June 2018

If paradox space is slowly being sucked into the black hole, can there still be more sessions in the future, since the incipisphere exists within paradox space?

Paradox Space and the Furthest Ring don’t exactly function in Euclidean Time/Space. It’s likely prior to the Breach, an Eternity had already happened. You could argue all SBURB Sessions have already happen, and will retroactively happen in the past of the Homestuck Ending. We also don’t know if the Black Hole’s gonna stop at any point. This is Hussie we’re talking about, who sewed the Universe back together with the cable of a fan once.

i just finished problem sleuth and my little mind has been torn into pieces. please help

The ride never ends, even with other MSPA Adventures.

Would the personality of the trolls or humans be drastically different would change if they had opposite sways?

I imagine you’re mentioning Lunar Sways, and very likely! Specially those who’re more active in their Dreaming Moons- Dave and Jade, Kanaya, Dirk, Tavros too, would likely have pretty distinct behaviors. Not drastically, but like, notably.

Didn’t Hussie confirm that female players can be princes and male characters can be witches, it’s just less common??

He didn’t even say ‘it’s just less common’, Classes are not gendered. Period.

I’m sorry, I’m sure this is stupid but I’m new to hs and I just want to make sure understand.. what are somethings Jade Harley does that is specifically a thing a witch could do?? Of all the witches in homestuck, what are somethings that are specific to them??

Specific to the characters or to the Witch Class in specific? It’s hard to just take the Class and distance it from every other Classpect, a lot of times there may be overlap, but you can see things like, Jade having a Familiar (Bec), who’s heavily Space-coded, and ending up taking his power for herself, the heavy manipulation of Space directly shrinking or speeding up things, while also setting up the entirety of the Scratch and the trip through the 4th Wall to the New Session- Changing the Setting of the adventure, giving them a new Space to do things in. Damara and Feferi both do this with their Aspects as well, Feferi changes the rules of nature themselves, the cycle of Life and Death, by communing with the Horrorterrors to create the Bubbles. Damara, both pre-scratch corrupted by LE’s influence and starting the Scratch, and post-scratch used by Doc Scratch and English to directly manipulate Alternia’s history through time travel, pretty much sets up everything necessary to pave LE’s arrival into the Universe.

so i want to make a limeblooded character on alternia, are there any ways or methods that they can avoid being culled at birth?

Kind Jadebloods taking pity.

wait, are there adult jadebloods in the brooding caverns on alternia? or is it just like. a bunch of jadeblood kids who somehow know what to do

Jadebloods are a weird case. If there’s any actual adult on Alternia, I would have to guess they’re Jadebloods, since they’re a sort of special Caste, however if we go by the statement that there’s “no adults on alternia, no Xceptions”, as the truth and not just a half-truth told to the lower castes, then… Well.

I wouldn’t say they’re a bunch of kids that “somehow know what to do”, rather they’re a bunch of poor teens that are forced into nurturing, caretaker roles from a young age.

What do we know about his honorable tyranny?? Blood color, role, etc.

He seems some sort of monstrous judge but at the same time Highbloods seem to run the legal system? So it’s hard to say what he’s there for. The Drones may be based off of him since the spikes seem to indicate that. Black blood.

+he (his honorable tyranny) is most likely a chad

You’re so valid.

Hi! I was wonderjng you explain caliborns masterpiece?

I wish I could but there really’s nothing to explain because we don’t have the full picture. What we see is what there is, Caliborn goes into detail on how he used the Juju for the first Time and how he actually becomes Lord English- But we’re left to wonder at what point in the Timeline this happens, and even if it’s in another Timeline to begin with. Also what happens afterwards? It’s left dubiously open on purpose and it’s still to this day the thing I want explained the most on the Epilogue.

WAIT BLACK BLOODS ARE A THING??!

Only His Tyranny, however it implies there could be Black Blooded Mutantbloods, yeah. Hussie’s reasoning for HHT’s Black Blood was that it looked cool. So yeah go ahead with neon, rainbow and black blooded Mutants.

From what I understand, his Tyranny isn't even a troll, so idk. Also, I don't technically think it's possible for blood to be "rainbow" since it'd mix up, but maybe iridescent?

Of course the Tyranny is not a Troll, but he may be a kind of Lusus? Although according to another ask I got… (Continued in the next Ask)

Also, I mean, nothing wrong with weird cutesy Fantrolls, just do whatever you want.

But didn't andrew hussie in a fromspring claim that his Honorable tyranny was just a savage alien the alternian empire decided to use as judges?

