by ohthewhomanity

marathemara knitted me a scalemate over the summer.

See, it’s Pyralspite! Isn’t she adorable?

I’m really not sure what there isn’t to love about scalemates. They’re the Alternian version of teddy bears. But they’re dragons. Dragon teddy bears! It’s the best combination of awesome and cuddly since Nepeta Leijon. They’re also the best kind of pile for holding feelsjams in–sorry, Equius, but robots are too poke-y for me. If I were made of money, or had a lot more time and crafting skill, I would have a scalemate collection to rival Terezi’s. They would take over my bedroom and probably the rest of the dorm, and my roommates would just have to deal with my sudden childlike obsession with bizarre little squeaking stuffed animals. (Granted, in my experience, it is slightly more normal for college students to have stuffed animals than it is high schoolers.)

The fact that they are stuffed animals is what makes scalemates important to the Homestuck story. They subtly remind the reader that the characters are children.

Terezi using her scalemates as her sidekicks while investigating Tavros’s murder and hunting down Vriska is, on the surface, funny. But she’s only using them because she needs them. They’re an outlet. She’s making a game out of a serious situation, because that’s easier than facing the fact that her friends are killing each other. She does this because she is a child; six sweeps is equivalent to twelve or thirteen years old, depending on the scale you use. I can still remember when thirteen seemed very grown up to me. All the books I read had twelve- and thirteen-year-olds going off on big adventures, leading battles and becoming heroes. Speaking from the far side of eighteen, I think now that it’s a very early time to have a major coming-of-age adventure.

It’s easy to forget that the stars of Acts 1 through 5 are really just preteens playing a video game, especially in the case of the trolls–the violent nature of Alternia makes them seem a lot older than they actually are. It’s very easy to think of John, Karkat, and their teams as hardy adventurers, ready to face the world and its challenges. The scalemates remind us of the truth: these are children. They’re out to play games and have fun. They are way out of their league.