A bit of context for my non-Homestuck readers:
As a promo and way of maintaining hype for Hiveswap: Act 2, What Pumpkin spent a while publishing weekly “troll call” posts presenting new characters in cards like the one I made for Armmaster above.
In them, there was a running gag that characters would sometimes be described as “not vriska”, “probably vriska”, etc. After the sheer amount of vriska Colin has proven to be, I couldn’t resist making this.
(By the way, I did not misspell his name. Troll names are always 6/6 letters, so sometimes they need to be fudged a bit when adapting other names.)
You haven’t seen Avatar: the Last Airbender? …I think I smell a future liveblog…
I have seen… a little under half, I think, of the first season. I also know a fair amount of spoilers for later on.
I do think I might return to it someday, but I don’t think I’ll be liveblogging it, sorry. I’d prefer to do something I can start from the beginning with, and it’d take a long time before I’d get to A:TLA, and I’d probably want to watch the rest of it before that.
I’m probably best off focusing on Worm for now, its sequel afterwards (perhaps with something in-between as a break from the Wormverse, like how Minda did Paranatural between the first three MS Paint Adventures and Homestuck), and then we might start thinking about what’ll follow. By then, I’d imagine lots of new and interesting stuff will have come out, too.
Regarding your theories about trigger events, I think you might be thinking too literally or directly about it. Taylor didn’t get a power to help her escape the locker, but one that (attempted to) deal with the real, underlying problem: her loneliness. She had no friends, nobody to help her; now she has lots of friends! (What do you mean insects aren’t friends? They do what she says, right? What’s the difference?)
Yeah, this is pretty much how I’d interpreted that specific event, though I hadn’t tied it to her general loneliness, but rather her isolation in the moment. This goes back to the days before the dandelions were introduced, when I was theorizing that trigger events involved the body reacting to something by reaching far beyond its normal capabilities – in Taylor’s case, her brain reacting to the locker isolating her from the world by reaching out to the bugs within range.
I do suppose you have a point in that maybe I’ve been a bit too superficial with my takes on how this could work for others.
A couple of Labyrinth things: 1) She never said that Burnscar was there for Spitfire, you just assumed that because of the elemental connection and the early focus on Spitfire – Elle was actually looking for her phone to tell the Crew Burnscar was here for her. 2) Her nightmare asylum probably doesn’t reflect reality, given the walls are lined with blades etc.
1) She didn’t explicitly say it, but I believe the early focus on Spitfire – while definitely meant to make the reader believe Burnscar was after her, which it successfully did – reflected Labyrinth being under the same impression. More importantly, Labyrinth’s narration sounded surprised by the realization that Burnscar was after her, like it was a twist. It was a twist to the reader, thanks to the misdirection that was done through the focus of Labyrinth’s narration, Burnscar’s apparent targeting of Spitfire during the combat, and the pattern seemingly established by the previous two Interludes of the Slaughterhouse members seeking out someone they could relate to. If it wasn’t a twist to Labyrinth too, though, why did she react like she did?
It makes more sense for Labyrinth to have seen it coming, but the execution of the twist for the audience makes it seem like she didn’t.
2) Who knows. I mean, sure, it makes a lot of sense for the nightmare asylum to be exaggerated in terms of how bad it is, but in this crapsack world, I could see the real asylum possibly being almost as bad. Maybe not quite at “walls lined with blades” levels, but there’s probably a reason the asylum was such a nightmare for her in the first place, beyond just the mental state she was in when she was there. Also, if I’m not mistaken, Interlude 5 had Gregor describing the Crew as “rescuing” Labyrinth from the asylum, further suggesting it wasn’t all that great.
This is just to clarify, because some of the other askers are a little confused: Labyrinth was not ever Burnscar’s choice for recruitment. Not every member of the Nine chose to recruit someone upon their entry to Brockton Bay. Burnscar abstained from the selection process and while her companions were informing their candidates, she decided to pay a visit to Labyrinth.
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Minus the abstaining from the process, that’s pretty much how I was interpreting it. It didn’t seem to me that she wanted Labyrinth to join.
And considering how Burnscar herself doesn’t want to be in the Slaughterhouse Nine, it’s very reasonable that she wouldn’t want to seek out another brutal cape to help the team recruit.
