#and try to retcon his whole personality

[giulolosblackmail]

Barbalius: did you fuck my dad

Gaelan: Really, for all that you present yourself as above petty insults and crass jibes, hardly behavior befitting a Red Top Knight after all, it is you who always-

Barbalius: DID YOU FUCK MY DAD

Gaelan: :3c

Barbalius: I'LL KILL YOU

[yarrowleef]

I am actually weirdly looking forward to Riverstar’s super edition next year, despite disliking DotC era so much. Not for the story itself mind you, just because I am eager to mangle/harvest it for fanfic lore purposes. In the (still not guaranteed) event I finish this fic and the next installment, I actually do need to know more about Riverstar since I am making a lot of lore about his future reincarnation (I mean, it’s possible none of it will make it into the actual fic, but it’s still nice to know to guide how cats talk about him)

I read DotC so fast my memory is hazy but im p sure we easily know the least about him and I find him the least deplorable of the OG leaders (perhaps just because we know the least about him. It is a low low bar, I hate all of them so much). which might just mean he’s boring, but that could still be useful for how I want to characterize new future riverclan in this fic...

 I don’t tend to like super editions and kinda expect the book will be overly padded meandering fluff. Maybe they will also go backwards on his (comparatively) chill personality and make him stock-clan-cat-aggressive but I can work with that. I just want scraps to mold together.  I do wish that his book had released this year instead of Onestar’s like (I think) it was originally supposed to. It would be easier to have it now while i’m writing this background rather then having to wait until i’m (hopefully) on the second/third installment. but better next year then the year after ig

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ Since I mention in my pinned post that this blog has some changes from canon, I'm going to make a rundown post that I'll be linking in my muse info on my blog. My timeline post covers some of this too and has other things canon to my muse that aren't here because they're timeline based and not direct changes based. I'll update this as needed.

Repede had another owner before Yuri got him in the game. I'm combining this with FS. Thus, Repede would have been basically an infant when he and Lambert ended up with the knights. From there he took to Yuri as he did in the FS drama CD so Yuri was primarily in charge of Repede during his stay with the knights, but he and Flynn raised Repede together as is in line with the game. This means they continued raising him together even after Yuri left.

In the JP version of the game, Yuri says he was with the knights for a short time but doesn't specify how long that time was, so I'm completely yeeting the "three months" dub aspect from this blog. I can't reasonably assume he signed up, took the exams, went into training, went from errand boy to battle status, then went on normal missions and left in the span of three months. So as usual, we're following the JP timeline. Generally anything the dub makes up or actively changes from the original context/tone gets yeeted here.

In the FS drama CD, Flynn is extremely repetitive about Yuri quitting the knights and with his nagging. At least with @mistralxsoul and anyone else who prefers it the following way in threads with my muse, we're toning it down because it just feels absolutely batshit to us how bad it is in the drama CD (it's worse than even the movie itself).

Since the timeline for Yuri and Flynn's knighthood conflicts super horrendously between the novel, FS/FS drama CD and the game, I'm mixing all of it together (primarily because I consider the novel more canon than the FS drama CD). Basically (for my muse), they signed their names and didn't take the exams immediately, but when they eventually did it was at least a couple years later, due to Yuri still having his teen appearance when he signed his name to join in the novel. This is because otherwise, if I average my muse's teen age out to be fifteen/sixteen and his age to be about eighteen/nineteen in the knights, it would mean he'd been with the knights (including training, etc) anywhere from 2-4 years if his sign up was immediately after the novel's events. If they were to sign up and join immediately after the novel timeline, it also makes even less sense because Flynn's attitude in FS and his relationship with Yuri (and remember, the FS drama CD comes before the movie's timeline and Flynn was even worse about Yuri's attitude in the CD) would seem like it literally 180'd overnight.

So basically, to avoid all this insanity, a short summarized timeline for my muse would be: they signed up but didn't join right away, Flynn moved away and was gone for a couple years or so after the events of the novel, both of them changed in personality/behavior drastically in that time, they met up at the exams, they went into training, they got sent to Niren's squad, they were more errand boys than actual knights when they were still super fresh newbies and Yuri was extremely annoyed with that, they were actual knights for a while (I'm going to say Yuri was a knight for at least six months or more, especially if I consider the trajectory of Flynn's behavior toward him in the drama CD through the end of FS), the events of FS were not one straight timeline and things happened between the days etc etc, then Yuri left.

Following the game's drama CDs, Yuri hesitated a lot more when Flynn was injured at Zaude. If not for Flynn nudging him to go after Alexei even while wounded, Yuri wouldn't have left him there.

Following the same drama CDs, it's Raven and Repede who find and look after Yuri when he wakes up after Zaude. That is to say, Repede was already with Raven and lunged when he sniffed out Yuri in his room (super doggo powers). Raven followed Repede in a panic, who ran to Yuri's room upon realizing Yuri was there, and Raven finds Yuri awake but right in the middle of passing back out (the sound is basically Raven's voice being distant with some ringing, so it's from Yuri's point of view that Raven is trying to get him to steady himself but he passes back out). Raven takes care of him from there until he's recovered properly enough to go back. In this time, Rita did investigating and eventually, with the others minus Raven, went to Zopheir after deciding they couldn't dawdle and just wait in their grief. While they're there, Yuri and Raven have headed out after them and show up together and reunite with the rest of the group. Raven has already been updated on what Yuri knows from Duke at this point (Duke saved him as usual, but the drama CD changes come in after that), so the two of them update everyone else.

In the game, there's a skit with Yuri, Flynn and Karol where Yuri mentions "playing in a river", but in the novel, they were actually getting water at the river and the other kids were playing in the river when they got attacked by a monster, fell into the river (Yuri also mentions (I thiiiink in another unrelated skit) that just falling into "a river" was enough to panic him), and Flynn grabbed onto a merman. For my muse, I'm just going with Yuri simplifying the situation to Karol while keeping the novel's event as my muse's canon.

[dalishious]

Dragon Age: Origins is still great today, and you should give it a try

I want to preface this post with an important disclaimer: I am not about gatekeeping, and I think that ultimately, you should play or skip whatever Dragon Age games you want. If even after this post you feel like Dragon Age: Origins just isn’t for you, that’s fine! That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the Dragon Age media you do want to consume, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re any less valid a fan. But I personally adore Dragon Age: Origins to this day, and I would love to see more modern gamers give it a chance, despite it being from 2009.

It’s a great introduction to the world of Thedas

Dragon Age: Origins had the tall order of being the first in a potential franchise, yet it climbed those heights and beyond. It perfectly balances the need to explain the world setting and tell a story within that world at the same time, by organizing the plot into puzzle pieces. You, the protagonist, have to recruit different factions into your cause to save the kingdom of Ferelden, so each piece of the game has a different focus on those factions. It spoon-feeds the player information at an easy to understand and absorb pace.

Dragon Age: Origins also makes good use of codex entries for those of you who are big lore buffs and want even more information. Yet at the same time, it does not overly rely on the codex; all the most crucial parts of the lore that you need to know are included in your interactions with characters and plot.

The player gets to shape the story

The nature of those puzzle pieces also means that you have huge control over the story from start to finish, because the puzzle itself is shaped by you! The outcomes of each piece form the blueprint of the climax. The end of the game is reactive to the choices you make in the story throughout. (Mind you, a lot of those choices have been retconned in later games, but still, within the confines of Dragon Age: Origins itself, it’s still fun to see the outcomes of your decisions.)

The story itself is great

I would consider Dragon Age: Origins to have the most straightforward premise of all the Dragon Age games released thus far, with a strong identity linking the different main quests all together. You are a newly recruited Grey Warden, left to unite Ferelden against the big bad Blight after 99% of the Order within the nation is wiped out in a catastrophic battle. You may get caught up in dwarven politics, ancient curses, demonic possession, and plenty more along the way, but no matter where you find yourself, your motivation always falls back to that ultimate responsibility.

The characters are also great

Almost all the companions you’re able to collect along the way are very easy to love, or at least appreciate them for what they are.

Alistair is also a new grey warden. He is struggling with grief over the loss of his mentor, and the weight of having no control over his identity his whole life.

Morrigan is a witch who grew up isolated in the woods with no one but her abusive mother for company. Now she must learn to interact with others, and dependant on the player, perhaps even make a friend, lover… or enemy.

Leliana is a bard from Orlais, whose faith told her to assist the grey warden plight. But beneath the demure outward appearance, she has a much darker past she’s running away from.

Sten is a Qunari warrior who was taught that outside his culture, everything is backwards and nonsense, but he cannot return home until he has restored his soul by recovering his lost sword. Along the way, he may learn to appreciate or despise Ferelden.

Zevran was enslaved by the Antivan Crows as a child and made into an assassin. If the player can chip away at his nonchalant mask, they will find his past has left a lot more scars on him than he thought it safe to admit.

Wynne is a mage from the Circle who is struggling to deal with the nature of age, death, and life purpose.

Shale is a golem who was once under complete and total control by her former master, now learning what it’s like to be free, and wanting to uncover her forgotten past before losing that freedom.

Oghren is there too, unfortunately.

And the player character really feels like they are of your own creation. The choices you make, little and small, offer a lot to shape whatever kind of protagonist you want. Additionally, the benefit of starting the game with a different origin, and playing out that origin before getting recruited into the grey wardens, offers a lot of prompting to get into the roleplay!

The datedness can be easily upgraded with modding anyway

Do you find the combat clunky? There’s mods for that. Do you find the graphics too bland? There’s mods for that. Do you wish you could kiss Alistair as a man or Morrigan as a woman? There’s mods for that, too. Dragon Age: Origins is very easy to mod; most of them you just drop the files into your override folder and start playing. Otherwise, you use the DA Modder app for DAZIP files, which is also not that complicated.

A lot of people consider Skyrim to be dated without mods, too. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with appreciating the ability to mod a game, as a positive point.

If you want to play, make sure you use LAA though!

Large Address Aware is a must-have on PC for Dragon Age: Origins.

For GoG or EA App/Origin users: You can just run LAA like normal!

For Steam users: You need THIS first

[spirantization]

"Wild Blue Yonder" dealt with some of the emotional fallout of the Flux, so I want to rewind a bit and look at what that means for the Doctor.

I know that the Timeless Child and the Flux are contentious topics. I'm not here to argue either way. But now those storylines have decisively not been retconned, and with both of these fresh in my memory, I feel the need to offer some context for anyone who may not have seen it, and to recontextualize it for myself and anyone who has.

NotDonna: You don't know where you're from. The Doctor: How do you know that? How does anyone know? How does Donna know?

In "The Timeless Children", we find out that the Doctor was discovered as a child alone under a wormhole, and adopted by a woman named Tecteun. There was an accident where the Doctor fell from a cliff and regenerated, and subsequently Tecteun performed "experiments" on them to try to understand regeneration. The show minces words about this but she killed a child a whole bunch of times is what happened. Her experiments created the Time Lords and allow them to engineer their regeneration properties. The Doctor has no memory of any of this, and only finds out via the Master and information stored in the Time Lord Matrix.

The Doctor, predictably, doesn't tell anyone about this revelation. She makes a speech to the Master about how this makes her more, we get a single shot of her looking a bit tired in the TARDIS, then she immediately gets thrown in prison.

Ultimately, the Doctor doesn't know where they're from or who their parents are. And the very fact that they're not from Gallifrey is information that no one in the universe should have. Everyone who knew is now dead.

NotDonna: I saw it in your head. The Flux. The Doctor: It destroyed half the universe because of me. We stand here now, on the edge of creation, a creation which I devastated, so yes I keep running, of course I do! How am I supposed to look back on that? NotDonna: It wasn't your fault! The Doctor: I know!

A fun fact about the Flux is that the Doctor did not cause it. So why does he blame himself? Because the person who caused the Flux was Tecteun.

The reason why Tecteun wanted to destroy the universe is because the Doctor interfered with things too much. Too much morality. Too inspirational to people. She calls them a virus. So her solution to the problem of the Doctor is to destroy the universe, with the Doctor inside, and take her ship to a different universe to start fresh. She also was the one to steal all the Doctor's memories of previous lives in the first place. She's dismissive and patronizing and clearly does not care about the Doctor on an emotional level at all. Tecteun is a piece of work, and the implications of her actions and how they've shaped the Doctor have the potential to go deep.

