Do you think your opinion of Swanboy has changed since you first started reading it? I ask because I had similar, unimpressed "wow cool millennial references bro" first impression of the comic but since I started reading regularly I've been having such a good time with the characters.
A little. I liked Swan Boy when I first read it and I like it more now. Part of that is that I appreciate it more but I think the main reason is just that the two most recent arcs ("Philly Trip" and "Noel Goes To Hooters") have been really good and it's literally a better comic now than it was when I first judged it.
I know I'm supposed to have "thoughts" and "analysis" and things but sometimes I just want to say "I have no fucking idea what's going on in this comic but it's pretty good and you should read it" and right now I'm feeling that way about Bleating Heart.
What's really throwing me is that this is an intermission that takes place twenty-ish years in the future of the main comic, and introduces a lot of romance drama that's extremely messy emotionally and literally for Clover and Devin, but it's an intermission and presumably we're going to go back to Clover and Devin as little kids where Clover's all like
And there's just going to be the Sad Handjob of Damocles hanging over the comic forever now. Which would be such a weird creative choice. Or maybe after nine chapters of grade school we're suddenly going to go nonlinear and start jumping around the timeline and find out where Fauna went between the present and the intermission. Which would also be strange just for being such a radical change in format. Either way, it's interesting! I'm intrigued! I want to know more!
It was like six hours ago I get so many asks. I stopped playing Mina the Hollower for this, it better be an amazing update.
Anyway, you don't have to think about that anymore because it seems like the leet hex finally managed to get a few hooks into cha.OS!
Wait... what are all these hidden functionalities? Full remote viewing? Temporal tracking? This is... really advanced. And really, really invasive. Ugh!
"Leet hex" was a funny joke the first time but you kind of shouldn't repeat it. Speaking of repeating an old joke, an O RLY reference? I know mid-2000s internet culture is the Delta kids' "thing" but Christ.
That meme is from 2005 (memes lasted longer back then). That's older than any of the new characters. It's older than Homestuck itself. If you remember this meme it's time for your prostate exam. "FIRE DA LAZAH!1" is a reference to Shoop Da Woop, a meme of Cell Dragonball Z in blackface from 2006, and the "!1" is just a common "thing" from back then. I'm explaining all this because these memes are so dated that Homestuck is becoming a period piece. In original Homestuck, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff was made so that the beta kids could reference "internet memes" like real kids but not reference real memes that'd be dated. Homestuck 2 is leaning into the dated.
Do like the Winamp, though. Loved Winamp. It really whipped the Llama's ass.
Anyway TC's chat client has all the features of Trollian. Someone is using it to spy on Del'fi, but I'm not sure who. TC, presumably? Was he blond?
TC: whats pøppiiing!
TC: cøuldn't help but nøtice that yøu just snuck thrøugh the first gate øf cha.OS' waterfall!
"First gate", eh? The gates were portals in Homestuck you were supposed to unlock to travel the lands. They don't get mentioned much.
CC: oh hai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cc: how keeee~wl
CC: can u even c mah lit sign
It's actually super fucking aggressive for TC to open this conversation all "Hey I'm spying on you against your wishes isn't it neat", but CC is hiding her disdain. I like "how keeee~wl" because you can hear his sarcasm, even though I don't think TC can.
CC: shud i kms?
TC: yøu shøuld chill yøurself.
TC: my ly'ly wøuld never leave a friend øut in the cøld.
CC: MY LYLY?
CC: hahahahahahaha
CC: except she ttlly would
TC: løl!
TC: true, she wøuld.
I'm kind of digging TC. He's a real dickhead.
CC: idk... *kicks rock*
TC: øh fuck yes, øur very first røleplay.
TC: [i catch the røck with a fetløck and start juggling it like a høøfball.]
TC: [after a bit øf høity høøfwørk i pass it back!]
CC: dang
CC: so anyways she doesnt know at all?
TC: øh, she knøws.
