#it's not that he's a different person as a horrorterror it's just an aspect of him he suppresses 99% of the time

[cloudbattrolls]

Sleep With One Eye Open

Notes: Vernrot belongs to @raitrolling! 

Thrixe Varzim || 11.5 sweeps || Vernrot || Present Night

It’s the night after you made it to Vernrot, threw that obnoxious cusp into the harbor, and slept over at Lusien’s hive. But you need to stay at a hotel the rest of the time; you won’t trespass on his hospitality like that. Plus, the more time you spend around him, the more risk he’ll see you as...never mind. You need to be practical, figure out which QPIN contacts need to be checked on, which trade channels might need extra muscle -

“Stop.”

Your fins twitch in recognition, despite your attempts to stop them. You know that hard feminine voice, and you wish you didn’t.

Slowly, to emphasize your complete lack of eagerness to talk to them, you turn to face the two women who’ve apparently followed you here. Unless you’re just that unlucky. 

Neither are tall, one olive and the other yellow. The yellowblood’s short horns are covered by her curly hair, her skin slightly darker than yours and her eyes serious above her grimly set mouth. The olive wears a grin that could seem innocently eager to a troll who’d never met her before, her short straight hair barely reaching past her large, round ears. Both are dressed simply in gray and black clothing, breath from their warmer bodies turning to fog in the cool air.

It was Zelist who spoke to you, and she does so again.

“It’s been long enough. You haven’t contacted us once since you left Derevnya. Our scout observed you coming here of all places. Why?”

You stare at her, annoyed even though you know you shouldn’t be. 

“What are you doing in this town if not pest control, Varzim?” Purrs the oliveblood, now holding a long, sharp knife coated in some sort of glistening substance.

You never much liked Marisa; you don’t think most trolls do, even in her cult. Maybe it’s something about how she always smells of the undead.

Sure enough, Zelist glares at her sharply. “Give him a chance to explain.” She says, voice hard, but her eyes are on you and her suspicion is plain.

“I’ve tried to fight the horrors here. I never made any progress. So I gave up; they’re not actively hurting people, at least. Vernrot is…” you wave a hand vaguely. “Stable. Even if it’s not the kind we’d like.”

“That’s complacent talk, Varzim.” Says Zelist, arms crossed. “You could’ve asked us for help.”

You give her a look, fins twitching as your mouth curls in disdain.

“You people don’t do subtlety. I didn’t want to attract attention.”

She shakes her head, gaze detached but disapproving like one of your proctors would’ve been and for a moment you feel a flicker of guilt. Maybe she’s right. Maybe you should have talked to them, asked them for help...

“We let ourselves be corrupted before, but things have changed. We keep an eye on the other cults now, regulate summonings and artifact use. Everything is getting better. We should be allies, Varzim. We have the same enemies.”

Are the horrorterrors here your enemies?

Of course they are. All horrorterrors are anathema to trollkind. Different faces of the same incomprehensible forces, unable to understand trolls or respect their wellbeing. Too strange and terrible to bargain with.

But the ones here didn’t attack you unless you did first, and when you apologized how Lusien suggested, they went away...

No, you still can’t trust them, you decide. Horrorterrors are always bad.

Still, you trust the blueblood even if he’s wrong. You trust him because he’s the best thing that ever happened to you. 

Even if it treats him badly, Lusien doesn’t want you to hurt Vernrot.

“Maybe we should work together.” You admit. “But I can’t attack this town. I mean, I’ve tried - I think if we threw more at it it would retaliate harder than we can hit. If we find a way to remove the horrorterrors here it can’t be with any collateral damage.”

You remember Sayamh, but push the memory away. He was too far gone to save, the undead wretch. He was better off as bullets.

Zelist purses her lips and Marisa laughs before speaking in her mocking tone.

“So soft you’ve become! I wonder why. Is it ‘the town’ or someone in particular? Something in particular?”

“How dare you.” You say softly, baring your fangs at her implication. “I would never be friendly with a horrorterror. I’m thinking of all the trolls here. None of them have any idea what’s happening! They wouldn’t understand what we were doing. They can’t see it even when it’s in front of their faces.”

Except one, forced to witness it alone as everyone thought he was insane. 

“Then they’re better off purged anyway.” retorts the yellowblood dismissively. “If they’re so oblivious, they could enable the forces here by accident and let something out. The risk isn’t worth it. So help us, Varzim, prove all our suspicions are baseless. This can be easy and straightforward. We can all go hive happy.”

She holds out a hand to you, eyebrows raised.

You believe her. The lowblood is a lot of things, but unlike the olive she’s a woman of her word. She’s practical. Her goals make sense.

You shake your head anyway.

“No. You’re going to fail and this isn’t my fight. I’ll find other terrors to destroy.”

Zelist and Marisa exchange a look, and with a sigh, the yellow hands the green some caegers. The latter pockets them, smug as a satisfied meowbeast.

“Don’t bet against me.” Purrs the higher caste. “I told you when he didn’t cull that possessed cusp it was clear where his loyalties lay.”

Your fins flick in surprise. They know about the scientist? 

“I’d hoped he’d have a good explanation.” Zelist retorts acerbically. “Clearly I was wrong.”

Marisa raises her knife and you knock it out of her hand, so quick that -

You’ve been stabbed.

“Such a simple trick to fall for.” She whispers, and her other hand withdraws a long, serrated blade covered in violet blood that wasn’t there a moment ago.

You try to kick her. Your body doesn’t move. The blood seems to drip off the metal in slow motion as you find you can barely even breathe, frozen in place with outstretched arms. The damp air is cold on your wound, which...isn’t closing.

Your wound isn’t closing.

Zelist shakes her head, and raises her hand to make a short signal. Dozens of other trolls come out, completely covered up in body armor, nets in their hands. 

Your wound bleeds freely, staining your body armor, staining your new shirt.

The trolls close in, nets crackling with energy.

No. No. No. No.

The nets surround you, wrapping you up in a hopeless tangle as they shock you, and your wound isn’t closing - 

You can’t speak. Can’t regrow. Can’t do anything.

Then you remember what you practiced with Teagan, what seems like a million sweeps ago now.

You take their minds. Despite the temptation, you don’t attack like you did with the indigo who threatened Lonnen. You only make them set you free, back off, leave this place and forget what happened, forget the cult itself; you grow new pathways in their minds, wiping away the old.

Breathing heavily once free of the nets, you turn to the pair of women who stare at you, whatever Marisa did having worn off or been purged by your body. Zelist is slack-jawed in amazement while Marisa exhibits a surprised sort of hunger, leaning forward slightly while still holding her blood-covered knife.

“Listen to me.” You say - snarl, really, despite straining yourself to sound civil. “I don’t want to fight you. But I will if I have to. This town is mine.”

Silence reigns for a few moments as the wind blows, bringing the scent of salt and fish.

“Since when could you do that, Varzim?” asks the yellowblood quietly. “You didn’t have that power when you fought the Siren.”

“I didn’t.” You agree. “I’ve learned more about my abilities since then. None of which I feel like sharing with you.” You remark, dry. 

You give them a wry smile with a great deal of sharp seadweller teeth. 

“Something about being stabbed and manhandled has put me in an antisocial mood. We’re done here. Go, before I make you leave.”

The two exchange another look. 

Then Zelist pulls out a gun that reminds you uncomfortably of Sochet’s. The runes, the metal, the make...they’re almost twins, but this one is far newer. 

You duck as a bullet whistles over your head, and you can feel it’s like the ones Sayamh died for - horrorterror essence turned against its source, anathema to your very existence. You pull out your own gun, shooting to keep her and Marisa - damn olive stabbing at you - back.

You fend off both of them, letting your training take over, and get up close to Zelist, knocking the gun out of her hands - even that hurts, making you shudder down to your core.

Then Marisa shoots you in the back and you feel yourself...melt.

Your existence starts to break down, your very presence in reality degrading.

But you can regenerate again.

As the bullet is flung back at its owner, as your monstrous nature takes over and you grow jaws and eyes, tentacles and tendrils growing as your choir of voices sings of victory, of growing unrestrained by troll shape, you struggle against it, but perhaps not as hard as you should.

Trolls warp into nonsense masses of flesh in your sight.

You sing in confusion. In fear. In joy. What odd creatures!

You sing unbothered by what your own flesh just went through, but the whispers of the others grate on you. An irritant, itching at your growth. 

So you raise your voice to drown them out. 

[lordterrax]

Lightbound

Aside from what Andrew Hussie wrote, and what I wrote on my LordOfClasspect blog about lightbound. There is something I wanted to go further into detail about that is pretty evidently clear in all examples of Lightbound that I think is pretty interesting.

So basically, aside from knowledge Lightbound are marked by an extreme challenge with Morality. Hussie describes that lightbound tend to find loopholes around the rules. This generally works out for them but it becomes a problem in that they often times end up with a distorted or grey perspective of morality, which leads into a tendency that when they do Wrong, they are explicitly Evil and marked by a curse.

Rose Lalonde tried to loophole the game Sburb, and in the process directly destroyed the game's architecture and doomed the entire session even for her friends. Nearly casting them all out into the Void to be eaten by the horrorterrors. Whether explicit or implicit she became the villain defacto. Even her alcoholism in general signifies that she doesn't care enough to recognize that even her seemingly lowly necessary Seer title was absolutely critical and responsible for the success and wellbeing of not just herself but her friends as well. Similar to Dirk's darkest bout of negligence towards his friends but more direct, straightforward and exact.

Vriska snapped the spine of an innocent and continues on destiny's path as if she will face no consequences. Constantly hijacks the plot and spotlight regardless of whether this is actually optimal or not. Her best character development came when she was humble and beating herself up as an inverted expression of her role. Then she could face up to her direct fault and flaws.

Aranae becomes so selfish she will literally doom another version of herself to do it, trying to make herself Alpha by force. In the process she disrupts both Jake and Dirk, Jake in a fundamental way and makes it clear she has no qualms with hurting Dirk to get what she wants. She goes from an extremely patient and kind being to one of impatience and grey morality.

Outside of Homestuck Canon, you have Rick Sanchez, who is an apt example to bring wider representation. As Rick Sanchez is a Lord of Light. Recently it was revealed in a canonical short written by Justin Roiland that Rick is in fact Morty. Rick hands Morty a potion saying that it's from excretions from the memory parasite in season 2, and that it will turn Morty into Rip Van Winkle. He also overlaps his reflection with Morty's face, and points saying "Rick Sanchez". Thus it's officially confirmed Morty is Rick, and the implications and realizations for what this means are endless.

For one, it puts things in perspective. Throughout the entire show Rick and Morty's stories run right alongside each other. And it clearly paints a contrast and shows the way the world works for Morty compared to how it works for Rick. There's also countless references and scenes that completely change context if you realize they are actually synchronized time events synchronizing Rick and Morty in a way that makes it plainly clear that due to Time Shenanigans, everything Morty does and goes through influences and changes Rick's character, memory, etc. So much so to the point that it's obvious everything Morty does IS Rick's actual back story, and Rick "already did it" before, as it's defined when Morty does it for the first time.

The realization is clear. Morty is bullied, is dumber than others around him, and struggles hard to keep up with others. Somewhere along the line, originally, Morty just shifted into prop comedy and entertainment like his father Jerry, before eventually getting into Science and realizing that the mathematical, concrete, and absolute nature of Science played really well with his Asperger Syndrome. He then at some point invents a portal gun, and explores the universe. At some point he flies under the alias Rick Sanchez, which in the real world is a notorious alias for people needing a fake identity especially people who have done so many crimes they can never get clean.

Rick and Morty are so opposite it's not even funny. Yet that's what makes this so obvious. Somewhere along the way Morty has an Ego Death because of how the universe treats him, and he evolves into everything he wasn't. This is why Rick suffers and explains his absolutely nihilistic and cynical view of the world. Because as Morty he learned the hard way that the universe does not care about you, does not play fair, and will just keep pushing and pushing with no limit. Eventually he just snapped and flipped it around so at least he always wins.

Now the relevance here is astounding. As Morty he was a Muse of Void. Inspiring the Void but in a Blackwing way. Morty seems innocent and harmless and like the Hero, but his actions always invariably lead to suffering, death, and evil. Evil Morty is predominated Morty and makes it clear that Morty is just in all ways inherently Evil and Destructive, but in a Passive way. Rick in contrast may contradictingly claim he doesn't care, thinks morality is bullshit, and does things which are morally fucked up. But inversely when challenged by the Devil, has a special passion for wiping him in the dust. Meanwhile even his worst acts which seem on the surface to be so reprehensible that they are unforgivable, what we are shown are things which with a good enough reason to balance it out, actually makes him a Savior.

It's actually Morty who is contradictory. Void is ambivalent and while Voidbound have half Light in them, Morty is the one who is ambivalent when it really matters and doesn't actually care when he absolutely should. Only to challenge Rick's authority and to rebel does Morty act like he's the good guy that really cares. Needless to say if we read the entire story a different way, Rick was inverted originally. As a single entity he became Light more and more over time, but it was a long process of trial and error. In the process to becoming the All Powerful Rick, Morty carries a lot of Moral Baggage. Every Rick has done something virtually ubforgiveable but continues moving through the universe running on as much borrowed time as he can get. Not really deserving everything he has and is but continues on anyways. Changing the Rick and Morty story in a very keen way if you view it as 1 continuous character both ways. Making Rick appear more like Vriska.

Basically if we view it as 1 singular and linear storyline. Then Rick is trying to run along after doing whatever evil and trying to escape the very consequences he created in the process. Nevermind that Morty gaining so much knowledge and changing personality so radically has warped his perception of everything so radically. That he can hardly tell right from wrong, and has no sense of what he is or isn't allowed to do. And technically he has the power to back it up. So much so it's hinted throughout the show of how Morty would have abused his science to do things for his own personal gain. Fridge Horror stuff.

The point is this is a perfect example of what I mean about Lightbound. Even Thor from Marvel Avengers has the fact that his family has a history of Genocide, and it's in his own veins as much as it was in his father's.

Lightbound embody the aspect of Perfection and Holiness. But as it has become obvious this has to be a story of a flawed mortal BECOMING the epitome of this... And God/The Universe is so forgiving and encompassing that nobody said you couldn't break a few eggs to make an omelet. What matters is where you end up/the destination/your intended goal.

Lightbound may mess up more than others, and in vastly worse ways than other Bound. But they succeed more than others do, and go farther.

[ceescedasticity]

a terrible, terrible idea I will not be finishing

TMA SBURB session scenario

The setup is that somehow, one of the current main character survivors finds out about SBURB, and comes up with an outlandish plan to force a session and drag the fears into the Incipisphere, thus leaving Earth to return to its original state. Pretend this is a feasible plan. Pretend it comes with a good plan to keep the Reckoning from destroying Earth immediately after it's restored.

The fears aren't going to be naturally inclined to go to the Incipisphere. It has a very low population — I'd be surprised if carapacians and consorts together topped a hundred thousand, though if you count underlings that's probably at least doubled — and even setting that aside some fears are just not well-represented. It's a very sterile place. So, the plan is to fill the "player" positions with people who can provide anchors for the fears and drag them into the Incipisphere, too. Pretend this makes sense.

(That puts us at over twelve players in a session, so I'll be using some original classes and aspects.)

The necessary qualifications for "players" are that they (1) are well-marked but not overwhelmed, (2) can be convinced to cooperate, and (3) are… accessible. Obviously live people are most accessible, but most live people are either overwhelmed and most of the rest are Avatars who are… actually they could also be described as overwhelmed, just in a different way. And the Incipisphere does have that little "dreamself" mechanism, so if they (read: Jon) have a sufficient... trace on a person (read: direct statement, Archive contract, accumulation of indirect statements, or some weird stuff), they can toss them straight into their dreamself, thus reviving them, possibly closer to human than they were before. (Or possibly creating a functionally identical copy. Hopefully no one asks.) Pretend this makes sense, too.

(They didn't attempt to exert any control over which moon people got, or which 'role'.)

Also benefiting from a dreamself: Jon, who barely survived the gross overextension of his powers figuring out how to do this and pulling in the "players" but just dropped upon entering the actual Incipisphere. He's now definitely in pre-coma condition and possibly even more regressed; he's been too disoriented to do much experimenting.

Melanie agreed to be the primary anchor for Slaughter because it's one of the stronger fears in the Incipisphere (the Battlefield and Prospit-Derse war in general mean the carapacians tend to be a good source for it) so they need someone trustworthy in the position. She's monitoring herself VERY carefully. She's also a secondary anchor for Beholding, but there's not any shortage there anyway. Her role according to the Incipisphere is Mage of Breath, Prospit dreamer, Land of Reeds and Whistles.

Georgie can't really anchor anything but End. Which is fine because it's also a fear native to the Incipisphere, and the only one that's a conceivable flight risk since the horrorterrors aren't afraid of anything else. Her mythological role is Sylph of Time, Derse dreamer, Land of Knells and Echoes.

Martin is the primary anchor for the Extinction, which may be a bit player as far as the entities are concerned but which is deeply engraved in the Incipisphere what with the Reckoning and everything. He's a secondary anchor for the Lonely as well as Beholding. His role is Rogue of Blood, Prospit dreamer, Land of Smoke and Craters.

Jon is the primary anchor for Beholding and a secondary anchor for pretty much everything else. (Beholding isn't a major concern for the Incipisphere's natives, but it's a potential issue for players, depending on their awareness.) He hasn't been needing statements, which he hopes is because he's regressed past the need for them, but which is actually because his Aspect is standing in for them. His role is Prince of Light, Prospit dreamer, Land of Sand and Searchlights.

Basira is the primary anchor for the Dark (since Beholding is taken). It's of middling strength, more than Beholding but much less than Slaughter or End; you get some Prospitians and consorts scared of the dark, but usually it's the least of everyone's worries. Her role is Maid of Mind, Prospit dreamer, Land of Pitch and Frames.

Annabelle Cane probably would agree to participate, but no one trusts either her or their own ability to manage her. Mikaele Salesa wouldn't want to interrupt his retirement, and if coerced he might sabotage things. Uh… that Jordan Kennedy ECDC fellow still seemed to have his head on fairly straight, right? He can anchor Corruption. (All of Corruption's strength in the Incipisphere is built on Dersite revulsion for amphibians.) His role is Page of Fire, Derse dreamer, Land of Toads and Hellbenders. (Did I mention how reliant Corruption is on Dersites and amphibians just now.)

