#aranea monologue

[baroquepopcorn]

Leprechaun Romance, a thoroughly meandering headcanon/evidential analysis of speculative webcomic xenoromantics

As one bound to the aspect of light, I have a tendency to seek forbidden knowledge. Yes, this information has been cruelly hidden from us for too long. However through a combination of inference, thematic analysis, and vague in-comic information I have put together something. So sit back and allow me to:

Display my leprechaun romance headcanon!

Okay, I know, it was a stupid joke making fun of homestuck's worldbuilding and info-dump exposition, and that it was based on lucky charms, and Hussie himself probably hasn't even come up with an answer, but I Don't Care. This still seems like something worth examination. I’ve found that some of it just fits so well that it makes me think there's more to this than meets the eye. So allow me to be your exposition fairy and lecture you at length.

first of all the easy part:

Hearts <3 : confirmed to be equivalent to human love/matespritship. Maybe instead of admiration or pity, it's based on a mutual sense of humor, pleasant surprises, and inside jokes. Activities could also consist of friendly card games or comedic exchanges.

Diamonds <> : having the same diamond shape it is most likely equivalent to troll moiralligence, a romance centered around two platonic soulmates with the social purpose of balancing eachother out and preventing one of them from going off the rails. Maybe with leprechauns, diamonds have the social purpose of preventing people from going too far with pranks and getting too full of themselves. Maybe they use japes, jokes, and chicanery to calm eachother down, or minor pranks to dissuade them. It is right at the center of the chart, suggesting a strong association with moderation and neutrality.

Now for the hard part:

I feel like we can actually infer a lot of the deeper meanings of the charms via their shape. Think about it. Kismessisitude's symbol, the spade, is an inverted heart. Both it, and auspisticism have those "thorns" at the bottom, maybe indicating negative emotions, the fact that it is an inversion of another romance type, or acting like those lines on the bottom of 6s and 9s so you know which way is right side up. The Auspisticism symbol is the same as the Kissmessisitude symbol, except there is a third node (third party) interfering and splitting it apart. This concept of shape theory could be invaluable in the interpretation of certain charms

Balloons O< :

Now in the "inaugural death of Mr. Seven" paradox space comic (which while one may say the paradox space comics are of dubious canonicity, this particular one was written by Hussie himself so the world mechanics and lore must be at least canon compliant even if these events never happened) crowbar walks into clover and itchy doing a dance (which probably has the same dirty implications that buckets do with trolls, and snakes do with cherubs):

He mentions that they're all wrong for balloons (indicating he would be open to ballooning around with them but recognizes it wouldn't work out). The balloon symbol has that blackrom thorn, it may be based on negative emotions and it looks similar to the kismessitude symbol, but it's also rounder, redder, less pointy, more --- jovial. Now my headcanon for balloons. It's like kissmessitude but with practical jokes. The two balloons are engaged in a constant prank war, egged on by feelings of annoyance, spite, revenge, schadenfreude, and humiliation, but also a subtle and mutual undercurrent of enjoyment. Where it differs from kissmessitude is it is less of a rivalry, more of a two-sided bullying situation, maybe it's a bit more patronizing, teasing, pitying. Additionally it's a lot more lighthearted, there's a certain understanding that a balloon is all in the name of fun and japes, and like with kissmessitude, you never actually want to get rid of the other person, just mess with them. As such, it may be an inherently delicate charm; when one balloon takes a prank way too far and seriously hurts the other, the relationship could "pop" and the charm would be lost. If one of the members loses interest and stops pranking back, or has an especially long losing streak, the balloon could "float away". When interpreted like this, it becomes obvious why Clover and Itchy are "all wrong for balloons". Since Clover is extremely lucky (that's his power) any prank attempted on him would either fail or backfire. He also is very good natured and probably not smart or malicious enough to pull off effective pranks. As balloons require effort and humiliation from both sides, it would be impossible to solicit him with this charm. Itchy is very irritable and snarky, he probably would take a prank way too hard and go too far with his own, so while he'd probably get quite into balloons (and would be quite a skilled prankster because of his super speed), he would be a serial balloon popper, not the kind of leprechaun you’d want to have a long-term balloon with. Crowbar, by contrast is very competent, measured, and methodical, he would definitely try and seek revenge if his stoic image was humiliated and would probably takes immense pleasure in setting up pranks and seeing the payoff, additionally, he's pretty annoyed with most of the felt (implying a mild ballonic crush) Although he is quite serious, he seems quite interested in this charm, maybe it's the only way he can really let loose and joke around. That’s not even where poor crowbar’s romantic troubles end.

Horseshoes C¦ :

We actually see this charm quite a lot in the infamous hearts, stars, horseshoes trove:

Gross! Clover! get a room!

And here, after Karkat beat him in a fight and hog-tied him.

This post:

from compulsiveAnalyst explains how the fight may have been interpreted by Clover to be a solicitation/courting dance. Thus being bested in a fight by Karkat was not a faliure of his luck, but rather some good old fashioned horseshoeing which clover was really into

We interpret this trove by seperating its components. Obviously there is an element of hearts (love), and I have a seperate theory for stars that we'll get to later, but there is also an element of domination, of power, of subjugation, of kinkiness. Caliborn just conquered a planet, Karkat beat clover's ass, and the horsehoe itself has connotations of kicking, domestication, and ownership. And let us not forget about Equius the Horse guy, who literally commands people to command him, while getting very sweaty, and died submitting to Gamzee because he was into him choking him to death. So it is my interpretation that horseshoes represents kinky masochistic stuff. What I mean by that is that a horseshoe has two distinct roles; the master and servant, the dominant and submissive, the "kicker" and the "kicked", which leads to a sort of asymmetric romance, similar to how the auspistice between two would-be pitch lovers is the only one who bears the ashen feelings of exasperation and peacekeeping, or how the two moirails take on different roles as the pacifier and the violent, the "kicked" and the "kicker" could take on seperate but interelated aspects of the horseshoe relationship. Regardless, the point is the kicked would have a thing for getting kicked and rejected by the kicker, and would actively pursue them in order to satisfy horseshoe desires. The upside-down horsehoe is also commonly a symbol of bad luck, making it the perfect opposite to the shamrock charm.

Stars <X :

Same basis as above. When we seperate love and kinky shit from the hearts stars horsehoe equation, what are we left with? Awe, devotion, admiration --- stanning. When someone is faced with a celebrity they deeply admire, they are said to be startstruck (shown in emojis and cartoons as stars in the eyes). Thus stars could represent a sort of celebrity worship of another person but as a form of romance, which again would function asymmetrically. One person in a star relationship idolizes another, puts them on a pedastal, and constantly praises them with a fervor bordering on the religious. On a deeper level, the “star” could be a figure one aspires towards, encouraging self improvement. Activities could include pranks, jokes, and gifts intended to make "the star" notice them. The star hearts horseshoe trove is then revealed to be a sort of kinky, subby, romantic relationship, one a loyal servant may feel towards his master, with the master reciprocating the emotions with displays of dominance and distant affection. It also would be a sort of fifty shades of grey situation, with the hearts providing a basis of love, the stars providing the admiration and submission, and the horseshoes providing the masochism.

Alas, we have analyzed every charm that has been mentioned in the story. Everything from here on out will need to be filled in purely by headcanon. So let's take a step back and observe that 9-square chart along with the familiar quadrant diagram

The 2 by 2 column has a specific function, dividing the quadrants based on their properties. concupscient on the left, concilliatory on the right, redrom on top, blackrom on bottom. There is a clear logic here. Thus, there must be some logic behind the way the charms are arranged as well. Well what does our 3 by 3 array look like?

