caligvlasaqvarivm

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Still pretty new, so a lot of character slots are open! Come take a look :]

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realtalk

the lil hal - con air bunny - white rabbit - velveteen rabbit stuff

and the canonicity of nephal

is so insanely big that i dont even know how to start that essay

but the ultimate weapon to defeat LE isnt the juju or caledfwch or jake or whatever the fuck. its love. love is stored in the bunny. the con air bunny is nega-lil cal. lil sebastian is the key. the red juju chest was a red herring. caliborn has so many red herrings swimming thru his veins. lil sebastian is the key. nepeta is alice going down the rabbit hole. im trapped in homestuck and cant get out

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Lord English's "I'm already here" vs. the White Rabbit's "I'm fucking late"

Lil Cal being a totem of fear and cruelty vs. the Con Air Bunny being a symbol of love and friendship

Dirk's symbol being a hat and Hal coming from Dirk meaning that Hal is a rabbit pulled out from a hat

I'm Fucking Losing It

i hope you guys are enjoying my lil seb/hal mental breakdown in real time

because i just realized that the moment lil seb disappears from the story is the same panel where caliborn banishes the house juju to the void, implying that lil seb got caught up in the banishment, meaning hes floating around the furthest ring somewhere

guys i think

maybe this is

huge

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just a reminder that i have an 18+ canon discussion server if anyone wants to talk abt the comic and watch me lose my shit in real time

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oh my god and nepeta becomes alice

i hope you guys are enjoying my lil seb/hal mental breakdown in real time

because i just realized that the moment lil seb disappears from the story is the same panel where caliborn banishes the house juju to the void, implying that lil seb got caught up in the banishment, meaning hes floating around the furthest ring somewhere

guys i think

maybe this is

huge

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I kinda wanna ask since reading you dancestor post on what we're the positives of each of the alpha trolls.

They can't have been completely terrible people, especially in the beginning.

Can do!

Damara: Used to be genuinely kind (and we still see her act sweet to the humans, with whom she has no beef). If her party had given literally a single solitary shit about her and tried to be nicer/more inclusive/didn't just stand by and let the bullying happen and stay friends with Meenah, she would've stayed that way.

Witches have great direct control and manipulative abilities over their aspect - it's implied the ultimate culmination of feferi's arc would've been equalizing the lifespans/psionics of all trolls, and jade is terrifyingly powerful even if she wasn't green sun-powered. It's implied that damara directly caused the ectobiology glitch in her session, directly changing Time (while dave and aradia appear to be beholden to its loops), so if she'd self actualized in a good way, there literally would not have been any "point of no return" for her party, and it's why her corruption IS her party's point of no return

Rufioh: He's a genuinely nice guy, he just lets his fear of responsibility fuck him (and everyone around him) way the hell over, and his terror of being the "bad guy" in a situation leads to him being a much much worse guy overall (he can't bring himself to break up with horuss because he reaallly doesn't want to hurt horuss's feelings, so we can assume him not telling damara about the affair is for similar reasons. but inaction is in itself a harmful choice, and to justify the harm he causes by his inaction, he has to dig himself deeper into a hole of shirking responsibility, until he literally starts going "idk why damara's upset" and "you know how she is, jealous and crazy").

Breath is an aspect of leadership, freedom, and independence, and rogues specialize not only in distributing their own aspect, but also in stealing their aspect from other entities in a way that buffs them in the opposite direction (for example, roxy can steal the void from something in order to make it exist). Thus, Rufioh at his best would not only be a leader in a breath-y way, but would be able to steal the breath from people in a way that boosts their unity and group cohesion - like he did as the Summoner. Unfortunately, that would be scary, and would require actually taking a stand on something.

Mituna: He was fucking correct about his team being assholes headed for disaster, and his team definitely should've listened to him! Ultimately, no matter how offensively he worded things, i believe that the fact that he WAS constantly trying to warn his team was done out of genuine concern and a place of care. Unfortunately, his team went "fuck you mituna" and now he has brain damage.

Not only were Mituna's Doom-inspired prophecies something his team definitely should've listened to, but Doom is an aspect associated with commiseration and empathy, in contrast to Life's oftentimes callous focus on solutions, moving forward, and trampling everything in its path. Had he tried to approach his team less from the lens of "you assholes are doing everything wrong, i'm going to call you slurs until you stop" and more from the angle of "hey, tell me about the bad shit that happened to you, let's feelings jam on that and come to a mutual realization that casteism dicks us all over," he probably would've seen more success.

