#who even read this long ass post

[dllamarama]

Episode 16 Queen of Tears BaekHong recap

I just have to say this again. It was fine if this amnesia plot happened in an earlier episode so that we can see Hae In slowly fall in love with Hyun Woo again even with YES manipulation. We should be able to see Hae In being guided by her own feelings towards Hyun Woo instead of just relying on her notebook or memories. To see they rediscover their miraculous love and how it blooms into something stronger than their attraction in the past. I love the angst from the early episodes and I imagine how perfect this drama would be if they can show the slow burn of their rediscovery of love. BUT… We lost a much more important plot for the BaekHong couple because PJE is much more interested in making more plot twists and having a ridiculous climax episode where Hyun Woo was hit by a car and then shot by YES but miraculously live. Even without the gunshot scene, it was already a life threatening situation for Hyun Woo after the accident. He had a severe ribs and liver injury WITH suspected internal bleeding. But that man survives (of course) it in the end even with a gunshot and loss of blood. I’m not complaining that the man survives (no one even surprised that he lives) but the extravagance of the situation was totally unnecessary when you have so many things left unexplained.

Scene: The promise he made

I’m kind of angry and disbelieving that they chose to show his promise right after he was being hit by the car. I don’t understand what more they want from him? He already realised his mistake and paid for it with their divorce and allowing Hae In to do as she please with the process, he got his karma when Hae In loss her memory and treated him badly which was how he was treated after their big fight which was also the start of their relationship going downhill. Both of them contribute the same for their divorce but I thought it was already settled when they both had a talk in front of Yongduri supermarket in episode 10. So honestly this part of memory just pissed me off.

The writer is portraying him as someone who forgot his promise but the timeline is wrong in my opinion. Hyun Woo promised to always take her side even if she can’t do the same for him. But, this promise comes before he knows that Hae In is a chaebol. After he knew the truth, he was hiding from Hae In by sending his resignation letter and staying at Yongduri when Hae In came with a helicopter to propose to him by promising to not make him cry and to put his trust on her. The problem here is that if they want to make it a point that Hyun Woo broke and forgot his promise to her, it should come with the understanding that he knew the full story. I’m not saying that his promise is invalid because he didn’t know the full story. I just fcking pissed that they had to pointed this out at this exact moment for a guy who had suffered so much from the family that didn’t appreciate him and with his wife that haven’t fully recovered her memory. It just sucks.

Scene: Lunatic Baek Hyun Woo

This guy with a severe rib and liver injury ran away from the ER to save his wife. He endures a long walk in forest which was covered in thick snow while braving through his injury. Does this even make sense? And to know later that he will be shot in his shoulder with a gun but still comes out alive and well. Can’t they make it a bit more realistic and choose one injury out of those two to make him survive till the end? Anyway, Hyun Woo arrives at Queen's family villa and has to walk through the forest in order to keep hiding from YES men. Luckily before he entered the family villa, their keeper’s clever dog found him and led the way to the keeper’s house. Shout out to this clever cutie for helping his saviour. He obtained the back door’s key and was able to find Hae In inside the villa.

Before we get to the point where Hyun Woo saves Hae In, I have something to say about YES's memory of the day Hong Soo Wan died. So, basically the back story is that YES was there when his mom caused the boat to capsize and caused the death of Hae In’s brother and her mother to hate her. I understand that this plot was important for Hae In to testify in court later for MSH crime. But let me stress this again. If you have so many back stories that need explanation, why don’t you do it sooner or have an extra episode? It’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that we didn’t even know how she did that and why was Hae In and her brother the only one on the boat without any adults? So many questions unanswered and so many things were left being told in a half-assed format.

Back to our couple, Hyun Woo cuts off the electricity in the villa and manages to bring Hae In out of there. But, they have to walk a long way through the thick snow to meet up with Yang Gi at the main gate. When Hyun Woo stumbles in the snow and Hae In worries about him, this is the first time she ever talks to him with warmth in her tone and gaze after her surgery. Hyun Woo was touched with her words and held back his tears while reaching to hold her hand and walking side by side through the snow. It seems that they are already close to the main gate before YES appears with crazy eyes holding a gun. Hyun Woo was shot when YES was aiming his gun at Hae In. While this guy is on the verge of dying, the only one he cares about is Hae In and tells her that he is okay while reaching her hands to tell her not to cry. The parallel that we never wanted was shoved to us when Hyun Woo asked her to not go anywhere, the exact same thing that Hae In asked from him in Germany. Hae In’s dialogue to Hyun Woo is also similar to his promises to her in Germany.

Scene: Hyun Woo being loved by everyone

Hae In’s mother finally realised that Hyun Woo was the one who saved Hae In from the drowning accident years ago. She regrets and is ashamed that she treated him badly while he was married to Hae In and giving him a hard time throughout their marriage. But, Hyun Woo’s mother is a saint and Hyun Woo is the exact copy of Jeon Bong Ae. She does not resent Sun Hwa and just asks for her to pray for Hyun Woo so that he can pull through the surgery and to be grateful once he regains consciousness. Another point worth mentioning here, the Queens family owes so much to Hyun Woo and I wanted to see them treating him better. But we never get the chance, because it seems like PJE loves to see him suffer and denying us the chances to see him being respected and doted on by the Queens family or even in the company. He was treated so badly in the family and within the Queens Group itself, but we never saw the difference after all his effort reinstating the Queens family back into their company. It just does not balance out.

