#aluria.txt

[aluria-sevhex]

okay so i typed an entire rant in the tags and decided it was to important to leave in the tags so now it's a rant not in the tags:

once i started researching Judaism and stumbling across the concept of cultural Christianity in the process, this started to annoy me, because ultimately the atheism you see in a lot of the Western world still tends to be shaped like Christianity because Christianity likes to pretend it's just about belief when religion is much more complex than that.

this isn't an inherently bad thing it's just the way things work, and it's something that a lot of ex-Christian atheists have to unpack and be aware of otherwise we start being fucking assholes to religious minorities. all religion is deeply intertwined with culture in ways that go beyond theology and into things like practices, ethics, etc. in some ex-Christian atheists you can see this reflected with attitudes about how nobody should be religious because it's bad and indoctrinating children, statements that can be eerily similar to Christians trying to convert people to save themselves and their children.

all this is to say that if your 'enlightened' future has no religion, then you're saying that a lot of cultures do not belong in the future.

...and again. in the West the atheism of this media still often reflects Christian worldviews and ethics. this point plus the previous point result in a really fucking nasty implication, in which Christian atheism has effectively wiped out all other human culture.

i don't think people in the future are magically going to all stop being religious and instead be more logical. all of history has had people finding meaning in the divine, and this includes scientists. attempting to remove religion outright means you are removing what is a fundamental aspect of the human experience for many people

unfortunately once you start noticing the tendency of some sci-fi to flatten every character into ‘ambiguously atheist’, the implication that the only future is one where no one has any religious beliefs is going to piss you off for the rest of time

[aluria-sevhex]

the author's barely disguised aromanticism and/or hatred of amatonormativity

[prismaticfabricator]

"Carefree Victory" is stuck in my head. clearly this means i must draw Jade

[aluria-sevhex]

they should invent an online transmasc community that isn't transmisogynistic as hell

[annotatedamblings]

we decided to draw some headcanons and ships we like! ^-^

I'm really proud of these! Btw I think there should be room in the fandom for people who have never read the comic :3

sorry. happy April Fool's. consider this a sign on the metaphorical building of this blog saying Cronkri shippers will be shot. gonna cleanse my soul by working more on the reread after this since we got distracted for a few days #adhdprobably #dammitajax

Additionally, Crotuna shippers will be put in my saw trap #modjasperhasaonetrackmindatthemoment. Calling Lara a man was so draining.

[prismaticfabricator]

people are sending beautiful questions in my ask box and unfortunately i want to make little comics in response. horrid plight of mine

[aluria-sevhex]

adding this bit memeing on prev because clearly it is having a Terminal Blorbo Moment

im mutual

[aluria-sevhex]

heartbreaking: a genuinely compelling headcanon is also so fucking problematic

[annotatedamblings]

annotatedAmblings's Homestuck Reread Liveblog: Act 1 (part 1, pages 1-125)

Although liveblog posts will contain analysis due to how we like to engage with media, liveblogs are primarily a collection of whatever thoughts came to mind during our reading. Liveblog posts are constructed with each mod drafting their own live reactions separately before combining them, so some sentiments may be repeated due to both mods noting it down. Any analysis within a liveblog post should not be assumed to be our complete thoughts on the subject, and we are not particularly experienced with analysis.

Blue = Mod Aluria Pink = Mod Jasper Arrows (>>>) are used to indicate commentary on each other's commentary.

Almost immediately, I'd like to take note of the usage of color (or lack thereof). The house is mostly white. I don't have any smart comments on this right now but it is an interesting stylistic choice. >Liveblog stitching! Aluria here, I think I was thinking about how it could relate to the feelings of isolation I touch on later in this post.

Page 9: It took way too long for any of this sylladex shit to be even remotely comprehensible to me the first time around. Am I stupid. >No, sylladex mechanics can be a bit tricky to get to, something which narration on multiple pages acknowledges.

Page 10: It's fun to see sylladex shenanigans :]

Page 16: A thing I always liked about the suggestion format is how subject the main character is to the player's dumb fucking whims. I like that about point and click adventures also. >Checked what page is page 16. F in chat for Zoosmell Pooplord and the unwanted desire to shit on his desk.

