Breath And Blood

you are not alone but im curious to hear your view of how they're intertwined

a Seer of Light who can read the future and a Thief of Light who can steal "luck" are fundamentally interacting with the same force, "fortune"; one just happens to be a fortune teller while the other is a fortune stealer. and that's not just wordplay, the two meanings of fortune are literally the same! being "lucky" is just the name someone like Vriska gives to the idea of having a "good fortune"; literally just having a positive destiny or fate, which a Seer of Light would be able to read.

the synonymity of fate and luck are evident in the language we use to describe them; moira (as in moirallegience) and kismet (as kismesissitude) both mean "fate" but also "allotment" or "portion", to be lucky, or to be someone who steals fortunes, literally just means to take the good allotment for yourself and leave the people around you with the bad ones. this should be particular obvious in Homestuck, where possibilities are represented by branching timelines; if you're lucky, that just means the alpha timeline is the one where you got the best fortune, and if you're a fortune teller that means you can read these "fortuitous outcomes" into the future. this is only driven home by Aranea's plan, which does not involve "luck" or "knowledge" as we tend to think of them but rather the very literal twisting of fortune to make one timeline more fortuitous than the others.

heir of time or prince of mind?

Daily 6 - Prince of Mind

I’ve created a class and aspect schematization chart based off the lovely theories of 0Pacifica, which were a compelling enough argumentation that I’ve significantly absorbed them into my personal canon. You should read her meta if you want and you can find the chart here.

also please follow me on twitter uwu

The recent discussion of the-character-sheet-as-a-soul led me down a very strange mental rabbit hole which ended with “could the character sheet be a piece of origami?”

I do not know nearly enough about origami to continue

(With reference to this post here.)

There's probably some design space to be explored in using flexagons as character sheets.

To illustrate, imagine a martial arts RPG where a character's stats vary depending on what stance they're in, with each of their stances' traits being written on one particular face of a flexagon, and some cost – probably an action economy cost – associated with changing stances (i.e., reconfiguring the flexagon).

Consider the traversal network of a hexatetraflexagon, for example:

Presuming a character's initial stance is represented by face 1, at the start it would be possible to transition to the stances contained on faces 2, 3 and 5, while the stances contained on faces 4 and 6 would be inaccessible.

Lots of fun tactical possibilities there, assuming you could find a way to express a sufficiently rich set of mechanical traits in such limited writing space!

The Lands kind of stick out as an anomaly in Homestuck’s cosmology. They’re not constant, like Skaia and the Veil are; they’re not evolved through prototyping like imps and carapacians; they’re not drawn from mythology like the Denizens; and they’re not made from Thoughtstuff like Prospit and Derse. On a cursory glance they seem to be the one example of something being created ex nihilo in paradox space, a realm that is supposed to contain “essentially nothing new”. So naturally, figuring out the genesis of the Lands would be a great stride toward unlocking Homestuck as a whole.

Obviously the logical first assumption is that the Lands are generated from the players themselves somehow; grinding metal for the swordsman, industrial pipeworks for the pipe smoker’s heir; and this makes perfect sense for as long as we see Sburb as a game whose goal is to guide players into adulthood. But that’s only one side of the coin; every aspect of the game, from frog breeding to prototyping, should also serve the game’s other primary purpose, which is as reality’s method of reproduction. So the question “why are the Lands the way they are” is just as important as the “what are they” question.

My first hypothesis was that if every one of the Lands in the Medium has its own breed of frog, then this could be a means of introducing genetic diversity to the Genesis Frog; a frog with lava-resistant genes, for example, might make a very different to a frog with genes from the Land of Dew and Glass. But I realise now that we don’t even need to introduce this new idea; the grist hoards in the center of each planet already act as a unique genetic code for each session’s Frog.

And since the grist essentially acts as the “essence” of each planet - oil grist for an oil world, chalk grist for a chalk world - we can also view the grist as the “essence” of its associated Hero. This is more pronounced in the trolls’ grist, with Tavros’ grists being brown-orange and Vriska and Gamzee having blue and purple respectively in [S] Make her pay. (We also observe here that Karkat has green grist, but you can make of that what you will.)

And I think this sheds some further light on how the Ultimate Alchemy ties into the alchemy of the self; the process of creating a universe involves the very alchemical components that make up a person. Using one’s inner essence to create an entire world could also be seen as a way of making the internal, external?

So the genesis of a new universe is the contribution of several individuals’ essences to be mixed in one central subterranean hub… i.e. exactly how troll reproduction works, indicating that the jadeblood is suited to the role of frog breeder even moreso than may have originally been thought.

