#skaia sprites

[oleandysprites]

derspit lovers, i have a soft spot for this piece since i put so much work into their outfits

dreamers inspired by @rumminov's works

parts - oleandy, deepseaspriteblog, mudkiplox, and a friend (for jake's scars)

separates under the read more

[thewertsearch]

JADE: […] you remember the guy who destroyed prospit? JADESPRITE: you want me to fight him??? JADESPRITE: are you crazy? do i look like i am ready to fight anybody???????

I don't know what Jade thought was going to happen when she self-prototyped, but I doubt she was expecting an argument.

Maybe she wanted to possess Jadesprite's body in her sleep, and take the fight to Jack herself - or perhaps she assumed that Jadesprite would share her exact mental state, memories included, and thus automatically agree with her plan.

JADE: there is a lot at stake here! JADESPRITE: woof

JADE: i mean, dont you remember what this was all about? JADE: what you were working for… what WE were working for all those years before you died? JADE: remember what we saw in the clouds, or what the queen told us?

We knew Jade was a frequent visitor to Prospit, but it seems she was particularity close with the White Queen, who was probably the closest thing she had to a parental figure after Grandpa died.

Given her uniquely lonely upbringing, Jade might have spent more time on Prospit than any Player. No wonder she was over-reliant on Skaia's prophecies - she's probably seen thousands come true before her eyes.

JADE: how could you not remember john survived? JADE: we both saw him in a cloud! he was in his dream suit and awake, reading our letter! [...] JADESPRITE: it was all a lie jade. what we saw in the clouds and all that. none of it meant anything

“None of it means anything” is not a particularly encouraging thing to hear from a Sburb Sprite.

I’m starting to wonder if Jadesprite’s mental state is due to more than just trauma and godhood. Has she learned some uncomfortable truths about her existence, out there in the afterlife?

JADE: i just dont know what to think JADE: i guess you are part of me, and you are who i was when i slept JADE: but it makes me sad to think i would act like this

However much Jade might want to deny it, Jadesprite represents a real part of her personality, and she’s not exactly enjoying this look in the mirror. Karkat can relate.

[deacblues]

dave strider is essentially homestuck’s tutorial npc character. before i elaborate i need to establish some stuff;

homestuck isn’t just a webcomic that imitates videogame imagery, it is a game pretending to be a webcomic. at least until andrew hussie drops the reader commands in act four.

john egbert is the reader’s point of view character. he is the method through which we learn how to play both homestuck and sburb. we tend to learn things as he does, and he is most interesting when there is an audience to direct him places (in my opinion, anyways).

with that in mind, i can continue. until his introduction in act two, dave strider is an npc by definition, and he spends a good chunk of his time teaching john how the world works and giving him objectives. here are some examples of that from the first 40 pages:

he’s also the tutorial character in the sense that he’s introducing you to how homestuck’s dialogue delivery works as a series of meandering and occasionally humorous chatlogs. dave as the tutorial npc is formalized when dave becomes davesprite, since sprites are sburb’s skaia-designated tutorial npc figure. and, as soon as he becomes davesprite, he tracks john down to impart some brotherly wisdom

i mean, hell, he pretty much outlines his whole “i am the tutorial character” thing in his letter to john

i think people don’t really recognize this part of his character because for one thing, dave stops being a tutorial npc when you get to order him around in act two, but also because it’s hidden pretty well. i certainly had friends like this who had to teach me how to play video games and bail me out of jams. in some ways, dave is sort of like john’s older brother, trying to nudge him in the right direction and wise up. i guess the rest of the beta kids are like his older siblings too, since he is the youngest and the one who knows the least about homestuck’s inner-workings. he is you, after all.

