Homestuck

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9239247

Today I’m reading.

01/19/10- "[I] SS: Be Diamonds Droog.” (/homestuck/1192) to 01/22/10 - "[I] HB: Peruse Red Cheeks magazine.” (/homestuck/1221)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We are Clubs Deuce, despite the request of the audience. Deuce seems like a nice little fella. He doesn't seem to want to actually harm any or anything. But he is a member of the notoriously violent midnight crew. He is currently searching through his Battledrobe for his back-up hat. Meanwhile one of his targets Doze(2) is escaping very slowly. His Battledrobe is full of bombs, playing cards, and a cane. Deuce doesn’t remember what his cards actually are. Some items he finds are 2 black liquorice gummy bears, a questionable black liquorice magazine, some C4. Eventually he finds his hat.

We now meet Diamonds Droogs, he’s tall and a bit lanky, currently he is wearing what was Itchy’s hat. He’s standing in a room in front of a river of blood. Like the others he has weapons, 1 pool cue, 2 guns (I can't identify guns), and 2 cards. Droog’s deck is a Brawlsoleum, a mausoleum. Droogs cares about how he looks, he has many back-up hats, and full suites in his Brawlsoleum, also a bunch more guns. He also keeps his black licorice fish in his back-up hats. He claims this was his idea and the other had to learn the hard way.

Droogs get punched from the future. He knows this is Trace(3). Trace(3) can see the time trials that people leave behind. But Droogs points out that this means that he now knows where Trace(3) will be. He calls Deuce and tells him where to be and when. We could see from a flash forward that the Deuce got the message. In the meantime Droogs follow the blood trail up stairs.

Deuce has re-captured Doze(2) using a stretch armstrong. He then attempts to load Doze(2) and all his other junk into his Battledrobe. He realises at this point that his cane is actually a Bull Penis Cane and flips out. We are back to Spades Slick. It seems Die(6) appeared from a parallel dimension. Itchy had cheated in a game of cards and Die(6) wanted to see him dead. Though now he’s in front of Spades. This results in his head getting clubbed by a horse hitch. He manages to escape into another dimension.

With the other members of the midnight crew being distracting we go to Hearts Boxcar. Hearts are big guys. The only time I've attempted cos play was this character because I am also a big guy. He’s got a tv antenna, a big axe, and a morningstar. Hearts has made it to the safe. His usual method of safe cracking is to just rip the door off with his bare hands. But this one is too big.

Hearts stores his stuff in a Wrathtub, a bathtub. Oddly the tub's ripped from its foundation and just looks a bit like John’s after Rose ripped it out. The tub's filled with giant medieval weapons, a magazine, his walkie-talkie and playing cards. Unlike the others, Hearts prefer wax lips over black licorice. He has a bit of a thing for red cheeks.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9197842

Today I’m reading something other than Homestuck. I did 3 acts of that, let’s read some Midnight Crew!.

01/15/10- "INTERMISSION” (/homestuck/1154) to 01/19/10 - “[I] ==>” (/homestuck/1191)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We’re with Spades Slick. Brutal; mobster type. Kinda looks like that Jack Noir guy but he definitely isn’t. He’s the leader of the Midnight Crew. It seems recently a rival gang called The Felt robbed a casino he liked. Now he’s going for nuclear John Wick style ultra violent revenge. He and his “subordinates” have broken into the hideout of The Felt and their leader Lord English. They plan to rob English’s vault and bring violence upon anyone in their way. Spades has already started by blowing up the front door.

We see that Spades has an inventory, he can only have one item but 5 weapons. He’s carrying his deck of playing cards as his item. He has a horse hitch, 2 playing cards, a switchblade, and a scalpel as his weapons.

He points out that the The felt love clocks. It seems there are 1000 in the house as the score goes to 4 as Spades sets a pile of them into a fire. Also there is an image of Guy Foxworthy(I think?) hiding under the rug. This isn't explained so I can also assume it's an inside joke that occurred in the forums.

Spades deploys his ~~playing cards~~ War Chest and examines its contents. This is a thing from back in Problem sleuth. Items in the inventory were typically never what they seemed. A simple paper clip could be a gun. I honestly forget the point of this, but for now just assume the thing you saw is not the thing you saw. For example Spades has a backup hat in this chest which contains two licorice Scottie dogs. For all we know these could be thermonuclear bombs.

We can see some other stuff in the war chest. The expected knives, a rapier, a key, more playing cards, a walkie-talkie, and a CrosbyTop. Thankfully the less terrible Bing Crosby. There’s also a heist map (floor plan) and vendetta itinerary (hit list).

Looking at mspaintadventures.com Spades' confused by the weird website with children characters. It seems from his world the site is showing Homestuck. He deletes the time setting on the laptop using a knife to the screen. This adds 1 to the score.

When Spades picks up the spade key, it becomes the “Rules to blackjack” card. This card has a set of 9 barcodes on the back which are like ones on the wrist of the caprician characters we’ve seen so far.

We then see the vendetta itinerary. There are 16 photos. 15 of them are of the green guys we saw in a preview of this. One photo at the top is just “?”. Spades has already taken down 3 members of the felt. Crowbar(7), Matchsticks(11), and Quarters(14). Spades mentions these guys use some “Time shenanigans” though. Maybe death isn't enough.

• Itchy(1) is apparently a slippery one,
• Doze(2) tight-lipped, and immune to interrogation,
• Trace(3) is sneaky and breaks into the Midnight crews hideout,
• Fin(5) is always a step ahead,
• Clover(4) spills the beans and is useful,
• Die(6) can do annoying time stuff,
• Stitch(9) likes to fix things, and is persuadable,
• Sawbuck(10) needs a clean shot to kill (he looks like a big one),
• Eggs(12) and Biscuits(13) are dangerous morons,
• Cans(15) is apparently very hard to kill

You apparently have no intel on Lord English. And Sn0wman(8) isn't listed. They apparently get to live.

The Heist map is messy, but the gist of it is that your crew's spread out all over the mansion. Hearts Boxcar is your safe-cracker and will be going right for the target.

Spades takes the war chest back into his inventory, locking it with the key. His weapons are now a switchblade, a broadsword and 3 playing cards. He uses the walkie to request a status report.

In the next room spades sees 8 more clocks. But the clocks are already destroyed. There is also blood everywhere. This is obvious time shenanigans, but the score is now 13. Deuce reports he’s captured Doze(2) for interrogation.

Deuce, being just a little guy, is apparently not effective at interrogation. His just kind of gently baps his victim softly. His item is also a card deck. He has 2 cards, a table leafs and 2 kinds of batons as weapons. He deploys his BattleDrobe (a wardrobe)

Doze(2) uses his ability to slow time around himself. With this he cant feel anything.

Deuce also doesn't seem to want to harm the clocks. We can see Itchy(1) is zooming around very quickly. His ability is the opposite of Doze(2) he makes time move fast around himself. He frees Doze(2) and changes everyone's hat. This makes deuce slightly crumple a hat from someone in his crew and Doze(2) very slowly makes an escape.

Spades has entered another room and is smashing up some clocks. Someone has swapped his hat with a smaller one. This pisses Spades off. With a slight rise of his legs Spades rips Itchy(1). Some good old fashioned off-panel violence occurs. Then Itchy get crossed off the vendetta itinerary. We see Itchy's bloody and beaten corpse in the next panel.

As Spades equips his back-up hat Die(6) appears.

—

Till tomorrow show time who is boss and smash up some clocks. Also, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9155281

Today I’m reading.

01/06/10- "WHOP” (/homestuck/1137) to 01/14/10 - "END OF ACT 3” (/homestuck/1153)"

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John's father got captured and is being “held” in the dark castle. Mostly he's just causing problems and punching imps. This is particularly annoying to an Archagent named Jack Noir. Jack has come to deal with John's father personally. Jack doesn't play nice, Jack.. gets whopped to the head. He attempts to respond with a good some ol’ switchblade negotiation strategy. But John's dad Sets Jack's hat on fire then stomps it out destroying it. The only thing Jack seems to hate more than John's father right now was that damn ugly hat. Pleased it's now gone, Jack decides to release John's father instead of dealing with him.

Jade is on top of a short tower near the frog ruins. She uses her bass to summon lily pads to jump across the lake and get to the entrance of the frog ruins. They are full of glowing symbols.

Dave has, after much getting his ass kicked, gotten the SBURB beta. He can now host Rose and save her from fiery death. As Dave instals the game we get another Huge friggin epic animation.

The install animation is like Johns. It seems to take awhile. Dave gets bored and doodles some SBHJ, Rose is just playing with Mewtini. The animation jumps around but I’ll focus on each of the characters.

Dave immediately tosses Rose's bed into the flames then places all the crafting benches in terrible locations. Rose is cursing Dave out pretty heavily. I wish we could see some more narration on that one. Fortunately, having written the guide on this she knows the process already. Dave uses the giant wizard statue to open the Cruxiter. He then tosses it carelessly onto the ground outside. The breaks of the hand holding the orb that we saw as a wayward vagabond blasted off in a big can. She even takes her own advice and prototypes the sprite using her dead cat Jasper. Dave adds the plush tentacle princess doll Rose had on her couch. Dave does the crafting work so he is at least useful. Instead of the apple that John made Rose gets a bottle of wine as her trigger item. But, as the fires rage on they form fire tornadoes. One of these causes the dismembered hand to smack the wine bottle. This sends it flying off a nearby waterfall. Dave cannot help at all as his room had become overrun with crows who attack him. This likely as vengeance for the one he impaled. With no other options Rose makes a hail-mary leap over the waterfall to catch the bottle. She is successful, then rescued by her new tentacle princess cat sprite. Smashing the bottle we see a glimpse that below Rose's home was a giant wine bottle shaped bunker. The "cork" was the can-shaped rocket WV would later fly off in. Rose and her house disappear into the game.

