#auspistice

[umbreoncomplex]

quadrant blurring/mixing emojis. f2u

[rainismalyce]

Edits of an autism creature nonverbal communication image for Quadrant romance

Bonus: Flushed Pity Version

[somniiloquy]

a kiss with a fist is better than none!

[tricksterchalcedony]

Quadrant Purring Emotes!

made these since the ones i was using before were made by an abuser of mine, plus i like these better

will be posting a few more sets, and maybe do some requests? let me know if theres a set you'd want!

download the full pack

[vexwerewolf]

I love how trolls who are arguing in public get accused of flirting with bystanders for an auspistice

[relaxxattack]

“When two trolls are locked in a feud or some otherwise contentious relationship, one can intervene and become their AUSPISTICE. The auspistice mediates between the two, playing the role of a peace keeper.”

♧ ♧ ♧ - ♧ ♧ ♧ - ♧ ♧ ♧

[fuckkrat]

LOVEFOOL

[bluekittyyoyo]

ALTERNIAN CULTURE ANALYSIS: APATHY AS ANTITHESIS. AN ESSAY ON TROLL SOCIETY'S UNDERSTANDING OF EMOTIONS

listen to me. it only makes logical sense that trolls would have a strong understanding of the idea that the opposite of "love" is actually antipathy; having no strong feelings whatsoever. I know what you're saying, "but the quadrants have love and hate as a dichotomy, they clearly think of hate as love's antithesis-" no. wrong. the quadrants are obviously not representative of every emotion a troll can have, the quadrants are a concept of ROMANCE. see there's the keyword here. love and hate are both integral parts of this romance, they do not exist in opposition to each other as in one cancels out the other, they are two sides of the same coin. having quadrant feelings for someone regardless of alignment is indicative of caring about them, of being passionate about them. I know those words typically have purely positive connotations when used about human romantic understandings but disconnect that for a second. basically it comes down to a slightly warped version of "horseshoe theory" (where supposed opposites, in this case love and hate, are actually closer together than the middleground). I think this concept is firmly supported by canon, examples off the top of my head:

from the quadrants explanation;

"The relationships each quadrant describes tend to be malleable, if not volatile,"

as stated with the pitched/flushed vacillation and the canon examples of pale/flushed, but also I think it is implied (though less so) that it applies to every quadrant and there are many ways unexplored in canon that every quadrant can bleed into another.

this famous line:

"It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy."

this quote being on the page where equius pesters gamzee, citing that he does so with regularity and thus considers him a "friend" (but that's not the whole picture). this adds to the notion of these relationships not being considered opposite but stemming from the same root idea of investment in a person.

I think it's very interesting because I believe the authorial intentions of incorporating hate as an integral part of troll society and culture is meant to contribute to the idea of them as a cruel and violent society, and while that may have some truth for the ways in which individuals treat each other peer-to-peer in average situations I actually think the real overarching effect it has is trolls coming off as a more emotionally honest society at the cost of simplicity and peace.

the implications of hate being considered on equal terms with love to me paint an image of a society that encourages embracing all emotions to the fullest extent, a society that might even consider the worst thing you can be not as someone who is filled with hate but in fact someone who does not care at all. I'm reminded of the conversation between vriska and aradia in hivebent:

vriska calling her a "miserable soulless witch" followed by repeating she hates her and "only regrets killing her cause it made her so BORING!!!!!!!!"

of course we also see plenty of times that "not giving a shit" is a thing that trolls are naturally inclined to do because you only have so much emotional resource to devote to a finite amount of things. moreover that alternia is a society that encourages emotional "balance", to embrace the love and the hate both with the same passion.

again as karkat rants to vriska also in hivebent:

"A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS."

you may also recognize this conversation as the same one where karkat claims this (rather infamously imo):

"PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE."

(adding more to the "trolls believe hate and love come from the same emotional source" pile even if the manner of it is slightly off-center here)

and vriska's response to karkat's ranting:

"Did you learn this crap from your awful romance movies?" "THEY'RE REALLY INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY."

I hope this presentation makes it clear but for the audience in the back: karkat's interpretation of emotional composition of trolls is most likely complete bullshit and not at all factual nor, in my opinion, should be taken as biological information about trolls. for that reason I believe the reference to humoral medicine is completely intentional, invoking the imagerey of bullshit pseudoscience. just in the same way as I don't think it would be reasonable to make any similar claim about the nature of human emotions (and anyone who does is trying to sell you something). in A6A615 dave even states that "both humans and trolls are emotionally versatile sentient beings that can feel many hells of different things".

what I'm mainly getting at here using these quotes is that there is a cultural precedent for the claims he is making. karkat did not spawn these ideas about emotions out of thin air or scientific research, he got them from watching romance films. which particularly, as presumably low-culture media in much the same fashion as our own, would in fact make them excellent case studies on the general cultural attitudes of the society that consumes them. and that society, as karkat observes, makes indications that a) emotions of hate and love stem from the same source and b) trolls ought to have a balance of negative and positive emotions, where apathy is considered more undesirable.

so what I mean to say from all these observations, my formal opinion: to trolls there can exist this nebulous feeling of being emotionally attachment to someone, to desire any kind of relationship with them. and with that the average troll has a far better understanding that the most devastating response possible is actually none at all; to be completely unaffected by them.

so what am I saying with all this? it is my idea that in troll culture, trolls have a concept of relationships and emotions that can exist as a nebulous idea of just being *passionate*, of caring about something or someone and the distinction between negative or positive is merely a nuance rather than an opposition, and the actual socially reviled opposition to this feeling is being apathetic.

