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overall, what do you think of kuprum and folykl + their dynamic? I know that some people got super uncomfortable at the ‘kissed to death’ end due to it feeling rather unconsenty and out of nowhere, so I’m interested in your take on it. so altogether, did your personal feelings on them as characters change? you like them more, less, the same amount?

nivq87:

revolutionaryduelist:

They’re fucked up assholes, and I like them a lot anyway because they’re also pretty kind people to those they deem true friends. Sounds a lot like the Captors and Cirava tbh.

If the energy transfer thing struck anyone as out of nowhere, they weren’t paying attention. Neither Kuprum or Folklyl were shy about the somewhat sexual connotations of Kuprum literally feeding Folklyl his life force to keep her alive.

more rambling under the cut

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Yeah I also found the voidrot thing super fascinating with regards to sollux, like, his justification to hang out in the bubbles seemed mildly arbitrary, but it makes a lot more sense that he’d want to hang out near another high energy troll that likes him. His meteor options would’ve been gamzee, which ugh, and in the retcon line, vriska, UGH.

I hadn’t actually considered that angle, but it does kinda resonate with his sticking near Aradia, who seems to have become a Time elemental of sorts and so might be a source of inexhaustible energy. Kinda speculatory, but I like it.

I’m interested in how close together Void and Doom are on the Aspect wheel, personally. If goldbloods echo batteries, then voidrot calls to mind a spent or burnt out battery that can no longer hold a charge.

Such a battery isn’t useful, and so it’s irrelevant and forgotten. So I wonder if Voidrot can afflict any caste, or if it’s more specific to Goldbloods and their inherently Doomy psiionics leaving them burnt out and irrelevant?

Either way, having voidrot means Folykl is constantly dying, and void eyes mean Sollux is d00med-until he dies and becomes a half ghost. So there’s some overlapping of themes here, even if what sollux has isn’t literally voidrot.

As usual, what exposition we get leaves me wanting to know more. Hmm.

overall, what do you think of kuprum and folykl + their dynamic? I know that some people got super uncomfortable at the ‘kissed to death’ end due to it feeling rather unconsenty and out of nowhere, so I’m interested in your take on it. so altogether, did your personal feelings on them as characters change? you like them more, less, the same amount?

They’re fucked up assholes, and I like them a lot anyway because they’re also pretty kind people to those they deem true friends. Sounds a lot like the Captors and Cirava tbh.

If the energy transfer thing struck anyone as out of nowhere, they weren’t paying attention. Neither Kuprum or Folklyl were shy about the somewhat sexual connotations of Kuprum literally feeding Folklyl his life force to keep her alive.

more rambling under the cut

I find it kinda weird to call them codependent in this context, too, since again–Folklyl needs energy to survive. Kuprum cares enough to give it to her. Alternia does not. She’d be dead without him, and he’d be purposeless and lonely without her. They talk a lot of shit to each other, but the foundation of their friendship is that simple fact.

They’re broken people trying to survive and make the best of a broken world much bigger and stronger than they are. This is Alternia 101. I keep being surprised that anyone’s surprised by this stuff.

The MSPA Reader volunteered to take over a role they didn’t understand, to try and break Kuprum and Folklyl up because they failed to pass their own standards of good behavior. It is not exactly a surprise that the 4chan trolls took that moralizing gesture and milked it for all it was worth.

And like, I get that the noncon element of the energy transfer thing gave it an uncomfortable edge, but…guys…they were basically leaving the MSPA Reader to die. The readers well-being and comfort was quite obviously out the window.
It was supposed to be uncomfortable, not just because it was non-con but because it was attempted murder.

All that aside, their friendship is still really genuine and heartwarming, as the drone path shows us. Kuprum deeply, genuinely cares about Folklyl’s well-being. It matters to him whether or not she’s alright. And both of them are victims of Alternia and targets to Trizza’s drones, no matter how much Kuprum kisses her ass. This is important context.

Anyway, How morally ‘good’ a character is has precisely 0% to do with how interesting I find them. I only really care about how much I think they add to the narrative.

Folklyl and Kuprum are very interesting, and add a lot. To our understanding of the conflict between lowbloods and highbloods, the condition that made Sollux’s eyes black (we have a name for it now! Voidrot!), and goldbloods in general. 

Psiionics got so much more interesting as a result of that energy transfer beat, even though the noncon element did make it uncomfortable.

In light of all that, honestly, who caaaares about how good or nice or likeable they are. Characters can be flawed and mean and fucked up and still interesting. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to grow up and learn to treat people better. Also hopefully, they’ll get a chance to grow up at all.

