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tenaciouschronicler · 26 days ago

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Narratively Important Kids: The Similarities and Differences Between Them

Tentatively labeled The Beta Kids, these four teens make an unlikely friend group. Each has a different personality and upbringing that in other circumstances wouldn't have meshed well. As it stands they Do have areas of common interest and the online medium brought them together.

I don’t write essays, I really hate the structure and I have never been good at them. So I wont label this an essay but more of a compare/contrast breakdown. I did make some interesting realizations about their relationship to the Narrative, however. I'm interested in how it might play out if at all.

Let's start by establishing some points about our characters.

(1.8k words under the cut)

John Egbert

Zoosmell Pooplord- he and his shirt scrunch their faces as the text changes into [Try Again Smartass] in red

Guardian- Dad obsessed with Harlequins

Associated Color- Blue although his shirt icon is green

Sylladex Modus- Stack (FIFO at start)

House- Two story building with a roof deck in suburban neighborhood

Web Browser- Typheus

Strife options- Aggrieve/ Abjure/ Accede/ Abscond

Rose Lalonde

Flighty Broad- frowns in displeasure as the name fades away

Guardian- Mom obsessed with wizards

Associated Color- Purple

Sylladex Modus- Trees

House- Two story building with observatory and separate back extension (unexplored) in the forest

Web Browser- Cetus

Strife Options- Aggrieve/ (passive)Agress/ Abjure/ Abstain

Dave Strider

Insufferable Pri(ck)- interrupts typing by slicing the text box [This guy doesn’t have time for this sort of bullshit]

Guardian- Bro obsessed with puppets

Associated Color- Red

Sylladex Modus- Hash

House- 1 bedroom apartment in the middle of a city

Web Browser- Hephaestus

Strife Options- (Unknown)

Jade Harley

Farmstink Buttlass- is not awake and so does not try to correct or deny [Uh… I guess… I guess her name is Farmstink]

Guardian- Grandfather obsessed with (unknown)

Associated Color- Green although her shirt icon is blue

Sylladex Modus- Memory (out of 12 choices)

House- (unknown) story building atop mountain on an island

Web Browser- Echidna

Strife options- (unknown)

Just looking at these we can already find some similarities among the differences. John and Rose both have parental guardians, though in a technicality John also shares having a grandparent with Jade. Although not listed, Jade and Rose also have pets mentioned. Location wise, John and Dave are located in more populous areas while Rose and Jade are in rural areas. I've noted it before but John and Jade are the only two whose shirt does not match their text color. There's also the notion that John and Jade have what we can so far consider good relationships with their guardians compared to Rose and Dave. Also looking at this I realized the kids all have four letter first names and six letter last names. Very cool, wonder if that means anything.

Now lets explore some specific moments the kids share.

Before we even get to naming them, each kid gets a little intro. John and Rose are called young man or lady and ‘we’ are asked what their name is. For John, it is specified ‘What WILL’ as opposed to Roses ‘What WAS’ when mentioning names. Really helps add on to the fact John is just getting his name ‘today’. Dave and Jade are called cool dude and silly girl respectively. For these two we don’t get asked at all, instead we can guess or give their names. I find it very interesting that for John and Rose, the intros are kinda detached in talking about them. For John we barely get anything about him compared to the other kids while Rose its more about how we got here and is also the only intro where we talk about another character (John). Dave and Jades intros are more personalized. Dave's reads like he himself wrote it while Jade's is written about her but with fondness.

After the naming, we get to learn more about each kid. John and Rose once again are very similar here.

You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. [...]You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, […] You also like to play GAMES sometimes.

You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. […] You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, […] And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.

