"the Sucker supercharged Jane with Life." Could you explain this a little more? How does the whole Trickster thing relate to Life? And, uh... since I never really understood the point of that whole part of the comic, could you maybe explain its relevance? Like what point it had to drive the story forward other than just depositing them all on their sacrificial slabs? Thanks :D

When Jane laps the Juju, she gets super Life charged- The very act of jumping up makes over half of her planet blossom. She gains an insane amount of Agency, with power that borders on the cheating and no filter at all, she spews everything and anything she wants without thinking how others may feel about it. And the whole Having Babies thing, too, is very much Life Coded.

At that point, Jane was super sad and very much down, all she wanted was an escape from grim reality, she just wanted everyone to get together, be sincere about their feelings, not bottle things up and be just. Fine. And a lot of people also consider that time one of the weakest for Homestuck because of the whole ‘teen drama’ thing that apparently turned people off?

The Trickster Arc is a reminder that things ‘just magically getting better’ is not just not a thing that should happen in canon. Both Cherubs love their Juju, and the Trickster schtick, but they love it for different reasons. Calliope is the Fangirl, she wants the characters to be happy and I bet writes no-one-dies scenarios, which work for a fanfiction, as a cathartic way to express your love for characters, but not necessarily for a a story. And Caliborn is the Bad Fan, who just wants to get to the ‘good part’ and doesn’t care about the nuances of actually developed characters, he just wants to skip the boring things and go right to what’s interesting. And so, through the Trickster Arc Hussie shows us both how unsettling ‘everyone is happy all of sudden’ scenarios actually reflect into the canon, and pokes a jab at the people who just want shit to get done immediately with no build up, while also making shit happen and using it as a plot device to get everyone where they need to be.

The issue with the Juju here is, we don’t know if the whole Life Hypercharged Trickster thing happened because Jane licked it, or if the Sucker Juju in general just gives Agency and Life. Whichever the case, on the specific example we saw, Jane got Lifey, and the consequences rippled through the entire Session and the Webcomic. Being Trickster is a power trip, not unlike taking drugs- Filter is off, everything seems wonderful and beautiful, but it can actually get really creepy really fast if it’s not controlled.

And then Callie brings the Juju to the Rosemary Wedding and gets half of the cast high off of it in a thankfully more controlled environment.