#homestuck act 6 act 6 intermission 2

[pesterloglog]

Aranea Serket

Act 6, page 6746

ARANEA:

[tigerbears]

Homestuck Spoilers Out of Context.

[homestuck-quotes-sometimes]

KARKAT: IT'S REALLY SIMPLE. THINK OF IT AS BEING SIMILAR TO ONE OF YOUR PRIMITIVE HUMAN LOVE TRIANGLES. KARKAT: THOUGH THIS IS A QUADRANGLE. THOSE ARE MUCH MORE COMMON IN OUR SOCIETY AND ENTERTAINMENT, AND FOUR IS PRETTY MUCH THE MINIMUM VALUE FOR LOVE-HATE N-DRANGLES. DAVE: n drangles DAVE: god dammit

[cyvonix]

Cyv Reads Homestuck - Act 6 Act 2 Wrapup

Yeahhh thiiiiis is more like it. I mentioned during my wrapup post for Act 6-1 that despite enjoying a lot of it, it felt very obvious that it was specifically meant as a set up for things to come, as it had dramatically slowed the pace of the story and in some ways felt like a complete halt in the momentum. I also said that I had faith in the story to gain that momentum back. At first, I was afraid this act would not do so, but pretty quickly, it won me over. To me, the pace of the narrative, as well as the level of intrigue, has grown back to what I felt pre-A6A1. Wheras in the previous act, I was still growing accustomed to the Alpha kids, I'm now finding their half of the story just as interesting as the Beta kids.

Since we became more familiar with the Alpha kids this act, I wanted to also briefly mention my opinions on them. I'm loving their chemistry, and already, I feel some depth has been addded since the caricatures I talked about in the previous act were introduced. Specifically, I want to highlight the way Dirk's queerness is handled in this act, as it feels like a dramatic shift in the way sexuality is tackled in Homestuck. Characters have absolutely been queer in this story, but in most, if not all cases, there was some layer of dismissiveness, obfuscation, or otherwise joking that left the discussion one layer removed from the story. In the case of the trolls, they get the excuse that they are a weird alien species with no concept of human sexuality, and it gets to be a reoccurring joke for the human characters. (Not saying I find this problematic or wrong in any way, simply that it's how it functioned in the story thus far) From our perspective, the trolls are absolutely queer characters, but the narrative does not have to treat it as such, if that makes sense. Meanwhile, Dirk being gay is starkly direct in comparison. There's no beating around the bush or ambiguity - Dirk is a man who has romantic interest in another man, and that's simply a fact the story presents to you. I point this out because it feels like this would have never occurred in the Homestuck of years past. I think it interestingly reflects the changing attitudes in fandom and pop culture in general surrounding queer representation at the time, as well as being a very good example of it, and I wanna shout it out for that.

In general, the dialogue across this entire act had a distinct feeling to me. It read as less soaked in irony, uninterested in the niche forum humor this comic had grown out of. Instead, it more closely resembles more traditional dialogue, but while maintaining the complex quirkiness that has characterized Hussie's writing up to this point. However, this tonal shift did not come across as jarring to me, and it's largely because, to my surprise, we experience a timeskip in this act. Homestuck continues to just be anime. But the point is, the Beta kids we knew are actually getting to age now, allowing for more significant developments to take place in their personalities and relationships. I found it fascinating to see how they've grown in relation to each other and the ways that the vast majority of them had ever so slightly changed over that year while maintaining the personality at the core of their character. Tracking the ways that this continues to happen over the course of their multiple-year journey will be interesting.

In terms of things to come, there's a lot I'm looking forward to. The wildest reveal of the act was the astonishing time difference between Jane and Dirk/Roxy, and I have no idea how that will play out. Seeing the post-apocalypse of post-scratch Earth was intriguing and evoked a heavily dystopian energy, making me want to see more of it and what Roxy and Dirk's life looks like in this hellscape. Meanwhile, in the Incipisphere, the entire normal structure of the game has been upended, with the Condesce in charge, the agents already taking action, and Dirk already retaliating. Basically, all bets are off, and it's clear that things are under no obligation to follow the formula from last time. Adding to the chaos is the way the dream bubbles are interacting with all of these pieces, becoming an integral part of the story and mixing up these worlds in interesting ways, as well as beginning to introduce us to the pre-scratch troll ancestors, leaving me wondering about how many more we will meet and how large their role in things will be. I imagine UU and uu are two more of these figures, although it remains completely ambiguous to whom they are related. That is unless they are unrelated and are entirely new entities, but that's just another question to throw onto the speculation pile.

