#i love getting to apply Homestuck theory to other things

[dalishthunder]

oh, Neb/Dragonborn that frequently flips from red to black 🖤 I know you write him more on the begrudgingly caring side but I can imagine early relationship being a such a mess of a caliginous crush.

sorry if this is out of the blue btw! I saw you mention Neb being heir of blood, and it got me going down the rabbit hole of some old homestuck fics I loved back then 😅

Oh it absolutely does. Absolutely does anon. It starts off very caliginous at first! From both sides and I can't wait to get to that part

LDB pacing the floor complaining about him to xelzaz (very much written as ♦️) and xelzaz just being like, so are we poisoning him or what

I love analyzing things through the lens of Homestuck bc I'm Homestuck trash and it broke my brain

[the-meat-machine]

damn, the upd8 is giving me all sorts of jane thoughts. upd8 spoilers below the cut

ok so first of all, seeing jane's body blundering around separately from her head is giving me all sorts of Ideas. i mean god damn 👀

but anyway. on a more serious note… i've been wondering for a while whether jane's powers make her very nearly unconditionally immortal, and this update only cements that theory in my mind. jane is made of life, and it seems increasingly likely that her powers will keep her alive no matter what with no conscious input required. it doesn't matter whether her death would be Just if she never dies in the first place!

now, we first see jane unconsciously use her powers soon after she's introduced in homestuck proper, when her dream self does a Lifey Thing to revive itself after jack stabs her. and then in beyond canon, we've seen her keep herself alive in multiple cases where she absolutely could not have applied conscious effort to using her powers. she manages to heal herself from getting shot in the head, and now in this update her body is able to keep itself going with no input from her brain. she is just overflowing with Life. it's like she can't not stay alive.

(the one counterargument to this theory is that jane did die during Game Over. but Game Over happened within hours of jane going god tier, so you could argue that she hadn't fully come into her powers yet. candy jane, meanwhile, has had a couple decades to hone her powers, some of which has been spent in open warfare, giving her plenty of opportunities to level up her healing powers to monstrous heights.)

also, a bit of a digression on jane's powers: as far as we can tell, in canon, jane has two main powers in her skillset: 1) she can heal the living, and 2) she can resurrect the dead once per person. now, jane has already used her one self-resurrection in the aforementioned dream self revival. (remember that the current jane is her dream self; her original body died when the alpha kids were entering the game.) however, again, it doesn't matter that she can't resurrect herself anymore if she never dies in the first place! basically, i'm positing that her healing abilities have become so over-the-top powerful that she can effortlessly heal herself from basically anything, no matter how deadly it would be to anyone else.

really, i sincerely wonder if there's any way to kill jane at all at this point. maybe if you vaporized her whole body at once… though even then, i wouldn't be surprised if her atoms just pulled themselves together again through sheer force of Life.

this makes jane's anxiety over being left alone for eternity if her friends die even more poignant. all of the other gods are merely conditionally immortal, and they're probably significantly more killable than she is. there's a true danger that she could end up alone, all of her friends killed Heroically or Justly over the years and centuries, while she lingers on, too much the embodiment of Life to ever die. no matter how twisted candy jane has gotten, no matter how much she's alienated all her friends and loved ones, i still think she would be wrecked to be truly alone.

this line of thought also makes me wonder how much of a factor dirk's death played in sending candy jane off the deep end. she was supposed to have eternity together with her best friends, but their new lives as gods have barely begun when suddenly one of them is just gone. dirk was one of her very closest friends, and without him, the eternity she's been looking forward to became that much smaller. and as a life player, jane is well placed to understand to the core just how long eternity will be without him. no wonder she won't kill jake, no matter how much she's come to despise him.

god. can't believe this update gave me so many thoughts about a character who barely said anything other than Mmmf! i just love jane so much. fuck.

[davekat-sucks]

idk why some people think that like, everyone who interacts with you considers what you say as gods word or something.

like im a fan of your blog quite a lot, but it doesnt mean i agree with everything! there is plenty of stuff i disagree with, but there is also stuff i do agree with.

what ive always liked about the blog is the openness to any opinion. im assuming there have been plenty of times you post a anon ask you dont really agree with, but you still put it out there! i feel like that says alot, that you arent necessarily just a echo chamber type space.

alot of us are also queer folks too who care about those rights and everything, but we just have more nuanced views on these things. other anons have talked about that here too.

im a nonbinary gay autistic and sometimes i do not like the writing decisions people make! just because it is considered "gay" or something doesnt mean i have to like it? im allowed to think things are written badly and arent good representation.

me not liking june egbert isnt some "terf rhetoric". its literally because my autistic ass likes having quality writing. i like transgender stories when they make sense to me, and june's story feels like a joke.

ANYWAY i hope i make sense i know i rambled alot. i like davekat-sucks alot and i feel like the community here is alot more open to different opinions than other spaces, thats why i like it.

Great words spoke, Anon.

Yeah, I don't mind people who disagree. All I do is try to show proof or evidence to backup my claim to whatever opinion I have. I don't work with Andrew Hussie or James Roach. Any theories of why certain things happened are just that unless stated from the people themselves. Doesn't stop me from making jabs and jokes if certain parts of what they're doing with Homestuck or Hiveswap series goes wrong. Deltarune gets chapter 3 before Hiveswap gets Act 3. That's just sad. There are times that I disagree, yeah. I do try my best to look on the other side and what they are saying. If there is proof or evidence, it shows it has weight that isn't just hearsay. There have been cases about certain fans that are part of the LGBT group that aren't fan of either how HS2/Beyond Canon is handling the narrative, characters, certain pairings, and of course, June Egbert. Same Homestuck fans would throw a fit at them, accusing them if they are really LGBT or just faking it. Because apparently, everyone in the LGBT has to like the same thing when they are just normal people that have their own thought and opinions on how art is either good or bad, regardless if it caters to them or not. Same has applied to race if a POC fan disagrees with fanon interpretations on the cast. It's not just Homestuck fandom either, it's any fanbase. They can't speak out if they are accused of being bigots or fakers. I just wanna be the few that speak out the series that I once loved. On how it could have been something great. I turn Anonymous on to be fair for both sides, those that hate me and those that want to vent out something they couldn't on their personal account. It's understandable nobody wants to expose themselves. It's why we go on the Internet, because most of us can just lie and play Anonymous.

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 13/4 - 2

Yup! The Alpha timeline offers a novel solution to the problem of Sylladex capacity. If the Captcha index only needs to be consistent in the Alpha timeline, then it doesn't have to worry about reserving index space for every possible item.

If this is how things work, then the Sylladex isn't predestined, per se - it's enforced. Everyone has a finite set of objects that they're allowed to captchalogue, and if you pick up anything else, your index is invalidated - and your timeline is pruned.

You could still call it predestination, if you were so inclined, but that's only partially accurate. It's more that you're coerced into 'choosing' one particular destination - or else.

I'm loving these voice headcanons. Scratch as Emperor Belos is inspired.

What the hell? That's amazing.

Based on my (admittedly limited) experience with web administration, it's not all that surprising, either. Hacks like this are shockingly common.

No worries! The vast majority of followers don't actually interact with these posts' notes, but I still assume they're reading them. Just a quirk of Tumblr's norms.

My best guess is that the drones would arrive when the troll is on the cusp of adulthood, shortly before they leave Alternia. That would give them as much time as possible to form potent relationships - which would, in turn, give the Empire the most potent wrigglers.

I still think it would motivate younger trolls, though. I mean, if all single people are executed at eighteen, you might feel a little pressure to enter the dating game early.

Never forget the Der-sayer incident.

Rereading it, Karkat scans as sad, angry, resigned, confused, lonely, and trying to bottle up an avalanche of "FRESH RAGE."

I think we're both half right, here - he's drowning in a tide of pretty much every negative emotion imaginable.

Thank you!! We triple-checked, and it seems like Tumblr ate the first half of this ask :(

Much appreciated, though!! I love that metaphor for coming up with scattershot theories.

Oh, that makes sense. Can't believe I missed a Hussie pun, but that one was a little harder to notice.

This makes it sound like the universe is tethering her to life, just as she tethers it. What is up with this lady?

That's true! I'm pretty sure it's both.

I'd always imagined Equius as being pretty tall. They're all the same height in sprite art though, so I think it's another case of sprite art being non-representative.

I'm withholding judgement on the Meowrails until we get more interactions between them. Their early conversations were a little worrying, but it's possible that Hussie hadn't fully fleshed out the concept of Moirallegiance at the time. We'll see how they interact now that how their quadrant works has been expanded on.

[ Problem sleuth is still hosted there😁- C ]

It still seems to work for me!

Oh, fun! I guess John's birthday does sort of fall into a half-pattern with the others.

Still, it would have made more sense for him to be in a line with the other Players - his Chumhandle doesn't match theirs, either, so maybe John's just a weird case.

Thank you! I feel like this sort of analysis can only really be applied to fictional characters, though. Everything a character says or does is the result of a deliberate choice made by a writer, and I can use my knowledge of that fact to frame my analysis.

In real life, though, people just say shit - often for no reason, or for reasons they don't understand themselves. People are a lot more complicated than even the most well-written character, and understanding them requires a whole different skillset!

Someone also posted Hussie's author comment about this. It's been years since I watched the movie - and if I recall correctly, it was also pretty meta itself. Maybe I need to watch it again, as reading material for Homestuck.

ferretlady97 submitted: talking about the book commentary reminded me of something i was gonna send you when the troll black queen took off her ring but forgot "Note that when she takes the ring off six orbs are filled. Three players from the blue team have entered the session, and three from the red team. Aradia was the second of the blue team to enter. Nepeta was third. Aradia's entry is when the frog mutations took effect on the ring-wearer. And then an interval passed before Nepeta's entry. Which means the queen actually spent a decent amount of time looking like a frog, deliberating whether or not she could put up with this for an entire game session. Ultimately, she couldn't hang in there. But this does imply she at least tried." i just think it's funny thanks for your time

The language used here - the fact that she couldn't 'put up' with her transformation into a frog, and couldn't 'hang in there' - seems to imply that doing so harms her in some way.

All the frog symbolism is still a closed book to me. What exactly does Bilious Slick represent or symbolize that Derse hates so much?

[ you got another ask about LOLCAT but it has classpect spoilers so I'm saving it for later - C ]

I suppose that could work - but then again, it seems that 25% of all Lands have some association with water, so it can't always represent Life. I do want to come back to this later, though, when the Classes and Aspects are better defined.

Send away! It'll be a while until I use them, though.

I appreciate it! That's a minimum bound that I'd have to pick up the pace to reach, at this point.

Hey, what can I say? I'm here for a good time, and a long time. >:)

I keep forgetting that LOSS is a references to a fanfic. I associate it more with you, the LOSS Anon!

If she can't, she's definitely phrasing things in a misleading way, trying to imply that she can. The Tavros scene is arguable, but I really can't think of any other way to interpret how she talks about the Consorts, unless she's straight up lying - and she really doesn't do that much.

Vriska 100%s the game, but skips all the cutscenes?

...yeah, I can see it. Every side quest is another chance to win!!!!!!!! >::::)

[murdereraisuha]

Classpecting TWST: Octavinelle

Time to assign Homestuck classpects to the fish mafia!

Spoilers for chapter 3 and some of the trio’s personal stories. No knowledge of Homestuck required to read.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Azul, the symbol for the space aspect, and the words “Azul Ashengrotto: Thief of Space”]

For Azul, I think it’s easier to narrow down what his class is first.

To get back at his childhood bullies, Azul developed his unique magic “It’s a Deal,” which lets him make contracts with others. 

He uses clever loopholes and tricks to shift his contracts in his favor, letting him reap the magic and abilities of his victims. 

However, despite his power and skills, he still has self-image issues. 

In chapter 3, he overblots during a desperate magic stealing spree to make a more perfect him who isn’t a “stupid, clumsy octopus who can’t do anything by himself.”

