To say Homestuck is an important part of my life is an understatement. I think I was around 9 or 10 years old when I was (unintentionally) introduced to Homestuck via my older sister. She tried really, REALLY hard to not facilitate me being invested in the comic. She Failed. From day 1 I liked the simple designs and the funny visual gags and Eridan. Eridan was always my favourite. But the worst part? I didn't know how to read English at the time.
So, my entire understanding of Homestuck back then was a scattered half-comprehension of the fact that it was about something complicated with a lot of characters and aliens murdered each other a lot. I LOVED it. I theorise that it's from this period in my life that I got such an affinity for "patching up" stories, as it were. Being able to string together unrelated events in the narrative into some cohesive overarching plot was my younger self's instinct in order to make something understandable out of the monolith that is Homestuck, and today it's evolved into my incessant need for theories, headcanons that patch plot holes, and generally being overly-obsessed with timeframes and plots making sense.
It is also from Homestuck, you may rightly assume, that I got the cadance I speak in. Unironically, I learned how to read English thanks in large part to Homestuck, and it's flippent use of casual language, purple prose and unabashed swearing is potentially the biggest reason for why I speak like that myself. "Fuck" is a buffer word to me, and I blame Karkat.
All of this to say, though, that I was very, VERY young when I first read Homestuck (debatably not even HAVING a "first read"), and I was also quite young when it ended. And, truth be told, I hated the ending. I was very unsatisfied with everything that took place post-retcon (at the time not even knowing what "retcon" even MEANS so, yeah, another thing Homestuck inedvertantly taught me), and while part of that was due to my biases (I hated Vriska so fucking much) another part is that I just... wasn't media literate enough to really UNDERSTAND the comic. I went cold on Homestuck soon after the ending, other fandoms picking up the slack and letting me be obsessed, and while it remained in my conscience via a staple of my artstyle and vocabulary, it also kind of fell to the wayside. I'd attempt re-reads here and there but never get much farther than Act 4 out of pure BOREDOM with the trolls (which were originally the reason younger me even liked the comic!!)
So, think of me as a born-again Homestuck. I was indoctranated into the religion fandom at a young age, and was entirely too much of a baby literally and figuratively to understand the bible source material and what it was actually trying to convey, so I'm righting those wrongs now. I'm taking up the mantle and rereading the comic from start to finish, to see if I can get fresher perspectives or new opinions, and to finally settle the debate:Is Vriska Valid?
Was the Ending any Good?
Originally, this reread started as a scattered liveblogging attempt on Neocities, so this section of the page is dedicated to trying to reformat the limited text I wrote over there into something tangable and readable on a non-social-media site.
All of this is post-moving the liveblog to Neocities so it's formatted for the site specifically, and also I'm not constantly cutting myself off to fit within the post limit.
(2655) I find it interesting how quickly Vriska generally just Latches Onto John the moment she starts trolling the humans. She's physically and literally drawn to relevance and John, as the literal main character, is a hell of a vessel for that. It's akin to how normies just like whatever is popular, but in Vriska's case again it's a lot more wholesome and more deeply rooted in, like, her perpetual need to be in the spotlight, and John just kind of has a lot of naiive attention to give.
(2658) No-one but me gives a shit but I love the fact that, after her dream self died, the first thing Jade does is go back to sleep. Queen shit. I'd do the same. And it's equally as TRAGIC to be when I remember her narcolepsy is eventually "retconned" (not really retconned) to actually be Vriska's fault/Vriska's doing. I wish Jade was just eepy constantly like I am and that it wasn't some paranormal bullshit, it's just more interesting that way to me.
(2660) For a lot of reasons I genuinely feel for WV and his plight, the one moment he tried to do something great it immediatly blew up in his face and "caused" a massacre. He couldn't have known that it wasn't his fault that his people died. But also, it once again makes me wonder how the carapacians have such rich lives and yet they're "robbed" of a greater purpose, of any formal god-tier titles and any roles in the story that don't wholely depend on the players. It just seems cruel on a cosmic level. I'd honestly extend the same reasoning even to the consorts. Just because they're smaller than us and communicate differently than us doesn't mean they're unimportant, that their lives shouldn't be dignified. Sburb is a universe-perpetuation machine that Doesn't Care about the ruin it thrusts it's own universes into in order to achieve that goal. It's fucked up.
(2661) John and Vriska's perpetual goofing is really actually kind of interesting to read. Up until now I've always found John's conversations with ANYONE to be a fuckin riot, and Vriska's conversations in constant need of psychoanalyzing for me to be able to fully be invested in, and now it's like putting them in the same room has caused an equilibrium. There's nothing to "psychoanalyze" per se, but there's also not much to be hoolering and hooting over like I usually do. They're both genuinely just acting like normal kids and it's weird to me because, up until now, "wow they're just normal kids" is kind of a hard observation to come by. Mostly thanks to the writing style and vocabulary all the kids have tbh.
(2662) John asks the question that's been burning in my mind as well - Why does Vriska want to help people? This point is touched on more later on if I remember correctly, but as it stands now it's a perfectly valid question. The trolls are already doomed, and the humans are doomed too (from Vriska's pov), but I think her main motivation right now IS a sense of purpose. She's immediatly making it about her rivalry with Terezi, she's trying to be helpful in that meddlesome "Kanaya" way that's expected of Sylphs, and she's doing it for seemingly no reason at all. "Grand plans" my ass, I think she just wants to be involved in something and doesn't know how to do that without making it ABOUT her.
(2663) "Winning is the only point of anything" girl go to therapy. It really is interesting to contrast her "winning attitude" to John's, though. John's idealism and "winning attitude" stems from hope, he doubts that things are bleak, partly out of denial, but also partly out of just calling bullshit. Lived experiance of this game has, thus far, taught him that there's a way through anything, even things that seem impossible. (This will change when his dad dies, but) Vriska's attitude, meanwhile, stems from hopelessness. She's attempting to give her life purpose via winning, and sees no point in doing anything else because it doesn't contribute to the grander role of "being important". It's the same reason she scoffs at him for saying he has friends to rely on. She thinks it's lame because her relationships have been nothing but miserable encounter after miserable encounter, while John is happy to play a game with his friends and if there's a greater purpose along the way, it's a bonus. It's vaguely existentialist, in that John finds implicit purpose in living life for the sake of living life, while Vriska has a predetermined goal that she crumbles when she doesn't reach, because it's her only source of confidence and identity.
(2667) I love John using The Dad Voice to get the imps to leave his fucking room. This kid is a riot.
(2672) It's actually kind of poignant that John and Vriska's conversation about home veers into talking about shitty movies almost immediatly. I think Nick Cage represents childhood for them BOTH. John will eventually grow up to hate the movie and god, fucking mood on that front, but VRISKA starts off hating the premise only to realise she's like in love with sweaty Nick Cage or something. And I kind of can't help but draw a parallel to the fact that, yeah her life on alternia sucked, but the friend she DID make on that horrid path DID bring her joy. Her and Terezi's bond was forged under the worst conditions but it was genuinely something special, and Vriska's buried those feelings so deep that her nostalgia is being represented in-narrative with something completely fucking unrelated and nonsensical and comical. Which, yeah, it just fuckin be like that sometimes.
(2674) I love the stupid bucket thing it's completely incomprehensible. And I love John and Vriska being stupid fucking kids. Clueless dork who doesnt hide he's a dork, and clueless dork who's trying SO HARD not to look like a clueless dork. It's peak, actually.
(2682) The contrast between John and Rose always makes for a really fun dynamic, but at this point in the story, about halfway until the reckoning, they've both grown so much and yet their dynamic kind of stays the same. John is as optimistic as always and Rose unironicly compliments him on his, like, inability to SEE the hoplesness of the situation, and there's a moment of John mimicking Vriska's expressions when Rose tells him he's the leader. This is super surface level reading I'm aware but John has the same relationship to leadership that Vriska has to acteual friendship - forged on accident and very lightly regarded, but one of their most important roles nonetheless. I think I just really love this page because I love John and Rose's dynamic LMAO
(2685) I'm forced to read HS from my shitty laptop monitor today instead of my actually good larger monitor, which means that I don't. see Rose's face. The difference between the white and extremely light grey of her eyes and mouth are so subtle this shitty ass laptop can't pick up on it and Rose just looks like Slenderman's cool wizard daughter. It's a little insane.
(2692) Kananya I love you. The way she stammers her way into admitting she read Rose's guide is so like... packed with gay confession tones but in a lowkey way. Kanaya you're a sap and I love you. And I LOVE Rose's casual tone in reffering to Kanaya by her first name and negging her a bit on her rambling it's so fun and it's such a quick and easy way to establish familiarity in the form of an informal bond. OUGH I love it. A tiny bit of writing that does so much lifting.
(2694) I'm aware I have decidedly very little to say today about the dialogue I'm reading on account of the fact that my brain isn't working, but I still feel the need to comment every page or so because it's just fun. Like, Kanaya calling Karkat their leader as a contrast to Rose calling John THEIRS gives me slight Nepeta/Equius vs Feferi/Eridan vibes, though that may just be because of hindsight. What I mean is, my usual interpretation of the conversation is a straightforward if sentimental parallel, where Kanaya's bond with Karkat is akin to Rose and John's, and the conversations parallel each other in both themes and wording. My new and somewhat more cynical interpretation is that, while the Wording is paralleled, the meaning is opposite. In that, Karkat's behavure isn't really that of a leader, but someone trying really fucking hard to be one anyway, as opposed to John who leads somewhat effortlessly if unintentionally. I think I stand somewhere in between these two interpretations. I think Karkat is a different KIND of leader to John, and while the difference in intensity is comical, the entire parallel speaks more to Karkat's shortcomings than they speak of John's successes. I also realise the hypocrasy in saying "I don't have much to say" and then writing an entire paragraph while only halfway through the pesterlog.
Ok the only thing I have to add after the rest of the pesterlog is that Karkat is weirdly a lot more sexist than I remember him to be. Hm.
(2696) On the one hand the constant talking about the humans being "pink" and "white as a ghost" (specifically in Rose's case here) really DOES seem to hint at the fact that the humans were all always intended to be white as fuck. Which, yeah, is a little disappointing, but even when ignoring that there's the entire trickster debocle and the "peachy" joke, which... yeah lack of racial diversity is kind of baked into homestuck, isn't it? It's a shame, since the style really lends itself to a wide range of possible interpretations for the character's race (like a better version of Kris and Frisk's yellow skin in UT/DR), but I guess there's no fighting Hussie's lack of forethought on the matter.
(2703) Does ANYONE know how the fuck the horseshitometer or whatever the fuck it's called even WORKS? I keep not knowing what the fuck makes it swing in which direction.
(2712) Kanaya's "maddedning curiosity" about Rose couldn't be any more lesbian coded if she TRIED. ESPECIALLY knowing her investment in the situation because of the walkthrough. It's so much it's SO much and I love Kananya so so much.
(2716) I'm not gonna lie I lose the plot every time I reread this entire endevour from Kanaya's point of view. I think I just have trouble keeping up with linear time that this hopping around is just twofold confusion for me and I end up sitting back and just kind of. Watching from a middle distance with varying degrees of invested.
(2722) "Do trolls have names?" ROOOOOOOSE after my own heart as well as Kanaya's... But yeah no it's that sort of friendship only Rose is capable of where, after extended periods of antagonising, she just goes "yeah I consider you a valueble member of my inner circle and I'd like to know you better." I love these dumbass gays.
(2724) Kooki with the pointless parallelling and philosophising, but I DO think there's something to be said about the way John/Vriska and Rose/Kanaya mimic each other and yet end up entirely different dynamics. Kanaya's begun scheming while Vriska's begun meddling. And, god, there's SOMETHING here but my brain, again, isn't at full capacity right now. Something about how Vriska pushes John to what she wants, while Kanaya and Rose just observe and learn about each other for what they are? Vriska trying to mould a breath player to her liking again while Kanaya becomes enthralled with another light player... No idea. Just something about heteronormitivity vs queerness. I don't think Rose would even use labels for herself without a LOT of prodding but like, Kanaya piques her interest, you know? Again brain not working and also I'm in a crowded place where a lot of people are talking so I can't fully formulate thoughts. Ough.
(2725) I fully ebrace my formerly undercooked thoughts and now present to you the thesis: John and Vriska are each other's beards. They're both pretending to be perfectly straight and they're mimicking what straightness is supposed to be, down to the fact that Vriska is nagging and bossy while John is just kind of helpless and gullible. Vriska keeps talkign about fashion and John keeps complaining about her meddling without properly standing up for himself. There's some genuine connection/vulnerability buried deep beneath this, one reminiscent of their first conversation/s, but what it's devolved into now is a LOT more grating to read. Vriska keeps, just... insisting on completely pointless garbage with the same intensity that she tries to assist with important things, it's infuriating. And John isn't a peach either! He's just getting pushed around for no good reason and rolling his eyes as a form of halfhearted protest. Congradulations guys you've become insufferable.
(2726) The IMMEDIATE jump to Rose and Kanaya's 16th conversation when the last one we witnessed was their 8th is also striking to me. Genuine wholehearted bonding contrasted against whatever the fuck Vriska is trying to do. I have so little patience for that girl when circamstances for reading aren't perfect I swear to god. But, to focus back on Rose and Kanaya,
(2727) They kind of effortlessly both open up to each other via proxy of the walkthrough. Rose describes it as desperate and pointless and melodramatic, while Kanaya regarded it as both useful, informational, and (implicitly) comforting. Like she wasn't alone in the vastness of space, struggling with a game stacked against her, playing for the goodness of her entire race. She idealised Rose, but now that she's met the real her, she's so much more infatuated than she thought, or at least I bet she is. The way she speaks makes me think that, anyway. She's spending time with Rose just for the sake of spending time and it really really strikes me as that kind of "I want your attention but don't want to interrupt your general existance with my own."
(2728) This is actually a fadcinating moment of contrast between using "the gods" versus Skaia as a means of divination. Skaia is like a scrying mirror teetering on sentience, with a decided benevolance and almost Love for the players that will ultimately use it for their own means. The relationship is reversed with hte dark gods, as they are fully autonimous entities that are not as invested in petty human lives as they are in their own agendas, and direct action only so much as they see fit to get a job done. Skaia gives you what you need, the gods tell you what you want. There's a big difference and it's also clear in the way Kanaya and Rose speak to each other. Rose is direct and set in her own path, while Kanaya is helpful if a bit aloof and overly invested in perception. It's a fascinating dynamic I love it a lot.
(2730) Is there any part of this conversation that ISN'T fascinating???!?!?!?! Kanaya talking about "falling into those patterns again" reffering to how she fumbled Vriska and kept doing favours for assholes like Eridan, as a means of pacifying dangerous people. Partly she doesn't want to repeat that with Rose because of self-preservation, but I think more interestingly, she's being cautious of which quadrant she appears to facilitate with Rose. (This will be broken later as Rose asks her to show her "all the quadrants" when they kiss, cementing them both as queer in their respective cultures, but until then) Kanaya seems to Remember what Eridan told her a long time ago, and has taken it seriously enough to let it influence a new friendship/relationship. I just think Eridan's mild influence on their dynamic is really, really fun. But moreso I find Rose playing Kanaya like a fiddle to be infinitely more entertaining.
(2733) I like the detail the Vriska straight up watched this dude undress. She didn't have to do that. But she did. She also didn't have to make him a custom outfit??? Like, ok, with Kanaya it's one of her hobbies and it's literally described as her playing dress-up with Rose which I think is an adorable girlhood thing, but with Vriska and John it, again, feels kinda controlling? Just like her meddling with Tavros was, but less... immediatly destructive or antagonistic, I guess? I'm reminded of how I said Terezi persues relationships like a trophy, while Vriska persues them masochistically. I think something changed when she reached god tier and has, just like Terezi, began trying to "own" partners as a way of proving she's won something. Again, winning as a substitute for purpose with her. We still havent gotten to Dave/Terezi or Jade/Karkat, but just with John/Vriska I have a LOT to chew on when it comes to comphet and friendships with ulterior motives. It's like, she could've broken the mould here. She COULD'VE treated the blank state as a proper fresh start, but she's almost immediatly fallen into old, controlling habits. I guess addiction is a powerful thing.
(2734) If John transitioned and like that meme ended up identical to Vriska, I think she'd take it as a compliment. She's trying to mould him to be "better" but she's literally just trying to make him exactly like her, and SPECIFICALLY denounsing Tavros and his way of doing things, when Tavros and John arguably have more in common with each other than Vriska does either of them. Really Vriska's obsession with Tavros and controlling him, even when she's micromanaging John, is really troubling to me.
(2736) One thing I admire about John is his absolute lack of shit giving for Vriska's shenanigains. He only humours her as much as he wants to and just fucks with her the entire rest of the time. He's a champ, if I were in his shoes I would've told her to kill herself by now LMAO
(2737) I love how, halfway through the maturing in their adventure, John has been having a merry old time, Rose has become the world's most jaded wizard with homoerotic subtext, Dave's gotten into cryptocurrency and stock gambling, and Jade neearly fucking died. None of these kids are ok.
Also something something John and Dave both judge each other for their respective troll closer relationships and it's hilarious. Dave's right btw Vriska IS bad news lmao
(2740) Dave in the beaglepuss.........
(2742) The comic has successfully trained me in Vriska Mannerisms because my first instinct upon seeing Terezi's latest parody drawing of Dave was to count how many O's she'd put in the "So Cool" remark. It was 8. the fact that I'm debating with myself whether this was actually on purpose from her and she's parodying Vriska, or whether it was entirely accidental and doesn't care to count the number of O's to NOT be 8 because she no longer cares about their rivalry is, frankly, a sign of good writing I think. Or maybe I'm insane. BUT!! The fact that Terezi is telling Dave to out-pace JOHN specifically makes me think it's intentional. Dave's complete lack of receptiveness, both to this and to the entire ordeal of stable time loops, kind of foreshadows his future lament a-la "Dave of Guy" and I think it's neat. He's going along with all of this out of necessity rather than an actual will to be involved in a grander plot and you can see it as early as here. The rest of the page is just completing another stable time loop in the form of a money transfer so there's not much to say for now.
(2748) I fucking love this panel.
