July 1-7 2025 2010
AA is a strange individual. Why is she she introduced in this different art style?
apocolypseArisen a.k.a Aradia Megido
Once had an interest in archeology which is what brought her to the Mystic Ruins. Which she destroyed out of boredom. She is another character that hears voices but hers are specificly those of the dead and her ancestors. Comparing this to Rose and Terezi we get some interesting connetions. Terezi and Aradia are aware of this power, with it being a norm before the game begins. Rose and Terezi communicate with a single being directly, while Rose and Aradia communicate with multiple (the gods/dead). Rose and Aradia have the greatest connection and understanding of the games workings though at different stages. We do know that Rose did have a subconcious connection to the dream scape/ doomed self. This connects with the knowledge we gained about how kerenels are drawn to the dead and doomed. Perhaps Aradia’s game powers are adjacent to thoses of a Seer? Are Seers drawn to Doom and the other drawn to Death?
Aradia was part of the LARP accicdent we keep hearing about which killed her lusus making it a catalyst to why shes at the ruins. Here she found the MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY that brings the destruction of the trolls, the Great Undoing, which shes a-ok with starting for some reason. Shes tricked Sollux into cobbling together SGRUB, which from the comment is SBURB but bad. Which I think isnt fair. One was created by a dedicated team of programmers and the other one (1) guy with nothing but translated glyphs.
Her sylladex is a ouija board, which is actually a really great way to compare the alphabet to, you know, our English one. And from the way it is shown is written from right to left. And I guess flipped. The numbers, however, are exactly the same as our Roman ones, so.
Hey, we know this computer! Somehow, it must have gotten here from Spades Slick since its stated it was found in the ruins. Grim is messaging Aradia, which brings the most amount of emotion to her that we have seen since her proper introduction. I think in general Aradia is a very apathetic person. Obviously she hasn't been like this forever. It was just that recent accident that caused this change. I don't wanna say she has depression, but a lot of her mannerisms are similar to someone who has gone through or is in a depressive state.
Grim is trying to convince her not to go ahead with letting Sol start the game, but obviously that's not gonna happen. So someone did know what the game was actually about, but not the guy making the game?
I do find it interesting that 'tick tock' is on the same page as Aradia staring at the Felt computer. There's a connection there and I'd need to know what it is.
We get another convo with Arachnid, who is a confirmed she. Don't know why she's got to be a secret though, it's kinda random. She's much friendlier with Aradia, still steamrolls, but with how Aradia is, it rolls off so easily with not a blink. Serious, though? Why was it shown like that? Every other time we either don't get visual or we just get a screen name. Like the next page is a complete visual of Arachnid. She's got glasses with an eye patch, I guess? Unless it's like a broken pair of sunglasses for some reason. A spider web wallpaper, robot arm and horns that kind of sort of remind me of a scorpion. You know, like one is the claw, and the other is the tail. Fitting for someone with a Scorpio sign.
Sol comes back from his freak out revelations that Aradia dropped to apologize and jump right into playing. Aradia is having none of that.
We get to see perhaps how Aradia was able to manipulate Sol, getting him to the window and knocking him out with psychic powers. We then time skip alongside him to right before his own meteory death. Unfortunately for him, he is the last to enter. He does, however, do some behind the scenes (dreams) groundwork, semi similar to Jade. More bad news is he's eaten the mind honey, which I guess overpowers his psionics and kills his lusus.
We skip back to the cave girl!
arsenicCatnip a.k.a Nepeta Leijon
Caves can apparently also be hives. Nep is not fond of dangerous rp, so is not part of the group involved in the accident. Like Dave, she draws comics but more personal slice of life.
Her lusus is a cat which works great with her Leo sign. And she has just the coolest Wolverine esque gloves! Probably the most insane thing about her introduction is seeing Ponce De Leon buried in cave rubble.
Her computer is reminiscent of Jade's Pictionary modus, but does not function as such. Karkat happens to be trolling at this time. I love the duality of the grouch who goes along with the weirdness of his friends. He's gonna gripe the whole time, but he's gonna try. We get to see the red teams lay out in order of entry: confirmed- Karkat, Terezi, Gamzee, Tavros. Pending Nepeta, then Grim, if mystery man allows it.
We don't have to wait too long to find out. Jump to this guy that everyone has seemed to have a problem with, much like Arachnid, is shrouded in darkness. We don't get a payoff for him however. Mr. Mystery is the engineer troll or centaursTesticles.
I have mixed feelings on this guy.
On the one hand there's a weird imbalance to the dynamic where CT comes off as an overbearing, controlling, stick-in-the-mud, obsessed with blood (and I guess manners) but for as frustrated as she gets Nep, doesn't take it to heart. In a strange way they complement each other which ties into her intro. Nep says she pacifies him, which can be seen when she gets him to break from the crazy serious rants, and he grounds her as seen in Nep's convo with Tav. CT is the reason Nep wasn't part of the larp group accident. There's obviously something in the dynamic we are missing much like before we met Dave properly.
Even still, it's kind of hard to read because so many people have a problem with this guy but we have a character who knows he's a problem, but still finds him okay. I guess those kinds of friendships do exist in real life so it 's not that far of a reach, but I feel like we need to know more about this whole blood system to really understand.
Either way, Nep ends up apologizing to Tav about not being his server player to join the blue team. Tav obviously is the most chill about this. With a reminder of those times we finally flash back to the accident.
We don't get a definitive timeline of when exactly this occurred, but we do get to see boy skylark Tav and the name for EXTREME ROLE PLAYING, FLARP.
From the information weve been gathering Team Charge is Aradia and Tavros while Team Scourge is Terezi and Arachnid. FLARP works as one person campaigns designed by a CLOUDER to create virtual simulations. These simulations however operate in the real environment so any damage to the physical self is real.
Aradia is alot more animated in this conversation which is in line with her own personality change. Theres a brief conversation between the two which informs us that Tavros' costume is probably not a coincidence. Theres been lots of connections between both sessions so of course theres a class in this virtual game that matches Johns.
For reasons still unknown Arachnid really does not like Tav. This game that she has set up is ridiculously hard. Poor guy is literally at the edge of a cliff. There's no reasoning with her, she desperately wants Tav to make a probably stupid decision. Tav on the other hand does have a brain so he tries to get Aradia and Terezi to help him out. Unnfortunately neither one is answering.
Somehow, Arachnid creates a projection of herself right in front of Tav. When she doesn't get her way, she uses a similar psychic skill to Aradia to control him into doing what she wants. And what is that you might ask? To fly. Fly right off that cliff. It's a perverse reversal of the previous panel we've seen of Tav on Prospit I don't know if her goal was to actually kill him, but luckily that fall didn't kill him.
For some reason, he thinks it's prudent to contact Karkat, who oh so eloquently responds with nothing but insults.
So that's half of the accident mystery solved, but now, the other half comes into play. What's going on with Aradia and Terezis side?
Jumping to the semi-present, around the time when Karkat is howling about the toilet, we see a conversation between Kar and Arachnid.
This conversation... it's a lot and I don't mean like it actually has anything to say. It's just a dick measuring contest for some reason with Arachnid really trying to get on Kars nerves and Kar being his normal prickly self. The only things that we get out of it are there's a truce we don't know about and Kar probably hit a sore point about Arachnid's powers.
That out of the way we finally see CT in the flesh.
...
I quickly want to get away from this situation. Why are those posters on his walls?!!?
Narrator saves us and takes us to glimpse the last troll. Here we are underwater with the only things of note being a trident, what looks to be swim goggles and the pisces symbol on a coronet.