What I get from this is that he steals from others, he worked hard to shape himself into a successful person, and he perceives fault in himself. Based on this, I think his class is either thief, the active theft class, or knight, the active exploitation class.

With that in mind, what exactly does he steal/exploit, and what do his insecurities relate to? Rather than concepts like luck, freedom, or the soul, Azul seems centered on concrete objects. In his childhood, he was tormented due to his physical appearance. In the present, he carefully controls his diet to maintain a slender physique. He also hoards things like coins and his contracts. 

Based on these things as well as the creativity he exhibits in his elaborate schemes (exam notes, beans day, investigating Scarabia, etc.), I think that Azul’s aspect is space, the aspect of physical attributes, creation, and patience.

So, thief of space or knight of space? After research into both, I think that thief fits the best. First of all, though Azul has amazing abilities on his own, he relies a lot on maintaining a hoard of contracts. Rather than working with what he has, he constantly seeks out more: more power, more profits, more restaurant locations. Similarly to how Azul’s downfall in chapter 3 stemmed from trying to steal too much (Yuu’s house & the photo), the 2 thieves in Homestuck also get into trouble for being too overconfident. Finally, while a knight generally protects and shelters those around them, Azul isn’t afraid to do stuff such as wring Floyd out like a towel to use his eel slime for developing a beauty product. Therefore, Azul is most likely a thief of space.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Jade Leech, the symbol for the light aspect, and the words “Jade Leech: Rogue of Light”] 

To figure out Jade’s aspect, let’s consider some facts about him. 

His unique magic, “Shock the Heart,” forces a person who looks him in the eye to truthfully answer a question he asks them. 

He dislikes predictable things, which is a reason why he loves his chaotic brother and enjoys growing unknown plants. 

He prefers to stay in the shadows while Azul/Floyd takes the spotlight.

Based on these factors, Jade seems well suited to either the void aspect, the aspect of secrets, confusion, and irrelevance, or its opposite the light aspect, the aspect of truth, awareness, and importance. Now, how does he interact with his aspect?

Though Jade, Azul, and Floyd are equals, Jade still usually acts in a supportive role to them. For example, in his ceremony robes story, Jade gives the list of the new students’ private Magicam accounts to Azul for him to use instead of using the list himself. Therefore, I think that Jade probably has a passive class.

Jade does not have a deficit of light/void and he does not have a destructive relationship with light/void, ruling out page and bard. He doesn’t truly embody either aspect, ruling out heir, and he doesn’t seem to do much creating/healing of light/void, ruling out sylph. That narrows it down to seer of light, seer of void, rogue of void, and rogue of light. 

Though I originally thought he was probably void and just kept the light option open just in case, Jade might actually be a rogue of light. A rogue, the passive theft class, invites theft of their aspect and through their aspect. Jade reveals knowledge (ex. contract violations & the Magicam accounts) and then leaves Azul and Floyd to do with it as they please. Also, Shock the Heart is activated using his eyes, and eyes are a symbol of the light aspect in Homestuck. 

Furthermore, the rogues of Homestuck often have trouble coping with having their aspect, correlating with Jade being uncomfortable with having people’s attention on him. He also has problems with giving information/the truth about himself. For example, his exaggerated fake tears after Idia doubts his wish during the Wish Upon a Star event strengthens Idia’s belief that Jade's wish is insincere, even though Jade might have really wanted to use his wish for Azul and Floyd’s benefit. Though Jade is pretty different from the typical descriptions of rogues of light I have read, I think he probably is a rogue of light.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Floyd, the symbol for the blood aspect, and the words “Floyd Leech: Bard of Blood”]

For Floyd, I have an aspect already in mind.

Breath represents freedom and flexibility. From his general refusal to wear his uniform properly or take on responsibilities to specific events like trying to play dodgeball during basketball club, Floyd certainly exhibits freedom. His unique magic, “Bind the Heart,” references the concept of freedom/captivity in its name. By deflecting any magic aimed at him, it basically ensures his freedom from injury and other harmful effects like Riddle’s” Off with Your Head!”

Just so we’re not narrowing our focus too much though, I’d like to point out that the rage aspect is also a possibility. Rage represents negative emotions, defiance, and persistence. For Floyd, he rebels against conformity and also exhibits some stubbornness in his teasing of Riddle. Floyd’s aspect might also be the opposite of breath or rage, blood or hope, since each aspect and its opposite are just 2 sides of the same coin as we saw with Floyd’s brother.

Anyway, on to class. First off, thief and rogue are out since he doesn’t do much theft. He doesn’t hide behind any masks or act very pessimistic, so knight, page, and prince are out, and he doesn’t seem to struggle with knowledge of things, so mage and seer are out. Of the remaining classpect combos, I was thinking witch of rage, bard of rage, heir of breath, or maid of breath. However, as I just said, the aspects blood or hope might also apply. After looking into god tiers of those aspects, one stuck out at me: bard of blood.

Bard is the passive destruction class, which invites destruction of their aspect or through their aspect. Bards and princes, the active destruction class, are notable in how they exhibit traits of the opposite aspect since they destroy their own aspect in themselves. In Floyd’s case, his abundance of freedom & spontaneousness can also be seen as an absence of commitments & responsibilities.

However, a bard doesn’t destroy all traces of their aspect, which is how I can find evidence that Floyd’s aspect is actually blood rather than breath. In Homestuck, those of the breath aspect tend to be rather emotionally detached or passive. For example, John handles shocking revelations with ease and Tavros uses sleep to escape sadness. On the other hand, blood players tend to be emotionally explosive and assertive. Karkat and Kankri are well known for being rather... cranky. Now, for Floyd,

I don’t think an emotionally passive person would have a murder mode face like this. There’s also the fact that Floyd specifically hates shackles, while a breath player would probably take their freedom more for granted. Anyway, going to how being a bard would interact with Floyd’s aspect, as a bard his actions lead to destruction of bonds/responsibilities. However, a bard’s aspect is still a part of them/an inevitability even if they try to act like it isn’t.

Let’s take the one big example of anguish within Floyd that we have: his school uniform story. While Floyd is having a blast riling Riddle up and trying to bait him into a game of tag, Riddle remarks that Jade doesn’t bother with this sort of mischief and he’s completely different from Floyd even though they’re twins. This causes Floyd’s mood to take a 180 and he abruptly leaves. Even though Floyd does stuff like steal Jade’s clothes or shove work on him—things that might suggest Floyd doesn’t care about Jade—Floyd actually doesn’t want their bond with each other to break. This also holds true for Azul: though Floyd explicitly says in chapter 4 that he and Jade will leave Azul if he becomes boring, that seems like a half-truth: with Azul being the person he is, how likely is it that he would ever become boring?

Floyd is a genius, talented in everything from academic subjects to music to sports. However, as noted by some other characters, his mood swings and flippantness prevent him from being the even more terrifyingly powerful person he could become. His personal challenge may very well be to find a middle ground between running from and depending on his bonds/responsibilities. Therefore, based on Floyd’s values, attitude, and faults, I can say that he is very likely a bard of blood.

-- Final notes --

Firstly, If you actually read through all this and enjoyed it, I recommend checking out mia-pon289’s Octavinelle theories and Dahniwitchoflight’s classpect stuff since this post drew a lot of inspiration from those. 

Secondly, I am going to flip my shit if Ace’s aspect turns out to be blood too once I get to analyzing Heartslabyul. Is basketball club just gonna become blood club?

Thirdly,

[Image description: A venn diagram with 2 circles. One circle is labeled “Animal with 8 legs” and contains “Vriska” in it. The other circle is labeled “Aquatic” and contains “Meenah”. The intersection between the circles contains “Azul”. The whole diagram is inside of a rectangle labeled “Thief”]

[kakitysax]

Alright So First Of All This Post Is Gonna Be Long As Hell

So all my people with ADD here’s your chance to like...take a deep breath and manually lengthen your attention spans

(Unless it’s just me that does that lmao)

BUT I CHANGED MY HOMESTUCK CLASS THEORY AND I’M GONNA TALK ABOUT IT

Below the Cut, That Is

Okay so for the longest time I used @dahniwitchoflight​‘s classpecting chart, which looks something like this:

(And Yeah the Colors are Awful I Know)

And for the most part it totally makes sense, like, it’s LIT and I fucking love it, I love her work, I’ve been lurking on her blog for years and using it for characters and stuff, so dahni if you’re reading this you’re lit

But the thing I just couldn’t get over is the Maid/Sylph Witch/Heir thing.

But it wasn’t because of her analysis of the personalities or anything because those are lit

It was because of the Words, first of all.

Like...idk.

Thief and Rogue go together, Knight and Page go together, Mage and Seer go together, even Prince and Bard...but like I couldn’t tell you why the words match it’s just VIBES

And Witch and Sylph just...have the same kind of going-together vibes (and I know you’re expecting me to cite Kanaya’s whole thing about Sylphs being “sort of like a witch but more magical” but it would be kind of stupid of me not to mention it so here it is now)

But so do Maid and Heir honestly, like...idk.

They just...make more sense I guess???

And Secondly Is Costumes

(ghhsd I feel like these are stupid reasons)

BUT LOOK

HERE IS THE KNIGHT/PAGE COMBO

They both have NEAT CAPE FRINGE see??

PRINCES AND BARDS?

Weird Stripey Pants and Also Pointy Cape Fringe

Thieves And Rogues

They both have Boots and Cuts on the Sides of their Tunics (Though Rogues are Stitched Up)

Now Look at This:

Here we have a Maid of Mind, a Sylph of Mind, and a Witch of Mind.

Look, I dunno. I just don’t know. Call me crazy

But the double-hood thing and the skirt thing just...makes the costumes go better together in my mind.

It’s kind of hard to match Heir with Anything? Because It’s...like...the blandest costume ever. It’s just a t-shirt and pants lmao.

But I was sitting there last night and thinking about this again because this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night

I’m not even fucking kidding this has been an intellectual itch for fucking months

And I realized that if I was gonna rearrange the chart I needed to like, figure this shit out

SO HERE IS WHAT I AM PROPOSING

Featuring Better Colors lmao

Alright take a good long look and Then I Will Explain

WITCHES AND SYLPHS

Okay So.

I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what the hell these two classes have in common

And silently thanking my patron saint Andrew Hussie for making Jade and Kanaya share an Aspect

And call me crazy, but

What Witches and Sylphs seem to have in common to me is MEDDLING.

Bugging and Meddling and Fussing

Sylphs are Healers, yes…but if it’s HEALING, then why…

In any case, the goal of FIXING and HEALING seems less to me like a form of Passive CREATION, and more like a form of passive CHANGE.

Witches and Sylphs INTERFERE with their aspect.

And the active/passive difference seems to be that Witches interfere with their aspect ITSELF, fussing and meddling with the very fabric of it

And SYLPHS interfere USING their aspect, taking it and applying it to other people

And the example of this for Jade and Kanaya I think, is their respective time third-partying in other people’s relationships.

Jade pulls Karkat and Dave into a polyamorous relationship in an attempt to SHRINK or CLOSE the space between them

And Kanaya’s status as the perfect Auspistice is a reflection of her trying to INSERT or PUT space between people who really need to be kept away from each other

Now onto Maid and Heir

Now I don’t have any like...examples for this one? Because we don’t have any canon Maids and Heirs with the same aspect.

BUT

We all know that Heirs symbolically BECOME their aspect

And that Maid is kind of a play on the word “Made,” being MADE of their Aspect.

Which seems kind of like...a big parallel???

And we know that Maids MAKE or GENERATE their aspect, a form of active creation…

But isn’t BECOMING the most passive form of creation there is?

Instead of CREATING their aspect, they are RE-CREATED by it.

And by BECOMING their aspect, they are able to generate it purely by existing.

AND THAT IS MY THEORY.

And...like...I dunno.

Honestly what I think is that all this stuff is hella vague, and we can un-vague-ify it into whatever we want it to be.

