Episode 58: The Most Ambitious Crossover Event in History

Kate’s last regular episode of 2019 is a crossover with Jax Does Homestuck. Topics: Thanos (again). Jade Pesterquest. Rose and Jade’s relationship. Con Air. Doomed timelines. Smash Bros. Perfectly generic objects. The mom zone.

Listen to this episode at https://perfectlygenericpodcast.com/updates/episodes/58

Transcript
KATE: The Perfectly Generic Podcast contains spoilers, occasional adult language, and Vriska. You've been warned. Join me, Aysha U. Farah and Cro in downtown Chapel Hill at The Pit on Saturday, October 26th at 6pm for the next Pgenpod Live. Get tickets at pgenpod.com/live. This show is supported by listeners like you on Patreon. Thanks to our Crockertier patrons: [names] for their generous support per episode.

[intro]

KATE: It's a 2 podcast pileup! We are — it's a crossover episode. It's the world's — it's the most ambitious crossover event ever attempted. Fuck off, Marvel! I'm here with Jax, from Jax does Homestuck, and this is a combined episode of our two shows. How you doin'?

JAX: I'm doing great, I'm happy to be here to defeat Marvel and be the best crossover that ever happened.

KATE: Yeah. Fuck Infinity War, man. Movies like —

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: I swear to god that movie's like 7 hours long and it's just absolutely interminable. I haven't even *seen* Endgame.

JAX: Oh same.

KATE: I have no intention of seeing Endgame.

JAX: I heard what happens and I'm like, I'm fine. I'm good.

KATE: I'm good. I do not need to sympathize with the Malthusian villain. Like I cannot —

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: I cannot believe — here's the thing about Thanos, is that comic — I don't know why I'm going down this hill, but I am — the thing about Thanos is that in the comics he was really interesting because the reason why he did what he did is he wanted to impress Death 'cause he was horny for Death, right?

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And that rules! And then they just made him into a libertarian, and that sucks!!

JAX: I know! Yeah, being horny for death is much more relatable.

KATE: Yeah, exactly!! [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: So whenever somebody comes on *this* show for the first time, my half of the show, I like to ask them: what's their history with Homestuck? When did you first get into it and how did you get to the point that you're here, y'know, on multiple podcasts about it?

JAX: Yeah, so basically back in the late 2000s and early 2010s I was really into reading webcomics. I would read every webcomic that I came across. Somehow Homestuck never hit my radar, but it was the creator of Questionable Content who defended Homestuck on one of his posts and said that Andrew Hussie was one of his friends, and I'm like, oh well if he's a friend of the creator of Questionable Content, I gotta go check this out! And I've been here ever since. I backed the Kickstarter that happened, I got a sweet poster from it, and I pretty much stayed out of the fandom though until late last year, early this year, when I joined Homestuck Twitter and got into the Friendsim fan dub and actually started talking to people.

KATE: It turns out they don't bite, mostly.

JAX: Yeah, mostly!

KATE: [laughs] So you had this experience where — man, the Kickstarter — lemme think —

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: I mean I used to read Questionable Content growing up. I'm gonna be completely real with you and say I can't fucking stand it now [laughs]

JAX: That's fair.

KATE: For just a variety of reasons. But this isn't a podcast about Questionable Content, so —

JAX: [laughs] Yeah.

KATE: We'll get into that some other time.

JAX: For sure.

KATE: And so you came back to the fandom, and what have you been doing since you came back.

JAX: Well, so it started out with my podcast, and then I'm like, wait, if I'm going to have a podcast about Homestuck I should actually talk to other Homestucks, that seems like a smart thing. And then I happened to see stuff about the fan dub that started happening and so I got in there and I started networking with more people and becoming friends, and everyone has their own Homestuck side project, and so I just have my toes in a lot of different projects right now, or just watching them happen, and it's a lot of fun. So I've just been slowly getting deeper and deeper into everything.

KATE: I've noticed over the last couple months that there's like, 70 podcasts about Homestuck now and it's like — it's nice to have the company.

JAX: Yeah!

KATE: I — see my dirty confession is that I don't actually listen to podcasts [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: I used to, when I lived and worked in LA I would walk every day, every morning, I would have like a nice 45 minutes of just walking as my like, wake up routine.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And so I would listen to podcasts every day then. But now that I'm here, my daily commute is from my bedroom to my office which is approximately 15 feet, which is not enough time for most podcasts, and I'm thinking that maybe people should make some more podcasts for folks who only have about 30 seconds of time [laughs]

JAX: [laughs] Yeah, just the Vine of podcasts.

KATE: So that's my dirty secret, is that I actually do not listen to other people's podcasts, but I should. Maybe I'll have more time for it once I'm taking a break from this show. We'll see.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: [laughs] Let's see —

JAX: Yeah, it's hard to find time.

KATE: Yeah. So this week in Homestuck we got the final of the beta kid routes in Pesterquest, we had Volume 4, the Jade route by traceExcalibur, and — what did you think of it?

JAX: Oh I loved it. Well — okay so my friends kept telling me like, this is such a good end, it's gonna be great, you're gonna love it, and I got into it and I'm like this is really *sad*, there better be something good happening here! So yeah, it was sad hours for the majority of it but I think it was worth it in the end.

