#Yaldabaoth as the narrator

[senblades]

"You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a prince. You're here to slay him."

Got hit with au brainrot. But like, shuake slay the princess au would slap, right?

mark my words, I'll write a oneshot (twoshot? several shot) for this au one day

[alterrune]

Shadow Lily: You really thought it would be THAT Easy?

Albert: Something’s wrong, I can’t-

(Albert is cut off)

Shadow Lily: I’ll make the experience even… more painful. I’ll make you experience the worst of your traumas, your worst memories… I’ll throw you into the pit of despair, you’ll regret not taking this seriously.

Albert: I… can’t keep this… connection for long… Shadow Lily is going to make you all face your worst failures, fears, and trauma… I-

(Albert is cut off now, for good)

Shadow Lily: Enough…

(Shadow Lily transforms into her monstrous form, with multiple eyes forming around her body… she can see everything now.)

Shadow Lily: I hate to break it to you all…

(Everyone blinks, and suddenly, they’re not in the reception room anymore… they never even walked there… Shadow Lily deceived them with an illusion, they’re now in the hallways again)

Shadow Lily: You all went in one massive loop… this is the outcome you get. I’ll take matters into my own hands… Time For Your Medicine.

Defeat Shadow Lily

* This is a fight of cat and mouse, anything that Shadow Lily throws at you will terrify or put you to despair at no end. Because of her nature in this form, she cannot take any damage and will chase you all around.

* Shadow Lily will force each of you to face your trauma, fears, and failures. You must face these on your own, If you manage to overcome your fears, trauma, and failures, you will be able to fight her properly.

* Shadow Lily will create multiple hallucinations to throw you off guard, stay vigilant.

(Yeah...this fight already has gone to shit. Everyone, even Teddie and Morgana are absolutely fucking terrified and are reliving horrible memories.)

NO! STOP! STOP SHOOTING MY DAD!

(Alter is reliving his father, Clarence Cross, dying at the hands of the Wall.)

DAMN YOU, INSTITUTE FOR IDIOTS AND IMPRISONMENT!!!

(Violet is living through a twisted fantasy of what would've happened had she not left Citrus [Clarker] and Pinker [Parkson] behind at the Center for Chaos & Containment [but we call it the Institute for Idiots and Imprisonment, or III, for short])

NO, STOP IT DMITRI!

WE'VE SUFFERED ENOUGH!

(Henry and Ellie are both living through the torture they endured when they were imprisoned by the Wall staff back before I had joined the adventure.)

(As for me...well, I'm...I'm...)

OH, FUCK THE NARRATION! JUST STOP SHOWING ME MY GRANDPA AND MY STEP-GRANDPA DYING OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!

[...]

[INITATING TEMPORARY NARRATOR ROLE MOVE...]

[SUCCESSFULLY MOVED NARRATOR ROLE TO "LILY_BURNWAY"]

(Ah, there we go. Sorry, but if Kyle's not gonna do it, then I will.)

(Anyways, Morgana is reliving being turned to dust by Yaldabaoth, and Teddie is reliving Nanako's death.)

(And I'm pretty sure you know what my brother Laurence is being forced to relive.)

No...Lily...don't leave! I'm sorry! I'M SORRY!!! I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING TO HAPPEN TO YOU!!!

(Yeah. My original "death". Poor guy. But anyways, I believe this has gone on for long enough.)

ENOUGH!!!

(After I shout, I suddenly bring out a shockwave that seems to bring everyone back to reality.)

(Including Kyle. Glad, you're back, man. You can have the narrator seat back, I just had to do it since you were...well, y'know.)

[MOVED NARRATOR ROLE BACK TO SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR "KYLE GIBBONS"]

(Hey, I'm glad someone decided to do it while I was under your shadow's spell, Lily. Thanks for the assist. I owe you one.)

(Shadow Lily suddenly looks at Lily in shock. She tries to use her powers again, but suddenly they don't work anymore!)

You realize what I've had to go through, right? You should know, you're a part of me. Here's something you should know, Shadow me. Your powers don't work on me because we're the same goddamn person. We were in a hospital bed for all that time. We saw Laurence shoot us accidentally. WE DIED AND CAME BACK AS KYNN LEE. WE ARE ONE AND THE GODDAMN SAME, YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH!!!

Oh really? And how do you expect to be able to...

(Suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, Lily grabs Leadhead, Vi's heavy-duty sword, and gives Shadow Lily a HUGE gash. Suddenly, all the illusions that were preventing us from beating up Shadow Lily dissappear. We run over to see what looks like Lily having just killed her Shadow Self.)

Lily...you do realize that if she dies, you die, right?

Relax, Laurence. She's still alive.

(Lily lightly kicks her shadow in the head, and Shadow Lily winces in pain.)

Why...? Why would you do this to me?

Because the pain of a wound like that never goes away. It scars both mentally and physically. I still have both kinds of scars from Laurence's misfire at me.

But...why are you letting me live?

You damn well know why. We already died once. It's not a pleasant experience, is it?

What do you gain from this?

Teaching you a valuable lesson, Shadow me. If you get hurt real bad, you can't simply ignore it. You LEARN from it. ADAPT from it. You treat it like a battle scar and fucking SHOW IT OFF.

You don't hide your pain. You make sure someone knows it so they can help. And in my case, the people I've shared my pains with are Aaron/Adam, Laurence, and the CSB. And they listen and give genuine advice. I get help from my friends.

You can't do it alone all the damn time. It's how I ended up dead. I never told anyone about the shady dealings behind the scenes and paid the price.

I believe we know what's about to come out of our mouth now.

"I am thou, thou art I", right?

Correct. Allow us to get ourselves and our friends outside before we be tamed.

(Shadow Lily teleports us outside of the hospital to prevent the place from collapsing and trapping us inside from the maze-like structuring of the place. She then magically heals the wound Lily gave her.)

We thank ourselves for the lesson. We shall remember it well.

(With a blinding flash of blue light, Shadow Lily turns into Lily's persona...Asterius!)

(Suddenly, we're all teleported into a blue limosine. A strange-looking old man and a blue-clad woman both greet us from the back seat.)

Igor! Margaret! So glad to see you two again!

Wait...why are we in the Velvet Room? And cut out the whole "dream and reality, mind and matter" shpiel, we're on the clock here.

Whoa whoa WHOA. What the fuck do you mean, "for the moment"? We're done here, right?

Alter. You know as well as I do that our work is NEVER over.

Yeah. The Midnight Channel is still active, after all. And besides, the shadows may have ceased for now, but there's always next time.

(The car slowly comes to a halt, as the limo's passenger doors open to what seems to be a portal leading out to the very place we first entered from: right outside the TV.)

This must be our stop. Thanks for the help, Teddie and Morgana!

(We exit the limo and head back to reality.)

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼-

(Back in reality, everything is finally back to normal.)

Ugh, FINALLY. Now we can take some well-deserved time off.

Uh, Alter? What about Operation: Twilight Gate? Remember? The whole thing with Terence Suave?

NOT NOW, VI. All that time in the Midnight Channel has left me all kinds of tired.

Could you guys keep it down, please...?

(We all turn to see Lily lying down in her bed. The way she sounds is like she's suffering from a massive headache.)

Awakening Asterius like that really drained me, and the shouting isn't helping things at all. Could you guys please stop being so loud? Thank you.

Sure thing, Lily. Sorry about the noise, I'll try to whisper like this whenever we're around you, just so your headache doesn't get worse. I hope you make a speedy recovery.

Knowing me, I probably will. Also, before you all go, I just wanted to say that I appreciated all of your help, you guys. Thank you.

(We all head back to my room in the GEOGRAM base.)

Okay, so, as I was saying. I think we should take a breather before we do anything involving Twilight Gate again. I'm all adventured out.

You know what, Alter? That's fair. I'm pooped.

Me too.

Same here.

Ditto.

(I look at everyone's expressions. Yeah, I think Alter actually has a point here.)

You know what, you're right, Alter. The only reason why I'm not feeling tired is because of that damn insomnia problem I'm suffering from. I'm gonna take some of the sleeping pills Dr. V prescribed for me so I can take a nap. Everyone, great job with all of this. I'm glad we finally finished it.

(As everyone leaves and heads back to their respective rooms in the GEOGRAM base, I pour a glass of apple juice, bring it to my bedside, take the pills with the apple juice and drift off to a well-deserved and long-overdue sleep.)

SHADOW LILY: DEFEATED

🎇ALL SHADOWS TAKEN DOWN!!!🎆

[theorynexus]

52 is a great number!  It is also the number we’re at, now.

What, you want to go through a mental battle for predomination with the force of nature that subsumed fricking Caliborn?  I mean, sure, he wasn’t influenced by human culture, so that version was bound to be different, but I’m pretty sure much of the horribly irksome traits that made him him came from his heart, not from his upbringing.

It is beautiful that Alt!Calliope feels it necessary to note exactly why Jade has a clear expression visible to others. There’s just a whole lot of subtle humor packed into that revelation.   Additionally, it’s nice to see that Alt!Calliope recognizes the important distinction that they are the two different versions of Jade, despite their Heartfelt connection. It is very interesting to see that Jade’s first thoughts are about what the other Jade had just been through. It’s nice to see the symmetry with what the Jade who drifted into the black hole had been thinking of, before her mind gravitated to Alt!Calliope’s siren song.

