by @ohthewhomanity​

In a comment on our Space essay, Reddit user DarkariaX mentioned that Witches “in some way defy their Aspect”. This intrigued me because I had been under the impression to this point that Witches manipulate their Aspect. After tossing the idea around my head for a while, chatting with @dialmformara​ about Jade, Feferi, and Damara/the Handmaid’s powers, I came to a new conclusion, combining my previous impression with DarkariaX’s idea: Witches resist the natural order of their Aspect by manipulating their Aspect.

Jade Harley, Witch of Space, has the awesome and incredibly practical ability to make things larger or smaller, including people, objects, and even planets and everything on them at the time. In doing so, she resists the natural order of these things’ spatial dimensions. In order to do so, she must be manipulating the laws of space that normally keep all things how and where they are, like the laws of conservation of mass and universal gravitation.

When she shrinks the battlefield, Davesprite isn’t flung away from the suddenly-smaller planet (which ought to happen, because an object that loses mass also loses gravitational attraction); he shrinks along with it. And it seems that no one who was on the planets that Jade took with her out of the Beta session suffered any ill effects from being shrunk and later un-shrunk. This shouldn’t be possible–there are more constraints to the size a living thing can be than I, an English major and not at all a hard science person, could ever understand, but I don’t have to because Google exists–and yet it happens. Jade successfully resists the natural order of Space by manipulating aspects of Space. The amount of power and precision this would take to pull off is incredible.

Feferi Peixes is the Witch of Life, and while she doesn’t achieve God Tier in the alpha timeline, we nonetheless get two examples of her useful and extremely plot-relevant powers: alpha Feferi convinces the Horrorterrors to create dreambubbles for the dead to live on in, and a doomed God Tier Feferi in one of those dreambubbles brings the fatally-wounded Mayor back to life.

Feferi doesn’t “defy” her Aspect so much as manipulate it. Specifically, she manipulates the length of life, in order to resist the natural order of life and death. She directly allows the Mayor to live on, and indirectly allows an infinite number of dead characters to continue to have a direct impact on the world of the living, neither of which would be possible in the natural order of Life.



Damara Megido, like Kankri, only achieves her potential as a Witch of Time after the Scratch, as the Handmaid. As Lord English’s servant, she is cursed to live much longer than a rustblood should. Her job is to manipulate causality in a million tiny ways, to resist the natural progression of history–which would otherwise create the unwarlike Beforus society again–and make sure that everything goes exactly as Lord English desires. It’s a feat that would take the same surgical precision as Jade’s manipulation of the laws of space.



As much as Damara would like to defy Time, or at least its Lord–she resists her captor, Doc Scratch, at every opportunity and reportedly “did not intend to stay” alive–she ultimately can’t. He is, as always, already here. What’s interesting is that Lord English needs the Handmaid at all. Doc Scratch outright tells us that his purportedly all-powerful master needs a witch to carry out his work. Evidently Lords cannot manipulate; they can only command. Lord English commands the Witch (and only the Witch of his Aspect), and she, trapped by time loops and conditional mortality (he will only allow her to die once she has completed his tasks), manipulates according to his will.



In classic fairy tales, witches are evil, someone to be feared, hated, and ultimately defeated. But the Witches of Homestuck are, frankly, badass. It might be wise to fear them in certain circumstances (you should be careful not to piss off someone who can shut you up in her hoodie pocket), but what we have here are a group of all female characters who have (or ought to have) a ton of agency in the face of the very laws of the natural universe. These are active women, likely the most active class. While Damara has no control over her situation because of Lord English’s commands, a Witch who can act on her own is a powerful force for good. Jade and Feferi, the free witches, serve Skaia by using their powers to perpetuate life and creation, and Lord English could never have been defeated without both of their efforts. It makes me wonder what incredible things Damara might have contributed to the universe without her Sgrub Alpha teammates’ abuse and Lord English’s control.



I also like this reference. This goddamn obvious Wizard of Oz reference that Hussie clearly had planned from miles away. I should hate it. But I like it. So sue me.

