The Lands Kind Of Stick Out As An Anomaly In Homestuck’s Cosmology. They’re Not Constant, Like Skaia

The Distinction Between Light and Rage (With Some Gushers)

One of the things I’ve seen come up in discussion about the aspects is some overlaps between them to varying degrees. One good example of this Light and Rage.  I think it’s pretty much consensus at this point that Rage = Truth or Revelations. But it gets really interesting when talking about Light because Light also presides over the concept of truth. Some people have tried to smooth over the similarities by saying that Rage is “emotional truths” or truths that make you feel bad, but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. I think the distinction between the two is as follows: Ragebounds are “correct” and Lightbounds are “right”. Generally speaking? What do I mean by this?  Well, for the sake of this post, I am defining “correct” as presenting facts or evidence, and being “Right” is possessing an understanding of the facts in such a way that allows one to provide new insights, or form new arguments. Ragebounds are a deconstructive aspect, as the Extended Zodiac states. 

The “true” objective reality that Ragebounds seeks is noted to be covered up by “lies” (something Hope would preside over as Hope is an aspect of illusions, and beliefs). For the rage bound, the truth is something that must already exist and is being covered up, and their primary goal is to rip and tear things to find their irreducibles. The cold hard facts.  The Extended Zodiac paints Lightbounds as the exact opposite in this regard: 

Where Ragebound pursue the facts to destroy faulty arguments, Lightbounds pursue facts to form new arguments. The EZ funnily describes them as “alchemists” linking them to the Sburb Mechanics of Alchemy, which utilizes a resource called “Grist” (which is substance used to back up an argument). 

The limitation of Lightbound’s relationship with Truth and a Ragebound’s is that a Lightbound constructs new perspectives, arguments, and grants themselves more options while eliminating the bad or unwise ones. Ragebounds use their evidence to deconstruct arguments and systems and get to the heart of the matter. But don’t ask them for solutions any fallouts or results of radical behavior. The end result being anarchy/confusion. “What the heck are we supposed to believe now?” everyone shouts. This dynamic may be in part influenced by their neighboring aspects Mind and Doom.  Light sits across from Mind on the EZ potentially indicating that some elements of Mind’s options, and lack of bias are carried over. Conversely, Doom is across from Rage indicating the limitation and narrowing down of options that Ragebounds experience as they discover and move towards the truth. 

The heart aspect is clearly connected with lions (the trolls’ heart player being Leo the lion, and the Prince of the aspect having the lion-headed God Yaldabaoth as a denizen), but I wonder if that means anything for any of the other aspects?

Maybe it’s lions for heart and dragons for mind?

The lion is the symbol of God, and is king of the land animals, while the dragon is the devil and the king of the skies. Nepeta is a lowblood who uses her physical strength instead of psychic powers, and Dirk is Homestuck’s resident manly dudebro machofighter, and Yaldabaoth is the God of the physical realm; meanwhile dragons are capable of a whole bunch of powers associated with psychics (laser eyes, telepathic communion) and Terezi was a master manipulator.

(of course, heart is the aspect of the soul, not the body, so part of a heart hero’s quest must be rejecting some of this focus on the physical aspect and becoming more spiritual; so I wonder what the equivalent of this is for mind heroes?)

I got inspired by a theory I found from this post however I disagreed with some of their choices...so I made my own version of an aspect breakdown.

Space is divided into Start and Place, which is further divided into Stir and Flux for the former and Scope and Vast for the latter. Stir was inspired by the primordial soup from which all life began and flux was honestly due to my playing overwatch too much but also has to do with gravity itself. Scope and Vast kind of go hand in hand and deal with spatial dimensions.

Time is split into Stream, for the flow of time itself. The MSPA reader saying that "time is like a river" gave me this idea. Eon is the other half of time. Stream breaks down into Hint to represent how any moment can cause an entire timeline to diverge into an offshoot, and into Trend which signifies how once a timeline becomes doomed things just get worse and worse. Eon goes into Bide since we've always had moments where we've had to bide our time, and Stop because once a timeline is over, it's done.

Light is divided into Bright and Lot. Bright is then divided into Flash and Warm which are really self explanatory. Lot (as in "casting lots") is broken into Grasp (as in grasping information) and Odds (they can be good or bad)

Void is broken down into Still (like the still puddle in the image) and Dark. Still then turns into Depth and Hide. Dark turns into Fog and Shade. I feel these are self explanatory, but if anyone wants me to go into them, I'm open to any questions.

