#like it would be insane to have an sburb game play out in the universe of AN just cuz of how grounded it is- like in the scifi cyberpunk way

[clockworkreapers]

the idea of sburb happening Aleph Null and then it goes up the chain of command to be like: "Um so... one of our inner empire planet colonies has just been destroyed in a matter of hours and we have no explanation as to why"

"What."

[nintendont2502]

cant find the original post but a while ago i impulsively decided to add all 32 sburb players (betas, alphas, alternians *and* beforans) to a random name generator and then randomly mix them up - characters kept their original first name and class, and took on the last name and aspect of whatever character they took the role of. this was just meant to be a funny 1am experiment so i could laugh at the cursed results

...yeah it has lore now. i cant stop thinking about it. help.

Beta Kids:

Gamz Egbert (Gamzee) - Bard of Breath. One of the most chill guys ever. Constantly zoned the hell out. Loves clowns :0) him and his dad bond over it. Hangs out with Kari a lot over vc, where it's basically just Kari talking at him uninterrupted (the kid needs it sometimes)

Kari Strider (Kankri) - Seer of Time. Gifted kid and he won't let you forget it. Permanently lives in a sweater vest even though he literally lives in Texas. Constantly annoyed by how childish and immature his older brother is. Lectures him a lot. Lectures his friends a lot. Has 'visions of his past lives' (aka occasional memories from his post-scratch/alternate timeline counterparts). Lectures his friends about how theyre real and valid whenever they make give him shit for it (which happens a lot). Dedicated pacifist - for now, anyway.

John Lalonde - Heir of Light. Golden child. Has an over-bearing mother that constantly pushes him into learning instruments/lanugages/skills, participating in competitions and events, winning award after award. Sure, he's... kinda sick of doing things all day every day, and he doesn't really want to do any of this, but... shouldn't he do it anyway? Even if just for his Mom? Hell, he can't really complain about it, right? He has such a good life! He goes horseback riding every sunday! Sure, it sucks that he doesn't have any free time that isn't controlled by his mother, but he can deal with it. It's fine.

(Things get even worse during the three year trip when Wuh Oh! Gender crisis time! Except he can’t be a girl because he was always meant to be his mom’s perfect son, and he’s already let her down once by letting her die, right? He can just… live with this. Its fine. It's not that bad. It's for her, after all.)

Roxy Harley - Rogue of Space. Grew up living on a small island somewhere in the Pacific that her grandfather 'won in a poker game' (aka probably scammed someone out of, knowing him) - or so he says, anyway. He also used to say he got Roxy the same way every time she asked where she came from! Haha very funny Roxy definitely loved hearing that and not a real response every time she asked where she came from and why she didn’t have any parents. That was great. Her grandfather died when she was fairly young, leaving her alone on the island with nothing left of him but the small inventions he left around the place to make life easier for her. She grows up learning how to maintain them, and although she tries becoming a great inventor like her grandfather, she just... doesn't have the skill. Hacking, on the other hand - shes great at that shit! She finally cracks her final goal - cracking into her grandfathers servers - just before her friend Gamz's 13th birthday, finding mostly boring shit - expenses, customer complaints, legal threats, budgets, etc. What's mildly more interesting to her, however, is the insane amount of money (if they lived on the mainland, they'd be fucking LOADED), and a .exe file for a really cool looking game, with a note from her grandfather congratulating her on finally getting in. And hey, would you look at that? Its multiplayer! And all her friends are free - even John, who through sheer coincidence found himself with a free weekend after his tutors came down with various mysterious illnesses and injuries. It's like the universe wants them to play the game or some shit! Haha wild

Alpha Kids:

Raph Crocker (Rufioh) - Rogue of Life. The living embodiment of all those business major memes. Dude is *dedicated* to the Crockercorp brand - he's determined that one day, he'll climb the ranks and become head of the company, and hopefully lead it just as well as his great-grandfather did. He unironically wears a suit everywhere, and seems committed to sounding like a 50 year old boardroom exec trapped in the body of a 16 year old - although it isn't hard to get him to crack. As much as he pretends he has no patience for his online friends and their constant stories of 'living on a remote island' or 'living in the post-apocalyptic future' (seriously guys, he isn't that gullible), he does genuinely care about them. Besides, when you're stuck in the house all day, there isn't much else to do.

Tuna Strider (Mituna) - Heir of Heart. Trans king. Exudes pure 'disney channel older brother' energy. Shithead (affectionate). Looks up to his Bro, a famous pacifist who resisted the Batterwitch's rule with a global peaceful protest... only to be killed the moment he became too much of a threat. Yyeah. Tuna has... some thoughts about how that should have gone down - most of them involving swords. Or guns. Or both. Maybe if his Bro had a sweet katana, the world wouldn't have been flooded! Although it's too late for his Bro, Tuna has decided to take up the fight in his stead by creating his own 'sick as fuck gun-sword' with whatever scrap metal he can find in the apartment (his Bro, for some reason, didn't think to leave him any useable weapons. cringe). He's got the sword part down great, but the gun... not so much.

Vris Lalonde (Vriska) - Thief of Void. The second half of the 't4t post apocalypse chaos squad', as Tuna calls them. Girl doxxes people for fun - what are they gonna do? Doxx her back? lmao good luck with that losers - closest youre gonna get is still 400 years off. Constantly daring her friends to do stupid shit and quote, 'stop being so fucking boringggg'. it usually works on tuna. sometimes on dave. she still hasnt gotten raph yet, but *one day*...

Dave English - Knight of Hope. smooth talking mile a minute inventor who *loves* trying to 'pitch' his latest invention to his friends. its become almost a game to them, where theyll take turns bidding increasingly ridiculous amounts for an umbrella that shoots seeds ('for easy planting in the rain yknow') or a beat-boxing robot ('i dont even need to explain this one just look at it man. cool as shit'). hell, even raph gets involved sometimes, usually turning it into a shark tank style negotiation. dave swears hes keeping a tally of how much everyone 'owes' him, and claims that one day hes settling that bill. his inventions are genuinely pretty impressive, especially considering his limited resources - being stuck alone on a remote island makes sourcing parts pretty hard. he probably wouldnt even need to jokingly scam his friends in order to jokingly sell his inventions - they jokingly sell themselves. he just thinks scamming people is fun.

Alternia Rapid Fire Round lets goo

Cronus Megido - Bard of Time. relentlessly flirts with anyone of a higher caste than him in the hopes that, if he can get into a quadrant with them, he'll have more protection than he would as just a solo rustblood. this strategy ultimately fails when he flirts with a particular Serket one too many times and gets killed for it. damn. oh well.

Sollux Nitram - so so tired of everyones shit. the only person that actually vaguely got along with Cronus (because he was the only person that Cronus didn't flirt with). just wants to play his pokemon in peace man stop dragging him into drama

Damara Captor - Witch of Doom. 'curses' people. seems weirdly unsurprised when those curses actually work. after cronus' death, a rumour went around that she was the one who caused it, and she absolutely wasnt denying that shit - now no one wants to fuck with her, and those that do? well, she still has her psiionics.

Meulin Vantas - Mage of Blood. Basically the only fucking thing holding this friendship group together. Despite all the complicated as shit relationships - the friendships, the exes, the mortal enemies, the attempted (and successful) murders - Meulin somehow manages to navigate the web of relationships and keep everyone relatively stable

Jaydee Leijon (Jade) - Witch of Heart. catgirl :33. Wishes she lived closer to everyone so she could see them 33: especially her moirail!! at least she still has her lusus to playfight with

Karkat Maryam - Knight of Space. basically a tboy vampire. Used to live in the caverns, but after he realised he was a dude, he began to feel uncomfortable with how oppressive and 'feminine' the caverns were. ran away. struggles with his identity - the contrast between the typical female jadeblood standards of being caring and nurturing, and the typical alternian female standards of being violent and aggressive, leave him stuck in the middle, unsure of what to do or who hes 'allowed' to be. swings wildly between being aggressive and letting himself care about his friends. he eventually figures out that gender stereotypes are bullshit and he can care abt his friends and still be a dude. hes still an asshole though <3

Eridan Pyrope - Prince of Mind. Incredibly committed to a strict moral code - which... no one can figure out. it seems to vary wildly depending on what suits him best at the specific moment. Used to roam Alternia looking for 'criminals' to 'improve' or, if that failed, 'bring to justice' with one Serket, but after an incident involving the loss of three eyes and one arm... they arent exactly on speaking terms.

