January 2018

Why do you think that Hussie wrote everyone besides Vriska extemely out of character in the retcon? I personally feel as if he has something fishy up his sleeve, and wanted to mislead us.

This is an extremely loaded question, because I personally didn’t think anyone was OOC in the slightest, and they all were acting exactly like you’d expect of them given their circumstances.

On the topic of heart players and possession from a while ago, do you think that the ghost of a Thief of Heart could steal the soul of a living person in the dream bubbles and possess their now-empty vessel?

That’s an interesting thought and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, yes!

Was it ever explained how dreaming people in the dream bubbles could bring out physical items like the ring and people like Aranea once she resurrected herself?

The Ring is a Juju, it has some bizarre properties. In-Universe, Jujus are notorious for being weird, appearing and disappearing at random and kind of not having a set beginning or end, so being able to travel in and out of the Bubbles through dreaming and resurrected people only adds to that. On a more Meta level, Jujus kind of work like Plot Devices, so it’d make sense that they’d move the plot along with something as convenient as that.

do you agree with this statement for a Witch of Mind: Taken in a more meta direction at God-Tier, they may change how causality and logic relate concepts and objects to each other; Perhaps they could make eggs hatch from chickens, a bonk on the head change the bonkee’s clothing, A/=C when A=B and B=C Source: zeroanalytic tumblr

Jesus Christ that’s an incredibly strange use of God Tier powers and I am going to need a second to wrap my head about it. I feel Rage or Hope, being more related to Narrative Coherence and Contrivance in a Meta sense would make more sense than Mind, and possibly Space too merely because of the scope of those powers. You could also argue Light or Void if you’re going by the Truth vs Lies meaning- By making something less of a Lie you technically bend reality to make it true, thus ending in the depicted scenario.

I like how the name "English" doesnt really have an origin

It’s a Retroactive Name! Caliborn takes on the title English because of Jake, who is in turn only named English because Jade used it as a middle finger to Condy.

what about this for a Witch of Heart from the same Tumblr: So a Witch of Heart would not only possess the power to change their Self and the Selves of others, but possibly also the ability to change all those Facets of Reality which are part of their Heart; just as an example, a Witch of Heart who Identifies with marksmanship and shooting might be able to warp the shape of firearms, the paths of bullets, or alter the “Stats” of gunpowder weapons and ammunition

I would imagine it being more the Stats of THEIR Weapons specifically, seems like Heart Players do have rather personal and unique weaponry after all- Dirk’s Unbreakable Katana, Nep’s characteristic Claws. So I could see a Witch of Heart having some deeper connection with their tools- But more like their specific and personal Tools rather than, all the tools like that.

can Time still have ties with Physics? due to space-time being a thing and all

I mean, Time has an effect on Physics because the flow of time is kind of how we perceive reactions and stuff that happens in the physical Space, but it would feel a bit redundant to have any deeper ties between Time and what should be more noticeably Space.

I havn’t seen anyone point this out and I’m not sure if you post these sorta thing but it seems all time players prototyped themselves at some point of the game

Um. Damara?

Rogue of Time extending their session infinitely, just moving time from imps to the white king to prolong the reckoning, telling their friends "Oh, don't worry, we've got plenty of time, just finish your quest!" Or, "Take your time, the frog is important, and we won't run out of time soon!" Just taking it upon themselves to make sure no one stresses about getting things done by giving them much more time than they would've had normally

Let me make this into Sadstuck and say they’re prolonging everyone’s Time by taking away from their own.

Witch of Time manipulating people's time, making seconds last entire centuries for them but for people watching they just seem to be perfectly still

Wasn’t that exactly what happened to one of the Bleach baddies.

What's the deal with Brain Ghost Dirk? I don't really understand his nature (may just be from not understanding aspects too well.) Also I know for some time John and Dave had <3< and <3 shirts, did Rose and Jade ever have <> or c3< shirts or are those quadrants not important enough in this context?

