#like they basically just neglected to actually write the dialogue

[slayerdurge]

you know what would have been really cool if they wanted a franchise "reset"? a dragon age game set in the age of andraste. that way they wouldn't have to worry about whether past choices matter because they haven't happened yet but it also avoids the problem that andromeda has (in the sense that it doesn't really feel like it's actually the same setting as mass effect) because the narrative would still be deeply tied to the lore of the original games

[ekkotimesthree]

RE: Homestuck Discourse, Media Literacy, Fandom Entitlement, & The Puppet Theory

an essay by yours truly

content warning: discussions of child abuse, CSA, & child neglect

so many discourses and debates surrounding homestuck boil down to lacking basic media literacy. so instead of making a petulant rant, i’ll attempt writing a productive essay, but forgive me if my annoyance seeps into parts of this post due to the subject matter. let’s start with dave, since he’s one of the most contentious characters (also because he’s my blorbo, sorry not sorry), and move on from there!

i constantly see people say something along the lines of “davekat happening in the retcon timeline makes no sense why would terezi ignore dave and gamzee yada yada yada”, like there’s not a whole scene that explains this! and it’s one of the most plot relevant scenes in the comic!! if you don’t know what the blood scarf even is, your opinion on this irrelevant, since you didn’t read/remember the text. rule number one of media literacy is properly consuming the media.

“dave being abused and the gay stuff came out of nowhere” this is definitively not true. one of the first things we learn about dave is that he has to hide food in his room so he doesn’t starve, and that this is an intentional choice by his brother. oh, and then his brother actually beats the shit out of him on screen, while not letting him abscond, right after we see john and rose strife their parents in a healthy way no less. (take note of bro using cal, and dave trying to abscond from him. more on that later.)

and re: dave’s sexuality, rose immediately points out that dave is probably gay during their first on screen interaction, and it’s her first line of dialogue to him.

TT: In some cultures the persistent refusal of a lady's invitation to play a game with her would be a sign wanton disrespect.

TT: Either that, or flagrant homosexuality.

moving on, later that same day, dave outright admits he loves john:

in these scenes, rose would be considered a mouthpiece! author’s use mouthpieces to get across information to the audience, that the character(s) themsel(ves) don’t know. in this case, that character is dave.

so now let’s address the elephant in the room, you probably thought these messages were just jokes, and that’s okay! that’s for three reasons:

first, your worldviews and perspectives shift the way you perceive the world, and more specifically art in this instance. that’s a fundamental part of the human experience. having your own personal biases based on your life experiences isn’t inherently a bad thing! for example, if you finish my essay, you can learn more about compulsive heterosexuality, or the effects of child abuse, see all of the signs, all without having to deal with it first hand. which is great! that’s the point of art and storytelling.

secondly, you probably still thought dave was straight while reading this narration. that’s because homestuck is written in deep pov, or as you would probably call it, unreliable narration. these are technically two separate things, but i don’t feel like breaking down all of those pedantics. all you need to know is: deep pov is when a character’s worldviews and perspective shift the narrative, rather than a story being told objectively. think junie b jones, the percy jackson series, or uh, catcher in the rye, if you’re into that sort of thing. that means that all the dialogue and narration within homestuck will always have some level of subtext, aka the non-literal explanation for text. homestuck is made by adults for adults, so it’s created on the basis we can analyze the text, and come to our own conclusions, unlike YA and children’s media.

a lot of people assume homestuck is supposed to be YA series, but that’s not the case. homestuck’s themes are about exploring the effects of child abuse and neglect, which you need to be an adult to fully understand. and unlike cinderella, homestuck shows child abuse on screen, and as we’ll discuss later, tackles subject matter about CSA, or child s*x*al *ss*lt. that inherently makes it a 18+ story, no matter the ages of any characters involved. just because most of us read homestuck as kids doesn’t really have any impact on that.

“well there’s no explicitly 18+ content in homestuck!!! they’re all 13!!!!” please take one look at equius’s room, or translate damara’s dialogue, and tell me if you still feel that way. oh, and read the epilogues too. also do you not remember the sheer amount of bloodshed, sex jokes, and cursing shown without a single censor??? even the official homestuck twitter said this:

finally, it’s also worth mentioning the time homestuck was made, because art can’t be removed from it’s historical context. so in 2009, gay representation was still virtually non-existent, especially in children’s and teen media. in the 2000s there was an extremely prevalent trope, “queer people are funny”, where the whole joke is that a character doing something that could be perceived as gay, or transgender, is funny. this problem was especially rampant in media for men. the most infamous example of this is family guy this was s8e18 of family guy, “quagmire’s dad”, where the whole joke is that brian slept with a trans woman, and everyone single joke comes at the expense of the trans woman, who’s relegated to a background role, while the narrative focuses on quagmire and brian’s emotions, the two cis men. so what homestuck is doing is called a deconstruction of this trope! deconstruction is where you break something down to critically analyze the philosophy behind it. we’ll leave a pin in john for now (just you wait), but it’s made extremely clear that dave is struggling with internalized homophobia, thus deconstructing why he makes these jokes in the first place. by the end of homestuck, dave says:

DAVE: but ive had a fuck ton of time on my hands to think about stuff. about stuff ive said and done in the past why i said and did them. a lot of things i once would have insisted were like part of my brand and helped me come across cool and smartassy, but now im not so sure. we used rip on each other all the time for being gay even though we knew we werent which of course is what made it "funny" remember?

with this quote, and the knowledge that dave goes onto date a man, i don’t think anyone is denying the internalized homophobia now, so let’s move onto reading this:

i’m sure all of us are thinking “there’s no heterosexual explanation for this, he doesn’t even like ben stiller!” OR “maybe dave’s just too embarrassed to admit he likes shitty movies? is it really more than that??” either way, that’s because hussie utilitized the rule of three to make you subconsciously notice dave’s obsession with irony! the rule of three is used to set patterns in a story, either to establish a fact, or to subvert the viewer’s expectations. for example, let’s analyze this joke:

notice how terezi’s third response is the funny one?by setting up the pattern, both you and john are expecting her to keep laughing in response, so when terezi flips the script on him, it’s hilarious. that’s called payoff, or in this instance, comedic payoff. now we can compare that to dave’s irony, where it was mentioned three times on one panel. no subversions of expectations here! that’s because hussie wants to establish dave’s obsession with irony, and they did so by creating a pattern you would notice subconsciously. this is how the rule of three works! psychology is cool, right?

so now that we can all agree that the subtext here is related to the irony, we have a new problem: we’ve only gotten dave and rose’s perspectives. we still need one more to complete the rule of three. fuck. thank god i can skip ahead!

using my whimsical ability to read ahead analyze text, i find out what john said to dave, and leave out the unimportant bullshit for everyone’s sake (mostly mine though):

dear dave, happy birthday!!! (…) i got you these. they're totally authentic! they actually touched ben stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point. i'm sure you'll dig them because i know you lolled so hard at that movie. ok so for real, this is sort of a shitty present, but it is an ironic present because i know you wouldn't have it any other way. maybe you can wear them ironically some time. they MIGHT even be more ironic than you and your bro's dumb pointy anime shades.

now we have three characters’ perspectives on dave’s behavior. you’re probably able to put together the pieces i’m putting down, but for those who aren’t getting it: when you compare john’s letter, with dave’s actions, and rose’s messages, you realize that: dave is keeping these glasses because he loves john, not because he likes ben stiller, but he can’t admit that to himself, hence why his narration overcompensates with the usage of irony! it’s worth noting that all of these examples are from dave’s pov, because switching to rose or john’s pov would no longer make them mouthpieces!

“okay but isn’t dave’s perspective not reliable either??” yes! that’s why we’re using his actions as textual evidence, not his statements. the fact dave kept these glasses, and hung up a picture of an actor he doesn’t even like, is the proof he loves john, not him saying outright that he loves him. like i said earlier, this is a comic intended for adults, so characters aren’t going to outright say themes or how they feel. that’s more for peppa pig, hannah montana, and riverdale, you feel me? just like in real life, talk is fucking cheap here.

so now we’re left with a new question: why does dave feel comfortable admitting his love for john to rose, but not john himself? i’m sure the answer is becoming obvious! putting all this together we can gather the following: hussie wants us to know that dave possibly has a crush on john, but definitely loves him.

wait a minute… possibly?!? that’s because we still need textual evidence dave likes men. luckily, like i mentioned earlier, we can skip ahead to the epilogues, where him and karkat get together in the meat timeline, thus proving dave has liked men this whole time. boom! that’s payoff!!!

now we can OFFICIALLY put together that dave had a crush on john. once again, notice how we’re using dave’s actions to prove this, and not just quotes! either way, now we have officially used media analysis to deduce that dave had a childhood crush on john! huzzah! pat yourself on the back my loyal reader.

and for those who still aren’t convinced of dave’s crush on john, this masterpost has way more evidence than i ever could fit in this post.

(trigger warning: csa)

so now with everything we’ve learned about media analysis, i present you with my own analysis: the puppets are a symbolism for abuse, and the sex puppets specifically are an allegory for CSA, or child s*xual ass*ult. symbolism is where you use a certain object to represent ideas or qualities. the best example of this is the iconic green house logo we see throughout the comic. in comparison, an allegory is when a certain object or plot device is used to get a point across, without directly stating the point itself, aka, a hidden meaning. for instance, hussie has said their game “pyscholonials” is an allegory for how they feel about their gender identity!

so now, let’s start finding textual evidence to back up my claims about the puppet allegory, through looking for textual evidence of dave’s symptoms, aka analyzing character psychology:

dave’s anxiety manifests in the way he types. according to healthline “rambling or excessive talking [is a sign of] social anxiety. you fear saying the wrong thing or being judged by others, but you end up talking more (…) in an effort to help make up for your anxiety, and help quiet the worries revolving around what others think of you”. this is basically dave’s whole personality, but more specifically, you can see him doing this around the puppets in this scene, he rambles to himself non stop when returning to his childhood bedroom, and he’s still doing so on the meteor when he can’t find terezi to do “some stuff”. by the end of the comic, dave even acknowledges this himself by saying: “DAVE: yo im hardly one to talk here since i am a goddamn geyser of hilariously self-pulverizing freudian bloopers”. it’s also worth mentioning that, generally speaking, dave also spams his friends a lot until he gets a response, implying he gets anxious when people don’t respond quick enough to him, which is a normal reaction after being neglected as a child. that’s called a trauma response! all of these bullet points are trauma responses that happen to people who had to deal with CSA. in this case, the trauma response would be dave’s anxiety in general, and not him spamming his friends specifically. moving along…

dave’s hypersexuality manifests in a pretty in a pretty straightforward way, hence him constantly making s*xual jokes, and him drawing dicks on stuff on the meteor, much to the annoyance of everyone else. terezi even points this out herself while dave is failing to grieve bro:

TG: im sorry you are so flustered by the mere mention of glittering mythical cryptodick it honestly makes me think youre not ready for the truth

GC: D4V3 YOUR P3RPL3XING 3UPH3MISMS INVOLVING WHAT I PR3SUM3 TO B3 L3WD 4ND VAGU3LY INTRIGUING PORTIONS OF HUMAN 4N4TOMY 1 THINK 4R3 NOT 4S HILARIOUS 4S YOU PROBABLY B3L13V3

his dissociation is also pretty straightforward. he constantly talks about himself in the third person, and treats himself like he’s a character in a story, rather than a person who has wants and needs. for reference, dave immediately pulls meta shenanigans when you meet him, foreshadowing his dissociation. you can tell it’s built up to an already toxic level when we meet him, because on the same day, he has almost no reaction to seeing his own corpse, and immediately disposes of it “for jade’s sake”, rather than his own. and to make matters worse, he immediately “moves on” as if nothing happened. deep pov, remember? he also couldn’t properly process bro’s death. once again, terezi tries to point this out to dave, and he’s still not getting the message. put a pin in this section for now.

