#also hes turning out to be really similar to tavros. help

[potatobugz]

what if I didn't go to bed actually and just drew my fantrolls again

[bracketsoffear]

Vriska propaganda since Aranea didn't make it:

Her animal motif is arcachnids, especially spiders. Most of her quirks are general arachnid ones — her Trollian handle is arachnidsGrip, she has eight pupils in one eye, and when typing she used "8" to replace the letter "b" and sounds similar to "eight", as well as repeating letters or punctuation marks eight times for emphasis. She was also raised by a spider the size of a house, who forced her to bring a constant food supply of other trolls or be eaten herself.

Vriska's biggest boast is the number of irons she has in the fire, pies in which she has fingers, and euphemistic representations of the number and complexity of her schemes. It's now apparent that she doesn't really care if any of these irons conflict, provided they are irons and she has them in the fire. While she sees herself as a great manipulator, it seems that she is often manipulated herself, as clearly evidenced in Doc Scratch's final conversation with her. Although she would loathe to admit it, she envies Terezi a great deal because of Terezi's ability to manipulate people without the use of psychic abilities. This could be a possible motivator for Vriska, as she attempts to trick, deceive and backstab nearly every other troll - perhaps as a way to prove herself in Terezi's view or even in her own. When another troll calls her out on using mind powers, she either denies it to the point of absurdity or throws a tantrum. She is perpetually striving to be a manipulator in ways that terrorize and traumatize those closest to her, but always failing to escape the control of those who dominate her life, whether they be the dead ancestor hanging over her head or Doc Scratch using her for his own apocalyptic goals.

Vriska grew up idolizing her ancestor Mindfang, a pirate notable for a) owning slaves, including a mind-controlled sex slave, and b) being created from the wishes of Aranea (her pre-Scratch counterpart and Vriska's dancestor) to be the main character in her life. Vriska similarly wanted to emulate Mindfang and be the protagonist of her story, which set off the cycle of revenge. Vriska, acting as Tavros' guide during a FLARP session, manipulated him into jumping off a cliff with the help of her mind-control powers, intending for him to grow wings like his ancestor The Summoner (who Pupa Pan is based on). The Summoner was Mindfang's lover, and Vriska wants to turn Tavros into the next Summoner to fulfill her dream, regardless of his agency or wellbeing:

Transcript:

AG: Tavros, have I mentioned how cute you look in that plucky little outfit? AG: Why if I didn't know 8etter, I'd say I was playing with Pupa Pan himself! AG: Isn't that what you want, Tavros? To 8e like Pupa? AG: Of course you do! What 8oy wouldn't want to 8e like Pupa! So dashing and 8rave. AG: He is everything you are not! AG: For one thing, he can flyyyyyyyy. AG: Do you want to flyyyyyyyy, Tavros? AG: Have you ever tried to fly? I 8et you haven't! AG: How a8out we take to the skies, Pupa! AG: Hahahaha, oh you like that idea, Pupa? Yes, you do. I can feel it in your simple, mallea8le 8rain. AG: You want to fly so 8ad!

Tavros, unsurprisingly, does not grow wings and instead ends up paraplegic. Aradia sics ghosts on Vriska in revenge, so Vriska mind-controlled Sollux (who is strongly implied to have had romantic feelings for Aradia) into murdering her. Then Terezi tells Doc Scratch that Vriska has a Magic Cue Ball that Mindfang had stolen from him, so he blows it up and maims her. Vriska responds with a Psychic Double Reacharound (https://www.homestuck.com/story/2578)--mind controlling Tavros to force him to use his animal communion powers on Terezi's lusus (parent), making the lusus psychically compel her daughter into staring at the deadly sun and burning her eyes out.

During SGRUB, she continues to try and force Tavros into a relationship, using Pupa Pan as a rather transparent way to try and appeal to him and wanting him to stop being "useless" (read: paralyzed and timid, partially because of her abuse).

When that fails, she just forces herself on him and uses her psionics again to try and make him have red feelings (the closest thing trolls have to human romance) for her. It obviously doesn't work out, and she gives up in disgust.

While they're able to work together in the near future, she falls back on her usual controlling bullshit when he tries to revive her with a kiss (SGRUB is weird), forcing him to take her to her Quest Bed so she can go God Tier and lashing out at him when he can't bring himself to mercy kill her.

Here, she's using mind control to compel Tavros to write out her messages.

And still trying to make romance happen between them.

She tries to play on his desire to prove himself...

And takes it really poorly when he refuses to obey her.

That brown blood he's being forced to write in now--it's Tavros' own blood.

After Jack Noir destroys the Trolls' victory door and traps them on the meteor, Vriska starts mentoring John. She uses him as a pawn in her rivalry with Terezi and a pseudo-replacement for Tavros. Her manipulations are most evident when she psychically knocks him out and leaves him in a burning lake of oil to force him to unlock his powers:

Note how she immediately switches from "answer me now, I'm the most important thing to pay attention to" to "I wasn't impatient at all."

Then she spins endangering John as a good thing to help him become a hero--which she specifically wants to get credit for--and invokes his interests to get him to play along (similar to the Pupa Pan thing, only more successful.)

And here's the big reveal: Vriska stopped John from prototyping hte doll that would've neutralized Jack Noir, allowing Bec to prototype himself and give Jack godly powers. She also turns out to have set up Bec's creation and caused Jade's supposed narcolepsy (by using her powers on Jade throughout her entire life) as part of this scheme. Vriska deliberately engineered the empowerment of the unstoppable universe-murdering monster Jack Noir because she wants to be the one who kills him. She created the epic final boss battle for her to epically defeat, so she could be the hero of the story.

And here's her ultimatum for John: figure out the Windy Thing to save himself--and thus become even cooler and stronger than her, the strongest of them all--and he'll be worth her time...or die trying.

And when John does accomplish the Windy Thing, here's what she says:

He's her new Tavros--but unlike "some loser," he's just as powerful and bold as she wanted him to be, so he wins her favor.

Vriska is trying to be responsible for as much as possible, so that her ultimate (planned) victory over the demon will be that much greater and everyone will accept her. This includes being responsible for Jack getting prototyped with Bec, Bec being created in the first place, and John going god-tier because she wants to make the ultimate hero and villain. She deliberately inserts herself into as many conflicts as possible on account of her self-aggrandizing nature and obsessive need to be the center of attention, even when she's actively harming herself and everyone else by doing so.

The Aspect of Light in Homestuck is heavily implied to be related to narrative relevance--Aranea tries to "heal" her Light by making herself the one who saves the day, while the Zahhaks (who possess the opposing aspect of Void) end up largely irrelevant to the grander story. As the Thief of Light, Vriska's role is to take away narrative importance for her own benefit--she "steals the spotlight," so to speak. This ties into The Web as "The Story Spinner": she is hellbent on being in charge of and the most important character in the story, setting in motion a great number of schemes and chain reactions (even ones that blow up in her face) just so she can be in control and be important. She absolutely has to make things about her to get recognition from other people and often behaves like she deserves attention no matter how she acts and performs actions to draw attention, even complaining when she feels like she's not being given top priority; as with the rest of said flaws, it does absolutely nothing for her but actually push people away from her, making her lonelier, unhappier, and more unstable, and therefore more vulnerable to bad influences.

She has to spin the story to her advantage so she can be as strong and powerful and invincible as Mindfang, because it's the only way she knows how to cope with the helpless terror of her childhood living in fear of a spider's bottomless hunger and endless cruelty. In fact, when her pre-retcon self (who died and ended up doing a lot of self-reflection and development) sees that Aranea is doing the same kind of bullshit by trying to make herself the hero (at the risk of dooming the entire timeline), she admits that both she and Aranea have the same issues with obsessive egomania and trying to do the "right thing" for all the wrong reasons. She wants to be a puppetmaster and ends up trapped in a web of her own making. While pre-retcon Vriska eventually lets go of her need for power and control and ends up much happier for it, post-retcon Vriska never gets the same character development and takes away exactly the wrong lesson--that her fussing and bugging and meddling and pulling everyone's strings is actually the best outcome, and she was right all along to see herself as the main character. She gets to be the hero by taking out Lord English, but at the cost of apparently being sucked into the black hole with him (we're ignoring the Epilogues here). By taking forceful command of everyone around her with her usual bossiness and mind control, she traps herself in the shadow of Aranea/Mindfang and the narrative web she's desperate to be at the center of, and thus is left behind while everyone else escapes the story and moves on with their lives.

She's soooo pathetic and soooooo awful. Vote for her right now.

.

[tomatograter]

What are your Thots on jake’s pq route?

I already wrote some about it in this post where I discuss the problem with taking dirkjake as a literal parallel to tavris (Mainly, that it’s inaccurate to both situations and misrepresents the dynamics at play) but it’s been long enough since release that I feel like I can talk about it without that criticism being taken as a personal witch hunt. TL;DR: As a general rule of thumb I don’t cite Jake’s PQ as part of his characterization, and I think basing your Jakewriting on it will only lead you astray.

I liked a lot of the Pesterquest routes and the alphas were among some of my favorites, but I think when you play the four of them in sequence Jake’s really... stands as the odd one out. It’s almost as if he’s afforded way less sympathy from the get go for some indiscernible reason, or like MSPAR took a day to say ‘I can’t stand this kid in particular’ after dealing with waaaaaaaay more mindboggling troll customs or stupid dangerous situations that tested their patience and their limits. When it comes down to it, it’s mostly an issue of framing.

Let’s go with the “Just the Alpha routes” example, because I think that makes the overall context clearer and the response/reactions it gathered (or the lack thereof) easier to understand. The alpha kids were the last 4 Pesterquest episodes. They were also afforded entire volumes just for themselves, which cemented our expectations on “oh, they’re going to really dig into unexplored territory!” and for the most part, that’s what we got! It was really nice to see the internal mechanics of Jane as someone raised within a corporate echochamber, Roxy as a grieving, isolated kid, deprived of all human contact, and Dirk as a nerdy doomsday prepper haunted by private flashes of himself as a supervillain. It all works! Those are things the alpha kids were dealing with on the background of the broader Homestuck story, things we were only hinted at as the *larger* problems played out. It makes you understand their point of view. Except on Jake's route, where nothing about his life seems to be relevant at all? 

With Jane we get discussions about HIC and her family, with Roxy beautiful passages about a mother they never met and growing up alone— Same for Dirk, who gets a whole brother zapped from an alternate timeline. But on Jake's route there's not even an expansive dialogue path dedicated to Grandma English, Skaianet, the rebellion, or the giant red ship that came and murdered her in the night and then bombed his house, leaving him trapped inside his only surviving tower. No understanding passage realizing that this kid has had to fend for himself in an island full of Actual Giant Alien Monsters trying to eat him alive, or that he cremated his guardian specifically to avoid attracting predators to the scent of fresh blood drying on her mutilated corpse at the age of an actual toddler. The text refuses to dig into any of the psychological implications or impact an environment like this could have on a kid, which is even weirder when you consider MSPAR has met and helped Vriska get out of a similar situation. The whole thing with Jane in the previous volume has just happened, even, while Jake's particularities go unremarked. He was just supposed to deal with it. And that's because a choice was made to portray all of Jake's problems in this route as sort of... single handedly Dirk's fault? Something he should have Just Dealt with?

There's not even a hint that Jake knows Hal exists. Which is important! Jake can pick out Hal from Dirk based on *verbal cues*, and the fact that he considers Hal a barrier between him and his "real friend" getting to communicate with one another is a whole point of contention (and even comedy) in the story proper. Instead of examining Jake's isolation, or grief, or how he literally locks himself in his room and plasters it with cinematic posters to pretend he's just the main lead of a wacky adventure movie in the face of the immense shitshow outside, we get brobot acting nonsensically and threatening to break into Jake's room to beat him up. 

A general reminder on brobot: He was programmed to scout the jungle and deal with predators so Jake could a) Be allowed to safely leave his room (something he simply didn't do before age 13 out of sheer terror, and we know this because dirk and jake talk about it on his birthday conversation, when he first gets brobot) and 

b) Learn how to defend himself in the case of a surprise attack, with different combat settings adjusted to his level. The brobot has a novice mode Jake feels patronized by, but pushes him up levels quickly enough. In Homestuck proper, the brobot only enters "stalking mode" after Hal gets pissy with Jake for finding him out, and forcefully switches the setting on to make Jake work for the Uranium inside it. When you take Hal out of the picture, this plotline makes no sense! Jake's route is set way before the Alphas even think of entering the game, so this particular event hasn't even happened. Jake goes on to text Roxy and she turns the stalking setting off remotely anyways, so even if brobot was programmed to murder Jake in his sleep, or jump him inside the safe zone of his room (he's not) he has literally no reason to be acting like that when he's been set to Baby Buff Up Mode.

(Brobot does end up spontaneously pulling himself apart to give Jake his reward after this)

Which brings me to my other problem with the general framing of this volume; the alpha kids don't feel present in Jake's life as friends at all. It's all "romantic options" and "shipping discourse" and MSPAR making these silly logic jumps to justify insisting on this line of query, and all it does is completely flatten out anything of interest having to do with Jake as a Person, to build up an image of Dirk as being suspicious and shady for his volume and more or less come to the conclusion that Jake sucks because he just Cant Choose Who To Date Between All His Friends! And that's why jake is just like tavros… and dirk is just like vriska! Or something. 

And just as a reminder, here's Jake talking with Roxy so I don't have to explain why that feels like a weird choice to me. (click to zoom)

And then there's the endings. On the vriska ending, MSPAR just ends up weirdly angry at jake for being such a piss baby and not getting that he's tavros and dirk is vriska so he had to… uh… take all his anger out on this 13 year old alien girl he has never met and teach her a lesson to prepare to do the same on dirk, or something. And on the other ending Jake mentions his pen pal, is zapped to meet jade, they have some non-committal greetings and then a cosplay party where Jake insists that he totally likes Lara croft not because she's a femme fatale and he relates to that, because he's never ever in his life thought of anyone being interested on him. Or Something. He likes Lara croft for normal reasons only. He wears really tiny shorts and does sexy poses because he's not aware at all of how other people find him attractive. He's just too dumb to get this, or the shipping thing, or that he's tavros and Dirk is vriska (who the hell are these people?).