Thirteen doesn't get too much of a chance to react to any of this, because there is plot going on. And shortly after they reunite, Tecteun gets killed by a different villain. So there was no emotional closure in the moment, and there's now no possibility for the Doctor to make sense of her actions. The Doctor does not tell any of her friends about any of these events. She keeps promising to tell Yaz but does not.

"Wild Blue Yonder" is the first time we, as the audience, hear the Doctor discuss the Flux. And their perception of events is skewed at best. The Flux wasn't caused because the Doctor made a mistake and a lot of people were killed, which is what you can argue for many other situations. The Flux and the devastation of the universe was caused by their mother, who promptly turned around and told them it was their fault for being such an interfering nuisance. We know that the Doctor is often an unreliable narrator, but this is beyond that. These are the words of an abused child who has internalized the narrative that the abuse was their fault.

So the Doctor being able to talk about this with Donna, who has seen what happened, who knows him, and tells him that it's not his fault — it means so much to him. He wants it to be her so badly. And then NotDonna laughs in his face. You can see the devastation. He thinks for one moment that he can finally talk about this with his best friend, and it's snatched away from him. He gives himself a moment to break down in the corridor, and then you can see the walls rebuilding as he suppresses it all again.

At the very end of the episode, back in the TARDIS, he's trying very very hard to be nonchalant. I'm curious. The NotDonna could remember all these things that happened to me while we were apart. Can you? Just wondering. Things happened, but I'll be fine. In a million years. It's not a joke.

He wants so badly to be able to talk about this. You can see it in all the lines of his body language. He's keeping himself together but is prepared to fall apart in an instant. He doesn't want to actually tell anyone, but if Donna just magically knew already, and could tell him it wasn't his fault — well, that would make the world of difference. But she doesn't know, and he can't bring himself to tell her. And so the cycle continues.

[rockrosethistle]

Workin Boys was literally the only thing that saved Hidgens from being flanderized beyond recognition

(Spoilers for Workin' Boys)

So what I think a lot of people don't give much thought to is how much Professor Hidgens as a character has evolved since tgwdlm, essentially becoming a parody of himself.

Think of Hidgens as a character. What are his defining traits?

Did you think about how he is a doomsday prepper who has been stockpiling supplies for 20 years? Because that's how he's introduced in Guy.

Did you try think about how he has a weird relationship with his Alexa? Or did we forget about that?

In fact, for the majority of TGWDLM, Hidgens' main character trait is that he says weird shit with a Doc Brown voice.

The whole concept of Workin Boys isn't even introduced until the last half hour of the show. That's where he reveals his real motivation: to live out the musical he wrote as a young man.

Actually, no, that's not right. Because his motivation was world peace, and Workin Boy's was just a convenient means to that end.

I won't disregard the fact that Hidgens clearly has an emotional connection to the show, but in Guy, it serves as a punchline rather than a driving force.

So now we have this lovely, morally-grey, multi-layered character that we can work with.

By the time we get to Time Bastard, the fandom is expecting a show stopping number reference, so of course we get that.

But at this point, Hidge is still that multi-layered character. Sure, showstopping number gets a callback, but we also get a callback to his strange relationship with robots. They make up an equal part of him as a character.

By the time we get to Honey Queen, we have lost several aspects of Hidgens altogether. He is no longer a doomsday-believing recluse. He is now active in the community and his only motivation is to get his show funded. He brings it up at every chance he gets, and his loyalties lie with whoever is more likely to make Workin Boys happen.

So how the hell do we come back from this?

Well, at first it seems like we're not going to. Workin' Boys (the short film) comes out, and it looks like we're leaning even harder into this aspect of his personality than before. But then we get hit with something we're not expecting: Hidge gets the Ted Spankoffski treatment.

I'm referring to Ted's backstory in Time Bastard, where we learn that all of his actions actually stem from a single, traumatic moment, which in his eyes forced him to alter his behaviour, so as to not go through the same trauma again.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

The backstory we get from Hidgens certainly puts things in perspective. No, it's not enough to explain why his behaviour has been so laser-focused on this one show, but it's a start.

Then comes the part that changes everything.

It's left up to interpretation whether these ghosts Hidge is seeing are actually there, or just hallucinations, but that doesn't really matter.

Hidgens had been through a horrible experience, so traumatizing that he is still literally being haunted by it decades later. For one reason or another, he believes that the only way he can relieve himself of these ghosts is by bringing honor to the loved ones he's lost and telling their stories.

This reveal recontextualizes everything we know about Hidgens as a character. Suddenly, this isn't a story about some guy who just really wants to put on his musical, this is a story about guilt. Of course it would be the driving factor in his life. Look at him apologizing to his boys. He feels like he is slandering their memories with everything that goes wrong for the show.

This is supported even more with the ending.

Henry Hidgens dies with a smile on his face, believing he's finally achieved his goal: to tell the real story of what happened that night.

It finally makes sense as to why we've lost those parts of him--we've retconned the character by revealing that all that simplification of his goals and traits wasn't flanderization at all, but a steady downward spiral of grief over his loved ones. It wasn't Hidgens getting a little too into being a playwrite, it was him descending into madness caused by the inability to please the part of himself (or the literal ghosts, if that's how you interpret it) that believes he's not doing enough.

And if not for Workin' Boys, he would have remained that one-dimensional character.

[inbarfink]

So although Order of the Stick is explicitly textually not an actual D&D game with actual players, it’s pretty cool how well Belkar’s character arc work not just as your usual ‘asshole character learns to care’ story but also mirrors the narrative of an asshole troll player learning to play the game seriously.

Like, while the whole Order kinda plays on standard D&D Class Stereotypes on some level, Belkar was always the one who played more into a Player Archetype than a Character Archetype. Maybe because that Player Archetype is often defined as lacking an interest in serious Roleplaying.

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to play a tabletop RPG just for dice-throwing and violence. The problem with That Kind Player is more when they attach themselves to a group that is otherwise interested in character and plot - and rather than finding some sort of compromise with the rest of the group or just looking for a new one more amicable to random violence - they keep hanging around while expressing just a total disinterest in the plot.

And caring for really nothing but scoring as many kills as possible, even if it gets in the way of the group’s general strategy...

And/or the DM trying to tell a compelling narrative...

And sometimes just being disruptive and causing conflict for the lols.

Also, Belkar has, like, objectively the worst build in the entire Order and he started out with no understanding of his Class outside the Two-Weapon Fighting. He really does act just like the One Guy who really wanted to play a double-wielding character because it’s badass, saw it’s a Free Ranger Feat and refused to read any of the other features or flavor text of the class.

So when he befriends Mr. Scruffy, it’s not just the ‘Mean Character Warms His Heart to a Cute Animal’ trope - it’s also figuratively about a player learning how to actually play and roleplay his Class and use other class features that are not directly related to just Stab the Enemies and They Fall Down.

And so much of his character arc is about the realization that he doesn’t really know himself. It is a character arc from an in-universe person but it also parallels a narrative of someone who is learning how to engage with his character for the first time and almost, like, retconning more connection between Belkar and his non-combat class features as the metaphorical Player becomes more invested in using them.

And it’s just… pretty interesting, in a stage where OOTS is really moving away from meta-D&D jokes - that the most meta-D&D part of the comic is the pretty-serious character arc of one of the main party members

And, I dunno…

[flower-boi16]

Why Stolitz is Helluva Boss's Worst Plotline

I don't know how to start this post so I'll just get to the point; Stolitz sucks complete ass and is the worst part of the show. It used to be interesting in season 1 but no longer in season 2, here's why.

1. Stolitz in season 1 (and why it worked)

Let's establish the reason why Stolitz worked in season 1. As we all know, Stolitz is a toxic relationship, it always has been. Stolas only wanted to sleep with Blitz and nothing else, to get all sexual with him and stuff....

And that's why it worked, Stolitz was in an intentionally toxic relationship, and the show treated it as such as seen in Ozzie's, where Blitz tells Stolas he doesn't want to sleep with him anymore. This was an interesting conflict and a lot of people were excited to see where season 2 would take Stolitz going forward after this. How was it going to resolve this conflict? There was a lot of potential...that season 2 has completely destroyed.

2. The Circus Ruins Everything (and here's why)

Now we move onto the season 2 premiere, The Circus, and hooo boy this is where the problems with this relationship begin to show themselves, as we encounter the first problem with Stolitz; Viv trying to retcon her way out of making Stolitz not toxic. The Circus makes the bizarre writing choice of making Blitz and Stolas childhood friends...

This writing decision sucks ass, here's why. Ok, first of all, let's get this out of the way first; this is a retcon. Stolas and Blitz being childhood friends and Stolas loving Blitz all along does not at all line up with any of their interactions throughout season 1, the point of their relationship in season 1 was that Stolas was the only part of Blitzo that Stolas was interested in was his dick and nothing else, this ignores that in favor of painting Blitz and Stolas as UwU childhood friends while forgetting all of their interactions in season 1.

Second of all, it's entirely unnecessary. Nothing about Blitz and Stolas's dynamic changes if you remove this and just have them fall in love as adults. Third, as a previous anon had already pointed out, making Blitz and Stolas childhood friends actually makes Stolas look worse because he's treating his childhood friend like a sex toy rather than a person. We'll get to this later but a major problem with Stolitz is the fact that the show tries to portray Stolas as the UwU sad soft boy victim and ignore how he treats Blitz in favor of making him and UwU soft boy.

The Circus is merely the beginning of that; the show is now starting to try and retcon its way out of making Stolitz not toxic by portraying as a UwU sweet childhood friendship all the while forgetting the actual point of the relationship to begin with. Don't worry, because hoooo boy let's talk about the next problem with Stolitz in season 2 that being...

3. The Feud in Ozzies (and its resolution)

So y'all would know that Stolas and Blitz had a fight at the end of Ozzies, right? Well this is where we enter the second problem with Stolitz; the events of Ozzie's go completely ignored. The next time Blitz and Stolas have an onscreen interaction is the second episode of season 2, Seeing Stars (Aka the only decent episode in this whole season). The two interact and...they just go along like nothing happened. As if they didn't have an argument at the end of season 1. People clearly noticed this and were confused as to why these two were just playing along as if the events of Ozzie's never happened...

Well guess what, episode 4, Western Energy, actually resolves the conflict the two had... off-screen...with a blink and you'll miss it text message. This was the moment I had officially lost my patience with this stupid season. It's just SO damn insulting. So you wanted to see where they could take this plotline after Ozzie's? How could Blitz and Stolas develop and resolve their conflict? Hehe well too fucking bad how about we just pretend that didn't happen and then resolve it with a fucking text message.

This is such a lazy and underwhelming way to resolve a conflict, it feels like Viv didn't know where to take Stolitz after season 1 so she just decided to give their feud an underwhelming resolution that unless you directly pause you would miss. So, the feud Blitz and Stolas had at the end of Ozzie's is completely forgotten about and then resolved off-screen, so fuck you to anybody who was excited to see where they went with this plot line I guess. Now that we have that out of the way...let's talk about the next problem with Stolitz;

4. Blitz's demonization

So season 1 ended with Blitz making it crystal clear to Stolas that he is deeply upset about their relationship only being about having sex with each other, so it's very clear that given how Stolas has been acting towards Blitz, he is the victim and Stolas is the abuser, so, therefore, Blitz is in the right for not loving Stolas given their interactions with each other throughout the whole season...

Ya well watch as season 2 just completely ignores that and tries to paint Blitz as the one in the wrong for not loving Stolas. This is where we enter the next problem with Stolas; treating Blitz as if he is in the wrong for not loving Stolas (or not believing that Stolas does genuinely love him). Stolas has been treating Blitz as nothing but a sex toy throughout all of season 1 and yet the show wants us to believe that BLITZ is in the wrong here??

Episode 6 Oops is where this problem really shows itself. I already ranted about this episode before, however the cage scene where Blitz and Fizz talk about their sex life is indicative of Viv trying to make Blitz look like the bad guy because Stolas did some nice things for him... off-screen. Talk about telling instead of showing. Like I said in that post, it feels like a retcon; we never saw Stolas do any of these nice things for Blitz and that doesn't even line up with his behavior in season 1.