near the end of the comic, davepetasprite outright says that davesprite was depressed, regularly talked about how he wanted to off himself, and implies he might of attempted it. this is a grey area since davesprite is technically a separate character, and grieving the death of everyone from his original timeline, but it feels weird to just ignore it. to each their own on this point, but i would assume davepetasprite was referring to dave’s whole life when they talked about him being depressed based on wording, and his terrible childhood, but the s**cidal stuff could go either way. again, the proof here is dave/davesprite’s actions, not davepetasprite’s quote itself.

he displays regressive behavior 24/7 by wearing his shades to avoid eye contact, refusing to participate in common social cues (i.e.: constant dick jokes), and the few times we see him get upset, he shuts down rather than feeling his emotions. not so fun fact, the only time dave cries in all of homestuck is because of onions being cut in front of him. there’s an allegory in this scene, can you find it? (hint: the dragons forced dave into the soup, but he refuses to get out of it) also, in his most emotional scene, he still tries his damndest to not talk about emotional stuff with dirk, and still doesn’t cry when they hug, despite discussing bro’s death, and his thoughts on his own abuse in detail:

the lack of self esteem is pretty apparent. he constantly over compensates at the beginning of the comic, as seen below. he always talks about himself as if he’s a famous important guy, despite that all of his friends know he’s lying, and regularly say it to his face, but he’s still adamant that they’re wrong, or commits to the bit without actually admitting the truth. i wanna note that dave’s humor is always more of a commit to the bit and keep it going sort of thing, for better… or usually worse. not full on sarcasm. this is opposed to rose and john’s teenaged douchebaggery mixed with flagrant sarcasm. also, in the aforementioned scene above, davepetasprite still refers to davesprite as a piece of garbage, showing this is something dave struggles with even while being combined with nepeta. again, we’re using the action of putting himself down, not the quote itself. (also, sorry for the image quality, i’m on mobile)

in the long term, it’s basically impossible for him to form long lasting, fulfilling, and romantic relationships. first, it’s his crush on john, but that’s just kids being kids stuff. there’s also the fact dave and rose had some sort of failed relationship in davesprite’s timeline, due to them not learning they’re siblings. then we see the serious problems arise with terezi, who he dates pre-retcon mostly just cause she’s there, and his weird definitely not gay rivalry with karkat, which leads to her being unfulfilled in their relationship, and starting a kismesistude with gamzee. obviously the jade stuff is a big wooooof (pun NOT intended), both with davesprite, and the candy timeline. ultimately, both times, dave only dates jade because he feels bad for not liking her back, which leads to the relationship falling apart both times. remember the pin in dissociation? that’s what he’s doing here. karkat would be the opposite of jade. dave doesn’t let himself date karkat because dave hates himself, and more specifically, his attraction to men, which i’ll elaborate on later. this is what we call a character foil, aka two characters who have similarities so you can contrast their differences. think naruto and sasuke, or uh, deku and bakugo i guess? how do you do fellow kids? actually yeah! cause jade is green, and karkat is red blooded, which would symbolize how dave sees karkat as the “wrong” choice, while jade is the “right” one. the colors green and red are opposites, but jade and karkat are both of dave’s love interests in the epilogues. see? character foils! symbolism! personally, i refer to this as “star wars logic”, cause the good guys have green lightsabers, and the bad guys have red ones. this is definitely intentional, seeing as homestuck is littered with star wars references, like how HIC is basically just darth vader. meenah is also definitely a reference to darth maul, just look at her double sided weapon, or how they both die before getting to their respective thrones. i could keep going but it’s not really relevant to the discussion.

so right now you might be thinking “well you still didn’t explain how dave got assaulted tho”, and that’s fair. however, i wanna remind you that showing children porn against their will is 100% a form of CSA, same with sex paraphernalia, and especially forcing sex paraphernalia onto them. to do that to a child non-stop, in an environment they can’t escape, would have horrid effects psychologically, and dave displays almost every one of them, as you saw with the textual evidence above. so when dave can’t admit to himself that he he hates bro’s puppets, and more specifically the sex ones, it’s because doing so would force him to admit: a) what bro did to him was wrong & b) that he enjoyed it in some aspect. john even points out how weird bro’s affinity for puppets is weird and definitively not cool, which causes dave to immediately shut him down hardcore (more allegory).

speaking from experience, one of the worst parts of CSA is that you have no clue what’s going on. victims of assault often blame themselves, or feel guilty of what happened, and children lack the ability to tell what’s fully going on in the first place, due to their brains being underdeveloped, thus amplifying the guilt and blame. people often worry so much about the “man tricking kids with candy” because it’s the most pervasive p****ph*le you see in media (god i hate true crime culture), that people forget that 84% of csa happens in the home, 50% of the time it’s someone the child trusts, and 40% of time it’s family members specifically. even if 99% of your experience is terrible, you’ll still find a way to blame yourself for the 1% until you can properly process that you didn’t do anything wrong. this is what’s referred to as the “the myth of the perfect victim”.

i know this is “personal speculation”, but to me, it seems very apparent that dave is gay, and can’t come to terms with it because of his CSA trauma, hence his inability to just admit to himself he has a crush on john. every girl he dates in the main comic is quite literally the ONLY dateable girl in front of him, or usually the only girl in front of him at all, and all three girls have crushes on him/flirt with him WAY before he starts their relationships. and once again, he only dates jade in the epilogues due to his own guilt and dissociation, combined with her doing everything short of forcing herself onto him. compulsive heterosexuality is a major part of homestuck. for instance, hussie has confirmed via author’s notes that rose had a crush on dave when they were kids, and that something happened between them when they never learned they were siblings on davesprite’s timeline, yet hussie has also said that rose is a full on lesbian. that’s comphet, and it’s very intentional!

i also wanna take a moment to acknowledge that dave and rose are 100% nods to luke skywalker and princess leia, who also kiss before finding out they’re related. notice how dave fights with swords, like a lightsaber, and has the same hair as luke. meanwhile, rose’s seer of light powers are basically the same as leia’s force powers, and she uses most of her weapons as blasters, just like leia. i don’t think hussie was trying to be weird or add this stuff in for any unsavory reasons, like some people imply. there’s a reason all of this extremely vague, and not shown on screen. put a pin in that.

so in the same way the katanas in dave’s fridge symbolize bro prioritizing preparing dave for battle over what he actually needs (food and shelter), that’s how the puppets symbolize dave’s CSA. now, if you read dave and rose’s conversation about the sex puppets with that knowledge, it starts to paint the harrowing picture (again, allegory). it’s important to remember that rose had a canonically had a crush on dave at the time during this conversation, so she was probably just negging him the same way she negs her mom. she was upset because she knew that dave liked john, and probably was just gay in general, so he was never going to like her back. she’s definitely projecting her gayness (and love of puppets) onto dave too. again, all of this is definitely comphet lesbian behavior. all that’s to say, i’m not claiming she’s intentionally victim blaming him or anything during this scene. she’s just as much of a child as he is. put a pin in that too! i got sited sources coming, but i can only put so many goddamn words and images in a single post.

so, i see the sentiment shared a lot that hussie just tacked on the abuse stuff at the end, and that the beginning of homestuck “was just a silly comic at the beginning it’s not that deep”. that is an objectively ill informed take, and now you know why! the entirety of homestuck’s themes are exploring the effects of child abuse and neglect, hence the name, home stuck. there’s a reason the protagonist who is able to save everyone, also has a seemingly perfect home life. notably, the only other character who’s a completely well adjusted nice person is nepeta. she’s also the only character who’s able to free roam as she pleases, has a loving lusus, and ironically, is the only character without a home/hive to begin with. once she makes into the game, her land is quite literally her cup of tea as well. these definitely aren’t coincidences. i hope your allegory alarms are going off right now!

the only reason homestuck is sillier in the beginning is solely because it was a fan lead project for the first few acts. back in the day, there were forums dedicated for audience input to decide what happens next in the story. fun fact: this is how a lot the characters names were decided as well! so there’s a reoccurring bit where (insert beta kid) does (something stupid) and then the plot just moves on (i.e. john’s HILARIOUS antics). those were the silly suggestions sent in by the fan community! that was back when the homestuck community was still pretty small, all things considered. this explains the wonky pacing in the first few acts, and the more comedic tone.

moving on, the reason the puppets and the katana fridge are used as symbols, is because yeah, the tone would be way too dark if they played that straight. however, there’s another reason that’s way more important. remember how homestuck is written with a deep pov, aka unreliable narration? (please don’t kill me pedantics police!!!) hussie uses deep pov to display how homestuck chacters see their parents/lusii, in order to convey the themes of the story. stick around a bit longer and i’ll explain the theme of homestuck! just let me explain something real quick, so you get the big picture.

bro is shown in a positive zany light because that’s how dave sees him. to dave, bro is his whacky older brother, and sure he’s a little out there, but ninja battles and puppets are sick as fuck, right? well we as the audience know that’s NOT the case. again, dave is literally starved on screen, and gets the shit beaten out of him, also on screen. this parallels rose’s relationship with her mom, who gives her everything she could ever want and need, but doesn’t fulfill rose’s emotional needs, so rose sees her as a some sort of spiteful cartoon villain. dave even calls this out the second he sees all the wizard stuff rose got from her mom.

meanwhile, you can see rose admit to liking the puppets here, and she says she’s a fan of bro’s pornbot websites as well.

ultimately, they both want what each other has, but aren’t really able to fully grasp why their own parents did what they did, much less each other’s parents, which leads to them both envying the toxic part of each other’s households. i’m sure you’re starting to see the big picture with the puppets now, so to send the point home, remember that image i showed you during dave and bro’s strife? well, bro is attacking dave with a puppet, and dave wants to abscond, but can’t, perfectly paralleling dave’s abuse to a puppet. furthermore, that’s why he’s surrounded by sex puppets specifically, and they’re all throughout his apartment. it’s all symbolism for how dave is trapped in home dealing with CSA.

this is the purpose of allegory, telling you something without directly showing it. i doubt any of us think homestuck would be better if this stuff was depicted literally, for all the obvious reasons. i’ll close out with this dialogue since it shows what i mean better than i ever could myself:

DAVE: why did i get such a raw cut of the asshole deck? and why did it take me so long to figure that out? and like hes dead now so thats that. so all thats left to do is look back and try to put the pieces together of my first 13 years, and all i can think is what the fuck WAS that?!

DAVE: i dont come away with the impression i used to try convincing myself of, that he was like "mysterious" or "stern" or "aloof". the only feeling left is this insane impression that i was raised by somebody who fuckin HATED me, and the whole act of even "raising a child" was some totally fucked up game to him.

DIRK: What… did he do?

DAVE: i dont want to get out the laundry list, but for reference laundry wasnt one of those things. that was just one of the many little domestic things i just had to sort of FIGURE OUT. sorta like i eventually had to learn what the REAL purpose of a refridgerator was from movies.

DIRK: Wait. What???

DAVE: i dunno theres too much to even get into. just- i dont remember the atmosphere ever not being nerve wracking. all havin to sneak around and... ugh my shitty childhood spider senses are tinglin just thinking about it.

DAVE: it was "training" you know?