I just wanted to un-vague-ify it so that the costumes and words would match each other and that’s really the end of it

So thanks for reading this, if you still are reading this lmao

And uhh this is how I’m going to be interpreting my characters going forward!

[atalana]

Alright, I’ve just spent 17 hours absorbing the epilogue, and in true Dirk Strider fashion, I have Thoughts.

I had plenty of responses I’ve been considering to this, about two hours ago I was honestly thinking of just dropping in with a fuckin one liner like “So Dirk Three wrote the epilogue” (Dirk Three kinda did write the epilogue, and I’ll explain that too), but we’re on the fucking essay train now and no one’s getting off it any time soon so it’s time to dive into this fucker and get it all off my chest.

Under the cut you will find essays on Dirk, cherubs, ultimate selves, both major Dirk fics (Detective Pony and Theatre of Coolty), a bunch of story bullshit, and my severe love for all Homestuck characters

(But very little criticism of the epilogue, I am no longer about that life)

So the prologue is important here. It’s the main bit of accurate information we have, not tainted by an unreliable narrator. (Well, it is, but less so). The prologue tells us that, with the characters outside of canon, they are becoming their ultimate selves, particularly the characters most susceptible to such knowledge, like seers, or heart players.

Now Homestuck wrestles a lot with the idea of the ultimate self. It is, as defined by the text, the true thing a person is, an amalgamation of every possible version of themselves. It is not a viable human being, because that’s not how human beings work. It basically amounts to Hussie’s character rules, like, there are some ways that these characters will be always, some things they’re prone to, things they like, decisions they’re likely to make, but who the person is within that is subject to extreme change depending on circumstance. The four people who embody this narrative most clearly are Vriska, Terezi, Davepeta, and Dirk.

I’m still not 100% sure on why the ultimate selves outside of canon thing is, but my best guess would be this - within the story, there’s a definite timeline, right? Like, these are the things that are written down, this is what you can see, the word of god (loaded phrase, thanks Dirk), the things that you look at when trying to apply death of the author (even more loaded phrase, thanks Hussie, also thanks Calliope). There’s more than one timeline, sure, but that’s the point, everyone is who they are within that timeline, affected by what happened to make them who they became. Outside of canon is, well, outside of the story. They’re not affected by the story here, they’re just characters. This is a fanfiction site. And what does fanfic do best? It takes the characters, takes who they are, pulls them out of the story, and shoves them in wherever it likes, to become whoever it is they become. And thus who the character is exactly becomes murky and confusing if you’re trying to jam them all into one thing, and it all gives Rose Lalonde a headache. Ultimate selves.

Davepeta liked their ultimate self, it helped two kids who were otherwise struggling with unsatisfying ultimate selves to become a better whole.

Vriska took the proactive approach, by which I mean bullying her other selves into letting her become the ultimate Vriska, which was ultimately useless and gave her no ultimate self at all

Terezi saw her ultimate self, and is still processing what that means for her (but also Terezi is still in canon, so she’s immune to epilogue bullshit)

And Dirk, god, poor Dirk. Dirk was terrified of it. Because he could see his ultimate self and he knew that’s not the kind of person he wanted to become. (And this is where I start using the Theatre of Coolty numbers because there’s no other way to get through this, if you haven’t read/seen it you 100% should, but as a general note, Dirk One is the main Dirk we know, Dirk Two is Brain Ghost Dirk, Dirk Three is “Trickster Dirk” but actually revealed later to be Hussie, Dirk Four is Hal)

Because here’s the thing. Dirk’s ultimate self is him, but it’s also Hal. It’s also BGD. It’s also Bro. And Dirk One was never as bad as he thought he was, but he surrounded himself with copies of himself, so he knew how bad he could be, and tried everything he could to avoid it. We have actual canon confirmation on multiple occasions that Dirk would so much rather kill himself than become the kind of person capable of hurting his friends. Which only got worse after he met Dave and realised Bro existed, like, that just doubled his resolve to Never Be That Person.

(Hey, fun hypothetical, if you kill yourself to stop yourself becoming a bad person because you know it’s inevitable but you’re too good a person to want to go through with it, is it heroic or just? Because I would like to have a lengthy discussion with the god tier clock!)

God, there’s so much I can write on the subject of Dirk’s ultimate self. Because you can see every version of him inside there, there’s Bro in his possessiveness, Hal in his need to fuck with people for no real reason, BGD in his hyper critical nature (beyond what is normal for all Dirks), Dirk One in his desire to never let anyone hurt him again. (God, the “I’ll never let you break my heart again” line hurt so much, because like… I can feel Dirk One in that line, but it’s delivered by ultimate Dirk, and ultimate Dirk isn’t the kind of person who would have even been heartbroken by Jake’s actions. Dirk One poured his soul into that relationship and Jake responded by ignoring him, and like, this isn’t a dig on Jake, because that did make Dirk very intense and hard to deal with, but as Calliope so beautifully put, the children left alone are those who most despair at being ignored. And every version of Dirk was so very alone.)

When sending initial thoughts to my friend, I wrote “Ultidirk is Dirk One but without the compassion or empathy and with an apparently infinite supply of horse tranquilizers”. Which was mostly a joke, but does get down to the core of the problem. Dirk One and Ultidirk aren’t really that different, when it comes down to it. But there’s one crucial element that makes all the difference. Dirk One’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to deal with that problem, at any cost”. Ultidirk’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem. And it turns out that without basic human empathy and morality holding him back, Ultidirk will just… fucking declare himself God, and use that alongside his powers of manipulation to just write a new story in which he is the villain. Very little changes in the scale of things.

(The other main difference is that Dirk One is scared to exist, whereas every other Dirk is scared to not exist, that’s the stuff, good callback, etc etc, that line fucking killed me, and also killed whatever remnant of Dirk One was still lurking inside Ultidirk and god I want to hug him)

(I also want to extract him from Ultidirk and bring him on an Ultidirk murdering quest bc he would be 100% down for that without a second’s hesitation but that’s a bit hard to do)

Now you may be wondering why I brought up Theatre of Coolty if I was only gonna refer to Dirk One as Dirk One and not touch on any of the others. Well, it’s true, saying Dirk Two and Dirk Four when I have simple three letter names for both of them is a bit ridiculous. But then we get to Dirk Three.

Now here’s the thing about Theatre of Coolty. Dirk One appears in Homestuck, as alpha Dirk, in Dirk’s usual shirt with the orange hat. Dirk Two appears in Homestuck, as brain ghost Dirk in god tier pyjamas. Dirk Four appears in Homestuck as Hal, and he wears a red hat because he’s Dirk in a different colour scheme, also because the sprite Hussie eventually made for him based on fanon had a red hat, all’s sorted there.

But Dirk Three? Trickster Dirk? Never appeared in Homestuck. They tried, but it was still Dirk One. Dirk is immune to cherubic influence (remember this point too, it’s important), because his concept of self is so present (and also because he’s depressed as fuck, but that doesn’t necessarily exclude you, it’s just the presence of both at once). And who does Dirk Three turn out to be? Well, they said it from the start, Theatre of Coolty is about the presence or absence of god, who definitely will show up at some point. Dirk Three is Hussie in a Dirk costume, Dirk Three is God, Dirk Three is The Author.

Dirk Three is Ultidirk. Congrats, all four Dirks have officially shown up in Homestuck, to whatever extent this counts as Homestuck, an extent which has been thoroughly documented by its own existence bc this is Homestuck (kinda) and you gotta lean into the bullshit or you’ll drown in it.

So yes, this was penned by Dirk Three. Who is also Lord English in two different metaphorical ways now (The trickster element, and also the fact that the epilogues insist on making Jane a second Condesce, which in this analogy puts Dave as himself and Dirk as, you guessed it, Cherub Master of All. Which is additionally insulting as fuck because Dirk grew up in that apocalypse and would never contribute to recreating it, if Jane ever was inclined to, which she isn’t, but you know).

And LE’s major force of opposition? Adult Calliope. (Also, like, Vriska, but symbolically it’s the other cherub.)

Which brings me to the main point of this essay, and that is that all of this? It’s a cherub fic. And we knew this, from the moment we were offered that choice. Meat or Candy? Well, neither of them are sustainable food sources for humans, not with the meat uncooked like that. They’re not satisfying endings for us either. But it’s all cherubs eat. (Well, that and special stardust, but that was Caliborn’s intermission. This is Calliope’s offering.)

Which again feeds back into the AO3 metaphor because from their introduction, Caliborn and Calliope have been fandom inserts, representing all of us, for better or worse. They read the story, come up with the theories, they write the fanfic.

And Calliope’s trying so hard. But she’s not human. She doesn’t get it, not on a way that connects with the characters, only with the text. Cherubs spend their lifetime alone. Cherubs only have black romance. Cherubs think trickster mode is an acceptable way to solve problems.

And, as Dirk pointed out back when he was still himself, everyone getting married and having a bunch of babies for no reason doesn’t solve shit.

Without a solid timeline, everyone became susceptible to becoming their ultimate selves. Ultidirk is a dick with the powers of actual capital g God, and none of the remorse of Dirk One, so he took control of the narrative. And so Calliope, the fanfic author, the one with the power to write a new story (with the exception of Dirk, as previously mentioned, he’s immune to cherub bullshit, and John and Terezi, who are still in canon), tried to help everyone realise their full potential.

But she made them selfish. She made them solitary. She doesn’t understand how humans work, so they became parodies of themselves. In meat, there’s a plot, but it’s insubstantial, because no one is truly themselves, facing a Dirk who lost himself years ago. In candy, it’s fluff with, again, no substance. It’s trickster mode calmed down. Everyone gets married and has babies, but it makes no sense, and everyone’s miserable.

And John Dirk and Terezi are the only ones who see it, because they’re the ones who haven’t been given to Calliope. But what’s the point, when they’ve lost their power over the story? What’s the point of gaining power if you’re not yourself anymore? (And one way or another, they all die in the end.)

The rest of them… Well, they do the things the narrative implied they would do, but usually in the worst possible way.

(Aradia and Sollux have been canon neutral since 2011 and they like it that way)

And now we go back to Detective Pony, like everyone and their mother have analysed already. Because yeah, these two things have so much in common, but also, some really crucial differences.

Both are stories in which Dirk takes control of the narrative, in which he is fought for control by another author figure, in which he considers his own role in the story, what he’s created, who’s got the authority (I still love that pun so much), and eventually forces the characters to come to the conclusion that he needs to be defeated, because at the end of the day Dirk is still hopelessly suicidal and like most problems the kids have, this is never addressed outside of ironic bullshit. (Not to him anyway, it’s kinda addressed in candy but I think if you’re talking about someone’s suicidal tendencies at their funeral it’s too fucking late).

But Detective Pony is ultimately a heavily veiled love letter to his friends. Detective Pony is Dirk exploring what he fears becoming, it’s him learning to let go, and eventually he relinquishes control of the book to the characters in it (as does Jeanne Betancourt).

Meat is Dirk’s notice of ownership over his friends. It’s him glorifying having become that thing he used to fear, it’s holding even tighter to everything he fears losing, and ultimately neither he nor Calliope trust the characters enough to pull back. They’re both obsessed with it, in both iterations, this battle between the two of them, even though it was never supposed to be about either of them.

But Detective Pony has an original story, with a timeline. It even has a second solid story for Dirk to come from, since Homestuck itself explicitly states when and why Dirk made it. When Detective Pony sits down to analyse which version of the text is better, it has that substance to fall back on. Jeanne Betancourt’s version is boring but kind. Dirk’s is interesting but cruel. And because the characters are all solid people, not their hazy ultimate selves, they have agency too, and can decide their own fate.

