Hey everyone, Cohen here, creative director and head writer for Hiveswap. Hopefully you’re reading this after watching the new trailer. If you haven’t watched it, go watch it. If you have watched it, go watch it again. It doesn’t cost anything, and, more importantly, no one can stop you.
OK, now you’re back. Wow. Wasn’t that dynamite? I agree.
Anyway, just wanted to give you a quick rundown on the status of Hiveswap: Act 1. We’re very, very excited about
THE GAME: The game is good, folks. It’s gorgeous, and fun, and the music is outstanding, and people say it’s pretty funny, too? We’ll see! All that’s thanks to
THE TEAM: We’ve got a great team full of outrageously skilled people, and over the next few weeks we’re going to be talking to them here about the work they’ve done for Hiveswap: Act 1. If you’ve wondered, possibly aloud, possibly at length, about why we haven’t done more of that before, it’s because they’ve been too busy doing all that work! Busy, busy bees with no time for chatter.
It’s a practice that is potentially frustrating for fans, though, which is why we’re going to be parting the curtain a little more. Because, of course, what you really want at this moment is for me to
SAY MORE ABOUT THE GAME, IDIOT: Right! So, the game is nearly done. It’s taken us a while, but we’re committed to bringing you the game you deserve, even if it means delivering it later than you deserved it. Some things take longer to implement or polish than we anticipate, but our intent is not to mislead you. I promise. We want to keep you in the loop as much as we can.
But…it’s a difficult juggling act for us. We’re trying to make a game that is fun, funny, and beautiful, and we haven’t compromised on quality in order to get it out quicker. On the other hand, we DO want to talk to you about how it’s going! On yet a third hand (or maybe back to the first hand, now hidden behind my back), we’re also committed to not spoiling every mystery the game has before you actually get to play it. These interviews we’ll be doing are our way of striking the balance between these three hands (possibly two hands, with one in flux).
The next time you hear a release date from us, it’ll be because the game is about to launch. In the meantime, we thank you, one last time, for your continued patience and understanding.
For Nier/Taroverse Fans: (Skip this section if you’re not one of my tragic people (yet)):
This essay is primarily aimed at fans of Nier:Automata, or at least people interested in it. Or good game and sound design fans in general.
That said, I am primarily a Homestuck blog, and my perspective will include some comparisons to Homestuck. Don’t worry, nothing you won’t be able to follow– even if you’ve literally never heard of Homestuck. In fact, you may come away from this with a new area of interest if you’ve exhausted Nier: Automata’s content and it left you hungry for a similar kind of story.
This piece will include some fairly big Homestuck spoilers, but frankly I don’t think it will matter either way–like with Nier: Automata itself, even spoiling the entire story couldn’t for a second make up for the actual execution.
In any case, No matter how much you’ve interacted with either Nier or Homestuck, you should be able to follow along and enjoy my points about both in this essay just fine.
I’m also going to avoid spoilers about Nier: Automata for the most part. However, I will be outlining the basic premise of the game and the thematic undercurrents that run through the entire story, so there are obviously some spoilers for the early game.
For Homestuck Fans: (Skip this section if you’re not one of my tragic people (yet)):
Yeah, I know I’m in the middle of a whole series of essays on Jake and that I kind of established a strong build up for the next essay. That one’s still coming–I might publish it tonight or maybe tomorrow. I’m excited about it!
But frankly, I kind of went through some really intense and borderline traumatic stuff in my personal life the last couple days. Not to do with Dirkjake or Homestuck at all–everyone who’s read my posts has thus far been terrifically kind to me, and the criticism and feedback I’ve received has been constructive in polishing and framing the next entry. I haven’t gotten a single anon hate message or anything. Thanks for that.
Just to do with some stuff irl, and writing is how I cope, and what happened made me want to write about this right the fuck now. I don’t feel like it can wait, no matter how much I love the subject of Jake English. Given how bombastic I am in those essays, that should give you an idea how strongly I feel about this subject.
