Namely: why does Homestuck choose
to go out on such an ambiguous note? After all, this caused significant
backlash and rifts within the fandom.
(True, an Epilogue is promised,
following certain lingering plot threads, and we got a renewed reminder of that
recently. Still, for the duration of the time from Homestuck’s ending and the
Epilogue’s release—a good two years already—ambiguity is a big part of the
experience of the finale, and it may well stay ambiguous. So what’s the deal?)
For a while I chalked it up to necessity—his
time severely constrained by other problems, Hussie chose to focus on the broad
themes of the story, rather than address every detail. I
still think there’s truth in that, but what I’ve realized is that there’s a
much larger purpose at work, too. Hussie knew exactly what he was doing.
The goal of Homestuck’s ambiguous ending is to bring fans into the same space as its
characters, and recognize in their own lives its most essential themes.
Homestuck is a Gnostic myth that casts its audience as its heroes.
This time we dig into Gamzee’s recurring links to the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, historical worship of the Greek god of Theatre, Dionysus, and what all of this tells us about Gamzee’s arc and, potentially, even the Rage aspect.
Today’s question is: Can you think of other trolls with strong ties to figures in Greecoroman/Egyptian/Judeo-Christian mythologies?
I would like to add that many fans of Homestuck argue which Gamzee is real Gamzee: high, happy Gamzee or angry murderer Gamzee.
Fans of first tell that angry Gamzee is possessed and that is the reason he is abusive or commits murders and that “true Gamzee” wouldn’t do that.
People who think that “true Gamzee” is angry one tend to say that only sopor slime and delusions were stopping this boy from murderous rampages and by looking into eyes of Lil Cal Gamzee simply showed his true colours and got motivation that he was lacking all of his life.
I would say something else.
Either Gamzees are “true Gamzee” or neither!
Gamzee’s each self represents mask.
High Gamzee represents mask of comedy. This boy’s only purpose is to be laughed at either by readers and his friends.
Sorber Gamzee brings people only pain, by hurting characters and represents tragedy mask.
After looking into eyes of Lil Hal Gamzee switches often between comedy and tragedy mask. He “wears” tragedy mask when he is with Terezi or in Game Over timeline and “wears” tragedy mask in the Alpha session, where his actions (like selling potions) are for laughs of the audience (readers).
Which Gamzee is “true Gamzee”? This question is meaningless. Either both “masks” are aspects of Gamzee’s personalities, ergo both are true or both are just masks given to Gamzee by someone else and we don’t know true personality of Gamzee.
Which one is true? We do not know.
This is an interesting way to parse it, I dig it a lot
Openbound is a Descent To The Underworld in the mythological sense, not for its characters (who have degrees of familiarity with or belonging in there) —but for an underappreciated little character named MSPA Reader. Openbound is your descent to the underworld, and it is Homestuck’s most interactive iteration of one central question.
Behold, new content from Caliborns Wake. I wrote this for you. Yes, for you. The one who is reading this right now.
“Was that the plan, DJay? To give me a reason to look at A6I3 again?”
Yeah. And you… got one.
I love this!!! Here’s some extra thoughts I’ll float out in response
There’s some world details that I think prop up this reading of the bubbles pretty nicely, which I just want to repeat here for people who might not be familiar with them.
and the Dark Carnival afterlife of the ICP, both of which feature Judge figures who obliterate/consume the souls of the unworthy- Ammit in Egyptian myth, and at least Bang! Pow! Boom! in the Juggalo cosmology. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang!_Pow!_Boom!#Music_and_lyrics )
Second, there’s the fact that the horrorterrors are explicitly feeding off the negative energy the trolls generate in the furthest ring through this eternal, performative social media dance. Meaning they have a vested interest in reducing these kids to hollowed out, cartoonish versions of themselves that can be predictably farmed for energy.
In general the gods are framed like social media website administrators, casting the whole thing as a grim parody of algorthims and corporations fostering negativity and hostility for the sake of “engagement”. Reminds me a lot of hussie’s recent interview where he outright suggests the possibility that we vitriol we see online is some kind of hellish illusion.
