When the sequal is actually better than the original

For my second book this tri, I decided to YOLO it and go with Insurgent. Y'know, that book that everyone has read at least once. It was amazing to me personally, and I liked it better than Divergent, which was a great book in itself (Alliegent though. yuck.). So I thought I'd do a quick run down between the two books.


Divergent:

• Unique plot, really makes you think about the personality aspect of it all
• Great diction/syntax, like all pretty great books do
• Cheesy love story (gotta love those)
• Lots of death. LOTS of it. Kinda sad actually.

Insurgent:

• Really builds off of Divergent, very smooth transition
• Adds a touch of realism with the betrayal of Caleb and all
• The love story feels a little more real in this one to me than in Divergent
• The death isn't emphasized, focuses more on the plot of escaping Erudite and planning that revolution.

This kinda made me realize how long it's been since I've read Divergent. Dang. I need to go back and read that. 

But from where I've started off again, the feels are real. Listen to Caleb here for a sec.

"'Tris,' he says, 'I'm your brother. You can tell me anything.'" (Roth 35)

UH HUH. YEAH RIGHT. YOU LITTLE BACKSTABBER D:

An Epic's Epilogue

Only 3 words I have for Homestuck right now; that was amazing.

Is getting 13000 points at Lazer Kraze amazing? Yes. Is acing exams amazing? You bet. But nothing can beat reading a comic this big again and picking up on details you missed.

I repeat, nothing. Nothing can beat this.

The first time I read this, I'll admit, I probably skipped half of it. Reason being is the text shows up in a "chat" log format that's hard to read at times. What if all of your texts were words to a book? Wouldn't that be a little hard to read as well?  But this time I actually sat down and read it through like I should of the first time and I can safely say my love for the story as a whole has come flooding back like a huge nostalgia wave.

How real the characters act is another thing I absolutely love. In other books the characters aren't easy to relate to. Take for example, Tris from Divergent. She's definitely a bold one, and we can appreciate her, but personally for me some of the things she did without really questioning them ahead of time seems kind of unrealistic. Like how she jumped down a pit for Dauntless when she first chose them. I don't think 99% of the population would go ahead and jump off a cliff like that to prove something. Either that or I'm an expert at living under a rock and this is a daily occurrence.

Because jumping off cliffs is totally safe and recommended for kids. Don't you dare read that disclaimer.

But I feel like I can actually relate to the kids in Homestuck. They're only a little younger than us at the very beginning, and where it ends up with the Alpha kids they're only a little older. Understandably, they freak out at first. They're not perfect. They have many, and I repeat, MANY flaws, and I feel like that that's us in today's world. We don't know what to do when faced with problems half the time, that's why we're not grown up adults in the world yet. If we knew everything then we should be out of our parent's hair, and I don't think half of us have taken a step to untangle us from that extremely comfortable nest. But that was these guys too; they were without warning chucked into 4 different planets basically with "save yourself" without any guidance except for little sprites for only a tiny amount of time. It's a surprise their session didn't crash and burn and they made something of it. They didn't get into fights, they didn't buckle under pressure. Two of the kids literally set a bomb at their feet and stayed there, knowing they were going to die. But that's the kind of limits we're pushed to when we're faced with a life or death situation. We go to radical ends, not knowing what it'll turn out as. I feel like Homestuck painted this picture extremely well.

^ Rose and Dave at the bomb before it blew up

Hopefully what I'm trying to say about the bomb is pretty clear in this picture. The tubes and everything are a part of the "doom device", so to speak. Yet they just stand there, looking at the time, literally facing their own inevitable death without flipping out and running away screaming. No, they sit there and count the seconds before they die in a calm manner. Everyone, if you knew you would die and not flip out in response, raise your hands.

....

....

Yeah that's what I thought. We're too human for that, our sense of fight or flight would kick in. Though I think a traumatic experience would affect that instinct. For example, Dave (pictured in the left) has seen many different dead versions of himself. And Rose (pictured in the right) was corrupted by outside forces, not to mention she was killed herself in a strife and had to get revived. After facing death that many times, I think most of us would grow numb to the idea of it, which the smooth transition between the fight and flight instinct and the degradation of it is done extremely well and smoothly.

