#they're the mirthful messiah's

[dalishthunder]

When you immerse yourself in homestuck again and then realize that sun and moon would probably be highbloods AND IT'S ALL YOUR BRAIN CAN THINK ABOUT

Or would they be cherubs

Oh my God they're cherubs

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Hey I know this isn't on-topic for an Eridan blog but you're the best HS theorist I know <3 so do you happen to have any theories about WHY Gamzee faked god tier? I always see theories about how he could be a real god tier too, or about how he manages to be immortal even though he's not god tier, but I cannot find any discussion of WHY he bothered with that ruse in the first place!!! He didn't even fool anyone, unless we count Caliborn for like 2 secs before Hussie told him the truth, and all he got for his trouble was shot!

I think it's mostly a gag, but this is the Analyzing Homestuck blog, so: I think it's because Gamzee wants to look like an adult to impress Caliborn.

Gamzee's lusus is physically neglectful.

But you were never taught that on account of a lousy upbringing. Your custodian was always out to sea.

And several things stem from that neglect - the first, his indoctrination into the Clown Cult, the second, his extensive and all-encompassing drug usage, and the third, his poor social skills, which leave him ostracized by his teammates.

Let's first take a look at what, exactly, that religion entails:

You belong to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT, which foretells of a BAND OF ROWDY AND CAPRICIOUS MINSTRELS which will rise one day on a MYTHICAL PARADISE PLANET that does not exist yet. The beliefs of this cult are SOMEWHAT FROWNED UPON by those dwelling in more common lawnrings.

TC: I PeEpEd oN A PlAcE Of 6 tRiLlIoN HeMoS TC: AlL Up aT OnE RoCk, BlEeDiNg aS EqUaLs TC: It's eAsY To sEe iF YoU SeArCh aLl yOuR FeElInS TC: ThAt pEaCe hApPeNs fIrSt, AnD MuRdEr's tHe sEqUeL TC: It's tHe bEaUtY Of tHe cArNiVaL, tHe mAgIc's iN TeNtS

TC: all my life i believed at a fuckin paradise to come what held the most baller, darkest of carnivals to join. TC: AND A PROPHECY TC: to tell all about a band of rowdy and capricious minstrels steeped in the good harshwhimsy. TC: THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS WERE FORETOLD TO BE CRASHING THAT FUCKING PIE STAND AND BRING THE HOLY RUCKUS. TC: like a giddy fuckin ninja one wheeling head long at the hugest fuckin horn heap shangri la's got to see. TC: I'M TALKING ABOUT THE VAST HONK, YOU BLASPHEMOUS MOTHERFUCKER. TC: what i believed in it to be was so beautiful, us and them all mellowing in tents, bumpin sounds, tossing back the faygo and soaking the miracles up our faith sponges, while the special stardust rained down at our elixir sticky faces, like a bunch a fuckin fairy powder from religion space. TC: IT WAS GOING TO BE US AND MOTHER FUCKING THEM. TC: them and mother fuckin us. :o(

In essence: Gamzee's cult believes that there will be a Vast Honk, which will kill all trolls; however, "a band of rowdy and capricious minstrels" will usher in/create a new paradaisical planet of nothing but good vibes and chill times, where the "mirthful messiahs" will get to enjoy eternity.

There's pretty clear parallels here to the Christian concept of the Rapture, which fits in with the Garden of Eden/Original Sin themes of the Dancestors and the Second Coming thing Karkat's got going on. But, more importantly, it's also pretty directly just... what SGRUB/SBURB are all about. Their original population all dies, but a bunch of kids band together to create a new universe, with new planets, where theoretically live out the rest of their godhood in peace and happiness.

Were it not for the casteist influences as a result of being a cult largely followed by highbloods, there'd pretty much be nothing inherently objectionable about Gamzee's belief system - it's fundamentally hopeful, and, in fact, when he raps about it to Tavros, part of it is outright about "equalizing" the hemocaste (they all bleed as equals, see). Tavros agrees:

AT: tHE SLAMS WERE TRULY PRIME, aND, AT: yOUR RELIGIOUS VIEWS, tHOUGH i DON'T SHARE THEM, aRE, AT: rEASONABLY INSPIRATIONAL, AT: i THINK i'M IN THE PROCESS OF RELEASING AT LEAST ONE TEAR,

Next, we'll look at the sopor usage and ostracization together, because I think they're interlinked. People on Gamzee's team are friggin' mean to him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

GC: NO TH4T SHOULD BOTH3R YOU, TH4T R34SON GC: WHY DONT TH1NGS L1K3 TH4T BOTH3R YOU?? GC: NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU

CT: D --> What you do appear to know is e%actly how to ma%imize my livid contempt for you CT: D --> With your revolting language and your sense of decorum CT: D --> At such breathtaking odds with the richness and perfe%ion of your b100d CT: D --> I just hate you so much

CA: that is the wworst fuckin advvice CA: wwhat an awwful thing a you to say CA: MAGIC ISNT REAL STUPID STOP BELIEVVIN IN IT

On the whole, the team treats him as the party joke, if not outright worthy of derision. The one person on his team who IS nice to him, Tavros, ghosts him after Gamzee is too forward and asks to make out with him. He's deeply lonely, and what's more, his introductory narration is littered with pessimism.

You'll be doing one thing then something else hits you just like that and you roll with it. That's what you do when life hands you lemons. You sure as fuck don't make lemonade because who the fuck knows where that fuckin' shit comes from?

Someone is bugging you. This is exciting. You're always down for shooting the wicked shit with anyone that who'll put up with you.

That last one makes it clear that Gamzee is also aware of how much people on the team don't like him.

