me: yeah im gonna go to sleep

also me: *proceeds to send my friend 650+ words of pepsisprite analysis*

thinking about john being a literal embodiment of the narrative and davesprite being an embodiment of the game. the game and the narrative are intrinsic to each other's existence, but without each other they would be useless. what's the point of the game if no ones watching, and whats the point of watching if no ones playing? john and davesprite’s relationship sort of mirrors that, davesprite wouldn't exist as a sprite if john had never died, but john WOULD have died if davesprite didnt save him. they're necessary to each other's creation and to each other's continued existence and relevance. 

they're the world's shittiest soulmates because their relationship is so riddled with the game and narrative but davesprite and john are tied together in a way which ends up with davesprite always ending up right next to john again. johndirk and pepsisprite are very related what with davesprite mirroring dirk in a bunch of ways, but the difference between the two ships is mainly when they would happen imo. (canon) johndirk can only work postcanon, mostly because they simply don't actually get to meet each other until then, whereas pepsisprite HAS to happen during the game, the 3 year trip to be precise. 

all they had were those 3 years together, really, before everything went to shit. obviously they had known each other before then, but that was john and dave. the "real" dave, before the specifications had to be made. it's kinda sad how because of the timeframe that pepsisprite would be able to work out in, they could never actually have a relationship. like they were both dealing with their own issues (most of which never were resolved, not fully) but it mightve fixed them tbh.

thats really why I'm a big fan of back to the beginning post game aus that include the splinters because their stories are never really completely resolved, most of them are sort of just brushed away or swept into something new (e.g. davepeta)

also going back to what I said earlier on how johndirk mirrors pepsisprite in a way, it does! but there's a lot of nuance to the situations? davesprite is more like bro than dave is, thus making him more like dirk, but he's still a dave yknow. pepsisprite is actually a closer parallel to jakehal, especially by the end of the boat trip with the vaguely antagonistic relationship the two of them have.

actually i think they should be kismesis sometimes as a treat. john has so much emotion and anger built up and having somewhere to vent out that frustration would probably be really good for him. at the same time, though, they're also moirails because john and dave are quite literally the closest humans can get to moirallegiance. john and davesprite transcend quadrants in the actual definition of it, embodying the quads all at once instead of vacillating.

davekat (a ship most people consider to embody all quads) sort of does something similar, however a lot of the time their characterization is of vacillation between redrom and blackrom vs where pepsisprite is happening simultaneously. 

davesprite *is* proud of john and he does really love his friends, however because of the trauma he went through growing up (which was later reinforced by all the shit that went down in the game) he can only express so "ironically" or backhandedly, and john is so repressed to hell and back that *he's* not even sure what emotions he's feeling half the time

I think the fact that the two of them can so effortlessly communicate despite all that, though, really shows you their relationship. john can see the genuine in davesprite's "ironic" statements, and davesprite can pick out john's feelings through all the happy freedom bullshit. they communicate so well despite everything because they're best friends and because they've known each other so long. davesprite is important to john just like john is important to davesprite, and they always end up right back next to each other.

so many people in the homestuck fandom nowadays are younger and weren’t there to experience the comic as it updated, so all they know of homestuck is what it is as a finished product in an archived state. but it hit so much different when you were there

i was exposed to homestuck in 2011/2012 (i used to hate hearing about it) but begrudgingly finally decided to check it out in 2013. the latest update was the very last update of act 6 intermission 5: “THERE IS NO DISC THREE YOU ASSHOLE. THE END. AAAAAAAAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA” (4/14/2013)

the first upd8 i was there to experience was [S] ACT 6 ACT 6, the HOMOSUCK update (6/12/13) and quite frankly i dont think i couldve asked for a better first update to jump onto homestuck with. start of a new act, and retelling no less, and fucking caliborn the funniest mf in the comic narrating and drawing it

so i was there for……..wow all of this:

the FIRST fun fact is that in the homosuck anthem made by toby fox in [S] ACT 6 ACT 6, the “mmMMmmm” sound effect is sampled from his own voice as karkat in the baby is you

the SECOND fun fact is one that those who were not there for the end of the gigapause and the start of ACT 6 ACT 6 ACT 3 wouldn’t know:

at the end of the 1 year gigapause (10/16/13–10/16/14) mspaintadventures crashed from too many refreshes. the hype for the end of the gigapause was MASSIVE.

