#captchalogue that boy

[conceptofjoy]

lil seb and davesprite is the funniest fucking duo ever

seb watching "chicken feather removing" because the visuals are stimulating and ds taking it as a threat "oh thats...so cool lil bud.."

is it because lil seb is like an autistic kid that ate a battery or does he want to kill you? the world will nevrr know..

imagine growing up with bro being your guardian (ROUGH) and like 6 years later you end up living with a genetic identical kid who keeps getting himself in trouble and you keep having to get him out of these looney tunes ass scenarios. he would watch the video because its 1. cool, 2. information he could use for hunting and consuming animals, and 3. tangentially related to one of the people he likes most. this DOES NOT SOOTH DOVE WHATSOEVER.

they go to the park and he disappears freaking dove tf out but shows up dragging a dead racoon behind him to share with dove for a meal or if she wants to stuff it in a jar. doves all-

i swear to god we can get you a hunting license but you cannot be rounding up wild animals like they're the 101 dalmatians with your bare hands. we can never come back to this park anymore oh my god.

trying to deal with this herself because everyone else can handle sebastian. but he honestly cranks it up a few notches when they're together to try and impress her.

[ender--slime]

CAPTCHALOGUE BAG COLOR POLL UPDATE:

Okay. Here’s the thing:

Yellow won, but was HEAVILY botted (context on my Twt). So we can keep it in, or DISQUALIFY it and skip to Purple (which is the real winner).

I don’t wanna make anyone upset here cuz this is all in good fun, so to make this fair…we r doing another poll. HOWEVER!!!!!

THERES A CATCH!!

If the final vote is to keep Yellow in as the winner, I require the botter to come forward + draw a high effort SBAHJ comic saying sorry. I will then print this comic and include it in every bag order to immortalize this moment 4ever. If they do not come forward, we do Purple instead.

Or we can just vote Purple right now.

Also, again, the other colors will still be produced !! Pretty much as soon as This production period is over (once everything is shipped out), i’ll run another preorder period for two More colors! I asked my manu if i could do 3, for Yellow AND Purple, but alas i cannot.

Also if there’s more than one botter……it includes All of you

[homestuckreplay]

Turning Lead Into Gold Into A Rocket Pack

(page 615-626)

9/9/2009 Wheel Spin: Character Switch Verdict: John Turns Into Problem Sleuth

9/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: Parent Kidnapped By Imps :( :( :(

There’s a fucking ROCKET PACK in this game. A blasting off, cool flame decals, doing loops around the moon rocket pack. This is an absolute game changer (if Rose and John can get it working) cause it’s kinda hard to be stuck at home when you have one of those bad boys.

But before that, John makes a sweet fort! It’s pretty good structurally, and mirrors Dave making a fort nine pages earlier (less good, but in fairness, he didn’t have sheets or dowels to work with). I remember that characters making forts and disappearing into their imaginations was a recurring feature in Problem Sleuth. It’s sweet that John and Dave are doing this at almost the same moment without consulting each other, both sharing a similar childlike whimsy while so far apart.

Not so for Rose Lalonde, who has abandoned all silliness and fun that allowed her to wear a W as a mustache, who destroys John’s fort and throws his whole dresser into the void. How’s he gonna get clean socks now?? I get that she’s in a scary situation and is trying to take control any way she can, but this disregard for John’s few possessions has gotta stop. I noticed recently that his magic chest is STILL on the roof. And it’s not like his situation is much better than hers – I say that if John wants to take a moment to enjoy a fort break, he’s earned it.

Following the fort interlude, John carves totems from a bunch of cruxite dowels. The different shapes of the totems are really fun to look at, and remind me a lot of vinyl records, with their various bumps and notches etched into the record’s groove that then turn into music when a needle (or in the alchemiter’s case, a laser) moves over it. It’s also notable that the totem that eventually becomes the rocket pack has the most mass removed from it, possibly because it has to code for four items instead of just one.

And with that, we FINALLY get started on punch card alchemy! It’s real, Rose was right when she hypothesized this back on p.157 (!!) and the possibilities are insane. The process functions very similarly to the apple from the pre-punched card – use the card on the totem lathe to carve a cruxite dowel unique to that punch code, then use the alchemiter to ‘read’ the totem with its laser and spend the required grist to create the corresponding item. When the holes are punched into a card containing the corresponding item, this object immediately shows up in the Atheneum (p.189, 620) – which is a benefit of punching the ‘right’ card, as even though you lose the original item, you get the cost information up front. When punching a card with a code for something it doesn’t contain, it’s entered as a question mark, and the grist needs to be expended to see the item.

One difference to the pre-punched card is that these codes/totems only contain the item itself, not its precursor. The apple grew from a tree with us seeing its whole creation, suggesting that the pre-punched card had extra information in its code, for an apple + tree combination. Speaking of which, I wonder if John still has the pre-punched card’s totem. It doesn’t appear in the Atheneum, so I wonder what would happen if he tried to use it again.

Rose creates a bunch of new captchalogue cards, ending the reign of the two-card sylladex (inventory of dumbasses) and pioneering the brand new two hundred card syladex (inventory of a different kind of dumbass if you’re using stack or queue). She makes a hammer and then a bouncing Slimer pogo ride, and as soon as the pogo appears, a couple imps jump up to the platform and one bounces off with it. I love this moment. The imps’ sense of harlequin mischief simply cannot be overcome.

Back to the most important thing here, the ROCKET PACK. It’s sadly inoperable, due to containing a violin (something we’ve seen in Rose’s room), a cinderblock (something that’s all over Dave’s house) and a flowerpot (something that fits pretty neatly with gardenGnostic’s chumhandle). So, a new theory: Sburb has somehow pre-indexed the houses of people who will play the game. Beta testers had to provide an address to send the discs to, so Skaianet knows which houses might play. GG has been signed up as a beta tester without their knowledge, either by a family member, or possibly by Rose.

In Sburb, the base items that can be created via alchemy are limited to 1. all items contained within players’ homes, and 2. Sburb-critical items pre-programmed by the game that will prove necessary for gameplay. These include the pre-punched card and the rocket pack – given John’s precarious location, it makes sense that flying would be a game mechanic. These Sburb-critical items probably have pre-punched cards of their own as unlockable rewards, or their codes can be learned from solving in-game puzzles.

We've only seen a few captchalogue codes so far, but they've all been alphanumeric, allowing both upper and lower case letters. While it's possible that future codes could include special characters or even wild card characters, the total number of 8-digit codes (from a set of 62 characters, order matters, characters can repeat) is over 218 trillion - specifically, 218,340,105,584,896. That's a LOT of possibilities.

From the base items, codes can be mixed in various combinations. This is where the creative aspect comes in. Some of these will be useless – like the rocket pack jammed with unrelated debris – but some will improve on their components and make something really cool. For example, John could combine a hammer with a piano and make a beautiful blunt weapon that plays Showtime whenever it bonks an imp on the head. That’s the dream.

