Need a moment? Chew it over with Broblerone, now in a computer-aided Act 1 mosaic flavor.
(the original is 8 times the size, apparently that’s too big for Tumblr)
Another clock destroyed...
Above: Lord English unleashes a rainbow seizure field attack. He initiates this attack exactly twice in the fight (the first time is interrupted, the second likely resumes it) and that picture is from the first. This distinction is important.
Why is he doing the rainbow seizure field attack at all, though? What is it that that attack does?
Well, what is it that leads up to the first attack? It’s Aradia, Meenah, and Tavros tag-teaming the fucker. We get no impression that Tavros uses his Aspect during the fight; one could say his role is to distract and annoy, which he does very well. Meenah, I don’t presently have an idea, but I assume she’s draining his Life. But then what about Aradia the Time player?
Let’s take it slow.
1: Aradia freezes Lord English in time, as represented by the circle, ring, and gear. Meenah begins her thing.
2: As the Time graphics rotate, we see pieces of a broken clock be put back together, as if time is being rewound and fixed.
3: With the clock now fixed, five gears appear– Time’s language is changing a bit, possibly as we go further back in time.
4: The gears spin, the clock is no longer the focus. They look a bit like records now.
5: Okay so this symbol literally only appears for one frame so it’s hard to gauge what the heck is going on, but it looks to me like the five gears have slotted into a single greater gear.
6: Next frame gives us this… record-and-gear dealie, Time’s next language.
7: As the big dealie spins, a red line traces a circle around the whole thing.
8: Once the circle is complete, the record is broken in half. (Remember that symbol? <3)
9: Finally, either Aradia or Meenah puts the record back together, causing massive damage. Since part of Lord English’s shtick is breaking other people’s Time motifs (records, clocks), it makes sense to think putting them back together would hurt him.
But not enough! It is only here that the top image comes into play and Lord English initiates his rainbow seizure field attack. Well, until he’s interrupted by a massive charge of trolls, prompting him to laser-kill them– until Davepeta shows up and interrupts that, prompting their little duel– and then, once Lord English feels he has won….
..he breaks the fucking clock again. That cracked graphic is not there the first time, so this feels pretty important. This is likely how he makes the cracks in reality. If one can argue that cracking reality one too many times leads to his being susceptible to the Green Sun Black Hole, then one can argue that Aradia tricked him into cracking reality by fixing that Abstract Time Clock.
And either way, one can argue that here is yet another thing Homestuck did without anyone noticing.