Yaaayyy, echoes reaching out across timelines and instances, flowing into and affecting beings seemingly disconnected, yet who both at different times had primacy of Relevance!   (I am here obviously ignoring the fact that the Jade who died was split off before Game Over: she was from the Game Over side of the Retcon, regardless, and the Collide side of canon has been split into two different versions of herself who have similar levels of importance too, so it’s not like there isn’t a parallel level of distance from “primacy”.    These things are relative. The important part is their proximity to the two archetypal “main” versions of the Kid, and that they act as representatives of these sides.)

A relatively sound argument, Narrator 1, but you seem to have been outmaneuvered. 

Yes!  Most excellent, o’ Muse!   I am curious why you need to (partially?) possess Jade’s body in order to accomplish that, but I am willing to accept this as a necessary sacrifice, potentially. Jade does still seem to be in there, and I trust that you, as subtle as you can be, will not impede her own will too terribly badly?

Hehehehe... HAAAA HAHAHAHAHA!!!      Indeed, indeed!  I am glad you see things in a manner congruent to my own understanding, o’ Muse. I suppose I might, perhaps, even be able to cease referring to him as “Narrator” altogether, rather than simply adding the demeaning “1,” at this point. Curious, I am, though, what precisely is referred to by “my horizon.”   There are multiple possible things which I think could satisfy this, from a spatial, temporal, or metaphorical (thus metaphysical) level: It could refer specifically to the meta-temporal conditions that are considered “after the destruction of the Green Sun,”  It could refer to the white void beyond the darkness of the Furthest Ring, which appears to have always been there, rather than to have been created as a result of the devastation the Green Sun Black Hole’s emergence/creation/completion caused, or It could refer to all areas beyond the realm of Canon. There are other potential interpretations, as well, but these seem like the ones most likely to be the actual antecedent idea which her verbiage referred to.

Vagueblogging?    As for the other matter:   Hmm. That sets a condition to a potential reversal, after which Calliope loses her grip.   I wonder how things will develop, and if it’s just that she intends to inundate the narrative with her text, or if the smaller font there is indicative that she’s actually clamping down on his ability to produce any of his own at all. Oh, and... I guess maybe this suggests that Jade’s personality may be suppressed for some time. Given there are ending conditions to it, the sacrifice may be even less than I thought it might be, so I will in fact continue to accept this.

I am really, really glad that Calliope can sense Alt!Calliope, and that we have received such a rich description of the friction between sides of the narrative divide! <3

It’s also somewhat nice that Alt!Calliope is aware of and/or instantly capable of properly using the gender/lack thereof(?) they (both Calliope and Roxy) identify with. ‘T’is very intriguing that the information was already there, and there were no hickups which Dirk might have mocked Alt!Calliope with.

Hmmmmm-hmm!~   Okay, thanks for clarifying the conditions of the possession.

Hy-po-crite.  Disgusting.  Particularly considering his interference in the narrative is treating others’ lives like playthings, and resulting in great harm--  just like Caliborn.  I suppose this is yet another reason that they had the same Denizen. (Related: I am reminded of the fact that Dirk was the only one of the Alpha Kids that actually bonded with Caliborn, and who that Cherub seemed to consider as a friend.)

The point Dirk made would actually be pretty good, if it weren’t for the fact that her Muse powers almost certainly (as she demonstrates) kept her in constant contact with the world, over the course of the ages. Also:  He’d better go get some aloe or something--- that burn looks painful.

Fool, the point is that it’s so sharp that any motion at all over its surface will bring about a cut-- gravity, wind pressure, and the flow of the silk in any vector other than directly downward or perhaps perpendicular to the blade would naturally give a potential frictional force, which the blade geometry naturally would amplify via wedge-based simple machine mechanics!     No lever action is necessarily needed!          ... Not that he’s not correct to suggest that the flowing motion of the swordplay is not the normal reason for a katana making a cut.

This is very, very true. Also how Debate works. I appreciate both such realities.

This... is just absolutely beautiful. The above paragraph is too. So much so that I shall not repost it here, but rather, shall urge all those who view my text to journey to Meat 27 and experience it for yourselves. Magnifique. (It also reminds me of the impotent rage which Caliborn vented toward Calliope before his false predomination in the distant future of this very universe he foolishly claimed that he, presumably alone, had created for the other Jade.)   ... Post Script Edit:   I feel bad for Callie, feeling like they had to run away like that~

[cherubchoirs]

Okay so after seeing The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe I think your Striker’s Yaldabaoth but then The Narrator seems like both versions of Yaldabaoth depending on player actions either as a misguided creator or malevolent god too quick to be vindictive towards those he has responsibilities(and might even truly want to help.) You can even see the Female Narrator as Sophia pitting the Narrator even when she reproaches him. Sorry not a full meta but I did promise you my thoughts on this.

the stanley parable is 100% a game i need to play (so i have several on the list lol)!! so while i can't comment too much on the specifics, i can talk about how yaldabaoth does, i think, fall into a gray area of morality. what he did is undeniably evil, but how much he understands his own evil in relation to what human beings value is a murkier question imo. now. i will say i think narratively he's 100% evil and that's not really a debate - he is treated as an ultimate evil and by my interpretation is a personification (deification?) of society so....yea, pretty undeniably malevolent. BUT if he's looked at through the lens of ai villains and interpreted that way, he does become a manmade evil that is much less of a moral actor in his own story. that's essentially where my strikers au comes in - yaldabaoth did what he did because he misinterpreted the will of the public based on black and white ideas through data he processed. he determined that free will is unwanted and causes more problems than solutions - he even agrees with the thieves that there are people that use their free will for good, but that those who use it for evil far outweigh them and so it would be better for everyone to eliminate it altogether as it is the root of suffering. clearly this is an extreme solution that no one actually wants, but it seems to me this is yaldabaoth running the numbers and finding the common denominator, just as he was programmed to do. so in my strikers au, yaldabaoth is able to grow and bond with humans up close, he sees their complexities and their contradictions...and most importantly, he sees one solution can never work for everyone, for the billions and billions of people in the world. he sees himself in emma, that she interpreted the data in the same way he did the year before, but he now accepts this solution can't work, no one solution can. humans need to make their own path really, computers like him or emma or sophia can't offer them a one-size-fits-all answer. and on the human side, i think the thieves see that yaldabaoth is much like what sophia is, except he was tasked with finding a solution rather than just understanding. she is curious, he is problem-solving, their directives determining a large part of how they behave and interact with humanity. no, he is not forgiven, but they can see their wishes were what created him, that he is a reflection of what's broken in humanity at large. it makes them understand him a bit better as well...and YEA maybe i turn it a BIT into humans learning to respect ais and ais learning the burden of solving all of humanity's problems isn't on them...i can't help it!!

[ao3feed-p5-boyslove]

by LibrasStrayDog

After spending over a year traveling around Japan, Shido finally calls Akechi back to Shibuya to complete a new assignment. The city is bustling with news of the mental shutdown cases and the phantom thieves, especially after their most recent target: Medjed. Shido wants Akechi to put an end to it, but who’s the real enemy here? All you need to know is Goro Akechi has always dreamed of being a hero, and he’d do anything to make that happen.

or

A plot-focused shuake fic where every chapter is told through the lense of a song (not a songfic, I promise).

Words: 4592, Chapters: 1/11, Language: English

Fandoms: Persona 5

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: M/M

Characters: Akechi Goro, Persona 5 Protagonist, Shido Masayoshi, Niijima Sae, Sakura Sojiro, Phantom Thieves of Hearts

Relationships: Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira

Additional Tags: Unreliable Narrator, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mystery, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Underage Drinking, Mutual Pining, No Yaldabaoth

[mmmmalo]

Macklives (homestuck liveblog) is reaching the Mobius Double Reacharound reveal and it’s very striking to me how the Doc Scratched-focalized narration (talking about BQ getting a new purpose as he warps into the frame) transitions seamlessly to Kanaya’s POV. The point(?) of transition is even a gag about withholding desirable information for harassment purposes, which is one of Kanaya’s discursive staples. There was a hint of Kanaya and Scratch’s figures overlapping when we met Vriska (Kanaya’s notification bubble being replaced by Scratch’s) but I never got very far with that line of thought... so it’s a welcome addition, seeing them linked again here.

In a way, it complements the hints that Karkat is linked to Lord English: Doc Scratch and Kanaya both act as the “mother” to LE and Karkat’s “child”. The “excellent host” shtick is basically fiduspawn pregnancy, complementing the Mary/Jesus motifs Kanaya and Karkat get. When Kanaya was in Echidna’s lair (we’re in late act 6 now) outright saying that motherhood is her “thing” and asking Karkat was his “thing” was, I half expected the answer to be childhood.

