#istrige-namuose

[ardenttheories]

. 

istrige-namuose

replied to your post:

“Honestly I should go back do filling all those classpect requests in...”

:

#AddressedTheElephantInTheRoom

If the elephant in the room is “John is not okay” then I’ve got you entirely covered. If it’s not then you’re about to be deeply disappointed about my thesis on “why John is not okay”.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but from the very beginning John is at an incredible disadvantage when it comes to SBURB. Compared to all the other kids, trolls and our dear cherubs included, John is the only one with a significant amount to lose, and almost nothing to gain: Dave is being physically abused by his older brother, and has repressed himself to such a point that he sees no value in his life; Rose lives with a functioning alcoholic who she is convinced engages in passive-aggressive warfare with her, unable to tell who actually loves her and who does not; Jade lives with a dog, a dead grandpa she has never truly accepted the loss of at the beginning of the comic, and is almost completely isolated from society with no true way to enter it at her current age; Dirk and Roxy have never seen their parents, with Dirk’s isolation causing a severe negative impact on his mental health and Roxy’s causing her to partake in heavy drinking, and both live with the constant threat of death at the hands of HIC; Jane, while having a loving father, is under constant threat of assassination; Jake, sharing a similar situation to Jade, actually buried his dead grandmother’s body and was left to fend for himself on an island inhabited by creatures made to raise a species entirely more violent than he; the lowblood trolls live in a society that sees them as playthings, and wishes for them to be dead more than anything else; the midbloods hang on by a thread; the highbloods face constant instability, with Gamzee having to self medicate with sopor, Eridan struggling to find his place in a society that wants him to be brutal and a friend group that didn’t let his loves flourish, and Feferi living with the knowledge that her lusus could kill everyone should she not feed it correctly, as well as with the knowledge that her duty is to fight HIC, and either win or die trying; and Calliope, isolated in one room her whole life, lives reading a book that becomes what she wishes she could be part of, trapped in eternal, lonely war with her brother. None of these characters have the most optimal of lives; all live in fear of something, all struggle with and suffer from things that affect them deeply enough to continue well into the game itself. They are things each player needs to learn from, to grow out of and to move past in the process of growing up that SBURB facilitates in its challenges throughout the course of a session. This is, ironically, how you know the trolls’ game is not finished; they are not, for lack of a better term, “grown up” yet when they reach their door. 

When we consider what each surviving player gains at the end of the game in Earth C, we can see that they have achieved true growth, as well as the happiness, safety and content that did not exist pre-game. Dave has Dirk, Rose has Roxy, Jade has Jake; each gains that which they had lost, or never had, in the form of their guardians’ younger selves, giving them what is essentially a fresh slate to build upon in a manner that is beneficial to them all. Dave no longer lives in fear, has found love, acceptance of himself, and is moving past his abuse to begin healing. Rose has a mother she knows loves her, the ability to love herself, to love her wife, and a much more stable homelife that allows her to heal from years of neglect and uncertainty. Jade and Jake no longer live in isolation, no longer live in danger; they integrate into a society built for them, a society which loves them unconditionally, near friends that remind them that they are no longer alone. Dirk and Roxy are no longer in danger of HIC, have moved on past the negative coping habits and the accidental neglect they suffered in youth, and Dirk particularly is making an effort to grow from the toxic habits he picked up as he struggled with severe mental health issues alone - both with lovers that, for two isolated children who initially never had a single human within any sort of distance to them, represent everything they never thought they could have, and a step into actual life with people who are in their same time. Calliope is no longer bound to a tiny room with a brother who wishes to kill her, and has found a love which, initially, was never meant to be something she could have. Jane has her father, the only surviving guardian of the entire game, the business she was always meant to run, a love that she struggled to gain so desperately at the beginning of her session, and a chance to live without complete fear of assassination. Karkat no longer lives in fear of a society which wishes to kill him for his blood; Kanaya gets to live the life she chooses, not the path that is chosen for her; Terezi is no longer at a potential threat due to her blindness, and similarly is not under societal pressures to be who she thinks she should have been on Alternia; and Vriska, freed from the confines of what feeding her mother required, is able, when she returns, to be who she wishes to be, to achieve the enlightenment that (Vriska) did. All of the kids began with nothing, with situations that were, to say the least, less than ideal, and grew to a place where they were finally free.

