Cool And New

Hope you are all staying safe out there during this pandemic.

But as I have recently noticed a comment asking about this blog, I should make a notice here that most CaNWC material I am maintaining right now is mostly restricted to the Cool and New Wiki.

I have to say, I am mostly happy with the way my theories have worked out. The Enhancement was confirmed, and even the name was adopted in canon. 

There are still a few major mysteries at this point that have not been explored. We have a reasonable understanding of who the demons of darkness and color are, even if we only see their hand and tentacle respectively. We still don’t know who player 4 is, but at this point the possibilities have been explored and we are mostly waiting for the canon reveal. We know which trolls are players and which are not. We know their classpects.

Before I had been analyzing mysteries that I felt were implied by CaNWC. For example, at the start of CaNWC it was natural to assume that this was normal Homestuck turned shitty. That’s just a natural assumption both for the reader, and it matches Rose’s own impression. But certain narrative details didn’t make sense unless something like the Enhancement theory was correct. How do we explain Rose recognizing Dabe as having been gone for a month? How can Hecka Jef and Swet Bro already know Jhon?

While before these were hidden elements, they are now plot points. Characters themselves openly recognize and comment on these details.

This isn’t to complain, of course. I love the direction CaNWC continues to go, and the work put into it. I get legitimately pumped every time a new update comes, even these years later. But it is to say this blog is less relevant now. More useful work is done on the Cool and New Wiki trying to track what is happening, and some more minor elements of theorycrafting.

Some exceptional art by ackro for the latest CaNWC album.

So this is going to be my first non-Homestuck post here. I usually try to keep to that theme so people know what they’re getting and not get bogged down by politics or whatever else. But this is rather important to me personally, and we likely won’t get a better time to address it, so I’ll make the effort. This isn’t a theory post or anything though, it’s just a goodbye to a company I once knew.

One year ago today I posted my Classpect Analysis, my first serious attempt at theorycrafting for CaNWC. Now seems like the perfect time then to look back and see what has changed. What old questions have been answered, and what cool and new questions have been raised?

Classpects

I am absolutely delighted by the progress that has been made here. My original classpect post has essentially been confirmed in full, and we’ve made plenty of new discoveries as well. Jhon is the Boss of Wheels, Hecka is the Mus of Time, and Rose is the Lord of Space. Beyond this, Lord Spanish/Lord English has also been confirmed as the Lord of Time, and Papaya/Kanaya has been confirmed to be the Sylph of Space.

Hecka has also made significant progress in inspiring people for war, even convincing Dabe to fight against his daddy. He’s also demonstrated an intuitive understanding for all matters related to time, showing an even greater understanding than a sprite. As yesterday’s update demonstrated, Hecka is able to skillfully use this in the fight itself, creating stable time loops on the fly.

Rose continues to follow down the path of the Lord of Space, giving a greater analysis of the Corruption and working tactically off of that plan. Jack Noir has also offered an analysis of Rose which is very similar to my own.

Lalonde isn’t someone you want to cross. It’s bad enough that each of the heroes has the ability to manipulate an aspect... Not to mention that she now has the horrorterrors doing her bidding, and she has an above-average intelligence, even for a woman uncorrupted. And you’re not one to give out compliments lightly.

If anyone can get this awful reality back to normal, it’s her.

New difficulties have arisen for each player though, and the bids for power will be intense from here on. Hecka Jef’s main goal of killing Jhon has already been completed, so for this moment he’s fighting for nothing. Rose has been officially recognized as a horrorterror herself, so her command over their entire forces is now more explicit, but they are also clearly preoccupied with their own fight for survival against Lord English. Jaed is also likely going to lose control of Prostit soon, facing challenges from both the Blapck Quen and Fresh Whyte Germysprite. But Jack is also pushing to gain control of Durst himself, which may gain Rose new control over the Dark Kingdom. Major changes to the balance of power are due.

Enough with the old, on with the new. Jhon has been given the title ‘Boss of Wheels.’ Since this is a fanon class and aspect, instead of using the classpect to analyze Jhon, we will use Jhon to understand the class and aspect.

