#ok but i think karkat did say something like that in the comic

[weirdmageddon]

yesterday i wrote a scene where jade wasnt a plot device and was left the hell alone in A6A5 because this being dave and jade’s last proper conversation in years made me sad and i wanted to see them reunite properly. i mixed a bit of narration in too even though it was rare around this point in the comic but its just to paint a better picture. also i wouldnt mind feedback on character voice (it’s important to me that the dialogue sounds believable)

[3 years are over, everyone is in the new session. The prospit ship is on LOMAX, as is everyone who arrived on the meteor, safely warped by Jade onto LOMAX as well. Jade has banished B2 Jack to the Furthest Ring already. She hasn't seen her friends in 3 years, not to mention she never met the trolls in person yet.]

[Jade teleports to LOMAX where John was talking with the meteor crew. Her eyes widen when she sees the trolls, giving everyone a greeting. Jade waves to the trolls.]

You’ll have time to catch up with them later. First you want to reconvene with Rose and Dave.

> ==>

Dave... Oh my god! DAVE!!! That’s right! The last time you saw him, he died in your arms after Jack redirected the bullets from your gun into his body!

JADE: dave!!!! DAVE: hey DAVE: this has been three years coming hasnt it DAVE: cmere

> ==>

[Dave hugs Jade with a slight grin on face. He notices her… sniffing him?? but doesn’t even bother to question it.]

JADE: it is so nice to hold your body when its not a corpse :) DAVE: ok DAVE: weird thing to say DAVE: actually who am i kidding who gives a shit DAVE: i almost forgot how much i missed the enigmatic riddlefuckery that is your phrasing DAVE: fortunately i have context for this so i know what youre saying DAVE: humor me for a sec and imagine that i didnt DAVE: but first DAVE: are those dog ears JADE: yes! i am part dog now JADE: because i prototyped my dreamself with becsprite JADE: jadesprite became part of me! and so did her doggy traits from bec DAVE: got it DAVE: oh yeah john mentioned that on the back of his dumb poster inside that bucket that appeared out of thin air DAVE: right before we had to haul ass out of there before jack caught up to us DAVE: karkat had a complete fucking meltdown over that btw i wish you couldve seen it DAVE: damn it feels like so long ago now JADE: heheheh i remember JADE: john realized it at the last second but it was too late! DAVE: of course it was johns idea only he could do something that gooberish DAVE: you know what this means though JADE: yup!! woof woof DAVE: it means youve done it harley DAVE: youve finally done it god damn it DAVE: the evolution of humankind is finally upon us DAVE: the scientists said it would never happen in our lifetime DAVE: but look what we have here DAVE: before me stands mans first legitimate furry subspecies DAVE: homo canis DAVE: as the name implies theyre gay as fuck btw DAVE: its too bad all those scientists are dead and cant witness this phylogenetic breakthrough DAVE: rip to the science community yall wouldve lost your collective shit DAVE: hey jade lets pour one out for the science community for being real ones

> ==>

You are still nestled into Dave’s shoulder. He’s taken a sort of protective position over you. Your perceptive barkbeast ears can hear his formerly bullet-riddled heart beating a mile a minute with the regularity of quartz beneath his time-branded pajamas, all the while he continues to ramble to you about certifiably dumb shit. You can tell Dave is psyched to see you again, even if he expresses it in his OWN bizarre way, which means extended metaphors and topical tangents. What a hypocrite, calling YOUR phrasing perplexing! You sure missed this guy.

You realize you started tuning him out while thinking about all this.

DAVE: jade JADE: umm homo is the species name JADE: so wouldnt that mean were all gay? :p DAVE: yeah that sounds about right DAVE: anyway enough of this bullshit

> ==>

[Dave motions to retract his arms since he doesn’t want it to get too weird, but Jade squeezes tighter. Dave immediately yields to the movement]

DAVE: jesus wow ok DAVE: really happy to see you too DAVE: like if you had a tail it would be wagging so forcefully youd be knocking over all the fucking furnishings in the room DAVE: just slapping it so hard on the owners thigh that it feels like theyre being flogged DAVE: talk about getting bitch slapped JADE: :D DAVE: so howve you been JADE: really really excited to see you guys all again!!! JADE: and to meet the trolls! DAVE: yeah theyre pretty weird DAVE: and im still not used to it DAVE: but it gets more manageable the longer youre around them DAVE: by the way JADE: ?

> ==>

DAVE: sorry you had to go through that JADE: through what? DAVE: seeing me die and stuff again DAVE: except that time right in front of you JADE: .... DAVE: when we were gathering up all those frogs i knew jack was going to appear DAVE: i was waiting and waiting to play it out DAVE: mentally rehearsing my fucking torso getting turned into swiss cheese and knowing you would have to watch on top of it DAVE: i had to make sure it happened to protect the integrity of the alpha timeline DAVE: but if you knew this was going to happen you wouldve tried to prevent it and created a doomed one DAVE: and so i didnt say anything DAVE: i couldnt DAVE: so DAVE: sorry for putting you through that JADE: oh..... JADE: dave D: JADE: well im here JADE: if you ever want to talk about it DAVE: its cool DAVE: you just deserve to know what happened there DAVE: but thanks DAVE: so am i JADE: yeah i know JADE: i guess i should be glad you did that then... JADE: even though i was freaking out when it happened ._. JADE: otherwise you wouldnt be here will us now dressed in your red god tier time pajamas DAVE: yeah these magical rags really are comfortable arent they DAVE: and they stay like perma clean JADE: they are! i would wear mine over and over for days on end JADE: id take a nice shower and put it right back on JADE: and you know how much i love cycling my outfits through my wardrobifier JADE: by the way dave your cape is sooo cool! :o DAVE: thanks DAVE: yeah i love it its hella soft DAVE: its like ive got a portable snuggle blanket with me in case i ever need to drop to the floor like a tired sack of shit and get my snooze on DAVE: ive got a permanent personal reservation at club bed featuring dj pillow and mc blanky JADE: heheheh JADE: can i touch your cape? DAVE: of course go nuts JADE: yaaaay!!

[osterby]

Baldur's Gate 3, via Osmosis

So I think I played the first Baldur's Gate game for like an hour at a friend's house back in college, and all I remember about it was how delighted I was by the miniature giant hamster. I didn't even know there was a second game until I started hearing people get excited about the third one. That's about the sum of my knowledge of this franchise.

So without more ado, here's what my tumblr dash has taught me about these blorbos (I got @malaloba to huck the screenshots at me, so I didn't spoil myself on the names)

I want to say this one is Shadowheart, but that's too on the nose. She's probably .... Mythrin... Mithras... Mithotyn... Nope, I haven't got it.

She looks grouchy, and like she has a very good reason to be grouchy, and I would assume she's a combat class from her armour, but that's all I've got.

Gale (or Halsin) I know this one! He's the one who turns into a bear in The Cutscene that broke the internet for a few days. That means he'd be a Druid, right? I think he cross classes or something, though.

I hope the furries are having a great time drawing him as an anthro bear with a very large weenie.

Astarion! This vampire twink was all over my dash long before the game was released. Apparently he has a tragic backstory and is a jerk about it in a way that is either annoying or endearing, depending on the player's opinion of vampire twinks. His main role in the game, however, seems to be comically failing to pick locks. This means he's a Thief. Apparently the thing with the bear just had Astarion as the player character, and he isn't canonically dating the bear guy. Oh well.

Halsin (or Gale) The Other One who is Not a Bear. I would have said Bard for his class, but he's glowing a bit much for that here, so maybe a caster? I feel like he's more popular in areas of Tumblr that don't cross my dash.

Karlach or Karlak or something (not Karkat, that's a Homestuck thing).

Lesbians love her! She is large and angry and apparently really easy to romance just by approving of her chopping things with her axe. I think she was a child soldier? I see a lot of jokes about her crappy ex. I think her ex is actually her god and not her ex, though. Anyway, she seems like a prototypical Barbarian, good for her.

EDIT: I just remembered that she has PLAGUE, and is on a quest to Stop Having Plague. This is apparently her ex's fault

Laz'el. Lae'zel. La'zael. Something along those lines. I've seen treatises on her backstory and characterization, and she sounds like a really interesting character. Grew up in a cult of some kind, got dead or something, got abandoned by a crappy god (who might have also gotten dead or something), and is now wandering around trying to figure out how to exist in a world that isn't a cult. Apparently Other Players don't like her and dont't get what's up with her, which is a sore point for her fans (It's very possible that I'm mixing up portions of her backstory and fan reception with Karlach's) Her nose weirds me out (some uncanny valley thing between a skeleton lack-of-nose and a nose-nose), but I think she's pretty neat.

Ok, so if the blue lady at the top of this post isn't Shadowheart, then this one is Shadowheart. When I first saw the name Shadowheart, I thought it was someone's OC, and then I thought it was a generic name for the player character. From what I can gather, she's Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way with the stupid scraped off. She seems to be younger than most the other characters; she and the red tiefling are the kiddos of the group (Astarion doesn't count, because vampire). I think she grew up all sheltered in a weird little cult, too. Did ALL these characters grow up in weird cults? Is that a theme? Did I hear one backstory and apply it to a dozen different characters?

I happen to know for sure that this guy's name is Wyll. Good for me.

I don't know beans about him but I suspect he might be my favourite character when I do finally get around to playing, just from how his peronality is conveyed in fanart.

I get the impression he's the Only Sane Man to all these characters who grew up in cults and divorced dead gods and got vampire'd and whatnot, but he also has horns in like half the fanart and screenshots and is clearly Haunted (metaphorically, figuratively, literally, probably all of the above), so who knows.

As for the second figure here, I know the premise of the game is you've all got brainworms, who are in leage with a mindflayer con man who you can bone but who is also running some sleezy marketing scam, so maybe that's the brainworm made manifest?

I also see a lot of talk about character called Dark Urge, and the fan art doesn't look like that, but if Dark Urge is a manifested brainworm, then it could take various forms.

[kingofdersecest-2]

i want to ask your thoughts on which homestuck ships do you think should have been canon at the end of homestuck?

Whoo boy. I could be a smartass and say something like "Every girl gets with Dave" because Dave is the best partner for every girl, and I can prove it with science and logic. Or I could say Dersecest, cause thats my OTP. But ill take this more seriously and look to what I think could be the ships closest to canon that arent just fucked up. Let GOOOOOOOO. Ships I like DaveJade - Yep, we're starting off strong with this one. Good ole fashioned Davejade. They like each other, have good history together, have good on-screen history too. They kinda got together in HS2, but in this version theres no dog dick, they do have Yiffany, though they call her Ruby instead. They have a nice satisfying life together. Good vibes. JohnRoxy - More good vibes. Sometimes just having two people who genuinely like each other and have good chemistry is all you need in a ship. You dont need problematic or spicy ships. Neither of them are trans obviously, because as it turns out, letting someone who finds a candy bar in a cave somewhere randomly change the gender identity of a character is retarded, actually. VrisRezi - Toxic co-dependant girlfriend ships LESSSSGOOOOO. Terezi and Vriska are in such a weird fucking will they/wont they phase throughout the entire comic. They did kind of get together, at least dead versions of them, who I think just died? I dont remember. Anyway, yeah the living versions get together and make each other miserable and happy at the same time. Meerkat - HS2 sold me on this ship. I dont know why, but I like Meenah and karkat together for some reason. Ships I dont like, but canon circumstances would make them get together anyway. Rosemary - Ugh...the worst ship in homestuck. The boring spice lesbians. The ship that expects you to have read every rosemary fic on Ao3 to stand in for the ships development because theres hardly any in canon, and these motherfuckers got married. As if the canon stuff wasnt boring, the meta about these two creates the most insane discourse. Rose is bisexual, but thats often erased to make her full gay. Kanaya is.....a member of an alien race that does not even know what a lesbian is, but somehow still is one. Yeah, sure ok. Kanaya's questionable sexuality breaks the lore of her own species. Thats impressive. DirkJake - My two least favorite characters in homestuck. I hate dirk and jake, so naturally they should be together. Characters I couldnt figure out, so they are forever alone. Jane - Man, I used to like Jane. Then the writers caught Trump Derangement Syndrome and decided to turn her into him for some fucking reason. I have no sympathy for the Homestuck 2 team and they deserved every bad thing that happened to them for the travesty that was Jane's character assassination. Fuck em. Pre-HS 2 Jane was awesome and she was so goddamn cute when she blushed at Dave saying she was hot. I think DaveJane is a good ship, but he is with Jade. Idk, maybe they can share him. Is that weird? Probably! Jane is too good for Jake because he sucks. And theres no one else i like with her. So yeah.

[fefairys]

2 11 12 14 15 17 18 20 21 23 25 26 27 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49!! 50 51 52

holy fuck juice i knwo u said u were sending a lot but damn. thank u i love u. ok.

under the cut because its so long <3

2. How quickly did you finish reading the comic? i dont remember... i think a few months??? i first watched all of the voice nexus videos (back when they were still collabHQ) and they were around mindfang's journal at the time, then i read the rest on my own. i think it was probably like. 3 months or so? maybe 4?? i know that i missed a new years countdown because i was busy reading homestuck LMAO.. but the fastest i've ever read it all the way through is 7 days.