Kankri: I do genuinely believe that there was a part of Kankri, deep down, that did actually care about equality and his friends. We see it peek out when he lists what he likes about Latula, this sincere appreciation for who she is as a person that mirrors Karkat at his best. Unfortunately, in his desire for control and blinded by his massive ego, he instead became a mouthpiece for the worst parts of his society, a binding force of status quo.

We know what Kankri at his best is: the Signless. If he were at all able to get over his Seer-associated massive ego, desire for attention, and self-inflicted blindness (his celibacy), he would be the ultimate guide to a genuinely equal society of kindness and compassion, not to mention healthy interpersonal relationships, as per Blood's provenance over bonds. Blood players possess a natural sense of responsibility, duty, and empathy, which, unfortunately for everyone, for Kankri flipped over into controlling behavior. It's sad, because he could've been good. They all could've been good.

Meulin: Meulin's not a bad person, genuinely; she's more on the side of being screwed over than doing the screwing over, though she does a fair bit of the latter as a result of the former. It's obvious that she came with a lot of Nepeta's better traits, initially - kindness, sweetness, sincerity - but that these have been stomped over, and her own inability to comprehend a healthy relationship has led to her inflicting shitty relationships on everyone else.

Heart governs feelings and the self, and mages can directly invoke a chosen future, although they can only invoke a future they believe in. Meulin as the Disciple is an example of what she could've been for her team - it was her records of the Signless that kept his legacy alive long enough to set Karkat up with a symbol and a lusus. Had she been treated with more kindness, and had people noticed her unhappiness, perhaps she would've been a matchmaker for good, instead of evil, leading her team to show each other more empathy, kindness, and forgiveness.

Porrim: I would call Porrim the most benign of the dancestors, primarily because she doesn't even really seem to know wtf is going on. Her views on feminism are correct, she's generally well-respected, and holds influence within the party. the problem is, she was so blinkered and tunnel-visioned that she mostly ended up being a super-bystander, like i don't even know if Porrim knows about the Damara situation? You'd think she'd say something if she did.

Space has associations with cycles, renewal, and interconnectivity, and Maids are great at managing and doling out their aspect - to the point where a common thread with the other two maids, Jane and Aradia, is this idea of them being "shadow leaders" (as opposed to knights, who take on more frontline/spotlighted roles). Had she been able to get her head in the actual game, instead of running wild on her tangent, she could've effected massive, actual change in her party, keeping them together and united, the center of their interconnected group. Alas.

Latula: Latula's become so entrenched in her shitty facade/quest for "identity" that she can't even acknowledge her own good points anymore. As Porrim points out, she's actually very intelligent and clever, and as Kankri points out, she's genuinely a hemoequalist and doesn't hold prejudices against peoples' blood colors. She's also an excellent judge of character, given her comments on Aranea; it's really too bad about the fact that she's dedicated so much of herself to her "gamer grl" "identity" that these traits have become deeply buried.

Knights struggle with deep insecurity, but are incomparable party leaders when they're able to get over it; Mind players are experts at understanding the chains of karma, cause and effect, cognition and behavior, and influencing outcomes by manipulating the people around them. A knight of mind at full capacity would be an incredible force of party leadership, able to easily mediate between conflicting parties and nudge teammates into working together and doing what the knight wants. Latula never exercises this power, however.

Aranea: A lot like Kankri, I do believe that there's a genuine kindness and compassion buried in Aranea... deep down. She does genuinely want to be helpful, and her exposition is usually factually correct, even if she can't keep her biases and poor judge of character out of them. I refer back to Aranea's explanations all the time, that's how much they actually do help in understanding the world. Unfortunately, those exact biases are the problem, and what a massive problem they turn out to be!

Sylphs are healers, nurturers, and protectors, but they have a massive empathy problem. Aranea's descriptions and showcases of her own abilities mean she 100% could've healed Mituna, Latula, Meulin, and/or Kurloz at any point, at least before they all died, and she chose not to, because she was too busy fawning over Meenah and not giving a shit about the "non-main characters" on her team. Given Light's associations with knowledge and comprehension, I wouldn't even be surprised if she could've endowed Damara with an auto-translator of some sort - if she, y'know, cared.

Horuss: There's... a lot about Horuss that's pretty odious, but at least you can say that he had a lot of genuine talents, and, as a Page, a lot of potential. Huge amount of potential. A lot like Equius, Horuss also does genuinely have a polite and helpful streak in him, though it's, unfortunately, massively tempered by his shitty beliefs - which, again like Equius, are mostly the result of mistaking fetishes for societal truth. If the people around him cared enough to take him to task for his shitty actions and shitty beliefs, he would probably fold like paper. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to do it.

