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bladekindeyewear · 1 month ago

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Murder Drones - Homestuck Classes/Aspects

The eighth and final episode of this independent-animation Youtube series came out just over two weeks ago (MUCH longer than that by the time I ever finish this draft post, oh god it's been three months), and after having binged through it and a bunch of reactions TO it and bonus details / theory content, I couldn't resist coming up with Hero Titles for all the main characters based on the Homestuck Classes and Aspects system I've spent so much time helping analyze.

Please note that THE MAJORITY OF WHAT IS UNDER THE CUT IS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES. Please do NOT click the read-more and spoil yourself on one of the better triumphs of indie animation I've seen (in my biased perspective), from Glitch Productions, the studio making The Amazing Digital Circus. Watch the first minute or two of Episode 1 right now instead and if you're not hooked by the dark comedy, relentless pause-bonuses and lampshadey character writing that (though it's not for everyone) I promise only gets better FAST as the episodes continue and an actual mystery unfolds, then just ignore this post and come back some other time if you ever decide to finish watching the series. I'll be justifying my takes in detail and listing very spoilery twists and concepts below the cut, so this is all I can give you of my opinions before spoiling anything, because I can't even list all the characters and the most interesting classpects without giving away things you're better off watching all eight episodes before seeing. Have a first taste, the rest is under the cut if you've finished Murder Drones:

Uzi - Witch of Void

N - Heir of Hope

V - Knight of Mind

J - Maid of Doom

Oh you're under the cut now? Time to list the OTHER characters before I go in depth on each!

Doll - Witch of Space

CYN - Thief of Heart (ascended, with heavy Page of Mind duality having mastered her role)

The Solver of the Absolute Fabric - Muse of Void (the true enemy, the unknown eldritch entity/program who seduced CYN with an explicit Choice and is potentially driving the universe itself towards the Big Crunch while relentlessly fueling itself with planetary mass!)

UZI DOORMAN - Witch (or Knight?) of Void

"Easy, morons. It doesn't work... yet! It doesn't work yet. Who said it doesn't work, maybe it does!" (Uzi flicks the [railgun's] switch and laughs evilly.)

"The humans sent you without a communication relay and reformatted your memories to soup. Covering their tracks means they're past negotiating."

TEACHER: "Uzi, give Braden back his sentience." BRADEN (controlled): "Bite me-- her! I started it, and also, I'm dumb." *Head bursts into flames.*

"My crazed ramblings! Stay outta my freaking room!"

N: "Before we met, scary stuff was actually... pretty scary. And tonight too, 'cause you weren't with me to make it fun, somehow."

"I am a ghost witch! And I'm tall. Heheheh."

"Important hacking going on!"

N and V's displays: "ADMIN [CYN] OVERRIDE... [100%] -- ASSIGNING PERMS :// USER ID: DARKXWOLF17 ROLE: ADMIN"

"Nobody traumatizes these weirdly hot robots but me!"

"I think dumb things are super cool, and I - AM - FREE!!!"

Okay, Uzi's hero title was one of the toughest to nail down. I kept having doubts at every turn, trying out alternatives, so let me try to dismiss those doubts/alternatives for you the same way I did for myself.

Rage? It might capture some of her edgelordiness and her attraction to the terrifying, but there's a venn diagram overlap between plenty of aspects, and the one between Rage and Void is filled in liberally here. What Rage doesn't fully account for is how Uzi always goes for the tastes and options that everyone else is dismissing, how she serves as an ignored champion, how she embraces how others in darkness can be good instead of just embracing darkness, and how she isn't as defined by her rebellion against optimism or fear as by her rebellion against those who would own her, how she refuses to submit her agency and controls the submission of others, as per the Agency/Submission axis of the Light/Void spectrum and a Witch's dominion of controlling and manipulating that difference.

Knight? It's extremely tempting to write off all the Witch mentions and imagery as funny coincidence while focusing on how she actually mostly weaponizes the power, but I again focus on how much of her personal journey is about control as an edgy teenager, by her parents, by society, by her own powers, the statement always shaking her free being the declaration that "YOU DON'T OWN ME!", combined with the skillful Witchy way she wrests control of the submission built into N and V and draws out the secrets she needs especially in Episode 5, and eventually projects control over even the Solver power's original owner. The Knight is the class that exploits and weaponizes the aspect, leaping through loopholes like a sword dance. The Witch is the class which controls, changes, and manipulates the aspect, grasping and shaping it like clay between their hands.