It all kinda reminds me of how Hussie frames the distinction between engaging with people offline vs. online:
“All in-person interactions with fans are overwhelmingly positive. Easily
over 99% of everyone I meet with in person seems great, and have
nothing but good things to say. It doesn’t seem sufficient to just say
they’re nice people. They all genuinely seem to be overflowing with
emotion and enthusiasm for this thing I did. It’s very odd how all the
argumentative chaos, invective and incrimination of the internet seems
to completely vanish when you directly confront great numbers of people
in their physical forms.
The two realms are so different, it’s hard to
reconcile, but it does lend a sense of optimism that the complete hell
we perceive on the internet every day is just some sort of horrific
illusion conspiring to agitate and demoralize us, without much truth or
substance behind it.
“
So it seems to me he does fundamentally think of social media a way compatible with that which the framing of the dream bubbles as a social media hell here suggests.
Finally: Gamzee’s manipulation of Terezi during Horrorstuck and Rage’s theatrical motifs, combined with Kurloz’s exploitation of Meulin, vaguely suggests that part of what he might’ve been doing in the bubbles all this time is excacerbating these negative character traits and flat, extravagantly theatrical outlets for the alphas personalities, essentially helping to erode their identities even more than the bubbles naturally do.
So Kurloz may be very directly implicated in this degradation of character.
Friendsim volume 14 – as of the time of me starting this – dropped like 30 minutes ago and I’ve been losing my mind for just as long. While Karako’s route provides an insight into the Dark Carnival I’m sure nobody imagined we’d see, I’m going to postpone that discussion in favour of analyzing my new favourite boy and son, Karako Pierot – the Page of Mind (as discussed within the framework of @revolutionaryduelist ’s class system definitions). Spoilers for all 3 of Karako’s routes below. Long post ahead.
So the thing about my look at Karako’s lore is, Classpect wasn’t really the primary thing I wanted to explore.
Personally, after reading this, I’ve been swayed towards seeing him as a Page at the moment. Goes to show how quickly I change my mind about this stuff!
I’d recommend reading this for a thorough analysis on Karako that’s
more Classpect focused and less focused on the imagery surrounding the
Mirthful Messiah afterlife! This is real good shit. It also gets into some of the Pierot imagery I wanted to talk about, but which didn’t really fit into the framework I was presenting neatly.
If you want a full picture of Karako’s Classpect and how we understand his mythology, this piece is going to be as important as my own, I feel.
Here’s some thoughts that make my initial argument for Karako as a Lord seem more suspect, under the cut:
While the circle imagery I presented is somewhat linkable to Lords, the Carousel specifically isn’t so much related to Karako as it is to Lord English and his worship. Karako’s exposure to it is somewhat tangential.
And while thinking about it, I can draw some easy links between Pages and circles, too–a circle is prominently featured in Tavros’ sign as well as Karako’s, and Jake has the Hope orb, for example.
Both Tavros and Jake are uniquely paralleled with Caliborn, too–Jake’s imagery is thoroughly drowning with LE references, and Tavros is Gamzee’s only object of affection besides Caliborn. So does Karako happening to share LE’s gold tooth really tell us anything Class-ways? I kind of doubt it, honestly.
I think the symbolism surrounding the dream is fascinating and I stand by my writing on the carousel and Rage as a reflection of Maya–I just don’t think any of it tells us much about Karako specifically.
(RIP my thoughts on Vikare’s Classpect, since the main thing keeping me away from seeing Karako as a Page was that I already saw Vikare that way! So now I dunno what I think of him. Oh well, we’ll sort this stuff out eventually. Waddling through the confusion is a lot of fun :3)
A while ago now, I posted some theorycrafting about Material and Notional Aspects, as well as Active and Passive ones. I’ve since further refined and developed these ideas, and with the help of revolutionaryduelist I’ve assembled them into a proper Theory Post.
This stuff has gotten more and more interesting the more I’ve thought about it, and it still kinda feels like we’re just scratching the surface. I can’t wait to see what else Hiveswap might have to say about Aspects!
