Homestuck

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11432091

Today I’m reading.

04/25/10- "Dave: Be the puppet.” (/homestuck/1755) to 04/27/10 - "AR?: Pop a fucking wheelie.” (/homestuck/1778)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Dave has awoken in the dreaming world. Or he’s sleeping in the waking world. Unlike John and Rose it seems there wasn’t much stopping him from doing this sooner. Rose had just shown up in Dave's dreamscape and woke him up to jam to some tunes for a while. One weird thing about Daves room in the dreaming world is that Lil’ Cal is not only there but seems to be moving on its own. In the real world Cal had appeared to do this, but Big Bro was moving Cal at near light speed. The strife between big bro and Dave destroyed Cal. So how the hell was Cal here and moving on its own? Rose took the wise route by hucking Cal out of Dave's window before she returned to the waking world.

Dave had no complaint he found Cal very annoying. But, Cal’s gets caught by a random rocket board going through the streets of Derse. Also in Derse, are the exiles from a time before their exile. Aimless Renegade (AR) is an Authority Regulator at this time. This scene of a weird puppet falling onto a preposterously convenient rocket board caught AR’s attention. AR would need to investigate. Cal absconds into a transportalizer followed by AR.

John is on the Land for Light and Rain (LOLAR) where Rose entered the game. Since Rose was asleep when John had gotten there he’s decided to go exploring with his jetpack. He discovers the Island cave where Rose's mom had gone to with Maplehoof. Though it is still swarming with monsters, these ones look a bit more demonic. But John's new Fear No Anvil is very strong and takes care of them quickly.

John finds the same transportalizer and goes through it. He's sent to a lab floating on an asteroid in the veil. This is entirely off of the planet he was just on. It seems This is the same place Roses mom, John's dad, that guy who looked like Jade's Grandpa, and Cal all ended up at. We know this is the case because dad’s old oily fedora, the Colonel Sassacre, Maplehoof and Cal are just there next to the transportalizers. John naturally hops on Maplehoof, because free mount. The lab itself is huge, there is a huge wall that looks like old tape drives. The center of the lab has 4 massive jars containing huge chess pieces. Around those are jars that seem to contain capricians. John also discovers a Junior ectobiologist lab suit that seems made for him. The suit even has his green ghost logo on the belt. There is also a 4 monitor display wall.

It seems AR is outside of the lab. John isn't aware of them, and they are not aware of John. AR doing some sick tricks in ZeroG on the rocket board. This is against their uptight personality but they seem to be letting loose.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the ~~ponies~~ pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11393489

Today I’m reading.

04/23/10- "John: Visit Rose's alchemiter.” (/homestuck/1737) to 04/24/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1754)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John is still at Rose's house awkwardly loitering around waiting for Rose to wake up. John visits Rose’s alchemiter. It looks like Dave had upgraded her alchemiter at some point to be similar to his own. John uses this to create the item from the code given to him by DaveSprite.

The item is a very expensive and gigantic hammer. Though by scaling it to a usable size he could actually build it. This is likely with the help of Maplehoof recently looting a huge amount of rare resources. The hammer, called Fear No Anvil, is a clockwork and ruby theme. John asked DaveSprite where he got it, but was only told “Hephaestus”. Hephaestus is also the name of Daves web browser oddly enough.

Dave, the “real” Dave, is hanging out with Rose in the dreaming world. It seems his computer from there can still see Rose's house and Rose and Dave have noticed John is there. Rose decides to return to the waking world to greet her guest.

Meanwhile twinArmageddons [TA] is helping grimAuxiliatrix [GA] with her computer. It seems the trolls have software called Trollian. It looks like the trolls can see the timelines of calling the kids (“chumps”). The “viewport” feature even allows them to see the kids. They are currently watching Rose wake up next to a panicking salamander child. She notices immediately that someone was using her pesterchum account. She goes to confront John on this but gets pranked as a bucket falls on her head filled with gushers.

John, being impatient, decides to rocket off and explore the Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR). This leaves Rose watching him zoom off as she’s just missed his departure. He takes Mewtini with him. As they’ve swapped companions they’ve also given them new names. Not knowing what names they had previously. John has named Mewtini as Doctor Meowgon, I think this is a reference to Dr. Egon from the GhostBusters Movie. Casey is now Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer.

Till tomorrow, wait patiently and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11348091

Today I’m reading.

04/20/10- "==>” (/homestuck/1714) to 04/22/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1736)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John for, possibly, the first time has just met Rose. Which is to say he’s crashed through the wall of her bedroom in a jetpack. Somehow Rose is still asleep. John is trying to not be a creep about this situation. So in true non-werido fashion John is now on Rose's laptop. He responds to the troll who is messaging her, pretending to be her.

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is trying to reach Rose. It seems from GA’s perspective this is her first contact with any of the kids. GA considers Rose a friend in Rose's perception of time. Someone she has trolled into submission of some sorts, the GA John is about to talk with knows none of that.

John uses this opportunity to hype himself as Rose's crush. He suggests GA contact John in the past to confuse him. This will explain some of the conversations between GA and Rose on page 1093 and 1592.

We get to see a bit of what is going on when the Trolls end here. We see GA in a compound of some sort on a PC. Other trolls are on her side but we can’t see who. Also gallowsCalibrator [GC] is behind her. The set-up is like an old fashioned LAN party. QA us contacting another troll twinArmageddons [TA] who we haven't seen yet. It seems that TA is sort of the IT guy of the groups and GA needs them to help with setting up the “viewport”. GA is apparently not good with computers and TA is a bit of a dick about. But, they forget GA is in the same room as she goes and bonks him for his comments.

TA is much like the other trolls, grey skinned, symbol of Gemini and 4 small horns. They have notable glasses with one red and one blue lens.

Bothe Dave and Rose are asleep in the waking world which means they awake in the dream world. As the both reside in Derse when creaming they’ve met up to jam. We get a taste of some really good tracks here. The whole time they are jamming Cal is just warping around annoyingly so Rose chucks Cal out of Dave's window.

For some reason we now get to see what Maplehoof is up to. Maplehoof went to the same island with Rose's Mom on the Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR). They'd been waiting outside while Roses mom utterly destroyed a huge monster inside. Maple hoof collects all the Grist and other resources that Roses Mom left behind. It seems she has no need for any of that. All the grist Maplehoof collects goes to Rose for some reason. As it is too much, much of it goes to a “gutter” where it's redistributed to the other player via GristTorrent. We then see maple hoof follow Mom into a transportalizer.

We also see the fedora John had delivered find its way to John's Dad on the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS). His current hat is stained with oil. He had found a replacement to his missing shoe. John's dad also encounters the same stranger that saved John from the Basilisk back on page 1455. They are holding the Colonel Sassacre. Also, look suspiciously like Jade's long dead grandpa. John's dad follows him through a transportalizer.

Till tomorrow, enjoy some jams with sleeping friends, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11152808

Today I’m reading.

04/16/10- "John: Answer GC.” (/homestuck/1684) to 04/20/10 - "John: Deploy beloved daughter.” (/homestuck/1713)"

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DaveSprite saved John from his own gullibility. gallowsCalibrator [GC] had convinced John that he could skip a big chunk of the game. He only needed to go directly to a late level boss. But, DaveSprite came from the doomed future where John did that and died. So John, warned of his impending doom, eventually avoided it.

John is again confronted with advice from GC. She doesn't seem to know what John could be so salty about, it's not like her advice in this timeline. GC has a map to the second gate for John to regain his trust. John's supposed to go through the second at this point in the game so it should be safer and not lead to his death. Also this map isn’t hand drawn by a blind troll so it's actually legible. John, seemingly having learned nothing, flies over to it in his jetpack.

That gate takes him directly to the Land for Light and Rain (LOLAR). Jetpacks are not exactly easy to control, and Johns ends up crashing right into Rose's bedroom. This does not wake her up. We can also see her room has “MEOW” all over it. I also noticed her lathe is now completely trashed.

This is awkward for a lot of reasons. As far as we know these friends have never met in the real world. Imagine you had a lady friend on the internet for many years. Seeing them for the first time is already pretty awkward. Crashing through a wall of their bedroom in a jetpack is just too invasive. Especially since she's asleep. At least Mewtini is awake.

DaveSprite explains that John had in fact gone through the second gate and wasn't tricked. Though he is ahead of schedule. Gate 1 for John leads to his planet, which means Rose needs to get to gate 3 to get to her own planet. And gate 4 on Roses planet leads to Daves. Normally John cant get here without building up his house more but the jetpack was a bit of a cheat. Though John finds all that fascinating he actually wanted to talk to “real Dave”. DaveSprite gave him crap for that as he is also real. DaveSprite experienced a trauma that year just to give John's timeline a chance. He gives John an item code before moving on.

Dave wants John to rummage through as much of Rose's stuff as possible before she wakes up. John isn't comfortable with this gross idea but agrees to give Dave the item codes to Roses journals.

Rose meanwhile is floating around Derse. She is ins A Purple Derse garb. She goes to Dave's tower and throws a ball of yarn at him. This actually causes him to awaken, and fall asleep in the waking world. Dave's dream tower is a bit odd, it looks exactly like his room but Cal is also there in the Dersite garb and moving around. It also has crows and the graffiti on his wall are just drawings of sweet bro and hella jeff.

In the waking world John Dave sends him a line of gibberish as he’s now asleep on his keyboard. John pursues Rose’s book selection, finding a philosophy book by Charles Barkly. This is a callback to misquoting him in a poem. John eventually succumbs to his curiosity to see what Rose was going to send him as a birthday gift. She was also sending John a Con Air Bunny but one that was half knitted. The non-knitted parts also seem to be splotch in crude oil.

