Riflezen's Empty Blog

I write about and draw silly beings. Maybe I'll post about them someday.

[kenomacreature]

ON DELTARUNE'S LAST PROPHECY

This is gonna be a shorter post than usual from me; I just wanted to air out some quick thoughts I have on the Last Prophecy. Of course, right now we aren't really in a position to confidently reach any secure conclusion about what the Last Prophecy is, but I do think we can establish some basic facts about it and rule out some things which it probably isn't. This way, we can come to a rudimentary idea about what to expect, and we'll be better equipped to suss out what it actually is should we get substantive new information in the next Chapters.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS THE LAST PROPHECY

Obvious, maybe, but it's worth stating. The Last Prophecy is the ending of the prophecy, which is to say that it's one of the very last events that the prophecy accounts for. An unused variation of the prophecy states "FOR TO SAVE THE WORLDS, WE LAST OF ALL SAY", which further emphasizes that these are some of the very last lines of the prophecy. It is likely that "ONLY THEN, WILL THE WORLDS BE SAVED" is the very final line in the prophecy. The Last Prophecy probably happens right before, concurrently with, or right after the prophesied banishing of the Angel, given that we know from Ralsei's summary that the saving of the worlds centers around banishing the Angel's Heaven. Ralsei speaks of the Last Prophecy synonymously with the "one ending" which Toby has teased multiple times when talking about Deltarune.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS A TRAGEDY

The Last Prophecy is described as a tragedy in the prophecy. This could simply be a fancy way of communicating that it's a sad event, but I'm inclined to take the specific rhetoric here more seriously. A key feature of most classic tragedies is that they are, seemingly at least, preventable. Frequently, in fact, tragic heroes are given prophetic information about the impending catastrophe, which leads them to try to prevent it. However, because of the hero's hamartia - a tragic error, usually resulting from a lack of information - they unwittingly bring about their own downfall. By the end, both the audience and the hero are liable to judge the events that have unfolded as a kind of cruel joke played by fate itself (often embodied by some specific god(s)) and the callous injustice triggers cathartic feelings of sympathy and mourning in the audience. All this is to say that Susie knowing about the Last Prophecy might be a significant part of the prophecy coming about, and that fate will likely be playing cruel tricks to make it inadvertently result from whatever actions she takes.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS THE FINAL TRAGEDY

"THE FINAL TRAGEDY" only unveils "WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST FOR THE TALE". This is significant context, because it tells us that this ending will follow a series of unfortunate events which will likely distill feelings of hopelessness in both the heroes and the audience. The end of the world seems all but inevitable, but then a final option presents itself, involving some terrible event needing to happen in exchange for the saving of the worlds; this option, however, is no cause for celebration, and judging by the way Ralsei speaks about it, the cost may be so great that the victory is pyrrhic at best.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS NECESSARY TO SAVE THE WORLDS

The Last Prophecy is not arbitrary and does not happen in isolation. It has a specific causal relationship with the saving of the worlds, and is in fact the only option the prophecy presents for that to happen, at least given the events which previously transpire in the prophecy. Ralsei, however, thinks there might be another option to save the worlds, seemingly involving kindness, but it would require early intervention to change the course of the prophecy.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS A CONSCIOUSLY WILLED ACTION

Tumblr user duxarcana translates the unused variation as "If (one) intends to save the world(s)". This gives us the important information that the Last Prophecy involves something which the heroes must consciously decide to do with the specific intent of saving the world.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS IMMEDIATELY INTUITIVE

Susie does not look at the prophecy for more than a few seconds before destroying it, and takes no time to interpret its possible meanings. This suggests that the prophecy does not use vague or ambiguous language but instead bluntly states what happens in such a fashion that its meaning is immediately clear.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS EXTREMELY BAD

It cannot be emphasized enough: the Last Prophecy is insanely, catastrophically terrible. It's so bad that Ralsei, whose purpose is to be the Lightners' guide and to follow the events of the prophecy (a purpose he takes very seriously), attempts immediately to subvert the prophecy and guide it towards a different path. It's so bad that Ralsei is having a Chapter-long panic attack throughout the Dark Sanctuaries and hyperventilating and crying to Susie about the prospect of her seeing it. It's so bad that Susie's immediate instinct is to smash it with her fist in rage and panic.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS ABSURD

The Last Prophecy isn't just bad, it's apparently also kind of ridiculous.

Susie says:

* You're worried about THAT!? Seriously!? * ... this stupid prophecy? * Like something like that would happen. [...] * Why wouldn't you laugh? * It's just stupid.

Susie's obviously indulging in some pretty wishful thinking here - she has good reason to believe that the prophecy should be taken seriously - but her reaction nonetheless speaks to an absurd quality of the Last Prophecy. Susie has a hard time seeing how things could possibly get that bad. The scenario just doesn't really make sense to her, so she laughs at it, and finds the idea that it would happen 'stupid'. Obviously, Susie is pretty scared, deep down. But she uses the outward absurdity of the scenario the Last Prophecy is presenting to discredit it, in an attempt to ease the worries of both herself and Ralsei. This tells us that the Last Prophecy is something of a twist - it's not something you'd expect to happen, and it's hard to predict how things could develop in that direction.

THE LAST PROPHECY INVOLVES THE GIRL

The Last Prophecy first appears in the Second Sanctuary, right off the heels of prophecies about the Girl:

"AND LAST, WAS THE GIRL. AT LAST, WAS THE GIRL" "LOVE FINDS ITS WAY TO THE GIRL."

The fact that a prophecy about the Girl involves her coming "last" also suggests her ties to the Last Prophecy.

Ralsei is particularly concerned about Susie seeing the Last Prophecy. In isolation this doesn't tell us too much, because Ralsei is likely aware that Kris already knows the prophecy (which we also know because Kris plays music from future chapters on the piano, including a piece internally titled lastprophecy). That said, it further contributes to the feeling that the Last Prophecy is narratively tied to Susie specifically. It could also have to do with Noelle, if we take "love finding its way to the Girl" to be alluding to Susie's love interest (alternatively, if we take Noelle to be a candidate for the role of the Girl).

THE LAST PROPHECY IS WHY RALSEI HAS BEEN ACTING STRANGE

* I'm sorry, Kris. * I'm sorry I didn't say the whole prophecy at first. * I just * I thought if I said something different * If we did something different * If we were just kind enough * Perhaps by the time we got here... it would change.

In the 1-2 era, it was widely agreed that Ralsei behaved suspiciously. Ralsei reveals here that the reason for his being so reticent to share certain bits of information is that he was trying to prevent the Last Prophecy. This tracks with some of the things he said in Chapter 1:

* This world is full of all kinds of people, Kris. * In the end, how we treat them makes all the difference. * So let's try our best to get by without FIGHTing. * If we can manage to do that... * I believe this tale may have a happy ending. * Otherwise, I fear that... * ... you may not... find the result favorable.

Ralsei's advocacy for a pacifist playstyle is here explicitly tied to Ralsei's desire for a happy ending. For whatever reason, he believes that using violence is the sort of thing that would bring the Last Prophecy about.

* Kris... * Perhaps I shouldn't have been so hard on her. * ... * But, I just worry that if Susie is too eager to fight... * Then... * Well, let's just be kind to her, OK, Kris?

Again, Susie seems to figure heavily in Ralsei's thoughts about the Last Prophecy. He really doesn't want Susie to use violence. Pretty uncharacteristically, he snaps at her a bit in Chapter 1 over her eagerness to fight. He feels bad about being hard on her, but he's especially worried about her using violence. Ultimately, he falls back to his general rule: "let's just be kind".

Advocating for a Pacifist playstyle is not the only thing that Ralsei does in an attempt to prevent the Last Prophecy. He says "I thought if I said something different", which seems to be alluding to the fact that he gives the heroes a modified version of the prophecy in Chapter 1, which neglects to mention the Roaring, the Titans, the Knight, and the Last Prophecy. It's quite possible all of these things factor heavily into the Last Prophecy taking place. Ralsei seems to be afraid of 'speaking these things into existence', and it appears that he believes if he successfully prevents the heroes from knowing about them, he stands a better chance of steering the prophecy away from these things. Ralsei's refusal to talk about the Knight at all until the end of Chapter 3 is particularly strange, and even in Chapter 4 he's still advising the heroes not to worry too much about it.

* … If it's any consolation… * I don't sense any immediate danger. * If the Knight's only goal was to hurt people… * They would have acted sooner, right? * For now, let's make sure no one else gets taken. * … Susie… * I understand how you're feeling, but… * We… have our own advantages, too! * The Knight only seems to show its face in the Dark World. * If we can just seal the Fountain over to the right… * Then… it'll at least… buy us a little more time. * … until we… have to face our difficulties again.

And at the end of Chapter 4 Ralsei seems very panicked about the Knight creating a Titan. It seems as if the Knight creating the Titan confirms to Ralsei that his actions have been in vain, that the prophecy hasn't been changed and they're still en route to the calamity awaiting them in the Last Prophecy.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS A TRAGEDY FOR THE LIGHTNERS

Ralsei's arc throughout Deltarune's narrative involves him coming to value himself, his autonomy and his own identity. But this necessitates starting from a position of not valuing himself at all. This is perhaps most clearly on display in Chapter 3, where Ralsei tries to urge Susie not to care about him too much, and tries to convince Tenna that caring about his own desires as opposed to the needs of the Lightners is selfish. It's clear to me, then, that the Last Prophecy is not about Ralsei dying, or the Darkners being permanently sealed away, or anything like that. Ralsei simply would not care this much about that - his primary concern is and always has been the Lightners. If the Last Prophecy were about the Darkners going away, he would simply do what he did in Chapter 3, and urge Susie and Kris to forget about him. I also find it unlikely Susie would seemingly think the Last Prophecy is an unthinkably absurd scenario which none of them would let happen if it was something as predictable as the Dark Worlds needing to be sealed away - something which Ralsei has been clear about from the very first Chapters. I get that Susie is slow on the uptake, but like, c'mon.

THE LAST PROPHECY IS SOMETHING SUSIE THINKS THE HEROES WOULDN'T LET HAPPEN

Susie (thinks she) knows her friends, and she (thinks she) knows that they would never let whatever happens in the Last Prophecy transpire. This suggests that whatever act the Last Prophecy describes likely involves a callousness that we wouldn't expect from the Fun Gang.

THE LAST PROPHECY REPRESENTS AN END TO THE HEROES' FRIENDSHIP

Following some confident posturing, Susie gets pretty morose after seeing the Last Prophecy and says to Kris:

* Hey, Kris... * ... * Can I tell you * ... a stupid dream I have? * ... * No matter what * I... want to keep being friends with you and Ralsei. * When the sun comes up again... * I want tomorrow to be the same as yesterday. * And the next day * To be just the same as that. * That in the end * We can always go back to the way things were before. * ... * You don't have to say anything back, Kris. * I... * ... * I know... * You're thinking the same thing * ... aren't you, dumbass?

The placement of this monologue here suggests that whatever Susie saw in the Last Prophecy has her worried that her friendship with Kris and Ralsei might not last forever.

THE LAST PROPHECY HAS A DEDUCIBLE RHYME SCHEME

The prophecy regularly employs an AABB rhyme scheme.

And wouldn't you know it, in the Last Prophecy we read:

AND THEN. WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST FOR THE TALE THE FINAL TRAGEDY UNVEILS. TO SAVE THE WORLDS, THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY. [ Prophecy panel shattered ]

And if you have any doubt, the unused variation seals the deal:

FOR TO SAVE THE WORLDS, WE LAST OF ALL SAY:

From this we can deduce that the Last Prophecy ends on an "-ay" sound, rhyming with the words "say" and "way".

Here's a list of possible candidates:

ASTRAY

AWAY

BETRAY

DAY

DISMAY

GRAY

LAY

PAY

PLAY

PRAY

PREY

SLAY

STAY

It could also be a word that imperfectly rhymes with "way".

We can also deduce that the Last Prophecy is likely somewhere in the range of 7-10 syllables long.

THE LAST PROPHECY PROBABLY DESCRIBES THE DREAM WHICH SPAWNED DELTARUNE

Toby Fox has spoken multiple times about the fact that the inspiration for Deltarune came from a fever dream he had in 2011 about the ending of a video game. We don't definitively know that the Last Prophecy was the subject of this dream (for example, the Last Prophecy could hypothetically come to pass in Chapter 6, opening the way for the actual ending which was the subject of the dream, or there could be a postgame with a different ending like in Undertale, etc.), but it would make a lot of sense if it was. The Last Prophecy (the "one ending") being conceptualized first and the rest of the plot having been written backwards from it would tie very neatly into the fatalistic themes of the game, and it introduces a very interesting metafictional parallel between Gaster - whose Deltarune is "still waiting" while the other characters try in vain to resist its coming - and Toby, who's been waiting for more than a decade to depict the dream he had, but may have grown attached to the characters he only initially conceived of as pawns to fulfill the original vision he had. The tension between the inevitability of the ending and the struggle to hope that things can change would be a living part of the text itself.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I used to despise Eridan and think he was the absolute worst character (barring Cronus ig) but you have shown me the light and completely turned my opinion around and now I think he is such an endearing little freak <3 I read your whole blog already but if you've got any more thoughts on eri or anyone else then I hope you post them bc I'd love to hear more abt it!

i have sooo many controversial opinions about the dancestors you have noooooo idea

[j-is-not-an-artist]

this 100000%.. but also from a meta stand point, the dancestors are Like That^tm because they are an in bad faith representation of both the fan interpretations of the beta trolls and internet culture in general.

hussie pretty much hated their fandom at the point at which they were created so the dancestors ended up as assholes (< also a bad faith interpretation of hussie tbh but i dont feel like defending them on anything particularly so its staying)

my personal garbage dancestor take is that karkat was right when he said that they are all 1 dimensional caricatures in openbound and that any interpretation of them as complex people ((aside from probably meenah and aranea)) are entirely fanfiction

to be clear the fanfiction is amazing and i love all of it! seeing communities come together to analyse that fuck out of what little we were given and create some fascinating character analysis out of scraps is one of my favourite parts of fandom culture!! i just wish that hussie cared enough about these characters to write it themself.

openbound is one of my least favourite parts of homestuck

openbound is one of my favourite parts of homestuck

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Putting this under a cut because it got really long. Please don't read if you're sensitive to me saying mean things about fandom and fandom activities, it's kind of unavoidable territory because the dancestors are kind of directly commenting on these tendencies. Uh, or if you like the dancestors. I'm 'boutta be REALLY mean to them.

IDK maybe my real controversial opinion is that I'm willing to go to bat for Hussie? It's likely true he hated his fandom, and it's definitely true that the dancestors are partially based on the fandom interpretation of the Alternian trolls. It's also very true that many of them are fairly flat...

But I wouldn't call the dancestors "bad faith" mirrors to the fandom's mischaracterizations. As someone who runs an Eridan blog, fanon!Eridan is so utterly far removed from canon!Eridan that they basically have nothing in common but the design. Not to mention other characters, like nobody knowing the first thing about Gamzee, or the Discourse that surrounds Vriska despite her having such a clearly foreshadowed arc. Moreover, ALL the characters were based on internet culture, the trolls most of all. I mean, they're literally called trolls because they were originally conceived of as different types of internet troll.

So having the dancestors be a parody or commentary on internet culture - this time Tumblr culture, if the Alternian trolls were more of a commentary on forum culture, where Hussie got his start - is actually ENTIRELY in-line with what the trolls have always been. As deconstructions of those archetypes, they're actually quite competently done, and as a counterpoint to the comic's themes, they're excellently done.

To the point of them being flatter and more one-note than the Alternian trolls and the kids, this is also entirely intentional, and not a sign of bad writing. They're like that because they have less significance to the story, and you aren't supposed to find them sympathetic on the whole. Their purpose is to illustrate "why it's a bad thing to not mature." I'd say they're quite successful at this, if you engage with them on their own terms. And also...

They DO have complexity. There are actually a lot of really important, interesting things happening within the dancestors, but the fandom as a whole either wrote them off, or did to them what they did to the other characters, and created gross caricatures and mischaracterizations, treating them as blank canvases for projection.

Here's just a quick rundown of some stuff you can glean from the dancestors if you engage with them a bit more critically:

If Homestuck as a whole is about the creation of a new world, and children maturing into adults who are responsible and compassionate enough to make it a good one, then the dancestors as a whole represent an older generation that failed their children, forcing their kids to clean up after their messes.

The specific choice Echidna gave them to Scratch their session had the alternate offer of "dying and letting their species die with them, and letting no more harm come of them," which really hammers this point home. Given that LE is implied to have been created by the dancestors' failures, this is likely the "harm" Echidna is alluding to - if the dancestors had chosen to not pass on their problems to the later generations, then LE would not have come into being. On that note:

LE is heavily implied to have been a result of the dancestors' sessions.

This requires a bit of explanation on how time in Homestuck works. It is ultimately free will that determines the path of events. Imagine a blank sheet of paper, which represents all possible outcomes in all possible points in time. Now imagine putting a pencil to the page - this is the power of individual decisions, which collapse infinite possibilities into a single series of events.

However, PERSPECTIVE is a malleable thing. If you put your PERSPECTIVE at some point in the middle of the line, rather than the point at which future events are being determined, then suddenly, it seems as though all events in the future are predetermined.

In this way, things become "retroactively predetermined". We see this in the way that Trollian works - they can all see the future logs until the time comes to write them, whereupon they magically vanish. We also know that Skaia itself is constantly accounting for player actions via the carapacians, described as "the cogs of paradox space," who are instinctively drawn to completing time loops for the players.

The dancestors' session contains a glitch in it whereby they did not perform their own ectobiology, and such glitches are stated to be "LE's calling cards, reserving his place in universes he intends to visit," and renders their game unwinnable from the start.

HOWEVER, it is also explicitly stated that after Damara snapped and went beast mode on her team, she started performing a bunch of timeline sabotage; getting rid of their ectobiology lab sounds like exactly what you'd imagine "timeline sabotage" to be - especially as it's shown that, at some point in her life, Damara became a follower of Lord English, and explicitly wishes to serve him and help him destroy fucking everything. So in this way, the dancestors' session became retroactively predetermined to be unwinnable, because Damara went nuts, and Damara went nuts as a result of the dancestors' greatest cohesive failure, which brings us to:

Damara is fully sympathetic, a complex character, and IMO good representation (I'm Chinese diaspora), you guys are just looking for reasons to be mean to Hussie.

Damara's always a point of contention when people critique the dancestors, and I think that's really unfair. Yes, she's crass, and sexual, and calls to mind uncomfortable stereotypes, but - speaking as someone who is East Asian - I think the fact that she has such a complex characterization, AND that many of the struggles she faces are very near to those faced by East Asian diaspora, actually kind of makes her... just representation? Like actually just representation?

Let me explain.

So here's Damara's backstory - she's an immigrant from "East Beforus," who never learned to speak English particularly well, and was in a relationship with Rufioh, the only person on the team who could communicate fluently with her. Rufioh then cheated on her for a LONG TIME with Horuss. While this was happening, Damara is being subjected to horrific bullying from Meenah, while the rest of the team did nothing to stop her; when the affair came out, Meenah actually used it AGAINST DAMARA. This eventually drove Damara to snap, and she crippled Rufioh, killed Meenah, and started a long campaign of sabotage, only becoming cooperative again when it came time to Scratch their session.

And here's the thing... STILL, nobody on her team treats her well. Most of them don't speak shitty Google-translate Japanese, so they just think of her as a psycho bitch who went crazy for no reason and just yell at her that if she gets too close to their friends, they'll kill her. There's literally a point where Meenah talks to her, doesn't apologize, and decides "man, it's too hard to try to figure out what you're saying" and just assumes they're cool now, even though Damara is literally telling her to go fuck herself. And Rufioh has the fucking audacity to go "wow... damz... she's crazy... haha... the jealousy... so crazy... wow..." and ask her for advice on his relationship with Horuss.

So what we have is, functionally, an immigrant who can't speak English, at the bottom of the caste system (which BTW still exists), being bullied like fuck by the richest, most privileged member of the team, whose boyfriend cheats on her and then calls HER crazy and jealous, whose team doesn't care enough to intervene in the bullying OR even fucking understand what she's saying. The fact that she can't communicate in the language everyone else speaks, and the fact that her culture has raised her to be less assertive, makes her less of a person to them.