Dyrrhk Serket (Dirk) - Prince of Light. i dont know how else to say it this mfer makes saw traps. he claims its to 'improve' people - by putting them through some specific trap, it... fixes a percieved issue? even if its an issue only he can see. and if they die in the trap? well, they should have just tried harder right. they probably deserved it. he isnt even doing this out of a desire to hurt people hes *genuinely* convinced that what hes doing is helping, and thinks that this is the best way to go about it. puts eridan through one one day, resulting in the loss of his vision, and after he (finally) figured out that 'huh maybe that wasnt a good idea', he... apologises. lmao just kidding that would be too reasonable - instead he mind controls one of his friends into putting *dyrrhk* into a trap of his own design, resulting in the loss of an eye and an arm. he seems genuinely convinced that this should make them even. everythings fine now, right? he scares me just on a conceptual level

Tavros Zahhak - Page of Void. hes basically a himbo im ngl. hes tall hes ripped hes clumsy and he cant help but draw attention to himself wherever he goes - attention he *hates*. moirails with jaydee. theyre cute <>

Latula Makara - Knight of Rage. clown... despite the usual purpleblood stereotypes, she doesnt really get angry all that often - most of the time, shes just vibing. but when she *does* get angry? its always for a reason. theres always a specific goal shes fulfilling through that anger (even if its just intimidating someone into doing something). i have the least thoughts about her but shes interesting

Jaiikk Ampora (Jake) - Page of Hope. Just a funny lil guy that likes playing pirates :) all the lowbloods he roleplays with definitely want to be there and don't feel coerced by being 'asked' by a literal violetblood :)) if people die during his 'games' well that sucks but he cant exacly stop playing because of a few small accidents right? ..yyeah. hes incredibly ignorant of his position in society and how that effects other people, even if (especially if) those consequences are deadly for others. after a certain point its just easier to not know whats going on than to face all the damage youve caused right. claims he loves the ocean and dreams of living in the depths. never goes into the ocean. hes a weird guy

Equius Peixes - Heir of Life. Future heir to the Alternian throne. Determined to lead Alternia into a new era of strength, no matter the methods to get there. moirails with Jaiikk (which absolutely doesnt help the whole 'Jaiikk accidentally pressuring lowbloods into doing things for him' thing. bro has scary dog privileges with the future emperor looming behind him at all times)

Even faster Beforus speed round because you cant legally make me think about them for more than five seconds

Porrim Megido - Maid of Time

Feferi Nitram - Witch of Breath

Rose Captor - Seer of Doom

Nepeta Vantas - Rogue of Blood

Kurloz Leijon - Prince of Heart

Aradia Maryam - Mage of Space

Aranea Pyrope - Sylph of Mind

Kanaya Serket - Sylph of Light

Jane Zahhak - Maid of Void

Meenah Makara - Thief of Rage

Terezi Ampora - Seer of Hope

Horuss Peixes - Page of Life

[sburbian-sage]

Hello there! Its gm again

Glad we finally got this working

A lot has happened, from my perspective its been about two and a half years, ive completed a further two sessions

But i think we did it, i think we're out

We're back on earth, like normal earth

Well kinda normal

Sburb doesn't seem to exist here and our sylladex's have vanished along with basically everything we didnt have on our persons when we walked through the door

We had a hell of a session, one where we god tiered relatively early game due to the danger

Of the four of us (space, time, breath, and light) we seem to have retained little dregs of power, small things, our space player can give you the dimensions of a room down to the millimeter from just a glance type of things

I have an intimate awareness of time even without a clock

As far as we can tell paradox space is still out there but is functionally unreachable at the current moment due to technological restraints

Took about a year of tinkering just to get a stable signal using the replay-net dongle

Its

Is it strange that i miss it? Its strange out here, for gods sake i work at a gas station now how wild is that

Ive killed hundred of thousands if not millions or more enemies and created thing beyond understanding and met clowns and fought kings and queens and Eldritch beings and made fucking universes and i work at a gas station! A fucking gas station dude! Arguably the most normal of jobs that you could have!

Its wild! its so far beyond insanity that the four of us are sure we have to be in the game still

But its right there in the fuckin sky, like no one else can see it, a giant "thanks for playing"

We cant even go to some kind of therapy cause who the fuck would believe us? Gods sake our youngest is 13! She has at least 15 sessions under her belt, how the fuck do you even recover to a societal normal after decades of being fucking 13!

Its like sburbs final fuck you

I wish i knew what we did, how we got out how the fuckin menu got fixed or if it was just some fucking random twist of data

I wish i could help others leave

But we dont know and we have no way of figuring it out without access to the game and ill be fucking damned if we push our luck

I wish i could help you

The Sylladex isn't a SBURB thing, anyone can do that, dingus. Post disproven.

Okay but for real, even putting aside the fact that I innately refuse to believe "I found a way to fix the game" stories, especially with the addendum of "the game fixed itself mysteriously", I do have to interrogate the intention behind sending this ask. It can't help anyone because it happened randomly, it double-can't help me because I am not even in a position to receive random twists of fate. And ending it off with the random pitiable "I wish I could help you"? Every so often some guy will troll around by claiming they beat the game, say everyone else has a "skill issue" or is "not seeing the bigger picture which is why you're stuck there", and then starts making crass comments about how we're stuck standing in a circle and providing genetic material to a frog while they're going to spend the rest of their immortal life in their new universe being fed grapes and receiving blowjobs from their followers (and then they get banned), and I have to say, at least the troll posts are funny.

Even if this is true and you are now free from the game >assuming that a new SBURB session can't or won't be initiated in this new world, I cannot really help you acclimate to living a new life in a normal world, nor can I direct you to a resource that can do the same, because nobody has experienced this. The closest you'll get is guys with absurdly long (we're talking around three years) pre-Sessions, and even then they know the game is about to begin on some level, even if they don't know when, and that dread kind of characterizes the entire text. So enjoy that I guess.

[laurasauras]

What do you think Homestuck believes in?

g, i love you, your interest in me infodumping is honestly such a delight. i can sometimes feel like i’m talking way too much, but you always make me feel special, it’s lovely!

this is long, so i’m going to use a cut. i’m so sorry, mobile users. blame tumblr. tl;dr? i think homestuck believes in love, hope, and fighting even when the stakes seem insurmountable. 

so there’s a lot of like “core themes” in homestuck, but “what homestuck believes in” is such a lovely and specific way to phrase it, so i’m gonna go with what i think the most important ones are. 

firstly: love. and more specifically, all love. 

look, there are romantic parts of homestuck. and they’re often show-stopping.

