Tag: Anonymous

Someone made a post about how Joey and Jude may not actually die when sburb happens. Was it you? (And if so, can you please link that post?)

seems likely other people have talked about it besides me, but i have certainly done a video or two on that subject since I literally don’t think theres any chance they’ll actually die permanently at all:

This is on how I think the likeliest scenario is that Hiveswap’s heroes will escape to Earth C in the end, probably bringing most or all of these doomed trolls with them.

This one is on why I think its likely that Pa/Grandpa set things up to save Joey and Jude, or enable them to do…something? that would “Save the world”.

Simply put, I think the idea of Hiveswap having a tragic ending is antithetical to Homestuck and Hiveswap’s themes, and allowing them such a fate runs completely counter to Grandpa’s character. It’s easy to get lose it in the weeds because of what a shitty dad he is, but we’re still dealing with a genuine Hero, here, even if he’s a tragic one.

I don’t know if anyone has pointed this out yet? But you know how at the end of Act 6, we can see Jake and Dirk catching up, Dirk having his hand behind his head? Well I remembered much earlier Lil Hal had said: “I will not hold one tentative hand behind my head like a flustered asshole from an Asian cartoon, nor will an oversized bead of sweat overlap ludicrously with my visage” when talking to Roxy about Dirk planning to confess to Jake. :O

yep! Lil Hal was wrong about Dirk because he perceives Dirk as the same teenager he was at 13, who Lil Hal still was in some ways. Dirk proper has grown up since then.

also i love that scene its cute

How would you recommend someone “get into” Sailor Moon?

most people are pretty familiar with the basics so honestly if you struggle with the episodic nature and the 100+ episodes (perf reasonable) i’d say just watch season 3 because thats the best season

if you really like it season 5 is a great follow up, too. all the seasons are great imo but those two contextualize the sailor moon universe best imo so theyre the most impactful for me

In response to your post about Xefros and rping: It’s been a while since I played Hiveswap, but when I was going through it, he seemed interested in being a butler and learning all he could about it, only because that was what was expected of him. He was/is fully accepting of one day having to serve others, whether or not he likes it, while his true interest seems to be in Arena Stickball. He also seemed to have an interest in music, but that may have been Dammek’s influence.

“Resigned to the fact that there’s no hope and all thats left in his life is exploitative labor until death” is not the same as “genuinely interested”.

He’s trying to learn about being a butler because the alternative is being murdered even faster. There is no consent from Xefros in this situation, he’s merely complying with that Alternia demands of him on pain of death. It matters that Xefros doesn’t like it, and it matters that not wanting to do it but being forced to leaves him feeling drained and miserable. 

That’s why I view the role of the Knight-a mechanical metaphor for his role as a Butler-as a corrupting influence that will likely be discarded as Xefros finds his true self. I 100% guarantee you there’s no scenario where Hiveswap will suggest that Xefros lying down and embracing the role of Alternian butler is a good thing.

The music link was initially Dammek’s idea, yes, but in contrast to the Butler motif it is actually possible for Xefros to choose to embrace it in a healthier way, now that he’s free. So it might turn out to be an interest he develops on his own terms together with Joey–the wish granting implications of the cherub portal suggest that performance is in Joey’s future, after all.

any thoughts on zebruh’s class then?

tl;dr Knight of Doom roleplaying Page of Void, probably. 

more under the cut, this got predictably long.

I’m thinking his true Class is likely Knight, which I see as the Passive Serve Class.

Doom is the aspect of suffering, rules and limitations, and poverty in contrast to Life’s immense wealth. I think on some level his desire to help lowbloods-who’s suffering he would be keenly attuned to on some level–is genuine.

As “Ones who serve X, or serve through X, for the benefit of others”,
Knights tend to exploit/use their Aspect directly, but always in the service of other agents.

Redglare is a huge badass who parses quite Actively initially, but she is in the service of the Grand Highblood, and mostly exists to bring his will to pass-until she accidentally serves Mindfang a bunch of Minds to control on a silver platter, allowing her escape.

In the same way,
Zebruh perceives himself as being in the service of lowbloods, but ultimately serves only the agenda of wider Alternian culture.

He’s still serving another, but it matters who the other is.

They also seem happiest when they stop trying so hard and allow their innate desires to be receptive to their loved ones’ needs to guide them–Karkat is at his best passively helping others with their romance problems, Dave is happiest when he chills out and gives Karkat the companionship and time he craves so much, etc.

Zebruh perceives himself helping the Doomed, but ends up exploiting lowbloods and serving them Doom–placing them in states of poverty, limitation, and suffering–instead. Thing is, he genuinely perceives this as being to their benefit, somehow. If he chilled out and paid attention to how others actually feel like Karkat and Dave eventually do, he might actually be a pretty ok dude.

So what’s getting in the way?

Like every other Indigo Caste member so far, including Equius, Zebruh is an avid Page roleplayer. That is, “One who invites service through x, or invites the service of X, for their own benefit.”

