centaurstesting-my-patience

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My God can you imagine the existential horror that is Equius's headspace?

He is abnormally strong, even for an indigo blooded troll, so he can't adjust or adapt to social situations properly like he's supposed to

He cannot enter the military force he dreams about, as he is too strong to hold a bow and fire an arrow, so all the noble blood in the world can't help him achieve success in life

He is boiling with barely suppressed frustration and anger all the time, when indigobloods, well-adjusted ones at least, are meant to be cheerful and fun to be around even if they are a little clumsy. Equius is angry and miserable and pretty much every person he knows, except Nepeta, hates or is disgusted by him

Some combination of the above as well as his own personal desires have rendered him unable to either maintain the mask indigo bloods are meant to wear, or build/guard the selective social circle indigo bloods are meant to keep (having troll friends/acquaintences far lower down the haemospectrum than he knows he should)

Basically, Equius is everything an indigoblood should not be, with the exception of his values. He is ill-equipped and ill-adjusted and doomed to succeed in nothing and achieve nothing, and he is painfully aware of this - which explains his near constant state of agitation. Heir of Void indeed.

The haemospectrum is something. Even if it chafes against his own desires and personality, he cannot disregard it. He would probably be happier if he accepted himself as he is and stopped trying to reach an impossible and harmful ideal that probably doesn't even exist, but he can't do it.

It's something. It's hope. It's hope of betterment. Loyalty to the caste system is the only thing 'right' about him, when everything else is 'wrong'.

The haemospectrum is Equius's guide to a correct life, the only way to eventually become a more successful and happy troll, even if following it ironically keeps bringing him more pain and anger and self-loathing.

So Equius is loyal till death, giving up his life rather than give up his values because if he betrayed even the haemospectrum then he believes would have absolutely nothing to live for.

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fun fact i actually forgot the word crying for a minute - mod karkat

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i know i say this every 2 weeks but equius’s theme kinda fucks

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Homestuck is the first piece of media that has made me care about straight ships... meowrails go brrrrr

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The biggest tragedy of Homestuck is that when Equius was killed off we were deprived of what could have been so much more muscular horse man imagery.

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equius haters work hard but equius lovers work harder

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also relevant that it seems like his plan for "dealing" with gamzee was to him good manners.

it is also a very real probability that his plan involved flirting with gamzee until he didn't want to murder anyone anymore

great minds at work here, truly

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PSA

avoid conforming to traditional gender norms by avoiding this common palette:

try using these palettes instead!!

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i’ll never forgive you guys for what you allowed to happen to andrew hussie

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Jade <3

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I simply think that equius and nepeta didn’t need to be dead for real life years I simply think that they did not deserve that and I simply think that they should have gotten better and *is pushed off of soapbox*

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Okay, so I actually think there is some merit to the idea that Equius should have died during murderstuck.  Hussie is being a trollish dick about it (that’s kind of his MO). But his actual words are more along the lines of: “Listen, this character is literally based around sexual submission, he’s never going to just straight up kill Gamzee, and it wouldn’t make sense for him to do that.” 

And I essentially agree. If you’re going to make Gamzee a villian, you have to recon with the fact that this was EXACTLY what Equius wanted. Equius was never going “just grab the bow”.  

Gamzee killing him sort of becomes the acme of all his character flaws, and his character arc up until this point. 

While it’s true that Equius is WAY less of an asshole than at the beginning of sburb, the problem with Equius wasn’t just that he was a jerk. It’s that his ideology is extremely harmful. Despite becoming a better moirail throughout homestuck, even beginning to interrogate his own superiority complex a bit, I don’t think he ever REALLY faced the fact that support of the hemospectrum was a bad ideology. He’s so obsessed with the aesthetics of domination that he doesn’t recognize the pain it causes. This is because up until now, he was insulated from it. He could always protect nepeta, and as an indigoblood he was high enough that he was never in any real danger. 

It’s pretty clear from the flash that he knew he was going to die, but it seems like he assumed that things would just go on the same after he died. 

It’s also important to note that Aradia had just dumped his ass (a fair choice tbh), and it certainly didn’t help things. Equius always had trouble separating politics from his sexuality, and Aradia was one of the few people that actually made him question that. He was really only ever attracted to two people, and one of them just rejected him. This is especially dangerous because it has already been established that for Equius, violence is validation. He wasn’t gonna accept anyone’s help at this point because Gamzee was going to indulge him, and he wanted that really badly.  

