#hs analysis

[disguisedcheezed]

I'm thinking about this specific panel again. He's doing the fist clenching. So anime~! Wow!

Is this whole panel inverted to imply that he's in anime that his silhouette towards the audience looks like Dirk? Amazing deduction! Haha, I am fucking delusional.

WHO'S THAT POKÉMON?!

It's actually John Egbert.

Fuck you.

[shoegazingmonad]

crazy update wow jade died n the point just got blown to smithereens or whatever but DELTRITUS KID SPOTTED!!!! WOO FINALLY

And though I feel like it's pretty obvious since this doesn't look like a race / species we've seen in the comic and everything in the text would suggest these are the species' Dirk and Rose have been creating, it's confirmed by the (==>) (symbol for events taking place in the black hole) changing to a ==> (symbol for events taking place outside the black hole) meaning that the panel above is from the Meat timeline!!! Joy!!

Time to talk about what piques my interest with this anonymous critter here; Starting first with their quirk.

o-------* < this thing they keep typing right here, as I gleaned from the last sentence, is implied to represent a bomb. With 'o' as the bomb itself, '-------' as the wire / rope and '*' as the spark. The quirk itself certainly suits the situation pretty well considering the latest developments in the Candy timeline, though in a way I'm not really sure how to word or put together.

You've got this laser hitting a point of highly concentrated narrative energy - which I'm guessing is the symbolic "bomb" in this sequence, which makes the "spark" the laser, but the thing that gets set on fire and slowly burns up is the curtains, and, in turn, leads to the o-------* bomb in GC's text also setting off?

Anyway whatever. Another point on explosives here is that this kid seems to be awfully fond of those "volatile materials" as they say such themselves; and also because when the quirk stops counting down their computer blows up. Which to me would suggest they've either got plenty of bombs in (what I'm assuming is) their home or are just experiencing really explosive weather. Though they do hint at devastating explosions at the beginning of the log, in a way that makes them seem super aware of what's about to happen, so I've no idea what to make of that.

And regarding explosive weather; my first assumption about the o-------* was that it was supposed to be a meteor (o) and a portal (*), and the ------- shortening represented it falling from the sky. Though I quickly realised that it didn't make much sense, the idea still sticks with me a little, since the placement (space) and use of the laser to clear out the surroundings reminded me of sburb's meteors.

There's also another lead on the bomb situation though thanks to GC clarifying their interest in explosives as "a real addiction" to a Vriska of all people because it brings to mind 8-balls, and from that, it's explosive, just as circular cousin, the cue ball.

Though I'm not suggesting that the explosives GC is interested in are cue balls; as I don't think they are, I do think it is interesting that they bring up oracles (especially after the o-* symbol runs out), as it's a word that has been used to describe cue balls before.

And whilst on the topic of oracles - it's 'AA' that's referred to as 'like' one, and even used to replace the 'o' in GC's quirk for a joke.

Pretty weird that this AA kid is used as a substitute for the bomb here. Most I think it'd be suggesting is that they've got some kind of unmentioned advantage similar to the cue ball thanks to divine intervention (Dirk or Rose fucking around, or perhaps Terezi).

Thankfully GC goes into detail about this AA kid, and gives a brief mention of a TC, all of which I'll be talking about next.

The first thing that comes to mind regarding these pals is that, similarly to Vrissy, this mystery friend group also uses the 12 (or so, since we currently don't know how many participating kids we have here) chumhandle acronyms that the beta trolls used. Which, in turn means it wouldn't be all that wrong to think they're associated with whatever beta troll they share the acronym with in some way.

If there's anything to be taken from this right now (which seems to be quite little, since we've only got 3 and we don't even know what the other kid's stand for) I'd say it's just pretty funny and kind of cute that the kids using Vriska and Terezi's acronyms are friends.

And now about my general observations on these kids:

GC. From what we've got so far it seems like they're a pretty negative person, in the way that they (rightfully?) assume the worst of most situations but are easily pressured into / out of them. They also REALLY like Vrissy, or at enough so that AA mentions her joining them in sburb as a bargaining point to get them to play too. Though the way they not-so-subtly beg Vrissy to join them and the outright confession of their lack of friends would also suggest that they're just lonely and awkward and may not be too close with the friends (?) they say they're playing it with.

AA, mysterious as they are right now still gets a lot of description on behalf of GC. One thing that stuck with me though is the way they call her 'an oracle', backtrack and say she isn't really, and then instead insist that she's something else, magical in a way that they don't understand but believe. (hope player much????)

