Literally I have written essays about Worm and Twig and the character dynamics and picking about why certain characters do certain things. I was gonna just dump short observations, but it turned into an essay on Regent and Cherish, sorry. Spoiler: Worm Regent and Cherish fascinate me. They both came from the same bad environment, although they coped with it differently, with Regent dissociating and shutting down his emotions, and Cherish... it's hard to tell exactly what's going on with her, but she distances herself from other people while literally feeling their pain, and has pretty strong emotions and severe mood swings, iirc? And, I don't really think Regent is more moral than Cherish, they've both got the same broken sense of morality from being forced to do very bad things at a young age to entertain their father and stay alive. So how did they go down such different paths? They both ran away from Heartbreaker, and then they both sought out groups for strength in number and a sense of stability. This is where a big divergence happens. Regent ends up with the Undersiders, while Cherish decides to go big and join the Slaughterhouse Nine. I... don't think that it's an exaggeration to call that the biggest mistake of her life. In the initiation alone they broke her down in ways her father hadn't, and then even just being in that emotional atmosphere I think was probably not good for her, and then we all know how that ends finally for her. Meanwhile, not every Undersider LIKES Regent, but they support him, they provide companionship, and they look out for him. It's not like the Undersiders is a totally healthy environment, but they're TRYING to be one, at least. Also, I think people would be tempted to call Regent a sociopath bc of his lack of empathy. I'm not sure if... his pervasive disregard for other's boundaries, his lack of remorse, his irresponsibility, all that might make him diagnosable with ASPD? I'm not sure. But I think the root is different. Like, uh... it's not that he has trouble relating to other people but also has impulse and anger issues. He DOESN'T have anger issues. He doesn't get angry. I think his problem is that he spends the entire run of Worm heavily dissociating from his emotions, but unable to fix that. That, combined with the very very twisted way in which he was raised, is why he disregards others so easily? EDIT: Ah, shit, I just realized what's been pinging me about them! Spoiler: Worm I think it's CPTSD, just expressed rather differently between them. I'm hardly an expert on it, but I've tried to research CPTSD for my ex-helm, and a lot of Alec's symptoms were pinging me, and then Cherie's the more I was thinking of it.
Yes. I love the Lambs, and I find their connection to the Academy fascinating...the moment in Frey's arc where she offered them freedom and they each turned her down was really cool. It's not just that they can't run away they each have chains binding them to the Academy and some of them are mental. Spoiler: motives & stuff Sy is, basically, a selfless person. No, really. He's ruthless, occasionally evil in his own way, but he lets himself be defined massively by others, they inform his tactics, his beliefs, and the way he sees the world. He latched on to Hayle's ideology so that it'd all be worth something, and he'll sacrifice himself for that willingly because it so often means sacrificing himself for the sake of the other Lambs, the Lambs who haven't been made yet. But he also lets himself be shaped by the others and his love for them. I think if Jamie had taken Frey's offer, Sy would have gone with him and damn his own dreams, which are basically just Hayle's dreams anyway.
So Twig has continued to hit me in the heart with Lambfeelz. Lots of them. Spoiler: Twig Jamie and Sy! Jamie being in love with Sy in a deeply homophobic society where they probably treat homosexuality with lobotomies! Jamie being in love with Sy who is straight and whose immediate reaction to being told Jamie is in love with Sy is to suggest that he could get that fixed by people screwing around with his brain some more! I think that in a lot of ways Jamie was expecting Sy to hurt him there, and he was expecting to hurt Sy there too, but he had to be honest, damn it, and there was probably still that tiny bit of hope that Sy might reciprocate because Sy loves Jamie, just not like Jamie loves Sy. So Jamie took the leap and it happened like he expected and it did hurt. And then there's how Sy feels about it, which is unquantifiable and heavily homophobic but still with "protect Jamie" as his first instinct and hating himself for how he reacted and hurting Jamie like he did. I'm really worried about what Sy will do next, because in so many ways Sy is a character who lets himself be completely defined by others and what they want. I'm worried that he'll try to change himself into what he thinks Jamie wants him to be to make Jamie happy without realizing that Jamie is in love with the parts of Sy that are constants. Also, Dog and Catcher! I love their weird friendship/big brothership/cool uncle relationship with the Lambs. Dog is there to be confided in and Catcher is there to show off fancy torture implements to Mary and they respect the Lambs as being fantastically killy individuals much like themselves but also are affectionate towards them as kids. I have a lot of feelings about them feeling protective towards the Lambs in the future maybe? Because they sort of know the Lambs' secrets by default because of all the enhanced hearing and they will keep them without question, even (especially) if it's something treasonous. I feel like they sort of complete the Lambs little family unit by being the cool adults. Also, the Duke. The Duke is a character I wasn't expecting to react to as much as I did. A lot of his menace is that he could completely destroy the Lambs just with a few words, he could rip them apart on a whim, and there's the everpresent threat that he will and they can't do anything about it. It's like he's a personification of the disempowerment of the Lambs serving the Academy.