DAVE: but you know what it really was, it was some vicious shit that was bad and sucked and i hated it

DAVE: it didnt make me stronger

DAVE: it did the opposite

DAVE: it made me never want to fight

DAVE: it made me never want to see blood or be near danger or hear metal sounds

DAVE: it made me hate the idea of being a hero cause he was a hero and he ruined the idea of heroism

(…)

DAVE: i know how it sounds but i am NOT joking and there is NO shred of doubt in my mind that he loved all those puppets more than me

so uh, this essay is already long enough, and you definitely want me to just say the theme by now, so let’s explain the rest of this allegory in optional bullet points that you should definitely still read.

rose liking the puppets is symbolism for how emotionally neglected children often end up subconsciously “wanting” terrible things to them, like abuse or self harm, so they can justify their own unhappiness with their lives, due to them not understanding that their emotional needs aren’t being fufilled. again, the myth of the perfect victim, starting during childhood specifically. rose does this by convincing herself that her mom hates her, rather than seeing that her mom is trying her best to parent, and failing miserably. rose is also unaware of her mother’s alcoholism, which symbolizes how she doesn’t understand that her mother is emotionally neglecting her. this parallels how dave is seemingly caught off guard by dirk’s sexuality, and thus bro’s sexuality, due to dave not processing that his abuse is sexual in nature.

jade’s love of plushies parallels dave’s love, and eventual hatred, for puppets. (once again, notice the red vs green. character foils!) this is because her neglect causes her to become extremely immature. when she’s a kid, this mostly just manifests as her liking children’s toys, and speaking with a childish affectation. however, this immaturity goes unchecked, leading to the epilogues, where she completely ruins dave and karkat’s relationship for her own sexual desires (paraphrasing). you could say the same for her secretly getting rose pregnant in hs^2, knowing kanaya will be upset when she finds out. basically, she has a huge emotional disregard for everyone around her, which stems from her almost complete isolation for most of her childhood. once again, emotional neglect leading to regression, more specifically maturity regression in her case, which makes sense when you remember she grew up raised by an actual dog. and interestingly, dogs have low emotional intelligence compared to other animals. jade herself becomes part dog while going godtier, right as she has to go into further isolation during the three year journey. dogtier symbolism! jadesprite also throws a tantrum when she’s created, right after being combined with a dog. more symbolism!

dirk loving cal is an allegory how he can’t let go of his own self abuse, which becomes extremely literal when he cuts his head off. something something symbolism. this is also foreshadowing his eventual role as the villain of the story once he achieves his ultimate self, and begins thrusting abuse onto others. after going ult, dirk ends up pushing jane into presidency, thus allowing a troll genocide to happen. it’s also worth mentioning jane r*pes jake in the epilogues, and while knowing this, dirk still supports her because he believes “the ends justify the means” during all of this. now he’s officially just as bad as bro at this point. i also wanna point out that this, once again, this makes dirk a huge foil to dave, with both of them helping their respective presidential picks to win the election. i believe this is hinting that dave will eventually be the one to defeat dirk, thus finally not letting his bro have power over him, or anyone else for that matter. remember how dave is a reference to luke skywalker? well the main villain of homestuck^2 is his father figure from another timeline/universe, so at this point, it seems like dave will have to be the one to do the killing blow on dirk, the same way luke did to vader. only time will tell. pun intended bitch. also, dirk’s shade of orange is right in between dave’s, and the yellow bloods, possibly symbolizing how dirk is doomed by the narrative just like sollux, mituna, and the Ψiioniic, combined with his own self abuse.

roxy has seemingly no affinity or hatred for puppets, dolls, or plushes, foreshadowing her failed assassination attempt on the batterwitch, and her short lived alcoholism. however, she does still have a pile of cat and wizard plushes in her room. roxy is probably the third most well adjusted character in all of homestuck, and had a pretty nice childhood all things considered! obviously it wasn’t perfect though, hence the short bout of alcoholism. all that fits into my puppet theory pretty well, implying that roxy made it to the end of her game due to her lack of alcoholism, unlike her alpha self, but just like rose. her shade of pink being the middle ground of dave and rose’s makes sense as well.

on davesprite’s timeline, his sprite prototypes with cal, and one of the birds who never left his apartment, symbolizing how he was unable to escape the trauma of his abuse and homelife. also another easter egg! crows are the smartest bird, and one of the smartest animals in the animal kingdom. this is symbolizing how dave is actually the smartest member of his session, which makes sense due to the sheer amount of math he does for his sylladex, despite bro not bothering with his homeschooling. this is why davesprite’s wings are clipped, to symbolize how his neglect and abuse ultimately made him worse off, rather than “being the air beneath his wings”. actual dave notably fights with a clipped sword, can you guess what that symbolizes? (hint: bro clipped the sword)

john interestingly fits into this as well, due to him receiving a harlequin doll for his birthday, and it later prototyping his kernelsprite. john hates clowns, and is the main character, which interestingly foils gamzee, who loves all things clown, and is relegated to a joke background character. let’s just put another pin in john and gamzee for now! i promise it will pay off.

but most importantly, lord english is the referred to as “the 8ig 8ad” by vriska (not a coincidence! think about spidermom!!!), and lil cal himself is referred to as the “most important character in homestuck”. notably, lord english is also the mind behind lil cal. this symbolizes how abuse is a central theme of homestuck, and the last trial the characters must overcome. that’s why rose stops drinking after the retcon, and why dave starts… doing something with karkat?

so there’s a huge elephant in the room! if we’re discussing davekat, we have to to mention the contentious reveal scene, don’t we? forgive me, but we have to address all the little nuances of this. so uh, remember dave’s anxious speaking habit we’ve established? well he starts blabbering when karkat immediately brings up his old black feelings for john, most likely implying he’s a little jealous/insecure about that. this is pretty normal, cause he’s still teenager at the end of the day. you can see it specifically in these two lines:

DAVE: so are you SURE you still dont have these unreconciled blackrom feelings about john

DAVE: i say we air this out before it ferments into some rank and hella unexamined feeling sauce

see? remember what i said about dave having trauma responses? this is it. he’s just anxious karkat might still like john, thus ruining their relationship, or uh, situationship at the time. he also might be projecting his romantic attraction to john onto karkat as well. then, he rambles a bunch of incoherent bullshit when john asks what his sexuality is. karkat is extremely embarrassed by this part of the conversation, yet he was able to calmly discuss his old crush on john. so this all comes to a head with the following dialogue:

JOHN: did you... like, date any boys?

DAVE: uh

JOHN: but there weren't even that many boys on the meteor? well, there's the clown guy, but i don't really see you and him... that really only leaves... um, were you and karkat... ARE you and karkat, like. hmm.

this makes karkat officially loses it due to embarrassment, but i’ll spare you from that huge wall of text. next dialogue reads:

JOHN: dave, i'm pretty sure we're making karkat uncomfortable now.

DAVE: yeah maybe we should drop this

JOHN: ok.

so lets think. they aren’t dating, but they definitely did something kinda gay. notably, this parallels the “things” dave did with terezi pre-retcon, while still being tastefully vague. the idea that dave did some gay teenager shenanigans actually does make sense for his character arc, because it implies he’s comfortable enough now to try something like that now. though i do wanna emphasize that i’m not try to explicitly say they had sex, i’m just saying dave explored his sexuality. come to the conclusions you’re comfortable with here! hussie goes out of their way to not display or mention characters doing any sex acts while they are minors, and this is the closest we ever get to anything like that. there’s only one instance of making out even happening in homestuck, and it’s just jake making out with his avatar poster. well, unless you wanna count this i guess? considering everything we’ve gone over in this post, this is most definitely intentional.

through john’s retcons, the butterfly effect forces the dave and rose to address their respective childhood traumas, which leads to them being able to beat the game. same with davepetasprite finally giving jade the closure she needed right before she woke up. same with terezi fixing her relationship with vriska. karkat runs for president later, proving he’s got over his leadership trauma as well. that’s how you win sburb. john saving everyone with that retcon shows the central theme of homestuck: you can change at any point, and get through any hard times, as long as you have people in your life to help and support you. the retcon is great because it shows you how a timeline is doomed, so that way you can understand why they won.

EB: well to be honest, i never really believed any of your guys's doom and gloom nonsense. not because i think you are lying... i just feel like there must still be a way to win! (…) also, there is always hope for someone who has good friends to count on!

so when dave and karkat start getting together, and do “stuff” on the meteor, that’s all the tasteful way of saying: dave was able to process things, and become more comfortable with himself. again, this totally could’ve just been making out, come to the conclusions you want. the vagueness is intentional.

notably, vriska, dirk, jake, gamzee, and jane are the only surviving characters to not address their trauma at all by the ending, which leads into their current arcs in homestuck^2 (or lack thereof in gamzee’s case). there’s also one more character, who we’ve carefully left pins in until now….

it’s time to address june egbert. spare the torches and pitchforks please! i’ve done a ridiculous amount of research, and there still doesn’t seem to be a proper explanation for june egbert from either a homestuck fan or a creator behind homestuck, so i’ll bare the cross of this explanation. from here on out, i’ll still say both names interchangeably for pedantic reasons, but that’s solely because this is still in a weird state of schrödinger’s canon, and hs^2 is pretty much it’s own thing in itself. but i’m a trans woman so w/e. once again, spare the pitchforks! please!

the reason why her being trans works is because john/june spent the whole series so focused on saving everyone else, that she never focused on herself, or thought too deeply about anything. that’s kind of her thing, taking everything at face value, and not thinking too deeply about herself (i wonder why… ♾️). this is even pointed out by dave himself during The Davekat Scene™:

DAVE: ok i guess what im saying is… i dont think its all as simple as you think it is, or maybe not like ACTIVELY think it is but continue to assume it is on account of NOT thinkin about it much, due to a lot of junk about the subject that gets shoved into our brains from movies and stuff while we were just dumb kids

JOHN: i,

JOHN: hm.

so you see the set up here right? the character who i was referring to, who still hadn’t processed their childhood? it’s important to realize that june/john has never actually had a character arc herself, because her story is told via the hero’s journey structure, not a typical three act story structure like almost every other character receives in their arcs. ever notice how homestuck is constantly compared to the odyssey or the iliad? that’s why! this all means, june/john is a plot motivated character, rather than a self motivated one, again, like almost the rest of the entire cast. it makes sense for her to have to start self introspection once the game is over, she never really had the chance to while saving everyone else. interestingly, vriska’s arc is told in the format of the hero’s journey as well. dave/davebot’s arc in the epilogues and hs^2 is also told in the format of the hero’s journey. he seems to be in between “woman as the temptress” (aka jade) and the “atonement” stage, which would most definitely be finally seeing karkat again, something hs^2 is still building up to. this makes sense for all three characters, seeing as being a “hero” plays huge parts of all of their respective storylines.

i also wanna bring up the clown stuff again, and more specifically, gamzee. even more specifically, this amazing analysis by @abcq2:

before murderstuck, gamzee has no idea that he is a clown. sure, he anoints his face with greasepaint, rides a unicycle, and juggles, but these are serious religious sacraments to him. and, sure, sometimes he trips on his giant floppy shoes and lands face first in a pie, but that's just being blessed with a miracle, because he was just thinking about pie. and, sure, sometimes his friends say things like "HEY ASSHOLE. CLOWN ASSHOLE. YOU WORSHIP A CLOWN RELIGXON. FOR CLOWNS." to him, but he's too zonked on sopor slime to extract any meaning from it. when gamzee sees the ICP miracles video, he's too sober to dismiss it as a mere coincidence; for once, he gets the joke, and realises that he was the butt of the joke the whole time. he understands that every time he fell face first in a pie, it was the work of an unsen riddler. he grasps that he is, in a cosmic sense, a clown, and hates it. (…) when the murder spree is over, gamzee's beatific grin returns; no longer a look of blank ignorance, but a knowing smirk. he's successfully ruined his character forever - no one wants to see him and no one thinks he's funny. hussie seems to say: jesus you are such a shitty clown. and gamzee's impassive face seems to say: i know. gamzee refuses to clown out of spite, and hussie refuses to remove gamzee from the story out of spite. it's a committed relationship of reciprocal, mutual antagonism. what i'm saying is that hussie and gamzee ar-

once again, all credit for this gamzee analysis goes to @abcq2, please check them out!!!

so i’ll cut straight to the chase, mostly due to me getting close to tumblr’s character limit. the clowns are an allegory/symbol of being transgender. it’s impossible to ignore. remember that game i told you about? psycholonials? if you’ve ever played it, you’d know that clowns and transgenderism are tied up together in one big scene. i won’t spoil the game, it’s really good! check it out! this parallels homestuck, where june has always been associated clowns. not a coincidence. once you fit gamzee into this equation, it’s clear that gamzee’s “clown” dysphoria is a stand in for gender dysphoria. read the analysis above one last time and tell me i’m wrong. hussie themself has only posted themself in clown makeup since 2020, this started exactly half a year before they unofficially came out as non-binary via a homestuck announcement. they also tweeted that they use any pronouns shortly afterwards, on a private (?) twitter account. it’s also worth mentioning that one of the few of photos of hussie that we have, they were in ICP/juggalo stuff just like gamzee, and this photo was taken in october of 2010, mere months after gamzee’s introduction, and possibly a month or less after act 5 act 1 was finished. if you know anything about this image, or tumblr user @dead12234352356456775, please message me! this blog is the earliest place the picture can be tracked to, and i’d love to ask OP if they know anything about this image. hussie has notably referred to themselves “clown gender” as well. it’s unclear to me whether hussie actually likes icp, or if this is one huge coming out ARG, but either way, clowns = trans, got it?

so when john/june have a clown sprite following her around, it’s an allegory for how the trans stuff is literally in her face, but she can’t understand it!

