Homestuck Re-read Part 42: A6A3.
I am not having a great day today, and I am kind of pissed off and my legs hurt and I just feel like shit. I wish there was just, less going on. I've wasted about, an hour and a half to start doing the re-read which is frustrating, and I think its going to take another 30 minutes before I can start.
Luckily this doesnt seem like too long of an upd8, only 131 pages.
ACT 6 ACT 3
We pick back up with Jane on the Land of Crypts and Helium and things begin to delinerize again. We're walking her around the land, and talking to her friends. This land is empty, though. No salamanders, crocodiles or other reptilians are anywhere to be seen. The place is dower and litered with cryptic symbolism boiling down things we know already and things we don't. The heroes of heart and void are at a later point in time, the hero of hope is dead, etc. We can peak at the 'lore' the citizens of this world left behind in their writings and not a lot of it is very hopeful.
Jake and Roxy are in danger, strangely both from extreme heat sources (volcanos and fire.) UU is having a bit of trouble with her brother and co-player too, unfortunately.
These first few pages are called Myststuck for a reason, it's a proper little puzzle game with some fairly unintuitive steps. Although it comes with a walkthrough.
Things get a bit confusing and surprising in the second part of Myststuck. Jane raises her house out of the cavern and starts making her way back, but there is someone unexpected there. A seemingly god tier Gamzee with Aradia's music boxes. We approach and he starts... Trying to sell us potions???
They're all strangely uh, dead beta troll coloured and have oddly appropriate effects. I wouldn't drink these, but only because unfortunately I am not a vampire :/.
POST MYSTSTUCK
We tell him to get the fuck outta here and he declares that before he goes, he must leave us with a guide for this magical land. Luckily for us, he has quite the selection. The pair of corpses get flung haphazardly towards the kernel and, well. Say hello to TAVRISPRITE (Tavros & Vriska Sprite) It's existence is, nightmareish. They've resurrected a dead boy and his abuser from rest and forcefully joined them into one self hating existence.
TAVRISPRITE: nO, No, nO, No, nO, No, nO, No.
TAVRISPRITE: Undo this somehow.
TAVRISPRITE: mAKE ME STOP 8EING THIS THING!,!,!,!,!,!,!,!,
Fortunately for them paradox space is only unfeeling and not abjectly cruel. It's over quickly, with both dead again moments later. It was a strange experience for both of them, Tavros actually seemed to enjoy their few moments as partly being Vriska.
TAVROS: gETTING TO FEEL ALL THE AMAZING SELF ESTEEM YOU GET TO FEEL,
TAVROS: i DIDN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT IT FELT LIKE, i MOSTLY ONLY KNEW WHAT THE PRETEND KIND WAS LIKE,
TAVROS: sO,
TAVROS: tHANK YOU FOR LETTING ME FEEL THAT, i GUESS,
We also get to catch up about how the dream bubbles are for them. Hussie is still trying to get Vriska's hand in marriage. Beyond that, its kinda a drag for her. Things end with her, uh, "convincing" Tavros to join her on her mission to fuck shit up.
JAKE
He's been knocked down by volcano related earthquake stuff. So naturally, we get a flashback. It's 13 years ago and we're seeing Dirk send Jake the head for his bro-bot. There is a bit of a disagreement about the Avatar movie but then the head arrives. They talk about Dirk's plan to make an AI copy of himself before he confesses to Jake. Not that he's a homosexual or some such but that he's from the future. We also learn how Dirk and Roxy are able to communicate with Jake and Jane, UU gifted the future pair a modified pesterchumb client that seems to have similar functionality to trollian; except the progression of time is linked, they can't pick and choose when to message the past pair.
He completes Dirkbot after which it proceeds to vanish. The bot is in stalker mode[^1] and will jump him when he leasts expects it. Dirk then starts explaining precisely why he and Roxy are the only two surviving humans in his time period. We learn about her effects on the earth's population. She instituted the same breeding program as present on Alternia, which does make you wonder if their species' dependency on the mothergrub was a natural and symbiotic evolution or an act of gene engineering by the imperial power structure to ensure compliance. She attempted to introduce lussi to earth and attempted to restart the troll race via cloning but her lusus would emit the vast glub; rendering her attempts pointless.
She even attempts to introduce a hemospectrum into humanity. Between all the insane shit, the human population became '2'. That wasn't it for the earth though, she started bringing in Carapacians.
We learn some of Jade's backstory in this universe. Raised by the condense with John until she fled. She became an adventuring entrepreneur while he would become a comedian. She took the name English to stick it to the condense among other misadventures. But she was only the first to fight back. Rose wrote books while Dave made movies containing occult information about the baroness to criticize her and spread the message against her to those who knew. They also died fighting her forces as well, but not before securing futures for their 'children'. This Rose might not be a sburb player, but she is an aspect of a Seer of Light and had access to some of her knowledge and foresight. Somehow their homes still stand even after the earth was flooded.
