2017-10-08 15:36:40 ¶ ●

## hmm, i noticed a possible error in the troll session diagram you made? :o the planet order, clockwise, should be: LOPAH(Karkat)-LOTAF(Terezi)-LOTAM(Gamzee)-LOSAZ(Tavros)-LOMAT(Vriska)-LORAF(Kanaya)-LOBAF(Sollux)-LODAG(Feferi)-LOWAA(Eridan)-LOLCAT(Nepeta)-LOQAM(Aradia)-LOCAS(Equius)-LOPAH(Karkat)

I’m so glad you asked! Let me break this down, because this is something I had to make a choice on.

This is the session map you are likely thinking of. It’s from page 4219 (P2, A5A1), and it’s pretty memorable for how clearly it sets things out. But there’s a catch– it’s changed something for the sake of making a point. Let me show you the previous page, 4218.

In case it’s hard to see, for the initial frames the planets are arranged in an order alternating by team– blue troll, red troll, blue troll, red troll. This order is closest to how the final B session is laid out, with the two “teams” interlaced between each other. But then the planets shift to better illustrate the order of player entry in each specific team.

The language of the page’s text is just vague enough, furthermore, to leave me uncertain whether Skaia literally bifurcated the trolls’ planets and physically moved them around once everyone was in (thus making 4219 the more accurate layout for “Final A”) or whether this was a device designed to illustrate the way the trolls had been in separate teams of the same session all along.

The judgement I made in basing my map off of the initial frames of 4218 was from the rationale that Skaia physically moving the planets around doesn’t serve any immediately obvious purpose, and that stylistic consistency between session layouts is sort of a universal constant. I may be wrong, though!

I hope this makes sense

2017-10-21 10:26:57 ¶ ●

## there is an (actual, this time) error i noticed in your SGRUB diagram compared to that single shot of the actual session map: LORAF and LOMAT need switching around (LORAF should be between LOCAS+LOBAF, LOMAT should be between LOBAF+LODAG). as a side note, why do you think the SGRUB planet order was reversed from the mobius diagram order and SBURB planet order of (clockwise) client planet-server planet to (accounting for alternating teams) server planet-client planet?

Oh, Kanaya and Vriska. Goddammit, I got their symbols mixed up. Thanks for spotting that! I’ve fixed the post accordingly and credited you.

As for the other, I don’t presently have an idea, but you did inspire me to dig into the “order” of the sessions. This required making more maps! :D

(Fun fact: If you keep these maps open and go through A5A1 again, pay attention to how the order the trolls are introduced into the story both parallels and plays with the planet orders! There’s a lot of what feels like metatextual characterisation just in the abstract details.)

BONUS:

That C one’s a bit of a mess, but basically we can deduce that Caliborn’s order of the planets is clockwise, much like the B sessions. You can even see his next planets in the backgrounds of some of his intermissions, and they corroborate even further with this order.

What’s odd is that this means session A is pretty damn unique for being a counter-clockwise session (doubly so, even, because of the teams! and yes I went and double-checked, B2 is clockwise too)! I don’t see why this would be an accident. My preferred interpretation at the moment is that it’s broad characterisation of the entire universe in some way. Clockwork is an important motif in Homestuck’s cosmos, so it’d make sense to see its intricacies pop up in the less-prevalent mechanics as well.