#homestuck meta

[nekropsii]

asking you this since you’re the only person who understands mituna in the entire fandom in my perception of the hs fandom

is it okay to headcanon mituna as autistic? sorry if you get this type of ask a lot/have already answered this type of ask

Instead of answering this question, I will give some food for thought: Mituna has a TBI. He has Brain Damage. This is a core element of his character. Probably the biggest one. In fact, it's so important to him that it's an injury that has remained with him in death. His TBI is a huge, huge part of what makes him... Well, him. It's why he's interesting.

So... Why is a need felt to also declare him as Autistic? Assuming this is a projection thing, since it tends to be most of the time - if you relate to him for his already canonical Neurodivergency, which is Brain Damage, why does one need to give him Autism as well?

Oftentimes when people headcanon him as Autistic, they tend to minimize or even outright erase his TBI. Oftentimes, people say he's Autistic as the reason he's canon Neurodivergent representation... Even though he's shown no real signs of it, but instead is fully written as a character with a Frontal Lobe Injury, and is constantly stated to have Brain Damage.

TBIs and other Neurodivergencies are often seen as less palatable than Autism. On Tumblr especially, it's far more "acceptable" to be Autistic or ADHD or headcanon a character as such than it is to have Brain Damage or literally any other Neurodivergency or acknowledge that a character is written with those. Autism and ADHD are seen as cute and relatable - even though they're very complex and at times devastating disabilities that do have the potential to seriously fuck up your livelihood, much like Depression and Anxiety, and I'm saying this as someone who has and struggles with all 4 - and are often used to erase the presence of other Neurodivergencies. Hell, it's to the point where people use "Neurodivergency" as a synonym for ADHD and Autism.

Again, I'm not going to answer this question for you. I think there's a way someone could potentially make the narrative of Mituna having Autism prior to the TBI compelling - the TBI has essentially stripped him of his ability to mask, after all, so one could make it be a situation where some of these symptoms are ones he already had, but is only just now really getting shit for because he's no longer able to hide it, and part of that tragedy is knowing that had he never been good at masking, his "friends" would have never accepted him. You could get some interesting questions about that. Was the repression worth it? Would it have been better if he'd just been himself the whole time? I think it's extremely valuable to ask yourself why you see any character as any specific minority - necessary, even - and how that affects not only the character's writing in its original text, but also your relationship with said character. Consider optics. Consider the way in which this character is meant to function in the source material. What purpose do they serve, and what is the driving force behind this character? Is Occam's Razor applicable? Are there other explanations as to why they are the way they are? Perhaps ones that are more succinct, and cover more ground?

Yesterday, I watched a film that has provoked a response in Tumblr that I think is applicable. I Saw The TV Glow. It's a film about a Trans Girl who never finds the strength to accept herself or come out. It's an incredibly gut-wrenching watch. It made me cry several times, and there are parts that made me feel a deep pain in my chest. I sat through 95% of the film with a pit in my stomach. I had to lay on the floor in the dark for a while after I finished. There's a scene where the main character is asked whether she likes girls or boys. She says she thinks she likes TV shows, and elaborates by saying that every time she tries to think about that kind of thing, it feels like someone's cutting her open and shoveling out her insides until there's nothing left. Not that there was anything in there to start with, of course - she says she knows there isn't, but she's too scared to look for herself and see.

That scene was about how Gender Dysphoria can completely disrupt your sexuality and repulse you from the thought of that level of connection with others, because it is, in essence, a deep disturbance with the nature of who you are as a person. Many people who are Asexual, or Aromantic, or both, related to that scene because it, on the surface, depicts discomfort with romance and sexuality. What they failed to understand by chalking it up to its own sexuality, is the fact that that scene wasn't depicting a Sex-Repulsed Asexual, or a Romance-Repulsed Aromantic, it was depicting a Trans Girl who is at such deep odds with herself and her identity that she cannot grapple with the concept of loving or being loved.

What, functionally, is the purpose of slapping an extraneous label onto a character that is meant to depict a certain thing? What is the purpose of assigning the label of "Autistic" to a character meant to depict the tragedy of a loss of support after gaining a disability, or "Aromantic" or "Asexual" to a character meant to depict a deep internal struggle with unresolved Gender Dysphoria?

