#which like... why put emphasis on those characters when they havent even appeared in the story yet

[spelviin]

ok i’m like 99% sure the moms are not the purple robes

i went back and listened to ep 15/16 when they first meet the three of them, and it just doesn’t add up. 

like basically the only thing they have in common is the descriptors “tall and thin” and “short and rotund/stocky” which like... first of all, there’s only so many ways to differentiate characters while concealing their faces/identities, and describing build is pretty much it, so it makes sense that there would be some overlap in descriptors even among different sets of characters. there’s also the fact that the third purple robe is never described as being “curvy” while i’m pretty sure anthony describes mercedes as such like fifty-seven times. 

there’s also the fact that anthony has only ever referred to the purple robes as guys, men, he/him, etc, while he started using she/her for the mummies pretty much immediately. he doesn’t seem the type to deliberately obfuscate pronouns to throw off the audience, so unless he went through an entire year of the podcast before deciding the identities of the main bad guys of the campaign, it just doesn’t track for me. 

and lastly... i just don’t see any overlap there, personality-wise. i know there’s been a lot of talk about the “something” that had been siphoned off the moms during their ten-year fall being their kindness or their love or their tolerance for their husbands’ bullshit or whatever, but even so... i just can’t see them saying the things that the purple robes say to the dads, not even on their worst days. like, that “overly feminine bullshit” barb that one of the purple robes pulled on ron when terry jr was taken? in what universe would any of the wives, even some weird warped evil version, say something like that? it’s just not in character.

you know who it is in character for, though? 

willy fucking stampler.

i dunno, it just makes a lot more sense to me that the purple robes are the dads’ own fathers than some weird warped versions of their wives that are so far removed from the personalities we know that they’re practically different characters. 

we already know willy is an abusive misogynist prick who kills cats. we already know daddy oak is an asshole who believes in corporal punishment and set such a terrible example for his own son that he’s now terrified of expressing anger towards his kids for fear of ending up “like him”. frank is... a bit of a wild card, but i think it’s safe to say that the dude had some obsession with being “the perfect father” (likely since rob disappeared and he never had a dad of his own so he put a lot of pressure on himself with darryl) and that obsession could lead to extreme disappointment in darryl for not being, as scam likely put it, as good a dad as he had been. 

and daddy close remains a mystery because freddie, bless his soul, is playing glenn’s backstory sooooo close to the chest in the interest of letting things come out organically. which i hella respect but at the same time it’s like. tell me everything, i wanna know all about the close family!!!!!! but i digress.

point is, i just think the dads’ dads suit the descriptions we’ve had so far and the attitudes/motivations of the purple robes way more than their wives do. i could be wrong, and this could be me just being married to my pet theory, but idk... it just makes the most sense considering what we know so far. 

[macklives]

session 92 end (bye 413...)

this session was so long but so fucking hectic what the fuck

im going to try and slim it down to its bare essentials rather than go on a full rant because im pretty sure i want to make a post later on about vriska’s characterisation (not anything about me liking her/disliking her, just an analyse on her life really, so it wont be too bias because thats not the point of an analysis. i also want to do one on aradia, been meaning to for a while... hmm... damn i havent done much analogies lately, and i THINK the last long post on a character i made was about davesprite??? so its been a fucking while. that being said, ill leave a lot of details out for this end of session notes so i dont just repeat myself later on. rather will keep to plot points here and then make character points in another)

alright

first we had a page or two where aradia confided in nepeta about her being dead which means nepeta is the only one to know this revelation. im pretty sure aradia confided because there was no other way around it, since nepeta was her server player, so it was inevitable. either way, aradia still put her trust in nep, which means, if you think about it, nobody else knows and nobody else ever will. and considering aradia asked nep to keep it a secret, it probably wont get explored by others until MAYBE later on, whenever its plot relevant, so everyone will be in the dark about it for a while which ill have to remember for future dialogue and scenes with aradia in them

