#bc its so nebulous right

[fuckmeyer]

hey bestie i'm finally here with that essay about jacob fighting for bella's humanity w/o being a love interest bc the potential that has! he's set up to be the perfect avenue for it! he's the warmth and sun that she loved from arizona; he's the community and family she could be deeply enmeshed in w/ charlie and billy; he's a childhood friend who grew up (which bella's going to lose the potential to do if she becomes a vampire! and she's going to forget that past!); he's someone who fixes up old damaged cars instead of having perfect ones, and they aren't the *same* but they're still good...he's literally thematically everything best abt being human that bella will lose, AND examples of the negatives she sees in humanity, (all the times she thinks abt how the wolves are fragile in comparison to the vampires)...and it would just be SO fascinating to see that played out w/out the romance. it would honestly be even more powerful! bc baked into smeyer's worldbuilding is that vampires prioritize their romantic partners above everything else and having jacob be the true contrast to that where he's a platonic connection that bella genuinely values equally and she has to think abt how becoming a vampire would cut her off from the potential of connections like that!!! i am thinking so many thoughts

BESTIE thank you as always for dropping the Jacob love in my inbox!

you're so right about Jacob being the perfect avenue to explore Bella's doubt about vampirism! the warmth & family & community & LOVE & acceptance & nostalgia she loves about humanity is all embodied in Jacob's character & in their relationship. she likes hand-me-downs & homemade gifts! she likes acts of service! she likes reckless stunts that remind her of her own fragility & weakness! she likes warm sodas & spaghetti dinners! she likes being reminded that she belongs somewhere! & THIS IS JACOB <3

the fact that their relationship isn't utilized to this end (or any end, really) is my biggest problem with Eclipse. Bella drops little hints in the narrative that she's nervous about becoming a vampire. there are so many opportunities— e.g. when Rose tells her story— for her to reflect on what she's giving up.

in the end, she doesn't sum up the argument in a compelling way & doesn't make her choice in a believable way.

in part because the event that kicks off her grand realization that she's not ready (AKA THE CONFLICT OF HER ENTIRE SERIES ARC) is ...graduation

big life event as a catalyst seems to make sense. but how relevant is it to her narrative? & once it's brought up, we don't we see her digging into why she's nervous. what about saying goodbye makes her not ready? what about getting what she wants terrifies her? what does she need to sort through? what plans does she need to make? we're left to wonder what's running through Bella's mind re: the biggest decision of the series...in a first person narrative. no!!!

Jacob, who embodies all these ideals of her humanity, should be the one to push her to this realization. the climax of her internal conflict should be focused around him: losing him physically/emotionally (or both), & everything he represents. there is so much weight that her relationship with Jacob adds to her choice if she's allowed to love him and Edward unconditionally! as a romantic interest, all Jacob's doing is pushing her away.

(& that's why this whole fucking triangle makes no sense. he loves her so much he remembers her from early childhood. he loves her so much he'll sit there for months & pick up her broken pieces. he loves her so much he'll spend every moment just doing silly little hobbies together. he loves her so much he wants to fight for her humanity "until her heart stops beating" AND EVEN AFTER. but he doesn't love her enough to respect her choices or opinions? he doesn't love her enough to know that by being an asshole, he's pushing her closer to death? imo this is where we see stephie's grubby hands moving pieces. Jacob loves her more than he's in love with her.)

& so, because the "i'm not ready" realization is tied to something Bella doesn't give a shit about, the realization that she is ready is equally empty

what makes her decide she's ready to become a vampire is GUILT & FEAR & ANGUISH. she's "ready" to become a vampire because she feels weak & useless. worse, this realization is not touched on as the event (the training sesh) unfolds. she has this realization OFF-PAGE & then shows up to Edward's proposal like "yeah i'm ready to become a vampire but first i wanna fuck :)"

& we're supposed to buy that? girl, you resolved nothing internally. you didn't show us what changed for you. you're making this decision out of fear instead of out of love. & we're supposed to believe this is what little miss "thoughtful & responsible" wants???

it's such a blatant disregard to all the growth she went through & the relationships she developed. you can't just turn Jacob in a fucking asshole & turn the choice into a non-choice & call it day. Jacob deserves better, Bella deserves better, & the readers deserve better!!

