Episode 32: Je Suis Les8ifins

Cro, Kate and Sis discuss Meenah and Aranea. Subjects include the Fallout series, Meenah and Jane as heiresses, Beforan society, Karkalicious, Aranea’s poetic irrelevance, roleplay, and more.
Listen to this episode at https://perfectlygenericpodcast.com/updates/episodes/32
== Transcript ==
Kate: The Perfectly Generic Podcast contains spoilers, occasional adult language, and Vriska. You've been warned. Thank you to our incredibly generous Crockertier supporters on Patreon for making this show possible, with their support per episode: [names]. Goomy also provided the music for this episode.
[intro]
Sis: [mumbling]
Kate: That's not silence.
Sis: [quietly laughs]
Kate: Good, you passed the test, alright. Welcome to the Perfectly Generic Podcast. It's a show about Homestuck, but what I'm really thinking about right now is that I wish that you could take Fallout 4's gameplay and staple it to New Vegas' writing. Basically, what I'm saying is is that Bethesda should outsource the writing of all of their games forever, because they just can't do it right. And the reason why this is related to Homestuck is because it made me think about the funniest speculation on V from Hiveswap Friendsim's, like, true identity that I've ever seen which was that V is Michael Kirkbride who wrote Morrowind. 'Cause it's just fucking hilarious to imagine like, the guy who wrote the Elder Scrolls lore like takin' a break to go describe clown armpit. [laughs]
Cro: [laughs]
Sis: [laughing] I'm sorry, I've been trying to restrict my
Kate [laughing]
Sis: I've been trying to — mic was off the entire time, thanks.
Kate: I'm not even thinking about Homestuck at this point. This is where my brain is at.
Sis: Okay, well now let's talk about Fallout 4 and let's get out that Bioware article on Kotaku since we're no longer talking about Homestuck.
Kate: Yeah, that shit — look, I mean that's so common in the games industry. Like, basically every major video game company is fucking dysfunctional. It turns out making video games is really hard, which I guess you could tell by looking at the development process of Hiveswap. So, digression about Hiveswap and Bethesda over, this is part two of our dancestors episode about Meenah and Aranea. Joining us today is returning guest Cro, how ya doin' Cro?
Cro: I'm doin' alright. Kinda lazy today, but — get this through! [laughs]
Kate: Yeah. And new to the show, Sis, who's @stackslip on Twitter. Sis, how ya doin'?
Sis: I'm doing fine, I'm doing my best.
Kate: Uh-huh.
Sis: It's nighttime here.
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: Yeah, hi everyone.
Kate: Yeah, hi! Thanks for the — it's nighttime, how's the weather? Since that's what we talk about now.
Sis: Hey, listen, it's springtime now, everything's getting a lot better. I dunno what the weather's like on the east coast or west coast or wherever Americans are. Okay I'm gonna stop talking now. Okay.
Kate: [laughs] Wherever Americans are. Americans are in a lot of places, actually. It's seventy degrees and sunny here in Los Angeles and I fucking hate it. I'm so tired of perfect weather. I cannot wait to leave this fucking... purgatory city! [laughs]
Cro: [laughs] The weather over here is like, okay — it was very rainy yesterday, and I had to drive through it and watch all the pollen melt into...
Kate: God the pollen, the east coast pollen. I don't miss that. So Sis, whenever somebody joins us on the show for the first time, I like to ask the question: how did this whole thing start for you? What's your story, your history of engagement with Homestuck? So when did it start for you?
Sis: Okay so basically, I made a Tumblr back in I think 2010? Yes, I'm pretty much an oldie up in here. And I think from 2011 on I started seeing Homestuck everywhere and I had no idea what that was, and to be honest I had no interest in what it was so I blacklisted it. I just like, plain out blacklisted everything to do with Homestuck because every time I saw anything about it I was like, what are these small sprites? Why is everybody so excited about this, it looks boring, it looks kind of weird. So, basically, fast forward to 2017. I was listening to The Adventure Zone: Balance, and I really really enjoyed it. And I was talking about it with a friend of mine, who told me oh you know, like TAZ is a bit Homestuck adjacent, y'know — such as a lesbian wedding at the end. Suddenly I was like ooh, I'm interested, actually! I'm into this! So, basically in October, out of literally nowhere, I don't remember I think I was slightly bored but I started reading, and then I couldn't stop. And what's very funny is that I told like, a friend on my Twitter, and suddenly all my friends were like oh my goodness, you're reading Homestuck, oh gosh I was so into it. That's when I realized that I was — basically all my entourage was closeted Homestuck the entire time. And then reading Homestuck, I realized that this was basically the Tumblr humor, you know that taste in fiction, in fanfiction, in fan content, Tumblr humor — all that was directly derived from Homestuck, so basically I was a Homestuck before ever reading Homestuck. Anyway that's it.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: [laughs] That's a very good way to put it. Like, whether or not you read Homestuck, you've been influenced by Homestuck. It's as a great philosopher once said: you can't fight the Homestuck.
Sis: Oh no, I still haven't watched that video. I refuse to watch it. It took me months before listening to Karkalicious, because I did not want to know what that was. At all.
Kate: Well, that was your loss.
Sis: [laughs] Yeah, well, listen, I kind of tried to still forget that it exists, but y'know, unfortunately Karkalicieux still exists in my head.
Kate: The way that you just pronounced that. I just —
Sis: It's the French way! Yeah.
Kate: [laughs] It was so perfect! Alright —
Sis: Je suis Karkalicieux.
[All cackling]
Sis: That's not me, that's @xeIphaar on Twitter started that. Okay, go ahead. Credit where it's due.
Kate: So I'm restoring an old segment back to this show that I did last year when there was Homestuck content coming out, which is This Week In Homestuck. So first off, this last week, Snowbound Blood Volume 2 came out. That's Vast Error's visual novel project that I'm directing. Volume 2 featured Sirage, Rypite, and it's written by Pip and Alienoid with music by pragmaticNihilist and art by Xamag and background art by a number of individuals who are all very talented. [laughs]
Sis: It was so good.