It's also just...lazy. Viv couldn't be bothered to actually SHOW Stolas doing these nice things for Blitz so she just TELLS us that Stolas did all of these things for him so Blitz could look bad. However, it falls flat because once again, it's told to us, not shown. AND EVEN IF we accept that Stolas did do all of these nice things for Blitz, THAT STILL DOESN'T EXCUSE HIS TREATMENT OF HIM!!!

So the show wants us to see Blitz as the bad guy for the crime of not loving Stolas because he treated him like a toy rather than a person, but Blitz is NOT in the wrong for acting this way at all yet the show paints him as the bad guy anyway. The show is basically saying that a victim is in the wrong for getting mad at their abuser for abusing them.

"But Blitz took advantage of his childhood friend!" Yes, Blitz was an asshole, but so was Stolas, yet the show acts as if Blitz is 100% the bad guy and Stolas is 100% an innocent soft boy. Speaking of Stolas...

5. Stolas is terrible

So Stolas is terrible, plain and simple. He is very toxic and abusive to Blitz as I've already gone over. However, for some reason, rather than framing Stolas as the abuser he is, Season 2 opts to instead frame him as an UwU soft boy who supposedly did nothing wrong. This is less of a problem with Stolitz and more with Stolas's character as a whole; the show portrays Stolas as an UwU sad Owl boy and we're supposed to sympathize with him despite him not being a great person.

And Stolitz is where this issue shows itself the most. Season 2 never portrays Stolas as in the wrong for how he treated Blitz in Season 1, instead trying woobify him and simply turning around and saying "oh Stolas just wants a friend! He genuinely does love Blitz! Why doesn't Blitz love him back?!". We clearly are not supposed to see Stolas as the abuser here, however, no matter how you slice it Stolas IS the abuser in this relationship.

And so far the show has never made him apologize to Blitz for how he treated him nor has it tried to make him better himself for Blitz. And it seems like Viv has tried to make Stolas look better in episode 6 with the scene where Blitz says that Stolas did all these nice things for him, but once again it's ineffective because it was off-screen. And once again the decision to make him and Blitz childhood friends ties directly back into this because as I've already said, it makes Stolas look far worse because he's treating his own childhood friend like a sex toy, despite how much the show wants to convince us that Stolas is just an UwU soft boy who did nothing wrong and just wants a friend, and no matter how much the show will demonize Blitz, I can not feel bad for Stolas because he's the abuser, not Blitz.

Stolas is just incredibly unlikeable and hard to sympathize with, especially when it comes to this relationship. "But Stolas genuinely loves Blitz!"- putting aside the fact that was also a retcon, even if Stolas genuinely loves Blitz, that doesn't somehow mean that how Stolas treats Blitz is ok. Despite how much the show wants us to convince us that Blitz is the bad guy here and Stolas is just a victim, Stolas is an abuser, there is absolutely NO denying it.

But what if I told you there is a piece of HB content that exemplifies this issue the most? Well...I promised y'all I'd analyze this video so...without further ado...

6. Let's Tear Apart the "Just Look My Way" music video

The second I finished watching this music video, I KNEW that I had to talk about it in this post. Why exactly? Well aside from it being the worst piece of HB content I have ever seen, it's also...a stolitz song. It shows off the issue of Stolas being woobified in season 2 greatly. In this section, I'm going to analyze the lyrics in the song while explaining why this song is the culmination of my biggest issues with this stupid ship. This entire song is about Stolas singing about how sad he is that Blitzy doesn't love him 🥺, and it is SO telling that this is the message the song is going for given the lyrics like this:

"Let me hold you, keep you close to me I long to hear your voice"

"I don't care that you're of lower station Or primed to sate my dark temptations Why can't you understand? Let me explain!"

These lyrics scream "Blitzy why don't you love me!!!". But that's contrasted by lyrics like...this;

"But dearest, I know better now I must give you this choice"

"I will try to make amends For making you means to an end So, look my way, please, look my way"

This actually sounds like Stolas apologizing to Blitz for how he treated him, which is exactly what I wanted...but the rest of the lyrics are just Stolas saying "Blitzy why don't you love me!!!". It's once again choosing to victimize Stolas rather than actually framing him as the abuser he is. This entire song is the most melodramatic emotionally manipulative shit I've ever seen, it once again portrays Stolas as an UwU soft boy who did nothing wrong and just wants someone to love him.

"But Viv didn't write the lyrics!" For those who don't know, Just Look My Way was a fan song that Viv and her team decided to animate as well as make Stolas's voice actor sing. And yes, Viv did not write this song, a fan did, however my issue is that within the context of the rest of the show up until this point, these lyrics do not do any favors for this ship. And I feel like Viv chose this specific song just so she could make Stolas look like a UwU soft boy again. There's also the fact that Viv changed some of the lyrics as well, removing the little impish plaything line and the one talking about Octavia.

This could be done to make the song closer to canon...but there's also a possibility that Viv did this so she could NOT acknowledge Stolas's actual faults and make the song entirely about Stolitz. This post summed it up pretty well.

So conclusion; Just Look My Way is an awful music video that is horrifically bad when It comes to the context of this relationship and once again tries to make Stolas look sympathetic when he really isn't. This is not how you make a sympathetic character guys. Now let's talk about the final issue with Stolitz...

7. It's Just Plain Toxic

This is the biggest reason why I (and many other critics) dislike Stolitz; it's just plain toxic. It's a toxic ass ship where the abuser is portrayed as the victim while the victim is framed as the abuser, and where the abuser has never gone to better himself for the victim, yet the show wants us to root for this couple to get together for some reason despite that. The show constantly paints this an UwU cute childhood friendship when it's anything BUT that in reality. It's toxic, plain and simple.

8. Conclusion

Look, if you like or ship Stolitz, that's fine, I didn't make this post because I wanted people to stop shipping it. I made this post because I believe Stolitz is easily the worst part of the show, it's a horribly written toxic and abusive romance that we are supposed to root for and the fact that people DEFEND this ship despite it being OBJECTIVELY toxic and unhealthy is baffling to me.

So ya, that's why I hate Stolitz...bye.

[elbiotipo]

Notes on a South Asian Tropical Cyrodiil (and more!)

So, many TES fans know that before Oblivion, Cyrodiil was supposed to be tropical. The most striking phrase to describe it, "most is endelss jungle", says it all. The quick and snarky explanation is that Todd Howard watched LOTR, was "inspired" by it, and that's why everything in Oblivion looks sort of like a Rennaisance Fair. In any case, I think it was a huge missed opportunity, especially in a world where most popular fantasy is European inspired, to have replaced what could have been very cool tropical enviroments with what is frankly a lame "Talos used his magic" lore retcon. You can read the 1st edition of the Pocket Guide to the Empire to see what we missed.

But it's not only Cyrodiil which we missed this way… Tamriel just makes more sense as a tropical continent. While the size and the exact location of the continent is discussed by nerdier nerds than me, I think it does make sense like this, and not only that, we have a very interesting world parallel to compare it to: India. From a tropical rainy south to the cold mountains of Skyrim, Tamriel is surprisingly similar to the Indian subcontinent, and many of its geographical quirks can be explained if, instead of assuming a temperate Cyrodiil, we go all out with that concept. This is going to be a long post, you have been warned.

So with that in mind, I'll try to make a not-so brief tour (with some evocative pictures along the way) of a rebuilt tropical Tamriel, following the rains of the moonson:

The position of Tamriel, in this case, would be roughly where the Indian subcontinent is located in real life, that is again, tropical, stretching the Tropic of Cancer (is there a name for the tropics of Nirn? Interesting to think about) Here, we see our numbers pan out well: Tamriel is mentioned to be between 4000 and 3000km across east to west and 2000 and 3000km south to north. VERY, VERY roughly, there is 4000km between Pakistan and Myanmar, and 3000km from Sri Lanka to the northern tip of Tibet. Plot that on a map, and you already can see some coincidences. Now, this is a rather average continent, not Pangea sized like some imagine Tamriel to be. This does help explain why, for example, the interior of Cyrodiil is rainy and good for agriculture instead of a desert. But it also means that it's very likely that Tamriel is ruled by monsoons. Monsoons are complex, but they basically form when there are plenty of warm places for water to evaporate (the South Indian ocean), and mountains that block cool winds from the opposite direction (the Himalayas). We have a very similar situation here, with a mountainous Skyrim on the north of a tropical Cyrodiil facing an equatorial southern ocean. So, what happens are monsoons, perhaps not as strong as IRL India, but carrying rains very deep into the continent. This would feed the rivers and the rich agricultural areas of Cyrodiil, and would have some other consequences.

So let's imagine our trip South to North. In the South, in Black Marsh, Blackwood and Lleyawiin, and Pellentine (southern Elsweyr) we would find, much like in the original lore, humid tropical climates, jungle, wetlands, and my favorite, mangrooves. I would expect mangrooves to stretch in this whole area, across rivers. In fact, one of the reasons why Black Marsh could be so hard to explore and control by the Empires at Cyrodiil would be the presence of thick mangrooves all over its coast. This is the region of Cyrodiil that would most resemble "endless jungle".

(Rice fields in India, what I imagine most of this Tropical Cyrodiil would look like)

However, as any lore person knows, Anequina, northern Elsweyr, is arid desert. Does this mean a contradiction? Far from it, we have a similar example in IRL India: the Deccan Plateau, which has a semi-arid to arid climate. This can be easily explained by higher elevations up to a small mountain chain separating it from Cyrodiil to the north, and the fact that little rain would reach behind this "Anequina Plateau" would make the region of Kvatch and Anvil more dry much like in canon, in this case, more scrublike. This highland desert would not be as harsh as Elsweyr is usually concieved, maybe, but its driest regions might justify places such as Dune. (On that matter, it always bothered me to read about the "cities" of southern Elsweyr and there being only two or three there. If I had to redesign it, I would move some from the north to the south).

(the Deccan Plateau in India, it gets greener or drier according to the monsoon)

Keeping on our tour of Tamriel, the Topal Bay and the very rainy Black Marsh funnels the rainy monsoon from the south towards central Cyrodiil. Here we find the endless jungle of the Nibenay Valley. But unlike the rainforests of Elsweyr and Black Marsh, these dense forests and rich river plains are mediated by the monsoon winds, with dry seasons alternating with copious rain. This has huge effects on agriculture and culture in general, as agriculture is defined by the rythms of the rain. Keeping with our South Asian theme and the 1st edition of the Guide to the Empire, Cyrodiil would have huge extensions of rice paddies, as well as terrace farming and much hardier crops in the highlands, instead of the… well, almost absent agriculture we saw in Oblivion. The food, clothing, architecture and overall culture of Cyrodiil would be very different with this. The original Pocket Guide said some of its main exports besides rice and fruit are moon sugar and silk. Moon sugar in Cyrodiil, can you believe it?

Another thing I imagine Cyrodiil would be famous for would be fish and seafood, well, river food. Rice plantations can host fishes and crustaceans to get some extra protein, and well, what about mudcrabs? Hell, as preparing muddy soil is vital for rice cultivation, no wonder mudcrabs are considered a nuisance. Imagining critters in gameplay in such an enviroment also makes my mind roam. Tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, and this is not even getting into the more mythical creatures you could find, instead of endless wolves… Rice cultivation is also more labor intensive than other crops, and it also has a deep impact on the terrain, "terraforming" so to say, huge expanses into paddies and terrace farms. This level of cultivation also requires an established infraestructure of irrigation. While this does not necessarily means a centralized goverment, as farmers can build it and maintain it by themselves, the rise of an empire, i.e., the Empire, will also increase the complexity of these systems, adding canals, dams, reservoirs and more ambitious projects, like we see in India and China. I am sure some people more knowledgeable about those cultures can comment more.

While this Cyrodiil is a tropical/subtropical region covered in "endless jungle", some parts might indeed resemble the rolling hills and grasslands you see in Oblivion. Deforesting jungle for pasture is something very common around the world (some have joked this mass deforestation was later in canon explained as a gift from Talos lol) and you can see the results, like in tropical Australia and my closer Mata Atlantica, do superficially resemble temperate pastures in say, Europe. Until you notice the palm trees, of course. But yes, I can see the Nords being a mostly herding people (more on that below) bringing their sheep and cows to the tropical lowlands and, well, deforesting to make space for them.