An alignment chart! lawful good to chaotic evil. Using our current datapoints we can get a feel for what "lawful - chaotic" and "good - evil" actually mean. hearts is lawful good, basically what we'd expect. diamonds is true neutral, again, it's platonic --- feels about right. But what about the other ones? balloons is lawful evil, stars is chaotic good, horseshoes is chaotic neutral (which also feels about right). Along the top we have two forms of intense red rom (matespritish hearts and parasocial celeb obsession stars). At the bottom we have what seems like a form of black rom (balloons) and in the middle we have diamonds and horseshoes. Now horseshoes mixes pleasure and pain, submission, fear, and grovelling. It definitely does feel somewhere in between red and black rom, but moirallegence is considered red rom, so then, shouldn't diamonds be in the top row? Wait. Didn't Aranea specifically say that "There is no division 8etween 8lack or red, concupiscent or conciliatory." Maybe instead leprechans have a similar concept of malicious intent behind the charms (tying in with the cherub concept of benevolent/malevolent), with diamonds being understood as a charm somewhat motivated by a sense of duty and social obligation instead of pure interest in another's wellbeing, it is still based on red emotions, but the underlying function is different. Maybe leprechuans, being a less violent race, have a different social purpose for their moirallegence; preventing their fellow diamonds from destroying not through just violence, but through reckless, careless abandon. Maybe the way these species organize their relationships into charts are more of a cultural construct that obfuscates a deeper underlying universal theory of romance... We're getting off topic here. The point is, in the context of this chart, good = benevolent, evil = malevolent, and neutral = mixed intentions, perhaps purely carnal or obligative in nature. notably, this concept is distinct from the redrom/blackrom divide, as while a moirail has positive feelings towards their palemate, the underlying reason for the relationship (beyond feelings) is not "I want to bring this one up" or "I want to take this one down", but instead "I want to stop this one from killing people" The lawful to chaotic axis may by contrast represent the concept of "activity" a nebulous concept familiar to all those well-versed in classpecting, best described as the dichotomy between a passive benefit to all, vs an active benefit to one. Reciprocal, balanced hearts and balloons that seek to improve both parties and lack a certain ferocity behind them (lawful), diamonds with their two distinct roles, and a sense of obligation to protect the world from a person (neutral), and asymmetric, one-sided, and somewhat vitrolic stars and horseshoes that only one person seems to derive enjoyment from (chaotic). With this newfound context we can begin tackling moons, shamrocks, rainbows, and pots o' gold.

Moons U :

neutral good. It must be a form of benevolent romance, and as a neutral relationship on the lawful to chaotic axis, it is a mix between active and passive. Now, when we think of moons in homestuck, there is one thing that should immediately come to mind and a place where this symbol shows up very plainly:

That's right! The moons! Dreamself pajamas! And specifically prospit. Mayhaps some exotic culture has an inverted form of moons, much like how kissmesistude is the inversion of matespritship, that looks like grunkle stan's hat symbol from gravity falls and is colored derse purple. Regardless, this only seems to strengthen the active/passive divide as it is literally representative of the polarization between prospit and derse. I think our best angle to analyze this is in the context of the prospit moon, and dreams themselves. Maybe this form of romance consists of a longing ache directed to another individual, a deep abiding sense of importance and fate that one attaches to another. It could be the feeling of locking eyes with a beautiful stranger on the bus, and then running into them again and again. moonmates could be the key to the other's destiny, the intellectual obsession, the muse, the one who lives in their dreams. Now this feeling is seperated from hearts by subtle nuance. While hearts make the heart ache, and they seek to get as close to eachother as possible, passively basking in eachother's embrace, and stars are an extreme celebrity worship contingent on one party actively seeking the light of another, moons could be more like an observance that can't be cleanly divided into active/passive, the sort of awe and wonder one might feel at a beautiful night sky, but redirected to a person. And above all else, fate (The moon symbol is also seen on the just half of the godtier death clocks) Mystery and secrets could be vital to this charm as moons represent the confluence of light and void, often riddles and queries could be exchanged as a sort of intellectual probing. Indeed mind games could be central to this charm as a way of simultaneously trying to get into the other person’s head and preserving that intrigue. Moons could frequently act as eachother's creative muses. They might tend to follow cycles of waxing and waning interest and activity with the moongazers shifting between positive and negative emotions, or active and passive behaviors, but always centering around the central idea that "this person is important to my fate and I must know more about them".

Shamrocks 88 :

I had a hard time with this one. the first thing you think about when you hear shamrocks is good luck, right? But when you look at the symbol itself, what do you see? hearts facing opposite to eachother. And with what we've talked about on how romance symbols in homestuck can encode meaning, I feel this is too important to pass up. Also important to note is that Auspisticism (Another clover-based romance form) is primarily concerned with breaking apart a kismesitude. Four-leaf clovers are things you pick when you see them, and keep to yourself to bring luck. It also is a neutrally-aligned reciprocated (lawful) feeling, suggesting a passive mutal benefit. In both places we've seen it (little sebastian's heart shamrock crush and clover's heart, shamrock, pot o' gold trove with trace) it is paired with hearts. What I'm guessing it is, is a sort of mutual recognition of the other's role as a "lucky charm" (puns!), with a desire to keep them to themselves through jealously fending off suitors, and perhaps even teasing the other person to keep them from straying (thus the hearts opposed to eachother represent how shamrockmates will push off the percieved romantic advances of other people in order to preserve the shared luck they bring to eachother.) It is also directly opposed to horseshoes, and wouldn't you know, upside-down horsehoes are a symbol of bad luck. Maybe the difference is: "this person is good for me and I want to keep them by my side", and "this person is bad for me, but I'm gonna keep chasing them because I want the pain". Making the neutral band a sort of trio of lucky pleasure, balanced obligative moderation, and unlucky pain. They may also consist of playing together in games of chance, vs horseshoes playing them against each other (for kinky purposes?) and shamrocks could be the ones you enter competitions with. In the context of the story as seen above, lil sebastian may heart clover a lot, but also shamrock them, want to keep them as their "charm" so that they may benefit from their luck.

Rainbows ((( :

A malevolently focused activity neutral charm. I'm actually pretty happy with the theory I came up with for both it and pots o' gold, based on a potential relationship between the charms. Rainbows, stars, and moons are all celestial objects one can never reach. In the case of stars, its a wistful pining from afar, though you know you'll never come near. With moons, it's a little closer, more involved, you can really study it, and though it takes some work, you can eventually reach it (landing). Even with balloons, if you're not careful it can float away from you and you'll start losing to your prankster-partner bullymate. The fundamental nature of rainbows is that you can chase one, but you'll always fall behind. I envision a rainbow relationship as a sort of adverserial mentorship, with one person (the rainbow) being well versed in a skill, or just engaging in an endless stream of one-upmanship against the rainbow-chaser, who seeks to meet and surpass the rainbow's skill level. Because it is active-passive neutral, the charm can have both selfish (the chase of rivalry) and mutually beneficial (self improvement) elements. Imagine the feeling of someone continually beating you in checkers, or getting better grades than you, and no matter how much you try to improve, they always remain one step ahead (much like the symbol itself, with one end of the arc always behind the other). It could be strongly based in games of skill, strategy, or luck (as some are naturally more lucky than others), but invariably would end up in the chaser losing but getting better. It's probably a very exhausting charm for both parties, but a very rewarding one. With moons and diamonds it seems to form a trio of improvement (moons: improvement of the mind/light/spirit, diamonds: improvement of the heart/rage/emotions, rainbows: improvement of the body/life/practical skill).

Pots o' gold C]: :

Last but not least, the pot of gold charm. Occupying the malevolent active portion of the quadrant, it strikes me that it's symbol is similar to balloons but flipped and filled with stuff, indicating a material gain element. In relation to rainbows, the pot of gold is supposedly what one can obtain once they reach the end, with the leprechaun having to give up their gold. I'd imagine when the rainbow-chaser finally bests their rainbow, the charm flips to pot of gold as an achievement. Mayhaps they even get to literally take something the rainbow finds valuable, maybe it's just social clout. In this case, the ex-rainbow would become mad with rage; jealous, vindictive, and greedy, with the central goal of taking down the gold pot and regaining whatever the gold represents. Imagine if someone has something you want, so you try to get it from them however you can, through pranks, through tricks, through mind-games, through straight-up attacks. An example would actually be saturday morning cartoons and cereal commericials, in a leprechaun's eyes, the roadrunner and wile coyote, or bugs bunny and elmer fudd are committed gold pot charmmates, as are the kids and lucky the leprechaun. A common scenario in leprechaun romance could be the pairing of rainbows and pots of gold, with the chaser going after the rainbow not only to finally best them, but to win back the fated pot of gold and have the relationship flip roles.

