#instead i look through the classpect tag and see like

[sporkdoesclasspect]

it is wild to me how everyone seems to almost universally accept classpect inversion as an actual canon thing and not just a theory someone had??

[haus-mom]

pinned post

hello and welcome to guidingThulite's blog for reblogs!

my name is alma (i also go by amaya!) and i'm 18+. not the blog, even though tumblr flagged it as mature?????? i rarely post nsfw and if i do it's mostly jokes, but whatevs. someday i'll go rogue and post female presenting nipples so they flag me for a reason

about my frequent tags and some more info below!

you want to commission me? here!

you just want to give me money? very much appreciated! here, too!

generally, for miscellaneous memes and stuff that i don't post about as often so i feel there's no need for a tag, i use #misc!

if i like a post a lot, i'll tag it as #fav!

if i go off in the tags, i usually add #alma rambles. it's also the tag i use for asks! though sometimes i forget and i use #alma answers instead. and sometimes i forget to use #alma rambles altogether

though me rambling on the tags is the norm but still

i also have a tag for those cheesy and often badly photoshopped valentine cards. just because.

my fandom tags!

right now i'm hyperfixating on project sekai, so that's what you'll see the most of in the blog. the tag is #proseka. i mostly post about tsukasa, but kanade and minori are my other two favs!!! mmj is my fav group! i am also a big defender of rarepairs so you'll see like. a lot lmao.

it's probably because i've been a vocaloid fan ever since the dawn of time (2011). the tag is #vocaloid! i'd talk about my fav producers but it's honestly a p big list hehe

i also really like kagerou project. the tag is #kagepro! i'm a big harutaka enthusiast. yuukei yesterday makes me cry. also a shintaka truther. poly yuukei quartet in general.

if there's something you should know about me is that i have a very-not-healthy-very-not-normal obsession with anything created by game dev #parun. i played re:kinder when i was like 13 and it genuinely changed me as a person. the tag's not organized like at all but someday it will. maybe. click for me rambling about how much me playing re:kinder changed the timeline or whatever. i've also played heisei pistol show and gone through gote to handa and if! gote to handa made me experience shrimp emotions. BIG DISCLAIMER OR WARNING OR SOMETHING. EITHER WAY, PLEASE READ: this has happened to me before, so if you want to play re:kinder because i don't stop talking about it or anything like that, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look up the trigger warnings or ask me, i don't mind providing them. it's a VERY HEAVY game and i don't recommend you play it if you aren't feeling well mentally. let's ignore that's what i did when i was 13 but hey! i was 13!

i'm a big nintendo as in the franchises fan, so i post a lot about it! i usually use the tag #smash bros when two or more franchises interact, even if it doesn't have much to do with smash itself. it is mostly just smash though

i have been posting a lot about super mario lately.the tag is #mario. mostly misc stuff but sometimes i'll get into A Mood and it'll be either super paper mario or the mario & luigi rpgs (esp superstarsaga, peasley my beloved)

the mother trilogy is my most beloved and mother 3 is my favorite game ever so yeah. the tag is #earthbound!

there's also kirby! who doesn't love kirby? i love that li'l guy. the tag is #kirby. i pretend i understand the lore but every day i grow more confused.

now, as for regrettable decissions: the pokemon tag is just #pokemon even though i post about mainline, mystery dungeon and other spin offs often. everything is mixed. oh god. explorers is my beloved and, as you can see, hau is my son. sinnoh has my heart.

speaking of confusing storylines! i am, regrettably, a homestuck fan. the #homestuck tag could be completely replaced with a johnkat tag though. it's either johnkat or classpecting with next to no inbetween. i complain about canon a lot too lol

i'm a big ace attorney fan, i've played all the games! though i left the crossover midway and never played again <;/3 someday, i guess. the tag is #ace attorney! i also have a separate tag for dai gyakuten saiban, or the great ace attorney, #dgs spoilers are tagged for the latter two as "dgs spoilers" and "dgs2 spoilers"

i am also a jojo's bizarre adventure fan! i've seen parts 1-6 and i mostly post about narancia. i love that funky little dude. the tag is #jjba!

speaking about mafia-related animes, i also enjoy bungou stray dogs! when i say i enjoy bsd i mean i post ranpo and only ranpo. ok that's not true. i post ranpoe and ada found family too :> the tag is #bsd!

now, for something completely different, osomatsu-san! i can't say i have something i post more than anything but i really, really like beni and i'm always talking about how they're my brother and i frfr. i don't post blm-tsu. the tag is #ososan!

i post about the disastrous life of saiki k. the tag is #tdlosk and i am very normal about akechi. i promise.

speaking of akechis! #persona is also a thing. 4 is my favorite but anything with hamuko on it is an instant reblog from me. i lied though. my fav persona game is q2. but only 3 people including me played it in the west. it's okay. that means i'm hikari's number 1 fan!

i used to be the biggest inazuma eleven nut back in 2018 and sometimes i miss it so i reblog spree until i'm normal again. the tag is #inaele! the fandom was really small so i just reblogged whatever i liked, but i have a really soft spot for hamano, hayami and kurama, aka inago's second year trio! i also like yokai watch a lot! the tag is #yokai watch. i would die for hailey and USApyon. my fav game is 3!

things i don't really post about that often but they have a tag so might as well put it here:

#kingdom hearts

#twewy

#sonic

#warioware

#danganronpa

#parappa the rapper

#sam and max (slowly BUT SURELY getting into it)

#disney (doubles as an epic mickey tag ig)

#phineas and ferb and #milo murphy's law

#steven universe

#captain underpants

#hxh

#dragon ball

#rhythm heaven

#genshin impact

#puyopuyo

#haikyuu

#keroro gunso. or sgt frog. idk. frog alien man :)

#your turn to die

#rpg maker games

#wander over yonder

#undertale (doubles as a deltarune tag)

#owari no seraph

#lisa trilogy (the first, the painful, the joyful, you know the works)

#ffix (like a couple of posts or so)

#welcome to hell (y'know, the short/webcomic) (all of these posts are old as hell please save me from me from 2015)

#dungeon meshi

there's probably more i'm forgetting but i'll add them as i remember!

[murdereraisuha]

Classpecting TWST: Savanaclaw

Time to classpect the dorm that deserved better writing-wise. I’m gonna start tagging these “twst analysis” now too cause I am basically using the classpect stuff as a vehicle for getting a better understanding of the characters

Spoilers for chapter 2 and some of the trio’s personal stories. No knowledge of Homestuck required to read.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Leona, the symbol for the hope aspect, and the words “Leona Kingscholar: Prince of Hope”]

Before we get to the reasoning, I just want to say, Leona I am so sorry you have to share a classpect with Eridan. Okay now I’ll hand the mic to past me.

Throughout his personal stories, we see that Leona is fine with resorting to underhanded tactics, but he specifically values cleverness and creative use of resources. Leona looks down on those who don’t exhibit those things (ex. the Savanaclaw students in Leona’s dorm uniform story who tried to beat up Jack using sheer numbers).

Leona tends to only expend effort on things that benefit him in some way.

Leona is a powerful and intelligent magic user; he could have easily graduated already if he wanted to, but it seems he doesn’t want to.

Despite Leona’s strengths, those around him criticized him and constantly compared him to his brother due to Leona being the 2nd born prince. No matter what he did, he could not sway those opinions. He could never become number 1.

Because of this, he developed the belief that life isn’t fair and he gives up on things rather easily.

Based on this, I have 3 aspects in mind: rage, hope, and doom.