MAKE 👏 EVERYONE 👏 SUFFER👏👏👏

(in the name of love!)

[zero-is-nebulous]

Grian THE horror

[leonardalphachurch]

ε-gamma is so funny. gary is all like, oh i’m going to be gay and evil and torture the alpha again and try to take over the galaxy and fall in love with a man with a mustache and ε-gamma is literally like bro i am just s i am just sitting here

[strawberrycircuits]

where even is termina??

so this is like. hotly debated. because what happens is oot link, like. Goes through ocarina of time. comes out traumatized as all fuck. fucks off with epona to go find navi. gets ambushed in the woods by skull kid. and then she wakes up in a strange forest as a deku kid and when she escapes shes in termina. and at the end of the game shes back in the forest at the beginning. and then its assumed she goes back to hyrule (or at least near hyrule?) since TP link lives in Ordon which is a village on the outskirts of Hyrule iirc and OOT link is TP's link great great grandwhatever.

some people are like "its a dream" or "its a pocket dimension" but personally i tackle it in the same way i do the fierce deity mask and majora; it doesnt matter where it came from bc thats not the point. Termina exists to teach Link a valuable lesson-- that, even in the face of a cruel and uncaring world that will take you and spit you out, being kind and having compassion is still important nonetheless. which, yk, is something she needs to learn after being ripped from her home, forced to grow up (literally and figuratively), forced to save a kingdom, used as a weapon by everyone around her, and told she cant go home no matter what. thatd make anyone disillusioned and bitter, so termina exists to remind the hero of time that, yeah, this world sucks, but you can always make it a little better just by being as kind as you always were-- even if that kindness led to you being burned before.

i think something that illustrates that point the most is the timeloop aspect of the game, bc like... its LINK that perpetuates it. she COULD just let the moon fall and let it all end, but... she doesnt. she doesnt want to give in to despair, she doesnt want to die-- and even if she did at some point, then that means she doesnt want the people of termina to die. Resetting the loop is an active act of compassion and hope for the future in a hopeless time in Link's life.

[heliianth]

relating to prev rb its genuinely So frustrating that “dsmp analysis” has boiled down to a morality slapfight as if the characters are real people who can be judged in that way and not Narrative Devices That Say Something <- which is What Fictional Characters Are. thats why im so specific when i get lore asks i try to always focus on what an arc changes or what message it gives instead of what a character technically did right or wrong bc i dont care as long as its meaningful and interesting. “was x justified—” “does y deserve—” literally shut up

[trans-leek-cookie]

Ok now that I think abt it that was very shitty of Diane to do

[ufolvr]

My favoritest selfship dynamic is probably "ok look we've been together for a considerable amount of time and marriage Is the next 'logical' step, but neither of us is the type to do that. And tbh it's funny to keep people guessing whether or not we're married" just for fun.

[cinnabeat]

oh my god i just rememebered the insane dream i had last night

[droolphobia]

Schools taking inhalers/EpiPens/prescriptions away from kids and keeping them in the nurse's office are obscenely evil btw. There’s no care or understanding that something can go extremely wrong and FAST. By the time someone runs to the nurse- or by the time you make it to the nurse, the situation could turn deadly. Also, the absolute zero trust adults have in kids for taking care of medical equipment that regularly keeps them from dying. I’m sure some people are clumsy or don’t care too much, but every person I know, including myself, that carries Medical stuff with them, HATES being without it. I feel so unbelievably unsafe without my inhaler

[cgtg]

What did you see in Dave and Karkat relationship to make you write their interactions so well? (It's really impressive tbh, at least for me)

Like, did something snapped one day, and you started understanding how they balance each other or just how they "work"? (Sorry if it's hard to understand what I'm trying to say. It's quite hard to put what I'm thinking into words)

man thank you so much

i think you worded yourself totaly fine, the problem here is i dotn know how to succinctly define what i see in them

ive always thnought that dave and karkat bounce off each other rly well. i was obsessed with davekat as a kid too. between 2016-23 smth softly clicked into place for me.

what do i see in it? i dunno. in my interpretation, it's just... realness ?

