#dirk and dave explicitly talked about it towards the end | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autumnblogs · 3 years

Text

Aside Glance: The Palpable Absence of the Dubiously Canonical

So you might have noticed throughout my writings that I have at the same time avoided directly talking about any of the expanded universe material while also occasionally alluding to it just enough to make it noticeable. At least, probably.

So to nobody’s surprise, let me say;

I don’t like the Homestuck Epilogues.

Before I dig into why, I wanna dig out what I think I actually do like about the Homestuck Epilogues. CW: for mentions of suicide, sexual violence, fascism, genocide, etc. Spoiler Warning for the Homestuck Epilogues, although if you haven’t read them by now, good; don’t. Keep reading for my thoughts on the Epilogues.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues say quite loudly and clearly that Fascism Is Terrible, and that Neo-Liberals are often Discount Fascists at best in terms of the material effects they have on the world that we have to share with them. They can often end up being interchangeable, and events can cause someone with a temperament predisposed toward Neo-liberalism down the path of bloody reactionary sentiment the way it did with Jane.

Homestuck has always been a pretty soundly anti-authoritarian work, and pretty aggressively contemporary work, so it makes sense that Homestuck^2 would reflect an internet culture rabidly obsessing about the politics of the Trump-Era United States, cast its villains as parallels to the Trump Administration, the grody religious movements it catered to, and the hyper-rich dingalings who benefited from it.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues develop the theme of criticizing the author and continues to call attention to its narrators, this time by explicitly casting them as villainous, and morally ambiguous/incomprehensible respectively. A central idea in Homestuck is the relationship between Author, Audience, and Characters, and the blending of the lines between them.

I like that it calls attention not just to the idea that a story’s narrator is an agent themselves, but also to the reality that the narrator may not have the best interests of either their readers, or their characters in mind. I like that the authorial powers of these characters are represented as overtly dangerous and evil when they are addressed at all.

I also like that the Homestuck Epilogues are rather brutally honest about the fact that sometimes, the people that you grew up with - your close friends - grow apart from you, and turn into kind of bad people. I’ve watched that happen in real time, and have had to stop hanging out with people because they just kind of... turned evil. That’s something that needs to be discussed more in fiction, and more honestly than the usual way. When the most visible example of like, someone you knew and loved turning into a bad person is like, Anakin Skywalker, maybe the world needs more stories about that.

So good, that’s what we’ve got for things I think were good to say. Well done.

What don’t I like about the Homestuck Epilogues?

In a word, I think, they are cruel. Relentlessly cruel. Even actively malicious.

Homestuck has, of course, always been rather mean-spirited and adversarial, pretty much since page one. And really, so has Andrew’s writing in general, since the days when he ran the site Team Special Olympics. His humor walks a fine line between and outrageous and genuinely offensive, as he dares you to say, “That’s fucked up!” so he can respond “it was just a joke, where’s your sense of humor?”

But the Epilogues transcend the usual sardonic envelope-pushing we can usually count on Andrew for, and instead opt to sink their teeth into the readers in an assault on the senses, and on the sensibilities. Reading the Epilogues is a brutal experience to endure emotionally, and in a lot of places, morally offensive.

And they are this way practically from the first page; our very first impression of the Homestuck Epilogues is a content warning that presents itself in such a way as to be almost unmistakably parodic. The stylization as an AO3 work, particularly in the context of Homestuck, where these sorts of overzealous content warning pages are associated with preachy jerks like Kankri, it comes across as a direct challenge to the viewer, and by a challenge, I really mean an attack. It is a mean-spirited joke at the expense of people who have a desire to curate their media experience - and then the authors have the gall to say that the one of the goals of the Epilogues is to challenge people to curate their media more.

Every time a character could conceivably make a bad decision, or become a more ill-conceived version of themselves, they somehow manage it, which becomes all the more unbearable because of the identification of character and audience that has been the case throughout all of Homestuck. If Homestuck introduces us to this entire cast and says, this is you, the Epilogues seem to follow up with and there is nothing good about you. Jade Harley somehow transforms into a grotesque caricature of a trans-woman, a girl who is sexually incontinent and predatory in a way that is directly tied to her having a dog penis - a state of being which the text variously slut-shames her for in Meat, or alternatively uses to blame her for ruining Dave and Karkat’s relationship in Candy.

John Egbert is severely depressed and dysfunctional, and this leads him either to go off and kill Lord English to chase the thrill of adventure and his own sense of purpose (in direct opposition to the all-but-explicitly-stated takeaway from Homestuck which Dave gives us, that the better option is to just leave the story alone altogether - explicitly the worst decision he could make according to the rules of Homestuck) or descend into decades of nihilistic solipsism while the world disintegrates around him.

Dirk’s worst natures take over him and transform him into a person who can only conceivably be satisfied either by becoming an arch-villain, or by murdering himself.

The Epilogues are aggressively cruel to Jake English, choosing to double down on the lack of emotional resolution he suffered from at the end of Homestuck, and squarely placing the blame for his own misery on his own shoulders, in a way which is pretty hard to read around, which is part and parcel of the general malice which Homestuck has historically treated mentally ill characters with. Nearly all the kids in Homestuck have suffered incomprehensible levels of mental and physical abuse, and the text expects them to simply overcome it sheerly by force of will. Sure, Jake is miserable but it’s his own fault, the text seems to say; if he’d just get his act together, like Dave, maybe he could get on with his life without being mind-broken by Dirk, or raped and whipped by Jane.

This isn’t even to delve into the flagship reveal of Homestuck 2, that Rose and Jade in the Candy Timeline have not only had a daughter of their own (without telling Kanaya), but that furthermore they have replicated their own trauma in her. Rose and Jade’s daughter has grown up completely emotionally alone, in the care of her Moms’ archenemy.

The point in all of this is not that the Epilogues have made everyone behave out of character or anything like that - I think it’s clear after a re-read especially that all of this is a conceivable direction that these characters could have taken. Rather, the Epilogues reliably choose to believe the worst of the characters of Homestuck in terms of their writing decisions. Everyone always makes the worst decision that they could make, or at the very least, nearly the worst. And because of the identification of reader and character, we can’t help but take away from that a sense that this is what the authors think of us as well.

And in case it wasn’t stated explicitly enough, a running theme throughout the Epilogues is that all this conflict and badness taking place is, to some extent or another, because we the audience are looking at it. As Andrew stated in relation to the Epilogues, there’s a kind of Happily Ever After possibility bubble around the characters that intrinsically collapses into conflict the moment we observe the events again - in other words, by participating in a story, we the audience members are somehow complicit in the characters’ suffering. Yet not all stories must be driven by conflict - and who triumphs and who fails in that conflict says a lot about what a story has to say about real life.

The Epilogues engage in a kind of voyeuristic cruelty, a kind of pessimism and cynicism, a kind of relentless ugliness that I have seldom seen, and to what end? The whole thing seems to me an attack on the audience.