Kate I'm glad that you liked it. I'm glad that people enjoyed this disaster couple.
Sis: They're iconic.
Kate: Yeah, I was debating whether I was aloud to say on this podcast that Rypite, like, has "gets pegged" energy? I forget if I have ever said that on this show before.
Sis: Look, it's kinda obvious, like have you seen them? This boy's a bottom. There's no other way of putting it. And she's a top.
Kate: Yeah.
Sis: 'Cause, we can go into, we can dive into that, but let's keep it safe for work, there are kids listening.
Kate: Yeah, that's true. And then there's also been a great deal of ominous epilogue teasing on the timeline, coming from vfromhomestuck in particular who's doing a daily countdown and we're at what, it's four days until 4/13 now. So I wanna like, pick you guys' brain, like what do you want to happen on 4/13, what do you think is going to happen on 4/13? Cro, you first.
Cro: On 4/13, I want relevance to trolls that I actually care about. Not that I don't care about particular trolls, it's just I have favoritism toward some that haven't had the spotlight for a while.
Kate: [laughs] I can imagine who those trolls are.
Cro: Oh yeah.
Kate: Just based on the fact that you've been on two dancestor episodes now. [laughs]
Cro: I might be a little predictable.
Kate: Uh-huh. [laughs]
Cro: A little biased.
Sis: A little biased!
Kate: Sis, what are your hopes and dreams for 4/13?
Sis: I want Jade Harley to be happy and loved.
Kate: Uh-huh.
Sis: And I want Terezi to be happy and loved, and reunited with her girlfriend and the love of her life. And I want, yeah, no, just — I have no idea what's coming on, but I'm actually quite excited for whatever it is. It will be my first update ever, if it is an update, so we'll see how it goes.
Kate: Mhmm. See I count the Friendsims as updates. I think that the Friendsims counted.
Sis: Okay. Yeah, you're right. You're right, they do count as updates. This will be my first 
Homestuck website update.
[music begins playing]
Kate: Mhmm. And on that day, Homestuck will redirect to fortnite.com, for the Homestuck-themed battle royale event of the century. [laughs]
[music ends]
Sis: Vriska is there.
Kate: Vriska is there.
Sis: Vriska in-character.
Kate: [laughs] Put Vriska in Fortnite.
Sis: There's a Vriska skin! [laughs]
Cro: [laughs] Word.
Kate: [laughs] Alright, let's see. Now that we're like a solid, I don't actually know how far we are into the show because we had like, nine interruptions from poor connection quality and mic issues.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: But let's finally get to our subject. Let's talk about the most important dancestors that we didn't talk about last time: Meenah Peixes, the Thief of Life, and Aranea Serket, the Sylph of Light. And let's start with Meenah. How do you sum up Meenah?
Sis: Well, Cro, go ahead.
Cro: She's anti-Feferi.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: That's very clear. She's anti-Feferi, she's teenage Condesce, like she definitely is one of the more important dancestors that actually have affected the main story.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Mhmm.
Cro: And she likes money, that's another thing. [laughs]
Kate: [laughs] As the author insert character's ghost said in Openbound part three, "Meenah's kinda throwing a bone to the pisces people who got stuck with Feferi. Feferi didn't really do anything and then she died. Meenah is a cool sassy punk who has more important stuff to do than Feferi ever did. You just spent like the last three hours playing through these games from her POV so obviously you know that. You're probably sick of fish puns by now. After a while you start running out of fish puns. You can overdo it with fish puns, much like you can overfish the ocean. You start literally running out of fucking fish. Be careful out there. Meenah discovered that raising an army is hard. But you know what's really hard? What's really hard is making games. Games disguise the effort that go into making them like probably few other crafts. In order to make a game that's even slightly better than mediocre, someone probably had to die in the process. Like building pyramids. Nobody actually died while making these games though, hence they were just okay."
Sis: [laughs] Unfortunately.
Kate: [laughs] Unfortunately nobody died while making Openbound. That we know of. That's exactly what you would say if you were trying to cover up the fact that somebody died making Openbound.
Cro: Oh yeah, probably.
Sis: No, all I'm saying is that as a Sylph of Light, I know shit. I know quite a lot.
Kate: Uh huh. And that's — how do you sum up Aranea? She knows quite a lot, hoo.
Sis: Oh yeah, she does. I sum her up as basically a natural storyteller who tries to insert herself as a protagonist.
Kate: Uh huh.
Sis: Whereas Meenah is — when I want to sum her up, I think very much of one of her last pages with Vriska, when like (Vriska) asks her to stay with her and Meenah tells her, look we're not meant to be together. I'm bad. I'm not a good person, basically.
Kate: Man, that was one of the better breakups in fiction at punching me right in the dick.
Cro: God.
Sis: Exactly. It was a lot.
Cro: I personally like to see Aranea and Meenah when Aranea basically breaks off contact to be Meenah's first breakup.
Kate: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, 'cause let's be clear about this. They're in love.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Yeah.
Kate: And neither of them can admit it.
Cro: It's so strong, and it's one of the saddest anime moments in Homestuck.
Kate: It is. When Meenah feels so betrayed that Aranea had a big grand master plan that didn't involve her.
Cro: Yeah, exactly.
Sis: Yeah. And Aranea — I'd say though that Aranea also in a way felt betrayed when she basically realized that Meenah was paying more attention to Vriska than to her.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: And that's one of the things that basically made her do whatever she did. Except Meenah did care about her, and Meenah was extremely sad at seeing her go, and was worried about seeing her leave.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: And I mean Meenah literally says, this is gonna end badly you're gonna doom the entire timeline, which y'know spoiler alert: she kinda did.
Kate: Yeah. [laughs]
Sis: So, yeah.