Her letter suggests that it was from her childhood and something she loved dearly. The years had made it tattered and too delicate to ever wash. She resurrected it using the knitting supplies that John had given her. Now she wanted John to have it. It’s clear that this was the original con air bunny that Dave had given John. That one is currently in possession of Casey the salamander. But will somehow go back in time and end up with a child version of Rose.

This reminds John that Casey is currently in his inventory. John deploys the salamander child to stay with Rose as he believes that may be safer.

Till tomorrow, Don’t leave your kids in inventory slots and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11106471

Today I’m reading.

04/13/10- "[S] Jack: Ascend.” (/homestuck/1668) to 04/15/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1683)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jack Noir is a pretty cool guy. He is remarkably similar to certain 60’s mob boss and killing machine Spades Slick. What Jack absolutely is not is a bureaucratic pencil pusher, and definitely not a dress up doll. So In the animation we are starting with we see Jack being all these things by his Queen. The black queen of dark (mostly purple) planet Derse.

Before we get into the meat of this is the first time Derse gets identified. We’ve seen it a few times though. The Mayor painted Derse, on the walls of his ship. We’ve seen plenty of Prospit as the land where Jade goes when she is sleeping. Though Prospit is very close to Skaia, it actually touches the cloudy sky. Derse is far. Derse is beyond the veil, at the edge of the medium. We’ve learned the story of SBURB as a game. The players need to prevent the black kingdom from taking over, and destroying the battlefield. The battlefield is the center of Skaia, between two kingdoms. And we can assume Prospit is the location of the white kingdom. We also know the 2 queens are on these planets.

The Peregrine Mendicant (PM) was asked to assassinate the black queen and king by Jack Noir. At that time, the Kings were said to be on the battlefield. This means the battle for Skaia is already on. I’ll point out that these are anthropomorphized chess pieces. Some have suggested this is potentially a racial thing, I’m not going to open that can of worms.

Back to this animation. This is a critical scene. We see Jack finally snap. The black queen showed up in his office forcing him to wear ridiculous outfits. We never actually see what is in the green package that PM had been trying to get from him. We can see Jack is able to use it. This item had the ability to cut the ring off of the queen, and apparently make her explode. I can assume this would not be possible with any conventional weapon. The ring is also the source of power and it seems only the queens have them. With this ring no longer on the queen Jack takes it for himself. He seems to gain the powers of every active Sprite in the game. Nannaquin, Tentacle cat princess, and an overpowered time traveling player of the game. A character of the game having this power could be a huge friggin problem.

It also messes up some things. Does this mean Jack is now the black queen, and does this void his deal with PM?

We see other important things in this animation. Rose awakens in Derse. Mewtini also seems to be there. She’s now able to see the messages she had scrawled all over her walls. It's “meow meow meow meow” and “cat cat cat”.

We also get a glimpse of what the guardian's up to. Roses mom, John's dad and Saves bro are all fighting huge monsters in their respective lands. They are all very confident fighters. We also see John's dad carve the mini tablet for his fedora that we saw way back in the beginning of this act. This means John was delivering his dads stuff to him with the Parcel Pyxides. But John had no idea he was doing this. Also Maplehoof is with Roses mom for some reason.

This animation also marks the end of year 1 of the comic. Because of this Andrew Hussie proceeds to break the fourth wall for a bit to do, pretty much what I am doing, but better. Page 1674 is a good recap of everything up to this point in a written format with lots of links to important events.

I’m not going to attempt to recap a recap. I should have read this sooner to help with my own understanding on my second read-through. But I forgot this existed and I probably didn't read it the first time. And I’ll admit I am only skimming through it now (I am very tired). But I’ll point out a few segments that are interesting though.

After conversing with GA, Rose found Jaspersprite and interrogated him about the secret which she found so maddeningly mysterious years ago. He explained elements of the mythos of her land, and how she'd need to learn to play the rain to produce the musical analogue of a genetic code to reintroduce life into the ocean. In response to her question about his secret, he simply replied "Meow." She mistook this for more nonsense, but it was in fact the secret he told her years ago. The four letter sequence MEOW unlocked a genetic code in her subconscious, which she would spend years scrawling on her wall using those letters in place of the typically used GCAT letters, while completely oblivious to the scrawlings and their meaning just as John was. As Jaspers said, she would understand their meaning when her dream self wakes up.

The genetics stuff hadn't really popped up much yet. So this may have been easy to miss or I assumed it would get explained more later.. But I guess that’s what happened.

The relation between Jack Noir and Spades Slick is also explained a little more here. We know that since the Trolls are in a different session that have many of the same elements of the game of their own. It would make sense they also have some of the same characters. This is like a game using the same NPC for different roles. Spades Slick is an Exile in the Trolls session. Spades is like the Wayward Vegabond (WV) is to John but for carcinoGeneticist [CG]. This is why at the end of the intermission Spades sees and recognizes CG on a monitor. Spades slick is the Exile guide for CG. Jack however, is not an exile in the session with the kids. Though the same character he is playing a different role in the story.

Feel free to let me know if I got anything else wrong.

We also get a small sense here that maybe Andrew has some contempt for his readers. And he has a creep plush version of Cal.

Till tomorrow, don't antagonize killing machines, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11058465

Today I’m reading.

04/0310- "==>” (/homestuck/1652) to 04/05/10 - "John: Get trolled by CG.” (/homestuck/1667)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John has been taking the advice of a Troll gallowsCalibrator [GC]. He’s planning to skip several milestones of SBURB to get to a late stage boss fight. Supposedly this boss enemy will be asleep and not fight John allowing him to get a quick victory. However, in a doomed timeline we learned this is nonsense and John's killed in this attempt. Dave from this timeline managed to warn John of his fate. However, John did not buy that Dave can time travel and he’s blasting off to his doomed fate anyway.

Rose, in the doomed timeline, ceased existing. This apparently allowed current timeline Rose to fall asleep and potentially “awaken”. The formally doomed timeline Dave, is now impaled bird sprite Dave. We’ll just call DaveSprite. DaveSprite reaches out to GC to let her know her plan to get John killed has been foiled. Though at this point that doesn't seem to be true as John is an idiot.

This conversation is interesting. GC mentions that she genuinely didn't think John would die from this. Since they are in a reverse timeline, she knew he’d be OK. But she’s also not surprised that one of the humans would time travel like this. The trolls have their own time traveler, they are not talking to the humans and do not approve of trolling them. She fully admits she is just trolling John, and badly. Dave points out that she convinced him to kill himself. She seems somewhat shocked by this, not realizing John is just really trusting and dumb. DaveSprite vaguely threatens to harm CG if she does anything “coy”. GC doesn’t really buy DaveSprites threats. Even with his new sprite powers, she compares him to captain planet. This seems to genuinely put them on peaceful terms.

I’ll again point out that this is Hanlons razor in action. GC may genuinely not understand the full effect of her trolling. Though she knows in the end it won't be too harmful, her getting John “killed” was not out of malice, just ignorance. It seems DaveSprite recognized this and chose a vigilant peace over aggressive vengeance. With that of the way DaveSprite can do his job and be Daves guide in the game. Instead of annoying noises and riddles DaveSprite gives straight answers. He mentions that Dave now has a bunch of high level gear, and can get through the game easily. DaveSprite can't join him on the planet yet as Dave needs to hit a certain level first. Until then he’s going to chill around and make comics or whatever. They performed a fist BUNP as bros.

At this point we are taken way back to page 131. This is when John opened Daves red package to retrieve the Con Air Bunny. This time though we see the note Dave had written to John. At least I don't think we got to see this the first time.

This letter mentions that Dave mentions he likes John because he is naive and weird. He promises John that if his naive nature ever gets him into any trouble that he will have his back. John is currently basting off towards the final ring and his death. He considers this message and reconsiders. John tells Dave he trusts him now even if his claims that his future self showed up and told him things seem insane. This loving bro moment get's interrupted by carcinoGeneticist [CG]. CG's confused about how human babies are born. This is because John will at some point convince him that babies spawn from larvae. The trolling between them is mutual. CG mentions he will troll John harder in John's future (CG’s past). CG mentions that the trolls are hiding in the Veil. This place is a belt of meteors between Skiai and a place called Derse. He’d mention that the Veil has a bunch of genetic labs and facilities used by the planets of the medium.

The game's central story is the fight between the white and black capricans in Skaia. This will end with black winning. This results in “The reckoning” the black King and Queen will use the meteors of the veil to destroy Skaia. Skaia can handle some of these by creating portals to remove them. But it is a countdown and the players need to kill the black king and queen. CG mentions that John and his friends have already screwed up terribly. The reckoning will be triggered too early for them to stop anything. This will result in something bad happening. But CG is too frustrated to tell John all this again. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try” but he believes this is another of John’s pranks.

Till tomorrow, give yourself a fist bunp and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10853123

Today I’m reading.

04/01/10- "[S] Dave: Accelerate.” (/homestuck/1641) to 04/03/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1651)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Prepare for more temporal nonsense. When we last saw Dave he had built the trigger item to give him access to the medium. He had plenty of time before he needed to use it. It was a red egg. But, his sprite was a bird he had impaled with a sword. It took the egg to the top of a radio tower and placed it on a nest of random swords and plush asses. We saw Dave climbing to retrieve it when Rose was trying to contact him. Then we hear from him when talking to John that he had already entered the medium. He needed John's advice on giving his second prototype. This skips anything about how Dave got the egg back.