We never saw them with <> or c3< but they could’ve easily had them in the past, maybe Jade with <> and Rose with c3<? As for Brain Ghost Dirk, he’s a bizarre mix of Jake’s Hope and Dirk’s Heart. See, Jake, as a Page, and specially a Page of Hope, made a projection of his subconscious in a way that seemed reliable and good for him, much like Tavros has Rufio, Jake has Brain Ghost Dirk. Except of course Dirk’s existence is weird as fuck because he’s a Heart Player and has like a Zillion splinters, so even this one sort of counted as part Dirk, even though it’s Jake’s Subconscious Mind, it acts as a sort of Projection of what Jake sees in Dirk.

Are the exiles that serve as mentors to the players always Carapacians who have interacted with the players in some way? And do you think there are likely to be any other Carapacians who could have major roles in a session aside from, BK, BQ, WK, WQ, SS, DD, HB, CD, WV, PM, AR and Ms. Paint?

I mean, we know about some of these Carapacians because they are the Exiles. Otherwise, AR was just a police officer from Derse, and PM a Mailwoman from Prospit. It’s likely every Prospitian has a title of some sort to be referred as both prior to being an Exile, and after being an Exile.

Launching off of that rouge of time post, thief of time stealing enemies time and just solving everyone's problems on their own. Is that in character?

One of the Thief’s primary trait is that they can be really powerful by themselves and kind of Get Shit Done, so definitely.

can a session have lop sided dreamers? like 3 derse : 1 prospit or 4 derse : 0 prospit.

I know Sollux is a weird case, specially with Aradia being already Dead at the beginning of the game, but technically in Canon, Derse has 5 Towers and Prospit 7. Even knowing Aradia does have a Dream Self, it still leaves Prospit 7 and Derse 6 Dreamers, with one of them being a repeat, but like. Symmetry seems to be a slight leaning and preference rather than a rule.

Who do you THINK is the tallest among the Ancestors?

I may be biased, but Condy.

I mean look at that.

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Look at That.

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She BIGG and there’s nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. I once took the first image up there to calculate her size averaging Roxy around 5′-5′6″ tall, I can’t remember, and the result was a 12′ Tall Condesce, not counting her horns- The Horns alone were the size of Roxy’s entire body, and that one drawing of her in Collide definitely agrees with that Headcanon. Heights are flexible and weird in Homestuck, but, Condy will always be the Tallest in my Heart.

jade had a skaianet shirt with a diamond and rose's squid shirts resembles clubs

Hmm, I mean the Skaianet logo is kind of in a Diamond, but it’s a bit of a stretch. I just remembered she does literally have a Diamond in something else though- The Girl’s Best Friend.

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Did Rose ever Alchemize anything with a very noticeable and obvious Clubs symbol?

what do you think of the idea that Witch's and Mage's are related as Witch's have almost complete control of their aspect but little to no understanding while Mage's know a lot about their aspect and use that knowledge coupled with their minor manipulation abilities to sort of "stretch" the limits of their aspect

I don’t quite think much about it, Know and Change are sort of related enough that it’s hard to actually have one without the other, so complete control ‘but no understanding’ doesn’t sound too Witchy to me.

A hope player that uses their hope powers to keep people suspending their disbelief, allowing them to be the best street magician. Which class would you think can do this the best?

Maybe someone that Manipulates or Serves Hope? Heir/Witch or Knight/Page maybe. Maid/Sylph could work as well I suppose.

Huh. I would have thought GHB would be the tallest...

I mean, she’s the Highest Blood on Alternia and likely the Oldest Troll Ever, I would definitely give her the ‘tallest’ label. 

Witches with no knowledge of what they do make zero sense - class name already suggests that they do. Witchcraft requires a lot of study to master. They must know nature to bend it, to be close with it. They must have intuition. The slavic version of Witch is outright called "Wise and knowledgeable Mother". Even when it comes to demon summoning interpretation, it is still inqludes learning arts and crafts,

Yep, also I know it’s not what you mean by ‘arts and crafts’ but I can now not think of anything other than a young Witch making a Summoning Circle Papercraft or something like that.

