No, I’m still following the outline! It’s already faced adjustments, and will definitely be adjusted more as things continue, but the core game plan is unchanged.
Hiveswap Lore is an additional series, not a replacement or anything. I might cover things in Hiveswap Lore that I wouldn’t get to in Homestuck Explained until much later in some cases–the red/green cherub spiral and the existence of Universe C or the nature of Cherubs, for example.
But when I cover those things, it’ll be because it’s relevant *to Hiveswap*, and the focus will be on its relevance to the games. So even then I’ll have reason to cover similar subject matter as it relates to Homestuck’s self-contained narrative.
It’s a weird set up, I suppose, but that was pretty much inevitable given the inherent weirdness of Homestuck and Hiveswap as properties.
Happy New Years, peeps!
In this section of our exploration of the Hero Titles, we discuss the Archetypes each pair of classes is based on. To be clear: This writing is based mostly on my own exploration of the comic! We don’t know for sure whether these play into how the Classes are structured on any official level.
However, I hope it proves a good starting point for understanding the Classes, and getting a sense for how flexible and evocative the Hero Titles are. Let me know if it does!
In part II of this mini-series on the Hero Titles, we take a closer look at the Classes. Reading them through the lens of Carl Jung’s mythic Archetypes and the existential duality of Yin/Yang, we develop an understanding of the Active/Passive split between classes and begin to get a sense of the broader system that defines each one.
This also marks the announcement of another arm of this venture: Comments response videos. From now on, I want to make you guys part of the conversation, so messages or questions sent to me on Tumblr, Twitter, or wherever may appear in videos as we converse and try to understand the nature of Hiveswap and Homestuck’s stories.
This is a video series focused on Homestuck’s Hero Title system, a hyperflexible mythology like Hogwarts houses or Bending type. The Hero Titles are based on The Legend of Zelda’s “Hero of Time” structure, and is split into two halves:
The “Class”, which changes the “Hero” in the title to tell us more about the character’s particular skills and habits.
And the “Aspect”, which changes the “Time” to one of twelve broad elemental forces.
In this first video, we take a look at the Aspects in-depth. The two following videos will cover the Classes.
A thank you to all of you following so far, as well as an update on this channel. From now on, videos will go up on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, at 8 PM EST.
This begins this Saturday, with a reupload of our video on Classpects, this time as a two part series. Part 3–an expansion focused on six Class Archetypes (excluding that of Lord and Muse, the Conductor)–will be released on December 30th.
If people only watch this one and don’t really feel moved to check out the rest of the videos–or, to be clearer about it, Homestuck/Hiveswap in general in more depth, then I’ve kind of failed at what I’m setting out to accomplish anyway! Misconceptions over a part of the narrative that doesn’t impact much of anyone’s understanding of the plot aren’t really a big deal if bogging myself down in contextualizing the impact of a character like, three layers of context removed from discussing the basic nature of the setting means I lose people here and now, you know?
I think this is a reasonable thing to be concerned about, don’t get me wrong. It’s the kind of thing I’m weighing myself, all the time. But ultimately I pretty consistently come down on the fact that if I want people to be interested in this stuff at all, then the pacing and flow of each video has to prioritize ease of understanding and engagement. Otherwise, the whole project is kinda bunk. That’s the nature of Youtube as a platform.
Hey, chums! Here’s the next episode of Homestuck: Explained!
This time we take our first step into The Incipisphere, Homestuck’s main stage.
I’ll be honest and say this video probably won’t have much new information for you old hat Homestucks–but it should be a great introduction to the Inicipisphere for the new fans I am excited to welcome, as we get ready for the ancient seal on Hiveswap to be broken and a new age of the fandom, unleashed.
I’ve got a couple more videos down the pipeline, and we’ll be opening Patron voting on the next series of Homestuck: Explained videos within the next week, so stay tuned. That’s all for right now.
