#hs analysis

[disguisedcheezed]

it's so funny to me when people just believe that john is straight because he said "i'm not a homosexual" once because

1. you are believing the words of a 13 yr old who was 12 the day before.

2. people forget that he's 13 when he said that, and that he is not old enough for a proper romantic relationship.

3. john egbert doesn't think. in fact, he'd rather not AT ALL. like. EVER.

4. why would he think about ever liking a girl? can't he just say it out right if he does?

also, this part in a nutshell:

karkat: DO YOU WANNA BE IN A RELATIONSHI-

john: i am not a homosexual. 👍

5. god king of repression had you fooled FOOL.

and the most ironic part is that it's the same shit homophobic parents say like "yeah, but when you were 13 you said you liked girls soooo"

[turntechgodoka]

I was thinking about the times people have accused Homestuck of sexism because of Jane being the only human girl who has intentionally worn pants, while the others stick to gender roles a little uncomfortably closely when it comes to clothes, and something occurred to me. Ignoring the fact that's it's pretty refreshing to see girls kicking ass while remaining feminine for once, if anyone's concerned about female Homestuck characters being restricted to traditional clothing choices, don't be.

I know it's easy to assume that Derse girls always get pants and Prospit girls always get dresses when they're dreaming, regardless of their personal preference, but if we pay closer attention to the troll session...

...it's not true, actually. Derse girls can have skirts and Prospit girls can have pants. I mean, check out Feferi; her PJs even look like her normal skirt! I think it's safe to conclude from this that dream PJs are based on the personal style of the dreamer.

So it's kind of significant...

...that both Lalondes wear pants on Derse despite the rest of their traditionally feminine wardrobe.

[echidna-auxiliatrix]

Terezi’s long hair: WH4T DO3S 1T M34N?!

Terezi has long hair in hs2 now. What does it mean?

It may seem fruitless to analyze such a seemingly small detail, and while I heavily dislike the epilogues and HS2, I like to think that the writers are smart people.

Putting the rest under the cut.

Before I get started with anything else, we have to acknowledge how much Terezi now resembles Latula. It’s truly uncanny, down to the swoop of the long portion of her hair at the back. They’re also both wearing red heeled shoes.

Another theme we must acknowledge with regards to both Pyropes is the theme of “coolness.” Terezi, like pretty much every Homestuck character, has both an outer self and an inner self. Terezi feigns a personality of chaos and quirkiness (which are both significant aspects to her character, certainly) which plays well off of Dave’s facade of nonchalance in throughout Homestuck. However, much like Dave’s aloof exterior, Terezi’s chaotic exterior is false as well. 

Similarly, Latula’s exterior of being a radical 90s skater cool girl is false. This is very obviously revealed to be the case during an interaction with Porrim in openbound where Porrim tells her she can drop the act since it’s just them. Latula also makes a mention of some type of medication during this exchange, which one can only assume is for a mental illness, likely anxiety or depression.

Latula also embodies a uniquely trollian cultural ideal- successful bisexuality. Her and Porrim have canonically slept together, and she’s in a seemingly fulfilling relationship with Mituna. 

This brings me to the logical end of the cool girl character archetype, as was brilliantly explained in Gone Girl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o4heKCLeTs

Why is this relevant? Well, it’s the archetype that Terezi embodies throughout Homestuck to fill the hole in her heart left by Vriska. This is who she tries to be, and perhaps more importantly, who the fandom flanderizes her into being. To much of the fanbase, Terezi is little more than a cool girl/manic pixie dream girl to make a boy (usually Karkat or Dave [ironic considering the fact that davekat is undeniably canon by the time meteorstuck rolls around]) happier.

Throughout acts 5 and 6, Terezi pursues a few relationships with boys (Karkat, Dave, Gamzee, and John) to varying degrees of success. With Karkat and Dave is fails to progress past coy flirting, which she really only started to fill the void left by Vriska’s absence. Regardless of whether or not you consider Terezi to be bi, pan, ply, lesbian, aroace, or whatever else, her relationships with boys throughout Homestuck always fail. This finally culminates with Gamzee violently beating her to death.

In [S] Terezi: Remem8er, Hussie gives us a form of vrisrezi closure. Ghost Terezi, the same one who Gamzee beat to death, is reunited with Vriska’s ghost. In this flash, Terezi, or at least one version of her, is finally happy because she’s reunited with Vriska. However, the alive Terezi who we see in Collide, Act 8, The Snapd8s, The Epilogues, and HS2, is not happy. This is precisely because she’s not with Vriska. She searches time and space for Vriska but never finds her.

