Well, it’s @rosemarymonth and I’ve wanted to talk about Rosemary and why I think the canon gets WAY too little credit with regards to their execution for ages so I may as well do it now.
Keep in mind, of course, that I am a dude and in no way want any wlw to feel I’m shutting down critiques of Homestuck’s flaws in this regard. I think that’s perfectly valid, this is just my reading. I’ll be interested in seeing what people have to say.
I don’t get to talk about Rosemary enough anyway, so I’ll also take you up on it and go over why I love Rosemary and why I think readings that they were “meant to be moirails” and “go ooc” is straight up just misreading the text, because the comic is actually pretty clear in broadcasting its intent.
The thing to keep in mind is that Homestuck’s entire plot follows one consistent rule: The message of AURYN from The Neverending Story, “Do what you will.”
The events in Homestuck that actually happen are by design the sum product of the wills of the entire cast, and how well characters express their wills on reality directly correlates to how “powerful” they are.
Caliborn is the villain because Lord English violates EVERYONE’s agency by confining them all to the plot of Homestuck/his Alpha Timeline. Within the confines of those prescribed paths, however, reality always defaults to fulfilling the wishes of all characters involved, or resolving the tension between them.
What this means PRACTICALLY is that almost every event that happens in the story, no matter how ridiculous….
is, on some level, foreshadowed by the desires of the characters, just as Arquius’ heroic sacrifice and absorption into LE is foreshadowed by the desires of both him and Caliborn:
Oh, and speaking about Caliborn wanting to be bros with Dirk and allowing him to die as if going to sleep:
All this in mind, let’s focus on Rose and Kanaya. No, I don’t get the impression they were ever going to be moirails. I’m not sure when Hussie decided on Rosemary, but I get the impression it was early, at least by the time Kanaya was introduced.
Why? Let’s take stock of both girls’ desires and conflicts throughout Act 5.
Kanaya’s early characterization revolved around A) A tendency to gravitate and pacify take-charge, forward individuals,
and B) A profound dissatisfaction with that role.
That’s what burned her out so hard when she was interested in Vriska. So I’m not sure why one would assume that actually, Kanaya’s True Destiny was to fall into… the exact same arrangement with Rose once again, despite expressly avoiding it. That doesn’t seem like good storytelling to me.
Especially since Rose is, from the very beginning, posited as an idealistic escape from that solitude for Kanaya. Kanaya is the receiver of Rose’s prophetic text—one of her earliest big contributions as a Seer of Light– and it makes a tremendous impact on her.
That impact is partly manifested as an out and out romantic fantasy about Rose, who Kanaya idealizes as the legendary leader of her session.
Kanaya’s fantasies about Rose in this regard play heavily into her attempted courtship through the Flighty Broads and their Snarky Horseshitometer sequence—and it is romantic courtship.
Kanaya makes that clear in the mission-critical text document where she positions herself as an antagonistic suitor to John, and that document is first referenced in… oh, mid-Act 4.
So Kanaya’s romantic interest suffuses the narrative from pretty early on. What about Rose?
Let’s talk about romance aesthetics. Pretty much every endgame ship in Homestuck is couched in a distinctive brand of romantic connotation. For example, Dave and Karkat are linked to anime romance cliches, with Dave as shonen hero and Karkat as heroine.
Jade and Davepeta are linked by a mutual indulgence in furry identity. Vriska and Terezi get the “Home Sweet Home” connotation of The Wizard of Oz, and Dirk and Jake have the undying devotion and mutual passion implied by their link to The Princess Bride.
Rose is once described as a reserved girl “enamored by what dwelt in shadow”. This is a facet of her characterization that’s present from moment 1, what with her interest in the Horrorterrors. Another obvious place to go is Mom, and by association Roxy–both of whom certainly “dwell in shadow” as Void players.
And then, of course, we have Kanaya:
Vampires are traditionally associated with hiding in darkness, away from the Light. And Kanaya describes her rainbow drinker fantasy in exactly those terms. So this aesthetic link between them is established pretty damn early, too.
Of course, Kanaya is not a traditional vampire. I’m far from the first to point out that Rainbow Drinkers most strongly resemble the hyper-romanticized, shine-in-the-light vampires of Twilight, one of the most popular romance series for teen girls of the 2000′s.
Taking that incredibly popular aesthetic and using it as a wrapper for the love story of two girls is instantly compelling. What’s genius is that this is a cocktail of imagery that has natural appeal for Roseas a person, because while it’s true that she’s interested in the darkness that surrounds her, it’s clear that Rose spends her narrative seeking the truth and the meaningful.
In other words, even when she’s enmeshed in darkness, what Rose wants is…
The Light. She may not have taken an interest in Meyer’s prose or Edward’s surly patriarchal authority, but all else being equal? Rose was all but made for a story with imagery like Twilight’s. That in and of itself would be evocative and romantic enough, but it goes deeper.