Like... this is kind of just... what a lot of diaspora face. Not even exclusively East Asian diaspora. Her snapping and going crazy is actually entirely reasonable. Her resorting to sexual language is a form of taking power back. You guys don't care what I have to say? Well, I don't give a shit what you have to listen to, then. She's nice to the humans, who have never done anything wrong to her, and she has a normal conversation with Rufioh, who actually knows how to speak her language. Her dialogue being shitty Google-translate Japanese is actually a commentary on this very dynamic - that nobody gave a shit about what she was saying. Like, yeah, girl, no fucking WONDER you decided you wanted everything destroyed.

Rufioh fucking sucks.

See above.

The team is keeping Mituna brain damaged on purpose.

Aranea says that before his injury, Mituna was constantly trying to warn his team about some oncoming doom he saw (and it came true, so, like, Mituna was right). So here's the thing. Even if they can't heal him now that they're all ghosts, they spent roughly SIX FUCKING YEARS in the Medium. Aranea explicitly has the ability to heal mind stuff, and they have a life player if Mituna's injury falls more along the physical side. There are indications that, as unpleasant as he is to be around now, the team prefers him this way because he can't pull them up on their personal problems anymore. Otherwise, why would they have just left him injured?

And before people argue that neurodivergence is not a "problem" that always needs to be "fixed," I completely agree. The thing is, however, that Mituna's injury is always framed as that - an injury. An unfortunate incident with some sort of physical component that happened after he overtaxed his psionics. Something that his team had the ability to fix, whether by sylph healing, life healing, or even just killing him on his quest bed. And they just left him like that for SIX YEARS. MINIMUM.

Kankri

Kankri.

Actually, let me just say one thing about Kankri, and let that be representational about all the problems with Kankri.

At one point, he scolds Mituna for being brain-damaged in a way that makes other brain-damaged people look bad.

MITUNA: W4LT5 WR00NG W17H MY H4ML37 8( KANKRI: N9thing, friend, it's a really c99l helmet and it's a g99d l99k f9r y9u. 6ut are we n9w t9 assume that all th9se wh9 are stricken with y9ur particular disadvantage9n will 6e similarly pr9ne t9 require such headgear, due t9 falling d9wn and hitting their heads frequently? MITUNA: 8U7H 1 D0 F4LL D0WN 4ND H157 MY H34D FR3QUN3UN74NY KANKRI: 9h, I kn9w y9u d9, and I think y9u sh9uld c9ntinue wearing it f9r y9ur safety, particularly if y9u c9ntinue t9 insist 9n fl9undering a69ut 9n y9ur danger9us t9y. It's m9re a69ut the unf9rtunate message y9u are sending 9verall, with certain aspects 9f y9ur pers9nality and existence, that's all. MITUNA: 1M 50RRY KANKRI: As a friend, I w9uldn't want t9 change anything a69ut y9u, well, n9t m9st things. I just think y9u may n9t 6e d9ing y9urself 9r th9se wh9 are similarly disadvantaged any fav9rs with, what I'm h9ping, is a perfectly inn9cent array 9f traits and mannerisms. 8ut again, I say this with all due sensitivity.

Meulin is actively fucking over her team's romances, and is deeply unhappy in her own.

There's an implication when Terezi is talking to Sollux that a mage's visions of the future are heavily influenced by the mage's own pessimism - that their own negative feelings toward themselves and the world muddle their visions and lead to worse outcomes.

Meulin's ships are horrible. Leaving aside the fact that she offered to set Meenah up with Karkat, who is like 5 years younger than her (not counting the millenia spent in the bubbles), basically every established romantic relationship between the dancestors is, uh... awful. Rufioh's affair with Horuss, which he wants to end but doesn't have the spine to. Damara's with Rufioh. More on Latula and Mituna later. And, like... Meulin and Horuss?

HORUSS: 8=D < E%actly. Whoof would have thought? If you a%ed me before we all died whether I would consider romantically pairing with a r*d*culous midb100d, let alone Ms. Leijon of all people, I'd probably have died regardless, due to laughter-induced asphy%iation.

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU SAY ABOUT THE GIRL YOU ARE CURRENTLY DATING HOLY SHIT???

Moreover, the one who gave Horuss the advice to smile through all unpleasant things in his life and ignore them completely, was Meulin. Combined with the fact that Vriska at one point mentions that she has a "fascinatingly dark history," there's an implication here that Meulin gave that advice because she's doing it herself. Meulin is not actually happy, she's depressed as fuck, and she's covering it up by being hyper and annoying; as a result, when she uses her mage powers to set up her friends, she's incapable of setting them up in happy relationships.

Porrim was a bra-burning feminist who entirely shirked the game in the pursuit of social justice.

They explicitly never made much progress in frog breeding because Porrim was too busy fighting the patriarchy. She got better after she died, being one of the only dancestors who ever grew as a person, but, like. That was a not good thing she did. Also, however nice Porrim is, she still did not stop Meenah's bullying, implying a link between her and Kanaya's worst traits - Kanaya was totally willing to excuse Vriska's bad behavior because she liked Vriska, after all.

Latula is so insecure that she's explicitly dating Mituna because he's dependent on her.

LATULA: 1dk, th3r3z w4y mor3 to h1m th4n. w3ll, 4ll th3 t3rr1bl3 4nd stup1d sh1t h3 s4ys 4ll th3 t1m3. LATULA: 4nd 1ts 4lw4yz f3lt l1k3 h3 n33ds m3 1f th4t m4k3s s3ns3, 3v3n 4ft3r dy1ng. so th3r3z th4t!!!!

Why are they all so awful to each other LMAO

Aranea... well, we see what's going on with Aranea. But did you also know that she's a huge fucking 8itch with a massive "fuck you, got mine" attitude towards her teammates?

ARANEA: [...] She was truly an inspiration, and proved 8eyond a shadow of a dou8t that any handicap can 8e overcome, and doesn't have to stop you from 8eing as rad as you can truly 8e. MEENAH: wuuut MEENAH: serket are you whistlin through my blowhole with his idiotic shit ARANEA: Yes, that last part was a joke. Lighten up, Peixes!

Yep, just making fun of something Latula is sensitive about.

ARANEA: Or, if one is to 8elieve [Cronus's] fantasy held any water, perhaps someone who was in league with the evil magician. Whatever the case, it was pro8a8ly for the 8est, since pretty much everyone who had half a think pan thought it was all a 8unch of ridiculous nonsense. MEENAH: serket why do you got to hate on other peoples religions MEENAH: dont you kno they just as much a load of crackpotty bunk as all your spiritual bullfuck ARANEA: 8ut I…….. ARANEA: Yes, I guess I was out of line. ARANEA: Sorry, I was just trying to riff with you little on a mutually disliked acquaintance. Is that really so 8ad? Why do you have to take every opportunity to knock my personal 8eliefs? ARANEA: You can really 8e so mean sometimes.

Mhm, shitting on Cronus. And like, shitting on Cronus is deserved, but, like, not for specifically this?

ARANEA: It was almost a little eerie how happily [Damara] complied with our plan. What did Rufioh say she said? Something a8out how we would all finally get what we deserved… ARANEA: Which at the time, I thought sounded chilling. 8ut there's really two ways of looking at it. One is how the Scratch re8ooted our world into a state of pure chaos, culminating in the annihilation of our universe. 8ut on the other hand, we all got the chance to live out our wildest fantasies as adults on Alternia! ARANEA: At least you and I sure did. And I wouldn't dou8t she feels the same way.

Yeah, sure, Aranea. Mituna sure got to live out his wildest fantasies by being turned into a fucking battleship. Damara being abused by Doc Scratch to the point of attempting suicide turned out to be something she wanted. Uh-huh.

She also completely shits on Kurloz and the clown cult as harmless and ridiculous superstition, despite... y'know... it all being. Very relevant. So.

Horuss is somehow more casteist than all the Alternian highbloods combined?

Already mentioned a lot of this in Meulin's section but... yeah. He's so incredibly derogatory to both Meulin AND Rufioh, apologizing to Meenah for letting himself be seen with those two (especially Rufioh), while at the same time refusing to let Rufioh break up with him by constantly changing the subject and refusing to acknowledge any sadness.

Kurloz is fully evil and was directly involved in Mituna's injury and Cronus's loss of faith, is mind controlling/brainwashing Meulin into his cult, and probably had something to do with Damara snapping.

Kind of can't blame him, his friends do all suck majorly.

Cronus is the worst character in Homestuck by a nautical mile but it is kind of sad that he used to believe so much in becoming a wizard and his friends bullied his hope out of him.

He's still fucking awful but, like, there's that.

Meenah is really fucking horrible, her friends enable her, and she is constantly shirking responsibility.

Three times she's shirked responsibility - the first when she decided she didn't want to be princess, and fled to her moon palace; the second when she didn't want to face her teammates after blowing them up, and fled to her dream bubble moon palace; and the third when her ghost army plan failed after Aranea deserted, and she agreed to just fuck off completely with Vriska.

MEENAH: hell the best choice i ever made involved givin up MEENAH: one day i said MEENAH: fuck da throne MEENAH: ran off to the moon MEENAH: thats how this whole crazy mess kicked off

And let's not forget, she's kind of the main driving impetus of a lot of their problems - her bullying, which NOBODY STOPPED, was directly responsible for Damara's freakout, which was in turn directly responsible for LE's entry into their universe.

Like... Meenah is not supposed to be a good guy, and her change to one right at the end of the comic is, I believe, a symptom of Hussie's truncation of plotlines, and his actual middle finger to the fandom (which the dancestors aren't). The ENTIRE comic, Meenah's opinion that the Condesce is cool and badass and awesome never changes. She's DIRECTLY responsible for the worst of the bad shit that befalls the Beforans and never takes responsibility or apologizes for any of it. And she's kind of set up to be somebody that Karkat needs to refute in order to complete his arc - his offer to jump off the meteor and go on a suicide mission to fight LE with her is an attempt to shirk his responsibilities, to his team and to his species, what Meenah represents.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK THE DANCESTORS DESERVE SOME REDEMPTION.

Even when they aren't exactly complex characters, they are all still written as if they're real people, and real people have the capacity to change. The fact that Porrim did get better after death, that Meenah and Aranea are so complex and deeply explored, that Damara and Mituna are so sympathetic, and that there's so much to unravel with all the other dancestors, says to me that while they probably wouldn't have served as important characters to the ultimate story, they would have at least been recurring, and potentially utilized more strongly as foils against the Alternian trolls, assuming the latter were going to be revived and allowed to finish their arcs.

Personally, I like the idea that as the Alternian trolls self-actualize more and more, they wind up tearing into the Beforus trolls for their failures, which culminates in the Beforus trolls having a kind of "oh crap, we really did suck for most of our lives and then die" moment, which allows them to decide to actually do something good and useful for once, and ALL participate in the LE fight of their own volition.

But within the framework of the story's themes, the reason they don't get to make it to the end is because they failed to grow up. It's important that they're physically adults by the time they die because that's the "finish line" of a coming-of-age, the genre whose themes pervade Homestuck. They became adults without growing up at all. If the theme of Homestuck is that children should mature, become kind, and one day be responsible for a new world, then the dancestors represent children who did not mature, who were terrible and cruel to each other, and who irresponsibly passed their problems down to those that would come after them, forcing them to clean up their mess.

So, uh. Yeah.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Murder, Love, and Destiny: An Eridan Ampora Character Study

Warnings for things from Homestuck, like discussions of child abuse, mental illness, murder, suicide, etc. etc.

Because there's a huge wall of text after this point, I'm going to summarize what I hope to convince you of in bullet point format, and then hope you'll actually read the rest of the text before arguing with me about it.

Eridan is the least casteist highblood, if you ignore all the slurs.

Those are his emotional support slurs.

Pale EriKar was not only canon, but set up to be endgame.

Eridan is incredibly plot-relevant, thematically relevant, and was definitely originally intended to be brought back to life, alongside the other dead trolls.

He's Sad.

The first thing we have to establish is what counts as "canon" for the purpose of this essay. I am only counting the original comic up to Game Over, after which there's a general consensus that Hussie kind of gave up on his original planned ending, and slapped together something that most people hate. So I am immediately disqualifying Pesterquest, supplementary material, fanworks deemed canon, the epilogues, and Homestuck^2.

Moreover, we are taking Hussie's commentaries with a grain of salt, for two reasons. The first reason is that I firmly believe - and will be arguing - that the original plan was to bring Eridan (and the other dead trolls) back; therefore, Hussie (who has a track record of playing coy with future plot twists) can't speak too fondly of him, lest he give it away. The second reason for de-emphasizing Hussie's words is that, post-retcon, Hussie isn't very well going to say that he had plans for a better ending, and then didn't execute on them; to save face, he has to act as though his trashing of several prior plot threads, including but not limited to Eridan, was the plan all along.

Therefore, this essay will not be putting too much emphasis on Word of God, and will instead be relying on textual evidence from the comic itself, of which there is plenty. So without further ado:

Eridan is a Consummate Murderer.

The reason I'm starting with this point is that, far more than any other, this truth lies at the core of his being. Eridan is formally introduced to us with a murder, and he's haunted by an overpowering genocide complex. He outright describes to Rose at one point that "killin is all i evver done practically," and uses "murder" as an expletive (ie "swweet stinkin murder"). With a conservative estimate of 5 kills per week for 4 sweeps (Vriska looks VERY young when she has to start killing, and Eridan was likely a similar age when he began), both Eridan and Vriska easily have bodycounts above 2000 - the real number is probably even higher.

At this point, many raise an objection that Eridan is only killing lusii, but I believe we need to count his kills as troll murders, for three reasons: first, a dead lusus results in the orphaned troll being culled; second, one has to assume he has had cases of trolls trying to defend their lusii, or coming after him for vengeance; and third - and most importantly - Eridan HIMSELF is thinking about the orphaned trolls.

Compare Feferi: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. At least until she dies.

To Eridan: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. And make a freshly orphaned troll somewhere very sad.

So Eridan, to a much greater extent than even Feferi, is thinking about the orphaned trolls he's leaving behind, and considers his own actions to be murder.

Now that we've established the facts regarding his murders - a rough bodycount, and the fact that, by his own admission, he barely had any hobbies outside of it - we can move on to the effect that it's had on him. It's not very good!

Vriska's manipul8tions and murders had to be done for her own sake - if she ever stopped, she died. Therefore, much of Vriska's personality revolves around justifying her own actions so she doesn't have to reckon with her softer feelings, like guilt or kindness - which she expresses would be viewed as scandalous by others of her caste.

But if Eridan ever stops feeding Gl'bgolyb, everybody dies. The stakes he has riding on his shoulders are, at all times, the fate of all trolls, including all his friends. Given Dualscar's title was "Orphaner," it's implied that killing lusii for Gl'bgolyb has always been a violet blood's duty, and is seen as such by the others, which is why nobody expresses gratitude for his hard work even a single time.

Which brings us to our next point:

Eridan is Crushed by Anxiety.

If Eridan stops killing lusii, everybody - especially his friends, but everybody else, too - dies.

If Eridan ever shows guilt or kindness, he'll be considered "weak" by the standards of highbloods - he shares this with Vriska.

Eridan is expected, by aristocratic tradition, to take on the mantle of his ancestor Dualscar and finish his work. Dualscar met a comedically cringefail end, so this is a massive undertaking.

Before finding out that god tiering is an option - so, for nearly his entire life - Eridan has had to live with the expectation that he will outlive all of his friends. The lowbloods from culling or dying on the battlefield, the highbloods from old age, and Feferi from being killed by the Empress when she gets old enough.

(This is reflected in who he talks to the most - Feferi, who's the only one with a natural lifespan longer than his, Vriska, who's a highblood, Kanaya, who's practically guaranteed to survive into adulthood, and Karkat, whose anonblood allows Eridan to give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Also if he can't land his concupiscent quadrants he'll die from that too, but that seems pretty secondary to the rest of his concerns.

He can't even make friends with the other highbloods, because sea dwellers are expected to hate and antagonize them.

He had a free ticket into adulthood, but would almost certainly be expected to join the army and serve as a commander. That is to say, his fate of performing the role of a vicious, murderous sea dweller seems dreadfully inevitable to him.

NO WONDER he can't stop having emotional breakdowns. NO WONDER his chatlogs swing wildly from relentless self-aggrandizement to traumadumping. NO WONDER he's obsessed with murder and death and genocide.

Doc Scratch calls him a "vengeful boy on the path of nihilism," and it's not hard to see why: Eridan's entire life has been about living up to the role imposed on him by society, sacrificing his own time and sanity for everyone else, which he "nevver got any appreciation for anywway." And all he had to look forward to was more of the same, all his friends dropping dead one by one before him. For Eridan, there has never been any hope.

SGRUB could have been a way out for him, but a combination of his own terrible choices, spurred on by his anxieties, and his teammates' unwillingness to knock some sense into him, meant that he only wound up mired even deeper in his hopelessness.

We all know about how Eridan wouldn't stop killing the angels on his planet, provoking their aggression and turning it into a ball of death. How he was definitely not supposed to be doing this, and how his stubborn insistence on it led to his further ostracization from the rest of the group. The thing is, when we look at his angel-murders from the point of view that Eridan's entire life has been about murdering things or else Something Bad™ happens, it actually starts to become... kind of sad.

KARKAT: BETWEEN A TRIGGERHAPPY PRINCE WITH A GOD WEAPON BLASTING ANYTHING THAT TWITCHED AND A MILLION CRAZED ANGELS HE DELIBERATELY ENRAGED, IT WASN'T WHAT I'D CALL AN IDEAL SOCIAL HUB. KARKAT: IF YOU WERE LONELY WHY DIDN'T YOU VENTURE OUT MORE OFTEN? ERIDAN: wwell i wwoulda but nobody else wwas vvolunteerin to pick up the slack on angel killin duties

Killing the angels is something he feels like his has to do, because his entire life has been about killing things he doesn't want to kill. He's unable to break out of that mindset on his own, and his unpleasant personality has scared off anyone who might want to help. No one on the team tries to understand his thought process on a deeper level, not even Karkat, who just tells him it was an idiotic thing to do without addressing his underlying anxieties at all. Indeed, "nobody understands."

And this is really the root of why I think so many people get the wrong read on Eridan - Eridan is constantly contradicting himself, constantly denying his own feelings, constantly pushing an image that he doesn't actually believe in, and constantly insisting that he's fine with all the horrible shit in his life - that he likes it, even. After all, he can't admit to his guilt for his murders, or how much he doesn't want to watch his friends die, or how scared he is about the future - that'd be weakness!

CC: I can't look after you anymore. CA: I DIDNT EVER NEED ANYONE TO LOOK AFTER ME CA: i was totally fuckin fine my ambitions were noble

You see his contradictory nature with his stated love of history, which he only ever offhandedly mentions - because he's not actually that interested in history, it's just something that's expected of someone of his station. And you see it with his wavy accent, which he himself calls "weird" and drops when he's trying to be emotionally sincere. And you see it with his dumbass outfit, which is very clearly an imitation of Dualscar (with the only exception being the wizard-ass scarf, because wizards are his actual interest. I don't believe he likes fashion. I genuinely believe - and Eridan himself says so - that he basically has no hobbies outside of murder).

Even being proud to be a sea dweller is pretty much an outright lie:

CC: You can't )(ave t)(e sort of affinity for "our kind" t)(at you profess if you've only spent, w)(at... CC: A few days underwater, maybe? IN YOUR W)(OL-E LIF-E!

One that he tells because he's SCARED OF THE OCEAN. Because he knows what lives in the ocean, because he's been feeding it his entire life. I see a lot of people who give Eridan an interest in marine life, and I'm telling you, that's just got no basis in canon. He's fucking TERRIFIED of the sea.

And for that matter, land dweller genocide. Eridan doesn't want to do it. Both Feferi AND his internal narration call him out for not actually wanting to do it. He outright states he wouldn't kill his friends.

CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

But he feels like he HAS to want it, HAS to believe in it, HAS to be talking about it constantly, because that's what's expected from him as a sea dweller, and a sea dweller is ALL that he will get to be. The mutation that puts a violet streak in his hair is damning. It's a fate he feels like he can't escape. Which brings us to:

Eridan is Not Actually Casteist, Well He Is But Not Like That, It's Complicated

Secondary title: Those Are His Emotional Support Slurs, Okay

In the exact same vein (haha) as secretly not wanting all the land dwellers dead, Eridan also genuinely doesn't feel like he's better than lower blood castes. Vriska and Equius obviously put quite a bit of stock into being nobility, and both have acted superior to Karkat for it. Feferi actually revels in her high status, and while she is genuinely well-meaning, she's not as interested in abolishing casteism as she is in changing the meaning of "culling" specifically (the hemocaste, aristocracy, and casteism still very much exist in a Beforus under her rule). Gamzee MIGHT be the only highblood less casteist than Eridan, but then again, as soon as he snaps, he does say a lot of casteist stuff to Equius, although it's unclear how serious he is, and he also proceeds to get really into his weird highblood clown cult.