KATE: Yeah, it teases you a bunch that it's gonna be like, y'know, the typical — it's a little bit more wish fulfilment than the typical Homestuck content.

JAX: Yeah!

KATE: But y'know, not everything has to be brave, I guess [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Not — maybe sometimes you can make things that y'know, aren't — that aren't like, challenging [laughs]

JAX: Yeah, just let us rest for a little while man, we had the epilogues earlier this year and that was taxing, so just let us chill out.

KATE: That's what it feels like Pesterquest is so far, and I mean that's like MSPA Reader's influence on the story, right?

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: It's like, hey, maybe this doesn't actually have to be miserable. Maybe I can — maybe I, MSPA Reader, can confront this shit that has you guys all fucked up and ask you the sort of big questions that you hadn't — that you'd all been running away from for so long.

JAX: Yeah. Yeah, just let us chill out and confront things and become better, and it's fine.

KATE: And I mean that's — y'know I think that's very fascinating to see this sort of like parallel idea of like, the reader's influence on the story being through MSPA Reader, through all of our assigned kin. And I really love that like protagonist character — or, I have since mid Friendsim. And I think it's fascinating because they've sort of always been around in the comic as like a gag going all the way back to Problem Sleuth, but now they're like directly embroiled in Homestuck in a way that they never were before.

JAX: Yeah, so they're literally changing the story, like all of our AUs that we've written are coming true before our eyes!

KATE: And y'know we have right now — like, y'know that's been going very well. But I have to imagine — y'know we're still in the early stages of this game, there's — how many volumes are there?

JAX: Fourteen, I think?

KATE: Fourteen? Something like that?

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: I write for this game, I don't know jack shit about it.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Look, I don't have anything to do with the overarching plot or plan for this game. I'm writing one thing and then I'm yeeting out. Like, that's it. I've already written it.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: It's done.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: [laughs] I was just like, tell me just enough to know what I need to set up so I can still be surprised by what happens after my route, so — [laughs]

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: 'Cause that's one of the things of like going behind the curtain is it's like, the thing about Homestuck that's really cool is how surprising it is and how shocking and strange it is, and so I'd like to preserve a little bit of that surprise where possible! [laughs]

JAX: Yeah that definitely makes sense, I'd have to do the same. Because there's so much that just happens that you just have no idea — I just like to sit back and let What Pumpkin feed me.

KATE: Y'know I'm still — and that's the thing, I'm just sitting here and like seeing this stuff come out and I'm still a fan of it. I'm just a huge fan of what's happening here and I love this game and I — I'm just excited for this era of Homestuck, y'know, and these projects that Aysha is in charge of. And I'm just really excited for the rest of this game and seeing routes like the ones that we've seen so far has been really inspiring to me creatively too. And the Jade route — also it was brilliant beyond just writing and structure, the art was absolutely fantastic. I adored the — like the backgrounds were beautiful, the sprites were great, and I loved the ending that — you know, the Good End card was —

JAX: Yes!

KATE: Absolutely warmed my heart.

JAX: Oh absolutely, I legitimately started crying whenever I was on stream. It was great, it was just — it was everything we've wanted from these kids, for these kids.

KATE: And y'know, that's — and y'know I always have — I have sort of complicated feelings on like Homestuck's antagonistic relationship to the reader, and I feel like that's one of the like fundamental things that makes Homestuck special. But y'know, it's good to have a bit of a break and get a chance to breathe for a little bit [laughs] But y'know, I — any time good things happen in Homestuck I always get a little like — I'm always interested to see them not like, paired with a kind of clownery, right? Or y'know a little bit of farce, I guess.

JAX: Yeah. Yeah, no, it was just straight up good stuff and I really love it even though there have been hints throughout this route that is like, what's gonna be the price we pay for this good thing that's happened? Like, no, shh, no, there doesn't have to — no. It's fine. Just leave it.

KATE: [laughs] It's — well —

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: I mean look, we know this — we know one thing and that it's Homestuck isn't fair, and so the fact that it feels very fair right now is ominous.

JAX: It is! It's — [laughs] it's so bad.

KATE: 'Cause I mean Homestuck is a reflection of life, and life also isn't fair. I don't know if anybody's noticed this yet. [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: But it's kind of unfair. We're gonna get to some listener questions about the Jade route later, but I wanted to — for the middle portion of the show I wanted to pick up on the reread that you've been doing on your show, Jax does Homestuck. And so we read the 100 pages between 1496 and 1596, and as it turns out that's a busy fucking 100 pages!

JAX: I know!

KATE: [laughs] So there's a lot of — I had a lot of fun rereading this because I forgot like, how close all this stuff was to each other. This was the part of the — this was definitely like, the fastest part of Homestuck's plot where everything is just completely sprinting, right?

JAX: Yeah. Which like, 'cause the past couple acts have been so slow I've gotten used to it, it's like oh well there's this 1 cool thing that happened in the plot and some other cool small things, and then this 100 pages was just: this happened, no *this* happened, and it was just back to back.

