Since the troll romance stuff is important to understand the relationships between the characters, I recommend you don't just disregard it. It's not even complicated, though Hussie and other people like to claim otherwise.
Hearts and Spades are definitely pretty basic seeming, although humans wouldn’t normally consider Spades to be romance necessarily.
My understanding of Diamonds is that it revolves around either mutual or one-way guidance between two characters. Generally like a friendship might be for most people.
Clubs was stranger, but it seems like it occurs when one person mediates between the potential Spades relationship of two others. Preventing it from becoming dangerous or harmful I think?
From what I gathered, the complicated stuff came when Hussie started talking about how troll relationships fluctuated between different combinations and states. Also, the sheer number of potential types of relationships along with the number of characters potentially involved makes it a lot more difficult than it really needs to be.
Silly LOFAS, Hussie already stole our souls the first read around. That's why we feel nothing when we read it subsequent times, and must feed on the delicious vicariously-experienced endorphin-based emotional energy readers like you weave into the Internet through your blogs and videos. That's also why certain pages must be audio reacted, as vocal communication carries far more of that sweet, sweet energy than text does, and we need our fixes. Been a while since my last one, though. So cold.
With the alleged conclusion of the story fast approaching, what does that mean for all of you?
Will Hussie satiate your ravenous hunger for content? Or will it just grow stronger, as you spiral endlessly into the abyss, without even a semblance of hope on the horizon? I’m not even close enough to *imagine* what an ending could look like, let alone appreciate the gravitas of your situation. But if there’s one thing I’m sure you’re feeling, it’s fear. Fear that the narrative you love so much won’t meet your expectations. Fear of regretting your struggles through years of buildup. Fear that this was all leading up to the incineration of your spirits by a duplicitous author, in the blaze of a monstrous joke. Your precarious position leaves all of you hanging on every word that Hussie publishes, waiting for what will either be an awesome experience or one of the biggest letdowns in your life.
Ultimately, I suppose you’re right to envy my inaugural reading of the story. By the time I care enough to be devastated by Homestuck, I’ll at least know whether or not the ending was satisfactory to everyone else. I’ll be able to purely enjoy whatever Hussie sees fit to offer us, without the same degree of excessive worry or crippling tension. As Hussie gazes down over his millions of readers, I have no doubt that he will chuckle to himself heartily before everything is over. Maybe he’ll even decide that you should get a perfect ending to his masterpiece after all! When he finally opens his mouth to speak, uttering what may well be the final words you ever need to hear, we can only pray that he gets right to the point and says: “Ima need about tree fiddy” It is around this time you all realize that this gorgeous man is about 8 stories tall and a crustacean from the paleozoic era. That damned Loch Ness Monster had gotten you again!
"I never would have guessed that Karkat of all people was a fan of romance movies." And yet his love of romcoms is talked about in his introduction. You shouldn't be forgetting details that are explained in the character introductions, dear LOFAS.
Sorry, you’re right. I guess that sort of thing seemed largely inconsequential to me. I’ve been reading in short spread out spurts for the past while and don’t exactly remember everything equally ...
“The MAGIC CUE BALL on the other hand is said to make predictions with alarming precision and specificity. Unfortunately it lacks a portal on its surface that allows you to view the prediction. You put both of these pieces of junk back in the box.”
I completely forgot about this … I guess these cueballs are everywhere if Jade got her hands on one. If she can find a way to look into it (maybe some robot or technology shenanigans?) this could be really useful! If Jade has the right questions to ask, that is.
Thanks for pointing this out!
I’m not even sure which of the many things mentioned in my posts today you’re talking about … but I guess it doesn’t really matter. That’s probably both for the better and on purpose, actually. I have to stop being surprised by this story …
I honestly don't know if you can get it back, but I can screencap the whole thing for you and submit it to you so you can upload it as images I suppose. Or just write it all over again.
THIS IS NO NORMAL ASK, NOTABLE THEORIZING OCCURS!!
Right before I stopped posting again last time, zeunknown asked me a question about how I thought the gate system worked. I was a little surprised because nobody really asks me to help them figure stuff out about this comic, but I love trying to figure things out! Unfortunately, I accidentally answered privately without even finishing my answer. I completed my speculation now though! Thankfully zeunknown was able to send me back what I originally said. If interested, you can read it below the “keep reading” button.
If I missed something obvious that I should have already seen, I’m more than happy to have it pointed out! Hopefully I did okay given my level of knowledge, be nice. I tried to include enough pictures to make it interesting.
[Original question, exact phrasing lost due to tumblr’s poor messenging system … Basically “can you help explain how the gates might work?” ]
Hm … not really sure why you’d ask *me* questions about the story, but I’m glad you did! Keep in mind that virtually everyone reading this will have more context and information than I do. I’m probably wrong about some things, but this is the best layout I could make.