(ranches in Sao Paulo state, Brazil, notice the palm trees)

Imperial City just so happens to be built in an island in the middle of several river crossings, in what seems to be a swampland. The first thing that came to mind when I read that was Tenochtitlán. The districts of Imperial City would have been built over the centuries on artificial islands on a shallow lake, using plentiful mud and organic matter to make fertile chinampas. I believe this would make for a striking sight. Instead of just a city in the middle of a empty island, you would see the White-Gold tower and the rest of Imperial City rising from Lake Rumare, surrounded by rich farmland and its districts joined by walkways. (much like the old descriptions, actually, could you believe I wrote that without reading them?)

(Reconstruction of Tenochtitlán... and I just noticed, it's surrounded by (volcanic) mountains too, much like Imperial City)

Much like the Pantanal is one of the sources to the Paraguay River (which merges with the Paraná and then the Río de la Plata) IRL, here, the swamps of central Cyrodiil would be the source of the Niben. This does raise an interesting question, where is the source of the Niben? Is it Lake Rumare? No, I believe it would be several smaller rivers all the way from Bruma and even Skyrim. These small, violent mountain rivers eventually flow into the Rumare wetlands and only THEN in the placid great Niben. You DON'T want to be caught in one of the mountain valleys in rainy season. This does raise the question; won't the developments upriver, like Imperial City itself and the surrounding farmland, affect the course of the river downwards? There's plenty of water from the rain, but a more developed Cyrodiil might indeed have to grapple with this, supposing, for example, they manage to dam the river.

Looking west, we got the Colovian region, said to be composed of drier highlands and cliffs in the early Pocket Guide. Probably cut from the rain because of the Anequina Plateau, this is indeed more arid or "mediterranean", though I actually see it as more Australian. Maybe some of the drier parts near Hammerfell, resembling Argentine Cuyo and the northwest, would be a distant cry from the wetlands, having thorny dry forests and dry valleys, where yes, you could plant wine. The wetter cloud forests (much like the Yungas in South America, the place where the rain reaches last) could maybe be the home of the last pre-Imperial cultures of Cyrodiil. Fascinating places.

(Jujuy, Argentina. Just *near* are the Yungas cloud forests, where the last rains from the Atlantic meet the Andes, making for some AMAZING places)

Given that I mentioned enviroments near to/on the Andes IRL, let's talk about potatoes. Potatoes are unique crops, because they are the only ones who offer such calories and also be planted in cold enviroments like Europe. Or Skyrim. The discovery and spread of potatoes would cause demographic shifts on people living in cold areas. And they also originated in a unique enivorment IRL: the Andes, actually with possible hybridization from the Magallenic foresWHAT I MEAN, is that potatoes are very important and have been domesticated in very specific conditions. The Wroghtgarian Mountains would seem like a perfect equivalent of the Andes at the first glance, but they would be very different. The Andes, located between the Pacific Ocean and the greater Amazonian region, are very, very unique enviroments. These mountains, however, are in between inner seas. Something like the Atlas or the Alps? In any case, if there is some people who would appreciate hardy tubers that can grow in mountainous places, they are for sure the Orcs, or perhaps the Reachmen. Maybe an hybridization even between them?

This returns me back to Bruma and Skyrim. Some people (who make those excellent Oblivion mods) imagine Bruma with a Tibetan flavor. Personally, I imagine it more like Pakistan or Afghanistan, with lots of mesas and plateaus and valleys. It would look dry and rocky with some very fertile valleys by snowmelt, but it would look like a snowy wonderland on winter, indeed, Pakistan and Afghanistan are very snowy. Eventually, of course, ending up in the great barrier of the Jerall mountains and finally, Skyrim.

(the Alps? Skyrim? No, this is Kashmir on winter!)

In this scenario, Skyrim would be a quite dry place… or would it? There is no need for the Jeralls to be a straight line of peaks like the Himalayas. They could be a more "broken" series of mountains, like the southern Andes, but in any case, the rain from the south would clash into the higher mountains. Indeed, that is what actually happens in the Himalayas, the foothills of the Himalayas are some of the rainest places IN THE WORLD. These small valleys are something very unique and not very well known part of the world IRL. I can imagine the Skyrim equivalent would be as unique too, hard to navigate and live in. The forests of the Rift and Falkreath would be mazes of windy forests valleys, each with their own unique secrets under a perpetual fog and drizzle. This is a very interesting enviroment to imagine, where again, some of the older cultures of Tamriel could still live.

(forests of Bhutan, note how the humid valleys stretch into the distance before the cold Himalayas begin)

However, what does Skyrim look like once you cross the border with Ralof? I imagine some sort of more fertile Tibet, not as high as the Tibetan plateau, allowing for forest and alpine tundra. This is mostly because, while Skyrim is high up, I don't imagine as a plateau, but rather a series of broken mountains like the North American Rockies, which makes sense when you account for all the volcanic activity (there is another super-volcano down in Skyrim but nobody notices). I imagine that Skyrim would be a primarily herding pastoral land before the introduction of hardier crops such as potatoes, and even then. Nord culture would be very interesting reimagined like this; hillforts guarding herds of sheep and cows. It would also create a clash between the very, very agrarian south and the nomadic herding north, with High Rock and Hammerfell a gradient between the two.

I decide I will stop here, I haven't even touched Valenwood (though its subtropical forest seems rather coherent to me), High Rock (the most boring part of Tamriel IMO), Hammerfell, Summerset Islands (if you don't have tropical elves in your setting, you're a coward), or whatever the hell is going on Morrowind. But I hope you enjoyed this worldbuilding exercise and how to make sense of Tamriel's crazy geography. Next time, I'll try to play with tectonics and see if we can make it even more interesting.

But here we enter a problem; if we are operating on a level where Cyrodiil is roughly at the same latitude of India, wouldn't that make Skyrim too far from the poles to allow its tundra like climate, even with elevation? No doubt. Tibet is only as cold as it is because it's the roof of the world and far from any ocean. The northernmost tip Skyrim, like Tibet, would be at the latitude of Turkey, Korea or California, which can get quite cold, but not to the level of what we see on Winterhold or Dawnstar (Solitude sounds familiar, though). What's more, having an ocean up north would only moderate the temperature. Cool currents often don't bring cold per-se, just decrease rainfall. This would end with a very temperate and pleasant Skyrim instead of tundra. Which is on its own, interesting to explore.

Could Nirn be going through an ice age, like it's implied with the dissapearance of Atmora? Possibly, but it would imply revising everything I said before, as ice ages decrease rainfall and mess up with weather patterns all over the world. A colder Nirn would explain a lot, though.

If you liked what you read and would like more worldbuilding, consider tipping me on Ko-Fi and send me stuff to talk about, or just send an ask! I'm the kind of guy who reads encyclopedias and RPG manuals for fun, so I have plenty to talk about about everything from fantasy to science fiction to speculative evolution and alternate history!

[tslittlecaesars]

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)

[fraudulent-cheese]

Actually no, i want to expand on my relative dislike of WT. Because when people talk about this season's faults, i BARELY see people mentionning the complete flatterning of like half it's cast!

Oh sure, people are super willing to throw shit at TDA and especially TDAS for it's flanderisation of characters, but outside of some rogue posts by mutuals, i don't see ANY OF YOU pointing the finger at World Tour when i'd argue it's especially eggregious.

Owen's the easiest example of this, and while it didn't start this season it got so much during it. Nearly all of his lines revolve around food, his aerophobia, or Izzy for a single episode. His relationship with Alejandro is also super indicative of this; im willing to accept the HC that he was aware of Alejandro's dislike of him and just wanted to win him over, but that's absolutely not what the writters intended, no way in hell. He's just completely oblivious to his shitty behavior when he seemed at least somewhat aware of Heather's shifty behavior back on Island, or at least able to stand up for himself (shoutouts to that one Action episode). It's not fun to watch, either.

Bridgette too had her personality reduced to one or two traits, for either comedy reasons (because apparently people making out 24/7 is funny) or story reasons (establishing Alejandro as a threat who uses flirting and his general attractiveness to advance his strategy) and it suckssssss because she was! an actual character! and World Tour especially benefits from having a 'straight man' type character that can look at the other's weirdness and react to it like a normal-ish person! That and she could be an interesting presence to have on Team Victory, with her friendships with Leshawna and Courtney for instance.

DJ too is a BIG victim of the flanderisation thing; his personality is dumbed down to just being a huge scaredy cat, and his character is just The Curse. That's all he does and that's all he is, all he talks about. And that sucks because he too, was an actual person in Island and even Action! Sure, he was sometimes a pushover and had an accident-prone bunny, but he was also kind and could actually go out of his way to play pranks on people! But all of that is just gone in WT.

There's also the characters that weren't flanderised, and more just. Written entirely out of character. Outside of the entire Love Triangle (which i will get to) the biggest example of this is Leshawna to me. The writters straight forget the episode in Action where she's entirely dsitrustful of the Pizza they were offered (which did turn out to be tampered with) due to Chef being uncharasterically nice to them. Guess what Alejandro was doing. Being overly nice to her out of nowhere. Frankly she fell victim to the same thing Bridgette did; needing to be sacked for Alejandro's villany to be better established.

Ok fuck i need to mention the Love Triangle too because while people complain about it alot i don't think they complain about the correct stuff. i'll go rapid fire because it's been talked to death however; Gwen's liking of Duncan is a retcon, her acting like this is out of character for her frankly, Duncan's out of character by trying to emotionally manipulate his ex and the lore established to justify it makes it worse (remember the "At least im straight with people" line?), Courtney is villanised from even before this point which while her anger might've been targetted at the wrong person she was justified in being upset imo, Courtney's entire character is thrown out of a window in general this season, blah blah blah.

I'll end on the whole "the writters forgetting entire character traits/arcs" Cody still hitting on Gwen this season makes no goddamn sense and is super uncomfortable to watch. He's really such a nothing character man. Sierra deserved better than being a manic pixie stalker girl.

[bnhaobservation]

My two cents about chap 426

Hum... maybe I should call this my SIX cents about chap 426 because I'm gonna look at that chapter from three different perspectives.

The first is the Doylist one, in which I'll try to discuss what I think Horikoshi meant with what he represented in the chapter. I'm not Japanese and I might be wrong so take everything with a grain of salt.

The second is the Watsonian one, in which I'll focus on the story itself.

The third... is watching the chapter not keeping into consideration the chapter as a story filled with Japanese culture aimed at Japanese readers but as if it were a story that follows my culture and is aimed at me. This third analysis is here because there's actually a huge cultural clash between how many scenes would look to a Japanese audience and how they look to a person of my culture.

It's food for thoughts about how different cultures can see the same things differently and, while I'm a western, this doesn't mean I expect allt he western to feel the same as there are plenty of countries in the west and while they've similar views... they still can be different among them so it's fine if other westerns would read the chapter in an even different way.

Also this is not meant to be a compaint at Horikoshi or a critic to Japanese culture, just an acknowledgement different cultures see things differently.

Of course you can choose to skip to read one of those three parts if it doesn't interest you.

It's up to you.

Said so let's start.

Doylist commentary: So I’ve already discussed in a previous post how normally, the general attitude of a family would be to dump Touya to his own devices… so, as to prove the Todoroki instead are there to see Touya because they care about him, we’ve the opening discussion in which it’s clearly said not only they are all there but also that they aren’t there merely for a sense of duty. It’s Horikoshi’s roundabout way to say the family CARES.

By the way Fuyumi, Rei and Natsuo got a haircut. While it's obviously due to the hair burning cutting off hair in ancient Asia (Japan, china, Korea & possibly some other Asian cultures) used to symbolize being banished or rejected from their home (which fits with how the family is kind of a social pariah) but currently, cutting long hair into a short cut means to forget the past, leaving the old and starting anew (which might fit with how the family is starting a new life).

So I think Horikoshi also kept this into consideration when he had them cut hair.

We aren’t told where they are but it’s probably either a Villain hospital (they got mentioned in the Overhaul arc)...

...or just a prison as the guy in the room is dressed in a way that’s similar to the guards that were in Tartarus.

Touya is in a medical contraption which looks like a coffin as the guard explain he’s slowly dying.