(2749) OH GOD THE PARALLELS Terezi descending a spiral staircase in the opposite direction to Vriska's debut of this composition is in itself an interesting parallel - a literal showcase of them being on different wavelengths yet functionally the same in outcome. Terezi strives for justice, Vriska strives for victory, yet they both come out sore losers or hurting their friends. There's also something interesting about how, where Vriska's window let us peek at her giant doomsday device from the stairs, with Terezi it's replaced by the Sburb logo, almost tauntingly saying this game was more of a suicide mission than Vriska's doomsday device was. It's almost frightening to think, because while this game saved the kids' worlds in many ways it's also the direct catalyst for their destructions. It's a mess.
(2754) It's dialogue trees like these that make me ship fefeta hate Vriska because she just inserts herself into the conversation, adds nothing of substance, and leaves. She even comes back just to make fun of Terezi like WHAT is the point girl. This isn't even like psychoanalysis worthy she just comes in and is like "I'm right about everything fuck you guys" and leaves. Ugh. Anyway, I DO find it interesting that everyone seems to respect Terezi's board more than Karkat's. It's like universal that everyone just keeps up with what Terezi says more while they clown on Karkat constantly. I'd call it sad if it wasn't well-deserved, Terezi is good at maintaining a memo.
(2759) Once again Sollux and Terezi's dynamic is impeccable (and I will leave comments about Feferi's presence later) but I particularly enjoy that they're discussing the numerals of the blind prophets. Knowing Terezi herself is blind and functionally a prophet, and that Sollux will eventually be blinded, I think it's possible to assume that They Themselves are the blind prophets that the numerals originate from and correspond to. Maybe. There's also a lot to be said about Sollux' depressive episode here where he'd rather not hassle Karkat about anything because it means he has more work to do later. He's kind of in a slump and can't bring himself to do anything productive unless hassled by someone to do it, which might give a hint as to why Feferi's hanging out with him so much. Though it might also have something to do with the encounter she'll have with Jade much later on via dream bubbles, but we'll see.
(2764) This panel is always very striking to me, because as much as Dirk is Dave's protector and provider, he's simultaniously a juggernaught of danger and an almost constantly active threat. He picks up a horse like its nothing, yet carries Dave in his other hand quite lovingly. Dirk is a man of multituted and frankly that sometimes scares me.
(2767) This is exactly what I was talking about in the prior paragraph. He takes care of Dave, but then also very clearly abuses him in that attempt to "take care" of him. You do not need to train toddlers. And while, yes, it's remarkable that Dave has the skills he's exhibiting at such a young age, it's one of those things where it didn't have to have been found out and Dave would've been better off for it. There's a parallel to his ascension on his planet here, in that those are all trials he doesn't want, but they're ones he needs. Meanwhile, what Dirk is putting him through is, in his mind, what Dave needs, when it's actually just what Dirk wants at the detrament of Dave's wellbeing. In the end Dave never gets to consider his own WANTS, because both his quest planet and his guardian were always concearned with "the greater good", to the point that Dave's stoicism is less an expression of genuine aloofness (like it is with Dirk) and more of a crutch he leans on in order to APPEAR like he has a lot going on when, in reality, he's mostly just confused and lost 90% of the time. And it alllllllllllll stems from childhood, baby.
(2768) Call me over-interperative but this panel shows that too, I believe. While Dave and Dirk are bonding (over turntables, Dave's eventual purpose as a Knight of time), what actually takes centre frame isn't Dave's childlike whimsy, and it isn't even Dirk's overpowering presence, it's the crow. Their brotherly bond is symbolically tied to the spectre of death, something that define's Dave's life in the classpect sense (Time) but also in the familial bond sense, as Dirk's death impacts him much differently than the deaths of either dad or mom influence Rose. Because, again, their bond is DEFINED by that death, rather than death having taken away something wonderful that was always there.
(2771) This is where I kind of want to point at Feferi because I find her just. Passive Presence(tm) here very interesting. She's visually acting as Sollux' shadow, while compositionally being the only thing that's letting him not get fully pushed out of frame. I'm not saying Terezi represents his suicidal tendancies, rather I think she's just a symbol of the general pressures the rest of the team puts on Sullux because he's their defacto "tech guy", and Feferi's non-conditional presence allows a sort of safety-cushion for him to lean on. The one person he doesn't have to be someone super skilled to earn the respect of. With Feferi around he's literally just the Dave of Guy and I love that for them.
(2772) I like that Terezi and Dave's correspondance starts with, and is defined by, false pretenses. Unlike with John and Vriska where their first conversation was almost tooth-rottingly vulnerable and open, with Terezi and Dave there's a beginning air of mistrust and mind games that allows them to be good friends later on. If not for this interaction, I think Dave would've been much more dismissive of Terezi, kind of like how he is of the other trolls. But there's also the fact that she influences what his authentic style is, the style he takes on to get away from his bro's shadow. There's a metaphor in there about friendship that's so outright I kind of don't feel the need to spell it out, but there's also the weird subtext of Terezi assuming Dave is a girl (trying to put them on equal footing) while Dave assumed Terezi is a young child (someone he arguably has power over). The way they both act the same no matter the validity of these two assumptions, again, speaks volumes to me about their friendship. Terezi was raised by a distant lusus in an isolated place and has a predisposition to assuming people are *like* her, while Dave was raised in a clearly abusive household where he had to carve out his own presence despite his guardian. The fact they BOTH grow past this (Dave attempting to not perpetuate the cycle by being "nice" to Terezi by troll standards; Terezi being kind of a conniving villain and using Dave as a means to one-up her rival) is really, really interesting from an analytical standpoint. Again, their friendship is important and changes them both, but ultimately, because it's built on false pretenses of all kinds, it's important to step back and realise it's not all sunshine and rainbows with these two.
(2774) Dave's irritability with crying and Terezi's teasing him over it as an extension of my essay paragraph from above. It was sort of pre-destined shit would turn out this way and they both knew it. But also, this is sort of what I meant by Dave's stoicness being a crutch. He can't stand the display of any emotion for any reason, but his quest FORCES him to confront these uncomfortable moments head on because the session basically knows him better than he knows himself. "You've been awake all along" and all that, Dave very much understands what he's about without ever letting it be anything he can't have vice-grip-esque control over, because that's exactly the framing his brother gave him. But, in an alternate timeline, in a different world, he literally releases a movie that's shitty on purpose on a big screen, and jesus Christ I can't put into words how much guts that takes. Dave is better off when he's being genuine and true to himself, but the stoic-ness is something that was semi-literally beaten into him.
(2775) "Forgetting to forget" is a further extension of this, he remembers things that aren't "cool" to remember and he feels ways that aren't "manly" to feel, and it's his friendship with Terezi that allows him to start peeling back the layers of this complicated onion that has become his emotional and mental state. Layers upon layers of irony that are kind of like the black licorace suit he puts on to try and be unappealing to Terezi. But, no matter how hard he tries, she can smell the genuine and the lies, and his biggest weakness at this point in his story is exactly her ability to be on his level while still playing him like a fiddle. Will be cont. when the Karkat memo comes up.
(2782) The outright paralleling with Vriska and John is something I HAVE to talk about. Like, more than I have already. Dave assumes Terezi is flirting with him (when she isn't) while Terezi is very explicitly in her mind-games way using Dave as a means to fuck with Vriska and knock her down a peg. Meanwhile, John is entirely oblivious to Vriska flirting with him (boy-skylark style), all the while Vriska SAYS she's using him to one-up Terezi when in reality she has a point to prove to herself, about her own worth as a friend and a player of the game (in this sense, the romantic game AND the sburb game). It's that thing I talked about coming back, Terezi holding up relationships like a trophy while Vriska seeks them out masochistically. It all keeps coming back to that and it's FASCINATING to me.
(2784) John pestering Vriska out of boredom is very fun to me, from both an analytical perspective but also just a human perspective. John's just being a normal kid with her and it's interesting to him to have her as a friend, while Vriska doesn't know what friends ARE anymore and keeps trying to pull superiority/rank on him. He's just trying to spend time with her and Vriska's like "ok but what's the catch" even if she doesn't say it like that. Meanwhile from a human perspective it's interesting to me that he even likes her. He remarks himself that she's kind of bossy but he doesn't seem bothered by it. Seeing as he wasn't really bothered by Rose taking control of his house, either, it just seems like a weird character quirk that John doesn't really have a line drawn for what people can or can't do to him and his immediate surroundings. He even let's Terezi's murder attempt slide it's insane.
(2787) I think what Vriska likes the most about Nic Cage is that he (and you'll have to forget what actually happens in the movie here and just bear with me from an analytical standpoint) has this sort of "yearning" look to him. When he makes eye contact with the camera, what he's Supposed to be convaying is unconditional love for a romantic interest, and Vriska's infatuated with it because all her life she's literally been swimming in hatred and has developed meladaptive masochistic tendancies just to derive SOME kind of joy from it. What I mean to say is I think Nic Cage might be the reason she starts to question her ways later on, which is bizarre to write but also it's Homestuck so I think it tracks.
(2788/2789) I find it infinitely funny that the way Karkat at first adresses both John and Dave is as if he's a condescending father figure. And, this kind of tracks with his whole bullshit macho thing he has going on, but it becomes increasingly funny when we take into consideration the next memo.
(2790) There is so fucking much to unpack here. Firstly, I'll piggyback off the prior point and jump ahead in the conversation a little bit, Karkat's whole "big angry daddy" facade falls apart the moment Dave calls him out for getting rejected. Dave and John both incorrectly assume it wounds his masculinity because he's gay, but in reality it wounds his masculinity because he allowed himself to fal head-first into idealised romantic tropes and spiralled like an idiot trying to earn John's hatred, failing, and then berating himself for even developing feelings for an alien in the first place. His disdain for the guys' involvement with the scourge sisters further supports this, as while his Commrodery brain is concearned for their safety in getting involved with murderous flirts, his Self-Loathing brain (which is arguably stronger in this scenario) is trying to get everyone up to speed to his new morals, berating them from "doing" exactly what he was doing only a few hours prior. There's a lot to be said about the fact that Karkat just, like, can't function when everyone isn't doing exactly what he wants (either for team synergy reasons or self-loathing reasons), but for now I want to step back and examine John and Dave for a sec.
John readily admits to never having romantic feelings ("for a girl" he specifies) before, and he has no idea how to act in any romantic situation whatsoever. I love Karkat comically making fun of John for this. But there's also a hint of "is an egg cracking or is a closet door creaking open?" With Dave, I think (in hindsight) this is one of the conversations that hints to his later involvement with Karkat (but I have Critiques about that, mostly that I don't think it's set up nearly as well as John and Terezi's kismesitude is, or even Dave and Tavros' little encounters, and you can only assume there's subtext in what he's saying to John and Karkat because of said hindsight of future updates and developments in the retcon), specifically if we look at the way he tells JOHN he might've rejected Karkat in the past or future, but doesn't even consider himself a viable target of Karkat's flirting. In this case he's correct but there is a moment of internalised homophobia in that, the "he's hitting on you because you're a dork and I'm too cool to be gay", but with John I'd argue it's worse. "You think Vriska has feelings for me" and "I have to marry Rose?" are just. Priceless. This kid has never thought legitimately about romance in his life, ever, and the fact that he never developed a real crush before MIGHT be projection on my part but I'm fully choosing to read as an egg moment. Like, me too John. Me Too.
All in all page 2790 has to go down in history as one of the best pages ever, and I'm NOT just saying that because I love voicing Karkat's lines from this page specifically.
(2792) I had a bit of a phase where I read a bunch and didn't write anything as comments and I'm gonna try and rectify that by going back and writing down most of my thoughts. However keep in mind this is going to be a lot more scattered.
Firstly I need to complement Karkat's theme as arguably my favourite piece of music to come out of Alterniabound. Playing it in the bg as I type this. Anytway, here's some hihglights from the convos (the only things I was taking note of):
Karkat/Nepeta This convo highlights the part about Equius and Nepeta's dynamic that I adore, which is that Nepeta just doesn't fuckin take shit from Equius if it's unfounded or dumb. Also I like the canon detail that Jade is Nepeta's favourite human, as I've been seeing a lot of posts from that one tumblr blog that posts nothing but Jadenep. Love that blog on principal.
Karkat/Feferi Feferi is SO delightfully creepy and it's moments like these that make me sad she was shafted as a character. This is the first hint to us that she was involved in the creaton of the dream bubbles and I LOVE that. I love her sm. Though, Karkat's general shitty stance on sleeping after their dream selves are dead makes me think that the sburb players are all natually attuned to the eldrich gods outside the medium, at least in some sense. It'd explain why they're able to ascend to godhood while people like the carapascians can't, and similar things. It's just a lot.
Karkat/Aradia This is out first showcase that Aradia is gonna explode in the future and goddamn it really does come from out of nowhere huh?
Karkat/Gamzee This is our first hint towards them being moirails, isn't it? Gamzee calling Karkat his best friend and Karkat ordering him around similarly to how Equius does with Nepeta. I wonder if they became moirails sometime during their session, because I distinctly remember them having a slightly different dynamic at the beginning of Hivebent.
Karkat/Kanaya I hate this sprite of Kanaya. Also "impromputations" is funny as fuck Kanaya stays winning.
Karkat/Equius Equius wants normal friends so badly it's actually a bit sad.
Karkat/Tavros I think the question about why Tavros didn't get robot legs sooner is a little absurd, not only coming from Karkat who just expressed how awful of an experiance that was for everyone. It would've required amputation either way and I think Tavros would've refused that on principal, and I think that's valid of him. Literally the only reason his disability is a problem is because his teammates are giant fucking assholes who refuse to help him. Tavros did nothing wrong and I stand by that, and I think the implication that Terezi's blindness is perfectly fine because she can approximate sight with her smell, but Tavros' paralyzation is a problem because he's not mobile enough to the author's liking is fucking insulting. There's a lot of things in Homestuck that could've been handled better, and a BIG one among them is how this fucking comic handles disability.
Vriska/Feferi I WILL NEVER STOP BEING SALTY ABOUT HOW FEFERI WAS SHAFTED this conversation and this DYNAMIC in particular always resonated with me like. Feferi can just put Vriska in her place!! Without even flinching!! Unlike everyone else she isn't nearly as scared of Vriska and I LOVE that for her. I'm kind of sad Meenah got the spotlight instead of Feferi tbh. Feferi my goat.
Vriska/Tavros For every instance when Vriska is redeemable or even likable to me, theres an equal number of scenes like this that make me want to bash her head in. Extra points for hindsight because I know Vriska is Hussie's favourite so all her actions are, to an extent, never properly repramanded. Her acting like this to Tavros every waking moment? Never punished. Kanaya punches her in the face ONCE but that's not NEARLY enough.
Vriska/Eridan Eridan being a pathetic little shit, nothing new, I just HAVE to point out how awkward shit is between them and how, like, lonely Eridan is by contrast. Vriska is constantly up to her throat in getting involved in everything, and even though she's isolated from the rest of her peers I'd argue it isn't as severe as it is with Eridan, because he's shunned by literally everyone. Vriska picks on people as a way to bond, but Eridan doesn't. All his advances, romantic or not, just get shut out the door on principle. Give by boy a 8r8k already!!!!
Vriska/Kanaya Another regular Kanaya W I'm so so so glad she has it in her to properly tell Vriska off after what happened. Girl I hope you hate her forever (I know that won't happen but shh let me dream)
Terezi/Feferi/Aradia I find it fascinating that Feferi and Aradia have a sort of "unspoken" parallel and contrast with each other throughout the whole story. Aradia starts as a ghost, Feferi ends as a ghost; Aradia and Feferi essentially swap between each other being the person who supports Sollux til the end of time; and in this small instance, we see a sort of contrast of ideologies. Feferi very much believes in hope, in the future and in growth, while Aradia views it all as immutable and stale by definition, paradoxes within paraxodes. It's just really really cool and I wish we got more of their dynamic in the comic UUUURGH.
Terezi/Gamzee Yet another one of those moments that makes me go "damn you crazy kids I wish you didn't have to grow up and become gruesome parodies of your once semi-functional lives".
Terezi/Eridan A large part of why I think this game's dialogue in specific wasn't given a lot of thought to is conversations like these, that are short, to-the-point, and lack future consequence. The most important scenes (that I'll get to in a second) are flash-forward scenes that give context for future happenings, and this game is almost like space-filler that acts as set-dressing for what the trolls' brief time on the meteor really looked like: claustrophobic, hopeless and a general pit of misery on account of the fact that none of them are really proper friends and its kind of sad. Anyway I say this all on this conversation specifically because it's really funny lmao
The actually important scenes in this [S]:
I have an entire theory about troll ectobiology that I need to get to writing sometime soon, but until then please know that Karkat's little scene with the little grubs will always hold a special place in my heart ♡
Terezi's future scene actually made me very very sad. The entire meteor has, as I mentioned, already a huge air of hopelessness and nihilism to it, this group of kids all essentially just waiting to die, but this scene with Terezi in particular makes me a little emotional because the dragonsuit, if I rememebr correctly, is like her comfort outfit that she goes to for strength. On the walls are scribbled drawings of her new friends, this deep longing and hope that things will turn out okay, that is just being violently taken away from her every moment they spend on this meteor. She's retreated to all her old comforting habits just to try to get through this utter hopelessness and, god, it's just. It makes me feel bad for this little psycho girl, y'know?
Vriska killed an innocent little cuttlefish she deserves the worst punishment known to man Vriska's section of the game is, I think, the first proper hint we get to her having ascended to godhood? Her literally being able to steal luck and all that. But it's also interesting because, all other parts of the meteor have everyone's stuff strewn all over the place, but Vriska? Vriska keeps all her items literally close to her chest, no one has her items in any of the chests, it's only her own. This serves double meaning I think. On the one hand she refuses to genuinely open up to others/be vulnerable because she's afraid someone will literally steal something from her in the process, and on the OTHER hand it symbolises her being "shunned" from the group in a sense, no-one WANTS her stuff so no one tries to take it and put it in a chest. Also once again her weird obsession with making John "the best" just to out-do Terezi is really, honestly pitiful. Like girl get a better hobby. Maybe some bitches. Idk what would fix her at this point she just kind of seems entirely too up her own ass to ever get her shit together.
(2798) This page specifically is seared into my mind because, a long time ago, when I was attempting a reread of HS, this is the page I decided to pause on and it stayed open in my tabs for like MOOOOONTHS, and I refused to close it and I refused to keep reading. So this page is just inexplicably and deeply iconic to me. I can't quite put it into words. It's just. This is the face of Homestuck to me..