Most of GC's descriptions make her sound pushy, overbearing and a little too knowledgeable on the circumstances at hand. "If it's one thing she gonna do it's bug or fuss or meddle" might not be the most reliable description to go off since it's told from the biased POV of one frustrated kid aware the game their friends want them to play is going to kill them. And it's probably not helping that the friend insisting you play is also the one informing you it'll kill you, if the way GC admits they 'know it will' and immediately prompts a conversation about AA's habits is anything to go by.

TC only gets about one line of note worthy information and it's when GC refers to sburb as "TC's game" which implies they were the one who's adapted it / helped develop it similar to what Sollux did for Sgrub. Nothing about TC themselves is brought up besides that they're friends with AA and GC (obviously).

Lastly I want to bring up the question of what species this kid is. Bare minimum to go off here but the hands don't really look aquatic or mammalian, more reptilian than anything. The GC makes me think of Terezi, too, so my first assumption is perhaps some sort of dragon? If so would Terezi have a hand in making some of these things, or would Rose have made it?? This is just vague silly guesses but whatever. The o-------* could also simultaneously function as a bomb and dream bubble who knows. Horrorterrors, Satyrs, Dragons, Nymphs whatever man. I gotta know

That's all I can think of for now. I'm already so fascinated with this singular kid and whatever the hell kinda social circle they've got going on so if they psyche out again and throw the focus someplace else for another 500 pages I'm gonna bawl

[wyfy-meltdown]

I think the reason that HIC is my favourite Homestuck villains is because of how understandable and real her motivation is. Of course she's definitely not a sympathetic villain (she's literally space fish hitler) but her reasons for doing what she's doing are understandable.

She wants her species and her people back. She didn't get back to her homeworld in time to save her race and now she's all alone in the universe as the last of her kind. She doesn't WANT to help Lord English (she's actively doing everything she can to go against him) she just wants to turn Earth into the empire she once had. Her desperation to do so is honestly very tragic despite screwing over the entire human race: I still can't help but feel bad for her. And yeah Alternia was a pretty shit society especially under her rulership but wouldn't you try to do the same for humanity if you were the only one left?

This also applies to HIC's dancestor counterpart, Meenah. Even though Meenah fled to the moon to avoid ruling Beforus she still did everything she could to save her friends and give the post-scratch trolls a chance. Hell, she practically begs John not to let her steal the ring because she's enjoying spending eternity with her friends and doesn't want to leave them. She's the one who tries to talk down Aranea, she vocally expresses how she loves Feferi (her dancestor) and feels bad that her royal blood makes her want to kill her.

I really do feel that HIC/Meenah is a lot kinder than people give her credit for.

[miniimoose]

Reading about classpects again becsuse idk I have brainworms and man.... Muse Of Hope would go so fucking hard. Can you imagine?

Ultimate passive class, designed to inspire others with their aspect.

Inspire your entire session with never ending and unbridled hope. Push through every obstacle that comes your way with the help of your teams Muse. No matter how horrible everything seems, how dark things are, how much you've lost, how insurmountable the odds... You have hope on your side and you cannot be beaten. You will get up again, because you have to. For your Muse.

[quadrantbot]

Jake and Dirkjake and other mildly related tangents. (Additional paragraph on alpha kid romance, because I guess that was necessary to me.)

Heads up this post is not positive about Dirkjake like, at all. I'm not saying you can't like it or do anything with it, I am just sharing my own personal opinion and analysis on it. And Jake in general. (I'm not going to tag with Dirkjake because that's a dick move, but I'm not going to intentionally avoid saying it in NON tag text either. Scroll on if you don't like Dirkjake hate. Okay? Cool.) 

Jake is one of those characters that fandom wise, is super mischaracterized. This includes the mischaracterizations in postcanon as well, which also at least to some degree includes Pesterquest. It's confusing to me for several reasons why so many major changes were made to Jake outside of the main comic, but considering how most of the fans do not seem to take him seriously and the writing team for the dubiously canon content seem to lump his existence purely in with Dirk, it's a little understandable.

Jake isn't really too complicated of a character when it comes to likes, dislikes, motivations and issues. Jake likes his movies, the IDEA of adventure, and he loves blue ladies. He doesn't really care for romance at any major point in the story, especially considering his entire friend group had feelings for him, and when it comes down to actual adventures, actual conflict, he's freaked out. Jake has a great deal of care for his friends, even despite the weird romance shit occuring in the group, and his main issue when it comes to that friend group is a lack of communication from everyone involved. Jake "wants" to be important, Jake "wants" to be a hero, Jake "wants" to be a brave adventurer, but these "wants" don't ever appear to reflect in his actions, even so far as contradicting them, leading to conflict between his supposed wants, and what he actually seems to go for. Jake is often seen as a "himbo" by the fandom, but even that is not really all that accurate. Jake isn't stupid. Jake does have some issues when it comes to reading the room, but even when he DOESN'T, it's usually picked up whenever he's in a weird situation that he doesn't want to be in, which can be seen in his conversation with Jane about her romantic feelings for him, or the proposed lack thereof. Should be pages 4587-4593, but I'll screenshot the notable parts I'll be referencing and put them below. 

