Author: optimisticduelist

hello! first of all (though this ask isn’t gonna be long, hopefully), thank you for all your analyses on homestuck! i’m a really new fan, only started reading and finished homestuck within the month, and i’m so glad there are still so many fans producing content until this day! (i was so happy to see how recent your videos were you have no idea) i just spent the whole day reading your written articles on medium, it was a greatly enjoyable time, i feel like my third eye opened and stuff (1/2)

(2/2 i’m sorry i gET REALLY LONG WINDED) and with all the knowledge i gained i also came to my own understanding and interpretation of many things that initially bothered me. it was a lot of fun! i hope things look up for you, and i really look forward to more of your content!

Thank you so much! Things are objectively pretty great for me personally nowadays, I just went through a rough couple days. Feeling better already :B
Hope you enjoy your Homestuck journey! ^^

I didn’t know English isn’t your first language! Actually, what is your first language?

My first language is English-I just didn’t learn it through traditional channels, exactly. I had some school assistance but the bulk of my english was self taught. My ‘lingua franca’, so to speak, is Spanish, in that thats what my family speaks and what I first learned growing up. But I’m considerably less proficient at Spanish than English, somewhat sadly.

I’d realized I didn’t fit into the whole Catholic worldview before I’d hit 10, what with my weird feelings about boys and stuff, + a really toxic home life and stuff and…i needed to escape. pretty much the way I coped w/ my  life was by throwing myself into stories, books, video games, etc.

That’s how I learned, and how I survived in the first place.

My first professionally published writing ever was on this subject, actually, focusing on my experience with Earthbound. I recommend any Homestuck read that piece tbh, not because my writing is particularly special but because I think I managed to convey something special about Earthbound’s artistic spirit that is absolutely core to the legacy Homestuck seeks to inherit.

trigger warning for discussions of depression, abuse and csa though.
fair warning.

Too many people view Homestuck as a cynical, almost cruel tale with a mean/callous kind of comedy, written by a “troll” author. I think that understanding fundamentally breaks any attempt at understanding the story because its the exact opposite of the roots Homestuck points to in its very name.

This wasnt about homestuck but everything about me is about homestuck and the way the cultural legacy that produced it has defined and changed me over time.

Earthbound, utena, mother 3, boktai, megaman, the tales of series, all the way to more modern works like Homestuck, Undertale, Gravity Falls & Steven universe–and so many other stories than i can name…i’m made of those stories, and if i’m beholden to any particular cultural thread its what i found in them.  

And I guess ive just been Through Some Shit this week and kinda need to talk.
Been through some serious changes that have been much needed for a long time, and this proved to be a good way to center myself and remind myself what I like doing and why i think it matters.

I was going to save the new icon for the big re-brand event, but screw it, you guys on Tumblr and Discord get a preview over the youtube crowd I guess. I needed to do someting to mark this event in my life–to commemorate a change, i suppose. Consider it a small taste of things to come.

By the way, on that note, I’m an Heir now. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ramble a bit, it helped me out. Have a great day, and keep rising.

seriousflightrisk:

revolutionaryduelist:

hummingbirdbandit:

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider spent 16 years of his life isolated in an apartment building with no other living creatures to interact with, only remaining sane through delving through the archives of the dead internet and talking to his three friends through a glitch in Paradox Space.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider made a physical representation of his brain at 13 years old just to have someone to talk to, only to have the sentient AI he created echo back his worst fears for three years, driving him deeper into his isolation.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider still managed to be one of the most human of the kids, fighting for his best friends and feeling guilty for years that he couldn’t give Roxy a relationship with the only human being left alive because he couldn’t betray himself and deny his lack of attraction to women, even if it would doom their species.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider broke up with Jake English because of a mutual lack of understanding in how to communicate – the two dealt with their isolation in opposite ways and he couldn’t bear feeling like a drain on his best friend, no matter how much he loved him.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider has to live with the knowledge that his brother was abused for years by some iteration of him, and he can never truly make right on that because the actions were not his own.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider is one of the most deeply broken Homestuck characters and to treat him as a one-dimensional villain/bully is to do a disservice to his incredibly poignant writing. There is so much to be said about a character that is shown to be cruel and abusive in one circumstance ACTIVELY CHOOSING to fight whatever part of him is predisposed to be that way, and sacrificing himself not one but twice for the greater good.

End the Dirk Strider hate. He deserves more.

Oh my God, this post is my actual anthem. Have I reblogged it already and forgot, how don’t I remember if I did….?

I’m so fucking moved seeing how many notes this has, for ages early into starting all this it felt like shifting the inertia of public opinion wrt Dirk was all but impossible, and now here’s this MASSIVE evidence of such a shift taking place…it’s rly moving, I’m so glad ;_;

I absolutely agree with every part of this except that Dirk is predisposed to be abusive. He thought that he was because of a combination of his tendency to be overly self-critical, years of being tortured by his haywire AI, and Bro Strider’s Lil Cal induces insanity. Dirk had poor social skill due to his isolation, but he was by no means an abusive person. He was just fighting against his bad traits like we all are.

Valuable nuance. The critical factor that uplifts dirk is that he has his friends to want to do right by and rely on, even if they also hurt each other. AR and Bro both lacked that, and that I think was what really broke them more than the AI/Lil Cal stuff.

Dirk loves too much to know what to do with himself when he’s forced to be alone. That’s the long and short of it. 

hummingbirdbandit:

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider spent 16 years of his life isolated in an apartment building with no other living creatures to interact with, only remaining sane through delving through the archives of the dead internet and talking to his three friends through a glitch in Paradox Space.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider made a physical representation of his brain at 13 years old just to have someone to talk to, only to have the sentient AI he created echo back his worst fears for three years, driving him deeper into his isolation.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider still managed to be one of the most human of the kids, fighting for his best friends and feeling guilty for years that he couldn’t give Roxy a relationship with the only human being left alive because he couldn’t betray himself and deny his lack of attraction to women, even if it would doom their species.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider broke up with Jake English because of a mutual lack of understanding in how to communicate – the two dealt with their isolation in opposite ways and he couldn’t bear feeling like a drain on his best friend, no matter how much he loved him.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider has to live with the knowledge that his brother was abused for years by some iteration of him, and he can never truly make right on that because the actions were not his own.

Daily reminder that Dirk Strider is one of the most deeply broken Homestuck characters and to treat him as a one-dimensional villain/bully is to do a disservice to his incredibly poignant writing. There is so much to be said about a character that is shown to be cruel and abusive in one circumstance ACTIVELY CHOOSING to fight whatever part of him is predisposed to be that way, and sacrificing himself not one but twice for the greater good.

End the Dirk Strider hate. He deserves more.

Oh my God, this post is my actual anthem. Have I reblogged it already and forgot, how don’t I remember if I did….?

I’m so fucking moved seeing how many notes this has, for ages early into starting all this it felt like shifting the inertia of public opinion wrt Dirk was all but impossible, and now here’s this MASSIVE evidence of such a shift taking place…it’s rly moving, I’m so glad ;_;