Meanwhile, Eridan - despite all his slurs and talk of genocide - does not actually try to "pull rank" on a lowblood for being a lower caste than him with a single exception. That exception is Sollux... after he's already shown having entirely caste-neutral opinions on Sollux:

CC: But Sollux finally came t)(roug)(, and now I believe t)(e full c)(ain is complete! CA: man that guy CA: hes a fuckin drama machine it is fuckin pathetic CC: YOUR STUPID FIS)(Y FAC-E IS T)(-E DRAMA MAC)(IN-E T)(AT DO-ES NOT)(ING BUT W)(IN-E AND GLUB. CC: 38P CA: fuck SORRY CC: Anyway you s)(ouldn't say t)(at about )(im, )(e is a )(ero and )(e saved my life. CA: yeah sorry

CA: my feelins seem petty and meaninless noww CA: she had better things to wworry about than my ovverwwrought bullshit CA: like the dead guy wwho savved her CA: so forget it thanks anywway

It's only AFTER he's mad at Sollux for dating Feferi that he starts going in on Sollux with casteist rhetoric... which is treated as unrequited flirting and not serious casteism:

ERIDAN: hey finless this doesnt concern those wwith mustard sludge slippin through their vveins ERIDAN: its a matter for royalty only ERIDAN: so keep your mouth closed or ill slit you open ovver my next meal SOLLUX: w/e bro, not iintere2ted. FEFERI: -Eridan, please! I don't want to see any more dueling. FEFERI: Don't try to provoke )(im. It's not like I don't know w)(at you're doing! You keep trying to spark a rivalry wit)( )(im to get me to auspisticize between you two, and pull us out of our quadrant! FEFERI: It is t)(e oldest and lamest trick in t)(e book. It didn't work t)(en and it won't work now!

THEY don't even think he's being casteist.

In fact, directly contradicting this earlier argument he has with Feferi:

CC: T)(is is t)(e last time I will say t)(is. CC: W-E AR-E NOT B-ETT-ER T)(AN ANYBODY!!!!! CC: GLUB. >38( CA: pshh CA: hemospectrum begs to differ

He OUTRIGHT states his real feelings here:

CA: im the biggest fuckin idiot who ever lived CA: i cant BELIEVE i just opened up to you like a chump when i knew what was comin CA: i am one sad fuckin brinesucker CA: overemotional sappy trash youre right im not better than anybody CA: im worse than anybody CA: EVERYBODY CA: all the bodies

So the question of "is Eridan casteist" has an answer of "kind of, but also no." Eridan DOES espouse the rhetoric; he's constantly saying stuff that a casteist sea dweller "should" be saying. However, if you look at his ACTIONS, and the way he actually treats people, he doesn't actually care about blood color. He'll hit on anybody, and he's rude as fuck to everybody. The real problem with him is that he's terrible to talk to, not that he's discriminatory.

That's the thing about Eridan. Understanding him means looking past the way he presents himself, the lies he tells to himself, and even, at times, the way the narration presents him. His "overblown emotional theatrics" seem a lot less overblown when his problems ARE so real, deep-seated, and constantly causing him an unimaginable amount of anguish.

The problem is, the main people he has to bounce those problems against are Feferi, Vriska, and Kanaya, three of the people most comfortable with their privileged positions, for whom Eridan's genuine emotional distress seems like needless melodrama. Feferi loves being a princess, Vriska enjoys her noble privileges, Kanaya doesn't need to worry about culling. But for Eridan, his noble status, and the duties and expectations placed on him for it, have caused him nothing but pain - of course he would feel like nobody understands. Most of his closest friends genuinely don't, nor do they try to.

Because that's what he is at his core - a traumatized fucking child, who doesn't see any way out. Eridan is not a casteist genocidal sea dweller... he just wishes he was one, and tries to be one, because if he actually was one, he wouldn't feel so awful and scared and sad all the time. He'd be normal, like his friends.

The reason he constantly spouts anti-land dweller rhetoric and uses casteist language is to assuage this cognitive dissonance. That's why he has to come off so strong, present himself in such an aggrandized way, act like such a douchebag. They're his emotional support slurs. He doesn't actually believe what he says, which means he's a Bad Sea Dweller, which means he's Failing, which means Something Bad Will Happen, so he'd better get his ass in line and say something casteist!

And it's all made worse because:

Eridan is Dumb of Ass (and True of Word)

Oh my god you guys he's so stupid that it hurts.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. Eridan is clearly well-educated and book smart; he has some of the most elegant prose out of the trolls, and he's prone to going off on insane rants with it. (Actually, his language gets more flowery and showy when he's trying to impress a stranger, and gets progressively more laid back, chill, and even kind of "bro"-y when he starts talking to people he doesn't feel like he needs to impress.)

CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

What I mean is this: his brain is so full of anxiety and cognitive dissonance and murder and death that he struggles to care about other people, which has devastating effects on his social skills. I go really in-depth on how his though process informs his behavior here. The question may have popped up in your mind already: if his casteism stuff isn't actually real, then what is Eridan actually like? The answer is, overwhelmingly, and discomfortingly, SINCERE.

This boy is gunning at 100% emotional earnestness 100% of the time, and it's deeply uncomfortable for others to deal with. He'll swing wildly from insults and derogatory language, to stating a desire to kill all land dwellers, to awe and amazement at his friends' prowess, to demanding that they do things for him, to traumadumping and venting, without missing a beat. Often in the same conversation.

CA: kan its hard GA: What CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

He's also specifically terrible at parsing hostility. Functionally, he interprets all hostility aimed AT him as either pitch/ashen flirting or "ironic repartee," and similarly views his own hostile words as verbal jousting, pitch/ashen advances, or even just factual descriptions of the world around him (ie calling Nepeta a "kittycat shipper cavve girl"). Hostility and aggression are just kind of his baseline, default state of being, and he basically has no ability to differentiate between good and bad attention. I talk more in-depth about his emotionally bereft upbringing (and shitty lusus) here, but suffice to say that our boy isn't getting any emotional support at home, and as a result, craves attention, no matter what kind.

This also means he's insanely gullible. For example, Rose calls him an idiot to his face, and then blows up his computer, sarcastically calling it "your first lesson in showmanship." Eridan proceeds to literally considers it that, blowing up Jade's computer after he's done talking to her. Furthermore, Kanaya sees him as a burden, insults him to his face, and pretty much just bullies him along with Rose for fun.

So she trains Eridan to become a powerful white wizard of hope to challenge her, as a joke.

And yet, in spite of all that, Eridan still has nothing but gratitude and praise for Kanaya:

ERIDAN: kan i been meanin to thank you KANAYA: For What ERIDAN: for all that trainin you did ERIDAN: i wwouldnt be the incredible holy wwizard i am noww wwithout your help KANAYA: But I Didnt Even Really Train You I Just Made You A Wand ERIDAN: yeah wwell thats all i needed i guess ERIDAN: i just needed for someone to showw a little faith in me so im sayin thanks i owwe ya KANAYA: Okay Then Youre Welcome KANAYA: I Hope You Use Your Magnificent Powers Of Light And Hope For Goodness And Purity And Lets Not Forget Science ERIDAN: dont wworry im all ovver that shit you dont evven knoww KANAYA: Uh Oh I Hope That Didnt Come Off As Too Sarcastic ERIDAN: wwhat KANAYA: The Thing I Just Said KANAYA: I Didnt Even Realize How Sarcastic I Was Being Its Starting To Become A Problem I Think KANAYA: Please Dont Take Too Much Offense ERIDAN: haha damn kan if thats your idea of offense bein made then i honestly gotta fuckin wworry for you ERIDAN: tell you wwhat ill givve you some lessons in dealin out the dark umbrage to repay you for your tutelage in the wwhite science

Like, he's in the middle of genuinely thanking her for believing in him, she makes fun of him to his face, and his response is to laugh it off and offer to teach her how to properly insult someone. It's honestly... kind of sad. Not that he doesn't deserve the ridicule, but what we're seeing here is a traumatized, emotionally neglected boy trying to communicate the best that he can that he loves and appreciates his friends, and receiving nothing but mockery in return.

It's really not a surprise, then, that he goes off the deep end. His entire life prior to the game has been shit; he got broken up with as soon as he entered the game (by someone who didn't even care enough not to use fish puns while doing it); he's ostracized and avoided for the game's duration; and then he spends the rest of his time on the meteor being bullied. He feels deeply hopeless and anxious about their situation because he literally doesn't know how else to exist, and his concerns are dismissed and mocked at every turn. When Feferi turns on him with intent to kill, that's his breaking point.

I see a lot of people say he goes grimdark, or succumbs to external influence somehow, but I don't think that needs to be true (nor is it) - he's just a deeply traumatized kid with almost no support network who's finally been pushed to the edge, despite displaying every possible warning sign and making multiple cries for help. Yes, ultimately, he's guilty for his own actions, but his killing spree - alongside Gamzee's and Vriska's - represents a cohesive failure as a team to address very clear problems in their midst.

So Feferi and Kanaya are sick of his ass. Sollux hates him platonically, Equius doesn't like him, and Nepeta thinks of him as a creep. Vriska is his awkward ex, and Terezi agrees with him when he calls himself pathetic. He never interacts with Tavros, Aradia, or sober!Gamzee. Is there anyone that treats him nicely?

Uh, okay, so I swear this isn't shipping goggles -

Pale EriKar Is Canon And I Can Prove It

So, I'm going to start this with a disclaimer: you can ship what you want to ship. I don't mind. I don't care. Headcanons are valid, death of the author, etc. What you do in your free time is up to you.

What I am attempting to argue in this section is that an Eridan/Karkat moirallegiance was heavily foreshadowed, one of the most heavily foreshadowed things in the entire comic, and - assuming that the original ending of Homestuck included all the dead trolls being brought back and redeemed - was going to be endgame. There's a torrential amount of evidence pointing to this, and very little of it is acknowledged even by the EriKar shippers, which is a shame.

At the very least, I'll be happy if I can convince some Karkat RPers to be extra nice to Eridans, because they are actually just friends who care deeply about each other. Canonically.

The first thing to note is that Eridan and Karkat, at least prior to SGRUB, talk all the time, to the point where Feferi feels the need to comment on it:

CC: You know, I'm not sure w)(y we never talk about our romantic aspirations. CC: We s)(ould more often. It is kind of -EXCITING! CA: shrug CC: Probably because you fill your gossip quota wit)( your nubby )(orned bro. CC: You leave not)(ing left to talk about wit)( your dear sweet moirail! CC: We are supposed to )(elp eac)( ot)(er wit)( t)(at stuff too, remember. CA: maybe CA: seems kinda CA: odd though

("Can you please stop having an emotional affair with Karkat" "Eh, I'll think about it")

The second thing to note is what the contents of those conversations entail. Sure, they "gossip," but it goes deeper than that, because they gossip about things that Karkat would NEVER gossip about with anybody else, because Karkat usually respects his "VERY GOOD FRIEND"s. For example, here Eridan mentions that Karkat has speculated on Kanaya's love life with him:

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly

And it's not even a one-off thing, because here Karkat is again, mentioning Nepeta's crush on him:

KARKAT: OK, BUT TO BE FAIR, I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S STILL OBSESSED WITH ME. KARKAT: IT'S A VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OK? KARKAT: HER DISINTEREST IN YOUR ADVANCE WASN'T A REFLECTION ON YOU AT ALL. KARKAT: COME ON, WE TALKED ABOUT THIS.

It's a situation he's been trying to "tiptoe around for a long time," and he tells ERIDAN, of all people? MULTIPLE TIMES? (AND HE ALSO TELLS ERIDAN THAT THE REJECTION WASN'T HIS FAULT???? WHAT??????)

So we've established that they talk frequently and about some pretty seriously sensitive topics. But did you know that they also talk about... their feelings?

See, the thing is, Karkat has always been weirdly nice to Eridan. Here he is in a memo near the very beginning of their game, when Karkat is at his most "rah rah, I'm the big bad leader":

FCA: i got a problem FCA: wwith feferi FCA: and im really kinda sittin here in bad shape about it emotionally speakin CCG: OK, WELL CCG: I GET THAT, I HEAR YOU BRO CCG: BUT THIS IS STILL NOT THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THIS SO I'VE GOT TO BAN YOU. CCG banned FCA from responding to memo. CCG: BUT SERIOUSLY JUST GET IN TOUCH WITH ME IN PRIVATE ABOUT IT, OK MAN? CCG: WE'LL GET YOUR SHIT STRAIGHTENED OUT.

Compare that to Tavros asking for advice later down in the same memo:

PAT: sINCE i DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE NOW, bUT MAYBE HELP ME, PAT: aBOUT A THING THAT HAS TO DO WITH A GIRL, PAT: lIKE, PAT: a ROMANCE THING, yOU MIGHT KNOW ABOUT, CCG: YOU PEOPLE ARE IMBECILES. CCG: ALL OF YOU. CCG: I AM NOT POSTING THESE MEMOS TO COUNSEL YOU ON YOUR PAST AND FUTURE DATING PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CCG: WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH BASKET CASES. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY ANYMORE. PAT: sORRY, CCG: SHOULD I BAN YOU? WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT ANYMORE! ONE OF YOU STOOGES WILL BE RIGHT ON THE LAST ONES HEELS WITH ANOTHER SOB STORY. CCG: JUST CCG: HURRY UP AND TELL ME WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS BRO.

He then proceeds to dispense no actual love advice; he just points out that Vriska can totally read this memo too, and then mocks them both when she shows up - thus making it clear that he is giving Eridan special treatment.

You see it again in his discussion with Eridan in [S] Kanaya: Return to the Core, where Eridan invokes a "pact" between them, and Karkat immediately plays nice with him, despite himself being extremely high-strung and stressed out:

KARKAT: RIGHT, IT'S POWERED BY SCIENCE, I FORGOT. KARKAT: OR HOPE. WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS. ERIDAN: i dont fuckin need this from you i take enough shit as it is from the rest a you dirtscrapers i thought you and me had a kinda pact or wwhatevver KARKAT: OK FINE, SHUT UP, I APOLOGIZE. I KNOW IT'S TOUGH BEING YOU.

That's definitely pity, which Karkat states to be the basis of all relationships besides pitch. But, sure, okay, Karkat is sometimes nice to his friends. He is, after all, the Friendship Troll, so that's not necessarily out of the ordinary. But how about the fact that it goes both ways?

That's right, Eridan "100% aggro 100% of the time" Ampora is actually really considerate toward Karkat's feelings, and basically nobody else's. Upon hearing that Karkat is distressed that Sollux has died, Eridan actively puts his own meltdown about his breakup with Feferi on pause:

TC: BeCaUsE OuR GoOd bRo sOlLuX JuSt kIcKeD ThE WiCkEd mOtHeRfUcKiN ShIt CA: wwhat the fuck do you mean by that CA: are you sayin hes dead TC: YeAh :o( CA: oh fuck CA: oh god fuck noww i feel like an asshole

He then goes on to chastise Gamzee for his shitty advice, demanding to be given the chance to comfort Karkat himself instead:

TC: BuT I ToLd hIm tO Be cHiLl TC: BeCaUsE ThErE Is a mIrAcLe cOmInG, i cAn fEeL It CA: that is the wworst fuckin advvice CA: wwhat an awwful thing a you to say CA: MAGIC ISNT REAL STUPID STOP BELIEVVIN IN IT TC: i'Ve gOt tO BeLiEvE At wHaT My hEaRt tElLs iN Me, EvEn iF It's a fAkE ThInG TC: HoNk CA: this is a lot a pointless fuckin rubbish and isnt no emotional help to him or me either for that matter CA: put kar on

Before finally giving up when Gamzee insists he's "too scared of Jack" to help, drinking some Faygo, and trying to ask past Karkat for help, because past Karkat isn't sad yet about Sollux dying. So, to recap,

Eridan's first instinct when in emotional duress is to go to Karkat.

Eridan feels like he knows Karkat well enough to know that Gamzee's advice would be useless (and is proven right by the fact that Gamzee and Karkat's moirallegiance fails for similar reasons).

Eridan is willing to shelve his own emotional meltdown for Karkat's sake.

Eridan demands to be the one to provide Karkat with emotional support.

And this is, again, not a one-off thing. In the memo Karkat opens right after Eridan and Gamzee have both turned murderous, after he's spent several minutes making death threats toward Eridan and insulting him directly, he goes:

CCG: I'M SO UPSET, I'M JUST COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. PCA: yeah i knoww wwhat its like you wwanna talk about it

Eridan spends this entire memo under the belief that it's a completely run-of-the-mill conversation they're having:

PCA: i mean yeah obvviously i kneww you wwerent serious PCA: i guess i appreciate the effort youre puttin into cheerin me up PCA: i can alwways count on you for some good ironic repartee kar nobody else really gets our sense a humor CCG: UGH, NO PCA: are you busy PCA: you said youd try to make it to lowwaa soon wwell howw about it

Which implies that offering to listen to Karkat's feelings is also a completely regular thing for them.

But something magical is ALSO happening within this last memo, and to really explain it, I'll first have to be a little mean to the GamKar shippers (sorry).

So, canonically, GamKar doesn't work out for them, despite also being somewhat foreshadowed. In fact, they feature on Nepeta's shipping wall, which is actually, in my opinion, foreshadowing that it WOULDN'T work out. (Nepeta's ships being wrong, and shipping being something she needs to learn to outgrow, is a whole essay on its own, that I'm not getting into here.)

But the thing is, the seeds for them not working out were also planted in the first - and only - real post-moirallegiance interaction that they have with each other, where Gamzee tries to calm Karkat down... and FAILS:

GAMZEE: naw brother, i was just about to all say for you to try and get your settle down on, maybe. GAMZEE: :o( ... KARKAT: OK KARKAT: OK YEAH KARKAT: I GUESS YOU'RE RIGHT. KARKAT: NO, YOU'RE RIGHT, I SHOULD RELAX. KARKAT: AND BREATHE. KARKAT: I MEAN, WHAT ARE MOIRAILS FOR, RIGHT? KARKAT: THIS IS HOW IT WORKS, I STOP YOU FROM KILLING EVERYBODY, THEN YOU RETURN THE FAVOR AND CALM ME DOWN AND I JUST KARKAT: BREATHE KARKAT: LIKE KARKAT: THIS... KARKAT: SNIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK, THAT SUN IS BRIGHT. KARKAT: CALL ME CRAZY, BUT IT'S KIND OF HARD TO RELAX WITHIN A STONE'S THROW FROM, OH, I GUESS ONLY THE BIGGEST FUCKING STAR ANY MORTAL HAS EVER LAID EYES ON. ... KARKAT: BUT I MEAN, CAN THIS BE HEALTHY? KARKAT: AREN'T WE GOING TO GET BURNED OR HAVE OUR RETINAS SCORCHED BY LOOKING AT IT? KARKAT: OH GOD I THINK I'M HAVING A PANIC ATTACK.

But let's go back to that memo where Karkat is freaking out in every way possible. This is how he starts that memo - so upset about the deaths of his friends and terrified by Gamzee that he can barely string together a coherent thought:

CCG: WE ARE SO SCREWED. CCG: OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK. CCG: GUYS, I AM TERRIFIED, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. CCG: I'M IN A ROOM FULL OF BODIES, AND I THINK I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO TURN MY BACK ON THEM? CCG: OH MY GOD, I JUST HEARD A HONK. ... CCG: FEFERI, I'M SORRY. CCG: IT WAS MY FAULT, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. PCC: Sorry for w)(at?? CCG: FOR CCG: I CCG: I CAN'T DO THIS CCG: IT'S TOO MUCH FOR ME, I'M SORRY.

In fact, he's so distressed that he bans Past!Feferi and Past!Gamzee almost immediately after they come in. But then Eridan comes in, and... I mean, first of all, just compare how long it takes for him to ban Eridan:

But more interesting are the contents of their conversation. Over the course of talking to Eridan... Karkat completely calms the fuck down. Like he's entirely forgotten that he's shitting his pants with fear. In fact, he even starts critiquing Eridan for his dumbassery:

PCA: evven if i wwasnt compelled to think you wwere still bein flippant and ironic wwith me you cant exactly outright reject me can you CCG: WHY NOT PCA: cause youre future you PCA: doesnt count unless its present you til then its all fair game CCG: IS THIS REAL, ARE YOU BEING IRONIC OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T EVEN TELL ANYMORE CCG: THE PROBLEM IS, I CAN'T PUT THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR PAST YOU AT ALL, SO I DON'T KNOW. ... CCG: YOU'RE KILLING ANGELS NOW, AREN'T YOU PCA: no CCG: YOU ARE KILLING FUCKING ANGELS, RIGHT NOW, IN THE PAST, WITH YOUR SHITTY GUN. I JUST KNOW IT. PCA: wwell uh PCA: therere just so damn many kar and theyre not gettin any less bloody pissed is the thing CCG: THIS IS WHY IT WOULD NEVER WORK BETWEEN US, MAN.