Guy Fieri becomes Chief Justice of the US Supreme court.
The condense didn't need to bring an army to subjugate humanity. The fear of her along with her subtle manipulations allowed her to turn humanity's forces against itself. The media became a circus became the governments and people moved from executive to entertainer and back like water in a shaken jug. Some even took their thirty silver for it, like Guy Fieri. He somehow went from the silver screen to sole judge on the U.S. supreme court. He ripped apart their constitution and rewrote it like an aimless blog post written on stormfront before apotheosis.
TT: He eventually came to be regarded as the third and final Antichrist.
TT: No other human in history was responsible for more death and suffering.
There's even more, dual juggalo presidents, D.C. becoming the dark carnival, the works. Some parts contain, incredible tonal whiplash. These:
TT: Faygo was pumped through the plumbing instead of tap water. The new national pastime was having type 2 diabetes. And the national anthem was replaced by a 3 minute high-reverb audio clip of President Jay farting into a microphone while laughing.
TT: Chaplain Fieri was authorized to set up the death camps, in which anyone on the planet could be imprisoned if they were not deemed sufficiently "mirthful."
are consecutive lines.
We hear about how Dave and Rose tried to fight back. We also hear how they might have died. Although you have to appreciate the levity of the over 9000 joke along with the phrase
TT: But for reference, if you want to believe it all, just picture all the X-Men combined into one sexy fish woman in a skin tight suit.
THIS IS STILL A DREAM
He starts to remember. It takes him a bit longer, but he eventually does. This Dirk starts trying to explain, what I believe is, something to do with 'Ultimate Selves' which is a beyond canon/epilogue thing I don't know about. Jake's role as page of hope seems to give him an unparalleled ability to create mental representations of people, especially Dirk. They then start discussing the romantic prospects between Jake and living, breathing, flesh and blood Dirk.
Aranea is here now, but he's still arguing with the Dirk ghost in his brain. It starts to get, bizarre and unproductive.
JACK
Oh hey it's jailbreak time! So glad we don't have to keep reading about any boner fights. That's not a key on the floor, to be clear. But there is a pumpkin Sent with love, knives for Slick.
There is an escape attempt that reminds me of an old flash game. Creative Killing Chambers, AKA CKC. It's a small comedy of errors. Jack is just unable to get himself out. All he can do it kill, kill, kill!
It's just a comedy of errors. The head is sent to the white queen.
A viscious beating is about to happen. But luckily we are going back to Ms Dialog
ARANEA AGAIN!
We seem to have unfortunately missed her introducing herself to Jake. But we do catch her telling him about her mind powers. Fortunately for Jake, she doesn't seem that put off by his incoherent fight with a non existent person. She tries to talk him into relaxing and having a normal conversation with her. She doesn't seem to know he has a crush on her, but definitely knows theres something making him act weird. Brain ghost Dirk tries to wingman him, but he makes shit worse.
She starts reading what looks like some kind of spiderman thing Jake has. Although I can't work out what it actually is, so I don't know if it is pornographic or not. She tries to put him at ease over the fact he obviously has a crush on her. She even offers to wake him up if this is too much for him! She explains that having psychic powers and the ability to sense other's thoughts isn't as good as it seems, you focus on people's negative feelings about you over the positive and it becomes a self enforcing cycle.
We learn Jake is supposed to be the first person to ever defeat Lord English. A defeat that proves he can be destroyed. As the saying goes
She tells Jake that it wouldn't work between them, at least while he's alive. And only if he dies relatively soonish, but she doesn't want that. Jake then forgets to think thoughts to Dirk instead of saying them out loud and proceeds to say
JAKE: Yeah right bro did you hear that at least if i kick the bucket early there will be shall i say a silver lining wink wink nudge nudge.
JAKE: It will take the form of some spooky smooches from a smokin ghostly troll babe so shut your jealous trap!
Which, is definitely something you can say to a girl if you really want too. They're on their way to meet up with Meenah and Terezi.
DRACONIAN DIGNITARY
While Jack's in prison, DD is in charge. We see some of the results of Dirk's handiwork.
The dignitary might be more lax then the archagent, but he certainly pulls no punches.
We see quite a quite relaxed and slow paced flash. I think I'm too used to the high energy and fast pace of the normal ones, it's making this one harder to parse ironically. That and it being part recap and part new information.
- DD is smoking, drinking and getting ready to put the ring on
- Bionic Spade Slick is still alive, he climbed back up after Hussie pitched him off the edge.
- Dirk and Roxy fight the drones that have come to whack them.
- PM and Bec Noir are still going at it
Theres no transformation. We get to see some of the rings powers. Like going invisible and unleashing the red miles.
END OF UPD8
Thank you for reading.
[^1]: Not S.T.A.L.K.E.R mode