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I like that your analyses of DirkJake can be ace inclusive. I headcanon Jake AT LEAST biromantic, but sex is not something you have to have to make a relationship work, and if he and Dirk wanna figure that out, then they can and they can still be romantic. The important thing is that they’re happy in the new world. So long as they can communicate, DirkJake for the win.

Yeah!! One of the biggest strengths of Homestuck’s cast is, imo, their degree of flexibility. I wouldn’t really want to shortchange that, because it lets characters function as sort of quantum rep for different groups–like Gay vs. Bi Rose, for example–but without changing their fundamental character dynamics and relationships.

IE: You can read Rose as gay or bi, but she’s still with Kanaya in the end so it doesn’t matter much outside of how you personally relate to her. I think it’s cool that both gay and bi girls have that close reading available to them in that way, if that makes sense? Ditto Jake.

mercurialmalcontent:

semianonymity:

mercurialmalcontent:

I made a post Friday night-ish asking what I should talk about, and pentagon-sama asked for Rose Lalonde. I agree that every time is a good time to talk about Rose — even if it takes me a while.

So, Rose. I often feel like I like her for very different reasons much of the fandom likes her. I don’t see the elegant ice queen, the manipulative academic, the mad girl too dangerous to be trusted.

What I see is a girl who writes and talks in a very precise, academic manner, like a child who learned how to talk to and deal with people from books rather than other actual people. I see a girl who tries very hard to be mature beyond her years, because someone has to be the mature one in her house. I see a girl living in a house full of absurdities who wants to be silly, but who keeps it reigned in. I see a girl who has learned to be suspicious of everyone’s motivations and sincerity because she has grown up without a good model of what sincerity looks like.

I see the child of an alcoholic.

An alcoholic that loves her, yes, but an alcoholic nonetheless. An alcoholic who tries to buy her goodwill with gifts and inappropriate freedoms, an alcoholic whose behavior is so puzzling that Rose doubts the sincerity of everything her mother and everyone else does and says. An alcoholic whose behavior, even when read more kindly than Rose’s filter suggests, is too immature for a parent, is the behavior of someone who wanted a sister, a friend, and who was not prepared to raise a child.

I see a girl who doesn’t know how to express affection or emotions in a healthy way who nonetheless cares deeply about her friends, and her mother as well. I see a girl who is smart and brave and clever enough to know that if a game is unfair, then you try to take it apart to see how it works. I see a girl retreats into the safety of stiff, intellectual words when she’s upset.

I see a girl who took a terrible risk of trying to harness dangerous powers, and did not go mad, did not threaten her friends or even have thoughts of such, whose only aggression was at the creature that murdered her mother.

When I look at Rose I see a funny, sharp-witted girl who tries to be warm, who struggles to be kind, who is aching for sincerity, who wants to understand.

I fundamentally think you can’t write Rose Lalonde without writing about alcoholic families. Partially because I can’t help but see myself and my alcoholic mother. Let me tell you, there aren’t that many stories out there about extremely smart, loving, functional alcoholic mothers, who aren’t openly abusive but are nevertheless toxic. I know my mom did her best, and that she loves me more than anything else in the world, and that was not enough because she’s sick and she used to be a hell of a lot sicker.

So, yeah, I see myself, and I try to keep my over-identification with Rose out of my characterization. But even more than that? It’s all there. I was the too-smart kid who wasn’t socialized quite right, who managed better with adults than with my peers, and I was lonely and hurting and hiding it. Yeah, she’s the responsible one. She’s bad at open affection. Her relationship with her mom is incredibly complicated, love layered in between anger and disappointment. She mirrors my story, and the stories I’ve heard from a lot of other children of alcoholics.

A small child doesn’t want an extravagant tomb for her dead cat. It’s about the mother’s ego, at that point—extravagant displays that fail to provide what’s necessary. Rose needed comfort and support.

