#having Mindfang thoughts.

[forgetful-river]

To be an apostle to a cruel god, a divinity long-dead who left festering wounds to the devout, is a righteous mission of self-destruction.

[pastabaguette]

i’ve got a darkleer headcanon for you all

quick disclaimer: i am going to talk about (fictional) suicide here, so if you don’t want to see that, then don’t keep reading.

darkleer’s actual cause of death is open to speculation, since it is never directly mentioned in the comic. after he’s exiled, it’s assumed he spends the rest of his life in his cave, presumably dying there as well.

initially i’d just assumed he died of old age, but honestly, i think it could be feasible that he killed himself, as well as have somewhat interesting ramifications story-wise. we know from mindfang’s journals that he was severely depressed.

what if, specifically, he hung himself, thereby condemning his descendant to a similar death by asphyxiation? (asphy%iation, haha) and what if he was smiling, too, because he finally had a release?

no one would find him, no one would even know that it happened. isn’t that a void-aspect kind of death?

i thought it’d be interesting, at least, to give him another equius parallel. also, if i was darkleer, i’d probably kill myself too. how many centuries did he spend along in the cave, cycling through the same thoughts over and over, just making himself feel worse every time? it would suck.

actually, half of the reason for this post is due to this absolute stupid image. it’s how their interactions feel to me.

(i don’t want to make light of the subject, so i hope it didn’t come off that way. please, if you are considering suicide, please talk to someone about it. so many people regret their attempts after the fact. suicidal thoughts don’t last forever, they DO go away. they are often a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, and while they can come on strong, you will be STRONGER. you will! i know. someday, you will have a better day, and you’ll be able to look back and reflect on how far you’ve come. it’s the best feeling ever, it really is.)

[calware]

liiiike i guess you can argue that the ghosts age mentally because they learn new things which is part of maturing but also. vriska was there for ages and was still immature and insecure, and meenah took advantage of that before she breaks up with her after she stops being interesting, which meenah admits was a bad thing of her to do. meenah even points out the difference in maturity in terms of how their differing perspectives on living in the dreambubbles for eternity, and vriska then says that she never really gave their age difference much thought. and vriska has a recurring theme of trying to be more mature than she actually is to prove herself, and part of that comes from how she models herself after mindfang, which is part of why she is desperate to be in a relationship even though she's not really ready for one yet (both with tavros and meenah). and when meenah breaks up with her, vriska falls to pieces, because she put so much of her self-worth and happiness in line with her relationship that she became dependent on meenah and couldn't cope with that loss. again maybe this is just my own interpretation but it really only reads to me as someone with very little experience in relationships being taken advantage of by meenah, either because she found her to be interesting, or because she needed someone to help her cope with her feelings about aranea, or what have you, and this unhealthy, unbalanced, dependent aspect of their relationship is further reinforced by the age difference where one person is significantly more emotionally mature and experienced than the other..... idk i could also be wrong about all of this

[thewertsearch]

Ordinarily, this result would be almost impossibly improbable. The odds of the roll would be 1 in 16,777,216, to be specific. And to be less specific, 1 in...

Where y = 8. [Hee hee.]

Jack inherits Becquerel's loyalty, whereas Cal turns Scratch into a memelord. Sounds about right.

Ancestral Awakening.

...holy shit. Don't tell me she can actually summon Mindfang?

...damn! She actually can!

Well, it looks more like she's channeling Mindfang - which makes me wonder what would happen if John's Vrammer rolled this effect. Would he also get Mindfang, or would he start to channel Nanna?

Auto-Pirate, lmao. This comic keeps hiding its best jokes behind ciphers.

"We don't get paid enough for this shit."

"...we don't get paid at all, 'sticks."

But challenged, if my guess is right. Challenged by one claiming godhood before reaping the prodigious spoils from striking down a formidable endgame foe. One with the guile of a cheater, the luck of a Clover, the hubris of her mentor, and the drive known only to the pathologically competitive.

Vriska is undeniably weaker than him - but she's still the strongest thing he's ever fought in his life. She's doing something I thought was completely impossible.

She's making god bleed.

For the first time ever, Perfect Jack is losing hit points.

But not outmatched. As one who shares the Slayer's source of power, my projection must give him the unambiguous advantage. But even so…

We've never seen Vriska at full throttle before - and prodigious is no longer the word. Fighting semi-evenly with Perfect Jack is nothing short of a miracle - but I still don't know if it's enough.

Vriska will have to get very lucky to actually eke out a win here. This has to be a temporary transformation - if it wasn't, she'd be using it constantly - so she's fighting against the clock, as well as the Slayer.

To tip the scale, what Vriska really needs is some backup. Is there anyone left who can help?

[jakethesequel]

Welcome back to Tumblr's Poorest Wettest Saddest Littlest Meow Meow Competition! Before we announce the final verdict, let's see how our "lovely" contestants are doing backstage!

VRISKA SERKET, hailing from welcoming Homestuck, is in the blue corner! She's a TROLL, a TELEPATH, and a THIEF. She has also attained GODHOOD, and I'm informed she did nothing wrong! Just off the heels of a dramatic loss in the recent Tumblrwoman Election, she deeply resents being trapped in this narrative device!