When Dirk analyses whose version is better in the epilogue, his whole reasoning is that neither is good. The characters rarely have any agency. Even the few moments, between Roxy’s void powers and Dave’s ability to stand up to Bro (which, by the way, so proud of him, how many people do you know who, in a situation where their childhood guardian and abuser literally became god and tried to thought influence them into doing something they kinda wanted to do already, would have the mental resilience to say “no, this isn’t me, stop that” and stand by that? Dave is the strongest goddamn character in this whole comic, holy shit), are only hints of who they were as real characters in the story. Dirk takes control, in one version, because he’s lost himself to Ultidirk, who’s overly concerned with how stories are supposed to be written, and tries to wrestle Homestuck into a shape he finds interesting. In the other, Dirk kills himself before he can hurt anyone. (And before anyone gets on my case about Dirk’s reasoning being he’s lost his purpose, his purpose was always protecting his friends.)

But Calliope’s not helping them either, just piling them full of romance and fluff and selfish parodies of themselves and thinking that’ll work out. Giving the villains “redemption” without ever actually letting them redeem themselves. Explaining all about their tragic backstories without doing anything with it. To bring back a very old quote, it’s like when Mario gets the star. He wins, but he’s denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.

Just with less happiness, more death, and a bunch of weirdly political teen drama. And then when Calliope gets distracted by Ultidirk and gives up, everything unravels completely, but it also lets them live a life which does let some of the characters be happy, in a weird roundabout way. It’s dysfunctional as fuck, but these characters care so much for each other, not even being in a weird self melting fanon bubble could erase that completely. (And then things get buck fucking wild because this is still Homestuck we’re talking about)

(Though seriously, I could have done without the Jane is a fascist thing, she deserves better than that. Like what was the point of decrockertiering her if she was just gonna go right back to that? Also I love Dave but he barely has a leg to stand on in most of those political arguments anyway given how he completely destroyed LoHaC’s economy and once accused Karkat of communism for captchaloguing a chair. And while I’m complaining, Jake English is still not being allowed to consent to fucking anything.)

I’m not sure why this was written. I’m not sure why a lot of things in Homestuck were written, honestly. It’s certainly not a satisfying ending, but I don’t think it was supposed to be. It’s not disappointing either, and it’s definitely interesting, with all of Homestuck’s trademark humor.

When I first wrote this halfway through candy, I’d written the following as an ending:

“But if we’re going to triple kill the author, I think this is just ultimately validating everyone’s own interpretation of the ending. You can’t write everyone’s fanfic at once. You can’t be a cherub, or a god, we don’t write fic about people’s ultimate selves. What you can do is provide a timeline for them to exist in, and a better one, where they have a chance to be the people they have the potential to be. And just to be happy, in a way that feels real.”

But honestly, now? I think the point was just to fuck with us, and also do a fuckton of exposition about canon and the nature of reality

So fuck it, let’s end on a relevant Dirk quote

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck^2 re: p33-53

Well, there's bound to be a perspective switch now.

Though Dirk remains the lemony narrator, so he'll be around in a way, not relegating himself to intermissions.

Crack theory: John's a ghost now. :P Nah, there are no dreambubbles anymore.

---

Page 33

Oh HELL freaking yes.

Hah, Candy Earth C - supposedly irrelevant, pffffff.

Them lies.

I mean, sure, the specifics of the timeline aren't relevant, but the people in it will still end up doing relevant things!

So, this is John's house, smack-dap in the middle of salamander village. Candy Jake is tending to the garden - I'm spotting at least one pumpkin patch there. :P

So this means...

This means we'll end up having art for Tavros C/E, Harry Anderson and Vriska ML! Oh hell freaking yes. I'm pretty sure Tavros C is almost a deadringer for John. He had a different frame for glasses, if I recall, and his hair I imagine doesn't stick up, but further than that...

For all we know, they could actually end up being players in Dirk's session, too! :D Through space/time shenanigans.

So yeah, Jake is middle-aged, but... That might mean like 3 more years have passed since the end of the Candy path, right? 42 sounds like a middler age than 39, after all.

Cooool, though. I mean, I love that we're catching up to these people again. The content warnings (groan, Dirk, really? He's continuing to post this on AO3, isn't he?) do indicate that Jake's reminiscencs will take us into some darker venues.

Here's to hoping Dirk isn't going to cut away too quickly from this timeline. ... Wait a minute.

How can Dirk be the narrator of this timeline if it's out of his sphere of influence? That means it's back to Calliope or a speakerless narration! Actually, that's great.

The arrows have changed as well, hahah. Yup, this sure isn't the alpha timeline anymore. :P So much irrelevance to the plot, much wow.

---

Page 34

Oooh, right, his fair moustache! Can't wait to see how it looks in sprite mode, hahah. Say... Come to think of it, if Dirk's any indication, none of the players have earned the right yet to appear in guardian form!

Emerald garden gloves...

Hah, okay, so he's actually not wearing a shirt yet. Cause it's too hot in John's house. Ironic that the Heir hasn't kept his own house aired and cooled.

So, it might actually take place around the time that John went to Roxy? Although, Jake set the two of them up, he should know where John is at the moment. Cool to see that Jake's actually found a new form of independence in his riper age. That he actually manages household tasks quite well, without shooting at the squirrel family or something.

I wonder in what way the timelines will get entwined. Dreams? Ultimate self memories? Machinery like used to transport Joey to Alternia?

It would be weird to have two fully separate stories in one narrative, after all.

---

Page 35

Cool, look at that body hair. Much macho, señor English. :P I can see why the populace of Earth is enamored by him.

Welp. Alcoholism continues being a thing, now even for human Prospit dreamers.

---

Page 37

So yeah, Dad's fridge is still there. Those B1 appliances have sure gone through a lot. Pfff, even the old kitchen magnet's still there, maybe even with the same years-old picture stuffed behind it.

In for a dream memory of Jake on Hellmurder Island? I am!

This looks like B2 Earth's sun, after all.

Good thing Jake never went to 'Nam, or the current ongoing war would've meant this vision of a rainforest would've gone in a very different direction.

But the dream is definitely going to end up going sideways. I mean, no more dreambubbles doesn't mean he can't have vision. Or a Brain Ghost visit, in his case there's a real chance a memory turns into something more substantial.

---

Page 38

That sure is an unsettling dream. Unknown part of the jungle, illogical pine trees, and an inescapable monster.

Reminds me of WV's nightmare. Especially the song about it on the Wanderers album.

"A lithe creature of darkness and fury, with more legs than anything mammalian has a right to." Sounds like a Hiveswap monster right there. Can't think of any of the lusii it would apply to, of the top of my head.

---

Page 39

Welp. Dirk has found him. Well, in his dreams, but Dirk can command Brain Ghosts. And he was saying something about commanding a brain ghost, wasn't he? Okay, welp, I can't find the relevant quote. Page 30 comes closest, saying he used to not be able to contemplate all his spliters.

---

Page 41

Lol wuuuuuuuuut.

Brain Ghost Dirk?!? And he/Jake remembers meeting Aranea?!? Okay, let's park the potential paradoxes here. For one, post-retcon Dirk could have met AN Aranea later on, a different version of her, in a dreambubble dream. But yeah. Still weird.

Also weird: this brain ghost is connected to his Game Over timeline self! And he claims to be a separate Dirk?? Or... Well, actually. He claims a single Dirk has been claiming the narrative, which is true, leaving little space for other Dirks, which is also true. He could (and should?!?) still be part of the other Dirk, right? Unless... Unless the ascended self of a Prince of Heart doesn't mean he can just control his other splinters! (Outside of controlling the narrative, I mean.)

Then again... The Candy path has been said to be explicitly outside the reach of Dirk, so what is this?

God, if the only "good" version of Dirk is a ghost. And hey, this is a way in how there can still be new ghosts even without dreambubbles. Too bad only Jake can spawn them.

Pfff, the idea though. The idea that the only way this Dirk has good qualities is because it's what Jake wants to remember about him.

---

Page 42

He's gonna be scared awake from the fall, right? Still a little douchebag in any iteration.

---

Page 43

Yup. ... So, Brain Ghost Dirk has taken it up for himself to be Jake's guardian? Making sure no one catches him boozesnoozing? Even ensuring Jake maintains a healthy mistrust about Dirk's intentions?

Hmmm... I wonder if he'll start seeing Brain Ghost Dirk again while awake, now.

---

Page 44

Is there still some dirt from his dream on his arm? A message from BG Dirk?

---

Page 45

Ooooooooooh. Yes!! Seems like there's too much narrative for even an ascended Dirk to hog.

I mean, we have to keep in mind that the Prince of Heart's influence doesn't reach into this timeline. So that means, this is a part of Dirk that Jake has breathed life into, but which while vaguely connected to the ascended self, since he knew about Dirk's powers, can't be controlled by him???

---

Page 47

Oooooh, this is a REALLY good way to have Jake talk himself through his issues! Some really good observations from Jake here, things he might not have admitted to himself otherwise!

He's feeling useless, knows Jane is bad news, still hopes to make amends. Meanwhile BG Dirk isn't trying to get him to join the plot outside of the Black Hole.

Jake just wants to make a difference! (Also the observation from BG Dirk about Jake feeling mopey and useless for years also applies to John soooo much.) He's going to go all Lara Croft again? Sweaty, hunky, middle-aged genderbender Lara Croft, hahahah. This would be very cool - even if he's so very likely to get caught. Jane's not stupid.

---

Page 48

So this is Her Janeyness's battleship. Sporks. Sporks!! She crossed )(IC's ship with sporks. Pfffffff.

And he's actually doing this? Already?? Welp. Jane's going to throw him in the slammer again. We're going to have a callback to when the tiara took her over. I wonder if we'll even see some Authority Regulators (Prospitian or Dersite) guarding the prison cells.

Jane's outfit's going to be a cross between a business suit, her Crockertier outfit and Condy's jumpsuit. Though I wonder if she's already that far gone that she's wearing regalia.

---

Page 49

Pffffff, wut? He's actually going through the frontdoor? Jane's even coming to run up to him??

What is this, a daydream? If not, there's no way we'll not see Jane be obnoxiously unknowingly condescending in her conversation.

So, it is in fact a Crockertier two-piece suit, it seems.

---

Page 50

Pffff, wut? Tavros was out with her kismesis, wasn't he? There's the potential here for Tavros simply getting pulled around by Vriska ML, and Jane seeing it as a kidnapping. Also, direct attack? I assumed she found the death of her Dad enough direct already. :P

Pffff, okay. So this can't be more than a few days after the end of the Candy path, after all. So they're all still 39 years old.

---

Page 51

At first I though BG Dirk would start spying on Jane's desk, but nah, he's horseshitting around. So Jake's infiltration isn't even going to be all that hard, he's just going to stand there and get information fed to him.

Jane's descent into tyranny saddens me still.

---

Page 52-53

Man, Jake's intrusive thoughts are next level. Jane is still as coldly detached as ever.

[shoutandscreamy]

My Hot Take™️ On Andrew Hussie

Okay listen, this is coming from 1 am brain so if this post seems rambly and scattered, that's exactly why. While 1 am is not as dramatic as 2 am delusional burrito giggle party, it is for me because I've been sleep deprived since the fifth grade. With that said, please forgive grammar and spelling mistakes. They will happen. Much like pokemon, I can't actually catch them all. Even if I read it over and out loud. Expertly, I fail at finding all my mistakes.

WITH THAT IN MIND, I have a couple disclaimers before I speak more of my opinion than I should. This is all my truth. Everything I'm saying is all true to me so that means, some of you reading (how many few you are) will not and/or cannot relate to this. It doesn't apply to you. I'm talking about MY thoughts and feelings. I also have only read the first three pages of the epilogues. Last I checked, John was sweating over the impossible choice of meat or candy to fill the void that is his depressed stomach. Any knowledge I have beyond that has been either spoilers that clutter my dash, or opinions of other people. In other words, please don't take this personally.

