#homestuck hephaestus

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

this is what it looks like

[okayxairen]

my homestuck hyperfixation has grown to a point where i accidentally customized my computer to be identical to dave strider's help me

[best-transgender-character]

Worst Homestuck Character Competition

This competition is not about "least transgender", vote for your least favorite! Canon gender is not a factor, and please don't call these characters cis.

The top three characters will proceed to the next round!

[our-fav-hs-char]

Who is our favourite?

[pogoboart]

U will never see me draw Tavros buff like this again but this is an AU where’s he’s Hephaestus the god of blacksmiths so of course he’s gotta be jacked

[randomhomestucktournaments]

Homestuck character most likely to read Homestuck Round 1-16

[weirdmageddon]

why aren’t you smiling bro you helped her make the perfect frog gene waveform in just hours linearly but probably multiple days nonlinearly (took kanaya and karkat a few weeks but they rushed near the end cause the reckoning started). two of most accomplished characters in homestuck right here they bore the weight of the new universe

theyre one of the top collaborators of all time they love making stuff together. from music to interests to shitty christmas decor to the perfect frog universe. hell to their own quests being intertwined (dave’s involves hephaestus and the forge, jade’s volcano)

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomic 'Homestuck' Canceled For Promoting Bad Password Security

(page 456-459)

8/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: INCORRECT

8/11/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: CORRECT, but behind at least 10 layers of irony

In the far future, somebody might call this update a time capsule of the 2000s. If computers change significantly, or something. page 456 comments on Dave's bro's computer being password protected, suggesting that this isn't a cultural norm - the newly-released Windows 7 still doesn't require user accounts to have a password. In Homestuck, the password is used to protect 'incredible top secret shit,' so password protecting a personal home computer might be associated with shadier online behavior.

Bro's password is six characters, and is 'the most awesome thing it can be' according to Dave and his bro, so it's probably lilcal. (It could also be puppet, but personally my passwords are always specific characters, song titles etc, not general concepts. I don't know if other people are different. for what it's worth lilcal is also a slightly more secure password than puppet which is A SINGULAR DICTIONARY WORD). Bro also trusts Dave with his password - either because he doesn't think Dave will do anything to mess up his computer, or because he's daring Dave to use it, similar to leaving the Xbox switched on mid-game.

On page 457 we see Bro's desktop, which we can compare to Dave's desktop on page 323. They both have wallpapers from And It Don't Stop, showing us a chain of game recommendations from Bro -> Dave -> John. Dave, like Rose and John, has some character in the names of his desktop folders, while his bro has seven identically named New Folders scattered around the screen. This adds to the sense that Bro is paranoid about people looking at his computer - he's purposefully making it impossible to navigate. The hidden-identity hat and dark glasses iconography on the password entry screen has the same effect.

Bro also has a program called Delirious Biznasty, which has a rad skater dude for its icon. This could be a web browser, but I think it's more likely some kind of torrenting application, I think that'd fit his vibe. The web browsers we know are Typheus, Cetus and Hephaestus, which are all Greek mythological references with cartoon-styled icons, and Delirious Biznasty doesn't fit the pattern. Based on Dave's relationship to his bro, Bro probably uses Hephaestus too and just doesn't have a desktop shortcut.

Dave and his bro both use the Complete Bullshit content aggregator, which we are forced to witness on pages 458 and 459. Content aggregators are pretty common customizable feeds that people use to keep up with a lot of websites at once, when checking 20+ separate sites a day gets too time consuming. RSS readers are a common form of this that can host a lot of different types of content, but there are also aggregators specifically for webcomics. These are controversial - they're generally well intentioned projects made for free by webcomic fans who want to check for updates easily and keep up with a lot of stories, and want to help other fans do the same. However, they can redirect traffic away from actual sites that host webcomics, meaning that independent webcomic artists might miss out on ad revenue or merch sales, or are less likely to sell ads because their sites don't look as well-trafficked as they are. I don't know if Andrew Hussie has a strong opinion on comics aggregators, but it's possible this terrible to use, unstable and unreadable version is a criticism of the concept.

Complete Bullshit also feels like Dave's bro's equivalent of Serious Business, as they're both digital programs with adjective-noun titles. I wonder if Rose's mom will get her own software.

It's sweet that Bro keeps up with Dave's projects, including Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff and his GameBro review blog. It shows that their relationship isn't 100% one sided, Bro cares for Dave and/or thinks he's cool at least a little bit. It's also fun that Dave is checking to see if his own webcomic has updated, which could be bad memory due to having a lot of projects on the go, or could be Dave checking to make sure his update has gone through and posted successfully. Very reasonable, as it must be a challenge to upload such high quality images.

I will probably make a post digging into Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff at some point, but I'm still peeling the onion of its irony right now so I'll just say: when exactly did Dave find the time to make these comics?

[techtakesoff]

Do you have any thoughts on denizens, e.g. how they are assigned to players? :o

I think about denizens uhhhh a completely normal amount I promise. do not look in my notes folder it's fine (/j)

But seriously, I find them really interesting. We see so little of them, but they're deeply important to Homestuck's story and the function of Sburb. Canon gives us a few hints about how they're assigned to players, but there aren't really any hard rules.

The piece of denizen lore that is stated most explicitly in the text is that Yaldabaoth is the deadliest denizen, appears very rarely, and is "usually designated for the most naturally gifted warriors." There is a ton of room for interpretation for who exactly Sburb considers its most naturally talented warriors -- we know it counts Dirk and Caliborn but not Vriska, and presumably none of the other trolls whose denizens were never revealed.