Let’s start with a basic image. I know that Jade will probably enter soon after we see the kids again, so that will make 4 planets with 7 gates above each (drawn with gates pointing outward for simplicity/readability, I know they really point inward to Skaia):
Now let’s start tracing out the hypothetical path of a player. In doing this, I made the assumption that paths would be symmetrical for each kid. This is where we will start getting gates that go on the planet, which have been left out so far.
John initially builds up to his first gate, which takes him down to his planet. Ignoring the return portal that Terezi makes him go through, the second gate is then found on his planet somewhere: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003588 As that page shows, he arrives at the second gate of Rose (his server player).
Time to scour for more information …
In Dave: Accelerate (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003541) we see that a Gate 5 leads to an area on Dave’s planet. We also know that BEFORE Jade enters, John going to the 7th gate above his house will lead to his denizen. My ask screener James was kind enough to describe a little bit about how the players loop through the planets of their friends, building up more and more on each one, and I was able to come up with this:
Lines with arrows represent the paths that each kid may be intended to take in the game. Their planets are similarly colour coded.
Basically this would mean that every above-house gate connects to a on-planet gate in some fashion. I have no idea whether you could go backwards, if the same gate can take different people to different places, or any of a hundred other possible ways this could work …
It follows what Nanasprite said about having to descend before you can ascend each time (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003329) but I have one glaring issue with it. Terezi tricks John to go through HIS seventh gate, which apparently leads to HIS denizen. However, this layout would have the 7th gate each player goes through lead to their client player’s planet somewhere rather than to their own denizen. I have some ideas about this though:
1) I am just plain wrong (likely in some way, regardless of any other factors) and this layout is not how it actually works at all.
2) When Jade had not yet entered the game, John’s 6th gate (on Dave’s planet) could skip Jade’s planet and go back to his own. This would make the next gate be the last gate above John’s house (#7 over John’s house would also be the 7th gate John goes through, taking him down to his denizen then).
3) Players bypass going to the actual land of their client (via 7th gate above client’s house), and the gate takes them directly to their denizen. ((This would mean that the only reason John went through house-gate 7 on his own planet to get to his own denizen was because Jade has not entered and that this is not normally how it would work.))
4) The gate system is not intended to be a single linear path (highly likely given the nature of Sburb and how easy it is to cheat the gate system). Instead, the main goal is to provide transportation between players. This could be useful, since you could easily get from one planet to the next by flying through low number gates (ie from John2–>Rose2–>Dave2–>Jade2 or going through gates that my diagram marks as being intended for use by other players).
5) My diagram is totally accurate and players are actually supposed to fight the denizen living on the planet of their client ((Highly disagree with this, since each planet clearly has a specific theme (fireflies/oily pipes, ocean/play rain) to it that is presented as a challenge to the player who hails from there. Not to mention the fact that the trolls literally seem to direct the humans to fight the denizen from their own planet …))
6) There are actually more than 7 gates that a player is intended to go through, but only 7 gates are located above their houses. For instance, we add another gate on each planet in my diagram to return players to their own planet. Potentially right to their house at ground level or something. From there, they go up to the 7th gate above their house. This takes them down to their own denizen as we have observed. This would require the 7th gates above their houses to act differently depending on which kid attempted to go through them (unless the final stop for a player on their client’s planet before returning to their own happens to be right near the denizen of that planet (which they leave alone for the player who the planet belongs to) but they instead go to a different gate to return them to their home planet.
For example: Gate #7 above John’s house leads down to John’s planet (LOWAS) near his denizen. When Rose goes through house-gate 7(John), she does not go to the denizen and instead finds her way to a different gate on LOWAS that leads back to her own planet. From here, she goes to her own house-gate 7(Rose) which leads to her denizen which she then fights. John would have gone through house-gate 7(Jade) ignored Jade’s denizen and found a portal back to LOWAS where he goes through house-gate 7(John) to face his own denizen, etc. This would mean that players go through more gates, but could work if it is necessary for players to go through the 7th gate above their house in order to reach their denizen. Added to my previous diagram in orange (and yellow for extra emphasis) for John only:
After traveling through house-gate 7 (Jade) and going through the corresponding on-planet portal, John could arrive back at his house on LOWAS. From there, he ascends to his own 7th gate (house-gate 7 (John)) which leads to his denizen.
I guess the key facet of this theory is that a the 7th gates take different players to different places. If it is above your planet, it takes you to your denizen and if it is above someone else’s planet it goes to some random spot on their world for you to complete a “regular” ascend/descend cycle.
Anyway, I’m sure most if not all of this bullshit will prove to be wrong in some ways. Particularly because I don’t even want to think about how this would have worked with 6 people for each of the troll sessions. I’m most certainly not far enough in the story to understand game mechanics to a degree at which this will make sense. For christ’s sake, I still haven’t seen a full group of players enter the game yet! This was fun to research and think about though.