Hae In did not move an inch from Hyun Woo’s bedside while waiting for him to regain consciousness. She regrets all her harsh words and treatment for him when she thought that he’s the bad guy due to YES manipulation. She tells him that now she understands why her heart’s ache the first time she sees him in prison and why she keeps making excuses just to see him. She might not love him yet but she will definitely fall in love with him again just how he found his love back towards her. And to think that we were robbed of the opportunities to see them falling in love slowly as she regains her memories and love. After seeing that Hyun Woo does not show any sign of consciousness, Hae In resorts to blackmail (lol). But of course that works on Hyun Woo. He wouldn’t want to see her falling sick and after the moments she told him that she felt dizzy, he just miraculously (decided) to wake up. The first word he utters… Hae In-ah with that weak voice, this parallelism is killing meeeee. Of course it’s Baek Hyun Woo’s signature to ask “gwaenchana?” when he was the one getting hit by a car and shot by a gun in the same night (not to forget braving through a thick snowy forest).

Hae In finally (officially) said sorry for failing to recognise him and couldn’t remember anything while only saying harsh things to him. Hyun Woo cuts her off and said that he also forgot about how much he wanted (desired) her in the past. He forgot his determination to stay by her side through thick and thin. He forgot all about his promises and only caused her pain. He said sorry and that he loves her. He reaches for her hand where she gladly takes it and brings it closer to her lips. He said thank you to her this time and his thank you means so many things; that she comes back to him, for accepting him, for being there for him and for remembering him. My favourite Baek Hyun Woo’s moves; cupping her face and caressing her cheek. Hingggg….. Finally, with only less than one hour left for this series to end, our couple is finally back together and their total screen time for this episode is around 15 minutes only HAHAHAHAHAAA

Scene: Fox Baek Hyun Woo

Where did you learn this behaviour Baek Hyun Woo? Well probably from old Hong Hae In. She was the one giving him the opportunity and advantage to use his foxy skill on the new Hae In. His database for having the foxy attitude includes that;

1) Hae In is VERY jealous of him always being the centre of attraction especially when he is being cute or showing his forearm muscle with rolled up sleeve or even just standing mindlessly while waiting for train.

2) Knowing that he was his first love and probably the only guy she has ever love and will be loved in her life.

3) They are THE couple with the greatest fate of all time.

4) Knowing that he was her most prized possession and the biggest waste to not have in her life.

5) She loves that he is handsome, kind, smart but not arrogant, cooks delicious stew and will always date him even if she’s reborn a hundred times.

6) He knows exactly his effects on her and how to use it.

7) He read her notebook and knew how much he is loved by her.

So, he has all these saved in his database and he is confident with her love for him even though she still doesn’t fully remember all about him. He was unsure of her love for him when he drafted the divorce settlement paper. He probably thinks that he was just a prized possession for her and he got all the qualities she needed in a husband. Hae In also did not express her love for him before their divorce so he had zero knowledge about how much she loved him. But, it’s different now. She started to express her honest feelings for him starting from their trip to Germany for her first treatment. And after that, both of them started to understand each other better. With newly found confidence in their love for each other, they become more expressive and playful.

The way he wrote back to her and purposely not putting the notebook back into her handbag, the way he flirts back to her “Yes, I’m looking at you” makes her speechless for a few seconds and the way he purposely wanted validation from her when she tells him that he is perfect and having all the traits that she loves. I wouldn’t survive a day as Baek Hyun Woo’s wife, I’ll just melt to the floor and evaporate into air. He looks at Hae In like she hung the star on the sky for him and she is the loveliest human being (can’t deny this) on earth.

Scene: This should’ve been done before episode 15

The Queen's family returned to Queens Group and we had a glimpse of our favourite couple’s office romance. Hae In and Hyun Woo resume their positions in the Queens department store. When they bump into each other during lunch time, instead of passing each other and only seeing their backs, they are finally able to greet each other excitedly. Hyun Woo greets her first and tells her and her team to enjoy their lunch. Hae In is acting as nonchalant as possible but we can see clearly that she is giddy and melting inside. Secretary Na is giving Hae In a false hope when she tells her that Hyun Woo had a reservation made at a restaurant famous for marriage proposals. She anticipates the dinner and expects Hyun Woo to call but he didn’t call her, so she calls him. But the reservation was for his legal team dinner and she is disappointed and sulky at the revelation.

She went back home alone and decided to go into Hyun Woo’s bedroom. She stands at the same place Hyun Woo stands in episode 4 and looks around his room. She saw a glow in the dark smiley star on the ceiling and thought that he was too old for that kind of stuff, until… a memory flashes in her mind. She is brought to the day that she decided to get rid of everything inside the room. We saw her conflicted and sad expression while the workers were cleaning the room. She confronted Hyun Woo after she found out that Hyun Woo moves his stuff from their bedroom to their (empty) baby’s room.

They both are sad for the loss of their baby and instead of talking about it and mourning it together, they decided to make a decision based on their current emotional capacity. Our sweet and fragile Hae In with a deep emotional scar from her past trauma, she couldn’t bear the thought of having a room full of baby stuff without anyone to occupy it. She is haunted by her own insecurities and inability to carry a child and birthed it. I need to mention here that she is on medical leave for the miscarriage while Hyun Woo is at work (and obviously distraught) and being alone in this situation will make you overthink and postpartum depression is a bitch. But, she didn’t want to talk about it to anyone. She even shuts Hyun Woo and he was unable to penetrate her shield. Hae In’s sadness and mourning was very complex to be understood, because she bottled up her feelings so often that she herself starts to believe that she is a cold-blooded person unworthy of emotions. So, she hides her feelings and put on a mask to deceive others.