[aepples]

THEY FUCKING CAPTCHALOGUED KARKAT FREE MY BOY

[hydrate-or-diedrate]

DAY 4 OF READING HOMESTUCK WE STARTING ACT 3 BABEYYY

According to the thing I'm looking at this act is about 400 pages so we'll see if I finish it in one day or not

Oh hello! Jade is a new name :0 that's someone I haven't even heard of from general fandom nonsense! So this is the little Fiver, huh?

Forgetful and too many interests to keep track of? I vibe

She plays the flute I can't wai- oh dear god

Her garden is lovely, at least

Casual teleportation okay- ah my apologies, casual transportalization

:0 Bassist? Hewwo? I wanna see the silly little girl play a sweet bass riff hewwoooo

"Pet and best friend named BECQUEREL" what you're just not gonna specify what he is? Ominous

Ahhh so she's a furry? Good for her

Ah not a furry

I-irradiated?? Steak??

SWEET BASS MUSIC YEAHHHH

Oh holy shit this lunchtop is gonna give me a headache

Oh lordy more midnight crew? Violence? Heck yeah

BEATDOWN (STRIDER STYLE)?

YEAH KILL THAT PUPPET MURDER HIM FUCK YEAH

Oh uh oh Dave sweety you seem to be getting beaten by the puppet actually

Goodness Cal is truly horrific

I love how sweet Jade is 😭

I'm sorry Rose, are you leaving your mother to burn up there? Hi??

OH GOSH JOHN IS GETTING MERCED

Thank God for nannaquin, if she offered me a cookie I'd take it despite my hatred of clowns

You know what while the captchalogue stuff bores me after a while I can respect that the author put so much effort into designing it, this is a lot of detail

Punch card calculator? Oh I so need to abuse this immediately

Nevermind I actually don't want to deal with images right now lmaoo

Having fun with the chess board imagery, eh, Andrew?

Oh Jade's grandpa is the collector of all collectors I see

Worm

Fuck carcinoGeneticist all my homies hate carcinoGeneticist

THEY ARE SQUIRTLE GLASSES

These brothers are really on their mall ninja shit

One of my friends called Dave's older brother "fuckable" and I'm judging them hardcore rn

YEAH JOHN AND NANNA FUCK EM UP

I respect the Peregrine Mendicant

Tea set? Ah tea set

KITTY

Oh my God this kitten is so cute

Into the room? 👀👀👀

INTO THE DAD'S ROOM

Aw fine, into the foyer

Oh my gosh Jade's grandfather is so silly looking and oh my gosh he's a statue??

Oh he's DEAD

I love the kitten so much it's not even funny

Oo time to feed the beast!

THE SHAPE

At last we are in the father's room

Aw man it's boring business guy things

John's dad is a badass look at he go

Finally a modus that doesn't make me want to die

Oh no it's gotten worse

HE GOT A LITTLE SUIT WHAT A LITTLE BUSINESS GUY

I am living for John's mental breakdowns

THE SHAPE OF THE GUY! BEC! THE BEAST THE GUY THE DUDE!

Arf

Yall it is so hard for me to not binge this entire comic since I have free time, I didn't expect to enjoy it this much

Bec is a very good boy

Damn Rose is in hot water. Well, hot not-water. Fire she's on fire

DREAMBOT?

VODKA MUTINI

MOVE THE FUCK OVER SERENITY MUTIE IS NEW BEST CHARACTER

Mr Mayor 🥺

Fuck it were shotgunning all of act 3 in one night because I have no self control right now

THE WRINKLEFUCKER

AT LAST THE PUPPET IS DEAD

Bec in da lava

JOHN AWAKENS

These trolls are absolutely going to be plot relevant later too, damn. It's such a funky mix of "every single thing is important" and "this is for a visual gag"

And now the Aimless Renegade

Is this guy a cop? He seems like a pissy little cop so far

"YOU ARE THE LAW WHOOPS" this is a great comic

THE BUTTERFLY WAS INNOCENT

Baby Jaaaade 🥹🥹🥹

Hey Jade this temple looks really ominous

Is he gonna drink the piss

WIZARD CAAAAAAT

And that's the end of act 3 now we got Rose in here babeyyyyyy

I can see why this story used to be so popular and is still loved to this day this is so damn fun :)

[ultimatefartwizard]

Agonies of a Late Homestuck Reader Pt.3

Wiz is here for the hell that is this work, and now we start off with Act 2, we begin with a mysterious vagabond wandering a desert. He like... finds this underground bunker type thing with a lid that has the same symbol as the cruxtruder? Quite interesting!

Jumping back to John, since he seems to now be in like floating purgatory type situation yet alive and well.... as well as a just now 13 year old boy can be after just nearly dying from a meteor hurdling towards him and his father's house.

Am I insane and used RPGmaker XP too much? Or does the wind sound in it sound like one of the wind effects RPGmaker XP use (specifically using it as an example as I've never used other rpgmaker programs)

I downloaded Ruffle (a in-browser flash player replacement) to circumnavigate the "flash player no longer supported" issue since I wanted a true genuine experience as it was intended, and thankfully it works! For those wanting Ruffle, you can find it -HERE-

I played the segment with John looking around his house, and was amused by this sort of omnipotent narrator type character (soon revealed to be the vagabond, having gone down into the bunker and is using a computer to communicate) that would order commands at him and just call him "BOY."

Various Vagabond antics; makes me think of how Kratos calls his son "boy" continually in Ragnarok.

As I further mucked about, John's father seems to be missing and some sort of oil substance is everywhere. I originally thought his father got whole ass slaughtered and had him bleed out like a pig, thankfully not... maybe? I haven't read far enough yet.

I immediately thought of John Kramer talking through Billy the puppet when I read this clicking on the cabinet. And considering the species of "Cherub" in Homestuck is based on the puppet, I wouldn't put it past Hussie to make a (slightly butchered) reference.

John talks to Dave, and.... well I won't show the image of the exact things he says when he starts rapping cuz 1. I can't put a clickable censor on images and 2. not comfortable posting that but OH MY GOD. HUSSIE... HUSSIE! NO STOP HUSSIE DONT WRITE THAT YOU ARE WHITE OH MY GODDD.... DON'T MAKE THAT CHILD SAY SUCH THINGS AND MAKE MORE WEIRD AND BORDERLINE RACIST COMMENTS.... Why are you obsessed. Why are you especially obsessed with black presidents and, in conjunction, Obama??? Do you have some sort of weird crush on this man because you think about him too much. (joking around with myself to save my sanity, im dying here, also note i feel these negative ramblings are important especially when looking at this piece of media in a critical light)

Please I pray the comments like this calm down... though knowing the later stuff ik Hussie doesn't stop being weird or finds new ways to be gross and weird. I also made the mistake of reading the "sweet bro and hella jeff" comic Hussie linked on Dave's segment and my god this explains the later incident with..... a certain Homestuck 2 character. DO NOT READ THAT FOR YOUR SANITY BTW.