KATE: Yeah. This is Homestuck at a full fucking sprint, and so y'know you get Rose and Jaspersprite — there's a bit of a fakeout where you think Jaspersprite can only say 'meow', but no it turns out there's more long-winded sprite bullshit for you to deal with.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And y'know Rose gets the first hint of her destiny which she's a little bit antagonistic towards, as always.

JAX: As always, yeah.

KATE: And, y'know, just like all this bright colorful like, childish quest stuff — it's like, deliberately taunting to Rose. It's like exactly what — it's so not goth!!

JAX: [laughs] Yeah! She does not fit the aesthetic.

KATE: [laughs] And so y'know she's pushing back against that. And we also get in this one of the only like, two Rose/Jade conversations in the entire fucking comic. [laughs]

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And this one is a lot less antagonistic than the first one that they had together, partially because Rose is now understanding a lot more of Jade's sort of mysterious frustrating bullshit.

JAX: Yeah [laughs]

KATE: And also sort of understanding that, alright, well I guess this person actually is kind of magical and I guess we all have a magic destiny, not just you.

JAX: Yeah, yeah absolutely. Maybe that was part of the problem with Rose and Jade to begin with, is because Rose is supposed to be the dark and mysterious one and here Jade is just like naturally being cryptic.

KATE: Yeah, and just seeming to know effortlessly the deep secrets of the universe that Rose tries to find in [spooky voice] grim tomes...

JAX: [laughs] Absolutely.

KATE: Yeah. Then you also get — in this part you get John's continued like, acting out of Con Air, and this is some of the most fascinating — this has been something that I've been zeroing in on a lot, is John's movie taste as like, an allegory for the kind of suburban repression he lives in. And like, Con Air is this very very traditional narrative of like, y'know, the dad whose — the women in his life are in danger and he has to save them by being a big tough masculine hero, right? Which is, y'know, this idea that John sort of has in his head of like what he's supposed to do, that Dave also struggles with. But it's also interesting because like, Con Air compared to a lot of action movies is like, kind of — has these like soft and romantic moments, and there's a lot of those in John's tastes as well. Like he likes — y'know I was thinking about this yesterday because I was watching True Detective again, and marvelling at how good Matthew Mcconaughey was in it, and I was thinking about how in 2009 liking Matthew Mcconaughey like — this discussion at the start of the comic about like, John liking Mcconaughey and Dave not fundamentally relies on this 2009 era context that Mcconaughey was in a bunch of chick flicks at the time. Like he was not a prestige actor that was in True Detective and Interstellar and Wolf of Wall Street. Like he was in a bunch of romantic comedies, like he was the charming male lead for these traditionally feminine movies, and it always seemed to me like it was part of Dave's insecurity around all that gay shit that led to him like, teasing John for being into Matthew Mcconaughey's movies.

JAX: Yeah, absolutely, and yeah going back to the soft themes of Con Air, like this scene that he acts out is the soft romantic theme of him like, trying to connect to his daughter. And the stuff that we always know about Con Air, like I've never watched the movie so I know everything from what John says, is about the struggle to get back and connect with his daughter and his wife, and less the action-y parts of it.

KATE: And I find these — y'know this sort of — like John is completely submerged in this like, idea of the suburban nuclear family and is very submerged in these traditional gender ideas, and it's not a thinking kind of thing, it's not a conscious decision to be this deep in it and it certainly doesn't make John judgemental or negative. But it just — there's just so much — I mean you can go back even to like the writing on the walls, there's just so much *repression* in John's arc. There's just so much of like, there's problems that I will just — I'm choosing to not think about. I'm going to act instead of think.

JAX: Oh absolutely. Like he legitimately says that, not to jump super far ahead but whenever someone's like, hey your crush on Terezi might be a thing and it might be black, he's like, uh no, I'm just never gonna think about this ever again!

KATE: Yeah.

JAX: And he does. [laughs]

KATE: And like, y'know, John's — this theme of repression going through film goes through John's whole arc. I mean, later he asks Vriska to call him "Mr. Anderson".

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Which is *so* fucking on the n— it's so, like, as Sam Fatekeeper pointed out, it's so fucking ridiculously on the nose for John to be like — John wearing like the identical clothes to a girl's that a girl sent him asks to be called the protagonist of a film that is now widely understood to be a metaphor for gender transition because it was literally directed by two trans women — is just like so pointedly on the nose that it's just like nuts the level of value you get on a reread while thinking about June. It's very — it's absolutely delightful to see how much of the story's structure works that way.

JAX: God, absolutely, and yeah, rereading Homestuck's always worth it 'cause there's always new stuff to think about. And it's like, oh y'know this stuff was there the whole time, we just didn't have the right lens to look through at it at first.

KATE: And I've — I engage in hot takes about Homestuck on the regular, it's my favorite thing to do.

JAX: Absolutely.

KATE: I've noticed you were a bit of a June skeptic, at least at first?

JAX: I mean —

KATE: Have you changed your mind on that at all, or?

JAX: So it wasn't, necessarily — I just was worried about how things were happening. I'm fine with June as being a thing, like I loved Roxy coming out as non binary, everyone needs to come out as trans in Homestuck. So, yeah, I really do like June as a concept, it was just the whole — I was just hesitant about how it came about as being canonized, was my only concern, which I'm happy to be regularly proven wrong about.