Hey, guys! My good friend Rune asked me to provide a good post they could reblog boosting the work I’ve been doing here for a while, and upon attempting to do so I realized:
Holy crap! It’s already been six months! Half a year has flown by as I have striven to delve deeper into Homestuck’s symbol language and referential philosophy, attempting to help bring new readings and positive sentiments to the fandom.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m optimisticDuelist. My goals are simple: I love Homestuck. I think there’s a lot that Homestuck tries to say that is not immediately apparent or easily accessible, and it is my goal to make as much of that information as I can uncover accessible to old and new fans alike.
Emphasis on the new, in fact! This is why my main project is…
This youtube series is an in-depth and allegedly entertaining look at Homestuck, designed to make the comic not just understandable but interesting to anyone who watches them!Currently numbering at six videos and counting, each has been a labor of love. I hope you find them as enjoyable to watch as they’ve been enjoyable to put together!
Since the next video on my roster finally has us enter the Medium, you’re just in time to catch up and have the series Welcome you to a new extreme ;).
Besides videos, I’ve also put out plenty of readily accessible writing on Homestuck, on all manner of different subjects–mostly focused on poorly understood or often underlooked parts of the comic. Here’s a short list of what I consider my best work:
There’s also essays on Jane Crocker, Davekat, and how Homestuck deliberately references other works to clue the reader in on what it’s trying to say in the works! Among yet other things. Is there any end to my hopes for this project? It is difficult to say.
Needless to say, I’m pretty busy. I’ve only been able to do as much as I have due to the incredible support of my Patrons–thanks to all of you for signing on to this journey so far. I also owe a lot to all my friends across both the Homestuck community and my online and offline life.
Besides my Patreon projects, I also help run the r/Hiveswap reddit and Discord, where you can find me regardless of what you think of all this stuff. Thanks for taking the time to read this! If you enjoy any of the stuff I’ve put out, let me know, because it always makes my day to hear it :).
That’s all for now! Thanks again, to all of you, so, so much.
Hey, everyone. In this episode, we finally close out the tutorial section and unpack some of the deeper philosophical implications Homestuck works off.
That means going into the Biblical references built into the Alchemy system. We contrast the book of Genesis against the Gnostic creation myth, go over what Gnosticism entails in some detail, and what the main difference is between Gnosticism and traditional Christianity.
What do both stories tell us about Homestuck’s priorities? What does it mean for Homestuck to so strongly embrace the latter? And what does that approach say about the idea of original sin?
Immediately? Next week I’m uploading the next video on the Alchemy system, and my biggest priority is to get Part 2 out soon after that, and then the Medium video after that still so I can enter the next round of Patron-voted videos laying out the game mechanics in the Medium. Really excited to get to that next phase and EXTREMELY excited for the Alchemy videos to be out because I’ve been hyped about these for months now.
I want to write two metaposts at some point, one on Jane’s arc and one on Davekat and the Alpha Timeline. Unfortunately I have no time table on when I’ll get to either–my need for a sustainable income is getting pretty dire and I NEED a job, so I’m scaling way down on my writing efforts and have been ramping up my job search for a while. Even once I have one, the videos are gonna be my priority, so as bad as I want to I’m not sure I can justify a ton of essay writing in the near future.
And then of course, there’s Hiveswap and the Epilogue, which could drop at any time and add more stuff onto my plate. Once Hiveswap comes out, priority #1 will be to play through it and put out some videos introducing Hiveswap fans to Homestucks’ lore through whatever hooks the game presents. I could write about Grandpa as he relates to Jake already, but I’d like more textual grounding in Hiveswap before I do something like that, and a sense of what Hiveswap fans will care about and be interested in so I know how to pitch it better.
and who knows how the Epilogue could change what I want to write about in the near future.
The bottom line is my objective is everything. I have all the irons in the fire, and I’m juggling them as fast as my irl responsibilities allow me to.
Flying through Storytelling 