honestly

people forget that before Aranea's hijacking the state of the meteor group was already incredibly shit. guess that's how good serkets are at stealing spotlight huh

Absurd. You’re suggesting that when we saw Gamzee assembling his fake God Tier outfit, it never went on to adorn him during his meeting with Caliborn and he had to do it all again. That the Gamzee we saw there bothered to do all that preparing without knowing that no branch of him from that meteor voyage would ever meet Caliborn, and instead just die to Kanaya’s chainsaw because he couldn’t be bothered to move.

We have differences in appearances of different iterations of characters to tell them apart. Jane and Jade with their trollsonas. Vriska with her punk look. Roxy with her mask. Gamzee with his fake God Tier outfit.

Caliborn is pre-retcon. He even talked to pre-retcon Jake about the Erisolsprite prototyping, which we now know for sure didn’t happen post-retcon. The alt Calliope we saw in A6A6I4 is the “post-retcon” cherub, and all indications now are pointing to them being set up by Vriska in Gamzee’s place just like the sprites. We know very well from John and Roxy and Vriska and Meenah that this kind of cross-retcon coexistence is plenty possible.

Why is Callie post-retcon? She's interacted with both GO-timeline and new timeline characters...

things that have definitely changed due to the update

bolding mine

I bolded shit we ACTUALLY DON'T KNOW

some of which I actually disagree with

I mean I am all for the idea of scourge sisters spending more time with each other and davekat reaching gay singularity without conflict but the pictures we see don't prove it

they don't have to be statistically representative of what actually happened and in fact can't be other than by coincidence

whether those are photos or drawings they were absolutely selected deliberately

if there were actual serious conflicts or broodings WE DON'T AND WE CAN'T SEE THEM ON PHOTOS JESUS CHRIST NOBODY TAKES PHOTOS OF THIS SHIT AND DEFINITELY DOESN'T PUBLISH THEM IF THEY WERE TAKEN FOR SOME REASON

and knocking a cup of wine out of someone's hand does NOT stop their descent into alcoholism

it's nice to see that this time over rose's drinking was not viewed as making her "more pleasant to be around" and it probably made her a lot better but it doesn't mean she didn't drink at all jesus christ that was probably NOT THE ONLY CUP AROUND??? how would that even function. do you think vriska functions as authority for rose. i can't even

also, not only Jane is canonically chubby, but also Tavros

this, too, is important to note

I think I finally figured out what is driving me batty about dream bubbles and doomed timelines.

The continued existence of Punk Vriska implies that the pre-retcon timeline existed/exists as a doomed timeline. So, somewhere there should exist a Tavros who was part of Tavrisprite and eventually ditched the pirate ship.

There now also exists a Tavros who became Tavrosprite.

Tavros died before these timelines diverged.

Do ghosts in the dream bubbles duplicate every time a doomed timeline forms, just in case they’re summoned into it?

What about Sollux? Does he have one live half and multiple dead halves?

Or Aradia? Well, actually Aradia is probably taking care to avoid doomed timelines, but if she wasn’t, would a live primary Aradia and a live but doomed Aradia be able to interact?

I’m so confused.

yeah, this is just… how? do we get ghosts for lava-karkat and sliced-in-half gamzee? you’d think this wouldn’t happen, because retconning was said to mean these things DIDN’T HAPPEN, not that they happened but were negated… so…? what gives?

This new alpha timeline doesn’t diverge at Cascade! Terezi was careful to keep it parallel to her own timeline up until the decision to kill or spare Vriska because if it deviated too far she’d lose the perspective to accurately predict what would happen, but she had John changing things as far back as Lemonsnout’s trial, which took place shortly before she entered the Medium. What we’ve actually got on our hands here is an extremly slow-burn retcon of the Alternian trolls’ entire session, to the point that everyone but Terezi experienced everything between a few hours before the session began and a few hours after the door was destroyed almost exactly the same in both timelines - and Terezi herself has only very small differences.

So it’s not “the timeline where Terezi executed Vriska” vs. “the timeline where John rescued Vriska,” it’s “the timeline where Terezi executed Lemonsnout” vs. “the timeline where John rescued Lemonsnout.” It takes a while for the timelines to diverge noticably, but there are in fact two Tavroses who attempted to face down two Vriskas on two meteors, and both were killed and later used to prototype the kernalsprites of two Janes. (For those keeping track, I’m fairly certain that all this also means that there are now two functionally identical Beta Human universes, with the point of divergence being the first contact with the trolls from the respective doomed & main timelines, and each of these Beta Human universes successfully scratched into Alpha Human universes.)

