#i think because it's kinda presented as a Big Tragic Romance and im just.

[variousqueerthings]

watching this Paul Gross thing he did in the 80s (chasing rainbows) and ive been enjoying it despite the knowledge that there'd be some kind of a het love triangle thing going on and that the other two characters simply aren't that interesting, but. oh boy. is... is the woman in this constellation meant to be read as a villain???

(ME DOING A BREAKDOWN ABOUT A SHOW NOBODY WATCHED AND NOBODY WILL WATCH ✌)

PG character -- a working class man who is fundamentally good to everyone in trouble he meets, to the detriment of himself more often than not, but scraping by until he gets his big break (which he also works very hard for) and becomes the owner of a relatively successful nightclub

other two characters -- come from rich backgrounds and sort of suck him into their lives by the coincidence of the two men having been at the front in WWI and PG saving the other guy's life and consistently don't realise he's got way more working against him than they do

the lady in this situation initially dumping said other guy "to find herself" when he comes back from the war, which, fair, it's 1919, she's going to college, she wants to be sure she can make informed choices, chill enough

said lady imprinting on our working class heroic character, because he's working class. i just. cannot read it any other way. she clocks him as such at a party (that he was invited to as a veteran) straight away, insults him, throws water in his face when he doesn't take it, but simultaneously is into the whole idk... rugged unpolished nature of him

discovers a diary written during the war with poetry in it that she presumes was written by him -- steals the book and reads it out loud to her college friends and is offended that he's not flattered by this

despite numerous protests that he didn't write the poetry (and he didn't, it was written by a kid he tried to save who was later shot in front of him for desertion), she just doesn't believe him, because she desperately wants him to have the "hidden depths of a poet" or some nonsense. never mind his actual good traits -- his kind-heartedness, his tenacity, his savvy, his sense of humour, nonono she wants a Poet

also, she is a failed playwright. she writes terrible plays about things she doesn't understand (including the war), asks his opinion and is offended when he (under duress) admits he doesn't think they're very good

and now she fucking... copied down the poems without his knowledge and published them under his name with an article she wrote about said hidden poetic depths!!!! gets incredibly offended when he is upset about this, first of all with a "I thought you'd be pleased" then with a "you should be happy for me for getting an article I wrote published in a major newspaper!" (because at the end of the day it's about her)

he initially -- not knowing how to handle the situation -- goes along with it, because what do you do now? go to the publishers and say it wasn't you? out yourself in the news?? I mean??? but pretty quickly re-emphasises He Did Not Write Those Poems!

the plot then mysteriously seems to pivot into saying it was his fault for "stringing her along" because the "hidden poet" bit was the only thing she really liked about him... and she vehemently denies this (but girl, tell me one other thing that draws you to him, and you can't say because he's pretty!) and says he's hurt/betrayed her by lying. i just... don't know... if the plot... is writing her like this because she's meant to be a self-absorbed college girl who has her working class dream-boat fantasy get broken, or if it's meant to be presented as him having betrayed her. it is. unclear

and now she's threatening to write a new article about how he's a fraud. im just. waiting for the plot to point out that she's done all of this herself and she also won't suffer for any of it in the way he will...

this boy can do better than these rich kid tourists 😔

[prcphetess]

greetings ladies, theydies, n gaydies !  it’s officially pride month / my birth month which means my power and chaos are both at their absolute highest so i apologize in advance :/  ANYWAY i’m hannah, i’m twenty but only for a couple more weeks, i’m kickin it in the est, n i use she/her pronouns !  now onto what you’re all here for ...

enter LOURDES CLEMONTE .

her app / bio are kind of Wild Rides but if ur in the business of reading i did send her app in the discord server n i also have Just her bio linked on her navigation tab as well as a stats page !! but i’ll try my best to summarize all the important stuff here !

also before we get started .. a quick TW for child loss, non-descriptive mentions of grooming, sexual harassment/assault, abuse, car crashes, n death and i THINK that’s everything

