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#i know the most popular interpretation of her character is that she's lesbian-coded

burningvelvet · 1 year

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this is a long analysis on titanic (1997), re: my last reblog on titanic’s depiction of rose coming into her own sexuality, being sexually dominant, & actively pursuing jack romantically, + LGBT themes, feminism, & the cal/jack/rose triangle as a freudian representation.

—this is one of the great and unique things about this film and also i’d like to point out that although we see jack liking rose first, rose is the one who actively pursues him every step of the way which is almost never seen in films. the roles are almost always reversed. she’s the one who lies to protect him, she’s the one goes to see jack again on the deck under the guise of thanking him, she’s the one who snatches his art book and asks about the nudes, she’s the one who asks to be drawn and specifically drawn nude, she saves him with an axe, she’s the one who initiates sex, etc.

i despise it when people talk about titanic like it’s the most boring cishet movie of all time when it’s one of THEE most progressive/subversive imo (in terms of popular mass media). jack is one of the only major male romantic figures i’ve ever come across who never says anything sexist even in jest, who never dominates their scenes together whether emotionally/romantically/sexually, and who genuinely helps the female protagonist become a better person rather than vice versa. i can’t even think of comparable male characters, so yes in a way he is the perfect example of a manic pixie dream boy. i would go as far as to call their dynamic a subtle gender role reversal and i don’t know why this isn’t talked about more.

there’s also been a lot of queer interpretations and analysis on titanic which i think is apropos. jack and rose have been seen by some as being butch-coded/lesbian-coded ever since the movie came out, and you can also make a case for rose representing (metaphorically or literally) the experiences of gender-envy or being GNC, especially in the scene where jack nonjudgementally teaches rose to “ride like a man, and spit like a man” — and she says “why can’t i be like you, jack?” — etc. — jack actively encourages her to go against the gender norms and i don’t think it’d be a reach to say that he would be supportive if she was LGBTQ+ and vice versa & that they’re both clearly allies regardless of interpretation. Take for example Rose’s line to Kack: “I know what you must be thinking— poor little rich girl, what does she know about misery?” & Jack’s response: “No, no, that’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, what could’ve happened to this girl to make her feel she had no way out?” — As Rose says, Jack “sees” people, and validates/recognizes them in a way that is similar to the queer theories on queer kinship, allyship, & solidarity. Rose and Jack find each other and feel kinship for each other through their mutual progressive/bohemian values in a way that is commonly experienced by LGBT people finding other LGBT people, which is heightened by Rose/Jack’s mutual attraction & their blooming relationship being socially frowned upon (due to classism + Rose’s engagement).

I also think it’s important to point out that sexuality is a core theme of the movie in general, & this is esp important considering it takes place in 1912. From Rose’s Piccaso painting of the prostitutes, to Rose’s comment at the table about Freud re: male overcompensation, to Cal slut-shaming Rose, to the nude French prostitutes, to Rose saying she’d rather be Jack’s whore than Cal’s wife. The theme of being a “ruined woman” is rampant. Many of Cal/Rose’s scenes are laced with subtle sexual implications with him wanting Rose to be sexually submissive/passive/exclusive/available (“do not deny me”) and her clearly not being interested in that role (Cal asks her why she didn’t come to his rooms late at night when he asked her to, and he’s always the one initiating contact, & she clearly hates him). It is also very clear that Rose sees her wifely duties as performative, and to some extent her gender itself is performative (see: the scene where she watches in anxious disgust as she sees a little girl being taught how to act like a lady through table etiquette, and Rose immediately runs off to Jack). I also think it’s ironically symbolic that Cal gives her his mens coat toward the end, and we see pictures of young her wearing pants and riding horses “like a man” as her and Jack fantasized, etc.

I also think it’s intentional that Jack is slightly tomboyish/androgynous looking, younger, and open-minded, whereas Cal is older, dominant, and represents a sort of Byronic “tall, dark hair, handsome, rich” version of masculine appeal. There’s also the split in politics, class, etc. — they represent opposite ends of male sex appeal while both being attractive. The love story wouldn’t be effective if Cal was unattractive bc his sex appeal is necessary to the narrative. Jack and Cal’s contrasting versions of sex appeal are what make this love triangle so effective yet conflicting (aside from their differences in personality and Cal being abusive/Jack being supportive) because the contrast between Jack/Cal highlights and brings out Rose’s sexuality and her transgressive sexual desires. She refuses to be sexually passive for Cal. In nearly all of their scenes together, Rose and Cal are constantly competing for sexual dominance through their dynamic—whereas with Jack, Rose doesn’t have to compete for dominance bc Jack accepts her for the way she is and actively lets her take the reigns and sexually guide him, and Jack feels comfortable in the role he plays. During the drawing scene and in the car scene, he’s presented as being shy and nervous but is still clearly enthralled by her, whereas Rose is suddenly the comfortable/confident/more knowledgeable one, even making jokes when Jack reacts to seeing her disrobe. Typically in cishet romances, the roles would be reversed, which is what Cal desires—that’s Cal’s tragedy, that in the end when he searches for Rose during the sinking and then later on the Carpathia, he’s mourning a fantasy of who Rose was, & tried molding her into a submissive version of herself & destroying her dominant/masculine side.

For these reasons, I believe Jack also represents a part of Rose’s subconscious mind, and that the lines “he exists now only in my memory,” “it was the ship of dreams, and it was, it really was,” are symbolic of this. I see their relationship as being more importantly a deep bond of friendship and a connection between two kindred spirits than being solely romantic. To use a Freudian model, Jack helps bring out Rose’s “id” whereas Cal tries to supress it and bring out Rose’s “superego,” and Rose ends the film by forming a healthy “ego”—this is what makes the Cal/Jack/Rose love triangle so riveting and effective, because it represents this clash of values and this tug-of-war thru this Freudian Trio.

I’m considering turning all this into an actual academic essay atp lmao

#analysis #film analysis #titanic #titanic 1997 #film criticism #media analysis #rambling #my thoughts #writing #opinion #lgbt #feminism #academia #thoughts

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athenafire · 5 months

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What feelings does your character most often instill in their fans? Affection? A desire to protect? Open lust? A love/hate dynamic? Why do you think their fans feel this way? By contrast, what would their haters dislike about your character? Is it a petty complaint? A mischaracterization of the character or their intentions? Are they just a woman in a largely male-centric series? What would be the ‘incorrect but wildly popular’ interpretation of your character in fandom? How does fandom characterize/mischaracterize your characters ship in fanworks?

META ASKS:If Your OC Was Canon. [Accepting]

This is going to be a long one.

First, I need to define what Meredith is as a character, and it's pretty personal. I came up with the concept of the void, and it being fucked up, a decade or so back when I was having to face my own mortality. An endless entropy that cannot be stopped. But facing down the end of your life in a situation you cannot control does things to your brain.

Then after I found out I had beaten back the virus, but came out scarred from it, that changed a lot about my teenage perspective. It was pretty paradigm shifting. And the base concept of Meredith was born from that.

The idea that societal boxes mean nothing, and learning to work with yourself, and your demons, rather than pushing back all the time. It's not about becoming better, it's about finding peace and comfort with yourself. I can't say much else without spoiling ideas I have coming up but :)

With all that in mind, I feel like people would dilute her meaning down to "Big strong lesbian cottage core" calling her mood and #lifegoals without understanding how toxic she is to herself. I've been in fandom long enough to know ladies are not respected in the slightest. Some people are also going to either say she's trans coded or autistic when... hey, if that's what floats your boat, fine.

Haters I don't have to imagine, I have anon turned off right now for a reason :)

Meredith has boobs, is lady, and has any form of power/agency, so she is a Mary Sue.

On top of being distilled down to cottage core lesbian, people would treat her as even dumber than she actually is. Meredith is smart, but in her own way. She does not understand a lot, but people would translate that to 'haha dumb beefy strong lady'. Which is just...sad.

To answer the last one, this sounds highly negative but..again, female character. Time to hate on them relentlessly for 'getting in the way of the gay' despite being a character with little to no interest in relationships due to her own mental health issues.

#Asks answered #cxldtyrant #My christmas wish is people learn basic reading comprehension

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mdhwrites · 1 year

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I heard Dana gave toh fans the freedom to consider their headcanons canon, or smth like that. There's probably more info on twitter but I don't use the app. What do you think?

So what I've heard is that it's not entirely this. It is just saying that whatever Dana says outside of the show, like in livestreams, panels, etc. don't count as canon. The only things that are explicitly canon is that which is in the show. Otherwise, everything else is her personal headcanons which are just as valid as any fans'. I was introduced to this a few days ago by someone sharing it with me (this was apparently said in a livestream btw so will almost certainly get lost to time) a tweet with me about someone being happy about their fan children being 'canon' It was cute and I didn't check what the ships were. I mostly responded to that person being happy that they could headcanon Lumischa as having eventually happened because that was more fun for me especially with my hands being bad. Besides, I think the statement is dumb on multiple levels that I'll get to eventually. Reading this question, I spent more than a single second thinking about it and went "Wait, but Amity is only a lesbian because Dana says so. This is absolutely going to make 70% of the fandom choose to make her bi because then they can ship her with whoever they want." AND GUESS WHAT SHIP THE TWEET WAS ABOUT!? FUCKING AMITER! It has always been a problem for the show that Amity's sexuality is not stated in it. It creates a similar excuse to what people who have to defend stuff like SasuNaru (my introduction to shipping through my older sister btw) of "They don't have a canon sexuality." Well... No longer does Amity. We do know she's interested in girls but that doesn't mean she isn't pan or bi.

I personally do not agree with this interpretation. For me, changing characters who appear to commonly be straight to gay is fine... Because there's close to zero gay characters in most genres, let alone mainstream popular shows. How many are in Shounen anime in general? Okay now remove the villains who are queer coded and tell me again. If the LGBTQIA+ (which I want to remind you I'm not a part of so I don't benefit from this interpretation) want to tell their stories within the media they like, they HAVE to change sexualities. They have no other choice. Meanwhile, Amity is not a particularly special archtype so if you're a straight dude wanting to ship her with yourself, you can find that elsewhere. Even within the same show, just use Lilith who in S1 was similar to Amity. Though yes, Lilith is technically aro/ace but only by decree from Dana and the show never actually sways one way or another on her feelings on relationships because... Why the fuck would it? It's a comedy adventure. Which brings us to the complicated question of what is right to include in a story or not (which I could go into a LOT more in a different blog). It's not like everyone is constantly stating their sexualities in real life after all. It's a rough place for a lot of creators, just like saying if a character is nuerodivergent. A lot of stories just don't have a place for that sort of exposition and honestly the author letting us know outside of the work IS useful for that. Would it be better if it were stated in the show? In TOH's case, because of how much it stakes its reputation on representation, YES. For most? Not really but most don't court the romance genre, where saying those sexualities is more reasonable, like TOH does.

So that's one reason why I don't like the statement. Dana sticking to her guns on her ideas is one of the few saving graces I could give her and just saying "Fuck it, you all decide what you want to be canon so long as it isn't in the show" is just... not that. Not unless she was going to go whole hog and say that the IP was in the public domain so LITERALLY MAKE THE CANON YOU WANT! Which would have been novel but is also NEVER going to happen. Instead, her statement amounts to "I officially give you permission to make fanworks." Which... Lady, you don't get to decide that. No creative does. If people want to make work off of your story, they're gonna do that regardless of what you say. The creator of Calvin and Hobbes is FAMOUS for how anti-commercial he was of his work and spent much of his career making sure that his strips, panels, characters etc. didn't appear on t-shirts. And he still failed mostly because stopping EVERY avenue was simply impossible.

Also Dana has not really put much authoritatively on the scales besides the sexualities, making the statement even more pointless. If she's dropped giant lore dumps, I haven't heard about them and I've been in this fandom long enough that I feel like I should have heard about them. Instead we got small things like Amity dying her hair because her mom forced her to. That isn't going to break anyone's story and I even personally used it as a bonding moment between the two because I made Odalia neurotic about stuff like that.

