#i love you homestuck fandom thanks for still being here and for continually trying to be better despite a sordid history and a shit author

[karkatenjoyer]

4/13 birthday hashtag girls (plus little fella with a party hat)

[radramblog]

What happened to Dirk in Homestuck^2?

Why am I doing this to myself.

I memed a little yesterday when I was posting that article around social medias about Homestuck jokes, because once again we are in lockdown and I am therefore Stuck at Home. Canned laughter goes here. But there’s a topic related to the comic- or more specifically, its aborted sequel, Homestuck^2, that I’m interested in delving into a little bit. I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers as much as possible, but considering said comic takes place not only after the events of the massive sprawl that is Homestuck but also the more linear but still messy Epilogues, some amount of sus shit is inevitable.

Anyway. Much maligned is what the Epilogues and 2 did to everyone’s favourite decapitation target, Dirk Strider, and I have a theory as to why it happened this way.

To begin with, let’s summarise what and who Dirk is through the course of the comics. Fair warning from me, though, it’s been a while since I read through this.

Dirk Strider is a teenager who grew up in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, completely devoid of physical contact with other people and only really ever gets to talk to 3 other people, only one of whom is in anything remotely resembling a relatable situation. He struggles with self-identity, having created numerous robots including an artificial intelligence based on his own brain, aka Lil’ Hal. He’s somewhat of a control freak, and a bit of a cold aloof asshole, but means well, and is pretty gay. NBD. The kinda guy to set up a plan meticulously and thoroughly, not informing any of the moving parts even if said parts are his friends, and often involving some form of self-sacrifice.

Throughout the comic he further reckons with self-identity problems and his own self-loathing including entering a relationship with Jake which doesn’t go well and he eventually breaks off since he knows his overbearing and manipulative behaviour is Not Cool and Pretty Toxic but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Eventually he reaches the God Tier as a Prince of Heart, gaining the power to literally annihilate souls, which he never actually uses since he gets yeeted into deep (Paradox) space and then everything goes to shit. Except none of that happens because of the Retcon (aside from the God Tier bit) and we don’t actually see how that shit progressed in the canon timeline. I think. Dirk’s arc, as it were, doesn’t really come full circle- while he does assist in Dave’s character…growth? he really isn’t the focus of that conversation. This immediately precedes the action climax and there isn’t literally any dialogue after that so that’s what we’re left with.

I like Dirk in Homestuck a lot. It’s hard not to, considering the flashes heavily featuring him (Unite/Synchronise and Prince of Heart: Rise Up) are genuinely excellent, along with many of his music themes being absolute bangers. He gets to interact with Caliborn a lot, with a pretty great banter, there, and the whole splintered personality thing is a really interesting hook for a character. I think he’s my favourite of the Alpha kids, a controversial pick considering I know everyone loves Roxy so much. I think, I’m not as in tune with the fandom as that statement implies I am.

And then the Epilogues/Homestuck 2 came.

Now I read the Meat half of the epilogues first, but that’s more interesting, so we’ll tackle Candy first (this is going to get real confusing for those who haven’t read this comic, huh).

In Candy, Dirk almost immediately kills himself, citing the irrelevance of the timeline as cause, an act considered by whatever mechanism governs God Tier deaths to be Just because he hates himself (and also bc of things we’ll get into), so it actually sticks. This isn’t super relevant for the discussion, but that’s just kinda so unbelievably fucked up? Entirely? I’d imagine if you read Candy first you might get entirely turned off by this, which I’m sure a lot of people did.

Meat is where the, well, meat of post-canon Dirk is. You see, a concept very quickly introduced in the tail end of the original comic is the Ultimate Self, an idea where you somehow encompass every different timeline iteration or alternate version of yourself. This was pretty clearly tacked on to make it so characters whose arcs all happened in the retcon timeline could have their not getting an actual arc explained away, but it didn’t land then and it sure doesn’t land for me now. Anyway, in Meat, Dirk becomes his ultimate self, making him near-omniscient and able to control the fabric of the story himself- for much of this story, he is the narrator. And he uses this power to fuck with all his friends really distressingly without their knowledge (or consent), including breaking up a marriage, in order to further his own goals which largely appear to be just keep the story going so to not fade out of relevance. It’s a plot that makes no sense with his previous characterisation, but I guess now that he’s the Ultimate Self he’s a different person? But I liked old Dirk, and I don’t like New Dirk. He’s a villain now, but he made a much better anti-hero.

But this would be fine if he (or the epilogues, or Homestuck^2) were written well. But they aren’t. Dirk’s dialogue is long, painfully drawn out, with tangents that tend to amount to pure wank, misused literary references and pointless metaphors that go on and on, filling the screen with a bright orange screed that hurts to look at as much as it does to comprehend. It’s not fun. And we’ve seen Dirk communicate before, obviously, the story of Homestuck is built around chatlogs, but it wasn’t like this. He was sarcastic, dryly witty, blunt at times. Even when he was literally talking to a different version of himself it didn’t get that masturbatory.

I was so confused about what the hell happened to Dirk, because I had no idea what the hell someone writing this character was thinking when they turned him into this. And then, the 21st page of Homestuck^2 dropped.

And it all came together.

What Ultimate Dirk and Terezi are referring to is Pony Pals: Detective Pony, a children’s book about some girls who hang out with ponies and solve a mystery. It’s a real book, buy it for your 5-year-old.

Except they’re not referring to that, they’re referring to the Homestuck Canon version of Detective Pony- a birthday gift from Dirk to Jane, heavily edited and to be much more obscene and eventually developing into it’s own story, stated to be “tough, emotionally draining, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible”.

Except the quote “Remember Longcat, Jane?” and references to philosophy, dead languages, and ancient earth culture aren’t referring to the three pages of the Dirk-edited Detective Pony we see in the actual comic itself. That quote doesn’t appear there.

That image is from Detective Pony, by Sonnetstuck- the 40,000 word fanfiction from 2014 that serves as a completed version of Jane’s copy of the book. An expansion of what we see in canon. And it’s a tough, emotionally draining read, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible.

It’s a very good fanfiction.

In the later bits of Detective Pony, we can start to see the origins of what would become Ultimate Dirk’s signature style of writing. Long blocks of rambling text, orange dripping down the page, references to philosophy and history and language that go on and on. And it probably does look familiar to those who read the Epilogues and ^2. 

But there are a couple of key differences here. First of all, it’s just better written? The way these rambles circle back on themselves is so excellent, the absolute absurdity of this being written on top of a pony book for little girls, the humour (beyond some of the more immature stuff), it’s just a really well-written piece of fiction. Hell, you don’t even need to be familiar with the character of Dirk to enjoy it. It’s a harrowing piece, but it’s also self-aware- because it’s not supposed to be tough, draining, cathartic etc. just for Jane- it’s clearly that for Dirk himself.

The second part is, of course, that this is a fanfiction. It’s not canon, it’s not official, this is by someone who really likes Dirk for people who really like Dirk. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so if you bounce off it (and I’m sure a lot did), then you don’t have to keep reading it, it’s fine, thanks for playing. As much as Homestuck^2 tried to doll itself up as “dubiously canon” it’s still the official continuation of the story, and that means if it’s as difficult to get into as Detective Pony, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of people.

The other part of it is that Detective Pony’s exploration of Dirk’s character is, well, in character. When the man himself steps in as a character in his own book, the explorations of what he is as an author, who he is as a person, make perfect sense for what we see of him at the start of the comic. He is that manipulative, blunt person, and he is aware of his faults. He’s the kind of person to hide a lamentation on his own failings inside an impenetrable maze of a story layered on top of a book about fucking ponies. Ultimate Dirk does not act like Dirk, outside of the “manipulator” angle, something that Dirk was aware of and trying to improve in the comic. But I guess people don’t have arcs, right?

It’s so interesting to see the seeds of Homestuck^2 laden within Detective Pony- because the meta angle that and the epilogues take is also represented in said fanfiction. While the nature of canon is a facet of the work, the idea of authors and narrators fighting for control of a story, different ideas in mind for the characters, one being more personally connected to them than the other, it’s all there. When I wrote about Fallout 4 in the past, I mentioned being worried that Bethesda took the wrong lessons from Skyrim- seeing something successful and trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. I think Homestuck^2 is an extreme example of this- the writers of the comic saw Sonnetstuck’s masterwork and thought, yeah that’s great, we can do that. But they just can’t. And with the comic crashed and burning, the probably won’t ever get a chance to. Dirk is forever stuck as this amalgamation of himself that looks nothing like any individual version of him ever did.

At least we will still have Detective Pony, and many other excellent fanworks, for actually good Dirk content. I admittedly haven’t looked into much fanfic written during/post-epilogues, and I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll see- I can only hope the fanbase didn’t take the same wrong lessons as the official team did.

[ardenttheories]

I think I may have said this before, but if not, let me say it here now:

One of the biggest reasons people dislike Homestuck^2, beyond how unsatisfying it is to read unless you’re really into the metanarrative complexities and connecting all the little dots, is that it doesn’t host the feeling of Homestuck anymore.

Homestuck was written with the fans in mind. Hussie had us front and centre first and foremost, especially during the first few years of Homestuck’s creation. At no point were we not involved, even when we could no longer include any of our suggestions because the fandom was simply too big for him to pick one. 

We can all agree that there’s a point where Homestuck stopped being written “for us”. There was just a point at which it didn’t quite hit the same way, but it was still Homestuck, and they were still characters we loved, and to some degree we were still involved. Even at some of the worst times, we were there. We can definitely say there are some parts we disliked, and some things that didn’t quite hit right, but overall we can still look at Homestuck as something worthwhile. Something that we still love even four years after its conclusion. Something we can still reread and produce content for.

But when Homestuck was over? When the main story had finished? When the Epilogues were released? That’s when it really stopped being “for us”. That’s when they stopped caring how we felt about the characters, what we wanted, what would hit right for us. The Epilogues were meant to hurt. They were meant to play with our connection to this story, to these characters, and they - for a lot of people - went a step too far. They were heavy. And while the metanarrative stuff was interesting, and there’s so much we can get out of it as theorists and literature students and writers, for the normal fan? The everyday content consumer? There’s nothing enjoyable to get out of reading the Epilogues. Everything is tinged with bitterness. 

This brings us back to Homestuck^2. 

Homestuck^2 was touted to have a base storyline that could change - and would change - with fandom involvement. That they’d pay attention to us and would include us in the writing process again. In other words, it was going to be like early Homestuck. We were going to be a fundamental part of something we love. This was the chance for it to feel like Homestuck used to - and, maybe, for us to get something enjoyable out of the Epilogues. 

