#i love both dads from homestuck

[phonification]

I finished reading the meat epilogue the other day and I couldnt stop thinking about the fact that even after EVERYTHING that John went through, dad always tried his damn hardest to do everything he could for John and to keep him safe. and really did do it.

john was carefully carried in his fathers arms when he crashed and killed nanna on that meteor and when the poison finally killed him, he flew right back into his dads arms, his corpse kept safe in the wallet, that floated around in space for who know how long . I hate Homestuck God

[thewertsearch]

@relaxxattack asked: hi, maxx the troll romance guy again. ₊ ⊹ ☆ it’s finally my moment for me to bust out my big quadrant talk! as in, i had the time to sit down and write this. (and apologies in advance for subjecting you to this much nerdiness. hopefully, it’s at least somewhat illuminating, to make up for that). i’m not sure what your current opinions on troll romance are, but i wanted to discuss the idea that kismesissitude is inherently unhealthy / impossible to achieve by teenaged trolls. lots of people who read homestuck get very stuck on the idea that kismesissitude is a feeling of hatred. they run with their human assumptions of this word, imagining that a kismesissitude is an angry, horrible relationship of abuse and hurt. but, if you’ll bear with me, it’s actually shown throughout the comic that this is completely untrue. trolls do not use the word hate the same way that we do. in fact, this is pretty obvious, because they also continuously use the word “pity” in a completely different way than we do. each of these are actually more related to a completely different word: LOVE.

you can see, in this initial conversation surrounding quadrants, that trolls consider hate and pity to actually come from the same exact place (though they consider that a negative thing). you can also see in that conversation that you need a good mix of both for any of the quadrants to work. karkat calls vriska out on supposedly “hating people too much” in a way that would “make her a bad kismesis”. this tells us almost immediately off the bat that A. even other trolls consider vriska and tavros’s relationship unbalanced and unhealthy! and B. each quadrant needs a proper mix of emotions for a proper relationship. a lot of people assume that kismeses are “supposed” to kill each other, mainly because of the fate of jack noir and the queen. this, too, is a misunderstanding. jack noir and the queen, like mom and dad who they are explicitly paralleling, are meant to be regarded as tragic. both couples end in tragedy, as expected for almost every “parental figure” in homestuck; this is unrelated to their kismesissitude.

in fact, in this conversation eridan has with kanaya, it is stated that a kismesissitude that ends in deaths is an extremely rare, powerfully tragic romance that happens “once in ten thousand years”– and immediately after, it is stated that a kismesissitude that might become like this needs an auspistice. that’s right, trolls are so committed to healthy kismesissitudes that they have an entire system in place to stop them from becoming toxic. the vriska/kanaya/tavros auspisticism, while a failure on every conceivable level, was born out of the necessity that the other trolls considered vriska’s torment of tavros unhealthy. even among her fellow trolls, in a society that explicitly encouraged casteiesm and ableism, vriska’s treatment of tavros was still considered too toxic for a proper kismesissitude.

vriska and eridan, who were in a kismesissitude before vriska became bored of eridan, were allies in their roleplaying games. much like the ancestors they were emulating, (who even supposedly “cherished” their own black relationship!); they explicitly traded and shared their rewards and goods with each other because of their romantic relationship with each other, and were said to work together in flarp well enough to be feared by others. of course, they also competed with each other to be the best– because they are rivals– but rivalry does not constitute toxticity. they called each other “allies” and “competitors”. not enemies. though perhaps being enemies would be an interesting kismesis slowburn; in the end, two kismesis should not kill each other. they are on the same team. how could they not be, when trolls believe in one troll who is literally destined to be their perfect rival, a life partner who they must have a long-term relationship with in order to properly meet the alternian drone rules? killing each other makes no feasible sense.

as vriska and eridan talk about here, a rivalry between trolls is something fun for both of them. that is why they must hate each other “equally”-- they need to feel on equal footing, so that they can both have fun. that’s what a rivalry is for trolls. it’s fun! (fun fact: another definition of the word "rival" is "an equal"). (eridan’s pitch solicitation towards sollux is absolutely laughable in comparison. he throws meaningless, casteist insults, and sollux does not give a single fuck about him. as other trolls mention; this is very obviously fake. they are clearly not feeling anything mutual or respectful for each other. he merely is trying to goad feferi into an ashen retaliation with his shitty pitch advances, and it’s not even working.) and that brings me finally to john and karkat. i remember seeing confusion on this blog about the nature of karkat’s feelings– 'why is he helping john? doesn’t he ‘hate’ him? he must not REALLY feel pitch romance for him, and he’s just confused.' well you see, that’s the thing. the reason karkat’s first message to john was a love poem is because that is what kismesissitude is. it was karkat’s way of saying; “you’re special to me. i would like to bug you to see if you feel the same way.” it’s not as if strangely romantic healthy rivalries between teenagers are even an unheard of or new concept. they’re fairly common in television shows and anime; hell there’s even multiple tvtropes pages for them! it’s not impossible that two people in a story could have a healthy rivalry fun enough that they both end up missing it should it be gone. (looking at you, perry and doof.) it’s even more likely that teenagers, as vibrant and strange as their many emotions can be, could pull this off. of course, they make lots of mistakes. they’re young teenagers raised on the murder ableism planet. of course most of the shit they try to do is unhealthy. they make just as many earth-like mistakes with their hearts as they do with their spades. that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for them, or bad for them to try. especially since pairs like vriska and eridan seem to have even pulled it off! basically, what i’m saying is, they’re like sasuke and naruto (reference). let teenagers have hatecrushes! it’s cuter than you think! :P [if it isn’t obvious, this is all super lighthearted and silly. unfortunately it’s my brand to be the guy who’s REALLY passionate about troll romance. i sincerely hope this wasn’t too hard to read, and i’m really sorry about submitting such a long thing, but i couldn’t manage to cut it down any further 😭 have a great rest of your night/day!]

(Images added by me - partially for illustrative purposes, and partially because Tumblr tends to complain when a single block-quote is that large.)

Love love love this detailed breakdown. It outlines a blackrom framework which is a lot more nuanced than the infodump's original description of kismesissitude. There's a lot of really interesting stuff here, and I've actually been working on this response for the past week, while AFKing on my Minecraft server.

As you can imagine, I agree with many of the points raised here, and disagree with others. I think the best approach is to go through the essay point-by-point, and break down my thoughts.

lots of people who read homestuck get very stuck on the idea that kismesissitude is a feeling of hatred[...], imagining that a kismesissitude is an angry, horrible relationship of abuse and hurt. [...] it’s actually shown throughout the comic that this is completely untrue. trolls do not use the word hate the same way that we do. [...]

This one I just fully agree with. The Alternian concept of 'hate' isn't equivalent to ours, and they'll often use it in ways that are completely incompatible with our definition.

When Karkat 'fell in hate' with John, his actual antagonism was very obviously performative. As you mentioned above, several parts of his original rant wouldn't look out of place in a love confession.

Karkat doesn't just message John out of temporal obligation. There's a clear sense, even in their early conversations, that he's enjoying their interactions on some level. If his feelings here really are black romance - and there's no textual evidence that they're not - then this alone is enough to prove kismesissitude isn't true human hatred.

The trolls also use 'hate' in the human sense, too, which muddies the waters a little. It's even highlighted as a problem in-comic, with trolls having to disambiguate their hatred in conversation in much the same way humans disambiguate between platonic and romantic love.

they also continuously use the word “pity” in a completely different way than we do. each of these are actually more related to a completely different word: LOVE. you can see, in this initial conversation surrounding quadrants, that trolls consider hate and pity to actually come from the same exact place (though they consider that a negative thing).

As for pity, I'm still not entirely sure what it means to trolls. Unlike hate, it's only been brought up once, by Karkat.

His 'hate and pity' dichotomy isn't referenced anywhere else in the comic, and it's unclear whether he's describing an accepted fact of life, a sociological theory, or a trope from his beloved romcoms. I don't really have enough data to speculate.

you can also see in that conversation that you need a good mix of both for any of the quadrants to work. karkat calls vriska out on supposedly “hating people too much” in a way that would “make her a bad kismesis”. this tells us almost immediately off the bat that [...] each quadrant needs a proper mix of emotions for a proper relationship.

I believe your assertion here is that each quadrant requires both hate and pity. While definitely an interesting theory, I wasn't able to find canonical evidence that a healthy redrom requires hatred, or that a healthy blackrom requires pity.

I meant what I said, though - it is a compelling theory. If we do read troll 'hatred' as a type of friendly rivalry, then maybe it is important in redrom, serving as the 'spark' that keeps things fresh. Furthermore, if we read 'pity' as something bordering on affection, then it probably is necessary for a healthy blackrom.

I really like the space you're playing in, here. There is something to this idea, and I'd love for Karkat to elaborate on it.

[...] even other trolls consider vriska and tavros’s relationship unbalanced and unhealthy!

Text it! If the full Vriska/Tavros mess was public knowledge, basically everyone would consider Vriska's behavior beyond atrocious, blackrom or no blackrom. I'm not even sure if Eridan would be OK with it - and Gamzee, of course, is currently excluded from this discussion.

If the Veil's trolls are a representative sample of Alternian culture, then Vriska's 'blackrom' with Tavros is just as abusive there as it would have been on Earth. Even Alternia has limits.

a lot of people assume that kismeses are “supposed” to kill each other, mainly because of the fate of jack noir and the queen. this, too, is a misunderstanding. jack noir and the queen, like mom and dad who they are explicitly paralleling, are meant to be regarded as tragic. both couples end in tragedy, as expected for almost every “parental figure” in homestuck; this is unrelated to their kismesissitude. in fact, in this conversation eridan has with kanaya, it is stated that a kismesissitude that ends in deaths is an extremely rare, powerfully tragic romance that happens “once in ten thousand years”

This tracks, as well. If blackrom was allowed to end with murder, then there'd be a lot less soldiers being ferried off the planet every year. Alternian children are a resource to the Empire, and more murder-couples means less murder-platoons.