The most obvious thing about the title is of course that "Boss of Wheels” is essentially a rewording of “RollerCoaster Tycoon.” When Jhon did the ‘wheely thing,’ he caused a roller coaster to rescue him from lava, seeming to simply will it into existence.  Bg’ogubmom’ibulsprite explicitly confirms that ‘control of theme park rides’ is a power of the Boss of Wheels.

The aspect ‘Wheels’ should be taken as referring to roller coasters, or possibly any kind of transportation. Taking it even more broadly, it could even be taken to mean ‘velocity,’ fitting in with time and space as a fundamental force. Or perhaps it is meant to represent technological progress and advancement, as the invention of the wheel often marks the dawn of civilization.

Wheels are a common symbol across many cultures, but the most famous is the Wheel of Fortune. The Rota Fortunae represents the ever changing and tumultuous nature of fate, spun at random by Fortuna, the goddess of luck. Dynasties are built and they collapse based on its movements.

This concept was adopted into the tarot deck as the tenth card of the Major Arcana, representing destiny, fortune, and success, and reversed represents troubles and negative forces outside of your control. Incidentally, the Homestuck tarot deck shows a god-tier John looking up from his planet as Skaia.

And, of course, the Wheel of Fortune was also adopted as a popular game show where people solve hangman-style word puzzles to win money. A little less mystical, that one, but it strengthens the “money” theme.

Jhon’s own destiny in saving the economy of the Land of Dollers and Danger from President Obana. The LODAD economy is centered around the millions of small businesses that populate it, which are now facing a depression under Obana’s rule. Jhon’s quest will be to become an extremely powerful business owner and build a theme park so awesome it will save the economy before facing Obana in the Oval Offace. So obviously fortune and wealth play a big part of Jhon’s life already.

Jhon’s class as Boss also takes a distinctly economic focus. A boss of course refers to a supervisor, someone in charge who manages a business, directing their employees. The word boss was taken from the Dutch word baas, meaning ‘master.’  Looking at the synonym of tycoon a bit more, while the English definition simply means a powerful person in an industry, the word itself is a corruption of the Japanese word ‘taikun’ or ‘great lord,’ referring to a shogun.

An important question here is whether a Boss would be a standard class or a master class. The word itself certainly wouldn’t be out of place as a master class, except perhaps for breaking with the Medieval theme, but it’s unclear if master classes could work like that. Calliope certainly seems to indicate that there are only two master classes, and marks them as distinct for being the furthers on the passive/active scale. If a Boss is a master class, what is it’s pair, if it has one, and what relation does it have to other classes? It could also be a standard class of course, the existence of which  beyond the twelve we know having always been a solid maybe.

Looking at Jhon’s behavior, this class is also likely connected to Jhon’s role as a ‘daddy’ in CaNWC. Jhon is considered the daddy of Dabe Stidrer, Momi, Dadd before he met Dacronian Dignity, and made two independent offers to be a daddy to two different crocodiles mere moments after meeting them. LODAD might also be a reference to this, being the Land of DAD.

I would argue that Boss is an active class, assuming that scale applies, possibly with an interpretation of ‘manager of their aspect’ or ‘one who manages via their aspect.’

Interestingly, a video game boss is typically the main antagonist of a series. o has explicitly stated that he’s already building up Rose’s side as being the villains of the series.

Rose’s Time Powers

In addition to her space powers, Rose has been shown to have some degree of control over time. At the moment there is little explanation for this, although we do know that it is not part of her power as Lord of Space. AR and Bg’ogubmom’ibulsprite both seem to be aware of the source of these powers and imply that Rose will discover this source during her quest. As of yet we do not even know what her quest is though, which makes theorizing about it rather difficult.

It is worth noting that Rose’s time power is marked by her signature color, while her space powers uses the traditional green sun shade of green. The fact that it’s her color does seem to indicate that it is some kind of innate ability, or at least one tailored to Rose specifically.

Contrast this to Hecka Jef’s own symbol, which is marked with the Time red, rather than his more pinkish red.

