Breath And Blood: Hands In Spirit And Flesh

DOOM

All Hail Shadow / Good Riddance

https://medium.com/@Arrghus/doom-7f99a8b4c4a4

The Aspect of Finding Out.

Literary Devices

Anonymous said:

(Me: sees your aspects as facets of reality theory and raises this: Aspects as elements of the story, Light as thematic importance (see aranea being aranea, vriska stealing importance and luck) Time as well pacing but also the timeline of a story. Ect ect       

YES!

YesYes!! YesYesYes ^u^ ^u^ ^u^

This is another Wonderful Frame for analyzing Homestuck, or thinking about the Aspects ^u^ The one thing I’d say is that while some –like Light, Time, Space, and Heart– are pretty directly and clearly related to literary concepts by the text, others are a bit more difficult to figure out; either because their representative characters get less “screen time”, or because the Literary Concepts the Aspect embodies are more esoteric and vague.

Like: I’ve always had a hard time figuring out what Life could represent in a Literary sense. Fef’s story is surrounded by all sorts of Fairy Tale tropes that she’s laser-focused on either escaping(her role as Princess) or subverting(bringing Sollux, her “Hero”, to life with a kiss, rather than the other way around), and Meenah was also focused on escaping and subverting the life planned for her, so THAT could possibly be Life’s Literary side: either subverting narrative, or the way characters can take on “a life of their own” when the author realizes they’d do C instead of the A they had planned for them, and how that can lead the plot in a whole different direction.

Blood’s another stumper for me in this regard …Though… taking a minute to think about it maybe it’s self-criticism? Like: Karkat is obvsl VERY self critical(in a way Kankri very much is not) but both of them are super-critical of the story-itself and the world Hussie, as author, has set it in. So you could think of Blood as being the Critical or Editorial Impulse? MAYBE??

And Breath’s a good example of an esoteric one. While John’s the protagonist, people are constantly telling him what to do in the narrative, and outside of it through the prompt(at least early in HS), so he’s rarely ever deciding anything for himself. His actions drive the story, but his actions aren’t “his”, so what exactly would that make Breath? Plot? Protagonists&Characters?? Is it something simpler and more obvs like Adventure Game Narratives??? Does it include all of these, or is it one thing that covers all of them?x4 Considering Rufioh with John, something you might call “The Irony of Protagonists” seem rather central to whatever Breath is: on the one hand they’re the “hero” of the story and their actions drive the plot; but on the other that also makes them the most controlled, puppeted, plot-significant, and thus least realistic&”free”, of all the characters in the story.

Rufioh(through many years of bad memory, obvsl, so maybe I’m misrepping this) was the center of the primary romantic drama in his Session(which in turn drove the Session), and many of his fellow Players either pursued him, or openly professed their attraction to him. In this respect, they saw him as sort of like the Protagonist of a Dating Sim. Seeing him as attractive they saw him as confident and a player; they cast a particular narrative and identity onto him based on their perspective of him. But that’s not how Rufioh experienced any of those events, or indeed his life. He felt powerless and disrespected throughout; pulled one way then another by both Horuss and Damara, constantly uncomfortable with the desires others expressed for him(and the disinterest of everyone in what he wanted), trapped by his social situation into conditions and roles he never really wanted, and always betraying himself and his own feelings through his lack of confidence, and the inability to take a stand it created. Even thousands and thousands of years later his friends are STILL giving him agency for events he felt were forced on him against his will, and casually hitting on him despite his clear discomfort with it seen in Meenah’s walkaround. So, while he is defined as the “Protagonist” of his story according to those “reading” and telling it, he felt like all he ever did was just what other people told him to do, and chafes against the identity others have forced on him, which he has no control over. In this respect, he experienced all of that as a “Target” of a Dating-Sim; to be dated and wooed, but with no agency of his own.

While much more extreme(and negative), that experience shares some notable qualities with John’s. It suggests that Breath might be “The Illusion of Freedom” literary characters have, and Rufioh’s story suggests audience collaboration is a pivotal aspect of this illusion.

Wow, that kinda got a bit grim, didn’t it |:T |:T

I have found the original HD size of the extended aspects from 4archive

this is a repost, I only reposted this because I think the original creator has deactivated their Tumblr. If by some chance the original creator messages me, I will take this post down.

Since I do not trust Tumblr to not destroy the image quality I will post this on Imgur. here

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.