Because Rose’s relationship with Kanaya is deeply interwoven with her relationship to the reality of Homestuck, a conflict that Kanaya directly helps her solve. Perhaps fittingly, given that Kanaya is a Sylph implied to be “Made of Space”, and so innately linked to the Setting of the story through her Aspect.
This conflict between Rose and the Setting of Homestuck is, in my view, nothing less than the main thrust of Rose’s character arc, so it’ll take a little bit to unpack. Let’s dig in.
But even before she learns about him in name, she spends pretty much her entire arc resisting and fighting against his machinations, subtly perceiving something deeply wrong in the story from its very beginning.
In this, Rose strikes a compelling counterpoint to her partner TT, Dirk Strider. Because If Dirk’s character arc revolves around his belief that he himself is inherently evil, then it’s fair to say Rose’s main conflict is a belief that the world itself is inherently evil.
Or at the very least, incomprehensible and meaningless. Random and empty of logic or reason. And borderline antagonistic to her and her friends, as though reality itself is an unfortunate occurence.
In other words, Rose’s experience of reality is deeply colored byVoid, the aspect of the unimportant, meaningless, irrelevant, and most importantly: incomprehensible.
Just as Dave’s sense of self is broken by his abusive upbringing from a Prince of Heart, so too Rose’s sense of reality is shaped by her codependent relationship with her Mom, a guardian whose actions she can neither understand nor predict.
As a Seer of Light, Rose is drawn towards trying to understand the truth, and in particular the inner truths and meanings behind the minds of others. At the core of her being, Rose is a person who desperately desires to know and understand.
Consider how frustrating this must make Mom’s erratic and dysfunctional behavior to her–there’s no rhyme or reason behind her mother’s actions, influenced as they are by her depression, loneliness, and alcoholism. There’s just apparent randomness from the person who defines her entire life– in essence, the God of her household.
Add in Roxy’s tendency toward passive-aggressive behavior–which Rose definitely perceives from her Mom, whether it was intentionally directed at her or not–and it’s unsurprising that Rose quickly begins to view reality as not just nonsensical and arbitrary, but outright antagonistic.
Rose’s inherently defiant worldview is only intensified by Sburb. Not only does Mom continue being aloof and indecipherable, but Rose discovers that fate has apparently already decreed that she and her friends are doomed to failure and death. To Rose this is more than unacceptable: It’s infuriating.
Throughout Act 5, characters often comment on how Rose’s obsession with subverting Sburb leads her to becoming withdrawn, self-serious, and distant from her relationships. She also attempts to assume responsibility for herself and everyone around her, culminating in the suicide mission she tries to take on alone.
All of this is accompanied by her tearing her Land apart, as she foregoes its “childish” path in favor of something she perceives as more mature and adult. Most blatantly of all, Rose flirts with emulating her Mom in her most obviously adult activity: indulging alcohol. Rose is, in essence, trying to be an adult. Forcing herself to grow up too fast.
By the way? Withdrawing emotions, carefully managing the feelings of others, attempting to assume outsize responsibility for their households and attempting to take care of their guardians are all behavioral hallmarks of kids who grow up in codependent households.
Fast-forward to the aftermath of Cascade, when Rose achieves God Tier and comes face to face with Kanaya for the first time. It’s notable that achieving God Tier is the first moment that Rose is given any indication whatsoever that the plight she shared with her friends was not just random, pointless doom.
It is instead a lucky break. Or a suggestion of greater meaning. In essence, it’s the first time Rose is given really any reason to see reality as anything but the chaotic, nonsensical burden she’s experienced it as so far.
The revelation is accompanied by Kanaya’s sudden phosphorescence, which Rose describes as “inexplicable”–a word usually associated with frustration for her. Here, however, it comes as a happy surprise. Here, Rose is seeing through the incomprehensible Void of her reality to perceive Light for the first time.
Especially since the trend continues. As Rose grows more confident reality not necessarily ALWAYS being a hellish, meaningless landscape of random and pointless suffering, she also grows more playful and willing to be sincere. She grows to trust the Light she was once so suspicious of, asks Kanaya out on dates, and comments on things she enjoys about her without insincerity.
But she remains traumatized and conflicted about her relationship to both her Mom and the world, and takes up Mom’s alcoholism as a way to try to understand the former and ignore the latter.
This comes between her and Kanaya, since Kanaya relies on Rose to help her figure out HER role in the world, and to figure out how to achieve the revival of her species.
It’s worth mentioning that alcohol abuse, for both Rose and Roxy, is extremely Void-coded. It leads Rose to prioritize the pointless, ridiculous, unimportant and non-existent.