(also homestuck does visual callbacks very well, there’s a reason that these two scenes are composed the same way.)

but the core of the story is these four kids, all of them starting from a state of isolation. they don't have "real friends", they feel disconnected from their guardians, they feel disconnected from everyone in the world they walk around in, but they go online and they have each other. and they're constantly joking and making fun of each other, but they're also checking in almost every time they achieve something, as if grounding their friends in their real life.

the story keeps progressing and getting more and more complicated, but it can never quite overshadow the beauty of the pesterlog conversations between friends.

i think that's a large part of what the audience of homestuck connects with—that feeling of connection online and the support that the characters give each other. 

i also think that a lot of the time, the friendships and familial relationships in homestuck were given the same—if not more—importance as the romantic relationships, which is fucking uncommon to see in media! almost every character has to come to terms with how their upbringing shaped them, and you know what? that's the same of almost every person.

the conversation between dirk and dave before the final battle is one of the most important and touching moments of the whole story! two of the characters most concerned with their adherence to masculinity and appearing Too Cool For Emotions talk about their feelings and trauma before hugging it out. and it doesn't further the plot, it isn't part of the hero's romantic arc, but it's vital. 

the second big thing i think homestuck believes in is the importance of doing what is right. in being a hero.

homestuck positions john and his friends as the main characters selected by the universe to play sburb and literally ascends them to god status.

they're empowered by destiny! they're going to beat the game, conquer the worst villain ever and bring humanity and trollkind back from extinction AND their new world isn't going to be under the tyranny of a genocidal fish alien!

but that empowerment is also a disempowerment. 

look at how frequently dave falls into the reluctant hero trope. fate fucking kicks them around. when they are so destined to do all that stuff, can they really be said to have free will? and when they do seem to make a wrong choice in relation to their destiny, it's either something that furthers the plot OR it creates a doomed timeline and they're usually killed horribly. 

and it's a story that is constantly reminding us that it's a story! you can definitely lose yourself in homestuck, you can zone into it and accept the rules and just read it as if it's a reasonable reality, but i don't think it was ever written that way, or when it is, i think that that's a result of hussie accidentally getting into the story as well!

like okay, we start off with this:

that's fucking bonkers. he's 13 and he doesn't have a name? but of course it's bullshit, it’s just a cool homestuck thing. because we never get a conversation that goes:

TG: so the big 13

TG: you get a name yet

EB: yup! let me formally introduce myself as john!

TG: i give that name 4/5 hats

no, dave just immediately calls john by his name. and likewise, until we're introduced to the other characters and learn their names, they're referred to by their handle abbreviations, but the second they're introduced it's first name basis time. because it's a story and our perception is what matters most.

then we have the ridiculous intermission, that starts out as what dave sees when he goes to mspa.com and which resembles problem sleuth enough that i almost thought it was just that, but then seemed to be an entirely new adventure, and then became a pretty vital subplot!

and then we have the author literally climbing into the story and we watch him type it. Don't Forget This Is All Written By Me!

the website changes format, there are the meta jokes, there's the way that caliborn raises the same complaints to hussie about the story being too long and confusing that some members of the fandom were. there's the way that pantskat happened! or they drastic changes in artstyle, often because someone else was drawing a panel!

so like, we've got these characters who seem to have goals that they've developed of their own volition and who seem to have their own ways of going about achieving them, who at times even act contrarily to how hussie says he wants them to act (remember how he attempted to propose to/revive vriska and how both she and caliborn at different times type into the narrative prompt "instead of" hussie) but of course ultimately! he wrote every word!

they don't have free will, they don't even exist! but on a different level, which any writer can understand, once you as an author have established a character, you trap yourself into writing them consistently, which can mean that while something might be best for the plot, the character metaphorically crosses their arms in your head and goes "i would literally never do that."

some characters of homestuck become aware that they are and we know they are, but most of them don't think that, they think that they're just living the life they have.

how the fuck are his characters supposed to go about their days when their author finds it funny to block their path with a giant bust of snoop dogg? and when they work for pages and pages and pages to get around whatever asinine thing andrew fucking hussie (or worse! his fans!) has come up with, there's another obstacle and maybe there's not even a point anyway!

how do you not just dismiss it as something like "hes just being weird/an asshole/etc”?

yeah, look, he might just be having a laugh. but so to might god. 

sometimes you're walking along and something really stupid happens and it makes you for a second want to believe in god so that you can stare at the sky and say "really." :|

think about why detective stories are so popular. they give the illusion that if you're clever enough, if you collect the right data and link it together, you can trace back exactly what happened and solve impossible riddles and make sense of the world. you meet a man who has dust on his knees and you can deduce that he's been sneaking down to the basement of the shop he works at to tunnel into the bank next door. there's nothing magic about it, watson, it's just good detective work.

and we neeeeed that lie! but you know how it works in the real world? in the real world, police are baffled at a crime scene until a decade later someone discovers the fingerprints belonged to a fucking KOALA! that's more ridiculous than a snoop dogg bust in a hallway, or most of the other things hussie has written.

i think like that's a huge message behind the epilogues too, because john figures out he's in a story in candy and everything feels pointless.

but if that's the world he lives in, that's the world he fucking lives in. there's nothing pointless about living.

and i think that clicks for him towards the end when he talks to roxy and then rose. rose actually thanks him for choosing a path that allowed her to have the life she had, because she loves her wife and daughter. like it's insane, but she's happy, that's the life she lived and she doesn't want a more sensible one.

so what happens to us when we get that feeling like the world is pointless? 

(which is A Major Fucking Side Effect Of Depression BTW and i still stand by my interpretation that ALL of john's shit can be put down to his depression, which is what makes it interesting)

for a generation with fucking terrifying levels of mental illness, when we start feeling like the world is too crazy and the odds are too high, and there's fucking war happening and our friends aren't even guaranteed to be on our side?

we just fucking fight anyway.

because we live in the world we live in and we just have to be grateful that we are who we are because of that.

every character in homestuck chooses this, again and again, so i have to read that as hopeful. alpha dave and rose knowing who hic is and that their kids are so far away? still gonna fucking fight and fight LOUDLY even though they know it won't change things. (on top of the fucking white house, in case the political allegory was too subtle lmao.)

there are so many messages in homestuck and honestly i feel like i’ve barely scraped the surface of them. but what does homestuck believe in? i feel that in my heart. homestuck believes in love and in doing what is right, even when it’s hard to figure out what right is, even when you might not make a difference. 

homestuck is good, actually.

[thepersephonecabin]

And another thing:

I dont understand why people are surprised that everything in the epilogues got fucked up i mean?

If i watched the apocalyptic destruction of my own and several other universes, watched all my friends and family die sometimes more than once with varying permanence, and been forced into a survival game where you would have to fight for your fucking life against insane odds all by the time i was 16 then of course the effects of that trauma is going to get played out in my adulthood. They experienced abuse, isolation, death, were forced into situations where self-harm and suicide was the literal only way out, worked for years with only the distant promise of having a home again only to find out it was all pointless because of how minor fuckups can cause sburb can become completely unwinnable. I would be more concerned if the characters were all suddenly okay than to have things go off the rails like this.

I understand if you wanted an escape from reality with the epilogues and thats a totally reasonable response, but we all saw and read the content warnings and power struggles, splintering friend groups, rushing into relationships romantic and sexual with people would shouldn't, depression, self-isolation, suicide, illness and disability, infidelity, seeing yourself recover somewhat healthily or repeat the mistakes of your abusers and become the "villain" are all super realistic reactions to the massive amounts of fucked up shit the characters went through in canon that real survivors go through every day and i should know because im one of them

Its like how a lot of people hated the harry potter epilogue because it was so divorced from the trauma harry ron and hermione had gone through in the series and we never got to see them work through it, just skipped ahead to the happy ending. To me the homestuck epilogues are the antithesis of that.

And tbh as a 20-something who grew up with severe depression because nothing i experienced in life had the picture perfect ending of the fairytales i felt promised by the media around me i find it refreshing to have a story finally show the consequences of these kids experiencing everything they experienced in canon

[busterofbeing]

Ranking The Page Classpects

I'm going to do my best to rank all the page classpects, from best to worst. Fair warning: most of these classpects are pretty bad. When making this list, I sorted out the bad from the awful and started putting the worst ones on and work my way up. If a classpect is high up, it doesn't mean it's good; it just means it sucks less than the ones below it.

