#i cant have all three tags because i know major character death is already a huge turn off 😭

[the-spacetronaut]

me fighting myself from adding "hurt no comfort" and "dead dove: do not eat" onto ms. janitor because it already has the "major character death" tag on it

[khaleesiofalicante]

OK MY ELECTRICITY WENT BUT IM HERE WITH MY LIVE BLOG. Im also wearing a tiara i found during cleaning at 2 38 am...

LXI'S STILL HAVING THOSE DREAMS

You see, that’s how Lexi functioned. Unlike Selena who had a weekly planner with her name doodled on it, Lexi didn’t like having a schedule. She would decide what she wanted to do when she wanted it.

SAME LEXI SAME

IM SORRY IF THIS IS MSOTLY IN CAPS IM TOO EXCITED

lexi

lexi why are you in pain

what what what

whats happening

im freaking out

GEORGIA

There were six of them. Each handle in one colour of the pride flag.

gimme

THE ACADEMY

NO NO NO

these demons can talk as well.

that's what bothers me the most

CLARY STFU YOU KNOW DAMN WELL YOU FOUGHT A WAR AT 15. I know she's worried for valid reasons but im losing it right now.

calm its ok its gonna be ok

georgia collecting the ichor-

i love her so much

Lexi didn’t think it was possible, but the sight somehow made her gayer than before.

me every time i look at amy or rosa from b99

OLIVIA

“Of course you are not dying!” Lexi said severely. “Neither one of us is allowed to die before we finish binging Game of Thrones.”

with the major character death tag right there

dont make me think of georgia getting sick

dont

The bar was extremely low for shadowhunters.

yes it is

OH MULTIPLE POVS

RAFAEL

did i just sob "my child" ?

maybe i did

im so proud of him

LEAVE ME ALONE

wait but in tid sophie was over the age of ascention too

WAIT HOW OLD WAS SOPHIE AT THE AGE OF ASCENTION

WAIT OMG SOPHIE WAS YOUNG

I FORGOT ABOUT THAT

“Life is too short for bad blood,”

yeah. yeah it is

i still really like camilla

He could go to Mexico right now. His heart wanted to do it. His body screamed at him to do it.

It wasn’t the distance that was the problem. He had two warlocks at home. He had a bike. He had money to buy a plane ticket.

It wasn’t the distance at all. Rafael would walk to Mexico for her if necessary.

i screamed so loud here i was grateful for the closed door

CHAIRMAN MEOW

CYUKGUCDGYMDYUD

THE PRECIOUS CAT

WHAT IF THE MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH IS ABOUT CHAIRMAN???

“Y’all really be acting as if portals are like a bag of Cheetos!” Max pointed out seriously. “It ain’t $2.50, bro! Do you have any idea the energy it takes to make a portal? What people actually pay for it? I can’t be making portals for free. I don’t get a salary from the Clave like you do. This is how I make a living!”

SO TRUE

“I was going to say you should go stay at the institute with David,” Rafael said. “But you are right. You are not a baby. You can stay here on your-”

“On second thoughts,” Max interrupted with a grin. “I’m still a fetus in warlock years so I will go the institute.”

THEY ARE SO PRECIOUS

AHHH HE CALLED HER PRETTY THE FIRST TIME HE SAW HER

THEY WERE 7

IM SCREAMING SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

my throat hurts

JAIME MY BABY

Y'ALL I MISSED HIM SO MUCH

“All thanks to the amazing Isabelle Lightwood,” Jaime replied. “I think I am a little in love with her.”

“Who isn’t?” Rafael chuckled.

we all are in love with isabelle lightwood

no no no

where's anjali

where is she

dont fuck with me right now

why does diego look like a mess

“Diego,” the woman rasped. “She is coughing up blood again.”

no

dont

it's chapter 1

stop making me cry

THE LIGHTWOOD SIBLINGS

YUSDFGYUSDFSDGYUD

if anyone gives izzy shit for this i'll kill them

JACE STOP GOING SO FAST

“Jace, if you want to a baby so much then grow your own damn uterus,” Isabelle snapped.

TELL HIM

THIS GOES OUT TO THE WHOLE MALE POPULATION

After Georgia’s birth, they had promised each other that they would always choose the children first. If it ever came to a point, as it often did in their lives, where they had to choose between themselves and the children – they had promised each other to save the children.

dude theres a major character death here

Jace thought for a moment and then grinned at her. “No uterus. No opinion.”

“Selena has trained you well,”

selena my smart feminist child

I JUST KNOW ONE OF THE LIGHTWOOD-BANES IS DYING

AND IM NOT OK

“Do you really need those?” Alec asked, pointing at the glasses.

“No,” Jace replied. “But Clary thinks I look hot with glasses.”

“You two are ridiculous,” Alec shook his head.

Jace turned around. “Really? And your beard is for character building, is it?”

there's no use lying alec we all know why it's really there

I KNOW WHAT LEUKEMIA IS SHUT THE FUCK UP IM LOSING MY SHIT

no

no

she cant die

IF SHE DIES I WILL RAISE HELL

my throat hurts from all the shouting

“Can I get a cinnamon latte with extra cream and two sugars please?” Alec asked.

Jace raised an eyebrow.

“Magnus had a long day at the Spiral Labyrinth,” Alec explained.

“Can’t he just magic his drink?”

“Well, yes,” Alec replied. “But I like buying it for him. It’s called being a good husband.”

aww that's so sweet

THIS IS HILARIOUS

“I’m saying no one can do better than David,” Jace huffed. “He is precious.”

tru

“If you are going to be this way, things are going to be very awkward at their wedding,” Jace muttered.

“They are not getting married, Jace!”

“Do you not want them to???”

“They are nineteen!!”

“Doesn’t mean we are not allowed to think about it,” Jace pointed out. “If they get married, we will be family!”

“We are already family!” Alec all but yelled.

“Yeah, but we will be even closer!” Jace sighed happily.

“You are my parabatai!” Alec said incredulously. “My soul is literally tied to yours! How closer do you want to get?”

THIS IS AMAZING

OH MY GOD I LOVE

JACE BEING OVER PROTECTIVE OVER SELENA DATING SOMEONE IM LOSING MY SHIT

wait how old is michael

"Oh my god,” Jace gasped. “Three out of three! I win!”

“It’s not a competition, Jace!” Alec rolled his eyes.

“It is and I won,” Jace grinned. “You’re welcome, LGBTQ+ community.”

YUP JACE WON

“Can we talk about something else?” Izzy demanded. “We are not those parents who only ever talk about their children.”

Alec cleared his throat. “Right. Of course.”

“Yeah, we have lives of our own,” Jace nodded seriously.

They drove quietly for a while before they started discussing about their children’s love lives again right up until Jace pulled over at Jade Wolf.

of course...

Lily’s face was pale – paler than usual.

lily what's wrong

please lily

anjali...

lily is close to her

of course

“Then we burn all the angels,” Lily growled.

YES YES YES YES

Jace walked in that moment, sipping from his latte. “I bought donuts, y’all!”

A chuckle escaped Magnus. “Jonathan. Your timing is impeccable.”

"Is everything okay?” Jace asked, looking troubled.

“No,” Maia replied. “But at least we have donuts.”

at least they have donuts

“I love you,” he mouthed, and Alec’s heart was okay for a moment.