But what’s happened instead? More and more of Homestuck^2 is coming out, and every time there is a flurry of posts detailing how much people hate it. How it hurts. How they don’t understand what the fuck is going on with these characters. How it’s just a bit too far. 

Every time I tell people who don’t read Homestuck^2 what happens, I don’t get a response of “oh shit, I gotta catch up!”. I get “oh thank fuck I decided not to read it”.

This is not the response of a fandom that feels they are part of a writing process. This is not the response of a fandom that is enjoying what’s happening as much as they did with the original piece of media. This feels like a fandom watching a train wreck; horrified, uncomfortable, but unable to look away. 

Does this feel like a story being influenced by fandom voice? When a majority of the fandom is uncomfortable with what they’re reading? When a fair portion of the fandom has outright stopped reading? No. It doesn’t. 

This is another story being written without thought for the fandom. Arguably, this is being written against the fandom. There’s just so much that is inherently unenjoyable. And when the original text was founded on fandom interaction... this just doesn’t vibe the same. 

I get that there’s the argument that this is like the Marvel comics multiverse. That there’s different authors, different series, and that at the end of the day, you as the reader hold authority over which you like, which you see as canon. But this isn’t that. 

This is an actual continuation of Homestuck. This is “what comes after”. You can’t consider this the same as bringing out a new series of Spiderman - because this is the Hussie-approved followup of the original story. This is partly the story he wrote. 

You know what would have been more like the Marvel comics argument? Paradox Space. Multiple authors writing equally canonical and noncanonical comics that are hosted within the same universe as Homestuck, but aren’t involved in the original, core story. No one PS comic is the true “continuation” of Homestuck. But Homestuck^2 is. 

You quite literally can’t cut that tie. You can’t state that this isn’t the official continuation of Homestuck when it’s written by Andrew Hussie and the official writing team under him. You can’t disconnect that Hussie Seal of Approval from Homestuck^2. You can’t cut that influence that this is how Homestuck goes on.

Trying to tell us that “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” just doesn’t fly. It doesn’t give the writers a right to speak out against an unhappy fandom. It doesn’t give them a right to do worse things and then be angered or upset when we don’t like it. “This isn’t something you have to read” doesn’t work when we’re all avidly aware that this is what Homestuck is now. That it’s completely out of our hands, and there’s nothing we can do about it because the writers aren’t upholding their end of the “we’re listening and co-writing with the fandom” bargain. That it isn’t a Marvel comics situation. 

Homestuck^2 is Homestuck. There’s no two ways about it. But it fails to hit every note of what made Homestuck the wonderful cult classic it is, because it fails to take into account the fandom in a text that is historically untangleable from the fandom. 

[land-of-classpects-and-analysis]

Hey y’all,

So, things have definitely slowed down quite a bit here. And that’s for a few personal, and also fandom-related, reasons.

I’ve been having a lot of conflicted feelings regarding Homestuck and things connected to it. To any of you still involved with it, I’m sure you know about all the drama that’s happened - especially in regards to Sarah Z and What Pumpkin and all that jazz. It may not seem like much to some, but it’s left a bad after taste in my mouth from the whole thing. And so, it’s made Analysis work really difficult. I don’t want to feel guilt for continuing to partake in media that has a history of being “problematic”, or connected to people of a similar variety, but I can’t help but still feel a love and connection to this work that I have started.

It’s made things difficult for me. I had just started working on my own Fanventure, and have made so much (albeit fairly slow) progress with my work here. Now it comes out the people in charge of something I love are not the greatest at treating others well. I’ve been absent for a while from this blog because I’ve been trying to wrap my head around what to do.

I’ve also been dealing with other stuff. My own non-fandom (well, partially - if you count the Minecraft and D&D inspiration) project(s), and the fact I’m going to be starting college this fall, and so it’s made it a little more difficult to think about what to do with this blog.

Being critical of media is in important, yes, but I do still sometimes struggle to find that middle ground.

Even as I type this, I get reminded of how much I loved - and still do love - doing what I do here. Bringing answers, prompting speculation, and casting my own manifestation of Light where I believe it to be lacking. But I do still hold a sense of unease and discomfort with the way WP and those associated with them have handled many things.

Another concern I’ve had is that the Homestuck fandom is most certainly dwindling, in many ways, and so I get left wondering how much I want to dedicate myself to an art that has a constantly dwindling - or at least fluctuating - crowd. This is obviously one of my least concerns, though, as I started this blog not caring whatsoever if it got attention. I wanted a challenge - my own Mount Everest to climb and conquer - and analyzing all Classpects was what drew my attention the most. That, for the most part, has not changed.

I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do with this blog, but until further notice, I would hesitantly say that this blog is on a semi-hiatus. Not for good reasons, nor bad. I’m a person with many ideas and ambitions, and this blog is only one of them. Recently, a project idea has taken my interest greatly, but who knows - I most likely will eventually come back to these bubbles of dreams and frozen moments of time, but when is the ultimate question. I still have many torn feelings regarding Homestuck and other things related to it, but I do hope to eventually work through them.

Tl;dr

Due to recent events and drama, I am feeling uncertain as to how I feel with continuing this blog and project. My emotions are conflicted and it is a complex, personal matter for me to figure out. This blog is not dead, but on a semi-hiatus until I figure out what I want to do, and where to take my creativity.

I thank those of you who took the time to read this post, and any of my other work! Hopefully these bubbles will once again feel like home, and I can get to shedding some light through its curtains..!

[n3s0]

hi i’m going to discuss the doomsday war streams and overall the conclusion of what i’d consider season 3 of the dream smp because hyperfixation go brrrrr 

(for clarity sake: season 1 is from when l’manberg defects from the dream smp to when wilbur decides to host an election. season 2 is from swag2020 vs pog2020 to the manberg vs pogtopia war on nov 16th. season 3 is from the start of tubbo’s presidency to the jan 6th doomsday war.) 

tldr: i definitely think the cc’s can look on what happened this season and improve greatly. that’s not to say this wasn’t a good season, there are a lot of things they’ve improved since season 1, but there are also things they can improve on in the future. this season was lacking a connecting thread or goal and it made it feel disjointed and left character’s in limbo. a way to fix that could be either scripting the story more strictly, fixing communication problems and/or making the plot into more self contained but slightly overlapping stories.

i think my biggest problem with this season was the fact that it felt so disjointed. one of the best things about the first season is the consistent plot line: l’manberg is trying to win independence. you had eret’s betrayal, dream’s tyranny, wilbur and tommy’s whole dynamic, and an underlying subplot with the disc war, but it all ultimately connected to l’manberg’s fight for independence. it’s what makes the first season so good and that kind of consistent plot is missing in this season. 

even the second season had the main plot of taking back manberg. there was wilbur’s insanity, but that tied back to the elections. there was tension between tubbo and tommy, but it tied back to the elections. even the badlands tied back to bad, ant, skeppy, and sam deciding they’re done with manberg AND pogtopia and deciding to stoke the fire. it all tied back and character’s had weeks to slowly develop with the setting. 

this season you had techno retiring, ghostbur reconciling with fundy, tubbo’s presidency, whatever was going on with schlatt and quackity?, george is king?, el rapid mexican l’manberg that whole thing, tommy’s exile, el rapids fighting dream smp/eret’s kingship?, the butcher army, techno UNretiring and teaming with tommy, tommy using techno to get his discs back, techno using tommy to destroy l’manberg, the prison, the bloodvines, and probably more im forgetting. there was a LOT going on, even techno and wilbur have ooc acknowledged this. and in my opinion it was just too much. character’s weren’t given enough time to develop naturally and the pacing had to go fast enough to fit all the plot into it, leaving little time for the character’s relationships to develop with the plot. 

most notably this is a problem with character’s like niki, fundy, ranboo (though not too bad with his character) and eret. eret had worked hard on a redemption arc and then had to go back to being king because george didn’t want to be involved (then changed his mind which...okay) which really fucked up all of the development he spent a LOT of time on during the second season. niki had to jump from siding with tubbo and tommy against wilbur’s insanity to suddenly tubbo’s president and her character just...can’t know that wilbur is dead for some reason? and now she needs content so she has to scrap together an anti-hero plot for herself. fundy’s works a little better i feel, with his lowkey insanity arc he’s having as of now, but the problem with him is he didn’t get enough lowkey plot moments to show his character’s devolution from neglected to vengeful. ranboo was thrown head first into the plot and while he’s doing an AMAZING job of keeping himself afloat, he just hasn’t had enough time to make his character’s mental decline seem believable, at least to me. not enought has happened to his character for it to work out, due to pacing. all of these character’s are AMAZING concepts but the fact that they feel so inconsistent can be related back to the fact that there really wasn’t any time given to let character’s slowly develop and change, and instead they had to cram all of their character development into the first 30 mins of a plot important stream.

and i will offer a counterargument here of the fact that season 3 is when wilbur’s writing stopped and also was when it really started catching a large audiences’ interest. so naturally more people wanted to be involved and due to the nature of the way this story is told, where each character is an actual CC who needs content and can’t just be a background support character, there HAS to be a lot going on for everyone to get their slice. and i think that’s the ultimate downfall of using this medium to tell a story. you NEED those background characters, the characters that don’t have to be 3 dimensional, the characters that don’t need to be there for everything and get their lines in. so i can’t fault them for having a clunky story when it has to be that way to be fair. 

ultimately i still really enjoy the story, and i hope this doesn’t sound too nitpicky. it’s downfall, of everyone having to be an important character, is also what makes it so good! don’t like the “main character”? go watch someone else, who’s the main character of their own POV of the story. every single character is incredibly complex and has their own unique set of motivations, goals, and traits. it works really well with the running theme of history, and how not only does it repeat itself through miscommunication and ignorance but also how the opinion on events changes from who’s telling the story. the fact that you can tell every CC genuinely cares about their character also really does show in the acting and writing and just everything about the server and story. the flaws of the story are very easy to look over because of just how much time and care all of them put into this server and it really helps the story. an okay story written by passionate people with always be better than an amazing one written by apathetic storywriters; and the smp’s story is definitely more than just okay, at least to me. 

i didn’t want to write this just to complain and then offer no solution, so i do have a few ideas on how i’d like to see this fixed or at least improved. they actually already somewhat do this, but i feel like they could start breaking up the plot more. similarly to how there was the bloodvines plot going on at the same time as tommy’s exile plot, i feel like they could take a chunk of say 5-10 members and they each have their semi-contained plot. especially with l’manberg now destroyed, the thing that way tying a lot of the members together, it would be easier to do this. there can be connecting threads through the stories, like how tubbo and fundy would see the bloodvines or bad would visit tommy in exile, but ultimately not every character has to be involved in everyone else’s story. 

