Pink Sun - Blog Posts

The Third Scratch

BladekindEyewear has a theory that there will be a third Scratch, one in Caliborn’s session. While I’m not completely sold on it being necessary (and I disagree on the events that will play out if it happens), thematically, a Third Scratch makes sense, and evidence does support it.

Three scratches across Gamzee’s face:

Dave’s game glitching, making it unplayable and unwinnable:

Time to reset for the third time this hour.

> Dave: Reset.

So, if a third Scratch will indeed occur, what can we extrapolate?

We know a Scratch Construct is different between sessions.

It will always be an edifice of similarly cryptic design, located on the planet that is home to the Hero of Time. Its environment dictates the nature of its construction.

The Trolls’ construct is the Cardinal Movement, which looks similar to Aradia’s time machine music boxes. It also reflects the Land of Quartz and Melody, Aradia’s planet. Damara must have the same (or similar) planet as Aradia.

  The Kids’ construct is the Beat Mesa, which matches Dave’s emblem and his time tables. It also fits with the gears and tech theme of his planet.

  That just leaves Caliborn, the Time player of the third session. And what’s the theme not of his planet, but his entire session and character? Billiards.

Caliborn’s session includes a planet representing each pool ball. Notoriously missing is a Cue Ball planet.

What if Caliborn’s Scratch Construct is an entire Cue Ball planet, and we haven’t seen it yet? Or seen it in its final form, anyway. Rather than being ON his planet, it IS a planet.

Two likely candidates are Caliborn’s planet (Earth), or the Land of Heat and Clockwork, Dave’s planet.

  (Personally, I love the idea of LOHAC, and its transformation resembling a cue ball.)

During a typical Scratch, once the construct’s surface is scratched, it will head toward Skaia.

  Except Caliborn’s session no longer has a Skaia. However, recall Skaia transformed into a black hole. The black hole Caliborn uses to sink the pool ball planets!

I predict Caliborn’s Scratch will involve scratching the surface of a Cue Ball planet and then sinking it into the black hole that was formerly Skaia. In billiards, pocketing the cue ball is called a scratch. How perfect is that?

TT: This terminology can be very literal sometimes.

What do else do we know about Scratches?

Its power is dangerous, and is meant to be utilized only in emergencies such as yours. TT: You mean, in sessions where victory is no longer possible? Yes. […] TT: Then, it's like a panic button for the players to push once they realize the cause is lost.

Only in this case, replace “session” with “reality.” It sounds like this could describe the situation the heroes are in, with Lord English wreaking havoc throughout Paradox Space. An even greater emergency would be after Vriska begins the process of the Green Sun’s destruction, which has the potential to lead to the Big Crunch of Paradox Space.

Within the context of Rose and Doc Scratch’s exchange, “victory” means ability to successfully create a new universe, which is the goal of a typical session. However, Caliborn’s session is unique and extreme—a dead session. Its goal isn’t to create a new universe. In all likelihood, it has some connection with all of Space-Time, all of reality itself. A Scratch for a dead session would be employed for a different, more extreme reason.

TT: What exactly does the Scratch do, then? It resets the game. […] The release of temporal energy will be quite massive. This is a hard reset. It will reboot the conditions in your universe well before you began playing the game. You will have lived different lives after the reset. The different initial conditions will ideally lead to a more favorable scenario in the new session. Unfortunately, you will have no memory of anything that has happened in the session you are in now. TT: What will happen to us? Everyone in this session now? You will all cease to exist completely if you remain here during the Scratch.

Now, all this is true of typical null sessions. If scratching a null session resets the universe, perhaps scratching a dead session—Caliborn’s session—resets REALITY.

Instead of resetting the cherubs’ universe and which cherub plays, I think the third scratch will reset all of Paradox Space, all of reality, producing an alternate reality. A new reality perhaps ruled by a Pink Sun instead of the Green Sun.

Just as the kids escaped their Scratch and entered the new, reset instance of Earth’s universe—the Alpha kids’ session—through the window, the heroes will have to find a way to escape the third Scratch (and the Big Crunch) and enter a new, reset instance of Paradox Space.