Page 18: It just occurred to me how the manner in which the sylladex mechanics are encountered via the reader prompts fucking around and finding out really is like a video game without much tutorial.

Page 19: "Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you. Plus, a black president??? Now you've seen everything!" 1. I like the funny foreshadowing 2. ah yes... a tongue-in-cheek ironic joke that feels a little distateful.

Page 22: I do find the Homestuck Beta to be an incredibly charming little gag.

Page 24: the names of his programming projects on his desktop are a fucking MOOD. "FUCK FUCK FUCK" indeed. John's desktop is just like mine fr. I believe I have an audacity file somewhere titled "fuck my life", and our screensavers are equally bad and weird. >Clearly experiencing emotions best conveyed with the word 'fuck' is a universal experience of creators.

Page 26: I think one of Homestuck's strengths is how it pulls off making the dialogue of teenagers feel like the dialogue of teenagers. >THIS. Always this. There are many times that I as a Real Teen (TM) have read a page of Homestuck and gone "yeah, I've had this conversation in real life."

Page 31: Genuinely deranged collection of games. John's bad taste knows no bounds. Also why do you have Bard Quest on DVD. Why would you put Bard Quest on a DVD. It's literally a browser game that's like 100 pages long. >Actually it's 47 pages. That makes it worse.

Page 34:

Infinitely amused by the mood settings in Pesterchum. "happy :) happy :) happy :) happy :) happy :) INCREDIBLY PISSED D:<"

Page 35: Dave is acting as a tutorial npc Me when I fucking lie. Dave honey no one wants you. I'm conflicted about Early Homestuck Dave because he very much fulfills the role he is meant to and sets up his later character arcs perfectly. But he does so by annoying the fuck out of me. >See you're right about that second sentence and it makes perfect sense in context but out of context that sounds so mean lmao.

Page 37:

I could look at the kind abstratus for hours. Also, the planning had to be insane for this. Literally every strife specibus used in Homestuck, no matter how out there, is on here (I think. I only did a quick scan). >Decided to attempt to verify this by looking for all the trolls' strife specibi and immediately failed with Aradia's whipkind. I am sending Jasper to Autism Hell for the crime of being wrong. >>I am being set on fire! Sad! (But hey, there IS still a lot of very specific canon strife specibi in there that I'm willing to bet were there on purpose. Canekind, for one). >>>If I had to hazard a guess, it's possible that some of them were either picked by looking at that page, or just that there are so many potential weapons on there that of course some made it on. In some cases planning ahead may have occurred, but I am not Andrew Hussie so idfk.

Page 39: "EB: yeah, that's fine i guess. i can't imagine it's going to be all that relevant." heh. the fact that Dave knows more about the minutiae of sylladex mechanics, in particular how strife specibi work, takes on a more depressing tone when you contrast his home environment with John's healthier parental situation.

Page 48: First Betty Crocker mention! fun fact once i infodumped about Homestuck to my dad and now the Batterwitch is a running joke we reference whenever we purchase Betty Crocker products. Genuinely surprised the Betty Crocker Wikipedia article isn't protected at this point. >It isn't, but if you go to the talk page it seems like it's been a point of contention before.

Page 50:

"It doesn't matter that it's April and not terribly chilly outside. In a home, a FIREPLACE needs a fire, because that's what FIREPLACE is for. A fire BELONGS in a FIREPLACE, dammit, cata(ptcha)gorically, at all times, without exception." fascinating quote in conjunction with Page 27's "In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, HE CAN HARDLY BE CONSIDERED A TERRIBLY PROPER GENTLEMAN AT ALL." certain things simply must be the way they are. So there's a lot to be said about the whole fireplace thing but I've had time to ruminate and I'm starting to notice that John seems to have a pretty rigid worldview, maybe? I'm collecting data on this and I don't wanna speak too soon, but a lot of these lines seem to have the underlying implication that he's very much of the opinion that the status quo is not to be questioned or challenged ever, and things are the way they are because that's how they're supposed to be. In perpetuity. Forever. Even if it hurts you. You can see it in the recurring gag on this page and the one with the tire swing; you can see it in the way he talks about his dad; hell, even his joke book is a kajillion years old and described at one point as being at times super racist because of its oldness, as well as being too big to carry around or navigate efficiently. This is an especially fitting trait for him to hold considering he's from the suburbs. Not only are suburbs considered the picture of the American Dream, that idyllic image has historically been upheld through forcible exclusion of anyone who didn't fit into it. No wonder it took her 16 years to transition. >More than 16. :( >>Oh yeah I'm sure it's like. Decades (I haven't read HS^2). But it's been 16-ish years since Homestuck came out.

