#i will never get over reading homestuck and being like wait am i. am i weird for that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wifegideonnav · 3 months

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should i read homestuck. like i feel it would be interesting so i could see what yall are talking about in regards to tlt but is homestuck actually good

"is homestuck good" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 8129 pages of heated debate,

no but seriously, it highkey depends on 1. your definition of good and 2. your tolerance for stupid bullshit. as someone who read tlt and then hs, i'd say that being a fan of the chaotic aspect of tlt is a good predictor of being able to hang in with homestuck.

readmore because this. um. got long. the tl;dr is: i like homestuck a lot and i am glad i read it. i can't tell you if you should read it bc idk your tastes, but there is a lot to like and enjoy about it.

the official pitch for homestuck is something like "4 kids play a game and then a bunch of other shit happens." here's my pitch based on what the core of the story is to me:

several groups of characters across time, space, and reality are brought together in order to succeed at creating a new universe after their own are destroyed. this takes the form of a game, which is called sburb (by the humans) and sgrub (by the trolls). the characters must contend with an eternal battle against good and evil in which they are the deciding factor, and level up while following personalized quests. at its heart, homestuck is about relationships of every sort and how they shape us, growing up and the associated grief and loss, coming into ones identity and choosing who to be, predestination and fate, and stories themselves. it gets very meta at times, and the characters are semi to fully aware that they're characters, and attempt to subvert or escape that. it's got hordes of fleshed out, compelling characters, one of which will almost certainly glom onto you for the rest of your life, real emotion, extremely funny jokes, smart and exciting plotting, and some very cool moments. it more or less invented an entire new genre/medium, and plays with medium in a very cool way.

it is also clunky, hard to get into, and way too convoluted. you will never fully understand what's happening. there are tons of characters whose stories you will follow whom you simply do not care about. there are too many characters. it was written by an edgelord in 2009 so there's some unsavory humor and character writing. it's so fucking long. the ending kinda sucks because the fandom was so toxic that hussie simply wanted it over with. the fandom still kinda sucks tbh. so many people have wrong opinions about it. it requires a very specific lens to approach and understand it. i still dont understand what happened with that fucking puppet someone explain it to me.

overall, i'd say that if you think you want to read it, give it a shot. i have a complicated relationship with it but at the end of the day, i genuinely love the story and the characters and i know they will be with me forever. it certainly enhanced my understanding of tlt, and getting to read more of tamsyn's writing was such a bonus (even though her taste in pairings is. not the same as my own). and like honestly. it's just fun. even when you're going "wait what the fuck just happened" you're having fun. it's really goddamn funny too. it WILL change the way you speak and also think about romance forever.

the best way to read it is to have an experienced reader guide you, but if you or other people don't know anyone like that, here are my basic tips:

i think most people know this already, but download the unofficial homestuck collection. just do it. it's like 4 gigs and it's infinitely better than trying to read on the broken website, and it's even ad free. it can also be modded - for instance ik there's a slur replacer mod (lmao) if you don't want to read those

act 1 sucks to read. you're like what the fuck is this, THIS is homestuck?? the beginning is radically different from how it ends up, so just hang in there. for me, it really picked up somewhere in act 3. just focus on the silly fun the characters are having and you'll be good

things you should actually try to follow in the early acts: the concept of a sylladex existing (the various fetch modi are only there for jokes and eventually just kinda stop being a thing), where all the copies of the game are, what each kid's relationship with their guardian is like, the mechanics of the game and the lore behind it, including classpects and quests

things you do not have to waste brain space on: anything about how the totems work, what the various machines are, what the levels are, basically any of the jokes that would be funny to hussie's original intended audience of software engineers and rpg gamers. oh and the intermission with the midnight crew and the felt, just know that those are guys that exist and you'll be good.

and the biggest tip i have is just. go with it. suspend your disbelief. a lot of the worldbuilding doesn't really make sense, but it would be a worse story if it did. when the time shit and ectobiology come into play, literally just go ok got it and keep going, don't think too hard.

so yeah i don't even know if any of this is useful but i hope it helps you decide. and if you or anyone else have follow up questions send em!

#asks #hs

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davekat-sucks · 5 months

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Finally got around to reading that update. I have to hand it to Roach's team, the art is a vast improvement over Kate's team and Aradia is goddamn adorable. Its good that Aradia and Dave finally, get to have a conversation about Time. The concept of two people sharing a classpect and discussing it has been around for a long, long time, and its never really been realized. The only other time I can think of is Jade and Kanaya's discussion about Frog Breeding and the duties of a space player. As far as I know karkat and dave have not talked about being knights, rose and vriska have not talked about being light players either. Its really a shame we had to wait this long to get this type of conversation and we might not have done if Homestuck 2 had been cancelled, or even had been continued under Kate. The discussion of "how a butterfly should flap its wings" and who determines what is the right and wrong way is a fascinating look at the mechanics of time travel in Homestuck and call into question the notion of alpha timelines at all, which I gotta say breathes a breath of fresh air into the world building. "Maybe some timelines should be doomed to stabalize the timeline I am in" has some dire implications. But Time is the aspect of The End after all. If Space is The Beginning and is what makes the universe, Time is The End, and probably stands as The Grim Reaper of sorts. Definitely an interesting concept. I forgot that Robo-Dave was an Ultimate Ascension, who is apparently aware of everything he will do and the outcome of such, he only needs to reach the points in the timeline where he makes the decisions. Very reminiscent of The Oracles conversation with Neo in The Matrix Reloaded. "You've already made the choice, you just need to understand it" I have to wonder how far his so called omniscience goes. He is supposed to be the Ultimate Dave, is he aware of the outcomes of the choices of Daves in other timelines? Does he know what Meat Dave will do and the outcomes of such? Who knows? Guess we'll find out. Im actually surprised Meat Dave still exists, come to think of it. I thought Ultimate Ascension merged all your selves together into one? I dont know. I hate to say it but I think its starting to pull me in. I havent started thinking about theories and questions about Homestuck in a long time. And honestly? It feels good.

I could see Jade and Kanaya bond over gardening. But nobody in this fandom remembers that little interest. But I'm glad to hear you are enjoying. I'm still hesitant because of the whole Jade gets shafted again from more character development. But at this point, it's a running gag and meme within the series and fandom. Just like the whole Vriska did nothing wrong saying.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Beyond Canon #HSBC #Homestuck2 #HS2 #HS^2 #Homestuck 2 #Homestuck^2 #James Roach

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shriekinghavoc · 11 months

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WAIT okay i am actually so invested in the god tier concepts. pls. pls explain (if you want, i mean. i am genuinely -eyes emoji-)

OH MY GOD THANK YOU

This also counts as a character analysis so if anyone wants to read that.... I guess this is also a Hank, Don, Dawn, and Holly character analysis!

For those of you who don't read Homestuck but are interested, here's a quick explanation on what God Tiers are. For those of you who have read Homestuck and are wondering what qualities I consider to be "behind" ones God Tier being what it is, let this serve as an answer.

Homestuck is basically like Sword Art Online in that it's about kids stuck in a video game. The difference is the video game manipulates the players' reality instead of being a virtual reality. God Tiers are the "final form" a player can achieve in that video game and grants them abilities they'll naturally unlock both before and after they achieve God Tier.

These abilities are determined by a class (ex: page, bard, rogue) and an aspect (ex: life, hope, blood.)

Aspects are vague categories of concepts and things. For instance: Light means both actual literal light as well as information, money, and resources. Breath can mean the literal wind and it can mean freedom. Even hobbies can be related to one's aspect: (space is about creation so hobbies such as gardening, sewing, painting, and writing are all known hobbies for space players)

Classes are how someone relates to their aspect and would use it to fight. This can change the whole meaning of the aspect, which I will explain for each Hawk and Dove. These relations determine/are determined by the character arc each character goes through in Homestuck.

Holly Granger

Class: Rogue of Time

For Holly's temper and offensive nature, I still chose the passive Rogue class. The Rogues are those that steal their aspect from others for the good of their allies. For a Rogue of Time, this means Holly is steals time from others for the greater good. For as little as we saw of her in canon, she mostly treats herself like a tank in fights, putting herself at the fore front of things while others worked on a solution. She literally buys time.

Holly also has some of the fastest speeds we've seen from any Hawk or Dove (not including Justice League Unlimited) out running Dawn on two occasions out of her few appearances (and Dawn was always faster than Hank, and Don wasn't much faster than him.) She also has a known interest in music (tempo and rhythm themed.)

Lastly time players tend to have strained relationships with others and tend to distance themselves in some way, putting up acts to drive others away, genuinely not caring what people think, or just generally being vocal about how they're fine are all canon traits.

Dawn Granger

Class: Mage of Breath

This may surprise some to hear, but Dawn is very much a lonely character.

Yes, she knows Ren and Donna before Hank meets them but she is barely seen hanging out with them on her own after. Hank, however, is always hanging out with them (as we'll get into later.) As Dawn, she sits squished against the diner wall so the "couples" can talk and tries to boost her own confidence by dating a guy as herself. For fucks sake- she dated Boston Brand. Even before she became the kind of girl who can't hold her beer, she and Holly were talking about bars not being her thing. She was the kind of person who upon finding out she wasn't the only Dove went an ocean over to find Hawk.

In the 80s, at the least, part of her arc was very obviously that she felt more confident as Dove. I'd like to think it's because, as Dove, she was still isolated and unwilling to let other heroes know their secret, but she was more open and freed by her solitude. She maintained her friendship with Hank, but she's also more confident because she has freed herself from their expectations.

So long as she's behind a mask, that is.

Onto powers: Flight is really Dawn's shtick and main, memorable trait. Since Don never got the chance, she's the only canon flier on their team. All god tiers can fly, but breath has domain over the wind. I made her a Mage because Mages gather knowledge about their aspect- which is what Dawn wanted to do with her Dove powers. She wanted to become a master of manipulating it.

Her seeking out new languages to learn, offensive but calculated for minimum damage approach to enemies, and her attitude towards bonds made this one pretty easy.

