scofflawsins:

homestuck does a LOT to make character death painful even though almost none of the deaths are permanent (and even the permanent ones are eeeeh because of the dreambubbles) but i think it mostly boils down to pulling away from the traditional idea that the tragedy of death comes from losing a loved one/a life being cut short, and towards a very compelling idea of death as personal trauma

 the dead aren’t lost, and they can continue pursuing their ambitions and growing as people, but the tragedy is that they died at all, that they had to experience that violence and come to terms with existing in the amorphous semi-stasis of ghosts- or just keep living, knowing that they died

it’s not a major thematic thing and it’s communicated almost exclusively through art direction but it’s a very juicy idea that i really really like