He looks terrible, Horikoshi even got rid of his hair, which Touya had instead kept through the whole battle. He looks so bad (there are even nails that, I guess, hold still his head and what seems to be mechanical contraptions  around his jaw and neck, never mentioning the restrains that hold his body still… though we can’t see anymore the cables that were visible in the previous chapter… guess Horikoshi retconned his previous design…) some readers have compared him to a Cenobite. For who has no idea what a Cenobite is, they’re characters from the Horror movie “Hellraiser”, extra-dimensional beings who are mutilated and brainwashed into torturing humans for all eternity. Likely the visual look is to sweeten the pill that Touya is meant to die. In such a state it will seem cruel to keep him alive.

The announcement Touya is about to die is likely meant for the readers, not for the family, as they probably already know, hence not only there’s no reaction from them but this is also meant to be Horikoshi’s attempt to clue the readers in the fact we’ve to let Touya die.

His family has no hope he’ll survive and it’s doing nothing in this sense which is also a way to tell us we’re meant to deal with it... and Horikoshi likely chose this as this is the most ergonomic solution for Touya's ending.

Japan has death penalty, and fighting so that Touya would survive, only to sentence him to death for his crimes afterward, would be counterproductive for the story as it would only stretch it and make it sadder.

I’m pretty sure Horikoshi thinks letting Touya die on his own is a good compromise.

The following talk between Touya and Enji is a mean to conclude both Enji and Touya’s arcs.

The remark that Enji always meant to retire is here to tell us it’s not just because he can’t fight anymore, so he’s forced to. You might remember Enji himself said ‘Endeavor’ died back when he woke up in the hospital at the end of the first war.

The fact Horikoshi also had Enji’s body being basically destroyed (along with Fuyumi and Rei getting scarred) is part to show the consequences of their mistakes, part to symbolically have the family also share what Touya went through (when he burned himself over and over).

We’ve a lot of close up on eyes, to go back with the theme of looking, of how Touya only wanted for his father to look at him and how he’s been looking at him the entire time.

There’s another visual good reason why Enji is on a wheelchair.

When Enji says he’ll come to talk with Touya, Horikoshi represents Touya as standing, dressed as Dabi and with the scars Dabi had prior to his reveal but with Touya’s hairstyle. Visually it’s to tell us both identities have merged. Touya isn’t dead… but he’s no more just Touya, Dabi is part of who he is. His arm is missing but HE IS STANDING, he’s not trapped in that contraption. Enji is also represented without bandages or burns… but he’s still seated on a wheelchair. This forces him to look up at his son, while Touya looks down at him. Even though now Enji isn’t saying sorry, his words and the visual imply this is also an apology to Touya, even if Enji already said to him he was sorry after the end of the fight.

This is BIG in Japan so in this way Horikoshi makes the scene more emotional.

Now… previously Touya didn’t want to talk, he wanted to be seen by Enji. His catchphrase was ‘look’ not ‘hear’ (as this chap itself remind us).

He was desperate to show his father what he can do. In chap 390, moments before Shouto saved the day, Horikoshi introduced the idea he wanted to talk with his family.

It wasn’t a bad idea, first of all because now he’s not in the state to show much, so either Horikoshi were to kill him short after he almost blew up Japan, or they wouldn’t have much to watch now. Introducing the idea he wanted to talk as a way to ‘translate’ his ‘I want to be seen’ gives them something to do with the additional time they’ve with him and could be considered foreshadowed by the times Touya tried to talk with his family and they didn’t really listen to him. So the idea that seeing him could also be done by talking with him works.

It’s also an extra attempt to make clear to the readers Touya’s soul will be soothed/saved even if he’s going to die (I’ve discussed how this might be important for Japanese readers while it often falls flat to western readers in another post).

Horikoshi also kind of give closure to the Touya/Shouto narrative. By giving them the same favorite food he draws a connection between the two siblings.

The reminding of their fight isn’t just here to remind us of how the battle. What Touya said before that bit was they shared the same blood but were really different. Now instead he’s shown Shouto has something in common with him, something good and nice like a shared taste for a certain food. This denies Touya’s words that they run in parallel but forever apart and with Touya apologizing to Shouto, in a single blow Horikoshi ends the feud between the two siblings as well as giving Touya the chance to do what he wanted to do when he woke up in the orphanage, apologizing.

It can also be that this little exchange was something Horikoshi long planned, as for a long time he had kept Touya’s tastes hidden in his profile so that he could reveal it here.

I know there had been wondering if Touya’s tears are real (hence either his tear ducts regenerated or he lied previously) or bloody or something else. I think the whole point of it according to Horikoshi is that Touya, who used to cry a lot as a kid (and whose tears eventually almost killed him as the fire at Sekoto Peak started from them)...

...then became unable to cry.

Touya was (almost) killed by his own pain and desperation and once he was forced to not show it... well, this also lead him to become a Villain.

The message was not that he wasn’t suffering anymore, but that he couldn’t express it anymore (which is not a good thing)… with Horikoshi going for alternative ways to show him being in pain (his losing blood the hair die dripping  from his eyes and so on) that you would notice only if you were paying attention, in short ‘looking at him’.

Now Touya is being looked at and can express his pain as well, though this time is a bittersweet one.

So I don’t think the idea is we should ask ourselves how he can cry, and if it was a lie he couldn’t, but just enjoy the message.

It’s bloody tears? Is he magically able to shed tears again? Or it’s just a symbolic scene? Repeat the MST3K Mantra and just enjoy the fact he’s finally capable to express his pain and WHY because it’s hugely unlikely we’ll get an answer on the why (though maybe the anime might show if they’re bloody tears or not).

Horikoshi gives less space to the closure of the Rei/Touya and Fuyumi/Touya narrative, just having them tell him they want to talk with him.

I think Horikoshi considered the Rei/Touya narrative closed when he had Rei apologize to Touya. Yes, Touya said he wanted to also apologize to his mom, but I think the idea is that Touya’s apology to Shouto is meant to work as a reminder Touya wanted to apologize so Horikoshi doesn’t feel the need to show us that scene.

As for the Touya/Fuyumi narrative… Horikoshi hardly paid it any attention. The only interaction we see between the two of them prior to disaster striking has a 3 years old Fuyumi telling him she doesn’t want him to get hurt, which lead Touya to claim she doesn’t understand. When Fuyumi shows up on the battle ground she fundamentally say something similar by claiming she can’t bear to lose anyone else.

However Horikoshi might have meant for the closure not be her words but her actions. Fuyumi accepts to get burned in order to try to save her family parallels how Touya got himself burned to try to get his father to see him, they both burned because they couldn't bear the pain of not doing anything.

Long story short the reason why Horikoshi hardly give space to Rei and Fuyumi might be that he thinks he had closed their narratives with Touya already.

If, Enji, Rei, Fuyumi and Shouto were all the Todoroki family members I’ll say that the story of the Todoroki family has definitely ended with this chapter. Don’t take me wrong, there’s plenty of things I would wish to see them do and say with Touya, but Horikoshi might feel he had them say all that truly mattered and leave the rest to the readers’ imagination.

However… there’s still the matter of Natsuo.

This chapter mostly seems to close the Enji/Natsuo narrative, but not the Touya/Natsuo one.

In fact it’s noteworthy how through the discussion the only one who said nothing to Touya and tried not to look at him is Natsuo...

and the only moment Natsuo is shown looking is the moment Touya close his eyes.

There’s basically zero interaction between the two of them.

Now… I don’t blame Natsuo for failing to help his brother when he was solely a child of 8… but the story did. The interaction we were shown had Natsuo dismiss an already crying Touya, causing him further grief. In two chapters (302 & 388) Horikoshi has Natsuo thinks if he has talked to Touya or heard him out it would have made a difference.

Now though, Horikoshi leaves him silent.

There’s more.

I know there’s plenty of people who is cheering on the idea Natsuo won’t meet Enji anymore, which seems also how Horikoshi closes the Enji/Natsuo narrative … but this however indirectly means Natsuo won’t meet Touya anymore. Touya can speak with people only few minutes per day and Enji will be there all the days. This means there’s no time for Natsuo to meet his brother outside of the time his father will also be there.

Either the closure to the Touya/Natsuo narrative is that the two will never meet again (so they won’t have a chance to talk again and reconcile) or we’ll get another interaction between Touya and Natsuo.

Since Horikoshi raised a point previously that implied the importance of Touya and Natsuo talking, to me it feels a bit weird he would decide to go this way.

Let me be clear again, this is not about denying Natsuo the possibility to decide he’s furious with his brother and doesn’t want to see him anymore. This is about Horikoshi tossing in previously the idea it would have been important for Natsuo to talk with Touya and him regretting not doing and… then having him not do it again. While it’s a legitimate choice for Natsuo to make, in terms of story writing is kind of an odd choice… especially because Natsuo’s words seem to imply he’s trying to leave the past behind (even the visual places him ahead, in front of his family which is behind him)…

...which again, fair choice, but there was a whole narrative in the story about how the past doesn’t die so I’m not sure why Horikoshi would want instead let Natsuo go this way.

So I think it’s possible we’ll get another Touya/Natsuo interaction… which might include a Todoroki family/Natsuo interaction as well. Maybe Natsuo will bring his girlfriend to meet Touya. It would make a good chance for her to be introduced to us readers as well before the end as so far we only caught a glimpse of her.

On another note Horikoshi apparently has this chapter ends the narrative of Enji’s atonement.

No, it doesn’t mean Enji has finished atoning, just that he has find his way to atone.

Enji is taking responsibility for how his actions caused what Touya did (taking responsibility was something he refused to do before) and now he’ll spend his life protecting his family. It’s a compromise of the narrative Heroes hurt their family to save others. Enji is trying to do both so this narrative is also in a way closed by having a Hero who tries to do both.

Natsuo says responsibility has been taken and punishment dished out…

‘........ Shōjiki sekinin wa hatashita to omou batsu mo uketa to omou… mō ī nja ne ̄ no?’

「........正直責任は果たしたと思う　罰も受けたと思う…もういいんじゃねーの？」

“...Honestly, I think responsibilities have been taken and punishment has been received... isn't it enough now?”

…Enji continues to say he’ll keep on taking responsibility and try to protect his family (and therefore their future). This was what he had assumed was the duty of the Number 1 when he had talked with All Might so that discussion comes to a full circle as well. He faced Touya (aka accepted to dance with him in hell) and will keep on protecting the future of the people and his children by trying to protect them by the scandal/sparks/fiery fallout.

What’s the scandal/sparks/fiery fallout?

Many wanted Enji to be legally punished for the abuse he forced his family to undergo… but that’s not something Japanese society really cares, that’s viewed more like a personal family matter between all the Todorokis… and none of the Todorokis is asking for legal compensation that’s why Horikoshi won’t have Enji be put under trial.

What society blames THE WHOLE TODOROKI FAMILY for (yes, even Shouto even though he hardly had a part in this) is being the family that gave birth to Dabi who was among the ones who went at war with the current society (again, I’ve talked about it in a past post). It’s legally not a crime to have a child who became a criminal… but Japanese society will give you hell for it, hence Enji wants to protect his children from this and take the whole blame on himself.

Horikoshi likely means for THIS to be punishment for Enji’s mistakes (along with the death of ‘Endeavor’ and the damage his body suffered). As Natsuo said THIS WILL BE HELL (at least in theory) so it’s not like Enji is supposedly getting off lightly.

However a foreign reader might miss it because we don’t really get to see the ‘hell’ part. Shouto is in class A who’ll protect him (normally they won’t, Shouto would be ostracized at best, bullied and forced to leave school at worst), Natsuo’s girlfriend is still willing to marry him (normally she would dump him), Fuyumi had to leave her job but she was immediately helped find another one (normally her chances to be hired by people who were to know who she is would be 0) while all of Enji’s sidekicks and Kurumada are there to support him (normally they wouldn’t want to support him) and Hawks is there to support him too (and the story forgot about how Hawks too was involved in a scandal as the fact Hawks is the son of a criminal is a big deal too, even if Hawks’ situation is better than the Todoroki’s). The hell part is a given for Japanese readers so Horikoshi doesn’t feel the need to show it but he shows only that it won’t be only misery.