Vriska does think it would be acceptable for her to murder Tavros, but she frames it as a consequence of classism, not blackrom. This would be much more acceptable to the Empire, as a blueblood like Vriska is destined to be a high-ranking officer. She's not killing a partner, here - she's punishing insubordination.

– and immediately after, it is stated that a kismesissitude that might become like this needs an auspistice. that’s right, trolls are so committed to healthy kismesissitudes that they have an entire system in place to stop them from becoming toxic. the vriska/kanaya/tavros auspisticism, while a failure on every conceivable level, was born out of the necessity that the other trolls considered vriska’s torment of tavros unhealthy. even among her fellow trolls, in a society that explicitly encouraged casteiesm and ableism, vriska’s treatment of tavros was still considered too toxic for a proper kismesissitude.

I won't second-guess the utility of auspisticism in situations like this. It makes perfect sense that the role exists, and it certainly does an important job.

However, once again, I really don't understand the monogamy aspect. Helping a loved one escape a toxic or abusive relationship should not be a one-person job, and enforcing that requirement serves to sabotage what could have been a much more effective social role.

Like - imagine that, upon becoming VrisTav's auspistice, Kanaya's first action was to call for backup. If she was allowed to introduce additional auspistices to the situation, such as Aradia or Terezi, then Vriska wouldn't have been able to continue tormenting Tavros as soon as Kanaya turned her back. It takes a village, guys!

vriska and eridan, who were in a kismesissitude before vriska became bored of eridan, were allies in their roleplaying games. much like the ancestors they were emulating, (who even supposedly “cherished” their own black relationship!); they explicitly traded and shared their rewards and goods with each other because of their romantic relationship with each other, and were said to work together in flarp well enough to be feared by others. of course, they also competed with each other to be the best– because they are rivals– but rivalry does not constitute toxticity. they called each other “allies” and “competitors”. not enemies. [...] as vriska and eridan talk about here, a rivalry between trolls is something fun for both of them. that is why they must hate each other “equally”-- they need to feel on equal footing, so that they can both have fun. that’s what a rivalry is for trolls. it’s fun!

Eridan/Vriska is a relationship I wish we'd seen on-panel, because this one is really hard to picture. Eridan's personality doesn't feel at all compatible with Vriska's, and I don't understand what she saw in him.

Vriska is one of the smartest, most resourceful, most dangerous trolls around, and there was apparently a time she thought of Eridan as a rival. As an equal. All he really has to offer is an overpowered weapon, and Vriska's already got one of those.

Sure, she got bored later, but unless Eridan has some extremely hidden depths, she should have been bored from day one. How did their rivalry even work?

I think the problem here is that we haven't seen any non-toxic kismesissitudes. Vriska/Tavros is a nightmare, Equius/Aradia was mind control, Eridan/Vriska happened offscreen, and John/Karkat never happened at all. It's difficult to extrapolate what a non-awful kismesissitude might look like, when we've only seen the worst the quadrant has to offer. Actually seeing Vriska's spades with Eridan, instead of having it described second-hand, might help to clear this up, but that seems fairly unlikely at this point.

This, at least, is a problem that might solve itself. We've still got a lot of comic to go, and the passion its fandom has for the quadrants makes it clear that they're not going anywhere. I don't think I'll be able to pass my final judgement on kismesissitude until we've seen one that actually works. I really like the idea of a romance centered around friendly rivalry - I just wish the comic would show me one!

and that brings me finally to john and karkat. i remember seeing confusion on this blog about the nature of karkat’s feelings– 'why is he helping john? doesn’t he ‘hate’ him? he must not REALLY feel pitch romance for him, and he’s just confused.' well you see, that’s the thing. the reason karkat’s first message to john was a love poem is because that is what kismesissitude is. it was karkat’s way of saying; “you’re special to me. i would like to bug you to see if you feel the same way.” it’s not as if strangely romantic healthy rivalries between teenagers are even an unheard of or new concept. they’re fairly common in television shows and anime; hell there’s even multiple tvtropes pages for them! it’s not impossible that two people in a story could have a healthy rivalry fun enough that they both end up missing it should it be gone. (looking at you, perry and doof.)

Like, this sounds cool! You're describing a really fun version of kismesissitude, here - one which brings to mind Wright and Edgeworth, Sonic and Shadow, and a dozen other popular couples.

This interpretation would be less dangerous for teenagers - it certainly worked for Lumity - and again, I just hope we eventually see something like this on-panel!

[becquerel]

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

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

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

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

[homestuckreplay]

Well, it keeps happening! Homestuck has put out its third update in as many days, and this one is SO much fun (I keep saying that, but 'fun' is genuinely the best word to describe this thing so far). I love when Being On The Internet is well represented in stories, and John's computer does this right away. John and his chums having incomprehensible matching usernames, John's filenames for his failed programs, and the 'graphic design is my passion' tier wallpaper are all excellent, but easily my favorite joke in the comic so far is Pesterchum having five generically upbeat and happy mood settings and one Evil Angry Mood Setting.

It was definitely a surprise getting to see a whole conversation between John and turntechGodhead, who I guess is officially our second character! They definitely have a bored and disaffected tone compared to John, like they're trying to keep emotion out of their messages, whereas John is 50% Goofing Around and 50% movie trivia. Once again I haven't seen this movie, and while the conversation explains it well enough that I can follow the joke, I'm still missing some nuance (for example, is John exaggerating or being literal when he says it was the 'fifteenth day in a row' Howie Mandel peed in his juice?)

I LOVE the panel on page 28 where, after just seeing the view from outside John's window, we're flipped around and we see it reflected in John's glasses as the shadow of the window crossbar falls on his face. He's just looking up and smiling hopefully and I find myself wondering again about the title - John seems like a happy kid who enjoys messing around in his room, but is he really stuck at home? We learn in this update that he can leave his room, go downstairs and see his dad, but not necessarily that he can leave the house - maybe something always interrupts him when he tries? Is he gazing at the front yard because it's a magical land he wants to visit but can't? We hear about the importance of the tire swing, but there's no indication that John has ever used it.

That's probably an absolute reach and an absurdist interpretation, particularly as everything on page 30 feels so relatable. The bedroom being both a place John is trapped as well as his only safe space pretty well reflects my experiences being a kid, and ignoring a friend's incessant messages even while strictly not having better things to do is something I still do all the time. John is an easy character to connect to, and manages to be an everyman at the same time as being a distinctly Weird Kid (so far, at least, though he could develop more into one or the other as the comic continues).

Bring on the next pages! I'd love to hear from John's other friends soon!

[transmascswagpolls]

Transmasc Swag Polls- ROUND 1

Propaganda and other info under the cut.

CANONICITY LEVELS-

BOW: Subtext/ Coded (liked by the creator, but he has stated that he won't confirm anything because retroactively making something canon makes him uncomfortable) DIRK: Subtext/ Coded (so heavily that the author tried- and failed- to kill the headcanon in extended media)

MEDIA? She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Homestuck (and other related media) BOW PROPAGANDA- He's shown bathing in something that looks a lot like a binder, is included in the princesses group as the only man* and there's a whole episode that is constructed as a coming out allegory- Bow has to tell his dads he's a warrior and not a researcher/historian and has been lying to them about what he's been up to. The creator has stated he didn't intend for Bow to be read as trans but does like the headcanon. *Seahawk is also there but more as support to Mermista, Bow is integrated in the group from the beginning and even points out how "he's the only one here who's not a princess". He's one of the coolest characters and a great inventor, archer and best friend of Glimmer and Adora. Bow is such a great example of healthy masculinity, always ready to defend people in need but never aggressive or confrontational. His love of short shirts is so iconic he even cut his space suit to show off a bit of his belly- we love a guy dedicated to his fashion sense. DIRK PROPAGANDA- One of the last two humans on earth, the only source of how to be a human for the first like, ten years of his life until he meets Roxy is all the shit his Bro left for him and the archive of the internet. He decides he's not a fan of all the shit that's considered "girly" in the 2010s and 2020s bc he wants to be just like his Bro, so he's transmasc not bc of societal expectations but bc that's just what he's comfortable with. [Pollrunner's Note: I will not even pretend that I'm not biased here. Dirk is the character that cracked my egg so hard that I couldn't deny that I was trans anymore. He's a canonically gay boy handled with an extreme amount of grace in an era of media where that was completely unheard of, retroactively making one of the most popular and masculine adults in the entire comic gay as well, since it is revealed that they are one and the same. There's an entire passage in the comic in his and Roxy's introductions joking about chromosomes, textually making an observation that he and Roxy are in a 'reverse adam and eve situation'. He cares so, so much about his friends but is incapable of expressing those feelings because he's afraid that by his very nature as a person that he is both corrupting them and doesn't deserve them. Dirk's story has a lot to do with abuse, emotional neglect, and what it means to feel like you're fundamentally a bad person but living every day trying to break that cycle regardless. Textually he was based off of (accidentally and then later an intentional deconstruction of) Gurren Lagann's Kamina, a character I have described as the "platonic ideal of masculinity". The way he was written in postcanon lead to feelings so strong that I ended up having a conversation known as the "Dirk Rant" that my brother claims "changed the way he viewed media forever". He is THE transmasc blorbo of all time to a majority of the Homestuck fandom.]