CC just completely no-sells his attempt at role-play, too. This is good dialogue! There's a lot not being overtly said that's still pretty clear. CC fucking hates this dude. I find the Delta kids dynamics the most interesting of any kid group. Even the trolls, who actively killed each other, didn't seem quite so dysfunctional because they were all weirdly 0kay with it. Not CC. CC's a hater.
CC: i mean dats wat she says until she starts lobbin nades at u
CC: u gotta keep a close eye on dat btw
CC: i dont have to tell you how the trope goes
CC: upstandin satyr givin in2 the call of mysticism
CC: repercussions must b served
CC: not hard 2 c how when u saddle ur seahorse 2 a grl who blows herself up
CC: or turns on any1 dat gets a bit 2 bossy
CC: r u a bossy alpha boy TC?
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but "Saddle your seahorse" is clearly a fish-themed pun on "hitch your wagon" but I think it's also a masturbation joke, especially with CC's final line here.
CC: but bringing in strangers...
CC: from da ITERNET?
TC: frøm sømewhere!
CC: oh noes
CC: dats the worst place u can b from
CC: i hates em
TC: they wøn't be strangers før tøø much lønger.
TC: i mean, løøk at us.
TC: we've been talking før twø minutes and we're basically like best brødeøs.
CC: rite!
CC: tru besties
I like that TC is this vaguely nefarious genius mastermind but is also completely missing Del'fi's barely disguised hatred.
CC: everyday i go to the bathroom and jus read up about u on social media
CC: wonderin if ur also going to the bathroom
CC: or wut brand of shampoo u use
CC: putting mah hand to the mirror
CC: dreamin of the day ud let a lil ole wretch like me kiss ur krusty stinker \(//3^)/
CC: and then
CC: the ink flows til the tubs black
TC: yøøø.
TC: that's different!
This is much more obviously a sexual innuendo, albeit sarc- wait is this a reference to the fucking Sharpie Bath incident at that one hotel? Christ.
TC: let's get back tø yøu.
TC: and what i need yøu tø dø.
CC: oh... *SHUDDER!*
TC: døn't shudder.
CC: dont ever tell me what to do
CC: understood?
TC: that's the fuckin spirit dude!
Interesting that TC giving a command causes Del'fi to drop all the sarcasm and react with open direct hostility. And TC still fucking misses it!
TC: a few laps agø, i came acrøss søme pretty mindbløwing intel while i was scraping the øld man's servers før shits and giggies.
TC: i wøn't børe yøu with the deets, because they're patchy and cryptic and required a løt øf extrapølatiøn and we frankly døn't have much røøm før størytime, but the løng and shørt øf it is that this game we're abøut tø play is all that stands between us and the cømplete annihilatiøn øf øur søcieties, øur species, and øur wørld.
TC: if that wasn't trippy enøugh, check this shit øut:
TC: we're MEANT tø play it.
TC: me, ly'ly, AA, CT, AT.
TC: and yøu.
TC: he was TRACKING us.
TC: well, tracking the satyrs, anyway.
TC: yøu three were møre øbfuscated, but i was able tø intuit that yøu'd be cøming intø play eventually by kind øf like... triangulating via the blind spøts.
Wait, stop, critical lore here. TC found out from "the old man" about the game and that the Nymphs would play, but not the Omega kids, even though they're already in the dream towers and always were?
TC: thing is, when yøu finally take matters intø yøur øwn hands and step øut intø the light?
TC: fuuuck, it feels gøød.
[...]
TC: blind spøts are where i thrive. :)
Direct references to Light and Void here. Swiss is very Light-themed so I'm penciling in TC as a Seer of Void, both in Deep Lore classpect terms but also as demonstrated by his almost willfull blindness towards CC's hatred of him (he sees nothing, you see, so he can't see anything)
TC: døn't yøu wan't tø be free?
TC: i dø!
CC: "i do~!" shut up
CC: there aint a prophecy or tech thats gonna give me wut i want
TC: nøt if yøu never dø anything.
CC: mang
CC: its so cute how satyrs all think they matter
CC: strivin and fightin to make a little dent in the world or whatever
CC: but its just... so cringe too
CC: so much struggle to do nothing rlly new or special
CC: and then turning around acting all proud of urselves
CC: totally unaware that all ur doing is exctly wut u were meant to do and unlike us ur too stupid to realize ur walkin a fixed path
CC: its a sorry sight
CC: u cant even appreciate how lucky u r
CC: if things were different and nymphs were even a fraction as gullible as u guys r
CC: we wld have wiped u out at the get go
More classpect stuff via philosophy. Note that all CC's rant about Fate (Time, Light) is set off by a reference to Freedom (Breath), which is opposed by Blood. I hate that I understood that last sentence when I could be understand, like, dating.
CC: u read our rp doc?
TC: yeah dude.
TC: yøu twø are gøing the fuck øff in there at all høurs øf the damn day ør night ør whatever sø sømetimes the backløg gets thick as all hell but the møst recent arc? the warden's gambit was sø viciøus, brø.
TC: i løve høw yøu wørked in all these hints abøut it during the cøurt saga, that was fuckin CINEMA.
TC: yøu guys are fantastic writers.
When the new writers relaunched Homestuck 2 as Beyond Canon, they started with a courtroom drama. I'm so meta even this acronym, etc.
He read it.
Yeah, that's the reaction I have whenever anyone I know reads anything I wrote.
Anyway, that was a long conversation with a lot to unpack, but it's 3am as I write this and Del'Fi is being attacked by nymphs.
You fail terrifically. To the point you can't help but recount the legacy of loneliness that tethered you here in the first place.
Oh god, Lore. That conversation was so long I thought it'd be the whole update, damn. I wanna go to bed.
Sleeping of being sleepy, that sure looks like a dream tower. It isn't, but it looks like one in a way that's probably going to matter.
A very long time ago, the wisdom of the tides brought about a cultural wave of nymph apathy, fueled by the knowledge that the entire planet would be wiped clean within a few generations, leaving naught but a select DESTINED FEW. This caustic lethargy led to large scale egg abandonment; hundreds of little frys dropped into trenches left to fend for themselves in the depths. The lurid tangle of striping stars that surrounds you was sewn together by one of those sad little orphanites once upon a time. She was armed with nothing but a doctrine of unabashed purehearted nymph love and a terribly horrific weapon of mass destruction, callously cast away into the trenches like so much radioactive waste, corrupting all it touched; in this way, she and the weapon were very much alike.
The previous conversation did namedrop the mysterious Grey Rain that nearly destroyed the world, so my "There was already a session on this planet" theory is back in my mind.
Yo that's sick.
It is also very blatantly Rose, and I be "The Old Man" TC was snooping on is a Dirk analogue and that's why he didn't know about the Omega kids.
Countless nymphs and satyrs alike were consumed in their intimate and tender grazing, and with them, their homes and history. All were made piecemeal and dragged into herself as she became a writhing museum of extinction. With each addition to her alluvial labyrinthine form so grew the power of her inkstone. It grew so incredibly dense and impossibly dark that it began to shine bright as the morning star.
This Nymph Rose absorbed a bunch of Nymphs to become powerful (metaphor for Ultimate Self).
For several tides they fought in vain, struggling helplessly against her love. But when all seemed lost, the neptunian golem of a certain long excommunicated enchantress appeared.
Huh, so this is not the enchantress. That's one of the bigger mysteries of Beyond Canon right now.
Then apparently she just wagged her finger, shooshed her to sleep, and tossed her back into the freaking ocean. Where she's remained in this seemingly insurmountable slumber to this day, with the only notable action being when she grabbed a meteor out of the sky carrying a baby on it some several thousand tides ago, before promptly falling back to sleep.