And now we have this animation sequence. Dave: Accelerate. which seems to skip even beyond his conversation with John into a further point in the future. Dave is in the Land of Heat and Clockwork (LOHAC). This place looks awesome, but like a wildly difficult place to live. It's pretty much an ocean of hot magma with steel beam structures coming out of it. All the steel structures have large rotating cogs.

We see Dave teleport to a cog. And immediately start slaying imps and ogres. He’s dressed in something more formal with a red bowtie. He’s also wielding a broken sword with a very odd looking hilt. He is also summoning a floating mixing board. His fighting style has changed significantly. He appears not only to be accelerating time, but also cloning himself to inflict more damage. Also his sprite is now fully prototyped with both the bird and Lil’ Cal. The Cal Sprite has the laser beam attack we have seen with the others. It also summons a giant plush rump to… uhhh… thrust into enemies.

After the animation we see Dave talking with his sprite. Though it's apparently useless at communicating like Rose's tentacle cat princess. It just laughs and somehow talks in weird emojis. Dave complains about this to Rose on his computer glasses (ironically with the apple logo). He mentions it’s felt like months since he entered the medium. The “time hopping” is messing with his perception.

Rose says the point of this is for him to gather as much data as possible on where they went wrong before “returning”. Apparently they messed up Jade “the witch” is possibly dead and so is John “the heir”. It seems John skipping over the gates to the denizen got him killed. Also meteor possibly took Jade out before she could get in. The trolls also stopped communications at that time. The timeline is completely doomed.But Dave is chill about this as he can fix it. He’s just going to go back stop John, tell Rose how to awaken her dream self, and absolutely not prototype Lil Cal. Rose questions if she will continue to exist if this timeline, but trusts Dave. She doesn't have much of a choice.

So Dave uses his floating mixing board thing to go back to the conversation between himself and John. This is the one where Dave asked Johns for advice on what to prototype his sprite with. But, before John could take off Future doomed Timeline Dave (FDT Dave) shows up in front of “present?” Dave.

FDT Dave tells his past self to not let John fly off in the jetpack. Dave tries to explain to John that his future self just appeared and told him to not let John fly the cool jetpack. This doesn't work, FDT Dave tells Jon that he really is from the future in a separate chat. John doesn't believe this either but agrees not to fly off yet. FDT, satisfied with this, drops off a huge stack of cards to his past. Thes cards contained items: the floating mixing board and his weird sword. He then tosses himself into the Sprite. The Sprite is now a crow with a sword in its gut mixed with FDT Dave.

John apparently decides to fly off anyway. Which may just doom the timeline again.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.. Maybe not with a jetpack.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10811119

Today I’m reading.

03/27/10- "Rose: Pester Jade.” (/homestuck/1627) to 03/31/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1640)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

When we last left Rose she’d just had a conversation with her game sprite. This sprite contains her dead cat that she claimed not to care about, but clearly did. Rose is now consulting with Jade who is “asleep” about the sprites' comment. It said that Rose is the one who is actually asleep.

Jade explains the dream selves they all have. Her sprite likely meant that her dream self is still sleeping.. Only Jade can communicate with the waking world because of her dreambot. But Rose's dream self is trying to leave messages, scrawled on her walls. John had been doing the same and his own memory had convinced him the scrawings were the work of the imps. This is even though they had actually been there long prior. Rose had been pushing John to believe he was insane for not knowing the scrawings were his own doing. She had been psychoanalyzing the heck out of him. And she knows the cause of it, and that she is also doing it. She tries to get ahold of Dave to confirm this. Apparently he’d have noticed this, but hasn't mentioned it to her. But, Dave is currently climbing a radio tower on top of his apartment building. He needs to get the egg back from his spiteful sprite.

Meanwhile he is looking at the piece of junk he had made. Also the salamander child he hugged randomly seems to be there with the oily rabbit plush. A cool jetpack with a brick, violin, and a flowerpot merged into it. gallowsCalibrator [GC] mentions to him that she can fix it. She mentions she has a “hacker” who can make it work. As John is preparing to take off in the new jetpack. Dave reaches out to him. This seems to be a bit of a time jump as Dave is already in the medium apparently. Dave sprite needs its second prototype but Rose is apparently asleep at this point. Weirdly he is saying the sprite is suggesting what it wants to be prototyped with. The jetpack seems to work very well blasting John into space. I guess air, and the deadly vacuum don't seem to affect him? Very whimsical!

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.. with a cool jetpack.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10768817

I am back. I will only be doing this 3 days a week for now to avoid burning out. I may have taken on a bunch of other projects. but this one is my favorite. Today I’m reading.

03/23/10- "WV, AR: Prepare gift for the WQ.” (/homestuck/1608) to 03/26/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1626)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

A Wayward Vagabond (WV) and an Aimless Renegade (AR) became a bit infatuated. The target of this was the Peregrine Mendicant (PM). This is likely because she is the only female of their species they've seen in who knows how long. That is until the Windswept Questant (WQ) showed up. It seems these guys immediately forgot about PM and went full servant mode for them instead. They made her a crown.

PM witnesses this and remembers the dreadful mission she had been sent on by Jack Noir. her duty to get a package from him pretty much made her into an assassin.

The flashback has skipped ahead for this story. We see PM, sword ready consulting the white queen. Not the black one she saw earlier. Though the white queen looks pretty much the same, just white. Also this one's left arm is missing, whereas the black queen is missing its right arm. The queen shockingly gives the PM her crown as well as her ring. The ring has 4 pearls on it 3 had been lit, but once she removed it only 2 became lit. The queen's body also became normal looking, with 2 arms and no tentacles or scars. They now look a lot like WQ.

If I had to guess it seems the ring is related to the prototypes the player has chosen. The ring provides powers from each of these. PM’s quest is to take the crown and seek the white king out on the battlefield. In the present time PM and the white queen meet again as exiles. PM bows before WQ. She is crowned by WQ with the crown made by WV and AR.

Having completed her quest, WQ has abdicated, and PM is now the queen. WV and AR have no idea what is going on.

Rose is on her island in the Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR). Her Sprite has finally emerged to guide her. Her sprite is a combination of a tentacle princess doll and her dead childhood cat. It turns out it's not a great selection of things for communicating quests. It mostly just meows but is actually capable of speech. It tells Rose she is not just the seer but the Seer of Light. Also that all the fish in LOLAR have been eaten by its Denizen. John recently learned that his land's Denizen is something he needs to defeat. We can assume this is something Rose needs to do as well. The sprite also mentions Rose is asleep and needs to wake up still. This is something Jade had told John as well, we can take some guesses on what this means. Much like we know John and Jade go to Prospit when they are sleeping, it makes sense Dave and Rose may also have a place. Perhaps it's these places where they are actually awake.

The Sprite mentions in a vague way that Rose needs to get a song in the waking world. playing it will be the key to restore life to the land.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9884487

Today I’m reading.

03/20/10- "==>” (/homestuck/1594) to 03/22/10 - "John: Hop in.” (/homestuck/1607)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Last time we 2 trolls connected with Dave and Rose. The trolls grimAuxiliatrix [GA] and adiosToreador [AT] are trying to gain knowledge. They want of weak points for their targets. GA came to Dave, he provided terrible advice to GA which she caught on too. But she used his bad advice to perform a decent troll on Rose. AT got equally bad advice from Rose. We’re about to see how that works out.

Predictably it’s the cringiest thing I’ve read since my own live journal. AT attempts to lay down a whole page of rhymes to damage Dave’s pride. It's a long page of senselessness. Gibberish. Dave would have utterly destroyed it but opted to simply not ignore AT. Dave just mindlessly doodles SBAHJ stuff with AT's chat window burried behind it. AT takes Dave’s non-response as a victory for himself. We see AT a male troll, as he is a Taurus his horns are huge. Otherwise I'd describe him as looking like a knob.

Sadly I am a Tarus myself, and even as self hating as I am this character is terrible.

When we last left John he had taken the advice of a troll gallowsCalibrator [GC]. on this advice he hopped in a large pipe in LOWAS to get delivered closer to his destination. We now see John being flung out of a pipe, covered in oil and his inventory scattered all over. This includes the box bunny. Reunited with the bunny and surviving the horrors in the pipe he reenacts the Con-Air scene. The one where Cages's character is returning the bunny to his daughter. In John's case a random consort and its mother. I am sure they were both confused and horrified. An oily alien creature just came up to them with some soft oily thing and started embracing a child.

2 trolls immediately have things to say about this bizarre action. John explains to carcinoGeneticist [CG] that he was re-enacting a movie. CG likes movies, and they actually nerd bond over it.

John mentions he’s receiving help from GC. It seems CG doesn't like that. This is against whatever CGs plan is. It seems the trolls even troll each other and that causes issues for them. John also mentions he hasn't talked to Jade on their behalf yet. But it seems in the time of confusion CG's shocked to hear his future self wanted John to do that. He believes it's a bad sign.

More confusing is the GC is in the same room as CG. But they are not on the same point in the timeline. GC is slightly behind the conversation John had with CG. John attempts to relay some message between them. But he inevitably ends up making them turn on each other.

GC’s guidance has actually led John to his planet's Denizen Palace. John needs to slay this huge beast to get a massive amount of grist. Also something called “ultimate alchemy”. This normally doesn't happen until gate 7, but CG is assuming it won't be awake yet and John can sneak up on it. He’d be way too weak at this point to win a fair fight. IT seems they are trying to exploit and speed run the game. It also seems super risky.

Since the area isn't accessible John locates a Return node and gets sent back to his bedroom. GC mentions she will get him to the gate shortly.

The trolls have mentioned that the human kids really mess up their entire session in the future. It’s looking like they may actually be the cause of this.

Till tomorrow, don't go hugging random amphibian children. That’s weird. also keep riding the pumpkin tide.