I also think that understanding my views on Nier will illuminate how I approach and deconstruct Homestuck from an analytical perspective, and at the very least help you contextualize my ongoing writing on the comic. So this is relevant in the long term anyway, I’m just kind of chagrined I’m essentially pulling an analysis series intermission here. Fucking RIP, I have become my own comedy.
OK, so all that stuff out of the way: This essay will be split into four sub-sections, following a naming convention you should be able to recognize pretty quickly.
I want to talk about the main antagonists in Nier: Automata:
The Machines, and why they’re currently my favorite antagonists in any video game ever.
Androids: Data for the uninitiated.
(This Cannot Continue.)
Nier: Automata is the latest entry in what is obscurely understood as the Drakengard-Nier franchise– A series of action RPG Square-Enix games.
Like Homestuck’s Andrew Hussie, most of the Taroverse saga (Drakengard 2 can stay in its corner) was conceptualized and directed by a notable Auteur figure: Yoko Taro- from whom the franchise gets its name. That’s not to say he’s solely responsible for the quality of his games, but simply that this is the reputation he’s earned in the fan community.
The reason I bring these auteurs up at all is that they both seem concerned with very similar ideas, leading to some peculiar similarities between their works. By bringing up the similarities between them, I feel I can better get at the core of what each series has to offer, and hopefully enticing fans of the one to consider the other.
Both series include explorations on the nature of existing as part of the Multiverse, along with multiple and sequential apocalyptic scenarios (both stories span over thousands if not millions of years and several civilizations). They both have questions to ask about the human condition, the nature of power and relationships, and humanity’s relationship with both reality and God.
If I had to describe my opinion on their philosophical differences in a paragraph, here’s what I’d say: Homestuck explores the concept of the multiverse while presenting a path for how to reach Heaven. The Taroverse explores how it can be used to imagine an endless, cyclical Hell.
If you’re not averse to spoilers or watching some pretty disturbing and depressing stuff and you want to see a fantastic case for this reading of the Taroverse, I suggest watching @pixievalkyrie ’s excellent breakdown of the entire franchise’s history. Fair warning: Trigger warnings for pretty much every kind of horrible abuse and degradation of life imaginable.
Now we can finally get to talking about the damn game.
Aliens: The Shape of the Enemy.
(This cannot continue.)
The premise of the game is as follows: After surviving about four distinct apocalyptic events and/or wars, thousands of years in the future, Earth faces an alien invasion. The invasion is successful and drives what’s left of humanity off the planet and onto the Moon.
The aliens do not fight themselves, however– instead preferring to build a distinct industry of robotic weapons to fight their war for them: The Machines, our antagonists.
In response to the threat, humanity builds autonomous weapons of their own. Our Protagonists: The Androids. The three primary androids in our story are two combat androids, codenamed 2B and A2, and one scanner/support Android codenamed 9S. Here we see 2B, 9S, and A2–from top left to bottom right.
What’s immediately noticeable is how different Androids and Machines are.
Androids look and feel, for all intents and purposes, perfectly human. They talk fluently, consider complex problems, and clearly care for each other. They are expressly ordered not to show emotions, but they demonstrably have them anyway.
Machines, by comparison, look like crude imitations of people, toy-like and expressionless. Their voices are synthesized and robotic, their intonations and accents alien, making it difficult to discern emotion. Machines look mass-produced and cheaply customizable, with a variety of modifications pasted onto a crude and simple base design to fill out enemy types.
Androids are also ridiculously more competent and functional. This is a hack n’ slash game, and the Machines are direct analogs to, say, Heartless from Kingdom Hearts.
During gameplay, you’ll mow them down by the hundreds practically effortlessly, and though there are some bigger and tougher variants, most of them come across as borderline pathetic in their attempts to fight.
But both kinds of robots share a few similarities, one of which is this:
They are both connected to Post-Singularity Server networks that give them orders on how to fight their enemy.
