Tag: A. Claire

A. Claire doesn’t even have to be the same age as jane and jake if she’s a clone of jane, she could have been cloned years after, maybe even after jane finally ditched the condesce. this would make sense, since by 1980, jane and jake would be in their 60s/70s and jane (and any clone who was her same age) would be too old to have kids since most women go through menopause in their 40s/50s. it would actually make more sense for a claire to be a bit younger because of that actually

Nice, I like this. 

I hate your new theory because it feels plausible enough to be true. I just… I just want somebody in Homestuck to be themselves for once, singular and inviolate.

dukeofriven:

revolutionaryduelist:

there is someone like that, in my opinion. it’s caliborn. 

I was going to get mad but then I remembered that no – there was an alt-Caliborn. We never met him, but he was dominated and defeated by alt-Calliope.

The end result, though, is that unlike anyone else in all of reality, there’s only ever really One Caliborn. Caliborn doesn’t exist conceptually, in many different iterations, like the rest of the characters do. He exists only and exclusively in the single physical form that goes on the single physical journey he ever chooses to take.

The Alt-Caliborn only existed through forced John scratch, and his only fate was to be consumed and become part of Calliope. He doesn’t truly exist except as part of her. So Caliborn remains a true individual–an oddity in Homestuck’s cast. Everyone else is multiple people.

That post is so good!!! I can see someone who wrote for hiveswap reading that and being shocked by your accuracy. My only thing is, wouldn’t Pa who grew up with a Jane find it kinda incestuous to marry and procreate with another Jane? (I know they’re not related but I imagine the adoptive relation would be enough to gross someone out. Unless you’re postulating that A. Claire is very very different from Jane?)

A.Claire would be a completely different person than Jane, since she’s shaped by totally different experiences and Jane, as a Maid of Life, is uniquely defined BY her life experiences–I’ve written about my interpretation of Jane in this regard here. 

If this were true, then it would be Homestuck’s most ambitious and intense exploration of the questions of Nature vs. Nurture it’s explored continually so far, maybe even moreso than the difference between Bro and Dirk. 

That’s another reason I like the idea, given that the Alpha session is, in its broad strokes, heavily crafted by the extreme impact of either Dirk or Jane, who trade off absolute control of the session back and forth, but through proxies. AR (NOT Dirk) is in complete control of the narrative Pre-Entry, and Post-Entry Jane ends up dominating the whole session first through Trickster Mode and then through Crockertier–both times without her full agency. I only point this out to note that Dirk and Jane have always existed as extreme parallels of one another. 

So just as Bro seems to be influenced by Lil Cal to a great degree, I’d be interested in seeing a version of Jane who is fully subject to the Heiress role the Empress has always wanted to impose onto Jane, and which proved incredibly toxic to her in her Alpha timeline. Let me be clear: I think A.Claire is an absolutely heroic figure. I also think that about Grandpa, though–I just regard him as a hero with a tragic flaw, in the greek sense. 

I wouldn’t be shocked if A.Claire had a similar issue she never overcame, since that’s kind of the Thing with the Alphas, and though Jake and Jane undoubtedly love each other I don’t think they worked out their issues. If they had, I don’t think Roxy would have been so lacking for support, and if Jake had solved his problems through his relationship with A.Claire, I kind of doubt he’d have run away from the kids. 

But I digress. I don’t think Pa would find it incestuous because, for one thing, there’s no indication he would know. Pa was apparently a big fan of A.Claire’s. That’s unsurprising, given his at least subconcious affinity for his old friends. But he’d have no way to know about that or ask her about it before they actually became close. So basically I don’t think it’s something that would occur to him? 

A. Claire’s Identity….REVEALED???

No. Well, probably not. But I think I have a pretty decent guess? 

My Jude post is going to take a little while longer, and once I put these pieces together it didn’t take much to make things fall into place, and turned out to be pretty quick to put together.

I don’t usually do outright speculation, I tend to dislike doing so. But this feels solid enough that I’m willing to at least mention it, and more than that its simply interesting to think about, so while we wait for Hiveswap: Act 2, I figure we may as well mull over this possibility.

So, humor me.

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A. Claire is a pretty mysterious figure. She seems to come out of nowhere to shake up Homestuck’s core cast, and she seems to know more about the game than we ever confirmed for any other Guardian, barring Pa himself. 
Why does she seem so connected to the Cherub Key? How on earth did she paint a mural of the green sun??? What’s her deal! 

There’s no precedent for a character quite like the mysterious actress, and seemingly no background profile that would explain how she knows what she knows. Except, of course, for the obvious one. The one we’ve overlooked. 

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Yep, I’m arguing A. Claire is Jane. Or, well, A JANE, anyway. I always thought the two Nannas thing was a little odd, but really, one than one lifetime spent on the same mortal plane makes perfect sense as part of the potential power of a Life player–particularly a creator of Life who tends to benefit themselves.

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But hear me out on the context. If we regard A. Claire as another Jane, then suddenly this story Nanna tells us–relayed to her as a fairy tale by the Condesce–is completely true. And the Condesce is a Thief of Life, with an established interest in genetic manipulation. 

It’s at least possible she would already have access to cloning technology with which she could have cloned Nanna. Stolen her life, so to speak. And she would have had an interest in doing so, because how better to shape her ideal Heiress? 