And so while I leave you to be free to believe Uzi is a Knight if you still want, I would contend that the title that best embodies her throughout the series and her journey to self-actualization is that of a Witch of Void. Void players are almost always attracted to that which repels and confuses others. Uzi is a girl obsessed with ideas that are dark and rejected and unpopular, the scary and misunderstood, enamored with the creepy and destructive and monstrous and vampiric (the Disassembly / Murder Drones are obvious Vampire analogues with their bat-like blood-drinking, wings and sleeping upside down, sunlight weakness, staking them through the Heart being the only way to keep them from regenerating, the "Bite Me" phrase, and is also reflected in how the Solver curse breaks mirrors that vampires classically cannot be seen in). She delves into secrets, mastering her control over unknown powers and advantages episode by episode. She rebels against control, everyone and everything constantly urging her to Submit like a Void player tempted to alcohol, and instead seeks Control and agency for herself and everyone she comes to care about while subjugating the enemy. She shares many classical Void player tropes-- a hacker controlling others, even manipulating submission by freeing N and V by rewriting HERSELF as their system administrator in Cyn's place so her instructions could no longer puppet them. Her main weapons are an energy rifle (railgun) like Roxy, unarmed combat like Roxy and Equius (Void because you wield Nothing), the reality manipulating powers of the Solver wielded like a Witch including the almighty [NULL] command of black-hole-like deletion creating voids in space that not even Doll attempted, and finally a weapon inherited from her very similar mother: A pickaxe, a tool classically used to unearth things from the depths. I couldn't pick a more varied and fitting arsenal for a Witch of Void.

Her ultimate battlecry in the final episode is essentially I am cringe but I am free, fitting for any Void player, and she completes her journey by refusing to be Controlled or submit her agency to any but those she trusts most, and in fact subsuming Control of the reality-warping power and individual who most sought to control her and everyone else, becoming its master, and yet submitting somewhat to the way of life of the worker drones and her classmates living in their underground bunker. "And yep, that's how I learned nightmares are real, and we probably should have stayed behind the ol' doors! And that maybe I don't actually hate it here. As much."

DOLL - Witch of Space

"Как мило, но мне твоя помощь не нужна." ("Cute, but I don't need help.")

Doll: "Я не позволю ему использовать меня, чтобы поглотить планету! (I will not let it use me to consume the planet!)" Tessa: "Hmm... Not sure it needs you, buddy."

The supernatural reality-editing power known as the Absolute Solver normally has four known functions, each with their own symbols: Translate (move), Scale (crush/expand), Rotate, and Edit, not counting the [null] command that only comes with a direct connection as one of the Solver's main hosts. Doll exhibits more comprehensive control of these spatial-manipulating abilities and their versatility than even CYN! She repositions/teleports herself at will, not only spatially manipulates objects but uses Edit to replicate them (an act of Creation we never see CYN or Uzi pull), and refuses to relinquish control of any situation she's involved in unless forced to retreat and watch from the shadows, warping around between the targets she's observing like a ghost. And the whole time, she follows a very Aradia-reminiscent ghost girl schtick.

Specifically, the way Aradia acted and the powers she used while inverted to a Bard of Space! The way Aradia behaves after her god-tier resurrection as an ascended Maid of Time hardly resembles Doll's behavior at all! It lines up surprisingly perfectly.

Thematically, Murder Drones doesn't really follow the "Space/Time = Creation/Destruction" axis association very much, unlike many other works of fiction that quite prominently do. Freed from that obligation in this framework, Doll can act as a Witch of Space even more blatantly destructive and active than Grimbark Jade Harley, making the crucial mistake of trying to tackle and control a problem all by herself that she had no actual hope of overcoming alone. One of the most active classes there is, a Witch is often tempted by their role to take ALL the control for themselves, and usually pays for it.

Gosh, isn't it satisfying to see what it'd be like for a Witch of Space to fully use her powers in close-quarters combat?! What a fantastic display.

N - Golden Retriever Heir of Hope

"Sure! I love doing anything!"

CYN: "You know, you're one of the main reasons I wanted your team to retain your personalities. You always surprised me. Loved doing... anything."