HISTORY.

it all started w her dad .. leopold clemonte.. in summary: fuck that guy !

he’s a hot shot author turned movie writer man but in order to gain all of his success he had to make a series of shady deals w none other than our petty king apollo

deal #1 was the life of her twin brother :(

deal #2 was her mother’s sanity aka she became like.. a ghost essentially who no longer speaks or interacts w anyone it’s very sad

deal #3 was meant to be lourdes 

now to backtrack a minute, our girl lou went to school to become a playwright bc her whole life she was desperate to make herself seem worthy to her father n unfortunately leopold knew this and used it to his advantage when apollo demanded he pay off his debt

leopold essentially groomed her to please apollo and promised that she would have a hand in his business forever if she could do tht so she was like okay :)

until .. apollo’s price got too high... u know... n she dared to say no and for that she was Punished

aka cursed

but more about that later

anyway bc she royally pissed off apollo by rejecting him, leopold ALSO lost all his help in being famous and had to turn to a famously wealthy family in california known as the grimaldis 

in order to get them to fund him, he forced lourdes to marry their son brooks who was Not A Nice Man 

2 years into their marriage brooks died in a car accident tht lou Might have caused.. for legal reasons i can neither confirm nor deny whether tht happened but the police didn’t charge her so do with tht what you will 

but she kind of went on the run anyway bc post-curse her doctors were like “nah this bitch is straight up crazy” and she knew her dad wasnt gonna b happy with her for another deal going sour so .. she ran !  and she’s kinda been hotel hopping between towns for the last 3 years trying her best not to interact w anyone !

CURSE.

lou’s curse is all abt prophecy baby !

okay so basically she can see the future of things/objects via touching them which was a whole big symbolic thing in the app bc she “deceived” apollo w her hands .. idk man here’s the line from the bio tht says it best

he  binds  her  wrists  and  says  because  it  was  your  hands  you  used  to  lie ,  now  your  hands  will  see  the  truth  as  he  renders  her  incapable  of  touching  anything  or  anyone  without  foreseeing  an  imminent  doom .  you  will  see  but  never  be  seen ,  he  says .  you  will  hear  but  never  be  heard .

ofc in true cassandra style, if she tries to talk to anyone abt her curse ever it’s like the earth swallowed her whole.. nobody can hear her.. nobody can see her.. nothing.. 

she also has absolutely no idea how to control it at all so like sometimes they’re very vivid images of something going to happen sometimes theyre more like bad feelings abt things .. it’s like a fun game where she never knows whats gonna happen and the prophecies ruin her life !

another quote bc im too lazy to resummarize things

the  general  rule  of  thumb ,  however ,  is  that  the  smaller  the  vision ,  the  easier  it  is  to  see  clearly .  small - scale  or  individual  prophecies  —  like  her  university  president  having  a  heart  attack  —  are  generally  more  easy  to  distinguish .  in  comparison ,  the  years  of  anguish  that  brooks  would  later  cause  her  were  much  harder  to  pin  down  and  presented  themselves  more  as  a  more  general  sense  of  danger .

 the only way she can stop it is with a literal.. physical barrier so she sometimes wears gloves but she can only have them on for a small amount of time before her body starts to reject it and make her Physically Unwell so she has to pick n choose man its unfortunate

EXTRA INFO.

man homegirl is Lonely.. big time... she’s just been avoiding human contact for such a long time she’s ALONE !

she has 2 major scars from the car accident, one on her left cheek from the windshield and one down her right shoulder/bicep from the window and both are very much noticeable :(

she very much loves this small town feeling bc she loves to b invisible and it’s so easy to in sleepy nowhere towns like this

she lives off the database property in like .. a tiny run down house that she’s putting all her time and energy into fixing up n she likes it a lot bc she hasnt had a home of her own in a long time

she also has a black cat named ernest, named after the play the importance of being earnest by oscar wilde

she’s also been working on a PLAY for the last few years, it’s a greek-esque tragic “romance” between the sun and the moon, where the sun is based on apollo and the moon is based on her and it does end with the sun realizing tht the moon is the only person w the power to eclipse him and extinguish him so get fucked apollo !