then we met vriska

which, yes, is a meme. i may not have been on a lot of fandom platforms, but you cant escape some of the stuff that goes around the internet. even if you dont know undertale, im pretty sure you know of sans. or komaeda if you have/havent seen danganronpa. its just.. the memes, ya know? ive heard from many sources of the “vriska did nothing wrong” quote (even through mbmbam which??? WHAT) but since i didnt even know what it meant, i never explored it so then i never knew it was a homestuck thing. imagine my surprise...... i think even at the time, i wouldnt have known what homestuck was either honestly so it wouldnt even matter. i only recently learned about the fandom.... uhh, maybe half a year ago??? yeah, august, so my knowledge was slim but vriska is a thing ive heard before, which still shocks me

goddammit

anyways back to her

so her intro was something, we pretty much found out she likes DnD (a FANATIC in fact) and feeds her lusus the flesh of living trolls. which is fucked up. but i wont get too much into detail about that until i make a post about her life on alternia and the consequences of such. or maybe just alternia in general...?? or *both* heheheh but i feel i need more information before i go off on a tangent about that

then we met??? white text dude?? who is a major asshole but an asshole with insults that hURted, to think i felt bad for VRISKA when that happened. woah.

i said before, but... karkat, he cant really hit deep because his insults are just HIM and his way to express himself. like some people find it natural to just go “FUCK YOU” to show emphasis on a point, and thats just karkats way. he may do it so aggressively that it takes you a second to realize what he said, but usually i dont take anything to heart whenever he spurts out some insults. ive progressed to the point where whatever he says, is just “karkat” and not him trying to be actively mean. rather, its now funny whenever he does say anything SOMEWHAT creative, dude has an imagination that goes on for miles

but vriska?? she IS trying to be a bully, you can tell. but i feel theres something much more to that. like shes trying to prove herself and her “blueblooded” demeanours or whatever the hierarchy is. she doesnt want to show emotions so she makes herself a barrier by being mean is what i can gather from her conversation with kanaya. im pretty sure youre not supposed to understand her until its pointed out and rather see her as an “antagonist” at first, but yeah, her insults are more pitiful than anything and i also cant take her too seriously. i may not like her as a person but her character is interesting because you cant always have the goodie two shoes as the protags. it doesnt diversify the characterisation so i like vriska as someone who makes the plot work and it becomes more interesting since you have someone that makes it harder for the main crew to progress. a happy-go-lucky adventure with no trouble and no turnabouts would be boring in a way. so having a character like vriska, or like this new white text guy, it makes you stop for a second and realize oh shit okay, here’s where shit CAN go wrong and WHY. and i do especially like it when these bastards of characters somehow have more depth than being the “bastard characters”. kinda humanizes them in a way. doesnt mean you have to LIKE them continuously, but theyre humans (trolls whatever) in the end and every person has their own story whether its for better or for worse

for example, i like her being placed into the story, along with white text, by how its all leading to this “accident” and is slowly showing us hints on what happened, but in the end, it wont be until later that we know the full story. even if it was in the past, it apparently is very vital to the plot and shapes how the characters act in the future, so important aspects like that are to look out for. and usually they only occur when theres been some trouble within friend dynamics. so without these bastard of characters, plot wouldnt grow AS strong and i often keep that in mind when i explore a story.

anyways, I HAD A POINT TO THIS: so vriska and karkat are characters who are yes, mean, but it seems to be their personality, and the way they either show emotions and convey feelings (karkat) or make a barrier so they DONT show emotions to produce vulnerability (vriska), white text guy seems to mostly be out to be an asshole. he told vriska she was useless to sum it up but im not too sure if this is one of those “first dialogue” to mould out a bias opinion before we even get to the character themselves, but judging by how vriska and karkat played out, he surely means something bad and i dont know how to explain it. but i cannot base anything off from one piece of dialogue. i dont even know what else to call him other than white text guy so...... ill just leave that out for now, until we finally get his introduction