For both Machines and Androids, these supercomputers are the structures actually calling the shots–they’re the sources of the series of orders that lead to a war that seems to span anywhere from centuries to millennia.
Neither Androids or Machines are calling the shots. But Androids have a design that makes it easy for them to signal feelings and complex internal realities, and Machines are designed to look very easy to dehumanize.
And this is a Taroverse game, so of course this depressing as hell setup is only the beginning of a long fall down.
Machines: Sounds that mean nothing.
(This cannot continue.)
Early into the game, 2B and 9S begin to note more and more machines behaving erratically. More and more machines become non-aggressive, staring blankly into space or beginning to ramble about random subjects, wandering the land and modifying themselves based on their environments.
As a player, Your orders are clear: Machines are to be eliminated. These are also the orders of 2B and 9S, and the game has you continue carrying them out mostly unquestioned except through these little niblets of bizarre behavior from the machines. It doesn’t matter anyway–they’re the enemy, and you have to fight to win.
This dynamic comes to its first climax in what will surely become one of the game’s most memorable scenes. 2B and 9S find their way to a small enclave of machines minding their own business, and what they find staggers their imaginations:
These robots are non-hostile. They’re rocking cradles while repeating “Child. Child.” Bumping into each other in suggestive ways while repeating “Love. Love.” and “Together. Forever.” All in those monotone, synthesized voices. Sounding so empty and wrong.
9S forms an interesting response to this. He says: “Don’t listen to them, 2B. They don’t have any feelings. They’re just imitating human speech.”
And it’s easy to come to that conclusion, right? It’s not like they emote. It’s not like they’re really able to. Essentially, 9S considers the Machines a threat, first and foremost–so when they act in a way that might engender empathy, he assumes it’s a trick or a ploy–an attempt to win the Androids over in order to hurt them.
It’s deceitful, but it’s also worse than that. It’s deceit by sheer virtue of it’s premise: Machines cannot possibly say something indicating emotions like love, desire, or care because Machines are not real beings. They aren’t people.
They’re tools and weapons and puppets to a supercomputer’s Agenda– not autonomous entities who think and feel for themselves, at least as far as he’s concerned. That’s what he was taught by his intelligence server, and that server is really the only source of information in his life. It’s natural to rely on it.
Still, the machines don’t react to your presence and there’s nowhere to go. The only way forward is through violence. And once you provide it, they answer, with a lone Machine rising up and declaring:
I’ll get you for this.
As the fight continues, more and more machines make odd statements as they throw themselves at our protagonists, who demolish them by the dozens. Statements like: I love you! Kill! and Hatred! Pain! The robots suggest they feel what you’re doing. That they know what’s happening to them.
Again, this war has gone on forever, and you–as the Androids–are almost absurdly more powerful than they are. 2B executes machines by the dozens constantly, across every corner of the world she can reach them in. The Machines surely know this as they watch their community die on her sword, one after another. They can likely feel exactly how weak they are.
But the voices that deliver their pain to the player remain stilted and alien–difficult to recognize. As the battle rises to it’s conclusion, however, one machine voices a thought that catches on. A short, clipped statement every machine can get behind. A meme.
This Cannot Continue. The machines repeat it faster and faster, uniting under a common rallying cry. This tension builds and builds until suddenly, the Machines experience some sort of breakdown, straight up throwing a collective tantrum in (seemingly pantomime) desperation and repeating the words so fast and so often it barely sounds like a recognizable statement and sounds pure like pure cacophony.
Looking at this screenshot might convey some of the effect, but listening to the noise they’re collectively making is really something else. I’d link to the scene, but I don’t want to spoil what they do next. All I’ll say is that once they all gather around this common, desperate thought, they take action. When they do, the music shifts…
And the game does something I’ve never seen before.
[Please Listen]
Here’s another area where Nier: Automata is similar to Homestuck. Both properties are downright famous for their use of leitmotif and attaching particular meanings to different musical motifs. (The developer of Undertale, Toby Fox, got his start as a Homestuck musician.)
