Chat client

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Characters in Homestuck and its spinoffs use a variety of applications to communicate with each other across the internet, which despite different branding tend to be fully compatible with each other. Communication via application usually happens under an assumed handle rather than their real names.

A working fan-made version of Homestuck's chat clients is available here, though without any of the more exotic clients' time window capabilities.

Pesterchum

The Pesterchum 6.0 interface.

Pesterchum is the client of choice for the kids, with the exception of Jane Crocker, who uses BettyBother. Users are called "chums" and chatting is referred to as "pestering".

Pesterchum has a ChumRoll for storing a user's friend list and a trollSlum that blocks listed users from contacting them. A user can also select their current mood from a list of emotions.

Three different versions of Pesterchum have appeared in the story:

• Pesterchum 6.0 - An older version of the client. There are six different moods a user can choose from: Chummy, Chipper, Palsy, Bully, Peppy, and Rancorous. The first five are represented by the same happy face emoticon while Rancorous gets its own angry face emoticon. While the pre-scratch kids use the first five emotions, respectively, the trolls all use the Rancorous face.
• Pesterchum 7.0 - The successor to 6.0. There are nine different moods: Chummy, Mystified, Amazed, Insolent, Bemused, Pranky, Smooth, Pleasant, and Rancorous. Unlike 6.0, every mood gets its own unique emoticon.
• Pesterchum Enamel - The version used by Jade Harley. It is advertised as being "Much Shinier!" than the other versions.

Dirk Strider and Roxy Lalonde use a special version of Pesterchum provided by Calliope. The client has been modified with alien technology (likely related to the software that powers Trollian) that lets them communicate with Jane and Jake English. Whenever a message is sent from 2424, Jane or Jake will receive it at the corresponding time in 2011, creating the illusion that all four kids live in the same time period.

Trollian

Trollian is a close troll equivalent to Pesterchum, the name likely a reference to the real-life Trillian instant messenger client. Its users "troll" - rather than pester - each other using pseudonyms called trolltags; a user's own trolltag is listed on their ChumpRoll along with those of their other Chumps, which may have something to do with its unique functions when compared to Pesterchum.

A young Vriska being contacted via Trollian.

Karkat Vantas begins Hivebent participating in a "new" beta version of Trollian of which he is “NOT REALLY SURE”, though the rest of his friends already seem to be well acquainted with it. Though Andrew Hussie has suggested chatlogs taking place prior to Hivebent "aren't using Trollian" and instead are using a different client that is "not specified" (but are still used to "troll" contacts), Vriska Serket has been shown to specifically use Trollian earlier in her childhood, such as to talk to Doc Scratch before killing Aradia Megido. Hussie further posits that this could have been an advance copy provided by her omnipotent acquaintance.

Interface and functions

Trollian has a special viewport feature that allows trolls to access a visual feed of other users. It is activated by the F1 key, though loss of this key has a tendency to render this feature moot, and for a long time, only Sollux Captor knew how to activate it.

Trollian has the ability to keep track of the kids' timelines so that they can chat with the kids at any time on their timeline up to their death or other obscuring event (such as interference by void powers). This isn't technically time travel, since the Genesis Frog inside the Medium contains the entire timeline of the kids' universe. Consequently, the trolls claim to be able to see and chat with the kids at any point in their timeline, though they later admit they cannot see or talk to the kids after the scratch, seemingly because the scratch erases them completely. The trolls only viewed the alpha pre-scratch timeline, and couldn't see doomed timelines, the post-scratch kids' session, or Jade's visit to post-scratch Earth.

Blocks employed by the kids seem to have no effect on the trolls. Whether this is an inherent feature of Trollian's superiority or the work of a certain hacker is unknown. It is possible for the trolls to effectively block each other however, as seen when Terezi's trolltag is blocked by Karkat due to Gamzee earlier using her glasses, and she receives the error "did not receive message" when attempting to contact him. Eridan Ampora also states that Vriska Serket blocked him at some point in time.

Since the trolls' contact information remains in Pesterchum, it is also possible for the kids to initiate a chat. However, several times this has resulted in them contacting a totally different time than they intend to, as a result of Pesterchum's inability to select a specific point in time they want to contact.

Trollian also has a bulletin board function that's main function appears to be conversations between more than two people, similar to a party-line, and is both visible and respondable to users in both the past and future. Karkat abuses this function in a notably hilariously self-defeating manner, to the point of repeatedly banning himself from different points in the timeline. The length of a ban is unknown, though in this conversation Karkat repeatedly gets banned by Terezi yet quickly begins responding again, each ban spanning only about 1–3 minutes. Considering the memos are designed for temporally distant conversation, drastically impermanent banning makes a decent amount of sense, as a ban too long would essentially be banning multiple users (albeit all the same person), not all of whom might need banning. Since Trollian allows for different temporal versions of the same user to interact, it comes with a feature to create private boards. The only seen use of it was from Aradia. A list of memos can be found here.

To manage Trollian's ability to send messages through time, it displays an arrow-shaped timeline for each user. The interface also includes grey bars, behind each arrow, that indicate when each person on the timeline entered the Medium. When an individual time-travels to create a stable loop or arrives in the alpha timeline from a doomed timeline, Trollian displays each loop and doomed self as different timelines and splits them into different shades. A bright color indicates presence, while timeframes in which a player was not present due to time travel are displayed in a darker color. If a doomed timeline copy of a player dies, their timeline will turn dark grey after the point of death. Why the screen never appears totally overwhelmed with the timelines of the doomed Aradiabots is uncertain, perhaps because this graphic only opens when trolling the individual, or must be activated similar to the viewport.

Trollian displays the scratch as bright lights and swirling black and white lines. Curiously, when Kanaya scrolls up into the future of the trolls' timelines, she sees the exact same swirls and lines, despite the trolls' session not undergoing a scratch at the time. In this case the swirls and lines might indicate the trolls' escape into the Furthest Ring, where space and time are unstable.

Speculation

Davesprite may use Trollian via his iShades, as his conversations with Terezi begin with “turntechGodhead ”“[TG]”“ began trolling gallowsCalibrator ”“[GC]”. However, this is very unlikely since in his conversation with Alternate Future Rose, Alternate Future Dave (later Davesprite) states that they lost all contact with the trolls after the timeline split. Jade is able to make contact as well, as is seen here.

BettyBother

BettyBother is a Crockercorp chat client, albeit potentially only existing post-scratch. Jane Crocker uses it even though she clearly shows contempt towards it and outright says Pesterchum is better; brand loyalty is a powerful thing. Her friends use Pesterchum instead, however, so it appears there is cross-program compatibility between BettyBother and Pesterchum, much like Trollian. While Pesterchum labels chats as "pestering" Bettybother uses the term "bothering" instead.

It is full of spam and popups, all of which contain subliminal messaging from the Batterwitch.

Notable examples include:

1. Be the first to visit Mars - “OBEY”
2. Hamburger Helper Ad - “CEASE REPRODUCTION”
3. Guy Fieri - “STAY ASLEEP”
4. Gushers Ad - “CONSUME”
5. BCCORP stock market graph - “SUBMIT”

These subliminal messages are reminiscent of the movie They Live, where most billboards and advertisements were encoded with subliminal messages giving similar messages such as “OBEY” and “CONSUME”. Also, the Battleship Condescension, the Condesce's starship, conspicuously appears in the travel advertisement.

Cherub chat client

The cherubs, due to their unique alert messages, “cheering” and “jeering” respectively, may be using a different chat client than the others. Given its demonstrated time jumping ability and viewfinder of the post-scratch kids, it can be assumed that it is in some way related to Trollian, however, by at least shared technology. Gamzee's influence in this situation is uncertain.

Rebelgram

Rebelgram is a client on Xefros Tritoh and Dammek's tablets, used by Joey Claire during her visit to Alternia. Its name possibly derives from the real life IM service Telegram, indicating that it may be especially useful to subversives in the Empire thanks to similar encryption.

Unlike AIM-style clients like Pesterchum and Trollian, Rebelgram has a more modern interface, with messages displayed in hexagonal speech bubbles accompanied by a symbol representing the participants. rather than a username. Photographs can also be sent and received directly through Rebelgram rather than sent as links.

Scratchware

Whispering gods, memories sifted from dreams, cryptic readings from unearthed talismans, conclusions drawn from riddles deciphered - every gambit you'd expect the Internet to extend to an emerging wiki.

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It is presumed by Dammek and Xefros that the Alternian authorities can monitor normal communications on Rebelgram. In his conversations with Joey, Xefros repeatedly expresses concern about talking to her using it. He later receives software called "Scratchware" that claims to protect "messages to and from [his] device...from third-party surveillance." Upon installing the software, he receives messages from an unknown sender explaining the purpose of the software, and confirming Xefros's acceptance of its terms of use. After the Scratchware is installed, a white lock on a green background appears in the upper right corner of the Rebelgram screen.

It is likely that it was Doc Scratch who sent Xefros the Scratchware, given their choice of icon (a white circle resembling a cue ball) and background color (a shade of green similar to that used as a background color by Doc Scratch), their formal manner of speech that hints at time travel, and the name of the software program itself. This would be consistent with Doc Scratch's admitted history of meddling in Alternian affairs.

Intellichum (Dubiously Canon)

Intellichum 8.0 is a "tracking free chat client", identical to Pesterchum in most ways save for its drab grey color scheme and espionage-themed graphics, used by adamantGriftress, thespiansGlamor, glutinousGymnast and various other chums presumably for the purpose of avoiding Crockercorp surveillance in day to day communication.

Intellichum's interface includes buttons to "add chum", "block" and pick a text color picker, which are not found in the original Pesterchum but are standard to both ghostDunk's fan-made Pesterchum and the updated Pesterchum Godot.

See also

• Serious Business
• Chittr