#i’m a little biased

[worthy-prince-i-knowt]

i feel like i keep coming back

tw: rape, SA, alcoholism, abuse, drugs

before i stop posting completely about tsh i feel i need to do the ethical thing and post the bad things about the characters so we don’t romantasize them, which is literally the point of the book (morbid longing for the picturesque at all cost)

Richard: literally fantasized about raping camilla

Francis: kinda SA’ed Richard in that one scene and everyone kinda brushed it off as oh, gay moment when Richard was telling him to stop

Charles: oh boy was he an abuser. he cared about his friends a lot but he was an alcoholic abuser who never addressed his behavior

Henry: Extremely problematic, literally the catalyst for the whole thing murdered two people and loved it even though one was his “bestie.” also highly manipulative and uses people for his own causes

Bunny: the list goes on and on, racist, homophobic, hates catholics (idk what that’s called but it’s not cool), antisemitic (hates jews), misogynistic woman hater, hates his girlfriend, makes fun of his friends, gold digger, manipulative, etc etc

Camilla: my bbg she did nothing wrong they were so bad to her i love her sm

and Judy did drugs but like she’s a college student in the 80’s so it’s not good but it was acceptable

and to lighten the mood

Richard: changed colleges and majors bc of pretty pictures in a brochure from 4 years ago

Francis: thinks smoking isn’t bad for his health

Charles: Blond Bitch

Henry: dog killer, was probably the one who bit Charles at the baccanal

Bunny: likes marches (jps in the morning???)

Camilla: didn’t lose her shit and kill that entire group

as you can see i love Camilla

and i have a love hate relationship with the rest of the characters bc they’re so problematic but so interesting at the same time

[redherringz]

Chapter Two is up! Hold onto your hats for this one

Read Here!

[lemonlimestar]

extremely old robin doodles that i think are kinda cute. throwing it out there bc this page redraw is kicking my ass and i need to remember what joy was like

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[bluetea-00]

HELLO COGS!!!! I’ll just draw whatever cogs I find interesting while I play

[zombie-bait]

The Blade of Frontiers??? On MY dashboard???? More likely than you’d think

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Billy could save the world with gag in mouth and hand tied behind his back and people* will still say he’s too young to play superhero

*people; Every grown adult that is mortified at the fact Billy started at (insert age here) with little to no parental support or supportive guidance

[raining-its-pouring]

Not a Pebbles hater not a Pebbles lover but a secret third thing.

What he did he did out of complete and utter desperation. There was no noble intent, there was no malice, there was just the need to get out. To break the cycle he was trapped in, damn the consequences. Of course he acted rashly when he thought he found the key to ascending. (Not dying, mind you, he wanted to use the state of death in the cycle to tap into ascension. He didn’t - necessarily - want to die, but it was, in his mind, one of the necessary steps for iterators to take if they wanted to ascend.)

To be clear, there was no evidence that it would work. Just the speculations of a bunch of desperate people trying to escape a thankless situation. And Pebbles was so desperate he was willing to gamble it all, including his and Moon’s wellbeing, on those speculations.

On a slightly different note I do think there’s a weird snobbery that people have ABOUT rain world weirdly? That there’s this idea that applying real world stuff like suicide and whatnot is stupid bc this world is intentionally alien. But while I think Ascension isn’t death, I think the ideology of both the Ancients and the Sliverists can be seriously read as an allegory for depression and suicide.

We don’t know what Ascension is. I think far too many people write off that it’s inherently bad, when no where in canon is that a given. But we don’t know if it’s inherently good either, that’s just a desperate hope of the Ancients and Five Pebbles. They hope that whatever the next step is, it won’t be the living hell they seem to be in here.

My interpretation is that it’s just another step. It can be whatever the individual (if there is still a sense of identity to retain,) makes of it, and that happiness isn’t an inherent factor of it, but neither is unhappiness.

And that’s where I think the allegory can apply really well. Five Pebbles and the Ancients (at least the ones who left the biggest impact behind) are deeply, deeply unhappy. And I’d argue for good reason - theoretical immortality sounds, in my opinion, awful.

But Five Pebbles is one of the youngest iterators we see. Moon is one of the oldest. She seems to be content with her situation. And perhaps this is her folly - and I’d argue it is, a little - but I’d also argue that Five Pebbles does not try many other alternatives (that we know of) before deciding the problem is this stage of the cycle itself. That it’s out of his hands, because this existence- this stage- must be an inherent unhappy one. From there it’s not the biggest leap to deciding that the answer is to force his way into the next one as soon as possible, without seeing if he can carve a space for himself in this one. And I think that’s a very real parallel to a lot of people with suicidal ideation.