Kate: And so to me, Aranea represents, like, this subversion of the Vriska formula. She's, quote, nice Vriska, right? So all of the things that are immediately off-putting about Vriska are totally inverted by Aranea. So Vriska is this heavily villain-coded character, like first introduced in shadow, spider-themed, like given all of this menacing stuff — you learn all the bad stuff about Vriska first, but it turns out, she's a hero, right? Whereas with Aranea you learn all the good stuff about Aranea first, you see her being pleasant and sweet and friendly and informative. In fact, when Homestuck's such a reader-hostile experience, Aranea holding you, the reader's, hand and actually explaining shit is like, a sort of disarming comfort, right? It's very out of place. But then it turns out she's not a hero! She's a villain! She's the exact opposite of the Vriska formula, she's a hero-coded villain.
Cro: I was gonna say that the thing with Aranea that like, sticks out to me is —whether or not it was actually intentional — in my opinion she kinda falls into the whole dancestor formula of like, the dancestors mimicking some kind of exaggerated trait that isn't necessarily their true traits that fanon's made up, such as, you know, Meulin being the shipper girl, and Cronus being the flirtatious romantic, whereas Aranea to me, whether it was purposeful or not, she comes off to me as fanon Vriska, which is another way for saying the wrong interpretations of Vriska which would be essentially: evil bitch.
Kate: I completely disagree with that. And also I disagree with any take that, like, is founded on the idea that like, major plot points of Homestuck were accidental. [laughs]
Cro: Uh huh.
Kate: I pretty firmly disagree with that perspective.
Cro: Uh huh. That's completely fair.
Kate: Sis, what do you think.
Sis: Yeah, I tend to agree with Kate rather than Cro, because — how to put this — well first of all, Aranea is literally Mindfang?
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: So, that should have been a pretty heavy hint since the start. That, y'know, something was gonna happen? Aranea from the start, y'know, she says oh no, I just intervene in terms of wanting to help others, and wanting to be a good person, that's how she interacts with Jake, that's how she interacts with Terezi at first — until, of course, later. That's how she interacts with us the readers, as you were saying, she basically holds the reader's hand and explains shit to us. But behind that is a lingering somewhat jealousy, a lingering sort of development — from the start, maybe it was just me but from the start I sort of like developed a kind of... how do you call that in English again see that's the problem with being bilingual. I was kind of weary with her, in some sense. And maybe it was just instinct, but the fact that she was so perfectly bland? Homestuck does not — characters are never what they seem. And the fact that she was so present in the story, despite seeming pretty bland at first, was pretty much an indication to what was gonna happen next with her, that she was gonna subvert expectations for us. So yeah I was not surprised when she became evil. I was surprised by the outfit, but then I realized no you know what Serkets are extremely overdramatic, so you know of course you would have an outfit.
Kate: It's the Light player way.
Sis: Of course you're gonna be yourself in cosplay.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: She's a cosplayer.
Kate: Well, here's the thing is there's this roleplay aspect to Homestuck. So Vriska's worst elements were her trying to emulate Mindfang, her trying to slot herself into the role of Mindfang — and she's also like acting as the like, literal manic pixie dream girl figure, like a fairy. Like a Sylph of Light, like Aranea, who's extraordinarily fairy-coded. Like... you see this in so many ways, with characters acting out the role of their ancestors or guardians, what they think they would have wanted. And, y'know, it's most clear with things like Rose's, like, struggle with alcohol, or like Dave's, like, compulsion to heroism. And it's like the core weakness — that's like the core struggle for characters, is breaking out of the shadows of those that came before them. And Aranea instead looks at another version of herself and thinks, that's what I should be like. I should be like that. I shouldn't be the person that I've been to my friends. I should be a different, more menacing and more important figure. She's obsessed with relevance.
Sis: She is, and I mean — what's interesting is that she did play a relevant part, despite what she thinks. I mean, yes, Meenah's the one who's had the most effect on the plot, especially with her ending the dancestor session, however the one who gave her the info to save the other dancestors, or to kill them and thus save their souls, save them from nonexistence — that's Aranea.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: She's the one who found that information. So I don't think she was as doomed to irrelevance as she thought she was, and that's part of the tragedy of her character, I think.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Mhmm.
Sis: Yeah, she wanted to put herself in a role that wasn't suited for her, because she thought she was — if she wanted to be relevant, if she wanted to be interesting, if she wanted to be loved, in a way, as she was, she had to be a certain kind of person but in the end she isn't, and that really reminds me of Vriska as well, to be honest.
Kate: Mhmm. And it's funny because Meenah actively avoids relevance. Her entire life is about shrugging off that imperial legacy, and about trying to avoid the like, the destiny, quote unquote, that's in store for her. Cro, do you wanna talk about that a little bit?
Cro: In terms of Meenah and her whole fuckin' empress thing?
Kate: Yeah, her just fuckin' off.
Cro: Oh boy. Welp, let's see if I can recall. Yeah, I think according to what Aranea said, Meenah just kinda took the whole empress thing as being its own kind of slavery, and she was like fuck that and ran away to the moon. And that I think is where she found the game, decided to, y'know, do what happened, which was the whole dancestor session, and y'know things went on from there. But I guess the irony I would say would be from the fact that at least at first, she kind of admires some of the things that happen with her alternate self when she's an empress?
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: And I mean how could you not.
Cro: [laughs]
Kate: Yeah I mean have you guys seen the Condesce?
Cro: I mean, yeah — [laughs]
Sis: That's exactly — [laughs] Exactly. Yeah not gonna lie she was onto something. Okay maybe not the genocide part but, y'know, the Condesce is pretty cool and — I mean this podcast is safe for kids so I'm not gonna go into my detailed thoughts about the Condesce — suffice to say they are very very present. I think about the Condesce a lot.
Kate: [laughs] But also — and welcome to Kate Mitchell's Jane Crocker corner where I make everything about Jane Crocker somehow every time — this is another parallel between Meenah slash The Condesce and Jane. Because Jane is also in this heiress role, and she also brings about the game in that role, and also struggles with that definition of what it means to be the heiress that's imposed upon her.
Cro: Mhmm.
Sis: Yeah.
Kate: And Meenah and Jane are more similar characters than I think people give Jane credit for. 'Cause Jane is kind of a bitch. And Meenah is proudly a bitch.