KATE: What was it that was your problem?

JAX: It was such a recent loud headcanon, I hadn't heard about it before, which could just be because I wasn't properly engaging with the community, because that's definitely a thing. So it just seemed to come up and because it was the current popular headcanon and because it just happened to be acknowledged in the right way on the right platform that it suddenly became a canonized thing was my only thing. But, as you said, you read back through it and you see more signs planning it out, there's weight behind it.

KATE: Mhm. My response to that is just that I don't think Andrew Hussie has ever done a thing that he didn't want to do in maybe his entire life.

JAX: Yeah. This is the guy who did eboyhussie.

KATE: This idea that popular people are bullying Andrew into changing things about Homestuck is very funny, but it's entirely, I think, inaccurate.

JAX: Yeah, eboyhussie could never be bullied into doing anything he didn't want to do.

KATE: Obviously, as I've said on this show multiple times, respect demands honesty and so I respect Andrew and criticise him a lot and I am proud to try and keep a clear eye toward the complicated career he's had. But the man is fearless, and that is a credit and an inspiration to me be personally, to try to learn to be more forceful and more open even if it leads to people calling you a bitch, right? Andrew also gets insulated by this thing that "Dude Creators" get where nobody thinks that they're a bitch. But I'm trying not to care about that, because in Homestuck the women are so powerful and strong, and it's definitely inspirational to get to see someone be so fearless and be so weird and dress up like an eboy on Instagram. I think there's a lot of value in creating a space for others to be weird by being publically strange. And I think that there's a really long history of folks doing that, of influential history going all the way back to the dadaist movement.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: Everything we do is performance art, everything we do is performance, and some people have learned to embrace that in a sort of clownish fashion. I think making a little Willy Wonka gag along the way is a pretty funny to reinforce that. I noticed that your anxieties seemed to come from the place where you thought that all decisions about Homestuck were going to be made by the geocaching of candy, which is not actually how it works.

JAX: That would be a move, though!

KATE: It would be a move! It would be very funny. I want to do more — performing Homestuck is a thing that you can do, right? I want to do more weird in-person events and just dropping things in places. I don't think that's the only way you can perform Homestuck and I certainly don't think it's the primary way that most people do — most Homestuck fan communities, most fanworks, take place online. But I like the idea of encouraging people to connect in their local communities with artists in their communites by doing things like performance art, or things like geocaches, or things like live podcast shows. Right? I come from a place of I'm a lifelong political organizer.

JAX: Mhm.

KATE: I grew up idolizing Saul Alinsky, which is not a normal thing for a child to do. I believe the only way we're going to — online is great, but it's important to try and find, no matter where you are, there's still some way that you can engage in the real world, right?

JAX: Mhm.

KATE: And there's still something you can do. I think it's really important to remember that, to be thinking about, "How can I make my community a little weirder, a little stranger, a little more fun." I think Homestuck and the lens of Homestuck is a great way to do that, whether that's through cons or meetups or leaving shit in the woods, I think that's all very wonderful to do. Yeah, that's my extremely localistic take. I just think it would be neat.

JAX: Yeah. I try to do that, I was able to step out of my apartment for two seconds to go to a con for the first time so I dressed up as my performance of eboyhussie and I handed out Toblerones to the Homestuck cosplayers.

KATE: Excellent, excellent. See, this is exactly the sort of — you're making memories.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And this is also what I enjoy, sometimes these physical events, they give people anxiety because it's like, "Oh, well, I wasn't there." That's the point. It was an ephemeral thing that only existed for some people briefly. Not everything we do needs to be the exact same kind of archived forever. Having this brief and special kind of event, there's an inherent value in that. I think that's something we sort of lose in moving away from physical things to the online distribution of media, not to sound like a complete grumpy old person. The idea of a limited run object or something rare is still very interesting to me. I'm totally distracted from talking about Homestuck at this point, but these rare physical objects are part of Homestuck, too. Think of the bunny or the poster, the gifts that the kids get each other. At least initially, they're these very special objects because they're one of a kind. Then, the game happens, and as the game leads to power, and power leads to aimlessness, the unlimited duplication of physical objects and the reduction of physical objects to code is, I think, an indication of the way that the game causes sadness for these kids.

JAX: Yeah, yeah, I can definitely get that because what was once wholly original is now a — everyone has had their hands on it and now it's a murder robot.

KATE: Yeah, right! Exactly!

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: And I like — and y'know I mention this because Terezi and John talk about these codes in these 100 pages of this reread.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And y'know, John, who's like very programming oriented and like, y'know he's — John is very obsessed with things working the way that they should, right, because he lives in a fucking society so hard.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: And he looks at these codes and thinks well that can't possibly be — it can't possibly work that these objects are, y'know — that every object is just a list of codes, right, that these things — that the world of things is so like, shallow and reproducible. John is — feels lost without the sense of the real, right, and we end up seeing that later on in the epilogues as well and y'know in the credits where he spends all this time aimless, and even in candy starts to convince himself that like, his world is not real, right?

JAX: Yeah, yeah.