Here's my take on page class. First: the page starts off weak, but if they manage to reach their true potential they are "second to none". This is stated in canon. Second: the journey of a page typically takes the entire session. Of the pages we've seen, they're journeys haven't been the best; Jake didn't reach his true potential until his fight with LE (or before [S] Game Over in the game over timeline), both events happened the last day or well after the last day of the session. Tavros, the page of breath, didn't realize his true potential until he was dead. Yeah. We see Tavros rally the troll army to fight LE with just his friendliness, charm and flexibility (part of the breath aspect); a feat that only Aranea, a troll with eons worth of mind control practice could achieve. Keep in mind a page reaching their full potential applies to the emotional side of them as well; not just the fancy powers they get. Horuss, the page of void, never realizes his full potential. For this list, I ranked under the presumption that it generally takes a page almost the entire session to realize their true potential, if they manage to at all. Third: Pages are challenged by, yet embody their aspect. Jake has a good-natured demeanor and is positive, yet he can't see possibilities to escape his relationship with Dirk, and isn't optimistic about the ones presented. Tavros leads without realizing it during the afterlife and is pretty flexible, yet has a tough time changing throughout Hivebent and literally could not move, all parts of the Breath aspect. Horuss is certainly a void player, but is challenged because he sees everything, and can't embody or focus on nothing. Part of the page's journey is to overcome their emotional challenges, meaning they start off challenged by their aspect in some way. Fourth: The Page serves their aspect or serves through their aspect for themselves (this is probably the most widely debated point here). Lastly, a page can weaponize their aspect. Okay! Now to the list...

1.) Page of Rage 2.) Page of Life 3.) Page of Hope 4.) Page of Void 5.) Page of Time 6.) Page of Doom 7.) Page of Mind 8.) Page of Light 9.) Page of Space 10.) Page of Heart 11.) Page of Blood 12.) Page of Breath

1.) Page of Rage

I put this for number one because it seems to be the least problematic of the bunch. Rage-bound can be dangerous, so a person challenged by rage likely wouldn't be a problem to the session. A Page of Rage might start out as a pacifist, and part of their journey is learning when to step up for themselves and fight. As for powers- we know Gamzee (a non-god tier) delivered the most powerful blow to the Black King, so Rage-bound are capable of dealing massive, if unpredictable damage. A PoR would no doubt deal insane damage once fully realized.

2.) Page of Life

I’m gonna say it, probably the worst life classpect besides maybe bard. They'll go through most of their session as an okay healer- maybe they can heal wounds or injuries at best. As a person, they would either be bad at helping and taking care of people, or they help in the wrong way. They would probably be annoying to deal with in a session- whenever they try to help, they just make things worse or make people upset. a PoL would need to learn how to take care of people and actually build them up. Fully realized, however, they would be the best healer in the game. They'd certainly be capable of revival, and could rapidly heal, especially themselves. A passive self-regeneration ability? A fully realized PoL would be a very useful ally in the fight against the Black King.

3.) Page of Hope

Jake showed us a PoH can still be hopeful, although maybe not the best source of hope and trust. Either way, the PoH doesn't seem to be a nonconstructive classpect. At their worst they might selfish or bad at having hope (especially for themselves, as Jake showed dealing with his Dirk problems). Jake also demonstrated a fully realized PoH can be deadly, apparently rivaling the power of the green sun when Jade attempts to overpower him. Not too shabby.

4.) Page of Void

As Horuss himself states, this is a confusing classpect. How does one realize the full potential of nothingness? A PoV would likely start out confused about who they are or what they want to be, and their biggest problem is that they see infinite possibilities and are overwhelmed, again, as Horuss himself states. A PoV would need to learn to be okay with not knowing every possibility, and would need to learn how to "void out" possibilities and find out what their strengths are. Think of a kid who has no clue what they want to do or be when they grow up. A fully realized PoV would have excellent voidy powers, easily become invisible and untraceable. They'd be able to create a sort of void cloud (if that makes sense) around people, although it would be stronger with them. Black holes are also a possibility.

5.) Page of Time

A PoT would likely start out either being way too violent and selfish and/or would struggle with accepting the end of things. If they got a grade on an assignment they felt they didn't deserve, they'd be the ones to argue a better grade, even if they've been told it's final. The journey of a PoT would force them to accept the inevitability of things, and would challenge them to be less violent in their reactions and use their time powers for good, and not petty or zealous reasons. Their time powers in question wouldn't be great. Perhaps they can only travel forward or back in time by only an hour? The biggest problem would be their mastery over their powers. Being violent, selfish, and inexperienced brings plenty of danger to other players (revenge?), and could create many doomed timelines if the PoT wasn't careful. A fully realized PoT would be an excellent fighter, maybe they could even go back in time and fix all their mistakes they made with their powers? Either way, their powers are more potent when they benefit the PoT rather than other players.

6.) Page of Doom

This is a tricky one. Being challenged by doom could mean the PoD is always doomed and must overcome said doom, or they simply aren't doomed and need to accept doom. Combined with fully realized powers, this makes the PoD a personified nuclear bomb, at least in my opinion. Using doom as a powerful weapon could be really good against an impressive foe, or could wipe out the players or even part of a session. It's very unclear which would be the case, so I stuck this classpect in the middle of the list. Another interpretation is that they serve themselves with doom. This could manifest as using doomed people/players to get what they want, which is basically slave labor. Not cool.  Very unpredictable, the co-players must be very wary of a PoD. 

7.) Page of Mind

Alright, here's where the mediocre gets sucky. A PoM would be challenged be decision-making and logic. Maybe they like thought and logic, but aren't good at it. Think an enthusiastic but bad chess player. Or perhaps they might be decent thinkers, but they're too indecisive to put that mind power to use or can't make decisions quick enough. Either way, they wouldn't be constructive to the session because they either can't think/strategist or they can't because they don't know which option they should pick. A fully realized PoM would be an excellent strategist (picture Ender from the Ender series), capable of finding weak points, using strategy to maximize damages, and being able to predict an attack. Powers would include said prediction, maybe they'd be able to visualize the field and how their strategies would play out before they make a move?

8.) Page of Light

 Uy. I don't like this classpect. A light player is valuable because they can provide information, critical to a game like SBurb. Being a PoL, they'd be challenged by light and would either not be able to get information, or wouldn't understand and apply it well. Because this is an active class, they wouldn't be inclined to share this information or their insight with the team. They might also be unlucky. A PoL might also struggle with being in the spotlight; maybe they have stage-fright? Maybe they don't handle attention well and are insecure? A PoL will need to become comfortable with having attention and dealing with it accordingly. A fully realized PoL would have great powers and could get very lucky. The informational part wouldn't be as useful. What's the use of a walk through if you don't get it until the final boss? Eh, they might be able to adapt to what's going on in a battle and fight according to that info.

9.) Page of Space

A PoS would be challenged by space, let's start there. This applies to personal as well as physical space. A PoS might be very disorganized, and/or would have serious issues with *personal space*. Get it? The space aspect, as alternate Calliope tells us, is a lonely aspect. A PoS might have a tough time balancing "people time" and "alone time", and not being able to get help or be left alone (whichever is the problem) would pose a challenge to a PoS. The really bad thing about this classpect is that a space player is required in a null or fruitful session, and is responsible for breeding the Genesis Frog. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want a disorganized person literally challenged by space to be handling the creation of a new universe. The saving grace is that a PoS would be very powerful, rivaling or surpassing Jade's powers (remember she gained the power of the green sun!). Emotionally, a realized PoS would be able to manage their space and personal space well. They'd be able to benefit themselves by being organized and having more/less alone time.

10.) Page of Heart

Challenged by people skills and the self. Their classpect literally means "to serve the self". A PoH would be very obsessed with building up their image and reputation, but would be horrible at dealing with relationships. They wouldn't be kind, and changing would be hard. Because of the fact they will serve themselves, and aren't very good at it, they're nonconstructive to themselves as well as their co-players. A PoH would need to learn to be themselves in order to build their reputation, and that in order to be emotionally stable they'll need to be willing to change and also be open to others. In terms of powers, we don't have much to go off of. Maybe they can fake fake their identity to get behind enemy lines and gain an advantage? Their source of strength would be their own soul, so being emotionally healthy (hard in SBurb) is quite necessary in order to be a good PoH. Overall, an unhelpful class that doesn't have a big payoff when they reach their full potential.

