Character Fulfillment

A Health of Information was a better episode than its comic counterpart. The episode was probably meant to air first, but the comic came out before it, leading to some confusion (at least on my part - I didn't know who Cattail was, and the comic acted like he was an already established character). In the comic, Twilight wanted to find a plant that could have ground-breaking medical and magical properties, and she was so focused on getting it that she stupidly and unnecessarily risked her life to get it. The comic is heavy-handed with its message, as she continues to beat herself up over it longer than she reasonably should. In the episode, Fluttershy unnecessarily (but understandably) risked her health to find a cure for Zecora since she felt bad about putting her in the situation that got her sick in the first place (she basically got Vileplume'd). At first I thought Twilight was out of character, seeing as how she's gone without sleep to find information before, but maybe she was speaking from experience when she was telling Fluttershy to take care of herself, since it led to Flutters being in a three-day coma (This Escalated Quickly). Fluttershy did interrupt her baking competition with Spike, and the expression on her face when she saw how sick Zecora was was similar to the Mentally Advanced version of her thinking, "Well, shit."  

I've been reading over some essays on Homestuck Classpects and how they relate to each other. I realized that when some of the kids prototyped themselves, they ended up with versions of themselves they didn't like - their Shadow selves, their Personas. Arquiussprite (Dirk's auto-responder fused with an Equius sprite) is Dirk's Shadow; at least the responder is, and the addition of the horse-loving macho man Equius only added to Dirk's ordeal. Jasprosesprite (Rose's sprite fused with her cat Jaspers) is Rose's Shadow; like Dirk, the addition of Jaspers only adds another layer for Rose to deal with. Davepetasprite (Dave's sprite fused with Nepeta's sprite) is Dave's Shadow; he has to deal with another version of himself being tempered by Nepeta, who merged with him to steal his heart (not unlike Persona 5). Jadesprite (dead Dream Jade) is Jade's Shadow, whom she hates for being selfish because she's still sad and scared from being killed. Nannasprite is Jane's other self quite literally, as John's Nanna is her in another reality. She looks to her for the guidance she never got from the likes of Gamzee. Brain Ghost Dirk is Jake's Persona, Jake having summoned him into being during a time of crisis. John and Roxy don't have them because they don't have other selves in the form of prototyped sprites, either by their own doing or someone else's. Given that Homestuck wasn't written with Persona in mind, it's not surprising that the similarities end there. There are also the magnificent Homestuck Tarot cards. Again, these only feature the Beta kids and Beta trolls along with NPCs and villains from their sessions. John's major arcana is The Hanged Man, Rose is featured as The High Priestess, and Dave is The Fool. Jade only appears by herself in the minor arcana, but given that she is a Space player, she could reasonably be The World. If I had to guess what the others could be, I'd say Jake is The Hermit, Jane is The Wheel of Fortune, Roxy is Temperance, and Dirk is The Lovers. I am, of course, probably wrong. For instance, Dirk could be The Chariot and Jake could be The Magician, but the first two made more sense to me.

Normura has reportedly said that he plans to tie up the storylines centered around the old Organization XIII members. If true, this is great news.