remember this page? originally this page only said “WELCOME BACK.” and nothing else and the css style was the mspa default

luckily my blog is a time capsule so you can experience 10/16/14 vicariously

but then

on the same day

the update link was removed from the site.

remember this was the highly anticipated return from the gigapause—the comic’s longest hiatus while it was ongoing

and then it was reuploaded the next day on 10/17/14 with caliborn’s green css style with a newly added word that was basically talking to all of us in real time:

WELCOME BACK.

(AGAIN.)

and that is the cemented, final resting state of the page. and that’s also why the gigapause is one year + one day instead of just one year

and thats the story of the reason why caliborn says (AGAIN.), it’s nothing disruptive or out of place to people who weren’t there since it could easily just be played off as us readers returning to caliborn’s narration in the main acts. but for the people who were there this feels like it was more personally targeted towards them and what they experienced and i’m always reminded of living through all this when i see it lol

it's so funny to me when people just believe that john is straight because he said "i'm not a homosexual" once because

1. you are believing the words of a 13 yr old who was 12 the day before.

2. people forget that he's 13 when he said that, and that he is not old enough for a proper romantic relationship.

3. john egbert doesn't think. in fact, he'd rather not AT ALL. like. EVER.

4. why would he think about ever liking a girl? can't he just say it out right if he does?

also, this part in a nutshell:

karkat: DO YOU WANNA BE IN A RELATIONSHI-

john: i am not a homosexual. 👍

5. god king of repression had you fooled FOOL.

and the most ironic part is that it's the same shit homophobic parents say like "yeah, but when you were 13 you said you liked girls soooo"

gonna go completely insane for a second here.

was thinking about mspar. who will obviously not. appear in hsbc. bc it makes almost no thematic sense for that to happen

but like… i made a connection. that i want to talk about.

mspar in pq is defined by two things, early on

really, really, really fucking hating the direction the epilogues took the "story", and wanting to take it into their own hands to fix it.

like, the imagery about this being a Bad Thing is pretty unsubtle. in the prologue, mspar literally tramples over homestuck panels, crushing them underfoot. and by the end of pq, what they have done isnt just create a new timeline where "everyone is happy," they've overwritten homestuck to do it. theyve Literally retconned the story and replaced it with their fanon ideas of how to "fix" things. that's why ultdirk and the director have to come and tell you that it needs to stop.

there's a lot more about mspar's actions in pq being like… pretty unambiguously villain shit, in my reading, but thats a sort of separate ramble to what i wanted to be insane about (let me know if you want me to ramble about. mspar being the bad guy. another time.)

basically. mspar's design looks a hell of a lot like doc scratch. obviously. theyre both round-headed narrators.

doc scratch's textbox is literally just mspar's inverted. theyre foils, in a sense. scratch enables canon while hurting everyone to do it, and mspar enables fanon (…while hurting everyone to do it, differentways.)

and that got me thinking like. a lot of this description i just wrote applies to another character too.

someone in the text who was introduced as a reader of the stories of the heroes, as an author of fanfiction and fanart

though, obviously meat and candy calliope are accounted for. it's not literally that mspar is calliope. besides, its not even like calliope wears a similar hooded black outfit to them, or makes a huge fucking deal about loathing the complexity of postcanon,

hey wait a minute

and theyve got a lot in common. even beyond the superficial. for example, they both just. appoint themself as the guardian of their timeline, because they have to "fix" homestuck. (whether the characters in homestuck want this or not.)

jade harley literally tells *both characters* "well, what if we don't want your protection!!!! why won't you leave us alone!" and then they just sorta ignore her wishes

and the connection keeps going. like. mspar and altcallie have both stood outside of the green sun with aradia and absorbed a canon into themself so they can rewrite it.