I'm also of the opinion that "Soft Gamzee" was always fake and never existed, which is outright stated by Hussie from the book:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-put lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

But there's evidence for this - Gamzee has actually always been kind of casteist:

AT: i THINK i'M IN THE PROCESS OF RELEASING AT LEAST ONE TEAR, TC: Me tOo, BrO, yOu mOtHeR FuCkIn kNoW ThErE Be sOmE Of mY EyE's RoYaL JeLlY To gO WiTh yOuR EmOtIoNaL pEaNuT BuTtEr. AT: wHOA, aHA, hA,

He's trying to be affectionately so here, but given Tavros's "whoa, haha," reaction, it seems like it's still a pretty out-of-pocket thing to say. Especially in light of GamRezi, it's pretty easy to read him as making passive-aggressive digs to Terezi here:

TC: I'm OuTsIdE kEePiNg An EyE oUt HeRe FoR tHe OlD gOaT. TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh...

TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

His reaction to Eridan is also "indulge emotional theatrics," but depending on whether you believe Eridan killed his lusus, it's debatably justified. I'm just going to mention that that's also there.

His constant assertion that Karkat is his best friend, which isn't reciprocated until after murderstuck, also kind of reads as a palecrush to me. This is supported by the fact that Nepeta has always had pale GamKat on her shipping wall - which I believe is more representative of how people feel and what they want than whether a romantic pairing is viable, as part of her Heart (and NOT Blood) powers.

He won't stop referring to Karkat as his best friend, really awkwardly changes the topic when the conversation has led to him having to acknowledge that Karkat is closer to Sollux (whom Karkat calls his best friend):

TC: yEaH mAyBe BuT hE's YoUr BeSt FrIeNd ThOuGh So It'S aLl CoOl. TC: AnYwAy I tHoUgHt ThIs SoUnDeD lIkE a PrEtTy BiG mOtHeRfUcKiN dEaL mY mAn. TC: aAaUuUhHh... CG: WHAT. TC: Aw BrO nEvErMiNd, I jUsT fUcKiN dId LiKe To ScArE tHe ShIt OuTtA mYsElF hErE. TC: tHeSe DaMn HoRnS.

(Sidebar about the usage of "best friend," Karkat pretty much outright says he's unreliable when it comes to who his best friend is at any given moment LOL - he spends pre-murderstuck insisting Sollux is HIS best friend. King of mixed signals.)

EB: who is gamzee? CG: HE WAS MY BEST FRIEND. EB: really? i thought terezi was your best friend. ... CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

If we take Hussie's statement that Gamzee lied when he chased Vriska (whom he doesn't like) away from his horn pile -

GAMZEE: VrIsKa hEy yOu wAnT To uH… VRISKA: What? GAMZEE: ShIt, I WaS AlL GoInG To aSk iF YoU WaNtEd tO HoP In tHe hOrN PiLe fOr a bIt oF MoThErFuCkIn sHuTeYe, BuT… GAMZEE: I DoN'T ThInK I WiLl cAuSe i'm pReTtY MuCh sCaReD Of yOu, SoyEaH. VRISKA: Aww. ::::)

Then it stands to reason he's also lying about being scared of Jack so he can prevent Eridan from providing Karkat with emotional support:

CA: this is a lot a pointless fuckin rubbish and isnt no emotional help to him or me either for that matter CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

So, personally, signs point to Gamzee always having been a lot shiftier and meaner than he let on.

Naturally, that begs the question of why he's pretending to be nicer and higher than he actually is (not that he isn't high, but he's definitely more cognizant of what's going on than people both in- and out-of-universe give him credit for). Well, the answer to that is pretty simple: it's because he loves his friends and wants to get along with them.

You like to chat a lot with your pal Karkat, who is usually pretty cranky, but he is your BEST FRIEND. You have a lot of OTHER GREAT FRIENDS who you also like a lot.

Gamzee's story pre-murderstuck is a pretty tragic one about a kid who never got to learn proper socialization and has whacked-out religious beliefs, whose neglect from his lusus has left him with deep loneliness, who desperately wants to fit in with his friends, especially the lowbloods, and therefore feels the need to hide how pessimistic and angry he actually is under the guise of drug usage and not retaliating against the constant digs they make at him.

I also feel like I have to specify that Gamzee was already a pretty angry, mean, troubled kid prior to Murderstuck, because it helps to clarify his actions after being influenced by Lil' Cal. The nonlinear nature of the story kind of confuses the sequence of events, but it seems to be as follows:

Dave blasphemes against Gamzee's religion so hard that Gamzee has a total crisis of faith.

Gamzee has a breakdown and gets so pissed off that he oopsie-daisy'd a jester puppet into John's room on Prospit.

Gamzee, with his faith lost ("and now i don't know what to think about the spiritual fantasies i had"), Tavros dead, and thus in a very emotionally fragile state, is contacted by Doc Scratch and given instructions (likely to kill his friends and paint his wicked pictures in their blood). At some point during this, he falls under Lil' Cal's influence, too. As every person we've seen under LE's sway has very compelling, natural reasons for acting the way they do, I think it's better to see Lil' Cal's influence as influence and not mind control. It brings out the worst in its victims, but only what was already there.

This seems to give Gamzee a new belief system to replace/supplement the old.