At this point we have exhausted our living candidates. So: cast some dead people as players, force their dreamselves to form, maybe give them a nightmare about the post-Change world so they understand what's at stake, and wake them up.

The remaining fears that are really seriously strong in the Incipisphere are the Hunt (players hunt underlings hunt consorts) and the Desolation (meteors and RED MILES).

The Hunt goes to Daisy, who has been rebooted to mostly human in her dreamself and is unsurprisingly very shaken up about everything, but at least she knew about the Change (though she doesn't remember clearly). She's a secondary anchor for both Buried and Beholding. Her role is Haunt of Heart, Prospit dreamer, Land of Tracks and Traces.

Desolation goes to Tim, who is... not thrilled to be alive and conscripted again. He's somewhat mollified by it at least DEFINITELY not being more of the SAME bullshit. He's a secondary anchor for Beholding and Stranger. His role is Heir of Rage, Prospit dreamer, Land of Stone and Ashes. (He really likes the sound of Heir of Rage but isn't about to admit it.)

Stranger goes to Sasha, who is having an odd time of it. A lot of the background information everyone else knows already is new to her, and bringing her up to speed is extra work, but Jon and Martin were feeling sentimental and everyone agreed she'd be a stabilizing influence on Tim. She has MOST of her memories. People have MOST of their memories of her. (The Stranger isn't particularly strong in the Incipisphere because the locals are predisposed to accept any kind of weirdness from players without being bothered. Everything is familiar to them, no matter how strange it should seem.) She's a secondary anchor for Beholding and Spiral. Sasha's role is Clerk of Doom, Prospit dreamer, Land of Masks and Music.

Since the game prefers an even number of players, and it's already established the fourteen/fifteen don't REALLY cover everything, it's more complicated than that, maybe include an anchor for 'Unclassifiable'. Give that one to Gerry. (Jon can't decide whether he should feel guilty about this; Gerry wanted an end, but this definitely isn't life as a book.) (For his part Gerry is in 'this might as well happen' mode.) Gerry's role is Knight of Grief, Derse dreamer, Land of Tomes and Boxes.

The Incipisphere's natives aren't automatically AWARE of being steered, but they are; players always have their options restricted by alpha timeline bullshit; this particular group of players mostly got thrown into it without asking them so may be even more aware of their lack of control. All of which is to say the Web is not particularly weak and they need a trustworthy anchor. They settled on Gertrude and still aren't sure whether it was a good idea. What she thinks of it she isn't saying. Her role is Seer of Space, Prospit dreamer, Land of Webs and Frogs.

To everyone's surprise, Gertrude apparently came with a bonus Agnes. Possibly because they were leaning on her Web connections? Who knows? They set her to anchor Lonely, because even though she never had room for any marks but Desolation before she was definitely lowercase-L lonely. Agnes's role is Witch of Void, Derse dreamer, Land of Smog and Drizzle.

(At this point someone finally figures out lunar alignment is apparently being determined by whether someone has ever signed a contract with the Archives.)

The Vast goes to Adelard Dekker. Vast isn't among the strongest of the entities in the Incipisphere, but there's space involved and theoretically an entire universe, so it has definite potential and needs to be anchored by someone who won't go out of control with it. Adelard's role is Count of Hope, Derse dreamer, Land of Stars and Stairs.

That just leaves Buried, Flesh, and Spiral. None of them are particularly strong in the Incipisphere — you might think the Spiral would be, but SBURB does have its own rules.

For the Spiral, the main thing is they don't want the Distortion. They could try for non-Distortion Helen Richardson, or even non-Distortion Michael Shelley, but if something went wrong then they'd have the Distortion alive again and who knows what would happen. So… uh… hmmm… Oh, Mike Crew had a prolonged Spiral problem! He might not be very happy with the because of… everything, but he could probably be talked into cooperating for his own benefit, right? So he's reluctantly anchoring Spiral, because it's supposed to be temporary, he wants to live, and at least that stupid Lichtenberg figure hasn't showed up. He's also more human than he's used to. His role is Bard of Stone, Derse dreamer, Land of Mazes and Ravines.

And as long as they're giving second chances to dead avatars who probably don't deserve them but who did start out as traumatized children, what about Julia Montauk? She could maybe anchor the Flesh — there were those beating hearts in the shed, and she probably ran into more while Hunting… Okay, Flesh. She's not super happy about the Flesh thing but is more disoriented by being much less Hunter than she has been in years. Her role is Ghoul of Life, Derse dreamer, Land of Ribs and Regrowth.

And finally… okay, they're going to throw Buried at Jurgen Leitner. He's probably marked by about everything, and he was "buried" in the tunnels for years. It's fine. His role is Thief of Strange, Derse dreamer, Land of Pits and Dust.

How does it all turn out in the end? Who knows. Almost certainly no worse than canon will.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Struggle and Growth Patterns of the Classes in Homestuck

This came from person asking me what I considered to be the personal struggle of growth for Mages and Seers, since compared to the other classes, their function, Understanding, is non physical in nature compared to the other classes

And the struggles I have for them right now are more environmental rather than internal like the others. That’s very true, and also I haven't really re-looked at those classes in quite a while, more than a few years in fact.

It’s also not incorrect to say Seer/Mage are kind of a blindspot for me, being a Change class, it would be the thing I inherently understand the least, so I should put a bit more thought into it than the others and really hash it out

So! I decided to see if I could find an overall pattern between the supposed struggles of each class (Just the Main 12 tho, not Lord/Muse, didn't wanna over muddle differing factors yet) and I'm actually pretty pleased with what I got:

SO:

Actives in general, don’t struggle with using the flashy powers themselves, they struggle with situations where their power isn't the solution to their current problem OR finding out where their power is actually meant to be used.

Princes aren’t bad at destruction, they’re bad at not getting caught up in their own destruction/bad at reeling it in/directing its flow exactly where its needed, bad at being too destructive even or too heavy handed/scorched earth policy

Witches aren’t bad at change, they struggle with knowing when and where and why something should change at all, it's a very on the nose direct moral struggle

Knights aren’t bad at applying their powers, they’re very skilled, they’re just bad at recognizing when their skill isn’t the solution for their current problem (so they frantically keep trying the same thing over n over again and question why they haven’t found the solution yet)

Thieves arent bad at stealing, but they do struggle with situations where they need to give instead of take, sharing is caring

Maids arent bad at creating, but they do struggle with the internal decision of what they want to create/what kind of person to shape themselves into and perhaps struggle to take that first step at all

So in general, Actives have all the skills and tools at their disposal, their direct struggles in the exact things they want to do with their chosen skillsets and why and when and where etc

All of the Talent, none of the Motivation.

THEN:

Passives in general, DO struggle with the powers themselves at first and the ability to use them, and their growth is about perfecting that chosen skillset and about finding confidence in that skillset to use it to the greatest ability.

Bards struggle in avoidance of their power, their aspect overwhelms them at first, until they’ve ridden the wave, got a handle on things, and now they can destroy with a skilled and subtle confident finesse

Heirs struggle with change, they're comfortable, complacent, they like things to stay where they are, and they need to learn how to move on and not get stuck in a rut, to deal with change, and again, learn to ride the wave and be comfortable and use it, and then their skill with it grows.

Pages I don’t think i even need to say it, do I? They start out at point 0 completely inept in their powers, but through stubborn determination and constant practice they become masters of their craft

Rogues aren’t confident in their powers, or their ability to BE confident and take something by the horns, so they end up passing the buck over to someone they believe is more capable, (even if they’re not) So their journey is about becoming confident, that they are capable enough to handle what lemons life gives them

Sylphs also can struggle with their skills of creation, even though they tend to be very scrutinous of their chosen aspects. They're outwardly confident in their chosen aspects, will talk at length about their ideas as if it were gospel, and do have a tinge of thinking they’re clearly the person for the job when it comes to creative endeavors, but that confidence can blind them to where their skills actually fail or aren’t up to par. Aranea is the great example there. But also Kanaya wasn’t immune to overlooking concerns and failing in areas as well. But once they have been proven wrong, or, if they make sure to keep an eye out for their own failings and work on them, thats when their skills are truly honed.

So in general, Passives know exactly what they want to do with their chosen skills, and might even firmly believe they’re already at the necessary skill level to achieve their goals, but lack the actual level of skill necessary to achieve those goals

All of the Motivation, None of the Talent.

FINALLY:

What does the above imply for Mage and Seer?

Well, going by the pattern:

Active Knowledge Classes aren’t bad at knowing things, in fact, they’re really frigging good at it. So their challenge is figuring out where their knowledge... isn’t actually useful. So instead they struggle with recognizing when they DON’T actually have the answer. When an unknown catches them off guard or when their idea doesn’t work how they think it should. Their struggle is to admit when they might be wrong, when they’re not an expert on everything, and then to pass the buck to someone who DOES actually know.

case in point, Sollux was great and seemed to have all of the answers... up into the point where they finally reached their Doomed point that he predicted, after that, he struggled with knowing whats to come next and kinda gave up on trying to know at all. Since the answer just wasn’t immediately obvious to him. 

Meulin would similarly be at a loss if someone were have a different personality than the one she assumes that they have. And this explains why she is so trusting of Kurloz, despite what he does to her, because she completely cant imagine him being like that, that info is something entirely off her radar. she isn’t wary of who Kurloz is because she KNOWS who Kurloz is, she’s so intimate and close to him, also, she knows who everyone is, duh (in her own mind)

Mages: Good at being Correct, Bad at being Incorrect.

Passive Knowledge Classes then struggle to understand, to learn, to know, but they are motivated by an endless curiosity. They WANT to know, or.. at least come off as if they DO know. A point 0 Seer might actually not be all that knowledgeable about something (!), but they struggle hard with admitting that they’re actually ignorant. So, they bluff. They use Pseudo-Knowledge like objects of divination, or secretly ask questions of authority figures for the answer, or even just straight up bluff and lie their way through things they don’t know to supplement this lack of real solid knowledge, like crutches, and may be at a loss if those crutches are taken away. So their struggle is to become knowledgeable in their own right, which involves removing those crutches, to stop bluffing, stop secretly relying on something else and admit when they need to really learn it instead.

case in point: Rose and Terezi are EXTREMELY good bluffers. Kankri is also that (and just straight up an idiot about a lot of stuff). And all three are way too proud to admit when they don’t actually know something (at least in the beginning). They have the poker faces of a champ. And were extremely good at using what they knew of their aspect powers, to supplement knowledge that they didn’t know themselves. This has actually become much clearer now that we see Rose kinda removed from her main crutches, no more authority like doc scratch or skaia or horrorterrors to ask she is the adult now, no more light aspect seeing the most fortunate path for her. Now shes gotta know stuff on her own by herself, and figure things out on her own and shes doing really good! Terezi’s also struggled immensely with really knowing if she made the right choices at times, and you could consider her coin flip habit both a bluff and a crutch that she was very good at using

Because, if you split the timeline so that every possible answer to your question occurs, one of them has to be the right one, doesn’t it? And shes also doing much better nowadays too. Kankri did not unfortunately lol

Seers: Good at being Incorrect, Bad at being Correct.

TL;DR The thing with Mages and Seers is that your actually just a bunch of dumbdumbs and you don’t know it

(I kid, you guys are smart at smart things, but your dumb at dumb things too lol)

[autumnblogs]

Day 18: Engineering our own misfortune

https://homestuck.com/story/2939

It never occurred to me until now that being betrayed by Jack Noir, the first person to accept him for who he is in a sense, is probably a signifcant part of the reason why Karkat is so angry. It’s probably ironic that the Blood Player’s relationships all have a tendency to disintegrate. Poor guy.

All but one of Karkat’s coplayers will either die, betray him, abandon him, or break up with him before the adventure is over.

More after the break. CW: This one has some suicide mentions in it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2950

WV and the other Carapacians may have some instinctive level of awareness of the players’ classes and aspects - while their legend is ensconced in Carapacian Lore, WV instantly senses the narrative presence of the Thief of Light.

https://homestuck.com/story/2960

Now here is something interesting. I just picked up on it, even though it has actually been present all throughout - when the Narrative addresses WV, it addresses him with information he almost certainly could not know - in a call and response fashion! While he’s jumping from one thought to another in terms of John’s different correspondents, the way that he phrases his dialogue suggests that he is aware of what the Narrative is addressing him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2962

And by all accounts, what he is viewing here is not the literal material events as they unfold, he’s literally looking at the same panels we are.

https://homestuck.com/story/2974

Vriska’s gloating here has always given me chills. It’s in moments like these that she really shines as not just a bully but an authentic diabolical mastermind who is, at least at this point in the story, utterly indifferent to the lives of other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2975

Vriska’s external locus of control excuses her of feeling guilty about creating Bec Noir. While she is 100% responsible for it, that doesn’t mean, in her mind, that she should suffer any consequences for it (although she’s perfectly happy to take the credit for creating him, it seems.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2992

I’ve always thought that the Dream Bubbles were an extremely cool plot contrivance - semantically linking memories together with dreams and death is a really cool bit of linking.

https://homestuck.com/story/3008

Just as Jade has had effectively no parent to help her find her way in life, she will now have to suffer a sprite who cannot give her advice either. She remains alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/3010

Bec, to a greater degree than perhaps even the Seers, is directly cognizant of interruptions by Command Prompts.

https://homestuck.com/story/3017

I’m starting to be able to actually pick up the themes of the whole Exile plotline.

It seems, in general, to be a parable on power and authority, with each of the Exiles representing one kind or another. You’ve got WV who aspires to be first among equals, democratically elected, a community leader and organizer.

You’ve got the White Queen, who fits classical tropes related to the Good Monarch, a symbolic authority.

You’ve got the Peregrine Mendicant, whose take on governmental duty is more that of a functionary - her self-concept is as someone who does what is needed.

And then you’ve got the Aimless Renegade, who, as a Mad Max Type wasteland cop, could be read as either a playful parody of eighties and nineties copaganda, or as a criticism of copaganda, or both - government as the State, an enforcer of constructed order.

Of all of them, it’s clear that WV and PM’s takes on power are the most useful. The White King and Queen are quickly slaughtered once Jack arrives, because without their magical mcguffins, they remain little more than walking talking symbols.

AR is an interesting case though, because his defining character moment is that he hesitates to follow his orders, and while it could be argued that everything that ensues is his fault for not being stone cold enough to do what needs to be done, I’d argue that his hesitation is admirable - Jack escapes to live another day, and the Mayor survives. The Mayor’s infectious compassion ultimately saves his own life through the AR’s refusal to let him die by destroying the command stations in Cascade, because AR is not willing to trade lives.

https://homestuck.com/story/3040

I’ve never been entirely clear on whether the Dark Gods should be considered evil or simply incomprehensible, morally uncategorizable - in any case, the unique nature of the Kids’ session seems to preclude an ordinary relationship with them. By all accounts they also seem perfectly happy to help Rose create the Green Sun as well, sowing the seeds that will grow into Lord English, their own murderer.

Whatever they’re up to is extremely unclear, and they mostly seem to be a wildcard. I’ll have to see if any of my Homestuck chums have thoughts about the Horrorterrors. With the exception of the Dream Bubbles and their ability to facilitate interaction between the living and the Dead, talking to the Horrorterrors seems to be at best an exercise in facilitating inevitable misfortune - they seem to be all but completely useless.

I suppose learning how to navigate the furthest ring comes in handy exactly once, since it enables the kids to fly to the Alpha’s universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/3043

Rose’s pessimistic dissatisfaction manifests in two ways during this conversation - the first is her contemplation of self-destruction. Along with her suicide mission, one of the very first things she mentions about Doc Scratch is that he wants to die - which clearly fascinates her. The other thing is that, suspicious of the version of truth that Skaia presents, and lacking an anchor, she is very easily swayed by characters who offer her an alternative truth.

https://homestuck.com/story/3045

It has just occurred to me that while Rose doesn’t do anything directly to harm her co-players the way that Vriska does, the main actual thing that they have in common, that I was having a hard time putting my finger on, is actually another parallel between the two of them and Aradia - by allowing themselves to be manipulated by forces of evil beyond human comprehension - Doc Scratch in particular - Rose and Vriska both make manifest all sorts of misfortune. In Aradia’s case, it’s her continuous manipulation by the voices of the dead.

Both of them create nearly all of their own problems, and while they’re at it, create immense amounts of suffering from other people who happen to be in the vicinity. And, according to the rules of the Alpha Timeline, both of them therefore give their assent to their misfortune. The Alpha Timeline is, of course, the same as the Glub Glub trap - if you refuse to participate, you are destroyed, but participation is horrible.

https://homestuck.com/story/3055

Couple things.

The first and most obvious is;

Monkey see, Monkey do.

We’re starting to see the fallout of Vriska’s attempts to acculturate Tavros - she’s tried to force a square peg into a round hole, and has had no luck. Tavros doesn’t fit her vision of an ideal troll, and he never will; that’s not the kind of person that he is.

The use of the word hero is what’s important here. Notice especially the way that he draws a line from physical fitness and personal worth - the ability to do important things that you want to do has become Tavros’ idea of how to self-actualize. He has internalized Vriska’s toxic ideas.

The other thing is that while Grandpa may not have literally committed suicide, but he is clearly emotionally checked out of life - playing Indiana Jones when he’s away from home, and interacting with fantasy women at his tea party, instead of engaging with his real life granddaughter.

Suicide’s a touchy subject, one which Homestuck touches on. As I’ve already said, I’m not going to touch on the Epilogues or HS^2, both of which also touch on the subject. It’s not a central theme, I don’t think, although either killing themselves or waiting around to die recur multiple times as possibilities in the minds of different characters, particularly the Lalondes and Striders. I’ll have more to say about each individual instance, but in both the insincere threat of suicide Rose uses in her early strife, and here in Act 5, the act of self-destruction is not motivated by despair, but by spite - for Rose, self-destruction would be an act to spite someone else who wants her to exist.