I had no idea he said it was an Alien! I guess that’d make sense since its carapace is black unlike the usual Lusus White. I always kind of assumed he was. You know sort of the male counterpart to the Mother Grub? The Mother Grub being a white lusus that lays the eggs of the Trolls, I always thought His Honorable Tyranny was a black Lusus from which the Drones came from? If that makes sense.

Do you know approximately where that flash with Kanaya buying blood form Jane is in the comic was? I’m asking for research purposes

Page 6400.

What would a heart player's denizen be? I'm writing some fiction and need to know. Sorry for bugging you for something like this...

No idea! There’s not like, a set Denizen for every Aspect, we have not seen the canon Heart Denizen, we’ve not even seen if there aren’t more Denizens for each Aspect than the ones we’ve seen, actually. But they’re always some mythological figure. Two of my favorite Heart Denizens so far have been Thyone and Osiris.

Imagine the battle between Handmaid and Condesce, the Witch of Time against the Thief of Life; it would grandiose

Hard to say, given Handy kind of wanted to fulfil the task so she could die and Condy didn’t have all the caste powers yet.

How did condy even get all those powers

Genetic Experimentation on herself.

I wonder why all three "Bosses" have this theme of fusion. Jack Noir is a fusion of all the Betas sprites, Condy has a fusion of the different bloodcaste powers and LE is a pretty obvious fusion of multiple characters

Because FUSION IS JUST A CHEAP TACTIC TO MAKE WEAK BOSSES STRONGER-

In all seriousness though there is some symbology there I’m not quite sure I get completely. Condy is forced under LE’s service, even if she wants to escape- The fact she’s the last Adult Troll and is using all of the Caste Powers could be a reference to the abuse of Doc Scratch on Alternia, the millennia of pain, suffering and strife of the Troll Race, condensed within a megalomaniac extravagantly tyrannical bitch. The most obvious manifestation of the violence and suffering of the Troll Race within its own ruler.

Lord English is a bit more hard to pin-point, Caliborn is the big basis over which the rest of the Souls trapped within Lil Cal are built on, but from Lil Cal come both Lord English AND Doc Scratch. If you had to separate them, it’s obvious ARquius shows more on Doc Scratch, and Caliborn and Gamzee come through more on English himself. A smug, perfect AI, the posh high class mannerisms, AR and Equius both have big flaws, Equius is deeply casteist, creepily fetishistic, while AR is pretty much a Yaldabaoth-like figure, a creation by mistake, unable of growth, a big cause of distress for the Alphas… While trying to overcome their flaws and become Heroic as ARquius, under LE’s service, as Doc Scratch, these negative traits only seem amplified. Smug air of superiorness, subservient to LE. Creepy towards the Light Players, orchestrator of their distress. Meanwhile, with Caliborn we have another Yaldabaoth figure, a false God that rose up through trickery and disregard for others, left unable to grow and mature. Childish, misogynistic, he represents something deeply unpleasant and yet deeply… Real. He’s a murderous shitchild, but everything from his trigger-happy nature, his adoration for the utilitarian while disregarding the emotional, fetishization of other people, speciesism towards Troll Kind and casteism towards Limes, incestuous undertones, the art theft, the misogyny, he’s coded to be evil not just through some big plan to destroy everything and a desire to consume existence, but for all the negative traits we sadly see on a daily basis in our society. Gamzee on the other hand, is intensely religiously devoted to Lord English, he’s a Wild Card, an agent of Chaos to further his plan, as well as raw Power. The combination of all of this? Is that Lord English, and Doc Scratch, both on a more manipulative level, on a more violent, direct level, embody everything negative that happens to Trolls and Humans, everything that puts people’s happiness and autonomy in jeopardy. They are careless controllers, selfish beings with intense biases and the power to use these biases to make people suffer.

Jack though, Jack is a weird case, or rather, the Jacks are a weird case. Because while Jack is his own character with his own defining traits, it always seems like he’s getting changed and coming to embody something else, with Slick seeming to be the closest thing to just ‘Jack’ there is. And all three of them, at the same time, embody a part of Lord English. Jack Noir, also known as Bec Noir? He’s the Cancer of the Universe, consumed by power, on a murderous rampage, but he has PM as a balancing factor. He also has the wings and First Guardian Powers Caliborn’s OC has. Slick takes the role of the Leader of the Felt, with LE’s staff, again representing this part of LE. He’s also been deeply enhanced with robotic implements, and while holding his original goal of getting revenge on LE, he’s but a pawn in the grand scheme of things. Lord Jack is obviously representing LE’s looks and his power much more directly, mind-controlled directly through Lil Cal’s eyes. All of them, in some way, are manifestations of some unpleasant reality or fulfilling of a role that needs to be filled, which come to think of it makes me think if maybe Jack’s Aspect is Rage, not Blood. As for why we have the peg leg, eyes and soul of LE on one Jack, the Staff and ruling the Felt on another, and the First Guardian powers on another, evoking the entirety of LE? Well you know. English is after all just the Union Jack. Aside from being a clever way to show that, even though not directly in the Session, LE is still already there in more ways than one, that pun is masterful.

