#also vriska's face is so so so funny

[forgetful-river]

Volleyball!!! Summer!!

[handwrittenhello]

i think its kind of ridiculous to think that homestucks are seriously using bots in this poll because why the hell would they bot this poll instead of the tumblrwoman poll which was the poll EVERYBODY in the hs fandom was actually making a big deal out of . also because im going to be real but i dont think anyone cares about polls enough to rig one? even the bayonetta/miku poll turned out to actually not be vriska voter fraud (most people in the homestuck fandom voted miku anyway) i think people are just unable to comprehend that a lot of people are still dormantly into homestuck & probably just saw vriska serket at the front of the trending disco elysium tag and thought it was funny. like oh my godddd no one cares enough about the outcome of this poll to bot it . somebody with a lot of followers probably just posted about it on twitter or something mundane like that its not that deep . a lot of people on tumblr have read homestuck its not extraordinary that a lot of vriska voters exist. disco elysium fans im sorry your blorbo is losing you’ll probably be back in the lead in a couple hours anyway all of you need to chill out‼️‼️‼️

answering only this ask about the cheating/botting, and no others, because i'm getting a lot of asks about it. congratulations, this contest has officially had all the fun sucked out of it.

here's data i've been collecting for every poll i've run. it's organized by votes the character received per round, then the total number of votes on that poll, for all five rounds. then there are two columns for totals.

the next five columns, Notes 1-5, are the number of notes on each poll. i've highlighted two posts that were circulated with a greater-than-average frequency even after the poll ended (the loki/JC one because people were memeing on JC, and then HDB/Howl one because it gained popularity following a popular blogger reblogging it.)

V/N is the votes to notes ratio for each poll. it was taken by dividing the number of votes when the poll ended by the number of notes on each post. one limitation is that this was not taken at the same time each day, and so older posts will have slightly higher notes. however, i believe this uncertainty isn't enough to discount the conclusions i'll come to.

i've highlighted vriska's V:N ratio in red at the top. as you can see, round vriska's V:N ratio wasn't even the highest; she beat kaeya alberich easily, and the comments in the notes reflected that.

in round 2, things started to get interesting. this is where i and other people noticed a sudden flip, but i didn't think much of it. she was up against izzy hands. izzy was leading all day, and when i queued the next day's poll and went to bed, izzy was leading by 60%. when i woke up, it had flipped to 53/47 in vriska's favor. it's not a HUGEamount, but it is a NOTICEABLE amount.

keep in mind that every single day, there have been other, closer polls, that hovered around 49-50-51 all day, and which also flipped at the end of the day, or remained 50/50 and could only be determined by tumblr. in these cases, the notes also reflect the split. these polls also never swayed more than one or two percent.

in round 3, when vriska faced zuko, there was a clear and immediate lead for zuko, with him leading by 80%. keep in mind that by this point, all 28 other polls i ran, besides vriska's the day before, never swayed more than 1 or 2% once a clear lead had been established.

this poll went from 80/20 zuko to 59/41 vriska. that's RIDICULOUS. the only way that's possible is if an OVERWHELMING amount of people voted vriska and NO people voted zuko. for such a thing to happen, this post would need to spread really rapidly, right? surely this post had tens of thousands of notes and comments!

the V:N ratio for round 3 is TWENTY-SEVEN to one. that's the most out of any poll. the standard deviation for the round 3 polls is 9.0, compared to 4.8 and 4.9 the days before. not to mention reading those notes also does not get us an overwhelming amount of comments rooting for vriska.

today has also been highly suspicious. it started out with an 85/15 lead for harry. i wouldn't necessarily expect it to hold exactly at that percentage, but the flip was immediate and drastic. you can see the trend being tracked on this post. not at all suspicious, right? also note that the comments all day have been 95% rooting for harry and maybe 5% for vriska.

please also look at the GRAND TOTAL column, which has reliably predicted the winners of future polls each day. vriska has received 49,064 votes over the course of the whole contest. harry has received 64,644. that's 24% more votes. and yet the poll is locked at 50/50?

and if this isn't enough evidence for you, then remember the tumblr sexywoman poll. it is a FLAT FUCKING FACT that those polls were spammed by bots. out of respect for their privacy i won't go into detail, but they outright admitted it.

TO CONCLUDE,

it's pretty fucking obvious that something is up, and although i admit that there's simply no concrete way of proving it, there would have to be a really standout explanation for this.

and besides this being super lame, it's also removed all the fun from this contest. it's a stupid tumblr poll that wins literally nothing, congratulations!

also, to everyone making death threats in the notes, BOTH SIDES, you've failed my secret challenge of not being rude which means i'm judging you personally. be fucking nice.

[thewertsearch]

AT: [...] mY TAKE ON THIS IS, AT: tHAT YOU CREATED OUR IMPOSSIBLY HARD BAD GUY, wHO WANTS TO KILL US, AT: aND BY ASSOCIATION, i GUESS THAT MAKES, AT: yOU THE BAD GUY TOO, AT: iNSTEAD OF A GOOD GUY WHO'S JUST MEAN, AG: Nice deduction! AG: Wrong, excruci8tingly linear, and laced with the sort of a8solutes morons like to throw around…….. AG: 8ut nice!

"Only a loser deals in a8solutes!"

It's hard to characterize Vriska as cleanly as Tavros is trying to - but we don't need to psychoanalyze her to know she's a liability. Vriska is actively impeding the team's attempts to deal with Jack, and she's not even pretending to blame causality anymore.

AT: i THINK, AT: i AM GOING TO HAVE TO STOP YOU, [...]

I like where your head's at, Tavros - but if you really want to stop Vriska, then you should drop that lance and run.

Make a beeline for the common room, and explain to Karkat that Vriska caused the Mistake. He'll fly into an incandescent rage, rallying the remaining trolls against her - including Terezi, who can actually stand up to her.

If you fight her yourself, you're fucked. An analysis would be a complete waste of time, and not just because your psionics are useless here. I could give you Bec, and I'd still bet on Vriska.

AG: Tell you what. AG: If you can find me in this la8, you can have at me. AG: I'll even give you a free shot! No funny 8usiness or anything.

Lady, you can survive a bomb to the face. This 'free shot' business is basically just a taunt, and everyone knows it but Tavros.

AT: oK, AT: tHEN, AT: hERE i COME,

Damn it, this is not where you want to be aiming your confidence. You can still reconsider. Please reconsider.

Or maybe you can take her, I dunno

Hello, Jade. What business could you possibly have with your other self?

More extracanonical shenanigans from Hussie, I take it.

Looks like this recap's going to be Vriska-themed. She seems to be controlling Hussie to write it, so I hope it's from her PoV - I have a feeling she'd be a very funny storyteller.

Not even Fantastica is safe from Lord English.

THE WINDY THING subsides, and clear skies prevail. You soar to the highest rung, and rule over your echeladder as the HEIR TRANSPARENT.

John's hit the level cap already?

Davesprite was killing Underlings for months, and he never hit his. Maybe he didn't have access to as much EXP, since his Underlings were only triple-prototyped.

You can also gain Echeladder levels by completing non-combat objectives - so actually, maybe Davesprite just didn't hit the proper milestones. His session was incomplete, after all.

With the Reckoning ticking down, the Players need to rush through the story, so they're probably just hitting Echeladder milestones offscreen.

The clouds have returned. The fireflies are still trapped. The spell remains unbroken.

Send all the hurricanes you like, John. Typheus yet lives, and the sky remains his domain.

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 5-1, Part 2/5 (p. 2100-2235)

Read the previous post here.

Work was really rough for me last week so I didn't get a chance to write this. But here we are with the second part of this Act readthrough. It starts with a character I've had inconsistent opinions about during my time in the fandom.

I used to really hate Tavros when I was first in the fandom. Over time, I realized that my ire was directed more toward a certain fanon breed of Tavros: The simpering pacifist with love in his heart for all living creatures, who is a victim of misfortune and needs to be coddled (preferably by Gamzee).