TC: i've been kicking the wicked ignorance on this shit. TC: BEEN MOTHERFUCKIN SLAUGHTERING THE WICKED IGNORANCE, BRO. TC: all up in lifelong denial about my calling. TC: AS A DESCENDANT OF THE HIGH MOTHERFUCKIN SUBJUGGLATORS. TC: we are higher than you, brother. TC: WE ARE HIGHER THAN MOTHERFUCKIN EVERYBODY. TC: honk. CG: GAMZEE CG: PLEASE NO TC: and now i'm the last one, so i finally motherfuckin understand. TC: I FINALLY GOT MY MOTHERFUCKING UNDERSTAND ON TO WHO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS ARE. TC: they were always both me. :o) TC: AND ALSO MOTHERFUCKING ME. Do:

Remember, his original belief system actually emphasized equalizing the castes - in death, anyway. It also never specified that the Mirthful Messiahs would be specifically highbloods. The hint that Gamzee had internalized casteism was always there, but now that his belief system has been supplanted by this new one, delivered by Doc Scratch (the story's Devil figure), his casteism becomes full-blown:

GAMZEE: heheh. GAMZEE: CHECK IT THE MOTHERFUCK OUT. GAMZEE: it's the peasantblood. GAMZEE: HEH HEH. GAMZEE: fuckin heh. EQUIUS: D --> Peasantb100d EQUIUS: D --> Is that a joke GAMZEE: if your blood. GAMZEE: IS A RUNNING MOTHERFUCKING GAG. GAMZEE: then soon. GAMZEE: IT WILL BE RUNNING. GAMZEE: through my motherfucking fingers.

TC: shit was motherfuckin poison, didn't you know? CG: UH... CG: NO? I MEAN, I WOULD NEVER EAT IT, BUT TC: THEN GET MOTHERFUCKIN SCHOOLFED ALL ABOUT THE WICKED NEWS, PUNCHLINE BLOODED MOTHERFUCKER.

Basically, the religious boy had a crisis of faith and was tempted by the Devil into becoming his servant - into desiring utter oblivion for everyone except his own continued existence within the one doing the destroying, rather than a paradise of love, friendship, and hope. And this new faith is what carries Gamzee through to the end of the comic:

KARKAT: HE STARTED GETTING SO UNBELIEVABLY SELF SATISFIED AND PIOUS, LIKE WAY MORE THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. KARKAT: LIKE HE'S JUST SO COMPLETELY CONVINCED HE'S FOUND HIS CALLING, THAT THIS SESSION IS THE GATEWAY TO THE PROMISED LAND WHERE HE'LL FULFILL HIS DESTINY. KARKAT: HE'S SO CAUGHT UP IN HIS IDIOTIC SCHEMES HE COULDN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ME ANYMORE. KARKAT: WHATEVER. AT LEAST HE STOPPED KILLING PEOPLE.

So where does that bring us WRT the fake god-tier ensemble? Well, god-tiering in general is kind of a metaphor for becoming an adult - SGRUB/SBURB sets out for its player a quest directly tied into their maturation into adults, and god-tiering is (normally) supposed to sit right at the end of that questline, a semi-permanent state achieved at the end of adolescence. Characters who DO manage to god-tier without having naturally reached that point in their questline, especially Vriska, Dave, and Rose, have struggles that deal directly with "growing up too fast" - Vriska with the expectation that she be a vicious murderer, Dave with having never addressed his trauma and abuse, and Rose with having missed out on a loving relationship with her mother because she insisted on being more mature than her.

Gamzee's relationship to Caliborn is that of a parent:

ARANEA: It is just as well that cheru8 parents a8andon their offspring. Raising such a child 8y the familial standards of any race would 8e a monumental challenge. ARANEA: Nevertheless, it would seem there were those who tried. ARANEA: Details in my research suggest our villain had a num8er of acolytes oper8ting in the shadows, preparing for his arrival.

Kurloz also directly states that Gamzee's role in their religion is to serve and mentor their young lord:

KURLOZ: I COME BEARING THEE FINAL JOLLY ACCOUTREMENT MY FAITHFUL INVERTEBROTHER KURLOZ: THY BARDLY REGALIA IS DONE AND FUCKING DUSTED BY THE SPECIAL STARS THEMSELVES KURLOZ: ON THIS DAY THE DARK CARNIVAL REJOICED AND SAID IT WAS MONEY KURLOZ: NOW BRING TO LIFE OUR WICKED RUSE WITH APLOMB MY NINJA KURLOZ: OUR LORD AWAITS YOUR SERVITUDE AND TUTELAGE AT ONCE

And even beyond the religion aspect, Gamzee would take this job mother fucking seriously...

... Because his own parent failed him. See, we tie it all back to the beginning! Gamzee putting together a shitty fake god tier outfit is because he wants to be a good parent to Caliborn, an adult figure he never had in his own life, and god tiering is symbolic of that. And I think the saddest part is, he still didn't really manage to do that... because, perpetuating the neglect he faced from his own lusus, he wound up locking the two in a room and leaving them alone - possibly out of exasperation.

ARANEA: We will pro8a8ly never know who these scurrilous conspir8tors were. 8ut it is evident that at some point the cheru8 was locked in a room, either out of exasper8tion, or for its own good, until it was old enough to enter the session.

Like, I feel kind of bad for Gamzee, y'know? Especially since, alongside Eridan, he's one of the trolls the fandom seems to understand the least, and his story is also one of being failed by his family, society, and friends. This winds up turning him towards the worst parts of himself - the religious fundamentalism, the casteism, the emotional isolation - and away from the good - the fact that he loved his mother fucking friends, enough to wish upon them eternal paradise.

[sir-incorrect]

oh throwback to when I made trollsonas for a handful of danganronpa characters based on their birthdays (or rather, what blood color that would give them)

transcription of my notes scribbled on the pictures under the cut in case my handwriting is illegible haha

First picture:

Shuihi Saihra and Rantar Amamii

Met when Rantar was gathering testimonies in the caverns.