THE FEELS

ISABELLE

NO NO NO

NO

IZZY

PLEASE

WHY IS EVERY POV ENDING LIKE THIS

They had put on their clothes

AHEM SIR-

they grow up so fast...

no

im crying

dont please

izzy

she was poisoned

oh my god

WHO

GIVE ME NAMES RIGHT NOW

Rafael drank like a dozen a day.

understandable have a good day

OH MY GOD STOP JOKING AS A COPING MECHANISM

Im squeezing the life out of Emma (my emotional support stuffed cat) right now

seelies

the first time i heard the source was angelic my very first incstinct was seelie. I didn't wanna share it because of how absurd it sounded. but it doesn't anymore.

charlotte was poisoned by a seelie unintentionally which cost her her child

oh

OH MY GOD

NO THIS WASN'T IZZY'S COFFEE

MAGNUS GAVE IT TO HER

THIS WAS MAGNUS' COFFEE

SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO POISON HIM.

I'm losing my mind oh my god... I am so scared. Please Anjali and Isabelle please they cant...no i dont wanna think like that. tryna take deep breaths. ok. it's gonna be ok. maybe.

see ya friday!

Now I want to write lbaf while wearing a tiara. Hmmmm. I'll look for one online.

See you Friday! Also hope you had a good birthday!!!

And send pics of Emma!!!!!!!

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Mockingbird of Whitestone [Critical Role]

Chapter 1: The Visitor

Summary: Twenty years later, Vox Machina--or as much of it as can get to Whitestone at the time--reunite. It’s not their first time doing so, and they don’t plan on it being the last. It should just be another reunion. 

But something completely unexpected throws everything into chaos, and leaves Vex’ahlia struggling with emotions she’d thought buried, and Percy trying to piece together the fragments of a very confusing puzzle.

Canon pairings, focusing on Perc’ahlia; warnings for minor blood in a later chapter and a whole lot of ruminating on a canonical major character death. 

Rating: T

Author’s Note: so in accordance with my personal philosophy of “if you can give a species a tail why wouldn’t you” it may be noted that some of these characters have tails that wouldn’t have such according to official wotc materials. gnomes, for example. you cant stop me hahahaha 

NEXT

He’d had his share of broken watches, but this one was…interesting. Everything looked fine—the gears sitting strong and unbroken, yet refusing to turn, the winding tool equally pristine yet unbudging. At an easy glance, everything seemed perfectly normal, and yet, some unknown piece of the puzzle was keeping it from working. It was always something tiny in cases like these, he was sure. He drew in closer and squinted, maneuvering the tool in hand to gently lever up one of the gears, knowing with an intense certainty that it had to be something simple that he’d missed, some piece of sand that’d gotten caught in just the wrong place, or a tiny piece of gadgetry misplaced or broken or missing altogether—

A pair of hands on his shoulders pulled Percy out of his reverie. The gentle grip tugged him back, tilting his chair onto its back legs and causing him to tilt his own head back to see Vex’ahlia’s teasing smile. “Percy,” Vex said, peering down at him with a twinkle in her eye, “If you glare at that watch any harder, I’m afraid it’s going to catch fire.”

Percy snorted. Vex let the chair settle all four legs back down onto the carefully maintained stones of Whitestone’s town square. Percy looked away as Vex draped herself across his shoulders, her chin now tucked against his neck. “I’m not—glaring at it, dear, I’m just very focused. Whatever’s going wrong with the thing is subtle enough that it’s hard to pinpoint, so—“

“Darling,” she said, in a low, sweet voice by his ear that, even twenty years into their marriage, still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, “You’re not supposed to be working, you’re supposed to be relaxing.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and stood up, pulling away. “There’s a festival on tomorrow, our friends will be here any moment, and you’re here fussing over a watch? Really, Percy.”

She took a moment to stretch, and Percy took a moment to take in the view. The world seemed to frame a perfect backdrop for her— a light breeze stirring the loose half-cloak draped around her shoulders and the skirts of her pale blue dress. The day was bright and clear, and, despite the patches of snow still visible here and there on the ground, much of the plant life was starting to show new patches of green. The Sun Tree in particular had already sprouted enough buds and early blooms to cause a perpetual soft rain of petals in the town square, some of which drifted past Vex’ahlia, one or two catching in her hair. Not for the first time Percy found himself quietly struck by how lucky he was to have this—a moment of peace in his town, rebuilt and recovering after the harm once done to it, decades ago, and a woman he sometimes still couldn’t believe he was married to…

He shook his head. “That’s exactly why I’m fussing with the watch, dear,” he said. “They’re late, and if I don’t keep myself busy somehow, I’ll drive myself mad with impatience! I mean, really, we’ve only been planning to meet up for weeks.”

“They’ll be here,” Vex chided.

“They were supposed to be here half an hour ago. I made everyone a bloody watch but it’s apparently not enough—this is the trouble, you know, with depending on the druid for travel, because then if she’s late, so is everybody else—“

“I take it back. You were right, Percy, you should just stick with fiddling with the watch.” The affection in her voice robbed it of any sting the gentle teasing might’ve had otherwise. “Being a clockmaker’s made you so obsessed with punctuality, dear, you may really have a problem.”

He sighed, carefully putting away the watch and his tools, brushing a few errant petals off his coat. “It’s not—I just miss them, honestly. It seems they’ve all been busy with things so often lately. It’s a shame poor Tary couldn’t make it, but at the very least we can get the rest of the family all together in one place for once.” He stood up, intending to walk over her, but paused with a wince as a shooting pain lanced up one of his legs. He leaned on the table, grimacing, before standing up the rest of the way. Noting Vex’s slightly worried expression, he threw up a hurried smile, and said, “Augh, that’s a twinge. Oof.”

“Your knees again?” she asked, eyes bright with concern.

“Nothing too serious, I think, just the usual stiffness. You know, sometimes I wonder if it was the sixth or seventh dragon that did it.”

He’d hoped the joke would lighten the mood enough to soothe any worries, but Vex frowned.  At the very least, she chose to change the subject rather than put up any sort of fuss. “I don’t suppose you know where the kids are?” she asked. “I saw Trissa and Leo pestering—sorry, helping—some of the traveling merchants, but I’ve no idea where the rest are.”

“Well, I think Crispin is hanging out with his friends somewhere, and Arthur was tagging along with Cassandra last I saw him. Tiff’s right over there, though,” he said, pointing towards the Sun Tree with a grin.

Vex’ahlia looked, and then bent over with a quiet “Oh, no,” buried under a laugh.

“At this point, Trinket may in fact be the most patient bear in the world,” Percy said, moving to her side, arms folded loosely. “Certainly, he’s the most fashionable.”

There, under the Sun Tree, lay the huge bear. He was, with some very obvious displeasure, allowing Percy and Vex’s three year old daughter to climb all over him as she weaved flowers and ribbons into his fur. He made no attempt to stop her—having gone through sharing his home with a toddler four times before this, he knew it was a futile endeavor—but he still turned toward the sound of Vex’s voice and let out a low, despairing moan full of the deep, existential anguish only a bear beset by an excitable toddler can ever truly know.

“She’s been at it for the better part of an hour,” Percy grinned.

“Tiffany, darling, what are you doing over there?” Vex called. “Are you making Trinket pretty for the festival?”

Tiffany perked up at her mother’s voice, seemed to seriously contemplate the question for a moment, and then nodded and said, “Yeah!”

The bear let out another soulful moan and rested his head on the pavement.

“Ohh, I know, buddy, I know, you’re so patient.” Vex giggled and leaned on Percy slightly. “Oh, gods, honestly, he could just stand up and tip her off without hurting her, I don’t know why he just takes it.”

“However will he survive the embearassment,” Percy said, receiving a swat on the arm and a laugh for his efforts.

They’d been standing side by side for a few minutes, idly chatting and occasionally tossing little Tiff a few words of encouragement, when Cassandra walked into the square and made a beeline towards them, Arthur following after with all the forced gravitas an eight year old could muster.