Notice: in true Homestuck fashion I am putting this project on hiatus. Just for a few weeks though, not for years. I'll need some time to focus on family, and career stuff. I'll still being doing all my mod stuff so please behave

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9842988

Today I’m reading.

03/11/10- "Rose: Strife.” (/homestuck/1582) to 03/18/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1593)"

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Rose is now in the Land for Light and Rain (LOLAR). She’s been loving it so far, getting left alone by both her mother and her exile guide. She is free and independent. But like John house the game eventually starts spawning imps. Rose imps are marble and chalk. She's not afraid to fight them. She’s vicious with the knitting needles and yarn. Taking her first 2 imps out without any difficulty. John nearly died from his first fight. Then after only 2 imps Rose's faced with a Lime Orge. She manages to take this out as well. She jabs the needles into its eye and rides the dang thing like a blinded pony. Meanwhile Mewtini is just enjoying hanging out doing kitten stuff. Most violent scene yet!

Despite this act of violence when Dave suggests giving the ogre the old coup de grâce for some grist Rose refuses. Seems she only wants to fight in self defence. Apparently Daves gristTorrent also helps him with Rose’s session. They’re both leeching off of John but the process is apparently slow. Both Rose and Dave get pestered by Trolls. Dave is chatting with grimAuxiliatrix [GA] we're shown this one is the sign of Virgo. They ask if Dave is the one “commanding the seer” this confirms Rose is the seer, and we know John is the heir. She also tells Dave he is the Knight. GA has come to Dave asking for advice on Rose. They seem interested in gauging her sincerity. Though it really does seem like a “how do i get her to like me?” situation. Dave provides terrible advice. Rose is sarcastic so Dave suggests that GA use sarcasm and assume Rose is always doing the same. GA points out this is just trolling but Dave encourages them to troll Rose harder.

Rose is benign pestered by adiosToreador [AT] with the mark of Taurus. AT is the troll that failed hard to troll Dave. AT got counter trolled ruthlessly as a result. Rose is also quick to detect AT is just incompetent . They’ve come to Rose seeking advice on finding Dave’s weak points. Rose plays along with this making AT think she wants to destroy Dave. Her advice is to attack Dave with poetry. Dave being very into rap battles will likely repeat his last encounter with AT and destroy them. That’ll be a cringy trainwreck we can look forward to.

GA now pesters Rose as she is still sitting on the unconscious body of the ogre she took out. GA mentions that she got some insight from Dave but isn't falling for his sabotage. It seems GA is not as dumb as certain other trolls. GA is the one who had explained the whole temporal mechanical situation to Rose back on page 1093. To Rose this is their second conversion but to GA it’s their 7th. Rose was considerably more sceptical of GA’s claims back then. They now seem a lot more plausible, thus Rose was wrong about a thing. GA has a punishment for this. They’ve given Rose a transcript of their first conversation, and asked her to transcribe it. They may have hidden a message in it that's found this way. But this also forces Rose to scrutinize and relive her error. Apparently the motivation for this is to weaken Rose's intellectual superiority. This way their first conversation from GA’s perspective is one where she will have the upper hand. This is a ridiculous and unnerving manipulation. But I suppose it may have actually impressed Rose a little.

Rose ends the conversation as her sprite has come to find her.

We get a shot of GA at their computer. She is a female troll. Her horns resemble the virgo symbol. She seems to put effort into her appearance. Her hair and eyes have a well manicured look to them.

—

Till tomorrow, manipulating your friends before you even meet them is a great strategy! also. keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9810116

Today I’m reading.

03/06/10- "Dave: Punch some cards.” (/homestuck/1557) to 03/11/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1583)"

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Dave has recently entered SBURB. Unlike John and Rose, he’s got a lot of time before the meteor hits. Jade is his host, and she is new to video games in general. This means the extra time is really needed here. Dave also has other advantages. IT seems the game has some balancing mechanics to help out the players who get in later. Dave has a few extra tools that we don't know the use of yet. He also had a CD for a tool called GristTorrent that allowed him to take resources from other players. Using this he’s built the Punch designix and a bunch of cards. Jade has provided various random items for him to punch.

The Card Shunt and Jump seem to be able to alter the Alchemizer with potential upgrades. Adding a blender or game bro magazine to it was.. Not an upgrade. Jades pictograph Modus allows her to get the code for items that she draws. This is assuming she can draw it well enough. And that the terrible guessing mechanism to understand. She gets the idea to draw the Punch designix. Dave makes the card for that and adds it to a shunt. This gives a useful upgrade appending a punch desinignix to to the Alchemizer. What is even better than having the crafting stations near each other? Having a multipurpose station. They can't afford to build a holopad, but using this same method they append one to the alchemizer for free. This lets them see what items would get created without having to commit to building it. Adding the lathe naturally lets them create totems, at the alchemizer. Adding a jumper block to the jumper block makes it compacts and removes the need for shunts. Jade wants to add the intellibeam laserstation. But she can’t draw it, and it's extremely expensive. Dave has grabbed a photo enlarger from his photography. This upgrade lets them make items bigger or smaller, though the price's affected. So before the game has even really started Dave has an OP crafting station.

John is still in LOWAS. He ventured far from where he started and managed to get to his fathers car. It’s smashed of course and both the package and beta are gone. We know that Authority Regulator (AR) has confiscated those items. The Postal Maiden (PM) has sent the betas out for delivery but hasn't gotten the package yet.

gallowsCalibrator [GC] pesters John. The blind troll who dumped a lot of lore on us earlier. She forcefully advises John against his will pointing out he is nice and push-over. She is right.

She says she has a map of LOWAS and can lead him to the next gate. She draws him one but it is illegible garbage. She does agree to lead him to a pipe that will be a shortcut.This boy is hopelessly trusting isn't he?

Till tomorrow, multipurpose stuff is cool! Also, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9771546

Today I’m reading.

03/04/10- "Rose, I must leave now.” (/homestuck/1538) to 03/06/10 - "Jack: Open it.” (/homestuck/1556)"

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Rose had been chatting with a troll who’d dumped a tonne of lore onto us. One thing they had mentioned was that the voices in the heads of players are those of exiled agents. They are living on ruined earth in the future. We’ve met A Wayward Vagabond (WV), a Peregrine Mendicant (PM) and an Aimless Renegade (AR). But who’s voice Rose has been hearing? All we know is they seem polite and have an elegant font.

They repeat she needs to find her sprite, and her purpose. Then says they will never hear from them again. Rose felt very free and liberated as she didn't need any guide. She was the guide, or at least the writer of one on GameFaqs.

In the future, on earth, WV, PM, and AR had gotten along and set up camp. WV and AR just had a giant egg land near them. From this egg a Windswept Questant (WQ, Questant meaning one who goes on quest). She is a white caprician like PM, but much taller than the others. Her robes are even cleaner than the others. PM was providing John with instructions to help her past self. But the sound of the egg crashing caught her immediate attention.

In the present a past version of PM is a mail carrier. They’ve been on a quest to retrieve a package that was taken by an agent. She’s now deep in agent territory and even encountered the black queen (possibly). She's reached the office of the archagent. Shockingly the package she is after is just there on a desk. But Jack Noir has shown up. PM’s cover of just being there to pay for a parking ticket is being tested. She failed pretty quickly but Jack has other ideas. He says he will let her go, with the parcel, but she needs to go on a mission in exchange. He provides her with the same black sword her future self still carries. Her mission is to kill the king and the queen. With little other choice she takes the sword and leaves.

Peeking inside the package to see what is worth regicide, even Jack's shocked. But we don't get to see what it is. We do know this is a gift from Jade to John. So it's either something otherworldly and chaotic or something very mundane. PM doesn't need to know what's in it. She is working on duty alone.

Till tomorrow, remember to not open other people's mail, that's illegal. also keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9728382

Nice. Today I’m reading.

03/02/10- "You guide the Heir. Consult with him.” (/homestuck/1523) to 03/04/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1537)"

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Rose is enjoying her new island home. It seems her mother fled to a different island which we can assume would make this place even better for her. She’s just chilling on the dock on her laptop Mewtini the kitten napping on a post nearby. It seems idyllic, if it wasn't for the bright colors and the rain I’d love to be there.

John and a troll are pestering Rose. The mystery audience is suggesting Rose consult the “heir”. This is John, one of the consorts called him that as well. John is just checking in. He Hasn't heard from Rose since before she escaped earth. He’s relieved she is ok and fills her in on his location. They figure out they are not actually near each other. John also mentions what the trolls had told him. That the trolls are now friends but travelling backwards in time. Also they are playing SBURB on a different instance.

Rose then chats with a troll using the handle gallowsCalibrator [GC]

This one is a little odd. They can apparently smell words. They are also not being friendly, but they are helpful. They explain they are choosing to remain linear to Rose's timeline. This instead of going through it in reverse like the others. She wants to be “B3ST H4T3FR13NDS FOR3V3R”. GC explains the voices in their heads are part of the game, they are “exiles”. Beings living on a future earth who subtly and unknowingly guide the players. Also the players are being assigned mythologies. Rose suggests she may be a seer.

CG continues to say that the exiles close loops in Paradox Space. Also though the players will not get to save earth, the exiles will rebuild it. Though this will inevitably be “ripe for seeding all over again”. The players have a greater purpose. The Exiles are former Agents, exiled during something called “The Reckoning”. Rose asks what agents are but GC was getting annoyed by the questions and left. This lore dump recovers a lot of what we already know as the audience, but also a lot of new things.

