One thing I really like about Homestuck is its treatment of furries. Like, not just that it has them, and celebrates them being who they are and drawing strength from it, though it undoubtedly does that, but also its sheer variety of characters who can all be plausibly described as furries, yet are completely different from each other in their approach to furrydom.
For starters, let’s look at Jade. Jade thinks that dogs and wolves are really rad, and kinda wants to be one. She admires their powerful sense of smell, their powerful bodies, their soft fur. She thinks they’re beautiful, and shows a deep affection for her pet/guardian Bequerel. She does not show any particular interest in fursuits, because she doesn’t want to dress up as a dog, she wants to be a dog, and a fursuit would allow her to mimic almost none of the qualities she so admires. For Jade, furrydom seems to be above all about the power trip. Indeed, when she ascends to doghood, her transformed state has very limited animal traits, just a pair of ears really, but in return she gains access to the animal traits she most admires, like an absurdly powerful sense of smell, soft furry ears, and the ability to channel the unfettered energies of an incomprehensibly vast extradimensional ball of fire. Just like dogs do.
Nepeta, on the other hand, never shows all that much sign of wanting to be a cat. She loves cats, she roleplays as one on the internet, she wields cat claws as a weapon, she hunts wild beasts and dresses up in their pelts. She does all these things, and she clearly enjoys them, but shows no sign of Jade’s desire for transformation, and doesn’t go on about how great they are. Animals are just a part of life for her, and while she loves them she doesn’t place them on any kind of pedestal.
Then there’s Equius, with his, er, fine art and his, let’s say sweaty reaction to it. Something something the only transformation he desires is for one of his adored and beloved sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet musclebeasts to step on him, killing him instantly.
Judging by the pictures in his apartment, Dirk has a strong interest in fursuits and related gear, and probably some kind of desire to either be or be with either some sort of anthropomorphic animal, or a dude in a fursuit, or both, or all four. Hard to tell, he keeps a bit quiet about that side of himself, regarding it as embarrassing.
Rose has a squid girl desktop background. There’s probably something to that, given how incredibly ridiculously gay she is (she has arguably flirted with every single girl she’s ever met who wasn’t her mother, for one). She also seems to be really into becoming a catgirl, though like Dirk, the non-catgirl version of herself rejects this as embarrassing.
Jake isn’t into furrydom in your traditional sense (afaik) but he shows a strong interest in the Na’Vi from long-forgotten blockbuster hit Avatar, fantasizing about being one and about being with one, not to mention dressing up as one.
There’s a staggering number of different approaches to the same basic concept on display, a dazzling variety of ways to interpret a single basic notion, a notion known as Furry.
And that’s without mentioning Calliope, Cronus, Horuss, Meulin, Dave, Vriska, or Terezi.
Tag: Homestuck
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I want to finish it in two part!!!!!!!!!!dave give me time power!!!!!(dave:nope.
The power of anxiety
Karkat Vantas can not stop fucking thinking. It seems that every moment of every night his brain is running at full capacity, constantly calculating, contemplating, considering. One might consider such a mind to have trouble sleeping, and indeed he is said to have spent his entire session in a state of wakefulness.
Karkat does, of course, have a lot to think about. His blood colour makes it all but impossible for him to survive adulthood under the violent Alternian regime, and this fuels his paranoia with keeping himself clean and unblemished, his fixation with emulating the proper behavior of an upright Alternian soldier, his love of the Thresh Prince, a story about a member of the (relative) underclass breaking into highblood territory and proving himself worthy.
But these habits make themselves known in other places. Notably, Karkat is one of the teenaged protagonists possessed of the unusual ability to keep his room clean, which he does with such extraordinary proficiency that it can perhaps even be called spartan. He keeps track of his team, too, and in the middle of the endless, uncontrollable noise he constantly spews at himself and others, there are orders, directions, and general coordination. Karkat, generally speaking, has a decent grasp of what the things are that need doing, and roughly who needs to do them, and he’s not afraid to tell them so.