When John finds her in Meat, she’s emaciated and starving. There’s no way in hell that I’m gonna reread this scene again so hopefully my memory is serving me correctly for this next part. Although John was the recipient of some very minor blackrom advances from Terezi, it never went any further than that and John was wholly disinterested. However, in meat, John begins to find this starving half-dead Terezi sexually appealing. The language used in this scene emphasized how strange and uncomfy this was- even so, Terezi still manages to put on the veneer of playful quirkiness for John, the boy-turned-man protag and they have sex.

In response to heartbreak and isolation, Terezi becomes promiscuous- at first romantically and later sexually. In contrast, in similar circumstances Kanaya is shown to isolate and withdraw (I might write another post about this in the future).

Cut to HS2. Terezi has made very little mention of Vriska, who in the meat timeline died a gruesome, tragic death at age 16. In the first HS2 upd8, Terezi was once again is adopting the veneer of playful flirtatiousness, this time with Dirk, a gay man. Terezi likely knows this on some level, and the fact that she even made an attempt says a lot about her mental state on the Theseus. 

It’s interesting to note that at this point Terezi is older than Latula ever was (23 vs. 19). Terezi has had more time to fully transform into this archetype, more than Latula ever did. This is, of course, made all the more tragic when one remembers that Latula was always going to be permanently 19, while Terezi had many more years of natural mental maturing she was able to go through.

We didn’t get a look at Terezi’s appearance until a recent upd8, and the change is striking. Gone is the teenage girl who donned crocs and plain, baggy clothes. Now, Terezi’s design is full of traditionally feminine signifiers: long hair, high-heels, and fit and flair pants. This drastic change in appearance emphasizes how far Terezi has dug herself into the cool girl hole, which is also the grave of who Terezi Pyrope is underneath this facade. Terezi has become the cool girl, and in doing so, she has lost herself, because she is not herself; not without Vriska.

[zenosanalytic]

Zenofriend did you see the New Amplified Official Homestuck Personality quiz????? what are!!! your thoughts!!!

Ok! This is VERY LATE, but I am finally ready to give My Extended Zodiac Thoughts. This is Long :|:

First off, I found the possible answers really limited and limiting. For example #7 -Which option best describes what’s more important to you? Understanding yourself, and fully knowing who you are? Or thinking rationally, and making strong decisions?-is a false choice/dichotomy. Leaving aside the questionable adjective-choice of “strong”(I mean: wth does a “strong” decision even mean???), rational decisions require information, and the more the better; specifically, they require knowing yourself. To make a “rational” choice is to make a choice from reasoning, which is to say “based on reasons” using “Reason”(working from one point to that which it implies). If you are unaware of yourself and your interiority -your biases, your wants, your tendencies, your susceptibilities, your emotions, your impulses, your psychological needs, etc- then you can’t make rational decisions because you aren’t aware of, and aren’t considering, how the “irrational” architecture of your personality and behavior could be influencing your reasoning, nor are you making explicit(to yourself or others) the full set of potential reasons for why you are making the decision the way you are. Indeed, not only are these two NOT opposite extremes and NOT mutually exclusive, they are mutually Necessary. Just as one must “know thyself” to rationally know the world and rationally navigate it, so too must one be able to look at oneself rationally -to dispassionately assess oneself as a subject, as if with the eyes of another; judging your behavior, wants, and biases as a stranger might- to “understand yourself and fully know who you are”. Meaning to do good is irrelevant if you do harm and, if your concept of “good” requires the harm of another, then obviously they will not judge you as “good” and you will not be good, regardless of how you feel about it. The true answer to this question is that you can’t achieve either without achieving both, but that doesn’t fit into the simplistic(and sadly too common in Euroculture) Manichean dualism this quiz is built around -in this instance that emotion/interiority is the opposite of “Reason”/Intellect. And, more broadly, that the specific/practical and general/ideal are at odds- and so it isn’t a choice.

Many of the available answers to the questions are equally limited; some by false dichotomy, some by, just, insufficient choice-scope:

In #6: what if the result sought by the project is learning the process??? 

In #2: what if you prefer to help people learn through the Socratic method; by asking questions? Are you showing them, in that you are modeling for them the process of reasoning their way to an answer with the information available to them, or are you encouraging them, in that you are asking them to collate the information they have and extrapolate from it and doing so non-explicitly?