John is the exact opposite of every other child in the game.

John begins with a loving father, one he does not entirely understand, but who plays to his son’s interests in an attempt to form a closer bond. From what we see of Poppop, he had a rather good future ahead of him; a wife, child, and a job that made him a fairly wealthy man, and if nothing else a very happy and kindly one. He had a perfect home in the suburbs, an education, a hobby that was in and of itself profitable should he have attempted to put any merit to being a professional pianist, and he suffered from no sort of trauma during his first thirteen years of life. There was nothing inherently wrong with John’s life, unlike the other kids.

This is where everything goes horribly wrong.

The other kids have suffered hardships. They have faced monsters day in and day out throughout their lives; fighting is no issue to Dave, who has fought his Bro his whole life; it is no issue to Jade, who takes her gun with her wherever she goes, and has essentially raised herself; it is certainly no issues to the trolls, quite literally tailor made to win the game by Doc Scratch. John has no ability to cope. He has had no reason to develop coping mechanisms, or to learn how to defend himself, or to learn how to handle the trauma that comes with death, war, and a daily struggle to survive. 

This is likely why we never see John react. He simply doesn’t know how to. 

He doesn’t know how to handle waking up to see, for his first interaction with her, Jade’s dead body, when they had promised to spend so much time together before. He doesn’t know how to handle seeing his father’s dead body, covered in blood, only seconds before being killed himself. They are not a situations he has ever had to deal with, situations unlike anything he has ever struggled with - and thus, he buries it. Focuses on the game, shoves it all to one side, focuses on the struggles of his friends and attempting to ensure they win the game when all else fails - because John is, essentially, a failsafe. 

Think of his classpect. John is the Heir of Breath; freedom inherited, under his control. He is the epitome of his aspect. John’s role in SBURB is to free those who are trapped; to free his friends from abuse and neglect, to free all their players from the doomed timelines of the game itself, to free the session from its barren state so a new universe can emerge at the end. John is made simply to ensure that their session wins, no matter how much they have to fight for it to begin with. It’s why, without John, the session is doomed from the start, with no potential to go on; it’s why Dave has to become Davesprite to ensure he survives. As the inheritor of freedom, John has a duty to ensure he similarly frees everyone he possibly can from whatever may be chaining them down. Think, for instance, how in the retconned timeline Vriska stops Rose from drinking; how Karkat and Dave’s relationship allows Dave to open up more clearly to himself about who he is and how he feels. John’s actions as a Heir of Breath are inherently linked to the freedom of his friends, whether he realises it or not. It’s why, ultimately, he needs to be someone who comes from such a stable background; he is free when he begins the game, and in an adequate place to free those around him as he has no prior baggage to deal with.

However, this puts him in a place to gain it as the game progresses. Whereas his friends are allowed time to heal from what which they suffer from, John himself simply loses things throughout the session. He loses his life, his home, his dad, his future, his stability - he sees things which he is unable to cope with, losing his innocence and naivety - with no true understanding of how he is meant to handle the stress and trauma. John, in essence, regresses to the same place his friends began at, as they continue to grow to the place he once knew well. 

Why is his classpect so vital to this? I have mentioned this before, but as the Heir of Breath, the freedom that John inherits is all-encompassing. With an inability to cope, he is unable to control what he frees people - including himself - from, and takes on the role of a True Heir of Breath. He frees unknowingly, without proper direction, and suffers deeply for it - because in the end, what he frees himself from most is his friends.