Jade had discovered in the depths of the frog ruins a giant Lotus flower. It had a timer that seemed to sync with Rose’s Cruxiter. On 0 it reveals the silver proto-sprite that she has seen come out of the meteor that had fallen there. This turns into Dave’s copy of the SUBRB beta. The one that the impaled crow took. This gives Jade her own copy of the game somehow. I’m sure it's explained later.

John’s part in this starts with Nana sprite. Nana writes the note in the copy of Coronals Sassacars that we saw in the intermission between act 2 and 3 (page 1149). This is playing on our assumptions that the note had been in there prior. This also means John hasn't seen this note. She then throws the book over the edge of the cliffs around John's house. We see the book fall below the clouds into a land with a beautiful deep blue landscape.

Later we see John going ham with his new weapons. He dual wields both the pogo and the WrinkleFucker hammers. John uses his new sense of business effectiveness on massacring imps. He’s also using the Telescopic Sassacrusher to destroy ogres. John is going to earn so much exp, for this. One imp has his dads hat. This makes John punch the thing to death and takes the hat into his inventory. This ejected his Crosbytop into the void. John then gets to the top after defeating the entire horde and jumps through the first gate.

We get a few pictures that reveal that John's house had been on top of a huge mesa sticking above the clouded planet. The on WV painted on his wall. This ends Act 3.

(I had to re-watch this animation like 30 times to get all that)

Till tomorrow, set someone's hat on fire, they may thank you. Also, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9103203

Today I’m reading.

01/02/10 - "You are now...” (/homestuck/1100) to 01/05/10 - "==>” (/homestuck/1136)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Today we are the Aimless Renegade (AR). A black caprician wrapped in caution tape. You've chosen this old ruin as your stronghold. Not just 1 but 2 different aircraft have crashed nearby and armed rouges are approaching you. You let loose your whole ammo clip but can't seem to land a shot.

It's pointed out that AR’s gun is magazine fed and that they don’t know a damn thing about guns. We get to see a bit of the inside of the ruins. There are hieroglyphs which AR says are Illegal. These mostly just show frog stuff. The ruins are also stocked with several crates of ammo and weapons. The icon on the side suggesting this is the weapons stash Jade's Grandpa had hidden.

The Wayward Vagabond (WV) believes he is a mayor. The Peregrine Mendicant (PM) Believes they are a Postal Worker. Now AR believes he is a Judge, with bullets/shells as his jury. 2 trespassers have entered his “crime scene”. They had been investigating the illegal monument. They were calling it a stronghold before, it seems they are changing delusions. The jury decides the trespassers are guilty and should get blown up with an RPG launcher. Also in the ruins is a jammed moving platform. It seems Jade's advanced bass is stuck in it, though it’s now ancient and ruined.

Speaking of Jade, in present times she places the package next to the harpoon. She called it “Time Bait”. She knew that WV would in the future use the apperifer to try and get the harpoon. WV instead got the package. She now just needs to figure out how to get to the ruin entrance at the centre of the lake. Back to the future, PM and WV are hiding behind a rock while some nutjob up in the ruins is firing a gun at them. PM has received the package from WV, with some drawings from Jade as instructions. PM apparently needs to get back to their ship, or metal fruit. But, AR is now shooting rockets at them, and blowing stuff up.

WV manages to distract AR by lobbing a can of Tab. This is somehow related to a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic, but I'll ignore that. PM manages to complete their mission. The instructions had them use the device in their ship. Apparently this is a Sendifer to deliver the package to Jade's past self.

To reiterate, John had sent this package to Jade month before the present time. Since Jade lives on an island in the middle of the Pacific, the package had to be air dropped to her months later. Jade, without opening the letter, wrote a bunch of instructions. She then manipulated the distant future so that a guy thinking he was the mayor would get the package. He was using a device that retrieves things from any place at any past or present time. The instructions told that guy to hand off the package to a stranger who believed they were a postal worker. Then instructed that postal worker to use their own device. This was a device to send the package back to the very distant past. Pretty much Jade sent a package to her own past self.

We see toddler Jade riding Bec around the fields. Her grandfather “hunts” a butterfly with a blunderbuss. What was in the package, a blue version of John Ghost slime tee shirt. I think it was conveniently on sale at the time . Also pumpkin seeds, and another of John's letters. John mentions in this letter that Jade is the reason John met Dave and Rose. The seeds are because her pumpkins kept disappearing but he told her to grow more and never lose hope. Another beautifully sincere letter from John. You gotta admire just how vulnerable and open he is with his friends. Paradoxically, Jade has no idea who John even is as a toddler. But from this moment she decides to get into gardening and mentions she thinks blue is a pretty colour. It’s very much the bootstrap paradox.

Odd angle, but think back to Jade's room. It's a combination of the interests of all her friends. She knows the outcome of sending herself that gift would in some way make her who she is. She loves her friends so much she actually set a linchpin event into her own past to let her friends define who she is. She could have put anything she wanted in that package but chose not to open it. We all fantasise about the idea of, what would we tell our past selves, what advice, or item should we give them. She had the real opportunity to do that, and chose to send John's simple gifts. There's a certain beauty in that

Till tomorrow, get your past self a gift, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9063285

Today I’m reading.

10/28/09- "[S] Jade: Pester John.” (/homestuck/1073) to 01/01/10 - "Dave: Answer.” (/homestuck/1099)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We start with the ballad of awakening. As we learned recently Jade, when sleeping, is awake on the moon of Prospit. We also learned this stuff is happening in the past still, at the time Jade wishes John a happy birthday. As the Prospit moon towers piece the skies of Skaia we see some events unfold that are confusing at best.

We saw this conversation as Jade being awake in the present time. But it was actually JadeBot having that conversation, while Jade was asleep. This was when Jade heard a meteor. This was apparently the one that crashed into the earth creating the island she lives on. The one from millions of years ago. The flashback shows that the tower of Prospite was there and so was Jade. This means Jade was there in the past but able to chat with John in the present using JadeBot. The meteor itself was apparently the source of Bec. but it contained something that looked like a silver sprite kernel. Bec was not allowing Jade near it. Jade later explains that the clouds of Skaia create mirages. These mirages are portals to various places and various times.

Also we know John is in the other tower. When he slept on his roof he had seen odd visions of clouds and a girl. That was Jade. But he wasn't awake/asleep enough to really know what was happening.

Jade then had the conversation where she mentioned that she knew things were going to be ok. She mentioned that John needed to “wake up”.

Jade mentions it’s the first time she has seen Bec in the clouds. Discovering this is his birthday she wants to do something about it. She also feels she needs to explore the Frog ruins. Bec had been preventing her from ever entering them. Since he is napping she feels she should try it now.

Jade uses her Harpoon gun to make a zipline from her room to the ruins. She knows this is the same rope that is later used by a Wayward Vagabond. She also needs to "deliver" a package to him.

We check in with Rose, she’s been busy building. It looks like she’s just copied and pasted the entire house in a sloppy fashion. But this makes a tower that nearly reaches the gate. It's got some Escher vibes and most definitely not up to code.

Dave meanwhile is mourning the loss of Cal. He grabs his broken sword. Apparently his strife Specibus has reset in the fight. This caused him to get locked into 1/2 bladekind as his weapon spec. Dumping his inventory all over the roof he takes only the beta and his phone. I guess the arsenal of crappy weapons won't help much now.

Rose is watching the flames close in. She’s done her part for John, and needs Dave to do his part. She takes some time to reflect on the gift she is making for John. She needs to one-up the knitting kit and genuinely heartfelt letter he gave her.

She also recalls a conversation with a troll at that time. grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is one we haven't seen yet. They are rambling about humans not appreciating Temporal Mechanics. When Rose points out they’ve never met, GA mentions they’d chatted in the future. But they are not in the future, just Rose's future. To GA Roses future is in his recent past. Rose says that is pretty stupid but plays along on some level. They decide to be “Friends” as it seems Rose “understands” GA better than her friends do. We also see a flashback of Dave. It would have been around the same time as Dave is opening his gift from John. It's another genuinely thoughtful letter. John suggests Dave “get out of his brother's shadow.” John's gift is the pair of shades he still wears. Before this he had anime triangle shades like his brothers.

Dave also encounters a Troll. One adiosToreador [AT]. This name seems to have a lot to do with Bullfighting. Though a fighter this troll is not. Dave mercilessly counter trolls them until he is actually blocked by the Troll. It's a thing a homoerotic beauty. Witnessing Dave get beat down so thoroughly in the present. It's healing to see him serving up a literal beatdown in the past.

Till tomorrow, troll like a man, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9024588

Today I’m reading.

12/21/09- "John: Alchemize in a 1980's time-lapse montage.” (/homestuck/1052) to 12/24/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/1072)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Johns Stilling going on about how busy he is testing out new items. Even though it's been around 40 pages and he’s only so far only made a cool hat. Though Rose has moved some of the work stations around to be closer and more efficient. Anyway though he can't do a montage I can do a list!