Aside from general, abstracted claims toward authorial intent (which I think is there), I also want to say that, I can’t emotionally engage with the Epilogues, for a personal reason; as somebody who has struggled with almost daily suicidal ideation for most of my adult life, the way that the Epilogues deal with that subject goes from troubling to malicious and hostile in its treatment of Dirk’s suicide.

And staying personal, while I haven’t had to deal with some of the other sensitive topics that the Epilogues handle recklessly, handle them recklessly they do - Jake is serially raped by Jane, and in a way that he serves as a vehicle to move the plot forward, rather than with any kind of compassion for Jake’s condition. The possibility that Tavros Crocker might be being molested by Gamzee is brought up flippantly in one scene and played off as a joke.

The Homestuck Epilogues play at maturity through handling dark themes and sensitive topics, and reveal a profound immaturity in their authors because of the ways in which they are cruelly, insensitively handled over and over again.

I guess I’ll close with the least egregious thing. The Homestuck Epilogues just aren’t funny. Even at its bleakest, Homestuck has always been funny. In their relentless pursuit of cruelty, and the shared misery of their audience and characters, the Homestuck Epilogues forgo even this most basic element of Homestuck, which Andrew has always described as being basically a comedy.

Anyway; I will not be doing a thorough analysis of the Epilogues. I hate them too much and they suck.

#The Homestuck Epilogues #rape mention #suicide mention #fascism

16 notes · View notes

ardenttheories · 4 years

Note

ardent, I have a real rough question to ask you. is it worth it to read hs^2? Ive been avoiding reading it because I didnt want to ruin what I loved about homestuck, but seeing the amount of art and interaction makes me feel like I'm missing out. I know it's not going to be good, but do I still take the risk? are there homestuck fanprojects you'd suggest instead?

An anon asked: Hi, may I ask what is your opinion of fan creation inspired from Homestuck? I'm not the biggest fan of where homestuck is heading but was wondering on your opinions of fan comics. I'm leaning towards reading them over Homestuck2 because of some of the writing that Hussie and his team of writers have produced in Homestuck2 feels off and a bit weird for Homestuck. (Ps. Have a lovely day.)

I forgot to answer the anon when I first got it, but since both mention fanvantures, I’ll combine the two!

I would absolutely not recommend reading HS^2, personally. There’s just a lot wrong with it that I genuinely don’t like and am deeply uncomfortable with. Futanari Jade making Rose cheat on Kanaya to have a baby she then completely abandoned is really just the tip of the iceberg, from what I’ve read and seen; there’s also just an outright lack of care for triggers (the warnings for which were taken off chapter by chapter, so you’ve got no idea what you’re going into anymore) and so much bullshit around facts from Homestuck not being taken into consideration during writing (for instance, Rose tells Terezi about the Exiles despite Terezi being the one who told Dave about them back in Act 5).

It’s uncomfortable, sloggish, uncaring, actively written to ruin Homestuck for fans, and overall just unpleasant to read. Not only is it a bad continuation, it’s just bad fiction in general. Some of this of course is exacerbated by the writers themselves, which is another reason I refuse to read it; I do not want to support them in any capacity.

I wouldn’t say you’re missing out. There’s some genuinely interesting things in HS^2, but a lot of it is overshadowed by how bad it is. That’s why I stopped reading, personally. You could always give it a go, see what you think and if you can handle it or if it appeals to you - because it’s different for everyone! Some people genuinely like it, and that’s okay, too - but I wouldn’t recommend it.

If you read the Epilogues just fine, you should be okay? But if they were rough for you to read, I’d definitely say HS^2 will be worse. You can still enjoy the content on the peripheral, though; for instance, acejams/sarcasmprodigy draws some HS^2 bits, but only really the designs that she likes. Consuming fan content while avoiding the comic itself is no issue, as far as I can tell.

That said, I’d 100% recommend reading fanventures. There’s a lot of benefits to them, actually!

Firstly, since they’re made by fans doing it for free, there’s a lot of love that goes into them. You know that what you’re getting is going to some degree be a homage to Homestuck, and that even if it’s an AU or divergent somehow, it’s still going to be loyal to characters you love.

There’s a lot less - and I mean a lot less - bullshittery in fanventures than HS^2 proper. It’s done for fun, for love! It’s going to connect with you, as a fan, a little more, because it’s literally written by fans for fans; by people who know what the fandom wants because they’re actively part of it.

Also, the writers don’t want to ruin the characters, so that’s an incredible bonus.

That said, here are a few fanventures I’d recommend:

SOULSTUCK: A fanventure that takes place in the Soul Eater universe, following Roxy and Dirk as they work towards getting that sweet, sweet final Witch soul to become a proper duo. I haven’t read too much of it, but the art is beautiful, the writing is well in character, and it’s also pretty faithful to the original Soul Eater while staying uniquely Homestuck, too.

Guidestuck: A pretty wellknown fanventure that started up again recently, following a kidswap universe where the kids’ initial sprite prototypings (the Harlequin doll, Jaspers, Bec, and Cal) are the kids (Cal Strider, Bec Harley, Quinn Egbert, Jaspers Lalonde), and our kids are their associated items (John’s a plush toy; Bro and Dave are dolls; Jade is a puppy; Rose is a cat). Also features a very unique look at what Alternia would be like if the lusii were the sapient species, and the trolls the symbiotic one.

TLCstuck: Double Death of the Author: A fairly interesting redo of Homestuck, taking control of the narrative a little after Game Over - so, essentially completely changing the story of Homestuck partway through Act 6. There’s a FAQ to give you more information - on how it’s written, how it’s changed, and how it works overall.

Note for TLCstuck, though; it’s very explicitly ship-neutral. This means that although characters’ sexualities remain the same, no actual shipping generally happens in the comic. It also, since it continues from Game Over, doesn’t have a lot of the content that occurred in the Retcon timeline - including DaveKat and Davepeta (alongside the other combosprites). Keep this in mind on whether or not you want to read it, but I think it’s still a good read regardless.

Act 8: Might be one you’ve seen in the tags before! Unsurprisingly, it picks up after Act 7, and works a little like TLCstuck in that it changes the narrative from that point on. Just before the kids can go through the door to Earth C, the white door explodes. It’s animated beautifully, drawn amazingly well, and is well written! If you want to continue Homestuck’s story with the Retcon changes, this would be best for you to read.

Well, that, or...

Act Omega: Like Act 8, it picks up after Act 7, only this time before they can claim their reward, a foe we’ve seen before appears to take the win from their grasp. It’s incredibly well animated and drawn from what I’ve seen so far, with an amazing initial fight sequence. It’s well written, and even from a cursory read-through, they reintroduce most of the main characters (including the Alpha trolls) for a second try at characterisation. Pretty nifty!

Homestuck: Subscript: I know significantly less about this one, except that there is some gorgeous art and design in it. It’s an interesting take compared to the others, since it actually happens on Earth C - so it’s more of a HS^2 replacement than anything else I’ve shown so far. It’s also incredibly different, though, and takes a little more a of a Candy route in so far as it focuses a lot more on relationships. It depends on your tastes!