Also, speaking of morals, there's a lot of moral dilemmas in this. I mean this is a life or death situation, do you kill your own pet to save a stranger's life? What's the ethics of replicating your friends and then sending them on meteors? The author does an extremely good job making the reader contemplate these kind of things and I honestly feel like I've grown as a person because I've read it, 100% this time. When Dave saw his brother killed by Jade's pet, he stated, "I guess it has been on my mind. Maybe I am supposed to be a hero and rise to the occasion because there seems to be this little persistent voice in my head nagging me about it, insisting someone's gotta pay. And it's hard for me to disagree," (Hussie 5603). All of this doom and destruction is going on around Dave, and all he does is sit there and contemplate relatively calmly about what his next course of action should be. Yet he's unsure. His consciousness and his better judgment are conflicting massive time, and he's gotta end up choosing a side. But the fact that we have to deal with our consciousness and our better judgment bickering at each other quite commonly only reflects what we think in our lives. What if we were in their shoes? Is it morally right? Does it have to happen regardless? Maybe I'm that oddball person who thinks way too deeply into things (I wouldn't be surprised with the amount of an oddball I'm already), but at least to me this really reflects back on my way of thinking.

I don't beg often, and yet I'm here on my knees praying for you to give it a chance. Please, PLEASE, go read it. I'll even give you a link right here. I implore you, it will be one of the best decisions you make in life. It starts out kind of slow, and the third intermission is a bit boring, but if you can make it through that then you won't regret it.

Well now that I have that done, do you guys have any recommendations for the next book I should read?

The Hemospectrum and Racisim: A Guide

A sad fact of life is that we have racisim in our lives. It's just human nature. But how Alternian society does it, I find a bit disturbing. Much worse than we ever had here on Earth.

Worst example I can think of for racism here is the Holocaust. The systematic killing of 6 million Jews. Genocide. Don't get me wrong, that's extremely awful, but when you force people for hundreds of years to be slaves to others because they have a "warmer" blood color per say rather than the "cooler bloods"? That takes the cake of awful. And to go out and conquer others' planets because of your say so? This is imperialism, genocide, and rasism all thrown together in a nice little happy pot of "wost society ever". One of the kids who live here's too ashamed to admit the blood running through his skin, even though it's the same exact color as you and I have.

Because
it's
mutant.

And seeing a mutant results in being "culled".

You see the lower ones, such as the red, orange, and yellow? Those are the ones getting oppressed. It's like a kingdom of sorts, but country wide and the fact that there are much harsher consquences for not following the status quoe than in a medieval society. They can't help their blood color. That's something they're born with. The kid I mentioned isn't even on this list, and if he would of lived a few more years on Alternia, he would of been culled due to his blood color being able to show in his eyes.

It's sad that these things keep reoccuring in our society and that it was a constant in a society such as Alternia. But the connection between our own racism with people's skin color and blood color on Alternia is too similar to ignore.

Cascade

That moment where everything comes together and makes sense. Ever had one of those? Like one of those where everything just works out right, luck's on your side, and afterwards you're wondering how it even worked out?

That was Cascade.

Cascade is where John created something called the "Scratch", which resets the universe and starts over with their guardians being the kids and the kids themselves turn into the guardians. Sounds like the kids are going to die, right? Wrong. Jade, Rose, and Dave all go god tier, and Jade saves all 4 of their planets, Skaia, John, and a battleship which she uses to send herself through the 4th wall.

The author literally made the 4th wall something in this. You didn't misread.

I mean, look at Jade! She is a literal hero in this, she saved pretty much everything, at those last few seconds. And PM finally became a major character in this with her and Bec (Bec's one of the main bad guys in this) as she takes a ring and somewhat transforms into a light version of the villian himself. This was so amazing, solving so many cliff hangers in a matter of minutes. I think all of this affected their character. Wouldn't a near death experience effect you like that? Mainly though, unlike more death experiences, I think this one gave all the kids a boost in confidence in themselves and a sense of unification. 

In short, I'm proud of these kids. Freaking amazing <3

Coming to terms with identity

So Dave, the guy obsessed with protecting his friends, says, “I’m not a hero. Bro was. John is. But I’m not.” ....What just happened!?

What a loaded quote. As I was reading, this stuck in my head. When coming in terms with Bro’s death, it was the first time we as readers actually saw his personality.  We are all somewhat insecure in some way, but Dave hid behind a cool persona the whole time. But just blatenly admitting it like that, to an alien troll girl who's obsessed with tastes and justice.

Then again, there are a lot weirder things that happen.