Jake feels like an afterthought in the grand scope of events. Sidelined on his own episode. This volume is busy with rehashing age old fandom arguments that have little to do with his character, because said arguments were started and maintained by bored teens engrossed on fighting online instead of analyzing Homestuck; we introduce vriska for no interesting reason at all (thank god at least Jake has enough decency to say he's not into hitting on 13-year-olds, because that would have been particularly rancid.) And aside from catchphrases and old slang sprinkled liberally into his dialogue like a fog making machine, none of the motivation for the character is there. What does he want? What does he fear? Why does he act like the way he does? What would accommodating him look like? What would helping him look like? We get this on Jane's volume, Roxy's volume, and Dirk's volume. To really heart-wrenching and dramatic results, too. You get to know who they are, where they live, what they want, what they fear, what might help them get better, but Jake is just sort of There. He's a burden. MSPAR either ends this volume berating him for not doing what they want or finding him weird and confusing and like they don't know each other at all, and the fact both of those were marked as dubiously bad ends in the game files speaks for itself, I think.

[davekat-sucks]

Going along with the other posts about patrons, How would the opposite go for beta trolls to the alpha kids? (Vriska for Jane, Karkat for Jake, Kanaya for Roxy, and Terezi for Dirk

Hoo boy, if Jane and Vriska would be arguing constantly. Some would probably joke that it is two blue 8itches fighting each other. Part of the reason though why I think Vriska would stand for Jane this long, is because of being the next heir in line. She is aware that Feferi won't be as active to lead like Karkat. So she decides to try and make Jane a better Heiress. Part of me also jokes that Vriska might develop a love for mustache men as well, similar to Jane. Jane hears an offer from Vriska that if she helps, she could bring Jake closer to her. Though she wants him, Jane would learn to not abuse the spider girl's outside abilities and powers for it. She would see herself how awful she had treated and would genuinely want to be a better person. This sort of self reflection will soon be pointed back at Vriska as the session goes on. Karkat and Jake would be a funny duo. Something about hearing a shouty angry man argue towards an English boy with a bit of naivety, would be funny. But at least Karkat would care about Jake's wellbeing as he soon sees that most of his friends only want him for his dick, not as a genuine friendship. Karkat would do everything to help Jake realize it. He could see a bit of Tavros in him and didn't want another "Vriska incident" happening with the humans. Jake may try to tolerate his foul language and loud text, but I think he would start to see the good side of Karkat being an actual friend towards him. Make him realize that the others are not really his friends as he deluded himself. He could learn to stand on his own. Roxy and Kanaya get along pretty well. Mom friends got to stick together! Though Kanaya will have concerns on Roxy's drinking habits. While trolls have no such alcohol restrictions, she question why someone like her breaks it, despite how humans view it. Roxy might try to play it off as her own quirk, that she enjoys drinking for sort of fun. But will learn that she drinks it to cope about her mother's overanalyzing her gestures and love from Roxy. Alpha Rose couldn't accept it as it is, thinking there is more behind it. Which made Roxy feel upset that maybe Rose doesn't like her as much. She would feel really bad for Roxy. Dirk teaching Terezi art will really change in her tastes for irony. Though not much on horses, that goes to Equius, which she teases he would like hang with. Eastern Alternian and anime will be an interesting look between two worlds. Terezi would probably try to rile Dirk that Dubs are better than Subs, a test for Dirk's patience towards the tealblood. As much as jokes go on, Terezi would question and sense about Lil Hal's intentions and worry for Dirk if he should let this go on. Or he did this intentionally to be closer with Jake. She would try to call out on that heinous deed and would try to convince him to stop it. In turn, Dirk would learn about her history with Vriska, questioning her on what she would do about it as well. The two would see each other as equals.

[rabble-dabble]

The Cancer King's Court ~ The Holy Prince

Eridan Ampora/The Holy Prince

This Eridan is, in fact, the Eridan from our timeline. 

After his death at the hands of Kanaya, Eridan mopes around the dreambubbles in a self loathing haze. Without Feferi or Karkat around to try and keep him afloat, Eridan is left to wallow in his own pathetic self pity. He takes every excuse to dive deeper into his own self loathing. Alternate versions of himself who have it better than him just go to show what a fuck-up he is, and those that don’t just reinforce his image of how miserable his life is.

He eventually runs into the Cancer King, who is absolutely pissed to see him. Karkat verbally tears Eridan to shreads, lambasting him for continually burying himself in his own self pity.

“you’re right, kar. god, you’re alwways right. i really am just a-”

“DON’T YOU FINISH THAT FUCKING SENTENCE, ERIDAN AMPORA. WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU WERE GOING TO SAY, YES, THAT IS IN FACT, WHAT YOU ARE. AN ASSHOLE, A DOUCH CANOE, A RAGING BIGOTED VOLCANO OF BULLSHIT. THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CAN’T BE ASSED TO BE ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT.”

“I’M WILLING TO BET THAT YOU’VE SPENT YOUR ENTIRE AFTERLIFE WALLOWING IN SELF LOATHING, HAVEN’T YOU? IT’S ALL YOU DID WHEN YOU WERE ALIVE. IF YOU CAN’T MAKE YOURSELF SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEM, THEN YOU’LL JUST SINK INTO A HOLE UNTIL YOU CAN THROW YOUR PROBLEMS ON SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOULDERS. YOU’RE A PARASITE. YOU FED OFF FEFERI, YOU FED OFF ME, AND NOW YOU’RE STARVING BECAUSE NO ONE’S LEFT TO DEAL WITH YOUR BULLSHIT.”

“YOU COULD’VE MADE AN EFFORT, EVEN A SINGLE ATTEMPT, TO FIX YOURSELF UP AT ANY TIME YOU WANTED. I’VE MET PEOPLE WHO WERE ASSBAGS, WHO WERE JUST AS BIG OF SHIT STAINS AS YOU WERE AT ONE POINT, WHO HAVE BECOME BETTER PEOPLE. I’VE MET A VERSION OF VRISKA WHO TRIED TO CLEAN UP HER LIFE. FUCKING. VRISKA.”

“YOU’RE RIGHT, ERIDAN. YOU’RE A TERRIBLE PERSON. YOU’VE NEVER EVEN TRIED TO BE ANYTHING ELSE.”

Eridan stares silently. Karkat sighs and leaves.

Eridan wanders the Dreambubbles some more, Karkat’s lines repeating in his head. At first, it’s just another ember in his smouldering fire of self-loathing, but he can’t keep himself from chewing on it a bit more. Eridan’s conflicted thoughts come to a head when he meets himself from the New Timeline.

The Eridan from this timeline sold out his friends to The Condescension. He’s the reason she rose to power. And everything she’s done is on his shoulders.

When Eridan confronts his alternate self, he starts spewing all the same excuses that Eridan himself has used before. He didn’t have a choice, it’s his duty as royal blood, what did you expect him to do? When pressed, his alternate self admits to regretting what he did.

So, Eridan asks why he hasn’t tried to fix it yet? He’s a Grand Admiral in the Condescension’s navy. He has plenty of resources. He could easily fund the rebellion, work as a spy, plot some assassinations. He could try to fix this. Alternate Eridan refuses.

He’s always been the bad guy. Why pretend he could be anything else?

Eridan leaves in disgust. Karkat’s words finally sink in.

Even when given every reason in the world to change, Eridan couldn’t be bothered. Well, that ends today.

So, Eridan sets out to make amends. He visits the dreams of players still doing their sessions and gives them advice. He gives them hope, listens to their problems, helps them reach God-Tier and guides them away from the mistakes he made. He isn’t very good at it. Not initially. He finds himself listening to them as much as they listen to him. But, still, he grows. And, in doing so, he saves several sessions from the brink of disaster.

Eventually, Eridan meets Feferi. His Feferi.

The two awkwardly catch up, dancing around the obvious. They compare notes on the Dreambubbles and Eridan explains what he’s been up too.

Eridan bursts the bubble first. He asks her if she can forgive him.

…Feferi looks forlorn, devistated even, as she confesses that she doesn’t think she can.

Eridan quietly accepts this as he leaves.

He’s moping to himself in a memory of his old hive when the Pirate Queen knocks on his door. She comforts him and they try to make light of what terrible people they were. Again, they dance around the issue a bit, even humoring a bit of roleplay for old times sake, before they finally talk about the main issue.

Eridan laments how much it hurts to not be forgiven. Vriska can relate, but only to an extent. “I can live with Tavros not forgiving me, 8ut I don’t know where I’d 8e without Terezi. That sounds a 8it closer to what you’re going through.”

Vriska offers that, sense he’s making amends, maybe he could join the King’s Court.

Eridan turns her down. He wants to make amends on his own terms first.

So, Eridan gathers all the Players he’s helped and unties them against his alternate self. Playing on the flaws he knows his alternate self has, Eridan orchestrates his downfall, proving to himself that he’s outgrown the pathetic leech he once was. Eridan sees his new friends off with pride, inspiring them to join the Rebellion and fight fir the freedom of the Multiverse.

With that done, Eridan tracks down the Cancer King. 

“i'vve wwon back my honor. noww i wwant to wwin back my friend.”

Eridan is the King’s commander in chief against the forces of Her Imperious Condescension. He intends to undo the damage done by his alternate self and win back Karkat’s friendship in one foul swoop. Like Vriska, his opponents tend to underestimate him. They expect the same arrogant manchild he used to be, which he uses to catch them off guard. In fact, his effectiveness was so great, that it took Karkat awhile to realize that he wasn’t God-Tier and was, in fact, still dead. Karkat rectified the issue soon after, but it’s a testament to how far he’s come.

Eridan spends most of his time with Vriska. The two of them forming something of a support group about being “the reformed bad guys” of the group. It never quite reaches the outright moirail levels that she has with Terezi though. 

Gamzee holds him in considerably high regard for doing such a 180. It’s the reason he gave him and Vriska such lofty titles. Rose speculates if that has something to do with Gamzee’s unwillingness to face his own issues, but that’s for another day.

Like Aradia, Eridan never forgets the weight of what they’re doing. In fact, he refuses to associate with the ‘sacrifice’ side of the Court’s buisness. He understands the necessity of it, but he’s a reformed man. He can’t bring himself to sink back down there.

For a similar reason, he tries to let anyone know that he's The Holy Prince. He can’t stand to think about what the Players might say if they knew what their mentor was a part of.

Still, Eridan makes a point of befriending those he dismissed. He shares hunting stories with the Purrdator, he relates to the Bard’s loneliness. He even buries the hatchet with Sollux.

Eridan trusts in Terezi to keep Karkat on the straight and narrow, but he still worries about him. Eridan knows exactly what it’s like to bury yourself in your flaws. Luckily, he tends to inspire Karkat to be more merciful just by his example. The King even took the time to learn some of Eridan’s favorite board games. 

In the end, The Holy Prince is a loyal man who holds himself to a high moral standard. A competent commander and a friend to all his students. Eridan Ampora is someone Karkat is proud to call his friend.

god I love that you just submitted this because I SCREAMED when I saw it. 

also????? eridan being a source of advice for KARKAT????? YES PLEASE

anyways you said figure and I went OF ANGELS??? because hell yeah I'm gonna incorporate more aspect stuff. also eridan being a voice of reason is concerning and funny at the same time. i respect that you had vriska relate to him but even then like she has terezi which is SUCH a valid point!!!! eridan has to get there for a LONNNNNNNGGGG while but I'm actually glad that he’s working towards being better seeing he always had that potential but never took it. 