I think it also has something interesting to say in that regard. There’s a lot of argument around depression and suicide, specifically around “if the situation is bad enough and there’s no end in sight, how much does ‘changing your thinking’ really help the situation?” To which there is near endless debate. And to which I think the iterators situation is an interesting (and deliberate) wrinkle in the allegory tying into that.

It’s just one reading of it, and I think there are many more. But my point is that there is a very real, very canon-based reading there. And I’d like it if people stopped acting like it’s a misrepresentation of the text.

[froody]

Valentine’s Meat Juice is like my pet turn of the century medicine, not just because it’s a weird Virginia classic. The best part is that as ridiculous as it sounds, I’m sure it genuinely saved lives in a time before intravenous fluids or TPN. In a time where ��invalid food’ was widely bread water, I’m sure a nutrient dense distillation of beef, blood and egg whites made the difference between life and death in some cases.

[greenglowinspooks]

Liminal Scarecrow

I see a lot of Scarecrow in DCxDP, usually as a plot device in tandem with his fear gas. And honestly, I’ll accept just about anything with a Scarecrow mention in it. However, there is one thing I doubt a lot of DCxDP fans know about from the DP side, which is the Scarebeast.

The Scarebeast is what was created when the Penguin decided to experiment on Scarecrow, essentially turning him into a living weapon.

It’s a giant monster that naturally produces fear gas in its body, and Scarecrow can only return to human form once the Scarebeast has been defeated.

I think that the Scarecrow could easily be a liminal of some sort, and the Scarebeast could be a manifestation of ghostly power.

Now, it should be noted that Scarecrow (to my knowledge) hasn’t died and been revived. He also hasn’t used the Lazarus pits. He gets beaten to hell and back on a regular basis, but he never actually dies.

However, we know that you don’t necessarily have to die to become a halfa. Vlad didn’t; instead, he was shot in the face with ectoplasmic energy by the malfunctioning proto-portal.

Also, we were never told exactly how the Scarebeast was created. Sure, we know that one of the Penguin’s scientists mutated him into existence, but we don’t know exactly what she used.

It’s not really so much of a stretch to think that he could have been exposed to some form of ectoplasm in order to stabilize or power his monstrous form, and as such became liminal (or a halfa).

Hell, all the other (canon) halfas in existence were created in a lab setting! Danny was mutated by ectoplasm and electricity when the portal opened, Vlad was blasted in the face by the previous portal, and Dani/Ellie was a clone.

Basically, give Scarecrow cool ghost privileges. He’s already got the creepy aesthetic. It’s what he deserves.

[doccywhomst]

i know these are not universal categories or opinions lol, so please elaborate on your choices!

[loopyarts]

A art dump highlight of some of my most liked pen and pencil doddle spreads, that I had did in my notebook from March to April. Also, cough cough it’s mostly just Ichiji with some Niji and Sanji sprinkled in there and one tiny rough doddle of Yonji as well. OvO’)

[starfall-isle]

got a thrifted Wii and it seems to be working fine apart from a noisy disk drive (which shouldn’t be a super hard fix) and I am so excited. But now idk which to get first

[yourlazykitkat]

Thinking about Azriel Vanserra tonight. Eris was fullnamed for a reason and it was to wife up the one and only, shadowsinger.

[wnderify]

i need to share my thoughts on this photo. quinn looks like a sugar daddy and like he’s ready to buy the next girl who asks a yacht. if anyone deserves an oscar award, it’s jack. mf didn’t even GO THERE!? and luke is so pretty i wanna scream and pull a crazy connie from jessie. ALSO THEY PLAYED AGAINST MY TEAM?? and my team sucked ass. anyways i’m happy to see sign of life even though jack and luke’s hair won’t be living for long. those two are gonna bald so bad when they’re older.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Those Beyond The Wall

sequel/companion to The Space Between Worlds, set a decade later

character-focused sci-fi set in an area divided in two, the rich protected city on one side and everyone else in the post-apocalyptic desert

follows a woman who works under the Emperor in Ashtown, keeping the peace

when mangled bodies start showing up with seemingly no murderer, she’s tasked with finding the cause, and finds out that it’s the result of corruption spanning both cities and multiple worlds

explores oppression and messy revolution, police violence and apartheid

bi & polyamorous MC