Karkat goes to a Convention: Everything I know about this comes from a friend talking about it. It’s entirely satirical, I think, and a bit of a pisstake more than anything else? It’s quite literally what it says; actual Homestuck Karkat ends up at a normal, everyday convention. From what I understand it does get more detailed and involved as it goes on, but it’s also good for laughs.

Abodebound: A webcomic a friend of mine wrote! It’s a completely original fanventure, essentially a fansession. There’s music and animation, as well as Homestuck-eqsue writing and original comedy, and some really sweet videos. I’ve never read it all the way through (life’s a bitch like that) but it’s what inspired me to create my own fanventure, and for something completely original but with the same feel as Homestuck, it’s pretty spot-on.

Also, though it’s never been finished, what little exists of Heinoustuck is a delicious treat if you’re into horror. And Prequel -or- Making A Cat Cry: The Adventure is a really good Skyrim comic done in the old Homestuck style. Definitely NOT Homestuck, but it’s got the same art and humour, as well as games and animation - so it’s pretty sweet to look into, if nothing else.

#long post//#homestuck^2 critical #ardenttheories out of theory #homestuck fanventures #princefaux

56 notes · View notes

chronotopes · 4 years

Note

🔥 I truly have no idea what you're talking about ever but I AM fascinated by it so I don't have a topic but will be excited for anything

ok fun fact i wrote out a fucking ESSAY about the one i’m about to drop, but then accidentally closed the tab like a FOOL. it’s okay though one day i’ll rewrite it to be more coherent.

anyway, my take is that EVERYTHING in homestuck begins to make actual sense when you read narrative favoring, narrative ambivalence, and narrative agression towards characters as part of the Rules of the Universe, rules which are explicitly unjust. twitter user 0pacifica has a really interesting essay coming up about how this relates to classpect; they haven’t published it yet but this silly thread about horses explains the principle. it explains a lot: why dirk and jake are left miserable at the end of the comic, that the REAL injustice of the tavros and vriska dynamic is not just in vriska’s obviously horrible in-universe actions but framing and wildly differering levels of narrative respect for each character*, the tragedy that is jade harley, rose and dave’s “people don’t have arcs” conversation, the fact that in fact roxy is the only alpha kid to undergo positive growth, etc.

more things that only make real sense if you read them through the lens of parts and wholes of narrative, narrative favoring, narrative as driving force: the heroic/just binary, aspects and classes (as mentioned above), quest lands, onpage dialogue count, what gets shown and what gets hidden, LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE COMIC.

*i clarify here that although i find homestuck’s model of narrative hostility fascinating, choices as to who receives that model don’t exist in a vacuum. choosing to bestow these levels of narrative ridicule onto one of two major disabled characters (even though tavros is like, a bait-and-switch major character anyway, but that in itself proves my point) in the comic was a damaging choice and deserves to be criticized. this in turn only validates my desire to sit a good portion of fifteen-year-olds on twitter.com and tell them “you should not direct your anger at vriska, who isn’t real, and you should not direct your anger at lesbians on the internet who have opinions that are different from yours. you should direct your anger at andrew hussie and more importantly at ableist narratives on a bigger scale. go forth and prosper.”

#also i feel the exact same way about anything you talk about #smart ppl be winning ig #beverlytoegoldv #words!#asks #LOL THERE I GO AGAIN BEING LIKE 'HAVE YOU HEARD OF ESTHER FROM TWITTER'

7 notes · View notes

momestuck · 5 years

Text

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI: It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

#momestuck

4 notes · View notes

wakraya · 7 years

Note

My problem with the "we're real people we don't have arcs" line is that they do in the post retcon timeline? However brief they are they still exist, but they are all solved by vriska. Rose still got drunk, dave still doesn't want to time travel, karkat struggles with his position of leadership and relationships, and terezi still gets into a black relationship with gamzee. Instead of trying to fix their flaws on their own they're done by vriska. 1/

Vriska knocks the drink out of rose’s hand, vriska captures gamzee before his and terezi’s relationship goes bad, vriska takes the role of leader from karkat and distracts terezi from dave leaving karkat not having to worry if she and dave are a thing and pursues dave, dave gets karkat who he can talk to about some of his issues. Someone else fixing everyone’s flaws doesn’t feel genuine. 2/

Sure vriska doesn’t fix every problem but the ones she did fix were ones we have seen characters struggle with for years. It still cheats us out of any resolution that many fans have been waiting for years. It also begs the question of how serious are these flaws if you can just knock a drink out of a hand to stop them. 3/3

———————————————————————————————————–

See, here’s where I have an opinion that differs drastically from the Fandom’s, and that is, I think most of Vriska’s involvement post-retcon is ultimately useless to the characters, and nothing she does actually fixes anything.

You see, Vriska is a very special brand of attention whore, she just LOVES being the center of attention, regardless of what it is. She wants to be the one to defeat the Villain, and so creates him, she wants to face English herself, she’s in the most literal sense, as her role indicates, stealing the spotlight from the story at any chance she gets. But while the focus shifts to her constantly? She doesn’t actually do shit.

Let me explain: I’ve heard this argument, that Vriska’s involvement was a Deux Ex Machina that just solved every single problem the people on the Meteor had and thus made them less relatable, but that’s just not true. Let’s go one by one:

Rose and her drinking addiction, what many people don’t get about this interaction is that Vriska doesn’t give a FUCK if Rose is an alcoholic or not. What she doesn’t want is a useless Seer. We only see her smacking the drink off her hand once, but by the descriptions by Karkat and Dave and the attitude Kanaya has towards her, it’s obvious that Vriska has been bossing them around for three entire years, which means at any moment she’s seen Rose fall into alcoholism, she’s stopped her, to keep a valuable asset for the fight that was to come. Now the thing to have in mind is that Rose getting drunk so often is bad, very bad for her. But she doesn’t just drink for the sake of it. She starts drinking because she’s nervous to go out with Kanaya. And she keeps drinking to mask the underlying fear of growing up. Her Development, her Mother, Rose has a TON of issues she masks with the alcohol, and we see it when we get to the Session and she fails to foresee the creation of Rosesprite and Jasprose. Rose struggles with her powers and her role in the group, and while the alcoholism is gone, her problems with her growth aren’t. That being said, post-credits, it seems marrying Kanaya and taking care of Grubs left her happy and complacent. But Vriska had nothing to do about that.

