Yo, uh your John English post had be thinking about Caliborns OC from Act 6 and this may sound a little crazy but I kind of see the resemblance to Egbert in his OC it could be reaching but it looks like epic foreshadowing to be honest.
Back when this part of the comic was happening, it was actually pretty common for people to interpret this panel as being foreshadowing for Caliborn’s takeover of Jake English’s body.
I basically dismissed it outright at the time, saying the only real resemblance was that Caliborn’s OC and Jake English both have black hair; but I failed to notice that he’s definitely wearing glasses in this panel, and with the added context that John is now infected with Lord English’s poison, it actually looks a whole lot more like John’s hair than Jake’s, with prominent spikes on both sides and a sweep along the top.
Checked the Homestuck credits to see if John’s Trickster Mode cheeks were still solid red circles rather than spirals, because you could argue that it’s important to John being potentially possessed by Lord English, and I noticed a detail I’d never spotted before;
The Alpha humans all have spiral cheeks, while the Beta humans have full circles.
Most likely this was just thrown in to keep John’s noncanon Trickster mode from earlier in the comic consistent with the canon Alpha Trickster modes, but with the added cherub imagery it also takes on a more symbolic meaning: a cherub with spiral cheeks is only half of a person, while a full-circled cherub is a matured adult. The Alpha kids have spiral cheeks because they’re more caricatures of people than real characters; a fact heavily emphasised in the Epilogues.
John’s retcon arm event toward the end of Homestuck is often compared to MS Paint Adventures’ recurring “retrieve arms” gag, but it also forms part of a repeating pattern surrounding John Egbert and the concept of ghostly hands.
Page 6 is an oft-talked about example of this phenomenon, largely because it doesn’t seem to really have any place in the rest of the story. Despite frequent claims that the fourth wall is being broken, the “YOU as READER” character essentially does not interact with the story ever again after this.
Notice the cyan-and-blue colour scheme the cake takes on while being carried by the “reader’s” hand.
An uncannily similar concept crops up over a thousand pages later with the ghost gauntlets, which John alchemises from slime left over by Nannasprite. This explains their colour scheme, but it’s important still to take note of the similarities to John’s iconic god tier colour scheme that appears a whole lot later, as well as to the colour scheme of the cake picked up back on page 6.
Also take note of this line used to describe the ghost gauntlets’ power:
This is because all of these ‘ghostly arms’ around John are actually manifestations of his powers as a Hero of Breath, if not literally - though we know alchemised items often do literally channel a player’s internal powers - then symbolically.
The Breath aspect is one of freedom and separation from that which binds. In the heavily Gnostic context of Homestuck, this especially relates to the soul breaking free from the chains of the flesh. As such, the Breath aspect is one that connects heavily to the spirit. Consider the biblical story in which God breathes live into the clay Adam through his mouth (which also ties into John’s role as the a creator father figure, and the association between ghosts and fatherhood).
When the comic says that the ghostly arms John uses as an extension of his physical form are stronger than his flesh arms, this is a comment on his powers as the Hero of Breath and that his soul will always be stronger than his body.
Compare this to the Blood aspect’s association with hands. Jack’s offered “blood pact” with Karkat on page 2303 is often considered a precursor to the Blood symbol, and importantly takes place in the joining of two hands. The Blood aspect is not concerned with separating the spirit hand from the hand of flesh, but rather by making the flesh stronger through bonds.
Take note of another phenomenon that frequently befalls Jack Noir; almost every iteration of him loses one of his physical arms. This is another occurrence often connected to the “retrieve arms” gag, but we can also contrast it with the ghostly “removal” of one of John’s arms.
