it’s not QUITE as blatantly homophobic as persona 4 but its plot is way, waaaay better and has cooler themes & story & characters & villains & mechanics overall. i totally recommend it, if u need a more solid pitch hmu & i can provide
I believe you. Like, its really important for me to be clear that all of my criticizing is grounded in a sense of love, I am not going to escape persona as a franchise until i die because it was too formative and important to me. If I had the money and free time i’d already have played p5.
It just also makes me furious and anything I say about the games critically has to incorporate the abject failure I perceive from them re: dealing with LGBT rep, and thus human attraction, on any meaningful level.
like p4 had HOW many remakes and they never decided to dust off yosuke’s old cut romance arc with the protagonist and put it in the game? they had lines RECORDED for that shit before they cut it, it’s cowardice, pure and simple.
this stuff changing was my one big hope for p5 and ive been repressing the anger ever since but if i’m going to suck the games dick for its perfect aesthetic and fascinating themes (and i WILL, believe me i will if i ever get the chance to produce actual Content™ about it) i am definitely, definitely also taking the opportunity to complain about the franchise basically showing me the door when it had the chance and LITERALLY THOUGHT about including me in the playground
like Persona has literally gone backwards here, Persona 2 had two protagonists who could be in a relationship! I forget their names but im sure @alotofmomos or @nelfes know. It’s infuriating.
Anyway i am serious for all my complaining feel free to drown my submission and asks in instances where Persona 5 touches on Gnostic stuff, even if you’re not sure about it i’ll be happy to take a look because…i love these games and know I will love whatever stuff p5 dumps on my anguished, conflicted face
HI YES DID SOMEONE MENTION MY CANON BISEXUAL SON TATSUYA SUOU AND HIS BOYFRIEND HE EXCHANGED VOWS W IN FRONT OF A BRIDAL SHOP HERE I AM
there we go. so yeah persona 2 is probably the outright best at this stuff its a shame its a TRAGEDY OR WHATEVER
Since I seem to be getting some new readers (Welcome! Glad to have you.), here’s a cool & new song I’ve been listening to. Seeming is really, really good. This stuff is like peak 2017 hellworld #relatable only it, like, gives me hope? And it feels really resonant to Homestuck, I’d like, love to do a lyricstuck on Homestuck’s antagonists set to this.
To the gunmen who guard against all of the starving: God will bury you. Nature will bury you. To the screams on the radios, where words turn to weapons: God will bury you. Nature will bury you. To the terrified rich man: God will bury you. To the killers of animals: Nature will bury you.
…
God will bury you. Nature will bury you. Time will bury your bones, unseen. Total and absolute. Infinite amplitude. ‘Til all the black is ripe and green.
…
And I’m not angry, I’m not sad. I’m just stating the fact. I’m not angry, I’m not sad, I’m just stating the fact. I’m not angry, I’m not sad! I’m just stating the fact that: God will bury you. Nature will bury you.
I’ll start off with saying that your ideas on the Page and Knight classes are a pretty fresh take, clearly original ideas that draw from a solid foundation in the canon.
From your explanations however, I think that the Knight is the active class, and Page the passive, given that the only direct canon explanation for what the passive/active distinction amounts to is that active classes directly do something with their aspect, and passive classes invite others to do that same thing. The knight herself is still Serving, whereas the page is still inviting others to Serve, regardless of whether they are serving him. Just because Serving seems to imply acting for another person doesn’t mean it’s any different than the Prince who can destroy others (aspect). Both are acting impressing their will on another, the distinction being that one is trying to help, the other is most likely hurting.
However, I can’t say I’m convinced on Serve being the primary verb for the pair. This debate is a old as the classes themselves, yet we still find ourselves here. Serve is good, and you’ve found evidence for it, but I say it’s not Enough.
From my own theory crafting experience, I’ve cycled through most of the different words thought of as being the Key Verb. Be it Exploit (which really works for Dave’s time looping powers, and to a lesser extent Karkats victory over Clover) Wield or Use (which I then extrapolated to mean the knight was some sort of item using class, that they had a favored weapon that they could summon, an aspect themed mount, or perhaps a batman like toolbelt that contained a variety of aspect aligned tools that only they are proficient in using, eventually boiling it down to the idea that the Knight can use aspect associated items without any difficulty) as well as Protect (the knights armor is such a sound power concept). The most clear non HS example I could think of was Guts from Berserk, who is the Knight of Rage (though anyone with the Brand becomes an Heir of Doom). Guts’ dragonslayer sword is described as being more a slab of iron than a blade, basically the thing is way to big for a human, he was Wielding a Contrivance. That, and he eventually obtains the berserker armor, which protects him with his rage (protect being a strong word here, but it let’s him keep going). The Page I’ve described as the sidekick, the one who puts Armor on other people, who brings them their weapon, or car keys, given the knights penchant for having a mount. Anthy himemiyas ability to pull a sword out of her or others chest seems on surface level to be a obvious page move (Another time I’d like to discuss with you whether or not Anthy was a Page, or if the swords were complete powers in of themselves, metaphorically far more than swords, making her a Muse. But I digress)
I’m Making/playing a Sburb tabletop game with some of my friends, and the Knight of Doom has never been satisfied with his powers, and I have changed them over and over again to no avail, which Is why I have looked at the knight through so many lenses.