We go now to the past. Jade's birthday well before all this nonsense happened. I think we had seen this conversion before on page 1000 but we know more now. John messaging Jade birthday wishes. He's asking for apologies as he forgot to account for the long shipping time with her gift. We know now that Jade pulled some time trickery and has actually had the gift for years now. But during this conversation Jade was interrupted by a troll. We didn't see this conversation the first time. carcinoGeneticist [CG] has a message for Jade from her own future self. But CG has been nothing but an ass to Jade at this point so she ain't believing him. Regardless of this he tells her Jadebot will eventually blow up. When that happens she needs to contact the trolls. She naturally thinks CG is full of crap. We then see the troll in question CG. We have seen them before on a monitor during the end of the intermission on page 1353. This was the troll on the monitor that Spades Slick found.

Trolls look like humans. but with candy corn colored horns, sharp teeth, grey skin, yellowish eyes. This one looks pained. His shirt has a symbol representing the astrological sign for Cancer.

Jade then received the green package from her penpal, the one she will later send to John. The pen pal must have a sendifier. She mentions her penpal has made requested modifications to its contents. But we still don't get to see what is in there.

At this same time in the past. John's contacted by gallowsCalibrator [GC]. the troll that can taste words. This one is apparently also blind. Though all she says is that John is a terrible ectobiologist and she will slit his throat.

This is when John changed his handle to ectoBiologist.

We then see GC. She is a troll with red tinted glasses and the sign of Libra on her shirt.

In the present time a mailworker (PM) is trying to get a package from an Authority Regulator. She has tracked him to enemy territory. Her plan is to present the parking ticket that AR had left on John's dads car, then claim she is only there to pay it. She has no idea where she is or how to find the agent. We do see her pass a guy who looks suspiciously like Diamonds Droog but with cat ears.

Somehow she stumbles into the throne room. She's seen but what we can assume is the queen of this place. It’s a bizarre looking creature, a bit like Sn0wman but with a scar in its eye like Jack and milling an arm. But it has a female torso and almost mechanical limbs. It's wearing a harlequin outfit, and has tentacles. Its crown is an elaborate jester's cap. Also it has a ring on its finger.

PM shows the queen her parking ticket and gets pointed to the office of the archagent. We know this arch agent. They are ~~spades slick~~ Jack Noir.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9698537

Today I’m reading.

02/25/10- "Rose, find your sprite.” (/homestuck/1491) to 03/01/10 - "Dave: Download a bunch of grist from John. He has plenty.” (/homestuck/1522)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Rose had nearly escaped a fiery death. The meteors destroying earth created a firestorm around her home. Dave had some difficulties getting the beta installed. Though after a frantic first phase of the game Rose and her home got sent to a new land. The Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR), and Rose seems to love it. A new mystery audience with a fancy font had instructed Rose to explore this now world. Now they are suggesting she find her sprite. Her sprite contains her deceased childhood cat. She isn't able to find them but sees footprints in the white sands that now surround her house.

The footprints lead to the foundation of the now destroyed mausoleum. The path that leads to the lab now goes to a dock. It appears that there may have been a boat there but now it's just a rope and an abandoned martini. This is a clear sign that Rose’s mom was also brought over, and immediately left. That audience suggests “A mother will do what is best for her child”. This is odd as they seem to know Rose's mom. There is an island in the distance which is likely where Rose's mom fled to.

In the future the Wayward Vagabond (WV) has reestablished Can Town. Clearly building and being the mayor of a town of cans will get the attention of the Peregrine Mendicant (PM). The Aimless Renegade (AR) who is also trying to get the attention of PM has his militia of bullets to watch over.

Above them a giant egg appears in the sky. It appears to be another rocket like the ones WV and PM came in on. It crashes down right next to them.

Jade trying out the item creation system, She makes Daves trigger item. John had a green apple, Rose had a purple wine bottle Dave got a red egg. Dave now notices that the Alchemiser is on an AC unit on his roof. He points out how that is a terrible place for it. Before Dave can even attempt to get the Egg his kernel sprite steals it. It’s now in a nest high up on a radio tower. The nest is mostly crappy swords, and puppets including Cal.

Dave assumes he needs to crack the egg open and maybe cook it in the microwave. Jade tosses the microwave out of the building.

We get to see the other unique items that only have been available in Dave's session for some reason.

• the card with 6 buttons is a Jumper Block Extension
• the CD is just a “CD” (for younger folks this this is what a cd is.)
• a Punch Card Shunt
• a holopad
• Intelliobeam laserstation

They also seem to have started with 2000 grist. They noticed that Johns started with 20 and Rose’s 200. It seems the more users in the session, the more each consecutive player gets. Jade gives Dave a CD though they have no idea what it does. Jade moves the alchemizer off of the AC. This is expensive but she can afford it. This space allows her to deploy a Jumper Block Extension which connects to it. They add a Punch Card Shunt and try adding a card to it but nothing happens. They assume the card needs to be punched first. But they can't get the Punch designix yet.

The CD installs something called GristTorrent onto Dave’s laptop. This program allows Dave to leech resources from other players. He begins leeching John's shale, and grist without hesitation. Nice guy.

Till tomorrow, take your friends' resources, they have plenty. keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9652587

Today I’m reading.

02/22/10- "So many years ago, entrenched in the temporally oblique...” (/homestuck/1455) to 02/25/10 - "Great! I would like you to carve something on it.” (/homestuck/1490)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Many years in the future. A Wayward Vagabond (WV), a Peregrine Mendicant (PM) and an Aimless Renegade (AR) have now become friends. It also seems both WV and AR have interest in PM. AR has given PM an ancient artifact. This is a squiddle plush that Jade had lost many years prior. This gift makes PM recall a memory.

We see what looks like AR. He is in the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS) next to John's Dad’s Car. They're dressed in the sort of outfit that the imps and Jack Noir wear. He is an Authority Regulator working for the some and needs to deal with an illegally parked vehicle. He left a parking ticket and has confiscated the contents. This includes the Package Jade left for John and the server beta.

Also on LOWAS a Parcel Mistress who looks like PM but in Prospit outfit. She notices the agent nearby holding a package she’s been looking for. She has a note about it that appears to be from Jade. But she mentions that the AR looking guy is an Agent and is dangerous.

John is also on LOWAs potentially at the same time. He’d encountered some underlings attacking a consort village. He's decided to charge at them with no strategy at all. This was a bad idea, they are too tough even for his Telescopic Sassacrusher. He’s about to get eaten by a basilisk when a shot rings out nearby. The mystery sniper explodes the basilisk with single shots. They shoot the Copper Giclops in the eye, making it flee. But it’s taken the Telescopic Sassacrusher with it. All we see is that the stranger looks a lot like Jade's grandpa and uses the same sort of blunderbuss. They leave the scene carrying a copy of Sassacare with them. John's confused but relieved.

In the future WV, PM and AR are looking up peacefully at the star filled sky. PM remember a distant memory. She suddenly realizes she needs to communicate something to John right away.

PM in the present receives a mini tablet via a Parcel Pyxis with an odd carving. She identifies this as the other object that the agent was holding. The SBURB beta. She now knows she needs to get both the green package and the beta from this agent somehow.

Past AR is immediately attracted to the PM. But this doesn't help much as AR needs permission to hand over any contraband. PM manages to convince him that the minitablet she received is official. That works and she sends it off into a Pyxis. But she still needs the package.

John meanwhile is too busy to chase off after his rescuer. The village is on fire. He attempts to use this Barbasol Bomb. But that is apparently very flammable and makes matters much worse. Fortunately a very convenient gust of wind blows out the fire. The Consorts praise John for his heroism. Even though he didn't really do anything. While getting paraded around he hears a voice in his head. It’s PM from the future telling him to carve something on it. I can assume this is the Beta minitablet PM used to get the beta from AR.

Till tomorrow, reminisce about the past, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9617968

Today I’m reading.

02/18/10- "AR: Cautiously drink TAB.” (/homestuck/1408) to 02/22/10 - “==>” (/homestuck/1454)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

A Wayward Vagabond (WV), a Peregrine Mendicant (PM) and an Aimless Renegade (AR) had been fighting. WV and PM had separately landed near some ancient frog ruins. AR had set up base there and immediately began shooting at intruders. But after seeing the icon on WV pumpkin bindle AR freaked out and called a cease fire in his own way. Now the 3 of them are enjoying WV’s cans of preserve and Tab.

AR goes and gathers some of the artifacts to show off to his now welcome guest. WV takes PM to his bunker. It seems ARs rockets blew a hole into a room he wasn't able to access before. The console in there has a lot of spirographs on it and a frog. We learned recently the frogs are “Illegal contraband” so AR may not want to see this. Apparently its out of power so it is not functional. WV then shows the PM the console to talk to John. But she is more impressed by his drawings. We can tell what planets John and Rose are on. The ones Dave and Jade will inhabit are also pretty obvious. WV hands PM his chalk and leaves her to go investigate a nice smell. PM now goes and interacts with John. We learn she was in the “audience” doing the interactive sequence easier.

We learn what cannon events happened during this scene.

• getting the mini tablets and providing the resources requested.
• meeting “the wizard” and “crumplehat”
• getting the blank tablet, chisel, and serenity (PM doesn't know its the same firefly)
• seeing his house in the distance with the telescope

Meanwhile someone else is talking with Rose. With a very frilly font. They ask her to look around and discover. Rose is happy to oblige now that everything isn't on fire.

John at the present time has wandered through a forest trying to find his dads car. He stumbles onto a small Consort village getting raided by underlings. New enemies a Tar Basilisk which breathes fire and a gigantic Copper Giclops along with a few imps. John looks ready to fight.

