#I do try to make the explanation understandable even without knowledge of homestuck though

[godsfavoritescientist]

reblogging this since its homestuck day. here's an excerpt!

Bill Cipher: Lord of Hope (the homestuck classpect)

explanation for why I picked this classpect for him under the cut

First of all: I think classpect is heavily influenced by one's narrative role in a story. It's influenced by personality too, of course, but someone with the exact same personality could have a completely different classpect depending on how the story uses them.

Lord is an extremely powerful class reserved for the big-bad in homestuck. It means having unimaginable amounts of control over your aspect (which here is Hope). It's also a volatile, destructive, and self-serving class. It's also the mirror and opposite of the Muse class, which is equally powerful, but wielded passively for the benefit of others, often using methods more like setting up all the components of a rube goldberg machine behind the scenes, rather than the Lord's preferred method of steamrolling over things whenever possible.

Second side-note: Each aspect has an opposite, and I think these aspect pairs meaningfully influence each other by virtue of being on opposite ends of a continuum. You might even say they're opposite sides of the same concept.

Hope is the aspect of imagination, limitless possibilities, belief, and the literal meaning as well. It also has a ton of religious undertones. Its opposite aspect is Doom, which, other than the literal meaning, is all about rules, limitations, doubt, and what is rather than what could be. They both need each other--without Hope, Doom becomes despair. Without Doom, Hope becomes completely disconnected from reality.

Which brings me to Bill. On the Hope-Doom spectrum, he's leaned so absurdly far towards Hope that he's convinced himself Doom doesn't even exist. In his reddit AMA, he literally says "lie until what you want to be true becomes true. Lie until you can't remember what's a lie and what isn't. Lie until you aren't lying anymore." I can't think of a better encapsulation of what it means to push the Hope aspect to its absolute extreme. He believes so much in the power of belief that he simply ignores any truths he doesn't like.

He embodies the Hope aspect in many other ways, too. Originally he was going to be more of a morally-neutral trickster character, whose whole purpose was just to show up randomly in Dipper's dreams and rattle off wild statements of questionable truth and conspiracy theories at him. The kind of things that people hope are true (sometimes to make the world seem more exciting and magical, sometimes for bigoted reasons, you know how it is with conspiracy theories), but the point is: Bill retains some of this in his canon personality. He tells Ford in the journal that the moon landing was fake. When he first meets Gideon, he says the whole "reality is an illusion" thing. He delights in sharing these kinds of things with people, and yeah, it's to fuck with them, but there's still something to be said about the fact that he accomplishes this through the use of things that exist as uncertain possibilities in people's minds, and things that some people have a strong belief in and/or hope to find proof of. He's wielding Hope as a tool, because that's when he's in his element.

Bill also preys on people's hopes and dreams, appearing to people literally inside their heads, and existing mainly in dreams and minds for billions of years--a place where you really can create anything you can imagine. He uses Ford's hopes of accomplishing something meaningful to get him to create a doomsday device. He also has Ford practically worshiping him, calling him a Muse with a capital M, calling his presence 'divine intervention'... the religious themes that often go hand-in-hand with the Hope aspect are definitely present. Of course a Lord would wield the Hope aspect to give himself worshipers who practically see him as a god.

And, speaking of doomsday devices, Weirdmageddon is the exactly what would happen in a world where the Hope aspect ran rampant without any laws or restrictions or concrete truths. In the codes of Journal 3, Bill says, "why should time only move forward, why must cause precede effect, who voted on the laws of physics - rules are perversions against all will, that's why I'm about to rewrite the whole system buddy, and no one is going to stop me."

We also get some insight into Bill's beliefs when we take a look as Mabel's dreambubble. He literally uses someone's hopes as a weapon against them, trapping her inside a twisted version of all the things that could've been true, if only the world was fueled by pure imagination, without any laws of physics or imperfect days or boring moments. Bill is so confident that this trap is infallible that he doesn't even bother to stop Dipper from trying to get her out once he makes it inside the dreambubble. Maybe the reason why Bill is so confident that this trap is inescapable is because he's pretty much trapped himself in a dreambubble of his own creation, where anything is possible and fantasy wins over reality every time (talking about the nightmare realm here), and was so intoxicated by the limitless lawlessness of the place that he spent billions of years trying to expand his little self-imposed prison to cover the rest of the multiverse, rather than ever stop to question himself or consider the consequences. Because with enough Hope, there are no consequences, only infinite possibilities limited only by your own imagination! ...right?

I could probably go on, but I think this is more than enough to support my case for Bill being a Lord of Hope. I'm always interested to hear about other classpect headcanons though!