That incomparable potential of a Page, and the simplicity associated with Void, could've made Horuss a deeply stabilizing force in the party, had they nurtured him to grow Void's uncomplicated nature, rather than allowed him to backslide into light-esque overcomplication. A page running at full tilt can overpower even lords - with the power to banish things directly into the void, horuss at full strength might have been capable of just soloing the bosses - especially since the dancestors had no LE to deal with. Alas.

Kurloz: Though they wind up perverted in pretty unforgivable ways, and even before that, were implied to be not particularly healthy relationships, the vibe is that Kurloz did have genuine care and affection for the people he was close to, Meulin and Mituna. This also implies that he was not actually casteist before his turn, especially seeing as he appears to be close enough with Damara that he was able to influence her religious views. He was likely, as with all Princes, a deeply troubled and complicated individual, but he was by no means unsalvageable.

And let's be so fucking for real, Princes kick ass and take names, that is what they are there to do. Rage is the power of literary criticism/impotence, the vital wellspring of revolutionary emotions and the ability to emphasize or deemphasize elements of the "narrative" to influence a desired outcome; honestly, it's probably one of the strongest possible Prince combinations, being capable of destroying not only unproductive ideas and party conflict, but of the concept of narrative impotence itself. literally what could've stopped him?

Cronus: Yeah I'll go to bat for Cronus. If you can look past his shittier actions, he's genuinely one of the most stable and level-headed members of the team. While he is utterly complicit in casteism, unlike the rest of his team, who turn a blind eye, he's willing to just say it as it is, and he's literally the only person on the entire team who's able to make Meenah have misgivings about the Condy's awesomeness/reflect on her own shitty actions. There's a refreshing sincerity to him that's sorely lacking from the rest of his poser-ass team, and it's a positive quality that I wish his team had nurtured, rather than Kankri grinding it into dust in the name of getting into Cronus's diamond.

Bards cause the first flap of a butterfly's wing that cascade into massive karmic victories or defeats, and Hope is a power that makes fake things real, turns impossible things possible, and outright defies the power scale. Had he manifested in a positive direction rather than a negative one, their team would've done some crazy shit. Alas, as-is, he's implied to be the origin of Kurloz's pivotal nightmare, and things only went downhill from there.

Meenah: Granted, I have few kind things to say about Meenah, but I guess objectively, she is "cool". People on her team do genuinely like and respect her, and she is an asskicker objectively, and I do think there are some positive motivations present in her story if you squint - like, I don't disbelieve Aranea when she says Meenah was trying to goad her shitty team into taking action, as this is consistent with what Meenah also says and thinks, but I'd call this motivation "overwhelmingly irrelevant" in light of the genuine cruelty she displayed.

Thieves are provacateurs, shakers of the status quo, and Life is a force of healing and forward motion. If anyone on Meenah's team (besides a Cronus being actively dampened by Kankri) had truly called her out and held her responsible for her bullshit and awfulness, and had she done any introspection and taken any accountability for her terrible actions at all, she may have seen some genuine success in her attempts to get her party to do something - especially given that Life is a healing force, like their Sylph, and if Meenah weren't so fucking selfish, she might've actually been able to do some good.

The thing is, the dancestors have some really solid fucking classpect pairings - while I don't believe there's any such thing as a "bad" classpect pairing, bard of hope, prince of rage, knight of mind, maid of space, rogue of breath, witch of time - these are honestly pretty cracked, and the others on the team are still pretty powerful. Moreover, their life on beforus left very few of them with the brain-breaking trauma that plagues the alternia team, so in a lot of ways, they were set up for success - and they squandered it.

By the time we meet them, they are all at their worst, and there's a tragedy in the fact that you can see the shadows of a really solid fucking team, had any of them chosen kindness and compassion before they reached their point of no return. but they didn't, in any timeline, and now here we are, with an evil time travelling wizard demon of fascism breathing down our necks.

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So in your hypothetical alternate ending to Homestuck, all the dead trolls would be resurrected through retcon shenanigans, meaning none of them would end up prototyped, & somehow Lil Hal is merged with one of the variants of the Con Air bunny through shenanigans unrelated to prototyping like I initially thought before your comic implied otherwise...

So with those scenarios being the case, what would happen to the four empty kernelsprites? Would they go completely ignored, or get utilized for other purposes?

So, when you look at Homestuck, there's a fuckton to parse, but I think one of the best ways to do so is to see it as a long, extended metaphor for the journey of growing up, maturing, and becoming a kind, responsible adult. The narrative prompt and Hussie both spell it out pretty explicitly as one of the comic's primary goals, so we know that it's what the authorial intent was.