Cro: Yeah, like I don't know how I only thought about it recently, but it does become a little bit more obvious when you consider that all life players are heiresses.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: It's a friend of mine — who doesn't want their name attached to this take, but I love the take — was like I've been thinking about all the life players, and I realized that they could be summed up with the simple phrase life's a bitch.
Cro: Oh. [laughs] I can get with that.
Kate [laughs] Yeah. And it's quite funny.
Sis: They're right.
Kate: Yeah, they're absolutely correct.
Sis: They're right and they should say it.
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: [laughs] They're right and they should say it.
Kate: Yeah. But they were like that's probably misogynistic and I was like maybe, but I'm allowed to say it. [laughs]
Sis: I don't think it is. I think it's entirely true. And I mean, I think it says a lot that, in the case of Meenah, she doesn't get along well with the other dancestors, at least in the session itself she pushes them to extremes. She pushes Damara to extremes, leading to Damara becoming what she is, but despite that at one point she actually has, if I remember correctly, she has a sort of breakdown on John talking about how she actually misses her friends? Because John basically offered her the ring of life, if I remember correctly.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: And she doesn't want to take it. Because she's fine being with her friends again. She's late, because they're all been here for now thousands and thousands of years but she doesn't want to be back in the spotlight! And she specifically says she wants to be with her friends, and interestingly enough, when we see her interact with others yeah she's often a bitch. And very often she's also friendly! More friendly than we give her credit for!
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: Meenah actually says like, when the ring is, like, in front of her, she says, "The point is, blue chump, I'm happy now. More than i was on my moon with my sweet gold statues an' shit. And more than that, I think if I gotta be alive again and have to go knocking over galaxies or whatever to make a bomb new fishqueen empire. But it's killin' me, blue schmuck! It's killin me to know you got that ring and knowin' I'll have to take it from ya some day. Augh, why? Why do you have to swim in here and present me with this codawful dilemma? Why do you have to be so lame and chumpy and such an obvious mark? Your dork ass face just screams waaaah gimme a fuckin wedgie and take my ring! But I don't wanna, but I think I gotta, cause I mean come on OBVIOUSLY its mine, just why!"
Cro: [laughs] I like that she never calls anyone by their actual name.
Kate: Yeah!
Sis: [gasp] She's right! I hadn't even thought about that. Cro, that's genius. That's genius, I hadn't realized that.
Cro: Yeah I forgot the exact line but I remember when she was talking to Dave, Dave says yeah my name's Dave and she just calls him something completely different it's like ah no, it's just a Meenah thing.
Kate: Yeah, and she calls Karkat Shouty McNubs. [laughs] This is something that Meenah has in common with Murrit!
Cro: Oh boy.
Sis: Oh god!
Kate: That's my government-mandated Murrit reference. Murrit never calls anybody by their name either.
Sis: Okay, now we're gonna have to have a Meenah appearance in Vast Error, in which she and Murrit just jam, and we just find out — would like each other? Would they hate each other?
Kate: They would like each other a lot! They'd get along very well, they're both very results-orientated individuals who are funny. I think game recognize game in that respect.
Sis: Yeah, and thieves, they're both thieves.
Kate: Yeah, they are both thieves. So let's talk about some class shit, actually. So Aranea is a sylph. How does she compare to the other sylphs, that being Kanaya, and — there's actually not another sylph.
Sis: [laughs]
Kate: How does she compare to Kanaya, and Kanaya's role as a Sylph?
Cro: Oh god. I'm, unfortunately, not much of a Kanaya expert.
Sis: I'm kinda the Sylph of Light, so I have thoughts about sylphs. I am not Aranea kin. Do not assign Aranea kin to me. I like Aranea, but I do not want to —
Kate: Too late.
Sis: God dangit. [laughs]
Kate: Assigned Aranea At Kate.
Sis: [laughs] AA... AAA... A3K? Okay.
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: Yeah I was trying to find the acronym. Already the thing they both have in common is that they meddle. That's literally — that's the word that's used for them again and again and again, and in fact, interestingly enough, Vriska does not like Kanaya's meddling. She calls her Fussyfangs, she always complains about the way Kanaya sort of like interacts with people, like "please leave us alone, stop putting your nose into that" and that's exactly what Aranea does. I mean she, first of all, one of the first times — when we learn her name is when she's talking to Terezi, and when she's getting all in Terezi's head.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: And she literally says, she wants to help Terezi. She's barely met the girl, and she's already like, y'know, here, we're gonna explore your biggest traumas. Tell me exactly what you wanted to say to my dancestor. The thing is, she's not good at it.
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: I don't think she is.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: She isn't! I mean, look at what she does to Terezi, she offers to give Terezi her eyes back and Terezi does it only when she's in a horrible position, when she's at the worst of her depression. And rather than basically saying hey you know, that's a pretty big decision for her to make, y'know, when she's that depressed, Aranea's like "Right! Okay, your vision is restored," and that's actually far worse than anything else. And then when Aranea actively meddles with the plot that's when everything goes to shit, so I'd say she isn't necessarily a good sylph — well no, no. Once again, an idea of her losing her potential, her being — the entire time somebody, something that she isn't necessarily, or isn't using very well, basically. Does that make sense?
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Yeah. Mmm, I mean, if anything, as sylphs, at some point both Kanaya and Aranea heal in relation to their aspects — but if anything, with Aranea, hers definitely backfires at least on the person that she's helping.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Mmm.
Kate: But in a way, Aranea does heal the plot by enabling the — like, Game Over has to happen for Homestuck to end the way it does.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: Like, Aranea has to do what she does. She's not doing it out of, like, temporal obligation, she's not doing it with foreknowledge of that, but her actions do end up creating sort of the ultimate healing power which is John's retcon ability.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: You're right. It's almost like a Greek tragedy of some sort, y'know, it was always gonna happen this way.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: The, y'know, the destiny, light, fortune, put that burden on her. And unfortunately she paid the price, because all the other dancestors survived in one version or another — well, y'know, they dead, but you get what I —
Kate: They dead survived, because that's a distinction that matters in Homestuck, god. [laughs]
Sis: Ghost alien, exactly.
Kate: Yeah.