So I guess my big question is... Who cares? Unless you actively don't like the few answers we've been given by the crew. And if that's the case... That's what fanworks are for. For when you don't like canon and want to change it. You don't need permission for that. You never have. =========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

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violentshine · 2 years

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hollyleaf for the ask game!

I don't have many thoughts about her actually i think she has a good arc though (or at least potenial for one) sexuality headcanon; ace lesbian (only really saying this becuz it's popular i don't have any special headcanons for her)

gender/pronouns headcanon; i want to say she doesn't care about her gender identity (but still goes by she/her) but also...i think she's not the type to want anything with untied ends if that makes sense ? she probably says she's a molly but doesn't feel super strong about it or anything else

rate them out of ten; 5/10

favorite thing about them what her arc could have been ? idk

least favorite thing about them The wasted potential...but on a more personal matter; her devotion to the warrior code Now it Makes a wonderful character trait esp even better if the cats knew just how Bad the code is but idk anyone big on the rules r boring

why i first started liking/disliking them it's been forever since i read oots/po3 but i do know i didn't like her

do i relate/project onto/kin them? Not really

favorite quote/moment killing ashfur <3 my fav ship not too big on an holly ship tbh but she'd be a better partner for cinderheart

my fav platonic friendship i like her interactions with willowshine

a ship i hate HER W/ FALLENLEAVES he's like older than the tree cinderheart fell out of </3 i think it's a tad weird

do i prefer canon or fanon? going to assume this means my fanon and not the entire fandom's interpretation so just consider every answer to this is fanon

random headcanon she looks the most like her kin than her brothers do since she's the only one not a reincarnation. Her lanky body type has been chalked up to coming from Sandstorm and not...you know...

what color do i picture them as solid black, like a void

cat breed headcanon just a kitty

unpopular opinion don't have any i think...i dont think about her enough to come up w/ anything

things i associate with them a to-do list

song i associate with them Buzzkill by MOTHICA take this w/ a grain of salt. It's not a perfect fit i just found it being the only song in my Hollyleaf playlist

favorite MAP/PMV/AMV with them i actually...don't watch maps like...ever so erm void question <3...

#IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK DAYS TO RESPOND TO #i couldnt think of the song i paired w/ her and went to go find it And then forgot all about this #anon ask #hollyleaf

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davekat-sucks · 2 years

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homestuck fandom amazes me let’s see what is on the list for today

-toxic people telling you to die for not liking a ship

-calling you lesbphobic for shipping rose with a male even tho it was never said she was a canon lesbian

-getting mad at you when you ship a female character who is canon sexist with a male without knowing that not every sexist woman is toxic to men and don’t always suffer trauma from a man

-think rape and abuse jokes are funny

-call you sensitive over a “joke”

-tries to tell you how romanticizing/normalizing pedophilia incest and abusive relationships are okay because “love is love and we shouldn’t judge who people want to date”

-see nothing wrong with vriska being an abuser because “women are all so sweet cute and innocent”

-see nothing wrong with dave abusing karkat in homestuck2 because “lgbtqia+ people aren’t bad they’re all nice people it’s only the straight and cisgender people that are bad and evil”

am I missing anything else? feel free to add on

Nu-fans forgive Eridan Ampora because of the dumb gender arc, despite people had hated him for being racist and wanting quadrants filled. 2. Would even go after another trans who disagree about June Egbert. 3. Backpedals on Meenah being black coded, since in a timeline that she would become The Condesce, the main villain, they get scared that it would imply black people are evil and racist. Same applies to fanart of human Eridan is mostly drawn to be white by fans. They never make him a darker shade because of his character. 4. One could even say they subconsciously enforce racial stereotypes for some in the guise of progressiveness. Ex: Kanaya Maryam being headcanon Muslim. 5. Nu-fans try to justify on Rose's infidelity and that it was okay for Kanaya to be cheated on. Be it claiming it's still a healthy poly relationship that Kanaya "consented" them having their secret child for 15 years or since Space Player destined to be alone, this is her arc for independency away from Rose. They are ignoring the fact that most people in WhatPumpkin actually hate Rosemary. 6. Cherry pick certain facts from book commentaries that Andrew Hussie made. They would be fine to accept that Davekat was "planned" all along and that Eridan Ampora was the proto-Caliborn, but ignore about Doomed Dave and Doomed Rose having fucked each other. 7. Nu-fans disliking people for drawing the characters as they are and not the popular fanon interpretation. There is a lot more, but I definitely want to see people in the replies or reblogs about other messed up stuff that happens in Homestuck fandom. It's okay to point out the hypocrisy or flaws within the series and fandom. Though I would disagree about Homestuck fans thinking incest and pedophilia ships are okay. I mean, they used to be fine with all ships because it is fictional, but now? They hate it so much that they have to equate it with reality. If anything, I would say creeps and groomers could be around for Homestuck fandom. I remember it happened to Vast Error, but that's a different mess in itself.

#Homestuck #Homestuck fandom #Anon #Anonymous

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lunatriense · 6 months

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Surviving Romance starts out as a typical “reincarnation as main romance novel lead”, only for a sharp veer when zombies start to appear out of nowhere. Our protagonist is stuck in a timeloop, trying to save the main lead at first. She actively dehumanizes the side characters to the point she can’t see them as proper humans. As the story progresses, however? Throw the male lead to the side - and start focusing on the female classmates and her relationship with them. As they open up to her, she perceives them as human - and genuinely comes to care and bond with them. They fight to stay together and live - and she looks for a mysterious figure from one loop called the Unknown Extra, who motivated her to survive and who she holds dear. She evolves from uncaring to desperate to allow everybody to survive with her - and, again, the romantic interest is purposefully kept a side thought as her goals shift and she becomes happier and more complete as a person.

They do have a char who fits the “yan for female mc” role but. I think she’s handled in a tragic manner even if I hate the stereotype. Because it’s revealed the woman who reincarnated? She’s the author of the story. The original main character gained a soul and became trapped and horrified . She wants our MC, the author, to give up and take her place - costing her own soul… and now the soul of all the other girls who are growing past their narrative roles. It’s a story about a relationship between author and fiction where both can support and love each other.

There’s a canon side relationship I think is genuinely adorable. Girls all have diverse personalities and body types that suit them (a.k.a. When they say a char resembles her twin brother, they don’t mean a femme version of him, they mean she’s androgynous as hell. Genuinely muscular women. The popular girl student president is overweight and it’s not a big deal.) I know people debate an ace vs lesbian Mc interpretation but both work. I think the fact one character, one classmate, who is literally a background character with almost nothing becomes one of the ones most important to the MC and I personally think has coding with her is beautiful. Her arc is literally learning not to sacrifice herself - that she should be selfish and want to live even if she’ll a burden - and I just…think you’d appreciate that?

Okay yeah, that does sound interesting! I'll give it a look, thanks for the rec

#answers #spoilers

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bonni · 2 years

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i always saw it as “this immediately sets akio and anthy apart, directly emphasizes how anthy is a target in the school, which akio sidesteps by acquiring enough material/political power” but maybe that’s indicting ikuhara too much as well as giving him too much credit?

No, I think this makes a lot of sense! I definitely think that Anthy's race is meant to comment on the otherization of dark-skinned people/"foreigners" in Japanese society as well as the sexualizing and commodification of their bodies due to Japanese imperialism in south and southeast Asia (as most people consider Anthy to be coded as Indian). It could also be a played-straight-at-first-but-then-subverted application of the child bride stereotype, with Anthy being seemingly okay with her designation as an object at first, but later revealing her true contempt for the abuse she has suffered, as well as the emphasis that her scenario should not be perceived as special or unusual ("in the end, all girls are like the rose bride.") Also, in the same ways that Utena is meant to be GNC but still has long, pink hair (the way male characters interact with Utena's hair throughout the series and what it represents about her gender is actually incredibly interesting, but that's for another post), Ikuhara may have wanted to design the "femme" character as having dark skin and short hair as a defiance of Japanese beauty standards and to be a design foil to Utena herself. This is even more out there, but there is a tiny possibility that Ikuhara researched lesbian subcultures in America for the purposes of writing the show and learned that dark-skinned women in lesbian communities were more often than not relegated to the "butch" role, and attempted to invert this. Once again, it's not likely, but I also wouldn't put it past him considering he has an interest in American culture and history and has commented on both in his work.

Akio is a little more complicated, because I genuinely do not know if his race has any real intentions aside from "he's Anthy's biological brother so he should be the same race as her." It's possible that Ikuhara also took inspiration from the "mysterious dark-skinned romantic lead" trope popular in shoujo manga at the time, mainly due to the popularity of Please Save My Earth. One major problem with Akio's race is that it's treated as secondary to his gender; despite Anthy experiencing othering due to her race, Akio's race never compromises his ultimate authority, which seems to imply that racism is something you can opt out of if you're an oppressor in other ways or have enough power, like you pointed out. This is kind of true in some ways but also an overly simplistic understanding of how racism works. I do believe that the flashback scene showing Anthy and Dios being attacked for their powers could be seen as a metaphor for racial violence, and in this case your interpretation of Akio would make a lot of sense, because it would mean that he did experience major racial oppression at one point in his life and responded by stepping on Anthy to establish his own power dichotomy with him at the top. The problem is that, also like you said, since this possibility is only explored in a single scene, we have no idea if it's intentional or not! And the worst part is, there is no way Ikuhara will ever tell us..... >_<

#mail #revolutionary girl utena #rgu meta

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goosefeathercore · 2 years

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hmm dovewing or ivypool?

bet I’ll do both >:3

dovewing

sexuality headcanon: bisexual

gender/pronouns headcanon: she/love/xe, demigirl

favorite thing about them: how she continues to hold so much love for everyone, even when they don’t appreciate it or offer love back to her. she’s also genuinely a good mother, I really appreciate how she loves her kids unconditionally and prioritized being a support system for shadowsight over the opinions of her clanmates and the warrior code. I also love how she’s found her place in shadowclan, and her relationship with tawnypelt!

least favorite thing about them: I guess the fact that she never really got to acknowledge how unfair thunderclan was to her at times, like i feel that she should’ve gotten to go off a little, but I understand that it’s kind of part of her character to be super emotionally mature and forgive others by recognizing that they’re hurting too. so not really a character flaw, more like a desire of mine as a reader! I do think that she popped off when defending shadowsight though.

why i first started liking them: I’m gonna be real with you when I first read power of three and omen of the stars i was like 13 so i didn’t exactly have the hottest takes and she was kinda disliked online until recently. so basically, i started liking her when i joined tumblr a few years ago and started reading long posts analyzing her character and defending her because that was how i realized that i had been missing a ton of nuance!

do i relate/project onto/kin them?: I guess I partially relate to her because i can empathize with the whole ‘i was put on a pedestal as a kid and it made other kids dislike me because i had opportunities they didn’t, but i also never asked to be this way’ thing. that’s kinda where the similarities end though and she’s way more chill than I am about it!

favorite quote/moment: I really liked all her moments with shadowsight in the broken code! she was such a good mom to him through everything.

my fav ship: idk tbh! i think she and tigerheartstar are cute but i’d love to hear about any wlw dovewing ships!

my fav platonic friendship: ooh i don’t really know tbh i don’t remember power of three and the first half of omen of the stars well at all T-T I did just reread tawnypelt’s clan though, and dovewing’s friendships with the tribe cats are nice!

a ship i hate: bumblestripe x dovewing of course, that’s clearly not a hot take lmao i think everyone hates him

do i prefer canon or fanon?: i think i’m somewhere in the middle, like i prefer reading about the fandom’s interpretations of canon dovewing based on the books

random headcanon: i’ve been designing a lot of cats recently, and the image of dovewing in my head has eyes that are a gradient from blue to green! not the most original, but I like it :3

what color do i picture them as: light gray and white

cat breed headcanon: maybe scottish fold or munchkin cat

unpopular opinion: this opinion is much more popular here on tumblr, but she doesn’t deserve the hate she gets.

things i associate with them: doves of course, and for some reason i also heavily associate her with angels and angelcore aesthetic, i have no idea where that came from!