Hyun Woo, our sweet and sensitive Hyun Woo on the other hand wears his emotion on his sleeves. He needed more time to cherish the brief moment of their baby through the room, and for him it seems like Hae In was trying to erase everything about their unborn child by clearing out the nursery. And she did that while he was at work, without discussing it with him. The moment he came home, he saw all the stuff from the nursery was being removed. So, he asked her (flashback from episode 5) while containing his anger and sadness about her decision to clean out the room. But she responded with a defensive and cold tone void of all emotion “It only gets on my nerves (could also be translated as annoying).” He was hurt deeply by her choice of words that were associated with their loss; annoying and useless, like the baby was just an object of purpose and not the fruit of their love. He retreated from her as he realised that she had more important things to attend to; her work, believing that he cannot talk sense into her and the damage has been done anyway. He couldn’t see that she was just better than him at hiding her emotion. Deep down, he knew that her harsh words are not what she intended but maybe he is tired of trying to understand her while her words cut deeper than any wounds at that moment.

She confronted him when she found out he moved his stuff into the nursery. She’s hurt that Hyun Woo moved his stuff without telling her first but he gets back at her by using the same logic, she also made the decision to empty the nursery without telling him. But, Hong Hae In… she was raised in a twisted and toxic household so she heard it as something entirely different, she accused him of something that only her mother would do; blaming her for the miscarriage. Hyun Woo didn’t even spare a breath to deny her accusation while in confusion of her thought process. Before he even finished his sentences, she cut him off with a more venomous assumption, “I know you want to say that it’s my fault!”. Hyun Woo was rendered speechless at this and he sigh unbelievably at that. For, she accuses him of something he never even thought of and for her loss of faith towards him to paint him as something as low as that. And, he walks away again this time because he knows that she will believe nothing no matter what he says. She won’t listen and he stopped trying. They both shut off the other because it is easier for Hyun Woo to mourn freely and for Hae In to think that it is her punishment for failing to keep the baby.

In a way, Hyun Woo was making that decision so that he could cry freely. Hae In wouldn’t know the tears he shed every night missing someone he never met. Even his cry on the first night in the nursery was hushed and suppressed. He doesn't want her to heard his cries despite being in different room. That was his consideration for his wife who was mourning in silence. His whole body was shaking to contain his sorrow and pain.

My imagination just ran wild thinking of the possibility that had they lived in Hyun Woo’s small apartment after marriage. Maybe they will have no choice but to solve their issue faster, they can’t go anywhere in that small space. Even if Hyun Woo went out to clear out his head, he will have to come home and share the same bed with Hae In, maybe realising sooner that she had always waited for him to come home before going to bed. She will know how much he cried at night for the child they lost, he would be able to hug her when he realised that all the harsh words she chose was to protect herself.

I’m just furious and frustrated that; 1) they had to mention about their loss at the last 15 minutes of the last episode of the drama, 2) they talk about it after she loses her memory. Even then, it was too short! It’s like they thought of it at the last minute (but this drama is pre-produced) and goes "Shit! We forgot to give a closure for the reason they fell apart and why this drama begins. Let me just put this here.... there, done!"????¿¿¿. She remembered it as a fragment of her memories not as a whole thing that she experienced. Yes, she felt sad and devastated when she remembered it but the main point of it is that she is just a visitor of the memory and all the feelings from that time were not the same as what she felt when she remembered the moment. So, we did not get a proper closure from both of them because one of them is not present at that moment. Baby 1031 was used as a bridge for Hyun Woo and Hae In to finally take a step forward and move towards marriage in mind (again). If this conversation happened before Hae In lost her memory, we would get a full closure on how the miscarriage had affected them and both of them acknowledge that they both are using the baby’s due date for their password. Their apology would’ve been heartfelt and their journey for their rediscovery of love would feel complete.

Although I agree with Hae In that the reason they fell apart was not because of the miscarriage, but it was definitely what was shaping their relationship early in the marriage. Based on the due date, the incident probably happened just around the time they reach their first year anniversary. So, the remaining two years was the aftermath of their altercation about the nursery and their baby 1031. They probably had not always been rocky throughout the year, but the fact that they are still using separate bedrooms says much more than necessary. It’s true that they did not fall apart solely because of the miscarriage, but largely due to their ego and failure to talk and mend their broken heart and pain when it happens. They let it fester and avoiding the problem because resenting each other was easier than lowering their ego to knock on their doors. But still… For me it feels like there was no closure about baby 1031, I don’t know how to describe it but I just need them to acknowledge their loss of baby together. Because they both mourn on their own and then they never talk about it again, it pains me when I remembered the way Hae In treated their planned pregnancy by her parents in episode 1. She treated their baby as a necessity (I know she didn’t mean that), but I needed to hear that from her about baby 1031. That baby was not because of necessity, that baby was conceived out of love from both of them. And for the writer to not have the decency to at least let them talk about it when Hae In had a full understanding about it was what infuriates me the most.

Summary:

The bittersweet ending of the series will be much more appreciated if the execution of the last two episodes focuses more on the BaekHong couple’s development. Instead, they decided that they want to make the last two episodes in an overdramatic funfair that match makjang drama set up. Unless Baek Hyun Woo died in the last episode then only it will make sense to make the guy being hit by a car and shot by a gun. But, in the end he lives and no one is expecting him to die at the end also. So? All of it was very superficial in order to keep the viewer’s engagement in the plot twists.