Don Hall

Class: Seer of Space

Space players get the most important job in every game in Homestuck: Getting the "Win" condition. This is done by breeding frogs. The person who has this job has to be incredibly kind, devoted, and judgemental and controlling and-

I love Don, but if he was not a space player, he would not be having a good time and neither would the space player. More than that, this is the most removed and creative task complete with a final boss that you actually need to speak to and talk to instead of attacking like some others.

Space, being a creative aspect, is great for a character that loves art so much he teaches it in one universe as an adult and knew more than one local artist as a kid.

A seer can see or divine through their aspect, which I think is perfect for Don's "Danger Sense" power. All Hawks and Doves are said by "word of god" to have this (in-comic bios, dc databases, most third party websites-) but Don uses it the most frequently in his time, Dawn uses it sparingly, and it's even suggested a few times the Hawks don't have it at all. Terataya (by name and context of their realm) is heavily implied to be a creation deity, their powers linked to that of pure life energy through the White Lantern rings. I did consider life for this reason, but ultimately Don was never a healer, he was a creator with a plan for the future of the world.

Hank Hall

Class: Prince of Blood

This may surprise some to hear, but Hank is very much a lonely character.

His entire character relates to his experiences with others and their impact on him. For as bold and loud as he is, he really does care about the other people in his life. He's always reaching out for people- grabbing Don to pull him over a fire escape, pulling Dawn away from Sal, hugging Ren over the shoulders and kissing her when she was scared, hugging his mom before breakfast- and when he loses those people- he's driven out of his mind wanting them back.

He did some really messed up stuff in canon when Don died, and I know it was retconned and I hate the plot point myself, but they sure did choose to have him turn into Monarch by loosing Dawn.

Hank would kill for everyone he loves, and he loves a lot of people very quickly and makes non-superhero friends very easily. Depending on the writer, he might still make superhero friends fast (Bette, Beast Boy, Barbara- love the Bs) and those relationships last a long time.

A prince destroys with their aspect, and Hank is definitely fueled as a protector (... even if he's usually the one getting protected in the end.)

Being a destroyer class also falls very in line with him being a Hawk, usually creating space for his Dove rather than just buying time (Though he did do that as well at one point- He's often seen making advances and driving foes back away from Dove and civilians, trying to control the fight or disorient.)

Other Notes Homestuck Fans Will Enjoy:

-Time and Space as well as Blood and Breath are opposites of each other and are actually a perfect cross on the aspect wheel, each of them being extremes of "concept" and "connection."

-Being a time and space player respectively actually works great for Don's "sky's the limit" and "it's worth a try" approach to enemies compared to Holly's more practical "let's get it over with" approach.

-I did customize the outfits (most notably Hank's and least notably Dawn's) this is because I think the God Tier outfits as-is look ridiculous on adults most of the time and especially adults without the Homestuck Body Type.

-It was an accident that the Hawks turned out red and the Doves both got knowledge gathering classes. I actually went through the whole aspect wheel deciding who would be what very carefully before I picked these four.

-It was NOT an accident that both Holly and Don are passive and Hank and Dawn are active classes.

#hawk and dove #homestuck #classpect #havoc blog

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weebsinstash · 1 year

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“Ann Veritas”

“Brad Lunaris”

Those names lmao 💀

No but deadass some of these stories have me ready to just start straight up mocking them in homestuck syntax because it genuinely feels like the author didn't take 5 seconds to start reading things out-loud to doublecheck how stupid it sounds

"My name is ISABELLA and I am an OMEGA of the HOWLERS PACK. I am only FIFTEEN YEARS OLD and it was been OVER 20 HOURS since I have slept, I have been WORKING ALL DAY to cook and clean for the pack, ALL BY MYSELF. My skin is just SO PALE and I'm just SO THIN that I am EASILY ONE OF THE UGLIEST GIRLS IN THE PACK. Every day I am BEATEN UP, sometimes for NO REASON, but I do not mind, because TODAY is my 16TH BIRTHDAY and it is the day I am supposed to meet MY FATED MATE."

Like genuinely I think if you were to ask me the worst story I've read, it would be hard to tell you because some of them are either excessively cheesy, the narrators mispronounce words, the grammar is awful, or the plot is just BAD. Like I feel like Back & Better is probably up near the top for the worst one just because of the entire premise "yeah you were bullied until the point you literally attempted suicide but your mate is your bully and he as well as two other men all force their mate bond on you which is basically rape and you fall in love with all 3 of them and for some reason they're notoriously famous Doms despite being seniors in high school which sounds like it should be illegal actually"

Like im just going to bitch about that again. I don't really consider myself a slut shamer moreso, if you have certain attitudes around sex, that's a red flag for me, and sorry, being 18 year olds who are notorious Doms at actual sex clubs? At 18? I think my genuine first reaction would be "were you molested or something, this is genuinely very gross and bizarre". Like no offense that gives me "I need you to get tested before I so much as swap spit with you" energy.

Actually this reminds me of a concept I've been playing with off and on. So imagine we have Reader who is either a late bloomer werewolf or a human, but either way was not raised in a pack, knows nothing about wolves, and during a road trip or vacation or something you bump into the Alpha of a pack and it's like, oh hey, he's actually like, really powerful and strong and not exactly ancient by werewolf standards but like maybe he's even a couple hundred years old. And he's been waiting for his precious mate this entire time and its you and he already adores you more than life itself 🥺

And imagine he's kind of this quiet hardened leader, dedicated and wise but by no means like old or incompetent. He's the leader of a strong pack, despite never meeting his mate. And for some of these audiobooks, there's a concept where the strength of the Alpha is the strength of the pack itself, and well... imagine if it is by no means unusual that you're walking around, trying to see what could potentially be your new home, and every so often you notice, "hey there's actually a decent number of pregnant women in this community" and you find out that, because the Alpha didn't have his mate for all these years, one of the ways he was bolstering pack strength and numbers was by breeding with females from his pack, not even out of love either, just procreation for strong future pups

Like "hello fated mate who I love ever so dearly, you don't mind that I've slept with most of the women in this pack at some point right? You've met several of my children already but that's OK because you and I will be having plenty of pups" like actually no thank you sir, fated mate or not I would kill myself before living in, like, essentially a village where my husband has slept and fathered children with most of the unmated women above a certain ranking, like. No lmao? Like imagine you're still trying to get to know him and a woman comes up in tears and just slaps him, "so now that you've found your mate you're just going to abandon me and our children?! I LOVE YOU, you bastard!" Like i think that'd put him in a bad light so fucking fast

Imagine if that Alpha Luna mate bond/strength of the Alpha and Luna is the packs strength bullshit is so strong that you're literally not when hooking up with the Alpha yet havent so much as pecked him on the cheek and several mated wolves have suddenly become pregnant after years of trying, like, the pack literally blessed by your presence, they're all so happy, they want you to stay, and of course this is when you find out you absolutely hate a ton of how werewolves live

Like lmao I was brainstorming ideas and I actually accidentally made myself shaking angry at the concept of like, imagine if you've been trying to get to know the pack and the Alpha while gently correcting people "hey don't call me Luna I'm new here and you know, who knows if I'm even staying" and at some point you find out the. Um. Extremely questionable ways they raise their children. You see a bunch of kids violently bullying one of the weaker and smaller children for being an Omega. You see children having to run self defense drills to be able to protect themselves and their pack but treated like trash if they underperformed. Imagine you see a higher ranked wolf just wailing on a kid during a training fight to the point it becomes a beating with the adult genuinely hurting the child as a punishment for failure and you go to tell the Alpha and he's like "yeah thats normal? Our kind can't afford weakness"

The fated day comes when you see a teenager have a smart mouth with your supposed-to-be future husband and challenging his authority and your beloved mate just raises a hand and backhands this kid as easy as breathing air and starts off on a tirade about how it isn't the child's place to question the authority of his Alpha, that hes expected to obey amd nothing more. Imagine the pack's shock when you stroll up to the strongest member of their community, "if strength and violence is how you solve all of your problems, what do you think of this" before slapping him as hard as you can if not beginning to try and fight him outright before someone else has to pry you off because he doesn't even defend himself from you

The Alpha standing there while you start ranting in his face about "is this supposed to be strength? Hitting children? Picking on those weaker than you? Am I supposed to be impressed you're an adult man who can't control his temper and responds with violence? Am I supposed to want to live in a community where people think this is ok?"

Like imagine being the Alpha and you're in the middle of disciplining some disrespectful pup, asserting your authority like you always have, after all you're the main protector and leader of this pack and it's important your authority is revered, and all of a sudden you can sense your mate and you look over and she's just got a hand clenching the shirt over her stomach with tears spilling down her face while she looks at you like you're an absolute monster and you realize with horror that she just made the decision that she's never going to have children with you, let alone let you be her husband

Like imagine you're just bawling your eyes out trying to go back to the room where you have your things because you're IMMEDIATELY convinced to leave, you can't be here, you can't get pregnant here, you can't bring a child into this, let alone with a man who thinks this is ok in a community that supports this, and you're trying to gather all your clothes together while absolutely sobbing because, this was supposed to mean EVERYTHING! this was supposed to be YOUR SOUL MATE. And it's ruined! And the Alpha is just listening to you pour your heart out and (try) to reject him and you've got your little bag of clothes in your hand and you go to leave and he's just there in the doorway and just. Steps out into the hall and, click! Locks you in.

Like all I'm thinking of is how in The Silent Alpha the Moon Goddess mentions fixing people up when she thinks they balance each other out so it's "her plan" for you to mellow him out a bit while he's your strong protector (since you're just so Emotional and Weak UWU) and it just leads to you basically getting worn down until you're practically just a possession of his, having your own small authority as pack Luna but you're mostly just "oh his sweet little precious mate you're so small and cute 😍 " and God forbid if you're a human and you refuse to let him turn you, he'll probably just do it anyways, unless he likes the idea of you staying human or like, werewolfism isn't contagious in this story. Who knows maybe you'll even get extra super unlucky and Moon Goddess will give you some sort of magical power that the werewolves have extra reason to want to keep you for ;)

#sinprompts

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blazehedgehog · 1 year

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Guess reading isn't for everyone, like I have a friend who claims that after reading a page he retains zero information on it.