song i associate with them: definitely evelyn, evelyn because of the MAP

favorite MAP/PMV/AMV with them: https://youtu.be/3MdnLGpZSw0 this one! i just like the song a lot in general

youtube

ivypool

sexuality headcanon: demiromantic lesbian

gender/pronouns headcanon: she/he/it

favorite thing about them: i liked her a lot as a kid, i guess i’ve always admired the balls it took to be a double agent in freaking hell. idk she was an angsty mood to 13 year old me and i always viewed her as a badass lesbian!

least favorite thing about them: i guess the fact that the erin’s never seem to keep consistent character development for her. i feel like she really reflects on her life and mends her relationships, but then the erin’s just kinda undo that when they want her to be super angsty again for the sake of drama in the plot

why i first started liking them: i liked her from the start but i recognize her flaws a lot more now and i think i appreciate her more as a whole because of it

do i relate/project onto/kin them?: yeah i definitely relate to her a bit, except i’m an only child. instead, i relate to her for the whole ‘getting caught up in a very toxic friendship and losing sight of your personal morals while searching for validation’ thing. she’s a badass though and i just sit in my room and read funny little cat books 💀

favorite quote/moment: again, i do not remember the middle arcs that well but i will always remember the scene where she confronts hawkfrost at the great battle and hollyleaf dies saving her. i will also never forget her in the end of a light in the mist.

my fav ship: i really don’t know, i’ve always seen her as a lesbian but never had a good ship. i know some people ship her with blossomfall but i’ve also seen people say that blossomfall kinda treated ivypool like shit and i can’t really join that debate because i don’t remember their relationship like. at all

my fav platonic friendship: HOLLYLEAF!!!! the 2 reject siblings with flawed morals and self esteem issues 🖤 i think it was so fitting for hollyleaf to die saving her it was angsty af

a ship i hate: not really a big fan of ivypool x fernsong, this girl has been a lesbian in my mind since day one

do i prefer canon or fanon?: fanon all the way!! my main way of enjoying ivypool lately has been consuming fanon content where ivypool basically just goes to therapy lmao

random headcanon: this isn’t really a headcanon but i have an au where she goes to live with dovewing for a while after a light in the mist, and dovewing and shadowsight help her overcome her grief. i also see her as a butch lesbian!

what color do i picture them as: gray and white, the gray bits have darker gray stripes on them

cat breed headcanon: don’t have one :3 i see her as short haired and kinda blocky though

unpopular opinion: i don’t really know..i guess just that i like both her and dovewing equally??

things i associate with them: thorns, train tracks, nightmares

song i associate with them: devil train because of the MAP!

favorite MAP/PMV/AMV with them: devil train!!!https://youtu.be/iZjb-ATaYVk

youtube

but i’m also still hyped af about the copycat MAP, the call was posted 3 years ago and it’s so close to being done!! there’s a ton of big names involved i think it’s gonna be awesome!! here’s the parts playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmTDc0x_Z-a_XA5LQujJ7qsx7PWxlYl4V

#dovewing #ivypool #wc #warrior cats #warriors #waca #warriorcats #thunderclan #wc headcanon #warriors headcanons #warrior cats headcanons #warriors ask game #warrior cats ask game #wc ask game

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lost-in-yujikiri · 3 years

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SAO Pride Week 2021 Final Day

Due to various irl reasons, I can not finish all 7 days of SAO Pride week as I want to. So I can give you a post on the rest of the ships I want to tell you about that still have a fair amount of tributes in official SAO media.

Eydis x Alice

Eydis is an interesting case. She's a mobile game's original character and yet she got popular among SAO game fans very fast due to her bright & energetic personality and badass when needs be, yet she's way more attached to girls and is meh or so-so towards guys including Kirito. Also, her story does not contradict canon events and she can be integrated very well to canon without anyone raising eyebrow. Among the interpretations of her character, many fans (even straight cis males) actually suspect or think she's a lesbian, despite the game throwing in parallels to how she loves girls is the same as how she loves her blood younger sister (much same old backtrack tactics that Japanese media tend to do to sell queer-coded females to the male audience), and yet some catfight with Lipia, her enemy who doesn't fit her sister type contradicts that because they has so much chummy lesbian UST that even Bercouli joked about it with Eydis. Originally I wanted to write a full blown post on Eydis Synthesis 10 and how much chemistry and attraction she has to girls, either it's her self-proclaimed younger sister type (Alice) or the ones who don't fit that category at all (Sheyta - the super cool, deadly & silent knight, Lipia - foul-mouthed brash & brave Dark Territory enemy, Goddess Stacia Asuna) but well... it's too much, I can't cover all unless you play the ARS game since launch, so at least I can speak a bit about her most popular ship: Eydis x Alice

I can speak with confidence that out of all alive characters in SAO franchise, Eydis is the one who genuinely cares the most for Alice the Knight. Eydis used to catfight with Eldrie over getting affection and time with Alice. Eydis thinks Alice has romantic feelings for Kirito, and yet she respected Alice's feelings when she visited Alice at the log house when Alice was taking care of coma Kirito unlike Eldrie who was mad with it. Though Eydis is a good person, when she knew Kirito x Asuna is a couple she's fine with it and supported them happily, then wished for Alice's happiness in the real world. After the War, when Kirito said he thought Eydis loves Alice, she replied that "Of course I love her!". In one event when Eydis was talking to Delegate Swordman Kirito, if Kirito said probably Alice is not all that happy in real world, she demands to go to Alice immediately. In another option, she threatened Kirito that if Alice is unhappy in real world she will make Kirito pay. If Eydis is still alive after the 200 years timeskip, I think she's still waiting for Alice as she said.

One of Bride Eydis homescreen's lines is about her marriage partner having crystal-blue eyes and only Alice fits the bill.

Renly x his best friend

These two were once said to be Eugeo x Kirito 0.5 because of their similarities. Also the 2 coupling birds symbol and crossing sword symbol. How obvious are they? They also have a (very gay) dedicated section in Renly & Sheyta's story event in ARS game.

Asuna x Kizmel

Kizmel is a NPC character in SAO Progressive. Without spoilers (as it's a matter of time all of Progressive gets anime adaptation), let me tell you this ship has a small dedicated faction among the Japanese readers. Even the first Progressive manga artist ships them.

Here is a small panel in the manga. Look at what Asuna wrote on the ground when Kirito & Asuna were separated from Kizmel:

Asuna

❤

Kizmel

(Though I once feared true to Reki's old tendency Kizmel will die before Kirito & Asuna parted way in Floor 25, or maybe not as he has changed his way since Unital Ring and current Progressive. Who knows, we'll see)

#Sword Art Online #SAO #Alicization Rising Steel #Alice Synthesis 30 #Eydis Synthesis 10 #Renly #Nonamebf #Asuna #Kizmel #saoprideweek2021 #Kirito

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/” Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.

#rwby #queer #mymetas #Anonymous

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tapiocatitty · 3 years

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week 7 scrapbook: queer women power up

When exploring queer representation in mainstream media, there have been a number of instances where lesbian couples are oversexualized or treat queer relationships as a commodity. While, although queer people can live out their life any way they so please, it is often degrading boxing queer women into this box. However, not all representation in modern media is not ‘bad’ representation, there are numerous shows/movies that feature authentic LGBT+ love and personality. In essence, letting a character’s sexuality not be their sole purpose in a story. Often times, the “coming out” arc is a reoccurring theme in queer storytelling, which is also a harmful mindset to push since, it does not normalize other sexualities and almost ‘requiring’ a coming out as a queer person. Some shows that demonstrate the difference between a queer person from a person who happens to be queer include; Bloom into you, Teenage Bounty Hunters and The Handmaiden. These shows demonstrate how different queer women express their power, their sexuality, their impact on gender expression, sexual practice, and lifestyle choices.

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━✁BLOOM INTO YOU┈┈

Bloom Into You or Yagate Kimi Ni Naru (2018) is an anime that explores the complex emotions of Yuu—the main character—as she finds it difficult to understand love and romance. She meets Touko, who also could not understand nor feel love, that is until Touko met Yuu. The reason I chose Bloom Into You as one of the best shows that depicts the queer woman experience was because of how it their exploration regarding their sexuality. There was no 'coming out' arc that defined the characters. It approaches a queer romance, making their queer identity secondary and treating it truly as a romance. Instead of commodifying or fetishizing LGBT+ relationship, usually in American media. Referring to one of our class readings “Claiming Lesbian Desire: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction,”, we were introduced to the idea of Lesbians being debated whether same-sex affection and erotic behavior can be considered “lesbian”. More often than not, the audience are usually in denial when seeing queer coded media. In many media that feature LGBT+ people, the theme of not understanding the boundary between being a lesbian or just being intimate best friends. You can see this especially in Bloom Into You, where Yuu and Touko experiencing those same feelings of confusion, not knowing if they are incapable of feeling their heart beating or understanding the idea of love. You can link this to the typical queer experience of not understanding one's identity or preferences immediately. Bloom Into You depicts the queer romance in an intimate light, straying away from the usual spiel of “I am confused if I am a lesbian”. Instead utilizing the notion that “I am confused if I am in love with you.”, while coincidentally finding love with another woman.

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━━✁THE HANDMAIDEN┈┈

Referring back to how mainstream often misrepresents queer women. The male gaze that convolutes relationship between two women is quite harming. Harmful interpretation of queer women usually depict these women in a sexualized or fetishized scope. It is no wonder that one of the most popular pornographic genres is lesbian porn. The handmaiden (2016) is a film that further explores the relationship between sexuality and one's queerness—especially how the male gaze controls both. The story follows a pick-pocket coming up with a con scheme with a swindler, in hopes of seducing a Japanese woman of her wealth. Sook-Hee, the pickpocket, infiltrates as Lady Hideko's (the wealthy Japanese woman) maid. Overtime, Sook-Hee and Lady Hideko develop an intimate relationship, turning the tables to con the con man. The film as a whole critiques various aspects of being a queer woman and lesbian relationships. Though the most notable part of the film is the library thrashing scene. Later in the story, it is revealed that Lady Tamako is forced to read erotic literature created by her uncle, in front of other wealthy men. Having heared this, Sook-Hee goes into a fit of rage from how disgusted she was learning the perversions that are forced upon Hideko. This scene literally and metaphorically was a sexual liberation for both Lady Hideko and Sook-Hee. Referring to our reading, "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power", it introduces us to the notion of eroticism and its relation to oneself. Similar to how Lady Hideko's uncle takes advantage of Hideko for his own sexual fantasies, the audience also consumes queer media and sexually exploits LGGBT+ relationships. To sum up by connecting our readings, "The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women.". Which is why this library scene is so significant, and shows how queer women can take charge of their own sexuality one one's own terms. The rawness of Sook-Hee destroying the erotica was a symbolic critique to society's fetishization of queer people.

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--✁TEENAGE BOUNTY HUNTERS┈

The last modern media that I will be discussing about is Teenage Bounty Hunters, which features a kindling relationship between Sterling who is Bisexual and April who is a Lesbian. Out of the shows/movies I have mentioned in this post, Teenage Bounty Hunters explores the greatest "fallacy" known in both the religious and LGBT+ communities. What does God really say about homosexuals. When I first read this week's prompt, about queer women representations and their lifestyle choices, Teenage Bounty Hunters immediately popped into my mind. Both April and Sterling are brought up in a stereotypical white predominant, conservative, Christian town. As such, April being as devoted as she is to her religion, she shares her two cents on being a Christian whilst also being a Lesbian. In one of the scenes Aprils shares, "In case, you're wondering, No I do not believe that God is going to smite me for being a Lesbian", which is a very significant aspect when discussing a person's queerness and their relationship with God. In many mainstream media, queer people are showcased as God-hating Satanists who feel abandoned by a higher power. Teenage Bounty Hunter shifts the scope and reminds the audience that being queer should not implicate one's religious desire, in essence, Queer Religious people do exist. Which is why creating more spaces for all walks of life is so important, inclusivity is important. To reference another of this week's readings, Where Did All the Lesbian Bars Go? Increasingly, They’re on TV by NY Times, "The rise of online communities and the legal acceptance of same-sex partnership have further imperiled lesbian bars, according to the historians and research projects consulted for this article. As women feel freer to hook up in mixed spaces, and even closeted women are able to find community online, bars have become less integral to lesbian social life.". This statement applies for Religious lesbians who also in search of companionship with others who believe in God and are still queer. Teenage Bounty Hunters is a prime example of how intersectionality in mainstream media is very necessary.