John and Rose also, right after their name, state ‘As was previously mentioned’ showing how we are introduced during the present narrative. Dave was our first character intro that was not aligned to the timeline. His blurb is more personalized with flavor text that matches his personality. There are some bits that follow the formula of John and Rose like ‘variety of INTERESTS’ and the following list of those. Jade is the outlier in these, honestly shes the outlier in a lot of ways but we will get to them slowly. While the other three kids only get a single page, Jade gets three! When we first meet Jade she is asleep in the Atrium, not her bedroom, so we don’t actually get the whole thing until we reach there and even then we have to see the other half of her room to finish the picture. Jade has so many more words to describe her interests and is the only one to also mention her guardian.

Next is the reoccurring bit of retrieving arms. Johns is simple letting us know he does have arms but they are in his magic chest while Rose is more concerned with keeping her package private than refuting the lack of arms. Dave is super simple stating ‘Nah.’ when told to retrieve arms from the cinder blocks. I like the implication he Does have some there but he isn't gonna listen to us. For Jade, seeing as she is asleep at the time, the Narrator quickly stops us from even finishing the command:

THEY'RE RIGHT THERE. IN PLAIN SIGHT. LOOK, THEY ARE FLASHING RED.

The Narrator really shows their favoritism here.

Carrying on to another bit, ___ like a ___ and ___, each kid gets a different command and reacts differently depending on their personality. John admonishes himself for [the dumbest idea [hes] had in weeks!!!] while also admitting the idea is tempting. Where we are now in the comic, we can realize that John is actually more susceptible to the commands especially after we witnessed WV messing with John and implanting ideas, like the can opener. Rose just outright rejects the idea with the panel showing her physical disgust at the notion. We know shes not above silly moments, so this feels more like a rejection of following commands. Dave was our first moment where someone actually considered the command. While he rejects pissing on the turntable, he does consider bleating like a goat at a later date. Re-reading Dave's portion made me realize there's a couple of levels of irony beyond just the earth destroying meteor. We saw a piss-adjacent liquid in the form of apple juice spill on the turntables which he was so sure would never happen, much like the meteor or having to play the game. It seems like while Dave would consider following parts of commands, he actually has no choice to fulfill the whole of them, even if not to the letter. Jade in opposition to everyone, wholeheartedly embraces the command. She makes a show of finding the notion silly and a waste but then immediately after is willingly fulfilling the command.

These two bits when combined actually give us a lot of insight into how these kids might play SBURB. John is our reluctant party who wants to make his own choices but doesn’t have the means to Not follow the narrative. Rose will forge her own path and will not be swayed by the narrative. Dave also wants to be in control of himself but will be forced to carry out the narrative, against his wishes. Jade is favored by the narrative and so does not see reason to not follow the commands and does so wholeheartedly.

Let's carry on and explore the house. Looking out the window, John is the more ‘normal’ of the four showing the front yard and is very to the point in writing style. When he leaves his room we get to learn about his DAD's fondness for Harlequins. Rose sees her cats mausoleum and the neighboring lab with more prose that fits her writing syle. She also gives us a taste of her relationship with her MOM. Upon her departure we learn of her MOM’s fondness for Wizards. With Dave we don’t get to see out the window with him until much later. He is also interrupted by the change in narrative to Rose. Dave leaves his room before we look out this window (I'm going in order of what John did). His sentences are very short, blunt and to the point and we learn of his BRO’s fondness for Puppets. Jade sees the volcano in the distance and talks a little about her Grandfather. Jade does the reverse of everyone and Enters her room. This also has the added downside of not yet showing us what her GRANDPA is fond of.

The last thing I can write about is the songs the kids play. John’s is the first sound page in the story that he performs on the piano. Here we as the reader also learn how sound pages will function in the future. Rose plays on a violin and actually gets some narration about it. I'd mentioned when it first happened but its very sarcastic towards Rose and lends to the idea that the Narrative does not like her as someone who rejects it. Dave himself does not play his sick beats, instead we get to select what to play. He still afterwards feels as if he Had played. Even if he doesn’t know it the Narrative has control of him. Jade gets two instruments to play. The first is the flute we also get to play. The difference between her and Dave is we actually see her ‘playing’ the flute. Afterwards she comments that this is not what she knows how to play and she only did it because of the Narrative. Once in her bedroom we get the standard haunting song but it differs by showing the the surrounding landscape.

