dreamselves | post o3.

post o3.

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Hi! This is that anon from the last post who promised an ashen romance essay. Sorry it took so long. *Single Ocular Globe Closing* Now...
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Auspisticism is a tricky quadrant. It is essentially the orphan of troll romance. Nobody is exactly sure what it is like to be in love with somebody in an ashen sense, though that's partly because there are no less than three distinct ways you can be in ashen love. As it is a three-way relationship (though the anon above me brings up some excellent points on how it may be made more complicated, and I will address these later), it is essentially impossible to end up in a dynamic that suspiciously resembles auspisticism by accident, unlike with kismesissitude or moirallegiance. I have had the rare (mis?)fortune to experience actually entering dynamics of an astonishingly ashen nature, and so part of this will be informing my interpretations of the emotional content. The emotional content will also be influenced by the experience I had playing out auspisticism in a game, which in turn affected my interpretation of certain ashen dynamics in canon.

I'm taking it for granted that Kanaya o8< (Eridan/Vriska) was a fairly officially established auspisticism at some point in the past, while Kanaya o8< (Vriska/Tavros) was a slightly less formally established auspisticism, the ashen equivalent of the complex flushed (mostly) mating dance Karkat and Terezi were performing by the later parts of Hivebent.

Obviously keep in mind that all this is my interpretation, and that at many points I use the indicative mood for convenience.

What is it like to be in love with your auspisticees?

You have a gruding, cold, passive-aggressive, bitter but dear affection for them that would not involve kissing unless some party is a corpse. Ultimately, you would not let yourself get involved to this level unless it were a feud; too risky, getting all up in the business of bozos like these. You are intensely emotionally invested in said bozos never ever breaking the boundaries you set down, and proud to know these people love, respect, and depend upon you.

What is it like to be in love with your auspistice?

Your auspistice has a sort of kismesitic mystique with a moirail twist: Basically you can't help but hate to love them, but in a practical, emotional way. You have to love them, in short, more than you hate your auspisticee. You also generally repay them however you can, even if that is often by reciprocating their barbs with your own.

What is it like to be auspisticees in love?

Quite simply, you hate them but they are never going to go away. You squabble and scrum but ultimately your auspistice is just a door over and nothing permanent can happen. Your life would be incomplete without each other.

Now that we have this basic emotional foundation, what follows are tenets for what I believe an auspisticism between adult trolls that had reached a stable equilibrium would look like.

Auspisticees are not kismeses.

I cannot emphasize this enough. There is a massive conception in the fandom that kismesissitudes commonly have auspistices associated with them. There is nothing in canon that indicates this is true; in fact, it is explained that "without [auspisticing parties], too many ashen feuds would become caliginous, and begin to conflict with other exclusive kismesis relationships". This explicitly states that ashen feuds are distinct from true exclusive kismesis relationships, which exist without auspisticing parties.

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to
CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps

Eridan presents this clearly as an either/or option. (The emphasis is added.) Auspisticism is the distinct state of black romance not related to reproduction directly at all.

Auspisticism is conciliatory.

Concupiscent feelings do not exist in ideal auspisticism. One of the precise reasons auspisticism exists is to avoid caliginous infidelity. Emotional fidelity is very important to trolls - consider how the vacillating quadrangle in Karkat's romance novel is an aberration, but if it did not vacillate, each troll involved would still be having relations with two people. The aspect of emotional devotion changing is what introduces the forbidden element for a troll. For this reason, I believe that genuine concupiscent sentiment - caliginous or flushed - should not exist in mature auspisticism. For auspisticees to engage in a concupiscent act would violate the conditions of the "auspicious armistice" that is supposed to exist between all three parties: It would constitute infidelity both to either party's kismesis, should they have one, and especially to their poor auspistice, who has presumably been bending over backwards to prevent exactly this from happening.

Auspisticism does not have to be concupiscent in cause.

Though an auspistice certainly can introduce themselves to a pair with conflicting or otherwise overly complicated concupiscent feelings, there are other reasons for auspisticism to develop. Our exposition gives us two ideas: The auspistice stabilizing a vacillating couple, and the auspistice keeping "ashen feuds" from becoming "fully caliginous rivalry".

Here are some factors that I think would contribute to a dispute being ashen as opposed to caliginous:

The contentious parties are simply concupiscently incompatible on account of age, orientation, hemoclass, or other immutable factors.

The dispute exists for minor or arbitrary reasons, not sufficient fuel for a viable kismesissitude, but at the same time these reasons are difficult to just get over.

The contentious parties are not interested in a romantic rivalry, but actually just hate each other so much they want to kill each other.

As people who dislike each other, they would like to avoid each other, but circumstances of some kind mean they cannot avoid being involved in each other's lives, so they are compelled to be auspisticized.

Auspisticism is not temporary.

Though auspisticism, as the least sentimental quadrant, is therefore the least likely to have excessive sentiments associated with its initiation or termination, it is still a romance just as intended for the long term as any of the other three. The ashen triad is in my view a romantically involved group. Much like in the "codependent" romance of moirallegiance, the auspisticees have a sort of basic dark bitter form of getting along, but are ultimately dependent on their auspistice. Likewise the auspistice is inextricably involved in their lives, but ultimately wouldn't really care about either of them if there weren't a feud to moderate.

This is essentially where we end what I defend as reasonable extrapolation from canon, and essentially enter extrapolation from my own extrapolation. Proceed with caution.

Auspisticism and Numbers

A previous anon has described the ashen quadrant as an intersection of the black and conciliatory hemispheres, which I would say is an excellent description. In this sense, we could argue that ashen interactions are anything that falls under the anti-umbrellae of "pragmatic, not dramatic concupiscent romance" and "pragmatic, not sentimentalized red romance".

Nonconcupiscent means to me more than nonsexual. Rather, there is an absence of the emotional intensity, the covetuousness, that lies as the root cause and root meaning of concupiscence. Conciliatory romance ultimately does not involve the same form of want and need, even if in certain circumstances it can certainly manifest itself as desperation and desire.

Nonred means to me essentially lacking unconditionally positive regard. A matesprit or moirail is referred to tenderly, idealized, and put on a pedestal in a way that a kismesis or other person is not. Black romance is far from intrinsically bad because of this, however. It can still be functional and pleasurable for all parties.

So if it's not sentimental and it's not melodramatically impractical, then what is it? In theory, it's whatever works. It's whatever keeps the parties involved safe and sane. However, at the same time it still has to be a romance, something that's presented in society as a pillar and has a role.

For this reason, the simple triad presented in canon is what society has siezed upon as the structure to be promoted and institutionalized. The alternatives are more emotionally complicated, after all. Chains of auspistices who reach around back to each other, two auspistices working on two auspisticees... It's the stuff of w e i r d movies to the Alternian mainstream.

The other reason that low numbers of auspisticism are promoted is because with more complicated group dynamics, you eventually enter the realm of what humans would just call a group of friends that balances each other out. The codependent study group in Community is an excellent example of this. (And Jeffc3<(Troy/Abed), Jeffc3<(Pierce/Shirley), and Annie/Troy/Abed(/Britta) in more complicated cohabitation all have what might qualify to trolls as canonical degrees of recognition. Swoon!) At the same time, as group size approaches infinity, the probability that some members will have concupiscent or pale feelings approaches one. (Again: Community.) And once "deeper" feelings happen, you can't really maintain the pure pragmatism of ashen romance anymore.

Because here's the thing about two-person ashen romance, which I've actually tried to play: It's too easily made sentimental. They need the third person just as much as the third person and the second needs the first. When they have nothing but each other in the relationship, it's hard to focus on the practical matters instead of the emotional. In short, they risk lapsing into being moirails. Think, basically, of the "friends with benefits" that struggle not to end up "matesprits". This is the difficulty an ashen couple faces when the societal model of a conciliatory couple is in a moirallegiance.

Ashen Candy

Below are miscellaneous ashen quadrant headcanons of mine that I feel are too radical to be included above, particularly since they partly depend on my interpretation of moirallegiance, so I'm including them below instead.

Auspistices are generally sought, when not for mediation, only for concerns too trivial, pragmatic, or awkward to bring to one's moirail, though this can mean many things and often depends on each party's skill set. For many, this includes sex. Financial aid, getting a space job/house/car, and lending of objects is also common.

As a result, while a moirail provides emotional support for other romances and may matchmake, an auspistice is more likely to assist one in arranging casual romantic encounters, i.e. by functioning as one's wingtroll.

And, yes, casual romantic encounters are possible in all four quadrants. Typically a pair that's fighting will go into a disreputable establishment and then the ashen lady/gentleman of the day will get them a drink and counsel them. Yeah.

Moirails are in my headcanon the first choice for cohabitation for romantic purposes. However, if trolls just want to get roommates because they can't afford independent rent, they're most likely to room in ashen triads because that's the most practical.

Children form conciliatory romances quite commonly, as we see in canon with half the trolls in pale relationships and three-quarters if you count Karkat and Gamzee's pre-moirallegiance. In fact, if you further qualify Aradia and Sollux as having been moirails, as Nepeta's shipping wall suggests, then you officially have all but two. I imagine ashen childhood sweethearts, or rather "bitterclubs", to be fairly common in areas where more trolls are physical neighbors. The cliched hero, sidekick, opposite sex friend setup commonly ends up ashen in my mind.

It depends on the troll, but if they don't call their moirail or matesprit their best friend, that title very well may go to their auspistice. (Interestingly, Karkat has called Kanaya his other best friend, and she has since developed seemingly ashen feelings for him.)

Symbolic associations incude: Ashen, clubs, bitter (as in bitterclubs), autumn, the moon, bracelets.

That's all I feel like writing even though I could probably go on about ashen romance forever, so please feel free to bring up more points, etc.

This is all really fascinating. Thanks for this!

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