 #1: what if you see yourself as a protagonist of your story, but also understand that everyone sees themselves as the protagonist of their own story? What if you see “Society” as the emergent, evolutionary outcome of an inevitable “Egotism of Being” coming into contact with innumerable iterations of Self? What if you conceive of your existence as fundamentally lonesome but also of society not as a natural and essential aspect of environment, but as a natural and essential aspect/expression of personality, such that the equal personhood of all “characters” is inescapable, such that “lonesomeness” is a social act/choice just as much as “ensembleness”, and such that “protagonism” can only be understood as a purely narrative conceit and choice? These povs don’t really fit with the choices available.

#3: can’t it be both things? Can’t mystery inspire you to both learn and invent? Can’t learning lead to the realization of new mysteries, which is part of why Curiosity is so satisfying to you in the first place?

#8: to understand the consequences of your behavior is to understand your potential; to understand your potential is to understand what consequences your behavior can effect.

#9: What if your strong convictions are precisely what drives you to deconstruct arguments which said convictions deem inaccurate, limited, and poorly reasoned? What if you deconstruct arguments not because you find them particularly offensive, but because you hold a strong conviction that “Knowledge” is much more difficult or complicated than people tend to think it is, ala Socrates, or even impossible to attain by your own efforts, ala Medieval Christendom and anti-empiricism? “Can’t Decide” implies an ambiguity, indecisiveness, and moral disinterest in the question that would be inaccurate to these mindsets.

#10: doesn’t choosing “burn it all down” imply that one considers “burning it all down” to be a “better” state than the status quo? Wouldn’t it, then COUNT, as “A Plan” and “something better” waiting in the wings??

#11: what if your desire to help others is driven by an instinctive empathy and moral-revulsion towards situations which cause suffering, and allowing suffering to continue? The answers frame the choices as in opposition and empathy as something either to prevent or which prevents action, rather than compelling it.

Ok I’ll stop, but you get the idea.

Second, I thought the lean of each question was really obvious; to the point that you could practically score each available answer along a scale between the two binary choices the question engaged with(probably because this is exactly how the test works). The result of this is that the Test is easily gamed, and thus not really “impartial” or “rigorous” in any way. This is somewhat complicated by the test’s Built in Biases(Hat Tip to @the-awkward-goldfish for chasing this down), which basically require you to “no opinion” every non-Aspect-related questions to get anything “below” Light, but even that just goes to show how partial and contrived the test is, and thus how bad an assessment of one’s “Nature”, or affinity to the Aspects as presented in canon, it provides.

Which, you know, OBVIOUSLY -it really isn’t MEANT to be those things(well, one could reasonably expect it to be decent at Aspect-Affinity)- but this is a central problem of “personality tests” in general, and I’m going to rant about it for a second. When a test asks about The Thing it appears to be asking about, Social Animals will give it either a)the answer they think it wants, b)the answer they feel fulfills their social “role” in the test/situation, c)the answer they would like to be true about themselves(or would like you to think is true about them), or d)the answer they feel creates the least social stress in the situation, rather than an honest answer. Similarly, test-makers will, with stupefying regularity, render their own biases implicit within the tests they create if collaboration and strict oversight are not a part of the test design process. This is because Social Animals are Social Animals, and part of being Social Animals is 1)a near-instinctive awareness of The Rules of whatever Social “Game” happens to be being playing at any moment, and 2)an instinctive desire to project ones personal “Rules” onto the world[1]. This makes gaining an honest assessment of Social Animals(and even asking Honest Questions about them), independent of their own objectives and social assumptions, difficult. This is why modern psych studies are neither upfront about what they’re really studying, nor obvious in their design, and why the question of Method and Test-Design is so important to the field.

None of this matters when personality tests are seen as just A Fun Thing to Play With, but unfortunately lots of people take them really seriously(I will not speculate as to why), so I kinda feel like the huge biparagraphic spiel above about social psychology and why it means personality tests are A Crock is sort of necessary. Though, Ironically and completely tangentially, this also all means that the ominous and impenetrable Voight-Kampff machine and Turing Test it is used to administer from Bladerunner are actually closer to what an “accurate” psychological test should look like than most of the “personality tests” people are familiar with.

