MS Paint Adventures 7: At the Price of Oblivion

[Lord Raziere]

OK sorry if I'm late to the party, but: why'd Vriska get all mad about Rose's drinking? Like it doesn't seem like something she'd do? Also how did her presence make Karkat and Dave BFFs? I'm pretty sure at least the second one was explained somehow in the slideshow (or whatever) but I think I missed like all the subtext…

Drinking is weakness, and Vriska doesn't like weakness.

well consider that Dave and Karkat's divide was mostly because of how Terezi was acting. with no guilt hanging over head from Vriska's death, she doesn't go haterom with Gamzee, thus she has a clearer head and probably thus deals with Karkat's jealousy better, thus leading them to be better friends earlier. makes perfect sense.

[Yuki Akuma]

I ship Vriska <> Rose. :|

[Oracle_Hunter]

Page 50 sure did creep up on us!

Thoughts on the name for the new thread? Since it'll be Thread 8, I presume we'll be doing something Vriska-themed.

Perhaps "MS Paint Adventures VIII: H8ters Gonna H8te"

[Derjuin]

Page 50 sure did creep up on us!

Thoughts on the name for the new thread? Since it'll be Thread 8, I presume we'll be doing something Vriska-themed.

Perhaps "MS Paint Adventures VIII: H8ters Gonna H8te"

MS P8nt Adventures 8: H8rs Gonna H8 ftfy

MS Paint Adventures VIII: 8ack in the Megasaddle

[Rakaydos]

So, after the whole reader breakdown, does anyone else have the sudden urge to binge the archinve and find all those scenes in context?

I've resisted so far, but...

[Devils_Advocate]

I don't think that anyone mentioned this, but... apparently, Caliborns' land is the Land of Colours and Mayhem? Given his preference for "thinking in colours" and his prediliction for violence, I feel like someone should have seen this one coming. And for all I know, various people did.

("This one" being "the planet with lots of viewing screens being LOCAM", mind you. It actually seems fairly obvious in retrospect.)

Also, claymation Lil' Cal's head looks like a nose. I'm... not sure why I'm mentioning that, I'm just throwin' that out there.


Anyway... So, evidently, Vriska's ghost is just going to keep existing in the dream bubbles because of reasons? That is... not what I thought would happen. But upon reflection, I think that I understand how this business worked out.

Terezi's dialogue indicates that she forsaw the same two possible outcomes as she did before: One in which Terezi kills Vriska, and a doomed timeline in which Terezi allows Vriska to fly away. Evidently, John's interventions up to that point didn't lead the flow of events away from that particular branching path. And the possibilities that Terezi perceives with her Seer powers are timelines; either doomed or alpha.

So, since the timeline in which Terezi killed Vriska is no longer the alpha timeline, it must be a doomed timeline due to how Terezi's seer powers work, even though John's retconning normally doesn't created doomed timelines. So... apparently ghost Vriska has to still exist for basically entirely legitimate reasons? Dammit, Vriska.

... But, wait a minute. Shouldn't not getting the Ring of Life have prevented Aranea from bailing on Vriska and Meenah, thereby not leading to Vriska's eventual punk look? Well, I guess that it could have happened somehow or other eventually, and that with enough Vriskas and Meenahs floating around it might even be a virtual inevitability, but I doubt that that's why we're being shown the two of them looking the same as when we last left them. So, upon further reflection, I once again feel like I don't understand exactly what Hussie is pulling here.

I think that the answer to this one may lie in another webcomic entirely:

"No, wait. This still makes no goddamn sense."
"Honestly, it's not going to. I've spent days trying to work out what goes on in that bastard's head."

in Paradox Space, every timeline that could happen did happen

Where do you think that that's established? What we've seen in the comic seems to me to indicate that a doomed timeline ceases to exist the moment that it ceases to contribute to the alpha timeline. In which case timelines that don't influence the alpha don't exist at all.