Ask yourself these questions, and carry on from there. See where your mind takes you.

[classpectanon]

hello homestuck kinnies that live in my computer

i finally went ahead and made a classpect quiz based on my personal conception of how things work. that means it's probably one of the more accurate classpect quizzes out there. consists of two parts. 20 questions total. go take it, share it, argue about it, whatever. have fun.

[weirdmageddon]

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me

[altioraanthropos]

The Homestuck Analyzer’s Paradox: was this well written or badly written or was this badly written on purpose and was it well written badly written on purpose or was it badly written well written badly written on purpose.

[borzoilover69]

two sets of guardians, one trailblazers for the future, the other pallbearers for the past.

light -> life, hope, drive

dark -> death, futileness, stagnancy.

while one set innovated for the future the other was stuck figuring out just how to survive the end.

[cringefail-clown]

i like the idea of "lore important" scarring after you godtier. the most recognisable would be how some people depict dirk with a scar on his neck after his dirkapitation in collide. idk its just a fun thing to think about, like what would scar after you become a god? i think, if the wounds not lore important (you accidentaly cut yourself while cooking) then it heals clean, like theres nothing there. but if it was important to the overall narrative, or if it was important to your character arc, then itd leave a scar (you were in a cooking competition and accidentally cut yourself, which led to you losing the first place. you now have a tiny scar on your finger)

[meenah]

i do think there is a lot to say on why homestuck’s fanbase is (to put it bluntly) so transgender in such a specific and interesting way. and i think its mostly to do with homestuck’s treatment of femininity vs masculinity in a way that is not typically done

femininity is presented as both something to save the world (space players and echidna, working with frogs, maids/sylphs presented as The Most Feminine classes and about creation/healing, despite it being said later on class gendering doesn’t matter, because it was written to matter at the beginning), while also being vicious enough to cause longtime and horrifying pain (kanaya and jade wield chainsaws and shotguns. the peixes line being as they are. its implied female trolls are culturally thought to be more cruel/violent on alternia due to condy’s influence via flarp being “for girls” as tavros is told. vriska. aranea’s help hurting everyone she tries it on.)

masculinity in homestuck is... frankly not aggrandized at all. it’s a reverse from the norm. every hypermasculine character we may have had a chance to look at has it ripped away in the end. bro strider dies to a little girl’s dog. lord english is first presented as a hypermasculine musclebound giant, then we meet caliborn and see the farce for what it is, LE is a little boy wearing an adult man’s clothes and screaming for people to take him seriously. and we do. until we notice that the clothes don’t fit quite right, and everything falls apart. grandpa harley was never alive. equius is the most masculine presented of any of the players, and... well. we’ve all seen equius. dad egbert is the only genuine show of masculinity in a truly positive light for john - and by extension the reader - to look up to, and he’s based around loving his own so much he makes cakes daily and tries to bond with him in any way he can, albeit often in ways that don’t really work. 

i don’t know. i think homestuck’s use of gendering is a fascinating aspect of the story. i think it helped me with my own personal experience of gender and the different aspects people can see gender through :] its cool to me

[jojotier]

The fact that when Jade makes the universe frogs the themes of creation are about the Scientific Aspect of Creating Something Unnatural and Yet Divine Without Any Themes of Motherhood and the fact that when Kanaya and Karkat makes the universe frog the themes of Creation are about the Nurturing A Creature and How Neglecting Your Duties Can Make Things Turn Out Wrong Especially if you Refuse The Role As Mother and also also Mom Lalonde combining both themes in Trying And Failing To Fulfil Her Role As Mother While Trying to Use Science to Bridge The Gap because Motherhood Alone Isnt Enough to Justify Existence and and

[exaltior-a]

Personally the amount of people who are either "Jake is a stupid himbo" or "Jake is actively malicious" blow my mind. No, Jake isn't stupid, and he's not evil. He's a sixteen year old who is implied to have a mental disability and/or brain damage (it's not exactly clear, Caliborn claims they have the same developmental disorder and Dirk iirc worries that Jake hit his head too much, I guess you can take either with a grain of salt but I digress), and has not had meaningful real life interactions with other human beings in years. He is in the wrong for his actions, but it feels. Purposefully ignorant to claim he's just stupid or just evil for them.