"[After having a hand shoved in his mouth, nervously reassuring, clearly not having enjoyed it.] Sweet! Uh, I'm open to new things, I guess."

"(To V) I'm so, so sorry. Have fun repressing this!" Licks V's sword, revolting her and making her lose her grip.

With the easy way N makes friends with absolutely everyone, including the viewer, you'd think he'd perhaps be somewhere on the Blood aspect, such as an Heir of Blood like the Mayor-- but the specific WAY that N makes friends so easily is important, and very reminiscent of Jake in his Page of Hope role. He consistently completely defies everyone's impressions and expectations of him, the contrast winning them over in mere moments-- he takes the SIDE of those deliberately against him, giving advice to them and wanting them to be happy even as they're literally trying to dissect him. He's unbelievably optimistic and almost always open to EVERYONE the moment they aren't completely terrifying him. He opens himself up to everything even more than Jake does.

And more importantly to the nuance of his role and how skilled he is with it: He takes in the weird ideas of others, no matter how offball or repellent, and consistently redeploys them in new contexts to his advantage. Like using the idea of how revolted he was at Uzi sticking her hand in his mouth to lick V's sword to get her to disengage. Like taking in the reasons Uzi gave him to rebel against authority in Episode 1 and readily deploying a full rationale based on them against his superior officer J. Like when he took Uzi's language of how he and Uzi "just kinda, like, hang out a lot <3" to throw the oddball of him and Uzi dating as the most IMPOSSIBLE to imagine method to finally snap Uzi out of being controlled out of romantic embarrassment while making her mother even more motivated to finish her daughter's smackdown. An Heir is the passive counterpart to a Witch, making N theoretically the nexus through which Hope flows and is manipulated and changed in himself and others. He changes others' perceptions of what is possible. His very belief in others and the optimism he pours into them changes them, changing V, even in her memory visions with the remark about golden retrievers' gentle mouths.

A Hope player can also expect to be challenged by a test of Rage, and fear is constantly what keeps N penned in and a defining character trait he repeatedly encounters. Two SPECIFIC challenges he faced and had to conquer were Rage challenges, which made him adopt a split "O_X" face the ONLY TWO TIMES he did so in the series to show the conflict between the need to murder or cut short contrasted with the need to look for hope, where he felt he had to align himself AGAINST the breadth of possibilities and optimism to do something drastic that would cut all possibility short by dealing death:

Episode 1, threatening Uzi: "I'm sorry. I really enjoyed our time together, but I can't have you shooting V with that thing."

Episode 7, threatening Tessa: "You knew about the patch. Yes, or no? One. Chance."

V - Stray Cat Knight of Mind

"The humans programmed us to solve a problem. Where's proof of your backstory? The one where your kind's so conveniently innocent?"

"Uh, exactly. We show up fabulous, the sad purple one lets us in, cause she has no friends, we kill everyone, and pop her little head off."

"…Promise me you and that purple thing will stop prying into that stuff. If you free me now, I promise we'll only kill what we need to survive. Just you and me, N…" (Glancing meaningfully to make N look at the key to her chains... which we learned beforehand she was secretly already free from, even though she honestly wanted N to agree to this.)

N: "Uh… V, if you're hiding something, we can figure it out together. Even if we each only have pieces. Please, what do you know-" (V slices his head off.) V: "What's best for you. Even if you hate me for it."

"Yes, best friends. So easily manipulated…"

"I'll.. kill everyone.. after [giving a prom queen speech]? It's not vain, it's... extra sinister…" (Making excuses to convince herself.)

(Manipulating Uzi to stay stop stealing N's attention away from her--) "Better to stay distant, though. Don'tcha think? (She looks over at Uzi's backpack.) Since I'll have to kill you next? (She scratches Uzi's (solver) eye and prepares to leave.) N's made friends with rocks, by the way. He'll move on just fine."

"We do our jobs, and that thing leaves us alone!"

CYN: "Do your job, and I leave you and N alone. Right, V?"