[alfiely-art]

FINISHED ACT 2!!!! I promise I'm taking my time

Act 1 live reaction here

Here are notes I took while reading!!!

Hi vagabond fella… you're cute

Huh. So the world ended. Okay

Happy birthday john, you fucked up!!!! My god!!!!

Oh interesting… wonder if the kernel will come back later

I like this sprite lmaoooo silly guy

“It's a long way down” Hey. Hey wait a sec. Isn't that deltarune

HEY THE BUNNY WHERE DID IT GO

Bro Rose probably thinks you're dead lmfaooooo

House trapped. LIKE THE TITLE HOMESTUCK DO U GET IT

Am I supposed to ignore the Stop Scurrying button btw. He will scurry to my hearts content

HEY WHERES DAD.

“Would you like to play a game?” C…caliborn….? :3

We scurried until we couldn't scurry anymore

Aw he's scared :( WALK ACROSS IT ur fine…

A voice?? Is it the blue text. The sprite

OMG ITS THE VAGABOND!!!!

Sorry rose I'm not reading allat

So wait. Did the game cause the meteors or is it just saving people from them. Why was there no warning

Betty crocker is born /j

Nvm sprite said No <3

NOT NANNAS ASHESSSSS LMAOOOO

“Hoo-hoo-hoo” HEY I SAW CALIBORN GIGGLE LIKE THAT IN A FIC. I know the Striders have more to do with Caliborn but let me reach

OH its the sprite

Dave. Honey. Nows not the time for your rap

Which admittedly has fun rhymes

AW FLUCK IT

Dave what are you yapping about

THE FUCKIHG CAR OH MY GOD

DAVE OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU STILL GOING

Fluthlu… I love you

I'm not even gonna try to spell that but I like the other squid octopus creature as well

Oglogoth… goth !!!!

Hey wait. The horror terrors are part of sburb. Is the game influenced by their lives and interests. Like. Deltarune

OH PSYCHE!!! hi Dave

Sword!!!!!!

Wow your room is really mHEY I KNOW THOSE GUYS. THATS THE FELT GUYS. SQUAREWAVE AND RHE OTHER ROBOT. I KNOW THOSE ONES!!!!! OHHHHHH

Bleat like a goat and piss on your turntable

Oh Dave. Oh Dave

Hey wait is this earlier in the day.

Okay this is definitely earlier in the day

Aw. He doesn't wanna make satire of the sburb review

FUCK IM FALLING DOWN ALL THESE STAIRS……

Is that. John's hand???? what the fuck is happening in midnight crew

Flagrant Homosexuality

YOU CANT BE SAYING THAT WHITE BABY (I was told that they use slurs, slur count 2!!!!)

Her life depends on you playing that game Dave

Ewwww what's the shit under the door

It's okay Dave piss probably isn't that bad. It's also probably Apple juice You're fine

HE GOT PISS/JUICE ON HIS TURNTABLES NOOOOOO

. They're gonna fly out the window

OH MY GOD BIRD NO

Wait. Davesprite is a bird with a sword in him. Omg is that bird the beginning of Davesprite omg!!!!

Wizard

Rose and her mom are fucking weird

MOM!!!!!

Hardcore parkour

Jade be telling the future…. Why can she do that

LIL CAL MENTION

NARRATOR YOU CANT BE SAYING THAT (slur count: 3)

Ironic Indulgence

Btw. Are you able to. Win the strifes. I'm so confused

“Fine, you'll interrupt your reading and turn around, but you don't see what could possibly be so oh my god it's a monster.” Hi this is absolute gold this is how I type

John died :(

Yay he's alive!!!

YOOOOO SICKKKK AFFFFF MOVE

John is such a nerd I love him

JASPERS NOOO

Hi Nanna harlequin sprite

Dave is very suddenly creeped out by the puppets, okay. Don't diss Lil cal bro

Baked good hater for Life!!! Also I am just like John I have absolutely no idea what Nannasprite was talking about. We r along for the ride

HUMAN ETIQUETTE WOOOO I NEED THAY BOOK

Jade why do you know all this stuff

Haha Dave's an emoji

IS THAT A DRIPPED OUT SLAPPY

HI CAL HI BABYGIRL !!!! I like Cal he's the man

Sweet Bro n Hella Jeff is. I

Cals eyes are so shiny

HAHAHAHAH JOHN MADE A SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF REFERENCE. I can't

U and me both Rose. We Are giggling

John died again

What the fuck is happening at Dave's house

ROSE RAP ROSE RAP

WHSJSHSJSH THE LITTLE IMP????

What the fuck is happening

I WANT TO PLAY A GAME is this a caliborn reference. Anyway uhhh Bro is kinda weird what's going on with him

Why does he have a camera in the saw guy figurine. Bro. What's uh up with you

BRO REALLY IS A NINJA…. Whys he jusy moving Cal around

Dave. I know you said your Bro is awesome but I think he's just really weird. He's silly

I do think it's interesting. John doesn't like his dad even though his dad is great (worst thing is he ignores that his kid doesn't like betty crocker goods). Rose hates her mom, but.. for like, the wrong reasons?? Like yeah her mom’s an alcoholic and seems neglectful but she doesn't seem to do the Irony shit Rose says she does. And then Dave seems to think Bro is the absolute best even though. This is not a great situation. I wonder what Jade's family is like

Also John and Rose avoid their parents but Dave's Bro seems to avoid Dave. interesting

Anyway POOR DAVE HE GOT SMOOSHED

Hey that letter is the same as the one in the trans dirk comic I saw :0

NOOO I WANTED TO SEE BRO

Yoooo John that's a cool weapon actually

That's a big boy right there what a big boy

ROSE THE FIRE ITS AT UR WINDOW

YO WAS THAT SILHOUETTE JADE?!?!?! JADE YAAA

Big boy!!!!!!

HEY I WAS INVESTED IN SEEING JOHN FIGHT. Oh at least we can see Bro. Wait how's Rose

??? JADE???

OOP NOPE. VAGABOND

What the fuck is happening I

vagabond is so silly I like him

Hey guys I think a king hurt vagabond. Just a guess. Probably reaching idk /j

VAGABOND PISS SCENE ?!?!?! YIPPEE!!!

Oh nvm. Btw can we get this guy a burger

HES SO HAPPY OVER THE. idk what that is DANGANRONPA BLOOD IN A CAN!!!!!!

HEY WHAT THE FUCK ARE ON THESE SCREENS BTW. Wait I'm shouting so much. But what the fuck. Dave has his sprite??? Yay???? I thought he was gonna fight Bro??? What happened to Lil Cal???

Hey isn't that Jade's symbol on the pumpkin

Yooo that's such a cool cutscene actuHUH HOW IS IT THE END OF THE ACT AGAIN

The frick….

Anyway. Thoughts: I like Vagabond. Jade is mysterious. Dave gay. Bro creepy. Someone pls save Rose. John you gotta put your big boy pants on and fight those ogres. Good act!!! idk why people say the pre-trolls stuff is boring I'm enjoying myself

[davekat-sucks]



Here is a summary of what I believe the ending of Homestuck 2 will be. Feel free to correct any part of what I say here. Please note that I am unsure of what the Homestuck's teams plans are for the story or what direction they are even trying to go in. I am not focused on that, only what makes sense for the story with what is already written. I'm adding in what I assume they are working off of from the original story as well. To start, Dirk is doing this so as to create the original universe. The one that came right before the Beforus's troll's. Moving on. Rose was already somewhat in tuned with fortune telling. Early within the story, Dave reads something Rose had written, Complacency of the Learned. Within it Rose writes of twelve selected children surprisingly turning. In the end; The four beta kids, four alpha kids, Karkat, Kanaya and Terezi make it to the end, along with Calliope. This makes twelve characters. (Ignore Jane's dad, he is not a child.)

Within Act 6, Complacency of the Learned is referenced again. Calmasis, a character who is referred to with both she and he pronouns, plays the role of the antagonist. This is clearly Ultimate Calliope. Calliope also hosts Lord English's soul inside of her body now that she has consumed him. This is where the androgyny comes in.

Within Complacency of the Learned Roxy's mother wrote all twelve characters are killed, all but Zazzerpan. I think this is going to be referenced within Homestuck 2 as a prophecy for events to come. Everyone in meat will be killed before Dirk.

Calliope had consumed Lord English, took in his soul. Part of LE's make up was Auto-Responder. A part of Dirk's soul. I'm certain she will have to die in order to kill off Dirk. (Think Voldemort here.)

I am certain Jake will have to die in order to kill of Dirk as well, seeing that Brain Ghost Dirk even referred to himself as a splinter who is in tuned to Dirk. Not unless Jake can get rid of this manifestation he's created. It is likely everyone in Candy will die during these events, unsure about the Omega kids. (Davebot might also be an exception.) Ultimate Dirk will, in the end, be killed by Dave. By the same sword that is capable of harming Lord English, Caledfwlch. Ultimate Dirk is gladly going to allow himself to die by his hand. (Who is to say that Dave will be willing to kill him...) DIRK: I’d never kill Dave, no matter what I felt the stakes were. I’d never hurt him either Now, here is a really fun part! In Meat, all the characters will have robot bodies. Terezi will as well, once she dies on her quest bed. I suspect there will be a blood and mind player so that Karkat and Terezi will be able to do this. Space and Time are a given, Kanaya will have a quest bed as well. Everyone will become immortal. Wonderful. Yippie. Yay.

