Homestuck Made This World

i've listened to this one!

i hate every time they feel the need to clarify that materialism is the only cogent philosophy and it's very important to acknowledge that idealist ideas are dumb and false before you engage with them. like i don't disagree but also fuck man what sort of brutal human philosophy dogfighting ring do they lock you inside before you earn a degree related to it? why do i care about this, who hurt you

i also came away from the "i am caliborn" thing confused and annoyed, which, like everything caliborn ever did, was the point, of course, but it didn't feel like the tremendous revelation i was expected to think of it as. i was more annoyed by that than anything homestuck ever did to me besides openbound

those... are my ONLY significant gripes with Homestuck Made This World. it is really fucking good analysis of Homestuck from front to back, both as a singular work and a work in conversation with the times it came from, the works it drew inspiration from, and its identity as a living work now that that stage of its life is concluded. it is maybe vital context for all of Homestuck, including all the post-canon stuff from afterwards and anything else that sprang from its loins. these two know EXACTLY what the hell they're talking about, and it was good enough for me to bear the insufferable materialism conversation every goddamn episode and still come away incredibly appreciative of the podcast. shit i should watch it again

I listened to a couple episodes and really enjoyed them, but then someone told me that they repeat the misconception that Porrim is a spoof on the concept of meninism, so I have decided to "cancel" these villains forthright

I think they run into a problem where they mostly want to contextualise homestuck but have a series format that works better for a close reading rather than a retrospective of the comic's place in culture. Pretty good all in all. I like Shelved by Genre, which is kind of a follow up series about fiction.

i honestly can't in good faith reccomend this podcast without several caveats, because i think the historical context bits are very cool and taught me a lot i didn't know, but a lot of their analysis is... heavily flawed at best, especially in the second half. they seemed to go at the comic with a pre concieved idea of what its supposed to be, and seem to disregard any idea that doesnt fit that mold. like they seem very insistent on claiming that homestuck as a text and hussie as a creator hates the people who read homestuck, because "callie is a costume lord english wears", which i feel is... bad reading

also seeing them go at all my favorite parts and say "this sucks actually" was very unfun. and the entire epilogues episode left a bad taste in my mouth with how they talk about it.

if you want good homestuck podcasting, just go listen to pgenpod honestly.

okay actually i also remember disliking all that stuff about this podcast too. maybe that's why i remember the "i am caliborn" thing annoyed me so much. i'd still probably recommend it, but going back and really rethinking my experience listening to it, i recommend going through it with a critical ear. and maybe have someone or somewhere you can voice your disagreements with their analysis to because god knows i had that

Seconding lumas clarification from 8 hours ago. I had fun listening to it, and it was my go to 'play this while on a walk' podcast for some time, but I can't say that I agree with everything they said (esp condensing the epilogues down to JUST one episode, I wasnt a big fan of postcanon when I first heard the episode and even at the time that felt like a massive disservice to the entire piece) but I would say if you werent there for the heyday of the fandom you should absolutely check it out.

I think it's awesome that they recommended bthd, but uh, I can't say I recommend the podcast. As a survivor, I was very hurt that they called my favorite character a "spiritual rapist" and condemned him for watching "violent pornography" and implied he was grooming Nepeta. I'm not defending the robot heart incident, but "spiritual rape" is a Mormon term used to describe "deviant" sexual desire. Even if they didn't mean it that way, it's gross to say this about Equius, especially as he's so thoroughly steeped in "deviant" queer culture. Equius is a 13-year-old virgin. He is not a groomer. He is not a rapist. I know one of the authors is bisexual, but I still think it's on them to be careful about how they describe queer characters. I'd be fine with them accusing Equius of sexual harassment vis a vis Karkat or Aradia. I agree he can be a bit of a creep. But he's my creep, ok??? Don't use the same words that violent bigots hurl at queer people to describe a literal child. It's not too much to ask.

Oh, and THEN they proceeded to paper over and downplay the Gamzee's abuse of Terezi. They said "this is just two characters fighting - ANYWAYS BACK TO KARKAT" ugh

UGH.

Can you explain your reasoning that Equius is "steeped in ... queer culture"? Like, beyond being a furry? His fascination with strength and the male body is homoerotic, sure, but it's directly tied up in hegemonic patriarchy and male supremacy, which doesn't seem particularly "deviant" to me

Thank you all for your reservations, there's very solid points (some of them echoing personal thoughts).

Personally I only partially agree with the analysis of Homestuck Made this World regarding some things, I was - similarly to Kitthrin - very disappointed that Ranged Touch did only ONE episode on the Epilogues, and I don't understand why they never did a complete Wizardy Herbert episode (to me, it could have advantageously replaced the Little Monsters, Saw or Detective Pony episodes).