Those of you who remember being in the Homestuck fandom back in 2012 to 2013 will no doubt remember the old Tumblr post that went around claiming the four post-scratch kids were like the noble gases due to their supposed inability to form bonds with each other. All too often I’ve seen this ancient piece of fanon used to support the idea that the alpha kids are not as close a group of friends as the beta kids are, and that somehow this makes them less likeable or worth paying attention to as the Acts 1-5 faves the original Homestuck fans knew and loved.
However, I have a proposition for any still listening out here, one that could turn the concept of “alpha kids as noble gases” on its head. What if I told you that the initial premise was false, but the conclusion was true? Leaving aside the individual identifications of each kid with a particular gas, let us concern ourselves with the four as a group.
This is Sollux Captor, he knows he’s gonna die. in fact he knows everyone’s gonna die, that’s a thing he talks about even before his introduction.
he knows that because he hears the voices of the soon to be dead (which really sucks btw) and he even knows why they’re all gonna die. it’s because of sgrub, a game he coded himself. but why would he code and want to play a game that will kill him and all his friends? because he thinks it’s gonna save the world and I guess to him the world, shitty death world Alternia, is more important than a dozen of asshole trolls. damn.
So Sollux is gonna die, not once but twice. gotta live up to his bifurcation motif, right? also he’s gonna go blind before he dies the second time. possibly the voices told him that? his own dying voice?
Since a dead Sollux cannot die again, Feferi gives him the kiss of life, waking up Sollux’s Derse dreamself to take original!Sollux’s place. I assume original!Sollux got to hang around the dream bubbles but we don’t ever see him again.
I’m taking this moment to mention that Sollux has two dreamselves, because he’s Sollux so of course he has two. some theories propose it’s a side-effect of being a Doom player and being more death-prone than the average player. I can’t really object to that.
it’s interesting to note that when Derse!Sollux wakes up he remembers Prospit too.
On the meteor Sollux does some tech support and is the only one to skip out of talking to the humans for some reason (a real shame if you ask me). In that time Prospit and Derse are destroyed by Bec Noir, likely killing Prospit!Sollux too. This probably doesn’t count as a death for his personal prophecy? Maybe his Prospit ghost hangs out with original!Sollux’s ghost in the dream bubbles now, wondering when his Derse ghost is gonna join them.
Now any Sollux fan who paid attention knows what him being blind means. it means his prophetized second death is coming and it’ll probably be final. Right?
Enters a Sollux who shows up next to the Green Sun, out of fucking nowhere, and he’s half-dead (and half-blind). This Sollux came to existance when the blind Sollux on the meteor burned himself out pushing said meteor to the green sun like a fucking hero. So he died. but his ghost, which showed up in the dream bubbles, was somehow half-alive? and that let him leave the dream bubbles like it’s not even a thing.
Half-dead Sollux is reunited briefly with his fully-dead corpse, and they fail to have a corpse party because Gamzee stole his body and probably hid it in a fridge somewhere.
Sollux may be 50% alive, but he’s 100% done with the adventure bullshit so he decides to go hang out in the dream bubbles where his dead friends are, despite the begging of his very alive best friend for him to stay on the meteor. I still begrudge him that choice to this day, he would have made a fine addition to the meteor crew.
(I also like to think he did catch up at some point with his friends on the meteor, even if he ultimately stayed with Aradia in the end)
Remember the fridged Sollux corpse? that’s still a thing that exists, because through shenanigans, Gamzee threw it at Jake’s kernelsprite, along with Eridan’s fridged corpse, thus creating Erisolsprite.
Now the creation of Erisolsprite is weird, because it sucks in Eridan’s ghost from the dream bubbles, and it sucks in Sollux’s ghost. But Sollux at that point is only half a ghost! Well that’s alright, because Sollux was always about bifurcation (even if he said he left his duality schtick behind) so he just gets split. His dead half goes into making Erisolsprite and his alive half, now fully blind again, can continue hanging around the dream bubbles with Aradia.
That’s where we find him again, with a new fetching pirate look. He somehow knows about Erisolsprite’s existance despite never having set foot in the Alpha session. One can speculate, is he only vaguely aware of where half of his soul is residing? or can he full on see through Erisolsprite’s eyes, being effectively in two places at once?