• combining the pogo ride and hammer. Instead of the hammer and pogo ride that made his pogo hammer he gets a hammer shaped pogo ride. It’s kind of useless.
• combining his new suit with his slime shirt he makes a suit with a slime icon. He combined it further with the Wise Guys Book to make the Wise Guy Slime Suite. This suite seems to be able to shoot cards from its sleeves.
• he combines his glasses with the PDA to make Serious Business Goggles. These allow for hands free communications, A very useful item! He compares it to something out of Spy Kids a movie I haven't seen. But I assume its only relation is having some kind of goggles like this. Still not sure how he controlled them.
• He combines the sledgehammer, telescope, and Sassacre text. This makes a gigantic Telescopic Sassacrusher. This hammer is too huge for John to use, but looks like it could crush an ogre.
• combining gushers and blue ectoplasm he made Hellacious Blue Phlegm Aneurysm Gushers. I’m guessing the audience wanted a “gushing granny” kinda thing. The ecoplasm came from his grandma, though we should be thankful it's only this. These gummies apparently work as healing items. Apparently they are still a product of the batter witch.
• By combining the fake arm, blue ectoplasm, and PDA. John made the Remote Ghost Gauntlet. A single gauntlet that allows him to control a spectral arm. This spectral arm is apparently very strong. He can use this to wield the Telescopic Sassacrusher.
• By combining the Remote Ghost Gauntlet with a mirror he makes a second one for his right hand.
• A combo of umbrella and straight razor makes a Barber's Best Friend. This item would be good for umbrella kind users. John mentioned there's a card for this in the study he might be able to use.
• Gushers and shaving cream makes a Betty Crocker Barbasol Bomb. It seems unstable.
• He’s able to clean the ghost dad poster, by adjusting the punch cards. He also makes a potted plant, and a Painting Of A Horse Attacking A Football Player.
• Combining the Cosby poster with a computer. Creates the CrosbyTop. Remember this was well before the world learned terrible things about Bill Crosby. Still John has a laptop now, which is handy.
• Combine Dad's hat and Problem Sleuth game. This just results in the same hat but with some candy corn inside. I friggin love candy corn!
• John tries to combine Hammer and Problem Sleuth game. But this one is super expensive. It must be awesome.
• Combining iron and pogo hammer, John makes the WrinkleFucker. This just seems like a stronger pogo hammer.

And that's everything. It seems John succeeded and made a better weapon. He’s going to need it. There’s a massive horde approaching him and he’ll be in a big fight soon. Also in a fight is Dave. It’s been awhile since we saw what he was up to. He got defeated by a puppet named Cal, then his brother beat him down the stairs. And now he’s back for more.

In a shorter battle with his brother Dave is once again beaten down. This time so badly even the record on his shirt is somehow smashed, and his sword shattered. Cal somehow got caught in the middle and destroyed in the conflict. Big bro drops the SBURB beta onto Dave's limp body then speeds off on a rocket skateboard.

I’ll indulge in some interpretations here. Dave's ego and self image is utterly destroyed here. The music and weapons Dave used got destroyed by Big Bro because those are his. Dave needs to get his own identity. I also suspect Dave actually destroyed Cal in that fight. Though he may not think of it this way, it was a win. He had no hope of defeating Big Bro, but his test was to defeat Cal. Having done that Big Bro gave him the Beta and left.

Dave informs John of his recent ass kicking.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8984665

Today I’m reading.

12/16/09- "Rose: Build as much as you can as fast as you can.” (/homestuck/1022) to 12/20/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/1051)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Rose is working with John and they need to work together. SBURB is a game, they both play it. John is in the game trying to not die and Rose has the ability to move things and rapidly build. The goal of the game is to build up to a gate high above John's house. But John has other plans and wants to just craft things. Johns also lost his mind a bit. Something odd has happened with the graffiti in his room. From our perspective as an audience the imps cause this vandalism. But Rose is providing evidence that it was there before that. She’s also using her armchair physiology to convince John that the graffiti was always there.

Her theories are pretty conceivable. She suggests John's father never liked clowns. He only adopted the theming as he assumed John liked clowns. John’s acknowledging this but also he made a cool Sassacre bunny hat thing. Rose has been building upward, but as mentioned before she is a terrible architect. Rose is even concerned her structure could collapse. Meanwhile a giant horde of imps and ogres approach. Jade meanwhile is playing her advanced base in her dreams.

The song “the beginning of something really excellent”. I friggin' love this one, very hopeful. The animation also reveals that Jade's dreamworld bedroom is on the moon of Prospit. The planet of gold and light orbiting Skiai. This is fascinating as it means she is already in SBURB somehow. She’s likely been there for quite awhile, though only while sleeping. Prospect is an interesting place. The entire planet and its moon's covered in a dense roman gothic(?) megacity. The moon's chained to the planet with a gigantic chain. The inhabitants are white capricians like the Peregrine Mendicant (PM). They all wear light pastel shirts and funny hats. Jade looks down to one, we see that in the waking world. JadeBot is looking down at a spot of the lake near a small tower of the frog ruins, Bec watching from nearby. Years in the future in that exact place the PM is departing from their metal fruit ship.

PM landed near some frog ruins and nearby the Wayward Vagabond (WV) and Mayor of Can Town, has also landed. The letter that Jade had managed to send to the WV, instructed him to go meet PM and deliver the blue package to them. The freedom of his people demands it.

A nearby Aimless Renegade (AR) starts shooting at both PM and WV from his tower. This caused both of them to seek cover. Fortunately, the aimless part of AR’s name is well earned. Hiding behind a rock WV gives the package to the “mail lady” PM.

Jade is still floating around Prospit. The moon had 2 towers, one was hers, and she decided to visit her neighbour's tower. The tower contains John's room, and John?! He is sleeping. This means he sleeps there while awake elsewhere. His dream room is also covered in graffiti and he has an imp plushie on his bed. Jade mentions he frequently has troubled dreams in this state. Jade also mentioned she needs to ask John if he’s received his green package yet. Damn time screwy! I completely forgot Jades timeline is still behind the others.

Jade decides to head back as an eclipse will soon happen and she doesn't think it's a good idea to be outside during one.

Till tomorrow spy on your sleeping neighbours and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8938895

Today I’m reading.

12/12/09- "1001” (/homestuck/1002) to 12/14/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/1021)"

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John is in his bedroom. A familiar start to these stories, though John is looking like a business man in a suit now. Something has covered his room and posters graffiti. These symbols of John's childlike innocence were tarnished by invaders. He’s also recently discovered that his father is not who he had thought. His father is a fun street clown, but a boring and serious businessman. Our man here is only 13 and dealing with a hec of a lot.

Rose is also back in her bedroom where we first met her. Her room is in about the same condition it was back then. It's now just glowing red as her home is on fire as most everything on the earth at this point. But she’s doing alright, her new kitten Vodka Mutini or Mutie for short, is keeping her company.

John has a chat with Rose. As John predicted, Rose suggested John not go building too many items. They should instead focus on building up and accomplishing the goal of the game. But John wants to see if he can build something to better fight imps. He’s so mad that they’ve defaced his posters. This confused Rose. She tells Johns that those posters had always looked defaced like that. She assumed John defaced them out of irony. Also that he was never into bad movies. This breaks John a bit more. Something very weird is going on.

Sometime in the future. A Wayward Vagabond (VG) is having a wild day. After finding a bunker full of food and energy drinks he became the mayor of Can Town. Then somehow triggered the bunker to rocket off to an island half the world away. He’s decided to go out and explore this land and its ancient frog ruins. But he’s stuck on top of this giant can rocket ship thing.

He is with his friend Serenity the firefly. Who is able to locate a rope and harpoon nearby. He can use the appearifier in the bunker to fetch it. Though when he does this he instead gets the blue package Jade had recently received in the present. This was a present to her from John, though it seems from the note on it Jade knew this would happen. WV is very confused by this but assumes it's his duty to now protect this package with his life. This is much like a Peregrine Mendicant recently finding a letter. After setting the appearifier to his present time he is able to get the cable he needs to get down from the bunker. Though we learn he is not alone. From a distant tower in the ruins an Aimless Renegade is watching through a rifle scope. They also spot a large metal fruit coming towards their location.

The Aimless Renegade appears to be another black caprician like WV. Though instead of cloth they're wrapped in yellow caution tape. And they are packing heat. I am not at all familiar with guns but this looks modern and probably isn’t a toy.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8898302

Today I’m reading.

12/08/09- "==>” (/homestuck/982) to 12/12/09 - “==>” (/homestuck/1000)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jade has had a second strife, This one against a very real and dangerous foe. A god in dog form. But also Jade’s beloved pet Bec. The strife ended in happy dances and snacks. Jade is once again napping out in the middle of her island. Bec returns Jade to her bed.

Rose spent some time in a lab. There she got a scarf and a new 4 eyed kitten. But an ominous timer led to Rose escaping at the last second. She used a transportalizer to an unknown location where we find her now. John had recently entered his fathers room for the first time. Now Rose has appeared in her mothers room for the first time. To no surprise, It turned out to be a well stocked bar. From here she sees the lab she was just in destroyed by a meteor. Goodbye tiny 2 headed abomination kitten :( . Though Rose's house being so close caused a lot of damage and fire to blast into the room she is in. The on full of flammable booze.

John meanwhile has apparently been having some kind of identity crisis. He is becoming an efficient businessman, and a stressed one at that. He's been using the Punch Designix on all the items in his inventory to make cool stuff. Back to Jade. It seems when she is in her bed she dreams she is in a version of her room. She is also wearing the same weird golden outfit that we saw in the portrait of her above the fireplace. She also has a robot version of herself in the waking world. It is emulating her movements in the dreamworld. She can of course fly. She has the package John sent but says she isn't meant to open it yet. She knows what is inside but wont tell us.

