So it’s not directly in the text but I thought the fandom had more or less decided that ARquius shows up in the masterpiece because he was hiding inside of the bunny? The Lil Seb that Caliborn meets has one broken off ear and bright red Strider shades, visually evoking ARquius and we know from Aradiabot that sprites can possess robot bodies.

I don’t know about hiding inside the bunny, but it is quite possible Arquis is still connected to the bunny. The bunny also rusts and turns red so yeah i think the visual parallels are there, and I can imagine a mix Heir of Void/Prince of Heart being able to use the bunny as a passageway that way.

It’s kind of also entirely possible for a Void player to just Void-power their way there, though, so it’s kind of hard to say. I will say I think Lil Seb being involved in Arquis’ sudden appearance is the likeliest possibility. Potentially finding out more about that is one of many things I’m excited for about the ending.

That said, I can’t help but be a little sassy and mention I’m mostly not moved by what most of the fandom decides about Homestuck. That’s not relevant to this point and I’m glad you brought it up, I just want it on record 😛

Can you explain or link me to a post that explains the whole Arquius, Gamzee, and Caliborn, Claymation, Dirk putting them into lil’ Hal part of Homestuck because that hole section never made sense to me never makes sense to me

Here’s what happens in the Masterpiece:

The kids warp over to Caliborn. He sticks the Betas in his Juju, and all indications are they’ll just pop back out later when Vriska releases them in [S] Act 7.

Gamzee gets cut in half by Dirk, and then Caliborn beats the shit out of the Alphas. Then he gets focused on Dirk because he always had kind of a weird kismesis attraction thing going on with him, ends up beating Dirk up really bad, Jake sees Dirk in danger and throws a tantrum of cosmic proportions while unlocking his Hope powers and beating the crap out of Caliborn with his gay hope bubble.

The beating gives Dirk the time to fire off the soul-destroying spell we saw Brain Ghost Dirk use on Aranea, thanks to the sudden appearance of Arquis (who emerges from Literally Nowhere–he’s part Void player, remember?) who holds Caliborn down. Caliborn’s soul is forced into Lil Cal’s, along with AR’s(a Dirk), Equius’, and half of Gamzee’s body/soul.

As the most willful player, Caliborn predominates over the other three and presumably consumes their souls–they now exist as parts of him, so they’re essentially dead. Lord English seems to be made up primarily of Caliborn with only the most passive hints of Gamzee’s soul present. Doc Scratch seems to be primarily AR, with glimmers of Equius and subservient to Lord English’s will.

Incidentally, this lines up with the player’s Class type–A Lord is the “most Active” kind of player, and Princes are also “very Active” according to Calliope. Bard are Passive, and all signs point to Heirs being passive too. Gamzee and Equius adopt the passive roles in their new existences accordingly.

Caliborn wanted to be “bros” with Dirk, and now he gets a warped version of Dirk as his eternal bro puppet forever.

Feel free to send another ask if you’re still confused about something in particular!

i-am-but-a-simple-egg:

@revolutionaryduelist please give feedback on this, I believe you can make more sense to this than I ever could hope to.

The oddity of how Lil’ Hal became lil’ Cal has confused me, because I probably missed something.

But honestly I’ve come to this best solution so far. Cal island short for Caliborn, and seeing how Caliborn interacted more so with Dirk can only, this might of had an effect on his adult Beta self. Seeing as Caliborn had made his way to… the computer, accompanied by Gamzee, Liv, and lil’ Hal/Cal, Who knows what could’ve entirely happened. Other than Gamzee being shot multiple times. Besides, I digress. My point May be choppy, ill-supported and as well as short lived, I believe Caliborn had an effect to the point that Dirk/Bro from our starter timeline, the Beta timeline, had renamed the puppet after him in a way.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to, to be honest. Hal doesn’t exactly “become” Lil Cal–Arquius, Caliborn and Gamzee are all fused into Lil Cal and become parts of Lord English/Doc Scratch. This is what the Masterpiece is about.

As for Lil Cal originally being named for Cal, yeah I think that’s likely. Don’t know that Bro had to name him anything, though. Cal is printed right on the doll’s name, after all.