Lastly, we come to the most fascinating element of leprechaun romance: the troves. Unlike humans, and trolls, a relationship can be defined by more than one emotion at once, even if they seem contradictory. Their union creates a unique relationship, with each of the charms representing certain aspects that the charmmates can shift between. As such, the leprechauns can (and ultimately desire to) share as many charms with their charmmate as possible. A leprechaun would look at a vaciliating troll relationship with confusion, why couldn't they be eachother's matesprits and moirails at the same time? Why must they flip between black and red if they can potentially harbor both feelings related to each quadrant with someone? The electicism and unpredictability is the point. In fact, a relationship often isn't taken seriously and isn't considered a trove unless it has at least three charms (three being the most common), with exotic charm combinations being the subject of much swooning. A one-or two charm relationship is often seen in the context of a crush, or a relationship just starting out, with the partners gaining and discovering more charms as the relationship develops and the nuances reveal themselves. (I doubt though, that the order the charms are displayed in matters, unless it represents how prominent a certain aspect is). And as Aranea said, though some charm combinations are more conducive to reproduction, all charm combinations are capable of lending themselves to concupiscity. A dance solictiation is mainly focused on one charm at a time, depending on the partners' moods, though it can easily switch charms in the middle of the dance.

Now, armed with knowledge, let us tackle this:

It looks like the felt are getting to know eachother, how sweet! let's take a look:

matchsticks and crowbar are in moons-stars, U <X, characterized by both extreme admiration and fated importance. Wait, didn’t crowbar say he “didn’t do moons”? What the hell happened here?!

Itchy and die are in horseshoes-pot of gold , C¦ C]: which considering itchy's snarky irritability, and die's ... weird ... die-ness, feels appropriate. Maybe itchy is the gold pot and the kicker

doze and clover are in balloons-rainbows, O< ((( doze is probably working very hard to try and catch up with clover's luck and speed, with plenty of lighthearted pranks on behalf of clover along the way.

And trace and fin are in hearts and diamonds, <3 <> a mix of matespritship and moirallegiance (our two sharkbois are in love, nepeta would have a field day)

Horshoe-balloon-pot o gold. C¦ O< C]: , That's kinky pranks with a greedy chase undertone. Oh gosh, clover's a real masochist. And it looks like, considering we have two forms of malevrom paired with horseshoes, my theory actually fits quite well with this apparently being a pretty kinky trove.

Oh boy, chaotic. It's hard to tell who's feeling what for whom, but we can pick out some particular troves.

die: moon-horseshoe-clover, rainbow-heart-balloon

eggs 1 and 2: hearts-balloons-pot o gold, diamonds-rainbows-star, star-shamrock-moon, diamonds-rainbows-stars

biscuits: rainbow-heart-balloon, star-shamrock-moon

clover: moon-horseshoe-shamrock, pot o gold-diamond-horseshoe

Now, if we pair the leprechauns with the same troves, we get

die x biscuits, rainbow-heart-balloon, ((( <3 O<, a loving yet adversarial, prank-based relationship between rivals

eggs x eggs, diamonds-rainbows-stars, <> ((( <X, emotional moderation but based in asymetric competition and deep respect (seems fitting for a relationship between you and your future/past self)

eggs x biscuits, star-shamrock-moon, <X 88 U, deep respect, admiration, and a sense of the other's great luckbringing and fated importance. Considering these two are almost always seen with eachother, I'd say they're going pretty strong

Lastly, let's leprechaun ship the kids. Rose and Kanaya are a very strong example of hearts-moons. They're in love, yes. But there was always that intellectual intrigue, that admiration, that sense of fate and destiny that permeated the relationship ever since they first met (along with a lot of light iconography). Terezi's trolling would be interpreted as a balloon solictation to most leprechauns. Nepeta and equius could be a diamonds-shamrock, as they are moirails, yes, but equius also deeply values nepeta as someone he is lucky to have, also seeing nepeta as lucky to have him, and he tries to keep her around him and prevent her from joining the red team, being quite possessive of her. And again, the reason Equius let Gamzee kill him and was smiling is because he had a major thing for horseshoes (horse guy, submits to highbloods, into AEA, makes sense)

If anyone else has some conflicting theories or other examples of leprechaun-romance heavy panels, I'd love to see it, feel free to ask away. Hope y'all enjoy

[cringefail-clown]

you already got asked my fav dear darling dia (based takes) so thoughts on aranea? and an obligatory dave.

ARANEA:

DAVE:

[4lph4kidz]

anyway not to go back on everything i just said immediately but like what if dirk just made all that shit about the downfall of humanity up. or... like, maybe jake did, via the medium of flashback dream ghost boypuppet. no i don't think that's 'canon' and it wouldn't make any fucking sense but its funny

[meteor-mp3]

i sympathize with aranea because when i get interrupted in the middle of a monologue, i too want to kill people

[dingodad]

when aranea talked about them "living out their fantasies" in alternia she meant kankri finally having an audience for his pretentious monologues

ok well i firmly believe kankri could never have ended up like that if he didnt have at least a thousand followers validating all the stupid shit he said on tumblr. it was probably mandated by the culling system that everyone olive and above gave him likes and everyone from teal upward gave him reblogs

[knights-unwelcommentary]

Which one was the most toiling to get through for you: Nannasprite’s exposition intro, Rose’s exposition game guide or Aranea’s exposition monologue?

[saltedsolenoid]

me an ask

i assign you aranea serket! no clue why

aranea is a dead troll and a sylph of light, meaning she heals people through light, to put it INCREDIBLY simply. like many other light players, she has a horrible tendency to monologue and go on exposition rants about things that she's interested in, which in her case is mostly historical trivia about her world. although she puts up a cheerful and very nice front, it's actually revealed (right before she dies for the second time, may i add) that she caused the entire main conflict of homestuck. or at least the second main conflict.

she's still a relatively minor character though, don't worry

[jollyroadpalaceprune]

Guardians’ Origin

Celestial Star: Year One

Oliver, just arrived home, when aliens attacked the house. They killed his mom as she defended him against the alien invaders. Seeing the trouble, the alien invaders left, leaving Oliver to mourn his mother. Fast forwarding, he is in an experimental teleportation that is failing as he and his team are trying to fix it. He is having an internal monologue about how his life came to this point. He thinks about how he joined NASA, but failed to get in as an astronaut and got in as a janitor. How he got into the project because the scientists working on the teleporter are overlooking simple facts and one of the scientists aggravated him to the point where he punches him. How his godmother, Eveline Frank, fired him on the day of the presentation for unauthorized changes to the teleporter.

Just as he put the final adjustments to the teleporter, it activated and sent him somewhere that looks like another planet that looks deserted and void of life.he keeps himself calm thinking about his mother Mary-Beth Manuel, Eveline, and his godsister, Madra Craig during the fun times in their family lives. He traveled the planet until he was kidnapped by space pirates. They surround him and their leader, Gonzo, introduces their group to him as the legion. He surprised them by timing a sandstorm and running into their ship to steal it, but Gonzo was onto, tracked him with his animalistic sense of smell, and gave chase. He got into the ship and was about to attempt to take off, but got bomb rushed by Gonzo. Gonzo and Oliver have each other in a hold until Oliver reaches for a gun and shoots him in the arm. Oliver sneaks away in an air vent. Gonzo grabs a large blaster and runs after the sounds. Oliver snuck into the treasure room and lured Gonzo in. Oliver knocked over a statue onto Gonzo and knocked him out.

Oliver has Gonzo in power cuffs on his chair and has dressed his wounds so that he will heal. Gonzo wakes up furious and Oliver asks him how to actually fly the ship. The ship is above orbit, but he doesn’t know how to fly into space. Gonzo breaks out the cuffs and attacks Oliver, but Oliver has him at gunpoint. Oliver told Gonzo about his backstory and Gonzo contemplates whether to kill him or help him. Back on earth, Eveline and her scientist fix up the teleporter and use it to find Oliver. They picked up the crew from the deserted planet and went into space. The crew tried to tell Gonzo to get rid of Oliver, but Gonzo relates to Oliver as an Aranea Simiae from the plane Centauri Quattuor that was not peaceful like the rest of his species. He tells Oliver to keep cleaning as he cleans with a digital name tag calling him, Celestial Star.