A way that things may have a happy(?) ending is that all of the character's robot bodies will be destroyed and their consciousness might go back into their original bodies. If this did happen, they would likely be horrified with the events of Meat and being used as puppets. Jake might still have to die because of what I said earlier about brain ghost Dirk. They will all be their ultimate selves as well, all be awoken. They will know the events of candy too, maybe still love their children. That or they will still die, maybe because they are now guardians to children, who knows? Homestuck's team should take the chance to make the ending at least somewhat happy. Here's where I go off the rails: Dirk refers to himself as God. (As seen in this line the literal hand of God) In the context of this story, I assume he plays that role. Not just as someone taking over the narration, but as someone with full control over everyone that exists. The race(s) he is creating contains his DNA. His Heart powers can likely extend to everyone, since they all stem from him. (This likely excludes Void players. Seeing that Scratch could not see what was happening around Equius.) This is a guess, a shot in the dark, I think when Dirk was decapitated by Dave during Collide, this is when he woke up. It makes sense, fully dying would show him the nature of reality and that his soul is everywhere, even in death. So... what happens after he creates that full loop that I mentioned. What do they do after? Does Dirk just die and that's it? Is their more? Yep. Ultimate Dirk is likely the one who placed the code for Sburb on the moon for Meenah to find. Dirk is the one who corrupted Damara. He likely went to her directly. I don't see Scratch or English or anyone else going to talk to her, though perhaps there is a way they could have been in that universe. I just assume that Damara likely sold her soul directly to him and then she would be enslaved by Lord English to fulfill her role. Dirk probably ensured more events would take place. His role is to keep everything on track. If he fails, which he will not, everyone would not exist. I have so much insane shit to say, guys!!! I have more! MORE! To say! I could make a full length YouTube video myself on this crap. I also have a much more insane theory, probably the craziest one... probably the most accurate one too. I don't know if I wanna go into depth with it. But I'll just say the gist of it and it will make me look bad, uh... worse? Dirk desperately wants to shape Dave into a hero. Dirk wants to be the villain to Dave's story to make sure that happens. He wants Dave to decapitate him. Rose throughout the story references Freud so I don't think it's a shock that Dave's sword represents a penis (It breaks all the time too, oh my god). Dirk being decapitated by Dave is wild literal symbolism!

Here is what I assume Dirk's actual story is: Dirk fell in love with his guardian, who he did not personally know. He was detached from him. He idolized him. He wanted to shape Dave into what he thought Alpha Dave was. Later, when Dirk fully awoken to his ultimate self Dirk feels guilt over how he treated Dave when he was bro, and wants to die by his hand- but also wants to make it as homoerotic as possible. Oh nooo! He's in love with him! hehehe! I honestly think this story is running with this. That's why the homestuck fandom being upset about stridercest shippers is so funny to me. The stridercest fans might just be the ones with strong intuition or reading comprehension. When I realized this, it's what eventually lead me into shipping DirkDave. I didn't before but now it is too funny not to. I just don't really think Dave is into it. And I'm not going to go off again about Dave being sexually abused by Dirk openly already. It's so obvious and out in the open. It's like... is that even subtext? Dave's family member is cheerleading while Dave is about to animalstically fuck a guy, when Dirk's soul extends to engulf everything... Dirk can probably fell that. I assume Dirk can, even if he can't. Why be so eager to oversee your son fucking a guy? How is that not incestuous? I wrote a simpler version of what I am saying so it's easier for me to think this through, you all might find this too long didn't read version helpful. - During Act 7, the 12 survivors create a new universe to inhabit - During the Meat part of the epilogue, Dirk awakens Rose, kills John, forces Terezi to join him with the promise that John will be revived. - During Homestuck 2, Dirk begins the process of creating a new race and tasks Rose with making one herself. They use their Dna to do this. - Dirk's Dna is within these new people. - This universe is the first to ever exist, leading into the creation of Beforus' universe. - Dirk can look into every soul because he is a part of it. - Dirk is likely planning to have Kanaya, Karkat and Terezi die on their questbeds so they may become immortal before he places their souls inside of robots. - Perhaps because the Meat's cast's souls are hosted within robots, they will not actually die when their robot bodies are destroyed, but they will instead go back into their actual bodies.

Holy shit, this is all amazing! It would be cool if it actually leads down to this. And yeah, you could probably make a YouTube vid about this. Even make these posts on your blog itself and I'd definitely give it a share. I don't mind you sending me these kind of asks or posts. It's actually interesting to hear your thoughts about the series, the fandom, and the current project going on here.

[the-meat-machine]

thinking about cycles of abuse in homestuck and how almost all the guardians get caught up in it, even ones who seem decent at first glance. and specifically i'm thinking about jane's dad

jane's childhood appears superficially similar to john's. she had an idyllic suburban childhood raised by a loving dad who's almost identical to john's dad

but it's a mistake to think that jane's childhood was normal, because in actuality she spent the entirety of it being groomed to be the heiress to an evil alien empress. and i really, really wonder what part dad played in that

because for all that dad crocker appears to be a perfectly kind and loving father, he's unable to prevent his daughter from being brainwashed right under his nose. quite possibly he's also been brainwashed himself? certainly he doesn't seem to have any objection to raising his daughter as the heiress to crockercorp

i don't know if it's more tragic if he genuinely doesn't realize what's happening… or if he does suspect something is wrong and is forced to walk the impossible tightrope of protecting jane as much as he can without bringing the condesce's wrath down on both of their heads

it's possible the real truth is somewhere in the middle. dad is involved enough to suspect that crockercorp is, perhaps, not as normal a corporation as it appears. he's heard rumors of their shadier dealings, seen enough to believe that some of those rumors may even be true. but his grandmother seems sincere in her desire to pass the company down to jane. so surely if he can shield jane from the worst excesses and raise a levelheaded heir to steer crockercorp in a better direction, that can only benefit everyone. and if all he has to do to keep his notoriously volatile grandmother off his back is to allow her to gift his daughter the occasional brainwashing machine superadvanced technology, isn't that a small price to pay?

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 22/03/2024

Viva La LOWAS

Season 7 Featured on: The Year of Grand Dad Sound Selection [Side B]

Ripped by Cosmic199X

Requested by literallyn01imp0rtant! (Request Form)

I'd like to very much thank literallyn01imp0rtant for suggesting a bevvy of Homestuck rips for me to cover, but also apologize in advance - despite being a Tumblr user and overall internet dweller, I'm actually still very unfamiliar with the series. Not that I'm disinterested, far from it - if anything, the recent influx in new rips from the series has only made me more interested in getting into the series now in 2024. But even watching from a distance, it's been fascinating to see Homestuck's presence on SiIvaGunner from the early years to now - with Viva La LOWAS leading the charge for a new age of rips of the series.

See, while the channel was starting out in the early Seasons, there was a real sort of commitment to only ripping video games on the channel. That is still something that is *mostly* adhered to nowadays - for instance, rips like A Day In The Snow or Remember when this song was the one related to toilets? will still use the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games as sources despite the songs featured obviously not originating there. But the same also applied to Homestuck, as most of the franchise's music used for rips were assigned to the official, episodic, now-effectively-cancelled Homestuck adventure game, HiveSwap. Like it was for me, it was likely a bit confusing for those out of the loop - unless you gave the key art's main characters a second look, the name and artwork don't really jump out as you as "Homestuck" right away. But now with HiveSwap effectively dead in the water, and SiIvaGunner's adherence to only ripping "real" games being far looser, a change occurred on October 24th 2023 - "retconning" all Homestuck rips to have been part of a series-specific playlist. There was even a cool little announcement made that provided a lore-accurate reason to the change having been done, referencing both Homestuck itself and the early parts of SiIva Season 2 - that's the kind of channel-and-lore harmony that I raved so much about in Haltmanna feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20.

There's a lot to love about the original Doctor theme from Homestuck, with a magical sound eerie reminiscent of Cave Story (which was confirmed as being a major influence to it by the track's late composer). With Viva La LOWAS being made six years and a month after the fact, I can't exactly say it was made in tribute to her passing - yet arranging Viva La Vida of all tracks in this melancholy chiptune sound still just feels so befitting. The combination fits like a glove throughout the whole arrangement and gives the rip an equal amount of hope and hopelessness, a sense of bittersweet acceptance, and many more emotions that the original Viva La Vida already instilled into people way back when. As a huge fan of both the song itself and of Cave Story's music (see Balcony Fusion Collab), Viva La LOWAS hits hard for me even without the context Homestuck itself provides for it. The fact that this rip led the way for all future Homestuck rips to follow, free from HiveSwap's shackles and finally able to champion Homestuck itself, only amplifies those feelings. And so this elegantly simple arrangement is able to mean so much at once despite it all.

Here's to more Homestuck, and here's to me one day finally reading it.