I'm similar, but not quite that extreme. I think it might be related to ADHD.

I've talked about it before, but when I was a kid, I had multiple teachers try to pin it on me and my Mom refused to believe them. As I've grown older, I've begun to realize maybe those teachers were right. What my mom protested was the "classic interpretation" of ADD, which was for kids that were uncontrollably loud, and fidgety, and impulsive. I was never those things. But since then, understanding of ADHD has grown to include the type of person I am.

As I'm reading, sometimes what I'm imagining in my head will cause my mind to wander. My eyes will keep scanning the page on autopilot but my brain will have fully checked out in to doing something else.

Then comes the realization of "wait, I haven't been paying attention to what I'm reading at all" and having to backtrack to the last thing I remember, which in itself isn't easy because my focus drifted in and out. So I remember bits and pieces of things and I have to try and figure out the source of what caused my mind to wander.

The more I became aware of that happening, the harder it's been to read, because now it's like I'm paranoid about it happening. And it wasn't easy to get me to read before anyway!

Reading comic books helps, I think. I mentioned before, but a couple years ago, I managed to read all the way through the original Dragon Ball -- 16 volumes! Sure, it took me more than a year, but each volume is over a hundred pages.

Having images to go along with the dialog helps prevent my mind from wandering, I guess. Instead of my imagination running away with itself and my brain tuning out to the actual words, I stay focused knowing exactly what I'm looking at.

But even then, I don't read tons of comics. I'm like five or six issues behind on IDW Sonic right now, maybe more, and really, that's kind of the only thing on my active reading list outside of webcomics, and the amount of webcomics I read has been slowly dwindling as more and more end or succumb to hiatus.

Like, if you want to know my active reading list for webcomics, it's:

Gunnerkrigg Court, which is very clearly closing in on an ending sometime in the next year or two.

Flipside, which for the last 2-3 years has been SO EXTREMELY SLOW that I've nearly given up on it, but sunk cost fallacy has kept me checking it. At least things finally seem to be happening again lately.

Barbarous, which if I'm being honest has completely lost me in the last couple chapters as character development leapfrogged my understanding of these characters and now I feel like I don't know what's going on anymore.

Prequel, which has fallen in to the Homestuck trap of short bursts of activity punctuated by long, long, long long long long periods of preparing for playable games or videos or whatever, meaning months or sometimes even years between posts, something I'm sure is very stimulating for the creator but not so much for me as a reader.

Awkward Zombie, which thankfully doesn't have plotlines or anything long-term, so it's low commitment and a breezy read.

Three Panel Soul, which like Awkward Zombie is basically two friends making new comics just because they feel like it.

Oglaf (NSFW), which is consistently just very funny.

Irritability/Maze of Death, which is something I've been reading since I was in high school. Author has a very strange sense of humor that can be hit-or-miss but it shaped me a lot when I was a teenager. I wish he'd update the site, though, it's basically impossible to properly read the archives anymore.

Dolmistaska, which I only just started reading less than a year ago and fell deeply in love with. Nothing but good things to say about this.

And then there's two comics I was working my way through the archives of and haven't caught up with yet:

Rock Cocks (NSFW), I don't specifically remember how or why I started reading this, but I've read close to 500 pages of it so far. It's about a exhibitionist rock band in a world where sex and music are like the most important things on earth. Almost has sort of a Scott Pilgrim feel with regards to how the world feels tuned to its characters. But it's also absolutely not for anyone under 18, given it is very explicit. There is nudity and sex constantly, but there's always a story reason for it. But the author is never shy and it is presented in full detail. So, you have to be down with that. It strangely never feels pervy, or at least I don't think so.

Kill Six Billion Demons, which triggered something new: pages are so dense with detail and narrative that a weekly update schedule wasn't good enough because I started forgetting plot threads. Characters would turn up that, in the narrative of the comic, were "just" introduced in the previous chapter. But when you're reading it as it gets posted, that previous chapter might have been three months ago. It just reads better more as a traditional comic, where you digest entire chapters all at once. I stopped reading in 2018 and have been trying to get back to it, since there's a big backlog to dig in to now (I'm at the start of book 4, and book 6 just started).

#questions #Anonymous #reading #books #comics #graphic novels

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simmonsized · 2 years

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Bro strider totally fucking sucks and that’s the fun part of making hcs and analyzing him. Thanks again for answering that.

I will look forward to seeing that development over the course of the story!

Okay, here’s the question we’ve all been waiting for…..

Is Bro Strider…. attractive?

NO BUT LIKE HERE A SERIOUS QUESTION:

How did your interest in Bro Strider grow? I can tell you’ve been around with Homestuck for a long time.

I’m gonna be asking a lot about Bro strider if that wasn’t obvious already because I ended up getting interested in him (along with the other guardians) once the alpha kids were introduced. People also kept drawing him attractive and my poor self can’t handle that. I am only but a human being.

THHSLFKJS:ELIFJES:OI O:IJFESOI this is so fucking funny to me i'm sorry thank you for asking i'm just laughing so hard

because like

he shouldn't be right bro should not be attractive he looks ridiculous he is just a little guy BUT the fandom just decided actually this guy must be sexy and that was the end of it! i feel like when i was younger i was probably like ya that guy is hot or whatever lol but now it's evolved to, "this man is so tired all the time also his nose is crooked because it was broken when he was a teenager and aLSO he has never slept ever in his life" so. insomuch as a scraggled up dumpster raccoon can be attractive, i'd say he is! i can only draw him one way lol so i think i'm stuck with my headcanons and just. whatever shame that brings on me

"I can tell you've been around with homestuck for a long time" is certainly true! i feel like it's come up more lately but yes i have been here since spring 2011 basically! i've been trapped here for 11 years......... help

BUT honestly it went from passing interest in like, the concept of the dude everyone was drawing, to a more concrete person, once dirk was introduced, and then i left the fandom for awhile, came back, read all of dirk and dave's huge heart to heart, and then became basically a rabid animal who couldn't stop thinking about bro strider!!

i read like, all the gen fics in the bro tag but it simply was not enough, and then when i finally sat down and started writing rng, bro just kind of. decided he had to be a part of it lol! there wasn't really supposed to be a perspective shift ever but the second it happened i was just like. wow i really like being in this guy's head????

honestly just the concept of dirk in general really gets me i think he's such a funny little guy, and awful, and if i'm being genuine, i bet i connected with him on a certain level in 2016, when i got back into homestuck, and that led me to like, the question dave asks in the comic which is like "who knows what life would have been like if we hadn't had the puppet hanging overhead" and then i was like yeah.... maN what would a dirk be like who was like, influenced by an outside force, and how do you reconcile the concept of a genuinely bad upbringing with someone who you still love and who is still a real person and is that person capable of change??? and like, what does a lack of control mean for A Dirk Strider???

and then, post canon, my thesis is, always, "Who is Bro Strider without a purpose?" and that's really my driving force behind exploring him c:

i always joke with my friends, "we do not apologize for bro strider, but we do strive to understand him as a dirk" and i stand by that!

yeah c:

#lol he has become my favorite character i have no idea how please release me #i guess it's too late! but i'm pretty happy heh

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vampthropologist · 2 years

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there is much more i could send u that’ll be greater than the klm song like any of the websites but this’ll probably just take years off ur life lol /lh

https://youtu.be/vpTT4M6Okes (Dream)

https://youtu.be/ZQt9rWYhv7E (Gamzee)

https://youtu.be/b8feTDua8EE (Sans)

https://youtu.be/kcAuiWNABpY (Wilbur soot vs Nanami)

https://youtu.be/7aUKQMU-VH4 (Dream)

https://youtu.be/sf6JGu6MaII (Monokuma)

https://youtu.be/D1mMbhPM5x8 (Luke Skywalker)

https://youtu.be/L2jqGb82zuE (LaLa)

https://youtu.be/G3uaroAWGoE (hot human lighting mcqueen)

<3 luv u!

NNOAISNDONASOIID NOO NOOO NOOOO why do the lyrics make sense 40% of the time? Why is the video like that??? I think all the songs will suffer from poorly placed Danganronpa references but ALSO HE IS DISSING HIM FOR BEING ILL??? AND NAGITO RETURNS WITH SLUR ACCUSATIONS?? THOSE ARENT EQUAL

Nagito you are a stoner too even if it's not shown, also the voice doesn't match him. HONK?? WHAT IS A HONK??? HUH??? This guy says mf a lot doesn't he? I am not far enough into Homestuck to understand all these references. Also it's hilarious to think that in preparation for this Nagito has read all of Homestuck. I wanna see a homestuck nagito sprite. actually i don't. please don't bring that into this world. FINGERS IN HIS ASS WAS THE ONLY GOOD REEFERENCE it's too bad it's sandwiched between mf and mf and mf and mf. GOAT DADDY??? GOAT DADDY?? ultimate bottom. bottom. sir. SIR.

Before starting there must be a fingers in his ass in here. Ok now I'm starting. THE SANS VOICE NOOOOOO. Everyone is making fun of Nagito for being gay. Sans isn't dissing him, he's just explaining Nagito's plot poorly. What does Kanye have to do with this? You better make a fingers in his ass joke. Nagito sounds like a nerd character from a cartoon. This rap battle was just simpsons vs nerd kid roleplaying as sans and nagito with no rap experience. Truly a disappointing performance.

Oh lordy I saw this in the reccomended before checking the list. They said her name out of tempo I'm already aggravated. What are Pants and ConnorEats? Are these references? YOUR LYRICS ARE SHITE BRITISH BOY. Stop saying her name it's not helping your horrible flow. His references don't hold any weight because I'm not an smp fan and then he comes out here calling her a camgirl. HAMILTON REFERENCE??? Her wordplay is better than his.