Third, I found the Test really unsatisfying from a canon-perspective. Some of them fit, others kind of fit but with important provisos, and others are just wildly far off. For example:

Sagittarius. Equius might count as an enthusiast, but inconstant? His interests are long-term and rigid. Expansive? He is self-effacing to the point of suicide. Magnetic? Everyone but Nepeta and Gamzee find him repulsive(though Aradia is attracted, at times, by her disgust for him). Rebellious? 8/ Optimistic? 8/ 8/ Surprising? 8/ 8/ 8/ Not Knowing his own Strength? He obsesses over it. Skeptical? He accepts Alternian Convention without question or complaint(Aradia being the notable semi-exception). Secretive? While he doesn’t put himself forward, neither does he keep his opinions -no matter how offensive- to himself, ever. A stronger argument could be made for this description fitting Roxy, but even then she’s rather single-minded and constant in her interests and feelings, and, contra the description of Derse-dreamers, not terribly self-aware, as symbolized by her dream-self -a metaphor for her self-knowledge- being asleep, albeit ambulatory, until she dies(minus seeing Rose once). Her most important arcs are about seeking answers, not accepting mysteries(Rose and Calliope).

Sagiries&Sagipia: Again, the Sagittarius description, specifically the “enthusiast” and “inconstant” bits, don’t really fit either Dave or Rose. While they ARE “enthusiastic” about their interests, those interests are rather constant, focused, and rather than trying to teach or pull others into those interests, they display them through creative endeavor. “Derse” fits them both pretty well, minus the “self-awareness”, and their approach to hiding insecurity is the opposite of “self-deprecating humor” and “false humility”; they do it through “evincing hyper-competence” and “false arrogance”. Dave is certainly a “Fighter”, but against Fighting, and while he can be goal-oriented he much prefers perambulation, even to the point of contributing to problems which he then must rush to fix. Really I’d say the description for Space fits him better than Time(though this Time description entirely ignores the repeated recycling/recontextualizing/remixing theme in Time characters in HS). Light fits Rose better, but it ignores how her interest in mystery and the unexplained drives her interest in learning, how personal and not “for its own sake” her seeking is, and how actual knowledge can petrify her if she is in the wrong place emotionally.

Sagigo: This is nitpicking, but I wouldn’t describe Jade as “careless”, and she, mostly successfully, struggles to remain tactful in the face of universe-ending levels of buffoonery and extra-amphibian-interference.

Leo: Again, Nitpicking, but I don’t think Nepeta can be described as having herself as her “favorite subject”. I think the rest fits well though

Gemini: Sollux isn’t preachy, nor railroady in conversation, nor difficult to understand, and his interests -at least what we see of them- are all about computers, networks, and the internet. The description of Doom I’m iffy on: it certainly describes him, but his willingness to drop everything and dedicate himself to a project he believed would save his planet, even though he hates it, doesn’t really fit with it.

Pisces: “Forget to actually do things”, “enigmatic”, “recalcitrant”(i.e., not being open about their feelings), “worrier”, and “trouble with follow-through”, are not things I would describe Feferi with. Meenah clashes even worse with this description.

Scorpio: “Blue Signs are the ones to watch”? Yes for Vriska, Aspirational for Aranea. “Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe’s knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand”? “learn about it” certainly, but I don’t think either Vriska or Aranea feel any real impulse to understand anything. They’re more about hoarding information and manipulating it to their advantage/purposes, and Vriska’s interest in knowledge is highly selective, personal, and instrumental. “Marked by a flexible optimism”? For a given, and extremely idiosyncratic, definition of “optimism”; and provided it allows for bouts of deep negativity, and an intense, arrogant cynicism about the world and others. “They have a mask for every occasion”?More so for Aranea given he secretiveness about herself, but Not Really for either of them as Aranea really just has the one. “They often resent those they see as more well-positioned than they are”? This fits Aranea well, but I never got the sense Vriska was envious of her “social betters”; she seemed to be more envious of people with healthier relationships to less overbearing Lususes, and who had an easier time forging relationships.

I’m not going to go through all of these obvsl. There are those -like John’s, Terezi’s, and Kanaya’s- that fit near-to-perfectly, and those -like Eridan’s- that fit thematically while being wildly off-base on the specifics, but mostly I found them disappointing.

Fourthly, I object to it aesthetically. The signs are well designed; what I mean is that I very much dislike the idea that this is a complete Troll Symbology. If it were, it would make the Troll world and society much smaller and less creative than I would like it to be. There’s not enough signs here for a population as large as the Trolls would need to support a galaxy-spanning empire, and certainly not enough for sign-repetition in the context of such a vast population to be so rare as to become a mythical sign of genetic reincarnation. There’s not enough room here for imagination and invention. Part of what I liked about the Homestuck Fandom, and still like, is the empty places in it for the fandom to fill in. Presenting this as a complete list of signs, based on a complete Hemospectrum(and yes, I also object to the canon Trolls having the only canon blood-colors; minus Lime which apparently Karkat is now, which doesn’t make any sense[2]), makes the Homestuck Universe a far, far, smaller pond to swim in, which is less fun from a fan perspective.