In summary, this act was good as hell in my opinion, improving upon the last one in basically every way and introducing enough plot points and questions to keep the story going for miles and miles, all the while destroying the order of events we'd gotten familiar with, mixing together meta and non-meta elements in ways that mean basically anything could happen. And now that the narrator himself has been killed off and an enraged, seemingly unstoppable Lord English is unshackled, I genuinely have no clue what this story has prepared for me.

[charxan]

I really wish there was more dancestor stuff, like offical things idk. i love all the fandom works but it makes me a little sad we dont get to really see any other one besides meenah pretty much, no porrim and no latula and mituna, ect.

[dingodad]

please god i need to know what U think of the whole “jadebloods are all female!” thing because i got into homestuck in 2019 around the time of friendsim and (retching) Lanque so i always assumed they were explicitly intended to be an all-female caste. however, re-reading the comic this year, i couldnt find a mention of it other than virgo and the Space aspect being really feminine, but i think kanayas journey with motherhood is more kanaya-centric than All-Jadebloods centric??

on one hand, it makes sense given that alternia has very real gendered oppression, so what’s better for that than CATHOLICISM?? on the other hand, i always saw kanaya as being transfem coded, because it connects so well with roxy yknow.. homestuck fans love to insist that certain characters just have to be cis women (kanaya, jade, roxy)

(as an aside; was “long hair was butch on alternia” a one off joke? i like speculation about alternia’s fashion opposing earth, lol)

most all of our basis for explicitly gendered interpretation of Alternia comes from act 6 intermission 3, where Aranea tells us that "jade 8loods were also an almost exclusively female caste". so the door has always been open for there to be "some male jadebloods". but it's a mistake to view this as having anything to do with any kind of "biological sex". the whole idea of biological sex among trolls is a smoke screen. the jadebloods' assigned gender at birth is "jadeblood". this is what makes them a feminised caste.

Caliborn doesn't have a clue what biological sex is. Aranea will tell you that there are boy cherubs and girl cherubs, but for your own sanity you need to cast this idea out of your mind: cherub sex takes place between good and evil cherubs - which is determined by their blood - and anything else is just roleplay. Caliborn's attitude toward sexing is that the ones he likes are boys - that's all the thought that goes into it. and that's the mindset we need to be aware of when we delve into understanding troll gender. there are some trolls who have breast tissue and some who don't, but they aren't "mammaries" in any sense, so there's no reason to believe they're actually sexual characteristics of any kind; maybe this is what Lord English chose to base his gender schema on, but the idea that this means there must be "male trolls" and "female trolls" is completely imagined for the narrative convenience of the human reader.

when we read that there are "male-dominated" highblood castes and therefore by implication female-populated lowblood castes, it's not by some coincidence of biology: the highblood castes are male-dominated BECAUSE they are highblood castes. each caste has a role to play in Caliborn's Alternia, and just as the highblooded roles are those of patriarchal domination, the lower castes must take on roles of feminised submission; and in the case of the jades in particular, this means breeding duties. the fact that this also comes with the expectation to wear makeup and pretty clothes is just more roleplay.

so tl;dr what i think of "the all jadebloods are female thing" is that it is very obviously true but in a way more 5 dimensional gender studies way than anyone else tends to mean when they say it

my pet "long hair was butch on alternia" headcanon - which is a joke but in the way all headcanons about alternia should be jokes of some kind - actually kind of relates to this lol. bc i figure that if gendered expectations of female trolls includes working in disgusting underground caverns filled with genetic material, it's going to be practical to keep your hair close to your head where it won't get dirty, in much the same way the feminist image of the short-haired woman became popular in the west during and after world war 2, wherein a lot of women had to start wearing their hair close to their heads to avoid scalping themselves in the factory machinery they suddenly had to start working with. hence kanaya dedicated to her assigned feminine role and wearing her hair short vs. porrim rebelling against it for feminist reasons and thus wearing her hair at a length that would be totally impractical for wading through gene pools.

