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sweetbans29 · 8 months ago

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Be Here - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: 3 times you pull Caitlin out of her head

Warnings: fluff, suggestive content, not in any sort of timeline order

Word Count: 3.5k

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Hello again! This is going to be a part of a small series, I hope you enjoy!

one.

You were over at Caitlin's apartment working on homework. It is silly to think about her doing schoolwork when she is just about to head out for March madness but even the biggest stars still have to do math.

You are locked into writing an essay when you hear her huffing and puffing. You glance over at her to see she looks beyond frustrated. She doesn't notice your gaze on her as she grabs her eraser and violently erases her answer for the 3rd time. When she sets down the eraser she gives the problem yet another try. Your gaze never leaves her as her tongue starts to peak out signaling her focus.

A smile creeps to your lips as Caitlin lets out another huff and puff and throws her pencil up in defeat. Her head hits the page she was just working on and you take the moment to lean over and give her back a little rub.

"I have been on the same problem for the last hour," she groans once she feels your touch. You let out a little laugh. "It's not funny!" She says as she sits up and looks like she is ready to throw in the towel.

You feel bad for your girl and put your hand out asking for her to pass over the problem she was working on. She debates whether she wants to figure it out on her own or if she will give in and allow your help. After a moment, she picks up the page and hands it to you. Following the page, she comes and sits next to you looking down at the problem she could quote word for word.

You skim over the problem and ask, "What have you been trying?" Handing her the problem, you watch as she goes about solving the problem in front of you two. She lets out another adorable puff and takes the paper back like a 10-year-old boy.

She begins working on the problem and you watch her trying to figure it out yourself. You can see where she starts to go wrong and you kiss her shoulder.

"You are overthinking it babe - look here," you say pointing out where she starts to go the wrong way with the problem. You grab the pencil from her hand and kiss her shoulder again trying to get her out of her head. You circle where she starts doing the wrong thing and proceeds to write out the path she should be taking to solve the problem. This just makes her more frustrated that you were able to solve it in a fraction of the time she was.

She lets out a puff and moves further away from you. You notice the small move and lean over to kiss her shoulder again, causing her body to betray her and she shudders.

"Get back over here," you say as you wrap your arm around her torso and bring her back to your side. "You got this," you hand her back the pencil and the paper and let her continue with the small change you made to help guide her in the right direction.

Grabbing the pencil, she continues the problem. After another minute she finishes it and just sits there. You know she is still frustrated. You also know that she is like a kid when she gets frustrated and can easily be pulled out of it with a few little tickles.

Your hand touches her arm and makes its way over her shoulder and down her side. She is too stubborn to make anything of it as she flips the page and continues on the math she didn't want to do in the first place. As your fingers make their way to the bottom of her shirt, you remove your laptop from the bed. Your palm lays flat across her stomach and you begin your attack. Kicking your leg over her, you straddle her as your fingers get to work.

Within seconds, you have her squirming beneath you, begging you to stop.

"Babe! Babe!" She pleads you you between laughs. Her hands trying to grab a hold of yours to stop the torture she would say she's enduring. After a few more minutes, Caitlin gets fed up with being on the bottom brings her leg up hooking under yours, and seamlessly flips you. She takes your surprise to her advantage, grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head. It is your turn to let out a gasp.

You look up at her with a surprised but knowing face. It surprised you it didn't come to this sooner, typically she only lasts about a minute being tickled before she turns the tables. The knowing comes from where this is going. You give her a smile and try to wiggle your wrists out of her grasp.

"We need to get back to studying," you say but she still doesn't budge. Instead, she shakes her head and leans down to kiss your cheek and then your neck. You lift your head providing her more access, still trying to get your wrists out of her hold.

"I have a better idea," Caitlin says as her lips finally make their way to yours.

two.

It was Iowa's first home game of the season and you were beyond excited to go and watch Caitlin play. You thought it would be fun to have some friends over to get ready and then head to the game all together. As they started to arrive, you blast some music and break out the snacks. Most of your time before the game isn't spent getting ready, but rather talking about everyone's week and driving into the snacks.

You finish getting ready, checking your fit in the mirror. Of course, you are sporting one of Caitlin's jerseys - not only was it one of your favorite things to wear, but it was also one of your girlfriend's favorite things to see you in.

You take a quick photo of yourself sporting the number 22 and shoot over to Caitlin, telling her that she has got this. She never needed luck when it came to being on the court, her skill spoke for themselves.

Once everyone is ready you all head to the gym. You find seats right across from the team bench and settle in right as they begin announcing the starting lineup. You cheer for each player as their names are announced, yelling a little extra when your favorite player is called out.

You all watch as the game unfolds. It was all in all a great game but in the last quarter you can see Caitlin getting stuck in her head. She gets a little more feisty when things don't go the way she wants them to. It comes with her competitive nature. A part of her that you love but isn't always the easiest to navigate.

When the final buzzer rings, the final score has Iowa at a loss of 76-81. You can't see Caitlin's face but you can tell by her body language that she is stuck in her head. Your group makes its way down to the floor and waits for the team. As the team starts heading out from the locker room, you look around for Caitlin.

After looking for about 20 minutes, you start to worry. You see Kate and ask her if she has seen your girlfriend. She mentions that she saw Caitlin exit the locker room before she did. That was odd as Caitlin is typically the last person to leave the lockers. You thank her and continue looking around.

Another 10 minutes pass and you see someone sitting on the ground. You let out a sigh, knowing exactly who it is, and make your way over to your favorite person.

She is staring out with a blank face. You were expecting some sort of version of this when you started to keep track of how many shots Caitlin missed. It wasn't a typical game but this just proved that she is human. Coming up to her, you know there is nothing you can say to make her feel better. So instead of pulling her up and telling her to shake it off, you take a seat next to her. You hear her sigh but nothing is said. You both just sit there and watch the floor slowly empty itself.

It gets to the point where there are only a few people left, all of whom you think are employees of the school. You slowly make your way to your feet and grab Caitlin's bag. You then offer a hand to her which she takes. As you are about to let go of her hand, she intertwines her fingers with yours. You bring her hand and place a kiss on the back of her hand and follow it with three little kisses as a way of saying you love her.

When you get back to your apartment you put Caitlin's stuff down and let her go into your room to shower. As she is in the shower you decide that a batch of brownies would be exactly what you want if you were where she is.

Grabbing the ingredients you begin prepping your kitchen. Caitlin walks out right as you are measuring the dry ingredients. She has a towel in hand as she is drying her hair. She comes around behind you and wraps her arms around your torso, leaning into you.

"Mmmmm, brownies?" She asks as she dips her finger in the melted chocolate you had on the counter.

"Hey! Those are for the brownies!" You gasp as you try to move the chocolate bowl away from her so you can finish mixing the dry ingredients. You whisper 'chocolate stealer' which earns a chuckle from your girlfriend.

Even with the little playful banter, you can tell she is still not completely out of her head yet. She makes her way around the island to take a seat and watch you make your world-famous brownies. As you finish with the mix, you pour the batter into a pan and hit it on the counter to get all the bubbles out. You then pass Caitlin the spoon to lick, knowing it is one of her favorite parts of watching you bake.

Once the pan is in the oven, you take to washing the dishes and then pulling Caitlin onto the couch. You know she wouldn't care what you put on but in the state that she's trying to shake, you put on her favorite - Ted Lasso.

About halfway into the episode, you hear the timer go off. You untangle yourself from Caitlin and make your way to remove the brownies from the oven. Once you do, you take a fork to the center (many people's unpopular opinion but you are out here living your best life and trying to help Caitlin live hers too). You bring a bite over to her, blowing it off to cool it down a little.

She takes the bite and her eyes close, knowing it is healing her soul. A smile builds on her face as she opens her eyes. She points to the pan and gestures for you to bring it over. You let out a laugh and shake your head no.

"It just came out of the oven, it is way too hot," you say knowing that is the exact opposite of what she wants to hear. Not saying a word, she looks up at you with a little pout. You playfully roll your eyes and lean down to kiss her forehead. As much as you think it is a bad idea, you give in and grab the pan of brownies. She sits up on the couch and crosses her legs. You place the pan on a towel to not burn her or the couch and give her the fork. She goes to town on them, occasionally groaning at the chocolatey goodness she is indulging in.

Once she is finished, she places the pan on the coffee table and lays down, placing her head in your lap. You begin to stroke her hair. Looking up at you she mumbles, "Thank you."

You look down at her with a light smile, "It is my genuine pleasure."

You know the thank you is for more than the brownies. The thank you is for sitting in the gym with her and bringing her home safely without trying to force her to feel better. It is for making sure she is taken care of and loved even when she finds it hard to do that for herself. It's for being you.

A smile continues to play on your lips as you lean down and kiss her on the forehead, playing with her hair and continuing to watch Ted Lasso.

three.

Caitlin's birthday is approaching and you know something is bugging her but she hasn't said anything to you abut it yet.

The two of you are hanging out, running some errands on a Friday morning when you sense that she is stuck in her head. This happens every once and a while, typically they are things that she can shake but you have noticed she has been a little more preoccupied than previous times.

As the two of you are grocery shopping, you nudge her arm and ask her, "What's going on in that beautiful head of yours?"

"Nothing, I'm fine," she replies - lies, you think to yourself.

"Okay...well we should start talking about what you want to do for your birthday as it is right around the corner," you say as you pick up some apples. You continue, "Since you won't be here the day of, I was thinking we could do something before you head out of town for your away game." A smile is on your face as you try to get her mood up.

"Ya, sure, whatever," she says as she looks at some dried fruit. You are a little hurt by the response but don't let it show. You know her birthday isn't the biggest deal to her but you love celebrating her and every year she has let you do so to your heart's content. So what was different about this year?

You decide to drop the topic for now and finish your errands without further digging her into the hole inside of her head. When you get back to your joint apartment you decide you just want to plan something small for her this year with the two of you. Nothing too big but still satisfying your desire to celebrate her.

Over the next few days, you get to planning her pre-birthday celebration. Several different ideas come to mind, unsure of what to choose. You decide on a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant then heading back for a lazy evening with all of her favorite movies. As you are making reservations and thinking about what to get her as a gift you struggle. She doesn't need much and you got her a necklace last year. Not wanting to repeat that, you need to figure something out that she will love.

"Hey babe?" You ask as you want to see if you can get any little hint out of her of what she could possibly want.

She looks up at you with a hum.

"I am planning a little birthday thing for you, just the two of us, and want to get your thoughts," you say.

"Sure," she responds and you proceed to tell her the plan you came up with. When you are finished all she gives you is a little nod and then proceeds to go back to whatever it is that she is doing. This upsets but you take a deep breath and decide to try and get her out whatever sort of funk she is in.

"Caitlin, what's going on?" You begin, moving your laptop aside to sit and face her. "You have been more distant these past few days and I don't know what I have done wrong. Is this about your birthday? I know it isn't the most important thing to you but I love celebrating you and that has never bugged you before. If I am overstepping, please let me know and I will give you space but I need you to talk to me so I know what I need to do," you say.

She looks up at you with tired eyes, tears beginning to build in them. Your eyes go wide as you begin to panic. Your mind goes to the worst - she is going to break up with you. You rack your brain for what could have possibly triggered her wanting to end things but you can't think because you are too busy trying to remain calm. Her hand grabs your shaking one as you wait for her to respond.

