And lo, a torrent of + ions burst forth.

I saw this fandom at its peak, I saw it tear itself apart. I saw the author praised, I saw him reviled. I saw this fandom die, and come back, and die again, and come back again, in an ebb and flow. We are in a Homestuck Renaissance and even now we cannot escape the furious arguing that comes with.

And yet. Despite it all. Despite the drama and the discourse.

I still enjoy Homestuck greatly. Love this absolute clusterfuck of a webcomic.

The Page is awake.

I find myself getting impatient with how long it’s taking for Jake (both versions) to Rise Up and do something impressive for the first time since the end of the original comic. Candy Jake almost had it in the bag in this one! And then once again he got dunked on and has now been dumped onto the front lines of a war zone he has no business being on.

Fucks sake, when will this guy catch a damn break for once? When will we finally get to see the reminder that this mustachioed goober is a god in his own right?

When it does happen, if it ever happens, it had better be awesome and cataclysmic, just like before GAME OVER, just like before the Masterpiece. Perhaps even biblically apocalyptic, if we want to lean into the imagery of the angels Jake spawns with alarming ease at full blast. After all, aren’t those winged entities the very same which paradox space uses to usher in The End?

I want to see once again the power that nearly tore Derse apart, that overpowered the fire of the Green Sun, that denied even the power of the arcane majyyks Caliborn and Lord English wield with reality-breaking ease.

Hasn’t Jake been through enough already in Candy? Doesn’t he deserve to Make Jane Pay? Even, perhaps to Make Them All Pay? To tear the world asunder for his son, if need be?

Jake is a god. It’s long past time he started acting like one. And sometimes that means the wicked —like the forces President Crocker is mustering against the trolls — deserve a good old fashioned mass-smiting.

Jokerkind is something of a broken Kind Abstratus to allocate to one’s Strife Specibus. Judging by what we’ve seen for it, it seems to allow Gamzee to wield any weapon he pleases, just as the joker in a deck of cards can stand for any card you want it to. Maybe there’s also an element of “as long as he finds it funny” that serves as a condition on what weapons he can use? I dunno, it was never really elaborated on.

But this post isn’t about Gamzee. It’s about Jake. So why am I drawing parallels between Gamzee’s abstratus and Jake’s title?

Because there’s a nonzero possibility Jake might have it in him to copy the classpect powers of others for his own use, just as jokerkind allows Gamzee to wield the weapons that rightfully belong to other kind abstrata. It’s only slightly baseless a thought, instead of being complete bullshit, only because we have (debatably) seen him do it before.

Remember Brain Ghost Dirk? That wonderful, strange, confusing Dirk-but-not-really, conscience and imaginary friend all at once? His status as a splinter of Dirk may be up for debate, but what isn’t is the fact that when Jake fully materialized him in the Game Over timeline, the guy had exactly the same soul-ripping powers one would expect from the real Dirk — without Jake ever having seen them, without any reference for what they would look like.

Granted, an argument can be made that Brain Ghost Dirk being able to do that is a consequence of him being a Dirk splinter, though his ontological status is kind of… complicated. It is known that in the comic proper, Derse Dirk is able to materialize in Brain Ghost Dirk’s place in the dream bubbles which definitely suggests some tangible connection between Dirk proper and the incorporeal version of him spawned (Athena-like) from Jake’s perception of him.

But even granted that, the real Dirk was nowhere near the scene at the time Jake manifested Brain Ghost Dirk with all the power of a Prince of Heart at his disposal. How in the heck does Jake know how those powers are supposed to be like? Is it because he knows Dirk so well as to be able to recreate him (albeit parsed through a Jake filter) in his mind’s eye? What then of getting to know his other chums well enough to duplicate their powers eventually?

I’d have to file this under “plausible but unlikely”, with a dash of “it would be so flipping neat to see him do something like this though”. Fun stuff to explore in fanwork, to brew up ideas about how it might look for him to wield the powers of other classpects when he’s not straight up creating hoped-up doppelgangers of all his friends with theirs.

Heck maybe he could even combine it with his actual kind abstratus — firearm magazines loaded with aspect-charged ammunition? A pair of revolvers like Calliope’s white magnum — six-shooters with one round for each aspect in the chamber?

Perhaps when his hope-white aura manifests, it changes to that of a different aspect depending on which one he’s jonesing to copy for the occasion?

