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[miscmonstro]

The Uno Reverse Adoption Saga (formerly No Title Yet) 6

what's this? a title?? on MY fic?????

First: Chapter 1

Previous: Chapter 5

Next: Chapter 7

Halfa!Trio Au crossover with Batman

Current Characters: Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Jason Todd

Summary: Forced to attend a gala by her parents as she is every year, Sam Manson was resigned to suffer through the stifling three-night gala until something pulled at her core. The something turned out to be a someone. Just who is Jason Todd and can the trio gain enough of his trust to help him before his struggling proto-core collapses?

👻 {Chapter 6 Below!)

Jason was pissed. 

To be fair, pissed off could describe him at any given point, though the trio didn’t know that.

“So you just decided ‘hey, rain’ll work’,” he glowered. 

The four were in the attic. They’d returned the hostages and the crasher to the main floor for the paramedics and police to find respectively and then withdrawn to temporarily camp out. After a brief introduction of Tucker as Ghouley they glossed over Sam’s name, moving the conversation every which way before Jason had all but demanded to know how exactly they’d worked around the situation.

“Yeah,” Tucker shrugged. “And it did work, didn’t it?” 

Jason muttered curses to himself and with their enhanced hearing, the phantoms heard every word. Danny mentally shuffled at the colorful vocabulary and Sam’s snicker echoed in their heads. They weren’t quite used to it because even if they could curse in their minds, they could not speak those words aloud. Curses were used sparingly. It was even more unusual to hear from someone else; back home, no one could swear.

Jason didn’t respond to Tucker’s statement and the frown on what was visible of his face under the mask deepened. “That was reckless. And where is Manes? Four kids isn’t better than three.”

“Uh oh,” Danny thought. Tucker made a mental shooing motion at Sam.

“She’s coming here,” he said. 

Jason raised a skeptical brow and Danny hurriedly offered to make a copy and shift to look like Sam. Sam shot him down; he still wasn’t great at duplication. They didn’t need to explain why Manes dissolved into a puddle of goop.

“She’ll be here soon and if not, we’ll go look for her,” Sam settled on bullshitting. Really, while she and Danny went ‘looking’ for Manes she’d switch back to human and voila, cover complete. 

“You four have no idea what danger you’re in. Dead or not whatever, you can make your own choices, but it’s irresponsible to shove Manes into this,” Jason said sternly. “And it’s not your job to clean up other people’s messes.”

Not their mess? Maybe that had been true, once upon a time, and they had struggled and even quitted the hero thing at different points over the years. But it was always a Fenton mess, with the offending portal in their basement, and Sam and Tucker’s for daring Danny to do the deed of accidentally turning it on in the first place. They were the cause, so protecting Amity had been their responsibility by default. But now? Danny was the King of the Infinite Realms. All ghosts were his responsibility and far be it for Sam and Tucker to abandon him now. It was unthinkable. So it was their mess, always had been, and now always would be. 

“Why wouldn’t Manes help?” Sam scoffed. She swore she was going to punch him, baby ghost or not, if he spouted some nonsense about her being a girl.

“She’s a fucking human kid? And shouldn’t be risking injury like that?” he spat incredulously. “There’s no reason for a teenage girl to be cleaning up the Bat’s messes.”

“Hey! We’re also teenagers,” protested Danny, “and if we can do it, so can she.” 

“And how long have you been dead?” Jason shot back rudely. “You could be forty for all I know.”

Danny felt a spike of annoyance. 

“Ghosts don’t work like that,” Tucker huffed. He stared at Jason, mentally debating what they could, and should, share with him.

Jason was getting increasingly worked up. “Look, you might be teens, sure. Fine. The problem is that there wasn’t anything that could’ve hurt you, but that’s not true for humans.”

Sam, surprisingly impressed, remarked, “That’s actually really thoughtful. Pretty useless sentiment though.”

“I don’t think he knows that,” Tucker sighed, floating downwards and settling on an old boxy chest. 

Well, they weren’t going to tell him they were halfa.

“You’re clearly not familiar with the situation, but all humans who know about us and aren’t hunting us are automatically subject to be hunted,” Sam said, taking a different angle that would still explain her human side’s involvement. “Did you read the acts? The association and ecto-entity aid clauses? Just by knowing us and not wanting us to be tortured thousands of people’s untimely deaths can be swept under the rug. It doesn’t matter if Manes helps us directly or not, she and everyone like her are targets.” 

The only reason those parts of the acts were not enforced was because as much as they wanted to, the GIW couldn’t handle all of Amity. They didn’t have the manpower.

The angry frown shifted to a more troubled and less hostile expression. “I- just why?” Jason asked, seemingly at a loss. “Why would that many people risk themselves? Their families? There has to be more to this.”

“Ghosts aren’t all bad and people know it,” Tucker explained gently. “Some of these people have friends and family who’ve come back, some just don’t think it’s right. But truthfully, a lot of people are just too ecto-contaminated to qualify as regular humans anymore. According to the acts.”

“So Manes is in danger one way or another,” Jason muttered.

Jason was oddly fixated on Manes, but he was also just suspicious all around. “And most people agree they need ghosts to protect them from bigger threats,” Danny added cheekily. He figured he’d capitalize on the suspicion and distract him.

“Be back in a bit, we’re going to find Manes,” Sam blurted when she realized what he had, that Jason’s eyes kept flickering over to the ladder. She phased through the floor and Danny followed reluctantly a moment later. 

