#quadrant vacillation

dirkjohn day 16…….. TROLLSTUCK!!!

Has anyone done Trickster Tavros with the Peter Pan Peanut butter theme yet? Well if not, I have.

Pepper Jam Eridan!!! There's more than one way to make PB&J!!! Eridan gave me so much grief when coloring him in...

@vermocci + previous post

I've been observing that recently a lot of fans tend to say that shipping Karkat with quadrants in mind is going against his character cause the way he feels romantic emotions are much more human. I wanna explain why it bothers a bit:

I disagree A LOT with the "human" part because emotions and relationships in GENERAL is already very human (with that argument, this can apply to ALL the trolls to me, if it's about the monogamy what does that say about folks who are polyamorous? Idk it just feels like a really bad explanation). There's just a cultural difference that I feel like majority of the fandom doesn't really want to explore and when it comes to homestuck and the fact that they're aliens kind of makes this feel "ridiculous" to me (I feel that sounds a bit mean so I apologize). People also say things like "Why would you WANT them to do quadrants, its a result of an oppressive society." if you try to argue against this concept but like,,, so is marriage and just generally how relationships are pushed onto society is already a VERY similar concept. A lot of this fandom forgets human society is very oppressive already, not just class wise but also in many other ways (ableism, racism, sexism & classism /and many other -isms/ are historically intertwined and you cant really talk about classism as a whole without talking about the many other things that WILL affect your class because of the society we ALREADY live in).

I feel that people tend to ignore a lot of the toxic traits that Karkat has because the fandom has basically woobified him to the point they view these traits as cute quirks. One of those traits are his controlling and somewhat obsessive feelings for Terezi. They view his feelings of "wanting Terezi in every quadrant" as him being explicitely more human than the other trolls. I actually don't MIND the concept but the way I've seen the majority go about it feels like an over simplification of Karkat's emotions and a glorification of human society, i guess that in itself bothers me.

A lot of those aspects regarding Terezi are INCREDIBLY toxic too. Karkat, throughout that whole arc, was basically objectifying Terezi. He tried to get Dave to "share" Terezi with him and even tried to make a chart (This is where the dick ouija happened. Karkat was body slammed right after because he started throwing a tantrum and got tangled in Dave's cape lol)

I also keep in mind that Karkat's 13-15 during these times but even than. If you saw a 13-15 year old boy getting on the way Karkat was in real life, i feel that would be a very scary and weird experience especially for the person that being pined for.

Now that I think about it, I feel like if it was any other character doing this, the fandom would def call them an incel 😭

To me, Karkat's love for her was very much glorified infatuation with obsessive attributes. It doesn't help that the comic only writes it all as a joke so I don't think the fandom really can see past all the barriers that the comic gives you. Especially with it uplifting his good attributes. (And not taking the bad ones seriously.)

I do think Karkat is a very genuine and observant individual but he's also incredibly selfish in a lot of bad ways and I think the fandom really tries to look past that. Karkat saw so much of Terezi's good qualities and put her on such a high pedestal he was only seeing a version of Terezi that was only just good, which just isn't true to her character. (I love Terezi but just like most of the characters she isn't perfect.)

I DO think Karkat does feel love in non-traditional ways but that can easily be seen as him being a hopeless romantic (He's obsessed with romcoms and I feel like some of us MUST have known SOMEBODY who was such a hopeless romantic that their beliefs about relationships were honestly incredibly unrealistic and possibly delusional and I feel like we can easily see that Karkat is just a troll equivalent to that to some degree). I don't think Karkat SPECIFICALLY is delusional but his expectations are very unrealistic, especially for Terezi. He also just.... loves quads, he loves analyzing and talking about them AND labeling certain behaviors as something that could be quad pining. So that also makes the whole "Karkat wouldn't do quads." kind of ridiculous to me. (I say this as someone who's aromantic but LOVES analyzing, writing, and exploring romantic relationships and feelings. I'm DEFINITELY not saying Karkat CAN'T realize quads aren't for him and adopt a more human way of going about relationships and still be into quads. It just feels a bit ridiculous to say "you don't get his character if you think he would do quads").

I also feel that a lot of the things people point out as "more human" can also be the already known taboos in troll culture. Quadrant Vacilliation is already a known taboo that's even written in books and movies that Karkat is obsessed with. Karkat being polyquad/polyamorous is also something that seems possible (like, having more than one person in one quad. I feel like that can also easily make sense). There's a lot of ways to view Karkat's romantic orientation and I don't think there's "one right way" to view it. So I am a bit bothered by the "Karkat wouldn't do quads, his emotions are way more human for that oppressive relationship system formed by troll society." It feels disingenuous, especially when they're saying it's the only right way to see him.

Emotions are complicated so when analyzing them you're not going to get just one result.

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Also, hopefully this didn't come off as too condescending or judgemental. I DO think understanding Karkat's journey with his romantic orientation CAN be about moving towards monogamy and it's a COMPLETELY valid understanding of his character. I just don't like the points that are made in the majority of the explanations given or how folks treat it like the only good truthful way to look at that aspect of Karkat's character cause they generally feel they lack a lot of nuance or they just feel disingenuous/go about it very obtusely. It doesn't help that a lot of the things just don't ring true to life in my eyes.

I mostly added images and gifs because blocks of just text gets really hard to read for so I like putting pictures for convenience for not only me but others. So some of them don't necessarily align with the paragraph before or after but I tried to at least make it seem that way 🙏🏾

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Anyways enjoy your DaveKat syddggdgd

flag id: two flags with 5 stripes, with the third being twice the size of the rest. the right flag's stripes are medium dark red, soft red, a vertical gradient from pale red to dove grey, dark silver, and purple-black. the left flag's stripes are purple-black, dark silver, a vertical gradient from dove grey to pale red, soft red, and medium dark red. end id.

banner id: a 1600x200 teal banner with the words ‘please read my dni before interacting. those on my / dni may still use my terms, so do not recoin them.’ in large white text in the center. the text takes up two lines, split at the slash. end id.

red-to-black | black-to-red

general flags for (homestuck) quadrant vacillation for anon!

colors are from en8y's alloflushedrom, allopalerom, allopitchrom, and alloashenrom flags, with a gradient stripe in the middle to represent the change from one quadrant to another.

i've also queued flags for all possible two-quadrant vacillations!

also, either flag can be used for vacillation in general, but they can also represent red quadrant to black quadrant vacillation and black quadrant to red quadrant vacillation respectively!

tags: @radiomogai, @liom-archive, @macchiane, @genderstarbucks, @orientation-archive

tags cont: @maggore, @dragonpride17, @en8y