Terezi on the other hand is better off without Vriska than with her. Game Over Terezi had regrets about killing Vriska, and it fucked her up in the long run, getting together with Gamzee, fixing her eyesight, and eventually, leading her to forcing John to fix what she’d done. However, the catharsis of not having to kill Vriska doesn’t come without a cost. They become Moirails- And this Moirailship is absolutely one-sided. Vriska uses Terezi to feel better about herself, while Terezi dwells in the thoughts of this other Terezi that planned the trip back in time for John and did all the cool shit. She sticks with Vriska even though their relationship is toxic, to the point to bring herself to fight, she uses her powers to experience the catharsis of a version of herself who got together with the Vriska she wants. Terezi’s regrets about killing Vriska were the thought of changing her, of making her a better person. But post-Retcon? She’s more cocky than ever. She thinks she’s the center of the Universe! Terezi wants (Vriska) to be healthy and happy. But all she’s getting is an even worse Spiderbitch. And even though she knows it, she goes back into the broken Furthest Ring to try and get her.

Kanaya is happier with Rose being more healthy and not drunk all of the time, however with her complicated relationship with Vriska, things have turned around. Initially, Kanaya had red feelings for Vriska, but was stuck in a Moirailship with her, and eventually caught her making out with Tavros, which made her fall off with the jadeblood. And now that she’s back alive? It’s hard to say if Vriska’s red-flirting with Kanaya or just trying to get her attention, but she’s heavily getting on her nerves. Kanaya dislikes Vriska and feels nothing for her anymore, but now it’s her who wants the jadeblood, too, to pay her attention.

Gamzee, well. I mean. Vriska’s making his life impossible in the meteor and she ends up stuffing him in the fridge, but this is very much well deserved. Fuck the clown.

Karkat may not have Quadrant Issues with Terezi anymore post-retcon, but his leadership issues are shining more than ever. Vriska has replaced him at his job, she’s taken the spotlight and thrown him off the stage entirely. He mellows down and hangs out with Dave, but the way he acts when he falls asleep and leads the charge towards English? Echidna’s words about keeping him safe? The fight with Clover? Karkat wanted action, he wanted to be useful to his friends and actually lead them as a leader, even though he’s not really good at that and his eager, initial charges seem to only harm him in the longer run. Thankfully Dave and the Mayor seem to support him through it.

Dave, well… His catharsis comes later with Dirk and Vriska has nothing to do with any development he has or stops having. It’s obvious he dislikes Vriska too, though, and I bet along with the other things they have in common, seeing Karkat’s position of leadership fall upon Vriska aided get their relationship going. See, that’s the thing- Dave and Karkat, much like Kanaya and Rose, are happy together and show how happy they are together, but they don’t have their issues resolved. On Karkat’s side it’s the Leadership, on Dave’s it’s the Fighting itself. Confidence the Spiderbitch herself does nothing aid with.

And finally we get to the Session, where Vriska finally shines and puts Jade and Jane to sleep. Now that is the only thing she helps with, and yet, was it truly necessary on her part? You see, it did speed things up and left Condy without two immensely valuable assets, but even if she hadn’t done this, the Kids would’ve in the long run defeated Jade and Jane themselves.

Now this isn’t explicitly canon, so take it with a grain of salt, but when Artist Caliborn sees his future on the screen and describes the Masterpiece, he explicitly states that he’s surprised by the Kids appearing in a retconny John flash. He also has the ring that Calliope gets to resurrect. That makes me think Artist Caliborn is not the Alpha Caliborn that will later become Lord English, tying with my thoughts that with the Retcon, by the end, we’re not even following the ‘Alpha Timeline’, since the Alpha Timeline is that which favors Lord English, and the point of the Retcon and finishing the game is to escape the clutches of Paradox Space and the Alpha Timeline. So thematically, this makes a lot of sense. And so if the Vriska is 8ack Timeline is not the Alpha, the most likely outcome is that the Alpha Timeline where the Kids have won and regrouped to take down Caliborn is one in which Vriska wasn’t brought back. Which means even then, against all odds, they won.

But even if she did help take those two down, okay, a small win for Vriska. Compared to what she does later it’s nothing at all, right? She makes up the entire plan to win the session, and she faces Lord English herself to defeat him! She ends up stealing the Spotlight! Except… That’s all she does. She inserts herself there, at the very front of the story… And does absolutely zilch for anyone but herself.

The plan she makes is an absolute failure, and going against everything she’s planned is what ends up happening in the Session. The Felt is the least troublesome bunch? They end up time-warping around, being extremely meddlesome and manage to kill Jake once and cause a bunch of mayhem around, have to be taken on by Jake, Karkat, Dad, and the Skeleton Army to stop them from messing everything up. The Healer can’t fall, if Jane falls they’re done for! And yet Jane falls and they still push through. If Jade wakes up it could jeopardise the entire mission, she must be kept asleep at all costs- But she wakes up anyway, and Condy is too busy in Derse to notice her and put her back under her control. The people she disregards the most seem to be the ones that ended up doing the most shit in the fight, because she’s an asshole. Vriska is an absolute and utter, self-centered asshole, and her entire existence from the Retcon onwards is to be there in the middle of everything without regard of what’s actually favorable and what isn’t.

She doesn’t even STICK with the gang to help them win the Session, instead she heads to the Furthest Ring… Where she finds (Vriska) and abuses her psychologically. (Vriska) is the antithesis of all Vriska is. (Vriska) is a Vriska that actually came to terms with the fact she’d done wrong, that she had paid the ultime price for her transgressions… And that, in death, had slowly realized the futility of trying to change things, that she was no longer relevant. This irks Vriska. (Vriska) has stopped acting like a Thief of Light. (Vriska) is no longer trying to seek the Spotlight, and she can simply not comprehend something like this.

Then she goes on to try and rebuild the Ghost Army to take English down- And again, she does nothing. Tavros, to rub it in her face, has built the army himself, and now proceeds to gift it to Meenah to rub it in. Tavros becoming subservient willingly to Meenah is the ultimate Fuck You to the Spider Troll. She wants to be relevant, she SHOULD BE THE ONE to lead the army! But Meenah and Karkat team up to lead the charge, while Vriska stays with the Juju.

Juju that (Vriska) and the previous Ghost Army found. Juju that Aradia carried along and guarded.

When the climax of Act 7 happens and she opens the crate? That’s it. That’s her moment. She steps in front of the army during the next charge, after Karkat charged in first, after Meenah attacked English first, after part of the army is already dead, after Davepeta had their chance to fight English. She steps in, as if she owned the place, and uses the weapon.

True to herself, Vriska works to benefit only herself towards the end of the comic, and if it helps anyone else at all, it’s only tangential casualty.

Does she solve some problems? Yeah she does, to advance her own agenda. But she ignores the root of most of them, and disregards a ton of other issues and some of the characters entirely as if they were useless. All Vriska wants is to shine. And in the end? I seriously hope she’s dead and re-dead with Lord English in that cozy pocket of a Black Hole torn in the middle of Paradox Space.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Spoilers #Vriska Serket #Vriscourse #Retcon #LONG Post

144 notes · View notes

rhythmic-idealist · 7 years

Text

The thing is...