Oliver contemplates his next course of action, but Gonzo interrupts his thought and asks him more about the aliens that killed his mother and why. Oliver told him a little bit more and Gonzo realized they were attacked by Reptilians, a war torn species constantly looking for war. It also interested him about how he helped make the teleporter and make him an actual pirate. They land on a planet called Planetside, where a deal goes wrong and the crew is held at gunpoint. On accident, Oliver knocks one of the attackers off the building. The dealer is running as they start blasting. Gonzo and Oliver chase after him into a traffic of flying vehicles. The dealer jumps on to a flying bus-like vehicle and Gonzo shoots a web and grabs Oliver and they get on the vehicle. They have him cornered until his backup attacked Gonzo and they fight in the vehicle. As the dealer was about to leave, Oliver tackled him into a restaurant, but the dealer surprised him by smashing a plate on his head. The dealer ran away as Gonzo showed up. Gonzo scolds Oliver who actually revealed he stole what they were looking for from the dealer. Guards showed up, but they were easily defeated by the now confident Oliver and Gonzo. They party all night with prostitutes, cage fights, and gambling. It ended with Karaoke and Gonzo announced he will be an actual part of the Legion and they will help defeat the reptilians that killed his mother if he steals a teleporter from earth. He regrettably agrees to it.

With a void explorer helmet to cover his face, he snuck on to earth, where he learns it is a different earth in a different time. Curiously, he used his identification from when he was on his earth to see if they work. They worked perfectly. He is then confronted by Eveline who got the teleporter working to transport her and her crew to this new universe. She and Oliver are at each other's gunpoint. The rest of the legion took the building hostage. Gonzo negotiates ownership of the building with Eveline to which she ultimately gives it. Oliver was forced to rough up one of the crew until somebody fought back revealing his identity. Gonzo irritated by the constant talking starts to rough up the crew and Oliver confronts him. Gonzo ignores him and continues. Oliver sneaks Eveline away to escape with her, but she rejects him for his blind quest for revenge. Seeing how he could not convince her, he put her back and stole a ship to fly away.

This trick drew the pirates back to their ship. Gonzo, not falling for his tricks, goes after Oliver. Oliver hacks into the teleporter and teleports the pirates to orbit. Oliver gets on a cosmic hog rider to sneak away, but Gonzo grabbed him as he flew away. They started brawling in the air until his crew saved him from the fall and got away. Oliver fell but was teleported to the building by Eveline. Gonzo, angrily, set a bounty on Oliver and flew away. Eveline tries to convince him to come back with him, but Oliver decides to stay to make a difference with a new crew.

Glaico: Memories of Death

Glaico is lying on the floor and remembering the lives lost to the Reptilians and that today was the day that everything changed and her birthday. Her father, the dark one, enters the room to congratulate her birthday and send her on a mission to crumble a Reptilian empire. As a Reptilian prince is crowned, she slit some of their throats and cut through the rest who defended the prince, as her father and sister NabeeLah watched. She approached the prince in her hood and told him his crime. He begged for mercy, but she ignored him and drove an energy blade into his heart. Her father and sister made their way to Glaico, the Dark One blasted away the enemies with energy blasts and NabeeLah stabbed them with her energy staff. They went to the vault and collected treasure. The Dark One found a survivor and told him to lead them to their true goal. The surviving court started seeking the infant princess that was sent away.

Glaico is awakened by NabeeLah messing with her doll. She took the doll and smashed NabeeLah in the face with it. She warned her to never mess with her stuff, but NabeeLah stabbed her in the leg. They started fighting, throwing blow after blow until the Dark One stopped them. NabeeLah started torturing the survivor they found and the survivor told her about the princess. NabeeLah told Glaico about the princess. A bounty hunter is assigned to find the infant princess. The Dark One is playing chess with NabeeLah until she reveals that Glaico went to find the princess. Enraged, he swore to her if Glaico died, on his name Genocide, he will kill her. Glaico flew to planet Nebula which is close to a black hole.

As she is closing into the planet, a Reptilian platoon starts shooting her ship. Glaico flies near the black hole and this causes her attackers to get taken. Since she was close, she was warped, by the black hole, ahead of time. The infant princess is now an adult and being held captive by local bandits. She beats them down with a stick and walks away with her loot. Glaico is crashing near her location, but ejects before she hits the ground. The bounty hunter sees the ship and communicates with the surviving court that she is working for him and waiting to be picked up. She delivers the drugs he was waiting for and heads off for the ship parts on his Astro cycle. She sees Glaico leaving the wreckage, dazed. Lit, the infant princess, saves Glaico from the falling debris by blasting them with a particle cannon. Scavengers appear and Lit and Glaico fight off the scavengers with energy blades. Glaico throws Lit to her ship so that she can start the engine. This knocked everybody back, but they lost the advantage. The bounty hunter helped them out with an energy cannon. The scavengers get away with Glaico, but Lit goes after her. The scavengers plan to sacrifice her to stop the black hole.

Glaico kicks the executioner down the stairs where they were crushed due to the planet getting closer to the black hole. She helped free other people who were about to be sacrificed and stole an ax. She led the way out by killing any who stood in their way with the ax.

Lit, not knowing where to go, got on top of a building with the bounty hunter and told her story. She was sent to the planet to hide and was adopted by a criminal who protected her from everybody who wanted to kill or eat her. The bounty hunter gave them the coordinates for the trade. Glaico is led to her adopted father’s shop. She approached him with a knife and tried to stab him, but he blocked it with a wrench. She was shocked, but from how he explained it, he expected somebody to arrive someday. Hoping that Glaico does the right thing, he leads her where she works. The bounty hunter betrays Lit and they fight until she shoots him with a tranquilizer blaster. She is kidnapped by a group of hooded figures.

Glaico arrives at the spot as Lit arrives, tied up. Glaico snaps a guard's neck and stabs another guard with a spear. Not knowing Lit as the infant princess, she is surprised to see her when she knocks down her chair. Glaico hands Lit a knife to cut herself out of her ropes while thinking about killing her. Just as Lit gets out of the ropes, she is attacked by Glaico and they fight with knives. They are interrupted by members of the species she promised to protect.

Outside of the building, the planet starts to be destroyed. They start to attempt to reconnect with her, but Glaico is not amused because she recognized them as exiled criminals. They told her about their escape plan and gave her a clean chance to kill Lit. She tries to reach the good parts of Glaico, but she is ignored. Glaico throws her knife at Lit, but a gravity bubble saves her. Lit escapes through the roof and Glaico lets her go. Lit hides in a billboard, thinking about her adopted father. Glaico heads to Lit’s home on an Astro Cycle. She thinks about Lit’s words and remembers her childhood being locked up, seeing her sister tortured, and executing people. Glaico crashes and is captured again by scavengers who also have Lit. She frees herself by a scavenger's energy blade. A group of people led by her adopted father saved them. A scavenger stabs him in front of her. Lit ran from him, but Glaico caught up and fought her. They both fight with metal sticks that they found on the ground. Lit gives up and tries to jump in a lava river, telling Glaico that she will give her what she wants. Glaico stops her because of a change of heart that tells her she is wrong to seek her death for something she did not do.

Everybody starts to float because of another gravity bubble. They float to a nearby building and make their way to the ship. Some aliens tried to stop them, but she electrocuted them with the power supply of the ship. She gets on board as it takes off. Lit catches her and pulls her inside. They escape the black hole, but are intercepted by NabeeLah. NabeeLah starts blasting them, but the sudden warp knocks her away and sends them far away from there. Glaico helps pay for a new ship and goes off to deal with Genocide.

Bite: Grounded

Bite is stranded in Renewaled York City and stares at the crowds of people. He was listening to an American Reservation folk song and spotted a live nude show. They kicked him out since it is a human only business. He spots what seems to be a member of the cosmic republic and goes to ask for the nearest space port, but it was a street performer dressed up. Hungry, he decides to eat a giant pretzel out of the trash. He talks to a homeless man who was hungry and decides to buy him a couple of burgers and fries. They denied him, so he robbed them and gave the homeless man all the food he could get. He heads for the underground maglev train and gets on the train. The public police try to arrest him, but he fights back with a thermal glove he made for self defense. He escapes by cutting the carts with a laser cutter, but is caught in the next station. A cop named Osazell Ferbong takes him away, proclaiming it is his pet.