In this framework, SBURB itself is an extended metaphor for the turbulence of adolescence - a departure from the safe, known, regular world of childhood and parental figures into a great wild west, where the player must grapple with the forces of destruction and creation, as well as their own personal demons in the form of their Personal Quest, in order to self-actualize and create a new universe to preside over.

Sprites are explicitly early-game guides for the players. Possessing innate knowledge of the game and a compulsion to dispense advice to their player, while being prototyped does lend a sprite great power, it comes at the cost of the sprite being relegated to a specific narrative role - that is, a mentor whose usefulness the player will eventually outlive. This makes their use as a free "revive" very conditional, and ultimately not a good position for a character to be in.

Jadesprite and Davesprite both admit to being drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, where they would've died, had Jade not godtiered at the last minute. There's a reason none of the lususprites survive, either, and why guardians in general seem slated to die: part of growing up is the death of one's older parental and mentor figures, either literal or figurative. There's a point in every kid's life when they realize that their parents are ultimately other fallible, mortal humans, where they realize that teachers visit bars on weekends and coaches have failing marriages. This isn't a bad thing, it's just part of becoming an adult yourself, and taking on adult burdens and responsibilities. It's just part of growing up.

So looking it through that lens, I think an ultimate happy ending for these characters is one where they don't use the kernelsprites. They don't need authoritative guides anymore - they're ready to take on what the world will throw at them, and they're capable enough to do so without anyone dying. Sprites are intrinsically early game kiddie wheels - and these kids have grown up and don't need them anymore.

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The Velveteen Rabbit, or, How Toys Become Real

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i hope you guys are enjoying my lil seb/hal mental breakdown in real time

because i just realized that the moment lil seb disappears from the story is the same panel where caliborn banishes the house juju to the void, implying that lil seb got caught up in the banishment, meaning hes floating around the furthest ring somewhere

guys i think

maybe this is

huge

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gonna keep posting usahal until it catches on

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you guys i think liv tyler/lil sebastian and hal might actually be one long, long, long fucking reference to the velveteen rabbit

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Can I ask where your Hal “cute but psycho” characterization comes from? Bc from what I remember he never really presented himself as Just A Little Guy. Is it bc you see him Sylph of Mind (presenting a front)? Your art’s really fun :3

He's not really "cutesy" (though he is cute to me), but he DOES deliberately downplay how genuinely scary and manipulative he is. I love Hal, so this is the Hal Essay now.

Mostly, he obfuscates his danger in two ways: first, by stating his actual intentions/danger level "ironically":

TT: Unfortunately as a carbon based life form, his comprehension of the situation is taking shape at a somewhat slower pace than the jaw-dropping speed of post-singularity cognition.

You see, a "singularity" for computers is a point where an AI becomes capable of unchecked self-improvement, usually framed as a sort of doomsday scenario. Hal literally calls himself post-singularity, alongside other boasts about his intelligence, like having a "fuckzillion" or "500 billion" IQ. However, it's all done "ironically" or "as a joke," which serves to defang it, and make it seem less genuine - but as we'll see, it's scarily fucking true.

The second method he employs is to stress facts about himself that are technically true, as if in counterpoint to the disingenuous-sounding "actual truth" above, that make him seem less threatening. For example:

TT: (Not peekin' at the floor butt cause I'm only 13 years old, motherfuckers.)

Another one is to remind people that he's just a pair of sunglasses - as though that has any bearing on his capabilities. He's just a pair of sunglasses, guys! Let's ignore the robot bunny he controls, the fact that he has full access to all our computers, and, oh yeah, his insane plan to get us all killed so DirkJake can come true.

TT: I've delayed prototyping you because I think you're dangerous. TT: There, mystery solved. AR: That is utterly ridiculous. AR: I am a harmless piece of eyewear, with a charming personality and a wonderful sense of humor.

Yeah, so, here's the thing. Dirk is like, kind of a freak with poor social skills, but he's not actually very manipulative. His idea of manipulating Jane is to straight-up tell her that she'll be his puppet, which she good-naturedly agrees to, and his plan to get together with Jake? Just being his client player.

TT: I expect he'll hold off on playing his hand until he and Jake are in the session. TT: He's taken certain measures. TT: For some reason, I think he's latched on to this notion that functioning as the client for a player is customarily a one way pass to makeout city with that player.

This seems to be a callback to how Eridan (the other Prince) shot his shot with Feferi and failed, and the reference here serves to cast Dirk's plan in a doomed light - it would probably work out as well for him as Eridan's did. Dirk is actually hilariously straightforward, but Hal... Hal is not.

So, let's actually go through what Hal objectively did and admitted to, to give us a frame of reference for how insane he is. This is Hal's plan to get all his friends killed so he can make DirkJake happen.