Now, characters sometimes appear to assume that a doomed timeline is one in which everything is subject to accelerated entropic decline and everyone dies in short order. Which seems like a reasonable assumption given that time travelers from doomed timelines are simply, well, doomed, instead of vanishing entirely once they've made whatever changes are necessary to the alpha timeline. But e.g. the general lack of ghost Gamzees in the dreambubbles suggests that this is not the case.

TT: After you go, what do you think will happen to me?
TT: Will I just cease to exist?
TG: i dont know
TG: i mean your whole timeline will
TG: maybe

Future Dream Rose: Cease to exist.

"Cease to exist." This doesn't seem to have any cause other than Dave traveling back in time to save John.

If I've got this right, then it means that, for example, Roxy was super wrong about how to deal with being in a doomed timeline, due to being underinformed about the exact details involved. You should not just sit around and wait to die, because you are in serious danger of being entirely obliterated at any moment. If you want to join your deceased loved ones in the afterlife, then a crazy suicide mission is exactly what you should be working on. Especially if you're god tier and your death needs to be heroic or just in order to stick. Just sitting around moping is totes counterproductive. Like, unless you want to cease to exist entirely.

And that really shouldn't be too surprising. It has been pretty well established that SBURB is a game where getting killed can be beneficial. Not only is death necessary to to ascend to godhood, but various A1 trolls seem to at least believe that their souls would have been destroyed had they not been dead during the Scratch. And it seems to be implied that this is something that they researched, and they probably know what they're talking about. So ceasing to exist when your timeline ends is apparently A Thing That Can Happen. Not that that proves that doomed timelines do end in the manner stated above, but in light of the other evidence for that...

Of course, it's not at all clear what you mean by "could". Didn't Aranea point out to Terezi that someone who actually takes every conceivable action is necessarily a perfectly generic agent with no personality whatsoever? I recall that being a thing that happened.

(Or did you mean the webcomic Paradox Space? Because if so, then... yeah, the rule there seems to be "Anything goes", but that utterly precludes any conclusion about how things work other than, well, "Anything goes", and thus that body of work must perforce be excluded from the sort of pedantic over-analysis that aims to arrive at narrower conclusions. That's part of why I'm not so keen on it. :/)

So...

Pre-Scratch Cal: created in dream Dave's room by Gamzee's chucklevoodoos -> thrown away -> ends up in the temple -> sent to Earth with Dirk -> enters the Medium (sidetrip: "John dies" doomed timeline) -> Jack takes him after killing Dirk -> brought into trollverse -> picked up by Kanaya -> ends up in Gamzee's hands -> travels to post-Scratch Earth session -> given to imprisoned Jack -> destroyed by Jack's blast.

Post-Scratch Cal: arrives with Dirk -> falls into the sea -> eventually acquired by Caliborn -> Caliborn uses him to possess Jack -> used to hold Caliborn's, ARquius' and 1/2Gamzee's souls -> banished into Void ( -> ends up in Dave's dream tower back in the beginning?).

Did I get it all right?

I gotta say, calling Dave' Bro "Dirk" made this a bit harder to follow than it had to be. It strikes me as inappropriate to use a character's name for that character's post- or pre-Scratch counterpart, partly because the counterpart may well have had a different name, but mostly because it's needlessly confusing. Just sayin'.

Anyway, I find it easiest to think of Cal as "starting" with his appearance above B2 Earth. That copy, from what Caliborn tells us, is "fresh", not yet containing the souls that its B1 meteor duplicate does. (How exactly that works is unclear.) So... heck, let me just copy & paste you...

arrives with Dirk -> falls into the sea -> eventually acquired by Caliborn -> Caliborn uses him to possess Jack -> used to hold Caliborn's and ARquius' souls and 1/2Gamzee -> banished into Void -> created in dream Dave's room by Gamzee's chucklevoodoos -> thrown away -> ends up in the temple -> sent to Earth with Dave' Bro -> enters the Medium (sidetrip: "John dies" doomed timeline) -> Jack takes him after killing Dave' Bro -> brought into trollverse -> picked up by Kanaya -> ends up in Gamzee's hands -> travels to post-Scratch Earth session -> given to imprisoned Jack -> destroyed by Jack's blast???