It's extremely funny. Over the course of talking to Eridan, he goes from:

CCG: OH GOD OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD CCG: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

To:

CCG banned PCA from responding to memo. CCG: ANYWAY CCG: THAT'S IT I GUESS.

Eridan isn't even trying to calm Karkat down. He still succeeds in doing so. This is because they are soul mates. And I mean that in the sense that the comic literally calls being moirails soul mates, which it doesn't do for the other quadrants:

A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

That "social purpose" being that an even-tempered troll calms down a more hot-tempered one, and vice versa.

It also goes on to note:

But some pale pairings, as the one above [referring to a picture of Nepeta and Equius], will be strikingly obvious to all who know them.

But what's really interesting is the next page.

And yet others will seem to have been hatched for each other.

Did you catch that? Let me zoom in.

(Also, the blue and red cuttlefish to represent Sollux - Feferi and Sollux spend the whole game together, and even wind up talking about their feelings constantly in a pile - more on piles in a sec.)

In fact... in Eridan's first visual appearance...

The crab has always been there for him.

It's also important to talk about the bottle of Faygo that's been photoshopped to be candy red, Karkat's blood color. The path that it takes actually directly mirrors Karkat's relationships with Gamzee and Eridan - it's initially something that Gamzee has, but winds up being ejected out of his life, and washes up on Eridan's shore. In fact:

TC: SnAtCh aN IcEcOlD, dOg TC: MoThErFuCkIn cHuG ThAt sHiT LiKe yOu aNd tHe bOtTlE WaS ReUnItEd lOvErS CA: are you recommendin a bevverage to me or somethin CA: is that wwhat this is TC: YeAh mAn SlAm A FaYgO CA: i dont havve a fuckin faygo you stupid fuck wwhy wwould i keep that disgusting shit on hand TC: ArE YoU MoThErFuCkIn sUrE AbOuT ThAt? CA: oh CA: oh god youre right i do CA: i totally forgot about it TC: YoU SeE MaN TC: MoThEr TC: FuCkIn TC: MiRaClEs TC: :o)

When Gamzee and Eridan discuss this exact bottle, Gamzee even likens it to "reunited lovers"; it's something that Eridan has had this whole time (after all, he was cheating on Feferi with the guy), but never realized.

There are a few miscellaneous things that don't really mean anything on their own, but put next to all this other stuff, is worth considering, so I'll list those now.

First, they both do the bonk:

Second:

CG: ARE WE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STUFF I SAID. TA: eheheheh you LIITERALLY a2k me that every tiime are you jokiing. TA: ii cant even tell anymore. CG: IT'S A JOKE MORON. CG: HONESTLY I'M JUST GLAD NOBODY ELSE IS PRIVVY TO OUR CONVERSATIONS.

Third, Karkat muses to his future self about how he misses his friends, especially the assholes, two pages before staring at a dead Eridan's ass (joking, he's definitely looking at WV, but it's still significant that this thought is being associated with Eridan):

CCG: I MEAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG. CCG: I MISS ALL OF MY DEAD FRIENDS A LOT. CCG: EVEN THE ASSHOLES! I MISS THEM TOO. MAYBE EVEN ESPECIALLY THEM, IN SOME PERVERSE WAY. CCG: AND I SHOULD BE RELIEVED THAT THEY ALL SEEM TO BE HAPPY IN SOME WAY, EVEN IF IT'S BY FLOATING NEBULOUSLY THROUGH DREAM PROJECTIONS WITH THEIR FREAKY BLANK EYES. CCG: AND I GUESS I AM RELIEVED ABOUT THAT. CCG: BUT AT THE SAME TIME IT'S LEFT ME UNSETTLED.

Fourth, in the same conversation, he bemoans his failed relationship with Terezi, before Future!Karkat chastises Past!Karkat for his instability and mixed signals. Going back to the page on moirallegiances, an explicit function of a proper pale relationship is stabilizing a troll's other relationships:

The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

Of course, I don't need to tell you how messy and unstable Eridan's relationships have been.

And finally, Piles of Stuff™ are associated with moirails, and directly stated in-comic to cause an outpouring of emotion:

Standing near this pile stirs powerful emotions. The closer you stand to piles of stuff, the more freely the feelings flow. It is a law of reality.

So here's a seven-word tragedy for you: For Sale, Shitty Wand Pile, Never Used:

ERIDAN: at least i got the upright basic decency to hide my shitty wand pile somewwhere in the lab you wwont find it dont evven bother lookin KARKAT: WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES HAVE PILES OF THINGS, JUST STOP.

(Which he specifically tells Karkat about.)

So, yeah, what I'm saying is, there's just, like, a weirdly large amount to read into here. That Karkat and Eridan are probably soulmates or whatever. And that this is important because...

Eridan Is Plot Relevant (Well All The Dead Trolls Are But This Is An Essay About Eridan)

So. Now we are going to talk about themes. Yes, like we are in schoolfeeding again. I'm going to keep it simple, because "The Themes of Homestuck" is a whole essay on its own, and this one about just the shitty fish boy is already way too long.

I think it's fairly non-controversial to posit that the main theme of Homestuck is, "children should mature, care about each other, and throw off the shackles of their old society, because they will be responsible for a new world one day."

Up until Game Over/the Retcon, this is so prevalent and well-established that SBURB/SGRUB's coming-of-age themes will outright be commented upon by the characters, and the main villain is a child who deliberately stunted his own growth so he could go around kicking over other peoples' toys forevermore.

So, the thing is, with that being the theme of Homestuck, if ALL of the Alternian trolls don't survive to the end, the ending is thematically unsatisfying, because the message suddenly gains an addendum of "well, some kids just need to die," which totally sucks. Like, sure, Eridan was a violent, crazed murderer even at the best of times, but his permanent death within the canon ending kind of means that the comic is saying that people in his position don't deserve kindness or second chances. That position being a traumatized, emotionally neglected child, who was being bullied by people he considered his friends. It's a pretty terrible message.

It's even worse when you consider what other trolls don't make it to the end - Nepeta, the most outspoken troll against the hemospectrum (and Davepeta does NOT count, don't try to tell me the final culmination of Nepeta's character arc is being combined with some guy she barely knows and a bird). Feferi, who genuinely wanted the best for others, even if she was kind of a privileged princess. Aradia and Sollux also stay behind in the bubbles, even though their lives have pretty much been endless parades of suffering and being used by other people. Even Equius doesn't deserve it - he was kind of a casteist freak, but not irredeemably so, and the fact that he became kinder to Karkat over the course of SGRUB proved that he had the capacity to change. And Tavros, allergic to himself and being insulted by Vriska, is a terrible way to end his arc.

It's also really clear that, since half his friends are dead, Karkat just doesn't really have anything to do. His title is the Knight of Blood, and Blood is about bonds - romance, friendship. And yet, he ends the comic having never figured out what Blood was about, with no confirmed filled quadrants (sorry DaveKat likers, but within the comic itself, DaveKat is never confirmed), and most of his bonds nothing more than ghosts in the bubbles. It's a terribly unsatisfying ending for the most narratively important troll.

I think, then, that even if you don't agree that Homestuck should have ended with full revivals and redemption arcs for all the trolls, the essay is going to proceed on like you do, so, sorry, I guess.

The thing with Eridan, specifically, is that he's actually tied deeply into the plot and themes, and his return means more than just Karkat finally getting a date (although that's important, too). Eridan is directly intertwined with a prophecy to kill Lord English; he's set up to mirror Caliborn and Calliope; and thematically, his redemption would be the most clear instance of the "interrogating society" part of the theme of Homestuck, because Eridan is kind of the Society Troll. And also, he was definitely supposed to be Roxy's wizard boyfriend.

Just gonna get that last one out of the way real quick because it's a fast one, Roxy fucking loves wizards and is a hipster. Eridan is a wizard and is also a hipster. Roxy has a crush on a prince. Eridan is also a prince. Roxy wears a purple striped scarf. Eridan wears a blue striped scarf. Roxy uses rifles. Eridan uses rifles. Momlonde's introduction includes a passive-aggressive fridge battle that features a cameo of Eridan's quirk.

Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together. Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience.

Yeah. So. Uh. Not only did Eridan need to be brought back to date Karkat pale, but he also needed to be brought back to date Roxy flushed. Can you imagine how funny it would be. They'd get together within 5 minutes of meeting for the first time and Rose would lose her shit. Anyway.

Him being a parallel to Calliope and Caliborn is also a quick one - Caliborn uses Riflekind/Sceptrekind, and Calliope uses Pistolkind/Wandkind. Eridan's two weapons are rifles and wands. Lord English is described as an evil wizard and at one point is shown using Calliope's wand. Eridan is also an evil wizard who uses a wand.

Look, I'm not saying that Eridan is necessarily directly related to these two, nor am I even necessarily saying that he and Roxy HAVE to date, but I am saying that he's got Weird Plot Connections that make him bizarrely relevant to characters that only come into play well after his death - almost like the comic was setting up that he would be coming back. His reaction to Cronus supports this, which I go into detail about here.

There's other strange "Eridan's plot important" things, too - like the fact that he's completely unimpressed by Faygo, considering it to be "just soda," and seems to be the only non-cultist who's okay with it. Or the fact that he's actually been awake on Derse since before the game (but unable to hear the horrorterrors, maybe foreshadowing some psychic resistance?) which he casually reveals to Kanaya and which Terezi is aware of, hence he's included in the people she names are "in" on the existence of the game. Or the fact that the genetic code for Alternia's first guardian was written within the pages of four FLARP books, with the addition of a fifth code Gamzee wrote in Karkat's ~ATH book... but Eridan was the fifth FLARP player in the team, implying that Doc Scratch/LE influencing Gamzee caused him to usurp Eridan's part of the first guardian code, giving LE his way into the trolls' universe.

Individually, it's all kind of nothing, but it just paints a bigger picture of Eridan being weirdly relevant, especially when we get to the juicy stuff:

The Prophecy

ARANEA: The 8ard of Hope may seem a little jaded these days, 8ut he once had a deeply a8iding faith in magic, and dedicated himself to 8ecoming a great wizard. He 8ecame convinced he was hatched to defeat an extraordinarily evil magician, one he swore the angels foretold of. ... [T]his magician once somehow from afar tried to strike him down at a young age, so he would never have to face him. 8ut the evil spell was deflected, sealing the magician's spirit away in a series of unassuming vessels until he could find some other cunning way to enter our universe. ... ARANEA: 8ut at some point he 8ecame disillusioned with magic. If there ever was any truth to his far fetched vision, the legacy of defeating the evil magician would have to 8e passed on to his descendant, or if his descendant proved to 8e as much of a failure as he did, then perhaps on to some other Hero of Hope.

ERIDAN: i slaughtered enough angels to knoww my limits and wwhere i stand against the lord of all angels they prophecized

GG: im pretty sure hes from the future! CA: wwhy GG: because he said hes my grandson CA: wwhat the fuck is a grandson CA: is that some kind of pervverse human familial thing GG: umm yes ... CA: that gun i just gavve you is somethin of a hatchright to the kid CA: happy i could play a role in your dirty stinkin lineage GG: like an heirloom? i guess it could be ... CA: i kinda think thats wwhy i found the gun in the first place CA: but noww im forsakin it because fuck i just found a better destiny than my old crappy one wwhich i nevver got any appreciation for anywway

Jake is supposed to have been the one to defeat Lord English. (No, Jake defeating pre-LE Caliborn right before he gets sealed into Cal doesn't count! He doesn't even get the final blow in that fight, DIRK does.)

But Eridan at one point had that destiny on his shoulders. Aranea turbohealing Jake, and the resultant hope field, summons a bunch of angels, which are heavily associated with Eridan - yet another random connection that Eridan has with future plot events.

Jake was another character, alongside Karkat, who was kind of reduced to a joke by the end, despite the fact that he had literally, directly, been passed the destiny of defeating Lord English. It's hard not to see this as a consequence, at least in part, of removing Eridan from the story. By cutting him out of the fabric of the ending, several plot threads - including this prophecy - are left dangling in irrelevance. And so Jake, like Karkat, now has nothing to do.

Homestuck is generally a series where every prophecy does come true, which makes it kind of startling when several prophecies fail to - Feferi's to "unite the two races," Jake's to defeat Lord English, and Karkat's to bring "compassion, forgiveness, and equality among all bloodlines" in the Signless's place.

That last one is actually relevant to:

The Thematic Importance of EriKar As Soul Mates

Eridan represents the worst aspects of Alternian society. He's a sea dweller at the top of the caste structure, with free reign to murder whoever he wants, soaked in the blood of thousands of innocent trolls. He espouses the casteist rhetoric that their society is built on, calling for the deaths of all land dwellers and the oppression of the lower castes. And while he should be benefitting from his position of privilege, it has also done nothing but hurt him.

Karkat, meanwhile, is a pariah. A mutant who would've been culled on sight, who spent his entire life living in hiding, and most of the game in fear that he would be ostracized or worse by the rest of his friends if they found out about his blood color. He's also the second coming of Troll Jesus, and thus, more despised by the Alternian ruling class than a mutant normally would be. For most of his life, he dreamed of nothing more than finding belonging within the society that had deemed him unfit.

Their friendship is something that "should not be." The highblood and the mutant. The royal-v and the off-spectrum. The empress's sea dweller and the second coming of the signless. Eridan "should" see Karkat as a miscreant to cull on sight. Karkat "should" be terrified of Eridan's very existence.

But in reality, Eridan doesn't give a shit about blood color, and Karkat just wants to be accepted. Eridan just wants someone to care about him, and Karkat loves his friends. Aside from Feferi, Eridan is the only highblood who never comments about Karkat's mutant blood, and they were best buddies even before Eridan knew.

Eridan and Karkat getting together isn't JUST the two most undateable trolls on the team finally landing a stable quadrant. These two, moreso than any other pairing, represent the themes of Homestuck. Children growing up, caring about each other, and throwing off the shackles of their old society.

In the pre-retcon timeline, their team failed to do so. This led to Gamzee falling into his highblood clown cult, Equius letting himself and Nepeta die by submitting to his place in the hemospectrum, Vriska killing Tavros because she couldn't allow herself to show weakness, and Eridan completing his caste's dream of genocide. Karkat spent the entire meteor trip and beyond beating himself up about it, since he considered it all to be his fault.

But with the introduction of John's retcon powers, they have the chance to, one by one, redeem themselves. I believe that's how the original ending would have gone: Terezi would ask John to bring Vriska back, because she only feels comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Vriska would then have asked John to bring back Tavros, whom she regretted killing. Tavros would be there for Gamzee, rendering him an ally. Gamzee would ask John to bring back Equius and Nepeta. Equius would ask John to help him not make the same mistakes with Aradia, and Aradiabot would catch John by the wrist and demand he bring her back in time to before she died, allowing her to circumvent her own death and Sollux's guilt. Sollux would ask John to keep him from provoking Eridan, saving Feferi. And Feferi would be pretty ok with the way things were... but KARKAT would then pull John aside, and drop an entire book of mistakes he made on John's lap, and this would result in a finalized timeline where all his friends are alive and god-tiered.

Because all the trolls SHOULD have survived.

Vriska should've survived because people should be allowed to have second chances.

Tavros should've survived because caring about each other, and being willing to show kindness and mercy, are good things.

Gamzee should have survived because people mired in religious fundamentalism and cults deserve to be offered a helping hand.

Equius should've survived because people should be allowed to grow and change their beliefs.

Nepeta should've survived because she was the anti-casteism troll. Casteism is bad, folks! Not only that, but I'm convinced that she was originally going to give the Ultimate Self exposition, and Davepetasprite^2 had to be contrived in the canon ending in order to shortcut Nepeta's character development, ruining it in the process.

Aradia should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team and live a life free of the control of evil uncles and shitty ancestors.

Sollux should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team because we all deserve to heal and be happy.

Feferi should've survived so she could be in a kismesistude with Nepeta, and realize that casteism itself is bad, not just the definition of culling, and then used her Witch of Life powers to even out the lifespans between the next generation of trolls, which needs to happen or else casteism will just happen again as long-lived highbloods inevitably amass power. And, also, it would complete the prophecy Gl'bgolyb gave her that she was intended to unite the two races (dream bubbles don't count, because by that metric, Sollux did more than she did by establishing a connection between the trolls and humans).

And Eridan should've survived, because the harm society has done to us can be undone. We don't have to submit to the roles it imposes, to the laws it wrote, to the abuse it inflicted. We can be free.

I've seen a lot of people who believe that such-and-such character did SUCH awful things that they don't deserve a happy ending. Oftentimes, it's Eridan, but nearly all of the dead trolls have gotten this treatment. So, let me just ask all of you who have gotten this far and still hold that opinion one thing. Do you think that's what Troll Jesus would have wanted?

This is why pale EriKar is so important: for it to happen, Eridan has to make a choice between upholding the beliefs of his shitty society, or pursuing a happier, kinder future, one where he outright rejects the caste system. For it to happen, Karkat has to shake all his insecurities about not being good enough by Alternian standards, and take on the duty of creating something better than what he came from. If pale EriKar happens, it means Eridan and Karkat choose love, not fear. Compassion, forgiveness, and equality.

This choice - this pairing - is the ultimate representation of giving Alternian society one big middle finger. Saying, we don't need you anymore, fuck off! Saying, we reject you at your core; we will choose something better! Saying, we will create a new world, and it will be kinder than the one we came from!

Pale EriKar means LOVE WINS.

Thank you for reading.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Cut out the reblogs for length, I'll try to quote you so people have context to what I'm replying to but stuff is going to get lost so I'm sorry about that

I absolutely did not agree with the idea that it devalued the characters we'd been following the whole time because of the levels of meta involved.

I also don't think that the "meta"-ness of the retcon was the problem. Homestuck is a postmodern work, and thus, meta commentary is inextricably woven into the story from the very beginning, all the way through to the end. The problem I have with the ending actually has nothing to do with how "meta" it is. It's about how character arcs - which are ongoing even through Act 6, right up until post-Game Over - get randomly discarded en masse, which is completely inconsistent with the ENTIRE story up until that point. Karkat and Jake are the big offenders, but, for example, Dave never really resolves his hangups about not wanting to kill LE and then is suddenly just doing it, Davesprite's problems are all fixed by being combined with Nepetasprite, and Rose's alcoholism is solved by Vriska knocking a glass out of her hand. Kanaya's bad habit of completely disregarding, and even bullying/trying to kill people she doesn't like is also never touched on, and it's not like Dirk, Jane, or Roxy ever properly resolved their bullshit either.

But when the comic multiple times looks directly at the audience and says "nah man character arcs are bogus people are just people," it makes sense to think that maybe Hussie wasn't really clear on where he wanted every character to go by the end of the story.

Okay, so... when the characters are doing this prior to the retcon, it is because their character arcs are ONGOING and they are still struggling with their place in the world and what it means to be a hero, Dave especially. Much of the early comic, with Vriska and John, sets up how they kind of "cheated" their way into god-tier, or otherwise fell ass-first into it, and they muse on the implications of taking shortcuts, and whether that was detrimental to them. Given that god tiering is a metaphor for adulthood - a semi-permanent state to be reached at the end of the coming-of-age that SBURB/SGRUB is, this basically sets the tone that Vriska, and all of the kids, "grew up too fast," without having proper time to examine the circumstances that led them to god-tiering or resolving their childhood hangups.

This is ESPECIALLY true for Rose and Dave, who muse the most about their arcs and their storylines - Rose discussing whether or not it's even worth it to do her planetary quest, or if it was calibrated for a 13 year old girl and wouldn't be relevant to her anymore, and Dave's constant refusal of the call and duty to slay Lord English. What I'm saying is, the reason these characters are refuting their arcs pre-retcon is because they're still in the middle of grappling with said arcs.

