Fraymotif

Fraymotifs are “powerful battle techniques” used by Sburb's Heroes. They can be purchased from consort-run fraymotif shops with boondollars, seemingly serving as the primary use of the game's currency.

Concept and creation

“I believe [fraymotifs] were mentioned at least once earlier [than John: Enter village], though when things are mentioned offhand, you can frequently write them off as whimsical gags or small points of worldbuilding that might not receive further development. But these do, and are presumably some sort of cool spells or battle techniques that you can buy in a shop. The astronomical prices suggest they're late-game maneuvers you can start incorporating into your tactics once you can afford them. And the dual aspect symbols in the shop menu imply the stronger ones are combination attacks. I think I imagined this battle concept much earlier in the story, when the kids' musical interests were more pertinent, and conceived some vague idea that combined their aspect powers with something musical in nature, like playing a song that results in a strong magical attack.
[...] Frankly, they were never even invented to be shown on-screen in an explicit way. I considered their appearance in Collide as sort of bonus material, like throwing a bone to anyone who remembered these were a thing. The point of hinting at a system like this is to capture the imagination—to let readers speculate about what these mysterious things could be and how they might be used in a typical session—and not so much to provide a concrete indicator of what's to come. In short, it's more background lore in a story where stuff like this is fun to think about, but not the real focus.”

— Andrew Hussie's commentary on page 470 of Homestuck: Book 5: Act 5 Act 2 Part 1

A fray is a commotion or fight, while a motif is a 'recurring or dominant element' in art, particularly in music, where it refers to a short melody or lyric that is repeated within a work or across multiple works. This name, along with the symbol used to represent fraymotifs - a musical note crossed with a sword - suggests that, like the Land of Heat and Clockwork's record-shaped Beat Mesa and the Land of Wind and Shade's immense pipe organ, fraymotifs play into Sburb's prominent musical motifs. As such, all named fraymotifs are named for concepts in music - see known fraymotifs.

Function

Each fraymotif is indicated by one or more aspect symbols; the cheaper three fraymotifs offered to John Egbert by one of his salamanders indicated only the Breath symbol, whereas the more expensive three also show the symbols for the Time, Light and Space aspects, indicating that they are to be used by two Heroes together;^[image?] while the fraymotifs offered to John are marked by only one or two symbols, up to three Heroes are shown combining fraymotifs together in Collide. It is not clear whether these symbols show that all Heroes of a given aspect use the same pool of fraymotifs, or if they are unique to the individual Hero; while a single-player fraymotif is never explicitly shown being used, Heroes from three different sessions are able to participate in the same fraymotif. It is also not known whether all the Heroes involved must have purchased the same fraymotif in order to use it together, or if Terezi Pyrope's purchase of a Mind, Time and Heart fraymotif would allow Dave and Dirk Strider to use it with her by default.

While the aspects of the Heroes involved heavily influence the effects of the fraymotif - fraymotifs associated with the Time aspect allow the manipulation of alternate selves and timelines, while all known Breath fraymotifs feature powerful gusts of the Breeze - fraymotifs are at least partially customised to the abilities of the user in that a Hero's class can also sometimes seem to have an effect on a fraymotif's results. Most of Roxy Lalonde's Void fraymotifs involved the apparition of objects, presumably derived from the Rogue's ability to steal the nonexistence from nonexistent things, while Rose Lalonde's Seer class seems to allow her to contribute a guiding hand to some fraymotifs. In this way, fraymotifs are at least partially customized to the abilities of the user.

Many of Rose's fraymotifs also involve blasts of magic, posing a question as to whether Rose's magic may stem from the same Light powers as her fraymotifs, or if fraymotifs may sometimes incorporate abilities originating outside of a Hero's mythological role.

Known fraymotifs

Named

The following fraymotifs were offered to John Egbert:

• Feathercadence (Breath); a cadence is a progression of multiple chords used to punctuate the end of a musical work.
• Pneumatic Progression (Breath); something pneumatic is powered by air; a progression is a pattern of multiple chords in music.
• Breathless Battaglia (Breath); a battaglia, from the Italian word for 'battle', is a piece of music where instrumentation or vocals are used to imitate the sounds of combat.
• Ivories in the Fire (Breath and Time); a pun on irons being in the fire and the association of the Time aspect with fire - ivories is a euphemistic term for the keys of a piano, the white keys traditionally being made from ivory.
• Mixolydian Maelstrom (Breath and Light); the Mixolydian mode is a kind of musical mode or scale originating in ancient Greece; a maelstrom, from Dutch meaning 'milling or grinding stream', is a powerful vortex, possibly referencing the association of the Light aspect with water.
• Fantasia's Inhale (Breath and Space); a fantasia is a form of improvised musical composition.

Jade and Dave performing Adagio Redshift.

Dave and Jade collaborated to use a fraymotif called Adagio Redshift; adagio is a mark used to indicate that a musical passage be played slowly, while a redshift occurs when radiation increases in wavelength and decreases in frequency and energy, particularly in cosmology, when two radiating objects move away from each other. (Incidentally, in dance, an adagio can also be a form of male-female duet). It might be presumed that this fraymotif has the effect of slowing down or decreasing the energy of a target; however its effect on the omnipotent Jack Noir was negligible.

Unnamed

A fraymotif 'menu' appearing in Collide.

Used by John, Rose and Roxy against the Condesce

• John, Rose and Roxy conjure up a statue of Zazzerpan the Learned and send it in a whirlwind around their target (harking back to Rose's entry), emitting magical energies from its mouth as it moves.
• John and Rose summon a hail of both magic and harsh winds.
• Rose and Roxy draw up a cube of Light beams around their target, then filled with Perfectly Generic Objects which momentarily encase the target.
• John and Rose create a vortex of wind surrounded by magic, which swirls around and then strikes the target.
• Rose and Roxy conjure a Void-shaped vortex around the target, which is then filled with magical rays.

John, Rose and Roxy's flying Zazzerpan.

John and Rose's hail of magic and wind.

Rose and Roxy's magic cube.

John and Rose's magic-enhanced vortex.

Rose and Roxy's screen-filling attack.

Used by Dave, Terezi and Dirk against the Jacks Noir

• After he is riddled with bullets, Dave and Terezi search through multiple alternate instances of the battle and bring back a Dirk (and an off-guard Spades Slick) from a timeline where he was unharmed.
• Dave and Terezi then also search back through the timeline for a moment to merge back into their past selves, allowing them to re-do a brief section of the battle and take advantage of Slick while he is still disoriented from the use of the first fraymotif.
• Dave and Dirk trap their target in a fraymotif whose exact effects are unknown, but which seems to interact with multiple of the target's iterations.

Terezi and Dave searching through timelines.

Terezi and Dave searching the timeline for a moment to strike.

A combination of Dave and Dirk's Time and Heart powers.

Others

By the time the trolls had reached the battle with the Black King, they were “versed in the deadliest fraym0tifs b00nd0llars c0uld buy”.

With Terezi's help in manipulating the LOHAC stock exchange, Dave was able to purchase “all the fraymotifs” available to him.