11.) Page of Blood

Oh boy. I've been waiting to roast these last two classpects forever. The PoB is a VERY bad classpect. This is a leader aspect, meaning a PoB will likely be the leader in a session. Here's the problem- they're a page. They're inherently challenged by being able to lead and unify. "Serving themselves through unity" would manifest itself as a PoB wanting to delegate tasks or organize people to benefit their own desires or agenda, which could be very detrimental when playing SBurb. A PoB might even drive people away rather than bring them together. A PoB would need to learn how to lead, and how to lead and unify well. Fully realized, a PoB would basically be a powerful army general. Their fully realized blood powers would likely grant their teammates major power boosts, which could be very useful, especially if they're powerful to begin with. This would make the PoB a personified mega-steroid. In terms of combative powers, we actually have no clue what the powers of a blood player are, so I can't say.

12.) Page of Breath

AKA: The Roast of Tavros. This classpect. This. Classpect. It suffers from the same problem PoB does; you're not going to be a good leader throughout the session. And what's the point of an awesome leader if you're not going to actually get the awesome leader when you need to, you know, LEAD A SESSION?! At least you might have a good leader for the final battle and into the new universe, if you made it. The double whammy to this classpect is that being a PoB, they would struggle with change. Pages need to change to realize their true potential. A Page of Breath is bad at changing. DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE!? This is easily one of the worst classpects, it's very design has such anti-synergy that will make a PoB fundamentally useless. A PoB would need to learn to be flexible and actually accept change. Being challenged by movement, they might be slow or bad at moving. As stated earlier, Tavros starts out without the use of his legs, literally embodying this fact. A fully realized PoB would be a great leader. They would be very fast and great at moving (Tavros dances when he dumbfounds Vriska), and would have powerful windy powers. Does it make up for the journey? ... The answer should be painfully obvious.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. I put a lot of thought into this list and the classpects, I hope you enjoy! Leave your thoughts in the comments!

[homestuckhomestuckhomestuck]

 Interesting timeline facts I can get from the Skaianet ARG draft papers- 

- Jane’s Dad was a clone of John’s Dad. John’s Dad was Jane Crocker (Nanna) and Stan Laurel’s (don’t even ask :v) genetic son on pre-scratch Earth (beta session). The surname “Egbert” comes from a man Nanna later married after fleeing the Condesce. The cloning happened when HIC was ensuring post-scratch Earth (alpha session) had functionally similar conditions to pre-scratch Earth- she impregnated Alpha John’s future wife with a Sburb ectobiology machine with Nanna’s son’s DNA, which is why Jane’s Dad and John’s Dad look identical through two different universes and parentage. Ectobiologically speaking, this would make Dad and John half-brothers. 

- when HIC was first on pre-scratch Earth just after Alternia was destroyed she cut off her hair and sawed off her horns to blend in and ran a bordello in the US Wild West, among other things????? I just mention this because apparently troll horns grow back. 

(beta session/pre-scratch Earth)

- Rose’s Mom and Dave’s Bro got recruited into Skaianet by Jade’s Grandpa at a young age and lived off of trust funds Jade’s Grandpa set up for them in the 1980s. This is why they have money, and probably how Roxy babysat Joey. 

- Nanna (Jane) is named after Calamity Jane, Calliope/Caliborn’s Cherub mom who “kept [HIC] on the rails of her designated global conquest to secure the future birthplace of her son and daughter” by opposing her from pre-scratch Earth onwards. Grandpa was just named Jake because “it sounded kind of like Jane, human names are stupid, and HIC doesn’t actually care.” 

- Skaianet was a front company used to speed along the development of technology on Earth by releasing Alternian and hoarded Sburb tech from meteor sites to eventually support the running of Sburb to end the universe and scratch into a new one by HIC. She planned to use the post scratch earth (alpha session) as a home planet for the rebirth of the troll empire in Universe C, which the kids were supposed to win for her and hand over, which was going just as planned until John’s Retcon. 

- Jade’s Grandpa is ridiculously irresponsible and doesn’t have strong character, there is a lot about Jake..... as puppet head of Skaianet, anyway the most relevant thing I could find is Hiveswap Joey Claire is born in 1980 and Hiveswap is in 1994 and Jade’s meteor hits the island in 1995, and Grandpa was totally oblivious to Skaianet’s sinister purpose until he finally found “the mysterious island in the pacific,” i.e. Hellmurder Island, ditched his newest wife (A. Claire) and children (Joey Claire and Jude Harley) and presumably did his sburb exploration shenanigans to save John and pick up Jade’s dead dreamself after discovering the frog temple and eventually died when Jade was young because of Tavros mind controlling Bec to redirect a bullet she fired as a baby. We got Grandpa’s full timeline, and man is it weird. 

Homestuck Storyline

- John’s Retcon signifigance in story is a little more explained. 

- HIC’s master plan was to get Roxy to revive the matriorb, take over post-scratch Earth and Universe C, groom Jane as Heiress, and Jake as Jane’s slave, and restart the troll empire in Universe C. John’s retcon “disrupted the course of events, breaking HIC's mental grip on her powerful servants, and turning the tide in their favor.” Epilogue indicates this probably means Jade and Jane. Other possibilities: Gamzee and Kurloz, just because clowns are frequently referred to as HIC’s powerful servants, and a large part of John’s retcons involved Gamzee looking completely baffled and stopping him from manipulating Terezi to kill Vriska. Implied this is what stopped HIC. Not sure how Aranea in [S] Game Over fit in.  

- It’s also implied John’s retcon power had something to do with Calliope predominating in an alternate timeline, which was said to be impossible barring “a highly improbable glitch in causality” aka exactly how the retcon power is described. This Calliope destroys the green sun and renders LE vulnerable to attack by Vriska w the masterpiece juju (i.e. what gives out the retcon power in the first place.) so ???? good job john, whatever this implies. 

- Gamzee’s timeline remains kind of unexplained. Already known: Calliope/Caliborn was born on a dying Earth C in Universe C, that means Universe C had to be created in order for Lord English to be born. Not known if Gamzee going around gathering stuff for Lord English only happened in the pre-retcon timeline where he was eventually killed in Game Over, and the post-retcon iteration of him stuffed in a fridge came back once Caliborn started in his null session and then eventually got killed by being combo smashed into Lil Cal by nebulous future/alternate human kids, who ALSO made their way there via the retcon power? Also implies the retcon power begins and ends circularly with the ‘Masterpiece’ juju- but since it’s already proved John doesn’t have to make stable time loops and can literally just have a clone of himself with the retcon power running around, I don’t know..... what happened............ still......... 

- Anyway Cherub mythology gets tied back into the beginning, same time HIC hits Earth so does Calamity Jane, to drive home the entire plot of Homestuck is a cascade of unfortunate events made to ensure Lord English’s existence, Calamity Jane’s son. She kept HIC in check to make sure she didn’t go too crazy but took over both Earths in a way to ensure Sburb would happen so Calamity Jane could meet her mate, and said “we both fulfilled our use” as HIC bled out stabbed through with an anime sword, and flew off into Skaia, to sometime after Earth C was next to a dying sun.

- Jake may never maintain a responsible relationship.

(alpha session/post-scratch Earth)

- Guy Fieri and Insane Clown Posse’s unexpectedly in-depth absurdist backstory as horrifying genetic experiment of HIC. Don’t even ask?? Implication Steve Bannon is deformed clone of Guy Fieri. Also implication “Guy Fieri” is a mispronunciation of “Guy Feferi” this just made me double take so.  

- I didn’t know if the files were implying Jake’s Grandma (alpha Jade) somehow also was involved in WWII like Jade’s Grandpa (beta Jake) was, or if the Condesce forced WWII to happen the same way to keep the timeline similar to pre-scratch Earth, but it definitely implied Alpha Jade had an affair with Charlie Chaplin-as-a-trained-assassin which implies Calamity Jane founded that on post-scratch Earth too, which is weird. Anyway that’s why HIC waits so long to kill Alpha Jade, to let events play out as identically as possible until Jane and Jake were in the medium. 

- Not gonna touch, and besides, not relevant to HS- WWII, Jesse James, Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin, Jake’s relationships, lethally trained slapstick vaudeville performer assassinations, double crosses, and dueling between the forces of Calamity Jane and HIC, i.e. a significant portion of text devoted to the underground army of notable comics and performers vs Betty Crocker and the forces of scientific advancement (for purposes of ending the world.) Well now we have an incredibly convoluted explanation for why Colonel Sassacre and Mark Twain are the same person. 