The most recent idea I’ve had for the Knight is something I’ve not seen touched on. When I asked my Rogue of Mind to describe what a knight traditionally is, he gave me a simplistic, shounen answer of how knights go around challenging others for the honor of their lord, and to test their mettle. I thought it was silly, until I realized the Knights in canon all did that in some form. Knights seem to challenge others to a competition related to their aspect. Dave regularly got into Rap Battles with the trolls, as well as Ironic oneupsmanship games. Karkat incessantly Argued with people, especially over Relationships and Team related things. And latula played video games I guess. The same thing is also present in the pages, to a lesser extent. Tavros was an avid fiduspawn player. Jake physically fought the dirkbots, while also playing romantic games with the alphas (while relationships are Blood, and your preferences are Heart, I give Eridan and Jake as examples that Unrequited Feelings are Hopes domain). I’ve got nothing for Horuss, which maybe is part of it? I’ve struggled with whether to call this Fight or Compete. It’s pretty obvious once you look back at it, but it still leaves questions; how do we find a word that includes the concept of Protect, Wield, Exploit, Use, Serve and Fight? They all have grounds in the canon, and all of the classes have to have one Key Verb to them. So what is it?
Also, should you find this all interesting, Check out the game I am developing, SKRUB: a Tabletop Creation Myth, a pen and paper role-playing game made to give players a complete Sburb experience.
so shit kinda hit the fan for me and i am mostly cleanin up and getting ready for some announcements, so im gonna keep this pretty short, i just wanna knock a bunch of asks out of the way:
1) once i like, can, i’d love to talk about Anthy. I’ve been reading her as a Witch or a Muse depending on my mood–I don’t really think she’s a Page at all, though I can see how you’d think so if you read them as Passive. On which point,
given that the only direct canon explanation for what the passive/active distinction amounts to is that active classes directly do something with their aspect, and passive classes invite others to do that same thing.
That’s not true? That isn’t the description of Passive classes, for starters. Passive classes invite the Aspect Itself to act through them, or invite Y action onto the Aspect. That can include influencing others, but it also includes simply acting as a channel for the “will of the Aspect” itself.
Calliope gives us the “For themselves” vs. “For others” definition seperately, but I don’t really see a reason to single that one out as Class-specific while not doing so for the description she gives for Prince/Bard. And all classes employ both “exploit” and “allow” behaviors at various times.
Hence why I think understanding the classes is easier when you parse whether they tend to benefit themselves or others.
Protect, Wield, Exploit, Use, Serve and Fight
They all have grounds in the canon, and all of the classes have to have one Key Verb to them. So what is it?
It’s Serve. Hiveswap makes me even more certain, since it’s way less subtle. For starters, I don’t really think Wield, Exploit and Use make sense as Knight/Page verbs.
Eridan, Vriska, Roxy, Rose, and countless others can be said to “Wield” their aspect like a weapon through items–the dice, roxy’s cubes, eridan and rose’s wands, etc. Rose can easily be said to be “using” Light when she uses the cueball Scratch gives her. And “Exploit” is basically synonymous with the idea of “using” one’s aspect directly, as Active classes are said to do.
There’s way more examples than I can even count, but basically I think all of those verbs are too general. As for Protect, it falls under the Serve verb under the idea of “Service”, which can mean to help someone or to literally be in their service. Redglare is referenced as a civil servant in allegiance to the Subjugglators, for example.
Help is a concept strongly associated with Knights and Pages, and often in terms of providing protection. Jake “invites” Dirk to give him Heart through the form of a bodyguard doppleganger that is referenced as a butler, and the Brobot later literally Serves Jake his heart like a butler offering it up on a platter–giving it to him, which falls under the second definition of Serve.
The “Fight” verb also falls into Serve as it’s third interpretation, because to Serve someone can also mean to own them completely or kick their ass–Caliborn directly references this definition. “You got Served”, etc.
This, by the way, is a big reason I think Knights are Passive and Pages Active. Knights are invested in working hard to protect and Serve others, while Pages are more inclined to get others to Serve them–and that can be contentious on both ends given the “fight” association, but at their respective bests Knights are still predominantly working for the benefit of other people, while Pages are rallying others to work for their own benefit.
RE: The tabletop game, i’ve been interested in tabletop sburb potential for years, so I’d def love to check it out! could you drop me a link?
Like a lot of Puerto Ricans, I’m currently part of the diáspora; part of millions of Puerto Rican living outside the island due to different reasons that drove us to leave our Island (temporary or permanent)
As of tonight (9/19/17), Hurricane Maria will be moving across Puerto Rico as a category 5 hurricane. The destruction it will leave on its wake is unknown.
It’s sad and frustrating not knowing how to help my people, my island, my country, during these hard times.
So, I’m gathering all the places we can donate money. Real organizations from Puerto Rico, to ensure that the money goes directly where it’s needed. I’ll be updating this list as soon as I can verify (to the best of my knowledge) the organizations where the donations are going.
If you wish to share one, feel free to submit the information (click here) to out page and we’ll verify (as best as we can). Whatever you can donate, even if it’s just $1, it would be greatly appreciate.
All donations to this fund will exclusively support the victims of the catastrophic Hurricane María and Irma in Puerto Rico and provide relief and aid the communities affected by this disaster.
Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief Fund – Puerto Ricans in Action: All funds will be withdrawn from the campaign on September 29, 2017, by our co-founder, Jorge Rivera, and donated to two nonprofits located in Puerto Rico working to rebuilding communities in Culebra and Loiza: ConPRmetidos is working to construction of long-enduring homes in Culebra that meet Safe Building Codes standards, and Iniciativa Comunitaria is working with community leaders in Loiza to identify immediate and long-term needs. They are also working with the United Way of Puerto Rico to give the in-kind donations we receive to the best community organization.
Other organizations that would greatly benefit from additional help:
aw man ok, i need to clear some things up because my wording in that post was pretty poor and now I feel kinda bad. I was excited I guess. But like this is probably overstating any impact I may have had by a fair measure? Buuut I really don’t like the idea of putting any of the good folks at wp in a position where they feel like they HAVE to make statements about stuff.