Osazell sneaked him into his apartment, explaining that he is sorry for what happened and how he knows his heroics on Medium Mundi. Bite asks him if there is a way off the planet, but Osazell tells him that earth is currently on shutdown for the moment. Fetch, an aeternum dog, walks into the room curious about what is happening. Bite tries to talk to him, but is ignored. Osazell tells him sorry for Fetch's behavior and they start drinking. Bite sneaks out when Osazell is asleep and goes to an alien bar. He meets an old contact that tells him that there is a way off the planet.

He goes to a traveling agency where he meets a Men’s Lectorem, a rare species. The Men’s Lectorem shapeshifts into a human and goes into the back room, where they get their head cut off. An alien hunter comes out of the shadows with the other alien’s head.

Bite fights the hunter with his bare raccoon fist. Bite knocks the hunter into the table, but the hunter grabs him by the neck and slams him down. Bite grabs a piece of debris and smacks him in the head. The hunter pulls out a knife and Bite shoots him with the laser cutter. The police knock down the door as Bite escapes through the fire escape. He holds a flying taxi driver hostage to take him back to the bar. To show he is sorry for holding the guy hostage, he pays him all the money he had. He enters the bar again and interrogates everybody there. He gets thrown out by the owner. He sits and eats from their trash until he sees a guy. He talks to the guy about leaving, but the guy warns him aliens are being hunted so he needs to be careful. They introduce each other and the guy’s name is Koi. The owner notices them talking and he and a bunch of other aliens attack Bite, but he fights back. Spiderman notices the commotion, but is surprised that Bite knocked everybody away from him. Spiderman confused Bite with a regular raccoon. Bite, not having time for foolishness, looks for his pad to find Koi, but Spiderman stops him and takes away his cutter. Bite attacks and stun him, but Spiderman recovers and tells him that he wanted to help him. He tells him that Koi frequents a taco shop somewhere in the city. Bite thanks him and tracks the scent from one of Koi’s napkins. He finds the secret taco shop, but gets trapped by Leopard.

Bite breaks out of the trap while Leopard is gloating. Bite attacks her and bites into her neck, but she grabs one of his legs and throws him into a wall. He gets up and kicks her in the face. She kicks him into a shelf. Bite knocks the shelf onto Leopard and runs away as she shoots at him. Bite gets out on the sidewalk, but gets run over by Leopard’s hunters. He walks up in the hunters vehicle with Koi and random aliens. Bite uses his claws to cut his rope and ambush Leopard as she drives the vehicle.

The vehicle crashes and all the aliens escape. Bite and Leopard fight the arriving cops and then shoot at each other. Running out of ammo, he jumps onto a nearby flying car and flips off Leopard. Leopard tracks him to a park and attacks a regular Raccoon in his clothes on accident. Bite picks her up in a garbage vehicle and crushes her, but she breaks out. Bite escapes on a tour boat, but Leopard chases with a tanker and crashes into him.

Bite washes up to the Statue of Liberty and is surprised that the tanker is coming at him. Leopard leaves the tanker and they begin fighting again. Leopard throws him away with her mouth. Bite grabbed a flare gun and blew up the tanker. The explosion destroyed the statue. The Organization shows up and stuns Bite for the destruction.

He is put into a prison camp where nonhumans are placed. Koi is there and he introduces Mouna, an Atlantean. Koi explains that the Organization used to support aliens, but because of public outrage, they try to deport aliens of any kind and suppress subhumans. Bite started to gather stuff for their escape and built a flamethrower to kill the soldiers keeping them there.

Bite starts to burn guards and fences. Everybody trapped in there escaped, but Bite’s flamethrower stopped working and he got flashed bangs. Leopard subdued the guards so that her hunt for Bite could keep going. Bite shrinks into the faculty to get to their teleporter. He heard gun fire and went to see Koi, Mouna, and the other prisoners hunted. He rushes over and shoots the hunters. Leopard appears and kills some people. Bite starts firing his blasters at her, but she catches him. He bites her and makes a deal with her. A fight with him and let everybody go. She accepts the deal. As the last of them escape, they start fighting. Before Leopard could do a final blow, Bite dropped a flash bang in her pants. This stuns her as the police arrive to arrest them. Osazell and some Aeternum diplomats, Fetch, Thunderhoof, Light, and Amphibi gave a pardon to Bite for all his crimes and gave him away off earth.

Gal Dynamo

Shantel just left the underground club and she gets chased by some thugs. She is cornered by the thugs to which she turns back and stun her attackers with a stellar light show. Spiderman was flying by and saw the light show. He sees Shantel grabbing a piece of metal and she hits two of them with it. One of the thugs fired in the air, which made her lose focus. Spiderman flys in and sends them flying to the trash. The getaway driver tries to drive away in his flying convertible, but Spiderman grabs the car and places it alongside a building.

He talks to Shantel, who he recognized from her songs, about what happened and she tells him about how the manager of the club is a crime boss. Spiderman escorts Shantel to her apartment. She goes in and she eats cereal because she is actually a struggling artist. She tries to call Nowhere, Headquarters of the Newly Formed Legion.

At Nowhere’s training ground, Jet, Techno, Mage, and Mysteria are in the training room, wondering where Trachea was. Lady Phantom starts the training session. Mysteria flies through the air dodging the lasers. Techno transforms into his robotic state and lifts it to keep the gravity crusher from crushing him. Jet transformed back to his natural Lupusean form and slash at the disk being launched at him. Mage teleports to avoid the lasers and hears the training room’s communicator ring. Techno rampages to the communicator, but trips and falls on Mage and Jet. Phantom says it is for Mysteria and she answers it. Shantel catches up with Mysteria and their talk makes her remember her childhood on her home planet, Fulgur. She always wanted to be a singer and was an open person, but her father kept her from expressing herself. Her grandmother always supported her dreams. She remembered the day her mutant powers awakened during a school dance where she made a light show and accidentally shot an energy blast at the disco drone. A local gang broke into the dance and she blinded them with a flash bang. Throughout her life before this point, she trained her powers, studied law, and performed.

Jet was reading the news and saw something that made him run to his room, but he runs into Mosquito, who is irritated by the sudden body slam. Celestial Star and Trachea hear the commotion and run to the ruckus. Star breaks up the fight and Jet says he is sorry and that he needs to tell Shantel about the singing contest. Jet goes to his room and shoots her a copy of the singing contest details.

The contest is about to start. A rogue female officer from the cosmic republic starts the show with an aeternum song and Shantel just enters the room. The officer leaves, blowing smoke at Shantel’s face. Shantel starts singing and her powers start making the glimmering lights. After the contest, the manager chooses Shantel, this angered the female officer who tries to attack Shantel who blasts the officer away. The female officer gets up and runs away.

Baller

A private jet flies over the city of Hartford as Purdie’s father, Jia Palmer, proclaims to another lawyer that his client is a criminal. He hopes that this case will bring a lot of money for his family and the jet flies over a research center. His mother, Mai Di-Palmer, gives a present involving kinetic energy fields. She wishes she can get Jia out of his office because he is working too hard and the jet flies over the high school. Purdie is leaving his school while other kids of various species play Rugby and the girls checking him out. The kids beg him to play, but he declines. He knows his powers would reflect everybody and he wishes he can talk to his parents, but they only want to talk about college.

The jet lands and a man named John Roarke is planning something for the town. As Purdie walks under a bridge, a bunch of drunks attack him. The kinetic energy transformed him into a ball of kinetic energy and he bounced away. It knocked them out of the tunnel and the drunks ran away. Purdie transformed back and glad it was only that. John Roarke appears in Purdie’s backyard and sees Jia and Mai arriving home. They talk about going to a movie as a family, but it is held at blaster point. Purdie sees this and dresses up as a superhero. He bounced toward them and shocked them by bouncing between them. They started firing at him, but he dodged the blaster bolts. Purdie tries to attack, but misses so much that John grabs him. Purdie pushes John away by expanding his kinetic energy field. The attackers are lined up perfectly so Purdie bowls and knock them down like bowling pins. A crowd shows up and Purdie bounces away. everywhere Purdie goes, he hears the name Baller, which annoys him.