This quote from Brain Ghost Dirk never did get much follow-up, I think. Many of us certainly don’t think of Jake English as one of the scarier characters in Homestuck do we? One of the sillier ones maybe, or one of the more tragic ones.

So, for a change of pace I’m taking this opportunity to voice ideas about how Jake could be portrayed as someone to be respected and even feared in fanworks, someone who wields the kind of power that makes people think twice about getting into his bad books. And why not? The seeds for it are there, even if undeveloped. In canon alone we’ve seen him do the following at full power:

Destroy a sizeable section of Derse as angels coalesce out of the raw Hope he’s putting out uncontrollably

No-sell grimbark Jade’s Witch of Space / First Guardian powers

Make his mental image of Dirk real, complete with corny movie references the real Dirk would never use

(Possibly) copy Prince of Heart powers for said imaginary friend to use. [Inconclusive, might just be a Dirk-splinter thing.]

No-sell godtier Caliborn’s clockwork majyyks — the rainbow flashing aura so associated with god tier resurrections, mating cherubs, and especially Lord English

It isn’t much to go off of, but the sheer destructive power of Jake’s Hopesplosion, as well as how his power is able to hold its own with (and handily dunk on) the rawest energies associated with Space and Time themselves, seems to indicate there’s a wonderful, terrible, blazingly bright abyss at the core of the Page of Hope if you dig far down enough. The only catch seen so far is in how much control Jake had over his powers on both known occasions — none in the arc leading up to Game Over, and up for debate during the Masterpiece showdown against Caliborn. That only raises a question fanwork is free to explore: what happens when Jake finally gets a grip on this awe-inspiring power?

Post-canon furnishes something else interesting regarding Jake, in HS:BC’s second May 2024 upd8. In a fit of righteous rage where candy Jake finally gets to go off on candy Jane, he mentions that Tavvy Crocker has been free of his peanut allergy since he was 13, and the panel and pesterlog where he explains how it happened strongly suggests Jake’s desperate wish for his son to be cured of it came true. This is an unconscious use of his Aspect’s power just like the time he started glowing while dancing with candy John, but this one is long-lasting, and possibly permanent. Far from being mere illusion with solidity (as some might propose by citing Brain Ghost Dirk faltering in existence as Jake’s Hope field dissipated in the pre-Game Over arc), the implication is that Jake English has the potential to be a full-fledged reality warper just by believing hard enough in what he wants.

This is why I want to see the scope of Jake’s powers — the very potential that scared Brain Ghost Dirk months before Jake ever reached the godtiers — explored in fanwork. How does someone like Jake grapple with that kind of power, whether within his active grasp or eluding his reach in unconscious use?

Give me a Jake that has shades of Haruhi Suzumiya to him, able to change reality without him realizing it just by wanting something so hard that paradox space obliges.

Give me a Jake conscious and fearful of the danger he poses with his powers, fleeing into solitude on instinct because he’s scared of hurting others if he lashes out — because after all hasn’t he done it before? Couldn’t he do it again?

Give me a Jake who treats the awesome power of Hope as a godly nuclear deterrent, who keeps the peace on Earth C with the threat of unleashing all the terrible things his movie-and-comics-saturated imagination could conjure up.

Give me a Jake who revels in newfound nigh-unlimited power after so long feeling powerless, and who sets about remaking his corner of the world — or perhaps the entire world — in his image. And why not stop at just one planet? Why not go further beyond? Won’t it be a grand adventure, perhaps even The Ultimate Adventure?

Those of you who remember being in the Homestuck fandom back in 2012 to 2013 will no doubt remember the old Tumblr post that went around claiming the four post-scratch kids were like the noble gases due to their supposed inability to form bonds with each other. All too often I’ve seen this ancient piece of fanon used to support the idea that the alpha kids are not as close a group of friends as the beta kids are, and that somehow this makes them less likeable or worth paying attention to as the Acts 1-5 faves the original Homestuck fans knew and loved.

However, I have a proposition for any still listening out here, one that could turn the concept of “alpha kids as noble gases” on its head. What if I told you that the initial premise was false, but the conclusion was true? Leaving aside the individual identifications of each kid with a particular gas, let us concern ourselves with the four as a group.

I know, I know, those of us with a foot in both fandoms are flipping out over Nephrite's facet number being 413. But I assure you, the Homestuck goes deeper still, as it often does.