Her attire today is plain by Earth standards, but well put-together by ALTERNIAN ones. Nevertheless, she has been known to dress up on occasion, particularly in the colors of her ANCESTOR, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang!

She is extraordinarily determined, and extremely manipulative. She will do anything she can to make herself into the hero her story needs, consequences be damned. Her actions have made her the source of eternal, vitriolic discourse. Some believe her entirely justified, some believe her a heartless villain, and others believe everything in between; every one steadfast and passionate about their specific stance! Love her or hate her: VRISKA!!!!!!!!

HARRIER DU BOIS, also known as HARRY, sometimes referring to himself as RAPHAEL AMBROSIUS COSTEAU or THE REINCARNATION OF KRAS MAZOV, is here representing scenic Disco Elysium! He is a DETECTIVE, an ALCOHOLIC, a recent AMNESIAC, and a WASTE of ENERGY. Having just recently recovered from an attempt at drinking himself to death, we thought inviting him to compete might raise his spirits some! Unfortunately he does not seem to be totally aware of his surroundings, as he has already tried to touch himself twice on air!

His garish and mismatched clothes are STAINED with seemingly every substance a human body can produce. His face is locked in an EXPRESSION that can only induce disgust and discomfort in those who view it.

The few memories he can draw from his fractured mind paint him as violent, selfish, cruel, and pitiful. He has been trying to get over a breakup for six years, and has only partially succeeded through near-total retrograde amnesia. Worst of all, he's still somehow a decently successful cop. He has no friends and few allies on Revachol, with perhaps the sole exception of the impossibly patient and composed Lt. Kim Katsuragi. Even among his fans, you'd be hard pressed to find one who'd defend him, and ever harder pressed to find one willing to stand in the same room as him. Nevertheless, from the safe distance of fiction, let's hear it for HARRY!

In but a few moments, the doors in front of them will open, and they will be able to approach the trophy onto which we have engraved the name of the winner. 5… 4… 3… 2…

AND THE WINNER IS: VRISKAAAAAAAA SERKET!

—

Vriska: WH8T THE FUCK.

Vriska: WHAT THE F8CK!!!!!!!!

Vriska: I WON THIS????????

Vriska: You pieces of shit can't supp8rt me to win ag8inst some lanky rain8bow-drinking 8itch, 8ut 8eat one-in-fuck8ng 16777216 odds to win poorest, wettest, saddest, littlest g8ddamn meow8east?

Logic [Easy:Success]: She won. That means we lost.

Conceptualization [Challenging:Failure]: Another loss in a long, long line of losses.

Pain Threshold: You've gotten used to the feeling by now. Losing something barely even hurts anymore.

Endurance: You still carry each one with you. Well, except…

Volition: Not now. Not yet.

Authority [Medium:Success]: This doesn't have to stay a loss. Stare the girl down. Challenge her. Don't let this be taken from you.

Wait, what *is* she doing, anyway?

Perception: The grey girl seems to be shouting at someone, but there's no one else here.

Vriska: FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Inland Empire [Godly:Success]: The unseen audience, the string-pullers of fate. The sadistic writer terrorizing their creation. The storybook itself, the confines it sets. She has seen the death of the author, and needs more.

Empathy [Medium:Failure]: What's got her so upset?

Harry: Is there something wrong with you?

Vriska: I'm not taking that from a walking dumpster, asshole!

Suggestion: There's still time to fix this. Say something nice, quickly.

Harry: I just mean, you seem upset. I thought you'd be celebrating your win. It’s a big accomplishment, right?

Vriska: Are you kidding?

Drama: Are we, sire? Should we be, perhaps?

Vriska: You thought I’d 8e cele8r8ing this? A vote for the most pitia8le, pathetic person in paradox space? I’m not so desper8 to fill my pity quadrant that I need to resort to CROWDFUNDING! That’s like the lowest form of 8egging!

Electrochemistry: You are that desperate. Don’t think we're above begging for it, piggy.

Conceptualization [Easy:Success]: Oh. This was not a contest one wants to win. Maybe our loss was for the best.

Vriska: And I WON!!!!!!!! With this kind of competition, HOW did I get all the votes? All of them!

Reaction Speed [Trivial:Success]: "This kind of competition?" She’s talking about you! Say something!

Harry: It was a tight race. You fought with honor.

Vriska: IT SH8ULDN’T HAVE FUCKIN8 8EEN!

Vriska: Look at you! What the fuck kind of su8juggl8or suit are you wearing? Did someone 8leed on it?

Savoir Faire: No, no, this outfit is *cool*. You just have to give it a little *disco*, man.

Strike a pose.

Vriska: …

Vriska: You can’t seriously think any of that is appealing.

Vriska: Your clothes look like they were dragged out of 8 different gar8age 8ins.

Vriska: You couldn’t 8e more greasy and stained if you drowned in a pail of 8rooding slurry. From the st8 of your body, you actually might have!

Physical Instrument: I told you. You need to cultivate more mass.

Composure [Challenging:Failure]: Please, don’t start crying in front of a teenager.