Months prior we see John. It is December. We learn from this flashback that Jade's birthday is December 1st, Daves is on the 3rd, and Rose the 4th of December. John is also going by the handle ghostyTrickstrer [GT]. This is not his current handle ectoBiologist [EB]. He is talking with Jade. Weirdly his room is all messed up with graffiti. That almost seems like a continuity error as that didn't happen until the imps showed up.. right?. John has just sent birthday packages to all his friends. Though he’d forget that packages to Jade can take months. He hints that it is a thing she needs. Jade's interrupted by a troll. John mentions they are a huge pain and there seems to be 12 troll accounts. Jade mentions she finds some of them funny but they’ve been bypassing her blocks for years. John decides to change his handle to try and evade them.

To those actually reading this with me congrats on making it to 1000 pages.

Till tomorrow, evade the trolls, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8850457

Today I’m reading.

12/01/09- "Jade: Locate and feed the devilbeast you call a pet.” (/homestuck/942) to 12/08/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/981)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jade has gone outside. Her home is on an island in the middle of the pacific which has dinosaurs and the ancient ruins of a frog shrine. We learned she is alone there. Her grandfather died some time ago. She has a pet named Becquerel, all we know is Dave referred to them as a devilbeast, and it likes irradiated meat. Jade mentions that she cannot make predictions for Bec. They're only found when they want to be. Something is stocking Jade but she isn't aware of that either. Since she is outside she decides to track the airdropped package that landed earlier. She knows its a gift from John which is very late, but just in time. We go now to John, he’s for the first time entered his fathers room. He’s shocked by the lack of clowns or harlequins. It's all boring business stuff. John freaks the hell out over this realizing his dad is a boring businessman and not a street performer.

John's father at that time is wreaking havoc in the dark castle. He's a prisoner, but not a very willing one. He destroys another imp by tossing a very heavy safe at him. A guy who looks suspiciously like Spades Slick is looking at this event from a monitor. This guy goes by Jack Noir. He is an Archagent of the dark kingdom. He has a cubicle of 3 “Fenestrated walls” (Fenestrated meaning windowed). He mentions that some had stolen the 4th wall.

He summons his burliest minion who is totally not Hearts Boxcar to put a larger safe in front of the prisoner cell. He's interrupted by the monarch, his boss, demanding he wear the hat part of his uniform. Jack really hates the hat, but he obeys. Now Jack sees his burliest minion is getting a beat-down from John dad. He decides he’ll need to handle this guy personally.

John finds there were more presents in his fathers room that he figures are for his birthday. This guy gets tons of presents and cake, yet still destroys the house. What a brat. His new gifts include.

• A control deck
• An array modus
• 10 new cards
• A box of fruit gushers
• and a suit

The control deck allows John to have multiple modus types active simultaneously. The array modus pretty much lets John take out any item. John finds this too boring though. By combining it with his stack modi his inventory is now organised as queuestacks. Hence making his inventory needlessly complicated. He also got some fruit gushers. I bought some of these recently, shocked to see they are still around. Apparently they are also a Betty Croker product, and I still curse the batterwitch. As for the suit, it looks good.

John also steals his fathers shoes. And the gushers into his inventory. He has a mild breakdown over discovering they are a Croker product. That’s pretty much me every time I discover something I like is a Nestle product.

Back to Jade. She's about to grab the package when she encounters a beast. A creature sparking with both lightning and radiation. Its head, shaped much like a pumpkin we'd seen recently, or a logo on a Jade shirt. The music indicates this in an incredibly dangerous and powerful beast. Attempting to shoot at it has a few interesting effects. It absorbs the first bullet. Melting it on contact. The second bullet causes the best to shrink both itself and Jade. They are so small they ride it to the other side of the island. With the third bullet the creature becomes the universe itself. This sends Jade through the cosmos but landing them both safely nearby. The fourth bullet the creature becomes everywhere at once. We see scenes near Rose, Dave, and John, again teleporting both itself and Jade back to where they started. The fifth bullet Jade shoots behind herself and yells “Fetch”. The creature obeys giving Jade a moment to grab the package. Jade has won her strife!

The creature is of course her pet and best friend Bec. Bec receives the irradiated stake. It’s completely not expressive as it is some sort of god dog. But we can assume it’s happy to have played a game with her. Jade has another nap attack as Bec watches over her.

Till tomorrow, if your dog starts bending spacetime that’s probably normal. Oh, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8804390

Today I’m reading.

11/24/09- "==>” (/homestuck/911) to 11/30/09 - "Rose: Stop fooling around and transportalize out of there!” (/homestuck/941)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jade has entered her grand foyer. She wants to go outside to feed her dog Bec. She also knows that waiting in this foyer is her grandfather. She's worried about this encounter mentioning it is often intense.

Jade's home is a weird place, with technologies beyond what we have. But also littered with knights, mummies, faded salon ladies, and taxidermied beasts. We start this scene with a fireplace that's both purple and gold, with a portrait of Jade in weird golden clothes. I also notice one of the stuffed heads surrounding it is a crude ogre like the one John recently fought. This implies that Jade's grandfather slew a beast that exists in SBURB at some point.

This area of the foyer contains globes. Also there are distinguished house guests. They appear to be human size dolls. Jade's grandfather (as she predicted) appeared in front of the fireplace. We see an imposing silhouette. She attempts to dash by his line of sight, but has a nap attack mid leap right in front of him.

And so we cut to Dave- nope that was a psych out.

We get the strife of Jade VS grandpa Harley … it is uhh wow. So tragically it seems Grandpa Harley is very dead. He had himself made into a taxidermy statue with a huge gun. Jade has been alone in that place so long it seems her mind is gone. She “fights'' her grandpa with a series of imaginary attacks. Some which involve taking his hat or just napping like a cat on the fire hearth. The collimating into an argument. Jade suggests that her grandfather would prefer she take his big gun and not her rifle. She gets upset and leaves suggesting he was easier to deal with when he was alive. Jade is now at least outside, but damn that really was intense.

We go now to the Peregrine Mendicant (PM). They had been rocketing through the sky in a giant fruit shaped pod thing. But PM messed with a terminal which exploded, leaving a giant hole in the side of the craft. They survived this though they’ve lost a few mailboxes and are slightly on fire. One of the metal worms spares the mailbox containing the letter.

Rose is in a Laboratory near her house. She's found a very out of place bedroom set for little girls. It also has an adorable 4 eyed kitten. Next to this she finds an appearifier. This one is a bit different then the one found by a wayward vagabond years in the future. The console is more like an arcade machine. It's weirdly already dialed into a time 9 years earlier when Rose was about a toddler. She attempts to appearify her cat Jasper, but as this is a paradox she only gets sludge. But unlike the one WV found, this machine takes things further. The machine attempts to clone Jasper using the sludge material. It is an abomination. Rose points out this is an attempt to perfect the science of Ectobiology. Ecto meaning external, though often associated with ghostly things. The study of external, or ghostly life? Also this is John Pesterchum handle.

Rose recalls the moment playing on the screen. Jasper tells her a secret before dissaperifying. Present Rose didn't make that happen. He would be dead by a river sometime later. The machine isn't able to reveal what had happened to him during the time he was gone. Apparently Japser could talk and was wearing suites even before he died?

Rose uses the machine to track where Jasper had been after his death. This animation hints that the new 4 eyed kitten she found was a more successful attempt to close Jasper. This was maybe triggered when Rose dumped his body onto a transportalizer. In the centre of the lab. This animation has a hidden easter egg, featuring Maplehoof. It is important because maplehoof is in it. With 10 seconds left on the clock Rose decides to retrieve her dead cat, as well as the clone kitten. Not the abomination she made prior, that's just left in a test tube. She escapes via the transportalizer just in time

Till tomorrow beware the dangers of ectobiology and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8757974

Today I’m reading.

11/22/09- "You are now...” (/homestuck/892) to 11/24/09 - "John: Jump down.” (/homestuck/910)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We are the Peregrine Mendicant (PM). They are years in the future. A giant meteor destroyed the area where John’s home had been. John, and his house, had teleported away at the last second. But Maple Valley WA. where John lived, is now a large crater. From that crater a large growing tree had grown bearing a metal fruit. PM had wandered into the fruit and activated it. This caused the fruit to rocket westward through the sky. This is where we are now. One of the mailboxes the PM had been casting around contains a very damaged letter. It's addressed somewhere very close to John’s house named Dr. David Brinner.

This I had to look into a bit. It is apparently a character Andrew had come up with through some joking around on the forums. There is planted rumours that it is a whole massive webcomic that existed before MSPA Adventures. We'll only see them as “FedoraFreak” in the “Serious Business” app that John's father uses. Also they have no real significance on the story. The letter but, as well as a postal workers cap that was also in the mailbox for some reason. This gives the PM an overwhelming sense of duty in the style of the 1997 movie the postman. The plot being that Kevin Costner's character is living in post apocalyptic America. He gets the same sense of duty to mail a letter. I didn't hate that one but, wow, what a stupid plot. Also in the PM's case the letter was just at the location it's addressed to. That place is now some dust in a crater.