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#Youtube

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bisluthq · 3 years

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when i was younger i was part of the outsiders fandom and s.e.hinton opinion didn't matter at all for example she said ''these characters aren't gay'' and we would headcanon them as that anywaysies art is open for interpretation and i don't need taylor's validation to headcanon something

Firstly what an iconic fandom to be a part of was it like the novel or the 80s film with Rob Lowe? Was it both? How big was this fandom and where did it convene? I have so many questions.

But secondly exactly like it doesn’t matter.

Taylor’s fans are so determined to be right and validated that they miss out on the fun of like... interpretation and criticism and speculation.

I keep saying - and I know it’s pretentious and wanky - but like queer theory and analysis don’t depend on if the author is gay. Jane Eyre is currently like mostly taught as a queer text at a tertiary level it’s like the most popular text. None of the lecturers or theorists who do it focus on if Bronte was a big ole lesbian they focus on how this is a queer coded novel.

I enjoy gossiping about her because again celeb gossip is a multi million dollar industry and they benefit from it.

But tbh the lyrical takes are divorced from it to some capacity for me.

Again, on a hetty level I think Coney Island is a deep dive on shit that was wrong in Swiftwyn but there’s that take floating around about how it’s daddy issue related and a distant father and child. Do I think Taylor and Joe meant that? Nope. Is it valid? Yes completely it’s a brilliant take.

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starberry-cupcake · 4 years

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It’s the end of Aro Week and I decided to throw caution to the wind and talk about something that can potentially be a polarizing topic. I’m putting it on read-more not only because of length but also because in 2020 this blog turns 10 years of age and I’ve learned to leave a window open for retreat when it comes to Opinions, so I don’t know how long I’ll dare to have this up.

This is going to be about the aroace experience, fandom, ships, representation, fanservice, amatonormativity, allosexual normativity and transformative fanwork.

So, basically, a minefield, so tread with care.

Since the dawn of fandom time, there has been an aspect of it that is known (nowadays) as transformative. There are studies, dissertations and essays about this, and most if not all agree on the fact that the portion of fandom that is transformative tends to belong to the less represented portion of it in the media they consume.

It’s mostly people whose identities are rarely represented those who tend to transform, making a space in their favorite pieces of media for themselves and others. That has, in tow, created a scene in which authors and content creators are born within fandom and get exposed to these types of content and reproduce them as well.

The cornerstone of transformative fandom, to the point of being one of the main organizational elements in fandom-driven platforms, are ships. And when someone mentions the word “ship”, it most often comes with the added non-said descriptive of “romantic” and “sexual” attached to it.

Now, like I said, a lot of those who are involved in transformative fandom tend to go for less represented types of identities, and heteronormativity tends to be questioned often. Sometimes, it is legitimately for representation purposes, sometimes it’s for objectifying reasons.

On the other hand, in the media-creating sphere, there is a thing known as “baiting”. This word is used when pieces of media hint towards non het relationships that end up not coming to fruition.

This issue has reached paragons of shamelessness with creators using fandom for their own purposes, like making a series win an award, getting renewed or gathering numbers in cons, to then turn against the same portion of fandom by banning transformative fandom from cons, meet and greets and having actors and crew members publicly shame fanfiction or fanart. It became serious shit.

This, in tow, brought another problem. Baiting (and what used to be considered “queer-coding”) started becoming an immediate red flag for people, a warning to whether getting engaged or not with a piece of media.

In the mostly legitimate pitchfork and torches march against baiting, canonically aroace characters were caught in the fire, and queerplatonic relationships suffered the price of not fitting in the amatonormative and allosexual normative space fandom created.

It’s a standard for fandom that one of the most necessary reasons for transformative work, for fanfiction mostly, is to make characters confess the love they never did confess on screen/page and, most often than not, fuck each other senseless as a sort of “necessary guarantee of their bond”. Consummation, if you will.

Statistically speaking, explicit fics tend to be much more popular than non explicit ones and romantic relationships are what move the main search engines of fanfic platforms.

Headcanon-wise, anyone can do what they want. If a character is interpreted one way or another, that’s not for anyone to police.

With aroace characters, though, it’s a bit tricky, because it’s incredibly rare the amount of times a character is explicitly in the spectrum, and any evidence you can gather, which isn’t outright hearing it, is a lack of something.

A lack that fandom interprets in another way.

You can have a character be sexually attracted and romantically attracted to another and have that be enough for an audience to understand their orientation, to an extent, but an aroace character seems to have to explicitly state it because the lack of romance or sex in their narratives will be interpreted by fandom as “incomplete”.

It’s more frequent for fandom to interpret a character who is not in a romantic or sexual relationship as “lacking” it and “fix” it in fic than for it to be headcanoned as aroace.

An adjacent issue happens with this and the old notion of “queer-coding”. Audiences tend to sometimes interpret that lack as the incapacity for a media creator to explicitly state that the character is homosexual.

The unintended consequence of years of coding, baiting and censorship of non het relationships in media was the invisibilization of relationships canonically in the aroace spectrum.

For example, the first reaction to Elsa from Frozen not having a romantic relationship in the movie was that she was an amatonormative and allosexual lesbian rather than somewhere in the aroace spectrum. Not that there aren’t a myriad of overlaying possibilities between the two things, but you get my point.

The lacking, the incompleteness that fandom most often sees in characters is filled in, most often than not, with gay romantic and sexual relationships, as a result of the years of queer-coding in media. You know, the good ol’ “if she doesn’t have a boyfriend, she must be a lesbian” stance. Fandom is, sometimes, like a family dinner with a 60+ year old uncle.

This is a problem because it creates, within fandom, instances of tug of war between two under-represented factions who both deserve the due representation and which sometimes, very often, overlay in the same people, who fall in both spectrums. It creates arguments and fights for one or other character between the two, as if they were mutually exclusive at all times.

I recently came across different levels of discourse and comments on two pieces of media for this reason, in two different sides.

One concerned Mackenzi Lee’s A Lady’s Guide To Petticoats & Piracy, in which the lead is aroace and there is a girl who is romantically attracted to her and there is a hint of a potential qp relationship. After reading it I found in some review spaces opinions that considered the author hadn’t “gone all the way” with it, as if it was “cop out” for a potential lesbian romance, taking into account that the first volume of the series was centered on an mlm relationship, which gave people certain expectations.

The opposite happened in the webcomic Go Get A Roomie, in which a female lead character who seemed to be aroace for years ended up in a romantic and sexual relationship with the protagonist and there isn’t so far much of a descriptive of where her identity lied to begin with, but with some meaningful conversations that seemed to imply the spectrum after having suffered trauma. And this can be perceived as a sort of “deception” and to the problematic notion of aroace-ness as a “treatable phase”.

Both stories are valid. Both roads towards self-discovery are valid. There isn’t an immediate denial of the spectrum for one or other possibility and both narratives are experiences that happen to people, even maybe the same people at different times in their lives.

But the two happen to include female relationships and boy are those underrepresented. Like I said, it isn’t that both things can’t overlay in a myriad of places, Lillian could be a demisexual demiromantic, for all I know, Sim could be homoromantic and asexual, we don’t know the specifics.

It’s likely and valid to have a gut reaction when you think you’re being represented and then you’re not entirely. And that’s understandable. But it’s a pity that we have tugs of war for scraps of representation.

So, on the one hand, with headcanons, we tend to get fandom fights, most often than not between underrepresented identities, because we’re fighting for the little there is, when in reality we should be uplifting each other...but anyway, moving on.

That’s all in the realm of interpretation, up until the moment the author makes the characters explicitly make choices and take action. That’s someone having a headcanon because of things the piece of media was doing and then having it proven right or wrong, or never having it proved at all.

The other thing, where it gets nasty, is when fandom “fixes” canonically aroace characters. This is also incredibly frequent, most often than not with mlm ships, or what fandom considers mlm ships.

One of the nastiest last year was the Good Omens debacle.

Neil stated that Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t “homosexual men” because they weren’t “men” and they weren’t sexual beings (the whole “making an effort” thing that explicit fic writers like to latch onto). Neil also said they love each other, however that wants to be interpreted, opening it up enough for it to be platonic or romantic or anything you want.

Fic writers have written more GO fics in the last year than ever probably, because of the show, and they’ve experimented with a lot of places of the spectrum. I’m not here to judge anyone because a GO fic was my favorite ace explicit fic I’ve read, so interpretations can be fascinating, I’m all here for them.

The problem arose when people (mostly cis het women) on social media (mostly twitter) started calling Neil a homophobe for not making them pretty much fuck on screen or explicitly state that they were fucking offscreen in canon.

That’s where we need to draw a line and reevaluate our life choices.

I can’t count the amount of posts, tweets and reactions I saw rejecting the possibility of Aziraphale and Crowley not being a) cis men and b) allosexual. The two things created a gutted reaction, to the point that you have to consider the nature and intended result of those comments and, in that case, who’s being an intolerant asshole.

There was a point in time in which fake woke rep discourse became the excuse for people to demand fanservice from creators, especially in the cis het women + mlm media overlay, and this is a problem. We need to separate the discourses, we need to figure out why we’re here and what we’re demanding.

Another similar example I saw recently, yet less overwhelming, was with Banana Fish and the queerplatonic relationship between Ash and Eiji in canon.

I came into BF later than most, but when I read the epilogue manga I found one of the earliest descriptions of a qp relationship I’ve seen, and there were a lot of interesting comments made by the author and other people interviewing her about why sex was never a part of their dynamic and how the bond they had was more of soulmates than romantic lovers and why it was meaningful all the same.

Still, even if the author doesn’t, Banana Fish is considered among the key “BL” animated series of the last few years, alongside stuff like Doukyuusei, Yuri On Ice, Given, etc. And fandom likes to “fix” that “lack of” situation often, apparently.

This case isn’t as feral as GO but it is, however, deceptive. Coming into BF I never would have guessed their relationship was to be qp because fandom let me believe it wasn’t.

And, in this case, the author explicitly stated that this was her intention, this was the story she wanted to tell, it wasn’t her adjusting to censorship or having to code her characters, it was, at heart, what we now can consider a qp relationship.

And, in all of these cases, in which there are aroace characters or relationships involved, or at least somewhere in the aro spectrum or the ace spectrum or both, there’s one main issue behind it: the lack of belief that relationships that aren’t romantic and sexual can be crucial.

That they can be storytelling worthy.

In media-creating and in fanwork-creating, it seems to be the norm to have an endgame romance, or at least for romance to be a key part of your content. It’s the expected box to tick for a fulfilling story, it seems, and the lack of it is the “problem” fandom likes to “fix” the most.

This is also mirrored in the platforms we use. There is a lack of possibility to tag qp relationships as something separated in ao3: the / is for romantic/sexual relationships and the & is for all-encompassing platonic relationships (described by the guidelines as family, teammates, friends, etc.). In order to write a qp relationship you have to tag it & as per guidelines but you have to add another descriptor because you’re not writing family or teammates, and in the case of fandom-polarizing ships, it can be a problem.

And all of this influences us as creators, to the point that it’s easier to write something we’ve never experienced, like romantic attraction, than it is to write without it, because we’ve heard the romantic stories all the time, we’ve grown up reading them, and we’ve learned that no kudos will come to your fic if you don’t have them in there, because it’s that / what’s gonna move the search engines towards your stuff.

Maybe, hopefully, with time and more media around us, we’ll learn different ways of exploring transformative fanwork. Maybe while knowing ourselves and others, we’ll start believing that a lack of romantic relationships doesn’t necessarily mean someone was “too much of a coward to not make these two explicitly x or y”.

Maybe we’ll learn to coexist because, after all, some of these things coexist within our own spectrums sometimes, and it’d be nice to see the capacity for us to not fight for the scraps of rep that media throws at us but be able to understand each other and ourselves enough to create the media that we need.