And it also, through the “True Sign” designations, makes the canon Trolls far larger and more obvious fish than they(minus Feferi and Kanaya) ought to be. If the rest of the signs are seen as derivative of the “True Signs”, as the phrase and the EZ’s naming conventions imply, and the signs are associated with specific ancestors, then it’s reasonable to assume that the Ancestors associated with those signs would be seen as “Truer”, or perhaps more Significant and Primary to Troll History, than the ancestors of the other signs. Those who inherited them would then be inheriting not just the unfinished business of their immediate predecessor, but a historical heritage that every Troll would be taught to consider “Truer” and “More Significant” to Trolldom than that of the other signs. I don’t like this idea. The Betas were hardly social coded in a way that would have made them completely representative of Earthican culture, so why would the Trolls? And also: why wouldn’t any of the signs bear any resemblance to their writing? But this is getting into worldbuilding :T

So, basically, I think it’s a fun thing to play around with. But, I also find it a bit inconsistent, more than a bit biased, a bit limited, somewhat backwards and somewhat derivative(all signs derived from 12 prefixes and suffixes, themselves derived from the Earth-Zodiac, which was only made up of the signs of those Trolls who played The Game? Really??). As additional fan-fodder, it’s ok; as something comprehensive that invalidates fan-signs and fan-theories, I take exception.

[1]a weird sort of “Personification”. Coincidentally, we also see this in philosophy, where the pronouncement that moral decisions “declare a rule for all” can be found from Kant to Sartre.

[2]”Candy-Red Blood” is a mutation. It isn’t natural. Which is to say: It doesn’t fit into the Hemospectrum. The “Signless” had no sign because of this. So the idea that it would be the “True” Cancer symbol, rather than a later addition so insignificant that the breeding-bureaucracy didn’t even notice when it was snuck into the registry, is doubly ludicrous. Also: Why would the breeding registry 1)not notice a new Lime sign being added when the Lime Bloods were exterminated, and 2) not immediately destroy the grub when it was assigned the sign of a blood-caste registered for extermination? How is giving a mutant blood a caste-sign that would get them immediately destroyed any better than them not having one??

[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.

[ungodlygodtiers]

WELCOME TO SHITSCRAM

Hey guys! This is my new classpect blog. Send me a little about yourself and what you’d like, and I’ll give you the BEST answer. 

Love,

-Ganymede

[classpectcuriosities]

Knight of Rage?

A Knight of Rage is one who protects the Rage that is lacking in the session.

While this may sound like a classic instigator type, therein lies the opportunity to discuss a little talked about aspect (hehe) of Rage: it is the opposite of Hope, in that its all about truth.

We can see these two parts of Rage in the two Rage heroes in Homestuck; Gamzee destroyed the lowerbloods with his rage, and Kurloz destroyed the truth via mind controlling Meulin.

We can, therefore, have two different interpertations: either someone who protects the animosity of the session, or someone who protects the truth of the session.

For the first, I'd guess that everyone else is sort of like the Alpha Trolls, in that their stagnation is causing them to get nowhere, and the Knight will have to protect their Rage and give them a fighting spirit.

For the second, a Void player may be hiding things from view, or a Hope player is convincing the team of something, and the Knight will have to protect the truth that is being taken away.

[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.

[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.

[doomedheartgodtiers]

Hello! I have never made a fan-session before, so, I was wondering... How would a session with a Seer of Doom, Prince of Life, Heir of Time and Knight of Space generally go? o:

Hey, lucky you! This is our first ask! :D

I have to say, you got a nice little group here. First off, you have a time and space player, making this a viable session without any outside interference, so congrats on that! The duality of the Life and Doom player is also an interesting inclusion and could definitely add to the mythos this fansession could spawn.

An Heir starts off with a lot of their aspect, so it'll give your players much needed Time even at the very beginning of the game. I'd imagine they'd have a lot of stamina as a player, which would be rather useful. If this player were to go dark side, I'd imagine their uncanny endurance would give the other players a serious challenge.