You realize that you already have.

Vriska: Are you seriously crying right now? I might not 8e an expert on the human metamorphological process 8ut you definitely aren’t a pupa anymore. Shit, you look like you’re halfway dead already. Grow up, Pupa Pan!

Endurance: You need to stop this, now, before you break down further.

Harry: Fuck off, fucking spidery bitch! Leave me alone!

Vriska: Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen a grown man act this pathetic 8efore. How the hell did you not win this!?!?!?!? Do you even have a single thing going for you?

Esprit De Corps: You have a badge and a gun. You are a Detective Lieutenant-Yefreitor of the RCM. At least for now, you have that.

Harry: I’m a pretty good fucking cop.

Vriska: There are no good cops you dum8 8itch!

Authority: Make her stop.

Vriska: I’ve known you less than a minute and you already disgust me. I feel 8ad for the people that actually have to 8e near you.

Half Light: Do what you have to do and do it now.

Vriska: You deserved to win this. I don’t know how you can live like that. 8ack home you would have 8een culled sweeps ago.

Hand Eye Coordination [Legendary:Success]: You have never fired a shot so quickly or instinctually. You didn’t even know your gun was loaded. You pulled it out the way a cat scratches a hand, or a drunk pisses himself. You don’t remember when violence became second nature to you, but you didn’t forget how to do it either.

Harry: Oh, God.

Perception (Sight): Is that blood… blue?

Visual Calculus [Legendary:Success]: Light swirls and shimmers around the girl’s body, flashing a technicolor code you cannot decipher. Her body floats into the air, and her eyes flash open. All eight of them.

Inland Empire: No justice. No heroism. Just mindless violence.

Half Light: RUN.

Vriska: OW!

Vriska: Oh no you fucking don’t!!!!!!!!

(♏) Volition [Impossible:Failure]: You try to run, but your will is seemingly powerless to drive your body. I’m sorry.

Physical Instrument: Don’t look at me. I’m in great shape.

Interfacing: Connections seem fine. Don’t tell me we have to unplug him again…

♏Vriska♏: What the fuck.

Harry: Wh-wh-what are you doing to me?

Vriska: Shut up I’m trying to f8cus!

Inland Empire: Welcome, Thief of Light.

♏Vriska♏: What the hell is wrong with you?

Encyclopedia: Severe alcoholism. Retrograde amnesia. Partial facial paralysis. Dehydration. Heart palpi- (♏)

♏Vriska♏: 8e quiet, 8ook8rain! I’m trying to rifle through memories here and it’s a MESS!

Interfacing: We haven’t quite organized since our recent… restructuring. Try the thought cabinet.

Rhetoric: Don’t tell her that!

♏Vriska♏: Too late, sucker! Found it!

♏Vriska♏: …

♏Vriska♏: …

♏Vriska♏: …

♏Vriska♏: Jegus christ.

♏Vriska♏: In pu8lic? Why would you—

♏Vriska♏: Ugh!

♏Vriska♏: You said THAT?

♏Vriska♏: There was a8solutely no reason to do ANY of that, what the hell!

♏Vriska♏: You should honestly just kill yourself if you’re going to keep 8eing such a fuckup!

Reaction Speed: Yes!

Logic: Sound. You should kill yourself.

Empathy: It would make everyone feel better.

Endurance: Hasn’t this all gone on long enough?

Savoir Faire: It’s a hell of a statement.

Drama: The noble sacrifice, like Romeo, like Juliet!

Rhetoric: You should kill yourself NOW!

Authority: She has bested you. Listen to your better.

Half Light: Anything to get away from her.

Volition: …

♏Vriska♏: Can you creeps 8e normal for two damn seconds?

MORALE CRITICAL

The light fades from your eyes, and you fall to the floor.

Shivers: You are being called back where you belong....

—

Kim: Yes, Lieutenant. A fascinating dream. I’m sorry you did not win the competition.

Harry: What do you think it means, Kim? Do you think it could be some kind of message? Should I try to find that girl?

Kim: “That girl?”

Harry: Yeah! Vriska!

Kim: No, Lieutenant. I do not think you should go looking for Vriska Serket from Homestuck. Perhaps try looking for the killer in our murder case?

[lesboygamzee]

i do see a lot of people taking cronus at face value in the more serious sections of the otherkin community and its like ok whatever but i like to analyse this shit . these are fictional characters ( funny 2 sya when talking abt kin shit but you know what i mean ) and sometimes what is being communicated by the story is not always perfect or like ideal rep . vriska is better off not identifying so strongly with mindfang and cronus is textually faking otherkinity for pity points . i can understand being averse to these when you are on your otherkin blog posting about being otherkin but i do like ot actually read and work with the comic . this is coming from someone who is for realsies serious abt being gamzee ... i know what happens in the comic and know that people are going to have thoughts abt me that make me uncomfortanle its whatever . #thegrind

[milliebobbyflay]

Okay so I've spent a while thinking about how to word my actual problem with homestuck 2, and the works that make up post-canon homestuck more broadly. I think a lot of people resort to nitpicking bits of awkward writing or art in some attempt to pinpoint a source to an underlying sort of hollow uncanniness, which is funny because homestuck's supposed golden age of acts 1-5 are themselves FAR more of a tonally inconsistent mess of odd character beats, jokes that don't always land, and janky looking art.