Rose has ALWAYS wanted to be taken more seriously and more grown-up than she actually is. This fuels much of her arrogance in the early story, her desire to subvert the path SBURB has laid out for her, and allows Doc Scratch (the creepy uncle) to manipulate her. This also fuels her alcoholism - not only is drinking a very Adult thing to be doing, but because Rose spent so much time trying to be Better and More Mature than her whimsical mother, she wound up missing out on having a loving relationship with her, and now she's trying to reconnect with her via alcohol. Her musings about doing her planetary quests now happen as a direct consequence of the alcoholism nearly wrecking her life:

ROSE: I wonder if our young parents are like this? ROSE: I wonder if I will ever find out? ROSE: And what should I do in the meantime? ROSE: Should I... ROSE: Should I really work on completing my personal planetary quest? ROSE: That whole thing where I learn to "play the rain?" ROSE: I guess I should feel exhilarated to have the chance again after all these years. ROSE: Of course I should. ROSE: But then, ROSE: Why does it sound like such a drag? ROSE: I haven't played the violin in a long time. ROSE: I wonder if I even remember how. ROSE: Honestly I can't recall ever feeling less motivated to satisfy a looming obligation. ROSE: I think my quest was fundamentally bound to the nature of this land, which was customized to the profile, needs, and potential for growth of a thirteen year-old girl. ROSE: But I'm not that person anymore. ROSE: What if I ROSE: What if I just ROSE: Didn't bother doing it? ROSE: Like, ever? ROSE: Would anyone notice my dereliction? ROSE: Would the powers that be strike me down where I loaf? ROSE: What if I just said fuck it? ROSE: What then, silly pink tortoise shells? Hmmmm?? ROSE: ROSE: I guess I should stop procrastinating and have This Conversation with Kanaya.

The text at this point is NOT saying, "yeah man, character arcs are bogus and people are just people." It's saying, "I know I messed up somewhere, that I failed to resolve my problems, but I don't know if the advice and guidance I could've gotten when I was younger would even help me now." And here's the other thing: SHE SHOULD BE DOING HER QUEST.

We know this because John attaining the enlightenment needed to fully harness his retcon abilities is the direct result of finishing his quest. The quests remain relevant and helpful even now that they're older - in fact, Skaia/SBURB is outright stated to be sapient and omniscient, so it's actually implied that it will modify things on-the-fly to account for its players' decisions and current states of mind. LE's existence and actions are described as "sanctioned by paradox space," that is to say, paradox space has already accounted for his existence AND his defeat, which includes John's retcon powers - which is why John's quest is literally tied to said powers, and always has been.

What Rose doesn't realize - and apparently the audience doesn't realize, either - is that she's very much STILL IN THE GAME. Her planetary quest has likely already accounted for the fact that she'll be older and wiser when she finally gets around to it. Her arc has not stopped. It is currently ongoing, and questioning whether she should do the hard, gruelling, unfun, uncomfortable work of examining herself and fixing her unresolved childhood problems is part of her arc.

Rose outright likens not doing it to "loafing." This is especially true in the context of the Dancestors, who represent failing at growing up and maturing as hard as you possibly can, with so many of their problems directly stemming from NOT engaging with their mythological roles or responsibilities - Porrim ignoring frog breeding and Meenah's Entire Backstory. More on the dancestors and LE later, but I'm just going to mention here that the take that they only exist to mock the fandom is INCREDIBLY reductive and COMPLETELY misses the point. The Dancestors represent the game's Fail State - their actions are meant to be the OPPOSITE of aspirational.

So let's look at Dave, the other guy who spends the most time complaining about his arc pre-retcon. His baggage, I think, is a little more obvious than Rose's, because he was one of the few characters that actually got to talk about it post-retcon. He spent his childhood being tormented and abused by his older brother, under the guise of making him "stronger," and he spends much of the early comic defending his brother's actions and looking up to him as an ideal to achieve. Moreover, their living conditions were abysmal, and it was implied Dave had to be very careful even just to get food to eat. Thus, while Rose was obsessed with being more adult than she actually was, Dave was thrust into self-sufficiency - forced to grow up too fast.

And his planetary quest seems to mirror the expectations his brother placed on him - Dave is meant to reforge a broken blade and use it to kill LE.

DAVE: i mean DAVE: i think i might be "supposed" to kill him anyway? #air quotes DAVE: thats the feeling i get like there are all these clues about that ive kinda noticed #remember that bullshit about the pimp being in the crib? #hahaha oh god DAVE: so if i am THE GUY that needs to take him down then fine ill do that if and when i get hornswoggled into some big showdown with a ridiculous green space pimp or whatever he is #i heard he has a gold tooth #are you fuckin kidding me DAVE: i dont know i think im not really cut out for the whole reluctant hero shtick #im better at comics DAVE: like the whole scene is so obvious and trite and i cant even tell if my reluctance is ironic or if im playing it straight #reluctant before it was cool #and before i was willing DAVE: like ill wonder if im being reluctant enough to cut it or if im actually just being reluctant to be reluctant #how reluctant do you even have to BE to DOOOOO something like etc etc #sbahj DAVE: it turns into like meta reluctance and then all i can think about is how fucking stupid the whole thing is  #i also think about puppets sometimes… #unrelated DAVE: i think im probably just too self aware for this hero bullshit so dont even waste your time on me #ironic self pity

And again, we know that the end point of his reluctance is that he does need to complete this quest, because he DOES complete the quest - either when he kills Jack English with Caledfwch, or when he and the beta kids land the final blow on LE in the dream bubbles when the treasure is deployed.

In fact, maybe one his biggest moments of refusing the call is when he's talking to Grimbark Jade about this exact situation after they alchemize Caledfwch.

DAVE: the empress can suck it DAVE: i have no intention of fighting him DAVE: and this isnt even me pulling more lame self aware reluctant hero junk DAVE: i am just straight up not going to do it DAVE: see thats not reluctance its just petulant refusal on my part DAVE: reluctant hero shit is when the guys like aw shucks i dunno if i wanna but deep down we all know he really does DAVE: but i really dont DAVE: why should i DAVE: i dont give a damn about lord english or his nebulous atrocities out in nowherespace DAVE: what kind of villain is someone you never met who hardly did anything evil to you or your friends directly DAVE: or even to anyone in your universe for that matter other than through some vague insidious influence DAVE: who even is this guy and why should i hate him DAVE: am i really supposed to be pissed off at a green muscle monster i never met DAVE: cause i aint pissed off at no muscle monster DAVE: hell wasnt he in some ass backwards way responsible for us existing in the first place? DAVE: or all of humanity for that matter?? DAVE: maybe i should thank him before chopping him up via welshscalibur

But it's important to put this in its proper context: right before he has this conversation with Jade, he's looking through his old bedroom, soliloquizing about his old interests and looking through his old selfies, which causes him to laugh so hard he breaks down crying.

The context is, Dave spent 3 years on a meteor emotionally alone - Karkat hated his rap and would constantly tell him so, Kanaya and Rose didn't care, and he rejected Terezi and she started hatedating Gamzee. Moreover, he spent those three years not being able to help anyone. Rose became an alcoholic and started having relationship problems with Kanaya; Terezi's relationship was incredibly toxic. One of the big hangups he complains about to Grimbark!Jade is that he was helping her with the frog quest knowing the entire time that he would have to die and leave her alone - it's safe to say that the fact that so much bad stuff seems inevitable to him as a time player is weighing heavily on his shoulders.

The reason he has such a strong emotional reaction to his old selfies is because they represent an innocence, hope, and joy that he's lost. Much of this sequence is him thinking about what could have been and interests he forgot he had. In other words, at the point of time where Dave is saying he refuses to fight LE is when he has depression. It's not meant to be a good thing! It's not meant to be a profound statement on how people are people and don't have arcs! It's meant to show that Dave is going through it, so mired in his personal hangups, his depression, and his unresolved childhood trauma, that he's literally refusing to make their situation better.

He is literally incorrect about LE having done nothing directly to them - he WATCHED his dead friends getting double killed in the dream bubbles. Moreover, boiling LE's influence on the story and its events to nothing more than "a sinister influence" is a nutso take for him to have when that encompasses things like the Condesce being in the humans' sessions, every manipulation Doc Scratch performed, and even parts of his own abuse, as his older brother was being influenced by LE inside of Lil' Cal (sure, he doesn't know about these, but that's dramatic irony - we, the audience, are supposed to know that he's full of shit because LE has done WAY MORE than just ominously hang around in the background). By saying he thinks he should thank LE for bringing them into creation, he is functionally saying that he thinks maybe he should thank his abuser for abusing him - we are NOT supposed to agree with Dave here! This is supposed to be Dave's lowest point!

And at least part of Dave's hangups about killing LE like he's "supposed to" are displaced feelings he has towards the way his brother treated him. He has had expectations on his shoulders for his entire life, and he secretly always resented that. Now that he's once more being forcibly pulled into the line of duty, this time by Grimbark!Jade, he's going Fuck that!

But that's the setup for his arc, which he's still on. It's about processing the abuse he suffered and then choosing to better his situation. It's about taking up the sword not because the SBURB is telling him that he should, but taking it up because it will make life better.

Dave is under the impression that he's supposed to be an archetypal reluctant hero - someone who pretends like they don't want to do the big heroics, but secretly wants to deep down, and he thinks he's failed to live up to this. He genuinely doesn't want to take up the blade and confront LE. But that's because Dave is wrong about what his arc is supposed to be - making things better, and fixing your problems, is hard. Choosing to improve the world instead of letting it stay rotten is hard. It's unpleasant, boring, and unfun. But it should still be done. He CAN regain the joy and hope that he lost - he just has to make the hard choice, and do the hard work. He has to understand what parts of his childhood were cruel and unfair, and what things in his present day seem cruel and unfair, but are actually helpful and useful to him, and choose to pursue them even if he doesn't want to because it will make his life better.

[Hussie] definitely knew where they wanted the plot to go by the end, even if they fell victim to the same shit all long-running media creators face when they realize how fucking huge their narrative has gotten. I think Game Over and the retcon were, in a way, a response to Hussie believing they'd written themselves into a corner.

I agree that a large part of the post-Game Over story truncation was driven by the fact that they realized how much more writing they would have to do before they could achieve their original intended and set up ending. I'm glad that we agree that there was originally another ending planned.

However, I am going to disagree about Game Over and the Retcon being a means of escaping a corner. I believe that these elements were always intended, for several reasons:

First, because a horrible ending like Game Over actually fits perfectly into the story that was set up prior. Caliborn outright talks about how he set up the circumstances of his own defeat - and if it's Caliborn doing the setting up, then of course he'd create a situation where everybody loses!

We even see in the retcon that the characters from the Game Over timeline still exist, now with (parentheses) around their names. This means that the Game Over crew, who are now dead and in the dream bubbles, are now in position to fight and defeat LE. Thus, the story Caliborn has written for everyone is one where, yes, he is ultimately defeated, BUT it comes at the expense of everyone else dying and being screwed over, too.

So then, the retcon. It does NOT come out of nowhere as a means for Hussie to write themselves out of a corner - the retcon powers are actually a natural final culmination of John's arc as a well-meaning guy who's everybody's friend, and, perhaps more damningly, as a player of Breath.

Blood and Breath are matched pairs - if Blood is about bonds and connections, then Breath is about FREEDOM and CHOICES. Let's not forget that everything to do with LE has been sanctioned by paradox space, and, thus, is accounted for by the sapience of SBURB. And this includes granting the most fully-realized Breath player, who never gave up on his friends and never stopped wanting the best for them, the literal ability to CHOOSE A NEW FUTURE, unbound by the machinations of LE and his control over which timeline is the alpha. Because, let's not forget, the actual definition of the alpha timeline is "the timeline that leads to LE's arrival." The story has always set up that its happy ending would be one where that outcome is refuted.

And finally, there are elements that survived into the post-retcon story that appear to take cues from this setup of the Game Over crew still having arcs and adventures in the dream bubbles after dying, while the post-retcon crew are assembling and finishing their character development. The most glaring are the dangling plot threads, but there's also shit like the Ultimate Self that Davepetasprite^2 talks about, which seems like it's a way to turn the tragedy of the Game Over cast dying and staying dead into something bittersweet instead - it means that eventually, as every surviving character achieves ultimate selfhood, this will include their memories of being their Game Over iterations, so those sacrifices don't remain forgotten.

It also would mean that Lord English is defeated exclusively by dead and (irrelevant) characters while inside the dream bubbles - symbolically rendering him "nothing more than a bad dream." This 1:1 mirrors the existence godtier!Calliope:

CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything. CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't. CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand. CALLIOPE: live.

Those that were most screwed over by LE's existence get the satisfaction of being the ones to pummel his face in. And, by taking on that responsibility, that sacrifice, the surviving characters post-retcon are able to live - happy, together, and free.

And, here's the thing. If Hussie wanted to bring everyone who was dead back? That's what the retcon would've been there for. It was the perfect opportunity to have John pop in between all of the major fights and stop a few murders. Even if you want to argue that Terezi wouldn't have thought of that, there were absolutely no rules on that shit.

Yes. This is actually why I am arguing that that was the original plan and then it was discarded. It literally makes no sense that Karkat, who has spent the entire meteor ride complaining about missing his dead friends, whose aspect is blood, which governs bonds (such as friendship), is sitting there with MULTIPLE means of resurrecting his friends and NOT SAYING ANYTHING.

Because it's so WILDLY out of character for this to happen, it seems much more likely to me that not bringing back the dead assholes is author fiat, as it's a decision that can't be justified in-universe. I'm glad that we agree that the retcon existed as a way to bring everybody back.

This is the comic that created 10-12 caricatures of fandom culture meant to be as annoying as possible and whose main villain is a screaming tween at a computer.

I am going to outright tell you that the - apparently common - fandom take that the dancestors Only Exist To Spite The Fandom is completely untrue. There are elements there that do serve as parodies of the worst parts of the fandom, but the dancestors are incredibly thematically relevant AND fill in a lot of backstory (it's heavily implied that the dancestors cringefailing so hard literally gave rise to LE). I go very in-depth on that here - it's a whole essay on its own - but reducing them to "Hussie was mean to the audience" and LE/Caliborn to a "screaming tween at a computer" completely misses the point.

The dancestors and LE are shallow and immature - you've correctly identified that - but think about it in the context of Homestuck's broader themes. It's a coming of age. Hussie outright says it's always been about maturing and growing up.

And thusly, the main villain is a child who stunted his own growth and completely refused to engage with the SBURB's usual coming-of-age stuff by murdering his co-player before it could begin. The dancestors, who either gave LE entry into their universe, or even caused LE to be created in the first place, got to that point by being so shitty and immature to each other that they reached physical adulthood without managing to fix even a SINGLE emotional problem or interpersonal issue between them. If the story is about how kids should grow up, mature, and be kind to one another, then the dancestors and LE represent children who physically grew up but emotionally remained the same, who were immature, and who were CRUEL to each other. They could hardly BE better antagonists for this specific story, so diametrically they are opposed to its fundamental themes.

You can still choose to believe what you believe - end of the day, sometimes we must agree to disagree - but it does seem kind of odd that you bring up so many points in favor of much more being set up than Hussie was able to execute, only to then argue that they didn't have any grand plans set up. I think you might want to try re-examining your own arguments.

[lilietsblog]

So I see we have very different reads on the authorial intentions of the overarching themes.

(Which, I am on the same page as you, are there and were intended. I was thinking about something really specific when I made the previous post and as a result my argument came out pretty much 100% factually wrong, you're correct about that)

The game is not good.

Yes, it's "designed to promote their growth". To this end, it kills their family and wipes their planet of intelligent life. To this end, it employs doomed timelines that Time players have to sacrifice themselves and everyone in them to escape.

The game is doing this all for the greater good. But it's not unreasonable for the players to view it as an antagonistic force.

Remember how epic Rose's anger was? Her walkthrough, and the way it guided the trolls? Opposition to the game's rules, the drive to break them, is an integral part of the plot.

You say that Dave thanking LE for their existence is thanking your abuser for abusing you, BUT THE SAME APPLIES TO THE GAME. Dave's quest planet was directly designed to trigger his PTSD non-stop. The game kills off everyone outside of their group so they only have each other to rely on.

My friend said, and I agree, that Hussie's failure was not in discarding intended arcs, but in failing to convince the audience that discarding the arcs was intended and the better outcome. These kids are not shown to be fighting to grow up "right", these kids are fighting to SURVIVE THE GAME. To make it to the other side, to make it out of predestination and time loops and personally designed quests. They needed to BEAT THE GAME, and they did it through a series of zany antics and wacky hijinx instead of by Finishing All Their Quests. Not that finishing their quests is the wrong move - when a speedrunner speedruns a game, they are going to incorporate some of the intended beats into it where they're the fastest way to get things done.

That's why there's so much antagonism towards the audience in the mix: because the game is not a harmonious benevolent construct that ultimately makes this work out for the best. It's got blood on the gears, and it grinds and it grinds.

Caliborn is an intellectually disabled kid that gets actively goaded and mocked by the narrator for things he hasn't actually done yet. His big misdeeds as a kid was killing his sister... which is something he needed to do to survive by the biological rules of his species... and making a shitty fanfic. That's what John beats him up for!!! For writing a shitty fanfic!!! His actual Big Crimes That Everyone Wants To Kill Him For (Callie's friends aside) are not even as himself - they're as a mixture of himself, Gamzee, Equius and Dirk. Caliborn is a victim of predestination same as the rest of the kids, and just because he happily embraced it and looked forward to the weird destruction of self that would happen to him, doesn't mean he is the real driving antagonistic force.

The plot of the comic is not PvP, it's PvE. Loops closing, things happening, gears grinding. Would Rose have been better off after finishing her quest? Maybe. But she just wanted to get out of the game that killed her mom and literally everyone else on the planet Earth. She's a human being, and if the game is trying to forcefully push her through a "character arc" it's her eldritch-gods-given right to resist.

(Was that part written compellingly or in a way that at least made a lick of sense? No. No, it was not)

(But I see no reason to assume that the basic plot beats, who lives and who dies, were not the intended ones)

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, but I think your argument is flawed because it misses the lens of allegory, symbolism, and metaphor that Homestuck is intended to be viewed through; your points largely consist of interpreting Homestuck as a series of events that literally occur to real people, and said peoples' realistic emotional reactions to those events, where Homestuck is instead meant to be read as an allegory first and literal series of events second. While interpreting it in other ways is valid, a la death of the author, because we literally have the author weighing in, we can empirically surmise what Hussie intended the story to be read as.

THE THEMES OF HOMESTUCK (yes, like we are in schoolfeeding again)

Given that I like to quote things and cite my sources, I would really appreciate if you could extend the same amount of effort when discussing this with me. It also helps to ensure we're all on the same page, so incidents like stating broadly that "Hussie does not employ themes" when you meant that "he didn't employ them in a more specific instance" don't happen again. I also find that I tend to have a more solid and grounded argument when I know for certain what I'm referencing, rather than relying on memory and emotion. So with that request out of the way:

Hussie has spoken extensively about the comic having always been about two things at its core: the first, a coming-of-age story regarding a bunch of internet friends, and the second, a creation myth.

I always saw HS as an exploration of young people developing relationships over the internet [...] There's a lot more to HS than just that obviously, but if there's anything which it's been about through and through, it's modern kids relating to each other from afar, developing as people and growing up.

HS was always going to be a story about an extremely elaborate creation myth. As elaborate as I could conceive. In the HS reality, Sburb/Sgrub is the means by which universes procreate. Planets and civilizations are the seeds from which one or many new universes will blossom if the players succeed, at the expense of the life on that planet.

Homestuck also regularly invokes mythology, religious themes, and folklore, in order to put the reader into that mindspace. Naming the denizens after proper mythological figures, having the kids' entry artifacts all be references to mythological or folkloric "departures," naming angels and cherubs "angels" and "cherubs" - this isn't done merely for the cool value. SBURB itself draws so much from mythology, because within the universe of this story, mythology itself is derived from SBURB.

This was actually my line of thinking in writing Rose's wizardfic. If you sift through that dense excerpt, you find it's about 12 evil kids who played a role in influencing every dark event in history. My intent was that this was her subconsciously echoing the creation story of her own universe.

Squiddles I guess are a sort of candy coated representation of the outer gods. Not literally. They are a brand in a fictional universe. A cartoon show. They were not necessarily conjured into existence by the gods, via dark conspiracy either. It's more likely that humans created them as an echo of their subconscious awareness that these gods exist, and present them through this cute, approachable facade.

