#and exploratory with it.

[dementedspeedster]

Smash or pass: Slo-bo, Ray Terrill, Matt Stuart, Imra Ardeen and Querl Dox

Accepting || Send Smash or Pass + a name and my muse will say if they would smash or pass on that person.

Slo-bo:

"Smash. I have not been shy to say that I find him attractive. Also I'm very interested in what else he can do with those teeth of his. Biting through electrical cables is already impressive, but there's gotta be some other fun uses."

Ray Terrill:

"Smash, because, I mean, look at him. The guy's handsome."

Matt Stuart:

"Pass, though not because because I think he's bad looking or anything, but I know we would get along like a house on fire, and I do mean like a house on fire. I can see it being bad for both of us. We would negatively influence each other and there would 100% be another successful attempt on Bart's life."

Imra Ardeen:

"Y'know, what? Smash. She's smart, she's very cute, and I respect what she's done with Legion."

Querl Dox:

"Smash. We have similar interests, I think he's attractive, and honestly I think if he was into it and we fucked it would be interesting in an...experimental, satiating any intellectual curiosities, kind of sort of way."

[pillowspace]

No one:

Tumblr user pillowspace: hey y'all mind if I drew another ISAT au that's going to occupy your brain forever? No? Okay! *Blasts with co-op ISAT*

(It's so cool I need more on my hands and knees)

The House has the prologue's wine! And since SAAPfrin and ISATfrin are both a split of the "original Siffrin" for co-op... You could say that some aspects go to one Siffrin that the other might lose

(This was drawn with the help of one of the poses from this post by @albanenechi)

[remusbuznea]

[tf2heritageposts]

okay i was going through poker night dialogue because i was trying to remember what heavy said his favorite drink was and

heavy: i am union! RED local 615

tycho: you guys unionized?

heavy: eh…was necessary for group medical

so apparently team fortress (or at least RED team) is unionized. for medical benefits despite medic existing? does medic actually charge them and they needed to unionize for insurance reasons????

[shanastoryteller]

I was one of the anons that didn’t know what to think when I first saw the Sam/Dean tag on See Something Say Something but now I’m like. You know what fuck it, you write it well. I look forward to every chapter and i apologize for being a hater

LOOOL you are forgiven we have all guzzled hatorade at some point

during my initial foray into supernatural (when i was watching the early seasons in real time) i didn't ship them at all until i read a crack fic as a joke

The incestuous courtship of the antichrist's bride by fleshflutter

summary: Sam is trying to become the Antichrist in order to save the world. He has a small army of angels and demons, he has an adoring cult, he has a work of prophecy by Jack Kerouac, and he has Dean. Things are going pretty well until he accidentally signs Dean up as his Beloved Consort, a role that requires sex with the Antichrist on an altar. And that's when things stop going pretty well. Also, the soundtrack to the Apocalypse sucks.

it has no business being as unbelievably good as it is, but also it was my first fleshflutter fic so i didn't know what i was getting myself into. it's one of my favorite fics in any fandom just because the balance of crack and horror and love and humor is so finely done that you just have to go damn. even if i hated everything about this fic i would still love it

but i was like, okay, just because this fic was good doesn't mean i really ship it. like what's wrong with just a freaky little codependent brotherly relationship? the ship mostly just exists because they're hot

then i read Stranger Than Fiction by nyxocity

summary: Meta-comedy/drama set immediately post-4x18, The Monster at the End of This Book. Dean can't stop wondering why people would write gay porn about him and Sam. Research takes him to interesting places; re-reading novels for subtext, visiting message boards, and a really freaky place called LiveJournal. What he discovers is a sick fascination with fanfiction, more about gay sex than he ever wanted to know, and an even deeper obsession with understanding why people write this stuff. Meanwhile, they're hunting a mysterious monster that takes the form of a person's truest love to kill them slowly, the lines between fanfiction and reality are starting to break down, and they still have to stop Lilith and save the world.