“They’re not here yet?” she asked, looking a bit harried. She’d been working hard on getting everything ready for the Renewal Festival, and it showed; Percy and Vex had tried to take some of the weight off her shoulders, but she’d insisted on doing the bulk of the work herself—not exactly unusual for her, really, but Percy still worried.

Vex shook her head. “Not yet, much to Percy’s chagrin.”

Cassandra pursed her lips, huffing out a frustrated breath. “Well, hopefully they get here soon. I might have a bit of a job for you all before we get too comfortable with celebrating. One of the guards just told me that someone reported seeing bluecoats in the old cemetery.”

Percy groaned. “Oh, gods, again? I thought for sure we cleared the little devils out last year.”

“They might be back,” Cassandra said. “No one’s been stung yet, and I’ve yet to confirm anything in any case, but I’d really like to avoid a repeat of last summer.”

“And us with a town full of visitors for the festival who won’t know how dangerous they are,” said Vex, folding her arms. “Thank the gods Keyleth’s coming. If anyone can convince a damn mess of hornets to move elsewhere, it’s an archdruid.”

“Might not hurt to warn people to see a cleric straight away if they are stung, just in case,” Percy said. “We very nearly had a couple folks die last year who didn’t know any better.”

“When is Aunt Keyleth and the others gonna be here?” Arthur said, demonstrating his usual complete lack of interest in ‘adult talk.’

Percy rolled his eyes fondly. “Well, they should have been here—ah, speak of the devil, finally!”

With a familiar groan of ancient wood splitting apart, the Sun Tree opened up into the familiar tunnel. It was followed by an extremely unnecessary bellow and the sound of stampeding footsteps. Vex and Percy shared a look as Arthur’s face split into a grin. Grog stampeded through, narrowly avoiding knocking Arthur over, several bags in his arms and two gnomes clinging to his shoulders, Scanlan yelling in mock terror, Pike laughing helplessly. Keyleth stepped sedately through the portal a moment later, just before it closed.

“Yeah!!” Arthur cheered, as Grog skidded to a stop. Grog threw up his arms, full as they were, and bellowed in response, accidentally dislodging Scanlan in the process.

“Ow!!” said Scanlan, full of mock ruined pride more than any real pain, as Arthur and Grog both laughed. Pike slid down and landed nimbly on her feet as Scanlan launched into an exaggerated tirade against Grog, sending Arthur into stitches.

Keyleth and Pike, however, both spotted Percy and Vex and beelined toward them, and the ensuing hugs drained out all of Percy’s frustration in an instant. Nevertheless, if only for the look of things, he adopted his most exasperated tone as he asked, “What bloody took you all so long? We were expecting you almost an hour ago!”

Pike rolled her eyes. “Sorry, we had to deal with a very serious discussion about whether or not Grog’s too old and creaky to be the team tough guy anymore. Scanlan teased him about his beard going gray, and Grog took it way too personally, and they ended up arguing until Grog insisted on proving that he’s still just as tough as ever.”

“Is that why he came running in like a bat out of the hells?” said Vex.

“Yup,” said Keyleth. “Demanded we all hand over all our bags and that the gnomes climb on. I think he wanted to carry me, too, but there was literally no room, so he made up for it by running through.”

Vex covered her face, shaking with mirth. “Gods, I’ve missed you all,” she said.

“Oy, Percy, I think you got a bit of a limpet problem,” Grog said. He stomped over, making a big show out of every step, with Arthur clinging excitedly to the goliath’s massive foot. “This one’s got real big and reeal clingy. Gonna need a great big scraper to get this ‘un off.” Arthur was beside himself with giggles.

Percy eyed Grog. “Well, maybe if you all weren’t late, he wouldn’t be quite so clingy!”

“I came as fast as I could!” Grog whined, the bags sagging. “I ran all the way here!”

“We noticed.”

A bark of laughter echoed behind Grog. For a moment, Percy thought it was aimed at his joke, but no; Scanlan had noticed Trinket’s predicament. Trinket, devastated at his complete and total humiliation, covered his face with his paws and moaned.

Tiffany, however, was…well, normally she would have run over with Arthur, now that Percy thought about it, but she was staring intently at some distant point in the opposite direction. For just a moment, he thought he spotted a flash of movement that way himself, but before he could comment, Keyleth spoke up and the thought quickly fled his mind, only to be remembered much later.

“Tiff!” Keyleth shouted, bouncing on the balls of her feet and waving. “Tiff, hey, over here!”

Tiffany turned with a quiet “huh?” Upon spotting Keyleth, the little girl’s face split into a huge grin and she ran full force at Keyleth. “Aun’ Kiki!!”

Keyleth swooped the little girl up into her arms, chattering excitedly back and forth with her as Tiffany proceeded to say hello to the rest of her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ in turn.

(For a moment, a piece of Percy that stubbornly refused to die reflected on the aunts and uncles she’d never get to meet—Percy’s own siblings who never got to meet his new, adoptive family, and also…But thoughts like that weren’t productive at times like this. Better to celebrate the family they had with them right now than spend time hating the empty spaces in the lineup. Nothing good came of dwelling on that for too long.)

Cassandra, who’d been holding back initially, stepped forward. “Sorry to interrupt, and to bother you the moment you get here, Keyleth—“

“Whahuh?” Keyleth said, having been midway through intense conversation with the three year old still in her arms about the huuuge butterfly Tiffany had seen that morning.

“We’ve, ah, possibly got an infestation of some particularly nasty hornets that Cass wants to deal with before anyone gets hurt,” said Percy. “They can be deadly, unfortunately, but the poison takes long enough to kick in that most people don’t realize the danger of getting stung until they’re sick enough that treating it becomes costly. Think you could, maybe…”

“Oh! Oh, sure, yeah, no problem,” said Keyleth, setting Tiffany down. “Lead the way, Percy!”

“If you two are headed off, then, I think I should try and find the rest of the kids,” Vex said. “Shall we meet back here?”

“Me, too, Mommy!” Tiff piped up, reaching her hands up.

“I don’t see why not. It’s a nice day out, and some of the traveling merchants and entertainers have been setting up shop early,” said Percy. “We might as well enjoy the rest of the day.”

Grog shifted uncomfortably. His arms were still full of everyone’s bags, and however much he may have liked to deny it, the silver streaks through his beard made no secret of the fact that he was starting to feel his age at least as much as Percy was. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind…stopping by the castle, just for a few minutes,” he mumbled, which, for him, meant it was still pretty loud, all things considered.

“Oh, just put the bags down, you big goof,” said Pike. Grog shrugged and, with no ceremony whatsoever, dropped everything.

Vex had seen her fair share of Renewal Festivals, but she had to admit, Whitestone’s were something very special. Granted, you only needed to endure one Whitestone winter, trapped indoors by the biting cold and heavy snows, huddling close to the fire and braving the outdoors only when no other option remained, to understand why—the entire town was desperate for the onset of spring by the time the thaws came. Still, it was always a delight; the festival wasn’t truly considered to start until tomorrow, yet already people were celebrating. Everywhere one looked, there’d be a makeshift band practicing out in front of a tavern, with a handful of people dancing along, or a pair of kids running around and laughing through the streets, perhaps someone airing out their best clothes now that it wasn’t too cold to open a window. She understood that it had previously been a much more insular celebration, of course, back when Whitestone was more isolated, but these days, with Percy and Cassandra working hard to maintain communications with and open roads to Emon and Westrun, a number of traveling merchants and performers always stopped by to help grow the celebrations even further. Many were still setting up booths and claiming their bits of the street, but some were already settled in, displaying wares or sending delicious smells through the pleasantly warm air.