It seems that the fan base has a large expectation for Andrew Hussie, which I can see where it comes from. This man sat down and wrote an over 5,000 page comic with over 80 unique characters and a fairly new plot line. He had created an entire new meaning to "video games destroy the world." Based off his writing style, the concepts that he plays with, all the way down to how his characters speak, we can safely assume that Hussie has a rather large intelligence pool he likes to dip his grubby little toes in. And because of that intelligence, we assume that he can also, with this ENTIRE NEW storyline, alien concepts and ideas, and over 80 whole ass characters to keep track of, he would be able to write decently. He would give justice to his own comic and how it's formatted. Because of how carefully and uncarefully crafted the word was, we expect him to write better.

Time and time again, I continually see fans get disappointed when that expectation doesn't get met. Much like how a lot of fans would react to a lot of things if they're common expectation is not met. This is not unnatural.

In all my years of being a Homestuck fan, reading analysis on characters, plots, and theories of theories of theories, there's a general understanding that Homestuck sucks.

Guys, it sucks.

Hussie can't write. He can create, but he's proven throughout the entire comic, without fail, that he will not break his trend of shitty writing. He destroys chances with his characters, he does things in the comic for shits and giggles, and yes, while he does put time and effort into these things, it's clearly never going to come out perfect (or even good half the time). No, I'm not saying the fanbase expects him to write perfectly. I'm saying they expect him to be better in ways that he hasn't shown much improvement.

HOWEVER(comma) he has acknowledged his wrongs and apologized for posting that monstrosity of a backstory (is that what it was?), and he improved by tagging everything in the epilogue. He wanted to us to know exactly what we were getting ourselves into, so clearly he's learned from past experiences.

My point to this is, every update, everything Hussie produces gets the huge wave of support and love and then crashes with how angry fans are for not doing the justice a story or character needs. I understand this frustration and I feel it.

But let's stop acting surprised. Go on rants, vent, talk about it, that's good. I think, though, we need to remember that Homestuck Still Sucks.

It's a shitty thought process destroying comic. It literally changed my life and I can't honestly say for the better.

And my second point is that It's Okay To Like Homestuck Anyway. It's okay to like shitty things, as long as they aren't harmful or damaging. Go off, have fun on this wild adventure Hussie has provided for us.

But what helps me is keeping in mind that Hussie will never satisfy where it's needed all the time, and he hardly writes reasonably.

That way I can still enjoy myself and not be utterly disappointed that another 4/13 update didn't end up being as good as we wanted it to be.

[lacktastrophe]

Fair game and Sugar Substitute analysis

One of the things that I always found kinda sucked about keeping current on web-comics is with the update schedule. Though, not necessarily about the update frequency when new pages are uploaded (I mean, going back to one day a week from three is AWFUL, but considering it’s only for a year, I’ll live), but more specifically with the amount of content you digest at that moment in time. 

I’ve grown used to a pattern of glossing over a page before continuing with my day. This is about as good as reading a page out of a novel in much the same frequency; a page a week, getting on with your life, then on a following week try to remember exactly what happened on the page before without having to go there again to be continually up to date. Try giving that a go. Even with BCB’s previous three pages a week you tend to kind of forget what was explored earlier and you have moments where you don’t see the small details and how they fit into the page you’re reading now without going back. And who’s seriously got time to go back and re-read the chapter when it reaches its conclusion and read it from the beginning? Hahahahaha....

Well, we should be doing more of that.

I have been spoiled rotten by manga’s been run by teams as of recent. It’s always nice to see 30 pages or so produced in a months time, I have an easier time retaining knowledge of what’s happened in those stories because of the amount of pages you can consume in one go as opposed to once-a-week web-comics. I thought Homestuck got this right as well when it went to a weekly schedule instead of daily, and the updates started getting progressively larger (admittedly by this point, it was also being worked in a team). It was easier to retain knowledge of events, even if it was...a total clusterfuck by the end...

It’s worth going back and re-reading chapters once they’re all done. I tend to feel differently about them even more so once I see how everything’s come together. Now that Sugar Substitute is all wrapped up, let’s go back over Fair game and see where we’ve reached in this point of BCB’s story.

-

Fair game opens with a non-cast character celebrating a strike, we realise as Madison takes off her blindfold as the other characters celebrate and shout surprise to her, we’re at a promised birthday event for Madison from Moments apart.

We’re with the group of seniors we’ve been more than acquainted with over the last few years. Of course, Paulo’s here too, and we’ve also been joined by two of his friends, Daisy and David. It’s like Golden Hour, but this time Daisy’s here!

Jessica’s got the whole corner of the Alleyway booked so nobody can ruin their evening.

No weirdo’s allowed.

No weirdos, with the exception of both David and Paulo. When clown shoes are involved, so are subtle references to video game characters. 

Madison feels the need to ask who seriously invited these two idiots, and we’re scratching our heads. Technically, these two were only invited because Matt had begged Jessica to, according to the page comments. I’m guessing Madison still hasn’t gotten over her dislike of Paulo and probably never will!  On the plus side, this means they get the chance to have two teams of four running, instead of it just being Madison, Jessica, Matt and Jordan.

With the two exceptions to the rule aside, now it’s Jessica’s turn to be upset about the other let-down that evening; we’re off to a great start as Jordan invited Tiff again at her own disbelief. Tiff, the same girl who ditched him at the prom. Jessica is completely livid over Jordan’s persistence that he and Tiff could be a romantic pair despite so many problems over so many years.

Jordan is absolutely hopeless and keeps chasing after girls who are just impossible.

Paulo is also at odds with Jordan choice and confronts him over Roxy’s absence. He mistakes her name but Jordan knows who he’s talking about. Despite that they did get along together well at the prom, Jordan is still insistent that there’s a connection between him and Tiff.

But she’s already gotten bored and has decided to leave while they’re all talking.

Jordan chases after her, acting as if it was a mistake that she went out the wrong door. Only to find she’d gotten bored so quickly she had called for a ride as soon as they gotten there. She leaves on the back of someones motorcycle.

Sigh.

Jordan goes back inside and tries to save face, but nobody is surprised by the conclusion; Tiff has ditched him again, she isn’t coming back.

Paulo takes the time to grill Matt on his choice of potential love interests; Jordan is absolutely hopeless, especially when he had something good going on with Roxy. Why would Matt see ANYTHING good in someone as hopeless as him? 

Matt doesn’t know, he retorts with some incredible wit claiming it’s more or less the same attraction that Rachel has for him.

Apply wound to burn.

Paulo tries to stand on the same level as Matt to see what’s so great about Jordan. Failing to see some light in his personality, Paulo first tries to imagine if he has any physical attraction to Jordan, he doesn’t. He can’t even imagine Jordan as Lucy and see the same attraction. The two aren’t even alike. There’s no way this is working.

Matt explains Jordan has been there for him at his worst, Jordan’s optimism and upbeat personality giving him some inspiration that there’s more to live towards. We’re all familiar with some of the difficulties Matt’s had to face up until now, so his feelings towards Jordan are that of a real friend.

Paulo gives some thought to Matt’s answer. He can’t help but ask an ambiguous theory about what if ‘he liked him back.’ Matt asks him to clarify seeing as the question was quite open, and while Paulo does letting him know it was for him, we get the impression from his stutter he meant to ask about his own friends as well, likely David as how David shared his affection for him in Golden Hour.

Matt’s sadly sees his crush as only that; a daydream. Given Jordan’s affixation with Tiff, it’s hard to see him as anything other than straight. But Paulo isn’t initially sure given his own feelings, and starts wondering about whether the feelings he has towards his male friends himself is any less valid given he too has only ever chased after women all of his life. This thought process is derailed when Paulo looks away at that moment to Matt with a smug expression over his face, an embarrassed Paulo tries to distance himself from looking any further into it.

Matt might be getting some amusement out of this given how Paulo acted towards him in Golden Hour, but I imagine he’s also just happy to see Paulo slowly coming to terms with his feelings since that point and towards determining what they mean to him. We get more of an insight into why Matt’s like this towards Paulo in the intermission chapter, but this is some good progression from Paulo’s side, and it comes to eventually begging the question from Matt; He’s been crushing hard over Jordan for years despite being positive that Jordan is straight. Has he ever asked him the question and found out for certain?

Matt flusters, he’s too shy to even know how to go about asking in the first place.

Paulo’s things otherwise and suggests it’s not as hard as it looks. A straightforward procedure, simply ask; are you gay?

But, Paulo’s own foil to this direct plan of his, is his own insecurity to his feelings when Matt asks the question back.

It’s a subtle lesson to Paulo that sometimes the more direct method isn’t always the best method. Matt has previous experience having done so, finding himself ostracised when people he thought he could trust suddenly changed their minds on a whim.

Paulo feels terrible about the freak-out, he’s reminded of how he acted towards Matt in Golden Hour. Paulo asks Matt if he wants him to ask Jordan himself so they can find out once and for all.

Paulo isn’t too concerned about what others think of him and there’s no risk to Matt himself even if the worst happens. Matt appreciates the gesture.

We finally get to see some bowling soon afterwards! It’s easy to see who’s done this before as Madison and her gang are easily making short work of the juniors.

Jordan stops Daisy’s next bowl to try and help her out. As Paulo watches on, he can’t help but try imagining again about Jordan. Paulo slightly edges towards thinking that, maybe he does have some kind of attraction.

The teasing has to stop somewhere.

Paulo is still at odds with himself over it. He hates the idea of finding some attraction to someone as dorky as Jordan.

He tries to substite Jordan for Lucy in his own imagination, but suddenly, she turns into some other dork he knows about.

Oh boy, how the tables have turned.

We were teased with the idea that it was David Paulo had been thinking about, this might still be the case, but here, Paulo has instead got secret feelings for his own rival.

He falls off his seat in surprise, only to have Daisy come over to find out what’s going on.

Paulo’s freakout causes Daisy to panic herself, not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable around her, but Paulo instead just tells her a fib that he was dreaming and she woke him up from it. Daisy doesn’t even stop to think about why he was sleeping at a party let alone a bowling alley, as she immediately goes to be reassuring to him that nothing could hurt him. She’s an interesting friend.

We finally get some of that best friend Daisy x Paulo bonding that had been absent since Daisy started dating Abbey back in volume 1, as the two talk about lucid dreaming. It’s very interesting to see that Daisy has some really interesting dreams herself about Paulo, even seeing Paulo as some kind of hero.

How cute!

Daww, Paulo says some lovely things to Daisy sometimes.

Paulo is still trying to work out his feelings, but as soon as Jordan gets up from his seat, it’s time for Paulo to get to work.

I hope you’re ready for agonising pain, because this next sequence is just the worst.

Paulo walks in just as Jordan is done in the bathroom. Paulo puts the moves on him just like the does with the women at school. Jordan initially mistakes the flirt Paulo gives as an everyday comment.

And it all goes downhill from here.

God, end it now.

We get our wish when Jordan tries to reciprocate Paulo’s feelings but tells him at the same time he’s not into him.

Paulo, acts quite embarrassed and initiates plan B; Bail!

Paulo coolly shouts ‘Sike’ and tries to play off the whole thing like a joke. An off-handed comment about his little sister however causes Jordan to forget about what happened and flip into defensive brother mode. We get subtle hints that Jordan has been at best tolerating Paulo’s presence in the group. He tells him to leave her alone if he knows what’s good for him.

It’s not hard to wonder why things are this way, Jordan had a theory from ages ago that her friends had done something to cause her to try and throw herself off a building. He’s not at all pleased to hear that Paulo still has his sights on her. 

It makes more sense in the intermission chapter but we cannot hope for more given this immature joke has done nothing but worsened Jordan’s opinion of him.

Thankfully for Paulo, Jordan is more mystified with Paulo’s skill at flirting than the game he played just before. He thinks to try and leverage some of that skill by asking whether Paulo could teach him some skills that he could apply on Tiff, but Paulo already has:

Dont...Date...Gold-Digging...Bitches. 

Marginally avoiding a totally catastrophe in the bathroom, the party continues unabated with grandma Madison celebrating her 81st birthday (alright we’re so over this joke now), and responsible teenage driving when seven of them fill into a five-seater car.