Sis: But she doesn't. The Condesce kills her, and, y'know, kills her after having taken the ring from her. She came back to life only to die again. She's possibly the only character out of them who does not have a happy ending — a real not happy ending, basically. 'Cause, the others of course can have ambiguous ending, but her ending is unequivocally the worst one. She does not reappear as a dancestor even in the other realms. There aren't 50 version of her running around, she's gone.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: She's gone forever.
Cro: Is there actual canonical logic that states that she's gone forever though?
Kate: No, but as someone who's obsessed with being relevant to the story, not appearing again in the story in any capacity is the worst possible result. It's actually like um, it's like Damnatio Memoriae like, the punishment in the Roman empire where your entire record of your life is erased from history. Like your name is scratched from all official records, your image is removed from all portraits, like you are removed from history. That's what happens to Aranea for her hubris.
Cro: This is all just incredibly ironic for a character too.
Kate: Yeah.
Sis: Yeah.
Kate: You know, there's a lot of poetic deaths in Homestuck.
Cro: [laughs] Yeah.
Sis: Yeah. And there are some not very poetic ones as well, but hers is definitely the most — but I think she does disappear. Because in the ending, in the — how to call that flash again, in Collide? We see so many dancestors and she isn't there. We see like fifty thousand Cronuses running around, we see Eridan on Shrek running around. Aranea isn't there. She's completely disappeared. Yeah, she's gone.
Cro: Well, I will say, I think that there is a panel with the ghost army prior to Collide that actually does have a godtier Aranea ghost in the background, but I'd probably take that as you will because a. we don't know if it's just an alternate, we don't know if it's just an error, if it means anything, etcetera etcetera.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Yeah, true.
Kate: Is she in that?
Cro: I think so.
Sis: Hmm.
Cro: I think it's like within one of the conversations where she's like, maybe talking to Karkat — well Meenah's talking to Karkat but I specifically remember that there actually is an Aranea ghost within the ghost army but she's definitely not in Collide. So, I don't know if that's supposed to be purposeful or not.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Mhmm.
Kate: Let's see, where's this panel?
Sis: Well, [unclear] my entire theory.
Cro: Sorry!
Sis: Nah, it's fine.
Cro: Mhmm. Like it seems like the dancestors who would obviously maybe not be there aren't there, although there are some questionable things. Like I know that — I think there is a Damara. Then I thought there was a relevance to actually keeping the majority of Damara and Kurloz out of the ghost army 'cause their connection with LE, so.
Sis: Mhmm.
Kate: I'm gonna go ahead and dispute that there's an Aranea in the ghost army. In Collide.
Cro: God.
Kate: This is a perfectly generic... whatever. [laughs]
Cro: [laughs] Yeah, I mean it's muddled, there's a lot of questions, why weren't there any ghosts of the humans, we don't fuckin' know.
Kate: Let's see, there's Rufioh in a top hat. There's a —
Sis: Isn't there like horse Rufioh?
Kate: Yeah. There's — what, there's a bunch. I don't see an Ara — like this crowd shot right before Collide? I don't see an Aranea in it at all, if that's what you're talking about.
Cro: God. Alright, well if anyone does find one then @ me, and if you don't see one feel free to send me some anon hate.
Kate: Yeah, exactly.
Sis: Yeah. Where's Aranea? It's Where's Waldo! [laughs]
Kate: Yeah, no, Aranea, as far as I know, does not appear pre-Collide.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Yeah.
Kate: In any capacity.
Sis: Keep goin'.
Kate: Yeah.
Cro: Yeah. Someone'll correct any of us in some way after this.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Yeah. Doesn't it mean that — Even from Meenah, like — Meenah does not talk of her fondly after Aranea's gone, like doesn't she call her double-face Serket, something like that?
Kate: Yeah. I mean, that's just a little bit of resentment there.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Yeah I just — but after her double-death, the only person who seems to kinda remember her remembers her on not very good terms basically — but, I dunno, it feels like another, y'know, another tragedy 'cause I do consider it a tragedy despite her actions.
Kate: I was looking at the MSPA wiki, that old resource, and this is an interesting fact. Aranea is the only Sburb player in the entire comic who is never a playable character in Homestuck. She never gets a like, narrative prompt command and she's not playable in any of the walk around games.
Sis: Ohh. [laughs]
Cro: So she's just like, really in everyone's shadow.
Kate: Yeah. Like she is just an exposition fairy, like she is actually the least rele — like, it's so funny! In her quest for relevance, she's the only character that you cannot play as! She's the only NPC, of all of the like, Sburb players. Like, all eight kids, all 24 trolls. She's the only one that the narrative never becomes.
Sis: Oh well.
Cro: Lord. I can't believe Cronus has more relevance than Aranea.
Sis: [laughs] Oh my gosh! Careful Cro!
Cro: [laughs] @ me, I don't care!
Kate: [laughs] Okay, right. So there's something I wanna talk about which is — but first, we're gonna take a quick break here, and play a sample from the first episode of [I]ntermission, which is a podcast available to all patrons of the Perfectly Generic Podcast at patreon.com/pgenpod. So enjoy this preview of Intermission episode 1, and we'll see you on the other end to talk about Aranea and Porrim's relationship.
[transition music]
oD: Mom is dealing with a lot of loss in her life.
Kate: Yeah. Dot jpg.
oD: And she doesn't have a lot to look forward to. Um... yeah. Dot jpg... [laughs] god dammit! And she doesn't have a lot to look forward to, except like the apocalypse.
Kate: Mhmm.
oD: So that's a thing. And, y'know, all of that's going on, so I think she really like, she loves Rose a lot, and she's genuinely trying to connect with her on some level, but one thing I don't like is the idea that — a lot of people think that Rose was just wrong about her mom being passive-aggressive at all, and I don't think that's the case, because Mom is — like Roxy at her worst is very passive-aggressive.
Kate: Yeah.
oD: She's extremely passive-aggressive to Jake. She is so passive-aggressive to Jane that she blows up her computer in an attempt to guilt her for not believing her about stuff.
Kate: Yeah.
oD: Like it's just this fucked-up mindscheme that she pulls off, and then Jane still feels bad about it after Roxy gets busted!