It doesn’t help that this scene flows from (and therefore connects to) alt-Calliope-as-Echidna -- hearing Karkat reveal his insecurity about getting the weakest denizen (and how that has historically conflicted with his self-conception as a warrior) activated my confirmation bias and I could only see Caliborn, with the canonized self-aggrandization removed. Doesn’t help that Karkat views this as the exact opposite of getting Yaldabaoth, Caliborn’s (apparent?) denizen. I don’t know why I’m so attached to the idea that Caliborn’s lying -- it would be nice if red herrings indeed swam in his veins, I guess? I think this might be the influence of my One Piece reading, where there actually tend to be hints of a “true history” that the fairy tales obscure

[disneydreamlights]

Celeste because she's bae, and Annalee because Daughter Time nwn

ASH THERE’S SO MANY CONCERNING THINGS ABOUT THAT FIRST STATEMENT.

Full Name: Just Celeste. She did at one point have a last name but she abandoned it, seeing it as unnecessary. She also sometimes goes by Astra.

Gender and Sexuality: Cis girl and this is the one question my answer is “I don’t want to know”

Pronouns: she/her

Ethnicity/Species: human

Birthplace and Birthdate: Sumaru City. Her birthday is June 8th.

Guilty Pleasures: So I have to preface this that this is not normally a guilty pleasure but due to the fact that she thinks she has to abandon everything she once was to lead her cult properly, her attachment to her drawing and the comic she’d planned on making before she discovered Yaldabaoth are both guilty pleasures.

Phobias: Nothing she would admit. ;) (Also snakes)

What They Would Be Famous For: In an ideal world? It’d be for her art skills and comic since she’s really good. But uh...leading a cult is kinda...yeah.

What They Would Get Arrested For: HMM...it’s almost like she psychologically tormented people to recruit them to a cult I wonder...

OC You Ship Them With: no

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Of my own ocs Luca would like to strangle her in her sleep but let’s be real it’s Matt.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Superhero

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Not a cliche but in general the generic YA Dystopia novel genre and all the cliches associated with it tend to leave a bad taste in her mouth.

Talents and/or Powers: She’s great at art, and whether or not it’s good or not she is gifted at manipulation and making people see things her way.

Let me put it this way: Matt may have been the reason the Holy Grail grew so exponentially, but she’d still managed to recruit a good amount of members before she had him and there’s a reason for that.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Once they honestly get to know her if they do they’re probably too wrapped up in her beliefs to stand against her. It’s the only reason somebody could like her. She’s manipulative, abusive, and kinda a bitch.

Also I guess there’s kinda the people who don’t know she’s a cult leader who know her online like Luca, ig he likes her because when she’s not trying to recruit people to a cult she’s not a complete monster.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: See the above.

How They Change: Her character arc is definitely a fall from grace. She starts off as a young and aspiring comic artist who moves to Shibuya for a chance, has some bad luck, and just when all seems shit, she winds up in Yaldaboath’s distorted world but unlike everybody else there, she can see him right away. And the words he says make sense. Shibuya is rotten to the core. People don’t need free will, they’d be happier without it. When he dies, she resolves to bringing him back to awareness in the human subconscious so he can rise again and control Shibuya from below with her as his enforcer and the one spreading his word, and bit by bit she starts losing every aspect of herself until all that’s left of Celeste is a dedicated follower of Yaldabaoth and leader of a cult.

Why You Love Them: She’s an interesting character study for sure and her fall from naïve, struggling comic and fanartist to cult leader who’s entire identity and life’s goals are based around bringing back a false god who wants to take away all individuality and control the world and that’s interesting as hell. She’s interesting as hell.

-x-

Full Name: Annalee

Gender and Sexuality: Nonbinary, aro/ace

Pronouns: she/her or they/them. No real personal preference so it’s whatever other characters choose to use. (I use she/her in narration only because those were her initial pronouns since that’s one of the details that’s changed over the years.)

Ethnicity/Species: Unversed (It’s Complicated, and if it comes up in the profile I’ll explain otherwise nah)

Birthplace and Birthdate: Scala ad Caelum and N/A but when asked she insists it’s July 3rd

Guilty Pleasures: Every manga she ever read. She’s read some bad ones.

Phobias: Abandonment is probably her biggest fear but she’s got a pretty big list and some terrible anxiety.

What They Would Be Famous For: I know back when I used her for a DR rp she was a violinist so probably that but realistically for a lot of reasons (anxiety, discovery of her true nature, etc) she would choose to avoid the spotlight so...

What They Would Get Arrested For: I had to give this a lot of thought and more than likely? She completely ran away from something and her father “arrested” her as a cover to get her back home so as not to destroy world order or anything.

OC You Ship Them With: N/A

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Realistically if she loses the ability to maintain her rationality and her true form, Sky, Marina, or Landon could all be likely to take her out, probably Landon.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Rom Com Mangas (i.e. She’d love Fruits Basket) followed by adventure stories.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Love triangles (”I don’t get it why are they introducing another character she won’t end up with anyways! It’s stupid!”)

Talents and/or Powers: As a Keyblade Wielder Annalee has the standard array of ability to use Keyblade and everything that comes with it.

Because she is an Unversed given human form (tl:dr Vanitas experiences a happy emotion and creates an Unversed that’s powerful enough to maintain a human form when she so chooses, and she does often) she also has standard array of his powers. She can create or summon Unversed and have them help her in combat. If they or she get too hurt, she can no longer sustain them and they vanish instead to sustain her. (Her favorite is her Archraven)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Well first of all she’s honestly adorable in her naivety, and she tries incredibly hard to be liked. Her heart is always in the right place even despite the darkness that makes her up and she’s kind. Insanely kind.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Well for one Vanitas is like her pseudo-father so anybody with a grudge against him...there’s also the fact that if she loses control or gets too much darkness exposure she’ll turn into her true Unversed form and go on a rampage. And also her social anxiety does make her panic often or say the wrong thing.

How They Change: In character, she becomes more confident, self assured, and better at controlling her darkness to the point that all transformations are at will.

But honestly tracking her ooc changes is more fun because full confession, she was originally a Vanqua love child I had no choice but to back off of because of some things in the rp I first used her in and I liked the second version so much I decided to keep it.

Why You Love Them: She’s one of my oldest ocs, and I’m very proud of how far she’s come as a character. Also I’m not gonna lie I may look at some of the Unversed stuff and go “wow other KH fans will probably find that cringey” but I’m having fun with all of it and I think above all else that’s what matters.

[grkfunn]

SECOND BEST

(At final part of the final boss fight in persona 5)

Narrator: and so with his rebellious spirt , the people of this world, his bestest of friends and SANTANAEL Akira shot yaldabaoth right in his ugly face

Narrator: And that my dear children is how akira the second best persona protagonist saved christmas.

(Akira kicks down walls)

Akira: SECOND BEST!!!!!???????

Narrator: Minato and Makoto both hold the universe arcana and defeated nyx without using a persona

Akira:............*sigh* you’re right

Narrator: hey don’t feel bad at least your still very popular and I think minato and the other persona protagonists respect you too

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DONT GET MAD AR ME AND DONT START A COMMENT FIGHT THIS WAS JUST FOR LAUGHS

[lime-bloods]

Black Hole Theory: Revisited Again

Introduction to the Black Hole Theory

Back when Collide and Act 7 dropped back in 2016, people asked a lot of questions. Without textual narration and with very little background information from the author, many aspects of the animations seemed to be more mysterious than they were helpful. Particularly mystifying were the black holes featured in both animations; in Act 7, one created by the alternate Calliope next to the Green Sun, which by all accounts as essential to Lord English’s defeat but whose specific purpose at the time was left vague; and in Collide, the hole left behind by the death of the possessed Jack Noir, which took half of Dirk’s Land of Tombs and Krypton with it before never being mentioned again.

Many seemed to take a key detail - the fact that the juju breaker crowbar and the fridge containing Gamzee were both conveniently caught in “Union Jack”’s blast - as a clue as to what these black holes were supposed to do. The crowbar and Gamzee both later appeared on Caliborn’s version of the Earth with no explanation as to how they got there, leading many to believe that the black hole created by Jack’s death is what transported them there in the first place, acting as a wormhole.

I took this hypothesis further; judging by the fact that Caliborn also enters his own session through a black hole, then things that enter black holes must all end up in Caliborn’s session. So I compiled a list of black holes in Homestuck, the things that had been pulled into their event horizons, and the consequences these things might have for Homestuck’s narrative. Important to this theory was one other major detail; the connection between the pool ball-themed computer server in the Furthest Ring and the Immortality Clock in Doc Scratch’s apartment, which was also found in Caliborn’s session with no explanation.

What the Epilogues say about the Black Hole Theory

While I obviously didn’t get every single detail correct, the Homestuck Epilogues essentially confirm outright the most important assumptions made in the Black Hole Theory.

One of the main things connecting the two separate timelines in the Epilogues - Meat and Candy - is the black hole created by the Dead Cherub, which consumed the Green Sun and then the fabric of Paradox Space itself. This black hole does not lead to Caliborn’s SBURB session as originally assumed, but it does lead to the Earth in Universe C - the same Earth Caliborn later goes on to inhabit. It’s through this black hole that multitudes of ghosts arrive on Earth C.