which reads like it's crack, which is probably why i clicked on it, and isn't really. not only did the author convince sam and dean, they also convinced me. i was like okay fine you make a compelling argument

and when supernatural sucked me in this time a decade later, i was once more like well! yeah wincest is fine but i really am just a sucker for a good fucked up brotherly relationship. no need to be a folgers commercial about it

then i read It's the Blueprint of Your Life by queenklu

summary: Sam jerks awake in the middle of the night and everything goes to hell. Well, not literally, though Dean is staring down the barrel of less than a year before his deal comes due. In the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with his impending death, a killer ghost ship, and Bela showing up out of the blue, Dean also has to figure out what’s going on in Sam’s head to make him so twitchy, why he’s suddenly breezing through this case while writing endless notes in a notebook he won’t let Dean see. Damn it, Dean thinks, This is gonna take a lot of chickflick moments.

which is not only one of my very favorite supernatural fics but the one that made me throw up my hands and go fine!! i ship it then!! are you happy now?

pleased and honored to be your gateway drug in these trying times <3

[crabussy]

one of my favourite memories ever is going swimming in my undies in the dead of winter beneath a waterfall in the middle of a forest (I couldn't feel my legs at ALL) and having a small longfin eel tentatively swim up to me. upon me sticking my hand out for her to explore, she rubbed her head up against my hand and let me pet her like some kind of slippery long cat. wet wriggly beast I miss you so much.. we were best friends for one fleeting moment... I hope you find a cave so deep and comfortable that all the other eels are seething with envy

[anto-pops]

I love your FF, and I love the way you write Sebastian, it's like all the fandom has a silent agreement on him being thick ifkwim 👁️👄👁️

Also, I can picture him being the kind who spits on in before he dives in, I know you've thought about it 🥵

AAHAHAH THANK YOOOOU !! 💕

Sebastian definitely doesn't have an Alaskan Bull Worm between his legs by any means, but yeah. That man has a CAWK on him. I HC that he's a grower for sure, but even when he's just chilling that thang is thick.

And yeah. He would. Probably not right off the bat when he and his partner start being intimate, but the more time passes and the more comfortable the two of them become, the more bold he would get. Spitting on it, slapping his dick against it, burying his face in MC's neck/breasts/etc, acting totally drunk in the midst of sex cause he literally can't help but moan and swear and touch whatever he can. He's a passionate guy when it comes down to it 👀

[effemar]

Danger to her own person was the first thing she had learned to see, back when she was still half a child, a slave girl bound for life to the great red temple. It was still the first thing she looked for whenever she gazed into a fire.

[pizzazz-party]

Day twenty one! Sweets.

[gorespawn]

grieving every single day that the average person is so unbelievably fucking squeamish. i want to talk about cool stuff that i like! but alas, i am not allowed to 💔

[homestuckreplay]

Only The Coolest Miniature Shades For MY Crater Baby

(page 1865-1890)

Today – May 19, 2010 – is the longest Homestuck update so far by page count with 26 pages, beating out 22 pages on February 18, 2010. These are image-dense pages too, with 45 images in all. According to a newspost, these have been drawn over several days and then posted as a batch, instead of the usual method of posting pages one at a time. That speaks to the importance of this section, although I gotta say it would have been fun seeing people’s speculation in response to the first few pages of this.

Here, Junior Ectobiologist Egbert gets some on the job training with a top of the line Skaian cloning machine. A senior ectobiologist has locked the machine onto several targets, and John can switch between the screens, create a paradox ghost imprint of its target which contains their genetic code, use that code to create a human clone of those specific targets, and remix the slime to create more humans from all new genetic codes. There’s a lot more that could be done if John had more control over this machine, but you gotta start with the basics, otherwise you’ll accidentally create a two headed cat (p.934).