A Jane who grows up under the Batterwitch’s brutal tutelage could readily be expected to know secrets about Cherubs, who the Witch researched. Suddenly, A. Claire’s painting of the green mural,  her knowledge of Cherubs and connection to Cherub technology–perhaps even her and Pa’s posession of the Cherub machine would make sense, either through the Condesce’s secrets or possibly Jane’s memories, as with Pa.

In fact, that may well be the most likely way they got the Cherub Machine, and the Key that served as Joey’s heirloom. This Jane would, after all, be the Batterwitch’s ideal Heiress. The Cherub Machine could well be part of the inheritance she and Pa received. 

But this isn’t Jane, right? This character is named A. Claire. And with this context, we suddenly have true grounds for the name Anna. 

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Anna–the name that Dirk said sounded almost right for Jane in another universe, in another life (and in the same page where he correctly intuited the way the Beta version of Jake got his last name)–means “beautiful” or “graceful”. Both of those names are good fits for A.Claire, but most interesting to us is “Favor”, possibly as in favored child.

Just as Anna Claire would be the favored version of Jane, from the Condesce’s perspective. Meaning the fairy tale she related to Nanna was simply literal fact; a retelling of the setup she already orchestrated. And the kids she was destined to have with Jake, those who would save the world, are not John and Jade (sburb didn’t do that anyway), but Joey and Jude. 

Anna and Jake, then, are bound together through their shared experiences in another life, their mutual connection to the Game’s secrets. And, of course, their relationships with Roxy–who they take in as a babysitter. As well as…

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Dirk, who it seems they had plans to take in as well–Rocking horse and everything. Makes you wonder what happened to Bro, and what he’s doing. How did he avoid being found? Or was he found, but too influenced by Cal to indulge something like horses? Idk, this is clearly overthinking.

But I’m intrigued to see if we ever find out. 

As for Anna Claire, I’m feeling pretty confident about this and think it’d be cool. But I’m obviously not married to the idea just yet–I’d like to learn more about A. Claire first. I just wanted to get people talking about the possibility for now. 
Anyone compelled by this reading? 

There’s something I’ve been thinking: We once debated whether or not Grandpa Harley was living an awesome life or not – I said yes, you said no because you felt he was trying to fill the void of a reality without Dirk in it, his (in some sense literal) soul mate. But I feel like this throws A. Claire under the bus. Rather than being a guy whose a shitty person because Dirk isn’t in his life – maybe he’s just shitty because his wife died and he never got over it. He wouldn’t be the first. 1/2

2/3 I mean A. Claire affects the narrative indirectly, being The Dead Mom trope, but it really stands out to me the way we let our knowledge of the alpha universe affect our understanding of the Beta. A. Claire is one of the few human ‘things’ in Homestuck to have no counterpart in the Alpha timeline that we are aware Jake is aware of. Joey and Jude never drew breath on Alpha Earth. A. Claire and J&J fundamentally separate Jake English and Jake Harley into two utterly different individuals 2/3

¾ Which is why I still have to disagree that the Beta Guardians are de-facto the ‘incomplete’ versions of the Alpha kids, unable to ever reach their true potential – because where does that leave the life that Jake built with A. Claire? Even now Grandpa remains the outlier among the Guardians – from my standpoint I can’t but see him as a man who couldn’t handle the loss of his wife, for who his children were the most painful reminder. So he runs – again and again and again and again 3/4 

4/4 (Sorry this is all splintered like this, Asks suck). None of this condones him being a shitty parent, but it does change the context in which we can view JE and JH as mirrors. I’d love to know what JH was like as a husband to A – kind, carrying, attentive, devoted? Maybe he wasn’t, and your original argument stands – the absence of his alpha friends ultimately stunts him as a person. But maybe when A was still around this ceased to be true – but once she was gone, he fell apart again.

 

I mean, my main post was never that Jake was shitty because of a lack of Dirk specifically. Jake Harley struggles with the exact same issues that detonate all of Jake English’s relationships with his friends growing up. Toxic masculinity, heteronormative ideology, and most clearly, escapism and neglect of those he cares about because of fear of confrontation. 

It is through his relationship with all his friends–Dirk, Jane, Roxy, and others–that Jake manages to learn to get over those issues.
All we can say for sure about Jake Harley, then, is that he most definitely does not overcome his neglect and escapism habits by the end of his life the way English does. 

MAYBE he made progress with A. Claire on that front? It’s definitely not impossible. But we just don’t know, and in the meantime he continues hoarding behavior that suggests his alternate friends are very much still a part of his psyche. It’s also possible A. Claire was his partner in uncovering the secrets of Lord English and Sburb, given that she apparently painted Joey’s mural of a Green Star–in other words, the Green Sun–and was the original owner of the Cherub Key.  

I certainly agree that Jude and Joey are unique, though, and A. Claire won me over hard enough that I would be happy to know she was at least a genuine comfort to Jake if he was struggling. I honestly don’t know what their relationship was like either–but I’m very curious. 

So here’s a question: Do you think Joey’s mum’s last name is related to the Gnostic themes in Homestuck?

Claire? Nothing has made me think of that just yet. 

But I looked it up and it seems to refer to “Clear” and “Famous” historically, which matches A. Claire’s fame. Fame and clairty naturally being Light concepts, thats yet another symbol marking Joey as being Made of Light. So thank you for that.