Can Town (The Official Homestuck Thread)

[Nabber]

It's pretty clear John is at least somewhat interested in Roxy though, from how he was unwilling to say "corpsesmooch".

I now pronounce this my Other True Pairing.

i thought that was just john being john but whatever

 

[Random Blue]

It also may be awkward for John to tell Roxy he basically kissed her mom.

 

[Contra(dictory)]

johnroxy has been my otp since forever, get with da times

 

[Dr. Javelin]

well my otp is still karkat x terezi

and it always will be

 

[Walkazo]

Headbutt in the nose.

Spoiler

I wonder if she'll use her Seer powers to tell them it's not a Doomed timeline, hence John NEEDS to use his zappy powers to fix it, rather than just giving up like Roxy said. Still hoping for a non-retconny way around everything, but only time will tell what happens either way.

Spoiler

Would that even work? IIRC Her power is to foresee the outcomes and direct consequences of a person's decisions and nothing else. John doesn't have any conscious control over his teleporting (yet?), so there isn't really a concrete choice he could make aside from a vague "Should I try to do something?". It doesn't seem as clear-cut as the last time she used her powers, where her target knew pretty much exactly what they were going to do.

Plus, even if it worked, there's a decent chance her precognition would turn out inaccurate, since John seems to exist outside of time now and has been shown capable of altering predetermined events. Chances are if Terezi saw him in a vision, he'd retcon whatever she sees into something else entirely as soon as he reaches that point in time.

Spoiler

Eh, maybe. I don't quite remember how her powers worked specifically, especially once Snowman got in on the action somehow.

 

[Lin Beifong]

Spoiler

Homestuck powers are kind of wonky in general I guess.

Like, this is totally just my fanonsense, but I thought you need to be god tier in order to directly control your aspect without any external tools. Like, Vriska started stealing luck after ascending, Aradia only managed to freeze Jack in time after ascending, Rose developed her precognitive abilities after ascending, Jade could only shrink her session's planets after ascending... I forgot if John does the windy thing before or after ascending.

But like, based on what little evidence there is to go on in regards to seer powers, it's kind of odd that Terezi has such strongly developed clairvoyance in her base form when Rose had to ascend to gain the light equivalent of that ability. Precognition on that magnitude feels like it should be a god tier thing.

I wish Hussie would release a huge info dump on that subject. I want to know how all the classes and aspects work.

 

[Random Blue]

I think the windy thing was before.

 

[Lin Beifong]

Well there goes my theory then.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

john used the wind to get rid of the green fire, but that's it

i think before you're god tier you don't really have control over your powers, and they only work sometimes. that's why john only used the wind once or twice, and terezi only used her mind powers once

 

[Walkazo]

Terezi also used her skills to manage Dave's rampant travelling - and before he was a god, too. Rose could also do some Seer stuff: looking into the ball with her powers is why she went Grimdark iirc. Jade did some sort of Spacey thing once, during her and Dave's fight with Jack (while he did more timey stuff), Jade did the Lifey thing when her dream self was murdered, and Dirk's been splintered for years due to being awake on Derse and making the AR when he was 13, with Brain Ghost Dirk also kicking in before his ascension. Speaking of which, Terezi sensing Brain Ghost Dirk was also likely due to her being a Seer of Mind.

The way I understood it is that reaching God Tier greatly increases what you can do, just as climbing the Echeladder before that will also boost the powers, but you always have some level of power. It's like gaining levels in Pokemon (or any game) and then evolving (with Pages evolving into Metapods and having to keep their Caterpie powers a bit longer until they fully unlock their abilities and only then become Butterfrees).

Also, regarding Seer powers a bit more, the Sufferer's the scratched Seer of Blood and because of that, was able to see his and his friends' pre-scratch Beforus lives. Blood's probably got something to do with friendship or unity or something, hence he used his knowledge to try and bring about peace and unity to the Alternia Trolls, like how he used to have a whole hemospectrum of friends, but the fact that he could see across the scratch at all is very interesting - Seers have a lot of skills.