John frees himself from all the bonds he once had through all of his efforts to free his friends from their doomed timelines; once reaching Earth C, they are in a position to live the lives they never had, to evolve into the people they should have been. John is not. John’s position is weak, is regressive; it is a position in which the only way is down from the pedestal that he, very long ago, began the game on. Distanced from his friends - who likely do not realise that there is an issue, as the post-credit scenes would seem to imply (because why would they? They have won the game after years of struggle and have entered into a better world; why would they, for a moment, think that John does not share the same sentiment?) - John does not have anything to truly tie him to Earth C. It is not a world that holds anything for him; yes, his friends are there, but they are friends who do not remember the same things that he does due to the retcon, friends who have developed and matured and progressed without him, friends who no longer need him now that they do not need freeing, do not need a leader, do not need that failsafe to rely on. He has Jane, yes, but she is only his Nanna, and she has her Dad, as well as Roxy and Calliope, as well as a business; she has no reason to pursue the same bond with John as the other kids have with their young guardians. Worse still, he does not have his Dad. Yes, he has Jane’s Dad, but he is quite simply that; Jane’s Dad. He does not remember raising John, he does not remember things that John and his Dad did, he is not even the same man due to having to save Jane frequently from assassination attempts. 

I have seen people mention multiple times that John does not reveal his struggles because he doesn’t like to burden his friends, and in this case, this is simply another way that his classpect is freeing him from everything. Without an ability to tell them that something is wrong, they have no reason to be concerned for him; they have no reason to assume that he is struggling, that they need to keep an eye on him, to help him. This is why, I think, we got such a surge of “John is depressed” headcanons post-credits; he is in the perfect position to suffer from severe, perhaps chronic, depression, as well as (at least in my mind) PTSD, insomnia, and dissociation - and he has absolutely nobody to rely on. 

John, at the end of the game, is not in a good place. 

And this is almost entirely because of his classpect, what he began with, and what he has lost throughout the game’s progression.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

@istrige-namuose it’s true that there’s a real lack of information about how things in Homestuck and Hiveswap do or do not differ, so my new idea is to create a wiki page dedicating to discussing exactly that, document the disparities, and qualify other sections of the wiki discussing Hiveswap by linking to it. It does bother me to be writing things based at least partially on assumptions, so this is my attempt to compromise with myself, I guess...

Maybe this is a page you would be interested in? You could even help me add to it if you wanted to, although I’d understand if you didn’t want to, there’s a lot to be written on this :P

[thehalfworld]

Hey, Skepkitty. I know that ITS MY LIFE! is getting closer to the point of mentioning "BUZINESS GUY", and I just wanted to mention that less than a month ago, I came out as a trans girl, in case you were ever going to refer to me in the reviews.

Hey, congrats on coming out!

You know, funny story. I actually had the revised review of the chapter where you're mentioned all drafted and ready to go, and then Tumblr had some kind of error and lost it — but when you were mentioned by MarissaTheWriter, I did make reference to you, and then I had a moment of "...wait, hang on, I'd better check pronouns first," and I'm glad I did.

Anyway, congrats again!

[drift-wing]

I was tagged by: meowgosaurus

Rule 1: Post the rules. Rule 2: Answer the questions the tagger has set for you in their posts, then make 11 new ones. Rule 3: tag 11 people and link them in your post. Rule 4: Let them know you’ve tagged them.

1.) What is your least popular favorite ship? in homestuck snowbar, and in TFP soundcee, which both happen to be my OTPs

2.) Mac, PC, Linux, or something else? PC (except windows 8 because i don't like change)

3.) If you could have any animal as a companion, disregarding any safety concerns for you and the animal or legal concerns, cost, your living situation, or whether the animal needs to be in water or not, or even whether the animals is extinct or not etc. what would it be? i know this is boring, but even disregarding all that i'd probably still choose a cat, because i want something that'd fall asleep on me and rub its face on my legs and stuff and they're just the cutest things ever

4.) The same as the above but now include fictional creatures, any fictional creature from myth, books, video games, webcomics, drawings, movies, TV, etc. i want mcpedro from girls with slingshots. a talking scottish-irish cactus with a sombrero and a gay french moustache. just look at him

5.) If you could make anything you wanted regardless of time, cost, materials, safety, or how many people it would take, etc. what would it be? if i had enough time and money and people and disregard for safety could i make a watch that could stop time? cause i'd make that

6.)If magic existed and you studied it what kind of magic would you do? i guess good magic? like, as opposed to evil magic? i'm not very familiar with this sorta thing.