though, i do wish to mention, and will expand on, im not wrong when i say karkat and vriska are similar but in different context. sorry if youre favourite is karkat and you dont like vriska, or vice versa, but uhhhh their introductions are so similar its uncanny and the way they’re portrayed is the same except one is more on crack about the meddling, while the other is angry about the meddling. similar to how it was with karkat, we were introduced to vriska talking with someone we knew (tavros) whom she obviously didnt like, so obviously, from her point of view, she wanted to be menacing. like how karkat was menacing to jade because she wouldnt listen to his point... he got angry, so he lashed out. but us, the readers, didnt know that. we thought “oh god its this asshole” until we made it further in the story and started to warm up to karkat. it may not be the same with vriska, she may be a bully regardless, but you cannot tell me we moulded a bias towards her character as we did when we first read karkat. theyre both truly mean to other people, maybe both for different reasons, but i do want to point out the similarities and not leave that out. im pretty sure andrew basically gave us a conversation that formed our opinion of a character right off the bat rather than go into depth of WHY they did it, and how they are naturally without the conditions of the game. which, you can also see with vriska when she conversed with kanaya. andrew started off with a character who only appears to speak once, and makes you judge them from first appearance alone, without any explanation as to why they said what they said and how they are with other characters, let says. so you assume they were simply a rude character. now look how karkat turned out. so im guessing in homestuck, the first impression should never be the opinion you stick with until MAYBE 5 more conversations with that character (each one different)

OKAY done with the vriska introduction, now to slutquius

yes, hes kinda weird, i have stated that many times. i have no idea what to say about him other than he likes porn, he likes centaur dick which just so happens to be his lusus as well and if that isnt a red flag idk what is

he also likes his lusus milk, right from the udders of his guardian

fun times, fun times

my opinion of equius kinda.. differs. which i should really put in place the “dont judge by first impression” rule, because at first i thought he was rude with, then i thought he was hhh okay, because i understood why he was being so protective over nepeta and her team placement, since the people she was going to play with WERE dangerous. but if you think about it, both sides will probably put you in danger. it just depends on which ones you confide in more to protect your back rather than those which would cause trouble on purpose, in my HONEST opinion. so equius was a little overdramatic on that part, but i got what he meant. he was on the blue team and he didnt want to leave nepeta alone without him on the red. but then this session happened. and he went back to being weird again because of the whole porn thing, especially being so open about it like dude chill youre 13. but the thing is, then i felt bad for him because hes basically touch starved. to say that he could break anything he touches, i doubt people would go up to him for hugs. in fear they would be crushed to death by a simple hug. so im guessing hes rather lonely and doesnt really know how to interact because of this. so i felt sad that he had to live a life where he needs to be careful of everything he touches so it doesnt break randomly. see? poor dude. but then things got weird. and im pretty sure hes a masochist. so my opinion on equius is a fucking cosine graph

which brings us to the final point:

gamzee and equius’ conversation

i dont even know.....like.........gamzee was unaware that equius was using him for his own power play roleplay, right? gamzee knew it was a roleplay but it had had some.. idk.... obvious sexual implications? and i bet gamzee didnt really know that? he thought they were only venting out through a simple roleplay and trying to get closer because he originally thought equius hated him, considering equius flat out said “i hate you” and gamzee went “you tell me everyday and im okay with that” so.. gamzee probably wanted only to get closer to equius so he helped out his little problem which.. thats so sweet but i feel bad he was coerced into something he didnt get, especially since he was innocent enough to go along without knowing equius’ true gain

anyways, equius was getting off with the hierarchy thing. considering he’s “lower” than gamzee, and gamzee is surprisingly ...high on the spectrum??? so equius wanted gamzee to boss him around, because it felt only natural to him since he’s the “inferior one” and gamzee is The Big Man. like i get that, but it was written in a way that was so uncomfortable, that i wish i didnt. equius is just a weird character... hes not BAD per say, but hes... hes something alright

but im really liking gamzee. the two things which struck me in that one conversation, was the “i dont get why we should dictate people by the colour of their blood, i just see people as people” piece of dialogue and “i cant go around pleasing just everything so its alright if you hate me”

thats... so good, idk. i really liked that. i also really liked when kanaya said “youre dangerous but dangerous people are needed and are important because it shapes you” like <33 my fucking heart

god homestuck may be a tad on the weird side with some of its characters but it surely knows how to create great lines of dialogue

and that concludes the long 4 hour session i did, hope you all enjoyed it

with that, i rest

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

[skips-is-asleep]

Steph Talks For Way Too Long About Sollux’s Harry Potter House

I havent been able to stop thinking  or talking about this topic for like 60+ hours

first wanna say that it’s really hard to interpret how people are sorted because JK Rowling is apparently shitty at writing. So people seem to have wildly different opinions on why people are in the houses they’re in because they view the houses and their qualifications differently.