I think cherrybaum once described her as a survivor, and that’s the core of her personality to me. She has overcome incredible odds. And that starts with her home life. She did learn how to be the emotionally mature one, the adult in her home, in some ways—she had to be her own support because her mom was sunk deep into addiction, no matter how outwardly functional that addiction might seem to be. And I know how that can be a strength! I know. I have coping skills that serve me very, very well in awful situations. And that I have them is still a disservice to me. Rose has a deep-rooted independent strength that I see as the core of her character—someone who found friends, and opened up to them, even though they were online (and I absolutely think that’s a part of it, as another lonely teen who found fandom, which I continue to credit to my survival past age fifteen) and that means a lot. She’s got edges, but they’re not ice queen edges so much as the sorts of edges that come from the isolation and loneliness of her home. She can laugh and be goofy, but she’s not happy-go-lucky and carefree in everything, because her mom was insufficient, and that left Rose to pick up the pieces.

I think Rose’s mother loved her, and tried her best to show it. But, to quote: “Going to an alcoholic for love and affection is like going to the hardware store for bread.” Rose’s mom had no capacity to give some genuine, selfless maternal affection. And that matters—the love is important, but it’s not all that there is to parenting.

Rose is the child of an alcoholic. It’s who she is.

This is amazing commentary.

(Fistbump of solidarity. My mom also had a substance abuse problem when I was growing up.)

Tumblr ask: “is dirk a canon horse furry?”

You probably weren’t expecting an essay length answer to this question. So like let there be no doubt at all from this point onwards this is exactly the kind of content you can legitimately expect from this blog. This is who I am. I’m sorry.

Also, you’re welcome.

Yes, Dirk is a furry. And his relationship to furries shows us a lot about his parallels and similarities to one Rose Lalonde. Who is also a furry.

Let’s get into this.

Dirk is interested in furries to some extent, and finds the aesthetic appealing on some level. I mean, look at this. I can’t even count how many pictures of muscley horse dudes there are here. The dude isn’t exactly subtle. To quote Jake…

Dirk isn’t exactly just a HORSE furry, though:

The swole bunny men help us notice something else about Dirk. As brash as he is in his introduction, bragging about his interest in sequential art that he describes as “Bordeline Pornography”, Dirk gets uncomfortable and leads the reader away when the narrative focus rests too squarely on a furry bunny dude he presumably finds attractive.

He dodges, and badly at that. To Dirk, swole bunny men represent something to hide–an interest he has that he cannot honestly incorporate into his cool, stoic, Above It All Persona. Not even through the hyper-sincere irony he tells Jane about. It’s something to hide, which means that at his core it’s something that matters to him.

And hey, you know who else is very much not shy about plastering her interests where anyone can see for her own pleasure?

As plenty of people have noted recently, there’s no heterosexual explanation for this. I’d already categorize this as falling into the spectrum of anthropomorphization we talk about as Furry–if you disagree that’s fine, though I do know furries who like this kind of thing. The point is that like Dirk, Rose knows what she likes, and like Dirk, Rose likes some weird shit.

On this side of the argument, though–showing that the characters like this furry stuff through their own characterization–Dirk gets a lot more content than Rose does. But Rose’s relationship with furry is confirmed much more intensely than Dirk’s on the other side of this argument: through their relationships to their Splinters.

Dirk and Rose’s attitudes towards furry and their own identities lead them to distance themselves from the actual term in public. Dirk pokes fun of Avatar as “blue space furry shit” with Jake, and Rose needles John on not having his own furry alt-self, dramatically bemoaning the existence of “Cat Rose”.

In both cases, they’re happy to pretend that furry stuff doesn’t interest them at all, and part of their approach to doing so is either joking about others being interested in it or actively playing up their resentment for it. Either way, the implication they send is that they themselves are Not Interested.

This is a lie, and is to be ruthlessly exploited for comedy, which Homestuck does magnificently well.

Both Dirk and Rose are very invested in seeming Above the kind of self-indulgent identity play that Furry tends to encompass. Intense sincerity of expression bothers to them even as it appeals, because the images they want to project to the people they care about is one of aloof, self-aware, competently critical collectedness. One could say it bothers BECAUSE it appeals.

