Beyond Canon upd8 discussion

anyways, lett's ttheory craftt aboutt Ly'lac's classlectt. i think doom as tthe aspectt is a given. butt (lol) i'm sttuck on assigning her a class

@grenyuriologist : My personal theory is that, based off of the mentions of Magic and Alchemy and Changing the nature of stuff into Bombs, Witch feels apt to me.

Heir is another potential, but operating under the very strong implication of Doom, that would create a duplicate classpect with Mituna. This would mark her as “One Who Changes Fate”. Which seems like a recipe for the sort of individual designed to piss off Dirk, hehe. Very exciting prospects…

ly’lac is like really cool and it’s just really refreshing to relax for a bit after the end of act 1 i enjoyed it a lot actually

this is a long shot but i think itd be interesting if the satyrs (dirks species) had some cultural or visual similarities to trolls (i guess nymphs are grayskinned like trolls already but w/e) because doc scratch did a similar thing to the alternian trolls that dirk is doing to the satyrs (the dirk glasses on the moon and his influence on the satyrs same as rosebot and doc scratches,, thing.)

my personal pet theory just related to the trolls has always been that their eyes are yellow because yellow is also the color of the light aspect and doc was influencing the trolls to be players of the game (light/eyes both symbolizing knowledge) (pet theory because the beforus trolls also have yellow eyes but no doc influence -_-) so itd be cool if the satyrs had yellow eyes too but doubt even if they do this is the reason<<;;

Ly'lac is such a Rose character, I love her already, cant wait for more gothic kids. Also the fact that the planet looks aquatic, like rose's planet in the medium and her denizen looking like a fish... I guess it's also cause of the squiddles appearance but yeah ^^

Shurb

I havent read the entire thread so apologies if someone already pointed this out but... Nymphs are totally just the little hair squid things, right? The humanoid body is just the host. The arm multiplication scene reminded me of those parasititc fungi that extend out of ants. My two cents U_U.

Also this is neither here not there but nymphs and satyrs are somewhat related to the terms used in Lolita by the main character (nymphettes, faunlets). Literally no clue if this means anything Im just happy to see another Nabokov reference in Homestuck

I definitely didn't expect them to be just grey again. Lowkey hope they're not all just grey since it'd both be kinda confusing and feel like pandering to the nostaliga for trolls.

Overall I thought it was a lovely update, a more return to form which you'd expect of a story that already had 3 returns to forms. I was halfway expecting to look around and see a more negative resception because of all the joy and whimsey, but I'm happy to know I was wrong. The Act 1 stuff was definitely interesting but I didn't feel like I needed to check in regularly to see where the story was going. Just an every now and then checkin to see what's up. But Act 2 has definitely put my interest up in a "I want to see what's going to happen" kind of way.

Continuing an old story with something that feels like an ending is always going to be hard. You have very little to work on "What's going to happen" after the "happy ending". There's very few question left unanswered, some of which might be completely uninentional, like if the author just didn't think about the plothole they made, or intentionally left something vague to give people some fun. Picking up those pieces and making sense out of them is hard, you have to essentially do as much setup as was done at the begining of the story but wtihout the creative liberty of just making everything up as you go. Which then leads to a setup phase with like 1'000'000 minefields, so most of what happens you can essentially figure out how it'll happen if you just pay attention. But the happening part still needs to happen and takes effort on its own. And I for one, am happy, the setup phase is done. And am happy, I have very little idea of what's coming up.

I feel like the similarities between Nymphs and trolls are intentional. We know that Rose quite likes trolls and troll culture, she's sort of fascinated by it in the original Homestuck. So I like the idea that because this species was created by Rose, they're kind of troll coded. That said, I do think as we get deeper into them, the similarities will probably start to feel only superficial. I don't imagine Nymph society would look a lot like Alternian society.

To that end, not that I think Dirk has a distaste for trolls or anything, but I don't see him following that pattern, so I'm excited to see how different the Satyrs are.