Jason eyed where they’d gone through the floor before asking Tucker warily, “Bigger threats? The hell does that mean?”

Tucker flicked Danny’s presence for leaving him to answer the new line of questioning, then thought back to all the strange things they’d been thrown headfirst into and the different ways they’d learned to handle them lest they sink. “Threats that make artificial rain look reasonable.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything,” Jason growled. 

“Dude I don’t know,” Tucker exhaled exasperatedly, though he knew all too well. “Think, like, eternal sleep, mass mind control, evil plants destroying cities, that kind of thing.” 

With a dismissive scoff the younger ghost said, “Sounds like JL stuff. I would’ve heard of that.” 

Tucker hesitated, momentarily forgetting what JL was before nodding. “Ah, them. Yeah, the events are pretty isolated. A lot of people are interested in keeping this mess under wraps.” Vlad, himself and the Phantoms, the GIW, and most recently, Technus had all inputted their unique brands of high end cyber security, cloaking Amity in a veil that was nigh impenetrable to outsiders. “Even then, the League can never come near ghost hotspots.”

“Ominous,” Sam laughed.

“The vaguer I am, the more questions he asks, the more time you have to look busy,” Tucker replied with the air of ‘I’m doing you a favor’. 

Jason, perhaps emboldened by the absence of the other two, snapped, “But that doesn’t explain anything! Why can’t they? Preventing the destruction of cities is exactly what they’re for!”

“Dude, ghosts,” Tucker emphasized. “The acts aside, ghosts have an ability called overshadowing. It lets us possess people. Do you want to deal with a possessed Wonder Woman? The correct answer is no. Nobody does.”

Jason crossed his arms and studied Tucker. He breathed in and out once, and then twice. 

“So Manes said the GIW operate more to the west,” he mused, quite a bit calmer. “Where exactly should I avoid?”

“Illinois and Wisconsin for sure, Iowa is a so-so depending on the season. Consider it ‘visit at your own risk’. There’s also a hotspot in Oregon that they haven’t quite picked up on yet but a lot of people are worried that it’s only a matter of time,” Tucker rattled off, the maps of GIW activity zipping through his mind letting him answer easily. “The only exception is Amity Park. Ghosts are really common there and it’s where the GIW got started, but it’s also where they have the least amount of success.” 

“Amity Park?” Jason tilted his head. There was a spark of curiosity in him, the kind that made you want to know everything.

“Never search that up,” Tucker advised, knowing intimately all the triggers that search would trip. “I can get you a map if you’re interested in relocating.” 

“I think it’s been long enough,” Tucker thought.

“No thanks,” Jason backtracked quickly. “I’m happy in Gotham.”

Sam, on the ladder, switched back into her human form and climbed up the top few rungs. 

“Hey guys,” she said. 

Jason rose from the box he’d been sitting on and looked her over with keen eyes. “Did you get injured?” he asked with worry.

“No I- gah!”

Sam’s hold on the ladder slackened and Tucker shot over to grab her. If not for him and Danny, who’d been invisible just below her, she would’ve fallen. 

The fear was back. 

“Sam you have to switch back,” Danny thought quickly. It hadn’t become overwhelming yet but even in the few seconds that she was human it had grown at an alarming rate. Soon, like before, it would spiral out of control.

Sam wanted to but Jason was right there.

“Come on Sam, we’ll figure it out later. Change back. It’s not worth it,” Tucker insisted. Danny had reservations but he shoved them aside. He could deal with Jason if necessary.

“Going ghost!” Sam gasped. The rings enveloped her and once again the fear abated.

“Oh thank the Ancients!” Tucker said.

“Gah,” she groused. “What’s wrong with me?”

“I think you have some explaining to do.”

Three heads swiveled towards Jason.

They really didn’t have to- Sam’s knee jerk reaction was to scowl and say they didn’t owe him jack but… he felt so unwillingly fragile in a way that made him feel like failure, likely unused to situations where he didn’t have an upper hand. That made him fidgety and angry and the little bit of his guard that had fallen rose back up and doubled in height. Tucker winced. They didn’t want to intimidate him. With a sigh Sam made up her mind- what he’d seen was pretty damning anyway. 

Danny shifted back to visibility seeing as the gig was up. “Oh come on! We didn’t last two hours,” he complained.

“I’m a halfa,” Sam admitted slowly. “And there are only five of us in existence. So I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

“Wait, so what’s wrong?” Danny carefully asked out loud. If there was one secret more well kept than the existence of halfa, it was the existence of their mental connection.

Sam grimaced. “I got hit with that fear stuff. It’s totally shut down my human side.”

Jason wasn’t that easy to divert. “Wait no, back up. Halfa? Explain.”

“Halfas are just that, half human, half ghost, and a well kept secret from the living,” Tucker said, eyeing Jason meaningfully. “Only two humans know.”

Sam, feeling bitter that she’d messed up again tonight muttered sourly, “I can flip between the living and dead. That’s unique to halfa.”

Jazz had known almost from the beginning- she’d figured it out early on and had committed to their corner ever since. Valarie was less accidental; the trio had decided to come clean for the sake of communication after too many close calls and while it had caused a few bumps in the beginning, overall their teamwork with the Red Huntress had improved. Even then, she’d known about Vlad and Dani so the concept of halfa was one she was already familiar with.