While simultaneously destroying reality, the massive black hole created from the Green Sun’s destruction could very well be their escape route, like the hole in the window.

UU: and while the emerald eye of this storm is fixed in the abyss forever UU: today yoU are poised to escape its scowl once and for all. UU: by skaias gUiding light, yoU may leave behind its tUrning arms of bright coloUrs and mayhem, and secUre peace for yoUr cosmic progeny for all dUration.

A third Scratch, the destruction of reality, a black hole escape route, and the creation of a Pink Sun would make absolutely lovely parallels to the events of [S]: Cascade. It works.

My thoughts exactly. ;)

The Pink Sun?

I dunno, I feel like there are little clues hidden everywhere:

  Keep reading

Updated with more clues in light of recent events!

The Pink Sun?

I dunno, I feel like there are little clues hidden everywhere:

  Keep reading

Hey have you read the upd8? --it seem like there's going to be two alphatimelines. One with retconning and one without and (maybe..?) one with green sun and the other with pink sun, one where all the kids complete reality's time loop and one where they escape

Huh! Interesting! I hadn’t considered it that way. But yeah, I do think there will be two distinct Alpha Timelines. That’s basically what my Vriska’s Return and the Alpha Timeline’s Fate theory suggests. I guess it’s slightly different, though. But, yeah. Hmm…

Here we have a nice picture of the Green Sun in the black void of the Furthest Ring:

But if we take the image and invert it...

...We have a Pink Sun in a white void.

If the Green Sun and black void symbolize the current instance of Paradox Space, perhaps the Pink Sun and white void symbolize a new instance of Paradox Space, a new reality to where the heroes will escape.

Rose’s Quest and the Pink Sun

  You wonder if this rain will ever let up. It's driven since the month began, perhaps long enough to forget its purpose. It no longer even knows to assuage fire. Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton. How you hate this season. "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." -American sports legend, Charles Barkley

(Charles Barkley quotation actually from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.)  

We know from Jaspers the gist of Rose’s quest in the Land of Light and Rain:

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

Hussie even summarizes and clarifies this information:

[Jaspersprite] explained elements of the mythos of her land, and how she'd need to learn to play the rain to produce the musical analogue of a genetic code to reintroduce life into the ocean.

Produce a genetic code? That sounds familiar. Where else have we seen a genetic code?

“MEOW” combined with Halley’s ectoslime to create Becquerel.

“t1CK t0ck 8r8k H34DS honk HONK” combined with Lil Cal and a Magic Cue Ball to create Doc Scratch.

“BARK” combined most likely with Jaspers to create God Cat.

These genetic codes are used to create First Guardians. First Guardians all have the Green Sun as their power source. So most likely, these genetic codes are related to the Green Sun itself.

So, Rose’s Quest is to play the rain, to produce a genetic code that reintroduces life into the ocean. Like the previous codes tied to the Green Sun, what if the genetic code Rose plays is tied to a different sun, a Pink Sun?

There are clues everywhere for a Pink Sun paralleling the Green Sun.

Rose is a Seer of Light, and the Light symbol is a sun. It would make sense for the genetic code to be for a literal source of Light, a literal sun.

But what other significance might this code and Pink Sun have? Well, "They wait for she who would breed lilacs out of the dead land." “They” being the Nobles—the kids of the Alpha Session.

The “dead land” may very well be the Land of Crypts and Helium. Jane’s planet is filled with seed pods that seed and water the planet, yet nothing is able to grow on the surface. What her planet lacks is Light—sunlight. (Her denizen is even Hemera, goddess of daytime.) Perhaps by “playing the rain,” Rose provides the Light LOCAH needs—in the form of the Pink Sun—enabling lilacs to breed out of the dead land. Considering during Trickster Mode, half the planet sprouts flowers everywhere, it seems to be the intended transformation LOCAH will undergo.

But wait, Rose’s planetary quest is to reintroduce life to her planet, to LOLAR. More specifically, to restore ocean life that was eaten by her denizen Cetus.