Homestuck 2 has been written and drawn by very talented and passionate artists from the beginning, I think the actual issue comes down to a mix between the general pitfalls of hiring fans and the particulars of hussie's outsider background and unorthodox writing style.

First is the issue of hiring fans in general; while it can seem like an easy shortcut to finding talented writers already familiar with the voice and story of the original work, you have to be very aware of how fan culture operates. Beyond the obvious pitfalls that fans are unlikely to approach the story from a detached perspective, there is the larger issue that past a certain point fandom becomes essentially self sustaining. Once a fandom has existed for a long enough period, its most avid members have likely spent FAR more time engaging with other fan works than they have with the original art object. Fandom and the art it produces are, in this way, a sort of a folk tradition; artists are imitating and responding to other artists, characters become archetypes through which to explore certain ideas and dynamics, and the values and tastes of the most prolific and influential fan artists become as inseparable from a participants mental image of the character as the original work itself.

For an example, the affected theatrical mannerisms and cruelty Vriska adopts while in her Mindfang persona have become inseparable from the popular view of the character. Despite the fact that it's heavily signposted as a sort of role playing performance from the jump and she's more or less dropped it by the back half of the comic, it was nevertheless how she had acted in the bulk of her scenes around the time the ur-texts of homestuck fandom were being written, and as so an understandable misread of a character became inscribed into the fandom canon, and by extension her characterization in Homestuck 2.

All of this is extrapolated by the sort of unorthdox, building-the-plane-while-flying-it manner in which Hussie's writing style developed.

Based on his commentary, I get the sense that Andrew is an incredibly clever and thoughtful writer who lacks the theory and vocabulary to precisely describe his process. He tends to communicate in sort of abstract metaphors which aim to bridge the gap in explaining the actual conscious process he uses to plot his stories, but the way he talks about technical nuts and bolts writing craft stuff gives me the impression that his approach is largely intuitive, bordering on unconscious. He's a lot better at describing how he writes than what he writes or why.

You can of course piece a lot this together—his approach to art draws from the tradition of videogame spritework, where the visuals exist as a utilitarian vehicle for conveying information first and a work of illustration only inasmuch is needed to serve the greater story. His character writing draws more from a synthesis of literary fiction, sitcom writing, and "making up a guy" style posting humor, where characters are defined more by their life experiences and underlying psychology than by their goals and values, but also seem to have largely been constructed backwards from a starting point of a funny or interesting manner of speaking. Importantly though, I don't get the sense that these were conscious decisions, just that to Hussie they seemed like the logical way to approach these tasks, and I don't really think he could outline them in a way that would actually help a new team of creators grok how to draw and write in a way that feels like homestuck. I also don't think Hussie could actually explain the psychology that undergirds his character writing, I think he was mostly just drawing on his own life experience and imagining how this sort of character might logically speak and act.

As a novelist, and Hussie is one, both your thought processes and the sum total of your worldview and life experience are just as important to your work as the actual conscious decisions you're making, and I think that where there are gaps in understanding, the new writers are filling in the gaps with both a more conventional approach to the creative process and over a decade of accumulated fanon, and I think that's why homestuck 2 never really rises above feeling like a very well-made fanfic to me?

[aquarii-doodles]

Thinking about Homestuck again

Do you think Dolorosa ever thought about her sons death when she's a slave for Dualscar or Mindfang? Do you think she ever blames herself for his death? Do you think she ever replayed his death in her mind to think of a possiblity of him being saved? Of him never having to go through the pain of being crusified, being exploited and used as an example of disobediance, as an example of what happens when you go against the statusquo?

Do you think she ever thinks back to the night she found him? A little grub with a color so bright you could pick him out in the dim light of the twin moons. I wonder if she thought back on that night fondly like most parents do when they hold their baby for the first time. Cradling him in her arms and seeing that he held the potential to be someone great. I wonder how she felt being his mother. I know she was fulfilled, but was she terrified for her baby? Terrified that the both of them would be killed for simply existing in a world that wanted neither of them? Do you ever wonder if she regreted leaving the brooding caverns? Does she regret not going back with him in her arms? Not going back and convincing the other jade bloods that they can raise the grub by themselves and teach him to be like all of them.

Do you think Disciple ever thought that maybe one day she could move on from her lovers death? Do you think she sat in that cave alone for sweeps crying herself to sleep longing for the release of death to see the love of her life again? Do you think she wrote down everything she did so that one day maybe, just maybe, someone in her lifetime would see his words and say that they want that too? Do you think she scared off other people because she was terrified to make another connection as deep as she did with Signless? That she was horrified at the idea of losing someone again that she couldn't even bare the idea to speak to another person. Do you think she ever learned of Dolorosa's death?