[thewertsearch]

@shelbybunny asked: the time-traveling demon poster is actually a piece of homestuck fanart! its really cool @morganwick asked: I believe the "Time-Travelling Demon" poster was a piece of fanart that was produced between Intermission 2 and the start of Act 6, and if you look closely actually depicts Lord English. Anonymous asked: That Time Traveling Demon poster is a bit of ascended fanart someone made in movie poster style on the old forums, I’d link it except what remains of it is on Pinterest and I’m too technologically illiterate to remember how to safely get it off of there and submit it separately without related stuff coming up, screener could you search it up for her if you have time? @skelekingfeddy asked: fun fact: the time traveling demon poster on jakes wall was actually originally some LE fanart that hussie decided to include in the comic! here it is in full:

Oh, sick!

I like how the artist really leaned into a demonic interpretation of English. His first depiction in the comic makes him look more like some sort of undead monstrosity, but this poster reframes his skull-face as a screaming skull, alight with eldritch energy. It almost looks like it's made of meat.

[davekat-sucks]

Every time people on this blog mention spicyyeti and mr-foods and their previous nsfw endeavors before they worked on Beyond Canon I am reminded of a dirty little secret: nsfw artists also worked on the original Homestuck.

It is referenced on MSPAbooru that multiple artists have contributed to Hussie’s work for assets on his flash animations or talksprites of characters. 2 notable ones I am referencing are IPGD and Chazzerpan.

IPGD while less of a frequent poster of art, has made some pieces in the past depicting Jade Harley “knotting” Dave Strider and was known for a controversial stridercest fanfic made back in 2012 involving doritos and piss. IPGD had a contribution for drawing the bro hug bunp between ARquiussprite and Davepetasprite. IPGD also made some art for [S] Collide, mostly art for ARquiussprite. A fun unrelated fact was IPGD was one of the early investors into Davekat, and even joked that Davekat was the true endgame.

Chazzerpan was a frequent uploader of nsfw on their Tumblr blog and it too had a lot of women with penises, be it biological or strap on. She’d do the occasional vanilla nsfw piece but trust me it was a taboo blog. Chazzerpan had 2 makor contributions to Homestuck: 1. They made the talksprites for Porrim and Damara, and Chazzerpan loved the Megidos so much they ended uo becoming one of the most drawn trolls on their blog. The other contribution was also for [S] Collide where they did some art for John, Rose, Kanaya, and Roxy’s fight against Her Imperious Condescension.

With this information I believe we should keep a nuanced criticism of the effects authors and artists may have on the story they’re making. It’s a double standard to just say that the Beyond Canon team is bad because they have porn artists on it when Hussie has had contributor artists that drew taboo nsfw since Act 6 Intermission 3. We should compare and contrast the influence, contribution, and the direction each artist takes on the work they are making.

For example, we can observe and discuss how Chazzerpan and IPGD were minor artists when Hussie was mostly the main art director and writer for Homestuck. We can then look at how mr-foods being the art director may bias the art to favor one character to feel more sympathetic than another character (and even then this is character design and posing 101)

TL;DR Homestuck has had porn artists working on the comic since 2012, but the way nsfw artists can contribute for Beyond Canon is different from the contributions to Homestuck.

And that's not even mentioning Hiveswap has dipped in its toes for NSFW related controversy before Act 1 was even released.

[windsoflimbo]

Homestuck: Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2: Problems of Varying Sizes

[cyber-corp]

An actual summary of Homestuck Act 6's intermissions

by someone who’s a page away from Collide

Let’s do this lightning-round style.

After breaking through the fourth wall on the ship and getting the Gift of Gab (lol), John and Jade prepare for a three-year-long voyage to meet up with the gang, with Davesprite, Nannasprite, and a variety of other faces in tow. They write a letter for the crew.

The Monarch (previously the Mendicant) and the firefly buddy (I've forgotten their name) plead for the Vagabond's life. She takes him to the trolls and kid's rendezvous spot.