[classpectcurse]

class pairs: seer - mage

key words: perceiving, knowing, understanding

(why bother with a preamble when i can just jump right in to the interesting stuff)

these things are monsters, watch out

seer: passive

they understand their class, can perceive it with greater clarity and thoroughness than others. this tends to be an intellectual, brainy sort of understanding. it errs on the side of theoretical rather than practical knowledge. seers are head thinkers: they are able to come up with plans, ideas, solutions, about their aspect that others might not. they understand and have a VISION of their aspect. they can be relied on to direct others, come up with the best strategy, to explain the topic clearly and make others understand the thing.

however, on the flip side, if unchecked, it makes them rather idealistic and naive, and often arrogant. they can be blinded by their own knowledge. because their knowledge has a limit.

as a passive class, they are best served in a passive role; they work best when guiding others, teaching, directing, or strategising, rather than putting themselves on the front lines. by being head thinkers, seers tend not to think emotionally, and thus end up lacking a sense of boundaries when it comes to executing their own plans. this can lead to them taking things too far, morally speaking, or failing to be cautious due to overconfidence in their own abilities.

in fiction, a seer that oversteps his role is often punished by the narrative. they go too far, and engineer their own downfall. their hubris brings their own demise. they must learn to step back, take on the guiding role for players better suited to direct action, and they will see the best results.

the seer class is obviously based on the mythological seer archetype. think, the oracle of delphi in greek myths. the seer’s role is often to passive guide, to direct the heroes towards what they need without directly interfering in events. seers are often used as a narrative device by authors to deliver exposition; occasionally this use might be so egregious as to change a character who is otherwise NOT a seer into a seer by function (looking @ u jkr :/).

(important note that in fiction/mythology, the seer role has an unpleasant gender aspect to it, in that seer is an easy role to shove a passive woman character into, to give her something to do/say in the plot without involving her in any action. this is still unfortunately true of a lot of fiction today, but this doesn’t work irl bc gender is fake. beware of assigning gendered fictional seer characteristics to descriptions of the seer class.)

a great example of a fictional seer arc is mdzs wei wuxian. (SPECIFICALLY the mdzs version, not the drama version. cql!wwx is a different story.) through his ingenuity and creativity, he becomes the founder of demonic cultivation. however, he is arrogant in assuming that he knows best, that he could control the yin tiger seal, that his path was the only path to follow. the result is, the narrative punishes him for his arrogance. he loses control. he watches his loved ones dies. he dies a horrible death.

but in his second life, after his resurrection, he properly steps into the seer role. he solves the mystery, he guides and teaches the juniors, he steps away from the demonic path. and through embracing his role as a seer, he is finally able to achieve his happiness.

emotionally speaking, seers aren’t very complicated? if the time is right and the circumstances align they’ll confess their feelings etc. they might lack a sense of shame about it, in fact that seems an alarmingly consistent pattern. they kind of just don’t place on the emotional constipation scale. though they might be bogged down by logic and stuff and won’t examine their own feelings properly until later.

identifying traits of a seer: - wordy. good at explaining things; smort - very much a head thinker as opposed to a heart thinker; likes to think of things intellectually - can seem a bit emotionally cold? not that they’re cold people but just that they tend to be a little less overtly emotional, simply due to the nature of their class

examples of seers: namjoon (RM) from bts, wei wuxian (MDZS only), jing beiyuan (qi ye), rose lalonde (Homestuck), terezi pyrope (Homestuck)

prospit/derse: fairly straightforward, both types of seers still tend to be up there in terms of energy and chattiness, but derse seers are just more pretentious about it ngl.

mage: active

on the flip side to seers’ cerebral understanding of their aspect, mages have an intuitive, experience-based understanding, and they function best by employing this understanding directly.

mages, in a team dynamic, essentially serve as the talented weirdo/grumpy uncle who is extremely competent at their job, as long as nobody asks them to explain what they’re doing. mages understand their aspect supremely well, but they CANNOT, for the life of them, explain what the fuck goes through their head. it just comes out a bunch of confused, jumbled rambling that doesn’t really help anyone else. everyone knows that, without a doubt, this guy is a genius, but it’s useless to ask them to teach you because they can’t. they can’t explain shit.

their understanding of their aspect is not, NOT intellectual. it’s just that it comes from a place of instinct, rather than of deliberate, calculated thought. mages work best when they don’t try too hard to rationalise their understanding, but instead allow themselves to operate according to how they feel is best.

mages don’t really have a specific character arc? it’s more just about consistently trusting their instincts, maintaining the relationships around them, and retaining the trust of the people in the team. mages really need to do their own thing, and so a team is best off when they point the mage in the right direction and let them do what they feel is best, because they’ll often do a better job going off instinct than any plan could.

mage characters often come with some kind of tragic or mysterious backstory. because mages learn from experience, this backstory often serves as an explanation for their level of expertise. but irl this isn’t strictly necessary for mages. nevertheless they retain an intuitive understanding of their aspect which can be traced to their personal experience of it.