Somewhere amongst them, she knew, were two of her children, but so far, even with Tiffany and Trinket’s help, they’d yet to spot them. Of course, Tiffany was too distracted by just about everything, constantly pointing and cooing from her perch on Trinket’s back, to really be helping. Vex’ahlia kept her eyes and ears open, nodding along with her daughter’s babbling without really listening, looking instead for Trissa and Leo—they’d be together, no doubt, as they always were, and probably up to trouble. At thirteen and twelve respectively, they were the closest of the children in age as well as just being generally attached at the hip, ever reminiscent of…

Well, they were very close, in any case.

After a bit of searching, finally, she spotted the pair amongst a trio of tabaxi. Two were lounging on the opposite side of the street from her children, apparently taking a break from practicing for some sort of act and enjoying a kettle of tea between them. The third was a younger girl with golden tabby markings who couldn’t have been much older than Crispin’s sixteen. She had all of Trissa and Leo’s rapt attention, shuffling and carefully twirling and twisting a set of cards between her fingers. One of the older tabaxi, a brown one with faint spots and tufted ears, called out a word of encouragement. The other one was more reddish in color, a little older and a lot surlier, grumbling into his cup and getting an elbow to the ribs for whatever harsh comment he’d made.  

Vex stood back and watched the girl perform for a moment, amused and curious. The girl was explaining the meaning of the cards to her enraptured audience, twirling each one with a flourish before tucking it back into the deck. She stumbled in her delivery, however, upon glancing up and spotting Trinket. The other two Tabaxi were similarly startled, the older one climbing up onto his chair in surprise.

“Oh, he’s harmless, don’t worry,” said Vex to the adults, and then, turning to the girl, added, “Please don’t stop on my account.” She smiled her most winning smile. “I’ll have to take my children away in just a moment here, I’m afraid, but we can spare a few more minutes.”

“Aww, mooom,” Leo groaned, at the same instant that Trissa cried, “What? Why?”

“Because our guests are here, Trissa. We’re going to need to track down Crispin, too, Arthur’s already with them.”

“O-oh, I didn’t mean to—We’re just, just messing around,” the tabaxi girl stammered, her prior confidence vanished. “You can—I won’t keep them.”

“But Mom, she says she can tell the future with her cards, and I wanna see her do it!” said Leo.

“Yeah, they’re really weird, one’s got a fiend on it and—“

“They’re, they don’t…telling the future’s not exactly what I said,” the girl said.

Vex sighed and rolled her eyes to look at the adult tabaxi, the more good-natured of whom shrugged with a smile. Turning back to the girl, she said, “Well, like I said, we have a few minutes. Why don’t you give me a reading?”

The girl blinked. “O-oh, uh, really?” she asked, her ears twitching back nervously as she looked toward the other two.

“Go for it, Patch!” called the brown tabaxi.

“’S two copper,” grumbled the older one. “No freebies.”

Vex raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit cheaper than I expected,” she said, handing over the money. A few copper was a small cost to perhaps encourage an aspiring performer to continue on her path. She doubted there was any real fortune telling happening, but there was still an art to her craft, one that Vex could appreciate.  

Patch flicked her ears back in embarrassment. “I’m, um, I’m very new at this. This is—it’s the first time they’re letting me perform for money.”

“Don’t tell her that!” the old one scowled.

“Shit, shit, sorry Saph, I forgot—“

“Don’t worry about it, Patch! Saph, shut the hell up and let her perform, you old curmudgeon, she can do this.” The brown one grinned and raised his cup, eyes shining.

“Hey, everyone’s got to start somewhere,” Vex said, kneeling down on the blanket Patch had acting as a cushion. “So, where do we start?”

Patch swallowed, her fingers making the cards dance apparently without her notice. “Well, um, you…you ask me some question, and the cards will…tell me the answer, sort of.” She swallowed, struggling to regain her composure. “So, miss, um…”

“Lady Vex’ahlia,” Vex said, and smiled a little bit more upon hearing one of the two grown tabaxi erupt into a choking cough at the title. They really must be from well out of town if the bear hadn’t been a dead giveaway as to just who she was.

Patch’s eyes widened a bit. “Right, then, L-Lady Vex’ahlia,” she said, “What questions do you have for, um, for the cards?”

Vex tapped her lip, acting like she was considering it in detail. “Well, there’s not much I have going on right now, but…how about this: Can you give me a general feel for how this festival’s going to go this year? We’d really like for it to be a good one, but we’ve already had some hiccups. Nothing too serious, yet. Is anything else…unexpected coming our way?”

There, an easy question for a first-timer to come up with an answer for, Vex thought. Could be interesting to see how she’d respond.

Patch nodded, and then turned back to the cards, now shuffling them in earnest. This seemed to be what she was most comfortable with, the movement of the cards themselves, flashing and shifting in intricate patterns. The effect was slightly spoiled when, in the process of drawing one, she nearly dropped it, but she recovered with a slightly awkward grin, and laid out three cards, face down.

One by one, she flipped each over, muttering to herself, “So, that’s…uhm, something, some big change or something to do with fate, hoo boy, that’s always interesting….and that’s…a person, maybe a stranger, maybe not…Um. Hm. That’s. That’s a really weird set of three, to get, um.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “So. I think what the cards have to say to that, is that you’ll have….some sort of. Fateful encounter with…with an unexpected visitor? To your festival. Someone’s coming that you didn’t expect, and it’ll…it’ll be interesting?”

One of the tabaxi, probably the surly one, slapped a hand to their head and groaned. Vex refused to look back and see.

“A fateful encounter with an unexpected visitor, that’s exciting,” Vex said. “Do the cards say if this is to be a friendly visitor, or someone I should be worried about?”

“Friend,” said Patch, her voice suddenly very certain. “Definitely a friend.” She blinked, and shrunk a bit, as if surprised by her own burst of confidence. “I mean,” she said, “I don’t…the cards don’t. Actually specify, but I get the feeling it’s, um, going to be a friend.”

“That’s a relief,” said Vex. “Well, that was wonderful, young Patch!” She pressed a gold piece into the girl’s hand, giving her a wink and a grin as she stood up. “You’re very good with those cards, I’m sure that with a bit more practice you’ll have the confidence to really do well.” Patch nodded her head in an astonished gratitude, holding the coin close to her chest.

“Th-thank you,” she said, as Vex gestured for her children to get up as well.

“Thank you for the reading,” said Vex in return. “Who knows, maybe this means Tary’ll be able to make it, after all! We were so disappointed to learn he couldn’t come—heaven knows how he’d get here without Keyleth’s help, but stranger things have happened…”

“Feh,” huffed old Saph. Then, turning in his seat, he hesitated. “What the fuck?” he spat, looking around. “Where’s the teapot?”

“What do you mean, ‘where’s the teapot’? It’s right where you left it, you daft—wait, what the hell, it was just there a second ago…” The brown one began glancing around, too, ducking under the table and rising a moment later scratching his head.

“I wouldn’t ask where it is if it was where I left it, Kite,” scowled Saph. “I’m tellin’ you, it’s gone! I bet one o’ you damn kids took it, hand it over!”

“Saph, stop—I’m sorry, my Lady, he’s been—we’ve been traveling a while, and he’s grouchy on a good day, your kids seem wonderful and I’m sure they’d never—“

Vex held up a hand. “It’s alright, thank you for that. I’m sure they wouldn’t dream of taking your nice tea pot, right?” She cast a stern eye on all three of her children. Trissa and Leo adopted expressions of pure innocence, but Tiffany surprised her by pointing toward an alley behind the two tabaxi men.

“It was the funny shadow person who did it, Mama!” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t you see?”

“Sure it was, kiddo,” said Saph, slouching angrily back in his seat.

“Funny shadow person?” Vex said. “What do you mean, Tiff, dear? You saw a shadow take the pot?”

