Am I imagining implications in Karkat's speech about John<3<Terezi among other things that the quadrants are a purely social construct and all blurred up emotionally speaking anyway? That would make perfect sense, but it's disappointing. I always loved the fics which had them as definitely separate boxes with entirely separate biological systems - damn I loved Heavy In Your Arms and the scene with Eridan's pale submission reflex. Should we make an Alternate Universe - Quadrants Are Real tag on AO3?
'quadrants are fake' is honestly such a boring concept to me - like. 'oh wow xenoculture! of course, everyone knows that their alien constructs are Fake and the one true proper way of romance is the way humans do it' registers as the No Fun Allowed robot to me. let aliens be alien and do weird alien things without it being a sign that they're doing something wrong or that someone has tricked them! (to clarify - i don't mind 'real quadrants tend to blur, there's nuance beyond strictly delineated relationships where you only ever feel one way towards someone or, possibly, swap to another rigidly defined set of expectations, everyone does their relationships a bit differently because they're people', what i mind is 'quadrants were made up by the condesce/doc scratch for Sinister Purposes and once trolls decide to do things only the way humans do them it'll be better all around because they'll be doing romance the Right Way')
I saw a theory that the ashen quadrant was nothing but a social construct and the other three were 'real'.
I don't think Hussie was implying they were made up for Sinister Purposes, just that they're as much a social construct as human marriage is. Which still disappoints me because I like the weird xeno. And fuck devaluing the ashen quadrant, there's so much potential there. I honestly never saw any difference between matespritship and human relationships. If there is one it was never really explained beyond the "based in pity" thing, which may not even be true because the trolls clearly do experience love.
That honestly may be Karkat social posturing more than anything. He also thinks friendship is a disease, but he’s the best at friendship out of all the trolls (except possibly Aradia or Tavros).
Should we make Quadrants Are Real vs Quadrants Are Social Constructs tags for the archive? I'm certainly going to use them forthwith.
It's a fic series, really, and it's here - warning for rape themes. Oh God. Horrible thought. I just reread Beldaran's analysis of Cal's effect on Bro, including the influence from Equius' Void powers. I and other Gamzee fans are mad that nobody in-universe considered mind control as a reason for his sudden snap; it's even more jarring in the retcon timeline because someone who can perform mind control is SITTING RIGHT THERE WITH THEM and they still never ever even briefly consider it. Equius is part of LE and has the Voidy Thing, whatever form it takes. Add in the theory about the fridge falling into the black hole, landing on Caliborn's planet, and Gamzee joining him in the first place because his supposed friends imprisoned him in a fridge. Did LE do the Voidy Thing to make the rest of the cast not think about Gamzee's possible motives, in order to allow the creation of himself? D: D: D:
I think in universe some of it can be explained away by the fact that highbloods are culturally expected to be unstable and aggressive and the fact that the highblood who had up until that point been stoned off his behind was put in a high stress situation under withdrawal symptoms. Equius in particular believed this was Gamzee finally stepping up to his proper role as was befitting of his blood station. So, while there was a person who could do mind control, I don't think the other characters had any reason in universe to suspect that was happening.
I'm not sure which option is worse. Magic, or just writing off a friend and having no reason to think there might be more to it :( God this comic is tragic! I mean, Gamzee is obviously under some kind of mental influence and nobody notices or cares. Karkat pacifies him in an Ideal Palerom scenario in which Gamzee is effectively a prop, then is heavily implied to be incapable of feeling palerom so has no clue what he's doing...
re: quadrants.... if Karkat IS saying 'quadrants are fake bullshit' it might be from the whole suspected idea that Karkat cannot feel quadrants the way trolls normally do--which, I mean, if humans can be things like aromantic, I would assume it's possible for trolls to be incapable of feeling quadrants the way other trolls do, whether that's just that they can't feel moirail feelings or something, or whether they just can't do singular quadrants at all. basically, I would consider that to be either 'Karkat is posturing' or 'Karkat can't feel quadrants the way he's told trolls are supposed to and while he tries really hard to feel the quadrants anyway, he thinks that his experience is normal and all quadrants are really just bullshit'. I've always thought it was more interesting to have some trolls be 100% capable of all quadrants, no blurring, no quadrants they can't feel, literally incapable of experiencing something like moirail feelings blurred with matesprit feelings or what have you, and then some trolls be capable of, say, only one quadrant, or only two, or only three, they just can't feel the other(s) no matter how they try, and then some trolls that just can't feel quadrant feelings period, no romance feelings whatsoever for any quadrant, and some trolls that can feel feelings of romance but they aren't quadrant-separated, they're prone to blurring--I LOVE THE POSSIBILITIES IF WE ASSUME QUADRANTS CAN ACTUALLY BE A THING FOR TROLLS WITH NO BLURRING. that said, I do personally think that human relationships are not the same as matespritship. I think some human romance relationships can be the same as matespritship, but I've also seen relationships I'd class as more like....blurring between what we see from the pale or black quadrants with the red quadrant. and I'd definitely not consider things like my relationship with my QPP t be the same as matespritship--it's more like a largely pale with some red relationship, if I had to put it in troll terms. I endlessly consider 'proper troll quadrants' and 'human romance' to be different things on some level. it just leaves a lot for me to have fun with. :3
I guess an AU in which everyone including the humans goes by clearly defined quadrants would be on a level with a soulmate AU? Like, "I know this isn't realistic but it's fun"? I need a snappy way of describing that kind of thing for tagging purposes - Quadrants Are Real isn't quite right, because the feelings are definitely real however they're defined. On a similar note, has anyone written a fic based on that facetious Hussie tweet in which trolls really do have a love dick and a hate dick?
“everyone does quadrants” ....I know it’s bad I’m sorry it’s what I got after five minutes of thinking
I need to work on my thread for worldbuilding for this specific fic I'm doing, I think. BTW, are askblogs for AUs still a thing people do?