this is way too complex for me to parse right now but you may be onto something

tbh i'm really hoping this clusterfuck just means that ghosts don't duplicate or change and stuff just happens in linear progression for them

by which i mean i hope tavros in tavrosprite is the same tavros who used to be tavrisprite bc that would be really cool

it’s so hilarious to me tho that like. a lot of the reason that shit went badly on the meteor was due to puberty and everyone’s self-imposed isolation of themselves that made for a huge lack of communication that allowed for things like rose’s alcoholism & gamzee and terezi’s relationships to slide under the radar and fester but like

vriska doesn’t have those issues?? she’s so self obsessed and in love with herself that she doesn’t spiral into self loathing like everyone else and no one can isolate themselves because vriska believes that her presence is always wanted and ends up inserting herself into everyone’s lives 

and i just. i can’t believe vriska’s insufferably huge ego ended up helping everyone instead of putting them all on a path marked for certain doom

okay but vriska actually isn't all 'in love with herself'??? she has huge fucking guilt issues and she was manipulated by doc who told her she was so bad awful disgusting predictable she would murder her friend because it was in her nature (despite her never considering it before his suggestion)

and she has huge fucking guilt issues like remember her pesterlogs with john. when she thought others would make fun of her for feeling bad about having killed tavros. and remember how she reacted to ghosts aradia summoned that didn't even do anything other than be there and remind her of stuff

she talked about herself in dreambubbles as not being a good person. she also said she tied a lot of her self-worth to succeeding with stuff she did and she hasn't had much luckf in that department and just

holy god vriska is a huge spiky ball of conflicting issues more than probably anyone on the meteor (altho the boys probably come in a close second)

she just has different coping strategies than the rest of them which might have been exactly what the meteor crew needed to deteriorate slightly less

but rly her superinflated ego is fragile as fuck. she kinda has that in common with knights but girls on the meteor (esp. terezi who is not going through a self-destructive spiral this time) are 1000000000% healthier even with their maternal issues

MS Paint Adventures

In light of latest developments, I have several things to say about this.

Firstly, and most importantly. Caliborn doesn't know what a load gaper is... DO CHERUBS POOP???

Now, on to less urgent matters.

Hussie is p obviously making fun of his own point here. Stomping all those mushrooms was necessary for Mario's personal growth? Or maybe sometimes skipping some difficulties JUST BECAUSE YOU FUCKING CAN is a good thing.

(As long as it's actually skipping, and not, like... delaying the problem while creating several more on top of it. That can be helpful sometimes too if you are actually solving another one in the meantime though...) (Which our kids just happen to be actually doing and IMHO delaying personal growth and complicated trials and coming to terms with maturity can just wait until the finish the goddamn game)

point is, taking it at face value is probably not a wise idea, to the degree that it might function as sneaky foreshadowing of the retcons or not so sneaky, considering a kinda retcon was exactly what Hussie was trying to pull there that Caliborn rebelled against

oh my god it really was...

Impeaching Aranea: Predomination and Calliope

I Begin, as is Traditional among the Storied gens Atheris, with petty pedantry u_u

Read More

A thing I have to add to this is that we never see Calliope want to imitate her brother in any way - not our 'alpha' Calliope, anyway.

The Merge-Union seems to be predicated not on one half 'beating' each other, but on one half basically convincing the other that it's better and more worthy of 'leadership' of the body. Which involves not only the winning half being confident, but also the other half leaning to accepting their values and imitating them!

Our Calliope never does that. Instead, Caliborn is the one who seems envious of her. He adopts her blood color for his typing, learns to draw like her, adores "worldbuilding" - while Callie, despite her doubts, remains adamant in her devotion to her values and ideas as 'just better' if maybe doomed to lose.

Alt!Calliope, on the other hand...

Do you see what's missing in this image?

We don't see any wings.

It's been widely accepted that Caliborn can't grow wings because he did not predominate properly. But based on information about alt!Callie we have, she predominated the same way. She is not mature! And she had to give up on her own nature and imitate her brother's to win, just like Caliborn imitates his sister's in the Alpha timeline.

The whole "Martyr's Choice" thing is very fishy anyway. Becoming a Martyr to save the reality that only becomes doomed if you make that choice... It doesn't really sound like a winner's choice. And on the other hand, to become a Conqueror doomed to be defeated by the one who took this choice earlier? Yaldabaoth's options seem rigged against the player no matter which one you pick, and ultimately cancelling each other.

Which makes sense if in both cases it's the twin who was /doomed to lose the predomination/, the weaker willed one, who murders the other! If the loophole presented by Sburb is ultimately a trap, and that is the reason their kind was never meant to play it... Sburb is contrary to their natural development, stunting it hopelessly by presenting a chance to win to the losing half of their personality... by cheating.

And our Calliope, the one who never gave in to the temptation to be anything like Caliborn in any way, the one who never entered the game and was never confronted by The Choice, the one who never chose to be The Martyr, giving up her victory in exchange for a fantasy of heroism...

Our Calliope is the twin who is ultimately going to win, solving the riddle of why the 'stronger' one who killed her brother is the doomed one.