- It just occurred to me this underground network of writers, entertainers, and comics is probably the word of god reason on how Alpha Rose and Alpha Dave got the backing, info, and into contact to start their anti-HIC campaign on post-scratch Earth- didn’t Alpha John also become a comedian later? Nothing much on him at all, though.  

- Just this: Alpha John fleed the Crocker compound when he saw Hitler’s severed head lying on a desk. This is apparently a carefully HIC arranged constant between pre-scratch and post-scratch Earth. Nanna (Jane) didn’t really seem to notice the head when she finally left. 

- Obama escaped to post-scratch Earth from pre-scratch Earth, which also the implies we are living on Post-scratch Earth and the meteor Apophis is going to deliver some kind of sburb technology and/or accelerate the demise of the Earth in 4/13/2029. Mentioned a lot, but curiously little info on Apophis, seemingly irrelevant to rest of story. 

Conclusion: I have no idea what the Homestuck epilogue is going to be, except  Aphophis might be involved, somehow. I hope the retcon power timeline to the masterpiece juju gets explained? I hope Vriska, Sollux, and Aradia’s fate is explained? Gamzee timeline? What did the masterpiece actually do?? MYSTERY

[wakraya]

Hiveswap Theory

So, with Hiveswap on the horizon and a couple of asks I’ve gotten lately, I have been thinking more and more about the story of the game, and wondered if what we’ve seen already may be enough to find some interesting things out about the overall story! I decided to give it a shot and go through all we know about Hiveswap and see if I can predict some stuff.

Thanks to @revolutionaryduelist for inspiring me to make this post! You should totally check him out, he’s got some amazing stuff.

First, let’s start by the things we do know about Hiveswap.

At its basis, Hiveswap is a story set in the past of the Beta Universe Earth of Homestuck, following the adventures of Joey Claire, and her brother Jude Harley. We know this happens on Beta Earth because Joey and Jude are Grandpa’s biological children, with a woman named A. Claire, full name unknown. It is possible, too, given Joey is called Claire and not Joey Harley, that A. Claire had a child with them before marrying Jake and having Jude with him, or perhaps there’s something else, it’s too early to say for sure.

Joey and Jude live apparently alone in the Harley Manor in Hauntswitch. While the name of the location has been told, the look of the previews doesn’t make it look like Hauntswitch is a town, and rather just the area of land they are in. Furthermore, Hauntswitch is a play on words, Haunts Witch, but also Haunt-Switch, as it has been confirmed the sequel to Hiveswap, following Joey’s brother rather than her own adventures, will be named like this.

Jude’s apparently very paranoid about their neighbours, of which we know very little about, and one day, these strange dark beasts with greenish mouths and no eyes start appearing all over the manor!

With no other option but running, Jude ends up trapping himself in the Tree House, and Joey rushes into the manor, where she eventually stumbles upon a strange machine in the attic. The key to the machine attaches to her and forces her to activate it, suddenly starting a countdown of eleven days until the end of the world, and transporting her to Alternia. Once there, the only way to fix the end of the world scenario, is to go back, however, Alternia is quite the hostile environment, with a new Heiress to the throne having started culling an insane amount of young Trolls, aided by a mysterious white man.

That’s about as much as we know for certain. Anything from this point is complete speculation, so let’s start shall we?

First of all let us address the elephant in the room. The catalyst for this entire adventure is the weird black monsters that appear and force Jude and Joey to escape. This is Earth, after all, and it doesn’t matter that there’s going to be an apocalypse coming in a few years or that there’s infinite inventory systems in the world, things like that just aren’t normal. Monsters don’t pop out of nowhere with no reason. Given the monster issue will never be resolved in Hiveswap, since Joey is warped to Alternia early on, we must assume it will be a focus of the next game, Hauntswitch, and if that is the case, there’s only one possible culprit for what’s going on:

The Creepy Neighbours.

Given the story of Homestuck and what we know about Grandpa Harley and Skaianet, I am going to bet one of two things are happening here.

1) They are Skaianet Employees. They are actually harmless and totally nice people, but Jude is just paranoid. During some experiment, they created those monstrosities and accidentally wrecked havoc on the nearby manor. This, while plausible, doesn’t leave much open in the way of story for a second game, sadly, so I feel the second option is more likely.

2) They are rivals or competitors of some sort against Grandpa Harley or Skaianet as a whole. This is a harder one to predict, because we know literally nothing about these people, but it would allow for a much more interesting story. If another company got their hands on SBURB-like technology, like how Skaianet did, they might start tampering with ectobiology.

As a third option, we have to remember that Condy exists in this Universe. The Condesce is on Earth at this point, as Betty Crocker, and we know Nanna said that the Baroness merely vanished one day. We know that Condy left to Alpha Earth eventually, but we know nothing of this shift. Perhaps there will be some shed light on the issue finally? Perhaps Condy is the final boss on both games, one when she comes back to Alternia to snuff out the Heiress, and another one on Earth as Betty Crocker. Wouldn’t that be an interesting twist?

There’s also the form of these monsters.

All of them are inky black, deformed, have no eyes, and possess large maws that open to show lime green insides. A green tone that looks suspiciously like that of Ectobiology slime. Although it also reminds me of another kind of green...

First Guardian Green. Could they be trying to clone First Guardians? And if so, why? Are these monsters escaped, failed experiments to manufacture more First Guardians? While it’s a very, very long shot, I do think there’s some validity to this theory, but I’ll get to that later.

Now that the monsters are covered, let’s go to another very important point. The Cherub Portal.

Obviously the portal has changed in design quite a lot since the first 3D previews. But in the 3D version, we can see the countdown thing starting to roll down. What we cannot see on the 3D version is the green energy going through the machinery. Even on the red-themed Caliborn side of the teleporter, there’s green glows and green sparks, implying there’s either radiation powering this thing up, or First Guardian Energy, and I bet it’s the latter, because of one simple thing.

This thing is not an ordinary device. It was not built by Grandpa Harley, or by anyone for that matter. This right here is a Juju.

Jujus have always been weird and fascinating things that are hard to explain, so why would this thing... Be a Juju? Well there’s three factors here:

1) The Key. As we’ve seen from the last trailer? The key Joey shoves in is alive. It has its own will and forces her to put it in. Similarly, the Lollipop Juju forced Jane to lick it even when she was trying to resist it.

2) The Other Portal. This is not a singular portal we’re talking about, after all.

This right here is the only image of the other side of the portal. We can see this is in a basement rather than in the attic, and given how Dammek goes through to Earth, it’s safe to assume this is in Dammek’s home. Why or how it got there, we still don’t know. But isn’t that the case with most Jujus? The only technology we know can connect two Universes is post-game SBURB technology. The bases for the exiles, and even then, they connected the Universe with the Game Session rather than the Universe directly. One single of these devices existing is strange, but two exactly equal versions that act as an entry point and an exit? I doubt Trolls and Humans had contact prior to this and tried to build a way to meet, let alone making it so the process begins a Countdown to the end of the world.

3) The Pattern. Through all the previews, we have seen the red/green pattern from the Cherubs we know. Calliope and Caliborn, or perhaps their parents. We do not know much about Cherub Culture, and just a little bit about anatomy- And even then it’s mostly reproductive habits. I don’t believe it was ever mentioned anywhere further into the comic, but Calliope states herself to be a Lime Blood and for that to be a rare color. We know this was in reference to the Troll’s Lime Blood, but it is true she has a different blood color than Caliborn. We have not seen any other unrelated Cherubs to know if they have more than Red/Green blood colours, but it wouldn’t be that weird to imagine. Even if ALL Cherubs were red/green coloured, though? Adding a third, unknown duo of Cherubs that are the same colours would be a bit strange.