for example a troll rejecting another for a particular desired quadrant is heartbreaking (or diamondbreaking, spadesbreaking etc), but as there exists a desire for connection generally by virtue of the desire at all, it would be less devastating and possibly could become just as fulfilling for the connection to exist as a different quadrant, even on the other side of red/black. the most devastating possible outcome of a rejection would be that of total apathy, of the idea that one inspires no passions, no emotions of any kind in a person.

and with that established now we can get into my ideas about how alternian media rating systems work, such as a troll equivalent to rotten tomatoes where movies/books/films etc are rated on 5 different scales (also possibly two different modified 3 scale versions) in addition to a simplified two-scale version where the measure of "good" is based on "how much did this work inspire emotional reactions in you vs how much did you not give any shit at all"- the cane hooks me by the neck and pulls me off stage

[estr0biologist]

is this anything

[ijustwannamakeemojis]

[ID: Six pixels of color swapped homestuck Quadrants in order being flushed kismesis, morial and auspistice, followed by pale matesprite, kismesis and auspistice. End ID]

[yaboipandy]

so i tried to mix the quadrants

im proud(ish) of this

so here you go: pandy's homestuck deca-dants

[urfavinquadrant]

Chloe, Marinette and Adrien from Miraculous Ladybug are in an Auspisticism!

[somniiloquy]

[crypticawoo]

Big caste difference relationship positivity post!

Moirails who are onn opposite ends of the hemospectrum are pawsome, i have a bronnze moirail annd i wouuldnn't trade them for annythinng <>

Matesprites with a big gap inn caste, uu too are also awesome!

Kismesises of differennt castes are cool, uu guuys cann still have a healthy kismesistude despite the blood color differennce

Auspices of said caste differennt kisesis are doinng awesome!

[quadrantmlm]

if u use homestuck quadrants in 2022 u r fuckin brilliant and i fuckin love u

[relaxxattack]

i am a little confused on the homestuck quadrants i think they're called? you know, the ones with the card symbols, could you explain those?

BOY COULD I !!!!!!!!! ( <- has a special interest in this and is vibrating at the speed of light )

alright, so, first of all there's four of them. one for each card symbol.

humans use the heart symbol for our romance (♥) but since troll romance is so much more complicated, they use four symbols. hence where the card deck comes from.

i'm going to try to explain this as simply as possible when it's really incredibly complicated stuff- i mean, human romance is the same and there's only one of it- so just bear with me here, haha.

matespritship ♥

when a troll feels flushed towards someone, and dates them in the flushed quadrant, that's their matesprit. this quadrant is one of the physical/reproductive ones, and it's based on positive emotions (pity). it's similar to human romance, i would say, although possibly with less emotional leeway.

pretty easy, so let's move on.

kismesissitude ♠

this is the pitch quadrant, your pitch partner is called your kismesis. this one is also a physical/reproductive quadrant, but instead of being about positive emotions (pity) it's based on negative ones (hate).

this is someone that you hate so much you want to be in a relationship with them about it. in better terms, they're your rival. the person you are driven to challenge and fight, and always be better than.

the partners in this relationship must be equal and hate each other equally, otherwise there's no point. because if they aren't equal how are they challenging or fighting one another? they must also respect each other and actually want to better each other, for similar reasons.

here's a quote from karkat i really like about the respect you have to feel towards your kismesis to properly challenge and hate each other:

*alt text in image. full quote: x

pitch romance is important to trolls, and it's not just about fucking someone you hate like people generally like to assume.

moirallegiance ♦

a troll's pale partner is also called their moirail. this is the first of the non-reproductive relationships. although some people might tell you this is like a platonic best friendship, that is false. a moirallegiance is a romance. and it's a very important one in troll society- in fact it is practically a job!

the purpose of a moirail is to protect a dangerous troll from themselves and others. this means to tend to them emotionally, to guard their heart, to watch out for their other relationships. you know everything about this troll, you help with their mental issues and their place in the world. the main focus of this is to calm them down, usually, as many trolls have rage issues.

moirails will often be closer to each other than other quadrants, and build nest-like piles together to canoodle in while they talk about their feelings. it's all very intimate, really.

*alt text in image. full quote: x

(canon will tell you that dangerous, violent trolls are always palemates with even-tempered, "good" trolls who tend them. but i personally don't believe this to be true. a moiraillegiance, like any relationship, gives both partners benefits if it lasts. for example, you may assume nepeta simply calms equius, but there's plenty of evidence that he does his best to protect her in different ways too.)

auspisticism ♣

an ashen mediator, or an auspistice, is a facilitator between a pair of trolls who feel themselves starting to hate each other. the point of this auspistice, or middle leaf, is to foster communication and calm down both parties at once, to stop them from letting their annoyance towards each other develop into an actual pitch relationship. this is also one of the non-reproductive relationships.

usually this is because it would interfere with another relationship or friendgroup as a whole, possibly by causing pitch infidelity.

this is probably the most confusingly defined troll romantic relationship, and definitely the most underrated. it would be nice to know more about it.

in the end, we have these four types of romantic relationship.

the top two, or the red romances, are the ones that are based on positive pity.

the lower two, or the black romances, are based on negative emotions, hate.

the left two are concupiscent- aka dealing with sexual reproduction. the right two are conciliatory, aka dealing with calming someone else down.

that's the simplest way i can put troll romance. i hope it makes sense? feel free to ask me any questions :]