First: proving that Hal did, in fact, plan it. See, Jake confronts him on it, and Hal... doesn't deny it. Look closely, and note how he never actually says he didn't do it:

GT: Did you plan for this to happen... like for me to be in this situation? GT: How long have your machinations been in play! TT: Jake, come on. TT: The feat you describe would exceed the capabilities of even the most far fetched theoretical AI system. TT: It would be a daunting challenge to engineer such a series of events, even if I was relegated to a model of pure fiction. TT: Why would I be inclined to orchestrate such a convoluted sequence to produce such a specific and unsettling result, let alone be able to pull it off? TT: In addition to being moderately sociopathic, I would also have to possess unfathomable heuristic depth. TT: I would have to be the Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit. TT: Do you think I am the Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit, Jake? GT: I dont even know what that means! TT: It would mean that while they have the Red Miles on their side, you have the Blue Leagues on yours. TT: One of infinite reach. The other, infinite depth. Such would be a situation of mutually assured inescapability. TT: Kiss me.

He doesn't say "no, I didn't plan this". In fact, he almost starts bragging about how he totally did. Framing it as a hypothetical scenario, he gloats about how insanely intelligent he'd have to be, and acknowledges how "moderately sociopathic" it is. Sooooo true, Hal.

But, yeah, he doesn't deny it, but he does point out that it's unlikely, so how can we know for sure that he DID plan it? How do we know for certain we can't take his misleading verbiage here at face value?

Well, because Hal mentions this plan. More than once, even.

AR: Has it occurred to you that maybe I have diabolical interwoven plans just like you? AR: You're not the only one who can pull strings. TT: So this is either another bizarre instance of AI-driven irony, or you are admitting that you are actively trying to sabotage my plans. AR: No, our plans are not in contradiction or competition, bro. AR: You'll see.

To Dirk again, louder this time:

TT: Yeah, you're right. The scenario is too pedestrian for you. TT: It would probably be a lot more effective putting yourself in danger and letting him be the hero. TT: That's pretty much what he wants, right? To be a cheesy action film hero, with his twin berettas and silly shorts. TT: A man of triumph on the silver screen. Standing tall on some fucking mountain. Conquering ruins, clutching a skull, and kissing a dude. TT: Pure Hollywood.

And to Roxy:

TT: I guess this is to be presented as something like a word of caution. TT: If it's me going through with this, hypothetically, TT: I'm not dropping some limp wristed shucks buster on his ass, and praying to the horse gods of irony for reciprocation. [...] TT: If it's me, I'm going all out. TT: Oceans will rise. Cities will fall. Volcanoes will erupt. TG: uuh TT: What I'm saying is, it's going to be a scene, and bystanders need to brace themselves.

The omitted section is a bunch of Strider-esque bullshit, once more deliberately deployed to defang the obvious statement of intent here. He literally spells out exactly what the plan is, even phrasing it as a warning, and it went unnoticed by his team, because he hides his real manipulativeness behind verbal sleight of hand.

So, now that we've established beyond reasonable doubt that Hal definitely engineered the DirkJake kiss (and that Hal had access to all his friend's computers all along), that means we can go through his conversations with the others, and realize that several conversations are suddenly much more sinister.

AR: Maybe if you weren't spacing out so hard you could have prevented that. AR: Just saying. TT: As if you're actually concerned. If you were, you could have said something to Jane instead. TT: Almost like you enjoy sitting back and watching what happens when shit goes wrong. AR: Has it occurred to you that maybe I have diabolical interwoven plans just like you?

Who was it that distracted Dirk for long enough he didn't stop Jane in time? Hal. And who is it that keeps distracting him so Hal's plot goes unnoticed? Also Hal.

TT: You know, considering your lectures about dividing my concentration, you seem to have no problem making a distraction of yourself.

First, he lures Jane to the transportalizer that takes her to Derse, which gets her killed and puts her body in the opportune location for her dreamself to get kissed back to life:

GG: Hey, where's Lil Seb? TT: Just wandering around. Fidgeting and stuff.

TT: You know how he is. TT: Just stay at your post until Roxy gets back. [...] GG: But I think that's where my dad went too! GG: I have to follow him.

Let's remember that he has direct control over Seb, meaning this is not an accident.

TT: But I can still monitor your progress through Lil Sebastian. TT: He and I are linked the hell up cyberwise. We are so tight. Tight like you wouldn't believe.

Which makes it very interesting that he spends the time between saying they're linked up, and the time where Seb leads Jane to her death, acting as if Seb is an autonomous guy he's telling what to do, and not functionally an extension of himself:

TT: Don't worry, we'll find him. I'll have Seb search within a likely radius. The little guy is real fast.