Firstly. Nephrite is in fact a form of Jade, as attested to by the green coloration of her gem. (Unsure whether the color is a close match to Jade Harley or more Sburb Beta logo green.) But more importantly, have you fucking seen White Diamond? The towering height, the radiant aura, the unsettling otherworldliness -- she'd make for perfect Denizen material I swear. The spiky hair, the monochrome color palette, the cape of white stars on black field -- Space, Space, and more Space aspect aesthetic.

Forgive the awkward wording of this post. It gets hard to put my thoughts into words sometimes and I need to get this off my chest.

I made this blog a month and twelve days ago, in the closing hours of 4/13 -- the ninth anniversary of the beginning of Homestuck, the second anniversary of its end. If I’ll be honest, I was never into any work of media quite like I was into Homestuck -- it was the first and so far the only work that’s grown onto me this deeply. It is to me one of those things I take immense pleasure in beholding and fondly regarding, a great Infinity Engine of interwoven threads of plot and interlocking character arcs, mounted upon this glorious framework of worldbuilding, stacked layer upon layer in this grand array: seven Acts, four Parts, two Sides, one story, and I wish I could meet many others who shared the same sentiments.

And yet I look around and what I see makes my heart ache. The Homestuck fandom, as it stands now, is a house divided among itself, side against side, opinion against opinion, stan against anti if I can dare to use these words. And we are so small now! We are a fraction of the size we once were at our greatest, when we accidentally broke the Internet, when we made our presence known loud and proud. Now? Many have left and will deny they were ever among us. Of those who remain, many belittle Homestuck either out of cynicism or out of habit.

I will not mince words about it. There is, as far as I am aware, a lingering sense of negativity where Homestuck is concerned, a sea of “anions” if I will be so bold as to borrow the term for negatively charged atoms/molecules in chemistry. And quite frankly it breaks my heart -- not that people dislike Homestuck (which really is inevitable, it’s not for everyone), but that those who do like it (or claim it at least) are inordinately prone to acting like they don’t.

Is it overt? Not necessarily, except perhaps in certain corners. Among folks who speak of Hussie being a hack, a bad writer, a problematic person, a sellout to VIZ Media. Among posts complaining about this arc or that character, or objecting to this or that ship. Among those who can find nothing better to say about Hiveswap than belittling every development in its development, protesting the idea of LPers making Youtube videos of it, and even going so far as to pirate the game out of spite to its creators.

Is it covert? Oh definitely. Self-deprecation has been part and parcel of this community since I first found may way to Homestuck almost six years ago. I am definitely a minority when it comes to this opinion but honestly? The endless stream of “Homestuck is trash”, “this ride will never end”, and similar negativist memes and jokes never really sat well with me. Why do we belittle what we claim to like, and by extension belittle ourselves for liking it?

Can we not see it? Since perhaps the Gigapause, or even earlier, we have been falling apart, devouring ourselves in neverending criticism, this verbal hatred of Homestuck, and now of Hiveswap as well. It'd grown louder, louder with the passage of time, people falling away and migrating to other fandoms out of disgust for what they once loved, and then Act 7 came. And the fandom shattered almost irretrievably.

I weep for it. It hurts because now we who remain are few in number, and many of this remnant seem to want nothing more to do with Homestuck, to let it shrivel up and die. How many of us who remain will give it a second chance? How many are willing to give Hiveswap a chance again and again each time its development is held back? It hurts. It hurts and I wish somebody, anybody, would understand.

But I will have none of it, I refuse to plunge into this great sea of anions. I stand with @revolutionaryduelist, with @wakraya, with @ilikehomestuckproject, and any and all who still see any good in Homestuck, in Hiveswap. Any of the old-timers who can look with fondness on it, warts and all, even after all this time. Any and all who were late in arriving, and found something beautiful in this great webcomic even after the end. Here I stand, and I can do no other.

So this blog is christened cationicflood, a much condensed version of my mission statement. Positive ions, to counterbalance the negative. So long as this blog remains active, I will continue to post what I love, be it infrequently or regularly. I will pour out what I love about Homestuck, sometimes why I love it. I will theorize, analyse, even if it reaches a little. Especially in the face of those who say Homestuck is meaningless, that it was just one great big shitpost. Even if I alone should pour cations into the sea, if it inspires even just one person to reconsider, to give it another chance, to fall in love with Homestuck and Hiveswap all over again? It would be enough.

Some points to ponder:

http://wakraya.tumblr.com/post/165614867965/jacksepticeye-plays-hiveswap-and-praises-its-art

First off, if you can read the title of this post without too much difficulty, I take my metaphorical hat off to you. Now then, to business.