Okay, this theory is a long-shot crack theory I made up just now but stick with me a second.
Neptune's symbol is a Trident.
Feferi's weapon is a trident. Obviously Neptune is the sea god and Feferi is sea-themed and there's not really much there except "ocean" except that this Rose is AN OUTER FUCKING GOD THE SIZE OF A CITY, which is how Karkat described Gl'bgolyb, Feferi's lusus that she had to keep complacent at the bottom of the ocean. I don't think Feferi is the nymph enchantress (even if she is a Witch), but I do think the comparison is intentional, especially given how much Rose is connected to the Horrorterrors.
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They say that a good plot twist is one you never saw coming but once it happens you realize in retrospect how obvious it was that it was going to happen, and by that metric I think Noel being transported to the magical kingdom of Noleador is one of the best twists I've ever seen.
I don't have home internet right now and haven't for a week. Hopefully that'll be fixed tomorrow but let's see if I can liveblog Homestuck 2 on my very limited Mobile Hotspot data plan I need to use for my actual job. A wise decision!
Del'fi is making a comic than takes place in jail and shows various characters as Nymphs and Satyrs. Vriska we've seen before, but there's also Dave (in his new outfit on the meat ship, meaning this is Meat Dave) along with Callie, Karkat, Jane, Dirk (??), a spooky purple Nymph I think is meant to be Rose, and a mustached marchmellow I assume from context is meant to be Jake. Notably not present, if this is the "canon" cast, are Jade, Roxy, and Kanaya. Also also, there's a...thing....next to Jane. A scorch mark? A pile of hay? I can't tell what it's supposed to be. Did someone explode?
This is such obvious foreshadowing except that I have no idea what it could possibly mean.
I will note, though, that this is "bad" art but I'm kind of digging it.
Possibly the most interesting word here is "Should". Why is Rose killing Karkat a hypothetical in the same scene where Jane and Vriska gambling is explicitly happening?
This is a good joke and possibly a humanimals reference but is that Roxy there? As....baby? With a *squints* lizard tail? I'm completely lost. Maybe it's princess Berryboo from Squiddle lore for all I know.
So...Vriska captures Dirk, Jane is mad about it, but Terezi causes Dirk to escape only to get caught by....AA. Either the new AA or Aradia. Probably Aradia.
Oh. No. It's Roxy. In red for some reason. I'm completely lost.
So. Ugh. So, there's only one Gamzee and he's trapped in Candyland and also fucking dead. I suppose Candy Jane could revive him but I think the HSBC team is trying to move past all the weird sex stuff in HS2 and Jane reviving Gamzee would also require reminding us that middle-aged gamzee had sex with teenage Vriska in the epilogues.
God, why do I defend Homestuck 2.
Um...
Uh....
Hm....
Is that Scout TF2?
Oh! Wait! Is Del'fi "colaborating" with Calliope? And thus...that would expect several things but raise several more issues. It's my best guess. I think the big metal guy with a "grate big hart" is...Dirk? Maybe he becomes a robot too? I dunno.
Wait, actually, these prompts are apparently submitted on the forums, but I don't know if I believe they're "real", or if they're plants. Or if it matters.
What is up with all the ball and chains on both versions of Dave? Candy Dave's "ball and chain" is his wife Jade that he ran away from but that doesn't apply to Meat Dave in any way.
Also note that Candy Dave has a horn and wings and Meat Dave only has wings. Aradia has a horn and wings, too.
Fucking hell I need to look up the Lore.
An ALKYRIN is the synthesis of all three morphotypes, heavenly warriors spoken of in your species' earliest cultural legends. To be clear, there is no historical evidence for the existence of Alkyrins. They are as mythical as HORSES, and anyone who believes in them is kind of a sucker, but you do suppose they make a very potent symbol for satyrkind as a whole.