I like the canon Tavros better. He's more like an awkward, avoidant weenie who isn't so much kind as he is too much of a spineless dork to fight back against the abuse hurled his way. He is quite explicit whenever he doesn't like someone or if he's uncomfortable, but he never does anything about the situation beyond that.

Tavros is also Hussie's dedicated buttmonkey, it seems. Prior to this point, all we really knew about him was that he was a bit of a try-hard who liked to rap and was really socially awkward. Now we see that he is wheelchair-bound and also really likes fairies and Pokemon. For a 30 year old man in the early 2010s, fairies and Pokemon would be patently uncool (and also "gay," to use the parlance of the time). Hussie wants us all to know right away that Tavros is lame (literally and figuratively) and gay (colloquially). Point and laugh at him!

I like the implication that Tavros actually breeds and raises all the Fiduspawn creatures he spawns.

Everything about Tavros's life is tragic. Hussie wanted to make a pathetic character who's the butt of every joke and whose existence is near-constant torment.

I suppose that building in the back could be a stable to house Horsaroni and the other Fiduspawn creatures, even though it's never stated. This is the last time his affinity for animal husbandry will ever be alluded to. You'd think Hussie would've included some crack about how being paralyzed makes it difficult to clean up their shit or something. Cue Tavros slipping and sliding face first into some manure...

Like Karkat, Tavros also wants to join the military to avoid being culled. It's surprising to see him have an actual goal to aspire to, considering how his character is mostly listless and focuses on escapism and avoidance. Perhaps he wants to be a cavalreaper not because of any higher ambition, but only because he thinks it'll save him from an early death.

Considering how it's never really mentioned at all after this point, I'm willing to believe it.

It is pretty funny how Tavros just lets Vriska prattle on. He gives her nothing to work with but she runs her mouth anyway. She's also really just ranting about Kanaya instead of anything about Tavros. He's a good captive audience for her to ramble at because he won't leave even though he stated at the start that he doesn't want to talk to her.

Couple of things to note: Kanaya giving Tavros some lame advice about anthropomorphizing his self-esteem is very on-brand for her. One thing about Kanaya that nobody seems to cotton onto is that while she loves to give advice and try to be helpful, she isn't all too good at it.

Another thing is Vriska immediately getting angry at "Rufio" for apparently attempting to stop her from talking to Tavros. That's a fun detail.

Gamzee and Kanaya are the only trolls so far to show kindness to Tavros. Which isn't saying much because Gamzee talks to Tavros in the same way he talks to everyone else. It's not like he's showing him any preferential treatment.

Note how Gamzee has slime on his face, so he had just eaten a pie and is totally stoned. It would explain why he seems much more out of it in this conversation than he was with Karkat or Terezi earlier, especially in the beginning since all he really does is laugh and honk instead of responding to Tavros in a coherent way. He then proceeds to relay all the information about the game to Tavros (pointless recap of shit we already know about), and the log ends with the two of them preparing to rap. In all this is a pretty worthless log and doesn't even offer much entertainment. And I say that as someone who generally likes pre-Murderstuck Gamzee.

I cannot believe this single conversation is what inspired so much generic slash art between these two. Homestuck fandom in 2010 was wild, man...

Aradia... exists. Her Ouija modus is a good representation of her character: a instrument of the plot/outside forces with little to no agency of her own. She spends a good chunk of the story as a deadpan plot device facilitating the whims of Sgrub and not much else.

Aradia is a frustrating character to discuss. There are at least four different versions of her depending on her status as alive or dead, and not once do we really get a chance to know the "true" Aradia. She really does serve as the "Jade" of the troll session, but Hussie doesn't even make an attempt at portraying her as endearing.

I wish that Aradia, not Terezi, was built up as Vriska's biggest rival. Aradia is the competent psychic who doesn't respond to taunts, doesn't care about winning, focuses on events yet to come, and generally has her shit in order. Compare that to Vriska, who cannot control Aradia, is hyper-competitive and escalates things constantly, always holds grudges and lives in the past, and switches emotions on a dime depending on what benefits her. They were already rivals in the past and while Aradia has long moved on, Vriska is dredging up the drama once more in a feeble attempt to try and "make amends" with her. The true motives of this are both to gain a position of power in the Blue Team, and also to soothe her own bruised ego and make her feel better about herself.

Her lame attempts to schmooze and flatter Aradia, trying to be on the same team as her, is in a subconscious way done to make sure that she isn't put against her. She knows Aradia is the stronger psychic and the better player, although she'd never admit it. If she can't beat Aradia, she'll do whatever she can to weasel into her good graces and try to steal credit for Aradia's achievements as the Blue Team leader.

Aradia of course, views the whole thing as childish and doesn't humor her at all. As she says herself, Vriska "never listens". These two are the perfect dynamic of cold and hot and I wish this was focused on more. Vriska should've been way more jealous of Aradia's abilities, seething about her and trying to one-up her. And the whole time Aradia doesn't take her seriously, which would only serve to piss her off further.

Time to talk about Nepeta, the troll that nobody seems to understand.

Nepeta is a lot of things. She's a personification of 2000s chatroom and forum-based RP culture, more specifically within the furry fandom. Not only does she roleplay as an animal on the internet, she also lives a very feral lifestyle. She lives in the woods, away from civilization, hunts and eats whatever animal she comes across, and uses their blood and pelts for arts and crafts. She's silly and naive, but also a capable hunter and quite perceptive, if socially immature.

Also, in regards to her moirallegiance with Equius, Nepeta appears to be obligated to stick with him for no real reason other than "someone has to keep him pacified." It's like a burden that she's saddled with; she's the only one that can put up with this dude that literally nobody else likes. While noble of her, it ends up being overall detrimental considering what a massive power imbalance they have. (Just read this post where I go into this in more detail. This post is long enough already).

People either want to characterize her as a ridiculous anime catgirl (which isn't even accurate to the subculture she's meant to parody; think less catgirl and more lolcats), or a bloodlusted killing machine. And both interpretations more often than not reduce her to a useless background character whose defining characteristic is her moirallegiance to Equius. I spit on all of that.

Nepeta's main trait is isolation (both physically and socially) and her difficulty expressing her desires. She leads a simple, primitive lifestyle away from civilization, which also impacts the way she is able to connect with others. Roleplay is the main way she expresses herself, and she has difficulty doing so when forced to drop the silly facade. She has a lot of wants (her crush on Karkat, her desire to be independent of Equius's control) that she is too awkward or timid to properly convey. Everyone around her almost always regards her as some kind of joke (Terezi roleplaying with her "facetiously", Karkat calling her autistic and trying to avoid her because of her feelings toward him, Equius's intensely infantilizating attitude toward her, Eridan not even remembering her name, etc.) which definitely hinders her ability to make others treat her with respect.

Oh wait, I forgot. Hussie himself calls her a joke character. Stupid me for getting invested in Nepeta, I guess.

"KARKAT THINKS ABOUT THAT A BIT AND HIS JAW DROPS OPEN AND BREAKS A HUGE COLUMN OF BRICKS LIKE A FUCKING KUNG FU MASTER" might be my favorite Karkat quote.

Equius is the one troll Karkat actively seems to dislike. This is the guy who is buddies with Eridan of all trolls, yet Equius is where he draws the line. Not even Vriska is a "bigger asshole" than Karkat. Nope, that's Equius, baby.

You know, it should be a little concerning that Karkat, the troll who lives and breathes troll romance in all its forms, is disgusted and dumbfounded by Equius and Nepeta's relationship. Especially since it's so often heralded as the "perfect" moirallegiance. Speaking of which...

This is very notable as being one of the few explicitly anti-hemospectrum statements said by a troll. A few trolls like Karkat, Aradia, and Sollux will grumble about their position in society and the way the higher castes behave, but ultimately accept the hemospectrum as an immutable facet of society.