KATE: And there's — and y'know John's tremendous power comes with that aimlessness and that ability to feel like things aren't real. And I think about this shit a lot, so this show's called the perfectly generic podcast and I never actually explained why, and I'm about to be — I'm about to take a break from regular episodes for a while so I'm gonna say why.

JAX: Okay.

KATE: And it's this idea that in the world of Homestuck these physical object— like, you can have a perfectly generic object — says a lot about the world of the real in Homestuck, and tells you that they are just building blocks for conceptual ideas. Like in Homestuck the real and the physical is practically irrelevant, to the degree where the base object is just this generic green cube and everything else is seen as a evolution or a, y'know — or a variance on that one thing. And I think it's really important to keep that in mind because I think it's really easy when analyzing Homestuck to look into the mechanics of the plot and think about like, the worldbuilding details — and all that stuff is fascinating — but I think if you get too focused on like, and action logically following from point a to point b you miss a lot of the dream logic of Homestuck and a lot of the fact that this universe runs on wishes and runs on ideals, not on like, strict physical logic.

JAX: Yeah, absolutely, like we see that with like the god tiers and everything else, that it's about kind of more abstract than it is anything solid.

KATE: Yeah. And we were talking a little bit about sadstuck earlier and we actually get — I think this portion of the comic actually raises the stakes dramatically for the first time. It massively does so.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: Because John dies! [laughs] In these 100 pages Terezi straight up kills John, and obviously this ends up being necessary for the timeline's success, right, but like I remember reading this live. I remember reading these pages when they first came out, and it was absolutely *shocking*, right? And it's amazing how quickly it happens, right?

JAX: Yeah!

KATE: Like you don't even see John dying, it's one of those things in Homestuck because you see other characters talking about it. So much action in Homestuck happens away from our prying eyes and is just referenced in conversations.

JAX: Yeah, yeah it was, 'cause at first you think just like, oh well Dave's on his planet, we're seeing that, and oh they're having this conversation and wow he seems really high-levelled, did we have a time skip? Oh, John's dead.

KATE: [laughs] Right, exactly! And it's just — it's so brave to just do that. To just throw you right in there.

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: And so you see the first — so this is the first instance of Homestuck introducing a doomed timeline to you. And y'know these end up being extremely important and this — y'know and John and Jade are dead in this timeline, and this ends up being one that like Davesprite comes from, right? And so that's the next part of this extremely busy 100 pages is y'know you see this Dave that becomes Davesprite and then later Davepeta, and it's the first time that a character's alternate version is introduced, which ends up becoming one of the core themes of Homestuck is like this nature vs nurture thing of character's alternate versions and how they're different.

JAX: Absolutely, and I love thinking about that because yeah, Dave — Davesprite had to live in months where everything was pointless and they were just — there were — like they were going to die or he was going to go back in time, like nothing good was going to come from that and he had to deal with that realization for months on end.

KATE: And — it is — there's a lot of angst there to think about for sure. And y'know it's — Davesprite — I think a lot of people reading the comic now maybe wouldn't know just how amazingly popular Davesprite was during the middle run of the comic. Because people love boy angst, it's true! We know this!

JAX: [laughs] Yeah!

KATE: Y'know there's nothing that people eat up quite like a boy with angst.

JAX: Absolutely, yes.

KATE: [laughs] And y'know, Davesprite is just the most popular character in Homestuck with additional boy angst, which was part of for me what made the eventual creation of Davepeta so fascinating because it really is Dave freed of boy angst by being freed of any conception of masculinity and also — y'know being freed to pursue — to forge their own path in terms of gender and forge their own path in terms of no longer feeling like an irrelevant extra Dave.

JAX: Yeah, Davepeta is great, they're something new and I mean Nepeta's great, and Davepeta gives everyone rights and should be way more talked about than they currently are.

KATE: Yeah absolutely. Like Davepeta for me is this very like euphoric, triumphant thing. Like Dave— for a lot of people, Davepeta and Jasprose, they're just these like, weird, zany add-ons right at the end of the comic, but I think they're actually the culmination of those character's arcs in a lot of ways. And they present a sort of euphoric, optimistic vision of the ultimate self that completely contrasts with first Calliope's and then Dirk's grim fatalistic vision of the concept of the ultimate self.

JAX: Yeah, yeah 'cause Rose gets to become the gayest character in Homestuck —

KATE: [laughs]

JAX: [laughs] And Davepeta says fuck you to gender and just — yeah, is so happy and goes after what they want by kissing Jade, which is what we all want —

KATE: Yeah.

JAX: And [laughs] and yeah, they do have this fantastic idea of the ultimate self that I really hope gets explored more because *dang*.

KATE: Yeah, it's like y'know a lot of people — I think people make the mistake of taking characters' words at face value about how concepts in Homestuck work, right?

JAX: Oh absolutely, yeah.

KATE: And y'know it took out-of-universe confirmation for people to finally accept that gendered classes aren't a thing, Calliope was just wrong. [laughs]

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: Like these kids are wrong about stuff a lot and I find that interesting. We don't actually get handed down any definite true information about Homestuck, it's all extremely vague and interpreted through these imperfect lenses, right?

JAX: Yeah, there is no reliable narrator in Homestuck.