(2800) Is this the first instance of John going "I never realised before how much (X) sucks"? I think it might be. It's an interesting sign of his growth and changing tastes and all that. Or it might just be spite after he realised they were made by crockercorp. (Also a note about the medalion: I think this is a sort-of not-really retcon where Hussie realised it'd make sense if the sprites were summonable via amulet, but couldn't go back and revise it so now it's an unlockable thing in the game instead of there from the start. I say this because I, personally, think it would make more sense if they were summonable by default.)
(2805) I HATE ERIDAN I HATE ERIDAN I HATE THIS SNIVLY PATHETIC SON OF A BITCH SO MUUUUUUCH i love him tho. On a real note, this is another interesting case of Eridan's words accidentally leaving a lasting mark, I think. First it was with Kanaya (when Rose asked "are you trying to pacify me?" and Kanaya went "is that what I'm doing?" I can vividly imagine her having flashbacks to Eridan's conversation about how you have to be conscious of what signals you're giving out to someone lest they get the wrong idea), and now with Rose in that he says something along the lines of "I can teach you about the quadrants" and Rose blows him off obviously, but later on her line leading into kissing Kanaya is something along the lines of "I want you to teach me about all the quadrants" and I just... I really love the idea that Eridan has 0 game at all times but by complete accident help set up these two lesbians. Yet another reason why I usually ship him as a moirail to Kanaya because it just. It Just Fits To Me.
(2806) GET HIS ASSSSS GET HIS ASS WHOOOOO HELL YEAHHHHHH
(2808) I love this entire interaction but here specifically I want to point to how Aradia is unironically so desperate to change fate that she's resorting to childish tactics that she despises in others. "If I say stop enough times maybe it'll work" and "I wish someone told me not to do it even if I didn't listen". She's clearly regretful of a lot of her violent outbursts, and a lot of her questioning of the status quo, and she must feel very guilty at being aware of fate yet completely powerless to change it, and every action she takes inevitably enacts the very thing she dreads. This poor kid man.
(2809) I like that Rose actually finds Aradia interesting to talk to, and I like that Aradia is just losing her mind more and more every second. She's had to enture so much and the cracks are really starting to show. I know she won't immediatly blow herself up after this conversation but it's a really good peek into her psyche and what makes her so, so unstable in the first place. This constant dreading of everything while not being able to do anything. The fact that she thought she was doomed from the beginning (aka didn't have a dream self, aka thought she was so broken she never bothered trying to "wake up" to reach her deeper truth), and how in reality her dream self has been sleeping on the sacrificial slab all along, just waiting for the opprotunity to open her eyes and finally reach her full potential............ Man Aradia makes me emotional.
(2812) God ok I hate to be that guy but Rose's proportions are really really super scuffed here. Her legs are fine but nothing else is. The hands? The giant ass heat? the way her arm is a toothpick wide? Ough. Anyway I love Nepeta and I love that Rose lightly teases her she's such a little shit.
(2816) This entire conversation made me so so emotional. Jasprose is the kind attentive support Rose always needed, and in this quest to save herself and her friends, she has to disregard that which would complete her - her companion and her completed planet quest. What's best for her is to listen to Jasprose, to learn to play the rain and to work on herself, to become a true seer of light, but instead circamstances are forcing her into more and more destructive habits, all for the sake of the greater good. In the same way that Dave is tortured by that imposed greater good, so is Rose, but while Dave suffers at the hands of others Rose's mental misery is almost entirely self-inflicted. She outgrew her laptop, but she thinks that means she outgrew Jaspers, too. She wants to save her friends, and the cruelest truth of all, is that it DOES require her to essentially outgrow herself, too. Leaving behind personhood and self-fulfillment in an effort to outmaneuvre the great undoing. I feel so bad for these kids, man.
I did the stupid thing again of reading ahead and now I have to go back and write the thoughts I didn't while I was reading. Conveniantly I'm also using this as a means of refreshing my memory of where I left off (because it's been a hot minute and I've followed other people's liveblogs in the meantime that got much farther than mine) but this is also a reminder to myself to make a new html page when the current Act finishes so this doesn't literally crash a browser with how much text is on a single page. Without further ado, let's get back into this.
(2818) Ever since it was pointed out to me that Gamzee was kind of a racial stereotype I've never been able to look at him the same way. The worst part is, I like him fine as a character, but now that I have the larger context, it just makes me sad. I guess that's what you'd expect from a Bard of Rage in a given narrative, though, isn't it? It's funny that he doesn't even remember his classpect here, but will later sew together his own suit of it. One of those weird growth moments of him that's left in the shadows. Also, this is another one of those pages where humans are called pink, and dave specifically is called the "pinkest" which I guess makes sense since he's blonde, but it still sucks.
(2822) Also interesting that Gamzee calls ICP blasphemy, but the Condesce will later on appoint them in the governmental position that juggalos had on Alternia. Weird stuff.
(2825) Even though Dave's riffing, he's not metatextually wrong in asserting wordplay as a skill determines social worth. Him and Equius both have strong ties to masculinity, specifically forced masculinity, and while Dave's able to wear his sherade on his sleeve for ironic credit points, Equius doesn't allow himself that genuine reflection. What to Dave is a semi-ironic way to have fun, is to Equius a deathly serious endevour of proving loyalty and worth to the world at large. I also find it apt that rap of all things is tied to masculinity here, because black men (and being black in general) is often seen as Peak Masculinity by the world at large, durability if I may be so derogatory. It fucks me up because there IS something about a pasty whiteboy and a literal blueblood strongman Performing that unattainable and made up ideal of black masculinity for the sake of proving their own worth, ESPECIALLY coupled with hoe much both of them are tied to white ideals of chivalry. It's like it's escapism for them both, "proving" masculinity while "escaping" ethnic ideals, but that's just not the case. This entire conversation, to me, speaks volumes about how both of them still have such a long way to go, how neither of them still realise their actions are batshit and they're not being their real authentic selves. Dave was always meant to break the sword, Equius was always meant to die at the hands of a higher blood, but does that really cement their fates as proper commentary on their given roles? It doesn't. Dave is always breaking swords, Equius is always bowing down. What would work for them both, I think, is to metaphorically put down their pens. Stop soliloquizing through rap battles and actually get their shit together, because performative masculinity doesn't make them men. It doesn't even make them themselves. I don't know, maybe I'm way out of line here, but Dave and Equius are a pair I really wish was explored more, especially in terms of symbolism. Constant performative apathy VS uncontrollable bousts of anger and lashing out. Vulnerability as weakness to be hidden and avoided. Masculinity as chains that tie you up and prevent you from forming real connections instead of aiding them. I guess the reason it gets to me so much is that, as a trans man, masculinity to me is freedom incarnate, and seeing it being very literally the thing holding these boys from genuine connection and self expression is really depressing. Sigh.
(2828) This page actually encapsulates everything I was talking about earlier. Equius talks about violence like it's an addiction, Dave thinks its empowering, but they're BOTH performing toxic masculinity for the sake of itself. "bow down to your new king bitch" can very very easily be seen as a sexist remark, but in This context it's implicitly supposed to be conquering masculinity and its shackles, through its worst traits. That, in and of itself, I'd say is sexist in a unique way because it asserts manhood is something to be weilded like a weapon instead of felt with your whole chest, if that makes sense. "My body is a weapon" rather than "my identity is my own" and I feel like THAT is the crux of Dave's role as Knight of Time and his character arc as a whole.
(2831) STUPID BIT OF NONEXISTANT JUNE HINTING: nic cage could very easily be interpreted as the "ideal man" John wanted to live vicariously through in order to satiate his feelings of gender incongruity and instability, feeling like he isn't man enough but Nic Cage Is. Equius drying himself off with this image specifically after the previous remark from Dave not only further solidifies the connection between masculinity and Dave and John's core character arcs, but also hints at the idea that Vriska is infatuated with the IDEA of John rather than who he is as a person. Will expand more on that as time goes on maybe hopefully we will see. I'm not saying this piece of symbolism is actual June hinting btw, I fully believe June was essentially an accident, but I think it's interesting to overinterpret anyway.
(2833) Terezi might've accidentally stumbled onto the core of the Knight title in comparing Dave and Karkat. They're both stuck in their own heads, obsessed with themselves via self-hatred and never truly living up to their ideals because of it. "Be who you are in the moment" is probably the best route a Knight's character arc can go, but definitely not the only one. Latula is probably an example of a Knight that never learned that lesson, ESPECIALLY on Alternia, she's a Knight that became a Tool rather than a Person. Dave and Karkat are always teetering on the edge of either route, but I think Karkat ironically enough gets closer to being Himself in the Moment than Dave does over the course of the story (if I remember correctly) but I'll let myself be proven wrong if I see Dave being less. Obtuse. About certain subjects surrounding himself. And also hopefully getting out of his own head.
(2836) Further emphasis on the idea that Dave is in his own head too much that I just now realised: his sprite is literally himself. With Aradia the symbolism is more akin to her being her session's guide overall, but with Dave it really truly feels like he doesn't trust anyone else with his thoughts but himself it's kind of insane. Further symbolism I just now clocked: Alpha timelines in and of themselves are a nebulous concept thus far in the story, but Dave Specifically puts emphasis on being the Alpha DAVE, and well we all know about the stupid fucking "alpha male" bullshit, it's like Dave's entire quest as Knight revolves around petty rejections of masculinity that only futher cement him as the "alpha" as the kid always trying to live up to the unattainable. I kind of can't wait to see how Dave overcomes that IF he overcomes it at all. BUT OUTSIDE OF THAT I wanna comment on how Dave and Jade's planets are tied together mythologically speaking. Hephestus waits for the forge, and I think Echidna might be waiting for the forge to be lit. I forget (and won't find out until much later ugh), but either way it's an almost textbook "lighting the flames" that's expected of chivalric romance. It makes me wonder if Dave's role in helping Jade is because he's a Knight or because he's a time player. We know Karkat helped Kanaya in making their frog, but Karkat's also the reason it was fucked up...? Maybe Aradia was the one who was supposed to help all along. Maybe Karkat's peresence (as leader, as knight, as masculine archetype) in Kanaya's process (chaste, lesbian, femininity in it's least destructive form) was what made it cancerous, rather than Karkat as a person being the cancer. I don't know, I'm just spitballing at this point. I appreciate that Homestuck uses a myriad of myths and legends as a basis for planet and game mythos but I also can't help but feel I'd have a better analysis of it if I had finished reading Jung's book on the collective unconscious. Or maybe I should've started reading archetypes first...? Sigh. I need to read more. Hopefully more than just Homestuck anyway.
(2837) Dirk is so allergic to not being relevant that he just up and VANISHED in the non-alpha timeline. I hate that bastars so much.
(2842) Speaking of Dirk he's on his stupid mastermind shit again. He already began the process of starting the scratch, ensuring his future self will exist and come into relevance. This is possibly something he knows because of Jake (directly or indirectly) thanks to the puppets Jake has set up in his fucking living room foyer thing. The guardians are AWARE of their alpha selves even if they haven't come to fruition yet and I find that fascinating. Really makes me with Skaianet the pseudo ARG was actually any fucking good. Maybe I should reread that too one day. SIGH.
(2848) Witches are symbolically social outcasts, just as they symbolically perform demonic rituals and witchcraft. Jade herself, up until now, has been an oracle of sorts through skaia, but in this dreams seems to awaken to the true source of her knowledge and sorcery - the great unknown. Her dream self is dead, and ahead of her is the complete unknown, things she can't fathom and things she can't turn to the comforting clouds to dispell for her. She's realised her role and is no longer the child she was before starting this journey. I think this [S] is one of my favourites overall, it's just so good, both in animation, tone, and symbolism. Jade is left adrift and helpless in the great expanse she's always been in, but is now soberingly aware of. Emptiness beckons to her, and she has to rise anew from this tragedy. Her death is simoltaniously a new beginning, as is fitting for a Space player, but in a similar vain her sleep is still prophetic, her dreams are still witchy, her knowledge (even if more limited now) is still vast and important and partial to goodness and growth. I love Jade and I love Feferi I love witches in general GOD this animation is so good. The horrorterrors being present all along through the squiddles is so fun and its EXTRA fun by virtue of Rose (light of knowledge) having always embodied this fact while Jade (darkness of isolation) had to dress it up for herself in different ways and not face that fact fully head on. I don't know its all fun and weird and I love it a lot.
(2850) I love Feferi dearly. She has this unbeatable charisma of someone so self-assured and pressureless. Or, at least, she does now. When we first met her she was under a LOT of pressure, mostly via Eridan. That's why I kind of appreciate her remark about "humbling herself" and becoming "peasentified" people usually cite that as reason for her to be seen as not actually egalitarian, but I'd really honestly argue. She doesn't treat Jade the way Eridan treats Kanaya, or Karkat, or anyone he deems "okay" out of the landwellers. Feferi is aware of and playing with the social order because, well, that's kind of all she CAN do. She was going to be empress, and now she is not. All that's left is to dance the same dance of aristocracy, but for the sake of communicating with others and comforting them she drops the act in a heartbeat. She's honestly really, really endearing in that way. Her seeing the good in the horrorterrors is comperable to how she doesn't see anyone as DESERVING of being royalty or not, she just sees the structure and fucks with it. A good parallel is probably Jane actually, and specifically because of the Prospit/Derse dichotamy between them. Jane DOES have a supremacist view of things, believing people like her and Dirk are just Always better off being in charge than people like Jake, thinking she HAS to take control of things because that's her Role. Meanwhile, Feferi sees her duty, and she sees her role, and she "plays the part" but ultimately questions and dismantles that order. Dersites don't make lemonade, they look at the person handing them the lemons, and ask questions. The same thing applies even to people like Eridan and Equius, it's just that they dismantle otherwise productive ideas (Eridan and hope, Equius and authenticity). Anyway, I got a bit side-tracked there, I find this conversation really really fun because it's two witches from across the galaxy trying to make sense of each other and their shared place in the world, with Feferi taking the role of the optimist and Jade the pessimist (which actually goes against the usual Prospit dreamers are optimists reading). Dream bubbles as a whole present this fascinating view into what dream selves really mean, because where the planetary dream selves are an "awakening", an understanding of the inner self and your true desires, the dream bubbles are instead the collective uncoscious, still baring archetypal meanings and symbols but otherwise being so much more expansive and de-personifying. You cease being yourself there, you become a shell or an echo, you're no longer really a single person. You're hundreds of Feferis or Aradias or Terezis from failed timelines tryinging to find the missing pieces of yourselves and what went wrong to lead you here in the first place. I'll talk about it more once Aradia gets to the dream bubbles I guess, but all in all I find it even MORE fascinating that a lot of the times ghosts in the dream bubbles aren't even aware they're dead until they come face to face with another ghost, kind of like how Jade had no idea what was going on until she got a slight guiding nudge from another witch. Jesus this paragraph is long how did that even happen-
(2852) FRUITY RUMPUS ASSHOLE FACTORY RETURNS AND OH GOD IS IT HORRIBLE. This entire exchange makes me feel so bad for Jade. She blames herself for letting herself be bullied, essentially, thinking she was weak to block them instead of returning the ire. I can't help but draw a parallel to Feferi and Eridan (especially with Jade leaving with a pschoooo which Feferi typed in the earlier chat) with the girl suffering for a long time because of an emotionally disregulated and overbearingly dramatic dude. Karkat's entire rodeo of self-flagelation is super interesting to me from a masochistic perspective, because it's clearly not enough for him to just bicker with his past/future self, he also needs External Influence to put him in his place. The Karkats argue about which Jade hates them more, and Dave coming in to make fun of them both is only fuel to the fire to Karkat who (even though he bans Dave) uses his observation as evidence that he's unwanted in Jade's eyes (with that Knight bullshit again, making me think space players ARE meant to be aided by time players, NOT knights), and Jade in turn doesn't actually berate Karkat that much. She tells him off but she also says "if you want to apologize im all ears" and, frankly, as someone who's been bullied basically all my childhood I CANNOT imagine saying that to any of my bullies. Karkat got off LIGHTLY and he STILL praises Jade for handing his ass to him, like she's a better person in his eyes if she hates him. This dude is actually so masochistic its insane I'm only just now clocking that. Him and Vriska both jesus, are ALL troll leaders masochists in disguise???
(2857) I often use hands, especially palms, in my own work to symbolise perception of the self. Without mirrors, without appearance, what we know of ourselves are just our hands, our actions. Jade ditching the strings is that loss of childhood and comfort I mentioned earlier, but it's also her letting herself BE herself without ifs ands or buts. She doesn't have to be the guide, she doesn't have to be the weirdo, she just has to be Jade, and that's all that matters. This page in particular, her happily running home (to John essentially) always struck me as poetic because it was grandpa Harley who abandoned Jane, and now it's Jade Harley running back home to her beloved brother, hoping he's okay. It's generational trauma flipped on its head, its embracing growing identities and doing that WITH your family rather than without. It's also just really sweet to me because after all the trolls, she still has a support system, and a game to play, and a life to live. I don't know, I just love Jade.
(2858) Continuing off of the last point, about John and Jade breaking cycles, in the same way John is Vriska's apprentice and Jade is Tavros', both of them undo what the other failed in. John is a genuinely helpful server player, Jade is an eager and self-assured client player. It's nothing ground breaking I just think it's neat.
(2861) Aaaaaaand this is where we get a look at grandpa's foyer. In the present moment, it's mostly used as red harrings, giving us the impression that Jade's sprite will prototype with one of those, then with grandpa's stuffed corpse, when what's really in centre frame is Bec and the true Death that will be prototyped. I also forget if I talked about it earlier, but the "destinguished guests" are all annologous to the Alpha kids' session. The mummy is Roxy, the knight is Dirk, the blue lady is Jane and the deer in a suit is Calliope. I don't know how much of the Alpha kids' session Hussie had planned when drawing this, but it's a fascinating parallel both symbolically and in-universe. Why does Jake already know about them? Why did Dirk know to cause the scratch? Why did Roxy go to the ectobiology labs before John even got there, and how did Jane know her and John would meet one day? It's all connected to Skaianet, I just know it, that company was doing some weird and shady shit and it ALL connects to Jane, and Jake, and Roxy and Dirk it's INSANE.
(2865) I can HEAR this image. Poor Jade.
