![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cest_whatI spent Friday night hyperventilating with feelings and fannish joy as I went through the update, which exhausted itself as the working week caught up with me and the walkaround continued and blottingtheink eventually signed out and went to bed because it was, you know, morning where she was; then I spent Saturday reading tumblr reactions and fic about the new characters and redoing the walkaround to save all the dialogue (... ahaha. ha.) and basically burning out on anything to do with Homestuck. And now I'm actually in the mood to write thoughts. Yay \o/
1) I'm not in instant love with any of the new characters, the way I was with Meenah and Aranea or Roxy and the Auto-Responder or, hm, Kanaya is the only other example I can think of. I thought about joining the party and writing update fic for the new kids, but I don't think there are any stories I want to tell about any of them yet. But Latula is the one I'm leaning towards most, in a ficcish way. She's the most accessible of the three, both in terms of her easy and fun style and also her insecurities. Her neurotic over-thinking of her own persona and role within the group, layered under her breezy radgirl schtick and intertwined with it to the extent that even when acknowledging her neurosies she's still doing the radgirl thing, feel like a much better starting point for character exploration than I can get from Porrim or Kankri.
I'm also hella intrigued with the idea of her being a Knight of Mind, too. I'm excited for confirmation that Knight isn't a male-only title, but also, I can't work out how this title and aspect would work together. Karkat never grew into his title and aspect, so we only really have Dave's example of how a Knight works, and what Dave does with it is to use his manipulation of Time to actively make himself into a shield and sacrifice for others. So how could you do that with Mind? Latula's Mind player abilities definitely seem to be about intuitive understanding rather than consciously thinking about things, judging both by her "lolz never thought about that" approach to most topics (although how much of that is persona rather than person?), and also by her response to Porrim's question about karma. So could she ... use her abilities in the heat of battle, perhaps, to intuitively understand where she needs to throw herself in front of people? I mean quite possibly Latula never really came into her role, like Porrim and Kankri, so we may not actually find out, but definite state of intrigued.
2) Porrim is the least accessible to me, right now? I mean she seems to be canonically slippery, given how she redirects Meenah's efforts towards the god tiers to get herself off the hook and also uses that as an opportunity to settle a point of curiosity (Meenah's god tier status). But she's also hard for me to get a hold on. Her feminism is the easiest part of her (and is great, both she and Kankri are saying some great interrogating-the-text-and-engaging-with-the-fan-dialogue stuff, even though Kankri's spiels are obviously undercut by him being an enormous tool) (ETA: and Porrim's are undermined a bit by her typing quirk, probably). Her relationship with Kankri I particularly find it hard to get my head around, at least in a way that I like? I wonder what their upbringing was like, though. Was Kankri culled, in the Beforan "adopted and coddled" fashion? It seems likely that Kankri wouldn't have had a lusus, given that it was only due to the cult of the Signless that Karkat got his, so he would have been an even more obvious candidate for adoption-and-coddling than a non-able-bodied kid.
(I love this extension of Feferi's selfish and unnecessary benevolence towards cuttlefish, and the idea that as empress she really did institute those ideals, and that they were kind of terrible and agency-depriving, in a lot of ways.)
But, so, if Kankri was adopted, did Porrim actually act as a kind of guardian to him, even though they were, presumably, the same age? Porrim seems to have rejected even the idea of her having inbuilt maternal instincts, in rejecting her jade heritage, even if her position shifted after the destruction of the entire species. So how does that relate to her maternal attitude towards Kankri? It doesn't seem possible that she isn't utterly self-aware about all of this, given her penchant for social analysis. I mean, they're a bit adorable, Is that grubsauce o+n yo+ur face and such, but it does still read as really weird to me.