KATE: Yeah, and I think people who think, oh well the ultimate self is just Dirk's idea of the ultimate self, well, no. I don't think Dirk is right about anything, he's a shitty boy with a shitty sword.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: [laughs] Like, that's — the impression that is has to — that these characters — and y'know this ends up being — again, this goes back to the people who are obsessed with the strict logical procession, right, who look at Homestuck and say, well John said he was not a Homestuck at 13 so that's a cishet man right there, because definitely nobody ever thinks that they're cishet at 13 and then everything changes for them suddenly later on in life, once they meet actual queer people.

JAX: Yeah, no, at 13 if you say you're not a homosexual at 13 that's how you are, I guess I've just been faking this whole time.

KATE: Yeah! There's this photograph of me at the age of 16, like wearing a polo and cargo shorts and holding up a sign that says "I'm an ally and I'm in", like at a college Democrats table, and whenever I look at that photograph I think, that's John Egbert right there!

JAX: Yeah! [laughs]

KATE: [laughs]

JAX: Yeah, no you were just passionately an ally, man you were really an ally —

KATE: Just really invested in the ally thing, y'know?!

JAX: Yeah, man.

KATE: [laughs] Oh god those cargo shorts were abysmal. I also was wearing transition lenses at the time.

JAX: Ooh, same at 16.

KATE: Yeah, and I had those pants where you could zip off the pants part and turn them into shorts. I wore transition lenses and I was in college, and I went to my courses on a kick scooter. And I don't know why I'm telling this story other than to like, let you guys laugh at me for a little bit because *holy shit*. Like, as much power as that energy would have now, like, it was not as cool as me doing that now would be. It was profoundly lame. I actually stopped using the kick scooter when I rode past a girl on it and she just started laughing at me.

JAX: [laughs] Oh no!!

KATE: Yeah! The psychic damage was *unreal*! I literally never used it after that, just a random stranger laughed at me as I was going by and I was just like, well *fuck*. That's a real moment of self-reflection. [laughs]

JAX: Oh no! Yeah. Oh man.

KATE: [laughs] Anyway kids, it gets better! [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Let's get to some listener questions about the Jade route. Phlop asked on Discord: "Jade's a character that's been traditionally very slept on by the narrative lens of Homestuck. With an entire Pesterquest route devoted to her, how do you think we're finally going to get that much-needed deep dive into Jade's character that we've always wanted. If so, what did Jade's route elucidate that you found particularly interesting? If not, hey that dog's pretty cute right?"

JAX: Yeah that dog is pretty cute. And yeah — angry Jade rights is what I'm getting from this, as we finally get Jade's feelings more. And Jade like, letting loose and screaming and angry Jade is just all I want from Jade a lot of the time. 'Cause she has so much — she has so many reasons to be angry and to have a story let her be angry even if she tries to reel herself back in is fantastic.

KATE: Mhmm, and y'know she sublimates her anger, and it's funny to see her be like — y'know she's a Witch, she's an active class right, but she acts so much like a — wow I just — that's a weird commercial that I'm just looking at there, huh.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Sorry, I've got a fuckin television on in the background and there was a Geico commercial where like — I don't even know how to describe it. There was some — there was a girl turning into a furry — the culture's gettin' strange out there people! [laughs]

JAX: Love it.

KATE: I got completely distracted by that.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: But Jade y'know ends up acting sort of like a knight or almost like the opposite of Space, which is Void [sic], which is the idea that Taz — that optimisticDuelist has advanced a lot, of y'know characters sort of roleplaying these ideas that are antithetical to themselves. And Jade plays a role so hard and it doesn't make her happy.

JAX: Yeah. Yeah, she just thinks she has to do what's best for the narrative instead of what's best for herself, it's sad and that one ending where you agree with her is very bad, and I had a very hard time clicking on that.

KATE: Yeah. Yeah that was one of the hard ones for sure. That was one of the hardest choices in this game series' history. The other one was turning — was having to snitch on Tyzias to get the good end of the Tirona route. I was like, oh no, I don't wanna do that!

JAX: Oh you know what I don't think I ever actually did that. I don't think I finished playing that route just because it required me to snitch on Tyzias! [laughs]

KATE: Well you should do it because don't worry, Tyzias has a plan.

JAX: Okay cool.

KATE: [laughs]

JAX: I'll have to go back and do that —

KATE: Yes.

JAX: I just realized that I meant to go back and I never did.

KATE: Plus you learn some very choice pieces of information about Tyzias that I think are absolutely wonderful, so —

JAX: Fantastic.

KATE: Yeah, look into that one if you haven't yet.

JAX: [laughs] Yeah.

KATE: Foymic asks on Discord: "In what ways do you think the current state of Pesterquest's story acts as a response to the Epilogues with ideas like wish fulfilment being treated in different lights?"

JAX: So yeah, a lot of us — or at least I did and some of my friends had the idea of going into the epilogues before we knew what it was that there was, y'know the candy route and the meat route, and I guess I had higher hopes for what the candy route was gonna be. I thought it was gonna be something more like what Pesterquest is giving us. And that obviously didn't happen. So I really am liking, I'm liking the wish fulfilment, but I know that it comes at a cost and I'm not ready for the cost.