Another Dream one? Okay. WAIT THIS CHANNEL HAS LESS THAN 400 SUBS?? Let's see how it compares to the first one. Is the same guy doing both voices? NJASSNKJDkK DAMN THE CALLOUT. That line dropped flat Nagito I'm dissapointed. Oh they were 2 different guys doing the voices. Huh. This was mediocre.

The intro and the 200 subs really sets the scene. AHSKDJJBKKAHKASDDBKHDB UKELELE BACKING TRACK AND GUY JUST DOING HIS BEST. "You're just a twink with fucking yellow hair"- Monokuma. There are nagito napkins? HE JUST FINISHES WITH fuck you. MEGALO VANIA NOOOOO. this is just improv. This is literally improv. Or for Nagito's side it's improve because it really feels like when your classmates make a beat on the desk and another comes to rap to it freestyle. fuck you no fuck you no fuck you no fuck you <- basically. "I killed all your friends." "I again don't appreciate that." That's why in this Danganronpa, my hope is all that. Truly words to live by.

Sky, Elijah, Gabriel, how did you find this video? The person has 39 subscribers. This video has 229 views. How? MS paint opening scene. What accent are they doing for Luke?? He's BRITISH! lymploma. lymploma. your dead dog run over is the only time you're feeling "ruff". I have chills. Followed by I'm a Jedi from tattooine weilding a cool stick the only schtick you see is Hajime's which you'll never get. This is said by MS paint Luke skywalker. While you die like Chiaki. NAGITO DIES TOO??? HE IS DEAD??? HE LITERALLY DIES IN THE GAAME??? was star wars once considered neo nazi fodder?? WHERE DID THAT LINE COME FROM???? HELLO??? he keeps going "hah?" in between his lines. WHY WAS HAJIME THERE WITH A CENSOR BLOCK??? I applaud the creator for attempting to do fast lines. They just rhymed poo, goo, R2D2, fortune, and Beru.

Who is Lala, I guess I'll find out. Once again a small channel. I don't know where you keep finding them. Those lines were all flat and bad. Wait that's it?? Okay. Less than mediocre and not amusing.

This better be good with such an absurd catch. BJHJHBKHASBKJbSAKJ OKay I'll take it.

This was an exploration to the obscure corners of the internet. Do not try this at home. Thank you for your sacrifice of actually finding these.

#[🦇] ask #tw dsmp #tw dream #tw neo nazi mention #[☁️] skymaeda

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luna7822 · 17 days

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to any new followers out there that felt like following me for good shit and whatnot welcome to my blog as said in the description where i basically talk and post abt whatever tf i want and also do drawings too :3

(just showing my best ones and no im not just purely hs artist cuz i also like to draw other things too and all that so yeah)

heres the stuff im pretty much into for those of u who wanna know:

• smg4/glitch (including every show as well as tgd which i cant wait for and fuck off if ur from the f**base cuz it sucks and nothing more)

• inanimate insanity (mind u the only things i give a shit abt are mephone, bot, cabby, the lore in general and nothing else cuz honestly i could care less abt the contestants nowadays with how the f**base overly obsesses over them in the most boring way possible and whatnot so if ur a part of the 0*c then pls dni and fuck off for all i care cuz i really despise the 0*c sfm istg)

• homestuck as well as homestuck^2/homestuck beyond canon (haters fuck off idc leave me in peace cuz i srsly dont wanna deal with ur bs and also dni if ur a part of the f**base too cuz i also hate it sm)

• oddworld (ok so for those of u who are wondering how the hell is this even a part of my interests this whole thing pretty much started back in the summer of 2020 where i remember one day getting curious abt it to the point where curiousity ended up biting me in the ass and ended up getting obsessed with it after basically watching lps of the first 5 games at the time before soulstorm came out and being really intrigued and terrified at the same time with how much ill like anything thats obscure and good as shit cuz naturally i was scared shitless at first until slowly but surely as the years went by i eventually got used it and not to mention soulstorm also helped that out a lot since everything has technically already been laid out for me to consume for my own enjoyment and when that came out i liked it sm to the point where i was even more normal than ive ever been in my whole life but regardless i still cant get enough of it and ur just gonna have to deal with it lol :3)

• splatoon (mainly 3 tho i was already familiar with it beforehand cuz of smg4 and whatnot ever since i started watching it back in 2018 but i didnt really get around to playing it till april of last year when i originally only had a 3 month membership for switch online and when i didnt participated in splatfests that much until the frostyfest one and now here i am doing things and all that but im having fun nonetheless and especially with side order as well :3)

• pokemon as well (mainly gen 5 and the previous 4 and also gen 6 as well as some 7 sprinkled in there and not really much of 8/9 since its technically the most nostalgic one for me and mainly cuz of pretty much everything else besides the mainline games which i never got to play due to me owning diff consoles until i got my own switch on christmas of 2022 and basically got shining pearl as well as a couple others too but still)

thats basically it for my interests in general and i hope u all like my blog for all the good shit i do and all that so yeah dont forget to follow me too and read my dni list before following and whatnot if u like my stuff lol :3

my other socials too:

wattpad: https://wattpad.com/user/LUN47822 (where i also talk abt stuff and also where my hsbc patreon archival stuff is at too, also the only reason my username is like that is only cuz i think the regular version that i often stick with was taken iirc so yeah)

bluesky:

not active on there all that much since its technically still a new site atm and that im more active on here and wattpad but ill put it here anyways cuz why not

and yes i also have yt in case ur wondering but its just that i havent gotten the chance to post any good shit lately despite having a handful of ideas but still

#lunas rambles and shit :3 #intro post

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stinkybreath · 1 year

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My relationship to Stephen King’s work has historically been kind of adversarial. I’ve always been a reader, always into horror, and always been offputting, so adults would meet me, not know what to do with me, hear about my interests and go “oh you like horror and reading so much? Well surely then you must loooooove Stephen King!” as a way to try and relate to me

I, like many humans, did not like to be incorrectly pigeonholed. So since this started happening before I’d ever picked up one of his books, it became a subconscious resolution, some sort of post hoc personality trait, that I hated King’s books. This was of course compounded by the fact that my mother really likes his writing. The girls that get it get it etc etc

Then a for a few years in school, all the kids that normally didn’t ever read for pleasure were devouring It. Being a bookish weirdo desperate for ways to relate to my peers, I gave it a go. Fucking hated it so much that even at that time where I’d never before let myself not finish a book I started, I returned it to the library the very same day I checked it out. I gave him another few tries over the years, by dint of being stuck in waiting rooms (places you are almost sure to find a King trade paperback or two), and because my sestra insisted he was good, and also because it’s important to me to be culturally literate and he’s one of the best selling authors in history. Gave up for many years because I did not enjoy any of the chances I gave him.

Then I found the Ranged Touch podcast network! Tore through Homestuck Made This World and loved it so much that I have been tearing through some of their other shows, and Just King Things kind of loomed in the background, haunting me. “I hate Stephen King! But I love the quality of these podcasts. But I don’t want to have to read more fucking Stephen King! But I want more Ranged Touch content,” back and forth forever. Also, not for nothing, it was a way to bond with a friend of mine who had spoken about his love of King’s books and who was reading Worm for my sake and I figured it was pretty fair for me to slog through another few King books in return.

The point of this post, the thesis that I am getting at here, is that I have received such enrichment, such education and entertainment from the Just King Things podcast, that I have developed a critical appreciation for the writing of Stephen fucking King. A thing I would have previously thought to be impossible for me. I think it helps that I have found it at a time I’m hungry for intellectual challenge, but I find myself wanting to write about my reading experience. I know none of y’all are really here for that sort of thing (prommy this is not me being bitter, I just get that I haven’t done Actual Posting much w this blog and it would be a weird pivot) so I won’t really do much more and I’ll continue to use the tag in case you wanna blacklist. But all of this is to say. Listen to Just King Things! Talk to me about Carrie or The Stand or Pet Sematary or The Eyes of the Dragon (the works I’ve read that I‘ve retained enough of to have opinions about)! Convince me to read a few others maybe! There is, much to my surprise, lots to talk about here!

#skingtag

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tomatograter · 3 years

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Do you think Dirk saying that he doesn't like to label himself as gay means he has internalized homophobia? Or does he really just don't like to put labels on himself? I've seen ppl saying it's homophobia but there's ppl in real life that don't feel comfortable with labels so I'm a bit confused honestly, cus we are talking about Dirk and he's... Dirk after all

Easy answer: Dirk is Gay.

Prolonged answer: I think it's kinda weird how some fandom discussion around "Dirk dodging the label in One pesterlog" has largely spiraled way outside of its original context to be talked about in a vacuum, especially when that context is crucial to understanding what is actually being said, AKA — it belongs to a deeply awkward conversation between Dirk and Roxy. One of Many they are implied to have had about the subject of Roxy's sustained, unwelcome, and oft drunken advances towards Dirk (& his splinters).

I'm going to reproduce it plus another bit of text down below, for the sake of comparison.

(To prevent the trickster text from looking like absolute shit, I have altered the background. Read the original here, if you're nasty: https://www.homestuck.com/story/5754 )

Now that we've been reacquainted with how and where that sentiment is expressed, let's try to break down what Dirk is doing here.

He is not receptive to Roxy's early advances, and spends most of the 'intro' for this conversation (not pictured) ignoring when Roxy flirts with him, until she gets upset at how 'boring' he is being right now.

Dirk is the one compelled to apologize.

He proceeds to shut the scenario down as an unwanted probability, eliciting further guilt-babbling from Roxy over how Dirk never wants to play along with the perfect traditional family fantasy, until she finally blows up and says it's because he's gay.

"I mean, yeah, that's what I thought."

Dirk, rather than saying I Am Not Gay, since he looooooves changing a conversational subject, claims that "Gay" is not entirely historically appropriate for this situation, given the non-negligible passage of time and the wildly dystopic circumstances* they find themselves in.

Dirk reassures Roxy he does still care about her.

Dirk is absolutely terrified of a similarly inclined (and intoxicated) Roxy up close. This is the most exclamations he's ever used.

