Ok, hear me out on this. What if you fingers had Classpects. Each one had their own. Really weird, out of the blue question, but here’s my reason. Classpect finger puppet. Like, imagine your fingers dressed up in tiny Classpect outfits

homestuckexamination:

Okay that’s absolutely adorable, but now I can’t help but imagine Hussie doing that, because he’s the only character I could feasibly see having something as ridiculous as “Each Finger is a different God Tier”.

im glad we both got this ask and also didnt hussie literally do that? didnt he? it was his mere 10 fingers who put together homestuck, so at the end of the day, isnt that exactly what we’re bearing witness to. one dude. 10 fingers. 100000000000 classpects

I remember you said in one post that grimdark Rose (and even Rose just before she turns grimdark) is roleplaying fairly successfully as a witch, but do you have any thoughts on Jade acting like a seer at the very beginning of the story? Like we’re introduced to Jade as someone who has an ability to see into the future, but this is completely dropped as an attribute of her character later on, so I was wondering what you thought of how that coincides with her character development or anything

wakraya:

revolutionaryduelist:

shizukateal:

revolutionaryduelist:

I don’t really think Jade is acting like a Seer at all. At least, I haven’t seen that referenced in the story so far. Roleplay is a way that players deviate from their native active/passive states, but it doesn’t seem to be the only way. Dreaming moons influence players to be more Active (in Derse’s case) or more Passive (in Prospit’s) on their own.

Jade *is* acting more Passive during that section of the story, but that’s explicitly due to her waking up early on Prospit, and Prospit’s Passive influence. I don’t really know that we need more of an explanation for her behavior there.

Similarly, I don’t really think Jade’s ability to see the future is dropped as an element of her character–it just stops being relevant as the timeline catches up to Jade and other characters start waking up. 

Everything Jade does is, by Kanaya’s own admission, something Kanaya also does. So unless Seer roleplay is a thing all Space players default to early on (which I suppose is fairly possible–Skaia certainly qualifies as a divine influence), I don’t think that’s what’s up.

It’s important to note *why* I think Rose is roleplaying a Witch. It’s a byproduct of her interest in wizardry and an inability to really understand Mom’s true nature as a Rogue. She isn’t assigned the Witch roleplay from abstract, Skaian forces–she’s driven into it by her own confused admiration of her mom and desperate desire for power.

If Jade is roleplaying a Seer, I’d expect some similar impetus or drive or associated imagery from her. Along those lines, I think there’s *sort of* an argument Jade might be roleplaying a Page, though I kind of feel like Grandpa and Nanna’s relative absences mean there’s not a ton of ancestral influence from them. It’s hard to say.

ok, see… I support a lot your roleplay theory, but this is where I disagree.

Or rather, I think that both your roleplay theory and bladekindeyewear’s inversion theory are both valid interpretations of the same concept of the charactes acting in resistance/defiance of their role and should be applied on a case to case basis and can even sometimes interlope, like in Rose’s case. For example, I think “Aranea is roleplaying as a Thief” is more accurate than “Aranea is overbearing her Sylph role”, but I think Inversion is more accurate in this case. Yeah, Jade is acting more passively due to Skaia’s influence, but why is she so submited to said influence? Vriska, who is putting her to sleep every chance she gets for 13 years of her life to further her own agenda, so Jade’s attitude on life up until she can’t dream with Skaia is to just do what the clouds say, and once she’s forcefully taken out of that position she starts acting more actively, as represented by her actually confronting karkat’s bullshit instead of just blocking him  The difference between Jade and Kanaya is that the latter has a normal sleeping schedule and a passive alignment in her class, so she can enact her role with more balance.

Also, I don’t get why you say there’s no imagery associated with Jade as a seer when everyone up to act 4 is calling her a Psychic, has 2 pages were she shows off both her 8-ball and cue ball and later makes a pair of goggles that let her see everything. Not to mention the entire segment of her letter to PM and the cable she left for The Mayor.

My basic standpoint is that WP has said inversion theory isn’t canon, so I don’t have much reason to regard it as an influence in the story. I think Jade is submitted to Prospit’s influence because she dreams a lot on Prospit.

Prospit and Derse are two distinct cultures. They have their own sorts of identities that can influence dreamers on their own. I don’t think you need extra justification to explain why someone is influenced by a place that they grow up in–that happens as a matter of course.

And that’s what Prospit and Derse are to their respective dreamers–provided they’ve woken up. Jade wakes up early, as does Kanaya, and as a consequence both grow up in two different worlds/places/environments simultaneously.