Jake didn't really seem very convinced when Jane said she DIDN'T have feelings for him, but he just continued along with the conversation, expressing his relief because even if she was lying, he didn't really want to face that sort of thing head on. Jake then goes onto explain the weird shit with Dirk and doesn't exactly seem very interested in him either, but seeing as Jane supposedly has no interest in him, there's a weird sort of obligation going on where he feels he HAS to just let this happen, which doesn't really seem like the common fandom idea that he was like, head over heels for Dirk. There's a vague mention of jokes from "years ago" where they could like each other if Dirk was a girl, but seeing as these are 15 year olds, "years ago" is a pretty vague period of time AND teenagers will say shit like that all of the time! Mostly younger ones, yes, but I think a good portion of teenagers have joked about having feelings for/WOULD have feelings for someone if they were a gal or a guy. Nothing when it came to Jake's behavior was intentionaly shitty or leading Dirk on or anything, because Jake can't always be aware of literally everyone's feelings for him? 

On a vaguely related tangent, I used to be large on the "bi Jake" being canon thing, but just taking the bare minimum look into some of this just makes it seem like he's got no interest in men at all, and his interest in women appears to be from both a jealousy/almost gender envy standpoint (in the way he seems to WANT to be like them,) and a genuine attraction, especially when considering his blue ladies and more specifically, Aranea. (I do not like Aranea/Jake for the record, and if somehow you guys who enjoy that pairing (or any pairing with alpha trolls/anyone who isn't an alphatroll, I'm looking at you Meenkat, Vrismeen and other freaks,) have made it this far, PROSHITS GET OUT!! I am a normal consumer of darkfic not a FREAK!!) I think I can understand those who read Jake as not aromantic, just uninterested in romance with his current issues, but I also thoroughly enjoy reading Jake as arospec as someone who is both arospec AND someone with several arospec friends who like the reading just as much, Jake never seems to take a genuine interest in relationships with anyone, only considering one with Jane or Dirk because they're his friends, and if he's good friends with them, they MUST be good partner options for him. While it's true there can be a good basis on friendship, I don't think the two major Jake ""romance options"" are all that fit even with the basis of friendship, seeing as neither Jane nor Dirk communicate well, and Jake really doesn't either. 

The thing about the base alpha kids (excluding cherubs and any of Dirk's robots, whic includes Lil Hal, despite being a copy of his brain,) is that when it comes to the most prominent "proposed" canon pairings, Dirkjake, Janejake, Dirkroxy, it just seems they only exist because those four are each others only options romantically. Jane likes Jake, so Roxy feels like Dirk is the only option. Dirk, though unlabelled, only has a canon interest in men, so Jake appears to be the only option. Jane seems to like Jake to a degree, but I think that primarily stems from the fact that Jake is extremely kind and caring to all his friends, so she really does see him as HER only option as well. Again, I do think some of the base alpha kids pairings are alright, but that mostly relies on things AFTER the trickster mode section completely explodes all over everyone and the conflicts reach a boiling point. Dirk and Jane make up, and I do think there's something good that could be said about some form of moiraillegiance between the two, because even despite their issues with each other prior to the Dirkjake breakup, they still do care about each other. I also like Jakeroxy as a pairing option, though mostly in a queerplatonic sense, because when Roxy took a step back from any form of romantic interest in Jake because of Jane and later Dirk, Roxy is more capable of having some form of bond with Jake that wouldn't automatically feel like a necessarily romantic thing, and I think their shared caring for their friends and each other could make them closer. The thing about the base proposed pairings between the alpha kids is that, at least in the case of Dirkjake, it's overglorified by the fandom, even if there are ""nuanced"" readings of them. 