Anyway, I also hope Hussie will explain everything once Homestuck's over. I imagine a lot of it will still be "it varies depending on the person", like the God Tier talk, since Sburb is nothing if not ridiculously highly customized and plastic (hence the HS game's not Sburb: it's too involved), but at least knowing more general stuff about the classes and aspects would be nice, especially when things like Heart and Light have turned out to be a bit more abstract than your basic Space and Time aspects. I'm also hoping for a defined active-passive continuum for the classes, or at least some more clues to make it deducible.

 

[Lin Beifong]

I always thought blood was about unity with yourself. Like, the relationship between yourself and every alternate version of you that exists. That's why the Seer of Blood could see himself beyond the scratch, and humorously also why the Knight of Blood keeps getting into fights with himself.

 

[Walkazo]

Maybe. I guess I just feel like Karkat's role as the glue holding the trolls together (and playing a big part in setting up the human-troll relations), his alliance with Jack (explicitly forged in their shared red blood), and overall how much he cares about his friends under the facade, and how insecure he is about them returning the friendship (like when he worried about Dave and him not being bros anymore once they met up with the others), all define him much more than his arguments with himself (and are why he's such a good character, imo, although being hilarious certainly helps).

Plus what I said about the Sufferer's quest to forge friendships and unity beyond the hemospectrum earlier strikes me as relating to the aspect more than just the mechanism for which he remembers his past life (and note how it's the blood that's dividing the trolls (at least after Doc Scratch sculpted the Alternian culture - inspired by the Cherubs perhaps? Could also explain why the limebloods all got murdered like Callie, come to think of it...), but not humans or, maybe significantly, the Sburban chessguys). Even Karkat's status as the relationship guru of the team and the Sufferer's "transcending the quadrants" relationship with the Disciple could be aspects of the Blood aspect if it's about unity beyond just pale friendships.

Lol, or maybe it's about love, with Karkat's masking of it with hate and his inability to forge a stable relationship with Terezi both being evidence of how he still has a long way to go with it. Hell, even Kankri bastardizing his caring about others by being a preachy little shit could be an example of epic Blood phailure - although his one redeeming moment, when he saw through Latula's coolk1d facade and talked about how great a person she was and how much he valued her friendship and stuff like that could be a "look, Kankri gets it right moment" regardless of whether Blood is love or friendship or unity in general.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

i still think that karkat was right when he said all the ancestors were terrible, especially latula

i believe he said something along the lines of "THAT'S NOT EVEN A REAL DISABILITY"

 

[Walkazo]

They're all meant to be terrible, shallow characters (as opposed to the Alternia trolls, where even secondary "joke" characters have some depth, despite peoples' tendencies to reduce them to single notes - which was also skewered by the Caliborn update (i.e. "smelly horse guy")). Even things like Porrim being the reasonable counterpart to Kankri's social justice approach is still basic, 2-dimentional character building.

The main exceptions to the terribleness are, of course, are Meenah and Aranea, who are rather plot-relevant, and not just foils for the other trolls (or "take that"s for the critics, and other such meta rationale). Rufioh was also decently interesting, I thought, although his primary purpose (aside from being a shoutout to Dante Basco) still seemed to be as a contrast to both Tavros and Jake.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

porrim seemed alright to me, actually. maybe she just didn't bother me as much as latula, kankri, or mituna did

 

[Nabber]

kankri's whole character is writing long rants about stuff and then having a bunch of triggers

the fandom seems to be obsessed with him and it's pretty annoying

i don't really remember any of the other pre-scratch trolls besides meenah and aranea. i sorta remember pre-equius, rufioh, mituna, and pre-aranea

 

[Lin Beifong]

They're all meant to be terrible, shallow characters (as opposed to the Alternia trolls, where even secondary "joke" characters have some depth, despite peoples' tendencies to reduce them to single notes - which was also skewered by the Caliborn update (i.e. "smelly horse guy")). Even things like Porrim being the reasonable counterpart to Kankri's social justice approach is still basic, 2-dimentional character building.

