Yknow the shitty marvel movie type trope of diffusing all of your emotional scenes with humor? Homestuck does the same thing but with a RADICALLY different vibe. Like exactly the opposite.
Most modern media that does this is trying to distance the author from the text, by inviting the audience to laugh with the author. Oh, isn't this story silly, we're self aware, no need to immerse yourself. It's got this smug yet self depreciating tone, because it feels like the author wants you to like them more than their story.
Whereas when Homestuck does this it is self aggrandising, because it's meant as an explicit ATTACK on the audience. It is a purposeful attempt to draw the reader in and then pull out the rug from under them. It's not meant to break the tension, it's to give you mood whiplash. It shows a certain amount of confidence in the text, because the author truly believes in the text's ability to emotionally affect the audience so that this trick works.
I can definitely empathize with someone who finds this aggravating (that's sort of the point), but to me it's legitimately preferable to the self-aware jokey jokey thing because I don't think it diminishes the impact of the story itself. The narrative still exists as is, with all of its devastating events, and the jokes are a way of twisting that knife in a little bit further.
I would honestly go as far as to say that many of these style of jokes don't lighten the mood at all, but just add an extra element of poignancy or horror to a scene. Something ridiculous happening to the body of a recently deceased character isn't exactly light material, for one example. For another, more specific one, consider Dave's "acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle".
As a quick refresher, Dave says early on in the story that, rather than flying off the handle, he will do an "acrobatic fucking pirouette". This wording becomes a frequent callback joke from that point on. And then, much later, Dave finds the impaled corpse of the older brother who raised him, and decides on a symbolic gesture he'd like to make. He can't pull the sword out of his brother's chest, because he doesn't feel like he's worthy. He has to make a "clean break", by breaking off the end of the sword to take with him. But it doesn't work, and in the attempt he's flung backwards. And then he's just laying there, on the ground, while his friend points out that he has finally, literally performed his acrobatic pirouette off the handle.
And yeah, that's funny, but to me it's also absolutely devastating? This is a character who's recently been dealing with extreme self worth issues and a crisis of free will, who's clumsily trying to grieve for the very person who caused a lot of those issues in the first place. It makes the entire thing feel weirdly inevitable and that much more horrible for it, like, of course this would happen, his whole LIFE has been a joke to begin with. It doesn't detract from the moment. It invites you, the audience, to sit in that moment with the character and just kind of let it wash over you.
At least that's how I feel about it!
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I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.
Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.
This is one friend.
Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?
I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.
We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.
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Need volume 10 so I can get the Blake and Yang vs Tyrian match up of my dreams
You got Yang, whose semblance relies on her taking the hit. Who’s been shown over and over to use her own body as a shield so that her loved ones don’t get hurt. She’s been able to use it as more than a last resort in more recent volumes but it still requires her to store up the energy by taking the hit while her aura is gradually depleted.
Then you’ve got Tyrian, an incredibly good close quarters fighter like Yang but with an acrobatic ability closer to Blake’s and a semblance that cuts straight through people’s auras leaving them completely vulnerable. Burn is completely irrelevant if Tyrian goes for a lethal hit the first opportunity he gets
Blake on the other hand relies on her semblance to avoid taking the hit. She can create space for herself, put herself in a better position, and if she uses dust trap or hurt enemies with it. We’ve seen Blake avoid hits that would’ve killed her multiple times. If he can’t even hit her Tyrian’s semblance doesn’t mean shit
I want to see Blake just lose it again like she did at Neo for a bit after Yang fell but this time she doesn’t have to worry about Cinder. Let Blake be a little ruthless vs a serial killer. As a treat. I want to see this fight as a set up for Blake and Yang to finally talk about Yang’s self sacrificial tendencies.
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really really important question for the community. perhaps the most important question i'll ever ask:
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You've shown several of the land animals that live in Promethea. Are there aquatic species too?
i forgot freshwater existed. that's fine, i might come back in the future and talk about some freshwater animals :'D
but anyway, yes! carnivorous whales, ichthyosaurs (uhhh i need to find a common name for those), semi aquatic sea wolves, and.. crab. are some of the different creatures i have so far, i know a fair bit less about marine biology but i like brainstorming so its fun.
promethea's south sea is pretty warm and mild (relative to the rest of cassandra) and is able to support a very high amount of biodiversity, including coral reefs :) (i cannot draw coral reefs yet). unfortunately due to the encroaching ice age, a lot of the animals in the oceans are becoming more and more threatened by dropping temperatures. sea wolves live next to this sea and swim between the many islands there.
the ocean to the west is much colder and prone to harsh storms and bad weather. this is where most of the whales tend to stay, where they serve as the cliff dweller pegasus's only natural predator.