The trolls finally meet up with Dave and Rose, who have indeed reached God Tier. Half-dead Sollux and GT Aradia show up as well. They plan to host a "funeral" for Sollux, who is just sort of watching in disgust.

After Karkat's bucket-human-troll-sloppy-fueled breakdown from John's letter, the Vagabond, and the firefly show up, and the gang sets off through the Furthest Ring.

Intermission 2

Hussie, who was taking care of Spades Slick after he fucking killed the world by shooting Snowman, is shot dead by Lord English. I'm sure he'll show up later though. They always do.

It's been about a year in between the intermissions. While Rose explains what the Scratch did, Karkat attempts to explain the troll love quadrants to Dave. They draw dicks, fight, Dave wins by a mile through the suplex

Meanwhile, John, Jade and friends play the Ghostbusters II MMORPG, which is hilarious that that is even a thing in the first place. Jaspersprite sings a birthday song for him, Jade gets dogmad, which causes John to black out.

After getting harrassed by an eepy Roxy, John encounters Meenah (the best character!!!!!) for the first time. He takes a trident from her and wakes back up.

In a dream bubble, Terezi meets Aranea (second best character!!!!), who offers her to heal her sight. In another dream bubble, Hussie proposes to Vriska with a ring. Because of course he does.

Intermission 3 (and some other stuff)

Aranea invites Jake to Meenah's dream bubble, where she finds quite a lot of fighting happening. After telling a story of the Condensce, Jake embarrasses himself by attempting to wallop Meenah. He wakes up after getting whacked, but Brain Ghost Dirk sticks around.

After a "quick" game of Meenah Quest, we get a glimpse of what John and Jade are up to; watching Con Air baybee!!!! Except John has a big freakout over hating the movie, hating Davesprite, and passes out. What a guy.

PM and Noir are locked in chase before they enter a bubble of Jack's own massacre of the Battlefield, before John awakens and fights him. Rose shows up for a brief second and John uses his cool-ass windy powers as well.

After the battle, John wanders into a desert, finds a ring, and finds Tavros (wHO DESPERATELY WANTS THE RING,) and Vriska. She shares her plan to find a treasure that'll defeat Lord English.

After another game of Meenah Quest (where she unsuccessfully gets no one on her team), we go back to the meteor, where Rose drinks and forgets her date with Kanaya (best couple. fight me) and then falls down the stairs. They warned her, dog.

John wakes up with the ring, soyjaks, and the intermission ends.

Intermission 5 (CALIBORN TOOK uP THE LAST SPOT)

Dave and Karkat intervene Terezi, who is a massive wreck because of her degrading romance with Gamzee and letting Aranea heal her eyesight.

John, Vriska, Aranea, Meenah and Aradia find a big green cave in a dream bubble, where they also find a juju. It's the Homestuck House! John sticks his hand in it, his arm appears throughout multiple points in the comic, and then voops out of reality completely. He has an INTENSE STAREDOWN with Caliborn and wakes up on LOMAX, Jake's planet.

I don't usually do this but

(skips many, many important bits and pieces)

Vriska comes back (thanks to John's time shenanigans), plans out everything to come and verbally abuses her ghost self, Dave and Dirk have a feelings jam, dead pre-retcon Terezi and Ghost Vriska rejoice in facing the end, and everybody just about gets ready to

Collide.

This has been by far one of the most bonkers pieces of fiction I have ever read, and nothing gets me more excited than to see all of it come together and wrap all of it up, I hope. Also Caliborn and Calliope are one of the best "Jekyll/Hyde" characters I've seen in a long while!

Whatever lies on the other side of that hyperlink, I sure hope it'll be good.