I am also thinking about the difference between the Caliborn who went on to become Lord English and the Caliborn who rendered it in claynimation. Being closer to Calliope in that action, which is an imitation of her artistic hobby that he used to mock!

He is, as we know, the one who was visited by John. Making me think that the one we watched become LE is the pre-retcon version! As in, pre-John-gaining-powers-from-juju-and-disappearing-from-the-narrative version. After all, his juju is not 'activated' yet!

He might well be the one for Calliope to peacefully integrate with later, getting 'resurrected' back to their shared body!

I dunno about this, but. PROBABLY? Calliope is going to win one way or another, and she does have to predominate to win herself a good future of becoming an adult successfully...

My interpretation of it is that John was not actually careful to not condemn the undeserving at all. He used the word "hate" in the context that he was confused what to feel about her. He was faced with a contradiction of his impression from the pesterlogs with the events in the dreambubbles, and hated this contradiction - John isn't a boy who handles his expectations being broken easily (see: mental breakdown in dad's room. Sure, it was just a straw that broke the camel's back, but it's telling that it went on that back at all) John told Vriska that she was too dangerous for him to give her the ring. I understood that he meant not "I have weighed all options and it's definitely 100% better for you to be dead and if you were alive I'd murder you" (which is definitely what it came across as of course) but "I am not sure I am up to the responsibility of deciding to give the cheating ring of negating death to you considering I don't seem to know you as well as I thought I did". He also deferred to other trolls' opinions and judgement of her, which at that moment was most everybody flying the fuck away. It was not "I want her not resurrected". It was "I don't want to make the decision to resurrect her". Well, it wasn't him that made the decision. It was Terezi, who is 1) a troll just like Vriska who knows better than John what Alternian values are; 2) Vriska's friend who knows her for longer than John did; 3) a person who murdered her in the first place, so kind of more of an expert on the specific issue of Vriska being dead; 4) a Seer he trusts to fix everything. There is no reason for him to doubt her, period.

i think that might be what is happening. because the retcons aren’t changing the alpha-ness of the timeline (like you said, the changes aren’t creating alternate timelines, merely changing the events of the alpha), i get the impression that the only things being changed are… the things being changed. if that makes sense (it doesn’t).

i mean: the events, but not the repercussions. cause but not effect, is what’s changing (at least, not as much)

I can accept that for the little changes, but there’s no way plunking Vriska down with everyone could not change things, unless you said ‘oh John only changed it here so Vriska just lurks as some sort of semi-corporeal ghost balefully looking down at them all for three years’. Avoiding the repercussions is sloppy. If you’re dragging a character back and you can’t even commit to the consequences, you’re lazy.

zenosanalytic said: Yeah; I fail to see how having V there wouldn’t change things significantly. For it not to she’d have to avoid everyone like Gamzee did.

That’s what really worries me. This is obviously going to have a domino effect on everything except the fact that they make it to the new session for the final battle, by which I mean RELATIONSHIPS OF COURSE.

Obviously Vriska now being there is going to result in allllllll sorts of drama. Kanaya is just going to keep bugging and fussing and meddling. Is she even going to notice Rose? I mean she did apparently have fun ‘trolling’ her, but she felt strongly about Vriska. Feelings like that dont just go away very easily (as we see with Terezi/Karkat?)

Speaking of! As mentioned above, what the hell is Karkat doing during this whole ordeal? He doesn’t trust Vriska. Im fairly certain no one does. But his reaction and character development after Terezi killed Vriska was breif but important (to me)

Basically, theres way too much drama involving Little Miss Spidertroll. Drama and relationships and character development.

Indeed. Kanaya was her moirail but also had a flushcrush on her, and after she punched Vriska in the face, Vriska made a <33333333 emoticon. How is that going to go down? What will that do to Kanaya and Rose’s interactions? Is Gamzee still in play, or did they get rid of him? (Maybe the wallet was meant to safely captchalogue him and now that they can’t contain him he’ll burst out and kill Vriska or something. That would be somewhat tidier. No Vriska, no Gamrezi.) Karkat didn’t like Vriska, and she didn’t like messing with his mind, so that would be a point of contention. And are Terezi and Vriska going to be bffs? A good chunk of Terezi’s arc has been dealing with the backlash of killing Vriska… what does it become now? And since Vriska hasn’t had the character building of being killed and then later abandoned by the two Breath heroes, she’s back to square one with no real encouragement to stop being awful. Then we have the humans hanging out in the background… 

Basically it is a giant mess.

I've just had an idea about Vriska and I kind of love it...

We all think John is going to breathport-skip the three years, right? What if he takes Vriska with him?

It'll have her be three years younger than everyone else, which is an argument against it, but really, how important is that?

It'll leave meteor stuff almost exactly neatly in the same place, except for Tz's self loathing and blackrom, and also kind of qualify both John and Vriska for the mysterious leader better? (If it's Vriska, she's not the /real/ leader, she's just the flashiest, so Jane just thinks she is)