say you have tubbo, tommy, quackity, fundy, ghostbur, and dream for one plot of trying to get the discs back and making dream revive ghostbur. at the same time you can have techno, phil, ranboo, dream, and sam dealing with the prison and techno or someone being put in the prison with dream manipulating ranboo through his memories. bad, ant, sam, puffy, and skeppy can continue with the egg. eret, fundy, niki, and ghostbur work through the trauma they’ve gained from everything with l’manberg and their interpersonal relationships. similarly to how karl is doing the tales of the SMP right now, these storylines are self contained but characters can overlap and therefore so can relationships. 

my other solution would honestly be to just work on the seemingly lack of communication. make sure everyone is getting the content they need (with people having to understand that not everyone is going to get the animatic worthy lines every stream, and not everyone gets to play a huge part in each event.) however this entails having a much more concrete script, which highkey removes the charm of the smp. it also means that inevitably someone is going to not be getting good content, or content at all, and that’s not fun or good for anyone. ultimately i’d like to see an improvement on the communication for the plot (niki feeling excluded, george and eret not being told about important events, communicating when people are trying to have genuine canon important speeches and not BMing them (cough cough tubbo at niki about her taxes cough cough techno during tubbo and tommys reunion)) and that doesn’t necessarily have to mean a fully fleshed out script. 

in the end, what everyone on this server has managed to do with this storyline is something that’s genuinely impacted me! it’s opened my eyes to new ways stories can be told and this fandom is the first big one i’ve been in since probably fucking voltron or homestuck in the mid-2010s. i love what the CCs have managed to do, and while i think this was a healthy amount of criticism for the story i in no way want to demean just how much passion and effort the CCs put into this server. none of these people are professional story writers or actors so the amount of talent we’ve seen is astonishing. this is simply me expressing what i think the problems are, because every story has problems, especially one that’s being made with such a unique medium like improv roleplay streaming. if you have anything you wanna add please feel free to add to this post or reply! i’d love to see :) thank you for reading if you made it this far lmao

[drake-the-incubus]

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better. 

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out. 

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender. 

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out. 

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.” It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game. 

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

[fish-of-aquaza]

~~Okay so, hi, I'm new here, in tumblr... and, I... just got into self shipping half a year ago... aaand only have platonic and familial ships.. and you can call me-

Karkat: YOU CAN CALL HIM OCTO, OGILVY, BIIO, JR, TROY, ANIS ETC ETC, THIS DUDE HAVE SO MANY F#CKING SELF INSERTS THAT IT'S RIDICULOUS!

me: ~~J...Just call me any of these, I will clarify which name is which fandom, and-

K: ANYWAYS, HE HAVE A FCKING LIST OF F/OS HE'S ABOUT TO READ OUT IF HE FINNALY STOPPED THE POINTLESS TALKING

Me: ~~Dude, what da heck?! Stop interrupting me!

K:YOU SAID THAT YOU NEED SOMEONE WHEN YOU DO THIS, BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO BIG OF A DAMM P#SSY TO DO IT ALONE!

YOU TOLD ME, THAT IT WILL ONLY TAKE A FEW MINUTES, BUT YOU'RE BEING SO GOG DAMM SLOW, I CAN'T STAND IT!

Me:~~...

-sigh-

~~Okay, I'll just read it out then.

~~So, first of all, of course as you could tell, Homestuck. I have Eridan, Terezi, Tavros, and of course you could tell, this rage nugget next to me called Karkat.

K:CAN YOU PLEASE, DON'T CALL ME THAT?!

Me: ~~yeah, sorry. -giggle-

~~And I'm still reading homestuck, so there might be more f/os

Karkat:YEAH, YOU'RE STILL ONLY AT THE ACT 5, YOU SHOULD GET YOUR LAZY ASS TOGETHER AND ACTUALLY BE PRODUCTIVE FOR AT LEAST A F*CKING MONTH

Me: ~~you think that I wouldn't if I could? I procrastinate too many things qwq

K: YEAH, EVEN THIS INTRODUCTION! HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN "WORKING ON IT"??? MONTHS??

Me: ~~well.. I have been procrastinating it a lot.. But can I continue? I'm finally doing it..

K:YEAH! SURE! JUST GET OVER IT ALREADY!

Me: ~~So, the next fandom is The Owl House. Let's see...We have Amity(familial/sister, she deserves better siblings)..... Gus...., Hooty-

K: THE DOOR THINGY?

Me: ~~yeah? Why did you ask?

K: I HONESTLY THINK THAT THEY JUST NEED SOMEONE THEY CAN LISTEN TO, A GOOD LEADER IN PARTICULAR, WHO ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THEIR BORING STORIES AND STUFF

Me: ~~well, I would say it differently, but yeah, it's basically what i think. Anyways, the last thing remaining is the Slitherbeast.

K: THAT GIANT ALIEN YETI, RIGHT?

Me: ~~yeah?

K:THAT THING GIVES ME THE CHILL, THEY HAVE THEIR EYES IN THEIR F*CKING MOUTH!!

Me: ~~well yeah, but they are still pretty cool

~~Let's move on, the next one is Danganronpa. We have:

~~Gundham Tanaka

~~K1-B0 (kiibo/keebo)

~~Leon Kuwata

~~Monodam

~~Chiaki Nanami *

~~Koichi Kizakura (familial/dad)

~~Possibly will be more, I'm still watching the walkthroughs and stuff-

K: WAIT A SECOND!

ME: ~~Hm?

K: WHAT IS THAT LITTLE STAR NEXT TO THE NANAMI GUY'S NAME?

Me: ~~okay, first of all, that's a girl, second.. It's just a... A marking, a marking because she's my favourite woman f/o

K: BUT THERE IS NO OTHER MARK FOR A GUY.

Me: ~~Oh! Oh yeah.. I.. I forgot! Let me just -scribbles a star next to his name-

~~Here! Done ^^

K: DUDE, I AM FLATTERED BY THIS, BUT WE BOTH KNOW THAT PRETTY F#CKING WELL, THAT I AM NOT YOUR FAVORITE.

BUT OKAY, I'LL LET IT SLIDE.

SEE? I'M SUCH A GREAT LEADER THAT I LET YOU PERSONAL SPACE, YOU'RE VERY F#CKING WELCOME.

Me: thanks...

~~So anyways, next on the list is: No Straight Roads, AKA NSR We have Neon J-

Karkat: NEON J? IS THIS SOME KIND OF RAPPER OR SOME SH*T? THIS NAME SOUNDS SO LAME I THOUGHT THAT YOU BEFRIENDED A F#CKING LETTER J NIGHT PUB SIGN WHEN I FIRST SAW IT.

Me: ~~No, his name literally means 1010, the name of the boy band he created

Karkat: EXCUSE ME? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

Me: ~~Neon is the 10th element of the periodic table and J is the 10th letter of the alphabet.

Karkat:THAT'S... ACTUALLY CLEVER.

Me: ~~It is. Can I continue now?

Karkat:YES, AS YOUR LEADER I LET YOU TO CONTINUE READING THIS ENDLESS LIST YOU HAVE CREATED TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

Me: ~~It wouldn't take so long if you wouldn't keep interrupting me.. -_-

~~So yeah, he is familial, dad figure. the rest is 1010, and Yinu along with her mother

~~There are only a few fandoms left, I'll be quick.

~~Mha:

~~Tokoyami, I loved his appearance since their first training, he's the coolest and strongest when he's in beast mode (in my opinion of course).

~~Coraline:

~~Other dad, he's a familial, as a dad of course

K: HE WAS TRYING TO SAVE CORALINE, RIGHT?

Me: ~~He deserved better...

~~And, the last fandom,

~~Epithet Erased:

~~Zora Salazar(Familial/Aunt)-

K: DOESN'T SHE STINKS BECAUSE SHE SLEEPS IN THE WOODS OR WHAT?

Me: ~~Yes she does my self insert keep teasing her about it.

~~And the last one, Ramsey. I like his style, pretty much a loveable character, i wanna be his friend.

~~And, as a last thing-

K: YOU SAID THAT WE ARE DONE!

K: I DON'T CARE, I NEED TO GO! I HAD F*CKING ENOUGH?! I'M OUT! -walks away-

Me:~~...

~~Ookay... Soo..

~~I just... wanted to mention that... I'm the brother of (@fishy-moirails), and we have shared f/os, and sibling self inserts in most of the fandoms that I have mentioned...

~~Soo.. Yeah..uhm..I will... update later.. Bye! -runs away-

[ask-the-seer-of-breath]

On Theseus and his Paradox

I'm making this post hoping no one else has done this, haha. Though it should not matter, I'm sharing my thoughts on this anyway. Huge thanks to @FrankTheUnusual on Twitter for bringing to my attention more about this subject.

I know half of us are excited about Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon. I also know the other half of us isn't. Personally, I’ve been reading when I can muster the strenght to do it. Regardless of your stand in the multiple continuations of Homestuck, I hope you find my post interesting and/or fun. (^-^

Remember to keep reading under the cut.

Let's begin with context. Spoilers for the first part of Homestuck^2 ahead.

Dirk Strider has become a full-time anime icon, and he is ripping off Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan. As shocking as this is, he seems to have developed a narcissistic kind of view on himself. One that, I dare to say, is both caliginous and flushed. He has also spiraled down into the Homestuck fan void. He's obsessed with all that pertains to the rich lore, going so far as to have a collection of panels. Not unlike Doc Scratch. And he also seems to be depressed due to severe isolation from his emotions. His only coping mechanism is taking care of some discolored succulents he alchemized. Which are sadly not safe from the fangs of one of his shipmates.

Speaking of shipmates. First mate Terezi seems to be both the plague and the pilot of the Theseus, destined to crash it into a new planet. While Rosebot is as passive of a player as The Choice made by Alt!Calliope. She is not unlike the succulents.

Going back to Dirk, he has perfectioned the abilities of an ascended Ultimate being. And it is revealed his purpose is to take Homestuck back to the times before the narrative went astray into other concepts. His way of fixing the comic? Bringing back commands, which his connection to the Heart aspect allows him to suggest-ify. But he scraps that when it doesn't go the way he expected. Or did it?

Before we continue in what is Homestuck^2, we are left with a view of the Theseus approaching the destination Dirk and crew have pursued for three years at light speed.

Right off the bat, it seems that we are getting more involved with Titles and Roles in Homestuck^2. I suppose, courtesy of yours and my boy, optimisticDuelist.

Who the hell keeps making these references?

The subject of this post is to bring to light the name Theseus, and the fact that it's a ship. A space ship, yes, but it's enough to just know it's a mean of transportation.