“So what am I then?” Jason asked. “I’m human but with a… core.” He was trying to mask his anxiousness at the question but said core was broadcasting his emotions loud and clear.

“We don’t know,” Danny said bluntly. 

“But we know someone who might,” Tucker added. “Have you ever wanted to visit the Ghost Zone?” 

“We know a doctor or two,” Sam elaborated. “You know, ghost doctors.”

Jason’s core fluctuated with irritation and a helplessness that was quickly converted into anger. “Great. Fantastic. So you don’t know what I am. Well I do and guess what? It’s called a zombie, kids.”

Danny shook his head. “You’re not a zombie, we’ve seen those.”

“What kind of undead are you then?” Jason questioned, staring pointedly at Tucker as he fiddled absently with his PDA. 

“Er,” Danny said, looking at his partners.

“He’s kinda one of us,” Tucker said, though he really wasn’t an ecto-entity. Still, with the way they were classed by the acts, there was no difference between them.

“He might find out from another ghost anyway,” Sam acknowledged. 

“We’re all halfas, actually. Team Phantom, at your service!” Danny turned back to Jason with an exaggerated bow.

Jason had been cycling through different reactions yet seemed to circle back to anger frequently. A greater intensity rattled him at the new information, converting everything else into utter rage. “Ok back the fuck up. You’re all teenagers?” His words were drenched in dismay.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Danny retorted confidently. In his mind all the headlines declaring them menaces and calling their intentions into doubt flashed by. Tucker gave him a mental hug. “He doesn’t know Danny, he doesn’t get it.”

“Yes, an adult kid,” Sam grumbled. “How innocent and unawares.”

“You three threw yourselves into a dangerous situation for no goddamn reason.” 

The deceptively quiet statement was razor-sharp and overwhelmed with reverberating sentiments full of pain.

This was, for some reason, quite personal to him. 

‘Upset child,’ their internal alarms rang, ‘do something!’

“We know about unnecessary risks,” Danny said at length. 

“We just mistook the liminal guy for a ghost,” Sam nodded.

“And ghosts are our responsibility,” Tucker finished. “We wouldn’t have stepped in otherwise. Like you said before, the locals had it under control.”

Jason grit his teeth and then deflated, taking a deep breath. “And you have no one else who could’ve done it? There’s no ghost police? You kids don’t have any mentors?” 

“Naw, we’re self taught,” Tucker said proudly. That was the wrong thing to say as Jason’s emotions constricted into a tight ball of frustration and fury.

“We had to step up. No one else would or could,” Danny explained gloomily. It wasn’t like they had wanted to do this. That made the already heavy emotions in Jason’s core even denser. 

“Gah. Okay, different topic. How am I supposed to get rid of the fear stuff? I can’t exactly go to a hospital,” Sam asked, changing the topic to something that would hopefully distract the pit of volatile emotion that was growing inside of Jason.

Jason jumped on the issue presented to him, more than happy for the distraction. “Usually there’s an antidote. This is a new variant so it might take a few weeks before an updated antidote is made.”

“Crud,” Danny cursed.

Sam sighed.

“We can say your grandmother took you to the officials and tell your grandmother you avoided the attack or something,” suggested Tucker.

Just as he finished Jason offered, “I could get Bruce to pay for a private physician.”

“Too risky,” Sam dismissed. “Our vitals are different. Besides, there are rumors that he funds the bats and the last thing we want to do is get near them.”

“Hm,” Jason hummed. He seemed to settle on something,resolving to do some unknown thing, before he spoke again. “Lesson one kids, lying. I’ll take the money and move it to make it look like a physician was involved. That way the story holds up. You ideally want three to four layers but in this case, two isn’t a bad place to start.”

“Won’t your dad mind?” worried Tucker.

With a smirk Jason said, “Not at all.”

“Great? But what do you want in return?” Sam asked suspiciously. 

“Just tell me how to get to the ghost doctor and we’ll call it even,” Jason proposed.

“Oh. Right, well, that’s a whole other can of worms.”

👻 {Boo!)

“So to recap. Living age means nothing. Ghosts age like trees. You three are independent adults. I’m a ghost orphan because hell if anyone knows. Nobody will care about that and if I go to the Zone, of which there are only two reliable ways to get there and they’re both in Amity, I’ll get mobbed and forcefully adopted and never see earth again. Did I miss anything?”

“No, that’s about it,” Tucker said too cheerfully. 

Jason rubbed his eyes and leaned back against the box he’d sat in front of when the trio had first launched into their long winded explanation. 

“I can adopt you. It’s… probably the best option anyway,” Danny offered hopefully, the very tip of his spectral tail twitching. “Ghosts won’t try to be malicious but they will forget how humans work. As a halfa there’s no risk of that from me and I’m really strong.”

“We. We’re a packaged deal,” Sam stubbornly interjected. 

“Oh boy,” Tucker exhaled. “Guys we’re not ready for this and there’s no way he’s going to agree-“

“Maybe. What does ghost adoption entail?”

Danny was more than happy to answer.

“We’d be your ghost guardians so we’d check up on you. We’d also do health stuff like cycle ectoplasm through your proto-core since it can’t pump on its own yet. And bonding stuff, you know, like play fighting. Ghosts love play fighting,” he jumped to explain. There was a powerpoint with the information and a mini Jazz in his head as he went through it. “But since we have human parts still we can watch movies and stuff, that should also work. Your emotions might get a little off balance since that happens as a core grows and we’d eat the extra. Also-“

“Hang on, eat my core? That thing might be the only reason I’m alive!” interrupted Jason with a recoil. 