[domutkniecie]

guyssss do you have any requests???? please i want to draw more homestuck

Edit: im on act 6 intermission 2 so no spoilers pls

[pesterloglog]

Gamzee Makara

Act 6, page 6788

GAMZEE:

[doomsdaydicecascader]

Did you mean something else by "rafe part structure"? I couldn't find anything with that name...

i call it the rafe part structure bc its a lens developed by rafe saltman, in which "part 1" of homestuck consists of acts 1-4, part 2 is act 5 and act 5 act 2, part 3 is act 6 acts 1-5, and part 4 is act 6 act 6 and act 7

it pretty cleanly breaks homestuck up into 4 roughly equal sizes which each follow their own ideas - part 1 being a very direct exploration of sburb, part 2 being the build to cascade, part 3 being the alpha sessions, and part 4 being game over and the build up to the retcon, as well as peak caliborn hours

"side a" and "side b" being split on intermission 2 (side A being a1-5 and side B being a6-a7) is also pretty useful, since cascade ending with the gang flying through a fourth wall signifies a pretty big change in how homestuck is told and what homestuck is invested in telling

[homestuck-quotes-sometimes]

JADE: excuse me but did you just "laugh your ass off" at me under your breath ROXY: ummm ROXY: yea ROXY: maybe JADE: :| JADE: i fail to see what is so amusing ROXY: u do ROXY: seriously?

[peepawstims]

Homestuck Stimboard Pt. 16 Rose Lalonde

Im still in the intermission before act 4 this is a very long but very silly intermission and im quite enjoying it

Requests are open check pinned post

Please do not use this banner my partner made it specially for me

1 | 2 | 3

4 | X | 6

7 | 8 | 9

[dullorangepulp]

Rereading Act 6 Intermission 3, specifically John's 15th birthday party scene, & seeing him already exhibit signs of clinical depression, long before it was fully addressed in the epilogues, is really heartbreaking to me & I wanna rant about it.

(Pages I'm talking about: 5265-5307)

His favourite movie, Con Air, doesn't even bring him the same joy it used to anymore. A very common symptom of depression is a loss of interest in activities/hobbies/anything that used to make you happy. Even though yes, Con Air is objectively an awful movie, it was still something John cared about, so watching him completely switch gears & start tearing into the film like it killed his father really speaks to how there's more going on with him than what's shown on the surface. Jade tells him that it's fine & even if he doesn't like the movie now, he can still cherish the fond memories he has of it on a nostalgic level. John however just brushes her off because he's become so bitter & averse to things changing. (another symptom of depression)

Speaking of, here's an example: when he learns that Jade & Davesprite broke up, he gets so mad because, according to him, their relationship was "the glue holding the ship together", he heavily fixates on this idea that they were "the rock" anchoring the ship, even when Jade protests that absurd notion. When John asks why they broke up, Jade explains that it's because Davesprite was going through a lot of stuff, & wanted to be alone for a while to figure himself out. John gets pissed & calls him a douche, because at this point in the story he doesn't understand what kinds of problems Davesprite (& also the real Dave, but if we get into all of that then we'll be here all day) is dealing with. He's even more pissed about this than Jade, because while yes, Jade is sad about the breakup because she's always been in love with Dave, she understands if Davesprite just needs time to himself, & she's fully willing to give him all the space he needs.

Anyways, after John lets it go, he finds the note Davesprite wrote of him impersonating John's late father. A joke that, while yes, is in pretty poor taste given that it's the 2 year Anniversary of his death, John completely loses it over. He snaps & hurls some rather hurtful words at Davesprite, lashing out on his own best bro (something lots of people who're going through depressive episodes can end up doing, even if they don't mean to) & attacking some of his deepest insecurities. I would go into just how every specific thing John says hurts Davesprite, & really dive into his character & his struggles & stuff, but then we'd be here all day & that's not really the point of this rant.

But like, just look at this:

There's a bunch of little things too, like when Jade points out that John's been in a crappy mood these days, he says "i am fine. this MOVIE is what's crappy these days", essentially lashing out at the world around him & blaming it for his irritable attitude. Or when he snaps at Jaspersprite to shut up. Or when he complains that shrinking down to visit the planets is "a whole big deal" because he has to ask Jade to use her powers, whereas she can just shrink herself whenever, even after she points out that she doesn't mind it. Such a small, innocuous thing is overblown in his mind as this big monumental deal, as if he's burdening Jade & encroaching on her personal boundaries whenever he interrupts her dates to ask permission for her to use her powers on him.

...Yeah I don't really know how to end this rant. Uhhhh the homestuck epilogues are actually secretly pretty decent & yall are sleeping on them. I (mostly) like them because they're about John & I like John & I have recently developed a massive crush on him & she's my wife. Anyways when does the main website get fixed?