#long post when expanded #Opinions #aro awareness week #i'm not gonna tag the examples I'm already risking to much by mentioning them in the post #i don't know how long this will be up tbqh

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homespork-review · 4 years

Text

Homespork Act 4, Part 1: Blight of the Paradox Clones

BRIGHT: Act 4 opens on a loading sequence titled ‘GATE 1’, and then there’s a short pan down through firefly-dotted clouds to a dim blue landscape called the Land of Wind and Shade. John manifests at ground-level and it’s time for another walk-around game!

The icon in the upper right corner opens a conversation with Nannasprite, who’s still back in the house. Apparently she can’t accompany John around the Land, but she can certainly give him puzzling half-answers to any questions he might have. John asks her point-blank if she was always cryptic and evasive or if that’s a sprite thing, but she predictably avoids answering.

John wanders around the Land, getting into fights with (oddly non-aggressive) imps for grist. The Land is very atmospheric, with glowing blue mushrooms and odd pipes everywhere. It’s also inhabited by large, excitable, bipedal orange salamanders who blow bubbles and dispense information about the Land. One of them has acquired John’s bedsheets and is now calling itself a wizard.

A salamander standing by one of the pipes explains that it’s called a Parcel Pyxis. If you need something, you can chisel a picture of whatever it is into a stone tablet and drop it into a Parcel Pyxis. If you find a tablet, and you have what’s carved into it, it’s polite to drop it into the Pyxis and the Breeze will take it where it needs to go. (Just what the Breeze is isn’t explained yet, but given the name of the Land, it’s fair to assume an explanation will be forthcoming in due time, and it’s thematically consistent.)

While wandering, John finds a telescope. Looking through it, he sees his house, perched waaaaaay at the top of a very tall, very narrow rocky crag. He also finds a very large pipe sunk into the ground. He can hear something very, very big breathing at the bottom.

There are definite pros and cons to these games, but on the whole I like them. They’re more immersive than the usual comic panels, and it’s nice to do some self-directed wandering. On the other hand, it’s easy to miss something in a walk-around game, which hardly ever happens with comic panels…

FAILURE ARTIST: The Salamanders crack me up. Good parody of NPC chatter.

CHEL: Comic panels of the walkaround are included later on, so if you really hate the games you can read it straightforwardly.

John is confused by now being below his house when he went through a portal above it; Nanna cryptically claims that “To ascend, you must first descend!”

BRIGHT: With the game out of the way (it doesn’t really have a defined end point), we return to normal comic panels — and also to the future. AR is embroiled in a shootout with the snakes from PM’s ship, which are now firing laser beams. A stray blast decapitates the frog temple. AR returns fire with a rocket launcher. His first shot takes out the snake. The second knocks WV flying. WV lands behind a rock, and the carved pumpkin lands on his head. AR lines up his next shot...and pauses.

The carved image of Bec’s head seems to mean something to AR, because he immediately ceases fire and comes down to start yelling at WV. This turns out to be a poor move on his part: PM still has her sword, and she is not pleased.

I really, really like PM as a character. She has no dialogue whatsoever and still projects massive amounts of integrity.

The comic returns to Jade. She’s retrieved Dave’s Sburb discs from the time capsule, which is clearly going to move the plot along...

Looks like the TIME CAPSULE has reset itself. It is sprouting a new bud. Presumably something else will come out when it blooms again in about 400 years. Too bad you won't be around to find out what it is!

...aaaaaaand we go into sylladex shenanigans again.

I will say this for sylladex tomfoolery: It absolutely can break up tension and provide some lighter stretches in the plot. The problem is that these don’t always feel natural. I find them less annoying now and can appreciate the humour, but they really bugged me the first time around.

Still, Jade’s use of her sylladex does at least speak to her character.

Jade eventually settles on Pictionary modus, which means she has to draw a picture of whatever she wants to captchalogue. If she doesn’t have the drawn item to hand, her modus instead captures a “ghost image” of the item on a card, complete with alchemiter code. Handy! Unfortunately the modus has some trouble understanding Jade’s drawings, interpreting her picture of her eclectic bass as a regular electric bass.

Bec then catches up and teleports Jade back to her room. In a demonstration of unusual good sense, Jade promptly gets on with installing the Sburb Beta.

Back in the Land of Wind and Shade, John pesters Rose to ask if she’s here on the other side of the gate, in the “spooky glowy place with oily rivers and stuff”. She doesn’t respond. He does however get pestered by Jade, who is now awake and therefore fully aware of what Sburb is (much to John’s confusion). She tells him to go get his copy of the game so he can be her server player. John is convinced Jade is psychic, but she tells him that he has access to all the information she does, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Meanwhile, Dave is also trying to get in touch with Rose, also to no effect. Jade pesters him and they have a cute conversation in which Jade forgets how a reference goes, but Dave assures her she got it anyway. She tells him she’s setting up as his server player and shows him a picture of the meteor aimed at his house. There are no size comparison points available but Jade assures him that it’s really, really big.

TG: well as if like one the size of a bus wouldnt kill me anyway

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave describes his beating from his Guardian as “i got served like a dude on butler island” and Jade says it’s “(DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)”. It’s hard to take the abuse seriously when none of the characters do.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 14

BRIGHT: In the Medium, John is getting pestered by carcinoGeneticist again. We now have a picture icon for CG. Look familiar? Yup, it’s the guy from the end of the Intermission.

So I guess this is the first time in the main comic that we get confirmed, visual proof that the trolls are aliens? It’s hard to point to, since the trolls get introduced gradually.

I’ve no idea how this was received in fandom when it first happened, but by the time I got to Homestuck, the fact that the trolls were grey folks with horns was probably the most famous feature of the canon, so...not so much of an impact. Still pretty cool though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish I could remember how the fandom took it.

The trolls in these early acts make a big deal all the time about how they are alien and the kids are human. It’s an amusing parody of the way aliens act in fiction but it is weird when the trolls become actual characters and we find out their psychology is surprisingly human most of the time.

CHEL: Hence the WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM count. That’ll spike later.

BRIGHT: CG is unexpectedly friendly this time. Apparently he’s been trolling John backwards through time, which is frustrating as each earlier John knows less and less, so CG keeps having to repeat himself. (Which...doesn’t make much sense? He’d have to explain more obvious stuff, sure, but John would remember things he was told in later-from-CG’s-perspective conversations, so...ugh, time travel!) Despite this frustration, however, John’s relentless friendliness apparently wore the trolls down and now they’re friends. Or at least CG thinks they are. John is less than convinced.

CHEL:

John asks if the trolls are in his land, but CG berates him for self-centredness:

CG: WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DUMB LITTLE WINDY PLANET OR YOUR PETTY LITTLE QUESTS. CG: OR FOR THAT MATTER YOUR ENTIRE GAME SESSION. CG: YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONES PLAYING THE GAME. CG: EVERY GROUP OF PLAYERS GETS THEIR OWN DISTINCT, BLANK SLATE SESSION. CG: AS WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU MANY TIMES.

He instructs John to relay an apology for the trolling to Jade and to tell her to GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES. John says he’s a bit focused on his own quest right now, and sets off to find his father’s car.

TIER: While that's happening, we cut back to the gaggle of aliens having a grand old time around a campfire with some good food. A familiar pair of squiddles, now old, is visible as well.

FAILURE ARTIST: AR/PM/WV was a popular OT3 back in the day but you never see it anymore.

CHEL: Pity. It’s adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Dave’s place, where Jade is setting things up for the game. The air conditioning unit helps with the process, but the birds everywhere don’t. Dave drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 16

Rose also talks with Dave as this is going on. She says this to him.

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day. TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee. TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I’ve seen this quoted as Rose/Jade Lesbian Power but I wish we had more scenes where the two actually talked to each other.

CHEL: Being happy that one of your friends is competent means you’re in love with them now? And yet if someone used that as evidence for a het ship they’d be run out of the fandom. Anyway, Jade removes Dave’s bed to make room.

TT: And there she goes. TT: She HAS the karma.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose has been talking to a troll, but she doesn’t know the gender so uses “he/she/it”. Funny to think there was a time when we didn’t know the trolls’ gender. Particularly the gender of Rose’s favorite troll...

Jade tries to tidy up the apartment using “a woman’s touch” a.k.a. a towel drenched in toilet water. Which begs the question of how her home is spotless.

CHEL: Because Hussie is again not thinking through the implications of the living situations as presented, and/or trying to present things as simultaneously a joke and serious. To be fair, considering the dreambot, she could have a super hi-tech cleaning system, or Bec could teleport the dirt away, but if so, we ought to see that.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 10 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15

FAILURE ARTIST: In doing so, she accidentally rips the toilet out and drops an F-bomb.

CHEL: We now get a video of Rose’s location, the LAND OF LIGHT AND RAIN. Her house is now perched on a tiny island surrounded by glimmering pastel oil-slick-looking water, a waterfall pouring down out of nowhere beside it, with golden clouds scattered around pouring rain. It’s very pretty!

We again see the carapaces finding things in the ruins, and WV brings PM to see inside the bunker. The blast earlier formed an entry into the third room which had been locked, which contains further devices, this one with more spirographs and a frog picture on it; WV doesn’t know what this one does and the power’s too low to use it anyway. Back in the room with the monitors, PM is impressed by WV’s drawings and he offers her the pack of chalk. AR, meanwhile, cooks food.

PM recognises the monitor as similar to the one in her own station, though hers was watching a girl. Here, we get the static panels of the runaround game, from PM’s point of view.

Back in LoLaR, a mysterious textbox in cursive addresses Rose as Seer, suggesting she explore. Recall that the book mentioned the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Witch of Space, and the Knight of Time. Since Jade is the one who’s been doing the Seer-ing so far, I’ve seen readers assume she was the Seer and Rose the Witch, but it seems not; further explanations of what those titles really mean are forthcoming.

Sudden cut back to John’s land, where the village is under attack! Huts are aflame, and much bigger and more powerful monsters have arrived.

In Dave’s apartment, Jade opens the cruxtruder by dropping the displaced toilet on it, splashing water everywhere, much to Dave’s aggravation since all that juice was going to come back to haunt me. He’s relieved to see the countdown gives him four hours, but Jade doesn’t know till what, and he realises she’s sleep-messaging him again. He orders her not to watch him pee, and dont put anything weird in the seizure kernel.

TG: the last thing i need is for your weird brain webcam to be snapping shots of my dong TG: your grandpa was a sick fuck why would he build a voyeurbot for a little girl CALL CPA PLEASE: 8

Well, he is kinda right. Anyway, Dave spends a couple of pages elaborately planning misuse of the apple juice bottle and tricking John into drinking from the alchemised bottle, but he dismisses it as too much trouble and goes in the shower, kicking out the puppet. Good thing it was only his bladder that was the problem, if you get my drift. Some fans have speculated that this puppet also had a camera in it, but I can’t see evidence of that; I guess if you squint the eyes might look like a camera lens? I feel if that was the case it would have been shown. Hussie didn’t shy away from the weird shit with Dave’s living situation earlier.

Jade is upset to find the bisected bird from earlier, and decides to help the bird by putting it in the Kernelsprite, angering Dave again. He figures she’ll be more helpful when she’s awake, so he instructs her to slap the air to her side; the dreambot mimics her movements and whacks the real Jade in the face, waking her up.

BRIGHT: I burst out laughing the first time I saw that panel. It’s pretty clever of Dave. (Though obviously not kind, but of a variety that’s in keeping with the story.)

CHEL: Cut to the carapace camp, where they’re burning empty crates for a campfire. AR decides to use the Squiddles to Win over that fine carapace in grey, which seems to distress WV and Serenity. PM takes a Squiddle, but rather than being won over is vaguely reminded of something.

TIER: We then jump back into the past, where we find a totalled car and what looks like AR?

CHEL: Yep, though here he’s going by Authority Regulator instead of Aimless Renegade.

TIER: Whatever the case, this dude is not happy with this traffic violation. Another thing he's not happy with? Unauthorized parcels. Which brings us to the Parcel Mistress, who's been looking for this particular package for a while apparently. Now how to get it?

With that we jump back to John! Who's doing decent enough in his clobbering of game enemies. Just when things ain't looking too hot though, a mysterious stranger shoots and kills them with extreme prejudice. He looks familiar ain't he?