At the startled anger-fear that he felt Danny rushed to explain but Tucker, who was more composed, spoke first. “That wasn’t what he meant. By eating the extra stuff around your core we’re trying to stabilize it. Ectoplasm is linked to emotion and too much of anything is bad. You can’t feel one emotion all the time but if you tend toward a specific emotion, you might generate too much of one kind of ectoplasm. Think of it like pruning the dead stems off a plant. It doesn’t hurt at all and helps keep a plant, or core in this case, balanced and healthy.”

“I hate that I know that,” Tucker said miserably, thinking of the plant example he’d just used. Sam gloated.

Jason turned that over for a moment before he sighed. “Alright. What else?”

“One last thing. Once- if we do this our cores will start generating stuff for you to eat too. It’s kinda like baby food for ghostlings,” Danny said with a grin at Jason’s perturbed expression.

“Don’t you kids need it? For your own cores or whatever?” Jason questioned with a frown.

Sam almost snorted. “Adult ghosts, remember?”

“And you don’t have to answer now, the offer’s always open,” Tucker placated at the sudden weariness from Jason. “You got lucky with the timing actually- the Christmas Truce is going to happen soon and nobody is allowed to fight during the truce. If you really don’t want to be adopted you could go to the Zone to see the doctors on Christmas.”

“They’ll totally follow you until the truce is up though,” Sam cautioned. 

“I can lose them,” Jason declared without a hint of hesitation. “I’m going during the truce.”

Danny sucked in a breath. It was hard to ignore the fact that there was what amounted to a sick, starving child in front of him and he couldn’t do anything about it. It was nauseating. To say he was disappointed Jason opted against adoption would be a gross understatement.

“We don’t know for sure yet,” Tucker said, though it rang hollow. Even without a more experienced eye they could all tell that his core was in a delicate state from proximity alone.

Still, Tucker had done the right thing in giving Jason the options. Meeting the medical yetis during the truce, however, ushered in a new set of problems.

“The party is at my lair this year,” Danny reminded them. “I kinda halfa be there.”

“This isn’t the time for puns,” Sam hissed. 

“He’s right though. As the new king he can’t exactly skip out again,” Tucker sighed without any remorse. He was looking forward to it and had been since last year. “Also Danny, you already used that one tonight.”

Danny elected to ignore the critique of his puns. “But it kinda works out, right? The yetis will be there. We have time to set up doctor’s equipment. We just have to ask if they’d be willing to help,” he pointed out.

“And if you ask they’ll say yes,” Sam thought. 

Danny felt conflicted after that comment. He didn’t make them do anything but if he so much as mentioned something in passing, they would go out of their way to do it.

“It won’t take all night,” consoled Tucker. “They’ll get to party with everyone else.”

“Alright, works for us,” Sam said aloud. “On Christmas we’ll take you to the Zone.”

👻 {Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.)

Taglist time! If you want to be added, just say so!

@depressed-bitchy-demon @dp-marvel94 @birbtails @mr-lancers-english-class @miraculousandmore @iglowinggemma28 @manapeer @azzysflowergarden @notwhat-i-seemtobe @whobee7 @trippingovermyfeet @stormhaven257 @imsociallyanxiousgetoverit @passivedecept @lovetheryu @ever-after-aaa @mysteriousooze @wegetitethan @cyber-geist @t-nayira @wisteriavines @starscreamlover

Next: Chapter 7

[orangesnapplefarm]

Back to posting...

So, after doing fuck all with this page I think I'm going to commit to posting stories again. Namely, TV12 which I started and never finished (but finally have).

I've got a website where I'll be uploading TV12 as well as my other projects, which everything should be up after some time.

If you're interested in stories about sorcerers, dragons, alternate realities mixed in with found footage-esque themes, please check out The TV12 Incident here.

And like I said, the story is completed. I will just be uploading the chapters as I have time, and hopefully all of it will be up shortly. If you encounter any issues on the site, feel free to let me know (I'm a one-woman show).

[thatnununguy]

hello. re: your pinned post i would highly appreciate an eridan or perhaps even an erikar, would you be so inclined. best regards from house betatrolls.

Thanks for the request! :)

[waterme-stories]

My Top Blorbos of 2023!

Thanks @virgo-dream for the fun template! And @bil-daddy for keeping it surreal.

(and very big thank you to the folks in the Spiderpool and Cablepool and @ageplay-may servers. This year was a Lot and y'all kept me sane and engaged with the world.)

[synthwayve]

Many Laurences! Playing around with my designs for him and trying to settle on one. Please let me know which one looks best, I’m curious 👀 Color alternates of Pg 1 below the cut because indecisiveness:

[homestuckreplay]

Homestuck Is A Game, Who Is The Player?

Week 3 Retrospective

'Video games have long been associated with spectatorship as well as play, from their origins in quarter-fueled arcades, where high score displays implied the presence of admiring or competitive spectators, to their migration to home screens and consoles. Live streaming chat emulates these older models, but its interaction with economies of scale on streaming platforms brings a different kind of intimacy and intensity to the experience. Chat lets spectators feel like they are there with the streamer as well as a part of a crowd, even if they are alone in their room.' [Jeremy Antley - emphasis mine]

From Homestuck’s very first page, the comic has made something clear. We are not allowed to immerse ourselves in John Egbert’s world. There is a layer of separation between us, an interface mediating our access to his life and story, a voiceover narration from the person who’s really in control. Who is this person, and what form does their control over John take?