Rage and hope go hand in hand as opposites: rage is negative emotions, rejection, and doubt, while hope is positive emotions, acceptance, and ideals. For Leona, his story seems to be about him having given up on his hope and dreams of ever succeeding. In its place he has become quick to deem efforts worthless. He acts antagonistic to people like Vil and Malleus, and he seems to disapprove of some of Jack’s honorable ideals. All of these things connect to the parts of rage/hope.

Doom is also a possibility, as it represents negativity, decay, and limits. It is the opposite to life, the aspect that I picked for Kalim. Therefore, I think doom is plausible since Leona shows the opposite side to the luxuries enjoyed by Kalim and Farena as first borns.

Now for classes. I don’t think Leona does much stealing, he doesn’t suffer from indecision, he doesn’t put up any masks, and he’s not a very healing focused person. I think that narrows it down to witch, heir, mage, prince, and bard.

If it’s prince or bard it would have to be hope, in which case prince of hope fits Leona best due to his destruction of hope being focused more than just happening naturally. Though Leona has suffered, it seems to have more hampered his potential than gave him useful knowledge so now I’m kicking out mage. Heir seems to fit best if it’s as a heir of rage. Finally, I’m also kicking out witch since he he doesn’t do much manipulation of any of the 3 aspects.

Between prince of hope and heir of rage... it’s prince of hope. Since Leona says that nothing he did could sway people’s negative opinion of him, we can assume that Leona had hope earlier in his life that he could change those opinions. He did stuff like studying and improving his magic until he finally realized that that wasn’t changing his image at all. Rather than preserve his hope, he choose to destroy it, making his class the active destroyer class, prince.

In chapter 2, he rallies Ruggie the rest of his dorm against Diasomnia, using their hopes as a tool for destroying the other teams. In 2-24 Leona then tries to destroy their hopes once he deems their plan useless. At one point he says 「じゃあ本当のことを教えてやるよ」, translated by Shel_BB on youtube as “Let me give you a dose of reality.” This and the other things he says this episode really connect to the hope/rage themes of reality vs fantasy and stop vs go. Therefore, quite ironically since he is an actual prince, Leona's classpect seems to be a prince of hope.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Ruggie, the symbol for the Life aspect, and the words “Ruggie Bucchi: Rogue of Life”]

Ruggie grew up in a poor environment with food insecurity. Many of his clothes are hand-me-downs, he’s fine with eating odd things like dandelions, and before holiday break he raids the cafeteria for food to bring back for the others in his town.

Ruggie’s official hobby is part-time jobs. From working at Mostro Lounge to selling mandrakes, he’s really focused on earning money however he can.

His skillset, which includes pickpocketing and haggling, lets Ruggie pull off plenty of clever and underhanded tricks.

However, like Leona, Ruggie still has standards: in one of his ceremony robe voice lines, he says that he prefers his lot in life over that of a spoiled, rich person without any problems. 

His dorm uniform personal story, where he teams up with Trein’s cat to get magic history help and catch rats, is about using the power of others instead of relying solely on himself.

There were 3 paragraphs of stuff here that I deleted because I was getting absolutely nowhere. I didn’t expect Ruggie to be this hard.

Like, Ruggie's problems kinda seem to stem from just poverty and Leona being an asshole. Well, hm, actually if we combine the moral of his dorm uniform story and Ruggie acting like Leona’s maid, perhaps Ruggie’s problem is something like he keeps taking on burdens? Out of everyone who lives in his slums, he’s likely the only one going to a prestigious school like NRC. He’s likely well-known there because of that and him bringing back food a lot. Are Ruggie’s ambitions for a good job not only his own ambitions, but that of the whole community? I’ve always been a bit confused about why Ruggie helps Leona out outside of the magift tournament stuff. Is he... so used to having to help others and constantly take on jobs that his standards for what’s reasonable work are gone? I just went through the chats and in Jack’s one with Ruggie, Jack is telling him about having to find something to draw for a homework assignment and Ruggie immediately offers to go get his warthog piggy bank. Bruh?? Doesn’t that have your money? Why are you just lending it out like that????

Alright, because Ruggie is a guy who needs to chill and have some me-time, I’m narrowing his class down to rogue, maid, or knight. For aspects, I’m thinking life (energy & luxury), time (action & death), or blood (community & responsibility).

On second thought, I’m kicking out maid and blood. Rogue & knight and life & time seem to fit Ruggie better. And now my best guess is rogue of life. First, he obviously fits the stealing aspect of the class through his skill at stealing. Like how a rogue redistributes things, Ruggie obtains money/food to redistribute to the others in the slums. He also injured the people in chapter 2, basically taking life from them, which resulted in Savanaclaw's chances of winning the tournament getting stronger. For the tendency of rogues to have a hard time coping with having their aspect, Ruggie has a hard time accepting luxury/relaxation time. He funnels all his resources into efficient causes and his community. Also, in Jack’s dorm outfit personal story where Jack tries to help him out with stuff, Ruggie is distrustful of him and goes out of his way to avoid him.

I didn’t have any sort of eureka moment with this one like I had with the twins, so I’m still unsure about it. However, considering that TWST characters obviously weren’t meant to get crammed into the classpect system, it makes sense that some might not fit perfectly. So, with what I do have, I think that Ruggie is a rogue of life.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Jack Howl, the symbol for the mind aspect, and the words “Jack Howl: Page of Mind”]

Jack values honor, strength, and hard work. He believes that people should accomplish things through their own efforts rather than lowly tricks.

Therefore, Jack disapproves of Leona and Ruggie's method of doing things. 

In contrast to how Leona and Ruggie use others, Jack sometimes refuses help, like in chapter 2 when he claims he can handle his dorm by himself.

Jack is quite intelligent and insightful, as shown by his comments throughout chapter 3 and his scary outfit personal story.

Jack respects social/group hierarchies and takes care not to disturb order, as shown in his dorm outfit personal story.

Also in his dorm outfit personal story, Jack says that he wants to become someone with a single true purpose.

So, I'm already kind of stumped. He doesn't have any big moments in the spotlight during the main story, so there's not much to go off of there. 

We have to start somewhere though. So, first off, I’ll eliminate the destruction classes and theft since he doesn’t do much of either. I’ll also eliminate the knowledge classes since I don’t think he holds any special knowledge of anything.

For potential aspects, after eliminating the ones that seem mostly irrelevant to him, I’m left with mind, heart, hope, rage, or blood. The 2 that particularly stick out to me are mind and heart.

Mind is the aspect of logic, unbiasedness, morality, and blending in. For Jack, his strong focus on justice even when it means going against someone he once admired seems very mind-like. His care in not stepping out of line in social situations also relates to blending in. Of course, we should still keep mind’s opposite, heart, in consideration.

Now that I’m pretty confident his aspect is mind or heart, we’re left with 12 possible classpects. I still can’t narrow it down well, let’s go back to Jack’s traits.

What challenges does he face or have to overcome? In the main story, the problem he faces is trying to correct the injustice in his dorm by himself. In his dorm outfit story, the problem he faces is being over zealous about helping Ruggie. Wait, actually, that’s not right. Though that is a problem, it seems like the main growth/realization for Jack is about his motivation for helping Ruggie. When questioned by Ruggie in part 1, he mainly cites the group hierarchy as the reasons for his actions. However, later on, Deuce deduces (haha) that Jack looks up to Ruggie like a big brother. Though Jack denies it, at the end of the story he asks if Ruggie would let him call him big bro.