He's socially stunted. He wants to emulate heroes in movies but lacks self esteem and experience. If the alpha kids had enough time to be more fleshed out (and let's be real, if Hussie cared about Jake) this might have been explored more thoroughly. He'd never had the opportunity to learn how to cope with a relationship, how to communicate his needs, or understand that he can't control how other people perceive him like he can through a computer screen.

He doesn't know healthy boundaries because he's never had to use them, and this goes both ways (allowing his friends to sexualise him and treat him like an object, as well as constantly complaining about his relationship with Dirk to Jane) Like yeah he does run away instead of communicating with Dirk and yeah he does dump all his problems on Jane. I love Jane, but one of her problems is her bottling up her feelings and people pleasing until everything blows up. She should have told him off much sooner, and while he was being a dick, it was partly because she allowed him to feel like it was okay to do, since she never told him it wasn't after the first few times or when she was starting to get aggravated.

His problems with Dirk are a little more complicated because we're never actually shown their relationship or how it broke down, but from what we can gather, Jake felt overwhelmed by Dirk's intensity and decided to ignore him rather than tell him try and avoid confrontation but leading to Dirk being frustrated and breaking up with him. Dirk claims he feels like he bullied Jake into a relationship, and though I personally think that's him making it seem worse than it was, it does mean that Dirk probably was trying to go too fast. I've best heard it is Jake being an introvert pretending to be an extrovert.

This is not to say I don't think people can't dislike or even hate Jake, but it's like. Idk. Misinterpreting a character and disliking that version of them is a little redundant to me.

[milliebobbyflay]

Get a load of this loser, he thinks [S] Terezi: Remem8er was just about Vriska and Terezi getting together and not the reveal their repressed feelings for each other were both characters' primary motivation throughout the entire story

[nekropsii]

Meat!Roxy was crazy because the evidence for Roxy being Transfeminine - not Trans generally, Transfeminine SPECIFICALLY - has been there since her introduction. And the reading of her being Transfeminine has been enhancing her character since… You know, her introduction.

Roxy being a Trans Girl has been one of the most widely accepted Transfem headcanons I’ve ever seen. It was very difficult to deny it, and even harder to deny the power that a Transfeminine reading for both Kanaya and Roxy gave to the scene where Roxy gives her the Matriorb she took so much time and effort to steal from Nothingness.

The ability to be a mother handed to someone grieving their literal biological inability to have it… It’s powerful. It’s even more powerful if this is someone who knows where that pain is coming from intimately, and the alleviation of that dysphoria brings nothing but better things to the world at such a large scale. From one Trans Girl to another - here is the ability to be a mother, and to use that motherhood to help bring your entire race back from extinction. With the Transfem reading, this scene has brought me to actual tears. It enhances it so much.

So, like, what was the point of all that they did in the Meat Route? It wasn’t for greater character development, most everyone agrees it only did bad things for Roxy’s character. Spite? Is that it?

[classpectpokerap]

going to go completely bugfuck insane for a little bit here. we need to talk about ultrose

Ultimate Rose, Pt. 1 (establishing facts)

so

ultrose is a fucking bundle of contradictions, huh?

i think its worth immediately establishing postcanon rose as a liar. specifically, there are a few crucial lies -- lies she tells herself as well -- that define the basis of ultrose. (im mostly going to be looking at candy timeline here, because meat ultrose is a whole other tin can of worms.)

the crucial scenes to compare are the last scene where she talks to john at the peak of the war, and the scene where she plays her hand in beyond canon.

i'm going to skip around this scene (candy 33), but stick with me.

this rose.

this rose right here. this rose who is happy. who loves her wife. who has *a* daughter.

this rose, as she herself describes.

is not "true."

rose firmly believes that knowledge means suffering. which, given the state of her body at the start of the prologue, probably feels deeply true! and her ailment disappearing coincides with her sight vanishing, and her knowledge of The Shape Of Postcanon slipping away. (candy 4)