its longform candid pointless comfort. its changing each others nicknames in the server, its making fun of a spelling error, its "fragging a noob", its a youtube letsplay of a game you thought you'd hate, it's meandering around your point and then stabbing it with ur own impatience, its feeding the trolls on your amv. its genuine interest in each other, hoping someone specific likes your post, being scared to go outside and being scared to stay inside. it's checking the comments against better judgement, its sampling their voice in your bgm. it's a combined pressure to be something the other person doesnt get, but does. its a very potent push&pull simultaenous in both directions. its "un"stoppable force vs "im"movable object. it's a puzzle & theres somethin very vital at the heart of it about turning around & seeing someone that sees you right back, like it or not. through a screen or through shades or eye2eye. inverted & subverted, exactly the same

it can be like 500 things at once, its so nebulous but always rly specific to them. you cant get this dynamic with any other characers, not in anything ive ever seen. unless u made ocs that act like em i guess. it is one of a kind

i didnt rlly get this stuff when i was a kid. i mostly shipped them bc my answer to any rivalry was "wat if they kisd", and theyre cool characters. i used to focus on the tension when i was a kid. theres a lot more to it than that.

because its also this BTW.

[wickerfox]

HELLO YES ITS ME IM COPY PASTING THE THING HERE:

YOU JUST MADE THE CHILD IN ME BLOOM. THE QUESTION LIST (THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IM SEEING THIS AU BUT GOD FORBID):

× Who's Hoodie

× Is it in the same time setting as MH

× Who PLAYS AS ALEX

× Did it start the same way as a dumb school film project?

× From what I understood Scar takes the role of Tim, is bro a chainsmoker too LMFAO.

× Is Grian canonically gay too

× Would it be a wild correct guess that Amy is Lizzie and Alex is Joel since yk based from obvious plot points?

(before I start, placing this disclaimer here at the top since I have friends who don't frequent mcyt and might get confused, but when I talk abt this au I'm specifically talking abt the characters, not the content creators themselves. Anyway)

SO IM GONNA GO AHEAD AND SHARE WHOSE WHO FIRST

Jay- Grian, it made the most sense in my head, but I actually flip flopped on this so many times bc he also works so well as Tim or Alex, but at some point I went "wait it's an au, we can see how the story changes with Grian as the protag" so Grian's the protag now

Tim/Masky- Scar, I'm a transparent desert duo enjoyer and had a similar flip flop with him as I did Grian bc he'd also work as Jay but I was halfway through that drawing and had a similar thought process to the one i had abt Grian

Brian/Hoodie- Jimmy, I wanted to keep the cast focused to life series and evo members and he made the most sense to me lore wise, especially with the idea that in this au he was one of the ones with the earliest exposure to The Watcher (bc I love Canary Curse symbolism)

Alex- This one was the toughest choice bc no matter what a fav is going to loose it. Good thing this based on the Life Series! As much as I Love the idea of Joel and Lizzie as Alex and Amy, I actually went with Martyn. Again, the character is pretty involved with the Watcher Lore so it made the most sense as the character that is arguably most effected by it. (Although for a brief moment I considered Mumbo Jumbo bc,,, how fucking funny would that be)

Jessica- Jessica's gotta be Pearl right? It makes the most sense for it to be Pearl, I don't even need reasoning for this it makes sense

Amy- So who's Amy then? Scott actually! He's not Martyn's boyfriend in this, he's just a really good friend of his who was super involved in the production. Also like in mh, he's Pearl's roommate.

Sarah- Ren. Can't have a life series au featuring desert duo and not have some renchanting. Who else would be one of the leading actors in Martyn's short film?

Seth- Big B, again Evo connection made sense to me, and depending on your own personal theory on who the third person running the totheark account is, both Big B and Ren have interesting implications, even if both their rolls are p minor in this au

With the cast out of the way other questions !!!

It's set in a kind of nebulous time frame that's probably a little closer to present day, but it does still start with a student film project. When asked Why Martyn chose to use tapes he says something about wanting a more authentic feel to the film but in reality he just thought using tapes was a cool idea and doesn't want to admit that it's kind of impractical now.