Life is Grow and Romp. Grow becomes Sprout (who hasn't noticed tiny little green shoots out of the ground when spring comes?) and Pluck (for who but the young are so full of energy and Life?) Also good for a reference to the webcomic itself (lad/lass scamper, pluck). Romp (a word for playing or being at play) turns into Wild and Vim. Animals play all the time and life keeps going even after we try and tear it down.

Doom becomes Curb and Grind. Curb (think like how the curb keeps a car from crashing into innocent pedestrians) turns into Rule (for rules and laws keep us from running Wild-get it?) and Yield (for we all must submit to things we don't want to do for the greater good). Chose the picture of the stigmata because well tbh I am still a Christian and because it fits. Grind (like how gamers grind to get better at what they do) goes down into Sift (sifting the good from the bad) and Trim (as in trimming overgrown leaves and branches).

Breath is Move and Sound. Move then is Rush (running so fast you can feel the wind on your face) and Lift (because then you can fly). Sound becomes Din (the noise, noise, noise) and Tell (because sound and thus voices carry through air).

Blood is diluted (get it? cause it's liquid?) into Yoke ("we are equally yoked") and Trust (in order to accomplish bigger things). Yoke turns into Serve and Vow. I know that marriage vows aren't the only kind of vow, but I thought the picture fit best. Trust turns into Touch and Lead.

Heart (my own aspect!) is Pith and Whim. Pith is the core of something (for example, the pith of a fruit) and whim-because who hasn't ever done something on a whim? Pith is then divided into Self and Groove. (We all have our own self and groove) Whim becomes sway and mood, because moods can sway us to act one way or another.

With Mind I agreed with @wakraya in that it was Will and Thought. However for me, Will then becomes Seek and Delve. Thought becomes Plan and Mull. If you notice, I left a tiny reference to Terezi in way of the icons-none of them have open eyes.

Hope, to me, is Yearn and Dare. We all yearn for better things, but only some of us dare to take that first step. Yearn turns into Dream (not dreams like the space aspect pushed too far) but to dream at night and during the day when we want more, and into Grace. This is where I think the whole "physical attraction" part of Hope players comes in. Dare breaks down into Fun and Wish. Yes, this means I believe that Hope is inherently magical, or that magic itself is a part of the Hope aspect. That, or (if you believe that magic is fake like Eridan does) that advanced enough science/technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Rage is broken down into Fume and Shun. Fume (to be angry in silence) turns into Spur and Force. Since Rage is doing the opposite of just Hoping, I feel these subcategories are accurate. Shun turns into Warn (of danger) and Fear (think of the fight or flight or freeze or fawn response in nature. To fawn is when one tries to please in order to mitigate danger.)

This took me about a day to make but I had a bunch of fun doing it and figuring out how to break down each Aspect. Hit me up if you have any questions or comments! (I also want to credit the person behind the original theory, but they aren't on tumblr anymore.)

Reminder that the God tier outfits’s accent/shoe colors are not defined by their aspects’ color pallete, they vary for each character and depends either on their own color motifs, or on their teammates.

Also lemme zoom in for the sake of clarity

HEIR OF MIND

PRIMARY: PHYSICAL SECONDARY: CONCEPTUAL

Primaries and Secondaries are how a player’s powers manifest. Physical primaries mean they manifest physically and manifest conceptually as a secondary.

ABILITIES

JOSEPH JOESTAR

Heirs of Mind have an uncanny ability to follow someone's thought process easily. This can make them amazing friends or eerie people who always seem to be able to see through others.

PROFILER

In line with being able to follow someone's train of thought, Heirs of Mind are able to metaphorically step in a person's mind should they put in the effort. A more literal version of this ability can be used as a spell.

AMBIENT ABILITIES

As an Heir, this class has ambient, uncontrollable abilities as every other Heir does. This is because Heir classes are served and protected by their aspect, meaning Heirs of Mind are naturally protected by Mind.

ANGEL RADIO

Heirs of Mind may accidentally pick up stray thoughts, especially those pertaining to wishing them harm so they may avoid it.

THINK OF ME FONDLY

When in danger, enemies may suddenly find themselves thinking positively of an Heir of Mind.

CUE CARD

In battle, an Heir of Mind may pick up on opponents strategies eerily fast; a physical version of JOSEPH JOESTAR.

