Homestuck Re-read Part 30: THE HIGHBLOOD.

Another weekday another Homestuck update. Ever further we march towards the deeper and further insanities of Homestuck's narrative. Meta elements and off-hand comments that haunt my mind to this day; not as ever present spectres occupying my mind but odd perforations in the mind I am unable to pain over yet I cannot inspect directly. I love Homestuck most of all amongst the strange collection of media I hold dear, and this re-read constantly reminds me of why. Today's upd8 I expect to continue this trend as certain milestones draw ever nearer, filling in enough of the surrounding areas of the gaps in my memory that I can guess again at what they once were. I'm like a shitty version of doc scratch where the holes in my un-omnisciency are filled by remembering something I forgot.

There is other exciting news, confirmation that Hiveswap acts 3 and 4 are in production as well as Hauntswitch. I've not played act 2. Not yet, anyway. When act 3 comes out, I'll be sure to have finished it. What an exciting time to be a Homestuck.

Anyway, I need to finish this upd8 quickly-ish. I have pressing matters to attend to tonight. The time is about to be 20:00, lets see how long this takes.

homestuck

Jade inspects the cloning apparatus Dave has deployed for her. There is some confusion about what is to be cloned. Obviously it's not humans, it's frogs. Obviously. The use of the apparatus is similar to other cloning apparats/apperifiers(?) that we've seen before, except a bit more hands on. You target and attempt to appearify a frog and hope to get a paradox clone instead of the real deal. Inorder to get a paradox clone, something has to happen to the frog later, so this can only be done with frogs they've already interacted with or will interact with in the future. This sounds like a massive fucking pain in the ass but who knows, yknow. A more simpler way to put the process

GG: so it is like

GG: a sort of backwards frog breeding

GG: clone first, catch later?

GA: Yes

Kanaya even happens to spell out a bit of the intended game design for us with regards to the frog cloning

GA: When You Travel To Interact With Your Cloned Subjects You Are Also Taking The Opportunity To Explore And Discover New Habitats

GA: As Well As New Species Of Frogs For Your Terminal To Track

GA: Its Efficient To Go Adventuring In This Fashion While You Are Waiting For Your Young Clones To Mature

The end goal is the breed the biggest, baddest frog of them all. The Genesis Frog. THE SPEAKER OF THE VAST CROAK. This guy is sort of the whole deal with sburb, The genesis frog becomes the new universe that is the ultimate prize of the session.

Things then turn to matters of the heart in a way. Jade asks if Kanaya is best friends with Rose. There is an exchange about her 'going dark' and then similarities between the jade blood¹ and the Jade. A troubling past is recalled of an extra guardian, a man dressed in the same white he spoke who put her to sleep and woke her somewhere gold. A dark taint to the wonder of a childhood on Prospit.

Jade's password system is also implemented here, order forced upon chaos. Linear time enforced on madness. CROOOOOOOOOOOAK, all capitals, 11 Os.

[S] Kanaya: Return to the core.

Another walkabout! Let's see what we find.

There was a lot of nice interactions as Kanya, but the first thing I've felt the need to write down is. At one point Eridan was planning to switch sides and join Bec Noir? Somehow?

Eridan is also very upset no one joined him to murder angels on his land. I don't remember a huge amount of stuff about angels in Homestuck but I know they're all sorts of weird and fucked up. Karkat thinks they were game constructs and not monsters. I remember that the sburb glitch FAQ had a section on angels, they were something to do with The Law and the underworld. God, reading that page again really does make me want to try my hand at some kind of Homesuck fan work. To me it's so evocative of a further sburb world. And the idea of there being dedicated sburb speedrunners and glitch hunters is such a fun concept.

I think I've exhausted everything in this walkabout, at least according to the wiki. There's a message from doc scratch, but no one seems to be able to read it.

NEXT PAGE

Oh back to the duel between Sollux and Eridan. A distressed Feferi checks on the loser. Royal blood goes to spill royal blood, but is itself splattered atop a pile of trumpets. 4 horns blow but this cannot be the breaking of the fourth seal.

Another opponent prepares to duel. Combatants assume their stance like in the old west. One is distracted and the other notices, but no one is shot dead with their gun in the holster. Instead a whole race is aborted in an instant. Eridan Ampora's classpect was the Prince of Hope and there is no better demonstration of the mythological role of the prince is sburb.

Do note though that literal interpretation of the classes' names can be misleading, e.g. "Prince" actually means "destroyer".

He's not firing a deringer, he has a third round in his gun. Kanaya Maryam lays dead, emerald blood pooling around her.

Karkat watched one of his buddies slaughter two of his rapidly dwindling remaining comrades. Sollux isn't dead, just unconscious. Feferi and Kanaya aren't as lucky. Karkat reads the message Doc Scratch left on Kanaya's computer. It's for him, a single communiqué.

Don't turn your back on the body.

He turns around. Both are where he left them. Gamzee replied to a message finally. On Karkat's computer. Facing it faces away from the bodies. He's also completely lost it. Off the rails. Lost the plot. Fully insane. He's off the slime and he's seen the face of his god and realized his true destiny. He's on the war path and by war I mean unmitigatable slaughter of any living thing he crosses.