The main exceptions to the terribleness are, of course, are Meenah and Aranea, who are rather plot-relevant, and not just foils for the other trolls (or "take that"s for the critics, and other such meta rationale). Rufioh was also decently interesting, I thought, although his primary purpose (aside from being a shoutout to Dante Basco) still seemed to be as a contrast to both Tavros and Jake.

Weren't they all just meant to be shallow parodies of tumblr/internet subcultures? Like, Kankri was an insane, hyper-liberal social justice nut, Porrim was a reasonable social justice advocate, Meulin and... someone else were bubbly image spammers, Horuss (sp?) was an awkward, oblivious furry/otherkin with self-restraint issues, Cronus (sp?) was a creepy fuck who'd make up shit to get into people's pants, etc.

I think the best thing that came out of that dancestor intermission was that awesome Karkat&Terezi moment at the end.

 

[Nabber]

kankri was obviously social justice but i can't remember enough of the other characters to say if they ere supposed to be internet subcultures

that'd make a lot of sense though

 

[Dr. Javelin]

Weren't they all just meant to be shallow parodies of tumblr/internet subcultures?

They're also reflections on their post-scratch selves - many of them are either complete opposites (Kankri, Meenah), pale imitations (Latula, Mituna), or strikingly similar yet different (Cronus, Porrim, Meulin, Kurloz, Aranea).

I think the best thing that came out of that dancestor intermission was that awesome Karkat&Terezi moment at the end.

that was in the second of three

but agreed

 

[Lin Beifong]

Eh, it was at the end of ONE of them, so close enough.

To be honest, I forgot most of the rest. Except that I found Latula's and Mituna's text incredibly obnoxious to read.

 

[Tyrell Badd]

all this mituna hate is just

 

[Lin Beifong]

It makes you want to party hard?

Yes, I know that feeling.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

To be honest, I forgot most of the rest. Except that I found Latula's and Mituna's text incredibly obnoxious to read.

all the ones i didn't mention i forgot about because they were dumb

they're all named carlos for all i care

 

[Lin Beifong]

One of them is basically Dante Basco though, who is automatically awesome because he voiced Prince Zuko.

 

[Walkazo]

Yeah, that was Rufioh.

all this mituna hate is just

I actually liked Mituna. His story was sad. But even so, there's not much there to work with. Like, the skeletal outline of a character is there, but we don't get to see enough of him or the others to get a proper sense of anything character. Same deal here:

porrim seemed alright to me, actually. maybe she just didn't bother me as much as latula, kankri, or mituna did

Yeah, I thought she was alright too, but a couple dialogue boxes is all we get of her, so all we get is a very cursory idea, nothing fleshed out. There's the potential for depth in all the characters (except Cronus, lol), but it's not explored, and rather pointedly so, I thought. Which is why I think of them as an exercise in "how not to make central characters", since they're based on basic character cliches (Tumblr extremes), spiced up with flanderizations (of the Alternia trolls), and then given very little dialogue and backstory. They're resolutely tertiary characters: interesting to consider, but serving even more transient roles in the story than the secondary Alternia trolls.

So I guess...

They're all meant to be terrible, shallow characters (as opposed to the Alternia trolls, where even secondary "joke" characters have some depth, despite peoples' tendencies to reduce them to single notes - which was also skewered by the Caliborn update (i.e. "smelly horse guy")). Even things like Porrim being the reasonable counterpart to Kankri's social justice approach is still basic, 2-dimentional character building.

[...]just foils for the other trolls (or "take that"s for the critics, and other such meta rationale).[...]

Weren't they all just meant to be shallow parodies of tumblr/internet subcultures? Like, Kankri was an insane, hyper-liberal social justice nut, Porrim was a reasonable social justice advocate, Meulin and... someone else were bubbly image spammers, Horuss (sp?) was an awkward, oblivious furry/otherkin with self-restraint issues, Cronus (sp?) was a creepy fuck who'd make up shit to get into people's pants, etc.

They're also reflections on their post-scratch selves - many of them are either complete opposites (Kankri, Meenah), pale imitations (Latula, Mituna), or strikingly similar yet different (Cronus, Porrim, Meulin, Kurloz, Aranea).

All of the above?




Also, upd8, yay.