Homestuck Re-read Part 5: 109 Pages
Another day, another upd8. After having a bit of a moment yesterday, I'm gonna actually time how long this takes. It's 17:30 right, and I'll include the end timing once we're done. In other news, more work has been done on my pokemon thing; I've managed to add 'Walking' (or well, teleporting to the next tile) and simplified some of the rendering code. I organized a bunch of craft stuff in anticipation of getting back to it, so you can maybe look forward to some arts and crafts type posting.
Anyway
GIANT FUCKING WIZARD STATUE
We are back with Rose after yesterday's cliffhanger. We stand before ZAZZERPAN THE LEARNED and prepare to move further into the Lalonde home.
Having read Homestuck the whole way through and knowing about Rose's mother in another time and place, it is somewhat tragic to see the tenseness of their relationship. It is present with John and his father too but for some reason I find it more upsetting with Rose and her mother. We know her mother genuinely loves the wizard statues and probably sees them as her best chance to bond with Rose, but just the cloud of obscurity of being a child and not quite connecting with her makes it seem like pure mockery to Rose.
JADE ! ! ! !
Will I continue to start any time we see or hear Jade with it's own header? Potentially
Another conversation without John, this time featuring Dave and ♥ Jade ♥. It feels weird to me that every day I seem to talk more and more like her. I've started using more exclamation marks, I hope people think it's cute. Jade is saying some unusual things in this pesterlog, starting with what seems like a fairly normal statement about a birthday gift in the mail. She follows up with some strangely prophetic messages.
GG: i want to tell him happy birthday and ask him about his birthday package!
TG: oh yeah
TG: i was being sort of cagey and told him to check the mail cause i was wondering if mine came yet
GG: i think it did!
TG: yeah?
GG: and i think mine came too
TG: so uh
TG: i guess you want to know if he likes it or something?
GG: no!!!!!!!
GG: he will not open it
GG: he will lose it!!!
TG: oh
TG: uh
TG: wow sorry to hear that i guess?
GG: no its good actually!
GG: because he will find it again later when he really needs it
GG: which of course is why i sent it in the first place!
Jade seems to just 'know' things, something Dave is kinda used too. I can't remember what I thought Jade would have been like the first time around, maybe that she was some kind of occultist/divinationist? I probably would have if I was reading it for the first time now. There is no way I would know it's because when Jade sleeps she does not dream but she visits a place somewhere out in the unknowable abyss of paradox space.
We get to see that Jade's guardian is her grand dad, an intense man but a total badass.
anyway gotta go!
<3
Is It Future
Back to John as he re-enters his bedroom. Him and Dave message on pesterchumb. They talk about the fact there is monsters all around and John needs to be prepared to fight.
I actually remember reading this page for the first time, mainly because of this section.
TG: ok whatever
TG: you should look into weaponizing your sylladex
TG: my bro is always getting on my case about it but man its not as easy as it sounds
TG: but if youre fighting monsters left and right you dont have much choice
Reading it now? This is foreshadowing, I think? Is it still foreshadowing if you had no way of knowing it was foreshadowing before the thing it's foreshadowing is explained? Or is it something else? Anyway, reading it for the first time it did not hint towards a plot point/theme but raised a lot of questions about what the regular world of Homestuck was like. Was Dave's Bro just out there fighting thugs and goons by rap battling sharp objects out of his sylladex; shredding random assailants into skin ribbons? Or was this like when ordinary people have an every day carry kit of like 3 guns, 5 knives and a cyanide pill in a fake tooth in case of capture?
I think this is the first mention of Lil Cal.
STRIFE
We get to see an actual strife to the death. John bashes a 'Shale Imp', whatever that is. It drops build grist as loot and John gains some XP. It's not entirely clear to me if the Echeladder is a Sburb thing, or if its a thing just as a part of the universe of Homestuck. It's not entirely clear where the boundary between those two are at the best of times, as we'll later see with punch cards and captcha codes.
We also get to see the strife portfolio, something I presume is just a part of the universe of Homestuck. Shortly after Rose gets her internet back by defiling the tomb of her much loved ex-cat we also get to meet what remains of John's sprite, Nanasprite!.
SPRITELOG
I always find the fact different forms of communication are named differently, like John talking with Nanasprite being called a Spritelog. If I remember correctly, talking is just called talking (and requires unlocking by reaching a specific rank on the echeladder. (I wonder if that's why John and Rose have hard times connecting with their parents, that they're actually unable to communicate other then in text)). This is the first time we get to talk to a character who actually knows something as well, even if communicating it is hampered by the condition of being a sprite.
We're given a name for whatever this place John is: The Medium. Located within The Incipisphere. We're subtly introduced to Homestuck's favorite form of causality, retrocausality: where a thing that has not yet happened has already caused an effect to occur, potentially bringing about itself.
Things begin to be explained to us. Endless wars fought over a source of infinite potential, a losing side who's fate is sealed. An ultimate riddle to decode the true purpose of sburb. But we have a more achievable goal to start with: Reach the first gate..
This is immediately followed by some bad news: The earth is already dead. We cannot save our home, we are too late. We are promised a bigger, more important purpose; but it's a hard pill to swallow. The Betty Crocker branded cookies will probably also be hard to swallow too.
We get another look at the wayward vagabond who commands John and at Rose's walkthrough for sburb.. One will hopefully lead to a more fruitful relationship, the other the sharing of knowledge. It's fun to see Rose raise questions I am sure would have been hotly debated in the fandom. What happens to an unprototyped kernelsprite? What if it's double prototyped before entry into the medium. Does sburb 'know' how many players will join a session? Can a session be completed by a pair?
Or is it past?
The furthest back in the timeline we've seen so far. A conversation between Rose and Jade on the Lalonde's birthday. Further evidence of Jade's seeming precognition is presented. A love of knitting is gifted. A present is replaced with information. An opportunity to sin against the natural order may present itself: to raise a dead cat from the incredibly preserved grave. One we've seen realized with a grandmother.
I thought this was going to be the introduction of an incredibly angry asshole, but it was not.
Another one of these slow zoom outs. Dave's penthouse apartment towers over everything in the background. Hellfire and brimstone rains from the sky behind him. For some reason these flashes always make me feel oddly sad and melancholic. The complete lack of detail in the background paired with the detailed foreground being rendered so small. I haven't left the house for longer then 2 or 3 hours in years, starting slightly before our own near-apocalyptic event.
I remember when this kind of thinking was cool online. I sort of miss it. I've been watching a lot of tomska and friends content recently. It's a good channel, but it reminds me a lot of the past. Which is weird since I don't remember being that big of a newgrounds kid. Naturally when I was younger I was obsessed with finding conspiracy websites or stuff related to cryptids or the paranormal.
LIL CAL
And here he is in the flesh. The felt, articulated, pulled by strings flesh. Sure he wasn't there a moment ago, but that can't be too big of a deal, right? It's lil cal, hes cool, hes awesome.
Another not yet viewable SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF page. It's good to see brothers taking interest in eachother's work.
WHAT YEAR IS IT
The end of an upd8. Another cliffhanger.
The time is 19:13. It's been a bit less then 2 hours to read 113 pages of Homestuck. That doesn't feel great, but I did stop to check other things like the wiki for some parts, to look up a website I was going to include but didn't, etc. I'm still not super pleased with it though. I hope I get faster.