the thing to know about mages to identify them is just, they give off weird gremlin vibes. like, weird cousin in the basement vibes. like, coffeeshop uncle yelling about the government vibes. like on the surface they might seem respectable and shit, but deep down?? they’re some weirdo gremlin and that cannot shake the weirdness even if they’re in a law firm or a full tailored suit.

i used to think mages were really emotionally constipated but honestly they’re not that bad? they like to put things off, emotionally speaking. like they want to just leave that stuff for later, maybe never, bye, but they do get to it eventually. there’s a lot less active agonising going on, they just don’t like to think about the Feelings thing. when they do confront it, it’s usually just a, OK I SAID HOW I FEEL, CAN WE SKIP TO THE PART WHERE THINGS AREN’T AWKWARD ANYMORE. it’s funny but it gets the job done i guess.

identifying traits of a mage: - grumpy, crabby, whatever you get the vibe - gremlin energy. they’re just kind of weird - know their shit but cannot explain it, like maybe they can explain it a bit but it’s really not their talent and they are more likely to confuse someone than teach them anything - don’t like talking about their feelings if they can help it, but they’re not like, awful at it ig

examples of mages: yoongi (suga) bts, edward elric, meulin leijon (homestuck), sollux captor (homestuck), zhou zishu (tian ya ke, word of honor)

prospit/derse: prospit is edward elric. derse is bts suga. idk what else to tell u. it’s angry weirdo vs vaguely apathetic weirdo. both are weird with gremlin vibes.

[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

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 6 - Meat Page 16

==>  (Whoa, went a long while before splitting posts, there.  Dangerous, with how often I’ve lost stuff to Tumblr page reloads in the past.)

Oh, you’ve realized Zazzerpan’s relevance as foreshadowing for the trolls or whatever, Rose?

Oh my god, PLEASE don’t put Rose inside a fucking robot.  >:|

Oh SHIT wait.  That one wizard Roxy named her cat after who wanted all the knowledge in the world, got overloaded and then crushed by the giant textbook or whatever???  That’s disturbingly Rose-similar here.  D:

Rose, puns.  Please.

Hm, you think it applies to you all now instead of the trolls?  Huh.  Do you think some of you might become villains and get Just deaths?

..Huh, wait.  Numerological significance?  Are we actually learning what 413 means?  Or learning that it was meant to be bullshit all along instead?  I’m “Hmmm”ing loudly either way...

Ow, ouch.  So a Light player wasn’t designed to properly live outside of canon significance, or??

Ooh.  She’s not sure that if she opens herself up to all the knowledge of her other selves, that it’d be “her” anymore.  A pretty legitimate fear... and one Dirk is perfectly disposed to disabuse her of.  As a Heart player, he’d understand better than most that the entire combination of one’s various states over all timelines IS you, and the unique direction your will and uniqueness embodies across whatever it touches.  Or something.

...Wait, wait a minute.  Before I keep reading........ I didn’t actually CLICK the candy button yet.  What if Candy just redirects to AO3 or something.  Like, the candy bit is all of our fanfics.  Oh jeez.

Okay reading on before that possibility drives me insane.

DIRK: I’m not sure anyone should be allowed to have that much foresight. Especially a guy like me.

...Mhmm, especially since in part that’s how we got Doc Scratch, yeah.

Reading to the end of this page, and........

Yeah, what the FUCK just happened.

So... is this Dirk BEING a villain?  Doing some sort of weird almost cherubic Eye thing to kind of supplant Rose as he becomes a Scratch-like fanfic narrator or... Let me reread these last few paragraphs a couple times...

Is he really sort of “puppeteering” Rose?  Is this like the birth of a god-tier villain or just a temporary respite he’s giving her sort of underhandedly for an actual good cause to help her out of her situation??  Or is “death” or a death of the self the actual solution he had for her mess???  I mean... the metatextual awareness bit that he’s speaking through in the last sentence is clearly something like what comes of ascending completely and going beyond the story to be able to write it like Caliborn or Doc Scratch might or... y’know what, fuck it.  I’ll understand it in later pages.  I have to keep reading if this is going to make sense to me.

This next button better not lead straight back to the fucking selection screen again.

==>

Oh shit, a giant Dirk section.  Only fitting that he might have been writing most of this all along possibly.

Undercurrent of narrative significance.  Oh shit.  Is he going to go off about Light, about the story parts not mattering?  Or that the fact that this IS a story and... from what I accidentally skimmed in sentences below before reading further, how we’re trapping them in a story by reading it or something???  Hence the idea that their existences are being “blighted” by the subtext of narrative significance, and would be better FREE of it?

Huh.  Is this really going to work?  As, like... a body slam of people who were too caught up in the forest of narrative purpose to see into the trees of the point he wanted to make with the finale?  It’s practically Andrew talking to the audience from within the story about their frustrations, heh.