"???" because I think that that white glow may have just been a transition rather than an explosion. Also, jujus can never be truly destroyed, I recall, just like they are never truly created. So even if he was disintegrated he'll be re-constituted somehow. Like Dave's Bro stitching him back together after he got sliced up, only moreso. He has to be, after all, in order to take his place in Dirk's dream room! Because the Lil' Cal in Dirk's dream room also Was The Same One All Along by inviolable juju law.

Like, theoretically, Dirk's dream Cal could just be a facsimile, but I think that we can all agree that that would be exceedingly lame.

We may not see how this happens, however, just as we never saw just how PM got exiled. Which is also kinda lame, really, but oh well. (On the other hand, maybe we'll see what happens with Cal and will finally see what happened with PM eventually? I doubt it, though. Andrew seems okay with not tying up every single loose end. I think that he mentioned somewhere that Dave clearly forgot about bleating like a goat ironically, and we just have to accept the fact that he dropped the ball on that one.)

So... Lord English is a unholy fusion of a super god tier Lord of Time, a splinter of the Destroyer of Souls, the ghost of the Heir of Void, and at least half of the Bard of Rage? All bottled up in a juju and left to simmer for ages. Put another way: an overpowered immature psychopath who relishes having power over people and killing stuff just because destruction is fun + a manipulative multi-tasker with a flair for irony and a talent for being everywhere and a self-admitted tendency to "flip out" + a super STRONG noble troll with an infamous inability to control his rage + at least half of a lethal joke troll, likely the lethal half of the lethal joke troll, one who is prone to flipping out into nigh unstoppable rage trips... All stewing in an unsettling grinning mockery that has been present in pretty much all of the story?

Yeah, suddenly Lord English makes a whole hell of a lot more sense.

I think the idea is that Caliborn is Lord English and ARquius is Doc Scratch. Note that, as Caliborn never disposed of his sister "properly", he may never have rid himself of a lingering facility to share a body with a more even-tempered counterpart. It seems that this has worked to his advantage, though.

Having a part of Gamzee's body sucked into Lil' Cal possibly just makes it easier for Gamzee to summon Cal from the void somehow, since there's a connection between them?

I don't think that Gamzee's soul was around to be sucked up anymore, since it seems like he had been divided for a while before the sucking happened. ... Maybe I'm crazy for thinking this, but I don't think that Gamzee being difficult to kill extends to him taking minutes to die when vertically bifurcated. I admit that I could be wrong!

Wait something changed with Sollux prototyping? where did that happen? i only saw Jane and Dirk's sprite's brought up.

We don't know yet, but it looks like Vriska is responsible for the B2 session prototypings. Sollux expressed a desire to remain in the Furthest Ring with Aradia, which is why he didn't just come along with the other players in the first place, so there doesn't seem to be much reason for someone who isn't an insane and whimsical clown to want to... well, not even revive him, but to change him from one sorta-alive thing elsewhere to a different sorta-alive thing nearby.

I guess that maybe Vriska would want him there for his telekinesis?

But if we're seriously considering the possibility that Vriska isn't going to recreate the prototypings we saw before as closely as possible, due to, again, her not being an insane whimsical clown, then it seems likely that she wouldn't prototype Nepeta and Feferi together, either. Pre-retcon, she seemed to disapprove of Gamzee creating mashups of her and her friends. Then again, that was after having a really bad experience with it herself.

Spoiler: Wild speculation!

Show

Maybe Roxy gets the chance to prototype her Mom instead? :O

Sollux is alive.

Huh? He's half-alive. But that isn't news. Sollux being at least half alive never stopped being a thing that is happening.

