The best thing about this post is that everyone except John has some version of themselves or mental projection or something, and then John is over here getting his frustration out by yelling about a movie
No, see, thatโs the thing. John IS talking about himself. Why do you think he picked John Cusack? John thinks he was the second dorky hero. He thinks he scampered around SBURB goofing off and getting into trouble. Davesprite and Jade both had to bail him out. He spent a good chunk of time following instructions from Rose and Jade and Terezi and Vriska, and those instructions even got him killed. Twice. While everyone else did cool stuff, he fell backwards into his powers and spent most of his time messing around. At least, thatโs his vision of it. The Scratch becomes โoperating heavy machineryโ. I didnโt screencap that part, but he even complains about Cusack crashing a car, and in a few more panels John passes his fatherโs car in a dream bubble, which he crashed.
The other kids may have more direct ways of attacking themselves - at least their targets are clearly still them (save for Jake, I suppose). But John has always been the one to hide. His dreamself canโt wake up because heโs locked in nightmares. Jade tells him thatโs why he always has bad dreams. He spends every intermission we see him in playing games and watching movies. He convinces himself that his father is a street performer so he doesnโt have to acknowledge the harlequins - and messages of self-hatred - that he has written on his own walls. Heโs the one who treats SBURB as a game the longest, because itโs easiest. John isnโt ready for a self-hatred meltdown where he acknowledges he feels that he is useless, a runner up, dead weight to the team. The clown, the 'terrible characterโ, the kid who keeps fucking up. But he can yell at a character on the screen with the same name, and for now thatโs enough. ย
Hey guys hereโs the comic I did for @betakidzine !!!! It took a lot of work, and a wide span of emotions but Iโm so happy to finally show you guys!!!!!
I was thinking of adding an epilogue to it but I think instead yโall following this link should be substantialย
With Dagger's proper introduction probably happening soon in the story whether or not it happens literally next update(Please don't let this statement age poorly please don't let this be a whole thing where they lead us to believe Dagger's introduction would be soon and then it cuts away next update and doesn't come back to him until every other Delta kid has been introduced please please please I want to see more of the squid boy) I just want to toss out a minor and mostly inconsequential prediction I'm honestly kind of surprised I haven't seen anyone else post anywhere(Have I had an Original Thoughtโข for once? Probably not, I'm sure someone else has thought of this and either didn't think it was worth posting about or I just didn't see the post lol.):
So remember how Ly'lac's surname was hidden by an "epitaphic hex", forcing narration to introduce her by her preferred name of "Ly'lac, Of the Final Applause"?
I think that Dagger is going to use an epitaphic hex of his own to cover up his deadname. So the narration in his introduction will misgender and ATTEMPT to deadname him(Because of course it will, let's not forget who the narrator of this story is.) but will be forced to call him "Dagger sur'name"(You know, his actual name, as opposed to the one he went by when he was 13.) instead because the narrator can't ascertain his deadname anymore than he could Ly'lac's surname.
Dagger's efforts to conceal his deadname will then quickly go to waste as we learn it from other sources anyways. Most likely in one of three ways(listed in what I think are the most to least likely ways for us to find out his deadname. Though I think ALL of these WILL happen at some point):
A) From Ly'lac and AA deadnaming him the literal next time he comes up in a conversation between the two. Because there's no way they don't deadname him in private even if it's true that they didn't out him to TC even accidentally.
B) From us seeing AA's conversation with TC where we know he deadnamed Dagger.
C) From Dagger confronting TC about knowing his personal info, where TC will almost definitely deadname him to his face. The only reason this isn't higher is because I don't think it'll happen before one or both of the other two does.
As soon as his deadname is revealed narration will switch to calling him it(Again, because of course it will, we know who's behind it, the most he's ever correctly gendered his literal childhood best friend is as over-the-top sarcastic "praise", he's GOING to switch the second he knows Dagger's "real" name.). And SOME PEOPLE will completely forget(or maliciously ignore) that the narration in question is ultimately coming from a character we know is transphobic, even when it's not written in his signature orange, and use it to justify deadnaming and misgendering Dagger. Because this fandom is not capable of being normal about trans characters.
There is also a non-zero chance that AA, in turn, will complete the set by having an epitaphic hex over her entire name, going by both a different first and last name. This would of course make her an even bigger hypocrite about Dagger's name change than Ly'lac is, but there's not exactly the same case to be made that it'll happen as there is with Dagger, my logic is mostly just "Dagger will probably use the epitaphic hex and if he and Ly'lac are both using it then it would fit if all three nymphs used it in some way so what the hell is even left".
Anyways TL;DR: Dagger's introduction is going to avoid revealing his deadname using an epitaphic hex but we will learn it anyways because other characters will deadname him. Narration will continue to reflect Dirk's transphobia by misgendering him and deadnaming him the second it's revealed and people will take it at face value to justify also misgendering and deadnaming him.