My personal reading is that Yaldabaoth is given to the players with the most set-in-stone morals (not necessarily good ones!) and high ambitions, and being a good warrior is just something that happens to be correlated with those traits; if you have a character who is a hardcore pacifist but rises immediately to any challenge and never backs down, they might end up with Yaldabaoth.

The second most direct piece of denizen lore is that Echidna is assigned to all Space players. Echidna is one of the more benevolent denizens, and appears to have a lot of stake in the players' victory.

She offers Choices that can get them out of dire circumstances, but the terms she asks for can seem impossible to fulfill. According to Jade, Echidna's Choices are usually about facing mortality, and her most powerful abilities may require the player(s) to directly sacrifice themselves (as was the case with Alt-Calliope and the Beforan trolls) in order to enact drastic change.

Players can just kill her, though, if they are unwilling or unable to make a successful bargain, and doing so doesn't seem to have any major consequences. Beyond that, everything we know about denizens is inferred or speculated.

Karkat claims that his denizen might've been the opposite of Yaldabaoth, one reserved for the weakest fighters. Fanon holds that this denizen was Abraxas, but this is unconfirmed (personally, I don't subscribe to that theory, but if it works for your story then go for it.)

We also see that Cetus is associated with Light players, but that leads me into my Hottest Take, which is that denizens probably aren't associated with aspects at all (possibly besides Echidna.) Denizens are much more closely tied to a player's *element* than their aspect.

Cetus, again, has only been seen with Light players, but the legendary monster it's named after has nothing to do with light -- it's a *sea monster.* Rose's associated element is water, and Scorpio is a water sign.

Likewise, Jade's associated element is earth, and Virgo is an earth sign, but Echidna's association to Space appears to override her association with earth when it comes to Calliope (the constellation the cherubim are based on, Ophiuchus, mostly overlaps with Sagittarius, which is a fire sign.)

Hephaestus is a fire god, and Dave and the Aries sign are both associated with fire. The alpha kids' elemental associations are not as clear-cut, but Jane's denizen Hemera has more to do with the sky and air than with Life.

Sometimes aspect ties in with element, as in the case of Egbert's Breath and air, but not always! The Nitrams are Breath players, but earth signs. If your character has a thematic association with something separate from their aspect -- one of the classical elements, a later element from alchemy or chemistry, or really any particular material or even color -- look there for denizen inspiration.

Design-wise, all the canon denizens have serpentine bodies with humanlike heads (or at least faces) and most of them are named after deities or creatures with a similar body shape.

You can always pick something with no existing snake associations and just draw it as a snake, of course, but Wikipedia has a whole category page for "Legendary serpents" from Apophis to Jörmungandr to Zhulong if you want to stay on theme.

The canon denizens have names drawn from Ancient Greek and Gnostic sources, but there's no reason I see to limit yourself in that regard. Denizens are an extremely powerful tool from a storytelling perspective.

They're very strong, very mysterious, and can serve as a convenient deus ex machina if needed (this is a good thing! Having a way to advance the plot swiftly and dramatically like this is *awesome.*)

Canonically, they have knowledge of all their alternate timeline iterations, which could allow a doomed future self to interact with the alpha timeline using the denizen as a proxy.

Denizens' power over the Incipisphere is, as far as we know, boundless and unparalleled. There is *so much* potential with denizens and I desperately want to see more of them in fanworks.

Consider what could happen if a denizen was prototyped into a sprite, or if a player had the ability to steal their denizen's power and use it for themself, or if two denizens had cause to fight each other directly... again, I think about this a completely normal amount. (/reverse hyperbole for humorous intent)

[thebigcjart]

Unlike the Khaos post, I'm going to be talking about Jake's land and quest primarily (extensively), as Soter doesn't have much metatextual significance outside of his direct impact on Jake's quest, which is the generally the case for the other denizens except for Kronos and Echidna. Everybody good? Good.

Let's get it:

Soter

Soter is the denizen of Jake Alassa's Land of Armor and Cliffs.

Soter doesn't have as much wacky behind-the-scenes stuff as Khaos, but like all denizens, is still crazy powerful. Also like Hemera and Nix, Soter's color scheme does not match his player's text color. They do have color significance to this session's Cherubs, though, but I'll cover them after I do all the players ;3

Greek/Roman(?) Origins

Not much is known about the Greek god/spirit Soter, or if there is, I have found very little. As far as my research goes, Soter is a god/spirit of safety, preservation, and deliverance from harm. He is commonly associated with Zeus in the Orphic Hymnns, and serves as an overseerer and savior, which suits the Light aspect. The two scarfrobes around him echo the two snakes in a caduceus, a symbol of Hermes/Mercury.

There is a solid chance that I'm making the following up, so please correct me if you know for certain that I'm wrong bc I'm operating off of memory here. I remember reading somewhere that the Roman empire had waystones along roads that looked like the head of a spirit/god of security, to bless travelers with safety and to show them the way. I'm like 60% sure that was the Roman equivalent of Soter? So that ties into the themes of deliverance and preservation that I'm going for. Take that with a pinch of salt, my research is infuriatingly vague there.

Hey, This Guy Isn't Cetus

Yeah, well.