Mood. Just woke up from a 12 hour nap.
mood af
You’ve speculated that powers are given by the dandelions to help the people they’re given to. If its the dandelions, or soemthing/someone else, do you think there’s any other reasons?
The dandelions are definitely involved in the bestowment of powers, at least, unless Wildbow is pulling a huge misdirection on me. By the looks of it, they are actively doing so, and capable of predicting or planning where and when they should be, or “touch”, to do so in the future.
It’s possible that the Dandelions are aware of the future, to some extent. They may know about the upcoming threat in two years* or so – which I (in part due to spoilers) believe will be the titular Worm [here, search “worm thingy”] – and possibly started giving people powers in order to give them a fighting chance against it. In this way, the upcoming threat potentially answers several lingering questions, such as “why did powers only start cropping up 30 years ago?” or “why are most powers useful for combat?” [here]. Incidentally, this means trigger events might stop happening after the threat is over.
(*I will be very surprised if Jack dies before it’s too late for his death to delay the threat.)
Have you noticed that the perspectives we did see were Bitch, Theo, Labyrinth and Armsmaster?
Uh, yes? I know I can be a bit silly sometimes, but I’m not sure how I could miss that. Are you suggesting there’s a pattern to it?
I guess you could use the first three to make a BLT sandwich. Maybe Armmaster’s the arm that lifts it, and the next four POV characters will be two slices of bread, a plate and a mouth. And finally we’ve got Pinkie Pie to provide the secret ingredient. Delicious!
(#i don’t think i’d actually find a blt delicious
#i don’t like bacon or tomato #and i’ve only recently started occasionally eating lettuce)
“I wonder if this reeling in of the head ever results in Mannequin getting dizzy.” Which leads to the question of can he get dizzy? Does he have inner ears? Or outer ears? And where’s he keep his brain? (Never trust something that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.)
That is a very good question.
I’m guessing his brain is in the head portion – otherwise, what is the head even for? You could argue that his vision is still in there, but however he sees, it’s not visible from outside anyway, so it could be anywhere. Then again, that logic applies to the brain too.
So, uh… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How I imagine Mannequin moves, especially the first seconds of the webm: webmshare.com/play/KwNEV [dead link]
I imagine other people will send you Mannequin fan art eventually! (Please enable submissions on the ask account)
Hah, yeah, looks about right! 😛
To the best of my knowledge, there are literally zero Mannequin lewds in existence.
+
Sharks: According to a friend, this is wrong. There’s at least one.
Of course there is! Did you forget rule 34? 😛
Ah, comparing Armsmaster to Vriska, that’s the stuff that makes this liveblog worth reading…
Hehe, I’m glad you appreciate it!
I had trouble reconciling Mannequin’s original specialty with his current one too, but there’s a way to frame it that makes sense. He was first building huge self-contained biospheres to support life in inhospitable places. The only thing that’s changed since his heel face turn is the scale. It’s all still self-contained biospheres: they’re just smaller. He is working a *somewhat* outside his bailiwick, though. All the magnets and chains are out of scope. That’s why they operate a bit awkwardly.
I suppose that makes sense. He’s supporting life on a smaller scale than the entity he’s supporting life for.
Well clearly Colin and Vriska are the alternate universe versions of each other. I mean multiverse, you don’t need to have the same name, gender, or even species as your counterpart.
Heh, true that!
I can’t remember if you’ve learnt it by this point, but armsmaster’s actual last name is six letters long
Hah! The only way that could be more perfect is if his first name was too – and as it stands, it’s really not hard to adapt it so it is, either.
[reblogging the BLT post]
[Discord]
LHC:
🤔🤔🤔
bavatar the last airbender
I was trying to get you to guess who the other Candidates/not!candidates for the circus were. We already had Oni Lee, Bitch and Armsy as invites and Labby-rinf as a noninvite. Who out of the cast we’ve seen is sociopathic enough to get a nice look? Who’s ominous enough?
Ah, that’s fair.
Hmm… While Burnscar <=> Spitfire turned out to be a red herring, I do think the pattern of Slaughterhouse members going after people they can relate to holds up, so that could help out here.
- Bonesaw: Might look for someone unpredictable and brutal? Skidmark, maybe? I don’t know. Skidmark just suffered an embarassing defeat, too, and might not be unpredictable enough. Hookwolf is certainly also an option. Bakuda would’ve been perfect, but she’s currently a zombie in prison on the other side of the continent, so that won’t work.