Jade is trying to hide Dave's Toilet on his roof. But she has a nap attack and accidentally drops it through the roof. This hits the cruxtruder triggering it, and the 4:13 hours timer. Also spilling toilet water all over Dave's room. Jade can still type while asleep but she’s confused. Dave had been drinking juice while working with Rose. so he really needed that toilet. He also points out that it is very weird that Jade can see him everywhere.

Dave decides to “refill” his juice bottle and give the code to John as a prank. While Dave is in the shower stall doing this. Jade finds the crow Dave had impaled. Weirdly their very Beta copies Jade’s using are still with it. Jade, tired and confused but very compassionate, knows a neat trick to “help” the bird. She tosses it in the kernel sprite. Dave points out that it is a very dumb choice of guides as it can't talk. I'd also point out that he murdered the creature and it may not be cool with that. Dave is aware of how the dream bot works and tricks Jade into slapping herself awake with it. It’s a bit mean but the look of confused astonishment on her face was pretty damn funny.

Meanwhile in the future. AR has brought out his artifacts, this included Jade's food storage device. It seems all the stuff inside is still fresh. He also has the ancient Squiddles plush. He gives one to the PM. This makes WV a bit jealous, it seems both WV and AR are romantically interested in PM. Also Serenity is apparently interested in WV which is adorable but weird. PM accepts the gift but she's reminded of something from the past.

Till tomorrow, win friends with food, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9582081

Today I’m reading.

02/13/10- "John: Pester Rose.” (/homestuck/1391) to 02/17/10 - "[S] ==>” (/homestuck/1407)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John is still exploring the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS). He's aware of this because his grandmother resurrected as a game sprite and told him. Johns is now attempting to contact Rose but not having much luck. He is able to chat with Jade though. Jade already knows that John is in LOWAS. Jade explains to John that she now has the game and needs to contact Dave to get started. John mentions it doesn't make any sense that she’d get Daves copy of the game. Especially since she didn't know what SBURB was last time they talked. Her response is that she was asleep at the time. She also tells John he needs to get his server a copy of the game so she can get into it. This means John's priority is to now walk over to the area directly below his house. Then he'll need to locate his dads car, and get the package. Jade swears she isn't psychic. We know this is technically true now. She’s been getting visions from the clouds of Skaia.

John now also gets pestered by trolls, but we can’t see who. Dave is also trying to contact Rose. This is a bit odd as he should be able to just see her on his screen. He threatens to prod her with a wizard statue if she doesn't respond soon. But Jade is also chatting with him. Jade explains that she's going to be his server host. Dave points out it is a bit stressful to be simultaneously playing the game as both a client and the host player. Jade mentions It’ll be easy and ribbs Dave a bit about being so dramatic in getting the game. She's well aware he was being utterly beaten by a puppet for like an hour. She knows she needs to move though. Not only has she seen “the big meteor” in her dreams but she even has a screen shot from her dream recorder. That technology would be terrifying. I think if we saw our own dream in the waking world we’d all just have a mass identity crisis. Fortunately, it seems Jade's used to this and happy to share her dreams with others. Dave mentions Rose is finally answering. But we switch to John and a troll. carcinoGeneticist [CG] and other trolls used to pester John constantly. Eventually he figured changing his handle would get rid of them and it seemed to work. Until now that is. CG explains that the trolls just didn’t care enough about John to contact him sooner. Also that his ploy never worked at all. GC as was mentioned to Rose before mentioning they are actually friends now. Though that doesn't make them any less of an asshole. But they are in an awkward situation of seeing John's timeline in reverse. Now he keeps having to explain this over and over. IT gets more and more difficult as their own past selves were being total jerks. Also apparently the trolls are also in the game but in a different game session. They need to let Jade know something urgently but she is ignoring them because they are assholes. So they are now bugging her friends to ask her to talk to them. John says he’ll consider it but proceeds on his mission to find his dads car.

Meanwhile years in the future The wayward vagabond has brokered a peace. Now he, the Peregrine Mendicant and the Aimless Renegade are sitting together. They're eating canned preserves and drinking Tab. They may even be friends now.

Jade is learning the game the hard way. Much like the others she is deploying the crafting stations in terrible locations. We can see there’s a few extra options for deployment items. Also Dave's template card is a red egg. We also see a card with 6 buttons and a CD. Dave is trying to chat with Rose who has kind of put him on hold. Dave notices Jade trying to deploy the Cruxtruder in his small cluttered bedroom. At least she has time to learn. Though she also immediately removes Dave's bed. Rose now responds to Dave pointing out the irony given what Dave had done to her bed. She also finds it funny the gamer guy only managed to get into the game minutes before Rose's imminent doom. While Jade, who doesn't play video games, got in ahead of schedule. Rose mentioned she was busy chatting with the troll, also checking on John. It seems while John is on the surface of LOWAS she can't see him from the game. Rose doesn't mention where she is currently but she does mention that she really likes it there.

Jade continues to re-configure Dave's room. She's got the Cruxtrider and room, the lathe in the living room, and she put the alchemizer on the roof on top of an AC unit. This will be a huge pain for Dave. Did they not have Minecraft? You gotta keep your crafting stations near each other! Jade wants to organize more of Dave’s stuff but notes the puppets are actually Dave's Brothers. She finds him intimating. Though much like Rose did she figures she can clean the bathroom. Then proceeds to rip out the toilet. We are now shown where Rose was sent. The Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR). This planet is very bright with pinks, yellows and blue pastel. It's a kind of vapor-wave but I don't think the term is popular yet. It seems to be oceanic, Roses house is on an island and no longer on fire. It seems damn cool but probably annoyingly bright.

Till tomorrow, remember if your house is on fire just load up SBURB. Transport your whole house to a new land where it isn't on fire. Oh, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9536533

Today I’m reading.

02/11/10- "In a future settled askance of the present...” (/homestuck/1359) to 02/13/10 - "Jade: Pester chums.” (/homestuck/1390)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

In the “present” as we see it. 2 of 4 children have left earth via a video game SBURB. This is a good thing as the earth is currently getting pelted with millions of meteors. Somehow years in the future the earth has new inhabitants. We’ve met 3 capricians. There’s a Wayward Vagabond (WV), a Peregrine Mendicant (PM) and an Aimless Renegade (AR). WV and PM had both found rockets that lead them to some ancient frog ruins. This place in the Present is next to the home of Jade Harley. But currently these ruins are home to an Aimless Renegade (AR). There is a huge stash of weapons and ammo left by Jade's Grandfather. AR is not happy that WV and PM are on his turf. AR is also a gun nut who has no idea how to aim.

It seems that the PM's rocket ship isn’t defenseless. It has mechanical defense worms that blast lasers at AR’s direction. As such there is a lot of collateral damage to the ruins. But eventually AR switches to homing missiles and takes out the worms. He gets his crosshairs on WV next but stops. Something about the icon on the WV pumpkin bindle makes him freak out. The icon shaped like the head of Jades ‘pet’, the omnipotent god dog Bec. AR jumps out of his defensive position in a tower and tries frantically to talk to WV. PM who is still armed with an awesome black sword. PM jumps onto and subdues AR, sword drawn.

Meanwhile, closer to present times, in about the same place, Jade has received an odd gift. Jade's forbidden to enter the frog ruins by Bec. Today she decided to go there anyway, she knew she needed to. We didn't get to see much of what was in there. We do know Jade found a huge lotus with a timer. At the same moment Rose entered the game, and John entered the first gate, the lotus opened. The lotus had Dave’s copy of the SBURB beta. It has Dave’s name and orange juice stains on it. How it somehow ended up in a lotus in some ruins in the middle of the Pacific isn't yet known. Jade does mention the lotus will regrow in about 413 years. Jade needs this Beta though, as Jade doesn't own a copy of the game. She isn't even into video games.

In typical Jade fashion she proceeds to screw around with her inventory. She attempted the Jenga modus but that worked terribly. Then she tries the Pictionary modus. This is interesting as she can draw something, if it's recognized and nearby then it's stored. If it's not nearby it makes a ghost card with a code. If she had the crafting items in SBURB this would mean that she could draw anything then replicate it. But this modus is really bad at guessing. Jade is then caught by Bec. She's teleported to her room and loses most of her gear. This includes her advanced bass guitar. We saw this was still there in the future when AR was looking around. She still has her laptop and the beta though.

Jade installs the beta. She is doing this preemptively knowing she will need it soon. While doing this Many trolls are trying to contact her on Pesterchum. carcinoGeneticist, arachnidsGrip, and terminallyCapricious. Jade ignores them for now.

Till tomorrow, obey your dogs, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9499826

Today I’m reading only one page! But it's a really huge interactive segment.

02/09/10- "[S] ACT 4 ==>” (/homestuck/1358) to 02/11/10 - "In a future settled askance of the present...” (/homestuck/1359)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We’re back to the main story finally! We last left John leaping through the first gate. We got a peek of this place in the last act when granny tossed a copy of Sassacre down below the clouds. A dark and cloudy planet we now know is the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS). Our intro to this act is a big interactive segment where we play as John exploring this land.

– tangent –

This segment has a really great song playing in it called “Doctor”. This theme will come up a lot mixed into many later works. I’ll mention here again that in the original experience we didn't get the handy music credits for these. The band camp also only credited the artists on a whole album so I had no idea who made what song. This means I didn't learn about who Buzinkai was until long after my initial read. I didn't learn that we had lost them or why. I won't tell their story here. I feel those stories are best told by those close to the subject and not some internet rando’s like me. But I will mention that I think this is a really great song as are the others composed by them. So let’s appreciate it and the artist that made it.