PM attempts to use the terminal, He is able to see Jade holding her rifle. They think they know her for some reason. Odd that both PM and WV seem to have some knowledge of computers. When they use the terminal to ask Jade (this puts a voice in her head) Jade seems to acknowledge them but with panic. The terminal then explodes. Back to Rose. She is still in a giant lab, she has gotten a green box that gives her mobile power and internet access. Very convenient. The countdown on the wall is at 1:33. She doesn't seem too concerned. The audience points out the pink tea set we noticed earlier. It seems to be an entire bedroom for a little girl. It has wizard plushies and cat plushies. As Rose takes the pink scarf a black 4 eyed kitten pops out of the teapot. It's an adorable abomination. John is up on his roof. He’s just defeated the 2 massive Crude Ogres, with a lot of help. One of the Shale loot items has embedded itself in the roof above John's Dad room. John has never been there. He is apprehensive about taking the loot as it would mean seeing inside for the first time. John hops into the hole.

Till tomorrow explore your parents bedrooms with reckless abandon. Also, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8706564

Today I’m reading.

11/12/09- "==>” (/homestuck/862) to 11/22/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/891)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Rose has escaped the flames or destruction. Meteors from the sky have brought the end times around. The flames have burned a shrinking perimeter around her home. But Rose needs power and access to the internet. A video game caused these issues and she needs to get into that same game if she is going to escape this place. Currently Rose is in a mysterious lab door next to her mansion home. She's surrounded by glowing green boxes. And there is a device on the floor in front of her.

These boxes seem to have outlets on them so she tries to plug her laptop into one. She stores items using a tree modus which was automatically sorted. By grabbing her laptop she’s dumped out the rest of her inventory accidentally. This tosses her dead, and taxidermied cat onto the transportalizer in-front of her. Rose, having never seen such a thing, assumed her cat was vaporised. She turns off the auto sort feature on her modus.

She grabs the box that the kiosk had labelled as unlocked, box SN_LAB0413. She has no idea what it is but it seems to be a portable power source that can charge her laptop. It is also an unsecured source of internet access. Rose notices the lab has a countdown on the wall. It had 14 digits but it's down to the last 3:14 (not 4:13?) It also has the logo Skaianet. Skaia being the name of the central planet in the game.

Years in the future the Peregrine Mendicant is now inside the metal fruit. It also has a countdown that has hit 0. The screen displaying this is much like the one in a can shaped bunker a Wayward Vagabond had found. And the effect of this countdown seems to be the same, the fruit is now flying west. Some details in the scene, is that one of the mail boxes contains a letter. Also of the 4 metal worms protruding from the fruit one is missing its head. This shows that Peregrine Mendicant has decapitated the one. They where mad because it ate one of his mailboxes.

Meanwhile in the present times. Dave is still getting served by a puppet. He attempts to abscond (escape). He's punished by Big Bro directly for this. The strife continues. Dave and Big Bro fight it out, but not surprisingly Dave's beaten down hard. Big Bro eventually uses Lil’ Cal to again kick Dave. He's down the stairs of the highrise, this being the very punchline of a Sweet Bro Hella Jeff comic. The irony is strong here.

Rose has now discovered the primary session terminal for SBURB. The signs were obvious that this place she is in is actually the control centre for all sessions of the game. Before her is a massive array of screens. These are somewhat like the ones we’ve seen WV and PM find in the future, only this one is much bigger. The main monitor is a map showing all the meteor impacts around Vermont. There is a large concentration of them near Roses location. There is also another map of the game's planets but this one has 8 of them surrounding Skaia instead of just 4. Also, there's an out of place pink tea set nearby.

Rose notes there is a massive meteor heading that looks like it could wipe out everything. It's located in the middle of the pacific and still seems to be a ways out. The observant will notice this is actually Jades island. For now she decides to login and connect with John.

We left John in a tough battle between him and 2 giant crude ogres. Unlike other fights John was in pretty real danger here. He nearly died before NanaSprite stepped in with some healing. Rose finds John still in this fight. He seems to have developed a spinning hammer jump that seems very powerful. NanaSprite is still helping out using her eye lasers. Rose also helps but her usual trick of dropping a heavy fridge on the enemy isn't so effective. The ogre grabs the fridge and beams John with it. Eventually though all 3 manage to defeat the Ogres. The loot drop is huge.

Rose mentions she no longer thinks that the Cruxtruder is what summons the meteors. Having seen that there is one heading for her location the timers must only be a warning system.

John levels up to Boy-skylark. This also being the title of a pretty nice jam. He also collects a huge stack of Boondollars which he still has no idea what to do with. He also gets some new materials including tar and mercury. Nanasprite hands John his copy of Colonel Sassacre mentioning it is his birth right. Though only moments ago he was being pummeled with it.

Meanwhile John's father is in the kingdom of darkness. He was brought there as a prisoner. This is not working out well for his imp captors as he is now defeating them with pies and shaving creams. Nearby in a sort of security room a familiar looking figure is watching this unfold from a monitor.

Till tomorrow, seriously look out for the stairs, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8664865

Today I’m reading.

11/06/09- "==>” (/homestuck/842) to 11/11/09 - "Rose: Go to the center and do a goofy dance.” (/homestuck/861)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jade still is trying to do the same task as yesterday. John hasn't been responding to her messages. Jade has decided to move on to her other task. She's concerned about what dangers her friends are facing.

We see John in the present. Like Dave, John is also in a strife. Also much like Dave he is getting his ass kicked. Two giant Crude Ogres are facing off against John. Though John is proficient with his pogo hammer, the ogres are also armed . One has a tire swing and the other has the first edition copy of Colonel Sassacars. They beat John nearly to death but the Nana Sprite rescues and heals him up.

We're taken into a further future. To the time after the world ended and Wayward Vagabond had recently taken a rocket ride across the Earth. In a different part of the world is a Peregrine Mendicant approaching a giant metal fruit. With them they have a cart of rusty mailboxes .

In the giant metal fruit is a giant metal worm. It pops out to eat one of the mailboxes. The Peregrine Mendicant is not happy about this and reaches for a cool looking sword.

Back to the present, maybe? We are reviewing Rose’s newest update to the SBURB GameFaqs page. Though Rose isn't the one actually updating the content. It seems John is, presumably before or after getting repeatedly beaten to a near death state by ogres. He mentions that he's found out how to code punch cards and breaks down the binary translations. He actually does a pretty good job of that, though I am most definitely not going to try and explain. He theorises that by combining items, you can possibly get anything from an atomic bomb to a shoehorn.

Speaking of Rose she has traversed a secret tunnel and ended up in the laboratory which was by her house. The logo has the logo SN the S containing both an atom, and a spirograph. There is hundreds of glowing green boxes forming a “Hubgrid”. There is also a kiosk and possibly a transportilizer in the middle of them.

Speaking of transportilizers, Jade, in the past, has descended with one. She is some kind of trophy room filled with taxidermied animals. Including some weird chimaera. Jade's love of fauna does not extend to these, she finds them creepy. A floor down we see a room filled with “valiant knights” and more taxidermied animals. These are just suits of Armour in poses. Iron man is also there for some reason. The rooms around this are glowing red.

Another floor down she is now in a room filled with taxidermy, knights and decrepit mummies. These are a bit grisly to look at and jade hates them. The surrounding rooms glow purple. I wonder if Jade’s grandpa was into eating jerky.

Next room down had grandpa's collection of ladies. Weirdly he seemed to be into sunbleached posters of hair models from old salons. He apparently encouraged Jade to look them up. I guess when you’ve conquered all other things you can just collect the obscenely weird. It's also weird since They've displayed these ladies with all the other crap from the other floors.

Jade finally reaches the grand Foyer. The big trophy blocking the ground floor is apparently it's Typheus. The worm thing from John's preferred browser?. I’d find it kind of weird if someone actually found the Firefox, had it killed and stuffed.

Jade is being pestered. It’s not John or any of the kids though it's one of those TrollSlum contacts. carcinoGeneticist [CG]. CG is an asshole. He somehow knows exactly what Jade is doing and is trying to stop her but being a huge dick about it. She apparently had him blocked but that didn't take I guess.

Back to Rose. She stands before a giant grid of glowing boxes. The kiosk is indicating box 0413 is unlocked. She notes that the object in the centre of this Hubgrid looks like some of the items she has deployed in SBURB.

Till tomorrow check your house of secret lab tunnels and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8627790

Today I’m reading.

11/02/09- "END INTERMISSION.” (/homestuck/832) to 11/06/09 - "Jade: Stop being the other girl and pester John again.” (/homestuck/841)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Jade is in her room. She’s hoping to do 2 tasks. One Wish John a happy birthday. John is currently unavailable and she is killing time. Her second task is to go out and feed her pet Beq.

While killing time Jade is on mspaintadventures.com. It was in a weird intermission but that is now over. The main story The Midnight Crew can continue at act 1031. If we assume each act is about 275 pages then this is page 283,525. I hope to start reading this adventure soon if I have any hope of catching up before I die of old age. The new act opens with a cool animation showing off the characters. There's Diamonds Drog with a pool cue. Clubs Deuce with a table leg. Hearts Boxcar with a TV antenna. And Spades Slick with a horse hitch. We see them beating up members of a rival gang, the Felt. The Felt are a bunch of green guys themed after pool balls. The animation ends with them playing some music while the cast of Problem Sleuth.

Jade is still not hearing back from John. She chats with Dave in a conversion we have seen already. Mostly she predicts here that John will lose her package, but find it when he truly needs it later.

Back to Dave, in the present. Finally we get his strife with Big Bro. On the rooftop of a high-rise as the entire world. Dave has 8 different fight options way more than the other kids. But we get none of that. Big Bro is a much tougher fight than John's coddling dad, or Rose's intoxicated mom. Big bro destroys Dave's UI. Dave can fight manically. But his appointment isn't big bro but Lil’ Cal. Big Bro manipulates Cal with light speed movement’s. Dave has some crazy flips and fast attacks of his own. But in the end is utterly and humiliatingly trampled by a puppet. That's rough my dude.