11. Favorite Alpha kid? roxy :3

12. Favorite Alpha troll? porrim or latula.. or mituna... but porrim came to my head first so i guess she's the real answer

14. Least favorite Alpha kid? :( ...i guess dirk. but i still love him a lot.... i love the alphas...

15. Least favorite Alpha troll? cronus

17. Favorite Beta kid? rose or jade.. i relate more to rose but i am in love with jade

18. Favorite Beta troll? aradia probably..

20. Least favorite Beta kid? :( dont have one. i love them all too much i cannot answer this!!! if i must answer i guess i'll say dave since i've drawn him the least lol

21. Least favorite Beta troll? eridan

23. Favorite guardian? mom <3

25. Favorite Alternian ancestor? dolorosa... alternia's first mother. do u think about this? cry.

26. Least favorite Alternian ancestor? dualscar. im seeing a trend in my least favorite trolls SLDKFJ

27. Favorite carapacian? those random prospitians that meenah mistook for problem sleuth, pickle inspector, and ace dick

29. Favorite Friendsim character? oh god i dont know D: i like so many of them... fuck!!! i really like mallek tho... for gay reasons. also cirava. NEED to smoke a blunt w them.

30. Least favorite Friendsim character? zebruh. literally forgot about him and was like "oh i dunno i like all of them :) let me see" and looked them up and saw him and was like oh wait yeah. its zebruh.

31. Favorite sprite? davepetasprite^2 !!!

32. Least favorite sprite? calsprite lol

33. Favorite pale ship? ogh... i don know... arasol maybe.. i like them red also tho but theyre really cute pale :3 but i'll always have a soft spot for meowrails theyre probably the only ones i ship ONLY pale and not other quadrants

34. Favorite pitch ship? im trying to think of something that i ONLY ship pitch and not other quads... i dont think that exists for me lmao uhhh... vrisjade pitch is fun.. also solkat but theyre all quadrants but i really like them pitch theyre so silly hehe

35. Favorite flushed ship? ARAFEF !!!!!!!!!!

36. Favorite ashen ship? vriska, kanaya, and rose doing a gay little dance, taking turns auspisticing each other 😌

37. Favorite vacillating ship? SOLKAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

38. OTP? right now im really feeling solkat. arafef and vrisrezi are up there though

39. NOTP? besides obvious incest and kid/guardian pairings, i think gamrezi is the one that makes me most uncomfortable when i see it. leave her alone!!!

40. BROTP? aradia and dave :) also karkat and kanaya friendship is everything..

41. Character you’d choose to be your moirail? ohhhhhh maybe nepeta :3

42. Character you’d choose to be your kismesis? karkat. (kins sollux)

43. Character you’d choose to be your matesprit? aradia <3333 or kanaya or rose or terezi or (continues to list every girl)

44. Character you’d choose to be your auspistice? hm. i dunno. i dont want an auspistice leave me alone SDLFKJ i can handle it 😤 besides, the "main" "purpose" of an auspistice is preventing infidelity, but aint no infidelity when ur polyam!!! ill hatefuck this entire town so help me jegus

45. Character you’d vacillate quadrants with? oh. karkat as well. also vriska. maybe i should change my kismesis answer but idk if theres a character i hate in that way that i wouldnt want to vascillate with :/ i'll just leave it idk

46. Character you’d be best friends with? jade :D or roxy!! :D yeah :D

47. Patron troll? Are you happy with them? equius. no.

48. Zodiac troll? Are you happy with them? aradia! yes!!! :D

49. One character you didn’t like at first, but like now? i HATED vriska on my first read SO MUCH!!! but now i love her shes in my top 5 :) and also i am her.

50. One character you liked at first, but don’t like now? does not exist if i liked them i like them still <3

51. One ship you didn’t like at first, but like now? OH solfef!!! i HATED solfef so much i was like this is stupid and doesnt make sense but now i think its kind of cute. but aradia should be there too.

52. One ship you liked at first, but don’t like now? again, if i liked it i like it!!! there are ones that i used to care about more, but don't anymore, but i still like them! :)

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Kanaya: You Have To Apologize To Dave

Karkat: FINE.

Karkat: "UNFUCK YOU" OR WHATEVER.

[davestriderpostscratch]

What got you into homestuck? Like, howd you hear about it?

hmmm okay actually i remember this very vividly. it’s a very involved story so let me start at the very beginning

when i was in sixth grade i joined the drama club at my middle school as a junior stage technician. incidentally i was the ONLY junior stage technician, because i was the only sixth grader on the set crew—everyone else was a seventh or eighth grader, including all my fellow stagehands

so if you’ve never done theater tech (or if you HAVE done it, but have never been a stagehand/only been on lights or sound) you should know that it involves a LOT of quiet downtime. you only do much of anything during scene changes, obviously (unlike the light and sound guys who’re in action constantly), but you can’t leave the wings and go backstage unless it’s urgent, for multiple reasons (it moves the curtains distractingly, you need to hear the lines/your cues, the stage manager might lose track of you bc you don’t have a headset, etc). so a good 75% of the experience is made up of just sitting there, watching the show from the side and making very little noise, which is cool if you like the production your class is putting on and boring as fuck if you don’t. (i much preferred being stage manager in eighth grade and head of the props department in tenth grade to ever being a stagehand.)

so when i was in sixth grade, i wasn’t that impressed with the show we were doing (shrek, lol) and neither was the rest of the crew, and having cool older friends gets you very far in middle school, so i started talking (quietly, of course) to my fellow stagehands—james, bobby, and peter—and the stage manager, keith. james, bobby and keith aren’t important here, although i have a great wealth of funny stories involving them; the REAL star of this part of the tale is peter

peter and i became very good pals because he is hilarious. also we ended up being on the track team together the next year but that’s less important. the point is that he is so funny and he was a whole year older than me and i thought he was so cool. and if you’ve never done theater tech, you should know that—again, for obvious reasons—you can only wear black backstage, preferably long sleeves and long pants (especially if you’re pale to begin with)

so peter, who is part of the set crew, comes to a dress rehearsal one day. in the karkat fit. no makeup or horns or anything obviously but like he had the jeans and the gray shoes and the cancer symbol sweater. and my zodiac sign, coincidentally, is cancer, so i asked him about the shirt (nice shirt, where’d you get it, are you a cancer too, etc) and he got REAL quiet. and says “i’ll tell you after the show.” so now i’m nervous that i said something wrong and i was gonna lose my cool seventh grader friend. but no. after the show he pulls me into one of the back halls where we keep the props and costumes. and Tells Me About Homestuck.

so i’m like ok. i have to impress my cool friend. so i go home and pull up the comic (this was back when it was still mspaintadventures dot com) and got 1/3 of the way through act one before giving up. a mostly universal experience. i did NOT skip to act five for the trolls because i didn’t know they existed yet. so i sort of chalked it up to just not being my thing and went on with my life. but it planted the seeds

fast forward to… seventh grade? just left sixth grade? (june 2016, right around when homestuck was actually ending) and i’m having a sleepover with my friend gianna, who is like. COMICALLY rich. “tiffany-themed birthday party” rich. “caribbean cruise every vacation” rich. “doesn’t understand why everyone doesn’t own two smartphones” rich. but she was very nice and i liked her a lot (still do! we’re still pals) so we hung out all the time ESPECIALLY that year bc we shared a lot of classes

so we’re in her bedroom doing sleepover stuff (i think we were trying to pirate a movie on her desktop computer) and we get to youtube somehow and we start watching videos that were funny in 2016. vine compilations or whatever. and EVENTUALLY . SOMEHOW. we stumble upon the iconic and eternal after us animation by the inimitable toastyglow. gianna was (and still kind of is) VERY into anime and i think she thought it WAS for some kind of anime, since “homestuck” isn’t in the video title or thumbnail or anything, so she put it on and we watched it. she wasn’t insanely impressed but hand to god i felt my life changing forever

this is where gianna being a rich weeb becomes important, because it means that she goes to a LOT of conventions. i had never been to a con of any kind before like late 2017 but gianna had been going to them for years. crucially, the years of our lord 2012-14, when we were 9/10/11 or so and first old enough to really go to a con and enjoy it to the fullest because we started having our own money and shit like that, was the Peak of the homestuck craze. it was inescapable even at the teeniest tiniest cons, and we live in detroit where there are actually decently BIG cons every year, so even though she’d never actually read the comic, she absolutely knew about it and told me of it. and so the seeds grew

fast forward like four months to fall 2016. i’m in this stupid shitty Kik groupchat with a bunch of undertale RPers i met on amino, because i was a lame little thirteen year old. we skyped each other and e-dated and everything. it was kind of a shitshow objectively but they were pretty cool. but i joined the chat the february before, and now it’s like, september. and all of a sudden. like a wave. a tsunami, even. like a zombie plague. the undertale icons start getting replaced by grey aliens with candy corn horns

i swear to flipping christ the stars perfectly aligned such that everyone in that damn group chat entered their homestuck phases at the exact same time. it was surreal. i felt like i was in the fucking twilight zone. like i woke up one day and everyone had typing quirks

so of course i’m like i gotta get in on this. all i know of homestuck is the snippet of act one i’d read the previous school year and the three minute long animation i’d watched over the summer, but it was enough to truly pique my interest. enough for the seeds to truly take root and flower. i sat down at my desk over thanksgiving break and opened up mspaintadventures dot com once more. and the rest is history

and you know what. you know what. i don’t talk to peter anymore really (he went to college out of state) and i DEFINITELY am not in that RP groupchat anymore (left it that december, actually), but you know what HAS survived all these years as a forever remnant of that era of my life. aside from my friendship with gianna and my appreciation for the 2016 glass animals album “how to be a human being”. that’s right, baby. i’m still a filthy homestuck

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[tomatograter]

How do ya capture the "voice" of homestuck characters so well? Besides studying the comic, is there any other media you consume to really get in their head?

First off: Thanks, i’m happy you enjoy my stuff! Secondly… there ARE a few steps i take to the madness.

I basically come from a Dungeon master/Open-world roleplay management background, so when approaching HS cast voices and trying to understand a character to write a story for them i usually take into account 1.INSPIRATIONS, 2.INTERESTS & due to homestuck’s nature, 3.INTERPRETATIONS (As opposed to “player intent”- Hussie’s work is an amalgam of himself and the public input.)

Rereading their logs/sections always helps when you’re trying to figure out their language, pacing, and a bit of their temperament, but getting too lost on mimicking their messages as-is without looking into the character itself may risk leaving them ringing hollow or repetitive (specially for the section of the public that may be more familiar with this character than you are. This is something that may matter to you or not, if you WANT this work to appeal to a specific public or are just messing around.) Because it may just come down to mindless quirk indulgence. In my experience, readers are more forgiving & enthralled by creators who, while not following the specifics of a character’s quirk to a T maintain a sense of internal logic that is congruent with what is shown throughout their appearances. Some AU’s specifically remix, remove or substitute these aspects, and the reason why people usually don’t complain about it is that “it makes sense- given (x) and (x) context.” Like kidswap aus, etc. 

Another thing about Quirks is that they can very easily be broken. Having a grasp of how quirk rules affect a character based on their emotional state and how it changes over time is more valuable than internalizing a hard set of rules that never changes. (Ex: Sollux’ quirk evolves over time. So does Aradia’s, as she changes bodies. June’s quirk takes on Vriska-like qualities after they begin chatting, Vriska uses 8’s and exclamation points more liberally and/or nonsensically when she’s angry/distressed/desperate, Jake’s transatlantic slang and embellishment of speech is mostly at the backseat unless he’s pretending/anxious/overwhelmed, otherwise he’s pretty simple.) Knowing how to break a quirk is just as good as knowing how to write it - traditional prose in fics *may not use quirks at all*, but they’re so good at grasping the particular intonation a character uses when stringing words together at a given situation that you don’t mind that at all. It’s a smooth adaptation.

[GREAT RESOURCE: this google drive has a compilation of all logs between characters in Homestuck separated by participants but usually only lists them on one-on-one basis, so you may wanna look at groupchats in the original comic. I think the epilogues section may be still unfinished. I forget who originally posted it on twitter but i know they have a dedicated tumblr, i’ll edit this if someone can name their blog]

“INSPIRATIONS” are usually how i define character personalities by their distinct mix of archetypes. This is the “PROTAGONIST”, “GOTH GIRL”, “SILLY GIRL”, “COOL GUY”, “WEIRDO”, “GAMER GIRL”, “CODING WANNABE” and other such little buzzwords that HS will throw around in reference to each of its characters, and that usually, but not always, function as a setup to subvert the expectations based on that character come a certain point in the story. Where does the character you’re trying to write fall into, when you try to describe them in these terms? Does their story humour this definition, reject it, destroy it, or evolve it? Does this seem like a genuine fact about them, or a facade? Why do you think that is? (Asking questions is my preferred way of pulling apart and understanding a character, this may work differently for you.)

