Carapaces Are People Too

[thorondraco]

That's a fair observation, though seeing as the Carapacians in her neighborhood essentially raised her, it makes Roxy seem really pompous and rude and uncaring to make implications like "the carapaces are not people, MSPAR is different because MSPAR is like the Velveteen Chess Guy, because Chess Guys are not real people" to the people who fucking took care of her.

But this thread isn't about Roxy, it's about coming together and asserting that the Carapaces need to stop getting fucking shafted all the time, because this constant barrage of signals from Homestuck canon insisting that they are not and never were intelligent people on par with humans and trolls is making me extremely upset, and it just doesn't stop. I don't even understand why this is something the writing team is pushing so damn hard, I don't know why they're going out of their way in so many avenues to insist that the carapaces are not and never have been people. It feels like I'm being fucking gaslit at this point, because in spite of all the physical evidence that I can point to that proves that the carapaces are intelligent creatures on par with human beings and deserve to be treated appropriately, Hussie's commentary goes "lol no it was just game instinct lol" and then Roxy says shit like this and the writing team keeps calling WV the Mayor and only The Mayor.

Oh, uh, using "Roxy's town" was supposed to be like an adjective because "carapaces on earth" could describe beta exiles, the feral Carapacians in sea hitler's water apocalypse, or earth C which is just alpha earth but at a later point in time. And chess board is their whole aesthetic so using Roxy as kind of the only main difference was the only way to differentiate between the battle field (a huge chess board) and "Roxy's" town (a huge chess board)

It is stated (in homestuck) that the "chess guys" are not very calm unless they are given some sort of peace offering to calm them down (food, most likely pumpkins because of having the property of being very easy to appearify) and I'm sure that not everyone can be fully expressive of how they feel about feral Chess People when they are known to be drunk, were drunk, and is in a hungover state, with the first "person" besides them to actually speak a word and not chitter at them (whoops the second post became semi-about Roxy) Maybe I'm just trying to say any thing can be degraded over time to the point that people (unintentionally probably) lose sight of what the purpose of it was in the first place. becoming jaded can happen to anyone or anything and sometimes it might be awhile before things get better, but holding on to the hope that things will get better and actively (and constructively) working towards a solution, with what ever power you have little or large, is all one can really do.

wow, did I just write that, um, Carapacians are great, Spades Slick deserved better, PM gives me hope for better care for mail and packages, and i think this really got away from me for a moment there

I think a big issue is that the Carapacians are cosmically designed to be shafted. They are more advanced than the consorts but they are created by Sburb to be the guys who get their ass kicked basically. The white ones will always lose no matter what, and the black ones have to lose in order to complete the game.
Its very possible that the carapacians might lack some quality that 'people' have in paradox space.

Course for roxy in this incarnation the very first voice she heard here was the Reader's, and she got like insanely overwhelmed. She didn't have the means to communicate with them so its harder for them to see them as 'people' when they don't seem able to talk. They are basically bug peeps.

Either way they seem to have more respect for them now that they realize 'oh wait they are sapient'. And the Mayor.. yea he is awesome. just awesome.

[thorondraco]

I played Myststuck and the expository messages left by the salamanders were really sad. They're created just to die, to further a main character's personal growth. It's tragic shit because they're born from a game that doesn't care about them. (and the story not bothering to care about them in spite of the game sucks worse)

We never really get to see examples of turtles or iguanas talking. That sucks.

I think it's wrong to say Carapacians aren't people, even if they behave in ways that are alien to us. I heard that the reference to exact senses of measurement are a reference to them being based on ants, so that's more of an instinct, but they use this sense to solve puzzles on a computer screen, which is very cool. I mean, they're also people in the sense that Vriska's mind control works on Carapacians. Vriska also controlled Hussie somehow? I don't know what that says about her mind control only partially working on humans.

I think they carapaces lack dialogue because they're telepathic? Consuelo realized that carapacians wouldn't be able to speak human language because they lack lips, and i guess telepathy would be preferable over having a speech impediment. But that doesn't explain the radios. Maybe they speak at frequencies that are too high for most to hear? This is confusing.

I hope this doesn't count as goofiness? VASKA has a point about consorts and I don't know why you think of that as "making fun" of carapaces.

There are only three carapacians with lips apparrently two. Noir, the brute, and the dignatary. Not even the tiny dude has lips.

That or carapacians communicate very simplistically with gestures and body language... its hard to say.
It is even possible that they don't qualify as 'people' by the standards of paradox space. Like they lack... or worse, denied a quality.

[foreverFlummoxed]

Bottom of the line really is: the game is evil and doesn't give a SHIT about anybody, not players, not it's poor chess-based people made to give the came urgency, not consorts, not guardians, not anybody, it only needs to perpetuate itself into another universe for whatever reason.

Make universe, kill off the main planet of life and have that planet's inhabitants make a new universe, then proceed to kill that new one in the exact same way. Whoever gets the shaft, pff who cares, I'm the universe makin' game BITCH.

(this post was made as an over-exaggeration and simplification, don't think about it too hard)

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

oh wait jack kissed the black queen i guess they do have lips nvm ialewrtjlwe

[calamityCons]

If Paradox Space thinks they “dont count as people” then I’m not happy with this. In the first four Homestuck acts the Carapaces were a major part of the plot. A Carapace was the main antagonist. WV had a PTSD nightmare. AR sacrificed himself nobly to save the life of a child. PM had so much character development.

I would really like it is Paradox Space was proven wrong, and the carapaces reveal that they are people too in spite of the shit hand that was dealt them. I disagree with pSpace’s opinions and I would prefer it if it stopped.

