#optimisticdualist

[legallypumpkinn]

Genuine question, wtf happened w Optimistic Duelist?? I’m not on Twitter, so all that I’ve seen is that they posted this, disappeared for a while, a bunch of people started shitting on them on both Reddit and Tumblr (Reddit nothing new obvs, but it left r/EnglishPumpkinParty and r/AltHomestuck and began happening on regular old r/Homestuck)??

I saw the Dirk sui comic and their reply, but liek… is that really it?? Did they just see a comic they didn’t like?? And weren’t they literally a part of developing HS2??? I am so disengaged in the Homestuck community lore but this has been plaguing my teeny little mind so I must ask >:?

[classpecting-the-hoyoverse]

Veritas Ratio: The Rogue of Light

Rogue: The passive stealing class

One who steals aspect for others

Alternatively, one who shares or one who redistributes aspect with others

Light

Abstract: Knowledge, Awareness, Attention, Relevance, Fortune, Luck

Literal: Actual Light (Brightness), Vision, Eyes, the Sun, Stars

This is gonna become a series isn't it?

It is. Now let's get going on discussing everyone's favorite interstellar scholar: Dr. Veritas Ratio!!

Let's get the obvious out of the way: His aspect.

Light is more commonly known as the aspect of knowledge. But instead of talking about he’s light-bound personality wise, why don’t we shake things up a bit? We know that he's a smart and knowledgeable man, but what more can his aspect offer for us aside from that?

To fit with Ratio's Greco-Roman theming, I'll briefly discuss the World of Ideas in Plato's allegory of the Cave.

Forgive me to if I do get the allegory wrong and please feel free to correct me!

The gist of this is that ordinary people are like prisoners chained to a cave, only able to perceive reality through shadow puppets and the distorted noises that bounce off the cave walls. These prisoners were born in the cave and had been raised in the cave, not knowing anything else outside of it; ignorance. It's only when they break out of their chains do these prisoners start their path to enlightenment and they achieve it so once they see the bright sun outside of their cave; the World of Ideas.

Ratio seeks to break everyone from the chains of ignorance and guide them towards enlightenment through spreading his knowledge throughout the universe.

Ratio is the man who would forcefully break the prisoners' chains and nudge them towards the light, as much as he could anyways.

And for one specific character, he hopes it is enough.

We'll get back to him later! Next I want to talk about is Ratio and his connection to Christian Gnosticism, which likely had served as inspiration for the concept of the Light aspect in Homestuck. I will be borrowing ideas from one of optimisticDualist's essays so I highly recommend giving it a quick read before continuing onward.

According to Gnostic myth, the world was created through the desires of an aeon named Sophia, an Emanator of light. I should also note that the Greek word for wisdom is Σοφία.

Sophia longed to understand God in His entirety, but in doing so she committed treason and was thus cast out of heaven. Her desire gave birth to Yaldabaoth: a blind, violent, and ignorant god who knew nothing but himself. He created the material world that you and I perceive, shielded from the light of Sophia that birthed him. Because a blind god made the world in his image, the denizens of his earth are also blind to Sophia.

So what do banished gods have to do with the purple guy?

Well, just like Archimedes and screws, things come back around. In order to save yourself from Yaldabaoth’s world, one must be delivered a certain knowledge that is delivered by a “messenger of light” and thus gain the ability to perceive Sophia and her World of Ideas.

In other words, salvation can be sought in what Gnosticism calls a gnosis.

However, one cannot just simply be gifted a gnosis. Those who seek Sophia’s salvation must be driven to reach it, reach beyond the Demiurge’s dark and imprisoning world and into the intangible, bright world above.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

By Gnostic definition, Ratio should be an Emanator of wisdom, helping curing others of ignorance and helping them on their way towards enlightenment. Hell, you can even say that he's a sylph with all the constant allusions to healing and helping, especially since that Ratio's a Doctor.

However, we all know that this isn't true. Within Ratio's character stories, it can be inferred that his one goal in life is to become an Emanator of the Erudition. His arduous pursuit of knowledge was likely all in hopes in attracting Nous' gaze.

Yet, despite all his efforts, Ratio was never spared a glance

Dr. Ratio is a model Emanator of wisdom by Gnostic standards, yet within his own universe his Aeon of Erudition does not acknowledge him. No matter how hard he tries, he will never reach the status of a member of the Genius society, almost as if he wasn't destined to be a part of it.