Who is Theseus? A demigod, son of Poseidon but also the son of King Aegeus of Athens. The rightful heir to the throne, and a mythical hero for Athenians. Similar to other Greek mythological heroes, he went through several "labors". Daring adventures to prove his strength. These labors he fought against were representations of archaic religions and social orders, left behind by the Greeks. He is, therefore, historically recognized as a symbol of "major cultural transition".

Let's not dawdle, Theseus is highly connected to Ult!Dirk. It is a symbolism, meant to connect Dirk's crusade to a heroic concept of historical rebirth. They're both godly? Checked. They're both catalysts for major changes on the narrative? Checked. Had a sexist friend who was related to horses in some way? Checked. Abductor of women? Checked. Wait. 

It is also worth mentioning that Theseus is rooted in the word thesmos. Which in Greek is “The gathering”. It's as if the battles of Theseus are the recount of the Homestuck narrative by Dirk.

But the hero Theseus had a ship too, which he sailed back from Crete to Athens. What is the importance of this boat?

Theseus rows across Paradox Space

What's more important to us right now, is the philosophical meaning of these references to Greek mythology. Because Dirk and Rose are all about that and have been "laying down mad enfilades of philosophical shit" on those three years.

Many times in the Epilogues and now in Homestuck^2, Dirk mentions what is like to be detached from the concept of Self, and how you need to internalize what your Identity is in order to ascend to a fully realized ultimate player. What does it matter being Good or Evil if you are Yourself? But what is Yourself?

Dirk mentions he used to drown in the ocean of his full potential, constantly trying to escape the things he was capable of doing. As a Heart player, he's capable of being aware of his splinters across Paradox Space. All of them doing different things, but all of them being him still. No matter how bad or how good. Are the other Dirks less or more Dirk than him? At what extent does he stop being Dirk?

But now, he has become the ocean. And he is beyond a definition of Self, of a trace of Identity, of being more or less, good or evil. Or so he says.

Let's recount the ship of Theseus. It is said it was kept by the Athenians as an object of adoration and historical importance for many centuries.

The Paradox of the Ship of Theseus says: Suppose that the famous wooden ship, on its preservation, has a piece that starts to rot away. The piece is replaced by a new one, but then the same scenario happens again. And so on, until many years later, the ship has had all of its parts replaced by new wood. Is this restored ship still the original ship in which Theseus sailed?

What happens if someone had stored and cured each rotting piece of wood that was scrapped originally, and then reconstructed the ship entirely. Which ship is the original? The one reconstructed from the old parts or the one restored by the Athenians? Which is more important, the body of the ship or the consciousness around the ship?

At what point does it stops being the ship? How much or how little change should it undergo to still be it? And what is even it?

When something changes, who is to say it's not the same as before, and who is to say it is? But rather than change, what is that which defines an object?

What if we decide to apply this concept to human beings, who is to say that you are the same person you were 10 years ago? If you argue that a person is their body, remember that in a span of 7 years your cells reproduce and decay, until you are made of completely new cells. Are you still You? Let's say you argue a person is their mind. Is your ten-year-old self the same as your fifty-year-old self? Everyone might still perceive you as the same person, but psychologically, you are not the same. You learn new things that influence the way you behave. So what is it that defines You?

"Where does consciousness exist, and what is the reality of our soul if we question the basis of personal identity?"

Living this paradox is what it means to reach your Ultimate self. Which might explain why is it such a difficult feat. The fact that Dirk was even capable of pulling it off is amazing, and probably derives from his upbringing as well as being bound to the aspect of Heart.

However, the Paradox of the Ship of Theseus is not only an answer to ascension, but it is also a question to the fandom.

At what point does Homestuck cease to be?

What is the end of Homestuck? Is it when all the characters reach a happy ending? Or is it when the villain is defeated? Is Homestuck^2 still what we love? And if it changed, who are we to say it isn’t Homestuck? Did Homestuck ever begin or was it already here.

This philosophical question resides in each of you. The answer is what you decide it to be. I myself I’m no philosopher but this was a fun question to reflex on, regardless.

Love it or hate it, H^2 came to stay. Dirk is here to stay. Whatever happens from now on... Let’s see how far we’ve come, everyone. 

Thanks for reading!

Sources where I fact-checked and got inspired

Wikipedia: Theseus

Wikipedia: Ship of Theseus

Utne.com “The Ship of Theseus and the Question of Identity”  By Noson S. Yanofksy

[egg2k16]

40 Fanfic Q’s Answered

the server wants answers, and they want them now!!! from this post

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Smut and pining all the way. Also, falling in love via laughing

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Eh...I don’t think so, I’m always 100% self-indulgent, so what u see is what I want

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Anything that has to do w mega sadness, I just Don’t. I can’t write anything sad, and if I do, there’s certainly gonna be A Lot of comfort afterwards

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

I have 91 wips, motherfuckers!!! My latest wip is a daddy month fic!

5. Share one of your strengths.

I think, since I’ve been trying to be sparser in my words, I’ve been able to better emphasize what isn’t being said

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

No action scenes from me are ever good, lmao

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It was late at night, when he started to cry.

He didn't want to cry, but he did.

It's been years since he's last let himself feel, or was it since he was last allowed to feel?

He choked on his sobs, uncomfortable with his tears. He's forgotten how to properly cry. His entire body is shaking, and the connections between flesh and wire hurts.

He stops crying. He starts crying again.

This continues for another few minutes, until he feels as if he can't possibly have any more tears.

He wipes his face, pulls the covers up to his chin, and falls asleep.

(from Twilight on the Sea) I really like this bcus I don’t think I’ve ever really typed out crying in this way, n I tried to make it feel like it was a lot

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Cass was quiet for a moment. “... you know what? Maybe I’ll just go up there and surprise you.”

“If you do, then you already ruined the surprise, haven’t you?”

“Eh, I dunno about that. Seeing my beautiful face is a shock for many people.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, Koda? I don’t know about you, but it’s really late here.”

“Really?” Koda asks, then remembers that time zones exist. “Oh crap, what time is it over there?”

“It’s midnight. What about you?”

“It’s eight o’clock. Only four hours difference?”

“Oh hey, that’s not so bad.”

“It reduces our time,” Koda said, a bit whining.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What are you going to do? Move here? Send for me?”

“You’ll see.”

(from Together) This was a gift for one my best friends on here, @suncatchr​ , and it’s about his ocs!!! I love this a lot bcus while it’s a soulmate au, it’s not ur average soulmate au, and I tried making it as original as possible! And this blurb, I just wanted them to effuse so much love w/o having to say love...cries

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

If this is by posted fics, then I remember writing Look What You’ve Done to Me was very very difficult, bcus, since it’s also a gift, for @daniel-bryan​ , I wanted to write it Good, n since my buddy usually wrote from the love interest’s pov, I felt a weird pressure to write Daniel Bryan’s pov as good as I could

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

2 of my fics in Spanish!!! My oc centric one, Rayos y Centellas, and my shyan one, oye cariño, solo pienso en ti ! Turns out writing in ur native tongue makes everything easier

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

It’s a very passionate hobby!!! I just!!! try to pour all of my love into everything I write!!!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

I’m not sure!!! I just watch movies n quietly scream to my gay lonesome bcus No One Ever Watches Movies ;-;

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

To just keep writing n not stop for details or forgotten lore, bcus it’s important to write down what’s firing u up Right Now. Of course, it’s very difficult following that ;;-;;

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

“No adverbs!” “No ‘said’!” “It has to make grammatical sense!” sometimes things Need those

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Was gonna say my rewrite of the end of The Rover, but actually, my SPN fic Ube . Shit was peak inspired

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Eridirk (Eridan Ampora/Dirk Strider from Homestuck) all the way. The one otp that’s stayed thru thick n thin <3

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

A little mix of both, and tbh it depends on the fic, but I tend to write chronologically

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I’ve started bullet pointing my ideas out before writing my fics, and so far, it’s been helping me be more streamlined n get my things written out faster n clearer!

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Is the need for representation in all the niche movies I keep watching a muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

In my dark room, w music blasting from my laptop, the TV w a soft hum, I have the perfect playlist to get the mood right, curled up in my blankies, n my plushie Sweet Pea by my side

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Zero, we rely on autocorrect & editing while typing and die like men

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

YOU DON’T SEEM SCARED.

Del Rio shrugs. “Working as a cop, it makes you numb to some things. It’s good, it lets you react to things as you should, and not how you’d want to.”

YOU SOUND SAD ABOUT THAT.

He makes a noncommittal noise. “It is what it is.” He eats another spoonful of his ice cream, then gets a thought.

“Can you show up?”

HOW SO?

“Can you,” he tries, waving his spoon around, “Manifest?”

I DON’T KNOW. I’LL TRY.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Del Rio assures, and he can feel the air around him smile. The...world, he thinks, around him shifts just slightly, and there seems to be a chink in the armor for a moment before it goes away, as if someone had wiped the glass clear. He realizes that this is her, trying to show up in a physical form, step out of the phone.

He doesn’t know where to look, but then his confusion wanes when a butterfly shows up, fluttering towards him. It lands near his phone, skitters a bit, flaps its wings.

“Lucy?” he asks, transfixed on the butterfly. Its orange wings are bright under the sunlight.

I THOUGHT I’D TRY SMALL, FOR MY FIRST TRIAL.

“Well, you certainly nailed it.” He smiled warmly at the butterfly, and he had the crazy notion that it smiled back at him.

(adapted from The Policeman , the first fic I posted!)

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Yeah, probably The Policeman lmao, I remember it today n I cringe a little at the very obvious refs to other fandoms I made. Despite that, it continues being one of my best hits!

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Never

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I’m just thankful to have gotten a beta in general in life at all

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I beta’ed once, and since English is my 2nd language, I pointed out syntax confusion, typos, n continuity errors

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

Can be done, it’s just that I am frightened. Tried doing that, it fell thru, n the new thing that came up, I still have to hold up my end of the bargain ;;-;;

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

cries omg ok so!!! Chancy_Lurking ( @lurkerviolin​ ) is one of my faves, n we’ve become friends, n their Felix+ Sense8 series is the reason for it all, and u know it’s good if it managed to make a friendship that’s last its good while, and also they’re so nice, and we vibe so well!!! thegoatz ( @daniel-bryan​ ) is also now one of my bestest friends ever, and I wuv him so much, he is such a good kid, n he’s so enthusiastic about writing, and I hope that spark never goes out!!! And adamwhatareyouevendoing ( @skatingthinandice​ ) bcus she’s doing a rewrite of The Last Kingdom where it’s all gay where it should be and vnjkdfsnvkd God, what a wonderful friend!!!

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I actually technically am working on a sequel to @rettaroo​ ‘s A New Kind of Touch ! Another promise I have to hold up eventually ;;;-;;;

30. Do you accept prompts?

Sure!