Yeah, this whole rant is pretty awesome so far.  I forgot to mention it a few paragraphs ago, but when you look at the story list, the Epilogues are listed as “stories of dubious authenticity”, so is this whole thing like... how DIRK might have written the ending out?  Just to emphasize further that this whole thing is kind of pointless compared to the infinite possibility that was the reward for their escape from the confines of such story-stuff?

Cool.  Sounds like we’re seeing the “good end” that Dirk would have written for this story if he were to write one that still answers plotlike questions, or something similar to it.  That and/or he’s also engineering things in-canon -- or as “canon” as the victory planet is -- to follow all this for the end result he has in mind, and it comes across as practically Doc Scratch-y in the way it ties in metatextual awareness and stuff.  Either way, it DOES feel like Andrew might successfully be making his point.

==>

Pff.  This is going to be a bit interesting.  And, of course, unstuck-in-canon John can hear the narrator speaking.

And now John has ANOTHER story to get annoyed at the narrator of, heh.

The tooth is poisoned? Really? Did you just make that up or?

Okay, why suddenly the wallet, fanfic writer? Is he going to find touching pictures or just captchalogue the black hole?

This is all starting to feel a whole lot less serious, and I can’t help but figure that’s the intent.

==>

Pff, back to the B plot.  Yay Jade!  --Please don’t be metatextually aware like John and let’s get more actual story.

Phew, seems to be the case

...Is Karkat going to remake this post-scarcity society to be more Communist? Is that where we’re going here?

Alright, Roxy’s gonna be all voidy and Neutral and not want an impact on the election, from the sound of it?

GAAAHHH Jade is in love with all her friends and afraid of being alone.  AAAH FEELS

--Oh huh, so because Jane’s been in the distance putting on the Perfect act she thinks she has to pull, she’s gone down in her friends’ opinions even if that isn’t really her???  That’s pretty reassuring as an alternative, actually.  Leave it to Roxy to see everything crystal goddamn clear as usual.

Ooh, pronoun mishap.

Holy SHIT Roxy’s gonna go along with it.  That’s nonbinary-awesome!  And Dirk’s just fucking flabbergasted, I love it.

Pff, Dirk’s screwing it up outside too

yep, everyone ectobiologically had kids with everyone, really.

Oh, ow.  Something about the whole black hole green sun thing is fucking with her.  That, or, like...  Huh, might the whole metatextual ascension thing mean that she actually BECOMES that other Jade floating about for a hot minute, the one in the A-side plot??

==>

Ow this excellent narrative is pretty painful.  Like, empathetically inducing pain through really good description of pain and angst.  Ow.

Oh shit, alt!Calliope has a plan.  Maybe she’s able to use this black hole to re-begin Paradox Space and close the loop once everything’s absorbed or something, and needs a Jade’s help for it?

==>

Phew, some relative silliness with some of the others.  That vivid description of a Jade’s suffering was starting to give my stomach a cramp.  Actually, ANY vivid description of Jade’s suffering gives my stomach a cramp.  Or any allusion to it, even, heck even without WORDS.  I saw a Jadey song redux show up on my Youtube dashboard a few nights ago and had to turn it off after less than thirty seconds because I was about to throw up listening to the tune and staring at the image from my stomach clenching SO HARD.  I am WAY too attached to Jade in particular to tolerate her suffering without serious emotional feedback on my part.

Okay, breathe.  Breathe deeply, and keep reading...

....PFF, yes, Karkat.  Finally acknowledge it’s disgusting.  Birth is disgusting from any species really.

Yaaaay Kanaya! :)

Pfffff, Dave does record scratches with his hands mid-conversation like a fucking dab.  He would.

KANAYA: I Am Impressed That You Managed To Be Seen In Front Of That Many People Without Spontaneously Bursting Into Flames

I’m laughing

We internalize and project the quality in very different ways, however, which is why I’m going to win.

Win?!????

Win WHAT, the election???  Is that your only grand plan or... I mean fuck, way to be Doc-Scratch-like ominous!  Reading on...

...Yeah, Feferi was definitely a proto-Fascist too.  :)

Oh, huh. “Power Corrupts In Small Steps”... is this whole President thing going to be a big-ass metaphor for gaining your God powers without abusing them?? And pointing out that Jane is hella abusing her status in a way that COULD become villainous if it goes too far?  Victory is supposed to give you the ability to create a universe, but you’re not necessarily supposed to lord over it with an iron fist...

KARKAT: WHEN I HEAR ABOUT HOW HUMAN GRUBS CHEW THEIR WAY OUT OF THE FEMALE MATESPRIT’S ABDOMINAL HOLE BEFORE CONSUMING THE WOMB MEMBRANE IT MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT.