"For some reason" "whatever it was she felt"

i think it's extremely important to establish here that rose wiped her own mind.

or maybe roxy wiped her mind. or the severing of meat/candy wiped her mind, but that last one feels very unlikely to me considering that this mind-wiped-state is at-will.

and we know that, because during the candy timeline, she is two things:

blind to the world

happy

and in beyond canon, this very same rose, days later, is:

too-aware, and in touch with her powers

deeply miserable

she stopped trying the moment the comic came back. she stopped trying because she never started. that was a whole ass different rose. one without the memories or powers.

if you'd allow me to be insane, i think i know which rose.

from ultdirk describing his experiences (with supplementary text from davepeta), we know what being ultimate is like. we understand that he has access to every splinter of himself, some more prominent than others.

so if rose is able to prioritize bringing one iteration of herself to the front of her mind... which rose would be the best?

which rose would be the happiest, the most pleased by living on earth c? the one blissed by love, the one who would be happy with a daughter and a wife.

it's not our main rose. she was not happy during her wedding. she didn't enjoy her life. she didn't think she'd ever be happy until after the meat/candy split happened.

you know who would have loved that?

what

what is this...... very very important thing doing here?

why is she "correcting" herself? why is she making this distinction? we haven't heard a word spoken about complacency of the learned, maybe at all, in the entire epilogues. and we know rose never really finished the story. it was just some amateur wizardfic.

but say there was another rose. a member of the gestalt, who actually DID finish writing complacency. who fought her whole life for the right to have a family, but ultimately failed.

say there was a rose who was an author.

yeah. i think the rose who gets to act out the bulk of the candy timeline (notably NOT yiffy. that was alllllllll ultrose) is alpha rose. roxy's mom. the one who fought the condesce and lost. and i think she's here simply because she's the best choice.

i mean, fuck, in hs2 rose straight up says it.

so . yeah. this is all establishing stuff for my Insane Theory. my real one about why shes doing all this. how shes doing all this. i have been sitting on this theory for months and if you thought "candy rose is alpha earth rose" is unhinged you aint seen nothing yet

gloves are canon

part 2 is here.

[weirdmageddon]

do you ever think about how jade harley grew up alone and without real human contact after her grandpa died when she was like four? and at 13 years old, on johns birthday when everyone played the game, she finally met someone in waking person the first time in nearly a decade—dave—for like only a few hours probably, and then went back to being alone for 3 years??

and then to make matters worse she inadvertently caused his death during that little window of time she had with another living person?

so yeah of course she’d be hysterical bro this is like the first irl person she interacts with in like almost a decade and just hours later she accidentally fucking shoots him dead from redirected bullets

and dave knew it was gonna happen but couldnt tell her or it would create a doomed timeline because this was supposed to happen, and dave obviously knew that if jade knew her bullets would kill dave she wouldnt go through with it. and dave later reveals he was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die at the time

in the pre-retcon, wasn’t daveprite’s whole reason for breaking up with jade about feeling like she deserved better than being forced by the narrative to be with discount bargain bin bird dave instead of alpha timeline dave, the first person she ever had contact with in a decade?

i wish dave and jade could have had a reunion arc (mini version) because dave was such an important person to her, and probably to him as well, not only as one of her closest internet friends but also the first living person she had in-person contact with in about a decade. instead we got the briefest of exchanges before the final battle, after pulling them apart again through plot shit. that’s just so sad

[assholepants]

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why Dirk's splinters always end up being manipulative and abusive. Because, as another post on here mentioned, when you look at the actions of Dirk himself in homestuck proper, he's actually just a sweet kid who is very hard on himself and cares about his friends.

Everyone is well aware that one of Dirk's major character motifs is control. But pretty much all of the examples we see of Dirk, himself, being controlling, are all directed inwards, as he attempts to maintain a frankly unhealthy level of self control. There's lots of little examples but the most glaringly obvious one is his reaction to Calliope's juju lollipop. It's also evident in the way he insists on taking person responsibility for his splinters, despite having little to no influence over them, and in many cases, having never even met them.

So what happens, if you take a guy who maintains unhealthy levels of self control, and take away his sense of self?