(2867) THIS IS THE PART WHERE I FREAK OUT, the registry NOT ONLY now has a cloning pad and the ectobiology tubes (hinting that the ectobiology mechanisms in the furthest ring were a FAILSAFE and not the one intended to be used by players), but also a DOOMSDAY DRILL. I KNOW it's doomsday because it HEAVILY looks like the doomsday divice Vriska was constructing, and it has a fucking drill on it, and I can bet my ASS it was meant to be used to get the tumor from skaia. I would do the thing where I colour it black but that'd be unreadable on this webpage, anyway, I find this FASCINATING because it implies that Skaia, AS AN ORGANISM is fully ready to self-destruct at any moment if the players deem it necessary. Meenah did it to her session (and I bet this is what she used) and now John and co are gonna do it to theirs, because that's what has to be done. But what happens if a session uses a tumor even if it isn't necessary? Does killing the Skaia organism have some kind of benifit outside of a scratch scenario? And if it does... is it about completing the game? Because, what if a regular part of completing the game is not just making a new universe and claiming the ultimate reward, but ALSO about destroying the medium the players were up until now playing in, to ensure no parasite would take over without the players, and no further disaster could overtake it. I don't know, just throwing shit at the wall. I LOOOOVE LOVE LOVE the sburb mechanics so much its so fun its so good AUGH
(2868) MORE JUNE HINTING THAT ISN'T JUNE HINTING John is a LOT more ready to call the bunny a girl at even the slightest hint that she can be one. He kind of dismisses the idea that he can decide the bunny's gender and says he should stick to whatevers predisposed, and it's so fucking EGG of him I can't even believe. Jade is super supportive though and I love her. The entire thing about dream selves leaving corpses behind is still a mystery to me as they seem to disappear when the person wakes up, at least after they wake up their dream self in the first place. It's weird. I wish we got more concrete rules with dream self stuff but whatever.
(2876) It's interesting that Jack when to Dirk for a Fair Fight. It seems like there's an unspoken rivalry between the two of them as "lesser villains" so to speak. A different Dirk will one day fight a different Jack(s) and they will both die in the process. But here and now, Jack seeks to challange Dirk for no other reason but sheer boredom, it seems like. Seeking out and killing the guardians isn't retribution for anything, he just has a bone to pick with them because they're powerful and threaten him. I guess.
(2879) Bec is awake. The meteor approaches. Shit is about to be wrecked.
(2880) Little nod to numerology as a form of divination there (I should look into numerology more), but also I think it's interesting that Jade specifically thinks reviving the dead is part of the purpose of the game. Of course the girl who never got a sense of closure and was isolated her whole life would assume that. She just wants genuine human connection, and she thinks the game allowing revival of the dead is something that can facilitate that. I find it extra interesting because what she ends up reviving is her dead dream self, her childhood, and in bringing her back she's going to be unspeakably pissed with her. It's just interesting to me. There's also the bit about Jade calling grandpa "a strange and silly man" when Jane will later go on to call Jake "a strange and silly boy" we love parallels in this house.
(2886) This entire little scene really IS a microchosm of the future final showdown. Jack is one of his selves, Cal represents the other. Dirk is there, Dave is there, and in Sprite form Dave also has wings, a little like a dragon, a little like Terezi. It's just interesting that this battle seems to be unwinnable without her, even when Jack isn't literally Lord English like he will be one day.
(2887) John would use windows explorer confirmed. Also, THAT'S what Grandpa was hunting on John's planet! One of Typheus' minions!!! I wonder why he did? Maybe in an effort to help John in his future facing-off with Typheus? I don't know, it's all strange and enigmatic. Maybe he just did it for shits and giggles, god knows Jake's done more extreme things with less reasoning behind them.
(2897) I don't know why but I never imagined red miles to be particularly flammable or hot, but I guess it makes sense. It set the entire oil ocean on fire with barely even a touch. It makes me wonder if there's an attack in the ring's arsenal that can seriously fuck up each of the planets in their own unique way.
(2903) I love Rose and I love that librarian turtle. We also got a look at Skaia's true form in her book on the previous page. All really really cool stuff. It makes me wonder how long people like WV even lived on Skaia? He was a farmer there, but Skaia's original form, the original battlefield, only housed the Kings. Do some of the carapacians exist via last thursdayism? Do they move to Skaia once prototyping begins despite knowing it's ultimate fate? And what about the planets, where are they before they enter the medium? What about the denizens? They have histories and cultures before the players arrive, is it really last thursdayism or is there some nebulous space between, that houses all potential planets at once, that get ripped out piece by piece as sessions and different instances of the medium crop up? I'm sure Rose has the answers even when I don't. If we ever get that Sburb encyclopedia I'm using all my life savings to get it if I must.
(2904) THIS is why I'm so confused about the order of events in the plantes' creation and deployment. Rose glimpses pieces of the future, knowing what John and Jade will prototype, through the libraries and riddles already on her planet. As if the planet itself is a symbol of predeterminism, as if the chicken and the egg coexist at the same time in a nebulous void outside of time and space and come into being at arbitrary times, only to eventually lead towards one another anyway. Gah, it's really confusing, but also really interesting. I wish I could see the details of what Rose has been reading. Seer to Seer communication.
(2905) I like that we don't get to see what's on her card. I also like that Jade is a cutie pie look at her. Augh of all the kids she's the cutest.
(2907) nak nak nak nak
(2912) It's interesting to me that Rose's dream self is specifically ASLEEP again. As previously discussed, and seen with John, dream selves disappear when the waking self Wakes Up after the dream self had previously woken up. With Rose's dream self asleep, there's an arguement to be made that she found something out about herself, faced herself, but then chose to close her eyes to that truth and seek out new ones, breaking the game and helping her friends as a means of ignoring the darkness inside, the shadow that looms in the water. It's possible she's already somewhat grimdark but not fully over the edge, as the shadow of her subconscious slowly takes form in her dream self CHOOSING sleep rather than succumbing to the awakeness forced upon her. It's interesting from a psychological perspective and I'm sure Rose wouldn't have it any other way.
(2916) It's played for laughs here but I don't think I can undermine how important losing (masculine) idols IS in John's journey. Bill Cosby, his dad, Nic Cage, even Dave to a certain extent. John is rendered role model-less and has to figure what the fuck that even means to him. I'm wondering if this is an Heir thing now, or just a John being an accidental Egg thing.
(2922) "Just as I presume an heir would be supplied with what's needed for his maturation, assuming he's looking for it." John losing his idols IS an heir thing I was RIGHT. This scene shows that the best, with John doing the windy thing in order to stop the fire and save himself, something only he can do, something no-one else could've taught him, literally growing into his own once left completely alone. The only worrysome thing to me is that it comes at the expense of his self-esteem and via beratement, as if his given role (masculinity) isn't what allows him confidance or room to properly grow, only Pley Out the motions of his true self without really embodying them. More stuff about John being an accidental Egg, is what I mean. Maybe I just have eggs on my mind because it's easter. Or maybe it's John being really egg-like, because him admiring Rose for knowing so much and being so magician-esque reads to me as gender envy, especially with him putting Rose's current self on a pedestal (paraphrasing "it was more fun when you were like us and I didn't feel like you were better than me"). Rose explains she isn't all that special, implying John could knowand do the same if he really wanted to, but he seems dejected at the thought, like he isn't living up to his potential, or the potential he WANTS to be there. What I'm saying is all those memes about June looking like Jade or Jane are all wrong, June would just be a dorkier Rose. Send Tweet.
(2923) I like that Rose humours John, and similarly I like that their dynamic is almost always earnestly playful. They're just good friends and I wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe if John transitioned and got a bit of confidance they could be friends with benifits but I don't know I think they're better as just pals no shade to the shippers.
(2925) This is a small thing but I like the detail of the ground shaking also representing Karkat's yelling while still being a physical phenomenon. And, Karkat accuses John of enjoying self-flagilization or whatever but it's actually the opposite. John finds Karkat's trolling funny because he DOESN'T care about Karkat's insults either way. While Karkat is the masochistic fuck who keeps picking fights with everyone until they hate him. Smooth moves, troll romance guy.
(2927) Another one of the best flashes ever featuring one of the best songs in the comic. This flash in particular really makes me think Vriska just sees that the humans are about to fall asleep, and decides to be the one who causes it, just for the sake of it, without realising what it actually does. It's a weird inevitability paradox, like a lot of other things she does are. But overall I love this flash because it serves as both the introduction of one of the major villains, while also serving as setup for Jade and her general Role in the team, befitting a witch I guess. She's only as powerful as her familiar, only in conquering it does she grow. And, that's what's so interesting to me, this flash very specifically hints that she has to be the one to defeat Bec, and in the final battle she's the one dealing with her angry dogs who keep fighting. Her entire character arc is both external (helping people and pacifying a first guardian) while simoltaniously being deeply internal (she herself becomes the first guardian, as well as being constantly isolated from people). It's just a fascinating dichotamy to me.
(2933) The fire's turned green, and while red is a warmer colour, blue fire is actually much hotter than red fire. It makes me wonder if the green fire is radioactive.
(2934) It's interesting that Karkat calls "the" first guardian a "legendary" entity, as if he's never encountered it before. Even if alternia had one, he was never on its radar, and he considers it akin to a myth. Interestingly, he doesn't piece together that Bec IS a first guardian, just the one of Earth. It makes me wonder how much of the actual machinations of the session are actually known to the players, knowing they arent the ones sequencing the genetic code for a first guardian. It's all very very strange. Karkat eventually refers to first guardians as "of their planets" but, again, seems to be somewhat in denial that Bec IS a first guardian. Out of fear, maybe?
(2938) This art makes me wonder if the capsules? Ships? Metal house thingies that the exiles find. If they carry the properties of whatever it is they resemble, AKA the mythical item that had to be destroyed in order for the kids to enter the session. I don't know, I'd have to think on it more.
(2949) Oh I never realised, we're physically seeing Skaia expand here! That's why it's shaking so much! John fell asleep just as Jade was entering the game, so he's here while it's happening! This is making me question the origin of carapascians even more.
(2963) This is what I was talking about, John grows into himself via hating himself, feeling a lot of guilt and shame that aren't really his fault at all. It's interesting because he IS Vriska's apprentice in that sense, they both reached god tier without fully growing into themselves, and it takes a toll on them both.
(2970) First real reference to the Green Sun, in a very very pretty image. Again makes me wonder about how much of this Hussie had planned beforehand.
"Growing my hair out would look stupid" says john "and I definitely dont want to be a girl" he continues. Also this entire conversation is one big ego trip for Vriska. I understand that not prototyping Bec would've caused a splintered reality, but it only makes me wonder what kind of reality that would've been? We see later on that doomed timelines can exist for years on end before the full breadth of consequence really catches up to them, and it makes me wonder if the consequence here would've been the doomed alpha kids session? Like, if the doll was prototyped, and Skaia was expanded, and the kids managed to get close to beating their game, something would've prevented it and they would have to use the scratch and the tumor anyway. But, with the four of them gone, the alpha kids would be stranded in a void session, rendering it all for naught. It's all really confusing but somewhat cohesive, too. Like there's limitless possibilities, but only one of them is viable for survival, it's kind of scary actually.
(2980) Vriska makes a big deal out of being a hero, and it seems to get to John bigtime, in the sense that he has no idea what that even means. I'm gonna drop the June analysis here for a second and just focus on John as he is now, because in the current standing he's nothing but a lost underachiever just trying to survive and keep his friends together. He's dealing with the end of the world, dealing with losing his idols, dealing with his friends drifting away and dealing with the idea that he might've seriously fucked up the trolls' session witohut even meaning to. He's both put in the drivers seat, but not allowed to touch the steering wheel, a pawn of Vriska's and a puppet of Skaia's. An inevitable failure being called a hero, a ctntradiction contradicting itself. "Be the hero" in this case means "be the butterfly blown by the powerful whims of wind, accept your fate instead of fighting it", and that's exactly what he does.
(2981) In this instance, the windy thing is a power inside of John that is entirely in the hands of fate, in the hands of his own aspect. He's hardly acting on it or using it, as much as it is using him, and I think that's really interesting. It comes with being a passive class, but later on John will use his windy powers much more deliberately, and I think that's wonderful. But here, as he is, right now, the windy thing is less a tool he uses and more an alien power busting out of him. A violation of his personhood, turned into a weapon. Be the butterfly, be just another insect, and soon the flapping of your wings will be able to cause tornadoes tomorrow.
(2984) Vriska thinks John is a more competent Tavros, and thus John inherits some of Tavros' symbolism. In reality, Tavros and John are their own people, and the best way to represent that is them acting on the freedom they've been given or had to cultivate. I appreciate that John blew the clouds away to early in his journey, because it's a similar moment to Dave breaking the legendary sword. It's a hint to the true conflict of the character, and its magnetude, but only a microchosm of how far they'll go with that idea and with those powers.
(2988) Jade gets some of the best flash and music combos I swear. ANYWAY, I wish I was better at analyzing poetry because I'm sure there's a lot to say about Jade and this poem about her. Melting the frost into a dew could be in reference to how she melts people's hearts, or how she beats her foes with mercy and tact rather than head-on fights to the death. Jade is the waker who dreams, the one awake on her planet but asleep in a cosmic sense, in the sense of her knowledge being vast yet limited. Bluh, I've already said a lot about Jade, and interpreting this text is really difficult for me.
(2991) Witches guiding witches! Feferi reveals a little bit about her session to us, specifically that GlubGlub "fell into" the kernel after already being dead. This makes me think that the vast glub that killed Sollux was Feferi's lusus saving her from the meteor, much like Bec did for Jade and Dirk did for Dave. However, Feferi still credits Sollux as having saved her, which makes me think he might've been the one to orchastrate the falling of GlubGlub into the kernel in the first place, though maybe that's a reach. Either way, I wish we knew more about the trolls' session if only so I can know what exactly happened for Feferi to enter the medium the way she did.
(2992) Feferi claims the dream bubbles exist because of her, and I think that's a very fascinating concept. Feferi overall seems to be one of the only trolls that never struggles with the distinction between ghost and dream and memory in the dream bubbles. This is also our first hint that "normal dreams" take someone into the dream bubbles, it's that collective unconscious thing I mentioned earlier. I think it's really neat.
(2994) And I also love how devilghtfully creepy Feferi is, I love her so much. I also appreciate the detail that the background, on this panel, is the same colour as the website's background where the image is displayed. It's an almost fourth wall break-y moment, even if in a purely visual sense.
(2996) POOR JADE MAN she keeps being terrified of these dreams, and I can't blame her, but it's an interesting thing of her being adverse to dark knowledge and strange sources of information, when someone like Rose was so, so perceptive to them. Gah I love parallels.
(3001) I like these kinds of flashes, that do a subtle bit of worldbuilding for Jade's planet while also taking us around the general state of things as they are now. We see Rose left the library, Dave worke up from his nap, and John's planet is sufficiently windy while his house is still infested with imps. I also particularly appreciate the frozen statue of echidna that we see on Jade's planet. I also love this song. God do I love this song. For however long and tedius this act can be it really picks up when Jade finally enters the medium.
(3004) Thank you, Becsprite.
(3005) Echeladders are another weird but of Sburb that I wish we saw more of. Jade and John get funny hats, and while John gets a feather (breath) Jade gets a frog (space). It makes me wonder what Dave and Rose's echeladders look like, and what items are tied to their aspect. Do they also get funny little hats? Are the hats symbolic of the class? Jade's hat definitely looks like a Witch's hat (giving Ralsei Vibes actually!), does that mean Dave got some kind of lame knight helmet? Did Rose get a funny magicians hat? I need answers, desperately. WAIT DO MAIDS GET THOSE FUNNY MAID HEADPIECES??? THAT WOULD BE SO GOOD. THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME. I NEED THE HATS I NEED ALLLLLL OF THE HATS!!!! HAT LORE!!!!
(3007) Bec talks in some kind of Green Sun language and that's so, so, so fucking weird. Also slightly epilepsy inducing.
(3014) It's actually kind of sad, PM talks about how she doesn't want to be Queen, just wants to deliver mail, and knowing the revenge plot she gets herself caught up in ofr over three years really makes me sad for her. Get this girl some therapy I beg.
(3019) Also, sorry, I ship PM and WQ. no take backsies.
(3024) Dave and Jade's lil arguement about lava or snow being cooler is partly responsible for my labling of the aspect wheel as somewhat temprature based, specifically aspects closer to space being "colder" and aspects closer to time being "warmer". That is to say, it's an alternate phrasing and slightly different symbolism from "active" and "passive". Because while the snow is stationaty, when it falls it can be a fast blizzard, and while we associate lava with volcanos and sudden eruptions, in practice most of the time its dormant under the earth. It's this idea that a "colder" aspect is more prone to stillness, with bouts of activity as necessary (Space and Birth), while "warmer" aspects are more partial to movement and activity with temporary pauses and heat strokes (Time and Decay). The reason this conversation inspired that is also because of Jade and Dave's little gag of her drawing out saying "time" and Dave keep trying to rush it and hurry her to make the joke already bc he's antsy. It's kind of adorable actually.
(3025) Further reason why John's little envy episode of Rose seems like gender envy to me: when Jade compares herself to the others and talks about how lame she feels, Dave dissuades that pretty fast, and Jade's on-board to growing and learning. It's not her trying to draw Dave back down to normalcy, it's her taking his hand and climbing the echeladder with him. John doesn't do that, as if he's limiting himself, as if he's unable to reach up at all because it hurts too much to look up. I don't know, just. June makes sense if you give it the time of day, but it's sad the comic never actually does anything with that.
(3026) While in concept this is very stupid, in the Sburb Issued Tools department this is fascinating to me. It might have something to do with legendary weapons methinks, like it wasn't intended for scanning game discs but CAN be used for that via game exploits, and was instead meant to help players upgrade their weapons to stupidly powerful levels once they got enough power and grist to get one of these things that can read codes. God this game is so conceptually cool.
(3028) Good instance of Derse/Prospit differences, as well as Breath symbolism. John essentially forfitted responsibility to Jade in order to persue his aspect, which makes sense as freedom from responsibility is a big part of Breath. Meanwhile, Jade talks about how John was "supposed to" be her server player, and Dave counters with the fact that improvisation is the only real productive choice here. Mayhem as a means of restoring order (derse), vs order as a means of creating mayhem (prospit).
(3032) A fully upgraded alchimizer looks so, so fucking cool. I wanna make a model of it to have in my house one day. I think it'd be really fun, even if it would be miniature LMAO.
(3036) Rose is weirdly mean to the denizens. It makes me think she's sick of their shit after having to wrestle information and riddles out of them for so long. However, it could also be further evidance of her descending into her darkest self, giving into the shadow self. Also the pile of grist in front of Dave has ONE zillihoo grist. I forget what they're called but whenever I see them I remember they're actually necessary(?) for crafting some of the strongest weapons this game has to offer.