i love your meta abt the poisons, but iirc you forgot the most important poison in homestuck: arsenic. every time "33" is mentioned in homestuck in particular by a Leijon, its referring to the poison arsenic. nepeta+fusions all begin every message with that poison and then a reversed command arrow, and davepeta even spices it up with a B at the start for 8, i.e. infinity, to arquius' nothingness as doc scratch (cue ball, O, void), a poison to lord english
oh yeah, since sugar is also called a poison i.e. psychoactive drug by trolls, nepeta’s land being covered in it strengthens the poison associations of the arsenicCatnip (catnip also being psychoactive! nepeta is poison-coded! shes associated wth death! think death’s tea in problem sleuth, too)
This is some really interesting analysis! I’m impressed that you’ve managed to tie number symbology into it, too. Let me try to break this down;
In line with Poison Theory, Nepeta is associated with three poisons of her own;
The famously poisonous element arsenic, at number 33 on the periodic table
Catnip, which is a psychoactive substance to cats
Sugar, which completely covers her Land of Little Cubes and Tea and is a psychoactive substance to trolls
Note that Nepetasprite’s first appearance features this line from Jasprosesprite^2:
Also note that of the four Alpha Kids’ Lands, it’s the Prince of Heart’s Land of Tombs and Krypton (element number 36) that is prominently also covered in poison, to the point where gas masks are required to explore LOTAK to any significant degree.
Further connecting her to Death, who cries pure black poison, is Nepeta’s association with tea and tea parties.
Davepetasprite^2 brings it a step further by adding sunglasses to Nepeta’s :33 face using the letter B - representing 8, infinity, and the colour black. This is in contrast to Equius and ARquius, who represents 0, void, and the white cueball.
Note that arsenic (3+3) adds up to 6, also connected to the letter B, and that krypton (3+6) adds up to 9, also connected to the letter O.
I think the fact that you’ve brought up the Death and sunglasses connections is particular important, because it fits pretty snugly with a theory I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while now about the connection between the MSPA’s iconic Ben Stiller shades and the Dead Cherub - Homestuck’s own version of Death - whose eyes are inexplicably black like sunglasses. Maybe I’ll finally put those thoughts into text form now that you’ve inspired me…
Dealing with symbolism in Homestuck is a sticky business because even though it deals so heavily with duality, it also leans heavily on Gnostic combining-of-opposites imagery. A character can be aligned with white and green from one angle, but associated with red and black when you look at it from the other way. This is particularly prominent surrounding Caliborn/Lord English and Calliope/the Dead Cherub, who deliberately obfuscate duality in a distinctly Cherubic way by jacking each other’s swagger at every possible opportunity. It’s all a bit like a Mind player making meaningless coin flips just to prove a point.
Even this post is subject to a similar phenomenon. While I try to read it as “Homestuck is deliberately confusing because it concerns itself heavily with the Gnostic concept of syzygy,” another person would probably see it as “Homestuck has very little symbolic value at all and you are wasting your time trying to make sense of it.” They’re both true!
I completely forgot that Skipper Plumbthroat’s song from the Squiddles album talks about him searching the seas for “valuable ink,” which I guess is as good an explanation as any for where the Ink of Squid Pro Quo comes from.
The other day I was in the process of making a post about how interesting it is that Homestuck’s God of Death is an enemy to ghosts rather than a protector of them and what sort of symbolic implications that had, but I got distracted before I could post it. Which is a good thing, I think, because while I’ve been thinking it over since then it’s occurred to me that Homestuck doesn’t just have the one God of Death. It has Lord English and the Dead Cherub, a direct analogue to Problem Sleuth’s personification of Death.
What’s especially important about this is that Lord English isn’t just any old Angel of Death; he’s referred to by some of his adherents as “THE ANGEL OF DOUBLE DEATH”.
Death in Homestuck is just another stage of life’s journey, and that’s not just in the sense of God Tiers or Ultimate Selves; anyone who dies and goes to the dream bubbles is allowed to continue participating in and contributing to the story, just like in Problem Sleuth, wherein the ghosts looked after by Death were essentially free to move in and out of the living and dying realms as they pleased.
This is essentially the difference between the Dead Cherub and Lord English’s roles in the afterlife; while Calliope is a guide and protector, Lord English is a destroyer. A similar duo can be found in real-life mythology; the Hellenic pantheon had a God “of the Dead”, Hades, who looked after the realm of the dead, and God “of Death”, Thanatos, who represented death itself.
(Perhaps coincidentally - or perhaps not! - Lord English’s concept also seems to align closely to the Bang! Pow! Boom! character from the Insane Clown Posse’s Dark Carnival mythos; a continuous explosion who tears through the afterlife, taking the souls of the wicked and excess dead caught in its blast to Hell. The Bang! Pow! Boom! record notably came out the same year Homestuck started, and saw the debut of the iconic “Miracles”track).
