god. here’s a realisation that’s been years in the making. alchemy in Homestuck follows basic rules along the lines of conservation of mass, though in the case of grist and captcha cards it’d probably be more accurate to think of it as conservation of ideas; any item can be broken down into its basic “essence” in the form of grist, and that grist can be reconstituted into another item of equal ideological value. nothing is ever created from nothing or totally obliterated; the concept of equivalent exchange applies.

artifact grist, which is gained rather than lost in the process of creation, seems to break a perfect system by excepting itself from this rule…

but compression artifacts are a result of lossy compression, which “involves discarding some of the media’s data”! artifact grist is in fact the essence of lost information; performing alchemy involving artifacts does not, as it may seem at face value, create something out of nothing; it “creates” “destruction”, thereby maintaining total informational equilibrium!