- Shatterbird: If we assume the trend of personalities being vaguely related to powers and themes – Siberian being wild, Jack being edgy, Bonesaw being fiery (though less so than she initially seemed), Pinkie Pie being pink and Mannequin being unhinged – then Shatterbird might be flighty. Unfortunately, the only pre-existing character I really associate with that was Oni Lee, and we’ve seen what happened with him. Maybe she’d try to find someone with power over glass, or the power to shatter things? No one really comes to mind, though, assuming she’d go for someone who’d fit into the team.
- Crawler: (By the same logic, Crawler will probably be quite creepy. A creepy crawly, if you will.) I suspect their power is similar to Night’s in some ways, so I think Night would be a good candidate for their nomination.
- Hatchet Face: Probably won’t get a chapter. Might get a nomination, though, depending on how strict this group is – and I don’t exactly expect them to be all that big on rules, though I don’t think they’re as loose as the Merchants. If he does get to pick someone, he might go for a Brute. Lung would’ve been a good option, but he’s not around anymore… Hm, Hookwolf is a Brute with a penchant for larger bladed weapons than what Oni used. Maybe Hatchet Face would go for him, rather than Bonesaw.
- the Newbie: All I know about the Newbie is she’s good at finding people. Not much I can speculate from there.
Beyond that, I don’t really know. There are a lot of morally gray or black people in Worm, but I can’t think of all that many surviving Brockton Bay residents that would fit into the Slaughterhouse, even after these Interludes have proven that their standards for evilness are lower than I expected. Hookwolf remains a primary candidate in my eyes, and a couple other former E88 members could fit in nicely, but beyond that…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
By the way, I think I just realized what my sexuality headcanon is for a certain Amy Dallon, a.k.a. Pan-Ace-a.
(#i am aware this is not how it’s pronounced)
So while I was looking through a blog search for “Brute” to remind myself of any explicitly stated Brutes I might’ve forgotten, for the purposes of the Hatchet Face section of the previous ask, I came across a couple quotes that are a little interesting when put together.
In 8.4:
Leviathan was badly injured. Ichor poured from six large wounds that hadn’t been there when he’d arrived on the street.
“You dumb brute,” Armsmaster growled. He was panting for breath.
and in 9.1:
[Weld] was classified as a brute and changer, classifications meant for the unnaturally tough and strong and for those who could change their shape to some extent, respectively. He never liked the word brute being applied to him, even though he was aware that the labels had originally been intended for the PRT teams to identify and label villains, specifically. It was only later that they had been extended to identifying the heroes as well.
I wonder what Weld thinks of Armmaster (or thought, if he now knows about the real reason behind his “retirement”). This isn’t the first time Armsmaster called Leviathan a brute [here, search “this brute”], either, though this instance has more emphasis on the lack of intelligence.
Seeing you wonder about the head immediately reminded me of this: [Schlock Mercenary, Monday August 11, 2008] And apparently links aren’t allowed, despite previous people doing so?
Hah, nice! 😛
Reminds me of the next ask, suggesting the head ruse is a distaction.
Also, yeah, asks don’t accept links. To send them, you need to adapt them so the censor doesn’t catch them, with tricks like replacing the dots with something else (parentheses around them works too, I believe). I’m sorry if an ask from yesterday’s batch confused you – it originally said “webmshare DOT com/play/KwNEV”, and I decided to go through with the replacement before posting, as well as actually making it a hyperlink.
Alternatively, you can send links as much as you like through the submission feature, which Sharks tells me is now open.
“what is the head even for?” A distraction, maybe. Can’t knock him out by hitting him in the head if the brain isn’t there. And did you miss the Harry Potter reference in the original ask?
Yeah, I suppose that might be the case.
Also, nah, I caught that. I didn’t mention it, but to acknowledge that I did, I tagged the post “#harry potter”, and made the quote itself–
Whoops, totally didn’t see the hyperlink to the quote.
…yeah, that. 😛
It’s a good quote. But hey… how can we truly see where humans keep their brains without cracking open their skulls?
I guess the moral of Harry Potter is you gotta open people’s heads up before you can trust them.
You don’t like bacon?! This is blasphemy.
So people keep telling me 😛
(#maybe it’s because I’m not religious)
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