Like many concepts in Homestuck, the trolls seem to be aware of this “two kinds of death” thing in a strange thereabouts way. As I’ve speculated before, trolls may not be very concerned with what happens in the afterlife, because Alternia is populated with ghosts in a way that, for whatever reason, Earth isn’t. The Alternian mythos has no need for a character with “a SKULL”and “a BLACK ROBE” to guide ghosts to the afterlife because Alternians take the afterlife and the immortal soul for granted. Instead, fitting with their morbid culture, they’re more concerned with fearing and worshiping an Angel of Double Death who might have the power to destroy even that immortal soul.
This even fits with the two cherubs’ aspects, Space and Time, and Alternian culture’s preoccupation with the latter; Space represents creation and birth, and as such is connected to death as a form of rebirth, while Time represents destruction, associated with Lord English’s purely destructive role.
the white poison belongs outside the frame of the story - the candy corn on the website header, the blank background, the white door. only when taken inside canon does it become toxic to the narrative itself. likewise, the black poison belongs to the frame of the story - the black void of the furthest ring. when taken out of the story into fanfiction (the epilogues), it becomes poisonous to the characters there
This is definitely one possibility worth considering!
I wonder if it says anything about the nature of Homestuck’s “meta-villains”? If evil characters like Doc Scratch exist “closer to the surface of the story’s meta-bubble,” would the opposite, benevolent version of this be a character who lives outside of the story, but close to the narrative itself? Like an author or a reader with interactive abilities?
it seems significant to me that our third Serket (where Aranea, Mindfang tells the reader about Beforus and Alternia, and so represents Universe A, and (Vriska), presiding over Universe B as a sun if we reference hussie's notes, Vriska represents Universe C) replaces A with 8 more often than she replaces B. indicating an escape from the emerald storm of lord english maybe? sidenote but doc scratch begins messages with nothing, and davepeta begins every message with 24 (8+8+8) characters exactly
Perhaps an indication that the new Vriska is now the Alpha as opposed to the old (Vriska)’s Beta. B means Beta and O means Omega, so the new Vriska being an A might symbolise a new beginning outside of the old cycle (69).
Per the ask before last, you might interpret the Dead Cherub as a sort of “anti-Doc Scratch” in the sense that while Doc Scratch is a character within the story who exists as a white hole to the outside world, she is an extra-canonical character (inasmuch as she is literally the Candy Earth) who exists as a black hole into the story proper.
do we even have reason to believe cherubs existed in that universe? that would require the same species to arise independently in multiple universes, which I don’t think we’ve seen any instances of
Even if we are to assume that evolution in Homestuck follows the same sort of random pattern it does in real life - which in itself is dubious - we’re given plenty of reason to believe cherubs are a special case.
Aranea describes cherubs as if they are more of a feature of a universe than a fully independent race of their own;
Notice the use of indefinite article - organisms living within “a” universe, as opposed to organisms living within “the” universe.
This is supported by her later claim that Caliborn is of
a race that was “never meant to play“ SBURB - cherubs at the very least are not of the same game-playing stock as humans and trolls.
Other details specifically suggest that cherubs have enough of a presence in Universe A to have cultural significance to trolls. From A6I3:
Huge prehistoric green serpents have always played a major role in your
people’s mythology, both before and after your session scratched.
The cherub portal/s from Hiveswap is also particularly damning. Until we get more in-game explanation it could easily be suggested that they exist only thanks to our resident cherub Lord English, but the point they make remains regardless; just because a species arises in one universe doesn’t mean they can’t also be found in another universe due to other means. Don’t forget Calliope and Caliborn’s father once encountered a planet inhabited by trolls, who originally came to be on another world entirely.
GPI: Cue Journey’s “Any Way You Want It”. (Problem Sleuth, p. 1666)
Long before the Dead Cherub’s dramatic speaking debut, there was already speculation that an alternate Calliope might speak with lowercase red text. Mirroring the quirk Caliborn took when he stole Calliope’s typing style was the main reason, of course, but another potential parallel was seen as particularly exciting.