[clariongradiation]

what's up guess who still reads homestuck in this, the year of our lord, 2020. anyway here's every homestuck character in Among Us (under the cut because i do mean every character)

John: happy-go-lucky, way too trusting. always goes off to do his tasks immediately, is usually completely oblivious to who might be an imposter. pretty good as imp, just because no one suspects him right away, but if you pay attention he never tries to fake any tasks 

Rose: makes strategic use of cams/admin table to achieve her goals, but due to this can be slow to complete her tasks. tends to filibuster the vote just because she types so much during meetings, but uses this to her advantage when she's imp to avoid getting voted out

Dave: also prefers to concentrate on tasks, but is way more observant than john. if he's sus of someone he'll follow them around to see if they're faking tasks. similar to rose, gets distracted in meetings coming up with raps instead of paying attention

Jade: likes to use the buddy system, but she'll carry it over between games so sometimes it makes her an easy target. will hang out in greenhouse/o2 when she's done with tasks. her gut sus feelings are pretty accurate in meetings, is a good imp but tries to avoid killing friends

Aradia: dgaf if she gets killed right away, will finish tasks then follow people around the map. if she’s haunting someone as a ghost they tend to get killed soon after. as imp she’s an impulse killer, but usually has pretty good timing so she doesn’t get caught in the act

Tavros: also task-focused, uses one of the little pets. has a hard time asserting himself in meetings, so even if he saw the kill he might not get around to accusing. regular victim of the imp pinning the blame on him. you can tell when he’s imposter because he gains Self Esteem

Sollux: ‘doesn’t play games for wiigglers’, but when he does he almost always wins. favors sabotages as imp, will use them to avoid meetings and get another kill. buddies up with the other imposter to get double kills, but will vote them out if they get caught

Karkat: adopts the loudest = rightest strategy in meetings. can usually be seen telling everyone to do their tasks and stop fucking around. not bad as imp, but gets flustered if someone accuses him out of the blue. sometimes gets voted out just so people don’t have to read his rants

Nepeta: master stalker, will vent kill with ruthless efficiency. always buddies up with equius, but will kill him and >:33c about it without mercy if she gets imp. draws fanart of the trolls as their among us avatars

Kanaya: precision killer, she’s slow but always makes absolutely sure she won’t get caught. extremely efficient at tasks, she’ll check on people’s visual tasks to see if they’re crew. will encourage tavros to type in meetings if he has something to say

Terezi: supreme detective, though sometimes she can get confused if her screen is too blurry. types a lot during meetings, but she’s always working around to an accusation (whether she’s imp or crew). big fan of sabotaging lights to get kills

Vriska: loud, bossy, forces votes. another impulse killer, if she gets caught killing she’ll bluster or point fingers to avoid getting accused. will randomly sabotage to throw people off. usually the one talking over tavros. has a 100% winrate if she gets imp with terezi

Equius: efficient as crew, but horrible as imp. never kills nepeta or anyone higher on the hemospectrum than him. won’t even vote them out even if he knows they’re the imp (gets too sweaty, has to find a towel, and will miss the vote)

Gamzee: will get distracted listening to game sounds or staring at the animations. if there are only a few tasks left to win, it’s a safe bet they’re his. (off sopor, he’s a ruthless killer that heavily favors venting, and is very good at deflecting blame onto someone else)

Eridan: no one likes to play with him because he always tries to turn it into some weird blackrom flirting. is a pretty good imp, but not very careful about getting caught because it’s ‘his right as a seqdwweller’. another one that gets voted out on principle (due to creepiness)

Feferi: just excited to be here, great team player. as imp she’ll kill people if she thinks they’re not doing their tasks fast enough. will apologize for kills in ghost chat if she gets voted off. almost never sabotages, but if she does it’s always one of the crises

Jane: hit-or-miss detective, good at putting cluse together but will take what people say at face value. can be pretty bossy, but you can tell if she’s imp because she doesn’t tell people to finish tasks. will vote someone out if she thinks they’re not working fast enough

Jake: like john will focus solely on tasks and be oblivious to imposters. unlike john, is bad at imp; gets stuck in his own head pretending to be a character from a movie and either doesn’t pay attention to people or forgets to do tasks. always surprised by kills, even his own

Roxy: as crew uses the buddy system, but as imp is absolutely ruthless; trust them at your own risk. great at distracting people in meetings by typing very fast. will accuse on instinct just to see what kind of reaction people have, very reliable about fixing sabotages

Dirk: another big talker, but no one ever gets what he’s talking about. sometimes gets distracted by watching cams and will forget to do tasks. is a good killer as imp, but his real specialty is getting people to think it’s someone else (either with accusations or with confusion)

Damara: completely chaotic, randomly won’t do tasks and will just follow people around. sometimes doesn’t even report bodies

Rufioh: good at encouraging crew, but pretty shy at killing. will usually skip vote if he’s imp, but is an accurate voter when crew

Mituna: single-minded focus on either tasks or killing. will ignore most sabotages, prefers to be alone unless he’s around latula

Kankri: doesn’t play as the game enforces harmful stereotypes about blood castes, culling, ableism, death, space travel, aliens, etc.

Meulin: always partnered with Kurloz, like nepeta is an excellent imp but can be distractable as crew. sometimes forgets to type during meetings

Porrim: extremely good at tracking what people are doing, will call out imposters that try to fake tasks, is Here for the Drama

Latula: runs around a lot, does tasks randomly, will follow mituna around to keep an eye on him, revenge kills imps that killed him earlier

Aranea: big talker, though she’ll get cut off by meenah. will buddy up to do tasks, but is also good at helping the other imp by sabotaging

Horuss: honestly pretty average, sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses. tends to ignore chat from those lower on the hemospectrum

Kurloz: never talks, seems to appear randomly around the map even if he can’t vent. usually hanging around meulin, even if one of them is the imp and the other is crew

Cronus: no one likes to play with him because he’s annoying, a creep, and an ass. usually voted off first on principle

Meenah: chaotic killer, will target one person then follow them around. doesn’t like doing tasks, but can be hassled into it by aranea. impulse votes in meetings

Calliope: helpful, full of headcanons, buddies up with Roxy. ifa  lot of people are talking she’ll stay quiet, but has a lot of opinions and advice if asked. absolutely abysmal at imp (pre-scratch self is quieter, a solo player, and extremely good as imp)

Caliborn: loud, annoying, rage quits, tries to cheat. very easy to tell when he’s imp because he’ll act all superior in chat. gets voted out and banned a lot.

Dad: are ya winnin son

Bec, Halley, GCAT, Vodka Mutini, Jaspers, Maplehoof, Seppucrow: they are just leetol bebbies

Colonel Sassacre: doesn’t know what a computer is

Serenity: amazing player, but no one understands blinking

Liv Tyler: also amazing player, but doesn’t talk at all so no one understands

Itcy, Die, Cans: don’t really get it, but ok at killing

The Mayor, AR, CD, Doze, Sawbuck, Eggs, Biscuits, Ms. Paint, consorts, Squarewave: don’t really get it, but ok at tasks

PM, WK, HB, Trace, Fin, Matchsticks, Quarters: decent players

WQ, DD, Clover, Crowbar, Snowman/BQ, Stitch, Sawtooth: actually really good players

Jack/Spades Slick: only interested in killing

Doc Scratch: insufferably omniscient, wouldn’t play even if someone wanted him to

Andrew Hussie: probably plays among us irl

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won���t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

[vriska]

oh PLEASE make a Tavros rant post. I'm awful at this kind of stuff and I wanna use it to explain why I h8 him aside from "haha I'm kinning" to my friends. -a frustr8ed Vriska kinnie

Like listen, liking Vriska has absolutely fuck all to do with why I hate Tavros.  I hate Tavros’ character because to me he is just so GRATINGLY annoying, both in his personality and in how fandom handles him. 

this got long so it’s going under a cut, warning if you like Tavros I’m bashing on him p hard because it’s my blog and these are my opinions!!!!!

They fall for the fact that he’s a manipulative little shit and play into exactly what he wants people to think about him - that he’s pathetic and you should feel sorry for him, and then the MOMENT he has any kind of hold, he turns around and acts like a complete douche??? He’s the kind of dude who would KNOWINGLY hit on a lesbian and then act all guilt-trippy the moment she rejected him.  In fact, that’s what happens in his fucking route!  Sure he doesn’t know Kanaya’s a lesbian but like, she comes as his friend to be nice and help him and then he takes it as a free opportunity to take advantage of Kanaya’s good nature and the entire time he’s acting obnoxiously about it (and trust me, if you’re annoying Kanaya THAT fucking much you really gotta be trying because we’re talking about the gal who willingly and enthusiastically decides to deal with Vriska), reading into it and the second her back is turned going ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ she’s TOTALLY into me huh bro?? 

And the quick flips he does between ‘noooo i wont tell u my tragic past’ ACTUALLY OKAY LET ME TELL YOU SO YOU FEEL SORRY FOR ME! like all of it just fucking pisses me off and most people wanna ignore it all because UWU HE GOT BUWWIED POOR BABUUUU, like he literally does these constant 180′s that make it clear he’s aware of himself and only declining for show and fishing for pity points

the fact is tavros was an asshole before his accident and continues to be an asshole after the fact, while he in no way actually deserves Vriska abusing him, it does not mean he gets free agency either to be a manipulative dick by trying to con out pity points, he is knowingly doing this, the route makes it pretty clear!! go ahead and be mad about it if you want but i literally just despise his entire character because it’s just disgusting to me that he acts like that. 

Also gonna add in real quick, theres another character who also acts a little bit similar to Tavros - Xefros!  He’s self depreciating and unsure of himself but I actually like Xefros, why? Because he’s actually a nice person still!! he’s just struggling with self worth and he’s also an interesting character. 

Anyway bottom line is, I fucking hate Tavros, you can like him and enjoy his character and sympathize with him and whatever else!  That’s valid and fine and you can have whatever opinion of him, this is just simply mine, I am not going to change my mind about it more than likely because I’ve had these thoughts for years and this route only confirmed most my suspicions lol

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck^2 re: Chapter 9: “How Goes The Eulogizing, Dear?”

So yeah. The family tree is officially a mess now.

What's more, poor Yiffy falls completely off the shipping grid in the new foursome. She's Vrissy's adoptive sister, Harry's niece/cousin, and Tavros' niece!

I've been thinking what roles, if any, they could all play in a Sburb session. Cause I don't know what, but I'm sure these kids are going to play an important part in the future of Earth C, and an Sburb session is one of the possibilities.

So...

Vrissy the Rogue of Light Tavros the Page of Time Harry the Prince of Breath Yiffy the Maid of Space

Is one of the things I came up with, combining a B2 role with a B1 aspect. Yes? No? Tavros has definitely been having to bide his time, and so has Yiffy. And both roles seem like a good fit for them. And Harry's breath was positively destroyed last chapter while running. :P

The reasoning with Vrissy should be more obvious. She's a wannabe Thief and through Rose and Vriska closely aligned with Light, and through Rose with Rogueness.

Anyway, on to the chapter, which I have no idea who it'd focus on now.

Maybe Dirk? Seems like a Rose thing to say.

---

Page 236

Ah. It's what Jake's going to say to Jane.

Anyway, good news! We'll see more of Yiffy. Maybe just in silhouette.

She seems to be wondering a lot about Tavros. Potentially more now than ever before in the boy's life. :(

---

Page 237

...

Gog.

She was wondering about GAMZEE'S FRICKIN' CORPSE. Orrrrrrr, maybe, she's preparing a speech to rile the masses to her side. Since she kind of broke things of with Gamzee.

---

Page 238

Yyyyeah, Jane's sanity and morality has really been slipping so much. She's just playing on the emotions of her followers now, and convinced herself it's for the greater good.

---

Page 239

Why.

Why did Jake's butt now become an actual thing in the art, too.

---

Page 240

Brain Ghost Dirk continues to be a voice of reason in Jake's backmind. In this way, I like seeing more of him.

"could I get that once more, sans the racism" pffffffff, smooth, Jake, real smooth. But really, for him, he's really playing the part of idiot manservant/manslave very good!

Jane just considers Yiffy a prisoner, even though she's her grandchild. As for Jake... Yiffy is in a real sense his grandchild, and the grandpup of his alt self's fateful dog, so I hope he can bond with her and help her get to safety in the end.

Blaperile had a good point - Jane misunderstood the concept of kismessitude entirely. And Gamzee actually seemed invested into the relationship, since he genuinely tried to make her improve.

What a difference with Game Over Gamzee and Terezi's relationship.

---

Page 241

... Wow.

I thought she'd look very different! Almost polar opposite.

She looks like a Lalonde, dresses snappy like a Strider... Her tail is black like Bec Noir would have had if he had one... Her associated colour is even pink! And she doesn't appear to be wearing glasses either!

... Jane's "seen to her". Please, no. She didn't put a tiara on her, did she... Eesh.

And yeah, her leg's chained down like with the cherubs. :( Please don't have her escape the same way as Caliborn.

---

Page 242

Good to see Jake is of two minds about this whole ordeal. It's the only sane way to be. And through Brain Ghost Dirk, he's actually managed to infiltrate the enemy base unnoticed. So really, props to him.

I wonder when we'll get the first reaction out of Yiffany.

---

Page 243

Pfff, the material cup on Jane's desk includes a spork next to the stapler.

---

Page 244

Ah, there we go.

So Yiffy & Jane are going to have a real Handmaid - Scratch-like chemistry for the time they're together.

---

Page 245

WOOOOOOOOW.

Black dog hair, white human hair.

A piercing. Shorts. Jade's eyes.

She looks amazing.

That collar though, it spells trouble.

Red text colour! Oh wow. So her tie & shoes just appeared to be red due to the hue on Jane's ship.

Hmm, according to the source code the text colour is #D00009, that seems to be different from Dave's.

---

Page 248

Oh. It's not mind control, it'll just shock her. D:

---

Page 249

Ugh. Jane. How low did you even sink.

---

Page 252

... Wow. So that's how Jane knew. She enrolled Yiffy in some prestiguous boarding school for Jade & Rose. So I guess that's why she's associated with the colour red, and where the classy tie and upper piece may have come from.

I wonder if Yiffy's faking being knocked out?

---

Page 253

... What ceremony? Are they going to parade her around during Gamzee's funerary proceedings?

---

Page 255

Tsssh.

... Huh, she's going to get a command already. So did she or did she not get knocked out?

---

Page 256

Woooooooow.

The theme changed!

So, we're going to be seeing something in her dreams. Now, let's see whether it'd be a Sburban dreamself!

Blaperile points out that Space players usually wake up sooner than the rest, so yeah, this could really happen. Or it's all wishful thinking.

But if she wakes up on Derse, it'd still be dark outside. It'd also be the first Derse-dreaming Space player!

---

Page 257

Wow. So yeah, seems like Harry and Tavros share a bunk bed now, besides sharing a romantic partner (in different quadrants). Pfff.

The big question about this page is, of course, who Vrissy's moirail is, then. :P Also, Tavros' handle confirmed to be GG! :D Well, I'll be. Well, okay, it's the same as Jane's initials.

So I wonder if Yiffy's chumhandle would contain a C, or be AT/TA to complete the set of AG/GG/TG? ... Blaperile proposes TT, because then all their handles would contain the same initials as their mothers'! That's actually a very good proposal!

---

Page 258

Ooooh, glutinousGymnast! So he likes working out and eating! Very special combination. Well, he IS the child of a baketress and a wrestler, so yeah.

So it appears he was wide awake. Maybe he doesn't need a lot of sleep.

And he actually sounded a bit more peppy here than he did before. Maybe he's more of a night owl!

---

Page 259

So, yeah, it seems Vrissy actually enjoyed seeing Harry and John bond there.