Hand is blocking sign but maybe [scribble]?

He noticed Shuihi's deductive abilities, and started calling him in to consult. Shuihi is not entirely comfortable with this yet, but does want to help.

Second picture:

Pin = symbol [scribble] (compare to 十神 togami)

Byakya Togami (actually bronze)

sad bc byakya pulled his hand out of hers before the picture

Tohkoh Fukawa/ Shoyho (Sho + Syo ?)

Byakya is the only lowblood to ever actually survive, let alone win, and kind of gladiator/fighting competition against highbloods. As such, he WOULD have been culled immediately, but the heiress took a liking to him, so instead he is the center of a massive coverup. He was "actually just an indigo pretending to be a bronze". He gets to live a life of luxury and power like he earned... but is also forced to hang out with Tohkoh ALL the time and HATES it (platonically).

Third picture:

Kokchi Oouuma (?)

[Shuichi:] "Aren't you a Cancer, though?"

[Kokichi:] "Wouldn't you like to know, Virgo boy."

[next to the purple Kokchi] Troll DICE: Infamous team of subjuggulators ("in training"). Cause problems even for those of higher castes, but these are relatively tame compared to lower castes' reception. Extremely efficient.

[next to the grey Kokchi] Troll DICE: A group of lowbloods posing as purplebloods. Their reputation has to be strictly maintained, lest they get injured and give themselves away. Part of the reason they're so successful is their targets go willingly, as DICE actually helps them fake their deaths and hide. DICE has never actually killed a target or otherwise let them die.

Fourth picture:

WHEEL OF EXECUTIONS with Junkoh Ensima and Mukuro Iksaba!

Despair clowns! Pose as a normal traveling circus act (for Alternia. So lots of murder, prob lowblood killing games), but they're actually spreading "despair", as a concept fundamentally opposite to the Mirthful Messiahs. Junkoh really just wants to see the entire PLANET start killing each other senselessly, even seadwellers, and especially lowbloods killing highbloods.

Fifth picture:

Horns are supposed to be like ⊘ [scribble]

World's worst and most boring clown

*sacrifices your shitty, shitty clown to the Mirthful Messiahs*

Sixth picture:

[Screenshot of quote from the wiki] "could hold her head up high as a "cosplaycat criminal","

Makes fursuits, doesn't wear them herself but DOES do the occasional nya~

Sumugi Shrgne

[birchbow]

I am very autistic about theology and in particular, hotly debated theology and it is very Interesting that apparently that extends to clown religion 😅 all that to say, I am well And truly obsessed with the mirthful scripture, it is So Good

Do you have any tidbits or fun facts about clown church? Like, are there denominations? How often do the clowns on the blessed come to blows about scriptural interpretation(bc I went to a religious college and it sure did come close like, a lot of times) or anything else you want to share!

I was raised in religion but am in no way a scholar or active practitioner so I'm glad that my weird hybrid clown religion is passing muster lol. As somebody who's mostly going by the Vibes, uhhh, let's see.

I'd assume that yes, there are denominations in a sense, especially out on outpost ships that have little subsets of The Family that aren't directly connected to the main church fleet. We aren't likely to see as much of them in PoF because it's set essentially in the Clown Vatican. Considering this is a religion based on chaos and clownery, it seems reasonable to me that it's less that there are broad denominational categories and more that everybody's kind of doing their own thing. Sometimes there are groups of people who all believe similar things, but I don't know that most of them would be centralized or codified enough to have names like human religious denominations do!

Much like most things in troll society, it's a game of knowing what the people in power will let you get away with. Rakhem, the GHB before Kurloz, was a lot more strict about bloodcolor doctrine, and would actively cull non-purple quadrants of church members if he caught them on board--but he didn't much care about people asking what he considered wishy-washy bullshit philosophy questions about "what if the messiahs were people like us?". His concerns were about spies, traitors, adulteration of the church, etc, and he was incredibly concerned with how the Messiahs had blessed seadwellers with colder blood than him, and also with culling pretty much every lower blood he ran into. Kurloz doesn't comparatively give much of a shit about that! He considers the people who say off-color faithful are fine to be kind of weird and doesn't really agree with them but also doesn't consider their whole deal overtly sinful enough to be worth his notice as long as they're not, like, bringing lowbloods into the flagship chapel as equals right in front of him. But he gives a whole hell of a lot more shits about people who vocally question the divinity of the messiahs or deify trolls.

Anyway all this to say things have relatively settled down over the last several hundred sweeps but I do still think that compared to the religions humans are used to, Clown Church must be pretty constantly in wild flux, and vary a lot from person to person. Relatedly:

Yes there are definitely fights over religious doctrine and scripture interpretation, on a scale from "aggressive slam poetry" to "somebody just got mauled" depending on how mad both people are about it. Sometimes your deviation from the norm is dramatic enough it gets crushed in a bloody inquisition from the Grand Highblood, but sometimes it was just something you thought of that felt true, but when you brought it up in theological discussion you got your ass kicked multiple times over it. And either reconsidered, headed off to a more distant outpost ship where people gave less shits, or learned to keep your mouth shut haha.

[suboptimal-xenobiologist]

Another fun Mirthful Messiahs headcanon!

Despite the basis of its religious laws and Condy's influence making the cult most marketable to purplebloods, the majority of the cult is made up of lowbloods and trolls with other conditions that would make troll society less tolerant of them. A lot of lowbloods and minorities end up joining because the alternative option is getting culled, and the cult gives them a safespace where the only thing differentiating their social status is whether they're a priest or not.