“INTERESTS” is where i look into for that chunky, fatty, well-grilled meat that goes in the middle of a character’s text. Homestuck characters are defined by what they like, what they aspire to be, and what they fail at becoming(& how that shapes their actions going forwards). Interacting with the media they like may not always be the way, but having a general idea of how it functions and what it means to them is usually very helpful. I was already familiar with a lot of things my favorite characters enjoy, and thus it was easier for me to get attached to them. I also had to watch a lot of shitty movies sometimes. You win some, you lose some.

EX: It’s easier to write Dave’s pov if you have a good grasp of the pop culture & economics he so often references. (What he likes) It’s easier to write Rose’s pov when you’ve searched a bit of armchair psychology wikipedia definitions and familiarized yourself with the genre and existential questions usually involved in Eldritch Horror, and how it evolved outside of Lovecraft. (What she aspires to be like) It’s easier to write Jake when you understand his persona is a collage of juvenile and outdated archetypes taken from action flicks & shitty mainstream comicbooks, that he ultimately fails to ever live up to and hinders his development as a kid at odds with self-imposed traditional masculinity, dreading to publicize the big “Gay” word. (What he fails at becoming)

It’s always useful to ask yourself “Why does this character like (x)” and what that particular thing may say about them. It doesn’t have to be a big groundbreaking revelation, just put yourself into their shoes and try to reverse engineer what you’re presented about them vs their environment, personal issues, and you might just find yourself understanding why they do what they do. 

“Karkat probably likes cheesy romantic comedies because they’re peak middleclass normalass media for someone who’s ostracized from troll society and is purposefully a shithead to keep people away”

“Terezi probably likes dragons because they’re FUCKING COOL but also whoops here’s all this historic lore about Redglare and their lusus and a tragic sense of JUST1C3”

“Aradia probably grapples with the concept of mortality and the ephemeral nature of life, so she’s really into the morbid observation of disasters & archeology & bones, i guess? Is this because she died really young? Oh. Maybe yeah.”

But if you find the above too hard to access on your own, that’s where 

INTERPRETATIONS come in to make this process smoother in the case you just wanna write an extended cast thing and frankly you could not give less of a shit about (x)’s lore, you just want to have a sense of what people like about them, and why people read about them, and how you can purposefully adapt that into your text so socmedia user halfucker69 isn’t crying on your mentions for 11 whole threaded comments about how you did their babyboybaby wrong. I can’t exactly point to you where you can FIND meta because this highly depends on the character, and sometimes you just have to make your own food, but you’ll be good if you try to look into creators who post about these characters, whose thoughts or fan media seem to be congruent with your idea of said character or solid enough that you can easily see how it’s been developed from point A to point B. Interact with more fanworks. Find out what works for you and what doesn’t. “Character study” is a whole genre of fanfic, if you don’t wanna go for shippy stuff - but a lot of “shippy stuff” has its own valuable edge to seeing how people internalize a character, and shouldn’t be as easily dismissable as it is. Again, you’ll have to rely on your own sense of internal logic here - you can’t take EVERY work as the universal truth, but trying stuff out will give you a better sense of who you think this character is.

Then you have to get around trying to write it, which is easier said than done. A lot of times writing about a character will lead you to understanding them better, and you may even find yourself disagreeing with things past-you said when you were first beginning to think about them, and that’s ok. You only get better at writing by asking better questions and then writing some more. Take your time with it. I hope this helps!

[me-and-my-gaster]

I don't know jack shit about homestuck but here you go! 3, 27 and 74! (I hope the questions apply to you) Oh and also 40 because I like when you ramble about ships even if I don't know those ships! ^3^

The 100 Homestuck Asks!

3 - How many times have you read HS?

It’s hard to count, I guess? I started reading it once and had to stop after the Cascade (about halfway). Then I re-read the first half to ‘get it’ when I read about the Alpha Kid’s session and finished the whole thing. Then I often worked with a YT queue of ‘Let’s Read Homestuck’ playing in the background. And I also often jump in and read a page or a hundred when my friend who is currently reading the whole thing for the first time reminds me of something awesome. So... Personally, fully, with my own two eyes with no breaks (that was a mighty binge, I tell you)? Once. Overall... hard to tell.

27 - Favorite carapacian?

I’d say The Mayor, because everybody loves the Mayor and the Mayor deserves all the love. I do also have a weakness for the Windswept Questant (White Queen) because her design is very pretty.

74 -  Earth C headcanons?

Everybody lived happily ever after, the end. Also, this was only the first planet they inhabited, later on, they traveled further to explore their new Universe. Good shit, good adventures, good fun.

40 - BROTP?

Ho boy. You like me ranting about ships and you picked one of the topics I can rant about A LOT.

Dave & Rose - they behave like siblings, squabble, talk shit, whine about each other, but despite that, both are ready to maul a bitch for the other AND die to keep the other one alive. 11/10.

Dirk & Roxy - they gave each other a hard time but boy if I don’t love how deep their pride and respect goes when it comes to one another. Especially since they grew up in similar circumstances and GET each other in ways that nobody else could. Good sibs again. Kick ass, chew gum, and have unhealthy coping mechanisms together.

Meowrails - at first I thought Equius was too overbearing towards Nepeta and that he was trying to keep her on ‘a leash’. But then I reminded myself that he kept her safe from the goddamn revenge spiral Vriska started and if Nepeta really wanted to do something, she would. I like the difference in height and personality between them. Nepeta being a very small, active, extroverted, and open one is a good balance for Equius’ big body and proper, stiff, and formal behavior. There are also those little things you notice like Nepeta having a blue tail, which meant Equius used his skills to help her with the Lioness life. Like how they’re usually shown together. Like how Equius trying to protect her while simultaneously knowing he’s too weak to keep her safe by his side, so he sends her away. Like how Nepeta was following him anyway and was ready to maul a mad clown because her moirail was hurt. All of it. I just really like them and I’m glad most of the fic writers always keep them together. 

Dave & Dirk - jesus wept, that one long-ass talk between them at the very end of the story hit me so hard. Both of them talking about Bro, about Alpha Dave about how they grew up and what are their expectations of each other. This was one of the best convos in the whole thing for me. I wish I could see more of them, cause there’s so much good shit that can happen. Every fic with Dave and Dirk being good brothers in any older/younger configuration is A+ content for me.

John & Karkat - I know JohnKat is a very fun and nice ship and I don’t blame anybody for preferring those two as a romantic couple but... there’s something for me with them being close friends (or moirails, please gods, yes). They really had a very good relationship in the story, one that had a lot of buildup and growth. One of my favorite convos comes from their interactions. (hi karkat!) They are both leaders of their respective groups, self-proclaimed or not and they did work together (with a lot of help from Jade, that is) to figure out how to save everybody’s asses. They also seem to balance each other out, or at least John is a good balance for Karkat’s unending anger rants. Karkat is also a lot smarter than John and isn’t afraid to point out the other’s dumbassery, so there’s that. What also appeals to me in the idea of them being moirails is how it could be a lovely way to work through John “I Am Not A Homosexual” Egbert’s internalized masculinity stereotypes.

Now, let’s delve deep into the BROTPs that didn’t have much material in the comic.

Sollux & Dave - I didn’t give this pair any thought until I’ve read a few good fics with them being in a pale quadrant, and let me tell you... this shit’s good. Those two are assholes on the outside and would probably be the duo that annoys the everloving shit out of everybody in the close vicinity just with their banter. And I just think they’re neat.

Davesprite & Hal - those two would have hit it off immediately, even if only for being the fifth wheel in their respective “kids set”. Both seem more bitter than their ‘alpha’ counterparts. Both also seem more mature, due to being a bit older/wiser but also a little bit more broken. Both also got mighty forgotten by everybody which, not gonna lie, hurts me a lot. I have a lot of feelings about Davesprite and how much he went through and I also have a lot of feelings about Hal, who’s both a human stuck in the shades and an AI at the same time. I just wish to see the two interact and be bros they really need. They should be happy, dammit!

Roxy & Eridan - the scarf and sniper rifle duo! Ok, I love both of them because they are my comfort characters for various reasons and their stories hit home very hard, so I am mighty biased. But... They both have issues that seem to be polar opposites for the most parts and I really dig the idea of them moirailing the shit out of each other. Roxy being a very open person who is first to make friends would have no issues with befriending Eridan “Water Asshole” Ampora any time of the day. And I think he needs somebody who would listen to him properly and attack him with too much love at any waking moment but also somebody he would have to be actually responsible for. Also, like I said, both are snipers who also use another extra specibi, so I think they would make a lovely power BROTP. 

Also, I do love the idea of Eridan painting Roxy’s nails because she never could get it right herself because she was either drunk or running with pumpkins and the polish looked shitty immediately after she applied it.

Ok, that’s about it when it comes to the BROTPs from the top of my head. Thank you for your ask!

[lotarclasspects]

Hello from the Present

Ok so, if youre still following me after this astronomical period of time then i applaud you on being very loyal or someone who never cleans out those they follow. I kind of went on the low down from classpecting for a plethora of reasons, but that in no way means ive gone! The end of homestuck happened, the epilogue happened, hell the Canon aspect test even happened! But upon evaluation of the comic i think ive gotten a bit more Woke tm about the whole thing and realised some things about the comic, and im pretty sure i understand Homestuck as a whole and what even it was trying to say. And i like it. I have also become woke about The Classes, which ive now realised actually ARENT internal to the comic, but it is homestucks way of dissecting existing narrative character tropes, due to it using tropes and systems of both Role Playing Games as well as regular book narrative tropes too. 

For example, now that i see this its pretty easy to determine what ANY characters class is in any media because the classes themselves are supposed to represent tropes of heroes/villians in this media. Therefore im going to provide a list now of what i believe the active and passive pairs are and what those archetypes are... Kind of. 

Firstly, “active” and “passive” are stupid and somewhat arbitrary in understanding the nature of classes. I believe thinking of these as “offensive” or “defensive”, “selfish” and “selfless” are narrow views on the topic. I was thinking about it last night and i realised each pair had “one who utilises” and “one who provides”

For Example:

The Knight and the Page. 

Knights and Pages are very ancient symbols of characters, with the roles themselves dating far back into the middle ages in feudal times. Now that im thinking about it pretty much every class is feudal in a sense but I digress. The symbol of the Knight with their cape brings to mind a hero, a Knight in Shining Armour if you will, one who saves princesses and defends the weak. Or theyre an aristocrat who uses their military service for money but thats like subjective i think. Perhaps this is why all knights, particularly Dave and Karkat have hero complexes, and maybe thats also why Dave Strider became so rich by exploiting the systems that were already in place. The Page, however, is something of a Squire. They provide for the knight, a rookie who needs to learn how to do things. In ancient times, they would often become knights in their own right after ages of training, similarly to the pages of the Comic. Tavros going from someone with no self esteem to being able to unite an army with his charisma. In Pop culture and tales, the Character archetype of the Knight would be someone like Batman, a hero and man of action who defends the people but also keeps his own burdens covered for the sake of others. Another Knight would be Link from The Legend of Zelda. Probably BOTW link because ive played it recently. His main goal is to protect Zelda. He already knows how to fight well and hes already a hero in the beginning, but he has to regain his potential to Fight The Dragon if you will. Pages from pop culture i would say would be the Robins, the ones who help Batman and do cool stuff but its only after a while of mentoring before they become Heroes in their own right, and extremely powerful. A Page’s story is one of weakness, and growing as a person to become more powerful than anyone. A far more apt example would be Steven Universe. From going to the cookie cat boy to the son of a Diamond who has to fix what his mother has left behind and end the Gem War. A Knight is someone who utilises, the front lines guy who fights to protect others usually on their own. This makes them active, the one recieving. Whereas a Page is someone who provides for the Knight so that the Knight can defeat the enemies. At least in simple terms and in feudal definitions anyway. Thus the Page provides and serves. Anyway since this went on far longer than i anticipated ill make a few more posts about the Class pairs and character archetypes. See you guys around!

(also im pretty sure im not a Seer of Mind anymore i did the test it said Breath, lol) 

-Some Breath Player I Guess, LOTAR Classpects 

[manzisme]

what your fav homestuck character in 2017 says about you: The Kids

John: you just love this soft windy boy!! you super dig his aesthetics of blue and wind and flying and oh look you just drew a picture of him kissin some boys. "a pure, splendid boy indeed", you note as you draw john slam dunking dirk into a trash can as a prank

Rose: you are gay. you understand the true nature of rose as NOT a prim and proper lady but a pretentious messy goth lesbian who just likes to stay up at 4 am eating coffee beans and critiquing the homoerotic nature of literary works behind an Arby's or something. you love her and you love her twelve million girlfriends like kanaya, jade, vriska, terezi... the list goes on and on. you love her.

Dave: you really sympathize with his triumph over abuse and you constantly reblog davekat like your life depended on it. you understand that dave is the most developed character in the comic and you own a pair of mirror shades just to subconsciously remind yourself. have I mentioned how much davekat you reblog and draw and write? davekat is canon guys and your soft asshole boy got the boyfriend of his dreams. here's another comic of him in his underwear watching movies with karkat.