Nepeta goes a step further than that and straight up says that caste separation shouldn't exist. Nepeta. The troll everyone writes off as being an infantile moron. Maybe it's these radical sentiments that cause Equius to keep her on such a tight leash.

As for Equius's response, am I the only one reading this!?!?!? What an incredible asshole. These two are the same age, yet he's talking to her like she's a child who needs guidance solely because she's of a lower blood caste.

Does he even like Nepeta? His supposed fondness for her is incredibly patronizing. It's like he only keeps her around because she provides him a service of calming him down and for no other reason. Other than that, she's only "ok, but not great".

Nepeta hunts and kills massive animals on a regular basis. She is not "delicate" in a physical sense. Equius is saying that she is "delicate" as in impressionable and at risk of being "corrupted" by her lower blooded friends. That's all Equius cares about: her moral standing.

Equius knows full well that Nepeta would never fight back against him, since she takes her obligation to pacify him very seriously. He exploits her goodwill to make her do whatever he wants. Why is this being paraded as the most wholesome ship in the fandom again???

I feel like it's this log that has forever damaged fandom's perception about Equius and Nepeta. Tavros suggests that Equius prohibiting Nepeta from playing FLARP was a positive because she possibly could've been maimed or killed otherwise. But it's not like Equius ever gave a shit about the danger involved at all. His biggest objection against Nepeta playing these games was because she'd be playing with lowbloods, not because he was afraid she'd get hurt. The ends don't justify the means. He's still barring her from interacting with her friends for shitty reasons.

Anyway, Tavros sucks here. He suggests Nepeta just go with the flow in her terrible relationship because he himself is so painfully passive that he'd never consider rocking the boat, even if it means standing up to someone who wrongs him regularly. Don't listen to Tavros, people.

I think I really need to have a serious talk about Vriska and Karkat's dynamic because I never see anyone talk about them. Their back and forth is hilarious just because of how similar they are to each other. Both have extreme delusions of grandeur that mask massive insecurities and paranoias (Karkat's "curse" vs. Vriska's "bad luck"). They also have aspirations of being the leader of all their friends, which leads to their egos butting heads with each other.

Vriska acts smarmy and disarming while Karkat vehemently shuts her down. Karkat sees through her manipulative tactics and doesn't want to give her any angle to work with at all. Vriska meanwhile sees right through Karkat's bravado and likes to toy with him and rile him up. (Something something... I wonder what other dynamic between a Knight and Light player is kinda similar to this where they see through the other's bullshit so transparently?)

Also jeez Karkat counting out the question marks is adorable and hilarious.

I love how Karkat boasts about what a competent opponent he'll be followed up by him telling Vriska not to use her mind powers. Right, that's kind of a major advantage she has.

Rolling my eyes at Karkat hyping up Terezi as this master tactician. "Ooh Vriska is jealous of her because Terezi is so good at manipulation." Why does the story keep talking about how cunning Terezi without ever showing us her abilities? Am I seriously supposed to think she's this Machiavellian mastermind because she tricked John Egbert of all people? Get real!

This is what I mean when I say that Aradia is the one Vriska should have seething jealousy over. Why should Vriska be jealous of Terezi at all?

Between Karkat, Tavros, and John, it's very safe to say Vriska's type is primarily soft boys.

Vriska, above all else, is an egomaniac. She, like Karkat, wants to be the best at everything. She wants to be in charge, to dictate the fates of those she views as weaker. She exercises this desire most often in FLARP, where she's essentially the most dominant player. She even likes to dabble in "dark prognostication" so she can foresee future events and stay ahead of those who wish to undermine her. This might have something to do with how her life is otherwise dominated by her needy lusus. She requires an outlet to exert control over others.

She's childish and cannot handle when she's losing or when bad things happen to her as a result of her own poor decision making. She breaks her magic 8 balls when they don't give her the result she wants, she lashes out at people when she fails to manipulate them, and she melts down when things in her life aren't going the way she wants them to. "Overdramatic" is an understatement when talking about Vriska. Everything about her is always turned up to 11.

She's also a master at avoiding responsibility for her actions. Any negative repercussions are deemed "bad luck", as if she's a victim of forces beyond her control. She'll even double down on this and claim that all her broken 8 balls are responsible for adding to this bad luck. She's a victim of a self-destructive mindset.

Also note how she's an "apocalypse buff" and Karkat dreams about programming the perfect doomsday virus. Yet another trait they share. Just saying.

Oh wait never mind all that. Uhh... "Vriska did nothing wrong!" There I said le funny meme. The only person who should honestly believe that is Vriska herself.

Vriska's such a goofball. She's so proud of her dumb little OC.

(Oh my god this was annoying to format. Fuck you Scratch and your white text.)

Very cute how she reuses Karkat's opening line against Scratch. And it turns out that she also reused the same login trick on Karkat that Scratch had done to her previously. Vriska is quick to call people out whenever she finds their actions to be unconscionable, but she'll readily excuse herself whenever she's guilty of doing the same thing. "It's okay when Vriska does it!"

She gets incredibly irritated when Scratch keeps talking about how he took advantage of her because she does not want to lose. She doesn't want anyone to have a position of power over her. It's a major way to make her uncomfortable (hence why she starts putting 8s in random letters very early on in this log).

I love it when Vriska says "can it". Also whenever she says "man" as a general expression of annoyance or amazement.

Kanaya loves dangerous women, but has no idea how to handle them. She wants to gently guide Vriska toward a more positive path, but Vriska resists any attempt at being controlled. Honestly, kind of fair considering that Kanaya is really only feigning to be Vriska's moirail so she can try and slide into her flushed quadrant. Kind of like what Eridan does with Feferi. But you're not ready for that conversation.

Uh, Vriska? Feferi's right there. And her lusus is much higher maintenance because if she doesn't get fed, everyone dies.

Not that I don't think Vriska wouldn't downplay Fef's struggles anyway.

And again, Eridan has significantly more irons in the fire since he's essentially in charge of keeping everyone on the planet alive.

Not like Vriska would care, though.

Equius might be one of the most viscerally repulsive and morally repugnant characters in the whole comic, but god dammit he just might be the most hilarious. To his credit, Hussie managed to craft the perfect buffoon by successfully capturing the essence of a specific kind of racist, perverted, online creepazoid and distilling it into a sweaty teenager who loves milk, horses, and being STRONG.

Making Equius fixated with grotesque furry art while calling it high art is a great parody of how fascists are obsessed with this grand idea of European exceptionalism when it comes to art and culture. It comes off as creepy and perverse (it also helps that many of these people are also addicted to hardcore pornography). If Homestuck was written today, Equius would probably be a very unsubtle parody of those people with a statue avatar and blabbing about how the West needs to "RETVRN" to past glories.

I'm kind of glad that's not the case because that'd be too on the nose. He's nasty enough as is.

Most trolls have to behave like "a sort of zookeeper" when interacting with their lusii, but Aurthour actually serves and cares for Equius. This does not stop Equius from referring to Aurthour as a "craven excuse for a custodian" or from mocking him when he gets injured (injuries caused by Equius himself, mind you).

I know it's a popular headcanon to depict Equius as this rippling, muscular bodybuilder, but I think it's more fitting to make him into this lanky guy who just happens to be freakishly strong. Muscular physiques are too aesthetically pleasing. It runs contrast to Equius's otherwise unappealing physical features. His widow's peak, his long unstyled hair, his broken teeth, his goofy ass legwarmers and shorts, the fact that he's constantly sweating... you get the idea.

He talks to Gamzee every day? Bro really wants to get his rocks off.

Equius won't roleplay over text with Nepeta, but he will pressure Gamzee into participating in his kinky dom/sub fantasy.