STARTER SPELLS

Any spell this class can use at Level One, including but not limited to:

I THINK THEREFORE I AM - the ability to actually assume the mind of someone else, EXTREMELY disorienting.

SIMON SAYS - Jedi mind trick. Yeah.

HORROR GAME TAPES - the ability to infuse memories into items, allowing Heirs of Mind to deliver vital information to party members.

TELEPATHY - the ability to communicate with someone through thoughts - if the creature thinks, telepathy works.

THRALL - A cross between SIMON SAYS and TELEPATHY, controlling someone's actions by beaming thoughts into their heads.

 Homestuck Aspect Division Theory

A while ago, a friend of mine told me about a friend that had a theory. Instead of having extra Aspects aside from the canonical 12 ones (No, I’m not counting Piss or Lips as canon), given they are more or less the Basis of Creation, the fundamental powers from which the new Universe is made (Space and Time, Order and Chaos, Life and Death, Mind and Soul…), more than having extra, off-canon Aspects, in big enough Sessions the 12 Aspects split into smaller chunks.

I loved this idea, so I began to work on two divisions, thinking that the Session before the Trolls had 48 Players, and ended up making an Expanded Aspect Chart. Three sets of Aspects! The original with 12, the first division with 24, and the second division with 48, to give a total of 84 symbols, with their respective names and colors! I’ll explain what each of them means below the cut.

Keep reading

100% correct

Honestly Heir of Blood is practically every generic anime man protagonist that exists godtier cause the main character delevopmental structure is just creating various bonds or being destined to have these bonds from the beginning for some grand quest the protagonist has eother inherited by virtue of being main character or some kind of prophecy accordingly

Discuss

Breath and Blood: Hands in Spirit and Flesh

(p. 6094)

John’s retcon arm event toward the end of Homestuck is often compared to MS Paint Adventures’ recurring “retrieve arms” gag, but it also forms part of a repeating pattern surrounding John Egbert and the concept of ghostly hands.

Out of sympathy for John’s perceived lack of arms, you pick up the CAKE for him and put it on his BED.

Page 6 is an oft-talked about example of this phenomenon, largely because it doesn’t seem to really have any place in the rest of the story. Despite frequent claims that the fourth wall is being broken, the “YOU as READER” character essentially does not interact with the story ever again after this.

Notice the cyan-and-blue colour scheme the cake takes on while being carried by the “reader’s” hand.

You make a LEFT HANDED REMOTE GHOST GAUNTLET to complete the pair.

An uncannily similar concept crops up over a thousand pages later with the ghost gauntlets, which John alchemises from slime left over by Nannasprite. This explains their colour scheme, but it’s important still to take note of the similarities to John’s iconic god tier colour scheme that appears a whole lot later, as well as to the colour scheme of the cake picked up back on page 6.

Also take note of this line used to describe the ghost gauntlets’ power:

The GHOST GAUNTLET appears to have a considerably higher lift capacity than your own puny arms.

This is because all of these ‘ghostly arms’ around John are actually manifestations of his powers as a Hero of Breath, if not literally - though we know alchemised items often do literally channel a player’s internal powers - then symbolically.

The Breath aspect is one of freedom and separation from that which binds. In the heavily Gnostic context of Homestuck, this especially relates to the soul breaking free from the chains of the flesh. As such, the Breath aspect is one that connects heavily to the spirit. Consider the biblical story in which God breathes live into the clay Adam through his mouth (which also ties into John’s role as the a creator father figure, and the association between ghosts and fatherhood).

When the comic says that the ghostly arms John uses as an extension of his physical form are stronger than his flesh arms, this is a comment on his powers as the Hero of Breath and that his soul will always be stronger than his body.

(p. 2303)

Compare this to the Blood aspect’s association with hands. Jack’s offered “blood pact” with Karkat on page 2303 is often considered a precursor to the Blood symbol, and importantly takes place in the joining of two hands. The Blood aspect is not concerned with separating the spirit hand from the hand of flesh, but rather by making the flesh stronger through bonds.

Take note of another phenomenon that frequently befalls Jack Noir; almost every iteration of him loses one of his physical arms. This is another occurrence often connected to the “retrieve arms” gag, but we can also contrast it with the ghostly “removal” of one of John’s arms.

Vriska’s connection to this phenomenon could be read in two ways. It acts as a symbol of her connection to the Blood aspect when she antagonises Tavros, a Hero of Breath; but it also connects her with a “blood fued” shared with her “blood” ancestor Mindfang as well as Jack Noir himself.