[camplease]

i'm pretty sure i have the most unpopular campal opinion in the fandom being someone who does not romantically or sexually ship them or think that's canon, but also being someone who's not morally opposed to people who want to headcanon their relationship that way, and not being upset if people even chose to interpret the text that way (as long as they don't insist that it's unreasonable or unsupportable to interpret it as platonic)

[zivazivc]

OMG🫣😝😍❤️❤️❤️ Liv's parents are sooo cool and their designs are sick!!! What are their inspiration and can you tell more about this family 🥺❤️ ?

Thank you very much! I feel like I really hit the nail on the head with their designs, but the truth is they were cooking in my head for a very long time before this.

From the first time I thought about what all the bandmates' parents would look like, I was already thinking of making Liv's parents both Techno/Rock fusions like her. I think what originally made me gravitate towards this idea is the fact that Liv is the only one in the band who has a very very strong sense of self and does not have any kind of identity crisis or self image issues. I feel like the only way to make this fact feel believable in a young character in her position is through their parents. So I gave her parents who are both similar to her and each other and who are together and loving, and who live in a society of other Rock/Techno trolls too. (Also thinking about it more, it just made sense that the "rockers" and the "ravers" would have the largest population of mixed offspring, they're also right next to each other on the map, so i came up with the Shallows and all of that because of this...)

Liv's genre at the very start was very simply just electronic rock. But as I discovered more music over the past months she became more industrial metal with punk elements. - My OCs develop a lot by me bouncing them off each other. When Hed and Liv meet, Hed's Rock/Metal instincts are very much suppressed from living almost his entire life around Funk Trolls. I needed Liv's genre (to obviously feel right for her, but also) to be hardcore enough to be able to bring out Hed's suppressed side without clashing with his love for rap.

At the moment this is the most "Hed and Liv making music together" song I have in my playlists:

Now that Liv's genre/playlist stopped changing so much and I've been happy with where I am with her for a while, I was able to determine her parents' genres based on that. Which was simply one parent being Industrial Metal and the other something electronic and punk (which I later found out is just called Electropunk lol).

Her dad Flint is heavily based on Keith Flint from the Prodigy. So heavily he is basically that guy's trollsona lol.

The Prodigy, if you don't know, were pioneers in fusing dance music with rock music. It was pretty fascinating reading about it. I recently watched this good and not-dragged-out video about their origins and till their biggest single Firestarter.

Even before I started designing any of them I knew I wanted to give one of the parents' very stylized neon "shark teeth". In my mind it felt like such a good fusion of sharp Rock teeth and the weird blocky neon Techno teeth. And when I fixated on Keith Flint for inspiration it just felt right to give them to him. Look at this guy!

I named the dad Flint simply after this guy's last name. But also it's a nice rocky name. Also flint was historically used to start fire which kind of makes it a punk name in my opinion too. Plus -> Firestarter, the big Prodigy single. :P

The mom I designed after I outlined the dad and I didn't have any particular person in mind for her. Her design is mostly Liv's characteristics that I didn't yet represent in her dad. Direct outside inspiration was more or less just these cool neon rave pants because she deserved some bright color lmao.

I gave her a German accent because I always imagined Liv with a vague European accent, and also simply because Germans seem to be the gods of industrial metal. But my music inspiration when drawing her was also Laibach, which is a Slovenian band, so I gave her the name Meta because it is both a German and Slovenian name (In German it's a short form of Margarete meaning "pearl", and in Slovenian the name literally means "mint".) Meta also just felt like a good fit to go along with Oblivion, Liv's full name.

Now as I've written all this and read the question again I realize this is probably not what you were asking for at all... But consider this as a bit of a behind the scenes for my AU. 😅 Bonus content on the dvd but instead in the form of a boring tumblr post. :P

[meirimerens]

I've only now noticed Eva Yan's scars on your drawings of her, is there any story or headcanon behind them?

keeping it real babygirl [gender neutral] the story is that this woman canonically kills herself, canonically contemplates suicide, quite explicitly mentioning the method she intents on using to you (with implications that she has, at the very least, thought about it/thought it through before), and lives with broken mirrors so she cannot (/doesn't have to) see her face like i just think She Is Mentally Unwell. like as a long-term, enduring, persistent thing, She Is Mentally Unwell and the plague is just worsening her condition, while it didn't cause it. the storey/headcanon is that she is mentally ill, openly and canonically has self-destructive tendencies, so. the scars are here because she lives with a lil something something in her mind which drives her to plenty of destructive acts in ways big and small. ywkim

[seventh-district]

so uh. that 2.2 Special Program, huh

[wolf-twenty-one]

are you being challenged? are you trying new things and getting new experiences? are you different from who you were 5 years ago? are you compromising? are you seeing things from another perspective regularly? are you getting better?

are you stagnating? are you prioritising comfort? are surrounding yourself with people and places that let you stay in place? have you compromised recently? are you aware that yours is not the only way?

[front-facing-pokemon]

[downfallofi]

.

[applestorms]

doom, aspect complements, & oppressing social systems

some kinda half-baked (literal) shower thoughts on aspect complements, particularly life & doom, with, surprisingly, not too much on the captors but a decent section on jane. this is long as fuck, shit.