The Knight weaponizes and shields their aspect, so your Space exploits are likely in good hands! They'd likely work well on their own, but it couldn't hurt to give them support where possible. I'd say this player would be well-rounded when it comes to stats, and someone who works well independently like that would be tough to fight against if they were to turn against the team.

The Seer gains great knowledge of their aspect over the course of the game. I believe the Seer of Doom would be an expert strategist to have on the team. They'd be able to see the rules your team should avoid breaking to be able to win, and would likely make a great pair with the Heir of Time. While I don't think that this classpect on it's own is well suited for direct combat, I certainly wouldn't want to get on their bad side! If they switched sides, they'd be able to come up with some pretty nasty ways to sabotage their game.

The Prince is a very destructive class. They'd make an excellent fighter! As a Prince of Life destroys literal life and opportunity, I think that they'd be amazing at thwarting waves of enemies either through brute force or through what I'd like to call "Life-y hijinks". (Life quest involving destroying the upper ranks of the enemies, anyone?) If they were to turn on their team, it could spell disaster! Their brute force can be easily wielded straight-forwardly to destroy what the others are working for. Still, I'd have to say that with the Seer still working for the others, the session would still have a chance of working if this ever happened.

Overall, I'd say you have some potentially powerful players! I think the session has a good chance of success, as long as the players have a good sense of teamwork (especially the Seer!)

doomy-stuff

I'd like to add that in canon, only Knights have been shown to help Space players breed the new universe frog, and do so instinctually. A Knight of Space would traditionally not need another character to help them breed the new universe frog, so unless the player asks for help, they'll find the task to be more of a challenge.

hearty-things

[turntechgodoka]

You know, at this rate, I might as well rename my blog to “The One-Man Dirk Strider Defense Squad” or something. I haven’t bothered yet largely because I find it too absurd that anyone should have to defend the supposed fandom darling. And yet...

I had a sinking suspicion when Dirk went on another self-loathing soliloquy that fans would leap on his words as literal and accurate. Somehow I’m still disappointed that my fears weren’t unfounded.

So Dirk’s told Dave that he was toxic for Jake from day one and that he’s to blame for the giant mess known as their relationship. And now Tumblr gets to host lovely little PSAs telling Dirkjake fans they need to pay attention to how awful even Dirk has admitted himself to be.

Because the self-hating words of a (probably depressed) teen can totally be taken at face value, right?

Eh, sorry for the sarcasm, but just... I don’t understand how it’s possible to read Homestuck without noticing that Dirk Strider has major issues when it comes to being overly harsh on himself, especially in the context of that upd8.

For crying out loud, in the same conversation, Dirk accepts blame for the actions of a dude from a completely different universe whose only similarity to him is his DNA. He takes blame for a dude he’s never met, who he has zero influence over, because he’s afraid that he could potentially follow in Bro’s footsteps if he’s not careful.

He tries to take on the sins of his splintered selves because they’re reflections of what he is in theory capable of doing.

As I said in an earlier post: Dirk self-deprecates on automatic to the point that he guilts himself for actions he might have taken under other circumstances and writes himself off based on What-Ifs rather than reality.

Dirk is far from perfect and he certainly shares the blame for what went wrong with Jake, but this kid is so convinced that his nature leans towards evil that he writes himself off and judges himself by actions he never actually took. If you think you can take this confused child’s self-assessment as pure, unadulterated truth and use his words of self-loathing as proof for why Dirk is Enemy #1 in the disaster that is Dirkjake, you are really grasping at straws.

[swordstrider]

Void and Space as Apparent Parallels: The Brief Inspection

Just remembered I have an Aspect essay ripe for posting clustered away in my notes, so here it is.

(As a side note, I haven’t actually played or viewed playthroughs of Hiveswap Friendsims, so I don’t have anything to add on to this essay about HSFS characters who are Void/Space players just yet. Maybe I’ll edit this to incorporate them later.)

Void is very commonly known for a lot of things, as far as Homestuck fans are concerned, especially with regard to the fact that we have a complete opus to look at for reference as well as the Extended Zodiac. It's an Aspect built around the concepts of absence, secrets, mystery, doubt, confusion, silence, irrelevance, invisibility, intangibility, and the hidden. Within the more literal realm, we can see that alcohol or liquids, pumpkins, literal darkness, literal "Voids" surrounding players bound to the Aspect (Roxy's alcohol addiction; Horrus's happiness) and perhaps even horses and cats symbolize Void.

Yet what nobody seems to investigate further is Void's ties with the Space Aspect, as it is noted by Hussie somewhere. And that's kind of disappointing to me, personally, since I find that note to be quite interesting.