I also don’t think you got QUITE the message I did from the tweet when I went over to look at it, either, anon. Just in case, here’s a big disclaimer: I OBVIOUSLY don’t know shelby or necessarily what she might have intended! All I can tell you is that what I read gave me a different picture of where she was coming from, ok? This, along with everything I post and say about Homestuck, is just MY perspective on a property I happen to know a lot about because it raised me, but I don’t know really anyone at WP and nobody should assume I know what I’m talking about when I talk about what they say.
Are we clear on that? Ok. I’m gonna do something I REALLY usually don’t like doing and post the tweet for clarity’s sake.
This doesn’t sound like moving away from the Joey as lesbian hc to me.
What it sounds like is that in my post–and i don’t know if others made posts to this effect, i doubt it was just me but i’ve been loud in fandom recently so, maybe?–I credit her with being involved in the writing of Hiveswap through admittedly poor wording on my part. What I should have put the emphasis on is that last sentence–I think it’s pretty obvious that there were LGBT creators and women who KNOW the experience of growing up like this, and who’s collective experiences and camaraderie and mutual understanding influenced the text of the story, no matter who wrote the actual text.
That focus on community understanding, teamwork, and mutual solidarity is probably the single factor I’d credit most in Hiveswap’s writing being so powerful. And I think that’s likely what she’s pointing to. Shelby didn’t personally do any writing for Hiveswap, and she’s NOT the only lgbt person who worked on the game, so it’s absolutely true that not all the credit should go to her.
I wanted to thank her for tweeting about it in the first place and validating fandom suspicions, though, because that also mattered to me. And I’ll be honest: a bit of it is just the fanboy slipping out of me? I’ve been following Shelby–anyone affiliated with Homestuck as creators really–for most of my life growing up, since I was 16. I love Steven Universe and Neo-Kosmos is absolutely fantastic and brilliant (and by the way, if you’re hungry for more content while you wait for Hiveswap Act 2 GO READ NEO-KOSMOS??? ITS SO HOMESTUCK AND KIND OF STEVEN UNIVERSE AND AAAH).
So uh yeah. I get really excited and emotional and worked up and I’m not always PERFECTLY eloquent and making my points as a result. I feel bad about that in this case because I feel really weird about putting anyone at wp in a position they need to respond to, but really all this means to me is that thanks for hiveswap and joey should go to ALL the creators who worked so hard on Hiveswap and to craft this amazing character. Cohen wrote most of the literal text, but he made a tweet I’ll also post here only because it echoes a similar sentiment:
And retweeted a similar one:
And I think that perspective is rightfully deserved. Poinko, papers plase, james roach and toby and so many other people along with these two deserve all our thanks for working so hard under such durress to deliver not just an amazing product, but a thoroughly transcendent experience. The kind of story that changes the world for the better. That’s what I believe Hiveswap is, anyway.
I feel like somewhere along the way during the course of Homestuck, Hussie’s reputation as a troll and other stuff resulted in a culture prone to mixing genuine criticism and hurt with deeply-rooted irony and insincerity, and that only grew worse as the hiatuses and ending came about. At some point, we kind of forgot to praise creators for the work they do to entertain us, and I think doing so is…really important, personally. I’d like to see a return to a more appreciative and celebratory kind of fandom culture, if possible, on a personal level.
Also, to be clear, I don’t think any of this has any bearing on reading Joey. I wanted to thank Shelby for speaking up through her tweet and confirming what many already knew, but I am fundamentally a very DOTA focused Homestuck reader, and that’s carrying over to Hiveswap as well. I don’t think Joey is canonically a wlw because Shelby tweeted about it, although that was useful in a highly skeptical and highly Word of God focused fandom.
I think Joey is a wlw because little kids who play as her and fill her shoes and read about her feelings will definitely connect with the similarities between her experiences and theirs. Because she reminds me of knowing I was into boys and pretending otherwise except for the moments I prayed to god to make it go away, to make it stop, to change me. Because I feel in my heart that the text speaks for itself, and if you let go of the 20 layers of Tumblr ideology and ways the story is problematic and w.e and try to imagine thinking like a KID for half a second…you’ll see that too?
And that’s important. It’s maybe the most important thing that can happen right now, when our culture so sorely needs to understand itself in new ways.
So like. Props to you guys, @whatpumpkinstaff . Sorry if this is weird but well that tweet literally says to do this even if I’m shy so like…yea.
For a given value of “intelligence”, anyway. I don’t hold that much truck with the concept in general–there are different kinds of intelligence that run the gamut of human skills, and reducing that to a single concept is reductive, to say the least.
However, it’s hard to deny that there are real cultural forces in our society that do treat intelligence as a monolithic descriptor of skill and worth, and it’s a cultural idea as pervasive in reality as it is in Jake’s character arc. For that reason alone, I’ll be using “intelligence” as a term referring to Jake’s awareness of and competence at identifying and solving problems throughout this sequence. The term as I am using it here is only relevant in the context of the themes and language Homestuck sets up.
Intelligence, competence, and awareness are key parts of Jake’s relationship with the people around him, and particularly with the way he is dehumanized, taken for granted, and abused.
In fact, almost every character Jake is close to in canon questions his intelligence at some point:
And this dynamic isn’t just present in the characters. It’s in the fandom as well. Fandom perception of Jake English often considers him comically unaware of his surroundings and reality, dense and slow or even straight up unable to pick up on ideas that come naturally to many of the other characters.
This is true across the board of opinions of his character: Some consider Jake a self-absorbed, thoughtless asshole, others still consider him a helpless victim who isn’t quite quick enough on the uptake to keep up with how he’s manipulated by others.
It’s hard for us–the fandom, I mean–to be sure of just how much Jake understood about how badly Lil Hal treated him (and by association, Dirk, in much of the fandom’s eyes). Or that Jane liked him. Among other things. It’s part of the general air of helplessness and incompetence that surrounds Pages, I guess, and air set up around Jake for quite a lot of his narrative:
(Note: This is Brain Ghost Dirk specifically questioning Jake’s intelligence. I hope you’ve got some good note taking pens, because this is going to be important later.)