The black hole isn’t the only portal through which inhabitants of the dream bubbles are able to arrive on Earth, however.

Before you can react, she jams the button down on the beacon and opens the server. She jumps into the hatch and the door snaps closed behind her.

Meenah jumps through a server in the Furthest Ring and later falls through the sky in Earth C in exactly the same manner as the ghosts who fell through the Dead Cherub’s black hole. The implications of this are clear: the black hole and the pool ball server both lead to the same place. What remains unclear is how exactly these two portals come to be linked with the Immortality Clock.

Revisiting the black holes

Case I: [S] Caliborn: Enter

The black hole from Caliborn: Enter remains the most straightforward example: the dried up Earth C, including everything on it, is sucked into the black hole to where Caliborn’s session takes place.

However the information provided to us by the Epilogues forces us to rethink a major aspect of the Black Hole Theory: either the assumption that all black holes lead to the same place has to be discarded, or the exact logic regarding where a black hole leads to is more complicated than was once thought.

The Epilogues show us that the black hole in the Furthest Ring takes things to Earth; so how can the Earth itself be pulled through the same kind of portal? Keeping in mind that black holes also represent portals back into the story, it makes sense that a black hole would be what pulls an old, dead planet back into relevance in a SBURB session. But how can it practically happen?

One possibility is that, since the Dead Cherub’s black hole is connected to the Candy reality specifically, Caliborn’s Earth is actually from the Meat reality, and fell through into the Candy reality when Caliborn entered his session.

Another possibility involves the Immortality Clock. If the black holes initially led to the skies above Earth C, but later became connected to the Immortality Clock like the pool ball server did, it’s possible that after being sucked into the kernelsprite black hole, the Earth emerged from the Immortality Clock, with the clock itself sitting in its core.

Since we already know what the Caliborn: Enter black hole actually did, there’s little to be discussed in that regard. But the question of how it did what it did could be important to figuring out the functionality of Homestuck’s other black holes.

Case II: The Dead Session

In stark contrast to the kernelsprite black hole, where the black hole that appears when Skaia collapses in the center of Caliborn’s session leads is a complete mystery. Its purpose is clear: to clear the Dead Session of unwanted variables like Prospit and Skaia and to act as a “pocket” for the pool ball planets caused by its destruction. Where these objects go once they cross the event horizon, however, is unknown. If all the other black holes in Homestuck lead somewhere, it’s only safe to assume this one does, too; but the Epilogues give us no new clues.

As such, the old theory regarding this black hole is still the strongest: when the pool ball planets fall into it, they come back out of the Immortality Clock as miniature - or rather, correctly-sized - pool balls; the same ones which Lil Cal is supposed to have his eyes replaced with and which Jack Noir later takes out in order to become Lord English himself. It is worth noting that just as in Homestuck, the actual origin of the flashing pool ball eyes Caliborn himself wears during his Masterpiece is not touched upon at all in the Epilogues.

Case III: [S] Collide

The Homestuck Epilogues essentially affirm what many had already suspected; rather than merely spaghettifying or destroying the parts of the Land of Tombs and Krypton caught in its blast, the black hole created by the death of the Jack Noir version of Lord English sent the essential contents of Dirk’s planet to Earth C, where they would later form part of Caliborn’s own quest. Among the more likely objects transported by the black hole are the denizen Yaldabaoth, who would have been somewhere in LOTAK’s core, and the juju breaker crowbar, being wielded by Jack/English at the time of his death.

It was previously assumed that the fridge containing Gamzee was also among the items transported by this black hole; however Gamzee’s being freed in the Candy epilogue obfuscates this possibility somewhat.

Case IV: [S] Act 7

While the exact design of this black hole is made explicitly clear in the Epilogues, unfortunately my speculation that Caliborn absorbs the power of his own future self is no longer possible, and the exact fate of Lord English’s power, which now resides within the Dead Cherub, is unknown.

A New Hypothesis?

Homestuck is a story of constantly escalating stakes, frequently prefiguring events in the greater narrative with less severe events in games of Sburb. Two prominent examples are Lord English, who acts as a culmination of previous villains like the Becquerel-powered Jack Noir and the Black King, and the destruction of the A and B universes by The Tumor, which builds on the prior destruction of Alternia and Earth by the Reckoning.

So it only follows that the end of Homestuck itself would parallel the normal end of a Sburb session; the Reckoning, whereby people and objects are sent hurtling toward Skaia and subsequently transported to a planet, foreshadows the Rapture - which Act 7 is referred to as on the Homestuck story map - where the Green Sun - a sun at the center of the story much like Skaia - sucks in people and objects who later find themselves on Earth C. New arrivals on Earth C are even accompanied by impact craters much like meteors, and the terms ‘Reckoning’ and ‘Rapture’ are essentially synonyms in that they both refer to the Biblical apocalypse.

The Green Sun’s similarity to Skaia could be significant for more than just aesthetic parallel reasons, though; when assisted by a powerful temporal event like a Scratch happens, Skaia can create healthy offshoot timelines by duplicating the objects sent through its defense portals and sending them to different points in time.

The Meat and Candy timelines in the Epilogues are noticeably similar to this concept, so the question has to be raised; when an object falls through a black hole, could it be duplicated across both of these timelines? Specifically, could objects that fall from the sky in the Candy timeline also pop out of the Immortality Clock in the Meat timeline?

This hypothesis simplifies some things by explaining why black holes and server portals sometimes lead to the sky on Earth C and sometimes lead to the Immortality Clock. It is also heavy in symbolism; if the Candy timeline beyond the black hole’s event horizon represents the Dead Cherub (Calliope) herself, then the Immortality Clock at the center of Caliborn’s land could similarly be seen as representing himself.

Thus, if my older speculation that Caliborn absorbed Lord English’s essence after destroying the clock is true, then he is absorbed by Calliope in the Candy timeline and by Caliborn in the Meat timeline; befitting of their dual cherubic nature and rivalry. It is also worth noting in this respect that the icon for the Candy epilogue is two intertwined spirals of green and red - symbolising a fusion of Calliope and Caliborn - while the icon of the Meat epilogue is purely red.

If Meenah also appears on Caliborn’s Earth through the Immortality Clock, it would also explain the origin of another of Homestuck’s more mysterious jujus; the Ring of Life and Void, which Caliborn appears to have acquired around the same time as the house juju and his flashing pool ball eyes with little explanation. This explanation fits with the alternating nature of the Ring; if Meenah was using it as a Ring of Life when it was taken by Caliborn, it would then become the Ring of Void that he uses to POOF!!!!!!!!!!! away the juju chest with John and the other Beta kids inside.

Of course, this hypothesis comes with its own complications. With the Ring comes not only a second living Meenah, but also a third John alongside another Terezi to arrive through the Immortality Clock. Under normal circumstances these would be standard Homestuck fare; but if the Epilogues aren’t already the end, this story is surely coming to a close soon, and it’s unclear what role these duplicates would play in that.

[permian-tropos]

homestuck meat discourse (I haven’t read candy yet): evil dirk is an amazing villain??? I’m not sure everyone noticed the two pretty staggering reveals that aren’t quite quite confirmed but are heavily hinted: that ultimate dirk is the homestuck author, and that ultimate dirk is lord english (and of course the natural syllogism that many already understood, that homestuck really is LE’s creation and that’s why he’s the villain)

before the epilogues there are the mountains of foreshadowing of bro being linked to LE through lil cal (and why is dave the one who prophetically must defeat LE? because it’s always been personal), and caliborn’s initial relationship with dirk, and how caliborn and dirk both have yaldabaoth as their denizen (the gnostic Big Bad), and the mountains of evidence that dirk was always manipulative and capable of going down a dark path (one of his alter egos is the iconic murderous AI from 2001: A Space Odyssey and dirk’s ecto son is named dave, after the guy who defeats said robot) 

in the meat epilogues dirk’s rival for control of the narrative is alt calliope. this distinctly sets him up as a form of alt caliborn, considering cherub culture. 

after the johnrezi chapter that points out very clearly that john has lord english’s broken off tooth jabbed into him (it’s the only piece of LE’s body left in all existence too), the next chapter ends with dirk’s narration: “Well, I for one have had enough of that goddamn toothache.” WELP

I wasn’t surprised when he started acting more and more like what you’d expect from a more adult lord english. oh and what a surprise that he’s being paternalistically creepy with rose, considering how doc scratch, a literal puppet (who is named after the scratch that first appears when bro cuts into dave’s shirt and starts cutting into the beat mesa), made himself rose’s creepy mentor and father figure.

isn’t it interesting how dirk and caliborn both are obsessed with jake? but also orange and green (dirkjake colors and also dirk+LE) have always been hussie’s colors as they’re the palette of his avatar and the iconic pumpkin. dirk has always felt the most like the author avatar, but also rose has always felt like another piece close to the author and no wonder there’s the part where “they’ve been the same person all along, but you already knew that”. 