On Life, Light and HIC

@pagedelight said:

This thought arose from my memory about a post about Meenah and her unwillingness to allow things to develop or grow. I couldn’t find the original post for this, so I may be a bit off base.

Could the Condesce’s name and motifs (and to an extent the motifs of Life players since they’re super closely related) relate heavily to information. In particular, the Condesce’s name is a joke on Meenah’s tendency to reduce information to it’s essentials? Something along the lines of condensing information? 

The weapon of choice, a trident, would also evoke the imagery of a three hole puncher which she ironically uses to kill Rose. This relation between life and information is also semi-shown with the binder that HIC gives to Roxy to construct the matriorb.

Life, the aspect most strongly associated with power, would derive it’s power from the condensing of information. Which is exactly what trickster mode (life-coded grim darkness) is in hindsight. It is looking at characters who are complex and saying “Nope, screw that, I only care about what I want” and extracting that complexity from them. 

If trickster mode is oversimplification/reduction of information and grim-darkness is it’s only known counterpart, that would seemingly imply that grim-darkness would be an abundance of information/complexity rather than it’s presumed lack. It’s not instant nihilism. 

Meaning, Rose’s grimdark transformation wasn’t triggered by receiving meaningless answers alone, but receiving extremely dense, complex (indecipherable) information all at once (multiple answers show up in the cue-ball in [S] Descend). Jade’s grimdark transformation at the sight of Jake’s page outfit would be similar. 

1. This is really strange timing: not two days ago, I was browsing the SomethingAwful MSPA thread and found a post from like 2012 musing that Feferi’s Land of Dew and Glass might be a joke on condensation, linking her the Her Imperious Condescension. I was kind of skeptical tbh, but the way you’re putting it here is making me reconsider cause like..

Recently, it came about that Dirk’s supply of orange soda is characterized as the ‘distilled’ orange essence of the pumpkins Roxy has… 'distill’ being the word of choice because Dirk associates Ben Stiller with the Mobster Kingpin, who runs a moonshine distillery. This set up is probably a result of Dirk 'being’ glasses, the matter of only having orange color is part of being a detached gaze, color is what the eye drinks. (Tangential: Dirk’s picture of Ben Stiller is next to Rainbow Dash)

This aligned with the independent supposition that 'rainbow drinker’ doubles as a euphemism for the eye, with Kanaya’s penchant for boiling complex subjects down to their basics being an act of 'distilling’ analogous to the object > essence work performed by the gaze.

“Her Imperious Condescension” is itself a reference to the domineering gaze of authority, which together with your 'condensation’ reading puts it perfectly in line with the Dirk and Kanaya stuff. What’s more, the first time we see the acronym HIC is an advertisement on John’s TV for the literal fruit juice! The ghostly essence flavor no less, Ectocooler Blast!

So agreed re: condensing information

(Tangent: All this talk of eyes and distilling is making me associate the death of Mobster Kingpin with the skewered olive in Mom’s martini… or Rose stabbing eyes out, for that matter)

2. The thought of HIC using her 2x3dent for paperwork is adorable. Endorsed, even though I’m not sure about the binder’s applicability to everything here.

3. I think the topic of essences goes beyond the Life aspect (as in various aspects intersect with the matter), and I don’t know what to think of the dichotomy you pose between Trickster Mode and Grimdarkness, but I don’t think I can dispute the bit about information density from the cueball, given how many images flash on screen in that last second before Rose’s eyes darken…

Something to keep in mind!

Musing on Pages and Thieves

One interesting connection between Pages and Thieves I think is poverty. Both experience a form of poverty, though there is subtle differences.  A thief experiences a poverty of their aspect in themselves (a form of spiritual poverty), and this desire to “fill in the gap” motivates them to acquire material wealth. For example, Vriska pursues treasure heavily and Meenah is interested in large quantities of money. Even Tagora is interested heavily in money which he uses to buy rainbow drinker skincare products and decorate his hive (space coded). From their perspective, their aspect is a material that they can buy or acquire. And while this provides temporary relief, it ultimately leads to them being terrified of being backstabbed or betrayed (having their aspect stolen from them as they do to others), or endlessly attempting to pursue more, even at the expense of others. The Page, in contrast, is not remotely poor in spirit. They embrace their aspects quite wholeheartedly and as a result are contented in themselves. While they are blessed to be free from the curse of “incompleteness”  and instead with spiritual wisdom, they are initially cursed with powerlessness in the form of material poverty or the poverty of others of their aspect. The Page is objectified as their aspect. Jake is seen as desire incarnate to his band of friends (though is only truly respected by Dirk). Tavros too is objectified as “detachment” and “freedom” by Vriska though is resisted by her as she drives forward with her attempts to be relevant (materially important). Vriska’s suppression of Tavros is a suppression of “enlightenment” (the part of her aspect which she perceives will make her weak). While the Thief compensates for their weakness and insecurity through things, Pages compensate for it through love and consideration from others. 