(Do you get it its an allusion to how both real life cults and circuses prey on minorities and people in poverty to gain members I am so good at homestuck)

[very-grownup]

'We kill ourselves,' said Buffo the Great. 'Often we hang ourselves with the gaudy braces from which we suspend those trousers loose as the skirts that Muslims wear lest the Messiah be born to a man. Or, sometimes, a pistol may be sneaked from the lion-tamer, his blanks replaced with live bullets. Bang! a bullet through the brain. If in Paris, you can chuck yourself under the Metro. Or, should you have been so lucky as to be able to afford mod. cons, you might gas yourself in your lonely garret, might you not. Despair is the constant companion of the Clown.

'For not infrequently there is no element of the /voluntary/ in clowning. Often, d'you see, we take to clowning when all else fails. Under these impenetrable disguises of wet white, you might find, were you to look, at the features of those who were once proud to be visible. You find there, per example, the aerialiste whose nerve has failed; the bare-back rider who took one tumble too many; the juggler whose hands shake so, from drink or sorrow, that he can no longer keep his balls in the air. And then what is left but the white mask of poor Pierrot, who invites the laughter that would otherwise come unbidden.

'The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.'

The great white heads around the long table nodded slowly in acquiescence.

'The mirth the clown creates grows in proportion to the humiliation he is forced to endure,' Buffo continued, refilling his glass with vodka. 'And yet, too, you might say, might you not, that the clown is the very image of Christ.' With a nod towards the mildly shining icon in the corner of the stinking kitchen, where night crawled in the form of cockroaches in the corners. 'The despised and rejected, the scapegoat upon whose stooped shoulders is heaped the furry of the mob, the object and yet -- yet! also he is the subject of laughter. From what we are, we have chosen to be.

'Yes, young lad, young Jack, young First-of-May, we subject ourselves to laughter from choice. We are the whores of mirth, for, like a whore, we know what we are; we know we are mere hirelings hard at work and yet those who hire us see us as being perpetually at play. Our work is their pleasure and so they think our work must be our pleasure, too, so there is always an abyss between their notion of our work as play, and ours, of their leisure as our labour.

'And as for mirth itself, oh, yes, young Jack!' Turner to Walser and waving an admonitory glass at him. 'Don't think I haven't very often meditated on the subject of laughter, as, in my all too human rags, I grovel on the sawdust. And you want to know what I think? That they don't laugh in heaven, not even if it were ever so.

'Consider the saints as the acts in a great circus. Catherine juggling her wheel. St Lawrence on his grill, a spectacle from any freak-show. Saint Sebastian, best knife-throwing stunt you ever saw! And St Jerome, with his learned lion with the paw on the book, great little animal act, that, beats the darkie bitch and her joanna hollow!

'And the great ringmaster in the sky, with his white beard and his uplifted finger, from whom all these and many are other are less sanctified performers put on their turns in the endless ring of fire which surrounds the whirling globe. But never a giggle, never a titter up there. The archangels can call: "Bring on the Clowns!" until they're blue in the face, but the celestial band will never strike up the intro to "The March of the Gladiators" on its harps and trumps, never, no fear -- for we are doomed to stay down below, nailed on the endless cross of the humiliation of this world!

'The sons of men. Don't you forget, me lad, we clowns are the sons of men.'

The others all droned after him, in unison: 'We are the sons of men,' as in some kind of clerical response.

'You must know,' continued Buffalo to Walser in his graveyard imagination, 'you must know that the word "clown" derives from the Old Norse, '"klunni", meaning "loutish". "Klunni", cognate with the Danish, "klunter", clumsy, maladroit, and the Yorkshire dialect, "gormless". You must know what you have become, young man, how the word defines you, now you have opted to lose your wits in the profession of the clown.'

'A clown!' they murmured softly, dreamily amongst themselves. 'A clown! Welcome to Clown Alley!'

Meanwhile, to the accompaniment of Buffo's sermon, the meal went on. Spoons scraped the bottom of the earthenware bowls of fish soup; the spatulate, white-gloved hands reached for the shanks of black bread, food sad and dark as the congregation of sorrow assembled at the ill-made table. Buffo, scorning a glass, now tipped vodka straight from the bottle down his throat.

'There is a story told of me, even of me, the Great Buffo, as it has been told of every Clown since the invention of the desolating profession,' intoned Buffo. 'Told, once, of the melancholy Domenico Biancolette, who had the seventeenth century in stitches; told of Grimaldi; told by the French Pierrot, Jean-Gaspard Deburau, whose inheritance was the moon. This story is not precisely true but has the poetic truth of myth and so attaches itself to each and every laughter-maker. It goes thus:

'In Copenhagen, once, I had the news of the death of my adored mother, by telegram, the very morning on which I buried my dearly beloved wife who had passed away whilst bringing stillborn into the world the only son that ever sprang from my loins, if "spring" be not too sprightly a word for the way his reluctant meat came skulking out of her womb before she gave up the ghost. All those I loved wiped out in one fell swoop! And still at matinee time in the Tivoli, I tumble in the ring and how the punters bust a gut see. Seized by inconsolable grief, I cry: "The sky is full of blood!" And they laughed all the more. How droll you are, with the tears on your cheeks! In mufti, in mourning, in some low bar between performances, the jolly barmaid says: "I say, old fellow, what a long face! I know what you need. Go along to the Tivoli and take a look at Buffo the Great. He'll soon bring your smiles backs!

'The clown may be the source of mirth, but -- who shall make the clown laugh?'

'Who shall make the clown laugh?' they whispered together, rustling like hollow men.

- Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter

[ase-trollplays]

//Tell us about Takimi! I for one would love to know more about her.