I was having thoughts in the official homestuck discord a bit but I figured I should repeat them here for y'all as well
Now that we have canon class pairs and a full active passive scale
I've rethought somewhat what a couple inversion pairs are
but its nothing too crazy, its essentially just that for all intents and purposes Sylphs and Heirs Swap Places, which only affects two inversion pairs now
Mages and Sylphs invert to eachother
and Princes and Heirs Invert to eachother
So, what does that even look like?
well, here's my sort of unpolished thoughts:
Mages and Sylphs interact with the world very differently, and it should have been fairly obvious to be honest with such strong examples of Sollux and Aranea
It's a policy of Non-Interference versus Interference
Observing Versus Meddling
Mages are Observers, theyre not going out of their way to change things or affect the outcomes, even though they know everything, and you could say its Because they know, because they are essentially prophets of a future already set in stone that they feel no need to, except in cases where they can likely instinctively tell when something isn't as it should be
Thats why Sollux as a Mage of Doom seemed so pressimistic, a class of Knowing, Prophesizing the end times, the Doom, watching what happens at the end of it all, what just seems like one long conveyer belt and all you can focus on is the furnace at the end of it, no wonder you might struggle to enjoy your time on the conveyer belt of life or focus on anything on it while you're able to, and I think he just found his peace with that
A Sylph cannot Help but meddle, tweak, fix, interfere, change, adjust, like a mom friend looking you over, fussing and fiddling with every small thing, dusting you off rubbing your cheeks and never really 100% sure if they're satisfied or done yet. They're likely just driven to a sense of perfectionism with a dash of never Truly Knowing whats the final or correct version or the best. For a player like Aranea, a Sylph of Light, a class of constant interfering meddling perfectionism with an aspect of Knowing that the truth does exist, its just not in your grasp inherently, The Best Truth is real and does exist confirmed but you don't know what it is for sure, must have driven her nuts to feel that combo so I can totally see how that was driving her to take so many drastic actions, absolutely Nothing was satisfying her
So what Does these classes inversions look like?
A Mage Inverting to become Sylph-like is a Mage abandoning Non-Interference to desperately grapple to interfere in a manic state of desperate perfectionism, but in being unable to really access true powers to change, it ens up being a cyclical mania. They do the same things over and over and over, perhaps convinced or unconvinced of their knowledge of whats truly going to happen, desperate that if they just do something the correct way not the way they know then something might be different this time, but it ends up being the definition of insanity, over and over and over, with nothing materially ending up changed
A Sylph inverting to become Mage-Like is like a Sylph abandoning the idea of being able to affect the world around them, to find the best state of things, perhaps because they've become Convinced of some knowledge that they're unable to bear, and because they're unable to dispute it or find the real truth underneath it like a Mage could, fell prone to deception. They become misled about reality, and because their nature demands a sort of perfectionism, any anomaly can't be acted on until their certain, but they're stuck, either unable to decide, figure out the next steps, stagnating, indecisive, etc in reverse to the Mage inverting, I think a Sylph inverting becomes depressed instead of Manic, almost like theyre stunlocked, stuck in a decision loop, bedrotting as if all executive functions in their brain are scrambled and they can't make plans, decisions, take action.
Princes and Heirs also interact with the world very differently.
Princes are outwardly confident, inwardly stressed. They have a death grip on a tightly held plan or faith that they feel is necessary to keep them anchored without veering offcourse
Heirs are outwardly fumbling, inwardly chill. They're unmoored, and unsure of themselves, but it's doesn't bother them, theyre not attached to one version of themselves, and are costantly exploring something new internally
Devotion versus Reinvention
A Prince Inverting is on a path of Self Destruction. I believe this has always been the case as I've always felt that Princes face this unique challenge to not be overwhelmed by their aspect as a force of destruction that they become unable to control, and I think it only recently Clicked how appropriately Heir-ish that path Sounds like. Heirs Inherit their Aspect, they are passive creation, meaning it is created within Themselves, they get in a sense, Overwritten by what their Aspect is or represents. But for Heirs this comes across as, in Hussie's words, them being able to put aside space inside of themselves, to make room for the aspect, so the aspect incorporates into their sense of self in a healthy way, becoming part of the whole. But an inverting Prince can't do that, in inverting, theyre unable to Compartmentalize, to set aside mental barriers, boundaries, space in their hearts, theyre not able to protect their sense of self from being molded, tweaked, changed, Overwritten by something or someone else. The exact thing that I think Dirk is so terrified of in the epilogues. They can't wield or accept the creation of something new inside themselves the way an Heir would, the idea of an identity rebirth that perhaps Heirs are prone to going through. Their sense of sense as it is either exists the way it does or does not, in a binary state, to them, if they are no longer themselves, they are gone, to an Hier, if they are no longer themselves, then they are merely someone New. Alternatively this can also manifest as a desperation to reinvent themselves, to find themselves without an anchor, unmoored, disssociated, imposter syndrome'd etc and simply finding themselves unable to in some way reinvent themselves, struggling to imagine how to still be themselves in everyway that defines themselves but still different and evolving, how to adapt without trying anything different.
an Inverting Heir then on the flipside, is someone who abandons inheritance, creation, renewal, for lashing out and destruction instead, they become Prince-like, but in a way that real Prince wouldn't be. But it's wanton, its purposeless, emotional. They're freaking out because they feel like there's something inside themselves they need to get rid of, to remove, a parasite, but they're not able to. They're putting up too many mental barriers, creating separations, perhaps in denial about aspects of their own self, or attempt to make themselves ignorant, they're a caterpilar desperately trying to wriggle out of the cocoon before they can become the butterfly. and I think in this volatile state they're likely prone to lashing out at others as well. Or perhaps they're a caterpilar that's desperately trying to fortify their cocoon, thinking perhaps if they seal themselves inside tight then the butterfly will die before it ever lives, destroying what could be in fear of what might be. I think they would become fundamentally incapable of self reflection, so afraid of turning the eyes inward that they'll do anything to prevent it, denial, ignorance, aggression, compartmentalizing, leading up pent up bottled up destruction aggressive energy that has nowhere to go. They just start strongly digging their heels in, devoting themselves to a misguided idea of who they should be instead of embracing who they are.
No matter how hard you try, youโll never fit in.
He isnโt the missing piece,
heโs the extra one no one needs
[For those comments who discovered that Caine fits next to Kinger: YES you're right! His only place was there at the edge, left out. Because Kinger is too kind to push him away.]
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