#matespriteship

[felonsgenders]

✦ quadrant based attraction - a revamp

the quadrant system is a model of attraction created by the webcomic homestuck. while someone has already broken down the quadrants into facets of attraction here, we figured we would take our own stab at it! (with permission from the original creator of course!) this is meant for anyone interested in the concept, although it helps to have prior knowledge! if you find this attraction model appealing, a wikipedia page exists that explains it well here, but we'll be going in depth ourselves under the cut!

and now for a more in depth explanation of quadrants and each facet of attraction! as you can see, there are four quadrants - matespritship or matespritian (heart), moirallegiance or moirallegian (diamond), kismesissitude or kismesian (spade), and auspisticism or auspistian (club).

they're divided into two groups: red romance fueled by love/positive feelings, and black romance fueled by negative feelings/hate. you can have multiple people in one quadrant, or only one, the concept of quadrants is polyamorous by default, but some choose to have only one moirail, kismesis etc. you can also have different sexualities for different quadrants! for example: you could be a gay man who is exclusively in matespritships with men, but could be in a moirallegiance with anyone of any gender. you could also be in an auspisticism with multiple genders, this is because both moirallegiance and auspisticism are usually based on platonic feelings as opposed to romantic or sexual. this does not invalidate the person's status as a gay man, it's just how they would do quadrants!

flipping or "vacillating" between quadrants is a natural occurrence as well. the feelings you may have for someone can be complicated and if you feel you'd want to be moirails with someone as opposed to in a kismesissitude or any other form of vacillation it's just something to talk over with your quadmate!

now, specifics for each quadrant will be under the cut!

dni link

red romance -

matesprites: matespriteship is closest to what we know as traditional romance, it is love for another person romantically and being in a relationship with them. it is also known as the flush quadrant. it's an alternative to traditional romance in the sense that it's a few new terms for how we view romance. singular: matesprite informal: flushmate verbal: i'm in hearts with x, i'm flush for x symbol: <3, ♥

moirails: moirallegiance is equated better in human terms to queerplatonic relationships, and it's an incredibly important quadrant. it is important to note that while close to a queerplatonic human relationship, it is still a form of romance and should be treated as such. moirails keep each other stable and grounded, they are there to help one another and they are extremely close. they participate in moirail based activities such as feelings jams, sessions in which the moirails will vent or talk about their feelings with support from their moirail. there are also shoosh paps, in which you shoosh someone to calm them and pap them as well (a little pat to ground them). your moirail also checks over relationships you have, they are in charge of keeping you safe as you are in charge of keeping them safe, it is a mutual support system based on deep love for one another! moirallegiance is a conciliatory quadrant, meaning it is typically not a sexual relationship, but every moirallegiance is different and has different boundaries/ways of existing! it's not all the fluffiest stuff, you can always have banter with your moirail, as long as deep down you both know how much you both care for one another. in the end it's all about how YOU work with your relationships! singular: moirail informal: palemate/diamond verbal: i'm in diamonds with x, i'm pale for x symbol: <>, ♦

black romance -

kismesis: a kismesissitude is a relationship founded on mutual respect and hatred. usually a kismesis is accompanied by underlying sexual attraction but you can be any orientation and have a kismesis. there are of course different ways to be in a kismesis with someone, but the general concept is that you both hate each other in ways that will build the other up, the constant one uppage of the relationship forces either kismesis to try and be a better person than they once were, either to prove a point or to rub it in the face of their kismesis. the most important thing to remember though is a kismesis is founded on respect just as much as it is hatred. without respect, it could very quickly turn abusive, which is obviously not okay. when dealt with healthily, a kismesis is a very good quadrant to have, it stabilizes the rest of your quadrants by giving you someone who you can be angry with and at, someone who will be angry with and at you, and someone who will constantly challenge you as a person. there is often times lots of banter/snarky remarks. singular: kismesis informal: pitchmate/spade verbal: I'm in spades with x, I'm pitch for x symbol: <3<, ♠

auspistice: an auspisticism involves three people: two people who would be in a kismesis and one who mediates between them. the auspice is in charge of making sure two in a hypothetical kismesis don't get out of hand and harm each other or others around them, as its an entirely possible occurance. when you are an auspice it is your job to make sure that your pair stay in line, if they don't there could be dire consequences and people could get hurt. the auspice is the only one feeling ashen for the pair, as the pair are constantly attempting to be in a kismesissitude. there are often feelings of fond exasperation towards an auspice's pair.

singular: auspistice informal: ashenmate/clubs verbal: I'm in clubs with x, I'm ashen for x symbol: o8<, ♣

[lostryu]

I thought the Bechdel test was always about lesbians????