Homestuck is inconsistent with whether denizens are tied to aspect. Sure, Vriska and Rose had Cetus, but that's because their planet was super watery (fit for a sea monster). Both Jake (English) and Karkat had Abraxas, and their aspects are just shy of being as far apart as possible. The only Denizen that is absolutely for certain tied to an aspect is Echidna, with Space. Alli Sharpe (this session's Space player) follows this trend. It's also only implied that Hephaestus is anywhere similar to Echidna. Aradia isn't explicitly stated to have Hephaestus as her denizen, and she is a time player. I go into more detail about why Kronos is a better fit for this session's time denizen in Mark's post, which I'll make later.

Also LOAAC doesn't really have any good places for a sea monster to dwell, now does it? (I suppose I'll compensate with a Kraken pun. Sea also: the Crackening)

There is some alchemical significance with the whole Jupiter/Tin thing, but I'll round all the session's alchemical stuff in one big superpost later. Let's get into the land and quest now.

Land of Armor and Cliffs

Jake's land, the Land of Armor and Cliffs, is an almost entirely level planet with huge cracks and holes running through it, revealing glowing streams of light deep underneath. These are not fjords, like would be found on Mark's land (the Land of Acid and Fjords), as they are not formed by glaciers, but instead through earthquakes in an event dubbed the Crackening. The clay that composes the plateaus is a bright purple, and lush neon pink vegetation lines most of the cracks.

Design

As I stated in the Khaos post, the players' lands in this session follow a specific naming scheme: Land of (Two syllable word dealing with the player's past) and (One syllable geographical feature).

The Cliffs refer to the sheer edges of the plateaus that drop all the way down to the narrow rivers of light that fill the empty space. All of the plant life is concentrated around these areas, though they were like that long before the Crackening (the worldwide tectonic event that split the earth). As such, almost all of the consort settlements are around and some divided by the ravines.

Speaking of, the Armor refers to the consorts, which are turtles. It also is with regard to the fact that the ground itself acts as plated armor for Soter's Lair. Jake's past has to deal with how his mother was a chronic gambler and gambled away all of the money they had instead of paying bills or for necessities. Jake's armor here is the fact that he relied on willful ignorance and pretended like everything was okay instead of confronting his mom. One day, his mom was dragged out of their home by loan sharks, leaving Jake homeless. As a Mage of Light, he experienced/suffered from misfortune and by failing to confront the truth, he lost his home and only family.

The way he as a Mage experiences, suffers, and understands his aspect is very similar to how a Knight might protect themselves from/with theirs. This is a big reason why Dean Casuco (this session's Knight of Rage) and he are able to bond and empathize with each other so easily, and why they have such big influence over each other. In fact, both players' lands and quest are the only ones in this session to deal with war of some kind, but they engage with it in very different ways.

Consorts

The consorts of LOAAC are Turtles. Jake likes turtles. Before the Crackening, the turtles established some pretty developed (and heavily fortified) settlements throughout the dense network of heavily forested... well, forests. This is all before the event, however. Nowadays there's all sorts of disarray. There are (heavily fortified) bridges between plateaus, but something about the light coming from the chasms degrades them quickly.

Quest (and lore drop, because I just couldn't stop typing, I guess)

Jake initially believes his quest is to find out who is planning to assassinate the turtle king and prevent it from happening. Jake spends almost all of his time in the (heavily fortified) Grand Library trying to research the geopolitical history of LOAAC, and must go out to retrieve specific books to put together leads on who it might be. This is where most of the combat happens, as all the different settlements and kingdoms are unwelcoming to all outsiders, which leads to underling buildup around their (heavily fortified) borders.

At this point in the story, Jake and Kane have started to form feelings towards each other. It's some messy combination of Flushed and Caliginous, but humans don't really recognize the latter as romantic anyway, so it's fine (*Laughs maliciously*). They talk a lot in the downtime between getting to their respective destinations, as both of them have a lot of travel involved. There is a lot of conflict between the two, as a result of their entirely conflicting classpects (Mage of Light and Heir of Void), but a big help towards mending these is Kane's alexithymia sort of ensuring honesty. Kane has no clue how they feel, and so emotions don't serve as much of a hinderance clouding their reasoning (or so they think), and Jake has a certain soft spot for reasoning. Kane is also sort of like a project to Jake. If that sounds kind of toxic, that's because it is, but they work it out eventually. Jake craves understanding, and Kane is the unknowable. Hijinks ensue.

Quite early on into this sequence, much earlier than anyone else in their quests, Jake stumbles upon a very rare (and heavily fortified) book that was assumed to be lost, and upon returning it to the Grand Library, it acts as a key, opening up the entrance to Soter's (heavily fortified) den deep within the earth.

Jake finds Soter already awake, when his research concluded that he should be asleep still. He discovers that Soter has been manipulating the world population since the Crackening to become isolated and to put up walls between each other, almost a cross between a helicopter parent and a 1984 "big brother" type entity.

You see, even though Jake confronted his denizen early, none of the denizens in the session are sleeping. In cannon, the denizens are commissioned by Derse to spread pollution and whatnot, then they go to sleep until the player shows up. Here, they all independently decide "screw that" and do things their own way, constantly meddling with their lands. The true enemy of the players' sessions in Homestuck was "always already here" but in this session, this enemy that I have so diabolically not shared with you yet takes a more... "always on the horizon" approach to such prophesied schemes. This empties out the narrative niche for an antagonist, so why not just use the antagonists given by the game itself? A lot. Very a lot.

