#cherub session

[sketchoodles]

The 2-player Sburb session that was never meant to be

Bonus unblurred planet

[homestuckexamination]

Yaldabaoth is said to offer very extreme Choices, but it's somewhat hard to fathom what that really means compared to other Choices we've seen in canon- what Choice do you imagine he'd have given Dirk? What should we try and think of when coming up with a Yaldabaoth Choice(tm) for an OC of our own?

I mean, the Cherub Choice was “You will face an impossible challenge, and either perish, or claim your rightful place as a conqueror of everything, allowed to do anything you desire until the end of days, or you will suffer complete and utter isolation for an eternity in order to halt someone who chose differently than you”, so that feels pretty fucking extreme even for Denizen Choices.

As for Dirk... We don’t even really know if Dirk saw Yaldaboob at all.

[homestuckexamination]

was the prospit moon destroyed in the black hole in caliborns dead session

Both the Moon and Prospit itself likely.

[homestuckexamination]

Is it possible for there to have been a Doomed Timeline out there where Calliope and Caliborn actually played together, or does the predetermined nature of sessions mean it could only ever be a Dead Session?

I mean in a Timeline where they played together, it would not be predetermined to be Dead. That being said, the potential of the two agreeing to play together, given Caliborn’s abrasive nature, seems... Difficult. 

[homestuckexamination]

i genuinely don't understand how caliborn was so successful in his session- he managed to sink all of the planets and defeat his denizen with like... a fucking machine gun and that's it? he wasn't even godtier, just a dickhead teen with a gun. what gives? he shoulda been easy to kill

Caliborn is a Lord of Time. Already, one of his most annoying passive abilities shown in canon is that the Timeline quite literally falls into place around him. He’s Already Lord English, his victory over the Session is necessary in the first place for that to happen, no matter how far-fetched it may be. He also had the insane luck of sinking three Planets from the gravitational pull the moment Skaia Collapsed, and while generally useless, the Felt do have rather handy Time Powers if you know how to use them.

I want to point out that he didn’t win ‘with a machine gun’. The Battle with the Denizen has been shown to happen exclusively by wielding a god damn Crowbar. Sure, it’s a Juju, but Yaldabaoth is not a Juju the Juju Breaker can break, it’s just a solid-ass crowbar against a Denizen’s face.

Thing a lot of people forget is that Cherubs are fucking terrifying. Even if Caliborn is a shithead, and even if Calliope is a sweetheart, Cherubs are one of the most potent forces in the entirety of Homestuck Canon by themselves. They’re a space-faring species that can fly with their body alone, destroy entire planets with ease upon reaching adulthood, and become imbued by the very essence of paradox space for mating of all things, coiling around Supermassive Black Holes as if they weren’t a big deal.

They’re fucking hardy and powerful creatures. More so than Trolls, even.

[sketchoodles]

I wanna hear or see more if that cherup SBURB session au

My idea is that it’s the outcome that Calliope wanted:

This excerpt from the comic got me thinking about all the alternate settings that could have been.

It would involve a series of trust exercises from both cherubs as they make pre-entry preparations.

I was thinking that their countdown would be 11 hours and 11 minutes, because I want their sleep cycle to play a crucial part in their entry.

Calliope would have to set up the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe and every other device that is necessary for the session start. She will additionally have to sleep in order to allow Caliborn to use the devices, and this is where the trust exercise comes into play.

I don’t have a whole lot to show about it yet aside from the possible entry item and a very, VERY drafty doodle of what their shared planet might look like:

Imps would have a neutral and generally perplexed disposition - they can be morally swayed into either alignment, allowing both Calliope and Caliborn to utilize them in ways not originally intended by the game.

Also: Gamzee + combined lollies = Gamzillysprite???

There’s also this picture I drew last year depicting their dreamselves in a shared session.

The result of their respective quests might lead them to one final trial that involves their blood in some form on a shared quest sarswapagus that will either grant them separate bodies via dreamself mechanic, or combine their souls into one body, the “true union” that Calliope mentioned.

This would be the cherubic entity called Callioborn - I briefly talked about them on Twitter before, but I’ll eventually polish the art and post it here as well.

[homestuckexamination]

Prototyping an empty Kernelspirite with another empty Kernelsprite... isn't that basically what happened when Caliborn entered?

Nope, his is just a special case because of the Solo Session.

[homestuckexamination]

I think the last asker was actually referring to a dead session but was using the wrong name

Oh! Whoops. Response may be similar though, the ‘boon’ granted by Yaldabaoth was very... Caliborn-ish, just letting him do whatever he wanted, forever, unrestricted. Even then, though, Dead Sessions aren’t even just impossible to make a Universe in, they’re designed as punishments for people who’re trying to play solo. Caliborn winning was luck upon luck upon Time Lord luck, the chances of beating it are abysmally near non-existent, and largely dependant on RNG as well.

Even then I always liked thinking the Boon was a trap. Caliborn becomes completely immortal, but he’s still trapped in a Dead Session, the core of which is a Black Hole. Inescapable, irrelevant. It’s not until the Kids zap to him that they put his Soul in Cal and allow him to escape, but I like thinking until then he was literally fated to spend eternity waiting unable to go anywhere.