Their exposure to Prospit’s culture also encourages both to act Passively, but Kanaya suffers less for this as she’s already a Passive class. Tavros is another example–he spends the latter part of his game being incredibly passive, and also, it so happens, dreaming on Prospit.

We see from Jadesprite emerging from the Dream Bubbles with her sense of self-indulgent, helpless fatalism that Jade is extremely susceptible to this kind of environmental conditioning, which makes sense, because environments and places are part of what Space describes.

So I view her passivity as being more telling of her nature as a Space player than of inversion, on her part. As for the psychic stuff, I mean. I guess I’m just not all that inclined to regard “psychic” as synonymous with “prophet”.

A Prophet is a pretty specific archetypal image, and all of the classes access psychic power through the Aspects. Heck, the Zodiac’s -Bound designations link Aspect powers to Earthbound, implying Aspects in and of themselves are psychic in nature.

So sure Jade is psychic, but so is literally everyone in the cast, by Homestuck/Hiveswap’s own coding. I don’t think it’s impossible to convince me Jade is roleplaying a prophet here necessarily–I honestly am not confident I have a reading of her early character I’m 100% satisfied with, I feel like I’m missing stuff, and it could well be that.

But again, this implies literally all Space players–or at least all players who wake up early on their moons–will end up roleplaying Prophets. That’s possible, but it’s a legitimate question that I feel warrants searching for an answer to.
I am not convinced inversion is that answer. That’s about where I am.

I should mention, about Aspects being Psychic in Nature and ‘Jade being referred to as a Psychic’, there’s canonical evidence that backs this not being a special Jade case tying her to a more Prophet-like role. It is not an influence on her own nature that is exclusive to Jade, as it’s merely the fact that she’s the only one aware of SBURB’s true Nature before everyone else is, and by Act 4 when she tells John to get his copy of the game, she explicitly says that she’s “No more of a Psychic than John is, he simply doesn’t know it yet.”

If anything, this implication, rather than liken Jade to the Seer, only binds the role of the Heir and the Witch further, but in general it does mention that what she’s doing as an apparent ‘Seer’ is merely watching the clouds skip by and accidentally letting details slip to her friends from time to time. Once they Wake Up, everyone starts to do the same- John sees quite a few things on the Clouds Post-Ascension, Rose communes with the Horrorterrors to a horrifying degree, and Dave learns from them that they’re calling out for Help.

It’s not that Jade is a Seer- Rather, is that both Skaia and the Horrorterrors ARE Prophets, and Jade is the only one with access to these external sources until everyone’s in the game.

I’m not sure Skaia and the Horrorterrors qualify as prophets–they seem more like the divine influences that a prophet would draw insight and power from.
Which sounds like I’m arguing against myself now, but I’m really just quibbling with a nuance. Otherwise I agree completely.

I remember you said in one post that grimdark Rose (and even Rose just before she turns grimdark) is roleplaying fairly successfully as a witch, but do you have any thoughts on Jade acting like a seer at the very beginning of the story? Like we’re introduced to Jade as someone who has an ability to see into the future, but this is completely dropped as an attribute of her character later on, so I was wondering what you thought of how that coincides with her character development or anything

shizukateal:

revolutionaryduelist:

I don’t really think Jade is acting like a Seer at all. At least, I haven’t seen that referenced in the story so far. Roleplay is a way that players deviate from their native active/passive states, but it doesn’t seem to be the only way. Dreaming moons influence players to be more Active (in Derse’s case) or more Passive (in Prospit’s) on their own.

Jade *is* acting more Passive during that section of the story, but that’s explicitly due to her waking up early on Prospit, and Prospit’s Passive influence. I don’t really know that we need more of an explanation for her behavior there.

Similarly, I don’t really think Jade’s ability to see the future is dropped as an element of her character–it just stops being relevant as the timeline catches up to Jade and other characters start waking up. 

Everything Jade does is, by Kanaya’s own admission, something Kanaya also does. So unless Seer roleplay is a thing all Space players default to early on (which I suppose is fairly possible–Skaia certainly qualifies as a divine influence), I don’t think that’s what’s up.

It’s important to note *why* I think Rose is roleplaying a Witch. It’s a byproduct of her interest in wizardry and an inability to really understand Mom’s true nature as a Rogue. She isn’t assigned the Witch roleplay from abstract, Skaian forces–she’s driven into it by her own confused admiration of her mom and desperate desire for power.