Ahh yes, my most devoted and faithful clown to a problematic degree. 💜

She was raised by her congregation from the age of two sweeps after being abandoned by her friends and lusus. Her chucklevoodoo is defective and manifested prematurely; as a result, she can't turn it off. Her voodoo causes extreme fear in anyone who looks her in the eyes. At its strongest, she can cause a heart attack. To combat her perpetual nightmare eyes (which are actually quite pretty tbh), she wears a sheer blindfold so she can safely interact with people. This far, the only person who isn't affected by her voodoo is the father/ringleader of her church.

She is obsessed with being a subjuggulator and worshipping the mirthful messiahs; it's basically her whole personality. However, she's generally not antagonistic towards others as long as they aren't rebels or mutants. She's actually pretty chill and enjoys socializing with non-clowns, though she tends to be condescending without meaning to. She's loyal, loving, amicable, and sweet.

She's also painfully unflinching when it comes to her duties as a subjuggulator. She will gladly kill mutants that aren't protected by the empire no matter how minor the mutation. This includes children. She also makes a living as a laughsassin, so if someone ends up on her list, she will kill them with no remorse or hesitation.

She knows my other clown, Maeron, but uh. They're not on speaking terms anymore.

[approximateknowledge]

let's talk

Mirth

there's something about the clowns that's been fascinating me, and it holds true even across settings (both homestuck and vast error);

the fact that they're *right*. violent, absurd, tacky, abusive, insane, murderous, but also fundamentally *correct* about how the universe works. like if flowey were to start a religion (which is of course an anachronism, since the mirthful messiahs came first; flowey's laugh is even just straight up caliborn's, just like megalovania is aradia's song)

it's a faith of joyous nihilism by those who have peered beyond the 4th wall and cannot forget what they learnt

they stared into the abyss and the abyss said

"h0nk"

[zeemczed]

Okay.

Name: ZEBRII HEJMUN

Handle: calamityCausation

Quirks: "I dxn't knxw why every berk xut there has tx have a quirk. It gets annxying real quick." (Replaces o's with x's, mutters a bit.)

" xX LADIES AND GENTLEMEN IF I MAY DRAW YOUR ATTENTION CLOSE Xx" " xX MY NAME IS ZEBRII HEJMUN... AND I WELCOME YOU TO TONIGHT'S SHOW Xx" (When shouting, starts and ends sentences with xX's, drops all punctuation but ellipses.)

Lunar pref: Derse

Classpect: MAGE of BLOOD

-o-

Your name is Zebrii Hejmun, and you have SEEN SOME SHIT. Marked for death at an early age, scraping through despite everything, you've lost your TITLE, your STATUS, and are under a SHOOT ON SIGHT ORDER.

Honestly it was kind of a relief to scream screw that shit into the void and to discard it all. Your ORIGINAL NAME, your PLACE ON THE HEMOSPECTRUM, your LUSUS, your HOME, your FRIENDS - EVERYTHING.

Downside? Cave living ain't easy.

You've had to make some UNORTHODOX CONNECTIONS to stay... y'know, fed. OUTCASTE HERETICS from the cults of the MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS, wannabe REVOLUTIONARIES, CRIMINALS, BOOTLEGGERS, and LOWBLOODS THAT ARE JUST BENEATH NOTICE... yeah, they're your kind of people.

And maybe they're starting to rub off on you. A HEATED DESIRE TO REVOLT, a burgeoning belief that the MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS ARE HERE ON THE PLANET, as the demon-slaying overbards KHAYGE and JABLES, and an intense obsession with LOCKPICKING and SABOTAGE have all taken root, overriding your past interests to the point that those USELESS FANCIES are best left in the dust. You are laser-guided on a new path now, and it is a PRAGMATIC one.

-o-

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way first: Yes, Zebrii is a cultist of Troll Tenacious D, who are totally real, but probably not actually messiahs. This does not inform her powers or skills, but it does inform her attitude and her willingness to put her skin on the line to be AWESOME.

Now for the more interesting bits. At the start, Zebrii is pretty weak. As a renegade tyrian, she was supposed to be culled years ago, and while she was no match for the others vying for the throne, she was able to escape with her skin (barely). So all the cool mind control stuff tyrians have? Yeah, she doesn't have jack shit.

She DOES have an absurd collection of locks and lockpicks (her first weapon is literally just a chain of padlocks she clobbers people with), and a growing ability to break through locked doors. Locked chests. Locked hearts, locked concepts, locked EVERYTHING. She is Apollo Justice, but as a wannabe semi-cult-leader punk revolutionary instead of an attorney.

And that's where it all leads in the end - because her schtick (besides sabotage) is breaking down emotional doors to get close to people. She's a MAGE of BLOOD, and her entire arc is about transcending the stigma of royal blood, to lead not as a ruler, but as a peer.

I mean, in theory.

Because she sabotages herself as much as she sabotages her foes. And while she would love to be a badass revolutionary leader, she's still basically an oversheltered kid at heart that's gone in face first and is TRYING to learn proper social cues from a bunch of absolute maniacs.

It's 2023. It's time to make a new trollsona.

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 5,764

[S] ==>

You round up an assortment of ordinary household weaponry and begin to recreate a series of legendary weapons from the seven continents of a magical kingdom from cherubim folklore. The name of the kingdom is a well guarded secret, traded only by the cunning ninnywizards in hushed giggles. If you beheld this kingdom - if you even knew its name - you would understand stupidity no human ever has. For it is said that any mortal who listens to its melodious, perfectly absurd syllables will achieve instantaneous dumblightenment.