Back to Jade in the past, Rose is now chatting with her. Rose mentions that today is the day they will all play in a game that Jade had predicted they’d play. Rose points out that it seems wrong as currently the only one playing it. Jade doesn't even have a copy. Jade just advises that Rose be patient and that it will be “fun”. I think she left out the world ending in a firefly hellstorm part of the story.

And now we are with Rose in the present. In a tiny but lavish mausoleum built for a cat. The world around her is on fire and she needs to get access to power. She takes her dead (taxidermied) cat and descends into a secret passage her mother had opened for her.

Back to Jade in the past. Still waiting for John to answer her pester chats. She’s patient about this knowing exactly how busy he is.

Till tomorrow avoid getting your ass handed to you in a strife and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8583127

Today I’m reading.

10/12/09- "Jade: Quickly retrieve firearms from wall.” (/homestuck/792) to 11/02/09 - "Jade: Open Echidna and go to mspaintadventures.com” (/homestuck/831)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Yesterday we met Jade. the 4th child protagonist of this story (so far). Jade is also the most odd so far. She lives in a home of impossible size. Its equipped with technology which is beyond anything that exists currently. She is also very scatterbrained, frequently blacking out and unable to remember things. But, she also has an uncanny ability to predict future events.

We are with Jade in her room. And she's equipping a rifle she says she is very good at using. She shows off her wardrobifier which grants her the ability to change her shirt design. This was a participation survey in which the atom and spirograph designs won.

The “squiddle” plush around her room are apparently “activated” by electromagnets. This causes them to form into “tangle buddies” She takes one of these. They are pretty cute, I am surprised they are not real toys.

The audience asks her to “Lose interest in fauna and never speak of it again”. Essentially begging Jade to not be a furry. To which she goes on a long speech about how wonderful it is. Though later states she would never wear a fursuit. I mean furry culture isn't exactly my cup of tea. But if you're reading this then you're probably a Homestuck. We certainly cannot judge others for their interest.

The “Magic Chest” that is in her room, and looks like Johns contains crappy fortune telling tools. She points out the magic 8 ball is always wrong because she knows “facts” about the future.

She dumps the flute for a portable refrigerator, a portable “cookalizer”, and a lunchbox. These she uses to “cook”, or irradiate a meal for Bec. We learn that the Memory modus she’s chosen is actually a pretty smart choice for her. She seems to know what is behind every card.

While Jade plays her customised bass we get a view of the island. It’s most definitely the frog temple island where we left the wayward vagabond at the end of Act 2. Her home is a huge tower on a mountaintop next to the volcano. Jade mentioned its inactive but the geothermal power it makes is what powers her home. It also seems a package has arrived. Rose had joked earlier that Jades presents arrive via a plane drop. It seems that is also how she receives them.

Taking the bass and amp into her inventory she decides to finally pester John. It turns out that the lunchbox she grabbed is actually a computer of insane power. Though she only has 3 apps on it, pesterchum, a browser, and “freshJamz”. Her pesterchum is some kind of advanced edition, but she also has way more contacts then the other kids. She organised her contacts, one category is “chumroll” containing the other 3 kids we know. There is also “Trollslum” The mood of all those in Trollslum is ranchorus. There's a few names there we can see that will become important later.

• carcinoGeneticist
• arachnidsGrip
• twinArmageddons
• terminallyCapricious
• caligulasAquarium

I would guess that Jade, unlike the other kids, Jade has social energy. She's extroverted. She is only homestuck in a more physical sense. She's on an island and unable to meet people via normal means.

Anyway turntechGodhead (Dave) is talking. She tries to get a hold of John first but he is busy. Dave has a lot to say including some terrible words I won't repeat here. Hells bells I cannot believe we used to say that kinda thing so casually. But he provides Jade with a new song that she (and we all) listen to on the FreshJamz App.

There’s actually a good chunk of an album in here, it’s even the same play order. I only know because I've listened to it like 5000 times. This sequence with the icons next to each song gives me the feeling that all 4 kids would create music together. Like a band that never actually sees each other in person. It really adds value to imagine who is playing what instruments for each song. Even as with my current Homestuck playlist there's about 60 hours of music (and it's not even the FULL one). It's also cool to know this is likely how these songs were actually made. It's just a bunch of folks on the internet mixing and evolving songs. I'm at all musically gifted myself. But I enjoy listening to it and imagining all the awesome things that inspired every song.

Anyway, Jade decides to check out mspaintadventures.com. Weirdly it's a crude drawing of John in a dunce cap next to a toilet filled with cake and the pogo ride. It’s mentioned this is a tangential intermission that’s not relevant to the plot.

That's an odd thing to say.

Till tomorrow eat some nice fruits and, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8539858

Welcome to the third act. Today I’m reading.

10/14/09- "ACT 3 ==>” (/homestuck/760) to 10/20/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/791)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We’ve met 3 kids. They like video games. And they’ve stumbled into one that’s brought about the end of the world. But it also seems to have put them into a journey into something even grander. But this isn't a story of 3 heroes. The game demands 4.

We see a girl sleeping in a garden. She has long black hair, like John she has buck teeth and glasses. She wears a dress and has a bunch of colourful strings on her fingers. She’s holding a note. Next to her is a flute, and a familiar looking pumpkin. The very on a Wayward Vagabond would appearify.

The flowers surrounding her are very strange. They are spirographs. Her name is Farmstink Buttlass. The audience wants to wake her up. They attempt to drop a pumpkin onto her but it disappears. Reading the note in her hand revealed she has predicted that the audience would name her Farmstink and she doesn't like that.Her real name is Jade Harley. Given her predictions and that we’ve found her in a Garden. We can assume this is our GardenGnostic[GG].

We get to play the flute with Jade. It turns out she is terrible at it. She mentions that stuff tends to appear and disappear a lot and she has no idea where this flute came from. In attempting to take the flute we learn Jade has many different fetch modi. All themed on common board games. She chooses Memory as it’s the most practical. Her grandfather had given them to her and she mentions he is a little strict. You may also note the icon on Jades shirt changes.

On the audience's advice to do something terribly stupid involving poop she proceeds. Jade spread fertiliser over her plants while squealing like a pig. She then takes the fertiliser into her inventory. She points out the coloured strings on her fingers are reminding her to wish John a happy birthday.

It seems like our introduction to Dave we are meeting Jade in a point which occurred in the past. She needs to go to her room to get supplies for something she needs to do outside. Only Jade will understand the meaning of the reminders on her fingers. But even she's never sure what they mean.

After grabbing a pumpkin, a crab apple, a key lime, a mandarin orange, and eureka lemon, she headed out of the garden. We see the garden is huge. At its centre is a pad of stone that looks like the one under the appearifier that the Wayward vagabond found. This pad is apparently a transporter. I can assume that's a handy accessibility feature for her grandfather, no need for stairs. Also this is technology well beyond the seemingly normal homes the other kids had.

Jade's bedroom is crazy, she has the interest of all the other kids combined. Her own interest seems to be plants, she has many in there. This includes some orchids which are notoriously hard to care for. She has a magic chest that is very much like Johns but blue, She has a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff poster. But it's vandalised to make them look like animals. She also has a lot of plush puppets, but they’re altered. Like Rose she has squids, but they are cute, she also has Rose’s interest in Beast but uhh different. As Jade puts it she's into “Fauna of an anthropomorphological persuasion”. Jade is a furry, she's a teen girl cut her some slack.

On the other half of her room is a gun collection. Also, there is what appears to be a nuclear reactor and some uranium that she likes to tinker with. Wow! did not see that coming. She says the guns are for sport only and not to harm animals. The weird gizmos are the inventions of her grandfathers.

Jades grandfather is apparently an explorer, naturalist, treasure hunter, archaeologist, scientist, adventurer, big game hunter, and billionaire. He had taught Jade but she finds him strict and his lectures stern. It seems like the others have issues with her guardian. She says he spends all day in the Grand Foyer. That’s a bit odd. If you have a massive mansion the foyer isn't usually the place to hang out all day.

She mentions she will have to encounter her grandfather soon. She needs to go out and feed her pet Becquerel. She had called them Bec before, but the word becquerel is the unit of radioactivity. But First she needs to chat with John.

Is memory loss a symptom of radiation sickness?

Till tomorrow avoid radiation sickness and, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8492021

Today I’m reading… no this one is more of watching. witnessing… you’ll see.

10/11/09- "oh wait” (/homestuck/756) to 10/12/09 - "Dear John,” (/homestuck/759)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We left with our WaywardVagabond (WV) on his butt having failed to get out of the ladder tube. He has a few seconds left though, he can try again.

At this point we get an epic animation to the track “Explore”. There’s a lot to unpack here. A “5x cliffhanger combo” with much more going on.