Back onto the story itself, watching Dave manage his sylladex and how his captchalogues/uncaptchalogues stuff makes me realize how stupidly complex his is, and it's the most complex thus far. I still don't understand it but that's for another time for rambles. Also rather curious out of the three revealed human children so far he's the only one who's not apprehensive to his family member's collection of themed stuff; in this case, it's his brother's puppet collection. I swear to god there's got to be some sort of underlying reason for these, there's no way that these are all presented to the reader and somehow don't have any strong significance or meaning.

It cuts over to Rose again, who's trying to get out to the generator in the rain so she can boot up her computer to pair up with John again and escape certain doom due to a meteor shower hitting the forest she lives in and is engulfed in flames. She seems to have a lot of contempt for her mother, not sure if it's the same back towards her but they are noted to have some sort of one-uping competitions. Both John and Rose seem to compete with their parents while Dave nods and seeminly respects his brother's stuff, which is interesting and definitely will try to investigate this phenomenon as I read.

I leave off on page 374, certainly to return later for more reading! -Wiz

[preshtagonist]

a bunch of old wrens! the first four are the very first concepts i made of him, the last one is closer to his current look. British man sees visions of the future and thinks he's stuck in a survival horror existence. more info under the cut

Wren Foster (he/him) temporaryTenderfoot [TT]

GENERAL INFO Age: 19 Symbol: Fleur-de-lis Guardian: Father Home: Nottingham, UK Sexuality: Questioning Relationship status: Single Typing Color: Green (#006E37) Typing style: Proper case and grammar. Chronic double-texter. DROPS PUNCTUATION AND USES CAPSLOCK WHEN IN DISTRESS, ONLY USING PUNCTUATION IF IT EMPHASIZES HIS DISTRESS!!!

COMBAT INFO  Fetch Modus: Sash Modus - Captchalogued items turn into badges and patches that go onto his sash! Strife Specibus: axeKind, bladeKind, rifleKind Weapon: Pocket Knife, Hatchet

GAME INFO Game Entry Item: capture the flag? Sprite: pre-entry, fox doll(?); post-entry, dead dreamself Pre-Exile: White Queen Post-Exile: Wayfaring Quarry Server Player: Kade Winters Client Player: Maia Ortega Ectosibling: Maia Ortega

CLASSPECT INFO Godtier: Seer of Doom Dreaming Moon: Prospit Awake or Asleep? If awake, when did they wake up? Between 16 and 17, after he and his friend’s real life meetup.

Land of Rot and Tinder

MISC INFO Zodiac Sign: Virgo MBTI: ISTJ (previously ESTJ) Enneagram: 9w1, The Dreamer

He used to be a high-ranking boy scout, but once he woke up on Prospit and looked into Skaia’s clouds, he became highly paranoid and unable to function. He feels a strong compulsion to follow superstitions (knocking on wood, for example) to avoid what he believes are “imagined realities” but are actually visions of the future Skaia has shown him in his dreams. Canonically he has insomnia, depression, & OCD.

These visions started around 3 years after the GD kids meet online, soon after they first meet in person at 16-17. Wren was 13-14 when he met the other kids.

Wren knows how to play the harmonica and the bugle-horn!

[witnessprotectionprogramurl]

first act of homestuck summarized from memory because I feel like it:

there is an unnamed boy turning 13 today

I do not remember when today is

his name is John Egbert (NOT zoosmell pooplord)

he has a friend called Dave who we know is cool because he wears sunglasses

he goes to the mailbox to get the sburb demo but it's not there

sburb is a videogame btw

he has another friend named Rose who we know is a girl because her text is pink

she wants to play sburb with him

sburb has 2 disks for some reason

he only finds the first one

also there is a harlequin doll

human sized

and John puts fake arms on it

it will be important later believe it or not

John tries to get the second sburb disk sneakily

he fails, thus triggering a boss fight

the boss fight is with his dad

just realized I forgot literally everything about captchaloguing things to the sylladex

whatever it's fine

his dad is obsessed with clowns

sorry I mean harlequins

anyways John runs away with the sburb and starts playing it with rose

ALSO AT SOME POINT HE DROPPED HIS GRANDMAS ASHES ON THE FLOOR

this too will be important later

the slur counter by now has got to be on triple digits

rose starts moving shit around in sburb and accidentally rips apart John's bathroom

through sburb

in real life

I forget what happens now but remember the harlequin doll?

also remember the grandma?

so the grandma merges with the doll

so now the doll is possessed

by the grandma

there's a bunch of machines and contraptions being placed by rose inside John's house

there is a meteor

it hits earth

everything explodes

close curtains

[its-stupidhours]

@whyisthistoastburning ok. so. hmm. Homestuck is a,, very complicated comic. to say the least. give me a second to figure out where to sta

WAIT NO WAIT KSGDJS I JUST REMEMBERED I ALREADY WROTE LORE OUT

and here's the whole doc if you want to know more. it should have everything covered that you would need to know for the au (besides denizens, sorry)

so basically the deal with smantsprite^2 is that 1) there are two Tanners, who play two different sessions of SBURB and as such have two different sprites. The first one programs his sprite with his own denizen and then himself, and the second one has his sprite programmed by the first Tanner's captchalogue (basically his inventory) and then the first Tanner's sprite. which DOES make him very overpowered but <3 shh he's a special boy he can do what he wants. I just realized this started out as a numbered list and then I didn't number anything after 1. sorry abt that lol

[tgirlswagseraphina]

Homestuck began on April 13th, 2009, the 13th birthday of our chief protagonist and future boy-skylark, John Egbert. Three days prior was supposed to be the day he received the Sburb Beta in the mail, but it was running late. It showed up later that afternoon, and after overcoming a variety of domestic adversities, he retrieved the game, along with a birthday package from his internet friend, Dave Strider.

John soon established a game connection with another friend, Rose Lalonde, who'd spent the day badgering him about playing with her, after unsuccessfully attempting to convince Dave to play. Upon connecting, Rose was able to manipulate John's environment, move his furniture around via cursor, and restructure the shape of his room. John was unable to do this to Rose's environment however. He'd installed the client copy of the beta, and required the server copy for that.

The server copy was trapped in his dad's car, along with a birthday package from another friend, Jade Harley. Jade messaged John inquiring about the package. As of this moment, neither her package nor the server copy has been recovered by John. Rose had also prepared a package for John, but had not mailed it yet. It still sits in her room. Dave's package contained the authentic stuffed bunny from Con Air.