How exactly did the trolls and kids end up in the same session? I know that they traveled through the 4th wall and the meteor, but was it explained how karkat and Kanaya and such ended up physically meeting rose and dave?

Dave and Rose died on their Sacrificial Slabs when the Green Sun was created, and thus kind of floated out of the blazing mass of the Green Sun and stayed around until Sollux sent the Meteor flying in the Green Sun’s direction. 

What do you think of the idea that witches just fuck up the game somehow? Like jade prototyped a first guardian, Damara fucked up the timeline, and the black king having the vast glub due to fefs lusus.

I mean if you wanna blame someone, blame Vriska for Bec’s Prototyping, the Kids were actually doing well on time for Jade’s entrance until she got involved. If anything, don’t Witches end up Saving the Game every single time? Damara was the only one able to start the Scratch, Jade carried the Planets into the next Session, and it’s thanks to Feferi the Dream Bubbles even exist. Rather than Good or Bad, it seems Witches bring Game Changers.

Question: do u dabble in alchemy? Cause boy oh boy do I have a question 4 u: Jade one messed the timeline up by prototyping with a mutant god dog, what do you think of going a step further, and prototyping a literal sburb copy, the black king being literally sburb itself.

I’ve wondered before about how prototyping a Chess Set would make every single Carapacian into an entire new set of Chess Pieces, with recursive instances of Kings and Queens, infinitely and eternally. Having each Underling and Carapacian be its own recursive Session of SBURB is absolutely preposterous and absurd. I love it.

If we go by make verb for Fairies, would "make shit happen" fall under their grasp?

Oh definitely, and also it seems they seem to Make others Do stuff as well at times.

I've been thinking about the Light aspect, since non-esoteric knowledge is part of Light, could a Light player make people believe something false is true? Common knowledge isn't always right after all, same idea for luck, could a Light player give people bad luck as well as good luck? I've always seen a lot of focus on the positives, but never on the negatives, the only thing I don't think a Light player could do is make someone irrelevant without actively making someone else more relevant

It all depends on the Class, really- Even making someone less relevant. I mean, Vriska’s powers pretty much make her sap others’ relevancy on the Meteor and self-insert herself as if she were the leader and savior of everything. A Prince or Bard of Light would be able to destroy relevancy and Alpha-ness, wouldn’t they? Similarly, a maybe a Witch or Heir could be able to manipulate knowledge for deceitful means, and stealing someone’s luck, again, Vriska-like, definitely leaves others having no luck at all.

I'm a bit confused about the whole disc/cartridges thing. Are the glitches existing only in the narrative? How does affecting the cart/disc affect the comic in-universe?

Homestuck is a story- In-Universe I mean, the fact Hussie is a character and how he interacts with Caliborn, the Glitches, the panel stuff, Homestuck in itself is a bizarre mix of a Narrative that takes elements from Video Games, a Theatre Play and a CYOA Comic. As we see when the Cartridge gets stuffed with Stardust, these glitches begin manifesting physically in the Session, and similarly, albeit not physically, Scratching the Disc makes us lose the ability to play games and eventually obscures what’s going on within the story entirely.

So yeah, the Cartridge and the Discs can have physical effects on the Session itself, even though we only see the former actually having a direct impact.

Something that's always confused me is kissing bodies. Does this just wake up the dream self, forcing them to find a way off the moon, or does the dream self take over the body while being in the same place? It seemed that it was the former with Jane, but I'm not sure

It wakes up the Dream Self, whether they’ve been knocked out, are simply asleep, or have not yet awakened in their Moons, corpsesmooching is a surefire way to get Dreamers to wake up if they haven’t already, and take over for the now deceased body.

How do players learn kissing the corpse of a player revives them into their dream self?

I actually don’t know 100% sure, but I can remember one of the Exiles- HB telling Tavros to kiss the girl, so maybe it’s just something Exiles help with.

Consider: A prince of mind actively destroying logic and reason within other players, paired with a bard of blood that is passively ruining the bonds between the other players, causing them to act irrationally and maliciously towards each other, never getting anything done, and dooming the session.

