if you guys saw me floating around other threads without replying here I'M SORRYYYYUH... i just got back from my vacay and i wanted to take the time to sit down and write down some proper responses for you guys. those other threads don't deserve me like you guys deserve me. they're schmucks. they're nothing. i kissed them but it was nothing. i promise

RE:Zadie! Thank you so much and welcome, all the rest of it ^_^

Even though I don't particularly consider classpect to be my area of study, I totally agree it shares a level of... I guess engineered cohesion? with the institution of quadrants. There is of course a fundamental logic in common to both systems: the Alternian social structure exists to maintain the perfect warrior race, while Sburb is a multiplayer RPG whose roles are designed around creating an efficient, cooperative combat experience. Meanwhile, both systems also exist with the aim of eventually creating a functional reproductive family unit - like you say, the Hero of Space's direct role in reproduction facilitated by the auxiliary roles of the other Heroes just as the conciliatory quadrants facilitate the concupiscent. And since Alternia as a system only exists in the first place for the purposes of manufacturing the perfect Sburb session, it's only natural that the institutions put in place in one would deliberately translate over to the other.

I will say that when I go about comparing Sburb and Alternia, my primary point of comparison is usually the classes and the hemospectrum; the blood castes (or blood classes) follow their own sort of video game logic, with low-magic, high-health brutes at the top and glass cannon magicians at the bottom, and this thinking is applicable to the kind of thing you're talking about as well. Thru the Muse and Lord classes we're shown implicitly that a class' activity or passivity has gendered implications, with nurturing support classes leaning female while the fighters and the leaders skew male - just as is common in the storytelling and video games of the real world - so the relationships between players of the game and trolls in quadrants will naturally tend to mirror each other in a similar way. Where the Sylphs and Seers of the world exist to supplement the more show-stopping exploits of your Knights and your Princes, women and lowbloods find themselves the preferred candidates to play conciliatory roles for their male-dominated highblood counterparts. If the whole system didn't revolve around having your role assigned to you at the moment of your birth and living your whole life with the expectation that you fulfil that same role forever, it might even work... OH WELL. Hope that addresses your question somewhat!

RE:Alary - so true! I made an aside about this in my original reply that I ended up cutting cus the whole thing was getting too damn long, but the truth is that even in our real world it has been quite accepted in a lot of cultures for a quite lot of history that some relationships will involve one party delivering a degree of beatings to the other. Is it really so shocking that an alien culture would have a name for this -- and does giving a name to something somehow make it more okay ?!?

RE:chitonousCerate - this is a really interesting perspective and one I will really have to look out for whenever I finally get around to rereading these parts of the story.

When late Homestuck and the Epilogues started making attempts to rehabilitate the concept of kismesissitude, I quickly resigned myself to thinking of it as little more than poorly executed fanservice for the fan clamouring for more shipping fuel - but I'm very interested in forming a more nuanced view on it, and you've given me a lot to think about. Terezi's relationship with Gamzee really highlights how her confidence in her own abilities - much like Rose - can blind her to the possibility that she's being taken advantage of, and it makes a lot of sense that this kind of thinking would continue to cloud her understanding even into adulthood... now that I think on it, one-half of Act 6's pro-blackrom propaganda comes from Karkat, anyway, and he's a guy desperately clinging onto the quadrants to avoid acknowledging that his feelings transcend them; of course Terezi's view might be similarly coloured by her cultural hangups!