7.)Would you want to be immortal and what kind of immortality and would it involve already being dead or not? i wouldn't want to be immortal, i feel like it'd kind of make life seem less valuable. plus i'd just spend all of it on tumblr anyway

8.)Chicken or Pizza? oh god that's nostalgic, still chicken.

9.)Do you prefer urban, suburban, rural, or small town settings to live in? i like suburbs just on the edge of small towns. urban is too big and busy for me and rural is too quiet and empty.

10.)What kind of textures do you like to touch? mostly i love fluffy things like bears and really really thick rugs. i also like digging my fingers into soft sand.

11.)What kinds of smells do you prefer? fresh cut grass, baking, salty beach smell, new books, hot custard, coffee (though i hate coffee) and curry (though i can't eat it).

New questions:

1) Pie or cake? 2) If you had to teach something, what would you teach? 3) If you could be anywhere in the world right now where would you be? 4) What do you wish you spent more time doing five years ago? 5) Have you ever had a near-death experience? 6) If you could choose one book that it was mandatory for everybody to read, what would it be? 7) What's your favourite video on youtube? 8) How many fandoms do you belong to? 9) What does your username mean/why did you choose it? 10) What's your favourite/happiest memory? 11) What is your favorite quote?

People I’m tagging:

doctor-malsyn yofuu istrige-namuose wwhothefuckcares transformandrollaroundinfeels fuzzyzombielove tyger-pax here-have-some-feels breannainn jessicatheshark sillyideas

[ardenttheories]

istrige-namuose replied to your post “You should make a list of plot holes in HS”

The explanation for all of this: Homestuck was written "by the seat of your pants", with minimal planning for the greater picture (even nearing the end, sprites squared were an unexpected development for Hussie), and what you're reading is essentially the first draft, which a serious writer would throw out and write something where the kinks are all worked out.

Well, yeah! I think I stated in a prior post that a lot of the inconsistencies with the Ectobiology stuff are very likely due to Hussie having created the Beta trolls prior to his decision to create the Alpha trolls, and thus he was paralleling the two sessions he had at the time - the two Beta sessions - before having to make a snap decision to explain why the then-revealed post-Scratch troll session was so different to the post-Scratch human session. 

That’s not exactly the point to the post, though. It’s incredibly obvious that a lot of Hussie’s plot-based flaws pretty much boil down to “he didn’t think it out enough and just had to wing it a few times”. The point of the post was to show that they exist, and then to question them in the context of the comic. 

For instance, the Alpha trolls really weren’t all too necessary to the comic. We learn startlingly little about their session and about themselves, they were used to make a mockery of the fandom at the time, and they fuck with the established lore that Hussie had been weaving together from the very start. Had he just chosen to not include them, the comic would be significantly more streamlined and make much more sense; we could justify the exclusion of the Alpha trolls as simply “it was the Earth universe that was Scratched, not the Alternian universe”, so it would be perfectly within the law of the game to not have a Scratched troll universe. 

Instead, we get some bullshit about the Alpha trolls being the pre-Scratch universe which suffered a Session Glitch that heralded the calling of Lord English in the post-Scratch session, even though the actual cause of Lord English’s arrival was due to Hussie himself and not any of the players within SBURB/SGRUB.

So we now have this concept of a Glitch that we know very little about; is this something that can happen in other sessions, is Lord English a universal constant even though he was created from the very specific components of that session, how was Lord English able to create this Session Glitch to begin with - and why, exactly, does it herald his arrival? How is it possible that Lord English can affect something so very integral to the mechanics of SGURB? Is this something that was predestined, and thus SGURB actively made itself be broken for the allowance of Lord English within the session, or was it something Lord English had to set up itself? If Lord English is unique to SGRUB/SBURB, then why would this specific instance of the game allow its core mechanics to be tampered with? 

This is what I mean when I say something’s a plot hole within Homestuck. Yes, it’s very clear that the answer is “Hussie added in something new and had to make sense of a previous part of the comic”, but in doing so he made a lot of other things make no sense. He brought up even more questions he had no intention of answering because, rather than doing the normal authorial thing and not adding in what isn’t needed, he decided to shove in some characters and some plot that weren’t inherently integral to the comic itself with a very quick fix to cover it.  