Now, *These circumstances? The loss of 99% of the human race, including their society, customs, culture, and prejudices. (ALLEGEDLY.) It's important to remember that from Dirk and Roxy's side of the timetable, troll culture has been pushed as "the norm" for actual fucking centuries. HIC tried to recreate the caste system by artificially coloring human blood, leading to the death of billions. Faygo came out of the water tap, not water. Troll slang was incorporated into the English language. Humans ceased to organically reproduce. They were actively Discouraged from reproducing, since that's not something HIC could have total genetic control over; rendering traditional marriage and the concept of the nuclear family pointless.

You could also argue that same-gender relationships are not uncommon in Alternia, making "gay" altogether unnecessary by proxy, and that's true! But my point is this one: any union (or at least our society's holy concept of it) between straightie humans would be by definition undesirable under HIC's rule, too. She is the church, the president and the governing body. The population is only as good as they are assets for her to do whatever she wants with, including mass murder.

But wait! While that tracks… Roxy clearly still holds onto very 'conservative' definitions of romance for most of Homestuck. We see this multiple times. Dirk, as proved in conversations with Jake, uses 'gay' as an ironic pejorative. Suddenly it's not Historically Inaccurate anymore, Jake's interests are just gay.

Does this mean the context above is basically worthless, since they don't seem to have internalized it? No.

What must be kept in mind is this: Dirk and Roxy's only "active" link to de facto humanity is our society as it was in the early 2010's. Those glimpses they get by talking with jane and jake. They have all that dystopic context, yes, but the reality that seems the most "unfucked" to them for a grand majority of their lives are the halcyon years before the Condesce's rise to power: back when weed was illegal, BlogSpot was popular, movies sucked, MTV was still a hip channel, and gay generally meant something real bad. The wave of homophobia as a punchline or fear mongering tactic was at THE HEIGHTS. Marriage equality was a hot debate topic. Those were the dayz.

Dirk is keenly aware of the taboo implication the word "Gay" as a self-denomination carries. He's no dummy. But he's rarely direct with his intentions either. He's slippery as a bar of soap. (He's never "straight about his feelings", if you prefer.) And for a guy that cares so much about his reputation and maintaining a curated sense of utter coolness, he wants to avoid outing himself as any sort of weirdo no matter the cost.

But that's not all. I think the gravity of just how much Dirk believes he *owes* Roxy simply for existing as the last human in the same timeframe as her is a severely underplayed aspect of Dirk's core character, together with how much he tries to avoid her sexual advances only to end up feeling like absolute shit over it, because — if they truly are the last people on god's blighted earth, isn't he being "selfish" and "irrational" about not feeling shit for Roxy, in the grand scale of things? Is Roxy not his only friend in tangible reality, even if he avoids the mere suggestion of visiting her? Even if she gets black-out drunk and tries to push him into indulging her, regardless of how many times he's already said no?

(Spend enough time here and you realize how it directly mirrors the jane/jake experience.)

Dirk cares a lot about each and every one of his friends.

He pointedly adapts his speech based on whichever one of them he's talking to in an effort to express that investment. May it be reassuring Jane, fooling around with Jake, or trying to prevent Roxy from falling into a total catatonic doom-spiral; he avoids telling them anything that would be too crushing to hear. That's not what he's trying to do here. Not to say that he isn't bitchy sometimes, but that’s far from the central thing he does. The Epilogues have retroactively led people to believe that Dirk abhors and despises every single person he's ever been close to before (god forbid) LIKING them, and I think buying too much into that assumption ignores the foundations of his canon text, as well as the central motivation behind 99% of his actions in the story. This is the guy that grew up on Friendship Is Magic, has a picture of rainbow dash shamefully glued to one wall and a rainbow poster of Jake's symbol stapled to another, and everything he does is a little cringe attempt to demonstrate his worth by showing how much he cares about people, even when he's punching his actual feelings down instead of up and saying them.

Which brings us back to the load-bearing part of this question: Admitting to Roxy that there is absolutely no fucking way he will ever agree to having her babbys because he is gay is precisely the opposite of what Dirk wants to say, if his intention isn't pulverizing her. So he doesn't. And his worry on this regard is such that it prevents Dirk from even telling Roxy that he does love her, in the platonic sense, as a friend and hell-earth survivor, because he knows that specificity is what that would disappoint her greatly. (He only ever confesses this to Jane, on the death slabs.)

But also I think this is a really funny visual of Dirk's relationship with the word gay, to put statements into perspective:

#homestuck #meta #dirk strider #roxy lalonde #dirkroxy #long post #janejake

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nimsabeef · 3 years

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davekat isn't a bad couple, actually

okay, i am bored and sleep deprived and i just went through @davekat-sucks's blog. this is a recipe for disaster. sigh. hope you don't mind me doing this ms. davekat sucks, its just that some of your takes were so frigid i just couldn't bring myself to ignore them. various thoughts under the cut

first off, id like to say that this not an attempt to blame you for making this blog, or for disliking davekat. you can ship whatever the fuck you want and express your opinion however you like. i actually really appreciate the courage. fuck yeah, go against the status quo. post about a controversial topic. fandom would be boring without people like you. but the thing is, your takes are so cold bestie. they are straight up frigid. i am so sorry but the sight of them got me freezing and shaking uncontrollably

why do you base so much of your criticism around hs2 and the epilogues whilst simultaneously claiming they're badly written and shouldn’t be canon? YES their characterisations were fucked in post-canon. that's the case for most characters!! it's kind of hypocritical to use post-canon as a basis to bash davekat and then turn around and completely disregard that when it comes to pairings like roxygen or rosemary. guess what! they were fucked over by post-canon too! and yet you're not going around claiming that johnroxy sucks, even though john basically abandoned roxy and cheated on her. you're not going around claiming rosemary is a horrible pairing because of the yiffy fiasco in homestuck 2. and you still like those ships. so do i!!

hs2 turned davekat into some kind of fanservice generator and robbed dave and karkat of most of their personalities, i agree. but that's because hs2 fucking sucks. they did that for most of the character anyway. why does it only matter to you when it's davekat? much to think about.

so yeah. im not going to address the criticism pertaining to the epilogues and beyond. im not defending them

another thing you keep bringing up is dave hating quadrants which, jesus fucking christ. it makes me doubt you have any reading comprehension skills. the label felt alien to him, yes. he initially rejected the concept because it seemed weird and off-putting, probably, and that's normal. most of the kids thought troll culture was weird at first. and! he didn't break up with terezi because he hated quadrants! he just doesn't like the polygamous aspect of it.

but let's suppose for the sake of argument that he actually, canonically, hates quadrants. what would that even mean? would that imply he would never get into a relationship with a troll, seeing as those would technically be quadrants? or that he doesn't feel any kind of quadrant-related romantic attraction? both of these were proven wrong by canon because: 1) he willingly got into a matespritship with terezi 2) humans can feel pale, pitch, and red attraction; they just label it differently. karkat elaborates on that in a conversation with john, probably around act6 act5. and davekat doesnt even fall squarely under any quadrant, so this is all pointless lol

one other point you brought up was that as soon as they got close to one another on the meteor, they stopped being active in the plot and disregarded all of the issues their friends were dealing with, proving that their relationship was lazy writing which caused their development to stagnate. this is a good point! but when you look into it, that's not really what happened.

the beta kids and the surviving trolls all began blending into the background during act 6 as the story began focusing on the alpha kids. most of them were sitting around, not particularly doing anything relevant, because there was nothing relevant to be done except for waiting. like kanaya, or davesprite, for example.

you mention that it was ooc for dave and karkat not to help terezi while she was getting abused. the thing is, terezi tried to keep her relationship with gamzee under wraps. she didn't really succeed at that, but people still didn't know exactly what was going on with them at first. karkat wasn't even told about it. he didn't even know she was dating gamzee up until very late into the trip. dave had just broken up with her and didn't know much about troll quadrants by that point, so he probably just thought it was all kismesis shit and didn't want to intrude. again, if he had known what was really going on, he probably would have intervened, but he only had a vague idea about it since terezi wasn't open about her relationship with gamzee. that is, up until the very end of the trip, and by that point dave and karkat WERE trying to encourage her.

you mention that they also didn't help rose with her addiction, but dave was trying! he spent a whole scene trying to get her to drink less! (the one right before the rosemary kiss)

but the thing is. most of the meteor shenanigans happened off screen, so we're not certain of anything. but again, for the sake of argument, let's assume they actually weren't even trying to help their friends. why would that matter? why would the fact that they weren't rushing to fix all of their friends emotional issues have any impact on their feelings for each other? they're traumatised teenagers, they make mistakes! theyre flawed characters!

kanaya didnt try to help terezi with the gamzee situation either. she didnt try to contact the ship either. instead, she spent most of her time with rose. does that make rosemary a horrible pairing? is it ooc for rose and kanaya? from what i've seen, this doesnt seem to be your opinion on the subject.

yeah that’s basically it. you don’t need to respond, but a response would be welcome. thank you for reading!

#davekat #hs^2 #homestuck #i dont wanna put this in the main tag #ill use the read more thing #sorry yall #conversing

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gyroshrike · 3 years

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Tell me why you love Gamtav; give me a whole rambling essay if you can. I like seeing people excited over the things and ships they like!

Oh, are you sure you want this? Do you really want to open Pandora's Box? Are you ready for the amount of rambling I can do about GamTav? How much time do you have? Because this is going to be a doozy. I haven't even started writing it and I can tell.

And before I get into it, people gotta know that most of this is based off of pre-murderstuck Gamzee

What do I like about GamTav? What do I like about GamTav??? One of the things that plays into me loving this ship so much is how much I love Gamzee and Tavros as individuals. Whenever I start reading a new piece of media, without question my favorite characters are almost always the really, really nice ones. Boku no Hero Academia? Kirishima. Anohana? Poppo. Legend of Korra? Bolin. And in the beginning of Homestuck, Gamzee and Tavros are just really, really NICE.