Jade: you SUPER DIG her aesthetic. JEEZE she is GOALS. you own at least 500 different pictures of jade holding the five planets on your phone and you love how she is both smart and capable of standing on her own. furries are a-ok and you like making dog jokes with jade. what a precious daughter. being part-dog was the greatest thing that could happen to her. also, you really think she got shafted in the ending and regularly post jade in many cute outfits to fill the void.

Jane: you draw her with bright red lipstick and a diner aesthetic. you are kin with jane and primarily ship janeroxycallie (or as I like to call it CottonCallie). you're kinda quiet about your love for her and don't post a whole lot. if someone else made a post for her, you'd be there giving your support and throwing in your own opinions.

Roxy: GOOD WIFE GOOD WIFE WIFE MATERIAL HOLY WOW NO WAY WOWZA GOOD WIFE. you are absolutely in love with her and everything she does. you get mad when people draw her with a drink because Hey, my beautiful wife worked her BUTT off to get past that and??? she did it??? wow. she's strong, she's beautiful, she's smart, she's sassy, she's funny. Wow. you draw her gaming, you draw her making jokes, you draw her in different aesthetics, you draw her doing void things, honestly who cares as long as you're drawing her. you might not be into johnroxy but ROXYCALLIE HOLY SHIT MAN. I cannot stress enough how much you love her.

Dirk: you can't help but love this trainwreck of a man. he's so problematic but that's why you love him! you regularly upload dirkjohn comics involving his wacky manime antics. everything you draw with dirk is gay or is him doing something ridiculously over the top but that's just the way you like it. sometimes you'll do character analysis posts that really delve into his subconscious and then accidentally attract 30 haters to your blog. you like how he cronches into an orange with the skin on and are CONSTANTLY shitposting.

Jake: you and twelve other guys are in the same small cult for this goofy boy's butt. you know just about everyone on this site that loves him. you would die for this man. everything he does makes you smile. you make analysis posts all the time about how he is WAY smarter than he lets on and is an ingenious manipulator but not in the Bad Way. you appreciate him way more than just guns, skulls, and movies. you draw him with very fluffy hair and have four askblogs for him. people will say you have bad taste and you will agree but continue to love him. every one out three comics is about dirk.

[clonerightsagenda]

Ok, let's finish this up tonight, now that I've gotten my cover letter ironed out. We're to Cherubquest, and I have a lot to say about the way John interacts with some of the meta stuff in this subact, so let's get started.

As they approach the MSPA terminal, John and Dave have another chance to talk. In John's tirade about Con Air, he reveals he thinks Dave is the true hero of the story. Meanwhile, Dave has repeatedly said he thinks John is the real hero. This is mostly due to both of them holding themselves to silly standards and then putting their friends on pedestals in comparison, and in the conversation, they both agree that's probably a little silly. The conversation closes with

JOHN: now, let's go write ourselves a happy ending!

which is a callback to something Jane said a long time ago.

Now, it's time for the conversation between Dave and Caliborn while John's trying to hack the narrative prompt. This log makes me laugh literally every time i read it. Part of its purpose was to relentlessly mock the theories that Dave would die because he's the most important tragic character ever, but the log also explores some meta stuff about Homestuck as a narrative and authorial control that ties into what I'm doing with John, even if he doesn't participate in the conversation. And I've got a lot to say about this, because I wrote my undergrad thesis on how Junot Díaz portrays the author as inevitably a dictator in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Great book by the way, if you haven’t read it. It has the most kickass opening I have ever read.

In that novel, Díaz quips that writers and dictators have never gotten along because “like recognizes like”. The novel explores the politics of storytelling – how those in power shape or silence narratives – and it makes even its own narrator and author complicit. Any act of storytelling is inherently dictatorial to an extent. The person telling the story gets to choose what to include and what to leave out. Everyone listening is forced to accept their version of events. There's a big motif in the novel of gaps - things that the dictator has covered up, or things that the narrative is not willing or able to tell. The blank pages are a sign of suppression and violence, but they can also be an opening for someone willing to write on them.

Caliborn is a textbook example of putting the author into authoritarian. He seizes control of the narrative and attempts to retell the story in a way that fits his sensibilities. (Some conspiracy theories argue that he succeeded.) This extends way past his Homosuck doodles. As Lord English, he shapes and defines the alpha timeline, dooming any deviations from the path he has set to wither and die. Any story that doesn’t meet with his approval and match the one he’s telling is sidelined. Caliborn has been forcing everyone to be bit parts in his epic from day one.

(As a sidenote, this is a flaw I accuse Dave of having – of thinking of other people’s motivations and reactions as peripheral to his aims, like they’re props in the drama of his life. Of course Caliborn is much much worse (many teens are solipsistic) but it’s intriguing.)

I’m aware of the obvious catch here. After all, the two of us decided we didn’t like the way the story was going, so we barged in and grabbed it. Now we’re telling a version, and the characters are dancing to our tune. My conclusion from reading Díaz’s novel (though not mine alone; I wasn’t fast enough off the block to be the first person writing on this) was that to avoid being dictators, writers have to leave gaps. A motif within The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the pagína blanco or blank page, something that hasn’t been filled in. The narrator leaves gaps, asks questions, and specifically says he cannot finish telling the story on his own. The readers have to piece things together or make assumptions, and different readers are likely to do that differently. The novel draws on so many different frames of reference, probably intentionally, that no one person will grasp it all.

So silence is one way to not impose your authority over a narrative, but then no narrative gets to exist at all. But the other option is openness, or multiplicity.  I wrote in a gag about Caliborn’s superior headcanons, because he’s trying to make his vision overrule all while wildly misinterpreting the characters we know, but headcanons? Fanfic? Fandom in general? That’s how readers turn a dictatorship into a democracy.

As I was working on the outline for this project, I had to wrestle with what made Lord English a compelling villain. After all, Dave says it himself in his argument with grimbark Jade. He lurks on the periphery. He hasn’t done much to any of them directly. Technically, he’s the reason any of them exist. But he’s also what has them trapped in only one option, punishing any deviation even if it might make things better for them. He’s the reason for the dreambubbles being stuffed with dead dreamers who objectively did everything right. He’s the tyranny of the narrative given form.

I was rather pleased with this conclusion. Then Act 7 happened and a bunch of other people came up with the same idea as an explanation for why canon had to end the way it did, which made me feel far less original, not that I was very original to begin with. Did canon pull it off? That’s up to you to decide. Will we? Same thing. After all, if we want to avoid the same level of tyranny, at some point we have to back off. At some point, we – like all the other authors – have to die. Metaphorically. Hopefully, anyway.

How does this tie into John's arc? As I said earlier, John has a tendency to view things through the lens of fiction. When he gets the retcon power, he now has authorial control over the story. He can defy the alpha timeline, which is the narrative Caliborn/Lord English privileges. Dave makes a joke about Karkat's sickle plus John's hammer meaning they'll seize the means of production, but John does. He seizes the narrative, and he writes them out of the hole they're in. By saving Calliope, he defies Lord English's will and starts a chain reaction that will lead to his defeat on more than one front. 

Specifically, he calls Calliope's name. At the very beginning of Homestuck, we're shown that you have to name the character before you can give them commands. We're told later that the cherubs' names are important, but it never comes up again. So I made it relevant again - maybe  Roxy just saying Calliope's name wasn't enough, but armed with the narrative prompt and Breathy power, John can call her name loudly enough to bring her back from the dead. Plus, with his meta power, he fucks around with the comic proper - clicking links and appearing outside the panel frame. This story is his now. After viewing his life through the prism of a story, he's going to use that to rewrite it better.

Now that I have forced you to sit through a miniature version of my undergrad thesis, let's move on to post-Cherubquest content. As the Betas prepare to fight Jack, John stares up at the sky and is treated to a cloud-memory of his dead father. (Has Gill shared the sketch for this panel? It's ridic.) 

EDIT: She once sent it to me. Here it is.

He's facing these memories now, even if they're not ones he enjoys. As a side note, you'll notice the next panel has everyone drawn in old school Homestuck style to show how far they've come. The thick lines are kinda unsettling tbh.

And finally, our most recent update. John is getting used to the fact that ok, he might be silly and dorky and not the traditional Platonic form of a hero, but he gets the job done. He's actually one of the characters who'll rely on the walkarounds a lot more for closure - be on the lookout for him to sort of settle some of his issues re: emotional repression, heroic ideals, and doomed timeline bias when we get there. Still, he's on his way! And he got to do some stuff on his own terms, instead of just being bossed around, so he's a lot happier, even if he is burdened by the harsh reality of their lives. The past may be brutal, but things are looking up.  

[ask-the-seer-of-breath]

Troll Romance Analysis

Hi there, welcome to my analysis on Troll Romance! This is a remake of my previous Romance analysis. I felt it was getting old and that I can write it much better than before. Long post incoming.

Contents

Troll society and sexuality

Troll emotions

Troll relationships

Troll romance and its social role

The Romance Quadrants

Matespritship: The flused quadrant

Kismesissitude: the caliginous quadrant

Moirallegiance: the pale quadrant

Auspistism: the ashen quadrant

Examples from Homestuck

Examples out of the comic

Please note that this analysis has quotes and examples from the comic and thus spoilers. Read under the cut only if you are ready for them.

Troll society and sexuality

Let us start by leaving something clear: Trolls are a violent race.

I’m not saying that they are incapable of feeling joy and attachement. They understand feelings different. Trolls live in a society built for galaxy conquist and massive repoblation.

Also note that even when they hold sexual activity, it does not have the social relevance ours has. This is because it is the Mother Grub who carries the duty of hatching the next generation of trolls. Sexual encounter is a social obligation every sexual troll couple has. They are to give genetic material to the Mother Grub, getting killed if they deny the fluids.

A consequence of this birth system is that genders have no differences. Unlike humans who reduced their ideas to gender roles beause of birth. Trolls are all bisexual by default. Some develop preferences for certain gender, but that is personal. I will leave you with the words of Karkat reacting to homosexuality, see how alien it is for them:

KARKAT: HUMANS HAVE A WORD FOR THAT?

This does not mean Trolls can’t have specific sexualities or genders! And this is canon. Go on into the  LGTBA+ side of trolls, and it is pretty much the same as with humans. Everyone is different and valid.

Troll emotions

Now that we are quoting Karkat, he explains that a troll understands their feelings as hate and pity. Everything else is a hue between that.

KARKAT: A WELL BALANCED PERSON [TROLL] IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER.

Here, Karkat is analyzing how the chemistry of troll relationships stays interesting. He talks about a balance that the troll must have. That way their relationships can be succesfull and fulfilling.

Troll relationships

The word Trolls have for Friend is the same they have for Enemy, and they consider it a social desease. Or at least their goverment does. Some migth know each other and become comrades, pals, buddies. Occasionally, their relationships will develop feelings from deep into the pity humors. Happiness, Peace, Regard. Or could get violent and salty, all the way into the hate hues. Anger, Jealousy, Worry.

These feelings are called romantic, and they can either save or ruin their lives. Remember social obligations? These emotions are so complicated for trolls, that they have to organize them in a Quadrant system. Even give them a specific role that serves a social purpose too!

Troll romance and its social role

There are two kinds of romantic relationships in Troll society: concupiscent and conciliatory. The concupiscent relationships are for troll fluid production due sexual activity. Conciliatory relationships mean to help them balance their social status and emotions.

As we talked before, the need to seek a concupiscent partner comes with more urgece than typical reproductive instincts. It is a social obligation:

When the IMPERIAL DRONE comes knocking, you had better be able to supply genetic material to each of his FILIAL PAILS. If you have nothing to offer, he will kill you without hesitation.

You either give genetic fluids or die. So trolls better fill those quadrants, and then they can start filling buckets.

The conciliatory relationships, on the other hand, have nothing to do with reproduction. They're explained as “human platonic feelings” to us. Their main function is the mainteniance of the social structure of trolls. The race with violent tendencies we keep calling out.

Most trolls are very agressive. Getting out of crontrol will not help them fullfil their role in society assigned by blood. In the worst case scenario, if they don’t have a proper conciliatory partner, they could fail to have balanced feelings. Their emotions get so out of control, that they could fail in their entire romantic experience. Filling no quadrants, nor buckets. And then dying.

Let us put a very strong example at this point of the analysis: Eridan Ampora. Flirty boy, geeky, wears a cape, highblood. Most of the time he rummaged for a conscupiscent partner, even asked Feferi. His conciliatory relationship failed in consequence, even when it could have worked out. As a result, his emotions went out of control. He did not know wich feelings he had to listen to, and as a result he betrayed his teammates. He kept doing what he had always done, even after Alternia was destroyed: trying hard to not get killed.

The Romance Quadrants

The two kinds of relationships we just talked about can develop in both hate and pity humors. Romantically, they are called black feelings and red feelings, respectively.

A Red Cocupiscent relationship represents the Flushed Quadrant. The romance is called Matespritship, and it is considered the equal of human romance. Altough it isn’t completely.

A Black Concupiscent relationship represents the Caliginous Quadrant. The romance is called Kismesissitude, and most humans fail to understand it. Wich is justifyed. 

A Red Conciliatory relationship represents the Pale Quadrant. The romance is called Moirallegiance, and it is similar to what a human calls ‘soulmate’. 