Another reservation I have is how tertiary the show makes Tumblr and the MSPA Forums in its historical recontextualization. At least Michael repeatingly indicates that he's mostly from the "troll culture" of the time, the Something Awful kind of community, but the audience has to take a step back on a regular basis and to understand we're 90% seeing the depiction of the past trajectory of the work and franchise via troll culture.

However, ultimately, regarding all kinds of human creations - up to and including analyses of cultural products -, what I'm looking for first and foremost is INTENSE, IN-DEPTH EXPERIENCES, with bold perspectives and a lot of energetic, opinionated cross-sections aspects. The fact I may disagree with some positions or conclusions, or that I may even be angry at some elements, is, in such a perspective, completely secondary. That's why I like the podcast so much, it gives me exactly what I'm looking for.

This is also the show that convinced me to read Wizardy Herbert in the first place, and for that I feel a lot of gratitude.

I must also mention, regarding Ranged Touch's other podcasts, that Just King Things is absolutely EXCELLENT, and that, once again, the Patreon bonusodes for it are peak! :)

I remember checking out ranged touches fallout podcasts, though they didnt stick with me. I never got them on my podcasting website and only on youtube, and Id much rather be listening to other things so I just....... Listened to that other stuff.

the pictures on equius's wall (many of which are by kurt logan) are lifted directly from a community of mlm furries who draw masculine men being dominated by other masculine men. almost all of the art on his walls is gay, depicting men being sexually dominated by other men. the while some men who are into hyper masc furry porn are doing it as a heterosexual fantasy, that is not the kind of art that hussie is depicting. it is all explicitly gay. if you want to understand equius, you have to read hussie's fine art reviews. also, one of equius's first conversations is him begging for gamzee to dominate him. his last act is him gleefully acquiescing (heh) to that same man.

i mostly liked what i heard from homestuck made this world, but ended up stopping around their reading of act 5 act 1 since it's just so long for what i was getting out of it. the format idea of having one guy who's read the comic and one guy who hasn't is cute but... also makes a lot of the actual analysis pretty weak, imo. i do like the focus on contemporary fandom history and stuff, but the baked-in focus on the serialized experience makes a lot of the actual comic analysis a lot weaker because homestuck is so tied together and in conversation with itself for its entire run that any analysis made partway through is really shaky (which you'd think would be obvious since that's how most media works but yknow). the equius/aradia heart scene mentioned earlier actually was the specific moment i stopped listening, just since their very moralizing "this is BAD because it depicts RAPE" take on it is such a perfect example? like taking that scene as an outright endorsement of equius is the opinion you can only have when you're right there in the moment and don't know that those two never go anywhere and equius is also kind of a scumbag and even part of lord english. maybe hearing their takes develop is part of the appeal and i just didn't get that far?

it's not a terrible podcast though, really the only reason it frustrated me the way it did was because even the full-length, academically minded, somewhat professional discussions of the comic are wrapped up in The Serialized Experience. like dang can ANYONE take this comic as just a piece of art instead of a time capsule designed to be read over seven years?

@bluebootyraider I get all of this, which is why I acknowledge that the art is homoerotic in nature - but Equius allowing himself to be dominated by the man at the top of his culture's social hierarchy is not deviance, it's hegemony, and the same kind of hegemony he himself enforces by trying to assert dominant control over the women in his life. Considering the story ultimately places Equius among the constituent parts of Lord English and Doc Scratch, surely if we're really to believe that Equius is solely and plainly a celebration of homosexual affection, it is the comic itself - rather than the HMTW commentators - drawing an implicitly homophobic bow between that and his manipulative tendencies?

@Andria Yeah that matches with what I've heard, which is really disappointing. I think taking a nuanced critical eye to the way homestuck handles sensitive topics and the varying ways that changed could be really good but not if they're operating from a place of enough media illiteracy/bad faith/whatever to say that

@ the Equicourse: yeah, covering Equius' room in gay musclefur porn is not being done to invoke those sexual dynamics in a positive or neutral way. Whether that's in the shockvalue "GAY FURRY DEGENERATES" way it probably started as, or the more nuanced exploration of how gay male sexuality is conditionally integrated into male hegemony it eventually became, I don't think the hmtw guys are wrong to make that connection

And honestly to read a kind of intimate/sexual violence in Equius' action regarding the mechanical heart isn't a bad take either. What he does is concretely to try to implant romantic feelings in Aradia without her consent. It's a very "love potion" scene, it's a completely unacceptable and deshumanizing action. There's context to it, yeah. He's a kid, yeah. He comes from an incredibly ultraviolent and toxic culture, yeah. But the action itself is a form of intimate violence.

The interesting thing is that unlike most of traditional "love potion" stories, the narration here seems from the start VERY AWARE of the fact what Equius does is wrong. In addition to demonstrating it in the scene - Aradia makes no mistake, she correctly reads that as a direct attack on her agency, and reacts appropriately -, it's further conveyed later in some of the conversations, including one where she regrets kissing Equius after this moment. There's a critical eye on this one scene.