Fancytiers! Kind of. I was mainly just trying to make the sillouhette’s more distinct, & add more apparent themes :P

i forgot to label some of them but I think u can still tell what they are! first unlabeled pic has the mage and the seer, & the last pic has the maid and the sylph

Love, ideal and material

I was thinking about love and the way both the Light and Heart aspects deal with it but in fairly different ways. And, being who I am, I instantly decided to cram it into my absurdly convoluted system of sub-Aspect particles and say it’s all about Aspect Mirroring.

When Rose falls in love, it is redemptive. It is holy. Taz has written entire essays on why Rosemary represents the forgiveness of the sinful caprice of the universe and a greater acceptance of one’s place in the world, and we see echoes of this with Vriska’s complicated relationship with Terezi and Aranea’s strained and ultimately failed relationship with Meenah. A common challenge to this redemption, though, is fear. Rose’s relationship with Kanaya is strained by alcoholism because accepting the world for what it is means accepting her mother’s alcoholism for what it is, which is terrifying, and ironically leads Rose into that very same alcoholism herself. Vriska, meanwhile, all but intentionally blinds herself to her love for Terezi, chasing instead the impossible dream, binding herself to ambition, to grandeur, seeking through action to redeem herself and not the world. And Aranea? Poor, long-suffering Aranea, for whom the redemption of the world comes in the form of the capricious, destructive, self-loathing Meenah? She decides that love just isn’t worth it, and instead chooses to go out with a bang, enacting a spectacular, ambitious plan that ultimately seeks to deny reality rather than redeem it.

For the Heartbound, on the other hand, it’s much more complicated than that. Dirk’s love is a frightening, tempestuous thing, explicitly compared both by Hal and the comic’s own symbolism to earth-shattering volcanic eruptions and the biblical flood. Again by Taz, love is not that by which Dirk seeks to redeem the world, but that by which he seeks to redeem himself, to be Jake’s Knight in shining armor rather than the dreadful thing which Dirk sees in himself when he is alone with his own thoughts. And it doesn’t really work, does it? Grand plots and endless attempts to connect through words and deeds run headfirst into the fact that these kids aren’t alright and that closeness with another human being can be just as much pain as it can be pleasure. And that’s not even to speak of Hal, for whom love is barely a holy thing at all, but a shackle, a desire forced upon him at birth which he is neither capable of denying nor of realizing. After all, who wants to date a pair of shades?

It’s harder to say much about love with the Leijons. Nepeta’s love for Karkat can be realized only post-mortem and brings her pain as much as it brings her joy, and her love for Equius ennobles them both but also leads her to her death, but Rogues also have complicated themes revolving around love which makes it harder to tell what’s what. Meulin is a bit easier, I guess. Her love for Kurloz is an unambiguous negative, pulling her ever deeper into the dreadful clutches of the subjugglator cult and the worship of Lord English. Her love for Horuss is similarly fucked up, resulting apparently from Horuss’s desire to merely copy the surface of Equius and Nepeta’s relationship in the hopes of replicating its essence (Surfaces and surface understandings being one of Void’s themes) and gives us some horrifying insight into Meulin’s psyche with her advice to Horuss of suppressing your emotions and desires and merely pretending to be happy at all times, putting a deeply uncomfortable spin on Meulin’s own permanently grinning face and constant stream of exuberant gifs.

Meulin is also some sort of love sorcerer, her Magely insights allowing her to see relationships both real and potential and pull them together if it suits her fancy, a decidedly… non-symbolic approach to the concept that doesn’t have anything at all to do with “redemption of a sinful universe” or anything like that, pulling love itself down to the level of schoolyard gossip.

So what is my thesis here? I guess it is that love is a complicated thing, both an Idea so powerful it can turn a bond with one other person into a symbolic representation for the whole world in your mind (note that both Light and Heart are Hot Aspects, making this kind of substituting the whole world with a single individual extra symbolic) and a material thing, mere emotion, mere chemical reaction, a chain yanking at your heart and pulling it into the direction of another person whether you want to or not. The stories of Rose, of Vriska, of Aranea explore this from one angle, the stories of Dirk, of Nepeta, of Meulin explore it from another.

Or to summarize the summary, Light-aspected romance is extremely chaotic wlws trying to learn to chill with their girlfriends instead of breaking shit all the time. Love as something that pulls them away from their madcap shenanigans. Heart-aspected romance is a more complex and I think ultimately honest look at the messiness of relationships.