I’m still just kind of completely flabbergasted that the end of “look at this bad terrible alien empire that took over another planet and its home species, and separates people by their blood color, and uses religion to put some people above others” Homestuck is “now the kids won!! and are regarded as ‘gods,’ and passively watch these people form casually segregated species-based kingdoms before just swooping in and taking ownership of them, also Jane is a capitalist”

Like I get it, we’re not characters, we don’t have arcs, yadda yadda yadda it’s cool and creative that Echidna was wrong and the sufferists were wrong, but gosh darnit where is my Second Signless arc

I don’t even need it to be Karkat! I can even live with Karkat having permanently given up leadership and the Second Signless never happening, but there was a story there, and it was a story about how this game managed to fuck over four consecutive universes with its idea of what its players “needed” to be prepared (which is why Alternia was what it was, it’s the way the Scratch “thinks,” it’s the Bro Strider mentality that to make a stronger more successful session you put the players through hell)

But okay, so it isn’t going to be Karkat, fine. But listen, Roxy is right there with a history of helping and growing to understand another species while living under the oppressive Alternian Empire, Calliope is right there with a huge heart and a life spent in isolation and a bright, constant desire to help. Dirk is massively critical of himself and his friends at every turn, and takes action to fix it. Do you see how much potential we had? Do you see how many ways the kids’ decisions on the new planet could have been a conclusion to four universes and four - count ‘em, four (x) - revolutions?

And this is the part where I stop whining, and it turns into real, actual analysis.

Homestuck’s ending rides on Rose’s [edit: Dave’s, I think] line that “maybe we don’t have arcs, maybe we’re just.... people.” And so we look at that, and look at Homestuck, and go ugh, that is creative. That is making a point. If Homestuck was just a story about people, this ending would be satisfying, because people don’t have arcs, and sometimes they just live.

But what Hussie seemed to forget was that Homestuck became a story about a revolution. It became a story about four fucked-up universes and the ways they fucked up their children - it’s about the ways that Beforus’s strict hierarchies and stifling policy of “there is a place for you, don’t worry, and we’ll FIND that role for you and MAKE you fit it” left us with a bunch of isolated young adults running away from whatever they were told they were supposed to be (a matron, an empress, quiet). It’s about the ways Alternia’s violent emphasis on power and denial of basic things like friendship left us with a bunch of volatile, emotionally unstable teenagers who don’t know how to help each other and who did a lot of killing instead; the ways Earth One told Dave so much about who he was allowed to be and what masculinity means and Earth Two sheltered Jane and Jake and forced Roxy and Dirk to grow up so much too quickly and left all of them isolated and not sure how to be good friends to each other (“she’ll get over her drinking problem alone if we don’t talk about it,” “if I send enough robots to beat him up he’ll be fine,” those aren’t normal reactions).

And then, when Homestuck came back from the gigapause, we started moving toward resolution. Dave is coming to terms with his abusive childhood, and growing past the long-internalized ideas about masculinity and self-worth that his environment allowed him. Jade is allowing herself to be openly sad, instead of beating it back with a stick for the same reasons she so despised Jadesprite. There are conversations explicitly about “my environment was really fucked up, and I can fix it,” and they’re conversations that tie directly back to Homestuck’s larger revolutions, especially the Signless’s - that general realization that “it doesn’t need to be like this.”

(You can’t look at the Signless going “this is bullshit, we never needed to hurt each other, Alternia never needed to hurt us,” and then look at Dave going “this is bullshit, I never needed to be strong, people like him never needed to hurt people like me,” and tell me that there isn’t a little revolution brewing. “It doesn’t need to be like this.”)

And now we’re on Earth 3.0 - featuring capitalism, informally species-segregated society, at least enough of the hemospectrum to keep jadebloods in the caverns - and the kids just.... don’t do anything? Jane just runs her corporation and isn’t surprised at all when she thinks she’s the target of an assassination attempt, which would be coming not from the Empress, but from the people below her this time? Dirk just kinda... Is There? Jade, John, and Jake living quieter lives makes sense to me with the headspace we know they’re in, Calliope prioritizing her friends and just following and being with them makes all the sense in the world, Rose and Kanaya have their hands full, Terezi isn’t going to be thinking about Earth C for a while. But I gotta look at Dave, Roxy, Dirk, and even Karkat, and wonder..... this is it? What are they doing?

#text heavy //#homestuck #homestuck meta #homestuck analysis #abuse //#child abuse //#(wrt Dave and Bro)#bold text //#it's heavily implied even that it ISN'T over and the game ISN'T won because this is universe B3 instead of C1 #(read: it's another Earth)#but apparently that..... isn't actually going anywhere I guess

57 notes · View notes

utopianparadoxist · 7 years

Text

As You Wish

[Author’s Note: This is a repost of Love, Faith and Fantasy–my piece on Jake and Dirk’s character arcs and the relevance of Knights and Pages in understanding them. I thought breaking it up into chunks would make the content more accessible, and give me room to flesh out each argument. Thus there will be some updates to the content. Hopefully this will mean more people can easily approach it!] [Pt. 1 - Knights/Pages - Service and Ownage] [Pt. 2 - Faith and Fear] [Pt. 3 - Fearful Heart] [Pt. 4 - Nobility]

A disclaimer before we get started:

I think reading Jake as aromantic is copacetic with the canon. Obviously I don’t share this reading--I see him as Bi and romantic--but all I’m going to argue here is that Jake deeply, truly, profoundly loves Dirk. I’m going to explain how and why he loves him, too. But whether that love is romantic or platonic is up to interpretation, I think. You can read them as lovers or best friends or whatever shade of grey between is most pleasing to you, in my humble opinion. All I’m arguing is that the love is there. That out of the way, let’s begin.

I don’t feel the need to deconstruct Jake’s every line to determine why he didn’t mean each and every one that could suggest a lack of romantic interest. You can pretty much put almost all of them down in one of four categories:

He worries about other people’s perceptions and discomfort with queerness, a byproduct of internalized homophobia... His later discomfort with feeling unsafe and sexually threatened/objectified, a byproduct of his traumatic experiences with Hal, Jane and Aranea... His lack of surety regarding the nature of Dirk’s feelings for him...., a byproduct of his willful ignorance and his desire to avoid talking about the possibility he may have hurt Dirk’s feelings growing up.

And then there’s the one moment I actually want to talk about.

Jake says this in response to Roxy talking about feeling like it hurts to let Dirk down. The thing is, Roxy--like Dave--is a Passive player, who is predominantly motivated by the perceptions and needs of others. Of course failing someone she cares about is going to sting for her more than it would for Jake.

That has nothing to do with Jake’s capacity for love, it has to do with the fact that Jake is selfish. It has to do with him regretting his self-absorption. Jake does love, and he loves intensely--he loves enough to die for it, which is pretty much as intense as it gets. He’s just deeply, deeply selfish about it.

And I love that selfishness about Jake. Because it turns all doubts about whether Jake loves Dirk back to ash in one fell swoop, in one single, brilliant, shining moment.