At this point one could think: Hussie is going through some sicknasty loops to keep Sollux alive! clearly there must be a purpose to that! Sollux must play a crucial part in the ending or something.
That’s when the retcon happen, going back and changing things enough to prevent the creation of Erisolsprite. Technically it’s possible Erisolsprite escaped to the new timeline along with the other sprites, but we never see him again so there’s no proof. (I believe in Erisolsprite, I do, I do)
With the changes made, alpha-timeline!Sollux should be back to being half-dead and half-blind, and we do get a couple glimpses of him supporting that!
But now shit is going down, there’s boss fights happening everywhere, and who’s there wondering wtf Karkat is doing jumping at Lord English like a suicidal idiot? Sollux motherfucking Captor with the eyepatches, proof that he’s fully blind, fully alive, and from the timeline that was retconned.
Does this Sollux remember an Erisolsprite that has never existed in this timeline? Probably. Does he remember friends who are slightly different than those from this new timeline he snuck up in? I think it’s very possible!
We never see Sollux again after this, but knowing all this, knowing all the ways he can cheat a death that was prophesized not once but twice, I believe he made it to the new universe alive, if blind.
@melodiousnonsense I always lose track of Sollux by the end because of All The Death – I thought you might find this interesting
Alright, let me put a few points of stuff I’ve seen on the tags to rest here.
1) Jades Are A Rare Caste.
They are implied to be less plentiful than other castes, yeah, I believe Seadwellers are also rare? But here’s the thing- We have six Jades. When someone says “There’s twice as many Jades as we have Rusts or Bronzes”, it sounds like, shit, yeah weren’t they supposed to be less abundant? Except. They’re still, in total, just Six. Alternia is a planet. Lore-wise, they may be a less plentiful Caste, but they’re not even… In the double digits. This is not even the population of a neighborhood, Xefros’ suburban area likely had more Trolls in total than there are Trolls in this Troll Call, and besides it’s likely all Jades are in the same place for some reason- Jadeblood School is the biggest headcanon right now, for example, so… Why wouldn’t you have a bunch of Jades there?
2) Jades Are All Female.
This is a straight-up misconception, yeah they’re mostly girls, but canon still leaves room for Jadeblood boys. So Male Jadeblood? Yeah, can happen, and there’s nothing going against the canon here.
3) Trolls Have No Concept Of Gender.
This one is honestly baffling to me because I haven’t heard about this until the discourse today. I am assuming this comes from the fact Troll Reproduction doesn’t care who provides the genetic material? Their reproduction is not tied to gender, which has made people assume Troll junk is the same for both guys and gals. Except… That’s about it. Even though it’s silly because they’re bugs and implied to be hermaphroditic, they still show sexual dimorphism. And even if they didn’t, they still have a concept of Gender, merely based on the fact there’s Troll Boys and Troll Girls? He/She divide? With Hiveswap expanding on it and showing us there are, indeed, NB Trolls that prefer They/Them. This Gender Divide is actually talked about by Porrim, who also implies that while Fuchsia-down Alternia seemed a Matriarchy, Purple-down it was actually a Patriarchy, informing us that not ONLY is there sexual dimorphism, but also, a cultural divide. By saying that Lanque can’t be Trans because Trolls have no concept of Gender, you’re either mistaking headcanons for actual canon… Or being transphobic by equating genitalia to gender. In which case, fuck off.
4) Trolls Don’t Care About Fashion.
This is something Karkat says, and I believe Kanaya also implies she cares about it more than it’s usual? But Fashion in Troll Culture, seems to be exactly like Mail. Karkat mentions there’s no Mail they do not get a Mailbox with a Flag, yet we see Xefros get mail! Except it’s not Mail. It’s parachuted delivery straight from a website. There’s no standarized Mail system on Alternia, but that doesn’t mean companies can’t deliver things themselves, directly to their Hives. Similarly, Trolls have no concept of Fashion- They don’t care about things such as trends, variety, being dressed properly. And… Hiveswap doesn’t break this. They have more colorful clothes, and some look pretty good! But. Look at Cirava. They’re an absolute fashion disaster. Diemen is just dressed like a hot dog. The Jades all seem to wear uniforms of some sort. Fozzer and Marsti, Skylla, they are more akin to work clothes. The Soleil Twins and Marvus are more flashy, because they’re likely part of a spectacle. Most of them are either a sort of uniform or outfit that’ll fit whatever they’re doing, or a basic color with their symbol somewhere. And you can go from Bright Pink Bathrobe Stelsa, to Pirate-Clad Remele, and back to Punk Denim Elwurd. Not being Fashionable can be about trends, they may simply dress however they want, because of their interests, or their jobs.