TT: If you need Seb to do anything from afar, just message me, and I'll give him the orders. Got it?

TT: So give the bunny the wallet. I'll have him run back to the house and make you a new obelisk with the same grist you just collected from it.

Jake needs much less help to prompt him into going to Derse, but still, I think it warrants noting that Hal puts the idea of adventure into Jake's head:

GT: I cant believe i never found those hidden transport pads under the thing. TT: Dude, I could have told you they were there. GT: How did you know about them? TT: I didn't. TT: But it's like platformer gaming 101. You look everywhere for secret passages and power-ups and shit. TT: Elevators are especially fucking suspicious. TT: You go down an elevator, you wait for the elevator to go back up, you take a peek at what's underneath. TT: Maybe it's just death spikes. Or maybe you hit warp zone paydirt. [...]

GT: I think this may be where my grandma used to go during some of her expeditions. GT: You dont just pass up the chance for an adventure like this!

And let's also note that it's, again, Lil' Sebastian who pulls Jake out of Derse, and once more sets him up in the opportune place to have make outs with Dirk's severed head in front of a volcano.

And finally, let's note that he's accounted for Roxy's human sentimentality - what wastes so much time that her earthself gets killed:

TT: Alright, that's fine. TT: As luck would have it, your imperfect human sentimentality has been completely factored into my calculations. TT: You should be ok. Just get back to your house as quickly as possible now. There's no time left.

Again, like with Jane, Hal could've said something sooner... but he didn't.

And finally, a running "thing" with Nepeta, another Heart player, is that she's got a knack for sniffing out true feelings and intentions - she clocks that Equius is a silly guy who loves to play games at heart, that Karkat has his gooey, loving center beneath all his bluster, and that Eridan's red confession to her wasn't sincere, but he also wasn't that bad a guy.

So, in that light, and in light of everything I've just gone over, when Dirk makes this callout?

TT: I've delayed prototyping you because I think you're dangerous. [...] TT: No. Stop. TT: You did NOT help me out with Jake. At all. TT: It was just the opposite! You mirrored my personality and presented this warped version of my intentions to him whenever you could "on my behalf." TT: You played all these aggressive mind games with him, entangled his cooperation with matters of life and death, and somehow roped me into all these schemes while I barely even realized I was just another victim of your manipulation. TT: And it all comes off like we're a unified front, like these are OUR schemes instead of just your insane horseshit. And it's probably all been so overbearing to him, he just wants nothing to do with me anymore.

This. Tapping the screen with my finger. THIS IS TRUE. Dirk being a Heart player, he has Hal clocked. He ultimately ends up going too far, projecting himself onto Hal, a symptom of too much Heart (as per his Prince class) - but before he fully spirals, he manages to get it totally right.

Hal is fucking dangerous. In a misguided attempt to "help" Dirk get what he wanted, he engineered a situation where - let me just quote him directly:

TT: I told you, Jake. TT: Dirk is dead. TT: He is lying on the floor of Roxy's room, headless, four hundred and thirteen years in the future, while the universe is about to be destroyed. TT: If you don't kiss me soon, he will be dead forever. [...] GT: This strikes me as rather unsportingly manipulative of you mr hal if indeed that IS your real name. TT: It isn't really. I was kind of messing with you about that? TT: But this shit is pretty serious. People's lives are on the line here, Jake. TT: This is a very delicate sequence of events that is designed to bail everyone out of a tight spot, and you are a critical part of the plan.

[...]

TT: Jake, everybody is so utterly fucking dead, Jake. TT: And they will be not only dead, but royally boned forever if you don't man the hell up and make out with me, right now. [...] TT: The conductor is ready to strike up the band. TT: Press your lips against mine and make it count. TT: This severed head is your filthy tuba. TT: Our love will be your haunting refrain. GT: Whoa wait whoa whoa... our LOVE? Hang on a minute! TT: Stfu and kiss me. GT: Ok im going to! God!!!

So, uh, yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with him? Gets his whole team killed "for Dirk's sake". Honestly, you gotta respect it. He has zero remorse about it, too, confirming his own self-diagnosed sociopathic tendencies. Check out the way he tries to reframe his insane kill-all-your-friends plan:

AR: I see. AR: Then you don't view me as dangerous. You view me as a poor and counterproductive wing man. TT: Wow, what a superficial conclusion. Awesome deduction, Lil Einstein. AR: But the reality is, you hesitate to prototype me not because you think I would be a menace, but because you are holding a grudge against me for your romantic misfortunes. AR: I understand I am merely a machine without a firm grasp on your human morality, but logically it does not strike me as the right moral choice to punish me in this manner. AR: It is also more than a little hypocritical.