JASPERSPRITE: But sadly there are no fish i think. JASPERSPRITE: They were all eaten by the Denizen! ROSE: Who? JASPERSPRITE: It ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. JASPERSPRITE: No there is surely not a single living thing left!

Ocean life? Hmm…

What is something heavily associated with both Rose and the ocean?

  The Horrorterrors (Squiddles)!

What if, when Rose plays the rain and reintroduces life on LOLAR, she creates the Horrorterrors? The very same ones currently residing in the Furthest Ring. The same ones who likely created the Trolls’ universe.

If so, perhaps the Pink Sun has ties to both the Horrorterrors and to the flora of LOCAH. That would make the Pink Sun a Light—a symbol—of Life and Void.  Just like…

…The Rings of Life and Void!

When the Draconian Dignitary puts on the Ring of Void, shades of pink and purple flash around him. Symbolic—even powered by—the Pink Sun, perhaps?

(Image made static because seizure warning.)

Compare to when the Queen’s Ring transforms Jack Noir after Bec prototypes himself, giving Jack powers of the Green Sun:

And then there are the green and pink moons of Alternia, paralleling the Green and Pink Suns.

The green moon is home to Doc Scratch, representative of the Green Sun (symbolic of Space) as a First Guardian. Yet pre-scratch, the pink moon is home to Meenah, Thief of Life, further tying the Pink Sun as a Life symbol.

LOLAR and the rain itself have symbols of Light, Life, and Void through their colors—yellow, cyan, and pink.

Yellow represents the sun emblem of Light, its Seer Rose. Cyan represents Jane, Maid of Life, whose planet lacks Light. Pink represents Roxy, Rogue of Void, whose planet’s element is Neon—that is, Neon Light.

Aside from the Pink Sun, restoring life to LOLAR, and sending Light to LOCAH, Rose may even have a role in Dave’s quest, considering the rain “no longer even knows to assuage fire”—its purpose forgotten.

Regarding Dave’s quest,

It's meant to rain this season but there ain't been a drop in sight. Even a little drizzle would help. Might help to fizzle this sizzle a little bizzle, set the record straight on this global turn-tizzle.

Perhaps the rain Rose plays—or even the Pink Sun itself—will aid in his quest. (But more on Dave’s quest in another post.)

It seems pretty clear that Rose represents the “zealous god” who “threads these strings between the clouds and the earth.” As for “delaying the raise of the conductor's baton,” perhaps the conductor is…

  You wouldn't trade your dualing weapon for any other. It is lightweight, elegant and precise, like a conductor's baton with stopping power.

…Calliope!

A Seer would not charge into the fray headlong but direct it as a conductor with a baton.

…Or Terezi, or even Rose herself. Perhaps all three!

As for “mixing memory and desire,” that sounds a lot like…

    …What the heroes have been doing all along!

If they are meant to create not just a new universe, but a new reality to escape Lord English, wouldn’t their new reality consist of memory and desire? A new reality conducted, inspired, and embodied by Calliope, Muse of Space; located in the currently blank canvas Void to where LOWAS, Roxy, and John escaped; its information (Light) to be supplied by Rose and the Pink Sun; and filled with the memories and desires of the heroes.

The Pink Sun?

I dunno, I feel like there are little clues hidden everywhere:

  TT: [The Green Sun] is nearly twice the mass of our universe.

GA: Your Hubris Is Really Astonishing GA: Easily Twice The Mass Of A Universe I Think GA: That It Hasnt Collapsed Upon Itself Into A Tiny Lavender Singularity Is The Most Striking Marvel Paradox Space Has Coughed Up Yet TT: Maybe it did? TT: Maybe that's what went wrong. TT: We figured it out!

    AG: Notice the moon up there? AG: And not the larger green interloper. That one never 8elonged to my world. It is your memory, not mine. GC: Y34H TH3 CUT3 L1TTL3 BUBBL3GUM MOONS!

          Hmm.

(Updated 5/29/15.)