In addition to allowing Rose to control John's environment, Sburb provided an array of devices Rose deployed throughout John's house. These devices used together provided a system by which the players could manufacture any item using the code on the back of that item's captchalogue card, if they gathered enough grist to pay for it. Later, they would learn to combine item codes to master the art of punch card alchemy, whereby items could be fused together in purpose and design.

One device on being activated began a countdown, and released an entity called a kernelsprite. The countdown ticked down to the moment John's house would be struck by a meteor, destroying his neighborhood. To escape this demise, John had to use the devices to manufacture a special item that looked like a blue apple, and take a bite of it, in order to transport his entire house just before impact to the safety of a mysterious dark realm, where his house would situate itself atop a tall rock column high above a blanket of clouds. This realm is called the Medium.

Before he entered the Medium though, John and Rose prototyped his kernelsprite with the large harlequin doll his dad got him for his birthday, transforming the sprite to bear its likeness, including the ways the doll was disfigured via earlier hijinks. It had a slashed eye and one arm, and so too did the sprite. When John entered the Medium, the sprite's kernel hatched, thus imbuing all the enemies John and his friends would face with properties of the sprite. The lesser adversaries John faced first, Shale Imps, all wore harlequin garbs. They became more powerful and more radically mutated with each successive pre-Medium prototyping.

After entering the Medium, John's dad was kidnapped by imps. While John was looking for him, he accidentally prototyped the sprite with his grandmother's ashes, transforming it again. This prototyping had no effect on the enemies, since he was already in the Medium, and the kernel had already hatched. Instead, only the sprite was affected, and it took on the appearance, personality, and memories of his grandmother, becoming Nannasprite, a game-supplied albeit customized guide for John. She explained aspects of the game, about Skaia residing at the center of the Medium, beyond seven gates floating directly above his house, and about an eternal/timeless war fought there between dark and light, one that light was always destined to lose.

Rose, who'd been having frequent internet connection issues, lost her connection as she tried to lift John's car to retrieve the game and the package. The car fell into the abyss below. A storm caused her house to lose power along with its wireless internet connection. Her laptop was able to run on battery power for a time, while she tapped into the wireless signal from the laboratory next door. When her laptop ran out of power, she had to overcome more family strife (and endure a gift pony in the process), go outside in the rain, and plug it into the small generator outside the mausoleum of her dead cat, Jaspers. She continued her session with John inside the mausoleum, while the meteor-sparked forest fire surrounding her house grew more intense.

From the house, Rose's mom opened a secret passage in the mausoleum to help her escape. The passage lead to the lab next door, where Rose found a stable, portable source of power and internet for her computer. She also found a terminal projecting the impact times and locations for the millions of meteors presently bombarding the planet, along with all the other live sessions of other players around the world. She also found a little girl's room, a mutant kitten she named Vodka Mutini, and a cloning machine operating through the science of ectobiology. Its terminal was locked on to her cat Jaspers at whatever point in his life the user specified.

She attempted to appearify Jaspers from a moment in her early childhood, before he whispered a secret to her. But doing so would have caused a paradox, so it appearified (paradoxified) a pile of slime instead. The machine used the slime to create a fetal paradox clone of Jaspers in a glass tube. On the monitor, Jaspers then told young Rose the secret, then vanished, only to show up dead weeks later and put in the mausoleum for years until the present. Rose left the laboratory moments before it was destroyed by a meteor impact. She transportalized back to her mom's room, proceeded to her room to wait for Dave to connect with her and rescue her from the next imminent impact.

Dave was charged with acquiring his bro's copy of the game to help Rose. Earlier he had lost his copy of the game to a mishap involving a crow. It flew in his window, seized the game, and Dave accidentally impaled it with a sword, sending the crow and the game out the window onto a landing far below his apartment. He searched his bro's room unable to find it, was briefly shadowed by Lil Cal, and then found a note beckoning him to meet on the roof for a confrontation. Dave and his bro dueled on the roof extensively, and Dave was thoroughly bested. Upon defeating Dave, his bro dropped the copies of the game, and flew off on his rocket board into the sky.

Dave used the copies to connect with Rose, and quickly deployed the devices while her house was on fire, surrounded by flaming tornadoes, and minutes away from being destroyed by a meteor. Rose prototyped her kernelsprite with Jaspers, specifically to understand the meaning of the secret he whispered to her years ago. She was advised to do this by Jade, who told her about the game in the first place. Dave then prototyped the kernelsprite again with the tentacled princess doll given to Rose on her birthday by her mom. Both of these prototypings would have an effect on the enemies once Rose entered the Medium and the kernel hatched. Rose used the alchemiter to create the special item - for her, a purple wine bottle - which she needed to break to enter. She eventually did, transporting her house just before the meteor collided.

The meteor left a crater. Over time, at the site of impact, a large, white structure that looked like a wine bottle grew there, and the crater filled up with sand as the climate of the post-apocalyptic Earth gradually changed. The "cork" of that bottle was a large metal cylinder with an interior much like an advanced science station, with a variety of devices and monitors inside. 413 years after the meteor impact, the Wayward Vagabond walked through the desert and discovered this station. Inside, he found canned rations, a firefly he named Serenity, an appearifier, and four monitors hooked up to a keyboard.

On one of the monitors was John, just after he'd entered the Medium. WV could type commands to John directly, much as the readers of this story could type commands for the characters to follow. Most of John's actions upon entering the Medium were authored by WV, until he became preoccupied with other activities, such as building a town out of cans, playing chess with cans, and drawing chalk murals depicting the cosmological arrangement of Skaia, the Medium, the light and dark planets known as Prospit and Derse, and the four planets the kids would each occupy upon entering the game, called The Land of Wind and Shade (John), The Land of Light and Rain (Rose), the Land of Heat and Clockwork (Dave), and Jade's planet, which is yet to be seen.

He also activated a countdown in the station which caused it to blast out of the crater and fly to designated "home" coordinates. Along the way, it passed over the sand-filled crater that was the impact site for John's meteor, on the other side of the continent. John's meteor had caused a giant white tree to grow in the crater. The tree grew an apple-like station from a branch, which fell to the sand. The Peregrine Mendicant found this station. After WV flew overhead, PM activated her station's homing feature as well, which caused it to fly to the same destination. Along the way, she used her terminal to attempt to command Jade, who from the perspective of the terminal, had just arrived in the Medium. This caused the terminal to explode for unknown reasons, leaving a hole in the station. One of the station's robotic worms recovered one of PM's falling mailboxes, and she befriended it, after earlier slaying another one with her black regisword.