It’s like he is concerned about justice and social harmony (mind stuff), but in reality he does stuff according to his impulses and emotions (heart stuff). This doesn’t feel like a prince/bard situation though, it isn’t dysfunctional or destructive enough for that. I thought that the pages of the cast might be Epel and/or Sebek, but it seems that Jack may be a page.

Pages, the passive exploitation class, are characterized by a deficit in their aspect that they try to hide and overcome. Like how Jack takes his service of Ruggie too far, pages often overshoot in their efforts to correct their weakness. However, as they grow and learn from their mistakes, pages become masters of their aspect, like in Jack’s scary outfit story where he starts out with a bad idea then at the end develops it into a sound plan to scare the tourists. That also fits well with mind, since smoke and mirrors is another big part of that aspect.

Therefore, with how well this class seems to fit with Jack’s actions and motivations, I think that he is probably a page of mind.

[ardenttheories]

I don't expect a super serious answer from this, but I'm just curious. in a perfect world, how would hs^2 be written? do you have any particular headcanons or plot lines that would be interesting to explore? I understand the hesitation in answering a question like this, because other people might try to discredit your critiques under the guise of "well its not ur headcanons so that's why ur mad". anyways, just curious because I respect your perspective and ideas

In complete honesty? The first thing I would consider vital is a diverse team of people - genuinely diverse - to consider every point of representation with. I’m talking people of different races (to avoid the anti-black coding of Gamzee), with mental illnesses (to avoid the ableism in both Gamzee and Dirk), with different gender identities (to more accurately and healthily portray Jade, Roxy, Vriska, June - any character we could feasibly want to make trans or nonbinary), with different romanticisms and sexualities (so that we could write genuine MLM and WLW relationships without falling into homophobic pitfalls; to avoid biphobic stereotypes), and overall, with different traumatic experiences and triggers (so that we could more accurately gauge what triggers would need to be tagged and how to go over them in an appropriate and respectful manner).

We could never be 100% perfect, but with a team like that, we could at least get close to it. 

Additionally, I’d bring back either fan prompts or closely listen to fan theories and conversations. Homestuck^2 was touted to be written with the fandom in mind; to consider the direction we were asking it to go in, while basing it around a general barebones structure. I’d want to make sure we were including as much of that in as humanly possible. So, if a fan theory seemed like it’d fit into the story? I’d want to include that with the rest of the text; if the fans liked a specific character? I’d want to try and include them more often. Little things to show that we’re listening and that we’re writing the story WITH the fans - like how early Homestuck used to be.

On an actual storyline basis, I really do love the concept of Meat and Candy; that there’s one timeline that goes off the rails and one that is very rigidly stuck to a track. I wouldn’t want to change that concept entirely, but I would want to make it more palpatable for people to read. 

This would mean, for me, absolutely getting rid of anything to do with Yiffany. I’d completely replace that with Dave and Jade having a child together via ectobiology; how Jade has to raise their child in Dave’s absence after he goes missing, how that affects her, who she turns to for comfort and help. 

I’d want to focus Candy more on that feeling of helplessness and dissociation. On John feeling adrift in a world that doesn’t quite connect with him, that doesn’t entirely feel real; how that would affect his relationships, his friends, his family. In this timeline, all of the rebellion stuff would be completely background to the interpersonal connections everyone has (the things that supposedly don’t matter, as is the point of Candy), with much more emphasis on how useless and frivolous the whole war is. It’d get to a point where nobody actually knows why they’re fighting anymore except for the fact that they are, and that even Jane, who started it out of a genuine fear for the human race, is getting tired of it, is losing resources, is starting to realise that she’s drifting away from her own child. 

A truce would be garnered, started by Jane who just very much wants to reconnect with her son, with Karkat taking on the role as troll emissiary. It features long talks in a large, empty room, pouring over papers, where Jane admits that she doesn’t actually know what anyone is up to these days, how long it’s been since she’s seen her husband, since she’s seen John, and Karkat quietly confesses that it’s been several years since he’s seen Dave or Jade, and that he misses them both. 

After that, a lot of the content of Candy would focus on healing. They would get back to their happily ever after, even though some things would never be the same, and there would still be inconsequentialities. It would also correspond with John coming to the slow realisation that he really doesn’t need a plot to be happy at all; that just because it doesn’t matter to the overarching story doesn’t mean it can’t matter to him. 

The Candy timeline, therefore, would close early; it would fade from our view just as Dirk feared, but it would be happy and content, and free from any further meddling. I’d essentially want to enforce this idea that, yes, we can still have happy endings - even if they aren’t “full of meaning”. They can still be satisfying.

The Meat timeline, on the other hand, would have a significant focus on Dirk and his attempts to continue the plot. I think it would be fun, admittedly, if nothing went the way he thought it would. That after all of his villany and his acceptance of destruction in order to facilitate something he thought would be better, he actually just lost complete and utter control. 

The plot isn’t something that he alone can continue. It’s created with character conflict, with motivations and rises and falls and losses and gains; trying to recreate SBURB, to try and restart the cycle, isn’t what a plot needs to be. It isn’t what he thinks it will do. 

I’m unsure if you’ve seen this recently, but there’s been a lot of fanwork around the Lord!Jake English idea that went around several years back (when people saw the Caliborn sona). Now, this I’d want to put into it. 

Jake, fed up with being stepped on, walked over, hurt, suffering from the trauma of being completely and utterly ruined by Dirk, absolutely flips shit. He chases after Dirk to seek revenge, to cut short whatever bullshit he’s trying to do, and therefore much of the comic becomes this constant back and forth with an increasing fear for Dirk the closer Jake gets as he traverses Paradox Space.

It’s very much clear that when Jake arrives, Dirk will lose. There’s no question about it. Nobody suggests that anything else will happen. There’s several arguments on Meat’s Earth C over whether or not they should try to stop Jake, or let him stop Dirk - and whether or not Jake will calm down afterwards or continue his rampage. 

In the end, Dirk fails. Jake catches up to him, and just before he hits the killing blow, the entire thing goes dark. Our narrator dead, the plot abandoned; there is nothing more to see. This I would want to use to enforce the idea that, yes, plot can still be satisfying as hell and still have integral moments and be heavy and harsh - but it can also end in a way that leaves open questions because that shows that it isn’t the best ending you can get. 

And then we jump back to Terezi, using her Seer powers. Both timelines have been her trying to use her powers to See what’s in store, where she should go, what she should do. She’s still floating through Paradox Space, looking for Vriska, and as such she’s met with this... sort of internal dilemma. 

She knows, now, that the chances of her dying out here are high. She also knows that even if she does survive, she’s pretty much never going to see Vriska again anyway. She knows there’s a chance at a happier relationship with John, and that the only way she can get that is if she somehow manages to make a timeline where Meat and Candy merge together at once. 

So, she flies back. She manages to arrive on Earth C the day of John’s big decision, and interrupts him before he can go to the picnic. Through their dialogue, John gets it stuck in his head that, hey, there’s something BIGGER out here that you need to do, but you need to do that amazing thing again where you make a third Choice.

When John arrives at the picnic, he decides to eat some of the pumpkin instead - to which you might be thinking, what pumpkin? The one he put there, of course, using his retcon powers.

So we start on the Pumpkin timeline, written entirely in the 1st person narrative from John’s POV. It’s a completely biased interpretation of what’s going on, but it’s honest to John’s own thoughts and feelings, too, allowing everyone to act the way they usually would do without any influence, but still having a narrative touch. 