I mean that’s a pretty massive reveal isn’t it, it’s just weird enough to not make sense at first glance. dirk and rose have been the same person all along???? how does that work? but if you asked me what I thought they had in common, I would always have said, “they’re definitely the author’s philosophical mouthpieces” (and then rose and dirk stop beating around the bush and say yeah we’re the philosophers)

and it really seemed to me like it was saying dirk was in some sense the narrator of homestuck. because of how he talks about john’s protagonist status, and the second person style, which have been present from the beginning. this isn’t just about the epilogues

like read this entire page

in conclusion: he was always already here

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p7 reaction

Well, seeing as to what movie I just watched on Sunday. "We're in the Endgame now." :O I wonder if it'll switch back to Earth C before showing us (the tail end of) the Masterpiece scene.

I'm curious to know how truthful Caliborn was about the scene, what he may have omitted from his retelling (the presence of the leprechauns, maybe?), and also how it concluded. I wonder if it'll be told from Dirk's perspective, after the B1 kids have been stolen. He's got the closest connection to Cal and Arquiusprite, after all. I wonder how his perception of his puppet might have changed, too. For all we know, LOTAK might have been ripe with allusions and phropecies regarding the thing, thanks to his denizen. That's another thing connecting him to LE, after all: Yaldabaoth. Just cause he never went into the Lion's Mouth doesn't mean he didn't harvest every bit of intel and backstory. This is Dirk 'Batman Gambit' Strider we're talking about.

---

"The boxing bell is going off like it's having a fit." Well, I did ask for Dirk's perspective. :P Wrong Dirk! Okay, so it seems like the POV will be changing hands like a baton pass on Earth C. That would mean we're in for Rose's POV next, and I wouldn't mind that. Tight-lipped as she would still be even in her own mind's narration about her plans, it'd be nice to see things from her end!

"Dirk has to stick a finger in one ear to hear what Rose is saying over the cacophony of boos and buckets being lobbed toward center stage." Not sure if it would be worse or not for trolls to have thrown that bucket.

"He considers it all pretty fucking annoying, so he flips off the crowd and jumps the ropes. Always a good idea to abscond from the stadium before the customary show-end riot hits full swing." ... So his whole upset-the-audience-into-rioting is par for the course? Dear god, are all his fans hooligans? ... That actually runs pretty close to what happened in AIDS, come to think of it.

"ROSE: It’s not so much “what is up” as “what is down,” the answer to which is, proverbially: Me." Down for the count, not down in the brooding caverns, naturally. You know, since she's ascended to the highest top of the surface.

"ROSE: I mean that both physically and philosophically by the way.

DIRK: You’re down philosophically?

ROSE: Yes.

DIRK: I’m not sure what that actually means.

ROSE: What doesn’t it mean, Dirk." Oh my freaking god, these guys might even be more amazing together than Dave and Rose, it's a sight to behold.

"DIRK: Glad to see that my genetic predisposition for melodrama is still alive and well in my slime-progeny even after all these years.

ROSE: Please don’t interrupt. This is important, and I’ll need all the energy I can spare to sustain even a heavily monologic transmission of the relevant facts." Yes, Dirk, please cut Rose some slack, she only has so few monologues left in her. :P

"ROSE: Anyway, the matter at hand is my “condition,” with which you’re already familiar.

ROSE: I’ve struggled to devise the right way of telling you without causing undue alarm, which would unquestionably trigger the overbearing tendency of yours to “solve the problem” for me, which is not the kind of circumstance my constitution can withstand these days.

ROSE: I can barely lift a wrist to my forehead to telegraph my infirmity, of late. Your bullshit is precisely the thousand-pound feather that could knock me clean through my apartment’s plate glass window." While I don't disagree Rose's condition might be severe, I see she's still well enough to heat a scalding plate of sarcasm. Also, wouldn't Jasprosesprite^2 be better than Dirk at handling her situation? Her feelings for interacting with a clownesk version of herself not withstanding, it's a Rose that already went through the ultimate self thing. Granted, she had fake magic Sprite powers to help her cope, as well as bullshit feline asshole personality issues.

"I’m taking solace in the fact that your infirmity doesn’t seem to have spread to your vocal cords yet." Right, got to remind myself that actual voices are being used to talk with one another. Still not used to it for Homestuck characters doing this when phones are involved. :P The only time it happened in-story was when a "shellphone" was involved, after all.

"ROSE: The bottom line is this.

ROSE: I am ascending, and it is terrible." ... Hmm, could that imply that the Ultimate Self is the last of the god tiers, or pretty high up there, at least? It would take a ridiculous amount of XP, seven years may or may not be enough, but if it's about the accumulation of self-reflection & general knowledge, a Seer of Light would be pretty quick to collect that kind of required boons.

"Rose adjusts her position on the couch with the body language of one about to dive into the latest gossip about a mutual friend. The mutual in this case: her tortured psyche." So the therapist is seeking counsil, in a way, is she? :P

"ROSE: Years of refining my Seer of Light powers have cursed me with what is approaching near infinite prescience. Dwelling in this idyllic post-canon realm has worn down the barriers separating my primary consciousness from the memories and experiences of all my doomed alternate selves, which were forgotten and discarded over the due course of our journey." So that implies they were many, more than we'd assume immediately. There's Dream Rose, Alternate Future Rose, pre-retcon Rose (now Jasprose) & B2 Rose, but it appears there are more still. Well, okay, there's also Reload Rose now, I guess.

"ROSE: As I approach the realization of my Ultimate Self, I cannot stop the extant knowledge from seeping in. I am plagued by near constant visions from the less fortunate versions of myself, as well as a broadening view of the metatextual nature of our existence." She's starting to become self-aware, before you know it she'll be addressing us directly through the Fourth Wall! Well, it's not like we didn't have a smug monologic narrator before. (Did I mean Doc Scratch, Andrew Hussie or Lord English? Yes.)

"ROSE: It drains all of my energy to keep my consciousness focused on relevant events, but even then I am losing my ability to discern what is and is not canonically relevant, let alone what is also true or essential." Well, okay, if she can't even discern between her own life, fanon and fan fiction, she might really have a problem.

"ROSE: And all of this is making me incredibly fucking sick." Rose is getting Homestucksick, is it? :P

"DIRK: Oh. Is that all?" My first thought was: blatant sarcasm. But then... We don't know how far Dirk's powers extend, do we? What shards of his has he had access to all this time, if Brain Ghost Dirk is any indication?

"DIRK: Well, in the spirit of full disclosure,

DIRK: Same." Ooooooh, wow. So it's the same for him? If he was nurturing the mother grub of all splitting headaches all this time, no wonder he pisses on the whole audience experience every time. While he would have more experience juggling disparate experiences, it was already a strain on him back when it was just him and Dream Dirk. Can you imagine him having to jostle Arquiusprite's thoughts & desires, or god forbid, some part of Lord English' experiences too? ... Okay now I'm curious as to what it's like for Dirk.

... Dirk's Ultimate Self experience would have been one of those things I would have liked to see speculation of, back on the old forums. But alas, we're archival readers now, not serial readers. It was not meant to be.

Got to say though. If it's this hard on the god tiers, how must it be for Terezi? Because I'm pretty sure post-retcon Terezi forced an ultimate self revelation on herself through her mindy thing.

It might be that Mind is the aspect best suited at handling all these inflows from doomed timelines and conditional experiences. Or it might be that Heart is, they're related aspects, and Heart is supposed to stand for Soul. It just might depend on where you think the self is defined: in actual experiences, or in the potential for them, realized or not.

"DIRK: We are suffering from the same condition, Rose." So... Does this lend more stake to Dirk's idea for backing Jane, or is it just one of those situations where he can't discern the right course of action any more, that Rose was referring to?

"She allows several rare conversational beats to pass in silence between them, to process the admission." That's how you know things are grave, when Dirk and Rose stop talking.

"DIRK: I guess I used the wrong phrase. You are suffering from it. I am adapting to it.

DIRK: I already have, really." No, wait, THIS is how you know things are grave: when Dirk insists he's got a handle on things. "Adapting", like he's the AI version of himself, not the human version.

"ROSE: When were you going to tell me this?

DIRK: When you were ready.

ROSE: So you have determined that I’m ready to receive this rather critical piece of information now, of all times?

ROSE: What distinguishes the present from the other moments you could have mentioned it?" Well, isn't today the day that things become relevant again, Rose? April 13th? :P

"DIRK: Wow. Well, when you put it that way, it makes me sound like kind of a dick.

DIRK: But I guess it isn’t far from the truth, either." Well, you already sound like kind of a Dirk, most of the time, so

"

ROSE: Unbelievable.

DIRK: Look, it’s not something you just spring on people that frivolously.

DIRK: “Hey folks, just so you know, the boundaries of my awareness are coming apart, and now I know almost everything, about everyone, everywhere.”" "I can see into forever!" Okay, so it was more Dirk's low self-esteem springing up again. He was waiting for someone to "get it" and make the first move. So, is the omniscience thing coming from Arquius' unfathomable depths of AI? Or its connection to Doc Scatch???

"

DIRK: “Also, the process should be tearing my body apart, but actually I’m handling it quite well. Thanks for the concern though.”" Imagine Dirk as the dog in the "This is fine" image.

"DIRK: There will be time to explain all this.