And even if he's not, that gigantic book under his arm can only be the work of the ol’ Colonel Sassacre, which John helpfully points out.

CHEL: Meanwhile in some other time period, PM suddenly remembers she must deliver a message to John. Back in the present, Parcel Mistress, for it is she, finds a tablet carved (badly) by John, depicting the SBurb envelope. The prompt suggests PM ready her sword, but she has none, and claims she would never resort to violence. Instead, she tries asking politely. Despite their lands’ enmity, AR finds her attractive and doffs his hat so furiously you are in danger of starting a HAT FIRE. His civility does not extend to handing over contraband, though. The tablet is sufficient evidence for him to give her the envelope, but to get the green parcel she must ask his bosses. PM puts the envelope in a pyxis, trusting the Breeze to move it, and follows AR.

John plans to follow the man, who he does not yet recognise as Jade’s Grandpa, to get his book back, but first he must help put out the fire in the salamander village. He flings the BARBASOL BOMB he made earlier into the volcano.

The cooling lather should work its magic in no time…

OH GOD HOW CAN SHAVING CREAM BE SO FLAMMABLE

Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. The salamanders declare John a hero, though he’s just confused.

FAILURE ARTIST: A prompt (PM) asks John if he still has the tablet and if he wants to carve something on it. So, in another time loop, he does that.

Back at LOLAR, a very elegant and mysterious prompt ask Rose to find Jaspersprite. Rose cannot find him, but she does find footprints leading to the mausoleum. The mausoleum isn’t there anymore, but the underground passage is still there. Rose takes it down to a pier where someone has recently taken a boat and left a martini. The mysterious prompt says “A mother will do whatever is best for her children.” Nobody ever said “a brother will do whatever is best for his siblings”.

In the future, WV becomes the Mayor of Exile Town. The peace is disturbed when a “huge eggy looking thing” appears in the sky.

Cut to Jade giving the punch card of an “eggy loking thign (sic)”. Guess someone on the forum had bad spelling?

CHEL: It’s a callback to Rose describing the other unfinished GameFAQs entries, which were typed in haste. One described their entry item that way.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave creates a huge red bird with a huge red egg. When he tries to use the egg, the crow sprite takes it and puts it in a nest made of smuppets, swords, and Lil Cal.

Dave doesn’t have enough grist to do anything. He fusses around building what he can. That done, he goes inside and installs gristTorrent to steal grist from John. Who exactly made that software?

Meanwhile, in LOLAR, Rose has set up shop on the pier. The mysterious prompter tells her to consult with the Heir and in the pesterlog we see she’s chatting with John. They catch up on the trolls and various things. Unfortunately, Rose is harassed by a gallowsCalibrator who tells her in 133t speak that her mother hates her and left her forever. Amazing that GC eventually becomes a beloved character since they are such a little shit right now. GC has synesthesia and jokes about their species communicating through “CLOUDS OF FR4GR4NT G4S3S”. They want to be helpful, but they deny wanting to be friends, though later they say they are becoming something called “H4T3FR13NDS”.

CHEL: Rose asks if I'm being courted or trolled here, which with further reveals about the trolls will become somewhat ironic. Other trolls are jumping around in time but GC is ST4Y1NG L1N34R [...] C4US3 W31RD T1M3 STUFF G1V3S ME A H34D4CHE, though will jump forward in the timeline so they don’t have to wait too long between conversations.

BRIGHT: GC isn’t the only one...

FAILURE ARTIST: GC explains the voices in the players’ heads are from the Exiles on Earth. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilization with them. With that important information, GC bids adieu for now.

TT: So the exiles are on Earth? Does that mean our goal is to get back there too? To resurrect it somehow? GC: NO NO NO GC: S33 1RON1C4LLY TH3Y G3T TO DO TH4T GC: 4FT3R TH3YR3 DON3 H3LP1NG YOU TH4T 1S GC: YOUR JOB 1S OF GR34T3R CONS3QU3NC3 TO S4Y TH3 L34ST GC: BUT P4RT OF TH31R JOB 1S TO R3BU1LD L1F3 4ND C1V1L1Z4T1ON TH3R3 GC: 4ND 1F TH3YR3 SUCC3SSFUL 1N THOUS4NDS OR M1LL1ONS OF Y34RS TH3 T3CHNOLOGY 1S UN34RTH3D 4ND TH3 PL4N3T 1S R1P3 FOR S33D1NG 4LL OV3R 4G41N TT: You never answered the question. Where were they exiled from? GC: FROM TH3 TWO K1NGDOMS 1N TH3 1NC1P1SPH3R3 GC: 3XP4TR14T3D DUR1NG TH3 R3CKON1NG

CHEL: We now know who and what the Exiles are, so let’s lop off a point for that:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: Back in the past, when John went by ghostyTrickster, he tries to have a conversation with Jade but it’s interrupted by CG warning her that her robot will explode. After CG leaves, Jade and John talk about the trolls. Seems blocking does no good. John drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17

We cut to CG being gray and angry in some mysterious grey room.

Then, back to Jade. Her package from her pen-pal appears again.

Cut to ghostyTrickster John. GC trolls him, outs herself as female and blind, and threatens to cut his throat “4ND L1ST3N TO YOU BL33D WH1L3 1 SM3LL YOU D13”. John is naturally unnerved by this, but he also takes inspiration from her taunt that he’s bad at ectobiology.

CHEL: He takes for his new username a term that the trolls introduced him to, and is surprised when they immediately find him? Maybe we DID need a Too Dumb To Live count.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to a troll like CG, but with red glasses and a Libra sign on her shirt. This is our first look at gallowsCallibrator.

CHEL: Okay, does the death threat qualify for SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER? It’s a bit extreme considering at this point in his timeline John has done nothing to offend her. Then again, maybe not; the narrative doesn’t present this as being the right and proper thing to do.

Back in the present, PM arrives in enemy territory, with the parking citation as a ready excuse for her presence. Imps and agents she passes now have features from Jaspersprite; cat faces, princess hats, and we see a DD-like figure wearing a cat-ear headband. PM follows a red carpet, only to be confronted at the end by this eldritch-looking majesty:

PM is naturally trembling, but is merely instructed to speak to the Archagent, who we’ve met before; Jack Noir. We see a ring with four pearl-like orbs on the monarch’s hand; this will become important later.

Rose’s Exile voice bids her farewell, telling her to Find your sprite. Realise your purpose. No longer guided, Rose decides to start making her own decisions, beginning with a sip of martini.

In the desert, A WINDSWEPT QUESTANT suddenly appears, this being a tall white carapace with a feminine figure and narrow eyes, from the eggy lokin thign, with the unsound effect EGG! WV and AR appear disconcerted, while PM is busy telling John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis.

Back in Jack Noir’s office, PM attempts to grab the green box and leave, but Jack appears suddenly behind her, making her jump, and tells her she’d better have the ticket payment or you are wasting valuable time he could otherwise spend shirking his clerical duties. PM nervously explains she’s actually here for the package, and Jack points out she doesn’t have the right courier forms.

In spite of how he's supposed to be dressed now but isn't, he ain't nobody's fool.

However, instead, she could always do an errand for him. Specifically, following his HIT LIST, which is two pictures of white crowns recognisable as the tops of the king and queen chess pieces. He also gives her the enormous black sword we saw her future self use. PM, terrified, departs, and Jack wonders if she’s actually stupid enough to try it.

You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office.

Curious, he opens the package, and stares into it in surprise.

At Dave’s apartment, Jade has put the Punch Designix in the hallway, making it rather hard to navigate, but regardless Dave’s busy alchemising. He plays with a few add-ons which temporarily render the machines unusable, but eventually manages to use a jumper shunty thing to consolidate all the machines into one. Jade draws some components, gets the captcha codes of their ghost images, and sends the codes to Dave, who plugs them into the machine. Useful, but could probably be compressed into fewer pages, especially when he follows it up by playing with the new machinery. This is adding to my conviction that the machines should have been simplified severely in the first place.

GET ON WITH IT!: 15

John finds the wrecked car with no dad, package, or game, and gets trolled by GC again. She offers to help him, claiming she wants to H3LP YOU 4DV4NC3 MOR3 QU1CKLY because she’s bored watching his long adventure and wants to help him skip ahead. John points out she could just skip forward on the timeline as she has before, and she admits that she just wants to see if she can change the timeline, as her friends don’t believe they can. She offers him a map, which he accepts.

John complains, naturally, and she relents and offers to guide him directly to the pipe which will help him skip to the next Gate. Honestly, he has reason to complain; her smellovision allows her to read text on a screen, yet not to draw?

Rose, back in LOLAR, battles monsters, doing surprisingly well considering she only has knitting needles for a weapon, culminating in an epic sequence in which she stabs both needles into an ogre’s eyes, flips onto its back, and uses her knitting as reins to ride it down the waterfall. Dave informs her he’s out of grist, but she finds the idea of killing the ogre for supplies when it’s unconscious to be distasteful. He’s interrupted by grimAuxiliatrix, The Troll Who Talks Like This, asking about Rose. The conversation is awkward as GA seems unable to read Dave’s sarcasm.

GA: She Perhaps Even Regards You With Uh GA: Endearment TG: you have no idea dude she is so in my grill TG: like a stray hotdog that rolled down there TG: and now its too much trouble to fish out with the tongs TG: so you just watch it like crack and turn black GA: Um Is This GA: A Common Sort Of Practice In Human Courtship GA: Watching Oblong Meat Products Tumble Into Places They Dont Belong

adiosToreador, meanwhile, does the same to Rose about Dave, with a similar lack of comprehension of Rose’s loquaciousness. GA contacts Rose again, and a confusing conversation about temporal mechanics ensues. Afterwards, we see GA, who proves to be a short-haired troll girl with pronged horns, a Virgo shirt symbol (my troll!), and cute little vampire teeth.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s been too long for me to remember the fandom reaction, but I feel like the reveal that GA is a girl was framed like a surprise. Surprise! This troll is a lesbian! But I might be mistaken. Still, this isn’t like Dave’s (mock?) offended reaction to AT. Hussie, like many straight men, is more comfortable with lesbians than gay men.

We’ll see more of Rose’s and GA’s relationship as the comic goes on. Some non-Homestucks here might already be spoiled due to the numerous fanart of the two.

CHEL: I wasn’t surprised by her being a girl; maybe I’m stereotyping, but the prissy nature of her dialogue and quirk sounded feminine to me from the start, not to mention the “trix” ending of her username is a feminine one - if she was male, it would be “auxiliator”. Not sure how many people paid attention to that though. I was surprised by the later information that (SPOILER) she actually was interested in Rose, because facetious declarations of romantic intention are kind of a thing for the human kids at this point and her flustered reaction could be taken either way here.

Dave, meanwhile, is trolled by AT, with the most cringe-inducing text-rap I’ve ever seen (and text-rapping is pretty cringy to begin with). I gotta praise Hussie, it takes skill to make something this awful.

AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE,

Since we’ll later find out trolls don’t have the concept of police in the same way humans do, and nor do they call animals by the same names we do, I think this is worth some WSP points. Did he watch Dave’s life closely enough to pick up those concepts?

BRIGHT: I get the distinct impression none of the trolls watched anything like enough of the kids’ lives to pick up the concept of the police, particularly since as we’ll see later they missed a few things that are rather more obvious -- such as, say, parents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 11

CHEL: He also namedrops Prospit and Derse, which I’m not really spoiling anything by saying are the names of the two warring chess kingdoms, though I don’t think those names have been applied to them yet. I don’t know why, it’s not like keeping them secret makes a big difference - did Hussie only just think of them? The quality of his rhymes aside, AT appears very proud of himself; he’s a troll with enormous bull-like horns, a mohawk, and a Taurus symbol. I thought he was really creepy-looking the first time I saw him, but he rather grew on me.

Back on LOWAS, John is squirted out of a pipe with a gush of oil. Ew. The Con Air bunny goes flying and lands in an oil river, and he catches it with the Ghost Gauntlets. An adult and child pair of salamanders happen to be standing nearby, prompting a movie re-enactment, much to the salamanders’ confusion.