Numbers are as much a part of Homestuck as SBAHJ memes, repeated callbacks, and weird plot or time shenanigans. The four arc numbers of Homestuck -- 413, 612, 1025, and 111 (or any repeating string of 1s) -- show up again and again and again in the narrative, oftentimes for no apparent reason. Now of course we all know the reason for the existence of these arc numbers is to represent important dates in the comic’s history (the beginning of Homestuck, the beginning of Hivebent, the date of Cascade, and the beginning of Act 6), but I won’t be talking about these formidable digits today. In this series of essays I will discuss smaller matters, the smaller numbers sprinkled throughout the comic, and the meanings that might be lurking behind (or read into) them.

Special mention of course is given to Mituna, whose typing quirk is so overloaded with numbers (many of which are already associated with other characters) it seems to be a representation of his damaged state post-accident, the notorious difficulty in reading the garbled text (even when not misspelled) signifying that this is a troll whose speech is difficult to parse. It’s not too hard to believe that the Helmsman may have spoken, if he could speak, in like manner during his service aboard the Battleship Condescension, right up to the moment of the Vast Glub.

10

Let us begin, not with 0 (which shall come after this), but with 10. This is a number that doesn’t really have any meaning when we look at the text of the comic, but has numerous meanings that can be read into it. This is how two is written in binary (beenary as Sollux would call it) and thus unofficially the symbolic representation of computer code, but reading it as decimal ten will also give us new associated meanings for its component digits:

Notice how the Time symbol is a gear with 10 teeth? Aside from it looking very clean without being too cluttered (which 12 would have been) or too simple (which 8 would have been), 10 can be associated with Time’s dual nature: the 1 signifying linearity -- time marching onwards to the end -- and the 0 signifying cyclicality -- the way things keep happening, the stable time loops we see so many of in Homestuck.

0Zero by its very nature represents the aspect of Void, as it is the digit that represents the concept of nothingness, a placeholder to stand wherever no numerical value can be found. There is one canonical piece of evidence to support this association, in Aradia’s introduction page, where her typing quirk is described as a “pr0n0unced h0ll0wness t0 [her] w0rds”. As mentioned before, zero can also represent cyclical time, which is oddly appropriate for Aradia in manners I’m not quite sure of just yet.

(If you really want to unnerve yourself and overthink these things, feel free to picture Equius’ 100 quirk as juxtaposing Aradia (Time -- 10) and himself (Void -- 0). You’re welcome.)

1

If zero signifies the concept of nothing, one represents the concept of something. Every cardinal number that follows has its origins in 1, associating it strongly with God in the Abrahamic tradition and with the Monad in the Gnostic traditions. One is the Nitrams’ number, coming in between Aradia’s 0 and Sollux’s 2, and the noticeable lack of a 1 in Tavros’ typing quirk seems to hint at his lack of self-value and confidence, in contrast to its presence in the quirk of the more self-confident Rufioh Nitram.

As one of the digits in 10 and for reasons which will be brought up in a later essay, 1 can also represent linear time, and as the identity element of multiplication (any number multiplied by 1 remains the same), 1 may also represent Heart, the Aspect of a person’s soul and identity. One thus is also the number unofficially associated with the Striders, whether Dave (1 as Time, and as Godhead), Dirk (1 as Heart), or even Davepetasprite^2 (both). Feel free to make “we are number one” jokes at your discretion.

Mostly I’m sad that the SU theorypost I wrote has the most notes of any original post I created. Perhaps this is testament to how far into obscurity Homestuck has fallen, and granted there was a recent Stevenbomb so there was more hype than usual, but still. I am saddened. Then again I really haven’t done much Homestuck blogging so that’s all on me -- time to get down to business!

Fortunately for all you Steven Universe watchers out there, I intend to give no spoilers away concerning any of the Diamonds, so kindly reserve your outrage for other things.

So far, from what I am aware, there has not been a single speaking appearance or even a full appearance (silhouettes and flashbacks do not count) of White Diamond, which after five seasons of SU is probably a great big honking anomaly. For comparison, ATLA revealed Fire Lord Ozai’s face by its third season, and Homestuck revealed the full appearance of Lord English about a year or so after his first mention in-comic. So what gives?

While I do not pretend to claim truth to my guesses, I do enjoy making harebrained hypotheses so please bear with me on this one.

What if White Diamond is dying?