Soter, the meddling overseer of LOAAC, presents Jake with

The Choice.

Embrace the "tyranny" in front of you. Take your place as this session's damned overseer; render all that is Void known and annihilate with your bonds, or

Let Freedom Reign.

Considering the weight of his options gets him seriously donked up. From there, the threat of assassination seems so small in comparison. Whatever Jake chose, it leads him to his true Quest. He himself begins to isolate from everyone else, and eventually leaves his planet for Skaia after one last lecture from Dean about "not putting up with his egghead denizen's rampant and malodorous bullshit."

The only way anyone learns about this is from the turtle king on LOAAC, who tells Kane that "The Mage is going on a holy pilgrimage to Skaia!" and "That's really all that he told us!" after Kane abandons their quest and reaches LOAAC through the gates. Kane gets more in tune with their powers the more that everyone else forgets about them. Kane is nearing the top of their echeladder, and starts to fade into Void. It gets to the point where Kane begins getting impressions of being elsewhere, nowhere even, sometimes getting bouts of amnesia. This is because they begin to start occupying the empty places around Jake.

Jake cuts off communication with everyone else, and brute forces his way through the other lands, Prospit, any crack or foothold in the session that will get him closer to Skaia; he has to get to Skaia. Throughout this, he starts seeing glimpses of Kane in his peripheral vision. A gap in a bookshelf. In a shadow beneath a tree. In the window of a building. The pause between sentences. He sees their face in a crowd of thousands. He reads their name in almost every empty page. But Jake is nearing the top of his echeladder, too. He starts noticing more, his perception focuses, his senses keener. And Kane starts to go away.

The last time they talked to each other, before all this Choice mess, it was about questions. Kane believes that a truly good question is ruined when it is answered, and Jake vehemently disagrees. Jake argued that everything has meaning; that everything has a purpose. Kane simply laughed and said, "I don't." Kane doesn't know why Jake even bothered with them in the first place, but Jake didn't have the heart to tell them that he was still searching for it. Maybe that's why his eyes hurt so much all the time. Is it because he spends too much time with them open, endlessly flipping through texts or scanning for leads, when any moment not looking for a way to Skaia is a moment wasted? Or is it because every time he closes his eyes, he thinks he sees Kane in that taunting darkness behind his eyelids, unable to speak to him, but forced to remember that he didn't say goodbye, blink after arduous blink. Another question without an answer. Those are getting rarer.

The more powerful that Jake gets, the larger his sphere of understanding grows. Kane has only ever found (lost) themself on the outside of that bubble, looking in. Kane is aimless. They spend a hell of a lot of time going nowhere, and even as quickly as they're going, it's not enough. Maybe that's what Khaos meant by "he might not be found," that Jake might find them first? Another wasteful search for meaning. Those are getting rarer. But what good would that do if Kane can't exist around him anyway? Kane knows better than to ruin that one with an answer. This leads Kane to head off and find an ectobiology lab floating away into the furthest ring via accidentally using their Void powers and clipping into Alli's peripheral vison this time during a zoomed out view of the medium. Y'know, because she's a Seer of Space and can do that. This lab was knocked out of the orbit comprising the Veil of this session's medium near the start of the session during one of Lono's (Lono Anakoni, the Sylph of Hope) Hope Surges she used on Alli when Alli first was hit with her Seer powers. But it had to happen in order for Kane to find it and make everyone's ectobiology clones, and Seers are all about what "has to happen". I'll cover that more in another post. Also I promise that this is relevant to Jake's issues. Anyway, Kane does the ectobiology, I'll cover the specific sequence of events in another another post. The only place left in range for them to get to, though, is Derse (as Derse is also technically in the Furthest Ring). On Derse, Kane meets up with Hiro's and Lono's dream selves, and they direct Kane to one of the transportalizers that would lead to a frog temple, if there was one in this session (more on that in another post). Because there's no valid destination, the destination of choice is like a perfectly generic location in the medium (a default coordinate of sorts). In the same vein of a perfectly generic object. This happens to be the very center of the medium, the core of the battlefield. As this session is not a Null Session, and further, the Green Sun already exists, there is no tumor. It seems that Kane's quest really was to crawl out from the center of a planet.

A Seer's expertise surrounds that which "has to happen," and Jake has learned that he simply does not have as easy access to that information as Alli does. What he does know is that the Mage deals with "what is happening" a whole lot easier, and what's happening right now is very bad. He spends almost all of his downtime looking up at Skaia from Prospit, and it's bad. Yeah, that whole "always on the horizon" guy I was talking about earlier (remember him?), well he's not quite on the horizon yet, but he's getting there, and it's not good. Jake has to get to Skaia. And it's not good enough to just fly up there as his dream self. It has to be his awake self. It has to. He gets impressions from the information around him, allowing him to glean entire books from skimming multiple at a time. His friends haven't stopped reaching out to him. They've actually pestered him more, recently. He can't talk to them. Not yet. Not when he could do something. So he does. His alchemizing equipment is back at his room on LOAAC, so he delves into a new realm of experimentation and research: His fetch modus. By selecting all empty data, he can load an empty card onto a card, then retrieve it, then turn it into storage space and partitions. He duplicates his storage space a lot this way, then he begins captchaloguing anything and everything he can get his hands on. By storing two items, then selecting a string of 8 digits from the middle of their agglutinated item codes to load onto a card, he can essentially design items bitwise. He deduces offhand that there are only 2^48 possibilities in terms of item codes, and there are many dud items that don't even render properly. It takes a lot of effort and fine-tuning, as the only patterns he can tell between items that vary by a single bit are long-winded and not elegant, to say the least. Along the way, he discovers [bixqbx!q], a code for a dual-sided fountain and ballpoint pen named "Riptiditpir" that could turn into a shortsword with a dagger on the other end. That might've come in handy, if he already couldn't see danger approaching a mile away. Literally. For transportation, he settles on [PCHOOOk] which is an-- oh, wait, no that's a violin stuffed with a potted plant, a cinderblock, and.. is that shaving cream? That doesn't fit at all. After a brisk and completely necessary reanalysis of the entire understood system of bitwise alchemy to accommodate the god damned shaving cream, he settles on [PCHOOOOO], which is a rocket pack. Good enough. One last nap though, just for good measure, while the night surrounds him like a cold, distant blanket.