Because all of Dirk's splinters are well aware that they are not the 'Original' so to speak. Even Bro, I think, is aware that he is not a protagonist in the narrative. It's pretty heavily implied across cannon that the guardians have a certain level of awareness of the game, to varying degrees, and that they are aware that their role is Guardian to the protagonists. The splinters know they're not the 'true' Dirk, and so a huge part of their identity exists outside of the realm of their control.

And I think that's where issues start to come in. The nature of the existence of these splinters forces them to build a sense of self that is defined by other people. And so their attempts at self control can never be fully internalised like Dirk's, and end up as manipulation and abuse of the people they have constructed their identity around.

Brain Ghost Dirk is fundamentally Made Of Jake. Jake is a core part of his sense of self, because he literally doesn't exist outside of Jake's mind. So in order to maintain self control, he manipulates Jake.

Lil hal manages to get involved in a lot of different things, but all of these actions boil down to manipulating Dirk's life. Because his entire sense of self is Dirk. So in order to maintain self control, he needs to control Dirk. I think Dirk was right in that hal was dangerous, but I think he was wrong to think that denying him a physical form would be safer. I think if hal had been allowed to have a physical body at an earlier stage, he could have begun developing his own identity, outside of Dirk, which would lessen his reliance on control over Dirk's life.

Bro is like. The reason I'm making this post basically because I can't stop thinking about it. Obviously Dave is the subject of Bro's control issues. Bro is aware he is not a protagonist in the narrative. His function is to Be Dave's Guardian, and so his sense of self is firmly rooted in Dave. But it's done in such a different way to how we see the other splinters behave. Dirk is a really fucking smart kid, and so his splinters generally tend to be pretty good at calculated manipulation. But Bro isn't particularly calculated as far as we can see. He's kind of a fucking mess. His abuse is far more physical and impulsive and far less wordy. He's controlling Dave, moulding him into the kind of protagonist Bro thinks he should be. But it's not elaborate and calculated. And THAT'S where Lil Cal, and by association, Caliborn come in.

There's obviously huge amount of debate and like 172784 different theories about how much influence Caliborn had over Bro, and how much responsibility he holds for Dave's abuse. Personally, I think Bro would have always ended up manipulating and abusing Dave in some way, in the same way that BGD manipulates Jake and Lil Hal manipulates Dirk. The underlying cause of Bro's abuse comes from the same control issues as the other splinters and I think it does a disservice to Dirk, as a character with flaws, to insist that Bro's abuse was 100% down to puppet manipulation. But I do think that Caliborn influenced the method. The random violence, the Saw style psychological horror, the impulsiveness, the obsession with sex and masculinity. All very Caliborn methods.

What I'm interested in is if Bro knew what Cal was. I think it's very easy, and completely plausible to say that he came across this puppet due to Paradox Space Is Just Like That, and fell under its influence without realising it. But if he's a Dirk splinter I just don't buy it. He doesn't allow himself to fall under the influence of Calliope's Juju, so why should his splinter fall under the influence of Caliborn's?

It sounds counterintuitive but stick with me, I think Bro allowed himself to be influenced by the puppet, because it gave him a sense of control. Being a guardian made him a side character. Side characters are often much less developed than the protagonists. In the case of homestuck, they don't even get to have a face. How do you form a coherent sense of self without any development from the narrative? He can channel that into controlling Dave, but at the end of the day that doesn't allow him any more agency than the other guardians. Bro knows he can't be a protagonist. But allowing himself to be influenced by the puppet places him in proximity to the main antagonist of the entire comic. And Caliborn influences EVERYTHING. He's woven through every part of the narrative, his existence sends ripples through every action we see.

Characters that are influenced by Caliborn tend to be integral to the shape of the narrative. Gamzee being an obvious example, but also those who communicate with Doc Scratch, like Vriska and Rose and even the reader themself. I just think it would be interesting if Bro knew what Lil Cal was, and allowed himself to be influenced by it anyway, in an attempt to gain even a little more control over the narrative, and by extension, himself.

[borzoilover69]

You ever think about how roxy is an imposter in her own friend group because she escaped to a new reality with john egbert and that essentially means *her* friends her *original* friends are still all dead and gone and theyre never coming back.