This section gives a LOT of new information about the kids’ and guardians’ history, which I’ll try my best to summarize first, and then discuss. On December 1, 1995, a meteor destroys a Betty Crocker factory in the Egbert neighborhood, and Grandpa Harley gains a new shipmate in the form of baby Jade. On December 3, a meteor destroys Bro’s favorite record store in Texas, and a day later he travels there with tiny sunglasses for the occasion. Also on December 4, a meteor kills all aquatic life in a lake near Mom’s laboratory. On April 13, 1996, Mom and baby Rose visit the Egbert neighborhood. While they’re in town, a meteor destroys Nanna and Dad’s joke shop, killing Nanna, and Dad gains a son. It’s implied, though not stated outright, that the baby beta kids were inside these meteors when they impacted, and found and adopted by their guardians.

It’s stated that Grandpa Harley owns the Betty Crocker corporation – likely the whole of General Mills plus other major companies or sources of income, as this update features two reminders that he’s a billionaire. For context, actual world General Mills CEO Ken Powell made over $9 million in 2009, a ridiculous amount of money for one person but not a billionaire amount. The Crocker facility’s destruction is referred to as ‘collateral damage to a corporation’ (p.1869), and it’s the first of many businesses in John’s area to be destroyed: Nanna and Dad’s joke shop, Prankster’s Gambit, was part of a thirteen unit strip mall. The other twelve businesses presumably closed in response to the local meteor impact, if they weren’t destroyed themselves. So a pretty devastating loss of commerce and jobs in this small suburban area thanks to Skaia, and possibly also entertainment, if one of those businesses was a bowling alley, arcade, local library etc.

It’s said outright that ‘no aquatic life would survive’ the meteor that landed near Rose and Mom’s house (p.1879), which links directly to her quest on LOLAR, where every fish on the land was eaten by its Denizen and there is ‘not a single living thing left’ (p.1626). John’s quest on LOWAS is about allowing the Breeze to flow through the Pipes after they’ve been clogged with oil by his Denizen, and freeing the fireflies trapped under clouds by the Denizen’s spell. Act 1 focuses on John being metaphorically trapped in his house because he has nowhere else to go, ‘stuck’ similarly to the Breeze and fireflies. So it’s a less direct parallel, but John’s quest shares the goal of undoing the damage caused to Earth by his birthday meteor, because destroying that strip mall is what made his suburb a less vibrant, more static place to live, without the free movement of people and money.

We don’t know the details of Dave’s quest on LOHAC yet, but, his birthday meteor destroyed a record store, which I can instantly link to Bro destroying the record on Dave’s shirt during his pre-Sburb entry Strife sequence (p.1070). I (and lots of other fans) have linked music to time in Dave’s story, as he’s so associated with sick rhythmic beats and music is all about keeping in time, and this becomes explicit with his timetables (named on p.1822). So Dave’s quest probably links to restoring the flow or natural progression of time after the timeline has been damaged.

Dad working with his mother in a family joke shop and then losing her on the same day that he gains a surprise son really complicates his and John’s relationship to clowns. Dad’s harlequin and jester decorations might be less about the graffiti on John’s walls and more about keeping Nanna’s memory alive. The clown-harlequin distinction, which is important to Dad (p.47) but which John doesn’t care about, might have been important to Nanna. She probably raised Dad in various traditions of jokes, pranks and clownery, and even if he moved into a more ‘sensible’ career after her death, he keeps that interest alive and passes it onto his son because it’s literally the family business.

Nanna, Mom, Bro and Grandpa are all created by ectobiology within Sburb, which explains why CG mentioned ‘GUARDIANS’ in his list of guides provided by Sburb (p.1667). Dad, however, might have been born via standard human reproduction. So I think Dad is actually an unplanned element by Skaia, and it was ‘supposed’ to be Nanna raising John, only something went wrong – that’s why he was imprisoned on Derse when he entered the Medium. I think all four of Nanna, Mom, Bro and Grandpa had some knowledge of Skaia and the destinies of their children, while Dad knew something weird was happening, but didn’t know the details – he collects clippings about meteor impacts, including those in his neighborhood (p.545), but there’s no indication he ever solved this mystery.