In this au Scar doesn't smoke, but instead I like the headcannon that he just has boxes of candy/bubblegum cigarettes on him at all times. He'll pull one out, pause, and offer one to someone and when they say no he's just like "Okay, your loss" and watch as they get all confused when he starts unwrapping it asdfghkgkdjhfjsh

Is Grian gay in this au? Whose to say. (Real answer tho, I'm a notorious Jam shipper and while I'm not an active shipper when it comes to hermitcraft or the life series, I don't really mind it so the relationship is left kind of ambiguous)

But yes THANK YOU DO MUCH FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO TALK ABT THIS IVE BEEN RAMBLING TO MY FRIEND WHO DOESNT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IVE BEEN SAYING FOR DAYS

[ashironie]

OMG I JUST LISTENED TO THE NEWEST EPISODE AND—

Gerry sound so… happy

At first I didn’t recognize his voice and assumed Jonny just named another character Gerry, but then Gertrude was there and…

That all makes me so happy.

AND THEN AN ALICE AND GWEN INTERACTION!!! DYHARD FOR THE WIN!!! SURE THEY WERE AT EACHOTHERS THROATS MOST THE TIME BUT IF YOU SQUINT IT SOUNDS LIKE MILDLY UNHAPPY ROOMMATES!!! THATS BETTER THAN VERY UNHAPPY ROOMMATES!!!!

Ugh, they are so in love. They sound like a toxic st8 couple that’s been married for 50 years and makes ‘ball and chain’ jokes.

GEORGIE GEORGIE GEORGIE GEORGIE GEORGIE!!!!!!!! YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!

Also the statement seemed like… ok here’s a list of everything I could get from it

“and feelings of the uncanny” (about liminality) (1)

Two things for this quote “it creates an effect of absence despite presence, an ‘architectural hunger’ of a sort.” (4)

“The top of the tower… featured unmatched panoramic views of the surrounding rural countryside on all sides.” (3)

“a soulless fairground,” (regarding the previous area) (2) (4)

“there were less and less people every night.” (2) (4)

“There was a nebulous haze across the entire car park…muted colors punctuated with more vivid reds, whites and yellows… I realized it primarily hovered above the asphalt.” (1) (2) (4)

“the phenomena was accompanied by a disquieting sense of absence. Of hunger.” (4)

“kaleidoscope” (1) (4)

The description of the “You Are Here!” Woman (1)

“a particularly high tide of color swept down the corridor toward me.” (1) (4)

The repeating patrons of the Restaurant (1)

The Void (3) (4)

“Their grip on me tightened, a dozen hands pushing and pulling me as one.” (1) (2)

“opened his mouth, and bit into me.” And the ensuing cannibalism (? Is it really cannibalism if you aren’t human?) (2) (4)

“leaping out one of those windows into pure oblivion” (3) (4)

Okokokokok SO! I’ve put numbers to everything so I can talk about everything easier. (1) The Uncanny (both from The Stranger and The Spiral, they have similar enough vibes to me) (2) The Lonely (3) The Vast (4) The Hunger/The Nothing.

The uncanniness of this statement is undeniable, reminds me of the previous episode actually. It’s also worth a mention that the author constantly denies the validity of anything he says and just thinks he was going through an episode, which could be Spiral coded or just statement stuff. Since everything is copy and pasted that seems closer to that idea but still.

The author keeps talking about the lack of people at the beginning and a particular fixation on how they act (seems very Martin domain core to me). Also fog. And the people stuff reminds me of Mag 48 Lost in a Crowd, the otherness you feel, the loneliness because of it. Maybe this is a cannibalism and animal nature as a metaphor for the ✨horrors of other people✨. That kinda feels like a stretch but it makes sense in my head.

Ahhhh, the call of the void, the fear of uselessness to things that don’t even know you exist. The void is obvious Vast coded, especially with the oblivion comment (imo). I don’t have much to say that I’m not gonna say next but this needed its own section bc the void.