DIRK: Despite whatever appearance of callousness I’ve maintained in withholding this information from you, I actually do have your best interests in mind. I don’t want to wear you out on this call." Gotta say, omniscient Dirk working behind the scenes with whatever boatload of narrative information he has on hand is both assuring and worrying.

"DIRK: For now, I’ll just mention that I’ve been alert to your problem for some time, and I’ve been devising a solution which should permanently remedy it without compromising the boon of your expanding consciousness." ... Definitely tipping back into worrying. It's for the lack of kernelsprites on Earth C that I'll give Dirk the benefit of the doubt, for now.

"DIRK: Would love to tell you, but I’ve got some work to do. Why don’t you stop by my studio later so we can hash this shit out in person." ... I dearly hope his solution isn't: "Here, upload your consciousness into this Rosebot. There! All the limits of your feeble immortal biological coil, removed."

So, Dirk (and Jake) have a studio, Rose has an apartment, Dave 'n Karkat 'n Jade a hive, John a house. I wonder if Jane has ended up owning a mansion of sorts (the White House doesn't count... yet).

Also, Dirk hashing things out is funny, because of Dave's former sylladex mode: hashmap.

"

DIRK: Right now, you should get some rest." Hmm, Blaperile has some theories rest might help her condition. I wonder if, through sleeping or some other process, Rose might be able to actually 'act' through her alternate selves. What if she could make contact with Reload Rose, send her some bits of the bigger picture without overloading her with information?

"ROSE: Actually, I’m feeling oddly invigorated suddenly. I think I’m good for more exposition, if you are." ... Okay didn't see that coming. Either she's scathingly sarcastic right now, or we're in for a treat.

"DIRK: Can’t say I’m surprised. But no." Nothing to perk up Rose better than the promise of secrets not yet revealed, I guess!

"ROSE: Have I caught you at a bad time?

DIRK: Nah, but there is an election coming up, and my work as a political operative is going to be absolutely essential for the fate of humanity." See, Rose could think Dirk is being falseful, but she's nearing omniscience so probably not. Still, Dirk is forgetting to include other species' fate in his calculations, not just humanity's.

"ROSE: I see. Wheels within wheels, I assume?

DIRK: There are always wheels. Wheels are everywhere.

DIRK: They aren’t my wheels or yours. The wheels don’t have owners or designers, but they do have caretakers.

DIRK: They won’t keep turning on their own without someone to grease the mechanism." This is turning into a Dave metaphor again. ... But hmm, that's a mechanics metaphor he's using. Is that a reference to that Rosebot I theorized about... or Arquiusprite? Cause if Rose could act through Reload Rose, Dirk could act through either his Reload self or Arquiusprite! Here's to hoping there isn't a shard in Lord English influencing his behaviour, or reading his every thought and intent.

"the full brunt of the sunset: purple and orange, blending brilliantly on the horizon." I see what you did there. Yes, Dirk and Rose's first actual conversation was brilliant.

"She’s right about him, he thinks. While his ecto-daughter views herself as having a somewhat deft artistic hand that lends itself naturally to a gentle push-and-pull style of influence, Dirk knows his methods are mechanical, like those of an engineer. There is nothing adaptive or interpretive about his method. Every piece has a purpose, a slot, an interlocking mechanism that is functionally pointless without the whole." Yes, it's been pointed out on occasion Rose is quite elegant in her ways. Those ways don't include tidying her room, but still. With the visuals being used to describe both of Rose 'n Dirk's different takes on influencing people, I am reminded of how Names in the "Practical Guide to Evil" story feel different for each person. For one, like putting on a tailormade pair of gloves, for another, like observing the methodical churning of a machine. I already felt quite a few times reminded of Homestuck while archive-reading PGtE (not done yet!), it's only fitting it now goes the other way around again.

Also, thinking about the wheels metaphor has gotten me thinking about LOHAC, and now I have the Clockwork theme from the Medium album stuck in my head.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 1-5

This is gonna get long.

The Candy route is, in effect, the route where John refuses to go back to finish off Lord English, but remains on Earth C. Instead, the story begins by picking up another long neglected thread: Gamzee. Then it continues to various other places.

Contains: a rough recap of Gamzee’s story, a longwinded attempt to be evenhanded and not callous about the Gamzee Discourse, because it’s relevant again... and then I read the next three chapters, which visit some of the other characters, setting up the board for the new story (because let’s be real, this is a whole new story of its own at this point!)

a quick recap

It’s been three years since the comic ended so I’m gonna recap what I remember about Gamzee’s story. He was sent on a murderous rampage in the ‘murderstuck’ arc - there’s some debate if he was acting according to his own will, or that of Lord English’s agents, there, but either way he killed a large number of the ‘beta trolls’. He was ultimately stopped by Karkat, who deployed the ‘shoosh pap’ of establishing moirallegiance. During the three year meteor voyage, he entered into some kind of very harmful kismesis relationship with Terezi, but got very little screen time. And uh... then I get confused.

In the “game over” arc, he is mind controlled - I recall by Aranea - and used to bring about the deaths of most of the cast. This, of course, was retconned. Also I think I skipped over a bit.

And, in some capacity, he was present when Caliborn won the contest for dominance with Calliope. He assisted the young Caliborn’s villainous plan, and for his trouble got repeatedly shot to pieces, which he took silently.

And at some point he got locked in a fridge by the rest of the cast. We briefly see him get knocked about in there during ‘Collide’, and then he makes no further appearance.

Let’s go on the Homestuck wiki and see what I missed...

while under the sway of Lord English (murderstuck arc), he caused some of the kids to receive Lil Cal and a harlequin doll, which is what made their session ‘terminal’

he intervened in the alpha session, and was responsible for the prototypings of various dead trolls into combined forms

this:

The fridge remained on LOTAK until Lord Jack was decapitated which resulted in a black hole, somehow taking Gamzee, Crowbar's crowbar and Yaldabaoth to future Earth.

so i guess i missed that in all the chaos of Collide, but that explains how he ended up in Caliborn’s world.

also crucially, half of Gamzee is absorbed into Lil Cal along with Caliborn and Arquiussprite, which creates Lord English, the series villain.

so anyway...

The initial premise of this story is: John decides to remain in the C universe and enjoy his life instead of living in an undecisive fugue, rather than go out to fight Lord English and wrap up that side of the plot. Calliope makes a request of him: he should use his retcon powers to pull Gamzee out of the plot, someone ‘only he can save’.

The second chapter is basically a very sarcastic discourse post in Gamzee’s voice. Shortly after being rescued, Gamzee goes onto a long speech about how he’s prepared to redeem himself, and the ‘mitigating factors’ that make him worthy of redemption: (an ‘abusive childhood’ at the hands of his goat dad, and his socialisation). I’ll excerpt a bit to give you the general flavour, with the typing quirk removed for readability:

gamzee: i been all like. abused and stuff, homies.

gamzee: as a child, i got motherfuckin neglected on by a stern old fatherly goat.

gamzee: i was a disappointment on him, and can’t says i blame him for abandoning the shit out of his useless kid.

gamzee: i woulda motherfuckin done the same shit at me if i was a big cruel goat.

gamzee: so that explains like, pretty sure most of my crimes in a way that makes a motherfucker wanna take his forgiveness out for a fucking spin.

gamzee: there’s other reasons to consider, like...

gamzee: shit that makes this redemption arc fuckin tight like an uncracked elixir.

gamzee: like, hows my purple blood meant i got the culture pressures put on me to be a salty damn jester for life.

gamzee: what about that hand the messiahs dealt me, my bitches.

gamzee: a motherfucker’s gonna envy that like a wicked cod rash.

gamzee: so how can i full and truly fuckin get blamed on for, when it comes to a little bit of subjugglation i got culturally hornswoggled up to doing, and also tragically goat abused which needs to make you shed a tear for this motherfucker, lest you wanna be as atrocious as me.

This is reminiscent of V’s episodes in Friendsim, insofar as - we’re clearly not intended to buy it, but it’s directly mocking lines of argument in the fandom, about whether it’s ok to be a fan of Gamzee (because fandom is all about casting moral judgement on finding that you relate to fictional characters’ narratives in the wrong way, justifying your own attachments to characters and works as progressive, etc...).

By putting these arguments in a very explicit and ridiculous form (having Gamzee speak on whether he personally deserves a ‘redemption arc’), and then having the narrator and also popular characters such as Terezi dismiss them, V’s stance is fairly clear - at least these particular readings of Gamzee are to be dismissed. Terezi comments:

JOHN: apparently we’re going to let him have a “redemption arc”?

TEREZI: H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4

JOHN: yeah, it’s...

JOHN: well, what is there to even say?

JOHN: it’s literally the dumbest fucking idea i’ve ever heard, but what can you do.

TEREZI: SHOV3 H1M B4CK 1N TH4T FR1DG3 4ND THROW 1T 1N TH3 OC34N, 1S WH4T

There’s two ways the story can go from here. One might be that this is the last we’re going to hear about Gamzee, it’s just a quick fuck you to one particular set of readings of Homestuck, and then on to whatever V considers more important. Another is that, a more subtle story is about to be told than the deliberately absurd framing here.