KATE: And y'know part of that is that like, part of the point of candy was trying to say that like if this is out of balance then things start going really of the rails. And also it ended up being sort of an idea of wish fulfilment not for the modern fandom but for the most popular ideas over the life of the comic, in a way that a lot of the events that happen in candy sort of reflected this very like, 2013 fandom era. Back when Homestuck was one of the only things where the fan works were straighter than the comic. And I've never fully understood that era of like, just incessant VrisJohn and DaveJade fanworks, and it's always very interesting to see that. [laughs]

JAX: Yeah, no that's gotta be weird because yeah, I'm used to definitely the opposite of that. And again I wasn't super into the fandom at that era so just seeing that come to play in candy was just wild for me.

KATE: And I think maybe that's another reason why a lot of newer fans didn't quite, I don't wanna say 'get' candy, but didn't like connect with it, is they didn't really experience the eras of the fandom that were being played with and y'know whose ideas were being played with. They haven't been exposed to those ideas and for good reason, because most of the like, fandom headcanons and popular ships in 2013 were trash. [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: Let's see. Jett Gray the Prince of Light asks on Discord: "So during the slumber party they watch movies, listen to music, and played games. Assuming that they played Super Smash Bros Brawl who would the kids/MSPA Reader play?"

JAX: Okay, so I don't have many big brain thoughts about this except for: MSPA Reader would play Kirby.

KATE: Oh yeah absolutely. And that also represents the fact that they're this vague orb thing —

JAX: [laughs] Yeah!

KATE: That sort of takes on the traits of whoever's around them, and also is shaped like a friend.

JAX: Absolutely.

KATE: [laughs] No, that's absolutely correct. So I've thought a lot about who the various characters play in Smash Brothers 'cause — and I'm just getting biographical today — I used to be a Smash tournament organizer and commentator who also had a pretty mean Ice Climbers back in 2013 and 14. And so I think a lot about who these various characters would play. And so John absolutely plays Mario. That's the default character, right? He plays — he's the guy who plays Smash and plays Mario, who plays Mario in Mariokart too. Rose plays Sheik, we know this.

JAX: Oh yeah.

KATE: [laughs] Jade plays Marth, and Dave plays Captain Falcon.

JAX: Oh that's fantastic, yeah.

KATE: Yes. Those are my takes, those are my hot takes for who they play in Brawl.

JAX: Yeah, yeah those are great. And I need to go back and play some more Brawl, it was like the last Smash game I think I've played. And I played Kirby which is maybe why I also gave MSPA Reader Kirby. But yeah and also the whole friend shaped, and everything.

KATE: Yeah. The — I — my strongest held Homestuck Smash opinion is that Vriska plays whatever character is best in each game, so she plays Kirby in 64, she plays Fox in Melee, she plays Meta Knight in Brawl, etc etc.

JAX: Oh yeah.

KATE: [laughs] She just plays whoever the optimal character is.

JAX: Oh for sure.

KATE: Let's see. Aeonic maiden asks on Discord: "What do you — "

JAX: Oh sorry, I tried to —

KATE: Oh yeah, we had a little bit of a — "What do you think of all the game nonsense occurring in this route and how much it'll impact the future routes in this sburb-less world. If so, how did Jack get the ring as shown in Prospit, and how did Sollux and Aradia get to the Green Sun?" Well MSPA Reader seems to have the ability to sort of jump around anywhere in the narrative so I'm pretty sure they just landed — they just got yeeted off into a different timeline to see Sollux and Aradia there. As to the figure that seemed like it could be Jack looming on the horizon — we don't actually know that that's Jack for sure, but I don't know what the fuck's up with that. That's a really good question.

JAX: Yeah, the leathery wings thing kinda threw me off a bit, but I don't know. I mean again I'll — Homestuck will always surprise me but right now it kinda feels like both the canon and the not-canon are somehow happening simultaneously.

KATE: But it's also true that we saw Jack — I mean, Jack Noir has access to the fourth wall and was able to hop between timelines, he already hopped from the kids to the trolls and also went into the — and y'know was formerly in the author's room.

JAX: Yes.

KATE: [laughs] Like, y'know, this — Jack with the ring has been shown to be able to move around. Again, we don't know it's Jack, I don't know what's going on there, your guess is as good as mine aeonic maiden, that's my answer!

JAX: Yeah, it's just some stuff to think about because yeah we had the Epilogues in that first route come into play, and yeah there's just a lot going on that — because none of it really makes sense without sburb being a thing, so it's weird. And I look forward to what the explanation's gonna be.

KATE: And y'know that's the thing, is we've never really seen the retcon ability's limits tested, right, and it seems entirely possible that there *are* no limits, which is kind of a frightening idea.

JAX: Yeah!

KATE: [laughs] 'Cause it just — y'know the retcon ability, both John's in the comic and MSPA Reader's in Pesterquest, seems to just *work*, in a way that is kind of alarming for a series that is so used to foiling what the characters desire most.

JAX: Yeah, yeah absolutely, like things that should create paradoxes just aren't. They're just happening.

KATE: Stargazer Ley asked on Discord: "Even though they can't play the game, Bec seems determined to keep Jade on the island. Why do you think this is? He's very clearly capable of protecting her, so why would he think about safety?" My answer for that is just that Bec is a dumb loyal dog who can't make alternate plans! [laughs]

JAX: Absolutely! Like this was the plan, keep Jade safe, keep Jade on island.