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thinking about vampiric arakawas again just so i can make a 'blood-sucking politician' joke
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when im weak to the devil it whispers to tell me to do an entire strokes fanzine. ok
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the power i will receive in a matter of days will be astounding. watch out
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every day i have a daily routine i like to follow for my tumblr and that is to go to my askbox, look at THAT one ask, and continue one with my life knowing that the world is probably going to revolve around skibidi toilet and gay porn in 4 months
deleting later, unless you listen
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thinking abt linebeck’s coat. something very alluring about it for some reason. so im just gonna ramble about it here instead of in the tags for once
you can probably start a fight between the people who think it’s a coat and people who think it’s a jacket but i think it’s a coat moving on
the character designs are interesting to look at due to the proportions and art style so it is hard to imagine how long his coat would be but i think it would go down to a bit above ankles because i think that’s good. it’s a bit more dramatic a bit more impressive(?) that way and would probably lead to problems tbh
based on some of the official art i imagine that the stripe at the bottom might’ve been a late addition since it’s missing in the bit of official art most used to represent linebeck. tbh linebeck is inconsistent in very tiny ways in the official art but that’s mostly if you’re gonna be nit-picky or bored enough to notice
his coat is so good it’s simple but very recognizable and stands out among the other character designs in ph and its just. yknow good character design
its also surprisingly good for headcanons and stuff and because i mostly take a lot of canon as suggestion i have a good handful of headcanons tagged specifically onto his coat (one of which is the length of it ig)
i like to imagine that he made it himself. i’ve seen stuff where people write linebeck as being able to fix link’s tunic when it gets torn and i feel like the logical extreme of that is that he made his own coat. i think that adds a layer of. importance to it? it’s unique it’s solely linebeck’s it’s tied to him because he made it with his own hands and maybe it can represent something about him that way?
i like to imagine that in addition to the normal pockets one the outside he’s got a whole lot of little pockets on the inside of the coat, like so many pockets that he hides little trinkets or tools or things he steals in either to keep or to take back to his ship for whatever reason. some of the pockets have little flaps of whatever they’re called that can be secured in place with a small button to keep stuff in
he’s got like pencils and a compass and little notes and tiny figurines and cool rocks and feathers and all kinds of little things he thought was worth keeping around and due to that his coat is uncomfortable sometimes but if he knows for certain he’s going to be busy doing stuff he’ll empty out all of the pockets and only leave the important stuff so that it’s lighter and less uncomfortable. link finds his coat lying around at some point and is caught so badly off-guard by how surprisingly heavy it is with all of the bullshit he keeps in all of his pockets
i also imagine he values it a lot, maybe to the point of being really possessive and protective of it, not letting link touch it and if it gets torn or stained he shuts down and has to fix it before he can move on to anything else, and if he can’t fix it at the time it leave him kind of overwhelmed or upset until he can fix it. he has a lot stocked-up materials specifically for his coat to avoid a situation where he has to go for while with his coat damaged
backing away from headcanon territory, his coat is just a cool bit of character design and has just been lodged in my mind for a while. its cool and never brought up within the game (obviously) and i guess a last little closing thought is that in the cutscene where oshus teleports link above linebeck it kinda looks like his coat moves when he tries to catch link and i think that’s cool
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ok BIG revelations tonight bc my roommate told me i talk in my sleep which is actually one of my biggest fears (<- intrusive thought/intrusive thought related dreams haver) so that's fucked up but she told me i like have conversations with myself and like laugh at what im saying and it is so fucked how in character that is. like im gonna throw up that's so endearing but it's so scary what the hellllll she was like yeah you'll just be rolling around talking and responding to yourself. anyways
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ok chat explain to me why ive seen an uptick in mine cope in the past like two months. what happened.
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i havent been into it for too long but im kinda surprised i havent seen a harrykim good ol classic florist and tattoo artist au
like yeah im not so sure how the logic of either of them being in those proffessions would work but im talking mostly aesthetics here
like. harry being a florist just. does something to me. like when kim is like he needs hobbies if you get the gardening gloves he suggest gardening is just very good. maybe its a bit of like instead of becoming a teacher first hes a florist first and stays there. or when he was a teacher they had some of a garden in there and he learned and then maybe got a part time job at a florist to support him on his teacher salary bc those usually arent enough. also i think he still has at least some of his adiction issues but not necesarily to the in game level (maybe amphetamines to be able to keep up with his lifestyle also maybe he grows weed but less relevant until later). and maybe he actually got to marry dora and is actually divorced here. working too much, not making enough money, and when back at home hes still an addict, maybe the relationship lasted more but still it never got good enough to keep.