Equius structures all his social dynamics entirely around their position on the hemospectrum in relation to his own. There is no e%ception, he's incredibly infle%ible about this. From the way he browbeats Nepeta, to how he's begrudgingly civil to the similarly-classed Vriska, to the way he has to all but force Gamzee to try and dominate him, he is incapable of seeing anyone beyond what color their blood is.

Even later on, he never "overcomes his casteism." The only reason he ever acts subservient or polite to a lower blooded troll is because he view it through the lens of a power play dynamic. He gets a thrill out of "perverting" the class structure and getting "dominated" by those he views as inferior. Because despite his high social status and amazing physical strength, Equius is naturally submissive. It's this contrast that fuels a lot of his inner torment and anger issues.

Yeah he isn't a very dynamic character because at his core, he's a walking sex joke. But in Hussie's defense, it's an incredibly funny joke.

Oh Christ. And to think there was so much art of these two as a legitimate couple.

Equius's obsession with Aradia kind of reads like an openly racist/transphobic guy who secretly likes watching interracial/trans porn. Or perhaps in this specific passage, a guy who thinks he can "fix" a lesbian woman by turning her straight. No matter how you slice it, this just sucks.

Stay tuned for more yapping about trolls in the next post!

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

what type of youtubers would the trolls be? Karkat would definitely make rants and reviews of romance movies, Kanaya would make makeup or fashion tutorials, Sollux has an IT channel he made so people stop bugging him (nobody ever bothers checking it instead of asking him)

quick spitballed ideas bc this is such a cute prompt

aradia - reviews of inaccurate halloween decoration skeletons. theyre not rated on anatomical accuracy but by how much swag they have. most of her other videos are short clips of her livevlogging her day and telling short stories, but shes funny and witty so they do numbers. very low effort and low cost, but shes having fun.

tavros - CARD PACK UNWRAPPING. guy who in no way can afford his hobby but keeps getting these card packs for his channel. surprisingly relaxing to listen to while you have him minimized in another tab while you do something else. he goes over each card in the deck and their effects as well as rarity.

sollux - basically what you said. IT guide on walking through common computer problems. horrible mic quality, but really helpful information.

karkat - ABSOLUTELY would be a movie reviewer. no facecam but for whatever reason has CRISP mic quality. somehow NEVER peaks his mic despite all the screaming he does. he loves media analysis and getting pissed off over fandom drama so hed probably also do breakdowns of scandals in fandom spheres, and somehow almost getting sued.

nepeta - SPEEDPAINTS. and like. flipnote hatena style amvs. obviously very amateur but its a very cute art style and she has no concept of copyright infringement.

kanaya - makeup tutorials and fashion reviews. would definitely be like that one youtuber who reviews the accuracy of historical fiction dresses in film and tv. everytime the virgin mothergrub is in the background of her videos her comments are spammed with "MOTH MOM REAL"

terezi - animated shitposts. like. grinchs ultimatum, garfielf, shit like that. REALLY bright colors and shitty linework with windows moviemaker transitions. no one knows who she is and shes never done a face reveal so shes a total enigma. there are deep web theories that her videos are anti-empire propaganda.

vriska - flarping tutorials. genuinely. she goes over mechanics, spells, class breakdowns, even shares stories of her own flarp campaigns. VERY passionate about it and kind of has an asshole youtuber persona. posts an apology video like once a month then goes on like nothing happened. replies to every mean comment.

equius - weightlifting videos. dead silent. just grunting and metal clanking. no editing. addresses every comment in every video. lots of heavy breathing. very uncomfortable. almost like performance art in how desolate it feels.

gamzee - cooking videos. its as bad as it sounds.

eridan - showing off everything in his hive and talking about it. his guns. his outfits. ranting about pollution. each video is an hour long. its mostly just him complaining or bragging about the stuff he owns.

feferi - has a live feed of her cuttlefish pen going constantly. posts animal care videos. posts music. does challenges. her youtube is kind of an inconsistent mish-mash of content but one thing remains: you will watch her cuttlefish.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Gamzee Makara from Homestuck vs Maeglin Lómion from The Silmarillion/The Fall Of Gondolin

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Gamzee Makara:

LOVE: - "Okay, so Gamzee is such a divisive character that I even hesitated on choosing "love". Sad clown with an absentee father raised in a fascist dictatorship. Was mind controlled into killing his friends and then mind controlled during a toxic relationship (or two). Suffers from addiction so fandom likes to go "Oh, how scary his withdraws are. Clearly being drugged up was the only thing keeping this THIRTEEN YEAR OLD from murdering his friends (who largely ignored him, insulted him, demeaned him and acted like they wanted nothing to do with him). Having one such friend gently touch his face didn't cure him of his issues (or the mind control) so obviously he is an irredeemable monster and an abuser. This is genetic." I know you've gotten tons of Vriska, so basically insert any of Vriska's apologists' points here." - "Gamzee is a complex character who is used as a puppet both by the other villains of Homestuck and by the arthur. Once someone takes a deeper look at him they might find a tragic character who had lots of chances where he could have gotten onto a better path but those chances were not able to be given or taken. On the flip side Gamzee suffers from some poor writing that leaves aspects of the character to based off poor stereotypes, he also lacks chances to show his internal character as thr story goes on and is treated like a tool by the story. He also killed some fan favorite characters and has a version of himself (homestuck is a multi timeline story) that abused a different fan favorite character." - "I know Vriska is the obvious pick for controversial HS blorbo, but consider: He is the world's shittiest boy. No one knows why he does the things he does he might just be a murderclown but he might be mind controlled or something no one knows and people have really strong opinions on him based on what they believe. He makes me very sad because I did think he was a cool character before he snapped." - "He was written so poorly 💔" - "when i was 12 i had a crush on him i was like a gamzee apologist and i was probably right i dont remember homestuck. i used to listen to icp and think wowww this is just like my clwon boyfriend and giggle and blush and kick my legs and i still do that with my fake boyfriend but hes not gamzee and its not icp and im not 12 but he kind of sounds like gamzee but thats because hes a smoker and he wouldnt listen to icp he likes techno. anyway i used to get so sad when people said they didnt like him because of the killings and i brought him up to my old therapist a couple times thats kind of funny looking back but i would do it again (but not with gamzee. with my fake chain smoker boyfriend who likes techno). anyway anyway my mom listens icp because her old friend from highschool who died was a juggalo and whenever i hear her listen to it i think about gamzee so i havent forgot about him yet. hes wasnt my favorite character thouhg my favorite character was the gemini one (i also had a crush on him when i was 12 i tried to lucid dream to see him once) (it didnt work). ok love you bye." - "-Funny clown -Cares about his friends -Absent parental figure :( -Did some murder but it wasn't his fault really he didn't have all of his mental faculties (see next point) -Got brainwashed by a universe-destroying god that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time through the form of a rapping marionette -The author(s) fucking hates him for some reason and retconned his previous characterization to make him a one-dimensional shitty villain and used canon text to make fun of fans who like him and no I'm not exaggerating -If I don't make him my blorbo who will"

Maeglin Lómion:

LOVE: - "LISTEN okay so he DID betray the city of Gondolin to the guy who literally invented evil, and that DID result in it getting destroyed and a whole bunch of people dying or being taken prisoner (which is probably worse in this instance), and also he DID attempt to throw his cousin's seven-year-old son off the city walls to his death during the attack. BUT. I love him. Also, and more substantially, a) he didn't go out of his way to betray the city, he was taken prisoner and threatened into it, b) he had an incredibly painful history with Gondolin involving both his parents' violent deaths happening like ten minutes after he arrived there, and he was legally not allowed to leave, and c) he was SO YOUNG (only 180! that's hardly anything for an elf!) and he is SO ANGSTY and INTERESTINGLY GOTH and SELF-HATING and I LOVE him. So." - "First of all he was LITERALLY CURSED TWICE OVER so there was NO WAY he was coming to a good end okay. Sure he had a crush on his cousin but he canonically didn't say anything and she only knew because she read his mind and he wasn't able to hide it from her. He had a major éowyn moment (iconic) and was trapped in cage after cage all his life and tbh after what he saw in the Nirnaeth I'm NOT surprised he voted to stay instead of go. Or just told the king what he wanted to hear. Anyway the POINT is that breaking under mental torment to morgoth, whose force and victory he'd seen firsthand, is NOT a moral failing, and idril started conspiring against him before he'd actually done anything wrong. The attempted murder was, admittedly, not great though. But he didn't even SUCCEED like c'mon he just got homoerotically yeeted from a cliff about it. In conclusion: maeglin did nothing wrong except all the things he did wrong, and the version in which he's most openly evil is also the one where both the narrative and the other elves are racist to him so like they had it coming"