It’s a more interesting choice to let him die, because his death is a moment for him where things go too far. It’s the final kick in the ass to say “holy shit, I was wrong, my priorities are WAY off, and I fucked up.” Arquius essentially said that to fefeta, but what is frustrating to me is that nothing came of it. I wanted this to spur character development, but I think hussie just had too much on his plate after act five, and that never panned out. It’s deeply unfortunate, though. 

Late night impulsive post making I should really go to bed but pbbbbbbbthh

Anyway thoughts on resident STRONG boi Equius Zahhak.

-as an heir of void probably disassociates. That Would explain the leering behavior, because it would literally just be this boy zonking out in a corner as his friends do random crap.

- He deserved better and I will be eternally mad at Andrew Hussie for writing a character with really interesting potential depth and then going "Ha, no he was a flat joke character with no development all along"

- Should he have survived murder stuck, we would have got more Equius and Dave interaction which I crave with the force of 10,000 black holes. Like imagine those two becoming friends. Too good, too chaotic 10/10.

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As much this meme physically hurts me, it kind of demonstrates to me why NFTs aren't art, and also why they're so fucking annoying to look at.

Like, yes, homestuck sprites are customizable, arguably a bit ugly, and a little flat. But there is at the very least thought put into giving each character the traits that they have. A character sprite's individual style says something about their character and who they are as a person (if they put on makeup, what clothes they wear).

Also, I don't think I would like these sprites nearly as much as I do if they weren't backed up by meaningful, developed characters. this might be a basic thing but it's really important. There's a value to pure aesthetics, but I don't actually think it's necessary for good design or even good art. There just has to be some thought put into it.

I think you can have AI art that works. Like either because it's really aesthetically pleasing, or because it says something, or is at least TRYING to say something. It's just like...you have to have one. Most randomly generated NFTs are just to make money, and that's why I feel like I hate them so much.

I'm just a layperson, I do art, but I don't consider myself an artist. If anyone wants to disagree with me here I'd love to hear it.

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i have not read homestuck^2, but from what i am hearing second hand I feel like the new homestuck content has gone so far off the rails at this point has become camp. like, i think we just need to accept that these aren’t the same characters anymore and just enjoy the ride. we need the new writers and the fandom to reconcile and work together to embrace this new reality so that we can finally shoot the moon and become iconic. 

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hot take

sex is good actually, reblog if you agree. 

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The actual answer to this question is that there’s a subsection of gay/bi men online that are super into horse iconography, and hussie thought some of the art from that community fit well into his fascination with absurdism. He made a bunch of jokes about it in the late 2000s, and even created a comic about it called humanimals. When writing homestuck, he wanted to call back to that sort of style and humor, hence, Equius. 

But there’s another interesting topic here which is how do you look past all the weird aesthetics and sex stuff with Equius, and the answer is that I’m not sure you can, and that’s okay. 

With Equius, a lot of the horse stuff is tied to his masculinity. He’s a very masculine character, and takes genuine pride in that. However, this is kind of at odds with him being sexually submissive, and Equius can’t, for the life of him, reconcile that with the rest of that image of himself. 

I also think Equius’ sexuality adds more depth to his character than people tend to give it credit for. He’s ostracized by his peers because of it, which contributes to his loneliness. a lot of his worst behavior is him trying to justify his desire to be submissive with a society that says he should be dominant (see: Aradia). He seems genuinely ashamed of admitting that he’s sexually submissive, and voicing his actual desires to people, so he ends up trying to piss off people he’s attracted to so that they’ll hurt him. The biggest tragedy of all of this is that Aradia (why she kissed him after she slapped him programming the heart) and Gamzee both realized this on some level. However, Aradia realized she deserved better (because she did). That left him alone, and instead of talking to the one person who might have actually understood (nepeta), he turned to someone who took advantage of him, because literally dying was less shameful than admitting that his hemophobia was a cover for his masochism, and not an actual ideology worth following. 

Some people are just sweaty weirdos with questionable fetishes, and like, they deserve love. 

trying so hard not to like equius homestuck because Haha Ew Sweaty Horse Man, but also thinking about the absolute tragedy of one of the most intelligent trolls in Homestuck being brainwashed by a hemophobic system to the point that he doesn’t know how to behave around others outside of oppressive class structures that he is told give his life meaning, while desperately craving genuine emotional connection and intimacy with anyone at all due to the inherently isolating nature of that system, and being told it would be disgraceful to interact with anyone who is “beneath” him, while also desperately needing any sort of confirmation that the system that he thinks defines his identity and worth is valid even when it demeans those closest to him, and the inherent loneliness and turmoil this all must cause him on a daily basis ……………………………. but also why all the horse dick