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CG is unimpressed, though he agrees with John that Con Air sounds entertaining. CG claims to have been watching the whole of John’s life and Con Air is supposed to be one of John’s favourite movies; how come CG hasn’t seen any of it before, especially since he says he has seen a movie John hates?

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION.

Lovely. Though I gotta say the dialogue and ridiculous extended metaphors are one of the best parts of Homestuck. Wish I could pull those off. However, one point here; if they’re aliens, it seems odd that they would use human idioms such as “olive branch” with the same meaning we do. There is a possible explanation later on, but since they only ever use American/Western phrases like this and it’s clear from other things they say that they didn’t pick up anything much about human culture from watching the kids, I’m upping the count anyway.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 12

BRIGHT: We also discover that troll movies are titled very differently to human movies, such as the classic

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS;(BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY;6 TO 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

Apparently after thousands of years of film history, you start running out of movie titles.

Also, note that despite their being aliens, quite possibly with different gender roles, the romantic tension is explicitly provided by attractive female leads.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13

CG thinks that Earth civilisation’s lack of maturity might explain why the players are (apparently) doing so badly. John retorts that GC is helping him, so they can’t be doing THAT badly. Apparently this wasn’t in the plan; CG goes to talk to GC about it, and she punches him. Seems she’s talking to a future John at the moment, and he asked her to. CG gives John a message to pass on to GC in reply.

CG: TELL HER TO POLISH MY HEAVING BONE BULGE AND SET A TABLE FOR FUCKING TWO ON IT. CG: IT’S FOR OUR CANDLELIT HATE DATE.

John comments that it’s like they’re trolling each other through him now, and asks if CG has talked to Jade. CG is surprised that he’d want to talk to her. John offers to paste the chatlog; CG refuses, and John heads off to talk to GC.

CHEL: Precisely what a bone bulge is is never explained. Context makes it clear it’s an unsavoury body part, and it sounds like a term for one’s dick, even though the boner does not in fact contain bones in humans. The assumption early in the fandom was that the trolls had primarily human anatomy, which seems odd to me considering Kanaya’s complete obliviousness to her Oblong Meat Products comment - most teenagers familiar with human penises would be on that instantly. Anyway, there soon came a phase of experimentation, and by now we seem to have settled on the “functional-hermaphrodites with tentacle dicks” theory. Which is weird, because a tentacle doesn’t sound like something which would be referred to with the word “bone”, does it?

GC’s laughing mouth is reflected in John’s glasses as they speak in what I desperately hope is a shoutout to the Corinthian. She calls John STUP1DLY 4DOR4BLE (minor typo on the comic’s part as the E in her quirk should be a 3) and laughs at CG’s frustration. John relays an approximation of CG’s message:

EB: he wants you to touch his bone lump or something. GC: WH4T!!! EB: and that he's pretty much basically in love with you.

GC asks him to copy-paste the convo for proof but John refuses, saying it was a private conversation, and informs GC that she’s going to punch CG soon. In other news, referring to these characters with only their handle initials when I know their actual names is hard.

On GC’s instructions, John turns around, to discover this hard-to-miss landmark:

This, according to GC, is the D3N1Z3NS P4L4C3, in which the Denizen sleeps on a grist hoard so big their alchemising could never make a dent in it.

GC: USU4LLY HOW 1TS SUPPOS3D TO GO 1S GC: OV3R TH3 COURS3 OF YOUR QU3ST GC: YOU W1LL W4K3 TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND TH3N F1N4LLY YOU GO THROUGH TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY W4Y 1NTO TH3 P4L4C3 GC: TH3N YOU GO DOWN 4ND F1GHT TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND K1LL 1T GC: R3L3AS1NG TH3 HO4RD EB: so what's my advantage? GC: YOU WONT BOTH3R W4K1NG 1T GC: W3 W1LL SK1P R1GHT TO TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: F1ND 1TS L41R GC: 4ND K1LL 1T 1N 1TS SL33P

The grist hoard, GC claims, is for the ULT1M4T3 4LCH3MY, but she won’t explain what this is yet, and she leads John to a R3TURN NOD3 which takes him back to his home to prepare.

In the desert, AR and WV hammer some metal to make a gift for the Windswept Questant, which proves to be a crown. PM is shocked to see this, and emerges from the bunker, sword in hand.

Meanwhile, in a long-discarded memory… A PARCEL MISTRESS seeks audience with royalty.

It seems Windswept Questant is in fact, of course, the White Queen.

PM explains recent events and seeks her queen’s advice, showing her the hit list requesting the white monarchs’ crowns. WQ is wearing a ring similar to that of the monarch we met earlier, the Black Queen. Four orbs are attached to it, two light and two dark. On removing it, WQ loses all her elaborate prototyping accoutrements and becomes the normal-looking carapace we saw in her Windswept Questant identity. WQ seems to have a plan; instead of requiring PM to kill her to finish her fetch quest, she simply hands over her crown and ring, and instructs PM to find the White King on the battlefield. Flashing forward to the desert, WQ places her new crown on PM’s head, much to the astonishment of their companions.

On LOLAR, beneath waterfalls pouring from hovering pink turtle shells, Rose frustratedly consults with Jaspersprite, who will apparently only meow. However, when asked a direct question, Jaspersprite is able to respond. He is attempting to fish with his tentacles, but there are no fish, because her Denizen ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. Being as cryptic as Nannasprite, he won’t, however, explain what the message he gave to young Rose meant, saying she’ll understand when she wakes up.

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie is very good at writing the dialogue of a kitten turned into a game NPC, you’ve got to hand it to him.

CHEL: It’s also worth noting that his colours have stopped flashing pink and purple, and he’s settled on pink.

Rose asks Jade for further information, and learns that all four of the kids have a dream self which must awaken; Rose deduces Jade’s has been awake as long as they’ve known each other. Jade is in fact asleep now, and can only message at the moment because of her robot. Rose’s dream self is dreaming troubled dreams, causing the real Rose to suffer nightmares all her life, and to stop this she must discover how to wake her dream self.

GG: maybe the stuff you wrote on your walls can give you a clue? TT: What stuff? GG: the.... GG: er GG: didnt dave tell you?

Utterly heartwarming moment; we see in John’s dream tower, and Jade has drawn over the LAME KID messages and creepy clown faces on John’s walls with a big bright yellow heart and the message wake up john!!! you can do it!!!

Rose wants to know what’s going on, but Dave is unavailable. The meteor is about to land and he’s scrambling his way up the tower to his kernelsprite’s nest to retrieve the entry egg.

Back at John’s house, he finds the useless rocket-pack-combined-with-junk he experimentally alchemised earlier; GC tells him that the trolls’ resident hacker, who we haven’t met yet, can use its code to create a usable jetpack. Said hacker doesn’t want to talk to them but WONT B3 4BL3 TO R3S1ST TH3 CH4LL3NG3.

John sends the mishmash code…

GC: OK B3 B4CK IN L3SS TH4N ON3 S3COND GC: PCHOOOOO EB: hello? GC: WH4T EB: it thought you said you'd be back in less than a second? GC: 1 W4S GC: 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 COD3 GC: 1TS PCHOOOOO

Hee. The misunderstanding leads into a brief argument, GC claiming that 3V3N YOU 4ND YOUR UND3RD3V3LOP3D BON3 NOOK W1LL B3 4BL3 TO F1GUR3 OUT WH4T TO DO. Once again, we don’t know what a bone nook is. Context could imply either an obscene body part or a brain-related one. Common fanon holds that it’s the vagina, others have objected and said it surely must mean anus; neither of those sound like a “bone” anything to me, and in fact bone would be horribly counterproductive for organs which have to perform peristalsis. Someone did point out to me that it could mean a place to put the metaphorical bone, but that wasn’t what I immediately thought.

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t think the phrase “bone nook” ever comes up again, though the word “nook” by itself does and it can be replaced with the word “ass” in those cases. Basically, trolls aren’t a fictional species crafted with any care. Hussie wanted some annoying alien characters with a visual callback to “Little Monsters” and it somehow got out of control.

CHEL: Actually, I believe it does come up in Hiveswap Act 1! But we’ll get to that.

John answers a message from Dave, who now claims to be in the Medium, saying it took him four hours. He asks for advice, saying his sprite wants him to prototype it again, and Rose is randomly asleep.

TG: ok fine but TG: it seems to be suggesting something here TG: and TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion EB: i don't know, just do what it says! EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...

Not a good sign. John decides to Take dear, sweet Casey (the baby salamander) into protective custody by captchaloguing her, and blasts off for the gate.

Cut to an animated sequence in The Land of Heat and Clockwork, a nightmarish lava-scape covered in machinery (convection schmonvection), where Dave is being extremely badass and surprisingly successful for someone with only half a sword. In fact, multiple Daves appear to be present. We also see, unfortunately, exactly what he prototyped:

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Calsprite is even less helpful than the other two, providing a constant soundtrack of creepy laughter while Dave begs him to shut up. According to Dave’s ensuing convo with Rose, this has been going on for four months. That’s… pretty terrifying even before we hear everything that went wrong. John was unsurprisingly instantly slain by his Denizen, and thus couldn’t save Jade from her meteor. Dave, however, has now mastered the art of time travel via the magical turntables he’s created, and intends to go back and prevent all that from happening, now that they’ve spent four months gathering information their past selves can use. Rose is afraid of ceasing to exist; Dave assures her that their dream selves exist outside the standard passage of time, and this will help her dream self wake sooner.

FAILURE ARTIST: The trolls also stopped “trolling” Dave and Rose after John died. This isn’t the end of the trolls, of course.

Dave uses his turntables to go to the past. We cut to a conversation we just saw, where Dave has just entered the Medium and John is about to go pchooooo, except this time from Dave’s roof.

GET ON WITH IT!: 16

Except at the end, Dave tells John not to go. See, Dave from the future just arrived on Dave from the present’s roof. John refuses to believe that this is happening, thinking it’s just a prank. Not even putting future!Dave on the line convinces John. So, future!Dave unloads everything he has in a stack and flips back into the Crowsprite to become a new characters: Davesprite.

CHEL: Note that, instead of Dave’s theme colour of red, Davesprite is orange. I did wonder if this was potentially supposed to show that Bro (whose theme colour is orange) is overwriting/overshadowing Dave’s real self, but since the sprites of the others aren’t the theme colours of their respective kids (Nannasprite is teal to John’s dark blue and Jaspersprite pink to Rose’s purple) I don’t think this is really a reliable sign. Pin in the colours, though, that’ll come up later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Meanwhile, John blasts off with the words “THIS IS STUPID”.

Present!Rose tries to pester Dave, and we get another repeated conversation.

GET ON WITH IT!: 17

Present!Rose decides to nap, and at that moment, Future Dream Rose ceases to exist and becomes absorbed by Present!Rose. I think.

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9

Davesprite pesters GC to tell her not to talk to John anymore. GC first reacts by saying “YOU SM3LL L1K3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S” but then finds out she killed John. She had assumed since she could talk to John in the future, he hadn’t died, but she guessed there was a chance he could die. She’s a little put-out and wants to apologize, but she’s not as sad as you’d expect someone who accidentally killed someone to be. Davesprite asks who is in charge of timeline management.

GC: SH3 DO3SNT W4NT TO T4LK TO 4NY OF YOU GC: 4ND H4S M1SG1V1NGS 4BOUT TH1S WHOL3 TH1NG GC: NOT 4LL OF US 4R3 TH4T 3NTHUS1AST1C 4BOUT TROLL1NG YOU GUYS GC: 4ND TH3 ON3S WHO 4R3 SORT OF SUCK 4T 1T >:|

We do get to meet her, but not until the next act when we meet all the trolls.

Davesprite gives GC permission to talk to John if she cuts out her “coy bullshit antics”. GC mocks his threatening tone and points out she’s higher on the echeladder, from the future, and blind. Davesprite says his self-prototyping gave him great powers and GC says that was a bad idea. They then engage in some banter over GC posting screencaps of Wheeler from Captain Planet (which she calls a “soap opera”). Davesprite and GC end the conversation with mutual respect. Which is honestly really weird after all future!Dave had to go through because of GC.

CHEL: Does this count for SLAMMER points? I think it does. Here’s the first of our new count, then!