And I suppose John doesn't like being called cute because... I dunno, maybe Terezi called him that at one point. The "strange and funny" man turn-of-phrase there seems is a reference to her, so I think that's why he dislikes being called "cute".

... The thing Harry picked up on might be related to Dave. If he saw his father's demeanour change over dinner.

---

Page 260

Hah, so she actually does talk it over with Tavros. See, here? I wonder if they're not better suited as moirails than kismeses.

And there Tavros goes again, he's quite perceptive.

---

Page 261

Hmmm, I wonder if Harry was really talking to Vrissy now. It seems like it was more of a Vriska-tone there. Did she hack Vrissy's account?

So Harry saw John being consoled by Rose & Jade over the news about Dave.

---

Page 262

Hah, okay, so it was really Vrissy. But she was just on the verge of falling asleep, hahaah. So both Harry and Tavros got keysmashes.

Now Harry and Tavros are going to have a talk regarding knowing people that died. It's a first for Harry, but with Gamzee, Tavros has a form of precedence over him.

HOLY SHIT.

WE CAUGHT UP!!!!!

WE FUCKING CAUGHT UP!!!!!

I THOUGHT FOR SURE IT WAS GOING TO BE ANOTHER COUPLE HUNDRED OF PAGES!!!!!

Hopy shit.

HOPY SHIT.

Now soon, we'll go on to explore the rest of the site and seeing what's what on the Omegaupdate forums! :D :D :D00009

So yeah, I'm definitely invested in the new Homestuck generation. They're plenty of different yet similar enough to be interesting, I want to see how they subvert and resolve certain expectations I have developped.

[zymple]

epic pesterquest/homestuck^2 theory

so while i was reading homestuck^2, something kept nagging at me: there are only three main kids. assuming they’re meant to mirror the other sburb sessions, we’re missing a 4th player (vriska doesnt count, she already had her turn. plus, she said herself-- no doubles.). after all, if the beta kids have 4, and the alpha kids have 4, it stands to reason that the omega (is that what ppl r calling them?) kids should have 4. now, ive been speculating for a bit on who that 4th player/protag might be, and then it just hit me.

mspa reader.

in the epilogue (i forget which route) john finds that he can’t use his retcon powers anymore. it doesn’t really explain why anywhere that i can remember but what if they can only be controlled by one user at a time. what if he cant use them anymore because mspar took control of them. some ppl have also been theorizing that the main antagonist of pesterquest will actually not be doc scratch, but actually dirk. if dirk is going to be the antagonist, that ties in the story to hs^2, so it stands to reason that they would team up. AND IT JUST OCCURED TO ME its been somewhat unclear where hiveswap/friendsim fits in the timeline (even if its generally implied to be pre-beta that could just be human world since we dont know how weird snake thing works and any references in pesterquest could simply be mirrored version, kinda like scratched sessions have-- maybe a scratched session?), or why mspar cant retcon to see any of their friends, so what if: hiveswap/friendsim is actually created from OMEGA session, but if the players never have the BETA session, the series of events that lead up to hs^2 never happen, so the universe is never created, so friendsim universe cant exist. a big part of the story has been fans taking over the narrative and it seems to me like what all the fans want is all the characters to be safe and happy, like in pesterquest. pesterquest universe is doomed timeline though (more than that, actually-- according to aradia, its a whole doomed reality.) mspar wouldn’t be ok with that though. with the help of vrissy, tavros (human), and harry anderson, they defeat dirk, create new (possibly scratched) universe and bring all their friends, allowing fans to effectively have their cake and eat it too-- all our fav characters are alive and happy, but we still also get the new, also beloved characters in the safe happy environment too. but wait, where does friendsim fit in? well, they may be LIVING on earth (earth d?), but its a whole universe they created, right? so other planets like prospit, desre, and ofc,  alternia would still be out there. one of two things next: 1) some carapacian/human/similar creature steals a spaceship, ends up on omega alternia, friendsim happens. or, 2) mspar somehow loses powers but still wants to explore, steals spaceship, crashes on alternia and gets amnesia, friendsim happens (doesnt fully explain their existence, but somehow a character whos entire lifespan fits into a time loop/paradox seems oddly fitting for homestuck, especially one like mspar.)

[analytic-chaoticism]

Who’s Going To Die In The Homestuck Epilogue Tomorrow?

Homestuck is finally ending for real now so, obviously, somebody is staring down the barrel of Hussie’s final Chekhov’s gun, except also for real now. After 10 years, the shed wall has more bullet holes than wood knots and the proverbial horse stands dutifully awaiting the next shot in a series of hundreds, but it might actually get put out of its misery forever this time, with John and Vriska - in my mind - the most obvious candidates for permadeath. I’ll briefly discuss the (de)merits of both outcomes - and how both could (maybe, hopefully, please?) be averted - under the cut.

For context, I’m assuming that John will meet Terezi and Vriska at the Green Sun/Black Hole before he goes gallivanting with them through time and space. 

We’ve known John Egbert for 10 years and for all the characters and perspective switching we’ve done since 4/13/2009, he is our protagonist. Homestuck is a story about breaking free from fated suffering - the will of Lord English - and becoming an independent agent, so it should only make sense that the main character is an embodiment of that freedom: the Heir of Breath.  

It’s for this reason that John dying forever at the end of it all - having survived the death of his dad, an omnicidal dog god, the reset of reality, misadventure in the bubbles, a solo retcon journey through Paradox Space, a fight with Caliborn and another on the horizon, killing the Condesce, and making it to Earth C - would be really bad narratively and philosophically! There are no merits! Let’s go over why it Just Won’t Happen. 

1. As the quintessential bildungsroman character (a story requiring the survival of its protagonist to gain experience of the world, find their place in it, and mature with hope for the future) and audience surrogate, killing him in the final act would just be bad writing. It goes against the story’s holistic narrative and philosophical arc and totally undermines Act 7 thematically. 

2. In a story about overcoming fated suffering, the depressed character with the most repressed trauma - who represents freedom and is working to help everyone escape that suffering - dying without coming to terms with sadness and reconciling with his friends and purpose to find happniness? It’s even worse writing. The only possible merit to his death is having to directly confront that trauma in a super sadstuck way; what stakes will it take for him to overcome his disaffected ennui, right? But killing him is a real shitty way of dealing with those problems. Dying with regret is just... super lame. It could be said many characters die with possible regret in HS but if a character doesn’t at some point get revived in one way or another and their death served a purpose, then, on word of God, they just weren’t that important. 

3. It defies the narrative of fantastical escapism. At one of its many cores, Homestuck is a story about kids playing a crazy game about wish fulfillment: bringing the dead back to life, meeting their friends, having an adventure, and becoming super heroes. As the Heir of Breath, especially with the retcon powers, John is ALL ABOUT fantastical escapism. John dying for suffering, subverting escapism, is 100% counterintuitive thematically. Super unsatisfying conclusion to his arc. 

4. People cite this scene with Scratch as evidence that John is going to have a permanent heroic death one day, but I would argue that the metaphysical way in which John would permanently be tying himself to the narrative to ‘maintain canonicity’ (whatever the FUCK that entails) would be a little bit more than a Just or Heroic thing. For me, this was more about Scratch acknowledging John as - though not infallible personally - a totally good guy. And note that reference to Vriska and her ‘Justness’ at the end there: 

Instead, I imagine the whole situation, despite the seeming distinction between Meat and Candy, COULD go something a little more like this - 

A story that is just meat - dense with exposition, action, violence, and tension (plotcentric) - is bad, and a story that is just candy - light with fluff, fanservice, frivolity, and comfort (charactercentric) - is bad. In isolation neither is of consequence to the reader, and reader investment is what this whole epilogue and the quest to avoid ‘dissipation’ is about. You need both to develop the other in a healthy and satisfying way, ultimately producing a well-developed set of characters. Homestuck is the best story of all time and it’s been meat and candy all the way, I don’t foresee that changing. For me, the ‘dual epilogue’ is a 1+1=3 situation. Typheus’ choice for John here was a practice for a metacosmic-scale third option regarding the meat/candy ‘binary’ he’s faced with now.  

The whole story, John - though he represents freedom - has never made his own choice besides in this moment. He’s gone on quests for prophets, just like he’s doing now, and done whatever people told him or expected him to do. Becoming a free agent is the capstone of his character arc and what better way to realize that than assuming control of the narrative and Doing Whatever You Want For Real - the Ultimate Riddle (as many people theorize) which I imagine we’ll see more of soon being ‘do as you will.’ 

But let’s imagine that John does become in every way a martyr for the narrative itself in a Christ-like sacrifice befitting of the Easter Sunday I will probably be reading this upd8 on. How could he get out of it because, trust me, John Is Not Dying Forever:

Transcendence. We’ve descended and ascended, so what comes next?

Juju nonsense. The house or something else, who knows?

Denizen nonsense. I’ll get into this in a second.

A second John takes his place and we get ours back. ‘2 endings,’ right?

The Ultimate Self is gearing up to be important. It’s Jesus 101 people. 

So I’m expecting Abraxas, Jake and possibly Karkat’s denizen, to make a significant appearance in the epilogue. The epilogue itself, as the rest of the story, is geared up (with it’s black and white symbolism) to basically revolve around the cherubs which I fully expect to get more lore on. As @revolutionaryduelist details in this video, Abraxas is “technically at the center of Paradox Space, as a deity that represents both everything in the multiverse that exists ever both physically and conceptually,and the very process which leads to the creation of those things.” Abraxas is, as the true god in enlightenment, the opposite of Yaldabaoth, the false god in ignorance: more relevant, truthful, and essential as a deity - representing the 3 pillars of canon. Yaldabaoth was Caliborn’s denizen, giving him the clock and juju he required to assume ultimate power in the first place. It makes sense that Abraxas would have a hand in his undoing. Abraxas also shares a connection with the cherubs physically and metaphorically, and considering the importance of the cherubs, I think it’s safe to assume this similarity will become relevant. In this way, Abraxas could Just Get Up To Some Nonsense to save John (who is related to Typheus, a potentially Christ-like figure within the denizen genealogy as John is to the story). Resurrection of Christ anybody? Our snakey parent who art above Paradox Space? As somebody connected to magic, it also makes sense that Abraxas could pull off the miracle of the century if needs be.

All in all, John’s not dying. So what about... 

Vriska?

Vriska dying forever is almost ALL merits. This is NOT because I hate Vriska: she is one of the best characters ever written, has never done anything wrong, if she dies I will weep, and I NEED Vrisrezi to become Earth C endgame, but I can’t deny the narrative quality of a potential sacrifice. 

Vriska has never had direct karmic comeuppance for anything she’s done besides Make Her Pay and getting killed by Terezi: all other forms of punishment for her actions were either problems with self-hatred or people she cares about suffering - there’s been little direct consequential action taken against her. Even when She’s 8ack with a second chance she gets to dominate and bully others and still be the leader. And look at what she did to Tavros. That was just mean (but will hopefully be relevant in the epilogue because I love GCATavros oops). Her character is also marred in the emulation of Mindfang, and being an inauthentic individual is a Great Crime in Paradox Space which you could say she has been punished for but we can always squeeze a few more drops out of the cloth. Key to understanding Vriska is knowing that she has little ill will. She said herself, she wants to be a hero. That’s why she’s obsessed with becoming the Most Important Person. She wants to save everyone. It just so happens this conflicts with her selfishness (coming in parts from Spidermom, Mindfang, and her caste) which sweeps people up as collateral damage. The important thing is that she feels really guilty about losing control to her ego/persona and hurting people. 

And she turns to John for absolution. For freedom from her circumstance and misery. 

EB: i guess i had no idea how different we really were.

EB: what i am hearing is seriously scaring the shit out of me!

AG: Yeah, I know. I wish we didn't have to 8e so different. I'm just trying to 8e honest with you, 8ecause like I said, I have nowhere else to go.

John is ignorant of her culture and her behaviour at large, and his kind, innocent disposition makes him the perfect person to tell her that she hasn’t done anything wrong, or - at least - can become a better person. That’s why his opinion matters so much to her when nobody else’s does. 

And even knowing that she’s not a flawless person, she still doesn’t think that she deserved to die. She has never been truly absolved of her guilt, and turning to a stranger - and an alien, whom you manipulate even though NOT doing that is the WHOLE point - to do that for her is cheating in the same way Tricksterism was for the alpha kids. 

That said, John does present a genuine avenue of character development and emotional vulnerability for the girl who would become (Vriska). (Vriska) became her own person free of Mindfang’s shadow, having overcome the trauma of her past and the need to be ‘the best,’ which is as close to well-adjusted as we could hope for Vriska to be. But this character arc - a form of redemption itself - ends with the death of (Vriska) with GO!Terezi as Paradox Space collapses around them in the most emotional and romantic moment in storytelling history. John’s effects have yet to take hold on post-retcon Vriska as they did on pre-retcon Vriska starting from the above interaction forward, as Vriska is still a 8ig 8itch. John has come to recognize this, and I’m sure it will come up at some point, perhaps inspiring some kind of change in our anti-heroine. 

Sacrificing herself for canonicity - maintaining all relevance EVER in a mostly selfless but still kind of selfish act that represents a major step in a redemption she would never get to complete but may not fully deserve besides - is the perfect end for her personally and thematically. Vriska saving John would be wild after their entire relationship including but not limited to the pivotal moments of their ghosts meeting and him saving her life so she could once again experience relevance in the first place; she’d basically be repaying him: something she has never done willingly for totally selfless reasons in good faith and karma before. Wouldn’t that be the most bittersweet character growth to end on? John would FINALLY be a mechanism for her absolution. It was cheating when John didn’t know her. Now it’s been earned after their relationship has evolved so thoroughly and John sees her for what she is, presumably removing his ability to absolve her from the equation entirely. What a 180 that would be. Her arc would technically be incomplete as a character who never fully matured, but what a beautiful step in that journey to end on. It would also be a form of direct recompense to John, having manipulated him in the past as Scratch alluded to! The (Just) master becomes the (Heroic) student! What a great fuck you to Scratch that would be after he ruined her life and fucked up her personality (so would her surviving to become a better person outside of Scratch’s narrative but we’ll get into that). 

