>Start thread for MS Paint Adventures

Roxy's pesterquest is out. It's got it all! Crippling loneliness! Gender feelings! Lots of alcohol! The music swap on the bad ending path was some affecting stuff. :(

Last volume comes out in a month. I really hope it will stick the landing, since Friendsim's awful final volume bummed me out so much.

What happened in?

It was mostly the Lanque half, which came off as extremely mean spirited. The Soleil half was enjoyable enough. And the epilogue was very anticlimactic after all the buildup, one of those situations where the reveal is very mundane and doesn't live up to the mystery.

also included in roxy's path is alpha-rose

This whole Roxy wants to be Dirk, thing is both highly uncomfortable and it feels like a blatant retcon to justify Dude!Roxy. I am pretty sure this wasn't an aspect of Roxy's character in Homestuck at all, which is jarring when everything else about thier route fits perfectly into their motivations at the start of Act VI. I don't wanna come off as transphobic here. Every other trans headcanon being canonized feels like it comes from somewhere, or has potential to be interesting. Heck, NB Roxy makes a LOT of sense, why do they care about gender when raised isolated from the concept almost entirely? But them specifically wanting to be a guy just doesn't feel right, and this justification feels both retconny and icky.

I think roxy is nb still and is just being a masc presenting nb.

also dirks pesterquest route is delayed till april 1 and we are getting an epilogue

I'm for that, but the wording of the end of their Pesterquest implies otherwise.

I never really grokked Roxy as nonbinary, transmasc or not. This specific justifying angle seems outright out of nowhere, but I don't have context so I won't say more on it. Time to make a mess out of pronouns as I refer to Roxy the character as an abstract gestalt, hooray.

I did read the scene where Roxy and Calliope came out to Jade (in Meat?) because I thought the development sounded weird so I got curious. Roxy thinking gender shouldn't even really be a thing because it's some arbitrary nonsense is an opinion I could kinda see her/them having, I guess, but it doesn't feel like any natural growth of the character? In the comic, she was the one saying being gay "is definitely a thing" to Dirk, which is sort of the only relevant point, if not a very strong one. And while I think a character actually being nonbinary is a relatively fine inorganic change to make over some years offscreen, the specific way it was explained...

Maybe I just can't relate to the sentiment very well because I am very much a binary trans person, but it came off less "I don't identify with a gender" as "Gender is objectively stupid". It's been a while, so I may be misremembering or misinterpreting, but it came off that they were arguing that it should be done away with, because it's just a reflection of old human culture, which was a reflection of the trolls', which was a reflection of the Kids in an ouroboros. Which is a sensible argument against gender roles, but not against gender identities, and I think you can have the latter without the former and blah blah natter. So that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, which makes me think ill of the overall change, as does this apparent new development. I also never got the impression Roxy resented being feminine in the comic; if anything the opposite. So, yeah, I personally don't really like Roxy being nonbinary, although it doesn't bother me. (People fighting over pronouns in the wiki bothered me, but more because it seemed clear that Epilogues info is subordinate to Homestuck in canon, but that's a different argument.)

Calliope being nonbinary actually bothers me, though. I just can't square it with her? She very clearly liked femininity, she presented with it, and more than that it was an element of herself that she could retain in her ideal presentation and self-conception. And in the scene I read, it almost sounded like they were just going along with it because Roxy was, which feels... not great. Like they were just convinced that gender is dumb, actually, and so they should be correct about not doing it; rather than that they realized they would be more authentic and happy with themselves by acknowledging that identity and presenting as such. So, again, bad taste in mouth, and it feels even more inorganic, actually contrary to the comic rather than just contrived. And the writers could still have explored gender and identity with Calliope by just extending the stuff laid out in the comic? With basically whatever balance between "Learning to accept herself as she is" and "Changing what she can to be more as she wants to be" they struck, since, again, female was a part of both. And the only reason I can think of to do these story beats is to explore gender, so thinking they could have done that better makes me not too inclined to forgive the contrivedness.

Okay, babble over.

That's a very good set of points, and I think you've put into words a few things that didn't ring quite right with those character beats to my ears. Like... Callie's particular presentation was certainly constructedly feminine, I guess I would say, but they seemed happy presenting as such, at least. Which isn't to say that that couldn't change, but? I dunno.

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 6th 2020 at 9:14:10 AM

"I think roxy is nb still and is just being a masc presenting nb."

Yeah, Meat!Roxy is nonbinary. The latest bonus update, Catnapped Part 3, has Swifer referring to them as "Mx Lalonde"

update

https://homestuck2.com/story/145

Jade is a treasure. Her interactions with Alt!Calliope are hilarious, saddening, and actually pointing out the wrongness with the meta-narrative that Dirk and Alt!Calliope are using. Hope we have more of her.

fuck yeah jade's back

So it seems that the fandom is lashing out against Kate, to the point that there was a petition to get her fired from What Pumpkin.

Why?

Vriscourse, purity wank, and redditors still mad about WP involvement leading to Makin bring removed from administration of r/Homestuck and the associated discord server

As about as much of an outsider to this as I could be, given I'm in the fandom, literally what even.

From what I do know, I definitely don't like Kate, but... That's dislike as an author. Not as a person. I imagine at least a solid chunk is people being unable to do one without the other, but there's apparently more to it?

Though the other drama incidents might just be built off of that basic reason failure, like whatever the heck went on with reddit, I wouldn't know.

If people dislike Kate's writing, they don't need her to stop writing. They just need to stop reading it? Easy.

Edited by RaichuKFM on Mar 24th 2020 at 5:24:50 AM

Except that won’t satisfy them. What they want is for everyone to stop, and those who don’t are considered “stupid” or something.

There was one fan artist that I used to like until they insulted Perfectly Generic Podcast for sticking with the sequel, as they deemed it “selling out”.

Of the Striders' paths, I've come to this conclusion...

Dave is just Cool Gay.

Dirk is just Gay Cool.

I'm in horrible envy at how good the writing is. It's got that long articulate style I really appreciate about Dirk's speech.

Pesterquest got its final update with Dirk, no japes

ITS REALLY GOOD if a bit metawank at the end

Yeah, that was really good. The Dirk stuff is really compelling. I flipped out when Ultimate Dirk showed up, him messing around with the interface was spooky and the effect where he phased in through the different stages of his character art was cool as hell.

And of course Candy Dave getting another chance with young Dirk hit me right in the heart.

Gotta agree that I kinda started checking out when the Meta stuff started happening, I didn't hate it but it toed the line a bit. It worked in some spots and less in others.

Going with the melancholy ending would have okay, but I am so glad the true ending went as it did. That was very satisfying.

Suddenly realized, did the Feferi stuff never come back? That seemed like such an obvious setup, but no payoff?

Anyway, there's a new trailer since it's all out.

There’s a Homestuck 2 update

oh boy more continuity errors. and some are from this very own comic a few months ago. cant wait for the writers to brush it off by saying candy doesnt have to be true

The divorce continuity bit reels it's ugly head. The only way I can see reconciling this is if we get a scene between Jake and Jane that takes place between their last appearance and now where Jane finally calls it quits on their marriage. But already knowing that was a problem (which is only highlighted by Roxy mentioning it here) I liked this update regardless.

we got worse than that. last candy update had them leave gamzee in the hallway but now hes in the closet with them. also this karkat never shoosh papped gamzee