I also thought Rebellion’s ending was toxic lesbianism at first, but after rewatching it… uh, seven? Eight times? The whole film now reads to me as a young suicidal queer girl struggling with internalized homophobia. (It’s almost *too* relatable >.>)

I mean I don’t disagree…I just feel like if there was any intent to give that girl a happy ending the story would not have ended with her kidnapping god and becoming the devil because of her Possessive Gay Girl feels

Draw any positive meaning you can from it, don’t get me wrong, the author is dead etc. But in terms of what was authorially intended, madoka always leaned just a little too close to queerbaity/dead or bad gays tropes for my comfort- and the end of Rebellion put it firmly on the wrong side of the line.

That could hypothetically always change if the series continues tho. Ans anyway that’s just my feelings and I’m not even wlw, if people can enjoy it on their own terms more power to them.

I just wouldn’t endorse pmmm as queer rep the way I’d endorse utena or sailor moon or magical lyrical girl nanoha. Don’t rly feel the authorial intent is pro-wlw necessarily in madokas case.

gaytog:

the-official-pope-of-madoka:

revolutionaryduelist:

@stormsbourne replied to your post  

“What do you mean by “mediocrity” in the context of Madoka Magica?”

usagi literally watches all her friends die over and over again in
sailor moon so the whole ‘magical girls BUT DARK’ thing is so dumb

also I’ve heard pretear is a good magical girl show for people who don’t like sailor moon, and in addition, there’s of course always princess tutu

EXACTLY its so frustrating. Also yeah I never watched much Pretear but what I have seen looks pretty good, so add it to the list of reccomendations I’m putting below which already included, for….

starbitscoffee What do you mean by “mediocrity” in the context of…

that’s super interesting bc I loved Madoka! You mention that there’s better magical girl genres that are better written and I actually watched Utena bc of you and actually really enjoyed it so I have a lot of faith in your recommendations :‘0 so other than Sailor Moon (which I couldn’t really get into, unfortunately) can you tell me those other magical girl shows like Madoka?

I love Madoka Magica too, don’t get me wrong-I still cry every time I listen to Sagitta Luminis, it’s a very well-crafted show in a lot of respects. And to be fair Sailor Moon is a really long show with some real peaks and valleys-I’d probably recommend season 3 of that above everything else, since it’s where the series is strongest.

Off the top of my head some recommendations are:

1. PRINCESS TUTU –

image

Super dark, super weird, deals with a lot of the same themes as Utena and Homestuck, there’s a duck named duck. what’s not to love?

Rating: I automatically fall for dudes who talk this show up

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2. Mawaru Penguindrum – Only barely a magical girl show, but it’s by Kunihiko Ikuhara, the director of Utena, so I’m blood-bound to talk about it until I die. 
its exactly as fucked up and surreal as the Utena link implies. Substantially moreso on both counts, actually.

Lots of abuse and incest themes just like with Utena, but just as with Utena I feel its treated pretty appropriately. It features enough lgbt stuff that i’m pretty happy with it on that front, too. It’s even more dense and hard to understand than Utena in some ways, so I’m planning to rewatch this one myself and probably do some videos on it eventually.

Unfortunately its also a lot more overtly fanservicey/sexual than other stuff I’d recommend–Ikuhara seems to have gotten unfortunately trashier with time. I still think its good, the recommendation just comes with even heavier caveats than Utena.

Rating: Mr. President, watch out!

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3. Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha – More episodic and combat oriented so its a pretty simple story, but it deals with a lot of abuse themes and following the series means watching the two main girls literally fall in love and adopt a child together. It’s maybe tongue in cheek, but they literally live together and sleep in the same bed. its canon.

Rating: Moms

I could think of more for sure–the Precure series (wanna chime in on standout seasons, @nelfes ?), Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, theres all sorts of different weird stuff in the genre so it kinda depends on what you’re looking for. These are just a couple shows that hold a special place in my heart for one reason or another.

crowbarbreplied to your post  “What do you mean by “mediocrity” in the context of Madoka Magica?”

i always get rly sad because the original ending of rebellion was
supposed to be homura and madoka going to magical girl heaven together,
but some people behind the movie were like nah. the creator was pretty
upset about the change and same. it’s still there in the manga
adaptation.

Oh. That actually makes me feel even more justified in erasing that ending from canon in my head, and makes me feel better about Gen Urobuchi for whenever I throw myself into the Fate/Stay Night franchise, not to mention making me more positive on the actual artistic vision behind Madoka overall.

Thanks a lot for the tip! Do you have a source, by any chance?

That last point is not true:

What kind of story did you think up at first?

Urobuchi: From the start, the idea was “Homura becomes a witch, and the story takes place inside her barrier”. But at the time, I wanted to end the story with Madoka taking Homura away with her. So, I thought the story would end this time for real (laughs). But both Iwakami-san and Shinbou-san were like, “No, we want the story to keep going after this” and wouldn’t give me the OK. So then when I was getting really worried, Shinbou-san was like “Might as well just make Madoka and Homura into enemies”. And that suggestion was basically the breakthrough. I really agreed that Homura might be plausible as Madoka’s equal opposite.