Kate: Yeah.
oD: What — and, y'know, she sexually harasses Dirk for like, however many years. So.
Kate: Yeah. None of the alpha kids are free from sin.
oD: Yeah. I'm not sure any Homestuck character is free from sin, but especially the alpha kids!
Kate: Yeah, it's true. Peregrine Mendicant did nothing wrong.
oD: Mm, I mean, she was kind of cop-adjacent.
Kate: [laughs] She's a postal worker! I'm sorry, postal workers are not cop-adjacent! You get that shit right the fuck out of here! Postal workers are devoted public servants!
oD: Fair — I guess I was thinking of Earth C, but she doesn't have the ring anymore on Earth C, so fine. Fair enough. You're right.
Kate: She doesn't even like, do anything untoward — like she doesn't enforce the law with the ring, she just like... she hunts down her equal opposite.
oD: Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. I was thinking of her being on Earth C —
Kate: The thing about cops is there's a power imbalance, but her power and Jack's power was quite literally equal.
oD: Yeah. You're right, you're right. I take this L.
Kate: That's right. Get fucked, I'm out here defending the honor of the post office. [laughs]
oD: [laughs] Oh.
[transition music]
Kate: Welcome back to the Perfectly Generic Podcast. We're gonna talk about Aranea's relationship with Porrim because this is, I think, the most interesting thing in the story to me that's never gone into, is that Aranea is Porrim's ex.
Cro: Ooh.
Sis: That seems like a relevant parallel.
Kate: Yeah. Yeah, exactly, and well there's a parallel too, to Vriska and Kanaya's turbulent relationship. But like, Cro, you're a Porrim expert.
Cro: [laughs]
Kate: Have you thought, like... what was that about?
Cro: Oh god. Well, it correlates to Vriska and Kanaya, it definitely correlates to Dolorosa and Mindfang potentially.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: Like, they are exes, and there are — like, funnily enough, I don't have all the answers to this because, as much as it seems like a lot of dancestor facts could have more to them, there's not a lot of actual, canonical substance to build off of things versus interpretations like — we don't know how long they were dating, we don't know why they broke up, like there's definite speculations for how Aranea is potentially [unclear] Porrim is like and what she stands for, but in terms of their relationship, I don't have much outside of the parallel stuff.
Kate: Yeah, we don't see it. We don't see it at all.
Sis: Okay, but Cro, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't their relationship a lot more cordial, even after they break up than obviously Mindfang and Dolorosa, but also Vriska and Kanaya?
Cro: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah like, there's definitely a parallel just with both, like both different sets of Serkets and Maryams, it's — god it sucks! There's just not a lot outside of those parallels, which makes me, y'know, want more dancestor content.
Kate: Yeah. I'm spurring speculation on, I think, because I like both of those characters a lot, and the idea of them dating is really funny to me.
Cro: Yeah — like I have ideas, but again, none of them are canon.
Kate: Uh huh.
Sis: Yeah. I do wonder how they broke up. That's the way I wonder — 'cause I mean, as I said their relationship was cordial when we saw them in Openbound.
Cro: Uh huh.
Sis: Yeah, that and also, y'know, they — let me just gather my thoughts. In general, I think it relates to how Aranea views the other dancestors, 'cause I mean Meenah, despite what she thinks, in the end she gets along, apart from Damara, she actually gets along with the other dancestors. When she talks to them, she seems to be doing very well. They seem to have forgiven her, to even like her, and she wants to continue being their friend. Aranea doesn't seem to have any friends at all besides Meenah. I mean, yeah, she's cordial with Porrim, but everybody else seems to think of her as an annoyance.
Kate: Yeah, she has big unpopular girl energy.
Cro: Yeah. Well, it's funny, because I think it's said within Openbound that well, Aranea's not really popular, but I do know that Meenah kinda mentions in passing that a lot of the other dancestors also didn't like her as well, and I think that goes more — not because she's a bookworm like Aranea obviously, probably more so with how she like, did stuff within the session which came from enabling people to be aggressive with each other, starting a lotta shit. I know that Meulin even mentioned that Meenah tried to kill her a few times, etcetera.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: And so it's just like — I can see why they wouldn't necessarily be popular, but in terms of like, Aranea? It's interesting because, I mean, even if she is unpopular... she doesn't necessarily seem like she even then has much of a connection to her friends maybe in the same light as Meenah, because when you're talking about all the different dancestors at her booth, she does a little bit of shit talking, just a little bit of shit talking.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Yeah, she's a passive-aggressive kind of — forgive me for using words, she's a bit of a passive-aggressive bitch.
Cro: Oh yeah.
Sis: I'm talking in terms of like, in high school, she'd be basically — she's both nerd energy compared to Vriska who's also sort of like, jock energy.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: It's like a passive-aggressive nerd.
Kate: I gotta say, describing Vriska as having jock energy is really funny, since she literally has her DnD character sheet taped to her wall.
Sis: She's both jock and nerd! Vriska encompasses literally every alignment!
Kate: Yeah.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Whereas Aranea tries to be all of these alignments and fails. She tries to be a goth but her outfit just looks weird on her.
Cro: [laughs]
Sis: She tries to be jock, she fails. She's a nerd, she's extremely a nerd, but she rejects that role, basically.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Aranea's a failure.
Cro: Aranea's a nerd, but at the same time she's like — a mean nerd. Yeah, she does try to get like all these elements, she's like a mean nerd. And especially when like, her story progresses, you start seeing more of that mean come out? Like, I kind of see when she's like, again, at the booth, and she has stuff to tell about her friends but also she doesn't necessarily, like — there's information about her friends that funny enough, she doesn't seem to really care to get into, which is why a lotta stuff is skimmed within their story and when she does get the chance to, especially when it correlates to Meenah, she will make fun of them. And even if Meenah's not there, when she gets into her pirate phase and stuff, she's even more — she shows even less of a caring side or something that's a little two-faced, like she mentions later down the line in relation to Kurloz when she's mind-controlling Gamzee, and she just shows distate toward the clown, and then she's like I thought our Makara was awful, at least he had the decency to sew his mouth shut.