also speaking of writing she writes a letter home to her mom once every couple of months even tho like .. she can’t really read.. it’s very sad, lou is very sad, thank u for listening

ok this is already like .. stupid long.. so im gonna call it a day WHEW but thank u for reading n i think i’ve honestly already plotted w most of u but feel free 2 like this anyway n i’ll either slide into ur dms either to plot or just to say hey KSDJFSK :)

[homestucky]

ok ok this is like not anything new but still since i havent been on here i havent fully ranted about this yet. big long rant incoming

re the epilogue (spoilers etc)

ok. i have onl y read meat. but fucking? dirk? dirk? ok? dirk??

no.

i am aware of what happens in candy. i know he dies.

i also know in the version i read, in meat, he becomes his ultimate self, all versions of dirk. as many people have said, this includes AR, this includes bro, this includes even to some degree, LE. its an interesting idea ill give you that. but its also.... shitty and not backed enough by well, anything?

so heres my personal rant about the shitty things in Meat.

when i first finished it i couldnt help but think. was the dirk narrative even necessary? on the one hand it was meant to be the MAIN PLOT and it defined the narration etc, but.... it honestly didnt seem to have any importance. i know it was likely  a set up to imply future stuff like making the next sburb or whatever but like

who CARES? why on earth would that be interesting or important? maybe im crazy but like, the ‘b plot’ which was mostly about character relationships and jobs in earth c, was compelling and enjoyable. the narrative with john ‘not important and not the main character anymore’ egbert had details and conclusions ACTUALLY RELATING TO HOMESTUCK, THE COMIC I LIKE AND WANTED TO READ AN EPILOGUE FOR. it was tragic and frankly very upsetting! im not saying i liked it!! but the tragedy felt compelling and significant. 

i appreciate that dirk as narrator IS BIASED so him saying that these narratives are less important is inherently like. not to be trusted but. just. i cant help but feel like you could have cut the whole ‘main dirk reality affecting’ narrative OUT 

and that seems to me maybe like... not good? if such a central part of your narrative has almost no bearing on homestuck or anything anyone cares about?

but im sure there are other people who found it compelling and necessary. thats fair. cant relate but you do you. there are other issues. 

me saying that the dirk narrative felt weirdly isolated and insignificant sounds pretty weird given that it put jade into a coma, manipulated kanayas mind, effectively killed rose and destroyed rosemary right? WELL that brings me on to the next thing. people have noted that meat barely passes the bechdel test. and hey, sometimes things like that can just be a coincidence or unlucky. but the repeated erasure of the female characters minds, motives, identities and autonomy was????  a little too consistent to dismiss. like ok terezi was still her dope self in a lot of ways. jane kinda did some stuff (under dirks direction, and only shitty stuff but . whatever). 

(sidebar: ofc it doesnt make sense to talk about calliope and roxy in the context of the female characters in Meat but either way they were very in the background. like cool an all, and i always love roxy. and i respect they were mostly just minding their own businesses??? which is fair)

 i just. urgh. homestuck has such a genuinely good track record of giving female characters genuine motivations and powerful abilities etc. the fact that almost ALL the female characters involved were working for or manipulated by DIRK. DIRK of all people. is like... is this even based off the real comic? idgi????

roses loss of autonomy.... rose is such an important character. and she goes along with everything dirk says because dirk is suddenly all OP and ‘theyre basically the same person anyway’ like i get that there was some magic bullshit going on or whatever but at the end of the day rose was still written as weak and passive. dirk as strong and skilled and decisive. i get the undertones.. hes a prince of heart. a destroyer of souls, and identities. he messed with kanayas identity , destroyed roses, repeatedly ignored roxys and calliopes, and god i wont even get started on jake yet. but that doesnt make it satisfying to read. or even really feasible.