Yeah, it was coined by a lesbian and it loosely refers to the alienation to media that lesbians experience, especially when it comes to being able to imagine a character as a lesbian. My tag 'lesbophobia' on that post refers to the tags that O.P had screenshotted

[phemiec]

Yo congrats on the kid!!! Had no idea you were a parent lol

yea the government said 2012 homestucks aren’t allowed to reproduce but they haven’t caught my cringe gay ass yet 🖕😎🖕

[trollbreak]

Augh

[hypoel]

There is so many more but I could only add 12 answers.

[ultra-raging-ghost]

tubbos in a kismesis w half the federation

Tubbo's kismesis with more specifically agent 18, he's got a matespriteship going on with fred <33 and ofc agent 18's got that flush crush pining for foolish going on too..... but thats for another post hehe

[cannoliparty]

quadrants explained!

quadrants are a fun and (compared to homestuck's other elements) simpler element in the comic. personally, i find them intriguing but i dont really make any pairings with them unfortunately :( atleast theyre fun to explain!! so here we are ^_^

overview

the quadrants are the ways trolls experience romantic attraction to eachother, and what their relationships are based off of. these 4 quadrants are as follows:

matespriteship <3

moirallegiance <>

kismessitude <3<

auspiticism c3<

keep in mind ALL these quadrants are a form of dating, whether feelings are of love, hate, pacifism, etc.

(note: i looove the detail of these quadrants having little text symbols like earth's own romance (<3)!! its clever and makes troll romance seem even more realistic)

in a more literal sense, the quadrants obviously take a liking to the 4 suits in a deck of cards. this plays into the theme of "bar games", with the pool motif of the felt/lord english being another example.

quadrants can be sorted into 4 sections:

red romance: <3 and <>

black romance: <3< and c3<

concupiscent: <3 and <3<

conciliatory: <> and c3<

quadrants

matespriteship <3

this is (probably) the easiest to understand between the 4 - because matespriteship is the same to human romantic attraction. trolls will feel deep respect and adoration stemming from attributes of their matesprite, and this is a positive connection.

moirallegiance <>

moirallegience can be closely described as "platonic soulmates" - but keep in mind this is still regarded as a way of romance and dating!

moirails look out for eachother. they are the first person you confide in, as you are to your moirail. they help eachother in pacifying emotions, and keeping the other calm. theyre mostly necessary because of the violent practices in troll society, and moirails help tone down their partner's violent tendencies and general negative emotions.

an example is karkat & gamzee: at first gamzee carried out the duty of pacifying karkat's loud anger, but later the jobs flipped and karkat had to calm gamzee down from his own murder-spree.

all this pacifying is done through "shoosh-papping" which i feel is just homestuck's funny way of communicating how trolls calm eachother down as moirails: through physical comfort. overall, moirails know how to keep eachother in check aswell as always support and be there for eachother, whether its over their rage, their sadness over a quadrant, or their all-out violent thoughts.

kismessitude <3<

kismessitude is a form of romance that perfectly resembles the violent society trolls are in. it is best described as a rivalry, with a deep hatred for your kismesis. but regardless, this hatred and the quadrant in general is rooted in a deep admiration for the qualities and/or feats of the kismesis, and its just that that makes the quadrant a form of romance and not animalistic violence.

but thats why its normal for a kismessitude to be pretty violent. you hate eachother, after all. and with this deep hatred combined with alternia's normalized violence, something's bound to happen, and fights will break out indefinitely.

although, often kismessitude can be too violent for its own good. an example being when the rivalry and hatred for eachother is too strong and you can end up culling eachother is when a 3rd person (and the 4th quadrant!) must step in.

auspisticism c3<

this quadrant is only present in kismessitudes, but not all kismessitudes have/need an austpistice. the auspistice is the mediator of a kismessitude for when it gets too violent, and someone else needs to step in and calm both/either of the parties down. its to make sure the rivalry remains healthy & balanced, aswell as keeping the pair away from culling eachother, because otherwise then its not dating, and just plain hatred.

of course, auspiticism comes in different forms. the most prominent example is kanaya in a (albeit strange) kismessitude between vriska & tavros. kanaya would mediate and talk to vriska, keeping her away from getting too heated/over the top and straight-up culling tavros. this is an example of when an auspistice is needed for only one overly-violent party member of the kismessitude, but austpisticism can be especially taxing when both parties are overheated in hatred & violence.

categories

now that all quadrants have been established, we can go further in-depth with their categories.

red romance

matespriteship & moirallegiance are in this category! this is because of the non-violent elements in both of these quadrants, as one is positively romantic and the other is used to pacify negative thoughts.