this extremely specific thing they have in common!!!! kinda fucked up!!!!!!

like, im not saying this because i literally think mspar is going to crack their head open and reveal altcallie a la Lord English in that intermission.

but THEMATICALLY.

they have a lot in common.

way more than i realized until literally two days ago!

like mspar is LITERALLY another narrator at least on the scale of ultdirk and doc scratch and the like and LITERALLY ALL OF THEM ARE VILLAINS shdashjfhasfhsajdhgashfkgshjdgsdfgsdhjg. there is stuff to think about.

(conspiracy brain.) and of all the outfits mspar wore in friendsim, it's specifically the black hoodie up that they got sprites for….

anyway.

obviously pesterquest and hsbc werent referencing each other because the second one did not exist yet.

but like! i think theres something there. in terms of da Themes and Motifs.

(if there are more close readings of pq, id be SUPER curious to find em :3)

This is a rant I've been meaning to get off my chest for a while, but the conception on Tumblr, AO3, and sometimes here, that Jake is capable of "teasing" Dirk, and all that implies, irks me deeply.

Let me be clear: Jake English is not self-aware. He, in Canon, never does anything resembling self-awareness, maturity, emotional boldness, or anything else that requires a spinal column. This includes apologizing to anyone, talking about his problems in a way that doesn't end up being selfish, teasing someone, particularly Dirk, or transitioning. (I maintain this especially; he does not have the boldness, maturity, self-awareness, or nerve to have transitioned his gender presentation pre-Act-6.)

He has an *understanding* of pranks, if we allow Paradox Space as evidence, but that's it. He makes *Tavros* look like a fully-roleplayed-into-Class-shift Lord.

You know what the popular Fandom perception of Jake, as a member of a DirkJake relationship, lines up with? *John*, before his main writing trait became a deep, all-consuming depression and repression thing.

Like, John’s original Act 5 and earlier characterization before his underreaction to his dad's death and the spiral that sent him down towards his current "transition would not save her" characterization is what people use for Jake (charming, funny, actually seems to have his shit together enough to maybe be transmasc (man, remember *transmasc John*?), and, most importantly, seemingly capable of dealing with the levels of vaguely sociopathic bullshit that an even-close-to-accurate Dirk would throw at him), but DirkJohn/JohnDirk is less popular, to the point of not having a consensus order, simply because Jake and Dirk are *coded* as liking each other.

I think a lot of people miss that DirkJake is fundamentally the Equius of relationships; Hussie isn't one of those writers that feels pride in finding pathos in the ridiculous, but spiteful glee and humor. He genuinely does not care if he accidentally touches people's hearts in a way that doesn't involve Dave, or *maybe* Vriska. The fact is, DirkJake is a joke relationship, which is spelled out very clearly in their conversation.

You know, their conversation. The one they have together. The time we see someone who is actual Dirk Strider, not Hal pretending, not Aranea co-opting a memory, not a Brain Ghost, talking to Jake. That time.

Yeah, that doesn't exist. DirkJohn has as much conversational basis as DirkJake.

Edit:

LESS! GAME OVER! "I FAILED"! LESS!!!

DirkJake is a joke, a long, subtle one being made on everyone who saw Dirk's affections and immediately wanted him to get together with his disabled(?) ongoing harassment victim. Hussie was having a lot of fun making it seem like Jake found it important in the Masterpiece, I'll tell you that much.

@thelifetimechannel/@geejaysmith/@clonerightsagenda did magnificently wringing blood from this stone, I really do mean that, their Alphas are genuinely written better than Canon for 3/4, but that's all it ever was; every DirkJake writer is the YouTube comments under [this video](https://youtu.be/B7bpv5xyrOY?si=wYTCFDHM5ZzOY8fp) saying Equius could ever have been more than what he was.

TL:DR

1, Jake is pathetic, and we should remember this.

2, Hussie is a jackass who hates us one and all for the sin of caring and everything he has done with this franchise since maybe EOY2 has had an ulterior motive, and we should remember this.