Much like I mentioned in the past, Hussie is good setting up Symbols. The twists and turns of his story work because he foreshadows and uses ideas, symbols, for what he wants to do, before collapsing said idea on a specific character. As such mergers like these happen- Not for any reason or another, but because the original idea for a villain is not ‘This is Jack Noir, Archagent’, it’s ‘This is going to be this kind of villain’. Vague on purpose to begin with, to set up a larger narrative, and only developed when you get to it. This flexibility makes Symbolism come through, not because Hussie’s a genius that foreshadows everything perfectly, but because any appropriate enough character could fill in the role he’s already envisioned. The Final Boss was supposed to be Betty Crocker, but then he made Lord English. Betty Crocker still showed up- But was merged with the Troll Empress. Building upon the narrative, but keeping the symbols. Change displaces and shifts, not creates anew, so there’s always some reference to the new way back in the old.

Is earth c, the final earth where much of the cast is living happily, the same earth that callie and Caliborn are raised on by gamzee a long long time in the future?

Yep.

I can't seem to remember the page, but when did Caliborn break the computer he was talking to hussie on? I remember he crowbar-ed it and it annoyed Jane. Did it stay broken forever or could they still talk?

It was right after the Trickster Arc and he just knocked a candy corn icon out of it and I believe the ~ from his own symbol? Otherwise it was still okay.

What does it mean that the beta kids are based off of their respective elements ( forgot what they were exactly but you know what I mean?)?

That my friend is something we’re still discussing about here from time to time, there was a bit of a Triangle Theory where the Aspects on a triangle in the canon Aspect Wheel were associated to the same Classical Element, but it didn’t quite fit as well. There’s more depth to this topic than it seems, about what based the Kids or the Aspects, about what Hussie dropped and what he clung to, about the current way he sees Aspects and Classes and stuff like the Classic Elements and Associated Items…

Are are the questions you most want answered in the epilogue besides the explanation of cal's masterpiece?

I don’t mind some of the things left open by the Ending because I know they’re like, meant to be left open, Vriska’s status, Davepeta, Sollux, Aradia, that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me because I feel we’re going to see what happens when the Epilogue drops, but it’s also fun to make our own Headcanons. However there ARE some general Questions I want answered. Maybe some more specific information about the Rings of Life and Void, some specific details about the Treasure Juju during Act 7, perhaps a Timeline of the way the Retcon affected the Timeline and what escaped complete erasure and oblivion? It’s more clarification rather than answers to big glaring questions, I can’t think of anything too… Specific right now. Maybe there is though. Anything you guys want to see answered in the Epilogue?

Sorry if this is in inconvenient but is there any slides on hs that shows what the outside of dirk’s house looks like? It’s for fanart :) but I can’t find any & I’ve been searching for a solid 30 minutes :(

Straight away I’m pretty sure in the [S] Jane: Enter flash there should be a good look at it, but if you don’t wanna go through the trouble, here’s a hint: It’s literally Dave’s Apartment with the scaffolding just like how it’s shown when he enters the medium, but over the ocean instead of over lava.

I’m pretty sure if you look for ARquius’ first appearance and go back a few pages when Dirk was talking to AR, you can see it in the Medium too.

could a godtier tavros kill a regular vriska or is she just that good/he's that weak

It’s really hard to tell like, God Tier helps you unlock your power faster, but you can be non-God Tier and still have powers relating to your Classpect. Furthermore, as a Page, even going God Tier would mean little, he’d have to become fully realized first. Fully Realized Tavros? Easily, Pages are notorious for being one of the strongest Classes at high level. Other than that though, not quite sure.

Where did hussie say he was going to have an epilogue?

Several times and constantly since the end of Homestuck, after Act 7, before the Snapchat Updates were released, and mentioned later on when he announced the Viz Media Partnership.

So, are there certain classes, asside from lord and muse, that can only be gotten by speciffic genders? Or is it just that the game leans toward gendering the classes, but will still give a guy say, the maid class and a girl the prince class, etc. I'm just really curious

Classes aren’t Gendered. Even Lord and Muse aren’t Gendered.

what does being "realized" mean, especially relating to a page? is it just like. being confident in yourself, or connecting closer to your aspect?