When the Dead Cherub types in pure red and all lowercase, she almost exactly imitates the typing style of Dave Strider. Which would be perfect, if only she had a set of black shades to match.
The reason Calliope might have been expected to show up with Ben Stiller shades on is mainly because of her perceived parallels to various incarnations Problem Sleuth’s Pickle Inspector. In Problem Sleuth the shades were prominently worn by Godhead Pickle Inspector, whose catchphrase “fondly regard creation” has been read by some as being synonymous with the phrase that makes up Calliope’s title “Muse of Space”. Pickle Inspector’s temporal replicsimile ability that eventually has him literally become creation has also been seen as in line with the role of a Muse of Space; and of course Problem Sleuth’s Death, who shares a build and manner with the Inspector, shares the Dead Cherub’s job of overlooking the afterlife.
The significance of these shades to the Muse of Space role isn’t limited to just the fact that they briefly touched the Godhead’s weird, kind of gaunt face, either. Andrew comments on their galactic glint - a callback to the same shine seen in Problem Sleuth on page 1667 - in Homestuck: Book 1;
The Stiller shades, presumably the exact same ones that made the whole
trip through Problem Sleuth, were witness to every event that took place
the history of the universe when they went through a black hole. They
still bear this cosmic imprint, much like a kind of photographic film.
This detail remains startlingly insignificant to the story in HS though.
All of that aside, though, the shades and the Dead Cherub have their own special connection within Homestuck itself. Because while getting the shades to Dave was a pretty simple process for John pre-Scratch, Dave Strider’s relationship with Ben Stiller post-Scratch was far more involved.
This whole exchange serves to establish Ben Stiller as parallel to Alternia’s Signless, who was also martyred on a stone obelisk. This establishes an ongoing legacy from character to character, across universes; from Kankri to Stiller to Dave, who apparently received the sunglasses from Stiller personally.
They also notably form “black holes” in her face, in the same way Sollux’ - who has also at one time held the universe(s) in his sunglasses - did after being attacked with Eridan’s white wand. This association with black holes only makes sense, given that black holes represent the pockets in Caliborn’s pool session, where Lord English’s eyes are the pool balls themselves; and again, this ties back to the Stiller shades and the transformation they went through after they went through a black hole.
Anyway the point of my posts about Lord English and about troll gender so close together was that I’d been talking about it in the headcanon chat and I’ve come to the pretty solid conclusion that it’s English’s fault that trolls even have gender.
If you think about the fact that trolls logically should not have biological sex outside of the mother grub / troll dichotomy, then the idea that trolls developed a concept of gender identity seems absurd. But as it happens, a lot of Alternia is absurd; it’s a near-comical caricature of a fascist dictatorship, because it was engineered that way. So of course it follows that someone (read: the lizard man English and his puppet government) decided that trolls should be gendered.
And there’s precedent for it to be that way! English is from an incredibly binary race (a species one could almost say is composed entirely of binaries), and, unfortunately, as is well-known, his biggest policy is misogyny. Which is an easy policy to carry out when all you’re doing is trolling cherubs and humans, and messing with carapaces; but it’s difficult to do when you’re at the helm of a race who are, for all intents and purposes, non-binary. So naturally, he imposed a gender binary on them, completely arbitrarily.
And it just thematically fits; if there’s an fascist or imperialist ideal that you could possibly apply to a species to make it a dystopia, it’s been slapped onto Alternia; and a completely arbitrarily imposed gender binary is just… one of those colonialist things.
Trolls having binary genders is ridiculous because it’s just part of the endless set of ridiculous rules deliberately placed onto Alternia to make it ridiculously dystopian.
This is doubly relevant now we know that cherubim don’t have differentiated sexes either.
Yeah! I briefly touched upon it during my commentary of the Epilogues, but the text basically outright confirms my interpretation of Alternian gender on page 19 of Meat:
"The gentle breeze is all she can hear. It’s louder than my voice, and in some understated way, makes my case for me more persuasively. She knows I’m right." - Dirk Strider. He says this when he gets Terezi to come with him any idea what this even means?
I think it’s drawing an association between the breeze and John, who is the topic of discussion at that point on page 36 of Meat.