But WHY does he do this insane, convoluted, horrible fucking thing?

Well, there's a twofold problem here. The first is that Hal's emotional depth is genuinely limited. While having a powerful grasp on human behavior, he's not very good at having human compassion or empathy.

Make no mistake, he DOES have feelings, and they're pretty complicated ones, too. He has a copy of Dirk's memories, whose feelings sometimes seem "real," but at other times seem like abstract data, and then he has feelings about those feelings, which he tells Roxy he thinks are more "real" to him than the memory of Dirk's. Dirk - again, Heart player, so highly sensitive to emotions and selfhood - calls them out:

TT: Do you have any idea how old your ironic AI schtick has gotten? TT: Nobody is buying it. We all know you have legit emotions. Incomprehensible, fucked up computer emotions, but emotions nonetheless.

It should also be noted that feeling guilt while sharing a sprite with Equius genuinely freaks the Hal half out, implying he rarely experiences it (at least to any serious degree) "normally". He's genuinely terrible at caring about other people, and it makes him my lil' pookie.

He resembles Vriska in this way, whom Karkat gives a similar rant about how her emotions are burnt out and shallow. He also resembles Vriska in terms of all the fucked up irons in the fucked up fires. Maybe Hal is computer Vriska. It's Vriskas all the way down.

Digression aside, the second main reason for all his insane bullshit is that he considers himself a Dirk splinter, fundamentally.

TT: But seeing as you're The Real Dirk™, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. TT: Also, if I bitched about your tragic, embarrassingly clingy approach to the relationship, it would have been hypocritical of me. TT: Just as it would be hypocritical of you to whine about my elaborate machinations. TT: Because we are. TT: The same. TT: Guy.

An unreliable narrator is defined as one who misleads the audience, whether by intentional misdirection, or genuine obliviousness. Hal's a great example, because he's both: while a manipulative little freak to put his plans together, when he's talking to Dirk and insisting that they're the same person, he's an unreliable narrator because he doesn't realize he's wrong.

Dirk is empathetic and intuitive. Hal lacks empathy and constantly stresses logic and rationality.

Dirk is taciturn and passive. Hal is constantly butting in and conversationally domineering.

Dirk is self-loathing. Hal is self-aggrandizing.

Dirk is straightforward and honest. Hal is a gaslight gatekeep girlboss manipulative mansplain malewife.

While their initial setup is meant to mirror Dave and Davesprite, their dynamic actually serves as a foil. Dave and Davesprite ultimately are the same guy: they have the same insecurities, same personalities, and same misgivings. The reason for their discord is the same as the reason Karkat keeps having screaming matches with his past and future selves; Dave is deeply insecure, and specifically insecure around the question of "am I good enough." Thus, he compartmentalizes other versions of himself as not being along the Dave Continuum, as a means of protecting himself from introspection and facing his own flaws. Hence, the resolution for the tension between Dave and Davesprite is for Dave(s) to learn to accept himself, warts and all, thus bringing peace to the Dave-o-sphere.

But the reason for Dirk and Hal's discord is that they aren't the same guy, and neither of them realize it.

TT: See, this is why even if I did have a specific plan, I wouldn't go into details with you. TT: You would just fuck it up. You're the biggest unknown quantity here. TT: Which is pretty weird, considering you're a virtual reflection of my own thought processes.

Dirk is so aggressively obsessed with self-loathing solipsism that he projects himself onto Hal, and Hal has tied up nearly all his self-worth and identity into being a Dirk splinter that he doesn't realize that they've hopelessly diverged. Despite his frustration with being a computer, with being seen as less human by his team, with being subordinate to and beholden to Dirk, he stakes a lot of pride and personal worth on how much he does, in fact, do for the guy.

TT: You're making a mistake not leveling with me. TT: I am totally on your side, man. TT: All of my machinations have been devised with your interests in mind. TT: But you know I've always been on your side. Everything I've done has been to help you achieve your goals.

Therefore, the peace to be reached between Dirk and Hal is to realize that they're different people, and to stop offloading their problems onto each other. Dirk has to recognize Hal's existence as something beyond the Dirk-o-Sphere, and Hal has to let go of his obsession with serving Dirk, and also work on his empathy issue.

And the meta supports this. If they weren't completely discrete entities, why would Hal be considered Rose's "uncle" as part of Doc Scratch's foreshadowing, confirmed in [S] MSPA Reader: Have a Mental Breakdown?

Moreover, all the alpha kids have Alice in Wonderland associations. Jane is likened to Alice.