Here, Kanaya ends up valuing the desires of her physical form as a Rainbow Drinker over the more idealistic goal of the revival of her species, or even her relationship with Rose. As such, the two girls’ problems are marked as the same problem, even as they drive them further apart from one another.
And we see where their disunity and lack of direction takes them Pre-Retcon: It renders both of them less effective, and thus less important to the plot. It also leads them to misfortune. Rose’s inability to connect with and help, or even be helped by Kanaya, leads directly to tragedy in her relationship to the world.
Good thing there’s a flip side.
In the retcon timeline, Rose and Kanaya work stuff out. Rose gets past her alcohol addiction and directly credits Kanaya’s aid for it. Kanaya resists the pull of literal blood as she takes Karkat to Echidna and engages in an intellectual discussion about his relationship to his Aspect and the future of Troll-kind.
Rose reconciles with her Mom completely through Roxy, finding meaning where she could only speculate before. And with her increased ability to sort truth from lie, important from unimportant, and meaningful from irrelevant…
She resolves the tension between herself and the “demands” of Sburb, openly voicing her ambivalence to the very concept of her Personal Quest. In so doing, she illuminates an important truth to both the cast and the audience: that Sburb’s prescribed path to self-actualization is not particularly important, and certainly not strictly necessary.
Inner truth, understanding, good fortune, foresight, and happiness–Rose never needed to comply with some videogame’s 12-step program for self-satisfaction to get any of that, and neither do we. Light can arise anywhere, as long as you have the patience to look for it and people who love you at your side.
Hope this helps you see what I see, anon. Rose and Kanaya’s story is one worth cherishing, and I haven’t even come close to saying all I think there is to say about it, if you can believe that! But its a start.
Happy rosemary month, happy Halloween, and as always
i think i just realized something pretty interesting about the retconned timeline and why adding vriska onto the meteor somehow “magically” solved some problems.
so, right before she was killed in the game over timeline kanaya right hooks her into realizing her latent lesbianism:
because this event happened in both timelines, people maybe forgot, but vriska essentially just developed a red crush on her old moirail. so she tries to get close with her again and tries to sneak herself into the time kanaya’s been spending with rose.
and at some point she’s gotta notice these two are becoming an item and she just accepts that her crush is crushing on someone else, but then…
rose, her crush’s crush, fucking ditches kanaya on their supposed first date. instead, vriska finds her drinking soporifics and she’s just livid. “WH8T ARE YOU DOING???????? WEREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO MEET UP WITH HER? YOU’RE THE ONE THAT M8KES HER HAPPY AND YOU CHOSE THIS SHIT INSTEAD OF BEING WITH HER?”
I sort of think this reading is made way stronger by the stuff I think I just uncovered which has me literally abuzz with excitement. I’m not sure if its EXACTLY like this but…it sounds resonant. Theres something real here and I think I can prove it.
Thank you, that means a lot. My contributions are mostly only the sum of all the awesome people that have influenced me and talked to me and expanded my ideas of what homestuck is about, so don’t praise me too much. What I produce is ultimately the byproduct of the community effort of the entire Homestuck fandom, in my view.
Also, I’ve made some fascinating breakthroughs today. The stuff I’m going to write about soon has me extremely excited–fandom readings of Homestuck are going to come into a whole new extreme.
Also, just a mention? I’ve got like over 1000 followers now. If 1000 people decided to throw me a buck on patreon, I could immediately work on content full time at way higher quality than what I currently am capable of. I’m not like begging or whatever but if you like what I do then I want people to know there’s a lot more of it than I have any hope of being able to put out quickly enough to my satisfaction at my current rate, so. Spreading me around so more people know about what I’m up to would really help me out. And not to be smug but I think it’ll lead to a healthier overall fandom, too.
People who liked the Gamzee post I just put out and my post on Dammek are in for an unprecedented ride soon. I hope I’ve built up enough credibility in this audience’s eyes that my being bold enough to say so will have you guys excited and hopeful for it, instead of just making me come off like an arrogant tool. Anyway, I’m really excited, personally.
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.
I mean. In my view, relationships always require being careful–any long-term relationship is going to have ways people can hurt each other, that’s part of the deal. There’s lots of other ways Dirk and Jake’s relationship could go south: Dirk’s self-loathing not being communicated enough, Jake’s escapism and self-delusion taking hold again, etc, etc.
This is as true of Dirk potentially self-sacrificing for Jake needlessly as it is of, say, Rose indulging her carefully cultivated posturing at the expense of her communication with Kanaya which is something we saw put a great deal of stress on Kanaya in the comic.
All relationships require balance. All relationships require constant communication and assessing your own and each other’s needs. All relationships come with risk of pain. That’s kinda just the way of it.
John: warily eyes the pastry booths bc he still has a deep mistrust for baked goods thanks to the Betty Crocker incident aka literally the apocalypse. Plays a (rigged) wack-a-mole game and gets frustrated when he keeps losing. Terezi makes fun of him so he whips out the hammer of zillyhoo and ah, crushes the game, so to speak. His prize is a giant bunny. He puts it back in the box.