Which is the exact reason Rose is so annoyed by Jasprose. Jasprose acts as Rose would without the self-awareness she uses to present only the carefully crafted persona she wants other people to see. Jasprose doesn’t think about what others think of her at all. Jasprose thinks in terms of self-indulgence.

A self-indulgence explicitly linked to their status as full-blown, unabashed Furries. Jasprose, by her very being, brings all of Rose’s hidden words and feelings to Light, not being shy at all about sharing them and indulging whatever desire is on her mind.

She mixes cat terminology with flirting, stressing her identity as someone who is a furry and loving every second of it. Davepeta even draws the distinction between her and Rose, noting that Jasprose owns who she is and acts more honestly about it.

Arquis does the same thing, but Dirk doesn’t quite resent AR for presenting a furry, happier, more honest version of himself. Dirk resents AR for entirely different reasons that I’ve already written too much about.

But there are genuinely harmless ways that Arquis DOES reflect Dirk’s interest, and those are worth unpackaging. Specifically, there’s the way AR describes himself finally becoming happy.

And yeah someone could nibble with this wording and say well actually Equius likes horses so maybe its him and I actually couldn’t be less interested in trying to explain why Dirk’s character already incorporates an absolutely Furry level of enjoyment of horses so here’s his room again.

So basically Dirk and Rose are interested in furry stuff to some extent but won’t really admit it. They wouldn’t admit it to you if you asked them or anything.

I think this is really fascinating and that they share this particular nuance of characterization so completely is fantastic. Even Dirk’s double face palm and Rose’s pillow hiding feel really similar to me in the sentiment of mortified frustration it gets across.

And all this really stresses their similarities and makes Roxy’s line emphasizing how similar Rose and Dirk are hit home all the harder. I wanted to ramble about that for a while. God I love these kids what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah furries. So Rose and Dirk are both furries but neither of them would CALL themselves furries in public.

Yet. The thing is, this girl exists:

Give Jade like, one birthday party where she decides she wants everyone to have a furry party and draw up fursonas together, and we’re good to go. There’s pretty much no circumstances under which I doubt Jade’s power to get all her friends to stop hiding an interest they ALL KNOW DEEP DOWN they share with her but keep pushing away out of a dumb point of pride.

It’ll be great I promise someone write this fic ok thanks in advance. Anyway yeah give Jade like a year after they get to Earth C and she’ll get them all on the same page. By which I mean all, not just Dirk and Rose.

Jane’s actually the only main character who hasn’t expressed any interest in furries at any point in the story to my memory, and she’s already been willing to play around with trollsonas. Which means at some point in the context of eternity these kids are going to get the hell over themselves and draw some fursonas. And if they don’t, Jade will make sure they will.

So yeah. Every human kid in Homestuck is a furry. Also every living troll, and Callie. Probably all their subjects too frankly.

Welcome to Homestuck canon!

Originally published at revolutionaryduelist.tumblr.com.

rose lalonde and kanaya maryam are both gay for raven from teen titans

this is a fact that cant be denied

banishedquasiroyal:

it’s character fusion day over at @homestuckartists which basically means i can make cursed fusions all day long 🙂 anyway this is rozee and they use their seer/rage powers to sense fear as well as predict how shit can go, so they can, yknow, better destroy all hope for a good ending in their path (bard/light). they’re a joy at strilonde family reunions, tho–you should ask about their chili recipe.

i instinctually yelled “no” out loud when i saw this. this is the most cursed post

You know with all the jaderose and jaderosekan I’m seeing lately im just wondering when we’ll get to see Jade teaching rose and Kanaya how to fire a gun. The thought of Rose firing a gun seems like a concept you could do a lot with

i cannot BELIEVE i missed the literal best part of Homestuck for years but in case there was any doubt: Kanaya Maryam is the best character

So I finally read that MISSION CRITICAL TEXT DOCUMENT–where Kanaya tactically edits her first conversation with Rose (which, unbeknownst to her, is actually with John) and presents it to Rose as a ploy of passive aggressive friend-courtship

(emphasis on courtship, this shit’s gonna get good) and

holy shit,

this is definitely one of the most underrated parts of this damn comic

heres a loose, non-exhaustive breakdown for those who might have missed it like i did. seriously read it it’s so good

First off, Kanaya begins by doctoring out her own dialogue through the extensive use of [Tactical Ommission]s.