Did I literally kill you with my fantastic Vriska impression? Were you physically blown away by how great it was, your flailing torso propelled back by the force of my performance, crashing through the far wall, your corpse pinwheeling through the air before landing in a crumpled heap of broken drywall and shattered limbs several yards away? Is there no wifi in the cemetery where you were buried, and that is why your progress has ceased? Do I owe your fans an apology for being so awesome?
James said to tell you that “You may have killed me, but I’m 8ack now!” (underline and all) when I responded to this. Alright then ... Speaking of him, he won’t be screening asks for a little while. Not sure what I’ll do about that.
Anyway, it’s true. My semester is about to end (just 2 exams to go) and I’ll be on another co-op placement that will leave me with plenty of free time ... relatively speaking. Technically I’m going home for a few weeks beforehand, but I should be able to make some posts during that time as well. I’m really looking forward to getting back into this! I initially planned to mimic the MSPA writing style you’re using in my response, but I think you guys might prefer if I put it in a regular post instead (I’m also just being lazy).
Everything is fine, classes just started taking up more of my time. Thanks for the support though! I have free time for the next 4 hours or so and will be making some posts. Stay tuned!
Can I ask why you find Tavros to be so repulsive? Like, he's not my favorite troll by far, but I do find him to be a rather sympathetic character. I was sort of surprised at your recent speculation that he's so irredeemably awful he could be the sole reason the trolls don't win their session and that he even deserves to die because of it. (Which - no offense - sounds a lot like something Vriska would say.)
((In the middle of my next post, which I took multiple breaks from. This is a great ask, and more like it would be appreciated in future! It gives me a chance to clarify thoughts on a specific topic in a direct way.))
I’ve probably exaggerated the extent to which I dislike him so far. Re-reading the speculation from my post earlier today, I agree that it reads as being very antagonistic towards him. I would like to point out that my speculation there was largely based on the his lack of physical capability, because I really can’t imagine him taking on and defeating a powerful enemy. Through that, the “losing the game” part was based on possible game mechanics that could make sense. I think that much is fairly reasonable.
Let me be clear though: I don’t think that Tavros deserves to die. Especially not at this point in the story. He is very much the victim of some unfortunate circumstances, that were forced upon him by others (namely Vriska). With respect to his paralysis and the harassment he received because of it, I agree with you. Those are undeserved, and it is terrible that he has had to go through them. As far as I am concerned, there is no debate there.The reason that I suggested that he be one of the Trolls to get killed by his denizen was because it would serve as just punishment for failing his friends by not being able to defeat his denizen (and then failing to seek help with it or tell anybody). I did not mean that he should die because he is “terrible” or anything like that. However, I still don’t like his character, and I guess I should properly explain why:
Ever since we met him, Tavros has proven himself to be unintelligent, and lets other people walk all over him. Not once did he ever stand up for himself toward Vriska’s abuse in their conversations. All he had to do was exit the chat or tell her to stop, just once, and I would have respected him for it. I think that is the root issue here, it is difficult to respect a person that does not respect themselves. Even in the scene before Vriska makes him jump from the cliff, he never tries to do anything about his circumstances. He seeks out help from Terezi and Aradia when he really should have been trying to help himself. Tavros did not stand up firmly for any of his beliefs (or his safety), even when his life was potentially on the line. I admit that he is a friendly enough person, but even that can be explained by his excessive passiveness and not wanting to make waves. Another problem I have with him is that he does not recognize this; he is highly un-self-aware. Remember when he tried to Troll Dave, but ended up making a complete fool of himself? Tavros doesn’t seem to properly understand what’s going on around him or his role in it. For these reasons, I find him annoying and don’t like him. He isn’t a malicious person, and he is not terrible, but his deep character flaws (more specifically, the nature of his flaws) make it impossible for me to like and care about him.
Hopefully that makes a little bit more sense. Time to finish writing the regular post …
(Oh, and I am a little offended that I would be compared to Vriska, but I understand where you’re coming from. Maybe this helps a little, maybe not.)
RE: Free Will and Predestination: Why is the universe in which Alternate Future Dave got himself prototyped the official universe? Why didn't the other one count? I would really like to see your thoughts about will and predestination coexisting, if they even do, but you keep on dropping the subject almost immediately after you bring it up. :<
Alright, sounds like a plan then. I guess it HAS been quite a while since I actually discussed the subject. I feel like it keeps coming up in the story somehow, so maybe that’s caused me to feel like it hasn’t been so long since I last discussed it. Next time I get something interesting and related to the topic, I won’t skip over it.
New post coming later, starting reading right after this response.