I have the terrible urge to apply quadrant shipping to non-Homestuck fandoms. Help me work this out for Worm? I kind of want to go with Armsmaster<>Miss Militia, although the Leviathan incident probably wouldn't have happened with that in place, and he and Dragon have sort of a <>/<3 recurring quadrant flip thing going on in canon. Battery<3<Assault is pretty much canon, and you could make a solid case for Tattletale<>Skitter, too.
And once again, I curse the lack of a hug button. (Some forums have options like that in addition to the usual 'like'.) Because that's probably the appropriate reply here.
Spoiler: Worse things He's not dead!...Technically. I mean, the body's there. And the Academy believes in recycling. And Sy has his books, so the personality that's now piloting Project Caterpillar's remote data gathering apparatus (codename "Jamie") can learn what Jamie 1.0 loved and was like.
I have long been a proponent of Clockblocker<3<Skitter. They learn things from their mutual hatred, which is rooted in an understanding of themselves that they see reflected in the other.
I feel like Saint having a completely one-sided spadecrush on Dragon is the best way to describe their relationship.
I mean, it fits in with the way he's creepily watching her all the time. Like, I wasn't the only one who got creepy rapey vibes from that, right?
No, I definitely got that, too. I keep meaning to write up the meta about how a lot of Dragon's arc makes for a good abuse metaphor, but I keep getting distracted.
So! Twig! Lambs make me sad. :( As we close off arc 8, I think I should elaborate on each. Spoiler: Jamie Holy wow I was not expecting to want to hug Jamie mark 2 half as much as I do. He's just so painfully aware that he's a broken puzzle piece trying to fit into a group dynamic that hasn't fully healed from losing the first Jamie, and he totally sees it every time Sylvester reacts to him not being the "real" Jamie. And Sy is aware that trying to make him be "real" Jamie is wrong and fucked up but he can't stop his brain from doing it. Symie 2.0 is the saddest of ships because they both know they'd be trying to recapture the ghost of something that never quite fully existed and building on the corpse of something real and valuable. And the fact that Jamie 2.0 has all those messages from 1.0 makes it even sadder, because he's aware of exactly where he's failing to live up to Sy's fragile memories and the person he replaced. And the fact that the only imperative Jamie 1.0 ever gave, the thing he valued most, was "help Sylvester" makes it even harder because Jamie 2.0 knows that he has to try, to keep Sy from destroying himself with guilt. He tries so hard! Spoiler: Gordon Gordon's awareness of his own mortality has definitely propelled him up the list of "Lambs I want to hug." Here's someone that knows he's going to die soon and he's trying, as much as he can, to leave things in a state where people would be okay. He's seen how Sy reacted when Jamie's mind was wiped, and his hugging Sy after Sy's self-destructive tendencies combined with grief just get to be too much feels like an indicator, because he's worried, even terrified, of where the Lambs will go when he's gone and Sy has nobody left to reign him in. And his love for Mary just makes it harder because she's simultaneously stability and her own kind of chaos. Spoiler: Lillian Lillian's role has often been passive, in the sense that she's sort of dragged around by the other Lambs, Mary and Sy and Gordon. Mostly Sy, because Sy is as Sy does. But in Arc 8 she tried to take her own action, to set the goals for the Lambs on that mission, and it's backfired on her awfully. Out of all the Lambs, Lillian's desires are the most forward thinking even beyond Sy. Lillian wants power, she wants respect, she wants to be able to stand on her own and be a player instead of a piece. Half of her and Sy's relationship is them using each other to further their ends, it's no coincidence that the first kiss that either initiated was in service to a deception. I think that as much as Sy struggles to be good for her in a way he knows he's not, Lillian struggles with the idea that Sy, or someone like Sy, could love her, which is simultaneously enervating and disconcerting because she knows that Sy is an awful, awful person who she should be more wary of. Much like how Mary is totally willing to kill her own creator because Lillian is upset by the things he's done. In this way, with Jamie gone, Lillian's become the moral center of the Lambs by becoming the moral compass for two of the most amoral ones, something that endlessly frustrates Sy, who has dedicated himself to furthering her ambitions (and failed epicly). For both Mary and Sy Lillian is a source of stability and a person they love, with the kind of disturbing intensity that is so very Sy and Mary, and Lillian's painfully