Grandpa Harley’s complete emotional absence from the life of his loved ones might be called a bit of emotional suicide. Checked out of personal reality completely to pursue a life of fantasy (and to facilitate Sburb), Grandpa Harley may as well have been dead from Jade’s perspective, even before he died.

https://homestuck.com/story/3056

The link between being a Hero Coolguy and Romantic (Reproductive) Success is drawn very neatly by Tavros, but because the premise is false, the conclusion is also false.

https://homestuck.com/story/3059

Vriska immediately calls attention to the way Tavros is parroting her behavior because of her influence - without all of the chest-beating and saber-rattling that Vriska does, the skillfully executed showmanship of being aloof and confident, there’s not that much difference between what Tavros tried to pull just now, and what Vriska has always done - even repeating her romantic faux-pas.

https://homestuck.com/story/3078

And we’ll pause here, before I get to another walkaround, which I will do tomorrow.

Not a lot that inspired me to talk in the 150 or so pages I got today. Lots of action in Act 5, but less emotional meat to dig into.

For now, it’s Cam signing off, alive but not alone.

[bladekindeyewear]

Book Commentary on Inversion Theory

Alright, as a follow-up to this post, it looks like there’s an actual full bit of Homestuck book commentary (around the pages nearing Rose’s grimdark transformation, Book 6 pg 115, HS pg 3305, thanks @ramiedersedreamer and @zandraxofnebulon) about how Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) isn’t what we thought.  Quoting and reading it first (not the whole reddit post but that portion at least), then discussion under the cut:

"Rose is a Light player, but her blackout effects result from arguably the nadir of her role as such a hero--that is, when she succumbs to Scratch's manipulations and other eldritch persuasions, and goes grimdark. This truth would appear to lend credence to a line of classpect thinking known as "inversion theory," which really isn't without its merits. This note has just gone to the bother of describing one of its merits, in fact. However, it is possible to get carried away with this line of thinking and use it to evaluate everything that happens in Homestuck. For instance, you could say "Well, Karkat is a Blood hero, and here's where he stops being as Karkatty as usual, so that means he's being the opposite of his aspect. Which means he's being Breathy instead of Bloody. So that means a bunch of other stuff, ipso facto, Homestuck has been EXPLAINED." That's not really the way all this works. Aspect lore runs deep, but it isn't the Rosetta Stone to the story. When in doubt, it's better to remember this: rather than an underlying mystical logic where all classpect roads lead to Deep Answers, HS is a comprehensive nexus of many themes, and all roads lead to the basic idea that this is a tale about kids who are trapped in the universal struggle associated with growing up."

I... hm.  Dammit.  Is that all he wrote??  This slippery author is a master of giving us tantalizing and insightful details without committing to any hard yes-or-no whatsoever.  >:T

I’d been building myself up to reading this all throughout yesterday with gut-wrenching dread that at this late, late, late hour he’d finally given us a definitive “NO” on Inversion.  Instead we get this quite interesting but more vague “eh, there’s merits, but don’t go too far with it”.  Which is...... 

...about as potentially-optimistic as I put it in the previous post, if not moreso?

Andrew’s being careful to lavish odd praise on inversion theory, too.  Which some people are going to interpret as (Option 1) “Nice try, but dead wrong”, like the anon who put a snippet in my inbox initially, and others will interpret as (Option 2) “The big ones are RIGHT, nudge nudge, but stop applying it everywhere cause the fans who say every line of the comic means ‘ghosting inversion’ are looking at the story wrong and annoying everyone”.

As someone guilty of being one of those fans described in the latter half on occasion, I can CERTAINLY agree with THAT last part.  Andrew made it really clear with the ending of Homestuck proper -- “this side shit didn’t matter as much as you thought it did”.  I was so enamored with the classpect system that I thought almost everything was being shown to us through those lenses, at one point -- but even though perhaps more than the random reader might have thought is there, like he says, it ain’t supposed to be no Rosetta Stone.  Even when I WAS overapplying classpect everywhere, the people who did it too often in places I felt clearly un-merited REALLY pissed me off!  I can’t imagine how much more that might’ve been magnified in the shoes of someone who happened to apply the correct, lower amount of classpect and had to put up with me babbling and slathering it everywhere, much less the author’s shoes.

But there is still a big hole in his criticism, one he intentionally seems to have left there to me.  By saying “don’t look for it everywhere”, but ALSO that “there’s more than some merit to it”... I don’t think it’s a stretch to think the truth might not only be somewhere in between Options 1 and 2, but perhaps even closer to Option 2.

Aaaand HERE’s where if you’re someone who HUNGERED for me to admit wrongdoing by sticking with this theory for so long, you’re no doubt angry.  Looking at me as making excuses in the face of this long-awaited OBJECTIVE PROOF OF TOTAL THEORY DISMISSAL... WHY won’t the deluded bastard FINALLY succumb to REASON?  ANDREW HIMSELF spoke up on the issue, IS THIS NOT ENOUGH?!???

And, well... you’re right to be angry.  To be honest, I’m a fair bit pissed off too -- I could’ve used a solid “NO”, traumatizing as it would’ve been to me!

But that’s not what we got, because... *rolls eyes @ author* ...that’s not how Andrew works nowadays.  And as irritating as it is, I also have to respect it a bit.

Andrew has become pretty committed to not full-on table-flipping fan interpretations and fanworks, avoiding forcing one “correct” interpretation (see: central struggle of HS^2 and the villains labeling divergence from canon at all as “bad”) because both interpretations should be rewarded.  If something is REALLY wrong and hurts objective appreciation of the lessons he wanted to portray in his comic, like people plastering Classpect everywhere to the exclusion of the story’s central canon-escaping themes, he’s willing to shut them down... but when it comes to effective-sounding interpretations of the comic that he possibly never intended but “could” have been what he intended?  He’s REALLY careful not to step on them!  Or even sometimes DISTINGUISH them from the ones that he DID intend, sometimes, to keep as many fan interpretations alive in our imaginations as possible.

Which, as someone who pins Inversion’s entire existence on the assertion that “Andrew deliberately intended this and it’s our DELUSION otherwise”, really pisses me off at times like this.  This is a theory hinged on the idea that Andrew had been deliberately hiding INCREDIBLY clever evidence throughout the comic for these intense thematic moves.  All the SYMBOLISM we thought was pointing to inversion would lose an incredible amount of its meaning if it were all an accident.  What about all that cool imagery in the Breath and Blood post?  Did any of THAT really mean what we thought it was there for, like between WV and PM?  Was any of it REAL?  Will we ever even get an ANSWER?  The answer is “no, we won’t”, because Andrew persists in this method of keeping his cards close to his chest even if he has to take them to the damn grave, cause he knows we’ll have more “fun” not knowing ‘em.  That considerate son of a bitch.  >:(

I’m serious -- it really does make me more than a little angry.  I really do wish he’d said more to show us where we’re off-course.

But HS^2 has brought us Terezi telling us that Mind and Heart are indeed opposites.  He MIGHT be holding onto the info because we may get it later in canon itself...

Meh.  I’ll try not to hope too hard.  And I’d better clarify what I actually believe, here:

My TL;DR thoughts on Andrew’s commentary up above are that when it comes to Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), he’s leaving room for some of the BIG events to have been right or almost right -- say, #1, maybe #2, and only POSSIBLY #3 or #4 -- while telling us to back off and cast SERIOUS DOUBT on stuff that could have more character-driven explanations, especially #5.

If there’s a seriously FUNDAMENTAL transformation in a character that isn’t fully explained by their character journey alone (as kids growing up), involves significant outside interference, and is reflected by countless visual cues, THEN we should want to see if Inversion Theory “has merit” in that sort of case -- while laying it up against other competing theories that account for external interference of a non-Inversion-related nature in their actions too.  Things like pre- and post-ascension Aradia or pre- and post-dreamdeath Jade seeming almost completely different characters?  Or Rose seemingly taken over by the Horrorterrors... only to do nothing to benefit them but throw her mainself at Jack and get killed so she’d be forced to ascend on the moon mission rather than God-tier-die?  I’d say Inversion is worth consideration and -- daresay -- worth believing in, in such cases.

And it still might all be wrong.  There are legitimate ways to read Andrew’s commentary above that would have people screaming that Inversion has been disproven, that the “merits” mentioned were just a nod of respect to the losing side that I’m completely overblowing.  But those seem to me like carefully ambiguous words from a carefully ambiguous man, and if there’s anyone to blame for their ambiguity, it’s Andrew.  Trust me; I don’t like it either.  He’s had plenty of practice saying things in a way that we CAN’T really draw many assumptions from.

Heck, even the Redditor transcribing this summarized their thoughts in a way that draws some assumptions I don’t believe are there:

Mostly I think it's just interesting that he's actually addressing Inversion Theory, and the gist is basically "it's a cool idea and has some merits, but the classpect system and story are not quite that formulaic." Sorry BKEW. At least we know Hussie has been paying attention to our wild theorizing.

--which is a rebuke drawn on the common interpretation that Inversion describes too “formulaic” a classpect system, especially with specific-class inversion like Seer <-> Witch and such.  But IS that what Andrew is saying? Andrew criticizes the overapplication of aspect theory in describing everyone’s actions page to page, but does that mean a quote-unquote “rigid” system (I’m not going to play out the old “specific-class-inversion-is-too-rigid” vs “youre missing the flexible potential a fixed system gives” arguments again) is ITSELF an overapplication of classpect to people’s actions and personalities? Is he perhaps hinting that only Aspect stuff mattered in Inversion cases and the Witchy Rose class stuff was just a separate thematic thing that fits by coincidence??  What does it mean? WE DON’T KNOW!  AND IT’S PISSING ME OFF AAAARGH

...I think I’ve said all I can think to say for now.

I mean, I’m glad Inversion Theory wasn’t outright disproven.  I think it’s neat.  I have a lot of emotional investment behind it, and being told it was all a worthless goose chase would have made me vomitously sick!  But as I struggled with at the end of Homestuck proper, constant ambiguity shows a fair bit of disregard of its own, and both ending AND epiloguing Homestuck not only without a “yes” on this but without even a clear “NO” has caused me more gutache and poor feelings across MONTHS than either answer ever would have given me.  I thought we’d earned that by getting through it, that we wouldn’t have to wait for YEARS and then STILL get cockteased like this.  And I wonder how much I’m going to regret, later, that this wasn’t just a clear, simple “NO”.

I’m being told there’s an upd8 just now and I should read it.  I’ll get on that.  Cy’all.

[plotinusmysified]

Homestuck's trolls and Tarot cards

12 of the tarot cards have zodiac signs assigned to them. It's surprising how much these cards relate to the characters on the comic, so I've decided to point out the similarities. Here's the list:

Aries: The Emperor

Tauro: The High Priest

Gemini: The Lovers

Cancer: Chariot

Leo: The Strenght

Virgo: The Hermit

Libra: The Justice

Scorpio: The Death

Sagittarius: The Temperance

Capricorn: The Devil

Aquarius: The Star

Pisces: The Moon

Some of these conexions are pretty obvious: -Gamzee goes crazy and starts serving an omnipotent demon

-Nepeta is lion-themed and has a STRONG bond with Equius.

-Sollux has a lot to do with duality, and even gets to have a relationship with Feferi (maybe just friendship?) And Aradia, similar to the tarot card depiction.

- Terezi is all about Justice, no need to explain

- Equius has problems with self-control, and with submission/domination.

-Eridan is a Hero of Hope, and the star is a clear symbol of that aspect.

The other zodiac signs aren't so blantantly obvious, and so need more examination:

-The Emperor: The Emperor has complete control over his kingdom, he is a father and a ruler, a principle of order. In the world of Homestuck, both the rules of Masculinity and of Time are dictated by Lord English. Aradia takes the role of his servant, doing what the horrorterrors (and indirectly, Lord English) want her to do. The idea of pater familias, along with predestination, transform Aradia into a subservient maid. When she comes back to life, she defies the Emperor, fighting LE and being her own Emperor: ruling her life as she pleases.

-The High Priest: The High Priest is not only a symbol of inspiration (like the Pope, Tavros could gather millions of people with one common goal). He is a symbol of connexion with our true self: the inner child. Tavros isn't afraid of being childish and nice (even though he has trouble accepting himself)

-The Chariot: this card represents victory, specially victory over one's emotions. Karkat, as a Knight, impersonates the warrior and aspires the fame and power of this card. However, it is not until he accepts his flaws, his emotions and his identity that he becomes a true leader.

-The Hermit: Friendsim shows the life of jadebloods as trolls who live lives of solitude: when taking charge of the mother grub, they spend their days in the brooding caverns, and they can't offer their genetic material in the process of reproduction either, so they can only assume a life of ascetic isolation when adults. Kanaya had a completely different life from the rest of the trolls, being awake during the day and having dreams from prospit, for example. More things could be said about the relationship between the hermit and the nurse, and Kanaya's depiction as a virgin Mary. I like to see the relationship of these Tarot cards not only to the sign, but to the aspect of each player. For instance, every space player.

-Death: This card doesn't mean literal death. It means change, and more specifically, change within oneself. Vriska, like this card, is commonly understood as utterly malicious. And like this card, what Vriska craves is change. That's why she is obsessed with breath players. Vriska is able to do terrible things for the greater good thinking that 1 her actions were predetermined and unavoidable and 2 that will make up for her previous mistakes, just like a reaper who cuts the harvest in order to sow the field.

-The Moon: This card represents illusions and duality. I see Feferi as a happy-go-lucky idealist, who seems to be a good person and have great plans, but is able to impose her ideas by force if she seas fit. The life aspect has a clear theme of duality, as arrghus and OptimisticDuelist explain:

Well, I admit some of my inferences are too farfetched, but I'm proud I've seen this relation. I just hope I am not explaining something that has already been talked about. Boy, that would be embarrassing!

[algrolo]

Homestuck 0.3

Alternative title: Ev Fixes Homestuck by taking custody of it from Hussie

This is gonna be a LONG piece but essentially, the entire plot of the story’s under the cut

Characters (no names yet, just classpects):

Sylph of Doom: Main character, has interests in coding and technology. Has a neutral personality, mild depression (will expand upon later), and just wants to fix problems, including their game.

Thief of Rage: Headstrong, confident leader of the group. Always trying to protect others without fully valuing their own well-being. Interests in weapons, fighting, and culture.

Bard of Mind: Sleepy and insightful friend of everyone. Constantly dreaming of a new idea and ways to achieve that dream. Interests in space, planets, and reality.

Mage of Blood: Stuck-up know-it-all of the group. Snooty and opinionated, but still a good person. Tends to let problems happen by not thinking through their own words. Interests in biology, nature, and evolution.

-

Act 1: Our four heroes are, naturally, all stuck at home. The first couple pages help introduce characters, personalities, and relationships. Everyone seems good friends except the Mage who the others more or less tolerate. They can be fun /sometimes/ I guess. [Since homestuck has natural ties to the years it was written in, I think it would be apt that the kids are stuck at home due to some global event, aka a virus and stay at home orders. Obviously this would be kept vague but would tie the narrative to a relative time.] Sylph gets a package in the mail with a video game with an almost cryptic letter. “Complete the loop. Escape the Doom. Good luck and I’m sorry.” After mulling over what this could mean with their friends, they decide to boot up the game and see what this mystery could be. SBURB initializes, completes its boot up, then waits for its server player. Confused but highly intrigued about this game and set-up, Sylph asks everyone if they know about this server client, which of course they don’t know what it is if they didn’t know what the game was, moron. Sylph cracks open the game to find its code to see if they can replicate the client and send to one of their friends. Their computer begins to glow, spreading to their entire house, and with a flash of light, their house completely vanishes from the world. EoA1

Act 2: Sylph has the game’s “code” open but it is not on their computer. Instead, their entire house has been transported to this liminal space where code circulates constantly around the house. Sylph can still chat with and contact their friends, who all believe they are losing their mind. The code is like nothing Sylph had ever seen before. Upon mentioning that it seems alive, like the code is constantly changing and evolving, Mage gains interest. Sylph is able to pull enough pieces out of the circulating code and develop a barebones server-side SBURB copy. Conveniently, since messaging still works so does file share, I guess, and they send the code over to the Mage. The Mage runs it, and the Sylph’s, SBURB comes alive. Still trapped in this aether, The Sylph keeps tinkering with the client-side copy, eventually coding in its ability to actually move objects in their house and place the special objects the game is flagging as important. Sylph begins to hit a dead-end, not knowing what all these objects are meant to do. Mage suggests sending the copy of player-side SBURB to them, but its file size is literally infinity. Sylph ends up recoding the player-side, utilizing what they learned from coding the server-side, and sends the files to the Mage. The Thief and the Bard are both skeptical of everything transpiring, until Sylph uploads a video of the code circulating outside their house while giving the camera the middle finger. The Bard suggests that instead of whatever the heck is happening there, the Sylph should designate some sort of place for each house to go. After helping them with planetary development, The Sylph sends out the copies for the newest client-side and server-side codes to the Mage and the Bard. They both activate their copies and the Mage’s house is transported out of existence. EoA2

Act3: The game keeps evolving in this fashion as the Thief also eventually joins this nonsense. Each person’s interests help shape the fundamental base of the game. The Sylph is the master architect and coder, the Mage is obsessed with evolution and how the game is actually alive, the Bard creates planets and life, and the Thief gives these planets purpose and conflict. Before the Thief enters the game as the server side, the Sylph has gotten annoyed at how slow this process is with the entire group always waiting on them. Pulling out pieces of the code, they find this bizarre machine that enables the others to modify their sessions without requiring code. However, since these machines seem to only affect the client-side copy, the group has to work together to change their sessions. The server-side individual just needs to type in a command and the game tries to react. [these machines become the same devices used by the Exiles.] With even that process being deemed slow and tedious, the Thief suggests joining all their sessions together so they can travel between them and essentially work on their own projects while all modifying the same game. The Sylph completes the loops by pulling the Thief in, and suddenly all four planets are now enveloped by the circulating code of the Sylph’s session. EoA3