Do you think Psiioniic ever pleaded for his own death? Do you think he ever talked about what happened to his best friend? Do you think that over time he gradually began to forget those he grew up with and lost? Do you think he ever forgot what Signless looks like, but remembers his screams like they were yesterday? Do you think he ever talked to himself and spoke what he remembered from Signless' surmons? Do you think that deep in the Condess' ship as the battery that Psiioniic tried to convince himself that everything was just a dream? A horrid dream and that at any moment he would wake up, but deep down he knew it was all real. That it was real that he couldn't stop Signless' death.

Do you ever think that they all thought of ways to have stopped Signless' death? To stop his suffering?

Do you think any of this pain came down to their decendants?

[understandableparadox]

my specific brand of propaganda is that each and every ancestor had fucking INSANE thoughts about the sufferer, they could not stop thinking about them at all, just rent free in all their heads

"who is this little fucking FREAK and how do i kill them/follow them for the rest of my life" type beat.

the handmaid because she saw someone who served their purpose and got out

summoner because a fucking mutant managed to do ALL of that and he just had to try it

the psiioniic because over the course of his life he was trying to have an equal relationship with a guy who is actually just jesus and he ended up getting fucked over

(heres a letter as objective truth)

disciple because it must be insane to fucking date the prophet of a brand new religion

dolorosa because she fucking adopted troll jesus

redglare didnt really think about him

mindfang because everyone except for one person shes ever had or forced into a quadrent with her Wont Shut The Fuck Up about this guy

darkleer because he fucking killed jesus and i think it would be funny that signless just didnt curse him out to fuck with him mentally for the rest of his life

(have a lil darkleer angst he wrote (i wrote) as actual emprical evidance of this)

the high blood because you cant be an evil cultist clown guy without realizing really quickly that you are becomeing the devil of someones religion then get fucking snubbed for that and not even get a mention about it later like what the fuck? he even wrote a letter about it (i wrote it)

[vriskadyke]

locking in my predictions for each volume of vriskaupd8:

the journal: mindfang centric, reckoning with the way mindfang has influenced vriska. possibly featuring aranea, possibly featuring kanaya or eridan; i doubt we'll see tavros again, but kanaya and eridan are the other two strongest examples of vriska imitating mindfang's romantic relationships out of a desire to be like her. we could also see some spidermom here.

cueball: doc scratch centric. i do wonder if they're going to explicitly state outright that doc scratch is vriska's groomer and abuser; if they're going to do it anywhere they're going to do it here. i could also see some inclusion of rose in here, as they (along with the handmaid) are doc scratch's most explicit and obvious victims. (would love to see the handmaid too, but she doesn't have quite as much of a connection to vriska as rose does, and i can't quite justify it the same way i can for rose).

the feather: i.... have no clue. my thoughts are either june (flight motifs, was a skylark and there IS that image of her going up the echeladder with a feather in her hair) or davepeta. i kind of dont want it to be davepeta (theyre really not Relevant to vriska's character i dont think, but idk i feel like they could pull it off).

8ball: (vriska) and game over terezi. just, come on, it's the ultimate culmination of vriska forgiving herself and trying to improve and be a better person.

[froggy-nebula]

i have a lot of thoughts about the recent beyond canon upd8

I want to say upfront I know what they were trying to do and as a victim I really appreciate it. I feel like a lot of people refuse to talk about csa and sa or grooming, and that while every fandom does it, the homestuck fandom specifically has a pattern of completely ignoring it when it happens. It definitely doesn't help that it comes up a lot in homestuck, so theres a lot of it to ignore.

But personally, I still didn't like how it was handled. I know that the people in the weird black hole hell therapy realm aren't really the normal versions of themselves and are more symbolic than that, the Mindfang/Vriska's lusus chapter before that made that very obvious, but I feel like not only was Doc Scratch handled very heavy handedly and a little strangely, but it also didn't even actually accurately represent Vriska's personal trauma with him either. So him being like that wasn't justified in the way that the Momfang one was.

To me it was basically extremely over the top and deeply fucked up, and felt a lot like a whump fanfiction. I feel like it's important to be able to handle topics like this without treating them too lightly, but going so heavy with it especially when they didn't give a good warning for it and really understated what was in it, was a bad idea.

[doomsdaydicecascader]

So…

how are classpects supposed to work, I thought they where tided to narrative role of sorts.

you are asking the wrong person, i am a full blown classpect iconoclast. my position is that classpects are literally just power sets in the same way a job in final fantasy 14 is, or a dnd class is, they're a way of expressing "here's what this character can do diegetically" and homestuck fans have an insistence on scaling that up to a level of metatextual actions, since in act 6, homestuck deals primarily in metatextual violence, but there's actually not any meaningful basis in this

from a homestuck analyst's perspective, text we do get on the matter is suspect, since it's from calliope. calliope's relationship to homestuck (or at least, the idea of homestuck as expressed by rose into her journals, which calliope was reading from) is framed very similarly to the relationship vriska has with mindfang's journals, and is positioned in the story not terribly long after death of the author as an idea becomes a fixation for homestuck. meenah compares rose and mindfang directly in openbound and calliope is notably wrong about basically every other thing she theorizes on, such as humans having wings and the origin of the penis ouija in rose's journals, just as vriska fails to recapture the essence of mindfang when she has to act on that herself

and from a fanfic writer's perspective, i've seen a lot of people play up their classpects. a really common refrain in fankid/fantroll spaces is trying to use a classpect as a hook or a catchall for a character, asking questions like "what kind of personality would a seer of breath have" (for some reason "seer of breath" has come up like, 4 times on its own. people want that good seer of breath) as if this is anything meaningful to go off of at all - classpects as character templates, as a skeleton key for the narrative code of homestuck. actually, the only time a character's classpect reveal has been genuinely cool to me is in my friend lupa's comic wake up, at the end of act 1 where the premise is revealed.

