Homestuck Re-read Part 25: Quick Update hopefully?

I am so tired, for some reason today has been exhausting. I have been awake since 6am and had something to eat at 5pm. I have been wasting time dreading working on my typescript bullshit project. Chasing after people who don't want to talk to me and wanting attention from someone who wasn't giving it me it. I've been watching a video about a short story for the last 5 hours and perversely hoping there wouldn't be an upd8 today just to give myself an even longer break. I do not know why I am just, so tired.

Todays upd8 will take up from the start of act 5 act 2 until this page. 157 pages. I am not sure I have the energy to do it, but I need to get it done. I cannot break the habit or I will never form it. There is 30 minutes left on the video I am watching and I am curios know how it ends.

homestuck

We're opening as that, beautiful music plays and the blue and red curtains are pulled back. We get to take another look at the earth; only this time it's from Karkat's point of view as for the first time he gazes upon the man he holds responsible for him and the troll's loss of the ultimate reward: John Egbert. Karkat trolls him for the first time, right before the strange mangled end of the timeline. Karkat gives it his best AM impression only to be met with a rather unimpressed

EB: hi karkat!

As John realizes it's finally the first time they've talked (from Karkat's perspective) and properly introduces himself. He rejects John's premise that they are 'Earth Human buddies' and that they've hatched a scheme together or are helping eachother. Karkat gets embarrassed enough to troll John backwards through time. Terezi opens a memo on the fruity rumpus asshole factory to gather people's opinion on the plan to troll the humans that devolves into her and Karkat getting into a fist fight and bashing eachother's computers.

JOHN AGAIN

We are no longer a troll we are a sleepy human boy who's hoverboard just crash landed. Vriska attempts to manipulate John with her psychic powers but fails. John is walking the battlefield with the fucked up terminator bunny. He attempts to reconcile with his father only to have his legs cut out from under him as he's woken up by Vriska. The white queen's ring descends into a river below. Rose's mother comforts his father with liquor and companionship.

We see (from our and Vriska's perspective) John and her's first interaction. She is immediately back to her old tricks, digging her claws into John.

We see Jade's island at night as Bec prepares to catch her. Good dog, best friend. The warweary villain surveys his troops and sees he is the sole survivor. We get a moment of cultural exchange as Vriska learns what a father is.

Vriska doesn't want to talk to John about her life on Alternia, it wasn't too hot.

MAJOR HOMESTUCK MILESTONE

FIRST BUCKET JOKE!!!! ITS THE FIRST PAIL BUCKET JOKE! He's so woke. Rose has converted John's home into a megalithic obelisk, extending upward like a bad generative AI model trying to stack houses. Any specific part looks somewhat correct but if you widen your view at all the structure devolves from a home into an absurd megastructure. It reminds me of the megastructure from NiaanceE or BLAME.

Rose's dialog feels, different. I cannot tell if it's because the last time we saw her was about 4 upd8s ago and now it feels a bit odd, or that her new method of investigating sburb and the medium by grinding things to dust have began effecting her mind. Or if it's just a continuation of her new connection with the horrorterrors. She explains some mechanics of sburb to us, consorts may be a way for client players to work while the server player is away.

Oh, the fact Rose has transitioned from trying to win at sburb to essentially being the doomguy when let upon hell is possibly why she is feeling a bit off to me. We get the hardest panel of Rose preceding her grinding an island down into it's constituent parts which she hopes to sift through for specks of knowledge.

We get to be Kanaya again and speedrun her attempts at trolling Rose. Including trolling John in the past but suffering a trolling at the fate of then-present-now-past-but-future John with an assist from far-past John. Far-past John is then presumably threatened with death by Vriska. Kanaya is getting trounced at trolling by the Rose human. She tries to resync their timeline perspectives at the moment Rose obliterates a gate. Rose begins to interrogate Kanaya for information on troll culture, like if they have names.

There is more Vriskalog (Vriska Dialog) that reinforces just, the feeling that although she does a lot of despicable things, she is still just a teenage girl.

AG: Seriously, it's a good thing I did decide to 8other you now. Otherwise you would go through the game looking like a little weenie 8oy-Skylark.

EB: what is a boy skylark?

AG: It is the most terri8le, gutless class for wimpy losers, ones who have no idea how to handle themselves when a girl talks to them and stuff.

Her reaction to Tavros not wanting a flushed relationship was just, seemingly her first time expressing flushed emotions for someone and being rejected and not knowing how to handle it combined with the fact that alternian society is a lot more brutal then human society. I do find it strange that despite how different their culture is, that trolls seem to experience (but repress) the same range of emotions as us. They do sometimes just seem like grey humans raised on casual ultraviolence.

Speaking of ultra violence, Rose is disassembling an island. We get this series of spatially confusing panels where Rose enters a green sphere embedded in the core of the island and views a giant tablet depicting the green sun hidden inside while discussing that Rose's personal timeline seems to fade into darkness imminently. Seeing her hover like a black dot in front of this giant captchalogue tablet rendered in the same resplendent green as Doc Scratch's and Bec's powers.

Vriska dresses John up like a little mini-Vriska. Or I guess, equivalent-height-Vriska? It's already clear that she's developing flushed feelings for John somewhat, but dressing him up like her and calling him hot is definitely something. Him copying her 8 motif is adorable and pretty relatable as someone who seems to copy however they're talked too instinctively¹. John shoots off to get ready to save Jade and Vriska tells him she has to leave for a moment. He tells her his last name is Anderson. John Anderson.

Now we get some Dave! He's playing the market using time travel and troll assistance (he doesn't say who, but 1 h4v3 4n 1d34 who) and knows Vriska is Fucked Up apparently. I fucking love Terezi's art. We also get a classic song lyric from a classic song.

D34D D4V3S 4R3 TH3 3N3MY.

Speaking about the dead, we get to witness the destruction of Prospit in the troll's session. We know it's jack's fault somehow, but that green is, reminiscent of a green we've seen before. That's the same green as Bec's and Doc Scratch's powers. That is concerning.

We also get to see that the financial gains were to self-perpetuate the troll's knowledge of the beta kids. They only found out and got in contact with them because Terezi had Dave wire past Terezi money and past Terezi had Sollux trace where it come from. Why does paradox space have interdimensional currency transactions.

We also get an iconic exchange.

TG: how old are you

GC: 6

TG: goddamn

TG: ok now youre messing with me arent you you arent 6

GC: NO 1TS TRU3!TG: whatever thats bullshit

TG: ok fuck it

TG: just dont tell your parents

GC: WH4T 4R3 P4R3NTS

TG: thats just about the saddest thing i ever heard get said

Future Dave signals past Dave that Terezi is cool and based. They form a team so it's time for a FUCK1NG D4NC3 P4RTY

An upd8 draws to a close.

That was not a short upd8 at all, unfortunately. But I had a good time. Thank you for reading, and goodnight.