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I try to follow canon as much as I possibly can!

32. How do you feel about smut?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

33. How do you feel about crack?

Eh, it’s alright. I don’t normally look for it, so I don’t really have a solid opinion on it

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

I don’t want to read it, but I have so far encountered it twice very amicably: once here in a ficlet, and another in a longer fic on AO3, and they were both very good

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Probably not, I don’t like sad things!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3! I’m RedLlamas on it!

37. Talk about your current wips.

Lmao which one. The one I’m currently working on is an impregnation kink turned “oh no I actually do wanna have a family” feelings fic!

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Gonna be real w u, the best comments I’ve gotten have mainly been from my friends, who either write a paragraph or two going into detail of the fic, or just send a one sentence comment that’s just “screams!” I’ve gotten very few paragraphs from other people, n they’re always so!!!

My friends are the realest :’)

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

The perks of being a rarepair writer is that the only people who read my fics are the ones actively looking for content!!! And they can’t complain about my work because No One Else Is Writing For It!!!!!!

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

All my fics are masterpieces, so I’ll do a summary change! For don’t you just know (exactly what they’re thinking?)

Dakota finds himself in unexpected heartbreak, and the universe decides to bring him in the direction of a night club with a dancer with stars on his skin.

[awkwardtaco056]

so now that i’m no longer in the Hell that was school and after finding the lovely blog @endcringe i’ve decided to talk about my own experiences with cringe culture, bullying, and why it’s Really Bad to not let people enjoy inherently harmless things, especially neurodivergent people (read more because this is gonna get long and triggering at times, TW for mentions of bullying, suicide, child abuse, a brief mention of incest shipping. I won’t be naming any of the peers that I discuss my experiences with, because my point with this post is Not to “cancel” anyone, I just want to speak out on my experiences)

I’m neurodivergent; I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 years old. I didn’t know a lot about it, and a family member even painted it as “oh it’s nothing blah blah blah just apply yourself more. Because of this, I had no idea about the concept of hyperfixations until I was in my late teens. Due to that, I would obsess over random things and my family would shame me relentlessly for it. My mother said I had an “addictive personality” and that she feared I’d end up a drug addict or alcoholic because of it.

I look younger than what I am, I’m short, and small. AKA, the perfect candidate for being picked on by people bigger and stronger than me. People made fun of my art when I was around 13, but fortunately that was an instance where spite fueled me to improve drastically. However, just because I happened to take the shitty comments and have it fuel me then does NOT mean bullying people will have that effect all the time. At some point someone put my old South Park fan art on a cringe blog. I was temporarily hurt, and a little angry, but I realized that if someone was making fun of a 15 year old’s art, they probably didn’t have much going for them in life, so I moved on.

Fast forward to high school. Everything was horrible and I’m not exaggerating when I say I barely made it out alive. I was living in an abusive household up until January 2018 and I found comfort in many different interests. I’ve always found great comfort in music and the arts in general. In 2016, I drew a picture of a mermaid. I was inspired by the chocolate opal gemstone, and I thought it’d be fun to draw a gay chubby mermaid with dark skin and a rainbow tail and freckles. Junior year was lousy and I wanted something that sparked Joy. I was immediately told that “scientifically, mermaids wouldn’t look like that. Mind you, my take looked like this:

Obviously I wasn’t going for realism, I just wanted to draw a cute mermaid. However, they continued to tell me that they wouldn’t look like that, going as far as writing so on the back of said drawing. When I got angry at her for taking it too far (as I’d established before that I didn’t like it when people wrote on my art without permission), they got angry back, accusing me of being unable to take criticism. Heated by the accusation, I went as far as asking my art teacher if it was fair for them to say that, and she said no, stating that constructive criticism would be talking about how I could improve my lineart and coloring in the digital version. I took her actual helpful criticism and since then have improved Drastically in digital art. Even with that being said, I found myself hesitant to participate in things such as MerMay because I was leery of hearing that peer berate me for having cartoony mermaids. 

 During high school I grew to love many musicians, a lot of emo/alternative stuff, a couple being Twenty One Pilots and Melanie Martinez. I love how unique TOP’s style is, their open discussion of mental illness, and as someone who had a rough childhood, I connected with every single song on Cry Baby. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. I started listening to mashups featuring all these different artists I love, adoring how they could change the tone and sound so drastically. A peer Bully of mine in junior year condemned these two artists, declaring that they made “Bad Music” simply because it didn’t fit their tastes. They’d throw my drawings on the ground, write over them in pen, steal my headphones so I couldn’t listen to music, push me around, complain that mashups sucked and gave them a headache, and in general shit all over conetnt that was actively preventing me from committing suicide. 

Some family members were no better. Once high school hit, I began listening to Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance. Their deep complex lyrics stuck with me. I would write down quotes from my favorite songs and thanks to hyperfixating, I remember each studio album in order My mother resented when I fell in love with the “Emo Trinity” because “the Columbine  shooters were emo and that event traumatized me” Despite that, not only did the Columbine tragedy occur in 1999 and none of the bands got together until the early 2000s, but I have a pretty good feeling those groups aren’t For gun violence. The other side constantly criticized the fact that I love FOB, P!ATD, and MCR because I’m black and “why must you listen to that white people music.”

 I grew fond of Dan and Phil in high school (and I’m still a fan to this day!), I loved Phil’s kindness and positive aura and I deeply connect with Dan’s sense of humor and personality. Their content made me happy during some very dark times in my life. It’s November 2017, I’m over a close peer’s house at the time, and notice PINOF is upon us. I drew the PINOF whiskers on my face, my plan being to quietly watch them in the corner of peer’s bedroom on my phone through headphones, the others were doing their own thing and I knew they didn’t like them, so I thought they’d respect it if I silently indulged in it. Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. I was immediately shunned and locked out of the bedroom, told that I’d only be let back in if I washed the whiskers off because “absolutely not”. Me, being stubborn, washed them off temporarily but drew them back on in the room. Life during then was especially bad for me, as the abusive household I was in was getting worse. They noticed, of course, and even though all I wanted was to enjoy this small tradition in a time during a deep depression, I was immediately shoved out the room and locked out, only to have said peer’s family members notice. I’m a relatively shy person, so this was honesty a really harrowing experience that had a lasting effect on me. 

I grew to adore Sanders Sides as well, but the moment I found out most of my peers didn’t like Thomas, I was terrified.  I stopped watching Dan and Phil’s content for months and shied away from other fandoms too, only occasionally indulging in times of complete solitude. One time when said peers were due to visit my house for the first time, I saw the Phandom and Fander stuff I’d hung up on my wall in my little sanctuary that was my bedroom (it was the first time in years I’d had my own room), and I was filled with panic and fear. I took them down and hid them away, genuinely terrified of what they’d do to me if they saw. It’s still incites so much anger in me to this day because they turned around and ended up shipping incest, but somehow liking D&P and Sanders Sides was So. Much. Worse.

They were baffled by my actions, despite having humiliated me Twice by going on a private blog of mine separate from everything so that I could fully indulge and laughing at everything on there, once at a peer’s house, once right in school. I don’t think they realized how traumatizing it was to have a large group of people in public laughing at something I was deeply self conscious about for all of my life. I put on a brave face at the time, but ended up crying in the bathroom after first period began. I continued to be treated as lesser until things came to an ugly head August 2018 when I ended up in the hospital because I nearly attempted suicide. Years of child abuse, bullying, and being deemed “cringy” made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be alive, that everyone would be happier if I were gone.

After arguably one of the lowest points in my life, I cut them off and slowly began to embrace the Real Me. I started letting myself enjoy the things again, made true friends and even found love, my first boyfriend ever at 18. I still get choked up retelling it, but when PINOF 10 dropped, after he found out how much I’d been hurt over the incident in 2017, I was greeted with a photo of him with the whiskers on his face. I cried for a while, blown away at such a pure act of kindness. He listens to me ramble about my interests, he compliments my taste in music, he watched K-12 with me. 

This got incredibly long, but my point is this: Cringe Culture hurts people. You might think it’s whatever if the Thing doesn’t apply to your interests, but content you’re denouncing as cringy could be something that’s keeping them alive, that one flicker of light in a void of darkness. When I was contemplating suicide, I listened to The Black Parade, repeating Gee’s words to myself over and over, that nothing in the world was worth hurting yourself over. Some friendly joshing here and there is okay, but actively ripping someone to shreds constantly to the point where they have a mental breakdown in front of you and later on plan their own demise is disgusting. Nobody should abuse anyone for having harmless interests, no one. Unless you’re participating in p*dophilic/inc*st/s*xual assault/inherently abusive ships/content and pretending it’s not bad because “Fiction doesn’t impact reality!”, you have every right to like what you like and be happy. Read homestuck. Play Undertale. Draw up the Wildest OCs you can imagine. And stay away from people who try to rob you of innocent fun, life is too short and in this cruel, unforgiving world, you deserve to be happy, whether you’re a 13 year old who draws cute furries, a 16 year old cosplayer on TikTok, a VSCO girl, a 30 year old who writes/draws self insert art or a 20 year old who adores Invader Zim. 

Cringe Culture is just bullying under a different name, and it can lead to many instances of people, especially fellow neurodivergent folk to feel isolated and ostracized. Attempting to bully someone out of an interest they have isn’t going to fix them; it’s more often than not going to cause more damage. I suffer from diagnosed C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and sometimes I still find myself trying to over-justify my interests. To all who are roped up in bad homes and lousy “friends” who berate you for your innocent passions, I’m sorry you’re suffering, things will one day get better even if it doesn’t feel like it, and fuck those people. I’d also like to note that sometimes even if it seems more terrifying, it’s better to have one or two close friends you can truly trust than a whole group that walks all over you. You have every right to call them out for treating you poorly, and if things don’t improve, you also have every right to leave.

You have a right to live your True Self.

[betanyagito]

3 hours left of this decade here and I promised I’d write a sappy post so [ABBA voice] let’s go gays

Oh man. Oh boy. Was this a time. An entire 10 years spent on the internet. I’ve met people, got into new things, forgot old dreams and made new ones. How old was I when I first started here? 12? 13? It doesn’t feel real honestly. So much has happened that I still think about to this day, and as embarrassed as I am of my roots, I wouldn’t be who I am without them, and I likely wouldn’t have met the people I did if it weren’t for the early day join.mes and art streams from Deviantart and Minecraft askblogs on tumblr dot kom

I am thankful I got to know Minecraft, I got to know Hetalia, I got to know Homestuck. I am thankful these things allowed me to meet people who I couldn’t possibly imagine my life without right now. And that’s honestly the part I want to focus on. My friends

Old friends who I don’t talk to anymore, old friends who I don’t even know if are still around, old friends who still message me again and again sometime (honestly knowing that I’m still on their minds after all these years is the single most heartwarming thing ever), friends who I don’t talk with as frequently but still keep in my mind and get happy whenever we do end up meeting, and friends who are still here every day and support me endlessly.