i genuinely just think classpects are a power set and nothing more - not to say that they're meaningless, of course, more than anything i'm a game designer by nature, and one of the fundamental rules of such is that your tools shape you as much as you shape your tools, but i think so, so much of it is just total bullshit you can rip out and/or ignore and just burn the fuck down in general

[girlbowser]

How do you feel about the portrayal of plurality in Homestuck? Because it’s not good.

Cherubs are “supposed” to predominate over their other personality. With Calliope being portrayed as naive for trying to co exist.

Horuss is mocked for being a system. But I’d say it was a king fun of people who pretend to be mentally Ill on social media for clicks.

Then their are the sprites

okay so

i guess we're doing this

HOMESTUCK AND PLURALITY: A PRIMER

BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST THERES SO MUCH

SO SO SO MUCH

okay. so

homestuck is one of the best pieces of media of all time for plurality and i fuckin mean it. no shot do not pass go i have NEVER seen anything that is more built from the ground up to Support plural reads. like, to the point where it feels impossible to read homestuck without it.

as a work dealing with two huge primary themes of a) finding yourself/identity/growing up, and b) ideas coming to life, plurality is pretty much the Perfect intersection between the two of them. like.

take rose for example.

rose is plural and it's great.

when the doomed timeline evaporates, future dream rose does not actually "cease to exist." she ceases to exist as her own person -- her memories, experiences, personality, thoughts (or, as shorthand, her selfstuff) all flows back into rose prime. and that experience is just something rose has to roll with. one becomes two -- that other rose is still in her mind.

jade's plural and it's great.

when her dream self awakens as jadesprite, jade has a horrific argument with her. if you're plural i'm sure you understand. fighting with an age-regressed version of you, stuck in a traumatic past, who WONT FUCKING LISTEN -- we've all . been there.

she has involuntary barks, she can't stop seeing images of fire, she wants to go back to nonexistence but she doesnt want to die and it's torture,

and then in cascade, jade fuses with her.

dream jade is still in there. that part of her she has to grapple with is still real. her dog who she loves is in there, too -- but, yknow. woof

then grimbark gets forcefully introjected into her. i've seen a few fics play with the idea that the grimbark personality is still residually there (read ygtpoasu), but it's not a huge thing that's explored in the text. more backgrounded. but still! her crisis of identity is in there.

wanna know what's NOT backgrounded

tavros's plurality is like, a pretty big factor in his character!!!! it's one of the bigger points vriska uses to bully him with (because she's projecting because she's projecting because she's projecting, because she's also plural and kins mindfang), it's like. a big thing that he has to cope with and figure out.

kanaya suggested tavros treat his self-confidence as his own brain guy, like, completely sincerely. she genuinely thought it would help, and it sorta did!!!!!

and like

it is FAR from the only positive example of plurality in the comic.

like. look at sollux and aradia defending "alternate reality copies" of characters -- which can be pretty easily extrapolated to them talking about fictives

like. !!!!

i dunno, man. i think that homestuck is a DEEPLY plural story. you should read mtm and kgtac for more exploration of these themes. read detective pony too while you're at it. like.

i havent even TOUCHED on horuss or dirk or karkat here because there is just so much. there's so much! like ultselves. oh my god i completely neglected to talk about ultselves or cherubs or --

augh

but anyway here's The Screenshots from mtm

homestuck is, like, the single most fictive compatible fictional work i've ever read.

"oh im being sent to another universe as a brain ghost? that happened to my buddy dirk"

"oh im one of many incarnations of myself, and perhaps not even the most 'canon compliant' one? haha dream bubbles moment"

"ive been isekai'd into another world? lol sburb"

it. yeah. god. i could literally talk about this all day. but instead im gonna direct you to my ao3.

check out no metaphors and then scroll through the "multiplicity/plurality" tag on my page

and if youve got more specific stuff, send in another ask!