“but there’s no textual evidence of john wanting to be a girl!!” see, we’ve officially waded deep all the way into the murkey grey waters of nuance. so if you don’t know, june is the embodiment of what us trans women refer to as the “pre-egg crack”, aka, the phase before you realize you’re trans. this phrase applies to all trans people, but trans women use/identify with it the most, just cause we usually come out way later, usually around say, 20-23, like john/june is by the end of homestuck! huh, what a coincidence. in all seriousness, this is because most trans women start their transitions when they first live on their own. john/june’s also a computer scientist by hobby, something a lot of trans women do. this is because trans women are one of the smallest minority groups, so we usually have to go resort to online communities to talk to each other. this is also necessary for a lot of us, due to research on hrt not really being as advanced as it should be, and the fact transitioning is still illegal/hard to access in a lot of areas. trans women are also likely to stay inside on our computers cause yknow… dysphoria. plus computer jobs often have decent pay, low barrier to entry, and require little to no interaction with other people in person, making them perfect to both medically and socially transition. sure, june never outright says “i want to wear a dress” or laments about dysphoria, but again, homestuck is by adults for adults. the story shouldn’t have to explain something like this to you. the only reason you had the impression that there’s no evidence of john being trans is because you weren’t educated on the subject matter, but now you are!

“you’re just projecting onto this character!!!” and you are too! again, that’s how everyone engages with art. to think you don’t do the same yourself is foolish. utter poppycock even! however, i really despise this sentiment. the fact i’m a trans woman makes me the most qualified to speak on this subject, not the other way around. who are you to speak on the experiences of trans women? exactly. i’m tired of us trans women being berated for headcanoning characters as trans women, even when it’s extremely obvious why we do as such. it’s always the boils back down to the same bullshit in response: “well actually YOU’RE the transphobic one for saying all trans women look/act the same!!!” *sigh* that is literally the definition of an identity. you sound dumb, and are speaking over actual trans women, whose opinions are infinitely more important than yours when it comes to this subject. this is literally just the “what is a woman” debate repackaged with the guise of liberalism. it’s annoying.

“all this june stuff came out of nowhere!!!” this headcanon became prevalent during the pandemic, where tons of trans people were able to start their transitions! i did this myself, and so did hussie. doesn’t seem so random now, does it?

“hussie is just doing this for woke/fandom points!!!” uh, and what would they be gaining by making john trans? if this was about making money, wouldn’t the merch link on the official website work? hussie makes visual novels now, and has removed themselves from homestuck as much as feasibly possible, while still maintaining their ownership of the IP. not exactly the most lucrative career path. and if you’re implying hussie is adding any element to homestuck simply to please fans (yes, that includes davekat), you obviously know nothing about hussie. go on reddit, read ANY responses to the epilogues, or the plot of homestuck^2, and tell me when you find the tons of people happy with their contents. oh, and see how homestuck fans feel about kankri and cronus while you’re at it. i’ll wait.

“okay but the toblerone stuff is dumb!!!” at no point before the june wish did hussie say that finding a toblerone would give the finder the power to make a canon-altering wish. as you can see here, all of the wishes weren’t even granted, some of which have no impact on canon at all. if hussie wanted to, they were well within their rights to go “yeah no, this is dumb, sorry” when the wish for june egbert was sent in. this means that june egbert already fit into hussie’s idea of canon, and as i’ve already pointed out, june egbert has properly been foreshadowed, so this all adds up. the idea that hussie “turned john transgender because of a toblerone” is an exaggeration of events perpetuated by losers misguided and ill informed fans. hussie has been sent an insurmountable amount of headcanons over the years, and aysha u farah, who has had major involvement for multiple homestuck projects over the years, has said “the only headcanon i've ever seen andrew get excited about is june egbert” on a now defunct podcast called perfectly generic podcast. (forgive me, but any links to the specific episode i’m finding no longer work due to their official website no longer working. i’m not listening to hundreds of hours of an archived podcast for this minuscule of a clip. be my guest if you want to take that on! once again, message me, and i’ll update this section.)

either way, based on everything we know, june egbert is canon because hussie wanted this prior to the toblerone wish, because if the wish contradicted or retconned canon, it wouldn’t have been granted in the first place. simply put, june egbert is canon because it’s want hussie wanted to begin with, and the wish came after that. once again, the sheer amount of foreshadowing here should be more than enough proof, and if you want more even more proof of june egbert foreshadowing, check out this blog post! it’s great!

“well it’s dumbledore logic!!!!!!!!!” is it though? j.k. rowling is a transphobic bigot, who’s works cost money to access, who confirmed dumbledore was gay only after he died, and then she still straight-washed him in future harry potter media. hussie is an actual trans person, running an indie project, who wrote one of the longest literary works in the entire english language, made it all free to access, supports all fan archives, and hasn’t even ended homestuck^2, where john/june is very much alive. and once again, the wishes were to add something to post canon content specifically, without shifting the canon of the main series. homestuck^2 is still updating, and as far as we know now, more projects are on the way, like the completion of hs^2 and hiveswap. these situations have almost nothing in common aside from deriving from twitter. if you’re mad about this, were you mad when jake was confirmed to be brazilian in a youtube livestream comment? or when gamzee’s red crush on tavros was confirmed via a dubiously canon comic? probably not. eh, maybe you were actually, i don’t know you. either way, feel how you wanna feel about jake being brazilian, i don’t care, but you can’t say there was “nothing building up to june egbert” now that you’ve read this essay. the dumbledore comparison is dumb as hell.

“well i’m trans and i don’t feel represented by june!!!” if you’re “feeling unrepresented” by june, it’s probably just because you’re not a trans woman obsessed with computer science. that’s just you not relating to the character. it’s really not much deeper than that. and on that point…

“well i just don’t like this!!!” with all due respect, you seriously need to put thought into why that is. i can’t think of a single non-transphobic to be upset about a character transitioning in a story. and again, homestuck is one of the longest literary works in the entire language, and is completely free to access. in all of homestuck history, not a single product was sold under the guise that “john will be cisgender forever” or “dave will not end up with karkat” or “jake will never be brazilian”. hussie doesn’t owe anyone any part of their story’s canon. it’s their story, full stop, and if you’re mad about that, you’re entitled to something that was never yours to begin with. not all art is made purely for your consumption, and free art is especially not made for your consumption. can you critique it? absolutely. there’s a big difference between criticism and bashing though. if you don’t like any part of homestuck, write a fan fiction, make some fanart, or write an oddly soapboxy essay about your personal fan theories and headcanons. turn that negative energy to make something positive! i’m being serious! hussie themself encourages this!!!

“okay but it’s still lame the davekat stuff happened off screen” i can agree to a certain extent, but dave and karkat’s relationship plays a major part in the epilogues, as well as homestuck^2, and that’s not even unpacking their weird borderline black rom dynamics pre-retcon. to act as though their romance starts and stops during one intermission really downplays how seriously their relationship is taken throughout the homestuck series.

“okay but isn’t a lot of that stuff dubiously canon?” baby, everything is canon. hussie has said so themself. there are infinite possibilities for what could have happened during homestuck, so maybe we should just focus on the fact it’s taken seriously at all? honestly, the line between dubiously canon and actual canon is paper thin. homestuck^2’s entire plot is currently deconstructing what canon even means. if you wanna only see the main series as canon, be my guest, but the accusations of homophobia and queerbaiting over the davekat reveal are a little ridiculous. their relationship plays a major part in all homestuck content for years now. also, big reminder that, with the reveal of june egbert, there’s now only one canonically straight character from the main series, and she’s a villain now, so…

“well you’re just strawmanning me now!!!” my loyal reader, i understand you are a human being with infinite nuances i will never be able to understand, cause quite frankly, i have no clue who you are to begin with. i don’t think everyone who hates davekat or june egbert is some anti-lgbt bigot. i’m just here to set the record straight, and provide context for people who are willing to listen. a lot of this shit is confusing, and there’s misinformation a plenty out there. most people who are participating in this discussion clearly haven’t bothered reading homestuck for years at this point, possibly even a decade. and that’s fair, most of us read it as kids, and probably stopped by the final update, if not sooner. honestly, i think the main issue here is that people are playing the telephone game via fandom discourse. that’s how we went from “hussie supports june egbert” to “hussie made john being transgender canon cause of a candy bar” in the first place. if you’re participating in this discussion, maybe try rereading homestuck before you let your vague memories of reading the comic years ago define your current day opinions? besides, i’m not delusional enough to think any bigots are going to read this post and be convinced, but i’m sure i can open up the minds and eyes of people who are willing to listen! give homestuck a reread, imagine how much more foreshadowing has gone unnoticed over the years!

i feel the need to be so thorough, bust out so many references, break down every bit of nuance, and speak from my own experiences, because inevitably, a small group of people are gonna read this post and still go “it’s not that deep! they’re just puppets! june egbert is a bunch of sjw malarkey!!!”, and to those people, i hope you stop making fandom spaces miserable because you didn’t wanna pay attention in english class. media analysis is a necessary tool, and i’m sorry our education system here in america failed both you and i. (or maybe your a non-american country has english classes as terrible as ours? idk.)

honestly, i think i read like five or six books in throughout of all high school. i failed english my freshman year, and dropped out by my senior year. there’s always room to grow though! look at how i’m able to write this essay now! all you have to do is just watch some video essays that break down your favorite movies, tv shows, books, and more!!! there’s tons of jackasses like me who will lament about their hyperfixations. plus, now you already know what symbolism, the rule of three, and allegories are! before you know it YOU’LL be the one noticing all of the easter eggs in the media you enjoy, just like us the rest of us pretentious media analysis fuckheads.

i’m sure all of us are old enough to remember how exciting it was when rosemary was first confirmed, or when the dirkjake kiss happened, or all the recent stuff with davekat. and guess what, june egbert is going to be that lots of young trans women! after reading all of this, is hating june egbert the hill you’re gonna die on?

you know, hussie practically uses homestuck as their personal diary. i don’t think anyone’s denying that. it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why they want their main character to be trans, or why they wanted dave to end up with karkat. maybe you’re just not willing to understand it? if we’re allowed to project on to these characters, then why won’t you let hussie?

if you got to the bottom of this post, thanks for reading! i might turn this into a video essay if i’m being honest, but if you wanna repost this, or make your own response, please just credit me! also check out my homestuck fanworks if you like this post, i’m sure you’ll like them too!!! i don’t really have anything else to promote so uh…. if you’re on the homestuck^2 team and read this…pleasefortheloveofgodiwouldkilltoworkonanofficialhomestuckprojectidontevencarewhowhenwhenwhereorhowbutillsettleforanytjingpLEdareplelaplwlalsplelallaldle

in all seriousness, thanks for reading! i doubt this post will take off simply due to how long it is. i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions on this, or possibly make mutuals to yap with even! dear lord i miss having friends to talk about homestuck with. also sorry for the censors, normally i wouldn’t bother with something like that, but i’ve been working on this non-stop for the past few days, so i don’t wanna risk it being taken down.

anyways….. THAT’S why i have the bro strider tag muted 😭

(EDIT ON 9/15/24: added a new source i found and fixed some minor grammatical errors)

[tumblingxelian]

There's this ridiculous narrative that going on in both RWBY subreddit: fans and critics alike are saying that Yang's memory is flawed (or even that she was lying) when she said that she basically had to raise Ruby herself when Tai shut down after Summer died. Their main argument is "Yang was 5! She couldn't even take care of herself, much less a toddler!"