This isn't to say that you can't interpret the text however you want, but when it comes to the bare minimum in canon Dirkjake doesn't really work at all. Not as a fluffy pairing, and not as a strange, codependent teenage relationship where they're mutually obsessed with each other and tearing each other apart. Jake has no romantic interest in Dirk. Jake also has a completely reasonable extra reason why, even if he DID have feelings for Dirk, which, according to canon, he doesn't really, they still wouldn't be good together. I definitely understand the value in exploring negative relationships via fictional means, but when it comes to Dirkjake, their conflict isn't complicated, or nuanced, or even really that complex to understand. Dirk didn't know how to properly go through with his feelings for Jake, so he did fucked up shit, and Lil Hal did fucked up shit, and it very easily came crashing down on him. Even without every strange and fucked up thing Dirk and Lil Hal did towards Jake in order to express those feelings, the biggest point of conflict, the decapitated head kiss in front of the volcano, was definitely enough to state that there's nothing really all that great between them, and there's nothing to take from it that really requires or calls for an exploration of the fucked up side of their relationship, because every way I've seen that handled, it's just as full of mischaracterization as fluffy Dirkjake is. I can understand the excitement at "canon gay representation," but at the end of the day, all Dirkjake really is is a one sided relationship between Dirk and a guy who doesn't have any feelings for him outside of platonic ones, a guy who felt an obligation to be with Dirk just because Dirk was his friend. Could that be explored in an interesting and angsty way? Definitely, but that is a Dirkjake interpretation I've seen the least of, if any at all, and that's literally what's set up canonically! 

"But Ro, what about postcanon?" There's a lot to be said about postcanon, and a variety of things that make any form of romantic feelings on Jake's end completely unbelievable to me. For starters, Ult Dirk is in control of postcanon, Alt Calliope is also, to some degree, but anything that may or may not ""confirm"" romantic feelings on Jake's end is being told to us by two unreliable narrators. But also, postcanon is stupid, existed to get Hussie out of debt, and overall was a piece of garbage that didn't do anything for canon whatsoever. So I don't consider it canon. At all. But if you do, the unreliable narrator argument above is for you. 

[biddyfox]

homestuck vs bob and george

Whenever i see a really long post analyzing homestucks metamodernity and weird themes I think to myself "What if people were analyzing Bob and George like this." Because Bob and George was doing ALL of the interesting shit Homestuck was more than ten years later (even the epilogues, down to them being mostly by ascended fans) but worse and with less fandom shit. They did the oil retcon thing (there was a period where early strips started slowly getting "whited out" to represent a plot-relevant time paradox.) They did the playing with game mechanics to tell a story (although these mechanics are borrowed from Mega Man and not invented whole-cloth.) it has the author playing a major role in the plot of the story (and even does a lot of weird interesting bullshit with that concept.) i think Bob and George even had a much more interesting relationship to its fandom a lot of the time. it's just like, a Mega Man parody webcomic written by a physics professor, and tonally somewhere between "fanmade TNG script" and "early Family Guy" instead of Homestuck's compelling YA meets chatlog teen drama. But like I like it better for that reason. It's denser and weirder and less polished and there's something in the authors commentary every four pages that's like "I think I was setting a later plot twist here but I forgot about it and did something else."

Of course I'm not pretending not to know the reason people find Homestuck more interesting than Bob and George. It's the nostalgia, the feeling of being part of a fandom, the years and years of tumblr history. That is the actual special part of Homestuck, not any of the well-trod ground it popularized for fandom Millennials. I would love to see people talk about that aspect of it and not any of the extremely basic hyperfiction and metanarrative techniques it turned into a teen sensation, like Beatlemania with the singer-songwriter. I would love to see people who enjoy analyzing Homestuck expand their horizons towards things that are less mythologized or overexposed (that's just me whining though, if Homestuck makes you happy then I have no problem with it.) It's just a really underrated part of internet history and I feel like everyone who likes homestuck should read it too. I know I read Bob and George before I even heard of homestuck and recognized a lot of the elements hs borrows from it.

Shoutouts to Dave Anez, too. Hope he's doing okay.

[i-likegamesbut-cant-playthem]

homestuck thoughts

jack x queen is just evil fucked up dad x mom. on the same note since jack is the father vaguely and fathers in hs are maternal this lends to jack karkats whole harsh rejection of femininity and father/nice version of motherhood. there are evil mothers the condece the queen mom and good mothers the dolarosa. mom

rejection of motherhood is a pretty common theme. eg the condece space players in a nicer sort of way. the queen.

destruction of a world is sort of framed like abortion? lord english and jack and eridan cause metaphorical miscarriages. strong independent women are evil in homestuck as a commentary? motherhood is framed as revolutionary. i think alternia accidentally reinvented anti-feminism but rebelling somehow?. sort of

homestuck is a story abt birth and pregnancy and women. among a billion other things.

sburb is a very suburban (hahhah) thing. classpects dream moons ect are weird prejudiced systems that make everything complicated. its no coincidence that the aspect of birth and creation and insane pressure is applied femininity. sburb tries to force a paternal/maternal sort of role on all its players. derse it rejects parenthood and is deemed evil for this. rose doesn't want to do her quests and she doesn't want to play the game and she doesn't want to be a mother no wonder shes from the abortion kingdom.

also ofc trolls (people from a culture that rejects any form of parenthood or even child and adult interaction) ally with derse and jack noir. who hates women and wants to kill them. (instead of respecting them for being maternal like prospit and generally sburb barf) and destroy the world (a child)

karkats from the suburbs of course hes from the parenthood kingdom.