If I were to talk about each and every one of them I would be sitting here all throughout January so I’ll try to talk about everyone in groups because I do want to take a moment to appreciate everyone. Everyone I’ve met shaped me into the person I am today, and while I am not perfect, I am happy. I am happy that I have the friends I do now

I remember the first big group of friends I’ve had when I first felt like I belonged. Kat, Wesley, Meni, Britain - those Whirled Days. I remember spending hours doing sprite edits and staying up late into the night to make sure I stayed caught up with rp and was present for the trials and murders lmao. I know it all ended on a sour note, but I will always treasure the moments we had together, and I’m so glad that after over six years I am still in touch with some of you. You were my first true out of the country friends, and you all helped me open my horizons and realize that the world is much much bigger than I had thought, and I can find friends anywhere who will love me

DR had stayed with me ever since, and I got to meet Mina, Chinch, Erika and Damien. Oh my god you guys. All my admiration for you four for being able to handle the edgefest that my writing and I was. I can’t believe we’ve lived through the peak days of DR tumblr rp. What a fucking Time that was. I would’ve never discovered my love for writing and betas without you all. You stuck with me through my worst years and always supported my dumb ideas. I remember the skypechats, the craigslist edits, the quiche, the zombie apocalypse, the adoption. I know I said I don’t want to address anyone one-on-one but Mina. Mina. If there’s anyone then you deserve a one-on-one. It’s been six (?) years. We’ve known each other for six (?!) years and we’ve seen each other go through so much. I know I tend to be really bad at communication and often fall short at replies but there’s not a day when I’m not thankful that I’ve met you and I still have you in my life. Your influence on me has been nothing but positive, you’ve taught me so much, how to love life, love my creations, how to be excited about anything. If I was half a good influence on you, I would already call that a success. I hope we will remain friends for a long time. At this point, I couldn’t imagine my life without having you in it. I just love you so much I almost teared up writing this ngl

And this one goes out to those Nanbaka SLUTS who also turned me into a slut who can never step foot into another church ever again. I can’t even recall how exactly I ended up in the discord group, but I know that you all were another milestone for me. Nick, Mew, Kristi, without you guys I would’ve never opened up towards people. I was scared back into my bubble where I just didn’t want to interact with fandoms ever again, but I you guys were one of the most accepting group of people I’ve ever met and probably ever will meet. You welcomed me with warmth and excitement and I still keep so many screenshots of the old discord chat that I read back whenever I need a good hearted laugh. Even now when our interests had changed, I’m so happy that we can still find a common note and have fun with each other. I wish nothing but the best for all of you

This brings us to the current era. All these muppet lovers......all these muppet lovers and I find so many friends.....Stella, Michael, Maple, Daco, Kris, Clover, Katie, Nette, Lili, Dani it was all Your Fault that this obsession started. I had such a fun time with all of you that now my brain cannot stop producing serotonin whenever I see a goddamn potato man. But even besides just having a common interest, you are all such wonderful people. You all helped me out of a rut and helped me shape myself, to be confident in my own opinions, to be able to stand up for myself and to have fun without worrying about what other people think. I am so grateful for every conversation we’ve had, every joke we shared, every idea we came up with together. I had no idea that a gag anime could ever get me such amazing friends, but it happened! And even if I don’t talk with some of you as often anymore, or at all, I will never forget any of you

Standing on more stable feet I was able to reach out to other parts of the fandom and start my own big project in the form of an askblog, and even if it’s stagnant now, it was one of the best decisions of my life, as I got to meet the most wonderful group of people. Nat, Athro, Buns, Turo, Jasp, JM, Lulu, Tris, Holly, Eden, Dairy, Ruri, Timey, Zako, Vivi, Ruah - you’re all just amazing. You accepted me into your group and I honestly feel like we’ve grown into a family. I’ve grown both as an artist and as a person thanks to you all, and I’ve never had such a tight knit group of friends before who’ve supported each other quite like you do. I feel loved and I know my voice is heard whenever I speak. I know that even on my worst days, you all will  be here. I know that you will hear even my most outlandish ideas, you will listen to me ramble about media you’ve never heard of and I more than gladly do the same for all of you too. I’ve never been more confident in my content and especially in my OCs. We’ve created something incredible together, and I am just so incredibly proud that I can say that I belong to MVA, that I can say that “hey thats my friend!!” whenever any of you come up, and I am so happy that I could meet all of you. I truly feel like I’ve become a much better person since meeting all of you. I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart that we’ll be able to spend many more years together, and watch each other succeed in many more things

Despite what I intended this turned into a pretty lengthy post nevertheless whOOPS. I’m sorry if I left in any typos or anything of the sort. The bottom line of everything is- I’ve had some terrible times this decade. Really, awful times when I thought that theres no way, no way I would be able to continue on. But all these strangers online, who I’ve never even seen in person, you all were and are always there to extend a hand and help me back on my feet. There are many ways in which this decade sucked, there were many terrible news and terrible times, but, it was all worth it. If not for anything else, then for the fact that I’ve got to meet so many amazing and talented people. Thank you all for loving me and calling me a friend. I hope the next decade will treat all of us, but especially you well. You all deserve nothing but the best in your lives and I love all of you so so much

[betweengenesisfrogs]

The Future of This Blog: A Retrospective, Or: Dubiously Useful Notes on the Epilogues

Q: What’s next for this blog?

Q: Are you going to discuss the Epilogues?

A: Good questions!!!

The Epilogues may have killed me. They resemble two dogs who each put a sword through my chest and slew me with a Heroic death and a Just one, respectively. They are unfathomably powerful and should be feared by all. Genesis frogs lie destroyed in their wake.

I say this as someone who genuinely adores them and thinks they’re great. (For the most part, with a few frustrations and quibbles. I guess that’s Homestuck in a nutshell for you. ) I think they do amazing things.

I just don’t know what I want to say about them, or indeed, if I have anything to say.

Mainly, it’s that, as I suspected would happen, the landscape of Homestuck analysis has changed in their wake.

The original impetus for this blog, back in 2017, was that people were Wrong About Homestuck. People are still Wrong About Homestuck today, but in a totally different way, which I feel less equipped to engage with.

For the last few years, I think my primary motivation was to argue against what the Perfectly Generic Podcast has called “The It’s Not That Deep Crowd.” Those who saw Homestuck, especially Act 6, as meaningless random mess, or a failure born of creator laziness. My goal was to counter that by articulating the many themes and conceptual threads that give structure to Act 6 Homestuck, so that people would recognize how much is going on within it. In doing this, I grew to align myself with Team Homestuck is Good. I do think late Homestuck is much more good than bad, but in retrospect that wasn’t really what drove me. What drove me was frustration at the It’s Not That Deep Crowd (which was strongly aligned with Team Homestuck is Bad) for their refusal to engage with Homestuck, to recognize that it was trying to do specific, deliberate things. I would have welcomed someone saying that Homestuck ultimately failed, if they were willing to take on the complexity of that failure, but no one seemed to.

So I wrote a whole bunch of essays, some better than others, to try and get a sense of Homestuck’s thematic complexity out into the world somehow. I’d like to think I succeeded, though of course I wasn’t the only one.

Things are very different now, Post-Epilogues. The border lines of the fandom have totally shifted. First, the It’s Not That Deep Crowd have been pretty exhaustively refuted, in part because the Epilogues established from the get-go that, yes, we were indeed dealing with themes of metafiction, fandom, demiurgic oppression and personal potential. At the same time, many of those who were on Team Homestuck is Bad totally warmed to the Epilogues and returned to the fandom, while some part of those who were beating the drum for Homestuck is Good had a strongly negative reaction to the Epilogues, and now comprise Team Epilogue Bad.

I’m delighted by the former and wistful though not surprised about the latter. I’m just not sure how to engage with the new place we’re in. Previously, I felt I could explain things people didn’t understand, and help them more deeply appreciate Homestuck.

With the Epilogues, it’s more like: either you’re into it, or you’re not. There are things you have to think about quite a bit to understand, true, but I also think there are people who get what the Epilogues are going for and just don’t enjoy it.

Honestly? I find that completely understandable. As I alluded to above, the Epilogues carry an unfathomably powerful destructive, negative energy. They are meant as a provocation, a violent act of storytelling that Hussie codes Meat (okay, also Candy) and likes to do after a pause of any significant length. They deliberately tear down many of our hopes and dreams for these characters and offer a contrary opinion. I admire the audacity. I’m also completely sympathetic to being horrified by this.

The night the full epilogues came out, I finished them late in the evening and spent the whole night wrestling with a powerful, dark emotion. A kind of grief and awe and horror, all at the same time. It took me a long time to fall asleep, and when I slept, they were very uneasy dreams. In the weeks that followed, I remember thinking, over and over: I’m glad I gave this time to Homestuck, but I need a long, long break from it. I loved the Epilogues, but I don’t think I could ever read them again. I felt utterly full of Homestuck, and wanted not to write, think, or do anything more with it for a long time, until I finally digested the darn thing.

So, about how you’d feel if you gorged yourself on a hundred pounds of candy and raw meat in one night.

Others seem to have reported similar experiences. Dirk’s words about Detective Pony: a gripping, cathartic read, draining in the best way possible—these come to mind. I’m not surprised that fandom reactions have been so passionate, so overwhelmed, and so vehement.

So I find it harder to be critical of Team Epilogue Bad than Team Homestuck Bad. I think I understand exactly where they’re coming from. I may not see the Epilogues quite the same way, but I don’t really feel the need to tell these folks they’re wrong, either.

Weirdly, that means I don’t feel as strong a need to talk about the Epilogues. The ideas I wanted to put out there are out there. What there is to say about the Epilogues has already been said, by people who’ve said these things much better than I could. It feels like the community doesn’t need me anymore. My work here is done.

So I don’t know how much I’m going to continue writing here. This coincides with a drop-off in my internet activity in general and with me putting more effort into personal career goals. Plus, a break from Homestuck has felt like the right thing for the last month, and may be the right thing for a while.

Probably what’s most likely though, is that I keep reblogging the most interesting essays on Homestuck, and maybe offer my own opinion occasionally, in a much more scattershot, spur-of-the-moment way than before, if I feel like I have something to say.

I do have an additional short-ish Epilogue thought coming later today, for instance, so look forward to that.

The last thing I want to say here is: if you’ve chosen to declare the Epilogues non-canon, to erase them from your idea of Homestuck, and keep creating your own worlds, futures, and afterlives for these characters—

Not only do I support that, I think that might be precisely the point.