Several works of fiction have five-year-olds whose parents are neglectful, emotionally defeated, or even abusive taking care of themselves just fine, like Matilda (Matilda Wormwood), Persona 4 (Nanako Dojima), and Kotaro Lives Alone (Kotaro Satou). Why are they willing to give them a pass for doing that, while saying that it's impossible in RWBY?

Yang's conversation with Tai before her sparring match in V4 doesn't work if this was the case.

I'm actually insulted by this argument because the mother of my oldest cousin was a complete and utter bitch who divorced my uncle, and cheated him out of as many supervised visits as she could by working overtime whenever she could. Combined with the fact that she worked an 8 to 8 job, my cousin had to teach herself how to cook, do laundry, change her bedsheets, and get herself ready for school since neither my uncle nor her mother were heavily involved in her life, kind of like Matilda, Nanako, and Kotaro. Gee, it's almost like fiction is at least somewhat based on reality. What a concept!

Sorry if I got a little rambly, but my cousin's experience and my own experience as an older brother cause this argument to REALLY make me angry.

I've had endless debates across Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr and forums alike with people who hold that exact stance and it is never not utterly asinine.

Even if we ignore the factual reality that lots of children, even very young one's often end up parentified and left grappling with adult responsibilities as a small child.

Which I need to stress we should not ignore and the fact these people do shows just how willfully ignorant they are being.

The fact of the matter is it makes no narrative, character or thematic sense for her to be wrong about this!

Like, really, what is the narrative end goal in these people's brains, to have one of the main characters most overtly emphasized sources of trauma. Not only brought up by herself but by the sister she had to raise. Be wrong?

It makes every scene discussing it, every aspect of her character it informs, every bit if dialogue that touched on it utterly meaningless. CRWBY don't have that kind of time to waste on a red herring that serves literally Zero purpose!

But of course these people don't give two fried fucks about things like basic common sense or competent writing.

They want Yang to be delusional or lying because in their mind the fact she 'dared' be traumatized, 'dared' to be something other than a ditsy party girl and 'dared' be even indirectly critical of a man, of her father, is an insult to them.

Thus they want to ignore what's on screen, what the writers say, what the characters say, what reality says about situations exactly like this to erase her trauma and depth, All our a blend of sexist offence and misogynistic defensiveness of a minor male character.

It sucks but then, since wen hasn't RWDE been awful?

On your example:

Extremely well said, very good examples, I would also add Gohan from Dragon Ball surviving in the wilderness for a full year at the age of 3/4/5 depending on translations.

There's so many conversations tat make no coherent sense if Yang was wrong, but as said, these people don't care about good writing.

My sympathies and respect to your cousin and exactly, reality is often stranger than fiction and frankly this fictional scenario isn't even that strange sadly :/

I am right there with you for my own reasons, it sucks!

Literally the only area in which one can reasonably argue that Yang might be somewhat misinformed I thin is in relation to what exactly was going on in Ruby's head at the time.

IE, believing she didn't understand what was going on yet. That doesn't actually undercut any of her own experiences, but could be the case as it seems Ruby's memories of those early days are perhaps clearer tan Yang realizes.

Of course this changes nothing about Yang being parentified from an incredibly young age, because Ruby herself outright said Yang raised her.

[dingodad]

personally the vriska calling him a pedophile bit wasnt out of place for me. Canonically vriska doesnt shy away from saying that scratch is a sexual predator, she does state outright to his face that he gets off on manipulating little girls in the comic.

i think "would it be in character for vriska to say that" and "does it make sense in the context of the story for her to say that" are two subtly but crucially different questions, though.

like, on the one hand: it has always been textually clear that doc scratch is not LITERALLY a pedophile. he's a completely asexual organism. by using that word to describe him, you're making the subtextual textual. and this kind of "saying the quiet part out loud" is something the HICU have done very deliberately since they took the helm of hs2; they are intimately aware, i think, of the fact that they are fans in charge of deconstructing homestuck for the entertainment of other fans, and that in service of that aim sometimes you need to be willing to have mature discussions out in the open. a lot of the time this has worked for them quite well, especially in terms of getting old readers back on board with a story which has in the past been overly subtle to the point of excruciating boredom. but sometimes it teeters close to the edge of "characters talking like they're fully aware they're getting therapy", and i think this example leans somewhat toward the latter. like, is there really anyone reading hs2 at this point who doesn't already have some understanding that scratch is a predator? who exactly did it serve to make that already blatant comparison that much more overt?

on the other hand... i get the impression that vriska is actually aware of this distinction, on some level? like emphasising the fact that scratch is a child predator is almost a sort of shield for her. the name of vriska's game in this chapter is minimisation; while it's super cool and heroic to admit that part of your tragic backstory involves a sick spider monster and a badass lady pirate, by trying to paint scratch as nothing more than a pathetic kiddy fiddler what she's really saying is that because he never actually molested her then she was never really abused, that she was never really a victim and therefore he was never actually a significant presence in her life at all. that's how she lives with it, by role playing as the predator to forget the fact that she was ever prey.

i think what i question about this is possibly that vriska would even know to use that word at all? writing dialogue that actually feels authentically like stuff trolls would say is another thing i think hs2 has had a rough time with ("that is a completely normal human sentence"?). the gay joke in the tavros chapter was funny because it had been a long time since we heard caliborn and jake do the same gag but it feels like they tried to capture that same energy with vriska calling tavros a "pussy" in this chapter and it fell flat. and it felt just as unnatural for a troll to say the word "pussy" as it did for her to say the word "pedophile". i think what makes alternia and its traumatic knock-on effects so effective is that it's often more insidious than it is explicit; trolls barely have the language to describe all the institutionalised neglect and abuse that is happening around them all the time because to them it's just how the world works! yeah sollux has that line about sex offenders and schools, but i think that basically serves to illustrate my point, because for the most part we all seem to understand that trolls don't have what we would be able to identify as "school" either: sexual abuse and education are concepts that, in the world of homestuck, exist entirely in the abstract; tropes to be evoked but not things that ever actually happen.

that being said, alternia is designed to reflect the structure of homestuck as a whole, and the reason alternia doesn't have sex offenders or schools is because homestuck in general does not explicitly concern itself with these topics. we understand that escaping homestuck and settling down on Earth C means settling down in the "real world", replacing the threat of time-travelling demons with real struggles and real problems, and as a continuation of the homestuck epilogues hs2 naturally IS going to continue to touch on sex and politics and all the other stuff that was delegated mostly to the subtextual in the original comic. i think the structure of this chapter even kind of alludes to this; tavros and erisol beckon vriska to relax for a moment and play childish games with them like she used to do when she was a kid on alternia, but by choosing to forge on ahead with her personal growth vriska is immediately confronted with the fact that becoming an adult is NOT like a webcomic, it's NOT all allegories and RPG battles; it can be sick and it can be hurtful and it can stop you right in your tracks just as you thought you were "making progress" toward "winning".

i just feel that by having vriska apply Earth C vocabulary to an Alternian experience right off the bat, we've skipped over a key part of her transition from homestuck to the real world. would this chapter have been any easier to stomach if it had been about vriska coming to grips with the fact that scratch was a predator in the first place? no, of course not LOL. i think my gripe here might literally just be with the word choice. like i believe the writers have it in them to express what they were trying to express here in a much more interesting way than simply having vriska say "lol he's a pedophile". yes, addressing something literally that has only ever been mentioned before in symbols and whispers is part of the impact of this update, but i don't think that has to come at the expense of the dialogue actually feeling like it belongs in the mouths of these characters

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Okay, so like, we all know that these two silly little nerds and their silly little nerd romance 

Ended up basically not just changing their own lives and the fate of the world a thousand years in the future, but also probably the entire multiverse for all of eternity.

But here’s an extra little thing I’ve been thinking of, with the Butterfly Effect of Simon meeting Betty. As Simon himself said, he couldn’t have found the Enchiridion if Betty didn’t decide to come on this trip. And if Simon and Betty hadn’t uncovered the Enchiridion then… What would be the implications of that?

Would the Enchiridion still be lost after a thousand years? Or, if someone else were to uncover it during the post-Mushroom-War era - would it be anywhere near the current Land of Ooo? 

Can we point to Betty taking that first step to talk to Simon

as the cause behind the Enchiridion ending up on Mount Cragdor and therefore at the hands of Finn?

And thus the events of ‘the Lich’ three parter and thus the creation of both Farmworld and Extinctworld?

And thus also the events that allowed Prismo and Jake to forge such a close relationship that Prismo is now grief-stricken by his death? 

With his current neglect of his duties jump-starting the conflict of this show?

And also, actually…

Okay, so, the first time Ice King writes ‘Fionna and Cake’ stories is back in Season 3 - so Prismo must’ve started using him as a sentient Hard Drive some time before that. 

Buuuut… Prismo's dialogue when Finn and Jake first meet him at the start of Season 5 implies he doesn’t really know who they are and what’s exactly happening in their world. At the very least he’s not very emotionally involved and up on all the details.

It’s only after he gets to party it up with Jake that he gets to really know him and Finn.

So I think Prismo immediately understanding he ‘accidentally ripped off Finn and Jake’ and knowing exactly how to ‘run with it’ for the rest of his fics doesn’t really make sense unless this is the post-Season-5-opener Prismo who made Fionna and Cake and then beamed it into Ice King’s head in the recent past. You know, Prismo’s whole thing is being Beyond Time, that would absolutely be within his power.

Plus that would be a pretty solid answer to the whole ‘is Fionna designed to look older than Finn’ debate. She’s just, like, two seasons a head of him!

And that would also mean that, however indirectly, Simon is still technically responsible for the creation of the Fionna and Cake universe. 

[wadesbedtimestories]

I Like You (capital letters and all) by sambarnes (G)

3437 words, 1/1 chapter

Wade has always been an expert at fooling himself, and it seems like the emotional depth of his relationship with Logan is another one of such cases. Logan disagrees.

author's tags: insecure wade wilson, wade wilson needs a hug, angst, angst with a happy ending, miscommunication, hurt/comfort, wade wilson breaking the fourth wall

my tags: established relationship, insecure wade, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, misunderstandings, happy ending

review (light spoilers):

so my friend and i were discussing this post and i happened to be reading this fic at the same time which fit perfectly almost. if you know me you know i'm a sucker for explorations of wade being selfless to the point of neglecting himself and it's something that's explored a lot in the comics too, so this was DELICIOUS. this is the third part in a series and although it's not vital to read the other two they are just as good and set the basic premise (getting together) for this fic.

i've always been a fan of the miscommunication/misunderstandings trope and i also think it is hard to do believably without it being frustrating. then again, almost anything is possible with wade because the way his mind works is batshit insane, but either way this fic pulls it off really well.

i've read fics from other fandoms with this premise before, where a character tries changing themselves to get people to stay, but it hits so hard with wade. and one thing i particularly like about this fic is that besides the Main Problem (logan not having explicitly told wade about his feelings for him) logan doesn't actually do anything wrong. he doesn't flirt with others, he doesn't do anything to suggest he might not love wade. and yet the mind can do wondrous things to fuck with you and that is just so wade. there's just so many good choices made in this fic here characterisation-wise, and i love how logan's thoughts and dialogues were executed so much

and i'm not going to say anything more specific because it's more spoilerish than i would like but god fucking damn i love the bit about the coffee table. i could write an entirely separate post about it actually if you just gave me a second

favourite lines:

Regardless, the kiss—or lack thereof—isn’t what makes him reach said conclusion, okay? He’s insane, but not in that particular way. It just makes him rethink their entire relationship

Except, he doesn’t know what he can do to become someone that can be loved.