Pages’ biggest talent early on is their likability and ability to get people to want to help them. (Though like Knights, they seem to reach their best when they embrace the verbiage that most closely matches their Active status-Jake is at his strongest actively exploiting/using Hope to kick Caliborn’s ass, for example.)

Equius tries to replicate this by commanding people to serve his purposes, with mixed results: Gamzee complies and voices enthusiasm at doing whatever it takes to make Equius smile, and eventually does so by, y’know, murdering him. For the most part it makes him really unpleasant and weird to talk to, though, so people want to avoid him.

Amisia makes a huge deal of getting the Reader to help her, serving her purposes by making them kill lowbloods and give her their blood and stuff. She mentions having Chahut help her previously, and the guards who bring her the Oliveblood are in her service as well.

And Zebruh literally keeps slaves devoted to serving him. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem able to perceive the dissonance between his words and deeds, and he often ends up outright ignoring what the Reader says–all of which reminds me a lot of Horruss serving himself Void to ignore Rufioh’s breakup request in particular.

Amisia and Zebruh both maintain their comfortable superiority through degrees of pretense, lies, material comforts, and confusion–all of which are linked to Void as the aspect of incomprehensibility, darkness, and physicality.

Hence why Amisia is a fake painter–her entire life is ruled by physical and social power, so she’s far away from a brain space that allows for imagination and creative expression.

And hence why Zebruh is a fake social justice advocate–he’s too concerned about physical and social consequences to commit to the ideas he espouses, or connect those ideas to meaningful physical action.

And so both of them get caught up in meaningless performance and self-serving spectacle.

phew, this got pretty long. Anyway highbloods are interesting, I’m finding the indigobloods pretty compelling in particular. lemme know what you all think!

keep rising!

Are you going to make your third Gamzee / Bard of Rage video into a Medium post any time soon? (Assuming you haven’t already, that is…)

oh yeah i never did post that, did I? I’d publish it right now, but its a lot rougher than the other two–mainly its lacking the pictures and stuff i usually put on since I only meant to use it as a script.

I’m not sure if its valuable to anyone in that state since it barely qualifies as an “article” so much as a draft, but if people want it sure i’ll post it? I’m meaning to update it eventually, too, its just a fair degree of work on my part and my creative energy has been going to more…-EXCITING stuff of late 😉

but feel free to let me know if youd like it published now, or if youd really like to see a fully picture-ified version! i could probably make that happen i just wasnt aware there was much interest

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

madoka’s pretty damn good overall as long as you forget the last 20 or so minutes of Rebellion (what toxic lesbianism?), so I’m not trying to harsh on the series particularly hard.

But I was over the “Magical girls….but DARK and DEEP!” view it garnered in fandom from the moment it started, because the magical girl genre has always been super varied, often extremely dark, and quite often much better written than Madoka is.

Madoka has extra points in the monster design, admittedly-but it’s honestly got nothing on the character drama and stakes Sailor Moon managed to build up, and it really isn’t meaningfully “darker”-just more dour and mean-spirited towards girls.

And that’s before we get into stuff like Utena which also technically falls into the magical girl warrior camp of the genre. Basically, Madoka Magica is pretty sweet, I just can’t help but want people who got really into it took it as an opportunity to explore one of the best genres in anime, because it’s far from the best magical girls have to offer.

do you have any fanventures you would recomend?

Yes. @vasterror is a really interesting one I’m just getting started on sloooowly reading, and I can kinda already tell I’m gonna end up hooked, given what I’ve heard from one of the authors, who I’m lucky to be friends with and get the scoop from.

It might also help there’s a character named Taz in it, and I want to surround myself in as many other things that use my name as possible. I delight in the confusion of it. The Adventure Zone was awesome for me.

Also, my understanding is that @xamag-homestuck of canon-Homestuck-artist fame is involved as of recently, which is really exciting to me because I’ve missed their art a lot actually.

@joyfulldreams ‘ @hsactomega is also really great, especially since I have the benefit of getting to just kinda talk to the person directing it and as far as everything I’ve heard and seen of the story so far, the direction it’s going is  great.

Planning on doing videos on both of these eventually, when time and work allow me to.

There’s also Double Death of the Author at @thelifetimechannel, whos authors I was also lucky to meet and consider friends! To be perfectly honest I’ve dropped off on this one for a while, but at the very least I can say it has a cathartic alphas scene and that’s basically my equivalent to trickster candy, so I think it’s worth the price of admission for that. I do intend to catch up whenever I can, there’s just a lot of irons in the fire right now.

Honestly I’d reccomend any of them to someone who just wants more Homestuck or Homestuck-like content, since there’s simply nothing else like it out there anywhere else.

And all of these stories offer their own brands of commentary or artistic response to Homestuck, and whether or not I agree with the messages they send, I think that’s a really fascinating cultural process to witness with very few equivalents, simply because of the kind of story Homestuck is.

Plus there’s something to be said for the sheer ambition involved in deciding to do anything even remotely like Homestuck, so any artist tackling fan adventures has my respect. Especially on the scale of the projects I just mentioned, all three of which I think have been going on for…years?

Jesus christ. We’re all in this fandom til we die, aren’t we.