This Homestuck Discourse Shit Is Easy

this homestuck discourse shit is easy

so i’m re-reading homestuck. currently i’m near the beginning of act 5. assorted thoughts:

1. rose is so fucking funny. fanfic writers never remember this

2. speaking of rose — her classpect means that in fanart and fanfic, her mysterious seer-iness is highly emphasized. but in acts 1 through 4, the mysterious one is jade. DREAM VISIONS! ENIGMATIC HINTS AT PROPHECY! TIME LOOP BULLSHIT! jade is THE mysterious seer-adjacent character. meanwhile, rose acts like she knows what’s going on but she basically never does. as a result, fanfic especially gives the mysterious-seer attributes to rose and jade is just sort of… there. (i am kinda guilty of this myself.) my new 2024 slogan: let jade be enigmatic as fuck!

3. the first time vriska ever appears — unless you count her username appearing without being directly referenced, which happens pretty early — is at the very very edge of a panel, in which you can see one of her horns. that happens a few times pre-act-five, especially in panels that involve terezi. honestly most terezi conversations pre-act-five get funnier if you imagine vriska looking over her shoulder like ::::/ or like ::::D

4. the fandom image of karkat is highly positive. the idea of his character is kinda locked to karkat as he appears in act 6 (maybe late act 5?), and fan depictions of early karkat (pre-sgrub, or simply early act 5) seem to retrospectively plaster his later characterization onto his earlier self. his general assholery is interpreted as blunted grumpiness that no one really takes seriously. that interpretation more or less makes sense for later versions of his character, but it’s startling how genuinely mean he is in early act 5! he’s such a jerk that in a conversation with early act 5 vriska he comes off looking worse! that’s HARD. and a really interesting facet of his character!

the best thing about being alive on earth is that sometimes there is a kitty

its crazy how abled people can name a disorder something like "crazy selfish bitch disorder" and then instead of people going "why are we calling a medical condition the crazy bitch disorder does this perhaps stigmatize a medical condition by associating it with being a crazy selfish bitch" they go "dont call people selfish its ableist against people with crazy selfish bitch disorder"

PLEASE please please talk more about psychotic jade and mituna and ocd dirk and latula. i need more

Now, I’m not the one who is most qualified to talk about Dirk and Latula having OCD, so I will just page that part over to @scalematez. She’ll respond as a reblog, and I’ll be sure to put that on my page here, too, so everyone can see it!

I can, however, talk about Jade and Mituna being on the Psychotic Spectrum. It’s a concept that’s near and dear to my heart, being a Paranoid Psychotic myself.

Jade’s severe, crippling loneliness and isolation as a child is a psychological recipe for disaster. Her circumstances growing up are a Molotov Cocktail of Mental Disorder waiting to happen. It’s a speculation I don’t feel I have to elaborate much on- the main crux of my point lies in her introductory exploration section.

Remember her “interactions” with Grandpa? Her thoroughly, concerningly going about her routines as if he, the taxidermied stuffed corpse, were still alive? There’s a simultaneous awareness and lack of awareness to it- she knows he’s dead, theoretically, and by technicality, but he’s still very much so alive to her. He’s alive and well, an active part of her life, both good and bad, and I feel as if one tried to convince her otherwise, and tell her that he’s dead and gone, it’d do some massive damage to her psyche.

Her whole method of interacting with and communicating with others with regards to how she sees the future in the Clouds of Skaia, especially considering how her peers responded to it, very much so rings of it, too. She’s very much so not really aware she has it, and her friends don’t really think anything is medically wrong with her. To everyone else, she’s just a strange and silly girl, with some very weird habits, and a penchant for saying very peculiar things, and that’s how a lot of psychotic kids can be. It’s just a very nice divergence from the typical formula used for psychotic characters- she’s not evil, just different, and she is beloved and cared for.

Mituna, meanwhile, takes a little bit more obtuse speculative extrapolation, I’ll admit, but I genuinely don’t think it’s that far of a reach. While Jade’s friends responded to her psychosis by playing along and not suspecting anything, Mituna’s friends have outright rejected him for it. He’s definitely a much more tragic direction to take, but unfortunately very real. The way he’s treated very much so reminds me of how Psychotics are often treated- often being met with a lot of Systemic Abuse and Sanism purely for existing. Cronus’s interactions with him in particular showcases this well, putting a heavy emphasis on the fact that since everyone thinks Mituna is crazy, no one will believe the fact that Cronus is abusing him.

His status of being a Cassandra parallel- essay linked for context- paired with the fact that he’s generally treated the same way people treat the “Town Schizophrenic,” really does not make for a good combination. I do think taking the Psychosis route for him really adds something to his character, and helps recontextualize a lot of things quite nicely.