#not about the fucked up homestuck flash

[kaywavy]

found out the song from [S] mspa reader: mental breakdown isn’t an original homestuck song and now i’m sad

[mossflower]

ough. vrisrezi. if you even care

[thewertsearch]

Anonymous asked: You: "Wow Homestuck is my favorite comic ever! Kanaya is the best :)" Hussie: "LOL, LMAO" @morganwick asked: (Try not to think about the idea that the conversation future Jade alluded to where Kanaya got the password was the one with past Jade that immediately followed that conversation, and that Jade is waiting for a password from Kanaya that'll never come…) @bladekindeyewear asked: [...] regarding the password Jade said earlier she had been patiently waiting for… unfortunately, I think we saw Jade give her said password just before the walkaround… and in hindsight, it’s quite a regrettable one. “GG: the password is…………… GG: CROOOOOOOOOOOAK”

I had the same chilling thought over the weekend.

Yes, it's very possible that Kanaya closed her password loop in her very next conversation, which means the timeline doesn't actually require her to be resurrected. This removes the main piece of evidence I had that she's coming back - but even so, I still don't think she's gone for good.

What it boils down to, basically, is that Kanaya still has a lot to do.

First of all, her arc surrounding the survival of her race is still unresolved. Sure, someone like Karkat or fellow Space girl Jade could pick up the baton, but this arc isn't theirs. Jade has no personal investment in it, and Karkat, while obviously motivated to save his species, isn't connected to the Matriorb or Mother Grub the way Kanaya is. This revival plotline is hers, and right now, it's dangling like a loose thread.

If that was the only narrative issue, I could look past it - but it's not.

Guys, this was her last conversation with Rose. And I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that one of the longest-running ships in the comic would end here. Kanaya's romantic arc with Rose is really just getting started, and their last conversation really doesn't scan as a goodbye, even in retrospect.

Like, sure, these last words would be kind of ironic, but is this really how you close the door on one of the most kickass compelling relationships we have? Rosemary deserves a better death than this.

Speaking of which...

This is how we're disposing of Kanaya? With an (admittedly kind of funny) SBaHJ reference?

Bro, a significantly less important character, gets a dramatic death pose, framed by one of Karkat's best lines, and Kanaya - Kanaya Fucking Maryam - gets a sparkly Hope wand and a meme? I'm calling bullshit.

Now, Homestuck is more than happy to give its characters undignified deaths. Tavros certainly got one - but Tavros also died at the end of an intense, dramatic flash animation, and his murder served as the culmination of the Vriska/Tavros arc we've been following since early Hivebent. Tavros died without dignity, but the narrative weight of his death was enormous.

Kanaya died in the middle of multiple character arcs, in a manner that lacked dignity or narrative weight. She was essentially collateral damage to an unrelated feud between Eridan and Feferi. She died like a secondary character, and she's not.

I'm self-aware enough to admit that this is partially wishful thinking. It's not like I'm an unbiased observer - Kanaya is my favorite character, and I dug deep into the comic for evidence that her death doesn't make sense. But, that said - her death doesn't make sense. My narrative instincts are telling me that Kanaya is coming back - I just don't know how.

[tgcg]

when I read HS years ago I didn't like davekat, because I didn't see it coming. but your art? it's so soft AND canon. now I understand why people like this ship

ive seen a couple other ppl say this in the tags over the months and its so… fucking cool. like. im honored seriously. i am really happy to hear this shit & thank you for telling me this anon

now stop reading here if you dont wanna hear me ramble aimlessly about dk

the softness is a rlly important part of it to me. karkats got this abject earnestness to him that dave is embarrassed by at first but warms up to as he moves into post-irony. its kind of like karkat is a mirror of the things dave wouldn’t let himself be. and karkat is exactly the kind of person to see through this veneer of irony and find someone who is really kind of fucked up, and a Fuck up (noun) like he is, but who is also a really considerate person when you look at his actions over his words. that goes both wayz. it’s like they accept themselves by accepting each other, and it’s a very soft thing

do you remember that moment in openbound where dave says he’s glad he and karkat have their embarrassing conversations in private, and karkat says, me too? haha that conversation was rlly awkward. but it changed me chemically i was like. is this real. anyways

“privacy” and “earnestness” are pretty major “words” i’d use to characterise how i see their relationship. it’s also major themes of their characters. it comes together nicely and they kinda solve each other in this department i think

to me they were always kinda 2 sides of the same coin as knights. and it always made sense 2 me they’d balance each other out, if they could get over themselves and the preconceptions they had of each other. which they did eventually and quietly. sad that was covered in the span of a single flash animation with no dialogue but yk. “homestuck is a first draft” theory and all

i was a davekat liker from the moment dave made fun of karkat for talking about his lips so much in the “famous encounter”, but i totally see why peeps wouldnt have seen it coming otherwise. honestly i kinda didnt i thought theyd just keep joking about it til the end but i mean yeah

its important to me and im glad i’m somehow able to convey that to other people

so yeah thanks a ton

[mcbeetlebeeb]

I'm currently getting into a fandom that isn't homestuck, but I can't turn down a request :3

these will still be headcannons and- uhrm- yea

Gamzee Makara

He is, talking about some mystical shit dude

I think hed appreciate someone who just listens too him blabber

don't ask me why but he'd like to naw on you

not full fledged biting a chunk out of you

I think he's too aware of how sharp his teeth are to go biting down that hard, but yknow

nipping at you gently, but not before he was smothering you in sloppy clown kisses

this is real specific but I think hed have the type of eyes that you can't seem to keep eye contact with

he's just so much taller and just has this lopsided shiteating grin, that shows most of his sharp ass teeth

I'd like to think his eyes are always that half lidded gaze, especially when it's at you

but no intent behind the looks he gives, fuck- probably no thoughts either

lights on no one home

don't get me wrong, he's not dumb,

in the simplest sense hes a big ol airhead

yknow a dingbat, a bit of a scatterbrain

but he's not like- vegetable for a brain dumb as hell

and thats another thing, it's definitely really convincing to probably think that he's yknow, not all there

but it throws you off gaurd x2 when he'd get all close and murmur and mumble certain things too you

he looked like he had a maximum of 3 thoughts floating around in his brain

but here he is, mumbling in a low almost gravely tone, right by your ear

I love to think he's one of those tall people to rest his arm playfully on your head if your shorter, which you most likely are-

can't recall if I mentioned the last time sense I have a rubber ducky keeping track of my memory

but I think hed be cold all the time

not like, bothersomely fridged

but enough to make you shiver and squirm if he were to press his hand to your skin, noticeable enough for you to verbally go "Damn-"

also!! I think hed be a huge sucker for you just holding his face with your hands, letting him relax against you, eyes shut

still grinning a bit and letting that low rumbling purr come from him

and this also means playing with his hair,

pet him damn it he demands it

no, not really more like laying and being in your space, following you round until you pay attention properly too him

sense most trolls can't- yknow- go out in the middle of the day because of their intense asf sun, trolls are nocturnal

so like if you ever took a photo with him with flash his eyes would do that reflective thing that cats have

or for another example, yknow how in the dark the first thing you spot about your black cat is its eyes?

yeah that

like I said in the other headcannon thingy, he's just always lurking and looming, he likes knowing what your doing even if he's not involved

and this comes with him trailing around you like a dog that sees you have food and knows you'll give it too them at some point

wether it be from afar or close, don't assume he's not close by, him being a purple blood im sure he's well aware of how violent trolls can be,

but with you around! oh he can't let you wonder off too far- Alternia's atmosphere is dangerous and the fauna is even more dangerous-

so don't expect to go very far without him trailing behind you

but he'd understand if you explained too him you wanted time too yourself or with somebody else one on one