Hussie also outright discusses how much religious stories influence the themes and setting of the work when discussing the dancestors:

We learn more about the troll race, as a once peaceful species and such before kid-ancestors as players scratched their session, though the short term relevance of this is mainly as a preamble to Scratch's religious story. Establishing an Eden-like paradise from which there is some departure through sin is sort of the boilerplate basis for religious lore. Scratch is a devil figure about as blatant as the Sufferer is a Christ figure. The failed players from peaceful Alternia made a classic "deal with the devil" move by causing the scratch after being given a choice by the mother of all monsters. (Echidna. Hey, she's a big snake!) By doing so they brought Scratch into their universe, and therefore all the things you'd expect that comes with summoning the devil. This resulted not only turning Alternia into a planet full of violent murderers, but it only technically granted them what they wanted with a huge caveat, as is the case with such ill-advised bargains. The players were strong enough to win, but made a terminal universe, were barred from entry, hunted by a demon, and then started killing each other.

Something I generally notice when discussing media online is that many people are "trained" to interpret media off of more popular, accessible, long-running fiction, such as children's cartoons, SuperWhoLock, Star Wars, MCU, etc. In these works, theme often takes a backseat to character drama and hijinks - it's still there, especially in the stuff considered "better," but it's usually not the major focus of the work, save as a barebones framework upon which the rest of the story is draped.

Homestuck - and many pieces of classical literature, especially older epics (which Homestuck draws many cues from) - is constructed in the opposite way: its themes are its most important aspect, and everything else in the story is working in conjunction to prop the themes up. The interpretation you have of the story is RADICALLY different if you consider Homestuck from the POV of its literal events, and if you consider Homestuck from the POV of Homestuck-as-allegory - and the second one is more consistent with the ways characters act and react, as well as the way Hussie describes the work.

If you read Homestuck as if it's an allegory for growing up, then SBURB naturally slots in as a metaphor for the emotional state that children find themselves in as they begin their paths to adulthood.

SBURB AS A METAPHOR FOR ADOLESCENCE.

There comes a point in childhood where the child stops being a child - the safe, familiar, comfortable world that they knew stops existing, and they can never get it back. They are thrust into a world that is alien and massive, and forced to grapple with the weight of their future duties. They deal with losing their guardians and finding direction in their absence. They must decide how they want to grow up, and then are responsible for shaping the society that comes after them.

Each of the kids' entry artifacts has an element of a new beginning, but also of loss of innocence:

John bites an apple, the act of original sin from the Bible.

Rose breaks a bottle, the way ships are christened; however, alcohol is something very associated with "adulthood" in Rose's character arc.

Dave must wait for an egg to hatch, an act of birth and parenthood.

Jade must shoot a pinata effigy of her dog - pinatas are associated with birthdays, and therefore, birth, but the shooting of her dog is a direct reference to putting down Old Yeller.

The symbolism of killing her dangerous dog to enter (i.e. a step toward growing up) borrows notes from the Old Yeller story, but in this case, it's a dog that can't die (though nevertheless would assume a death-like state through prototyping). Also included in her challenge was taking a shot in the dark (much like Rose's leap of faith) and relying on her friend who redirected the bullet through his own head, the very friend she was attempting to slay in effigy.

(Emphasis mine.)

Therefore, we are not meant to read SBURB's destruction of the old world as fully literal; we are intended to read it as metaphorical. Entry into SBURB is the loss of innocence, a child suddenly thrust into adolescence, into a world where their peers become more important than their guardians. A world where light and dark, kindness and cruelty, creation and destruction, are locked in eternal battle, and the children must navigate it, and determine where in it they stand.

Through this lens, the guardians (sprites, parents, lusii, etc.) dying is not a malicious act from an omniscient sadist, but another part of this coming-of-age metaphor. Even if a child's parents don't literally die, there is usually a point in adolescence where they undergo a metaphorical death in the eyes of the child - where the child realizes that their parents are fallible, mortal humans, and not permanent fixtures of paragon morality. That's why it's literally baked into the game that sprites will feel compelled to go to the Battlefield when they don't know what else to do, where they will presumably die. (And why all the lususprites are dead, despite the trolls being so good at the game that all their dreamselves except Sollux's spare are still alive even post-BK fight.)

DAVESPRITE: the battlefield will probably be wiped out soon JADESPRITE: can we do something to stop it? DAVESPRITE: would there be a point JADESPRITE: i dont know..... JADESPRITE: i like it here though JADESPRITE: i felt like i was drawn to come here when i wasnt sure where to go DAVESPRITE: yeah me too

The end goal, then, is to grow up and mature into gods - god-tiering once more being a metaphor for adulthood, as it's a semi-permanent state at the end of a character's questing through SBURB/journey through adolescence. Not only that, but as gods (adults), to repopulate that world (become parents or guardians for a new generation), and to determine its nature. This latter aspect is as true for the real world as it is for the characters - the children of today become the voters, rebels, police, and politicians of tomorrow.

In fact, I agree with you that the characters are justified in resenting SBURB - because human people often resent adolescence. This doesn't make SBURB an antagonistic force, nor does it make it a villain to defeat. When characters grapple with it, what they're really grappling with is growing up, and what that entails.

The Outer Gods are actually a part of the game - they and the Furthest Ring fit in with the duality that pervades SBURB. Dark and light. Derse and Prospit. Light/Void, Breath/Blood, Mind/Heart, Hope/Rage, Life/Doom, Space/Time. Active/Passive. Skaia and the Furthest Ring. Half the players start out on Derse for a reason, and Horrorterrors are still seen as guides and still wind up playing a crucial role in the propagation of a new universe, despite calling for destruction. This is because navigating these dualities, uncertainties, and ambiguities is a massive part of growing up. Rose rebelling against the path SBURB has set out for her by acting as an agent of the Horrorterrors is, itself, an action that has been sanctioned by SBURB. It turns out that listening to dark influences, and maybe even succumbing to them, is a common part of growing up, and not every impulse to destroy is evil - in fact, it's sometimes necessary.

I never said the game was good, but viewing the game as evil is also a misread. The game is a neutral, omniscient entity that serves, in-universe, as a means of propogating universes, whose goals are ultimately aligned with the players, as raising mature, kind players coincides with creating a stable, fertile universe; out-of-universe, the game is a metaphor for the struggles of adolescence, magnified and heightened. Neither of these are villainous or antagonistic.

But a story isn't really fun or engaging if it's just blandly telling you its message - you know, like I'm doing now, in yet another long, boring essay from Tumblr user caligvlasaqvarivm. Therefore, what Homestuck does is engage the reader with a fun, magical story about kids going on an adventure, full of twists and turns. Moreover, exaggerating the stakes to such a massive extent aids in the delivery of the themes, moreso than just saying the themes outright - makes them more emotionally impactful and spiritually profound.

FREE WILL > PREDESTINATION.

Moreover, I think you've fundamentally misunderstood how time and predestination in Homestuck work. Homestuck falls firmly on the side of free will, and always has - the retcon is the most blatant example of this, but it is always, always character actions that shape the past and future, with SBURB and its constructions desperately running around to catch up.

The exiles/carapacians in general are explicitly stated to be running around in the backlines making sure things work out for the players:

GC: TH31R ROL3 1S TO H3LP YOU ON YOUR QU3ST 1N SOM3 W4YS GC: TH3 OBV1OUS W4Y 1S BY D1R3CTLY GU1DING YOUR 4CT1ONS GC: BUT M4YB3 TH3 MOR3 1MPORT4NT W4YS 4R3 TH3S3 L1TTL3 TH1NGS TH3Y DO PROB4BLY W1THOUT 3V3N R34L1Z1NG 1T GC: 4CT1ONS TH4T COMPL3T3 LOOPS 1N TH3 T1M3L1NE GC: COGS 1N P4R4DOX SP4C3

Things in Homestuck seem predetermined because perspective is a very malleable thing - thus, even if it's character actions and intentions that cause things to happen, because we're gazing at the story non-linearily, things seem as though they're predestined, especially from the point of view of the characters.

Aranea gives us one of the most solid explanations of how time works:

AG: Think of it like circulatory system, where the veins and capillaries that do not help the overall flow of 8lood through the system are likely to wither and die. Those are doomed offshoots. AG: Reality itself is using you and many others to propagate its own existence. Strictly speaking, there is only one path to its successful propagation. 8ut it still permits you to make choices. Not all that are conceiva8le, 8ut some nevertheless, as dictated 8y who you are and the challenges you face. And you are free to make key decisions however you like, as long as you understand that some of these paths unfairly or not will lead to o8livion. 8ecause those choices do not contri8ute constructively to the perpetuation of all existence, including your own. AG: Such is the 8urden assumed 8y anyone who plays this game.

If it were the case that predestination is predestination, and the story is about the illusory nature of free will, then certainly, Hussie would make note of how much that factors into the story in all their thousands and thousands of words, right?

But they don't. I searched up the words "fate" and "destin" too, and there's very little discussion of that. If you look at the Hussie excerpt on the dancestors above, I think it's very telling for just how much free will weighs on the story rather than fate - the Dancestors are stated by Doc Scratch to have suffered a glitch that rendered their game unwinnable from the start - however, it's also heavily implied that said glitch was a result of Damara's "timeline sabotage" (more on this later), and would not have existed in their session if the Dancestors had been less shitty to each other. In fact, given the way Echidna's Choice for the dancestors was worded, it's entirely possible that, had they chosen not to scratch, LE would simply not exist:

The heroes, understanding their defeat was absolute, sought advice from the mother of all monsters. She offered them a choice. The heroes could either accept their defeat along with the extinction of their race, and put no others at risk. Or, she could show them a path to a second chance, to a reality in which the chosen heroes of their race would be strong enough to succeed with ease, and claim the reward.

SBURB modifies the timeline to account for player choices, not the other way around. Choices and free will preside over predestination. Skaia is stated to be extremely passive, and when requested by the Scratch to perform an active action, it ONLY has control over where and when its defense portals exit to. As Terezi says:

GC: 4ND 1 FORC3D MY OWN H4ND. 1 COULD 31TH3R L3T 3V3RYON3 D13 1N ON3 R34L1TY, OR K1LL 4 FR13ND 1N 4NOTH3R GC: 4ND 1 T3LL MYS3LF THOS3 W3R3 TH3 ONLY TWO VORT1C3S 1 S4W... GC: BUT TH3N, 1 W4S TH3 ON3 WHO M4D3 TH3 S3R13S OF D3C1S1ONS WH1CH L3D UP TO TH4T CHO1C3, 4ND COMPL3T3LY P41NT3D TH3 OPT1ONS 1NTO TH4T CORN3R

So any read of the text that places emphasis on the tragedy of predestination is missing the point - predestination, fate, and prophecy ARE factors in play within this story, but only insofar as they become the inevitable results of the choices players make (and aren't even that inevitable, as time travel is another massive variable in play). And, again, we must discount the words Dave says about the point of time travel being not using time travel, because firstly, time travel DOES END UP SAVING THE DAY (he uses it in the final boss fight, not to mention the Retcon), and secondly, he's at his lowest point when he talks about it, and most of what he says is representative of the emotional hangups he must overcome.

CALIBORN, THE DANCESTORS, AND LORD ENGLISH AS EXTENSIONS OF THE COMING OF AGE METAPHOR.

So Homestuck is a story about being a kid and growing up. The game wants them to become mature, empathetic, kind people, because doing so - forging friendships and caring about each other and getting over their personal hangups - are literally baked into the game as win conditions. Personal quests are directly tied into personal growth, and failure to achieve a healthy Bilious Slick are directly tied to characters failing to overcome their emotional issues. Even if you want to read this literally, and not as a metaphor, it is still very much in SBURB's best interest to raise kind, mature players who succeed - because SBURB's goal is to propogate a new, healthy, fertile universe.

Therefore, the antagonists in this story represent the opposite: they are people who remain immature, don't care about their friends, and are cruel to each other. I'll start with the dancestors and work my way up.

The Dancestors are awful to each other in very creative, interesting, and horrible ways. I'll really quickly go over their baggage one-by-one, but I'm mostly going to recommend my Dancestor essay again, so you can get a closer look.

Rufioh cheated on Damara long-term with Horuss, would never have told her if the rest of their team hadn't found out, and calls her crazy and jealous, while simultaneously asking her for advice on his relationship with Horuss.

The other Dancestors are implied to be keeping Mituna brain-damaged on purpose, despite multiple means and multiple years in which they could've found some way to heal him, because his constant prophecies of doom (and implied attempts to make the Dancestors stop being so shitty) were really annoying.

Kankri is completely full of shit. At one point he tells Mituna to stop being brain damaged in a way that makes other brain damaged people look bad.

Meulin is fucking over her team's romances because she's repressing all her awful feelings and self-loathing, which we know because it's advice she gives to Horuss, and mages are prophets (but since free will > predestination, it's more like mages can call the future than that they're reading the future).

Porrim was a bra-burning radfem throughout the game and is basically the only dancestor that got better after she died; she was so busy fighting the patriarchy that she ended up shirking frog breeding entirely.

Latula is so insecure that she's literally dating Mituna because "he will always need me." Yikes.

Aranea... well, we see a lot of it, but she's also relentlessly bitchy and mean to her teammates when she's expositing on them. If you re-read her segments, she basically can't help herself from shitting on them, to the point where even Meenah's like "yo, uncalled for" sometimes.

Horuss is so incredibly, genuinely casteist that he apologizes to Meenah for dating Meulin and Rufioh, seeing them both as incredibly beneath his station. If he isn't outright ignoring Rufioh's attempt to break up, then he's obliviously refusing to listen because he legitimately doesn't care what a lowblood has to say.

Kurloz either is outright evil and wants all people ever to fail, or turned that way after the constant mistreatment the dancestors showed each other (and maybe especially that they showed Mituna). Can't blame him. He's also a creep using mind control on his matesprit.

Cronus... well, Cronus. But also, his friends literally bullied the hope out of him, because they're all fucking awful to each other.

Meenah is Vriska at her worse times ten, and doesn't even have the sad backstory and extenuating circumstances to justify any of it. She relentessly bullied Damara, while everyone else was complicit; when she discovered Rufioh's affair, she used it AGAINST DAMARA (and still everyone else remained complicit), and maintains the stance that shirking responsibility is actually cool and great. She never stops thinking the Condesce is awesome, nor does she ever apologize to Damara.

Damara was treated abhorrently by the rest of her team - even those not involved in actively making her life worse were still fully complicit in it - and was treated as less of a person because of her low caste, shy disposition, and inability to speak English. Her finally snapping as a result of her maltreatment is implied to be how the glitch in their session came about in the first place, which is how LE gained his entry into the Trolls' universe.

Many people reduce them to acts of hostility against the audience, and they really aren't. The original trolls were already commentaries on internet archetypes, specifically forum culture (that's why they're called trolls - they're internet trolls), and the Beforus trolls do the exact same thing, just with Tumblr culture. If people took these archetypes as personal attacks, perhaps they have some self-examination to do. For example, Kankri is not a bad person because Hussie thinks social justice is stupid (in fact, Hussie praises Porrim for not being a "boring asshole" about it and acknowledges her post-death feminism as valid). Kankri's a bad person because he uses social justice as a cudgel to wield power over others with and as a cloak to hide behind - like many jackasses do in real life. So on and so forth.

This isn't necessarily aimed at you, but it's wild to me how many people I've run into who hold the opinion that the Dancestors were middle fingers aimed at them, personally. No - the Dancestors played a vital function in the story's greater mythology and history. And yes, they do suck, but they suck because they're antagonists, or at least aligned with the antagonists - in blatant ways, like granting LE entry into the story or being in cahoots with Gamzee, but in metaphorical ways, too.

You see, in the greater context of Homestuck's coming-of-age themes, the Dancestors represent something very specific: an older generation that failed their children. Abusive, neglectful, cruel, and short-sighted, they've passed on their messes for later generations to clean up. This is why they reached physical adulthood within the Medium before they died, why it's important that they did so - it's because, in a coming-of-age, that's the "finish line." That's the point at which the story stops. The Dancestors are adults that failed to grow up. And because they chose to Scratch, that means that it's their descendents' problem to fix.

SBURB is about propagation, both of universes and of the races playing them. Even so, the game gave them an option, after such a comprehensive failure to mature, to simply end the line there, and "put no others at risk." It's important that that's how the Choice was phrased - and I find it interesting that Aranea actually leaves that part out when talking to Terezi about it.

AG: I sought advice from Echidna, and she told me how to scratch the session to give us another chance. AG: 8ut the choice to do so came with accepting the annihilation of our existing forms. In the new instance, we would lead completely different lives with no memory of what happened.

Interactions with the Dancestors nearly always wind up with the cast worse-off. Aranea's involvement leaves Vriska in a position of inadequacy, enough that she wants to call it quits and leaves with the LE-killing treasure (which is encouraged and enabled by Meenah); Meenah is weirdly obsessed with Karkat, who's way too young for her (thank god Meulin didn't set them up), and he nearly jumps off the meteor to go on a suicide quest to kill LE with her. Eridan goes on a date with Cronus (ew), and Terezi feels so inadequate upon meeting Latula that she accepts Aranea's offer to heal her eyesight, which fuels her slow meltdown. Not to mention Game Over. The fact that they see romantic viability in children so many sweeps younger than they are speaks to how immature they are.

They're awful to each other, and pass on their problems to their kids, including literally making a deal with a serpent to invite the devil into their universe, while taking responsibility for none of it. So let's talk about that devil.

I think you're giving Caliborn far, far too much credit. First of all, Aranea tells us outright that if one cherub identity is destined for kindness, then one is destined for malice.

The two halves are endowed with polar opposite predispositions as well. One predisposed toward malevolence, another toward 8enevolence. Good or evil, if you prefer to deal in simplistic terms, or at least those which are convenient for the sake of this story!

According to her, possibly due to this absolute dichotomy between their natures, cherubs are generally never meant to play SBURB (which Hussie later backs up) - especially as she also exposits that they usually serve as viruses/immune systems for the universes they inhabit. From the get-go, they're creatures of myth and legend, symbols of absolute good or absolute evil, who aren't judged by the same standards as the other characters in the story.

He was allowed to 8ecome the solo player of a game which his kind was never meant to play.

But if you don't want to believe her for whatever reason (Aranea sucks, but she's usually reliable as an exposition fairy), and believe that Caliborn was fully capable of kindness and compassion, then I can roll with that. You say that he needed to kill his sister "anyways," and this is only partially true. In fact, it's outright stated that he killed her too early, and this has left him emotionally stunted. (This is backed up by Aranea, who notes that cherubs that mature properly will have wings as adults - which LE lacks).

You may be destined for bigger things, but you're still an atrocious, stupid child. And you may have won the "game" with your sister, but that doesn't mean it was the best thing for your development as a person. You had her dream self killed, which is not an opportunity your species typically gets. So she died prematurely, instead of allowing the conflict within you to settle itself naturally. In short, you forced your predomination to happen a little too early, and now you're stuck. STUCK? Yes. Your personality is stuck in some sort of cantankerous prepubescent limbo. You are going to be a stunted, miserable tool forever.

(And just as a sidebar, given that the two had wholly separate dreamselves sleeping on separate moons, this implies that they could've god tiered into separate bodies - if only they didn't make the choices they did.)

If we read this as literal things happening to literal humans (and NOT aliens that have wholly different biologies and neurologies to us), then yes, this is a fairly tragic instance of a developmentally disabled child being ragged on for that. But that's not what this is. Homestuck is themes first, characters second. And thematically, this is a perfect antithesis to what the story deems to be "good."

Driven by the selfish desire to reap the rewards of the game himself, and only by himself, and driven by impatience, cruelty, and malice, he MAKES THE CHOICE to kill his sister prematurely, locking himself into emotional immaturity. There is no point where he ever expresses regret for his actions, and when he hears about what he'll get up to as LE, he's all for it. I think it's incorrect to divest Caliborn from Lord English, when Caliborn himself so strongly believes LE to be an extension of himself.

uu: AS A LORD OF TIME. I THINK I'M GOING TO MASTER TIME. NOT WITH MY BRAIN. WHICH WOULD BE TOO HARD. BUT WITH MY INSTINCTS. uu: LIKE IN A WAY THAT WORKS WITH MY NATURAL IMPULSES. SUCH AS MY AMBITION. MY WILL TO COMMIT MAYHEM. MY DESIRE TO PUNISH THOSE I DESPISE. uu: SO IF I WANT YOU TO BECOME STRONG. SO YOU CAN CHALLENGE ME LATER. AND I SEE EVIDENCE. THAT YOU PROBABLY BECOME SUCCESSFUL. uu: I THINK TO MYSELF. WHY SHOULDN'T I BE THE ONE TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN? IF IT'S GOING TO ANYWAY. uu: I THINK PART OF MY PERSONAL QUEST. IS TO BECOME AT EASE WITH THE FORCES OF INEVITABILITY. uu: INEVITABILITY THAT ALL THINGS SHOULD AND WILL FALL IN MY FAVOR. THAT ALL CAUSALITY ANSWERS TO ME. AND THAT ALL OUTCOMES NOT ONLY SERVE ME. BUT CONSIST OF MY BEING. uu: SO I FEEL THAT. THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. uu: THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. uu: UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS. uu: EVEN IF IT HAS TO BE. uu: RETROACTIVELY.