My favourite thing about Porrim's introduction, honestly, is Kanaya's attitude to her. Everything about the conversation between Meenah and Kanaya is darling and amazing (Kanaya's hash tags, oh my god, and Rose), but her intimidated admiration crush on Porrim is painfully endearing. I really liked how much Meenah seemed to admire Porrim, too, when she was talking about her. Not in a really close friendship way, just a default position of Porrim is clearly badass and Meenah totally respects that. She seems to be pretty onboard with Latula, too - at least, she thinks Latula's stunts are objectively rad, and has no problem hanging out with her, even if she also thinks she's lame occasionally. And she obviously has whatever she has with Aranea, and seems likely to be quadranted (blackrom?) with Damara. So when she says that most of her team is terrible and lame, who is she talking about? Obviously she thinks Kankri is a tool, and also Mituna apparently. Have we met everyone but Damara that she respects, is everybody else a Meenah-branded loser?
3) Kankri is fun, if, obviously, insufferable. I assume that his characterisation will develop beyond the social justice-blogging joke that it largely is now, even if he may not reach the potential that his other self realised, given that the Sufferer's purpose has been bequeathed to Karkat, rather than Kankri. There were definitely a few moments where I really loved him, and I sort of hope he and Karkat can make some sort of actual connection.
(But wow, his name is the worst. I was dubious about all the fanon K-names the Sufferer tended to get, but Karcin is a million times better than Kankri.)
I'm curious about how he managed to be the centre of most of the teen drama in his session, given that 1) he's apparently celibate, if also harbouring the world's least subtle and most patronising crush on Latula, and 2) it seems like most of his team spent their time trying to avoid or ignore him?
4) As far as my little shippy heart was concerned, the best part of the walkaround was definitely Kanaya's "Maybe". Better even than a "Yes" would have been, because "Yes" would suggest that amazingly important things had happened between them and we didn't get to see them, whereas "Maybe" ought to mean those things are coming.
Rose's flirting with Meenah is fascinating, though. We've never seen her hit on someone that hard, not even Kanaya. I'm reading it as the year or more that's passed, Rose getting more comfortable with flirting and maybe more comfortable in her sexuality, possibly because of Kanaya. But fffffffuck. Flirt harder, little seer. Flirt like the wind.
5) Really, the best thing about this update was Meenah Peixes. She's such a fucking sweetheart, even though she's also an enormous jerk and a potential psychopath. Her conversations with Aranea delight me so much I don't even know what to do with myself. (Ahaha Lucy Van Pelt, seriously.) Aranea's bright and cheerful validation of Meenah's glee over having grown up to be a horrifying tyrant also reminded me that she is Mindfang, too. She's this kind, studious, wordy girl, but she also has the potential to be a violent, narcissistic and abusive pirate. And more than that, she's thrilled about Mindfang, she thinks Mindfang is the bomb. She and Meenah are two of a kind, despite their differences.
6) Meenah and Karkat: oh jeez, I really want to know what Meenah wants from him. Does she want a protege, like Kankri wants? Does she just want to point him at people and watch him yell? And what does Karkat think of her, really, is their relationship going somewhere? I really hope it's going somewhere. Apart from anything else, with the Prospit twins temporarily out of the picture I really want to see Karkat adopted by someone this way. Someone who has less of a terrible hold over him than his ancestor does.
7) The whole Tumblr joke really brought home to me how ephemeral this webcomic is, how anchored in this place and time. I think it will have enduring appeal, because it's about love and hope and failure and friendship and etc etc. But also the entire joke here is built around the fact that most of the Homestuck fandom is on Tumblr. None of those jokes will be relevant when Tumblr is old news (which, I am so fucking ready for a post-Tumblr platform). I don't think Homestuck relies on its million pop culture references to work, but they certainly add a whole lot that will be lost a lot quicker than most stories lose things to cultural detritus in the wake of the years.