[mxrtified777]

if I may poke your brain further (hope I’m not being annoying lol just excited)

do you have any concepts/ideas/etc regarding the Jovel twins ?? (they r my fav, you see). with them having opposing aspects and sways would make their dynamic RLLY interesting

them both having the same broken horns has me VERY intrigued…

(and you are so real for it being more hiveswap than Homestuck LOL I just fucking love classpects haha)

giggless... okay, the broken horn thing is based on an old jovel twins theory that a friend and i have surrounding the first scar drew obtained. simply put, in ibvhs (cant believe im fucking calling it that), drew ends up with a broken horn as opposed to a face scar, and nevin in response snaps his own horn to match. normal cerulean activities. speaking of cerulean, how perfect is it that the twins (who are in fact scorpios, i only intentionally assigned blood castes to characters with no affirmed birthday) ended up in a blood caste also known for their telepathic and telekinetic abilities? i just cant get over that

also, i accidentally gave nevin vriskas horns without realizing it (since the twins' horns are supposed to be mismatched; their missing horn is the one present on the other twin). which is. kind of funny since the majority of this spawned from me cracking a joke about nevin possibly being a vriska apologist

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions page 666 - “8-ball” path)

Well, that took a turn for the unexpected

I mean, I thought it was likely that Vriska was going to encounter her pre-retcon self here but everything around it went differently than I would have thought, haha.

First of all, I thought it was basically a certainty that this 8-ball would correspond to chapter/year 8, but instead it's only number 6! I suppose it does make sense though in hindsight, considering the association of this page with the number 6. :P

On the other hand, I was surprised that Vriska didn't complete this stage successfully and has NOT left hell yet.

I wonder if it means she IS going to stay stuck until year 8… and only exit by page 888? That would be pretty funny.

Anyway, about the actual content of this update.

First of all, I need to talk about… Fefetasprite.

I did NOT see it coming she would still make an appearance at the very end, after only being briefly mentioned earlier (and only when playing with the quirks setting on the website).

If all the Sprites were REALLY physically here with Vriska… Fefeta's appearance makes absolute zero sense, seeing as the only version we know of her exploded, and we know those pre-retcon versions of Nepeta and Feferi ended up separately in the Dreambubbles.

So is she the exception amongst the Sprites and just a fake ghost then? I love how Davepeta also treated her so vaguely here. It's like she was Schrödinger's Nepeta, hahahaha.

It's interesting how this update gave us appearances and talksprites for ALL Sprites that are still around in some way... other than Arquiusprite. It's still a bit unclear what happened to him after the Sburb session ended and before he'd end up part of Lord English.

Anyway, back to Davepeta. I also really loved how they made a reference to Super Smash Bros.'s Master Hand AND Disney's Mickey Mouse and Goofy. It's always amazing when there's a bit of overlap between some of my biggest interests (I'm a huge Disney and Super Smash Bros fan).

I like how Davepeta was sneakily trying to prepare Vriska for the confrontation with her pre-retcon self by hugging her.

I felt a bit sorry for Vriska, that she was so convinced she would finally see Terezi again, but instead she has to face herself. I definitely think this will lead to Vriska doing everything she can to find Terezi again as soon as possible, once she's out of this hell.

I was a bit confused by the beginning of the scene though. For a second I thought Vriska wasn't physically there and only experiencing a vision of her pre-retcon self spending time in the Dreambubbles with Terezi, as a follow-up to when we last saw them during [S] Terezi: Remem8er. It didn't help that the music in this scene, especially the first few notes, reminded me a lot of "Do You Remem8er Me", the song that played during [S] Terezi: Remem8er. Only then I realized it was actually OUR Vriska calling out to who she BELIEVED was Terezi but turned out to be her pre-retcon self.

But it makes sense, of course. Vriska wouldn't have had any idea that her pre-retcon self met up with Terezi eventually. As far as she was aware, she left her other self completely abandoned, so it makes sense that the ghost she faces is in the state she left her in.

It's interesting that pre-retcon Vriska didn't speak at all during the scene. Vriska will definitely have to face her again, but will she speak then or will it only be post-retcon Vriska who literally and figuratively needs to embrace her pre-retcon self?

Now the question is what the next update will be. Will it turn out there's another secret path on this same page, or are we finally moving on beyond page 666 into new frontiers?

It wouldn't surprise me if we now get a perspective switch and only return to Vriska much later, in time for page 888. Maybe it's time to see what Terezi is up to?

[sylph-o-life]

CANNOT relate to those homestuck fans that like 1-3 characters exclusively. I like (almost) all of them for mostly silly reasons. Here's why I loved them at 14/15, and why I still do.

John/June - Main character. I always find myself liking the main character if I liked the story, for some reason. Jade - Girl who is silly AND smart AND had a Condition(narcolepsy)! This was groundbreaking to little old 14/15 year old me. Dave - Funney and rambles. Rose - Smart, funny and independent; AKA, everything I wanted to be when I first read homestuck.

Aradia - The idea that you could be silly AND like dark and macabre things was an earthshattering idea to me. Tavros - Relatable. Sollux - Inspired me to learn html for some reason. Also I liked that he had a Theme (duality). Karkat - Grouchy in a way that's funny. Nepeta - Outside of shipping, something I didn't understand, nepeta was just like me. Autistic Artist Kid with a love for Roleplay. (I almost cosplayed her, and would've if I wasn't so poor) Kanaya - Cool v ampire with chainsaw :) Terezi - LOVED the way she speaks. Vriska - First time I saw a mean character and didn't hate them (I didn't see a lot of media tbf) Equius - Loved the way he said bloo. Nepeta liked him so I did too. Gamzee - Liked the way the stoner clown got turned into a genuinely scary character. Eridan - I felt like I HAD to like him because that was MY zodiac. So i... did?? Feferi - Life player :) Also had a massive special interest in deep sea critters and the mention of cuttlefish made me immediately latch onto her.

Jane - her name is my middle name. Also life player :) Jake - funney old-timey british talk. Green. Dirk - brony. Hal - glasses. Roxy - I don't remember exactly??? I think it was similar to Jade and Rose in the silly AND smart thing, but less groundbreaking because I had seen it before (in Jade and Rose).

Damara - I liked her hair plus the contrast between Aradia and her. Did not know what she was saying (for some reason didn't fully realise I could translate her text until last year???) Rufioh - Liked that he had wings. Mituna - Reminds me of my grandpa (he has a brain injury) Kankri - Didn't. Meulin - First time seeing a deaf character and made me realise I could make disabled characters (despite seeing several others IN homestuck, too. I was not exactly observant or smart lol) Porrim - Had face piercings that I wanted/reminded me of my aunt. Latula - Gamer girl, plus I liked the anosmia representation (I don't ahve it, but I have a very weak sense of smell) Aranea - She talked a lot Horuss - Didn't. Kurloz - inspired me to learn some ASL, a sign language not used in Australia. I can still, at 20, fingerspell in ASL, despite it being useless here. (trying to find some AUSLAN classes though) Cronus - Didn't. Meenah - She was cool :)

Every single carapacian, felt member, and other secondary/tertiary character - like them :) Doc scratch - :(

Caliope - kinda wanted to be her tbh. But in a not girl way (?) Caliborn - Loved that he was a shithead. Found him funny.