"You are perfect," is all she says as she brings your hand to her lips.

A tear escapes down your face and you use your other hand to quickly wipe it, hopefully without her noticing. You failed in your attempt as her whole mood shifts once she sees you are crying. She drops your hand and brings you into a hug.

"If I am overstepping, I will step back - we can work out whatever you are feeling but please talk to me Cait, I don't want to lose you," you say holding back sobs that threaten to escape your lips. She squeezes you even closer to her chest as her heart begins to break. It was never her intention to get you thinking that she doesn't want you.

"Oh baby, I am not breaking up with you," she says as she gives you a little rock back and forth.

"You're not?" You say as you let a sob escape and allow yourself to be held.

"No babe. That isn't even close to the reason I have been stuck in my head. I am so sorry that is where your mind went but you can't get rid of me that easily," she says trying to lighten the mood a little. She continues. "I know you love celebrating me and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love that you are working around me being away for a game but if I am honest, the only thing I want is to be with you on my birthday and that isn't possible this year."

The second she says it, you jerk away from her and look at her. She looks a little defeated and sort of embarrassed that was the cause of her being stuck in her head while being with you but she can't help it, you are the only thing she wants.

"That's what this has been about? Not being with you on your actual birthday? You are adorable," you say and lean in to give her a kiss. That then sparks the perfect gift that you can think of to make this all go away - but you were going to let Caitlin sweat a little longer considering she had you thinking that she was going to break up with you. You also had to make the proper arrangements to make it all work out.

After that conversation, you both settle on your original plan of dinner and a night of movies. You promise her that you will do something with the team when everyone gets back and she seems a little more herself when you say that.

Time passes and it gets to the dinner reservation you made. You are both getting ready to make your way out. You check your purse to ensure you have her gift.

Once at the restaurant, you enjoy a beautiful 5-course meal with the perfect wine pairings. The meal was absolutely delicious. When planning the dinner you reached out to the restaurant and planned a special dessert for the evening. As you wait for it, you decide it is the perfect time for her to open her gift. Reaching into your purse you pull out a card and hand it over to her.

She takes the envelope and asks what it is. You laugh at her and tell her to open it to find out. She obliges and you wait for her reaction.

Opening the card it takes her a moment to process what she is seeing and reading. Her head whips up to you with wide eyes.

"You're coming to my game?" She asks looking happier than a kid on Christmas. You nod with a smile.

"It was the only logical thing to get you after that oh-so-serious talk, it was a no-brainer," you say. She begins to stand and you do as well. You meet in the middle in a hug and she whispers 'thank you' in your ear. You give her an extra little squeeze.

As you both sit down, Caitlin can't shake the smile that this gift has brought her. You sit across from her and admire how stunning she looks and are grateful that she is all yours.

AN: Please let me know what you think! I have a few of these in mind. And as always, thank you for your love and support 🤍

#caitlin clark #caitlin clark x reader #iowa wbb #iowa hawkeyes #caitlin clark imagine #22

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drdemonprince · 3 months ago

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At one point he was down in between my legs, fingering me, and he made a throwaway comment about probably being Autistic.

I leaned back, trying to relish what pleasure I was getting. “Well, we can talk about that subject, if you like,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to bring my professional life into things.

He kept working away at my body, kissing between my lips and thighs. “Oh I know who you are,” he said suddenly. “Your book changed my life. In a way, I guess this is me thanking you.”

I made him exit my body and we went to the kitchen to hash it out. It turned out he was a big fan of many things I’d written.

“I’ve seen you around the neighborhood many times,” he confessed. “But you posted online that you don’t like when people come up to you, and so I always decided to leave you alone.”

He said, “Your book is the reason I got divorced, actually. My ex-husband was a therapist, and when I showed him your book and said I thought I might be Autistic, he didn’t believe me. We have been separated for a year.”

He asked, “Did I just make this weird, telling you when I did that I was a fan?” I told him that if he’d said it sooner, I would have never fucked him at all.

People never realize that when they approach me, what they are doing is dragging me into work. It doesn’t matter whether I was at breakfast, or an orgy. I was just some guy standing there, enjoying his beer, but now they have made me the known scholar and author. And sure, my job might be meaningful, but that doesn’t mean I like to work.

I tell my friend that I no longer want to be a public figure, and that I am planning how to make it all end. She tells me, “You’ve got to do what is the best for you, even if it’s something that the rest of us wants and can’t imagine giving up.”

I ask myself, did I want this? It would be more flattering to say I didn’t, and play the role of the hermetic author whose work developed its own life purely because it was so good. But that isn’t true.

From the moment I got a Myspace account in high school, I was publishing essays about my political views. I serialized multiple novels on Tumblr, guerilla marketing them with giveaways and custom-made images until they hit the Kindle sales charts. I have made memes, tried starting viral trends, coined phrases, and given hundreds of hours’ worth of media interviews. I write prescriptive nonfiction, for Christ’s sake. Of course people seek guidance from me. I offer it up!

I have been strategic about how I dress, and my video backdrops, and retaken clips of myself speaking over and over again until they sounded right. I’ve hosted debates with my most vicious critics while I’m in the shower, started public beef with creators who had larger accounts than I did, and rushed to my keyboard when upsetting news broke, because I alone was possessed of the most correct take on it.

I wanted this. I didn’t know what this was, this internet fame I was chasing, but I did all I could to make it mine. I thought that by writing so much, I would one day be able to escape myself, maybe really feel connected to other people. Instead it has meant never being able to stop thinking about myself: how I am seen, what I am working on, how it all fits together, what comes next. It has also meant being spoken about, theorized about, and criticized, and developing a firm exoskeleton of disdain between myself and the world.

I believe now that that it is immoral for any person to be listened to by ninety thousand other people. Holding authority and status like that runs counter to my anarchic ideals. I am not more important or correct than anyone. I should not be trusted to tell people which commodities to buy, which companies not to support, what to read, what to think, what words to use, or how to conduct their lives.

All the other animals know there is no one way that a creature “should” live. There is only the way that it does. The world has no consciousness, no beliefs. It cannot pass judgment. We only feel so watched and evaluated because we have covered the planet with so many millions of our eyes. But we can stop performing dignified human goodness at any moment.

I think that celebrity is an evil, corrupting force that pits the human instinct for bonding against itself. Instead of appreciating the singing of our friends around the fire, we stream Chappell Roan until stalkers break into her house. Rather than playing card games together, we stan Twitch streamers, filling up their chats with highlighted messages until they acknowledge us. We long to be famous novelists because then we would have the social permission to write, and we don’t have the money or time to enjoy the activity on its own.

I wrote about Chappell Roan, stalker stans, and how turning art into content creation ruins the work, and the creator's life. It's free to read in full (or have narrated to you by the app!) on Substack.

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xnova239x · 13 days ago

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I feel like I’ve been writing essays in my latest posts, haha.

Here are my thoughts and ramblings on Solas and Solavellan:

I’m in bits… I cannot watch that scene again without breaking out into gut-wrenching sobs.

I found that to be a perfect reunion.

I was not expecting a horny, ass-grabbing, “Fade tongue” passionate make out sesh. Nor did I want one, honestly, after seeing what Solas was going through all game.

After what Lavellan was dealing with all game.

The South was being utterly ravaged by Blight. Orlais, Fereldan, the Free Marches… all of it wrecked… possibly even fallen entirely. Lavellan, despite being the leader of a disbanded Inquisition in my game, was trying her hardest to bolster defenses, protect the innocent and fight the war down there. While also wrestling with her, obviously still raw, heartbreak and love for the Dread Wolf.

In Veilguard, Solas is absolutely not the one we knew in Inquisition. Here, he has fully accepted the role of villain and mantle of the Dread Wolf. He is not the thoughtful, wise apostate who sometimes sets his coat tails alight, plays mental 4D chess with Iron Bull, trolls the hell out of Sera, debates philosophy with Cassandra and is the passionate, suave, smooth flirt with Lavellan.

No.

Here, he is Wisdom… corrupted.

He is Pride.

He is a Pride demon, for the majority of the game. Using clever half-truths, trickery, lies and omissions to get what he wants.

(You can really see this in the “Fight him” ending where I’ve heard some are saying he’s OOC. He calls himself a God, when that is something he has been adamant he is not up until this point. But, in this ending… he is demonic in nature. Pride has completely overtaken him. You haven’t made an attempt to help/understand him. Therefore, you are standing in his way. He has no respect for you now. He has that “You can’t beat me!” attitude. He’s furious when he is, in fact, outsmarted and beaten. His eyes glow… screams that you are short-lived, implies he is better than you and that he is a God, compared to you. Not at all out of character for a demonic creature.)

(To be honest, I was kind of reminded of the Mage Origin/Harrowing from DAO when we interacted with him and when our companions etc ask “But can we trust him?”. Rook can be like “Obviously not” or “Yeah… for this thing… but he will stab us in the back”)

He tells Rook just enough to spark their interest, to keep them working with him…

As only he can fix the world. Only he can defeat Elgar’nan.

Yet, he is completely and utterly strangled by his Regrets and Guilt. Guilt for ruining the Elvhen world by, actually, trying to save it… guilt for being unable to convince Mythal to stay with him, ultimately leading to her murder…

Mythal, essentially, created him. I kinda view their whole dynamic as something akin to Witch and Familiar.

She had taken a body first. Solas began existence as Wisdom. He was her companion spirit. I always wondered why he is almost always depicted in his Dread Wolf form in Elvhen statues and mosaics… not his Elvhen one. Familiars usually take an animal form, guide and protect their bonded witch/mage, pass on advice and wisdom and help with their magic. I get the impression this was the beginning of their relationship: he was her guide… her protector. His statues were always surrounding hers in a guardian-like position. I don’t necessarily see Solas and Mythal as romantic, per se. The Elvhen began as spirits. Beings of pure and raw emotion. Maybe Solas did have some sort of infatuation with her… but I think it more of a twisted reverence. He worshipped her, in his own way. He had such a deep bond with her… beyond mere love and friendship. He was in her service.

A willing slave is no less a slave.

This bond is all that’s left to drive this twisted sense of duty he has all game.

He could have argued that this world was a dream - it wasn’t real. But… he’s lived in this world for years… and grew to, at the very least, enjoy it in some ways. He developed friendships… and, depending on your world state, fell in love with a mortal woman. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He doesn’t want to destroy it. It means something to him.

But this duty to “restore the ancient world”… it’s too deeply embedded within him. He’s a former spirit. He needs to follow his purpose.

Which had been warped from his original one so badly by Mythal. She even says this.

I pulled you from the Fade you loved and sent you into war. I used your Wisdom as a weapon… and it broke you…

He is broken. He is not himself… not really. Every choice he has made to this point is in service to this duty.

It takes Past, Present and Future to break this notion in him.

Past: Mythal. She needs to release him from this slave-like behaviour; this extremely powerful sense of duty to her. He needs to hear from her that everything was not all his fault. They fucked things up together. He shouldn’t bear all of that on his own.

Present: Rook. The one person all game that can constantly call him out on his bullshit. The person that reminds him of his younger self (I suppose I was not so different…)… if that younger self was able to accept and reflect on his mistakes and accept the consequences of his actions. For all Solas’ talk… he cannot accept the consequences of what he has done. His whole purpose is to change it. Undo it. Not live with it.

Future: Lavellan. His love. His heart. Vhenan. She represents what he truly wants. He wanted to live his life with her. To forget everything and be with her as Solas. Her forgiveness and reassurance that her love for him is still strong… helps him stand tall and accept what he must do now. She wants him and will follow him. She will no longer let him chase her away. She wants to support him… love him as the person he is… not make him into something he’s not. He no longer has to be alone. They will face whatever terrible things lie beyond the Veil together.

It’s something Emmrich says in a quest of his that puts a fair bit of meaning into why Solas finds himself so attached to Lavellan.

Spirits are not things to be disposed of. They’re so susceptible to the world’s whims, Rook. Some spirits are dangerous. But, how quickly most respond to a bit of kindness, or care… or simple attempt to understand…

Tell me that is not how Solas responds to your Inquisitor throughout Inquisition if you actually listen to him, ask him questions and make an attempt to understand his point of view. Lavellan does exactly this. She allows him to be more himself. Impart Wisdom… become Wisdom, not Pride.

She does not warp him. She stabilises him.

He no longer has to fear dying alone. For he will no longer be alone. He has his Vhenan. His home. His future. Wherever it takes them.

#dragon age #dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age: the veilguard spoilers #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #da4 spoilers #datv spoilers #da4 #datv #solas #solavellan

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dustbunnylair · 2 months ago

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Uraume Confirmed Gender, Originally a Male and Reincarnated Into a Woman's Body | Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 28

[Source: SportsSkeeda Article]

Okay first off, let me just say that I fucking knew it. Usually, I try not to make jokes while writing these silly, for lack of a better word; essays. However, I did in fact call it. I theorized this is exactly how Uraume's gender works, the binding on their chest never being for battle, but instead just to bind their chest. Here's a screenshot dating back to September 10th [last month]

Now excuse me but to all the Jujutsu Kaisen "fans" that said Uraume is in fact a girl and nothing else; FUCK YOU.

I'm sorry but the jjk fandom is by far one of the worst fandoms I've been in. and I've been in the My Hero Academia fandom so that says A LOT.

it's extremely ironic too because as soon as this came out, the "transphobic" Uraume "fans" stopped shipping them with Sukuna, like immediately. If that doesn't scream red flags about the fandom then I don't know what does.

I've talked about it before and I will talk about it again, [legal + nontoxic] queer ships and queer headcanons within the jjk fandom is NOT the problem. The people constantly shoving "why can't two men be best friends" down your throat are THE problem. These headcanons and ships are not new within any anime fandom, there will always be a queer ship no matter what.

"Why can't two men be best friends" Why can't a woman and a man be best friends? Why do you ship every woman + man friendship?

Honestly the first time I've ever been so goddamn happy for Gege Akutami to confirm something about his character, especially knowing who it's going to upset. It honestly does suck how many bigots are in the jjk fandom because Gege isn't against lgbtqia+, he's literally a fan of BLs..

The only excuses people had for Uraume being a woman is;

Hakari calling them a 'her' [he was assuming]

Uraume has bandages around their chest during Hakari vs Uraume because they're a woman and that's what women do during battles

They were reincarnated into a woman's body therefore they're a woman.

I'm skipping over the Hakari part because that is such an obvious answer. Uraume having a chest binding around their chest during a fight isn't because they're a woman, not to mention no other woman character has ever had chest bindings, there's literally nothing to back that up. And if you *actually* paid attention in Jujutsu Kaisen, you'd know that reincarnation has NEVER specified that the vessel NEEDED to be of the SAME GENDER.

I'm not 'caring too much' about a fictional situation. I care about the fact that homo/transphobes are so fucking annoying in fandoms to the point that no one can even enjoy Jujutsu Kaisen anymore without some rat in your ear saying it's not canon.

Just like the heavy homophobia towards SatoSugu or ItaFushi, the only excuse both have is 'two men can be best friends' as if SatoSugu or ItaFushi shippers have ever said they couldn't be. The more valid reason is that ItaFushi is a risky ship due to both of them being minors and not wanting two minor characters to be sexualized, but shipping characters doesn't automatically mean you want them to have intercourse or debate on who's top/bottom.

Most shippers [including myself] ship characters that would most likely be wholesome together due to how much they care about each other.

Anyway, I thank Gege Akutami for this confirmation so the useless debate can stop. I will still be referring to Uraume as 'they/them' due to them being technically both genders. I'm praying that the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom and future fandoms are able to heal and not have constant debates like this because people want to have unproblematic headcanons.

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ekkotimesthree · 4 months ago

Text

RE: Homestuck Discourse, Media Literacy, Fandom Entitlement, & The Puppet Theory

an essay by yours truly

content warning: discussions of child abuse, CSA, & child neglect

so many discourses and debates surrounding homestuck boil down to lacking basic media literacy. so instead of making a petulant rant, i’ll attempt writing a productive essay, but forgive me if my annoyance seeps into parts of this post due to the subject matter. let’s start with dave, since he’s one of the most contentious characters (also because he’s my blorbo, sorry not sorry), and move on from there!

i constantly see people say something along the lines of “davekat happening in the retcon timeline makes no sense why would terezi ignore dave and gamzee yada yada yada”, like there’s not a whole scene that explains this! and it’s one of the most plot relevant scenes in the comic!! if you don’t know what the blood scarf even is, your opinion on this irrelevant, since you didn’t read/remember the text. rule number one of media literacy is properly consuming the media.

“dave being abused and the gay stuff came out of nowhere” this is definitively not true. one of the first things we learn about dave is that he has to hide food in his room so he doesn’t starve, and that this is an intentional choice by his brother. oh, and then his brother actually beats the shit out of him on screen, while not letting him abscond, right after we see john and rose strife their parents in a healthy way no less. (take note of bro using cal, and dave trying to abscond from him. more on that later.)

and re: dave’s sexuality, rose immediately points out that dave is probably gay during their first on screen interaction, and it’s her first line of dialogue to him.

TT: In some cultures the persistent refusal of a lady's invitation to play a game with her would be a sign wanton disrespect.

TT: Either that, or flagrant homosexuality.

moving on, later that same day, dave outright admits he loves john:

in these scenes, rose would be considered a mouthpiece! author’s use mouthpieces to get across information to the audience, that the character(s) themsel(ves) don’t know. in this case, that character is dave.

so now let’s address the elephant in the room, you probably thought these messages were just jokes, and that’s okay! that’s for three reasons:

first, your worldviews and perspectives shift the way you perceive the world, and more specifically art in this instance. that’s a fundamental part of the human experience. having your own personal biases based on your life experiences isn’t inherently a bad thing! for example, if you finish my essay, you can learn more about compulsive heterosexuality, or the effects of child abuse, see all of the signs, all without having to deal with it first hand. which is great! that’s the point of art and storytelling.

secondly, you probably still thought dave was straight while reading this narration. that’s because homestuck is written in deep pov, or as you would probably call it, unreliable narration. these are technically two separate things, but i don’t feel like breaking down all of those pedantics. all you need to know is: deep pov is when a character’s worldviews and perspective shift the narrative, rather than a story being told objectively. think junie b jones, the percy jackson series, or uh, catcher in the rye, if you’re into that sort of thing. that means that all the dialogue and narration within homestuck will always have some level of subtext, aka the non-literal explanation for text. homestuck is made by adults for adults, so it’s created on the basis we can analyze the text, and come to our own conclusions, unlike YA and children’s media.

a lot of people assume homestuck is supposed to be YA series, but that’s not the case. homestuck’s themes are about exploring the effects of child abuse and neglect, which you need to be an adult to fully understand. and unlike cinderella, homestuck shows child abuse on screen, and as we’ll discuss later, tackles subject matter about CSA, or child s*x*al *ss*lt. that inherently makes it a 18+ story, no matter the ages of any characters involved. just because most of us read homestuck as kids doesn’t really have any impact on that.

“well there’s no explicitly 18+ content in homestuck!!! they’re all 13!!!!” please take one look at equius’s room, or translate damara’s dialogue, and tell me if you still feel that way. oh, and read the epilogues too. also do you not remember the sheer amount of bloodshed, sex jokes, and cursing shown without a single censor??? even the official homestuck twitter said this:

finally, it’s also worth mentioning the time homestuck was made, because art can’t be removed from it’s historical context. so in 2009, gay representation was still virtually non-existent, especially in children’s and teen media. in the 2000s there was an extremely prevalent trope, “queer people are funny”, where the whole joke is that a character doing something that could be perceived as gay, or transgender, is funny. this problem was especially rampant in media for men. the most infamous example of this is family guy this was s8e18 of family guy, “quagmire’s dad”, where the whole joke is that brian slept with a trans woman, and everyone single joke comes at the expense of the trans woman, who’s relegated to a background role, while the narrative focuses on quagmire and brian’s emotions, the two cis men. so what homestuck is doing is called a deconstruction of this trope! deconstruction is where you break something down to critically analyze the philosophy behind it. we’ll leave a pin in john for now (just you wait), but it’s made extremely clear that dave is struggling with internalized homophobia, thus deconstructing why he makes these jokes in the first place. by the end of homestuck, dave says:

DAVE: but ive had a fuck ton of time on my hands to think about stuff. about stuff ive said and done in the past why i said and did them. a lot of things i once would have insisted were like part of my brand and helped me come across cool and smartassy, but now im not so sure. we used rip on each other all the time for being gay even though we knew we werent which of course is what made it "funny" remember?

with this quote, and the knowledge that dave goes onto date a man, i don’t think anyone is denying the internalized homophobia now, so let’s move onto reading this:

i’m sure all of us are thinking “there’s no heterosexual explanation for this, he doesn’t even like ben stiller!” OR “maybe dave’s just too embarrassed to admit he likes shitty movies? is it really more than that??” either way, that’s because hussie utilitized the rule of three to make you subconsciously notice dave’s obsession with irony! the rule of three is used to set patterns in a story, either to establish a fact, or to subvert the viewer’s expectations. for example, let’s analyze this joke:

notice how terezi’s third response is the funny one?by setting up the pattern, both you and john are expecting her to keep laughing in response, so when terezi flips the script on him, it’s hilarious. that’s called payoff, or in this instance, comedic payoff. now we can compare that to dave’s irony, where it was mentioned three times on one panel. no subversions of expectations here! that’s because hussie wants to establish dave’s obsession with irony, and they did so by creating a pattern you would notice subconsciously. this is how the rule of three works! psychology is cool, right?

so now that we can all agree that the subtext here is related to the irony, we have a new problem: we’ve only gotten dave and rose’s perspectives. we still need one more to complete the rule of three. fuck. thank god i can skip ahead!

using my whimsical ability to read ahead analyze text, i find out what john said to dave, and leave out the unimportant bullshit for everyone’s sake (mostly mine though):

dear dave, happy birthday!!! (…) i got you these. they're totally authentic! they actually touched ben stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point. i'm sure you'll dig them because i know you lolled so hard at that movie. ok so for real, this is sort of a shitty present, but it is an ironic present because i know you wouldn't have it any other way. maybe you can wear them ironically some time. they MIGHT even be more ironic than you and your bro's dumb pointy anime shades.

now we have three characters’ perspectives on dave’s behavior. you’re probably able to put together the pieces i’m putting down, but for those who aren’t getting it: when you compare john’s letter, with dave’s actions, and rose’s messages, you realize that: dave is keeping these glasses because he loves john, not because he likes ben stiller, but he can’t admit that to himself, hence why his narration overcompensates with the usage of irony! it’s worth noting that all of these examples are from dave’s pov, because switching to rose or john’s pov would no longer make them mouthpieces!