In the past, baby Rose is holding the original Con Air bunny (p.1885) given by Dave to John (p.132), which she’d grow up to craft knitted repairs for and also gift to John for his birthday (p.1709-10). Baby Jade is holding this knitted version of the bunny (p.1874) and presumably also grew up with it. I’ve seen a lot of speculation that Jade’s birthday gift to John will also be the same bunny, and this is evidence in that direction – Jade has been ‘working on [John’s gift] for years!!!!’ (p.442) so could absolutely have used her tech skills to modify that bunny into a deadly weapon, one capable of killing the Black Queen (p.1667) and being used by someone with a bunnykind strife specibus… which John happens to have (p.407). The pieces fit, but the package itself still needs to be found.

Grandpa Harley’s yacht is named ‘Jade’, implying he named his daughter after his boat. Bec is on the island waiting for the two of them when they arrive, and he’s watching the meteor heading for Texas. Bec, like the kids, arrived on Earth inside a Sburb meteor (p.1073) so is probably attuned to similar meteors, and may have been created through similar ectobiology.

Also, according to the machine’s timestamps, Bro didn’t arrive to pick up baby Dave until a day after Dave’s meteor landed, meaning Bro left a baby in a crater overnight, and truly was a neglectful guardian from day one.

So that’s what we learn about the events of 1995-96, without even touching on what’s going on with John (the length of these posts is in no way my fault and entirely comes from the density of the story). The ectobiology process isn’t explained in depth, but was already seen when Rose explored Mom’s lab (p.931-4), where ectobiology was used to create a failed paradox clone of Jaspers. Presumably, Mom in her lab was trying to recreate or learn how to use the same technology set up in this meteor lab, only she didn’t have a senior adviser to set up the terminal in advance. The MEOW code probably also has some relevance to what Mom was trying to accomplish, and isn’t used at all here, so there will almost definitely be more advanced ectobiology later in this story.

It’s a fun detail that both John and Dr Meowgon were first created by ectobiology, and are now ectobiologists themselves. I guess that’s the circle of life for slime clones. And speaking of slime, John, who loves Ghostbusters, has a Slimer desktop wallpaper (p.24) and wears a green slime ghost T-shirt, is probably having the time of his life living out another of his favorite movies just minutes after naming a cat after a Ghostbusters character. Absolutely he is thinking about ectoplasm while sliming his own grandmother and three totally random strangers. John’s movies, forever in my heart.

From these four slime vats, John creates baby clones of the four guardians, who show up already wearing diapers and glasses. They are absolute sweethearts here, none of whom have grown up to be shitty guardians yet. Their futures are still open. They could still become anything. Maybe they’d live happier, kinder lives if Skaia didn’t continue interfering with them in the long term.

Then, Dr Meowgon combines the slime vats. Nanna and Grandpa (normal combination of family roles) combine to create Jade and John, who come from the same DNA sludge. So fraternal twins is probably the closest analogy for their biological relationship. Mom and Bro (fucked up combination of family roles that kickstarted Rose’s Freud obsession) combine to create Rose and Dave, who are also fraternal twins, but share no biological relationship with John and Jade. It’s more like they happened to be born in the same hospital.

So even though they are internet friends from different corners of the world, technically the four beta kids have all met in person, and actually shared their first moments together. It’s pretty strange to see them all share physical space when we never have before. I would say it’s stranger for John, but there’s not much emotional response from him in this whole update and no indication that he even recognizes any of the people besides his grandmother (p.1871) so I’ll discuss the psychological implications of all this another time.

I am guessing that all eight clones will go back in time on meteors and become the Earth versions of the beta kids and guardians, but I’m not ruling out a twist where they stay in the Incipisphere and become the dream selves instead.

I don’t usually love when characters turn out to be related, and while the ectobiological process in this update is a tidy closed loop that nicely clears up loose ends, I’m not sure what biological connections between the kids adds to the story that a close friendship didn’t already. However, my main issue with ‘surprise sibling’ twists is that they take relationships built on choice and purpose and reconfigure them as innately destined because of ‘shared blood’, and Homestuck has very clearly been about predestination vs free will for a long time, so it’s less of a sudden swerve than it might be in other fiction. Honestly it’s a really big moment that feels like it should change everything, but kind of doesn’t. For me, at least.