Vriska has been primed to destroy the Green Sun for a loooooooong time. 

Within the scope of the story before we were introduced to serious meta like ‘dissipation,’ destroying the Green Sun would have been the most significant thing a person could ever do. But there’s a reality beyond Paradox Space and a wider ‘canon’ that needs to be maintained both within and outside of the Green Sun’s influence. Vriska never truly got to cash in on the Green Sun imagery. What if she got a second chance to do so?

Assume in some way that the most significant object within Paradox Space and its resulting black hole eating all of reality - which, as Terezi showed us in the Credits (making it still canon) has something strange at its centre - plays a role in maintaining canonicity. I know, a bit of a gimme, right? Presumably,we’re going to explore the confrontation with Lord English as part of the ‘unloading’ of the house juju. If the mechanism for canonicity lies in all this green mess, we’re killing 2 birds with 1 stone! Her relationship with John serves its original purpose in a newly genuine context and the green sun foreshadowing would finally amount to something. 

I think Vriska would be almost perfectly content to die like this. It fulfils her philosophy and places her in canonical lore as the most significant, undeniable hero. As Hussie discusses in the Viz book 4 author notes, one of the dynamics Homestuck revolves around is Vriska inserting herself into everything and the Scourge Sisters’ karmic cycle that arises from that, so wiping it all clean would be a fitting end. 

That said, I don’t want Vriska to die forever, because I love her with all my heart and I would never want to do that to Terezi, and Earth C would be way more fun if Vriska got to fully develop as a character with friends outside of canonical restraints/pressures. Let her enjoy candy after a life of meat! (Vriska) got to enjoy candy with Meenah and Terezi after she gave up on meat. Vriska has never had true candy comparatively. All of her relationships and romantic leads have had undertones of contention and manipulation that it would be fantastic to be free of in a new world where she can leave the burdens of ‘importance’ behind. This happening, I feel, is one of (if not the best ways) Hussie can further the commentary on candy being just as important as meat: making someone who has prioritized meat her whole life happy with candy once she learns to let it into her life. Meat is NOT the only important thing, Vriska. 

How could she escape dying forever if she wanted to sacrifice herself to save John from doing the same? Sounds pretty final. I can’t imagine the ultimate self is in her near future, she doesn’t have retcon powers, and unless she pulls a juju out of her ass (maybe auryn somehow???) then the only mechanism I can see working is denizen nonsense. Beyond this, we know Terezi would not be content to let Vriska be dead forever. I was thinking maybe, on Earth C once the dust has settled and canon is Gucci, the kids could use their god tier powers to recreate Vriska (Terezi/Dirk for memory and self, life from Jane, a body from Roxy/Jake/Jade etc.) but that might be a long shot. Who knows. But also resurrecting Vriska as a free person in a free world would be... really Cool. Like, wow... what a scene. Ultimately, I think both potentialities would be pretty rad and would make me weep like a baby. I’m open to anything here. 

In the end, we’ll see what happens tomorrow! I started Homestuck when I was 12 and its influence on me for the last 6 years as both a person and a creative is incomprehensible. I cannot imagine who I would be without it, and I don’t want to. Making analysis/theory posts and getting involved with community discussion has been one of the best things ever and I’m glad I could squeeze this one in before the end of everything. I’ll have plenty more to write about Homestuck and Hiveswap in the future, but it’s crazy to think this is the end of theorizing for Homestuck proper. Homestuck as a property has plenty more to give and I’ll be here with ideas for all of it :)

Thanks for reading!

[missfinefeather]

NoBrandMinda

The conversation with Roxy really turned the whole Candy Timeline around for me.Up until that point it was like, yeah, there are some cute moments here with Rosemary and the kids, but I was about ready just put the whole non-canon mess behind me and get to the "real" story in the supposedly more canon timeline. And then Roxy comes in and points out how dumb it is to think that way.

MissFinefeather

Oh wow... yeah, that... is kind of the mindset going in wasn't it...

NoBrandMinda

The Candy timeline really is a brilliant bit of unreliable narration. We get other characters' POV from time to time, but John is the primary viewpoint character. We never get anybody else's perspective when he is on screen. The problem with that is John pretty clearly has clinical depression. And so his view on everything that's happening skews towards the pessimistic most of the time. It isn't until this page that we finally get to hear Roxy's thoughts on what's happening. The narration is shown from their perspective, not John's, and that's the trick to recontextualizing everything that's happened up until now.

MissFinefeather

It is a pretty good fake out! : O

NoBrandMinda

MissFinefeather

I mean, yeah, I thought Roxy was getting mind controlled by a new fate or something horrible

xDDDD

Heatth

Unfortunately even now there are a lot of people who still hold that the Candy timeline is obviously fake, irrelevant and should be ignored. =/

I honestly have no idea how someone reads this chapter and still holds on to that notion. It seems to miss the point so completely that it is genuinely confusing to me.

NoBrandMinda

You know what makes me laugh about the Candy Timeline more than anything?Gamzee spends the entire storyline pissing people off with his fack rEdeMpTiOn bullshit, but in the end he really does play a critical role in somebody's redemption arc by getting brutally murdered.

Heatth

pfff

Wakraya

Calliope herself says it earlier in the Candy Timeline. The world is a Glass Bubble. It is isolated from the 'canon' sequence of events and 'inessential', but that doesn't mean that the events going on aren't any less real or important to the people living within.

By following John, and knowing his Choice, we're led to believe that we made the Wrong Choice, and to think about it in these grand terms of what is Canon and what Isn't and what Paradox Space wants.

And then Roxy slaps us and John in the face at the same time.

MissFinefeather

It's kind of like that timeline in friendsim where protag is like "I made the wrong choice," except John forgets that he's a god and there are no wrong choices for him

Wakraya

Yeah! Actually, Friendsim touches upon a lot of the Epilogue themes.

NoBrandMinda

mm hm

Wakraya

Ironically enough, yet another Clown becomes pivotal in this endeavor.

Marvus' Bad End is really similar in a way.

pablo360able

This is Homestuck, clowns becoming pivotal hasn't counted as irony for a long time

NoBrandMinda

lol, yeah

Wakraya

I hate the fact that Clowns being pivotal and somewhat Meta is an actual plot point supported by in-Universe symbolism.

NoBrandMinda

And as you can imagine with me 8eing me, I loved everything about the Vriska and (Vriska) conversation. I love it that the two Vriska's get along easily. I love Vri La helping (Vriska) work through some shit. I love the direct contrast to the LAST Vriska and (Vriska) conversation. There are some non-Vriska details that are great too, like they treating Gamzee's body with all the respect it deserves, and (Vriska) realizing that John is actually FRIGHTENINGLY powerful.

Also, after this moment, everyone on my server pretty much unanimously agreed that Vri La is a Rogue of Light.

Stealing is in her blood, but she does it to help others.

MissFinefeather

Ooh!

Wakraya

This reminds me...There's a picture of Harry Anderson, Vriska Lalonde and Tavros Crocker that was super cuteI'll try to get it.

MissFinefeather

If you can find it, I'll break the last rule I made when I started these liveblogs. The last real I haven't broken already. I'll make the the head of day 16 >:)

NoBrandMinda

https://twitter.com/kuramapaw/status/1120937631158657024

https://twitter.com/fefsprites/status/1121197825209950209

MissFinefeather

I remember, I made a rule that epilogue liveblogs wouldn't have fanart at the start of them because I was trying to detach it from Homestuck. I was going off the whole backlash at the time xD

[caledfwlchthat]

R:R(RR) theorypost: mind control and altered states

Some helpful discussions with @hussianphilosopher reminded me that while altered states of consciousness seem to be playing a big role in Rose: Remember [R^4] so far, I haven't thought very carefully outside the fic about how I think it should be treated and why.  Working mind control out on the fly seems more perilous than working out various abstruse SBURB mechanics on the fly, since mind control goes right to the most central part of character's motivations and agency, and thus to reader's mental model of what they might and might not do.

So, maybe a good opportunity for me to take stock of where I am on all that before I get much farther.  I am sure better theory minds than mine have thought about this, but it might be good to take a baseline of my own thoughts before reading too much elsewhere.  The following addresses only stuff that has already happened in R^4 up to chapter 17, though some hints are provided for the next chapter.

There are a bunch of different possible altered states of consciousness and agency in Homestuck:  cerulean-blood ("Scorpio") mind control, Crockertier mind control, chip implantation, grimdarkness, trickster mode, and more pedestrian abuse of alcohol, sopor, and Faygo.  They are all distinct and seem to suit particular narrative purposes in the comic, though there are two recurring classes.  States we would really call "mind control" are designed to compel characters to do things they don't want to do, though they may retain awareness of their own desires in these cases.  Other altered states remove inhibitions and judgment, getting characters to do what they would want to do except that the consequences are awful.  Some states may be a bit of both.

My take is that no character is totally immune to mind control or altered states, but that they may have various amounts of resistance that can be justified through various internal and external factors.  This allows me freedom to possess characters in ways that suit the R^4 narrative, though I recognize that I pay in credibility for extreme interventions that are very out of character.  I see resistance as being conferred either by physiology, Aspect powers, or emotional integration:   characters that have more of their shit under control will have more unified intentionality and will be harder to control.

Grimdarkness

Grimdarkness is uniquely bound up with Rose's journey, psychological makeup, and affinity to eldritch things in general and the Horrorterrors in particular.  It also seems to be more of an altered state than a form of direct mind control; Rose is corrupted only in subtle ways, at least until the final dramatic reveal.

HP pointed out to me out that in canon, Rose's ramp up to grimdarkness is a loooong arc, starting with her use of black magic to deconstruct LOLAR, continuing with her plans to scratch the session and blow up the Green Sun, up through her ill-fated conversation with Doc Scratch.  She explicitly talks to Jade about wanting to go after Jack even before going grimdark, so that one could construe her actions while grimdark as natural extensions of what she explicitly decided to do anyway.  There are questions about the extent to which she may have been subtly manipulated by the Horrorterrors, but at no point does she make decisions that are out of character for her.  We see that her mannerisms in [S] Seer: Descend are definitely her own, even if she suffers from occult aphasia.

Nevertheless, while retaining agency and personality traits, Rose's intentionality and judgment have been warped:  she has "gone completely off the deep end in every way."  She engages with Jack in canon, and with HIC in R^4, knowing she'll likely die pointlessly.  She's entered an irrational, reactive state which is basically a natural extension of the emotional, reactive arc she's been traveling throughout.

My take on grimdarkness is that having entered this state once, Rose may be susceptible to entering it again.  In this view, grimdarkness is less about direct Horrorterror influence, and more a sort of fugue state induced by degradation of the will.  That suggests that it can be induced through combinations of circumstances that Rose comments on explicitly in R^4.  The long meteor trip strains her; I've identified her alcohol intake specifically with Void, the Horrorterrors' aspect, making her once again receptive to corrupting influence; and Gamzee's threat to Kanaya mirrors Jack's murder of Mom Lalonde that sends canon Rose off the deep end.  I've also hinted that Gamzee applies Rage powers to goad Rose into doing something stupid, but he may not have counted on that triggering Rose in such an overpowered way.  Since part of Gamzee is tied up in Doc Scratch, the source of the cue ball that sends Rose off the deep end, it makes some sense to me that grimdarkness owes something to Rage (resignation, despair, narrowing of options) as well as Void.

In retrospect, it’s the length of that arc and the foreshadowing of what might happen that gave grimdarkness much of its original dramatic impact.  Re-using it here has its risks, even if there are justifications for it.

It also still makes sense to ask what the Horrorterrors would have to gain, since their influence seems to be critical to inducing the grimdark state.  In canon, they may have tempted Rose to challenge Jack in order to save themselves from an overpowered enemy.  What motivation would they have in R^4 to manipulate Rose into taking Aranea’s side against HIC?  It's Jack, the "loose cannon", who’s taking out the Horrorterrors, not Lord English (for whom the "present equilibrium" accounts), right?

Scorpio Mind Control

Scorpio mind control, on the other hand, really does seem to be a direct override of the will, forcing trolls to do things they might not otherwise do or want to do.  Vriska's pot shots at Karkat and Tavros in canon show how this works, and suggest that the victims become robots or zombies, even aware that they're doing things they don't want to do. Aranea takes it to the next level by mind-controlling entire armies of dead Aradiabots to channel Aries telekinesis in GAME OVER, in essentially transparent ways as if those powers were her own.  The species divide suggests that the most these powers can do against humans, however, is to put them to sleep.

From an Aspect standpoint, Scorpio mind control is characteristic of Vriska, associated with the theft of Light (agency) from the victim.  With god-tier mastery over Light, I imagined Rose would have higher resistance to Scorpio mind control than other humans, perhaps made woozy but able to remain conscious.  I provided Kanaya with similar resistance, which I justified post facto by her position on the hemospectrum and her rainbow-drinker status.  I viewed Aranea's use of Kanaya (and, in another timeline, of Rose) as hostages as opportunistic, not calculated; otherwise she might not have even tried to mind-control Kanaya in the first place.  Of course, Aries telekinesis is a physical attack and so neither Rose nor Kanaya can avoid this.

In general, though, I think flat-out mind control powers are less interesting than powers of corruption or subversion, so I choose not to focus on them as much.