Definitely sounds like your run of the mill Session. Gosh, God Tier powers sure can go wrong easily.

do you think an heir of mind would be able to do that thing that the cluster does in sense8?

At this point it may not come as a surprise anymore but, I’m awful with Pop Culture and Series and stuff, I’ve not seen anything about Sense8, in fact whereas I’ve gotten some stuff like Star Wars or Stranger Things through osmosis, I literally know nothing about Sense8.

If you happen to have the time, what sort of powers do you think a thief of space would have other than the classic theft of size or velocity?

Strap in boys because this one is a fun one, one of my Fantrolls is actually a Thief of Space, and I chose her powers based entirely around one thing. See, a Thief of Space surely can steal one’s speed or gain size by taking size from something bigger, perhaps even absorb mass to become more dense and heavy, sort of like how MK shrinks himself and becomes more dense until he becomes a Black Hole in Problem Sleuth? You could also say Stealing the Space between two things could make them teleport themselves or others closer, since they’re ‘removing the space’ between the two. But Space is very broad and there’s some nice ideas that can spark from it.

My favorite idea for the Thief of Space is Material Assimilation. Drawing from the materials surrounding them to give their bodies the same properties, or cover them with said material. Say, the Crystals in Echidna’s Cavern or even her Quills, they would steal the properties of these materials and cover their bodies in a carapace of hard crystal and quills, increasing defense. Or perhaps they’re about to punch someone in some fiery land, and steal the Heat from a river of lava to their own arm to deliver a searing, red-hot strike into the other’s face.

Iirc karkat knew slick was his exile or at least a carapacian he interacted with would be his exile, was it ever explained how?

I can’t quite recall him acknowledging Slick as his Exile, however, consider this: Slick is the polar opposite of the word ‘subtle’, and the moment a Player enters the Session, they’re open to having the Exiles chat them up through the Station Terminals. The first thing we see Slick say to Karkat post-Intermission is like, “Been a long time”. Between that and I bet the THOUSAND times he told Karkat “Just stab that fucking thing, come on”, anyone would be able to determine who that voice in their head is.

Awesome work on the blog! I like that your explanations are easy to understand. They promote discussion about homestuck and creativity with god tier discussion, unlike some others who seem to know what they're doing but they're all rigid, like yep these are the facts, and not much discussion takes place. I'm curious to hear your take on the Mage of Void? I'd imagine they'd be able to tell if you're hiding something from them, and develop the ability to just tell what it is.

Why thank you very much! Really, I can be a stubborn mule as well with some things, but the thing is, nearly everything regarding Classpects specially are Headcanons and Theories, and as well researched as they may be they could just as easily be proven wrong by canon. Furthermore, Classes and Aspects have been shown repeatedly to be flexible and versatile in their meaning and powers, so there’s not much ‘rigidness’ to be had in a topic like this! It’s giving people God-Like powers, and representing all the ways one can interact with every part of Reality, so of course there’s flexibility! As for the other part of the question, I’ve already talked about the Mage and the Seer of void quite a bunch, but indeed I mentioned they’d be able to know who’s lying, and likely see what Scratch considered pockets of darkness obfuscating his Omniscience. Pass right through the veil that covers any Void Player, and understand the Unknowable and Eldritch. Or, alternatively, Know Nothing and just be a confused mess all the time.

You mentioned a Seer/Mage of Void understanding the Unknowable. What if they're accompanying their friend as they visit their Denizen, and can actually pick up what said Denizen is saying despite not being theirs?

Nice thinking, I had not even considered something like that, and by definition I bet they would be able to do something like that. 

Does the trollian/chumhandle really need significance to the troll itself? Like Sollux with twinArmagedon bc he knew he'd die twice (not to mention his godtier is in it) or Eridan with caligulasAquarium bc aquarium is a similar representation of aquarius' amphora?