Let’s talk about his class: The rogue.

Rogues in Homestuck are the outcasts of their societies. They're loners, isolated, unable to fit in with the groups they want to identify in.

Rogue of Heart Nepeta Leijon lives alone in Alternia's wilderness far from troll society with her lusus as her only companion that is physically close to her.

She's been explicitly described as lonely, creating comics and ships of herself and her friends in order to mitigate her feelings of isolation from other trolls:

Then there's Rogue of Void Roxy Lalonde, who for her first 16 years of life was the only human within her town of carapaces, whom she provides food for. The only other human in her post-apocalyptic world is more than 1700 miles away.

Being a Void-Bound, her isolation is very much apparent, but her loneliness reaches its apex during her bad end in her Pesterquest route. Drinking herself to a stupor as the undeserving consequences of seeing her mother just once consumes her.

And then Rogue of Breath Rufioh Nitram, who was seen as a mutant for his wings and thus was avoided by his fellow trolls, which took a blow on his self-esteem.

Rogues also struggle with a surplus of their aspect and trying to cope up with that extra while it consumes them. Nepeta taking on the personas of other people through roleplaying, as well as her cave walls being covered in shipping grids. Rufioh living a literally directionless grubhood as travels with a nomadic group called the Lost Weaboos, not to mention his wings, a symbol of freedom, being the cause of why he views himself so lowly. And then there's Roxy, who feels so alone in the carapacian bastion that she fills that void with insobriety, befuddling her mind.

So what does this have to say about Dr. Ratio? All three rogues here have exhibited some type of self-worth issues and a desire to connect with others, but due to being so engulfed by their aspect, it hinders them from reaching that goal...

What if tiny Ratio exhibited such intellect at such a young age that throughout his childhood, he was told that he would be a great scholar growing up? Maybe his genius would earn him a spot within the Genius Society. He was even admitted into a university during his adolescent years.

As that is impressive as that sounds, can you imagine how isolating that can be for a child? Ratio, the only kid in class with his classmates years above him, talking about things outside of academia that he's too young to understand. Meanwhile Ratio likely doesn't interact with those his age as they couldn't provide anything to stimulate his brain. It could also be vice-versa too: Ratio trying to talk to them about topics far beyond their comprehension and they just start to distance themselves from him, unable to understand him, making an outcast out of him.

His intelligence and genius isolates him from making any genuine friendships during his formal years of life. At least, any that we know of before 2.1.

This loneliness does seem to follow him well into his adulthood as well: Becoming a celebrity comes with its own flavor of isolation: being surrounded by the limelight yet no one will truly understand you.

And let's not forget about his ambitions to become an Emanator of the Erudition, to become a member of the Genius Society, which he fell short of...

...something that he holds quite close to his chest, a betrayal of his self-perceived character. He became yet, once again, an outcast.

Another thing, I want you guys to got to Ratio's wiki real quick and see how many characters mention him.

How many people do you think were close to Ratio?

Within the team selection menu of Star Rail, Ratio has lines for when he's added to a team with Ruan Mei and Herta, yet the reverse isn't true. Both Genius scholars say nothing when added to a team with Ratio already in it, almost as if they don't acknowledge him.

There is, however, only one character who says something when added to a team with the Mundanite already in it.

Can you guess who it is?

But, as for all classes, their lives aren't meant to be miserable forever. A Rogue must find a way to overcome this loneliness; piecing through the walls of their confines made of their aspect. Instead of just keeping all their aspect for themselves like their Thief counterpart, Rogues find fulfillment through sharing their aspect, often by taking it from one source and distributing it to others. Or in some cases, exchanging something else in order to hand out.

And after all this, I dare say that Ratio joining the Genius Society would be the worst mistake he'd ever make. Stay with me, I have my reasons:

Though we never got to see much of Nepeta in action, we know that she distributes Heart through her shipping chart, arranging couples, distributing aspects of their personalities to see who would go together the best.

The amount of thought that she puts into her ships puts a Sylph of the same aspect like me to shame!

I digress.

In exchange of bringing attention to the Watterbitch that's about to destroy their game, Roxy was able to obscure the progression of her session from prying eyes, covering it in a blanket of blankness in order to keep Batterwitch from knowing what they're up to.

