#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.

[vampzzz64]

These 2 panels stand out to me a lot not just because they are stylistically cool but because of the meaning in every detail of them. The violet and jade fighting for dominance in the background mirroring the way Kanaya and Eridan are fighting. Kanaya in black and Eridan in white, partly to represent his aspect of hope and having the villain in white which is generally a “heroic color”. Then the background turning black as he kills her representing the kind of finality in this blow. Both of them are now silhouetted in their blood colors. Could be interpreted as a larger commentary on how highbloods treat those loser than them on the hemospectrum, lowbloods don’t even get the dignity of a more sure (?) decision they are killed with no hesitation and no remorse. The white cutting through the darkness. The blood splatter. Kanaya’s hands going up in shock as she is killed whereas Eridan doesn’t move at all. It’s all insane. I’m insane about this webcomic.

[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.

[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. 

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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 ↓

[kravicle]

here is my masterpiece. enjoy

[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

[meraki-sunset]

I was thinking of the cherub adults; do you think they'd have aspects too? Or because they're before a session they don't?

I mean, the trolls ancestors also have aspects and they were before a session, so they could also potentially have one?

To me, everyone has an aspect. Because aspects are the primordial components of the universe in Homestuck, so I think everyone is born tuned to one specific aspect, regardless of if they’re born inside the game or not, destined to play it or not.

The kids and trolls were meant to play it, they were created for it, but Calliope and Caliborn weren't and weren't supposed to play. Cherubs being a super powerful being of legend aside, they were simple mortals unconnected to Sburb, but they still played it, the game let them have a session and they had classpects. The strongest posible classpects no less.

Another good example are the extended zodiac signs. They tell us the aspect and lunar sway of random trolls, even tho they will never play the game. People are just born with an aspect

The only people I believe are born without a classpect are carapace, consorts and leprechauns, because they were created by the game itself to fulfill a role in it, so it would make no sense for the game mechanics to give them a player classpect.

They themselves are already a part of the universe creation.

The same way Players can’t use the Queen’s ring, because its purpose is to be used by a carapace

So yeah, They could be time and space, like with trolls and their descendants or they could have ony other aspects, but Calamity and Calmasis should have aspects, simply because they’re mortals, born inside a Sburb-created universe, in which everyone is tuned to an aspect. (According to the Skaianet files, Calamity was born on universe B1, the beta kids original universe, while Calmasis was born on C1 the EarthC universe)