It’s pretty much accepted that the degree and reach of Jake’s intelligence is, at the very least, a matter of debate. I am here to say that it is not. At all. And I can prove it. By allowing ourselves to doubt Jake’s intelligence, we–the fandom– have performed the equivalent of deciding Dave’s cool guy act is the real deal.
We have fallen for Jake’s bluff. I’ll explain.
Plenty of people are aware that Knights, as a class, tend to act out personas that reflect ideas about how they think they should act. For Dave, that’s the stoic Cool Guy archetype, which he eventually grows out of:
For Karkat, it’s his ideas of being a Ruthless Big Shot Leader, which he also outgrows by the end:
And Latula has the thing about being a R4D SK4T3R G4M3G1RL!!! I don’t really think we need a quote to establish that–Dave and Karkat prove my point well enough, and this is pretty much common fandom knowledge.
What I don’t think is common fandom knowledge is that Pages do the same thing, but for a different purpose. Pages and Knights both set up Personas that they project into the outside world. And both of them do it to control how other people perceive them. But for different reasons.
Knights do it because they want to be perceived as capable, in control, and unflappable, basically. Karkat wants everyone to rely on his executive ability as a Leader. Dave wants to be admired and validated by his friends, or. Well. Anyone. In essence, Knights want to be relied on by others.
Knights use their aspect to benefit others. Pages use it to benefit themselves.
Horrus develops a strangely blank persona, so conspicuously fake it is hard to tell if he even reacts to input–so it’s easy for him to just pretend he didn’t hear it when Rufioh tells him he wants to break up–again, I don’t really feel like going through all of Openbound to get all the screencaps and I don’t think they warrant that much space on this post.
Tavros does the same thing, enveloping himself in his games and fantasy so much that he veers away from almost any responsibility in the session, and does only what he wants to…unless Vriska is stealing that ability from him. However, even through her abuse, Tavros manages through sheer presentation of his person to encourage the other trolls to help take care of him.
Specifically, by giving him increased mobility–mobility and freedom of movement being concepts closely related to Breath. It’s worth mentioning Tavros is able to inspire this care not just in Kanaya, but in Equius, who looks down upon lowbloods and whose culture would have encouraged him to KILL Tavros for his weakness rather than help him.
But because of Vriska’s exploitative and cruel influence on him, I’m not sure to what extent he really lives up to his full potential. That said, he DOES manage to completely live out his own personal fantasy, coming to embody both his childhood image of Peter Pan…
BUT ALSO being the only one of the Alternian trolls to accomplish his original childhood goal: Becoming a Cavalreaper.
Get it? He’s literally cavalry.Ha ha. Is this kind of a fucked up victory? Maybe, yeah. But it’s fitting that the character obsessed with the Peter Pan fantasy of leading a troupe of “Lost Boys” never really grows up with the goals he sets for himself. Maybe it says something about Tavros, or about the nature of Ghosts–either way, it definitely seems intentional.
Anyway, the Ghosts are another essay for another time. Time to talk about the kid I actually want to talk about:
Jake English has a fabricated persona, too. For Horuss, it’s nothingness. For Tavros, it’s endless childhood and Peter Pan. But Jake’s persona is a contrast to Dirk’s (and Dave’s) Cool Guy persona. Personas that, for each of them, sit at the dead opposite end of the spectrum from who all three characters actually are.
And for Jake’s constructed persona is that of the Hot-Headed Hero.
And like Horrus and Tavros, Jake indulges this fantasy version of himself even when he actively knows it makes no sense to do so, simply because it’s the fantasy about his life he wants to live out.
But like Dave and Dirk’s presentation of themselves as cool guys unphased by anything, this persona is a complete lie.
And also intelligent, curious, and good at evaluating the potential consequences of his actions–traits he literally willfuly holds himself back from.
His Modus is by far the most complex of all the kids. He uses a Puzzle Modus that allows him to fit any amount of items he wants in it’s storage space…so long as he can successfully spatially fit every single object within a finite space.
And Jake captchalogues a LOT of shit. Meaning he has to keep all of this inventory and know how to spatially navigate it to fit everything he wants at all times. And he does this casually, as a part of his daily interactions with the world around him.
But perhaps more telling than that is how Brain Ghost Dirk describes his own creation:
Brain Ghost Dirk implies that he is a Dirk splinter, but specifically a Dirk splinter that exists entirely through the ideas Jake has about Dirk.
In other words, Jake knows and understands Dirk so well that he can pretty much perfectly remember his body, movements and mannerisms on command. Again, not even actively, it’s just kind of how Jake English rolls-thinking about Dirk all the time is the status quo.
And Brain Ghost Dirk claims to be Jake’s literal brain, talking back to him.
Which means when Brain Ghost Dirk calls Jake out on something, he is forcibly communicating important information to Jake that Jake is actively choosing to ignore. It’s Jake talking to himself, not Dirk giving Jake information he doesn’t have by talking to him through Brain Ghost Dirk.
We have reason to believe the Ghost about this, since Dirk never expresses having any awareness of Brain Ghost Dirk’s existence.
So what important information does Jake willingly ignore? Well, earlier we saw him justify beating up a random alien girl even though a part of his brain knew she wasn’t actually Sea Hitler, and he kind of just wanted to play the part. But surely we can do better than that. How about everything about his friends’ feelings about him that makes him uncomfortable? Callmearcturus wrote this brilliant thesis outlining why she thinks Jake deliberately manipulated Jane into failing to confess to him, but I’m gonna run over it real quick to ground it in this context and sell you on the idea that this is, in fact, not a theory and explicit canon.