My favorite theory about wtf is happening in this episode that I made the fuck up right here right now. At multiple points in this statement does ‘Hungry’ and ‘Hunger’ come up, specifically when talking about your reaction to a deficit in something. This could also be cannibalism coded, being so desperate for someone, anyone, that they eat the only ones around. Which brings me to the second half, the nothingness. This is mixed with basically all the Lonely and Vast feelings of this statement, a lack of something, be it people, color, etc. This could maybe be something that is trying to be more like sensory deprivation, the more deprived you are the more your brain tries to make things to be less deprived, and the more empty you feel because of it. This episode kinda gives me overwhelming feels too? Like when everything is too much and too little at the same time? Overstimulation and understimulation mixing to make the worst thing in the world. Idk

[kijosakka]

ooouuuuu izzy i have so many thoughts about izzy within dramaturgy. so many

so im gna keep it a little nebulous here bc again im not entiiirely sure what im keeping/changing within WT, but this is smth fun i want to cover

to rehash another post: noahs behavior, his detachment, comes off to izzy as a kind of strategy. actors recognize actors or something and she does goes on to become one. she can tell hes compartmentalizing. this could also serve as a kind of reason for her to be so eager to swap teams, but again she sees how he flaunts his worst and gets voted off basically unanimously.

^ her intrigue in his lacking and finding out it wasnt in fact a strategy to further himself in the game, could also serve for why she picks him to team-up with in tddddi.

okok, so beginning this at the end to the tddddi special, i established in the post covering it that izzy basically drags noah into the water with her, thus making him apart of the action cast (that is, as an additional competitor and not actually replacing anyone). izzy sees this as an opportunity to learn more about noah, since he has to compete, right?

but come the time theyre on their way to the film lot, noah is nowhere to be seen. and izzy learns though being eliminated that somehow hes apart of the peanut gallery and not the cast.

< i imagine that her hearing about the [*]lawsuit courtney filed would make her think that maaaybe it has something to do with why he wasnt on the show.

and its izzy. shes been intrigued by him from the start and come finale she has every intention of seeking him out after the show if only to satiate her curiosity. only noah is nowhere. nowhere. and nobody knows anything either!

[*learning at the award ceremony/red carpet event that noah was working as chris' PA confirms this to her, for behind-the-scenes-adjacent reasons that im going to get into in this next section]

so noah has his whole disappearing from the public thing post-action, but he isnt the only one who goes on to do something notable after the show: izzy, for one, has an acting career.

and its shown explicitly that izzy is someone with a small-scale example of 'discipline/punishment' in her on-set freakout. she, unaware of the cameras still rolling, blows up in a manner that is made severely public and therefore completely dashes her livelihood and reputation.

this, in tandem with the fact that her even being an actress puts her just behind noah (and s2 geoff and bridgette but ill cover them later) in terms of former contestants getting close to Behind The Cameras, meaning that izzy has had a taste of both contestant-ship and employment (which are wildly different), alters her view on noah drastically.

and after having lost her career, it makes something abundantly clear about why and how noah behaved on camera --- being, this is the kind of thing he's trying to avoid.

and even coming back to the offhand ideas of sierra embodying the casts 'punishments' (as seen in the rb chain really kickstarting this au), theres izzy.

she meets sierra and the obsessive way she rewatches the show and picks it apart, and it confirms to her again why noah separates himself so heavily. and its not like its her speculating; noah is the one cast member that sierra knows nothing about.

^ hes just... so little. he has no audition tapes for her to reverse engineer his name or school from, no bonus clips, nothing useful in his interview, no cast anecdotes. compared to the sheer amount she has on everyone else -- she has a relative guess at his age and height just comparatively to the rest of the cast, but nothing concrete beyond his first name.

not even mentioning how he's completely disappeared socially. nobody in the cast has any contact info, no one knows his whereabouts -- hell, is this guy even alive? does he exist? was he a collective figment of the casts imaginations or something?

^ coming back to izzy; she picks up rumors about the rest of the cast and helps sierra run her mill. but theres something so distinct about the ones pertaining to noah -- unlike the others, based around paparazzi photos and interviews and gossip sites and behaviors from On The Show, his are just... there. they're so inherently baseless they might as well be worthless.

as far as izzy can tell, reality TV as a machine has chewed everyone up and spit them out to try and break themselves catering to the whims of the Public, and the only one whos going unseen is noah.

im sure this means something important and focal to their dynamic as teammates in WT, but i havent worked out everything for that season so i cant say definitively what it would impact.

you could spin it so izzy and noahs dynamic (and to some extent with both being Pieces in the Business giving them vague history/shared experience) is much more focal to the overarching story and his character growth as a whole and keep her in the game longer, or just have her influence his motivations to a much greater degree.

idk!! not entirely sure on that front, but izzy having that small-scale example of what 'being unaware' can do is pretty interesting in the context of this au!!