Even if it was a third duo of Cherubs, however? It still couldn’t be technology manufactured by them. Cherubs don’t seem to have a home planet or any sort of technology. They are forces of nature, able to fly through space with no difficulty, and to annihilate entire planets and civilisations. I don’t know if it was in-canon or in another theory, but I recall having them be described akin to the immune system of the Universe, or a ‘Clean-up method’, a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Cherubs have no reason to build this kind of technology, so the only reason why it would be patterned like this is that it’s a Juju. And given it’s patterned to be akin to Cherubs?

I bet the Portal is going to collapse into a massive Black Hole that will swallow both Planets if the countdown reaches 0.

It would only be fitting wouldn’t it? Still, as much speculation on the portal’s origin, saying it’s a Juju solves nothing for the story. Not why it’s there, not it’s actual functionality.. But next to the portal, we see something.

Something.

Weird.

I mentioned this in my latest post about the trailer analysis, but why the FUCK is that clock there exactly? That’s a God Tier clock. The serpents coiled on the sides, the shape, it’s very obviously a God Tier clock. It HAS to be because the only other alternative to it being a God Tier clock is it being Lord English’ Clock, and I think that would make even less sense.

This raises two main questions. Whose clock is it, and Why is it there?

Well, it also raises the question if this is a joke. Because it could be just a reference and not ACTUALLY the clock, but it doesn’t seem like a silly filler thing they would put in there. Mainly because...

It’s hard to see, and it might actually not be. But the shape seems suspiciously familiar. Early concept art of the game ALREADY featured the clock there.

So it’s not a joke. Great. So why is it there? We only see the Clock physically appear in two occasions. One is after defeating Yaldabaoth, as a boon, Caliborn is granted the clock and allowed to destroy it with his Juju Breaker and absorb the essence of the God Tier resurrection magic, making him fully immortal. I heavily doubt Yolobroth is involved in ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM with Hiveswap, so we’ll dismiss this.

The other possibility? First Guardians. Bec, for example, never seemed as powerful as Doc Scratch, maybe because Doc Scratch was so cocky about his omniscience and omnipotence, maybe because him being Human and part Lord English made him even more powerful. But, we do know Doc Scratch had the clock there in his apartment, on Alternia’s Green Moon. He physically had two of them in fact, or a shifting clock that showed John’s and Vriska’s death status.

I should state it again, there’s no other place outside of a Boon by the most powerful Denizen, or decoration in an Omnipotent and Omniscient First Guardian’s room where these clocks have been physically seen. So unless there’s a third way to acquire these through SBURB Machinery or Alchemy, in which case Immortality would become kind of trivial in a Session, the only way it could be there is for Becquerel to summon it somehow. Or perhaps for it to arrive with the portal?

After all, the clocks have Cherub Snakes coiled along them. It could be plausible that, whatever the origin of the portal is, it’s the same for the clock. I am convinced it may have something to do with First Guardians, however.

At this point, some might have caught up about my obsession with First Guardians. The black beast, failed First Guardian experiments? The portal, powered by Green Sun energy? Now the clock, I have mentioned them a lot haven’t I? It’s for a good reason, however. This little buddy right here. Someone who was forgotten by many, and that has not appeared in a single concept art or preview of Hiveswap ever since.

Mr. Motherfucking First Guardian Axolotl.

This is a huge deal. A huge deal that a lot of people have forgotten about or haven’t even seen. This was one of the first pieces of concept art from the game, and one that never made any fucking sense. After all, this takes place on Alternia and Earth! We have Doc Scratch and Bec as the First Guardians! And look at the lower-right corner of that picture. Those are Trolls being vaporized, which means this is from Alternia specifically.

And yet, for it to have been one of the FIRST things to come out of the concept art, one’d think this buddy would be very, very important. Was he scrapped after Hussie remembered it made no sense? Well. Not exactly.

In one of the previews, there was something interesting. Prongle.

Prongle is the silly in-game Social Media the Trolls have in the game. And there’s someone specifically that caught my eye immediately. After so long without any news about the weird new First Guardian, we have a Troll.

A Troll with the Axolotl from Animal Crossing as their avatar.

With a lime blood frame around it.

It was confirmed that Lime Bloods would have a part in this game. Which means this is prior to the event that led to the prosecution and culling of all Lime Bloods or- The Catalyst for said caste-culling.

Fiamet having that avatar is no coincidence. That’s a hint. A very obvious hint. This Troll is closely related to the mystery of the First Guardian. I’d even dare to say maybe The First Guardian is their Lusus.

And then, things would start to make some sense. Why was an entire caste culled? How could they be removed entirely from the gene pool when the Mother Grub lays so many eggs, mutations happen, and every other blood color in between still happens?

Well, it is implied that, given his rare mutation, the Signless wouldn’t survive, and that later on the red-blooded lusii like Crabdad were genetically engineered or manufactured in some capacity to raise mutants in the future. So, a Troll without a Lusus won’t make it out of the Caverns.

Am I making sense yet?

Lime Bloods weren’t erased as a caste.

Their Lusii were.

There is some sort of correlation between Lime Bloods and First Guardian powers. First Guardians are rare, but Karkat implies they’re protectors of planets, not just SBURB constructs you make once. For them to occur naturally could be possible. And there is something in the game we know for sure, and that is that there’s a revolution afoot.

There she is. Ms. Second best at memes. Trizza Tethis, the Heiress to the Alternian Throne. Before Feferi, there were more Heiresses after all. And once they grow powerful enough to challenge Condy? She comes back to Alternia and culls them. Again, and again, and again. It’s hard to say if this is the Heiress DIRECTLY before Feferi, or if there’s a few Fuchsiabloods still in the way. Whichever the case, she’s the most powerful figure currently on Alternia, given how adults have to leave for war, leaving no other important figure on the planet.

And everyone hates her. Trizza is a bad memer. She makes horrible jokes, she steals other people’s memes, and then broadcasts them to the entire Alternian Population. Those who don’t laugh and accept her as their ruler? They’re collected by elite Drones and culled. Furthermore, they say that she ascended to the throne of Alternia aided by a mysterious White Man, obviously Doc Scratch.

Remember, Doc Scratch was using all sorts of strategies to make Alternia a vile, corrupted world, full of violence and hatred. Making someone like her have so much power is perfect for his plans. You know what isn’t perfect for Chaos and Dictatorship, however?

Rebellion. On the Tealblood’s tag we can see “Rebel Marshall”, implying that people are so tired of Trizza that they are preparing to overthrow her. And if the lower bloods band together enough to overcome the Drones and take the Heiress for the Throne away? They may just be able to gain enough momentum to spread the movement into an empire-wide rebellion, and turn the Hemospectrum around once and for all.

This doesn’t happen, however. We know this because Alternia is exactly the same when Homestuck starts. Hemospectrum differences, same authoritarian regime. So obviously this rebellion is not going to be successful, much like the Summoner’s wasn’t.

But something HAS to happen. It can’t not start, or happen off-screen, right? What if the Rebellion comes extremely close to being successful?

If Fiamet is in the Prongle list along with Cridea, Xefros and Dammek, we can assume they are on the good guys team. And their Lusus, arguably, is an incredibly powerful First Guardian.

My thought is that the Rebellion will reach the very gates of the Royal Palace, and at the very last second, Doc Scratch will intervene. Trying to keep the status cuequo (8^y) he’ll fight the other First Guardian, or perhaps personally banish the Lime Blood Lusii, thus making it impossible for any future Lime Blood to survive outside of the Brooding Caverns. With the Rebellion stomped, however, Condy will come back to Alternia, perhaps knowing of the Rebellion, perhaps just knowing about the new Heiress causing a mess, and will kill her off. If Doc Scratch doesn’t kill the Lime Blood Lusii himself, Condy will order mass prosecution to avoid First Guardian powers to be used against the Empire in the future.

And thus, the big bad, Trizza, will be shoved off the scene, making cullings go down, but keeping Alternia miserable enough for Homestuck’s events to follow as we know. A satisfying finale to the section of the story is given for the game, but we know how it will continue in the webcomic.

This is my guess to what will happen on Alternia. And yet, something evades me.