• WV again climbs out of the hatch.
• Near WV is a statue’s hand holding something orb-like. I think this is a wizard statue in Rose's house Implying that WV and the bunker are near her. Just years in the future.
• The entire bunker under him rockets him far into the air and westward. It looks like a can.
• We see him pass what was John's Suburb, It’s now a sand filled creator with a giant white tree growing from it. The tree has grown a “fruit” being a large metal capsule with some SBURB branding on it. -The Peregrine Mendicant is next to this. The thing we saw in the sky was WV riding a bunker can rocket thing.
• Still blasting westward WV goes to an area where a volcano very many years prior had erupted. This may be prehistoric.
• A meteor seemingly summoned by a spirographic portal left a huge crater next to it.
• A frog temple is later built in the crater.
• And then everything got flooded. This makes the frog temple ruins, and volcano into an island. The island is flush with life including dinosaurs?
• And now the frog temple ruins lay in the middle of more desert. This is where VW lands.
• Some fans discovered that there are real latitude and longitudinal coordinates. These show you where some of the characters lived on Earth. For examples:
• Rose’s home was near the Victory Basin wildlife management area in Vermont USA. It makes sense as she's surrounded by forested areas.
• John's house was located in Maple valley Washington near Seattle. You can even see the lakes in the animation. Not sure who lives at that exact address but they must get plenty of very weird visitors.
• The Frog Shrine is in the middle of the pacific ocean. This is actually also very close to the anti-prime meridian. In this place you can travel “backwards in time”. Though that’s more to do with our wacky time zones and politics.
• Dave's home isn't shown in this segment
• We also see Rose battling her generator trying to get it to work using only violence. It is not working out and she's surrounded by fire. Her mother looks on from the house, unlocking a hidden passage in the Cat Mausoleum. Proof she really does care about Rose. Maybe?
• We see John's father. He is in the dark castle. The imps have foolishly handcuffed him with his own trick handcuffs. It seems John's father got captured purposely. He’s decided now is a good time to break and unleash creamy hell upon his captors.
• We also see Dave on his rooftop. We also see Big Bro for the first time, not as a shadow. He has really cool anime triangle shades, and a katana.

This is the end of Act 2. Ending each act with mind blowing animation sequences really worked for me.

I’ll give you the epilogue this time. Because there’s a lot to unpack in that as well. We see a note written to John. It’s in John’s first edition copy of Colonels Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery. It’s another Nana lore dump!

She’s saying she wishes she could give this to John “in the flesh”. She mentions John will be “thrust into another world” which has definitely happened.

“A realm of Warring Royalty in a Timeless Expanse.” We have that as well though we haven't seen much of it yet.

“A realm of Agents and Exiles and Consorts and Kernelsprites. Of toiling Underlings and slumbering Denizens” We’ve only seen Kernelsprites so far.

“A realm where four will gather, the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space, and together they will Ascend.” We have seen a few “==> Ascend” moments, but these roles sound cool as hell.

Nanna ends the note suggesting they may someday meet. And that’s also true, they have.Note her heart in the signature has a ghostly tale, and the PS. Hoo Hoo Hoo!.

You could make a few theories here. John found the book with some articles about meteors and a fire at Croker labs. One theory is that this has all happened before. Nanna experienced a similar grand adventure. Somehow she knows her grandson's destined to do the same. It’s also possible Nanna has whatever weird ability GardenGnostic [GG] has. They both can predict the future.

Till tomorrow I hope you’re kept well fed, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8444832

Today I’m reading.

10/02/09- "WV: Mourn the loss of citizen tab.” (/homestuck/722) to 10/09/09 - "[S] WV: Hasten to the exit post-haste!” (/homestuck/755)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

The Wayward Vagabond (WV) has seen war. In his caffeine fueled boredom WV divided his cans (of which he is the mayor). The war destroyed many Tab cans (because he drank them). It waged on for over 4 hours.

The timer which WV had started was now down 4 min.

Now we're shown someone else. A Peregrine Mendicant wandering the desert. This possibly means “Foreign Beggar”. They look similar the WV but they are white, like #FFF white. They are pushing a shopping cart full of rusty mailboxes. They sense something in the sky behind them. We won't get to see more quite yet though.

WV decides to step outside of the bunker for a bit. There is concern that he may not want to be around when that timer hits zero. He may think. If the place doesn't explode he can always just come back. But when he gets to the ladder a door closes behind him. The hatch leading out is now locked off by bars. WV's trapped in the ladder tube.

Hope isn't lost though. The door has a screen that seems to show the SBURB house symbol, a spirograph and a new symbol a “triangley fractal”. Currently the house is lit up. He tries to access the spirographic room but it seems locked. The triangley fractal room is available though.

The triangley fractal room is like the house room. The screens are different but there's 2. One has earth, the other.. Well if you’ve been particularly good at paying attention you may see The Medium. This is a basic representation of the planets WV painted in the other room. There are the seven gates between the planets and Skaia which is in the centre. The Incipisphere is the circle wrapping them all in. We see two other planets with a moon, one is in the centre and one is out in the darkness.

There are also some numbers below the screen. These appear to be latitude longitude elevation and time. I’m not sure if the other numbers have significance but the date is, of course, April 13 2009.

There is also a measuring stick which WV want to make a spear out of. But he left his knife back in the other room. On the opposing wall something that looks like an Alchemizer, but bigger. By messing with some buttons it makes a pumpkin appear.

WV declares this machine is an “appearifier”, the word being a reference to a gag in Problem Sleuth. But we're told this device can transport any item from any place, and any time to this specific spot. The pumpkin has a weird symbol carved in it.

He is looking at a green button which is like the door screen we saw before. This one has a X in the centre.

Continuing to explore the machine WV finds a green button. pressing it sets the coordinates and time to the current. Andrew has cleverly prevented us from seeing the date. WV uses this to transport his knife, and many cans, including amber bug friend to him from the other room.

After eating the pumpkin guts using his knife WV has an idea to use the device to free bug friend from his rocky prison. This works. WV names his bug friend Serenity. This being a reference to the space ship in the tragically cancelled series Firefly .

WV, realizing this machine manipulates time. He decides to take the rotten pumpkin from the other room that he had eaten earlier. I guess he wanted to eat it again. This results in a paradox though. If he were to take the pumpkin then he could not have eaten it. As such the machine makes a paradoxical version of the pumpkin out of green sludge.

Serenity informs WV that the timer is almost expired in the other room and that he may want to get out of this bunker. It's not mentioned yet but Serenity can communicate via Morse code. WV uses the machine to remove the bars from the ladder tube. Packing all can town into the (non sludge) pumpkin he makes a bindle and ascends the ladder to - WV falls on his butt.

Till tomorrow, keep pressing random buttons on strange devices, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8394084

Today I’m reading.

09/29/09- "WV: Hit escape.” (/homestuck/712) to 10/01/09 - "[S] WV: Lead your men to victory!” (/homestuck/721)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We are still with our Wayward Vagabond (WV), the newly self declared mayor of Can Town. WV has recently discovered a stash of energy drinks and has consumed a rock of uranium. This guy is feeling pretty good. Having discovered that the buttons on the keyboard open caches, WV tries the escape key.

The escape opens the command history. We are able to see commands made before WV discovers the displays. There are some commands listed, HOME, VIEW, SWITCH (1-4), ESC, LOCK ROOM (with password).

VW uses SWITCH 2. He is able to see a garbled image of a wizard. It looks like one we have seen in Rose's home. Also, commands are all locked for this view. View 3 is Dave. But, Dave is holding a broken sword over a destroyed Cal. He is also standing next to what appears to be a game sprite of a bird with a sword through it. Damn WV dropping spoilers on us. WV refused to check view 4 to avoid confusion.

Using HOME WV now sees a countdown. 4 hours 13 minutes. I mean the planet is already a desert of ruins. Another apocalypse can’t do much worse right?. This also locks WV out of making any further commands. But having no idea what that countdown can mean, WV returns to his Mayoral duties.

Despite seemingly having no idea what chess is, WV makes the can into chess pieces and plays a game with himself. He does this for over 4 hours.

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8355452

Today I’m reading.

09/24/09- "WV: Search room for can opener.” (/homestuck/682) to 09/29/09 - "WV: Welcome the rest into the city.” (/homestuck/711)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

We are with our friend from the distant but not too distant future the Wayward Vagabond (WV). WV is hungry. He's surrounded by food but it's all in cans and he has no way to open them. He reveals he has a knife made from a mailbox flag.

He decides to just build a small town with the cans and become the mayor. CAN TOWN is actually one of the parts of the fandom I took part in. The tradition takes place at meetings, usually conventions. Homestucks would steal an area of floor and all bring cans. Naturally we’d build a town with them. Anyone cosplaying WV was mayor. The best part is we'd gather all the cans and donate them at the end. I thought that was a lovely way to give back.

Anyway, WV is now the Mayor of Can town. Mayors mustn't be kings as WV has a severe hatred of them. West of Can Town, the corner of the room we didn't notice, is some stuff. A light bug in amber, a glowing green rock or Uranium, a jug of motor oil, and some chalk. WV seems to confuse the concept of picking things up and eating them. He eats the Uranium, and some chalk, but seems OK. He gives the bug friend a home in Can Town and uses the chalk to draw some roads.

WV creates a large chess board pattern west of Can Town using white chalk and the oil as paint. He also gives himself a handsome Mayoral Sash using a label from a Mayo can (adding the R with chalk). He also draws a sky onto the walls with some interesting features

• there is a yellow luminous planet with a single moon
• a planet which is blue with a huge volcano erupting from it
• a planet which appears to be a cross between a gear and a record
• a planet which is brightly coloured blue, pink with clouds of yellow and blue around it
• a planet which is black a dripping oil blot, it has dirty clouds
• on the other wall is a purple planet surrounded in an impenetrable darkness. This one also has a moon.

These places are pretty specifically detailed. At Log 28 (page 424) when Nannaquin Sprite was lore dumping. We saw a yellow kingdom of light and purple kingdom of darkness. Possibly related? These drawings are important.

Turning back to the monitors he can see John at a point just before he went to sleep. In an attempt to turn on the remaining three monitors he tries the tab key. This unlocked another panel filled with Tab Energy drinks. Not sure these are still around. I find energy drinks pretty gross. But WV should be OK with it, he did just eat raw uranium. Also this pun was terrible.