Oh, well, Gamzee is really, really nice. When we first see Tavros, he’s being a little shit to the kids, but that's because he was intentionally trying to troll. But once we get into Act 5 and we see Tavros interact with his friends, we realize he's generally a really kind person. His conversations with Nepeta, Gamzee and Aradia are all really sweet. His pesterlog with Vriska, which is the first one we get to see after he is revealed to us as a character, immediately paints a picture of him as someone struggling with his self-esteem and someone who is trying really hard to build himself up as a person. Way to fuckin’ endear me to a character IMMEDIATELY.

For most of the early comic until Act 5, we see all the trolls trolling the kids and even talking shit back and forth to each other. Gamzee was one of the first trolls who we see be purely sweet and supportive to his friends. His first pesterlog after we’re introduced to him is with Karkat and Karkat does nothing but talk shit. xD He does his usual song and dance of saying just the absolute worst things possible in that Karkat way of his and Gamzee just laughs and nods and basically says, “Yeah brother, you go, I love you, you're my best friend.”

We see Gamzee talk with Equius and we already know at this point that Equius is weird, but Gamzee is so jazzed to be talkin’ with his friend. He's just so supportive of Equius and even when Equius tells Gamzee that he must stop doing soper, Gamzee just says, “Okay, sure, you got it, I trust what you're telling me because you're my friend.” Now Equius is not actually ready for Gamzee to listen to him and backtracks and is like, “Wait, no, you don't have to listen to me, let's roleplay instead,” and Gamzee's like, “I don't know how to roleplay, but I'll try for you bro.” He’s just really fucking cute???

Short version: When we meet them, Tavros is someone you want to root for and Gamzee is just the nicest guy on the planet.

Gamzee loves his friends so much and from early on it's made apparent that he wants to love and support them, and would honestly do a lot for them even if he doesn't know what he's doing.

Also along with just being a generally sweet guy Tavros is the nerd archetype I love? He loves the troll equivalent of Pokemon and card games and other things like that. Also he just really loves animals? And I always love the characters who love animals. It's a really big weakness I have. Not to mention, talking with them? That's so COOL? So badass??? Like, UM???? He could control them, but he doesn't like forcing them to do bad things against their will. (Going off of how when suggested he control the imps to defeat them, but feels like that would be unfair/mean.)

SPEAKING OF THE IMPS. Of the twelve trolls, Tavros and Gamzee are the two of them who BEFRIENDED their imps. Isn't that so fucking rad????? They both started off fighting them at first, but then they both later mention that they are able to chill with their imps instead. Gamzee shares pie with them and Tavros communicates with them using his powers. I freaking LOVE that parallel. When I first noticed it I almost keeled over. See, I'm also a sucker for characters who like to attempt peace before conflict, so of course I'm going to love that both of them made friends instead of enemies.

So Act 5 Homestuck has already set me up to basically completely love these two characters. Now, I am a really big shipper. In almost every piece of media I go into I generally come out with ships and that's a big way that I engage with fandom. Now Homestuck, I actually didn't ship that much at first when I first started reading, which is pretty strange for me. I think I just kind of let the ships fall into my lap up until that point. I know my brain had really enjoyed the ideas of Karkat and Terezi, Dave and Terezi, and had even teased inklings of "What if?" and "Oh, I like them," about Rose and Kanaya. But for the most part I wasn't really into Homestuck for shipping at first.

The concept of GamTav, or PBJ as it was more commonly referred to then, was introduced to me by my friends. I had two irl friends who were reading the comic with me and they were ahead of me by some decent amount of pages at the time. At one point they started making references to PBJ and really liking PBJ and I was a little confused because I didn't quite know what they were referring to at first. I learned pretty soon that PBJ was Gamzee and Tavros and I remember being really excited for the ship because it was the first time I'd seen my friends get that excited for a ship. Which is really funny because now in the twilight years of the Homestuck fandom, of the three of us, I'm the only one gripping white-knuckled onto GamTav and breathing it like my life depends on it, while the other two have moved on to much different things. If I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure one of them doesn't even really like Gamzee that much anymore, but respects how much I love him and lets me rant and rave to her about him whenever I want.

It wasn't long after that that I finally got to the infamous "Make out a little" conversation between Gamzee and Tavros. I read the pesterlog and suddenly everything I had seen and heard from my friends made sense. I mean, not that I'm saying that's the ONLY reason GamTav makes sense. I just mean I understood what my friends specifically were talking about. Of the pesterlogs we've seen between them before that, Gamzee and Tavros obviously had a decent friendship. I'm pretty sure in the comic Gamzee was the first person to have a pesterlog with Tavros who is genuinely nice to him. (And this is conversation happens directly after Tavros’ conversation with Vriska, so it’s a wild contrast.) So as a friendship, I was already super down with Gamzee and Tavros-- you know what? Now that I think about it, I feel like I remember in [S] Make Her Pay being disappointed that Gamzee and Tavros were fighting alone and not with each other. Because a lot of the other trolls had paired up to be cool duos, you know? We had Karkat and Terezi, Feferi and Sollux, Nepeta and Equius, and I think I remember being bummed that Gamzee and Tavros weren't paired up. So I, at the very least, think I wanted things for these two even if I hadn't stepped into the realm of actually shipping them yet. I don't remember, this was YEARS ago.

Anyway, the infamous makeout conversation happens, and I'm sold hard for life. I have a lot of other Homestuck ships that I'm into and I enjoy, but none have ever, ever, ever, ever come close to GamTav.

I realize that I've written so much and I still haven't gotten to the meat of why I like them.

So I like ships where the parties involved are best friends. I love it when the characters in a ship are bros who love hanging out, who love doing silly things together. That awesome video "What your favorite Homestuck ship says about you" had me dead to rights. Called me out so hard. My ideal ship dynamic is "being stupid together"? Way to come for the throat. That's exactly it. At their core, Gamzee and Tavros are one of the funnest bro combinations I have ever seen. And what makes them so fun is both of them are huge dorks. HUGE dorks.

When we first meet Gamzee, he stares off into the colors of his miracle modus while making the most ridiculous face, tries to unicycle but just fuckin' pieruettes right off if it because his legs are too short, and just straight up reaches into his modus with his bare hands. Don't even get me started on how he scares himself with his own horns. That shit kills me.

We've already talked about how Tavros is a huge nerd, so that's covered. But like… have you heard him rap? This guy just gets so into it and has so much fun while simultaneously sounding so silly. He's flirty and awkward and ridiculous and has this shit eating grin on all the time.

They are those two friends who get up to shenanigans where everyone else around them just kind of shakes their head and thinks that they're so dumb (in an affectionate way), but they don't care because all they DO care about is how much fun they're having together.

One of my favorite things about Homestuck in general is it lets its characters be bad at things. John and Karkat suck at coding. Gamzee, Tavros, and Dave are bad at rapping. Rose becomes a prolific author, but I would argue she's bad at writing when she's 13 because, wow is it a slog to get through her wizard fanfiction LMAO.

And GamTav is a perfect example of two people who just have fun together being bad at things together. There's no pretense of needing to be cool or needing to be good at something or any type of shame or embarrassment. They're just so silly and they don't mind being silly around each other and they never make the other person ashamed of who they are. We even see some of that last bit in the comic. Gamzee never puts Tavros down. In one conversation, he acknowledges Tavros' disability, but doesn't taunt Tavros for it, doesn't make it a joke, or make him feel bad. It's just acknowledged and then they move on. Then Tavros mentions that while he doesn't share Gamzee's religious or spiritual views, he is supportive of them. I am such a sucker for shit like that.

In every way, shape, and form, Gamzee and Tavros are supportive of each other and just and totally uplift the other person. Both of these characters go through so much verbally (both jokingly and maliciously) at the hands of their peers for being who they are that Gamzee and Tavros' conversations were so refreshing to just see them be unabashedly themselves with another person.

And they make each other happy! Tavros' first conversation with Gamzee was the first time we see where Tavros is purely elated to be talking to the person he is talking to. And Tavros obviously makes Gamzee really happy. They just make each other so happy! And I love that shit!

Gamzee is, without restraint, supportive of everything that is Tavros. Gamzee is the type of person who would look at anything Tavros wants to do or is trying to do and put his whole heart in supporting Tavros and telling him, "Yeah bro, you can do this, you're amazing, I love you, go get 'em, you're the best, you can do anything you put your mind to,” and I love that for Tavros.

Gamzee was the friend I spent all of Homestuck wishing Tavros had. Tavros spent so much time talking to Vriska, interacting with Vriska, adventuring with Vriska. And that entire time I was just wishing that Gamzee was there instead, just so Tavros would have someone to be nice to him.

After murderstuck, I spent years waiting for Gamzee and Tavros to meet in a dream bubble. That was all I wanted. I wanted Gamzee to have to look Tavros in the eye and face what he had done, own up to everything to the person he loved most in the world. But of course, post murderstuck, Gamzee gets everything stripped away from him that made him the character he was in the beginning. It wasn't even a satisfying villain arc! It was just confusing! I feel like I could have dealt with it if Gamzee was a well-rounded villain. But instead his entire villain shtick was just surrounded by a bunch of question marks! I spent all of Homestuck waiting to learn what exactly was going on with Gamzee and then we never got that and that fucked me up.

And of course, oh, of course, up until the very end of the series, in the very, very, very last animation we ever see, Homestuck Act 7, Tavros is standing by Vriska's side, as he has had to do since the very beginning.

I haven't read the epilogues or Homestuck 2, so I'm not going to touch on anything that happens in those series and I would appreciate it if no one responded to this with spoilers. Don't even tell me things like, "Oh, you'll like Gamzee," or "Oh, you'll hate Gamzee," or anything like that. I don't want any hints. I already got enough. I want to form my own opinion when I finally get the energy to go in.

Nowadays, I stick almost exclusively to humanstuck AU's for my GamTav. Because even if canon GamTav wasn't so sad and depressing, there are other things that make me way too sad to think about. As a bronze blood, Tavros's lifespan is going to be significantly shorter than Gamzee's. No matter the good or bad context surrounding their relationship. Even if they were the perfect, fluffy, happy couple in canon, I can't deal with that lifespan difference. It breaks my goddamn heart.