But, yes, there are other souls in there. And Caliborn is super down for that, too.

IT IS VERY MUCH CROWDED IN THERE, CHOCK FULL OF SOULS, BELONGING TO HARDCORE BRAWLING BRUTES. ... THE PUPPET'S ESSENCE WILL FLOP AND FLUTTER THROUGH THE SHADOWS FOR ETERNITY. SURFACING IN THE NIGHTMARES OF THE UNSUSPECTING. WEASELING ITS WAY INTO THE HEARTS OF YUCKY SHITTY CHILDREN. AND WHEN ITS INFILTRATION IN THAT UNIVERSE HAS TAKEN HOLD, THE SEED WILL HAVE BEEN PLANTED. AND IT WILL PAVE THE WAY FOR MY EMERGENCE, TO WREAK MY BADNESS. FROM UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE. EACH ONE WILL FALL. AND EACH TIME I WILL GET STRONGER. AND OLDER. AND BIGGER. AND BUFFER! OHHHHHHHHHHH YES.

And here's what Hussie has to say about the other souls in there (from the book, an excerpt exists on the wiki):

I think when the time comes to show the douchebag cocktail stuck inside Cal, there's a brief temptation to regard it as an odd, semi-random melange of characters. But there are several layers of logic to the guys who all combine to form his personality. Much of the logic orbits around these negative traits associated with men, or more specifically, the "toxically masculine" aspects often linked to certain male personalities. Dirk has a lot of these traits, which are central to Dave's feelings of tension and abuse concerning his bro. The intellectual aggression, the power of assertion, the knowitall-ism, the mansplaining. That's a lot of Dirk stuff when he's at his worst. Equius shares a lot of those traits too, with some different points of emphasis. Both of them have this creepy-guy streak running through them, with strange or offputting interests, and seem to get a quiet kick out of making others uncomfortable through demonstrations of these fascinations. They are actually pretty similar characters in this way. ... But then, this still doesn't really close the book on the topic, because [Doc Scratch] also plays the role of the sinister, devil-like alt-author figure, making these character choices seem more meaningful in relation to the idea that all these guys are different spins on dramatized, negative, author-insert figures. Both Dirk and Equius inside Cal are splinters of those characters, offshoot variations of the originals. But I've also talked about splinters in a different context, which is that any collection of characters in a story could be viewed as compartmentalized, somewhat exaggerated splinters of the author's total personality. ... Which is why me saying characters like Dirk, Equius, Doc, and a few others exist as dark authorial surrogates shouldn't be taken as overly self-critical lacerations.

In other words, LE is literally a combination of a child who deliberately emotionally stunted himself so that he could have everything all to himself and three other creepy guys at their absolute worst, literally likened to "toxic masculinity," and thus, the patriarchy. LE encapsulates not only the personal qualities that the themes say are adversarial - cruelty, selfishness, ambition, vengeance, misogyny, classism, etc. etc. - but the societal ones as well. In his various forms, LE is a casteist, a creepy uncle, an abusive father, a toxic lover, the literal devil, and a generally shitty man that forces women into subservience for his own amusement. Caliborn knows that this is how he will turn out and he thinks it's fucking awesome. He isn't a tragic villain, he's an antithetical villain. He stands for everything that the main cast learns to oppose.

ARANEA: The player is somehow also im8ued with a limitless supply of power. Enough to destroy anything he wanted, for as long as he wanted. ARANEA: And knowing the villain of our story, anything he wanted would be everything. And as long as he wanted would be forever.

And that is why I say with full confidence that, prior to Hussie throwing away his original ending after Game Over, Homestuck is emphatically about children maturing, caring about each other, and throwing off the shackles of their old, shitty society, because they will be responsible for the creation of a new world.

[redactedtimes]

Y’know people always talk about Susie getting dubbed the Axe of Justice and group her, undyne and Gerson together but I feel like nobody acknowledges this.

He’s given himself a matching title to someone who, at one point, would’ve been godly to him. With the context of his perceived betrayal by the lightners and desire for darkners to dominate, it almost comes off as blasphemous? A righteous blasphemy. Perhaps self-righteous, but perhaps not completely.

He’s taken the title of his people’s former protector, when he’s also dubbed HIMSELF their protector.

He could be considered quite comparable to Undyne in their shared hatred for the people they believe to have oppressed their own, and could be compared to Susie in that they’re both “toys no one wanted”, with the main difference being that King uses it as an excuse to lash out against the people around him. Even then, susie did so early on before character development set in.

There’s just something so interesting about him and I feel like it doesn’t get brought up due to his place in the story. He’s a corrupted mirror of everything the others to hold that title stand for.

[koimethehorizon]

Deltarune: What's the Deal with Ramb?

(MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR CH 3 of DELTARUNE)

Genuinely, who hell is this guy?

I spend an unhealthy amount of time overthinking Deltarune, so I will likely have an opinion, theory, or answer on practically every aspect of the game. (whether you guys get to read any of those depends on my work ethic.)

But with Ramb, the best I can add is that this is a rare case of an underwritten Toby Fox character. Borderline just a plot-device for the Ch 3 weird route.

...and maybe this was done deliberately?

Throughout Ch 3, Ramb works as a very effective bait for the fans keeping their eyes out for this chapter's secret boss.

An odd speech pattern, a distinct design, an uncomfortable familiarity with Kris, low-key kind of a weirdo, and who could forget the FREEDOM drop.

Like, come on. By his 2nd line, I'm sure most players were suspicious of this guy. Moreso, when you enter that ominous S rank lobby into an equally ominous, weird route minigame.

This has to be the guy right?

Yes, I'm still salty.

And so you keep progressing, grinding for those S ranks, chatting with the definitely-the-Ch3-secret-boss, killing some digital friends along the way.

You find out he's actually a library power strip that Kris and Asriel stole to play games way back when. He's not just any NPC, he KNOWS Kris. And in the chapter's endgame, Ramb drops the bombshell that he SAW Kris open the fountain and figures before anyone that they must've done it to have another adventure with Susie.

I never trust anyone who smiles like this.

Alright lay it on me Ramb, give me the bullshit bullets and let me kick your ass!

And then you fight ERAM, get the Shadow Mantle, and.... he's gone. For the rest of the chapter.

WHERE'S MY CRYSTAL RAMB???

A Rabbick in the S rank hall will tell you that something happened to Ramb, but you don't even get the liberty of knowing the specifics.

So what the hell? Was Ramb genuinely just some weirdo?

It actually wasn't until a week later that I found out that Ramb gets more backstory in the route where you talk with him less. In other words, the non-S rank path that secret hunters would've reset the chapter away from. Nullifying any more info on this character for most dedicated first-timers.

Rather than Ramb vanishing, he's just a block of stone in his booth. Interact with it and a Pippins will give you this:

Don't bother Kris. Ramb's already turned into stone a bit ago... He was a plug, but because you played with him like any other toy, it made him feel special. Might have given him a little bit of an ego, in fact...

Always condescending to any plan, saying "what's best for Kris?" Couldn't get rid of him, so Tenna made him "work the stand"...

Us from the Card Castle fit in fine. Him? He never really belonged. His first day at this stand, he joked "how about the usual?" ... no one laughed! Mixing drinks alone for himself, he wasn't allowed to handle the points...

No one will shed a tear for him. Inside, he was probably stone already.

... And it tells us nothing.

I'm not talking the boy-that-was-sure-a-lot-of-words type of nothing. I mean a far more mundane, miserable type of nothing.

Some have theorized that Ramb was the intended secret boss that the Knight didn't get the shadow crystal to in time.

Some also theorize that Ramb was the one controlling ERAM to have a 1v1 with Kris.

And even fewer might expect Ramb to return in a future chapter so we'll DEFINITELY know what the deal with him is!

Maybe I'm stepping my foot a bit hard here, but I don't agree with any of these. I think the point of this backstory is much sadder than we expected.

Ramb didn't know shit.

Every time Ramb talked about freedom, he wasn't even referring to the same realization that Spamton and Jevil had. Ramb wasn't aware of a grand prophecy, nor did he receive a contact from Gaster/The Knight/Carol or whoever the hell is on that phone.

Ramb placed all stock on his value and identity on being Kris's favorite. Like a parasocial fan of a celebrity. And as a result, he ruined any chance at a social life.

Funny enough, Ramb got NOTHING about Kris right.

Kris HATED playing the Shadow Mantle game. Kris didn't open the fountain for fun; it was to carry out the Knight's plan, which I'm pretty sure Kris isn't all that fond of either.

So all we've got left is this strange, lonely NPC who didn't even need a shadow crystal to be trapped in an existential rot.

He gave up on his life all by himself.

Whenever I see another "who's the secret boss of Ch 3" argument pop up, it makes me pity Ramb in a way I never have with any other Toby Fox character.

Ramb...but only thematically.

Spamton and Jevil are considered anti-social, insane rejects within their Dark Worlds. Yet because they've got the charisma and are powerful opponents, they're loved by many players.

Ramb has none of these qualities.

Other than his accent and design, there isn't much of anything to delve further into with this guy. Ramb absolutely does have some fans, but he'll never reach the same heights as the other bosses because he doesn't stand out.

Ramb's only self-imposed purpose was to help guide Kris to whatever he thinks freedom is and once we get the Mantle, he's fulfilled it, and we're never to see him again.

It's as if even the narrative wants us to forget about him.

[thelostmoongazer]

❤️ Heart to Heart 🤍

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

"The funny one?"

"Yeah! Ragatha's the cheerful one"

"Gangle's the sad one"

"Kinger's the crazy one"

"Zooble's the grumpy one"

"And you are the one who hasn't figured that out yet."

"We all just became archetypes. I at least have the self awareness to choose who I am."

"...the funny one..."

[redactedtimes]

I feel like not enough people talk about the fact Spamton and the Mikes know each other.

Spamton when asked about Mike immediately goes on the offense and accuses them of being part of a [Cathode]’s crew. We all assumed Mike was being hunted down by tenna or something but he already has Mike and likes him, and the aggression implies this is Spamton’s immediate suspicion when asked about Mike.

Now who do we know that are a part of Tenna’s team, and really, REALLY wants to know about Mike?

But then you have to wonder HOW they would try to get into contact with him. After all, he’s not even in the same dark world-

These nosey bastards have been spam calling Spamton to try and probe him for info and that’s why he’s constantly getting calls despite being a nobody.

[bravehyde]

could you link a source to back up the google docs post? I find it very easy to believe but a source or other confirmation would be helpful

linking this since it was the first ask I saw and answered: https://www.tumblr.com/bravehyde/790422701153157120/hi-can-we-have-any-sort-of-source-about-the

Post by @bravehyde · 1 image

💬 0  🔁 2  ❤️ 2 · What Happens When a Romance Writer Gets Locked Out of Google Docs · hi !! can we have any sort of source about the google d

AI coming through our google drives and reading our stuff without permission has been happening for a while. Google implemented their AI service, Gemini, in a way where it cannot be turned off. Gemini comes with “safety features” to block “harmful content”.

This is what is considered prohibited use according to their privacy and terms:

And of course, Google’s AI can see our information, because we give it to them. By using their products, you give them information that they collect for their own purposes. This is a long documented phenomenon that did not start with AI, but has certainly reached a new level of concerning as a result.

Gemini AI platform accused of scanning Google Drive files without user permission

Gemini users may want to up their privacy

This has been their business model for years. They scan your documents, your shared images and videos, your search queries, and they use it. This is plainly stated in their privacy policy.

It’s to sell to advertisers to give you personalized advertisements. It’s also so they can cover their own asses if someone shares illegal content (such as CP) on their servers. Their terms of service dictate that they will remove anything distributed under their services that violate their terms, and in order to find out if it violates it, they have to scan it. They claim it is not used to train their software (I found conflicting info on whether this is true, but it’s what their ToS on AI say), but that doesn’t mean they don’t look at it or decide to get rid of it.

This is how drives that have pirated shows and movies are taken down. They are scanned, flagged, and removed. Yes, someone CAN report it for them, but now we’ve reached the stage of AI doing it instead. There are very few regulations on this at least in the US, and the practice of looking at our so-called “protected” information for advertising or safety measures is such an open secret I had to do multiple projects on it in school when taking journalism/mass media classes. Hell, just look for yourself on how Google makes money and they proudly explain that accounts are on a constant betting war for individualized advertisements.

How Google's $150 billion advertising business works

Google is the market leader in online advertising and earns more than 80% of its revenue from ads. Here's a rundown of how the business work

I know this was mainly about how they’re doing this NOW, but I think it’s equally important to know they’ve been gearing up to this and it was the most natural evolutionary step. It’s hard for me to source my personal experience, but I certainly can source that they have the power to do this at all. Tristan Harris, former Design Ethicist at Google, first released his concerns over Google’s monopoly over our information and minds in 2013.

A Call To Minimize Distration

Google has only grown in power since then. I’m just going to link some stuff about general AI and Google ethical implications now because I don’t know where to take this. Even if you don’t believe my personal account, I’d heavily encourage doing research on what Google can do with what you’ve already given to them, and decide for yourself if it’s worth the convenience.

Google AI: Ethical Challenges and Opportunities in Emerging Tech - Studocu

Share free summaries, lecture notes, exam prep and more!!

Microsoft Word - 1333-1414_Rubinstein & Good_11262013_Web

[bravehyde]

hi !! can we have any sort of source about the google docs thing? I use it for pretty much everything and I want to know for sure before I move everything somewhere

I'm not sure if you're from the US but I'm not and I don't if it's something happening everywhere or somewhere specific

I absolutely appreciate warning people about something that could cost someone their hard work but I doing so without any sort of checkable source could get people kinda panicked

(genuine message/request, I don't mean to discredit your personal experience at all, I don't think what you've shared is made up, I just wanna look into on my own too and couldn't find anything)

yeah, so sorry about that! I was so busy telling all of my writer friends, who know I wouldn’t lie about something like this that I personally watched occur, that I totally forgot people outside of my circle would not just need “hey this happened in front of me” as confirmation something’s real. Also this blog isn’t that big so I thought it would just be in the writer circles I’m in, I’ve never seen so many notifications! I’m writing this on my phone so sorry if it looks bad, trying my best here.

I’m from the US and the person who had their property deleted by Google is also from the US. I saw someone else in the reblogs who also stated they had their content removed without their permission, but I technically can’t verify for them because I did not know them before this occurred and I wasn’t there when it was discovered.

While trying to find similar experiences I found multiple complaints over the past few years of people getting their permission to their content revoked even though it’s not sexually explicit and posting to their help forums, but that’s also hard to use as a concrete source since we don’t know those people’s full stories. Google’s official policy on explicit content is as follows:

I know the friend whose content was removed would share their document for writing feedback, as that is the reason many people choose docs over word (as well as that it can be opened and edited easily on an iphone). It may be that “distribute” is the key word here for getting your items removed.

Someone was kind enough to link this story of it happening to an adult romance author last year who had this story sent to multiple news articles. I’m still looking for if this had more incidents, there are some claimed in the article but they don’t have names attached the way Renee is.

View article without paywall

Once again, these people had their work removed because they would send it to betas, which Google flaggged as spamming people with explicit content. And to anyone thinking it’s not possible because they don’t have permission to access our work-they do. You give them permission by putting your stuff on their servers at all. It’s just that their current ToS doesn’t let them remove it until you share it with someone, in which case it’s “distribution”. Also I’m going to address this is another post with more info and stuff because I want to give more basis: I see people framing it as impossible to do in “so short a time”, but this was built up for years. This personal information stockpiling has been around for a while. I’ll put more out there when I can, right now I have to get back to my job

EDIT: talked about this in another ask here for more links

Post by @bravehyde · 3 images

💬 0  🔁 3  ❤️ 2 · Post by @bravehyde · 1 image · could you link a source to back up the google docs post? I find it very easy to believe but

[dont-touch-the-flower-child]

let's talk about Dess Holiday a little.

for all these stories telling us how awesome and cool she was...

...she wasn't really all that popular?

i mean, Dess has been gone for years and nobody in Hometown ever mentions her. the older teens/young adults, who should be her peers, only talks to Kris about Asriel.

You'd think they're avoiding the topic of Dess for Kris' sake, but truthfully, i don't see Pizzapants and Bratty as all that tactful.

instead, i think they were just never friends with Dess, and paid little attention to her even when she was around.

i think Dess was in fact rather lonely. and we only came to think of her as this cool, badass rebel girl because of how Noelle and Kris saw her.

with Noelle, i suppose Dess maintained till the very end an image of a loving, protective big sister. Noelle remembers Dess helping her win every snow angel contest, and whacking Kris over their head when they went too far with pranks, and promising to take her to a city of shining lights.

but i don't think that's the full story of their sisterhood. rather, i believe Dess had kept her bitterer, more complicated feelings for Noelle hidden, and this was where Kris came in.

but first, let's take a look at what Dess was like.

she was messy and unfocused. she was rowdy and dirty. Susie reminds Gerson of her, and Susie is aggressive, rude, implied to struggle with formal schooling, and very much ostracized by her peers.

so Dess' main friend group was like...her own sister, the boy living next door, and the neighbor boy's gremlin younger sibling.

and two of these people are just. Perfect. Noelle, sweet, polite and well-behaved, cast as the Angel that Hometowners literally worship. Asriel, so academically and socially successful. they are the faces of the Holidays and Dreemurrs, respectively, golden children of the town. they shine so bright that their siblings live under their shadows.

now, i think Asriel genuinely liked Dess, and their closeness wasn't just for show or anything.

but that doesn't mean proximity and the fact that their parents knew each other well didn't factor into this friendship. i think Dess was very aware of how out of her league Asriel was, even if she was the mayor's daughter.

i think she wasn't sure if Asriel would still be her friend if they weren't neighbors.

and then, there was Kris.

Kris was Just Like Her. just like Dess, they were weird, unruly, an outsider. just like Dess, they have a vastly more popular and easily likeable sibling.

and i think Dess leaned on Kris as Kris leaned on Dess. the bitterness Dess couldn't exactly show Noelle? she showed to Kris. the loneliness and insecurity she couldn't tell Asriel? she let it slipped with Kris. because Kris was the only one who could possibly understand her.

well, Kris and someone else. until that someone else is gone.

two of the dark worlds seem like attempts to relive the time when Gerson was alive and her teacher.

i do wonder if Gerson's passing was shortly before Dess' disappearance. if the loss of someone so important to her had shaken her and prompted her to do something drastic.

and I think Kris was the only witness to what happened to her.

[thewolfisyou]

Sometime later

Yes I drew a whole ass comic focused on these two and a crack theory that is no way canon. But dammit I had fun making it.

[lynxgriffin]

What are your thoughts on the final prophecy? Personally, I think it's something we're not meant to be able to guess right now, something that will only make sense when we get there, to the end of the story. Maybe it boils down to something as simple as "someone dies," but Susie and Ralsei's reactions will probably make a lot more sense once we learn the specific wording.

And, do you think we'll be able to prevent it? Everyone I've seen seems to think so. But, I think it's not going to be so simple. Gerson never tells us that we can overwrite the prophecy, he just says that the white pen of hope can overwrite the dark. And earlier, Gerson describes the prophecy as shining too bright, and recommends we go in between the lines, where it's darker. He talks about writing new pages, reinterpretations, plot twists, and teaches us lessons about going the wrong way and forging our own path. But ultimately, the prophecy, even if it appears to be broken, always appears somewhere else down the line. Even the shadow crystals, which most people theorize will allow us to break the prophecy, do not warp the prophecy's text, no matter how hard you shake it. I feel like if we at least knew what the final prophecy was right now we would have a chance of preventing it, but again it seems the game is saving that reveal until the end.

I'm in the same camp in that I don't think we can possibly guess what it's supposed to say right now, and that trying to is a losing game. It's obviously something real bad, since Susie does a complete 180 on the prophecy's usefulness and is now determined to prevent this bad thing from happening. But what the specifics of that bad thing are could go lots of different ways, especially depending on the wording!

I think a decent microcosm for that is the prophecy around Tenna: "The lord of screens, cleaved red by the blade." The image clearly shows a TV being sliced in half. Just reading that straight, it looks like Tenna is doomed to die. But, if you recruit everyone in chapter three, he ends up repaired and you can then get him adopted by Mettaton! The events surrounding that particular prophecy happen no matter what, but the outcome is still different because of small choices we've made along the way.