[rosenbergamot]

I loved your trans grian fic sososo much!!!! I was wondering what trans headcanons you have for the hermits?

AWWW yay im so happy tysm im glad u liked it!!!! and thanks for asking me this HEHEH i am so happy to talk ab trans headcanons. they are Under The Cut !!!!

- generally i see Scar as being transneutral or sometimes transmasc but i feel like his gender identity is so like. nebulous and impacted by him being a vex hybrid (which is . the main HC for me w scar) and being generally Removed from that culture that it just…. feels so right for him to be transneutral. i feel like he uses all pronouns but is especially fond of he/him primarily bc of like. fictional heroes and people he looks up to?? do u get me?? he is also very audhd to me so this plays into it as well.

- grian is so transmasc to me like. he generally presents masculine but he really does fuck around with the gender binary. he gives me the vibes of someone who wouldn’t change their gender marker so he can get into bars for cheaper

- pearl it/she truther here. i love the idea of pearl with top surgery but she didnt get nipples. that is so special to me. pearl who is generally Alien feeling out of place with any gender perceived to be “”normal”” and so its like “alright guess i’ll have. none of that thanks”

- on my document for trans hcs i just put “joe hills - joe hills, all pronouns” so. thats how i feel about joe hills.

- it/he jevin is all i have written for jev. yeah.

- my fav hc for iskall is they primarily use they/them but will let u use he/him or she/her ONLY if its funny in the moment. if its for the bit its allowed.

- stress is a transwoman to me like generally quite binary but she uses she/her and so many cute neos. Nothing else JUST she/her and neos she finds cute.

- cub is my fav binary trans man. u KNOW he made his own testosterone and was like “this shit goes hard” and shared it with scar. cub the resident ethically ambiguous endocrinologist

- i love the idea of surgeries being like. just code. just change someones code. but i also love going off server to get a surgery or GOD FORBID having one of the hermits do it like can u IMAGINE “i want bottom surgery who do i go to?” “well cub knows about hormones and has many sharp objects laying around?? oh and zedaph put me into a rat maze to see how long i would take to find cheese last week maybe u can try them???” FLDKFJF

i donr want this to be too long but . yes. thank u very much. i have so many thoughts

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

misc. bloodswap/kidswap musings under the cut.

so what i wanna do for my swap au has to do with not. fundamentally changing the characters personalities. literally just changing the basis of their living situations.

like. for example. what would...lets say, dad egbert be like if he had prolonged exposure to big cal. how would john grow up in an apartment complex rather than in a traditional suburb.

im trying to frame it in such a way where it isnt just homestuck again but the characters are in different colors, but a lot of it has to do with the more nebulous concept of "what if their meteors/ectobiology fucked up and became an entire universal offshoot". something that theoretically has all the components for an alpha timeline but is fundamentally broken bc the player characters got uploaded into the wrong files.

right now im mostly torn on the status of guardians. what im working with right now is basically a Dave=John and viceversa with Jade=Rose BUT im thinking of keeping their godtiers the same like i did w the trolls, like i said i mostly want to just change their life circumstances and how that would affect them.

i am. very torn on iff the presents the babies get stay the same or change. or if the guardians swap ages.

like, itd be funny as hell if nanna was this fucked up old lady raising her grandson to beat ass so that he can one day kill the batterwitch, but thatd basically take dad egbert out of the picture.

the other idea i have is that bro becomes Gramps Egbert. and is this fucked up old war vet. debating on if he raises his grandson or if he SOMEHOW sired a child to raise his ectobaby for him when he dies, banking on sburb to eventually revive him as a sprite.

now that i say all that im definitely leaning towards that.

so this would make mom lalonde into Nannie Harley.

and....nanna egbert into...Ma Strider.

yeaah. yeah. its all coming together. (has no idea what to do with the alpha kids)

[leporellian]

usually, as an opera person, whenever a musical is called a “rock opera” i just kind of roll my eyes a little bit bc… smth smth “opera” on its own is an infamously nebulous term and so is “rock opera” and really it’s just a way to say “a musical with rock music” dramatically, but with chess… yeah. that is a Rock Opera. all of the characters are running on opera logic, and so is the plot. if florence and freddie and anatoly were hanging out in a verdi opera they would fit right in.