IMO Ranged Touch talks about the matter quite reasonably.

Andria:

but the baked-in focus on the serialized experience makes a lot of the actual comic analysis a lot weaker because homestuck is so tied together and in conversation with itself for its entire run that any analysis made partway through is really shaky

The reverse is true as well.

BOTH serialized and holistic readings of Homestuck are flawed, because the serialized approach fails to take into account the entire work and the holistic approach fails to take into account that the webcomic was written, illustrated and programmed over seven years, seven years during which the world evolved, Hussie evolved, the readership evolved.

Now, in defence of serialized analysis... It will always be an important angle to at least consider because unlike a lot of pop culture stories, Homestuck was during his early years produced and updated day after day, without a general written plan. It bloomed at the very rhythm it updated. As Hussie wrote in one of their Formspring, "What you get on the site is what I'm making, that's it" (paraphrasing from memory).

There's a kind of performance to it. They worked without a safety net. For years, they just kept advancing, with only a rough idea of where they were going. They kept finding new concepts and adding them to the story and worldbuilding, and rushed ahead without a lot of visibility.

If I'm not mistaken, Hussie kept working this way until the Gigapause started in Fall 2013.

It was part of the experiment, part of the performance.

So the serialized reading doesn't simply make one closer to the 2009-2016 update culture. It makes one closer to the craft itself, the rhythm at which Homestuck was developed.

The "ideal" Homestuck podcast would probably start with a serialized analysis and then dedicate many episodes to examine in-depth the work as a whole. A possible third angle would be to look at Homestuck character by character, theme by theme, subtext by subtext.

fuck, I didn't know they implied there was anything untoward going on with Equis. How could they

@Oasis that's fair! i guess my hangup is just how much knowledge of homestuck's real, serialized writing process should affect analysis of it as a completed work. like, going back to the equius thing (which i could've worded better if i thought more whoops), their serial analysis results in the idea that equius is rewarded in that scene since aradia kisses him at the end, with the takeaway then being that it's a bad and irresponsible scene. the thing is, not even that long after where that episode cuts off, it becomes clear that equius ultimately WASN'T rewarded for it, either personally or narratively (especially in the long-term). hussie might not have known how either of those things would turn out while they were writing, but what impact should that have on current-day analysis, when we DO know how things turn out? knowing how homestuck was written and perceived at the time is definitely important to understanding why it is the way it is, i just think it's silly to analyze scenes without factoring in how they're followed up on in the story at all, and it led to some frustrating moments on that podcast.

I have to agree, treating homestuck like it was purely made of the fly is an incorrect to view the process of writing a serialized work. When you write a story even if you don't have a written plan you are still keeping track of plots threads and the ideas you will want to explore further in your head. Hussie says as much in his formspring, she had a plan for homestuck that primarily existed in her head. I also want to specify that in the formspring posts Hussie talks at length about the serial vs archival reading and bassicly says homestuck isn't "designed with being read serially, its designed for both". I just think its odd to put such an emphasis on homestuck being produced serially as a big important thing that needs to be taken into account when like, plenty of tv shows that release serially aren't viewed under nearly the same level of scrutiny as homestuck is in regards to the effects serialization has on them. By the start of act 6 it is pretty obvious Hussie had the rest of the story decently planned out, Aranea even alludes to the retcon or such power to ignore doomed timelines to revive Vriska specifically (very vaguely) in act 6 intermission 2 to terezi. Terezis character arc was planned out that long ago. I also want to note Calliope explains the ending to Jane in the very first conversation we see of them.

There was a bit on the show where Cameron brought up the idea that Lord English could represent a Lacanian conception of language only to dismiss the idea (either out of disbelief or disinterest), and Michael, despite elsewhere flexing his psychoanalytic chops, offered no protest whatsoever. I doubt many people would find themselves irked by such a niche bit, but as luck would have it I'd written an essay on the exact topic being dismissed, so. I found myself irked.

That said, however much I might take issue with particulars of their readings, it's not like anyone else is offering such a sweeping overview of reader-responses to the story-as-event, to the story as an unrepeatable performance. It's invaluable historical work, even if I feel the corner of my mouth twitching 4-5 times an episode

it's been a long time since i listened to HSMTW so i don't have much to say. i remember liking it very much when i did listen to it! actually, i once drove down to visit some online friends (including a poster in this very thread!) and forced my non-homestuck buddy to listen to it with me. i feel bad about that in hindsight lol--i wanted him to understand what my online friends would be like.

anyways, i liked all the outside context they brought into HS. stuff i wouldn't have heard of in a million years (i'll read the interface effect eventually). anyways, here is some podcast fanart i drew back in 2022: