Released 5/13/2024.

Play on YouTube (on any device).

Read artist commentary.

Tracks that [S] Catharsis. features:

• A Handmaid's Last Stand by Rainy
• Duet by Tensei

Contributors:

• BUGFlower413 BugFlower413 YouTube BUGFlower99 Twitter bugflower413 DeviantArt bugflower413 Instagram (animation)

Artist commentary:

BUGFlower413: (YouTube description, excerpt)

Your name is DAMARA MEGIDO, and it's time for (both of) you to face your destiny.

Happy 4-13 everybody!!! ^u^ I've been planning this animation for almost a year ago. My third, and so far biggest HS flash-like animation. I hope you enjoy ^u^

If there is any questions about the animation there should be a pinned comment explaining as many things as I could think of (I hope you don't mind I kinda engaged with my inner Aranea while writing that lol)

BUGFlower413: (YouTube pinned comment)

Got any questions? ^u^

1. What is this animation about?
It's about Damara scratching the dancestors' session in one side of the universe while Demoness has her final strife against Her Imperious Condescension in the other. Despite one event happening way "before" the other universe even came to be, due to Circumstantial Simultaneity they both spawn at the same time in the bubbles and are able to meet up at the end, finally finding some peace.

2. Is Damara a god tier?
Yup, she ascended somewhen between the 2nd and 3rd sweep of their session. She needed to in order to complete her mission of messing with the session, regardless if she wanted to or not.

3. How did she ascend?
youtube.com/watch?v=P-nIIza-QW0 ;)

(NOTE: A few core details about her ascension got retconed in this animation, the most noticeable one being her Quest Cocoon. Reason being back when I made [S] Damara: Ascend I forgot trolls don't have Quest Beds and that both Cocoons and Beds are the color of the aspect they represent)

4. Wait why is Yaldabaoth her denizen?
Ok so for this one I'd have to explain a little headcanon of mine about how Yaldabaoth works on HS proper.

We know he's a special denizen compared to the other 12 since he doesn't get assigned to a player according to their aspect. He's the denizen assigned to the most "naturally gifted warriors", and the 2 players we know for a fact had him as a denizen are Dirk Strider and Caliborn, both of them having big connections to the main destructive force in all the canon narrative, Lord English, the former through being part of him because of AR and being the one trapping the mix of souls inside Lil' Cal, and the latter being literally the younger version of LE. I don't think the connection between Yaldabaoth's players and English is a coincidence, nor do I think it stops there, and considering we don't know which denizen most of the trolls got I can think on which other 2 could have gotten him. In the beta trolls' session, the Bard of Rage, and in the alpha troll's, Damara, the Witch of Time. The players who have had the biggest influence on English's existance from both sessions.

So yeah tl;dr Damara has Yaldabaoth as a denizen due to being the one responsible of allowing him to enter to a session in the first place because of the Scratch.

5. Ok... what does that have to do with anything else here tho?
She needed to face her denizen in order to obtain her big reward and become powerful enough to damage the Cardinal Movement.

6. what was that reward again?
The Thistles of Zillywich, presumably the strongest variation for the needlekind specibus, as well as retroactively granting her the powers and strenght of her post-Scratch self.

7. What was Aranea's role in this?
So remember how in [S] Cascade as soon as John started scratching the Beat Mesa many imps spawned to protect it? Same thing happened here. Aranea's job was to make sure none of them interrupted the scratching process. Could have Damara done it by herself? Sure, but it was easier and faster for them to deal with it this way.

8. Why did Damara get suddenly overwhelmed by guilt?
This is also kind of a long one to answer. Just like my previous 2 animations, [S] Catharsis is meant to capture the feeling of a flash you could come across in Homestuck had it covered the dancestors' session, and as such it's not meant to give you full context of what's going on, nor have the start nor conclusion of a character arc in the animation. It's meant to be seen as part of a big something we never got to see, only getting some details sprinkled through Aranea's narration and some parts of the Openbound sections.

So with that said, Damara isn't suddenly feeling guilty for having scratched the session, she's aware that's their only way out at this point, she feels guilty for having messed with the session to that point to begin with. Something she has been struggling with actually ever since the moment she chose to ascend as I tried to portray in some scenes of my first animation [S] Damara: Ascend (also the reason why Porrim is comforting her in the little flashback here, that is meant to be a few days before her ascension). If anything this would be closer to the very midle of her arc, something that has been deep within her thoughts for so long, yet silenced by rage and a feeling of hopelessness. She was promised by a greater entity something she couldn't turn down at the moment, revenge against everyone who once hurt and betray her, and encouraged by Kurloz she accepted the deal. Now regardless if she still wanted to or not she had to fulfill her part of the agreement. Once that was done and she looked to what she had just done, the realization finally kicked in. She had not only doomed the ones that hurt her, but the ones that care about her and that she cares about also got caught in the crossfire. That is why feels guity.

9. Why are the Dancestors standing in the victory plataform? It wasnt like that in the comic!
Well for one thing I don't really trust Meenah as a reliable narrator, even if she didn't describe the looks of the surroundings the one panel we saw of her holding the bomb in canon is meant to be her memory, so yeah. And also because it's meant to parallel the beta troll's session at its very end. The dancestors had defeated long ago the Black Queen and Black King, they have gotten rid of the rings of both Queens, yet there is no final reward, no big door to go through. They're softlocked.

10. Damara x Porrim?
They are so gay and made for each other! ^u^ I wanted to hint at them being a thing since, well it's my animation and I love the idea of them being together. So yeah, Damara's nails, Porrim holding her hand in the flashback, them being so close moments before the end and even a few details from [S] Damara: Ascend are no coinky dinkies, they're matesprits, they're gay and they love each other so much. In fact, if it wasn't obvious for what I mentioned in my answer to question 8, Porrim is the only dancestor Damara trusted enough to share with her what was going on, the entire situation with English and her inner dilemma, and Porrim, as the good matesprit she is, calmed her down because they love each other very much.

Now if you're wondering where does Meulin fit in this since she also had a flashback in which both of them are learning sign language, they're just close friends. When Damara heard the news of Meulin going deaf, she was the first one who decided to learn sign language to communicate more effectively with her. After all, she knows how it feels when people around you does not bother to try and understand you.

11. What did Kankri see?
Through his not fully awaken Seer of Blood powers the breaking sky showed him flashforwards of his post-Scratch self's life. He got too overwhelmed to comprehend what that was at the moment.

12. How did Demoness clone herself?
Clockwork majyyks.

13. Are you gay?
Yes. I don't see what that has to do with anything tho :?

14. Why didn't Demoness kill the Condesce?
She knows that's not how the story is meant to go. She's supposed to lose the Strife and she knows it, the Condesce has to take her place as His servant and she knows it. Her mission was already over, now it was time for her to claim her reward and embrace death, while it was time for HIC to defeat her and become His new slave.

15. Purple courtains?
You know how Acts 1 to 5.2 have red curtains (the color of the alpha kids' Sburb logo) while Act 6 and its sub-acts have green curtains (the color of the beta kids' logo)? I applied the same logic to the dancestors and beta trolls: Karkat's session had a purple Sgrub logo, yet blue curtains, meaning the dancestors session would have a blue Sgrub logo and purple curtains.

16. Who is that adorable ghost virpia gal in the credits?
First of all that's my trollsona Collen Flower, the Knight of Light (or at least a version of her in the bubbles), and second thank you! ^u^

17. Oh, why are you dead tho?
... ...Never try swallowing a whole slice of pizza without chewing. It has less than desirable results U_U"