“Walk me through it, yeah, bub?” he says, trying his best to keep his frustration out of his voice. “Why do I not like you?”

read (and comment on!) the fic

masterpost

[katiesharms]

how do you figure out characterization in your fics? the cheating fic has the best characterization for langdon and mel i have read, especially for langdon, and i was curious if you had any tips or advice!

wow first of all thank you so much, what an incredible compliment and i really do appreciate it. as for tips/advice, i'll try to lay some stuff out!

stick closer to canon than fanon: it's simply in the natural cycle of fandom to evolve characters how they want, usually through basically a feedback loop, and the common understanding of the character begins to be based more on widely accepted traits rather than textual elements. you can def already see this happening with the pitt, and while i enjoy/agree with a lot of interpretations of the characters, when i'm writing them, i like to keep them as close to what's on the screen than what's on ao3. in that vein, i enjoy reading fanfic but i am not a voracious or undiscerning reader; i'm actually pretty picky, which i think helps me keep a clear view of who these characters are. people tend to flatten characters to make them easier to work with and more malleable to tropes or ideas, and to me, it should be about fitting your tropes/ideas around the character rather than bending the characters to the story.

that being said, don't be afraid of their nastier elements: something that i've noticed across fandoms, and most recently with the pitt, is the tendency to avoid traits of a character that make them an asshole or more complex. for example, with langdon, he IS a bit of a dick. he brushes mel off early on, he doesn't want to stay for a moment of silence, he seems like a neglectful husband. these are all things separate from his addiction, which is also an element of his character. i think conflict is a lot more compelling when it's driven by both people kind of sucking a little, rather than external drama/melodrama. for langdon, think about what we know about him: what kind of person gets married and has children while starting a medical residency? he is in a teaching position, does he seem to enjoy it? is he good at it? what makes that the case? as for mel, we know quite a bit about her life compared to other people: she has a sister with autism who is in a care facility, her mother is dead and her father is either also dead or otherwise not in the picture, she gets stressed about families being torn apart, she responds emotionally to many patients but also chose an em speciality. so okay, you know these facts, what kind of person might this have happened to? there's a sense of strong responsibility to her sister and her patients, she is someone who lives her life in service of other people and not considering her own self in many of her decisions. you build up this muscle - examining the facts to find the person underneath - by doing it consistently, and doing it for the bad as well as the good

think about what they would actually say, not what is funniest or how you would react: dialogue should feel different depending on who is speaking. just because you would say something that doesn't mean mel or langdon would, and just because something is funny, that doesn't mean it would be said. mel's voice is a lot harder for me to locate/write in because i am quite different from her (closer to langdon, if i have to say), so i try to read the words with her voice in my head to see if it's something i can imagine her saying. also, when writing in a single pov (which is all i do), you cannot reveal everything about the other person. you should still know what the other person is thinking/feeling, but know that you can't put it all on paper, and especially can't have them say it (i despise therapy talk in fiction haha). think about how a character like mel might miss or misinterpret something wordless that frank is trying to convey.

develop interests for them that make sense, not just what you are interested in: these kinds of small details always vary for me fic to fic, but i know it's easy to have characters like what you do. but you have to think if that makes sense for someone like mel, an autistic late-20s woman who works a demanding job with heavy caretaking responsibilities, or for frank, a 30ish white man with two kids. mel has already demonstrated that she has interests outside what people would think are 'typical' (e.g. rap), so i think making her, say, a swiftie would be out of character.

think about how they would react in different situations: you don't have to write all of them, but think about mundane things (how would they speak to a political pollster on the phone? would they send food back if it's incorrect?) and use those to get a feel for basic characteristics, like extroversion vs introversion or timidness.

not sure how helpful this is! for the cheating fic, it really started with 1) what would the situation have to be that would lead mel to allow herself this? and 2) what about mel would draw langdon to her? and then everything was built around that

[snowyroads]

I feel so greedy after reading your latest fic, I WANT MORE. 💀 I absolutely loved it, I appreciate that you write our boys in a way that feels realistic. Sometimes I think it’s hard to write dialogue for NFL fics that doesn’t seem odd or forced but I can really see Joe and Ja’Marr in your writing. Hence why I can’t wait for whatever you write next 🥲💜 AMAZING WORK

HAHAHAHA 😭😭🤭 don’t feel bad for being greedy anon!!! I love writing!! <333 (im insane 😵‍💫)

BUT i have a TON of wips rn and i literally keep writing little by little for each because im too obsessed w wanting to finish all of them!!!😔 AND THEN things like last week happened where i get the strongest urge ever to write just about one fic and all my attention is on that one wip 😭 (neglecting the poor others 😾)

so here’s a list of some of the wips i got going on rn: (putting a cut cuz i yap)

1. a joemarr time travel au that has been in the works since october that the wonderful chasedeys came up w and let me write a version of it!!! (she probably doesn’t even remember me asking to write about it cuz it’s been so long 😭😭)

it’s also taking forever because i want it to be multiple chapters and who knew how hard it would be to write the pov’s between the past and the future 😮‍💨😮‍💨 (so this one is most likely going to be my next post because imma put out a couple chapters at different times!!!)

2. a koc/jj smutty Christmas fic 😼😼 (I CANT FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how to write a player/couch dynamic) every time i think im getting the hang out it, i reread it and delete it cuz i hate it😭😭 so that one might take a while!!

3. stef/josh angsty reunion. basically they see each other again, outside of the football field (maybe during offseason or sum??) and they finally talk about everything yk?? just a very emotional fic tho with all the angsty and eventually fluff (and probably smut 😭)

4. another stef/josh EXCEPT it has nothing to do with football and it’s a Hallmark au. like city boy Stefon meets farmer boy Josh out in butt fuck nowhere after Stefon’s plane has to have an emergency landing due to weather or some shit like that. and it’s all the cliches of a Hallmark movie. the small town community, trying to save the local bakery, Stefon not liking Christmas that much, Josh teaching him Christmas is more than just Santa and presents, it’ll even start snowing when the kiss. like i wanna go full out!!

but that ones gonna take a while too cuz it would be fully from scratch and i wouldn’t have anything to go off of (if that makes sense??😭)

5. Joemarr in France during the Paris fashion week!!! this was actually asked by an anon a while ago and i still haven’t finished it😔 (IM SO SORRY ANON!!!😓) but basically it’s them in France together and just up to no good yk?? (plus some smut cuz Ja’marr wouldn’t be able to hold himself back after see Joe’s outfit!!!)

SOOO, i have all these wips in my drafts, waiting to be typed upon 😼 CUZ THEY WILL ALL COME OUT EVENTUALLY!!! 🫡🫡

anywhoooo, does this even answer ur question anon??😭😭 TYSM for the compliment btw!! <3333 love you guys!!!💗💗

[kiwi-gnosia-blog]

Just wanted to respond a bit to your thoughtful, very long Yuriko post.

I've definitely fallen into some of the traps you've described, seeing Yuriko as more of a mystery than a character, like a negative space. I've described her in the past as being "the protagonist of a story we don't get to see," which I still would say is true, but you've definitely shown that she has a lot of solid character work that I haven't been giving her credit for. (Honestly, I completely forgot about her whole Jonas/DQO connection. Kind of a reading comprehension fail.)

But yeah, despite all this and my being legitimately kind of scared of her, I've never seen her as evil or anything. It's actually some of her more humanizing moments that stick out to me, like her small talk dialogue and how she seems a lot more soft and fond at the end of some loops.

And it's very hard for me to see her as any kind of mastermind behind the events of the game. If anything, the fact that she knows so much just makes me feel sorry for her. Like, yes, she knows the "rules" of the "game" better than basically anyone else on board. And she plays that game better than pretty much any of them. But she still has no choice but to play by those rules and abide by their results. It's like she's the only one who can see the cage they're all trapped in, kind of.

Um, and I'd also like to thank you for helping me realize that there's a pretty clear thematic through line of abuse in this game. Like, it's very obvious for some characters and relationships (Remnan/SQ/Manan). But the more I think about it, the more I think that it relates in some way to most of the cast.

Like, Gina is pretty much living with emotional neglect from her cyberized mother, which could even be construed with some kind of religious guilt, probably? Raqio grows to challenge the problematic attitudes of their culture even as they outwardly seem to embody the worst of them. We don't know the specifics about Setsu's backstory, but something's probably fueling that savior complex and rock bottom self esteem, plus they were literally a child soldier. Oh, and there's that whole mess of Jonas/Stella/Yuriko/Kukrushka. I could probably go on, but this already seems kind of tenuous now that I'm writing it down.

Maybe this is all obvious to some people or a stretch to others, but I'm pretty happy to have a new understanding of a game I like so much. So thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Thank you for the ask, I love discussing this game with people. I'm glad I was able to give a new perspective. I'm going to just reply back to your thoughts, if you don't mind.

I didn't immediately love Yuriko either, I liked her just like I liked all the others, and I was happy when she seemed to warm up to me, but I never sought her out because I didn't want my feelings hurt.

Then, I decided to make a little thing to see which characters I shipped my OC for the playthrough with. A lot of people came up as potential options, and Yuriko was really just a funny option at the time, but the more I thought of it, the more it made sense with the OC. I soon started a second full playthrough, acting as the OC would, which led me to favoring Yuriko a lot, which she responded positively to.

Long story short, I ended up getting to actually know and love the character in all her details, a bit later realized all the similarities with me, and uh yeah.

Yeah, I think under her circumstances knowing what she does is really more of a curse. Sure, she can navigate the discussion better, but she didn't need to know all that to be able to do that, not really. She certainly seems to view it as a bad thing, anyhow.

Gina does seem to have some religious trauma stuff going on, and she's always searching for the meaning of her existence according to the game's website.

This may actually be why Yuriko picks that one moment specifically to lie when she usually tells the truth about the worldbuilding even if it sounds unflattering. She's miserable because she was able to understand cyberization, and she's in danger because of it too.

Calming Gina so that she stops trying to look into it makes sense then, she doesn't want her to end up like Yuriko, or just outright dead.

Something else to note about Setsu is that their parents, biological ones, are dead, and were also in the military (revealed in an interview). They have foster parents, which may also be in the military considering Setsu lives in the military dormitory. The root of their issues is probably tied to that.

Nearly everyone in this game has a horrible backstory, and yeah, abuse in particular is a common thread for sure.

[auschizm]

This is just a ramble about medical neglect:

I’ve followed the schizophrenia dialogue for a few weeks now and I’m beginning to have another one of those “oh so that’s what they label it as” moments that I’ve had with basically all my labels. I’ve always had these differences and in some form been aware of them. But one of my biggest difficulties is communicating. I’m not non verbal but I do think I fall on a minimally verbal spectrum and language in general feels like shoving putty through the gears of my brain. So even though I try and tell anyone and everyone my symptoms they are at best downplayed or ignored. I’ve always been hyper aware of how I feel about certain things and have gotten really good at accommodating myself. But that only came after late realizations to things that where hurting me severely. Panic attacks taking me out of extra curricular, depression stopping me from going to school, adhd making me unable to focus in school, autism making me unable to hold meaningful relationships (at least with the people I know), being queer and trans making it hard to relate to peers. It’s always been a matter of my body and mental capacity being pushed beyond where it can go, a break down and slump, realizing and research on my own, and then learning to cope and accommodate myself. It’s happened so many times that I’ve built up a decent foundation for survival but doing it alone means there are deep cracks. I’m so tired all of the time and the idea that I can’t keep pushing past my exhaustion was itself exhausted years ago. I have to keep pushing, I’m the only one putting time and energy into myself so if I stop, I fall, immediately. It’s been a terrifying way to live life. Especially now, my last break down being trapped in a house in the dessert with several not well people, experiencing immense psychosis and ending up homeless for months after. I’m in an apartment and significantly better now, I’m also learning the symptoms I’ve been experiencing, that can’t be explained already, sound a whole lot like schizophrenia. I’m not sure where to go from here, I never really have. I’ve never had proper medical attention before. There where times when even obvious physical injury’s where ignored by family and professionals, addressing anything mental has been impossible. I have a therapist now but I can’t even get them to agree with me about depression, so we only work on material improvement. I’m exhausted, I love myself and I deserve better than this, but I can’t do much better.