Basically, he should have had the plot be this:

Beta trolls are raised by Doc Scratch, their First Guardian because all planets with intelligent life and the potential to be seeded by SBURB have them, to be violent so they can beat the game, but not enough to actually win it in a suitable amount of time that they can enter the universe before Jack Noir appears. Doc Scratch is killed by Hussie, and Lord English sprouts from his corpse. He then goes on a rampage. The Beta trolls go to the Alpha human session in an attempt to stay alive. 

Instead, we have this:

The Alpha trolls were the initial session, but they weren’t violent enough and inherently failed. Also they had this weird glitch that means Lord English is going to show up in the next universe so they had to Scratch their dead session. Doc Scratch makes the Beta trolls more violent in order to ensure they can win the game but not to such an extent that they can beat it prior to Jack Noir’s arrival. Doc Scratch is killed by Hussie, and Lord English sprouts from his corpse. The Beta trolls go to the Alpha human session in an attempt to survive. They then meet the Alpha trolls who don’t really add a lot to the plot or do much besides some really weak exposition and character growth that could have been done without them. Also Mituna has brain damage as a way to explain why he didn’t just do a Sollux and punt them out into the Void to avoid being killed by the Scratch. 

Lord English’s existence is tied to Hussie’s actions with Doc Scratch, not with the actions of the Alpha trolls. In fact, the excuse that “Doc Scratch was created by the Scratch so it had to happen” is kind of bullshit, because all planets have a first guardian anyway, and nothing the Alpha trolls do affect what happens in the Beta universe. Doc Scratch was created by the Betas; the Alphas had no input on what the Betas did to create him.  

It’s also important to note that it’s not the universe that acts as the crucible for Lord English, but Doc Scratch himself. So long as we have a feasible way for him to exist - which he already does with “all planets with intelligent lifeforms have First Guardians” - then the plot works perfectly well. 

If Hussie had left it as the Beta trolls being the actual, original session, without any hint of a Scratch in sight, then nothing would have changed in the plot besides a lack of 12 characters and maybe some more attention/screentime to other characters who arguably deserved it more. It also wouldn’t have left the ending so abrupt; with the Alphas not in existence, we wouldn’t have questioned where the fuck half of them had gone by the time the session had been completed, and the ending would have sat with people a lot easier (that was actually one of the biggest complaints I saw when Homestuck initially ended; people wanted to know what had happened to the Alpha trolls and why nothing had really happened with them past a certain point; why we’d gotten no closure with them).  

Basically I’m annoyed because this isn’t something I can just ignore. This is just incredibly sloppy work on Hussie’s part, and you can really see it. It would have been better to not have the Alphas at all, to not have that “oh, the Beta trolls are actually the post-Scratch trolls!” twist when he hadn’t prepared for it prior to that point, or for him to introduce the Alpha trolls some other way; since they’re all dead, it would even have been much better for him to say they were just dead trolls from another session’s timeline (one where the Beta trolls did Scratch, and where the post-Scratch Alpha trolls didn’t have much luck in beating the game, either) that were hanging out in the Dreambubbles - and this would have even given merit to the idea that the Genesis Frogs contain all potential instances of their base universe!

Some of the on-the-fly stuff Hussie does is brilliant, don’t get me wrong - the spritesquared thing, for instance, is something I adore - but the Alpha trolls were a really, really bad addition to a comic that maybe didn’t need them, and could have had a much better plot and more developed characters without them. 

[ardenttheories]

istrige-namuose replied to your post “On Troll Biology”

If you're going to discuss how troll biology makes no sense, how about you start with the basics: how come Alternian fauna evolved in such a way that a symbiotic relationship between *four species* (troll, mother grub, imperial drone and at least one species of lusus) is pretty much absolutely necessary for troll reproduction and growth? Wouldn't the extinction of one of these species mean the extinction of trolls?

Honestly, you’re not taking it far enough: along with the Imperial Drones, there are the Carpenter Drones, as well as His Honourable Tyranny, to think about in relation to troll biology and their codependency on other species. 