Jade: sees one of those rodeo electronic bull things and goes oh that looks fun! Everyone is like uhhh Jade that can get pretty wild are u sure?? Karkat bets Jade that she won’t last 5 mins, oh really Karkat? 5 minutes? She sits on that bucking bronco for an entire hour making uncomfortable and spite fueled eye contact with Karkat the entire time. She only gets off because there’s a line.
Dave: wants to go on all the big rides and drags Karkat along despite Karkat complaining very loudly the entire time. Sorry Karkles, you scared of heights? You a scaredy Kat? A scaredy Karkat? Fuck you Dave, I’m fine! Dave drags him on the biggest rollercoaster in the entire park, they get off and Karkat says wow that was actually pretty fun! Dave’s hair is a mess, he looks inches from perma-death, that was horrible oh god. Not a word, Rose, he says. She and Kanaya are definitely not snickering behind their hands.
Rose: makes a goddamn beeline with Kanaya in tow to the haunted house ride because fuck yes she wants to see some creepy ass shit. If y’all have ever been in an amusement park haunted house, you know how vastly disappointed she was by the lame jump-scares and cheap monsters. Kanaya made it up to her by taking her to the Tunnel O’ Love™ and Rose was significantly cheered up.
Kanaya: isn’t a huge fan of non-blood food but v intrigued by all the fried stuff. Why Is It Fried? Does It Add Flavor? Not really, Rose tells her, it’s mostly just another way humanity likes to push itself closer and closer to its own imminent demise. Only now they’ve roped the trolls and carapacians into it. Oh, Kanaya says. She tries a fried Twinkie and sucks the filling out w her sick rainbow drinker/ vampire skills. Delicious. A single tear trails down Rose’s cheek. I have never been more in love w you.
Terezi: that scene with Toph and the scam artists in ATLA? Basically picture that. It’s one of those rubber duck games where they’re all floating in the pool and at the bottom of them is a different color and that’s how big a prize you get, thing is, Terezi can smell what’s on the bottom. She wins Vriska all the prizes and the dude running the booth is sweating and has to write her an IOU that John won’t let Terezi cash in on because that’s cheating and that’s wrong!
Jane: goes around with Jade and Roxy and Callie critiquing the food booths on their baking skills. She absolutely loathes that everything is fried bc it’s a cheap tactic to make weak bakers stronger! She tries a funnel cake and immediately changes her mind. CrockerCorp releases its own line of fried food that fall. Roxy calls her a sellout but eats it all anyways bc it’s just That Good.
Jake: finds one of those carnival shooter games and one of the big stuffed animal prizes is a gigantic rainbow dash my little pony and,,,he sees Dirk eyeing it. He doesn’t say anything, but Jake Knows. He tells Dirk he has to run off to the “little lads” room for a second, but he goes back to the shooting game, crushes the fuck out of those targets with the wimpy water gun, and presents Dirk with this oversized goddamn pony. It is touching and romantic for everyone involved.
Dirk: tries to show off to Jake by doing that strength test where u slam the hammer down and try to ring the bell at the top, he makes it about half the way up and he’s like fuck yeah that’s pretty fuckin’ good. Jake goes wow golly that’s impressive! Mind if I give it the old college try? Dirk is like pffft go for it, still flexin his muscles trynna show off and shit. Jake casually slams it down and rings the goddamn bell so hard it almost flies off the top. Dirk just stands there with his eyes v wide behind his shades while Jake is like gosh! Must have been buggered, huh?
Roxy: goes on every single ride she is living for today y’all, Callie is too short for most of the rides but Roxy promises to dab at the top of every coaster so Callie can spot her from where she’s watching down below. They share an ice cream sundae and Roxy gives Callie the cherry on top bc it’s “a cherry for a cherub!”
Sollux: idk about amusement parks near y’all but I live right by cedar point and there’s a coaster called Gemini so uhhh he and Aradia just do that. All day. Sollux rides this rollercoaster 53 times, turns to Aradia, says “what if bees had yaoi hands would that be fucked up or what” then passes out for a week.
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
[the weather segment from Welcome to Night Vale Episode 10: Feral Dogs]
And we will begin to love in a fashion I couldn’t fathom existed. And we will laugh at the fact that we ever resisted this blissful togetherness. And the sex? Well, it’ll be off the charts. ‘Cause we’ll both be Super freaky But we’ll be fucking From the heart. ‘Cause our loving will be something where the Whole is much greater than the sum of the parts ‘Cause were artists after all, So what else would fate have us make besides art?
This song applies to literally every canon homestuck ship and that’s why I’m into homestuck tbh
Flying through Storytelling 