I dont think hed be a jealous person, maybe a lil possessive! but he's not overbearing with it

he just wants you safe and content, and he wants you too feel that way around him

have a song I think fits his uh? vibe towards? significant other? because 🎉

Dave Strider

mm have I said he's a genuinely a big goof?

but I think that'd be something someone gets right off the bat

maybe

if you can pick up on someone trailing off on tangents of meaningless words that can go on and on without someone actually ever responding

than it's pretty visable

I think itd be pretty adorable though (I know I'm gay, whatever)

like if he were to start talking about something, anything, and you gave a simple short response, he's gonna take that and run with it

especially if he likes you

I think hed definitely be one too stare

but how could you tell? he's always wearing those shades

probably a good reason why he wears them other than ironic purposes

so no one sees what or where or in this case who he's lookin at

constantly staring though, wether it's you having a conversation with you or, you doing something random he's just watching

no actual thoughts id like to say

just observing

watching you be you, do your own natural thing, picking up on the way you talk or gesture at stuff

I cannot urge this enough but I still firmly believe physical touch would be a very special thing too him

it's not impossible or looked down upon too be able to hold his hand or lean against him

but he'd be mentally noting each touch, each expression you make, listening intently too your tone, hoping your doing the same

but with these actions he'd be straight faced as always, but he can feel his hands tremble ever so slightly, he recognizes his heart beat picking up

unfamiliar with these feelings with how they're being presented yknow?

most times he ever feels this way he's in danger

but he knows he couldn't be safer right now, like he wants to believe that, it's not hard for him to believe it

but his body is just hardwired to tense up, clench his jaw and steady the shakey breathing

but being patient and respectful would melt those feelings away really easy I'd like too think

just sitting there and slowly showing affection, brushing thumbs against his knuckles, tracing over fingers

you focus on his hand, flipping it over and thumbing at his vaguely sweaty palm, hand still shaking faintly in your gentle grasp

he'd just stare at you, in disbelief and adoration, and realization that he doesnt need to be poker faced round you

that he doesnt need to put up a front to protect himself, the squishy parts of him he learned to shove away to get along with life

a big sigh of relief to say the least,

but once he realizes he doesn't need to be someone else for you, he can just be him, no expectations or demands, he can rely on someone else for once

you ain't ever gettin rid of him after that, he's not clingy but he's no longer keeping you at arms length, not now, not ever again

AND HE GETS MUSIC THING because he is my favorite right next too the crab man <3

author note: I feel this sucked a big booty buttload but I was already half way done with it when I dubbed it that, so have this anyway!!!

[charmikarma]

hallo it's me. (crookedgrifter) I'm back and I want your davejade / davejadekat thoughts. gimme

my thoughts huh ... i sure am a rambler so you're gonna get a whole essay on this

i guess in thinking abt davejadekat it always starts with jade. which is well enough because davekat has been talked to death at this point, hasn't it? i don't think i could tell you anything new or interesting about that dynamic at this point.

ANYWAY. jade. i kind of get into this in my polar express fic which ik you've read, but she is SO lonely. what the fuck are you supposed to do for ~10 years alone on an island with just a dog?? a dog who could take you somewhere else, somewhere with people, but he won't. and maybe jade knows why because of her dreams on prospit, but also maybe not! either way i think she puts a lot of faith in her dreams. it's kind of the only hope she has for the future.

i think she also has some hope in dave, this really cool dude she has this awkward internet middle school crush on. and dave is super cool to her too! i think it's implied he furry roleplays with her even?? cutest shit ever. i think this is the thing that has made me always love davejade ... they are just. so sweet to each other. dave clearly cares SO much about her.

the other thing about jade is... she's kinda fucked over repeatedly by the narrative, isn't she? she's the last beta kid introduced, so she has a lot less time to develop. the closest she really gets to developing is being really pissed off at karkat after her dreamself dies (i'll talk about this in a sec). her arc basically ends at cascade. her character arc ends in the dead middle of the comic, in a flash animation that contains exactly 0 character development. hussie says so himself in the author's notes. (don't even get me started on the author's notes jesus christ.) everything that happens on the boat is pretty much irrelevant, because it gets retconned out. instead she spends 3 years completely fucking alone, and we like... barely unpack this in canon.

so her life story up until this point is basically: raised by grandpa till ~3-5ish > living on her own till 13 > meeting dave briefly in the game > DAVE FUCKING DIES IN FRONT OF HER, WITH HER OWN BULLETS > she meets john briefly > JOHN AND DAVESPRITE FUCKING DIE > she spends 3 years alone with no solace except "yeah they had to die but you'll see them again in the new session" from alt!calliope and i guess a bunch of sprites and consorts and chess dudes. she says it herself: as nice as it is to have these folks around, they're not able to relate to her. they're not fellow thirteen year old kids. she may not be technically alone, but she is essentially alone, and she just 1. died twice in one day and 2. witnessed the deaths of several of her friends.

more on being fucked over by the narrative - jade actually has a kind of interesting dynamic with karkat in the middle of a5a2! what happens with this dynamic later on? fucking nothing!!!! like seriously i am so interested in this whole. self-hatred parallel that gets drawn between them and then how jade puts her foot down and is like you are fucking nuts. no more yelling at yourself. and it goes nowhere!! this dynamic exists for like, maybe 1% of the comic. it's really fucking sad honestly. even at the very end of homestuck, she has to be sidelined for being too powerful, thereby excluding her from all the endgame convos. like we cannot win with her

ok anyway, here's where i get into the stuff i think is really interesting. at the end of homestuck, alt!calliope tells jade that she's suffered enough, and that it's time for her to live her life how she wants to. we don't see how this plays out in homestuck proper, BUT...... the epilogues. sighs heavily.

i may be an epilogues lover but even i have to admit that jade's portrayal is.... a mess. i don't think it's wildly out of character, exactly, but it definitely toes the line... and it's definitely extremely fucking uncomfortable. it does, however, give me some insight into how i think about jade now, because while the minutiae don't really feel in character, i do think the broad strokes of what they were going for make sense.

jade took alt!calliope's words and said, fuck it. i will take charge! i won't wait anymore! i am going to have what i want. and she does get a lot of that! she gets to hang out with her friends, hang out with her brother, meet a ton of people, have a bunch of sex (presumably when she's older), and so on. but see... doing a lot of things doesn't really fill the emptiness she feels. she has so much love to give and not enough outlet for it. she needs all the love in the world and has nobody to give it to her. and she still has this big fat ten-year-old crush on dave strider that never went anywhere. but the approach she takes to life now is just... so incompatible with what dave needs. same for karkat. they both need a LOT of patience to come out of their shells, and jade is living life in the fast lane. the more she pushes, the more withdrawn they become. it is a disaster.

i want to fix it so fucking bad.

jade needs a lot of character development for all this to work, but the dynamic is absolutely there. some of their convos in early meat are so fucking funny dude, they are such good friends. it is absolutely not for lack of caring on either dave or karkat's part that things don't work out in the epilogues. it's this disconnect between what jade thinks is helpful and what dave and karkat need. i really want jade to find the balance between living at breakneck speed and waiting ten years for something to happen. i want her to feel loved for once in her damn life. and i want dave and karkat to stop being such depressing shut-ins. please guys you could balance each other out if you would just figure out how to communicate

anyway. there's your essay. it's mostly about jade. hope that's ok. i love jade harley so much my ultimate goal is to see her happy and mark my words i will figure out how

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon Upd8 for March 23, 2024

As James promised, we've got a second post for this month. No news or anything to go along with it, so let's just jump straight in!