But overview aside, I’m actually kind of shocked Dave said this. I mean I can relate a lot with him wanting to be something more than I am at the current moment, so I know it’s a hard thing to come to terms with. And he came to terms right when he own guardian, his own dad figure died. If anything, I would of felt the need for revenge. To get back at the killer for what they did to them and what they did to me indirectly by killing that person I care about so much. But no, he just realizes he isn’t a hero. In a way, he is giving up part of his aspirations of the game, which I personally find a little upsetting, but still, out of any time, it was when something traumatic happened when he came to terms with his real identity. I think this is a pivotal moment for Dave as a character, as he just starts playing as himself for real starting now, and that realist outlook ends up saving his butt along with everyone else later.

Though he couldn’t take the sword out of his Bro’s body at least. Someone who would of gone up all smiles and removed it I’d consider clinically insane.

Just,no. 

God Tiers part 2

Classes. Ah man, this is the harder part of a god tier to define, but it’s kind of based off of medieval constructs. For example, there’s Page as a class. So that being said, here’s all 14 classes.

1.    . Page – *definition not 100%*
2.          Sylph – heals aspect
3.      Mage – either actively knows or is manipulated by aspect
4.      Knight – protects aspect
5.      Seer – passively knows aspect
6.      Maid – makes aspect
7.      Witch – actively manipulates aspect
8.      Prince – actively destroys aspect
9.         Bard – passively destroys aspect
10.     Thief – steals aspect for one’s own gain
11.     Rouge – steals from aspect/steals aspect from others and spreads it among friends
12.     Heir – embodies aspect
13.     Lord* - commands aspect
14.        Muse*- inspires aspect

Ignore 13-14 right now, but it’s a little confusing at first. I know the feeling; at first I’d sit there half confused on what was going on myself with all of this. Some of this is speculation, as they haven’t been perfectly defined. Example of this would be Mage and Page. But the class is the limitation on what you can do with the aspect itself. The active passive scale that exists is showing how active an aspect is compared to another. Like for example, Page is less active than Prince by a long shot, as Prince is one of the most active and Page one of the most passive. Passive itself is usually the aspect being used in the benefit of others while Active is generally used as the aspect being beneficial to the individual with it. So in a way, this does show the kind of people in our world. They help shape how we handle situations. While some of us are more destructive with our natures, others aren’t, and use their ability to help others.

However, they can turn the opposite of their aspect if they’re "heavily resistant to their trUe calling. or, if corrUpted in some way by an oUtside inflUence." (Calliope). I feel like this is like us rejecting our fate in real life. Usually, if we resist something too much, it turns into the exact opposite, something that we may or may not want considering, but usually it’s to an extreme that we’re shocked by as people.

In a basic, wrap up like conclusion, your title is basically how you use something you have (or have a lack of) to the best of your personal ability. Pretty cool, huh?

God Tiers (part 1)

I absolutely love God Tiers. It's the best thing when it comes to speculation that I can think of. I will literally spend days theorizing over different God Tiers, their powers, what they mean metaphorically in our world, ect.

The basic definition of a God tier is its class and it's aspect. For instance, let's take John. He's a Heir of Breath, where Heir is the class and Breath is the aspect. I'm going to go over the part that I think has more of a connection to our lives first, the aspects.

Out of the aspects, there's  twelve known ones as of now.

1. Breath (motion, freedom)
2. Blood (unity)
3. Light (knowledge, luck)
4. Void (secrets, protection)
5. Time
6. Space
7. Life
8. Doom (death or law/order)
9. Heart (positive emotion)
10. Mind
11. Hope
12. Rage (negative emotion)

Out of all of these twelve...elements, so to speak, I believe that they make up who we as humans are. We have Breath, which gives us a push to do things in our lives. On a more literal note, we can breathe with it. Blood gives us a support group, friends, people to fall back on. In addition, we kind of need blood to live. Light lets us shed "light", so to speak on a situation so it's basically our common sense. Also, in order to get through life we need luck to an extent. Void gives us the voice of retraint to hold ourselves back. Life is what lets us begin things, and in a way is related to Breath in the way that it lets new things begin. Doom is the lawful restraints we have to live under to live in society, and in addition, the death of life itself. Heart lets us feel emotionally and come to conclusions this way (pathos), while Mind lets us look at the facts and only come up with facts that way (logos). Hope is that far off distant goal we have that gives "Breath", while Rage is our way of being "human" and making mistakes. So excluding Space and Time, that's what lets humans be uniquely human.

Space and Time.... The status of our world now, and the change that happens to the world. These two things are what makes up our universe, and why they're so astronomically important to any given Sburb session or life as we know it. It's not just what breathes life into an object, it's the object itself. Space-time's the building blocks of our universe, and without those two, there'd be no existance of the rest.