so theres a possibility im missing something. but im confused about WHY dirk is allowed this power. in the narrative its waved off as a kind of ‘i guess because im like a prince of heart or whatever and im just super good at managing identities and being a strong boy’ like ok if theres some implication somewhere that that is MEANT to be a bogus explanation id be interested to know because it sounds pretty goddamn bogus. why would this happen to dirk? why? literally? one reason? one that makes sense? because there arent any i can think of. why, in the new universe, would dirk, a prince of heart, manifest into a narrative controlling supergod. and fucking WHEN has dirk showed any actual capabilities in this area before?? he KINDA sucked at it in the game. dirks an idiot! hes smart and capable in like, some ways but. its like

why is dirk so powerful suddenly -> its because hes become super ultimate dirk -> ... ok why -> uh because like. hes just so naturally inclined towards being a great manipulator yknow..... canonically.... uhhhh

it just. canon dirk to epilogue dirk is the most ridiculous leap character wise, skill wise, arc wise, personality wise, with minimal reasonable explanation. 

which brings me on to the next thing. so i roasted dirk and said he wasnt strong enough to be able to manipulate things this well. well, obviously through some other means dirk HAS been afforded this power. but what about his personality? its obviously gonna be warped with self importance and knowing how things ‘have to be’. but hes heartless, cruel and hateful. in some ways it seems like canon dirk levels of ruthlessness, especially when it shows that he is actually doing something dumb and petty like his treatment of jake. that shows that he STILL has emotional connection to people as dirk. he also seems to care about some people, like dave and roxy, and cracks jokes and wants to have ‘fun’. this makes the ways in which hes so warped and cruel seem even worse. maybe on the one hand im giving dirk too much credit, everyone knows he has the potential to be a real bastard. but i dont think that was the trajectory he was on when we last saw him. and if this is truly due to him just.. becoming other versions of himself too including LE and bro and stuff..like. i dont see how it could have gotten that bad without say, roxy or dave noticing. 

‘oh they didnt notice because hes just so good at hiding’ why on earth would i believe that!! dave especially this is kinda insulting for. dave is shown to have an almost supernatural ability to detect danger. partially this might be timeline stuff, knight stuff, but also notably im sure his upbringing is involved too. he was trained to be hypervigilant. who was he trained to be hypervigilant for? bro. bros manipulation and traps. near the end of the epilogue we show that dave IS capable of detecting the mindfuckery thats happening. how would that not set off 1 million alarm bells? theres literally apparently a twisted dirk-bro mutant INSIDE HIS HEAD telling him what to do. i just. know that scene was played for comedy and romance but at the very least thats gotta like???? mess with u if ur traumatised? and thats like , why i think dave should have had an inkling abt what was going on!! this is exactly the thing he hates and fears and was traumatised by! and it just going under his nose n him not even knowing , and still pretty recently being all buddy buddy with dirk seems just stupid and infeasible to me. maybe this is me being naive or kind of a stretch but i just feel like daves danger instincts would have been kicking up a whole assed ruckus that whole time. 

also kind of unrelated but i associate sunglasses with strider style toxic masculinity and hiding things so like. ok transitioning or changing gender presentation is one thing but roxy apparently permanently wearing sunglasses makes me NERVOUS

and ill probably wrap up this mighty rant soon but i wanna also say jake was done so fucking dirty. i know he was like, meant to be, because for some reason god dirk just hated him? like ok petty much. but. urgh jake is such an interesting character with a lot of potential and while i appreciate that him being manipulated by someone who may reasonably have a problem with him may make him do stupid and embarrassing stuff, all the narrative seems to have taken a backward step in how hes represented. jake isnt stupid, dirk clearly knew this in canon and he maybe was the only one even including jake. and there was some acknowledgement of this near the beginning of the epilogue. but then for some reason it goes back on itself. everyone still thinks jake is just completely stupid, including the embittered superdirk. so yeah i guess hes upset with jake or whatever but. its still dissatisfying to be like oh yeah jake isnt stupid he actually has a complex set of motivations and potential etc BUT over the X number of yrs on earth c no one else has realised this yet?? hmm. then his narrative is just gonna end up with him being a total joke and essentially becomes as stupid and incompetent as his worst critics say he is. feasible given the mind control ? yeah. enjoyable to read or having any kind of satisfying bearing on anything? nope!