[rockkal]

HOMESTUCK BEYOND CANON NEXT UPD8(s) PREDICTIONS (I'm delusional, btw) /SHITPOST

We get to see Jack Noir be a pathetic little meow meow and has depression because he's too busy working at the mine coal to see his wife

The Felt come into the screen, also somehow snowman, and they all say "We voted for Obama" (this is very important homestuck lore, btw)

Brand new character called HEROIN ADDICT is introduced. Son of Karkat and Dave. Has a brother named John Egbert Strider Vantas

Clover flirts with Jane and gets sent to the weed dungeon. And not like the good weed. I mean like the weed that really feels like shit

Jake becomes new leader of the Felt and Crowbar becomes his dad (Crowbar dad AU, write that down, it'll be on the test)

We get to see Death, the character, talk with ULT Dirk and he brang along the Midnight Crew, Mom Lalonde B1 and Dad egbert because he thinks they're cool (also, Mom Lalonde and Dad Egbert kiss a lot in death's office and have tea and buscuits with the Midnight Crew)

CALIBORN COMES FOR A SINGLE PANEL AND MAKES JUNE OFFICIALLY TRANS! BECAUSE HE HATES JUNE AND HE HATES WOMEN SO HE COMBINES THE TWO THINGS HE HATES INTO ONE (this is a joke, btw. I honestly want June's transitioning to be more in character then just the gremlin guy I like does it for me)

Ms Paint. becomes narrator of both Candy and Meat and it's just a podcast about different types of paint

Something related to The Midnight Crew's creator, Professor Mayasaka or however the fuck ya spell it, something translated into midnight. Whatever. I just wanna see the professor man come in and do something

JANE REVIVES AIMLESS RENEGADE SOMEHOW AND HE GOES GOD TIER! (His Classpect is Mage of Blood because I say so)

Sollux and Eridan kissing

B

Roxy breaks the fourth wall and says "it's Roxy Lalonding time" and Roxy Lalondes all over the place

A bucket appears and yeah

We see Andrew Hussie in a bath robe

Terezi manages to give back the legal rights to Beyond Canon back to their creators (sorry, I forgot your name, mister cool homestuck guy. I forget easily :'(]

Vriska dies. (I hate Vriska! (In a Kismesis way))

Equius comes back to say "I require horse" and then he gets prototyped with the universe frog

Matchsticks gets a personality and we learn he wants to become an actual fire fighter and save people since he was a kid

Stitch becomes hella cool by partnering with Kanaya to beat the shit out of Dirk

Rose just stays Rose because I forgot she existed

21 again but with Dave

June Egbert gets two new dads and they're Eggs and Biscuits from The Felt because it reminds her of her dead dad's cakes

Diamonds Droogs/Draconian Dignitary x Dad Crocker 20 hour oiled up make out session flash animation

Calliope has a child with Roxy. (comment what ya think they would be called)

Dirk eats a baby (it's John Egbert Strider Vantas)

AR gets to have a robo body and becomes friends with AR and Aradia and also Aranea is there to keep them in check and they call eachother the "AR squad", but Aranea is the out cast because she is blue

Eden Gardner (homestuck OC of @springselkie) gets a mention.

Monkeys become relevant to the plot

Jack Noir gets to show us his stabs

Bold Eagles are Aimless Renegade's second power, because he's the only AMERUCAN character in homestuck

Jake gets a beard and celebrates by showing us his level 100 GYAT

What Pumpkin office remains is an important location in the story

Mommy Condie comes back and marries Earth C's version of Colonel sassacres

Freddy Fazber, new character, literally the best. Hor hor hor hor.

Something related to drugs, I guess (I'm running out of ideas)

Fortnite becomes canon and everyone loves it

Deltarune reference

Jack Noir eats money and becomes lamborghini

Jack Noir villain arc where he and June kiss (their kismesis, it's ok. They want to kill eachother)

Rose's wifi is STILL shitty! COME ON, IT'S BEEN 10 YEARS, FIX YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION, GURL!

Kanaya gets to make something Lord English related

We see Doc Scratch because he's awesome

Wayward Vagabond comes back from the grave and does ANOTHER revolution against monerchy. He is truly the best diplomat.

MLP gets mentioned

Problem Sleuth shows up for 5 panels and then dies

Nepeta gets to kill Pickle Inspector

Eridan smokes weed

[S] Terezi: Do the mackarena

Weed chapter

Karkat gets a period cramp

Something something Lord English in black void, becomes normal Caliborn, being room mates with Equius, Gamzee and AR (auto-responder)

Free Bird fight sequence

Joe Biden gets a mention because he was probably in office before the clown fuckers took over D.C. Washington

Cockaine chapter

MSPA reader gets hella blazed and yeah

Caliborn kisses a rule 63 version of a Miku body pillow

Pic Yaoi sequence or smth

Sawbuck stays a fat fuck and eats the earth at the end

Itchy dies from tripping on a rock

Doze unslows himself and does a break dance

Trace and Fin make out session

Quarters gets to shoot ULT Dirk and is declared a war veteran

Bog from RHG shows up to eat a chocolate bar

I'm high

Ok, that was the end of this dumb shitpost. Hope ya got a kick out of it. Or not.

Wait

Shit

I should probably add an image so that I could look cool

Give me a sec

Yes, God of Yaoi.

Perfect for this.

See ya

[morethanwonderful]

Rereading and really thinking about page 82/the title page after not looking at early Homestuck for a long time makes me feel unhinged. I know the page has been analyzed to death but god there really is just so much in there thematically to unpack.

From more or less the first moment that both concepts come up in Homestuck, wind and loneliness are tied together. It's partly a joke about John being melodramatic about the desolation of his empty mailbox, but it's also the core of his entire character.

John is the Heir of Breath. He's all about freedom and individuality on a symbolic level and wind on a literal level. And as we see time and again, the inherent price of his power is that achieving freedom also cuts him off from others. He's the opposite of blood and bonds. He becomes unmoored from reality and can retcon his own story, teleporting to where and whenever he pleases across the multiverse, but it comes at the cost of relocating to a new timeline where his friends have all shared a reality different than his. And that's just one example.

For John, the aspect of freedom and wind comes at the cost of isolation. Wind is the space that keeps neighbors apart.

Hell, you could even say something about the fact that it's specifically the wind in the gaps between suburban homes that brings up the imagery of desolation. On one hand, talking about loneliness alongside suburbia is an old trope, and for good reason. American suburban architecture and city planning is designed to put people in nuclear family bubbles and isolate them from their communities (and god forbid, anyone outside their immediate community). So the isolating wind in the gaps between picket fence houses is a classic image.

But also, it's really fitting for the specific sense of loneliness that John experiences.

Lots of Homestuck characters have loneliness as a major recurring theme. Even among just the beta kids, Jade's isolation is even more iconic than John's. She spends most of her life alone on an island with just her dog, and in the retcon, she spends three years alone on the ship between realities. She's constantly isolated by great gaps of physical space (heh) between her and the people she cares about.

John's isolation is different. He's never so cut off as Jade from the people he loves, but there's always some gap between them. He has a loving father that he often feels adversarial toward as a kid, and their conflict circa John's thirteenth birthday is in large part because of the harlequin misunderstanding. Dad Egbert is right there in the same house loving John, but there's a fundamental disconnect, and he fails to understand something major about his son.

Plus, we never see any mention of John having friends in his offline life. From his attitude toward himself (constant self-mockery) and the lack of any reference to him having friends that die in the apocalypse, he probably lives a pretty lonely life at school. He's a goofy nerdy insecure kid that can't connect with his peers and has to turn to faraway friends on the internet. Classic suburban isolation.

And it's the same in post-canon! John doesn't have to be cut off from his friends! He can fly and teleport and call/text them any time he wants. There's nothing subjecting him to physical isolation. All the loneliness of his depression is social and psychological. He's living on an empty suburban street—lonely while surrounded by people.

Genuinely, I don't know if there's a better image for him and his arc than the wind that blows through the gaps between cookie-cutter houses. The breeze keeping neighbors apart.

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck Beyond Cannon Upd8 for September 14, 2024

Couple days late on this one, so let's get started right away.

Oh! But first we have a news post. It is the first upd8 of the month after all.

I mentioned content warnings on the last upd8. Looks like I'm not the only one. Yeah, those would have been appreciated. But hopefully James can follow through on his promise to get better with them.

The Karkat plush is . . . today! Apparently you can now preorder it, or at least you should be able to. I need to check on that. I think my previous support counts as my preorder, but I want to be sure. Don't want to miss out on the wonderfully grumpy plush with the awesome hair.

The Patreon is apparently the reason we're getting upd8s like this one, and James is trying to figure out how to bolster it. Makes me, again, appreciate all the work Andrew did on the original. He seems reluctant to do another visual novel like this, but who knows what the future holds. Wish I could support the comic again, but right now I don't have the funds. Admittedly, part of that is because I play Warhammer.

On to the upd8!

Er . . . after I fix the browser thing again >.<

Huh! I just noticed that the panel that we see while the game is loading is actually fake and created by the game window. You can barely see the outline there, but the big give away is the menu bar in the upper left. Neat trick!

Looks like @nostalgicamphibian was right! That feather is very much orange, and so that means we know who it belongs to. Maybe Vriska will take some advice and just chill and recoup for a bit. I'm sure she needs it after the last chapter.

Also! We can now reread the prologue from here!

I still feel like Vriska both needs to see Terezi and (Vriska). They are together in the bubbles, or were the last time we saw them. So she could do both at once. I think there's a huge lesson she could take away from that. One chapter left after this one, so we'll have to see I guess. For now, let's see some shenanigans!

Also this is Chapter X, apparently.

And now for something completely different! Apparently this was happening during the last chapter?

Embarrassed? We haven't seen all the sprites, such as Arquius perhaps. But Davepeta is specifically saying sprite^2. And only one other character has that designation . . .

Okay, this is just great! Which ever member of the team that wrote this managed to perfectly mash up Nepeta's kitty themed RP with Dave's rambling. I love everything about this!

And there they are! Bit of a callback to Rose having to wait on Dave before. Jasprose appears to still be painting the town red on Meat Earth C. Wonder if we might see Jane with her at any point in the future.

omg im l so fucking mao at this! That is the perfect Rose Tier Homestuck technobabble. Midnight City is is in superplausitional canonical deniability. So for any purpose, it could be said to be canon or not canon as the HICU needs! XD

I'm literally struggling to keep it down right now! Also, I think the only panel I haven't as part of this was the stuff with Erisol! This has all been S Tier!