Pffffffff

KANAYA: He Is Beloved In The Troll Kingdom For His Perky Ass DAVE: seriously? KARKAT: I TOLD YOU IT’S NOT JUST ME! KANAYA: It Has Some Terrible Arcane Power KANAYA: I Have Never Seen Anything Like It

I am laughing out loud here

pff dave’s doubtlessly imagined this at least as much as the rest of us

YESSS make fun of ship names some more, especially the ship names I’m not a fan of even though I’m such a fan of the pairing :D

KANAYA: Im Going To Call My Wife And You Are Going To Stop Talking

Why do I love that sentence so much.  Is it just because it has the word wife in it.  Probably.

At the other side of the cavern, Dave and Karkat bicker about what their combo kids would look like, in the event that they decided to stop being such laughable wusses and began fornicating like two cartoon animals of different species who have given into their lust.

Pffff.  Yeah, Dirk would put it that way.

Pffffff.  Not as adept at handling all sides of the story at the same time as you were as part of Doc, eh?

==>

Reading reading reading... Oh, adorable, he tried to slip a fish pun into Meenah’s name but couldn’t think of one.

...Oh SHIT, is he going to give Meenah the ring of life she wanted??? :D

Oh pff, that works too.  :D

==>

Okay, time for maybe at least a SLIGHT explanation of whatever the FUCK Dirk might have or might not have done to Rose or something????

...Huh.  What exactly are you trying to “fix” about Kanaya and Rose’s relationship, Dirk?  Something that didn’t fix itself with just the two of them together?

I mean...... Rose’s substance abuse never fixed itself when it was just two of them together on the first-run meteor.  And she’s been taking pills and trying to stave off her destiny out of fear while her wife hasn’t really been digging into her insecurities... I mean maybe he has a point.

SHADOWS around her??????  D:

==>

Yeah yeah, John drifting.  I just remembered what one of those “server beacons” they were mentioning actually is, too, visually.  Knowing it had an escape route helped.

What are you even gonna do with the slippers, gift them to Terezi when she comes flying in?  (Also, right, just remembered he’s a Breath player so it’s only natural that he actually finds whatever there is to find “coincidentally” around here, like that wallet.)

Ooh, you REALLY were thinking about Terezi over the past years from the sound of it.  And here she is or whatever.  :)

1 C4N ST1LL TOUCH TYP3 1N H3R L33T SP34K W1THOUT 4NY 4SS1ST4NC3 3XC3PT C4PS LOCK ON 4FT3R 4LL TH3S3 Y34RS  >:]

==>

Okay okay okay wait.  Her shadow is talking??? Is this, like... Jungian shadow stuff? Inversion shadow stuff?  What the fuck is going on.  It better not be Inversion-related.

Let me read that again.

Her shadow has faded to light behind her, assuming the shape of a Rose-like apparition. I nod to her, and she continues. When she speaks, it’s almost as if it’s the apparition that’s doing the talking.

That’s weird and I don’t entirely know what it means. I’d better just keep fucking reading.

Fun philosophical banter.  I didn’t know what “Hegelian dialectics” were until I read some big rant on someone’s Fallout New Vegas playthrough earlier last month.

ROSE: I think free will is a thing, sure. DIRK: Are you sure about that? ROSE: ... DIRK: Haven’t we spent the entire day having a feelings jam on how none of us got here by accident?

Ah, here we’re going with some Ultimate Riddle-y stuff.

Or wait, are we adding a bit on to that concept now?  Because it now seems like a large PART of the Ultimate Riddle stuff I covered (FUCK dropbox for breaking all the images) that might be revealed in this part of the damn epilogue is the whole the-only-way-to-have-true-free-will-is-to-escape-the-narrative-imposed-on-us or something along with the rest of it.

Hm, that whole “become One God” bit that Dirk ranted about in the beginning of one of the John sections... is that his ambition here?  I didn’t comment on the rantparagraph earlier because the “one” part of it threw me as possibly just some philosophical stuff he was musing about, but it’s like... I mean Dirk is the narrator right now, and it sounds like he wants to *BE* the narrator.  Like, become the one truly in control of this whole story.  With his orange Andrew-colored text or whatever.  Is that what he meant by “win”, winning control of the entire narrative, turning everyone else in the story into mere extensions of himself that he was “writing” by virtue of being the only author?

And him getting thwarted in that task, showing that it’s better if there really is NO narrator and the characters can do whatever they imagine in infinite branches and our imaginations, is the victory that proves the point of the story.  Or something.  Hmm.

Also, huh.  Like... I mean that IS a natural extension of a Prince of Heart if he were to turn to villainy.  A grand ambition to destroy everyone’s individuality until they’re nothing but Himself.  Right?

DIRK: Your Ultimate Self, that which is revealed when the mind’s partitions are stripped away, and all potentiality of who you are and what you could have been flow together. DIRK: Those are the experiences and processes that are refusing to stay bundled, that’s what your body can’t endure. The unbundling itself is your mind coming apart. DIRK: Because you’re not as strong as me. Not yet. DIRK: But you can be. DIRK: I’m working on that.