Grimbarkness / Crockertier Mind Control

Grimbarkness (Jade-style grimdarkness) and Crockertier mind control seem to have aspects of both grimdarkness and Scorpio (or Taurus) mind control.  Jade and Jane seem to focus preferentially on their most painful or negative emotions in reference to their old friends, and their overall priorities are controlling and aggressive.  This inverts their usual passive and accommodating natures dramatically, allowing them cathartic relief of pent-up negative emotions.  The Condesce gives them a remarkable amount of agency, as appropriate for high-level lieutenants. But their goals and intentions are clearly no longer their own.

It's possible that these negative emotions are also part of what makes Jade and Jane game-mechanically susceptible to the Condesce's mind control. If they were emotionally fully unified or had Aspect powers (such as Light, Mind, or Heart) relating to agency and identity, they might have been able to subvert or even fully resist control.  Note how Dirk resists tricksterization (see below), and how he's booted to the Furthest Ring, not mind-controlled by HIC.

Jade's and Jane's judgment also seems to be impaired by their aggressive tendencies; Karkat and Kanaya comment several times on how Jade is acting like a caricature of a villain, and how the execution of her duties suffers for it.  This could be Jade passively sabotaging goals her subconscious knows are unjust and harmful to her friends; but at least at first, I took the way she throws herself into her grimbark duties at face value.

In the most recent R^4 installment, Jade shoots a ball of compressed glitchdust at the assembled players, with (surprise) what will turn out to be catastrophic results.  This is meant to mirror Jane's forking of Jake in the canon GAME OVER timeline, but it's harsh enough that I'm now questioning whether that's something even Grimbark Jade would do.  On consideration, I can't explain it as Jade trying to murder her ecto-grandpa in cold blood, but I think I can explain it as poor judgment -- not knowing the full effects of glitchdust, which will be revealed shortly.  Seeing these effects might give Jade a shot at snapping out of renewed grimbarkness.

Alcohol and Faygo

Alcohol is famously abused by all the Lalondes.  It seems natural in my mind to identify alcohol with the Void aspect, removing agency and clouding judgment.  Rose goes so far as to explain in R^4 that her "special sauce" is imbued with Void essence, implying that she's been taking it specifically to suppress her Light powers on the meteor trip.  My decision to include that as an enabling factor for grimdarkness was one taken on the fly, but which I'm willing to try to defend.  It might also reduce Rose's Light-based resistance to Scorpio mind control, which makes her repulsion of Aranea somewhat suspect as written, but not impossible.  In extreme cases, the visions associated with DT or hallucinosis might also be Void-tinged -- hiding the real world with phantoms conjured from nowhere.

Terezi’s abuse of Faygo hasn’t entered R^4 yet, but it could at a later date, so worth looking at!  Karkat seems to view Faygo as just as damaging to Terezi’s functionality as alcohol is to Rose’s.  While we could take that at face value, it makes me wonder within the R^4 AU whether Faygo could be seen as a suppressant for Mind Aspect powers, or construed as distilled Rage essence, in a manner analogous to the role of alcohol for Rose as distilled Void essence.  If so, we could expect circumstantial parallels for Rose and Terezi in other R^4 timelines in which they both appear.

Sopor Slime

The use and abuse of sopor really hasn't entered into R^4, and is unlikely to because it's unique to Gamzee, at a point in the canon narrative well previous to GAME OVER.  But what the hell, let’s keep riding this train and ask whether sopor slime might suppress Rage.  This would be amusing in that high Gamzee would be undermining his true powers with sopor, and would then be dependent on Faygo to boost them during the adventure  Even still, though, he’s feared long before Murderstuck (”did you see what he did to the Black King?”), so it isn’t clear whether the murderous rage of sober Gamzee is directly related to overembracing his role as a Bard of Rage.

Not all substance abuse has to be literally related to Aspect powers or inversion theory, but I find Aspect theory an interesting framework for viewing the narrative functions of these substances within the Homestuck universe, as sort of the Kryptonites of their respective Heroes.

Trickster Mode

Trickster Mode also seems to involve judgment and inhibitions going out the window, in addition to induced hyperactivity, with associated hangover afterwards.  Unlike mind-control methods, it doesn't seem to be associated with any particular external influence on which actions are taken, only a tendency for them to be maximally useless, cringe-inducing, or cathartic.  BKEW also has a nice piece where he suggests that trickster mode involves supercharging of Aspect powers, as we see from Jane's Life-driven transformation of LOCAH.

Just as I've suggested interactions between alcohol, grimdarkness, and Scorpio mind control, there may be as yet unexplored interactions between trickster mode and other, more malevolent forms of mind control.  I shudder to think what damage a mind-controlled, god-tier trickster could do.  Perhaps we'll find out soon.

[elcorhamletlive]

For the Meme for Shippers: 1, 2, 5, 12, 18, 20, 21, 26, 32 and 39 (thats a lot os questions im sorry haha)

omg HAHAHA thank you!!

01 - Talk about the first ship you ever had

That’s a bit hard to pick because I was honestly shipping stuff before I even understood what shipping was - like I remember being a literal child and watching Digimon 4 and being extremely upset when Izumi ended up with Takuya instead of Koji lol. So it’s hard figuring out what the first shop was.

I can say, though, that the first ship I was, like, consciously into, that I started reading/writing fic for and that got me into fandom was Ron/Hermione. It’s still a ship that means a lot to me today, and still, imo, one of the best straight canon pairings of any series, ever. It was super formative to me, it helped me make friends and develop my writing, and to this day I can see traces of R/Hr in the dynamics I enjoy. It’s the Ultimate Good Ship, to me.

2 - Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.

Well, first one was Ron/Hermione, easy. Then… As I grew up I got into anime fandons and I fell in love with One Piece and specifically with the idea of Zoro/Robin - they were my favorite characters (especially Zoro, who remains on my Hall of All-Time Faves to this day) and they had this interesting tension that immediately sparked my interest. It was a small ship, but in the brazilian fandom I wrote A LOT for them, often along with a girl who was one of my closest fandom friends at the time. It was AWESOME, we used to talk about them for hours, and my writing also developed a lot. One Piece as a whole meant a lot to me at the time, and shipping Zorobin allowed me to channel all that love into creative energy. It was great.

Then time passed and I got into Glee (lol rio past me) and I was obsessed with Kurt Hummel as a character, so for a while I basically read every Kurt/Original Male Character fic I could get my hands on - the hiatus between s1 and S2, when all we knew about season 2 was that Kurt Would Get a Boyfriend, was probably my greatest time in the Glee fandom. Of course, everything went downhill when Kurt’s Actual Boyfriend was introduced and he turned out to be The Most Annoying Character In The History of Everything (to this day, Blaine remains on my Hall of Hated Characters). Then I was stuck in Glee fandom hell, and I read a lot of Kurtofsky, Kurt/Sam, even Puckurt sometimes. It was my way of surviving lol I also discovered Brittana at the time, and while I wouldn’t count as one of my biggest ships because I never Suffered for them, they were pretty formative in that they were my first ever canon gay ship. Plus, in the context of the terrible writing Glee always had, their chemistry really created something magical, especially in the beggining. Landslide still gives me chills, and Santana’s confession is still maybe one the most beautiful love confessions I’ve ever seen in television.

05 - Do you have any poly ships?

Nope. I’m a monogamist in every way lol Never got the hang of ot3s.

12 - Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?

I mean, everything about the development of Brittana sucked on the season following Santana’s confession but I can’t really say I was DISAPPOINTED because at this point I was stuck in the toxic position of hating everything that happened in the show, so I didn’t care anymore. Besides Brittana… I mean, most of my ships never got together lol The few who did, like R/Hr, lived to my expectations nicely. So I guess no.

18 - Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.

Ok so… During my Homestuck phase (yeah I had GOOD TASTE for fandons cnejjseiwiiewj fml) I was super into Gamzee/Tavros and… I mean, if you’ve read Homestuck you know Hussie pretty much discarded Gamzee as a tridimensional character post-Murderstuck, and Tavros’ role in the story was limited to his relationship with Vriska (who I hated with A PASSION). So I did have a lot of moments where I was like “why the hell do I still ship this”, because it was as if canon was constantly mocking me for even trying to take these characters seriously anymore (again, if you’ve read Homestuck, you know that’s not an exaggeration). Ultimately fanon contend was enough to keep me shipping it, though, until I just dropped the comic altogether.

20 - Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.

I don’t think there’s one. There are ships I wished there was more contend for (like Kallo/Gil from mea) but I don’t think I ever felt alone shipping something. I don’t ship many rarepairs.

21 - Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?

Hmm Idk… Usually when I don’t have anything against a ship I can at least grasp why people ship it (St*cky, for example). If I really really DON’T GET IT, I’m probably gonna have some negative feelings about it (like St*rkqu*ll or W*nterIr*n). So, the answer is no, I guess.

26 - Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?

Like I said, I can see traces of R/Hr in a lot of my other ships lol I enjoy Tension and Bickering and conflict that arrises from bad communication/poor handling of emotional issues. I like visual contrast a lot (it’s ridiculous, but the quickest way to turn me off a stony fic/art is Tony having blue eyes. It’s one of the reasons I’m not very drawn to 616 stony lol I just like smol Tony with brown eyes more. Like I said, it’s ridiculous). I also like when characters are opposites on the surface but actually share important/crucial similarities in essence.

Finally, I pretty much only ship stuff when I’m able to give a shit about both characters involved. I need to be able to care about both characters in some level, outside of their ship dynamic, so I tend to ship characters that have similar levels of development. Usually I have a preference (Steve over Tony, Tavros’ over Gamzee, Ron over Hermione, etc), but I need to like both characters to see them in equal footing. Otherwise it’s just not that appealing to me.

(I’m gonna make the fic recs in a separate post, ok? Bc this is already too long and also, bc I need to ask of which fandom you’d like. I mostly only read mcu stuff lately lol is that ok?)

39 - Is there a fictional relationship you'd want for yourself?

I guess in some level, I'd want a relationship like Ron and Hermione's, preferably without seven years of pining and misunderstandings lol But as a rule I don't necessarily look for relationships I'd want to ship - I just look for dynamics that touch me.

[spicyrose69-blog]

Hiveswap theory: Dammek is mentally ill

I would just like to warn you real quick, this is a lot of reading... So if you don’t like that then skip over this or get Siri to read it for you or something idk.

Also I would like to mention I am no therapist I am just going off of my own experiences and my research of it so keep and open mind. Oh also this has spoilers but if you didn’t know that I don’t even know why you looked at this.

So I have been looking at the fandom’s response to the fact that Dammek is actually an asshole and is abusing Xefros. I have heard multiple outlooks on this and how people view it. That it’s all one sided, that he is really using Xefros to basically make himself look better in comparison and even one that he is a double agent it’s insane. My point is, is that we all dunno what to think about this and if you are sitting there like “YES I DO DONT TELL ME WAT TO DOO U PEESS OF TRASHNEOGNROIGJOIRGNORGNO!!!!!111!!!1!” Then shut up and rethink it or at least read this and rethink.

Now I have heard some people just write this off as Vriska 2.0 or just a ctrl C + ctrl V of the Vriska situation and I am just going to go ahead and say that while their situations were similar they were not the same. But I will touch on that later with a bit of gravity falls input. So I’m just going to skip to the point and say that I believe he has severe paranoia.

I know that 90% of you are sitting there like: “YEAH WE ALREADY KNEW!” And the other 10% already left but for the 2 of you who are still here let me elaborate.

I’m not going to say the situations I was in because they are all kinda personal, but I will say that I have dealt with many people with Paranoia and Little parts of Dammek remind me of all of them.

One of these symptoms being Hypervigilance the feeling of being unsafe, and some go to an extent of an extreme of security and hoarding weapons that most people would view as DUMB OR UNNECESSARY!

One of these also include the sense of fear, mistrust or suspicion.

But the most important that I view, is the fear of being taken advantage of (Which I’m sure having a fish dictator dose not help.) and it can lead to even more fear, anger, betrayal AND MISTREATMENT OF OTHERS.

this one stuck out to me, because that is exactly what happened to Xefros. We can easily write off that he doesn’t care about Xefros or that he is getting but isn’t giving, because it is shown that he has pictures of him and Xefros all over his hive, He kept the birthday cake that Xefros made for him, Spent the time to make a mic for him and even made one of his personal passwords linked to his band with Xefros.

Going back to the Vriska incident, I believe that where it ties in is where they both genuinely cared about their pupils (In Vriska’s case it was Tavros in Dammek’s it was Xefros) it’s just that their methods were more than questionable, harsh and made it look like they didn’t care while they are only trying to help.

And that got me thinking about a show called Gravity falls where a similar incident happened. In the second to last episode of season 1, Dipper (One of the two main characters) was starting to think that his great uncle didn’t love him anymore because he felt like he was just his punching bag because he was being so tough on him. Later on in the episode he finds out that he was trying to help him so that one day when the world fights, he fights back. He was only using a bit of tough love. And that made me feel a connection to this problem.

The area where I think Dammek messed up is where his Paranoia was getting the better of him. And it turned into him abusing Xefros instead of helping. But yeah those were my thoughts on it and I really wanted to make this because while granted I did kinda wanna punch his face and still do and that this is not an excuse to mentally abuse your moirail but I also don’t think he is some villain either and that people with mental illnesses should never be named monsters because of it. I know this was serious as hell for a videogame but I do think this could be a lesson to teach people that yeah it is no excuse but it is no crime either. 

[betweengenesisfrogs]

OFF-THE-CUFF HOMESTUCK POSTS #6: THE TRAGEDY (AND SECRET TRIUMPH) OF JADE HARLEY, OR: THE GNOSTIC GARDENER

DISCLAIMER       FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

[Note: Content warning for brief mention of sexual abuse and longer discussion of perceived suicide and associated thoughts.]

Let's talk about Jade Harley.

A common feeling I've seen about the final chapters of Homestuck is that Jade Harley deserved better, that she suffered completely unfairly and arbitrarily in the final timeline.