and kim... theres a few options. either undercover just being on the tattoo shop somehow which is like. not the most sense making but still a possibility. or.. he never became a cop, either, got too disappoined by the system early on, noticed the injustice, but realized that it didnt matter what he did it wouldnt be enough. or he did join the rcm for a bit and then quit bc of that, maybe also eyes died in here too and that was the last straw for him leaving. maybe hes not necesarily the guy doing the tattoos, but more of the designs and piercings (i assume its a million times easier doing piercings than tattoos. i dont mean that it doesnt require a technique too tho but getting a needle through skin for a piercing seems easier than having the pulse to work on a permanent piece in someones skin with specific pressure with consistence, and if he was a cop and quit maybe he has shakier hands.... idk. i dont know how stuff like this works generally ngl. also idk. can you have a tattoo.. parlor? and do designs but not the tattoos themselves? id assume you can but no idea)
ok yeah something like that maybe. and also the shops are either side by side or right across the street. i can imagine harry walking through the tattoo parlor and looking at the designs and looking at a few plant based designs and liking them and just. going in. not exactly for a tattoo or anything but more to like. know how it is and maybe meet the artist and then he sees kim which i imagine with a lot of tattoos and piercings which is sort of whats fueling this at this point bc i wasnt gonna think about it for too long but now im too deep into it and like i imagine this kim as.. kind of distant as he tends to be, will try to hide the fact he was a cop bc at this point hes not proud of that, he just likes making designs while listening to speedfreaks fm, which you can hear from outside the parlor while walking on the streets, but he is cool, and if you talk to him he will talk to you, hes just maybe awkward but also he is kinda weird (which has harry like 👉👈)
and this was just going to be me saying "man i havent seen any of this" and instead i sort of made my take on it and it got longer than i expected. anyways!!!
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been hesitating to post this bc i usually try to be super chill and upbeat, but im also trying to be more genuine, so here it is i guess (im doing okay, dont worry)
this probably warrants a trigger warning even tho nothing ever really happened :/
i´d like to thank from the bottom of my heart the friends ive made on this silly little site, i may be a almost a stranger to some of you, im not the greatest at keeping contact with anyone, but if i call you a friend its because you have very special a place in my heart <3<3<3
when i first made tumblr i was really struggling, it felt almost impossible to see anything lovable in myself, if it were up to my whims back then, i wouldve made myself poof out of existence, leave no trace behind. "Goodbye to that worthless piece of trash, everythings so much better without her"
it wasn´t that there was anything wrong at home, my family´s always been nothing but loving and caring to me, but i just struggled to understand *why* that was, i wasn´t contributing financially, functionally, nor did i excell at absolutely anything (looking back, i didn´t have to, i was literally 14) , everything id ever been remotely good at i knew someone who was better than me by a long shot. i didn´t have any irl friends, i had my cousins, but being family it felt a little like they were conditioned and obligated to love me because we were family
i felt alone despite being surrounded by people who loved me, i´d grown too used to it to recognize it as genuine love, so meeting you guys really helped me know that hey! maybe people arent just nice to me because they feel obligated to be! you guys inadvertedly gave me the support i needed to continue living life! And for that im endlessly grateful for <3
i can recall several times, when i was beating myself up over the simplest of mistakes, i genuinely didn´t want to exist if i wasn´t perfect, but when my spiraling got too bad and i´d even start to think of how i´d explain to yall that i´d finally given up on living, i´d start bawling my eyes out, beause I couldn't do that to yall, I still had messages to reply to, friends to wish happy birthday to... i would be devastated if any of you guys left and i couldn´t do anything to help you
so i made myself stick around, to hold on to whatever i could even if it consisted of numbing myself to the point of it being unhealthy. and ive lost years trying to get a grip and snap back to reality, but i made it! im happy these days, and i know no matter what happens im glad im still alive. And hey, maybe i´ll start digging myself into a pit again eventually, this post has been sitting in my drafts a couple weeks and in that time ive had some less than ideal days where i felt myself slipping into that old, sad, lonely, self deprecating mentality, but the difference between back then and now is that now i know i made it out of there once, and i know what´s real because ive already recognized it before, my family isnt lying to me when they say they love me, my fiends arent lying to me when they say they care about me, the only one whos lying to me is myself, saying im not worth any of that.
so i´ll say it again, thank you friends, for existing and being there, for being my lifeline and not letting me go off the deep end, and acting as band aids for my emotional self-inflicted wounds, i´m not sure how i can ever pay you back, i´m here if you ever need me, i love you, please take care <3
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