TL;DR: aspect complements are nice in how they expand the meaning of each individual aspect, doom & life in particular are cool in how they have such overarching influence over the lives of characters and should really get more attention analysis-wise, ft. my own musings about how the alpha kids' lives are seeped in doom, in large part because of madame HIC herself. written in one sitting because i guess i'm insane.

the one thing i really, really like about the canon established by the extended zodiac is the way it splits aspects into complementary pairs. to me, one of the major appeals/frustrations of homestuck's classpect & lunar sway system is how vague and yet distinct the categories are, how blurry the borders are but how distinct of an Feel you can get almost instantly upon even just hearing the names of each aspect. e.g. i can say that [x] character from an entirely separate piece of media is a prince of doom, and even if you don't know jack shit about homestuck classpects on some level you can still get that, understand the implications that has on the character-- what "prince" means for how they treat others or the expectations they have for themself, the specific emotional connotations of what a person presiding over "doom" might be associated with. they play into long-established cultural categories, basically, remixed Jungian archetypes as some people might (and have) put it. still, i think homestuck has a pretty interesting way of interpreting these categories, which is part of why classpects can be so appealing.

homestuck aspects hold a lot of implicit associations that you can learn & guess at over the course of reading the comic, so setting up these complementary pairs works really well in my mind since it only strengthens the associations. take light & void, for example: light is associated thematically with knowledge, luck, and being in the spotlight. typically (at least in my own american context), the opposite of light is designated as dark-- but homestuck instead makes light's complement void, the aspect associated with nothingness, secrets, people & characters forgotten or left behind, waiting. following the logic of this video, void isn't even associated w/ the color black (typically associated w/ darkness) but rather the color white, pure emptiness, something that can't really be known, 道可道，非常道。名可���，非常名。"The Dao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Dao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name," (Daodejing, Legge translation) or, alternatively, "A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. A name that can be named is not a constant name," (Ivanhoe translation) and so on and so forth. light in homestuck thus isn't just knowledge about the world, it is the world. it is, period. understanding the world, being a major player within that world is equivocated with being itself though this pairing-- and, in turn, a lack of understanding is associated w/ a lack of (meaningful? seen?) existence itself.

anyways, there are interesting things you could said about all these pairings (thinking about blood & breath and hope & rage in particular), but the one i really wanna focus on right now is one set that i think often goes overlooked, which sucks because i think both aspects carry a lot more weight in homestuck than people tend to give it credit for: life & doom.

life is the side to this i have less strong feelings/thoughts about, so let's maybe start with that. we have a handful of pretty relevant life players in comic so this is perhaps the clearer side of the dichotomy: while feferi doesn't get a ton of focus after her original introduction in hivebent (and especially after murderstuck, rip), jane, meenah, and the condesce are all pretty major characters so we have a decent amount to work with for analysis. i particularly like the classpect-navalgazing summary of life as an, "aspect of affluence," life players being people that grow up with a lot materially but in turn have a lot to figure out about the emotional/empathy stuff, who benefit from a kind of "dubious privilege," that makes their homelife cushy and gives them a hefty inheritance to fall back on, but makes all the social shit more confusing.

it's that struggle against the status quo that they simultaneously benefit from that really stands out to me here, especially because the main life player that i want to talk about is the condesce-- not just meenah, but )(er Imperious Condescension herself. so, to get into that...

homestuck really functions under a systems brain, which is obvious from the start w/ all the computer science jokes (that i definitely 100% understand) but easily expands past that as the series goes on. if you've gotten this far into reading this essay, you know what i'm talking about. what's been more relevant in my mind recently, though, is not just the ways in which homestuck itself is built up through these systems, but the way it both thematically & literally portrays social systems as well, as a general concept/working force in the universe even outside of more specific social systems like racism/sexism/ableism/etc.

from all the reading/watching i've done looking at peoples' various classpecting analysis (long way of saying i forget exactly where this comes from), i've come to view rage & doom as two sides of the same coin, or more accurately, two reactions to the same perceptions: both doom & rage are acutely aware of just how much the world & greater forces around them are fucking them over, it's just that doom reacts by giving in to the Inevitability of it all, trying to work within the restraints of the system surrounding them, while rage reacts by giving a giant fuck you and trying to tear it all down.

tying this back to life, the dichotomy of life & doom as complementary again has some interesting implications, specifically in how life players benefit from the status quo while doom players suffer so heavily under the weight of it. keep in mind: just like meenah, the condesce is a thief, the only real difference being that the condesce's power extends over a much grander scale of space & time. when the condesce kills off humanity, stealing life from the planet & replacing it w/ her own faux/more desirable replicas, she is in the process dooming humanity & the planet itself (parallel to roxy: steal void, create being, steal life, create nihilistic inevitability). as one of the major villains in homestuck, really second only to lord english, the condesce is thus not just an individual person but something like a system of power itself. as dirk says to jake on (A6A3:4864)

TT: Though the Baroness made very few substantive gestures of aggression, the global fear of her looming threat would trigger all the changes she needed. TT: Governments prepared for war, as if to defend against the invading alien armies she undoubtedly commanded. TT: But of course, she had no army. She was always the only one of her kind. TT: Instead, the world powers were only setting about to build her armies for her.

thus HIC, as the most powerful iteration of meenah that we see in comic, both benefits from the status quo as it is already established and has enough power to evolve/expand upon it herself, to the point where you can really see her as the figurehead/leading innovator for oppression, both on alternia and earth in the B2 timeline.

it's because of this that i think doom has a lot more influence over the plot/world of homestuck than people give it credit for. to give a more distinct example of this, while the alpha kids' game is called a void session, i don't think it's too far off base to note the ways in which doom hangs over it as well. looking specifically at some (alpha) kids:

DIRK is probably the least directly connected alpha kid to doom, being associated more w/ void through homestuck's systems brain & his various connections to equius (& nepeta), as well as the heart/mind pairing (and jake's hope influence sneaking into everything tbh w/ BGD). still, i think it's pretty obvious to anyone that's like. read through dirk's self-hating bullshit that he has a lot of doom-related thoughts, which can in part be attributed to HIC's influence on his apocalypse world, but also, and more notably in my mind, dave's lasting legacy on him.