Anyway I think it's clear that I was not a very smart kid.

[davekat-sucks]

I think i definitely would've liked Calliope more if she was presented as a bad person. I love how she absolutely malded (this term works here (wig)) when she was losing that chess game. Beforehand she was acting all snide and flirty towards Caliborn, like come on, "you're being such a good sport now finally", sending hearts <3 to him, saying weirdly suggestive shit. Like damn girl you're usually not this upfront. Then she gets thrown off guard and gets extremely defensive, it's hilarious. I really liked her when she acted two-faced, you can even take this literally, she's delusional. She dresses up as a troll because she has a fetish for them then starts shipping herself and friends together, no wonder why Caliborn sees her as so pathetic. All she has is ruses, i don't even think that SHE THINKS that she's all that strong. She pretty much relies on other's to get her through stuff and she even pretends to be someone else to progress the story. I've said it in the past but i think she should've been a misandrist, i think it would be funny for her to enable her female friends obsessive dispositions towards their crushes. Remember her drawing of Roxy trying to kiss Dirk while he looks visibly uncomfortable? It's stuff like that, have her perception on men be that they're props for the girls and you need to get a one-up on them in anyway to control them. Like drawing Dirk in a pink costume and being called something as gay as "the prince of heart" as an attempt at emasculating him. There's potential for this idea. She's better at being more composed and tactful than Caliborn, a good set up for being manipulative, she uses her fake politeness to slither her way onto C-Earth where i think she would have great potential to become a villain.

Just a bunch a thoughts about her bleh, she was kinda boring half of the time in the comic, stuff just gets handed to her and she's supposed to be a good guy despite forcefully separating Roxy and Rose that one time. Gave off control freak vibes. Her character feels inconsistent, like Hussie couldn't choose what he wanted her to be. I feel like her potential was underutilized

While Caliborn tries to be more in your face direct kind of deal, Calliope would have been someone who plays the more passive role. Doing her best to hide her true intentions or feelings and only showing her true colors when she is not able see the results she wanted or something else beyond her control comes her way. Calliope would shown to be no better than Caliborn and prove show how Cherubs are awful species. Sure there could be a chance of good Cherub, but like with trolls, there is some trait that would be frowned upon by human standards. Like you got Nepeta, she is playful and sweet, yes, but people forget she still hunts animals for food and PAINT. Some may find FLARP sessions that Tavros, Terezi, Aradia, Vriska, and Eridan engage in to be dangerous since it can lead to physical harm, be it from other players or the monsters they had set up. To trolls, such activities like this are a norm because they had been conditioned to live under it. But perhaps for Cherubs case, it might as well be in genetics as a species themselves that they act this way. If she is also represents the 'good' side of the fandom, then one should show toxic positivity is just as bad. People who have good intentions, but their noble deeds can lead to harm if the intent behind it is still selfish, consciously or subconsciously. Maybe those who are part of the good fandom side that may disagree with certain opinions, everyone else immediately goes against them instantly at the drop of dime because they fear they instantly become bad, when there is more to it than that. Actually show the grey morality on both sides of the fandom that would represent people like 4chan & old MSPA fans with Caliborn and Calliope with Tumblr.

[marisoft-paint-adventures]

Pgs. 214-247

it’s her.

Rope Lalope.

icon for weird goths who for some reason decide to live in the Midwest, those who can somehow still enjoy Lovecraft while knowing the truth of his fucking cat, and

I don’t think WLW ships have ever been the same since the advent of The Rosemary from The Homestuck,

or if I want to sound like a fuckin goofy ass oldhead, femslash.

the thing is that I cannot identify any actual concrete change in general fandom and shipping post-HS, I just feel it. I can feel that something within the universe’s structure changed the moment grimdark gorl and sparkly gay vampire got together.

but I’m talking about a character that hasn’t even shown up yet.

also front facing Rose is fucking haunting stop please.

[insert dabbing joke here.]

the fucking haunting violin refrain flash is so good I love how her movements sync up with the song.

not gonna gush about Aggrieve the same way as Showtime because come on it’s fucking Showtime, but Aggrieve is still very much up there.

Since your good for nothing friend is obviously not going to bail you out in time, you issue words of parting fondness to dear, sweet Liv. Oh, if only Affleck could have been the one to make the final sacrifice instead of her stubborn, blue collar, salt-of-the-earth father. Then she would fall into your arms for consolation, and YOU would be the one to make the deceased Bruce Willis proud.

the crush on Liv Tyler is not explored enough in fandom, I need to know how much John imprints her on his other romance options. how much of a Liv Tyler is Vriska, these are the fucking questions people.

Your panoramic window offers a view of your yard below, and the mausoleum housing your dead cat, JASPERS, who died when you were young. Your MOM had the structure erected with a spirit of scornful IRONY in response to your youthfully innocent request to hold a funeral for the animal. At least, that is how you have come to interpret the gesture in retrospect.

compared to John’s struggle with the clownkind, Rose has a much more grounded strife with her parental figure.

I say that but Rose takes this shit to an 11.

regardless, a parent that constantly performs malicious compliance with a hint of irony isn’t unbelievable, neither is someone fooling themselves into thinking their guardian is operating as such due to a general disconnect and the feeling of not having enough attention.

with all of this established,

it’s still really fucking funny,

because Rose will stare down Mom with sheer contempt thinking “SHE’S FUCKING WITH YOU! SHE’S TRYING TO GET TO YOU! DO NOT GIVE IN TO HER GAMES!” as she stands around vacuuming jackshit, probably having no thoughts in her fucking head except for “I love household chores. :))))))”

WIZARDS.RAR.

genuinely the funniest story surrounding Homestuck, Andrew Hussie risked their entire PC for a bunch of fucking stupid wizard pngs.

the Egberts do high action cake forcefeeding, the Lalondes do drunken covert operations, the Striders DO MAD NINJA TRICKS.

GIRL IS DRENCHED.

early HS art is so fucking pretty. everyone’s always on about the kids looking like bobbleheads and that’s good but the environments are so fucking good as well.

iconic panel, banger panel. look at how her knees do the swirly thing.

CRINGE MAC USER.

you’re making the John nervous!!! Egberts only do this under high stress!!! help him!!!

TT: And the content of the card appears to be variable from session to session. TT: In one instance it was described as an "eggy loking thign" [sic].

presenting without comment.

“John: Take bite of apple.” is a really good ending flash in which John takes a bite out of an apple 

and then gets fucking nuked. 

the act then ends there.

a marvel that the only reason John lived was because he did what looked like the goofiest option ever. did the apple even taste good? what the fuck is cruxite made of???? I guess it’s edible??? might be candy, is it candy??? do they come in different flavors???

after way too long, Act 1 is finally fucking done, yet the more I read it, the shorter it feels. I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t need to absorb the tutorial stuff due to being familiar with the comic already, or because I’m anticipating when shit really goes crazy later on. maybe a bit of both. it certainly preps me for the art style, the flowery language, the weird humor, and so on.

I can say that Act 1 is

fine.

it is of good quality.

nothing groundbreaking and not the best,

but enjoyable nonetheless.

I get that it’s a bit slow and nothing really happens, but I’m able to entertain myself with the page to page shenanigans and good character interactions.

honestly I don’t understand how people skipped this act at all, how the fuck do you skip the start of the story??? don’t you want to like

understand

what is happening

and who these people are???

especially the later part, so much Homestuck skipping was for the sake of immediately getting to the character interactions, but

there are character interactions here,

and

you learn who the characters even are.

like what the fuck, the introduction to the characters and their dynamics should be key to being invested in them, but I guess not because some people were able to just jump in the middle and grow attached while not knowing what the fuck is going on.

in conclusion: people who skipped Act 1 are cringe, and have doomed themselves. Act 1 good.