It shows John actively fighting to free the timeline from Dirk’s and Alternate Calliope’s narrative controls, those little hooks they’ve planted in it since time began, with a lot of back-and-forth as the two talk to John through the narration (which, he hears their voices as thoughts in his head). 

John attempts to free them both from their own biases and chains, encouraging Alternate!Calliope to leave the space she’s isolated herself in and join Earth C while convincing Dirk to undo the bullshit villain schtick he’s on (and that plot or no plot, there’s still a reason worth living for). 

It’d be a timeline filled with references back to original Homestuck (and funny quips from both Alternate!Calliope and Dirk along the way), a lot of morality discussion, plenty of theorising on narrative control and arcs and the placement of plot and fluff in a satisfying story, and have plenty of representation and romance and hints towards kids, too (such as nonbinary RoxyJaneCallie, DaveJadeKat, aromantic Jake, JohnDirk [because I couldn’t stop myself, honestly, with how their Classpects work so well hand in hand], and definitely RoseMary being the first to adopt a child that they absolutely do not call Vriska). 

It’d fill plotholes the fandom wants to be filled, and it’d have drama, of course, in the form of figuring out a way to destroy Lord English that doesn’t inherently lead to the Candy timeline. But it’d go back and forth between the heavy, plot-filled moments and the slower, relationship-based moments, with more humanising and development of Dirk and Alternate!Calliope and John as rounded characters.

That’s the best my tired mind can come up with right now. It’s something I’ve daydreamed about a lot, actually; how I’d rewrite Homestuck^2, or what my own ending to Homestuck would be using it as a foundation. I hope it makes sense! It’s a fun little thought experiment, honestly.

[homespork-review]

Spork Introduction

CHEL: Hi! I go by Chel, they or she pronouns, and I’m the one spearheading this project. I still like at least a fair percentage of Homestuck, but after the ending disappointed me a great deal, I got bitter, and when Hussie pissed me off further by Godwinning himself, I decided to do something about it. I’m no longer angry about it, but I felt I’d benefit from picking out what I hate from what I love so I can focus on the latter without annoyance getting in the way, and also to benefit my own writing efforts.

BRIGHT: Howdy! I’m Bright, and I got into Homestuck fairly recently. After ploughing through the archive and digesting for a while, I realised that I was thoroughly annoyed by how something enjoyable had fallen apart so comprehensively. I am looking forward to the time-honoured practice of ripping the story apart to identify its weak points and shout at them.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hello, I’m Failure Artist (call me FA for short), she/her/herself pronouns, and I’m so old-school they burned the school down. I was introduced to Homestuck via Something Awful’s Webcomic thread. I checked the old mspadventures.com site and the latest update was [S] John: Bite Apple. After watching that bizarre piece of animation, I had to know what the hell happened before then. I found I enjoyed the wit of the comic though I didn’t really care much about the plot. It was only when Act 5 came around that I became a serious fan. I currently have 122 Homestuck works on Archive of Our Own. I have a lot of free time, you see. I am very disappointed in how Homestuck ended. Possibly there was no completely satisfactory way it could end but it still could have been better. I feel like Hussie was a juggler who threw a lot of balls into the air and ignored them as they fell to the ground and some fans think not catching them was a master move since you’d expect he’d try to catch at least one. Sadly, lots of the problems with the ending are embedded deep within the canon.

TIER: Hi hi. I am Tier, a very late newcomer to the wonderful world of Homestuck (2018 reader!) and average fan overall. I love this webcomic to bits, but the low points are deep and I enjoy seeking out what the heck went wrong. Not particularly analytical myself, hope that's cool!

CHEL: Cool by us! We’ve already done plenty of analysing before we started, as you may realise from my Tumblr’s “homestuck ending hate” tag (at @chelonianmobile).

FAILURE ARTIST: But let’s put that aside for a moment and talk about the good stuff. 

Homestuck is incredibly innovative. It is the first true webcomic. It’s not just a print comic posted online. It uses not just still images and words but also animation, music, and interactive games.

Homestuck is the latest adventure in the series MS Paint Adventures. MS Paint Adventures started as a forum adventure. In forum adventures, the OP acts as a sort of Dungeon Master and other forum members give them prompts. Andrew Hussie’s previous works under MS Paint Adventures were Jailbreak (which is little more than Hussie dicking with the prompters in scatological ways), Bard’s Quest (Choose-your-own-adventure), and the actually-completed Problem Sleuth. Problem Sleuth lacks the music and animation and despite the weird physics shenanigans is a simpler story than Homestuck. The characters aren’t even two dimensional.

Homestuck (and the previous MS Paint Adventures minus Bard’s Quest) are set up like adventure games. Adventure games are where the player is a protagonist in a story and are usually focused on puzzle-solving though sometimes there’s combat. In the beginning, these games were purely text. The player would type what they wanted to do and the game would spout back text describing it - assuming the computer parser understood you.

CHEL: Oh god, I HATED that. I wasn’t around for the heyday but I’ve played a couple and

Pale Luna

was barely an exaggeration (horror warning).

FAILURE ARTIST: As graphics improved, adventure games started using them, but the commands were still in text. Only later was the point-and-click interface created and players didn’t have to guess what exact sentence the computer wanted them to type. Homestuck and the other MS Paint Adventures play with that frustration while paying tribute to the genre. The game within the comic uses RPG elements but the comic itself is set up like those good ol’ adventure games. In the beginning, Homestuck was guided by commands from forum members. Even after he closed the suggestion box, he used memes and fanon created by readers.

CHEL: How good an idea this was varies, as we’ll be showing.

We probably don’t need to describe Homestuck much more. Everyone here who hasn’t read it will doubtless have heard of it. Almost everyone with a Tumblr will have seen fanart, almost anyone at a convention will have seen cosplay. Shoutouts have been made to it in professional works such as the cartoon Steven Universe, and the Avengers fandom latched onto “caw caw motherfuckers” as a catchphrase for Hawkeye to the point that it’s now often forgotten it didn’t originate from there.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Homestuck fandom term “sadstuck” for depressing stories/headcanons somehow leaked into other fandoms. Using second-person is actually cool now and not just for awkward reader fics. Astrology will never be the same again.

CHEL: Now, in the interests of fairness, we will say that when Homestuck is good, it’s amazing, and it’s good often. The characters at least start out appealing and are all immediately distinguishable; even with the typing quirks stripped, it’s easy to tell who said what. The magic system is one of the coolest I’ve ever seen, who doesn’t love classpecting themselves and their faves? Hussie also shows a lot of talent for the complex meta and time travel weirdness, and it is fascinating to watch a timeline thread unfurl. And whatever else one says, it’s a fascinating story that’s captivated millions. I think it is deserving of its title as a modern classic.

However, as the years have passed, we have ended up noticing problems, big and small, and they nagged at us until we decided it had to be dissected. Our intention here isn’t to tear apart something we loathe entirely. It’s to take a complex work and pick out what works from what doesn’t. As I said, when Homestuck is good, it’s very very good. But when it’s bad, we get problems of every scale from various offensive comments to dragging pace to characters ignoring problems and solutions right under their noses to an absolute collapse of every theme and statement the comic stood for before.

The comic is ludicrously long; eight thousand pages, or thereabouts, to be specific. Officially one of the longest works of fiction in the English language, in fact. Naturally, we can’t riff that word by word in any timeframe short of decades, and we can’t include every picture, even if that was permitted under copyright law. Instead, as comics have been done here before, we’ll recap most of the time, and include sections of dialogue and pictures when particularly relevant to a point.