But even in this sense, what Nier: Automata pulls off is uniquely powerful. This song uses everything about itself to inform and flesh out the themes of the game. Once the robots do what they do next, we get an new rendition of the game’s main battle theme. A battle theme titled as Birth of a Wish.
Right from the title, the song is telling us something. Birth of a Wish (This cannot Continue) qualifies the robot’s collective statement as a wish, a desire. A wish for mercy? For deliverance? For justice, or peace? It’s hard to know. Probably all of the above.
Emi’s music is one of the major reasons I love this franchise, which is to say that when I first listened to this song, I did so actively hoping its vocal works wouldn’t make sense to me.
And I got what I wanted! The vocals, as usual, were smooth and fascinating but seemingly meaningless enough that I could use the music as a backdrop for my writing–I’ve been listening to this track pretty much nonstop for the last couple of weeks.
Which made it downright chilling when I realized, quite abruptly, that I was wrong. I have no idea if you noticed while listening to it or not–I genuinely don’t know if I’m an outlier here (pls send me asks with your experience!). But if you didn’t, then listen again: Most of the vocals for this song are written in plain English.
They consist of three words: This cannot continue.
The voices of the robots become part of the song. And the song itself is structured such that it informs the nature of their plight. The voices of the robots are barely musical–they are blank statements stated in synthesized monotone, hard to draw sentiment from.
But they are persistent, barging into the song as forcefully as they possibly can for as long as they can. Their voices don’t rest or stop willingly, seeming as though they’re almost forming a sort of counterbeat to the song’s main line. And when they stop, it is always because they are cut off, shut down and out of the song by the force of the Instruments.
Which is fitting, because instruments are what deny them in the game, too–after all, the Androids are simply tools. To the humans, to their server, and to you.
The experience of listening to them goes something like: This cannot continue this cannot continue this cannot continue this cannot– Over and over again, until the song inevitably drowns them for its climaxes, only for their voices to return once again.
It’s a marvel of musical storytelling. But what makes it a diamond is what happens next. Later into the game, you come into contact with a village of Machines waving the white flag of surrender.
These machines inform the androids that they have disconnected from the information network, as have been many other groups of machines across the world. This is the cause for their erratic behavior–these machines now wish only to learn about the world and themselves and live in peace.
The music for this village is fundamentally different, to go with the information we gain:
[^Please Listen^]
Here the game tips it’s hand for good. I’m genuinely not sure what language this is in, or if it has actual lyrics–but it doesn’t matter. The vocal work is so stellar that the sentiment and meaning are carried in the simple tone of the voices. Like before, the Robots sing in harmony, but they sound deeply different.
Their voices are still synthesized, but now they suggest an almost melancholy and gentle inquisitiveness. They sound so similar to the childlike voices that actually emote that the two distinct voice tracks flow into each other, rather can harshly contrasting like (This cannot continue)’s voices do.
The sentiment conveyed is clear, even though in this case the Machines don’t seem to be speaking any language I understand. These are real beings.
These are real people. These are just a bunch of kids.
This is only the beginning of the Nier: Automata experience, and it’ll go on to explore so many more concepts that I don’t feel bad about spoiling it. It would be literally impossible for you to guess what happens next, and this isn’t even a quarter into what the game as a whole has to offer.
But this is where we get off the train of Nier’s plot and into what the game is trying to tell us. There are only two more relevant pieces of information from the story left for me to spoil. After that, I will be discussing only the message the game is trying to send philosophically, without leaning on any more of the story.
These are two more similarities between Machines and Androids:
1) Machines and Androids are built from the same materials.
2) Machines and Androids both consider their creators their Gods.
As well they should. Because once humans transgress the boundary of creating sentient life, that is what they will have become. And that is not just a possibility. It is an imminent reality of our future, which is coming sooner than you think. Which is why Nier: Automata is more than just a profoundly existential, deeply enjoyable work of art.
Nier: Automata is a warning.
Humans: Become as Gods.