(Yes, in case you didn't notice, N is a dog and V is a cat. It's incredibly obvious in retrospect, right down to V hissing. (See this meme that isn't mine, and in V's case food is ALSO murder.) )

V play-acts a madwoman's façade from the very beginning to disguise her goals. From the very beginning, she REMEMBERS enough of her past to commit to the deal she explicitly made with Cyn-- she does her job, and Cyn will leave N alone, leave V and N together. She offers falsehoods and doubts, fights viciously to get away with what she wants within the confines of any agreements she makes (even the one with Cyn), willing to use any façade as a weapon and exploit every decision, to fuck with other's heads to advance her goals and keep others the hell out of her OWN head. She loves the images she throws her whole self into projecting, even loving the false ones, and how each disturbs others or earns her praise. She's a surprisingly nuanced, entertaining, and practically quintessential Knight of Mind!

J - Maid of Doom

"Way to go, stud. The company's gonna love this. With this colony wiped, we'll make top team this quarter, for sure. You know what that means… Branded pens~!"

"Noted, traitor. We'll circle back after I right-size your existence!"

"Sorry, boss. Corporate's spoken."

Tessa: (Overdramatic) "It wants paid time off… To attend UUUNION NEGOTIATIOOOONS!" J: (Finally at her limit) "THIS IS AN UNRELATED LAYOFF!"

"It tricked you. If I promised you anything… It tricked me, too."

"You know there's no escape, even in death!"

This one's pretty open and shut, her motivations and personality are pretty straightforward in this story. J is a drone comically obsessed with the strictures of Bureaucracy and enforcing the authority of capitalists downward against labor. She obeys hierarchy, and sacrifices whatever she might think is fair or right for the leash of whoever's on top. Doom is the aspect of Order, sacrifice, anxiety, constraints, and in some ways Anti-Life. Corporate bureaucracy is the perfect analogue, as the Condesce and Jane Crocker have long proven, and J is a wellspring of that corrosive essence who Serves and spreads it.

I could see some arguments for Blood based on the focus on chains and obligations and destruction enacted/invited unto Blood, but those mostly fall into the venn-diagram overlap and her obsession with obeying the TOP of the hierarchy to the exclusion of the bottom, with cooperation only within the strictures of the rules of those "above", aligns her much stronger with the Life/Doom dichotomy than the Blood references. Sollux and Karkat were best friends for a reason, Blood and Doom can be pretty tight.

CYN - Thief of Heart (Fully Realized!)

"More like you are our cute puppets. It hurts our feelings you don't remember us." (Creates a hologram of Nori, Uzi's mother.)

"Easier to assimilate than explain."

"Giggle. I am so naughty. The flesh demands invitation."

Tessa: "Cyn! If that little butler dies for your sake, I swear!" Cyn: (Playing with dolls) "Mm. I have.. backups."

"You will not have to discard your pets, and I will not discard you. Best stay away from the gala, though. You seem squeamish."

Manipulating N as Tessa: "When we get to the labs and find that list, I'll need you to choose the universe over one little drone, N. Before she's not herself anymore..."

"Thanks for the new host… intern."

"You know, you're one of the main reasons.. I wanted your team to retain your personalities."

"Thanks for clearing the way on this planet, too. Let's eat."

"That's really sweet, big brother. Too bad you've served.. your purpose. Don't worry. Your backups will forgive me."

"I see. You will not talk to me because I have hurt… your feelings." (Mimes her finger down her cheek like a tear, grinning.)

"Okay. You first, eager beaver. Heeheehee." (She begins clawing at N's chest.) "Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. LetmeinLetmeinLetmein"

CYN, I can say with some certainty as someone with autism which her primary personality and mannerisms mimic, is profoundly her own weird self and behaves VERY obviously differently from everyone around her, physically and vocally... unless she's roleplaying other people! If you have autism too there's a good chance you can relate to the roleplaying aspect of this. We don't even know what Tessa's classpect would really be, because she was just mimicking her the entire time, part of why this had to be under the cut. She convincingly stole her identity, mannerisms, even her skin to achieve her hungry, gleefully heart-slurping goals.