Here are the counts we’ll be using, possibly to be added to later if we find we forgot anything. Most of these counts will only start to climb post-Act 5, but we’ll be keeping track of them from the beginning. Most of them could have been fixed with a decent editor, which is sadly a hazard of webcomics, but still frustrating to read.

TIER: Note: we started this endeavor months before the thought of a "technically not but still we'll count it" set of canon epilogues were a twinkle in the eyes of the fandom. That is, by the way, a whole 'nother can of worms that will be dealt with at a later date if that ever comes around. We're judging Homestuck the Webcomic as a whole, so no after the credits stuff is to be noted for whatever reason.

ALL THE LUCK - Vriska Serket constantly gets a pass or gets favored over every other character. This count is added to every time she pulls some shenanigans with which others wouldn’t get away. ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY? - Sometimes it’s not entirely clear whether a thing is supposed to be taken seriously or not. We don’t require hand-holding through every joke, but when, for example, we’re supposed to take one instance of violence seriously while a similar case is supposed to be funny, this count goes up. CALL CPA PLEASE - Instances of creepy sexual behaviour (and perhaps particularly gratuitous acts of violence) from the thirteen-year-old cast. Now, mileage may vary on this one. We won’t pretend that thirteen-year-olds are perfect pure angels, especially thirteen-year-olds growing up in what is openly supposed to be a nightmarish dystopia. However, when full pages focus on said behaviour, there comes a point of it being very uncomfortable to read. Clarification: does not refer to cases where the adults do something heinous, this is strictly when the kids do. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS - When an offensive joke or comment is made, particularly when not justified by the personality of the character involved, or presented in the narration as being okay. GET ON WITH IT! - When the pace drags. ‘Nuff said. Hazard of the format, but it makes archive bingeing very annoying. GORE GALORE - For unnecessary and/or excessive torture porn which is treated less seriously because it features troll characters, and therefore less “realistic” blood colours. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC - When the comic does something mentioned in How Not To Write A Novel, and it isn’t justified by the webcomic format. HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING - Characters repeatedly neglect to do something about or even react to terrible happenings, either because they don’t care even if they should or they forget they have the capacity. Not necessarily anything to do with their magical powers, either - characters ignore personal problems that are right under their noses, too. IN HATE WITH MY CREATION - For reasons that are unclear, Hussie chose to create characters he apparently hated writing, or at least ignored in favour of others. Every time he’s clearly disrespecting one of his own characters, this goes up, whether it’s by nerfing their powers or changing their personalities. RELATIONSHIP GOALS? - Romantic relationships in particular get fumbled quite often. Ship Teasing is used with skill, but that skill tends to be lost when the characters actually hook up. Fumbled friendships and family relations can also come under this heading. SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER - When characters other than Vriska get away with something morally questionable. Covers everything from sexual harassment to not trying to save people from the apocalypse. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS - Later on in Homestuck’s run, Hussie tried to make up for the offensive humour and casual -isms counted by Clockwork Problematykks above. How successful he was at this varied. This count goes up whenever an attempt at progressivism is waved in front of the reader but doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. WHAT IS HAPPENING?? - When the already confusing plot kicks it up a notch. Admittedly this is as much a selling point of the comic as it is an issue, but either way, we’re going to keep track. Points will be added to when it gets confusing, and taken away when a previous confusing thing is explained adequately. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM - What is shown about Alternia repeatedly contradicts what we’re told about how different it is from Earth. For example, trolls still use heteronormative terms even after it’s established they reproduce bisexually, and the demonstration of the class structure doesn’t always add up. This count goes up every time that happens. It also goes up every time something happens which strongly implies Hussie was envisioning the human kids as white, despite his later claims that they were always supposed to be “aracial”, and every time their economic statuses don’t add up either.

[kineticallyanywhere]

Ok I don’t have anything on Lina yet, but Wash I got somethin for. I know u were keen on aspect parallels but what about… class parallels!! Wash would be a wonderful Mage of Blood. As we both like Dahni, check out her blood description- it’s perfect for wash! And Mage- Wash is loyal to a fault and fixates on connections and responsibilities. He gets taken advantage of and pushes around in PFL, and then switches when he feels the stronger bond created by Epsilon-

2: In which, after the bonds he thought he had shattered around him, he completely fixated on and considered his primary responsibility. And he takes up responsibilities with the rvbs very fast- and he gets the freedom and fun that he’d always kinda longed for in PFL But was denied! He suffers from being taken advantage of and jerked around with connections, never finding a stable bond, until the rvbs provide him the trust and strength he needs in the new session

3:  I’m like the Pepe Silvia meme puzzling out classpect stuff rn thanks for listening; more to come4: Looking on it more and more I feel like Tucker would make a fantastic knight of space- the description of it in the tags you linked me to fit really, really well with Tucker, or at least how I perceive him, especially after Church’s death. He slowly grows to drop his facade and become genuinely confident in himself instead of overcompensating; I’m ignoring his season 16 writing, it felt strange to me. But anyway5: Lina makes a great Knight of Mind I think? At first I dismissed it bc I thought PFL had an abundance of mind, but then I realized I was wrong- it was completely chaotic and illogical, nothing made sense about it. Lina fits Knight of Mind really well, if you slightly alter mind’s application. She was constantly refining her abilities, she was obsessive, but always thought she wasn’t enough- wasn’t smart, logical, emotionless enough, and she put up a front she’s still working to drop in s17 

all of this is delicious okay one at a time

a quick contextualization of my thoughts: not to lean to heavily on a single (fan) source, but I really do lean on [this post] a lot when organizing my thoughts for classpects. I love the way it explains each class and aspect in the context of character arcs, which is the angle I typically look by when picking apart characters and what makes them tick overall. so, I’m gonna quote that post A Lot. so:

(this got long!)

Wash: honestly I’m not the most familiar with the mage class, but “realize your own talents and don’t get caught up in self deprecation” mashed with “don’t be apathetic, but don’t be too overly sensitive either” and suddenly I cannot possibly conceive of a counter argument. I’d say by the s17 equivalent of this hypothetical hs au, he’s in the back half of that development track. mage: PFL put him in that “worst of the squad” mindset, despite some evidence of being the most empathetic and enduring light-heart there, which is far from a useless skill). When he gets with the Reds and Blues, he gets to embrace those big sappy speeches about friendship and growth and being there for people and it really really works for him. blood: “don’t be apathetic”: every moment of “what about my behavior made you think I expected to survive” to answering “you can’t just kill everyone” with “why not?” || and then “don’t be too overly sensitive either”: The Screech and his propensity to hold grudges for literal years at a time. But he’s grown so much! Caboose let him have Feelings and Donut talked him down from a grudge (Franklin Delano Donut deserves a freakin commendation for that one btw)Tucker: I gotta think a bit more, but parts of mind still appeal to me for Tucker. back on that post, and bolding the part that catches me: “don’t think of yourself higher or lower than others due to your intelligence; inform others so everyone can understand.” He seems to have this internal flip flop over the series about what he wants – to be average or to be the cool guy, or to not care or to be in charge. Knights in general have that internal vs external presentation conflict, so whatever aspect we’re not really in danger of losing that, but… breath maybe? (”learn to be assertive, not aggressive or passive”) He tends to kinda go with the flow of things. “Fight these Reds now, go on the Alien Quest now, find the Director now, do what Wash says now, fight this war now” and on and on and on until you hit s15 and he kinda snaps, ready to just freakin murder Temple until Carolina stops him (from taking the same path Wash did but that’s a different meta about parallel character arcs). And then (how I see it) he spooked himself and tried to fall back into being That Guy in s16, who wasn’t even enthused to kill a weird cow beast and could just cruse along through the bs nightmare of his life by cracking bad jokes and living ridiculously. but he’s not that person anymore so the attempt comes off as… well, like that. this weird blend of still kinda used to being in charge but still unwilling to face up to what he does wrong because it hurts too much to look at and there are other weird things he could be doing if he literally takes two steps in any direction. Or at least that’s how I parse it. 