Because we don’t need to guess at this by reverse-engineering Jake’s well-established feelings for Dirk. Roxy literally tells him Jane has these feelings before Jane herself does:
Jake recognizes what Roxy is saying, and guesses what she was alluding to on her own. Roxy doesn’t deny it by any measure, and when she asks Jake to drop the issue, Jake says he understands the dilemma this puts her in with Jane.
To stress: He received this information in confidence and knows it for a fact. And he trusts the information he receives so much that he then ACTS on it. After talking to Roxy, Jake messages Jane himself, OPENING by mentioning Roxy told him Jane was going to be contacting him.
And then he himself broaches the subject of their romantic feelings for each other:
But when Jane outright asks him if he has something he wants to say to her, Jake expertly dodges the question, keeping his options open while putting the onus of taking the first step and revealing her feelings on Jane again.
And then, once he’s got her trying to answer…
He KEEPS asking her, interrupting her several times while she starts to try sorting out her thoughts. He puts Jane under a LOT of pressure here, which…considering Jake literally KNOWS the answer, is a pretty shitty thing to do! Even if Roxy hadn’t LITERALLY TOLD HIM mere minutes ago, Jane’s reactions here would have confirmed Jake’s suspicions beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt.
Unless, of course, one has a reputation for not thinking things through or being aware of their surroundings.
Once Jake has his answer, he doubles back, making sure to ask her AGAIN while she’s off balance….
And he then shuts her down when she tries to take the initiative on taking it back and being honest, quickly following up by IMMEDIATELY letting her know he’s relieved about this–signaling his disinterest BEFORE she has a chance to reveal she actually does have a stake in the matter.
He then uses his goofy, unaware, trusting persona to set up a status quo where Jane continually helps him by acting as a sounding board for all his thoughts about Dirk–essentially, putting Jane inside a gender-flipped version of the laughable stereotype of The Friend Zone.
But wait a minute. Jane is one thing. But if Jake is actually this smart, aware, and capable–then it kind of has ramifications across all of his character interactions. What else changes if we read Jake this way? I know I said my next post would be on Roxy, but, uh…yeah. This one kind of got away from me.
In our next entry, we’re going to talk about Why Jake does what he does, and Why he seems so genuinely confused about it later into his narrative. We’re also going to look at some of the other consequences his Jake’s approach to his friendships has for his friends.
We’ll also make a case for Why exactly Jake ultimately falls in love with Dirk Strider, how and when Jake demonstrates and acts on that love, and if I can manage to squeeze it in–maybe even uncover the way the Heart aspects’ two different themes of Souls and Romance/Shipping are conceptually connected.
And on that note, it’s worth pointing out that there’s one notable exception to the list of people fooled by Jake’s presented persona. One character who not only never talks Jake’s intelligence down…
But instead talks Jake’s intelligence UP when he talks badly about himself.
Dirk Strider.
See you again soon, everyone.
Until then, Keep Rising.
now that my platform has like spiked considerably can i like please beg people to stop reblogging this particular post? please please i hate it so much.
EVERYTHING ELSE ive written about Jake is better ok, literally everything else this post is MOSTLY garbage except for the quality dirkjake at the end, pleaaaaase just read my other shit i’ll write up a masterpost linking all of it if it gets this one consigned to obscurity holy hell how do i make it stop spreading :((((
figured i’d lightly weigh in on this since i’m very aware of the situation:
i support swamp-wizard and i loved his blog content. this idea that keegan somehow wasn’t a good ally to lgbt women is just mind-blowing to me – he’s been such an influential voice (to me, at least, and a lot of other lgbt women i know) in pushing back against the rampant misogyny in both media and fandom, including being willing to actually listen to lesbians and make an effort to understand the experiences of gay & bi women when interacting with media. i’m shocked (but not surprised) to see people who are neither women nor gay leveling these accusations against him
Sigh. Ok, actual last word on this because I’d like to close off on a perspective that is closer to my values and less a byproduct of shock and anger. This is my ACTUAL last word on the matter in public, I don’t want to clog up fun happy fandom times with this nonsense, but revgays if you’d like to talk further you can contact me privately.
At least insofar as I and the people I know are coming from, it’s really disingenuous to pretend this is about “shipping” or w.e the fuck. What this is about is that swamp has repeatedly refused to stay in his damn lane basically and just, you know, be cool? Not be an enormous jackass to people he doesn’t know and incite harassment at them/call into question their LGBT identity as a way of undermining their Progressive Cred or w.e?
No matter which way you cut it, Swamp has mocked, vagued and ostracized several fan creators for having petty disagreements with him. He’s been called out on it and told its fucked up–by ME, when I was under the impression he was a cool dude and was making an effort to be friends with him as well as other people who he directly affected–repeatedly apologized, and then proceeded to do the exact same shit anyway.
As @callmearcturus said, he apparently didn’t even bother to clear up the mess he made wrt his accusations at her. That’s fucked up. This dude has 0 credibilities and that’s because there is a demonstrable pattern of lies and not caring about trust or goodwill w/ said fans he doesn’t agree with! That’s a lot of what has earned him this response so, tough shit.
As for the Hiveswap stuff, my honest opinion is that however reasonable his anger is, his reading of the game is flat out fucking wrong. It’s bad analysis. It is demonstrably, blatantly untrue and says nothing meaningful. His lines of criticism were shut down by wp statements on the few pieces of narrative ambiguity there are.
Criticism isn’t all made equal, or free from criticism itself! Swamp is fundamentally engaging in bad, lazy criticism, in that he says nothing accurate or substantial about the game. This is insufferable given his arrogant posturing about knowing Everything About Homestuck (but like, frankly who am I to throw stones there?) and DOUBLY insufferable when he uses it as justification to rob lgbt creators from profit.