alongside the typical patron troll pairings of john/vriska, rose/kanaya, dave/terezi, and jade/karkat for the beta kids, we also have the (less overt/clear) pairings of which troll resembles each kid the most: namely, karkat being the "john" of the trolls, leader-ship/social position-wise, jade being associated with both nepeta & feferi, and rose... being like kanaya, vriska, and terezi, i guess?? it's less clear for the girls i suppose, and perhaps not a super strong connection in general as the trolls are pretty distinctly themselves separate from the human kids, but the important detail here is the connection between sollux & dave, as the (not at all) "cool kids" and primary besties to the main leader of their respective group. visually, they can also be loosely associated through their trademark glasses, sollux's red and blue lenses being connected to the A & B universes of the trolls & humans respectively and dave's stiller shades being connected to paradox space & the greater universe of homestuck (and problem sleuth) as a whole after passing through a black hole.

dave's biggest connection to doom however is in his connection to doomed timelines and the dead daves all of his timeline-hopping shenanigans lead to. he kind of ends up constantly skirting around the edges of doom, in a way, utilizing terezi's seer of mind help to just barely avoid his own inevitable doom. you could almost define time itself as an aspect along those terms, actually, with the stress time players are constantly under coming from the impending doom hanging over their heads that they're always just barely avoiding, like a satellite constantly falling and missing the planet as gravity pulls it along into orbit. sick imagery regardless.

sidenote: perhaps i've been staring at this dumb aspect circle for too long, but it seems notable enough to mention that doom & time connect in a line that is directly parallel to life & space's connection. ALSO, just now remembering that i wrote an entire essay on space & time and those aspects' connection to life & death (the concepts, not just the aspects) way back in like, february, that i almost entirely forgot about until literally just now. guess i'll try editing that later?? (edit: i'm a doofus. i talked about the space/time stuff mostly in my kant essay. still gonna post something about death in homestuck later, though.) carrying on.

anyways, even looking past beta dave's connection to sollux, alpha dave is a character so seeped in tragedy that i don't think i even need to say all that much to make this connection clearer. his entire life as dirk dictates it is essentially just one big fight against an inevitable end, not only for himself but the entire rest of humanity as well, and the underlying implications that even if he had lived to old age he never would've been able to meet or raise dirk only hammers this in even harder. alpha dave was doomed from the start, not just from the moment HIC landed on earth but the moment skaia took his and dirk's baby meteors and damned them to separation.

JAKE's connection to doom is similarly primarily through sollux, though it's both more direct and less obvious than dirk's. putting his connections to jade and my space/life thoughts aside for another essay, jake's main link to doom is through erisolsprite-- fittingly, in the biggest catastrophe of a doomed timeline, in game over.

the mention of erisol in general actually brings up another weird, not-quite complementary connection between doom & hope, which is another line of connection in the rectangle that is hope/rage/life/doom-- notably, i believe optimistic duelist referred to these as the mutable aspects, the most abstract of the twelve. to bring back my point from earlier, i would also say that these are the aspects with the most far-reaching, powerful influence over homestuck, whether that be in-story in the world, through the systems of power and oppression that characters live under (in the case of doom & life), or on a meta level on the story itself, particularly when it comes to what is or isn't allowed to happen/plot contrivances & coherency, etc. (in the case of rage & hope).

sollux & eridan's dynamic in A5 really establishes doom & hope as two opposing viewpoints, complacency & utter surrender in the face of a horrible fate you can never escape versus faith & imagination to the point of fucking lunacy & calling a magic wand a "science stick". in erisolsprite, it's really the doom that comes through the strongest, perhaps in contrast against jake's own pitiful attempts to hope himself through the in-game social awkwardness he wants to pretend doesn't exist. in parallel to fefetasprite's complete silence (but simultaneously, implied perfect support & friendship), erisolsprite is an asshole that can't stand anyone and especially not himself and has completely given up on any remaining semblance of hope-- kind of a thematically nice conclusion, actually, finding the middle ground of sollux's doom & eridan's princely destruction of hope after all their conflicts from earlier in the story. or it could be, if it weren't so fucking miserable to look at. point is, i think jake's hopelessness (or perhaps more accurately, his inability to access hope) later in the story becomes quite synonymous with doom, similar to dirk in how neither of them can see much of a future.

ROXY is actually probably the least doom-ridden of the entire group, which i suspect may come from the fact that she is herself a void player and thus is more at home in the context of a void session, even if all her friends are being shitheads the entire time. really, the points where roxy is the most bitter & doom-ridden occurs before they even enter the game, when she is still under the strongest influence of the condesce, like how roxy continually pushes back on even starting the game at all just as a fuck you to HIC.

fittingly, i think it's actually the absence of doom that makes roxy such a strong & great friend once she gets her shit together in-session. she kind of has an opposite arc to the rest of the alpha kids, starting off completely doom-ridden thinking that she's never going to meet her mom or her friends and constantly paranoid that HIC is going to fuck everything up, only to re-evaluate once she's physically with her buds and have more faith in the future. a good example of how life & doom are connected to social systems (or not just any specific system of bigotry, but moreso the general feeling of having greater powers outside your control that have a major influence on your life) maybe-- roxy must extricate herself as entirely as possible from the status quo, from world-wide and/or world-influencing figures' expectations, before she can start focusing on and figuring out what really matters to her and pursue those goals, e.g. getting sober.