— end tangent –

We can start by chatting with Nana who is our guide to this. She suggested we need to chat with the locals of this land. He asks if Nana was always a prankster or if the prototyping with a harlequin doll made her this way. Nana just gave him a sass answer. It's also worth noting that the player in that case Isn’t known yet. But they seem more polite than our Wayward Vagabond.

The Imps have changed. Some now have elements of princess, cats, and squids. Nana tells us this is because Rose has prototyped her sprite. It seems other players in the session will alter the entire world. John asks if he can get to Rose but Nana mentions he can't yet.

It’s shown at one point that by jumping through the first gate John got warped to the surface. Nana explains John now needs to find a gate on the surface. She doesn't really explain where that gate goes.

The locals are cute salamanders calling themselves the “Consorts” of the land. They seem to eat glowing mushrooms. But they really hate farming them. They also speak the language of bulbs.

They are pretty much bullied by “agents” or “underlings” the imps and ogres John has been mashing up. The title of “Archagent” that Jack Noir has now makes more sense. The agents are causing issues for the consorts. The land's covered in pipes and some are now clogged with crude oil. They’ve also been damaging sacred monuments. The monuments are to frogs. Nana tells us that frogs are very important to John's quest.

The Consorts speak of a hero “the Heir” who's meant to come and save them. They heavily imply that John is this hero.

The Consorts also speak of “the slumbering one”. This slumbering one can make the wind blow again and free all the fireflies who are stuck in the thick clouds. There is a big open pipe with a river of oil flowing into it. John mentions he hears something sleeping within it.

Again, the land is covered in pipes. The wind blows through them creating a pleasant sound. Many got clogged with oil from the agents. Some stick out of the ground like mailboxes. The Consorts call these Parcel Pyxides (vessels). These act as a delivery system like phemonic tubes. You're able to drop stuff into them and find items in them. These include

• Serenity! The bug friend of our wayward vagabond. But this is in the past so they are still stuck in amber.
• a jar of bugs
• 3 mini tablets. These are stone Captchalogue Cards one is blank the others have a fedora and a shoe. Apparently dropping these into a Parcel Pyxis means you are asking for this item. If you receive a carved one your duty is to provide that item.
• one oily cog
• a cruxite dowel, this is just given to you by a salamander
• an exquisite pipe
• an elegant pipe
• “Illegal contraband” which seems to just be a frog
• a bunch of rocks and mushrooms not sure if John canonically took these.

Other things of note about this sequence.

• one of the Consorts has the harlequin doll that fell below clouds way back on page 266. He offers to sell it to you for 5 Million boondollars. This shows that these are actual currency.
• I remembered what trickster mode was when doing this thing. It just makes John shrug here. Also, I've gone back and commented on some of my older logs. These have strange effects in some of the interactive sequences.
• There's a glitch with one of the Parcel Pyxis that when an item pops out from it the item will float up endlessly.
• you can use the Barbasol bomb, and attacking with your inventory works in the game.
• you can throw the box of gushers around and shale will come out
• One notable Consort is CrumpleHat. He has a crumpled hat and claim to have dishonored his ancestors by wearing it
• Another notable Consort is a wizard. Though really he is just wearing John's oily bed cover as a robe. John was too weirded out to ask for it back.

The interaction ends when you leave a path. It just hard cuts to black. I thought it was broken or something.

Till tomorrow, talk to your local salamanders, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9461279

Today I’m reading.

02/06/10- "[I] SS: Use crowbar to pry the safe open.” (/homestuck/1322) to 02/09/10 - "END INTERMISSION” (/homestuck/1357)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

The midnight crew has been on a rampage. Well mostly Spades Slick. But he and Diamond Droogs, Clubs Deuce, and Hearts Boxcar are now back together. They are in front of a huge safe. This safe was the target of the whole mission. All the dead members of The Felt, and all the smashed clocks are just a bonus. Spades is a bit annoyed that his safe cracker failed to actually open the safe. Hearts had called for some help from Clubs and never got it. Spades seems to have to do everything himself. Clover(4) is one of the last members of The Felt still alive. He’s not a threat to the Midnight Crew, he’s tiny and doesn't seem to fight. He just wants them to answer his riddles. He’s very obsessed with riddles. He mentions he can open the safe in exchange for humouring his riddles.

It seems Clovers(4) ability affects luck. Attempting to shoot him would result in a jammed gun. The attempt to convince him by just batting him with a rolled up newspaper instead. Also still alive is Cans(15). We hadn’t seen this one yet but he’s just charged through a wall kool-aid man styled and knocked Droogs into next week. Literally, Droogs is now one week into his own futures in a grocery store and very confused. He’s overwhelmed by the Prices and Values in the store (another SBHJ reference). Honestly grocery stores seem like a nightmare sometimes and I hate them. The amount of times I’ve just zonned into reality while buying food is astonishing.

Hearts attempt to placate Cans(15) by throwing the headless body of eggs at him. This is a reference to problem sleuth. Also it fails terribly Cans(15) is a friggin giant even to Hearts. Hearts gets punched into a different calendar about horses. This apparently means he will become a horse farmer for the next year. This means the midnight crew is down by half in the span of about 10 seconds. Spade, seeing his odds, decides to use his Crowbar's(7) crowbar on the safe. The safe itself was a temporal artifact, opening it sent Spades to an alternate timeline. In this one everyone is dead except for himself, Sn0wman, and Lord English. Even Clubs died off screen somehow :( . The mansion and all the clocks got destroyed. It’s is just Spades and an opened vault.

The vault only contains a floor panel. It has a spade painted on it and a keyhole/barcode scanner. We saw way back at the beginning of this intermission that Spades had a spades key. He’s always had it, and considered it a good luck charm of some sort. The key is the Rules of Blackjack cards with a barcode on the back. Before he can use the card it’s shot by Sn0wman.

It seems Spades no longer cares that she is the universe itself and charges at her with her own cigarette brand. She has a whip called “the black inches”. With this she rips Spades arm off. Taking her brand back she locks Spades in the vault. Though he now only has one arm and no key he is a caprician. He has a barcode on his wrist like all the others. Just the Wayward Vagabond (WV), or that Jack Noir guy he is branded. He scans his wrist and the door opens to a hatch. This is a similar hatch to the one found by WV, it even has a similar bunker. The bunker has a monitor set-up only instead of 5 displays this one has 12. One in the top left has a weird grey skinned kid with horns on it. Spades seems to know what is happening here. He mentions he’s seen this before and that it's been a long time. Much like WV could be a voice in John Eggberts head, Spades is a voice in the grey kids head. He’s bleeding out but decides to chat with this kid anyway. It seems there isn't much else he can do right now.

Thus ends the intermission. I’ll sum up my thoughts on it. I love the characters, I have always been a fan of the film noir motif. When I first read this it was nice to get a taste of Problem Sleuth. But honestly I didn't enjoy this departure from the main story. It was really hard to read the first time around. I only had so much time per week to catch up on it. Keeping track of timelines, and time skips all the time nonsense was painful. Even during this re-read I had to go back a few times to understand what was happening. I also didn’t think the ending made much sense. I got it set up for some stuff later on, but we never learned what happened in Spades original timeline. There’s a few ways the story could have wrapped up and still allowed for the integration into the main story.

Till tomorrow become a member of the Midnight Crew, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9419018

Today I’m reading.

02/03/10- "[I] SS: Arm yourself, in case Cans shows up.” (/homestuck/1302) to 02/04/10 - "[I] ==>” (/homestuck/1321)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

If there is a special part of hell where those who hate time paradoxes go, this is where  Spades Slick currently is. But currently he is the punishment as he’s killed many time manipulating gangsters. 

Most of the Felt is dead. Remaining is Lord English, Sn0wman are too powerful and might even be killable. Sn0wman was apparently the universe itself and her death would be the end times.  Yey even she has a boss, Lord English must be insanely powerful. 

Stitch(9) is currently working for the Midnight crew at gunpoint. Eggs(12) and Biscuits(13) and currently engaging Hearts Boxcar.   Clover(4)  is also at the safe but is apparently not a threat. This leaves Cans(15) who is apparently very hard to kill. Spades expects he will soon show up.

Clubs and Deuce drag Stitch(9) and 4 effigies over to the vault where Hearts is fighting an army of paradox clones. Clubs and Deuce decide that just firing a wave of bullets into the situation might be the best solution. They were very wrong. They’d become enveloped into the mass of clones. This means Stitch(9) is now free. He attempts to set the effigy of  Spades on Fire. These act as giant voodoo dolls so setting one on fire is bad news.   But Spades finally catches up riding his worse hitch and jousting with the lance. He impales Stitch(9) before he could do any damage. This is apparently a reference to a scene in Problem Sleuth. 

Spades mentions that the crowbar that was being used by Crowbar(7) can break any temporal item. Fortunately, Spades’ little time detour netted him this very crowbar. By breaking the egg timer that Eggs(12) ability depends on. This removes all but the original Eggs(12) and Biscuits(13).

In a stunningly odd move Hearts Boxcar eats the head off of Eggs(12). This obviously kills Eggs(12).  Biscuits(13) attempts to use his oven to travel to the future. Though as has been explained the oven isn't actually magical and Biscuits(13) is an idiot. They toss some dynomite in it and Clubs carts it away to explode somewhere else.

Till tomorrow, if you really must use a temporal artifact, don’t let your enemies hit it with stuff. Also keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9362142

Today I’m reading.

01/30/10- "[I] ==>” (/homestuck/1282) to 02/02/10 - "[I] ==>” (/homestuck/1301)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

I’ll summarize this because this whole intermission is a timey whimy friggin’ mess. The Felt is super annoying. So far Spades Slick has killed a guy who creates a speed up time bubble around himself. Then a guy who can jump between timelines shows up with a voodoo doll only to get smacked down with a horse hitcher. Leave to an empty timeline, get bored, then come back to let Spades finish killing him. Spades noticed one of his previous victims had a pin in this voodoo. When he pulls the pin out he's sent to an alternative timeline.