3, Most people who write longfics set in SBURBless AUs, whether normalcy or fantasy, and want to ship Dirk and Jake should really be shipping Dirk with John, since now that history of Dirk-Jake interactions that justifies the ship in-Universe is gone at the Author's leasure, John would have the dynamic they want, and they talk *exactly as much*.

4, If you want to trans Jake, [there's a sensible way to do that](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619856), but there's no in-character way to make him transmasc.

5, Read DDOTA, I beseecheth of you. Like yeah the Striders are emotional to a kinda weird degree but apart from that they really got everyone down right.

What else can I even say about dirkjake at this point ummm. Dirk being orange and a man puts him at odds with Jake's fantasies for a relationship. His walls are plastered with blue women. But!! They're all unobtainable in that they are not Real.

Even in his interactions with Aranea he believes himself to be dreaming of a blue alien girl- and apparently he dreams of neytiri, so that tracks- but this also happens to be the first time he manifests brain ghost Dirk, who is kind of mean and threatens to give him a boner and embarrass him in front of the blue lady.

Brain Ghost Dirk isn't real either - but he is a part of Jake's subconscious. His crush on Dirk! There's some comingling with Dirk's god tier and his splintering, but BGD is better for analysing Jake than Dirk. Therefore he was sabotaging himself in that moment with the image of his orange dude over perusing a blue lady fantasy.

To be frank, Jake doesn't have romantic feelings for Jane. It's very obvious in when he asks her about her crush on him, he's using what he knows to make her panic and deny it so he doesn't have to think about it (classic Jake English avoidance behaviour) and do he feels more comfortable pursuing Dirk. Orange dude over blue lady.

In the game over timeline, Aranea tries to kiss Jake and he freaks out (understandably - his boyfriend broke up with him, he's probably still hungover from trickster mode, his possessed friend is saying very horrible objectifying things about him, he got kidnapped.. though he would have been right to be upset at being kissed without consent) and after she "fixes" him, guess who's there? Brain Ghost Dirk. She kissed his boyfriend, prepare to die. That's right! His orange dude comes to rescue him from the blue lady, quoting the princess bride no less.

The obvious conclusion to make is that Jake really likes Dirk. More than he likes the fantasy of being with any such blue lady, even the one he could realistically be with. The blue/orange parallels intrigue deeply! Complimentary and opposite colours.

Complimentary in that Jane and Dirk are best friends but opposite in that they're romantic rivals, and despite Jake's track record of seemingly being partial to a bluebell dames, he dates Dirk. When he has to kiss his head he mentions (iirc) that this isn't how he thought it would go, meaning he'd actually thought about kissing Dirk beforehand.

I'll let you guys know id I can come up with some dirkjake stuff I've never talked at length about before 👍

[guy who's desperate for the epilogues to have any meaning voice]: no you dont get it its the meat/candy binary of storycraft theory- i- yes those are the foods the cherbus love its- its relevant i swear to god- yeah- yeah no its - hussie describes [s] jack: ascend and other 'violent, high-octane, game-changing animations' as the 'meat' in the meat/candy binary giving meat a more plot and action based focus and- meat is caliborns favourite food and candy is calliopes food- the symbol of the candy timeline is the trickster candy which makes everyone effected go severely out of character and focus on relationships and having children- which is exactly what happens in the candy timeline while the meat timeline focuses on the plot and action- the entire epilogues is framed as an ao3 fanfiction it was always meant to be bad and out of character- yeah- yeah no ult dirks like that because hes *dirk* right now that he has narrative control he can make everything he described himself as (a maniupative heartless puppet master) real and canon and- yes everyone else is also out of character its intentional i swear to god i- look alt callie controls the candy timeline right. the one represented by the trickster candy. the cherubs are 'the ultimate distillation' of the idea that 'at any given moment Homestuck is full of surrogates for various factions of the readers' (direct quotes from the author notes) which is why the candy timeline is like that because alt callie is effectively a homestuck fan being given control over the universe and the story and using that control to explore relationships and fan children (just like the fans because shes a fan surrogate and just like the effects of the trickster candy because candy is her favourite food and the trickster candy is intrinsically tied to the cherubs) while the meat timeline is like that because its focused on the violence and game changing action that makes up the meat in the meat/candy binary but ultimately theyre both just striving for narrative relevancy in their own different ways because what is a story without an audience right - callie/the candy timeline is just a representation of the fanworks that usually end up keeping a property relevant while drifting further and further away from canon while ult dirk/the meat timeline is probably a representation of franchises that refuse to die and continue making more and more sequels and continuations that slowly drift away from the original vision original characters original canon in a desperate pursuit to retain some relevance even though fans usually hate them and theyre seen as nothing more than bad fanfiction and *THATS* why the epilogues are like that *THATS* why everyones out of character and its set within the framework of an ao3 story tags and all and- where did you go. why are you running away come back i havent even mentioned how dirk and callie have both drawn fanart of the homestuck characters in canon and now theyre effectively writing fanfic-