Now that Kane and Jake's sequence of events are nearly lined up, let's smash them into each other like two action figures in a shitty embrace. But not like that at all, actually.

Ascent To God-Tier (Feat. Kane Mendoza)

Jake wakes up during the peak of noon on LOHAW. Again. Its sun burns, but it's a familiar feeling, and Jake has spent a long time this session heavily fortifying himself against the natural degradation that comes with continuous exposure to Light. He dons his rocket pack and shoots up into the sky. Whenever he passes by one of the gates, it's as if he can almost "see" where it goes... except for the seventh gate. Jake has a bad feeling of uncertainty surrounding that one. from there, it's a straight shot to Skaia. As he approaches the huge ball of sky, something is wrong. Are the clouds... darkening? A bunch of small red portals pop up around its atmosphere, almost like shields. Jake blitzes through the calculations in his head. There's not enough time to course correct. He knows how these portals operate. They'll smash him right into the Earth during the Reckoning.

Kane finally peels himself out of the battlefield. Who knew that increasing the complexity of a place exponentially seven times would thin it out some? Not Kane. Kane wouldn't even consider that in the first place. Something's off. Was this place always so... bright? A bunch of chess people fight to the death around them. As chess people do. They don't see Kane walking around, too focused on trying to not die to focus on some weird fleshy person and their cat vaguely drifting on the edge of their vision. Whatever,

Jake forces his eyes shut, hoping to see Kane again, to tell them goodbye. Kane hasn't been there for a long time, though, and Jake knows better than to let something be meaningless. He opens his eyes and faces whatever purpose Skaia has for him, head on and oh, no. he. he just... He just passed them. It was a tight squeeze, too. A shield blocked the gap he flew through maybe an instant after he passed it. A few instants, perhaps? Lucky shot, then. The chances of that... no, he was certain he'd crash. What was Skaia up to? The portals were gone, now. Why did it put up a barrier for him? Why did it let Jake through? Was it some kind of-- Jake crashed hard into a river, injuring himself in the process. --distraction.

No. No, no, nonono. Jake forces himself to stand, falling over on the bank of the river. He couldn't move his arm, his right eye was pooling with blood, and he was certain that he had punctured... something. This place is a chessboard, why are there rocks in the river? Why are there trees?! He has to keep going. He can't die here, he's not allowed to. He has to do this, to preserve this session.

Kane didn't plan this far ahead. Turtle guy said that Jake was going to Skaia. Here's Skaia. What now? Kane wanders around aimlessly. Something about this place wasn't too keen on letting them do any sort of Voidy thing, as if this whole damn planet was being watched. Kane didn't even have full control of it yet. So it probably wouldn't do much of anything. Kane walked for several minutes until they saw something that surprisingly wasn't white, black, or red. It was a yellow stone in the distance with four tall yellow pillars on its corners. Kane started to walk towards it.

Jake was panicking. Blood loss was setting in, and his already limited powers began weakening. Screams from the clashing armies turned to indistinct ringing in his ears, but he had to keep pushing forward. At the very edge of his shrinking field of focus was his destination: His quest bed. There was one on LOAAC too, somewhere, and dying on that would have transported him here by combining with his dream self. But he couldn't do that. That's not an option for him. The closer he got, the less he could see. The less he could know. His bubble...

Kane approached the structure, noticing a stone pillow and the symbol for the Light aspect on it. On the other side of the bed, Jake was dragging himself towards Kane. Kane called out, breaking out in a sprint, but Jake couldn't hear them. Kane reached the stone bed first, and went to hold their badly injured friend.

"Kane." Jake muttered, barely a whisper. "I get it now," He looked up with bloody tears in his eyes. "I finally see you. You're beautiful." Kane tried to help Jake lay down.

"Jake, I don't--" A long blade exited the back of Kane's body. Jake coughed up more blood. Kane looked down at the double-bladed weapon that connected the two of them. Jake had... Jake...? "Wh-Why?" Jake fell backwards onto the bed, bringing Kane with him and driving Riptiditpir deeper into the both of them.

"not everything needs a purpose." Jake sighed.

Kane's death would be meaningless, as it always had to be. And Jake learned better than to argue otherwise. With his last surge of life, Jake pulled Kane into a long, eternal kiss. This is how it was always going to end. The Mage of Light destroys the Heir of Void by revoking them of their nonexistence. This is what Jake saw in the clouds, after all. Jake saw himself kill Kane over and over and over again. This is how he would save this session. This was what he chose. Then again, there really wasn't another option. When matter and anti-matter meet, they cancel out; they annihilate. Jake died with purpose, as he always had to do. And Kane knew better than to argue otherwise.