Jane is evidently not handling things well.

Ah, good! We've got a link to the previous conversation. This can be very helpful for dealing with timeline shenanigans in the middle of pesterlogs. I just hope they're not too worried about our ability to put together where we are in the story. I mean if we've stuck around this long . . .

Jane's paranoia is building, but she appears to have not noticed Jake is spying on her. Still she seems somewhat overconfident in her abilities. To be fair, she has been dodging and surviving assassination attempts since childhood.

Wait! Jane on the moon? I thought that wasn't canon! Well, if anything on Earth C past the credits are supposed to be canon at least. I wonder if that means we might return to some of the sprite shenanigans?

Oh wow! This is a tirade and a half! The worst part is a lot of it is true. We know Jake wasn't the best parent for Jade, and we know now about Joey and Jude. But still, I got the impression Jake was much more in Tavvy's life than Jane was. And seriously! Forcing a premature pregnancy with Life powers? The hell! Worst part is when it comes to Homestuck's worst guardians, I'm pretty sure that only barely breaks top 5.

I'm dying! Jake is doing a Gamzee impression and Dirk can't take it!

Well that's a sentence I just read.

Jegus, Tavvy is still very much definitely in the running for worst childhood though . . .

Of all the things to say . . . No! No Jane! You don't get to claim any LGBTQ+ Allyship!

Still, although the Candy timeline is pushing things to an extreme, this is a side of Jane I don't think ever got considered. Jane has been training all her life to be a public figure, to be an Empress really. And as much as I love them, a bunch of idiot teenagers created a civilization and then just let it build for 5,000 years. From the previous iteration of beyond Canon, it seems the Exiles were the true guides until the kids returned.

And Jane saw a group of adoring, worshipful people greet them and knew she needed to step up. It just sucks she couldn't bring herself to truly include the Trolls in that.

Yeah, I'm with Dirk on this one. Wow! Jane blamed Jake for Dirk's death. Just, wow . . . And here I thought Jake was the one who never truly understood their friends.

All and all this was a really painful conversation. I think this one might have been worse than the one between Jade, Rose, and Kanaya. Why do some of the worst conversations in this story take place between Jake and Jane. From reading this, I'm really getting the impression they've always been more codependent than actually in love.

Oh fuck! That really fucking sells it!

I'm at a loss for words. I don't know if this is going to actually stick, or what Jake will actually do when I press, "Page of Hope: Rise up." but that was one hell of a way to realize an epiphany.

Wait, no! That's it! Like I get the reference but really! We're just going to open the door and leave it there!

Oh who am I kidding! How can I be in this fandom and honestly complain about an ending to an upd8 like this. Yes, I want it to keep going! Yes, I wanted a flash video to start! But how many times has this story kept me waiting? Let's just hope we don't have too much longer.

[punkbeetleart]

Helloooooooo everybody!!

Let me tell you about homestuck ;3

~~

AAAAAAAAAA ITS HOMESTUCK DAY!!!!!!!!! happy 4/13 to those who celebrate!! Im back again with a redraw of part of the Terezi: Remem8er flash, though this time i have a colored and an uncolored version!! Hope you all like it, as im quite happy w how it turned out!

And like last year, ill include all my previous redraws below the read more!

Likes and reblogs are appreciated, and again happy 4/13! Happy 15th to Homestuck!

Edit: idk why the pics got so fucked up in posting lol maybe cuz i scheduled it?? idk happy 413 :]

[weirdmageddon]

ur davejade posting has me Remembering and goddddd. theyre so good. thank u

i want to make a davejade analysis masterpost but the funniest thing with these asks is that theyre the ones that really prompt me to put my thoughts together in some direction and i ALWAYS find a new implication or connection to talk about. like while i’m writing the connections will just make themselves known. if i made a masterpost i’d have to update it every time i think of something new which defeats the purpose of a masterpost because it’d never be finished. so i just like to spitball into separate posts and just shove them in my davejade tag. i was NOT expecting to get back into homestuck with davejade at the forefront but i can see things now i didnt then

im gonna go off again because it’s so obvious to me on this jumpy scrambled “reread” that dave has a fat fucking heart-on / affection erection for jade. hes tryin soo hard to be cool but hes like this with jade actually behind the screen and she knows it

words and deeds of a court jester dude who totally has a crush on his childhood internet friend and doesnt acknowledge it (btw this is woefully incomplete for the sake of brevity but i could elaborate in another post. i actually have a draft (edit: posted) with a shit ton of more analysis stuff in it on why he acts differently with her than other characters):

the next day (chronologically) when jade messages him:

hussie commentary: “Dave's one-pixel-smile there means that there are literally more than ten thousand drawings on the internet of Dave and Jade kissing. That pixel literally made that happen.”

i mean … it sure is easy to assume how he feels about jade based on the way he talks to her and when his sprite only ever smiles one other time in the entire fucking comic and the reality of that other one was arguable since it was during [S] Karkat: Mental breakdown and its likely karkat was hallucinating it based on the content and context of the flash

nah this one was real. and it was from the first conversation we saw between dave and jade in the comic and thus set the standard for their dynamic. and remember old school 2009 dave was kind of a menace so it says a lot

this girl was special enough to him to warrant that pixel

jade calling dave a “huge baby” for him getting nervous about a piss while she’s his server player. he makes such a big deal about it while shes like oh my god just go:

and the absurdity of the situation being one of his favorite memories

i know pesterquest isn’t “canon” canon but it passes my character essence check and still contributes something of substance to my argument. like i can say this is not at all out of place if these characters were plopped into these scenarios. remember this takes place on the same day as the above, 4/13/2009. theyre the same age as above and have the same relationship as they did above, just in a different scenario that wasn’t possible in canon wherein they didn’t play sburb

Jade wanders away from that window and toward another one, whose view is exclusively centered on the rolling blue. She presses a hand against the misty pane and sighs. JADE: you know, dave talks a lot about coming to visit me here. i mean, all of my friends do but dave especially JADE: in his usual davey way of course, which means making lots of jokes and not sounding very serious about it JADE: "yeah im itching to put on my safari hat and come traipsing down to doomdeath archipelago to get my ass murdered by infinidog the eldritch retriever," stuff like that JADE: i know he really means it though! he wants to see me, just like i want to see him JADE: but its just wishful thinking

anyway daves reaction to seeing his isolated online friend for the first time irl cry because she has guests. its even better with the character sprites

JADE: we can play with all my toys and jam out to some music and stay up all night chatting with each other and oh my god oh my god youre here youre all here this is really happening!!!!! Jade's next laugh verges on hysterical and she's got tears streaked down her cheeks. Dave looks a little perturbed. DAVE: wow holy shit uh DAVE: its cool jade no need to get so DAVE: like this DAVE: kind of fucks me up seeing you cry DAVE: not that im trying to make this all about me DAVE: i mean uh

and so after mspa reader’s intervention, who do we see with jade the next time we see her?