Page 51: Burn fucker burn.

Page 56: not much comment other than the transition from 55 to 56 and the bit that comes with it got the first audible giggle of this reread!

Page 63: I genuinely believe Rose is a contender for funniest character in Homestuck (speaking only in terms of intentional funniness). >It hasn't had much chance to come up yet, but she is rather silly wrapped up in a dry exterior and I think this fact should be acknowledged more.

Page 68: kinda funny to see John unable to captchalogue the doll because it's 'too big'. Act 1 feels rather quaint on a reread. >Genuinely. By act 6 we're captchaloguing literally whatever the fuck. Planets and shit. >>The fucking Tumor. >>>The fucking Tumor. Gotta get that HTML right. >>>>Oh I'm sorry Formatting King Jasper lemme just format all over the place. Trans women are really cool. That sentence only looks correct if you're on dark mode. sad!

Page 71: Is that. Is that the fucking Cirque de Soleil.

Page 74:

a continuation of the bit regarding the tire swing and the fireplace. this combined with John's willingness to commit to the bit even when it is unpleasant is rather fascinating for his character.

Page 77: FIRST [S] PAGE! "Showtime (Piano Refrain)" is a great song that also hits really different on a reread. Ah, but that is a subject for... *checks notes* 7021 pages from now. >You and your music commentary making me straight up melancholic all the time.

Page 78:

"The peanut gallery over there sure is getting a kick out of it. You are allergic to their scorn." I am unusually fond of this joke. Page 72's mention of John's peanut allergy was a funny enough moment on its own, but the additional reference/pun? Delightful. The jorker.

Page 79: The usage of a Hi-C commercial also hits different on a reread.

Page 82:

"You have a feeling it's going to be a long day." Oh, if only you knew... Homestuck's title page! I love how desolate the audio is, and I think the prose on this page adds to the feeling of isolation. Isolation is a theme throughout Homestuck, and with John as the Heir of Breath in the incredibly isolated environment of suburbia... ah, I just really like this page! This page is also where Act 1 gets its name on the adventure map: "The Note Desolation Plays." There's literally nothing I can say about Windchime Foley that isn't abundantly obvious but GOD does it set a tone. It's the first real hint that this is more than just a silly little adventure comedy.

Page 89: "Your DAD sees right through your costume! You don't know what you were even thinking with this foolish ruse!!!" early example of a recurring pattern of John viewing himself as stupid, foolish, etc.

Page 90:

There isn't much to this Flash, but I do like the animation, and "Showtime (Original Mix)" is a banger. The vibe with John and Dad's strife is SO different from the next two strifes. For obvious reasons (Dad Egbert is a good father). >True! It's very unserious. John is aggressively rejecting his father's cake, for fuck's sake, meanwhile Rose pulls out the empty suicide threat against her mother parrying with alcohol and Dave is. Dave.

Page 110: "TG: im wearing them ironically TG: because theyre awesome TG: the fact that theyre ironic makes them awesome" ah yes the classic "i'm totally doing this ironically and not sincerely".

Page 111: I do enjoy the meta bullshit of the characters being MSPA fans in-universe. Tragically, Midnight Crew will never finish because of the world ending. Sad!

Page 112: I <3 Self-Referential Jokes

Page 122: I should go back at some point and do a cake count of just how many goddamn cakes John's dad made. >I checked. 4. 2 in the room, 1 downstairs, 1 he was actively baking. 4 cakes for 2 people. If June came out to him in a no-Sburb AU every pharmacy stocking HRT in the area would be in crisis mode.

Page 125: Sorry but I will literally never stop finding sylladex failure funny. PDA BANISHED.

[prismaticfabricator]

decided to start making up a fictional JRPG for Anobel reasons. she now has her own The Character

[aluria-sevhex]

@jaspertjunk that's as many as four .