I think there could easily be something similar going on with the final prophecy...what's described in it will happen, no matter what. But, the results of that can still be different from what everyone reading it assumes, and it's Susie's ability to break the rules and write a new story that will be key to getting a different outcome. Ralsei (and us!) are so concerned with what the prophecy itself says and subverting those words that we're failing to do what Gerson says: don't focus on what you think is inevitable. Go between the lines.

[eric-r-malice]

Susie is, and was always meant to be, The Girl from Deltarune's prophecy

I've seen a lot of people who believe that "The Girl" was meant to be somebody else- particularly, Noelle. To be blunt, this is false, and I'm tired of seeing this interpretation pop up everywhere. I can understand how one could come to this conclusion initially- hell, I used to believe this theory- but when you look at all the evidence, it just doesn't line up whatsoever. So let's get into why.

First off, let's tackle the big one.

THE SECOND HERO. THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART.

I'm gonna tackle this one argument at a time, so...

"The silohuette looks nothing like Susie!"

I mean... eh? I can see the point being made here, but... would you really say this looks more like Noelle?? The silohuette is vague in general, and hardly resembles either of them, to be honest - but if I had to pick one of them, the hair at the back reminds me more of Susie - it's much spikier, more reminiscent of Susie's hair than Noelle's.

Apparently some people think that the hair is angel wings? I can... kinda see it, but, like... let's take a look at another prophecy panel for a moment.

The hero on the left here looks very much like Susie. The silohuette evokes specifically her hairstyle- Noelle's hair just doesn't look like that whatsoever, there's clearly no wings in sight, and the silohuette also lacks antlers. And they can't be wearing a hood, like the White Mage does in MAN'T'LE - that's clearly hair.

Plus, Kris's silohuette is accurate to their appearance, and Ralsei's is accurate to how the prophecy typically depicts him, always with his cloak, so I don't see any reason for The Girl's silohuette to just... randomly be wrong here, if it's meant to be Noelle.

"The Girl is wielding a sword! Susie can't wield swords, but Noelle can!"

Alright then, let's see what swords Noelle can equip!

Jingle Blade - Light World: Holiday Pencil

Black Shard - Light World: Black Shard

So, we have... literally her pencil, which isn't exactly strong evidence, and... the Black Shard. Now, let's look at the description for the Black Shard real quick...

"dagger-like", huh? That doesn't sound much like a sword to me... plus, it's also... not that big. Or sword-shaped. It's... kinda just shaped like a piece of glass. Now, where did we get the Black Shard again?

The Roaring Knight, who- regardless of which of the two candidates you're rooting for- is 100% a Holiday. With this in mind, along with the Black Shard's description, I think you can understand why I don't think The Girl wielding a sword is very strong evidence towards The Girl being Noelle.

But the silohuette still wields a sword, not an axe, which is quite interesting... but I think people are looking at it from the wrong angle here. Let's think about this a different way; Here, take some dialogue from Gerson's fight.

This comment about the "white pen, known as hope" intrigues me, because... well, as Susie says herself, Kris has the pen, and... hm. What do Kris's weapons become in the Light World, again? Let's go through one by one.

Pencil -> Wood Blade

Halloween Pencil -> Spooky Sword

Lucky Pencil -> Trefoil (UNUSED)

Eraser -> Bounce Blade

Mechanical Pencil -> Mecha Saber

Cactus Needle -> Saber 10

Quill Pen -> Winglade

Holiday Pencil -> Jingle Blade

Black Shard -> Black Shard

Even if you don't count the Trefoil, there's clearly a pattern here - most of Kris's weapons, which are all swords, are writing equipment - with the majority just being pens and pencils outright! Now, this is purely speculative...

But it would be really fucking cool and thematically appropriate if Susie got her hands on some sort of pen at some point, and then in the Dark World, it turns into a sword only she can equip, right??? Like- that'd be really fucking cool!! And also extremely appropriate & relevant to the game's themes!!!

But, admittedly, that is just speculation. You don't need to take my word for it - but I do think that using the fact that The Girl wields a sword as evidence that it's meant to be depicting Noelle is... a very shaky argument.

"The Girl is mentioned as both the second, and then as the last! That means there's two The Girls!"

Putting aside how needlessly obtuse the idea of there being two "The Girls" is- two people referred to by the exact same identifier... I don't have a not-incredibly-blunt way to put this-

It's a POEM.

Like- let's take a look at these prophecies, in the order they appear in-game.

THE THIRD HERO, THE PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK. THE FIRST HERO, THE CAGE, WITH HUMAN SOUL AND PARTS! AND LAST, WAS THE GIRL. AT LAST, WAS THE GIRL. THE SECOND HERO, THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART.

It's a poem! And, considering the third panel, it looks like this poem follows the order they joined the party.

Ralsei first, since he uh. IDFK, had the prophecy beamed into his brain at birth or smth???

Then Kris, as we/them immediately join up with Ralsei when we first meet him.

And then Susie, who sort of joins our party twice - and the first time hardly even counts, considering that she refuses to listen to us and then joins the bad guys - she's by far the last to join the party, only truly working with us after her fight with Lancer in the prison.

They're "out of order" in the sense that it doesn't go 1-2-3, yes, but it's deliberate - maybe that's in part because of Susie's Dark World being topsy-turvy, but I don't think that means there's suddenly two "The Girls".

...and with that said, I feel the need to mention that the image for- AND LAST, WAS THE GIRL. AT LAST, WAS THE GIRL. -is literally just Rude Buster. Like- that's just Rude Buster. Sure, you could argue that it's also the act symbol, but the act symbol is never really referenced outside of the UI & characters talking about the UI, as far as I remember. Rude Buster, on the other hand...

...is literally used for the pattern on Susie's carpet. And you can't argue that this one is the act symbol, because... it's Susie's room. It's clearly meant to be Rude Buster...

Now- what does Noelle have to do with that symbol, if The Girl is meant to be her? Regardless of whether it's meant to be Rude Buster or the act icon, how does that relate to Noelle?? She has nothing to do with either of those things- hell, Susie even has a stronger relation to ACTing than Noelle does, what with her being the one to prompt S-Action & R-Action to exist. Now, to move onto my next point.

LOVE FINDS ITS WAY TO THE GIRL.

This prophecy! So- people think this might be referring to the Weird Route, and how "LOVE" - that is, Level Of ViolencE - will "find its way" to Noelle... but, like.

The weird route is explictly anti-prophecy.

Ralsei freaks out a bit when the ferris wheel scene doesn't happen, he literally tells you he thinks taking Noelle to the festival is "a bad decision" specifically on the weird route, and...

I think this dialogue speaks for itself. Though, some context: This dialogue is spoken by Ralsei if you tell him it's okay to not smile... specifically on the weird route. It's, like- the most blatant foreshadowing ever.

...also I don't know why everyone tries to make this panel about LOVE when that's not been a plot-point so far in Deltarune and the regular meaning of this panel would apply to Noelle on all routes anyway. (Even weird route... in a much more unfortunate manner.)

THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART.

Now, I want to talk about this for a moment- the way the prophecy describes The Girl here: with hope crossed on her heart. Hope. Real quick, I'm gonna go through a bunch of mentions of "hope" in the game to prove a point - not every mention, but any that might be relevant.

I'll circle back to this one later, because I just realised something about this- just keep it in mind.

wow, it took way longer than i expected to find a thematically relevant example of "hope"...

So! This scene- it's a really big moment. We get a huge loredrop on Susie's backstory, and rather pointedly- she talks about hope, and it's the first time we get a really relevant mention of "hope" as a theme- and it's Susie who drops it. She talks about how Toriel gave her hope- and how that hope has been growing as she makes friends- and she says all this to Tenna, who's in a similar spot to the one she was in before...

...and it inspires hope in him, too. Her speech- her empathy & sympathy, and her offer to find him a new home- it gives him hope. Hope that he won't be thrown away- that he can find a new home, that he can be used and be happy again... and it's all thanks to Susie.

I've not really got much to say for this one, TBH- I think it just speaks for itself. IDK, words hard sometimes.

I brought this one up earlier, but I think it's relevant here, too- Gerson specifically believes Susie has the "white pen of hope"- the power to change fate, to change the ending and write her own- and he calls it hope. I think that's important.

I'm bringing up this Seam dialogue because, for most people, Susie- and her Rude Buster- is the only reason you could even touch the Roaring Knight. It's thanks to her that you could get that crystal - without her, you'd be shit outta luck. (That is, unless you're extraordinarily cracked at the game, but I'm not considering that edge case...) So, you could say, indirectly, Susie's inspired hope in Seam, too.

I saved this one for last on purpose, because I think it's the most poignant.

* Susie's hope... Her naive hope... * It's... infectious, isn't it, Kris?

Ralsei directly talks about how Susie's hope is "infectious"- her bright, shining hope, it's spreading, it's giving Ralsei hope, too. Hope that the ending can be changed- that the final tragedy can be averted, despite everything- despite the fact that the prophecy has yet to change. I've got something to say regarding that, actually- but I wanna finish this train of thought first.

So, Susie has a very clear connection to hope- even in Chapter 3, before the prophecy is in the picture, she establishes herself as a person full of hope- a person that inspires hope in others. Now, what connection does Noelle have with hope? What are her thematic ties to the idea and feeling of hope?

...

She, uh. She doesn't really... have any. Like- she mentions hope... once??

Like- Alphys and Hathy have more text connecting them to hope (or, the word hope) than this. Noelle really just- doesn't have any narrative association with hope like Susie does, which I think is a big point against Noelle being The Girl, considering that "with hope crossed on her heart" is the way the prophecy defines The Girl.

Now- to circle back to that text from the legend real quick, I had a thought about that! So- it says it's a legend of hope and dreams. Light and dark. Hope and light on the left, dark and dreams on the right. This is a complete tangent and probably doesn't mean much, but- dark worlds are already associated with dreams, and what with Susie's connection with hope, and how she's a lightner... I dunno. I just think it's neat that it lines up like that, Gyaa Ha ha!

THE PROPHECY HAS NOT CHANGED YET

Alright so I really need to address this point- the prophecy has not changed. Ralsei makes a point of this multiple times during Chapter 4, and even the shadow crystals support this idea.

Now, assuming Noelle was meant to be The Girl, and that Susie took her spot... I don't think Ralsei's mindset here makes much sense. After all, that would mean that the prophecy was already changed- and in quite a significant way, too. Like- one of the three heroes just being replaced?! That's huge! Ralsei would totally freak out about that the moment he saw us in Castle Town for the first time if it was true!

Some people try to argue that Ralsei just- wouldn't know that Susie isn't meant to be The Girl, but I don't think that's right. Ralsei knows the prophecy in full- every last detail- and he knows Susie by name when he first sees her.

I think that's quite relevant- he recognises her appearance, calls her by name before she introduces herself, and is confident that she's one of the three heroes. Not once is he like "uh- okay then i guess i'll go with this-" or anything like that- and he has not once expressed that this is wrong.

Also- frankly, the idea that the prophecy has already changed is a weak idea that wouldn't serve the story well. On first glance, yeah- cool, Susie broke it by being Susie from the get-go, cool, go Susie! But when you look at it more deeply, it's... kinda just a weak plot point?

This overbearing force, This prophecy which forces the hand of fate, This antagonistic force that's being built up to be broken at the end of the game...

yeah susie already broke/bent it in hour 1 lmao, its actually entirely worthless

Like. It just... doesn't really serve the story very well. At all. If Susie wasn't meant to be The Girl. Susie hypes up the prophecy because she's in it- it seems cool! She's finally- part of something, and it's something massive- she's a HERO! And then, as she learns more, she loses faith in the prophecy, even despite that- she calls it stupid. She forsakes it, and swears to defy it.

I think that arc would kinda be ruined a bit if it turned out that she wasn't meant to be part of the prophecy in the first place.

Additionally- I'd like to provide a quote from @ liz_x51 on Discord about this, she put it really well:

The idea of "we need to change the prophecy but it has never been done. We don't even know if it's possible" is kind of undermined if it either has a lot of ways to interpret it already (that's already a form of 'change') or if it's already changed from the beginning of the game by Susie being a hero

NOELLE & SUSIE ARE DIFFERENT PEOPLE

While trying to think of any more Girlelle points to debunk, I realised another reason why The Girl can't have been intended to be anyone other than Susie- and especially why it can't have been Noelle:

Are you really trying to tell me that swapping Noelle out for Susie wouldn't immediately change fate?

Those two are nothing alike- there is no way in hell they'd make the same choices, that they'd follow the prophecy all the same- especially with how specific the prophecy is!

Like- yes, these are all jokes- but they're also examples of how specific the prophecy is, and I don't believe these are meant to be random, throw-away exceptions- I think they are specifically meant to show us how specific the prophecy is- how it captures every event.

And, with that in mind... are you really telling me Chapter 1 would play out exactly the same if you swapped Susie for Noelle? Really?? The chapter would diverge in the first 10 minutes of the dark world! Like- I think this is something nobody really thinks about when talking about this theory- there is no way the plot would happen the exact same with Noelle in place of Susie. That just wouldn't happen.

"Ralsei says Susie is supposed to equip ribbons, so he isn't really very reliable."

...and Susie can equip ribbons. She just doesn't, because she doesn't want to. I think "supposed to" is just a case of weird phrasing from Ralsei.

While I'm on this topic- there's some dialogue I think is relevant.

Susie asks about Noelle, and Ralsei's first thought- which takes him a moment, mind you, considering the "Umm..." - is what items she can equip. I think that's quite a striking indicator that she's not very relevant to the prophecy - at least, not in a way Ralsei could identify her with. (There's still hope for y'all, Angel Noelle truthers.)

If Noelle was meant to be The Girl, this would be the perfect moment for Ralsei to mention that, no? This is right after he said he'd be more honest with the party- that he'd stop hiding so many things from them- and he is being explicitly asked about Noelle. This would be THE perfect moment for that loredrop!

But it doesn't happen, and I think that says enough.

This is where I'd put my closing thoughts... if I, uh. Had any. But, uh, I got nothin'. There's one The Girl, and her name is Susie [Lastname], not Noelle Holiday or any other name. If I forgot to debunk any points about Girlelle, I'll edit the post with those, I guess. But. Yeah. That's it. That's the post. go home

[riflezen]

Bug Fables and its Enigmatic Deities

In Bug Fables's optional dungeon interchangeably called "Snakemouth Lab" and "Upper Snakemouth," there exists a very well-hidden room that can be accessed with Vi's flight ability and Kabbu's burrow ability. In the room with Venus's Bud, climb up to the top of the gear box, fly to the right onto the ledge, dig into the ground, and move up and right. You'll come across this room:

Image Id: Team Snakemouth standing in an abandoned, caved-in room with many monitors, though only three are active. They each appear to depict flowers, with the one in the center resembling Venus's Buds and the other two being unfamiliar.

Each of the three monitors can be examined separately, and they each give information about a "Guardian" and their status. Guardian M-001 "Mars" is 361 years old and stable, Guardian V-012 "Venus" is 358 and stable, and Guardian P-183 "Pluto" is only 34 years old and stable. Additionally, one of the deactivated monitors will occasionally flicker on for just a few frames, displaying an image whose presence among the Guardians is very, very... peculair.

Image ID: A picture of Leif with his cordyceps tendrils coming out from his back. The aforementioned image that can appear on one of the deactivated monitors, sourced from the Spriter's Resource.

Even setting aside the inexplicable Leif appearance for the time being, this room has rather big implications for Bug Fables's worldbuilding. The existence of the Eastern Doll implied that the Eastern Lands had their own Guardian like Venus, but not only does this room confirm their existence, it also confirms his age and Venus's, establishes the existence of a "Pluto," and suggests that they all have a close link to the Roaches. Did the Guardians each exist beforehand, and were the Roaches merely monitoring them? That might be possible, but it doesn't explain why each Guardian has a scientific designation consisting of the first letter of their name and a number. The quotations around the Guardians' names seem to suggest that they're merely nicknames given to them. A much more interesting conclusion with much greater implications is that the Roaches created each of the Guardians.

If we assume that the number in each of the Guardians' designation is their current iteration, it would mean that Mars required only a single attempt, Venus had eleven prototypes, and Pluto had a whopping one hundred and eighty three. Mars could have been an accidental discovery or an unexpected breakthrough in the Snakemouth Roaches' attempts to recreate the Everlasting Sapling (their primary goal), and they created Venus and Pluto to try to perfect what they had just discovered. Having Deities in the palms of your hands is quite a boon, after all. But why did Pluto take so much longer to create than Venus and Mars? Were the Roaches trying to pursue something specific but failing to find it? Maybe we can find out by examining the other two more closely.

Venus, both in Roman Mythology and in Bug Fables, is a deity associated with fertility, prosperity, and femininity. The Roman Mars is a deity associated with military power as a means to keep the peace; while Bug Fables' Mars's concept art depicts a grumpy Guardian with a torn petal whose buds have one massive eye each. If Bug Fables Mars also parallels his Roman namesake, it can be inferred that he uses his buds as a method of surveillance of his land, and that he may be very strict on his subjects.

Image ID: Concept art of Mars, provided by co-lead developer Mar on the Official Bug Fables Discord (also available on the Bug Fables Wiki on Mirahaze). He is a flower with a slightly hunched-over stem. He has a sour, almost angry expression on his face. He has five large petals and five small petals, with the topmost large petal having a chunk of it cut out. Beside Mars are two of his buds, which each have five petals surrounding one massive eye. Unlike Venus's Buds, they have no mouths but are capable of sight.

The Pluto of Roman Mythology is a stern yet loving and dedicated ruler of the Underworld who welcomes souls to the afterlife alongside his wife. If he were to have a parallel Guardian in Bug Fables, how in the world would that work? It's likely impossible to figure out the whole picture with what information we have now, but consider that there is a fourth image in the secret room in Snakemouth: an image of Leif, a moth resurrected from the dead with the ability to us ice magic. He was created as a prototype of the Zommoth, who wields blight magic. Why would a part of this seemingly unrelated project show up in the same place as records of the Guardians?

Ice and Blight are elements that can be associated with Death, which Pluto has connections to due to his namesake, but they are also elements that are both very well known to kill plants. This is why it took so long to stabilize Pluto- it's because he wields magic that is counterintuitive to his very being as a flower. The Roaches had already figured out how to "revive" beings with cordyceps and were then working on enhancing the zombies' abilities, as shown by the Zombees and Zombeetles. Moths are explicitly called out in the Snakemouth Roaches' logs as being excellent vessels for magic, and thus the Roaches were using them for experiments involving stabilizing magic in artificially modified beings such as cordyceps… and their Guardian projects.

The question then becomes "why did they try to give Pluto counterintuitive forms of magic?" The answer is, oddly enough, that they simply didn't have any other types at the time. The Roaches' logs state that they were still in the process of trying to harness Electric magic at the time to try and use it to power their machines (the most they had managed to accomplish was make their Sand Castle constructs shoot simple electric beams). The way that the Constructs malfunction and become out-of-control upon being touched by Fire Magic in the Giants' Lair implies that they weren't exactly created with it in mind, either. So, the Pluto project began and ended with trying to give a Guardian ice and blight magic, with experiments trying to master other types of magic on the side. These experiments likely didn't yield strong enough results to substitute Pluto's magic with new types, and thus, the scientists were left with no choice but to slave away at this seemingly impossible project for three hundred years.

The final remaining mystery is where Pluto is located, and this is a question with significantly less evidence and room for reasoning than the others. I could go on for another two paragraphs or so about points in favor of each possibility and rampant speculation about their role in each region's culture, but I don't want to take up TOO much space in your feed with this, so I'll save it for a hypothetical follow-up I could make in the future... Maybe. Thanks for reading!

[riflezen]

Image ID: A fan-design for the guardian Pluto. He has one enchanted seed in each of his bottom petals, one enchanted with Blight magic and the other enchanted with Ice magic. His petals are blue and purple, and the roots connecting him to the ground are dark and thorny. He has four "arms," with two of them being tipped with his magic.

[kotoskies]

My headcanon for who this answer was referring to. We all thought tenna was actively hunting down mike or something, turns out he just hired some freak that probably frequents the lore pit in the andrew cunningham discord server

[shiftersinc]

The Only Human Document

Hello. For the past few months I have been working on a document deconstructing the dynamic between UNDERTALE's protagonist and the various factors surrounding them. After replaying the game I've had a revelation of sorts regarding this topic that I'd like to share with you.

For theorists in this community, I only hope that this proves useful going into DELTARUNE.

(View The Only Human document here)