dave. and hes goofing with her squiddles while grinning

DAVE: okay so lets see what we got here Jade's room is bright and cheery, fresh flowers in the hanging pots, curtains pulled open wide to let in the afternoon sunlight. Jade sits on her bed while Dave paces in front of a line of squiddle toys, carefully assembled in neat ranks. DAVE: this blue one is clearly in charge look at his dominant posture DAVE: also hes the only motherfucker not tentacle deep in his homie DAVE: hes an untangled buddy that is some shit really cuts to the core of like DAVE: DAVE: emotions JADE: its actually because the magnets in him are messed up, and always have been!! DAVE: harley you are ruining the magic come on

basically what im putting together is that dave was REALLY fixin to spend some time with jade. extending into her sphere of interests that he doesnt express much with anyone else; you can tell he really wanted to engage with her in a less irony poisoned way. he’s softer with her than his other friends and god forbid the trolls, he is much less skeptical about things when talking to her (he even questions why he just seems to go along with her eccentric precognitive statements but he doesnt change his attitude about it), he showers her with his music and raps to the point where jade is expectant of getting poetry from him. rap IS poetry. please realize that dave is sending her his poetry, regardless of how goofy it may be. this is the level on which im viewing this at and once you realize this theres no going back. there comes a time in every homestuck’s life where they have to see how dave interacted jade and conclude that he had a cute little puppy crush on her unbeknownst to either of them. and it was adorable. and now, in the year 2023, it’s your time to realize this too. no going back.

and btw it all came back around…………………nimblest son of a bitch who had the gumption to glue a nasty pair of latex cat lips to his face

for a reason that wasnt a joke anymore

don’t think ive seen anyone talk about this parallel at the end to one of their first conversations in the comic. maybe somebody did back in the day but i never saw it

[davekat-sucks]

Below is my "I strongly dislike Davekat and wish it wasn't canon and don't have ill will towards fans of it, but I do think they are being ignorant on purpose because Dave's character fucking sucks cock after Act 5" rant. Apologies but I needed to share this because it's almost 4/13 and I'm feeling festive.

You know why most of the fandom left homestuck around 2013-2014? cause of long pauses between updates and then we got stupid content that wasn't going anywhere. I left the fanbase DURING [S] game over. I fucking checked out because that was the stupidest fucking flash it could have possibly been and at that point I was waiting for a moment to just give up on the story and come back to it when it was finished.

I'd say most of the homestuck fandom seems silent about what they think about the story. Every fanbase is like that, most people watch from the sidelines and I do that too. I usually say nothing about the media I consume. Sometimes, rarely, I'll go through homestuck's reddit around this time of year and I'll see common sense. (There is hope!) But a good chunk of the people who stayed with the homestuck fandom through all of Act 6, or younger fans who are just joining it now, are able to just take whatever is given to them and not think anything through. I'm not saying anyone in the fanbase is stupid, no, I'm saying that they don't care enough about the story to admit what is good writing and what is shit writing. They don't care about writing. They don't care about the characters. They care about fannon. They care maybe, MAYBE, about activism.

A good chunk of the fanbase seem to be Davekat stans. Why are there are so many Davekat fans? It's because they can just eat the sludge. Maybe they grew up off of it so they can tolerate it. (I think Act 6 does a number on a motherfucker and makes you lower your standards so low that any content will do.)

Some people think any canon gay rep is good gay rep, but who would want to be represented by this? In Homestuck 2, Karkat is demoted to "Dave's boyfriend" and Dave was a selfish jerk through nearly all of Act 6. Dave was such a good character in Act 5, and Act 6 just had him ignore rose's alcoholism and ignore terezi's struggles. He didn't care about anything. Karkat at least somewhat tried to help Terezi or cheer her up. I can't understand for the life of me how someone like Karkat would end up with someone as selfish as Dave was. (Dave was selfish in the pre-retcon bit but still! why show us that? the epilogue was no different Dave abandoned jade instead of talked to her and let him know he wasn't interested in her because he's gay. I hardly recall what was going on at that part of the story, I just remember being dumbfounded that the story reinforced Dave only cares about himself.)

I wish Dave was written differently. I wish he had SOME, an ounce at least, of chemistry with Karkat. Instead what we got was Dave childishly drawing dicks on Karkat's face in some Hussie art and that pretty much sums up their whole relationship. A massive L for Karkat. I'm fine with Karkat being with meenah, nepeta, jade, davepetasprite for christ's sake! Just not the person that Dave ended up being. Why does fixing Dave fall on Karkat? Dave isn't the only shit character. I can't believe that John just gave up fully and completely. I find it hard to believe that Rose, at the end of the story, wouldn't advise John to train with her so he could learn how to use his new powers to go fight the empress. Why doesn't John do more with his powers? Why isn't John a better dad in the new content? I would imagine he would have tried to be like his own dad. Why did the story write Jake the entire way through like he was so worthless he wasn't worth our time and then dedicate so much of the story to him? I could go on and on about this, and I did go off so I will stop here.

This fandom and this story is going to continue circling the drain. The only thing that could possibly save it is a full overhaul and rewrite from people with skill who actually LIKE the characters. If anyone cared about the story THEY WOULD PRESS FOR THAT!!! If anything Hussie wanted to actively destroy any good will the fans had towards it. Maybe he fucking hates the story, I never looked to far into any of the backstory of how homestuck was made but I assume he fucking hated it from how he wrote Act 6. It's so sad to see because most of the characters had something really special about their stories. It's a story that is all about potential. It was crushed under the weight of it's own stupidity. Wait. I'm not done! What the fuck was that part where Dave left a note for Jade that said "I missed you" and a little red band? I didn't ship them but it certainly felt like Dave was into her or at worst leading her on. Am I supposed to believe that Dave was just fucking with her? Was he trying to be there for her? I guess he was fucking with her or trying to be into girls cause he ended up with Jade only to leave her in the epilogue. Why did he turn out to be such a prick!? Why didn't he talk to her? What point is the story trying to make? Abandon everything when you find out who you really are like your old friends don't matter anymore? Dave was maturing in act 5. Why the fuck is the story like this!!!?!?! YOU'RE TELLING ME THIS IS THE SAME MOTHER FUCKER WHO GAVE IT HIS ALL TO HELP? WHO SAVED ROSE'S LIFE AND THEN WENT TO DIE ALONG SIDE HER IN CASCADE? I FEEL LIKE THE ONLY REASON HE TRIED TO HELP BRING JADE BACK FROM THE DEAD IN GAME OVER WAS BECAUSE JADE WAS A SPACE PLAYER AND THEY NEEDED ONE TO TALK TO HER DENIZEN SO SHE'D BIRTH THE DAMN FROG THING OR WHATEVER!? DOES DAVE JUST SELECTIVELY DECIDE WHEN HE'S HAD ENOUGH BEING A COCKSUCKER? IS HIM BEING ABUSED BY BRO A GOOD ENOUGH EXCUSE TO IGNORE HOW LITTLE HE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING?!

WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THAT DAVE IS EVEN GOOD AFTER ACT 6?! WHAT GAME WERE THE REFS WATCHING!?!?!?!

Long story short, Karkat deserves at least somewhat better. Thank you.