In this timeline Spades encounters Sn0wman. Sn0wman is a lady and also the universe itself somehow. She stabs Spades in the eye with a cigarette brand. Spades then kills one guy and kidnaps 2 others to bring them back to his own timeline. This is where we are now. This doesn't even mention he has 3 associates running around with their own time issues.

So Spades has let his 2 hostages out of their storage containers. It seems Crowbars(7) is armed with an uzi and he’s unhappy. Sawbuck(10) is also out, he's got a lance, and a razor impaling him and a massive slash on his face. But neither of these 2 are from this timeline. Crowbar(7) was already killed here. Crowbar(7) fires his uzi at Spades but Sawbuck(10) is so huge the bullets hit him instead due to gravity. Also when hit with anything Sawbuck(10) sends everyone into a different place in time. These bullets send them all into the past where the Sawbuck(10) from the current timeline is. There’s 2 of them now.

Crowbar(7) fires again, hitting current timeline Sawbuck(10) . This sends both of them away to shoot at each other forever. This leaves Spades and his kidnapped and very stabbed Sawbuck(10) alone. Spades naturally stabs Sawbuck again with a claymore. This skipped him the moment he went to pull Crowbars(7) from the voodoo doll. Spades fails to warn his past self about anything and that loop starts over. Spades adds a butterfly knife to Sawbuck, tossing them to the future. It seems there are 2 decapitated Sawbucks(10) here and the head of Crowbar(7). Spade Pulls the lance out of Sawbuck(10). They're both brought back to where we started when Spades got back from the alt timeline. Spades waits till the second where Crowbar(7) shoots the “real” Sawbuck(10). Then manages to decapitate all 3 of them using his rapier. The scene is a mess of blood, bodies, weapons on clocks. But Spades is finally back in the right timeline and in the right time.

The vendetta itinerary is getting cluttered. 7 members of The Felt are now dead, 2 are double dead, one is dead but in an alternate timeline which doesn't count. He’s also added Sn0wman to the list even though he can’t actually kill her. This may be the original “huge bitch, bluh bluh” meme which became popular with a character we will meet later.

Spades gathers all his stuff and heads out to regroup. Droogs and Deuce Mentions Stitch(9) is still alive, and they got him to make them some Effigies. They had Spades hats from Itchys(1) stupid tricks, but they need Hearts hat still. Using the Effigy of Spade they patch up his eye.

Till tomorrow use caution when stabbing time travellers. Also, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9331137

Today I’m reading.

01/23/10- "[I] DD: Follow blood trail downstairs and finish him off.” (/homestuck/1241) to 01/30/10 - "[I] ==>” (/homestuck/1281)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Diamonds Droogs managed to pump Fin(5) full of bullets. This created the blood trail the Droogs followed to this location. But he knows now he can't follow the trail back or he’d be vulnerable to Fins(5) ability to see people's future paths.

Clubs Deuce is tailing Trace(6) who can see the past trails of people. Trace is tailing Droogs and isn't aware he’s himself is being traced. Deuce leaves Doze(2) on the blood trail as part of a plan. He is also supposed to go help out Hearts but completely forgot. Deuce is very forgetful. Trace eventually notices Deuce's trail and follows it. Thus he finds Doze(2) tied to a chair. He doesn't notice the bomb under his hat. Thus ends both Doze(2) and Trace(6). As well as any clocks in the room. We are at 7/15 dead targets and 107/1000 clocks.

Fin(5) is stumbling around full of holes and bleeding out. He notices Deuce's future trail and decides to follow it. But he can't aim at all right now and Deuce is walking around with a block of C4 on the head. If Fin(5) missed it’d be an explosive end for both of them. Deuce meanwhile is just following the trail of blood. And Deuce is doing the same but from out of sight.

Hearts meanwhile is dealing with a huge pain in the butt time clone situation. Eggs(12) and Biscuits(13) seem to have made an endless time loop and are cloning themselves each time. Nearby Clover(4) is willing to provide clues on how to open the safe. He had riddles to offer. But he can't even try his whole riddle routine with all the noisy clones. Clover(4) mentions that Crowbar(7) could solve time issues like this. But Crowbar(7) had died before the midnight crew even got to the mansion.

Stitch(9) is a tailor, he is making a huge Cairo Overcoat that flashes colours. This is for Lord English. All the time shenanigans are apparently damaging to space time and fabrics. Stitch(9) is also the doctor which means he’s exactly what Fin(5) needs.

Things are rough for Hearts, He’s nearly getting crushed by all the clones spawning around him. Deuce has completely wandered off. Hearts calls Spades for back-up. Spades can help, Droogs will join as well once he's done with Fin(5) and Stitch(9).

Fin(5) makes it to Stitch(9). There seems to be large Effigies to each member of the Felt hang in the workshop. Several are burnt and destroyed. The one representing Fin(5) is very damaged. Stitch(9) mentioned he just needed to fix that effigy before… Fin(5) then falls to the floor dead.

Clubs then burst into the room swinging his bull penis cane. Stitch(9) is ready with a Thomson, he’s also smart enough to know shooting C4 wont set it off. But, this was only a (not so planned) distraction as Droogs got behind Stitch(9) with his own gun. They toss him into the Brawlsoleum as he may be useful against Lord English.

Spades has been using that voodoo to track dead members of the felt. He noticed Crowbars(7) pin was still in it. Spades to an alternative dimension where Crowbar wasn’t killed. The voodoo had some of Dies(6) power in it. Since apparently crowbars was a competent one, the felt are doing much better here. Crowbar(7) Stitch(9) and Sawbuck(10) and are in a tense shooting match with the Midnight crew. Spades considers using Sn0wmans pin but thinks an encounter with her is a bad idea. Too bad for Spades she walks into the middle of the gunfight. Unlike the felt she is a tall black caprician. She's slender, beautiful and very fashionable, holding a brand (long cigarette holder). The gunfire immediately stops almost in reverence of her presence. She seems to be able to phase in and out as she pleases. She simply approaches Spades and stabs him in the eye with her brand. She then takes the cigarette from it and casually leaves. This is not a nice lady.

Spades mentions if she were to die the universe itself would be destroyed. Hence no one dares fire a weapon near her, and why she isn't on his hit list. Spades toss the brands into Sawbuck(10) this triggers a time jump into the past. Notably Sawbuck is impaled by a Lance but fine. Spades then murders Stitch(9) and throws his occam's razor at Crowbar(7). Crowbar(7) deflects the razor into Sawbucks(10) head, he’s still fine.

They’re now in the distant past, the same place Die(6) went to. A Scurrilous Straggler watches from a distance. This seems to maybe an ancestor of Spades as they have a little spade icon on their wraps and approve of Spades hat.

Spades gets a good whack at Crowbar(7) with his horse hitch. He needs him alive so he quickly takes his crowbar then crams him into the warchest. He also manages to slash Sawbuck(10) across the face. This triggers a time jump into the future where Hearts showed up to the gunfight. Since the opposition was already gone he was alone. Spades orders him to pull out his Wrathtub so he can toss Sawbuck into it. This is an alternative timeline. But Spades figures if he kidnaps them all here and brings them back to his own timeline he can just kill them there. He tosses Hearts deck into his own. He makes note to not take Hearts smut magazine.

Pulling the Crowbar(7) pin he returns to his own timeline with 3 hostages. He is completely unsure if this means there are now 2 Sawbucks(10), and Stitch(9). But he’ll kill them all to be sure.

Till tomorrow remember it’s not really murder is its in an alternate timeline and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9284241

Today I’m reading.

01/22/10- "[I] HB: Call Clubs on nearest card.” (/homestuck/1222) to 01/23/10 - "[I] SS: Clocks. Destroy them.” (/homestuck/1240)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Hearts Boxcar has broken into the mansion of a rival gang. He’s the safecracker of the Midnight Crew. But, the safe is too big even for this giant, he’s called his little associate Clubs Deuce to bring some explosives. But, Hearts hears the ticking of an oven timer. He knows this is Biscuits(13), and he’s not happy about it. Biscuits(13), gimmick is that he can time travel to the future in his oven. In reality he’s just hiding in the oven, though he’s just popped out. Biscuits(13) is huge, even bigger than Hearts. Eggs(12) have also just shown up and together Eggs(12) and Biscuits(13) are a problem.

Clubs deuce has received the message from Hearts. He’s already following a specific path to try and lure Trace(3) out for Deuce to deal with.He’ll need to help Hearts out after.

Deuce has reached the source of the blood trail. A room with many shot up clocks he finds a tooth he identified as Fin(5). Fin(5) is like Trace(3) but he can see people's future paths. This also means Deuce knew where Fin was about to be. He had no problem giving a smack with his pool cue then pumping bullets into Fin. This created the trail of blood he followed up to this moment.

Spades just had one of his targets Die(6) escape getting clubbed to death. But it seems Die(6) changed his mind about being stuck in dimension all alone. I suppose that may be a fate worse than death, so he chose to come back. This was practically choosing death. He reappeared in front of Spades who finished his grim work with his knife.

Spades also got Die’s voodoo doll. He doesn't want to use it for any henchmen, but saves it for Lord English. He mentions English is apparently indestructible and this may need any edge he can get. Spades sets fire to several more clocks and the bodies of his recent victims. He can't be too careful with all this time screwery.

Till tomorrow, remember, voodoo is for wimps and keep riding the pumpkin tide.