by lackadaisicallexicon​

With the chaotic maelstrom we fondly refer to as a plot raging ever onward, it’s often easy to forget that SBURB is supposed to be a video game; increasingly, the story has become more about its characters than setting. That said, the richness of that setting is what draws so many fans into Homestuck. Characters and their traits are templatized specifically so that readers can imagine themselves in the world of SBURB, and there’s no trait closer to a hero than the weapon they instinctively reach for. That’s why today, we’re going to talk about kind abstrata.

The relationships between characters and their weapons have always been intimate, from Arthur’s Excalibur to Batman’s utility belt. A choice of weapon is never meaningless; Batman’s trauma from the violent shooting of his parents results in him using any gadget under the sun, but never a gun. The characters of Homestuck have similar relationships with their weapons: John, who never fought prior to the game, chooses a weapon at random; Rose chooses a seemingly harmless “weapon” with which she is already familiar, Jade uses rifles she was taught to use by her game-hunting grandfather, Dave was trained (read: abused) from birth to use swords, and so on.

In many games, such as the Fire Emblem series, characters become more skilled in the use of a weapon by using it. SBURB does this as well, as demonstrated by John’s progression from needing the supernatural aid of his server player to lift a sledgehammer to making a good attempt to break Jack Noir’s face open with the Warhammer of Zillyhoo. The difference, of course, between growth in SBURB and in traditional games is that in SBURB, the stat is invisible. The game places as few abstractions as possible between the player and the world, when possible (and those that exist decrease as the player grows; more on this later). To ensure a full heroic experience, SBURB allows the player to experience and use their growth without looking at numerical proof thereof.

One of the many benefits to an ascension to the god tiers is a badge that allows you to use any weapon you please without allocating said weapon to a matching strife specibus (previously, you can have multiple specibi, but could not use weapons you didn’t have specibi for). In short, you just pick up a weapon and can use it. This is a deliberate removal of abstraction, allowing players to interact more organically with the environment. A strife specibus represents a training wheel for the combative player; a way to fight, a path to take, that is cast aside once the player is sufficiently heroic.

Like most things in Homestuck, kind abstrata are both a necessary component of a game and a powerful representation of the comic’s roots in myth and storytelling. After all, heroes need tools, but they also need the ability to choose for themselves what those tools will be and how they will use them. And what better system for that than an infinitely customizable, easily accessed card?