The Epilogues begin with a detailed discussion of the ambiguous and contested relationship they have to previous Homestuck canon, and are described as being “of dubious authenticity.” They are, explicitly, Homestuck fanfiction, while also being a continuation of the story. There’s really nothing else like them in literature. Sure, the Meat timeline is described as “canon” by merit of its connections to the Lord English story, but the bizarre, fanfic-like Candy timeline is entangled with it, as are all other possible realities. Ultimately the word canon ceases to mean “what is real within a given story” and becomes something far stranger and much more ambiguous.

How do we determine what’s real/canonical within Homestuck? It’s just as Rose teaches us: it’s what’s true, essential, and relevant. In other words, what is meaningful to us as readers. So, by definition, the Epilogues are as real as you want them to be.

I wrestled a lot with the discrepancy between the darkness of the Epilogues and the utopian, transcendent Gnostic themes that permeate Act 6 Homestuck. I think the answer is this: the utopia, the transcendence for these characters lie largely in what we, the readers imagine for them.

As writers and artists and fanfiction readers, we have always created the futures for these beloved characters, and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.

I mean, the Epilogues themselves are fanfiction, created by fans, presenting us with two very provocative AUs. It’s hard to get more fan-made than that.

It’s a nice way of solving the problem I alluded to here. Homestuck gets to have it both ways, and so do we.

I leave you with my favorite example of fan-created transcendence, The Pumpkin Path, currently available as a draft on OptimisticDuelist’s Patreon and hopefully everywhere soon.

If you’re interested in deepening your understanding of the Epilogues (love them or hate them), OptimisticDuelist and the Perfectly Generic Podcast continue to do amazing work carrying the Homestuck conversation into the future, and following them will connect you to a rich, thriving Homestuck interpretive community. For now, I’m more than happy to leave the conversation in their hands.

See you when I see you!

As always, thanks for playing.

<3 Ari

[oh-no-an-opinion-blog]

I really liked Lanque’s Route in Friendsim, especially the “problematic” endings

Discourse and Spoilers, don’t read if you’re just looking for rage fuel. Or do. You control your own actions, and as long as you take responsibility for them everything will be Gucci. We good? We good.

Fight me if you want, but I’m putting it out there. I am happy to have a character who is trans, but who also has other elements to their personality even if they aren’t innocent. Yeah he’s got flaws, so does everyone else. Alternia is an alien planet with a culture is clearly different from ours, and that needs to be taken into account when considering what’s “problematic”. We’re talking about a planet of kids being raised by animals or by themselves on the streets into a classist society where they are allowed to murder each other for a physical trait that they can’t control somehow permissible but as soon as someone acts like an ass and tries to get some serious action it all goes to the fan? There’s a lot more “problematic” behavior we could be worrying about but we only hyper-focus it on Lanque because he’s canonically trans. Not every trans person is a good person, and characters who are trans shouldn’t be sheltered from some more tricky personalities to handle.

Idk man, I fuckin loved how V straight-up went out and said that you had to own up to looking at the problematic material. They called out the discourse, and after writing a route like the one they did for Marvus none of us should be surprised. The idea of it being Hussie is one I personally like, but even if it’s not I think it’s great that they don't hold back just because of what some fans think. They deal with characters like they’re actual people, meaning that some will be what others think is problematic. 

I’ve seen a lot of people upset at the fact that Lanque called out Lynera, and don't get me wrong that was hella uncalled for, but have y’all considered that maybe since we haven’t known Lynera for the last 2.43 sweeps (which is what, about 5 years? As long as a middle or high school career?) we don't know the kind of shit she’s been talking? It’s a bit unfair to judge yet, really. He doesn’t take her feelings into account, but then again was she taking his when she was saying shit?

Lanque is selfish, but dare I present the fact that he’s gotta sacrifice himself to the caverns when he goes off-planet? Maybe he’s projecting a bit when he is so crude calling out Lynera, holding on to the little bit of freedom he can still take before the trials. I dunno, food for thought.

If the issue is the sexual nature of this route I would like to remind people that the MC still has the ability to make choices for themselves, shown when they refuse the drugs even after Lanque tries to coerce them into it (good job protag I love you) and aren’t being forced to do it in a fashion similar to how Ardata controls them early on in the game. That, and after being denied Lanque doesn’t force the MC to do anything. Yeah he pokes fun, but he still stops. As for dancing, it's sexual, and the MC even states that they know what he wants and it might be more than they’re willing to give, but they go with it because it “feels good”. That’s kinda why people do things like this in the first place, isn’t it? And in the bedroom scene, again, the MC doesn’t say no because you as the player consented at the start to seeing the kind of material that the mature content warning covered such as sexual situations, language, and coercion. The decisions of the MC are executed based on the presumption that you followed the rules Ardata set when you first agreed to play through this version of the route(aka being of legal age to see mature content, being aware of the specific mature content contained, and knowing yourself well enough to know whether or not you could handle possibly problematic content). If you looked at the warnings and thought “I can’t handle some of these aspects” and yet continued on anyway, that’s on you. If you did it just to fuel your rage against Lanque, same deal. You could have played it safe, and even if you didn’t whether the MC and Lanque “pail” is up to you. You either consent by keeping your mouth shut like Lanque tells you too or you don’t by calling Bronya in to take care of the situation, which you get rewarded for by getting the good end. Even the Hiveswap team knows that there’ s only so far they can go reasonably, literally labeling the option as “Call in his mom. This has gotten problematic enough.” 

Yes, opting out of it does get you some grief, but it’s a reflection of the general crowd that wanted to see a “safe” character in a world that really doesn’t have them (not to mention the nicely added piece in there about bi erasure, especially since trolls have a default bi/pan sexuality but as soon as same-sex attraction is seen that concept is thrown out the window). They gave some people what they said they wanted, but not without a clear jab to say that they’re not doing it necessarily because they want to. And don’t worry folks! Us sinners who decided to go all the way and then get tossed aside got dunked on too (but hey alien coochie amirite). So teasing for both sides! Equality! Yay!

The team honestly had the right to pull this. We couldn’t even behave when we first learned his damn pronouns. TWO LETTERS threw everyone into an uproar. Let’s not forget that this is considered THE SECOND ROUND OF DISCOURSE and there will probably be more when he reappears in Hiveswap Act 2. They were damned either way they tried to go, so they did both. It’s a spiteful move, but the Homestuck fandom is one of the few places where that can be done thanks to the unique relationship between us as players and readers and community creators, and them as canon creators and the facilitators for the whole thing. 

I’m sick of flop/problematic/discourse culture. I’m sick of overused exclamation points!!! being used!!! to try and make a point more valid!!!! and right!!!! I’m sick of wig-snatching, tea-sipping, uwu-ing, social justice phrased-as-if-you’re-above-all-of-this bullshit being perpetuated as legitimate discussion. Yeah, I sound like a dick here and I’m being petty, and that’s the point. This isn’t so much satire as it is how I close I can get to posting something related to discourse. I’m not putting out a twenty-page analysis on how “bad” Lanque really is or isn’t until my hand is forced to give my evidence over and explain how I as someone who is over 18 with reasonably neutral views sees him not being that problematic compared to a lot of other content I’ve seen with similar themes and actions. I’ve played Dramatical Murder and Boyfriend to Death, and if you want problematic I dare you go play one of those games.

TL;DR Ardata warned you, everyone complaining about how problematic her party was is playing right into the hands of the team, and the only ones to blame here for the drama are ourselves.

If you get owned, fucking own it. And boy, we sure as hell did.

[utopianparadoxist]

I can’t focus on anything enough to write about Homestuck today, so I’m gonna talk about something that matters a lot more instead. I know this isn’t like, part of My Brand, but Puerto Rico is part of who I am and why I’m here. And since I couldn’t be part of the day of action officially, this is what I’m doing instead. So here’s what it comes down to:

I can’t stop thinking about the Homestucks in Puerto Rico. 

And yes, it’s myopic to focus on a people suffering who happen to be part of a fandom. Everyone is human and nobody deserves this kind of suffering.  Puerto Ricans deserve help because they’re people, full stop.

But people weren’t designed for numbers to track this scale of suffering, and even having spent part of my life there, the devastation my little island is going through has been more than I can relate to, or even imagine. 

So it’s this particular memory that sticks out for me, and those particular people that stand in for the unfathomable many who are suffering right now. I’m going to tell you guys a story, and try to put the place I remember into the context of the Island’s current struggle, and the sorely lacking support of the American government. 

Then I’m going to talk about what we can do to help. 

I can guarantee that at least one of those things is something you can do. Even if you can’t do anything but blog about fandom and talk to friends online--and trust me, I get it if that’s where you are. There’s still something important I want you to consider trying. 

If you have the spoons and mental wherewithal, and you care at all about what I do here, or about Homestuck, or about the friends you’ve made and the people you’ve met through fandom, or about any story that has ever moved you to reach out and make a friend,

Then I hope you can find the time to read and signal boost this. No pressure. I know it’s hard and we’re all tired. Still, It would mean a lot to me. 

(A description of PR’s Capital city, dated Oct 10th.)

Upd8 culture isn’t something that all the fans here have been exposed to. Fans have gotten flashes of it like on 10/25 last year or, of course, with Hiveswap’s release. But back during the days of Homestuck’s height in popularity, we were all wired, all the time. 

An Upd8 could happen any second, and anything and everything could change with any upd8. This was the height of update culture, and it was like being on a neverending rollercoaster. It was a sense of communal excitement and thrill that made me feel connected to everyone sharing the ride.

(The Federal Emergency Management Agency fails to keep up with the Island’s food shortages.)

I went to a con with friends only once in PR, but while there, we hung nearby a Homestuck meetup. I didn’t really engage with them, but I did have MSPA Notifier on my phone, and it just so happened an update hit. 

I was the first to notice. 

(x) (Jason Maddy, Marine Vet’s Facebook Page)

I remember grinning and telling my (Non-Homestuck) friends to watch.  That was the first and only time I got to yell the word “UPD8” to someone else in person. The result was spectacular.

The explosion of yelling and the flurry of activity was too overwhelming to follow. Suddenly, teens were yelling and scrambling to get near the closest screen. The one who sticks out in my head is a God Tier John--pretty sure the outfit was homemade--pressing his tablet up against a wall.

(Trump throws rolls of paper towels at a crowd in a Hurricane relief center.)

For a good ten minutes, we watched as what was a pretty chill meetup beforehand talked and traded screens with fervent excitement.  My friends, exposed to nothing but my self-indulgent blather about the comic up until then, looked at me in bewilderment and asked: “What did you do?”