What

[aluria-sevhex]

i think if you rock up to someone's transfem headcanon of a canon male character with "i see him as transmasc but you do you" you should explode

[annotatedamblings]

i fucked up when editing the most recent liveblog. fixing it

[aluria-sevhex]

nothing wrong with keeping it simple. but the least i'd do is add a chest and crafting table. and a furnace.

Women hate how little it takes to make us men happy

[aluria-sevhex]

chat i think my mutual is deeply unwell about The Character and The Actor

[annotatedamblings]

annotatedAmblings's Homestuck Reread Liveblog: Act 2 (part 2, pages 388-532)

Although liveblog posts will contain analysis due to how we like to engage with media, liveblogs are primarily a collection of whatever thoughts came to mind during our reading. Liveblog posts are constructed with each mod drafting their own live reactions separately before combining them, so some sentiments may be repeated due to both mods noting it down. Any analysis within a liveblog post should not be assumed to be our complete thoughts on the subject.

Blue = Mod Aluria Pink = Mod Jasper Arrows (>>>) are used to indicate commentary on each other's commentary.

Page 388: Fucked. Also hi Maplehoof. Aggrieve slaps but goddamn Rose. The fucking empty suicide threat. "Ironic negligence" is a move her mother uses. Not on the level of Dave, but it's still a bit more serious than John's Strife with his dad.

Page 393: Lol John on the floor. Fun fact, this Flash and the other Flashes depicting John in this fight were VERY VERY ANNOYING to document on our spreadsheet with all the Adventure Map chunks. Another fun fact: we have a spreadsheet. I made it. It has Homestuck divided into chunks based on the Adventure Map, the page numbers, page counts, acts marked, and Flashes within each chunk marked with the name, page number, and a brief note on what sort of Flash it is. Anyway Act 2 was annoying because of a bunch of little Flashes. Once I edited the sprite of John on the floor to instead to be a character from my favorite MSPFA for the sake of a forever weed meme. It's a really good edit. Also all Showtime variants are fucking awesome. >Everybody say thank you to Aluria for his hard work and insane math. This liveblog couldn't exist without that spreadsheet and all the other shit he does behind the scenes. >>Managing this shit is fun for me. Enrichment. Somehow

Page 404: Look who's all grown up and mercilessly killing imps.

Page 407:

Bunnykind!

Page 408: And you know this how? Kids these days get into one strife and think they're Jackie Chan. "No self-respecting strifer would be caught dead without one." Bestie you didn't even have an allocated strife specibus like an hour ago.

Page 414: It's weird how much taxidermy comes up. That's probably symbolic of something. >This could possibly be tied to the observations we've made about John and fear of change, even though here it's popping up in the context of Rose. Taxidermy acting as preservation, and the taxidermied bodies are viewed as unsettling. Rose playing the game to see if her cat could be revived, taking the still dead and turning them back into a living form that can change. >>Also, differentiating John from his peers again. Rose's childhood cat is taxidermied. Dave's room is full of dead animals. Jade. Dead animals are not associated with domestic stability (<- Deranged way to put it but I think I'm onto something)

Page 418: Not to be a clown on main but I'm not on main. I quite like this whimsical music. >Nannaquin moment. Hi Nanna.

Page 419: I think it's interesting how frank Dave is with Rose. Literally, bringing up the puppets is nothing significant. But on a deeper level, I see it as a first step to him questioning if his Bro is as great as Dave thinks he is, something we don't see him doing in earnest for several more acts. I don't think he'd admit he doesn't like the puppets to anyone else. I dunno, man. I like their bond. >Later Dave kind of admits it through the moment on page 537 where he changes his mood to rancorous, but that's definitely not the same kind of vulnerability, and could be read by John as simply him getting annoyed by the 'obviously' dumb puppets.

Page 420: First of all, nice. Second of all, thinking about John "suburbia and stagnancy" Egbert being compared to his father? Psychic damage. Especially considering, y'know. That's a trans woman.

>Such a nice little comment that hits like a truck when you're viewing it through the lense of June.

Page 422: Yet another great tone-setting flash for Nanna's exposition. Skies of Skaia is a beautiful track. This is one of the pages that wowed me early on in my first reading. Thank you Mark Hadley.