So an Alkyrin (or Alicorn) is a synthesis of all the different types, which I guess in this context means they're representative of Dave and Aradia being Ultimates? But if that means something what do the other horse types mean? Do they mean anything? Dave being wings could be a Davesprite reference, Karkat being an Earth Pony could reference his mortality (and Stallions can control their hormones which is Blood kinda) and then Jane...is just so there's one of each type? I dunno. I legitimately don't know if this is 2deep4me or pure gibberish, and man is that Homestuck as all hell or what?
Also doesn't Calliope use They/Them pronouns?
And isn't Al possessing Jade's body? We're not just not seeing Jade in this comic, Del'Fi is actively hiding her.
God, the last thing this franchise needs is ANOTHER Vriska-related Retcon. We've already had two!
Where did everyone go and why are we in a white void?
Though this retcon is apparently one of John's. Presumably the currently dead Meat John. Who has bat wings.
Oh yeah, actually, that's Lord English's tooth still in him.
Predictably, your readers immediately start eating it up. Sometimes you despair for art.
Is this even real foreshadowing or is an elaborate shitpost of an update?
I went ahead and looked at the forums and there's some theorizing that the ball and chains do represent Jade
But besides the theory having a funny name it doesn't really make sense. Ultimate Dave remembers every Jade that any version of Dave ever met, so there's nothing limiting him to four, and there's only one Jade he's really connected to anyway.
(Also "Pre-retcon Jade" is Masterpiece Jade and is thus also the Jade whose body Al is possessing)
But also Meat Dave and Meat Jade reconciled offscreen like a few dozen pages ago so her currently being his ball and chain makes no sense. That relationship is dead and everyone involved as moved on and Dave is married to Karkat now.
I don't like when a comic is set in The Past and then they reference something from The Past that people aren't really nostalgic for it's just there to confirm that this is indeed The Past and I remember that thing because I am Old.
Or are people more nostalgic for mid-90s Snick show The Secret World of Alex Mack than I would've expected. It ran for four seasons, apparently, but I don't think it was a hugely popular or well-remembered show.
Just a few days ago, I couldn't access Questionable Content for some reason. Today this is displayed on the site:
Any idea what happened? You're my go-to for webcomic news, so I was wondering if you had any insight.
Using my incredible powers of journalistic insight and years of experience following webcomics as a hobby, I think what happened is that questionablecontent.net got hacked and blown up, so Jeph made the URL redirect you to jephjacques.com which has a message explaining that questionablecontent.net got hacked and blown up
The drama has made me less interested in liveblogging Homestuck than I have been in a while, but two separate people asked me about it, and who am I to deny the people?
Anyway, Jake and Karkat are having an argument in the command terminal, while Del'fi draws. Not that there was much doubt of it before, but this is clearly
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS FUCKER THREW HIS OWN PHONE ON THE FLOOR AND CLAIMED HE DROPPED IT SO THAT I'D GO PICK IT UP, JUST SO HE COULD KEEP BEING A PAIN IN YOUR ASS? ANYWAYS SORRY AGAIN, APPARENTLY THIS DIPSHIT IS COOL WITH REWATCHING 'MEET DAVE' FOUR TIMES BUT IS TOO INCURIOUS TO SIT BACK AND SEE WHERE THINGS GO? RATHER SAD, ISN'T IT?
Not that there was much doubt, but this is clearly the Meat versions of Jake and Karkat, who are in their mid-20s and generally a bit closer to the original comic's characterization.
Good god these two simply can NOT shut up! You're used to catching occasional psychic missives from power-hungry crones who attempt to delve down in pursuit of your prisoner's power, but this is the most obnoxious it's ever been! It's as if these two were made in a lab specifically to torture you.
(The joke is that this is literally true).
Del'fi is much better able to perceive that he's being given commands than most Homestuck characters, which could be classpecty or could be worldbuilding since Psychic characters have been better at picking this kind of thing up, but I think it's most just that Jake and Karkat are fucking irritating even beyond the veil.