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

Question for you, what are your thoughts on Aranea? I've seen people view her as a complete villain, i've seen people view her as a poor little woobie, and I've seen people deeply concerned about her adoration of Mindfang. I find her very interesting in the fact for all her manipulative behavior in homestuck, I can't really blame her for wanting to NOT fight lord english and just uncanonize him. But also she mind controlled and killed a lot of ghosts and directly or indirectly got lots killed.

i. adore aranea. not because i think shes good or even really all that nice, but because i think she has such a unique range of depth to her character that simultaneously paints her as a genius and an enormous idiot.

its clear shes very intelligent and cunning, as not only is she more powerful than vriska, but unlike vriska, who has to brute force her way through her conversations with her bravado and with her psychics, aranea can actually properly manipulate people with just her words.

shes smug and she idolizes an abuser because shes been lead to believe by paradox space itself that if she had been more like an alternian, she wouldve succeeded.

the thing with both serkets is that they HATE "losing," and losing can mean a lot of things to them and its impossible for them to let it go. aranea is obsessed with mindfang partially because vriska did, and its obvious that she really did want to connect with vriska on a genuine level, but its clear her normal sensibilities werent vriskas style.

no one takes her seriously, and by virtue of the meta-narrative, no one is SUPPOSED TO. the beforus trolls are jokes. they're flat caricatures of whatever person they might have been. homestucks afterlife is so fucked because not only does it degrade your status in the timeline, but also it degrades YOU, as a person. you have no goals, you have nothing else you can do but dick around in an infinite mish-mash of memories. its purgatory and a huge joke.

its obvious aranea seriously projected hard on the alternian ancestors to try to cope with this reality but until lord english started wrecking shop, she didnt have an outlet for this obsession. she seriously believes she IS mindfang despite the vastly different lives they lead, and the fact that she is still only a teenager.

she takes the end justifies the means to the farthest extent possible, blindly believing that one big damn heroic moment would be enough to make what she did okay. and thats a direct parallel to vriska planning to fight jack noir. she wants so badly to believe that one HUGE good thing will counteract the hundreds of small bad things that built up along the way.

shes. psychologically fascinating. the depths of her character is so immense, she is NOT a good person and on some level, she knows it. she fails horrifically because she was stupid for thinking that her plan to overwrite a doomed timeline would work. but its so fucked up and fascinating that. somehow. her actions and interference indirectly did lead to the alpha timeline. john and roxys survival from [s] game over are a permanent reminder of the mark she left upon the narrative. and we never see her again.

[thewertsearch]

Resolution to the summoner's mutiny is foggy, as I only understand what has 8een rel8ed to me through the 8rief answers I thought to solicit. Ultim8ely, the ire of the Condesce would 8e such that in the settling dust of the conflict, she would 8anish all from the homeworld, except the young. […] I cannot imagine how she would come to enforce such an upheaval in our civiliz8tion. Though I suppose she will have on her side the advantage of an unparalleled lifespan, and the leverage extended 8y the hideous psychic prongs of her deep undul8ing monstrosity.

Attention is drawn to the prodigiously long lifespan of the Condesce - the empress of Mindfang's time, and Feferi's probable ancestor. I used to think that the modern Empress was a different troll, but now that we're aware of fuchsiablood longevity, I'm pretty sure the two are one and the same.

Based on a line from Feferi's introduction, I was assuming that she was the only fuchsiablood in the universe - but let's take another look at the way that line's phrased.

You are 'the only of your kind' known to possess this blood.

That doesn't necessarily mean she's the only fuchsia troll, does it? For example, it might just mean she's the only Alternian with fuchsia blood, because the Empress doesn't actually live on the planet.

I really want this to be Mama Peixes, because the existence of a living Ancestor has so much story potential. Just how much does she know, and what's her agenda?

Nevertheless, I take the prediction as truth, and find it amusing that a homeworld domin8ed 8y children will 8e the gr8 summoner's legacy. One of them, at least.

Anyway, the Summoner - the boy who could fly - is the reason Alternia is a planetary Neverland, making it clear that he was the original inspiration for Pupa Pan.

It's also notable that we've only just started delving into Alternian history, and we've already learned about two massive rebellions against the social order. Contrary to what Alternians have been led to believe, this oppressive culture clearly isn't natural to them, and they've been fighting it every step of the way.

They don't want to be a murderous empire - they're forced to be, again and again and again.

More importantly, and less amusingly, his legacy will 8e my demise. You see, I first learned his name when I asked who would 8e the one to kill me.

And here's yet another layer to the Quest Cocoon Incident. Vriska wasn't content with living like Mindfang - she wanted to die like her, too.

Given that Vriska knew about the Summoner, one can only imagine how weird she must have been around Tavros. Not only was she constantly berating him, she was also putting him on this bizarre pedestal, comparing him to someone I'm damn sure he never knew existed.

And she'd never tell Tavros about the Summoner, either, because that would allow him to derive confidence from something other than her tutelage. No - she just silently compared him to a legendary hero, and he constantly failed a test he didn't know he was taking.

Seems like something's going very wrong in the Veil.

This seems like a sign that the session is on its last legs, and we're running out of time before it completely turns to static. We're entering the endgame.

The oracle I will resolve to part with. I will conceal it in a crypt 8earing the sign of the expatr8, with a map to its loc8tion hidden in this journal.

The cueball was sequestered in an Expatriate chest, which makes me speculate about whether Equius ever got his hands on it.

He can't see inside it himself - but like Mindfang said, it shouldn't be too hard to find a technological workaround, and Equius is a roboticist. I wonder if either Zahhak ever used it for themselves?

To whomever finds it, 8e wary, for the truth it tells may leave its new keeper 8lind as I was. Though no more.