Each legendary weapon is named after the continent it was created in. But no one in the kingdom knows which name belongs to what continent, not even the wizards. The subjects frequently ask each other which continent they're on, and as such every conversation tends to sound like an Abbott and Costello routine. Some have even speculated that the vaudevillian comedy duo are the kingdom's mirthful messiahs, but that is a matter of heated debate among the federation of baloneyscholars.

Song used: Warhammer of Zillyhoo (With Mario Paint) by Toby Fox

[stars-in-a-jam-jar]

Thinkin' about how Gamzee Makara is genuinely a Really Tragic Character. Like he spent his entire childhood unsupervised and unattended in the throes of a cult, developing an actual substance abuse problem in an attempt to self medicate because of the constant voices he appeared to be hallucinating. Except He Wasn't Fucking Hallucinating, THOSE VOICES WERE FUCKING REAL they were the Literal Devil and an unholy fusion of what would become of his debilitatingly loyal and subservient friend after Gamzee kills him and some thirteen year old alien But Fucked Up And Dangerously Overclocked By A Supercomputer made as a response to apocalyptic loneliness and said someone else's need to keep occupied and feel on top of things, and Gamzee could only hear them because his soul is irrevocably tied to the cursed artefact they all reside in that brings nothing but misery and paranoia wherever it goes. He developed a very laid back unbothered inscrutable personality in response to all the awful things he didn't want to be aware of and relied heavily on his faith in a pair of Mirthful Messiahs that would give deliverance to all and forever erase any unpleasant stagnancy in favor of a chaotic carnival of wonder.

When Gamzee calms down from his whole murderous rampage/vindictive ruining of the Beta Kids' Session thing, he Can't go back to the way he was. He Can't be the same person he was before. He never speaks the same again, we hardly see him speak again At All. His thirteen-year-old mind breaks under the realization that he is not who he thought he was. He is not the person who extends his own brand of kooky clownish shangri-la to those around him until they see the world as it should be. He is the tool of something malevolent and petulant and calculating and selfish. He decides (correctly if the deterministic Alpha Timeline is to be followed) that this cannot be helped, and simply leans into dissociation.

Like-- Karkat sees this kid when they're still on Alternia and is like 'I can fix him' and he tries so god damned mother fucking hard and fails in part if not only because he simply was not meant to fix Gamzee. Not because Gamzee never wanted to be fixed, but because when Gamzee sobers up and his head becomes clear enough for him to reckon with reality and he understands that: he hasn't been hallucinating the voices, the religious beliefs he has held above all else throughout his broken memory were corrupted half truths at best, and at least two of the trolls on this void forsaken meteor are dirty backbiters and bad friends who he believes don't deserve an ounce of forgiveness, he completely goes off the deep end and starts relying on The Literal Actual Most Evil Person To Ever Exist for judgement. How is Karkat supposed to remedy that when he doesn't understand or won't believe that the voices are realer than he previously believed and He Is Powerless To Dispel Them? When he truly wants all of them to just. Fucking. Be A Team and trust one another and be good to one another, but Gamzee no longer believes that was ever an option? What does one Knight wager against the Devil and The Narrative for someone's soul?

In that space of three years where he's growing into the offputting smelly clown husk of a teen that Jane meets in front of her house just before The Trickster Incident and that everyone in the fandom in my experience collectively frowns and groans audibly at, he tries to become comfortable in this new state. In the dreaded Retcon Spree that removed a huge chunk of the complexity happening in an effort to power through to an ending, it's revealed that he did genuinely develop black affections for Terezi, He Just Also Was Bad For Her and she wasn't what he needed because Nobody could give him what he needed because what he needed was to Not Be Connected To Lord English for one second longer. He brought out self loathing in her and no amount of fucking with her and getting into fights that were supposed to be stimulating and romantic but in reality were just hurtful and toxic could make him feel like he could be any semblance of any normal ever again.

I have thought about Gamzee taking care of Calliope and Caliborn from the shadows for Literal Actual Years at this point. He does it because he has to. Because it is his duty as steward and passive enabler to the evil locked inside Lil Cal. Because he has faith that this little sugar loving skrellington squiggle worm will grow up big and strong and horrifying, and it is imperative that he help that along. We never once hear him say anything about Calliope. It's as though she's not a factor that weighs at all in his mind. As though her existence is incidental to the fruition of his grander purpose in her brother's life. Does he think about her? Does he know that another version of her is what will do in the voices that have tormented him since he could comprehend speech? Does he want good things for her? Does he think Caliborn is good at this point, or does he just think he's Important? Is his perpetually placid vacant stare a mask he uses to become inscrutable, or has he truly locked away his every emotional reaction from even himself never to be found again?

The interaction he has with Kurloz and Meulin between becoming sober and becoming a caretaker where the other two are going all 'Hail Lord English' and doing The Cult Thing and he just looks at them with such deep contempt and says in all lower case 'shut the absolute mother fuck up' is So Fucking Important-- like he does not think this is fun and glorious and enriching anymore. He just knows it to be true and knows he's in this shit whether he wants to be or not. These two Chose this. Kurloz could've Run The Fuck Away from the chucklevoodoo bullshit that deafened his matesprit, and Meulin could've simply Not leaned into this evil toxic nonsense, but they both actively turn to it to cope. They see serving the power of Lord English as their salvation. Gamzee sees his salvation as completing his grim purpose and hopefully finding solace in oblivion, and he Cannot Fucking Stand these two talking like that grim purpose is a blessing that gives his life new dimension instead of a horrifying curse that ruined his health and relationships.