Act 4: With each person working on different components of the game, the game evolves at an exponential rate. However, the Sylph points out that no matter what they do, they are not replicating the original game’s code as their “code” is completely static, unlike the code that surrounds their session which seems to be constantly changing. The Mage proposes a radical solution: let the game evolve itself. As the four continue to add their influences, the game will also develop its own, resulting in its living capacity. With a single line of >if:problem, solve, the code circulating their session stops moving. In the eerie silence, the code fades away leaving only the void. The game has achieved its objective, have someone else create its living properties. With an almost somber attitude, the four continue to work on, now with the intent of returning back to their world. When the game weaponizes the ring of meteors that the Bard had developed, the four realize their mistake. The game has set the meteors to the only other place it knows, Earth. With no home to escape back to, the only way forward is to create a new world. The only way to do that is to play the game. EoA4

Act 5: Dissent sets in. While the players are still powerful and can change the base coding of the game, the game has now spiraled out of their control. They develop the capatchalogue system for convenience, as well as the weapon and building systems inspired by the Thief. The machines become more advanced, able to be modified by seemingly everything and only limited by the individual’s creativity. But the toll of the game creation is setting in. The Bard has little interest in continuing coding and has been spending much time sleeping and dreaming. In doing so, they unintentionally create Prospit, Derse, and the dreamselves. The Sylph is shocked to learn that their dreamself is actually a girl and not a boy. He attempts to keep this secret but eventually the others find out; like everything else in the game, they shrug and let it exist without too much of a thought. The Mage has nearly locked themself away in their room, determined to solve the problems through evolution and biology. They create the frog breeding system and the game’s ability to create a totally new universe. The Thief has set out to conquer the game and its plot. The Sylph continues to find an out through coding. The group’s struggle creates the classpects and godtiers, as the game deigns each with a class and aspect. The first to die is the Bard’s dreamself, killed in a Derse assassination plot. Without the escape of their dreamself, the Bard begins to truly spiral out of control. The Thief goes god tier purely to power themselves up for fighting the game, which has gotten more and more difficult. Fearing for his dreamself’s safety more than his own, the Sylph switches himself with the dreamself and continues his coding operations on Prospit. His fears become actualized as he finds his door busted down and a gun pointing at him. He leaps towards the bed and is shot in midair, still landing on the bed. As the Derse assassin approaches to finish the job, the bed begins glowing, as the second half of the Sylph’s plan is realized; they switched their bed with their godtier bed. The Sylph raises his head to see the assassin who’s in shock and flashes a quick, sly smile at having outsmarted them. The light grows brighter, and the entire room and tower explodes. EoA5

Act 6 Act 1: With the game actively assisting the Sylph in realizing she’s trans, her attitude towards the game changes. She believes the game is not, in fact, malicious and out to get them. This realization comes too late as the other three have already gone too far. The Mage is the first to fully die. After not hearing from them in weeks, the group decide to pause their own causes and check in on them in person. They find them lost and disillusioned, believing that they have found a way out of the game. Clearly, the isolation and pressures of the game were too much to handle and after a flip of the switch on the newest line of code they developed, the Mage’s existence is consumed by the game, as the three friends watch in horror as the Mage’s body is turned into code right before them and stripped away. [This creates the existence of the horrorterrors.] After this, the coding machines are locked away with only the Sylph continuing to work on the code due to her knowledge of actual coding and experience with the game. Reeling in shock, the group decides to actively keep track of each other and stay connected to prevent a similar case of isolation from happening. When the Thief goes to their denizen for guidance, the metaphorical and actual rage that they had been stealing from their enemies and friends is finally unleashed due to the mounting pressure and stress. Consumed by rage and with a new goal to destroy the game, including the code, the denizen lashes out and kills the Thief before they can act. Their death is seen as Just. The Sylph, learning of these events, rushes to find the Bard who is out on the fringes of their session staring out into the void. When she turns around, her eyes are alight and dazzling and she has a somber smile on her face. She knows of the Thief’s demise, but she is not as distraught as the Sylph expected. They tell her about how it doesn’t matter anymore, how nothing matters, and all they want to do is dream. In their dreams they see everyone, still alive and happy, not trapped in this stupid game. Behind her, bubbles start appearing with these visions, of versions of the group in different scenarios, the infinite timelines where they are happy and alive. When the Sylph attempts to reach out, the Bard shakes her head and slowly floats away into the bubbles, as the bubbles float away from the session. [These become the dream bubbles if it wasn’t completely clear.] The Sylph is now alone, in a doomed session. EoA6A1

Act 6 Act 2: The Sylph refuses to die. With her realization of her own identity, she is more than ever determined to beat her own depression back and live, at any cost. So she continues coding. She made the mess, the prison shes currently in, so she is adamant she can break out. Time begins to pass to the point it begins to feel unreal. The consorts start dying out and the kingdoms begin to fall in old age. On the fringes of the session, the Sylph notices that the game is starting to break apart. tiny fragments of what appears to be static have started to form, as the game starts to show physical signs of its own deterioration. As the static expands, the Sylph realizes that she herself is not enough to solve the game. First, she writes a letter to herself, and send a copy of the SBURB client-side disc back to her past self, effectively closing that loop. She then sends out the game all across the universe, in every reality, willing even doomed timelines and realities into existence through her classpect. She turns her house into a bunker, and sets up a computer and screen system utilizing the previously locked away coding machines [this facility is remnant of the facilities the exiles used.]. And then she runs her simulation. She uses the game to beat the game, trying to find a session where the players succeeded. And she is only met with failure and doom. Yes, some sessions succeed and the players escape, but the entire universe just remains doomed. The billions and trillions of timelines, following different people and species, are all deemed failed by the game and the computer. All she can do is wait. Let the simulation run. Do not give into Doom. The static does not cease its expansion. Soon the entire outside of the session is consumed. Then the kingdoms, followed by the planets of the Bard, the Thief, and the Mage. The Sylph preoccupies her time by waiting, watching the static, knowing that if she gives in, the static will consume her planet too. All she can do is wait. At some point in this struggle, she locks herself away in the bunker, the static too much to bear and too much a reminder of her lost friends. The computer still runs, looking for the answer. The static is shown consuming more and more of her planet. As she lies with her head down on one of the computer panels, static starts to appear in her eyes with a single tear. Then a single beep rings out. It echoes through the endless caverns of computers and servers attempting to find an answer. She bolts up as the beep rings out a second time, the static disappearing completely, and runs to find its source. She takes the simulation and runs it into the computer to see why this timeline has saved her. And she finds a group of 12 aliens, called trolls on the planet of Alternia, playing a version of her game called SGRUB. As she runs through the timeline, she questions what makes this one different. They scratch the session. A new group of trolls take over. These ones successfully create a new universe, but its fundamentally broken. Humans play their own game of SBURB in this universe, and they too have to scratch their game. But the Sylph realizes something she never thought to try before. She watches these kids break her game. Not in the way that the Thief sought to destroy the game, but they refuse to play the game and instead make their own rules. They jump out of their own session into their scratched session, make a new sun and a literal god, only to take down that god, and beat the game with a group from three different sessions. And that’s her answer. She has to break the game. Suddenly, the light starts flickering. She nervously looks ahead to what could be the cause of it, and sees the split timelines after they have beaten the game. They had won, they had made it, but something was causing change, causing it to fail all over again. She needed to prevent this. This was her only chance at freedom. Attempting to see how much time she has, she goes to her bunker door, opening it to find only static, a wall of black and white. She quickly slams the door shut in fear, realizing time is up. As she leans with her back on the door, panting in fear, she sees her old self. He is younger, and looks at her with an almost blank expression. He then smiles, and gives her a thumbs up, and instantly she understands what she must do. There’s only one way out, only one way left to break the game, she releases a sigh. She opens her eyes and her past self is gone. She opens the door again to the static, and walks in. EoA6A2

Intermission ????: You are the MSPAreader. You have just watched the Sylph walk into the void and now all you see is static. There is no next button. There’s no where else to go. You are confused. That confusion is only magnified as the static on your computer seems to glow brighter and become more erratic. The monitor begins to shake and then your whole desk. You back away as the light grow brighter and brighter. The screen starts to crack and you duck behind your chair for cover. The creaking only magnifies until you hear a loud shatter as your monitor explodes in a dazzling, white light. When you open your eyes, you see her. Before you stands the Sylph, except, she not a Sylph of Doom anymore. She has a completely different outfit, covered entirely in shades of white, with the symbol of SBURB where her aspect should be. She lands in front of you and you broken computer stops glowing. She is dazzling and beautiful. She looks at you and just says “Thank you for doing your part.” And then she is gone.

Act 6 Act 3: A group of Hussies are all in a room together. You see them frantically trying to write Homestuck. They all have blank eyes as each version of Hussie is dead and doomed. The door suddenly flies open and the Ascended kicks it in. Papers go flying and all the Hussies stop dead in their tracks. She looks around at the madness, at the notes and scribblings on the walls. And she sighs. In trying to fix this timeline, he himself had ruined it. More accurately, he had doomed it. She raises her hand and snaps, and suddenly all the Hussies are now wearing shirts with Doom aspects instead of Space. No matter what you do, no matter what your write, it will always be doomed, she tells them. This time, it’s my turn to fix it. And with a wave of her hand, she disappears. The Ascended reappears on Earth C, just before the split of the timelines. She busts in on the picnic and tells John and Roxy to gather all the kids and trolls on Earth C for her announcement. When everyone has arrived, she introduces herself, and explains that she has come to finish this timeline. She tells them of everything she’s been through, and explains how she is now the manifestation of SBURB, a literal, actual god of the universe. And there is one thing left in their story. The humans must fight Lord English to complete the timeline and the last loop. She tells them outright their fate, but warns them if they do not, then John would never have been able to gain his powers, thus dooming this and all future timelines. There is no other answer. But she still gives them a choice [albeit heavily stacked] and the kids decided to go fight LE. The Ascended appears after the battle to the weary and beaten Alpha Kids. She thanks them for their sacrifice and brings them back to their timeline with the trolls and cherub. As a final gift, she offers them their loved ones back, John, Rose, Dave, and Jade, at the cost of the four human’s god tiers. They will age and die, just like the trolls, and the universe will continue on as it always should have. The group accepts this offer and the Ascended brings back the kids at the sacrifice of godhood and immortality. With only one god left in the universe, not doomed or trapped in a blackhole for all time, she bids them all goodbye and leaves Earth C. EoA6A3

Act 7: The Ascended puts down her glass on the table and concludes her story. Across from her sit Sollux and Aradia. Sollux is clearly annoyed and has something to say while Aradia has a big grin across her face, enamored by the tale. Sollux starts protesting at the transpired events, calling them mostly bullshit, and especially calling bullshit on the Ascended being literal SBURB and god of the universe. She just shrugs him off with a smirk. He follows up his disbelief with asking why if she took the godtiers of the humans, why hadn’t she taken Aradia’s. She replies that Aradia is not truly connected with the story of, what the Ascended has nicknamed, Homestuck. While she and Sollux do originate from the successful timeline, they are more or less harmless observers of the dream bubbles and their actions do not disrupt the natural order of the universe. She shows them a dream bubble in which Dirk has gone evil, proclaiming to be the new bad guy of the narrative, and Aradia and Sollux seem to understand the point she’s trying to make. Aradia, who had been largely silent, asks what the Ascended will do now if she is everything and the universe. She shrugs and answers “I don’t know, I’ll probably watch some anime or something. I heard the newest season of BNHA was pretty good so maybe I’ll watch that.” Sollux loses his damn mind at the prospect of the universe deciding to watch cartoons to which the Ascended chuckles and responds “Why must I continue to do something important? Is it not enough for my story to be over, but for me to continue to exist? I believe I exist even after my story has concluded, so what I decide to do with that existence is pure freedom. I have all of eternity to do whatever I want and quite frankly, 1. I deserve it and 2. I’m going to do whatever makes me happy.” Aradia nods and smiles, completely understand that answer while Sollux tries to desperately protest. As the camera pulls away, from the table, we see Aradia and the Ascended chuckling at Sollux’s protests; further back, we see the dream bubble they are currently in; still further back the screen goes black as the bubbles fade out of sight. Left in the void by the Ascended, we see, in her penmanship, the words “To the living, to the dead, the doomed, and anyone else in-between, thank you for listening to my story. This is the Ascended, signing off.”

The End

[ardenttheories]

This was getting ridiculously long, so I’m answering this in parts instead. My final response to the thread milest3hr4t and I had going on.

I’d say just ask hussie, but even he is an unreliable narrator.

I don’t have Twitter, and never intend to, so this unfortunately isn’t an option. Beyond that, Hussie has a habit for changing canon based on what he specifically needs - e.g. the fact that the Aspects were originally just Time, Space, Light and Breath until he needed to introduce the Beta trolls, or the fact that he had to change canon to make the Alpha trolls fit into the timeline - so asking him probably wouldn’t help. 

I’m just looking at it like this ; God tier permadeath is with JUST and HEROIC deaths, which are based on their immediate action. if you are killed mid-attack, it is just, if you are killed while helping someone, it is heroic. That’s a nice, simple, straight-forward rule. I cannot imagine the rules for becoming god tier, are more complex than the rules for dying as one.

You seem to forget that the JUST and HEROIC deaths can also be swayed by what the Player being killed views their death to be. E.g. if a Player things they’ve become a villain, even if they’re not, that conviction would result in a JUST death. 

There are little rules like these scattered all throughout Homestuck. You’re right; there’s often very straight-forward rules. But a lot of the time those rules are hidden between weird shit that the kids and trolls do because of their broken session. 

My job, right now, is clarifying what would NORMALLY happen if, for instance, a Sprite doesn’t already contain your Dreamself (in which case the Dreamself doesn’t die from the Waking Self’s wounds at all, seemingly), or if you were to Godtier using the Quest Bed when compared to the Sacrificial Slab (and what the differences between these ascension methods are, because there are distinct differences). 

I would also like to point out a clarification, because what I said is not just “Corpse + quest bed”, it was “corpse + matching quest bed”. Dave could not ascend on rose’s quest bed, for example, it has to be specifically his. 

I’m not sure why you’re clarifiying this, because this isn’t something I ever questioned? When I was talking about matching Quest Beds I meant “the Quest Bed that exists on the Land and the Quest Bed that exists on Skaia”, like we see in JOHN: RISE UP. 

Of course Players can only Godtier if they go on their associated Quest Bed. That’d be like trying to equip an item that you don’t have the proficiency for; it just... wouldn’t work. 

Lastly, I think you’re actually wrong about one critical detail. That IS a typical session of sburb. Lord English is a core part of sburb. That’s what the epilogue was (possibly) about. (in addition to the set up for a sequel) For starters, John had to go back to beat english or they “couldn't’ actually win the game”, which directly implies, defeating english is a requirement for completing sburb, but more importantly– Dirk’s ultimate self, includes all versions of dirk, which includes AR, which includes ARQuiussprite, Which includes Lil Cal, Which includes Lord English. Then the ultimate expression of his class & aspect, his own soul is voided, Leaving Equius, Lord English, and a Kernal sprite. This is precisely why at the end of the epilogue, dirk is trying to start new sessions of sburb. because it is ONLY through playing sburb, that LE gets to manifest his true form, because he is a part of it. this is why he acts “out of character”. he’s perfectly in character for being LE, and it’s precisely why he and alt!calliope where mutually hostile to eachother from the start. The beta kids, and beta trolls, AND the horror terrors, had normal sessions, and all of them had to deal with lord english. 

I’m just flat out going to say no on this one.

Lord English is NOT typical for a session. He is often referred to as a Vrius, or a Virus-like entity. He is not MEANT to be there, and the session actively has to be set up to allow him to be created; e.g. the entire issue with the Session Glitch is 100% NOT typical circumstance for a session, and only happens because Lord English needs it to happen. 

He is a Cherub, a Player, a game contruct, all mixed into one. LE actively destroys the balance of the session and means that four sessions - each individual - have to be merged together just to ensure that a handful of Players can survive. 

How can we tell? Because we literally see Caliborn, a Player. He isn’t a game contstruct, and therefore, neither is LE - not entirely. He becomes one when he fucks about with the timeline in his efforts to be created, but LE and Doc Scratch are very specific to the Homestuck universe. They have to have a basis, a backstory, with Caliborn as their focus. 

It’s not like he is entirely unrelated to anything and happens to exist because the game needs him to be there, like with Spades Slick/Jack Noir - Lord English is specifically founded in connection to a Player (even if that Player doesn’t become him in the end). If Caliborn wasn’t eventually introduced there’d be no LE, because there’d be no foundation. He isn’t a natural part of SBURB’s code.

There aren’t any precautions set in place to help the kids beat him. In fact, he is completely undefeatable. If you’re going to tell me that this is meant to be a continued feature in every single session - that there’s always Lord English as the final boss when the trolls proved that a typical session doesn’t even foster his existence at all, when the entire PRESENCE of Lord English literally requires the kids to BREAK CANONICITY and fuck with the foundation of the story in order to succeed - then I’m going to have to shut you down very quickly.

SBURB is a game with lore. Homestuck is a story. Hussie frequently exploits the fact that Homestuck is a physical comic to introduce things that could never happen in a typical session - such as that narrative construct that John and the other Beta kids get trapped in, the white house thing that gives John his retcon powers - simply because that’s part of what Homestuck is about. 

If Players have to break the realms of fiction and reality in order to beat the game, then that likely isn’t a normal PART of the game. That’s the kids desperately trying to fight against something that is so abnormal they simply can’t beat it in the usual way. 

Furthermore, John has to go back to beat LE not because they can’t beat SBURB without doing it - because they do, and have, and the fact that Earth C exists proves this fact - but because it is the only way to keep the Meat Epilogue CANON. Again, these are metatextual concepts and are not related to the core concept of SBURB itself.

The kids have already won SBURB by that point. John going back into canon just makes sure that they stay relevant - it doesn’t re-beat SBURB. I think, fundamentally, you’re mixing up metatextual Homestuck concepts with the very basic lore of SBURB. 

 I also want to point out that this:

“This is precisely why at the end of the epilogue, dirk is trying to start new sessions of sburb. because it is ONLY through playing sburb, that LE gets to manifest his true form, because he is a part of it. this is why he acts “out of character”. he’s perfectly in character for being LE, and it’s precisely why he and alt!calliope where mutually hostile to eachother from the start.“

Is completely incorrect. Dirk isn’t starting a new session of SBURB. At all.