*rubs my greasy little hands together* time to get my ip address banned through sharing possibly my most disturbing headcanon heheheh

For a while, I was thinking about the jades. Specifically how damn weird Hiveswap's lore about them is. From very young, they're condemned to the caverns to help raise grubs... But only certain, arbitrarily selected jades are picked to be cloistered? So that means there are other jades allowed to do whatever. And instead of joining the workforce like literally every other troll, SPECIFICALLY the cloistered jades are sent to be space nuns, hidden from everyone. It... Doesn't really add up if you think about the kind of place the Alternian Empire is. They're all about making as many warriors as possible, why bother with a tradition like that? Doesn't help anyone. Just seems hard to imagine Meenah coddamn Peixes tossing funds to a useless sisterhood, is all I'm saying.

So! Mothergrubs. There's the headcanon that they share an evolutionary root with trolls to explain how they can produce grubs, but what if we go one step further? Let's say the trolls are neotenies (an "adult" species that actually has another stage of life past the one they're in, like axolotls). Perhaps once upon a time, they could turn into mothergrubs naturally, but for whatever reason, they can't now.

Or so it'd seem.

Uhh yeah tired of the suspense: the cloistered jades are "special" because they actually might possess the rare gene that turns trolls into Mothergrubs. So the space sisterhood? It's actually some Bloodborne shit. Horrific cult antics that literally strip away all personhood, in all meanings of the word, turning them into nothing more than slurry-processors to be sent back, furthering the troll race. Possibly a fate worse than death to some.

Idk. Figure it makes sense the Empire would keep that under wraps from the jades, y'dig

Blocked blocked blocked blocked i hate this

but honestly that's a really really interesting perspective because I do agree that the mothergrub is a troll. Just a different type of troll (much like if you were to look at the life cycle of a fern) so I think you hit some interesting points especially with the de-trollization of the mothergrub into something to be revered but never considered a troll, an equal

also here is the lifecycle of a fern for funsies (where the mothergrub is essentially the diploid phase and normal trolls are the haploid

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.)

i love reading peoples takes on mspa reader’s classpect so i drew some various readers

The Lands kind of stick out as an anomaly in Homestuck’s cosmology. They’re not constant, like Skaia and the Veil are; they’re not evolved through prototyping like imps and carapacians; they’re not drawn from mythology like the Denizens; and they’re not made from Thoughtstuff like Prospit and Derse. On a cursory glance they seem to be the one example of something being created ex nihilo in paradox space, a realm that is supposed to contain “essentially nothing new”. So naturally, figuring out the genesis of the Lands would be a great stride toward unlocking Homestuck as a whole.

Obviously the logical first assumption is that the Lands are generated from the players themselves somehow; grinding metal for the swordsman, industrial pipeworks for the pipe smoker’s heir; and this makes perfect sense for as long as we see Sburb as a game whose goal is to guide players into adulthood. But that’s only one side of the coin; every aspect of the game, from frog breeding to prototyping, should also serve the game’s other primary purpose, which is as reality’s method of reproduction. So the question “why are the Lands the way they are” is just as important as the “what are they” question.

My first hypothesis was that if every one of the Lands in the Medium has its own breed of frog, then this could be a means of introducing genetic diversity to the Genesis Frog; a frog with lava-resistant genes, for example, might make a very different to a frog with genes from the Land of Dew and Glass. But I realise now that we don’t even need to introduce this new idea; the grist hoards in the center of each planet already act as a unique genetic code for each session’s Frog.

And since the grist essentially acts as the “essence” of each planet - oil grist for an oil world, chalk grist for a chalk world - we can also view the grist as the “essence” of its associated Hero. This is more pronounced in the trolls’ grist, with Tavros’ grists being brown-orange and Vriska and Gamzee having blue and purple respectively in [S] Make her pay. (We also observe here that Karkat has green grist, but you can make of that what you will.)

And I think this sheds some further light on how the Ultimate Alchemy ties into the alchemy of the self; the process of creating a universe involves the very alchemical components that make up a person. Using one’s inner essence to create an entire world could also be seen as a way of making the internal, external?

So the genesis of a new universe is the contribution of several individuals’ essences to be mixed in one central subterranean hub… i.e. exactly how troll reproduction works, indicating that the jadeblood is suited to the role of frog breeder even moreso than may have originally been thought.