Very well said! Everything about this is perfect! People excuse Dave's actions is because of the whole Bro Strider being abusive to him as he grew up. So they think it's okay for him to not move on past it or grow better as a person. Instead, he will just wallow himself in self pity and everyone must feel sorry for him. One could say it's projecting too. Ignoring the fact that Jade had to live ALONE when growing up on an island with an animal guardian. It may be normal for trolls since they have a society that relies on this, but it's not the same for Earth or humans. Not only that, but didn't Dave find out that it was BRO STRIDER who faced against Jack Noir and helped Davesprite ESCAPE? So wouldn't that put into more question about how he feels about his brother and wonder if there was more going on behind the scenes than what he saw? Like why would BRO let Davesprite, who just a Dave from a Doomed Timeline, protect him, knowing how he will be killed? Was his training helpful or did something else make him be this way? It still technically happened by Post Retcon too. So that event and fate is inevitable for Bro Strider. Closest interaction Dave had with Karkat pre-Act 6 is through the memo with John, but even then, he's just fucking around with Karkat. Taunting him to say that interspecies romance is a thing now between the Beta Kids and Trolls and Dave is ready to bang Terezi if Karkat doesn't step up to his game to admit his feelings for her. Maybe it was kind of shitty to use Terezi's feelings and their relationship to mess with someone else that he knows has feelings for her. But dude jumped the chance to use it against Karkat when he thinks humans dating alien trolls should not be a thing. We see Dave do showing kindness. From things like hiding all his dead Daves from Jade so she wouldn't get upset and him having a good time with people like Rose and John. It shows that he is capable of being a good person and probably would wish to be a better one. He wants to be BETTER than Bro. Be someone that treats others better. Maybe even towards his own kids if he decides to have one. But sadly, we live in an age where having a family is a bad thing now. Karkat really deserves better and Dave sucks as he is in these recent HS projects. I don't think James Roach or HICU will make him any better. And Davekat will be hard to make it go away with how the people who work on Homestuck and ones outside of it (like Requiem Cafe) will pander to it because they know it will get the most attention and money. Like carrot on a stick. Even the carrot is rotten, they will still take it.

[rockkal]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sollux and Eridan kissing

B

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

A bucket appears and yeah

We see Andrew Hussie in a bath robe

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

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

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

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

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

Rose just stays Rose because I forgot she existed

21 again but with Dave

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monkeys become relevant to the plot

Jack Noir gets to show us his stabs

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

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

What Pumpkin office remains is an important location in the story

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

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

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

Fortnite becomes canon and everyone loves it

Deltarune reference

Jack Noir eats money and becomes lamborghini

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

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

Kanaya gets to make something Lord English related

We see Doc Scratch because he's awesome

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

MLP gets mentioned

Problem Sleuth shows up for 5 panels and then dies

Nepeta gets to kill Pickle Inspector

Eridan smokes weed

[S] Terezi: Do the mackarena

Weed chapter

Karkat gets a period cramp

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

Free Bird fight sequence

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

Cockaine chapter

MSPA reader gets hella blazed and yeah

Caliborn kisses a rule 63 version of a Miku body pillow

Pic Yaoi sequence or smth

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

Itchy dies from tripping on a rock

Doze unslows himself and does a break dance

Trace and Fin make out session

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

Bog from RHG shows up to eat a chocolate bar

I'm high

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

Wait

Shit

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

Give me a sec

Yes, God of Yaoi.

Perfect for this.

See ya

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 3, Part 2/3 (p. 892-1026)

Read the previous post here.

The second third of Act 3 introduces yet another new character: the Peregrine Mendicant.

PM is obsessed with the sanctity of the postal service in the same way WV is obsessed with democracy. The exiles hold dear symbols of their lost civilization while they're stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They cling to the desperate hope that society can one day be rebuilt as long as the memory of these institutions are kept alive.

Also, "brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade"? I didn't realize these chess people were so Christian.

The fact that Mom Lalonde has her own secret littlespace in the lab is something that I never see anyone talk about. Can we please talk more about this grown woman who knows the world is going to end in her lifetime, who drinks every day to distract herself from that cursed knowledge, and also has this whole secret setup where she can hide away and pretend to be a little kid with no responsibilities?

This was probably all beyond Hussie's capabilities as a writer, so of course this is never elaborated on. What a hack. Maybe I'll write a fanfic about this myself one of these days.

Jade falls asleep in the foyer where Grandpa Harley's remains are and we get this unnecessary "psycheout" where instead of transitioning to Dave's POV, the next page immediately follows with Jade's "strife" with her dead grandpa. It's another lame interactive page like the one where she plays the flute (which I didn't mention last post because it's a waste of time).

Hussie "trolling" the reader is a character trait that he unfortunately leans into more and more as time passes.

It also would've been nice if it were better acknowledged that Jade has essentially raised herself for most of her life. What kind of strain would that put on a child's development? Obviously a lot if she's having imaginary arguments with her dead grandfather.

If Jade had been written as someone who was socially stunted from being raised without an adult human presence (she was raised by a fucking dog, remember?), and uses excessive positivity both because she literally doesn't know how to interact with others, and also as a mask to hide the stress she's under from experiencing constant visions of doomsday, perhaps she would've been a good character.

But, oh no, this is just another silly flash, you guys! Grandpa Harley is just a lifeless prop that Jade pretends is still alive because she's a manic pixie silly girl! No deeper meaning here.

Ah yeah, the cat's characteristic recalcitrance. I can't dunk on Rose too much here because I'm sure a lot of us tried to incorporate our pets in make-believe scenarios when we were kids.

I love the kitten playing with Rose's scarf off to the side.

The reason Rose wants to play Sburb is to resurrect Jaspers so he can follow up on his "secret." But... it's not like he can actually speak. You're telling me the whole reason she wants to bring back Jaspers is so he can follow up on the time he meowed in her ear nine years ago? And people really want to frame Rose as the most "serious" out of the kids.

Again, none of this seems worth ending the world for. Rose, you were like four years old here. It's time to move on. I know that "meow" actually ends up being somewhat important later, but Rose isn't aware of it at this point so it comes across as her being obsessed with something really silly.

Rose mentioned before that the funeral was held because of her request. So was it Rose who wanted a funeral for Jaspers, or was it Mom? Maybe both. I think it's very in-character for Mom to be torn up about the cat's death, so she wanted the funeral to have all the pomp and circumstance she believed he deserved.

The fact that the appearifier was already programmed to the moment before Jaspers's death means that Mom was trying to clone him through ectobiology. She really loved that cat. Rose is unable to realize this because she still views her mother as a callous and passive-aggressive bitch.

In what is perhaps the eeriest flash in the whole comic, we see a time lapse of Jaspers's body being recovered, his funeral, and the sequence of events leading to his body's reappearance on the transportalizer platform. "Chorale for Jaspers" is a strange track. The combination of the dreary organ and those sad, ethereal meows makes for an disquieting tune.

Coming off the heels of that somber flash is this overly dramatic flash where John has a mental breakdown after finding out how boring his dad really is. This so-called "reveal" that Dad Egbert is just a normal guy and not an undercover clown is like... no shit? Who in their right mind actually thought that he was a clown before this point? John's misconceptions made no sense to begin with and this payoff is equally underwhelming. At least this running gag is finally put to rest now.

I'd love to write this off as just another lame joke if not for the narrative weight attached to it. Yes, this load of shit is actually a pivotal moment for John's development.

Okay, I stand corrected. Dad Egbert is definitely not "just a normal guy" if he's able to hold that safe over his head.

He's also able to overpower the strongest Derse goon who was carrying a much larger safe. This dude is jacked.

Every panel we've seen so far suggests that everything related to the sylladex is flat like a card (especially with such terminology like captchalogue "card" and strife "deck"). Blowing into them suggests there's some kind of exterior housing and a hollow space inside where dust collects.

I get that Hussie is using this as an excuse to make this old video game joke, but if they're completely flat like say a TurboGrafx-16 game card, you wouldn't blow on those at all.

Trust me, I'm like one of the 10 people who grew up with a TG-16 instead of a Nintendo.

The admission that John's freakout over the Gushers is "stupid" suggests that his earlier mental breakdown was not "stupid." Uh huh...

Jade has a robot that her consciousness inhabits while she's dreaming on Prospit. Because at this point, why the fuck not? It's not like she builds anything else later on so might as well make this invention really complex. This is one last gasp at reminding the reader that, hey, remember this girl likes to invent stuff???