Formation of the Guardians

Celestial Star is given a mission debrief about the first mission. An alien cult leader tells his men to fire. The legion starts attacking back, Star and Bite are gunning down the enemies in the back. Celeste and Creator bombards enemies with energy blasts and Glaico and Scott clear a path forward with their melee weapons. Glaico is wondering how this mission went south and Creator, while blocking an energy blast that was about to hit Glaico, tells her that they sensed him from the group. Bite gladly blames him for it. Star reminds them to keep focus, but Celeste and Scott admit they are struggling.

Celeste starts her debrief and tells how Star pitched this idea to her and Cinder after they had to participate in back to back war and the universal coalition and cosmic republic had their hands tied. Star also mentioned that they did the dirty work and can keep doing the dirty work as everybody recovers and possibly even after this. Cutting back to the mission, they were nearly overwhelmed.

Glaico starts her debrief and talks about Nowhere. Star gets blasted out a window and is holding on to dear life as it is revealed that they are on a ship heading into a wormhole. Bite starts his debrief and talks about how he and Toptissi were recruited in a bar by Star since they were old war buddies. Bite denies and Star tells him the fear of another war with more casualties. Bite, not wanting to see an old friend sad, reluctantly agrees to the time. Star climbs up to the ship and requests a gun. Celeste steals a gun from a cultist and gives it to him.

Creator starts his debrief and talks about how another war is brewing just nobody wants to admit it. Creator breaks through to the engine room with Scott and Glaico. They fight through it to get to the helm. Scott starts his debrief about how he was resurrected. Scott is mourning his daughter, Hannah, who participated in the war with him. Celeste, Hannah’s Wife, joins him and recruits him because it is the only thing keeping him from suicide. As Creator, Scott, and Glaico enter the helm, the cultist teleport out. This surprised them.

Glaico is angry at Cinder for inviting her for recruitment and not sex. She ultimately agrees to it and advances for sex. As the rest of the Legion arrives, a portal opens in the helm to release a giant tentacle monster. The legion defends thems elves until Creator and Celeste blast the creature halfway into the portal and Bite throws a bomb that blows up the area. Creator is being recruited for the legion to which he agrees to because he fears it would be hopeless without them.

The cultists go to their queen for advice about their next action. The legion are teleported back to Nowhere to a job decently done. They are greeted by Adele, Star’s Genetically Modified Dog. A stare down between Bite and Adele begins and Star ends it. Adele led them to their quarters, where they find Cassie taking care of Toptissi as he grows. Cassie tells them to go to the debriefing rooms to do the debriefing. Creator sensed something coming their way to which Star tells them they need to get back to work.

What was heading their way was Aereus Puer. He is unconscious, frozen, and flying at them like a comet.

[approximateknowledge]

5,25,78

5: i am a troll, it feels more accurate to say i made a humansona for practical purposes. so yeah

25: only a little while back i would've said redglare (<still love her) but honestly? i think mindfang; specifically because of the realisation that cool facade aside, it's still aranea-infodump-failgirl-serket under the hood so just imagining her internal monologue while shit is happening gives her entire story this ambient comedic ciaphas cain energy and it's perfect i can't unthink it now

78: oh absolutely; it's not even for the bit or anything i just think it's genuinely a good system

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,468

==>

Author commentary: Vriska hits a pretty brisk monologuing stride here. There's a whole other dimension of self indulgence we're seeing from her, switching gears from "Here's why my literal thousands of murders shouldn't be held against me," to "It sure is a shame we never got to grow up, but [lip trembles a bit]…it was awfully nice we got to make all your stars for you along the way." I think this marks the moment when we start seeing Vriska's full capacity as a Light player blabbermouth. Which is a concept we don't really begin to have a full appreciation for until we start reading Mindfang's horseshit (coming very soon, I'm pleased to report), and much later, Aranea's even horsier shit. Then we connect that to Rose's tendencies and suddenly it all starts to make sense. It is my view that such indulgently prolix characters start seeming a lot more endearing and less burdensome when you know that character trait is actually a cosmic feature stemming from a mystically endowed core to their identity. In a way, it almost starts to come across as a very specific type of disability. See? Just another reason to root for Vriska. She's doing her best despite her impairment of self-obsession.

At the end of the day, Vriska did 90% of the talking, while John intermittently offered a few remarks such as "wow" and "geez" and "huh" and "golly, that's a lot of murders…" But then, that's why John is such a perfect friend. And an even perfecter friend for Vriska, who really just wants a boy-foil functioning as the ultimate enabler and sounding board for her apologist "multicultural" navel gazing and self-absorbed rationalization narratives. He is the Heir of Breath after all. It's a passive class, and he's a passive guy. An heir, literally speaking, is one who inherits stuff. Let's infer this to mean, for the sake of this particular note, someone who "inherits" by making room for something to fill, such as wind. He certainly provides that service for a whole lot of hot air when it comes to Vriska.

[sylleblosscm]

Noct: Poor Luna...don't worry...even though your memories are gone, I still love you...I don't want to leave you...but I will save you, no matter what...

Luna: ...Idk who that was, but I wouldn't kick him out of bed.

[davestriderpostscratch]

the beforus session drives me nuts bc all the info about it is presented in the most irritating possible way (through the dancestors themselves who p much all have grating personalities or through aranea’s purposefully long and boring monologues) but if you actually sit and read it all it’s like wait a second. there’s cool stuff in there

[crappy-homestuck-confessions]

Headcanon Anon here with the kids' individual senses of humor!

John-Zany, prank-filled, with slapstick! Not out to hurt anyone's feelings, just mildly annoy/confuse strangers and friends and family.

Rose-Snark, dark humor, casually intrusive wordplay. Has a hidden goofy side that only friends know about but likes to present herself as a Rule 63 Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files with an even worse sense of humor.

Dave-Anti-humor with rambling monologues and left-fielders galore. Probably went to sleep watching Tim & Eric and would get along great with Neil Hamburger.

Jade-Loves math humor and feghoots; actually likes to work for her laughs, the poor soul (Remember, she is canonically able to make Kanaya laugh so make of that what you will.)

Terezi-Sick, distressing, prank-filled sense of humor that's a dark mirror of John's. Basically swears by the healing power of schadenfreude. Could take Eric Andre's desk in a heartbeat.

Kanaya-Morbid, literalist sense of humor. So dry that most people don't tend to know if she's joking or not.

Tavros-Self-deprecating, surprisingly dark at times sense of humor. Casually mocks any unfortunate events that befall him, regardless of the seriousness.

Karkat-Wants to come off as serious but likes it when people show dedication to a joke, like H Jon Benjamin's jazz piano album.

Sollux-Loves snarking and loves being snarked at. Is also partial to particularly negative reviews of things as long as it doesn't rely on shouting and obvious bias.

Feferi-Very juvenile sense of humor with a love of puns, toilet humor and bring up sexual topics in non-sexual situations. Giggles everytime at the "hide under there/under where?" gag.

Eridan-Not really a laugher but does chuckle at hearing a good pun every once in a while.

Nepeta-Loves her puns and her small pranks like hiding kills in friend's pillows. Thinks pushing cups off tables is the height of comedy.

Equius-Enjoys gentlemanly Oscar Wilde-esque snark; also enjoys his share of puns.

Meenah-Loves puns, pain, people being in pain, breaking stuff, and Aranea's long-winded shaggy dog stories. She'll kill you if you tell anyone the last part though.

Vriska-No sense of humor. Does funny things, says funny stuff but has no timing, can't tell a joke to save her life and hates comedies.

Jane-Loves sitcoms, one-liners from detective dramas and verbal bathos.

Jake-Loves one-liners and pratfalls. As well as the good ribbing from any of his friends.

Roxy-Loves pranks, flirtations (even more than Rose, believe it or not) and coding humor.

Dirk-Very dark sense of humor and loves to keep people in the dark about how serious he is about any given topic; he likes it even more when even he doesn't know (re: his MLP obsession)

Aradia-Twisted sense of humor almost as dark as Dirk's; believes nothing's off the table and will only stop when her target audience tells her to, nothing more, nothing less.