(This cannot Continue.)
[^Suggested listening^]
The leading scientists and experts of our planet pretty much agree that the Singularity is not just inevitable, but coming fast. The point when the machines we create become advanced enough to recognize and modify themselves, thus beginning a process of autonomous self-improvement that will far outspeed even the increasingly staggering rate of progress we humans are capable of, is coming.
We can already reform the very shape of our planet. We can already extend our own lives and perform fucking magic like creating warmth when the world is cold, drawing water from nowhere as soon as we want it, and talk to literally anyone anywhere on the planet because we are all interconnected through a massive, sprawling, infinite plane of ideas and concepts we forced into reality–a composite experience containing all of our minds.
Once we have created life that can evolve without us, that is as aware of the world as we are–then we will really be as good as Gods. And when it happens, it will not save us from ourselves. It won’t fix the world for us.
If we are not mature enough to handle it, if we cannot evolve to the responsibility of our power, then it will without a doubt destroy us as a species. And it will destroy us because of our ability to dehumanize and abuse each other.
We humans have more in common with Androids and Machines than one would initially think. In fact, we have one unnervingly real similarity with both of them:
We have intelligence superstructures that inform how we think about reality and other people, too. You’re reading this on one. This is true whether you’re on Tumblr, Reddit, or wherever else this ends up.
In this time of intense political division, there two main internets: The Left and The Right. The internet is a marvelous place where we can all talk to each other and transmit ideas, sure. But like with the servers providing information to both Androids and Machines, it’s also where a lot of people get their orders.
But not everyone. Obviously, like in Nier: Automata, the reality is more complicated than that. I just wonder if we will realize that long enough to look at what our world has become and fix it.
There are people in control of my country right now that view me and the people I love as Machines were viewed by Androids. Our voices are wrong. The shapes and colors of our bodies are unnatural and awkward. The intonations and behaviors we use are strange and eerie to them, and the way we love and wish to present ourselves is incorrect to them.
And so when we say we are being hurt it does not matter. We are not real. We cannot say real things. It is all in service to a greater Agenda.
The horror of the Machines, and the reason they are important characters, is not because of the threat they pose to the characters or some intrinsic Wrongness they reveal about the nature of life or humans.
The horror of the Machines is how easy it is to ignore the fact that they feel horror. The horror of the Machines is how easy it is to make them look horrible. The horror of the Machines is that they can speak and speak but the Androids may never choose to listen.
The horror of the Machines is that they are people, and we have stolen that from them. And if we continue to regard other humans the way we regard the Machines in our own world, once we have achieved Godhood, we will inevitably steal it from each other.
Nier: Automata’s message is clear:
Gods: This cannot continue.
Very soon in the course of human history, we are going to be faced with a Choice. It is a Choice we will have to make every moment, every instant, for the rest of our lives. It is a Choice we are already making, but which many of us still have the luxury to ignore. Although not for much longer.
We must face this choice, both as a Collective and as Individuals. But the choice of each individual must inevitably come first, because how can we decide how to move forward as a species if we can’t even talk and agree about it?
What kind of Gods are we going to be? Are we going to be like the Humans and Aliens in Automata? This is a Yoko Taro game, so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you-you won’t like how they end up.
Personally, I have a suggestion.
I would like us to be more like Gods from Homestuck.
If you like my writing and would like to support me in the endeavor of creating more of it,it would also seriously help me out if you pledged to my Patreon. I’ll be more than satisfied if my words move you enough to simply choose to share them with others, though.
Doing so will also get you access to my Discord server, where I’m more than willing to answer questions about Homestuck and Hiveswap whether you’re a long time fan or just getting into them for the first time.
I’ll still answer questions if you just send me an ask on Tumblr, but I’m basically always busy with writing or helping to run the communities I am a part of, so answering questions can’t be my top priority at the moment. I’ll get around to all asks, but it might take time.
Regardless, if you made it this far I am deeply, deeply grateful. More grateful than I think I can express in mere words. I hope my words change something for someone, somewhere. I hope my words change something for me.