I’ve also never read a harry potter book and havent watched a movie for like 5+ years maybe so i had to talk to like 3-4 people who went though huge harry potter phases and we talked for over 3 hours cumulatively for me to make up my mind.

I think it’s really important to say that because Sollux isn’t really a main character, there’s a lot we have to make guesses on. Hussie didn’t make a big sheet full of Sollux’s Dreams and Ambitions, Morals and Beliefs, so we have to  fill in a lot of blanks on what we think those are based on a few things. Who he talks to, and associates himself with and what he does

The point being we don’t have a lot to work with.

It’s also pretty important to say that Sollux puts on a LOT of fronts and facades. He’s only truly mean and cruel to people he doesn’t like or care about Plus Karkat. He plays Fake Mean a lot, and if you dig even a centimeter under it, we see time and time again that he’s just pretending and does actually give many shits.

Sollux is also really passive in most things that he does. He doesn’t really question anyone’s authority or make a point to fight something out very often. The only time we ever see him resort to action to solve his problems are when dealing with Eridan. And even then, the first time we ever see them talk, it’s Eridan walking up to him and Feferi privately having a conversation and Sollux telling his gf to “make him go away.” And then after Eridan doesn’t go away, we see him resort to fighting. His PQ arc also has him antagonize Eridan and then drop a building on him, so like, yeah. Usually, when presented with conflict, Sollux either removes himself from the situation quickly, or if he’s unable to do so, makes it extremely clear that he doesn’t want to engage. In most cases, Sollux is by himself, sitting alone and not making attempts to talk to anyone else. It’s totally possible that he’s more social at other times and we only see him when he’s at his worst, but we dont see that so we can’t really speculate much on it. Point being, he’s very passive and self contained/oriented.

What i really want to put emphasis on is the people he associates with. His main friends we see him talk to willingly or at least show fondness for are Aradia, Feferi, Kanaya, Terezi, and Karkat. Three of these are considered main characters, or are at least given character arcs to some extent. These are the good guys. The guys who at least try to do good, and show compassion, and care about others. The characters we see him either avoid quietly, avoid loudly or vocally hate and commit violence against are the rest of the characters. Namely Vriska, Gamzee and Eridan. (im kinda gonna gloss over Vriska because his distaste/hatred/unpleasantness towards her  doesn’t have to be a moral statement on his part. It’s pretty easy to assume that anyone with his past to her would have a similar if not identical stand point) These are characters that actively do bad things, they murder and harm others at worst and are gross nasty incels at best. And even the best case in that scenario is still blabberingly racist and, treats sollux and the people he cares about like shit. Sollux doesn’t associate with people that the comic have established are villains, or at least do things that are pretty unambiguously wrong or evil.

In Sollux’s pesterquest, Kanaya tells MSPA reader than when The Thing with Aradia first happened, Sollux refused contact with Kanaya because she didn’t cut off Vriska. He was upset at her for being associated with someone who traumatized him. This is very telling of sollux’s personality and his relationship with his friends, and it’s a side we don’t see of Sollux any other time in the comic or in his PQ arc. It’s only when she tells him that she doesn’t cut Vriska off due to romantic feelings for her does Sollux change his mind. He doesn’t bring up Vriska, Aradia, his grief or his trauma at any point while at his visit with her that we see. He doesn’t appear mad or reluctant to be there, he makes jokes, smiles, and reminisces memories with her fondly, even almost sleeps over at her place for the day. It’s like he’s completely forgotten about being upset at her at all, or is at least choosing not to bring it up out of respect for her.

Again, it’s unclear how much time has passed. But when you start his arc, the reason youre talking to him is because he’s been reclusive out of grief. He hasn’t been talking to people lately and his friends are worried about him. So clearly enough time has passed for him to be okay with seeing Kanaya, as that’s his sole purpose for leaving his hive that day at all, but not enough time for him to be fully recovered.