And then for Rufioh, his Alternian counterpart The Summoner lead a rebellion against the Condecse, using his wings to guide his fellow trolls towards freedom.

And even after his defeat, his tale lives on as Pupa Pan. While the tale of his rebellious predecessor the Signless is silenced and therefore lost to obscurity, the Summoner's story lives on, allowing the idea of freedom to flow into the mind of young trolls.

Dr. Ratio's entire character is dedicated to making education accessible for all. Though some of this does end up into his desire to cure people of idiocy, Ratio does truly believe that everyone should get a chance to attain knowledge. I'd even say that his ambition is the reason why he became a professor!

Ratio would dedicate his life towards his goal towards sharing knowledge, even if it meant forsaking Nous' attention in exchange.

His path also affirms this drive. One would expect that someone as knowledgeable as him would be following the path of Erudition, but instead Ratio follows the Hunt.

Ratio's determination to educate, his determination to spread light across the universe manifested into the path he follows. Even if he's never accepted by the Genius Society, he won't let that hinder him or dampen his drive. Ratio just simply strides forward.

The people who make up Nous' faction are described as researchers that rarely interact with each other, and even rarer are the people who are willing to share their research. Ratio would have never found fulfillment in being a member of the Genius Society, I'm almost certain that by joining it he would just be seeking out more and more knowledge, more and more light, becoming more and more isolated.

And one more thing: Rogues are fond of those who manage to get close to them. They appreciate their company and are incredibly dear to them.

For Nepeta, she has Equius.

For Roxy, she has Calliope.

Rufioh had Damara and the Summoner had the Marquise.

So who does Ratio have?

Even outside of a shipping lens, Aventurine is a very important person to Ratio. The 2.1 Penacony story quest demonstrated how much in tandem these two can be together; how much they trusted each other to pull off this huge gamble and draw attention to the death happening in the Planet of Dreams and Festivites. Luck and Knowledge, they both work in perfect harmony.

Aventurine calls him his equal during his episode in “Keeping Up with Star Rail”, claiming that Ratio’s the only one who can understand him.

Ratio and Aventurine must have something closer than just mutual respect however. Before Aventurine goes off into his grandiose self-annihilation, he checks up on him. He risks breaking their façade of disgruntled-coworkers-at-best just to make sure Aventurine can continue on.

Ratio does care for the Stoneheart. So much so that he imparts luck to quite literally the luckiest man alive in hopes that his advice will carry him out of the darkness that he’s in and back into the light. Bringing him out of the blinding Nihility and back into the World of Ideas, back into reality.

And it makes this note all the more important when Aventurine accepts Ratio’s advice, accepting his light when most would brush it off.

Ratio is a bright person, yet most cannot see past his luminosity and at the same time, he can’t shine bright enough to attract those he aspires to be. To remedy this, the Rogue of Light distributes his lights to others who needs it. He wants to cure those inflicted with ignorance and guide them towards enlightenment.

Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not his Ratio rolls. His altruism may go against what the Genius Society believes in, but he wouldn’t change his ideals for anyone, steadfast in his determination to cure idiocy.

[striderpups-reborn]

It's funny that PQ kinda reminds me why JohnRose and DaveJade were popular in the first place: they have the best chemistry in all of HS. The only way Hussie could convince us on other ships is by never having these character interact with one another. John and Dave still have the best interactions when they are broing tho.

Hussie tried for years to split apart the divine quartet that sits at the core of Homestuck, and evidently he’s just given up.

One of the reasons I liked both were the same reason I liked the beta kids as a larger whole: there was no drama. The kids certainly had drama, but it wasn’t internal. They were friends, there were some crushes, and that was it. 

The later attempts to insert drama (with stupid shit like DAVES SEXUAL ANGST :O and such) feel artificial and bad and out of character to the point of parody. But, given that the fanbase nowadays only acknowledges that the retcon and nothing before it exists, it’s a moot point to try and convince the average teenybopper dipshit otherwise, as they’ll just accept whatever lukewarm updates WP lets like, the janitor or something write.

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

if it's alright that i ask, where did you get the optimisticdualist screenshots?