Oh, sure, he's died several times, but through all of it he has always had at least one at least partly living self somewhere. It seems to be Sollux's fate to be repeatedly diminished without being completely destroyed, because his destruction would mean that he would no longer be doomed. Of course, even the depletion of all of one's living selves is far short of complete destruction when there are a bunch of ghost yous from various timelines floating around, but Paradox Space seems to be pretty keen on really drawing out his demise. This is almost certainly a function of his role as Mage of Doom. It's pretty dark, really.

Obvious, yes, but inverse to expectations. Aranea seems to have little impact at all on the punky fishgirl, but remove Meenah from the equation? Wow, things go to hell fast.

Oh, come on. Meenah was trying to perforate people before Aranea showed up, at which point, well...

Spoiler: JUST LOOK AT THIS, DAMN IT

Show

I rest my case????

I ship Vriska <> Rose. :|

That actually seems... somewhat plausible, at the very least? It appears that while sober, Rose remains interested in learning ALL THE QUADRANTS and is probably in much better shape to do so than pre-retcon?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Where do you think that that's established? What we've seen in the comic seems to me to indicate that a doomed timeline ceases to exist the moment that it ceases to contribute to the alpha timeline. In which case timelines that don't influence the alpha don't exist at all.

This risks being dangerously circular since we never see any Doomed Timelines that don't interact with the Alpha Timeline (i.e. the story we're reading). Law of Conservation of Detail and all that.

What we do see is a ton of ghosts from Doomed Timelines hanging out Beyond The Furthest Ring in Dream Bubbles. That's what I meant by "every timeline that could happen did happen" -- we see tons of Ghosts from Doomed Timelines (e.g. the God Tier Feferi who healed The Mayor) and overwritten timelines (e.g. Meenah and all the other dancestors come from Pre-Scratch Alternia). Heck, Calliope is searching those Dream Bubbles for the Doomed Timeline version of herself that triumphed over Caliborn!

IMHO, it's safer to define what cannot happen in Homestuck than to try to draw rules for what can happen

[Randomguy]

MS P8nt Adventures 8: H8rs Gonna H8 ftfy

MS Paint Adventures VIII: 8ack in the Megasaddle

MS Paint Adventures 8: She's 8ack

So, after the whole reader breakdown, does anyone else have the sudden urge to binge the archinve and find all those scenes in context?

I've resisted so far, but...

I've been due for a re-read anyway.

[Devils_Advocate]

What we do see is a ton of ghosts from Doomed Timelines hanging out Beyond The Furthest Ring in Dream Bubbles.

Yes. And we see a whole bunch more Time players' ghosts than other players. I recall seeing at least a few flashes where that was clearly a conspicuous Thing. Because a timeline is usually doomed by a Time player traveling back and changing something in the alpha timeline, and getting to die instead of disappearing completely. Meaning that there is roughly 1 Time player ghost per doomed timeline. There aren't as many copies of the other players because not as many copies of them died. Again, we see zero ghost Gamzees amongst the many ghosts we see in the dream bubbles. That is supposed to be conspicuous; it's supposed to hammer home how he practically never dies (because he is a crazy clown).

If everyone from every doomed timeline wound up in the dream bubbles, then... well, we would have seen different things, if that were the situation that the author wanted to convey. Also, how else do you interpret "Cease to exist"? And, well... look. Basically, you're entitled to your ridiculous headcanons, because this is a fictional story. There is no truth to be found in this audacious cocoon of exquisite lies. Just understand that if we were discussing a real issue, I would be chiding you for claiming something so statistically unlikely when the available evidence is against you.

As it is, I just wanted to check that your headcanon is ridiculous, and that my own understanding of the story wasn't lacking due to me missing something important.

Also, I looked up that conversation between Terezi and Aranea. Here's the part I was talking about:

AG: Look at it this way. Imagine that over the course of someone's life, they are truly capa8le of every conceiva8le action at any moment, and did indeed take each of those actions in different 8ranching realities. Doesn't a scenario like that deaden a person's agency just as much as one where their fate is decidedly etched in stone as a single path of unavoida8le decisions? Who exactly is that person who can and does take all conceiva8le actions, other than someone perfectly generic, who only appears to have unique predilections and motives when you examine the ar8itrary path they happen to occupy?