[conceptofjoy]

it's funny to me that any possible spriting situation involving the striders is either the best thing to happen to them or hell on earth with zero in-between. ARquius' fun skaia vacation V.S. brosprite's tormentous nightmare

lets do vrisdavesprite and they can have both of those things simultaneously

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I have to ask where to fefeta and Erisol fit into your theories. Obviously fefeta exploding due to to two different people trying to apologize to her then arguing caused her to explode, and probably hint that the two halves are pitch for each other. But what about Erisol, why out of all alpha sprites, he is the most stable? What does it say about Eridan and Sollux? And a possible relationship of theirs or lack of one

Is Erisol the troll-sprite embodiement of Terezi’s and Gamzee’s shitty relationship. Absolute fucking disgusting codependence that allows them to wallow in their self pity. If that’s the case Eridan would be like a comfortable blanket for sollux, but not a good relationship

Why did Skaia give Eridan a quest that is knew Eridan would royally fuck up due to being raised as the next orphaner and thus have a trigger finger on anything big and white. Is Skaia stupid? Could Eridan come back to it at a later date and find that his quest is now to help the angels rebuild? Is it because Skaia accidentally made Satan and tried to set its most powerful aspect to beat it, overriding character development for hope players?

Answering these one by one:

For my thoughts on Erisol and Fefeta, see this essay and this essay.

It's hard to say why Gamzee brought the trolls back; I have an ask in my inbox positing that he's trying to set up pitch relationships (which I like the thought of) - I'm still rereading this part of the comic, so it's not super clear to me, either. I don't want to speculate when I can't be sure of my opinion.

Lastly, we don't actually know what quest Skaia gave to Eridan. We know that Eridan received prophesies from the angels of their lord, whom he believes he was meant to defeat, but it's unclear if this was his planetary quest, or some side thing he had to deal with, similar to how Feferi has an overhanging prophecy to "unite the two races" and Karkat has his to "bring equality and forgiveness between all bloodlines."

However, what we do know is that free will > predestination within this setting (predestination only exists insofar as characters paint themselves into corners with their own choices, but it was still their CHOICES that created those corners, and not the machinations of fate and destiny), and Eridan is the one who chose to give up his destiny of defeating LE:

GG: im pretty sure hes from the future! CA: wwhy GG: because he said hes my grandson … CA: that gun i just gavve you is somethin of a hatchright to the kid CA: happy i could play a role in your dirty stinkin lineage GG: like an heirloom? i guess it could be … CA: i kinda think thats wwhy i found the gun in the first place CA: but noww im forsakin it because fuck i just found a better destiny than my old crappy one wwhich i nevver got any appreciation for anywway

It wasn't an insurmountable challenge for him and his team, it was just one that they failed because they couldn't/wouldn't address their personal problems in time, and that he voluntarily abandoned. Moreover, if we assume that, indeed, Eridan's classpect quest WAS to defeat LE, then we can still see a fairly clear character arc set out for him: Eridan's main emotional conflict stems from his inner hope being in anguished conflict with the despair and anxiety he feels toward the future that Alternia laid out for him - orphaner, empress's sea dweller, nobility. As a hope player, his struggle lies in believing in things. It's encapsulated in the way he decries magic as stupid and fake and dumb and bullshit, but he FUCKING LOVES MAGIC, since he collects shitty wands and has no less than 6 wizard statues in his respiteblock.

That anxiety and despair won in the comic, and he went on a killing spree because he felt he had nothing left to live for; in a hypothetical scenario where he DOES manage to grasp his powers and destroy WITH Hope rather than destroying Hope itself, then the opposite would be true: he defeats his anxiety and despair, asserting a new belief for a better and brighter future, shooting a beam of "make impossible things possible" through LE's otherwise unconditionally immortal heart.

