HOUSETRAPPED - CARAPASCIANS GUIDE

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】

CARAPASCIANS -- PROLES, MONARCHY AND EXILES (edited)

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:19 PM

Lil chess dudes!

Disclaimer

They don't actually default to clown uniform.

That's all you're going to find on Google but that's bc the first thing John threw in was a harlequin doll (edited)

so clown themeing was permanent

So Skaia is kingdom hearts.

Vague as hell

But it's also like

A physical thing right (edited)

It's a metaphor but it's also a video game for the PlayStation 2

And part of that metaphor is

Chess.

Skaia, like KH, is a commentary on the classic fantasy legend.

Good Vs Evil

White Vs Black

Light Vs Light Again, But Evil This Time

And part of that is chess

Homestuck took a lot of its parody elements fairly cynically

So while the chess dudes represent good vs evil

Good will always lose.

And it's then up to the players to defeat whoever has the Ring (held by the Black King), and use it to power the forge to light the frog to create the universe to fix the hole in my boot dear Lilah a hole

2

I will explain

All that

In greater detail later

But the big things to know is that carapascian society is meant as parody. The pawns obv don't know that

But like

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:24 PM

(doesnt it need the queens ring too?)

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:25 PM

Oh yeah

(where did the trolls get the queen's ring?)

(is it wq that has the ring always?)

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:25 PM

(operation regisurp)

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:25 PM

Ah

I'm confused if there are 4 rings or only 2

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:25 PM

(aradia became a frog, bq hates frogs, took off the ring, they stole it without having to fight her)

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:25 PM

One for each side?

Ah

Yep.

So they just didn't interface w prospit like at all

Didn't need to

I know it's WQ's ring for the beta kids

I'm speaking in heavy lingojargon but that's not part of the guide dear reader

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:26 PM

i guess maybe you just need any two rings?

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:26 PM

Hmm

I think that makes sense

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

huh yeah

you dont actually need to ally with prospit

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

Kanaya says "a ring"

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

you can ally with derse and take the prospit rings and thatd work too

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

Not sure why u needed to kill BK then

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

maybe you dont maybe its just the obvious answer

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:27 PM

Yeah

She said it was trivial

I think they just, like, did it

For final boss satisfactiony reasons

Oh no

No yeah I remember why

If BK has the ring he'll start the reckoning

Bring down the whole fuckin place

And slash or red miles

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:28 PM

riiiiiight

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:28 PM

Just dangerous to let them keep it

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:28 PM

yes yes yes

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:29 PM

Okay okay okay

Back to the guide

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】

But the big things to know is that carapascian society is meant as parody. The pawns obv don't know that

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:29 PM

Carapscian society is kinda a parody

More in the pandomime way (edited)

Replicating it in an absurd manner

If you were to ask someone to draw like

A rook from chess

As a soldier in a battle

Like, yeah, lol.

Has a bit of that castle crashers newgrounds early web cartoon edginess to it

And the thing to know is that, the battlefield, where this battle between Light and Dark literally takes place

Evolves over time.

Specifically, it evolves with successive prototyping

(which, am now realizing, that's why entry into the game is usually staggered somewhat, so that the battlefield takes a while to get going alongside the players.)

Again prototyping I'll explain in a dedicated thread but for now it's just

A progression mechanic in the game, that responds to player input.

It's one of the key customization features of the game engine (edited)

And that customization is reflected through the carapscians (and imps tho we'll get there) specifically. (edited)

Carapascians are also a reflection of the art style Hussie used for his older comics

Extrapolating the cartoon features very literally

Okay, says Hussie, I drew these guys as stick figures w all white or all black

They are Insect Like Creatures and that is a hard exoskeleton

(plastic. They're chess pieces)

I'll get to how they actually Come Into Being in the cloning thread (edited)

But for now I'll skip to their monarchy.

There are two carapscian kingdoms in each session of the game

Prospit (white) and Derse (black)

I'll do prospit first bc it's easier I think

Derse gets a little complicated

And I'll expand more in the planets thread

Prospit is like

Y'know.

The good guys!

Their kingdoms are gleaming gold and they're distinctly not evil (or something)

The planet is close to Skaia.

Then Derse

Derse is much farther away

Purple and black color scheme vs Prospit's gold and white

This stuff isn't important yet and im not gonna talk abt the dreamer stuff or moon whatever until later

Probably the GT thread

Just carapscians for now

The kingdoms each have their own king and queen

And Derse has a bonus set of NPCs

These guys are the face cards

Er

No they're not.

They're just

They're four guys.

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:42 PM

but that idea of them being the face cards sure sounds cool

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:42 PM

They, uh. Okay. I'm just going to

Save them

For later

One of them is Jack forgive me!!!