Homestuck is presented like a video game, yet unlike a video game, we don’t control the character’s movements with arrow keys or have the chance to type our own commands directly into the text box. Instead of being able to explore the game on our own terms, we are confined to a specific and predetermined route, even though others seem theoretically possible. Simply put, we are not the ones playing the game.

Essay continued under the cut - about 2.6k words

I think there are two really important questions to consider when analyzing the meta elements of Homestuck and treating it as a game. The first - what kind of game is it? The second - where exactly do we stand in relation to the player(s)?

The most obvious answer to question one is ‘Homestuck is a text based adventure game.’ This guide to text based adventures is a great overview, and we can map the example commands here onto commands we’ve seen in Homestuck. ‘Examine room’ (p.4) is a one-word action, ‘Captchalogue smoke pellets’ (p.9) is an action and direct object, and ‘Nail poster to wall’ (p.19) includes the indirect object. John hasn’t given any orders yet - he’s too nice a guy for that - but ‘Report progress to TG’ (p.39) is definitely communicating with another character. All of these, and most other command lines, feel like reasonable instructions that could be recognized by a game.

However, commands like ‘Fondly regard cremation’ (p.52) and ‘Play haunting piano refrain’ (p.77) honestly feel too characterful to be fully interpreted by a computer, and ‘Squawk like an imbecile and shit on your desk’ (p.16) is… well, I tried typing this into the command prompt for the classic text adventure Zork, and got the following response.

A text adventure is just not set up to interpret wacky, left field ideas, much less respond to them in an entertaining way. And we know there is a real person behind Homestuck doing exactly that.

If my party enters the wizard’s study in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and I tell the Dungeon Master that I squawk like an imbecile and sit on the wizard’s desk, that statement will be understood. Sure, the DM will probably call me an idiot and put a nasty spike trap on the desk, but what I said will become part of the story in the way that a nonsense command in a text based video game never can. It’s interesting to think of Homestuck as a tabletop roleplaying game, where the narrator is the Game Master, the command prompt is a player, and John is a player character (presumably TT, TG and GG are the rest of his party and they’re just really late to the session).

Homestuck isn’t just text based, though - it has a strong visual element, including interfaces and overlays where the player can click and drag items between John’s inventory and his environment, or around his space. This suggests it could also be a point and click adventure game, a genre that grew out of text based games as graphics improved, and is defined by a strong inventory management component (check), puzzle solving quests (check - we’ve recently solved our first quest of acquiring the Sburb Beta) and dialog trees (????). The sprite based, isometric art style is really good for getting an overview of the space and seeing possible interactable objects, and Homestuck does feature extended dialog sequences - we don’t know if there are other possible inputs from John, but it's interesting to think that there might be.

These three genres - text based adventures, point and click adventures, and tabletop roleplaying games - all developed throughout the 1970s and 80s. It’s reasonable that Andrew Hussie (born 1979) could have grown up with some of these games. But to answer the second question, ‘where do we stand in relation to the player’, we might need to look at media forms still in their infancy - let’s plays, livestreams, and actual play.

[Michael Sawyer, 2004]

In the past few years, ‘Let’s Play [Game]’ has become a relatively popular thread format on the Something Awful forums, as well as personal websites. This began with posters taking screenshots of their playthroughs of a game and adding commentary in the text. The medium has now advanced to video and is typically hosted on YouTube, with commentary overlaid. Either format gives a creator the space to play through as much of the game as they choose, and then edit exactly what content they want to show to the audience, providing commentary after the fact. 

Homestuck, with its per-page illustrations, could be seen as a long thread of forum posts by the player, each including screenshots as they move through the game. The inclusion of short Flash animations shows the edge into video, and makes me wonder if we’ll see longer or more complex videos, perhaps with voiceover narration, as Homestuck expands its focus. The self-referential and aggressive yet helpful commentary in Homestuck is similar in tone to Sawyer's playthrough above, and could easily be the work of a player who knows where the story will go, at least in the short term, and is dropping hints to the audience while purposefully concealing some things.

Livestreaming video games is a similar concept to Let's Plays, but performed in real time. Often hosted on Justin.tv, an open video broadcast website that’s been gaining prominence in the past couple of years, a livestream is an improvised and unedited way to watch someone game. Any commentary from the creator happens without knowledge of how the playthrough will turn out. Homestuck, by Hussie’s own admission, is being written similarly in real life - they don’t know more than the broad strokes of how the story will go, and it’s possible that neither the author nor the narrator knows the long term implications of an action such as John stealing his dad’s PDA. 

Livestreams open the possibility for viewers to influence game events, if the streamer listens to their audience. We know this is true in Homestuck - readers are able to submit commands, and some are chosen for the story. The real time nature of Homestuck, waiting each day for the new update, is equivalent to waiting for a streamer to come online and start playing again so we can find out where their game goes next. This is compounded by us having no access to Homestuck outside of the streamer - we cannot buy and play this game for ourselves, it’s still in some kind of early or limited access, and the streamer controls all our knowledge. 

The livestream is definitely most similar to how Homestuck is made by its author, but it's hard to say whether its narrator is commentating in real time, or after the fact. I can't find any definite clues in our pages so far - I think the narrator wants to seem smart and superior, but I can't say whether they have the knowledge to back it up.