I don't mind the existence of The Retcon, I think a retcon was a perfectly sound writing decision given The Everything, but I really hate that the solution to everyone's problems in The Retcon was just bringing back Vriska so she could be The Most Important Person Ever just like she always wanted with no downsides and no caveats. This is in no small part because the solution she provides to The Gamzee Situation is just to domesticate him essentially. He won't be a problem if we keep him leashed up and under control. After all Gamzee's always been passive and only started being a problem when he started committing murders, so just keep him where we can see him and keep the option of murder off the table and Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen With Him Again~. And he Never Does Anything Else and We Never Hear From Him Again. Or if we do, it certainly wasn't consequential enough for me to remember it. Like, if you're gonna take the Gamzee Piece off the board while still holding the story together, just create a scene where the others banish him to Earth A during the timeframe where he's taking care of the cherubs and then bam! He's no longer a factor in the Alpha Medium while also still being able to do the things that he Must Do in order to retain the most continuity. Like I get that keeping him in the fridge for the rest of canon is a joke about fridging a character, but It's Not A Good Joke.

Gamzee Makara Deserved Better! I'm not even necessarily saying he should've gotten better. He deserved like. A Moment for us to see into his head before/whilst he went Full Catatonic Sycophant, as a token of respect for the Really Fuckin' Tragic arc he underwent. He deserved the ability to speak his mind post-Sober Murder Rampage. He deserved to be given weight beyond 'Anyway, now the murder clown is Also Here, so you know some funky shit is about to go down.' Or at least a proper transition into that 'portent of further chaos' role and not just a weird disconnected moment of Calliope going 'Yeah, bards are real passive and real fucky, y'all are lucky you don't have one in your session.' as a vague hint that Gamzee is doing the shit he does and appearing where he appears for completely inscrutable reasons that you shouldn't be looking into. Gamzee is one of plenty of characters in Homestuck whose arcs and selves kinda got lost in the shuffle, and It Makes Me Sad.

This essay has been brought to you by the emotions that arose in me thinking about how Gamzee Makara could've been a really good kid, and the only person who seems to mourn that loss is Karkat offscreen.

[dasha-through-the-snow]

my jokes are perfect. PERFECT. they're just beyond your understanding. DON'T FUCKING QUESTION ME. it's almost like i'm some kind of a. MIRTHFUL FUCKING MESSIAH.

Alright, joining in on my mutuals' fun

[botgalhs]

So yeah, my basic headcanon for Purple religion was that it was seen as super weird but fairly benign on Beforus and at least potentially entertaining since much of it was based on things like entertainers of different cultures and stuff.

But on Alternia it was twisted ( much like everything else) by Caliborn in order to fit his plans eventually that would lead to him and Calliope being raised as they were. (The reason Kurloz, a Purple from Beforus, would follow a more Alternian style tradition for it was because of Caliborn’s influence again, starting around the time of or after he unintentionally made Meulin go deaf.)

[clowndaydreams]

here's the real hard hitting question: does the blessing even exist in the beforan timeline, and if they do, the hell's their role?

I don't think I fully established the blessing's role in terms of the clurch other then the fact that they are a blessing. But as I see it, they're there to be a solace for the clowns as they do the Mirthful Messiah's work and a sort of incentive. The blessing ismainly only visiting active clurch clowns. Non-believers do not get time with the blessing (and usually don't want it).

In the Beforan Timeline, there isn't much need for that. They're doing all of this on their own. The culture on-planet is extremely different from Alternia's and is somewhat self-rewarding in a sense. If anything, the Blessing would be like Eliza!Reader. They help record the thoughts and history of all the clowns for future generations.

[capricioustenets]

What does the empress think about you keeping random criminals around on the basis of "they're funny though"? >_>

she don't give a shit as long as they ain't a danger ta the empire

[Typed by Sister Naxmyr, honorable scribe of the Mirthful Messiahs, as was spoken by the Grand Motherfucking Highblood]

[voparwave69]

Dude yeah you can head canon whatever the hell you want that's what fiction is for baby 💯

But yeah Gamzee isn't technically a juggalo, even though he is heavily based on the ICP song Miracles because back when HS was written that was a huge meme because of the "fucking magnets, how do they work" line (his disdain for having things explained to him probably comes from the "and I don't want to talk to a scientist, yall motherfuckers lying and getting me pissed" line). For him his whole clown thing is religious (could be based on the fact that there was religiosity around juggalo shit for really hardcore fans or could just be based on the nature of what a miracle is) and he has his beliefs in the two mirthful messiahs and that he'll go to the dark carnival in death, the faygo thing even is part of this, and he becomes extremely angry upon learning about ICP because he recognizes they're perceived and act as jokes and he takes this as being extremely blasphemous, and then he starts to feel that that means HE is just a big joke as well. He liked being a clown because for him that was something sacred, he hated being a clown once he felt it meant being a punchline, and learning about ICP sent him into this realization; that, being told to my recollection by Lil Cal to murder his friends and his sobriety all worked together to cause his big murderous freak out.

Ermmmm I NEED A CERTIFIED HOMESTUCK FAN WHO HAS READ THE WHOLE THING OF HOMESTUCK RN BECAUSE MY WIFE IS SAYING THAT GAMZEE DONT LIKE ICP AND SAYING ITS CANON AND IDK IF IT IS OR NOT AND UHHHH

I NEED TO KNOW IF IT IS CANON OR NOT BECAUSE IM KINDA FREAKING OUT….

(Im literally only now finding out abt this…)

the short answer: it is canon!!

gamzee psychoanalysis under cut

gamzee wants to make his friends laugh, but he despises being called a “clown” so when he’s sober and talking to dave and sees the miracles music video he realizes that he was making his friends laugh, but they were laughing at him, not with him. this makes him go crazy and that’s why he ends up killing nepeta and equius :o3