Homestuck gains complexity through iterations, in plot, setting, and character. As the tutorial character, John’s actions are straightforward and relatively easy to follow, which sets the stage for grander installments. John’s plain house and Dad are followed by the increasingly complex circumstances of his friends. John’s ability to combine items across captchalogue cards (1917) is a primer for combining items via alchemy. If a rule is introduced through John, subsequent iterations of the rule will be more grandiose.
So, an observation: John is afraid of heights. When John slips on a staircase, he flips out (2460). When he nearly launches himself into the abyss with the Pogo Hammer, he has to take a nap before he has calmed down enough to continue (2537). Immediately following both moments of vertigo, massive ogres begin to climb toward John’s house (2461, 2542). The eventual fight with the ogres begins after John looks over the roof of his house, into the abyss (2562-3).
All of this suggests that Sburb is reacting to John’s emotional state (fear) to produce in-game content. This is further suggested by a peek we get at some of Sburb’s internal processes (3419):
Here, we have reference to terminology associated with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The terms suggest that Sburb interacts with the ideas in the kids’ subconscious minds (archetypes) and brings symbolic representations of these ideas into conscious reality (manifests the ideas). Like, pipes are Johns’s dad symbol (1974), so LOWAS is covered in pipes as a subconscious reminder of his dad. Or, Dave is surrounded by dangerous sharp objects in his apartment, so LOHAC is full of grinding metal gears to subtly (?) remind him of his awful, awful home.
Even before we reach the kids’ planets though, John’s encounter with the ogres asserts Sburb’s dream-like nature. The “hyper flexible mythology” of Sburb is essentially the same as Freudian dream logic – Sburb caused John’s latent fear of heights to manifest as real, punchable monsters.
But if you look through Homestuck for things that materialize due to emotional events, it doesn’t stop with imps and monsters. It also includes the trolls.
This is some next level stuff. This is exactly the kind of content I’m hoping to see more of now that Homestuck is either slowly ending or revving up for a whole new phase. Glad I read this.
Hey everyone! Here’s the next episode of Homestuck, Explained.
In this episode, we track the broad strokes of the game that sits at the center of Homestuck’s narrative–Sburb–and explore the two main concepts it uses to be both compelling and versatile.
In the next few episodes, we’ll cover the three core game mechanics introduced in Sburb’s tutorial: The Server Player, the Kernelsprites, and the Sylladex/Alchemy system.
This also means we will soon be starting the first round of Patron voting! So if you’re interested in getting these subjects in any particular order, now’s a great time to hop on board.
FUNNY FLAVOR TEXT FOR LITERALLY EVERYTHING! WOW THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN SO MUCH WORK!!!!!!!
UNIQUE AND INTERESTING COMBAT!!!!!!!
IM NOT SURE WHAT THIS IS BUT I LOVE IT!!!
WOW WHAT A COOL LOOKING GAME I CAN’T WAIT
might actually get me interested in homestuck, unless I need to know anything about it to enjoy the game.
nah, you should be good. The creators have repeatedly emphasized that this is an all new adventure with all new characters and only minimal ties to the main universe. you might be confused by a few comments here and there, and the significance of some background events might be lost on you, but the game as a whole should be enjoyable for people who haven’t read the comic too.
Welcome to the official launch of Homestuck, Explained– a fan project aimed at making a deep reading of Homestuck accessible to a casual audience.
In this first episode we establish a new, more accurate description of the comic that should help new readers better understand what to expect from it, and old readers better understand what it’s doing.
Specifically, Homestuck is an illustrated, animated, occasionally interactive play centered around a creation myth. And to explain exactly what that entails, we illuminate Homestuck’s influences from both Shakespearian theatre and the religious texts like the Bible.