Re-reading HS: beyond canon and I finally realized one of the things that bothers me about the pre James takeover.

Why do none of the charcaters know eachother

Like Roxy and karkat are having that whole conversation in the kitchen right, and it’s like they’re speaking to eachother for the first time when that’s literally so far from the truth. (Or at least should be)

Like- haven’t you guys been on this ship for quite a while… and before that have known eachother for over 20 years… why does your conversation feel like two middle schoolers got stuck at a dinner table by their parents and were told to become friends?

everybody hold on for a minute. john played a big piano (pipe organ) on his planet to free the fireflies. rose was supposed to "play the rain" and there was violin imagery going on with the streams of rain on her planet. dave had to scratch a big music disc on his planet (altho i think it was john who ended up doing it). do you guys hear me. hello

I was re-reading Homestuck and something occurred to me that may clear up a point of confusion in the fandom, so I’m going to share a theory. If someone else has already brought this up before, I am not aware of it.

After being knocked out and blinded by Eridan’s Hope-Powered Science Wand, Sollux has a half alive self on the meteor and a half dead self in the dream bubbles.

I have always seen people confused over how Sollux ended up with two selves. Most people chalk it up to his duality theme or connection to the Doom aspect and call it a day, but I think there’s an element that gets left out that makes everything make perfect sense.

Eridan hit Sollux with a Hope-Fueled weapon. As we see later with Brain Ghost Dirk becoming real in the Game Over timeline through Jake’s Hope-splosion, Hope can make the seemingly impossible into reality. The reason Sollux splits is because of Eridan’s latent hope powers.

The Classpect Navelgazing Project is now live!

alright i think we're finally ready...

After months of work, it is up! This is an attempted overhaul of Homestuck's Classpect/Mythological Role system in an attempt to have it make any sort of sense.

I've been plugging away at this for ages now, and have been refining and beta testing. It's good enough to let people see now, I think.

There's a whole blog already up and ready for you to pick through, including an intro post and table of contents. To be brief, I would start with Class and then go to Aspect, though some people find the opposite to be easier.

Hope you enjoy!

shes8ack

okay this is gonna be a long ass post compared to what i usually make. but when i was talking to a mutual about vrisjade stuff, eventually i came across page 7405 of homestuck, or the flash titled "shes8ack".

i was genuinely scared for a little while. not the kind of scared you get when you see something scary, but when you see something like a video game glitch. it was like seeing missingno for the first time. ive been a homestuck fan for almost like what,,, three years? and ive literally never seen shes8ack.

so i started googling.

apparently theres NOTHING ABOUT THIS FLASH other than some art and some reactions. someone documented missing pages and images and stuff on the old mspa forums, which is here. (http://readmspa.org/stats/missing.html)

i mean im not even sure WHEN this is supposed to occur. sometime during grimbark jade i thiiink, or maybe a little after?? jade's text is green and not black so.