When someone's awake self dies, their dream self can be utilized as an extra life of sorts, so long as another player kisses the corpse before the injuries have time to affect the dream self, killing them too. When this happens, the person's dead awake self becomes their dream self. This does not work if a player's dream self is dead. Not existing in the first place, mechanically speaking, is not dead.

From this, Kane is revived and becomes nothing. Kane becoming nothing is the Heir of Void moment of all time. Kane becomes a God.

From dying on his quest bed, Jake is revived and becomes a God.

There was a reason that Jake had to die on his battlefield quest bed instead of his LOAAC quest bed. Dying on his LOAAC bed would have caused his dream self to fade from Prospit and appear on this bed before waking up as the God-tiered player. That wouldn't do. Dying like this doesn't happen in cannon, but essentially what it does here is function as a sort of wrong warp. SBURB is a game, first and foremost, so it would stand to reason that it uses game mechanics to achieve its very wacky prophetic paradox bullshit. It takes the locations of the quest beds in an index (LOAAC is 1, Battlefield is 0), and when you die on one, it warps your dream self to the next one in the index by subtracting 1. Following the item codes, it is likely that SBURB operates in base-64. So the location of the "quest bed" that Jake's dream-god self is transported to is the next one after 0. This is called an integer underflow error, and it causes the index to read whatever "location" is at the base-64 8-bit integer limit, which is position 281,474,976,710,656 in the index. Yeesh. Luckily, this happens to be 3 feet to the left. So he doesn't clip into Kane.

God-tier Mage of Light Jake is revived and instantly teleported off of the bed and falls on his God-tier butt. Unfortunately, Kane becoming nothing causes them to have disappeared completely, meaning that this whole scheme would have been utterly pointless if it wasn't fated to happen by wacky prophetic paradox bullshit. Point, Kane. For the rest of their conditional immortalities, Jake and Kane will continue to engage in this game of metaphysical-ontological one-upmanship with meaning/meaninglessness and bicker like an old married couple until the sun explodes.

Jake's "revealment bubble" causes God-tier Heir of Void Kane to stop not existing in front of Jake and they proceed to kiss the shit out of him. Let's give these two lovebirds some space, then, shall we?

[tavtiers]

Knight of time

The Knight of Time [symbols: shield, gear]

The Knight class has its basis in the classic knight from Arthurian legend. An example would be Lancelot.

The Time aspect’s main themes are endings and destruction. You can find its official description here.

A Knight of Time is among those who use physical existence. This is the “classpect group” they belong to. Members include: the Knight, Page, Thief, and Rogue of Space/Time. These classes are all opposites or inverses of each other that use the Space/Time dichotomy (physical existence). A description of classpect groupings can be found here.

The Knight of Time actively utilizes the Time aspect. Active classes tell themselves what to do and do so for their own benefit. They are more likely to stand up for themselves, but more likely to be cruel. Knights and Pages use their aspect and everything it symbolizes as a tool. Simplified, the Knight of Time is motivated by themselves to utilize endings and destruction.

In personality, the Knight of Time puts on a front to hide an insecurity and has a strong desire for closure. Personality descriptions can be found here.

Their archetype is the Defender Harbinger, defined by guarded endings and destruction. Archetypes are explained here.

Their opposite is the Page of Space, who passively utilizes creation and beginnings.

Their inverse is the Rogue of Space, who passively steals creation and beginnings.

A classpect or “god tier” is an individual’s best self. All classpects go through a journey from unrealized, to struggle, to realized. When a character is unrealized, they neutrally exist as their inverse. On their struggle, they will wildly flip back and forth between their inverse and true classpect. In their worst moments they will act as their inverse, in their best their true classpect. When realized, they will stabilize as their true classpect. They will still have room to grow, but will become happier, more successful people.

This means that the Knight of Time begins life motivated by others to steal creation and beginnings. When their struggle arrives and they are at their worst, they will continue this behavior in negative extremes. However, when at their best, they will find purpose in instead utilizing endings and destruction for themselves. When realized, they will stabilize and continue to utilize the Time aspect actively, in a positive way.

They share their archetype with the Witch of Doom, the Harbinger Defender.

The Knight of Time would quest on a planet similar to the Land of Haze [Knight] and Time [Aspect]. An example would be the Land of Ash and Graveyards. An explanation of planet naming conventions can be found here.

Two possible gods, or denizens, to reign over their planet would be Chronos (God of Time) or Hephaestus (God of the Forge). Other Time aspect denizens can be found here.

When the Knight of Time completes their planet quests and dies on their quest bed, they would rise to ascension on the wings of crows (symbols of death). A list of soul animals can be found here.

The characters that I have currently classpected as Knights of Time are: Dave Strider from Homestuck [canon example], Dave Strider (post-scratch) from Homestuck [canon example], the Third Doctor from Doctor Who, Cable from X-Men, Nicholas Daley from Night at the Musuem, and Mac McDonald from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

If any of the links not connected to my blog break, the content can be found on my Google Drive.

Official Aspect Descriptions

Personality Descriptions

Aspect Denizens

[tritoch]

argggh i can't stop it. It's happening. having forbidden FFXIV classpect thoughts. Hydaelyn and Zodiark as our cherub equivalents. Meanwhile, events in Elpis result in a Mobius Double Reach-Around pair of interlinked sessions between the Scions and the Unsundered, which are largely asynchronous and separate and link up only around the time of ARR through EW. spoilers through 6.0.