Classpect powers and skill

So I was thinking about god-tier abilities in Homestuck, and it struck me that rather a lot of the so-called “classpect powers” showcased in hs are either A: a more “supernatural” expression of something the person in question had already been doing prior, or, rarely, B: a direct response to a previously established problem. And in aggregate, these feel like they point toward a fairly particular conception of classpect abilities, that of skills that are learned (or levelups gained in a special ability, if we want to get video gamey with it).

Let’s use John as an example. As the predominant early viewpoint character, his growth is fairly well detailed. As he enters his Land and starts properly growing, he goes from using the Breeze to send objects across his Land using the Parcel Pyxis network, to subconsciously summoning the Breeze to save himself from a fire, to subconsciously having the Breeze emanate in massive quantities from his very body to put out the planet-spanning Green Tragedy, to finally as a god-tier (and with some valuable advice from Vriska) taking full control of the Breeze and using it as a tool and weapon. All of these fall into the A category, but John also has two solid B category abilities, the ability to resist detection via scent, and the ability to turn into wind to protect himself against attacks. And both those abilities are perfect for protection against Bec Noir, who tracked John down via his scent and stabbed him in the chest shortly before John god-tiered, at which point he immediately gained the first of these abilities (he showcased the second when fighting Noir in the Furthest Ring later).

Keep reading

The Distinction Between Light and Rage (With Some Gushers)

One of the things I’ve seen come up in discussion about the aspects is some overlaps between them to varying degrees. One good example of this Light and Rage.  I think it’s pretty much consensus at this point that Rage = Truth or Revelations. But it gets really interesting when talking about Light because Light also presides over the concept of truth. Some people have tried to smooth over the similarities by saying that Rage is “emotional truths” or truths that make you feel bad, but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. I think the distinction between the two is as follows: Ragebounds are “correct” and Lightbounds are “right”. Generally speaking? What do I mean by this?  Well, for the sake of this post, I am defining “correct” as presenting facts or evidence, and being “Right” is possessing an understanding of the facts in such a way that allows one to provide new insights, or form new arguments. Ragebounds are a deconstructive aspect, as the Extended Zodiac states. 

The “true” objective reality that Ragebounds seeks is noted to be covered up by “lies” (something Hope would preside over as Hope is an aspect of illusions, and beliefs). For the rage bound, the truth is something that must already exist and is being covered up, and their primary goal is to rip and tear things to find their irreducibles. The cold hard facts.  The Extended Zodiac paints Lightbounds as the exact opposite in this regard: 

Where Ragebound pursue the facts to destroy faulty arguments, Lightbounds pursue facts to form new arguments. The EZ funnily describes them as “alchemists” linking them to the Sburb Mechanics of Alchemy, which utilizes a resource called “Grist” (which is substance used to back up an argument). 

The limitation of Lightbound’s relationship with Truth and a Ragebound’s is that a Lightbound constructs new perspectives, arguments, and grants themselves more options while eliminating the bad or unwise ones. Ragebounds use their evidence to deconstruct arguments and systems and get to the heart of the matter. But don’t ask them for solutions any fallouts or results of radical behavior. The end result being anarchy/confusion. “What the heck are we supposed to believe now?” everyone shouts. This dynamic may be in part influenced by their neighboring aspects Mind and Doom.  Light sits across from Mind on the EZ potentially indicating that some elements of Mind’s options, and lack of bias are carried over. Conversely, Doom is across from Rage indicating the limitation and narrowing down of options that Ragebounds experience as they discover and move towards the truth. 

The heart aspect is clearly connected with lions (the trolls’ heart player being Leo the lion, and the Prince of the aspect having the lion-headed God Yaldabaoth as a denizen), but I wonder if that means anything for any of the other aspects?

Maybe it’s lions for heart and dragons for mind?

The lion is the symbol of God, and is king of the land animals, while the dragon is the devil and the king of the skies. Nepeta is a lowblood who uses her physical strength instead of psychic powers, and Dirk is Homestuck’s resident manly dudebro machofighter, and Yaldabaoth is the God of the physical realm; meanwhile dragons are capable of a whole bunch of powers associated with psychics (laser eyes, telepathic communion) and Terezi was a master manipulator.

(of course, heart is the aspect of the soul, not the body, so part of a heart hero’s quest must be rejecting some of this focus on the physical aspect and becoming more spiritual; so I wonder what the equivalent of this is for mind heroes?)