Very responsible.

Jordan is the last person on the trip, leaving just Paulo and Matt.

Paulo apologies and confirms Matt’s earlier suspicions. Jordan does consider himself straight. There’s little chance of it working out. Matt looks devastated initially, but comes to having accepted the result like he did initially, nothing’s changed.

Matt plays it all down; Highschool crushes are sometimes destined to go nowhere. There’s more to life and there’s always that someone out there.

Paulo starts thinking about what’s being said too.

There’s some disbelief in Paulo in how Matt can remain upbeat and positive even knowing that a crush of his will not happen. Compare to Paulo who broke down multiple times when several chances where he could have been romantically involved with Lucy were being sunk one after the other.

But in telling Matt how he could just go out to find love, a number of Matt’s own insecurities about the future tear open. Indeed, Paulo could just go out onto the street and pick up any woman he wants. They might not be the right person, but it’s that easy for him.

It’s not easy for Matt. It’s never been that easy.

Matt reveals he’s scared of what will come now. He feels more alone now and blames his sexuality. He could’ve simply gotten along with Rachel before, he had that opportunity. It would’ve been enough to be accepted, but it wouldn’t have been him. Paulo tries to reassure him that it was correct of him to be true to himself. But Matt is far too concerned with the future; Jordan was the only light he had looked forward towards all this time, one of the reasons he felt he could certainly keep moving. But now what? He wasn’t accepted at home. Could he be accepted anywhere else after school? Who could love him now?

And he’s scared he won’t find any acceptance because of how difficult it is to find other people like him. Like how Paulo couldn’t accept simply being asked if he was gay, Matt fears that kind of reaction from people most of all. 

What if he doesn’t find anyone else like him? What if everyone else is like him; wearing a mask, unable to be themselves?

We see some great character progression from Paulo as he tries his best to reassure Matt that it’s not all lost; he’ll find someone else, there is always someone else.

Greater to his own character development, Paulo’s inner feelings start leaking out as well. He has such a poor opinion of himself, he can’t help but feel scared about the future as well. But he carries such a hopeful opinion of Matt. Surely this one upset is not the end for him.

Hearing it brings Matt out of his crisis.

At the end of the night, Paulo reassures Matt that there’s surely something to look forward to; he’s got his friends.

Matt returns the sympathy, they’ve both got friends, they’ll show the world some day.

That brings the chapter to an end, but why stop here?

In the following intermission chapter we find Jordan and Matt in the library studying for their SAT’s. We’re given the impression that even with Augustus’ help, Jordan is just as hopeless in this aspect of his life like how he is with his love life.

Matt convinces him they should get back to the task on hand. But Jordan can’t help but bring up that Paulo had tried to hit on him at the birthday party before, causing a chill to go up Matt’s spine.

Given Jordan’s hopelessness with Tiffany we’re under the belief he’s so hopeless as not clued into what’s going on around him, but we find that isn’t the case at all. Jordan has been watching. He’s very aware of Paulo’s habits and. . .it seems like there may even be some pity towards Paulo in the end of it.

It’s hard not to understand why things are like this either; Jordan has been acquainted with Paulo in one of two ways; through his sister or through Jessica and Rachel, as he had been friends with them as soon as he started at Roseville high, (this had been more or less supported in the BCI comic Blind Date when we see Jordan with them as Matt joins the group.) Having been friends with two of the culprits who took advantage of Paulo in order to get back at Tess in his sophomore year, it’s hard for him not to not have learned that Paulo had been sleeping around with the both of them, or heard the rumours that he had been sleeping around in general. The BCI Comic DinnerTime supports this when Jordan tries to use this knowledge as leverage against his sister’s romantic shenanigans to get his mother to extend his curfew. 

Despite being associated to each other over the last few months through his relationship with Rachel, it doesn’t appear outside of asking for advice on picking up the opposite sex that they are close friends. Being mindful that Paulo is one of Lucy’s ex-friends, who could be the one responsible for Lucy throwing herself off the building, he’s been largely tolerant but not very open towards a friendship. And when the idea of Paulo becoming romantically involved with Lucy comes up, Jordan is all but against it; he almost lost his sister once, he isn’t going to risk it again. Especially after Paulo’s inability to reconcile with Rachel’s feelings towards him.

Having come to know Paulo, Jordan feels sorry for him instead, believing Paulo is confused and is allowing his feelings to run his life and control him as an explanation to his strange behaviour. He asks if it’s the same with Matt as well, which Matt says is correct. He likely pities Paulo to some extent. But I wonder if it’s because of the chance that, despite appearing like he has a lot of love to give, Paulo appears lonely no matter who he’s with, in much the same way Matt feels isolated and alone through his sexuality.

Matt lets slip at this point that he knew Paulo had went to harass Jordan in the bathroom but it goes by unnoticed by Jordan. Jordan instead downplays that the harassment was all taken in good jest, and strangely enough, it seems to have rubbed off on Jordan; Jordan appears more confident having another male let him know he’s attractive.

The greatest reveal is at the end of the intermission when Jordan jokes about seeing if he could somehow hook Paulo up with Matt. It leaves Matt stunned, and why not?

Jordan knows he’s gay. There’s some solace in that acknowledgment.

At the same time, he can’t help but find some humour in that Jordan thinks Paulo would be a great fit for Matt. He finds that hilarious. There’s only room for one hopeless guy in his life.

I wonder what the next chapter will bring?

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[yeastofeden]

Hello! Your Traitor Uraraka theory was an amazing read! I want to dive into the world of character/story/literary analysis too, but I dont know where or how to start... Any advice/tips you could share?

Thanks so much! I’m honestly flattered you would ask… I’m ahobby writer so a lot of what I know about analysis is what I learnedin grade school, on my own, or adapted from what I know about artcriticism & analysis….. Since you’re not sure on the start,I’ll just talk about all the core things I feel helped me getinterested in this.

Read If I had torecommend anything specificfor reading, I’d say lookinto classic literature – not because its “critically acclaimed,”but because a lot of the time classic literature has been analyzed byprofessionals in their fields, so it can be a nice way to see howother people handle character interpretation, storytelling, worldbuilding, and so on. I liked Shakespeare a lot, and you probablywouldn’t be surprised to hear that people analyze the shit out ofShakespeare. I probably picked up the most of my understanding ofcharacter analysis from indulging in Shakespeare alone.

Don’t like Shakespeare? I’d say look into stories that are just over 50 years old; Lord ofthe Rings, Catcher in the Rye, Pride & Prejudice, Lord of theFlies…. So long as you can find actual scholars analyzing it,you’re golden. Read things you enjoy; if you like anime and only care about that…maybe check out textbooks on classic anime.

Alongwith looking up how others analyze, start being critical with all themedia you consume. Movies are a great way to do this because it’sshort format and easyconcumption. You can stayfocused on critical thinking for a couple of hours while enjoyingsomething–I also think movie reviews are a good way to experiencecritical analysis. And don’t just watch good movies… watch badones too, and figure out why they’re bad.

WriteActuallywrite. Take all the interesting things you learned and apply it tosomething. Don’t just think about it; the tragedy about onlythinking is that nothing really solidifies like it does once youfinally put it out there. Talkto friends about it if you can drag them into aconversation;a lot of my analysis started out because I was talking with otherpeople. If you don’t have anyone to talk to about a series or don’twant to bother people with your miscellaneous thoughts, get a sidetumblr or a dreamwidth and just write things there to get themdown–ifyou’reshy, just don’t tag things.Tbh, sometimes I just write things out and then delete them when I’mfinished just so I can get the thought out of me. Writing is just apowerful tool tohelp organize thoughts into cohesive opinions.

Butdon’t just write thoughts only… build on them. Write your owncharacters and stories just for fun. Write fanfiction. WriteAlternate Universes. Really just explore your own taste in fictionand the kind of things you yourself want to see. If there’s onevery easy thing I could suggest… take your favourite characters orship and slap them into story that already exists. I wrote one of myOTPs a few years ago into HasChristian Andersen’s theLittle Mermaid,andit was interesting andfuntrying to suit different characters into the roles of the story.

Writingand reading as a combination are just good things for you; they helpbuild competency with literature and language, andby just indulging in the two of these while remaining critical canjust naturally better your ability to read deeper into things.

ResearchAlongwith the earlier mentioned analyses that you should look into, it’sworth it to look into like extra resources. Check out interviews withyour favourite authors; look at like Ted Talks about creativity andwriting; read into tropes and motifs; find creative people you likeand follow their work and look for trends; lookinto writing concepts and themes.Storiesare just made up of patterns and once you start finding the patterns,you can start exploiting them. A Hero’s Journey is one of the mostfundamental patterns we can follow in storytelling, and with someabstract thinking we can start to predict the events that will occurin a story. A lot of my theory is built up on observing patterns.

IfI could point you toward one single video, it’s Kirby Ferguson’sTED talk “Embrace the Remix.” It talks about the idea thatnothing is original and all things are just remixed versions of eachother. This is part of why tropes exist;  you could go look attvtropes.org and hit random and start learning about these patternsright now. Granted, I don’t recommend using tropes as a foundationof an argument, but knowing tropes can help you connect the dotsbetween series.

IfI had to suggest any non-literary research that’s worth lookinginto….Check out psychology, art, and/or culture. Psychology is just morepatterns, I use Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs when I write andobserve survival horror. Art is another way to tell a story and isespecially useful when observing visual media. Culture can help youunderstand why people write the way they do, becausethere is a difference between Eastern and Western media andstorytelling trends.

“Personality sections”Alittle back story on me: pretty much all of thereading/writing/researching I do thesedaysis because I do a lot of text-based roleplay on Dreamwidth. I’vebeen doing this for about8 years.Overthe years, I’ve written out easilyover 30 “personality sections,” which are basically 500-2kcharacter summaries–for characters like Sakura from Naruto, Makotofrom Free, Jake English from Homestuck, and so many others–as apart of a way to “prove” that I understand the character I’mroleplaying whenjoining organized groups.I’ve also read literallyhundredsof these personality sections because I joined vetting teams forsaid organized groups, and have written many rejectionresponses to help people understand where they can improve.A lot of people I know hate writingthese personality sections… but I love them.

Youcould join RP and get a feel for it thesame wayI did, but that might not be your thing. But the process of writingthese “personality sections” wasbroken down to a science byroleplayers,and can be seen as a base form of character analysis. Wetalkedabout a character’s personality, what shaped them to be that way,and sometimes how that affected them in the future of their story.When I led a vetting team, these were the requirements I set:

Mustbe at least three paragraphs long for minor characters, fiveparagraphs long for main characters. Players should be able to conveya good understanding of their characters, but just describing apersonality isn’t enough. Make sure that when you explain aparticular attitude that you back yourself up with some canon proof,otherwise mods have to wonder where you are getting this informationregardless of our knowledge of canon. Be sure to explain clearly andconcisely, organizing your paragraphs so related subjects aretogether. Avoid explaining the personality in such a way that itreads like a history section - generally this is determined byunnecessary use of chronological order.

Andthese are the same guidelines I hold myself to when I work on my ownpersonality sections. Some people have broken down personalitysections in such a way that they are formatted “three positivetraits, three negative traits” withsome variance.Some like to talk about important relationships aswell.I always defend that personality should be backed up with actualcanon evidence. “Uraraka is kind,” I could say, but I should backit up with an instance where she showed kindness, such as when shesaved Midoriya from tripping when they first meet.

TheorizingIfI’m honest, I don’t much like theorizing. I like to read theoriesand I like to think about things, but I’m not actually partial totrying to predict the future of a series because I feel likeserialized stories are too choppy to be worth my time, and there’snot much sense trying to predict the future of a story that’sfinished. I’m more inclined toward theorizing about the past, orwhat’s already happened but wasn’t explained.