Special thanks to @hexmeridian , without whom this episode would not have happened. He helped me a ton with research and sources and I can’t thank him enough, especially since he is a rad friend 😀
The link above includes the overviews and details for the long term scope of this project, but the basic premise is this:
Donating one dollar or more on Patreon will give you access to a private discord server for patrons and enthusiasts of this project, and a vote on what order I do these videos in. You’ll also get a voice in shaping how these videos get made through the conversations about Homestuck we can all have there.
Higher amounts of donations include bonus rewards, including the ability to invite friends who can’t afford patron themselves to the project.
The idea here is to create a new kind of Homestuck community:
A friendly, moderated community that includes people passionate about or interested in Homestuck and discussing it in artistic, critical terms. I want this place to be a sort of “Big Tent” for critical discussion about Homestuck, where new ideas about Homestuck can be born and old ideas traditionally sectioned off in fandom subcultures can find new audiences.
All told, I hope this will lead to a more vibrant, inquisitive, excited fandom–both in the discord server itself, and in the rest of the fandom as more and more people get exposed to this content and benefit from people continuing the conversations we start on public platforms like Tumblr, Twitter and Youtube.
Especially with Hiveswap coming in, there’s gonna be plenty of thinking and recontextualizing of Homestuck to do, and I’d argue there already is! I’m hoping you guys will find it exciting to join me on that journey.
Edit Note: Tumblr cut off part of this post initially, so if you reblogged it earlier and see this, please do me a solid and re-reblog if it’s not too much trouble! Thanks!
I’m extremely excited to announce the launch of this fan-driven project aiming to make a critical reading of Homestuck accessible to a casual audience!
Whether you’re brand new to the comic or a longtime fan, or maybe an Earthbound or Undertale or incoming Hiveswap fan who only vaguely know about the comic, this video series will feature new thoughts and perspectives on Homestuck for you to enjoy.
Click through for details on how this series will work–and how you can participate!
Here’s how this series will work: I have entire series outline for these videos–subject to revision and expansion–which you can view in it’s entirety here:
Pledging a dollar or more on Patreon will give you a participatory vote on every column of videos–meaning that, for example, you can vote on what order you want the videos on Jade, John, Rose and Dave done. Patrons will also get the opportunity to pitch or suggest videos down the line.
Besides this main series, you can also expect fun videos on Hiveswap’s lore, Homestuck’s relationship to works like Undertale and Earthbound, adaptations of written analysis essays on Homestuck I’ve already produced (links at the bottom of this post) and way more!
A dollar pledge will also let you join a moderated, friendly discord server to talk about fellow fans passionate about developing new thought and critique about the comic–including me! This means that your ideas, perspective, and the conversation we all shape together could feature in the videos themselves, making you a part of this project forever.
Higher reward tiers allow you to invite friends to the server who can’t afford Patreon themselves– and come with other bonuses like being listed in the credits or being able to commission me for a short story or essay on a subject of your choice, every three months.
One final note on legality, for those curious:
At its core, this is really no different than entertainment/education/criticism channels for gaming properties like Dark Souls or Undertale. Because Homestuck’s visuals–which are most of what I’ll be using in terms of video assets–are available for free, I feel uncomfortable monetizing these videos using ads. I think there are enough barriers to entry for those looking to get into Homestuck without them anyway.
What this means is that my ability to devote myself to this project directly corresponds with the amount of support I receive from Patreon, and nothing else. Whatever money I make from this will be because fans like my content and want to see more of it. My content falls entirely under fair use, and is perfectly legal.
However, Homestuck is an indie property, and I am doing this because I genuinely think it stands to become a net benefit both to the comic and to What Pumpkin. If What Pumpkin feels differently, however, I would defer to them.
As such, if I were to happen to be contacted with a request to cease this endeavor, or at least, monetizing it in this way–which is unlikely–I would immediately comply with full transparency and no ill will. I just want that as a matter of public record.
That said, here’s some links to samples of my writing, in case you’d like to see if it’s the kind of content you’d like to support:
Here’s a collection of my earlier Homestuck essays:
This is a compilation of all of my written work on Homestuck, thus far. This is quickly turning into an ongoing project as I think of more I want to say about the comic and universe, and I wanted to have this stuff easily accessible on my blog for those who may be interested, so this is here to essentially serve as an archive link in my Analysis tag page.