Tiffany nodded. “Yeah! They’ve been doing all sorts of other stuff, too! I keep seeing them running around! They took the teapot just now, and before they were running around an’ got scared by Aun’ Kiki bringing everyone through the Sun Tree.”

“Scared?”

“Yeah, cuz they ran off and hid!”

A dark shape, running into the shadows just out of view, so soon after she’d been promised an unexpected visitor and a twist of fate…She stamped the thought down, quickly. Thinking like that would only lead to unnecessary heartache. It was just the juxtaposition of a small child’s imagination and a strangely fitting fortune, that was all.

Right?

“Well, if we see them again, we’ll have to let them know that they’re welcome,” she said, kissing her daughter gently on the nose. “And that it’s not nice to take teapots.”

Tiffany giggled.

They moved on, Trissa and Leo growing more excited to see the rest of Vox Machina as they went. Finding Crispin proved easier and considerably more uneventful; he’d just been hanging out with a few other teens from town, and complained loudly at having to leave to deal with weird family stuff. Vex ignored it; she knew he was just as excited to see his adoptive aunts and uncles as any of the younger kids.

(Most of their five children had the de Rolo’s brown hair, but Crispin’s was jet black, and he wore it long. In a ponytail, usually, but, still, he looked just enough like Vex’s brother that sometimes Vex grew very…thoughtful.

It was nothing. She was just on edge. Maybe getting that fortune had been a mistake.)

Trissa and Leo bolted out to greet the rest of the team when they arrived back at the square, while Crispin begrudgingly accepted a hug from Pike. Vex smiled for a moment, but it faded when she saw Keyleth and Percy returning as well, Keyleth running for her things with a grim expression.

“What’s going on?” she asked, rushing over.

“Nothing, dear, just—look, Keyleth already dealt with it, I’m fine.” He sighed and gave her a very weary look. “The report about the bluecoats was right, and one of the little bastards got me on the hand. Keyleth managed to convince the rest to leave, but it was less of a conversation and more zapping the damn nest to smithereens.”

“I’m really sorry,” Keyleth called. “Those things are really mean, though, geez.”

“And she already—“ Vex started.

“I cast a spell to neutralize any poison, don’t worry,” Keyleth said. “At least, Percy said that’s what was needed? It just  looked like an ordinary wasp sting, though.”

“That’s what’s so nasty about bluecoats,” Percy grumbled. “They don’t look bad on the first day, and sometimes people shake off the poison with no trouble, but by the time you know you’ve failed to do so, it’s already gotten bad enough that treating it’s going to be really bloody expensive, so it’s best to be overcautious.” He shook his hand and hissed in a breath. “That, and it hurts way more than a bee sting should be allowed to, augh.”

“I’ve got something that could help with that in here somewhere, hold on,” Keyleth said, tugging a smaller bag out from within her larger one. “Shoot,” she said a moment later, “I’m nearly out, I forgot to restock my herb kit.”

“Well, what do you need, darling?” said Vex. “There’s a storehouse not too far from here. It’s…really, any herbs we have in there are going to probably be more for cooking than medicine, and they’ll be dried out to last through the winter, but it’s worth checking, at least.”

“Really, it’s fine, I don’t need—” Percy started, but Vex shushed him.  

Keyleth blew an exasperated raspberry. “I can make do, I guess,” she said. “Dried won’t be as strong, but should still get the job done. I’ve got enough here for the one sting, at least.” She rattled off a few herb names, and Vex nodded, hurrying off.

It was as good an excuse as any to get away for a moment. She was still feeling…off. That thought that had popped into mind, when Tiffany mentioned someone slinking around in the shadows, still wouldn’t leave her mind, despite her best efforts. It…Couldn’t possibly be who she thought it was, there was no way. But…the tabaxi girl had seemed so certain, when she’d said that there would be a friend here, just for a moment, and, who knew, maybe he was stealing teapots and slinking around as one of his old jokes, preparing for some dramatic entrance, the old show-off…

She paused, mere feet away from the storehouse door, staring at the ground.

Or, more accurately, at the pair of raven feathers laying on the stones.

Which. Was perfectly explained away by the fact that the city was lousy with ravens, of course. Nothing to be surprised about. But…Now that she stopped, she realized that she could hear someone moving about in the storehouse. Despite every perfectly reasonable explanation for the list of small things that happened today that she was likely reading too much into, hope rose within her, cautiously whispering that, maybe…

Maybe he’d found a way back, somehow? Stranger things had happened, right?

Taking a deep breath, unable to fight the smile off her face, she pulled the door open, her brother’s name on her lips—

It wasn’t Vax.

There was someone in the storeroom, certainly, but they were wholly unfamiliar. Even with their back turned, she could see that much; they were small, most of their frame hidden behind a cloak, but she could see a short, tufted tail peaking out from under it, even in the darkness, and a pair of large, tattered ears. The intruder flicked their hooded head toward her the moment the door was swung open, but in the deep shadows of the storeroom juxtaposed by the harsh light from outside, all she could make out initially of the face was a pair of huge, somewhat wide-set, bulging yellow eyes, with no visible iris and slitted red pupils. They had been rummaging in one of the crates in the storeroom, and were still holding up the lid with one hand.

It wasn’t Vax. It couldn’t be him. Judging on the height alone, nevermind the odd eyes and huge ears, it wasn’t even anything that could reasonably be called a half-elf. Her heart sank, and she forgot herself for a moment, distracted by her own sharp sorrow. She didn’t notice straight away as the intruder’s posture changed, stiffening and drawing inward, like an animal preparing to leap, didn’t notice the tattered ears sweeping back, barely registered that they were slowly setting down the lid of the crate, something clutched tightly in one hand.

“You—“ She paused, collecting herself. It wasn’t Vax. Of course it wasn’t Vax, he’d been—he’d been dead for twenty years, it had been silly to think—“You shouldn’t be in here. This is…”

She trailed off again, as her eyes adjusted to the difficult lighting. The creature was stepping more into the shadows, but the movement allowed just enough light to touch their face for Vex to pick out flat features accented by a set of jutting, uneven, sharp teeth. The realization of what she was talking to hit like a lightning bolt.

Reaching instinctively for a bow she didn’t have, she cursed, and slammed the door shut, hearing the body of the creature reach it a moment later. Struggling, she held the door shut as best she could, and reached for her earring, shouting so that even without it, guards would hear, so that people would know to find their children and run for cover—

“Goblins!”

[betweengenesisfrogs]

OFF THE CUFF HOMESTUCK THOUGHTS #3: THE SELF PILE DOESN’T STOP FROM GETTING TALLER OR: THE PROBLEM OF DEAD MARIOS

DISCLAIMER

IMPORTANT THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

So, a long-ass time ago, Rose and Dave had a conversation like this:

TT: After you go, what do you think will happen to me? TT: Will I just cease to exist? TG: i dont know TG: i mean your whole timeline will TG: maybe TT: Maybe? TT: Is there a chance it'll continue to exist, and I'll just be here alone forever? TT: I'm not sure which outcome is more unsettling. TG: the thing with time travel is TG: you cant overthink it TG: just roll with it and see what happens TG: and above all try not to do anything retarded TT: What do you think I should do? TG: try going to sleep TG: our dream selves kind of operate outside the normal time continuum i think TG: so if part of you from this timelines going to persist thats probably the way to make it happen TT: Ok. TG: and hey you might even be able to help your past dream self wake up sooner without all that fuss you went through TT: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about.

This is the most important sentence in Homestuck.

I am dead serious.

Well, OK, I mean, it’s pretty important for understanding some major Homestuck themes and shit or something like that.