Gamzee-Loves bad jokes and stupid sounds; will probably laugh at a joke without you having to finish it.

Damara-Sexual humor is her main weapon and everything is looking like a target; will do anything outside of actual battery to make her target uncomfortable.

Rufioh-Has a wide range of humor but seems to prefer observational comedy.

.

[telaraneas]

hold on a second i just realized the whole thing with vriska and the breath players on a wider narrative level is basically a "north wind and the sun" thing, except with the roles of those elements swapped

as in: vriska spends her entire screentime trying to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, and to be The One Who Makes Things Happen. she pushes tavros and john around for this purpose, but in the end she only gets what she wants out of them when she gives up, letting them embody their OWN aspect instead

to tavros, she tries to FORCE him to grow into his potential via violent sink-or-swim north wind tactics, and eventually tavros takes it to heart- but it just never works out the way vriska wanted it to, all it does instead is stunt tavros' personal growth by convincing him to tackle everything with the same north wind strategy- which, i mean, it's tavros... the guy CANNOT do that, he can't even bring himself to believe it deep down

with john it works out better, mostly because instead of trying to force him to be more like her, she just hassles him to act her own will through him by directing him the entire way, which suits john just fine! he's just swapped one light player guide for another, and since the way john's aspect manifests in him being rewarded by the narrative for going with the flow, it ends up with john god tiering and doing exactly what needed to be done with pretty much no resistance. of course the prototypical breath player would welcome north wind tactics and go with it like a dandelion

but in the end, it really doesn't have much of a long term influence on john as a person- not in the way vriska kept trying and failing to pull with tavros- and the next time they meet properly, john gets his Narrative Contrivance McGuffin Delivery from his fellow breath player (who lost it because he was actively looking for it), and he doesn't get much useful out of vriska until later, the NEXT time they meet, where despite growing quickly disillusioned with her as a person, he is once again guided towards yet another mcguffin, this time deliberately because there's two light players in there and one is a sylph lol

speaking of which: the clearest manifestation of the north wind and the sun thing with serkets and breath players is the two objectives of Ghost Pirate Quest, and how those wound up resolving: the ring and the army

let's start with the blatant dramatic irony regarding the ring: if vriska had just accepted the random ass ring that a random ass guy gave to her as a proposal, she would have straight up just bypassed the whole entire adventure. ofc that could not have happened because it would be dumb and narratively meaningless, but that's the thing- she could never have accepted it BECAUSE light inherently rejects the narratively meaningless- at least, it rejects the things that SEEM narratively meaningless

instead, the breath players, who are all about the random blessings that the narrative brings to their doorstep, though in different directions (bear with me i'll elaborate on that later), fumble with it and eventually it ends up in john's posession. HOW the christ it entered the story is irrelevant- for narrative purposes, tavros taking it is what established it as a Thing, and john recieving it (...even if only via teen idiocy skfndj) is what established it definitively as Something That Exists In The Narrative.

whatever the case: eventually, aranea serket happens. and she pulls the ultimate North Wind fuckery with that thing

first off, aranea, the sylph of light, is the one to give it narrative weight; aranea at that point had mostly served as an exposition mouthpiece, which was The Joke with her, but narratively, it means her monologues work as a way for the story to fill in information of important narrative weight, without having to explain where exactly that information is even coming from

as a thief, vriska doesn't HAVE information of her own; what she finds, she usually has to claw out of the world with teeth and nails, (which once cost her an eye or two or seven). rose, as a seer, also seeks it out, but it tends to come to her more easily, and her mistake is usually just not questioning the source of said information.

but aranea, partly thanks to being a more minor character who spent her entire life and most of her un-life offscreen, embodies being a sylph of light by being basically a conduit through which information is introduced into the story for the first time; it's not relevant HOW she knows the things she knows, just that she WILL impart as much unfiltered Lore as the story needs :v so it is THROUGH aranea that the ring is first given in-universe importance; in-universe she's just revealing information that already existed about the ring, but from a narrative standpoint she is the tool used to GIVE that ring a background and function. she's the sylph of light, she shines light into the narrative where there previously was none, that's what she does

and for a while, she seems content in that role... up until she reveals she's not, because Serket Controlling Tendencies, and goes FULL North Wind brute forcing the narrative with knowledge and fate.

which. doesn't exactly go well for her

as a matter of fact, it doesn't go well for anyone, because being a sylph of light means her actions are NARRATIVELY COHERENT and thus all the godtier deaths stick and this whole mess is accepted as the alpha timeline, at least at first. aranea is the ultimate embodiment of a character who is all narrative function and practically nothing else, a tool for exposition, and as such when she uses herself for her own goals in steering the story as she sees fit, she succesfully advances the plot right off a cliff while vriska learns from her mistakes (and she IS learning, she can act above it all as much as she wants but i don't believe for a second that she didn't make those realizations about how much of a terrible idea it is to use the ring to do That in the exact moment aranea did it; earlier she was literally getting mad at tavros for losing that same ring)

for now, let's talk about john's Deus Ex Machinification

so, vriska sees the clusterfuck, and gives up on the ring, and aranea being gone means the pirate quest also fails on the other side of things (and BOY will we get back to the Mind Control Army plan.)

i've talked before about how i think breath as an aspect is the domain of narrative contrivance; pretty much everything in john's arc is comprised of stuff happening TO him, he keeps getting powerups and being just in the right place at the right time. the kid is literally blessed by the power of Being In The Right Place At The Right Time... and as i've mentioned before, this is kind of the exact opposite of vriska's approach to life. vriska tends to take Not Knowing Things as unbearable, and is in constant pursuit of the safety of certainty, but john really seems to never even stop to consider that sort of thing. he lives moment to moment without knowing what the hell is going on 80% of the time, and that tends to work out well for him

the big reversal, however, that forces his turn from someone just blessed by breath into someone who also EMBODIES it, is when he starts getting pinballed all over the (Right) place (And Right Time)

this, which once again he stumbled into by accident guided by light players, puts him in the position to BECOME a conduit for narrative contrivance, in the same way aranea was a conduit for lore exposition; but it's crucially important for this whole plot beat to land that we see him grow into it, get yanked around, fuck around with the mechanics at random and by accident- unlike aranea, who is allowed to pull her information from literally nothing, john needs to be put through this onscreen and give the audience time to acclimate to this being a thing he can do: because this, with the context of everything else about john's story ever, is the only way to sell the Big Retcon.

if so far john had been just drifting around in the wind, being magically taken places and having the plot delivered to his doorstep, this marks the point where the story demands he BECOME that wind for everyone else, running counter to the overwhelming predestination at the core of homestuck's narrative up to that point

i don't think it's a coincidence that roxy is the one person to accompany him on that whole journey, since void is the other aspect that doesn't really give a flip about the established timeline of things that must/will/have happened

and similarly, it's not surprising that terezi is the one to set the course for him- for the first time since way back then when she got him killed and vriska took over guide duties, the one leading him by the hand and the narrative as a whole isn't a light or time player, who are concerned with the things that are set in stone and certain, either narratively or mechanically, but by someone whose domain, despite leading her to the same conclusions, DOES allow for an understanding of how the thing that weaves that thread of fate is individual actions, that the universe may be functionally deterministic but is made and chosen every moment, thus making her the single best person to put at the helm of the creation of q timeline that breaks with all established rules of what can and can't be changed

anyways ive gotten offtrack

my point is: vriska spends so much screentime fumbling and clawing her way back into the narrative, north wind-ing the hell out of it in every way she can think to do until someone else succeeds and makes her realize that the brute force method is never gonna work

you know what approach DOES work?

it sounds odd to call this the sun, but it's effectively what it is: the narrative running its course to fix things, via terezi making slight adjustements and john going along with it despite not understanding their purpose. just allowing things to run their course. vriska was going to come back, she HAD to come back, but she couldn't BRING HERSELF BACK; that was never going to work.

she could only get her wish as a gift carried by the breeze.