It is interesting to speculate over where (and, given it's Homestuck, when) everyone is, but I think the most likely explanation is the most obvious: The meat crew got exiled out of the game and are stuck in the ruins of Deltritus, and from their perspective are near the end of HSBC. Terezi isn't, she's in the "present" of the comic, but I think the rest are.
To shut them up, you open up TRENCH2PEAK. It's a multiplayer life-sim romance actionRPG sandbox game that you've been playing a lot for the past lap or so, another secret cross-net initiative for the few brave souls of each species who chose to circumvent the mutual isolation pact in their noble pursuit of ONLINE GAMING.
"Trench2Peak" is a reference to how the more isoltated Satyrs live in the peaks of the land and the more isolated Nymphs in the trenches of the ocean, but in this context I think it's also a bit of a sex joke. I'm kind of intrigued by a society separated into lesbian fish and gay horses where het relationships are a weird taboo, though Del'Fi being transmasc makes this not quite that. I do wonder how the Nymphs/Satyrs will react to Vrissy's two boyfriends who smoke weed.
You've set up a pretty complicated private server that you and CT have been using as one of the many fronts in your campaign of epic collaborative storytelling, which has the dual advantage of allowing you to install even crazier mods than the native game supports and keeping CT away from any of the few other players, who might inadvertently alert him to your non-terrestrial nature and ruin everything forever.
"Hey bro, you know what would be a good game for us, as a pair of men, to play together"
"What, bro?"
"A game about Nymphs and Satyrs learning from each other, bro"
"Bro!"
Actually, there's maybe 50/50 odds that CT is transfem and this is a het ship after all, though nothing has indicated that.
Satyrs are, above almost anything else, encouraged and expected to exceed in all they pursue, or at the very least to exceed in the endeavors that they have chosen to most define themselves by. Are you an athlete? You'd better be up at the crack of dawn on that #grindset.
Hm....
For millennia, FRATERNITY has been exemplified by the FRATERNITY SYSTEM
I realize that the extremely gendered nature of this is part of #ThePoint but you still could've come up with a good name for things.
And I know it's a Dirk v. Rose thing as much as a Gen Z boys vs Gen Z girls thing (can't wait for the "Calfvicular" cameo, but that meme might be dead in a week and with as much meth as he's doing so might he) but it occurs to me that the real-world references are much more blatant for Satyrs than for Nymphs, but I guess there's not really a "female" internet subculture as infamous, culturally relevant, easily parodied as the sigma grindset dudes that now rule us. Or maybe it's just my male privilege speaking that I don't recognize the nymphs except maybe as being New Age-y but not really because this is a setting where Majjycks are real. Perhaps it'll be more obvious when we get the inevitable Nymph romance guide.
Strong men produce good times, good times produce strong men
Speaking of politically tinged cultural references...
Everything about this image is cursed, but especially that Final Fantasy XIV inventory in the top-right. Clean that shit out!
There are three relationship roles codified in traditional SATYR ROMANCE: the ALPHA, the OMEGA, and the BETA.
While this is obviously a reference to Omegaverse fanfic, remember that the humans come in Alpha, Beta, and Omega variants. The Nymphs/Satyrs are the Delta kids, so interesting that there's no Delta here.
Each plays a different role within the individual romantic unit that makes up one satyr relationship, called a HARRAS, and each contributes to the success of that harras in different ways
You didn't even combine two words to make a weird pun...that's just a normal word....
The role of the ALPHA can be summed up as the role of the LEADER. The alpha of a harras is expected to guide, lead, and protect the partnership. Alphas were traditionally expected to act as representatives of the harras in society at large. Traits traditionally considered alpha are assertiveness, decorum, and gravitas.
The Alpha kids are Dirk/Jake/Jane/Roxy, and this is Dirk's race so obviously he's on top.