Now all of that said? I don’t hate Swamp. I don’t think I’m capable of hating much in general. as @ao3sburb said, I kinda hope he comes back someday. I don’t LIKE being mean, especially not to fellow LGBT people–there’s nazis out there, the world is scary, we need to stick together etc etc.
But I TRIED to be friends with swamp. Really hard! All I got out of it was a bunch of my friends being harassed and endless bullshit vaguepost drama. And I genuinely thought he was cool for the longest time. I seriously have not had a more dramatic, hurtful, and drawn out experience of being let down and let down by someone I tried to believe in, and every time I chose to give swamp another chance it usually ended in another friend of mine getting vagued or harassed.
I still feel guilty about that, so the idea of giving him a pass over it and letting you turn it into “shipping nonsense”? Fuck that. Swamp fucked up, and he was mean and cruel in contexts where it was completely unnecessary. Over and over and over again.
So like I don’t think he’s satan, I certainly don’t think he’s a FASCIST (LOL i cant believe I heard that one), but I do think he’s fundamentally misguided, and to the extent that he’s hurt he’s internalized a pattern of lashing out in really ugly and unwarranted ways.
I hope he gets better. I hope he takes care of himself. And when he comes back I hope he knows to just like, be fucking chill about stuff with his fellow LGBT peeps and shit. We deserved the understanding and nuance at least as much as he does now, according to your logic, and we. did. not. receive. it.
We are under no obligation to provide what he proved unwilling to give.
As it happens, Gamzee has a line I never gave much weight to before noticing Bro’s SAW interest that I’m more inclined to take seriously now, that suggests Gamzee and Bro’s relationship to Cal WAS intrinsically different:
But even if Bro is kind of a noble captor figure holding Cal back, I still wouldn’t think it excuses any of what he put Dave through. He’s still an awful dude.
As for Gamzee, here’s the main problem with reading him as “just” brainwashed.
Gamzee doesn’t require Lil Cal’s presence to go evil. In fact, Gamzee doesn’t seem to require ANYTHING to turn evil. But even if like, Doc Scratch ALWAYS teleports Lil Cal into Gamzee’s presence to trigger his personality shift, I don’t think it would matter. The weight of the sheer SCALE of Gamzee’s devotion cements his place as an ultimately willing accomplice/acolyte to Caliborn’s Dark Carnival.
And it kind of makes Gamzee fucking terrifying and a fantastic villain.
I’ll explain my reasoning here.
We know for a fact that Gamzee snaps and kills all his friends in at least one Doomed timeline. This is the source for half the code used in the creation of Doc Scratch. There’s no implication that Lil Cal is involved here at all.
But again, let’s assume Lil Cal was here again. It doesn’t matter.
Because there is canonically, explicitly, no timeline in the history of Gamzee where Gamzee ever, ever, EVER chooses to rebel. Gamzee Makara simply does not ever choose his friends over Lord English. In any timeline. Ever. How do I know?
Lets talk about Ghosts for a minute. The fandom has historically kind of taken these guys for granted, and loose fandom consensus is that they aren’t coherent/who has what ghosts is arbitrary. This is incorrect!
Pretty much everybody in the Bubbles that should have alt!ghosts does, including Meenah and Aranea, the two characters who’s alt!ghosts are typically presumed “Missing”.
This is important. The Ghosts kind of give us very low-key character development, and contextualize the characters for us. For example, Eridan is an absolute irredeemable bastard in the Alpha timeline. But in a God Tier iteration of themselves, Eridan and Feferi seemingly come to friendlier terms. In another, there’s suggestions Eridan makes up with Feferi and Sollux. In yet another, he seems to be Trans or exploring femininity at least.
The point is, there’s a certain fluidity to Eridan’s potential. Still terrible in the comic, but it’s important to remember that Eridan didn’t CHOOSE to be trapped in the meteor with Jack, or to be born to Alternia’s power system, or to be trapped in the Alpha Timeline.
It’s important to remember these things because in Homestuck, someone with power–Lord English–deliberately and willfully chose those things FOR him. Eridan’s lives are lived in response to that imposed power structure. These factors don’t redeem him completely necessarily
But anyway, the fact that the rest of the cast have coherent quantum expressions means there are only three real exceptions–three characters who either don’t have any ghosts at all, or should have more ghosts than they do.
The first is Caliborn, who’s timeline has exactly one deviation from the Alpha–apparently caused by John’s retcon. This riddle’s solved easily enough: Predomination doesn’t leave a ghost to appear in the bubbles at all. When Calliope says she ate his soul, she means that literally. Caliborn’s cheating in the Alpha Timeline is indeed the only reason Calliope exists in the bubbles at all.
(This, by the way, explains a lot about the relationship between Caliborn’s soul and Gamzee/Arquis’ in the Lord English. He predominated over them, too.)
The second is Vriska, who only has a single ghost in (Vriska). This is really weird, because we literally know for a fact she dies in more than one doomed timeline! As with the two Calliopes, I think this is down to John’s retcon doing some weird entanglement nonsense to Vriska’s quantum existence. The point is: Where others have a palette of possibility, Vriska has two extremely polarized halves. Schrodinger’s Vriska.
Important to mention that just like Eridan, the structure of the Alpha Timeline that limits potential Vriskas is IMPOSED ONTO HER. Vriska didn’t want anything about the way she was raised or where she was born. She didn’t ask John and Terezi to retcon her into this bizarre state. Both Vriskas, like the rest of the cast, are rolling with the punches LE has seen fit to give.
Except for Gamzee.
Hussie literally tells us Gamzee never dies. His single non-Alpha Timeline death in [S] Game Over is retconned by John, and Hussie suggests it straight up doesn’t count. But that presents a problem.
There are thousands upon thousands of Doomed troll timelines. How is it that Gamzee specifically never ever EVER dies? Well, there’s only one real way that a Non-Time player can survive a Doomed timeline, that we know of:
Dream self merger. By going to sleep as the last player present in Sburb, the Doomed Rose from Davesprite’s timeline triggers a game mechanic that ends her timeline completely and merges her consciousness with that of Alpha Rose through their dreamselves.