[img source]

Our final media format is known as Actual Play. Almost a year ago, the creators of Penny Arcade (along with Dungeons & Dragons game designer Chris Perkins) began releasing Acquisitions Incorporated, a short-run, officially licensed podcast where the group plays through a D&D adventure to demonstrate gameplay interspersed with jokes. This isn’t the first time a TTRPG publisher has recorded sessions to help people learn the game, but this idea seems to be crossing over into the entertainment genre - and webcomics are part of that movement.

In the first episode, the group have a brief aside. The DM says that ‘some players prefer to refer to their characters in the third person… others prefer to get into the first,’ and one player says they’ve observed the same thing in World of Warcraft. What’s not explicitly said is that the Game Master typically refers to the player characters in second person, describing what happens to ‘you’ and what ‘you’ see - much like streamers talking to their chat. The blocks of narrative text below pictures in Homestuck could easily be a Game Master balancing giving information to an unruly player, and providing entertainment for the audience. John’s lucky or unlucky moments with his sylladex could be the result of particularly good or bad dice rolls from his unseen player.

Actual play is a really great format for deep diving into a small cast of characters, and exploring their emotional state in ways that aren't intrinsic to a lot of video games. As we're already seeing the beginnings of John's emotional arc, we know this will be a focus, but we need two to four more characters with equally large roles in the story to really form a TTRPG party. Actual play also tends to include a lot of combat and its mechanics. We know Homestuck can handle crunchy mechanics due to the sylladex, but I'd expect to see the Strife concept become just as in depth and central to the story if Homestuck ends up fitting into this mold.

All three of these formats can have a mass audience, just like Homestuck does in reality - but Homestuck also feels like a very personal experience. Two people playing the same video game, even a highly linear game such as Portal or one that doesn’t involve much active interaction such as a visual novel, have slightly different gameplay based on the speed they move through the story and their missteps on the way to finding the solution to a puzzle. 

Similarly, my experience of Homestuck is different from yours. I read the new update every day, while I know some people wait for a few days of updates to build up and then read a larger chunk. Maybe I clicked ‘Aggrieve’ and ‘Abjure’ three times each on p.90, alternating the options, while you clicked ‘Aggrieve’ five times in sequence and then ‘Abjure’ only twice. Maybe I didn’t realize p.110 had an interactive element at first, and skipped over it until somebody pointed it out to me (really telling on myself here). These elements of Homestuck that we have direct control over are currently only a small part of the story, but they do exist.

In this way, Homestuck feels a little bit like sitting in the living room as a kid watching your older brother play a game, begging him to let you take over for a minute, occasionally doing so until he gets frustrated with your inability to Strife and takes the controller back. The nostalgia of the simplistic graphics and the 70s and 80s games that are being evoked only adds to this cozy feeling. If Homestuck starts to add more interactive elements, such as branching paths, opportunities for us to take over the cursor, or a chance for us to use John’s sylladex ourselves and choose what he picks up, it might be worth thinking of Homestuck as different iterations of the same game, each of us watching our own, slightly different player, and even co-playing with them.

So, who IS this narrator? In my mind, I’m trying to draw a clear distinction between the author and the narrator. Hussie is the author in the real world, and the narrator, or player, or GM, exists within the work. Their role is best described on page 82:

‘The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself.’

The narrator is this unseen riddler (or perhaps unseenRiddler?), providing a secondary layer of control over what happens and what we are able to see. They’re the person clicking and dragging objects around John’s room, and choosing what actions to take next. The narration is their perspective on the game - whether we see this as a GM describing a scene to their players, or a streamer reading aloud information that the game has given them and providing their own commentary. 

So, we're watching the narrator play Homestuck, in whatever form it takes - but there's another layer to this. On page 22, an equivalence is made between the Sburb Beta, which John was supposed to receive on April 10 (and finally acquired on April 13 in-story, p.100), and the Homestuck Beta, which launched to us on April 10, but was quickly canceled and replaced with Homestuck proper on April 13. The Homestuck beta is linked within the comic, and might be canon within it - the narrator making an initial run at the game before restarting their save (perhaps on a different computer or console?) and trying again. Homestuck the game is currently about a kid who lives in the suburbs - and if the name and logo are anything to go by, Sburb could also be a suburbs-themed game. While we watch the riddler play Homestuck, the riddler will be watching John play the game Sburb. How deep does this go? Are there more layers inwards or outwards?

I’ve been puzzling this over for days, and I’m definitely left with more questions than I can answer. Here are the ones I'm focused on:

Is the unseen riddler playing the game as intended? Now that they’ve passed the tutorial, are they keeping the game on the rails and trying their best to follow a linear story, or are they pushing the boundaries, going for some kind of pacifist or resource-stripped run, trying to interfere with John’s intended story? Have they played the game before, and if so, how does this affect their gameplay?

If the unseen riddler is a character within the story, distinct from the external author, are we the true audience? Will there be an audience within the story, or perhaps other players? If so, how big will it be? What kind of reach does Homestuck the game have, and how many people are playing it or tuning in to watch?

How permeable are the boundaries? Is John simply pixels on a screen for the unseen riddler to play with, with no agency of his own outside of the riddler’s interpretation, like if we were playing The Sims? Or is it possible for the riddler to enter the game, or for John to leave it, and the two of them to communicate directly? Or a middle ground - something like ‘character bleed’ in TTRPGs, where a player embodies a character for so long that despite their not being real, they come to influence each other even outside of gameplay?