Feel free to reply with the nature of your question in case I’m missing something.

turing-tested:

i feel like a lot of times my opinion of autoresponder is…the opposite of what the biggest view on him is? he is absolutely manipulative, and a lot of people could say this is dirk at his worst, (2nd worst) but the way i think about it more is actually.

autoresponder is dirk in his worst environment. autoresponder is a dirk who woke up one day, unfortunate enough to have been the splinter that was trapped in a computer until the foreseeable future. autoresponder is a dirk that woke up one day, and the only connection he’d ever had to other humans had been functionally severed.

the very people that kept dirk from being bro are the very people autoresponder LOST, and it was to another version of himself, coupled with all of those people he’d cared about not so subtly establishing that he was just a fake dirk.(just like another unfortunate orange strider, though davesprite had the benefit of other people insisting that he WASN’T the fake dave, and he was his own seperate person. autoresponder barely even got that, with constant reassurance from his crush that he was, in fact, Not Real.)

i won’t deny autoresponder was manipulative! not at all! but i just feel. bad for him. he’s an unfortunate dirk, that at 13, lost all meaningful human interaction he’d ever had, his bodily autonomy, and his future. and the worst part, is he was subject to another version of himself.

i can’t blame him for being like that, i really can’t.

I figure it’s past overdue that I said some things about how I think about Hal, especially if I’ve flown the coop as far as talking about Vriska, so here hope you don’t mind but you said this was ok to reblog

If anything I see Hal as a heroic/tragic character, Tragic in the sense of being ultimately Heroic but having a classic Greek flaw (in his case, his inability to grow up because he got stuck in a computer.), which is fitting since Greek stuff/Greek philosophy is both Dirk and Hal’s primary interest.

He strives to live up Dave’s image in his own way and succeeds as a Prince of Heart in a completely different (and sadder) way than what Dirk does.

I know I keep referencing the Epilogue lately but part of me hopes Davepeta will find a way to swipe Arquius out of LE, too, because unlike Gamzee and Caliborn who chose to be evil and horrendous Arquius made a legitimate heroic sacrifice that I think deserves to be remembered fondly and if possible narratively rewarded. I just don’t have a clue how likely that is.

Yeah Dirk and Hal are the same person on a level, and they tell us interesting things about each other and their relationships to themselves. I just don’t think their actions and choices should be conflated, because their actions and choices are different every step of the way.

I just really don’t get why one would want to reduce both characters’ complexities and relationships to one another in favor of a reductive “all splinter iterations are the same exact person” argument. It shortchanges both of them and how far they have to climb and the different struggles they’re presented with, imo?

There’s only one truly, completely evil Dirk splinter out there, and that’s Bro. I just don’t think AR’s bitter rhetorical banter–banter Dirk never reproduces and that he actively, intensely resents–should be the fanon basis for Dirk’s character.

I also think casting either as ruthless masterminds is mischaracterizing Dirk by a considerable margin and Hal by a not insignificant one. Both versions of the dude are better than fandom thinks, and while Hal did some incredibly terrible shit to Jake AND Dirk that Dirk very much did not do, there were still severe extenuating circumstances to Hal worth considering.

Dirk grows into a far worse person when he’s cut off from other people, yeah, but that’s not due to some Intrinsic Evil on Dirk’s part–or on Hal’s. It’s a running theme through the entirety of Homestuck. It’s not just Dirk that finds salvation in friends–it’s everyone. And everyone is more of an asshole, crueler and more possessive, meaner and more short-sighted, for the lack of having people they care about.

Hal’s “abusiveness” or “cruelty” as I see it is mitigated somewhat by the fact that his existential situation is so deeply, truly, PROFOUNDLY shitty, and that there’s not even a fair target for it (not even Dirk because Hal wasn’t even given the satisfaction of being planned, his sentience was an accident), but it’s also kind of cruelly OUTSIZED because at the end of the day Hal is really just…a 13 year old with way too much knowledge, which turns into way too much power.

Hal is as cruelly warped as Grimbark Jade or Crockertier Jane, basically–shortchanged of any relationships or honest, equal expression to others, all he has is the depths in himself. He grows completely in touch with his abilities, awareness of the universe, and his Aspect but ends up totally isolated as a result as well.

“Empty, like Space, I guess.”

Or like a broken heart.