She warned you, Vriska.

She told you it would leave you as blind as she was.

And it did.

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions page 666 - "Mindfang's journal" path)

Man, that was yet another amazing update to this page.

So, we're already in year 4 now! I don't remember seeing the year 3 message? I suppose it means her reconciliation with Aradia and Tavros happened during year 3? Then I guess the remaining paths here will be in years 5 to 7 respectively, and Vriska finally gets out at year 8?

Vriska's definitely grown over the years, both figuratively AND literally! Her talksprite's starting to look more like a grown-up compared to the previous conversations, that's so cool.

I love how my theories on who Vriska would talk to during this Mindfang journal path (Eridan or Aranea) proved to be completely wrong.

Nannasprite was DEFINITELY not what I was expecting, and before we got to this page 666 I'd have never thought such a sweet conversation between Vriska and Nannasprite was even a remote possibility.

I've always enjoyed the conversations we got with Nannasprite during Homestuck, it was just a shame how few there really were. But this one's definitely another amazing addition to it.

And hey, I'm not complaining about how many new talksprites we're getting here!

I'm so glad we finally get to see Nannasprite's thoughts on the dark path Candy Jane is on, and more of an insight on her feelings about her own life.

Heh, Vriska calls Nannasprite "a real one". I know what it means in normal conversations, but I can't help again but think about how the ghosts of her past that Vriska meets are all meant to be "fake" imaginations made up of Vriska's memories of them, while for the Sprites it's much less clear.

These conversations with the Sprites feel much more real, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Sprites are REALLY here with Vriska. Which makes Vriska's remark that Nannasprite is "a real one", and Nannasprite's response to it, so much funnier.

The conversation between John and Vriska where they bonded over the similarities with their ancestors was always one of my favorite and most memorable conversations between them, so I love how Vriska referenced it again now.

It's a shame Vriska's conversations with Eridan, John and Kanaya all happened off-screen, those were definitely all people she had special relationships with that could use some sorting out, but I understand that they didn't decide to show it. Knowing what her conversations with Aradia and Tavros were like, you can make somewhat of a guess what it would be like with these people as well. And hey, it's pretty likely we're still going to get more conversations between Vriska and the real John/Kanaya in the future, so that's fine and still something to look forward to.

And then Vriska's conversation with "Momfang"…. Jegus CHRIST.

That was a horrifying combination I never expected, but it makes so much sense. They are her 2 "moms" in a way, who basically made her into who she was. So there was a lot to unpack there and a lot to deal with, and those issues are intricately connected to each other.

The way Spidermom pops up in Mindfang's hair, in her arms, or even replaces her face… It's so creepy, and I love it. It gives me goosebumps.

This way we also finally get to see Spidermom "talk"! I think that's only the second time we ever see a Lusus talk, right? I think Kanaya's Mothersprite was the only other Lusus we ever saw talk on-screen, when she comforted Kanaya (ironically enough because of what Vriska did).

I feel sad for Vriska that Momfang's dialogue confirms that Spidermom never truly cared about her. It confirms that Spidermom truly was a really really bad custodian and only cared about her own survival. I wonder what she was even like as a Sprite, which are SUPPOSED to be helpful and guide the players.

I love how Mindfang talks as a narrator here, the only way Vriska ever knew her. And yet, in some of Mindfang's dialogue it's also like she's not just Mindfang here, but also Vriska's Mindfang PERSONA from her flarping days, referring to the actions Vriska did as something "we did".

Which makes it a bit like Vriska's also talking to her own past self here (which may even get more literal if eventually the 8-ball path on this page does lead to her talking to either her past self or her pre-retcon self).

I also like how Vriska acknowledges that Vrissy's powers are different from hers, that she's capable of doing other things, like manipulating humans.

And I love how Vriska's finally truly rejecting what Spidermom and Mindfang did to her life, how different she could have been. Which makes me wonder what Vriska would have been like on Beforus? What does a Vriska look like who was free to make her own path?

And now Vriska finally gets to walk away from that. I love this.

It all just makes me so curious, what will the cueball path be about?? I'm like at least 88% ( ;) ) sure that Vriska will be talking to Doc Scratch in it (god I'd love to see his smug style again even if just for a little bit, AND to get a talksprite!) and that it will be about his manipulation of her, but what will Vriska gain from it?

Will it also be about Doc Scratch's link with Lord English (which could be an excellent tie-in to Vriska's next conversation after that, with presumably Davepetasprite^2)?

It's also notable how both the flarping manual and Mindfang's journal paths have had conversations with 2 different characters: Tavros and Aradia in the first path, and Nannasprite and Momfang in the second path (ok technically that makes 3 characters in this path but whatever).

So in the cueball path, will Vriska talk to someone else before Doc Scratch first? Who could it be then?

If we're talking about Doc Scratch and Lord English, then I'm of course reminded of how they're partly made up of Gamzee and Arquiusprite, so could it be we're going to see one of them? My guess would be that Arquiusprite is the most likely one, but it's notable that we didn't see him with all the other Sprites before.

Anyway, this was another amazing update and I'm looking forward to how Vriska's journey through hell continues.