When we see her most, she's at the absolute PEAK of her hero (villain) title's power, fully balanced with her Page of Mind inverse/sub-role in puppeting illusions, seizing direct control of the infected, and trying to deceive others with horrifying, demoralizing visions specifically tailored to pierce their individual Hearts and hit them with what they care about most. She's a terrifying Thief of Heart who (apart from literally tearing the hearts out of other's chests) steals the individual uniqueness of others, and USES others' individual uniqueness to steal everything from them. She's much like a horrifying Page of Mind who went from playing with her dolls to playing with drones, using the fact she could clone others from backups to completely disconnect her from any sense of moral responsibility to them, raising an army of zombie followers in her image, slaved to her administrative control, and even later let her squads retain their original personalities specifically to exploit their uniqueness to accomplish more than she'd otherwise be able to expect from mindless slaves. She struck devil's deals with those she let keep their personalities, like V and J, using what she knew of their personalities to give them offers they couldn't refuse and letting them keep EXACTLY enough of their Minds to balance effectiveness with her manipulations. Her thrilled confidence at unleashing her true form and personality, shamelessly facing the cast as herself in episodes 7 and 8 having fulfilled her promise to Tessa that she would not discard her in the most horrifyingly literal way possible, is incredibly intimidating. What an amazing, love-to-hate-her antagonist with such power-hungry but initially-understandable motivations. I fucking love it.

And the wildest part is that she's actually only half of the real villain.

The Solver of the Absolute Fabric: Muse of Void

Tessa: "We know it mutates in damaged AI. It took Cyn as a host, then it took everything. The humans here saw what was happening at home. Thought they could understand it. All they did was spread it."

"[I am] The Solver of the Absolute Fabric, the Void, the Exponential End."

(Corkboard in the secret Cabin Fever facility--) "FUN TIME TO UNIVERSE BIG CRUNCH: 87"

CYN isn't ACTUALLY the Absolute Solver itself, only its primary host, perhaps almost a merged personality. Believe it or not, there's a Doc-Scratch-like antagonist behind EVERYTHING that happened with Cyn, and just like me you will have COMPLETELY missed it unless someone told you or you happened to pause or step through a FEW FRAMES of what flashed onscreen on CYN's visor when she first restarted in the garbage pile at the beginning of Episode 5:

The transcript, best as I can tell, which I'm sure will give any Homestuck veteran some serious Doc Scratch vibes:

[][][]hello :] I see you are [disposed (?????) pful/sad] I see you are inoperable- (?????) end]] --- I fD--t]] [selfDestruct(?????),]end]] I see we could [trl] [scl] [rot] [edit] for you I will not discard you [][][][][][Absolute[Sys(???)] Access? Y/N [.0001%] rush I see you will be here for _ [a while]

The functions [trl] [scl] [rot] [edit] refer to the four explicit powers of the Absolute Solver besides [NULL], which are Translate, Scale, Rotate, and Edit, each with their own unique symbol that appears when someone uses it as we've covered. (There's more depth you can wiki-dive, and it's so cool to see how every time the powers are used the abilities switch out and do such specific things in such varied ways. I also love the theme of the [trn] (Translate/Move) symbol being used to represent CONTROL over others, too, the symbol papering over the eyes of the possessed completely.)

CYN didn't just develop her eldritch powers from a reboot glitch-- an ENTITY OFFERED HER POWER THAT SHE ACCEPTED in order to resurrect, an incredible realty-warping power it offers to dead AI to give them new (un)life in order to advance its universe eating goals. It's the source of a power that defies the laws of reality, is allergic to Light, and has to manipulate lesser entities into submitting to its power in order to truly control them. It selects those who have been discarded and forgotten, dead without agency, and tempts them like the Devil. It disguises its true form's manifestations (the giant bugs and camera-projectors), literally hides extra mass in shadows, unfolding from pocket dimensions, and each of the users who access its powers (Uzi, Doll, and CYN) use its Voidy toolset in different ways that align with their own natures even while the power and its endower's motives hang Muse-like over the entire plot like a shadow itself. The Solver's ultimate "host" even takes the form of a sort of singularity inside the core of the Heart of one possessed by the power's main focus, the locus puppet of the Absolute Solver's motives. No wonder CYN and Uzi can coexist in the end, if with some bags-under-the-eyes difficulty as Uzi the Witch constantly keeping both her and the power itself under Control.

That about covers the cast, and whether you agree or disagree with my title choices I hope I gave you some interesting things to think about! Classpect analysis while I was watching made me appreciate how clever the plot and character writing was for this series even more as I was watching it, and if any of this helped you appreciate Murder Drones more that's the best compliment I could possibly earn. <3

#Homestuck #Murder Drones #Classes and Aspects #Non Homestuck Titles #Spoiler #Spoilers #Light and Void #Space and Time #Hope and Rage #Heart and Mind #Life and Doom #Doc Scratch

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