This moment in his arc showcases his loyalty that he has for Kanaya, and possibly his other friends. He seemed quick to forgive her, or at least bury whatever resentment he may have been harboring. One may say that his cold shoulder to Kanaya would be indicative of a lack of a loyalty trait at all, that if he were loyal to her, he wouldn’t be ready to possible end his relationship with her over this. But i kind of view it as a sort of bluff? Like Kanaya essentially told him that his trauma did not at all change the way she feels about her, Kanaya still has a crush on Vriska after hearing about what she did to one of her good friends. To some, this may have been a slap to the face, an entire dismissal of his trauma in it’s entirety. But instead, he sees it as a valid reason for not cutting her off, he shrugs it off. I feel like if he were serious about not wanting to be friends with Kanaya while she was talking to someone who hurt him greatly, her crush wouldn’t have been an excuse.

I also wanna touch on his loyalty to Aradia very quickly because you dont need me to  tell you that he cares about her. Once again for like the third time, we have to make guesses on how much time has passed between events. From the time Aradia dies on Alternia, becomes a ghost with an entirely new personality, a robot with another personality, and then finally her alive Godtier self, Sollux’s feelings for her are very consistent. He seems to not really care for the ghost or robot versions of her, he even sits a chair away from her during Openbound on the meteor, and doesn’t talk to her much, is very cold towards her, and even tells her that she’s incapable of feeling when she tries to tell him goodbye when she explodes (it’s also worth noting he cries after this, which i think is the first and only time we see him do this). When Aradia comes back to the meteor, alive and herself again, Sollux immediately leaves the rest of his friends to go hang out with her. Even with Karkat begging him to stay, he just peaces out, without even really thinking about it. We have to assume that if it’s not written in the dialogue, it isn’t being said. So he doesn’t discuss wanting to leave with Aradia or with anyone else. He just decides he’s leaving, and then does. And he stays by her side for almost the rest of the time we see him. He ditches later for other reasons, but don’t worry, they’re back together by the time Collide is happening.

Point being, for the most part, he sticks by his friends unless they’re doing something he disagrees with morally. If he’s not down for what’s happening, he’s not down for sticking around. He even seems to be better friends with Nepeta now that this version of her isn’t really hanging out with Equius that much, someone Sollux would no doubt not get along with for many reasons.

Some of my friends pointed out that him sticking by his morals so strongly is something a Slytherin would do, coupled with the fact that he’s kind of a dick or something idk that much about Slytherins. But I think Huffliepuff is very much about comradery. We can tell a lot about Sollux based on who he surrounds himself with and what he does and doesn’t participate in. He doesn’t participate in trolling humans, he doesn’t participate in helping Vriska do something he doesn’t feel good about doing, he doesn’t participate in any of the relationship melodrama happening around him. But he helps his friends. He helps Kanaya open the viewfinder to see and talk to Rose, he helps Kanaya do little errands in his PQ route, he helps Terezi find out who Dave is, and he sacrifices himself to save the remainder of his group (which btw only contains the people I’ve previously stated he associates with minus feferi not that that means anything i just thought it was kind of fun to point out). I mean, he got better but its the thought that counts.

Someone could make a point that “If Sollux is so loyal, why didn’t he mourn Feferi even a little bit when he found out she was dead?” And yeah, that’s a good point to bring up, and i don’t really have anything to say about it other than….maybe he knew by this point that death doesn’t really mean anything? Maybe his euphoria of finally being lifting of the voices was happening at the same time? And also that he predicted he’d go blind like a million pages ago and now he can finally stop worrying about it? Is he happy that he’s talking to Terezi and right now that’s more important? It’s hard to tell. Sollux doesn’t really explain himself apart from “missing being her matesprite” when in Erisolsprite form talking  to Fefetasprite form. It’s hard to tell what their relationship was at the time, or what his feelings truly were immediately afterward. I kinda think it was the foremost of those explanations, he probably knew that she’d come back as a ghost, or something?

Anyway, those are all the reasons i can think of at the moment for why I think Sollux would be Hufflepuff. A lot of his personality revolves around his friends, who he considers friends and who he doesn’t consider friends. Send me asks, message me, and do that shit if you wanna talk more, but i probably won’t have a whole lot to say lmao. Or ill just restate a lot of what i said here.

Props for getting this far. For the record, if Sollux for some reason was unable to be in Hufflepuff, I’d probably put him 50/50 Ravenclaw or Slytherin. I really don’t think he’s a Gryfindor because as I understand it, that house is very much about being courageous, and standing up for yourself and i went off for way to long about how he’s a little weenie man who does nothing mostly.