The extended zodiac bugs me, because it’s 288 signs including Karkat’s. But Karkat’s was never a real sign, it was the Signless’ shackles. So they’re one short for limebloods.
The Signless didn’t exist on Beforus, though, and Kankri’s still 6-ing and 9-ing letters. I’m not sure if this implies that he has the same sign as Karkat, but it’s a possibility it existed beforehand.
Oh, hmm.
The fact that Aranea wears it as a nod to her picking up the Signless teachings makes me think it’s not Kankri’s? But then Kankri’s quirk is way more based on it than Karkat’s is, so I don’t even know.
It would seem a little weird for trolls to adopt as a religious sign something that also belongs to one 288th of the population?
I think it’s also fairly likely that the extended zodiac, while a more extensive list than we’ve ever seen in the past, is still not an exhaustive list of Alternian bloodline icons (let alone panuniversal). I have a hard time believing that even Vriska would be this obnoxious about her grand ancestral destiny if one out of every 24 trolls her color share her exact sign. And the lower castes are much more populous – I think it’s likely we’re missing dozens or hundreds of lime signs.
(I mean, for that matter, there’s no guarantee that this is even a complete list of Aspects – if we decide to take Hussie’s comments about the the squiddle session that created the troll universes seriously, and we assume Aspects do not repeat within sessions, then we’ve been shown, at most, a quarter of potential Aspects.)
Tag: homestuck meta
I might rewrite this to be more concise later but Aradia Megido’s entire character arc was centered around a girl who had been controlled her entire life both by societal standards, other people, and supernatural forces/fate itself, and then was manipulated by said forces into being a harbringer of the end of her world along with her friends, MASSIVELY HARMING HER PERSONALLY AND HER RELATIONSHIPS WITH HER FRIENDS IN THE PROCESS.
But even through this she STILL ends up finding personal agency, being completely solely Herself in control of her own destiny, as well as learning to be kind and turning to a life centered around simply Helping People because she Wants To even when paradox space forgets them.
the fact that she is flanderized so much by the fandom into ‘that creepy girl who wants her friends to die’ or as Sollux’s arm candy (a boy she NEVER WAS IN A CONFIRMED RELATIONSHIP WITH IN THE FIRST PLACE) ESPECIALLY when she’s such a hopeful character is frankly, awful, especially as a character who has been shown to now only want to do good and keep her independence through being alive just Please Let Her Be Herself.
Speaking of the “only fuchsia to make it to adulthood” thing, I’m fascinated by the contrast between Trizza as the heiress and Feferi as the heiress?
And also kind of sad.
Because while we haven’t seen much of Trizza herself yet, we have gotten a glimpse of the style of her rule, and well… she’s ruling. Not fairly, not well, arguably not sustainable, but she is openly ruling the planet and she’s making use of what seems to be a lot of official infrastructure, particularly the use of imperial drones and her heavy-handed media presence. And while she’s got some adolescent revolutionaries plotting against her she doesn’t seem to be facing any kind of official censure for her actions.
Feferi, by contrast, is at most a sweep or two younger when she enters Sgrub, and she’s… not ruling the planet. She’s barely keeping Gl’bgolyb fed, and she doesn’t seem to be using any of the resources Trizza does, but we’re told that she’s already actively fending off assassination attempts which she has reason to believe are imperially sanctioned.
I don’t think Trizza actually expects to ever rule anything except Alternia. She hasn’t bothered to court anything resembling positive public opinion among her peers, she depends heavily on a (probably automated? It’s hard to say exactly what the drones are) private army which is, essentially, borrowed from an empress who will one day want to eliminate her, and her long-term goals are so opaque that I suspect they don’t actually exist. Feferi fully intends to make a bid for the throne, and as such appears to have led a positively spartan childhood that leaves significantly fewer vulnerabilities for the Condesce to exploit, and this is freaking the Condesce the hell out.
like okay. i’m sure cal was the reason bro was so certain about sburb and i’m sure he inhibited communication a lot and messed with his feelings for dave but i feel like even without the influence of cal dave’s childhood would still have been Not Great
cause i mean bro was for sure a gay dude growing up alone in the eighties and maybe even a trans gay dude of color depending on ur hcs (i’m never quite sure what to think regarding him and dirk and whether or not i think they’re trans) so he had to have faced a ton of hate in his life and like i’m not trying to say trans gay poc tend more towards being abusive cause first of all that’s a really bigoted thing to say but second of all it’s just statistically not true
but you can’t deny that in some cases facing hate like that will make the person want to push down whoever they can so someone else will be the victim and not them. historically in america it happened a shit ton!
so i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that bro’s childhood/adolescence contributed a lot to the way he treated dave, even without the influence of cal
i feel like cal was the source of the idea that dave had to be the perfect man to be sburb’s “protagonist” as we see caliborn wants when he draws all those shitty comics but i still think dave would’ve faced toxic masculinity, emotional abuse, and even some level of sexual abuse had cal not been present.
hal turing tested made a really good post a while ago that he reblogged recently about how hal is dirk with everything that kept him from being bro (read: his friends, just about any source of physical joy) taken from him, and we see that because of this hal lashes out frequently in fear and anger with the only tools he has
bro is dirk with none of those positive influences in the first place. bro is dirk at the worst he could possibly be. if we say that dirk in the alpha universe as we know him is Dirk As He’s Supposed To Be (dirk neutral, if you will), bro is Dirk From The Dark Timeline. bro is like, evilstuck dirk.