[dingodad]

something thats bugging me is what the latest chapter implies. like, are the sprites manifestations brought about by the Point to guide vriska, as per their literal reasons for existing? cuz the convo between dp and jr implies that this davepeta IS the same one, and not just a manifestation of the point. i guess like you said its not hugely important, and sort of the point, but it does make me wonder. like, were all the sprites drawn into the point, much like their supposed urge to die on the battlefield? or is this all just the Point's psychic manifestation for vriska?

this is kind of the unspoken point to that last ask i answered. the sprites ARE manifestations of the plot point, but they also ARE the "real" sprites because a "real" sprite IS a psychic manifestation. in homestuck all versions of a character add up to a single unified vision, yadda yadda, but this is especially true of sprites because sprites are just ghost images that represent a person (like how a sprite in computer graphics merely "represents" an object) rather than being living people in and of themselves. if sburb can spontaneously manifest a sprite whenever they need one to appear, and that's always the "real" one, there's no reason the plot point manifesting that same sprite for different purposes wouldn't also be the "real" one, at least as far as i'm concerned.

i don't particularly prefer the "psychic manifestation" phrasing anyway because i don't think it's productive to think of the plot point versions of characters as any less "real" than the people living outside of the plot point. they're all characters living out their roles in stories; it's just that the plot point is a highly condensed story-within-a-story with a highly specialised purpose, so it has a smaller scope than the story it's nested within.

the plot point is a "hell" in a figurative sense - confronting vriska with her worst nightmares - but also in the very literal sense that it's swarming with the shades of the dead. are these the "real" spirits of the people vriska killed in her youth, or just manifestations of her guilt? the distinction isn't necessarily important; for the sake of the story being told we as readers need to treat them as real, or else vriska's penance becomes meaningless. i think it's wise to treat the sprites the same way - being spirit guides, an underworld-equivalent like the plot point is almost a natural sort of habitat for them.

i've never imagined the sprites literally being "drawn to" the singularity bc i've been taking davepeta at their word that they really did just manifest inside spontaneously the moment they were needed. but i do think the comparison to the Battlefield is interesting bc the black hole / Skaia have always been mirrored to each other as the cosmic centrepoints of their respective mediums... and Skaia being the fountain of all creative potential it does kind of feel like the sprites returning there is in a sense returning to the place of their creation like spirits returning to the underworld. so I think there's definitely something to it

[thewebcomicsreview]

A'ight a'ight, new Hamsteak tonight! This update, the cue ball update, apparently has a content warning for physical and mental abuse, so I'm putting the liveblog behind a ReadMore

It's still weird that GCATavros and Erisol (and Fefeta) are a thing, for all sorts of reasons, but I'm not going to question it I guess.

Sneaking suspicion we're getting a new Vriska look today. Also confirmation that sprites can't change their appearance. Which I guess is not new information, but...it's also not very interesting! Moving on!

Sollux has the hardest-to-read quirk of any of the main trolls, and adding Eridan doesn't help at all. "Class-swah Dichotomy" probably means class as in social class, and not as in Classpect, but keeping the phrase in mind regardless. Davepeta is the leader of the group, a combination Rogue/Knight of Time/Heart and they passively stole Vriska's time by trapping her in the hyperbolic character development chamber, which seems like something for the classpect chart people to want to focus on. @bladekindeyewear is back in the liveblogging scene, presumably taking all sorts of notes on this.

Why the fuck is GCATavros talking like Gamzee?

Kind of interesting reading this comically pathetic version of Tavros after reading the author's commentary on the first part of this hell tier where they focused on how there was actually a lot more to him than being the buttmonkey. Also after the last update I'm reading this whole conversation expecting that Vriska will meet Doc Scratch and this will somehow tie into that relationship, though I have no idea how.

Well, that's not at all an ominous thing to say in the "Hell Tier" arc. I'm also kind of curious how this can really be an escalation over Spidermom, unless they're going to make some reveals.

This entire arc is character-based, of course, but the lore nerd in me wants to know where Scratch's parlor comes from here. Vriska never saw it, nor did any sprite, so why is it accurate? Where is Hell Tier coming from? It's also worth remembering, along those lines, that Doc Scratch is partially Hal Strider, and thus a shard of Dirk, though this is presumably not the real thing.

Scratch's text also has a typewriter sound effect, which I like. None of the characters in the flash have "voices" in like a Banjo-Kazooie/Celeste-type way, so it's immediately notable when one does.

Getting kind of creepy pretty fast here.