A Black Conciliatory relationship represents the Ashen Quadrant. The roamnce is called Auspistism, and it is not meant for couples but for trios.

Of course, we are going deep on each of the quadrants! But hold your horses. Before explaining them all, I have to describe troll infidelity and vacilation. At this point you must be baffled at how complicated and confusing is Troll Romance. Do not worry, Trolls hardly get it too! 

Vacilating is going from Flushed to Caliginous romance and the other way around. This happens on relationships were the feelings of both partners are very conflcited, and can’t stand in one quadrant. So they have to jump to the other one and viceversa. Now I must warn you, that infidelities on troll society don’t stay back and are as weird as everything else. They consist in a system of flushed/caliginous infidelities. And are constantly shifting in a romantic quadrangle. What is that? You were thinking of a love triangle? Oh, no. Not at all, my sweet little human worm. Here I present you the Troll Vacillating Quadrangle! You will now observe for some minutes the following image taken from the wiki and meditate about it.

In this chain of infidelity you need at least four trolls. They are going to be vacillating their relationships in a neverending cycle. And for now, that is all that there is to say on the matter. Until Andrew Hussie provides us with one of those Troll literature pieces of rom-com that Karkat likes so much. I bet they are interesting.

Matespritship: The flused quadrant

Troll romance gets very close to Human romance here, but not quite there. You see, think of human romance as a trascendance of Troll Quadrants. Involving many Troll romances at the same time. Wich is more than weird for Trolls, who have enough with having specific feelings for someone.

A Matespritship takes place when two trolls pity each other. Not balancing their feelings, but rather creating feelings on each other! Something they have not felt with other troll, something different. An attachement that makes their body warm and makes them want to stay with their partner forever. And be happy together.

In this relationship, trolls also conceid their partner someone to fill a bucket with. That way neither of them has to die by the metallic hands of an Imperial Drone. Yay.

Notice how they do not share their emotions between them. They only provoke feelings on each other!

Kismesissitude: the caliginous quadrant

What is hate? Is it despising something so much that you don’t want to see it, ever? Or could it be respecting certain aspects of it, but you still despise the object. Wich makes you feel deeply conflicted? Ok, forget the philosophy. Kismesissitudes are not about hate. You don’t want your partner dead, because:

1. This is a concupiscent relationship and you are supposed to fill a bucket with them. 2. That would not be interesting. 3. You actually like some aspects of your partner.

So yeah, this is the most dramatic Troll romance of all. Caliginous relationships go further than a simple rivalry. Besides of the despise that the couple feels, the relationship is something they want. As it's based around mutual respect.

Much like human rivalry, a kismesissitude can be about seeing who is the best. It is about respecting your partner, but their personality is infuriating for you. You actually think they are kind of ok too.

So remember this and never pull it out of your thinkpan: a Kismesissitude is not about killing, hurting or purely hating your partner. You don’t have relationships with someone you hate, that is not healthy. Kismesissitudes are about how interesting the relationship can get. About how great your partner can be, but oh boy, you have to be better. How can you keep pushing each other into having fun with your negative feelings for each other. But not actually letting them on the way on your opinions of each other. You know those cliche couples that don’t like each other but end up together anyways? Yeah, that’s kind of caliginous.

A Caliginous relationship is about frustration. Wich originates in crossed feelings for the partner. That’s a proper kismesissitude. And yes, they can work together, and carry on normal conversations. Just prepare for the kismessis flirts.

I will quote Karkat once more. He explained it all to John, when the human boy was naively talking about how he finds Terezi’s personality frustrating and annoying. Feelings developed while he followed her instructions through fixing the Alpha timeline. An John was starting to realize how he hates beign bossed around without explanation.

JOHN: i still think about the idea of black romance sometimes, and try to imagine how that really works… or “feels”… i don’t know. JOHN: do you understand it? DAVE: yeah ive spent enough time talkin about it where i think i “get it” but DAVE: ive never had cause or any real inclination to put it into practice or anything JOHN: mainly the idea of hating somebody, and translating that into attraction, or some kind of romancey feeling… it feels so alien to me. JOHN: and you’re right, i have a really hard time even hating anyone in the first place! DAVE: word JOHN: i mean, i get ANNOYED by people, sure. DAVE: like who DAVE: me? JOHN: no, not really. JOHN: well, sometimes, but not much. i always tended to exaggerate my grievances with you, for the sake of laughs. DAVE: heheh JOHN: a better example is, more recently, when i was doing my retcon mission… JOHN: i was getting REALLY annoyed with terezi and her mind games. DAVE: yuuup JOHN: it definitely never crossed the line to “hate” though, because we were working together to try and fix a dire situation, and even though she’s weird and insane, she’s otherwise a pretty good friend. JOHN: but all her needling and japes at totally inappropriate times, when there was so much on the line… JOHN: argh, it was SO FRUSTRATING. […] KARKAT: JOHN, ALL YOU’RE DOING HERE IS DESCRIBING THE SUBTLE FEELINGS WHICH PLANT THE SEED FOR HAVING A CALIGINOUS CRUSH ON SOMEONE. JOHN: what?? KARKAT: YOU HEARD ME. KARKAT: YOU ARE NAIVELY ADMITTING TO STRUGGLING WITH SOME BLACK FEELINGS FOR TEREZI. […] JOHN: but i don’t HATE her, and i’m sure i never will! JOHN: i’m just saying i find her, like, somewhat annoying, and REALLY aggravating a lot of the time, but that’s it KARKAT: BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THE FEELING IS! KARKAT: IT DOESN’T START OUT AS FULL BLOWN ANTIPATHY, AND IT RARELY EVEN REACHES SUCH AN EXTREME LEVEL OF HOSTILITY EVEN OVER LONG TERM BLACK RELATIONSHIPS. KARKAT: THERE ARE PEAKS TO IT, BUT OTHERWISE A GENERAL EBB AND FLOW TO THE DARK FEELINGS, JUST LIKE WITH FLUSHED RELATIONSHIPS. JOHN: ok, but… JOHN: i don’t know if i’m expressing myself clearly. JOHN: i felt aggravated by her a lot, but that doesn’t fully describe… JOHN: like, there were those “negative” feelings, but also… JOHN: but… KARKAT: YEAH, THAT’S IT, RIGHT THERE!!! KARKAT: THE “BUT” IS ALWAYS PART OF IT. KARKAT: WHAT YOU’RE *TRYING* TO SAY IS, YOU HAD FRUSTRATED, NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TOWARD HER, BUT THEY DON’T COMPREHENSIVELY ACCOUNT FOR YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD HER. KARKAT: MEANING, THERE ARE SOME THINGS ABOUT HER YOU ACTUALLY LIKE, BUT THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS MAKE IT HARD FOR YOU TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON THEM, OR EVEN WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. KARKAT: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY STANDARD. WHAT GOOD WOULD IT BE HAVING A KISMESIS WHO DIDN’T POSSESS QUALITIES YOU ACTUALLY ADMIRED ON SOME LEVEL? KARKAT: THAT WOULD BE BORING, AND IT WOULDN’T EVEN WORK. THERE’D BE NO TENSION, NO PUSH AND PULL IN THE TURBULENT EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE. THE SUBTLE POSITIVES ADD FUEL TO THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS, OFTEN GIVING THEM A REASON TO EXIST AT ALL. THEY INFLAME THE AGGRAVATING FACTORS, REMINDING YOU DEEP DOWN HOW MUCH YOU WOULD LIKE AND ADMIRE THIS PERSON IF IT WASN’T FOR ALL THEIR INFURIATING FLAWS, AND THE INCREDIBLE SENSE OF FRUSTRATION THAT CAUSES ALONG WITH ALL THE ASSOCIATED HOT-HEADED FEELINGS, THAT’S THE ESSENCE OF BLACK ROMANCE. KARKAT: AND THE POSITIVE QUALITIES YOU SEE DEEP DOWN IN A KISMESIS ALSO SERVE AS THE BASIS FOR RED FEELINGS TOWARD THAT PERSON, ASSUMING THE RELATIONSHIP EVER STARTS TO VACILLATE. KARKAT: IT’S ALL PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD, REALLY. JOHN: no… this is messed up! DAVE: i dunno john it all sounds pretty logical to me DAVE: karkat knows his shit when it comes to quadrants JOHN: argh! JOHN: it can’t be true though… JOHN: it feels so fucked up! JOHN: what if you’re right though… erg! no… JOHN: no, no, no, no… KARKAT: THAT’S PART OF IT TOO!! KARKAT: THE “NO NO NO” IS ALL PART OF THE FEELING. THAT’S HOW IT *ALWAYS* GOES. KARKAT: THIS SENSE OF SELF INCRIMINATION WHEN IT’S DAWNING ON YOU THAT YOU HAVE THESE CONFLICTING FEELINGS TOWARD SOMEONE WHO BUGS YOU SO MUCH. KARKAT: OH MY GOD, THIS WHOLE REACTION IS SO FUCKING TEXTBOOK. IT’S HILARIOUS, REALLY. JOHN: it’s fucked up though!!! KARKAT: IT’S SUPPOSED TO FEEL FUCKED UP! JOHN: aw, man. :(

Don’t you just love the drama of feeling fucked up about someone!

Moirallegiance: the pale quadrant

The moirallegience has a very important and specific social purpose. A moirail is some one who complements you. We talked about soulmates, but it is not quite that. Moirallegience is about finding someone who is the opposite of you and accepting them as the self you lack. You respect your partner, because they are capable of things you are not.

For trolls this is really necessary. We said before trolls are violent? Well some more than others, and these ones need a rather pacific troll that can emulate for them that personality trait they don’t have.

Say that I am very impatient, but my pale partner is very good at beign patient, and they help me emulate that patience. This is the complement moirals search, a good balance of emotions.

Auspistism: the ashen quadrant

Imagine a vacilating relationship, or a particulary dangerous kismessissitude. If a troll gets concerned about their well beign and whoever surrounds them and decides to meddle in, then we said they become ashed for the couple.

This is what feeling ashen for someone is. Wanting to help out to keep a balance, for the greater good.

The auspisticer troll begins to mediate between a problematic couple and pacifies the situation. Making it less dangerous. Breaking a chain of infidelity. Helping the couple get to terms with their emotions. An auspistice will have to do a good job or everything could go horribly wrong, though. That is the very specific role for the ashen quadrant in troll society.

Examples from Homestuck

Matespritship:

At some point Karkat ♥ Terezi

Meenah ♥ (Vriska)

We could include Rose ♥Kanaya

Kismessisitude: 

Vriska ♠ Eridan

Terezi ♠ Gamzee

John ♠ Terezi

 Vacilating relationships: 

Tavros/Vriska

Aradia/Equius

Moirallegiance: 

 Nepeta ♦ Equius. It is very evident how both of them discussed their emotions and end up agreeing in something. Whenever they would take a decission they tried to first confirm it with their partner. They both provided a nice emulation of feelings on each other. And it was good. 

Karkat ♦ Gamzee. Karkat has always been a concerned troll, while Gamzee is a carefree kid. When Gamzee did not get something Karkat would explain and make him care a little bit more. When Karkat was getting over the top with anger Gamzee would calm him down, reassuring him that it was all ok and he had nothing to worry about. It was also good, but Gamzee ended up neglecting the relationship. 

There is Vriska ♦ Terezi? They did not had the best comunication, honestly Vriska neglected a lot her talks with Terezi about feelings. I do not really want to got there.

 Auspistism: 

Actually, there is no good example of a meddly in the comic. Maybe Spades Slick ♣ Doc Scratch ♣ Sn8wman

There was almost Eridan ♣ Kanaya ♣ Vriska but Vriska didn’t want to.

And I think Eridan ♣ Terezi ♣ Sollux but Sollux didn’t want to.

Examples out of the comic 

 Matespritships? You could take whatever couple you would like, honestly. They are too similar. 

 You know Dexter and Mandark? Just pay attention for a second to these kids behaviour. They did everything to get the other one frustrated, but when the situation called it they even worked together. They had so much fun. That is caliginous flirt and there is no other way around it. 

 Ok, you ready for some Beastboy ♦ Raven? Because I am so invested. They have shared so many feelings and they do have emulated emotions on each other! I just love it when they talk about their differences and agree that they are both good in their own ways. It’s so cute.

Want to know how Steven went all  ♣ for Pearl and Amethyst in order for them to fuse? And even after that they kept having these tensions but workaround them so graciously. All thanks to Steven being a silly and cute auspisticer.

 If you need even more examples, please refer to this post. See how well these three teenagers will explain you how Troll romance works. Ah, yes. It was all canon. 

 •••••••• 

 Alrigth, I believe that will be all. I hope this helped you somehow! Thanks for reading!

[camarilla-intuition]

Metalocalypse convo with @trans-karkat was just really good so..... Featuring bad mouse pad coloring because prismatic Toki. Closest I get to writing fics is just firing off ideas with Stevie, below the cut is 15 pages worth of au ideas.

Nathan- Sea, water and water creatures. Sound and romantic stuff as minor domains

Pickles- Earth, plants, intoxicants and parties. Probably more

Murderface- Fire, pestilence. Preservation of history

Skwissguard-Air, sky, storms, minor in metal and electricity.