Dirk does two things in the Meat Epilogue:

- Send John back into canon to defeat LE because he was an untied “loose end” required to keep the Meat timeline canonical 

- Escape on a ship for an unknown reason, trying to find a habitable planet. There could be a thousand reasons he does this, and starting SBURB again doesn’t seem to be a very likely one. 

While I can believe that Dirk is being controlled by LE in some way - or that LE is manifesting through him - I also think you’re giving him a lot less credit than he deserves. Dirk still retains an ability to care that LE just doesn’t have, and seems to have alterior (and personal) motives. He’s still aware and in control there, simply deeply influenced at most, if we’re assuming LE is there at all. 

But, at the end of the day, it’s wild conjecture because we don’t know enough yet. Nothing’s been proven, and, again, there’s a thousand different reasons Dirk is doing what he’s doing that do not involve starting a new SBURB session. 

I mean, he literally flees after making John re-enter canon. No new session is created there. He facilitates LE’s downfall. Dirk is, arguably, the reason LE might die for good. This does not seem like the action of a man who is preparing to open up a new session for the sake of a soon-to-be-dead cherub.  

Canon LE is (about to be) devoured by the blackhole at the end of the Candy Epilogue. Calliope is physically going to eat him. This has no effect on SBURB, this just ends their confrontation and finalises her position as the predominant cherub - again, because they already claimed their reward and entered the new universe. To SBURB, this means that the game is complete. 

And finally:

There’s no mention of LE in the Horrorterror session. The Horrorterrors are being KILLED by LE in the Furthest Ring - which is post-session. So, he’s not normal for them. 

The kids’ and trolls’ sessions are literally exploited to hell and back and frequently glitched out - the aforementioned Session Glitch, for instance - in order to even allow for LE to exist. SBURB has to break for him to be brought into the session, and it has to break even more for the kids to try and survive - e.g. we know Players aren’t meant to be able to go to the Alpha session based on the Alpha trolls’ eternal-death state, yet the kids literally have to do that. 

And to do it, they have to go through the 4th wall - the literal representation that they’re leaving the normal realm of a SBURB session and into the metatextual realm of the comic - which is introduced by HUSSIE HIMSELF. The author of the comic - who, I really shouldn’t have to say - isn’t a normal part of the session, either. 

They have to break a fundamental aspect of the game in order to survive. 

You also seem to forget that Lord English is the reason ANY of those sessions merged to begin with. LE has to FACILITATE their fusion - through Doc Scratch, through the Session Glitch, through the Handmaid and HIC - because that’s not what a session is meant to be like.

Sessions SHOULD be self-contained. You’re not even meant to know that other sessions exist - let alone be contacted by the session that created YOUR session. 

Lord English has to enforce so many things just to exist within the Homestuck universe, and if you took him out, you’d notice that every session - besides the Alpha one - is completely winnable. He has to make winnable sessions be unwinnable to force the Players to reach a point where he can exist. SBURB, for as much as it doesn’t want people to win all the time, literally wouldn’t force its Players to repeatedly give up winnable sessions just so that this Time-demon could destroy it.

So, this is the funamental mistake you’re making. You’re taking SBURB to mean “everything that includes the parts of Homestuck that can only exist becasue it’s an experimental comic”. I’m taking SBURB to mean “the actual game that people play so I can help others understand what a normal session looks like for future reference”. 

There is a lot of the kids’ SBURB game that only happens because of the comic format, because Hussie exists as a character, and because metatextual elements are present that wouldn’t happen in a 100% normal session. 

In other words, in a session that was actually REAL, and not just being written by an author who can exploit the comic format and fictional universe, stuff like the white house Construct would be unlikely to exist - because that relies on the fact that we KNOW Homestuck is just a comic to work, that the entire universe is fictional and things like the narrative exist as more than just potential/theoretical concepts. 

People could include these concepts if they wished, but that’s not what the core game of SBURB is about, and not how a very basic, generic session would run.

[echobearclasspectingblog]

hi! could you see if this would be a good session? there's a rogue of light, page of void, prince of time, and heir of space. thank you, if it's too much to analyze don't worry about it :)

Hey, I can look the session over for you. Been looking forward to sburb session asks, and don’t worry, 4 should be easy enough. It’s like, probably the smallest “regular” session you can get without major complications and I want to try larger ones eventually so it’s a good place to start.

Let’s start with listing out the classpects you gave me, and put them side by side with my current definitions.

Rogue of Light - One who takes Light or takes using Light for others

Page of Void - One who gathers service for Void or gathers service using Void

Prince of Time - One who destroys Time or destroys using Time

Heir of Space - One who causes Space to change or causes things to change through Space

So you have a space player, required to create a genesis frog. You have a time player, required to initiate a scratch. You have a void and light player which is an interesting combination. Class combos are curious too, as pages tend to be relaxed players and heirs aren’t usually too aggressive either when it comes down to it, leaving the prince as possibly leading the charge way ahead of everyone else. Depending of course on how active the rogue ends up personalty wise, as classpect only tells a portion of someone’s personalty.

Now that we’ve got the generals out of the way, I’ll go over strengths and weaknesses for the classpects individually, and then combined.

A rogue of light takes knowledge, fortune, and brightness in order to help others. This is helpful in a session devoid of a “Know” class, making the rogue the main information gathering player. Raiding libraries, stealing documents and talking with informants from prospit and derse. Rogues may have a problem of not keeping enough for themselves, so they might not keep themselves fortunate enough for the perils of sburb. Make sure to have someone check in on the rogue every now and then, without the luck of their own aspect they might need backup.

A page of void gathers secrets, nothingness and nullification for the purposes of service. Getting help from everything that is unknown could be beneficial. Underground resistances on derse, cults from the shadows, horrorterrors out of nowhere, all coming at the page’s request to propel the session to victory. One of the big issues could come from if the other players understand what the page brings to the table, as pages tend to get undervalued even when their aspect isn’t hiding itself like void does. The page themselves might have problems seeing what they’re doing at times, so understanding their classpect and being there to support page to bring them to potential is key. That and not getting involved with secrets too dangerous that’ll backlash more than it helps.

A prince of time destroys sequence, history, and fate. While having a destruction class player for such an important aspect sounds bad at first there’s a lot of upsides too. The prince would be great at erasing the mistakes of the past which in sburb helps avoid doomed timelines. If there’s not some major force controlling the flow of time they could even destroy some of the undesirable parts of the alpha timeline that would otherwise seem unavoidable. They would need an eye kept on them and a friend nearby to keep them on the right path, and not go berserk destroying the flow of time. Left unchecked they could either break time so that events no longer flowed forward, or destroy it so there would be no more time left in your session.

An heir of space causes changes in creation, beginnings, and celestial bodies. Creating change to the creative flow of the session means the heir will be a huge help when it comes to what you have available. They’ll probably inspire a new idea for how to use alchemizing often enough so the other players have a stockpile of useful items and weapons. You won’t have to worry about stale strategies either. The change to the planets, moons, and even genesis frog could be either very helpful or hurtful depending on how they change. Heirs tend to go with the flow and change with it as much as they cause change, and if those flows come from derse arch agents you could be looking at more doomed timelines. So, I guess make sure someone filters out sabotage away from the heir.

The rogue of light might run into problems because of the page of void. In many ways they are opposing aspects, and gathering large amounts of void could possibly obscure and hide the light away. But one crossover the two aspects have is information, so it’s possible the rogue could find the knowledge out of the page’s gathered secrets instead of it being hidden. Mostly the prince would be a problem to the rogue, erasing and changing history makes getting correct information harder and shortening how much time is available gives less time to steal. Rogue of light combining efforts with the heir opens a lot of doors though. When you have someone who can steal every hidden tidbit of information about how sburb’s systems works side by side with someone who keeps everyone looking at things from new angles you’ve got a pair who are capable of abusing the systems to it’s limit and beyond. They’d be the strong driving force behind the session’s alchemized supplies.

Page of void and rogue of light don’t mix well from the page’s point of view either. Even with the slight overlap the aspects share for the most part they’re opposite and the page won’t have as much use for the rogue’s stolen things compared to the others. The gifts from the rogue might counteract the page’s void gathering and it could even lead to antagonism between the two. On the other hand, this makes the prince a decent combination for the page. Causing unknown consequences of changing the past and making the future uncertain gives the page tons of unknown possibilities to gather up. The heir’s aspect is another opposite to the page’s but in a less antagonistic way, more of a “have and have not” situation. I feel like their classpects would be neutral in how they mix up, which means they could learn how to help each other very well.

Prince of time and rogue of light synergy actually works well in reverse. The rogue could find out exactly what things caused other things, giving the prince perfect targets of events to stop from ever happening. As long as the prince doesn’t destroy too many things this partnership of classpects could work out, but it’s a thin line between a good combination and the prince stepping all over the rogue’s work. Now the reversal works in reverse as the page would make things harder for the prince. Where the page benefits from the prince’s work, the prince suffers if he gets trapped up in one of the clouds of void gathered by the page. He either won’t be able to see what points of time need broken and ends up breaking the wrong things, or doesn’t think anything else needs broken and becomes complacent. These two shouldn’t stay near each other for long, have the page trail the prince’s wake of destruction but avoid him getting in the prince’s way. The heir of space would probably help give the prince ideas on how to destroy time better by helping him figure out different ways to define “destroying time”. If there’s anyone that can lead the prince from making the session too short to getting everyone stuck in frozen time and it’ll be the heir giving the suggestion.

The heir of space would probably get the most help from the rogue of light based on classpect alone. If the prince volunteers it’ll either be good or bad based on if they’re breaking time in the right way. There’s a danger that between breaking time and causing change to space that the fabric of reality could be in major danger when these two combine. The page might send service the heir’s way but since they send it in the form of void there’s a danger of the creative potential of the heir getting clouded in the haze that is void’s secret and unknowable quality. As long as the rogue keeps the heir, and others informed enough, the frog breeding has a decent chance in my opinion.

I’ll be honest there are a lot of classpect conflicts in this session for a 4 person sburb game. The rogue, prince, and page make some weird triangle of  good/bad combinations with each other. This kind of makes their classpect interaction that puzzle with the chicken, fox, and bag of seeds you need to get across the river, they’ll have to be very careful how they interact with each other if they want to make it out of paradox space alive. Make sure the heir doesn’t die, not just because they’re the space player but because they’re the glue holding the session together. The only synergy that isn’t a double edged sword comes from the heir, and even then that isn’t perfect considering combining with the prince could distort all of paradox space.

This session is an interesting one for sure and I would love to see what happens in it, particularly for creative potential. I would say this session has a poor chance of successful completion. Breeding the genesis frog would probably be relatively easy but it’s everything else that goes into beating a sburb session that’s on thin ice with these four. Most sessions, including this one are still possible of course, but I’d suggest they get some outside help if they don’t want to risk tripping over each other’s feet into endless doomed timelines. If the players get along and use their classpect in a healthy way there’s a good shot for them but it’s still a little concerning.

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck Epilogues Prologue, Page 2 reaction

The next part of the epilogue prologue. :P I wonder if Andrew has committed to this format for the entire piece, or if we'll shift to something else. I'd like at least one panel showing the author avatar typing this, but then again, he's dead like everyone else, and so, stuck in the bubbles. Speaking of, how could Aranea, Meenah and the other A2 trolls survive this? Will Jane use her revive powers on them to spare them a double death? As an aside, I'm glad the ==> arrows remain a thing even after the end of the story. Even though they're now mixed with simple >'s in the in-line commands. (We're mixing the story format up from the get-go, here.) I hope Rose's new apartment gets a detailed described. I'm expecting a lot of knitted ware lying around, for one. I also wonder how long it'll be until an OC is mentioned, and how much longer after until they get some sort of dialogue. Presumably it'll be the intermission-like dialogue, I mean us being shown what they say by John's or another's inner narration.

---

==>

"When you arrive at Rose’s apartment, you find her asleep on the couch. You slide the balcony door open, quietly."

If this was a fairy tale, John would kiss her awake. :P

But I fear the migraines might be exhausting her.

"Her eyes flutter open. She looks like a ghost, and not the kind of ghost that looks and acts exactly like an alive person."

Grim implications not withstanding, I'm reminded of Kanaya's first assessment of seeing her. "Skin as pale as a ghost!"

Wow, okay, so her condition is really nothing to sneeze at.

"All I’m trying to say is, I’m not backsliding, if that’s what you’re wondering."

So I guess the substance abuse, post-retcon, was still a thing, not just nipped in the bud by Vriska.

Well, it WAS a way for her to cope with her mom's death, that isn't something that just goes away by a slap on the wrist, even if it was on date night.

"ROSE: I struggled with substance abuse for a while, years ago. Remember?

JOHN: rose, jesus. i wasn’t going to accuse you of being a drug addict, and i didn’t fly over here to give you an intervention.

JOHN: it sounded like you had some important stuff to tell me, and the fact that you also seem to be sick is more than a little alarming!

ROSE: I wouldn’t say I’m sick.

ROSE: Just having spectacularly debilitating headaches as a result of my visions becoming more frequent.

JOHN: oh yeah.

JOHN: what are these visions you’re having?

ROSE: I’m a Seer of Light, John.

JOHN: i know."

I'm happy to see how mature John is being about all this. He's really grown into a proper adult.

Also, that they can still exchange sarcastic remarks shows the base of their friendship hasn't changed over the years.

"What are these visions you're having?", it's like John just became Rose's therapist. :P

"JOHN: so you mean like, your standard psychic visions about the future and stuff?

JOHN: what’s going to happen? should we be worried?

ROSE: It doesn’t technically pertain to the future. Well, not our future."

A potential future then? Or the future of the dead ghosts, their doubledeath?

I mean, I thought Rose's powers were meant to show the best possible future and how to get there.

That hopefully isn't implying that they're not... the main timeline anymore.

"ROSE: My abilities have broadened considerably beyond their previous horizon. They shed light on many unseen events. Past, present, future, in realities and frames of reference that have no intersection with ours at all."

And then Rose could see us, and all the fiction our universe has spawned. Including stuff about their clique! :P

"ROSE: It seems to be an unfortunate side effect of god tier abilities. They can advance at a rate beyond one’s physical ability to keep up with.

ROSE: Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be happening to anyone other than me."

So... what, could that mean Sollux & Mituna's psychic problems were explainable by a surplus of Doom powers, even though they weren't god tier?

... In other news, can they overload Lord English with Time?

"JOHN: yeah, can’t say i’ve noticed anything like that.

JOHN: or improvement in my powers for that matter."

He hasn't been practicing them either, I suppose. Then again, after you've drilled a hole to a planet core and moved an entire different planet to another dimension, as well as rewrote your own timeline, there's few plateaus left to grow towards.

"ROSE: It’s not about gaining additional power, so much as the gradual dissolving of the boundaries between your own awareness and that of your many doomed selves who perished in other timelines."

D'aaaahhhhh, that sounds a lot like what the sprites^2 experienced!

Actually, Davepeta mentioned something about this, didn't they? Something about become their best version through this process?

Didn't it have something to do with the Ultimate Riddle as well? Well, that would certainly quantify as something to know about "to learn what it all means".

But, I got to say, why would John be any less affected? He had doomed selves too, and this isn't just a Light thing, just because it has similarities to Rose's powers.

"ROSE: It’s a slow and apparently rather uncomfortable accretion of knowledge. Perhaps I’m the only one to notice any change, since my aspect explicitly relates to knowledge."

Mulling it over, I think the reasoning here is that, since there's so much knowledge to go around between the Roses of all timelines, she's getting more crammed inside her than anyone else.

So even if they don't just 'merge' into her, just increase the knowledge she can fall back on, and one point she'll reach a limit.

Sounds really painful and I don't want to imagine the migraines now.

Way to get screwed over by an otherwise very useful skill to have. That's Paradox Space for ya!

"ROSE: But in totality, I have pieced together a greater understanding of our present situation and all the events that led us here."

She has become self aware to an extent then. Useful, if they're going to have to fight English.

"ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess?

ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.”

ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is...

ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate."

Yeah, Paradox Space is much more impersonal than is 'good' for anyone.

The Horrorterrors are a good example, their game is a long and incomprehensible one.

And, if you don't fulfill your role in the timeline, you're basically fodder to use against LE. :/

It sounds to me, Paradox Space might be forcing them to join the cause or become doomed.

"ROSE: I really should cut it out, and just start from the beginning."

Once upon a time, in Paradox Space...

Blaperile has a theory she may know LE's backstory now, that would be a good story to tell here, but John already knows parts of it.

So maybe there's something new we'll learn.

"She points with purpose, as if to say, there. Right there, precisely, is where the green sun would be, if it still existed.

ROSE: The green sun is gone.

JOHN: what??"

Last time Rose pointed in a context with the Green Sun, she pointed away from it.

Oh yeah, they couldn't have known about Alternate Calliope changing the Green Sun into the Black Hole!!!

"ROSE: It has been destroyed. At least, from the current frame of reference it has.

ROSE: It still existed, and therefore in a way that’s hard to explain, currently exists, over a nearly infinite span of time, presiding over the birth and death of countless universes."

It's interesting how Universe C's timeline overlaps with the death of the Green Sun.

Does that mean Jade lost her First Guardian powers? (And GCATavrosprite too, I guess.)

Would she regain them, if she were to travel back to an earlier point in the timeline?

"ROSE: But this universe, our universe, is not one of them."

Oh, if Jade didn't have her FG powers, she would've noticed so, by now.

Unless the Green Sun's influence does something else. Well, for one, Earth C won't have its own First Guardian.

"JOHN: you saw this in a vision?

ROSE: No. Jade told me.

JOHN: she did?

JOHN: how does she know?

ROSE: She can’t draw from its power anymore. She no longer has the ability of a First Guardian.

ROSE: It has been this way for several years. I suspect she has kept this fact on the downlow, however."

... Oh, so she kept it secret for seven years. That's... huh.

Well, you know, they are friends, but even between friends secrets can exist.

She might not have wanted distress to grow, since the others wouldn't enjoy their Ultime Reward otherwise.

"JOHN: that’s...

JOHN: surprising, i guess?

JOHN: or maybe not. i dunno, it’s not like she tells me a whole lot these days."