Because she’ll “BE” you?  Because you’ll be everyone?  Hm.

DIRK: But for now, I’m focused on stabilizing you with my own expanding consciousness. DIRK: It’s enveloping you now, in a way you can’t see. Keeping your thoughts solid, your identity anchored to your physical form as it strains to hold itself together. DIRK: You can’t see it, what I’m talking about. But I can help you. DIRK: I can help you see what I see, if only for a little while. DIRK: All you have to do is open your eyes. DIRK: Maybe what you see will help you through this.

Okay so maybe this all ain’t TOTALLY fucking sinister.  Just partially.  Hmm.

I’m not going to describe what she sees. First of all, that would be spoiling it. Unless you already know, in which case, I guess what’s taking place here qualifies as something closer to dramatic irony. But if you really want to see it for yourself, stop what you’re doing, flip the whole thing over, and begin again. I’ll be right here when you get back, waiting. Trust me, no one’s going anywhere.

Hahahahah.  So the candy part IS written.  I mean I was pretty sure, but it’s nice to have it acknowledged here.  Pretty awesome.  I won’t stop here to read it, I’ll get to the candy part eventually as a nice dessert.

All she needs is a nudge in the right direction.

We’re family. We belong together. And after years of micromanaging the inconsistent and confused desires of total imbeciles, wouldn’t it be a relief to have someone by my side who understood me?

Stop being so incestuous.  Dirk, you’re just getting off on the CONCEPT of incest being part of the flavor of all this, aren’t you.  That’s why you kept pushing things this way, you want it to be as uncomfortable as possible.

...wait, yeah he’s just talking about being a metatextual ascended, isn’t he.

Her body should be dead now.

I’M SORRY WHAT THE FLYING FUCK.

And Rose has... what, ascended but somehow given in to Dirk’s puppeteering of existence, or?  Ugh.

Next post, I wanna keep reading already to get through all this bullshit.  Then once I’ve figured it all out, I can rest comfortably back with the Candy side which Rose practically just promised me is potentially TOO SUGARY which is really enticing as a prospect.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Meat ch 18-27 [Epilogue 4]

So that happened.

In this chapter: a struggle over narration itself.

Dirk Strider has assumed control of the narration. Not unprecedented - Homestuck loves to put its narration in-voice for various characters - but in this case he’s making out that it was him all along, which has like, consequences I guess?

chapter 18

Dirk is narrating, and John actually notices sometimes - when Dirk uses words like ‘functional necessity’. But because Dirk has control over his internal monologue, the plot presses on.

It seems that just about the entire Furthest Ring has gone into the black hole, except for John maybe? Dirk narrates that John starts to blame himself for all this, and thereby decides not to go back to Earth C. He then directs John to find his dad’s wallet, floating in the void.

Despite what Dirk has said, he certainly has a different narrative voice to the preceding narration.

It’s notable that John seems to have some independence from Dirk’s narration. He can directly respond in dialogue to Dirk’s declarations, including to challenge them. Dirk’s power as narrator seems to be limited, not equivalent to the full powers of the ‘author’.

chapter 19

Dirk continues to narrate Jade giving an economic presentation to Roxy and Callie, on the subject of how Jane wants to basically recreate capitalist hierarchy, but on the new world, and that’s a pretty dreadful idea. She actually says the words “capitalist hierarchy”, and declares “none of that stuff works”... Homestuck’s politics seem to have changed, at least somewhat. (Perhaps due to Cephied’s influence..?)

Roxy is reluctant to get involved in politics, and concerned for Jane... and Dirk says something which I think will be important.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Roxy’s the only one left I haven’t been able to crack. Her mind remains a total enigma to me, just like it always has. If I had to guess, it’s her Void powers that make her invisible, even to increasingly omniscient parties such as myself. For all intents and purposes, it’s like her thoughts don’t exist. She’s the same person, as far as I can tell. She still wears her heart on her sleeve. But the bottom line remains: Roxy Lalonde is still utterly fucking inscrutable.

Anyway, then something else significant happens... Callie says they’re nonbinary.

CALLIOPE: yoU are absolUtely not an asshole!

CALLIOPE: i didn’t mind being called a girl. i still don’t really mind, it’s jUst not exactly... accUrate.

CALLIOPE: bUt i did take comfort in “being a girl” for a very long time. this is something i’ve only recently decided.

Roxy likewise says they’re enby too... this causes Dirk to have a bit of a meltdown.

I never would have guessed. Not that I’ve spent much time contemplating issues related to gender. I’m pretty secure in my expression of masculinity, and...

You know what? Fuck this. I don’t owe anyone an explanation of any sort on this topic. I’m confident with who I am, what I am, my gender, as well as my understanding of the concept. You want my honest opinion? It’s fucking fantastic. Good for them. Both of them, I mean, but also, both of them in a singular fashion, since each one can now individually be referred to by the conventionally plural word “them.” I’m ecstatic for this personal development they’ve embraced, for the people they are, the lack of gender they identify with, and the pronouns they prefer. I’ve got no problem with it whatsoever, and frankly, it’s fucking insulting anyone would ever imagine otherwise.