Furthermore, I'm going to propose that Void, in association with Space, represents sciences, ectobiology, biology, and fine arts. I am also going to propose that Void and Space mutually share an association with the concepts of isolation and loneliness.

The first connection is pretty damn obvious, what with Jade and Roxy's interests, and even their handle connections (plus, the last two letters of Roxy's name, which were notably revealed in separation of the first two letters). Jade is constantly uprooting a science motif with herself, and Roxy, despite the apparent lack thereof, is explicitly interested in ectobiology and "esoteric" sciences. Plus, she's tasked with recreating the Matriorb, an extremely salient factor with regard to the biology of the troll species.

As for their handle connections, Jade's has the word "gnostic" in her own, while Roxy seems to have a misspelling or a portmanteau in her handle: "gnostalgic". This connects them in some non-explicit way, although the previous paragraph can really enlighten what this apparent connection could mean as a whole, especially considering Space and Void.

This nicely goes in hand with Equius's regard for the hemospectrum, another key factor in troll biology.

As for fine arts, I don't think I have to sincerely elaborate on why Space is connected to art in general. It's pretty much known on a wide scale to be associated with that. But when we're examining Void, fine arts can truly come into play if one sees some rather miniscule details.

Roxy explicitly enjoys writing wizard fanfiction, which could be tied to poetry, seeing as it’s a form of writing. But even if that isn't convincing enough, her wizard fanfiction can still be undoubtedly considered a form of creation, something that Space is naturally tied to.

Plus, the fine arts thing is very directly connected to Horuss in Openbound:

"The Page of Void was a self taught master of mechanics, an avid patron of the fine arts, a passionate 8ody 8uilder, archer, am8rosia collector and steamwright. A poet, a scholar, a warrior, a lover, he was all that his caste demanded and more. A true troll Renaissance man."

And then there's the proposed mutual factor of isolation and loneliness, which I suppose doesn't have much direct evidence of itself within characters. Still, both concepts can be tied to Void in spite of that; isolation and loneliness may as well be more literal symbols of the Void Aspect.

As mentioned previously, Void is tied to absence and an inherent lack, which is what isolation and loneliness essentially are. Both concepts go hand in hand with regard to an absence, or a lack, of other beings within proximity of someone.

The only piece of direct evidence I'd have to support this is the fact that Roxy grew up isolated aside from colonies of carapacians surrounding her residence. Yet Roxy was still defined by the lack/absence of up-front human contact until she entered the game.

Even then, I'm sure the essence of Void itself is a more compelling argument than that mere support with Roxy.

[c4ndl3-w1ck]

If Roxy and Latula are the GameGrl, and Dirk and Mituna are the GameBro, then by correlation Sollux and Dave are the GameGrub thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[poortaste-jokes-badtaste-media]

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.

[ungodlygodtiers]

ASK BOX IS CLOSED FUCKBOIS*

*only for a little in the short time the box has been open i've gotten a SHITTON OF REQUESTS. thanks guys! workin' on it now. -ganymede

[chaoortu]

8-29 analysis

as always spoilers below and i have a lot of thoughts so this might wind up being a huge thread that i have to reblog so..

to these initial panels really reminded me of the "that's a lot to put on the shoulders of a sixteen year old" line from season 2 because you know what. YEAH. this whole thing has been a lot for a sixteen-seventeen year old. Nick is still a kid and the way he interacts with the dogs is so... silly?

brief aside, this is the ugliest outfit nick has worn in canon in a LONG time and i love him for it. just the combo of flower sweatshirt with CARGO pants is so funny to me like yeah he gave up. he's loafing around, pity party style i imagine. but i love how much of a source of comfort the dogs are for him, i feel like that's really been missing from this book as a whole is the PUPPIES. like, sans nellie waking charlie up in the morning when nick was hungover, i've missed these pooches!!

this is so silly!! and we haven't seen nick be silly in such a long time and i do believe that's on purpose. nick's been being the stable one, the mature rock, he's making sure charlie is on track with his recovery, he was doing the rugby thing, applying for uni. im gonna do a reread on this whole book so far soon but like... this is the silly nick that said the blue ink on his hands looks like gloves. ugh.

just love sarah's expression here, i do think she's also realizing that nick hasn't been her silly, sensitive boy in a very long time and so seeing nick be a little goofy is like. ah. there he is.