"guys'es"? That's a weird typo. John's username is "ghostyTrickster" in the past. According to the Formspring, Hussie noticed that the kids' usernames except John's all share the letters of DNA nucleobases, so this is him to backtrack and say "oh, his username used to fit the pattern until he changed it."

And like... it's stupid because TT, TG, and GG only correspond to two of the four nucleobases: thymine and guanine. That's hardly even notable, so why try to establish that pattern anyway?

The trolls came about later to complete the full set of nucleobase combinations. He created twelve whole new characters to complete a pattern that was half-formed and wasn't even intentional to begin with. Incredible.

John doesn't seem terribly concerned that the fire has reached Rose's house. This can be read as either a bumbling attempt at matching her sarcasm, or him taking her statement at face value and thinking she really is pleased that her house is on fire. Knowing John, the latter is more likely.

John refers to Bro beating up Dave in a very flippant manner. We can take this as evidence that Dave and Bro's strifes aren't actually that concerning. But if we're meant to take Dave's domestic situation seriously, then holy shit what the fuck is John's problem??

You know, for all the people who say John and Dave have such a strong friendship, John's been acting like a real dick to Dave so far. He insults him in his chats with Rose, ignores his messages, throws shade at him in his portion of the GameFAQs guide, and makes light of his distress. The only nice thing he's done for Dave so far is give him the Ben Stiller sunglasses for his birthday, and even that was an admittedly shitty gift that he assumed Dave would only appreciate "ironically."

Okay, this is what I've been waiting for. Rose says she knew about John's defaced posters all along.

But in this page, from Rose's own viewport, the posters are fine.

Rose also says that she can "see only [...] what John can see, or has seen already" which is why she can't see into his dad's room. Taking the above page into account, it's also reasonable to assume that since John was unable to see the damaged posters until now, Rose couldn't see them either.

Basically, this whole "twist" doesn't make sense and was poorly executed.

Not content with telling us himself how amazing Jade is, Hussie has characters in the comic say it too.

Aw yeah, there he is. My boy gets his first appearance. <3

Rose spouts a bunch of psychobabble about how John has been repressed all his life and it's only by learning the truth about his father that he's able to see what was once invisible to him. Not only is this event being framed as a pivotal moment where John grows from boy to man (further represented by John earning his suit after entering his dad's room), it's also supposed to be an enlightening moment for him. All because he solved a "mystery" that any reader with a brain would've figured out from the get-go.

As seen before in instances where she's either dismissive or totally ignorant of the motives behind others' behavior, Rose only possesses a superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis. Everything points to her being a massive pseud, so her theory here should've been called out as bogus. Except this isn't actually Rose positing a theory. This is Hussie literally spelling out the explanation for John's actions. We're meant to take Rose's words here at face value, so it means that Hussie somehow thinks any of this makes sense. This is what happens when dumb writers try to write smart characters.

It's funny that Rose correctly states the reason for Dad Egbert's eccentric nature, but fails to make the same connection to her own situation, instead continuing to insist that Mom Lalonde is just being passive-aggressive. Cruel irony. You don't know your mom that well either, Rose.

The further we go into this Act, the more elements Hussie seems to throw at the wall to further bog down the plot and create the illusion of depth. Let's see how things wrap up in the final third.

Read the next post here.

[the-meat-machine]

On page 5714 of Homestuck, when Jane is bopping a bunch of enemies with the lollipop juju, the cherub-looking dudes turn into Lil Cal looking guys, with the red blood ones looking just like him and the green blood ones having green lipstick and cheeks + white bowtie, instead of red and black respectively. And, Jake's Caliborn-esque symbol turns into a Lil Cal-esque symbol.

I feel like this means SOMETHING about Lil Cal, but I have no idea what. Sending this to you because I consider you the Lil Cal Expert. This is absolutely haunting me.

For those who don't remember, anon is referring to this:

Okay, so, before you sent this ask, I hadn't thought too much about this. I figured this was just reinforcing the conceptual link between cherubs and Lil Cal by implying that Trickster Mode cherubs look like Lil Cal.

But I think we can go deeper. Specifically, I'd like to think about what it would mean for Lil Cal to be a juju that's patterned after a trickster-mode cherub.

Bear with me - I'm not sure how much of this is obvious and how much isn't, so I'm just going to go through everything.

Cherubs are connected with Lil Cal

This one is fairly obvious. From a Doylist perspective, Lord English's design deliberately draws elements from Lil Cal's design, and therefore cherubs in general resemble Lil Cal. And of course, Caliborn's soul becomes entangled with Lil Cal's. Even the name Lil Cal is a clear connection.

Cherubs are connected with Trickster Mode

Again, fairly obvious. It's Calliope and Caliborn's combined jujus that cause Trickster mode. All of the Zillyweapons the tricksters create are tied with ridiculous cherub lore. Et cetera.

In addition… I'm going to quote from Hussie explaining Trickster Mode to Caliborn:

Furthermore, [Trickster Mode] could only be seen as a boon from an asocial species. You never have to deal with other people. So if you lick a magic lollipop that flips a switch in your brain that says "all my problems are solved," I guess maybe that's fine for cherubs, but if you're a human you haven't actually solved anything. By the same logic it's not much of a boon to a human's physical journey either. Using an item that lets them start maniacally powering from point A to point B isn't doing them any favors.

This seems to imply that Trickster Mode would be a better power-up for cherubs, who generally don't have to worry about petty things like "fucking up all your interpersonal relationships in a drug-induced mania". It also implies that cherubs may be physically more able to handle Trickster Mode than humans, who seem to be exhausted once it wears off. Like maybe this is a cherub power-up that isn't really meant to be used on humans.

There's also the matter of the energy that tricksters draw on to fuel their antics… but I'll get to that in a bit.

Lil Cal, specifically, is connected with Trickster Mode

As noted in the ask, Lil Cal motifs show up in several places during the Trickster Mode arc. The cherubs in that one flash turn into Lil Cal lookalikes, Jake's skull symbol turns into Lil Cal's head - plus Dirk's Trickster Mode outfit is based on Lil Cal's outfit.

The implication here is that Trickster Mode cherubs look like Lil Cal. Or to put it another way: Lil Cal looks like a Trickster Mode cherub.

And maybe we could stop there. Cherubs, Trickster Mode, and Lil Cal are all connected, so making the trickster cherubs look like Lil Cal could just be a fun visual way to reinforce those ties in the reader's head.

But on the other hand… Lil Cal could, in a way, be an embodiment of cherub Trickster Mode.

Here's where we get more speculative.

Lil Cal has trickster-like traits

What little we know about Lil Cal's "personality" reinforces the impression of him as somehow trickstery. As Calsprite, he literally does nothing but laugh, all the time, always. As a puppet, he shows up throughout the comic, appearing and disappearing in a way that's almost playful and yet also deeply unsettling. And "unsettling playfulness" is pretty much the essence of Trickster Mode.

So far, so good. This all feels like even more reason why Lil Cal makes sense as a representation of a trickster cherub.

Let's go deeper.

the enigmatic forces presiding over all that is eternal (or, what if ALL the rainbow glowy shit is connected)

Here we're going to take a bit of a detour. Ok, maybe it's more of a full-on dialectical road trip. It starts, as all the best things do, with cherub sex.

Here's a quote from Aranea's explanation of cherub reproduction (typing quirk removed for readability):

While dueling in such a monstrous form, their energy is inexhaustible. The transformation taps into the cherubs' latent connection with the enigmatic forces presiding over all that is eternal, and permeating all those endowed with immortality. Normally this power is only accessible to them during mating. In this form, they are only able to be injured by one another, and are otherwise indestructible.