But let’s think about this another way. Let’s say that, yeah, they did retcon Troll Fashion- Would… Would you really be mad if they retconned Troll Fashion. Like… Would you be happier if every Troll shown was wearing a plain black shirt with their Symbol, and pants or a skirt, with slight variations of a jacket or a tank top. I don’t think there’s a single Hiveswap design I dislike, and they’re all visibly varied and easily recognizable, and tell a lot about the character, which is like. Character Design 101? So I honestly don’t know what the complaint here is exactly, except Canon Purity.
5) Hiveswap Ruined Fantroll Variety
How. First of all, the entire previous point. Just, expanding upon basic Troll Clothes, showing us the extent of how Trolls dress. But also like… What did they limit exactly? We’re going to learn more about Trolls and Troll Culture and Biology, of course headcanons are going to clash with canon, but so far, what have they limited? I’ve heard about Horns, but like… These horns have all been so varied, and sure there’s stuff like hooks with Ceruleans and Jades, and Four Horns with Golds but… This pattern is also broken, with Azdaja having three, for example. We’ve seen new Psionic colors, we’ve seen stuff like Horn Piercing, we’ve seen Troll Twins, we have seen horns where the orange part starts at different heights than you’d expect and even some of the parts jutting out having their own red-orange-yellow coloration separate of the main shaft of the horn. If anything, until now, there’s always been headcanons for Horns, like, “Oh this is their symbol so it’ll be like this”, or “this is their caste, so, they’ll have big horns”, but no, we have Purples with small horns, we have Bronzes with curly horns downwards, we have a cerulean with super uneven horns, we have a gold with three horns, we have a teal with flat horns, we have rounded horns, we have hotdog horns. I’ve heard people wonder about some Horn Shapes in the prior weeks, about how they didn’t match their restrictive headcanons, and NOW you tell me they’re restrictive? There’s also been complaints about caste roles and stereotypes, and I feel people really forget that Alternia is a Tyranny that forces the inhabitants in roles they are most likely not happy with, specially for the lower castes. Like… Rusts are disposable, and likely to be bound to a life of servitude. Because they’re the lowest of the low, society treats them as such, and there’s stereotypes like Indigos being strong, but that’s not any more restrictive than Psionics being a Gold-only thing, and much like we see Zebede not having Psionics or Elwurd and Mallek having normal eyes to every other cerulean’s messed-up ones… There’s exceptions to the rule everywhere. There have always been.
I’ve also seen complaints about no mutant bloods or things like Albinism and such? And like… The fact they didn’t include it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We actually got Freckles with Zebede, so it already implies skin conditions are a thing, so Albinism could happen, if anything we have more PROOF that it may be a thing! Complaining about a lack of Limebloods and Violets, too, is just nitpicking, we know there will be Violets eventually, but either we haven’t been shown right now, or they’re just. In the sea. And we’re in the land. And Limes are likely to be a plot point, I’m expecting at least ONE Lime (Fiamet), if not more to show up at some point, and if there’s NO Limebloods I’m sure there will be at least talk OF Limebloods and their whole, you know, extermination, which is a canon thing that happened.
6) The Game’s Representation Is Bad Representation
Listen… Listen. I have friends ecstatic that there’s at LEAST three non-cis characters in Hiveswap (One trans boy, two NBs), without counting the possibility of other characters being Trans (Pretty much anyone could be), or NB (Like, I think about half of the characters don’t have pronouns on their bullet points?), not to mention, further acts with new characters. Hell, even Xefros or Dammek or Joey could be Trans. We. Literally know nothing about these characters, our information is so limited, and yet there’s already people cheering about it and super happy to see representation and I’ve seen one person in the tag encouraged to come out because Lanque is Trans. There’s also at least two Jewish Trolls, plus the possibility of Kanaya being Jewish as well, either her, Rose, or both. And yet, even though they have simply said this, in good faith, respectfully, and trying to add diversity to their roster, and even though we literally know NOTHING of how it’ll be handled yet, you… Bash them for it?