Any answer to this question will likely be of o’s own invention, and certainly doesn’t seem to match any existing Sburb mechanics. The closest incident that comes to mind would be items related to an aspect, such as Caliborn using the Ring of Void, or John using the Fear No Anvil, but those aren’t exactly innate. For the moment I will simply concur with Jack’s own conclusion that this has to be cheating.

For the sake of sheer speculation, I’m going to guess that Rose got the time powers from Lord English in some kind of exchange, or perhaps as a reward, for freeing him and the rest of the Felt from the corruption. Rose has been confirmed as a Lord of Space, so I’m standing by my own classpect analysis to say that she will be the explicit cause of why some characters have been enhanced. As a Lord of Time, it could make sense that Lord English would grant her time powers even before she makes the exchange.

Troll Players

The next bit of news is that we have learned that Nepeta is indeed trolling the humans, and we can see her corrupted handle. This leaves Eridan and Feferi as the odds one out as the only two characters that haven’t had their handles revealed.

Of course this isn’t definitive proof that they are the two non-player trolls. In fact, it’s basically nothing. If Dabe can be in the human session without being a player, the trolls might have brought the two odd ones out with them as well. Still, it’s best to keep track of these things. Plus we already know that Eridan is, ahem, tied up at the moment anyways, which is a much better reason to think he’s out.

Considering that the background for Act 5 contains all twelve astrological symbols, we should expect to see the full cast of trolls.

Coulor and Darknes

We finally have some indication as to why the trolls are harassing the humans. According to Kraket, the reason they are looking for vengeance is because their “winners door” has been stolen, which I am happy to say I predicted.

Unlike what I predicted however, Kraket claims they are still being killed by a pair of demons from Earth, one of color and the other of darkness. In addition, Kraket extends this blame to Dabe, even though he’s not a player, claiming that he has known both demons for years, and emphasizes Hecka Jef’s blame over others.

In canon, Karkat never had a good grasp on how long a year was meant to be, so who knows how long he’s really talking about, but it’s fair to say that this is significant.

Lord English makes the most sense for being the Demon of Color, especially considering we already know he has the door, but that leaves an obvious problem with the rest of Kraket’s description. Dabe doesn’t know Lord English. He likely knows Lil Cal, but that’s a fairly weak connection. Caliborn is technically from Earth, but not from the session that the trolls are viewing.

The evidence so far also heavily indicates that Caliborn is indeed still Lord English. We know that Lord English is the Lord of Time from another session, that he leads the Felt, that Lil Cal exists, that the Cairo Overcoat exists, and that it travels through time via sarcophagus.

The Demon of Color might still be some other minion or version of Lord English, like Union Jack in Homestuck. This makes both Dabe’s Bro and the Big Man likely candidates.

The Demon of Darkness on the other hand could work for Rose, further contrasting her to the Lord of Time. Her connection to the Horrorterrors is already well established. Assuming it’s not her personally though, a few more options open up for who this could be since the Queen’s Ring turns people into creatures with the powers of the head of the noble circle.

The fact that Hecka Jef prototyped Rose’s grimoire also makes Kraket’s blame all the more appropriate. That’s an action that very explicitly puts the blame on him.

The bigger difficulty with this theory is that the Queen’s Rings do not work on humans, which makes it difficult to see who Dabe could have known all his life, yet still use its power. One possible answer to this is that since each ring is also prototyped with Dabe’s life-long friend Germy, Kraket may be placing the blame on him. So while a carapacian will still be wearing the ring, Kraket will blame Germy.

Final Thoughts

The coolest and newest webcomic has updated once again, and this time with Rose producing her own walkthrough on events.

This update mostly serves as a recap, which o indicates above. Rose recounts the details of her adventure so far and we get to see a bit more of her perspective on the situation.

This mostly gives us some of the smaller details, quite a few of which I am happy to have predicted.

Firstly, the Corruption is now officially called... the Corruption. So that’s nice.

Secondly, two hours have apparently passed since the comic began.

Thirdly, the “slow transition” idea I argued is correct. Enhanced characters only slowly come to realize the state of the world around them.