Homestuck Re-read Part 41: A6I2.
HELLLOOOOOOOO EVERYBODY, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HOMESTUCK ACT 6 INTERMISSION 2.
I hope everyone is doing well. I am a little bit frustrated and a little bit exhausted but I'm going to be okay. I need to get access to an older windows 7 machine with a password I lost, so I've got to download some tools and get myself back in later. I'm also trying to start a minecraft modded save but I can't find a seed I like. Woe is me.
Anyway.
Act 6 Intermission 2.
We open with Hussie trying to feed a mostly robot Spades Slick milk from a bottle while dressed as a currently unidentified species dressed as a troll. The pair are locked in combat while Ms Paint prepares some soup. Something startles the poor lady as she couriers the soup around
She finds herself face to face with Lord English, decapitated RoboHussie head in one hand.
BORING ROAD TRIP THROUGH THE FUCKING AFTERLIFE
Karkat is memo-ing again. We're about 1 year into the 3 year meteor journey and it's starting to wear the guy down. Just enough that a 10 minute older version of him joins with a new text colour and starts berating him all over again. Back on topic though, it's the lack of uniformity that's getting him. Life and afterlife one after another as the meteor sometimes passes through the dream bubbles. Meeting dead Karkats living out their eternal post-life has him on edge about his own mortality. Our Karkat is the main guy, but he's not a god tier. He has no conditional immortality but he's met dead godtiered Karkats.
We see a god tiered Feferi, A Witch of Life, raise the mayor from the dead.
Dave and Terezi (and the mayor!) are spending time together which is upsetting Karkat, since she doesn't seem to have time for him. Terezi might have a red thing going with Dave, which is freaking Karkat out. Trolls with humans is absurd.
CCG: IT'S LIKE TRYING TO DECIPHER AN INTRICATE COURTSHIP PROCESS BETWEEN AN ATTRACTIVE POTENTIAL MATESPRIT, AND SOME SORT OF VEGETABLE.
Future Karkat then proceeds to explain it for current Karkat, to then become Future Karkat and explain it. Karkat has been, as we 'humans' would say, "sending mixed messages."
He then proceeds to get existential about it. The implications of being able to read memos you will post in the future leads to one posting them only because they read them. This whole thing could have come from nowhere, it's existence enforced only by itself.
MEANWHILE
Rose and Kanaya are hanging out in the computer lab, which it looks like has been converted into a cosy little magician's study. Dave is also there! No one (except maybe Karkat) has seen Gamzee in ages. Kanaya wants to fuck him up in a not at all blackrom way.
Dave ruminates on the draw of shitty coffee. It is a legitimate thing, bad coffee is a staple of road trips and a 3 year cross-paradox space trip is the ultimate version of that. He also starts wondering if he can get liquored up or get apple juice.
Rose is recording their histories in a tome, for future generations. This book will later enter the possession of someone Unusual and information relayed to four new kids. The new session they're traveling to is already defective, even more-so then the beta kids'. The condense has overthrown the black queen and keeps trying to whack Jane off. It's worse then that however, their session isn't a null session, it's a void session. There is no prototypings, the creative potential of Skaia is never fulfilled, very little happens. This is good however, Jade is bringing a fully realized Skaia with them. They've transplanting a universal womb, essentially.
Some more details A void session doesn't doom a planet to meteor-based sudden onset end of days. Some do still arrive, namely carrying the temple to the forge and the future players, but there is no reckoning. A few meteors hit the earth, ones carrying the players and the temple, but no others. We see a diagram detailing the arrival of meteors pre and post scratch. Dave learns that the players of this new session are their guardians, and gets a bit freaked out.
ROSE: I honestly thought you would find the idea exciting.
ROSE: I know I'm looking forward to it.
DAVE: but your mom was just a nice alcoholic spinster who liked wizards who you complained about for no reason
DAVE: she wasnt anything like an untouchable master of irony who could replace the meat in your sandwich before it even occurred to you what the fuck you were chewing
DAVE: let me ask you this did your mom ever wiggle a puppet in your face even ONCE
DAVE: karkat is broken guys
I don't really have anything constructive to say. I just like this part. Karkat wants Dave to read troll erotica to understand their relationships. Dave doesn't want too.
DAVE: no you are NOT making another shipping grid dude
KARKAT: IT'S NOT A SHIPPING GRID.
KARKAT: JUST SOME ROWS AND COLUMNS FOR A SCHEDULE.