If Jade is roleplaying a Seer, I’d expect some similar impetus or drive or associated imagery from her. Along those lines, I think there’s *sort of* an argument Jade might be roleplaying a Page, though I kind of feel like Grandpa and Nanna’s relative absences mean there’s not a ton of ancestral influence from them. It’s hard to say.

ok, see… I support a lot your roleplay theory, but this is where I disagree.

Or rather, I think that both your roleplay theory and bladekindeyewear’s inversion theory are both valid interpretations of the same concept of the charactes acting in resistance/defiance of their role and should be applied on a case to case basis and can even sometimes interlope, like in Rose’s case. For example, I think “Aranea is roleplaying as a Thief” is more accurate than “Aranea is overbearing her Sylph role”, but I think Inversion is more accurate in this case. Yeah, Jade is acting more passively due to Skaia’s influence, but why is she so submited to said influence? Vriska, who is putting her to sleep every chance she gets for 13 years of her life to further her own agenda, so Jade’s attitude on life up until she can’t dream with Skaia is to just do what the clouds say, and once she’s forcefully taken out of that position she starts acting more actively, as represented by her actually confronting karkat’s bullshit instead of just blocking him  The difference between Jade and Kanaya is that the latter has a normal sleeping schedule and a passive alignment in her class, so she can enact her role with more balance.

Also, I don’t get why you say there’s no imagery associated with Jade as a seer when everyone up to act 4 is calling her a Psychic, has 2 pages were she shows off both her 8-ball and cue ball and later makes a pair of goggles that let her see everything. Not to mention the entire segment of her letter to PM and the cable she left for The Mayor.

My basic standpoint is that WP has said inversion theory isn’t canon, so I don’t have much reason to regard it as an influence in the story. I think Jade is submitted to Prospit’s influence because she dreams a lot on Prospit.

Prospit and Derse are two distinct cultures. They have their own sorts of identities that can influence dreamers on their own. I don’t think you need extra justification to explain why someone is influenced by a place that they grow up in–that happens as a matter of course.

And that’s what Prospit and Derse are to their respective dreamers–provided they’ve woken up. Jade wakes up early, as does Kanaya, and as a consequence both grow up in two different worlds/places/environments simultaneously.

Their exposure to Prospit’s culture also encourages both to act Passively, but Kanaya suffers less for this as she’s already a Passive class. Tavros is another example–he spends the latter part of his game being incredibly passive, and also, it so happens, dreaming on Prospit.

We see from Jadesprite emerging from the Dream Bubbles with her sense of self-indulgent, helpless fatalism that Jade is extremely susceptible to this kind of environmental conditioning, which makes sense, because environments and places are part of what Space describes.

So I view her passivity as being more telling of her nature as a Space player than of inversion, on her part. As for the psychic stuff, I mean. I guess I’m just not all that inclined to regard “psychic” as synonymous with “prophet”.

A Prophet is a pretty specific archetypal image, and all of the classes access psychic power through the Aspects. Heck, the Zodiac’s -Bound designations link Aspect powers to Earthbound, implying Aspects in and of themselves are psychic in nature.

So sure Jade is psychic, but so is literally everyone in the cast, by Homestuck/Hiveswap’s own coding. I don’t think it’s impossible to convince me Jade is roleplaying a prophet here necessarily–I honestly am not confident I have a reading of her early character I’m 100% satisfied with, I feel like I’m missing stuff, and it could well be that.

But again, this implies literally all Space players–or at least all players who wake up early on their moons–will end up roleplaying Prophets. That’s possible, but it’s a legitimate question that I feel warrants searching for an answer to.
I am not convinced inversion is that answer. That’s about where I am.

In this episode, we cover the mechanics behind each Sburb player’s individualized planet, the Lands. We explore the nature of their Consorts, and dive deep into the story-spanning importance of the Denizens as both game mechanics and mythological symbols.

Don’t worry if this one’s a little overwhelming! I’m still learning how to talk about this stuff, and I’ll definitely be covering the same material in different ways over time. Next episode will have us looking over Xefros’ complex and interesting Classpect. Thanks for watching, and please feel free to leave your thoughts!

More writing on Homestuck’s lore:

More on Gnosticism, Abraxas, and Yaldabaoth:
https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/pa…

More on Caliborn:
https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/pa…

You can support this project at:
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Find the Music on Bandcamp!