Maturing, getting to know yourself, your Class and your Aspect, unlocking the full potential within you.

so, in order for a session to not be doomed or whatever, you must have a space and time player? you can't have just a space player and no time player and vice versa?

Yep, although the role of the Time Player is hard to asses entirely right now.

In the ask about fusion you explained how hussie sets up symbols. Could you go more in depth about that? I'm also super curious about what more example of those symbols would be.

It’s hard to tell if this is really how he does it but it’s the most reasonable way. The clearest example of this is Lord English. We know LE wasn’t planned from the beginning, the original Big Bad was Betty Crocker- But things shifted. And yet they seem to flow… Naturally? Betty Crocker is still a big part of the story, and LE was teased since a lot before! And if you go back to the first Acts- The Unseen Riddler with a hand in every event of the story, the Gnostic Themes of SBURB, it all seems to lead to symbolism regarding some manipulative presence that’s made their lives a mess. And that’s it really- That’s what Hussie does. He teases, not a character but the concept of a character. A presence. A force. It’s only during Act 5 Act 1 that Lord English is teased to be this powerful force, a character which was introduced in the Intermission and as such has had time for speculation and Foreshadowing. On the opposite side of the spectrum there’s Lil Cal, a vessel for LE’s soul, and likely NOT meant to be exactly that in the beginning, and yet… The creepy, possessed puppet act was teased as far back as Act 2. The blazing spiral Sun beaming upon Dave, the swirls of the Jigsaw puppet, the full circles of Lil Cal’s cheeks, the whispers Dave hears from Lil Cal and his dreams, Bro’s abuse and hyper machismo, Hussie plants the seeds of these concepts in the past, and then when it’s convenient in the future, drags them out because that’s what they are. Symbols. “Possessed Puppet”, “Jigsaw Imagery”. Either foreshadowing in advance or retroactively setting it up to be used in a future, Hussie’s good at storytelling, good enough that he knows to leave himself bread crumbs to guide the way while the story develops and builds itself on the bases he set.

No I meant like where did he announce the epilogue? Twitter, tumblr etc.

MSPA News Page.

One part of the Time player's role is to be able to initiate a Scratch in the case of failure, and another part may simply be that it is the complement to Space, and duality is a strong theme throughout SBURB in general. Otherwise, I'm not sure.

Yes but the Scratch is not a necessary element, in fact it’s an extremely dramatic emergency reset button. Complementing Space is a thing that could happen, but the Space Player is needed for the Frogs specifically, so I’d assume the Time Player would be required for something physical as well. So far the thing that seems the most likely is that they’re a safety net to fix up mistakes and give more time to the Frog Breeding and other important things- But even then that raises the question, if you were to have a FLAWLESS Session, would you be able to win without a Time Player?

It’s also possible Echidna does not want to light the forge unless it’s for Hephaestus, in which case that would indeed require a Time Player, and furthermore, one whose Denizen hasn’t been replaced with Yolobroth or Abracadabra-man.

Back on the whole troll blood transfusion thing... maybe the donors and recipients have to be the same color as each other or one color up or one color down...

Blood Transfusion likely can only happen within the same caste yeah, but also I don’t know if they even have such a thing as Blood Transfusion.

If Witches are able to use loopholes in their aspect, like Feferi creating afterlife, Jade messing with physics and Damara messing with time, then what loopholes the Witches of other aspects use?

I mean those aren’t loopholes? Those are just manipulation of their Aspects in general.

I don't think Witches even break rules as a specific motif to their aspect... Say we got a Prince of Space and a Maid of Space, they can create and destroy matter which is impossible by logic, so technically they're breaking the rules of their aspect too.

I’m really not quite sure where the whole loophole cheating thing came from honestly.

I know that bronzebloods tend to have animal mind control powers, but for some reason I feel as though they have some sort of fire associated powers too?? Am I just making something up or is that a thing too??

It’s apparently a semi-common headcanon because some people mistook Tavros summoning a Fiduspawn Egg with him holding a fireball in his hand in [S] Make Her Pay.

If trolls don't have a thing like a blood transfusion then how did vriska recover from excessive blood loss after blowing a whole limb off?

She ate a lot of sandwiches afterwards to recover, obviously.

what's the whole deal with the frog temples???

What about them? They’re the thing that kickstarts the entirety of a Session.

What was aradias denizen?

Unknown, presumably Hephaestus.

if the time player is only needed to speed up frog breeding, could someone as long-lasting as a fuschiablood breed frogs without a time player's assistance? i mean it'd suck but is it doable?

It’s not about the breeding, it’s tracking Frogs Down and catching them, Ectobiology is time-consuming and SBURB runs on a hard time limit.

also, in [s] ministrife, who would actually win? you got a fuschiablood vs mindfang vriska, both godtiered. my bet's on vriska because she's wack powerful

It was a draw.