Vriska's text has a black background suddenly. The implications of this I don't really remember off the top of my head, though. Actually on my other monitor it's a green background, which makes a bit more sense. I think one of my monitors has kind of fucked color settings but I don't know which one.

Oh wait, that's right, Vriska has seen Scratch. Scratch distracted Aradia and Terezi so that Vriska could throw Tavros off the cliff that one time. Maybe she has been here before, on the Green Moon.

I feel like Momfang has that title, but make your case.

Oh, what the shit. I'm starting to see where the content warning is maybe coming from.

Okay, seems we're going there. Scratch was certainly always, um, pedo-coded in the way he targeted and manipulated young girls, but it seems like we're about to get some confirmation.

Um.

UM.

Okay, getting de-aged back into Hivebent-era Vriska is honestly the best outcome of Scratch putting her in a "uniform".

As much as this is about Scratch, this is also about Vriska herself, in the end.

Man, I feel like every single Scratch line here is worth examining, but I don't really know what to add. As much as this is Scratch the cueball dude this is also the concept of Fate itself.

More classpect stuff about how Vriska's power is "borrowed". Really, that's true of all the kids, their god powers and even their Ultimate Powers all come from Skaia and can theoretically be revoked at any moment. Not sure when Light "abandoned" Vriska, though, unless it's referring to (Vriska) getting killed. This Vriska knowing that her own best friend tried to murder her and that it was divinely judged Just has have fucked her up a little.

Interesting. Generally the fandom considers classpect has being an extension of your true self and your title being Skaia simply describing who you already were. This (which is partially Vriska's opinion of things) frames it as the kids being Warlocks who were granted power by Skaia. This is mostly Worldbuilding (tm) but if that's the way Vriska's thought of it it kind of explains a lot about her. She doesn't feel like she's ever earned anything she's had, even her divinity.

Vriska doesn't get a revelation here, she just gets insulted and kicked out and-

Erisol, you dick, lol.

Well that was a lot to take in. I think I need to process it. Kind of wild that it's only the halfway point. Up next is the feather and the 8-ball. I think we're down with flashbacks, and the feather is Davepeta and the 8-ball is Vriska getting out of hell.

[sntechsupport]

I think I'm stuck? Everyone else apparently loaded in fine, but when I got to my land it's just an infinite landscape of repeating light grey and dark grey squares on a perfectly flat surface. Land name reads as "Land of Test1 and Biteadickglue". I can't see Skaia or the moons, and I don't even think I loaded into the same session as everyone else, which has left me unable to build much of anything. If it helps any, my sprite is a Alchemiterkernelkernelsprite^3 (we all lived in the same dorm so our sprites ended up getting mashed together with an alchemiter).

I am apparently over my decapitation quota, so the Graphic Department is only going to get a strongly-worded complaint about this.

Meanwhile I've used your description to manually set you up and split your sprites while I was at it. They all survived, even. Had a tough time deciphering what your Classpect was supposed to be, since in rendered as Piss of F, so now you are at my discretion Heir of Hope.

Sincerely

SN Tech Support (Gear)

[jayecrockerdaily]

022 - 07/09/2024

im still kicking. pardon the sprite edit i just upsized jayes skaia one and traced it for a bit

[classpectanon]

the god-shaped hole

this is a homestuck theory i reference often internally but i'm not sure if i actually wrote down on my blog. well, less of a theory and more of what i observe as a sort of inevitability that's hard to argue against, but, still - it's useful to have terminology to describe it.

the "god-shaped hole" is a concept central to understanding the machinations of skaia within the universe of homestuck. at its core, it represents the narrative mechanism employed by skaia, the omnipotent and omniscient entity, to guide each sburb player towards a specific role it deems most suitable. in achieving this, skaia leverages a variety of game systems and constructs like Titles, Sprites, Denizens, and Lands, which serve as the tools in carving out this predestined path.