I got them from a kiwifarms homestuck thread that also digs about behind the scenes of the writers and Hussie himself (which is how I found out some fucked up info I didn’t know abt Hussie) tho I know how a lot of people feel about kf, they’re definitely really brutal and needlessly mean, but they’re a little more civilized than something as crazy like 4chan and less distrustful (I also have like thicker skin personally so it doesn’t get to me, so I recommend not browsing through it if you’re more uncomfy with that type of stuff)

here’s da link to it anyway because it’s interesting: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/whatpumpkin-llc-homestuck-inc-chuck-tingle-andrew-hussie-and-friends.28105/

[raecchi]

Transcript for Episode 00 of @x32showdowncombob podcast

Lightly edited to remove most ums, likes, and sentence fragments, and to break up some really massive run-on sentences. Feel free to point out errors -- I suspect I mixed up who was speaking in a few quieter background lines. [Edit: Comma gave this a once over and has fixed my mistakes over who was speaking.]

Homestuck Flash Showdown - EP 00 - Introductions and The Bracket

[Intro music - Sburban Jungle]

Arc: Hello everyone, welcome to x32 Showdown Combo, also known as The Homestuck Flash Showdown, also known as One Flash Only.

Arc: This is going to be a podcast with myself, Arcturus, and three of my friends who I've coerced into this project. We are going to be doing a highly scientific and very, very stringent examination of all of the greatest Flash animations in Homestuck's history.

Arc: We have created through very, very scientific means -- I cannot overemphasize how science-y all this was -- a very carefully seeded and created 32 entry bracket and we are going to go down the entire thing to determine once and for all what is the actual, really best Homestuck Flash.

Arc: Now, my voice you're listening to, I am Arcturus. You may call me Arc or Archie. I am available on Tumblr at callmearcturus. I'm also available on the AO3 at the same and I am now available on Pillowfort as just Arcturus.

Arc: I'm going to be joined by three of my panelists who -- let's meet them right now. Taz, how are you doing? Where can people find you on the internet?

Taz: So, I go by Taz. Also known as optimisticDualist. People can usually find me at optimistic Duelist at YouTube and revolutionaryduelist at Tumblr because I messed up and had to change that URL.

Arc: That's a nice URL. You have a lot of very nice Utena symbolism. You're kind of, I would assume, our nerdiest expert. I forget if you're archival or a live read when you started Homestuck?

Taz: I was a live reader. I caught up at, I remember the exact page, it was the page where Rose asks Kanaya her name, was the page where I caught up. And I just followed it through from there. I'm kind of an archival reader too, because I just reread the comic constantly because I just do Homestuck analysis on YouTube.

Arc: Yeah. Which people should definitely check out if they want some in-depth analysis. Some of it's quite mend-bending and awesome. Who else do we have? Comma, how are you doing today? Where can people find you?

Comma: Good morning! I am Comma or Commakaze on Tumblr and Archive of Our Own. I am mostly a fic writer. Actually, that's basically my claim to fame in the fandom.

Arc: Very good fic, though. Very good fic.

Comma: Thank you very much. I am an archival reader. I started reading Homestuck in October 2016, I think, and got through the whole comic in a sleepless haze in about a month.

Arc: Oh my god. I took about three months, my dude. [laughs]

Comma: Yeah, I didn't sleep a whole lot that month, so I will admit my memory of a lot of it is pretty hazy. I'm due for a reread.

Arc: Yeah, you've said as much, that a lot of this is going to be kind of a cool refresher. I actually like that because you can be our tie-breaker for a lot of these as we shout at each other and try to convince each other.

Comma: [laughs] That, I can do.

Arc: Your random question is: do you remember what your favorite act is?

Comma: Uh, my favorite act? Okay, so here's the thing about Act 6. How far do I have to go down? Because that's like half the comic.

Arc: Yes, yeah. I'm kind of an entry person, but yeah, all of Act 6 is amazing. Okay. And our third panelist, or -- I guess am I a panelist or am I just--? Well, I'm gonna be arguing a lot, so I guess I'm a pane-host. Tree, tell me about yourself. Where are you in fandom?

Tree: Hey, I'm Tree and you can call me treePrince or just Tree, or your lord and master.

Arc: Nice, as we do.