I mean, all of the handles do make reference to something about the characters, but it doesn’t need to be anything major, just like a brief description. Aquarium is because Fish and Aquarius, but Caligulas makes reference to his more war-like tendencies. arachnidsGrip is self explanatory, arsenicCatnip is for Nepeta’s Cat-likeness, and the fact Arsenic is the 33rd Element. gardenGnostic is the first reference we get in-canon about the Comic’s Gnostic Themes, tentacleTherapist is…

Yeah, you get the gist of it.

Consider the following - Maids abusing the zerg-rush tactics by spamming tiny cheap elementals en masse and drowning the opponent in elementals' remains. Like Maid of Hope spamming lil angels. Or Maid of Life producing literal zergs.

A totally valid strategy, and also kind of adorable, little mini-angels going around…

Maid of Doom can have something pestilence-related. Lil black creatures reminiscent of common plague-carriers? Like strange sick canines, bats and rats? Maybe some birds to mix. Or they can have undead. While Rage Maid can have... demons? It's not like HS has canon angel-analogue.

HS does have Angels though, just not Rage equivalents, so it’s hard to tell. And Doom and Life are always weird because, pestilence and plague sounds Doom-y but it’s also tied to Life in the sense of microorganisms and sickness being biological stuff. Similarly, Undead could be Doom-related, but it could also be Life since it’s a body brought back to Life. There’s a weird divide when it comes to the biological part of Doom and Life, and I can’t quite decide which one sounds better.

My suggestion for doom related creatures would robots they have no biological life in them and they can be soulless puppets for mass destruction

… You know what, given the ties with Doom and Technology, that is actually kind of brilliant.

So if everything in Homestuck was orchestrated for Lord English, shouldn't be called Englishstuck instead? [Not to mention that both the Alpha and Beta kids managed to complete the game and left LE inside the game] PS: Pardon my sense of humour if its too crude

And isn’t that exactly yet another reason to call it Homestuck? First of all, we have the Souls of the Four Heroes literally Stuck in a House Juju… Then, you have the Metaphorical stuck-ness of the characters in this tale in which Lord English is always favored. And in the end, the only possible victory, is for the the entire Setting to be destroyed along with English while the Protagonists leave their Reality behind- Freeing themselves, while Lord English is left Stuck in this narrative of his own devising.

Kind of poetic and fitting really.

Chahut's horns are so weird- they go down instead of up

I mean, Tavros’ jut out sideways and Aradia’s curl downwards and then back up again in a spiral, so I don’t see what’s so weird about them.

Pestilence is tricky, yeah. But death is, definetely, doom. I think, pestilence can be called a union of aspect - a victory of life, that devours another life. Robots are cool, tho. Huh... What about viruses - since Sburb is a game, certain kinds of them can be brought into the game itself... wait. But then, would Maids of Doom be able to create game constructs.

That’s a weird question now, because Game Constructs always seem more Space-leaning than Doom, SBURB is treated as a gate between the Real World and the Session, with the Session as its own physical space- But Homestuck as a whole is also treated like a video game so… I actually don’t even know.

since I'm betting there are more classes, since a class is just how one uses their powers, do you think in an especially large session, the known aspects would be split into their components? Like, Light becoming: Know, Luck, Glow, and Note? So you get titles like Seer of Note, Thief of Glow, Maid of Luck, and Bard of Know

Eh, personally, I think there are no more Aspects or Divisions, and Classes can be argued to have more but I don’t personally headcanon any of them. However, I do like the concept of dividing Aspects into sub-Aspects, even if I don’t headcanon it, and in fact I did this thing a long time ago precisely about that.

is there like, anything good about a Lord in the metaphorical sense? Like, their powers don't exist irl, and I'm having a MASSIVE amount of difficulty seeing any redeeming traits, or anything that makes your description not seem like the most unhealthy human on the planet(I got Lord btw, I'm a Lord of Heart specifically) btw, are you ok with dms on tumblr? it's fine if not, just curious

I am. Also, a Good Lord would be one who actually worked hard for their position of power and use their power responsibly, not abusing others with it. The issue is that there’s so, so many more examples of people with power abusing it and those beneath than actually using it to produce a positive change in the world, but the possibility is still there!