aware of how unsteady a pedestal she is. And Lillian, next to Sy, is also probably the Lamb that's most delusional about the Academy. Sy thinks that if they just hold on long enough they could create a human intelligence that could improve itself, but Lillian, someone who benefits in a way from the Academy, is devoted to seeing the institution itself as good and something worth upholding, if she can just get the power to change what's wrong with it. Every monstrous act the Lambs see from the Crown chips away at that, and the failure of the Lambs to stop the attack on Lugh will only further damage her hope that she can make it change. She's increasingly facing the possibility that she can't stay Lillian, the moral center of the Lambs, and become Lillian, the black coat who holds the power she so craves. Spoiler: Mary Mary is best described as a high-tension wire. Constantly on edge, constantly considering possibilities. Perfectionist, obsessive, and taking a kind of pride in that. What keeps her from spinning out of control in a self-destructive whirl of hyperfocus and tension is the Lambs. Sy gives her chaos and targets to focus on in the chaos, he's her counterpart. Lillian gives her stability, a rock she can hold on to and personal guidance for when things get uncertain, which for Mary they so often do. And Gordon is the combination of both, not quite either and yet safe in a way that Lillian and Sy aren't. Mary's devotion to the Lambs is second to none. She builds herself, as an individual separate from the person she was made to replace, around Lillian and Sy. If either of them dies...Mary's reaction won't be pretty. Spoiler: Sy I could seriously fill a book with "reasons Sy makes me sad." This arc it's mostly "because Lillian" and "because Jamie." Lillian, for Sy, is his hopes for the future. He's dedicated himself wholly to fulfilling her ambitions, almost in place of his former dedication to Hayle's dreams. It's not a fair weight to place on her, really. But it is the path she's chosen. Sy's relationship with Lillian, like pretty much all his relationships, is anchored in that kind of manipulation and distrust. He has to force himself not to manipulate her, distract her, or otherwise prevent her from making her own decisions, because being in a relationship has forced him to confront his own manipulative tendencies and acknowledge that they're a bad thing to be constantly doing to people, which in turn has been making him sort of unravel over the course of Arc 8. Sy's emotionally immature but mentally advanced, and that can be a terrifying combination and he knows it. His recurring comments on how he's "poisonous" in more ways than one show how he's aware of what kind of damage he could do to Lillian by being close to her. And he also knows that Lillian might not become who she wants to be, even if he's anchored himself to that dream, of having a Lamb with no expiration date who can take care of future Lambs. Jamie for Sy is a case of guilt. We don't know how much of a role Sy's unconsidered homophobia played in Jamie's mental disintegration, but Sy, at least, blames himself. And every time he sees the second Jamie around, he's reminded of the consequences of his unconsidered words. Which, Sy being Sy, only makes those kinds of things more likely. The second Jamie is amazingly patient and kind to Sy, partly because of his directives and partly because he has an understanding of Sy from Jamie's books. And Sy tries, tries so hard, not to see him as an imposter, even when every time he looks at Jamie he's reminded of who isn't there. I kind of do ship them a lot...
@Glassware am i going to cry? i stopped reading because it was too sad and i couldn't take it anymore. please i have to know before i go back to it
Ummmm. You stopped at the close of Arc 6, right? Arc 7 heavy loads it on the heartwarming moments to go with the sads. You'll cry, but many will be happy tears.
So Barb got me started reading Worm, but I feel that there's also material here for a Fine Imported Drama thread, because apparently there's a forum with a lot of Worm fanfic, "spacebattles.net" or something, which is so badly moderated that a friend of mine has been telling me stories of their epically incompetent moderation for years.
Pact is great but tiring omg. Hard to pick back up once you've put it down...I think Twig's better at that because the arcs are discrete stories where time passes between them. I think it might be some kind of marketing thing? If so, it's...not great marketing because, yanno, common words. Could also be just a personal theme thing, the titles of some other projects he had up on his blog for a while were Face, Boil, and Peer. SB is a Very Weird Place. As are their splinter forums, questionablequesting (basically SB but with porn) and sufficientvelocity (the single most involved lawyer roleplay ever).