Page 425: "A QUEST OF FUTILITY THEN. ==>" :(

Page 427: This is played off as kinda funny, kinda sad, but god... once you become a hero in the eyes of the game, that's really it, isn't it? It's all consuming. >You can never go back to your childhood innocence. I remember going O_O on my first reading when I learned that nope, we are not saving the world, it is fucked! We're doing something completely different! >Yeah. I don't think we talk enough about how wild this twist is. Yes, the world is ending. No, you can't save it. You have other shit to do.

Page 430: "JOHN YOU DO NOT SAY NO TO COOKIES. I COMMAND YOU TO GET THEM" hey so i know this is a funny moment but do ya think WV could have trauma related to food insecurity? >Ough. Yeah. I'd say it's pretty likely.

Page 432: "you're not even sure where you found the time to write what's already there!" How DID she find time to write it? It's been, like, an hour, and she spent most of that server playing for John or running around her house. >I'd make a joke about her clearly having better time management skills than us but she played the violin while her friend was in danger. Maybe she's just really good at multitasking.

Page 434: So mean to him and for why.

Page 440: Rose honey you can't use that many asides in one sentence it's nigh unreadable. >I tried to identify which sentence you meant and couldn't. Can you point out which one? >>Second paragraph, I believe somewhere in the middle? She's talking about prototyping. Two sets of parentheses, a pair of dashes, and at least one forward slash. If I tried that in my 10th grade English class I think I would have been murdered on the spot. >>>Located the quote. Rose. C'mon.

Page 442: I love it when Jade is mysterious and cagey.

Page 446: I don't know about a Mr. T puppet, but Mr. T cabbage patch kids are real, btw.

Page 448: This isn't normal. >:( The Striderian use of 'irony' is fascinating.

Page 450: Not baby Gonzo, man. This entire apartment is just so, so sickening in retrospect. >I went to look at it and what the fuck???

Page 458:

Looks like shit king. >I tried to look at the contents of each column, but even looking at a still frame was too much headache.

Page 460:

This is so incredibly blatant. Get out of there, man. >I considered adding the panels on this page but eugh no thanks.

Page 461: "But on rare occasions, when your guard is down, it all seems just a tad unsettling to you." Dave does a really good job at repressing his emotions about how fucked everything is, but it still leaks out sometimes. Smokes a fucking cigarette.

Page 465: I would also flip the fuck out. Even if Bro and Dave's apartment weren't the monument to child abuse that it is, I can't say I'm much fonder of puppets than Dave is.

Page 472: "Also, I should probably warn you that your house and yard are completely infested with monsters now. Try to be careful." Should have led with that. Kind of important.

Page 473: John got so mad he briefly became British. Not really, but I've never heard an American say that someone was "mucking up" something.

Page 476: I am no good at this flash but who cares. Also this music goes hard. This remix of Harlequin has no right to go this hard while playing over something this silly.

Page 477:

F in chat for John's piano

Page 481:

The destruction of John's bathroom continues.

Page 484: You should really take your Nanna's advice to heart, John. Rose clearly did.

Page 485: I really do love that they've all read SBaHJ. >Your honor they're friends. :] >>They're friends!!!!!

Page 487: "Dads love shaving. It's basically all they do." The recurring John theme of things having singular and necessary purposes starts to extend to people. Particularly Nuclear-Family themed in this instance, which i don't believe to be an accident.

Page 490:

"The circle of stupidity is complete." Nice.

Page 492:

Fuck yeah.

Page 499:

The "knocked tf out" stance doesn't stop being funny.

Page 503: Everyone say congratulations to the fridge it worked very hard for this. >Congratulations.

Page 507: WV's politeness is delightful.

Page 510: "It should be noted he was kind of a weird guy anyway." ROSE.

Page 520: Time for alchemy.

Page 522: Again, I love Rose and Dave's dynamic. They're very silly. I like the puppet poem. This page has it all. Rose being silly and rapping. Dave covered in smuppets in a manner that is rather comedic but horrifying when you consider his age and the fact that they are sex toys. The phrase "acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle".

Page 531: What was the term Aluria used to describe some of the game mechanics early on? Quaint? This is quaint.