each player is essentially funneled into a carefully tailored narrative track that aligns with skaia's overarching plotline. from granting unique powers through titles, assigning personal guides in the form of sprites, to presenting obstacles embodied by denizens and crafting lands to reflect and challenge a player's character, skaia's pervasive influence seeks to mold each individual's journey. through this process, the players become pawns in a grand cosmic game, their lives and personal stories repurposed to meet the requirements of this god-shaped hole.

fundamentally, it's a mechanism of control, and one that's extremely toxic at that. the whole thing is a form of manipulation - a kind of divine puppetry orchestrated by skaia to guide or force each sburb player into a very specific narrative slot, no matter the cost. and when i say "cost," i'm talking about the mental and emotional toll it can take on the players.

the god-shaped hole is a symbol of a system that commodifies personal struggles and coerces individuals into roles that may not be in their best interest. it's skaia's way of exploiting the players, taking advantage of their personal narratives, strengths, and even weaknesses, to achieve its own goal - the creation of a new universe.

and this isn't some gentle guidance either. it's coercion, pure and simple. skaia utilizes its omniscience to control the narrative, forcing players to fit into roles that it has preordained for them.

take caliborn, for example. skaia not only tolerated but actively facilitated his destructive tendencies, going so far as to grant him immortality so he could become its grim reaper. why? because it served skaia's utilitarian end goal. in doing so, it not only enabled but actively rewarded caliborn's brutality.

every character in homestuck is defined by its attempts to escape or embrace this hole, even the most villainous ones. the space between sessions isn't an unknown quantity to skaia - it's responsible for gamzee, too, and aranea, and every other bad thing, ultimately, by shaping the people into what they would become using its omniscience.

the god-shaped hole, then, isn't just about fulfilling a cosmic narrative. it's about skaia using individuals as tools, shaping and molding them, often against their will, to fulfill its own ends. it's not about personal growth or revelation; it's about control and exploitation. and that's what makes it so insidious.

it's capitalism btw. that's the joke here. thanks for reading.

[oleandysprites]

aeneas papilo, my oldest fantroll! this is from 2022, but i really love it still! older sprites posted below the read more

parts - oleandy, deepseaspriteblog, blizzriel, quixotican-t, teaneaweanea, spritinfluensa, the-wandering-fairy (and if i missed anyone, please feel free to tell me!)

body base was tajazzled's work, the rest? all mine! ain't that crazy, lil 14 y/o me doin this. how art changes, huh?

[fefairys]

"The human session spans only about a day, but there are still signs that everyone is "growing up," at least in certain symbolic ways. Their guardians have moved on, their sprites are starting to go their separate ways too, and they're beginning to embrace a certain sense of adult responsibility for this journey with a bit of help from their new troll friends. Jade has just said goodbye to a certain childhood comfort: her life on Prospit, and her access to the all-knowing clouds of Skaia. She doesn't have a sprite to say goodbye to yet, because of course she's just getting started with the game herself. But ditching these colorful reminders on her fingers is definitely a big gesture that feels like it's closing the book on her childhood. No more cheating, hints, or spoilers. Those are for babies. In fact, she seems to start embracing this as a philosophy going forward, as she reprimands Karkat in future conversations for offering her "spoilers" by way of slipping out of chronological order with their respective chat connections. So she invents a fairly clever password system to keep things orderly." -Andrew Hussie

ok first of all GOD do u ever just sit and think about how all of that SHIT happened in ONE DAY like they went through an entire leg of their character arcs in ONE DAY cuz they speedran sburb and part of what sburb tries to do is give you your own character arc so you can really feel like a Character In A Game. but since they speedran it, they speedran their character arcs too, and did SO MUCH growing up in just ONE DAY. thats crazy to think about

secondly, jade going from knowing all this stuff about the future and taking so much joy in that, in feeling like she was special because of how much skaia showed her, to "NO SPOILERS!!!" do NOT tell me about the future i DONT wanna know!!!! i think thats really fun.

she realized that only knowing bits and pieces of the future isn't enough, and that all it did was fill her with false-confidence that everything was gonna be wonderful!! she doesn't want to fall into that trap again, of being given JUST enough information where you think things are gonna be great, but oops! they left out the part where its really scary and fucked up actually!

she saw that john would eventually wake up on prospit, and she made the extrapolation that that meant she'd be able to show him around and have so much fun together! but oops! as soon as he wakes up, he watches her fucking die! she refuses to be that naive little kid anymore, refuses to be given any false-hopes like that again.