In their newspost, Hussie says that they ‘ruined a solid year's worth of perfectly good shipping with recent revelations’. From what I’ve seen, Rose/Dave has been a pretty popular ship up til now, with some people even considering it self-evident canon that they have crushes on each other. Jade/John has been less popular, but still has its fans – all possible combinations of the four kids have at least some shippers.

Prior to today’s revelations, I’ve genuinely considered all the shipping possibilities, at least in my head. Rose/Dave has always felt like it was invented by people who believe that banter is always flirting and seriously ask ‘can men and women ever REALLY just be friends?’ and doesn’t really have evidence if you believe that yes, of course they can. And John/Jade could have been neat from a time loop perspective given the origins of their friendship (p.1136), but doesn’t have much basis in their actual personalities or interactions. But it’s easy for me to feel superior when my ships aren’t affected, and I do feel bad for anyone who really cared about these ships. Characters turning out to be related is a pretty common twist in fiction, especially time travel fiction, and the nature of reading serial fiction is that revelations might happen which totally recontextualize the story up til now. It is a pretty vulnerable position to devote a lot of your time and emotions to something that might later upset you in any number of ways, and it’s not fun to go through that disappointment, even when it’s nobody’s fault.

Finally, I want to shout out some of the cool art in this section. The action shot of John dramatically pressing the button that’s reflected in his glasses (p.1870), the explosive meteor impacts, the flat color silhouette of Dad and Nanna outside the Crocker facility (p.1868), the imposing red sky of Dave’s city (p.1877-9), and the way Mom is framed by the target as she stands powerful looking out at John’s neighborhood (p.1885), are all examples of what Homestuck art does really well. In an update that gives a lot of critical information, the narrative definitely didn’t take over the art (in the reading experience – it definitely does in this post, but that’s my bias) and it feels like a lot of attention was paid to the visuals, too.

[remusbuznea]

[gothic-clownz]

freaks

[lookninjas]

Had a hard time stopping myself from overthinking this one, but I think we're finally there:

Pick a song from a bad description! You do not have to recognize any of the songs to vote. Just go by vibes. Pick whichever seems funniest to you. Or most relatable. Or whatever floats your yacht. At the end of the week, I will put all the songs in order from the song with the least amount of votes to the song with the most amount of votes, and share the playlist with you.

If you would like to hear the playlist when I'm done, leave a comment or put it in the tags of your reblog (or just write it in the reblog, whatever) and I will tag you when it's finished. If you're too curious and you just have to know about a song, send me an ask and I will answer.

Also, please reblog! The more votes I get, the less ties I get. (Usually. Last time we had three ties. Maybe all the descriptions were just that good, IDK.) But reblog it anyway. Inflict my weird music taste on your friends, followers, and mutuals. It'll be a good time.

Oh, and for those unfamiliar, let Get Smart! teach you how to frug.

[lsunstreakerl]

Okay, but don’t come telling me that if Max goes back to Red Bull and has a lump on his other wrist, Darkbull wouldn’t remove it just like Charles did (they would probably do it in a painless way for Max, BUT that’s not the point).

yeah you've got a point 😭

but it wouldn't be as... DIY as charles did it. and max definitely wouldn't accidentally wake up in the middle of it. (they've done procedures on him before- the other two trackers- so they know the right dosages for him. charles kind of had to guess)

[kn-1013]

Exploratory Surgery #4 - Whatever it takes

Summary: Sal tells Travis what really happens after death, and makes him promise something. Word Count: ~871 Rating: G Pairing: Sal/Travis Warnings: Existentialism, I guess?

A/N: I should clarify that Sal wasn't dead long enough for his soul to really do anything, and that this is his interpretation of events as a result.

========

“I just think- it’s so fucking stupid, man. It’s just stupid, and embarrassing. To, y’know, be like this.” Travis tugged at his earlobe nervously. The cool lake water did nothing to cool the hot embarrassment lighting him up inside.