THE BIG TWO:

Hydaelyn: Muse of Time

Zodiark: Lord of Space

---

SOURCE SESSION:

WoL: Knight of Hope (one who wields hope as a weapon. Hope is canonically an extremely powerful aspect and linked to elemental light and the power of belief. Brilliant Conviction, the canonical warrior of light buff, is extremely Hope energy. Also, since light is juxtaposed against despair in the Big Answers Monologue, the Warrior of Light represents not the aspect Light, which is luck and knowledge, but Hope)

Minfilia (& Ryne): Heir of Light (literally everything about Minfilia and Ryne points to this it is almost impossible to ignore. Also again, Homestuck Light represents luck and foresight and this ties to both Minfilia's time as Word of the Mother and Ryne's role as the Oracle)

Alphinaud: Prince of Blood (one who destroys relationships and alliances, see the Crystal Braves, but also one who destroys through or using alliances, see everything after that. Also, all the Princes destroy their aspect in themselves at some point, and ARR Alphinaud is absolutely a bloodless technocrat in all senses)

Alisaie: Rogue of Breath (an outlaw Rogue in contrast to Alphinaud's noble Prince but also because the Rogues are generally affable, unpretentious, and natural adepts of their aspects. Breath stands for freedom, flight, and change. The curing of tempering not only figuratively steals back the breath of Halric and all the tempered (and the porxie animation is even sort of a symbolic transfer of breath), but also restores their freedom and marks perhaps the greatest change to the setting's status quo)

Thancred: Bard of Mind (mind deals with thought, possible futures, the paralysis of choice. The bard allows destruction of their aspect and invites destruction through their aspect. It is difficult to sum up how I think this applies but consider both Thancred, paralyzed by his failure to save Warburton, and also the image of the Fatebreaker. Also he's literally a bard)

Y'shtola: Witch of Void (witch is obvious. Void stands in for forbidden knowledge, obscured things, darkness. Connects to both her personal drive to uncover the hidden things of the world and her time as spiritual leader to the Night's Blessed. Also on a meta level we know the least about her because she is underdeveloped lmao)

Urianger: Seer of Doom (lay-up)

Estinien: Maid of Rage (both the HS Maids are naturals of their aspects, and also go sorta corrupted or weird in relation to it. also the idea of Estinien as Nidhogg's handmaiden (as well as Handmaid) makes a lot of sense to me)

G'raha: Page of Time (again, a lay-up, but note that Pages have the potential to be among the most powerful given time and development. Also as the Exarch has many parallels to Hydaelyn thematically)

---

UNSUNDERED:

Elidibus: Sylph of Heart (Heart deals with identity, the soul, motivation, but also self-knowledge through others. Also Elidibus is a little bit damsel-coded imo)

Emet-Selch: Mage of Space (BEHOLD, A SORCERER OF ELD and also the close narrative link to Zodiark)

Lahabrea: Thief of Life (steals life, as Hephaestus made life. Also life has thematic links to the march of progress and the exertion of will, and through the Condesce and Betty Crocker, power and its abuse (impeach Lahabrea))

[carcinocommander]

oh, so you like homestuck? name every homestuck character

JUNE EGBERT, DAVE STRIDER, LIL CAL, JADE HARLEY, ROSE LALONDE, DAD EGBERT, BRO STRIDER, GRANDPA HARLEY, MOM LALONDE, JANE CROCKER, DIRK STRIDER, LIL HAL, JAKE ENGLISH, ROXY LALONDE, GRANDMA JUNE/JUNE CROCKER, ALPHA DAVE STRIDER, JADE ENGLISH, ALPHA ROSE LALONDA(?), JANE EGBERT, JASPERS, BECQUAREL, CASEY, SQUAREWAVE, SAWTOOTH, BROBOT, LIL SEBASTIAN, LORD ENGLISH ROBOT, HALLEY, VODKA MUTINI, SERENITY, MAPLEHOOF, COLONEL SASSACRE, RAMBUNCTIOUS CROW, GOD CAT,

ARADIA MEGIDO, TAVROS NITRAM, SOLLUX CAPTOR, KARKAT VANTAS, NEPETA LEIJON, KANAYA MARYAM, TEREZI PYROPE, VRISKA SERKET, EQUIUS ZAHHAK, GAMZEE MAKARA, ERIDAN AMPORA, FEFERI PEIXES, DAMARA MEGIDO, RUFIOH NITRAM, MITUNA CAPTOR, KANKRI VANTAS, MEULIN LEIJON, PORRIM MARYAM, LATULA PYROPE, ARANEA SERKET, HORRUS ZAHHAK, KURLOZ MAKARA, CRONUS AMPORA, MEENAH PEIXES, THE HANDMAID, THE SUMMONER, THE ΨIIONIIC, THE SIGNLESS, THE DISCIPLE, THE DOLOROSA, NEOPHYTE REDGLARE, MINDFANG, E%ECUTOR DARKLEER, THE GRAND HIGHBLOOD, ORPHANER DUELSCAR, THE CONDENSE, RUFIO, HIS HONORABLE TYRANNY,

ARADIA'S RAM LUSUS, TINKERBELL, BICYCLOPS, CRABDAD, POUNCE, VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, TEREZI'S DRAGON LUSUS, SPIDERMOM, AURTHUR, SEA-GOAT/GOATDAD, SKYHORSE, GL'BGOLYB