But his powers are not merely situated in the present. When left alone, Karkat mulls over things, turns them again and again in his head, and occasionally hits on surprising revelations, like his understanding of Jack Noir as a metaphorical cancerous tumour in the universe frog he and his team created, aimed squarely at the frog itself (or his considerations on the nature of free will in a universe with an Alpha timeline).
It is Karkat who finally breaks the code of silence regarding the pre-retcon meteor’s plethora of growing issues. It is Karkat who figures out that chairs are handy to have, so you might as well keep one on your person at all times. It is Karkat who patiently tries to work countless others through their problems, with his mind always buzzing, spinning, and turning with the countless little details of the world, all the myriad little sticky details of life, all the endless ways things can go wrong.
And yeah, it’s unhealthy. Homestuck is full of people pushing through difficult situations by applying their mental problems and maladaptive coping methods best they can.
Hey! Really like yor work on the aspects. Made me rethink Pages entirely. I saw that you were wandering about the whole unifying mythology of Knights and Pages as surrounding Warriors and Lawgivers through the serve effect. But I thought a real neat way to tie it all together is with the “Protect and Serve” motto used in law enforcement organizations, which ties both Serve (and Protect, which also symbolizes those classes a lot) and the Law and Code of Honor parts :) . What do you think?
yep! I pretty much agree. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to parse the motifs of the classes in a comprehensible way, and the Protect and Serve motto reads really well with Knights and Pages. I’ve never seen canon reference it–the closest would be Dave’s repeated references to Obama, I’d say. But it’s definitely been taking up my thoughts as I consider how the classes all fit together thematically. Sweet catch!
Pages and Servants
The power of the Page is to be served. It’s an ability that takes many forms, from the minor to the major, from the personal to the grandiose. It is Tavros getting Kanaya to keep Vriska off his back. It is Dirk giving Jake a sparring robot because he asked for it repeatedly. It is even more abstract things like Horuss deciding he suddenly can’t hear when Rufioh wants to break up, serving himself ignorance and Void in the face of the patently obvious.
For both our major Pages, however, the ultimate manifestation of this ability, however, takes a very specific form. As their power reaches its pitch, they call forth a great warrior, formed from the substance of their Aspect, to fight for their cause. For Jake, this takes the form of concentating his thoughts, imagination, and love, turning Brain Ghost Dirk from an informative if somewhat annoying hallucination into a god tier supersoldier completely devoted to Jake’s protection. For Tavros, it takes the form of cajoling and convincing a vast army of ghosts, creatures of pure spirit, into following his lead and fighting Lord English at risk of double death.
And I can’t help but draw a certain parallel between these events, and the Fate series with its Servant system. I mean, come on, they’re supersoldiers formed of magic, and they’re literally called Servants, there’s just a hint of a connection there. Hell, for added parallelism, Tavros calling forth his ghost army just so happens to happen in a desert, of all places.
Now, I’m not saying that this parallel is deliberate. I’d almost be surprised if it was. Deserts are a good place to show off armies, after all, what with all the flatness. But it’s still kind of a fun and interesting parallel.
How important are Seers in reality? I’ve gotten in discussions where many people agree that Seers are pretty much useless and powerless
Rose Lalonde killed an ogre armed with nothing but a pair of ordinary knitting needles pretty much immediately after entering the game. Rose Lalonde found the secrets of the Green Sun and of the Scratch, forming the foundations for the kids’ entire plans in Act 5. Rose Lalonde found love on a battlefield and her hands have wielded both darkness and light and turned them into deadly weapons. Rose Lalonde, trapped with her friends in the middle of literal nowhere with a demon dog hot on their heels, nevertheless found a way to not only escape, but to journey to a new, wondrous land. Rose Lalonde knows more about the setting than maybe anyone else, and the tome of her collective knowledge inspired Calliope, arguably the most important character in Homestuck, to believe in the potential of reality.