Or, to put it another way... we can only determine our own behavior to the extent that our behavior is determined at all.

[Yuki Akuma]

It is important to note that the alpha timeline Dancestors are only in the Furthest Ring because Meenah murdered them all just before the Scratch happened.

If they'd been alive when it occurred, they'd have ceased to exist.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Yes. And we see a whole bunch more Time players' ghosts than other players. I recall seeing at least a few flashes where that was clearly a conspicuous Thing. Because a timeline is usually doomed by a Time player traveling back and changing something in the alpha timeline, and getting to die instead of disappearing completely. Meaning that there is roughly 1 Time player ghost per doomed timeline. There aren't as many copies of the other players because not as many copies of them died. Again, we see zero ghost Gamzees amongst the many ghosts we see in the dream bubbles. That is supposed to be conspicuous; it's supposed to hammer home how he practically never dies (because he is a crazy clown).

If everyone from every doomed timeline wound up in the dream bubbles, then... well, we would have seen different things, if that were the situation that the author wanted to convey. Also, how else do you interpret "Cease to exist"? And, well... look. Basically, you're entitled to your ridiculous headcanons, because this is a fictional story. There is no truth to be found in this audacious cocoon of exquisite lies. Just understand that if we were discussing a real issue, I would be chiding you for claiming something so statistically unlikely when the available evidence is against you.

As it is, I just wanted to check that your headcanon is ridiculous, and that my own understanding of the story wasn't lacking due to me missing something important.

We are all entitled to our ridiculous headcanons, but how does your interpretation explain the absurd numbers of ghosts that we see. I mean, there's a literal flotilla of ghosts and there don't seem to be many Time Ghosts amongst them.

[Great equalizer]

We are all entitled to our ridiculous headcanons, but how does your interpretation explain the absurd numbers of ghosts that we see. I mean, there's a literal flotilla of ghosts and there don't seem to be many Time Ghosts amongst them.

Lack of Damara ghosts is indeed strange, considering we have a host of Aradia(bot)s and Daves. Although I suppose doomed Damaras could just get Scratched - she isn't quite as cooperative as Aradia, so it makes sense they wouldn't show up at the final battle so they wouldn't die.

On a different note, we have an update.
B2 kids session also has an "exit pad". Did we ever see its B1 counterpart?
Gamzee is probably locked in that fridge.

Edit:
If I'm following events correctly, Dirk should be outside the Veil (same for Jack English and Spades Slick) and Roxy should be in Derse prison.
I wonder how the crew left the meteor without Jade's help.

[Cavelcade]

We are all entitled to our ridiculous headcanons, but how does your interpretation explain the absurd numbers of ghosts that we see. I mean, there's a literal flotilla of ghosts and there don't seem to be many Time Ghosts amongst them.

The dream bubbles were set up by the HorrorTerrors at the behest of Feferi. They are designed to extend the possible "lifespan" of players who die, in order to further the mysterious goals of said Terrors (presumably the defeat of LE). They are not a 'natural occurring' phenomenon in paradox space, thus you can't infer that every time a doomed timeline happens in a 'normal' game, a dream bubble is created. Normally, those timelines would indeed just cease to exist, as happened with the Rose/Dave one.

I think this is coming from a fundamental disagreement on the nature of alpha/doomed timelines. I maintain that doomed timelines are caused by time players creating paradoxes (which they can escape by going back to the main timeline and dying there) - it's definitely not true that every possible action that could be taken is taken in that case, however, there will be a large number of them because so many time travel shenanigans result in timelines where LE is not created at the end of the universe which, since he is also present at the start of the universe, is automatically a paradox. You'll see a lot of those created by time players, but within them, the players behave as their personality dictates. Time players can escape them, hence why you don't see a lot of their ghosts.

If you think doomed timelines are created by some other mechanism, I can see why you'd come to the conclusion that every possible action is taken somewhere.

[Oracle_Hunter]

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