So the plot came together based on the concept of Madoka and Homura becoming enemies.

Urobuchi: That’s right. Once I knew the direction I was working for, everything came together, so I wrote the screenplay after that. I wrote the first draft, and then came the revisions, and it ended up as it is now.

Source: https://feral-phoenix.livejournal.com/685568.html

Finally, a source 😀

Ah, good to know.

Could you elaborate on the hope player sexuality filter you mentioned with Maxlol? I think I know where you’re going with that but I’m still curious.

every hope player we’ve seen across the board has had something to do with sexuality, and most are pretty, uh. horny. for lack of a better word.

Eridan and Cronus. Moving on…

There’s Jake’s x-rated fantasies about Aranea, as well as his admission that he’s harbored thoughts for all his friends–Roxy, Jane, and Dirk. And all of those friends had similar feelings for him.

Diemen’s got his phallic sausage jokes, and once he gets into you he tries to steal a kiss. Once Cirava Changes you/lets you get Changed, the Reader is rewarded with tons of followers interested in them romantically/asking if they’re single.

Elwurd and Maxlol are both transparently horny and quite intense about it-Maxlol even sublimates his horniness into a twisted desire for servitude, which notably vibes with the class I’m alleging for him.

That’s 7/7 hopebound, so far. i think we can call this a solid trend.

I’ve seen a few people suggest folykl is a thief, but I see her as a mage, seeing as she’s literally suffering through her aspect, void(rot)

I didn’t buy into the “Mages suffer” headcanon back before the premier example of that idea–Sollux– was canonically established to have the suffering Aspect. Every character we’ve seen in both Homestuck and the Friendsims have suffered their aspect one way or another, so that by itself doesnt really tell me much of anything at all.

What do you think Elwurd, Kuprum and Folykl’s classpects are?

Honestly vol 6 blindsided me, to the extent that classpect stuff isn’t even what I found most exciting about it. It ended up not being at the forefront of my mind while playing and I def missed stuff. I’ll have to replay them eventually. anyhow

MAXLOL & FOLKLYL

This is just a thought, but Kuprum and Foklyl both them seem to echo a Mage of Doom-they know how each of them are doomed, just like Cirava did, and this awareness lends to a self-serving nature and a sense of self-assured arrogance. Starting to remind me of how all indigos seem to evoke pages.

I’m not sure about Folklyl’s Class. I kinda feel like Thief, kinda feel like Page, could go either way if she’s a creator class. Rogue almost makes sense but I consider it less likely since we have a Rogue of Void in Roxy already.

Maxlol I suspected was a Knight of Hope as early as Troll Call, and everything I saw confirmed as much for me. I suspected he’d believe in the empire a lot and serve “through Hope” that way

And Maxlol DOES turn out to rationalize his service to the empire through Hope…but it has nothing to do with faith in the empire or Trizza. It just goes through the Hope player sexuality filter. Which is. hilarious, frankly.

He uses his powers to serve (help, give, protect) his friends Hope, or serve (totally own/defeat/beat) his enemies through Hope–literally, through his Hope and Rage colored psiionics. Goldbloods’s duality motif manifests as Maxlol seemingly using both his primary aspect and its complement.

Bonus points for the fact that even in a situation Maxlol might have interpreted as him getting cheated on or w.e, his instinct is to help the MSPA Reader give Folklyl power–Folklyl has to literally tell him to “stop helping”. An event that’s pretty Hope coded–kisses, shows of affection, the general nsfw-y nature of it all.

ELWURD

Strikes me as a witch of hope, mainly because she seems quite disappointed at her inability to Change bronya into a bad girl. The MSPA Reader quite gleefully parses as someone who tries to become her familiar figure, joining them in Hope-fueled pretense, moving the Reader to lie to Elwurd directly or to lie to Bronya with Elwurd.

Either way, the ability to commit to a lie remains a powerful Hope motif. As does horniness. Elwurd’s true “familiar” figure in this paradigm would likely be Bronya, who Elwurd can’t get over and also can’t stop lying to.

Elwurd’s biggest romantic obstacle is her overly inflated self-Importance(Light) which holds her back from being honest about her feelings. This culminates in an act of theft that Elwurd denied ever happening, to force continued interaction with Bronya.  So i think its reasonable to suspect shes roleplaying a Thief of Light, and its not doing wonders for her if so.

Rather than a Witch, its also possible shes a Rogue with their particular fixations on romantic partners. Heir is a possibility, though I feel pretty strongly Cirava’s an Heir of Hope, so I think its likely she’s a Witch if they’re both change-classes. I may just be overstating the Change references in either of their texts, but I don’t think so.

Guess we’ll learn more later, but those are my thoughts right now!