I actually completely agree. Jade *absolutely* deserved better. Where I disagree is with the argument that Jade's suffering somehow shows Hussie is a bad writer.

I think it's important to recognize that good storytelling isn't always the same thing as happy storytelling. Some stories or parts of stories are *about* suffering. They're tragedy, a form of storytelling I'd define as an examination of a negative set of events: why they took place, why the characters involved couldn't escape them. Done well, this can be as meaningful as any happy ending.

I mean, there's a reason a bunch of Greeks wanted to watch a series of plays about a guy who accidentally marries his mother and then stabs his eyes out.

So when we're talking about good storytelling in Homestuck, i.e.: whether character arcs reach meaningful catharsis, we have to bear in mind that the bad shit that happens to our characters is sometimes the very subject of the story.

In other words, yes, Jade Harley deserved better.

That's the *entire point.*

Now, that said, I actually think Jade does have a happy ending, and a damn cathartic one. But we need to understand the unfair suffering she went through to understand why.  What I find fascinating about Jade's arc is that she confronts the tragic, suffering-causing aspects of SBURB and the domain of Lord English more directly than any other character and finds a way to become free of them. It's not that her suffering was in any way merited or right, it's that by rejecting that unfairness, she finds incredible self-affirmation, freedom, and escape in a way that makes her the most direct manifestation of Homestuck's Gnostic themes.

In the causes of her suffering, and in how that suffering is overcome, Jade Harley is the key to the deeper meanings of Homestuck.

The Absent Grandfather

As a person, Jade has suffered unfairly on more than one level. Her later tragedy echoes and recapitulates the tragedies of her childhood, which makes it all the more painful. To understand this suffering, we need to understand her relationship with her guardian, Grandpa Harley.

[A brief digression: at this point, I should probably mention a recent theory by mmmmalo that posits Grandpa Harley as a sexual predator and Jade as a victim of abuse. I feel bad even bringing it up, because mmmmalo seems like a really nice guy, and I really enjoy his work tackling Homestuck from a psychological/psychoanalytical perspective, but I just can't really buy this theory. For one, Grandpa isn't at all characterized as capable of that kind of evil. The closest we come are some dubious feelings about Grandpa from Dave that are clearly him projecting his own issues onto Jade (he's never even met her grandfather), and the odd fact that Grandpa obsessed portraits of beautiful blue women from beauty parlors--discomfiting, but ultimately kind of harmless, unless you really stretch it as a psychological metaphor. To my mind, there really isn't that much to substantiate anything worse here.

Furthermore, the Alpha kids, as ever, offer opportunities to understand the Guardians in more depth, and there's little reason to think Grandpa would be substantially different from Jake English. mmmmalo posits that in DBZ-esque fashion, Jake hitting his head turned him good, but I just don't buy it, especially when Jake's "head injury" isn't actually real--it's one of his excuses for avoiding his own failings. (See the Jane's birthday conversation for how this plays out.) For my money, Jake and Grandpa are pretty similar: nice enough people whose biggest flaw is avoiding responsibility by retreating into the landscape of their own fantasies.

Ultimately, this particular leap is too big a leap for me to take, particularly because I feel like it would need to be addressed on a textual level (like Bro's abuse was with Dirk and Dave) if it was meant to be taken as canonical fact. I feel like mmmmalo's theories are at their strongest when they focus on the psychological experiences of characters, rather than when they try to posit hidden secrets in the canon. The first just feels so much more useful and reliable for me as a method, at least. No shade to mmmmalo, though: I hope he keeps on writing his own brand of fascinating Homestuck analysis for years to come, because he's doing stuff no one else is and it always leads to exciting new approaches.]

Now, none of this is to say that Grandpa Harley never had a negative impact on Jade. Her childhood trauma actually concerns him very deeply. As we see in the scene where she imagines him dictating to her in the foyer, she's both nostalgic about her grandfather and angry with him. She's filled with conflicted feelings about him, positive and negative at once. But the harm comes across in a completely different way, a way that's deeply textually supported and fits with what we know about Jake English.

Jade thinks that her grandfather committed suicide.

At least, she does for the vast majority of her life, until Tavros explains otherwise.

At a whimsical tea party with a plush doll, Grandpa seemingly, from Jade's perspective, took his own life. Here's Jade telling the story: GG: i spent years wondering about it! GG: when i was REALLY young, i was sure the doll sitting across from him did it GG: and for a long time i was terrified of the evil blue girl!!! GG: she sort of haunted my childhood and i had trouble sleeping for a long time GG: but of course i got older and realized that was silly, but then i just speculated that maybe it was suicide GG: which was just a really sad thing to think about!!!

Understatement of the century. This moment shaped Jade's entire psychology. Those who have lost loved ones to suicide often report wrestling with a mixture of grief and anger: anger that they were left to pick up the aftermath. For Jade, this was a moment of abandonment. Her guardian, who should have been there to take care of her, took his life and left her alone on a deserted island with only her (admittedly magic) dog to help her survive. For years, she had to take care of herself, to serve as her own guardian in his absence. Grandpa should have been there, but he wasn't. The culmination of the "increasing stakes" of the Beta kids' guardians is that Jade's guardian is dead and gone.

The scene of Jade squaring off against her stuffed Grandpa in the foyer is thus, like many elements of Hussie's writing, played for both comedy and horror at once, a true Hussnasty grotesque.  For some time, Hussie builds up the mystery of Jade's guardian (using, I think, Dave’s remarks and Grandpa’s weirdness to build a sense of unease), only to shock the reader with an ugly revelation that carries echoes of horror-movie jump-scares.  The man in the foyer is no man, but a symbol of death, a skeleton, a mummy, a rotting corpse in the place where a protector should be.

Grandpa's fatal flaw is absence itself.

[This is maybe the psychological motif mmmmmalo's picking up on? I feel like you could very easily read Jade’s feelings of horror and disgust as an echo of this suicide, and thus see Lord English as a mythic echo of Grandpa's absence as much as his presence. That’s my take, anyway.]

Hence Jade's anger in the foyer. He has left her alone, forced her to take up the responsibilities he failed to uphold. She pretends he's alive and imagines him chiding her for not being prepared to face the wilds alone--a situation she knows he put her in. Hence her snapping back at the corpse that she's already perfectly prepared, thank you very much. The scene mixes nostalgia, grief and anger in the saddest way.

This fits with the way Grandpa is themed around DEATH. Not only is he a mounted corpse, his collections of knights, mummies, big game, and degraded beauty shop photos evoke history and the dead, echoing his undead presence in Jade's life. (They also suggest he carries memories of Jake's friends: an orange knight, a pink girl from a land of pyramids, and a blue beauty, furthering the connections between Grandpa and Jake.)

But Grandpa, like Jake, is also themed around FANTASY. Or ESCAPISM, perhaps. Grandpa lives the life of a millionaire explorer-physicist, the boy howdy rough-and-tumble existence that never existed out of Boys' Adventure Comics and Teddy Roosevelt. His trophies and relics suggest a life of constant fantasizing, a retreat into his own self-image to avoid facing the world. After all, if you move to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, you never have to interact with anyone else. This is astoundingly consistent with what we know of Jake's flaws: he constructs narratives to hide from responsibility and his own mistakes, from ignoring Jane's anger to ignoring the unaddressed issues in his relationship with Dirk to ignoring Jane's romantic interest in him the moment he finds a convenient excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway. Grandpa seems to be cast in very much the same mode, and his whimsical relics further the theme.  

For Jade, though, Grandpa's ESCAPISM has also been harmful. Because Grandpa left her what must have seemed the ultimate moment of escapism: a tea party with a stuffed blue doll. Think of what Jade must have thought later: that Grandpa went out lost in daydreaming about a beautiful blue girl. That maybe he planned that as a way to end it all. Her anger is fueled in part by the fact that he ran away from the responsibility of raising her, into his fantasy world instead.

Of course, as readers we know that's not true: Tavros was the one who, through Bec, shot the gun. But there's a grain of truth in Jade's perception of the situation: while not suicidal, Grandpa was being irresponsible. Lost in his silly tea party, he missed the fact that his granddaughter was about to shoot herself with a flintlock pistol. She was saved by Tavros's redirection, while he paid the ultimate price for his distraction.

So Grandpa's flaw, like Jake's, is one of absence and escapist irresponsibility, death and fantasy. Grandpa really did harm her by his absence. And in his absence, all he left her with was necessity.

Jade takes care of herself, because what else can she do? She feeds the dog. She does what she needs to do to survive. She goes about her day. She defines herself in opposition to her grandfather: if he was irresponsible, she will be responsible. She will do what's necessary, no matter what it takes.

And she represses the fuck out of her grief.

This is way buried for most of the time we know Jade, but it comes to the surface when we meet Jadesprite. See, in addition to having a reminder of her Grandfather's mortality, Jade has spent her life face to face with her own. Her dreamself, which represents the one place in her life where she let herself go along with fantasy and escapism, is already a stuffed corpse. Consciously or subconsciously, she knows that happy escapist world will also die. When she prototypes that body, though, she's acting out of responsibility and necessity as part of an effort to defeat the threat of Jack Noir. She expects that a version of herself will share that desire.

But Jadesprite presents what is to her the most nightmarish possibility: that she might prefer living in the fantasy to responsibility. She tries to comfort her alt-self at first, but quickly becomes disgusted that a version of herself could feel that way. But it's not surprising: Dream Jade was the only version of herself who could let herself lay down responsibility and necessity and admit to herself the extent of her fear. Unfortunately, this isn't the way Jade would like herself to be. Jadesprite is exactly what she represses. There's a seeming moment of catharsis when Jade and Jadesprite become one, but, as I've noted before, Hussie ultimately suggests that spritefusion isn't enough to fix what Jade struggles with.

None of this is Jade's fault. It's the way she's been shaped by the outside force of her grandfather's death. Her grandfather was flawed, she lives with the consequences, picking up the pieces of the loss, doing things out of necessity.

SBURB recapitulates that tragedy, forcing Jade to reckon with her trauma and her perception of her own relation to it.

The SBURBan Tragedy

Is SBURB evil? I used to see it that way. These days I'm not so sure. Conversations with revolutionaryduelist have shown me that, despite its dangerous side, SBURB is usually presented in a neutral light in canon, more amoral than deliberately cruel. It's a Game that can be put to different purposes. RD argues that SBURB is ultimately little more than an extension of its players' wills, and I find a lot of reasons to agree.

As I've argued before (particularly in my Self Pile Essay, though my feelings have evolved since), I strongly feel that the ending of Homestuck relies on a critique of SBURB, that it depicts the Game as inherently tragic. You wouldn't think this would jive with RD's notion of "do what you will," but I actually think these two perspectives can be easily reconciled. A Game that's an extension of everyone's wills can still have a tragic effect on its players, especially on those who don't realize their own power within the system. I'm sure we can all think of times when the wills of others were an oppressive force in our lives. Our critique of SBURB, then, is really a critique of the uses to which the Game has been put, by overpowering wills like that of Caliborn/Lord English, who makes the alpha timeline bend to him without realizing how much it echoes his own limitations.

Like Grandpa Harley, Lord English (the unseen conductor whose riddle is absence itself) forces others to reckon with the implications of his choices. The complex web of time loops and paradoxes LE leaves in his wake forces our heroes to act out of necessity and to take responsibility for their escape.

So while I might talk about SBURB in negative terms here, understand I'm talking about the mess of all the loops, all the implications of the many harmful wills and choices our kids have to deal with. Jade in some ways most of all.

Initially, Jade experiences SBURB as a positive force in her life. It allows her freedom and happiness; companionship among the people of Prospit while in her most optimistic, worry-free mindset. She participates in its necessities, its enforced time loops, not out of obligation but in connection to her dreaming happiness.

As the kids' game goes on, though, Jade loses Prospit and her dreamself, and loses, too, the easy release from herself that they represent. Like all the kids, she becomes aware of the threat of Jack Noir, and directs her responsible mind towards the necessity of dealing with him--leading of course, to her clash with Jadesprite. Later, this focus shifts to take in the true cause of everything that went wrong in their session: the unseen guiding hand of Lord English.

We all know what happens to Jade because of this. In the original timeline, all our kids' efforts fail, and all of them die in the events of Game Over, Jade first and most surprisingly. John retcons the timeline using his retcon powers, and achieves victory by changing the course of events. However, it's a victory that causes Jade to suffer deeply: in the final timeline, she loses and grieves John and Davesprite, her closest friends on the Battleship voyage, and for a time wonders if she was responsible for their horrifying, baffling death. Later, she learns from a mysterious sentinel (Alt-Calliope) that it was all part of a larger plan. This is a relief to her, but as much as she'd like it to, it doesn't erase her grief.

This is brutally, totally unfair. And that's the point.

I've seen folks point out that the retcon could have gone many other ways: for instance, merging the populations of the meteor and the battleship. That's true, but it misses the point a little, I think. The Retcon is an arbitrary solution to a large problem in Paradox Space, acting out of necessity to bring Caliborn's will to a close. Remember that John didn't choose how his retcon would go: he worked it out with the Game itself through his Denizen. Not only did the Game bring forth the very tools to end Caliborn and close his time loop, finishing what his will started, it also worked out the logistics of the timeline that would get them there. And that's the tragedy.

John had only the vaguest idea how his actions would affect Jade, knowing only that either he would die or people would grieve him. By working with his Denizen, he mastered his powers and managed to create a reality where everyone could escape the will of Lord English. But it created an awful situation for Jade, and indeed, he's horrified when he finds out that was the result.

For me, the victory our kids experience over Lord English and his will as manifest in SBURB isn't presented as an unambiguous one. Rather, it's triumph mixed with shades of tragedy. John's reformulation of reality has consequences. The loss of our kids' coherency of self (see the Self Pile) is one of them--I do think it's meant to be at least a little disconcerting that it's new versions of our beloved characters who get the victory.  And it's Jade who represents that tragic element the most, because she suffers the brunt of it. The fact that Jade suffers because of the Retcon tells us that for all the positivity of the final scenes of Homestuck, there's still a dark side to the system of SBURB.