i just,,, homestuck is fucking MASSIVE. theres more info about s: ride than shes8ack!!!!!!!! (8 !s) so its. weird. to. me. that literally nobody fucking knows about this.

im probably looking wayy too deep into this. but hey life as #1 jade fan is hard

What I love about dirkjohn is that they're parallels. Literally the most symbolically charged pairing as of homestuck 2. Dirk is so emotional but he can't express it very well, while John is so expressive but that ass is numb as FUCK. John has repressed so much trauma in the back of his mind, while Dirk dwells in his own self hatred. John also hates himself, subconsciously, leading to isolating himself because he can't keep up with anyone and he thinks he doesn't deserve to be in their lives because he took their timeline from them. He's unstuck from canon, but he isolated himself in a house. He doesn't feel home at all. If Dirk could be there for him, he wouldn't feel so lonely anymore. And I don't care if they are 'spares', they could have so much potential being together. They could help each other. Talk to each other about their problems, and they would understand. John has been to so much he needs to be grounded by someone, and that someone is Dirk. Dirk wouldn't let John drift away from their friends, or make him feel alone. He would drag John's ass out of bed so he could make sure John takes care of himself. Dirk could finally find his purpose and it would make him feel better about himself. They would appreciate each other's company. And maybe cuddle hehe.

MSPFA IS BACK

and it's beautiful :)

GO CHECK OUT THE GROUPSHOT!!! Everyone worked insanely hard on it - - but i'll take this time to give SPECIAL PROPS TO GRANT MSPFA, who spent literally three months constantly working as hard as possible to recover as much information as quickly as possible.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MSPFA?

Here's the official recovery information from mspfa.com/recover :

Go check it out!!!

Homestuck is far, far, far from over. :)

Was reading Hussie's commentary and he brought up how establishing the way a character speaks allows you to explore the way they differentiate it or allow themselves to be influenced whenever they talk to certain characters e.g. Jade's language becoming more profane thanks to Karkat or Rose's silly interjections during Kanaya's rambles and I've been thinking about when that kind of fluidity shows with Ult Dirk.

Dirk's a character who already has a defined personality and way of talking so the sudden attitude change in the Epilogues makes it feel like a totally different guy is speaking. Without a good understanding of his splinters speech patterns (and what the 'Ultimate Self' means) Ult Dirk doesn't come across as a character with an inconsistent personality in conversations besides the obvious difference between Dirk in Homestuck and Dirk in the Epilogues, but he tends to imitate whatever splinter is closest / most familiar with the person he's conversing / interacting with.

He's overly verbose and misleading with Kanaya as the only splinter of his who knows her well is Doc Scratch, and he does act doc-esque with Rose too but more in a mentor sort of way. He forces Jake to acknowledge things he's aware of but is uncomfortable with confronting like Brain Ghost Dirk, and taunts or challenges him bitterly like Hal does. With Dave he's pretty set on leading him down the path of the warrior without consideration for how Dave feels about that or how invasive some of his behaviour is and oversteps Dave's boundaries for the sake of what he thinks is the best way to get things done like his Bro. There's also a little bit of Arquius' concerns for him because of his appreciation for Davepeta.

He's horribly Caliborn adjacent (thanks to Lord English + Lil Cal) whenever Alt Calliope's around which Alt Callie absolutely picks up on and frequently tells him so. He also views and treats John in the same way Caliborn does; as a blank slate protagonist for the audience. There's the silly obsession with Davekat too which leads him to making a lot of unnecessary comments about them.

There's many subtle switch ups in his behaviour which seem to happen frequently and subconciously and it's pretty funny? Though it feels kinda weird contemplating how that process works for him. Just got a tug of war over his own psyche going on at all times

i think people overcomplicate prospit/derse lunar sways when really theyre about as simple as the bare mechanics theyre connected to. would you rather be hosted among allies or among enemies? (would choose to be without safety or comfort or without knowing what the enemy is doing?) would you rather consult the clouds of skaia or the horrorterrors? (would you rather be guided by the light at the end of the tunnel or become one with the shadows? would you rather be guided or empowered?)