Mydisinterest in theorizing kind of shows….I’ve only written twotheories for Tumblr–Urarakais the Traitor (My Hero Academia), and Both Shiros are the Clone(Voltron). I think I ended up being right about the second one butI’m not sure where the interview isthatproves it, justthat it was SDCC stuff.Thereason I’ve written any theories at all is because I personally wasmotivated by frustration–I didn’t know why people weren’ttalking about these things. SoI made a post to try to get people to talk. BeforeI posted my theory, no one would have looked twice at Uraraka andthat drove me nuts.Now I’ve made a following strong enough that Uraraka seems to beone of the highest contenders in terms of just… gossip. Which,thanks guys. I’m floored.

So…. Myadvice would be to pick a subject you think should be talked aboutand go for it. Do the research. Canon-review. Takenotes. Search for patterns outside what you’re trying to analyze.Writeand rewrite and rewrite again, becauseanalyzing is basically high school but fun.

And…lastly…. Prepare to be wrong. You have a different sense ofstorytelling than anyone else. I have been bitten right in the assbecause I viewed and loved many-a character because I saw them theway I wanted to, and the author clearly did not share my views.And people might not like your theory; people might super hate iteven, and that’s not such a big deal. In the end it’s just fiction and we’re all just here to enjoy a story we love.

I…know that’s a lot, but Ihope it was at least helpful information! Ithink in the end the most important part is just to be critical andremain open-minded. Never stop learning. Choose your battles. Write about what you love.And don’t worry so much about being wrong. 

[heartofaquamarine]

The Simpsons, Parody, Satire, Strong and Weak Characterisation and passing references to James Joyce’s Ulysses.

A while back I had small seed of an idea, created by, suitably, watching two episodes of the sadly ended PBS Idea Channel back to back. The first was “Is Homestuck the Ulysses’ of the Internet?” and the second was “A Love Letter To The Simpsons”.

At the time, I was reading an annotated copy of Ulysses, and one of the things that struck me was the meaning behind the name of the book. Joyce, it seems, was obsessed by the level of detail that the mythological Ulysses (or Odysseus) is portrayed in Homer’s (not the yellow one, the poet) Odyssey, calling him the only fully realized character in literature. This is what gives the novel its name; Joyce is trying to examine a different, contemporary (at least to him) character in as much detail as his mythological counterpart, and it appeared to me that we have another modern piece of art that performs a similar function.

(My apologies if the theme song is now in your head)

Obviously, no individual episode of the Simpsons fills this function, but taken as a whole series there are two factors that I think allow it to. The first is of course the length of the series, but the second one I think is the fluidity of the characters. The Simpsons are caricatures, but they are not consistent caricatures. Homer is, depending on the episode, a loving, if not particular bright, family man, a layabout slob, a hard line anti-intellectual, an abusive drunk, or a depressed man in a bad situation. Lisa can be a tiny crusader with no regards to others, a desperately lonely child, a super intelligent little girl, a mischievous little minx or a fairly standard school child with friends and a love of toys and cartoons. I wouldn’t say that the Simpsons provides any characters that Joyce would argue as well rounded, but rather that we are shown multiple cartoon portraits of each character (well, the main cast at least), which we can then deflate back to a central characterisation. This ballooning of character traits in theory allows the series to have its cake and eat it as well; outsized characterisation for when it is needed to make the jokes it is trying to make, and an underlying character that provides the backbone of the series and allows it to pull off the more emotional elements when needed.

An important consequence of this, and one I feel that is obvious but is important enough to restate, is that for the Simpsons, characterisation is a consequence of the direction of the comedy they are attempting. The Simpsons began life less as satire of the real world, but as a parody of what was then the default model of sitcom’s; a family ruled over by an intelligent and loving father figure. The Simpsons flipped this around for everyone, with the possible exception of Marge. Homer is a buffoon, Bart has no respect for authority, and Lisa is the forgotten middle child who legitimately had something to say. As Dan Olsen in his Folding Ideas video on Homer points out, this is one of the reasons why Homer’s personality changes so much for the worse as time goes on. He is still attempting to parody sitcom fathers, but now those fathers are, as often as not, parodies or copies of himself, dragging him further and further away from his starting point. There has been efforts to reverse this (most notably the Movie, which is entirely focused on Homer trying to redeem his character), but his core characterisation has undeniably changed over the years.

I bring up the difference between parody and satire for a reason. These are obviously related forms of comedy; parody is simply satire applied to works of fiction rather than reality, but I think there is a bigger difference than that. Satire is bigger than parody, just because what it aims at is real life, not self contained pieces of fiction (it’s also far more inherently political, since creating satire itself gives a message about reality, and yes, satirising “both sides” equally is still creating a message that both sides are terrible). A lot of the best Simpsons episodes operate as parody that has elements of satire; Homer the Heretic is a good example. While the episode definitely contains elements satirising religion, the majority of the actual comedy is entirely character and parody based; its Homer having a great time not going to Church, with the ending twist about the importance of religion in making people do good. Any satire on religion is brought down to the level of the (let’s face it, pretty small and petty) characters. A lot of the worst Simpsons episodes respond the other way; they keep what they are satirising the same size and weight, but inflate the characters up to that size and importance, past what they can actually fit into. That’s not just a knock on latter sessions either; I legitimately loved the episode “Homer Goes To Prep School” which satirised doomsday preppers by a.) having the apocalypse be localised and not really that bad and b.) not actually showing what happened, just the aftermath where everything is fine, instead focusing on Homer and the preppers, but there has been a noticeable shift from character based parody to satire as the show goes on.

And on. And on.

One problem that a lot of really long running series have is their ability to keep commenting on the real world while the real world itself changes rapidly around them. A good example of this is comic books, particularly ones like DC and Marvel which try to keep everything not directly related to superheroes as it is currently, at least in the main lines. This causes a few issues, such as characters like Reed Richards and Tony Stark seeming to be unable to actually use their tech in a productive way on a social scale outside of beating up bad guys, but to be honest I think that one of the biggest issues is that, and I mean this in the fairest way I can, satirists are not really on the cutting edge of most things.

Satire is inherently a reaction based form of art. It requires something to be satirised and to make good satire, you need to have at least some knowledge about what you are trying to satire. For a mass market audience you also need to be able to express that satire in terms that the audience will get. Not necessarily all the jokes or riffs need to be obvious, but most of the audience need to be nodding their head most of the time. Ideally you want them to be laughing at what you are satirising, not with, because that’s how you get “totally ironic” Nazis and Peter Griffin.

The problem is that this requires the writers to have a fair wider knowledge and interest base than they actually practically have. South Park is a really good example of this; Parker and Stone’s best work is usually base either around religion or parodying stories, because that is where their interests and understanding respectively appear to be. The worst South Park episodes are usually the ones that are created within two weeks based on the most surface level understanding of the circumstances. It is this surface level understanding, I think, that is why they fall back on “both sides are bad” so much; it is easier to just aim at the most visible positions on an issue than to actually dive into it, and South Park’s incredibly short episode production schedule just doesn’t give you that time.

The Simpsons has the same problem, and it has gotten worse over time as the world changes. This is most visible I think in any episode involving technology; I can’t think of a single Mapple (get it? Like Apple, but so they won’t get sued!) joke that actually lands in the entire series, but you can also see it in how they have struggled to keep up with the changing tastes of young people, both for Bart and for Lisa (although the one where Bart gets into a game where you summon plastic monsters by rolling balls is pretty good). The episode about participation trophies is especially bad at this; it is basically a full 24 minute rant about kids today getting too many trophies.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that sometimes satire doesn’t land because it isn’t being taken seriously enough.

Strong and Weak Characterisation: The Tragedy of Barney Gumble.

Another weakness of the fluid characterisation of the show emerges from how the show uses its characters episode to episode. Let’s talk about the difference between strong and weak characterisation.

Suppose we are dealing with a scene. A guard enters the royal throne room, and announces the arrival of a prince. If the story is focused on the prince, then the prince will usually have strong characterisation. He will have motivations, fears, weaknesses, some kind of tragic flaw perhaps, or a backstory. Conversely, while the guard is a character, that character is weak; limited to perhaps a remark about the condition of their armour. They are a character but their role in the story only needs to explore the full depths of them sticking their head in the door and announcing the prince (you could have had it the opposite way around; the prince is random noble #194 and the guard is a Sam Vimes style protagonist). The level of characterisation is set by the story.

As an aside, this is what is meant by people wanting strong female characters. It isn’t just a case of stories about physically strong action heroines, but it's about telling stories where the strong characterisation is given to female characters. An important thing to remember when analysing stories on a social meta level, as you do when talking about trends and widespread failings, is that while you might argue a story calls for a certain spread of strengths of characterisations, ultimately the choice of what story to tell falls on the author, and so the question then becomes why the author chose the particular spread of characterisations they did. This even applies to stories based on real life; Hamilton the Musical notably had its subplot about slavery that ran through several songs mostly removed. You could, absolutely, make a musical that made that a core part of the narrative.

Anyway, back to the Simpsons. I feel the best characters to examine how the Simpsons use varying strengths of characterisation are Homer’s two foils; Ned Flanders and Barney Gumble. Both represent things Homer could be; Ned is the devoted family man and hard worker, while Barney is an alcoholic wreck.

Famously, Ned lent his name to the trope Flanderization, where one aspect of a character becomes increasingly blown out of proportion until they become nothing more than a cartoon of that one trait. While I think this happened to a degree with Ned, the shift is not a uniform one, and the extent it happens depends on the strength of characterisation given to Ned by any given episode.

Ned started off as a parody within a parody. The Flanders are exactly the same kind of sitcom family the show was created to lampoon, allowing them to loop back around and comment on their own commentary. Over time however, the aim of the show shifted and it became more focused on attempting political satire, mainly from a left wing, fairly atheistic stance. Ned, who had previously been established as a keen church goer, was now the go to example of a hardcore creationist right wing christian, with his sons, Rodd and Todd, getting increasingly more coddled and cowardly.

Except that...here’s the thing. The original Ned was still there...but mainly in episodes that have him as a major character focus, where he has strong characterisation. Some episodes, like season 12′s I’m Going To Praiseland are far more focused on his grief at the loss of his wife, while others focus on his relationship with Homer and the coddling of his kids. A lot of the religious fanatic Ned, with the exception of The Monkey Suit in season 17, comes not from his moments of strong characterisation, but his moments of weak characterisation, when he is used as a one off gag in the episode, such as him taking Rodd and Todd into a bomb shelter upon hearing Lisa is a Buddhist.  

The show itself treats each incarnation of Ned as essentially his own character, not just in the treehouse of horror episodes, but as viewers we build our characterisation of him based on all the appearances we see. Strong characterisation and weak characterisation for the same character, all mixed in a blender.

I actually think Barney’s characterisation history is a lot worse than Ned’s. Another one of the factors that allows The Simpsons to be so long running is its ability to snap back to a default state after every episode. Kid’s get stranded on a deserted island in Das Bus? Get rescued by, oh, I don’t know, let’s say, Moe. Homer loses his job? He will get his job back. Ect ect ect. This snap back is actually really important for the longevity of the series since it means episodes can be shown in any order and you don’t need to have tuned in to the previous 27 series to understand what’s going on.

The big exception to this tends to be character relationships. Apu doesn’t snap back to being a bachelor after Manjula is introduced (although given that the writers don’t seem to have a clue what to do with her...), Skinner and Krabappel had an ongoing relationship subplot until she ended up with Ned (which then tragically was cut short by the real life death of Edna’s voice actress, Marcia Wallace) and Comic Book Guy’s girlfriend/wife Kumiko remains after her introductory episode and seriously Simpsons writers could we stop with the continued introduction of (usually designed to be attractive) female characters who are partnered with existing, usually non-classically attractive male characters and then receive little characterisation outside the nagging wife stereotype? I mean, seriously, this is a recurring problem with the series, how it handles adult female characters, particularly ones in a relationship, and it isn’t one that I see brought up in those lists about why the Simpsons has stopped being funny or whatever. Marge has always had the weakest characterisation of the main Simpsons, and is the one least changed from her original sitcom counterparts; the difference is that she’s married to Homer instead of Ned, most other character beats are kept the same unless she is needed to have a one episode vice like gambling or road rage and gaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

Okay, hold onto that paragraph, since it's worth exploring in more detail but this post is already getting overly long, so I guess look forward to a second Simpsons meta on how it handles marriage, women and the fact that of the writer’s credited for writing 10 or more episodes of the series only two are women so okay that might be another long one.