so anyway. i feel like any criticism i have could be argued back with ‘but oh it has to be this way’ or ‘mind control!!’ or ‘not everything has to be nice and happy !!’ but like. dude. there are flaws. many of them. and seeing characters just get shat on is never gonna be good writing. 

[variousqueerthings]

this sad PTSD-ridden round-faced man never did anything wrong, i will Fight these people!!!!!!!!!

watching this Paul Gross thing he did in the 80s (chasing rainbows) and ive been enjoying it despite the knowledge that there'd be some kind of a het love triangle thing going on and that the other two characters simply aren't that interesting, but. oh boy. is... is the woman in this constellation meant to be read as a villain???

(ME DOING A BREAKDOWN ABOUT A SHOW NOBODY WATCHED AND NOBODY WILL WATCH ✌)

PG character -- a working class man who is fundamentally good to everyone in trouble he meets, to the detriment of himself more often than not, but scraping by until he gets his big break (which he also works very hard for) and becomes the owner of a relatively successful nightclub

other two characters -- come from rich backgrounds and sort of suck him into their lives by the coincidence of the two men having been at the front in WWI and PG saving the other guy's life and consistently don't realise he's got way more working against him than they do

the lady in this situation initially dumping said other guy "to find herself" when he comes back from the war, which, fair, it's 1919, she's going to college, she wants to be sure she can make informed choices, chill enough

said lady imprinting on our working class heroic character, because he's working class. i just. cannot read it any other way. she clocks him as such at a party (that he was invited to as a veteran) straight away, insults him, throws water in his face when he doesn't take it, but simultaneously is into the whole idk... rugged unpolished nature of him

discovers a diary written during the war with poetry in it that she presumes was written by him -- steals the book and reads it out loud to her college friends and is offended that he's not flattered by this

despite numerous protests that he didn't write the poetry (and he didn't, it was written by a kid he tried to save who was later shot in front of him for desertion), she just doesn't believe him, because she desperately wants him to have the "hidden depths of a poet" or some nonsense. never mind his actual good traits -- his kind-heartedness, his tenacity, his savvy, his sense of humour, nonono she wants a Poet

also, she is a failed playwright. she writes terrible plays about things she doesn't understand (including the war), asks his opinion and is offended when he (under duress) admits he doesn't think they're very good

and now she fucking... copied down the poems without his knowledge and published them under his name with an article she wrote about said hidden poetic depths!!!! gets incredibly offended when he is upset about this, first of all with a "I thought you'd be pleased" then with a "you should be happy for me for getting an article I wrote published in a major newspaper!" (because at the end of the day it's about her)

he initially -- not knowing how to handle the situation -- goes along with it, because what do you do now? go to the publishers and say it wasn't you? out yourself in the news?? I mean??? but pretty quickly re-emphasises He Did Not Write Those Poems!

the plot then mysteriously seems to pivot into saying it was his fault for "stringing her along" because the "hidden poet" bit was the only thing she really liked about him... and she vehemently denies this (but girl, tell me one other thing that draws you to him, and you can't say because he's pretty!) and says he's hurt/betrayed her by lying. i just... don't know... if the plot... is writing her like this because she's meant to be a self-absorbed college girl who has her working class dream-boat fantasy get broken, or if it's meant to be presented as him having betrayed her. it is. unclear

and now she's threatening to write a new article about how he's a fraud. im just. waiting for the plot to point out that she's done all of this herself and she also won't suffer for any of it in the way he will...

this boy can do better than these rich kid tourists 😔