black romance

this category contains kismessitude & auspisticism. this is due to the hateful nature in these romances, whether the parties are mutually hating or it's a 3rd party who must step in on the hate.

concupiscent

matespriteship & kismessitude are in this category. theyre here because they are the only 2 required for troll reproduction.

conciliatory

this category has moirallegiance & auspisticism. theyre here because theyre the other 2 that don't have any reproductive activities and are mostly used for pacifying/mediating. sometimes because of the lack of reproduction people dont view these quadrants as equally romantic as the concupiscent ones, but theyre still a form of dating and romantic bonds!

conclusion

overall, quadrants are fun! whether you come up with your own pairings that arent the basic matespriteship or not, i personally find them fun to analyze/look over nonetheless. feel free to comment quadrant-related things such as more in-depth discoveries or your own troll romance pairings in homestuck!! ^3^

[paragonrobits]

homestuck fandom things i dislike, when people describe a troll romance with 'love beyond the quadrants' and its literally just romantic love as if its something incomprehensible or surreal to trolls despite our literal introduction to the quadrants outright saying that redrom/matespriteship is romantic love as humans would understand it, in all the variances we would recognize as romantic love

trolls have a term for romance as humans know it. its called matespriteship. i dont understand how a lot of people in the fandom came to assume that its something foreign to trolls

[tavtiers]

quadrants and/or song recs for a mage of mind?

♥ Matespriteship: Witch of Doom, Witch of Time, Seer of Doom, Witch of Blood, Seer of Time, Prince of Doom, Seer of Blood, Prince of Time, Maid of Doom, Prince of Blood, Maid of Time, Maid of Blood

♦ Moirallegiance: Page of Light, Maid of Light

♠ Kismesissitude: Prince of Breath, Prince of Space, Prince of Rage

♣ Auspisticism: n/a

Songs for a Mage of Mind:

La Luna by Deafinition

Song Title Unknown

Warsaw by Dessa

Thoughts Pt. 1 by Spock's Beard

Migraine by Twenty One Pilots

An Awful Thing to Waste by Supertramp

Hope this helps!

[humanology-101]

oh shit there's other people here now too woah

anyway galekh have you ever studied human romance n shit? i know yall have some weird shit goin on in that department lol

Ahh, yes. Human romance. That is a... very complicated and confusing topic for me.

I've heard it simplified once as humans only have matesprites, but functionally I think that is rather reductive. For one, I certainly think terms such as "queerplatonic partner" and "rival" can be analogous to moirail and kismesis respectively¹, but even setting that aside, calling a human romantic relationship equivalent to a matespriteship is itself not entirely accurate.

1 Nevermind the nature of the term "platonic" in there. That is a term worthy of its own essay to explain its existence relative to standard human romantic norms¹.

1 It has close ties to the human concept of "sexuality", which itself could have its own essay.¹

1 From the light reading I've done, I've determined that I am, in human terms, a homosexual.

See, humanity does not literally romanticize acts of compassion as we do. "Friendship" is not a... social disease to them as it is to us, but instead a necessary construct of their social structure. What would be sacrilegious acts of pale romance or even weakness to a troll are instead simple acts of friendship to them, or instead even simple day to day interactions with no necessary weight attached.¹

1 Perhaps this is a side effect of their less isolationist nature.

As a result of this different social mindset, human romance has necessities that would fall outside of the simple matespriteship structure. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that human romance contains slight elements of the four other quadrants by nature.¹ While I wouldn't be as treasonous to say that this romantic system transcends quadrants as we know them, I would say that our inherent cultural biases will hamper any analysis of human relationships. The signals they give off and look for simply don't mean the same things to us.

1 To varying degrees at least.

[godawfulhomestuckships]

Welcome to the mind of a Homestuck shipper.

Hello! This blog is for every Homestuck ship that follows a set of rules of mine. I have everything in a queue system unless its an ask so feel free to ask any time. This blog is 100% in good fun and I even ship some of these I make fun of.

This blog started as a in-joke as I wanted to create a tier list of Homestuck ships because there weren't any with a few rare pairs I find cute so I wanted to be extra and make a blog making fun of everything and everyone in good faith as an OG homestucker. I have been a Homestuck fan for 10 years so trust me when I say I am not taking the piss out of the fandom or what have you since Homestuck is why I find relationships so fun since now my brain is forever quadrantfied.

Also I would like to preface I do not ship most of these. There are some I might be more biased for but I will still give them an attempt silly name. Please do not fight over ships and if they are toxic and what not in the replies because sadly a few I have a HUGE distain for allow them past my personal rule set so if I have to suffer making it, you guys gonna suffer seeing it /LH. Also, just because they are a ship does not mean it has to be seen in the lights of matespriteship and I made it ambiguous on purpose as some of these can work for any quadrant or none at all so forcing a label onto it would be dumb and too much work for my ass.