Toki- Death, Heart, colors. extends to like life and souls n stuff.

Minor gods: Abigail viewed as an advisor, Charles as a prophet, Dick Nubbler a messenger, chef zombie and Klokateers as servants. etc.

Camarilla- Okay so..... what if…. they became.... an actual pantheon of gods... cause I have IDEAS

crab - yes yes yes yes yes yes

Camarilla-like Toki is obvious: major powers of death and like side shit of color and maybe more he hasn't bothered to uncover in himself.

Nathan gets Water and sound

Pickles probably of wine/intoxicants but that’s his front for his actual powers more being in like with like plants and earth shit.  with like instead of a crown of grapes like in greece it’s a crown of Hops, the kind they use to make beer.

or maybe both.

crab- yheyheayheayheah

he's dionysius basically

Camarilla- Skwissgaar gets skies and all that entails, maybe some fun ass space and storm imagery thrown in.

crab- also fertility

Camarilla- Oh yeah for sure... I started notes in my sketchbook and that is written down first lmao.   but Murderface gets fire then idk

crab- fdhjknh

murderface is probably like uhhh

FUCK

HUE SAID PESTILENCE

Camarilla- NICE YES FIRE AND PESTILENCE. just the idea of them getting god powers, trying to keep living their normal lives, while also accidentally doing god shit all over the place is just alsdkjg;ashfd;ajsndfv

crab- yehyehayeahh

YEAAAH

Camarilla- also it's hard to give everyone their own god like aesthetics when they also all need to be metal.... I haven't looked at enough metal fashion lately stevie this is tragic

Crab- YEAH agreed

i need to too .

Camarilla- Also I think Pickles is less an actual Dionysius and more he pretends to be cause that’s more metal than like, a Demeter or some shit.

crab-yehyeah that'd be cool

Camarilla- I was thinking elemental stuff for everyone but none of the elements fit Toki, so Everyone else gets Earth, Water, Fire, air and he's just DEATH

crab-he's like.. a nature god but that kind of thing is his Specialty

fdjgkhjn

YEAHHH

death.............

METAL

he's heart

or.. like

spirit

that's basically death

Camarilla-haha soul energy/ heart/ human element to it yeah that works that’s what they did in that W.I.T.C.H comic using the same words even

Crab- yehyeahyeahh

it manifests both in like

death and also like...

the positive aspects

Camarilla-Earth, fire, Water, Air, Spirit.

yeah i really wana give him like color and light spectrum as a minor power, like maybe how his 'spirit' ability would manifest.

crab-yeah omg

or like.. illusions

slash like.. bringing things to life

he takes life n gives life

Camarilla- but like..... socially/mentally damaged people turned found family, turned odd ball pantheon is MY JAM KINDA STORY

Yeah!

crab-YEAHHHHHH

toki accidentally turns all the shit in his room to life

like.. the model planes n deaddy bear n his other toys

Camarilla- They all have like crowns/ cool god outfits they can customize a la homestuck style but fancier and they all have the doomstar and/or the dethklok symbol on it that won’t go away no matter what color or style they make the outfits.

But holy shit yes good this is good

crab-yehaeyaheyaeyah

skwisgaar can't stop floating

Camarilla-god mode/powers auto give them the fucking dark eye makeup they normally wear on stage but like as a stain/discoloration and at the beginning they only can make the god mode work while performing but eventually the powers pop up more and more.

Crab- yehayeah

skwis keeps accidentally electrocuting people by touching them

Camarilla-toki's crown should look like a skull but like, with a cat ear silhouette and feather details.

crab-YEAAAAAAH

that's good

toki has like.. skeleton wings

Camarilla-but lmao yes little things like that. like Nathan gets angry and water faucets explode a little.

crab-FUCK

skwisgaar orgasms and fucking

it’s like

Camarilla-his crown is a whale and spikes and swirling wave shapes.

OH NO

crab-(thunderclap booms down the hallway, also a woman screaming)

toki: oh he does it again

Camarilla-oh no

it true

crab-yheyheayha that’s good though that’d be a pretty crown

murderface burns his mustache

FUCK

HUE JUST SUGGESTED

SKWISGAAR'S HAIR LIKE

WHENEVER HE GETS A BONER LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY RUBBED A BALLOON ON HIS HEAD

Camarilla-the fans start to notice the supernatural happenings and the band is just like "What did you think 'Blazing star' meant? god catch up."

Crab-ssjfdghbgh

Camarilla-LMAO I was already picturing that Skwissguard hair just starts doing the drama floaty thing whenever his powers start showing up and the more and more it happens the more his hair is just perma doing the floaty thing.

crab-hue just now- 'pickles doing the deadly hexikicks and a fucking earthquake happens two cities over'

nathan talks to fish

Camarilla-HAHA YEAH THATS THE SHIT. he's bored and standing on the Mordehaus yard or some shit and starts thinking about wine or beer and the grapes just start GROWING from his feet and he doesn't even fucking notice.

YES PLEASE YES GOOD

crab-i mean that’s already fucking canon

but he like.

starts talking to All fish and all fish talk back instead of just the whales.

Camarilla-when nathan has better control he can make those water audio files by himself

crab-murderface can never touch firecrackers without them exploding in his face

Camarilla-yeah!!!!

Good.

crab-he burns his confederate boxers

dfnhbhbh hue just said. he farts fire

Camarilla-someone else takes a sip/eats from something murderface had touched/drank from(probably on accident cause hella ew) and they get like Serious FEVERS for the next 3 weeks if not die from fever.

crab-ok him playing a flaming bass guitar would be pretty cool though

Camarilla-yeah and the SHITTY SHITTY double meaning of flaming... god

crab-HAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OHHH MY GOD

this is fucking incredible

Camarilla-YEAH GOD

crab-any groupies who touch murderface go home with like. boils

also murderface fucking. makes people puke but mostly makes himself puke

Camarilla-YEAH even more reason to avoid everything about him

crab-like

the powers manifest when he feels disgusted

so when he's looking in the mirror he just

covers himself in like.. Pustules

Camarilla-oh god yeah the powers lean more toward the pestilence side the more self deprecating he is.

Crab-yeaeheyahheyah

Camarilla-maybe that would make the band actually make him go to therapy.

crab-HJDFKBKJGH

Camarilla-CHARLES tho. like nobody expects anyone else to develope any other power but the sheer proximity and attention from the band gods gives a little something to people they favor.

crab-yehayeha and he's like

still the high priest of the church of the black klok

Camarilla-like Charles starts seeing things a few mins before they happen, not everything but small premonitions. and they get more useful and farther ahead the more he realizes them. he also starts seeing when people lie, or even when they are hiding something.

crab-YESSS

Camarilla-YEAH lmao

crab-and he's like.. partially immortal

Camarilla- yes good.

Abigail notices that other people just listen better to what she says, like they obey her easier. probably also something more subtle like extremely good luck that ers on the side of probablility manipulation.  her other clients she produces for just get better and better cause she’s there and making it work.

Crab-yheyeayheah

Camarilla- Dick Nubbler guy gets like Synesthesia like visual cues at sound, his engineering doubles in efficiency and skill.

crab-yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

like.. Technomancy

Camarilla-basically yeah!

idk who else is around the band a lot?

crab-yeah uhhh

i think that’s about it tbh

jean pierre but he's not exactly ..... human

Camarilla-yeah honestly....

hes like.... just a undead minion basically....

OH! the Klokateers start getting stronger, fewer die form weird accidents.

Crab-yeyaheayeha

Camarilla- better reflexes, better constitution. that pyrotechnics explosion that should have killed them just bruises them now.

crab-Hell Yeah

god... this would be so good

Camarilla-the longer you stay working for them the better you feel, even if it's not the same kind of direct influence that people the band favors would get.

Crab-yheyheah

Camarilla- LMAO RIGHT??? the ideal little things that i know won’t ever happen in canon

crab-what would like............ happen plot wise......

Camarilla-IDK

Crab- i guess they would just sort of serve to like

gain even more esteem with humanity and even more of a following

Like

Camarilla-just weird god shit preparing them to fight/defend themselves and the world from the half man

crab-they had a following as celebrities but this is the next level so that like

people actually start legit worshipping them on a god basis and like..... are prepared to follow them wherever they're supposed to lead humanity

Camarilla-well like then you get into the discussion of when you compare celebrities in pop culture to the idolization of old gods. It’s a comparison people have made before, it would almost seem natural for the progression of their popularity

crab-eyaheayh

but they definitely like need something to push them out of the celebrity bubble and into like....... Oh, These People Are Shepherding Humanity

bc at least in the eyes of the governments and shit they’re still just some dudes

Camarilla-But then you have the weirdness of your gods living among you and making mistakes. being much more imperfect and greek god like.

crab-yesssssssssssssss

me:  My People Had It Right

Camarilla-I think there would always be the possibility of denial, so you’d need something like when the greek gods did, giant acts of impossible power, to really prove them wrong but the boys are just... too damn lazy for that shit

crab-yheayehayeh

people online keep try to like

debunk everythign

Camarilla- so they just end up existing in this weird limbo of gods/not gods, until their immortality would start catching up with them lmao

crab-yess

i think they'd be stuck at the ages they were when salacia 'started' the klok by killing that dude

Camarilla-They wouldn't even care cause like hey them trying to doubt our awesome superpowers isn't half as bad as some of the other stuff the media/fans have tried to do before

crab-yeah lmao and also they don’t give a shit about the fans

Camarilla-but yeah!

Crab- they start having to fight / have conflicts with other deity like entities or whatever the hell salacia is  , like..

things or people from  wherever he came from

Camarilla-YEAH that’s good for short term conflict. but like, any decent group of people turned immortals/gods would probably sit back and try to let the world and humanity run itself cause like how are you ever gonna keep up with so much change if you're an immortal with the mind of a normal ass dude.

crab-ye

oh also nathan can breathe water

nathan just fuckin starts hanging out in the mariana trench

Camarilla-but those boys probably wouldn't care so much, they'd just keep doing what they want and the world would just have to LIVE with these rude as fuck Jack offs being sometimes gods.

Crab- fdngnkh

i think it’d be hilarious if they hadn't actually done anything like that until they realized that

but that's PROBABLY statistically impossible

Camarilla-they have to fucking... run halfway across their universe to hopefully avoid the other band mates noticing since it's like.... a really uncontrolled moment of power if they aren't careful.

crab-skwisgaar's thing is less about creating life and more about extending himself and his energy, and creating like.. a web of life and particle interaction

Camarilla-everyone still probably notices real quick tho.

Yeah!

crab-HAHAHAHA

Camarilla-like the way the wind travels, is everywhere reaches out over the globe that kinda thing.

crab-yeah because toki has literal lightning in his eyes for years after

Camarilla-also it could be centuries into this god shit and they'd all just... keep calling each other band mates outside of stressful situations.

crab-HAHAHAHA

the terminology takes on a whole different cultural meaning

bandmates are closer than brothers and soulmates

the band never catches on

Camarilla-lmao yes! prolonged physical contact with one another affects them in slightly subtler ways than it would a mortal but still does. especially if sex/feelings are involved.

lmao YEAH god

I'd think that an immortal swiss would still sleep around where he could, but like, Toki wouldn't so much and that would be ANOTHER thing they both avoid addressing for a LONG ass time. haah IMMORTALITY suckers.

crab-YEAH lmao

since it's just with mortal beings toki would be like

eh, they dies anyways

his insecurity issues get a lot better as like.. thousands of years go by

and he wouldn't care if it was with the other guys because they all do it eventually

UFKCING

Camarilla-I think that for any mortal Toki is close too there are.. les obvious signs than the other leave. like it's so rarely happens but it still does sometimes and almost none of it's a physical sign. they can start seeing more colors in the world then they thought possible and like... yeah good

crab-nathan: hey guys, uhh. so i've been thinking, and.... you know how like. we ain't exactly human anymore, right. nathan: like. look at toki, he's a fuckin bipedal rabbit with like four heads and glitter for breath. also cut that shit out, it's not biodegradable. nathan: anyway point is nathan: is being gay even like. a thing

Camarilla-they all are super close probably but also need afucking break sometimes. so maybe they just try to live lifetimes as normal as they can. as normal as the lives they missed out on the first go around. even tho they wouldn't give that up for the whole universe.

crab-the rest of them: uhhhh

yeyheayheah

toki can be found in like

almost any large group of children

go into a chuck e cheese. he's there in the ball pit, eight years old

Camarilla-everyone has those DUMB ass shocked expressions they all make for like....  a soild three hours straight, at the least.