In this moment all of Jake’s plot threads come together--his sexual abuse and lack of agency, his growing fear, his certainty none of his friends wants him anymore, his selfishness and fantasy indulgence AND Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave’s image and be helpul to Jake are all built up into this one single, spectacular moment.

A cinematic moment. A moment with deep philosophical implications.

Everything about Jake and Dirk’s narratives builds up to this. Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave and Jake’s inherent selfishness are complementary, symbiotic forces. I mentioned earlier that when Dirk’s lamp and Heart Light up and overflow he performs incredible, unbelievable acts whilst rushing to Jake’s side.

And when Jake is Lit up by Aranea, removing his agency as a person COMPLETELY while also making him the brightest object in the sky, Jake manages to find a way to turn his power against her. And what he chooses to create reveals everything about his character.

Because what he chooses to do is call Dirk to his side, to protect him and keep him safe from his perceived threat.

Both of the boys literally LIGHT UP with their feelings for each other, in a comic where the concept of Light is explicitly linked to relevance, importance, understanding, and the concept of reaching Enlightenment or Nirvana. (Stay tuned, I’ll flesh this out more in my next three videos.)

I’ve gone over the inherent romance in Jake choosing to create Dirk over literally any other option imaginable. But with the new context of Jake explicitly looking to serve himself through Hope, it takes on an added edge. What Jake wants more than anything else in the world is Dirk, but not at all to make Dirk happy or because it’s what Dirk would want. No.

Jake wants Dirk because he’s selfish. Because he wants life to be happy and easy and adventurous but carefree, and he believes he can always rely on Dirk to take care of things or bail him out when things get too intense for him to handle. Jake wants Dirk as a best friend, a bodyguard, a partner, a rival and a servant all rolled into one.

Jake’s feelings for all of his friends have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself. He’d rather die than live in a word without Jane, and that’s why he saves her--not because he thinks he owes it to her for past slights. The same is true of the way he wants to be with Dirk.

All of this is textual by implication. Dirk’s line:

”I am Brain Ghost Dirk. You kissed my boyfriend. Prepare to Die.”

Is indicative of the Dirk that Jake wants and believes in in his head. This line is a movie reference to The Princess Bride, a romantic fantasy adventure comedy with a very curious dynamic between the romantic leads.

No shortage of people have pointed out how Jake seems to see himself as or end up in the positions of sexualized and marginalized female protagonists, but I think there’s a cause to be made Jake’s “arc” draws from this specific one--Buttercup--above all others. Buttercup’s romantic dynamic with Westley is simple: She issues requests to him, and he responds “As you Wish.”

This As you Wish is an explicit I love you, and the power of love is put forth as the source of Westley’s power and endless competence and ability throughout the entire story. It doesn’t matter what needs to happen, Westley finds a way to do it. And he does it because he believes in their love.

Buttercup, however, struggles to hold on to her faith that love can overcome all things possible and wavers in her commitment to living for it, ending up nearly trapped in an unwanted marriage. Buttercups’ arc is resolved when she chooses to believe in love even at risk of dying, promising never again to hide what she truly desires--Westley.

Jake perceives Dirk as his Prince Charming, an idea that could also be described as a Knight in Shining Armor.

This is the essence of Jake’s fantasy, and we know that’s what it is--a fantasy-- because when Caliborn threatens to kill Dirk in the Masterpiece (which the Credits suggest we’ll soon see once again), Jake responds by shifting his and Dirk’s fundamental power dynamic--once again Lighting Up with love to save Dirk by delivering Caliborn his destined serving.

Jake’s victory ends up giving Hope to all those opposing Lord English, but Jake himself doesn’t give a shit about that.

Jake’s stated motivation for trouncing Caliborn is one thing and one thing only: Saving Dirk. Serving his own desire to see Dirk safe. Caliborn is hurting his friend, and Jake is mad about it. His motivation is essentially identical to his desire to save Jane--he doesn’t want to live without Dirk.

And on Dirk’s side, this dynamic ultimately validates the idea that he became everything he wanted to become by emulating Dave through a bit of understated environmental storytelling.

What’s more, this bit of environmental storytelling also prompts us to consider looking back towards the early Acts with the Beta Guardians with a bit more of a serious eye--the darkness of Mom’s House and Bro damaging the symbol of Dave’s Self begin to take on heavier tones, for example.

What’s more, it gives us more reason to be excited for Hiveswap, through virtue of the fact that it demonstrates Hiveswap’s care and attention to detail with regards to Homestuck as a whole.

I already argued in favor of Grandpa being able to on some level remember his relationship to the Alphas, so click here to see full version of that argument.

The shortform is this: Grandpa’s manor has three rooms, each lit by one of the Alpha’s colors and filled with items linked to them, and the Distinguished Houseguests in his Grand Foyer each link to one of the Alphas as well.

Here are the rooms in sequence:

Take a look at the fireplace--it’s got Derse colors on one side, and Prospit colors on the other. On the Prospit side, you’ve got a Blue Lady--matching Jane, who Jake liked to trade posters of blue people with-- and an alien species with horns on it’s head, also wearing a suit--matching Calliope.

On the Derse side you’ve got a Mummy, matching Roxy both by sharing both Jake and Roxy’s interests in bodily preservation, and through the fact that Roxy’s planet includes Pyramids. There’s also the wordplay between the words Mummy and Mommy, if you’ll allow me to stretch a little.

And then we have a Knight, representing Dirk. This dynamic answers a question that didn’t even need asking--why the Knight sitting on the Derse side of Grandpa’s house wears a suit suspiciously similar to one of Dave’s most well-known ones.

It suggests an explicit linkage of the idea of Knighthood and the idea of Dave, and suggests that this is the imagery that comes to Grandpa’s mind when thinking of Dirk. In one way, you could view this as Dirk managing to destroy his own thematic legacy in Bro and succeeding at living up to Dave’s thematic image instead, at least in Grandpa’s mind--a sort of ultimate implementation of his Prince of Heart role.

This existentially validates Dirk, setting him apart from his Splinters and rendering him unique in the context of the Dirk Strider ultimate self--at least in the eyes of the boy he loves. And, well. Fuck? That’s beautiful to me.

And just for the record, this is a connection that has held true across not only the entirety of the Homestuck, but through Hiveswap as well, with a Knight standing right in front of a smuppet in Grandpa’s garage:

Which suggests to me that WP has approached Grandpa’s memories and the Alpha’s arcs with the same attention to detail the comic itself gave them, and makes me extremely confident in what’s to come. Hopefully now you are too. Hiveswap’s attention to detail speaks to the quality of the story they’ve crafted, and we should all be excited beyond reasonable belief, in my humble opinion.

Conclude.

So that’s it. That’s pretty much all my evidence for this reading of Dirk, Jake, Dave, and the wider story surrounding them. I look forward to hearing your responses. Personally, putting this together was revelatory for me.

I hope it was for you, too. If it wasn’t quite, I hope you want to talk about it and keep track of the ongoing conversation I hope takes place here as a result.