[tendorksclasspecting]

Rose and Dave both gain their godhood rejecting their roles on a suicide mission to blow up the sun and that's fabulous, I love it. But Rose gets the short end of the stick attention-wise both before on her planet and after on the meteor.

When Rose goes grimdark, I wish she did more with her planet than trash it & leave. When Dave rejects his role he gets an important broken sword and figures out stable time loops, and then they scratch their session on his planet. Rose goes Grimdark from unlocking her seer powers and immediately rejecting them, but then her planet doesn't really get addressed at all after she goes Grimdark. She could have ridden that thing like a cue ball into the green sun. She could have killed her planet and resurrected an undead army of later-relevant consorts. She could have no-clipped to Cetus, had an argument, and banished her to the Furthest Ring leaving LOLAR inky and lightless and invisible to Lord English for use fighting him later. Rose was supposed to be a beautiful tool but she wanted to be a weapon, and she never narratively gets to be without utterly destroying herself.

On the meteor, I wish we got more of her being catty as her sense of purpose falls apart post suicide mission - I wish we'd seen her struggle instead of just being told oops Rose is an alcoholic now. I wish we'd gotten more of her falling in love with Kanaya, this person who uses her needles and teeth to clothe and protect. Of them understanding themselves better because of each other. Of them transitioning (maybe through addiction) from the violent necessities of the game to plans for their future, for what the Mother Grub would need and how to combine their cultures, deciding who they want to be. But Rose kind of just gets sidelined into the background of Dave and Karkat and Terezi, and that's a fucking shame.

Rose is a character with so much depth and we got cheated out of seeing her make the final decisions of what her arc is and who she wants to be, which imo is the whole point of her character arc.

[dave rejects his assigned role] woww this says so much and is so interesting and awesome i am suddenly a master of analysis [rose rejects her assigned role] omg i cant belive hussie made this unintentional oversight thats really stupid rose is sooo boring

[tehstripe]

this sequence of pages in act 5 is so striking to me.

in acts 1-4, jade is a mysterious, all-knowing figure who knows about sburb and how it needs to go, and shes very systematic about logging and remembering important things through the little bands on her fingers. even though shes just some goofy little girl, shes smart!! she knows whats going on and knows what she has to do, and shes been studying the clouds to make sure that she and her friends are ready. because honestly, what else is she going to do with her time? she's alone on the island, and this is her destiny. she's going to make sure it happens.

here, we're finally seeing a bit of her friendly and put together self image start to fall apart as she just gives up on keeping track of things. she's grieving the loss of prospit, shes just had her first ever nightmare, AND she had to deal with an obnoxious teenage boy (karkat), and she's reached her breaking point. and she just. gives up. forget the reminders, forget the systems, they aren't serving her right now, so off they go.

plus, we get this tidbit a few pages later:

jade always knew she was going to die. she had seen herself, stuffed and perfectly preserved as a thirteen-year-old. she must have known that it was coming soon, but that didn't stop her from going through the plan to play the game with her friends. personally i think she thought it was worth it if she could at least see her friends, hopefully keep them safe, and have some fun times with them right before she had to die.

i wonder if theres a part of her unsettled by the fact that she's finally faced something she didn't already know was going to happen. she no longer has the comforting clouds of skaia to tell her what's going to happen - she's as clueless as everyone else. probably MORE clueless than some characters, like the trolls, who have a window into her future that she can't see.

jade's realized that she doesn't know all of the beats of this story anymore. she might just grow up now, and that means she has to go forth into the unknown.

[disguisedcheezed]

I made a relationship chart from the standpoint of dirkjohn and how insanely funny it is, but fucked up for everyone involved.