Musing on Pages and Thieves

One interesting connection between Pages and Thieves I think is poverty. Both experience a form of poverty, though there is subtle differences.  A thief experiences a poverty of their aspect in themselves (a form of spiritual poverty), and this desire to “fill in the gap” motivates them to acquire material wealth. For example, Vriska pursues treasure heavily and Meenah is interested in large quantities of money. Even Tagora is interested heavily in money which he uses to buy rainbow drinker skincare products and decorate his hive (space coded). From their perspective, their aspect is a material that they can buy or acquire. And while this provides temporary relief, it ultimately leads to them being terrified of being backstabbed or betrayed (having their aspect stolen from them as they do to others), or endlessly attempting to pursue more, even at the expense of others. The Page, in contrast, is not remotely poor in spirit. They embrace their aspects quite wholeheartedly and as a result are contented in themselves. While they are blessed to be free from the curse of “incompleteness”  and instead with spiritual wisdom, they are initially cursed with powerlessness in the form of material poverty or the poverty of others of their aspect. The Page is objectified as their aspect. Jake is seen as desire incarnate to his band of friends (though is only truly respected by Dirk). Tavros too is objectified as “detachment” and “freedom” by Vriska though is resisted by her as she drives forward with her attempts to be relevant (materially important). Vriska’s suppression of Tavros is a suppression of “enlightenment” (the part of her aspect which she perceives will make her weak). While the Thief compensates for their weakness and insecurity through things, Pages compensate for it through love and consideration from others. 

Very good analysis I like it a lot

Split Interpretations Theory:

(Ever notice how lunar sway moons look like the :eyes: emoji?)   The Extended Zodiac states that lunar sways are “a designation which says things about your perspective on life. “ In Homestuck, aspect powers are determined by thought, and thought is determined by perspective/how information is perceived. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that lunar sway plays a huge role in how aspect powers/movesets are utilized? I believe aspects can be split into two interpretations by a character depending on their lunar sways. A masculine and a feminine. I use the terminology masculine and feminine here because the respective dreaming moons are associated with the two heavily gendered cherubs, each of which strongly possessive traditional gender role traits. Caliborn (Derse): is proactive, forceful, and rational, logical, idealistic, traits heavily associated with masculinity. Calliope (Prospit): is adaptable, reactive, submissive, and intuitive, practical traits associated towards femininity. Of course, gender roles are considered bullshit in Homestuck (and ought to be IRL), so whether a character is female or male is actually irrelevant in possessing these lunar sways. An interesting dichotomy presents itself when viewing characters this way. Rose Lalonde, as a light player, is less focused on fortune and more focused on knowledge. Fortune permeates her life in not so subtle ways, such as living in a mansion with an ACTUAL OBSERVATORY.

However, Rose’s fixation is less on this fortune and her feelings of luck, but instead on the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge, which grants her power and control and most importantly agency. (It also lets her shoot light rays out of some sticks). Knowledge, in this theory, would be the masculine element of light. It requires conscious thought and rational thinking to utilize effectively, especially as Rose uses it to determine probability. Rose’s affinity for light grants her theoretical knowledge which she then uses to provide agency for herself and others. Vriska, on the other hand, fixates on the feminine interpretation of her aspect, luck. Luck is a huge part of Vriska’s identity, and she believes fervently in it even though luck would generally be disregarded as bullshit by most. Luck is feminine because luck is reactive to the will of an individual as opposed to proactive, conscious thought. Vriska’s affinity for light grants her theoretical knowledge, to a lesser degree than Rose, but it makes up for this in it’s sheer practicality. Even the way that both use their powers offensively fits this divide. Rose shoots flash magic like she’d imagine a wizard would, as though she’s creating light ex nihilo whereas Vriska sort of just sucks out the luck that’s already there by looking at you hard enough. Both characters flow into active and passive states of their aspects to accomplish their ends, however it is Vriska who outstrips Rose in flexibility. Relying on luck requires a degree of intellectual submission and faith, which Rose’s ego is not inclined to allow. Vriska on the other hand, lets lady luck take the wheel so to speak, and if lady luck insists that Vriska gathers information to plan then she’ll do it. The downside is that Vriska becomes more easily manipulable and susceptible to the wills of others. The neutral element between both of these active states is “resourcefulness” which is the ability to look at your environment and take what you want/need from it. Luck would not work if one’s eyes are not open to opportunity, and you wouldn’t be able to acquire knowledge unless your eyes were open to it’s sources.

Tyzias and Stelsa both occupy a similar position as Vriska and Rose, both being blood players with differing lunar sways. Tyzias (prospit) interprets blood as camaraderie, bonds, and connections (community oriented/feminine things) and as such is blessed with the power of charisma, similar to Karkat. Stelsa on the other hand focuses on the masculine interpretations of blood, which is accountability, and social responsibility. Her connections with people are not ends, but rather a means to an end. And in this way, she very closely resembles the statement given about early session Karkat by Hussie himself. “As a Prospit dreamer, did Karkat struggle because he was actually passive in nature, but had a very active self image as a leader and conqueror?”