Thank you for raising awareness, it’s genuinely made my life easier and I appreciate you a lot. Would you have any ideas for non medical accommodations for living with schizophrenia. It’s okay if not

I am so sorry that you haven't received the support and accommodations you've needed, and I am really impressed that you have managed to care for and stand up for yourself regardless. That's very impressive and inspiring. And depending on the details of your experience with schizophrenia, it might not be particularly helpful to medicalize it. Because as you've clearly already noticed, often the people who are supposed to help you don't actually help much, professionals included. And while there are definitely situations where a label like schizophrenia is a necessary evil, it is also a target that can make you vulnerable to various kinds of discrimination and bigotry. I am not telling you not to seek medical help, but I strongly encourage you to think it through first. Even though I unfortunately can't write you a guide to coping with schizophrenia on the spot.

[ursafootprints]

11, 12 & 19 for the 2024 asks! <3

11. What fic was the most difficult to write?

[emerges battered and bloodied from my most recent editing session on Perpetual Motion]

what was the question

(But yeah definitely PM sldkjfsl. I went in without as much of a defined plan as I normally do with fics of this length, which was intentional! I was in a bit of a writing rut and was giving myself permission to just wing it instead of having more of the structure/framing devices already mapped out that would give shape to the general vibes I wanted to portray! I wanted to focus on Just Writing!

But said neglected structure/framing devices for sticking the landing did not appear via inspiration over the course of Just Writing the way I hoped they would, so now it's a fight to carve what was just a big pile of vibes in my head into a cohesive and streamlined shape. I'm working on it! It's coming together! But it's a FIGHT.)

12. What fic was the easiest to write?

The second part of my Tokyo Babylon fusion, if you can make it here, was super easy and something I put together in basically one sitting-- it's a single 1.4k scene and basically just atmosphere-- but I technically wrote that in 2023 and it just didn't get posted until this year!

So for something I actually completed this year, hhhhh probably my xenokink fic First Contact, if I exclude outside the program for being a pile of disconnected askblog snippets instead of coherent narrative? It took me like a year to start after I talked about it with @king-of-kaoss but my main struggles with it once I got started were mostly figuring out what I wanted Peter's monster design to be and then describing that-- it's a pretty simple fic otherwise, so it came together okay in the end compared to the more complex alternatives of double-blind/Perpetual Motion.

(The most fun part of the "design" process was scrolling Bad Dragon and deciding what visual features I wanted to incorporate into Peter's monsterdick. A+ do recommend writing xenokink just for this purpose it was very fun.)

19. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

"I love you," Peter said, and it was still its own shock to hear when he hadn't said it in so long. Tony felt numb, relieved, overjoyed, heartbroken, and he didn't know what he felt at all when Peter pressed a kiss to his slack mouth. "I love you, Dad, I promise. I'm going to fix it, okay? I'm going to fix everything." He cupped Tony's cheek, urgent and earnest and still so beautiful as he gazed into Tony's eyes and insisted, soft, "I'm going to save you."

I love a lot of the conversations in double-blind, and Tony and Peter's argument when Peter smashes up the house is a close runner-up to this one! But I am particularly fond of this one for, other than being quite sweet/tragic on the face of it, also being a reference to one of my favorite scenes from my favorite anime, Revolutionary Girl Utena. (Wherein the main character also saves a loved one from an influence that is clouding their mind/usual state of morals!)

Thank you for playing! 💖💖💖

[viperwhispered]

Those fic writer asks kinda got me thinking about my fic writing process, too (as inspired by diodellet's reply).

So, ramble time.

I guess I would mostly describe my writing process as sort of top down iterative thing?

Like, I definitely do messy first (and even second) drafts. I put down general ideas, some bits of text if I do already have some ideas for a particular scene, but mostly I try to get the basic structure together. What happens next, what's happening in this scene (and what's the point of it), stuff like that.

So the first draft might have some actual prose to it, and even prose that makes it to the end of the editing process, but often the sentences are shorter, or cut off, or have like three different alternatives. But in there might be some more refined exchanges (I tend to be kinda dialogue first a lot of the time), or bits of description there. Almost like points of (relative) clarity in the mud.

Typically, if I don't know what I want to do at a spot exactly, I leave it open to figure out for later and move onto the next bit. Of course, sometimes I need to figure out a direction before I can do that - for example, whether someone would be antagonistic or amiable in the previous scene certainly can affect what would happen after, and stuff like that. But in general, I jot down what I can, and leave difficult bits to be something I come back to later.

Now, I wouldn't say there's necessarily a definite point where I could call the first draft done and perhaps move on to the second. Like I said, it's very much an iterative process, and different parts of the work tend to get worked on at different times, depending on when I find solutions to my questions.

Typically, however, when I feel like I've got the structure down, I start focusing on the parts I've marked (I do a lot of comments but also formatting etc. to note the things that still could do with some work). Basically, it's multiple passes of going through the notes, dwindling them down.

Like, for any given part of the work, the structure would be something like: what's happening here in general > alright what's being said or done here > alright how exactly are they saying or doing it > what's the best word choices here.

Of course, in practice, all these levels muddle together, and different parts of the work will be in different stages. But as I go through the passes of the work, ticking off my notes, sorting out the parts that I've identified as needing work, I usually go down more and more into detail, until the final pass(es) are about particular words, sentence flow, or things like that - things very specific to that particular location of the work, rather than the larger, more overarching things.

So, depending on the length of the work, it may be that I only read through the whole thing once I feel like the structure is down. Then I go through the pinpointed things, until I have no more notes left, and read through the whole thing when I post it.

Again, not a hard and fast rule, and of course sometimes when looking at a particular, it is helpful and important to "zoom out" and look at the whole, and remind myself of everything that's happening around the particular spot I'm at. But in general, I don't really read through the whole thing, from beginning to end, all that much. Partially because I'm trying not to tinker endlessly, partially because I'm trying to make sure I don't end up just working on the first part of the work and neglecting the end of it.

So, it's been quite some time since I did long, multipart work, but I definitely did plot things out in advance, at least to get a general idea of what was coming, then again did multiple passes, adding more and more detail, going deeper and deeper from the level of general story or themes to the level of the text itself. For a shorter work, maybe most of it comes out at once, but even then if I'm stuck on a particular point I do try to just mark it up and move forward to get back later.

Years ago, on some forum, I remember describing the writing process as finding a big bead or pearl (a central scene, motive or idea) and then working on finding the complementing things around it to turn it into a proper necklace. Lately, however, I've been more willing to allow myself to just do that one big pearl: make it a drabble, just post the concept without prose, whatever.

In a way, it's kinda freeing, not telling myself it has to be long and "proper" to be worthwhile. There's always gonna be more ideas coming than I have time to write, after all, and especially nowadays I really want to make sure I'm doing this for fun and not for any sort of must or should or have to.

I say, pretending I don't feel the impending deadline for that fic that I've been kinda thinking about writing for my birthday - I had soo much time left when I first thought of it and now there's like couple weeks until my birthday. Time sure has been sneaking past me.

ETA: oh yeah, I wanted to mention it somewhere but forgot, there have also been those times when I've kinda just splurted out fic straight onto a discord channel. Definitely less refined than what I'd consider my "proper" way of writing, but I guess this is to say that sometimes I have been known just write without the edits and revisions and stuff.

[hobie-enthusiast]

Hii quick question HOW DO YOU WRITE HONIE TALKING SO WELL, like i’ve learned basic british and roadman vernacular and i’ve watched a bunch of Daniel Kaluuya’s interviews and stuff to try and better pick up how he talks and now that i’ve gotten all that I DONT KNOW HOW TO WRITE FOR THE ACCENT, so if you have any tips or you could explain it a little i would appreciate you so so so much 🙏

also i love your work, like seriously it’s so amazing i’m obsessed

hey anon! so honestly, i can give a rundown of what goes through my head but this is all what works for me so dont feel like u have to use it!

so first, to figure out dialogue and what he would do, i figure out his characteristics. hobie is a cool punk guitarist and anarchist; he’s anti-authoritan, laid-back, and overall a chill guy as long as ur chill with him. so i take that into consideration when writing his dialogue. this is a good example;

{person}: why don’t you and i split up to catch them both

bad example: {hobie}: “sure, i can do that. be careful.”

good example: {hobie}: “not safe that way. c’mon, we’ll catch them.”

so, after all dialogue is done with hobie in my fic, and the fic overall is done, i go back and fill in his accent. to explain, i basically remove some letters from some words, add some british slang, and some dialect for how hobie talks. here are some examples of that:

important -> impor’ant

sweetheart -> swee’heart

darling -> darlin’

them -> ‘em

it’s -> ‘s

alright -> alrigh’

fucking -> bloody

clue -> scooby doo (in some cases)

hobie -> ‘obie

am not -> ain’t

WIKIHOW IS ACTUALLY A GOOD SOURCE!! if u need extra help on how to write it this is a good source i’ve used before!

it’s also important to note that hobie brown is made to be “effortlessly cool”. so whatever he says is natural, rolls right off the tongue. he’s quick with what he says and is just overall a natural charmer. SO UTILIZE THAT!! make his words flirty in a romantic sense, make his words quick and comforting in those situations, make him quick on his feet when in Spider-punk situations.

one last thing is that hobie is not a toxic guy who would neglect someone in a relationship. he very obviously cares about those he meets. HE KNEW MILES FOR 10 MINS AND HELPED HIM. hobie can be a very suave and romantic guy, so it’s best to write him as such. a lot of the time, people struggle to write characters because they arent writing them right and mischaracterize them!

hope this helped! <3

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

I just reread n00b. Can I just say how great it is!? I love your writing in it!

a preview of the next chapter for your kindness

Wizarding World Wars Homepage

HOGWARTS SECRETS SCAVENGER HUNT EVENT

24 HOUR CHALLENGE

Successfully complete 5 Hogwarts Scavenger Hunt challenges and collect 5 silver Quaffles for one month of unlimited Floo travel

Time Remaining: 23 hrs 16 mins 31 secs

...

Discord Server: WWW Marauders Alliance

Members: Ah-Idk, siriusblack, Bacon4Algernon, Wormtail, Josie

Channel: General Resumed: Monday 8th July 2019, 4:43 p.m.

====================

Wormtail: Guys guys guys!! Are you seeing this?!

Ah-Idk: Just saw it now. I'm free for a bit if everyone else is? No pressure on you @Josie if you're not available or only want to play on Wednesdays.

Josie: I've got a couple of hours to spare before I leave to meet my friend, so I can play for a bit.

siriusblack: Bacon get your arse home, I'm not passing up unlimited Floo

Bacon4Algernon: bugger off i'm busy and only josie calls me bacon YOU can't call me bacon this is not becoming a thing

Wormtail: It's part of your username?

Josie: Yeah guys Did you hear that? Only I can call him Bacon Only I am special

Bacon4Algernon: that is NOT i repeat NOT what i meant AT ALL you are DELIBERATELY misconstruing my words for your own illicit purposes

Josie: Do you ever ramp the energy down to anything resembling normal dialogue, or are you basically always Javert before he leaps off the bridge?

Bacon4Algernon: undermining me in front of the group pretending to have a friend that you "meet up with" as if you aren't a horned brute who festers like a wound beneath the earth's crust, both continental and oceanic time and time again, you tell these LIES

Josie: Call me Jean Valjean, I guess

Wormtail: Lol

Bacon4Algernon: i must insist that you do not reference french fiction at me at this time i am TRYING to set a romantic mood with someone here and it is extremely counterproductive to my efforts

Josie: Awwwwww, Bacon I knew you felt as I did <3

Bacon4Algernon: NOT WITH YOU

Josie: My sweet reine du drame

Ah-Idk: Because whoever heard of the words "French" and "romantic" being used in conjunction with one another?

siriusblack: For fuck's sake, your girlfriend can live without you for one fucking day 24 hour challenges won't wait, Prongs Shelve your frigidly polite over-the-clothes fondling and Uber back to the house I'll even pay for it, you left your debit card on your bed

Bacon4Algernon: so now having MANNERS is an issue?

Josie: Jesus

Bacon4Algernon: you know i'd actually BE at home right now if she didn't feel so uncomfortable around you that she doesn't want to come over, yeah??!

siriusblack: Tell her to change her entire personality

Bacon4Algernon: SIRIUS

siriusblack: Then she can come over whenever she wants

Josie: Oh my GOD Stop it BOTH OF YOU THIS IS LUDICROUS

Ah-Idk: Agreed.