Tree: But you can find me at treeprince at tumblr.com and also on the AO3. I started off actually as a serial reader, but I guess technically also as an archival reader because I didn't catch up until like literally the Fourth of July week of 2011, where I ended up being home alone for the entire week and caught up on the comic during that time and then ended up destroying my bathroom afterwards in, like, a fit of fury.

Arc: But what was happening on July around that time?

Tree: Oh, gosh. That was actually right around the time that we started walking through Doc Scratch's house at the Felt Mansion.

Arc: Oh, my god, deep in Act 5.2.

Tree: Oh, I was furious.

Arc: Yeah, that was a lot. That's... yeah.

Taz: Caught up just in time for the wait for the Cascade Flash.

Tree: Yeah, pretty much. I only had like two weeks or so to wait and then it was a huge pause until Cascade slapped.

Arc: Yeah, but, y'know, if you're gonna have to wait for something, you might as well wait on that.

Tree: Yeah, that was truly the experience.

Arc: Oh yeah, you crashed the entire internet. Even I heard about that and I didn't even know what Homestuck was.

Comma: Wow.

Arc: Tell me, what is your favorite Homestuck song? Don't say Karkatlicious, I will kick you from this call if you say Karkatlicious or something stupid.

[background laughter]

Tree: Okay, first of all, technically, that's not a Homestuck song, it's a Homestuck fan song--

Arc: Uh-huh.

Tree: --so EXCUSE you. But--

Comma: Also, it's Karkalicious, not Karkatlicious.

Arc: Oh, god, I'm SO sorry.

Tree: You should be ashamed.

Arc: Yeah.

Tree: But no, oh god, you would really ask me this after I just told you that I own every single album. Uh... crap. Okay, maybe Green Ghost off of Universe and Mayhem. Universe A, I think that's the side?

Arc: Did I introduce myself properly? I am also a purely archival reader. I actually started Homestuck the day that it ended because I happened to watch the Act 7 animation. I was like, what the fuck is this? Why is this so beautiful? What is this music? Oh, it's by that Toby Fox guy. I wonder if I should finally read the stupid comic -- and that was the next three months of my life.

Tree: I have to ask this question now because it's just popped in my head, but did you play Undertale before you even read Homestuck?

Arc: Yes.

Tree: Oh man.

Arc: Yeah.

Comma: I also did this.

Tree: [startled gasp]

Arc: Yeah, yeah, I know. It's very interesting to actually go back and read through all of Homestuck with that in mind, because you can see the DNA of everything that Undertale is in Homestuck. Sometimes you can tell what someone's formative influences are and with Toby Fox it was definitely working with Andrew Hussie for a very large portion of his life. Like, good job on you, Toby. I would follow you to the ends of the earth.

Tree: Living in his basement for years and years.

Arc: Okay. Yeah. Will he ever get out? Does he want to get out? It's 2018. I would stay in Hussie's basement right now. I bet it's pretty cool.

[general laughter]

Arc: Okay? Alright. So as mentioned, we are doing a bracket. It started off as me just screwing around. I watched almost every single major Flash in the entirety of Homestuck.

Arc: I narrowed it down to which ones I consider to be the meatiest and have the most that could be discussed. I then tried to organize them about seven different ways, and failed miserably, and complained to all my friends as I did this.

Arc: And then I finally found a system that worked and then -- before we read the bracket, I should tell everyone that we are still juggling them sometimes, because sometimes we get to another day and we disagree with the seeding and we have to move it. This happened literally last night with the green bracket, which is what we will be starting with soon. In the next episode.

Arc: So, if everyone would like to join me in looking at the bracket. Hopefully by the time this goes up, I will have finished commissioning a copy of the bracket so that everyone will have a very nice one to look at, but for our purposes today I would still like everyone to read through it so we know what we're gonna be doing.

Arc: We will be starting with -- I should say the bracket is divided into 4 regions. We will be going through each region. Each one is 8 different Flashes. We are going to be narrowing those down and then going forward with the sweet 16, and then with the final 8, final 4, final 2.

Arc: Which, if you know The Sports -- as I'm sure you all do know The Sports -- that is how March Madness works, I guess?

Tree: I've never played a sport, so....

Comma: Sorry, I don't watch football.

Tree: I did a baseball and they don't really have seeds.

Arc: Wait, I thought the March Madness thing was basketball or was that your joke? I'm not sure.

Comma: That was the joke.