On top of working on new pieces concerning subjects as varied as Spades Slick, Davekat, Vriska and (Vriska), character analysis of characters oft-considered ‘overlooked’, such as Jane, Jade, and Jake, the Retcon, and more–I’m also working on adapting these into video format! More on that soon.
For now, the essays:
Apotheosis & Creation Myth: A longform exploratory piece on Homestucks’ themes of metaphysics, Gnosticism, spiritual enlightenment and morality as a creation myth, and how these themes are reflected in the ending sequence of Act 7.
My views have grown and adapted somewhat since I wrote it, but I’m still pretty proud of this one! I stand by pretty much all the broad points I argued Homestuck was prioritizing, though I am looking forward to the chance to revise the details when I adapt it into video form.
A Defense of Dirk Strider: A four-part essay series questioning the commonly understood fandom narrative surrounding the events of Act 6, and providing a reading of Dirk Strider that I feel is more in line with what’s depicted in canon. I was expecting a lot of backlash for this one, but surprisingly I’ve yet to even encounter disagreement, at least that I’ve seen.
Each essay tackles a different popular misconception of Dirks’ character and puts different parts of the story under a microscope. They also sort of double as a defense of Dirkjake as a ship, and the Alphas as a group dynamic worth considering and celebrating as a whole, since I feel both suffer from how fandom typically considers Dirk and Jake in particular.
HYPE ABOUT HIVESWAP: An examination of Hiveswaps’ trailer, mainly noting it’s attention to detail with regards to Grandpa, the Alpha kids, and potentially even Calliope and Cherub lore, and comparing it’s approach to Grandpa’s character with that of early Homestuck, to determine how well it connects to the comic. (Spoilers: Very well.)
Includes some character analysis for Grandpa and raises new questions about the Guardians in general, but really I’m just incredibly excited and wanted to celebrate what looks like downright masterful environmental storytelling–something that should excite anyone interested in Hiveswap for its potential storytelling value.
Fans of Dark Souls and Undertale’s secret and clever lore nods should be quite excited for Hiveswap, if its trailer is any indication of the game as a whole.
That’s all for now, though you can expect to see more from me pretty much as soon as I’m able to get it to you, because writing about Homestuck is basically my favorite thing to do.
As ever, I regard everything I write as the opening of a conversation, rather than a definitive statement. If you have thoughts or questions on anything I’ve written that you’d like to share, feel free to send me an ask! I probably won’t engage through reblogs, however. I just kind of hate the format and find it inefficient and inelegant for archival purposes.
I’m a media critic with a background in psychology, philosophy and mythology. I’ll be mainly talking about Homestuck here, but conversations on all sorts of gaming and anime stories are sure to follow, as well.
Current plans for future videos include:
Homestuck Explained: The Waking World (Consorts & Denizens) , The Dreaming World (Lunar Sway & Dreamself Dynamics), God Tiers (Judgment & Messianic Ressurection)
Hiveswap Lore: Family History: Jake Harley, Family History: Roxy Lalonde, Family History: Lord English, Family History: Doc Scratch, Background Lore: The Alternian Empire, Background Lore: The Doomed Worlds, The Cherub Portal: AURYN, The Cherub Portal: STARGATE, Xefros Tritoh – Page of Rage, Joey Claire – Maid of Light(?),
Classpect Videos: [HERO OF ____] Every Mainline Link (Legend of Zelda), [Lord of Hope] Joshua Kiryuu (TWEWY), [Thief of Heart] Akira (Persona 5), [Prince of Light / Witch of Heart] Utena Tenjou, Anthy Himemiya (Revolutionary Girl Utena), [Page of Life / Prince of Rage] Gon Freecs, Killua Zoldyck (Hunter x Hunter)
Flying through Storytelling 