The important part here is that cherubs have an innate connection to a power that imbues immortality, and this power is visually represented as a flashing rainbow energy.

This force is also almost certainly the power underlying both Caliborn/Lord English's immortality and god tier resurrections.

I'll start with the god tier resurrections, because it ties directly in with where Caliborn gets his immortality.

Here's a comparison between the god tier clock and the stock image that it was based on:

Of note here are two changes that Hussie made: 1) The angels (or should I say cherubs) on top have much larger wings. 2) The animals flanking the clock face have been changed to have crocodile heads that resemble the heads of cherubs when they're in their mating form.

All of this is to say that the god tier clock has very deliberate connections to cherubs. This, combined with its apparent function (resurrecting god tiers who have died, conditional on their death being neither heroic nor just) suggests that god tier resurrections are fueled by the same "enigmatic forces presiding over all that is eternal" as mating cherubs. We also get to see that flashing rainbow energy again when it activates:

Caliborn's reward for defeating Yaldabaoth appears to be the god tier clock itself. When Caliborn destroys it, he absorbs the (rainbow, flashing) energy it emits, rendering him unconditionally immortal. As a cherub, Caliborn is the perfect recipient for this boon - he already has an inherent affinity for this sort of power thanks to his species.

Ok, so what does this all have to do with Trickster Mode?

You know what else is associated with flashing rainbow energy? That's right: Trickster Mode.

I know, this may seem like a stretch, but also bear in mind that the exact pastel rainbow flashing colors that the tricksters talk in (and that show up when Jake, Roxy, and Dirk transform) are also seen both when one of the cherubs transforms into its mating form and when a cherub hatches from its egg (compare the text colors to the colors around the red cherub below). So, we've got more connections to cherub energy here.

My theory is that Trickster Mode taps into the same well of energy that powers cherubs' transformations during mating. In this case, the point is less the immortality and more the "inexhaustible energy" that mating cherubs have.

This would track with Trickster Mode being a power-up that's much better suited to cherubs than humans - cherubs are inherently connected to this energy and are built to withstand it. It also would give an added dimension to the tricksters' obsession with sex and babies - they're imbued with mating energy!

Under this view, Trickster Mode would be "intended" as a power-up that would grant a cherub all the power and energy they normally can only tap into while mating, presumably without needing to transform into a giant snake or waste all that energy on a years-long sex battle.

If this theory was correct, it might imply that someone in Trickster Mode would be unkillable for the duration of the transformation. There's no proof of this, which is the main reason I consider this theory to just be speculation rather than something I think was definitely intended in canon. Still, there's also no proof that tricksters aren't immortal, and would anyone really be surprised if you tried to kill a trickster and they just grinned at you and kept on going? It seems like it would be in keeping with the trickster power set, is all I'm saying.

Lord English as a perma-Trickster?

Now, as I mentioned above, as of the end of Homestuck Caliborn already has forged a permanent connection to "the enigmatic forces presiding over all that is eternal", making him unconditionally immortal and also giving him some really annoying-to-look-at eyeballs. But that in itself still doesn't grant him all the power Lord English has. He doesn't seem to, for example, have limitless energy or the ability to shoot rainbow laser beams out of his mouth.

So here's where my theorizing becomes even more improbable. I don't really think this next part is an "intended" reading, but I still think it's an interesting possibility to consider.

Lord English inherits traits from most of the souls inhabiting Lil Cal - Caliborn most obviously, but also Equius's muscles, Gamzee's honking, etc. But here's the thing: Lil Cal - as in, the juju itself - is also an ectobiological component of Lord English. It's not unthinkable that Lord English could inherit traits from Lil-Cal-the-juju - which, remember, is patterned off of a Trickster Mode cherub.

So my theory here is that Lord English is basically in a permanent Trickster Mode-like state, thanks to inheriting traits from Lil Cal. This state could be what grants him his absurdly massive amounts of power and the aforementioned rainbow-mouth-laser abilities.

After all, what does Trickster Mode do? It flips a switch in your brain that tells you that all your problems are solved and grants you huge amounts of energy to go do whatever your id desires most. And what would Caliborn do if he had unlimited energy and no obstacles left to stand in his way? I think the answer is obvious: Fuck. Shit. Up.

Lord English is basically Caliborn's id writ large and given limitless power to spend fucking shit up for all eternity. And really, what more could a cherub dream of?

[derseprinceoftbd]

In honor of the new Upd8, here's the updated version of my Personal Homestuck Explainer.

An explainer for Homestuck, typed up on a Google doc for Reddit, and now transplanted onto Tumblr, and too long to fit in a single reddit comment. Most explainers I've seen utterly fail to get the tone of the series across, thus not answering the main question I see: "what is Homestuck *and why is it like this*". Why does it evoke the reactions it does? Why are so many things considered a reference? Who is Vriska? (I can't actually explain that one in under 3000 words, it turns out.) But, here's a briefer briefer (heh) on the subject of "What the actual fuck is Homestuck":

Andrew Hussie, a person (now going by any pronouns) then known for various obscure things around the net, made an interactive reader-driven comic-type-thing called Jailbreak where he would draw panels demonstrating the events of the story as dictated by other posters in the thread, putting his favored suggestions in the narration and responding in kind. The happenings and variables were influenced by his own strange brand of humor and set of fascinations, such as rap, horses, clowns, and H!rry P!tter as a cultural presence. He would eventually compile this, along with the unfinished followup, Bard Quest, on its own website.

The third installment of the so-called MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth, was a massive step up in production value, featuring impressive art and output speed as well as evolutions such as some pages being flashing gifs. This sort of thing was considered to be one of the best demonstrations of the potential of the internet. It ran for 1674 pages over the course of about a year.

Homestuck was the followup to that, running 8123 pages from April 13th 2009-2016 with numerous hiatuses in the latter half of that time. It featured such advancements as videos with sound, small WASD-controlled computer games on various pages, and most significantly, actual conversations between characters, semi-hidden behind clickable boxes at the bottom of some pages, allowing them to become three-dimensional and truly sympathetic. Hussie, it would soon be revealed, was heavily skilled at writing compelling and unique character voices and dialogue writing in general.

Homestuck was definitely the most complex MPSA, with a grand overarching plot being integrated into the results of the actions of the readers. The plot revolved around an in-universe game called SBURB with the power to influence reality, sort of a Jumanji with time-travel mechanics that would soon be revealed to be the centerpiece of reality itself, destroying the home planets of its players to motivate them to enter the world of the game and fulfill an unknown grand purpose, complete with millions of fully sentient NPCs. (Homestuck is, technically, an isekai.)

Homestuck has been described as "a story that's also a puzzle", and this lens has gained authorial approval; events are often told anachronistically, as a kitchen sink of high-concept ideas are explored by a man who sometimes wants to show off his semi-deconstructive version of a classic sci-fi/fantasy trope, sometimes wants to infuriate readers through anticlimaxes and misdirections, and sometimes wants to just go off on a tangent about a random movie from his childhood that somehow soon becomes integral to the plot in an absurdly esoteric fashion.

Eventually the suggestions from readers became so numerous and difficult that the suggestion boxes were closed near the end of the first year, leading to less meandering from Act 4 onwards, but the influence of the audience remained; one easy example is a character only seen from the top half initially being theorized on the official forums as using a wheelchair, a fact which would not only become Canon, but highly relevant.

