservation?

I’ve approached my whole career exactly the way I do now: The things I’m a part of are things I believe in, that we already do in our daily lives.

So when Colgate asked me to be a global ambassador for water conservation, to help spread a message we already care about… it was a no brainer. Water obviously plays a significant role in my life, but this is something my wife and I were already trying to teach our son. Boomer understands that when the Colgate sticker on the stopper turns red it’s time to turn the faucet off. And someday Beckett will, too.

As a parent, to know that your kids can be taught that lesson at such an early age, and that it will make such a significant impact worldwide… that’s incredible to watch.

It’s a powerful campaign, one I’m honored to be a part of.

You come from a where results are measurable… when you drew the analogy of wasting bottles of water, that really struck a nerve with me.

Stats and numbers make a huge difference, especially when they’re relatable. When you can show people not just the total potential change but also how they can make a real difference… that’s when they’ll jump onboard.

But it’s also really powerful to know just how big an impact we can make if we all come together.

Most of us take water for granted. We turn on the faucet and it’s there. But that’s not the case for hundreds of millions of people around the world. There is no “never ending supply” of water. In this country we could potentially not have clean water within our lifetime.

That’s a scary thought. Water is at the center of everything.

Our pipes froze for a day last winter and you would have thought the world was coming to an end.

(Laughs.) Exactly.

The other day someone said, “When I brush my teeth, I think about you.” While that’s a strange thing to hear (laughs), it shows we’re making a difference. People are listening. They understand what we’re trying to do. And they’re buying into it.

Saving water is something we can all easily do — without any effort at all — every single day.

I asked LinkedIn users to send me questions they would love to ask you. Here’s one: Many people worry that dedicating themselves to achieving a huge goal means they will miss out on other things. Do you feel all the sacrifices you made were worth it? Would you go back and change anything?

That’s an awesome question. The short answer is no, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I did miss some high school dances and parties, I did lose the chance to hang out with people… but I didn’t care, because I knew I had the opportunity to do something no one else had ever done. That made me willing to make those sacrifices.

If you really do want to do something significant, you’re going to have to make sacrifices. You have to. That’s just part of it.

So I wouldn’t change anything: Not the good, not the bad, not the ugly. All those experiences helped mold me into who I am… and for the last two years, for the first time in my life I like who I am as a person.

It’s hard to imagine that winning 28 Olympic medals wouldn’t make you happy.

For the longest time I looked at myself strictly as a swimmer and not as a human being.

But still: I wouldn’t change anything because I am so happy with my life today.

Was it hard and grueling and brutal? Yes. But if you look at the most successful people, they do things when they don’t necessarily want to do them.

That’s what makes you great: Doing things when you don’t want to do them… because you know that is what it takes to get you to where you want to go.

What motivated you more: Winning, or losing?

That’s easy. Losing. (Laughs.)

I definitely remember the losses because those were times I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I could have been. Losses were wakeup calls that I needed to get my butt in gear, and focus on what I needed to do to win a gold medal, break a record, etc.

I’m really hard on myself. I tend to beat myself up. But if I’m devoting time and energy to something, I want to do it right.

I’m won’t do something if I’m not willing to put in time and effort to do it as well as I possibly can.

Lots of parents on LinkedIn asked for your advice for helping a teenager who suffers from anxiety or depression.

Even though every kid is different, and every kid will need something different, it all starts with being there to support them.

One thing I always say is make sure the communication line is always open. When someone goes into isolation that’s a huge red flag, and should definitely set off alarms.

Another tool is something we implemented in our Foundation over the last year. There are 8 basic emotions. Whenever you’re feeling one, dig deeper into why you feel that way and what caused that feeling. That can help you address the underlying problem instead of just dwelling with that emotion.

I have used that technique for years, and still use it today.

I sometimes do that without thinking. If I’m feeling stressed, I’ll think, “Okay, why exactly do I feel this way?” That lets me deal with the causal factor instead of just trying to “reduce my anxiety level.”

Me too. I try to take a step back and think, for example, about why I am getting so angry about this situation, this person, etc. It’s a really good tool, one you can use

Really good tool that anyone can use.

It also helps when you remember not to take things so personally. If I’m driving and someone cuts me off, I’ll get mad and think, “What is his problem…” but what just happened really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to affect me at all.

I’m learning to pause, to take that deep breath, and realize that it’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.

I use those tools and I’m still trying to sharpen them up.

One thing that’s obvious is you don’t mind talking about your own anxiety, stress, depression…

When I openly talk about these things it’s really helpful: I learn more about myself and about what I’m doing to change.

On a broader level, I think it’s great that athletes and celebrities — and kids — are opening up more about mental health, because it’s something we need to address. There are all these stigmas… people assume that if you’re an athlete you’re incredibly strong mentally as well… but I’m a human being too. I struggle with the same things.

It’s cool when athletes show the world that they’re not superhuman, that they’ not unbeatable. They’re human.

It also helps when kids open up about their struggles, because that helps other kids realize they’re not the only ones.

That’s why we produced the documentary “Angst.” It shows how kids in middle school and high school deal with depression and anxiety. While it has been shown in a number of schools across the country, we’re hoping to make that happen in every single school because it is so important for kids to see other kids open up and talk about their struggles — to show that it’s okay.

To show that it’s okay to not be okay.

I’ve had scary times and depressed times since the Olympics, and for me those are a part of life. Those times are part of who I am. I have to accept that, and be as prepared as I can when those times happen so I can keep learning and keep taking small steps forward.

Speaking of small steps forward. What have you learned about yourself in the process?

If we’re talking about mental health, I joke about it because I know it sounds really basic, but the biggest thing I’ve learned is to communicate. (Laughs.)

I was great at compartmentalizing. To finally learn to let out some things out was like a huge release. To be my open, honest, authentic self… that took me a long time to find.

It’s an incredible feeling to know you’re being yourself and being authentic in everything you do. When you have that… that’s the equation for success. Nothing will stand in your way because your mind is so powerful.

What got you to that point?

The key is to understand that it is okay to not be okay — and you’re not alone. You’re not by yourself. People are willing to help.

It’s hard to ask for help, but it’s really important to ask for help when you need it.

I struggled with that. I was afraid of rejection, was afraid of how it would feel if people couldn’t or wouldn’t help me. I couldn’t handle that answer.

Now I can. Now I realize there are plenty of people that will not only help you — they genuinely want to see you succeed.

But was there a specific moment…?

The tipping point for me was after my second DUI. I felt I didn’t want to be on this earth anymore. I didn’t want to be alive.

That was the time I knew I had to make a change. I had to be ready to make that change.

And that caused me to be vulnerable. “Vulnerable” is a scary word. But going through that change saved my life.

And it changed my life. I know now that I’m I’m still going to get depressed. I’m still going to go through periods of high anxiety. But I understand that is part of who I am. And now, I’m comfortable in my own skin.

Depression isn’t something you have once and then it goes away forever. Depression can come back, and as long as you’re as prepared as you can be you, you can work through it and keep taking steps forward. You can keep making progress.

Trust me. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

I’m eager to move forward, to grow, to learn from the experiences I’ve had and that I’m sure I will have…

That’s why it’s actually exciting to talk about this part of my journey — because I know that if I keep working, keep growing, keep learning… my life can be even better than it already is.

No Related Posts

0 notes

hostingnewsfeed · 6 years