homestuck uses seemingly random things/concepts – the zodiac, a deck of cards, billiards, the magic 8 ball – as thematic elements so fucking cleverly it’s almost infuriating
the game over timeline failed because vriska was killed – much like in billiards, you lose the game if you pocket the 8 ball too soon
not to infodump or nothing but imho its even deeper than that, in that by act 7 the entire web of symbolism has been flipped
this is foreshadowed kind of obliquely by one, having chess and pool be exactly the same game in-universe, with sburb taking the form of a collosally complicated game of chess in multiplayer sessions, but taking the form of pool in a single player session, and two, having caliborn switch his king and queen’s appearance, but having them move as if they were the piece they appear to be
vriska appears to be the 8 ball and killing her appears to end their game prematurely, but shes actually the cue ball, and killing her causes a scratch in which she can be placed wherever is most advantageous for the opponent, and english is the 8 ball, and shoving him into the metaphorical pocket that is the black hole from the collapse of the green sun ends the game
what im getting at here is that i fucking h8 homestuck
holy shit
There’s also all the parallels drawn between Snowman(The Black Queen) and Vriska. And of course, while Snowman APPEARS to be an 8-ball, what is killing her circumstantially simultaneous with? A SCRATCH. From the perspective of Caliborn and his Session, it appears to be a victory, but it actually allows his opponents to reposition themselves to best win The Game(like vriscourse says).
It goes significantly deeper than this, since the cueball is also likened to an Egg visually and explicitly. Scratch’s cueball head is the egg from which LE is born, and Dave literally calls Grimbark Jade’s cueball an egg:
Which links the cueball to Homestuck’s pervasive traditions of Gnostic/Christian, Grecoroman, and Egyptian myth. In all of these stories (but in Gnosticism in particular as far as I can tell), there’s a consistent focus on Eggs as a symbol of both destruction and birth, best summed up by a quote from Herman Hesse’s Damien:
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.
(if that sounds familiar, it’s because it also shows up in Revolutionary Girl Utena, another story steeped in Gnostic symbols.)
And let’s not forget that the cueball/egg is also tied to another symbol: That of Homestuck itself.
So symbolically, The Ultimate Juju/Story of Homestuck is at once three things:
1) It is the world that Lord English has created, that the bird (our kids!) must destroy to be born.
2) It is the cueball. Specifically, it is the IDEA of the cueball. Lord English successfully suppreses all cueballs that can hurt him in physical reality, but is ultimately beaten because he cannot stop the power of the IDEA of the cueball, manifested symbolically.
3) It is also, simultaneously, an egg–a symbol of inevitable change. Change, whether it be for himself or the world he created, is, of course, the only thing that Lord English cannot tolerate, so it makes sense to present eggs as a weakness for him.
I’ve written about most of this in my essay on Gnostic myths and how they influence Homestuck, which you can find here.
But one last note: Just as important as how it affects LE is what this means for the characters. Homestuck is arguing that none of its characters have been “born”, constrained as they’ve been within the “shell” of LE’s alpha timeline.
In Act 7, that egg seems to hatch, the shell of the world that constrains it cracking and splintering under the force of the bird’s will.
So what comes next for Homestuck’s characters, if this is meant to be the moment of their birth?
Look man either pay them or learn art yourself to feed your fat fetish.
bitch 40 for lineart should be the standard, art is a damn luxury and some of these artists need food
@ whatever greyshades is these days, Like I said, they’re kids who don’t know how to haggle.
>Lineart – 2 hours for pencils, 1-2 hours for lines = 3 hours at $40
>$40/3(aprox) = $13/hr – paypal fees and bank transfer fees = 10/hr
>Colour – 2 hours for pencils, 1- 2 hours for lines, 3-6 hours for colour = aprox 9 hours at $120
>$120/9 = 13/hr – paypal fees and bank transfer fees = 10/hr
Art is an extremely specialised skillset that takes anywhere from 5-20 years to develop, costs around 500 minimum entry to be able to create digital art due to requiring a tablet and software, along with enough RAM to run high-layer drawings depending on your program. Thinking you have any reason or right to haggle with someone because you don’t like their prices is some entitled shit my friend. You don’t walk into an autoshop and try to barter with them for their hourly wage and their parts cost, why the fuck would you do it in something else? It’s capitalism, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it but don’t think you have a right to special treatment.
I guarantee you we’d charge hourly if that was a possible standard but because the industry has no standards peope have to charge what will sell and that is ultimately much lower than it really should. Especially considering most of us have standards against drawing furry mpreg vore.
People don’t realize just how cheap commissioned art online actually is. Most of the time you pay the artists minimum wage.
Just think about that for a second.
Where I live, that’s LESS than minimum wage
I know artists who have made it in the comic or otherwise commercial art industry, and they comfortably charge hundreds for their time, talent and name on commissions.That’s the MINIMUM. We’re talking people who can make several hundred dollars per PAGE of narrative.
Get your heads out of your asses and start supporting online freelancers and their dirt cheap pricing—it’s your fault they’re all valued so low to begin with.
Yeah, if you commission an artist,
Make sure you’re givig them what they deserve
if the fic already has a thousand comments, comment still. Your comment will still matter and delight the author.
if a fic is a decade old and the author hasn’t been active in the last five years, comment still. There will come a time when the author will read and cherish your comment, or maybe it will motivate them enough to start writing again. You never know!
if the author never responds to comments, comment still. Interaction with the author is a very nice bonus, but you can be sure that even if the author doesn’t answer, they will read it and enjoy it at some point
there’s no such thing as a too long comment.
there’s no such thing as a too incoherent comment.
the author will give no flying fuck about any gramatical errors, typo or other misspellings. If you’re a non-native speaker struggling to express themselves, you can be sure the author will be all the more pleased that you surmounted the language barrier to let them know you appreciated their work. Don’t be afraid!
there’s no such thing as commenting too often.
you will never, ever come across as creepy by obsessing over a fic or an author to the point where you worry the author might think you’re a stalker. On the contrary, the author will be delighted by your investment in their work.
say thank you. It’s always appreciated to see readers acknowledge the work and commitment that is put into writing.
the floaty review box (ao3 add-on) is your friend
be positive and encouraging. Positive reviews make writers all warm and glowy from the inside, bashing plunge their soul into icy darkness. You want the first, not the second!
whoever you are, if you read their fic, YOU are IMPORTANT to the author. Let them know you’re there!
(if any author wants to contradict one of those rules, please let me know!)
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