The early MSPAs curated an audience through programming humor and 80s-90s film references as filtered through the styles of Terry Pratchett, Mark Twain, and the Something Awful forums, but the audience for Homestuck, due to the nature of the characters, was markedly different, especially after the Trolls showed up.

You've probably seen them.

The Trolls, initially presented as some extremely odd and bothersome fellows on the internet, were soon shown to be a race of grey-skinned, orange-horned aliens. Trolls possessed multicolored blood in both organized castes and clear deviations, psychic abilities, unique typing styles, insectoid traits as opposed to hominid, near-universal bisexuality with the sole known exception being Sapphic, and a complex romantic system with its own symbols, comically vague-yet-comprehensive reproductive system, and of course, relationship dynamics.

I cannot express how perfect the Trolls were in terms of catching on. Tumblr loved these fuckers and it's not at all hard to see why.

It's also worth noting that this wasn't the only market-perfect part of Homestuck; Classpecting, the equivalent of Hogwarts Houses, featured a 144/168/288/336/384(depending on who you ask and what they count)-strong grid system of human personality traits that not only seemed eerily accurate as a personality mapper, but corresponded to what elemental powers one received in the game of SBURB.

So... yeah. Homestuck was an incredibly complex and engaging work, driven by a single incredibly talented and flawed creative voice, which was perfectly made to attract a massive, unabashedly bizarre/proudly cringe, and notably largely queer fanbase across a younger internet; you may well be aware of incidents such as cosplay failures and inappropriate recreations of Troll culture. The style of presentation, art, and character writing was instantly recognizable and relatively easy to imitate, leading to fanfiction and even fanmade adventures galore, most of the latter hosted on MSPFA.com.

The main site for Homestuck is broken now-it's recommended that new readers download the [Unofficial Homestuck Collection](https://bambosh.dev/unofficial-homestuck-collection/), and starting with Problem Sleuth to ease into the format and writing is a pretty popular choice. The ending is also considered generally quite poor in a number of ways, particularly regarding unfollowed foreshadowing and blatant abandonment of character arcs, with some fans even [making](https://friendlybatteringram.tumblr.com/tagged/altstuck) their own [works](https://mspfa.com/?s=44153&p=1) as [substitutions](http://mspfa.com/?s=12003&p=1). You can find The Homestuck Epilogues (a sequel novel) on the official site, and Homestuck^2 Beyond Canon (a sequel webcomic after the Epilogues) on its own website, but neither of these are very well liked by fans (at all). YouTube also has several dubs of the comic; by far the largest and most popular is [Voxus](https://youtube.com/@Voxus), which has unfortunately slowed to a crawl at around the 65% mark.

Content warnings for Homestuck include: blood, violence including decapitation, clowns, brainwashing/mental possession, dicks-out furry bara art in the background of like ten pages, brief black-and-white nudity, swearing, the R-slur, a joke about an acronym organically forming the F-slur, child abuse, discussed child abuse and homophobia, mocking of the disabled (as an unsympathetic action), cartoonish levels of sexism (as an unsympathetic action), statements that an antagonist is analogous to Hitler, mocking of otherkin, a minor character being a racial stereotype of Japanese people (Damara), a somewhat major character being a stereotype of Black people (Meenah), minor characters being stereotypes of disabled people (Meulin and Mituna), a controversial and prominent depiction of blindness, eye trauma, underage alcoholism, written depections of noncon facilitated by mind control (as an unsympathetic action), sexual assult (an unwanted kiss, as an unsympathetic action), jokes about pedophilia, and child grooming (textually 100% non-sexual, but sexually-coded).

Also: when I said the Trolls type weird, I wasn't kidding. Every character gets at least one color for their speech text, plus a pattern for how they type, generally worse for the Trolls, ranging from "no caps" to "British" to "drunk" to "ebonics" to "aLtErNaTiNg" to WH4T3V3R TH3 FUCK K1ND OF L33TSP34K BS T3R3Z1 1S DO1NG. So that's worth a warning.

And that's as abridged as you can get when summing up Homestuck.

[cure-typhoon]

Part 2 of this post where someone asked me to talk more about the beta trolls friendships and now you are all stuck with me on this multiple-post adventure :3 how long ago anyway?? well heres a link to it

Also something i forgot to mention, I'm using this archive by tumblr user @ eridan-ampora, if some of the dialogue screenshots have a white background, is because its from the documents and not the Homestuck site (as theyre from a flash and more complicated to find in the site lol)

Anyway back to where we left, Eridan and Kanaya!

Their friendship is very much, how do i say it, antagonistic? Its similar to Sollux's and Karkat's where they throw insults at eachother but with these two it actually feels like their are annoyed at the other, Eridan's constant nagging at Kanaya to try to get her to help him with his ex

And Kanaya dont caring that much about Eridan's whining, a combination of already knowing the worlds is going to end and just dont caring about him going off in his racist ranting and probably because he has been bothering her for sweeps.

(Not?) that surprisingly, as a hero of hope, Eridan believes her instantly when she tells him about the end of the world. He has some type of appreciation/knowledge about her because he knew she wouldnt lie about that

He then proceeds to insult her again, they remind me of when your in a family reunion and are stuck babysitting the youngest spoiled annoying cousin in the family

She even taunts him, lying saying that Feferi has a crush on him just after he confesses he knows she doesnt tend to lie about that stuff and he believes for a minute before realizing ''oh she's fucking with me''

Its kinda funny, like he is very annoying but theyre like, kinda friends??? he definitly see's her as one even if he is such a dick about it. He even tries to give her advice so her (possible) relationship with Vriska doesnt ends up as just them being moirails.

They have a short kinda sweet talk RIGHT BEFORE he gets into a fight with Sollux and it sucks so much how it seemed like they would had become better friends, as he seemed less of an asshole, but at the same time, its also really scummy of him?

He already had the plan of joining Bec Noir and he never mentions Kanaya joining them, so he knew that he would kill Kanaya and he decided to do it in the worst way possible by destroying her hopes first and then killing her. Absolutely horrible i hate this, no wonder she doesnt pull back

Probably no the best sequel to the ''the beta trolls friendships'' post considering how it ends, but im not lying about their relationship lol hopefully next time i wont take that long to do a sequel to this one

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Some Kind Of Hero (Leslie Fish)

I saw she had left on the screen “If any old shipmates should ask after Moll, Just tell them she finally died clean.”

"Old sci-fi ballad about some folks in a space station emergency, and the three people that were able to save everyone. Two of them died in the process, and the song is from the perspective of the surviving hero, insisting that they're not the real hero here - everyone should remember and respect the other two more, and why. It also has one of the most heartbreaking (but bittersweet) depictions of someone struggling with addiction that I've heard in a song."

Poll Runner: One of the first songs in this tournament I truly got attached to. This whole album slays. It's got so much worldbuilding in one song!

Heir of Grief (Homestuck)

"Dude. it's just so goddamn good. The rhythms. god. at around 4 minutes in it just goes absolutely fucking ham on the guitar and it's so goddamn good. every time I listen to it I like. whisper scream the melody out alongside and nearly give myself whiplash headbanging. God it's so good. Also--this song is in Homestuck, and it's one of four tracks that plays during the final battle flash. One of the greatest things about Homestuck's music is its use of recurring motifs--something Toby Fox carried with him when he later wrote Undertale's music. Heir of Grief is FULL of melodies and motifs from throughout the entire webcomic, and it ties them all together in this dramatic summation of it all on bold piano and KILLER electric guitar. I am obsessed."

Some Kind of Hero submitted by @shadybug

Heir of Grief submitted by @demimonde-semigoddess