2022-04-30 8:40:29 ¶ ●

the ‘cocoons are computers’ angle is starting to feel like it’s wearing pretty thin even for me, but some fresh notes regardless because i can’t help myself:

read the cocoon as a sort of surrogate mother, something that embraces the troll when they sleep in lieu of their genetic forebears separated from them by the lord of time. in such an interpretation, the fact that a troll’s computer resembles their cocoon indicates a similarity in purpose: in an antisocial world such as Alternia, a device for communicating with friends becomes another surrogate for connection with other people. when a troll sleeps, they’re soothed by the womb-slime of their cocoon; when they wake, they’re soothed by the simulation of interaction offered by the internet.

in a similar vein, if “cocoon” can refer to a computer just as much as it can a bed, then substituting “plundered mailbox” with “abandoned cocoon” is really just saying that trolls use computers in place of mail. I suggested that Alternia’s lack of streets implied a lack of freedom of movement; the Peregrine Mendicant’s insistence that mail is liberty carries a similar implication that a lack of a postal system on Alternia comes with a lack of freedom. again, the computer becomes a replacement for human interaction. where Act 1 starts off by handing John a quest to venture outside and collect his mail, which includes physical artefacts of affection from his friends, Hivebent offers no such goal to Karkat, who is instead sated by the arrival of a new chat client beta. indeed, while Karkat does briefly leave the confines of his hive in a manner similar to his human counterpart, it’s not part of any plan; it serves only to demonstrate the isolation of Alternian society to the reader, and to remind Karkat of his place in this society in the process.