I live in a world where I can rewrite the circumstances surrounding these characters and make it play out in a way that is much more to my liking. Writing them in humanstuck AU's lets me take away all of the things that make my heart hurt and instead repurpose them for really meaningful, emotional character building arcs and that's my main focus when it comes to GamTav.

Something I'm also really picky with when it comes to this ship is that I need the core of Gamzee and Tavros' character growth to happen apart from each other. I have found that I don't like stories that center Gamzee and Tavros or their relationship as the pivotal point of their development. I don't like when Gamzee is the pillar of Tavros' confidence. I do like when Gamzee helps out building Tavros' confidence by being supportive and saying nice things and encouraging him, but I don't like it when he is the main source. I don't want Tavros' growth to be hinged on Gamzee being in his life.

The same goes for Gamzee. I don't like stories where Tavros is the one thing keeping Gamzee from doing bad things. I don't like when their relationship is framed as being the one thing keeping Gamzee from going murder mode all over his friends again. I've read fics where Gamzee struggles either with murderous instincts as a troll or mental health as a human and Tavros is one of the only things that keeps him from going off the deep end. I don't like that. I want Gamzee's growth to be primarily on his own or at the very least not supported by his romantic partner. Of course, I love it when Tavros is there when he needs him to hold him or soothe him or say kind things or help him through his struggles. I'm not saying I don't want Tavros to comfort him at all or ever, I just don't want Tavros to be his sole anchor.

I just love idiot best friends in love.

Oh, OH! ALSO. Gamzee doesn’t give a FUCK about the hemospectrum. One of the first things he says to Equius is how he doesn’t get it, how he’s not better than anyone else, how he doesn’t even know how to ACT better than anyone else. How am I not supposed to love that?

Opposite sides of the hemospecturm relationships are so fun. I love the idea of Gamzee entering a room full of strangers and them being like “Oh no! :O !!!! Scary subjuggulator!!” and Tavros comes rushing over all happy and excited and they just snuggle all cute and gross and everyone watching’s jaw just drops.

This might sound weird, but I also think one of the things that endear me to characters is them getting misinterpreted and then me having fun drawing them more ‘accurately’? Tavros is so often depicted as uwu soft weepy boi and I love drawing him with a mischievous grin just as ready to do something stupid and get himself into trouble as Gamzee is. Equius TOLD Tavros not to go near the stairs with his new robo legs. What is one of the things Tavros does immediately? Go try the fuckin’ stairs. And he KEEPS DOING IT.

*lays down on the floor* I just… I just want domestic GamTav where they move into a nice wheelchair accessible home (modified in a similar way to Tavros' hive in Pesterquest) and Gamzee massages Tav's back when it aches and tells him he's the light of his life and in turn Tavros holds Gamzee close on his darker days and Tavros kisses his hands and brushes his hair out of his eyes and boops his nose and they laugh so hard together that they cry.

#homestuck #gamtav #gamzee x tavros #gamzee makara #tavros nitram #hs pbj #homestuck pbj #asks for me #anon #HERE IS IS ANON #RAMBLY AS ALL HELL

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ranboo5 · 3 years

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Dropping the Ranboo mixtape

Anyway at time of starting to write this post I had two likes and two affirmative replies, which is Good Enough For Me, so here I am :D I was gonna link the YT but on second thought my YT channel is a mess so this is gonna be one of the annoying ones that doesn’t link to one you can actually listen to but

This is also a running list and currently organized roughly by increasingly hotter takes and it’s under a cut bc it’s 13 songs and I justified all of them

Everybody Likes You (Lemon Demon) - LISTEN THE ANIMATION MEMES WEREN’T LYING THAT EVERYBODY LIKES YOU CAN RANBOOCORE. The increasingly distorted, incredibly bright repetition of EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU until you can hear it morphing in and out of EVERYBODY LIED TO YOU? Tell Me That’s Not Him In The Spiral Depths

Tall (Naps the Block on YT) - This is a) literally a theme for the End, b) sounds stumbling and anxious/high-strung, and c) echoes the Pigstep melody in the middle while still very much doing its own thing this is self explanatory

Dance of Thorns/Old Secret mashup (Tensei and James Roach respectively, feat. woodfur00 on YT) (yes this is Homestuck music) - It’s just the vibes. The energy. The way the elegance of the violin lines of Dance of Thorns sounds almost nervous especially against the almost noir mystery vibes of Old Secret, and the guitar lines of Dance of Thorns add like. Initiative/urgency especially when they underlay the other music it’s so good I don’t think either song alone is Ranboo vibes but this remix definitely is. Just the mix of perseverance and desperation and melancholy and mystery and Class

Touch-Tone Telephone (Lemon Demon) - This one is old news but tbh it just works. Man decides he’s the correct one in this situation and he’s losing his entire mind that no one is listening to him because he just is not

2012 (Will Wood) - This one isn’t really clever it’s just about memory loss, derealization, identity, and often self-hatred (“A miserable fuck, but a loud Tao mystical” is a lot). “Did you lose yourself?/It’s always in the last place that you check” sounds so mocking in ways internal monologues like Droice have been and “I might find myself/By retracing my steps” is literally just Ranboo dealing with the Enderwalk; “And not until lobotomy abolished my monotony/Did I applaud autonomy, and modify a lot of me!” works so much for him Dealing With Himself generally, and also “I heard the world would turn to hell/Compared to that, I’m doing well!” is a Him sentiment

Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In! (Will Wood) - Jokes about the three hour mining/grinding streams aside. Not only is the chorus so heavily a spiral/self-evaluation mood, but literally consider his thought processes abt the things he’s done/allegedly done and then consider “My dreams were shattered like a stained-glass window/Jesus in pieces! I believe I through a brick right through Him/But my memory could not be saved!/It just seems unlikely that it’s me who was to blame/So I bookmark my DSM, ‘cause I need to remember my place.” And now with the advent of the “experiments” the second verse’s “Take the road on higher ground, and tell me ‘don’t look down! You’ll fall and break your back’/But that just reminds me how there’s more to be found beneath the black!” is more relevant than ever

Friends With You (The Scary Jokes) - Oh my god. Oh my fucking god man. This could be on here for “I put myself to bed just halfway through the party/I love all my friends, but I hate when their eyes are on me” alone but the general almost empty saccharine vibe of the song is immensely his vibe; the humorlessly-smiling vocal fry on “don’t know” in “Why do you pretend/You don’t know who’s to blame?” is probably responsible for 80% of this read. Not to mention the first lyrics are literally “How long do I have to wait/’Til my lonely days are over?” which is really the. The waiting it out man the So When Do I Get To Be Okay of it all. Shoutouts also to “And the crumbling infrastructure no one else can see,” the self hatred of “I miss being friends with you/But what can I do/What can I do/But leave you alone?” and to “And I can tell you really love me/Can you tell I’m really sorry?” Just. The mix of hope+affection and dejected cynicism and self-hatred in the lyrics

Saline Solution (none other than Mr Wilbur Soot) - Remember what I said about waiting it out until you get to be okay? Anyway that’s crystallized in “If I could just break one more night/Maybe I could wake up and feel alright” and also this is literally a song about catastrophizing and self-evaluation just,, in general and I will not be highlighting all the lyrics about this but I will highlight the fact that he literally calls himself pragmatic and also the lyric “blurring the facts and the fiction.” Also, the sheer desperate anger-concealing-breakdown vibes of “I think I’ve made my choice” to “I think I’ve found my voice” deserves a mention, as does the culminating end of “saline solution to all your problems” with the tears+now splash water motifs of it all with Ranboo I am going to die

Funny (The Scary Jokes) - This is actually a softer take but not only does it literally start with the singer pleading with the addressee to look away, it continues with “I went up in the middle of the night and I climbed right onto the stage/And I raged/And I cried/Oh, what a funny joke am I” disregarding everything as performance, reemphasizes the opening demand with the qualifier “it’s not that I hate you, it’s just that I’m funny these days,” and then kills you with the last couple lines which. Yeah he does care and it does,,, just,,,,, a

Chemical Overreaction (Will Wood) - This is where the mood VIOLENTLY whiplashes because this is where we get unhinged. Anyway “I won’t stop to drop to draw a line in the sand/’Cause I’ll be picked apart to pieces by coyotes!” is LITERALLY the whole “I don’t do well with ‘peer pressure’” thing. “Where the sentimental value of the city around ya/Is deleted obsolete, but still completely will stun ya” is the single most L’Manberg lyric I’ve ever heard, especially from the perspective of a character whom I will repeatedly insist is narratively in the role of someone who’s shown up and seen the status quo as an outsider after it’s been established (hence the eternal New Kid vibes). Chorus very much has vibes of Ranboo Is Seized By The Urge To Do Something, and like. The entire dramatic end part. The last two lines especially (be very careful if you look up the vieo for this by the way it is NOT pretty; cws in the video for flashing, blood, suicide imagery)

A Mannequin Adrift (The Scary Jokes) - The Bitterness. This song is just fully The Bitterness at the environment he’s stuck in; the saccharine comes back as does the “peer pressure” thematic and just the Having An Awful Time; the sarcastic saccharine comes back too, which is always good I love passive aggression. Honestly the first verse is just everything like just listen to it it immediately makes sense

Poison Ivy Grows (The Scary Jokes) - This is overall a song about having bad brain and not knowing what the hell to do about it; it’s so faintly bitter and distant and melancholy and also so zoned out. Also, it’s not the only lyric that matters here but it is enough to be a full argument on its own: “I used to spend so much time/Wandering around outside/Now I’ve got too much on my mind/Now I’ve got too much on my mind”

Spring Haze (Tori Amos) - Listen. Do I know what Spring Haze is about? No. Is that gonna stop me from saying it’s about Ranboo? Also no. I just think “You say we’ll never make it there/So all we do is circle it” is so much, the fact that the bridge at the end is just “Why does it always end up like this?” repeated, and that it just feels so much like overall the song feels like a desperate attempt to figure Something out, and the chorus is just inexplicably him? It might be partially influenced by the fact that “Uh-oh, let go, off on my way” and, to a lesser extent, “Uh-oh, way to go” is not only in accordance with character vibes but also vaguely evocative of Ranboo’s speech pattern

#this also has a couple songs pending addition #this post is just That Enderman Is Deeply Troubled. Listen To Scary Jokes

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murdereraisuha · 3 years

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Classpecting TWST: Savanaclaw

Time to classpect the dorm that deserved better writing-wise. I’m gonna start tagging these “twst analysis” now too cause I am basically using the classpect stuff as a vehicle for getting a better understanding of the characters

Spoilers for chapter 2 and some of the trio’s personal stories. No knowledge of Homestuck required to read.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Leona, the symbol for the hope aspect, and the words “Leona Kingscholar: Prince of Hope”]

Before we get to the reasoning, I just want to say, Leona I am so sorry you have to share a classpect with Eridan. Okay now I’ll hand the mic to past me.