Karkat retreats to his happy place. I believe this is one of the few times Karkat expresses just, abject and unmasked fear. While he's venting his fears and mourning his friends, a past version of Feferi joins in. That has to be some horrifying form of mental whiplash. He just checked she was dead and now she's speaking to him again. She doesn't even believe it. She thinks it's just a typical Karkat overreacting, blowing something normal out of the water. Past Eridan also shows up and is incredibly... obnoxious? Dickheaded? Who's to say, but it's annoying and upsetting. It's so, distressed seeing Karkat like this. Once you get over all caps equalling shouting he doesn't have as much of a wall up as Dave, but this is an actively grieving Karkat being presented with a man who murdered his friends infront of him trying to hit on him.

TEREZI PYROPE

Remember last time we were with her. She was sat in her little bit of the lab having some alone time. Only to be interrupted by Tavros' dead body landing behind her. Freshly impaled on his own lance by Vriska. There is a sick roleplay as she 'uncovers' the murder was perpetrated by Vriska. But that's just how it is in a troll society made up of 12 13 year olds who have descended into violence. AKA this bitch of an earth.

A pair of corpses are kissed. Unlike waking a princess from sleep, raising the dead doesn't require true love, only the mechanical interaction between bodies. It's ineffective however. Their dreamselves were already dead.

Ah, we're back with John and the mayor on the battlefield.

An inheritance is claimed early. John possesses his father's wallet. A collection of photos of a younger John are inside. Also a car. I guess they won't have to pave paradise to put up a parking lot in Homestuck. They quite literally fly off into the distance. John takes the time to catch up with Jade. He tells her about the things he saw in Skaia's clouds. Past actions, current activities and prophecy of the future. A page later he issues an omen himself.

GG: actually, now it makes sense that i wouldnt be able to [achieve godtier], since my dream self is dead

GG: its too bad really

EB: yeah...

GG: i wonder what space powers would be like??

EB: hmm, i have no idea!

GG: oh well

EB: maybe you shouldn't rule it out though?

EB: i mean, you did mention your dream self isn't COMPLETELY dead, remember?

These two are adorable. Despite all the pain everyone has been through, it's good to see people be in high spirits. A lot of my friends in real life are going through problems at the moment; I try to help as much as I can but just actual unrestrained joy is a bit too rare at the moment so it's nice to see some, even in the form of a decade old web comic.

The unrestrained joy of two kids joking around is immediately replaced by Karkat's hopeless situation. He's alone on a meteor with three killers. He even apologizes for how he treated John and wishes him luck. Unluckily, we then talk to past Karkat who still hates John.

FUTURE KARKAT

You've got to admit, he isn't a coward. No man left behind, even when you're in a version of Alien where the xenomorph is your ex-best friend. Things take a turn for the worse when Terezi's trollian handle starts honking. His backup plan of getting Alternian measurehead to kill Gamzee fails, because unfortunately Alternian measurehead believes he is outranked racially by Gamzee. He would also prefer not to kill Eridan, but that is mainly because his advances make him uncomfortable.

Terezi returns to the computer lab to find a single missing body. The abdicator is still lifeless but present but the lesbian is missing. A development. Fang marks along the neck of the fuchsia. No suitable explanation currently exists, short of the mad daydreams of blind justiciars.

ANOTHER WALKABOUT

Nepeta and Equius this time. The objective is clear:

Seek the highb100d.

As much as there is problems with Nepeta and Equius' relationship, even seemingly within Alternian society, it's sweet seeing them be together. Equius does clearly care about her and want her to stay safe. It is, upsetting seeing him say goodbye knowing what happens next.

We do get to hear our first mention of Aradia in a while though. I mean, beyond just vague discussion of her death. Nepeta saw her in a dream

she had these purrty wings and a splendid hood, i think she might have been cosplaying much like friska has b33n!

she was so happy, just like she used to be, and she said she would s33 you soon!

We get to see Nepeta's current shipping chart! She is strikingly on the money with at least one of them!

I also forgot that Nepeta has a massive crush on Karkat. She even mentions wanting to write Jade a note because she thinks Jade getting Karkat to stop wanting to hatefuck himself at other points in time means he'll notice her.

Nepeta looks through some air vents. She sees a bunch of Terezi's plushies have been eviscerated, but doesn't notice Tavros' blood smeared on the scene. She crawls out of a vent and sees a stream of teal blood between two transportalizers(?). It looks like Terezi is hurt.

Oh, upon actually interacting with it, that is green blood. It just appears to be faintly glowing. That is, suspicious. The transportalizers are locked down or destroyed. We crawl into another vent.

Looking out one final vent, all we get to see is Nepeta's horrified face before we are thrust back to playing as Equius. Our advance is haunted by circus horn honking.

Equius mistakes Gamzee for Terezi. He's sat up high and wielding an unbroken bow. Once the misunderstanding is fixed, all of his bravado is gone. Gamzee demands Equius kneel, and fires an arrow through is knee. He breaks the bow in two and garrots the blue blood until his airways shut for good. At least he died with a sick smile on his face.

A fate befalls Nepeta. Honk, Honk, Honk.

BEEP

John crashed his car doing the windy thing. He starts making his way towards a castle. Neither human girl can be raised, but Vriska wants his attention.

But that is where tonight's story ends, folks. With a pair of murders and a car crash.

Thank you for reading, goodnight.