Anyway. Back to what I was saying.

A piece of character development they tried to keep around was Barney Gumble going sober. He cleaned up his act and started to rebuild his life. I actually really liked sober Barney; for one thing it was an actual ongoing character arc, and for another it meant that he now contrasted comedically better with Homer, who is eternally stagnant. This did mean that the position of Homer’s negative foil, what he could be if things went wrong, was open, but we have plenty of characters around for that. Moe, for instance.

Actually Moe could be another instance of a character who’s characterisation got steadily weaker and based entirely around how horrible his life is as time goes on...it is really easy to get sidetracked with the Simpsons, they have such a huge cast of characters and they are so bad at actually using them...seriously why haven’t we had an episode exploring Lisa or Marge’s fair weather friendship with the other existing female cast?

Anyway, going back to the male cast members since I want to actually finish this post before starting a new one on how the Simpsons handles women, the status quo is God, so Barney returned to being a drunk, specifically because it was more difficult to come up with jokes for him. And while I understand why this would be an issue for comedy writers, to be honest it has always been kind of disappointing for me to see.

The Simpsons has always suffered from desperately trying to keep up with the times while not allowing itself to actually change with them. If, as I stated above, the Simpsons works best when it is a character driven parody with satirical elements shrunk down to fit into character’s lives, then of course it will be unable to properly satire an ever changing world with a static cast who are distorted into the roles a particular episode needs them to be. By the same token though, it can’t just continue onwards with the current model of allowing the characters to simply drift without a core characterisation that is deliberately changed. The factors that allow the Simpsons to survive so long are also what is killing the series, and that’s just sad.

[red-taileddolphin]

this has me thinking about the more directly negative consequence of this, while it feels more like you enjoy the wistful nostalgic aesthetic, which is that for the first time in at least 2 generations we won’t be able to revisit stuff we loved 30, 40, 50 years ago and suddenly remembered loving with every ounce of our being for a short time

like with our parents and even grandparents, if they were someday struck with the recollection of their youth and started to long for one final revisit they could find some old tapes or dvds of home videos, or could still find their favorite shows or tv episode clips. but 50 years from now it could be extremely possible to never be able to watch yogscast minecraft again, you could never watch the revenge music video again (but the song might go over from music medium to medium bc songs are easier to transfer so basically all recorded songs are still available), and your childhood and teenage youtube crushes and stars and mini-celebrities will be forever lost. as websites go up and down some stuff, even if it’s just a little, gets lost every time you transfer. and eventually one of the things that gets left behind is something you watched every single video or vine or vlog of. fan theories and fandom drama forever lost and never to be repeated or revisited, quirky stories about/featuring and friendships between weirdos on the internet, entire experiences and huge swaths of content that will forever exist only to those who originally experienced it and then to be lost to the remainder of all of time

of course shows and movies will always be there, you can save a dvd and keep around an old dvd player so your kids and grandkids can love and laugh and jam and learn about Rose/Pink or keep around homestuck books or even books by YouTube celebrities, but nothing that got a physical production or tangent will be completely locked from re-experiencing. this applies more to large but irreplaceable youtube channels, or things from entire communities solely experienced online like speedrunners and asmrtists and SCP, or stories and jokes about “2012 tumblr”, to literally any meme you can name, to any and all webseries, it’s all gonna be gone. unless your favorite anime/podcast/webseries gets a dvd set/book adaptation it will one day be completely irretrievable. print out your favorite webcomics while you still can if you want to be able to read them again no matter when it strikes you to in the future. we’re all gonna someday inevitably get used to to routine of remembering something, yearning desperately to watch the show that was YOUR LIFE for a whole year of high school just one last time and she’s a year or two from the purest shot of nostalgia of your entire life, then searching for it only to discover it has become utterly and decidedly inaccessible, then sighing, resigning ourselves to only mild nostalgia and recollection, and moving on with a moody anticlimactic feeling that very slowly slides off of us like nickedlodeon slime.

even this exact text post will one day be forever lost and deleted, the hard drives containing all instances of it either destroyed or just reused and thus erased. I vow to keep checking in on this exact post every couple of years to see if it’s gone yet, to have an example to actively observe and measure. I’ll use this to manually stir the pot that brings these sudden yearnings for our old passion for certain specific things up to the surface and try to think of other stuff I liked from this time to see if any of them warrant a rewatch or deep revisit or even decide to somehow bring it along physically so it can reliably stick around without relying on others to maintain its existence. honestly now I really want to start a list of all online things I’ve really loved to even be able to use in these moments and pick something to go back to out of nostalgia

also kind of weird how we won't leave much media from this era behind physically. like you can go to goodwill and go through the cds and dvds and occasional vhs tapes and records and cassettes all day and there's nerds who keep stuff around that can play them but what about digital stuff now? I have a tape from the 70s that still plays just fine. picture a website that was abandoned 5, 10, 15 years ago; now try to picture 50. yeah tapes and cds can break just like links and images on these old sites and people throw out old vhs tapes they don't want anymore just as people let the hosting for their site run out and there's stuff like wayback machine to archive these things but none of it is going to end up in a bin in a secondhand store for anyone to find decades later. you can still find people's self recorded mixtapes with handwritten labels no one's going to stumble across your spotify playlist 30 years from now and wonder what the world was like then. there's gonna be a day when youtube goes under, when any hosting site you can name goes down- I wonder what'll be saved and what'll be lost and when and how and who'll decide. I wonder if that tape from the 70s I dug out of that bin will still play

[heero-yuy]

Your interpretation of lance and keith is interesting, but the reason I don't really buy it is that the factual evidence your are basing it upon is not that reliable (it's obvious for the maze one, the others are more ambiguous). I mean it in a totally non-offensive way, but maybe instead of focusing on the characters and their actions as if they were real people, it would be interesting to take a step back, and rather think about the choices made by the writers and animators of the series? 1/

Of course as I said this is just a pov, I really enjoy reading your scene and character analyses! But if you consider the creators, well, maybe in that first scene Keith didn't punch Lance because, 1st what would he have done about Shiro, & 2nd, because it would have taken more screentime to resolve the situation?(+maybe other reasons?)This applies to other situations as well, such as in s2e1, with the fire(it bring meaning to the scene?) or their body language on the poster(a q° of balance?)2/2

Well Keith could have kicked him I guess, his legs are totally free, told him to step back.. lot’s of stuff really. The point was that it’s kinda out of character for Keith to trust these 3 so fast considering he knows nothing about either of them. 

And yeah, you can say the writers just needed to get them all together real fast and didn’t care how out of character they made this, but I’d like to think they know what they are doing and that there are reasons behinds stuff. Not behind everything ofcourse, but most things.

Like, a way better introduction would be having Keith’s “Leeroy Jenkinsplan” fail somehow, and Lance, Hunk and Pidge coming to his rescue and in that way showing him they are trustworthy and on his side. And then it wouldn’t seem so odd he lets them come with him. That dun have to take any more screen time, just make one of em knock a doctor on the head while they got a hold on Keith or somethin... Because like think about it, they really didn’t do anything but being in the way and putting Keith and Shiro in risk during that escape. And yeah, I’d like a better explanation than “Destiny”, cause Keith should have been “good bye suckers” once he’d gotten Shiro on that hovercraft, by all logic. He really didn’t need 3 people to carry Shiro.. Should have left all that non essential weight exactly where he found it.

And the fire was obviously there because they wanted to create an intimate atmosphere, like it’s a touching meaningful moment and it just wouldn’t look the same if it happened in the lion’s cockpit. I am well aware of this. I think I also mentioned that in my post. But it’s still fun to fill in the gaps they leave for us. Like this is where you get your canon compliant fan fics and arts.. (And Keith and Shiro have alot of those “ofscreen potentially really meaningful scenes”..)

And you do say the fire brings meaning to a scene.. But I guess you just disagree about the meaning I suggested? (is this about shipping?)

I dunno, I look at everything from a writers point of view first, and I feel like I usually know what stuff are like “cartoon logic” with nothing behind it (usually, because all those years of being a homestuck are making me overthink absolutely everything haha), you don’t see me complaining and making theories about how it doesn’t makes sense Aliens speak english, and how Kerberos doesn’t look like that, and how Slav is full of BS because that is not how parallel realities work (actually maybe I will rant about this one sometime, this and Kaltenecker, cuz ALIENS DUN JUST TAKE COWS, THEY DO CATTLE MUTILATIONS DAMMIT) or maybe even about how Shiro doesn’t recognize Pidge right away even when seeing a picture of her and Matt... There’s LOTS of stuff that dun make sense that I dun dig into too much..

I’d still point these stuff out, because I just can’t help but notice patterns, details and inconsistencies. And sometimes they will have something behind them, and sometimes not. 

And if the writers didn’t put much thought into a certain something, fans will usually do the work for them, and come up with amazing creative stories and explain it in their own ways. Like that’s one of the fun parts about fandom.

(like lets say the “lion slippers”, they were obviously there to sell a product or as a joke I dunno, but you can like make so many stories about why all the paladins get slippers and bathing suits and other items in their color I guess, like maybe one of the original paladins was like a really sweet person and made like welcome packages for everyone or something... Hand sewed the slippers for everyone as a gift.. and then no one wore them.. Maybe even it was Zarkon’s idea or doing... Maybe that's why he had a fight with Alfor.. Or maybe Alfor made them and Zarkon just refused to wear them and that’s why they had a fight. lot’s of fun stories you can come up with)

And unless you’re like actually one of the Voltron writers on anon just going "But we had to make Keith out of character!!! You don’t know what we are going through and how stingy dreamworks are with the budget!!!” then I will really have to disagree with the “but maybe instead of focusing on the characters and their actions as if they were real people, it would be interesting to take a step back, and rather think about the choices made by the writers and animators of the series?”

Because If you’re a good writer, you will think about these characters as real people, you will think about what they feel, what they think, why they do the things they do, and you will write accordingly, considering all the production limitations. Because that’s what makes characters feel real. And I think the Voltron team did an amazing job with that! I really wouldn't be spending time analyzing scenes and relationships if Voltron didn’t prove to me there’s hidden depths to things(not to everything, but to most things) and the characters are really really well developed and thought through. (and fans do it with shows that have like zero depth behind anything all the time even, cuz it’s fun and people want depth.)

Like it’s so nicely done even the silly stuff kinda you know, dun seem out of character...

Like lets say with that random fire, it really wouldn’t be odd if Keith like suggested “Well, if we make a fire maybe they’ll see it and find us” and Shiro just shrugged and said “worth's a try”. Because they already did something just as stupid with the pyramid when trying to form Voltron. 

Like these character are silly and do silly random stuff like real people do, and are aware of the absurdity of the situations they are in..

And I’m not sure what you mean exactly about the body language..

Actually, you’re being very vague and not making any concrete points on what exactly you’re not agreeing with me about, but if you really wanna argue with me about somethin then you’re welcome to like reblog that post with all your points and receipts. 

I don’t get offended when people disagree with me, and I’m glad if someone points out something I missed or forgot. (as long as it’s not one of those my headcanon is better than your headcanon arguments, cuz I dun have alot of patience for that, headcanons and canon theories are two different things, so these kind of arguments are pointless)

And like no one has to agree with my interpretations (sometimes i dun even agree with them haha) but like if you don’t and you wanna debate or argue then bring it on! I love arguing! But you really gotta be less vague than that..