I’m not sure why but I find the wording here hysterical. I want to imagine she types it out every time instead of copy/pasting it. It helps her commit to the roleplaying scenario.

She tries to play coy as hell about whether or not she actually edited the document but she just rewrites parts of John’s lines and doesn’t change her typing quirk and just blatantly mocks Rose as if Rose were John fuck

Ooh my god, and this. Like, INSTANTLY Kanaya’s roleplaying-as-Rose devolves into a frustrated tirade on how distant and unapproachable Rose makes herself with her sarcasm stuff, and like

As i think @roxilalonde wrote about already, Rose’s emotional distance keeps being a factor in their relationship past the meteor. Rose admits to having never told Kanaya she loved her.

And honestly this beat, though early in their relationship, is a fascinating little window into what Kanaya might sound like when frustrated about this stuff while they’re dating.

more tactical ommissions. they make my day. since we know Rose is a slob i hope someday like someone comes over to visit them and kanaya just wanders around the house covering up rose’s embarassing shit or putting it away and whispering “tactical ommission” under her breath

John is right to be smug here so it’s just hysterical that Kanaya is takes umbrage and pettily mocks rose for it, like, god Kanaya is such unabashed scorn and frustration and jealousy in this log in a way that rails against her fandom ascribed Mom Friend persona and–

oh, did i mention jealousy???

Because oh my god let’s talk about the fucking jealousy. Kanaya and Rose aren’t even DATING here yet, this is Kanaya getting to know Rose and it literally escalates into full-blown explicit romantic courtship like

This is Kanaya editing words into Rose-as-John’s mouth implying that Rose is only saying she likes John only to bother Kanaya herself, and suggesting that Rose says this in the unedited log Kanaya presents specifically to improve the odds they’ll develop a “more favorable relationship”.

Here Kanaya betrays that her romantic attraction was instantaneous and suggests that it was for Rose as well through the medium of passive aggressive mistaken identity temporal trolling roleplay, as she attempts to flirt by way of implying Rose already flirted with her

This is so high-level i can’t even follow it, these gay girls are beyond my mere mortal ken. Thank god for Rosemary

I’ll close out with this last tactical ommission because i fucking love the line she blots out, because:

yeah. Yeah. Embarassing much, Kanaya? I’d be embarassed too. Tactical Ommission indeed if you’re invested in keeping the intellectual highground. What the hell kind of line is that anyway. you nerd. i love you

landofsomethingsomething:

rosmarinjaeger:

Discourse: Who walks Rose down the aisle?

A) Dave

B) Roxy

C) No one, Rose waits at the altar and Karkat walks Kanaya.

– rose waits at the altar and watches as kanaya walks up in her amazing gown solo and the two of them rock the show on their own no accompaniment required

– rose waits at the altar and kanaya and karkat awkwardly trundle up the aisle having no idea if they are doing this human ceremony correctly, bumping into each other, karkat practically runs back to his seat

– rose & kanaya walk up together with roxy on rose’s arm and karkat on kanaya’s. OR dave is on rose’s arm BECAUSE ROXY IS OFFICIATING, BAM. (dave also practically runs back to his seat.) OR dirk is on rose’s arm b/c rose thought it would be hilarious to make him perform this role, look, it’s traditional in the most subversive way possible and that’s appealing ok

– BASICALLY ANY COMBO OF ALL THIS IS DELIGHTFUL

– the other 3 strilondes just load rose over their heads and carry her down the aisle like a cartoon

rose lalonde has such a complex character that only few appreciate. so i’m glad that you do.

Aw, thanks a ton! Yeah Rose is fascinating and fucking incredible, I can’t wait til I get to write stuff about her in more detail