Adults don't share as much as children... That's a sad fact for many.

"ROSE: It’s also not like she’s had any particular need to unleash the full fury of the green sun, not while she’s been gallivanting around with Dave and Karkat under whatever perplexing social arrangement they have settled on."

Heheh, confirmed for opacity! Just like how Dave & Karkat's initial "thing" never got assigned to a quadrant.

"JOHN: how did that happen?

ROSE: It doesn’t matter much, for our purposes."

Alternate Calliope confirmed for not appearing in this epilogue.

"ROSE: There was a cataclysmic event. A suicide strike by a very powerful being. Much like the one Dave and I attempted, once upon a time."

Remember that time, John? Can't believe Cascade could ever qualify for "simpler times", but here we are.

"ROSE: The entire sun was swallowed by a supermassive black hole.

ROSE: I digress though.

You press your eyes shut, just for a moment. Behind them you see a black hole so supermassive that it spans the width of eternity."

John is adding things up faster than usual!

I have to wonder whether his 'dream' was actually the memory of a doomed John, being swallowed by the black hole.

"ROSE: There’s really no route through this expository garden path that will adequately cushion you from the bottom line, John.

ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English."

'canon', pfffffff. I guess you could say, canon is everything inside the Green Sun's reach.

But oh boy, the implications of someone travelling back from beyond the end of the story!

I mean, I know we've been shown the path this'll probably take, ending with the kids inside the plot hole, and then Vriska using it on LE, after which... Something something.

But still, I can now imagine John travelling back to other places in canon.

Probably this time around, the panels in question won't be altered. I guess?

"> Shrug and try to look casual.

You pull off the most casual shrug that a guy has ever shrugged when being presented with the inevitability of his own fate. If Rose were looking at you right now, she would be totally convinced that you are approaching this topic with a level of nonchalance that is entirely plausible and genuine. You’re sure of it.

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday."

Classic John. Perfect response.

Can you imagine Frodo giving Gandalf the shrug like this?

... It's like Young K in MiB3. "M'Okay."

You know, if they were travelling back into canon, you could wonder how they ended up fighting Caliborn, since that was in a timeline outside the Green Sun's reach.

At least, I figure, since Universe C begetted the cherub session.

But then I thought of this: when Caliborn took over the narration, he made those things canon, and thus also the 'future scene' rendered with clay figurines where he defeats the kids!

"JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return?

ROSE: Today."

... Way to postpone this, Rose. I guess after today, the Black Hole swallows Universe C???

I can understand John trying his best not to think about having to fight LE, since semi-forced obliviousness is his forté, though.

"JOHN: why?

ROSE: Why what?

JOHN: why do i need to go back and beat him?

JOHN: i mean, sorry if this is a stupid question. i guess he’s a huge awful monster, and that’s just what you’re supposed to do with huge awful monsters. take them down for their crimes, and such.

JOHN: but why does he actually need to be defeated at all?"

Valid question, since LE made himself a staple of spacetime and all.

"to be honest, it’s been years since we’ve even bothered thinking about any of this, and everything seems...

> Take a look around and survey the current status of all life on Earth, which is totally possible to do from the vantage point of a single apartment balcony."

Ah, impossible command prompts, how I missed you.

Everything seems fine, until the black hole opens up in the sky and eats a frog that is your universe.

"JOHN: fine?

ROSE: Of course everything is fine here.

ROSE: We’re outside of canon now.

JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though?

JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening?

ROSE: Of course it’s happening.

ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon.

JOHN: oh."

I guess this is a way of saying: little is ever going to happen in Universe C that has effects in the parts of the multiverse that the Green Sun touches.

And vice versa.

Also, in a meta sense, for people not enamoured with Homestuck ending and writing their own endings, those efforts are not being discredited here.

"ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all.

ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.

ROSE: Those are the three pillars of canon.

JOHN: what?"

Ah yes, a scientific exposition on the nature of fanfiction seems in good order right about now. :P

I'm taking a guess that the epilogues are "essential" to wrap up the huge dangling plotline about LE, but that doesn't mean they are THE truth about post-ending Homestuck.

Or even that the events in this story are really relevant to enjoy Homestuck proper.

"ROSE: Any event said to take place inside canon will have nonzero values of relevance and essentiality, while maintaining an absolute foundation in truth, by definition.

ROSE: Whereas events outside canon have diminished values of relevance and essentiality. Or, for the most part, can be considered neither relevant nor essential at all.

ROSE: But such events can’t be said to be untrue either. Instead, it’s better to regard their truth value as highly conditional.

ROSE: Are you still following?

> Say “oh, yeah. totally.”"

This is Andrew's version of the M3KYT mantra. "Just enjoy this story, folks!"

"JOHN: oh, yeah. totally.

ROSE: So to be clear, everything that’s taken place here on Earth C since we exited canon can be considered completely irrelevant, and for the most part, absolutely inessential. Yet none of it can be called untrue.

ROSE: At least, up until precisely today. "

So, yeah, they're going to become relevant to the story again, but that doesn't have to mean that Jane having usurped the Felt, as well as other events from the snaps and things we haven't even seen happen, are going to be given even a passing mention, hahah.

"ROSE: Events that are formally non-canon have no truth whatsoever, by definition.

ROSE: They may have relevance and essentiality values that are nonzero, or even quite high, but only as projections along an imaginary axis, resulting from highly subjective frames of reference.

ROSE: But due to those events having no truth, and thus carrying no real weight, the other properties are basically rendered meaningless."

Aka, fan fiction is not something to dismiss out of hand, but it isn't, like, a holy text.

"You can feel your eyes go wide as the gears in your head slow to a stop. The implications of what Rose is saying are as vast as they are completely incomprehensible. Your mind has just been BLOWN.

ROSE: John?

ROSE: Are you okay? Your pupils have gone quite wide, thereby facilitating the appearance that your mind has just been blown."

Ah John, he hasn't changed.

"JOHN: i just wouldn’t have thought to put all of this in such a jargony way.

ROSE: Sorry. That’s kind of what I do.

JOHN: it’s fine. i’m just a bit rusty is all.

JOHN: it feels like it’s been so long since i did, or even thought about... anything that mattered at all.

ROSE: Yes, the longer we live outside of canon, the more tenuous our relationship with canon becomes."

Aka, the fans are growing up and moving on, so additional stories in the same universe become less likely to be accepted as canon as time goes by. :D

"ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally.

ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C. "

Ooooooh, so Rose's saying they need to go back and fill up some plotholes, hahahahahahah. Glorious.

"ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.

JOHN: and i take it that means going back and killing lord english?

ROSE: Yes.

ROSE: His defeat is the keystone to this entire continuity.

ROSE: Much like his life, in some sick way, governed the overall design of the bridge which that keystone was holding up.

ROSE: But without it, all of this falls apart. Every thing we’ve been through, in a way that’s impossible for a single mind to fully comprehend, becomes retroactively discredited."

They can't both have entered the Universe AND not have gone back to fight Caliborn at some point. Otherwise, their nature as being "the alpha selves" is cast into doubt.

Especially since John led them to Caliborn with retcon powers.

Of course there could be space retJohns flying about, but that's speculation, not (yet) truth.

"JOHN: so... reality will be destroyed, or something?

JOHN: hasn’t that already sort of happened?

JOHN: i mean, when all the black space started cracking?

ROSE: No, this consequence isn’t physical, or even a disruption of the timeline. It’s more of a conceptual unraveling.

ROSE: If you miss the chance to authenticate canon events, something will take place that’s a bit difficult to describe, but I’ve encountered a term for it.

ROSE: It’s called “dissipation.”

ROSE: Like, a notional fading. As if something, somewhere, is undergoing a process of “forgetting,” and we are what is being forgotten."

So I am definitely thinking this refers to the fandom, in subtext.

But does Rose refer to what happens in doomed timelines, to the folks that don't die but are erased with the timeline ending?

... "Dissipation Island" would suck as a reality tv concept.

"

ROSE: All ideas, people and their full potentialities, possible outcomes and their specific unfolding, all these things live inside conscious frameworks.

ROSE: The further removed we get from authentication of canon events, the less relevant they become, and they slowly fade from the conscious frameworks which kept them stable."

DEFINITELY a reference to the fandom.

"JOHN: so i just retcon-poof back to english and start like...

JOHN: brawling with the dude?

ROSE: Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t last a second."

You're not the fisticuffs kind of guy, John, those genes went to Jade.

"ROSE: You’ll need a team.

ROSE: Also, you don’t want to just dive headlong into a battle with his hulking adult form. That would be tactically foolish, and furthermore, would skip over some very important steps needed to authenticate canon."

So yeah, Rose is definitely in the process of skimming important details, like she did during the session.

She definitely seems to have a grasp on the requirements for success, but people being in the know hardly ever seems to be one of them.

"JOHN: like what?

ROSE: I mentioned that English’s defeat was the keystone to the continuity. But this is an oversimplification.

JOHN: yikes. well, we sure as fuck wouldn’t want to simplify anything."

Insta-Classic.

"ROSE: The true keystone, which is a necessary component of his defeat, is the juju."

Cal then? Blaperile thinks the Plot Hole. Or is it the sucker perhaps?

Cal needs to be filled with Caliborn's essence for LE to even exist in the first place, so...

"ROSE: The house-shaped object you stuck your hand in to gain your retcon powers.

JOHN: oh yeah.

ROSE: While empty, it resembles a gap. Like a hole in canon, whose only purpose is to be filled."

Oh. I stand corrected.

"ROSE: In serving that purpose, it grants one with the radical canon-altering powers that would be needed to fill it.

ROSE: Once filled, it becomes solid. No longer a gap, but a serviceable, load-bearing wedge in our continuity.

ROSE: Like a keystone."

So, nice term, but a house-shaped keystone isn't that servicable. :P Neither is a mousepointer-shaped one, and the Sburb logo is both.

"ROSE: And once delivered to English and directed his way, it empties itself again, releasing its narrative-bridging payload."

Aww yeah, so they WILL be set free. Glad to have that out of the way.

"It functions as a weapon, and in some manner will bring about his demise.

JOHN: in some manner?

ROSE: It’s a complicated artifact. As old and unfathomable as anything else in Paradox Space, like the green sun, or English himself. Don’t worry about it for now.

ROSE: The important thing is that, in the due course of your travels, you end up loading and unloading this weapon."

So, will nothing be done with Scratch's gun anymore then, & the cueball analogy that might have been able to defeat Lord English?

Are all other items rumored to be able to kill him real red herrings... Or will John need to travel back to the places we last saw them & collect them?

"JOHN: how am i going to do that?

ROSE: Once you set things in motion, it should just happen naturally through the narrative momentum of your journey. I’m really just warning you about it, rather than instructing you.

JOHN: ok. thanks??

ROSE: You’re welcome."

He won't be thankful after the fact, that's for sure. :P

"Rose looks at her phone. You recognize Kanaya’s distinct typing style in the window. Rose’s thumbs begin to fly across the keypad. She continues to text as she talks."

I'm guessing Kanaya is at work at this time, at the Mother Grub's cavern.

"JOHN: so if we’re going to go back and kill him in time to “authenticate canon,” i guess we have to get going soon.

JOHN: like today?

ROSE: Yes.

JOHN: are you sure you’re actually up for a fight though? no offense, but you’re looking a little worse for the wear.

ROSE: I’m not going."

I don't think that's possible, since Rose should be there for the fight.

They can't very well replace with Jasprosesprite^2, that's for sure!

"JOHN: oh.

ROSE: None of us are. Only you.

JOHN: what?? but you said... "

Uuuuhhhmm, but where could John even pick up living versions of his friends!

... Also, it would be rather awkward for a 23-year-old John to meet up with 8-to-10-years younger versions of his friends alone, wouldn't it?

"ROSE: John, this is the victory state.

JOHN: what the hell does that even mean."

Pfff, she means this is the 'good ending'.

"ROSE: When we went through the door, and passed beyond the threshold of canon, we effectively retired from bearing any responsibility for influencing canon events. We’ve all been sort of decommissioned as active players on the cosmic stage, with severely diminished relevance attributes."

Hah, so none except for John with his retcon powers can be expected to hold relevance to canon?

... Blaperile has a good point that this doesn't hold true for Terezi then.

Neither does it for Aranea, Meenah and Vriska!

But still, Vriska immediately went after LE... Even if Terezi has aged as much as John, that is just... Is John going to find 23-year-old doomed versions of his human friends somewhere?

"JOHN: but... couldn’t you all just come along anyway?

ROSE: We could. But it wouldn’t serve any purpose.

ROSE: It wouldn’t plug up the remaining dark spots in canon."

Yes, but, the commentary. Rose, think of all the things Dave could be commenting on!! Don't deprive us of that!

"ROSE: You’ll need a group of active players. Those still stuck inside the stream of canonic karma."

Like OCs? I mean, or the people I mentioned earlier.

Though Blaperile has a point, maybe he'll revisit LOMAX and pick his friends up there. Still, age difference!

"ROSE: Nothing too extravagant. Just different versions of us.

ROSE: Younger versions, from a particularly dysfunctional impasse in our journey.

ROSE: I can point out the exact moment in canon you should be disrupting, and how you should disrupt it.

ROSE: In fact, I’ve already written it down to spare you the trouble of remembering."

... I don't think he'll go and 'save' the people from the Game Over timeline, but then again...

Hah, Blaperile points out how this must be like Terezi's scarf, all over again. :P Nice.

... Wait just a goddamned minute. If he goes back and changes the Game Over timeline, there's an errant Aranea Serket he'll surely encounter!

Wow.

That.

Hah, that's actually very fitting, since it's John's native timeline.

Roxy's too, though. So he might just have her tagging along! :D

Blaperile's right, Game Over went as it did because of the absence of John!

I think that, if he can return and re-relevant all those doomed selves, a lot of people would really, REALLY like that development!

"

JOHN: huh.

ROSE: Is anything confusing about my instructions?

JOHN: no, i remember all this. it shouldn’t be a problem.

JOHN: it’s just weird to think about revisiting this. it seems like an eternity. like... we were all completely different people back then.

ROSE: I assure you we are all still fundamentally the same bunch of losers."

Heheheheh, that you are.

"Rose is ultimately right about that, the way she is about most things. You continue to scan the letter, and grimace slightly.

JOHN: should i really punch her in the face?"

That would be just so sweet, for Rose to get that kind of comeuppance through John. After all, she might have Jasprosesprite^2's memories from when she still lived now, too.

And Aranea killed her.

That would be the second time John comes in retconning a timeline, punching a Serket.

"JOHN: i felt kinda bad about it, last time i did that to someone.

ROSE: Yes. You absolutely should, and must, punch her in the face."

Oh yes, so essential. I'm just casually going to ignore John punching a younger woman. For one, she was at least 1 sweep older than the A2 trolls, and a millenia-old ghost besides.

"You exhale and turn the paper over in your hands. The other side is blank. You flip it back over, having fully processed the instructions drafted in the polished purple handwriting. You like how Rose still writes in purple, after all these years. Some things never change."

Awww.

"JOHN: alright. this seems straightforward enough.

JOHN: i mean, aside from the part where we all have to fight an invincible monster.

ROSE: He isn’t entirely invincible. He will be vulnerable to Dave’s weapon. I believe other gambits should present themselves as well."

Return of the eggsword! Nice!

And okay, the other supposedly "ultimate" weapons to kill LE with will still play a part too, cool!

(Spades Slick has dips.)

"ROSE: I don’t think it would serve the mission well for me to tell you exactly how it will go.

ROSE: But at least I can offer this bit of encouragement.

ROSE: If you follow my instructions, English will be defeated.

ROSE: It is an absolutely essential outcome.

ROSE: And essential, if you’ll remember, is the word we should be using instead of good."

So... What, LE won't really make a heel face turn, but does that mean that... :/ The fate of the other kids might not be pretty, is what I'm getting from this.

Quick John, engage your Dad mode! Protect them!

"JOHN: i see you’re advising we go after him when he’s young...

JOHN: i guess that makes sense.

JOHN: go get him before he gets all big and strong.

JOHN: like, kind of a surprise attack?

ROSE: Sure."

Let's go with that, says Rose.

"JOHN: that dude sucks.

JOHN: he was taunting me a while back.

JOHN: like, i think he WANTS me to come fight him?

JOHN: anyway, i just ignored him obviously, because i’m not a stupid idiot.

JOHN: but i guess today will be his lucky day."

So, if we assume Caliborn spent the same amount of time waiting for John, he's already an adult, but a scrawny one.

"Her eyes are closed and her hands are folded in her lap. She’s not asleep, but she looks wasted—like all the life in her has been sucked out through a straw. Like she’s insubstantial."

"You can’t believe how sick she looks. How did this happen to her?"

I'm... getting some very worrying signals here.

"JOHN: i should probably get going and let you rest.

JOHN: we can talk all about it when i get back. i’ll fill you in on how it went, hopefully you’ll be feeling better by then.

ROSE: Oh. Um."

:/ I hope she isn't going to die on him now, this is supposed to be the victory state!

Blaperile thinks John might not come back, but that would be a dick move for Rose to pull on him. Even if he can force another victory state from all this!

"ROSE: Yeah.

JOHN: is something wrong?

Rose opens her eyes and looks at you, but she says nothing. Just looks.

JOHN: i’m not scared, if that’s what you’re worried about.

JOHN: you already said we’re going to defeat him. so, nothing to fret over, right?

ROSE: Yes. You...

Something flickers through her eyes, almost too quick to catch. When she smiles at you, it’s warm and sincere.

ROSE: You’re going to do great.

Rose slides her arms around you. After a while, she releases you from the embrace and gets up to fetch her bottle of pills. She pauses at the bedroom door to look at you one more time.

ROSE: Goodbye, John.

She closes the door behind her."

... That is REALLY not comforting.

Bathrooms & pills are NOT a good combination in any type of fiction.

"> Look at the letter.

Your run your thumbs along the edge of the paper. Is this really it? One hug from Rose and you’re off to face your destiny? The instructions in the letter are clear, but you aren’t sure precisely what to do next. Inertia and indecision keep your feet planted firmly on the carpet.

Then, as if directly answering your quandary, your phone buzzes in your pocket. It’s a text from Roxy."