This series has been a passion project, but also a side project to my youtube series aimed at welcoming and explaining Homestuck to new, incoming Hiveswap fans. If you find yourself trying to make it easier for a Hiveswap fan to understand what Homestuck is about and how it connects to the game, I hope you think of me.

If you like my writing and have a buck to spare, you could also really help me out by enabling me to focus on putting more of this content out there through pledging on Patreon. Doing so will also give you access to my private community of enthusiasts trying to advance new and interesting readings of this wonderful property.

See you again soon, everyone. Until then,

Keep rising.

#Homestuck #Jake English #Dirk Strider #Dave Strider #Dirkjake #My MSPA Analysis #Alphas #Knights/Pages #Princes/Bards

92 notes · View notes

blaperile · 4 years

Text

Homestuck Candy Epilogue - Reactions Pages 13 - 16

Page 13:

Holy SHIT. I totally agree with Dave, this feels like straight out of a horror movie.

What the FUCK is Gamzee doing over there? Does Calliope have anything to do with this, seeing as he was sticking by her side all the time, earlier?

I mean, jesus, didn't Dave come straight from John to here? He couldn't have been far behind Gamzee, who was only just there at John and Roxy's date.

And man, what the hell happened to Dirk? From what Gamzee's saying it seems like he might have left this reality behind somehow. Did he go to the same place wherever Meat Dirk is also headed to?

It seems like Gamzee is on some deep shit again, somehow. How does he know about the stuff with the black hole and what's behind it? Did Dirk tell him about all that? Or did Calliope? Or does Gamzee know it from somewhere else?

Welp, so there's the robot Dirk had been building for Rose.

And of COURSE it ends with a note to Dave. When is Dirk/Bro ever NOT about notes?

The question is... what's in it? Does he explain something? Or... is he asking Dave to also come to where he's gone?

You know, I was almost expecting Dave to find Dirk's dead body in here, but apparently not.

This page just goes to show much of an impact Dirk/Bro keeps on having on Dave. It's like he's left a splinter behind in Dave's mind, like he has his own Brain Ghost Dirk just like Jake or something.

Page 14:

..........WELP.

THAT....SURE JUST HAPPENED.

Looks like he went for the suicide after all. :(

And of course, no way for him to go out but with a decapitation...

I just wonder... what is this last act of relevance he meant? Is he "transferring" his soul to his Meat version, or something?

Or is he trying to set someone (Dave?) in this reality on a path of relevance due to his suicide and/or the note he left behind?

I wonder what even is in the note... did he explain why he'd commit suicide? Or is it about something else?

abundantChewtoys has a good point about the similarity to where Meat Dirk ascended the tower, and Alternate Calliope was trying to slow him down. And where it seemed like he was going to shoot Karkat... but instead he shot Jade.

A pivotal moment where it seemed like a murder was going to take place but it wasn't. And now it was a suicide.

What intrigues me the most here is that Dirk became "you" in here... the first character in the Candy Epilogue to become that.

Is someone (Calliope???) pulling strings on Dirk here or is this really entirely his choice?

Man, I wonder what the rest of this Epilogue is even going to be like... everyone's going to be totally shook by his suicide, right?

Especially Dave... this won't be good on him at all. He's going through such difficult times right now, and felt he needed Dirk to get out of it, and now Dirk's gone...

I wonder what Dave's first reaction is going to be... is he going to try to use his Time powers to undo Dirk's death? Is he going to be STOPPED from doing that, through narration?

You know... what with how Candy Dirk considering his existence in an unessential timeline completely pointless and committing suicide provides a very interesting perspective on what this means for other versions of Dirk...

First of all, pre-retcon Dirk. He knew he lost, and then just let himself be taken in by the glitches, and was seemingly killed by that. Kinda in that regard.

Next... let's talk about Bro. More specifically... the Bro from DAVESPRITE'S timeline.

Remember how Davesprite mentioned that he never saw Bro again during the 4 months that doomed timeline lasted? What if Bro realized he was in a doomed timeline and also committed suicide over there?

Heck, even Brobot counts. He killed himself to take out his uranium heart, to help Jake out.

Dirk's really got suicide down to a science. He had no problem to kill his real self to awaken his dream self to save his friends.

And when they were on the God Tier crypts, I believe Dirk mentioned something about how he had no problems to commit suicide, but simply didn't want to kill Roxy.

Jesus christ, this guy...

Page 15:

Wow.... WOW.... That was a rollercoaster of emtions.

First of all, I wasn't expecting that we'd be skipping straight to the funeral, but now on second thought I guess it made sense.

It's still left unclear now what exactly was in Dirk's note. From the little they mentioned, it seemed like it was a bunch of words that didn't seem to make sense.

But I guess he DID try telling them about what was going on in his mind, and why he did it?

Secondly, it seems like Gamzee also attempted to tell them... but Gamzee being Gamzee, probably nobody actually understood anything of what he was trying to say.

Still, it seems like Gamzee's been set on some kind of path by Dirk.... The path to the future, where he'd find Calliope/Caliborn? Which I find curious, seeing as at first it almost seemed like Calliope was setting him upon some kind of path!

Speaking of the devil... where in the dickens is Calliope? Pretty much everyone of the characters had dialogue, or was at least mentioned as being at the funeral, in this page, except for Calliope.

Yeah, there's literally no way Calliope isn't up to something, right?

I'd honestly be surprised at this point if she ISN'T the narrator here.

But if she is... why does she seem to be pushing John and Roxy towards each other, and away from her? Is she also planning on doing something drastic? Like, leave this place in the same way Meat Dirk did (not Candy Dirk)?

And if she is, did she actively push Dirk into committing suicide here? Why the heck would she do that???

Or is she just going ALL the way into her "fanfic" persona, writing stories about these characters she loves without involving herself for some reason?

I bet we're going to get some insight into that soon.

Anyway, let's go back a little. I'm happy to see Dave's doing relatively fine, despite everything that's happened, and that he seems to have found his footing with Jade and Karkat. He held Jade's hand in the church, and he was seemingly about to kiss Karkat outside the church.

That's a relief, I feared he was going to be totally derailed by this event.

Also, I actually wasn't expecting John to offer to retcon this event. I had really only been thinking about Dave's powers.

But it makes sense Dave took this decision. It was Dirk's choice and Dave wants to respect it, and that's very noble of him.

It's curious that John is now failing to use his retcon powers. I mean, he did manage to do it earlier in the Candy path, to retrieve Gamzee!

Is it that he's losing the power because of the fact that weeks have gone by since the timeline split from the Meat path? Or... is the narrator simply preventing him from retconning this event?

By the way, this page is an interesting parallel for page 15 of the Meat path. That was also an incredibly long page, in that case it was for the fight against Lord English.

Page 16:

...Oh man, this page is giving me a weird feeling. TIMESKIPS. TIMESKIPS EVERYWHERE. MIXED FEELINGS ALSO EVERYWHERE.