KATE: Yeah.

JAX: Good dog.

KATE: Yeah exactly, right? Like I — good dog, best friend. He's got one plan, he's got one idea. It's not like — he's a dog, he doesn't have critical thinking skills! That's my answer to that question! [laughs]

JAX: Yeah [laughs] yeah, Bec: good dog.

KATE: Yeah. He's a good boy even if he was foiling Jade's chances of having a normal life. And this is sort of an interesting question too about like, y'know, MSPA Reader — like the kids are there, the ones that aren't Jade can leave via the transportalizer, but also like what happens to them now? That's a big fuckin' question, right?! Like —

JAX: Yeah.

KATE: What MSPA Reader did was show up and make these kids' lives all much more normal by introducing them to magic [laughs] which is funny. It's funny that it took magic to make these kids' lives more normal but that's how it is. And the idea of these characters living normal lives is weird as shit! And so I'm intrigued to see like, what the hell happens now with these characters that have just been — that have suddenly become sort of divorced from purpose.

JAX: Yeah, same, it's definitely gonna be interesting to watch play out.

KATE: And spacearbys asks on Twitter: "Who is best girl?"

JAX: So I have been thinking a lot about this ever since the question first got asked on this podcast, and it's hard because there are so many best girls. But I'll have to go with Kanaya. I love Kanaya to bits, she is best girl. Y'know, she has range! Like she is the mom friend and she saws people in half with a chainsaw, like get a girl who can do both.

KATE: Yeah [laughs]

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: [softly] Oh man. I — [laughs] god, I think a lot about the like, Vriska — like Kanaya ended up in Vriska's momzone [laughs]

JAX: [laughs] Yes!

KATE: The momzone, a terrifying new alternative to the friendzone. [laughs] So —

JAX: Until she punched her.

KATE: Until she puncher her, which y'know, respect. That's your best girl punching my best girl.

JAX: [laughs]

KATE: [laughs] And that's our show! So that's our shows, actually! Ha ha, that's funny.

JAX: Yeah [laughs]

KATE: Thank you so much for joining us for both of these episodes. The music for this episode is gonna be different on each of the shows, so I'm putting in the theme of the podcast, "perfectly generic" by goomy. I don't know what you're gonna have on your half of the show.

JAX: It's called "dirty dirk kinnie" and it's by dominothief on soundcloud.

KATE: Alright! And you can find Pgenpod live in Chapel Hill this month, October 26th, Saturday at 6pm from the Pit in downtown Chapel Hill. This is right in the heart of downtown so it is on bus routes, et cetera. And parking is gonna be tight, so don't show up right before the show and expect to be able to park right there, alright guys? [laughs] Y'know, it's a city, it's a downtown city, you might have to pay for parking, and that's — prepare for that or take a bus there from wherever you're staying. And it's going to be me, Cro and Aysha U. Farah, and it is going to be an absolute blast. I absolutely cannot wait to see folks there, we've got so many RSVPs already. Tickets are required for this show, you can buy them online right now or you can get them at the door at the venue. They are only $5 and that goes to supporting this venue — this awesome venue that's booked us for this show in Chapel Hill. We're gonna have a stage and microphones and everything, it's wild. And you can find out more information about that at pgenpod.com/live, and you can get your tickets there as well. And this show is listener supported, the Perfectly Generic Podcast is listener supported by support by listeners like you on Patreon. Patrons get access to the 13 episodes and counting of the exclusive [I]ntermission podcast, and their patronage is shared equitably with every person who makes these shows possible, from hosting to making music to appearing on the show as a guest to transcriptions now, starting this month — starting *last* month episode transcriptions are now compensated as well. And it's thanks to your support that we make this show more accessible and help keep — and help do this cooperatively. And at the end of every episode I like to thank our Skylark tier patrons for their incredible support per episode, that's [names]. You can find the show at pgenpod.com, or @pgenpod on Twitter. Itunes, Spotify, Google Play, wherever you get your podcasts. Where can folks find Jax Does Homestuck?

JAX: So I have a website, jaxdoeshomestuck.com that has links to everything. It's also @jaxdoeshs on Twitter and then you can find my person at @dirkification on Twitter.

KATE: Alright, and you can find my personal at twitter.com/gamblignant8. Thank you so much for coming everybody, next — so this is my last regular episode of the show for a long long time, actually! I'm gonna be back for live episodes and Vast Error episodes and maybe as a guest, but this is actually — I'm spiking the football, I'm gonna be gone for a few months as a regular host of this show. And I just wanna say that y'know, through 58 of these, it's been an absolutely incredible experience. Our first new host of the Perfectly Generic Podcast that'll be taking over from me is gonna be Sarah Zedig, and she's gonna take the 2 shows between now and the live show in Chapel Hill. And so I can't wait to see Sarah's episodes and I — y'know I'm so excited to see where Sarah takes this show. So thank you very much for all your support, I'll see you next week. Jax thanks for coming on, thanks for sharing your show with this show. See ya!

JAX: Yeah, thank you for having me! Bye!

[outro]