What the hell is the Midnight Crew? Is this a different game that exists separately to Homestuck? Will our riddler, or a different one, eventually play it? If we have three games - Homestuck, Midnight Crew, and Sburb - what exactly is the relationship between them, and how interrelated are they?

This is a lot of thoughts for what is, at time of writing, is 125 pages of comedy webcomic. But the story is just beginning, and we’ve been told it’s going to be a long day. Anything could be important, and with the frequent in-text nods to the meta elements - ‘examine third and fourth walls of room’ (p.61), ‘you decide it’s time for less meta, and more beta’ (p.113), the title appearing in the clouds on p.82 that John may or may not be able to see, the integration of the physical captchalogue card into the sylladex interface on p.98 - I don’t want to draw any firm boundaries, or make any assumptions about what is and what isn’t part of the story. Instead, I’ve cataloged the meta elements of Homestuck that might be worth paying attention to as we move through the comic, to develop a more concrete theory in time.

[beansprean]

Why is your nandor so grey

I’m gonna assume this question is in good faith! The short answer is: bc he’s a vampire. The long answer is that I create vamp skin tones by taking a normal human skin tone and desaturating the fuck out of it - this advice is from an old “undead POC tutorial” post that was going around a while back (I spent like an hour trying to find it but my likes are 2k deep and tumblrs search function is a joke lol if anyone has it handy do link me). The basics of it were that when drawing POC as vampires or you don’t want to just make them lighter, because instead of looking dead they’ll just look white, and you can accomplish the “undead” look through desaturation instead. I tend to favor less saturated colors to begin with, but I still have plenty of room on the color wheel to maneuver. Here’s a quick comparison:

[ID: Graphic comparing human skin tones to vampire skin tones. The right side is labeled “humans” and has various screenshots of the artist’s drawings of human Guillermo and human Nandor along with a screenshot of a color wheel with Nandor’s human skin tone selected - a yellow boned medium brown. Text by the color says “wow the vitamin D”. The right side is labeled “vampires” and has various screenshots of the artist’s drawings of vampire Guillermo and vampire Nandor along with a screenshot of a color wheel with Nandor’s vampire skin tone selected. Compared to the human color, it is heavily desaturated and slightly lighter, resulting in a sickly beige. Text by the color says “fuck I died”. Text between the wheels says “saturation goes down!” \end ID]

Something else I do is change the cheek color! As a general stylistic choice, I put a multiply layer over my skin layer at 50% opacity and airbrush the character’s skin color over their cheeks and nose to give them a little extra life and color. Two things antithetical to vampires! So when coloring my vamps instead of using their regular skin color for that, I use the opposite color on the color wheel (usually a blueish gray, but greener in Nadja’s case)! You can see it in the graphic above - that blue circle opposite Nandor’s skin tone is what I grab. And they blush purple instead of red!

[ID: Floating head drawing of vampire Derek, skin a dusty desaturated dark brown, a bluish airbrushed line over his face and cheeks flushed purple. An arrow points right to a matching floating head drawing of human Derek, skin a rich dark brown, a darker airbrushed line over his face and cheeks flushed red. Below is a screenshot of the “humanity restored” text from dark souls. /end ID]

Anyway this isn’t a tutorial or anything, just a lil insight on how I make colors and the logic behind the vampification! Feel free to steal my tactics if you like lmao

[infizero]

I DON'T THINK THE INCONSISTENCIES IN THE JAPANESE VERSION OF THE GASTER VALENTINE MEAN ANYTHING.

ok some ppl have pointed out that the japanese version of the gaster valentine uses hiragana and not gaster's usual stilted katakana, as well as the casual tone that doesnt line up with the very formal way of speaking gaster has been shown to use in other dialogue.

but i dunno man... those could be explained away by just. gaster is speaking more casually. i mean he does come across as more casual in the english version as well.

my main reason for leaning towards disregarding this is that i mean... who the hell else would it be?? even disregarding the odd phrasing, the note about the whole thing apparently being illegible until we somehow can read it, the comments about being forgotten, the entire letter mysteriously disappearing...

they literally say "HOW IS DELTA RUNE?"

again, even disregarding that that's the same way gaster formats/spells it in the announcement tweets, who else would know about deltarune??? like as a Thing? it doesn't make sense (under our current understanding of things, at least) for ANYONE ELSE other than gaster to know about deltarune as a game/program. (and its clear from the phrasing they are not talking about the symbol from undertale, before you wanna be a smart ass lmao)

i really think that the inconsistencies in the japanese version could just be attributed to him speaking more casually. it is a valentine's day letter, after all.

[three-soulmates-askblog]

What’s the difference between, like, romantic and queer platonic relationships/soulmates?

Kusuo: and it's different for everyone this is just how it works for us

Mikoto: yeah every relationship is its own!

Reita: we just vibin'

//

I'd like to note I have never been in a queer platonic relationship myself. But I am an aroace individual. This explanation is based on the research I did for myself in writing this askblog. I feel it's important to note this bc everyone's relationship is really the peoples involved own thing. I didn't want to go too deep with their explanation bc like I said I don't have experience with it myself.

Anyway that's all 👍 thanks for reading my note

[doodlingbot]

[gift for the speedrun champion.png] Surprise I'm drawing your Stanley for once!