I think in some ways this is pretty easily explained. If we take the idea of the trolls being akin to insects, then we have to consider all the different types of insects there are, and their subsections. Bees, for instance. Bees aren’t just “bees”; you have the Queen bee, worker bees, drone bees, and a likely a lot more, though these three are the most important. In this example, the Queen bee is the Mother Grub; the origin of all trolls and related creatures whom all protect. The worker bees, being the ones that come from fertilised eggs, are the trolls; the drone bees, being the ones that come from unfertilised eggs, are the Imperial and Carpenter Drones. They are all part of the same species, in essence, but from different parts of that species. His Honourable Tyranny, I’m assuming, is something the same; a very large drone who became the figurehead of the legal system, and presides as judge over all the courts on Alternia. 

The lusii are a special case. They live in the same brooding caverns as the trolls are hatched in; the bond they formed is likely one of necessity, for trolls need guardians and the lusii need someone to look after them on the surface. I suppose you’d think of it as something akin to how cats domesticated themselves. I would assume before they formed this bond that trolls were simply raised a bit longer in the caverns by jadebloods before being thrust out into the unknown world alone. 

I would think, at this point, that the trolls likely could survive without the extra species. The Imperial Drones simply go out, collect the genetic material, and sometimes act as the Empress’ royal guard; this is something the trolls can do themselves. The same applies to lusii; though they’re definitely useful, they’re not particularly required, so long as the trolls were willing to try raising young troll once they’d pupated. The only true worry would be the Mother Grub; without her, there is absolutely no way the trolls can continue on their genetic line. 

So, to answer your question; it likely evolved like this out of necessity and leftover use for the other, less evolved aspects of their evolutionary line. Trolls, the Mother Grub, and Drones are all from one species, with all relying on each other for survival, though the trolls are the only ones to actively develop enough to build a functioning society as we know it. The trolls need the Mother Grub as their Queen to breed more trolls; the Mother Grub needs them for survival. The trolls need the Imperial Drones for breeding, the Mother Grub needs them for the same as well as protection, and the Drones need both for direction. It is an interconnecting society, in essence, despite how rapidly the trolls have evolved with Doc Scratch’s help. The lusii are completely through self domestication - either with or without the aid of Scratch. The trolls have someone to raise them, and the lusii have someone to look after them; it is a win-win situation, though one that could cause serious issues to the trolls should the lusii simply die out overnight. 

[ardenttheories]

istrige-namuose replied to your post “th4nkyoub3n replied to your post: “On Troll Biology”: ...”

Oh my god, I always thought that the misspelling was deliberate because "sburbtheory" was already taken.

Nope! It’s not even taken. I am just an idiot who, apparently, can’t spell theory. 

[ardenttheories]

istrige-namuose replied to your post “.  istrige-namuose replied to your post: “Honestly I should go back...”

...I actually meant the classpect posts; you kind of said you would return to them, then forgot they existed. And now, my name is associated with something I might not even be interested in.

I had a feeling what you meant, but I also had a deep desire to ramble about that theory, so. Congratulations! You are now forever associated with something you may not actually care about. I’m sure you’re thrilled.

In all seriousness though, I haven’t forgotten about the classpect posts. I’m both trying to remember where I got up to while fulfilling real life and online obligations I put off because of uni. Time that I’d like to spend on classpect posts is getting taken up by other things, and the truth of the matter is that the classpect posts do take an incredibly long time to write out; several hours at least, particularly considering that I need to do research beforehand so that I adequately understand the classpect in order to detail how it would act when True, Failed and Realised. 

This was also never meant to be exclusively a classpect blog; it is my theory blog, hence sburbtheory (or sburbtherory as been recently revealed). I had intended to just post the theory and move on, but the desire people have shown to understand what this theory means for each classpect is enough for me to have wanted to do more. 

I’m going to try and do some actual classpect work tomorrow. Since I’ve written up one theory today, I know roughly when the best time is to write these theories. I may have to fluctuate between blogs; instead of daily posting, as I would have liked for my classpect posts, it may be every other day. Or, I may try and hash out a few in one go, and queue them up in advance. It really depends on how I feel each day. 

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Well, people already use "Rule 63" to refer to genderswaps.

That works, although the term is a little too associated with 4chan for my liking.