Hah! And Dad and Droug are apparently still running around too! That probably put a damper on Jasprose's night on the town! Also good to see that even this version of Rose is still sober.

Not so good to hear that Jake is still completely fucked up after what Dirk did to him. Jasprose hints that he still might have a role to play before the end though.

And, of course, we have timeline shenanigans! While Davepeta has been stuck with Vriska for multiple years, Jasprose is still on the same night of partying we left them with.

Davepeta is not pleased with Vriska's progress. Maybe they'll think different depending on how she responds to Scratch's abuse. But they're clearly worried, and this is apparently extremely important to whatever plans the two sprite^2 have cooking. And Dave is for once appreciating Rose's desire to understand the human psyche. Not that it would necessarily have helped with Vriska.

Hah!

Apparently even they weren't expecting that.

Normally a beat panel like this after a statement like that can only mean one thing . . .

Hah!

Join us next time when 4 more years have passed! That was the meaning behind the 8 Ball all along!

Now excuse me while that line sends me into existential dread over the possibility of a different type of "4 more years."

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions pages 554- 576)

Wow, that was quite a heavy update.

I love that we finally got some insight into Yiffy's personality! Feels like she got a lot from Rose there, haha.

Too bad we still don't have dialogue from her yet though, I wonder when we'll get that honour.

But yikes, that tension between Kanaya, Rose and Jade. When Kanaya started putting on her lipstick I got REALLY afraid that the lipstick was going to turn into her chainsaw and that she was going to attack Jade with it. Good thing that didn't happen.

Rose and Kanaya's relationship has gone through a lot across both Meat and Candy!

What's drawing my attention MOST OF ALL though is that shot of Jade's captchalogue card!!

That's clearly a hand with stitches on it… which heavily implies it to be a STUFFED CORPSE. :o

We know Jade and her Grandpa had quite a history with stuffing corpses, so this immediately makes you wonder… whose corpse is this? And just what is the Homestuck Beyond Canon team planning on doing with it?

The most obvious candidate is Candy Dave's corpse! He recently died, from Jade's perspective, and she was most likely the first one to find his corpse. So if her old mannerisms surfaced again, perhaps she immediately stuffed him?

It's kind of a strange pose for this hand, but maybe his corpse is still lying in about the same pose Jade found him in?

If they all end up in a new SBURB session, does this mean we're going to get a new Davesprite???

And what impact would it have on Davebot, if any? Seeing as it's technically Candy Dave's consciousness (in ultimate self form) inhabiting the robot, would it be pulled from the robot into the sprite and cause the robot to explode (just like Aradia experienced when she went God Tier)?

Even the "WEE WOO" text beneath the panel is heavily implying this, using red and orange text, much like Dave and Davesprite's text colors.

An alternate interesting theory raised by abundantChewtoys is that it's Candy Dirk's corpse. I don't think it's very likely considering that they had a funeral for him and all, but it would be another notable corpse here in the candy timeline Jade could technically get her hands on AND it also fits with the text colors (Dirk's orange and Arquiusprite's red).

Finally another excellent point abundantChewtoys raised is that this update made sure to point out that Rose never buried her Mom. But then what DID happen to her body? Was it left on the Battlefield?

I may recall John or pre-retcon Jade having mentioned that they had a funeral for the dead Guardians on the 3-year trip on the Prospitian battleship? I might be remembering that wrong though. I can't find it with the search function, so my mind might be making it up.

But in any case, post-retcon Jade was ALONE on the ship, she had no John or Davesprite with her. So, knowing her family history, it's POSSIBLE she stuffed the corpses of John's Dad and Rose's Mom (and Dave's Bro?)… and that she still has those corpses with her?!

Anyway, most likely it's "just" Candy Dave's corpse, but it's hilarious to think of the other possibilities as well. At least we know for sure it's not a troll corpse considering the white human-like hand, hahahahaha.

I also just want to point out that this green captchalogue card implies this to be Jade's Pictionary modus… which would mean Jade had to DRAW the corpse to captchalogue it… think about that for a minute. Yikes. :(

It's interesting how in both Meat and Candy we currently have someone holding onto a dead corpse (Terezi holding on to John's body and Jade hanging on to this mysterious body who may or may not be Dave). Where is this leading? New Sprites in a SBURB session or something else entirely?

Finally I just want to talk about James Roach his newpost, where he hints one or more [S] pages are upcoming a few months from now!!!

I'm VERY excited about that, but also very curious what it could be about…

Ever since this new creative team took over we've got plenty of updates which seem to be building up to everyone heading to the Plot Point at the meteor. So are we going to get an [S] page featuring an epic confrontation between Jane and the rebels at the meteor, tying up everything that's happened so far in Candy and ending this "Act"?

Maybe that same page will also be the one to finally reveal what the Plot Point truly is. Is it some kind of portal (like from Hiveswap) to the Meat timeline or is it something else entirely?

My mind has been going crazy on theorizing and imagining where this could be going.

If everyone is gathering on the meteor and the Plot Point will activate then and there, what if it will somehow transport the entire meteor to the Meat timeline and have it go to Deltritus??

That would be an absolutely crazy but also amazing way to merge the Meat and Candy storylines into one.

Alternatively, I would find it hilarious if the Candy meteor transports to Meat Earth and it turns out that Calliope and Caliborn grew up there in the distant future (making it a combination of Candy and Meat, which is an appropriate symbol for both Cherubs).

[overthestars-and-offtoneverland]

Today I Found Something From My Childhood

And it reminded me how bad my childhood was.

When I was about 9/10, I thought it'd be a good idea to make a "Childhood Box" to pass down to my first born child.

From the looks of things, I put things in it from ages about 9-14ish. Makes sense that's when I stopped due to certain life events. I probably wasn't thinking about it.

I remember that I would write and rewrite notes to leave to my child. Contents of the notes depended on how my life was going until one day I had the one that was the most concise.

Today I found the box.

I actually removed things from it, specifically things that either had no actual sentimental value to me (random marks of things I thought were so cool but were literally garbage [I.E. a Poki Box because I was a little weeb and a Fago cap because Homestuck phase]) or things that hurt me to see it (things I only put in out of obligation [it didn't bring me joy or have sentimental value to me but my parents were adamant it had to], things marking my self esteem at the time that I have since fixed due to life experience ("I HAVE to keep this thing from my shitty boyfriend because it's the first time anyone called me pretty and it probably won't happen again!"), or things that had my deadname on it that fit one of both of the previous categories. Quite frankly it was cathartic and I see it as growth.

Also a mini bible, which I think fell under that obligation category thanks to my shithead father. I'm not even Christian anymore. 100% his fault.

Anyway, the part that has me super messed up.

I found the note.

I couldn't have been older than 10 when I actually wrote it. It was literally written in crayon.

"Dear sweet baby,

I want you to know that I love you.

I am giving you my childhood because I want you to be a happy child for as long as you can.

I will never scream at you. I will never hit you. I will make sure you are happy.

Love, Mom.

P.S. I will make sure your dad does too."

There's a lot to unpack here.

Firstly, we'll just skip the fact that at this point in my life I had to assume I would need to be cisgender and straight. As an adult, A. My kids will call me Bubby or Bubs, not Mom. B. I will most likely not be with a man. There's only like a 2% probability on that one. AMAB, maybe, but not a man.

Secondly, those bold parts aren't me exaggerating now. Those were emphasized in the actual letter. I said so much and so little.

I felt unloved, therefore I definitely needed to emphasize to my child that I love them unconditionally

I was not given the benefit of being treated like a child. Which is true. I was parentified and if I ever acted my age, I was punished for it. I had to do chores way above my age level. If I wasn't good immediately at anything, I was punished. I was always meant to be the mature one even when my parents were throwing tantrums. How dare I react to someone twice my size screaming at me.

My father was my main abuser and led me to believe that fathers are expected to abuse their children. That's not a normal thought.

Thirdly, I promised my child I wouldn't abuse them. I didn't even realize what was happening to me was abuse at this point and I still promised my child I wouldn't abuse them and make sure none one else would either.

Both my parents hurt me this badly. And my mother wouldn't even pretend to protect me from the physical abuse. Why would she? Both of them were mentally and emotionally abusing me.

How is it fair that a little kid is so beaten down and knows subconsciously that this isn't right that they grow up to be me.

And yet with every confrontation to these monsters it's "All in my head" and "Where did this come from?" and "Suddenly you think I'm abusive!"

God these people will NEVER meet my children.

[homestuckreplay]

Week 1 Retrospective: Who Is John Egbert?

It’s official - Homestuck is one week old today! And while a week is not a long run for a comic, it’s already got more pages than the author’s earlier work Bard Quest, so maybe it’s something worth recognizing. So I wanted to mark a week of Homestuck by doing a deep dive on what we’ve learned about our protagonist John Egbert so far. It’s some fact collection, some wild speculation, and some ongoing questions. It’s over 3000 words, so it’s under a readmore for anyone who’s interested.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun time to you (or even if it does), you can take the John Egbert Big 5 Personality Test to see how you score on John’s five key personality traits. It’s 14 multiple choice questions, so a much quicker read.

We’re introduced to John on page 4, where we’re given five key interests of his: bad movies, programming computers, paranormal lore, amateur magic, and gaming. I’ll take these one by one and use them as a framework for John’s character so far.

“You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES.”

John has eleven (11) movie posters on his walls. Of these, three star Matthew McConaughey and two star Nicolas Cage. More notably, six have a Rotten Tomatoes rating below 50%, and two of these are below 10%. I haven’t seen any of these movies, but as far as I can tell, here are the one sentence summaries [broad spoilers for all these movies].