Arc: God, we're so--

[laughing]

Comma: Another fun note about Comma: I am a troll.

Arc: Yes! Fun note about me, Arcturus, I don't fucking catch jokes 90% of the time. Who would like to read us the green region and its matchups?

Tree: I'll cover there, because that's gonna be my region anyway. In our first matchup, we're gonna have the 1st seed, which is [S] Collide and then matched up with the 8th seed, John: Bite into apple. In the second matchup, we're gonna have the #2 seed, [S] Enter, beating unanimously [S] John: Reunite with the loving wife and daughter as the 7th seed.

Arc: Listen, listen, I'm gonna make us all discuss it, at least.

Tree: That's fair, that's fair. Good as a heads up. In our third matchup it's gonna be the #3 seed, John. Rise Up, versus #6, Pipeorgankind, which actually is Act 6, Act 6, Intermission 4 as a page in the comic. And then our final matchup is gonna be seed 4, [S] Descend, versus seed 5, [S] Credits. [pause] Which is going to be a nightmare.

Arc: Yes. If there's anything that's gonna be an all-out fight, I've already prepped to say I have a very strong opinion on that one and y'all are gonna have to fight me. The theme of the green region is vaguely the Betas, which is why it tends to be a lot of John. Tree, your Cinderella pick is in this region, correct?

Tree: Yes, and actually that's why I was saying Enter is going to completely pummel the crap out of its competition, but, y'know, that's just my personal opinion on that one.

Arc: We'll see. It's a beautiful Flash, but it's also up against a lot of heavy hitters here. Heavyweights, I believe The Sports would call them. Okay, who would like--

Tree: Heavy hammers, maybe, to go with John's hammerkind.

Arc: Ah, yes. Who would like to discuss the blue region?

Taz: I'll take that, since that's going to be my region. #1 on the blue region is [S] Cascade, which is paired with [S] Wake. #2 is [S] Jade: Enter paired with [S] Seer: Ascend. #3 is my Cinderella pick, [S] Terezi: Remember, paired with [S] Begin Intermission 2, also known as The Man in the Cairo Overcoat. And finally, we've got [S] Make her pay, which is paired with [S] Act 6, Act 6, Intermission 5 -- I'm not making that up, for you non-Homestucks -- Vriskagram.

Arc: If we have non-Homestucks in the room, please let us know. We would be dying to know how this goes for y'all.

Tree: Good lord, yes.

Arc: Yeah, so that leads us to the red region which is my favorite region. As you might be able to tell if you're a Homestuck, the blue region mostly centers around stuff that is very Troll-heavy. Not exclusively, because there's a lot of Betas in there as well, but it is centered mostly on the trolls.

Arc: Red region is going to be going into the best kids, the best session, the Alpha session.

[laughing]

Arc: Am I wrong. Am I wrong? Y'all wanna fight about that? We can have a podcast-- okay.

Taz: The best team of the best kids.

Arc: Seed 1! Yes, it's true. S1 is going to be -- okay, I should preface this with, by request from one of my most evil friends, Mims, we are separating the Dirk suite, Dirk: Unite and Dirk: Synchronize. Those are going to be treated as two separate Flashes for our purposes. Starting with that.

Arc: S1, excuse me, seed 1 for this region is going to be Dirk: Unite. It is going up against seed 8, which is End of Act 6 Intermission 1, Infinity Mechanism, which if you don't know off the top of your head, it is the one where Jade in her Prospit tower looking at the clouds. It's very beautiful, check it out if you don't remember.

Arc: Seed 2 is Dirk: Synchronize, up against seed 7, which is Jane: Enter. Then we have seed 3 which is Act 6 Act 4, which is the entirety of the Alpha session -- it's a very long one -- versus Act 6, Roxy: Sleepwalk.

Arc: We have seed 4, which is Act 6, versus my Cinderella pick, and the one that will definitely beat everyone else, seed 5, Price of Heart: Rise Up, THE best flash in Homestuck.

[laughing]

Arc: We have approximately 8 to 10 episodes of this podcast. We are going to be a very limited run podcast. We know exactly what we're here to do, so we will have time to fight about this later. And Comma, would you like to introduce us to our white region?