If Gamzee survives his doomed timelines, this is the only possible way how. And collapsing all of his potential instances into a single Alpha identity certainly sounds like the reduction of possibility commonly attributed to the Rage aspect. But what that means is that to move on to the Alpha, every Doomed Gamzee must inevitably either snap and kill all the other trolls, or somehow outlast them.
And it means that if any Gamzee had EVER, in the entire spectrum of plausibility the Alpha timeline affords, EVER been inclined to rebel against LE–then we would know. Because somewhere out there, that at least Hussie could see, there would be a Ghost to show for it.
But there isn’t. Similar in this respect only to Caliborn, Gamzee simply has no alternate deviations because he doesn’t want them. He chooses the path that leads to Lord English freely and willingly, over and over and over again.
And like Caliborn…
Gamzee does this because he wants to.
Gamzee doesn’t BELIEVE he’s going to become his own God–he knows it for a fact. He sees it in Lil Cal’s mangled soul. And he embraces that truth wholeheartedly, throwing himself into the acolyte role from then onwards and presumably following instructions Doc Scratch gives him throughout Act 6.
Which we can talk about some other time. The point is: Gamzee chooses all this. Whether or not Lil Cal causes him to is beside the point, because there is not and never will be any timeline where Gamzee chooses to resist.
Gamzee is the ultimate in shitty cosmic nazi religious zealots, and devoted to the very power structure that causes every other character to suffer so. There are no mitigating factors for him as there are for everyone else but Caliborn. At the end of the day, he’s evil. Bad clown. Worst enemy.
Today we’re talking to Cohen Edenfield, that is to say, me. Hi. We’re all pretty busy at the moment, with the release in <22 hours and everything, but I managed to get this handled.
What is your specific role on the Hiveswap team?
I have two full-time jobs on HIVESWAP: Creative Director and Lead Writer/Scripter. As Creative Director, I’ve worked with my team leads Angela, Rah, James and Tauhid and with our programmers to, well, “realize a creative vision.” I give notes, feedback, and broad-strokes direction on pretty much everything on the project, which I’m able to do because I can count on the expertise of the team leads doing an amazing job. I can bring them a rough, sketchy description of the overall “feel” that a piece of music or animation or art needs, and be confident that they’ll spin my straw into gold and make something beautiful. I’ll ask Tauhid for a new UI specific to Alternia, with the vague direction that it use hexagons instead of circles, or I’ll ask Angela for moving clouds, or I’ll ask Rah for a new close-up of a sexy lamp, and I know they’ll get it done. And I’ll ask James for an “8-bit college football fight song,” because he does great work, and because I want to hurt him on a spiritual level.
There are tweaks, of course, and sometimes I’m a minutiae-obsessed, frustrating, tedious perfectionist, but they’re usually stuff like “this sword needs to be over here, instead of over there, because seven games from now something crashes through this particular window and impales itself” or “this specific piece of text needs to be white courier on a green background.” For non-story/lore/character related calls, I tend to defer to the expertise of my leads.
Which brings us, I guess, to my other full-time job, Lead Writer/Scripter, which includes narration, dialogue, item descriptions, etc…I wrote about 150,000 words, all together, if you’re really taking your time, trying different dialogue paths, and actually trying to use everything on everything else. If you’re not, it’s considerably less, but it’s in there.
As for the story, the broad narrative strokes of Act 1 and some specific plot beats were mapped out before I came on board, but in 2+ years of development there’s naturally been some substantial reworking and rearranging to refine things from both a gameplay and a narrative perspective. The characters have changed a fair bit, both to suit a different overall tone and because things change over the course of two years. Andrew looks the finished stuff over, and gives feedback on it, and we make changes as needed. I’ve relied a lot on his storytelling and characterization expertise. I may have penned the current script, but we wrote this game together.
I’m also often the person who does miscellaneous writing like the game descriptions for Steam, or the lyrics for the Grubbels songs, or sometimes the product descriptions for Grubbles merch, etc.
When and how did you get your start on the Hiveswap project?
In May 2015 I got an email from Andrew asking if I’d be interested in doing some freelance writing on what I then thought of as the “Homestuck Adventure Game.” I’ve been reading Andrew’s various stuff since like…2003? We used to post on the same forum, so it was this kind of “oh right, hey, I think I know you, actually” moment. I’d finished my Masters in English Lit three days before, and I was looking for freelance work, so the timing couldn’t have been better.
I was originally brought on to write like…200 jokes, I think, with a couple of others who had the same assignment. Just specific pieces of text or dialogue that needed writing or punch-up.
When I finished those, I asked for more, and before long I was going through the script, looking for more stuff to punch up, new places to add jokes or characterization or connections to Homestuck lore. After a few months, Andrew hired me full-time as Head Writer, which was great, because then I could just write as much as I wanted, all the time, without having to keep track of hours.
From there I gradually took on more and more responsibility for the creative direction of the project, but I think that’s covered in the next question.
How did you get your start in creative direction?
As we restructured the studio to our current remote-working situation, Andrew and I had a lot of talks about what HIVESWAP should actually look like. We kept going back to the gorgeous concept art by Gina and Mallory, and we realized that while the 3D development work that had been done was good, it really didn’t feel like Homestuck. The concept art, the 2D assets…those felt like Homestuck.
The shift from 3D to 2D was substantial, and while we definitely had artists and animators who were up to the task, they needed some direction on what that task would entail. Andrew was hip-deep in finishing Homestuck, so I became the center of that network–building new file architecture, figuring out pipelines, etc. I was the person who knew the script and knew the new direction, so I was able to give assignments and direction, a structure that became formalized over time until I was made Creative Director and we established the team leads for each department.