SPADES SLICK/JACK NOIR, DIAMONDS DROOG/DRACONIAN DIGNITARY, HEARTS BOXCARS/HEGEMONIC BRUTE, CLUBS DEUCE/COURTYARD DROLL, BLACK KING, BLACK QUEEN, WHITE KING, WHITE QUEEN, SNOWMAN, MS. PAINT, THE MAYOR/WAYWARD VAGABOND, PEREGRINE MENDICANT, AIMLESS RENEGADE, WINDSWEPT QUESTANT, WRIT KEEPER,

CALIBORN, CALLIOPE, ALTNERNATE CALLIOPE, LORD ENGLISH,

DOC SCRATCH, ITCHY, DOZE, TRACE, CLOVER, FIN, DIE, CROWBAR, STITCH, SAWBUCK, MATCHSTICKS, EGGS, BISCUITS, QUARTERS, CANS,

GUY FIERI, INSANE CLOWN POSSE, BARACK OBAMA, ANDREW HUSSIE, CHARLES DUTTON, MSPA READER, GENESIS FROG, HORRORTERRORS, FLUTHLU, NRUB'YIGLITH, OGLOGOTH, NICOLAS CAGE,

HARLEQUINESPRITE, NANNASPRITE, JASPERSPRITE, CROWSPRITE, CALSPRITE, DAVESPRITE, NEPETASPRITE, DAVEPETASPRITE^2, BECSPRITE, JADESPRITE, TAVRISPRITE, TAVROSPRITE, GCATAVROSPRITE, FEFETASPRITE, ROSESPRITE, JASPROSESPRITE^2, EQUIUSPRITE, ARQUIUSPRITE, ERISOLSPRITE, ARADIASPRITE, TINKERSPRITE, BICYSPRITE, CRABSPRITE, POUNCESPRITE, MOTHERSPRITE, GRAGONSPRITE, SPIDERSPRITE, AURTHURSPRITE, GOATSPRITE, SEAHORSESPRITE, GL'BGOLYBSPRITE,

SOBBING CRYING CRASHING ONTO THE GROUND CURLING UP INTO A BALL,

TYPHEUS, CETUS, HEPHAESTUS, ECHIDNA, HEMERA, NIX, ABRAXAS, YALDABAOTH,

AND THAT'S IT.

AND IF I MISSED ONE? FUCK YOU, NO I DIDN'T AND I'M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN. I'LL KILL YOU AND EAT YOU.

[best-transgender-character]

Worst Homestuck Character Competition

This competition is not about "least transgender", vote for your least favorite! Canon is not a factor, and please don't call these characters cis. The top three characters will proceed to the next round!

[utopianparadoxist]

Idk if you still do HS asks anymore

But what do you think Abraxas would’ve given Jake as his quest if he were to go meet them ofc

Jake's "quest" is his life, much like Hephaestus and Cetus and Echidna and especially Yaldabaoth all signpost themes and ideas that turn out to be relevant to their corresponding players, helping shape the narrative and challenges they face and deal with.

The question of what would happen if Jake went to abraxas directly is non-answerable to me, and honestly not that interesting either. I'm much more compelled by how Abraxas' shadow is already felt throughout Jake's arc, and in fact expands Jake's shadow into something that spans the entire plot/timeloop of Homestuck.

If you're interested in checking out how I view the Denizens in practice, I'd suggest checking out my essay ROSE LALONDE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD on medium ; or Hephaestian Shonen, Abraxian Tsundere on YouTube. Both decent places to start.

I still answer Homestuck asks, theoretically. I just find many of them hard to answer for many reasons. The biggest of all of which is simply that I work more than full time hours and am going to grad school to boot. No matter how much I may want to, I just don't have the time to prioritize Homestuck fan content like I used to.

[turntechgaykid]

Imagine description below 👇

PJOStuck AUs:

(Homestuck Godly Parent: Dave: Apollo, Rose: Apollo, Jade: Hecate, John: Hermes, Dirk: Aphrodite, Roxy: Dionysus, Jane: Kymopoleia, Jake: Mars

Karkat: Unknown, Aradia: Hades, Tavros: Satyr, Sollux: Janus, Nepeta: Ares, Kanaya: Aphrodite, Terezi: Nemesis, Vriska: Tyche, Equius: Hephaestus, Gamzee: Dionysus, Eridan: Neptune, Feferi: Amphitrite)

(PJOStuck classpects: Percy: Knight of Life, Annabeth: Maid of Light, Nico: Bard of Doom, Jason: Page of Heart, Piper: Mage of Hope, Leo: Rouge of Breath, Hazel: Witch of Mind, Frank: Heir of Blood, Reyna: Sylph of Rage)

(PJO Trolls: Percy: Blue blood, Annabeth: Teal blood, Nico: Rust blood, Jason: Violet blood, Piper: Jade blood, Leo: Yellow blood, Hazel: Olive blood, Frank: Bronze blood, Reyna: Fuchsia blood)

__________________________________________________

PJOStuck Family Tree:

Dave - Dirk Half brothers (Same Mortal Dad, Different Godly Moms)

Dave - Rose Half "twins" (Different Mortal Parent, Same Godly Parent)

Rose - Roxy Half sisters (Same Mortal Mom, Different Godly Dads)

Jane - John Half siblings (Same Mortal Dad, Different Godly Moms)

Jade - Jake Cousins