There's some parts that we don’t have for all the kids just yet such as them exiting the home, strifes and misattributed quotes.

This last bit will just be some random bullets of things the kids do or have, I'm sure there's some I have missed:

John and Jade both examine chests

John and Dave both go into the bathroom

John and Dave make forts

John and Dave both break windows in sylladex shenanigans

John and Rose needed to equip strife specibi

John and Rose both examine books (Grimoire / Sassacre)

John and Rose read Problem Sleuth

Rose and Jade have the same pillow but different colors

Dave and Jade both have puppet piles (Jade more willing)

Dave and Jade have dangerous items strewn about

Rose and Dave both have open concept kitchens

John, Dave and Jade read Midnight Crew

All kids read/ know of Dave’s SBAHJ

#homestuck #homestuck replay #hsrp retrospection #hsrp lore #john egbert #dave strider #rose lalonde #jade harley #beta kids #chrono

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cyber-corp · 1 year ago

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A summary/review of parts 1-100 of Homestuck

~by a gecko who knows what a Megalovania is

Let's start things quick and simple. It is the distant year of 2009, where the date is the 13th of April. It is the protagonist John Egbert (aka Zoosmell Pooplord)'s birthday. How fun!

John's actions are very much based around RPG mechanics (the Sylladex, Captchaloging, etc.), which as indicated by the chatlogs seems to be the norm in this world.

Once he opens the magic chest in his room, he gets access to a variety of artifacts, some of which he'll use later. He only takes the smoke pellets at first because he's stupid.

We get some glimpses of the author Andrew Hussie's dated yet charming late-2000's humour through asking John to shit on his desk.

After nailing a Little Monsters poster to his wall (a gift from his Dad), he gets a message from one of his friends on Pesterchum, TG, who says that he got the beta for SBURB for John's birthday.

However, his dad has just come home and John doesn't want to go through the trouble of holding a conversation with him. In the meantime, he figures out how to use his Strife Specibus by allocating the Hammerkind Abstratus, and reads the GameBro magazine, which John seems to have a loathing for.

However, with the freed up room in his Sylladex, he creates a convincing disguise to fool his dad and grab the SBURB beta (it won't).

He goes downstairs into the living room, examines his father's shitty harlequins, knocks over and picks up his Nanna's ashes and opens a large gift for himself, which is also a large harlequin.

Before deciding to sticking fake arms on the harlequin, John gets a message from another Pesterchum mutual, TT.

TT oddly knows everything that John has done up to this point, including being in possession of the SBURB beta and wearing a funny disguise. They tell him to go get the game from his father from downstairs.

After snooping around his father's study and playing a little tune (which is a great way that Homestuck utilizes its medium), John heads outside to the mailbox, to find that dad has already scooped the mail.

But there's a sense that something isn't quite right. With "Windchime Foley" by Clark Powell playing over empty streets and a main title appearing, it implies this scene is the true beginning of the story. The text mentions a "Desolation" that's playing the tune diegetically throughout the streets/town. Maybe it will be a long day.

John heads back inside to finally confront his father and sneakily get the beta, but oops! The disguise didn't work (who would've thunk it?), and there's only to get pass him, which is with a Strife!

(This fight scene's really cool, I quite enjoy this)

After the Colonel's book activates the smoke pellets, John quickly snatches his father's PDA as a joke, and finally gets his hands on the SBURB beta, which is where I ended off.

So is it good? I mean, yeah.

Even if I only read what is a tiny, tiny fraction of Homestuck's story, I can still see how so many people became obsessed over it. The cutesy, almost surreal art style (complete with low quality JPEGS in the vein of Newgrounds), Hussie combining the mystical with the silly in his writing, and the brief bits of music in it illustrate a very "calm before the storm" feeling. I can definitely see how people like Toby Fox were inspired by it.