The Countdown. We know the Countdown is bad, we can make an idea of what will happen in the game with the characters we’ve seen so far, but there’s one thing we really don’t have enough information to understand. It has to be such wild speculation it would be impossible to give it a sound basis.

How do Joey and Dammek switch places again and stop the End of the World(s)?

We see in the picture of Dammek’s basement, after going through, there’s a barrier surrounding the portal. She can’t go back. Perhaps Doc Scratch will remove the barrier? A ‘boon’ for Joey to go away and leave Alternia alone, as he doesn’t want the order of things to be messed with anymore. Maybe it’s a Dragon-Ball sort of deal, where parts the key to unlocking the barrier is scattered through the entirety of Alternia, making Joey have to go adventure and find them? If Trizza came across one of these pieces, it’d also make sense why she’d see herself involved with the rebellion in the first place.

But if that’s the case, does Dammek also have to find a key on Earth? If it’s scattered enough to need an adventure of such proportions for Joey, than what are her brother and his new Troll friend going to experience on Earth?

Up until now I have thought the majority of Hauntswitch will take place in the enormous nearly-village-sized manor the Neighbours have but...

If their adventure has to be as big as Joey’s?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Crockercorp really does come into play.

But that’s just wild speculation. While I can say about the previous parts of this theory, about the nature of the portal and what will happen on Alternia, with a certain degree of confidence, there’s still nothing we can know for sure about what the endgame will entail regarding returning home.

All we can do for now.

Is wait until it’s out.

[sburbian-sage]

Hey, our session's Mage of Light has gone fucking crazy. He's taken over the frog breeding because he thinks our Bard of Space was being lazy about it, and he keeps doing all kinds of weird stuff to the frogs to try and "perfect" them. He says that it's our responsibility to make sure that they result in a universe without the problems of our own.

To wit, he's trying to make it so that all life in the universe is immortal (somehow without all the problems that would obviously cause?), trying to make computers in that universe run faster, trying to make it so that any planet that plays Sburb will have developed a meteor defense system ahead of time, and so on (he had a really long list, it was all like this).

A lot of his ideas sound kinda good to me, but our Space player says that it's not possible to just make changes like that, and that any fuck-ups would be catastrophic.

But our Light player is our only god tier, and none of the rest of us seem even *close* to ascending, so we can't really overpower him, and he's just not willing to listen to the Space player.

Since it's not likely that any frog he makes will be viable anyway, I guess we could just deploy new copies of the breeding equipment, but he took all the stuff the Space player *had* done already. I don't know the details, but the Space player says he'd basically be starting over more-or-less from scratch, and we're not sure we have time before the reckoning- especially since the Space player legit *is* kinda slow and bad at it.

Basically our Light player an overpowered control freak with a god complex who refuses to listen to the one person in the session who actually knows how to do anything with frogs. I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do???

This is pretty bad. Your Space player is absolutely right in that most of what this Mage of Light is trying to pull is genuinely impossible. I have no idea why he thinks he'll be able to dictate the technological progression of a civilization that doesn't even exist yet, just because he's creating the universe the civilization will eventually exist in. And that's putting aside the fact that most people who get into making the Perfect Frog concern themselves more with fixing the bug that forces replays, and not dicking with the game's progression system like he is. If anything that would cause more issues, but he doesn't even seem like he's intentionally trying to break things.

To deliver an armchair diagnosis that isn't just "he's insane", which to be fair he kind of is, I can see a few possibilities here. Light Players deal with probability, mainly in terms of good luck and favoring good outcomes. Normally a fine thing, however this constant fixation on guaranteeing the most favorable outcome can often manifest itself as a desire to force the 100% best possible outcome to come to pass, which leads to perfectionism and short-sightedness. To speak of Classes for a second, Seers sometimes act like this, as do Sages with less mental fortitude than I. However, he's not a Seer or even a Sage, he's a Mage. Cryptical classes are intended to act in bewildering ways in order to reach favorable outcomes, with the passive Mage prancing around like some sugarplum fairy, leaving "triggers" for the other Players to activate without knowing that they lead to positive outcomes.

My initial read of this is a man who, out of fatigue towards playing and replaying SBURB (join the club, buddy), is now taking direct control of the situation, abandoning his role as a Mage and abusing his aspect of Light in order to genetically engineer some sort of utopia. Between his acting like a nutter and the fact that he isn't a Space Player or even a Time Player, this frog venture is doomed to end in failure at worst and mega-cancer at best. This being said, a second possibility did dawn on me as I analyzed this. This might be part of the plan.

If he is a Mage, his role is to interpret mysteries relating to his aspect and "pass it down", so to speak. Taking over Frog Breeding and making the dumbest plans is pretty inscrutable, it's safe to say. I would say "you're weird and disconnected from reality in an unwholesome way" which is basically what Mages are meant to do. So it's possible that this is meant to provoke the other Players into action, and this action will advance his plans and the plans of the session as a whole towards a favorable outcome. I would believe this further if there was a Player whose role aligns with stopping this scheme (like a Protector or Champion), or if his fucking with the Frog-Breeding equipment leaves the Space Player in a more advantageous position once they recover it. If this is the case, then he's still bonkers because in addition to this being very straightforward behavior for a passive class, the crux is acting antagonistic and setting himself up as a "villain" to be taken down. If you do end up killing him, it could very well qualify as Just. My purpose in pointing this out is to say, you should still treat him like he's unstable, but keep in the back of your mind that he might be operating on a level higher than yours.

The nonviolent solution is to stage an intervention, of course. I would advise against the Bard of Space leading, as the Mage of Light seems to have a low opinion of them in general. But the following are threads to hit upon.

We all despise SBURB and its brokenness and its shittiness, but this is essentially trying to fix the game by hacking it. That never turns out well.

If he's still willing to listen to reason, point out that attempting to influence technological development via the Frog is flatly impossible. Liken it to planting a garden and expecting a pumpkin seed to grow and be able to speak. Once you create the Frog, things are "hands off" at that point. AND ALSO THAT CREATING IMMORTAL LIFE IS CLASSIC "hubristic bad guy" STUFF.

Whether or not he can listen to reason, let him know you all are there for him, and while you're willing to help him, he needs to listen to you as well. Basic therapy stuff, really, this might just be a very grand lashing-out.

If you strongly get the impression that this is some kooky Mage scheme, then call him on it and point out the self-sacrificial bullshit nature of acting so antagonistic. This might end things instantly if the "mystery" gets solved.

Mages are anti-explaining, so don't at any point try to make him explain why he's doing what he's doing. It might be worth re-iterating this if he tries to initiate an explanation.

If the nonviolent solution doesn't work, then you might need to try something more forceful. The fact that he's God Tier and you're not does complicate things, but the truth is that he's a Light Player. When you can manipulate luck, direct combat is doomed to fail. Your guns will jam, your swings will hit allies in the face at complete random, etc. I do know that Light-based luck manipulation doesn't generally stop oneself from getting hit in the face with a newspaper, since you don't need to be particularly unlucky for this to happen (and it's not that serious), so follow similar logic. Wrapping him up in a big hug is corny and awkward, but as long as you don't turn it into a suplex or whatever, this gives you room to talk. You could try a smash-and-grab to just take the Frog stuff away from him. In general, be thankful that Light generally lacks offensive capabilities, their main "attack" power is [Flare] and it's very inefficient at what it does. However, the luck manipulation is still strong. If he buffs his luck and starts shooting at random, he's going to score headshots. So if you're going to try and fight him, be tricky, be indirect, don't even "fight" him necessarily, but save it for Plan B if anything.

A final note, but your Bard of Space has got to get her shit together. I don't know whether or not Mage of Light's "lazy" judgement is sound or not, but by all accounts it seems like she's slow and somewhat incompetent. Combined with the fact that you're running up against the endgame when this clown took over, and it's just unacceptable. If you need to babysit her to make sure the Frogs get bred, so be it. And if she is going to take part of negotiations, it might be worth it to have her show signs of improvement or otherwise vow to set things straight, so the Mage of Light doesn't feel like they need to hijack breeding duties.