so... are we going to talk about deltrius? TW AT TOP OF POST + UPD8 SPOILERS

GOD THANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT. HOLY FUCK

You're so right, goddamn

The thing Rose is saying she's repulsed by is the contest, not the species she created. She's having doubts about doing this with Dirk.

Yep, it all comes back to Dirk's slimy treatment of Rose.

TW for this comment as well.

Also I want to add that she explicitly uses the wording

"Rose: For all my temporary discomfort with the prospect of settling down on Deltritus and starting what could very loosely be considered a family with you"

She literally fucking spells it out "a family with you" . She is letting Dirk treat her like this explicitly because she still believes in the "higher purpose" of "preserving canon". Dirk's manipulation of her in meat runs so god damn deep that she would literally do anything to continue their goal, including the metaphorical implications this post provides. Dirk isolated her from everyone else, made her feel special, told her she was the only one who could understand him, he convinces Kanaya that he will better for Rose then she could ever be as a wife (the entirety of Meat 37 my god), its all very much meant to parallel actual parental grooming (especially with the content warning in the epilogues that everyone chooses to ignore).

one of the things i think about the most in the first run of Homestuck^2 is the command Rose: Render yourself more symbolically this instant. (/story/126) aradia gets a "render yourself more symbolically" command, but the additional phrasing of "this instant" echoes a command given to the handmaid by doc scratch. it's the same. (/homestuck/4039)

@victoria The candy post script has an entire bit about Rosebot telling herself "she is nobodies maid" while actively doing housewife things like ironing Dirk's clothes and cleaning up after Terezi. Which imo say's a lot about how Rose wants to say she has more control over her circumstances then she actually does.

Fantastic analysis, I definitely agree with Crystalflare's point about Rose trying to maintain the appearance that she is still in control and placing herself in this situation. I hope things get easier for her when the rest of the Meat Crew appears, but she's got a long way to go.

I've definitely also seen some analyses on Tumblr of the nymphs and satyrs and the weird sexual themes that accompany them. They're very gendered and both have stuff going on with what their species names reference. I don't feel like I entirely know how they factor into the dynamic, but they definitely fit into Deltritus's abuse situation. Unfortunately, I think we're going to see a lot of the Deltritans copy or reflect this behavior. I hope the kids who play the game get the resources to understand what's happened on Deltritus and Earth C and like... repeat less of it, yknow? I think the Omega Kids, at least, feel pretty frustrated with their parent's craziness. They've had a lot more direct interactions and involvement than the Delta Kids, though.

Agree with all of this. I also think it's interesting how Terezi has ended up being the caretaker for presumably both species/children. Like with Ly'lac there are very obvious instances of Terezi's guidance with the command terminal. Unclear if they are pre-set commands or if she's actively messaging them? But it's also clear that this isn't what she wants at all and is going along with it because she feels like she has no better options, but at the same time feels an obligation to care about these kids. Also possibly exploiting Terezi's alien issues with parental figures (both her lusus and Redglare) though it's hard to tell how much he actually knows about Terezi.

The doc scratch parallels with dirk are also so important?? I don't know if dirk actually knows about doc scratch or what he did to alternia but he is pretty much playing that same role with deltrius. Even the moon. With the dumb anime glasses.

@cubecrow -

aaaaarrrghh HOW did I miss the "deeply sketchy and abusive guy manipulating things from the moon" imagery?

Some thoughts on nymphs and their animal/alien references:

I remember reading that the chestburster scene in "Alien" was the writers deliberately playing on the idea of "male pregnancy as body horror". Fortunately for my stomach, I doubt nymphs are parasitoids - the name evokes the young of non-holometabolous insects such as dragonflies, crickets or mayflies, which don't have maggot-like larvae. Instead, they're like fully-formed insects with no wings or genitals, which they gain when they shed their skins for the last time. ("The grand metamorphisis awaits....") Many insect nypmhs are active underwater predators.

Although.... Hymenoptera (the wasps, bees, ants and sawflies) are holometabolous insects that keep evolving the same two unusual lifestyles over and over again. Some of them are hyper-social beings with a breeding Queen: a Sisterhood of sterile Workers; and a brief flowering of horny, disposable male Drones. Others get really, really into the parasitoid thing, like the ichneumon wasps that inspired "Alien". There are hyperparasitoids that lay their eggs inside the eggs of other wasps that are already inside very unfortunate caterpillars and now I'm just nerding about insects, sorry, I got distracted. Some suggestive echoes of AA's little speech there, though.

The jaw thing in "Alien" is based on eels, which are freaky damn fish. Eel shoots out of a hole to grab you, then pharangeal jaws shoot out of the eel to grab you even faster. Dragonflies (and dragonfly nymphs) can do a similar trick: they basically have a prehensile upper lip that can shoot out and grab things. I read a science fiction novel once where somebody got their head yoinked off by a humanoid dragonfly descendant - the image kind of stuck with me.

Cephalopods: oops, more disturbing parenthood imagery there. Despite their formidable brains, squid, octopus and cuttlefish are short-lived. They mate once, then it's game over. The males skulk off to die in a hole somewhere; the females stop eating and guard the eggs whilst slowly starving to death. Maybe the entire Catacomplex is full of starving mother nymphs. There's a cheery thought.