YES GOOD IDEAL

crab-YEHAEYAHEYAH

skwisgaar can usually be found at those kinds of things too, half the time if toki's there he's in the background standing around

he makes the animatronics dance

Camarilla-HA yes good. Murderface just, starts being at events that will later be viewed as historically important. none of them have time/spacial based powers but it’s just this uncanny thing cause he WANTS to witness history so bad.

crab-yheayehaeyah

if anybody figures out how to time travel it's him

Camarilla-hmm yeah.

crab-that would have the potential to seriously fuck w things though

so idk if itd happen

OH I DIDNT READ UR TIME SPACIAL BASED POWERS BIT

gjkhlj

yeah i agree i think.

it's more of a like.. nostalgia history thing

none of them are smart enough to do math and timespace powers require math

Camarilla-lmao but like. people all the time, hear the stories and lowkey view figures like Charles, Abigail, Dick, as like minor gods. minor parts of the pantheon. prophet, guide/advisor, messenger type roles.

but yeah that was my thought!

crab-yeahyeah

god

theyre gods but they can't ufkcing do math still

they all refuse to learn

Camarilla-GOD oh no

crab-skwisgaar has an instinctual understanding of particle physics but he won't fucking learn to do long division

Camarilla-but then they'd have to bother to learn how each different place does the math stevie! who wants to do that!

crab-YEAH

Camarilla-lmao he's just listening to some scientist in an interview or documentary on tv explain how they could get this great machine or theory to work, honestly they’re just so close! just have to figure out the right adjustment!

and he just

slips right over and does the damn thing like 'you fools look this is EASY.'

crab--boops one electron into place-

'see??? was thats so hards'

Camarilla-"HOW are you doing that?" "I donts sknow i just ams. look you just put yours hands out here and just." "NO BUT HOW??"

crab-'you know, you moves the... and then bing bangs, boom'

Camarilla-their god powers have a scientific base but god forbid they are ever able to explain how their shit works. like they are more than human but they still exist within the universe and it's rules.

crab-YEAH

they have a really high like.. powerful understanding of things innately within them but like

they're still dumb as hell

Camarilla-of course!

crab-when toki gets a better grip on his powers and how they're linked to him emotionally surveillance footage from multiple hospitals shows a like. ten ish year old boy walking into the kids wards, saying hello to everybody individually, and walking out moments before doctors realize that Literally Everything all the children were there for has been cured

Camarilla-they just, as much as they NEED people and life around cause they still have mostly mortal minds, they also just, don't actively care that much. they basically probably make sure that the civilizations they look over don't completely destroy one another and that they have internet and a media to be on. Haha

crab-yehyeah

eventually toki gets sort of jaded by death and stops healing people, because they just.. die eventually anyway in a few years

he has a soft spot for kids though

he mostly just does it when people pray specifically to him.

crab-so people learn to do that lmao

Camarilla-so more little things and acts with the very occasional GRAND performance and they keep the big impossibilities to a level that people can still deny if they want! and that doesn't matter to them so much, makes them feel more like they did backs as mortals, back as just a normal band again!

Crab-yehyeah

Camarilla-but still all the little impossibly things happen around them and they still just have that undeniable godly magnetism to their music!

Crab-yessss

Camarilla-hha toki taking care of sick kids is my fave yes good

crab-yesss

reports roll in of a series of allegedly abusive parents being attacked by impossibly large falcons

Camarilla-it maybe creeps everyone out when Toki pretends to be a kid again but they also all get it like yeah. even tho like sometimes they'd probably feel too big to even fit in any 'human' form so like why bother when it feels so weird. but even tho MF holds on to the human traits the longest, Toki is the one who spends the most time actively TRYING to look human!

crab-yehyeah

he's just.. bad at it sometimes

kids don't care though

Camarilla-YES! he just lives out the kinds fo rescues and fantasies he probably had. and with his new form and understanding he never ever has to feel cold again!

Crab-yehyeah

Camarilla-Skwiss probably helps with that bit

crab-people try to appeal to skwisgaar for romantic help but that's actually nathan's department

Camarilla-preventing the cold, teaches him how to direct the energy in that way. like not a step by step lesson, no science to it. it's all about feeling the energy and how it's working and all the little factors of weather and thermodynamics turned into metaphors based in music and chords

Crab-yehyheyheah

Camarilla-but he still explains it and Toki gets it pretty easy

crab-that's so good

[sodiumqueen]

upd8 “liveblog” obviously, spoilers below

heads up i chose candy first *slams fist on the table* free the clown, free the clown yeah wow thanks. someone just farted in my hands and said “here’s your story” yes, we get it, you know we wanted to give Gamzee a redemption arch, and then you shat the bed in act 6 making it even worse for any hope of an arch, that doesn’t mean the request wasn’t valid, but thanks for the mockery I guess??? like we didn’t get enough shit from the fucking fandom. THANKS. wow. oh wow it’s getting worse? how is it getting worse. This is hilarious. This is beyond insulting. Fuck you. No. Yeah, see, you know what you did. You wrote an abuse victim and then you mocked people for IDENTIFYING WITH HIM, and made him someone else’s abuser. That was shit writing and you are a shit for writing it. Fuck you for that, and fuck you for this.

The rest of my excitement for this fucking comic has just died in the water.

---- anyways----

I don’t give a fuck about Kanaya and Rose, I just don’t connect with their stilted, poised bullshit. I like Kanaya and Rose separately, but together they bore the everloving fuck out of me. “Poised lesbians” no bye. Rowdy, disaster lesbians > Rosekanaya I’m feeling a bit better about the ending, one because Karkat just appeared and I love any and all of Karkat’s dialog because his personality archetype is and always has been my kryptonite but also because I got up, got a drink and talked to my roommates. The  sun is shining, I can still write fanfic, and there will be life beyond this terrible webcomic. I do love shitty and domestic DaveKat, and if there’s not DaveKat in both sides of this epilogue I’m calling this entire comic a fucking wash. You may take the clown, but you will never take, the DaveKat. (if one of them dies I’m going to flip every fucking shit I have)

are they going to fuck????????????? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

OK but who sticks their fingers in someone’s mouth to flirt, ew jade No. Youd on’t do that IN THE COLD. that’s something when you’re in the HEAT of the moment, it’s not a match. fucking real jade. wow.

“KARKAT: WHATEVER YOU SAY, DAVE “NOT XENOPHOBIC” STRIDER.“ See, This is the shit that I’m here for. Thank you for Karkat. He’s the only thing I’m getting out of this epishit. “Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly. JADE: get fucked karkat“ I’m also here for this, this is great. I’ll take 100 more pages of this, stat. Ah man, It really feels like I'm reading fanfic and NOT Homestuck. Feels weird. "KARKAT: THIS IS WHY I HATE LEAVING THE *FUCKING HOUSE*!!!!!!!" Karkat is the best thing in homestuck. Fuck all naysayers. "DAVE: nah i just had a sudden need for a bro down DAVE: just an unquenchable thirst to be showered in a flashstorm of righteous bro juice JOHN: yikes. DAVE: gotta guzzle the shit out of it like gatorade after a sports match DAVE: help me out here my brolectrolytes are low” Dave is the best human. He's narrowly beating Jade because Jade is being very weird as an adult. This is painful. This? This here? I can see why Karkat iddn't want discussed. It is painful to look at. I am looking at it and it is uncomfortable. "JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat." - wow whawt also on a darker note, I am technically here for this. well bye dirk. I wish they'd stop puppeting Gamzee in front of me. Fuck you. So Jane is going to run for president. I guess this is why it’s important to read one before the other. The universes run parallel and they spoil each other. I’m real done with them waving the dead corpse of Gamzee in my face. Fuck you still. It’s ruining the epilogue. I get that they're going for a fanfic feel and they've reached it. There's nothing homestuck about this shit. It's fanfic all the way down. Also in proper fanfic/homestuck form I'm skipping the boring and terrible bits. wow it's reached new hights of bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It just keeps getting worse it's incredible!!!!! this is not homestuck Well thank god, Sollux and Aradia free us. There is no hope. We are in the Bad Universe. This is the Bad universe where Homestuck was written Bad by idiots. thank fuck for Meena and Karkat. I love them, they are my last bastion of hope for this garbage tale of trash. I’m just sorta.... reading it. Letting the words happen at me. I’m over it. “ARADIA: you werent even sympathetic to the very story it seemed you were trying to get me invested in from the beginning ARADIA: almost like a mean prank!“ (almost like what happened with gamzee, *gasp*) DAVE: um i guess also your charisma and likability and shit KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT...  KARKAT: I’M PRETTY SURE I CAN FAKE THOSE THINGS WELL ENOUGH. DAVE: oh also DAVE: your weirdly sincere humility KARKAT: I PREFER THE TERM “SELF LOATHING” ACTUALLY. help i still love these boys thhey’re not gonna kiss are they. we’re getting eternally cockblocked here. KARKAT: I KNOW THAT YOU PERISH LIKE A DELICATE LILAC BLOOM IN THE FUCKING DESERT IF NOT SHOWERED WITH MY VERBAL ATTENTION AT ALL TIMES. man i love this tho KARKAT: MY MORNING WORKOUT?? KARKAT: I COULDN’T THINK OF A MORE OFFENSIVELY PRESUMPTUOUS PHRASE IF I TRIED. there’s my boy!! FUCK you, you made me read Terezi and John making out. “here’s your davekat, I GUESS” *tosses it on the goddamn floor* fuking ugh this epilogue. It’s like someone cooked you a fucking mouthwatering t-bone steak, and right before you take a bite, they just PISS all over it. i take it back they are cute in this scene I am freed from this terrible webcomic. Davekat has set me free. It is the only worthwhile thing here. I am leaving. It’s over.

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ upd8 2020-01-17

Alright, morningblogging yesterday’s 2020-01-17 upd8 to Homestuck^2 let’s go!  Spoiler-free again.  I kinda don’t want even the next chapter names image-spoiled above the cut anymore so I’m going to have to figure out WHAT to put above the cut in these liveblog posts for visual reinforcement... a unique silly icon?  Going back once I’m done with the upd8 and posting something non-spoilery but weird-looking out of context?

Eh, can’t be assed.  Just know that after this I’m going to pony up for the Patreon commentary and skim it for anything plot-useful to y’all (in a separate post).  Let’s get started.

Okay, what’s next:  Any bonuses?  Oh, none!  Phew.  Unless those are coming faster too and just staggered differently, which would mean I gotta overcome my irrational pre-Homestuck-reading anxiety even MORE often.  :T

No Homestuck you don’t GET to ask how my-- ah, right.  :P

(FYI, HS^2 has been good to my emotions so far, quite a balm for the epilogues, so once I START reading I’m usually fine; but after being hurt so badly how could I possibly convince my lizard brain to trust it until it’s right in front of me?  Seriously, just hearing that the upd8 has landed messes me up a bit until I come fix it by reading w/ y’all here.)

Okay, so whose feelings?  As much as I’ve been waiting for Jade, I hope this isn’t about Jade.

> ==>

Ah fuck, we’re finally with the Pursuit Crew.  Bracing myself.  That means we get to see probably sleeping Jade ( :C ), full-swing DaveKat (approving nod), the first canon onscreen look at masculine-mode Roxy (<3), a probably pretty pissed off Kanaya (possibly either the feelings target, the one Saying How Are Your Feelings, or both), and uh... did they drag Callie along?  Or leave her back there with her meta freakout?  Probably left her back there, but... hm.

Let me turn up the brightness on this screen to sear these next pages into my retinas.  (Also, it feels odd to still be using a four-person “==>” for these, although if Jade is still asleep the numbers might fit on both ends... :c )

> ==>

I don’t think Dad is in the spacefaring business, so this is probably one of Jake’s shittier spaceship designs.

> ==>

...well that’s a touch disturbing.  Is that a Jade-occupied bed or are those just pillows?

Oh what the fresh fanfic’y heck is this command.

> i enter.

Okay that’s great.  I got a kick out of that.

JADE [in calliope red]: the prince’s power grows.

--but that’s not.  That explains the narrative command text, it’s alt!callie talking through a still conked-out Jade.  Please let her wake up between speak-throughs, please tell me you’ve learned that trick??  I already know you’re gonna pull an “oh she was asleep pretty much all of those THREE YEARS OF TRAVEL” thing on me and that’s hard fucking enough to deal with.

KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST!

He’s actually using the full curse correctly, huh?

...These commands.  Guess part of the puzzle is how much alt!Callie is being typically morbid and how much she might actually be wising up enough to get a kick out of this.

> the knight of blood falls.

DAVE: dude can you chill for like even a single fucking second DAVE: also are you ok

Has CallieJade chilled for even a single second this entire trip??  Is he asking just if Karkat’s okay or Jade too???

--yeah I’m overblowing things out of nervousness.  Just wait and see a bit, boots.

Alt!Callie has at least learned to be more of a smartass:

> karkat is characteristically appreciative of the alarm call.

Shirt trade Karkat, nice.  And uh, Jade’s dress sure is a... dress.  Hm.

(Did alt!Callie alchemize adjustments to did she just luck out to have a red-symbol’d Bec belt and accent leggings?  I’d prefer the former, because as much as it would be acceptable within Homestuck proper, using the transition between the epilogues and this new-author’d work to just HAPPEN to give her a fitting outfit without an excuse via providence is kind of lazy.)

KARKAT: OH, PARDON THE FUCK OUT OF ME FOR OVERREACTING A LITTLE WHEN MY GOOD FRIEND "POSSESSED JADE" BUSTS INTO MY RESPITEBLOCK AT 5 AM! KARKAT: NEXT TIME I’LL JUST PULL THE COVERS BACK AND LET HER CLIMB IN! JADE: i am uninterested in that scenario. KARKAT: GREAT! POSSESSED JADE ISN’T EVEN HORNY! HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?

...please let that mean he’s not used to her being possessed all the time and she wakes up sometimes.  PLEASE.

DAVE: but im pretty sure i locked that door JADE: i unlocked it with my mind. DAVE: fuck KARKAT: FANTASTIC. JADE: the prince’s powers are growing, but so are mine.

Dave, I’m pretty sure regular-ass no-Green-Sun Space powers can flip a few lock tumblers too.  (--though, I guess from context this was a Jakeship technolock.  Confirmation on the ship’s bad taste in design.  --I think I’m foggily remembering it said in the Epilogues that they took one of Jake’s ships just like Dirk did, too... man, being depressed so much by the Epilogues sure took a lot out of my ability to recall them decently.)

KARKAT: LIKE YOU DON’T FLOAT AROUND LIKE A CREEPY PIECE OF SHIT ALL DAY AS IT IS?

God DAMN IT she’s been asleep and possessed the whole fucking time.

> sleep is abandoned, coffee sought.

More obligatory DaveKat being cute, somehow only emphasized by the embarrassing glowing-with-power observer who doesn’t really get any of it.

Ah, here we go:

> the rogue is also awake.

Oh huh.  Cool!

Hero outfit, understated...  her his choice of heart-shades color-coded to stand out from Dave more to avoid further mistaken identity cases.  Works well!  (Holy shit I only JUST remembered at the end to go back and correctly gender Roxy as him, that was close. I blame the epilogues for a lack of visual reinforcement; I shouldn’t have as much trouble soon enough.  Seriously, I don’t remember ANYTHING without visual reinforcement, I think that’s why I remember so much of Homestuck proper so clearly.)

KARKAT: OH SHIT, THERE SHE IS! I DIDN’T EVEN HEAR HER FOLLOW US! ROXY: sometimes a girls just got to get her drift on i guess ROXY: it be like that

ilu roxy.

I missed Roxy so much, you guys.  I need more of him remarking on all this crazy shit if I’m gonna stay sane though all this.  (And I need more of him and AWAKE JADE kicking ass independently or together if I’m going to continue to believe there’s justice in the world.)

> ==>

We rarely saw Rose drinking anything but the rare coffee in canon, but I think Kanaya would have gotten her plenty into tea, yes.  Or at the very least, wanting the aesthetic of drinking tea with Kanaya would have gotten Rose into tea even if it never crossed Kanaya’s mind to try the stuff.

ROXY: well i mean who knows what she drinks now ROXY: dirk probs tossed the coffee machine out the space window right away ROXY: dude doesnt "believe" in "substances" > the prince is contemplated for a moment in silence.

FUCK, Dirk can see the narrative all the way out here???  No wonder alt!Callie’s forced to have possession turned on 24/7.  That’s fucking disappointing.  How the hell are we going to get any proper Jade time with THAT hanging over our heads?  She’d only be able to do anything when Dirk’s knocked out, and maybe not even THEN!

I was virtually promised more of actual non-asleep Jade getting shit done in HS^2.  Now there’s an even longer wait on it than I expected.  This sucks.

(EDIT: BOY did I misread that link line. Thinking “is contemplated” meant is sitting contemplating, when it meant "is being contemplated by everyone here". That was dumb of me.)

*clicks that next link*

Oh my goodness, Roxy joined the Bird Hair Crew.  It makes him look like a fucking asshole but I kind of love it.

KARKAT: IS THERE MILK?

I can’t believe Karkat is okay with drinking milk.  --yes, culturally Trolls are more comfortable with animal excretions than we are, but you would’ve thought years of railing against Equius would have purged any tolerance the idea of milk from his psyche.

I guess Dave introduced him to cereal, and it was all over from there.

DAVE: this is more like a castle DAVE: a castle of idk DAVE: twenty something ennui

Sounds like a relatable mood.  Especially considering Dirk probably decided to conquer reality out of almost nothing but twenty-something ennui.

Alright.  You aren’t going to turn Kanaya into an alcoholic or anything on us are you?

> the knight of time seeks a sylph...

--this is the shittiest shipboard starship aesthetic.

> ...and finds her, momentarily.

WOW that looks fucking depressed.  :(

> ==>

...okay you know what?  Never mind.  That outfit has wrapped straight back around into Trying Too Hard and is now hilarious.

DAVE: you ever feel like our whole lives are eventually gonna end up like this DAVE: just blasting through space on a sweeps long journey to ""somewhere"" chasing after or running from some vague enemy thats sometimes a god modded pet dog and sometimes your dad DAVE: without the faintest fucking idea of whats going to happen when we get there DAVE: thats a little specific but you know what i mean

Why do you think the epilogues upset us so much?  We thought we’d won free of that bullshit.

> ==>

Oh jesus christ that’s the most depressingly sad I’ve ever seen Kanaya drawn.  :C

--Karkat got you to watch Serendipity?  That’s amazing, Dave.

KANAYA: You Arent Reminding Me Of Her As I Rarely Think Of Anything Else KANAYA: I Close My Eyes And I See Her KANAYA: I Keep Them Open And I See Her

Fuck.

Y’know how little showing these two in love and actually HAPPY together we’ve seen in this entire comic and its subworks?  Despite them having spent at least a few happy years together we only saw in tiny screenclips?  And how Candy alluded super hard that they most likely couldn’t get that in this real timeline where shit’s going down?

Seriously, FUCK.  You could at least pretend to give us some hope, here.

Oh no, don’t ask for the nursery story, Dave.  Unless it turns out to be a funny one or a Rose twist on an old story or something.  Which it probably is, I should stop worrying.

> ==>

KANAYA: Oh Its A Wriggler Story About A Young Prince And The Beloved Flower He Loved And Lost DAVE: flower DAVE: like a plant KANAYA: Its A Fairytale Dave DAVE: right KANAYA: A Singular Wild Rose He Failed To Cherish When He Had Her KANAYA: And His Journey Of Discovering What She Meant To Him All Along KANAYA: Culminating In A New Quest To Find Her And Win Her Back

Dirk you PIECE OF SHIT did you rewrite the narrative of the fucking STORIES SHE TOLD CHILDREN?!??  Does the fact that alt!Callie is only in the present mean he can rewrite ANY past event we didn’t literally SEE???  FUCK you.  Seriously fuck all of this.

Please tell me she was kidding just then, or realizes there’s fucking something wrong with what she’s saying and getting angry or.

(EDIT: shoutyourporpoise replied: "Hey, idk If you picked up on this, but the 'nursery story' Rose told to the wigglers is just The Little Prince, which is maybe a BIT early for them to read, but I don't think that's a case of Dirk changing the narrative; its just Rose being Too Adult as usual." Oh, damn, I didn't even CATCH that it was that story. That makes all of this a lot more forgivable, even if pretty unforgivably leaning into the fiction that Dirk used to brainwash and kidnap her. Maybe that's exactly why it worked -- fiction, a story so blazed into the public consciousness? Hm. Thanks, shoutyourporpoise.)

KANAYA: But In A Way I Feel As If It Is the Greater Universe Trying To Tell Me Something

Mother fuck I’m even going to have to see our protagonists warped by Dirk when they’re ostensibly FULLY SHIELDED aren’t I.  There’s only so much of that I would be able to take, you know.

KANAYA: It May Simply Stem From My Longing To See Her Again And How Much Is Indicative Of Something More Sinister KANAYA: She Is A Goddess Of Light And The Only Of Her Kind We Know Is Alive After All KANAYA: Maybe Shes Wrested Dominion Of The Entire Concept In All Its Appearances Within This Frame Of Reference

Hm.  Well, it being a product of Rose’s ascension instead of Dirk’s is possibly a more charitable take, with Ultimate Rose projecting the delusion enforced on her backward, visible to past Rose’s Sight when she isn’t paying attention and thus paving the way for Dirk to paradoxically exploit that “ideal” as something Lighty and Important and “Perfect”.  I still don’t fucking like it though.

> ==>

DAVE: sorry i know you say you got your badass monster powers but kanaya you look tired as hell DAVE: not that im tryna psyche you or whatever but youre waxing poetic in the dark which i guess is maybe on brand but still

Yyyep.

DAVE: unless terezi is lurking in the vents somewhere and now that i bring that up its actually not out of the question so im kind of gonna be thinking about that one for a while

Pffff.

DAVE: youre the only person i know whos still basically the same as when i met you

--Which is kind of going to have to change, right?  She’s got some other cosmic purpose ready to change her a little more than she changed pre-human-troll-meetup, you’d think.

> ==>

Cute as hell.

> ==>

KANAYA: How Are Your Feelings

There’s the title drop.  I’d think Dave’s doing pretty well, considering?  Still fucked over by Dirk betraying and tricking Rose away who he’s been close with all his life, but.

> ==>

DAVE: except sometimes your best friend disappears and your other best friend goes into a ghost coma and your third best friend fucks off to space with your dad DAVE: the dude youve spent the last 7 years convincing yourself isnt an egomaniacal anime villain DAVE: and who isnt actually lying in wait to completely decimate your life and your emotions and shit

Ah... yeah.  A little worse than my casual list, huh?  Forgot that Jade vanishing into a possession-coma for THREE FUCKING YEARS is going to be hard on people inside the comic too, fuck.

DAVE: maybe it was naive to think that a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society

I was honestly surprised they TRIED to run society at all.  Jasp even just highlighted a big reason why not in the bonuses.

DAVE: cool how earth c existed for centuries then we show up and manage to ruin society in seven fucking years

:(

Well, the trolls got THEIR lesson on why they didn’t deserve to rule over their new universe like gods; I guess some of y’all needed that lesson too?

DAVE: every serious conversation i have inevitably falls apart into riffing on a casual acquaintances ass

True.

Dammit, Dave didn’t feel like he could just be Some Guy even on Earth C.  :(

> ==>

...don’t think I’ve forgotten that nursery story, though.  I don’t want to think that it was something that ACTUALLY past happened, especially not without manipulation.  Like maybe past Rose was foreseeing the false purpose that Dirk wrote for her or the like, a cooperative misunderstanding between the two instead of Dirk or Rose literally reaching back in time.

> meanwhile...

KARKAT: WAIT, WHY THE FUCK AM I EVEN ASKING? HE’S OBVIOUSLY NOT FINE. KARKAT: ARE ANY OF US? ARE YOU? ROXY: not rly KARKAT: EXACTLY.

:(

--Oh right.  I remember that Callie and Roxy were going reasonably steady in Meat even though it was only alluded to, she didn’t freak out and stay awol or what have you.  That’s good to remember.  But it means Roxy deliberately left her behind to go on this dangerous quest, for years.  :C

KARKAT: KANAYA BARELY EVEN TALKS, CALLIOPE WON’T LEAVE THEIR CABIN, JADE JUST FLOATS AROUND LIKE A CREEPY BALLOON THAT’S MOSTLY MADE OF HAIR.

Oh, SHIT.  I should have read one line further.  They DID bring her.  Alt!Callie being here too must really FUCK with her.  ...maybe she can actually learn to accept that alternate way her life might’ve played out, though?

KARKAT: THE REALLY FUCKED UP THING IS I MIGHT BE THE MOST OKAY OUT OF ALL OF US, WHICH IS HOW YOU KNOW SHIT HAS REALLY GONE GLOBES UP.

Quite true.

ROXY: ur kinda an intense dude anybody ever tell u that KARKAT: NO.

Pff.

> ==>

KARKAT: AGAINST PRETTY MUCH ALL ODDS, AND DESPITE ME NOT DESERVING ANY OF IT, I ENDED UP GETTING PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I WANTED. KARKAT: OVER AND OVER AGAIN. KARKAT: SOMETIMES IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE WHATEVER SLATHERING MONSTROSITY OF A COSMIC HELLBEAST THAT PUT ALL THIS SHIT INTO MOTION...ACTUALLY LIKES ME?

Well, if you want to blame Lord English for instance... we never saw Caliborn and Karkat interact much, but the parallels between the two were drawn so severely that Caliborn was basically the idealized, multiverse-threatening Ultimate Kismesis that he’d always dreamed of.  And operated against him without him even ever quite realizing it.

If a level of “respect” went from Caliborn to Karkat, too, from his Lord-Englishy vision nigh-omnipresent, then this outcome isn’t very surprising at all.

> ==>

(I don’t quite feel I get why Roxy shifted to this exasperated-Dave expression, but I get logically that he’d been waiting for Karkat to make a breakfast choice... Homestuck proper rarely pulled a “last line said corresponds to next-panel’s expression” without either leaving the conversation blank or having the NEXT lines of the conversation reinforce it, to prevent this inelegant misunderstanding.  Andrew was really damned talented in getting his point across visually, in that regard.  Just like, that careful visual intent delivery.)

Alright, I guess that’s it for this short upd8!  Meeting the pursuit crew was both more and less difficult than I expected.  Hopefully I get desensitized a bit as the characters continue to feel semi-almost-sorta-fine.

I have NO idea how this group is gonna work as a proper crew when we get to whatever weird other-players’ session this shit is going down in, though.