and of course, our beloved life player, JANE. as a life player, jane's connections to doom are a lot more obvious than the previous three, but i think that only strengthens this idea of doom residing over the alpha kids' session (and homestuck as a whole, really). where you have to look more to the generally miserable, nihilistic sentiments of the other kids to see the influence of doom, jane is literally and regularly brainwashed to the values & ideals of HIC. note some of the specific orders that her tiaratop gives her (A6A1:4153):

You put on your highly fashionable UNREAL HEIRESS THOUGHTWAVE TIARATOP and flip it on. It immediately hums to life as its blazing fast processes mingle with your thoughts. It is the most efficient computing technology in the world by far, as long as you don't wear it for too long. But aside from a few migraines, you can't possibly imagine any OBEY drawbacks that CEASE REPRODUCTION could come with SUBMIT merging CONSUME your thoughts with EMBRACE YOUR CULLING experimental technology CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER from an STAY ASLEEP extremely powerful DIE corporation, wait what?

or, one by one, categorized loosely:

OBEY, SUBMIT, CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER, STAY ASLEEP: obvious implications, again ties to the idea of doom & life dictating overarching social systems/order. the last one is notable in that it also ties jane to jade's narcolepsy, which fits the whole crockertier/grimbark arc that happens later on when those two meet.

CEASE REPRODUCTION: perhaps more HIC specific, in that she hates human reproduction. i think i might address this more in that time/space essay, if i ever get around to editing/finishing that.

EMBRACE YOUR CULLING, DIE: the "DIE" part of this is pretty on the nose w/ HIC's stealing of life aka eradication of humanity, but the "EMBRACE" part of the culling one really solidifies a connection to doom.

what stands out to me is that it is unclear how much of these subliminal teachings jane is meant to internalize & apply to herself personally versus spread & share & execute in her job as an heiress & tool to HIC. it's clear from the way that jane talks to jake in the jail cell that even while in full-crockertier mode she at least in part goes against some of these teachings, telling jake on (A6A6I1:6443):

JANE: You do remember our recent agreement to have "a zillion babies," don't you, Jake? I do hope you were not planning to renege on this vow. JAKE: *Sob sob sob...* JANE: Our children will rule the empire when we are gone, which of course will be never, because we will be eternally young and beautiful and immortal and in love, for ever and ever.

clearly conflicting with the whole "CEASE REPRODUCTION" thing, though she does admittedly treat him with quite a bit of disgust at the same time that she's telling him he's doomed to be a baby making machine or whatever.

point is, as a life player, and especially as a life player under the direct influence & control of HIC, jane is in that conflicting & confusing position talked about earlier, where she simultaneously benefits from privilege & has extensive control in deciding which standards she wants to, as well as extends those expectations onto the people around her (e.g. for a more minor example, think of how she dictates the grammar of her friends when speaking to them online), but is also stuck in a position where she deals with some of the most significant negative side-effects of such standards.

jane's gender fuckery really sums this up best: she both loves & idolizes gumshoes and the traditionally masculine aesthetics and attitudes that come w/ them, but is also in one of the most obsessively feminine, stay-at-home, stuck-in-the-kitchen 1950s housewife archetypes ever. she's a girlboss heiress to a capitalist, corporate empire, a job that is itself very traditionally masculine in the inherent power it holds, but resides over one of the most traditionally feminine spheres it possibly could. jane is made of life, she was born into and built out of the status quo & social standards of the world she landed on and reaps all the benefits & consequences of such, trapped in a system that protected her, in her house by a father that loves her, and constantly keeps trying to break out even if she doesn't even understand the full magnitude of what she's doing or wants. crockertier jane is really just the epitome of this-- a form that dooms her just as much as it benefits her, wealth that cushions her ass and means absolutely nothing, a title that she cannot be extricated from, for better and for worse.

[coquelicoq]

Une petite houle, venue du large, imprimait au canot un léger roulis, et quelque crêtes de lames clapotaient à son avant. (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, 2e partie, chapitre III)

today in sentences that would have made me weep quietly into my dictionary if i had read them a year ago before jules verne expanded my marine vocabulary by ~1700%.

[999-roses]

unpacking 'sinophone' and its sinophobic roots

so. it never occurred to me to just type "sino diaspora" into google before.

and google is like "oi!! you meant sinophone yeah? here's wikipedia on sinophone" and here's like the other top results

I'm squinting. What the hell do you academics have against diaspora using the term diaspora?? I click.

inb4 this whole rant: I have no qualms with using sinophone as a language-family-use descriptor (like sinophone media), but coming from academia or as an academic field unto itself. but. the literature about wanting to use it as a demographics thing & separate it from "chineseness". just. looook if anyone knows that they're no longer like this let me know. with what im seeing, im having a bad faith moment

so... this is the academic that's hard pushed the term for sinophone.

"crit on orientalism might be complicit for allowing Chinese intellectuals to call themselves victim under an 'unreflective' nationalism" & "but the flipside may be a new imperialism" yeah?? any more unsubstantiated claims???

What a joke!! Clearly only takes authority about Chinese history from western sources, like literally has the uncritical echo of "X country doesn't deserve territorial integrity" that literally fueled western imperialism, and not just of China. Treaty of Nanjing 1842 ringing no bells? Sigh. National sovereignty is the barest basis against overt imperialism where someone just comes over and declares where you live their colony!!! ... is this a test in how far can you stretch the definition of imperialism or colonization? lmfao, China invests in poverty-relieving measures like building houses and improving infrastructure out in Tibet, Guizhou, Xinjiang, and you have the audacity to call that colonizing?!? 我真无言了。

different article by the same person:

laughable to think that the Chinese state even bothers to think I exist, let alone talk to me about my diaspora status. (I was born in the US)

also, people are really out there saying 'diaspora has an end date' huh

here it is. here is the 'scholar' conflating American or western imperialism with things Big Bad Scary Red China does.