So yeah, I’m gonna allow it.

‘secure in his expression of masculinity’ was not the impression I had of Dirk personally, but I guess we’re going with this characterisation here.

For the rest of this chapter, Dirk keeps misgendering Roxy and Callie in narration - seemingly not deliberately, he swears and corrects himself shortly after.

There’s another interesting conversation where Calliope talks about how ideas of gender were, ‘circuitously’, transmitted to Calliope/Caliborn from watching Earth, and how these shaped Alternia (ok this one’s a little confusing because they didn’t make Alternia? though of course Doc Scratch did affect Alternia). So the system of gendered social relations is literally a “copy without an original” - Baudrillard was more right than he knew!

Anyway Dirk interrupts this discussion to narrate that Jade has a sudden vision of the black hole, and passes out...

chapter 20

Jade ‘wakes up’ in the furthest ring - was there a Dream Jade out here? i thought all the dream selves died but I don’t really remember anymore. Over here, she’s injured - she’s got a big piece of ‘the absence of a future�� skewering her.

Dirk narrates how she’s drawn towards the black hole - ‘the dead cherub is making her move’. At one point, his orange narration is interrupted by red text - the word ‘come’.

Of course, we now know that this dead Jade will fall into the Candy universe, where it will be inhabited by alt-Calliope. I am rather confused about how this came about though. Who’s this almost-dead Jade floating in the Furthest Ring? Why did Jade’s consciousness get shunted into her body?

chapter 21

Dave and Karkat are witnessing the first brood from the Mother Grub. Dave figures it’s kind of gross... and Karkat agrees after ribbing Dave a bit for being insensitive.

Anyway they’re here to try and win over Rose and Kanaya to the election campaign, only, they’re being predictably very Dave and Karkat about it, which is fun. Dirk’s narration is almost taking a backseat here... though occasionally stepping in to point to a trait of characterisation as why he’s going to win.

It’s nice to have Kanaya give some proper dialogue! She talks a bit about troll reproduction, the latent potential for fascism in both Jane and... Feferi. Which, fair.

Anyway Kanaya is rightly pissed about Jane’s plans for troll eugenics.

Dirk occasionally editorialises. Morality, he declares, is a cultural construct (complicatedly true so far as it goes) - it’s “pure ego” for them to think their morality will guide them to the “most effective” laws (that’s also a cultural construct you fucking idiot!)

Dave, continuing in his capacity to make everything as maximally awkward as possible, starts speculating about ectobiological ‘Rosemary babies’ (Kanaya has apparently not considered the term ‘Rosemary’ before, and declares that she hates it).

Kanaya gets concerned and calls Rose - and Dirk reminds us that she’s unconscious on his floor, and answers for her, but explains nothing. Because “John’s doing something important to the plot again” - and Dirk has to be there to narrate, I guess.

chapter 22

Keen to complete his full assumption of the role of ‘anime villain’, Dirk’s narration starts talking about breaking down the boundaries between people to become gods - to become ‘one god’.

Anyway, in this chapter, John bumps into Meenah’s ghost. She steals the Ring of Life that he previously took from Aranea while performing his current spate of retcons, and jumps into a ‘server’. (What did the servers do again? I don’t remember... ok apparently they’re just there in the Furthest Ring, as places people can store such things as wizard fiction and ~ATH programs on them...)

anyway it seems that Meenah can go through the door in the server somehow. presumably ending up in the Candy universe? idk. The wiki didn’t say a lot about what these servers do.

chapter 23

Not much narration, just dialogue. Kanaya arguing with Dirk, specifically. She’s not impressed by Dirk’s excuses (Dirk briefly interrupts to declare that she doesn’t really ‘understand’ Rose, even though she loves her) and sets out to retrieve Rose. Dirk keeps this a secret from Rose...

chapter 24

Minimum editorialising from Dirk this time. John floats around endlessly, and runs into... Terezi! Sure am glad to have her back :D

chapter 25

Dirk and Rose have an argument about... intimacy, identity, and other such philosophical things. Kirkegaard is name-dropped, and it comes out that Dirk (like me lol) gets most of his knowledge from Wikipedia, because obviously he grew up in a post-apocalyptic world...

ROSE: Who exactly were the academic cognoscenti of your era to determine which sources were deemed respectable?

DIRK: That would be me, obviously.

ROSE: Ok.

DIRK: I suppose you’re going to tell me you haven’t read enough Wikipedia articles on loads of scholarly shit to fancy yourself an elite academic by 25th century standards as well?

ROSE: No, I guess I have.

ROSE: I’d be one of the top intellectuals by that measure.

