im so proud of him. hes done so well, this is all ive ever wanted
okay here’s the thing that was incredibly fast thinking and smart of dave to do
if dirk died right there by the jack’s hands he would’ve died heroic and not be able to be resurrected
this way it’s neither heroic nor just and both enemies die at the same time
after that’s done, dave can take back dirk and terezi to a safer time and teleport away
that took both incredible courage - to cut off your brother’s head, whom you’ve literally just had a heartfelt conversation with like 10 minutes ago - and incredible intelligence.
You may think just by looking at the image that this is supposed to be a joke or something. But no. As impressive as Dave killing Lord Jack and Roxy killing Condesce is, this motherfucker right here. Karkat Vantas outshone everyone in the update by taking down Clover.
Because lest you forget, Clover’s whole deal is probability manipulation. And not just some weeny baby level either. His luck is so absurd that he literally takes any chance of you hurting him and turns it to 0. You literally have a 0% chance of ever harming him. So much so that even a gun at point blank won’t do it. While he’s harmless in every other aspct, the little guy was literally made to be unbeatable.
And Karkat BEAT him. With a 0% chance of winning the fight, Karkat SOMEHOW caught Clover. He pulled off a feat that is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. He essentially said fuck you to the rules of reality and spat in the face of fate.
KARKAT BEAT CLOVER AND THE FACT THAT HE DID MAKES LITERALLY NO SENSE. THE BOY IS A GOD.
Terezi and Dave used their combined powers to “revive” Dirk, after Dirk was killed by Spades Slick via dozens of point blank gunshot wounds. We can assume this death was heroic, as he didn’t begin to revive on his own, and he certainly didn’t deserve a “Just” death. So for a few seconds of the flash, Dirk Strider was permadead.
But then Dave and Terezi used their classpect powers in conjunction with each other, in the fraymotif you see above.
Now, from the image, we can get an idea of what exactly their combined power actually is. You can see Dirk and Jack English doing a variety of different actions, with the timeline splintering off in different directions based on the choices Dirk makes as to how to go about fighting Jack.
Once the fraymotif fades, Dirk is fine, and is in a much different situation combat wise than he was originally- the battle never went in that direction, so he never died. This is, obviously, time travel- that’s clear from the get-go. But what’s remarkable is that it’s a type of time travel we’ve never seen before in Homestuck.
Time travel in homestuck- even John’s retcon powers- involves the person in question physically traveling back in time, so that if they want to change their own actions, they have to carry a conversation with their past self and convince them to act differently. In Terezi and Dave’s fraymotif, though, nobody actually physically travels back- at least not in the sense we’re use to.
Considering that, in the picture above, every cyan branch represents a barrier between potential timelines- there’s actually no duplicates in the image. Every given timeline shown has one Dirk, one Terezi, and one Dave. Rather than there being two of someone, because someone went back and changed things “manually”.
Mind as an aspect represents choices, the reasons people have for making those choices- and other choices they could have potentially made. Combine that with time travel, and it’s clear that their combined ability is to retroactively cause people to make different choices than they originally did. Dirk never died because he never made the combat decision that led to his death. It’s a type of time travel that leaves no fingerprints- nobody runs into another version of themselves, nobody meets anyone from the future.
you just happen to make a different choice than you would have originally, probably not even realizing something is different.
and odds are, only the player(s) who did it are aware.
it’s a form of time travel where you BECOME your past self, rather than encounter them. and that’s remarkable. that’s unprecedented in homestuck. seamless time travel like that has endless potential, it’s like an “undo” button in photoshop. considering that it forces the person in question to make a different choice, it’s arguably a form of mind control.
You guys are aware, that people other than those of pansexual orientation can date trans people right, because I don’t think ya’ll get this.
Ok but??? How??? Like how like??? If I’m a lesbian, I’m attracted to biological females right??? Trans women are women, but because I’m a lesbian I wouldn’t be sexually attracted to one right? But if I’m pan I would? Like why doesn’t that make sense?
It’s kinda transphobic to define yourself as pansexual on the basis of dating transwomen.
Do you define lesbianism as the exclusive sexual attraction to functioning wombs? Because the common usage seems to be ‘attracted to other women,’ endstop. Some transwomen have vaginas, some don’t, and some women are intersex, but they’re all women, and a large number of them would be deeply offended if you told them that dating them made their lesbian girlfriend pansexual – it denies their gender identity.
On the flipside, an extremly masculine transman might have a functioning womb and be extremely offended if a ciswoman defined herself as a lesbian for dating him, although he meets your criteria for lesbianism.
Further, the assumption that as a lesbian you would only be attracted to women who have functioning wombs is kinda ridiculous, because odds are you’ve met transwomen and didn’t know. Ultimately, the hottest, cutest girl you’ve ever met and been attracted could 100% be a transwoman and you might never know unless she told you herself. Would that suddenly negate your attraction to her, or make you pansexual? If you started sleeping with, say, BEYONCE and then one day she’s like ‘by the way, here’s my past history, I’m a transwoman’ would you then conclude that you were pan?
Like, I get that when you mean ‘biological’ women you’re thinking ‘women who don’t have penises’ – but a lot of trans and intersex women don’t have penises. And you’re essentially reducing people to their genitalia, which is transphobic and offensive. The openly masculine transmale who hasn’t had bottom surgery is not a lesbian and you can’t TECHNICALLY begin a lesbian relationship with him, even if he has the genitalia you prefer.
You’re also reducing yourself to genitalia-attraction when you define lesbianism this way. Are you saying that the only thing that matters to you is that the other person has a clit and a vulva? Because there’s a lot of very masculine men who fit that description – would that fit your definition of ‘lesbianism?’ Would you say that you’re attracted to EVERY cis woman just because she has a vagina? Of course not. Some women just aren’t attractive to other women, for whatever reason – height, fitness level, hair styles, fashion, body shape, interests, whatever.
Transwomen are women. Period. Women can date them and not be pansexual. Lesbians can date transwomen. And you, as a self-defined lesbian, could date a transwoman and not define yourself as pan (and you’d probably make your girlfriend a lot happier if you don’t). If functioning female genitalia are your aim, well, there are some transwoman who fit your criteria, and some who don’t, just as there are probably some ciswomen who are too butch for you, or too rude for you, or who dress too slobbily for your or whatever.
This is not to say that there aren’t a large number of trans non-binary, third gender, trans* or whatever people who wouldn’t nessecarily find it offensive to discover that their girlfriend defines themselves as pan based on dating them. Pansexuality means you can be attracted to people of whatever gender. But to define yourself as Pan on the basis of dating or not dating transwomen, and for no other reason, is transphobic, and offensive.
Hope this helps.
Wowow thank you very much for this commentary, this is very on point, so well said!!
bruce wayne maintains a presence on all conspiracy theory boards with the screen name BruceWayneIsTheBatman and all his posts have titles like “BRUCE WAINE IS BAT-MAN INDISPUTABLE PROOF” and it’s just a picture of Bruce Wayne from the back next to a picture of Batman from behind and they both have the contours of their butt drawn on in a shitty MSPaint red line (note: Bruce is in a suit and Batman has a cape, neither of their butts are clearly discernible) and the quote “THE BUTTS MATCH!!! THE FACTS DON’T LIE!!!!!” and he makes at least three of these posts a day, and “Bruce Wayne is the Batman” becomes a meme a la “Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer” and he gets asked about it on a talk show and he laughs uproariously at the idea and Stephen Colbert just HAPPENS to have a batman mask under the desk and they do a bit together where Bruce Wayne puts on the mask and walks around saying things like “excuse me, bank robbers, can I perhaps offer you some money to stop you robbing this bank?” and “I say, cease and desist your criminal behavior or I’ll have my butler ask you to leave” and the audience is LOSING THEIR MINDS laughing at the idea of this pampered rich guy taking on the Joker on a bi-weekly basis and then anyone who suggests “Bruce Wayne is Batman” in earnest gets met with mocking “oh man do the butts match” comments
MBHSNBSHSH LITERALLY I ordered a phone case from China like a month ago like a silicone case that looks like a cat so I was walking around with a shitty non protective case for like a full month and I’m getting restless I’m like where tha fuck is my phone case so this morning i look it up and it says it’s still stuck at customs like… anyway so like 45 minutes ago I take my jacket off and my phone falls out of the pocket and legit EXPLODES like it is shattered I’m literally so fucking…… like if the case just hadn’t been caught at customs this wouldn’t have happened
so I get home literally 3 minutes ago and open the mailbox and guess who’s there? the fucking phone case just like fucking mocking me like