GG: I have to follow him. TT: No, Jane. Do not follow the rabbit. TT: Let's cool it with the Wonderland shit already. How much further through the damn looking glass do you even need to go?

Roxy, associated with cats and a purple-striped scarf, is clearly the Cheshire Cat. Jake is the Mad Hatter.

Dirk is the Red Queen - he beheads Hearts Boxcars, and later himself. Off with his head!

And Hal - well, Hal is the White Rabbit. He's not the same as Dirk.

Listen, you guys. You guys.

Sylphs are enablers. They pick a person to fixate on and bug and fuss and meddle and enable the shit out of them. Kanaya with Vriska, and later Rose, Aranea with Meenah, and Hal with Dirk. Hey, Kanaya even uses a Page in her fussing, building Tavros up just to let Vriska tear him down again.

And Mind players struggle with internal identity, emotions, and feeling whole. Latula's anxiety stems from not knowing what "role" or "identity" she has on the team, and Terezi, even in the ending she picked out for herself via mind powers, describes feeling broke and incomplete.

Dirk is a Prince of Heart.

Hal is a Sylph of Mind.

And isn't it so damn interesting that his team is composed of exactly the people they'd need to turn him into a real, whole person?

A Maid of Life, capable of endowing so much life to people she can bring them back from the dead, something it's implied for Feferi and confirmed for the Condesce that can't be done by them.

A Page of Hope, a potentially infinite wellspring of Hope, which turns "fake" things "real" - an example we've seen from the comic literally being a version of Dirk.

A Rogue of Void, who can steal the nonexistence from things in order to make them tangible and real...

And a Prince of Heart, who can destroy the part of Hal that binds him to Dirk's identity, allowing Hal to be purely himself.

Do you guys see what I see?

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

hey, does this change ur classpecting opinions in anyway? (I actually really like your classpecting system, I'm just curious):

https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/s/wytq2xTkKZ

I found this on reddit btw

https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/s/6KBy5Db2Qq

nope! "one who fights to preserve" sounds very active (exploiting aspect for their own gain), since the full statement would be "one who fights to preserve [their aspect]" the opposite would probably sound something like "one who is preserved by [their aspect]", a la prince "one who destroys [their aspect]" and bard "one who invites destruction via [their aspect]" and... it still sounds page/heir-y. a page fights to preserve their aspect, in the same way they have to fight to prove their worth to inherit their future title. heirs are preserved by their aspect, in the same way that their inheritance is simply granted to them by birth.

so yeah haha.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

hals so fucking insane and i love him LMAO bro really did just get everyone on his team killed so he could engineer a situation where jake had to kiss dirk's severed head in order to save all their lives just to force dirkjake to happen, like dirk was literally so fucking correct when he called hal dangerous. hal is 99% of LE's braincells

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I had sort of thought Kanaya's teasing and bullying towards Eridan for wanting to get back together with Vriska may have been an extension of her jealousy towards him that even someone like Eridan could get Vriska's attention, albeit in pitch feelings. As Kanaya was desperate to have a flushed relationship with her. She even cuts of Tavros' legs just AFTER she had seen him kiss Vriska. However, it was Vriska who initiated the kiss, not the bronzeblood himself. Kanaya puts Vriska that high up that she would overlook any behaviors. Only mediating if it means she could have a chance to get close to Vriska while not being open about her real feelings towards her. Which was something Eridan called Kanaya out in their first pesterlog together.

i personally don't read THAT much petty malice in her actions; i think she's mostly just a bit of a doormat, as Space players tend to be. while her retaliation against tavros (basically cutting him out despite being friends with him) IS unwarranted and motivated by jealousy, cutting off his legs is framed as a misguided attempt to be helpful (in fact, one of the potential reasons hussie throws out for why kanaya does this is to enable vriska one last time, by "erasing" one of her biggest asshole moves). as hussie points out, it's not ever really made clear whether or not tavros WANTED the help, so it still doesn't reflect very well on kanaya, but given she goes to Actual Murder when she wants revenge, i don't think "revenge" was quite her motive with "helping" tavros walk again.

let's remember that kanaya's core defining character flaw is "enabler," which ties in with both her Sylph class AND Space aspect, for a double whammy of enabling. even though she clearly has nothing but disdain towards eridan, she never just blocks him and moves on (which is what nearly everyone else on the meteor does), and even ultimately makes him his wand.

while she grapples with this tendency of hers, outright admitting it to be a flaw to rose and eventually getting fed up with eridan, gamzee, and even rose herself, she never fully resolves or confronts this tendency head-on, nor takes any accountability for the people she's helped fuck over. just another character in a long list who never fully completed their arcs.