Also, I totally should have said: Pre-Retcon Doomed Timeline Non-Dreamself Rose but ultimately about to become Dreamself Rose who semi-merged with Pre-Retcon Alpha Timeline Rose and Doomed Timeline Dave aka Davesprite AKA future Davepetasprite^2 or as we all call them around the office, Davepeta, had that conversation.

Maybe you begin to see what I’m going to talk about here.

One of the major frustrations a lot of people had with the retcon was that the characters we ended up with at the end weren’t the ones we’d come to love and know throughout the story. Was it even worth it, to lose the characters we loved to the tyranny of Game Over? The victorious kids, with the exception of John and Roxy, were other people, with other histories, other goals, and other choices.

Allow me to submit that that may be the whole point.

SBURB is cruel. We’ve known that for a long time. It’s cruel not as Caliborn is cruel, but as the cosmos is cruel, as a supernova is cruel. It wants what it wants, and doesn’t care about how that intersects with the needs of humanity. It wants to make universes through a complex game-playing method, and drags hapless, vulnerable adolescents along for the ride. And most of the time it doesn’t even succeed, leaving its champions to rot in a doomed timeline or similar! Skaia’s victory is an amoral creation myth where individual human beings are just the carved pieces on the chessboard. (I mean, the other ones. Not the carapacians.)

Again, let’s consider the theme of VIDEO GAMES vs. REAL LIFE.

Homestuck, let’s be real, is basically some postmodern horror timey-wimey Jumanji. For a generation way more familiar with pixels than cute little tokens It’s easy for teenagers and in fact, basically everyone, to fantasize about escaping their life and slipping into some game world forever, where they get to do awesome things and be a heroic person.

Homestuck makes that literal. Congratulations, everything you ever knew is dead. You will never see it again, except your internet friends, who turn out also to be your family and other important people. I mean, from a distance, SBURB sounds like an awesome game, right? You figure out who you are and get to wear a cool costume displaying that identity. You get to make anything you want and enjoy this hyperflexible mythology tailored to YOUR CHOICES. HS fans talk all the time about how cool it would be to play a real version of SBURB. That’s a big part of the appeal of SBURB fan adventures. They put you and your friends in the story. Or your favorite characters! It sounds like a fantasy come true.

The thing is, as fantastical as it is, it’s also really fucked up, and ultimately you and your friends are being used. By a giant frog to let it have its babies. By the universe. By a smug blue cloud thing that doesn’t care about you at all.

SBURB does not care about you at all.

The funny thing, SBURB features a mythology with so many layers and nuances and seemingly human motifs about growth and self that you might search for some grand ultimate meaning behind it, but it’s not even human enough to have a personality, to be something you can argue with or fight. It just is. It’s all the cruelty and power of a god without any of the dazzling personality. It’s empty. It just wants to make universes all day long, or fail trying. It is a great, weird tadpole-making machine that eats children.

One of the big ways it doesn’t care about you is its attitude toward the self. Humans and trolls and whatnot prefer not to be relentlessly duplicated. SBURB says, oh yeah, let’s make tons of copies of the player characters and use them for a lot of different purposes.

There’s the dreamself, an essential bifurcation of identity (you are now and were always the dream moon princex) that sometimes gets merged into god tier but sometimes doesn’t. There’s doomed timeline selves, who exist ultimately to augment an Alpha timeline whose Alphaness is decided very arbitrarily and frequently by Lord English. There’s the you who exists before a scratched session and the you who exists afterward, who are two different people but started as one baby in an act of ectobaby meteor duplication, your player self and your guardian self. Dead timeline yous fill up the dreambubbles made by the horrorterrors and get endlessly confused with each other. Any one of these could be the you experience being at any given moment, and which one it is entirely arbitrary. Don’t like being Dead Nepeta #47? Tough hoofbeast leavings, kiddo.

To top it all off, in Terezi: Remember, we learn that every single time we thought someone changed from one self to another, was resurrected or something like that, it was another act of duplication. For every time someone’s died, there’s another version of them waiting in the Dream Bubbles, surprised that they’re not the main character anymore. And we have no way of knowing which is which. Even John, good old everyman John, may or may not be the person who died three or four times. It’s really impossible to say whether we’ve been following the same person throughout our story, or just the illusion of the same person, like a horrifying cosmic flipbook.

The retcon is a return to this same theme. Ultimately, there’s very little new in the changes John makes to reality except that they drive the point home.

John’s friends all died. John and his friends won the game. These things are both true at the same time, except those things may not have happened to the same people. There was a happy ending. Hooray! For, um, some folks who may or may not be the ones we care about. In fact, it’s very confusing, because from Rose’s perspective, Roxy is dead but came back to life, and from Roxy’s perspective Rose is dead but came back to life, except also she came back to life as a weird tentacle catgirl of pure id and self –indulgence. So there’s that. Um. Which Rose are we rooting for again?

Or wait: is it none of them, because the first Rose died in a doomed timeline, hundreds of panels and a number of years ago?

There’s a tension here which one experiences between saying it’s okay because it’s still the same people, and saying it’s not okay, because it’s not the same people at all. This tension is exactly what we’re meant to wrestle with. To put it another way, Homestuck asks if identity can work in aggregate. Are all Johns John, all Roses Rose, and do they all share in what they accomplish? Or are the final victors only accidents created by the whims and needs of the frog baby machine?

What I’m saying, basically, is that the retcon, in the sense that it pointed out our confused relationship with these characters, was already here.

In interviews and questions put to him over the years, Hussie constantly compares HS and SBURB to other video games, particularly Mario, which he frequently returns to as a baseline of comparison that most of his readers will know. One answer, from a recent Hiveswap interview, is particularly revelatory. To the question of “Why do you kill off all your characters?” Hussie replies:

[…]HS is supposedly a story that is also a game. In games, the characters die all the time. How many times did you let Mario fall in the pit before he saved the princess? Who weeps for these Marios. In games your characters die, but you keep trying and trying and rebooting and resetting until finally they make it. When you play a game this process is all very impersonal. Once you finally win, when all is said and done those deaths didn’t “count”, only the linear path of the final victorious version of the character is considered “real”. Mario never actually died, did he? Except the omniscient player knows better. HS seems to combine all the meaningless deaths of a trial-and-error game journey with the way death is treated dramatically in other media, where unlike our oblivious Mario, the characters are aware and afraid of the many deaths they must experience before finally winning the game.

The big man hass the answer.

Homestuck is the story of those dead Marios.

Other works, like Undertale, have engaged with this topic as well. But one of the major differences between Undertale and Homestuck is that in Undertale, between “lives,” one’s consciousness is preserved. In Homestuck, it’s discontinuous, and the value of the overall trial-error process is called into question by the fact that you, the player, may not even get to experience the victory. What meaning does victory hold if that is the case?

So, to put it in a nice thesis format:

One of the central themes of Homestuck is the challenge of reconciling an arbitrary and destructive pattern of growth and victory with the death and suffering you experienced along the way. Homestuck asks: is victory worthwhile if you’re not you anymore? And would you be able to know?

What even is the self? Is there such a thing?

If you were left feeling somewhat disconcerted by our heroes’ tidy victory and departure to their cosmic prize, or by how which Rose gets the spotlight is so deeply, deeply arbitrary, there’s a good reason for that. You’re supposed to be.

The philosophical problem of Wacky Cat Rose is insignificant next to the bullshit of SBURB.

And don’t forget—John and Roxy’s denizens helped them achieve the retcon. Ultimately, the victory they achieved was mediated by the same amoral system of SBURB, and was a victory over an enemy, Caliborn, whose power was created, perpetuated, and ended by that same system.

Okay, so here’s where it gets contentious. There’s an argument to be made, which I’m not sure how I feel about, that some of the character development that could have been in post-retcon Act 6 was left out precisely to push this feeling and play up this tension. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that they were deliberately badly written, but that they’re deliberately written to make us uneasy.That Hussie deliberately played with the balance between making these retconned characters feel familiar and making them feel eerily different to leave us feeling uneasy with the result.