(3038) I find it interesting that the horrorterrors are asking the kids of all people for help. Are they the ones that made/knew the prophecy about Lord English being defeated by them? Who knows I guess. It's also interesting that Rose understands the totality of the threat, that Skaia's perpetuation is also the perpetuation of reality as they know it. It's likely why she's going grimdark in the first place, this is a lot of information to have dumped on you out of nowhere.
(3040) Rose chastizes Dave for his shades and blinding himself to the truth, but as I pointed out earlier her being asleep as her dream self lends credence to the idea that she's doing the same, just tenfold worse because she's in denial about it while believeing she's perfectly in control of herself and her destiny.
(3041) So, Dave is the one who made the maps that Vriska will try to collect later on. Fascinating! There's also a bit of discussion about Rose's role as Seer, but rather I think this is discussion about her role as a Light player. Only caring about "the big picture" is a great way to describe Vriska too, the difference being Vriska DOES go into the minutia while Rose doesn't, probably because Vriska's had her aspect taken away from her per thief arc rules. Also my apologies if I called the meteor ring "the furthest ring" before I keep forgetting what it's actually called. The Veil? I'm really bad with names.
(3043) I love this panel of Rose.
(3044) I need a bit of a retrospective on this entire conversation. It's split between a lot of pages so it was a little tedius to try and keep track of points, but the bottom line is Rose's listening to Doc Scratch and the Horrorterrors leads her to a plan that boils down to her wanting to kill her dream self/subcoscious/shadow self. This isn't a matter of pure pragmatism, to Rose this is the only real viable option and it's a little concearning. Why is self-sacrifice okay to her? She's keeping it a secret from John because she fears he won't aid her or will be too worried, as if a suicide mission of any kind isn't something to worry about. There's also something to be said about the Green sun being several times bigger than an actual universe, like, jesus, that IS massive. My assumption was that it has something to do with Calliope but if I remember correctly we actually see its creation in cascade? God I can't wait for that flash. Anyway, back to Rose, she seems entirely resigned to this fate, and I think that's partly because light is a "contracting" aspect, you become narrow-minded in your search for The Truth or Relevance, and in doing so your very being seems to become more and more limited until it's nothing but a vessel to carry out necessary steps with. "It's so obvious" is a light player's mantra, if they aren't careful. Light can be all consuming, and in the case of the Aspect of Light it can be like a hole you fall into and can't get out of, like a wayward meteor that gets trapped in the gravitational pull of the sun and can't get out. I think that's actually a very apt metaphor knowing Rose is literally drawn to the green sun.
(3045) Kanaya's dedication to stopping Rose is actually quite interesting. She's the one who introduces the idea that dream selves are more than just an extra life, that they're part of the player's psychology/biology. They serve a purpose like every other part of the game. I also find it fascinating that Kanaya thinks the Horrorterrors oppose Skaia when they are exactly what informed Rose of the magnitude of mapping the furthest ring. It makes me wonder if she got some bad intel from Eridan or Feferi about Derse. But speaking of Derse, Kanaya demonstrates yet again how Prospit dreamers tend to think in "stricter" orderly ways, how things Ought to be, rather than just picking things at the seams just for fun. It makes sense with Kanaya's character but overall it reflects on how Skaia puts corresponding players on planets they would be best equipped to handle. Prospitians on the "good" planet so they can Help the Order, and Dersites on the "bad" planet so they can Scheme and Cause Mayhem for the bad guys.
(3046) This is ONE panel but it makes me go insane because Oh My God the meteors have hundreds of alchimeters and clearly also a cruxtruder capable of dispensing a lot of cruxite. I want more of this kind of shit I love this kind of lore I'm EATING IT.
(3047) I like that Kanaya and Rose both take the piss out of Eridan. It's peak. But ALSO I like that Eridan is placed as the bringer of Light while Rose is the socreress of Darkness. Even if it's a joke, I think it's fun aspect-wise. In her singular focus, Rose has figuratively become dark, because her ray of light is pointed in one way and one way only, and she isn't budging to illuminate anything else. Meanwhile, Eridan hasn't fully grown into princedom, and thus still carries the whimsy and light of Hope. This will be swapped. Even with Rose going grimdark, it's a period from which she emerges more aware and loose than she ever was, while Eridan will begin destroying light as is his role and desire. Eridan will become the dark force while Rose attains God Tier of the orange and yellow veriety. I am SO good with words aren't I? Anyway, I still think Rose Eridan and Kanaya could've been good friends if Eridan wasn't a huge piece of shit.
(3049) Tavros saw Prospit as escapism, to get away from Vriska and to get away from the duties the game placed on him. There's something about Pages "perserving" their Aspect, cultivating it in a way, privately and for themselves. That power can grow exponentially, but as long as they are in-narrative, it never flourishes properly. I think Tavros' way of preserving his freedom, of preserving Breath, WAS through sleep. It's also weird and I saw no-one talk about this but this greatly reads like Tavros had a kind of extreme depressive episode that he never properly shook out of.
(3052) Exactly because I mentioned Tavros' depressive episode, this is the part that really gets to me. He saved Jade from killing herself a very long time ago, and while part of that IS caring about her, I think another part of it is him metaphorically overcoming his own depressive episode, acting on his own volition to prevent a suicide. Even if this IS what killed Jade's grandpa, this very easily could've doomed everything, and Tavros was the one who circamvented it. While Vriska on paper makes things worse in her meddling, Tavros almost indesputably made them better. And then killed Jade's grandpa so yknow they cant all be winners.
(3053) Jake why are you on a date with Puppet Jane. Why are there only drinks at the table. My man have you ever been on a normal date???
(3055) Tavros' entire tyrade about self esteem has a LOT of holes in it, and it really really makes me wish Homestuck had handled his disability better. Especially around his wheelchair use. While in the end it's clear he's overcompensating, the comic at no point shows us him actually being happy while being disabled and I think that's really hsitty. Even Jade somewhat points it out!! She's lived with (what seemed to her to be) narcolepsy her whole life so I can imagine someone saying "I'm happier when I'm not handicapped" is kind of very offensive. Also can I talk about Jade's narcolepsy? I always thought it was just part of who she was, a natural quirk. But when Vriska got involved in the story suddenly THAT was her doing too, so something that was unique to Jade was actually something that was dropped like a ton of bricks the moment it was conveniant. It just feels cheap. This is partly why I don't agree with the aspect interpretation that Hope is "good writing" while Rage is "bad writing". You can have bad writing that takes you out of the story and makes you mad at the creator that has absolutely nothing to do with the in-universe representation of Rage, unless someone wants to argue Vriska is actually a Rage player.
(3056) I actually really like this conversation because Jade letting Tavros down nicely is kind of the best thing she could do in this situation. Both for Tavros (not feeding into his wrong ideas about self esteem) and for herself (obviously), and I also want to point out... Eridan gets painted as the "too forward" guy who cant take a hint a lot but, Eridan is a LOT more suave than this. At least so far. Tavros is a better embodyment of that relationship entitlement and manipulative self pitying right now, even if he isn't really good at that either. He tries to be the pushy "alpha" type guy and it fails because Jade has a spine and Tavros doesn't. It's more sad than anything, but I'm glad Jade still wants to be his friend. She's so nice...
(3059) I really hate Vriska. She doesn't have to do this, like, any of this. What "grand plan" is there in her bullying Tavros now? She's toying with John, so what's the point of ripping into Tavros? Why bother him at all? She doesn't even realise she made him depressed with her stunt. She tried to kiss him when he wasn't ready and he completely retreated into himself, and she blames HIM for that. Maybe it's a failed attempt at blackrom, or maybe it's self hatred being pointed outward, whatever it is I just want her to stop and get the fuck away from Tavros already. Her influence has been nothing but detramental to him in every respect. She's the reason he thinks not being a cripple is the only road to happiness, she's the reason he thinks he has to meddle with people to be relevant, she's the source of his actual loss of self-esteem. And she keeps pulling and prodding as if fucking with him will help him, god, when does she get a clue? Once he's already dead? Wow! Our hero everybody! Ugh.
(3063) Yet another thing we really didn't need Vriska involved in but she was retroactively added into anyway. I guess it's just what happens with her all the time, and it sucks. Vriska's fingerprints being in everything is "iconic" of her in the words of my sister, but it's also really infuriating to people like me who really truly do not understand the POINT of making her the secret hand leading everyone. As a thief of light, I guess she steals relevance, but in cases like these it's just annoying. She "created" jack, but it entirely feels like he could've existed all on his own without her meddling, we all believed it before she said psyche! Ugh. Maybe I'm complaining too much. I'm trying to tolerate and appreciae Vriska on this reread but she's making it very difficult.
(3064) I think part of the reason it's so difficult is because she's so boastful. I actually don't mind Terezi and Tavros' meddling in the human session NEARLY as much even if they similarly did retroactive shit. Vriska's just the only one of them who keeps using it as bragging rights, or posits she's better or more skilled than other people because she got involved more. It's an overcompensation thing, I know, but it's so increadably fucking annoying. Like, I'm allowed to analyze something psychologically and metatextually and still call it annoying, right? This shit is annoying. Half the time when I see a giant Vriska paragraph I have to pre- emptivelu roll my eyes so I can focus on what she's actually saying while reading, and even then I'm extremely bored. This girl does not know how to keep me invested to save her life, which is ASTONISHING because I GLADLY read Kankri paragraphs. She's just in a legue of her own in pure shittiness. And, yes, I'm only insulting her this much because she's spent so long boasting. If all of this is pseudo-self-destruction of a masochist then I might as well take the invite and roll with it. God Vriska Sucks.
(3066) I think Tavros on some level understands Vriska is only retroactively helping Jack Noir. He doesn't think she's ACTUALLY responsible for his creation, but he needs an excuse. He's idolised Vriska and seen her as impossibly powerful and smart for so long that he needs something, any kind of flaw, to latch onto and use it as an axcuse to finally express all the hatred he's had building up inside. This isn't the blackrom kind of hatred, it's pretty obvious Tavros doesn't feel those kinds of things (and Vriska even mocks him for it on this page in a way, ugh), it's the kind of hatred you have for someone who's victimized you for so long, and who people who claim to care about you never managed to help you deal with in a way that matters. He's trying to get revenge is what I'm trying to say, and while his eventual death makes narrative sense it's still extremely sad to think about. The one time he acted on that rage that's been building up inside, and he gets killed for it. Man. Tavros deserved better. As did all the trolls that are about to get massacred on the meteor (except for Eridan fuck that guy he had it coming).
(3074) I don't know what this Hussie moment was inspired by, timeline of the comic-wise, but I'm sure it was a response to some online thing or another. Someone pointed out it's apparently a reference to "the neverending story" which is something I have no knowledge of and can therefore not comment on sadly lmao.
(3075) John's highest rung is Heir Transparent. This makes me believe part of his self actualisation as a hero was meant to involve finding purpose even outside the narrative, transparency symbolising Void and irrelevance. I've only seen snippets of it but this makes me wonder if HS2 plays with that idea? That John has to learn to be Somebody even outside of a narrative, outside of a story, in order to be happy? Idk, I'm spitballing. Creating narrative rather than just abiding by it would help him develop as a character I think.
(3078) Yet further evidance that John's learing of the clouds and unlocking his powers and Dave's breaking of the sword were only momentary glimpses into their true arcs, that still go unfulfilled. They still have long, long ways to go until they're fully actualised into their true selves, and with John that's made very very explicitly clear.
(3079)Time for a lot of shitass ranting about a lot of irrelevant shit here we go.
It's kind of sad the salamanders never saw the sky until now. I wish the comic took the denizens more seriously, I find them very endearing.
Once again Vriska is only tolerable when with John, because he's the only one who properly counteracts her bossyness and gets to the core of what makes her emotionally compelling. Her egging him on towards god tier is kind of grim in retrospect, she's trying to get him killed ahead of time like she's going to kill Tavros too, but in this case it seems to be... healthy for John? Or at least he's receptive to it. For now at least. She's encouraging to John in a way she isn't with anyone else and I think it's partly because he doesn't take shit from her and properly demonstrates that positive reinforcement works the best. I really like their dynamic.
This isn't technically pertinent, so skip this paragraph is you'd like, but I actually have very fond feelings for this playable portion in particular because Meowchela, my best friend, hand-extracted the sprites of the salamanders when she couldn't find them online. It kind of spiralled from there and, long story short, I now headcanon Lancer from Deltarune has a little salamander plushie when he was a baby (specifically based off of the baby salamander we see John talking to). It persists even to this day, recently she dragged me onto Gmod and we went to a card castle map together and, well, she's more versed in the game than I am. All I could do, with her instructions, was Equip the Spade King skin. Some time after that she was messing with summoning stuff, and eventually spawned a salamander from one of the Homestuck mods she had installed. I fell in love with her. We named her Lancer 2 I think. I can't remember because we didn't write it down LMAO. Either way, I love salamanders. I have fun talking to them they're all so silly and cute.
John talks about not being sure if he's cut out to be a dad and I'm so Junepilled my first response was "yeah because you're meant to be a mom" ough... It's supposed to be foreshadowing for how he still has a lot of growing to do and how he misses his dad and everything, but yeah no, June Thoughts, sorry.
I bought a grasshopper. Idk why it called to me.
The salamanders talk about how the player (the heir in this instance) is meant to take them somewhere else, like... to a place with greener pastures essentially. It's really making me wonder if player planets are just temporary habitats for all involved, if the session universe, once it bears fruit, is entirely discarded normally. I have no idea. Food for thought I guess. But it's also interesting that the deal with the denizen only changes the NATURE of John's vistory, there's no question if he will be victorious or not. It's predetermined, and yet entirely in his hands.
It's also interesting that the salamanders seem to sort of... "grab" information from one another without directly talking. In the beginning of the game they don't know what to call what John did, but once he calls it "the windy thing" soon after you encounter NPCs that use that same nomenclature. Maybe it's just a gameplay thing, maybe it's a hint that the salamanders are like a hivemind, or maybe through their animalistic tendancies they're more in-tune with their collective subconscious and can therefore get information from each other with little issue, much like Crows do. I'm rambling bullshit again don't mind me.
Yeah see even shit like the firefighter salamanders using shaving cream makes me a little emotional. I know it's played for laughs but, damn!! They tried to help their people and died in that attempt. They're just lil guys. They should be honoured for their bravery :(
The mushroom field similarly really makes me empathise with the salamanders. The lil guy who keeps farming despite the threat really gives me Knight of Life vibes. I know it's silly to assign god tiers to NPCs and non-hero characters but I think it's interesting to do nonetheless because the classpects are about story roles, not story importance. I want to adopt all these salamanders if you couldn't already tell-
It's interesting that the "battle move" shop also looks to be a music shop? Are all the kids' most powerful attacks based on music in some way? That's find of surreal but also oddly fitting. Especially knowing that earlier with one of Jade's flashes we saw the kids like to collaborate on music together. Talented little shits, I love em.
Had to google the trickster mode for this flash, and realised I missed some previous ones! Maybe one day I'll go through all the trickster modes for funsies, but that day is not today.
(3081) Again with the Vriska and John being an oddly good combo, but Vriska giving John the ability to choose when she doesn't extend that courtesy to anyone else leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I don't know. It's just typical bully behavure, and with John specifically it's oddly manipulative because it's like she's plying him to make him think he's doing this of his own volition, like he has any amount of control when she's actively taking it away from him, toxic girlfriend style. Bleh, I guess better let her give SOMEONE choice rather than no-one, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.
(3083) Somehow even though he's on a stone slab he looks cozy. So cozy. It's like midnight when I'm writing this I wish I was cozy too.........
(3086) I actually find it interesting that Jack doesn't take a trophy from this kill. Is it on purpose? Is he helping John reach god tier just to fight him again later? It'd almost make sense, what with him seeking out Dirk for a proper showdown earlier, and also knowing about Jade's quest bed and that it can save her, but still an interesting little tidbit. He takes a trophy from each of the guardians he kills, but not from any of the kids. Not even Rose if I remember correctly? Odd.
SO I HAVE A LOT TO SAY. First of all, WV's command to John being "JOHN. RISE UP." seems like a command out of desperation and mourning. At least to me. Secondly It's interesting that John's dream self on prospit essentially meterialises on the corresponding quest bed. As I said, dream selves disappear when the dreamer wakes up (except in Rose's case) and with John it APPEARED on his Skaian quest bed as he was killed and it's honestly really interesting from a psychological and narrative perspective. As we discussed dream selves represent the subcoscious mind, and in the DREAM SELF specifically being the one to attain godhood while the waking self perishes, it lends credence to the idea that reaching god tier is much more of an emotional endevour than anything else. Death is transformation and rebirth, the lowest low to ascend to the greatest hight, and in John's instance he's completely given himself to the whims of the narrative, letting Vriska put him to sleep after he let Breath act THROUGH him rather than being an active agent of it. An insect infinitisimal in the wind. But in giving up that autonamy, he was transformed by the experiance and has gained almost complete mastery over it, and over his own fate. He's lost connection to Vriska, he's outpaced his friends, and he's reached the battlefield. He's risen physically but also on a mental level, no longer scared of his subconscous but literally embodying it, embodying his aspect and finding his purpose. On an in-universe level, I think dream selves god tier rather than waking selves because it's a necessary sacrifice, a kind of "leave your worldly possessions behind for the sake of achieving something greater and reaching your ultimate goal. I don't know, maybe I'm talking out of my ass and John still has all his items, I honestly can't remember. Also, it's fun that this was released on the 612th day of Homestuck, and that the date backwards is almost 612 exactly (6121 to be exact) really fun stuff!! Like Karkat's hatred manifest in order to kill John and help him ascend higher.
(3091) Add another stone to the pile of "Dave is in his own head too much". This convo teeters on him being antagonistic with Terezi again and it's interesting. Firstly he's being cagey and serious again, and secondly he makes fun of Terezi for being so caught up on Vriska. It's actually refreshing to hear someone finally point it out! But Terezi herself also raises an interesting point, specifically in the sense that Dave can't face his own death, or rather ego-death. He's too preoccupied with being the RIGHT Dave that he can't let any Dave just BE a Dave, it has to be tied to timeline shenanigains, or playing up masculinity, or being a Cool Dude or whatever. Reaching god tier involves sacrifice and Dave has worked so hard, So Extremely Hard, to build up to where he is now. Leaving it all behind just to catch up with John isn't worth it, because it means facing himself, and facing his own death, and facing that there IS an ego to kill under his bravado, that's a real vulnerable person who can be harmed more than just physically. Who was harmed emotionally by his bro and pushed around by fate to the point of losing a concrete sense of self. I fully understand why Dave is a lot of people's favourite, he's very compelling in these moments, but to me his achille's heel is exactly that "marketability" of his character, the ESSENCE of Dave can never be tarnished because he thinks it's all he is, that mask, that coolkid. Of course, he isn't, he can carve out an identity for himself out of basically anything, but it's going to take a while for him to get there.