ROSE: A measure set by, I guess, literally one solitary self-absorbed teen boy for the express purpose of making himself feel clever.

DIRK: Absolutely correct.

They agree to have an ‘amateur philosophical debate’, which comes around to whether ‘free will’ exists. Oh boy. Dirk gets Rose to try to stand up, but then doesn’t ‘narratively allow’ it.

Dirk lectures her on the origin of her condition: the disappearance of boundaries in the ‘ultimate self’ amounts to an ‘unbundling’ of experiences (subjectivity, I guess) and the physical processes connecting to it. Dirk, supposedly, is strong enough to withstand this - so he offers to support Rose as she opens her ‘other eyes’, seeing what Dirk sees - presumably the ‘entire story’ that they’re in?

In this state, Rose is also able to see across into the Candy story. She describes both branches as a kind of ‘gross conceptual clumping’, comparing it to congealed sugar in a drink.

Dirk invites her to ascend - that she won’t be ‘her’ anymore, but ‘better’. This is described as an intimate process of perfect knowledge of the other person... and leads Dirk to start speaking possessively of Rose, his daughter in every respect, including ‘soul’.

Oh no Rose... this isn’t ideal :/

it’s funny, I have written before about such a ‘coming together’ of people, of ‘ascension’ in a similar sense, in my story ‘hacker’. but that wasn’t about assuming an ‘ultimate’, godlike form - the gestalt was a different person with different concerns, but not a ‘perfect’ person. here it’s a much more negative thing - a way for Dirk to take control over the ‘ultimate’ Rose.

chapter 26

Dirk’s narration seems to be perceptible, at least in some sense of inner monologue, to Jade. He’s trying to persuade her not to descend into the Black Hole (which, we now know to mean, the Candy universe) through his ‘metatexual’ messaging.

But he’s not succeeding. Alt-Calliope once again interrupts the narration at one point - and Dirk previously did not seem to recognise that it’s her doing it, but now he does.

In Dirk’s eyes, what he’s trying to prevent is a suicide. We know that going into the black hole is not suicide, but going to the Candy universe.

Notably when Dirk has the narration outright declare that something happens, that does not mean it takes effect in the way he describes. He is literally an unreliable narrator.

chapter 27

At this point, alt-Calliope and Dirk are outright fighting to contradict each other in the narration. (i’m gonna keep using ‘she’ pronouns for alt-Calliope, since to my understanding she’s a different person than Calliope)

alt-Calliope’s descriptions are adorably alien - referring to the ‘layers of flesh over her skull’ that maker her ‘expressive’, for example.

Apparently it’s not Jade occupying Jade’s body back on Earth C - the Meat!Earth C that is - but alt-Calliope. Alt-Calliope starts lecturing Dirk in the narration of the corrosive effect of his ‘megalomaniacal’ intentions. Somehow, she pretty much entirely shunts Dirk out of the narrator role. Dirk’s text - complaining rather than narrating - shrinks, and ultimately disappears.

There’s a fucking amazing moment when alt-Calliope gets Dirk going on a whole rant about katanas and how she’s supposedly metaphorically using them wrong.

But ultimately, what she’s going to do is just... ignore him. Or rather, talk about him like he isn’t in the room; use his metaphors, but do not allow him the dignity of response.

experiences such as the sensation of presiding over a vast, empty ocean. his ocean, which terminates with his horizon. it is a barrier, not real, but psychological, symbolic. no matter how much power he achieves as a man, he knows there are horizons he perceived as a boy which he may never cross. and yet i have crossed mine, with the express purpose of perpetually and eternally reminding him of his limits, and of enforcing them. limits, which like his vast, empty ocean, serve to remind him that he is phenomenologically, if not literally, alone. that he has experienced loneliness intimately and absolutely, just like i have. but unlike me, he is terrified by it. and i, unlike him, understand all too well that the children left alone are those who most despair at being ignored.

Epilogue 4, in summary

Damn. I can see why they call this the ‘meat’ route.

So.

Dirk has found some way to assert control of the narrative voice. In this capacity, he’s run roughshod over the various events trying to mechanically arrange them to achieve... some kind of end. But his carelessness in attending to the specific characterisations, instead of relating everything back to himself, somehow left him vulnerable to be excluded from the narration by alt-Calliope.

Whatever Dirk’s plan is, it seems to require... Jane and him to assume rulership of Earth C, and... what else? Well he wanted Jade to go into the Furthest Ring, but not to enter the black hole (because ultimately that allowed alt-Calliope to enter the narrative). He wanted John to do various ‘plot relevant’ things, like... presumably hand over the ring to Meenah, acquire the wallet, and meet Terezi.

Where’s all this going? Fuck knows lol!

We can try and talk about all the issues of identity, ‘free will’ and so forth towards the end, and the interesting attempt to connect that to gendered subjectivity, once we’ve taken in the story as a whole.