Like, okay. Lanque. The big topic today. He’s not particularly masculine, but as has surely been repeated over and over and over again, not all trans men are masculine, and not all trans people suffer dysphoria. And yeah, it’s true! It would be nice if there was a more masculine trans man! It would be great if there were trans girls! It would be great if there were more diversely coded NB characters! And there may be?? There’s going to be more characters, if not in this Act, in future Acts, and of the ones we’ve seen, many of them could still be NB or Trans. Like… Again. We’ve got three bullet points from each character. Like, I’m sorry you didn’t get a trans character that you could identify better with yet? But that doesn’t mean you have to bash the one we got? When there are people genuinely happy and encouraged about it? You’re not being progressive. You’re being an elitist asshole, if you only accept 100% perfect representation suited to your tastes, and everything else is garbage, or god help me, ‘fetishization’ or ‘disgusting’ (I have heard both on the Tags), like seriously. You’re being the oppressive one. You’re the one making representation harder than it should be.
Oh and if you’re on the OPPOSITE side of the spectrum and simply being Transphobic or saying how all of this is ‘pandering’ to the audience, really I have nothing to say, if you cannot have basic empathy for a group of people finding representation in a game which source material is extremely queer, and have to resort to bashing it down, screw you.
7) WhatPumpkin Are Doing A Bad Job
This is your subjective opinion, and I’d dare to say, a wrong opinion, but let’s not go there for now. WP has suffered a lot of hate for some reason? There have been lies and slander and bashing for absolutely no reason. People hate Cohen for some reason, and have demonized him, when so far what I’ve seen about him is that he’s a pretty chill dude. The writing of Hiveswap wasn’t like, a masterpiece? But it was fun and it got a good bunch of chuckles out of me and made me care for the characters, and even got me a bit scared and sad at some points during the game! It has that Homestuck Spark, and if you say ‘it’s not like Homestuck’, you’re… I’m sorry, you’re just an elitist, or simply don’t like the style anymore? But it carries a very similar charm.
I’ve heard complaints about Hussie not being involved in the project- Which is false, he did write the entire story FIRST THING, and is overseeing the whole project with the rest of the team. There’s also been criticism towards WP ‘failing’ at representation (Before actually seeing the representation apparently, again, we know NOTHING about the game and how it’ll handle stuff so far), and also accusing WP and Cohen specifically of adding representation because of Woke Points and like… WP are Queer as Heck? I don’t know all of them, I don’t even know how many people are working at WP. But they’re not all straight 100% for sure, and I believe they’re not all cis- And even if they ARE all cis, I also doubt a group working on such a Queer game would NOT hear out from Trans friends. What I’m trying to say, is that they haven’t shown at any point disrespect of ignorance regarding the diversity they want to tackle, they’re not doing things out of bad faith, and we haven’t seen how they handle it yet. Even if they didn’t handle it ideally! Does it need to be absolutely perfect, there can be missteps on the way there, god dammit if someone’s trying to better themselves but not quite getting it right you don’t insult them and tear them down! You show them what to do better next time or where they are mistaken, by pessimistically ignoring what they’re trying to do out of spite you’re discouraging good will and being an asshole! Which leads me to my last point for now.
8) They Could Have Told Us We Were Misgendering Lanque
This one is… Really, a bit ridiculous. Okay, let me explain. If someone is Trans and you misgender them accidentally, they’ll tell you quickly and you’ll, hopefully, correct yourself. Obviously. When the Trolls leaked, everyone latched onto Lanque as ‘Butch Lesbian’, and clung to that hope, and now that they were proven wrong, there was salt, at first, and THEN came the talk about Misgendering Lanque. And let me tell you, I think this is very selfish of everyone saying it.