“okay but isn’t dave’s perspective not reliable either??” yes! that’s why we’re using his actions as textual evidence, not his statements. the fact dave kept these glasses, and hung up a picture of an actor he doesn’t even like, is the proof he loves john, not him saying outright that he loves him. like i said earlier, this is a comic intended for adults, so characters aren’t going to outright say themes or how they feel. that’s more for peppa pig, hannah montana, and riverdale, you feel me? just like in real life, talk is fucking cheap here.

so now we’re left with a new question: why does dave feel comfortable admitting his love for john to rose, but not john himself? i’m sure the answer is becoming obvious! putting all this together we can gather the following: hussie wants us to know that dave possibly has a crush on john, but definitely loves him.

wait a minute… possibly?!? that’s because we still need textual evidence dave likes men. luckily, like i mentioned earlier, we can skip ahead to the epilogues, where him and karkat get together in the meat timeline, thus proving dave has liked men this whole time. boom! that’s payoff!!!

now we can OFFICIALLY put together that dave had a crush on john. once again, notice how we’re using dave’s actions to prove this, and not just quotes! either way, now we have officially used media analysis to deduce that dave had a childhood crush on john! huzzah! pat yourself on the back my loyal reader.

and for those who still aren’t convinced of dave’s crush on john, this masterpost has way more evidence than i ever could fit in this post.

(trigger warning: csa)

so now with everything we’ve learned about media analysis, i present you with my own analysis: the puppets are a symbolism for abuse, and the sex puppets specifically are an allegory for CSA, or child s*xual ass*ult. symbolism is where you use a certain object to represent ideas or qualities. the best example of this is the iconic green house logo we see throughout the comic. in comparison, an allegory is when a certain object or plot device is used to get a point across, without directly stating the point itself, aka, a hidden meaning. for instance, hussie has said their game “pyscholonials” is an allegory for how they feel about their gender identity!

so now, let’s start finding textual evidence to back up my claims about the puppet allegory, through looking for textual evidence of dave’s symptoms, aka analyzing character psychology:

dave’s anxiety manifests in the way he types. according to healthline “rambling or excessive talking [is a sign of] social anxiety. you fear saying the wrong thing or being judged by others, but you end up talking more (…) in an effort to help make up for your anxiety, and help quiet the worries revolving around what others think of you”. this is basically dave’s whole personality, but more specifically, you can see him doing this around the puppets in this scene, he rambles to himself non stop when returning to his childhood bedroom, and he’s still doing so on the meteor when he can’t find terezi to do “some stuff”. by the end of the comic, dave even acknowledges this himself by saying: “DAVE: yo im hardly one to talk here since i am a goddamn geyser of hilariously self-pulverizing freudian bloopers”. it’s also worth mentioning that, generally speaking, dave also spams his friends a lot until he gets a response, implying he gets anxious when people don’t respond quick enough to him, which is a normal reaction after being neglected as a child. that’s called a trauma response! all of these bullet points are trauma responses that happen to people who had to deal with CSA. in this case, the trauma response would be dave’s anxiety in general, and not him spamming his friends specifically. moving along…

dave’s hypersexuality manifests in a pretty in a pretty straightforward way, hence him constantly making s*xual jokes, and him drawing dicks on stuff on the meteor, much to the annoyance of everyone else. terezi even points this out herself while dave is failing to grieve bro:

TG: im sorry you are so flustered by the mere mention of glittering mythical cryptodick it honestly makes me think youre not ready for the truth

GC: D4V3 YOUR P3RPL3XING 3UPH3MISMS INVOLVING WHAT I PR3SUM3 TO B3 L3WD 4ND VAGU3LY INTRIGUING PORTIONS OF HUMAN 4N4TOMY 1 THINK 4R3 NOT 4S HILARIOUS 4S YOU PROBABLY B3L13V3

his dissociation is also pretty straightforward. he constantly talks about himself in the third person, and treats himself like he’s a character in a story, rather than a person who has wants and needs. for reference, dave immediately pulls meta shenanigans when you meet him, foreshadowing his dissociation. you can tell it’s built up to an already toxic level when we meet him, because on the same day, he has almost no reaction to seeing his own corpse, and immediately disposes of it “for jade’s sake”, rather than his own. and to make matters worse, he immediately “moves on” as if nothing happened. deep pov, remember? he also couldn’t properly process bro’s death. once again, terezi tries to point this out to dave, and he’s still not getting the message. put a pin in this section for now.

near the end of the comic, davepetasprite outright says that davesprite was depressed, regularly talked about how he wanted to off himself, and implies he might of attempted it. this is a grey area since davesprite is technically a separate character, and grieving the death of everyone from his original timeline, but it feels weird to just ignore it. to each their own on this point, but i would assume davepetasprite was referring to dave’s whole life when they talked about him being depressed based on wording, and his terrible childhood, but the s**cidal stuff could go either way. again, the proof here is dave/davesprite’s actions, not davepetasprite’s quote itself.

he displays regressive behavior 24/7 by wearing his shades to avoid eye contact, refusing to participate in common social cues (i.e.: constant dick jokes), and the few times we see him get upset, he shuts down rather than feeling his emotions. not so fun fact, the only time dave cries in all of homestuck is because of onions being cut in front of him. there’s an allegory in this scene, can you find it? (hint: the dragons forced dave into the soup, but he refuses to get out of it) also, in his most emotional scene, he still tries his damndest to not talk about emotional stuff with dirk, and still doesn’t cry when they hug, despite discussing bro’s death, and his thoughts on his own abuse in detail:

the lack of self esteem is pretty apparent. he constantly over compensates at the beginning of the comic, as seen below. he always talks about himself as if he’s a famous important guy, despite that all of his friends know he’s lying, and regularly say it to his face, but he’s still adamant that they’re wrong, or commits to the bit without actually admitting the truth. i wanna note that dave’s humor is always more of a commit to the bit and keep it going sort of thing, for better… or usually worse. not full on sarcasm. this is opposed to rose and john’s teenaged douchebaggery mixed with flagrant sarcasm. also, in the aforementioned scene above, davepetasprite still refers to davesprite as a piece of garbage, showing this is something dave struggles with even while being combined with nepeta. again, we’re using the action of putting himself down, not the quote itself. (also, sorry for the image quality, i’m on mobile)

in the long term, it’s basically impossible for him to form long lasting, fulfilling, and romantic relationships. first, it’s his crush on john, but that’s just kids being kids stuff. there’s also the fact dave and rose had some sort of failed relationship in davesprite’s timeline, due to them not learning they’re siblings. then we see the serious problems arise with terezi, who he dates pre-retcon mostly just cause she’s there, and his weird definitely not gay rivalry with karkat, which leads to her being unfulfilled in their relationship, and starting a kismesistude with gamzee. obviously the jade stuff is a big wooooof (pun NOT intended), both with davesprite, and the candy timeline. ultimately, both times, dave only dates jade because he feels bad for not liking her back, which leads to the relationship falling apart both times. remember the pin in dissociation? that’s what he’s doing here. karkat would be the opposite of jade. dave doesn’t let himself date karkat because dave hates himself, and more specifically, his attraction to men, which i’ll elaborate on later. this is what we call a character foil, aka two characters who have similarities so you can contrast their differences. think naruto and sasuke, or uh, deku and bakugo i guess? how do you do fellow kids? actually yeah! cause jade is green, and karkat is red blooded, which would symbolize how dave sees karkat as the “wrong” choice, while jade is the “right” one. the colors green and red are opposites, but jade and karkat are both of dave’s love interests in the epilogues. see? character foils! symbolism! personally, i refer to this as “star wars logic”, cause the good guys have green lightsabers, and the bad guys have red ones. this is definitely intentional, seeing as homestuck is littered with star wars references, like how HIC is basically just darth vader. meenah is also definitely a reference to darth maul, just look at her double sided weapon, or how they both die before getting to their respective thrones. i could keep going but it’s not really relevant to the discussion.

so right now you might be thinking “well you still didn’t explain how dave got assaulted tho”, and that’s fair. however, i wanna remind you that showing children porn against their will is 100% a form of CSA, same with sex paraphernalia, and especially forcing sex paraphernalia onto them. to do that to a child non-stop, in an environment they can’t escape, would have horrid effects psychologically, and dave displays almost every one of them, as you saw with the textual evidence above. so when dave can’t admit to himself that he he hates bro’s puppets, and more specifically the sex ones, it’s because doing so would force him to admit: a) what bro did to him was wrong & b) that he enjoyed it in some aspect. john even points out how weird bro’s affinity for puppets is weird and definitively not cool, which causes dave to immediately shut him down hardcore (more allegory).

speaking from experience, one of the worst parts of CSA is that you have no clue what’s going on. victims of assault often blame themselves, or feel guilty of what happened, and children lack the ability to tell what’s fully going on in the first place, due to their brains being underdeveloped, thus amplifying the guilt and blame. people often worry so much about the “man tricking kids with candy” because it’s the most pervasive p****ph*le you see in media (god i hate true crime culture), that people forget that 84% of csa happens in the home, 50% of the time it’s someone the child trusts, and 40% of time it’s family members specifically. even if 99% of your experience is terrible, you’ll still find a way to blame yourself for the 1% until you can properly process that you didn’t do anything wrong. this is what’s referred to as the “the myth of the perfect victim”.

i know this is “personal speculation”, but to me, it seems very apparent that dave is gay, and can’t come to terms with it because of his CSA trauma, hence his inability to just admit to himself he has a crush on john. every girl he dates in the main comic is quite literally the ONLY dateable girl in front of him, or usually the only girl in front of him at all, and all three girls have crushes on him/flirt with him WAY before he starts their relationships. and once again, he only dates jade in the epilogues due to his own guilt and dissociation, combined with her doing everything short of forcing herself onto him. compulsive heterosexuality is a major part of homestuck. for instance, hussie has confirmed via author’s notes that rose had a crush on dave when they were kids, and that something happened between them when they never learned they were siblings on davesprite’s timeline, yet hussie has also said that rose is a full on lesbian. that’s comphet, and it’s very intentional!

i also wanna take a moment to acknowledge that dave and rose are 100% nods to luke skywalker and princess leia, who also kiss before finding out they’re related. notice how dave fights with swords, like a lightsaber, and has the same hair as luke. meanwhile, rose’s seer of light powers are basically the same as leia’s force powers, and she uses most of her weapons as blasters, just like leia. i don’t think hussie was trying to be weird or add this stuff in for any unsavory reasons, like some people imply. there’s a reason all of this extremely vague, and not shown on screen. put a pin in that.

so in the same way the katanas in dave’s fridge symbolize bro prioritizing preparing dave for battle over what he actually needs (food and shelter), that’s how the puppets symbolize dave’s CSA. now, if you read dave and rose’s conversation about the sex puppets with that knowledge, it starts to paint the harrowing picture (again, allegory). it’s important to remember that rose had a canonically had a crush on dave at the time during this conversation, so she was probably just negging him the same way she negs her mom. she was upset because she knew that dave liked john, and probably was just gay in general, so he was never going to like her back. she’s definitely projecting her gayness (and love of puppets) onto dave too. again, all of this is definitely comphet lesbian behavior. all that’s to say, i’m not claiming she’s intentionally victim blaming him or anything during this scene. she’s just as much of a child as he is. put a pin in that too! i got sited sources coming, but i can only put so many goddamn words and images in a single post.