[thewertsearch]

EB: well to be honest, i never really believed any of your guys's doom and gloom nonsense. EB: not because i think you are lying… EB: i just feel like there must still be a way to win! AG: That's the spirit, John! AG: That is a winner's attitude, and there is always hope for someone who has that.

I guess John's optimism looks a lot like confidence to Vriska. John hasn't really seen the bigger picture, so his optimism comes from ignorance - but I still think he's got the right idea. You need to be optimistic if you're going to challenge the Alpha Timeline.

This is the attitude she was trying to 'train' into Tavros - and the fact that she sees it in John bodes poorly for him. If Vriska is taking an interest in you, there's going to be trouble ahead.

EB: also, there is always hope for someone who has good friends to count on! AG: Pff. AG: Laaaaaaaame.

Sure, Vriska. And I take it you created your universe alone?

That is IT. EVERYBODY OUT. You are DEAD SERIOUS.

It's funny, but this is also a genuine milestone for John. It's RPG tradition that once you get to a certain level, weaker enemies will flee without a fight.

It's not often that we gain insight from a page's command.

Vriska is confused. It's not just that she's getting to grips with the concept of a human - it's also that John, specifically, represents everything she's not. Their worldviews are so different that I think she's struggling to comprehend what she's seeing - and I think that's going to interfere with her manipulation attempts.

EB: it wasn't even that long ago, but it already seems like forever since i was on earth! EB: it was a pretty nice place, i bet you would have liked it. AG: It seems a little too sunny for my liking.

Scared you'll go blind?

EB: well, what about you? do you miss your planet, and your parents and such? AG: The life I left 8ehind wasn't so hot, to 8e honest.

John doesn't even know what a lusus is. Spidermom would be a lot to take in, on top of everything else - but I'm surprised Vriska is even able to recognize that she's had a hard life. Like I said, she usually acts like the challenges she faced were beneficial.

Maybe it's easier to broach the topic to a human. Her antics have alienated most of her troll pals, and they'd just think she was making excuses - but John is a blank slate. If she tells him about Spidermom without telling him about the murders, she'll get sympathy that she'd never get from a troll.

EB: oh. that's too bad. AG: Why don't we not talk a8out that!

But not quite yet. This is Vriska, after all - she has too many irons in the fire to talk about her silly feelings!!!!!!!! >::::(

[eggsploded]

HOMESTUCK AND STAR TREK? :O

oh baby this posts gonna be long

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

HS: aradia and sollux. aradia is my favorite forever as my patron troll and sollux is just fun to draw because whys he look like that

ST: all the cardassians in general. garak is the best, im honestly more fascinated with andrew robinson himself and his dedication to the character. also damar who doesnt get much presence until later seasons and gets crushed by actually giving a fuck about his position. i took a shot of kanar (maple syrup) for his honor and it was agony.

dukat is excluded from this because he managed to curse the show into buffering on his face everytime i watched.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

HS: probably the beta kids before playing sburb. theyre all just little kids and best friends forever and it makes me tear up- in pesterquest dave literally talks about jade like shes his girlfriend that goes to a different school. all the kids were more than eager to see eachother in person and it sucks that it happened under the circumstances of.. homestuck

i dont have cuteness aggression for them theyve been through enough :-(

ST: in TNG's the enemy geordi helps out this genuinely pitiful romulan dude thats shaking like a chihuahua and i felt so much for that guy i wish he came back

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

HS: i think people are finally past portraying kanaya as a nothingburger, it was kind of funny 10 years ago that people were falling into her flimsy veil of Perceived Normalcy, like she doesnt regularly bite her friends and wasnt unforgivably delulu about vriska when they were moirails.

truly underrated might be the felt? their designs tickle me

ST: damar? maybe hes got more content now idk. honorable mentions are: keiko obrien, worfs parents (my favorite tng ep), hugh, the cardassian scientists that hit on obrien that one time, lwaxana troi and keevan.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

HS: any of signless' crew. like. we got shafted so hard with the dancestors its crazy. in my wildest dreams psiioniic didnt get utterly crushed by the vast glub and somehow escaped at the ripe age of 2000 sweeps and is now overgrown and too old and ancient for his own good, squatting in solluxs hive. we didnt get much content about how signless did his recruiting- did he just do speeches and demonstrations? did he fuck nasty? i know for sure it wasnt the cringe dialogue they strapped kankri with. same goes for dolorosas life before she raised signless, she should be at the club.

ST: background vulcans. especially in TNG when they just stopped giving a fuck about them, thank god tuvok exists or i wouldve had no incentive at all to actually watch part of VOY.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

HS: equius. its really a special day when a character cant be quantified with a simple archetype like the rest of the trolls. theres something so deeply strange and wrong with him that its captivating, i chalk it up to being the horse guy in a insect body.

hussie also just like, had it out for him at day one. gamzee got beaten to a pulp narratively but equius didnt even get a chance. its sad, and im more interested in what he couldve been rather than someone like eridan or meenah.

ST: kai winn. shes literally an alien white woman and its fantastic. she did her role so good that the poor actress got hatemail, and her insidiousness is just so well done. the final season of ds9 isnt that good but it was fun to see her go off the rails with dukat.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

HS: what do i look like? hussie? in truth when it comes to being a flop i like seeing kanaya flounder. shes weird guys. she is so fucking weird and she doesnt really know because her friends are Weirder. we dont always need her to slay, atleast in my book.

ST: riker. no further notes

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

HS: jake. if he has a deeper character i havent noticed because my eyes glaze over trying to read through this dialogue. he feels like a leftover shitpost character hussie couldnt fit on the dancestors. i havent reread act 6 yet, but i remember such a large chunk being some strange love triangle-square surrounding jake and i did Not Give a Fuck, and salt in the wound was dirk and janes friendship being so fantastic but overshadowed by jakes unceasing sex appeal cursing them.

ST: obrien because it was be a standard episode plot for him, i think hed come out fine

[acearadiamegido]

the ORIGINAL homestuck otp for me ofc we got a bingo

more detailed infodumping under the cut

-so first off i don’t have to do much to make it fucked up. the whole “sollux getting mind controlled into killing aradia” thing is already pretty fucked up. but idk i also think about how, like, at a certain point, aradia knew the game would destroy alternia, and decided she just wasn’t going to tell sollux, and encourage him to finish programming it anyway. and like obviously playing sgrub was the only way to save their friends and all that but still she could’ve like…. TOLD him this huge element of what he was doing. Not to mention that when he finally came around to participating she put him to sleep which a) made him get enough mind honey in his mouth that he blew up the roof of his apartment and killed his lusus and b) cost him enough time getting INTO the game that it probably contributed a lot to him dying in the vast glub. AND AGAIN she only really did any of this because she knew the alternative was a doomed timeline, but like. there’s some major betrayal of trust there! there’s like. this element of mirroring between vriska forcing sollux’s hand into hurting aradia, and fate/the timeline/the voices/etc forcing aradia to do some real sketchy shit to sollux, and BRO it makes me go fucking insane (which is another point on the bingo board lol)

-basically canon: i dont think this needs much more explanation. look at them. i guess i can also get into the “idk what their relationship is” thing tho like. they are CLEARLY… something. maybe its pale maybe its red but frankly neither of them seems like the kind of person that would consider it important to define it. they just, like. want to be together and be a part of each other’s lives and they don’t seem too picky about what that looks like as long as they’re together. and i eat that shit RIGHT up bro.

-this is also kind of the ethos for “theyre not dating but they’re married” like FRANKLY. i like to interpret them as like. idk simply being so damn comfy and domestic with each other at a certain point that it doesn’t actually occur to them to like… have a Discrete Conversation in which they determine that they are a couple. like maybe one or both of them intends to bring it up someday at the beginning but eventually they have just been so deeply entwined in each others’ lives that like. it would be weird to bring up since they’re basically already just married. they’re a unit. do not separate them. bonded pair. adopt together ONLY.