Kate: Mhmm! [laughs]
Cro: And it's like, yikes!
Kate: Yeah.
Sis: Ooh! [laughs]
Cro: [laughs] I love her! But she's mean.
Sis: Oh, can we talk about — in that case, since we're on the subject, let's talk about, can we talk about Meenah and Aranea and their role on Beforus? Because it seems to me is that Aranea is trying to fill the role that's expected from her on Beforus, as a blueblood she's supposed to take care of lower classes.
Kate: Yeah, I dunno jack shit about Beforus, so Cro, you take this one.
Cro: Oh shit. Let's see. Well, I still definitely see her persona coming definitely from that Mindfang perspective, but she — I'm gonna be frank with this. Aranea does not necessarily seem that she was really against the culling system on Beforus.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: In fact, she encouraged Meenah to take the throne and was a little disappointed that she decided that she wanted to go against it.
Sis: Mhmm.
Cro: And so, the idea of her wanting to heal the universe and take care of it herself, and some of that definitely correlating to different attributes that take place in the Beforus system, I can definitely see some relations that are maybe or maybe are not purposeful, but are definitely relatable.
Kate: Mhmm.
Cro: And meanwhile, with Meenah kind of being in a way a foil character to Aranea, her completely disengaging from that and not being caring, it makes sense to me.
Kate: Mhmm.
Sis: Mm, yeah. Yeah.
Kate: What does this bullet point on the outline mean, Meenah being "vah?"
Sis: Meenah being [various noises] oh sorry — let me — I have no — there was a relevant line... and I don't remember what it is — oh yeah, I remember now. [laughs]
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: It's — oh, being bad.
Cro: Oh!
Kate: Oh, we talked about that a little bit. Yeah, Meenah's convinced she's awful.
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: Cro —
Cro: Hmm?
Sis: No I think you, you have more relevance on —
Cro: Oh god. I'm just a fuckin' expert, aren't I?
Kate: Yes, that's why you're here.
Sis: Yeah!
Cro: Okay cool. Um, this is interesting because Meenah's definitely shown to be kind of in an antagonistic light when she's introduced, before you get to know more about her, and there is a little bit of a weird in-between on how bad she is, because for example, she wants to help defeat Lord English, who is ultimately going to destroy the universe — at the same time, she doesn't mind using a bunch of alternates of her friends as fodder, and there is a morally grey area to her that isn't necessarily 100% bad, but there is that part when she does break up with (Vriska) where she's like, y'know, she's supposed to be bad, and she breaks up with her and she goes with post-retcon Vriska, and it was — when I first saw that update, even to this day, I'm still tryna wrap my mind about why she thinks that she has to be bad. Like what, what to her makes her think that she has to go along with this path of the story. Like is it a character decision, is it some kind of meta narrative decision? Unsure, I'm waiting for those author notes.
Kate: Haha, it's gonna take a while to get to there. [laughs]
Cro: Yeah.
Sis: I definitely think it's a — sorry go ahead.
Cro: Oh no, I was just gonna say I'll probably have a fuckin' degree by the time that comes out and then some.
Kate: Based on the ballooning length of author notes as the Homestuck books continue, I'm guessing that like most of the page will be notes in eight-point font by that time! [laughs]
Cro: Oh boy.
Sis: Yeah! There's gonna be more notes than there are gonna be actual pages.
Kate: Yeah.
Sis: It's gonna go all Hunter x Hunter Togashi style.
Kate: I have no idea what that means.
Sis: I had to make the reference.
Kate: This is what the refrance — uh, let's get to my favorite listener question which was Sugar asked on Discord, is there any deeper symbolism in Aranea's usage of Charlie Brown imagery, and as the resident expert on newspaper comics, I'm gonna take this. So, yes. Absofuckinglutely. Aranea is the guardian of this purgatory metaphor. And, like, literally the — Peanuts is a purgatory metaphor. It's this rural Americana where nothing ever changes and everyone's depressed, and the same things keep repeating over and over again. And Aranea's specifically cast as Lucy, who's the one who's always taking the football away from Charlie Brown, who's the one who's always repeating the same structures of like romantic interest, like — it's absolutely on purpose that Aranea has this Peanuts coding to her. Because there's that same kind of depressing sameness to her fundamental story.
Sis: Mm.
Cro: They also wear blue dresses.
Kate: They also wear blue dresses, it's true. [laughs]
[tweet]
Sis: I know nothing about American comics, but that sounds pretty right to me.
Cro: Yeah, I don't delve in Peanuts, but the only thing that I got from it from just a very quick two-minute research is I think the original person who created it had mentioned, one of the things that's interesting about Lucy is that she does play an antagonistic role in some of the stories, which I guess was... you could relate that to Aranea in a way, but I'm sure it's not the main focus.
Kate: Mhmm. There's also a question from curiousCantrip that goes along with the tweet that you made a while back, Cro, which is thoughts on the symbolism of Aranea as an evangelist. [laughs]
Cro: Oh!
Kate: Which is — I would love to hear you talk about this a little bit, because Aranea's got like, Christian energy.
Cro: Oh, okay. At first, I have a low vocabulary so I had to figure out what does that word mean? Lord, what was my fuckin' tweet? I mean, I just made a tweet one day that was just, like — I noticed, like I was always tryna speculate: first of all, why does Aranea have the Sufferer's, like cuff sign as a necklace, like why does she have it, where'd she get it from — all this different shit, like, because — it seems like unless Kankri decided well — unless Kankri had an actual sign that he isn't actually showing that was on Beforus, I don't necessarily know how she maybe could have got that from like, an Alternian memory, but then I did think about some stuff that is a little less complicated, and —
Kate: I mean, didn't she like, watch the entire history of Alternia unfold?
Cro: I mean, yeah she did? It's just, I dunno how she'd be able to get, like... a memory of a Sufferer necklace — like did they make those on Alternia? Is there a gift shop?
Sis: [laughs]
Kate: There's just all sorts of crap in the dreambubbles.