There’s also something else here. By remarking how things will be fine for the Todorokis because they’ve people supporting them, Horikoshi clearly means to underline the importance of having people supporting others. In the story those who had support always managed to handle things in the end no matter how hard they were, so it’s likely this what Horikoshi is stressing.

Two words about Nagant and La Brava and Gentle.

As I’ve said in a past post, contributing to the fight against AFO was going to be the way for Villains to get forgiven for their crimes. It’s a recurring trope in manga and it works in real life too so I’m not surprised Horikoshi presents them as they’re all pardoned.

The only downside I see in this is that by representing Nagant as okay to stay in prison he forgets how he represented Tartarus as a place where violation of the human rights was an okay thing. Yeah, his idea is probably she was moved and placed in a better prison but still, the narrative has kind of washed away how Tartarus was terrible in more than one situation (prisoners like Stains were first shown to be kept tied all the time but when there’s the escape they’re all free and La Brava said being put in jail was beneficial for Gentle).

Horikoshi clearly let everyone cover up how the Commission jailed Nagant for the wrong crime and it’s not presented as something bad. Revealing it is avoided because it would create chaos and distrust again so the story now only place Hawks, a person who means well, in charge of the commission and this is all the insurance the Japanese audience need to know things from now on will go on well.

It’s possible the idea is also Hawks’ narrative has ended. He lost his Quirk which in a way saved him as it was due to it the Commission took him away from his mother but also it was due to it he became the Commission’s lapdog and now he sits at the top of the commission. He’s basically free and can use the Commission’s power to make a better world. As I said it seems Horikoshi cut short the whole scandal part which regarded Hawks to close his narrative in a positive light.

In a way it almost seems there’s a clash in how the Todoroki family narrative involves the scandal being still alive while the Hawks narrative just let it go. In real life society would probably still give Hawks hell because in Japan you’re just not supposed to have a relative who’s a criminal.

In the story though, while the Todoroki family was held accountable for what happened with Touya (Touya was stated to be the Todoroki’s family sin and hence Shouto had to deal with it), Hawks wasn’t hold accountable for what happened with his parents so Horikoshi gave him a free pass thinking his readers wouldn’t mind (just to make clear I DON’T HOLD HAWKS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE FACT HIS FATHER WAS A CRIMINAL… but Japanese society often thinks differently).

Hawks is even missing the cut Himiko gave him on his cheek as it apparently left no scarring (or Horikoshi forgot it).

So this might be the last we see of him… unless Horikoshi is going to address him a little more due to the Hawks/Jin/Himiko narrative. Will he be involved in sparing a Villain’s life instead than urging Heroes to kill them or killing them himself? We’ll see. I’m not taking him wanting to get Nagant out of jail as an answer to this as he was supportive of Nagant previously as well. Long story short it’s possible we’ll see more of Hawks but it’s also possible that’s all we need to see.

Lastly, the scene with Shūichi at Central Hospital is clearly meant to imply the next chapter will address his narrative.

We know Midoriya was meant to bring to him Tomura’s last words. Shōji might drop a visit as well to talk about Heteromorphs and ways to cope about discrimination or he might want to talk about the future of Heteromorphs. On another note, Horikoshi might remember in his world building he has decided who carries more than one Quirk, unless it’s All for One, will have a shorter lifespan (remember Hikage?) so he might be planning to tell us Shūichi, who now has three, will soon die of old age. Killing him too like it was done for Tomura, like it will be done for Touya and, possibly, like it was done for Himiko (unless they saved her) is ergonomic as it spares Horikoshi from telling us  Shūichi  will be jailed and sentenced to death to give us a tamer ‘he accepted 2 Quirks from AFO and now he faces the unavoidable consequences’. Not that it makes me happy but we’ll see.

So here ends how I think Horikoshi wanted us to read this chapter. I’m not Japanese, I might be wrong as I might have missed some cultural clues but I like to hope I was, at least, close enough. I think for Japanese readers it will be an emotional and fulfilling chapters and they’re probably going to enjoy it a lot.

Watsonian commentary:

So as I expected the Todoroki family is gone to see Touya. This seems the first time they see him, but since he seems to be in some sort of Villain hospital it’s possible it took time for them before they were being allowed to see him. That or for a while Touya was in coma or something like that because yes, some of the Todorokis might not have been up to see him immediately after the fight but some others weren’t so bad.

Of course there’s the possibility they preferred to wait for everyone before going there but I prefer to think they either had to wait to be legally allowed or that it was Touya who previously couldn’t see anyone.

Touya is in some sort of contraption… but the most it’s doing is keeping him alive a little longer as we’re told he’s slowly dying. This tube in which he’s put in is more like a coffin than the one in which Tomura was put in and it can be conveniently placed horizontal and vertical. To allow Touya to talk with the others they put him in an horizontal position. It’s worth to mention the room Touya is in seems dark and, anyway, the others can’t be in the same room as him, they see him through a glass.

The family is composed and calm despite being told Touya is about to die, Touya, seeing them there is sarcastic, pointing out he’s not a tourist attraction. He’s keeping distance from them, even though they all came to see him during the war and now, his words point out how he doesn’t seem to believe they came there for him, that if they were to be there it would be because they thought to find some ‘amusement’ in seeing a tourist attraction.

It’s a jab meant to hurt, as they never looked at him before and the little they did previously came too late… but it’s also possibly a hidden plea to point him wrong. Touya wants to be seen.

Enji fundamentally tells him he succeeded in killing ‘Endeavor’ and in having flames that are way hotter than his own.

Touya insists it’s too late, that Enji is playing nice now when it’s all over and that he’s being a coward.

While Enji agrees with him, now he keeps on staring at him and takes responsibility again. Midoriya has said Touya wasn’t Endeavor so Enji couldn’t be blamed for his actions but Enji takes blame for them anyway.

He says something interesting here.

‘Dare ga nanto iou to........ Omae no honō (netsu) wa ore no HELLFLAME da’

「誰が何と言おうと........　おまえの炎（ねつ）は俺の『ヘルフレイム』だ」

“Whatever people try to say… Your flames (read: heat/rage/mania/madness/passion) are my Hellflame.”

This seems a nice way to also call back how Touya said that the fire inside him was lighted by Enji and wouldn’t go away… as well as a nice tie with how Touya thought he was in hell and invited Enji to join him. Enji’s rage/madness was passed down to Touya, burned inside him and became Touya’s rage/madness. Enji is no more telling him to just forget and move over, he’s accepting Touya couldn’t.

We see Touya’s eyes squeezing a little, even if he’ll hardly talk through this chat and we hardly can see clearly his emotions his eyes tell a story of their own.

Enji acknowledges it’s far too late but promises he’ll spend the rest of the time Touya has talking with him. In short this time he’ll be there for him, he’ll pay him attention. Touya says nothing but his heart speeding up shows he’s affected. Enji encourages the rest of the family to do the same and encourage Touya to tell him whatever he wants, even if he hates him, which is a repeat of what he told him once they managed to stop him. Fuyumi and Rei also say they want to talk with him but Touya closes his eyes.

For once he won’t be looking at his family, though more likely the reason isn’t he doesn’t want to see them but that he’s just keeping his emotions bottled inside.

Natsuo instead says nothing and this is the first time he looks at his brother… though he has an uncertain expression. It seems as if Natsuo hasn’t quite decided what to do with his brother. His last words to Touya were a scolding… but also moved by how Natsuo felt guilty because in the past he didn’t listen Touya.

In the past Natsuo used anger to hide his pain so back then Natsuo probably used it to hide his sense of guilt. In a way he’s similar to Touya and Enji. Now though… he seems uncertain, he probably hadn’t come to term yet with what had happened.

The family is told to leave and return tomorrow. I guess they’ll be allowed free access. Shouto though still wants to ask Touya about his favorite food but, at first, he gets no reply either, Touya’s eyes still close, while Natsuo turns away his face. It’s when the family is about to leave and Touya is lying down in that dark room he finally replies, telling Shouto his favorite food is Soba, which Shouto confirms also being his favorite food.

It’s meaningful Shouto is the only one who got his brother to reply to him in a somewhat normal tone… even though Touya needed to do it once he was kind of hidden by everyone’s sight… or that he did it  when he thought everyone was leaving as if to say he didn’t really want that.

That tiny word is Touya accepting to talk with them peacefully, but, more importantly, with Shouto. His family has tried to reach out for him, and, of all of them, he reacted to Shouto’s question. It’s probably also Touya’s way to make peace with them. He had hated Shouto, he had said he wanted him dead but now… he’s starting from him to talk with his family. And the fact they have in common something, their own favorite food, makes everything even more tragic because those two siblings could have gotten along, they had things in common, if they had been given the chance they could have gotten along and loved each other just fine but… now it’s late and they’ve only a short time left.

Touya cries when he hears Shouto, like him, loves Soba, he’s finally able to see his brother not as someone way too different from him for him to connect to Shouto but as someone likes him and this allows him to apologize to Shouto, even if the visual seems to imply Shouto didn’t hear him as it was done when Shouto was already out of the building… or at least that’s the impression I get from the images.

As said before, apologizing is a BIG DEAL in Japan so this matters a lot more than it would in the west.

Once they’re outside what’s probably some sort of Villain hospital, Natsuo says he’s cutting bridges with Enji and won’t see him anymore. By default, this means he won’t see Touya anymore either, as Touya can get visits only for few minutes at day and Enji promised he’ll go there all the days.

Likely it’s not just for all he said in past chapters when he admitted being angry with Enji and feeling bad when he sees him.

Touya is a criminal and his whole family, but especially Endeavor as he’s a public figure and a Hero, is held accountable for this. Touya has made a video for the purpose to make sure society, who would have already normally blamed his family for Touya’s actions, had even more incentives to blame Enji. As Natsuo himself said, what expects them after what Touya has done is hell. Society will hold them accountable as if they had agreed to what Touya did.

Cutting bridges with Enji (and Touya) is a common way for many criminals’ family members to try to escape the social hell that await them.

You might notice Natsuo said:

‘Kanojo to seki iretai-shiki wa agenai shōkai mo shinai.’

「彼女と籍入れたい式は挙げない紹介もしない」

“I want to enter in the family register with my girlfriend, but we won't have a ceremony or introduce each other (families).”

In Japan all the family households (basically defined as married couples and their unmarried children) have a family register, also known as koseki (戸籍). The words Natsuo uses imply he’s registering himself in a Koseki that already exists, not that he and his girlfriend are starting a new Koseki.

Now, from what I could understand, generally you start a new Koseki when you marry or when you become independent…  Natsuo isn’t married yet and, although he said he doesn’t want to see Enji again, he didn’t make clear if he wants to become economically independent. It would be difficult as people would be unwilling to hire him and he hadn’t finished university yet (Fuyumi had to leave her job and could find another only because someone supported her).

It’s still possible Natsuo wants to ask for his own Koseki but I think part of what Natsuo want to do is to register himself on his girlfriend’s Koseki so as to take her surname.

Changing Koseki and surname will help him distance himself from the Todoroki. Differently from his mother and sister Natsuo has no facial scars marking him. If he manages to sell himself for someone who’s not a Todoroki he might escape hell.

Natsuo then asks Fuyumi what she plans to do as she had to leave her job. I think he wants to know if she has a plan to escape hell too… but while Fuyumi confirms she has lost her job, she says she has found another thanks to a person who helped her and it’s clear Fuyumi doesn’t plan to cut bridges with her family or Touya. She said she wants to talk with him after all.

Natsuo claims he believes responsibilities have been taken and punishment has been received... asking if this isn't it enough. To Enji it’s not.

He states he’ll be making amends and apologize for his sins for the rest of his life.

‘Okashita tsumi no baishō to shazai o isshō o kakete tsudzukete iku. Mite inakute ī. Kodomo-tachi (read: omae-tachi) ni furikakaru hi no ko o dekiru kagiri ore ga uketomeru, ikinobita imi ga aru to sureba sore dake nanda.’

「犯した罪の賠償と謝罪を一生をかけて続けていく。見ていなくていい。子どもた（おまえたち）ちに降りかかる火の粉をできる限り俺が受け止める、生き延びた意味があるとすればそれだけなんだ。」

“I will continue to make amends and apologize for the sins I committed for the rest of my life. You don't have to watch/look after me. I will take upon me as much of the sparks/damage that will (try to) falls on the children (read: you) as I can, and that's the only meaning of my survival.”

As said before, apologizing is a big deal in Japan and what’s more Enji wants to keep on doing it and making amends and therefore taking responsibility when, previously he had always avoided doing so and pushed responsibility on others. Natsuo remarks again it will be hell but, although Enji agrees with him, he also says he accepted it because he accepted to dance in hell with Touya.

‘Ā DANCE no sasoi o uketande na.’

「ああダンスの誘いを受けたんでな。」

“Yeah, I was invited to the dance.”

He has changed a lot from where he started, to the point even Natsuo, who’s the one sibling who has the lowest opinion of him, acknowledges it.

‘… Hajimeteda yo otō-san no koto kakkoī tte omoeta no.’

「…初めてだよお父さんの事かっこいいって思えたの。」

"...It was the first time I thought my dad was cool."

This sentence from Natsuo means MUCH more than it might seems like as it’s the first time Natsuo refers to Enji as ‘otō-san’ as he previously only used ‘anta’ (“you” in a kind of rude/angry way) or ‘Endeavor’ to talk with him. Now he calls him ‘otō-san’ which you can translate as father/dad, but it’s much more respectful than the ‘oyaji’ Shouto uses.

Basically, even though Natsuo is cutting bridges with him, with this sentence he’s acknowledging Enji as his father for the first time. The first time Natsuo yelled at Enji, Shouto said he wanted to see which kind of father Enji could be. I’ll say the idea is that now he’s the sort of father they can appreciate.

Shouto assures everyone he’ll be fine too as he has the people in class A to support him so he can become the person he wants to be. The Todoroki children leave and we see that Endeavor’s sidekicks as well as Kurumada are there to wait for Enji and Rei. I take that means they’re back together. Enji receives also messages from Hawks, who’s worried for him.

Basically, even though the Todorokis are supposed to be in hell, each of them has people supporting them (Natsuo has his girlfriend, Fuyumi the mother of one of his students, Shouto has class A, Enji and Rei Endeavor’s sidekicks, Kurumada and Hawks) so things will be fine because they’ve people supporting them (in this story who didn’t have people supporting them broke down and ended up a Villain and prey of All for One).

We move to Hawks who’s likely the youngest president of the commission and would like to free Nagant but now, differently from when she escaped, Nagant is all for staying in jail so that she won’t be exploited again. Well, she worked for the Commission and by AFO but… well, the Commission exploited her because they caught her when she was really young… but AFO… he hired her and she said she agreed to work for him because she believed the resulting world would be better. So he used her but I wouldn’t say he exploited her unless the idea is he blackmailed her into agreeing… which it’s possible but wasn’t shown. I’ll be honest, I’m probably losing some sort of clue about Nagant’s narrative post her meeting Midoriya because her actions after meeting him never quite felt that smooth. It’s probably me but, due to this, I’ll leave this part of the story as it is and focus on Shūichi who’s not in a Villain hospital but in Central hospital even though he’s a Villain bedridden and in a poor shape. With three Quirks he might end up dying soon of old age but I don’t know if the story will refresh our mind with this detail.

Shūichi is likely about to meet Midoriya and, possibly, Shōji, maybe with Kōda. I don’t think the ones who followed Shūichi till Central Hospital then changed their mind will drop to say ‘hi’.  I do not look forward to this part. Midoriya had to tell him Tomura’s final words, which, I guess, will be sad and emotional.

As I wasn’t a fan of the Central Hospital arc I do hope it’ll be only Midoriya who’ll visit him because I do not look forward to a retake of that arc. I think that arc is another thing that cause a huge cultural clash but, while this chapter still managed to have good point the Central Hospital arc felt even more distant from me and I’ve no wish to resume it. Still, we’ll see.

A not-Japanese person (aka me) commentary:

I’ll refresh everyone’s mind again. This is a commentary done as if I had not the slightest idea of how Japanese culture works and were reading the story SOLELY through the lenses of my culture… and I’ve to say this is one of the chapters in which the cultural clash is more evident and reading it merely through the lenses of my culture brings me really far from Horikoshi’s intended message.

It’s not here to criticize Horikoshi, it’s just food for thoughts that shows how the same scene can be interpreted very differently according to which lenses you use to look at it. If this is not your cup of tea, just don’t read it.

Now… I’ve said how, in Horikoshi’s intention, the first discussion is meant to show that the family LOVES Touya and that they aren’t there for a sense of duty. To Japanese readers I think it works wonderfully. Ironically, if this were a story placed in my country it would have a different effect. Opposite to Japan in my country is a given they would go to see Touya. All that talking about not having to go there (when it would be normal to) seem to drive home the family thinks NO ONE cares about Touya. Yes, Shouto would then set things straight but you’ll get a really different impression than the one the author intended.

The scene with Touya being held in that tube gets even more horrifying as we often would let inmates who’re about to die go back home so that they can die in their home, with their family, especially if they clearly aren’t in the shape to escape. What’s more the family wouldn’t just leave, as Touya is about to die they would want to remain with him even if he just were to sleep.

The Todoroki family is very composed, very calm, they don’t need to show their pain or their love because in a Japanese mind setting just the fact they’re there and want to talk with him proves it… but since here it would be a given we would need it to be more grief stricken or the family comes out as cold.

We don’t have death sentence. The fact that the family isn’t scrambling to try and find a way to keep Touya alive in such a Quirk world (with Garaki indeed saving him from a similar situation and him surviving for 10 years) again feels as if they don’t care about his survival, as if they thinks it’s more convenient if he dies.

So what for a Japanese audience is meant to work as a way to let Touya go, here gives out a very different vibe… we would have needed Touya to die on the battlefield, before medical aid could be carried to him to accept this.

Touya’s initial mockery, his refusal to talk afterward and his last moments with Shouto instead work here too and are emotional enough.

I wouldn’t expect Enji to face legal punishment for what he did to his family not because we consider it a private family affair but because… he should have faced it ages ago. When little Touya started burning himself at the tender age of 3, the family would be put under scrutiny. They couldn’t let him under vigilance. When Shouto was burned, this would worsen. When Touya would be assumed dead there would be for sure legal consequences. If Enji hadn’t faced it back then, my conclusion would be the BNHA world doesn’t care about all this and won’t lift a finger to protect children (never mentioning the time to make a complaint would be expired). If the idea is that Enji covered things up back then, then the characterization would break down when he would admit things, making it bad writing so yeah, I would just expect the BNHA world to be built to not care to punish such abuse… but the story to criticize it by punishing Enji with his physical disabilities.

Continuing on this… yes, I would be in the camp of ‘just an apology isn’t enough’ because in my country saying ‘sorry’ isn’t that big of a deal as in Japan and wouldn’t even begin to cover it. Combined with how Enji isn’t fighting to save Touya’s life nor improve his condition but he’s saying he’s just willing to talk… it feels he’s doing too little.

Natsuo’s narrative would feel concluded even with Touya. Deciding not to see him nor his father again would feel okay, and since we wouldn’t really hold Touya’s siblings accountable as much as in Japan, Enji’s idea he’ll protect them from the scandal wouldn’t feel like the big deal it is in Japan.

The sidekicks’ narrative would feel... weird. Horikoshi showed them as supportive of Enji in previous chapters because he was a great Hero despite his family situation. There was no real criticism for how he handled his family but in such a setting it could have worked because they were focused on the war. Now that the war has ended the fact they all brush away Enji’s past without having a chance to be critical to it (even if only to say ‘you did terrible but now you’re trying to fix it so okay’) would reinforce the idea of a messed up theme in which for people is okay to abuse people. Yeah, I guess we might fill the blanks assuming they confronted him in a scene we didn’t see because they aren’t really important but it still would feel weird.

The same goes for Hawks, who doesn’t plan to reconcile with his abusive parents but never felt discomfort at how it was Enji’s neglect what caused Touya to do what he did, nor showed sympathy for Touya.

I won’t really dig much into why Japan and my country handle this matter differently, because the difference was established long ago, it’s just that we would have kept on expecting that Hawks’ lack of reaction didn’t mean he was okay but merely that the whole thing was being postponed so it would be confusing when, even now, it wouldn’t be addressed at all, while for the Japanese narrative is clear there’s nothing to address.

Now… remember when I said in Horikoshi’s intentions showing us that the Todorokis will be fine because they’ve support is to remark the importance of support and that he doesn’t show the struggle of the Todoroki being in hell because it’s a given for Japanese readers?

Well, since for my culture it wouldn’t be a given, all that would be seen is the Todorokis not having troubles at all… and their life being made even easier because they got so lucky they accidentally met up with people who would support them. The importance of support gets dimmed by the fact the hardship isn’t really shown much but is supposed to be taken as a given (to be fair we see a little of it, but it’s easy to miss it), and them having support as well just make things seem even easier for them.

Something else worth mentioning about Hawks is that for us the scandal wouldn’t be so much that he was the son of a criminal and hid it, but that he killed Twice… and the press probably even recorded that he said to kill the Twices again. The problem is… here the police is not really allowed to use lethal force (I’ll go for Heroes paralleling the police) unless it’s a life or death situation.

In Japan it’s exceedingly rare the police will use lethal force but… they can do it in the event that a person who is actually in the act of committing, or is suspected on sufficient grounds of having committed, a violent and dangerous crime which is subject to the death penalty or life imprisonment does so much as TRY TO ESCAPE. Bubaigawara was escaping yes, but he was a dangerous criminal and Hawks said he had no choices and so it makes it fine. So basically for Horikoshi this narrative was likely kind of closed with Hawks’ press conference and him apologizing for not managing to find a better way to handle things. It makes it to the news because it’s supposed to be rare… but not because it’s wrong.

Yes, generally the police is investigated if they kill someone but since the police in BNHA was aware of which danger Twice represented it’s no surprise they shrugged it off. And Hawks apologized which, as said before, is a big deal in Japan so to Japanese fans this narrative is, by now, long closed. The same instead wouldn’t work for people of my country.

Nagant’s narrative feels weird to say the least as not only she can’t decide to remain in jail when she’s told she’s allowed to get out but I would expect the situation to be investigated as she ended up in jail for a crime she didn’t commit instead than the one she did. Of course this would means to put the commission under investigation as well instead it seems like all is being hushed which I would totally take for corrupt government. Hawks being a person who means well wouldn’t be reassuring because he’s covering previous crimes.

So that is. This would be my reaction if I were to analyze BNHA from the lenses of my country’s culture. As you can see it would give off a very different vibe because since we’re different for us things would need to go differently to get the same message.

THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT TOWARD THE STORY HORIKOSHI WROTE.

It’s just accepting if Horikoshi makes a story that’s strongly tied to a specific culture (his own Japanese one) people from a different culture who might not be aware of how things work in Japan, will perceive what he says differently. Which is fair, many of us will be handed off the manga without additional cultural notes that help us to understand it the way the author wanted us to understand it. Some stories aren’t meant to work in the same way through all around the world and, as a result, this might cause them to feel ‘bad writing’ in some countries just because the message they want to deliver ends up not being understandable by everyone.

I still think it’s worth to read BNHA even though I just can’t get the same warm feelings Japanese readers get from this ending. I like to think I understand what Horikoshi is trying to deliver (I might be wrong) but it feels more like cold understanding after rationalizing things than an immediate emotional response. It’s very interesting for my curious mind so again I don’t regret in the slightest reading it but… it’s not equally emotionally satisfying. But well, that’s me, if you managed to find it working perfectly well than that’s great!

[chaifootsteps]

the writers have put themselves in a really weird spot with Stolas tbh

they could have had him admit he made the deal initially just for sex then caught feelings and now wants to end the deal

instead they retconned it that he was sort of in love with Blitzo this whole time, so now he's breaking the deal because he assumed they were in some kind of situationship when they weren't the whole time

like in trying to make him look more sympathetic they've made Stolas look way more delusional and detached from both common sense or any empathetic understanding of how Blitzo is feeling about him or the deal

so it's just like he's surprised pikachu face all the time when Blitzo behaves like their relationship is just a transactional business thing - because it is; that's all it's ever been to Blitzo

idk, s2 Stolas just comes off way dumber than Murder Family Stolas who was written like he knew full well what he was doing and wasn't watching telenovelas and projecting onto the female lead, which says so much about how Stolas sees himself as this Poor Pining Sweetheart than what he actually is

a predator who treated his one night stand like a sex on demand machine

Agree with all of this. Viv seems to think that after an entire season of playing Stolas's unforgivable treatment of Blitz and Blitz's disgust for comedy, that she can just sort of pretend it didn't happen. I don't think she's mature enough or a competent enough writer to realize that allowing Stolas to be that awful person who did that awful thing and then doing something with that would almost certainly make him more likable than just pretending the awful thing wasn't awful.

He's her favorite character and allowing him to have flaws more egregious than "loves too much" and "prone to misunderstandings" might mean people criticizing or -- god forbid! -- disliking him, and she can't have that.

[cfr749]

So in the interest of engaging in a respectful way, I wanted to put my thoughts into words about why this situation with the picture is far bigger than the picture for me personally. I also don't think the picture is that serious. I do think the pattern I talk about below is problematic.

If you love everything about the show and how Tim and Lucy got together, I think that’s wonderful. 

But before getting annoyed that people are voicing their opinions and concerns, I hope that people at least try and consider these are layered issues. 

Lucy is a woman of color in the LAPD who ended up in a relationship with her former boss, despite knowing it could come at a price for her professionally. 

For me, it is important to see a story where Tim and Lucy choose each other, respect each other, and support each other. Equally. 

And, for me, that is not at all the story we got in seasons 4 and 5 (and the end of season 3). These are my issues, and why I think it’s important the show be more balanced in its storytelling going forward: 

What we got for Lucy: Multiple instances of Lucy being petty, jealous, immature and unprofessional at work (and mind you this is a character that is hyperaware of how hard it is to be a woman in the LAPD, and specifically the optics of romantic relationships between officers, and I think it's shitty that the writers chose to portray her like this not once, but multiple times)

The Katie Barnes storyline

Webb and the cat personality test + vocally reacting in roll call in front of her fellow officers when Tim chose Smitty over her to be his aide

Being clearly invested and heavily focused on bets and competition with Tim

What we got for Tim:

a retcon of his bad behavior in S1 being because he needed to show Lucy the world could be a scary place. Because, as a woman who was literally threatened with sexual assault and a car jacking in the pilot, she was too naive and inexperienced and "empathetic" to know that.

Tim putting Lucy in her place and reminding her about the seriousness of their work by calling off the bet

***

What we got for Lucy:

Obvious jealousy over Ashley (you're in a relationship? you're dating a lifeguard? break up with her! the reaction to the proposal, etc.)

What we got for Tim:

Setting Lucy up with another man without a second of hesitation.

Encouraging her to end things with Chris (a WHOLE other issue I won't get into), after Ashley had dumped him

***

What we got for Lucy:

Being seemingly more invested in and concerned about Tim's relationship than her own (Tim's planning a vacation with Ashley, while Lucy doesn't want to meet Chris' parents and is very concerned about whether Tim is going to propose)

Dumping Chris, not of her own accord, but because Tim was able to “open her eyes”

Specifically dumping that guy FOR Tim, in a way that made her look like an asshole 

What we got for Tim:

being in a relationship with a woman he was absolutely into, despite their clear incompatibility (we heard from Eric himself that Tim was genuinely interested in Ashley, happy and invested in his relationship with her; we heard Tim say he could see himself marrying her)

Choosing not to break up with Ashley despite all of the indications they weren’t right for each other and being willing to cheat on her

Not being willing to retire for her, but still not ending the relationship

Being made into the victim when Ashley dumped him in a way that made her look like an asshole

Only pursuing a relationship with Lucy after he'd been dumped, while she was still in a relationship

If you don’t feel the story was lopsided and unfair to Lucy, or have a completely different perspective (I'd genuinely love to hear it!!), just don’t care, or find it that serious, that’s great for you, but it’s completely valid that people feel this way.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see a woman in a relationship be valued and treated well. That has nothing to do with insecurity or jealousy. That has to do with respect and representation. We all come from different perspectives and have different backgrounds that reflect in our perception of how women of color are portrayed on TV.

[showtoonzfan]

Hey it’s been a bit! The Mammon episode finally came out, so here’s my review!

Pros:

- The sign language scene was cute. Kinda weird that a kid was seeing a show that was clearly for adults but I love me some representation so it gets a pass.

- Despite Blitz not really needing to be in this episode, I thank god he had little screen time and more time was dedicated to Fizz.

- The fish ladies (despite having wonky color palettes that made them EXTREMELY hard to look at) were cute.

Cons:

- Mammon is so flat and uninteresting but I don’t know what I expected from a creator who always hypes her characters up that always end up being one of the three go-to personalities she picks for her male characters. In Mammon’s case he’s just a loud mouth cursing bum so way to ruin another Deadly Sin and make them boring af, moving on.

- I don’t like how Mammon and Fizz’s relationship are similar of Val and Angel’s, Viv keeps recycling stories, characters and plot lines ect, it makes Angel’s story for Hazbin really predictable/underwhelming and not exciting to look forward too especially since we already have the “mafia bad daddy” aspect to him too that they pulled for Moxxie. I guess the idea of Mammon being a controlling ruler is fine on paper but not much is done with it, Fizz just quits in the end like it was easy with zero consequences so what was all that build up for.

- Fizz himself once again feels REALLY out of character, he’s just too soft compared to how he was introduced in season 1. He’s constantly nervous in this episode and insecure, as well as walking on eggshells, and even in Oops he wasn’t THIS sensitive. I’m all for characters struggling and being kicked down but it has to make sense and not feel forced, and once again it feels like Viv is trying way to hard to make the characters she once introduced as snarky assholes to uwu innocent babies. I refuse to believe Fizz was actually INTIMIDATED by this random geeky imp who insulted him, as well as the fish ladies whom he was weirdly nice and welcoming to. It’s also weird seeing how uncomfortable/nervous he was around his fans when I thought the whole point was that he LOVED praise and loved being famous, at least that was season 1 Fizz. Now he feels retconned. Seeing him say “I just need this gig” is weird too, the explanation to why he went through all of this makes no sense, Fizz still has Ozzie and is famous in the Lust ring, and I understand Mammon is his idle but to go through all that abuse for so long for something that could have been so easily avoided feels forced to fit the plot, but it also makes Fizz look dumb.

- There’s confusing lore stuff regarding Mammon and Ozzie, and it makes me realize that Viv should have picked ONE storyline aka ONE Seven Deadly sin to go with Fizz’s story because this is getting mixed up. Fizz acts like if he looses this completion, he looses everything, which confused the heck out of me because no he wouldn’t have? First of all, Ozzie is a fucking powerful sin, how would you loose him? Second, from what we know from season 1, Fizz is a jester who performs at Ozzie’s club. It was Ozzie who built the sex robots across the rings of hell, NOT Mammon, and in season 2 we see that Fizz is under Ozzie’s care and lives in his house. Yet for some weird reason Mammon also represents Fizz and uses him for profit, but it’s not really explained in a way that makes sense, like Love’s art had said in her Fizz redesign video, Fizz’s job is really confusing on what exactly he does. Having both Ozzie and Mammon represent him overcomplicates things and the show did a poor job at explaining how this goes.

- Once again Viv dumps trauma and struggle onto her characters without building it up first. When did Fizz ever give off the impression that he was being controlled or abused, or even that he was so insecure and constantly walked on eggshells to be perfect. In Oops he was happy to be in the spotlight and happy to get the attention, he bragged to Blitz about how successful he was. He seemed happy to perform for Mammon and talked of him highly, and now you’re pulling an Angel Dust situation where he’s expected to be perfect 24/7 and it gets to him emotionally, while also being someone who’s physically and mentally abused. Yet another season 2 episode that wasn’t planned, same as how Millie wanting to feel important wasn’t planned, same as how Stolas seeing Blitz as genuine love wasn’t planned. Different episode, same issues.

- I’m so done with the Hell lore bro, this place officially has no rules and demons can just do anything without consequences. There’s no class system, there’s no rankings, there’s no power dynamics, screw anything that Viv says. There was no fucking reason why Ozzie and Fizz’s relationship needed to be a secret. There was no reason showing Ozzie threatening his workers to not tell anyone about his love life if he was just going to admit it to EVERYONE THE NEXT EPISODE IN FRONT OF ANOTHER SIN ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME— what was the POINT. What is the point of Stolas and Blitz’s conflict. What is the point of Stella being classist. What is the point of these class systems and rules if you can just announce that you technically broke a hell rule and no one gives a fuck and you get off scott free. Mammon telling Ozzie “you’ll regret that” like a cartoon villain doesn’t do anything either. What is he ganna do? Tell Lucifer, the character that canonically won’t appear in HB because the sins won’t appear in HH? If Lucifer rules over the sinners, who the fuck is in charge for the rest of Hell. Where’s the authority? And Mammon is just ganna come back for another episode to give the gang trouble cause lord knows we don’t have enough fucking villains already.

- It feels weird that Ozzie would just sit back while someone whom he knows is a piece of shit is treating his loved one badly. I get he was concerned but you’d think one of the seven deadly sins would have more power and authority.

- I was expecting some big gross bug-like thing to appear when Mammon was transforming into his final form, only for it to the exact same design but with small extra eyes and a spider lower half that isn’t even visible in most shots….GOD VIV.

Watching this episode also made me remind myself that this is supposed to be Hell. Seeing Fizz feel better and stand up for himself was sweet but these soft lessons and morals don’t belong in a show like this, and it’s extra aggravating regarding Viv’s double standard, how she can just pick and choose which characters she wants to be evil and which characters are saints. Overall not anywhere near the worst episode of season 2, but I am officially done with Helluva Boss so-

[writingwithcolor]

Romani character portrayals in fanfiction

Rroma Dick Grayson, batman fanfiction

endoftheworldhere asked:

I wanted to write a fanfiction about what Dick Grayson’s life would have been like if he wasn’t adopted by Batman. It was going to have him dealing with the bad parts of Gotham City and interacting with various criminals and rouges, But I was worried that could come off as stereotypical or racist since he’s been portrayed as at least part Romani and I wanted to include some connections to his heritage as a way he clings his parents after they died so traumatically. Any advice?

The thing about Dick Greyson is that he was retconned into being part Romani, and the writers did so in a very stereotypical way. A lot of Romani people have talked about this, especially on Tumblr, and opinions do vary about how he should be written. Many think it’s best to ignore his “heritage” and just write him as white, while others disagree and think that his heritage is important representation and should be written, but more respectfully.

I honestly don’t know my personal opinion on this, but I will say that there is a huge stereotype about Romani people being criminals. If you do plan to write him as part Romani, make sure to avoid these tropes. Otherwise, I would just nix his Romani heritage.

-Mod Tess

Romani woman, curses and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Anonymous asked:

I'm struggling a bit with a piece of fan work right now, and I was hoping you could weigh in. In Buffy season two, there's a character named Jenny, who we first meet as a techno-pagan computer science teacher, who helps Buffy and co deal with fighting demons and stuff. Only the thing is, she's Rromani. She's there to make sure a family curse stays on a vampire who killed someone beloved to them a century ago (mostly to protect people from him if Angel/Angelus gets uncursed), which everyone gets mad at her for not telling them when he loses his soul and goes on rampage.  Ordinarily, it's not hard to write her, because until that arc, she's a fun character who happens to be a Rroma woman, and as other characters use magic, that doesn't stand out. But the whole curse thing, and the depiction of her family we're given, (and the way a canon redemption arc for Angelus I can't stand starts with him getting a soul as a punishment for killing a Rroma woman in 1898), and the everyone being mad about deception all just feels like many negative stereotypes.  What would be your thoughts on depicting Jenny, and on what to keep in mind trying to rewrite how she was shown in the show. [Ask redacted for length]

Let me just start out by saying that I am not very familiar with Buffy, so thank you for the context. I think your best bet here would be to drop the curse plot line altogether, as that’s a huge stereotype about Romani people. I think it’s ok to have her do magic, as long as other characters also do, and although I do think the vampire stuff is also a stereotype (a lot of vampire lore is supposedly taken from some Romani folklore, and Romani people are often associated with vampires in pop culture), I think it’s fine given the context of the show.

-Mod Tess