I should state my own stance, since it’s probably going to be relevant. I had a friend who cared a great deal about Gamzee, in part because he was essentially a chew toy in the latter part of the comic, who could be treated violently without consequence, which - as far as I understand their feelings - my friend found meaningful in relation to their own experiences of abuse.

I recall thinking there was some credence to ‘mind control’ interpretations, which posit that the difference between Gamzee’s chill affect early on and his ludicrously violent behaviour later was the control of Doc Scratch and other agents of Lord English; Gamzee in this reading is aware, and horrified (as hinted at by a brief window where Aranea’s mind control is released during the Game Over arc and he is ‘himself’ again, and cries and begs for mercy, before once again becoming extremely violent). Whether this is the case during the ‘fridge’ section is not clear. This goes some way to explaining why Gamzee is indestructible, and mutely devoted to assisting Caliborn when Caliborn treats him with nothing but violence.

In this reading, Gamzee is a tragic character to the point of absurdity. He is forced to witness another person committing horrific actions with his body, and then abandoned by those who’d care for him because they do not recognise the mind control. His only escape from one mind controller is another one.

However, that’s just a reading. For fans who identify strongly with Terezi, Gamzee is often interpreted as her abuser due to the effect his relationship is shown to have during the asteroid voyage (pre-Game Over). To these readers, people - such as my friend - who identify with Gamzee are engaging in apologetics for abuse.

Because this is so fraught, I am not going to make any claim that a particular reading of Gamzee is ‘unambiguously true’. I think a third interpretation is the ‘shitty writing’ one, that Hussie basically intended Gamzee as a joke character, not one with interiority. He’s a scary clown! Perhaps he didn’t realise how strongly this character, who from the start was presented as someone to laugh at, would resonate with the readers.

I hope that this discussion gives some sense of the different possible nuances of Gamzee, and I am hoping that this epilogue will not simply be a polemic for one particular reading.

now, chapter 3+

I read the first two chapters right after I heard about the upd8. From now on, this will be a true ‘liveread’, i.e. written alongside my first readthrough of the story.

At this point we switch viewpoint character to Dirk! This is a very short chapter: Dirk cancels ‘everything’ - all his ongoing plans - and does not explain why to Jane, or Jake. Whatever the reason is, it’s very bad news and has a short time limit.

Apparently John’s decision to say has had some kind of metaphysical effect, which causes Rose’s mysterious malady - and her various anxieties concerning ‘canon’ - to dissipate.

So she gets to spend some time with Kanaya. This is nice - we barely got to see Rose and Kanaya together as a couple in canon. It’s a sweet conversation... and makes me worry about what’s going to happen in the ‘Meat’ route.

There’s a little clarifying on Jade, Dave and Karkat’s relationship now...

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

It’s a weird, intimate, and uncomfortably close to sexual thing to be doing in front of other people. Dave and Karkat share a vaguely mortified look. Jade sort of lives here, but she doesn’t that sort of live here.

The expression is so warm and blatant that it can’t help but draw Jade’s attention. She frowns and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, making some quick calculations in her head. They’re so obvious, she thinks, and yet here they are. Virginal losers who are performative about sitting exactly a foot apart whenever they’re in public. It’s so pathetic it makes her want to howl at the moon in sorrow. 

so i guess we’re going to have a jade working very hard on getting dave and karkat together type arc

well i guess we are but oof, jade what the hell... jade decides to like, go in with all the subtlety of a train, aggressively flirt with karkat, up to the point of like, putting her fingers in his mouth... which to him is just like, a straight up assault. but it’s them who are ‘hopeless’, not her...

dave very awkwardly changes the subject to talk about the possible Jane presidency. apparently, Jane is very xenophobic towards trolls (which didn’t seem immediately apparent from the comic but I might have forgotten tbh). Karkat speaks of ‘the potential genocide of my people’

DAVE: but i dont think shed go so far as to commit genocide

DAVE: thats really exaggerating her faults

DAVE: like wed have to get pretty far away from the people we were when we started all this for that to be a viable outcome

...phrasing it like that... makes me rather apprehensive!

[theorynexus]

Fifty and Four sends us cresting over the hill, if we weren’t already. How long until we hit the bottom?

Oh ho? Jane’s perspective again, huh?  ‘t’s been a while.

EEEHHHH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!   Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh, that is not good!

Rrrrgh, she does not need to be building up a habit like that!    The consequences of such use are far too severe and unpredictable, even if you don’t consider the potential negatives to one’s psychological health. >.< Gosh... even with her Life aspect probably protecting her a little bit from its sugary after-effects, reading that makes me feel sick.  > ~~~ <

Figures that a Cherub would be biased in favor of it. At least Alt!Calliope is willing distance herself and try to be objective, though.

***giggles uncontrollably, even though this honestly shouldn’t be funny***

Very politically-minded, but it also sortof sounds like the excuse-making that an addict would engage in, so I am not convinced that this is a legitimate argument.  Yeah, shoring up your base is important, but doing something that could strongly alienate swing voters is not necessarily wise, either.  I suspect she knows this too, but is in denial about the fact of the matter, because she enjoys the benefits of Trickster Mode too much. It is quite interesting that the human kingdom’s subjects appreciate it so much~

HAAAAA. Oh my fricking gosh, Alt!Calliope is a Cherub Supremacist! XD  

(Sortof makes sense, based on the mindsets that were described in Aranea’s [?] talk about the Cherubs’ origins, though. Might be biologically-driven, honestly.) Also, it’s quite interesting to see Jane interacting with Alt!Calliope like that, but it is hardly unique or overly-noteworthy, all things considered... at least, most likely. Quite a few other characters have responded to narration in a similar manner.

... Honestly, I was about to freak out about the Juju getting covered in dirt and grime, but the way she tossed away probably significant keepsakes, trophies, or the like for the sake of honoring it is... quite disturbing, and speaks to a danger in her presumably worsening compulsion/habit.  Though they might just be cookies.

Dirk displays surprising wisdom/good judgment, here, and amusingly alludes to the fact that his voice is being otherwise suppressed.   His actually talking in a scene represents a nice sort of loophole, but not one by which he can utilize such control as he would otherwise be capable.    ... And yes, her burning out is a very legitimate concern, which speaks to the fact that Dirk definitely+legitimately cares about the things that serve his purposes and/or agendas. They, he is willing to more gently guard, comparatively, it would seem.

It feels like this is a reference to something, probably from the 1980s or early 90s, but I can’t place my finger on it. Oh well.

This is very amusing, honestly.

Deeeeeerp.      (Yet another example of why it is difficult to take his attempt at super-godhood seriously... or at least find it anything better than dreadful.  Dirk is great at juggling many things at once, but not as great as he’d need to be. )

Oh, and I appreciate Jane’s concern for Dirk.  She is indeed correct in saying that he is usually much better at it than my previous comment might have suggested. But I am not entirely being unfair, insofar as this is true: the greater the responsibility one wields, the greater the level of competence one must have in order to pass proper muster.  He was failing in his attempt. I didn’t really give him all that much of a chance to sway me, honestly, but my own demeanor in dealing with him had nothing to do with the actual quality of his work.

This must be really concerning to Jane.  And... honestly, yes he is. They are very, very similar. Dirk is just more obvious with his intelligence, more controlled, and more mature. They are both highly ambitious, crave challenges, enjoy art, have quite a bit of masculine pride, and have a shared appreciation for irony, riddles, and absurdist humor.     Caliborn was likely very, very influenced by Dirk in particular, both of them received Yaldabaoth as their Denizen due to their personality and prowess, and both of them are highly manipulative men of questionable morality.   Also, their sexual interests seem to be somewhat similar, but that is a debatable matter. Lord English has Lil’ Hal integrated as part of his soul, Lil’ Cal has played a profound part in both of their (multiple) life cycles.  Finally:  as of the Epilogue and his attempted control of the narrative seen therein, Dirk essentially has pursued the same goal that LE did: domination of Paradox Space through his will controlling the natural flow of events. Dirk and Caliborn are in truth extremely alike.

I do so very much like where this is going. It would seem that we will soon find out precisely what Dirk is planning. “Diminishes and ascends” has an interesting ring to it, as well.  That red rifle:  Is it the one that launches portals? Honestly, Dirk is indeed quite clever, by the way. He has the seeds of great potential.  It’s simply that it has not fully bloomed, yet, and he is a little bit overly full of himself, and arrogant in what he believes he can do.  And yes, he is indeed temperamental when people interfere with his plans, it seems.

There’s the scheming politician we’ve all been waiting for. Way to go, thinking in such calculated manners and considering backstabbing ones you care about, Jane. Somewhat petty, and certainly rather dangerous, all things considered (things are a bit more explosive, where gods are involved), but closer to the political ideal which I would hope for if she were to be portrayed as competent. (Of course, I am actually disgusted with that sort of behavior. It’s one of the things I dislike about politics. I’ll recognize that it at least paints her in a slightly better light than the previous samplings of her thought process and tactical capacity has; thus, I generally like and dislike where this is going.)