i feel like the trans-universal qualities of dirk are, like, autism, gay, self-aware (to an extent, and when not inhibited by an evil puppet), and low empathy/inability to understand and/or analyze other people’s feelings and abilities the way he can his own, and with this worst-case scenario dirk, all of those just make him unable to modulate his actions towards dave (or anyone else) so cal kinda did it for him
idk i kinda lost where i was going but anyway i can’t just sort bro’s actions into the two categories of “he did it for sburb” and “cal made him do it” and call it good
You ever just think about how ridiculously powerful all the Homestuck trolls are? Even by Alternian standards, even excluding classpect stuff, we’ve got:
Aradia Megido: Xefros, implied to be a fairly typical rustblood, can barely bend a spoon. Aradia telekinetically flung Vriska around like a rag doll, despite the metal limb, while separately levitating her own metal body. Summoned dozens of ghosts into Vriska’s hive so that they manifested strong enough to appear to and screw with Vriska. Was not in or particularly near Vriska’s hive at the time. Came back from the dead as a ghost strong enough to pass as alive over the internet, something that is definitely not common. Wasn’t even remotely shadowy or see-through. As used by )(IC, Megido powers are strong enough to throw around small planets. That’s terrifying.
Tavros Nitram: Okay, we don’t really have a point of reference here, but the fact that he can control any animal, including First Guardians, animal-prototyped Sgrub enemies, and unhatched eggs, is striking. As used by )(IC, Nitram powers can also control part-animals, even sentients immune to Serket mind control. This control is subtle enough to let the victim do their own thing without direct supervision, while still ensuring absolute loyalty. Only other thing that did that involved years of brainwashing. Nitram powers were near-instantaneous.
Sollux Captor: Mituna is referred to as the single most powerful psiionic in the history of Alternia, so powerful that even after he rebelled he was kept alive – and his lifespan was artificially prolonged! – so that he could continue to pilot )(IC’s personal ship. Sollux can yeet asteroids fast enough to travel to different universes, while injured. His eyebeams can incinerate a troll in seconds.
Karkat Vantas: this might be a Bloody thing, but he managed to get trolls from every caste in the hemospectrum working together as friends. Kept his blood color hidden for six sweeps. Basically the second coming of Space Jesus.
Nepeta Leijon: This might be normal, but it’s pretty cool how she hunts and kills her own food, while living alone in a cave with no support except her lusus.
Kanaya Maryam: Are there rainbow drinkers other than her and Porrim? Maybe, but my girl took a beam of concentrated Hope straight to the chest and got right back up. Walks in the sun, glows in the dark, bisects people with a chainsaw then paints her lips with their blood. An icon. Porrim was a single mom in a culture that didn’t even have a concept of motherhood, raising a kid that every drone and adult in the empire had orders to cull on sight. Actually, that daywalking thing probably came in real handy there.
Terezi Pyrope: She can smell colors. Well enough to read. She was raised by an egg. She had no protection from anything growing up, but she survived and thrived anyway. No powers, but she managed to manipulate Doctor Freaking Scratch into doing what she wanted. Incredibly dangerous.
Vriska Serket: Ardata is shown controlling two people: a rustblood and a chronic people-pleaser who would probably have done what she said even without the mind control. She controls them one at a time, for less than a minute at a time, while they’re standing right in front of her. Vriska controls people throught the internet, knocks out people in other universes, starts elaborate mind control chains while bleeding out after being caught in an explosion, controls multiple trolls at once while focusing on other stuff. Aranea, of course, controls armies, including highbloods, with ease, doesn’t break her concentration for anything short of having her soul ripped out of her body, and puppeteers multiple Damaras in the furthest ring with enough ease to use their powers as effectively as someone just using Megido powers directly, while physically dodging attacks and mentally freaking out.
Equius Zahhak: builds highly effective mechanical limbs, robots that can be used to spar with, and robots with at minimum a cardivascular system that can be possessed effectively by ghosts, all at six sweeps or less. I don’t care if Alternian tech is more advanced, that’s still impressive. Plus he knows how to attach the limbs so they hook up with nerve endings correctly and can be manipulated as easily as organic limbs. Contrast Nihkee, with her much less effective peg leg. He’ll also just do this for anyone who asks. His annoying neighbor wants a robot arm? Sure. Brownblood friend-of-a-friend needs new legs? Yeah, okay, he can hook you up. There’s never any mention of him getting paid for this, either, he just does it. Dude’s literally the best mechanical engineer in the entire comic.
Gamzee Makara: Look I have no idea what a typical clown is like. The boy can survive anything short of bisection. He’s scary-loyal to Caliborn. He pulled a cursed object out of nonexistence because he was mad at Dave for making fun of his religion. Kurloz, meanwhile, is a powerful telepath with a highly specialized and insidious skillset. Very subtle, very dangerous.
Eridan Ampora: he’s good enough at FLARPing to keep Gl’bgolyb reliably fed, and loyal enough to Feferi that he never “accidentally” slips up and kills all the landdwellers. When he does fight he takes down all three opponents hard and fast, and he’s smart enough to destroy the matriorb as a distraction before killing Kanaya. It’s partially his legendary weapon, but he still has the tenacity to take down powerful NPCs that are very much not designed to be killed, then survive their attempts at retaliation. Cronus, however, is a pathetic and unfunny joke.
Feferi Piexes: Heiress to the Empire. Wants to enact sweeping reforms, despite how easy it would be to act like Trizza and just lord her status over everyone. Befriends lowbloods, has no desire to cull Meenah, still by no means a pushover. Meenah, of course, uses SCIENCE to pull all your powers combined, has beaten hundreds of challengers to the throne, built both an interstellar and a culinary empire, crushes rebellions, outlives universes, single-handedly conquered an entire alien planet, and is just generally physically, magically, and culturally powerful.
Cheloneuniverse 