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1

This will go up whenever a character does something awful and neither the narrative nor the other characters seem to care.

This also brings us into another point. We’ve seen only hints of it, but alternate timelines are a big theme of this comic. Davesprite in particular is a major focus of said theme, specifically the nature of his personhood separately from the focal or “alpha” Dave. However, as we see here, not even the Dave from the dead John’s timeline particularly seems to mind that John just died in an alternate timeline. At the moment, they appear to feel that because there is an alive John, everything is okay. Let’s see how that progresses.

FAILURE ARTIST: Davesprite and present!Dave (who I guess we can just call Dave at this point) talk. Davespite says as a sprite he has lots of knowledge but is obligated to put it in riddles. However, he says he doesn’t feel like it so he’ll answer Dave straight.

DAVE: alright DAVE: here goes DAVE: why are we so fucking awesome DAVESPRITE: thats the best fucking question anybody ever asked

After that best fucking question, Dave asks if John will be alright. Davesprite says that’s up to John, and if John doesn’t listen they’ll just bail him out again. Davesprite says the gear he piled up will help Dave get to the next gate. The two versions of Dave decide to collaborate on a SBaHJ comic and fist “bunp”.

Meanwhile, “hundreds of pages ago”, John gets his bunny from Dave. We see Dave’s note and it’s cool how each of the kids have their own style of handwriting. There’s a very prophetic sentence in this sweet note:

one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.

We cut to the present, where John is blasting off. The human emotion of friendship causes him to reconsider his action. John pesters Dave and tells him he’s just flying around and not going to the gate. Crisis averted.

This might seem like a cul de sac, but it created a new character (Davesprite) and introduced many concepts, so it really isn’t.

CHEL: Primarily, it introduced the theme of jumping around in time in the literal sense as well as just hopping between apparently-disconnected scenes. The latter’s not a generally well-advised style of writing, but considering the time travel motif of the comic, I think it actually works fine here. Also, as a webcomic, if one spends too long on one group of characters then by the time you get back to the other ones the readers will probably not remember what happened, so shorter scenes for each group are probably more acceptable than in a novel or movie.

CG trolls John again, and after a discussion of their becoming reverse anti-mutual friends, John complains that CG hasn’t really answered his questions.

CG: SO GO AHEAD, ASK ME ANYTHING. EB: ok... EB: what's the point of the game. CG: ASK SOMETHING ELSE. CG: ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT.

John asks where they are now in their Medium, and CG explains they’re HIDING IN THE VEIL, a meteor belt between the two planets. To clarify the layout for our readers, Skaia the big ball of sky is in the centre, with Prospit the golden planet orbiting it closely enough for its moon to enter Skaia during the “eclipse” where Jade gets her visions. Then there are the players’ Lands, their little adventure planets where the consorts live, the consorts being the little NPC creatures (in John’s case, the salamanders). Every player has a Land of Something and Something. Beyond the Lands is the Veil, and beyond that is the Furthest Ring, the orbit of Derse, the dark planet.

CG: OK, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN BLACK INEVITABLY BEATS WHITE CG: ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE CENTER OF SKAIA CG: THE WHITE KING IS CAPTURED OR KILLED OR SOMETHING CG: THAT'S WHEN THE RECKONING STARTS. EB: ok... CG: THE RULERS OF DERSE CG: THE BLACK KING AND QUEEN CG: GET THE POWER TO SEND THE VEIL TOWARD SKAIA CG: TO DESTROY IT CG: THAT KIND OF STARTS YOUR BIG "COUNTDOWN" CG: WHEN SHIT GETS SERIOUS. EB: so then it's up to us to save it? CG: YEAH, YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO KILL THE BLACK QUEEN AND KING CG: AND SKAIA ITSELF SORT OF BUYS YOU SOME TIME CG: BY ACTIVATING ITS DEFENSE PORTALS CG: TO CATCH SOME OF THE METEORS

Ordinarily, the players would have plenty of time before this happens, but something done by the human players has caused things to go wrong, and now they’ve not only ruined their own chance of winning, but somehow affected the trolls’ game too. CG refuses to explain how, because he’s already told him again.

John asks if they’re hiding in a crater or something, but no, CG explains there are buildings in the Veil. It’s considered neutral ground, and both sides have laboratories there where they genetically engineer new soldiers and agents. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try”, but he refuses.

Now comes the mid-point animation of the act, “[S] Jack: Ascend”. I thought it was an ending animation, but no, there’s still more. If you don’t want to or can’t watch video I’ll explain the content, but I do recommend it.

Watch on YouTube

Pan over the Skaian system, from LOWAS to the Veil to the purple towers of Derse. Four towers are close together, topped by orbs. On three of them, we see the silhouettes of the sprites, while the fourth is dark. Jack Noir sits at his desk, doing paperwork, a pink princess dress on a stand next to it. He doodles on a parking ticket, declaring the Black Queen to be a HUGE BITCH. Closeup on BQ’s hips as she approaches, because we totally needed gratuitous sex appeal. She’s remarkably curvy for a probably-non-mammal. Still, we’ll forgive the standard scifi tropes. Jack watches on the Fenestrated Wall, until BQ appears and hacks it in half. She waves the dress and a pink pointed hat at him; apparently, now that the princess doll has been prototyped, the carapaces must represent it in their clothing as well as the jester. Jack is understandably displeased, and after a quick-fire montage of various outfits representing the sprites’ themes, he tears the final colourful tunic up.

Meanwhile, Rose’s dreamself has awoken, and discovers what she wrote on her walls; the word MEOW and other arrangements of the letters M, E, O, and W, over and over again, over every inch of the walls except the part covered by her bed. She finally remembers what Jaspers said to her, which was, of course, MEOW. This seems like nonsense, but as she looks, the letters switch to G, C, A, and T, the letters used to denote DNA nucleotides. It’s a genetic code.

The guardians, meanwhile, are battling enormous monsters; Mom and Dad respectively punch out a three-eyed spider-like giant and a rock cyclops, Dad pausing afterwards to carve a hat on a pyxis tablet, and Bro swordfights against a lava-dwelling tentacle beast.

Back to Jack, matters have got worse; not only are the carapaces required to dress like the sprites, but Davesprite still has the sword sticking through his torso, so now so must Jack. Considering what else we’ve seen carapaces survive, he’d probably be fine, but he’s still understandably hesitant. BQ offers him a sword, but he slices off her ring-bearing finger, which… causes her to explode? Jack puts on the ring, which causes Derse to glow white and him to sprout the features of the sprites; a sword grows from him without him having to fall on it, and wings and tentacles emerge. End scene.

So, approximately, human children have possibly caused the destruction of an alien civilisation’s last hope by putting a cat in a princess dress. Whatever else you think of Homestuck, you can’t say it’s not inventive.

BRIGHT: It is that, among other things.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 GET ON WITH IT!: 17 GORE GALORE: 9 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 6 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13 TOTAL: 111

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck

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melleonis · 5 years

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Wifelink: Guilds of Ravnica

Hello, and welcome to Wifelink, a show where I review the most attractive characters in a collectible card game that none of my followers play! I’ve been doing sets in reverse chronological order (mostly because I think I will eventually hit a point of diminishing returns where the art in older sets becomes too unrelentingly male-gazey, and also just bad) but it turns out Wizards of the Coast also puts out new Magic the Gathering sets on an ongoing basis, so I’m going to review the most recently-released sets, which all take place on the plane of Ravnica.

Ravnica has a very strong claim to being the coolest & most popular setting in MtG - basically imagine if you took Prague, made it an entire planet, filled it with ten ideologically-opposed factions, and watched them go at it. It’s fun, colorful, and apparently just full of attractive women.

Blade Instructor (art by Zoltan Boros)

So the facial scars, the fur, the short white hair, the quiet air of cool confidence - if I’m the pupil behind her, I think it’s going to take a while for me to get the stance and the grip quite right until my instructor comes to stand behind me, guiding my sword-arm through the strokes (”Like that, see?”) - correcting my stance with quick, firm touches to my shoulder and hips (”Really put your weight into it, stand with your legs just a little further apart.”) - her breath on my cheek when I finally get it right (”That’s it, well done.”)

And then she moves on to the next pupil, of course. She’s a professional through-and-through, very much married to her job. She won’t even remember my name when I finish her lessons and get assigned to my first posting. But still, I replay those few seconds of contact over and over that night, staring up at the barracks ceiling. I was prepared for a certain kind of hardship when I joined the Legion, but I wasn’t ready for this.

League Guildmage (art by Svetlin Velinov)

This is the kind of woman you meet at a party and you’re like “damn” so you try to flirt with her and she just does not react like at all so you get to feel bad about yourself until she finds you about an hour later and pulls you into someone’s bedroom, and she’s gorgeous and it’s great, except she doesn’t let you talk and when she finishes it’s immediately over, and over the next couple of weeks you keep finding excuses to go to her lab and talk to her and this never goes well until one day you’re like “Natasha what do I have to do to get you to give me the time of day?” and she’s like “i dunno i could use a test subject” clearly expecting you to decline and leave, only you think you’re in love and it has made you extraordinarily stupid so you’re like “fine!” and she’s like “okay, fine” and then she sends several thousand volts directly into your chest and you wake up in the hospital with second-degree burns and a lingering taste of copper in your mouth. You avoid her after that.

Still, though: damn.

Notion Rain (art by Lius Lasahido)

“City air is a constant drizzle of private thoughts,” says the flavor text, and I would like us all to drink in the pure noir happening here. The trench coat, the twelve discrete belts, the cheekbones, the thousand-yard stare, the vertical lines of arcane matrix code which are simultaneously rain and the thoughts of a rain-slick city. Carrie-Ann Moss wishes she could be this iconic.

Izoni, Thousand-Eyed (art by Eric Deschamps)

Look I fucking love a woman who’s into bugs, it’s really that simple. I mean, it helps that she’s hot, and I dig the chitinous eco-goth thing she’s got going, but it really does just come down to: she likes bugs.

Find (art by Tomasz Jedruszek)

Look at her! Look how happy she is about this large beetle! I would immediately marry this woman!

Vraska, Regal Gorgon (art by Magali Villeneuve, who continues to defend her position atop the Wifelink artist leaderboard)

MUSHROOM DRESS

Thought Erasure (art by Anna Steinbauer, whose continued work on behalf of lesbians everywhere is greatly appreciated)

So you come home and your ex is in your apartment, slung insouciantly over your good armchair, and you’re like, “Hey, Bec, what the hell are you doing here?” and she’s like, “I came to get my stuff,” and you’re like, “What, the turtleneck? I would have given that to you if you’d responded to my fucking texts,” and she stands up and says, “Hey, remember the first time we made out?” and you blink for a second and then you say, “Yeah,” cause you do - you were watching Twin Peaks together on the couch and when you got up to go get water she called you back, and when you turned around, she kissed you full on the mouth, and you took a step back and practically fell onto the ottoman, and she followed you down and pinned your wrists and kissed all the breath out of you, and it was so exactly what you had wanted to happen for so long.

“And do you remember,” she says, coming toward you with an expression you can’t interpret, “that time I got sick and couldn’t get out of bed for a week and you called in sick too and stayed with me the entire time, making me soup and tea and taking my temperature and reading to me, even when I was delirious, and we got so behind on rent that we had to eat nothing but ramen for the next month?” and you say, “Of course, Bec, I -”

“And do you remember,” she says, very quietly, tucking your hair behind your ear, “that last night, when we both knew it was over between us, and decided we might as well go out swinging, and I got out the strap-on and fucked you so loud the neighbors called the cops?” and you do remember, you’ve used that memory several times since on particularly lonely nights, but you say, “Bec, what do you want?” trying to keep the shaking out of your voice, you know, trying not to cry, not in front of her, and she whispers in your ear: “I said I came to get my stuff. Those memories don’t belong to you,” and there’s a piercing pain in your temple -

When you come to, you’re alone in your apartment. There’s a black turtleneck in a box by the door. You know it’s not yours, but you can’t for the life of you think whose it might be.

#wifelink #there were more i could have included - almost all of them golgari elves in fungal fashions #but i think quality over quantity is the way to go here

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