Comma: Certainly! Now, I'm gonna preface this with the admission that I don't remember about 90% of the Flashes in this region. Again, I am due for a reread. So in the white region, which is primarily focused on the big name Flashes and the--

Tree: Carapace. Carapace, yeah.

Comma: I don't -- how do you pronounce that?

Tree: Carapacians.

Arc: Does everyone say Carapacians? Carapacians?

Taz: Chess.

Arc: There's an I in there, there's definitely an I in there.

Tree: Chess people, yes.

[pause]

Arc: Chess dudes.

Comma: The chess dudes, we can go with that. So this one is, from what I understand, focused mostly on the big name flashes and the chess dudes, as we'll call them. It has seed 1, [S] Game Over, going up against seed 8, [S] The Masterpiece. Seed 2, [S] Caliborn: Enter, up against seed 7, [S] Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1.

Arc: Okay, for those who don't know, that is the kind of half of a flash that we get towards the very end of Homestuck in which the game is starting to glitch out. It's a very beautiful flash, but it stops about two minutes, a minute and a half in. That's that one.

Comma: Oh god, I love that Flash. Okay!

Arc: It's very good.

Comma: And thank you for clarifying, because I didn't remember that name either. Okay, then we have seed 3, [S] Jack: Ascend, up against seed 6, [S] DD: Ascend more casually. And seed 4, [S] WV: Ascend, up against seed 5, [S] Act 7, which I think needs no explanation.

Arc: Yeah, that's gonna be an interesting discussion, isn't it?

Taz: Yes.

Comma: Yes, it is. So my Cinderella pick for this region, again with the caveat that I need to rewatch these and this may change once we get to the actual region, currently is DD: Ascend more casually, if only because I have inflicted it upon basically all of my non-Homestuck friends, particularly when I was going through the comic originally, with the explanation, "Okay, I know you don't care about this at all but look, you have to watch this Flash, it's hilarious."

[Tree laughing]

Arc: It's very good. It's so good. I like that, you can see in the seeding that they ended up paired off together. That was unintentional. There's like one or two intentional setups that I've done in here, because sometimes you have to tweak a bracket just a little bit to make it work. That was completely unintentional. That one just happened and I'm so happy about it.

Tree: It was a happy accident.

Arc: Yeah. Seeding is fun. Seeding is very -- and for those who don't know how seeding works, I Wikipedia'd it? The idea is you're supposed to -- if you are into The Sports -- you're supposed to take the best teams and line them up basically from the very top, #1, best of them all, all the way down to the kind of worst of them all and then cross fight them?

Arc: I still don't quite understand why it works out that way, but it does give you some very interesting matchups and can result in some very interesting flips.

Tree: From my understanding of it, I think it's supposed to be like an underdog situation, where you wanna try and see if the weakest teams by history are gonna be able to match up against the strongest teams.

Arc: Yeah, and if that happens it ends up being a really cool narrative and people love those in their sports TV shows. And stuff.

Taz: I'm glad that we are applying it to the greatest sport of all, Homestuck analysis.

Arc: Oh god, did I mention where I'm stealing this from?

Comma: I don't think you did, actually, you should probably mention that.

Tree: No, you didn't, no.

Arc: But I should definitely give a shout out to who I am ripping this off from. There is a podcast going on right now using a Kanye West song bracket, taking the best 32 Kanye West songs and bringing them together to determine the best one.

Arc: The podcast is called One Song Only. It is run by Austin Walker, with two of his main collaborators from Friends at the Table. I super highly recommend it, even if you're not super into Kanye West. It's a very good discussion of the history of these songs and stuff. You can find it at OneSongOnly.com, and where all good podcasts are sold.

Arc: So, with the slight mention of Act 7, I wanted to ask everyone: do you have criteria going forward into this project? What are you considering when you are trying to pick out what you think the best match out of all of these is? Because some of these are very different. Like you can't tell me that Act 7 is a bad Flash.

Tree: I mean, you can't say it's a bad animation, but it's still controversial for what it contains anyway.

Arc: Yeah, so I'm curious, has anyone thought about how they are weighing these out, or are you just gonna wing it?

Taz: Well, I am probably going to be the pattern breaker at least some of the time here, because I'm notoriously optimistic about Homestuck. What I weigh most heavily in any Flash, really, is how it makes me feel, and in particular, if I think the themes or symbolism of the Flash, or any particular imagery add a lot to the story.