Throughout his personal stories, we see that Leona is fine with resorting to underhanded tactics, but he specifically values cleverness and creative use of resources. Leona looks down on those who don’t exhibit those things (ex. the Savanaclaw students in Leona’s dorm uniform story who tried to beat up Jack using sheer numbers).

Leona tends to only expend effort on things that benefit him in some way.

Leona is a powerful and intelligent magic user; he could have easily graduated already if he wanted to, but it seems he doesn’t want to.

Despite Leona’s strengths, those around him criticized him and constantly compared him to his brother due to Leona being the 2nd born prince. No matter what he did, he could not sway those opinions. He could never become number 1.

Because of this, he developed the belief that life isn’t fair and he gives up on things rather easily.

Based on this, I have 3 aspects in mind: rage, hope, and doom.

Rage and hope go hand in hand as opposites: rage is negative emotions, rejection, and doubt, while hope is positive emotions, acceptance, and ideals. For Leona, his story seems to be about him having given up on his hope and dreams of ever succeeding. In its place he has become quick to deem efforts worthless. He acts antagonistic to people like Vil and Malleus, and he seems to disapprove of some of Jack’s honorable ideals. All of these things connect to the parts of rage/hope.

Doom is also a possibility, as it represents negativity, decay, and limits. It is the opposite to life, the aspect that I picked for Kalim. Therefore, I think doom is plausible since Leona shows the opposite side to the luxuries enjoyed by Kalim and Farena as first borns.

Now for classes. I don’t think Leona does much stealing, he doesn’t suffer from indecision, he doesn’t put up any masks, and he’s not a very healing focused person. I think that narrows it down to witch, heir, mage, prince, and bard.

If it’s prince or bard it would have to be hope, in which case prince of hope fits Leona best due to his destruction of hope being focused more than just happening naturally. Though Leona has suffered, it seems to have more hampered his potential than gave him useful knowledge so now I’m kicking out mage. Heir seems to fit best if it’s as a heir of rage. Finally, I’m also kicking out witch since he he doesn’t do much manipulation of any of the 3 aspects.

Between prince of hope and heir of rage... it’s prince of hope. Since Leona says that nothing he did could sway people’s negative opinion of him, we can assume that Leona had hope earlier in his life that he could change those opinions. He did stuff like studying and improving his magic until he finally realized that that wasn’t changing his image at all. Rather than preserve his hope, he choose to destroy it, making his class the active destroyer class, prince.

In chapter 2, he rallies Ruggie the rest of his dorm against Diasomnia, using their hopes as a tool for destroying the other teams. In 2-24 Leona then tries to destroy their hopes once he deems their plan useless. At one point he says 「じゃあ本当のことを教えてやるよ」, translated by Shel_BB on youtube as “Let me give you a dose of reality.” This and the other things he says this episode really connect to the hope/rage themes of reality vs fantasy and stop vs go. Therefore, quite ironically since he is an actual prince, Leona's classpect seems to be a prince of hope.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Ruggie, the symbol for the Life aspect, and the words “Ruggie Bucchi: Rogue of Life”]

Ruggie grew up in a poor environment with food insecurity. Many of his clothes are hand-me-downs, he’s fine with eating odd things like dandelions, and before holiday break he raids the cafeteria for food to bring back for the others in his town.

Ruggie’s official hobby is part-time jobs. From working at Mostro Lounge to selling mandrakes, he’s really focused on earning money however he can.

His skillset, which includes pickpocketing and haggling, lets Ruggie pull off plenty of clever and underhanded tricks.

However, like Leona, Ruggie still has standards: in one of his ceremony robe voice lines, he says that he prefers his lot in life over that of a spoiled, rich person without any problems.

His dorm uniform personal story, where he teams up with Trein’s cat to get magic history help and catch rats, is about using the power of others instead of relying solely on himself.

There were 3 paragraphs of stuff here that I deleted because I was getting absolutely nowhere. I didn’t expect Ruggie to be this hard.

Like, Ruggie's problems kinda seem to stem from just poverty and Leona being an asshole. Well, hm, actually if we combine the moral of his dorm uniform story and Ruggie acting like Leona’s maid, perhaps Ruggie’s problem is something like he keeps taking on burdens? Out of everyone who lives in his slums, he’s likely the only one going to a prestigious school like NRC. He’s likely well-known there because of that and him bringing back food a lot. Are Ruggie’s ambitions for a good job not only his own ambitions, but that of the whole community? I’ve always been a bit confused about why Ruggie helps Leona out outside of the magift tournament stuff. Is he... so used to having to help others and constantly take on jobs that his standards for what’s reasonable work are gone? I just went through the chats and in Jack’s one with Ruggie, Jack is telling him about having to find something to draw for a homework assignment and Ruggie immediately offers to go get his warthog piggy bank. Bruh?? Doesn’t that have your money? Why are you just lending it out like that????

Alright, because Ruggie is a guy who needs to chill and have some me-time, I’m narrowing his class down to rogue, maid, or knight. For aspects, I’m thinking life (energy & luxury), time (action & death), or blood (community & responsibility).

On second thought, I’m kicking out maid and blood. Rogue & knight and life & time seem to fit Ruggie better. And now my best guess is rogue of life. First, he obviously fits the stealing aspect of the class through his skill at stealing. Like how a rogue redistributes things, Ruggie obtains money/food to redistribute to the others in the slums. He also injured the people in chapter 2, basically taking life from them, which resulted in Savanaclaw's chances of winning the tournament getting stronger. For the tendency of rogues to have a hard time coping with having their aspect, Ruggie has a hard time accepting luxury/relaxation time. He funnels all his resources into efficient causes and his community. Also, in Jack’s dorm outfit personal story where Jack tries to help him out with stuff, Ruggie is distrustful of him and goes out of his way to avoid him.

I didn’t have any sort of eureka moment with this one like I had with the twins, so I’m still unsure about it. However, considering that TWST characters obviously weren’t meant to get crammed into the classpect system, it makes sense that some might not fit perfectly. So, with what I do have, I think that Ruggie is a rogue of life.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Jack Howl, the symbol for the mind aspect, and the words “Jack Howl: Page of Mind”]

Jack values honor, strength, and hard work. He believes that people should accomplish things through their own efforts rather than lowly tricks.

Therefore, Jack disapproves of Leona and Ruggie's method of doing things.

In contrast to how Leona and Ruggie use others, Jack sometimes refuses help, like in chapter 2 when he claims he can handle his dorm by himself.

Jack is quite intelligent and insightful, as shown by his comments throughout chapter 3 and his scary outfit personal story.

Jack respects social/group hierarchies and takes care not to disturb order, as shown in his dorm outfit personal story.

Also in his dorm outfit personal story, Jack says that he wants to become someone with a single true purpose.

So, I'm already kind of stumped. He doesn't have any big moments in the spotlight during the main story, so there's not much to go off of there.

We have to start somewhere though. So, first off, I’ll eliminate the destruction classes and theft since he doesn’t do much of either. I’ll also eliminate the knowledge classes since I don’t think he holds any special knowledge of anything.

For potential aspects, after eliminating the ones that seem mostly irrelevant to him, I’m left with mind, heart, hope, rage, or blood. The 2 that particularly stick out to me are mind and heart.

Mind is the aspect of logic, unbiasedness, morality, and blending in. For Jack, his strong focus on justice even when it means going against someone he once admired seems very mind-like. His care in not stepping out of line in social situations also relates to blending in. Of course, we should still keep mind’s opposite, heart, in consideration.

Now that I’m pretty confident his aspect is mind or heart, we’re left with 12 possible classpects. I still can’t narrow it down well, let’s go back to Jack’s traits.

What challenges does he face or have to overcome? In the main story, the problem he faces is trying to correct the injustice in his dorm by himself. In his dorm outfit story, the problem he faces is being over zealous about helping Ruggie. Wait, actually, that’s not right. Though that is a problem, it seems like the main growth/realization for Jack is about his motivation for helping Ruggie. When questioned by Ruggie in part 1, he mainly cites the group hierarchy as the reasons for his actions. However, later on, Deuce deduces (haha) that Jack looks up to Ruggie like a big brother. Though Jack denies it, at the end of the story he asks if Ruggie would let him call him big bro.

It’s like he is concerned about justice and social harmony (mind stuff), but in reality he does stuff according to his impulses and emotions (heart stuff). This doesn’t feel like a prince/bard situation though, it isn’t dysfunctional or destructive enough for that. I thought that the pages of the cast might be Epel and/or Sebek, but it seems that Jack may be a page.

Pages, the passive exploitation class, are characterized by a deficit in their aspect that they try to hide and overcome. Like how Jack takes his service of Ruggie too far, pages often overshoot in their efforts to correct their weakness. However, as they grow and learn from their mistakes, pages become masters of their aspect, like in Jack’s scary outfit story where he starts out with a bad idea then at the end develops it into a sound plan to scare the tourists. That also fits well with mind, since smoke and mirrors is another big part of that aspect.

Therefore, with how well this class seems to fit with Jack’s actions and motivations, I think that he is probably a page of mind.

#twst #twisted wonderland #classpect #savanaclaw #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #homestuck #twst analysis

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