(3092) While Light and Void as aspects are tied to Luck and Misfortune respectively, I think Mind and Heart are the antithesis of that dychotamy. The flip of a coin means nothing to a Mind player, utter misfortune means nothing to a Heart player. They are immune to luck as they are immune to back luck, as in they do not rely on any kind of luck at all. They simply are, and they can make things be in their favour, or they don't. Y'know how a is given as a prefix to things as a means of signifying "distance" and "lack" of a subject, like amoral or aromantic? I think Mind and Heart are alucky.
(3094) This whole ordeal with offshoot timelines IS a little confusing but I can see the blueprint for how it works. What's interesting to me is that, while Terezi left "the choice" to be in Dave's hands, it was out of necassity for the plan to work rather than any good will. She orchastrated everything around his death, just like Vriska did with John, even down to the fact that she's given him the illusion of choice when everything was in her hands all along. Fascinating stuff frankly, and yet further proving Karkat's original warnings to Dave and John about these two right. They ARE dangerous. It's just that in this scenario, their deaths COULD be benificial... if the boys themselves choose to go through with it. Even with what little information John had, he was still hesitant. Dave is going to refuse the offer. It's all very very fucked up.
(3095) Anthropomorphising Paradox Space is one of my favourite things to do. Even in my own attempt to write a fanadventure through powerpoint (don't ask) one of the core things I did was introduce choices, and also introduce Paradox Space as a tangible thing that makes real choices impossible. Terezi describes it as a punisher, as having a sense of justice, but I'd rather phrase it as a cleanup job, a digestion process. The productive things, the nutrients, that lead to perpetuation are integrated, the rest are expelled. Jesus wait did I just call doomed timelines the shit in the toilet of paradox space??? God. I need sleep.
(3096) Another stone to the pile of Terezi being a sadist. Dave was bugging her about stuff she knew he couldn't handle, so as retribution she essentially made him run around in circles and fret over his own death for her. That is some sadistic shit! Even if she gives half decent advice by the end (that god tiers arent functionally necessary) it still falls on deaf ears imo because what she made Dave do was arguably worse, a sadistic punishment for a nonexistant crime. Terezi always does this kind of thing and it's honestly a little creepy. I kind of love it but I'm also kind of scared of her. How do you even develop the brain for thinking of these kinds of punishments????
(3097) I'm purposfully glossing over the seer of mind talk because I basically already adressed it, but I DO want to mention Dave mirroring Equius here is very funny to me and shows there's a lot more to their parallel than meets the eye. At least in my opinion.
(3098) I know I talked about it earlier but I'm actually very proud I sussed out the mind being alucky thing before Terezi explicitly said it because I legit didn't remember her saying this when I wrote it. Hehe I feel smart now (for no good reason lol)
(3108) "Save your breath, page" is the best description of Tavros' role, actually. However I don't look forward to what I know is coming.
(3109) Even in death, Vriska is extremely manipulative. It's like she just can't let it go, even when her life depends on it. Or maybe exactly BECAUSE she thinks her life depends on it. Thinking manipulating Tavros is better than cooperating with him. SIGH.
(3112) It's also interesting that trolls' quest beds are actually quest cacoons. It implies Skaia has some level of awareness for the culture that its players come from and accomodates them for the sake of them understanding its vague symbology of sleep, and waking, and descending and ascending.
(3114) This is actually interesting. I know Tavros is going to chicken out. Did she ACTUALLY give him a choice? Is that why she torments him even post-game? As revenge for not killing her? It's that vaguely masochistic shit again, isn't it? "Why didn't you stop me" type beat. "Why didn't you kill me when I asked you to, I didn't even make you do it I asked nicely and you didn't. Why?" It's fascinating in the sense that I can kind of see where she's coming from, but her response is (as usual) completely unmeasured. Taking revenge on someone who didn't kill you? And killing them in return? I think she's going to have some post-murder clarity over it but I'll have to wait and see.
(3118) "This is his descision" followed by "Tavros hurry up". I actually think its really important that BQ/Snowman asked Vriska why not take control. As a femanine presence, a SOVEREIGN of a woman, she's asking Vriska the very pragmatic thing of "if you want it done right, do it yourself, you've never hesitated before" and Vriska's response was "I have faith in HIM". Heteronormitivity ruins the day again. In trying to make Tavros into her ideal partner, a dicisive guy who could kill her quickly if she just asked nicely, she's essentially rendered herself powerless. At the mercy of someone who never wanted to be in control, at the mercy of someone she's done nothing but try to control. It's pure self sabotage. She's been in the driver's seat this whole time, berating Tavros for not following her instructions as co-pilot exactly, and now she's thrown her hands up in the air and said "okay, your turn to drive!" OBVIOUSLY he fucked up. There was no way around it. She should've made him do it, at least then she would have been in less agony. And by that, of course, I mean she should've stopped looking at Tavros as a Guy To Fix, as a Man To Make Persue Her, because she broke her own heart and his mind in the process. It sucks so bad.
(3122) If anyone wants to argue with me that Vriska isn't suicidal, I'll just show them this panel. This is extremely fucked up. Both for Tavros and for Vriska. Why DIDN'T she make him do it? She made him write "K8LL M8" over and over and over instead. Traumatizing him, traumatizing herself. This is a really good, kind of fantastical and kind of literal showcase of a very toxic romantic relationship. Tavros got out of there, and it's the best thing he could've done. When he went back to her, even for "revenge", it was the worst thing he could've done. I now understand why it was the death of him in-narrative.
(3126) Jesus even Tavros started bleeding from this. This is honestly horrific to watch but puts a LOT of things into context.
(3130) The only thing I don't understand is why her caccoon exploded. And also it's not explicit but I'm assuming Vriska's on Skaia in this image, because her dream self disappeared from Prospit, and her waking self. Exploded. Seriously, what's up with that?
(3133) Also, I forgot to mention it earlier, but when the firefly landed on John's head during "rise up" i was very close to tearing up. I love this comic man
(3137) ANOTHER STONE TO THE PILE OF ME QUESTIONING THE LORE OF THE CARAPACIANS. I can explain away that Jack knew what the ring does because he was an Agent while WV was a farmer. But it AGAIN makes me ask WHERE did he come from. WHY doesn't he know what the ring does. HOW does carapascian society even work on Skaia. AUGH.
(3139) Is this seriously one of the first connections between Karkat and Jesus? That's hilarious. But also, I love this entire convoluted explination for why Jade would akin the alchemizing to christmas. It's very earnest and cute just like (almost) everything with Jade is.
(3140) I love Karkat.
(3141) THE KRINGLEFUCKERRRRRRRRR
(3145) Why WAS this so expensive? Ususally generic items tent to cost the least grist, is there something unique or important about a ball of fluff with a headband on?
(3146) It seems a little overpowered that Jade can just draw something and then make it, but I guess we're at the point in the story where the players have powered up enough and the mechanics aren't as important, and it allows stuff like "yeah she just drew it and now its real". It's practical but part of me sighs whistfully for the potential of seeing the exact recepies that lead to each outcome.
(3149) I sometimes forget that Jade is an actual engeneer and has a shitton of ties to robots in general. I feel like her and Dirk are kind of on-par in the robot making department. Also Jake is there I guess.
(3153) I had to google what eclectica means. I still don't get it.
(3156) This is kind of a subtler nod to that idea that luck doesn't really matter, with the 8-ball and being able to see all possible answers, you start to understand how asking the question can give any answer, and it's up to you to decide which answer is best.
(3157) If my understanding (hunch) towards grist worth is accurate, than these are shitting expensive. Makes sense I guess they're like a seer's best friend.
(3159) I love when the kids alchemize stuff because you really get a feel for their sense of style. Rose is goth leaning and practical, Dave is smooth and put together, John is whatever someone else throws his way (he barely has a sense of style at all, mood), but Jade? Jade is silly. Jade's style is just wearing things that bring joy. Computers and squiddle buddies. Bright red on bright blue. She would've LOVED decora fashion probably. I love Jade's outfits possibly the most because it feels like a truly authentic expression of self that doesn't rely on preexisting notions, just making something new and creative out of the old. I love Jade, man.
(3162) I love these kids of physical proximity gags they always get my goat.
(3164) I forgot Jade even HAD this giant fuckoff gun! We don't even see the grist cost!! It's sad this was never used I wanna see her blow something to smithereens in her iron lass suit.
(3165) NEVERMIND LMAO sometimes I think I should read more ahead before taking notes but I never feel like it.
(3166) This dress of Jade's matches with Dave's black suit, which makes sense since I think they were both made from the same poster.
(3168) Ouuuuuu I think this dress of Jade's is my favourite personally, even if I like the eclectica/squiddle jacket and shoes combo for Jade on a Character level better.
(3170) I wish I knew what Hussie's beef with this robot was, I don't even know the source material of it.
(3174) Oh I forgot about this gag it's so so good.
(3175) God I hate Eridan. Oh he sucks SO bad. This whole exchange is, I'm assuming, happening right after Kanaya gave him his wand. It's interesting that he persued the weapon to spite Rose ar first, but then the power immediately went to his head and he stopped caring about her. I think his feelings are as shallow as ponds, he catches crushes easily and waxes poetically about his love and hate, when in reality his true ambitions are just domination, not commitment. He'll meet like 10 other people he'll strike up rivalries with, he'll get rejected by all ten, throw a few pity parties over it, and then it's on to the next. Eridan cites lack of physical proximity as why Rose rejected him, but I think that's actually hiding a kernel of truth about his own feelings. People tend to close off around him, being put off by his theatrics, and that lack of closeness is what makes HIM so easily disinterested, not the other way around. What I'm saying is he should tone it the fuck down. And his entire fantasy about being the prince people fearfully bow to is just gross. God I love this asshole I hate him so much.
(3176) There HAS to be some segnificance to the number of grist required for Ahab's crosshairs. It's 16,777,215 of generic build grist, and then one special grist that gives it it's pigment. I've no idea why, and it seems oddly specific for a weapon that's essentially immediatly thrown out. And, god, it's thrown out in such a weird way. Eridan talks about how it was his purpose that he discarded, and the same can be assumed abotu Cronus/Dualscar because motherfucker didn't do naything productive. It's definitely in reference to the prophecy around Lord English and how Jake is the one fated to defeat him, but there's also the matter of the actual physical gun never being involved. Ahab's crosshairs is an in-universe useless weapon. Eridan used it to kill ONE whale, fight Sollux once, and then it was discarded as un-gracefully as possible. This entire chat, and by extention the gun is, I think, fully about heirlooms and family tradition. Jade's isolated so she throws it away, while Eridan is overambitious and throws it away. It's this weird mess of "this is pointless" while also saying "family tradition is important". Jade wonders about her grandson, and who his parents and grandfather could be, while Eridan inadvertantly kind of points out that thinking about it will cause a bigger mess than it'll solve. Similarly, Eridan talks about walking in the footsteps of his ancestor and finishing what he started, but he never does that, JADE does. As I pointed out earlier, grandpa ran away from home and left Jane alone, while Jade is now essentially running back home to John. It's weird and it's cyclical and I almost wish Jade and Eridan spent more time interacting together because they make for a pretty funny combo. Eridan's "oh my god I don't care" coupled with his "hey wait why don't you care about me", and Jade's "who are you what are you doing" coupled with "I see right through you you snooty fuck." It's just a really fun dynamic all around god I hate Eridan. I love him a lot.
(3181) It's never pointed out explicitly, but these kids sure as hell got cabin hever. There's like 3 seperate apocalypses going on outside, and all they can do is sit around and try to crawl out of their fates. Feferi and Nepeta are both asleep, Kanaya is meddling with Eridan, Tavros and Equius are probably fucking with the humans, and Vriska's for some reason hanging around Gamzee and Feferi??? Karkat and Terezi are also doing their usual. And then there's Sollux and Aradia. Hopeless from the start. They always knew they were doomed, and now it's twelvefold. These kids had half a day to try and figure out what to do, of course they failed. Of course they couldn't make heads or tails of anything. Of course it all went to shit. I just feel bad, because I feel like there HAS to have been a way to save them all, a way that didn't rely on outside saviours in the form of the humans/the rescue team. Maybe they could've gotten out of this together? But then again, they're all collectively the reason they're in this mess in the first place. It sucks.
(3182) They were just kids, and everything went to shit. I understand why Sollux is upset, but I also understand why it was so hard for Aradia to talk to him at all. They're both so resigned, and bitter, and this hardly looks like reconciliation. It looks like Sollux is taking her suicide note into his hands and just saying goodbye without any closure. And Aradia tries to smile while doing it, but it's just not there.
(3183) Until, of course, they're face to face again.
(3184) And it's no longer about doom and decay, but about the friend you wish you had more time to spend with. Doom is a very communal aspect, it seeks company, it NEEDS company. And Time can be a very lonely aspect, not physically isolating like space, but emotionally, mentally. This real, actual human connection between them is the best possible thing for them both in this hopeless scenario. In this scenario without a way out, in a cabin in the woods that they'll never escape from - they have each other, and that's all that matters in the end.
(3187) And just like that, she's gone! And there's nothing left, no decay, no time, no friends, just Doom.
(3191) Unlike John, Jack didn't bother killing Dave on his god tier bed. God knows why. Did he just happened to show up at the worst time, or did he plan it? Either way it's another trophyless kill.
(3192) It's another friend dead and it's another stone on the pile that makes it all seem hopeless. Worst of all, while Sollux always knew they were doomed, I think Terezi probably feels responsible for Dave's doom in specific. She led him down this path, to teach him a lesson, but that retribution doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel just. It's just a waste. It's pointless carnage and it's pointless death, and with no idea what happens after that, it probably feels like her whole effort was pointless altogether, at least in this moment, at least now when she has to watch a friend die by her actions and his. Hopelessness sucks, and responsibility sucks, and these kids really, truly deserved better.
(3195) I appreciate Karkat trying to make a connection, and I also appreciate that that's really not what Terezi needed right now. She has a tendency to seclude herself and isolate herself when faced with death, when things go wrong and when her friends end up hurt. She always interprets her role, as a seer of mind, being that of someone who's role is to keep her friends out of trouble, to keep them safe. But she can't protect them from everything, and it weighs on her, badly.
(3196) Changing course to something less depressing (for now), it's interesting that both Rose and Jade make use of the crystal ball, as a Seer and a Witch respectivel, but someone like John, an Heir, never gets magic items of that sort. It's part of why I don't fully buy optimisticDuelist's verdict that Heirs are a magician class like Witches, it just seems disconnected from the actual symbolism we see in the comic, that being that Seers, Witches and Mages are all "scholars" of their aspect, studying it and learning from it and utalizing knowledge above all else. Witches, of course, get more concrete magical ability, but they are still a Learning class like Seers and Mages are, as best evidanced by this symbolism of the crystal ball, in my opinion.
(3203) I feel bad that Jade was just dropped into this mess without warning and now has to make sense of what her superpowered and preoccupied friends are doing. They've all individually isolated themselves and in that isolated Jade too, it's kind of sad. Also, is it mean to say I look forward to Rose turning grimdark?
(3204) Dave's relationship with his brother is abusive, there's no other way to phrase it. Dave was physically abused and had to walk on eggshells, even something as benign as going to take a piss in the middle of the night was a threat to him. I think that's why he's handling the whole mortal peril thing pretty well, it's not really something new to him, he's used to that kind of stress. Jade, meanwhile, is trying to be empathetic. She lost her grandfather a long time ago and it fucked her up pretty bad. She mourned, and grew, and was changed, and she wants to be the shoulder Dave can lean on for that kind of support, but he doesn't really need that support. He just needs to get out of here.
(3206) THIS is exactly what I meant by Tavros going back to Vriska was the worst thing he could've done. Even if it's for revenge, he's chasing a person and a relationship that cannot and will not ever result in him being happy. Jade could've been that support she was trying to be for Dave, if only Tavros hadn't already gone over his head trying to get revenge. It could've been better, I really think it could have been. I know it's not the "alpha" timeline, but the alpha timeline CAN'T be the only way to save these kids.
(3210) There is something to be said about becoming your own best friend. Of becoming the pillar you can lean on when you need it most, when you can't rely on anyone else. Being able to trust yourself, your own mental and emotional stability, as a source of comfort and commrodery. This is not one of those times.
(3215) Dave is Dave's ideal guide, because he's in his own head and trusts no one else with personal business. Jade is Jade's worst possible guide because Jade always looks to external forces for understanding, for guidance. She herself is the student, the outside world is the teacher. And, here, the outer becomes the inner, and Jadesprite entirely loses her cool. She's no longer part of something vast as a single entity, she's a single entity burdened with the vastness of the outside. I don't know if I'm even phrasing this well, but I appreciate the dichotamy between Jadesprite and Davesprite, it feels like two contradictory reactions to the same event, essentially because Jade never aksed to be revived, while Dave willingly became his own Knight.
(3219) It's interesting that Gamzee's observing Jadesprite's outburst so fondly. Also my bad for not remembering what the countdown is for in the rist place. He fondly regards a new beginning, meaning he's observing Jade's ego death essentially. This is also fuel to the fire, to me, that Space and Rage are opposed aspects in the same way Time and Hope are. But BLUH that's a can of worms I'm not getting into here.
(3221) I feel bad that Jade's house got so wrecked. I guess it would be difficult to build up from it when it has such weird foundations, but still! Her place was massive and now it's kind of gone in an instant. Well okay I guess the "ground floor" with all the actual rooms we saw is still there, the spire itself looks to be pure concrete, but still!!
(3230) Such a small thing that has such huge consequences.
(3232) I love Ms. Paint terribly
(3233) Yeah, no, this shit really WAS hinted from the start, wasn't it? About Cal being Lord English and all. It's SO weird.
(3238) I refuse to read the recaps and this one's extra annoying because it's written in Doc Scratch White. Awful. It runs out of ink by the end and it's a funny gag but otherwise I prefer to skip the recaps for my own peace of mind.