One thing i did very much enjoy from the brief glimpses we can interpret from the few pages we have is how Rose manipulated certain aspects of their culture to appeal to her own biases. Theres the obvious fatalism as well as the whole "All prophecies come true" bit that really shows Rose's personality bleeding through (Especially when compared to Candy Rose's elaborate suicide plan that was thwarted due to something prophecy couldn't predict).

i reaaaalllyyyyyy like the fact that Ly'lac's central defining interest is slapstick comedy, and how seriously they take it. it's similar to when other homestuck characters in the past took objectively stupid shit way too seriously, but it's also cute and self-referential because homestuck uses slapstick comedy!

it's like, homestuck itself uses slapstick and silly bits to create moments that are genuinely tragic and simultaneously funny (for example jade's first death which leads to her godtiering and being able to exist for the rest of the story is a bunch of shaving cream exploding on her head), so it's genuinely cute it's ly'lac's major interest that they insist is very serious.

like, one of the pieces of media they're obsessed with is described by others as "They say its title is hard to pronounce. They say its characters are largely unlikeable, and the circumstances of their birth implausible" and ly'lac insists it's high art that nobody understands.

and that's, like, just homestuck, isn't it? more specifically epilogues/hs2. something absurd and kind of grotesque and and seemingly illogical to those who dislike it. and ly'lac is the fan who insists others just don't get it.

they're kind of like a variation on the homestuck fan archetype we've already seen in the comic, and that hsbc is focusing on.

I will say with the way that this update feels so og Homestuck, and that the forums are back up, this feels like 2009 all over again and i'm SO here for it!!! I love Ly'lac and what's been set up already. I hope she becomes so cool.

im just here to point out that the rug from yume nikki here. ok thats all. made me smile

It's very interesting being in a situation where we know so little about the logic of a species again. Like Ly'lac's name is clearly echoing Rose's "colour" name. But is it unique or a species wide thing? Questions like that are always fantastic to answer in time.

The nymphs looking like mixes of trolls and Rose is also pretty clearly the correct brief given they're recombined from her and all (Perhaps that's part and parcel of why they're a species of calamitous prophesy types?). Ly'Lac is a pretty entry level shot at that recombination given she's somewhat like Kanaya too...As stated previously seeing what the other Nymphs do with that design brief is truly fascinating.

Given we have the assumption of two other nymphs (probably female characters) and three satyrs (probably males) it's quite the wide panoply presenting.

We're also missing the last tag/chat handle of the six . Anyone care to take odds if that's revealed organically, next update or so or intentionally held back? And what that tag is? Simple deduction suggests it will be either CA or CG probably, although AD is also possible, if pattern breaking.

(And in a related bit of curiosity I'd also propose I'm terribly interested in seeing Yiffany's tag/handle as well given the likely ones, TT and GT are both very interesting story wise)

Oh and regarding "Set" and the egyptian pantheon. Good system to draw from. Similar but distinct from the Greek titanic and monsterous cycle.

I imagine we'll see Amut and Apep as well given, although it cannot be ruled out, Set is considered one of the "evil" gods or mythical forces of classic Egyptian mythology. If we see something like Horus or Ptah or Isis it's just Egyptian gods in general.

But then keeping with denizens being big end boss lookin monsters Amut, Apep and something like Sekhemet might be better choices.

Amut as a bit of google saving is the devourer of the impure hearts and a chimeric creature of Egypts classic predators, lion, crocodile and hippo. Apep is the giant serpant that seeks to consume Ra and, symbolically, eat the sun and end life. Sekhement is the war goddess that raged through egypt until sedated by a river of beer disguised as blood (and in doing so starting an Egyptian celebration festival)

@umbralPenultimate Apep has already been mentioned indirectly by the whole skaianet website timer thingy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

The supposed date that this would hit the earth, if it were to, is what the timer was counting down to.

Even though the old address of the site, https://www.skaianetsystems.com/ , now leads to blank nothing... The actual website can still be accessed at http://104.130.239.169/ (no https because no one has been updating the certs I guess)

That washes, Opticaldisc. Given that material was probably conceived of around the epilogue and original post canon team's tenure. As the new team is keeping to "The Main Beats" it stands to reason something like naming conventions of the denizens would be major enough, or indeed, easily adapted enough to be retained.

Great catch though!

Amut (there are several spellings for the particular entity) then becomes fairly sure to show up. Although needing six Egyptian monstrous entities isn't too big a jump I could also see Assyrian or Babylonian ones being used for familiarity's sake.

I'm terribly curious if Ly'lac's name was a product of the current team or was something set fairly early on. Even in an outline. It plays off Rose's colour/flower name but like so much, we only truly know what is just applicable to one character and what applies to the nymphs or "Delta Players" in general by seeing more of them. Another nymph at least. If they're named something like "Clo'va" or "li'lai" it certainly reveals itself rather quickly.

Note there is a decent chance Set is a Dual Reference to both the Egyptian Diety, and the Christian Figure, the third child of Adam and Eve.