Cro: Yeah, I'm sure — so it probably came from somewhere but, like, basically her wearing it around her neck, the thing that was a part of his death, reminds me of a cross! And then, when I think about the fact that like, y'know, within religions and stuff like, people do wear crosses, as a sign of their Christianity and such, it just — I dunno. Aranea's Christian. That's my headcanon.
Sis: I think there was a point in which she was talking about it — unfortunately, I don't have it on hand, but she explained why she was wearing the sign and what it meant to her. I'm not gonna say anything like, false, because I don't remember at all what it's about. I think she said something in which, like — it did reflect her values, in that she viewed the Sufferer as somebody separate from Kankri, basically.
Cro: Mhmm. Yeah.
Sis: But unfortunately, I don't remember much. I know it was in Openbound somewhere, so if somebody finds it?
Kate: Let me read a description here, real quick. One of the things you find in a chest is a Sufferer pendant. "Exhibiting the Sign of the Signless. The story of the Sufferer got really popular among your old crew as a kind of religious fad, after everyone died and learned the stories of their post-scratch lives. Aranea especially seems to have bought into this nonsense hook line and sinker. She never wore anything like that around her neck BEFORE she died. You wonder if people have gotten so into it just to bug Vantas? You just know it probably pisses him off, seeing people wear this thing all the time."
Sis: [laughs] That's more passive-aggressiveness, I guess.
Kate: Yeah, and then there's Meenah's narrative text also finding authentic religious memorabilia, finding like, the shackles: "These were the doodads adult post-scratch Vantas was chained up with when he died. You bet Serket would fork over a ton of gold for this junk. Religious nuts are some of the biggest suckers around."
Cro: So all the dancestors are Christian.
Kate: [laughs]
Sis: Dancestors have become Catholic.
Cro: [laughs] We cracked the code! God.
Sis: I do find it interesting in the sense of like — I was joking earlier that it was passive-aggressiveness, it feels more like Aranea understands stories well, like plot points and the like but she does not understand people well. Like, that's what happens with Terezi, she does not understand what Terezi does. She does not understand — she basically, almost in a way takes peoples' agency away, because she's decided people are a certain way, she's decided her version is the most important one do you know what I mean? I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense, but it really feels often that Aranea is sort of like, treading others' faults, others' agencies in favor of her making what she considers a good story, something in which — well, at first, y'know, just something that would make a good story, and then something in which she's the hero! And she's ready to tread over others' feelings, and then others' lives, to make that happen, so Aranea does not have that much compassion, I'd say.
Cro: Yeah. She's kind of a unreliable narrator.
Kate: Oh, absolutely she is. I mean she's extremely uncharitable when describing everyone else.
Cro: Yeah.
Kate: And, I mean, like, I think it's fair to cast doubt over basically all of her, y'know, stories of how things work. Let's see, jordanajnes on Twitter asked how do you think Meenah's character would have been different if she had arrived in the dreambubbles at the same time as the other Beforan trolls from her session got there. She'd be bored as shit, dude!
Cro: God. I gotta tack on a question to this, like why did it take her so fucking long to get into the bubbles with everyone else?
Kate: 'Cause time just works arbitrarily in the Furthest Ring.
Cro: Ugh, god. Yeah, I'll take that. In my opinion, she would definitely still have a lot of her familiar attributes, but I don't know whether or not she would've been as stagnant as the dancestors when it came to having their personalities but not necessarily doing anything to move forward versus how she is now, because she definitely did have that advantage of interacting first with people that weren't a part of her session and finding out about new opportunities versus kinda stewing in her own for lack of a better term bubble for eons passing.
Kate: Mhmm. You know, and this is totally speculation, but since the dreambubbles were the result of a deal between Feferi's ghost and the horrorterrors, it could be that the horrorterrors were trying to protect Feferi from competition, as it were. Because, y'know, Meenah talks about oh, Feferi's so cute, it's too bad I have a fucking irresistible urge to kill her.
Cro and Sis: [laughing]
Cro: Oh boy.
Sis: It's her genetics.
Cro: Yeah. Meenah just has a very high interest in wanting to stab a lot of people. Like, doesn't she — first when she tries to see Roxy she tries to fucking hit her!
Sis: Yeah!
Kate: Yeah, she just tries to stab her just for fun, and then she's like John's my white whale, like call me fishmael!
Cro: I think one of my favorite panels in the entire comic is like, when John touches the house and then he vanishes, and a few seconds pass and you just see Meenah's trident soaring! [laughs] It's such a good visual gag!
Sis: [laughs]
Kate: [laughs] Homestuck's good.
Cro: Yeah. Homestuck's great.
Sis: Yeah. It's really good! It's very funny.
Kate: Yeah. And on that note, that's our show. Let's see here, you can find the show at perfectlygenericpodcast.com or on the iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or Overcast podcast directories. You can also find the show at twitter.com/pgenpod. You can support the show at patreon.com/pgenpod. Where can folks find you, Cro?
Cro: You guys can find me @yoitscro on Twitter and this time my Twitter is there instead of vanished.
Kate: Uh huh. [laughs] And Sis, where can folks find you?
Sis: So right now, I'm @stackslip on Twitter. I will be leaving Twitter very soon, but I have a link to my Discord server there, so if anybody wants to join the show before I go to f — bleh! English pronunciation is hard. Anyway yeah, you guys can just head there. Thanks very much.
Kate: And let's see, you can find me at twitter.com/gamblignant8. You can also see my Overwatch-focused account at twitter.com/katemitchellow. And just so you know, the show also has a Patreon. You can support us at patreon.com/pgenpod. I wanted to thank our $4.13 Skylark-tier patrons: [names]. Thank you so much for your support, it makes the show possible. Join us next week as we recap whatever the hell happens on 4/13. I'll be joined by Sapharodon, the guest from episode 1 and 11, as we take it back to the start and celebrate ten years of Homestuck. Thanks so much both of you for coming on, I really really appreciate it.
Cro: Thank you for having me.
Sis: Thank you very much!
Kate: Yeah, and see you guys next week! Peace.
[outro]
Category:Episodes