so, i see the sentiment shared a lot that hussie just tacked on the abuse stuff at the end, and that the beginning of homestuck “was just a silly comic at the beginning it’s not that deep”. that is an objectively ill informed take, and now you know why! the entirety of homestuck’s themes are exploring the effects of child abuse and neglect, hence the name, home stuck. there’s a reason the protagonist who is able to save everyone, also has a seemingly perfect home life. notably, the only other character who’s a completely well adjusted nice person is nepeta. she’s also the only character who’s able to free roam as she pleases, has a loving lusus, and ironically, is the only character without a home/hive to begin with. once she makes into the game, her land is quite literally her cup of tea as well. these definitely aren’t coincidences. i hope your allegory alarms are going off right now!

the only reason homestuck is sillier in the beginning is solely because it was a fan lead project for the first few acts. back in the day, there were forums dedicated for audience input to decide what happens next in the story. fun fact: this is how a lot the characters names were decided as well! so there’s a reoccurring bit where (insert beta kid) does (something stupid) and then the plot just moves on (i.e. john’s HILARIOUS antics). those were the silly suggestions sent in by the fan community! that was back when the homestuck community was still pretty small, all things considered. this explains the wonky pacing in the first few acts, and the more comedic tone.

moving on, the reason the puppets and the katana fridge are used as symbols, is because yeah, the tone would be way too dark if they played that straight. however, there’s another reason that’s way more important. remember how homestuck is written with a deep pov, aka unreliable narration? (please don’t kill me pedantics police!!!) hussie uses deep pov to display how homestuck chacters see their parents/lusii, in order to convey the themes of the story. stick around a bit longer and i’ll explain the theme of homestuck! just let me explain something real quick, so you get the big picture.

bro is shown in a positive zany light because that’s how dave sees him. to dave, bro is his whacky older brother, and sure he’s a little out there, but ninja battles and puppets are sick as fuck, right? well we as the audience know that’s NOT the case. again, dave is literally starved on screen, and gets the shit beaten out of him, also on screen. this parallels rose’s relationship with her mom, who gives her everything she could ever want and need, but doesn’t fulfill rose’s emotional needs, so rose sees her as a some sort of spiteful cartoon villain. dave even calls this out the second he sees all the wizard stuff rose got from her mom.

meanwhile, you can see rose admit to liking the puppets here, and she says she’s a fan of bro’s pornbot websites as well.

ultimately, they both want what each other has, but aren’t really able to fully grasp why their own parents did what they did, much less each other’s parents, which leads to them both envying the toxic part of each other’s households. i’m sure you’re starting to see the big picture with the puppets now, so to send the point home, remember that image i showed you during dave and bro’s strife? well, bro is attacking dave with a puppet, and dave wants to abscond, but can’t, perfectly paralleling dave’s abuse to a puppet. furthermore, that’s why he’s surrounded by sex puppets specifically, and they’re all throughout his apartment. it’s all symbolism for how dave is trapped in home dealing with CSA.

this is the purpose of allegory, telling you something without directly showing it. i doubt any of us think homestuck would be better if this stuff was depicted literally, for all the obvious reasons. i’ll close out with this dialogue since it shows what i mean better than i ever could myself:

DAVE: why did i get such a raw cut of the asshole deck? and why did it take me so long to figure that out? and like hes dead now so thats that. so all thats left to do is look back and try to put the pieces together of my first 13 years, and all i can think is what the fuck WAS that?!

DAVE: i dont come away with the impression i used to try convincing myself of, that he was like "mysterious" or "stern" or "aloof". the only feeling left is this insane impression that i was raised by somebody who fuckin HATED me, and the whole act of even "raising a child" was some totally fucked up game to him.

DIRK: What… did he do?

DAVE: i dont want to get out the laundry list, but for reference laundry wasnt one of those things. that was just one of the many little domestic things i just had to sort of FIGURE OUT. sorta like i eventually had to learn what the REAL purpose of a refridgerator was from movies.

DIRK: Wait. What???

DAVE: i dunno theres too much to even get into. just- i dont remember the atmosphere ever not being nerve wracking. all havin to sneak around and... ugh my shitty childhood spider senses are tinglin just thinking about it.

DAVE: it was "training" you know?

DAVE: but you know what it really was, it was some vicious shit that was bad and sucked and i hated it

DAVE: it didnt make me stronger

DAVE: it did the opposite

DAVE: it made me never want to fight

DAVE: it made me never want to see blood or be near danger or hear metal sounds

DAVE: it made me hate the idea of being a hero cause he was a hero and he ruined the idea of heroism

(…)

DAVE: i know how it sounds but i am NOT joking and there is NO shred of doubt in my mind that he loved all those puppets more than me

so uh, this essay is already long enough, and you definitely want me to just say the theme by now, so let’s explain the rest of this allegory in optional bullet points that you should definitely still read.

rose liking the puppets is symbolism for how emotionally neglected children often end up subconsciously “wanting” terrible things to them, like abuse or self harm, so they can justify their own unhappiness with their lives, due to them not understanding that their emotional needs aren’t being fufilled. again, the myth of the perfect victim, starting during childhood specifically. rose does this by convincing herself that her mom hates her, rather than seeing that her mom is trying her best to parent, and failing miserably. rose is also unaware of her mother’s alcoholism, which symbolizes how she doesn’t understand that her mother is emotionally neglecting her. this parallels how dave is seemingly caught off guard by dirk’s sexuality, and thus bro’s sexuality, due to dave not processing that his abuse is sexual in nature.

jade’s love of plushies parallels dave’s love, and eventual hatred, for puppets. (once again, notice the red vs green. character foils!) this is because her neglect causes her to become extremely immature. when she’s a kid, this mostly just manifests as her liking children’s toys, and speaking with a childish affectation. however, this immaturity goes unchecked, leading to the epilogues, where she completely ruins dave and karkat’s relationship for her own sexual desires (paraphrasing). you could say the same for her secretly getting rose pregnant in hs^2, knowing kanaya will be upset when she finds out. basically, she has a huge emotional disregard for everyone around her, which stems from her almost complete isolation for most of her childhood. once again, emotional neglect leading to regression, more specifically maturity regression in her case, which makes sense when you remember she grew up raised by an actual dog. and interestingly, dogs have low emotional intelligence compared to other animals. jade herself becomes part dog while going godtier, right as she has to go into further isolation during the three year journey. dogtier symbolism! jadesprite also throws a tantrum when she’s created, right after being combined with a dog. more symbolism!

dirk loving cal is an allegory how he can’t let go of his own self abuse, which becomes extremely literal when he cuts his head off. something something symbolism. this is also foreshadowing his eventual role as the villain of the story once he achieves his ultimate self, and begins thrusting abuse onto others. after going ult, dirk ends up pushing jane into presidency, thus allowing a troll genocide to happen. it’s also worth mentioning jane r*pes jake in the epilogues, and while knowing this, dirk still supports her because he believes “the ends justify the means” during all of this. now he’s officially just as bad as bro at this point. i also wanna point out that this, once again, this makes dirk a huge foil to dave, with both of them helping their respective presidential picks to win the election. i believe this is hinting that dave will eventually be the one to defeat dirk, thus finally not letting his bro have power over him, or anyone else for that matter. remember how dave is a reference to luke skywalker? well the main villain of homestuck^2 is his father figure from another timeline/universe, so at this point, it seems like dave will have to be the one to do the killing blow on dirk, the same way luke did to vader. only time will tell. pun intended bitch. also, dirk’s shade of orange is right in between dave’s, and the yellow bloods, possibly symbolizing how dirk is doomed by the narrative just like sollux, mituna, and the Ψiioniic, combined with his own self abuse.

roxy has seemingly no affinity or hatred for puppets, dolls, or plushes, foreshadowing her failed assassination attempt on the batterwitch, and her short lived alcoholism. however, she does still have a pile of cat and wizard plushes in her room. roxy is probably the third most well adjusted character in all of homestuck, and had a pretty nice childhood all things considered! obviously it wasn’t perfect though, hence the short bout of alcoholism. all that fits into my puppet theory pretty well, implying that roxy made it to the end of her game due to her lack of alcoholism, unlike her alpha self, but just like rose. her shade of pink being the middle ground of dave and rose’s makes sense as well.

on davesprite’s timeline, his sprite prototypes with cal, and one of the birds who never left his apartment, symbolizing how he was unable to escape the trauma of his abuse and homelife. also another easter egg! crows are the smartest bird, and one of the smartest animals in the animal kingdom. this is symbolizing how dave is actually the smartest member of his session, which makes sense due to the sheer amount of math he does for his sylladex, despite bro not bothering with his homeschooling. this is why davesprite’s wings are clipped, to symbolize how his neglect and abuse ultimately made him worse off, rather than “being the air beneath his wings”. actual dave notably fights with a clipped sword, can you guess what that symbolizes? (hint: bro clipped the sword)

john interestingly fits into this as well, due to him receiving a harlequin doll for his birthday, and it later prototyping his kernelsprite. john hates clowns, and is the main character, which interestingly foils gamzee, who loves all things clown, and is relegated to a joke background character. let’s just put another pin in john and gamzee for now! i promise it will pay off.

but most importantly, lord english is the referred to as “the 8ig 8ad” by vriska (not a coincidence! think about spidermom!!!), and lil cal himself is referred to as the “most important character in homestuck”. notably, lord english is also the mind behind lil cal. this symbolizes how abuse is a central theme of homestuck, and the last trial the characters must overcome. that’s why rose stops drinking after the retcon, and why dave starts… doing something with karkat?

so there’s a huge elephant in the room! if we’re discussing davekat, we have to to mention the contentious reveal scene, don’t we? forgive me, but we have to address all the little nuances of this. so uh, remember dave’s anxious speaking habit we’ve established? well he starts blabbering when karkat immediately brings up his old black feelings for john, most likely implying he’s a little jealous/insecure about that. this is pretty normal, cause he’s still teenager at the end of the day. you can see it specifically in these two lines:

DAVE: so are you SURE you still dont have these unreconciled blackrom feelings about john

DAVE: i say we air this out before it ferments into some rank and hella unexamined feeling sauce

see? remember what i said about dave having trauma responses? this is it. he’s just anxious karkat might still like john, thus ruining their relationship, or uh, situationship at the time. he also might be projecting his romantic attraction to john onto karkat as well. then, he rambles a bunch of incoherent bullshit when john asks what his sexuality is. karkat is extremely embarrassed by this part of the conversation, yet he was able to calmly discuss his old crush on john. so this all comes to a head with the following dialogue:

JOHN: did you... like, date any boys?

DAVE: uh

JOHN: but there weren't even that many boys on the meteor? well, there's the clown guy, but i don't really see you and him... that really only leaves... um, were you and karkat... ARE you and karkat, like. hmm.

this makes karkat officially loses it due to embarrassment, but i’ll spare you from that huge wall of text. next dialogue reads:

JOHN: dave, i'm pretty sure we're making karkat uncomfortable now.

DAVE: yeah maybe we should drop this

JOHN: ok.

so lets think. they aren’t dating, but they definitely did something kinda gay. notably, this parallels the “things” dave did with terezi pre-retcon, while still being tastefully vague. the idea that dave did some gay teenager shenanigans actually does make sense for his character arc, because it implies he’s comfortable enough now to try something like that now. though i do wanna emphasize that i’m not try to explicitly say they had sex, i’m just saying dave explored his sexuality. come to the conclusions you’re comfortable with here! hussie goes out of their way to not display or mention characters doing any sex acts while they are minors, and this is the closest we ever get to anything like that. there’s only one instance of making out even happening in homestuck, and it’s just jake making out with his avatar poster. well, unless you wanna count this i guess? considering everything we’ve gone over in this post, this is most definitely intentional.

through john’s retcons, the butterfly effect forces the dave and rose to address their respective childhood traumas, which leads to them being able to beat the game. same with davepetasprite finally giving jade the closure she needed right before she woke up. same with terezi fixing her relationship with vriska. karkat runs for president later, proving he’s got over his leadership trauma as well. that’s how you win sburb. john saving everyone with that retcon shows the central theme of homestuck: you can change at any point, and get through any hard times, as long as you have people in your life to help and support you. the retcon is great because it shows you how a timeline is doomed, so that way you can understand why they won.

EB: well to be honest, i never really believed any of your guys's doom and gloom nonsense. not because i think you are lying... i just feel like there must still be a way to win! (…) also, there is always hope for someone who has good friends to count on!

so when dave and karkat start getting together, and do “stuff” on the meteor, that’s all the tasteful way of saying: dave was able to process things, and become more comfortable with himself. again, this totally could’ve just been making out, come to the conclusions you want. the vagueness is intentional.

notably, vriska, dirk, jake, gamzee, and jane are the only surviving characters to not address their trauma at all by the ending, which leads into their current arcs in homestuck^2 (or lack thereof in gamzee’s case). there’s also one more character, who we’ve carefully left pins in until now….

it’s time to address june egbert. spare the torches and pitchforks please! i’ve done a ridiculous amount of research, and there still doesn’t seem to be a proper explanation for june egbert from either a homestuck fan or a creator behind homestuck, so i’ll bare the cross of this explanation. from here on out, i’ll still say both names interchangeably for pedantic reasons, but that’s solely because this is still in a weird state of schrödinger’s canon, and hs^2 is pretty much it’s own thing in itself. but i’m a trans woman so w/e. once again, spare the pitchforks! please!

the reason why her being trans works is because john/june spent the whole series so focused on saving everyone else, that she never focused on herself, or thought too deeply about anything. that’s kind of her thing, taking everything at face value, and not thinking too deeply about herself (i wonder why… ♾️). this is even pointed out by dave himself during The Davekat Scene™:

DAVE: ok i guess what im saying is… i dont think its all as simple as you think it is, or maybe not like ACTIVELY think it is but continue to assume it is on account of NOT thinkin about it much, due to a lot of junk about the subject that gets shoved into our brains from movies and stuff while we were just dumb kids

JOHN: i,

JOHN: hm.

so you see the set up here right? the character who i was referring to, who still hadn’t processed their childhood? it’s important to realize that june/john has never actually had a character arc herself, because her story is told via the hero’s journey structure, not a typical three act story structure like almost every other character receives in their arcs. ever notice how homestuck is constantly compared to the odyssey or the iliad? that’s why! this all means, june/john is a plot motivated character, rather than a self motivated one, again, like almost the rest of the entire cast. it makes sense for her to have to start self introspection once the game is over, she never really had the chance to while saving everyone else. interestingly, vriska’s arc is told in the format of the hero’s journey as well. dave/davebot’s arc in the epilogues and hs^2 is also told in the format of the hero’s journey. he seems to be in between “woman as the temptress” (aka jade) and the “atonement” stage, which would most definitely be finally seeing karkat again, something hs^2 is still building up to. this makes sense for all three characters, seeing as being a “hero” plays huge parts of all of their respective storylines.

i also wanna bring up the clown stuff again, and more specifically, gamzee. even more specifically, this amazing analysis by @abcq2:

before murderstuck, gamzee has no idea that he is a clown. sure, he anoints his face with greasepaint, rides a unicycle, and juggles, but these are serious religious sacraments to him. and, sure, sometimes he trips on his giant floppy shoes and lands face first in a pie, but that's just being blessed with a miracle, because he was just thinking about pie. and, sure, sometimes his friends say things like "HEY ASSHOLE. CLOWN ASSHOLE. YOU WORSHIP A CLOWN RELIGXON. FOR CLOWNS." to him, but he's too zonked on sopor slime to extract any meaning from it. when gamzee sees the ICP miracles video, he's too sober to dismiss it as a mere coincidence; for once, he gets the joke, and realises that he was the butt of the joke the whole time. he understands that every time he fell face first in a pie, it was the work of an unsen riddler. he grasps that he is, in a cosmic sense, a clown, and hates it. (…) when the murder spree is over, gamzee's beatific grin returns; no longer a look of blank ignorance, but a knowing smirk. he's successfully ruined his character forever - no one wants to see him and no one thinks he's funny. hussie seems to say: jesus you are such a shitty clown. and gamzee's impassive face seems to say: i know. gamzee refuses to clown out of spite, and hussie refuses to remove gamzee from the story out of spite. it's a committed relationship of reciprocal, mutual antagonism. what i'm saying is that hussie and gamzee ar-

once again, all credit for this gamzee analysis goes to @abcq2, please check them out!!!

so i’ll cut straight to the chase, mostly due to me getting close to tumblr’s character limit. the clowns are an allegory/symbol of being transgender. it’s impossible to ignore. remember that game i told you about? psycholonials? if you’ve ever played it, you’d know that clowns and transgenderism are tied up together in one big scene. i won’t spoil the game, it’s really good! check it out! this parallels homestuck, where june has always been associated clowns. not a coincidence. once you fit gamzee into this equation, it’s clear that gamzee’s “clown” dysphoria is a stand in for gender dysphoria. read the analysis above one last time and tell me i’m wrong. hussie themself has only posted themself in clown makeup since 2020, this started exactly half a year before they unofficially came out as non-binary via a homestuck announcement. they also tweeted that they use any pronouns shortly afterwards, on a private (?) twitter account. it’s also worth mentioning that one of the few of photos of hussie that we have, they were in ICP/juggalo stuff just like gamzee, and this photo was taken in october of 2010, mere months after gamzee’s introduction, and possibly a month or less after act 5 act 1 was finished. if you know anything about this image, or tumblr user @dead12234352356456775, please message me! this blog is the earliest place the picture can be tracked to, and i’d love to ask OP if they know anything about this image. hussie has notably referred to themselves “clown gender” as well. it’s unclear to me whether hussie actually likes icp, or if this is one huge coming out ARG, but either way, clowns = trans, got it?

so when john/june have a clown sprite following her around, it’s an allegory for how the trans stuff is literally in her face, but she can’t understand it!

“but there’s no textual evidence of john wanting to be a girl!!” see, we’ve officially waded deep all the way into the murkey grey waters of nuance. so if you don’t know, june is the embodiment of what us trans women refer to as the “pre-egg crack”, aka, the phase before you realize you’re trans. this phrase applies to all trans people, but trans women use/identify with it the most, just cause we usually come out way later, usually around say, 20-23, like john/june is by the end of homestuck! huh, what a coincidence. in all seriousness, this is because most trans women start their transitions when they first live on their own. john/june’s also a computer scientist by hobby, something a lot of trans women do. this is because trans women are one of the smallest minority groups, so we usually have to go resort to online communities to talk to each other. this is also necessary for a lot of us, due to research on hrt not really being as advanced as it should be, and the fact transitioning is still illegal/hard to access in a lot of areas. trans women are also likely to stay inside on our computers cause yknow… dysphoria. plus computer jobs often have decent pay, low barrier to entry, and require little to no interaction with other people in person, making them perfect to both medically and socially transition. sure, june never outright says “i want to wear a dress” or laments about dysphoria, but again, homestuck is by adults for adults. the story shouldn’t have to explain something like this to you. the only reason you had the impression that there’s no evidence of john being trans is because you weren’t educated on the subject matter, but now you are!

“you’re just projecting onto this character!!!” and you are too! again, that’s how everyone engages with art. to think you don’t do the same yourself is foolish. utter poppycock even! however, i really despise this sentiment. the fact i’m a trans woman makes me the most qualified to speak on this subject, not the other way around. who are you to speak on the experiences of trans women? exactly. i’m tired of us trans women being berated for headcanoning characters as trans women, even when it’s extremely obvious why we do as such. it’s always the boils back down to the same bullshit in response: “well actually YOU’RE the transphobic one for saying all trans women look/act the same!!!” *sigh* that is literally the definition of an identity. you sound dumb, and are speaking over actual trans women, whose opinions are infinitely more important than yours when it comes to this subject. this is literally just the “what is a woman” debate repackaged with the guise of liberalism. it’s annoying.

“all this june stuff came out of nowhere!!!” this headcanon became prevalent during the pandemic, where tons of trans people were able to start their transitions! i did this myself, and so did hussie. doesn’t seem so random now, does it?

“hussie is just doing this for woke/fandom points!!!” uh, and what would they be gaining by making john trans? if this was about making money, wouldn’t the merch link on the official website work? hussie makes visual novels now, and has removed themselves from homestuck as much as feasibly possible, while still maintaining their ownership of the IP. not exactly the most lucrative career path. and if you’re implying hussie is adding any element to homestuck simply to please fans (yes, that includes davekat), you obviously know nothing about hussie. go on reddit, read ANY responses to the epilogues, or the plot of homestuck^2, and tell me when you find the tons of people happy with their contents. oh, and see how homestuck fans feel about kankri and cronus while you’re at it. i’ll wait.

“okay but the toblerone stuff is dumb!!!” at no point before the june wish did hussie say that finding a toblerone would give the finder the power to make a canon-altering wish. as you can see here, all of the wishes weren’t even granted, some of which have no impact on canon at all. if hussie wanted to, they were well within their rights to go “yeah no, this is dumb, sorry” when the wish for june egbert was sent in. this means that june egbert already fit into hussie’s idea of canon, and as i’ve already pointed out, june egbert has properly been foreshadowed, so this all adds up. the idea that hussie “turned john transgender because of a toblerone” is an exaggeration of events perpetuated by losers misguided and ill informed fans. hussie has been sent an insurmountable amount of headcanons over the years, and aysha u farah, who has had major involvement for multiple homestuck projects over the years, has said “the only headcanon i've ever seen andrew get excited about is june egbert” on a now defunct podcast called perfectly generic podcast. (forgive me, but any links to the specific episode i’m finding no longer work due to their official website no longer working. i’m not listening to hundreds of hours of an archived podcast for this minuscule of a clip. be my guest if you want to take that on! once again, message me, and i’ll update this section.)

either way, based on everything we know, june egbert is canon because hussie wanted this prior to the toblerone wish, because if the wish contradicted or retconned canon, it wouldn’t have been granted in the first place. simply put, june egbert is canon because it’s want hussie wanted to begin with, and the wish came after that. once again, the sheer amount of foreshadowing here should be more than enough proof, and if you want more even more proof of june egbert foreshadowing, check out this blog post! it’s great!

“well it’s dumbledore logic!!!!!!!!!” is it though? j.k. rowling is a transphobic bigot, who’s works cost money to access, who confirmed dumbledore was gay only after he died, and then she still straight-washed him in future harry potter media. hussie is an actual trans person, running an indie project, who wrote one of the longest literary works in the entire english language, made it all free to access, supports all fan archives, and hasn’t even ended homestuck^2, where john/june is very much alive. and once again, the wishes were to add something to post canon content specifically, without shifting the canon of the main series. homestuck^2 is still updating, and as far as we know now, more projects are on the way, like the completion of hs^2 and hiveswap. these situations have almost nothing in common aside from deriving from twitter. if you’re mad about this, were you mad when jake was confirmed to be brazilian in a youtube livestream comment? or when gamzee’s red crush on tavros was confirmed via a dubiously canon comic? probably not. eh, maybe you were actually, i don’t know you. either way, feel how you wanna feel about jake being brazilian, i don’t care, but you can’t say there was “nothing building up to june egbert” now that you’ve read this essay. the dumbledore comparison is dumb as hell.

“well i’m trans and i don’t feel represented by june!!!” if you’re “feeling unrepresented” by june, it’s probably just because you’re not a trans woman obsessed with computer science. that’s just you not relating to the character. it’s really not much deeper than that. and on that point…

“well i just don’t like this!!!” with all due respect, you seriously need to put thought into why that is. i can’t think of a single non-transphobic to be upset about a character transitioning in a story. and again, homestuck is one of the longest literary works in the entire language, and is completely free to access. in all of homestuck history, not a single product was sold under the guise that “john will be cisgender forever” or “dave will not end up with karkat” or “jake will never be brazilian”. hussie doesn’t owe anyone any part of their story’s canon. it’s their story, full stop, and if you’re mad about that, you’re entitled to something that was never yours to begin with. not all art is made purely for your consumption, and free art is especially not made for your consumption. can you critique it? absolutely. there’s a big difference between criticism and bashing though. if you don’t like any part of homestuck, write a fan fiction, make some fanart, or write an oddly soapboxy essay about your personal fan theories and headcanons. turn that negative energy to make something positive! i’m being serious! hussie themself encourages this!!!

“okay but it’s still lame the davekat stuff happened off screen” i can agree to a certain extent, but dave and karkat’s relationship plays a major part in the epilogues, as well as homestuck^2, and that’s not even unpacking their weird borderline black rom dynamics pre-retcon. to act as though their romance starts and stops during one intermission really downplays how seriously their relationship is taken throughout the homestuck series.

“okay but isn’t a lot of that stuff dubiously canon?” baby, everything is canon. hussie has said so themself. there are infinite possibilities for what could have happened during homestuck, so maybe we should just focus on the fact it’s taken seriously at all? honestly, the line between dubiously canon and actual canon is paper thin. homestuck^2’s entire plot is currently deconstructing what canon even means. if you wanna only see the main series as canon, be my guest, but the accusations of homophobia and queerbaiting over the davekat reveal are a little ridiculous. their relationship plays a major part in all homestuck content for years now. also, big reminder that, with the reveal of june egbert, there’s now only one canonically straight character from the main series, and she’s a villain now, so…

“well you’re just strawmanning me now!!!” my loyal reader, i understand you are a human being with infinite nuances i will never be able to understand, cause quite frankly, i have no clue who you are to begin with. i don’t think everyone who hates davekat or june egbert is some anti-lgbt bigot. i’m just here to set the record straight, and provide context for people who are willing to listen. a lot of this shit is confusing, and there’s misinformation a plenty out there. most people who are participating in this discussion clearly haven’t bothered reading homestuck for years at this point, possibly even a decade. and that’s fair, most of us read it as kids, and probably stopped by the final update, if not sooner. honestly, i think the main issue here is that people are playing the telephone game via fandom discourse. that’s how we went from “hussie supports june egbert” to “hussie made john being transgender canon cause of a candy bar” in the first place. if you’re participating in this discussion, maybe try rereading homestuck before you let your vague memories of reading the comic years ago define your current day opinions? besides, i’m not delusional enough to think any bigots are going to read this post and be convinced, but i’m sure i can open up the minds and eyes of people who are willing to listen! give homestuck a reread, imagine how much more foreshadowing has gone unnoticed over the years!

i feel the need to be so thorough, bust out so many references, break down every bit of nuance, and speak from my own experiences, because inevitably, a small group of people are gonna read this post and still go “it’s not that deep! they’re just puppets! june egbert is a bunch of sjw malarkey!!!”, and to those people, i hope you stop making fandom spaces miserable because you didn’t wanna pay attention in english class. media analysis is a necessary tool, and i’m sorry our education system here in america failed both you and i. (or maybe your a non-american country has english classes as terrible as ours? idk.)

honestly, i think i read like five or six books in throughout of all high school. i failed english my freshman year, and dropped out by my senior year. there’s always room to grow though! look at how i’m able to write this essay now! all you have to do is just watch some video essays that break down your favorite movies, tv shows, books, and more!!! there’s tons of jackasses like me who will lament about their hyperfixations. plus, now you already know what symbolism, the rule of three, and allegories are! before you know it YOU’LL be the one noticing all of the easter eggs in the media you enjoy, just like us the rest of us pretentious media analysis fuckheads.

i’m sure all of us are old enough to remember how exciting it was when rosemary was first confirmed, or when the dirkjake kiss happened, or all the recent stuff with davekat. and guess what, june egbert is going to be that lots of young trans women! after reading all of this, is hating june egbert the hill you’re gonna die on?

you know, hussie practically uses homestuck as their personal diary. i don’t think anyone’s denying that. it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why they want their main character to be trans, or why they wanted dave to end up with karkat. maybe you’re just not willing to understand it? if we’re allowed to project on to these characters, then why won’t you let hussie?

if you got to the bottom of this post, thanks for reading! i might turn this into a video essay if i’m being honest, but if you wanna repost this, or make your own response, please just credit me! also check out my homestuck fanworks if you like this post, i’m sure you’ll like them too!!! i don’t really have anything else to promote so uh…. if you’re on the homestuck^2 team and read this…pleasefortheloveofgodiwouldkilltoworkonanofficialhomestuckprojectidontevencarewhowhenwhenwhereorhowbutillsettleforanytjingpLEdareplelaplwlalsplelallaldle

in all seriousness, thanks for reading! i doubt this post will take off simply due to how long it is. i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions on this, or possibly make mutuals to yap with even! dear lord i miss having friends to talk about homestuck with. also sorry for the censors, normally i wouldn’t bother with something like that, but i’ve been working on this non-stop for the past few days, so i don’t wanna risk it being taken down.

anyways….. THAT’S why i have the bro strider tag muted 😭

(EDIT ON 9/15/24: added a new source i found and fixed some minor grammatical errors)

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takemetodragonstone · 1 month ago

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in succession 2x08 dundee when logan says “the past is all made up” i really do think that’s the thesis of the entire show btw.

like, the roy kids’ conflicting memories of their childhoods that are never clarified through any kind of flashbacks or confirmation, the entire fucking cruises scandal and the coverups of major crimes, kendall’s accident and how he even tries to rewrite the past in the finale (“that didn’t happen. I made it up”) as logan so often did in both big and small ways (from denying his knowledge of the cruises crimes before congress to small moments of “I told you this already” and “did I even make contact?”)

the fucking poem Dreamsong 29 by John Berryman that all the season finales are named after. this is just the last stanza:

“But never did Henry, as he thought he did, / end anyone and hacks her body up / and hide the pieces, where they may be found. / He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing. / Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. / Nobody is ever missing.”

And we never have real confirmation that logan did know about cruises because the characters (minus kendall) deny it to the last. but we know. we keep our plausible deniability because we don’t know, but we know. the show essentially makes us complicit in the same way that the characters are. most of them don’t know that he knew, because they never had any explicit proof, but as kendall says in season 3 “C’mon. We knew.”

the narrative continually shows us that logan “keeps a watchful eye over his whole empire” with perhaps the best example being how he buries the evidence of kendall’s accident and manslaughter at the end of season 1. that’s a very clear parallel to the cruises situation and that’s so skillfully and subtly woven throughout season 2 when the cruises scandals are coming to light and kendall is still reeling from the accident and his guilt.

and all that’s not even touching on the whole matter of ATN and the debate over how involved logan really is in what news stories and political views his network pushes (which could be a whole separate post of its own). very similar to how the cruises thing is handled, the line is always that logan isn’t involved, while the narrative shows us otherwise.

there are a million other examples both big and small that i could pull but this post is already such a disorganized mess. someday i’ll write an essay about it i swear, or maybe somebody else out there already has, but i just needed to point out how brilliant and subtle the show is about this as i’m rewatching season 2

#feel free to add on to this if you have more examples!!#or more analysis!!#this is by no means comprehensive or complete #it’s just food for thought so please feel free to engage #i may add to it myself in the future #succession #logan roy #kendall roy #succession meta #ro speaks #ro rambles incoherently about succession #insert the charlie always sunny pepe silvia meme here #that’s what it feels like to think about this beautiful harrowing television show

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whoishotteranimepolls · 5 months ago

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This might count as Defend your Blurbo. If not, would you please use this as a Defend your Blurbo post

Attention, One Piece Fandom, I know there are a lot of you. I'm debating on whether or not to start One Piece, but there's one thing that has kept me from giving the show a chance for years, and that is Nami and Robin. They are drawn without internal organs.

So I'm scared I have been burned by anime before, especially Shonen, where they will have female characters with really cool character designs they hyped up as being some of the strongest characters but need to be saved every other Arc, or they're actually really cool and then get killed off quickly or I have the most basic generic backstory and their only personality trait is simp. Or, for some reason, in the universe, all the female characters just so happen to all choose to be healers. It's like that isn't just a coincidence and somewhat sexist. Or they're just weak in general.

So One Piece fandom, are the female characters actually well-developed and unique characters even though they happen to be drawn like that? So this is less a defense of Nami and Robin and just a defense of the female characters in general. But I know Nami and Robin are the main two, so you are welcome to use other examples of female characters I have not heard of from the show. I'm curious to see what everyone comes up with, but I'm still a little scared again. Shonan doesn't have an excellent track record with female characters. The only Shonen I think that truly did a fantastic job with its female characters has been Black Clover.

I am not worried about spoilers if they help make your point, and with how long your show is, by the time I get to that particular part, I probably would have forgotten about it. That is, if I do decide to start One Piece, and if I start, do you recommend reading the manga or watching the anime? Which is better?

Defend Your Blurbo #11

Please remember this post is about curiosity and genuine fandom discourse. Be kind with your answers because this is not a debate essay, this is a discussion between fans.

Here's a photo of Nami and Nico Robin for those of you who are not familiar with the characters

I don't think anyone will argue with the anon about One Piece female characters being drawn like they don't have internal organs. It's even worse with other characters like Boa Hancock and progressively worsens post time skip.

However, Oda may not be able to draw female characters, but he can write them. I'll let the One Piece fandom explain that part remember they said they don't mind spoilers, but I would still prefer if you would put a spoiler warning for everyone else who may be worried about spoilers.

So One Piece Fandom Defend your Blurbos

#defend your blurbo #cat burglar nami #one piece nami #nami #nico robin #one piece #anime #not a poll

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mrfartpowered · 5 months ago

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you don’t hate Howard, you hate fatphobic tropes

Here at Mr Fart Powered Dot Com, I’m a long-time hater of the “fat best friend” trope and a long-time lover of jerkass characters, so I think I’m uniquely qualified to comment on this LOL

The biggest critiques I see of Howard are as follows: he’s gross, he’s stupid, he’s selfish, he’s lazy. Below the cut, I deconstruct each of these four criticisms not as faults of Howard, but faults of the writing, largely as a result of fatphobia.

These are all traits associated with the fat idiot trope, popularized by Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. Think about any other character who possess all of the above characteristics. Far more often than not, they’re a fat character. Plenty of non-fat characters possess any of those traits individually — selfishness, stupidity, laziness, and grossness are not exclusive to fat characters. Nor do they inherently make a character 'bad,' irredeemable, or otherwise unlikeable! But all too often, especially in dated media, we see this flimsy, weak writing apply to the fat villain...or the fat comic relief...or the fat best friend.

Howard falls victim to these ugly, annoying 'fat guy' tropes whenever the writing is in need of a cheap laugh, or when they need to make Randy look extra good. Howard does have unique, interesting traits, but they are painfully underutilized in exchange for role fulfillment as the comic relief.

Stupidity

Contrary to what the show wants us to believe, Howard is not a complete idiot. His intelligence may not be of the academic variety (and even this is debatable), but I would argue he is more clever than Randy. Of the two of them, Howard's got more common sense. Randy misinterprets almost every lesson the Nomicon gives him, while H quickly understands each riddle he gets the chance to know about. (See “a ninja’s choice must be chosen by his own choosing,” “don’t go in someone else’s house,” “when facing an unfamiliar foe, seek an unlikely ally.”)

You could argue against this point in Shloomp! There It Is, where he literally gets to see the lesson as it is presented in the nomicon and doesn’t get it. But I’d argue that this was purposeful mischaracterization in order to further the plot, a point which will unfortunately recur in this essay. The writers care more about Howard as a tool than as a character, but instead of using the capabilities they build within him, they default to stereotypes.

Where conventional academics are concerned, we have one concrete example of his abilities: Howard is incredible at chess. It’s the iconic nerd game; it requires strategy, careful thinking, and the ability to predict your opponent’s moves. Who cares that he doesn't know the pieces' names? Who cares that he doesn’t abide by typical strategies? He can kick artificially-intelligent ass at the game, not to mention follow someone else's plays the way most people follow a football game.

And he's got street smarts that save Randy's ass on multiple occasions. He's more sociable, a better liar, and a quick thinker in stressful situations. Much of this particular point is pulled from @cunningweiner ‘s brain, who pointed out that Howard is really well-received by crowds (Heidi’s MeCast, the talent show, the Tummynator). Another interesting instance of this is Howard’s time as the Ninja — both the fake monster drill ninja, and the actual Ninja. He may not have accomplished his duties as a hero, but the onlookers Absolutely Ate Up his crowd work. He’s not the most physically willing guy around, but he knows how to appeal to an audience. His major flaw in remaining a well-liked public figure is that his ego gets real damn big, real damn fast. But he’s 15! If you blame a teenager for having empathy and esteem issues, I don’t know what to tell you.

Despite his emotional immaturity, Howard is wise beyond his years as a businessman. Before we move forward, I need to tell you: look at this section purely from a business standpoint. You have to forget morals, you have to forget standards, this is Disney XD meta and we are analyzing a man named Weiner, okay?

Okay. Howard embarks on a total of three business endeavors throughout this show, and each one is highly successful. Ninja Agent, weapon reseller, and McFist-o-plex manager. He embodied “work smarter, not harder” every time. Being an agent takes social skill and smooth talking, and clearly he appealed to a wide range of clients (not to mention earned their trust! What would you say if someone called you up and said “yeah, I manage Superman. Want him to appear in a commercial for you?”). Being a manager requires delegation skills and good memory. Reselling Ninja weapons is honestly just genius and I can’t believe he’s the first guy to do it.

Everyone around Howard, and Big H himself, views him as a dumbass. But time and time again, the episodes show us his mental capabilities! Imagine how much fun the writers could’ve had if they’d leaned on a lazy genius trope instead of a fat idiot.

Grossness

I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t think of a single thin character who relies on gross-out humor. Take, for example, Total Drama, a franchise with a bodily diverse cast and a heavy emphasis on gross-out humor. I mean, there’s an entire episode in the original season where every single character pukes onscreen. TD overall utilizes irreverent humor, but while grossness is a major player, it is not the only source of comedy.

And then you’ve got Owen, the only fat character in the original cast. His whole shtick is being fat, greedy, and nasty. Other characters will fart and burp and overeat — all things that Owen does frequently — but they also have other gags. Maybe they’re bitchy, or they’re geeky, or they’re a literal convict. Owen does not enjoy the luxury of character depth. He is only good for grossing out the audience. (Side tangent: Owen has notably made me laugh out loud a handful of times over the course of the four seasons he featured in. But guess what! Every single one of those laughs was begotten from a rare moment when, instead of farting or burping or eating something he shouldn’t, the writers stepped outside the ‘Owen zone’ and gave him a joke unrelated to his fatness. Fatphobic humor is truly a plague.)

I know I’m being a bit heavy-handed, but I want to emphasize how similar that is to RC9GN! Randy does schnasty shit too sometimes, but he gets to be funny in other ways. Grossness is Howard’s primary mode of comedy. During my first watch-through of the show, I remember being outraged at Howard’s tendency to eat Randy’s food, which, of course, was followed by digestion noises or farts. I was too angry to write down which episodes, but I counted four separate instances where they used that exact convention specifically to get Randy angry at Howard, thus catalyzing the episode’s storyline. (At some point I will have to go back and fact-check that, but we’re 900 words deep at this point and this has been in my drafts for over a month, so we move forward for now okay!!)

We do get to see flashes of other humor from Howard, especially into Season 2! His cleverness and apathy make for hilarious setups. But even these instances are undercut by something foul. An example that comes to mind is Fear Factor, a perfectly fine episode — one that I love quite a lot — except for the very last gag. Really? Howard gets to be normal-funny the entire episode, until the last minute? The idea that his biggest fear is running out of food literally only works because he is fat. Had this joke been given to any other character, it probably wouldn’t have even made it to storyboards. Even worse, if Howard had not been fat, this joke would never have been conceptualized in the first place. It is almost as if the writers are trying to hit a quota of gross-out jokes for Howard. At a certain point, my anger morphed to pure disappointment. That’s how disheartening it is to see.

Selfishness

Okay, Howard Weinerman is selfish. I'll give you that. But just because he's self-centered does not make him a bad person. May I bring to mind Gumball Watterson, Marcy Wu, Louise Belcher? All are textbook examples of selfish characters, and frequently act in their own best interest, but are ultimately good people. I mention them as proof that characters can have negative defining traits without sacrificing the audience’s sympathy.

Here's where I really get frustrated with RC9GN’s writing... They want to portray Howard as a jerk with a heart of gold — such as in Debbie Meddle — but they always undercut his few selfless moments with a gross-out gag, or a rude offhand comment, usually directed at Randy. Sometimes, Randy will reciprocate, in which case I give it a pass. There, the grossness or general assholery showcases their friendship, instead of putting Howard down for a stale laugh.

But like I said, that’s the ‘sometimes.’ The ‘often’ is every time we see him almost embody the ‘heart of gold’ part of his attempted archetype, only to be thrown out the window for a lame gag. A specific example is in “Bro Money Bro Problems,” where Howard has cash to spare for once. He immediately opts to spend it on Randy!….until Randy shloomps into the nomicon, then comes out to find that Howard spent everything he had on the Food Hole’s dinner menu. Sure, this was used to set the rest of the episode in motion. They run out of money, but they need more, so they go out and sell ninja weapons. But here’s the thing: for the rest of the episode, Howard spends his money on both him and Randy, rather than just himself, effectively making that dinner menu joke inconsistent with his characterization.

“Well how else would they set the episode in motion?” They could spend it all on arcade games. Or they spend it all at the boardwalk both times. OR, they are just excitable teenagers who realize, hey, this shit is lucrative! Let’s go get rich! Boom. Fixed your episode, fixed your Howard, fixed your fatphobia.

Laziness

Over and over again, the show tries to tell us that Howard is a lazy piece of shit. Other characters regard him as such, and honestly, so does Howard himself. But I would argue that he is no lazier than your average teenager — not to mention, no lazier than Randy! The difference is that for Howard, the writers intertwine his laziness with his alleged stupidity. They try to convince the audience that Howard is too stupid to care what’s going on.

However, this trait is unique from the other three, because I think this one manages to give him depth. Or at least, in my heart of hearts, it has the potential to do so. This characteristic lends to Howard’s most clever jokes, I think, because ultimately:

Howard is capable, but apathetic.

From the earliest episodes, it is established that he aims for minimum effort, maximum benefit. There’s the bit where Randy asks Howard to come up with the plan for once, and they both laugh at the idea of Howard doing the heavy lifting. Or even all the way into “Mort-al Kombat,” he says people are ‘really handing him the answers today’ when Randy puts in the work to get Howard ungrounded.

But just because Howard prefers not to do any work, doesn’t mean he won’t! And when he does put in effort, the results show that he is damn good at what he does. His time as Le Beret more than proves this point: from his ability to work under the radar, to the plans he forms, to the knowledge he has about Mort’s job & McFist Industries that allows him to get all the cool equipment he uses. We also see his skills and capability in “Debbie Meddle” (the ninja dummy), “Viva El Nomicon” (learning Spanish quickly), “Secret Stache” (commitment to the bit), “The Ninja Identity/Supremacy,” and more.

He very much operates under the mindset of ‘work smarter, not harder.’ He’ll get the job done if he has to. He’ll excel at the job if it benefits him. This is a really interesting character mechanic that would have been so much fun to explore. Like I said so many times above, though, the writers most often choose to undercut his abilities in favor of comedic expense.

Conclusion

Howard, in comparison to Randy, is obviously a lot harder to root for. Overall, Randy is a more conventional character with conventional flaws. Like most duos in media, the sidekick juxtaposes the hero — I would even argue that Howard, in some ways, is Randy in reverse. Randy is highly moral, but still has a lot of learning to do skill-wise; Howard is already extremely capable, but also very amoral. Because of this, the narrative places Randy at a higher value than Howard — which, yknow, fair enough! He is the protag, and that’s a great setup for a protagonist. But simply by virtue of being fat, Howard is not treated with the same level of respect as other sidekick/best friend characters.

For all his quirks and flaws, Howard is not a supremely unique character. His basic core aligns with so many other characters. But because the writers lean on his fatness, instead of leaning into his potential and his complexities, it is much harder to root for him — and it strips him of originality. I love this show with all my heart, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t mind the way it treated Howard. He had so much potential, even as the show was airing, and I will forever be upset that the crew squandered it on fatphobic tropes.

#howard weinerman #rc9gn #randy cunningham 9th grade ninja #character analysis #rc9gn meta #also I HAAAATED howard for most of s1 it took me a long time to warm up to him #trust that I have really mulled this over #this isnt randy hate either btw. dont anyone go putting words in my mouth #UPDATE: dudes…..I’ve been working on this for over two months now #on and off #and I’m STILL not happy w it 😭😭#but I have GOT to post it so. PLS lmk ur thoughts ur comments ur questions….#I loooove ninja meta. teehee #ninj-originals

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