(I forgot to add that Ultimate Dirk also lead John to his death in hs^2. head in hands)

[shoegazingmonad]

I'm not gonna write an actual essay on this cause 1. I can't be bothered and 2. I suck at writing but I still want to post about it because I know that if I don't now I never will so here's:

Old stuff about the Pumpkin Timeline idea and how I think it relates to the CMYK colour model

What I'm getting at here is that since the A2 B1 and B2 timelines are associated with the RGB colour model and the beta kids then we can reverse it and do the same with the CMYK colour model and the alpha kids. Presuming that the Meat timeline = Magenta and Candy = Cyan (both coincidentally sound pretty similar too) there should be a third Yellow timeline we haven't seen yet, a Pumpkin Timeline (not even gonna consider the idea that it's any other food item I feel like it's insanely obvious that if there were another it'd be that). Following on with the aspects I've assigned the two timelines with based on the Candy and Meat epilogues themes + Dirk and Jane's importance in each it's obvious to me that the Yellow timeline would be one focused on Hope and subsequently, Jake.

My points in the image above also mention that I think it'll be (Candy) Jake directly creating a timeline using his hope powers (not Meat Jake because he hasn't shown any use of them productively at all and doesn't seem to be headed for anything narratively important in the story as of now) though I don't know exactly how that'd play out, I assume it'll either be through a merging of both timelines (not so sure of this one) or after / just before the destruction of both timelines via Alt Calliope's black hole. I'm heavily leaning towards the destruction of both = creation of another though, since the RGB model is about the reflection of light and the CMYK is about the absorption of it, and absorption is something the Candy timeline is currently threatened with thanks to the aforementioned black hole. I also assume it'll be after / before the timelines destruction because Jake's hope powers have been shown to work their best whenever he's desperate, and having everyone's lives threatened like that would make it the most likely time for him to intervene.

At first the whole idea of assigning the timelines to a colour model of all things felt kinda silly and baseless to me at first since there weren't any direct mentions of it in Homestuck that I could remember. I ended up rereading some parts and re-watched the Act 7 flash a while later though and noticed right when Alt Calliope created the black hole she summons 3 circles that then end up in the same positions as a colour model, with them switching colours between cyan, magenta, yellow and white. And I really don't think a recreation of the CMYK wheel was added just for the sake of making the creation sequence look a little cooler.

Besides that there's not much more to this 'theory'. It's mostly just me trying to prove that a third timeline is a definite using a colour model. I don't even know if this has been theorised before. If it has I'll stop posting out of embarrassment.

[tendorksclasspecting]

Ouhgghghgh the bit about not being able to let dirk win. Is true for many of the characters in homestuck imo. Homestuck has a running theme of false heroism and imperfect wins and when it came time to end it floundered, imo, because it didnt know how to take the ideas it was working with and create a cathartic win.

Homestuck tries to be a war story where everyone leaves victorious but broken, and fails to provide the after the war bit where the victory and the losses are held in careful tension. The cost of the fight: the lost trolls, the toll of watching yourself die over and over... everything rarely has a lasting effect on how the characters behave. Dream!Jade having a freakout is one of the places I think Homestuck does this best, but it still gets pulled back to self hatred instead of idk rage at the unfairness of the game, like nearly every single character in homestuck tbh. Every one of those miserable teens except maybe John and Nepeta has deep rooted self hatred as a central part of their arcs.

Homestuck tries to be a hero story, about a bunch of kids facing impossible tasks and coming together with the power of friendship to destroy the big bad, and fails to provide satisfying hero arcs for nearly every character. John's dark night of the soul with the retcon doesn't carry enough weight on his psyche imo to even really be worth calling a dark night. Dave has the closest to a standard hero arc, but rejects the hero narrative to be a side character explicitly, providing emotional support to both dirk and john. So does Karkat. I could go on, but the point here is that Homestuck is trying to do so much with its hero arcs that it fails to develop them all.

Homestuck tries to be a story with complex villains, who you hate but still like.

I do think people are also weird about Dirk because he kiiiinda comes across as Hussie's self insert at times, though I suppose you could also make an argument that Gamzee is, given Hussie. At least he comes across initially as a bit of a criticism of bronies/weeb/chan culture, and I think that really pushed a lot of people away from treating him normally by association.

is there really no chance we can get the dante take on dirk interpretation fail as tooly as it may allegedly sound. please your takes are so good

god. fine. heres my hashtag "theories" on what causes people to act so fucking unhinged about dirk

1 - hes fucking kin bait

specifically around sayyyyy 2015-2017ish iirc there just was., an absolute flood of truscum dirk kinnies. dirk is a character that a very specific Kind Of Guy latches onto and projects himself onto regardless of how much they actually had in common with dirk. this also has a memetic effect on how that character is perceived post-interaction with those types of guys.