“Buy NAK Sell DOOF”, https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…
From “Genesis Frog,” by Alexander Rosetti.
Track Art By: Marina at  http://sylladexter.tumblr.com/

“Stoke the Forge” https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…
From “Genesis Frog,” by Alexander Rosetti.
Track Art By: Marina at http://sylladexter.tumblr.com/

“Bilious” https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…
From “Genesis Frog,” by Alexander Rosetti.
Track Art By: Rikuru at quipster-rikuru.tumblr.com

Intro music is “Nemuro Kinenkan”, from Revolutionary Girl Utena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8luvp

I remember you said in one post that grimdark Rose (and even Rose just before she turns grimdark) is roleplaying fairly successfully as a witch, but do you have any thoughts on Jade acting like a seer at the very beginning of the story? Like we’re introduced to Jade as someone who has an ability to see into the future, but this is completely dropped as an attribute of her character later on, so I was wondering what you thought of how that coincides with her character development or anything

I don’t really think Jade is acting like a Seer at all. At least, I haven’t seen that referenced in the story so far. Roleplay is a way that players deviate from their native active/passive states, but it doesn’t seem to be the only way. Dreaming moons influence players to be more Active (in Derse’s case) or more Passive (in Prospit’s) on their own.

Jade *is* acting more Passive during that section of the story, but that’s explicitly due to her waking up early on Prospit, and Prospit’s Passive influence. I don’t really know that we need more of an explanation for her behavior there.

Similarly, I don’t really think Jade’s ability to see the future is dropped as an element of her character–it just stops being relevant as the timeline catches up to Jade and other characters start waking up. 

Everything Jade does is, by Kanaya’s own admission, something Kanaya also does. So unless Seer roleplay is a thing all Space players default to early on (which I suppose is fairly possible–Skaia certainly qualifies as a divine influence), I don’t think that’s what’s up.

It’s important to note *why* I think Rose is roleplaying a Witch. It’s a byproduct of her interest in wizardry and an inability to really understand Mom’s true nature as a Rogue. She isn’t assigned the Witch roleplay from abstract, Skaian forces–she’s driven into it by her own confused admiration of her mom and desperate desire for power.

If Jade is roleplaying a Seer, I’d expect some similar impetus or drive or associated imagery from her. Along those lines, I think there’s *sort of* an argument Jade might be roleplaying a Page, though I kind of feel like Grandpa and Nanna’s relative absences mean there’s not a ton of ancestral influence from them. It’s hard to say.

How do you feel about the way Tavros’s and Jake’s relationship in the end of the comic was portrayed, and how they relate to their characters?

I feel like I don’t really want to talk about late-game Jake because so much of how I feel about him is tied up in what the Epilogue seems to be leading towards, so I’ll abstain from the question for now.

That said, hit me up again once the Epilogue happens, and I might have something more thoughtful to say for you. It’s a good question!

TROLL CALL, HIVESWAP COMICS CONTEST

whatpumpkin:

image

One of the best parts of the weekly TROLL CALL has been the great FAN COMICS. We love them, and we want to reward your enthusiasm. So, here’s the deal. Every week, we’re going to be giving away gift cards to For Fans By Fans, the central hub of Hiveswap and Homestuck merch. Second runner-up gets $25, first runner-up gets $50, and the first place winner gets $75!

image

Also…ALL first place winners will be entered into our GRAND PRIZE contest, the winner of which will get their fantroll added to Hiveswap as an NPC! What Pumpkin Games’ writers and animators will work with you to develop YOUR fantroll into a CANONICAL CHARACTER, WHO WE PROMISE WILL NOT DIE IMMEDIATELY, UNLESS THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE INTO? YOUR CALL. WE GOT A LOT OF GRAVES TO FILL HERE. YOU CAN STUFF THAT COFFIN IF YOU WANT. IT’S A CORPSE PARTY, EVERYONE’S INVITED.

To be eligible, your comic’s gotta have some Hiveswap. Joey, Xefros, Jude, the pigeons, some Troll Call friends, whatever. You can throw your OCs or some OG Homestuck characters in there too! Here’s a great example by our very own Shelby Cragg and also Cohen.

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So, get to it! We’re announcing our first winners on Friday, January 19th. All entries should be posted by, let’s say, 11PM Thursday the 18th, Pacific Time. Anything after that will get rolled over into the next week’s entries. To enter, all you gotta do is write and draw a fancomic featuring some Hiveswap characters and post it on Tumblr or Twitter using the #HIVESWAPCOMICSCONTEST tag. Probably best if it’s the first tag, cause if they’re like the sixth tag, after a bunch of tags that are very long and hilarious sentences, we’re not gonna be able to find it when we’re searching. Make that SEO work for you, sport.

Terms and conditions and extended details here.

:O Well damn, shit just got real while I was buried in the editing cave.

I may well take a crack at this myself if I think of something good enough. Excited to see what comes of it!