Taz: So, for example, John: Take a bite of apple is doomed. We all know that, but I can see myself making an argument in its defense, just on the basis of the particular themes that it brings up. So that'll be a fight that I'll provide for us.

Arc: And it's interesting, because without John: Take a bite of apple, we would not have Jane: Enter. I mean, yeah, I completely see that.

Taz: Yeah.

Arc: For my part at least, I'm going for... very similarly, I'm trying to divorce it from the context of where each Flash falls. If I wanted to say, like, the actual best Flash is probably Cascade because of the four acts of run up to it to explain how everything works and the fact that it actually comes together is an absolute fucking cinematic marvel.

Arc: But, if you divorce it from that context, which is very difficult, what is the Flash like? What does it do for us, sitting right here? At least that's gonna be my attempt.

Comma: Well, hilariously, I have no choice but to provide that perspective because, again, sleepless haze.

Arc: [laughing] I'm so counting on you to be our tie breaker. It's totally fine.

Comma: Like, I'll be honest, I was watching the Flashes last night and there are a few where I actually put in my notes, "What happens after this Flash? I don't even remember. What happens with this -- when did this happen??"

[background laughter]

Tree: Oh man.

Arc: What's the list of the first one? Is it Pipeorgankind that did that for you, or Descend?

Comma: Um, let me look.... No, I actually remembered that one more or less, once it got through it.

Arc: Was it Tree? Did you have any--

Tree: Ooh, my criteria, yeah. Oh boy.

Arc: If you don't have any, that's fine. You can be convinced by arguments.

Tree: Well, no, see for my own criteria a lot of it is gonna be emotionally based because a lot of the songs -- I guess maybe I just have a weak fucking heart for this kinda stuff, but if the song guts me along with the content, then it's like -- I'm using partially that for criteria.

Tree: But also in addition to that, how cohesive was the Flash? What does it do, what kind of callbacks does it make? Separating it from context is actually gonna be really hard for me because of the fact that so many of them have so many callbacks to some of the original Flashes that are in the bracket that I'm going to be doing too. So it's gonna be a little harder for me, especially in the later regions, to not divorce myself from that.

ARc: Yeah, because as we get further and further in -- like the bracket vaguely moves deeper into the comic, kind of just by accident, by the way it was set up. Things start to overlap, like again, you don't get Jane: Enter without John: Take bite of apple and the recurring symbolism of everything.

Arc: So I should say that we do have four of us currently. As long as we have four of us, there is going to be the possibility of a tie. We're gonna try to keep every discussion fairly short. We wanna get every episode around under an hour, maybe slightly over an hour if it's a big, big episode.

Arc: But there will be no ties. At some point, someone is going to have to make an argument and convince someone else to their side so that we can move on with our lives.

Tree: Someone's gonna have to shoot that horse. Put it down.

Arc: So keep that in mind. Yes! [laughs] For the beaten horse, 500 times. So, okay, I think that -- did I forget anything? I believe that is a decent introduction episode to our very first podcast.

Tree: Yeah, I think we did it. Covered!

Comma: Woo!

Taz: Where's the lantern?

Tree:  [pained groan]

Arc: Oh god. Isn’t that the worst part? That's why -- Mims, Mims, this is a callout for Mims -- you made me fucking separate the Unite/Synchronize suite and now we don't get the lantern and you know the lantern would have won the entire bracket.

Taz: It would have.

Tree: Oh, yeah.

Arc: Because we're all really bad Dirk/Jake fans. It's bad.

Taz: It's okay. I'm sure we'll end up talking about the lantern.

[pause]

Tree: We'll have to! We have to.

Arc: Oh yeah, god, I mean, we shouldn't but we will.

Tree: Like we can't not.

Arc: Check out our first episode, which should be going up around the same time as this introduction episode. To remind everyone listening, our first region is going to be the green region which is, very briefly: Collide versus John: Take bite of apple; Enter versus John: Reunite with loving wife and daughter; John: Rise Up versus Pipeorgankind; and Descend versus the Credits.

[Music rising in background]

Arc: So, I've been Arcturus. I hope you will join us in our next episode and thank you very much.

[Music]

- End Episode 00 -

[kitkat-the-muffin]

Thank you OptimisticDualist for opening my eyes