WV landed at the site of the ancient frog ruins across the now dried up Pacific Ocean. The site was once the island where Jade lived, but nothing of the island remained except for the ruins. The mountain her house was on, and the volcano next to it, were replaced by a large empty chasm. PM landed shortly after WV, and they met. They were confronted by the Aimless Renegade, who fired at them from the frog ruins with old weaponry he'd been hoarding, once belonging to Jade's grandpa. Millions of years ago, the frog ruins grew from a crater, struck by a meteor that emerged from a Sburb portal in space. Jade's radioactive, omnipotent, space-warping dog named Becquerel emerged from this crater as well.

Jade's grandpa pioneered this island, and built the house Jade lives in. Her grandpa has been dead for many years, and stands stuffed in front of the fireplace. She has been looked after by her dog who she calls Bec. She begins the day with several tasks to accomplish - to feed Bec, and to retrieve a birthday package mailed by John. She irradiates a steak, and heads outside to the site where the package will be dropped. She knows it will be dropped there because one of the reminders she wears on her fingers jogs her memory about it. She wears them to keep track of the many things she knows about the future, through dreams.

She falls asleep frequently and spontaneously. When she sleeps, her dream self is awake, and living on the moon that orbits the light planet, Prospit. Prospit very closely orbits Skaia, a huge sphere of blue sky and clouds, which nanna describes as a "dormant crucible of unlimited creative potential." When Prospit's moon eclipses Skaia, it drifts into Skaia for a time, mingling with the clouds. Dream Jade then witnesses many past and future events in the clouds. While asleep, she is often confused about what is real and what isn't. When she wakes up, she pieces together future events from her memory of the cloud visions, and from logs recorded by her dreambot. Her dreambot is a robotic surrogate that activates while she sleeps in her bed. It mimics in the real world the movement and actions of her dream self on the moon, and records a video log of what she sees while dreaming.

Prospit's moon has two towers of identical design, and similar design to Jade's house. Dream Jade lives in one tower. Dream John lives in the other. Dream John is still asleep, and John has no knowledge of the dream world, which is to say, the entire game session he would initiate on his 13th birthday. When he goes to sleep, instead of waking up on the moon as Jade does, he remains slumbering in his dream room, tormented by his subconscious. This torment is expressed when he sleepwalks, and draws troubling scribbles on the walls of his room. When awake, he cannot see the scribbles, as is subconscious suppresses his awareness of them. It is not until he has a perception-altering revelation about his dad does he begin to see them. He initially believed they were new additions to his room, perhaps scrawled by imps. However they were present long before, visible in his room while he prepared Jade's birthday package months ago.

John prepared a package for each of his three friends, whose 13th birthdays were December 1st (Jade), 3rd (Dave), and 4th (Rose). He gave Rose a knitting set, and she then took an intense interest knitting. He gave Dave the pair of shades Ben Stiller wore in Starsky and Hutch, which he wore from then on, replacing the shades in the style his bro wore. He gave Jade a blue version of his own ghost shirt, and some pumpkin seeds to help her replace the pumpkins that kept disappearing from her garden. But she did not receive this on the birthday John intended. She received it in the past, on her birthday when she was very young, causing her to take an interest in gardening in the first place, to take a liking to blue apparel, and to eventually befriend John over the internet and lead him, Rose, and Dave down a path where they would ultimately play this game together.

Jade did retrieve his package in the present as planned, but immediately took it to another location where it disappeared. WV in the far future appearified it from that location on accident. The package contained further instructions for him. He was to bring it to PM, and she was to use her station's sendificator to send it to another place and time. After she did this, the package appeared in front of young Jade on her birthday. Jade orchestrated the sequence of events through knowledge of them by her cloud visions.

She orchestrated similar events for the package she sent to John, plotting the circuitous route through time and space it was meant to follow. She again utilized the exiles for help, while they were still in the Medium. The exiles, WV, PM, and AR, were all formerly agents of the kingdoms, before they were exiled by some means to post-apocalyptic Earth. AR, as an Authority Regulator in the Land of Wind and Shade, discovered the package and the beta copy in John's wrecked car as he gave it a parking ticket. PM, working as a Parcel Mistress, recognized the package from a correspondence she had with Jade on Prospit some time ago, and recalled it must be delivered to John. AR would not relinquish the package, though he did give her the beta, which she delivered into a pyxis to satisfy the carved request of a minitablet. John carved this tablet at the request of PM through the command terminal in the future.

AR brought the package to Derse, where it ultimately wound up on the desk of Jack Noir. Jack is the archagent of the dark kingdom, charged with overseeing affairs through his office's fenestrated wall portals, and processing paperwork. He is forced to wear a silly garment in keeping with prototyping themes by the Black Queen, an order he resentfully complies with. He oversaw the imprisonment of John's dad, who broke loose on multiple occasions. When Jack went to handle it personally, John's dad set Jack's hat on fire. In a surly act of gratitude, he released the prisoner. John's dad fled to the Land of Wind and Shade, fought large monsters, got his hat dirty and lost a shoe. He then carved tablet requests for new ones, which John filled via pyxis, unaware of who requested them.

PM followed AR to Derse in hopes of retrieving the package. After wandering around, she encountered the Black Queen on her throne. Both the light and dark kingdoms each have a king and a queen. The queens sit on a throne, on Prospit and Derse respectively, ruling the planet. The kings command armies on the Battlefield, located at the center of Skaia. The queen takes on the attributes supplied by the prototypings due to the four-orbed ring she wears. When the ring is removed, the queen is restored to normal. PM showed the BQ a parking ticket she was pretending to deliver. The BQ directed her to Jack's office, where the ticket should be filed.

PM met Jack and asked for the package. Jack proposed a deal, and gave her a black regisword. If she would kill the White Queen and White King and bring him their crowns, he would give her the package. She accepted with little alternative. She then visited the WQ on Prospit and explained the situation, with no intention of carrying out Jack's mission. The WQ, understanding the futility of their situation and the need to recover the package, abdicated, and gave PM her crown and her ring. PM was instructed to go find the White King, retrieve his crown, and receive further instruction on what to do with the ring to protect it. WQ would then eventually exile herself to post-apocalypse Earth.

On post-apocalypse Earth, after AR fired on WV and PM from the ruins, he spotted WV's pumpkin, which WV had earlier appearified from Jade's house. He recognized the carving of Bec's silhouette on the pumpkin. Fearful of it, he surrendered. The three exiles soon became friends over a campfire and shared rations. WV and AR built Exile Town out of cans, mailboxes, and bullets. PM operated WV's station terminal to submit commands to John as he explored the Land of Wind and Shade. In the sky, another station teleported and fell to the ground. It was shaped like an egg, and originated from Dave's meteor impact site, in correspondence with the egg-shaped item he would use to enter the medium. Emerging from this station was the Windswept Questant, formerly the White Queen.

AR and WV sought to impress WQ by crafting a crown for her out of a mailbox. She refused the distinction, instead giving it to PM, who had successfully completed her mission to deliver Jade's package to John in the distant past. The means by which she went about this have yet to be seen.