its also just how very projectable characters are interacted with vs characters that you don't project on as much. the desire to vent one's own feelings through a character and warp them to be more like ones self. not bad inherently but still has consequences if you refuse to come up for air and remember hey this guy exists outside your personal perception of him.

his themes of self harm and self hate are also just, very easy to latch onto into a very specific way. it doesnt matter how dirk's themes of self destruction manifest in canon, angst is angst, now get on with the whump

2 - hes The gayboy of the comic

dirk strider is a gay man who's character and arc is deeply ingrained and informed by his sexuality. unfortunately being a character introduced to the world in 2011 he was trust very quickly into the role of the yaoi boy. this is not helped by his relationship to roxy, people like roxy and want roxy to be happy, and roxy wants dirk to date her, but also dirk is a gay yaoi boy with a yaoi boyfriend.

oh wait, as the comic progresses jake becomes more explicity an autistic gnc kid and worse of all, he's cringe. he has a messy break up with dirk and now we juggle between "oh well dirk was Abusive" reading a lot of dirk's actions in bad faith bordering on a predatory day man stereotype, or people who really like dirk turning their hatred onto the CringeBoy jake to be At Fault bc apparently all break ups must have a victim and a villain and its not like teenagers break up or stupid shit all the fucking time.

but now dirkjake is cringe, regardless of what side your are on, dirk and jake cant be together, theyre bad for each other, also we are all still recovering from the yaoi era making the ship cringe. but dirks the gay boy so the absolute most important thing is to make sure he has a boyfriend. which results in a lot of scrambling to find dirk a boyfriend to kiss away his sad gayboy tears.

3 - "dirk bullying" and the desire to see dirk beaten down

dirk is kinda an obnoxious character, he's got his high horse of obnoxious teen false intellectualism and says a lot of stupid bullshit bc teenagers are dumbasses who say dumb shit.

this also ties into a lot of responces to both obnoxious dirk kinnies with superiority complexes and the yaoi era dirk woobification, bubbles up into this desire to see dirk put in his place. dirk isnt a cool macho manly man nor is he the sad uwu boy, hes a loser hes a freak everyone gather around to mock him.

theres also narrative elements of how we see dirk interact with conflict, in prince of heart rise up we dont really see him in action, just the before and after of his epic badass stunt. dirk is also framed somewhat villainously, his themes of puppetry his abusive beta counterpart the way he's teleported to the edge of the session along side the jacks blah blah blah. many elements build up creating this desire in the audiance to see dirk beaten down a bit.

this wraps back to dirk being kinbait as well, and his themes of self harm making for good whump bait. put the gayboy in his place, beat him down. he's an annoying obnoxious little freak who should be forcefully taught how to behave. people (used to, its died down a lot) feels simularly about vriska, wanting to see her get punished for her actions quite brutally and in ways that were absurd and cruel to inflict on a child and unhinged for an adult to ask for. in some ways its a weird intersection between misogyny and homophobia, the desire to see these kids violently punished. but for dirk on some level its less punishment and more, whump, the purposeful antagonization of a kitten bc its just soooo cute when it's stressed out.

so we get this desire to lovingly torment a character, paired with the desire to well, justify their suffering. the puppeteer becomes the puppet, now bash his knee caps in.

then we tie back to dirk being The Gay Boy, which makes the nature in which he is tormented more charged and specific.

4 - the epilogues

the epilogues take what made people want to beat dirk down and cranked it up to the max all while still infantalizing him and treating him like a bratty child. calliope outright compares him to a child throwing a temper tantrum

it breeds this idea that dirk is well, he deserves it. as well as this perception of dirk even separate from his ult self as this whiny pathetic overgrown child that need to buck up and take it like a man, shut up you stupid little bitch. this blends very horrifically with this popular idea of dirk being this twink + bottom.

it results in this idea that dirk needs to get over himself and shut up OR he should wallow in his misery more and be a little whumpy plaything to torment lovingly (of course, on some level he Deserves This, for uhhhh being an obnoxious know it all)

5 - trickster mode eyestrain made people miss a pretty important scene

that be when dirk broke up with jake. sure dirk was kinda clingy and made jake feel overwhelmed after awhile. but the degree that ppl seem to think dirk was #obsessed with jake isnt compliant with the fact that in the end dirk was the one who broke up with jake. but no one remembers that bc the trickster mode dialog is fucking hard to read. god its all so pink, you can barely see dirk's text.