Oh! Oh! I just thought of something about the subaspect division thing, what if those are like trees of focus like in traditional RPGs, like how a Mage may be a Necromancer or a Pyromancer or even a Paladin(Offense oriented battle mage basically in my head)

I mean, that IS how it actually kind of works in canon! Light is broad and can be so many different things, so two, say, Seers of Light, may be better at different Seer of Light-related things and focus more on them. It’s this kinda stuff that gives even more flexibility to the system!

how do the powers of a Sylph work? i never understod the whole passive creation thing

A Maid and a Sylph can both Create in the exact same way, Passive/Active is a leaning that doesn’t need to be strict when it comes to the ways you interact with the Aspect. That being said, Active and Passive Creation, you can have “Creating your Aspect” and “Creating through your Aspect”, which, I feel is easy enough to understand! Active Creation is Creating the Aspect itself, a Maid of Mind would Create Thoughts in other people’s Minds, or may grant a Mind to a robot or non-sentient object. Passive Creation, however, as Creating Through your Aspect, for example with a Sylph of Mind to follow the prior example, Creating Through Mind may allow them to come up with a way to Make something happen, or create things through their Thoughts, making Thoughtforms Real, as some sort of wish-granting fairy.

just had a rad ass thought for my GT: a sad Sylph of Space running from their friends and all of a sudden a labyrinth forms in the vicinity of the Sylph (passive creation) made of crystals trapping their coplayers or, same scenario but no body can get within 10 feet of the Sylph without being flung back by the space constantly being created between the two

Intense physical repulsion between people, almost like Magnetism, is a fun interpretation of Creating Space between two people. I should point out Kanaya is specially known to Auspitice for Everyone early on, quite literally Making Space between toxic characters.

So like Caliborn/Lord English essentially brute forced Sburb into doing what he wanted it to do i.e. giving him next to infinite power

Basically, yeah, he forced the Game into what is basically an unwinnable punishment state, and still brute forced his way through it and managed to win a boon he shouldn’t have been able to- Then got mixed into Lil Cal and sent off to the Furthest Ring at the end of it all, where he could spread his influence everywhere. Talk about a lucky sequence of events.

hhhhm what do you think a bard of heart would be like ? :0

Bard of Heart, they may put some heavy emphasis in either spirits, a lax hedonist attitude of doing what you want to do, or a heavy focus on a single person, either themselves or someone specific. I’d imagine their personality to be quite a bit destructive by itself, they’d need to be careful and hold themselves back lest they destroy their relationships and break the hearts of those around them. They’re honestly sounding a little bit Yandere in my mind at the moment.

Power-wise, Destroying Souls like Dirk, and Destroying Through Souls… Perhaps they would also have multiple splinters of themselves to keep in check, similar to Dirk. Destroying Emotions to alter one’s perception of others or perhaps to suppress someone’s emotions entirely, attacking directly at what makes someone themselves and casting doubt and confusion on their Self…

Do the Horrorterrors really care about Sburb sessions at all, or do they just want each different session to end as quickly as possible so its not taking up as much space in the furthest ring.

They’re actually the forces that are Against Creation, in a normal SBURB Session they are the influence opposite of Skaia that conspires with Derse to prevent the creation of the Genesis Frog. They will still offer advice to Dersite Players though, as chaotic, eldritch beings do, kind of incomprehensible in their true intentions. That being said, in-Canon they start getting murdered by LE’s mouth beams so they are more friendly towards the Players, and Rose and Feferi have some personal connection to them, so they’re double chill.

been thinkin bout knights/pages and i think a better verb would be burden,knights burden themselves with their aspect and pages burden others with their aspect

That’s a way to see it, but it’s merely a part of what they actually do, after all Pages can definitely grow to be powerful beacons of their Aspect, thus kinda invalidating the burden. I’ve heard ‘Wield’ too, but I kind of like the duality of Give and Steal.