The role of the OMEGA can be summed up as the role of the CHALLENGER. An omega exists as a galvanizing force within his harras that keeps it from calcifying, provoking his partners and daring them not to become too comfortable, ensuring that ideas and power flow freely between its members. Traits traditionally considered omega are indomitability, creativity, and spontaneity.
The Omega kids are Yiffy/Tavvy/Vrissy/Harry, and this is also pretty obvious foreshadowing since they're challenging Dirk's plan and keeping Homestuck from just being a closed loop.
The role of the BETA is best understood as the role of the SUPPORTER. A beta is there to ensure the needs of his harrasmates are met, to lift their spirits when they're down, to most fully exemplify the masculine bond that the harras stays together for. Betas were something of an interesting outlier in traditional A/O/B relationships of a more classical era, as they were not expected to participate in the sexual aspect of the relationship, functioning more analogously to the housewife you cherish and happily return home to, without the pressures of coitus, but this is an artifact that history has left behind in modernity. Traits traditionally considered beta are adaptability, supportiveness, and steadfastness.
The Beta kids are the original four of John/Jade/Dave/Rose, and this is the most interesting. They weren't expected to participate since they're housewives you adore but don't bang, but now they will. Hmm.
(Fandom refers to the dancestors as the alpha trolls and the main trolls as the beta, but that's not a term used in the comic I don't think)
One could be forgiven for thinking that an alpha equates to what you'd consider a "dom" where sex is concerned; not so. You could have dom alphas, sub alphas, service top betas, switch omegas, hung bottom omegas, feral omegas... just the thought of it is enough to make the nose bleed
The fact that the Omega kids are the children of the Alphas and Betas does admittedly make this part of the metaphor read weird, but maybe that's implying someone will change "sides", like Harry joining Dirk or Rose rejoining the rest of the beta kids, etc. That lets you fit the trolls in, with Terezi as an "Alpha" and the rest with the Betas.
Del'Fi cuts off his own (brand new) arm to shut down the terminal commands, which is a reference to
From the original comic's intermission, where Jack lost and arm turning the terminal on.
And, since we're looking at the intermission anyway, we can see that the terminal Jake and Karkat are using is indeed an exile terminal, complete with a black house and gray tubes, just with different screens.
As opposed to the terminal WV used, which has a grey house and purple tubes, but that...might not actually be a relevant detail. Sometimes a gooey purple tube is just a gooey purple tube.
Hey they traced the University of Tokyo, which the danganronpa school is visually inspired by. And the [Tokyo] box means this is both establishing that it's in Tokyo and specifically in the University of Tokyo by specifically having the picture of the building being there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Tokyo
I haven't even read Streidcraft, but you could have atleast clicked on the source of that image and see that it's down at the trivia section of the fandom page and isn't actually a picture of the school.
rusubble asked:
I was checking out your Homestuck tag (wondering if I'd be into picking up Beyond Canon - jury's still out, but the reviews are appreciated) and saw your Aradia art from Dec. If you still haven't tracked down the artist for the inspo pic, it's by tumblog goose-draws for Inktober 2018.
Re: author drama from the DoA debacle (and I do hope i'm not poking a bear on this one,) any interesting thoughts regarding the recent Homestuck Official / Unofficial / Makin drama?
I think my official stance is I'm So Fucking Tired. I haven't read it all, there's so much Homestuck drama. The Homestuck team and Makin hating each other is not new and, so far as I can tell, not actually important. Discord banned the unofficial Homestuck server for unknown reasons that may or may not have had to do with their regular "Let's all watch a stream of a copyrighted movie" nights. Some members of the Homestuck team were reporting posts on it and were happy and surprised when it went under. There's a callout post that's pages upon pages of random discord screenshots that I can't be assed to read.