Something of a bit of surprise gift art for @alexis-royce because his reply to my comment was very heartwarming for me to read.

I had actually wanted to draw them interacting like this when I saw that picture on- ...no context, but I got a bit distracted and so now you're finally getting it!

(gonna ramble more at the end of my regular tags.)

[trans-axolotl]

Do you (or your followers) know of any tips or resources for harm reduction for alcohol use? Everything I found tends to focus on drug use, and finding very little geared towards alcohol addiction. Thank you if so!

hey anon!

Thanks for this question. I think this definitely is something that can be a little harder to find specific information on, but I feel like the core harm reduction principles definitely can apply to alcohol use as well. I think there are some relevant distinctions when considering this in practice (alcohol is legal and there is a safe supply, bloodborne infections aren't a directly related risk in the same way as with injection drug use, different relationship with stigma and criminalization), but the underlying values feel the same.

When I'm having conversations with people about harm reduction, I think something that can be really helpful is just really doing some self inquiry and asking ourselves a lot of open ended questions. This might look like asking: What do I wish my drinking looked like? What parts of drinking currently feel good to me? What parts of drinking don't feel as good? What needs is alcohol currently meeting for me? How ready do I feel to make a change? What are some reasons I might want to make a change? Are there times in the past that I've successfully made a change, and what did that look like? What support might I need in my life to make a change?

Thinking through these things might help narrow down what positive change might feel most accessible for you right now. The core principles of harm reduction-understanding that there are riskier and safer ways to use any substance, and embracing any positive change, could be helpful things to keep in mind.

In terms of actual practical strategies, there are a lot of options. one option could be trying to make goals about reducing the frequency of alcohol use. Definitely want to put a warning that depending on your current pattern of use, alcohol is one of the few drugs where the withdrawal can actually be deadly. If your body is currently dependent on alcohol, any type of tapering needs to be done super carefully and if possible, might be good to check in with a clinic or doctor for advice. This worksheet also offers information on what safe tapering of alcohol at home might look like.

You could also make some goals about changing the amount you drink at one time. Even if you're drinking the same amount of times per day/week, reducing the overall amount in one sitting could be an awesome positive change.

There are a lot of other strategies you could make goals about in terms of safer alcohol use. These things could be trying to drink more water and eat more when you are drinking, avoiding nonbeverage alcohol, avoiding mixing other drugs and alcohol, working on spacing your drinks throughout your period of drinking, working on incorporating drinking breaks, whether that's throughout your day or throughout your week. You could also make goals about your environment when you drink, whether that's considering what physical spaces are safest to drink in, what people are safe to be around while you drink, things like making goals about only drinking when your emotional state feels more stable, practicing other coping skills and emotional self care, anything!

I'd also really recommend reaching out to local harm reduction orgs if that's an option. Even if they don't have anything listed about alcohol on the website, there are probably people there who would be equipped to help provide support and connect you to resources.

This is definitely a just a tiny snapshot of some harm reduction considerations around alcohol, and definitely want to affirm that you will know best what works for you, what your needs are, and have your own relevant perspective about what you think harm reduction and alcohol use looks like. I don't really have any more direct resources on hand besides what I linked above, but followers, please feel free to add tips or link to other resources! Overall just want to validate that abstinence is not the only or best method for making changes in your relationship with alcohol, and everyone deserves the autonomy to make the decisions that feels right for them and their life.

[a-single-melon]

(IDs in alt text)

compilation of all my sunflower inktober art the past few days that i just. forgot to post.

prompts in order were, starting from day 3 bc i missed a day, violin, book (there are no books in this one…), picnic, flower crown, and for the last one i combined days 7 & 8, rainy day + vent

[blood-choke]

a bit of a check-in since we're halfway through the month:

i'm still trying for a halloween update. no idea if it will actually happen but that's my current goal.

i'm chipping away at ch3, it's already well over 70k, but i found myself having to rework certain scenes & i've also gone back and added a bit more customization for the mc.

it was getting to the point that it was just negligible for me to not give the option for the player to put in the mc's race. with both Hana's and Valentina's experiences being so significant in the game it definitely was starting to feel like i was defaulting the mc to white, which is obviously not what i want.

there are specific conversations with Hana that absolutely have to be different depending on who the mc is. so it's taking me some time to write these; i've been slowly picking at these specific scenes for the last 2 weeks.

currently im planning to do something similar to the way it’s presented in fallen hero, which i’m sure most of you are familiar with; it’s a little tricky with the mc potentially being so old but we’ll just have to go along with it hahahaha. i’m open to suggestions and feedback of course now or after the next chapter is published and you can see it in action :-)

[humanerrers]

This is a really clear read on the history of early Zionism that manages, I think, to stay steady, fact-based, and deeply humanist as it guides the reader through multiply layered, intersecting historical truths. I found it helpful and clarifying.

[grasslandgirl]

THE THING THEY DONT TELL YOU WHEN YOU START A LONG FORM NARRATIVE PLOT-FOCUSED FIC FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER ONLY WRITING RELATIONSHIP-CENTRIC GET TOGETHER FLUFF IS THAT YOU DO ACTUALLY. HAVE TO FIGURE OUT THE PLOT. AGONIES UPON AGONIES!!!!

[duketectivecomics]

Last min resolution before the new year: annotate the reading rec page with my thoughts on each rec too lmao