Carolina: The whole things just feels spot on. I'd considered it in partial for Tucker up there, but "don’t think of yourself higher or lower than others due to your intelligence; inform others so everyone can understand" is just. spot on. literally a whole thing in season 10 was that the others didn't trust her because she wouldn't tell anyone what was happening. Also all the things you said. 

OKAY THAT THING I SAID BEFORE ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO EXPLAIN THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CAROLINA AND TUCKER i SEE? (besides armor color) They're knights. They're both knights. They do That Knight Thing that “please be yourself” thing-- just. yeah. that.

[chuckling-chemist]

An Actually Decently Comprehensive List of Preferred Lusii

Otherwise known as “My Accidental Life’s Work Thus Far”

So, before I really go into this, this wasn’t any sort of action done out of spite. Well, okay not that’s wrong. It totally was. But not at the fantroll community. It was actually in spite of this one guy who said “Don’t use birds for lusii, that’s too common” on a critique blog a longass fucking time ago (like uhhhhhh 3 years? Maybe 4?), and you know what’s harder than just ignoring it? Spitefully pulling from a stock of 500 noncanon trolls as a reference pool to prove he’s wrong, even though the comment wasn’t even directed at me, it was just pompous. 500 turned into 1000. 1000 turned into 2000. 2000 turned into 4000. Effectively, as the spite disappeared and interest at the statistics and variation fully took hold, I couldn’t fucking stop myself. But first, before I actually go and post some of the stats that I found, some questions that I can only imagine are going through some people’s heads.

Q. How will you be posting this?

Initially? I was going to do one absurdly long post under this. But even under a read more that’s going to kill a lot of people on their phones. So I’m posting this, there’ll be another one just about mammals, one of them birds, etc. This will let me really break some stuff down.

Q. How did you prevent doubles?

I listed the name of every blog name and given troll name. If I took an extended break and couldn’t remember if I covered it - there’s seriously over 250 creators logged into this - I could search both by blog name and/or a few OC names to see if one of them already existed. In fact, if I noticed I had already covered one and they changed their name, I’d go fix it to keep stuff updated. This had happened at least once.

Q. How did you get so many creators?

Mostly? I hopped on the fantroll tag. A few of them come from the classpecting meta discord I was on, at least one of them came from a popular AU fanfiction involving OCs and canon.

Also there were some very different players when I did this in 2014. For reference In 2014, Megg (fantrolls-anonymous, now irrelevanttrolls) and Bonny/rancidfantrolls were still highly active. Now, their blogs exist but they’re largely inactive. What I’m getting at is that blogs come and go, and when you’re as high-key a lurker as I pretty much am, you end up catching most of them active at least once. (In fact, while many of the older ones I did are still either active or archived, many others have deactivated, taken their content down, or switched their blog name so many times it would be difficult to track them anymore.) 

Look, I gotta do something with my time if I don’t RP on Tumblr and lurk because I only follow like, 90 given blogs on Tumblr at any given point in time.

Q. Are mine listed?

Probably. If you didn’t have any lusii listed for your fantrolls, I skipped over it. Also if there wasn’t anything listed and the page in question looked unfinished. Only a few people I tried to sniff anything out, and that was very early on. Now, if it’s not listed, it’s not listed. And I’m sure if you looked at the names of some of those I included, Lord knows there’s probably someone listed who’s been agreed to be a problem. I dunno, man, I don’t keep track of the Fandom Wank(TM)

Q. If they used troll terminology/typos/nonspecific language/descriptions instead of names, how did you piece what they were going for? 

Much of the time, you can use pretty easy context clues. “Amalgamation of eyes and wings. indescribable beyond this to most who saw it" sounds like a seraph. For those, it’s very liberal usage of the Notes feature, so I can add the exact description and any details of note I can make out. Typos, it’s pretty much the same thing. “Infrit” is probably supposed to be Ifrit. If I really couldn’t piece it together, I made the category “unsure”. It’s nothing bad, literally just for all of those that didn’t know what exactly or where exactly to put it.

Q. Why didn’t you just use Google Surveys or something similar?

I only have 287 followers, 4 of those are fantroll blogs, another maybe...4? actually have fantrolls (the ones from the Homestuck discord basically), [snipped for complaining] and in general only my shitposts only gather any traction, so the likelihood of getting nearly as many numbers is far lower. 

Q. Why didn’t you go up to 5000 characters?

Okay, but 4000 characters was hard to do. The first 3000 or so? That was fine. But that 3000-4000, I was starting to find blogs largely unfinished, or didn’t list a lusus at all, or were so hard to navigate it wasn’t worth it. It doesn’t help that, as I found out, it’s easier to find rp blogs via jumping from blog to blog instead of the tag. 

Yeah, fantroll tag mostly seems filled with general art blogs. 

Anyway, I think that’s most of what I can imagine is going through everyone’s heads? I’m working on up assembling the mammalian list now, and hopefully if all goes well it won’t take impossibly long. 

[brynprocrastinates]

Compliment of Questionnaire Tag Games

Since I have three of these stored up from the past two or three weeks, I’m just going to stick them all here. 

Tagged by @writerkaitlinm...

1. If you could stay one age forever, what age would you choose?

Probably 27. At this point, I’m still getting people who think I just graduated high school, so I think I need a few more years before I look like a legit adult.

2. If you were running for political office, what would your campaign slogan be?

“Please don’t elect me, I hate politics”...?

3. What is your favorite “bad” movie?

Oh man, that’s tough. I haven’t seen The Room yet, which is rather disgraceful, but you can’t go won’t with Neil Breen movies. 

4. What Hogwarts house would you be most surprised to be sorted into?

I used to think slytherin, but now I’m pretty sure I’ve transitioned into ravenclaw. So if I was actually going to hogwarts I would’ve been a slytherin student, because that’s were I aligned in middle and high school, but I probably would have had a lot of ravenclaw friends and went into a very ravenclaw field of work.

5. You’re supposedly the last person on earth, and someone knocks on your door. Who would you be most horrified to find out is the only other person alive?

Trump. There’s probably someone I would be more horrified over but I can’t decide at the moment. 

6. What book has had the biggest impact on your life?

There is one particular book series which motivated me to deal with some of my mental health problems, to read for fun after not getting through an entire book since high school, and to start writing again after not having put a single word down on anything for over two years, but as it’s consider “too problematic” on tumblr I won’t release the name of it quiet.

7. How do you get rid of stress?

Exercising really helps, but usually I just sit away and cry instead. 

8. Asking questions or answering questions?

Both, depending on the subject. 

9. What’s your favorite Olympic sport?

Ice skating!

10. What app is a must have?

Discord, because it’s where I talk to all my international friends.

11. What would you rate 10/10?

It’s hard to say I would rate anything 10/10, except maybe something vague, like the Isle of Skye.

Tagged by @scribble-dee-vee...