I’m not sure I like that idea. It smacks a little too much of that “everything is perfect” thinking that comes sometimes from the far Metastuck camp. Some of the differences may also be the result of flawed writing. (See: Jane and Jake’s character arcs, which I might talk about later.) And I want to be able to critique those flaws. Ultimately, I think we still needed more time and development to figure out who these new people were—even if our goal was ultimately to compare them to their earlier selves. And again, more conscious acknowledgement of the problem from our heroes—especially John, the linchpin in this last and biggest act of duplication—might have helped drive this theme home.

Still, I think the Problem of Dead Marios is one of the most fundamental questions of Homestuck, maybe THE biggest question. It’s essential to understand it to understand what Hussie’s doing—or attempting to do— in the retcon and the ending.

I don’t know that Homestuck offers us a clear answer to that question. There are some confusions around the issue, too. Where do merged selves fit in, exactly? Clearly they’re a big part of the discussion, because Hussie spends some time in Act 6, especially near the end bringing the identity-merging powers of the Sprites to the forefront. (See also: the identity-merged nightmare that is Lord English.)  Can we even come up with a clear answer to what it means when a dead Mario returns to life grotesquely fused with Toad? How does he beat the game? Does he tell himself that the princess is in another castle? Or what if he merges with Peach? Are they their own princess? How do they know if they’re in the right castle?

Um. Anyway—

Interestingly, it’s not all grotesque—spritesplosions suggest that personalities that are too different don’t stay together long, so a fusion might rely on some inherent compatibility between the two players. Erisol’s self-loathing, sure, but also Fefeta’s cheerfulness. Davepeta seems to be a way of bringing out the best in their players, a way of getting Davesprite past his angst and Nepeta past her fear. Honestly, I know a lot of people don’t like Davepeta as the ending of these two characters’ arcs, but I can’t help but love it. They’re the ultimate coolkid. Cool enough to know they don’t have to be cool. Regular Dave got there, too, of course. But was his retcon assist from John ultimately any different?

Then, of course, we come to Davepeta’s speech to Jade in one of the last few updates before Collide. Davepeta suggests that there is such a thing as an ultimate self beyond the many different selves one piles up throughout the cosmos. A set of principles that describes who you are that’s larger than any individual instance of you. Your inherent Mariohood. (Maybe this is comparable to your Classpect identity, which attempts to describe who you are?) Davepeta even tells Jade, strikingly, that one might learn to see beyond the barriers between selves. Be the ur-self, in practice, rather than theory. This would be incredible news for Jade, who wrestles with the issue of different selves perhaps more than any other character. (There’s a lot to say about Jade.)

Honestly, I wish this ur-self idea had been developed more, and I honestly expected it to be. It doesn’t fully come to fruition, I feel. (Same goes for Davepeta’s character. Ohhhh, ZING!) I’m not sure it entirely makes philosophical sense, especially with fusion—I mean, doesn’t Davepeta themself disprove it? Or at least complicate it? Like, are they part of the ur-Dave or the ur-Nepeta? They seem to imply they’re BOTH? Does that even work? Does that mean that Marieach is all the Peaches and Marios at once?

(In fact, Bowser/Peach/Mario are but the three manifestations of one eternal principle. Also, Bowser/Peach are the true power couple. Read my fanfiction plz.)

And what, say, of Dirk, who ultimately ends up rejecting aspects of his other selves? It feels like there’s a lot more you could say here, and I wonder if Hussie would have said more, if he’d had time. What’s weird is, none of our victorious kids never reach an ur-self (though to their descendants, they become archetypal to some degree), which one might have expected. They’re just individual selves who happened to get lucky. Does that make them representative of the whole? It feels like something’s missing here, or like something got dropped at the last minute.

Same goes for the idea of the Ultimate Riddle. You’d be forgiven for missing it, but there’s been this riddle in the background lore of SBURB that seems to have something to do with personal agency in this overwhelming, overarching system. Karkat called it predestination, saying something like “ANY HOPE YOU HAD OF DOING THINGS OTHERWISE WAS JUST A RUSE.” But others have interpreted it more positively. My favorite interpretation, from bladekindeyewear: the answer to the Riddle is that YOU shape the timeline through your existence, personality, and choices, even when it looks like it’s all predestination. Ultimately it’s your predestination, your set of events, based deeply on your nature, that you are creating. Someone like Caliborn can use his innate personality to achieve power; someone like John might be able to use it to achieve freedom.

I definitely expected something like that to be expressed more explicitly. Like, a big ah-ha moment that helps John or Jade or whoever understand how to escape Caliborn’s system. Something like that would have been very helpful for a lot of our heroes, actually, who’ve been pushed around by Skaia and SBURB together, in finding a cathartic ending.  Once again, I wonder if something was dropped or rushed because there wasn’t time to put it all in. There’s places where you can see hints of that Answer being implied, maybe? But it’s kind of ambiguous.

You can see how the Answer to the Ultimate Riddle ties into some of Davepeta’s ideas. If your personality, the rules of your behavior are a fundamental archetype that goes beyond each individual self, then the answer to whether it matters if one self of yours makes it through to victory is an emphatic YES. You are all of those people, and by winning one round with Skaia, you’ve won the whole game, despite all the arbitrary challenges and deaths it heaps upon you along the way.

This may strike some as too positive for Skaia’s brutality, or again, some way of excusing flaws in many characters’ arcs, or unfair things that happen to them. To be fair, I don’t know that Davepeta’s necessarily meant to be taken as authoritative or the voice of Hussie. They may simply be offering a purrspective.

Hussie not choosing to come right out and engage with the Ultimate Riddle leaves the question of Dead Marios and what they mean for the victorious versions of our cast very open. I like that in some ways—let the reader decide—but I can’t help but wish we had more to work with in making that decision. Plus, it might have brought the thematic messages of Homestuck all the way home to tie them more closely to our characters and their experiences—character development being one of the things most people found most lacking in the ending.

NEXT TIME: All that wacky gnostic stuff probably

[tinybitterasian]

[Tyler-centric] Chasing Home

Words: 1716 Warning(s): Slight Sexual Scene, Major Character Death Pairing(s): Tyler/JC, Tyler/Fay Summary: White-washed walls and the warmth of a thousand suns is how Tyler remembers June. Thirteen is when it all changes, and sixteen is when it all starts. Genre: Angst

White-washed walls and the warmth of a thousand suns is how Tyler remembers June.

Tumbling down the hills and smashing dandelions on the way to the foot, laughing as pollen made him sneeze and the butterflies dance. Watching his little sister blaze by on her tricycle, her pigtails gliding in the wind like the unsteady kite his brother piloted over their fence and into their neighbour’s. Stumbling through the back door, mud-streaked pants and all, grinning up at his mother who stood over a pot of macaroni and cheese – this is how Tyler remembers June.

He’s thirteen when it all changes, when they came for him and his talents, and he’s fifteen when they beat him down enough to make him forget what June used to taste like.

When the sun climbs into his eyes at seven in the morning, he remembers the touch of cold, hard metal against his wrists. When he smells weeds in the air, he thinks of how native species can tell him where he is – thinks of how to find the enemy by the radioactivity laced around the delicate blades of grass surrounding the soles of his boots.

He’s sixteen when they send him alone on his first mission – a tiny shop that’s decked out in bright yellow and black. The smell of coffee hits him like a truck and he stops walking when a shock of blue hair and gold eyes squint at him over the glass case holding dainty pastries and dense cakes.