we return to the "ummmm did dirk bully jake into dating him?" which dirk himself takes a side and says he did. which like, leads to abusive dirk arguements against the "um no actually dirk is a uwu baby boy how dare you accuse him of any malice" and its such a fucking mess. learn to fucking read and also learn what nuance is. goddamn. idk i think a relationship between two autistic touch starved teenagers who grew up in horrific levels of isolation, are extremely under socialized and took place while trapped in a void session for months might have some issues. (esp with the horrific undertones of the Themes of said void session of the alpha kids but that's another conversation)

6 - so much homestuck discourse is just. reactionary

at this point who dirk is in canon doesnt matter, its been buried on the #dirkcourse and layers of fanon inbreeding built around this desire to villainize dirk to justify beating him down again. its buried under the desire to Debunk dirk's cool guy schitck for smart person points to the degree of people are debunking each other's widely disconnected from canon dirks with equally disconnected from canon.

it becomes more important to debunk and subvert "fanon dirk" then it is for dirk to be, well, dirk. oh you think dirk is a macho cool kid? well actually he's a pathetic loser twink who falls flat on his face all the time, unless i want to villainize him in which case he's a giant asshole freak im purposely tripping to force him to break his nose on the sidewalk as punishment. this is normal person behavior, apparently.

this isnt to say im somehow immune to my own flavor of bullshit. im no dirk scholar, he's hardly even the focus of my Studies into homestuck. he's a bit of a blorbo to me and some elements of how i read and perceive his character is partially rooted in a bit of my own projection. nothing wrong with a little projection here and there.

but there is a degree in which dirk is kinda just, ripped out of the context of his existence as a character in homestuck and twisted into Something Else. tho id argue Dave it gets it much worse.

personally i think dirk is like, Unironically Cool. not in the way dirk thinks being cool works, but he's a cool guy and i like him. he's even a bit badass, and i think the fact that he is also capable of falling flat on his face in failure to not cancel out his badass moments, if anything his failures make him even more cool and badass when he finally succeeds in doing the right thing and doing right by the people he cares for.

but its the moment of triumph, of self improvement but also crawling out from under the fist of crushing failure that makes his misery worth engaging with. there's no point in him getting beaten down if he doesnt get to finally rise up and like, win. let him maul the bitch who broke his nose and hurt his friends. let him realize his mistakes and do better and finally win.

but i think people are afraid to just, let dirk win. a lot of this stems from homestuck own somewhat wobbly themes of corrupted heroism and attempts to critique toxic masculinity. dirk winning is bad because uhhhhhh being the hero is bad i guess?

there definitely a lot more to it, esp in like, the many different ways people Get Dirk Wrong or whatever. everyone is going to have a different hot take on who's the Most Wrong but i do think there's something notable about the cycle in which dirk is villainized, then punished and beaten down till he's properly pitiable.

[lupuscaliber]

WAIT so yall know this panel of eridan right.

ive seen a lot of ppl comparebit to grimdark, but aside from it being debunked by the Beast, theres also notable differences

grimdark style is characterized by a whispy black outline, while in the above panel, eridan's magic outline is noticably white

so. what else have we seen drawn in a black silhouette with a glowing white outline?

THE FUCKING ANGELS!!!!

BUT THERES MORE

the angels dont always look like that, in fact they only ever appear that way on lowaa

THE HOPE FIELD AROUND LOWAA OBSCURES THE ANGELS

BECAUSE. ERIDAN PERCIEVES THEM AS A THREAT. BECAUSE HIS BELIEF IN HIS WAYS PREVENTED HIM FROM SEEING THE SITUATION CLEARLY

AND. IN THE END. THAT STRICT BELIEF DELUDES HIM TO THE POINT OF KILLING HIS FRIENDS WITH HOPE MAGIC. BECAUSE TO HIM THEY WERE ALL ALREADY DEAD. BECAUSE. THEIR SITUATION WAS HOPELESS

AND THE. AND THE!!!!!

oh my god i am so abnormal abt this comic

[quadrantbot]

Hello! Just updated my introduction and made a new quadrant explanation post, so I'm putting this out into the fandom.

Hey! I am the quadrant guy. I like to answer questions about quadrants. My blog is full of my own explanations on them enough already, but as I love to talk about them, I'm looking for any quadrant questions I haven't answered in the past! If you are curious about anything quadrant, go ahead and send an ask!

[hurlyburlytopsyturvy]

vrisrezi date!

↓ rewfewence ↓

[schniggles]

#ive heard that youre either a strider/lalondes person or a egbert/harley/english/crocker person and i think i know where im falling already #theres this deeply jaded existential despair to dave and rose thats almost comically horrific #and very much something that comes with teenagers trying to play at being adults (speaking from personal experience) (via elytrians)

homestuck act 1 first impressions