But of course, I didn’t do anything. I was just a lucky messenger. What moved me, what moved us all with the same joy and excitement, was a shared moment of love for a story. A common passion. 

I didn’t make friends with any of them that day, and I wish I had now. Really, I just wish I knew if they were alright. Any of them. 

I wonder if they enjoyed Hiveswap in the few days between the release and Maria, or if they got the chance to play it at all before the electricity grid collapsed. I wonder how many got off the island. How many have stayed behind. 

How many are LGBT, now cut off from access to what was my only lifeline on the largely conservative island? I think about the reports of sky-high rates of depression and PTSD pouring in whenever I can bring myself to listen.

I hope all of those kids are still alive and well. I should mention: All of these tweets and news reports are verifiably true. I can confirm them myself, because I hear the same thing whenever I manage to get in contact with anyone on the island. 

My family hears supplies are coming, but never seem to see them arrive. The woman who drove me to school contacted me today, saying the same thing. Wherever there’s contact on the ground, there are reports of inadequate support and desperate need. Food in grocery stores is near running out.

Everyone I know who is able making plans to leave. Everyone I know cries and hurts most for those who cannot make these plans. Those who are stuck. Those who will be left behind to survive the nightmare.

What can we do for them?

Of course, donating to verified and trustworthy charities is an option. For those of us who are able:

Donate to Puerto Rican Farmers.

The Hispanic Federation’s Disaster Relief & Recovery Fund.

Eco-Kit uses Amazon to distribute life-saving survival tools.

And More.

But maybe even more important than that is adding our voices politically:

Petition for Immediate Large-Scale Relief Package for Puerto Rico.

Use this handy Call Script to find and call your representatives.

We can also simply talk, learn, and educate. It goes without saying that this devastation is in part a product of climate change. But we can also talk about the Jones Act that slows aid to Puerto Rico. 

We can reckon with Puerto Rico’s long history of colonial subjugation by the U.S. And we can increase understanding of the massive debt crisis that threatened the island even before the hurricane.

I will continue to post about this when I am able and have useful information to spread, but it may also help to follow blogs such as @tumblricans if you’re able. 

But even if you can’t do any of this: Believe me, I understand. I know how hard and unbearable it all is. 

Even if you can’t do anything but talk to people online, try to keep your mind off it, try to focus on fandom and friends and whatever gets you through these days,

There’s still something you can do.

Choose to be kinder. Here, in this space that you share with so many progressives, coming from so many walks of life, that have all been hurt by this world through so many cruel and unusual punishments. Even if nowhere else.

Choose to be kinder here, in this nebulous place where many of us come to forget our sorrows and share our joys and pains with others. 

Try to remember that everyone has a story. That everyone has something they’re dealing with, and you have no way to know what it is. Try to choose kindness and compassion over instinctual judgment and ideological superiority.

Extend this kindness to creators as well as your fellow fans and users, because the people who make art for us are people who are struggling and trying hard just like me and you. 

Extend this kindness to yourself and your friends in your moments of weakness, just...remember to extend it to your perceived “enemies” on this website, too. In the grand scheme of things, they simply don’t exist. 

Fandom spaces on Tumblr and Ao3 are predominantly made up of lgbt women, and lean highly towards progressive sentiments besides. Wherever we turn to this hyper-critical behavior, we are making threats out of allies. It’s not necessary, and worse, it drives us apart.

Remember that ultimately, we are all in this together. The world is a scary place right now. There are people out there in the world who deeply and truly want to hurt us.  You can even find them online, if you really want to. 

But like...fellow fans invested in the progressive agenda? Creators making progressive art? They are not your enemies, and for the progressive agenda and anyone identified as basically any kind of minority, the shit is hitting and will increasingly continue to hit the whirling device. 

We all need support now more than ever, and it is really only going to come if we begin to choose to support each other. 

And that’s important work to do. Because the kinder we are, the closer we are, the better we can connect. The better we can organize. And the more good we can do for places like Puerto Rico or people like Rune.

Sometimes, making the world a better place is just a matter of being nice to each other. That alone could well have the power to change everything.

Thank you for reading all this. I love you. Keep rising.

[floralmarsupial]

i love ur au so much oh my lord,,, literally like the best representation of actual davekat i've seen in a long time??? thank u for it it's such a Blessing i swear,, anyways could u maybe tell us a little more abt tz?? i love her sm and she obv had a big part in canon daveat so i'm wondering how she fits in w that here. is she still friends w either of them??

Ahhh I just wanted say thank you so much, messages like these are just such a joy to get and I’m so glad you like the content I’ve made for the fandom so far (and I’m sorry it took so long for me to answer this DDD:)!

Also I’m definitely there with you, Terezi and her arc is one of the most important parts to me in homestuck and is really close to my heart.

Anyways in my humanstuck Terezi is, ethnicity wise, Iranian, lives with her Grandma (Redglare) and Sister (Latula), was born with optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH) and is completely blind. 

She and Karkat met on the first day of preschool, they were doing crafts to introduce themselves to the class, Terezi licked all of the chalk and when Karkat asked her why she said that she was trying to find the cherry chalk (Terezi was taught colors thru association with certain foods by her mom)and when Karkat called her a “gross weirdo” she flat out bit him. She then proceeded to spend the next 6 years chasing him all over the playground, threatening to either beat him up or marry him. Both were equally horrifying to elementary school Karkat.

As far as specifically the Davekat comic, she’s still a component in their initial dislike/misunderstanding of each other but less so than canon portrayed. Like they already disliked each other in 7th grade before her and Dave met, but their blooming friendship in 8th grade art class definitely added kindling to that fire and took it to a new level of resentment. But honestly most of all that was more so about Karkat putting way too much stake into their mutual liking as his last ditch effort to prove to himself he was “normal” and liked girls and ONLY GIRLS (especially the more and more he started liking John.) After Karkat becomes friends with Dave, he has this big heart to heart with her after school while walking to the Jamba Juice, they hugged, took a small break from talking with each other over the Summer and by freshmen year are good friends (even if it is still a little awkward till Sophomore year).

As far as Dave, they never date. Like she likes him but after all the drama with Karkat and the general troll friend group, she feels like she was more so trying to distract/distance herself from other things than actually being interested in dating him. And once her and Vriska become friends again (after their falling out due to “The Drama”) and her and Dave spend the whole summer talking only once or twice on facebook, that mutual liking is sort of buried and over with by start of highschool. Like even if they had continued hanging out, Dave probably still wouldn’t have dated her just cause he wouldn’t want it to make Karkat feel weird (bros first yo)

That said she’s still a major part of their lives and is a major component in Dave being readily accepted into the troll friend group during freshmen year. Like she practically spends 50% of her free time from Freshmen to Senior year hanging out with them and Sollux and Aradia, going to deathcore concerts, smoking up in the playground slides, loitering outside the Barnes n Noble and bringing a very chaotic good sort of element to every adventure the group has.

 Like her Gram is a cop and while Terezi has a lot of ideas about morality and law, she has some problems with actual authority, so she’s one of the kids that tends to get into trouble more often. Nothing serious but there is more than one night where she finds herself hiding in the bushes so cops don’t see her and rat her out to the old lady.

One thing that I am really interested in playing with, btw, whether it’s in the main or side comics is her friendship with Sollux, it’s always been something I’ve been interested in exploring but even more so in this universe due to them really bonding and relating over both being super self destructive and general neurodivergent feels. Like I can see them spending hours just smoking in his room, doing absolutely nothing, not saying anything just sitting around in silence while Degrassi played in the background, enjoying the company.

Besides that she spends most of her time with Vriska, either hanging out with John when him and Vris are having their awful relationship period or just walking around the town/river, doing whatever they wanted as long as it meant not going home. Mostly talking about pretty much everything, finding places to sit and listen to music. 

they’re good.

[vriskarlmarx]

@bestahlia tagged me in a “name 10 fave characters from 10 different fandoms” thing so here goes

1. vriska serket - homestuck honestly the one, the only, if you know me you know i could not possibly start with anybody else. i could definitely talk for days about eveything i love about vriska, from textual to meta pespectives, she is a goddamn revolution of character.

2. roy mustang - fullmetal alchemist i love my tortured precious flame alchemist boy, i love him in every incanation of fullmetal alchemist, i love him in every scene, he has gone through so much and come out stronger and broken and eternal. such a good bean.

3. sansa stark - a song of ice and fire/game of thrones the bae tbh, literally the definition of a Good Egg in a world full of bullshit. sansa stark is a genius but she’s loving and soft and gentle and kind and i would die for her

4. loki - marvel COMICS universe not the movies, and specifically young avengers-agent of asgard era wait wait hear me out. in the comics, loki is a genderfluid pansexual trickster who’s gone from being the god of lies to the god of stories and their arc in young avengers/agent of asgard is one of the best fighting against fate stories i’ve read. i tragically continue to be disappointed by everything else starring loki since but that loki is one of my favorite characters of all time.

5. darlene alderson - mr robot lil self destructive ray of sunshine fighting the good fight trying to keep morale up in the ranks, she’s brilliant and wonderful and teetering on the edge this past season. the episode that just revolved around her and fsociety was a damn gem.

6. frank frink - the man in the high castle i love my angry lil jewish bean. i love how he’s Literally Me if i were in his situation. kept his head down but now throwing down with the esistance, recklessly endangering his friends who would rather keep their heads down, thank you very much.

7. rey - star wars my daughter whom i gave birth to that deserves nothing but the best. i love how her eyes shine and she’s so brave and smart and powerful and ready to kill fascism. she’s such an ideal honestly i would die for her.

8. shaolin fantastic - the get down Please Watch This Show honestly shao is a sweet sweet boy who deserves 0% of the bad shit and 100% of the good shit. he’s in love with zeke and im dead. just needs a hug. he has such a beautiful good pure soul.

9. joana coelho - 3% again, Please Watch This Show. joana kicks 11 kinds of ass and despite everything still manages to see right through bullshit. i dearly hope the show gets a second season so that i can see her kicking ass fighting for her cause.

10. clara oswald - doctor who How Did I Get This Far Without Clara, Honestly. i love clara, i would die for her but she doesn’t need me to because she’s out there protecting space with her equally immortal gf. how did i get so lucky that a character like clara oswald exists, defined by the love in her heart, by her determination, and by her love of adventure. if you only ever watch one episode of doctor who, let it be Face The Raven, the near-culmination of her character arc as the most incredible, mature, loving, curious, adventurous character in this show.

thats it folx thats all. these arent really in any order (clara would’ve been higher) except for vriska always being my number 1.

ok so i’m tagging @snaps-wexley @rocketwolvs @devinlefey @gottahida @aureliansgrotto @capltu @awaketotakeintheview @dicaeopolis if yall want to do this