With this new discovery Can Town prospers!

Till tomorrow, consume caffeine, and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8315344

Today I’m reading.

09/17/09- "==>” (/homestuck/652) to 09/24/09 - "WV: Clear out all the cans inside the purple machine.” (/homestuck/681)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John has woken up. He’s on a structure rose had built above the roof of his house. Despite there being imps everywhere. I guess they really are neutral but annoying. GardenGnostic [GG] is chatting with John. She slips that John should follow his grandmother's advice. John points out that he hasn't mentioned his grandmother to her yet. He knows something is up with her as Dave and Rose mentions she had “powers” but John never believed it. She wants to tell him something about the meteor that fell near her house but isn’t able to.

She tells John he needs to wake up, ending the chat. Notability Pesterchum records the end time of the chat as ??:??.

At this point John becomes aware there is something much bigger than imps up there with him. 2 things. The Crude Ogres are here and John has no choice but to face them..

But first. Back to Dave. Taking his brother's instruction, he grabs Cal, and arms his sword. Now he ascends to the roof of his building in a completely awesome animated sequence. This is one of the cooler sequences in the entire series. Upon opening the door to the roof the sky red with fire and meteors are destroying the entire city around him. As he's distracted by the sight, Cal is again moved. On the roof Dave prepared to fight-

We get psyched out.

We are now a girl in a greenhouse with glasses. We haven't seen this character before-

No psyched again!

We are with the wayward vagabond (now called WV). He is still many years in the future (but not too many). He discovers the ruins of some facility with a lot of SBURB symbology in it. From here he is able to command John as an audience member. He’s also discovered a cache of cans, books, plants, and other stuff. He is very hungry.

Unlike other characters so far WV can just pick stuff up without any kind of modus. His skin is a black carapace, an exoskeleton. But he is pretty weak and not able to open cans with force. He also has some sort of barcode on his wrist which he says gives him bad memories.

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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8268196

Reread log. 35

Today I’m reading.

09/10/09- "==>” (/homestuck/622) to 09/17/09 - "[S] John: Wake up.” (/homestuck/651)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

John and Rose have discovered the full item creation cycle. They can clone any item they can carry for a cost. Rose has made 10 new cards for John which will allow him to expand his inventory, and make new items.

One item John attempted to make was just a bunch of random letters typed into the Punch Designix. This when built was actually a cool looking jetpack. But it's mixed with random cinder blocks and other junk. This rendered it useless.

We get to see a page of the giant book Harry Anderson Wise Guy, from street to screen. This book actually exist? It seems rare, but there is a copy in some libraries for any super keeners out there. Though I don't think anything published would be that terribly written. From what little of it I can understand he’s just talking about a magic trick he saw once.

The trick inspires John to combine punch cards. This actually works. John is able to combine his hammer card and pogo to make a pogo hammer. This hammer is just the right size for John and lets him build combos. He manages to one-shot an imp with the new hammer but sends himself flying. Rose managed to catch him falling with his bed. John, tired of his adventure, just decides to sleep on the bed. He’s unaware a second giant has climbed up to his house. I guess this is why you'd probably need a few players in any given game to survive SBURB. People need to sleep eventually and unless you’ve built a secure spot to do it you're going to be vulnerable.

Also for many of this is probably the first work of Toby Fox we’d ever heard.

Rose cannot wait around for John to sleep either. The fire has now reached the generator she needs to run her laptop. She’s now out of power!

Despite this though John Wakes up. He has odd visions. Clouds form shapes that are pleasant to him. He sees the shadow of someone… before startling awake to images of spiral graphics and a pumpkin. He seems unharmed. And there is someone trying to reach him.

Till tomorrow wake up! and keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8221300

Today I’m reading.

08/29/09- "Dave: Ignore Lil Cal and find the beta.” (/homestuck/562) to 09/10/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/621)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Dave is in his living room, also the bedroom of his older brother. He's been in there awhile now admiring his brothers cool stuff. He’s also taunted by the plush rumps of many puppets. Dave noticed one of his Brothers swords is missing from its wall mount. As the audience suggests taking the other it vanishes out of sight.

As Dave leaves his brother's room he notices that there’s a comic left for him to see. A strange one about Roulf and an animal from the muppets, also the puppet from jigsaw. Dave explains that he believes this is his brother leaving tests to see if Dave is ironic enough. He is in no mood for it currently.

Dave heads to the kitchen (also part of the living room). Is a complete mess littered with swords, ninja gear, and fireworks. I see a Kit Rae sword jammed behind the microwave. I had a shitty knock off Morthoseth from that collection. I was terribly cringey.

Anyway Dave decides to blend a puppet that his brother left in the blender. This apparently reveals a hidden camera which Dave destroys. Deciding what gear is useful he takes a lot of stuff I’ll just list here:

• the fireworks from the sink,
• he nearly murders himself by taking the shurikens
• the nunchucks.
• a skateboard
• a battery pack
• a “jumble of unbelievably shitty swords”
• some cherry bombs
• a blender

He’s about as bad with his modus as John is with his. Also, It is pretty clear to us at this point someone is moving around extremely fast behind Dave. This person is doing things like taking swords, and moving Lil Cal around. But Dave is oblivious.

Dave notices a hidden message written on the entrance of the hatch leading to his crawl space. He needed to build something to get him tall enough to reach it. I guess this means Dave is short. Anyway, figuring he was going to find his brother up there. What he actually dies us unleashes a wave of plush ass puppets which fall onto him. This was his easier conversation with Rose about being waist deep in puppet ass. It looks more like he’s complete under the pile though so perhaps he is only saying “waist deep” to sound taller.

The hatch also had a note pinned to it with a batarang. Bro is something Dave to the roof with instructions to bring Cal. They are finally going to fight or something? I fought a lot with my older brothers. It was typically less drama and more getting my face farted on.

But before we can see this epic showdown let’s check in with John. John has things he needs to build items from his new punch cards. Instead of using them he decides to build a cool fort with them. I guess the internet wants this for some reason. Anyway John is wasting important time. Rust chucks the blanket and dress off of the cliff to prevent any future urges.

John eventually built the totems from the cards. This unlocks some new items that can be made in the Alchemizer. He can build a pogo ride, a hammer, and even a new card (which are very cheap). The card he randomly typed stuff into over a card for shaving cream is just “?”)

What could “?” mean?

Till tomorrow,keep riding the pumpkin tide.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8183134

Today I’m reading.

08/21/09- "==>” (/homestuck/512) to 08/29/09 - "==>” (/homestuck/461)"

Select this thingy to read my commentary

Rose is working on making the house taller.  She needs to build John a path to the first gate far above his house. There seems to be some degree of structural knowledge needed here. But this mostly seems like video game logic for structural engineering.  This is to say Rose is a terrible architect.

She is good at squashing imps though. As she again rescuers John from an imp while he's distracted by the voice in his head. This eventually passes as the Wayward Vagabond goes on to do something else.  

John finally snapped out of fugue state to find himself in the study. He’s surrounded by loot and imp oil, and he has a hat now.  Regardless of everyone trying to pester him, John decides to check out the Punch Designix.  It seems to show that it needs a card.

Meanwhile Dave and Rose are chatting.  Dave is still having some sort of freakout having gone into his brother's room. Dave had taken too many images of puppet ass overloading his brain. Despite Dave being Rose's one hope of survival she cannot help but antagonise him.

John discovers that the back of all his cards have a captcha like code on the back of them. He types in the codes of his claw hammer and pogo ride then punches those cards in the Punch Designix. John also attempts to mash a random code and apply it to the shaving cream card as an experiment.  This lowers his potential inventory space and makes the cards unusable. John suspects it will be worth it. He also now finally notices his PDA and his friends trying to reach him. He’s apparently going a little too slowly with that as Rose launches a bathtub through his house. This nearly hit him but also obliterated an imp.

It seems she was making a shortcut to the stair system. John and Rose debated about whether John should just go check out his fathers room. Rose feels it's bad and could cost too much time. So for now John checks out the contents of the Safe. The Colonels Sassacre’s that fell out may be a first edition. There's also a Shavers almanack which John mentions he’d like to read when he is old enough to shave.

Most interesting is the old newspaper clippings. John mentions they appear to be “decades old” though the actual date is out of frame, but it appears to be 199X. That’s not too many decades old from when this page was written. They mostly mention meteors causing mass devastation in a suburb but “it’s not a big deal”. This is a huge deal! Has this happened before!? How was John's father involved and what did he want John to know about it?

One also states   “... Crocker Facility Levelled”.  I mean I guess John's family would care about that, they do love those cake mixes. Betty Crokers stuff is mostly resigned to dollar stores these days, the mixes are ok but not great. Honestly, for a family that’s so very into baking you figure they’d have just moved to raw ingredients by now.

The note was just congratulating John on being able to lift the safe and becoming a man. It had to combo on the back. That’s a little sad, John seems to have had to grow up faster than anticipated. Also I guess Rose is more of a man then he is, since it was her who lifted the safe.  He does manage to take out another imp accidentally while messing with his inventory. This grants him a level up granting more random stats. These include more Gel Viscosity, and some Man Grit he has climbed the Echeladder to “pesky urchin” .

John also climbs the less metaphorical stairs that Rose built. Apparently from his perspective they are really thin and hard to climb. I assume he is going to his room to lathe. Rose has placed the cards and all the cruxite dowels up there for him.

 But something has climbed up from the depths. Something very big.

 

Till tomorrow, keep riding the pumpkin tide.