Because there was never any point at which any of this took place outside the system of SBURB. It gave Caliborn what he wanted, and then took it back again, not because it had any intentions towards him, but because his will was self-defeating and self-limited. And through the Denizens, it gave our kids the escape they wanted: but they still had to deal with the necessity of responding to Caliborn's intentions, and perhaps SBURB'S own limitations, too. It could give them an escape, but not without certain consequences.

It's no coincidence that Denizens make a resurgence near the end of Homestuck. They are the Game's way of engaging in dialogue with its players, and they preside over every aspect of everyone's ending. Yaldabaoth gives Caliborn his deal, while Echidna signs off on the birth of the Genesis Frog once she's had a chance to inspect its guardians. Echidna is also the one who guides Alt-Calliope towards ending Caliborn's reign. And Typheus lets John become a retcon master so that he can win his friends their complicated victory.

Thinking about this has helped me make sense of a scene that initially baffled me. Near the end of Collide, the story turns absurdly positive: our kids win victory after victory over every opponent they were facing. And then, suddenly, disconcertingly, the scene begins to fade out and flash with static, while strange cries are heard. Then it freezes, and the mechanical contrivance that Hussie once used to represent Homestuck's Acts and narrative is all we can see, frozen in black and white.

Those strange sounds are the sounds that played in scenes with Denizens. And not just any Denizen: the specific whale-song we hear is the voice of Typheus, the Denizen who helped John negotiate his retcon and who, through blowing up a duplicate John and Davesprite on LOWAS, is the most directly responsible for Jade's suffering.

The message of the end of Collide, then, brought spectacularly home by this juxtaposition of victory poses and sudden distance, is that the victory achieved, while real, was negotiated by the systems of SBURB and Skaia every step of the way. This, too, is the message of the Spirograph that suddenly appears at the end of Act 7: our kids have left the Game for good, but the Game goes on without them, and always will.

Jade's experiences show what the costs of that might be.

The Gnostic Triumph of Jade Harley, Witch of Space

And yet.

And yet.

Jade also achieves victory. An even more powerful victory, in fact. In a deeply Gnostic moment, she confronts the arbitrary suffering of SBURB in a way none of the other kids ever do. She directly confronts the Game, and the cruel intentions unleashed through it by Lord English, by moving beyond them altogether and claiming her own agency.

It's Davepeta who helps her see it.

Once, Jade thought she was responsible for her friends' deaths. Later she learned from Alt-Calliope it happened as part of SBURB's cosmic plan. She was able to take some comfort in that: but it didn't keep her from her grief. When she meets Alt-Calliope again, Jade continues to try to make sense of her experiences through the lens of necessity, through the lens of a responsibility she has to fulfil.

Let's look closely at the difference between what Calliope says about the Space role, and how Jade interprets it for herself.

CALLIOPE: why the hurry? CALLIOPE: you have already proven your heroism in the moments when it was needed most. CALLIOPE: it is important to know when the greatest good is best served by remaining dormant. CALLIOPE: whether that burden is for close to eternity, or only a few more minutes. CALLIOPE: it is something to learn as a space player. CALLIOPE: space falls back. it yields. hosts the play silently. CALLIOPE: then, it roars to life when its time comes, showing all who is really the master. CALLIOPE: and so too when the time comes, it collapses in on itself, taking all else with it.

Calliope argues that Space is about patience, that patience itself is heroic. But Jade interprets this to mean that loneliness and suffering are a cross she must bear. As she says shortly afterward:

JADE: as a space player... someone who "falls back" as she said JADE: maybe being pushed aside by fate, and like JADE: being deprived of important people and experiences JADE: no matter how painful it is, or how much you feel like you need them JADE: i guess thats just how it goes for us JADE: i think i never appreciated how much of a burden your aspect was to you JADE: but i think im starting to get it now JADE: it just took a long time to figure out what mine really meant

But that's not what Calliope is saying. Alt-Calliope is talking about Space, to be sure, but she's talking about it in terms of her own role. Alt-Calliope is a very different person from Jade, one who is entirely comfortable with placing her identity and agency in the hands of necessity, with sacrificing everything for necessity. But what works for Alt-Calliope won't work for Jade. Jade needs friendships, needs her own life and happiness outside the Game in a way Alt-Calliope does not. (And a Muse of Space is a very different creature than a Witch of Space, a much more active and self-oriented role.)

And Calliope knows this, too. While she teaches Jade about her own understanding of Space, she doesn't ask that Jade follow her into the Green Sun, nor does she ask that Jade construct her life in the same exact terms. Again, it's Jade, not Calliope, who tries to suggest that losing all her friends is her Space-y burden to bear. Calliope, however, reminds Jade that they're very different creatures, and need different things:

CALLIOPE: you are still quite young, and your kind is soft. CALLIOPE: the ability to absolutely dominate is better housed in a being designed for seclusion, singularity of purpose, and remorseless resolve. CALLIOPE: it is too much for one like you.

(And here the domination Calliope's talking about isn't just Lord English's, but her own Muse of Space response to that domination, the reshaping of Paradox Space by falling back and then roaring to life.)

Calliope suggests that Jade might choose to go along with the sleep that keeps her from being a danger in the final fight, but she doesn't require it. Instead, she says:

CALLIOPE: if you must have advice, i will give you some similar to that i gave your other space-playing friend. CALLIOPE: i told her to live, where before she had not. CALLIOPE: so too, you are similarly imprisoned by various inertias. CALLIOPE: these weigh on you. CALLIOPE: you are a child, belonging to a race for which that distinction is understood to correspond with experiences of "enjoyment." CALLIOPE: perhaps you should try to have, CALLIOPE: "fun."

Calliope doesn't need what Jade needs. But she knows Jade is more than a means to an end. Jade needs fun, she needs friendship, and she needs happiness. Even though Calliope sees advantage in Jade remaining asleep, she goes out of her way to tell her about the alternate possibilities that might free her from imprisoning inertias.

This leaves Jade somewhat confused. She wants to make sense of her life in terms of the mandates and loops of SBURB/Lord English, fulfilling every necessity. But Calliope rejects that notion for Jade and emphasizes the difference between their species.

So when Davepeta comes along, Jade is wrestling with the strangeness of the Calliope encounter.

JADE: calliope said i was too strong or something JADE: but she also said i should have "fun" so JADE: i dunno JADE: i guess im just waiting around for the right moment

She's trying to make sense of Calliope's offer while still trying to see herself in terms of necessity. Davepeta, though, rejects that completely. When Jade tells them her statement above, trying to describe herself in terms of someone who "has to" be pushed around by the rules of Space, Davepeta responds extremely skeptically:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < so THATS what space means? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < bein lonely??

Note the incredulous extra question mark. Jade continues to try to describe herself as someone who has to follow the mandates of others and systems outside her control. And yet as she talks about it, she reveals how dissatisfied she is with that notion of herself:

JADE: but i think that can be one of the results of gaining a deeper understanding of it JADE: or becoming connected to it more... JADE: i dunno, this stuff is all pretty mysterious :p JADE: i dont have it all figured out yet obviously JADE: i just feel pretty sad that as i get closer to understanding my abilities and true nature JADE: it apparently means being deprived of some important experiences JADE: like i get closer to my aspect, but further away from everyone i love, and further from... JADE: feeling like a person? JADE: its just a really empty feeling after a while JADE: empty like... JADE: space i guess JADE: heh

I don't think we're to take this as an absolute statement. While there's truth in Calliope's depiction of space as receptive and patient. I think we're to take these lines as Jade wrestling with her own feelings about the way she should be. Davepeta doesn't argue that Jade should accept this description of herself. Instead, Davepeta opens up a startling alternate possibility: that Jade is more than necessity, bigger than her circumstances, larger than her suffering. If Jade's suffering is an echo of the arbitrary unfairness of the way SBURB divides up our protagonists' selves to bring Lord English to an end, then Davepeta suggests that the key to escaping suffering is to see the self beyond those individual identities:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but you werent actually deprived of important experiences DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < stuff like us dating and johns stupid birthday parties and playing shitty ghostbuster mmos DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < that stuff all happened to you, its just you dont have access to the memories DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < they didnt happen to shape this particular version of yourself DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but they all played a role in helping like "greater jade" grow if that makes sense DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < everything that ever happens to every version of you is an important part of your ultimate self... like a superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space and unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but in your physical form there are all these partitions in your mind that prevent you from remembering any of that which makes your existence f33l totally linear DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < which is probably for the best! DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in a regular body s33ing all that would be too overwhelming DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in an advanced sprite form like mine tho its fine DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < i guess the same spritey magic that makes it possible to suddenly understand so much is also what makes it possible to make it bearable all at once DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < not even just bearable actually sorta liberating and cool DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < and after it sinks in for a while you start coming to this understanding of a greater self

AVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < im not COMPLETELY sure because im not like some sort of ASPECT MASTER but DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < my avian slash feline intuition tells me that all roads will lead you here eventually DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < gaining the d33pest possible understanding of any aspect will bring you to the same final conclusion about your ultimate self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < so maybe thats starting to happen for you too DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < the space aspect sounds like a hard and lonely road to travel... i think they probably all are DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but youre gettin there jade DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < you are doing great and im so proud of you!

Once again, this isn't Davepeta saying that Jade needs to be happy about what's happened to her--they acknowledge that living in SBURB is painful, a hard and lonely road for anyone of any aspect. But seeing oneself as this "ultimate self" allows one to see a bigger picture, to find meaning in one's actions even when buffeted by what seems to be the cruelty of fate. In a Game whose tragedy is that divides people up into different manifestations of themselves, each going to an arbitrary fate, that's the way to find victory, to find happiness beyond each tragedy. That's the balance that Homestuck's ending is deeply concerned with, and Jade Harley represents it all: both the suffering and the remedy.

Davepeta's proud of her for coming this far. I'm proud of her, too.

But does this understanding work for Jade? Does it free her from the way she saw herself as an instrument of fate, a tool of necessity? I think it does. Because after talking with Davepeta, Jade starts to live her life differently.

We see this clearly in Collide and the events leading up to Collide. Jade was ready to accept that she had to stay asleep merely because it was what others expected of her. But Davepeta convinces her that she should wake up if she wants to wake up:

JADE: i guess im just waiting around for the right moment DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nah thats dumb DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < you should be able to do whatever you want JADE: really? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < well at least she was right about the having fun part DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe thats what she meant?? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe she was leaving it up to you in a mysterious way JADE: leaving what up to me? JADE: the decision to wake up?

Davepeta's message to Jade, informed by their deep understanding of life beyond one lifetime, is that Jade can do things for herself, rather than do them as a reaction to necessity. And the secret is that that choice makes all the difference.

Jade does choose to wake up, and after waking up, rejects any idea that she should go back to following necessity, or other people’s commands:

DAVE: jade DAVE: god dammit DAVE: GO BACK TO SLEEP! JADE: NO WAY!!!!! :P

JADE: i am very much awake! JADE: and i intend to stay that way :)

Jade chooses to take Calliope up on her offer: she chooses to go have fun. For the first time, she pursues her goals completely and utterly for her own reasons. She chooses to take on the mission of dealing with the Omnidogs Bec Noir and PM...pretty much because she wants to. And she does it in her own way: she doesn't get in a fight, but plays with her dogs, recreating the fun times in her life with Bec by warping around and dancing around in the sky with them.

While she ends up getting punched out by PM, it's mostly comic: she isn't hurt or upset--she had a fun time, and did what she wanted to do. She's asserting her own agency, not responding to the will of anyone else, be it Lord English, Dave, John, or any of the other players. She takes on SBURB's boss mechanics in her own terms and enjoys herself doing it. And what she's able to achieve by this is *reshaping the rules of the Game.* Because of her, PM beats Bec Noir. For the first time in the known history of SBURB, White beats Black, Prospit beats Derse, entirely thanks to her presence. This change is subtle but huge. It represents what Jade's doing on a cosmic level: she's creating the Game, creating her reality, for herself, not responding to anyone else's intention, but putting forth her own to shape the world.

The Gnostics of ancient times said that the material world we lived in was merely an illusion created by the tyrant Yaldabaoth, and that all we needed to do to escape his tyranny was to look within ourselves. Because we were made of the same stuff as the True God, filled with the same wisdom as Sophia, and if we could truly know ourselves, could know exactly who we were, we could walk back through the gates into the Garden of Eden, knowing that we were God, part of a true divine reality bigger than anything Yaldabaoth could understand.

So, too, does Jade Harley, GardenGnostic, in that moment, know that she is bigger than anything that once defined her. Not her grandfather's death and failings, not her role as a link in the prophecies of Skaia, not Jack Noir, and not the limitations of a single Jade in a tragic timeline. None of those things define her. She is greater still, the JADE beyond Jades, and she has just as much power to make SBURB, to make all of Paradox Space what she wants it to be as any would-be tyrant. She stares Lord English in the eye, and knows she is as great within this contest of wills as he is. They all are.

And that makes Jade a little bit different from her fellow gods: she knows in full what the rest of them are only beginning to understand.

When we next see Jade after Act 7, in the Credits sequence, we see her growing plants again after a long time away from her garden, returning to her own personal Eden, and we see her spending time with John, Dave, and Karkat--all the people that she loves.

Knowing who she is, she has escaped all the inertias that once bound her, and is turning reality into what she wants it to be.

In the world of SBURB, that's the way to find a happy ending.

[Next time: Maybe I’ll do that reception of the ending thing I promised last time? Or maybe not? Maybe I’ll be too busy playing Hiveswap? Maybe life is full of infinite delicious possibilities, and we’re all riding this magic train out to the Pleroma together? Who knows, man. Who knows.]