-i can make it so stupid: look. they are also really fucking funny together. literally just read their pesterlogs together and tell me they arent constantly arguing (recreationally not like. actually heated arguments) about dumb shit and teasing each other because they both DO dumb shit. they are utter dweebs. aradia says shit like “i think your outfit looks quite spiffy” unironically. sollux has his own goddamn custom emotes for when he makes bad puns. i love them

-thematically delicious: its about being doomed. its about loss of agency. its about being sacrificed for the greater good over and over and then one day freeing yourself from the cycle. its about being one of the few who live to the end of the story but only because you decided to leave the story. OUGH.

-the inherent eroticism of attempted murder: i think people forget that when terezi originally decided to kill vriska to avenge aradia’s death, sollux was the one she enlisted to trace doc scratch’s typewriter. he was like, involved in that murder attempt. it didnt work of course but like dude fully intended to help kill vriska. arasol is “tried to kill vriska” solidarity

- theyre sweet/the devotion: bro sollux didnt go on the meteor with karkat kanaya and terezi because he wanted to reconnect with aradia. karkat kanaya and terezi are like. arguably the dude’s best fucking friends. he just exploded his whole brain out of his face to save them and then he sees aradia and is like well. i think thats enough self-sacrifice for one day. maybe i will actually just relax now. LIKE COME ON!!!!! they are out there for potentially eternity floating thru the bubbles, which are inherently transient and impermanent, and there is no truly stable place for them to anchor except each other like god DAMN dude. i am mentally unwell about it.

anyway this is what happens when you think about 2 characters holding hands for like, 11-12 years straight.

[relaxxattack]

Person who sent the Vriska ableism ask. I am currently rereading and at least up through act 5 Vriska is the only one to be Horrifically ableist to Tavros. Alot of the troll characters *are* ableist but they're not vicious about it in the way she is, she actively seeks out excuses to call him useless and better off dead and like. While other characters do make ableist remarks about them they're both significantly toned down and also not usually to his face. I'm saying this as a disabled person- Vriska is ableist to Tavros beyond what we see as "normal" on Alternia. (This isn't me trying to accuse you of downplaying it btw. I wouldn't remember exactly how bad she was if I wasn't rereading rn and also hyperaware of it as a wheelchair user)

(CONT.) The actual reason Vriska's ableism bothers me so much is partially bc I read with the directors commentary mod that lets me see what Hussie wrote for the books and Hussie repeatedly agrees with alot of the horrific shit Vriska says about Tavros so like. When people try to defend Vriska saying that shit it feels in a roundabout way like trying to defang REAL OPINIONS Hussie has about one of their only canonically disabled characters

if it makes you feel at all better, i don't think you can trust literally anything hussie says to actually be their 'real' opinion on anything ever (motherfucker thinks they're the dave strider of real life), but it seriously doesn't excuse any of that shit regardless, just because it's uncomfortable and terrible to have to watch, hear, or sit through.

i distinctly remember being incredibly uncomfortable whenever vriska was talking with or interacting with tavros, so i don't think you're wrong for saying that (it must be exceptionally worse for you, actually). also, as someone who often likes to take a dive into older fandom history-- i think you're completely right that the people who say that shit are trying to defang that stuff. worse, actually, i think they don't see what's wrong with it; there were a LOT of fucked up memes and posts and in-jokes that went around back in the day that people thought were fine just because they were 'funny'. like "oh no i'm not making fun of disability, i'm making fun of tavros, which is fine because he's a joke character in a webcomic", and then they refuse to unpack in their brains what that could possibly mean.

not that i'm saying older fandom was intentionally malicious, i'm well aware that 2012 was a different time in which rigorous self-examination and outspoken empathy wasn't as popular as it is now, and that sometimes when memes get really big people don't think about the message being sent behind them; but i also don't think it can really be excused with "oh it was 2012 and people made jokes like that". like, no, people (mostly hussie) can be aware of the sort of thing they're putting out into the world. it's not anything except deeply uncomfortable to write a series-wide extended joke about how a disabled character is useless/worthless and deserves abuse.

i guess basically what i'm saying (to people far in the past who probably already know this now, not to you, anon) is: critical media consumption, people. learn it.

you need to be able to examine the things you're reading/watching to see what it's saying to you, and what sort of things it's making you think or be comfortable with, what sort of person it's helping you become.

[spacedhead]

homestuck reread #7: a5a2 part 3

this is so fucked up.

but hey check it out. vriska went goat mode

okayyy merry christmas and happy new year to everyone reading. never too late for a happy new year

look at roseee shes serving so hard rn. but unfortunately she is talking to doc scratch. which is something one should never do. especially if one is a light player he really loves to torment light players for some reason

look at how cool jade looks here i would wear the shit out of this outfit if it wasnt approx. 1 trillion degrees in my location. keep slaying girl

what a thing to say. i know what he is talking about and yet i still barely understood what he meant

yeah WHATEVER . most important character my ass. we dont care . booooo. boo

why is jade sprite so sad shes being such a cry baby. honestly normal jade is based for this. jade sprite is just crying and crying for NO REASON. what is even the problem!!!!!

very fucking interesting indeed.... what a funny thing to say. that is VERY FUCKING interesting......

woah he looks so cool i love art i love images. also he looks like has the windows logo on his face... sponsored? hello?

okay so i guess the mayor is having a bad dream. this is pretty scary man... i wonder if its like the ring that he has affecting him in some way. i dont know what it means....

oh? vriska is here now

dawwww shes so EEPY!!! that being said, the next page is [s] wake, and i really fucking hate this one. so im NOT EXCITED.

ARADIA!!!! SHE DID IT!!!! im so happy for her and nothing else happens in this animation so i might as well not watch the rest of it

:(

sigh. man this sucks

look at jade go. she looks so awesome! like a super hero. iron man. tony stark . stucky. i could do this all day . blargh

ok so now im playing another game thing. kanaya and jade just had a conversation about how they have the same role in the two different sessions and how theyre more similar than they thought. also theres some future jade present karkat past jade password shenanigans going on. i loooove when time travel makes no sense and is super confusing. that isnt sarcasm btw. and that wasnt either. also, they updated the sprites in this one so they look way better and sweeeeeeeet. that was 8 e's btw. she isnt even here to appreciate my efforts.....

this is like scott pilgrim to me. theyre about to go at it!!!! who you guys got money on? me personally i bet sollux 3-0s him and doesnt lose a stock

easter egg

anyway yeah guys i was just kidding sollux was no match for eridans insane hope powers. really wasnt even fair to begin with

yeah and now eridan snaps and becomes an incel. sadge. why do people even like this guy?? WHATEVER HES MID HOPE HE DIES SOON RIP BOZO

my honest reaction to eridan to only knocking out the guy he had an actual problem with, but killing two women who he liked and respected

on top of that, gamzee has officially lost it. MAN EVERYTHING IS FUCKING SPIRALING MAN TAVROS IS DEAD KANAYAS DEAD FEFERIS DEAD SOLLUX IS KO'D GAMZEES CRAZY. surely nothing else goes wrong

yeah

karkat....:(

oh.....hey john....nice to see you..... maybe you can lift my mood a little...

STOP CALLING WOMEN CRAZY. even if this one might be a little crazy .. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT

ALALALALLALAAL thats what vriska looks like shes saying. do you see it i see it personally

man now i gotta be equius in this game. lets see how this goes...

SHES SO REAL I LOVE HER. nothing bad will ever happen to her

okay well i reached the end of the game and also the image limit for this post. so ill continue this next time. but i just gotta say

that it was actually pretty good. like go figure the equius one was pretty engaging. equius is very protective of nepeta and it was very sad when he was like "let me take this chance to say goodbye" and nepeta was like "um okay but i will see you soon." like. yeah i guess you will.... :(

i actually liked both of them in this one isolated game . sad for whats gonna happen in the coming pages