1. Do you prefer books with an emphasis on character building, world building, or plot development?

All three, preferably! If I absolutely have to choose one, good characters will pull me through an otherwise bad book, but I don’t think you can have a genuinely good book without all three being well focused on and thought through.

2. Do you watch a lot of television? If so, what are some of your favorite shows?

I only watch tv on netflix on occasion. Some of the shows I’ve enjoyed, off the top of my head, include Parks and Rec, Leverage, Stranger Things, Voltron, and Blacklist. And my all time favorite show in all existence, Avatar; the Last Airbender. 

Currently I’m watching iZombie, which is pretty enjoyable in it’s own quirky way.

3. What’s the most acceptable book-to-screen adaptation in your opinion?

The first three Harry Potter movies and the LoTR movies (not including the Hobbit series.)

4. What’s the least acceptable book-to-screen adaptation in your opinion?

AtLA and Percy Jackson totally never ever had movies made after them, so probably have to say Eragon, though the book itself wasn’t spectacular. 

5. How do you feel about the last book you read?

Good Omens. Absolutely fantastic. 

6. Which of your favorite fictional characters would you most want to meet?

Probably Dejean. I just love him so much, and also I have faith that he both wouldn’t kill me and wouldn’t do something totally innocent which accidentally results in death.

7. Which of your favorite fictional characters would you least want to meet?

Most of them would kill me...

8. Cake or ice-cream? Discuss.

Eh. Ice cream if it has fruit in it, but cake if it’s moist with the perfect amount of sugar in the frosting.

9. Tell me about your favorite oc or character from a current WIP! You know the one :D (if you don’t have any, feel free to gush about a favorite from a book or movie instead)

Kleos. But I can’t actually say anything about them because it’s major spoilers.

10. What’s your favorite outfit?

I’m a comfort over fashion type person, so my workout clothes are legitimately my favorite. 

I really want a giant cloak tho...

11. What’s your classification in your favorite series? (ex, Hogwarts house, Homestuck classpect, godly parent, Voltron lion, etc.)

I dunno to be honest. I was really into that through high school and most of university, and then I just stopped caring for the last couple years, so I’m not sure I would even be in most of them.

Tagged by @roselinproductions...

1. If you could learn all the careers you ever wanted to be in a single year, what would you study?

Pretty much everything but history. Computer programming, organic chemistry, medicine, theoretical math, quantum physics, animation, literature, acting, anthropology, and a whole lot more immunology. 

2. Tomorrow’s the last day of the universe. You have 24 hours to do anything you want, no limits. What will you be doing in the last seconds of our universe’s existence?

Hiking to some crazy ancient ruins in the jungle. OR skydiving down to them. And then swimming by a waterfall.

3. First ever film you remember watching in a movie theater?

I honestly don’t remember. 

4. Have you ever met a celebrity/role model/king or queen and who was it?

Never. 

5. What do you do when you’re bored?

Turn on music and clean, while singing. 

6. What type of food would you sell if you opened a restaurant?

Putting aside the fact that I can’t cook and I’m pasty white, I would probably open some sort of Mongolian stir fry, because that’s what my favorite restaurant is, and I would kill to be able to eat it whenever I wanted.  

7. What year has been the best of your life and why?

The year I lived in Scotland for the fall. 

8. How do you react when you see an animal pass by while walking down the street?

... Usually I’m oblivious, so I don’t do anything. 

9. How would you survive the Hunger Games?

Do an awful lot of hiding and sneaking around, but try to pick people off quietly and quickly so I wouldn’t have to worry about growing weak from lack of food or water. Probably climb a lot of trees and rocks and attack from the air or behind.

10. Would you rather live up to age 20 having lived the success of all your wildest dreams or live up to age 90 having lived simply a beautiful ordinary life?

I don’t have any desire to live to be 90 anyways, so the first option sounds ideal. 

11. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but never have because of fear?

For a while now I’ve wanted to tell certain members of my family (including my parents) about my sexuality, but I’m deathly afraid of their reaction. I would also love to drop everything and travel the world, but I’m (rightly) afraid that I’d run out of money before getting on the first plane.

[tunnelstuck]

Hello folks!

Tumblr should hopefully let us post in tags now, so that’s what we’re doing.

This blog is where me (Jack) and Pink post things we remember about our noncanon homestuck timeline, which we call Tunnelstuck!

Info about said timeline will be under the cut.

First off, let’s start with the kids.

There’s Jack McHeck, who somehow knew some stuff about Sburb before the game was even out. For example, he knew who he needed in his session to have a chance at winning, and his land - the Land of Dust and Tunnels - and he thought he knew his classpect as well. But instead of Heir of Doom, as he assumed, he turned out to be an Heir of Mind.

Then there’s Elle, who was Jack’s best friend. (She used mainly ae/aer pronouns, but also she/her, and for ease of reading I’ll be using she/her in this post). Her actual name was Rachelle, but nobody called her that. She was a Sylph of Hope, and her land was the Land of Possibilities and Dreams.

This is Pink (not her real name, we don’t remember it yet), a Maid of Space. She had the Land of Paths and Frogs, which, holy shit was it terrifying, but we’ll get to that later. She was reluctant to play at first, but we managed to convince her.

Next, there was who we affectionately call Wind Guy. Mostly because we don’t remember his name. He was definitely a Breath player, and most likely a Knight. We don’t know anything about his land.

And, in sort of a package deal with Wind Guy, there was Time Guy. He was probably a Mage of Time. We don’t yet remember what his land was named, but it had lava and spooky scary bird consorts. Jack met him on a forum for apocalypse preppers.

Lastly, there was also Tiny (again, not their actual name). They were Pink’s younger sibling, about 8 years old. They only played with us because somebody who was supposed to play couldn’t, and we had to fulfill our number of players.

Now, the lands.

We don’t know much about Tiny’s land, apart from the fact that it was really scary and we didn’t go there much.

Time Guy's land had the spooky scary birds. They flew above large lakes of lava and could easily carry a children and well... him. Time Guy died at the hands (or... beaks) of the spooky scary birds while saving Tiny from them. The only way to travel through the land was on large, damaged bridges. Each bridge was connected by a stone-looking tower for it to branch off, but it could also had been land. Below the bridges, piles of burning hot rocks sat.

The only two who ever went into Wind’s land were Wind and Time, so we don’t know anything about it.

The Land of Paths and Frogs had.. well. Giant frogs. They were terrifying. But not like... evil. The paths didn’t really go anywhere. In some of the trees, there were giant lanterns that were actually... buildings, sort of. They were stocked with food, mostly, and what food was in them depended on what the person who got into them craved. Thing is, it wasn’t really real - you couldn’t take anything. You also couldn’t talk to anything in the land. All in all, it sort of.. forced you to just keep walking along the paths. Because if you left the paths and wandered into the forest, you’d see fewer frogs and more.. foxes. Annoying tiny ass foxes. Those would definitely get you to return to the paths.

Then the Land of Possibilities and Dreams. Now this one was REALLY fucked. We spent a lot of time here because it looked safe and fun, and you could eat pretty much all the plants there. Sadly, there was a downside to it. The consorts - tiny, pastel pink lizards who lived in the trees and changed colors with the leaves - had warned us, but we didn’t... really listen. They told us of the lakes that could show you the future, but would try to drown you with visions of what you desired. And they told us about the caves that could replay the past, but if you wandered into them longing for a time long passed, you would never return. We lost Tiny to these caves.