What WP likely thought would happen is that they’d reveal Lanque to be a Trans boy, and people would be like “Oh! Nice, Trans Rep!”. Sure they could’ve told us back then but… Why? Lanque is not. A real person. He’s a fictional character, he’s not going to be offended because you thought he was a butch woman for a few months, in fact the SILHOUETTE alone ALREADY had people clinging to him as a butch woman. If he were a real person? Of course there’d be a quick correction. But he’s. A character. He’s just a god damn character. Who is Trans, out of good faith by a very Queer company, showing us a Trans man, who is a character, and expecting that, like NORMAL PEOPLE, we would not do something like THIS.
When you criticize WP for not telling us Lanque was a Trans Man, all I’m seeing is a shift of blame, not wanting to simply admit you were wrong and jumped to conclusions, and like- Even if there was Fanart or Fanfic of Lanque calling him a woman briefly, shipping him around mistakenly, who cares? You just. Go. “Okay, I’ll change it” or “Whoops haha this was from when we didn’t know he was a Trans boy!” Why the militant hatred? Why the absolute disgust shown today? I can’t understand, I simply cannot understand why your first reaction to “Trans boy Jadeblood” is “WELL I THOUGHT HE WAS A BUTCH LESBIAN!! I WASN’T WRONG BY ASSUMING THIS, WHATPUMPKIN WERE FOR TRYING TO MAKE THEIR GAME MORE DIVERSE”. It’s like… You just. Correct it? You just correct yourself? And yeah you can want more masculine Trans boys, that’s fair! But dismissing what we got, entirely, and insulting it, and getting like THIS, and blaming the team, it just seems.
Narcissistic. It seems narcissistic and extremely self-centered, and perfectionist to the extreme of not wanting anything other than a complete and absolute ideal, that may fit you but may also not fit others.
In conclusion?
People are happy about representation. This isn’t destroying diversity or representation, this is not reducing customization of Fantrolls, this is only building MORE on the already expansive system, and giving us representation and hope for MORE representation in the future, and if you cannot be happy for a genuine, good natured, and honestly, perfectly fine attempt, if you cannot feel empathy for the people who did feel for this representation, if you can only want to find reasons to bash something down and demonize something good and point out how BAD and NOT GOOD things are and how MUCH BETTER they could be, then honestly, you’re a deeply unpleasant person.
Give things time. Give people with good intentions chances. Learn to backpedal and learn from mistakes and simply correct yourself when you’re wrong instead of going down a hateful spiral. Learn to separate fiction and reality. Just like… Think, for a moment, when you’re writing something down- Is it a jaded opinion, or an objective fact? Will it hurt and discourage people who’re genuinely happy or trying to make others happy? Why do more harm than good when there are good intentions paving the way?
I just simply cannot understand the basic lack of critical thought and empathy of some people I have seen today, and hopefully with this I can make my opinion on the whole absurd Discourse that transpired today clear.
“Why would they make a character in the caste associated with motherhood, feminity, and womanhood a trans guy? It doesn’t make sense!”
Right like what could possibly be less relatable to trans boys, especially femme trans boys, than a character who was brought up with reproductive and societal expectations enshrining the purity of femininity and struggling with how their inherent gender didn’t match that and then carving out a place in that culture for them to both keep that love of the feminine with them and move forward into personal truth and freedom from dysphoria
Shout outs to anyone queer who was raised in an environment that thought motherhood was holy and the best thing a woman can do or be
drawing to satisfy yourself should be your primary goal in any case! when i was in school i had an art teacher who stressed the importance of the five purposes of art (ceremonial, expression, narrative, functional, persuasive) and that the most important of these was ‘expression’ or self-fulfillment and satisfaction. if this isn’t present in the processes of doing art, people will be able to tell.
artists create art to satisfy a need, whether its to get a feeling out, relieve stress, please another person or to feed yourself and my teacher stressed upon me the importance that doing it for yourself should be the number one goal.
ive entered plenty of art contests myself and while i never really won any of them, i was always proud of the work i did because i put a lot of care into it, and i was happy with how it turned out, at the time. if you dont want to enter a contest, for whatever reason, that’s perfectly valid. you do art for YOU. and if anyone else likes it? that’s simply a bonus.
Flying through Storytelling 