He’d never told anyone about… Whatever that was before. It was simply too stupid to talk about even if he did have friends to talk about it with. His weird little habit of reading his Moomin books and pretending he was a little kid again. Back when his mother was still around, and Mary still smiled and he was still friends with Larry and Ash, and things were easier. They were still hard, but they were easier.

He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t know how to talk about it, but he’d seen Sal last fourth of July, when he didn’t have his meds. No mask, vomiting on the forest floor, so disoriented he didn’t know where he was. He screamed like death and called for his momma. When his father finally found them, Sal crawled into his arms like a young child, begging for papa to save him.

Whatever was wrong with Travis, Sal must’ve had it, too. That’s why he was the first and only person Travis would ever talk to about it.

But the way Sal scoffed chilled his shame and set a cold pit in his stomach in its place. “Who fuckin’ cares man? It’s not like anything matters anyway.” Sal blew the smoke from his cigarette out through the holes in his mask.

“You’re not planning to kill yourself any time soon, are you?” Travis paused his nervous habit and side-eyed Sal. Sal would never normally say something so pessimistic, and that only made his pit worse.

“No, no, it’s not like that. I just mean…” He sighed. “This is all we get, you know? When we’re gone, we’re gone. So who cares what makes you happy?” Sal shrugged, turning to look at Travis with his head cocked to the side in that way Sal always did.

Travis didn’t know how he felt about that, being raised Christian. “I guess.” He said noncommittally.

“When my face thing happened, I coded twice. I was fully dead for a couple of minutes total. You know what I saw while I was gone?” Sal continued staring ahead at the sunset, bumping the ash off his cigarette and onto the ground.

So there was actually some weight to Sal’s whole ‘dead boy’ schtick… He grabbed his fish necklace loosely, intrigued by Sal’s experiences with the other side. Well, as long as they weren’t his bullshit ghost stories. “What?” He asked.

“A big, fat load of jack fuckin’ shit.” Travis watched his adam’s apple bobble in his throat as he swallowed. “No light, no dead grandma welcoming me to the end, no voice of God. Not even any cool ghost shit.” He paused. “But you know what? It wasn’t bad. It felt nice.” That last part felt a bit too tacked on to feel natural.

In spite of Sal’s claim, Travis couldn’t help but feel a bit harrowed by this information. What about all those people that claimed to see things on the other side? Were they just lying? How did he know who to believe now? Was Sal just saying it was nice to make him feel better about it? He didn’t know where to even begin answering any of these questions.

“So who fucking cares, man. Who cares if you like kid’s stuff, I like kid’s stuff too. I like kid’s stuff, and I dress like a girl and I’ll fuck chicks and dudes, and I still like the Spice Girls, even though they’ve really fallen off these days, and I like romcoms, and mayonnaise, and maple syrup on my scrambled eggs, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks because this is all we get. I’m not gonna spend it being embarrassed to be alive, and you shouldn’t either. You hear me?” Sal still didn’t look at him.

“I’m gonna do whatever the fuck it takes to be happy. Because I have to.” Sal’s voice was so serious it was shaking.

Sal had never gotten this intense before. Even when he was trying to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that ghosts were real, even when he got so angry at Travis’s father that he couldn’t think in a straight line, he never got even a modicum close to the amount of intensity that Travis was feeling right now. There was something behind those words that went deep, deeper than his DNA, deeper than the molecules that made up his body, and straight into the celestial threads that stitched his soul together.

Whatever it was, Travis wasn’t convinced he shouldn’t be worried. With a furrowed brow, he reached over the tiny gap between them and grabbed the other boy’s hand. Sal took another drag from his cigarette before squeezing his hand back, putting his head on Travis’s shoulder as they stared at the sunset.

“Promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to be happy?” Sal said.

Travis exhaled harshly out of his nose with a grin. There he was, always looking out for Travis’s happiness.

“I promise.” Travis said.