DAVE: its a grid youre drawing a goddamn grid
DAVE: im not letting you draw a grid for this stupid shit
DAVE: this book is now like
DAVE: our fight fueled ouija board of cock
...
DAVE: thats the spooky thing about penis ouija you can never be sure who did the dicks
They're about to breach another dream bubble before we cut away.
GHOSTBUSTERS MMORPG
Catching up with our heroes of breath and space, they're trying to run a lan party for a ghostbusters mmorpg John got for $1 with the salamanders and the carapacians, but they kind of suck at it. The gameplay seems, substandard at best. A lot of talking too or getting slimed by slimer.
Jade makes a surprisingly feline looking ghostbuster. She would also like to make friends with ghosts and not just bust them. Davesprite is playing too, but seems to be on an opposing ghost-busting franchise. Jade seems to really be liking Davesprite.
Jade seems to, appreciate the differences between Dave and Davesprite a lot more then John does. We also learn about their dreams here. They never see Dave or Rose and trolls they encounter dont know them. They talk about if things will be different with Dave or Rose when they meet again. If this was me I would be worried, to be honest. I feel like I am generally, forgettable and based on some things that have happened before I guess I have proof I am. It took like, 5 months for a group of people I had talked too every day to stop seemingly caring about me. It's a few years later now and I'm not that sure any of them remember me at all.
John remains dispassionate about matters of the heart. Jade is deeply passionate about the eternal feud between cat and dog.
John gets knocked down and then kicked in the face by Roxy. Also Meenah is there again. John does not realize this is not his fish girl and starts asking about Vriska and Karkat.
John breaks the bad news, this is the afterlife and she is dead. She is very excited, because it means her plans worked. There is no elaboration on the plan beyond seemingly forking Roxy, which John saves her from. This is apparently the dream bubble the meteor passed through. Seeing as we get some commentary.
==>
It's weird seeing the meteor inserted into previous frames. The memory is Terezi's, after Vriska blinded her. Terezi sums it up nicely, really.
GC: WOW
GC: 1 C4NT B3L13V3 1 4LMOST FORGOT
GC: WH4T 4 COMPL3T3LY CR4ZY B1TCH YOU W3R3
I think with Vriskcourse (Vriska Discourse) it's easy to get very defensive of either position (Vriska is irredeemably evil / Vriska did nothing wrong personally) to the point where you can forget there is a lot going on in either camp. Yes, she did seemingly only do all of these things out of social pressure and obligation and alternian highblood socialization, but these are still very evil acts that she commitid and many of them can be likened to / or are actual evils that take place in the real world that many people are not comfortable brushing off like that. Tavros might not have been the most interesting character for a lot of people but that does not have to make people forgive the character for her ableist actions.
Anyway, it's actually a different spider8itch. Aranea Serket, AKA Mindfang. Sorta. She's here and seems to want to act as a cosmic therapist.
AG: We must work together to create that haven and restore our race, so that the sacrifices we all made will not 8e in vain.
AG: 8ut in order to repair the unthinka8le damage that has 8een done, we need to allow ourselves the chance to heal first.
AG: Old wounds, old regrets. They will serve no purpose on the rest of your journey.
She is rather verbose, but somewhat effective. She asks Terezi which Vriska she wishes she could apologize to, the one Terezi killed herself or the one she let fight Jack. She explains the violence she feels regret for isn't a natural part of her or any alternian. It was Scratch and his malfeasance. But because of this, there's no easy path to forgiving herself.
She talks about Beforus, the troll planet pre-scratch. Mild and uneventful, peaceful not bloodthristy. The pair start traveling to the pink moon above their planet. They're going to visit Vriska and Aranea's friend.
ENDING
We briefly see the Parcel Mistress' hunt for Bec Noir across paradox space. But we are then pulled out, back to where things started. Lord English and Ms Paint. He's here to fuck up Slick
Naturally, the plan is to pitch him off the balcony before Lord English sees him.
Hussie draws on Lord English. Unfortunately, he wasn't lucky. He gets gunned down in his prime.
VRISKA
We see Vriska walking through a giant desert full of stallions. Hell is real in the dream bubbles, and it is the eternal horse desert. She comes across Hussie's body.
He starts to move and asks her a question.
Will you marry me?
She is disgusted. We end year 3 of Homestuck, and with it, A6I2.
Thanks for reading <3