Despite what some think, the first little bits of Homestuck are an enjoyable experience which foreshadows something bigger yet to come. Solid 8.

#homestuck #andrew hussie #john egbert #review #summary #i probably won't do this again #i'll read some it later #PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX #gecko

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letstalkabouthomestuck · 5 years ago

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The Plot Briefly. The Beginning of the End - Part 1 Act 1 (Acts 1 & 2 because it took me like 3 hours to just do those two)

Part one of Homestuck begins as most stories do, with Act 1 (”The Note Desolation Plays”). In this Act, we meet two of the Beta Kids (oh yes, it’s that big of a thing that we have catergories for characters) called Zoosmell Pooplord John Egbert and Flighty Broad Rose Lalonde, respectively introduced at Page 1 and Page 217 (along with being vaguely introduced to Dave Strider) however their character dives are for another post. Act 1 streches the first 247 pages of Homestuck in which we are placed on April 13th 2009 christ I was 3 almost 4 when this fucking thing started and it is John birthday! Along with SBURB Beta (hence the “Beta kids”, however SBURB will be its own post) release. We see John and Rose both begin to play SBURB with Rose being the host and John being the client. They succeed in creating a tree with a BLUE APPLE that John only just has enough time to take a bite out of before a meteor hits Earth and a crater replaces his house.

Like most other things, Act 2 (”Raise of the Conductor’s Baton”) follows Act 1. This next act is 511 pages spanning from page 248 to 758. Act 2 starts with John in The Medium - with his house on a colomn of rock coming up through the clouds in an otherwise void plane - the kernel sprite hatching to make John’s “iconic” harliquin kernel sprite.

At this time, the wayward vagabond (later The Mayor) starts talking to John, trying to give him commands in a similar way to a text adventure interface.

Through-out this, Rose has continued to be John host and posting to a GameFAQs walkthrough, HOWEVER, to enter the game herself, she needs someone else to be her host so, as she loses connection again and drops john copy into the void, they ask Dave, who has lost his copy out of his high-rise window after carelessly impaling an unruly crow with his sword and sending them both flying out, but he - however - sets off to go find his Bro’s client and server/host discs.

Around Dave and Rose’s homes meteors rain down of other SBURB sessions beginning, staring “sick fires” that no rain can assuage.

Rose retreats to Jasper the cats tomb, where a portable generator is the last remaining power source at her home. She reconnects to find John talking with his sprite, who has been prototyped again with his Nanna’s ashes to form Nannasprite, what looks like the ghost of Nanna in a harlequin costume.

Nannasprite explains that far overhead, at the centre of The Medium (the void he’s in) there is a world called Skaia, where light and darkness shaped by the players’ kernel prototyping choices, wage an enternal war. This sets the stage for the adventure he is about to have - or “The Ultimate Riddle”.

Rose’s new task - instead of getting John’s server copy - is to modify John’s house to get him to the First Gate - a portal to the next stage. On his way up he fights imps, similarly dressed in harlequin-esqe clothes to the ones that kidnapped his father. More imps and other creatures in harlequin attire climb up from the abyss and swap the house - dropping raw materials (GRIST), which the kids can use for building or for punch car alchemy.

The fire encircles Jasper’s tomb, cutting Rose’s connection again, John is left to is first boss battle without his help. Rose’s mum opens a secret passage remotely under to tomb to help her to safety.

Dave fails to find Bro or his copies in the apartment and arms for a battle as a note from Bro summonds him to the rooftop for a duel.

The wayward vagabond finds sealed cans, but no opener and so crowns himself Mayor of can city, the building he’s in closes its doors, blasts off and the curtain closes on Act 2.

And so it does on this post.

#homestuck #hs #dave strider #john egbert #rose lalonde #jade harley #jade homestuck #dave homestuck #john homestuck #rose homestuck

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