Rose Lalonde is utterly fucking dwarfed by Terezi Pyrope, the girl who can sunder time by asking a question, who can know with absolute certainty the immediate outcome of a difficult decision. Terezi Pyrope, the girl so dangerous, Lord English sent his right hand Makara on making sure she was kept off balance through mind games and caliginy. Terezi Pyrope, who is so wise in the ways of the world that she can understand and manipulate people so well she’s repeatedly stated as the superior of Vriska, who is literally a telepath. Terezi Pyrope, who fights alongside gods and not only matches them in prowess but outclasses some of them (Dirk had some serious trouble in that fight). Terezi Pyrope, trapped and surrounded by dead friends in an offshoot reality in the middle of temporal nowhere, who found a way to turn game over into an easy victory by writing words on a scarf. Terezi Pyrope, who absorbed all the memories of Paradox Space and knew the world for what it truly was. Terezi Pyrope, the true protagonist of Homestuck.
And then there’s Kankri I guess? Yeah, he’s kinda useless, trapped in his own head and incapable of seeing and wielding his true potential. His alt-self led a revolution, which went surprisingly well up until it completely failed because the odds were stacked against him in a truly preposterous fashion. Not his fault really.
Hey, chums!
This time, we take a look at the Hero Titles, also known as Classpects.
Let me know what your Class and Aspect is in the comments, and say
whether Classpect videos on different characters sounds interesting to you!
Also, an announcement. After December 1st, I’ll be changing the Patreon to charge per video post, rather than monthly.
Thanks for everything, and as always,
Keep Rising.
Here’s a couple of resources that may be of interest to Classpect fans who haven’t heard about Jungian Archetypes or Carol S. Pearson’s system, in case you find it interesting:
http://www.uiltexas.org/files/capitalconference/Twelve_Character_Archetypes.pdf
http://www.carolspearson.com/about/the-12-archetype-system-a-model-for-discovering-your-archetypes/
Dirk Strider vs narrative presentation
Dirk Strider has a PR problem. Now, that’s not exactly his fault, in fact he oftentimes seems to bend over backwards to work his way around it, to soften his appearance to the reader as best he can, and generally behave in every regard as a well and proper through and through stand up gent. Nevertheless, it is so deceptively easy to miss that, so distractingly simple to latch onto any of a number of alternative possible interpretations of him.
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. Dirk Strider as a character is preceded by thousands of pages by his estranged twin brother, Dirk Strider, aka Bro, aka the dictionary definition of a broken household, who spends and has already spent so many scenes tormenting his adoptive/biological son Dave Strider, aka probably the most beloved character in Homestuck, that Dave’s entire character arc can arguably be summed up as gradually breaking free of the damage wrought by this thoroughly destructive character dynamic. Indeed, one of the highlights of Homestuck’s final stretch was watching Dave Strider explain in sufficient yet far from exhaustive detail to Dirk Strider the injustice wrought by Dirk Strider.
Let’s move ahead (or are we retreating). At the very beginning of Act 6, in arguably the first trace of Dirk Strider’s personality, we find two rabbits, gifted to Jane Crocker by her fellow alphas, Jake and Roxy; each perfectly emblematic of the other’s personality and connection to Jane in particular. Dirk’s gift, however, is withheld, in its place an ominous note that, whatever it is, it is not quite as inoffensive a thing as the other two.
Indeed, Dirk Strider himself is absent from much of the earlier pages of Act 6. When Jake attempts to contact him, he receives in his place the tragic figure, doomed to darkness and misfortune, Dirk Strider, aka Lil Hal, aka AR. Dirk Strider proceeds to antagonize Jake and, albeit but briefly, convinces both Jake and indeed the audience themselves into thinking he is actually Dirk Strider.
And so is Dirk Strider robbed first of his fame, then of his good reputation, and finally of his first impression by the structure of the narrative, as well as the malicious actions of his preceding hobgoblins, Dirk Strider and Dirk Strider. And all this before he is allowed to speak a single word in his defense. In the face of such forces, who could help but take a dim view of the man. It is a poor man indeed, to be Dirk Strider.
CUTTING EDGE JADE HARLEY META:
she named one of her consort ocs “yiffyiff”
thanks, that will be all
Flying through Storytelling 