Wormtail: ^

Ah-Idk: I'm getting really sick of this.

Josie: Nobody else in this Discord, and I mean NOBODY, Bacon, since all-caps theatrics seems to be the only language you understand, is interested in dealing with this Cheryl Blossom bullshit

Bacon4Algernon: ??R??GF

Josie: We're here to play a game. A GAME. You're neglecting your brother and he's jealous so he's taking it out on your girlfriend, WE GET IT, people with bigger relationship issues than this one have sorted them out faster than you two just have a conversation and let us live

Bacon4Algernon: firstly, you don't own this server so stop throwing your weight around and setting rules like you're my mother or something

Josie: Your mother owns this server?

Bacon4Algernon: sdhgiksfhd NO AND SECONDLY my biggest problem with sirius is actually that he let YOU into this discord, mephistopheles so stick THAT where your peg's supposed to go

Josie: I'll keep your thesaurus-assisted admonishments out of your arsehole, thanks.

Wormtail: Lmfaooooooooooooooooooooo

Josie: And if your biggest problem with Sirius is that he brought me into the Discord, and not that he's treating your girlfriend like a fucking dishrag, then you're not a very good boyfriend and she should dump you like toxic waste.

Bacon4Algernon: EXCUSE ME??!

Wormtail: DAMN

Bacon4Algernon: what kind of UNFOUNDED ACCUSATION????YOU ARE LUCKY THAT SHE DIDN'T READ THAT

Josie: Then put your phone down and pay her some attention? Anyway, about this challenge

siriusblack: YES, the challenge

Bacon4Algernon: @siriusblack she just insulted you too and what, you don't care?

siriusblack: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Josie: I've already found one Quaffle in Filch's office. So we only need four more to get the Floo.

Bacon4Algernon: WHAT? HOW? THE CHALLENGE STARTED TWENTY MINUTES AGO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THIS

Josie: I know it did, it only took me ten minutes. I've had a look at the noticeboard in the common room and one of the clues is definitely pointing to the lake, and I think another's directing us to Myrtle's bathroom, but I'm cool with heading wherever if anything else jumps out at the rest of you.

Ah-Idk: Checking now.

Bacon4Algernon: WAIT WAIT WAIT DON'T DO THIS WITHOUT ME THAT'S NOT FAIR

siriusblack: Come the fuck home, then

Josie: Or maybe DON'T throw your girlfriend over for a game???

siriusblack: Anyone have gillyweed?

Josie: Unless you genuinely never want to get pegged by anyone at all.

Bacon4Algernon: HAH I DO I DO

Josie: Want to get pegged?

Bacon4Algernon: I MEANT THE GILLYWEED HADES

siriusblack: I'll rephrase that Does anybody present and currently still loyal to the party have gillyweed?

Bacon4Algernon: SIRIUS

Wormtail: I've got some gillyweed.

Ah-Idk: I agree re: the lake, it seems obvious from the clues. Happy to head there if everyone else is.

Bacon4Algernon: STOP LEAVING ME OUT. I WANT TO PLAY it's not fair for you all to PERSECUTE me for being with the woman i like and could see myself loving in 8 to 10 months i'm trying to be an attentive boyfriend don't make this my sophie's choice

siriusblack: I just put food in my stomach, you prick

Wormtail: Weird way to say "ate" but ok

Ah-Idk: Sophie had to choose between her children, Prongs. Her literal children. The one she didn't choose died.

Josie: Oh for god's sake, we're not starting this again, I can't deal. What time are you due to get home?

Bacon4Algernon: who?

Josie: YOU, FLOOZY WHO ELSE?

Bacon4Algernon: idk satan she's got to go to a thing with her parents at 7 so after that

Josie: Fine. I'll be back from seeing my friend at 9ish, I can play then if everyone else is free.

Wormtail: I can play at 9.

siriusblack: @Josie You don't have to pander to Prongs, let's just take the lake mission now

Josie: Including every member of the party isn't pandering? It's being a decent fucking person.

Ah-Idk: Happy to play at 9, I've got chores to do this evening anyway and I can't face Prongs and Sirius arguing AND looming dirty dishes all at once.

Josie: Cool. So we're all sorted.

siriusblack: Sorted according to who, exactly?

Josie: According to me. Take issue with it, please, I beg you. Then maybe you and Bacon can bond over what a hellish, nasty bitch I am and be friends again, saving us all from further aggro.

siriusblack: Nice try, compadre But you know I can't stay mad at you for long

Josie: -_-

siriusblack: I wish I knew how to quit you

Josie: Thanks...Jake Gyllenhaal?

Bacon4Algernon: fine then i'll be back online at 9ish

Josie: Not going to thank me for anything, no?

Bacon4Algernon: thank you for what, keeping winged monkeys gainfully employed?

Josie: Thanks for that babe, love you too

[can-of-pringles]

Thanks for the tag

1. What motivates you to write?

For me it's like if I want to read about something and it doesn't already exist, then I'll create it myself, or basically that's the jist of it. And it's just another medium I can work with.

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

I don't know if it's the most, but from the most recent fic I posted.

“Do you think you can be brave?” He asked.

“Yeah, brave but… kinda scared.”

“That’s still being brave. There’s been plenty of times where I was scared but still brave.” Peter placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Really?” Her eyes widened.

“Of course. Everyone has those moments.” Peter smiled.

Rosie nodded and considered his words.

I just really love this small moment between Rosie and Peter and Rosie being nervous and him comforting her and reassuring her :')

3. Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

Hmm, Arith is definitely a very special character to me he's basically my blorbo. I've talked plenty about him already so I don't think I need to describe him lol.

I also really love my OC, Lee Quinn. She's so fun. And Eliška Hasek who deserves more love and attention. (She'll get her turn in the spotlight at some point)

4. What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

Probably rough first draft? I just enjoy getting all of the ideas out and then going from there.

5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

I think dialogue which I've mentioned before.

6. What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

I'm not part of that community.

7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

I use Prowriting Aid for editing and it's pretty good.

8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

It's been so neglected recently... but in Travelers, just how there's these small communities brought together by taking care of the magical cats.

Maybe one day I'll actually do something with that story 😅

9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

Don't beat yourself up too much if writing isn't going how you want. There's nothing productive about that. It'll get better.

10. Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters

Shout out to probably my biggest supporter in most if not all of my creative works, @practically-an-x-man ! And shout out to @fuesch for showing so much love to my X-Men OCs. Thanks to @cuethemulti for coming up with ideas for Similarities/the 001 and 011 AU. As well as thank you to all of my followers and friends for supporting me in general.

Writer Q&A Game

Thanks to @clairelsonao3 for tagging me!

1. What motivates you to write?

I'm not exactly sure tbh. It almost feels like a compulsion. There are days where I simply do not feel good in my body if I haven't written anything. Then there are others where I can't bring myself to write because I'm too tired or too distracted from life. Honestly the second I get a clear head and enough time to myself, I'll start writing.

2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

This isn't from my WIP, but from a fanfic I wrote a while ago. I want to try to find a way to incorporate it into something. Not sure where though.

“I know this seems like it’s coming out of nowhere,” he said, “but promise it’s not. I’ve had a long time to think about it.  A few years, actually. I guess, I just didn’t realize how deep I was in it until about five minutes ago.”

She kept silent, but the simple fact she hadn’t told him to get out gave him the confidence to keep going. . 

“I meant it when I said I’m crazy about you. I like that you take your sugar with a drop of coffee.  I like how you sing to yourself when you’re happy.  I like that you never seem to get cold.  I like that you never lose your head under fire, but still need me to get rid of spiders. I like that you can laugh at yourself.  I like that you can laugh at me. Hell, I like that you’re perfectly willing to slap my face if the situation calls for it.

I like so many things about you Liz, and that’s just the stuff I found out on accident.  I can only imagine the stuff I’d learn if I started loving you on purpose."

3. Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

I really do enjoy writing Finn. The boy just makes my smile.

Close second is another OC which I wrote for fanfic who I want to save and put someplace else, Lucy. She's my softest girl who has a lot of love to give. Might figure out a way to put her in this regency setting somewhere, but who knows.

4. What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

The first draft spree. The moment when you get an idea and you have write it down as quickly as possible. It's rough and definitely will need some editing, but that rush cannot be topped. It just feels satisfying to exorcise even the smallest of scenes out of my body.

5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

Dialogue, hands down. It's at least the part I've gotten the most compliments on.

6. What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

I've only just started to dip my toe in, but I really do love answering asks. I like seeing other writer's process and knowing I'm not alone. It's just fun!

7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

I've been using Scrivener and it's really helped me keep everything organized. I have a very conspiracy board way of drafting, so having all my random snippets in one place really helps.

8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

Not sure world building is my strong suit for this current WIP. I suppose I'm enjoying expanding the world of the theatre, but I admittedly need to do more research.

9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

Write anyway. It doesn't have to be the scene that's giving you trouble. It doesn't even have to be for the piece you're trying to focus on, just don't get out of the habit of writing. Once you lose that momentum, it takes a long time to get it back.

10. Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters

Gotta give a shout out to @clairelsonao3 for being so welcoming in my introduction to the writeblr community. And @janec23, for being one of the few specifically romance writers to reach out.

But I really can't begin to thank all the people who have followed me from my fanfic blog over to this one. It really means so much to know people are interested in reading anything I put out there.

@flapjacques, @jo-harrington, @can-of-pringles, @handahbear, @auroramagpie, @justanothersadperson93, @sad-cat-hours, @ghostface001, @theowlwhocameback, @mattmurdocksscars, @roruna, @everything-intertwined, @sweetjedi, @arcanerazil, @vibratingbonesbis, @delirious0pandemonium, @llovelykenobi, @geek-girl7, @mixedupanddown

Know that I love and appreciate you all.

I'm also going to leave this an OPEN tag to anyone who wants to do this, and especially invite everyone who I have tagged above. (and

[taintedsoul-if]

It has been a while since I've posted on Tumblr hasn't It? I am the type of person that doesn't like talking about myself. But I feel as if I owe it to you all to give a bit of crumbs about what is going on as of late.

So for the past couple months I've been "struggling" with unemployment. 🙄 honestly I shouldn't even say struggling. When I left my last job a few months ago I swore to myself that I would never enter the BPO sector ever again. It's too much for me. But I understand, leave your problems/introverted personality at the door and be more professional. They all said but it just wasn't for me. Long story short ever since I made that promise to myself I've been home everyday just doing what I love. (Writing)

Two weeks ago I think.... an extended family member of mine mentioned an opening at her company. (Which is not BPO related! 😌) i just knew I had to jump on that opportunity. Let's be honest here, I am the type that gets anxious when there's no money in my pocket. 😅. And this is a new year... I have much that I want to accomplish.

Anyways my first interview was actually Sunday. And I passed that with flying colours. 🤧. The next phase of my interview will be a test which I've been studying for. Studying is basically what I do every single day. I get up at 5 in the morning and I study until 5 in the evening. I am a mediocre person that tends to give up sometimes lol. I wash my face with tears because most times I just feel like I'm wasting my time on something that I'll never be able to achieve. (🙄) This takes me back to highschool days. And I'll just stop there haha. But I am confident that I'll pass this exam with flying colours, get my employee ID badge and work my honest daypay. So that is what I've been doing.

I've neglected my babies but I feel like it will be worth it in the end. The update might be slow but it'll get there. So forgive me!

Though you guys don't have to worry.... I've already said it more than once and I'll say it again, I do plan to finish this IF of mine. I'll get back to writing Friday after I've completed my test. Time away from my IF has given me time to think about the true direction of my story. I might do some big changes to chapter1. Add a bit more dialogue and characters? But I must ask.

I was rolling over backstories for how Ada and the MC met. Let me create a poll cause I've always wanted to create one! *excited* 🤣

😅 and lastly for the ask in my ask box... I'll most certainly answer some of those this weekend. As always I do hope you're all staying safe during this time. Have a pleasant day one and all and I'll be seeing you all this weekend! 😋 later!