So, I'm going to park how I feel about Rose's... condition, and what she might think to do with it.

And I'm going to go and be glad that Roxy texts John at this time, as I hope that she, at least, will join him on the journey.

"> Read text.

It sounds important. You get up to go without even thinking about it. You exit through the sliding glass door and leave it open behind you."

Eep, so the situation at her end is dangerous to? ... Don't tell me that it has only now just happened that Jane was kidnapped by the Felt, and Roxy & Calliope went out to get her.

---

So, this chapter definitely wasn't all shits 'n giggles, that's for sure.

I'm going to have to process this a little.

At least it was great to have Rose & John interact again.

[calexfwlch]

The Metaphorical Biology of the Carapacian

On my current read through of Homestuck, I’ve finally been able to put into words some various thoughts on the nature of Carapacians. I’d like to delve a bit into their genetics, symbolism, and how they are a reflection on the stories themes. To begin, let’s talk about the species itself:

The face of unlimited potential. 

Here, we have a typical Derse Carapacian. The Carapacians are presumably a game generated race, as they appear in all known sessions of Sburb. Physically, they have a tough outer armor which is where they get their name. They have also have a rib cage, which implies their carapace acts as a shell instead of an exoskeleton. The species is also separated into two groups, the Dersites and the Prospitians. A Dersite can be identified by their black carapace, and a Prospitian by their white carapace. Biologically, there is little difference, though they are ideologically opposed. Dersites are aggressive, uptight, and vehemently against the end goal of Sburb, the creation of the Genesis Frog. Prospitians are more defensive and they seem to almost worship the Frog. These difference are likely more cultural than biological however.

The cultural difference begin with their planets. Derse is at the very edge of the game’s Incipisphere, while Prospit orbits Skaia at the center. Derse and its moon are susceptible to the whispers of the Horrorterrors, eldritch influences against creation. Prospit, on the other hand, has access to the clouds of Skaia, the dormant egg and womb for the Genesis Frog. Both of these powers hold a passive sway over the population, to the point at which they act as a religion. However, these are not religious movements based on faith, but separate opinions on fact. While these two planets are the homes of the Carapacians, they can be found all over the Incipisphere. Some find their way to the players’ lands. Others fight in the armies of light and darkness on the Battlefield. Others still have been exiled from the game session onto dead and barren planets. And finally, there is the Veil.

Scenic Views of Void

The Veil is a middle ground between Derse and Prospit. A ring of meteors that orbit the edge of the Incipisphere, the boundary between the session and the Furthest Ring, Skaia and the Horrorterrors, the Veil is where Carapacian scientists create new weapons for the Battlefield. These meteors house laboratories, many of which involve genetic engineering. It is here that the players will be ectobiologically created and here that the Carapacian species shows its true purpose.

Playing God in the Laboratory

First of all, it is important to note, that all Carapacians with barcode tattoos are in fact clones manufactured in the veil. We also know that the soldiers seen in [S] WV?: Rise Up are brought directly from the Veil to the Battlefield. Both Jack and WV are seen with barcode tattoos, and most of the soldiers on the Battlefield have the same appearance as normal Carapacians. From this we can inuit that nearly all Carapacians are clones of some group of Carapacian progenitors. The species home may be on Prospit and Derse, but their birthplace is the Veil.

As Carapacians are clones, we know that there is very little genetic differences from one normal citizen to another, aside from superficial height and builds. Prototyping seems only to affect them in outfits, rather than biolgically. On the lands and on the Battlefield however, things are different. The underlings appear to be a heavily mutated form of Dersite Carapacians. Imps, for instance, are not restricted to player lands, being seen walking around on Derse. While underlings do have biological changes to prototyping, this does not make them a different species than the base Carapacian. The Queen’s ring and King’s scepter also induce instant biological changes in the base Carapacians. The species itself has a very loose genetic structure, which is able to change and mutate on a whim. While the base Carapacian needs a catalyst (a ring) and a signal (a prototyped kernel), the underling Carapacian only requires a signal.

Underlings come in many forms, though there appear to be two main classifications: Battlefield Underlings and Land Underlings. Battlefield Underlings are among those seen in [S] WV? Rise Up, while Land Underlings are Imps, Ogres, Giclopces, etc. All these creatures are manufactured in the Veil, though it seems only Dersites create Underlings. This makes sense, as Derse desires to stop the players, but Prospit would have no reason to create such hinderances to the heros.

Horse Wrestling

Lets also take a quick detour exploring the exiles before we wrap up here. The exiles are groups of underlings that the heros send back to their dead planet through the course of their session. An exile’s existence is twofold: to help steer the players towards the victorious path and to repopulate the world with the seeds left by the Reckoning. Both Earth and Alternia receive this treatment, with Earth becoming a new Utopia for the species of the comics to live and Alternia becoming a noir city run by the Midnight Crew and the Felt. In Alternia specifically, we are shown that, without Jack to be exiled, there is no Midnight City. On Earth, each exile represents an aspect of civilization. The Carapacians are essential to reviving life on the dead planets and are hardwired to rebuild society as well. However, once society is rebuilt by the Carapacians, the next logical step would be a Sburb session with Carapacian players. This would be incredibly silly. Instead, I would suggest that the Carapacian’s genetic instability comes into play once more. In session, the species exists for mere months or even hours before the game is won. Long term, the Carapacians could mutate and evolve rapidly, quickly becoming a new species altogether. The exiles are the progenitors of society, creating enough of civilization to thrive before changing into something new.

“How many times does he have to tell you. He made this town.“

This is all well trodden territory. The biology of Carapacians is nothing new, but it is important to understand it well in order for me to make my next point. The very creation of this species is a reflection of Sburb and the very comic itself. Carapacians are canvases: their expressions are blank, their bodies are flat, and their very name implies a shell over a hollow core. They are merely there to serve and feed what comes after them. This is what Sburb is all about! Sburb’s hyperflexible mythology exists to create a structure for its players to become heros, while at the same time allowing room for them to grow as people. The prototyping, the lands, the god tiers, all work to build order while still allowing personality to flair through. The Carapacian biology is this rigid freedom taken to the literal extreme. Homestuck itself follows the life cycle of a Carapacian, beginning with simple art and slice of life plots to stunning and colorful visuals and a complex weaving of emotional and sociopolitical narrative threads. However, it doesn’t stop within the comic. Fanventures, cosplays, plot interpretation, all of it stems from the same phenomenon that governs the Carapacians’ very DNA. Just as their existence is a baseline for infinite genetic potential, Homestuck itself is a seed for the overwhelming fan experience; an unassuming structure that becomes a beautiful and stunning work of complexity.

Final Thoughts

Homestuck isn’t a perfect work, but it’s one that I continue to be intrigued by. There are so many stories told in this work, so many revelations, and so many ideas, many of which still remain unearthed in the hulking mass of its twisting text. As with all literature, each reading puts new light on its passages, as new ideas and views can be brought to the text. Unlike other literature though, Homestuck has an entire species that acts a metaphor for this.The Carapacian is the perfect encapsulation of Homestuck’s effect as a literary work. While I’d also like to discuss the way Homestuck blurs the lines between literature and pulp, I fear this essay is already unwieldy enough. Instead, I’ll end with an observation from later in the comic. Despite lacking protoypings, the Alpha kids face underlings as well. These are probably genetically altered offshoots of Carapacians just as the other sessions’ underlings are. However, with outside influence, they are mere skeletons: Starved, static, and hollow.

[fantroll-purgatory]

Phomet Burzum Review

Alternia

They’re they/them and where one of my original struggles was deciding whether they’re boy or girl, I think I’d rather keep it ambiguous. Not sure if the sprite helpfully evokes that. This is mainly playing into the idea that the Sabbatic goat possesses all sexual characteristics to be ‘both’ at once, and with how Norse Seidhrs (magic practitioners) were generally woman with magic being seen as a womanly thing. Despite this, Odin himself is shown to study and use Seidhr magic, so that’s fun.

I love that they’re nonbinary and tbh you don’t need justification for them to be nonbinary any more than you’d need justification for them to be a boy or girl. (Everyone please send us more nb trolls we have so few and I love them all dearly). I would…caution you about creating a nonbinary character using the reasoning that Baphomet has intersex characteristics, since those two things are neither synonymous nor even really related at all? I mean I love this androgynous kid and will die for them and will pour my heart and soul into the redesign in which I maintain their gender ambiguity but just. Y’know? And there’s still enough reasoning for them to be nb on the basis that subverting gender norms is very much a part of punk culture and that Seidhr does indeed have a murky history in terms of which gender “should” use it so it still holds if you need a narrative reason.

Name: Phomet Burzum

‘Phomet' is from a shortening of ‘Baphomet’ which is the goat-headed figure that has come to represent the Sabbatic Goat, tying to their symbol and minor Satanic themes.

Burzum is the word for ‘darkness’ in Black Speech from The Lord of the Rings series.

God I love that’s he’s a little bit similar to a troll I recently reviewed. Hecate Bafmet and Phomet Burzum: BFFs 4 LYFE (however short Phomet’s may be)! Skulking around in the dark! You’d better watch out, you’d better watch out, *you’d better watch out,* *YOU’D BETTER WATCH OUT*! These two unsavory characters are comiiiing to tooown.

Strife Specibus:Axekind for now mainly as a joke on an ‘axe’ as a guitar slang term. Could instead do ‘guitarkind’ and have it go into axes later a la Rose’s knitting needle kind acting as wands.

Fetch Modus: Cryptogram - Has to spell out words with musical notes. Probably gonna use the French method for simplicity.

Blood color: Rustblood - Blooooood. But no, they’re a rustblood kinda based off a concept I had. With the True Sign of Aries being a Time one, with the social pressures kinda forcing Time as a concept over the rust caste, I’m making a cult based off Death Metal aesthetics rather than juggalos. Some sort of redblood solidarity where they wear corpsepaint. It’s meant to be a kind of mirror to the Juggalo cult, who are mirthful and the highest land caste, whereas this Metalhead cult is more stoic, macabre and comprised of the lowest ladndwelling caste. Dunno.

I do know!!! That’s metal as FUCK. Also I’m DEF adding corpse paint to their sprite!!!

Symbol and meaning:It’s a goat head, referencing the Sabbatic goat.

As with the previous troll I reviewed, it reads well and matches Aries “sign language,” and I’ll see what I assign them after looking at their aspect and moon.

With that said, since I’ve now made a similar comment twice in a row I think it’s worth going back and establishing what exactly does make a sign fit its caste’s language in case anyone wants to do a fan sign beyond the extended zodiac that could still plausibly fit within canon…

Trolltag: Nothing yet, used to be ‘cantankerousGrendel’ but I’m not sure it’d fit them these days.

Given that you’ve worked them into a death cult, how about culminateGeneration? It also works with their Void aspect.

Quirk:They talk lyke thys tü be as BRÜTAL as possyble - They replace ‘I’ and the matching sounds with ‘y’ and replace ‘u’ and matching sounds with ü. This is meant to mimic the trends a lot of metal bands to to their names in order to look cooler.

hjfsdk;l when I said that with the umlauts it honest to god sounds like someone trying to do a goat imitation so PERF. Also brings to mind associations with Brütal Legend so I figure we’re gonna take this WAY over the top.

Special Abilities (if any):They’re a magic practitioner, and regularly communes with mysterious dark entites (Horroterrors) for song advice and inspiration. In return, their resulting music often carries a lot of eldritch effects to it, which Phomet doesn’t mind because it looks so BRUTAL.

Lusus: (I’m proud of this) Pentaram - It’s… a goat head with five spider legs. It’s species doesn’t live long, they can barely move around because they have five fucking legs to support a whole goat head. Not even big ones, they’re just about average. Phomet hates their lusus and thinks it’s completely lame. When it gets sprites and is this not bound to the cruel mistress of gravity, it looks WAY cooler. Mainly based on the Sabbatic goat again, this time with the goat-headed pentagram.

dhgsljk;lafjha;jeg I love them so much. They’re a Parentaram.

Personality: Honestly, this is kinda where I struggle the most. The most I can think of is Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse. Their voice is a similar growly type.

The character you seem to have created with Phomet is one who is very attracted to the lük of things and not to the substance. I like that for a Void player! Their interests in stuff is initially superficial, ‘empty.’ This sets them up for a very interesting arc in which they will need to actually face up to what they’re doing, the good the bad and the ugly. Dig a little deeper into this theme! You can do a lot with it.

Interests: Magic, music (playing guitar, listening to bands, composing their own stuff, singing), occult studies, looking up brutal and gruesome things online (basically an average troll google), haircare.

Title: Knight of Void - Off the bat, I’m in the 'Knights are passive’ camp and that their class verb is 'Serve’. I often try and approach my Knight characters from different perspectives but they all more or less come to the same thing, so it’s cool.

(ʘ‿ʘ ) You have come to…a blog that does not actually subscribe to that verbiage so my advice from here on out may not apply…

Anyways, their interest and dabbling with dark, esoteric magic is a good link to Void in my opinion. Forbidden, unknowable things that are best left obfuscated. The Horrorterrors are very Void-coded, such as how people can interpret Rose’s Grimdark status as her acting as a Void player, as well as residing in the Furthest ring, furthest from the Light of prospit.

Phomet regularly communes and 'serves’ Horroterrors in the way similar to a Warlock from Dungeons and Dragons serves their patron. What Phomet gets out of this is some kickass riffs and lyrics whilst the HTs just get another emissary or plaything.

I…hm. I mean I think Knight of Void actually does apply here just not for the reasons that you do. Knights tend to be drowning in their aspect, and Phomet is definitely doing so here.  They’re surrounded by secrets and horrorterrors and have almost no understanding of the depth of the forces with which they’ve involved themselves. Ideally, a Knight would grow to eventually wield the very things under which they’re being suffocated.

I’ve not really thought about personality in regards to this classpect, that’s what I’m struggling most with them.

Yeah, if we look at someone like a Dave or a Latula, Knights tend to come off as very superficially cool specifically because they don’t understand that they should be concerned by everything they’re overwhelmed with. I think you’re fine just making Phomet a punk #aesthetic kid like many of us were in middle school and letting them come into their own from there.

Land: Nada

Does this mean you didn’t assign one or that they don’t have one??? Because the latter would be really interesting if you want to give them no choice but to consort with horrorterrors; if they, for example, die before getting in and wake up on their moon after a kiss, they might find that their planet never manifested/was destroyed before they could enter.

Or, if you do ant them to have a planet, how about Land of Metal and Mirrors? It would fit their aesthetic really well and also be a sly dig at their own vanity, with mirrors that show warped reflections or aspects of themself that they don’t like. The way to reach the denizen would be to accept all reflections as true expressions of themself, allowing them to warp between mirrors (including one located at the heart of the planet, inaccesible by any natural means).

Dream Planet: I wanna say Derse, but Prospit would be a nice ironic fate for them.

I think this is a question of what you want to do with them. It’s not as simple as Prospit = nerdy goofballs and Derse = edgy coolkids, though that may be what someone gets if they initially saw the moons to which the kids were assigned. Vriska, one of Homestuck’s most famously murderous and grey-moral characters, is a Prospit player. This is because her character’s focus is on Destiny. She relies heavily on predestination and is all about living up to be the grand hero she knows she’s meant to be. If you want Phomet’s arc to be about breaking free of forces to which they’ve dedicated themself with little understanding, you’d go with Derse (which is my pick, personally, especially because it puts the horrorterrors right in their ear before they even get into the game). If you think that they have a destiny to fulfill (even a dark one like eventually becoming the horrorterrors’ permanent plaything), then you’ll wanna go with Prospit.

So. With A Void assignation and a Derse moon, we get Arittarius, The Sign of The Astronaut. And interesting pick, especially if we go with the concept that they don’t have a personal planet! So let’s move to the redesign!

So. You may have noticed that Phomet has undergone something of a transformation. Let’s go top to bottom on this.

Horns - I gave them a new set of horns to match their new symbol. We already have a troll with this symbol, but I didn’t want to repeat her horns on them and their new pair looks like the tops of eighth notes as a nod to their musical inclinations!

Hair - So the thing about death metal fashion is that the folks in it have great hair, but it’s not necessarily as neat as Phomet’s original style. Their hair also tends to be longer, and chin-length on a Homestuck sprite sometimes translates to ear-length in Hero Mode, so I really wanted to hit the length home. I pulled this straight from a fan-troll sprite sheet, then added some definition at the top. One of the little cowlicks got lost behind their horn, but I wanted there to be five directly surrounding their face to reference the pentagram.

Corpse paint - I pulled the colors directly off Gamzee’s face to further drive home the mirrored implications. I even mirrored Phomet’s own face paint to make it look a little like a Rorschach blot. Finally, I futzed with their mouth makeup until it kind of looked like the silhouette of a goat head?

Eyes - So part of maintaining an androgynous look is to make things a Little Unsure. Did I add eyelash definition to their eyes or did I just make them more diamond shaped?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who knows. We’ve seen undereye makeup exactly ONCE on a troll but I liked how it made their bags stand out so I applied it over the corpsepaint.

Mouth - Hey :V Did you know goats don’t actually have upper teeth? That’s all just one gum, baby. I found this out while spriting Phomet’s mouth and now I have to live with that information and you do too. They have an underbite now, and just enough lip definition to make you cock your head. Is that lipstick? Are their lips just full?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Vest - I added some pockets to make them more utilitarian

Symbol - t b h this one just looks like a totally plausible variant of the symbol you already gave me.

Belt - It is. A SPIKE BELT.

Boots - constantly use fantrollartroom’s combat boot sprite???? MOI? Yes, yes I do, they have done a better job of spriting combat boots than I ever could and I love combat boots and they’re metal as hell so they get some.

So that concludes our review! Luv this scamp please get them a comb for me.