[thewertsearch]

EB: we very nearly had to face our grandfatherly paradox-dad as a last boss. EB: that would probably be the worst case scenario. GG: um..... GG: what?

Holy shit, you're out of the loop on this, too? I was sure that Skaia would have told you at least that much.

Well, prepare for a shock. Typical that this would come up at one of the most critical moments of the session.

Uh, Bro? You were barely holding your own, even when fighting seriously. Is this really the time to start flexing?

...ok! I stand corrected!

Wow, this is going a lot better than I thought.

Guess it makes sense that Davesprite would tip the scale. He doesn't have the raw power of the other two combatants, but he has plenty of what we in the biz call hax. He can pull all sorts of weird tricks with time travel and sprite magic, keeping Jack on his toes while Bro brings the pain.

They might actually have a shot, if they can finish the fight in six minutes.

Tick, tock...

"he missed"

"No, he didn't."

[airprime7]

I want to talk about the Prince of Doom

What is Doom?

Doom is mostly interpreted as death, destruction, general sadness and negative things. It’s the opposite of Life, right? So obviously it’s bad, because Life is good.

That’s sort of right.

Doom isn’t the language of death, it’s the language of endings. This is in part shown by the programming language ~ATH, which John, Karkat, and specifically Sollux are versed in.

~ATH is a language made of almost exclusively infinite loops which can only be escaped, and thereby activate an operation through the death of something, be it the user, the computer, or the Universe. But what’s not important is that something has died. As the saying (lyrics) goes “All who die come back again.” Death in Homestuck is never permanent. Double death, perhaps, but standard death? You’ve got dream selves, god tiers, dream bubbles, and Life players. No, death isn’t what’s important: an ending is. The end of something’s life, coinciding with the end of a loop. And with it, the beginning of something else.

Doom also relates to the Doomed timelines (although Mind and Time also have claim to their existences, and Light to a degree too). Doomed timelines represent and incorrect series of events or choices, which would cause paradoxes, breaking or ending a loop, much like in ~ATH. It’s also the end for everyone within the timeline: either they die, are erased for existence, and have to change to escape: Rose becoming memories passed onto her Alpha Dream Self, and Dave more obviously becoming a Sprite to avoid culling by Skaia. Both of these are an end leading to a new beginning.

So Doom is about endings. Sollux, the Mage of Doom, who knows passively about his aspect and suffers through it, has lots of endings. He dies before entering the game, symbolising the end of his life (and the beginning of a new one as his dream self), the end of Alternia’s relevance in the story (until 5 carapacians and a host of leprachauns arrive, beginning a completely different story) and the end of the trolls first mission of entering the Medium, which leads to the beginning of their journey to win the game. Later, he faces Eridan in a duel, and loses, bringing an end to their feud and an end to Sollux’s troubles with voices, and his Psionics. These are respectively replaced with Eridan and Kanaya’s conflict (although it is short lived), his new problems with bifurcation, and his blindness. What’s more, moments later both his love and his best friend die at the hands of Eridan. But for both of them, this end is but a new beginning, with Feferi taking her place in the dream bubbles, her creation of Life after Doom, and Kanaya gaining her Rainbow drinker abilities, a new beginning for her.