8) Oh and the Mayor! That stuff where Kankri was being a brat about Porrim being pale with him (I think this was a joke but I'm not totally sure?). Of course we'd seen WV in a dreambubble before, but that was one where the meteor had physically flown into it. If WV can also get to dreambubbles by dreaming, that would suggest carapaces also go to dreambubbles when they die, in which case UGH please I would like for the Aimless Renegade and maybe the Windswept Questant to come back. Thank you. (But also, I'm intrigued by the idea of Porrim and WV having a rapport, I wouldn't have picked that?)
blottingtheink eventually signed out and went to bed because it was, you know, morning where she was; then I spent Saturday reading tumblr reactions and fic about the new characters and redoing the walkaround to save all the dialogue (... ahaha. ha.) and basically burning out on anything to do with Homestuck. And now I'm actually in the mood to write thoughts. Yay \o/1) I'm not in instant love with any of the new characters, the way I was with Meenah and Aranea or Roxy and the Auto-Responder or, hm, Kanaya is the only other example I can think of. I thought about joining the party and writing update fic for the new kids, but I don't think there are any stories I want to tell about any of them yet. But Latula is the one I'm leaning towards most, in a ficcish way. She's the most accessible of the three, both in terms of her easy and fun style and also her insecurities. Her neurotic over-thinking of her own persona and role within the group, layered under her breezy radgirl schtick and intertwined with it to the extent that even when acknowledging her neurosies she's still doing the radgirl thing, feel like a much better starting point for character exploration than I can get from Porrim or Kankri.
I'm also hella intrigued with the idea of her being a Knight of Mind, too. I'm excited for confirmation that Knight isn't a male-only title, but also, I can't work out how this title and aspect would work together. Karkat never grew into his title and aspect, so we only really have Dave's example of how a Knight works, and what Dave does with it is to use his manipulation of Time to actively make himself into a shield and sacrifice for others. So how could you do that with Mind? Latula's Mind player abilities definitely seem to be about intuitive understanding rather than consciously thinking about things, judging both by her "lolz never thought about that" approach to most topics (although how much of that is persona rather than person?), and also by her response to Porrim's question about karma. So could she ... use her abilities in the heat of battle, perhaps, to intuitively understand where she needs to throw herself in front of people? I mean quite possibly Latula never really came into her role, like Porrim and Kankri, so we may not actually find out, but definite state of intrigued.
2) Porrim is the least accessible to me, right now? I mean she seems to be canonically slippery, given how she redirects Meenah's efforts towards the god tiers to get herself off the hook and also uses that as an opportunity to settle a point of curiosity (Meenah's god tier status). But she's also hard for me to get a hold on. Her feminism is the easiest part of her (and is great, both she and Kankri are saying some great interrogating-the-text-and-engaging-with-the-fan-dialogue stuff, even though Kankri's spiels are obviously undercut by him being an enormous tool) (ETA: and Porrim's are undermined a bit by her typing quirk, probably). Her relationship with Kankri I particularly find it hard to get my head around, at least in a way that I like? I wonder what their upbringing was like, though. Was Kankri culled, in the Beforan "adopted and coddled" fashion? It seems likely that Kankri wouldn't have had a lusus, given that it was only due to the cult of the Signless that Karkat got his, so he would have been an even more obvious candidate for adoption-and-coddling than a non-able-bodied kid.
(I love this extension of Feferi's selfish and unnecessary benevolence towards cuttlefish, and the idea that as empress she really did institute those ideals, and that they were kind of terrible and agency-depriving, in a lot of ways.)
But, so, if Kankri was adopted, did Porrim actually act as a kind of guardian to him, even though they were, presumably, the same age? Porrim seems to have rejected even the idea of her having inbuilt maternal instincts, in rejecting her jade heritage, even if her position shifted after the destruction of the entire species. So how does that relate to her maternal attitude towards Kankri? It doesn't seem possible that she isn't utterly self-aware about all of this, given her penchant for social analysis. I mean, they're a bit adorable, Is that grubsauce o+n yo+ur face and such, but it does still read as really weird to me.
