Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[Bard The 5th LW]

I hope CA talks like a pirate or Captain Ahab kind of guy.

One theory for CA's typing quirk I have read (may have actually been here) is that he he uses numbers over a letter that is a Roman numeral. I=1, V=5, X=10 and so on and so forth.

If that is the case, then we probably shouldn't expect many pesterlogs with him.

[Loyal]

Oh god, Chastity Modus. XD

I am wholly convinced that Andrew spends more time finding various ways to tie recent updates to past updates, than he does actually making the recent updates.

[Viridis]

Originally Posted by Loyal

Oh god, Chastity Modus. XD

I am wholly convinced that Andrew spends more time finding various ways to tie recent updates to past updates, than he does actually making the recent updates.

I remember his formspring talking about why he has so many references:

Am I correct in stating that you TOTALLY stole this page: http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004191 from the Descend animation?

I repurpose vast quantities of graphics.

Sometimes it is for speed. And sometimes (as in that case) it was actually slower to do it that way than it would be to just draw it from scratch.

There is an idea which is behind reusing visuals like that, much like I reused the shot of Dave lying on the ground using his iPhone to show a crippled Tavros doing the exact same thing.

The idea is tied to the huge volume of textual callbacks, reusing phrases from the narrative and bits of dialogue, tweaking them sometimes. This happens probably more than anyone realizes. You could possibly read the story ten times and not catch them all. Nothing is safe from reuse. The thing is a litany of a thousand refrains, visual, verbal and conceptual.

So what is the idea? I don't feel like elaborating on it THAT much now, because I would probably type forever. Basically, it's about building an extremely dense interior vocabulary to tell a story with, and continue to build and expand that vocabulary by revisiting its components often, combining them, extending them and so on. A vocabulary can be (and usually is) simple, consisting of single words, but in this case it extends to entire sentences and paragraph structures and visual forms and even entire scenes like the one linked above. Sometimes the purpose for reiteration is clear, and sometimes there really is no purpose other than to hit a familiar note, and for me that's all that needs to happen for it to be worthwhile. Triggering recognition is a powerful tool for a storyteller to use. Recognition is a powerful experience for a reader. It promotes alertness, at the very least. And in a lot of cases here, I think it promotes levity (humor! this is mostly a work of comedy, remember.) Controlling a reader's recognition faculty is one way to manipulate the reader's reactions as desired to advance the creative agenda. In this case I'm not exactly sure what that agenda is all the time, and in truth there probably isn't any serious agenda there. This story, though at times seeming diabolically put together, is still pretty light reading after all. if anything I'm just striving for a certain pitch in density with the all the multithreaded symbolism and endless internal reference. Think of it as a symphony and everything I've referred to as belonging to a vocabulary are really just notes, working together in a really complicated harmonic structure.

[Art of Hilt]

Oh my god you guys.
Kanaya is a Hysterical Dame.
Vriska is a Flighty Broad.
GA: If A Preemptive Consequence Is A Concept That Can Be Said To Hold Any Meaning

GA: But From What I Understand If It Is Applicable In Any Sphere At All Then This Game Holds That Sphere

AG: Okaaaaaaaay, I don't really get that. So you can just go ahead think I'm some dum8 flighty 8road again.

They are meant to be.

[Kim]

That's another one for Nepeta's pairing board.

[Wigmund]

Alright, noww I'm really to see wwhat CA is like.

And also frightened out of my mind

[Loyal]

I wonder what the double w's and v's are supposed to symbolize. Waves?

[Bard The 5th LW]

That was surprisingly simple. The romance terms are a bit disturbing and complicated though.

[Art of Hilt]

The romance terms are confusing as heck!
I'm all over this forum and I'm just as confused after I read it as I was before.
This is the part where I make a smiley symbolizing frustration:
D:<

The most comprehensive single post in that board seems to be somewhat accurate:

Hearts - Matesprit
Mate- romantic partner
Esprit- Liveliness of spirit
Closest to human love. It is when two trolls both feel pity for each other in a lively manner. This might not sound right, but let me explain it this way: when you see a girl who fell down do to clumsiness, you might feel a gush of love for them, but there is also pity there. Trolls believe that Pity and Hate are the two strongest emotions. Therefore, they have no concept of love, just a feeling of pity so strong they want to be with that troll forever.

Diamonds - Moirallegiance
Moira- Fate
Allegiance- Devotion or Loyalty
This one was harder to figure out, but I believe it's a one sided relathionship. Where one Troll has pity for another and attempts to help them. This can be viewed the Moiral'd being a burden from the Moiral'ee's perspective, or as both trolls being each other's Moiral. Either way the main emotion is still pity, but it is twinged a bit with hate. Some Trolls see this as sad, and like being 'friend zoned'

Clubs - Auspistice
Auspicious- Favorable
Armistice- Ceasefire
This is another complex one. I believe it is when one troll aids two others in becoming one of the other three types of pairs. A matchmaker if you will. Except in troll society, this is considered a whole relationship on it's own! It would seem that suggesting flat out that one be Auspistice for a pair is as offensive as saying to couple not quite fully in love 'go fuck already'. I believe being Auspistice for a pair would only last briefly, but would be much the talk of other as in gossip. The predominating emotion of the whole experience is hate, since most trolls clearly despise meddling in all it's forms, but there's some pity there in the one who chooses to be Auspistice for a pair.

Spades: Kismesis
Kismet- Destined
Nemisis- Enemy
This is the polar opposite of Matesprit. It's a shared hating of such a degree, that the pair becomes intimate. They hate each other with such a passion that the only way to show it is with passion for each other.

The ausitpice is not so understood, but apparently Hussie said (not in response to the above post, actually not sure what it's supposed to be in response to since this is basically a second-hand quote):

That's true, but in the context of an alien culture where such behavior is grouped in with romance, frequently mediating between feuding parties (i.e. meddling) could be regarded as a sort of promiscuity, and being accused of such could be regarded as slanderous.

There are things they say that indicate they're touchy about all the facets of romance the way humans are. When he outright proposed she mediate between him and Vriska, she thought it was indecent. I guess almost like proposing some weird version of a menage a trois.

So anyway I'm guessing Kanaya's "girl crush" means she wants to be matesprits with Vriska even though she's not sure if she really wants to and just wants to be moirals but either way Vriska is so full of that numbed down hate that she doesn't even have any space for the pity required to requite Kanaya's pity with her own? So if Kanaya just had regular pity for Vriska she wouldn't, as Karkat said, "chomping on the bit" to be her moiral but if she had super extra pity as a matesprit would then it's enough to make her do so and be a moiral?

Troll romance sure is a pain in the ass!

[PCD]

Upon Googling the word "moirail" in order to try and understand what the heck everyone was talking about, I discovered this, which seems to help at least a little, though all the romance stuff is still pretty baffling.