Also where the fuck did you get the idea that they dont have lips? I never said that. Carapaces canonically don’t have NOSES, they clearly have lips in every single picture of them. If they did not have lips they would be baring their teeth all the time the way cherubs do.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

damn i remembered wrong my bad

the noses thing is weird for you to assume because there's literally one one character who is consistently drawn with a nose so how would you know who doesn't have a nose

Bottom of the line really is: the game is evil and doesn't give a SHIT about anybody, not players, not it's poor chess-based people made to give the came urgency, not consorts, not guardians, not anybody, it only needs to perpetuate itself into another universe for whatever reason.

Make universe, kill off the main planet of life and have that planet's inhabitants make a new universe, then proceed to kill that new one in the exact same way. Whoever gets the shaft, pff who cares, I'm the universe makin' game BITCH.

(this post was made as an over-exaggeration and simplification, don't think about it too hard)

ahaha don't tell consuelo that he still wants to think sburb is a happy fun kid's isekai where everyone should be perfect and lack fatal flaws

[calamityCons]

Ben what the fuck???? That is not at all what I want. Don’t put words in my mouth.

Also. Fucking. There is a panel where WV senses the scent of opened food, and the narration explicitly mentions his “nonexistent nostrils.”

[TomDickAndHarry]

I can't tell if those last two posts are ironic, but please take that goofiness elsewhere, this is not the place for you to make fun of the opinion that Carapaces Should Have More Respect.

@foreverFlummoxed, Carapace and Carapacian are interchangeable terms in-comic so I use them interchangeably. Also, yeah, Problem Sleuth 2 is basically just a series of small joke panels in the Bonus HS2 updates, with no relevance to anything at all and yet it still requires money to see it.

I get that this is a very sensitive topic for you, but I'd rather not have my opinion (which was agreeing that sburb characters could do with more attention) dismissed as "goofiness" just because you don't care to demonstrate reading comprehension.

[VASKA]

I can't tell if those last two posts are ironic, but please take that goofiness elsewhere, this is not the place for you to make fun of the opinion that Carapaces Should Have More Respect.

I'm not being sarcastic. I loved the consorts, and I do consider them kind of a "package bundle" with carapacians. They're both comic relief that had real personality in the earlier acts, with consorts being more "silly" as a general rule and carapacians kind of being the elves of homestuck, epic fantasy race.

I just want my goofy video game people back.

[calamityCons]

That’s fair. I’ve had people minimize my feelings for the carapaces by equating them to the consorts before, so i must have overreacted. I think it’s true that a lot of the engaging earlier stuff was discarded going forward in a really unsatisfying way. It wasn’t fun seeing the consorts get the shaft when they were littered throughout the entire environment of Act 4’s walkaround.

[foreverFlummoxed]

I get that this is a very sensitive topic for you, but I'd rather not have my opinion (which was agreeing that sburb characters could do with more attention) dismissed as "goofiness" just because you don't care to demonstrate reading comprehension.

I think it was just that since the topic IS about Carapacians the comment about sprites was a bit out of nowhere, not saying you were in the wrong in saying that, but it was a very short sentence that you said instead of actually explaining WHY you felt sprites were similar to the issues presented here.

[TomDickAndHarry]

Fine, I'll acknowledge it was unclear, sorry. I just meant that they're all aspects of the game that I guess I feel the post-canon content ignores? But yeah, I'll save that particular gripe for elsewhere.

[luigi]

[homestuck fandom is worst fandom]

[thorondraco]

Bottom of the line really is: the game is evil and doesn't give a SHIT about anybody, not players, not it's poor chess-based people made to give the came urgency, not consorts, not guardians, not anybody, it only needs to perpetuate itself into another universe for whatever reason.

Make universe, kill off the main planet of life and have that planet's inhabitants make a new universe, then proceed to kill that new one in the exact same way. Whoever gets the shaft, pff who cares, I'm the universe makin' game BITCH.

(this post was made as an over-exaggeration and simplification, don't think about it too hard)

Sburb is without question immensely amoral but seemingly pragmatic. The destruction of a single planet and species leading to the creation of an entire universe. even if a million worlds and species are destroyed, a single universe would make up for that loss.

Though as of late the pragmatism seems to be falling way to something more sinister. Question is DOES it have to be this way? Does a planet HAVE to be wasted like this? Is it really all necessary?
Worse when that whole ultimate self sickness comes up. Without an option to reinforce their bodies and the power that comes from it, it seems as if the option is not granted to eliminate loose ends and prevent someone from gaining that power.

[thorondraco]

THANKS KATE

You know, I try to respect the opinions of people who take issue with how the new homestuck content is going, but that's really hard to do when they don't even give enough of a fuck to pay attention to who's writing what.

???

She's in charge of Homestuck^2 it's not a stretch to assume she was in charge of Pesterquest. And when I found out the truth, I corrected myself. So I am paying attention obviously. Your post makes no sense and is rude

From what i have heard while Kate is the 'head' she is also Aysha's partner in a shared studio called 'snakes solutions'. And they say they work more asa group with no main head, short of Hussie probably okaying what they do. He gives em a lot of freedom.

So its inaccurate to blame kate for issues you see. Fuck it was neither kate nor aysha who even wrote it, it was Lalo hunt.

[luigi]

[what a stupid argument who cares whether they have noses or not]

[foreverFlummoxed]

Guys, please don't get this thread locked, discussing any specific writer's ability to do their job was not the purpose of this thread in any capacity.

[calamityCons]

Yeah, please stop derailing this thread. I just wanted to talk about the carapaces and share reasons for why the current way they’re being treated is not so good.

[luigi]

[god so stupid why do i ever even open my mouth]

[calamityCons]

The discussion about whether carapaces have noses or lips or not is completely fucking irrelevant, I'm just mad at Ben for putting words in my mouth and mischaracterizing my position. Especially with the idea that I "want Sburb to be happy go lucky where nobody has problems or fatal flaws."