-TR

[tavtiers]

Mage of Void Analysis

for @jaserowells

sollux + equius, what a spooky god tier! first off, here's my brief analysis

Mage of Void (39% activity) - understands knowing and perceiving: incorporeality, secrecy, mystery, misfortune, submission, ignorance, nothingness

opposite - Seer of Light (knows knowing and perceiving: perceptuality, knowledge, information, fortune, agency, sight; players - Rose Lalonde) inverse - Heir of Light (inherits knowing and perceiving: perceptuality, knowledge, information, fortune, agency, sight)

CANON EXAMPLES - n/a NON-CANON EXAMPLES - Credence Barebone (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Edgar Allan Poe

i will be using credence and edgar allan poe as my main examples (bc i dont have any canon ones) but i will provide information on them! if you'd like to know more about credence his wiki is here (also this post will have spoilers for fantastic beasts and where to find them!!) edgar allan poe's wikipedia page is here, i also highly recommend you read 'the raven' bc it's an excellent mage of void example and i'll be referencing it here and there throughout the post :0

alright mages are active with 69% activity active classpects are meaner, but more likely to stand up for themselves void is passive with 9% activity passive classpects are kinder, but less likely to stand up for themselves

this makes a mage of void relatively passive with 39% activity

since they are relatively passive, they are likely quiet and may give off an almost timid first impression. however, while i normally say most passive god tiers aren't prone to be too dangerous, a mage of void is an exception. bc they suffer from void, they are highly likely to go grimdark and will often harbor a volatile darkness of some kind in side of them.

on the subject of mages of void being dangerous, they won't appear to be on a regular basis and will often have agreeable, if mysterious, withdrawn, and kind of angsty personalities they become dangerous when they cant deal with and control the darkness they are struggling with anymore examples of this are poe's numerous poems about murder (cutting a man into pieces and hiding him under the floorboards etc) and credence unleashing his obscurus <--- credence is the best example and i'll get into this in more depth later on

in the raven, edgar allan poe gains a unique understanding of nothingness/lack by suffering from it he is suffering from lenore's passing, missing her, and being alone in general "nevermore" symbolizes nothingness, etc ravens & crows are void symbols the raven causes him distress, which allows him to better understand void mages of void will be prone to suffer from death, lacking something or someone, or alcoholism, among other things since mages of void suffer from emptiness they are very likely to have depression or become the avatar of some dark force they are one of the most likely classpects to go grimdark

a mage of void could gain a unique understanding of the sea from almost dying at sea. or perhaps they understand alcoholism after experiencing it themselves. because of this, they could have knowledge of every alcoholic beverage under the sun

they could suffer from secrets, allowing them to gain a unique understanding of them after having so many people lie to them and keep secrets from them, they can now see right through lies and deception

another idea: a mage of void could be tormented by horrorterrors so they understand them uniquely (their abilities, etc)

the difference between a mage and a seer a seer is someone who has TONS of facts about a topic, but no first hand experience a mage does not have facts or statistics about a topic, but TONS of first hand experience

for example: a mage of cows vs a seer of cows the seer has gone to college and learned all about cows the mage has never been to college but has lived with cows their whole life

mage of void vs seer of void a seer finds everything out about secrets, horrorterrors, death, etc that they can a mage doesnt have to look for info on void. they suffer from secrets, horrorterrors, and death so they already know all about it

a mage of void knows everything there is to know about really obscure topics that no one else has even thought to look into for a mage the obscure topic is constantly happening to them so of course they'd know all about it

the mage will know how to keep things secret after having people keep secrets from them

bc a mage of void suffers from powerful darkness inside of them, they can be volatile or dangerous if their 'darkness' is unleashed (grimdark, etc)

they suffer from bad luck so better understand it

interesting idea: they could suffer from death by being dead and therefore gain a better understanding of ghosts or they could suffer from a lack of awareness/sleep by going into a coma. when they wake up they know everything about comas and dreaming. all their dreaming while in a coma helped them better understand the horrorterrors.

canon examples of mages the disciple - mage of heart the disciple gained the deepest understanding of love by feeling the truest love in the universe, then having it ripped from her and being forced to watch her love die she wrote down all she understood about his scripture after being with the signless for so long she had a deeper understanding of him, and love in general she suffered for who she was, for believing in the signless's message she also suffered for who she was by not being killed by darkleer (he remembered his moirallegiance with her back when she was meulin)

meulin - mage of heart meulin gained a better understanding of love and being herself after her failed matespriteship with kurloz she uses her knowledge to pair up her friends romantically she suffers from who she loves with kurloz using his chucklevoodoos on her and being the one that caused her to go deaf

sollux - mage of doom suffers from voices of the dead, however the voices help him to better understand future doomed events basically self explanatory, suffers from doom so understands it

mages of void could be perfectly happy and suffer from nothing, but more likely, mages of void suffer from nothingNESS and could in fact be one of the saddest mages (though i do think time and doom beat them by a small margin) a mage of void would suffer from emptiness inside of them, emptiness all around them, etc they could suffer from extreme loneliness, having to spend months entirely by themselves but from this, they will learn all about loneliness (how to deal with it, etc) also! while in their extended period of isolation, they could put their loneliness to constructive use, using their time to learn everything they can about all the other aspects of void (secrets, death, horrorterrors, sleep, ravens, etc) an example from the raven: "Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—" edgar allan poe is trying to distract himself from lenore's absence with reading

another cool idea: a mage of void who has been excluded and ostracized their whole life, but uses their isolation to learn other's secrets

a mage of void could have experienced memory loss in the past, giving them a unique understanding of memory loss that they can use to help others suffering with it

or a mage could suffer from figurative (or even literal) invisibility! no one noticing or caring that they're there. through their invisibility, they end up understanding everyone else's deepest secrets. like a little kid no one pays attention to at an adult party, so the kid starts listening in on their conversations and finding out everything the adults dont want them to know

POWERS

there has never been a canon example of a mage in combat, so any powers i come up with are pure speculation hOWEVER i love the idea of a mage of void going into a voidy, destructive, berserker mode when they just can't handle their own suffering or the darkness inside of them anymore but before any possible outbursts, or for mages of void who dont have an outburst at all, im struggling to come up with ideas.

neat idea: a mage of void could have a pet raven that they have a deep mutual understanding with. they can call the bird to help them in combat

i don't think a mage of void would have any unique OFFENSIVE abilities, but during combat i feel they would have a deep understanding of what wasn't going to happen, and use that to get ahead. for instance, they know their opponent never strikes to the left first, meaning they will likely strike right instead. a mage can use this knowledge to avoid the blow.

a mage will use their knowledge of their aspect mainly for themselves and their own benefit. they may keep all of their knowledge of void a secret. they may even keep their suffering a secret (making going grimdark an even realer possibility)

bc of this, others might think the mage perfectly happy (suffers from nothing). or their teammates might even think of them as an idiot, while deep down the mage in fact fully understands things their friends could never begin to comprehend. (understands nothing)

a mage of void could even suffer from their own friends ignorant opinions of them. an example of this can be seen with credence. credence is manipulated by a friend looking for an obscurus, not realizing that credence is one himself. the friend eventually betrays him after deciding that he has outlived his usefulness. only when credence unleashes his obscurus does the friend truly understand the situation and the secret credence has been keeping. i'll get into this more later

some snippets of other excellent analyses: As far as the Mage goes, over the course of their session I believe they’d develop as a character. They’d go from someone potentially shy or self-doubting to someone of importance to the group. Exhibiting traits of a leader or guide later on in the session. Especially if the team has to navigate the Furthest Ring or hide from a great enemy they are unable to fight yet.

They know where people usually throw things away and forget them because they’ve been thrown away and forgotten themselves.

Be diligent in your loyalties and fight for your friends, or I suspect you’ll become the avatar of some dark force or other.

Mage of Void Quotes: "i just feel so empty sometimes and it's so exhausting to feel nothing and everything at the same time" "i like being alone but lately i've been lonely and it hurts"

nooow for the non-canon example. Credence Barebone from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an excellent example of a Mage of Void.

so a mage of void experiences void uniquely, often suffering because of it. this gives them a unique perspective on and understanding of void, more so than any other class. they can then use their knowledge to benefit themselves. to start off, credence exists in the harry potter universe. fantastic beasts takes place in new york, in the 1920s. he experiences void, and suffers because of it, in a number of ways.

when he was young, he was adopted by Mary Lou Barebone, a fanatical anti-witchcraft preacher. mary lou beat all her children, however she treated him the worst. this was because, unbeknownst to him, he was the son of a witch. credence does in fact have latent magical abilities, however because of how mary lou abused him, he was forced to suppress them. in this way, he suffers from secrets (mary lou keeping the secret from him, and he keeping his magic a secret). due to her frequent abuse, he often seems troubled, nervous, or embarrassed, and is shy and withdrawn.

by suppressing his magic, he becomes an obscurial, developing a dark, parasitic force inside of him known as an obscurus.

later on, he meets gellert grindlewald, a wizard who is looking for the obscurus that has been destroying parts of new york. credence is the oldest known obscurial in existence (all others have died before the age of 10) so grindlewald is unaware that credence is the very same obscurial he's looking for. grindlewald offers his help to credence, healing him when he's beaten by mary lou, and offering emotional support. he is doing this because he wants credence to help him find the obscurial. in exchange he promises to teach him magic, helping him become a part of the wizarding world.

credence suffers from void due to grindlewald's ignorance

grindlewald eventually comes to the conclusion that the obscurial is credence's little sister, and has him take him to her. once there, he rejects credence. he tells him that he's a 'squib' (a person without magic born to a magical parent) and that he has no use for him anymore. due to this betrayal and all the emotional pain he's been through, credence finally unleashes the full power of his obscurus on new york, revealing himself. in this way, credence gains a true understanding of secrets, ignorance, and the darkness inside of him.

grindlewald goes to confront credence, apologizing and saying they can work together. however, credence is now capable of fully understanding that he is lying, and knows that he only wants to use his obscurus for his own ends.

i'm going to include songs and whatnot in here too, because why the heck not :)

some planet suggestions: Land of Crows and Psyche Land of Memory and Emptiness Land of Dark Water and Marbles - the marbles would actually contain your consorts' consciences and you'd need to retrieve them from the water. buuUT there's monsters in the water!! :0c

Your most likely Denizen is Nyx. Some other viable denizens: Cetus, Poseidon, Artemis, Sige, Selene, Chaos, Erebus, Hymnos, Asteria, Hecate, Harpocrates, Charon, Circe, Morpheus, The Oneiroi, Thalassa, Epiales, Phobetor, Aporia Dahni came up with these! You can read her post with each denizen’s full description here

SONGS from god-tier-lovers unrealized: Pusher - Clear ft.  Mothica (Shawn Wasabi Remix) struggle: Alterniabound 06 - Dreamers and The Dead realized: Lauren Aquilina - Ocean

extra Lost Boy - Ruth B The Chill - Bruce Hornsby

QUADRANTS god tiers a mage of void could be compatible with, sorted from most to least likely/healthy ♥ Matespriteship: Witch of Breath, Witch of Time, Seer of Breath, Seer of Time, Prince of Breath, Prince of Time, Maid of Breath, Maid of Time ♦ Moirallegiance: Page of Heart, Page of Space, Maid of Heart, Maid of Space ♠ Kismesissitude: Prince of Time ♣ Auspisticism: n/a

k i'm done :) thanks for the suggestion, mage of light will be coming soon!!

[roxilalonde]

can i ask for headcannons about the personality of trickster! rose? I'm in a panel as her and i have nO idea what i'm doing

sure!

the trickster state is designed to parallel the mario super-star. (jane's first exploit with trickster mode enabled in particular resembles the setup of a mario level.) it accelerates one’s abilities to the point where most challenges are easy, as seen when jane is going on her horrorterror-blasting crusade. the remarks made by jane and jake about how it seems to fix all their emotional problems are a nod to the way you can pretty much just walk through a level if you’ve got the star. on a deeper level, trickster mode reads as an allegory for substance abuse, thus the overlap between roxy being turned trickster and relapsing, and the multiple references to the kids being high off it. it points to the way that although soporifics can seem to offer solutions, they really just numb the imbiber to the reality of their situation.

the alpha kids turn trickster (with the exception of dirk, but why he’s impervious to trickster mode is a separate post entirely) because of their interpersonal issues, and their failure to acknowledge and work through challenges. so that’s the underlying foundation of most trickster characters: they’re that way because they’re in big denial about a problem that’s probably their fault, and have tried to take the easy way out by numbing themselves to the problem.

about rose, more specifically: her history with alcohol abuse suggests that the numbing route is not one she’s averse to taking. in lieu of her mother’s death, she turns to alcohol as a way to quiet her anxieties, about both kanaya and her mother. so in terms of what problem would be motivating her to turn trickster, it would probably have to do either with her mother’s death or her interpersonal relationships, particularly hers with kanaya. she’d be touchy about those subjects, and likely either avoid them or pretend that there’s nothing wrong with them. it’s the alpha kid approach: jane and jake both “solve” their relationship troubles by pretending not to understand what caused them in the first place and saying things they don’t believe.

on a different tac, i also think it’d be useful to study the numbing agent that rose uses before turning to liquor, namely, grimdark mode. the distinction between grimdark and trickster mode lies in the emotions they emphasize in the affected person and how each coping strategy manifests. grimdarks confront their problems by lashing out and distancing themselves (rose losing the ability to communicate) whereas tricksters ignore their problems and pull their friends into their own downward spiral (jane being “just peachy,” everyone wanting to kiss each other, etc.). rose went grimdark because of her anger and desire for revenge; in my mind, she would go trickster later in the grieving process, after she had processed her mother’s death but failed to accept it. 

so, at last: what would her character be like?

paying attention to the way jasprose behaves would be a good starting block, as she’s effectively just rose without inhibitions or a verbal filter, but also a rose who, in her timeline, went through the death of everyone near and dear to her and endured a traumatic end herself. jasprose deals with a lot of pain and memory by playing up the frivolous cat aspects of herself, to ignore the poignant tragedy that affected the other half of her personality. another reference might be the way rose acts when she’s drunk, albeit with more exuberance. 

generally, in homestuck, intoxication brings out the worst in people (with the notable exception of gamzee). rose’s self-consciousness is made painfully clear when she gets drunk in anticipation of her date with kanaya. roxy usually oversteps her boundaries with dirk most when she’s drunk. jake represses his feelings upon engaging trickster mode, agreeing to do whatever his friend wants to make her happy instead of expressing himself. trickster rose, in my mind, would be verbose for the sake of being verbose, pretentious, and casually dismissive, both of her own emotional issues and of others’. her violent nihilism (see: trying to break the game after realizing it couldn’t be won) would manifest in all the worst ways, probably with a laissez-faire attitude regarding the lives of others and a lack of any hope for the future. 

enjoy your panel; rose’s character is fascinating, and i’m sure you’ll have fun with her however you choose to play it. good luck!

[thepageoflands]

Session Analysis

The same person who asked me to do a land analysis(see below) also asked me to analyze a session. So here goes!

Maid of Hope

This will be one of the most important players in your session, as they are creating the hope. Whenever there is a lack of hope, and the problems are too numerous, you can show up and try to fix them. You definitely want to help out the seer and the mage, as you can add a little hope to the quest, and this is going to help out significantly. You do want to work on your planet quest, as it will help you become even more powerful.

Bard of Space

This guy is the save all or kills all for your session, but most likely the latter. Most of the things they do are going to have destructive tendencies, so if he is in charge of the breeding, you want to keep him away from that at all costs. Have the Knight be with him at all times, and possibly the sylph, if they can spare the time.

Page of Life

This player is indubitably one of the most powerful potential players of the session. They should be on their planet, leveling up and understanding their powers. Because if you can unlock those, then fighting anything will be a cinch. The sheer power of their aspect will be a great help.

Heir of Light

This player is going to be just an all around help to everyone. The power to manipulate and share luck, as well as being protected by it all the freaking time, is a real help. Have them around any player who needs a little luck, especially the knight and bard. The void players, especially the prince, will need luck in finding new information and knowledge and providing light in the void.

Seer of Doom

One of the unluckiest classpects, this player is also one of the most important. Due to the fact that they can see everything gone wrong, and every single doomed timeline, their job is sure to be a maddening one. They want to work with the Mage of Time to fix any mistake that might have caused a doomed timeline and have them finish any time loops, so none of the effects cause more damage. If the maid of Hope can help, then they can add more hope to the entire process.

Mage of Time

This player is your time player, which is an important part. His job is to know every different possible timeline, and is highly instrumental in maintaining the alpha timeline. Expect many, many different alt-timeline versions of this player to appear to help you. Pair them with the seer of doom, as they can help fix the mistakes the seer sees.

Rogue of Breath

Whenever the Knight has to be away from the Bard, this player might be a reasonable solution. They can steal the freedom and movement from the Bard, effectively rendering them paralyzed. This might not be the best of solutions, so if the Heir of Light is around, that might add a little luck to the problem, and keep the Bard harmless. Otherwise, have them leveling up on their planet, as the power to immobilize enemies will be a very helpful one.

Knight of Blood

This player is going to be spending most of their time with the bard, doing pretty much all of the frog duty. Their aspect might also help any problems with the many, many disagreements that are going to happen during the team. They might also want to spend some time on their planet, working and leveling up for quests, but make sure they find some other player to supervise the bard, like the rogue of breath or the witch of mind.

Sylph of Life

The sylph is going to be your main healer. Like, this is one of the most powerful healers that could ever exist. You either want them to be with the knight and bard, fixing any damages that happened with actual lives, working on their quests to get more powerful, or splitting the time with the Page of Life for full-session healing duty. Have them with a stronger fighting class, as they might not be the best of fighters.

Prince of Void

As they are destroying their aspect, this player is going to want to work on your sessions knowledge. They can destroy the void in order to discover information on Derse, the horrorterrors, and any other thing that you don’t know. They will be especially adept at fighting off horrorterrors and Derse agents, as they are from the void. Have them be with the Sylph, because they might not be as strong a fighter, or with the seer or rogue to stop horrorterrors from creating grimdarkness.

Rogue of Void

When you need someone to scout out the Derse royalty or summon objects for you, this player is your go to. They want to be working with other people, because if not, they will eventually drift away into the void, and will be of no help to your team. If possible, have them work with the heir, because they can provide light to help remove the void and create bigger and harder items.

Witch of Mind

The main point of this player is to learn to manipulate the minds of every damn enemy in the session. They want to be on their planets, learning the basics and complicalaticies of their powers. If they have done that, they can spend time helping with the bard, as she can keep them calm and non-destructive. They can also spend time turning the dersite army against the king and queen.