(3241) I actually DO wonder what the mental state of a first guardian is even like, omniscience must be a lot to handle. Especially with how upset we saw Jade get at just ONE dead Dave and bro, I can only imagine so much more WOULD be overwhelming. At the same time, the Jade here hints that she was in the dream bubbles before getting prototyped. So it's not the death that's upsetting to her, is it? It's something larger, something we can't comprehend. Something that she, as a witch, has to conquer or be conquered by.
(3242) Dream Jade really IS a different person. Jade's subconscious mind, personified. I find it strange that a subconscious mind would be "putting away" bad memories where that's exactly where bad memories go when they're repressed by the waking mind. Though maybe at this point I'm taking the dream self/subconscious reading too far, I don't know.
(3244) Especially because it seems more important now that Jadesprite is the conquered witch, while Jade is the conquering witch. Not even in a particularly violent sense, just in the sense that Jadesprite has succumbed to her fate and doesn't know right from wrong anymore, she's let herself be in the thralls of fate no matter how cruel, while Jade is still fighting and working and embodying and preaching the ideals of existentialist philosophy. You exist, so you might as well make the best of it. Jade emphasises how they need to do it for their friends, hinting that her motivation is external (passive class style), but in practice we see the opposite. Jade is motivated from the internal, from seeing her own weakness, from wanting to BE somebody. Sure, she wants to be someone for her friends, but it's because she wants to be dependable. Not a guide, not a tool, but a friend, a shoulder to lean on instead of another burden for the pile. Her drive is internal, even if she frames it as external (as Maids are prone to doing, too).
(3248) There is such a thing as pushing yourself too hard, and Jade is definitely doing that. Jadesprite needs more time to mourn, even if Jade finds that annoying, and Jade needs a pragmatic help even if Jadesprite can't be who she needs. It's a big mess of internal conflicts that externalise as what's essentially self harm, and it breaks my heart to see because I empathise with them both, and I think both of them are overreacting and underreacting at the same time. It's complicated. Point being I think Maids and Witches are more similar than I originally thought, and it's something I need to look into further.
(3251) KARKAT THE THERAPIST. I jest but really, that's what therapy is supposed to do, essentially give you a mirror to your own thoughts so you can hear yourself as if you're listening rather than just feeling. Karkat is Jade's mirror while also being her opposite and I think that's fun. Tavros was her fairy god troll, but he ditched his own wellbeing. Meanwhile, Karkat is her patron troll because he started giving a shit about Jade and the other humans the same way he gives a shit about his own ragtag group of idiots, Knight of blood style. It's interesting because Karkat is at his worst when he's trying to be someone "important" "like Dave" "a Knight (in shining armour)" and is at his best when he's just a down to earth ear willing to listen. He helps Jade by fascilitating a connection on HER terms, rather than pushing his agenda onto her. I'm starting to see why he isn't cut out for the explicit role of leader, he's better off as something like team therapist, or just everyone's best friend, I don't know. Maybe that's what a leader SHOULD be outside fo crisis situations, but Homestuck is just one crisis situation after the other, sigh...
(3252) There's something interesting about the Blood aspect buried in this conversation, and I think it ties back to what Terezi was saying about the Mind aspect. How our choices shape the reality around us, rather than reality being something that happens to us. Blood works on the same principal, with the caveat that it's a deeply material aspect. What I mean is, Karkat's choices aren't based on people's potential actions, they're based on material circamstances. Even him digging himself into a hole with all the humans, he's done that deliberately, shaping the reality around him to the shittiness it is now not by random chance, but because of limited information and a limited perspective. Blood is the material crossroads between Mind and Light, if that makes sense.
(3253) "FORCES MORE DAMAGING TO THE INTEGRITY OF REALITY THAN THOSE CAPABLE OF TURNING IMAGINATION INTO PURE VOID" I think Karkat is reffering to Rage. Disillusionment, yes, but what force is capable of turning imagination into Void? It's Light. Ligh-Void-Hope-Rage have a weird relationship and I think this single quote from Karkat actually explains it more eloquently than I can. Rage makes everyone stop giving a shit, while Light is damaging because it turns imagination - Hope - into Void - secrecy and meaninglessness. Curruption of Hope can turn into Void, just as Expansion of Light can turn into Hope. Contraction of Void becomes Rage, and Curruption of Rage becomes Light. It's all very cyclical and weird and I love it. On a different note, though, this conversation is also a good showcase of Karkat being a serving class, while Jade's is almost a "self serving" class. A Knight serving a Witch for mutual benifit.
(3254) Spade and Time are Meta Aspects, just as Hope, Rage, Life and Doom are. Breath and Blood, meanwhile, teeter on the meta by very nature. It's not a coincidance that Karkat knows slightly more about the fourth wall than Jade, but not enough to properly explain it. And this is I think the first time a Narrator is ever properly, like, given attention to? Hussie's peresence in the comic was, up until now, played for laughs, but here it's an almost eery showing of the hand, tipping of the hat if you will. Self-awareness of text you're best off not imagining is aware at all. Jade's potential terror of Lord English is similar to the audiance's terror of the Author, in the cosmic sense that his presence being felt and seen feels like a bad omen for what comes next.
(3263) PM is the realest motherfucker here. WK is interesting to me, and I'm sad we don't see more of him. But, more importantly, it's interesting that the duty of Queen is placed on PM when WQ is right there. To me, it seems like WQ just wants to settle down somewhere quiet with WK already, and PM is given the title of Queen because she's the most competent around here. It's also interesting, to me, that she's TOLD to seek revenge. She will, of course, be motivated to seek out Jack herself soon enough because of personal spite, but the seeds of her motivations are External. Just as Jack is a foe fuelled by personal conviction, but his true motivation's seed is External, the Black Queen. It's the yin and yang of passive and active roles, is what I'm trying to say.
(3267) I'm actually not fully sure why this entire process is necessary at all.
(3270) It's interesting that AR wants to take his mind off things too, it makes me wonder if he has PTSD or something and the dog head triggered unpleasant memories he's trying to forget. Then again that's just normal trauma and not necessarily PTSD.
(3280) Now isn't that interesting. WV's nightmare is becoming like Jack. It makes sense, they both opposed tyranny, they both tried to unite the best qualities of the human and the animalistic, it was just a matter of guaging those qualities. In the end, they both decided the same thing, that the King shouldn't reign supreme. But even if he thinks himself dignified, WV understands that the worst thing he can be is as decedant and overzealous as his enemy.
(3284) I wonder if it isn't just the battlefield that changes with the prototyping. I wonder if all the carapacians evolve along with it. Taking in pieces of the power, at least into their collective unconcious, enough that the uranium in WV's stomach didn't kill him, and instead awoke memories not his own.
(3292) It's weird seeing Vriska as an almost voice of reason. What IS he doing with that ring? Jack shit? (Haha, get it?)
(3294) Subtle hint to the idea that Vriska wouldn't be able to beat Jack, even if she wanted to.
(3296) The god tiers ARE pajamas. And how is she able to infaltrate someone else's dreams? A carapacian no less? Shouldn't she be dreaming in the bubbles instead? Girl what are you doing????
(3297) Oh this is so good. I love the paralleling between Aradia and Vriska because I really, really feel like Aradia does right all the things that Vriska does wrong, even in this instance. When Aradia goes god tier, when she integrates her shadow self instead of supressing it, what she does next is best for HER. She doesn't fight Jack, she has no reason to, she stops him long enough for her to get away, because revenge won't help her, and she KNOWS that. It would've been an epic battle, but she won't make it one, because it would've been a useless one. There's personal conviction for revenge, but it's unproductive. Meanwhile, Vriska kills Tavros in exactly that useless retribution. She's the one who could've made him kill her all that time ago, she's the one who egged him on and led him here, and in the end all she does is kill him, essentially just for the sake of petty revenge that she herself was the orchastrator of the motive for. It's not even a cycle, it's just an uproductive boust of violence. Aradia has moved on, Vriska hasn't. Vriska wants to fight and kill Jack, Aradia managed to stop him, even if only briefly.
(3298) NOOOOO NOT WHILE SHE'S GRIEVING this is where it all goes wrong, doesn't it? This clouds Terezi's judgement entirely, doesn't it?
(3301) Ok so Rose accidentally started a cult. But outside of that she's in the possession of a cue ball? I forgot how she got one, or if it was ever explained.
(3303) Space to Spade player communication. Though, that's not really in focus right now. Kanaya's desperation for answers is honestly sad to see, she's very worried about Rose...
(3305) Kanaya says Sylphs are similar to Witches. Add another stone to the pile of me being confused by classes...
(3306) I forgot to mention it earlier, but in the conversation between Eridan and Jade, Eridan implied that he knew more about human procreation than the other trolls did, and that he was put off by it. Fuckin creep, who knows what he was googling. Anyway, Kanaya here instead laments that trolls cannot autonimously choose to have offspring or not. Rather, to her, it's tied to duty and her role in the social order. She's burdened by motherhood, and she's trying to explain this to Jade, or maybe illustrate to her, that SHE'S supposed to be burdened by human motherhood too, as their session's space player. Jade isn't, though, her role as space player is fulfilled via her love of science and biology, he'd happily grow humans in test tubes like she grows plants in pots. But Kanaya isn't a scientist, she doesn't view it all so coldly, she's deeply emotionally tied to the role of Mother, a role she doesn't even have a proper word for if I'm being honest, and that role both gives her a sense of purpose but also an inescapable feeling of dread.
(3307) Earlier I joked that Kanaya's fetch modus made her troll mormon, and I'm afraid that reading still makes sense. Kanaya has faith that her modus is keeping her best interests in mind, or at least her species' and isn't really imagining a possibility where the Matriorb is only coming out because it's time to destroy it.
(3308) Jade seems a lot more tied to family legacy than I remembered, hm.
(3311) Colour me surprised, I was wrong! The cloning apperatus is STRICTLY for humans, which means the ones on the meteors WERE meant to be used for cloning players and not just as a failsafe. It's interesting that the apperatus still resembles the one the humans used, anyway. It might be a thing of reusing sprites, but more aptly I think it's so that breeding the frogs will come more naturally to the players if it resembles the same cloning process that created them.
(3315) "Clone first catch later" is also an apt way to describe skaia and its relation to its players. It creates the humans that will paradoxically make it come into being later, but it ensnares them in the game years after it ejects their baby selves from its system. Kanaya also describes catching the frogs as only one possible method, any other kind of interference is also permitted, presumably also death. I can't help but imagine a prince or bard of space going around killing frogs after they've engeneered the geentic sequence they want. It's also strange that, with just four tubes, jade is expected to "selectively combine" the genes, to study them. It's even stranger because, what traits is she breeding for at all? I guess it's never directly explained, but I'd like to know if the colour of the frog ever matters in the grand scheme of things because I think a kickass dark purple spotted with green frog would be awesome.
(3316) Kanaya mentions that the process is extremely time consuming, yet further convincing me that it isn't Knights that are supposed to help Space players, it's Time players.
(3317) I guess there isnt really a need to store the slime, but what do you do if you want to throw it out? Do you need to just... dump it out of the tube, clean the tube, and reassemble the station? Like, say that frog's genes are really bad. Would Jade just have to live with them forever being in the tube or can she just. Get rid of that slime somehow? I'm asking stupid questions, I know.
(3319) I actually kind of appreciate that the process is left vague enough to be fanciful but concrete enough to give us a sense of difficulty and magnitude. Creating a universe isn't easy, and while it's fun it's also complicated. How will this frog go on to be the one that's frozen in the past? Time shenanigains? Is Echidna involved? Does it even matter it's pretty glossed over
(3320) Baby Naya is adorable, but similarly Doc Scratch's involvement in her childhood makes me worried. There's a parallel between how he put Kanaya to sleep, and how Vriska put Jade to sleep. Absent father figure VS absent mother figure, I guess. It matters here beause both of them talk a lot about familial ties and traditions and duty and whatnot. Kanaya admits that she's drawn to people she sees as dangerous, drawn to trying to help them and fix them, while Jade sees that as amicable I feel it's because she compares it to her own want to help. Jade doesn't "help" the way Kanaya does though. I don't think I have quite the words for it, but Jade is more of a protector and Kanaya is more of a meddler, if that makes sense. Guard dog vs mom friend. This isn't to say either are BAD friends, they're just different, and I think them being unique is a good thing. I guess the only question left is, do first guardians ALWAYS involve themselves with the space players of a given session?
(3321) Surprising precicely no-one, this used to be one of my favourite playable sections when I was very young, because it involved Kanaya (my sign troll) and Eridan (my favourite troll). I will try to give it as much space to wow me all over again but I'm not expecting much, though I still have fond memories of this game.
Kanaya watched Equius practice archery and she describes it as sad. Oh my god...
People (even Kanaya now) describes Tavros as playing "games for girls" and while I think that's really dumb, I think it... might have to do with the nature of the host plush/feduspawn mechanics. They're "games for girls" because hatching a beast is similar to hatching a grub mother or helping with the brood, isn't it?
Apparently Gamzee's absance from the communal space is the most alarming, at least to Kanaya.
Kanaya sewed Tavros a Tinkerbull plush? Aw... :(
KANAYA + SOLLUX/FEFERI - Life and Doom on full display. Sollux invites Aradia's presence (Time) the same way Feferi invites Kanaya's (Space). It's also just really sweet to see someone care about Sollux, and to see someone appreciate Feferi. Kanaya is right to leave them be, but I also like that she stayed just a biiiiit too long for Sollux to get very pissed.
KARKAT + SOLLUX/FEFERI - Karkat not giving a shit about how Sollux is feeling and Sol being releaved about that is so fucking peak I can't put it into words. Karkat's no nap policy seems a little strange now, though, did Feferi not explain the dream bubbles to him? Did she never bother, or was he extremely not receptive to it. Also, I like the parallel between Karkat/Gamzee and Sollux/Feferi, moirailssssss
KARKAT + KANAYA (JADE) - Kanaya oh my god don't give Karkat any more romance ideas this is already too much. I like that Kanaya actually points out that Karkat's form of infatuation is yelling and complaining while still doing what's asked of him. Makes me wonder about Davekat and all that. Also I haven't mentioned it yet but I LOVE the new spritework for the trolls.
KANAYA + KARKAT (TRZI) - It's revealed that the team fell apart when Aradia died, cementing to me that she was, in fact, the true leader of the trolls all along. Maid as a servant class rather than a creative class is making more sense by the minute. It's also interesting to me that just as Karkat's starting to think he can't do anything right by Terezi anymore, he starts worrying about Gamzee. It's odd.
KANAYA + KARKAT (CONT) - Depositing the matriorb doesn't even matter to Karkat. He's so much more concearned with keeping the pretend order of the base that Kanaya going off to do god knows what hardly phases him. He wants her at base as support, not because it's the best thing to do in a given situation, and I think that's kind of a good example of the kind of leader Karkat is.
ERIDAN + KANAYA (OURB) - It's interesting that Kanaya even listens to Eridan when he asks her to wait for him. Like, she really doesn't have to, but he DID just compliment and thank her for having faith in him. Even if she's sarcastic with him I think Kanaya really DOES want the best for even Eridan, and it's why I always shipped them as moirails. This entire flash has just been moirails moirails moirails, and yet no Equius and Nepeta in sight.
ERIDAN + KARKAT (AUGH) - God. GOD. On the one hand I feel for Eridan and how lonely he felt, but on the other hand yeah he's kind of a thick skulled jackass who doesn't consider other people's feelings. Not Kanaya's, not Nepeta's, not Karkat's. He hardly ever even considered Feferi's feelings and she was his moirail. I wouldn't even call him low empathy, I'd just call him inconsiderate, because even when Karkat points out WHY no-one wanted to go to his planet, Eridan doesn't listen. He's deaf on purpose and while it's funny it's also embaressing.
ERIDAN + SOLLUX/FEFERI - Eridan's insistance that them being royalty makes them more civilized and also meant for each other is just. So fucking embaressing. Emotionally it makes sense because he lacks proper connection with people and faith in the sanctity of his and Feferi's blood is all he really has left to give him self-worth, and Eridan has too much of an ego to even let himself believe he isn't the most important person at any given moment. His plan to find Jack is honestly just. ASTONISHINGLY bad. Worse than Vriska's plan and worse than Rose's suicide mission, by some miracle. And Feferi manages to be genuinely concearned for him! In Sollux' words she really is great, but man does Eridan not deserve that sympathy. Especially when he keeps trying to just tug at Feferi's sleeve thinking she's automatically going to listen to him. It's just pure entitlement to her time and LIFE. He thinks he's good enough for her to sidestep all reason and just listen to his. It's awful. "LORD OF ALL ANGELS" Hm that's. HM. A footnote for now. I'm actually happy to see Sollux psyched to stop Eridan. They're not rivals in the quardant sense as much as they're rivals in the narrative sense. Hopelessness as an act of destruction (Eridan) and hopelessness as an act of perserverance (Sollux). I never shipped them but I know other people do, but honestly their exchange here is exactly the reason I don't think they're viable as a ship, at ALL. Eridan doesn't even consider Sollux worthy of ADRESSING like he does with everyone else (even Nepeta who he. calls the kittycat shipper girl GOD I hate him), and Sollux just thinks he's dumb as shit, rightfully so.
DUEL - The way Feferi reacted to the first blows thrown, it makes me think she WASN'T expecting Eridan to fight back, and was angrly with him for doing so. Similarly she seemed angry with Sollux for escalating the fight when it was clear Erdian packed a punch. I don't know, I just think it's interesting that Feferi actually fascilitated the fight instead of them fighting against her wishes, as is common in love triangle situations.
(3327) We only see it for a split second here, but I really appreciate Feferi's rage. She wants to stop Eridan not just because he hurt Sollux, but because he keeps hurting HER, he keeps trying to tug her along based on his whims and she's finally had enough. Well, in reality, she had enough a LONG time ago, but is only now properly taking out that anger. She did nothing wrong, she just wanted to help people, she wanted to help Eridan too but he's beyond help, he refuses help. And now, in this moment, it's either killing him, or risking him killing everyone and everything including himself.
(3330) Eridan is so bitter. This panel, to me, says "I can't be the center of your world? Fine, you won't have a world at all."
(3332) And the worst part is, she didn't even see it coming. She didn't think he'd actually do it.