Let's start with the straight-forward part. John and Terezi continue being amazing in their conversations. And I love how Terezi's almost spelling it out for John that she feels like John is her kismesis and it's still going way over his head. xD

She continues being out there... alone. Or so we would think!

It's hinting that Terezi is alone out there, still looking for Vriska in an alternate version of the Furthest Ring compared to what we saw in the Meat timeline... but is it???

We've never seen MULTIPLE versions of the Furthest Ring, only just one. And it's not like Meat and Candy seem to represent two different possible ways for the single timeline to go, it's being hinted that these do co-exist. Meat Dirk and Meat Rose had a look right into the Candy timeline, and Candy Dirk's hinted at John picking the other choice as well.

So what's the deal? IS there both a Meat Terezi and Candy Terezi or is there just one? Is there something this Terezi isn't telling us?

Is this the same Terezi as in the Meat timeline, further down her path where she's already lost John and gone with Meat Dirk? Or what is going on?

ARE we ever going to see more of Terezi here in the Candy path, or is it going to be limited to her interactions with John? That we can only take her word and won't find out what she's actually experiencing, that she isn't hiding something?

So that it's left up to us to decide if this there is only one Terezi, or actually a separate Meat Terezi and Candy Terezi?

Anyway, so John and Roxy are having a baby!!! :O

I already had a feeling that was going down as soon as the timeskip was mentioned, the fact the wedding already happened, and that John truly felt like an adult now.

On one hand I'm so happy about that... on the other hand it still feels a bit wrong. I'm not going to repeat everything I said about the previous page, but it's almost like Calliope is kind of pushing John and Roxy towards each other and completely ruling herself out.

Especially with what Terezi mentioned on this very page, how it seems that things are going so fast between John and Roxy. That makes me even more suspicious that she's explicitly saying it.

I mean, especially with Calliope ruling herself out of the equation, this probably would have happened in a natural way between John and Roxy, but maybe not this fast.

Same thing actually with Dave and Karkat! Like John mentions here, they still seem to be figuring things out, whereas in the Meat timeline Dirk basically forced them together sooner.

It's heartwarming to see that Terezi's gotten back somewhat in touch with Dave and Karkat. After everything they've been through together, they deserve that.

On the other hand... the situation with Jade. That's pretty sad to see that things aren't working out that well with Dave and Karkat there. :(

Also, do I even want to acknowledge what the FUCK that was about Jane and Jake with Gamzee? xD

Let's... let's just assume Jane wanted to try a threesome or something for kicks... Okay I'm going to completely stop thinking about this now. xD

#Homestuck #The Homestuck Epilogues #Candy #reaction #Dirk #Gamzee #Dave #Calliope #Terezi

1 note · View note

momestuck · 5 years

Text

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 14-15 [Epilogue 3]

On to Epilogue 3.

The last Epilogue ended with a cliffhanger: prior to his disappearance, Dirk was constructing a ‘feminine’ robot, which Dave discovers is holding a note in its hand.

CW suicide for chapter 14. A successful suicide by hanging is described in some detail.

Also this Epilogue is really short and I actually read an entire nother epilogue before I realised that, so the next post will be very soon after this one!

Chapter 14

We get a POV chapter of Dirk, which might answer our question. This chapter is in second person, and brings back the “> Ascend” prompt, used so much throughout Homestuck. All that we know is “the world has been set on a path you cannot tread”. There are apparently no stakes or consequences - so Dirk has decided to kill himself. He succeeds, decapitating himself by hanging himself from a tower in a rather grim recapitulation of all the Dirk’s head jokes.

The narration is extremely self-aggrandising and condescending towards everyone else, as befits Dirk. Although exactly why he felt John’s decision to stay rendered anything he might do in the new world devoid of meaning or consequence, or prevented him from popping out into the Farthest Realm to get involved in some plots out there, is not immediately clear.

Although he’s god tier, the death ‘takes’:

Your body doesn’t get up, and your head doesn’t open its eyes. When you think so little of yourself as a moral character, any act of self-termination will result in a death that is Just.

Friggin’ Dirk.

Chapter 15

Funeral time. It begins about as awkward and ridiculously as Dirk himself.

Most of it is given to a speech by Dave. It’s well-written, in-voice, and makes me feel stuff about Dirk Strider. He specifically addresses intrusive thoughts about suicide, the shit that Bro did, the way that Dirk mattered to them even as weird and self-absorbed as he was. Which does kinda mean something, because I guess I feel like, like Dirk, I live a lot in my head, follow trains of thought that mean very little to other people, but I’ve managed to make myself matter to others anyway.

Not gonna kill myself though. Not anymore.

Gamzee, for some reason, has Dirk’s note, and accidentally destroys it. The narration continues to emphasise how disgusting Gamzee is: how much he smells, how he’s clumsy, openly scratches his crotch, etc. His attempt to recap Dirk’s final message is mostly skimmed over in narration. Jake’s also gonna give a speech but the camera mercifully spares us that.

John, at this point, offers to retcon the suicide. Because... he can actually do that. There’s a brief discussion of the difference between time travel and retcon (if Dave went back, it would allegedly just create a separate timeline where Dirk does not die). Dave is like, no, don’t do that John... but John attempts to do it anyway, only to find his powers no longer work!

At that point Roxy shows up and proposes. What’s that thing they have in America, where the studios are doing a donation drive so they write loads of really dramatic moments into shows? ‘Sweeps’? ...oh it’s actually to do with the ratings system, trying to court advertiser money, but same difference. It feels like that right now.

Something about this doesn’t feel... right? Just a few weeks ago, Roxy was happy with Calliope, and now she wants to have his babies? John feels like he’s missing something important here, like he went for a bathroom break during the part of the movie where the plot twist happens. He should give Roxy some time, get himself some space. It’s all happened so fast that it’s suffocating.

Yeah. Calliope hasn’t shown up onscreen for quite a lot of chapters. What are we missing? What profound effect has John’s decision to stay had, that’s caused everyone to suddenly be obsessed with pinning down ‘endgame’ relationships, having children etc.?

Roxy once again prophesises that they will be ‘so freakin happy!’. I’m getting more and more uneasy every time those words are uttered.

(Apparently ‘prophesise’ is nonstandard, but I like the sound of it more than ‘to prophesy’, so I’m keeping that, nyeh.)

Epilogue 3 as a whole

Suicide’s a heavy subject, and describing in second-person and in detail is intense reading, but also a pretty harsh thing to do without (localised) warning. I would personally have put a content note at the top of this chapter, and invited the reader to skip to the aftermath if they felt the need.

The funeral was well-written, even if we’re like, skating from dramatic moment to dramatic moment - deaths! funerals! proposals!

I imagine if I was more invested in Dirk I’d be a bit frustrated to see him so abruptly killed off, but I suspect he’ll have a much more substantial role in Meat.

Will be interesting to see just what is up with Calliope...

#momestuck

1 note · View note