now let's talk about this. one) i think sarah choosing to have this conversation when nick has the dogs with him was purposeful. every serious conversation she has with nick seems to come from a purposeful, more thought out place than say the way Jane speaks to Charlie. I wouldn't be shocked if it takes Sarah longer to collect her thoughts and figure out what she wants to say, hence why she's been watching Nick mask a lot and didn't speak up until this moment. (as an aside, Nick is also very purposeful about his serious conversations and also searches for that right moment to bring something up; like when he told charlie he thinks he has an ED and again on his birthday when he asked charlie to get help.) Two) NICK DOWNPLAYING HIS INJURY AND RUGBY! WHOAH. now, I would not be shocked esp since we know Nick doesn't do rugby professionally in the future even though Coach Singh has said he has the skills for it, that Nick falls out of love with rugby after this homophobic incident. Maybe if he gets suspended off the team or something, he refigures that love (although i'd love it if Nick has a way better rugby experience at uni... could you imagine?) but again-- we know Nick loves rugby and it's quite serious for him and this is the second time he's boiled things down to "just rugby." in this book alone. Nick experiences a hate incident, that's not some small thing, but he treats it like it is and that really bugs me a bit. Hopefully SOMEONE brings that up COUGH COUGH CHARLES FRANCIS...

OKAY WOW LOVE A MUSHY PUG... look at that squish on Henry ughhh cutie butt. Something that sticks out to me here is that Nick doesn't really have logic behind why he feels the way he does and that's so realistic for someone like him. He just wants to be good, he's afraid of making a mistake and losing Charlie forever we know that, but Nick is sort of on this forever treadmill where he can't get off because he knows his mask is hurting charlie, and he's afraid of hurting charlie worse if he's messy, so he can't get off without risking injury.

BABY NICK BABY NICK BABY NICK OHHH HE WAS SO SMALL MY SHAYLA... MY SHAYLA also god as a child of divorce with a fuckass dad, this is so fucking accurate like yeah, i too thought if i did things just right and was SO good my dad would spend more time with me and love me. that did not happen lmao (my father has in fact told me he isn't sure if he actually loves me or if he thinks he does because society says he should. fuckass man!) but this like desperation never goes away. the "if i were more ___ my dad would spend time with me." is just. it roots deep for sure. I do LOVE the detail of Nick drawing pictures and writing stories for his dad. I wonder if that's a contributing factor as to why Nick isn't super creative in his teens, doing this thing to get his dad's love and attention and never receiving it. i'm outlining and artist!nick fic right now and this is feeding that idea i'm ngl...

I LOVE THAT MY THEORY AORUND NICK NOT REALIZING HE MASKS BC OF HIS DAD AND THAT TRANSLATED INTO HIS RELATIONSHIP ACTUALLY CAME TO FRUITION. I AM A FUCKING HEARTSTOPPER PROPHET. Nick! Has! Not! Known about this the whole FUCKING time, his MOMMY had to point it out for him to get it, so no, he's not been doing this shit on purpose it is a genuine trauma response from emotional neglect and everyone who was mean to nick in the patreon comments can kiss my entire ass! this is why nick struggles to communicate his feelings. he hasn't got the fucking tools to do the introspection necessary to do so! Now then, I do love all of the panels Nick has in his head when Sarah points out that Charlie loves Messy Nick, because it's true. I'm pretty sure Charlie kissed this fucker while he was snotty from crying but maybe I'm wrong. Like yes, Charlie loves messy Nick just as much if not MORE than the knight in shining armor. I have to do a whole separate post on the thing Sarah says about what Nick and Charlie have being rare bc I just need to let it sit more. Just know I love it.

i also love this moment of nick leaning into his mommy and the like direct comparison to how BIG nick is now to how small he was. this boy is like clifford he is so big bc he is so loved. i'm also sure that the flashback bit is probably from the immediate after of nick's dad not showing up, so can you imagine baby nick asking his mom if he's messed things up with his dad? if he did something wrong, is that why his dad never sees him? like fuck man how do you even deal with that as a parent when you love your child so fucking much but ur asshole husband wants to pretend he hasn't got kids anyore. sarah nelson i love you and i love the complicated thing you have going on girl. and finally...

THIS. I love that Charlie waited for Nick to reach out first as he did set that boundary, you know? And even if it was placed out of miscommunication, he still gave Nick the space to sort himself out mentally instead of bombard him bc he just realized HEY. My boyfriend doesn't communicate as much as I do or thought he did, let me set things at his pace. UGH THEY'RE GONNA TALK IM SO EXCITED...