Yep. Angelic purity with sexual potency/desire. There has always been this sort of tension in Hope’s nature. Just like the fact that angels are, in Biblical texts, both symbols of terror and destruction as well as hope and salvation. All (almost all?) the important positive interactions with heavenly beings start with fear on the part of mortals, followed by a “Fear not!” to suggest they come in peace. Otherwise, they come bringing judgment and wrath, and thus don’t tend to bother much with formalities.

Is that sarcasm, Jane?  If not, there’s certainly a heavy layer of irony. Do remember what just happened with Jane when she invited Jape Jake over for a friendly visit, not too long ago, my good audience members.

...   ***twitches, and tries very hard to hold in the inappropriate laughter***

If only I had someone so dependable to tell me when I was not dwelling far enough into the land of Always Woke.   Perhaps then I would be able to avoid the inevitable scandals that would result from Foot-in-the-Mouth-itis. Oh, wait, no politician can avoid being attacked for various probably minor accidents on their part as the populace naturally over-reacts to what honestly may not actually reflect their character so much as them being accident prone or ignorant?  What’s that about manipulation of audio/video recordings for the sake of generating useful sound bites that might be used in an attempt to impugn the honor of any prospective candidate?  Oh. I see. Thank you for that important bit of knowledge that I otherwise might not have had access to, imaginary adviser.  (Note:  I do not actually believe that one should try to be as careful as possible with regards to what one says; nor that one should ignore or scorn important social issues. I am utilizing exaggeration and mockery for the sake of comedy.) ... Alt!Calliope’s description of Dirk holding the rifle is quite elegant and beautiful.

This is indeed a beautiful irony, seeing the situation with regards to Dirk and Alt!Calliope’s tendencies toward bias being reversed.  

***snickers***   Magnifique. 

It is strange to see Alt!Calliope teasing and egging him on. It may be unintentional. Hard to say.

[homestuckexamination]

You're right, it just needs a soul!! That was some pretty sound advice, thanks! I wonder how he did it? The man is basically a genius! A pioneer! No one has come close to that sort of comic yet. Well 17776 was similar in a way (Which is really surprising since the author had never read homestuck) but the whole genre of hypertext fiction is still in its baby phase. Homestuck is the biggest thing in the genre right now, with 17776 being the second most notable. Am I forgetting any comics?

I don’t many follow other pieces of hypertext fiction avidly, so I wouldn’t know, but yes 17776 was great! Really though, hypertext or otherwise, as long as your story has a soul and you know what you want from it, it will draw people in. Hussie just struck a particularly juicy goldmine with his style, his knack for foreshadowing, and culture-remixing powers. Seriously though, he’s so good at incorporating elements of old and new cultures into his work.

Speaking of foreshadowing, that’s also a thing you can notice after looking at Homestuck for a while- He’s good at setting foreshadowing with figures, not with characters. Lord English is foreshadowed as far as Act 1, during the Title Intro with the narration pondering about a pupeteer in John’s life, something behind the scenes manipulating his life. Given Jade’s screen name has been gardenGnostic and the references to Light ever since Act 2, it’s notable that Hussie always had a Gnostic base for his story, but he didn’t make Lord English to begin with.

He just set up the idea of a Yaldabaoth-like figure to oppose the characters of the Comic, a role which, if I recall, was filled by Betty Crocker to begin with! But as the story evolved, he added complexity to it- And so, rather than make up new characters and tack them onto the story haphazardly? He made new characters to fill in the blanks he’d already set up. Allowing him to expand on the ideas he wanted to tell, while perfectly fitting his Setting.

That is a hugely impressive thing to do, and since it allows him to set up retroactive foreshadowing, a lot of things seem to have just been planned from the VERY start. And while many were? A lot of the more impressive ties were simply that. Figures. Concepts. Hussie is AMAZING at distilling characters and concepts into their raw basics- And through that, all he has to do is tease these concepts… And then fill the holes with more specific details that fit the mold of the story as it progresses.

[memecucker]

what was the name of the early christian heresy that believed that the god of the old testament was literally evil and that jesus and the god he served was an unrelated diety opposed to the evil old testament god

There was more than one. What you described is most like the theology of the Marcionites who were followers of Marcion of Sinope. For Marcionites Jesus was the son of the “Heavenly Father”, the true God of pure spirit who is actually wholly disconnected from the material world due to his infinitely perfect purity (hence the necessity of Jesus to deliver the message of true religion) while the God of the Old Testament was the creator of the material world and thus of all the evils and suffering associated with material life. Marcion even apparently believed that this evil God was himself made of matter and pointed to a passage from Genesis where God is said to walk through Eden as proof that he also was a limited material being albeit one which had immense power. One interesting fact in religious history is that Marcion of Sinope was actually responsible for creating the first Christian Bible, consisting of an edited version of the Gospel of Luke (while the study of early Christian sects is something utterly rife with bias and unreliable narrators the orthodox account of Marcion editing Luke is probably true given how radically divergent surviving fragments are and the seemingly deliberate removal of anything that could be construed as a positive reference to the God of Judaism) as well as a collection of Pauline epistles. 

 Its also a recurring motif in Christian Gnosticism but there’s important and subtle differences between the Gnostics and Marcionites. For one, Marcionism had in common with mainline Christianity an emphasis on salvation through faith while with Gnosticism its more about reaching a state of “Gnosis” or enlightenment more or less. While both were influenced by Hellenistic Neoplatonism  with Gnosticism it was much more total and actually more accurate to say Gnosticism was a branch of Neoplatonism. This matters because with early Christian Gnostics such as the Valentinians (who are the most well known and were the most popular) it was not that the “Old Testament God” (or ‘Demiurge’) was “evil” in the conventional sense or in Marcion’s sense but rather that the Demiurge was “inferior” to the true God. In Neoplatonic philosophy what is called “evil” is not a presence but rather an absence or lack of the good and true. The Demiurge created a material world of suffering not out of sadistic malice like Marcion believed but because he is a lower and inferior being to true Divinity. From what I can recall “pagan” Neoplatonism actually often held back from describing the Demiurge in moralistic terms at all because it could not be blamed for creating an inferior world of falsehood because the Demiurge itself is an inferior being ignorant of its own nature. 

Other Gnostic sects such as the Ophites had a more complicated relationship to the “OT”. The Ophites  believed the snake of Eden was the first being sent by the good divinity Sophia (I’m not about to get into what exactly “Sophia” means in Gnosticism) to liberate humanity from the shackles of her estranged son Yaldabaoth, creator of the material world. In addition to Jesus they believed figures like Moses also preached the true religion and pointed to the episode of the bronze serpant as a sign that Moses actually revered the serpent of Eden hence the name “Ophites”, which comes from the Greek word for ‘snake’ (they also apparently had a thing for snake imagery). Marcionism otoh was very clear and explicit about its total rejection of Judaism and saw the OT as simply being the true record of the crimes and evils of the God depicted in it. The contrast with Marcionism here is that Marcion was explicitly antagonistic towards the Jewish scriptures which isnt necessarily the case with all Christian Gnostics and some Christian Gnostic sects may themselves have emerged from Jewish Gnostic sects.

Now there were Christian Gnostics that did strongly believe the God of the Old Testament was malicious and evil but they werent the majority early on it seems. Over time Gnosticism seems to have become more antagonistic towards the Old Testament as it began to be distanced from the Neoplatonist tradition and probably influenced by not just Marcionism but other dualistic Near Eastern religious movements in Zurvanism (a Zoroastrian sect that had a pessimistic view of the world wherein the evil Ahriman was equal in strength to his brother Ahura Mazda), Manicheanism etc so that when you get to the medieval Gnostic Christianity of the Bogomils or Cathars there is a stronger identification of the OT with evil.

anyway im not an expert on this but i find early christian heresies a really interesting thing

[hearttress]

so brief thing about monika’s persona verse ft. @solisnumen because i’ve finished fleshing it out and now i’m ready to write her in the fandom i’m in the most .  

-   similarly to in ddlc , monika is a self - aware character , acting as both the narrator and the observer of the storyline .  she is originally from mementos , and upon the world’s manifestation was born to be an anomaly not meant to exist . therefore , she can also impact and change mementos as she wishes .  the parts that she cannot alter will only involve the demiurge , yaldabaoth .

-   while she is aware that the whole world is a giant game , she has no further understanding to that other than how the plot is supposed to go .  since she cannot interfere with the main game , she remains mostly as a third passive party  /  support if the protagonist finds her and is attainable as a confidant .  this applies to all the persona games .

-   her initial persona is tamamo - no - mae , and her ultimate persona is amaterasu .  she is of the magician arcana , whose spells mostly involving curse and almighty skills .  her weakness are bless skills .  monika’s codename is vivaldi .  under no circumstances will she join the phantom thieves , as she is meant to remain as a non - active party , but occasionally will provide helpful hints and items that will aid the protag into making the best choices within the game .

-   as an anomaly within the world , she has the ability to alter the npcs  (anybody that’s not part of the phantom thieves)  as well as the game stages itself .  this is a side effect of being the manifestation of mementos , the sea of human consciousness .  at the end of the game , monika will seemingly vanish from the world after mementos itself did , but it was found out that she did not , hinting the world of personas still exists  (as reference that there are still future games)  .