Little Monsters: A boy befriends a monster and visits the monster world, where they try to convert him into a monster too.

Con Air: A paroled man disrupts a gang of prisoner’s escape from a prison transport plane.

Deep Impact: Earth tries to prepare for extinction after a comet is found on a collision course with Earth.

Ghostbusters II: After going out of business, the Ghostbusters reunite to combat a negative energy slime monster.

Mac and Me: A boy befriends a young alien who gets separated from his family and lost on Earth.

Contact: An Earth scientist successfully discovers alien life and travels to an alien world.

A Time to Kill: A father is acquitted in court for killing the perpetrators of racial hate crimes against his daughter.

Failure to Launch: A 35 year old man’s parents hire a woman to persuade him to finally move out of their home.

Face/Off: A terrorist and a FBI agent go through facial transplant surgery and temporarily swap identities.

Armageddon: A group of space workmen go on a mission to stop an asteroid from destroying Earth. 

Ghost Dad: A man temporarily dies but is able to interact with his children in ghost form.

From this we can see that John really likes science fiction movies related to aliens, ghosts and monsters, as well as action comedy. We also know from page 21: ‘Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you’. A Time to Kill and Failure to Launch are the only ones that don’t fit his taste. The implication here is that John really loved Matthew McConaughey in Contact and so watched his other movies even though they were things he wouldn’t usually watch.

I’m curious if these movies are intended as clues to John’s character, the future of the comic, or both. In terms of his character, they make me see him as someone who’s imaginative and goofy, young and carefree, not concerned with other people’s opinions, more interested in watching movies for their surface meanings and exciting stories, maybe wants to escape to a different world, might be a little bit gay. 

In terms of the future of the comic, it could be that we’re going to see literal aliens or monsters - they could even be already here, keeping John ‘homestuck’. Slime monsters are particularly highlighted, with Slimer from Ghostbusters appearing on John’s shirt and computer background, and his chumhandle, ectoBiologist, relating to slime. Slime invasion honestly feels too obvious, and anyway, several of John’s movies are about befriending a more benign supernatural force - could John’s Pesterchum friends be something other than human? Or maybe it’s a more metaphorical meaning, referring to John having a very different life to his friends? 

Two of these movies feature Earth extinctions by giant space rocks, but there’s absolutely no indication of this being a real world threat John is dealing with. Again, it could refer more generally to a sudden, life changing event that’s about to happen to disrupt John’s current state, something that would fit thematically with this being John’s 13th birthday, a milestone age.

There’s also a theme of crime and the legal system in several movies, including Con Air, the one that’s been most highlighted. The most obvious interpretation of John’s dad right now is that he’s a clown or performer, but there’s an outside chance he could be in law enforcement, or a criminal. It’s even possible that he’s currently in hiding or some kind of safe house. This would explain John being ‘homestuck’ and sick of spending time with his dad.

Speaking of John’s dad, I’m concerned for him based on the Ghost Dad summary - the comic keeps teasing his presence, but we haven’t actually seen him yet. Could he be a ghost? Or become one at some point? Alternatively, we know John has an already dead relative - could his nanna be a ghost? Did John dropping her ashes release her ghost? Family is a really common theme in movies, so I don’t know if a large number of these movies being about family (especially fathers) is relevant, but I’m noting it all the same.

“You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.”

John claims he ‘likes to program’, but it actually seems to make him angry. We first learn ‘[y]ou were never all that great with data structures and you find the concept [of the stack modus] puzzling and mildly irritating.’ We then see three files on John’s desktop, two in ^CAKE - ‘pff.^CAKE’ and ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK.^CAKE’ and one in ~ATH - ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.~ATH’. These tell a clear narrative of John trying to work on his programming and getting increasingly more frustrated with his attempts, until inevitably giving up. Both of the programming languages are puns, too. ^ is often called a carat (carrot cake) while ~ is a tilde (til death). 

I know this is wild speculation, but… John started off coding in a harmless programming language, was already struggling, then for some reason switched over to the most ominous possible sounding language, screwed it up even worse, and now… he’s constantly haunted by the ghost of failed programming attempts in the form of his sylladex, which he appears to be new to using (he had no prior understanding of it on page 7 - although this could be handwaved due to video game tutorial logic), and which operates similarly to a computer program and seems to cause John endless frustration. He’ll have to figure out how to exploit the inventory system in ways that help him, which involves actually figuring out some stuff about coding, in order to partake in some real life ghostbusting, or monster hunting, or dealing with whatever threat he’ll have to deal with by using inventory hacks.

“You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE,” (...)

By far the interest of John’s that we’ve seen the least of so far, John’s love of the paranormal is mostly inferred through his movie preferences, and we don’t see any direct evidence of an interest in lore. However, I can’t stop fixating on John’s chumhandle: ectoBiologist. The comic’s first act was to draw attention to giving John a name, and for many 2009 kids, the names they go by online are more meaningful and representative of them than their real world names. 

‘ecto-’ means ‘outer, outside, external’ according to dictionary.com, and it’s actually a common prefix in a variety of fields of biology, but there’s no such thing as ‘ectobiology’ as a field, or an ‘ectobiologist’ - neither term has any search results prior to Homestuck. I think it’s way more likely that this refers to ectoplasm, a term from both cell biology and spiritualism that was popularized by Ghostbusters to mean any substance secreted by a ghost, in practice often manifesting as green slime. Slimer, who we can guess is John’s favorite, is a benign ghost made of pure ectoplasm. I love the idea that John loves this dumb ghost so much that he’s memorized all the lore about them in their appearances throughout the franchise, and devised this username based on being an expert on these ghosts right down to their biology (or at least thinking he is). 

The only catch is, ‘fondness for paranormal lore’ is very passive and doesn’t even imply much knowledge, much less action, while ‘biologist’ implies that John has been doing actual experiments. The idea of John trying to create a real life Slimer the same way other kids make slime in their kitchens is really entertaining, if an off the wall theory. Does ‘homestuck’ just mean John is grounded for an unethical science project? 

(...) “and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN.”

The magic chest is one of the biggest, most eye catching and most colorful objects in John’s room. We see its contents on page 8, which lean more into joke store items than things a magician might use, except for the trick handcuffs and perhaps the collapsible sword. The narration on this page states that John is neither a skilled magician nor a cunning prankster. I’m nitpicking definitions here, but everything John has done so far has been way more about pranks than about magic. 

John’s uses of the magic chest to date are…

various putting things into his inventory and removing them (funny, but unintentionally)

combining fake arms with cake (p.36) out of necessity, which ‘makes the cake at least 300% more hilarious’

merging hat with beagle puss to create a clever disguise (p.45) and wearing it for 25+ pages, which he acknowledges is a ‘shitty disguise’

attaching fake arms to harlequin doll (p.65), which makes it ‘AT LEAST a million percent funnier’

All of which are definitely not magic tricks, and honestly not even pranks. Arguably John’s best and most successful prank so far has been when he pretended not to have arms for the first six pages, before revealing his arms after the interface had gone to the trouble of moving the cake off his magic chest to get him some arms.

John keeps thinking about reading Colonel Sassacre’s Guide to Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery, but always finding some excuse not to. He can’t read it until he captchalogues it, but once he does that, it gets buried in his inventory. He assumes that the book can tell him the exact percentage increase of hilarity a prank leads to, but it’s too big for him to actually look anything up. 

An outside theory for this that I don’t think is likely simply because it’s so much darker than the comic has been so far, is that John loves this book, but since the incident where his nanna was killed by a copy (perhaps even this copy?) he hasn’t been able to bring himself to read it. A far more likely theory is that while John is an aspiring amateur magician, it’s more of a big idea, and he hasn’t actually done any magic yet. This also tracks with his weaksauce pranks above. And if that’s true, then it says a lot about John that he defines himself by a hobby he aspires to but doesn’t actually practice - he’s someone with big dreams and less motivation, just like his big dream of going to collect the mail from his father despite the lack of motivation that’s kept him messing around for 70 pages. 

“You also like to play GAMES sometimes.”

Potentially most important of all is Gamer John. We get a list of games John likes to play from inspecting his CD tower the same way we get a list of movies from looking at his posters. 

Bard Quest

The Caper Havers

Problem Sleuth

And It Don’t Stop

What Pumpkin?

Ghostbusters II MMORPG

Little Monsters (for Nintendo)

Harry Anderson: Call My Bluff!

The first five games all reference previous work by the author of Homestuck, and as such probably don’t need in depth analysis. However, the fact that within the world of Homestuck, these are all games (instead of comics) is one of several suggestions that we should think of Homestuck as a game, something that needs further analysis. 

The next two games are video game adaptations of movies we know John likes, and the last is a branded video game from Harry Anderson, whose book we’ve already seen in John’s magic chest. Notably, none of these are real video games in our world either. It says a lot that John plays game versions of things he already likes (he’s put ‘countless manhours’ into this assortment of quality titles). 

However, it’s undeniable that the most important game in John’s life right now is Sburb. The poster is behind his head in the first panel, placed centrally with one of the only two splashes of color in the panel. The beta release is the only thing marked on his calendar for April besides his birthday, and the Sburb logo is even the picture printed on the calendar - perhaps it’s a calendar themed around new game releases? There’s clear delight on John’s face when he thinks about getting the beta, and his quest to fetch it from the recently delivered mail is the closest thing to a story this comic has so far.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Sburb, so we don’t know what it says about John that he wants to play it. It’s publicized as the Game of the Year, and according to GameBro, the game may be about houses and the player may not get to thrash anything, although these details are provided by someone who hasn’t played the game so I’m not taking them as expert opinion. It might be multiplayer - TT has been pestering TG all day about playing it with her. Maybe John just wants to share a game with his friends.