(in the form of a punch)

(and yes, i know they are technically different vriskas, but my point is more in terms of general character themes and what the narrative does and doesn't reward)

bringing it back to the other half of it:

meenah spent a while trying to recruit people to the ghost army, but when that didn't work, the serkets shrugged and went full control, literally. they probably figured it just made sense, because making a ghost army was the plan and there was just no other way to get from point A to point B without brute forcing it

but in the process, guess what vriska finally gives up on?

vriska repeatedly says- and i think BELIEVES- that what she did to tavros throughout act 5 was because she wanted to toughen him up, to FORCE him to face challenges way too steep for him and come out stronger, which makes sense considering her entire life and philosophy. in a way, she's trying to do with him what she does with her dice with her god tier powers, cut out the uncertainty and get right to the best result, force him to claw his way to self-reliance the way she did

but the thing with tavros is that like i said, this just Does Not Work. as a breath player, boxing him in and forcing him to go the hardest possible route Because I Known Better is the worst possible thing you can do to him, as we see time and time again throughout act5 and their dream bubble interactions. tavros just becomes a worse person by trying to mimic her, and yet he doesn't actually improve or even make her happy, and eventually she loses interest in him and just carries him around like a lackey, until he gets fed up and fucks right out of the narrative.

the thing about pages, i think, is that with the right conditions, they BECOME their aspect for other people, for better or worse. so if breath is the aspect of contrivances and blessings being delivered when the story needs them, it makes sense that, ONLY when vriska (both of them) have given up entirely on tavros and stopped wanting or expecting anything from him...

he shows up with the exact miracle she needed, delivered without issue or resistance, and made possible not with the forceful howling of the north wind, but with the warm natural light of the sun.

(and then tells her to eat shit. godspeed, tavros)

[davekat-sucks]

What's your favorite ship based solely on its MSPAbooru name? For me, I always laugh when I read the name for Damara/Rufioh.

There are certainly a lot of good creative names on it. But I would say the most hilarious name for a ship would be the one for Aranea Serket x Porrim Maryam. Their ship name is vagina monologues.

[latulasbian-1]

what are your thoughts on kankri? personally i never understood the appeal and im interested to hear your take since he Was on the b tier of your list

OK! Sorry for lateness but I only noticed your question at like 2:00 AM and needed a full tank of brain-gas to be able to convey my thoughts even semi-coherently. 

So Kankri’s a weird one, probably one of the most convoluted and self-contradictory characters in Homestuck. Its fitting given he’s pretty much a one note joke and hussie’s one-note joke characters actually wind up being either his most oddly complex (see: equius and feferi for instance) or most sympathetic (see: Nepeta). Kankri’s a bit of both imo, though I wouldn’t call him a favorite for me. 

Kankri’s characterization is built almost entirely on one fuckin’ note: “LOL AIN’T TUMBLR SJWs FUNNY AND ANNOYING!?!?!?”. If you disagree with this then I don’t even know what to tell you, bc everything from his style of long-winded monologues (that wind up running up on Hussie Ableism Moments bc in-narrative his infodumping is supposed to be annoying???) to his inability to take social cues to his supposed-to-be-interpreted-as-excessive use of trigger warnings to his unapologetic killjoy attitude to his supposed hypocrisy/”privilege” are literally all just a fucking layer cake of anti-SJW stereotypes. This is where the issue of how the fandom interprets Kankri kicks in, as people’s opinions on him (aside from a few diehards) tend to scale from “DAWWW CUTE WIDDLE UPPITY BEANBOY” to “fucking annoying neoliberal”. For the matter, neither of these are intended by Hussie, while he did design him to be cute he wasn’t meant to be hateable for leftist homestuck fans as a (neo-)liberal or faux leftist. Hussie just designed him after everyone hussie found annoying in the social justice community primarily on tumblr. Even his political monologues, though not WITHOUT hypocrisy and bullshit, tend to actually skew towards “pretty fucking reasonable hussie just thinks people being upset by bad stuff is stupid”.  

Now, people cite Kankri being ableist in his criticism of certain other dancestors for ~conforming to stereotypes~, which yes from an in context scenario is pretty fucking bad. If someone IRL is dealing with their disability in a way you think seems pretty stereotypical keep that thought to yourself. HOWEVER, AS ONE OF THE MOST CRUCIAL POINTS TOWARDS KANKRI BEING GENERALLY SYMPATHETIC, WE GET THE META ELEMENT. Hussie, in writing a hypocritical mansplainer who goes on and on and on about everything thats politically incorrect about the people around him, practically beat-for-beat replicates talking points PEOPLE HAVE USED TO CRITICIZE HOMESTUCK ITSELF. YES! MITUNA’S PRESENTATION AS A CHARACTER IS 100% UNAMBIGUOUSLY AWFUL IN ITS PORTRAYAL OF PEOPLE WITH BRAIN INJURIES AND MENTAL DISORDERS. DAMARA IS A RACIST STEREOTYPE SO BAD HUSSIE SHOULD GET THROWN IN JAIL. INCEST IS BAD. If ANYONE in homestuck should’ve pulled the meta knowledge shit in post-canon, kankri would’ve been a WAYYYYYY better candidate than dirk for it, especially since kankri seems halfway to realizing he’s fictional just by political analysis of the story he’s in! Kankri seems to exist at the apex of Hussie’s confusion about fandom, given he’s baffled enough by people being obsessed with his work yet so intensely negative that he can only seem to think of them as obsessive manchild wierdos with no sense of rational thought. As someone who myself unironically loves Homestuck and yet have an entire third of my brain dedicated to ripping it apart on an ethical level, I can see some of myself in that turtleneck’d contrarian. Just because someone is a fan of something doesn’t mean they will or should unthinkingly defend it from all recourse. This is something homestuck as a whole struggles with, I think back to the aspect or extended zodiac quiz where one of the questions amounted to “someone is talking shit about a show you like, how do you respond” and there wasn’t even an answer for “actually listen to what they’re trying to say and consider if they could be right”. Kankri is a symbol of sorts for those critical enjoy-ers, in a way. A stupid silly not-that-meaningful way, but a way. I think people should reclaim him. 

I’ve touched on it a bit before, but the last main sympathizing aspect of kankri for me (aside from personality things like his frankly unearned patience with a friend group that entirely fucking hates his guts) is a trait share by almost all the dancestors: Hussie’s fucking disturbing use of mental illness & psychiatric disorders with them. Between Kankri’s unwillingness to observe common social cues, his overtly poised and practiced manner of speaking, his obsession with using trigger warnings to warn off confrontation in leu of not just speaking his mind with everything, his tendency to cling to certain articles of clothing for long periods of time, his implied difficulty taking care of himself physically, and the fucking insulting “mom-friend useless-manchild-who-needs-nannying” dynamic he has with Porrim, he comes off (intentionally or no) as a beat-for-beat embodiment of an autistic person as seen through Hussie’s tropey and horribly ableist worldview. This is a common trait he shares with both Aranea and Mituna, as well as many of the other dancestors to lesser degrees (many of them, like Mituna, also have OTHER mental disorders flat-out-stated in such a way that makes their depiction just fucking confused and bad). For me, and for at least SOME other people, it makes unbiased critical reactions to them damn near impossible. They deserve better than how hussie can write them. In a lot of ways I have friends like Kankri, and Hussie’d almost fucking certainly find them just as embarrassing and annoying as he meant for Kankri to be. 

So yeah, Kankri isn’t my favorite by any means but i don’t feel like i can or should condemn him. He’s fun. I’d watch his video essays. 

And this isn’t even BEGINNING to touch on how much I loathe Porrim as an example of “good cool fun feminists that hussie can sexualize!” And her more open bisexuality than other trolls being both a tool for fetishization by Hussie and a fucking skin-crawling thing to use as a contrast for Kanaya’s status as either “the only confirmed lesbian in homestuck (until postcanon showed rose was a lesbian too)” or “the only lesbian troll in existence ever bc thats totally how sexuality would work with aliens” (sorry if you ascribe to the “all trolls are bisexual bc they’re supposedly binormative as a get-out-of-jail-free card for hussie’s hetero-ass ship tease shit” then. well get better soon) 

(seriously though everyone who pulls the “kanaya is the only lesbian alternian” shit owes every lesbian 100 dollars)