Mituna is our other canon Doom player, and he is the Heir of it, the one who passively changes, and becomes. I’m not that well versed in his story, but from what I remember, he sacrifices himself and his Psionics to stop some great threat to the A1 session, thus changing the ending to be Meenah's (the Thief of Life’s) instead (the sacrifice and loss of power also mirrors Sollux and the Ψiioniic’s, where they both expend their power and lives to send a meteor or ship at great speeds through space to where they need to be). In turn, he's also become "Doom", in this case taking on the form of negativity (which still applies to it). He's outwardly mean, offensive, and aggressive toward Meenah, and presumably the other trolls too. The only exceptions to this are Latula, his matesprit, who as the Knight of Mind would perhaps be able to interpret his inner thoughts, and Cronus, who… well Mituna still was rude to him, but let’s say Cronus was worse.

So that’s it for Doom, at least canonically. What about the Prince?

The Prince is a class we have a lot of information on, thanks to Calliope’s analysis on it. It’s framed as the active destroyer of things, who destroys their aspect primarily in themself, or occasionally others for personal gain (although this latter ability fits better with the passive counterpart, the Bard, destroyer through the aspect or within others for benefit of other, in Gamzee’s case benefit of Lord English).

Dirk, Prince of Heart, destroys his romantic prospects with Jake, and his own Heart, in this case taking on the meaning of “Soul” by splintering himself: into Hal; across both his Dream and Real selves simultaneously; into Brain Ghost Dirk; and more, such as Lil Cal being both Lord English, Doc Scratch, and Lord Jack. And furthermore, he’s cold and calculating (or tries to be), tenets of Mind, the opposite of Heart, as Princes tend to invert their aspects.

Eridan, the Prince of Hope, destroys his own Hope for the future by messing up his relationships with Feferi and Vriska, literally destroys the Angels on his land, who are personifications of Hope, and begins Murderstuck (yes I know Vriska did it first, but she only set Terezi into action, whereas Eridan caused a butterfly effect leading to his, Equius, Nepeta and Sollux’s deaths through Karkat and Kanaya’s actions, other than the ones he directly killed) through the murder of arguably the most positive troll, and the HOPESPLOSION of the Matriorb, Kanaya’s Hope for revitalising the troll species. Later, Erisol also contributes to the death of Fefeta, once again a positive ray of Hope in a dark session, although he was helped by another Prince: AR, Prince of Heart, ripping apart two souls in one sprite.

Finally, Kurloz, the Prince of Rage. I can’t say much on him, but I interpret him as destroying his own Rage, his own strong emotions, by limiting the effect he can have directly on other people through the sewing up of his mouth. He also may have has something to do with Mituna’s Rage and anger, although to me that fits more to perhaps a Maid’s role, creating Rage in others.

So, what happens if you put these two together? Well, a Prince of Doom would be one who actively is capable of destroying their own Doom. On the surface level, there’s one clear interpretation of this: Immortality. But hang on, really? Surely immortality is a concept applied to every character, conditionally of course, once they ascend to God Tier. Well, yes, but that’s not what this means. For one, God Tiers can still die. They can be cut, they bleed, they die, and then they come back. The end leads to a new beginning. But a Prince of Doom? They have no end. They destroy their own doom, any danger to them, anything that could harm them, simply doesn’t work. Perhaps any death they would befall as a God Tier (other than one Heroic or Just, as those rules must still stand) simply has no effect at all. No revival is needed if you never died, a forever Life, inverting their aspect like a true Prince.

But also there’s another meaning. Immortality has a double meaning, as my Monster Manual can tell me. Forgive the slight detour:

The Marid poured out of the flask like water and said, ‘Your wish is my command.’ The Halfling, overjoyed, wished for immortality, so the Marid polymorphed him into a fish that flopped around humorously until, finally, it expired. It’s a cautionary tale that has survived the ages, so I suppose the halfling got his wish.” - Kesto Brighteyes, Gnome proprietor of the Parted Veil, a bookshop in Sigil

This story doesn’t speak of literal Immortality, like the halfling wanted, but rather narrative Immortality. The story lives on forevermore. So a Prince of Doom’s story could, perhaps, never end. Even after their passing, “The legend will never die!” to quote Puss in Boots. So a Prince of Doom tells a good story. Maybe not even one they’re the main character of (they’re no Light player, they don’t need the spotlight), but one that lives on because of them.