What’s your favorite game? Are you playing any games right now?
Aside from constantly playtesting Act 1, which is taking all of my time, I guess I’m sort of playing Dark Cloud 2? It’s a weird, huge PS2 dungeon-crawler I’ve gotten to 100% a couple of times since my teens. It requires basically nothing from me in terms of attention investment, so it’s a good meditative cool-down for an hour or two every couple of weeks.
Are there any games that you’ve drawn from for Hiveswap?
Transistor and SOMA, both for writing and creative direction. Both have great unified aesthetics, and both also have you talk to people through machines a lot. Firewatch, same reasons. Obduction, which has the same once-deferred communication and also has a really powerful theme that I guess you could call the trust earned through mutual vulnerability, which is something I wanted to have in Act 1 as well.
When you’re not dealing with the challenges of production/management/creative direction, what do you do in your spare time?
I don’t really have a lot of that. I’m looking forward to rediscovering the concept. I have a big stack of games I want to play after we launch Act 1. Persona 5, that Breath of the Wild DLC, Pyre, Ladykiller in a Bind, Night in the Woods, Life is Strange…the pile builds up over 2.5 years I guess. I want to play games where you talk to lots of different characters, because there’s going to be a lot of that in Act 2.
What’s your workstation like? Do you like to listen to any particular kinds of music while you work? If so, tell us about it!
My workstation is this corner of my bedroom. I have a lot to keep track of, so I also have the whiteboard. I didn’t do a great job hanging it, but it seems to have resisted falling off the wall and onto my sleeping face so far.
I listen to the music of the for the scene/location I’m writing in, initially for inspiration, eventually because I want to make sure I’m as close as possible to the player’s frame of mind.
Favorite Homestuck character?
I said somewhere that Caliborn was my favorite character, purely for his work ethic. Specifically, as Aranea describes it, “while such trials might discourage most players from even trying, our villain’s response was quite the contrary. He was only em8oldened 8y the mind num8ing chores. He took to them with gusto, as if performing them out of spite.” There have been times, deep in the pog joke trenches, that I took a certain bitter comfort in those words. And we’re both terrible artists who murdered Andrew and took over his story.
Favorite Homestuck ship?
(looks directly at camera) Dave/Rose.
Favorite Homestuck flash?
I have three favorite flash-pairs:
Jack: Ascend & WV?: Rise Up. Until Jack: Ascend, Homestuck hadn’t really had a primary antagonist, just the general need to get the kids in the game before meteors destroyed everything. Jack raised the stakes and brought the narrative into a sharper focus–here’s the threat, so here’s the motivation.
Begin intermission 2 & Caliborn: Enter. INTERMISSION II was such a creepy, unexpected digestif to the feast of Cascade. And Caliborn: Enter, would be great already, since it’s all about the worst, most awful boy, but it became my favorite when Andrew described it as “it’s great because it’s like woah watch out for THIS guy and then he does nothing but sit around and make bad art for the rest of the story.”
Dirk: Synchronize & Dirk: Unite. The animation and music are really great, and haven’t we all been there? Haven’t we all decapitated ourselves rather than just telling a boy we like him?
Do you have a personal message you’d like to relay to all the Homestuck and Hiveswap fans out there?
I hope you enjoy it. We made this together, all of us, you included. None of us is free from sin.
Where can people find more of your work?
My twitter, although it’s not really very funny anymore. It used to be the main creative outlet I had but now I am creative in such a way that nobody gets to see it for a while. You can still follow, though, because I will probably talk about Hiveswap a lot now, and also because sometimes I still make jokes like this:
That’s all for this week. Next week you can see a cool video that James put together.
im literally burning alive for this game oh my god
[Note: Content warning for brief mention of sexual abuse and longer discussion of perceived suicide and associated thoughts.]
Let’s talk about Jade Harley.
A common feeling I’ve seen about the final chapters of Homestuck is that Jade Harley deserved better, that she suffered completely unfairly and arbitrarily in the final timeline.
I actually completely agree. Jade *absolutely* deserved better. Where I disagree is with the argument that Jade’s suffering somehow shows Hussie is a bad writer.
I think it’s important to recognize that good storytelling isn’t always the same thing as happy storytelling. Some stories or parts of stories are *about* suffering. They’re tragedy, a form of storytelling I’d define as an examination of a negative set of events: why they took place, why the characters involved couldn’t escape them. Done well, this can be as meaningful as any happy ending.
I mean, there’s a reason a bunch of Greeks wanted to watch a series of plays about a guy who accidentally marries his mother and then stabs his eyes out.
So when we’re talking about good storytelling in Homestuck, i.e.: whether character arcs reach meaningful catharsis, we have to bear in mind that the bad shit that happens to our characters is sometimes the very subject of the story.
In other words, yes, Jade Harley deserved better.
That’s the *entire point.*
Now, that said, I actually think Jade does have a happy ending, and a damn cathartic one. But we need to understand the unfair suffering she went through to understand why. What I find fascinating about Jade’s arc is that she confronts the tragic, suffering-causing aspects of SBURB and the domain of Lord English more directly than any other character and finds a way to become free of them. It’s not that her suffering was in any way merited or right, it’s that by rejecting that unfairness, she finds incredible self-affirmation, freedom, and escape in a way that makes her the most direct manifestation of Homestuck’s Gnostic themes.
In the causes of her suffering, and in how that suffering is overcome, Jade Harley is the key to the deeper meanings of Homestuck.
I love this post so goddamn much and also, I LOVE JADE HARLEY SO GODDAMN MUCH, GOD
Please read this!!! Holy hell, Ari makes connections between Grandpa and Jade’s greater experiences here I hadn’t even begun to consider and it is blowing my mind, aughhh i love jade and jake my heart hurts
Flying through Storytelling 