And lastly, the Land of Dust and Tunnels. On the surface, everything was dead. A desert with dead trees. But underground, there was a huge network of tunnels. We retreated into these after Tiny’s death. “Us” being Jack, Elle, Pink, and Wind. At some point, Pink left the tunnels to go to Tiny’s land, but she never returned. Wind died in the tunnels shortly after Pink left, and LODAT pulled some fucking bullshit. Basically, it liked acting as if people who died in the tunnels stayed there in the form of their aspect. So when Wind died, from then on there was just a slight breeze through the tunnels at all times. Elle died next. We don’t know how exactly it happened, but the land chose to portray her aspect - Hope - as writing on the walls. I thought she was still there, talking to me. I stayed in the tunnels for who knows how long. Just talking to her. Until the writing said something that Elle would never, never say. That’s when I realized it was fake, she was gone, she was dead. And I thought, I have to win this game for her. For all of them. I have to win and hope that brings them back. I died a Heroic Death trying to escape the tunnels.

[ardenttheories]

On the meta stuff with Meena:

DAVE: ebubbles theyre awesome #how is this not awesome DAVE: its just some ridiculous shit i figured out how to do here DAVE: this whole place runs on memories so ive been messing around with that #just as long as you dont ask me how #we are cool DAVE: turns out i dont even really need the internet for shenanigans i can just exploit the afterlife

/

DAVE: you want to "be me"? #air quotes MEENAH: yeah why not DAVE: ok well without getting too deep into the issue of how absurd that request is on the very face of it #a face presently being palmed DAVE: its just not going to happen DAVE: i mean not yet anyway not this early in your little dream bubble quest you got going on here

/

DAVE: i really dont think we should get too meta about this DAVE: just #ok DAVE: look DAVE: youre on a mission to gather up all your dead friends and build an army or something #cant believe im even explaining this DAVE: personally i think thats a shitty idea but you are clearly motivated to do that MEENAH: yea #tru dat DAVE: so why would you waste time going around "being other people" it doesnt make any fucking sense #air quotes DAVE: for instance you cant be anybody in this fucking sandy beach area because ostenibly youre just charging through this place looking for your friends DAVE: dammit try to play the part at least somewhat #ahahaha #already too meta #i give the fuck up

Dave has this weird note again of the narrative and meta without going full ham. He understands roughly what the concept of “being someone else” is, but the actual idea of it seems to be ridiculous to him. There’s a feeling that he doesn’t quite believe what she’s saying (without getting too deep into the issue of how absurd that request is on the very face of it), and then that he’s just playing along with her weird idea (#cant believe im even explaining this, so why would you waste time going around "being other people" it doesnt make any fucking sense).

It’s like he gets it, but he also doesn’t. He’s talking in the way as if he can understand the key concepts of what’s happening and even what she’s trying to ask, but thinks the whole thing is bogus. He even says she can’t be anyone in the beach area because she’s just wandering through it - as if he doesn’t recognise that it’s acceptible for her to shift narrative however she likes, or as if his understanding of the narrative is completely different (she can’t be anyone there because they’re not relevant to her quest, even though she’s been other people for lesser reasons before).

It’s weird. He gets it, but he’s still skeptical of it. Like he doesn’t want to accept the fact that there’s this person out there that can just go around being someone else, as if someone can just suddenly be him.

Even when you look at the e-bubbles thing, notice how he says it.

It’s something “ridiculous” that works based on memories (which is a fair part of Time’s capabilities, I’m so frustrated I didn’t figure that out before). It’s an exploitation of the Afterlife.

Not the narrative. None of the things they’re doing now - the tags, the bubbles themselves, the way things work - he sees as being an effect of the physical narrative that we’re seeing. He allocates it to the dreambubbles themselves instead, and his ability to play with anything related to Time.

What comes after that, then, is the stuff about Time being related to the narrative.

Here’s the thing. Time isn’t about the journey, or the beginning. Time is actually just the End. That’s why it’s so heavily associated with Doomed Timelines and death; those are things that have ended, that are no more. It’s only one part of a whole narrative.

Space, the beginning, starts this. Then we have Life, which is the rising action, and Doom, which is the falling action. One that shows the growth of the plot and one that shows its stagnation to the finish. Then, of course, you have Time, which is the conclusion.

Logically, this means that each of these four Aspects should have SOME influence on the narrative, but not total. It’s only when all four come together that you get a whole story, after all; so how can you have a fully effective understanding of the narrative when you only influence one Aspect?

This is why Caliborn can control Homosuck; he’s the Lord of Time, the Master of the Ending. That whole timeline he creates is about that one specific Game Over; that’s him changing the story to be the defeat he’s always needed. He can’t influence the narrative sooner because it’s simply too early for him to play his part; it’s only when we’re getting to the Ending that he can clutch it in his claws and fuck it all up.

This is also why Calliope can control the Epilogues - or, one of them, anyway. If Space is about Beginnings and Creation, we need to think about what an Epilogue is; a continuation after something as Ended. This is Calliope playing up to her Aspect and reviving Homestuck from the ashes of its End, creating a new storyline and a new plot. Her influence is strongest here because we’ve come full circle.

In addition, note how Calliope can’t influence a timeline where the plot continues. Dirk rekindles Homestuck in Meat and sends John back into it, thereby continuing the same old story and forcing it back to life, which goes completely against Space’s control of the narrative. This isn’t the new Beginning she needs; it’s not even an Epilogue so much as a time-skipped sequel.

In Candy, however, the Homestuck plot is very much dead and done. Everything that happens after is completely inconsequential and could be an entirely new story in and of itself - which is exactly what she needs to bank on for it to be usable for her.

I think this, even, is why Sollux is able to tap into the narrative in some degree - such as with the code that destroys the universe - without actually being... aware? And why Meena is a lot more accepting of the idea of just “becoming someone else”. Both of their Classpects have connections to narrative control, with Sollux suffering from it (though we don’t see this in full potential because of how little he’s on screen) and Meena stealing it (what else could “becoming someone” be seen as except for Stealing their Life? We’re basically in control of them in that moment; we’re guiding them through the narrative regardless of what they would have, or should have, been doing, all so we can just see what happens on-screen.)

So, back to Dave. Lord and Muse have much better control over the narrative, likely because they’re masterclasses, and we can tell that, to some degree, the other Narrative Aspects can have awareness. Dave, being only a Knight, wouldn’t really be able to tell what’s going on fully simply because it’s not important enough for him to know, not part of his duties as a Knight; he can influence the narrative only in a very distanced sort of way, utilising it to create in-world effects rather than controlling it personally.

Dave could never be a narrative speaker, but he can definitely utilise parts of it to effect in the Homestuck universe. Things that they can interact with and see.

So, that might be a reason why Dave can interact with it, but not fully - and seems aware without being aware. His class is so rooted in the concept of the in-universe that he can only influence the narrative that way; even to the degree that narrative voices are audible for him, rather than subconscious.

As for Terezi, yeah, she’s a Seer of Mind. If we consider that what Dirk’s doing is destroying the sense of Self in order to destroy Individuality, and therefore leaving this big, gaping space of Heart behind, it makes sense that in its absence Mind will rule - albeit fractured. It’s essentially Mind control Lite.

It’s well within reason that Terezi can See this sort of control when it’s so heavy-handed. By that point, Dirk isn’t even trying to hide himself. His personality shines so brightly through the narrative that Terezi can probably smell the orange soda right off the page. I think for her it’s less metaphysical, though; she knows she’s being influenced, but maybe doesn’t know it’s through the narrative specifically - at least, not in the way that she understands it.