“May I help you?” the man asks, pale hands running over the handle of one of the drawers, and Tyler knows that there are at least a dozen syringes hidden in there, each containing a cocktail of poisons that would immobilize him in an instant.

Digging his hands into his jacket for change, he smiles his most wicked smile and speaks.

“A tall flat white, please. Skim.”

The man eyes him for a moment before letting his hand glide over the till, punching Tyler’s order in and ripping off a tiny receipt. He hands it to Tyler, eyes locked on his, and doesn’t let his fingers touch Tyler’s outstretched hand.

“Two minutes,” the man says, like it’s a command, and Tyler nods easily, grins again and winks when the man takes a step back.

When Tyler gets his coffee, he makes a show of sniffing the steam hovering dangerously over the rim.

“Thanks,” Tyler says, before dumping the entire cup into a sterile bottle, already writing down the different toxins present when the man curses and heads to the back of the shop. “Thanks, Fay.”

He manages two blocks from the café before a group of four surround him, but he weaves in and out of their defences like he’s made of water and they’re grains of sand. Soon he’s back in the bunker, shaking the bottle at his fellow soldiers and being debriefed.

An hour later, the café mysteriously sets ablaze, and everything is burnt to cinders in a matter of minutes. Tyler stares at the news and sips a cup of juice that’s cold and wet and stings his mouth.

He’s sure that nobody is hurt at all despite there being reports of a body or two.

He’s nineteen when he’s offered his first long-term mission.

Tyler takes it without hesitating. He puts on his black-and-blue jacket and stores his weapons in the hollows of his clothes, taping emergency bombs to his ribs like it’s second nature. Dog tags hang loose from his neck and he swings it to the back so that the cold metal hits against his spine, reminding him that he could die at any time, reminding him that the mission must be completed at all costs.

His name isn’t Tyler for a month. Instead, he’s Ethan, lets his hair run unruly and free, wears mismatching socks, and kisses girls though he tastes bile in his own mouth.

He spots his target, a red-head boy with a smirk, and learns the contours of his body like it’s the map he needs to escape from this hell. The boy is young and eager, barely fifteen, and kissing him is different from kissing the girls, but there’s the dog tags again – hitting his spine each time he bends into a kiss, reminding him that time is short.

They only make him push against the boy harder.

It isn’t a surprise when the boy draws a gun to Tyler’s chest, teary-eyed but fierce. He says that Tyler’s taken his sister, which is a lie, because Tyler’s never killed a red-head girl before. Tyler tells him so, hands still on his naked hip, and the boy grinds out that his sister was a girl with violet eyes and silver hair.

Tyler doesn’t say anything to that, because now the lie’s become a truth. He also doesn’t tell the boy that his sister tasted like lime and nicotine; instead, he stares at the boy while he struggles to pull the trigger. He smiles ruefully, wonders if there’s a time and place where they’re older and less susceptible to ideas like duty and obligation, and stabs the boy with a syringe.

The boy collapses, gasping but not sobbing, staring at Tyler through lidded, emotionless eyes as he takes his final breaths. In a surge of feeling he hadn’t felt in years, Tyler swoops down, kisses the boy, and steals his last breath from him. He feels a shudder run through the boy before he stops moving, and Tyler leaves him there, sheets haphazardly thrown over his skin and the sun shining through the hotel room’s heavy grey curtains.

He rushes back, washes the spray tan off his body and the blonde streaks out of his hair. They place a red cross on top of the boy’s photo. Tyler scrubs at his hands harder, can’t ignore the vicious trembling he feels through his chest that reverberates throughout his body.

Sleep comes easy that night, though the dreams that plague him are all of the red-haired boy and his smile. Tyler dreams of his teeth that are small but sharp, his tongue that can stretch halfway down his chin, and his fingers that drum along Tyler’s wrist to the rhythm of a slow jazz song.

When Tyler wakes in the middle of the night, visions of warm, soft, white sheets in his mind, he wakes up smelling steel instead of the sea.

He feels a pull back to sleep.

Tyler takes it without hesitation.

Twenty-three and he’s scaling the vertical side of a building, hands and feet moving fast as the wind that whistles around him to avoid being hit by the darts a girl is throwing at him.

Tyler doesn’t know how she tastes, but can guess from her thin mouth and her bouncing ponytail. He catches her foot and sends her hurtling down, and wills himself not to take a look at her disappearing towards the streets.

He knows that she won’t die, though, so he continues his ascent.

The blue-haired man is waiting for him, like he always is, and Tyler catches a moment of sadness in Fay’s eyes when he realises that Tyler is unarmed.

Tyler’s terribly young, his dog tags hammering against his spine, and his weapons used up and stolen by the men below.

“You’re alone,” Fay’s voice is tight in his throat, and Tyler wants to kiss him senseless.

“I’m alone,” Tyler replies, and finds the air thick and dry. How this happens is unknown to him. “So are you.”

“So am I.” Fay echoes, needlessly, and he takes his time walking up to his desk.

Tyler doesn’t move. He’s unmatched, and he knows this. But he’s also tired, so very tired, and he wants to see his little sister again. He wants to remember the June sun on his freckles and the sound of her laugh thrilling the air. He wants it so badly.

Fay opens his drawer and takes the syringes out, one by one, while Tyler stares and stares and feels his bones slacken.

“They’re pretty,” Tyler’s voice is useless, as is the rest of his body, and Fay picks up a golden one. Gold, like syrup, with flecks suspended in its viscous liquid, and Tyler’s mesmerised by its beauty. “Fay, they’re all pretty.”

“Yes,” Fay’s walking to him, eyes burning right through Tyler’s chest to land on the dog tags. Tyler isn’t surprised that he knows they’re there. He’s surprised that no one has looked at him like that before.

Fay slides the syringe into his pocket and levels his eyes with Tyler’s.

“You want to know what I taste like.” Fay says, and Tyler looks away.

Fay tilts his head, like he’s trying to fathom Tyler out, and hums. It’s a slow jazz song, and tears prick at Tyler’s eyes.

Fay kisses him, long and slow, like how Tyler kissed the boy, and cups his jaw. Tyler loses himself and kisses back, searching for something he won’t find, his body shaking and his legs losing feeling.

“Socrates,” Fay murmurs, “But you never asked with your mouth. You always asked with your eyes.”

Tyler can only hum in response, the same song, and grabs Fay by the waist, holding him close and feeling his dog tags burn his skin.

They kiss and touch for ages, before Tyler finally, finally feels the prick of the needle, and tears fall down his cheeks.

Tyler refuses to stop kissing Fay, even when Fay tries to speak to him, even when he wants to speak to Fay. Eventually, Fay gives in and lets him taste the same steel and metal and heartbreak he knows so well.

When he feels his legs give, Fay lowers them to the ground, holds him and lets his blue hair fall over Tyler’s green eyes, shielding them from the dark skies outside.

Thank you, Tyler says with his kiss, and Fay can only nod.

Tyler doesn’t say that he tastes the sun and fresh-cut grass too. He never gets to say that that’s why he chased Fay this time, never gets to say that this isn’t a mission but a quest. But he knows that Fay knows. He dies knowing that he makes Fay lose his home, too, and dies satisfied.

Tyler doesn’t get his last breath.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: wow havent written a tyler/fay/jc/coco fic in sooooo long but i got inspired by kel’s doodle so ofc i had to write for 2h (its 12am now & i have work tmr oops)………………….i hope it isnt too bad i cant tell

all feedback is appreciated!!!!! & for extra info:

fay is 8 years older than tyler here & was picked up by the rival organisation at around the same age as tyler. red-head boy is JC & silver-haired girl is coco (who was in a r/s with fay before tyler f-ed everything up) & they both belong to vonna!! fay & tyler both belong to kel!!