John entered the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS) by having Rose build up his house to the first gate, fighting through many imps and ogres with his powerful new alchemized weapons, and entering the gate. This took him to a location beneath the clouds, far below his house. The LOWAS turned out to be a large windy planet, full of dark terrain, incandescent trees, networks of pipes, and oily rivers. In addition to hosting more powerful adversaries, the land is occupied by friendly consorts, a race of salamanders. They help John understand the mythos of the land, and inform him of the planet's persecution by a sleeping denizen, which is responsible for clogging the pipes with oil, and trapping fireflies under the clouds.

Each planet has a sleeping denizen, which the players must first wake, and then kill, in the course of their journey through the seven gates. Rose's planet, the Land of Light and Rain (LOLAR) is a multicolored ocean planet with white sandy islands and pink ruins, and has a denizen responsible for killing all life in the water. Dave's planet, the Land of Heat and Clockwork (LOHAC) is a lava planet, covered in industrial steel frame structures and turning gears, and has a denizen of yet unknown qualities.

Killing the denizen releases a huge grist hoard buried at the core of the planet, which is then used to fuel a process known as The Ultimate Alchemy. Along the way, the kids are meant to learn about their destined roles in this quest as the Heir of Breath (John), Seer of Light (Rose), Knight of Time (Dave), and Witch of space (Jade). Over the course of their quest, the dark kingdom will inevitably defeat the light kingdom. The Black Queen and King will take control, and initiate The Reckoning. This affects a belt of meteors, called The Veil, which orbits far from Skaia, between the four planets and Derse, and is host to various lab facilities used by the kingdoms. The Reckoning causes the meteors to descend on Skaia, ultimately destroying it, unless the Black Queen and King can be defeated in time. Skaia however buys time by opening defense portals to catch many of the meteors, redirecting them elsewhere in space and time.

This is the generic template for the way the game is supposed to proceed. It can deviate from this model however, depending on the actions of the players, and the details of the game mythology presented is unique to each group of players and their session.

Long before John and his friends started playing the game, another group of players had been persistently trolling them, particularly Jade. They are furious about an action she will take that will cause major problems in the four kids' game session, and inevitably lead to their defeat. Specifically, Jade will send a package to John, apparently containing a powerful weapon he will need later. But the package winds up in the hands of Jack Noir, leading to dire consequences. They allude to other things she will do that will lead to not only trouble for the four kids, but the troll players as well.

The trolls consist of 12 kids from an alien planet, who went through the same process as John and his friends, escaping from the annihilation of their planet via meteors, and into the Medium to play the game. Their game session is entirely separate from that of the four kids. It has the same basic template, with its own Skaia, Prospit, Derse, Veil, and a planet for each troll, but separate game instances of these. They also have different instances of the same character templates, such as the kings and queens, and agents like Jack Noir.

The trolls have completed their game session with yet unknown results. They now reside on a meteor in their Veil, sitting at terminals trolling John and co. From their terminals they can choose any point in the past or future of the kids to troll, and observe what they're doing at that moment. As a group, their only stated objective is to harass the kids, which they do so haphazardly throughout different points in the kids' timeline. Though they can choose any point on the kids' timeline to talk, they are mostly resigned to the understanding that no matter what they do, they can't change the outcome of the kids' actions.

The four most vociferous trolls so far have been carcinoGeneticist, gallowsCalibrator, grimAuxiliatrix, and adiosToreador. (The other 8 being apocalypseArisen, twinArmageddons, arsenicCatnip, arachnidsGrip, centaursTesticle, terminallyCapricious, caligulasAquarium, and cuttlefishCuller, each yet to be heard from.)

carcinoGeneticist (CG) appears to have spearheaded the group's trolling campaign. While he was in the thick of his game session, the exile commanding him from a terminal in the apocalyptic future was Spades Slick. This is one difference between his game session and John's, who had WV as an exile commanding him. In CG's session, his version of Jack Noir became exiled along the way, and took on the name Spades Slick. Three other agents were exiled, and the four of them formed a gang called the Midnight Crew, and spent years building up a dark city in the future wasteland of the trolls' dead planet. Another difference in the trolls' session is that at some point along the way, the Black Queen was also exiled, later joined a rival gang called The Felt, assumed special powers that make her highly inadvisable to kill, and came to be known as Snowman. It was not until Slick confronted The Felt in their mansion that he discovered the station terminal to command CG, and not before Snowman blinded him in one eye, severed his arm, and locked him in a vault.

Each troll has a different trolling strategy, and a different rhythm by which they hop around the kids' timelines to chat with them. CG's strategy, for the most part, was to begin trolling them at the very end of their adventure, the moment at which he was most angry with their actions, and then gradually work backwards, mostly talking to John. This proves to be mutually frustrating though, as John knows less and less about the situation the further into the past CG goes. Similarly, the further into the future John progresses, the more he has the advantage over CG by knowledge of his future conversations with him, and vice versa. Over the course of the opposing directions of the two sides of the conversation, John learns more about the nature of the game and why they're being trolled, and in spite of hostility, they gradually befriend each other through an inevitability alluded to on both sides of the conversation.

Early in the correspondence between John and CG, which is to say late for CG, CG discovers he needs to get in touch with Jade, who refuses to talk to him in that time period. So he delivers a message to her much earlier, months in her past, telling her she needs to contact him when she's in trouble. She will know to do this when her dreambot explodes in the future, an outcome that has not yet happened.

Two other trolls, grimAuxiliatrix and adiosToreador (GA and AT) have targeted only Rose and Dave thus far. GA has hopped arbitrarily back and forward in Rose's timeline to talk to her, and is attempting to cultivate a friendship with her that now seems rigged through a series of conversational time loops, while seeking counsel from Dave on how to befriend her. AT sought counsel from Rose on how to troll Dave more effectively, after getting severely counter-trolled by him. He is under the impression he rebounded nicely though.

gallowsCalibrator (GC) has stayed mostly linear in her trolling patterns, and has done so under the guise of helping the kids on their quest. She convinces John to take a shortcut through his land, shows him the denizen's palace, leads him to warp back to his house, then shows him how to fix the faulty rocket pack he made earlier through an alchemy mishap. She tells him to use the rocket pack to fly up to the seventh gate, enter the denizen's palace, and kill it in its sleep. He complied with this, and flew through the seventh gate, in spite of reservations from Dave, who'd just entered the Medium the moment before John took off.

GC also assisted Rose, just after she bested an ogre with ease. She counseled her on understanding her role as the Seer of Light, and the meaning of the voice in her head as an exile issuing commands from a terminal. In her case, it was the exiled White Queen issuing commands from the egg shaped station in the future. Since Dave is Rose's server player, the terminal station from Dave's impact site issues commands to Rose. Just as the station at Rose's site, which WV found, issues commands to John, her client player.

