2022-07-14 10:36:14 ¶ ●

seems at least worthy of comment that trolls have an ashen quadrant, where cremation has recurring significance; trolls don’t traditionally have any funerary rites - …don’t typically bury their dead. Leaving bodies to be consumed by wild animals is more customary - so the Signless being burned after his execution may have been a deliberate disrespect against him. which explains why it’s Meenah’s two least favourite children who get cremated rather than preserved: Jake’s grandma, in particular, had to be burned “with haste so the monsters wouldnt eat her”: a pointedly nontraditional disposal for the daughter of a troll.

how this connects to the so-named quadrant, idk… Karkat’s ashen-grey sign is supposed to have cooled from fiery red, but that doesn’t line up with the function of the quadrant. do John’s “pale fire” or Vriska’s “irons in the fire” having anything to say about it either… and one has to assume the differing symbols of ascension for humans and trolls - eternal sleep vs the dissolving/burning of the old body - factor into this somehow too