And while Team Homestuck is notorious for getting into stupid fights with literally everyone and has done some actually for-real shitty behavior in the past (refusal to credit people on Hiveswap mostly), the thinness of the main accusation and Makin's blatant attempts to whip up a mob over it has got me kinda
About the whole thing, but I'm not going to claim to be well versed.
while i do think the current plot direction of gunnerkrigg court makes sense, the pace of the story has been so slow lately that i’m already apprehensive about how long the “trapped in high school au” arc will last
The "Trapped in a high school" arc has been going on for 3,249 pages and counting so I wouldn't get your hopes up.
It is interesting, though, that the Court's plan is to create a totally normal world without magic and that in a way it's also Coyote's plan! I'm sure that's on purpose but I'm not entirely sure where it's going. It does feel like Gunnerkrigg Court is entering it's final arc now but it's felt like that for a while so who knows.
You should read Streidcraft. It’s an NSFW web manga
I thought it would be funny to go "Wow what a terrible sales pitch. Do you really expect me to read a comic just because it might have female presenting nipples in it?" and then go strait into a review but honestly I skimmed the one chapter of it that was uploaded to a manga scanlation site a year ago (since it doesn't seem to have it's own website??) and it doesn't look to be anything special even by the standards of horny trash comics.
If you look at, I dunno, this banner for another erotic comic I've seen.
Even just from the banner you've got the smol bean curvy dragon girl with massive hullabalunga eyebrows and the vaguely menacing hunky devil man and she's in blue and he's red and the comic is called "Our Fierce Differences" so you get the impression that the girl is the protagonist and she's pure and innocent from her conservative outfit and she has to tame this wild red beast of a bad boy who's going to open her mind and/or legs as they deal with their Fierce Differences and it's in a high fantasy setting.
Is that the most original idea for an "erotic" comic? Not really; it's basically Twilight with Tieflings.
But it's executed well enough and there's a bit more originality than what you'd get just looking at the banner, with the girl being a religious conservative shaking her fist at slutty clouds. There's enough there that anyone who actually wants the Twilight with Tieflings that the banner implies is probably going to be happy with it.
Meanwhile you look at the first page of Steidcraft and it's a Star Wars title crawl that's just "Things were once good, but now...they are bad". And the art's perfectly fine I guess but does absolutely nothing to convey anything that's not directly told to me by the text.
And then the second page is some generic school scene with okay-but-not great lettering and-
Wait
Wait a second
Hm. It's not one to one with this image, because the angle's different, but I'm pretty confident if I went searching I could find the image you traced that school off of.
Honestly, I'd probably be a little more bothered by the whole thing with the Dumbing of Age moderation thing if I hadn't seen multiple posts on the subreddit of the people on there comparing Willis to the fucking Sinfest guy, like...you're allowed to dislike the direction of the webcomic and even find the author frustrating at this point...but Jesus Christ, the Sinfest guy is a full-ass Nazi. Nothing Willis has said or done warrants that kind of cruel comparison.
Oh yeah, Willis isn't in the same universe as Tatsuya Ishida. I was going to say he's closer to Andrew Hussie but AFAIK he hasn't tried to sue anyone so even that comparison isn't entirely fair.
"Webcomic creator make unpopular storyline, gets a million unhappy comments, gets mad" is a very common situation. No one likes being yelled at, after all. But also
If you look at Willis' Patreon the leadup to the Joyce/Dorothy kiss last July got a huge boost in Patrons that's slowly fading and returning to the mean. I imagine that it'll bottom out soon with him slightly ahead of where he was before the kiss, totally financially secure and fine. That's just how these things go. The initial boost is huge, most of it fades, but some of it you keep long term yay hooray. You can even see in the chart that the decline is slowing down before it reaches the pre-kiss levels, and I really want to stress that I don't think he's in any actual financial danger right now and is ultimately continuing to grow his readership in the long run and has no reason to panic.
But even knowing all that logically if it were my job on the line and I saw the last six months of my patreon looking like this I'd probably flip the fuck out at all the people in my comment section saying my comic sucked, too. Shit's hella precarious out there and you can't really blame webcomic creators for being stressed out and twitchy.