Clearly mixing up concepts of tributary system with colonialism, and acting like historically (other than Yuan era under Genghis) that ancient China/Chinese culture was expansionist, going around trying to conquer peoples and set up colonies. Admiral Zheng He would spit on you.

Comparing the spread of culture and language in Ancient China to the colonization and subjugation that the French/Belgium did in Africa, or the British Empire, or the Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, is so blatantly dishonest. The indigenous people of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang still speak their own languages and use their own scripts, and yes, they learn them in schools alongside the national language... which is Chinese!!! Yes the Hanyu writing system was adopted and adapted by many neighboring cultures in ancient times, but you literally don't examine WHY? The fluidity in its system: frequently non-Han peoples invented characters to suit their language, like there's even some Canto-specific characters that are in use today. Another reason that Chinese writing system was so popular was because two Sinitic language speakers who do not speak the same language could communicate through the same script. Yeah, Ancient Chinese scholars and dignitaries often had an insufferable elite-ness and superiority complex, but describing their attitude as subjugating and forcing other people to adopt their system? What a wildly malicious mischaracterisation!

just... mask off, gringo butt-licker.

Please. where is the "Chinese containment" policy? The white papers reaffirming what the international community agrees, what Taiwan historically agrees (tho Taiwan held that it was the true capital/head of all of China), that Taiwan is part of China?? I know this article was written back in 2010s but are you seriously comparing American weapons deals and boots on the ground with Chinese military exercises in Chinese territory that haven't harmed a single civilian? "critical" my ass!

gotta love the title of this one. yeah, I know it, I've seen it before. the Chinese or feminist binary, pick a side /s

but hey in this piece she admits she's ignorant and unobjective and out of her league sometimes?

edit: found this:

yeah that about seals it for me. anti"diaspora" sinophobe

[milkstoner]

I don't have an insta 😔

I do have to respect that honestly.

[drysauce]

truly a blessing that im not home right now or i don't what i'd do to my roommate. fucking audacity

[citrusotakutea]

People that make it a joke to be like: "Omggg the introductions to classic books are soooo annoying, why would they put so much of this useless shit here?" after they only started reading classics to be a part of the pretentious booktok fucks who read classics just to say they read them... Hi, pretentious fuck who always reads the introduction... It is literalllyyy a free literary analysis you dipshits. If you're reading some abstract shit, well it was written that way and people have been trying to read and interpret it since it was published. There is 200% popular explanations or theories of the plot there, if not straight up quotes from an authors diary/notes on their process and intentions for writing their novel (if those were left behind by the author). Fun facts, relevant historical context, translation deep-dives (which are fucking great btw, translation is an art and even the best translations will always lose something) and more. Honestly, people bragging about not reading it is like. ok fine whatever. To call it useless is just indicative that you are a VITCIM of the media comprehension crisis. If you're just going to parrot some rando from tiktok who summarized the plot (badly) in fortnite terms (do not recommend) read the fkn intro instead. If you're not going to try analyze the book yourself, or if you don't know where to start- read the intro!!!111!!! I am old enough (21. sarcasm.) to remember the time when the media lit crisis was in full swing before Lolita blew up on tiktok where people were making the most bare bones, surface level interpretations of it, calling the author and people who liked the book pedophilic. Saying they didn't know why it was a classic because it was just some old man's sick fantasy. I'm pretty sure there are old arguments on this blog of me trying to explain it to people. Nabokov was very open about the true meaning of his novel, there were many resources for people on and offline, plus the book that I had (not special, from library and then one from B&N) had an intro AND author's note. Yet people only got it when it was oversimplified for them on tiktok? Introductions are literally some nerd who was so obsessed with the author/book that you're reading that they who wrote something (barely anything usually, not a fucking lot) to help you understand the book better. Obviously, its meant to be supplementary and you can and should find your own meaning. Plus, usually for compiled works, the introduction are the guy(s) who made the fucking book, but ofc they are only credited in the intro (& copyright page) because they didn't write it. Surprise, people actually have to pick what works go into those types of books. Intros are usually just: "wow, I love this author so much that I did research on their entire life, read every single word they left on this earth, read 50 decades of analysis of their works and researched the era they lived in to understand why and what they wrote the wrote better, " and you mfs that don't even read it call it useless. fuck you. Oh and before anyone with -80 IQ reads this and gets upset, if you want to avoid spoilers for the 103935405739 year old book, read it after you finish the book...

[majorplayer]

a while ago i was hanging out in game and tried to explain to someone the manner in which hardcore pacesetter enjoyers feel about him as a character, from what i've observed of it. i attempted to articulate "you know how lesbians have those incredibly specific and atypical feelings about their all-time-favorite little fictional man? it's that, except all graham fans are like that with him." i wasn't sure if they were understanding me, so i recommended they take a look at the pacesetter/graham payser tumblr tags for on-the-job learning. they said ok and, after a few minutes of silence, began liveblogging their findings to me in game: "just scrolled past fan art of pace in a maid outfit" [30 seconds later] "another pace in a maid outfit" [1 minute later] "graham shaped like an amongus with big baby cow eyes" [30 seconds later] "maid outfit again" and i think they understood my point after that

[whoopsiesnodaisies]

Once I get approved to post on ao3 it's over for you bitches