After conversing with GA, Rose found Jaspersprite and interrogated him about the secret which she found so maddeningly mysterious years ago. He explained elements of the mythos of her land, and how she'd need to learn to play the rain to produce the musical analogue of a genetic code to reintroduce life into the ocean. In response to her question about his secret, he simply replied "Meow." She mistook this for more nonsense, but it was in fact the secret he told her years ago. The four letter sequence MEOW unlocked a genetic code in her subconscious, which she would spend years scrawling on her wall using those letters in place of the typically used GCAT letters, while completely oblivious to the scrawlings and their meaning just as John was. As Jaspers said, she would understand their meaning when her dream self wakes up.

Rose's dream self lives in a tower on the moon of Derse. Dave's dream self lives on the same moon in the other tower. It was suggested by Rose's future self, who is fully awake in the tower, that Dave had already been awake in his tower all along without realizing it. This was suggested in a conversation she had in the future with Dave. It was an alternative future timeline not meant to be.

This future timeline came about by this series of events.

Dave was able to enter the Medium by connecting with Jade as his server player. Jade got copies of the game from the frog ruins, after she delivered John's package to her past self. She snuck into the ruins while Bec was asleep, and retrieved the game from a lotus time capsule which had been ticking down for millions of years. The game was Dave's copy from the future, the same one that fell out the window with the impaled crow. Once she got the game, the time capsule started ticking down again, set to expire 413 years later, when the exiles are there. She dropped some items in the ruins, leaving them there for AR to find, and leaving her bass jammed in the elevator. Bec then found her there, took her back to her room, and grounded her there for the rest of the evening.

She quickly helped Dave set up the game, upgrading his alchemiter heavily, and crafting the special item he needed to enter the Medium, a red egg, which needed to be incubated and hatched to activate. She prototyped his kernelsprite with the impaled crow, which would affect the enemies later, including the Black Queen. The sprite built a nest on top of his apartment's antenna tower, and stole the egg to incubate it for hours. A very large meteor was soon bearing down on his city.

Dave then entered the Medium through a series of unseen events. Jade was asleep, thus forbidden by Dave from interacting with his environment at all. Jade complied for fear of retribution. Dave was faced with the Crowsprite, which appeared to be suggesting he prototype it again with the remains of Lil Cal. Dave consulted with John on this, who was about to rocket up to the seventh gate. John had no advice, and proceeded up through the gate against better judgment.

Dave prototyped the sprite with Cal. John entered the palace, presumably found the denizen, and was easily killed by it, as was the intent of GC's trick on him. This meant John could not establish a connection with Jade to rescue her from the looming meteor, and Dave and Rose lost contact with her, presuming her dead. Dave and Rose then spent the next four months in the Medium, advancing as far as they could to collect information before Dave decided to travel back in time to change events.

Dave used his time tables to go back to the moment he was about to prototype with Cal. Both he and his past self strongly urged John not to go through the gate. John was reluctant at first, but soon reconsidered, and flew down beneath the clouds. Future Dave then gave Present Dave all his advanced gear, and prototyped the Crowsprite with himself to make Davesprite, thus serving as his own guide from the future.

Before going back in time, Future Dave convinced Future Rose to go to sleep. He suggested her dream self would be unaltered by the timeline shift, and in her dream state she would remember the events from the future. When Dave went back, Rose's future dream self assumed the position of Rose's present dream self. Rose fell asleep, and on Derse's moon, she instantly woke up. She then saw all the genetic scrawlings she did in MEOW letters, and understood their meaning.

Meanwhile on Derse below, the Black Queen��again insisted that Jack Noir abide by the dress code. He refused, and the queen threatened him. He picked up Jade's package to John, removed what was inside, and used it to slice her ring finger off. He then killed the Black Queen, put on the ring, and donned the full upgrade supplied by the three prototypings.

He then became Jackspers Noirlecrow, which is a name I just made up now.

And then after that you started watching me type in this ridiculous study I photoshopped for myself with my cool horse painting propped up in the background.

[nopesterlogs]

Okay, time to enter the kitchen

I just noticed john is wearing his normal glasses under the fake ones, that can't be comfortable. he really does suffer for his art.

I appreciate the detail in the harlequins arm falling off. not everyone would go to the effort.

why does this have a heartbeat is this whole story gonna end with meeting Dagoth Ur in a volcano

Faceless dad here has baked and decorated an entire cake in like 15 minutes since getting home

> [S] STRIFE! Is john gonna attach his dad with a hammer

dads taking this quite well

or not

okay this was pretty funny. dude could of dropped them any time

heh

yknow for a guy whos backed at least 3 cakes today dads kitchen is really clean. Is he single

John why take his PDA.

Is this how Captchalogue upgrades are normally done? cause that... is inconvienient.

Quest Success. Another Birthday present?

is homestuck so long because its just john messing up the inventory system?

oh hey, number 4!

and... they're gone. they seem nice

TG has absolutely no chill

I can imagine were only starting to see the depths of meta this comic will go honestly

version 0.0.1? im surprised there is even a server yet to play

considering the fact they are the basic way people seem to interact with the world, you'd think it would be like basic knowledge taught in school.

... does john go to school?

how does this world work

???????

hes gonna launch the razor into the fucking computer at this point

close enough

Poor dad. wait how did the glass fall on the inside?

ooh a present from TG. I literally have no idea what to expect

NOOO???

John really needs to be stopped.

okay finally the present

Something suspiciously dirty and smelly.

:/

But no, it is not merely LIKE that bunny. According to this NOTE OF AUTHENTICITY, it is the VERY SAME BUNNY.

I have no idea how much movie memorabilia goes for but i can't imagine its cheap. TG Must be pretty well off.

Looks like Sburb is ready and TT is messaging.

Its got a client and a host so 2P? guess thats TT?

yeah TT is connecting

a, This music is banging

b, very sims, I think i saw "Sewing Mirrors" If I could pause I'd be inclined to read all of them, I wonder if theres anything important in there. is there a list somewhere? otherwise it seems pretty "recalculating Splines"

very sims Select revise and deploy feel like they are kinda self explanatory. but is it for the real world? theres what looks like an item registry? Grist Cache sounds like currency maybe?

last two I dunno but the last one has a punch capcha card?

oh theirs johns FIFO card sweet.

also what the fuck. although considering that other hand is this just a normal thing that's possible in universe?

ummmm what is the range on this thing

mildly convenient

Dads going out for MORE supplies?? why didnt he just get enough the first time??

okay I guess there is a range

the menace deserves to be prodded buy a terrifying game cursor

I like how he responds to the reference

So this game can just rewrite reality? just create matter out of thin air?

Seeing as John already lives a pretty Video gamey life is Sburb more like a mod that allows the host (or client actually which one is John) to effect the base code?