My favourite thing about Porrim's introduction, honestly, is Kanaya's attitude to her. Everything about the conversation between Meenah and Kanaya is darling and amazing (Kanaya's hash tags, oh my god, and Rose), but her intimidated admiration crush on Porrim is painfully endearing. I really liked how much Meenah seemed to admire Porrim, too, when she was talking about her. Not in a really close friendship way, just a default position of Porrim is clearly badass and Meenah totally respects that. She seems to be pretty onboard with Latula, too - at least, she thinks Latula's stunts are objectively rad, and has no problem hanging out with her, even if she also thinks she's lame occasionally. And she obviously has whatever she has with Aranea, and seems likely to be quadranted (blackrom?) with Damara. So when she says that most of her team is terrible and lame, who is she talking about? Obviously she thinks Kankri is a tool, and also Mituna apparently. Have we met everyone but Damara that she respects, is everybody else a Meenah-branded loser?
3) Kankri is fun, if, obviously, insufferable. I assume that his characterisation will develop beyond the social justice-blogging joke that it largely is now, even if he may not reach the potential that his other self realised, given that the Sufferer's purpose has been bequeathed to Karkat, rather than Kankri. There were definitely a few moments where I really loved him, and I sort of hope he and Karkat can make some sort of actual connection.
(But wow, his name is the worst. I was dubious about all the fanon K-names the Sufferer tended to get, but Karcin is a million times better than Kankri.)
I'm curious about how he managed to be the centre of most of the teen drama in his session, given that 1) he's apparently celibate, if also harbouring the world's least subtle and most patronising crush on Latula, and 2) it seems like most of his team spent their time trying to avoid or ignore him?
4) As far as my little shippy heart was concerned, the best part of the walkaround was definitely Kanaya's "Maybe". Better even than a "Yes" would have been, because "Yes" would suggest that amazingly important things had happened between them and we didn't get to see them, whereas "Maybe" ought to mean those things are coming.
Rose's flirting with Meenah is fascinating, though. We've never seen her hit on someone that hard, not even Kanaya. I'm reading it as the year or more that's passed, Rose getting more comfortable with flirting and maybe more comfortable in her sexuality, possibly because of Kanaya. But fffffffuck. Flirt harder, little seer. Flirt like the wind.
5) Really, the best thing about this update was Meenah Peixes. She's such a fucking sweetheart, even though she's also an enormous jerk and a potential psychopath. Her conversations with Aranea delight me so much I don't even know what to do with myself. (Ahaha Lucy Van Pelt, seriously.) Aranea's bright and cheerful validation of Meenah's glee over having grown up to be a horrifying tyrant also reminded me that she is Mindfang, too. She's this kind, studious, wordy girl, but she also has the potential to be a violent, narcissistic and abusive pirate. And more than that, she's thrilled about Mindfang, she thinks Mindfang is the bomb. She and Meenah are two of a kind, despite their differences.
6) Meenah and Karkat: oh jeez, I really want to know what Meenah wants from him. Does she want a protege, like Kankri wants? Does she just want to point him at people and watch him yell? And what does Karkat think of her, really, is their relationship going somewhere? I really hope it's going somewhere. Apart from anything else, with the Prospit twins temporarily out of the picture I really want to see Karkat adopted by someone this way. Someone who has less of a terrible hold over him than his ancestor does.
7) The whole Tumblr joke really brought home to me how ephemeral this webcomic is, how anchored in this place and time. I think it will have enduring appeal, because it's about love and hope and failure and friendship and etc etc. But also the entire joke here is built around the fact that most of the Homestuck fandom is on Tumblr. None of those jokes will be relevant when Tumblr is old news (which, I am so fucking ready for a post-Tumblr platform). I don't think Homestuck relies on its million pop culture references to work, but they certainly add a whole lot that will be lost a lot quicker than most stories lose things to cultural detritus in the wake of the years.
8) Oh and the Mayor! That stuff where Kankri was being a brat about Porrim being pale with him (I think this was a joke but I'm not totally sure?). Of course we'd seen WV in a dreambubble before, but that was one where the meteor had physically flown into it. If WV can also get to dreambubbles by dreaming, that would suggest carapaces also go to dreambubbles when they die, in which case UGH please I would like for the Aimless Renegade and maybe the Windswept Questant to come back. Thank you. (But also, I'm intrigued by the idea of Porrim and WV having a rapport, I wouldn't have picked that?)