(3334) Eridan is what you get when you have an overzealous little shit who only knows how to cope with loneliness by bringing other people down. Insisting he's better and stronger than everyone else is the only thing that gives him confidence, much like Vriska. But where Vriska was constantly surrounding herself with people, Eridan was completely alone. Alone to the point of self-destruction, alone to the point of thinking other people are pointless. I used to see Eridan as a tragic figure, and in some ways I guess he still is, but more than anything I think he's a figure of deep, unhealable insecurity and complete disregard for other people. He doesn't listen, he doesn't grow, he just wants to be the centre of the world, or at least SOMEONE's world. It's why he's so flippent with his feelings, he doesn't care WHO likes him as long as SOMEONE does, he doesn't care WHO pays attention to him as long as he has attention at all. Being deprived of that is exactly what leads him down this path, but he was deprived of it because of the way he is. It's self-destruction, it's no-one's fault but his, just like with Vriska.
(3341) The parallelling between Eridan and Kanaya up to this panel is, I think, setup for the idea that they're evenly matched, that Kanaya COULD have out-maneuvre'd Eridan and fucked his shit up if they fought then and there. Problem is, she hesitated, she looked to the orb, to her duty to take care of her people, and that was the ONE weakness Eridan could exploit to throw her off and finish her off for good. He doesn't give a shit about the race. He doesn't give a shit about his duty. All that matters now is revenge, and Kanaya looked at him crooked, so she needs to be put in her place too.
(3346) Rage is what did Kanaya in. Please remember that.
(3349) It also doesn't escape my notice that the only people eridan killed were women. Specifically women who wanted to help him, rather than just dismissed him. Again, he's pure self-sabotage, fucking over any chance at normal relationships when he hurts the only people who gave a shit about him. He left Karkat there, who was too stunned to do anything, and he left Sollux alive who reportedly couldn't have cared less about Eridan as an individual. I talk a lot about how Vriska's self-sabotage is masochistic, but Eridan's? Eridan is deeply sadistic. He doesn't want those closest to him to hurt him, quite the opposide. He wants to hurt those closest to him exactly BECAUSE they're close, they're there, available to be toyed with and hurt for the sake of his own ego. I hate this motherfucker so much I love him also.
(3350) Karkat goes to Kanaya first, and I don't think that's on accident. She was his moral support when no-one else was, her death means he's COMPLETELY vulnerable now. No Terezi to guide him, no Sollux to nudge him, to Aradia to take care of things. He's completely defenseless and alone. Ironically Eridan did to his only friend left EXACTLY what he was complaining to him about earlier - being alone in a hostile merciless world.
(3355) Oh hm, interesting. This IS canonically the first time Karkat's talked to Doc Scratch. I wonder if DS avoids the boys of the session on purpose, per his Caliborn-inclined swayings in morality and control? He instructs Karkat to not leave Kanaya's body, I wonder why? Did he want Karkat to stop her? If so, why? It's just a bag of mysteries with this guy.
(3358) Rage players seem to be drawn to positions of power, specifically power over other people. Just as Eridan's make-belief and hope was in the royalty of his blood, Gamzee's centre of rage rests in his LACK of nobility thus far. He's turned to arcane ideas of worth after getting cabin fever and being deprived of his usual intoxicants. I'm not saying Gamzee was better off constantly high, but I DO think it's interesting that he's talking about what he was "meant to be" and shit. He's a different kind of delusional than he was before, and it's jarring. I wish I had more to analyze about him, but as it stands, it really seems like Gamzee's proving my "Rage and Power" hypothesis.
(3360) The memo keeps going back farther and farther in the timeline, literally because they're the only people who bother to respond, but literary (literarily?) speaking, I think it's because Karkat is mentally retracing his steps and trying to figure out what went wrong. He immediatly blocks out the memory of Feferi because he can't do anything to help, but he keeps arguing with Gamzee and Eridan because he's trying to figure out what he did wrong as leader, what led them down these paths.
(3361) Terezi mentioned before how trolls are kind of used to death, but Karkat is seriously flipping the fuck out. And I don't blame him whatsoever. It's just interesting that he has the most human blood out of everyone and also the most human reactions out of everyone.
(3363) And thus begins Terezi's descent into madness and Gamzee's playing her for a fool. And I was right, it all starts with her being broken up about Dave, and now Tavros. Just because she isn't crying doesn't mean this isn't messing her up. I think she's doing the tried and true thing all prospit dreamers do at some point which is: Bottle It Up. She's holding it in and not realising her emotions that she's burying are gonna fuck with her deductive skills, Heart having power over her Mind as it were.
(3365) She's right back to thinking about Vriska and roleplaying a lawyer, or whatever the Alternian term is. Instead of doing her duty as a Seer of Mind, she's instead playing the role of a Knight, and a prosecutor no less, because she's seeking out Vriska to take her anger out on now that it's all piled up so badly. She just needs a fitting excuse for a fitting punishment, and the more she pins on her the more she'll have to pay.
(3368) It's... almost disheartening to see her completely dismiss Gamzee as a suspect because of the faith she has in him, because she hasn't been disillusioned with his antics yet. Little does she know Gamzee's after the corpse she's just discovered.
(3372) Terezi what the fuck are you doing.
(3380) Oh, I get it. She made his face more red so kissing him would suck less. That's still fucked up Terezi and I think she knows that.
(3384) I love the huge difference in these two panels. I don't think corpse smooching was ever properly explained, anyway. Just shown off with Feferi and Sollux I think? Anyway, the platonic kisses are almost endearing. Terezi is giving full "lesbian trying to do her friend a favour" vibes while Karkat is in full "I'm going to die if you leave me behind (platonic)" it's such a mess. What's worse is I don't think this works even on Kanaya? This is so bad.
(3393) John you aren't dodging the gay accusations.
(3397) John started off the comic avoiding his dad, but as the story goes on he's looking for him in more and more distress. Such is the fate of a good home. When things get stressful, you want to go back to it. John wants to be with his guiding father so he'll feel comfort in what's undeniably a shitty and awful situation. It's not like John's dad would have answers, but he would be a loving and down-to-earth breath of fresh air after everything John's been through today. Like the baby monkeys choocing the plush mother over the metal mother, what brings comfort may not always be pragmatic but it's what children really need. I just feel really bad for John, man.
(3403) I know it's played for laughs but how the FUCK did John's dad afford to buy TEN FUCKING TONS OF TOBACCO???? That shit is EXPENSIVE. Also, it's really sweet he keeps a framed picture of John in his wallet...
(3404) John's dad is also not dodging the gay accusations, what with pictures of handsome men in his wallet. Though I guess in both cases it's more likely bisexuality.
(3408) I guess I never really considered it, but WV is also something of a fatherly figure to John, at least in the sense that he's older than him and guides him on parts of his quest. He's quite a lot shittier at it though.
(3417) I'm not commenting much, but I guess this is part of why John's symbolism is tied to magician work? Since he inherited Jade's prospit cloud "powers" and is able to make a car fly and stuff. I wouldn't necessarily call that a magician thing, though! Just a god tier thing.
(3419) I love John and Jade's dynamic I really do. I also love how John keeps talking about marrying Rose, and his dad marrying her mom. It's that kind of "aww these kids" sort of moments. Marriege is just the prerequisite to them because that's all they really know. Heteronormativity and all that, the idea of something more queer going on is entirely off the table, but I'd like to propose that John questioning Jade about Dave is not only a parallel to Jade questioning John about Rose, it's also projection in a way. I think Jade might like Rose, and John might like Dave, but because queerness isn't an option for them they use each other to explore possibilities, it's kind of funny.
(3420) Karkat apologizing to even John on his (supposed) death bed is the most Karkat thing to do, ever. This kid is scared shitless and all he really wants to to is make amends. Get him out of that clown joint man!!!
(3222) Wait, was the ultimate riddle ever revealed to us? I can't believe I'm asking this now.
(3427) AND SO THE KARKAT - GAMZEE - TEREZI TRIANGLE BEGINS.
(3429) I feel really fucking bad for Karkat.
(3431) Eugh. There's a lot I want to say about this. Firstly, Equius is uncomfortable with Eridan not because of his supremacist bullshit, but because of Eridan's advances. Equius, as someone who has a support system in the form of Nepeta, just... can't fathom why Eridan acts the way he does. Meanwhile he's completely incapable of standing up to Gamzee. It's kind of a footnote, but I think it's important here: Equius is a pacifist. Yes, he kills imps, and wrecks robots, but, people? He never hurts a soul. Not people "below" him, not people "above" him, because the social order is all formalities and fetishes to him. Paradoxically Equius is the worst AND the best equipped for this emergency. He's a highblood, just like the murderers are, and he's physically stronger than them. BUT, he's a pushover, and a pacifist, rendering him useless in this scenario. I honestly feel kind of bad for him, and for Karkat too. But I think most of all for Nepeta :(
(3434) At this point in the comic, you might've legitimately forgotten Kanaya had a vampire connection. With Gamzee and Vriska both on the loose, it's easeir to pin enigmatic shit on them, but in this case, with Kanaya's body being gone and a trail of her blood leading to Feferi's newly punctured neck, there's only really one conclusion to draw. And it's kind of hilarious.
(3437) Aaaaaand this is exactly what I was talking about earlier with Terezi's judgement being clouded. She's so obsessed with Vriska that she's trying to find any way to pin this all on her, and while she's aware it makes no sense she's failing to see any other possibilities, either. Eridan is a silent killer, Gamzee's completely off her radar, and she isn't contacting Karkat as she should when he's the supposed leader. NOR is she checking up on any of her still alive teammates, to keep them out of trouble. I think this entire investigation arc is Terezi at her lowest. The least sensible, completely clouded by delusion, inconsiderate of her teammates' plight.
(3438) This is one of those really tragic games, sadly. Even if the intro music is fucking. HORSES.
EQUIUS + NEPETA 1 - Equius has finally begun unironically roleplaying with Nepeta and we love to see it. Even if he tries to go back on it it's clear it's become part of their bond. I also appreciate that Nepeta's there for him to cheer him up when he was left behind by his robo gf who died out of nowhere on him and hugged her ex instead of him when she did so. Nepeta is an unironically supportive friend and like!!! It shows!!! For all his creepiness Equius is still the most emotionally stable out of all the highbloods, I'd even say more stable than Feferi because she flies off the handle more often than he does. It's kind of admirable when you think about it! "I love the way you say b100" and "I know" is also SO SO SO ADORABLE. AUGH. I LOVE MEOWRAILS.
EQUIUS + NEPETA 2 - Equius also straight up says he's lucky to have a friend like Nepeta to keep him in line. He attributes it to highbloods being more prone to violence but I don't think that's true, I think their circamstances are more likely to psychologically insentivise violence, but that doesn't mean it's literally in their blood. Either way I love these two goobers. It might also be because their dynamic kinda reminds me of me and my bestie. Obviously Meow loved Nepeta as a kid but even now, when I read Nepeta's dialogue in my brain I'm like "that's Meow that's literally just Meow" and Frankly??? I probably sound as obtuse and stupid as Equius making his shitty horse puns when I rave about my bullshit while mispelling every third word. Also Nepeta canonically dislikes Eridan which is sad for our blorbo purposes because he's my favourite and Nepeta is hers. Sadge! But understandable on Nepeta's part Eridan sucks.
"I would still like to say Goodbye" "You better believe I will see you again soon Equius" STOP I'M ALREADY DEAD
NEPETA + EQUIUS 3 - She still got him in the pile one more time. Oh my god that's adorable. AND her dream about Aradia makes me think Aradia might still have (some) positive feelings left for Equius!! My shipper heart can only dream.
NEPETA + EQUIUS 4 - Oh god the roleplaying. The playful riffing. I'm gonna CRY. They love each other so much your honour you have to give them a good ending. You HAVE TO they're so precious. I wish I had more insightful commentary here, maybe about Equius' weird pronoun usage being queer in the "odd" sence rather than the gay sense, and maybe about Nepeta being such a good sport and how even something like her giving her hat to Equius as a gift makes him emotional....... AAAAAHHHHH AHH AH MY HEART. IT'S BREAKING IT'S BROKEN. I LOVE MY KIDS.
SHIPPING WALL - Just as Nepeta's roleplaying rubbing off on Equius is a sign of the fact they've grown closer, I think Nepeta being grossed out by the blood in her pigments is ALSO a sign that he's rubbed off on her in return, and it's for the better, too. Again, he's the Superego to her Id, and vice versa. They just balance each other super well. But, on the topic of the wall itself, I think Nepeta's ships speak to something about her or at least her judge of character. She jots Feferi and Sollux down as matesprits (probably because she wants his matespritship to be occupied so Equius can have Aradia), Rose x Kanaya and Dave x Tavros as all Hearts. It's interesting because she seems to be pairing off humans with Trolls, but doesn't do that for either John (who she can't pin down the relationship of with WV, because she doesn't have a word for parental commroderie) OR Jade, who was her favourite! It makes me think she's either hesitant to ship Jade with any of the trolls because it'd probably be Karkat (outside the weird unnatainable auspistice pairing she put them in), OR, she has feelings for Jade and is in denial about it. She's still hung up on shipping herself with Karkat despite him not resciprocating her advances at all, apparently carefuly tiptoeing around them for YEARS. Meow herself told me she thought Nepeta's crush on Karkat might be comphet (which is totally not her projecting as a lesbian what are you talking about) but while I don't think it's COMPLETELY true, it's an interesting idea when taking into account the whole ordeal with the desciple and how Nepeta is otherwise very apt at guaging who likes who, or at least Headcannoning stuff over it. Then again, she jots down Vriska and Terezi as Kismesis, so maybe she's not as good at reading relationships as I give her credit for.
Gamzee fucking with Equius with the bow and arrow (as well as the quieter tone) is honestly diabolical. It's like he's waving Equius' failures in his face, his lack of real aristocracy via a lack of bowmanship. It's fucked up, man, that entire exchange is tense and eerie and makes me really uncomfortable, especially because Equius is so subservient the entire time.
(3441) Equius, masochist that he is, I know won't do anything about this. But god I wish he did.
(3447) He's smiling, because he gets off on this. Because these are his final moments. He gets to maintain the hierarchy, and still keep Nepeta safe. He's smiling, because he thinks he got everything he wanted, which is to say nothing at all.
(3449) Nepeta I'm so sorry you witnessed that. I'm so sorry you saw that happen and I'm so sorry that what's about to happen is the only thing that makes sense for you to do in this scenario, even if it's pointless and ultimately your downfall.
(3457) Equius was her Superego, and without him she lacks proper judgement and control. Similarly, Nepeta was his Id, and without her all he has are rules to get off to. It's tragic, if they had stuck together maybe they would've made it, but there's no way in hell Equius was risking Nepeta's safety, and there's no way Nepeta was going to let Equius be held back by being her personal guard. I'm just sad, man. These two, out of EVERYONE, deserved better. Yes I'm sad for Tavros, and Feferi, but these two had everything and ONE moment of letting go of each other did them in. I HATE IT HERE.
(3466) This is the conversation between John and Vriska I was looking forward to the most, and I have to say it couldn't have come at a better time. We're at a very low point, mood-wise, and Vriska finally being more grounded and less erratic fits that mood shift perfectly. The conversation starts about their guardians, and about how Vriska EXPECTS John to be mad at her, even though she did everything she could to help him, and did exactly as he asked her to. She pin this on Tavros (as she does everything) but in reality this is the result of living with an abusive parent. She expects to be repremanded even when she does everything right, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when John instead thanks her she bricks. It makes her go completely off script. I actually find that to be her most humanizing moment. Genuinely being surprised that someone is happy with what she's done for them, instead of angry or resentful or a pushover. It doesn't escape me that the reason John is this way is because he had a Good upbringing, a parent who loved him and made him feel safe, and John missing that and missing his dad is something Vriska can't really understand, because she never had a real home. She never had a place she felt safe. It's just sad.
(3467) In reality, Alternia's social order has nothing to do with the way Vriska feels. She tells us as much. She didn't care when she killed Aradia, or tried to kill Tavros the first time, because all her time on Alternia was essentially spent on autopilot, in a numb haze of just fulfilling a role she didn't even really understand. Getting away from her lusus is what gave her this clarity, and through that, made her feel bad about her actions. She's freaking out because she's not who she thought she was all those years, that nerd trying to be a cold-blooded killer was just an abused child, and she wasn't a cold-blooded killer at all. She was weak. All those years, she was weak, and at her lowest, reaching her hand out to John is her first real sign on strength, in my opinion.
(3468) As usual, Vriska is both right and wrong. The game pit them against each other, because that's what you do with trolls. However, Karkat getting them to work together is exactly what led them to the alpha timeline. If they had all god tiered, something else would've gone horribly wrong, but Vriska's too caught up in feeling bad about failing the whole maturing thing to see that. She wishes she was a normal troll so badly, a normal ANYTHING, that she doesn't realise her current conversation is the closest she's gonna get to that. She attributes gameplay to sexual maturity that gives way to emotional maturity, but I think it's the other way around. I think the game facilitates emotional maturity, with sexual maturity being an afterthought, and possibly not even accounted for. Vriska thinks it's relevant, because her emotional immaturity is exactly what caused all her romantic/sexual endevours, with Terezi and Tavros and Kanaya, and now John. Reaching out to him as a human, as a person, as a Friend, is really the best thing she can do for herself.
(3469) Terezi does an awesome job of proving why Vriska can't talk to anyone else, and also proving this is everyone's lowest point.
(3470) I wonder who "she" is in this context. And I'm glad Karkat finally brought up the 12 other wrigglers! This is the first real reference we get to them, and it's very existential in this moment. Karkat and his fear of meaninglessness and lack of purpose, genuinely entertains the idea that his whole life's work was nothing but a waste, a fluke. I can't help but imagine this being the same thing Meenah went through, even if on a smaller scale, or while not in an ectobiology lab.
(3473) Vriska's finally gonna talk about Aranea, and her absolute faith in her gives me the same vibe as her absolute fiath in her own confidance and abilities. It's just what's SUPPOSED to be true, so she believes it is.
(3475) Even though she talks up Mindfang, clearly the only times she had fun with these stories were as fiction. As roleplay. Vriska wanted to be somebody, and the book told her she had to be dangerous, so she believed it. But when John points out how similar they are, it's clear Vriska would've much rather been human. Mindfang would be a fun escapist fantasy, but nothing more. Not some royal heirloom, not the shoes you have to fill, just someone to look up at the portrait of fondly.
(3478) I can't quite pin down Sollux' mental illness, but his relationship to his aspect is fascinating. They are no less doomed, but he is a lot more content. Maybe mages start off burdeened by their knowledge, try to act in spite of it, and then grow a new fondness for it? Or, at least, accept it and integrate it into their way of being? I'm not really sure, and it's also getting late and I'm kind of getting a headache. I think Sollux passed his head issues onto me, the bastard.