Speaking of GameBro, John can’t stand the magazine, although he for some reason has a copy on his desk. He describes the publication as ‘a joke’ to TG, and he makes the effort to take it downstairs to the fire and burn it, presumably releasing asbestos fibers into the house and causing serious lung damage to himself and his father. Does he read this because it’s the only games magazine that exists? Or did he like it just fine until now, when it trashed the game he’s excited about, and now he’s furious with it? Either way, it tracks with John’s overall fondness for critically panned media that he would be angry about contrarian critics. 

–

All of this has left me with a few questions about John as our main character. These are the things that I’m keeping an eye on and trying to answer as the story continues.

What is John good at?

We hear so much about what John is bad at. He’s explicitly stated to be bad at programming, pranks, and magic. He’s bad at using his sylladex. He’s clumsy and knocked over his nanna’s ashes. He’s got bad taste in media. He’s funny but only when he doesn’t try to be, and even then he’s sometimes the butt of the joke, where the joke is how not funny John’s joke is. He was tempted to squawk like an imbecile and shit on his desk. He has like six different prankster props and he doesn’t even use all of them. I’m saying all this with love and kindness because he also just seems like such a sweet kid, but so far he doesn’t have any defined strengths or skills. 

Is he going to turn out to be really good at gaming and kick ass at Sburb? Are we going to get a curveball where it turns out John is an amazing baker, and he hates the cakes in his room and the smell of Betty Crocker because he can do so much better than that packet mix? Or is he starting off from this low point so he can develop skills as time goes on?

What is John’s relationship with his dad really like?

John doesn’t want his dad to monopolize his time and feels trapped in his room, despite his dad baking cakes and leaving notes on gifts telling John he’s proud of him. John’s dad gets his son one great present that John’s really appreciative of, and one terrible present that John immediately hates. All of this feels very reasonable and normal for a teen feeling misunderstood by a parent who’s trying their best. 

And then there’s the clowns.

John can excuse magical frivolity and practical japery, but he draws the line at harlequins. He’s an aspiring magician, but his dad’s figurines are ‘fucking garbage’ and his dad ‘sure can be a real cornball’. John seems like somebody who gets angry at ultimately unimportant things, like bad reviews of games, too many cakes, and harlequin figurines, but because of the subject matter it reads like an intense rivalry between two highly specific subcultures that outsiders would group together. John is really making a huge deal of needing to disguise himself and mentally prepare himself to go down and face his dad, and I want to know if there’s any genuine reason behind John’s fear, or if it’s solely the overdramatics I’m starting to think are typical of him.

Is John ‘Homestuck’?

‘Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.’ (p.30)

John clearly feels like he’s stuck at home, but is this the extent of the title’s meaning? His dad has recently returned from getting groceries, so leaving the house is in theory possible. Reasons why John might be homestuck include: he’s not allowed to leave the house (for example, he’s grounded, or his dad is very controlling), he can leave the house but there’s nowhere to go (he lives near major roads, bodies of water, farms, or other obstacles, and there’s no public transport to get anywhere), or he can leave the house but it’s not safe to do so (there’s some sort of external threat, either supernatural like a monster or alien invasion, or mundane like a criminal or bomb threat). Seeing out of John’s window and into his front yard does not provide any clues; it looks like an extremely average front yard with a tree, swing and mailbox, and we know the mail was recently delivered, so there can’t be anything too world-ending happening in the neighborhood. Right now John’s goal (the Sburb Beta disc) is inside the house, so this might not get answered right away - in fact, my running theory is that the game itself might hold the answers, as its logo is a house.

What’s the differentiation between John and the narrator?

My biggest question of all, and one that probably deserves its own essay. I’m fascinated by the lines ‘In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle.’ (p.27) and ‘In a home, a FIREPLACE needs a fire, because that's what FIREPLACE is for.’ (p.50). These lines carry so much opinion, but because the narrator is constantly addressing John with the second person ‘you’, I don’t think these are John’s opinions. The narrator does have a window into John’s thoughts, so the line between them can be blurred, but there's clearly a distinction somewhere, because there have been pushbacks and disagreements between the two of them. 

One theory is that John’s dad is the narrator - John’s at home a lot for whatever reason, and so the constant and overbearing presence of his dad means that he can’t get him out of his head even when he’s alone, the commands at the top of each page reflecting John’s dad’s level of control over his son’s life. But I think this question is open ended enough that I’m not willing to commit to one theory yet. After all, we ‘examine 3rd and 4th walls of [John’s] room’ which is a directly meta allusion to the comic’s audience that only really makes sense if the narrator isn’t a character in the comic itself. 

–

I think John Egbert has been really well characterized so far. He feels like a real kid, one who keeps getting off track and forgetting what he should be doing, but one who it’s enough fun to get to know that I don’t really notice. While the main character in media often doesn’t end up being the most interesting character, I do want to keep an eye on John because I think he has a lot going on to analyze. Above the style and the world and the mechanics, John as a character is the aspect of the comic I’m most interested in right now.

[fareehaandspaniards]

My personal list of fictional girls

ALL OF A SUDDEN I decided to make a post about fictional girls I SIMP for. That's what long work shifts do with me and also Katy's post about mole on Gwynevere's chest beautiful details of Gwynevere's body

I mostly talk in my blog about men but actually there are some female characters I extremely love, simp, imagine and some even shipped with myself. They all, in general, attract me very much and deserve a lot of attention

Dagger and (!) general Beatrix from Final Fantasy 9

I'll put them together because I met both of them as a child. And if Beatrix is my unattainable ideal and favorite character, then Dagger is a character I associate myself with and my personal love that I'm ready to defend against all the haters and fools who call her a “standard female character”. She went through huge character changes, trauma, and all the stages of love in her youth. She truly was my role model when I was a child. Also, because of Dagger, I was jumping around the house with a cook pot impersonating her with a weapon XD

She was the reason I cut my hair with a knife when I was 6 years old XD My mom was horrified! I liked the new haircut but it looked awful xDDDDDDD

And I also inherited this... xDD

2. Lute from Fire Emblem Sacred Stones

Bold, smart, arrogant sometimes, a prodigy and in my personal opinion, autistic girl.

Despite the fact that she has very few lines and the plot in general, she won my young heart, and I dreamed of such a friend… As a teenager I remembered her, but in a more romantic way already…. xd Her demeanor and conversation has annoyed many players, but I find her attractive and unique - she's confident and knows she's good!

3. Jade Harley from Homestuck

My first REAL crush on a fictional character. I imagined her with me and even had a few erotic dreams with her…. It was very sad, because I literally suffered from the fact that she didn't exist, and I used up a lot of ink from my dad's printer to print a LOT of posters with her xdddd

I can't say Jade is controversial character? LOL I don't even remember Homestuck plot. But she is kind and funny character, optimistic and full of will to live. She is a witch of space after all xd She is JUST GOOD in my mind. To many years passed... xd

And while I'm no longer interested in Homestuck, Jade is still my favorite archetype.

4. Edelgard von Hresvelg from Fire Emblem Three Houses

When I saw the first preview of FE3H I knew she was going to be my favorite. Her looks, her ideology, her cold disposition, her tender heart, and her many traumas - she's beautiful. And despite the fact that Edelgard has a VERY large amount of haters, to me it just proves once again the great fandom hypocrisy! Everyone really wants a tough woman, independent, strong and making mistakes, cruel, implacable and willful, war criminal and all that stuff. But once they get strong woman, she becomes hated! After all, she's up against a muscular and very handsome young man with absolutely KIND and GOOD intentions, and all the bad things he does are for KIND purposes.

And Edelgard is very controversial. Even gray, I might say. My girl did the thing she finds right and chose the bloody path, but I'd go with her all the way to the end because she's my empress and that's it xd Love her

5. Rom from Bloodborne

I was a little mad at her at first…? When I first started playing Bloodborne. As is often the case with me, my first impression 90% of the time is later reversed. Many headcanoned her as Willem's helpless victim and a “background” for Micolash, and that headcanon spoiled the experience for me in many ways. But by creating my own vision of Rom, I fell in love! She can be crazy, proactive, determined, cunning, manipulative, comical, tragic…. Of course, it's all about interpretation and image. But I fell in love with Rom in all her forms.

6. Ruby from Disco Elysium

She only shows up for one scene, but…. SHE MADE ME BLUSH. LOOK AT HER.

I can hear the soundtracks from Hotline Miami and the police sirens... Her game portrait doesn't idealize her looks, no, you can see her age and wrinkles, and also…. her danger. It gives me goosebumps... I don't know why, but the portraits in Disco Elysium fascinate me. They manage to convey the character's personality and traits with color and strokes of paint behind their backs…

Actually this game created in my opinion the MOST perfect female characters I've seen. They are gorgeous in their own way, they look like REAL women.

I'm in love with Ruby. And even want to do a cosplay on her in the future….

7. Gwynevere from Dark souls!

Goddess of love, fertility, a gorgeous and big woman, with beautiful breasts, smiling, bright…. That's my kink. I have been fascinated with the history of ancient nations for a very long time. And the images of ancient goddesses have forever remained in my head something chthonically beautiful, a kind of female ideal. Gwynevere reminds me of them. I have an OC as well, personifying all the same things, only more cunning…. Beautiful lady…

8. Nyx from Hades!

Nyx is a very special goddess to me. It's very personal… I've studied her image a lot. And Hades definitely managed to convey her as she should be. A mother, a friend, a caregiver and her thin veil of darkness...