(Oh, by the way, screw gendered classing, a Prince can be any gender.)

Finally, there’s one last interpretation I can think of for the Prince of Doom. We’ve discussed their physical ability, their narrative position, but what of their self? The character of one who destroys their own ending? Simple: they don’t grown up. Sburb is about change and grown, death of the old self and becoming the new one. Some take to this well, but for someone who’s self can’t die, can’t end? They’re stuck, like Caliborn was. Now this isn’t certainly a bad thing. Doom players are often the most serious of the group, next to Time and Space, the same with Princes, so the Prince of Doom knows to be serious when it’s needed. But generally? They’re having the time of their life. They’re a child, mostly in a good way, full of Life (see that Princely inversion) and colour. It may make their quest harder; the point would have a difficult time getting through to them; but in the end a Prince of Doom is who they are, basically forever. Some may take that as a sign of immaturity, some conviction. It’s up to the author of the story to decide which their Prince takes on.

I wrote this for the @413countdown, and you’ll notice I’m a day late. Whoops. Anyway, it was really fun to take a detailed dive into a classpect. I may consider doing others at another time, but this was good for now. If anyone has any other differing interpretations of a Prince of Doom, that’s perfectly fine. That doesn’t make them or me wrong, because Sburb is a game with thousands of possible variations. Not every Heir of Breath will work like John Egbert, and not every Dave Strider is a Knight of Time!

Anyway, I don’t know how to end this.

[sweatertheman]

ughhh, what do i do about Sprites?????

they're kind of important but also ehhhhh...

okay i think the whole reason im thinking about this is because nannasprite's whole deal is tied to the inanity of the paradox clones and the scratched timeline and fucking betty crocker.

actually, all of the sprite characters mean fucking around with shit i just don't wanna have. ectobiology, time travel, and guardians.

i think i'll want to have jadesprite simply because i think it'd be interesting. jadesprite is both the symbol of jade's connection to sburb as her dreamself, and the representation of that which she wishes to discard of herself, her feeling and convictions, her unconscious understanding that skaia's motives are cruel.

for the other dreamselves, i thought itd be interesting to have them appear around the middle in god tier form and fight in battles against the realselves, in a sort of battle for the soul they share. but i guess for jadesprite...

nono, wait... UGHHHHH THERE'S THE FUCKING TIME TRAVEL AGAIN, GOD DAMNIT. The whole fact Jade is able to prototype her own dreamself is because her dead dreamself's body got taken back in time and taxidermied in her home after she died, and then there's the whole Jake thing and aghghghghghghghghgh evil evil evil evil.

dream jade can't already be dead when the story starts because part of jade's character is that she's basically been raised by skaia and prospit propaganda, and she can't do that without a dreamself to take her there... ugh, i guess jadesprite is off limits?

unless i want to incorporate a *little bit* of time travel into this story. but that doesn't work unless her grandfather is also part of sburb because he's a paradox clone because why else would he be on the battlefield to collect her dead body in the future relative to his own time?????

okay, let me think this through. the interesting part about jadesprite isn't that she's a resurrected taxidermied half-dog sprite from the future, it's that she's jade, and jade essentially gets to talk to someone who both of them believe should be the same as them, even though they're different people. they argue constantly because jadesprite has had her afterlife ripped from her. she's inconsolable, because where she was, she was happy. she had played her part, she knew who she was, and she got to spend forever with the people she cared about most. but when she's brought back, she looses all of that. she isn't done, she doesn't know who she is now because she's not jade, and she doesn't get to be happy in her afterlife. the interesting part is seeing two sides of jade represented by these two people, one is her anger, and her desire to crush her feelings, the other is her sadness and her innocence.

idk im too tired ill think about this more tomorrow

[knights-unwelcommentary]

Ever since watching Contact I keep thinking that sprites conformed by dead things are ultimately just a collection of personal interpretation and memories the player has of the deceased, puppeteered around by Skaia and not actually them