What did you mean someone who's denizen hasn't been replaced by yalbadoth or abracadabra man??? Replaced???? What????

Yaldabaoth and Abraxas are special Denizens that seem assigned to specific Players. They’re treated like the ‘strongest and weakest’ Denizens, but I don’t think that’s the case, there’s likely more to it and that’s just what they think actually happens.

Abraxas is not canonically referred to as the Weakest Denizen, BUT Karkat implies he was given a special Denizen, small and weak, a counterpart to Yaldabaoth for not being actually that good. Given they are the two Gnostic Denizens, it only makes sense that Karkat’s Denizen was Abraxas.

Sburb runs on a hard time limit? But the kids only took a day and the trolls took months

The Trolls took 600 hours, which is the equivalent to 25 days total. Even if they had longer than the Kids, it was still a hard time limit, from the moment the first Player enters and to the end of the Reckoning, no way to stop it or delay it.

I love when you go over the writing aspects of homestuck (I was reading your answers about the symbols) is there a tag for that? Or perhaps you know of someone who talks a lot about the writing and maybe you could direct me towards their blog?

Hmm, a lot of the stuff regarding his writing I’ve learned from talk with Taz and people on Taz’s server- @revolutionaryduelist

That being said, when I get into the meta aspects of the structure or writing of Homestuck, I tend to tag it as Hussie, so you may wanna check that tag!

So they're special denizens that somehow replace what they would normally have?

Yeah. Yaldabaoth is straight up mentioned to be the Strongest Denizen given only to natural warriors, and we see both Dirk and Caliborn having Yaldabaoth. Conversely, Kanaya, Jade and Calliope have had Echidna (Porrim likely too, but some may argue Echidna was Aranea’s Denizen? It’s somewhat ambiguous), Cetus was both Vriska’s and Rose’s, Typheus for John and Tavros, it just seems like they’re tied to the Aspect, but Caliborn and Dirk are two different Aspects entirely. If we go with the theory that Abraxas is the ‘weakest’ to Yaldabaoth’s ‘strongest’, then you also have both Jake and Karkat, Hope and Blood, with the same Denizen.

So yes, those two are special and they break the pattern set of Players of the same Aspect sharing a Denizen. There’s ALSO the possibility there’s more than one Denizen for each Aspect, so you can just make Fan Denizens and have fun with that, but canonical precedent only implies 12 + 2, just like how Classes are 12 + 2 Master Classes.

It should be noted that ‘Strongest and Weakest’ is likely a distraction. Yaldabaoth is the Demiurge, the False God, a cruel liar that created the Physical World, flawed and malevolent, the reason the world is plagued with suffering and pain. Abaraxas is the True God, enlightenment, the World of Ideas, the union of opposites. And likewise in canon, Yaldabaoth is the ‘self-proclaimed’ God of all Monsters, and his Players are Dirk- Who creates AR, a Yaldabaoth-like figure, and Caliborn, who is another Yaldabaoth-like figure. They both have strong ties to the concept of the Demiurge. On the other hand, Jake and Karkat are characters that have gone through a lot of self-doubt and retracted into their shell, but manage to be considered two of the most important character in what they accomplish- With Karkat leading through his Session, and ending up a necessary part of leading the Troll Race after the game, and Jake being the one to serve Caliborn a humiliating defeat during the Masterpiece, before AR and Dirk Lil-Cal his Soul. So Abraxas definitely isn’t arbitrarily chosen as an ‘easy mode’ for ‘weak players’.

Jake defeats him and then one half of gamzee (he gets chopped somehow?), Lord english's dead body, and arquius sprite get sucked into lil cal?

Caliborn, ARquius and a half of Gamzee, yes. Also obviously Dirk chops the clown in half, he’s the only one with a weapon capable of doing that.

How long would an average successful session last?

Karkat said 600 hours for a campaign like that ‘wasn’t too bad’, so assuming they were somewhat speedy, maybe a month or a bit over a month?

…

Let’s go with 41.3 days, shall we?

Did everything, from the stick arms on cake to the Scratch in John's session happen in one day?

No, it happened in SLIGHTLY over a day, the Reckoning gives 24 extra hours of ‘okay now hurry the fuck up’, which means there was a period from John’s introduction to [S] Descend prior to the 24 hour countdown. Dave played the Session for weeks to help Terezi contact them in the first place and then help Jade get most of the frogs she needed.

does every session have a frog temple?

Every PLANET meant to have SBURB will have a Frog Temple, but only the main Session of that Planet will spawn it.