So if you have any questions or just REALLY want a list of ship names or hell even my own personal OTP's (as basic as most are bc well OG's made it basic LOL) feel free to drop an ask about it!!!

(By the way the tier list will be edited here once I make it because I am still making all the shitty images ok it is 4 am I need to SLEEP I got college in the morning)

-Mod Nepeta

[davekat-sucks]

One of the things about the NU-fandom I find sad is that they always tend to forget or ignore the dynamics of characters not really shown in detail like Condy and the Helmsmen or the awful life of the dolorosa and everyone she ended up with like Mindfang. instead focusing on trying to make the Trolls just Grey humans and taking away the wrong lesson from the (D)ANCESTORS, like Signless and his Disciple's relationship isnt supposed to be something trolls can just do like humans can, or that Beforus is still much like Alternia just under more altruistic leadership since its still a fundamentally caste based society (I believe this is due the ignoring of troll biology and just wanting to make them human. The entire basis of relationships is biological, and a strong argument can be made that family/smaller scale social structures inform larger societal structures as whole.) Trolls were once cool bug aliens with a cool and alien society and social structure and history that people see as problematic.

The nu-fandom wants to believe the problematic elements did not happen for the sake of projecting their ideals. So forget about Condy technically sexually assaulting the Helmsmen as his energy gets sucked dry to power her ship for many years and she extends his life past when he was supposed to die without his say. Or the fact that Dualscar trapped the Dolorosa on his ship before being mindraped by Mindfang to kiss another stranger and getting killed by the same man who locked her freedom in the first place. Or even that the Signless and the Disciple being a one true monogamy relationship at a planet that puts full emphasis that everyone needs multiple partners because the trolls themselves are unstable without one individual needing to fuck and another stranger needing to tame their bad habits and the auspiticism is bullshit but it is need to finish the quadrant. It can't be done by one person, according to what Alternia and Beforus say. But The Signless and the Disciple TRUST each other to help the other. That's what's was revolutionary about their relationship. It's not just a red rom matespriteship, but one that they can support each other that fills the roles of all the quadrants. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what Karkat had wanted in Terezi too. Which would have made the parallels of his ancestor stronger before that idea was dropped! They also forget that it was Feferi's rule of coddling that lead to Meenah bullying the shit out of Damara, Damara losing her mind to work for the big bad, Cronus using humansona to get away from his own shitty attitude, Kankri's SJW thinking towards the wrong people, and Meenah having to kill everyone with that damn bomb to create a new set of trolls! The ones that we are most familiar with! It proves that even with Feferi trying to push equality and trying to fix the ill and unfit, it didn't work or caused more issues than what the Condesce did with iron reign! No one tries to talk about what would be a better balance between the two! Or if playing parallels like with Sburb/Sgrub of how it's basically a fight between the two Kingdoms, GET RID OF KINGDOMS AS A WHOLE and everything can be democratic. That's what Wayward Vagabond had been fighting for. He hated Kings and monarch ruling, so he started a group to go against it! It might have been like this for the Signless, just with Jesus slapped onto him for more flair.

[lesboygamzee]

i dont think the alternian ideal of any quadrant including matespriteship is healthy actually . i think shit could get sorted out on earth c or something but NO abusive relationships do NOT get resolved because you made them kismeses

[charliecuntcicle]

explained tbosas to my friend as "corio thinks theyre in a kismesis and sejanus thinks theyre in a matespriteship and either way it sucks"

[wolvesbaneandbuttercups]

Homestuck poll on main

no "see results" if u don't know Homestuck just read it or read the wiki on quadrants

[alternian-relationship-advice]

I havve a kissmesis (wwho is also one of my matesprits) (A Sollux introject part of a system) And I do still feel pitch for him, but I am also startin to feel a bit pitch for someone else in the same system (A Caliborn introject) And I don't knoww wwhat to do about it.

Do you havve any advvice?

An Eridan introject (Call me Erin / Eri , She/Glub/Magic, 6 - 8 swweeps (13 - 18 human years. Vvioletblood (duh) )

// Ooc: this is a roleplay blog but! I advise you to discuss with your partner sollux how you feel. It sounds like you’re already familiar with poly relationships in a single quadrant, so approach it the way you would an additional matespriteship. You may also want to (if possible) spend more time with caliborn— see if it’s merely a small pitch flutter, or something YOU want to pursue. I wish you luck, and feel feee to update me o7