But the king and queen are the king and queen

ONE BIG THING ABT CARAPASCIANS I DIDN'T MENTION

is that they all have Very Important Initials

Like

Their initials are more important to their sense of continuous identity than their name

WQ is

The White Queen

But once she's exiled (more on that in a moment) she becomes the Windswept Questant (edited)

So the four guys above are

SS

(Spades Slick -- this guy is the most important) (edited)

DD (Draconian Dignitary)

(diamonds droog)

HB

(hegemonic brute/hearts boxcars)

CD (edited)

Courtyard Droll

(clubs deuce)

Remember how I said that they weren't face cards

JUST KIDDINF

Jack Noir is a face card

Totally fucking forgot

Spades Slick is a cool mobster nickname he made up for himself in the mafia au

Why did they have a mafia au

Fuckin

Idk

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:48 PM

homestuck is weird

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:49 PM

(I HAVE AN ANSWER BUT ITS DUMB AND WE ALREADY ANSWERED IT KINDA)

(Hussie had this thing where you could pay him to draw special crossover panels of his comic either with your OCs or you or whatever and someone came up w those four as like, card suit themed mobsters opposed to the detectives from Problem Sleuth)

(and he liked them and tried to figure out a way to insert them into hs)

So he gave the king and queen chess figureheads the dual property of being face cards, and elevated Spades Slick into being Jack Noir.

The thing about these guys, specifically Jack

Is that as NPCs in the game Sburb, they're generated to be on Derse's side of the war between light and dark

But jack

Is programmed to be ready to betray the queen

At like

Any fuckin time

And she is programmed to be fucking annoying to him.

They have a hatefuck thing going on you see while humans only have one symbol to denote love ❤️ trolls and carapascians actually have four, those being--

️

Because,

Funny cards reference

I am also realizing

That trolls 100% got the quadrants

from carapascians

Bc doc scratch totally would, right?

He would (edited)

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:54 PM

yeah

what an asshole

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:54 PM

I'm gonna save

That

For later

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:54 PM

they dont need to know doc scratch or the quadrants viri

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:54 PM

Even tho it's honestly way way way easier than classpects it's a total distraction

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:54 PM

its all totally irrelevant to this game

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:55 PM

Not Doc Scratch I just like quadrants

But that's a for fun thing

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:55 PM

i know i do too but they dont need to know them lol

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:55 PM

Yee

Anyway

He will betray her

And maybe help the players maybe make things way worse

Depends.

Very stabby, knifey enjoying dude

the depiction of the monarchy in canon makes a lot of jokes abt american beaurocracy

Jack for example spends like

Most of his day

Signing parking tickets

And Prospit has a dedicated fuckin

Thing

About Mail

I don't know man

I'm gonna talk about the rings now

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 01:57 PM

mail is breath tickets are blood there done

1

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:57 PM

The rings are supposed to be one of the big Key Items of Homestuck

aorticAblution

mail is breath tickets are blood there done

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 01:58 PM

No wonder Jack and Karkat got along

Basically, the Rings allow certain priveleges to the wearer (if they are carapscian. If they're not, it does basically nothing 9 times out of ten.)

It'll allow your body to reflect the transformations done by prototyping (will get to in detail later)

It lets you summon big red end of world vines that are

sigh

a joke about gay porn

FUNNY

HUSSIE

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 02:00 PM

homestuck is bad, yall

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 02:01 PM

And it also lets the wearer bring down meteors to rain down on your opponents. Useful if you're in a battle of light vs dark and need to defeat your enemies quickly (edited)

Bringing down the meteors is called The Reckoning

And it's way more important than almost anything else that happens in the game bc of

stupid stuff I'll get to later

yawn

homestuck

but yeah.

You don't want bad guys to have these

Bc it gives them potentially transformative superpowers, as well as access to the /killall command.

IN SUMMARY

Lil chess dudes that fight each other on behalf of kings and queens. Royalty have rings which are very dangerous and powerful, don't let the bad guys keep em.

Derse has Jack Noir.

That's about it for now actually

I think I'll touch on exiles when I talk more abt meteors

But that's gonna be after cloning

But that's gonna be after more detailed cosmology

But that's gonna be after

I think

Dream selves.

And gting explained

Not that they need each other in that order

But it'll be easier in terms of

Like

What prerequisite knowledge

Dream selves and GTing I think can be explained now

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 02:05 PM

god theres so much

homestuck needs serious trimming

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 02:05 PM

Yes

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 02:05 PM

just

blegh

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 02:05 PM

And like

Kudos to it

Esp acts 1-4

For introducing this shit

Very seamlessly

You're always feeling like your mind is expanding

And it genuinely

Ljke

Meets that promise

That everything will be relevant later

In S Cascade.

Never really a single time after that tho.

And the issue is like

For the story of, for example, the alpha kids

None of this is fucking necessary.

Carapscians barely factor in

Which I think is on account of the GOOD MOVE by Hussie to just merge villains

He didn't need a new bq and bk

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 02:07 PM

(is that in universe because roxy was protecting them w void)

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 02:07 PM

Just replaced that tall evil lady role w HIC

Uh, to an extent yeah. The battlefield never evolves bc they don't prototype anything

Void sesh yk

aorticAblution 12-Jan-22 02:08 PM

right right yee

【ＳＫＡＩＡ】 12-Jan-22 02:08 PM

So the battle between light and dark

Simply does not occur

Okay

Tiger king les go