Seems like existence is based on a coded frame work. "It was all a video game" seems a bit too cliché but maybe something like that is happening?

man it even effects the outside too

oh boy nebulous machinery

Cruxtruder - Extrudes something? a Crux presumably

Totem Lathe - Used to carve some kind of totem probably? that seems too simple though

Alchemiter - the Punch card thing had something to do with Alchemy too. Changes things with punch cards?

[homestuckreplay]

what kind of sick freak bakes cakes

(page 82-87)

THINGS ARE HAPPENING! THINGS ARE KICKING INTO HIGH GEAR! I'm so blown away by this update, it's definitely the one that's left me the most excited of any so far, for two main reasons.

First, THE TITLE CARD. This is it. The introduction is over, we're done messing around in the tutorial level, we've seen the title screen come into view and now we're ready for John's big boy birthday gamer adventure. I like how simple the animation is, with the slow zoom out as John gazes at the sky as though it's the first time he's realized how big it is, and the rushing wind and tinkling chimes behind it; it captures the banality of John's neighborhood. I just have one question - is the word Homestuck actually in the sky far above the house?

The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

The narration beneath the panel is so different from the irreverent jokes of most of the comic; it's got a sincerity that I think we have seen glimpses of before but never really leaned into. I'd like to, because I'm interested in John's inner life, and I'm interested in knowing who this narrative entity is who knows John's inner life.

According to the adventure map (/map/6) this is Act 1, titled 'The Note Desolation Plays', which means this is a title card for both the act and the comic. I really want to dig into this being the act title - it really suggests that this is the page to pay attention to, and that John running around his house playing pranks on himself is a distraction from a much larger feeling of boredom and dissatisfaction. This is a great starting point for a character, especially the 'something feels missing from your life', and I'm bookmarking this page for future thoughts.

Second, we've tripled our number of fetch quests and confirmed that the Sburb Beta is here, in John's house. We also now have the red and green packages, and enough attention is drawn to them that I desperately want to see what's inside. John's dad left one birthday present in John's room and one in the living room, so I'd believe he's doing a treasure hunt (or prank setup) by also putting one in the kitchen and one in the car, except 1. there wasn't one in the study, and 2. those presents were white; these packages are colored.

So of course, I took inventory of all the other green and red things in the comic so far.

Green: John's shirt, Sburb logo, check mark, flashing available captchalogue cards in interface, leaves on tree, 'Typheus', ^CAKE, grass, CD rack interface, strife specibus card, GREEN PACKAGE

Red: 'TRY AGAIN, SMARTASS" error text, GameBro logo, calendar doodles, blood capsules, captchalogue card error, RANCOROUS, TG's instant messages, mailbox lever, car harlequin, RED PACKAGE

Obviously a lot of these are typical associations of red as stop/error and green as go/success, but some are interesting. My best guess is that the green package has something to do with Sburb, because green has been linked to both Sburb and John himself since page 1. There's an outside chance that it's to do with the strife specibus - that's a more similar shade of green to the package, and I love the idea that when you allocate a hammer to your strife specibus, you immediately get a hammer delivered to your house.

The red package could be a cease and desist from GameBro Magazine for slander, but I think it's something to do with TG, as he's our most prominent use of red. If I'm right, I bet it's some sort of gag gift, since he doesn't seem the type to send a sensitive and thoughtful birthday gift.

Big things are coming. I can feel it in the air when John takes off his disguise for a moment to gaze into the sky over his house. Even if we get immediate tonal whiplash when he's tempted to leave a surprise for the mailman - it can't hide the real sense of anticipation to these pages.

[charcherry-weekly]

Charcherry Weekly - Issue 222

Heya, Mage of Light Nick Card here. Its so dark and rainy lately aaaaaaa... At least its warm inside.

I'm gonna take you by the hand and make you understand Amanda~

Early this week, thirdinaltuppian fairy Amanda Marshmallow was found sleeping in a crate being shipped from a voidco freight train with stacks and stacks of occupied captchalogue cards. She was escorted to Charcherry by a DTA Safety Inspector and reunited with her dear friend Heir of Void Gym leader Mimi So&so. For assisting in the operation, I was given a pokemon egg. Mimi says it was produced by one of the fairy types in their party, but exactly which one is unknown and they already have a lot of pokemon to care for as a gym leader. So I've been taking the eggs for walks and keeping sunburst around to keep it nice and warm. Regardless of what pokemon winds up hatching, I'm glad that Mimi and Amanda are reunited after all these years and I wish them the best.

Hello Gordon!

On monday, Desertia Cinema had its initial exclusive screening of the first two acts of Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware. Your dear newsletter writer showed up to watch this. As a note to those reading this in the year 2024 or later, it appears the title used the term AI in a more classical "the thing that makes computer controlled npc's do stuff" manner rather than the more contemporary "garbled mess on the fly that's used as a marketing ploy" assumed definition. As for how this is approached in the movie, its more of a thinly veiled premise for a comedic voicechat-based machianima longplay of the VR version of Half-Life, abridged for archival viewing, since it was originally done in a much more drawn out live streamed gameplay format. That being said, all of this technical stuff doesn't matter, because this movie is a freaking masterpiece. The team that did the improv and editing for this was masterful in the execution, offering up iconic lines such as "nasty little sewage boy" or "Wikipedia, The free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit." (as well as the whole entire article on chairs). As someone who has not yet actually played Half-life before (but did claim in on steam when they were offering it for free), its an interesting angle to view from, trying to guess how the standard gameplay was meant to go before it became a chaotic multiplayer romp through black mesa.

It is unknown when the rest of HLVRAI will be shown here, but I'm looking forward to watching more of it for sure!

Trial Prep Progress

There has been a significant amount of progress made on preparations for the upcoming Neo Alternia v. Fuckof Notelu trial. The venue has been chosen, and a judge has been successfully appointed. Reportedly a korosian legal council was assembled to make sure the judge would have the guidance needed to operate in a Korosian lawscape, apparently being from elsewhere. A number of depositions still need to take place before the trial is set to begin, and when it does begin, media reporting will have to be limited to manual methods, with no cameras allowed in the courtroom during trial. Fortunately your dear newsletter writer is likely to end up being an illustrator for this trial, so I'll have a reason to be in the courtroom to watch the proceedings. A date has yet to be chosen.

Halloweeeen

Yesterday was halloween and it was relatively mild, as far as halloweens go around here. A number of friends decided to try and spook me in particular. Unfortunately I wasn't in the best state for that due to an overload of factors. I eventually finished my steve minecraft costume but ultimately stayed home for door duty. I feel like I probably let everyone down by not actually planning anything though. Regardless, Rogue of Heart Charles and V-mon seemed to have fun trick-or-treating. Shard Emit celebrated their 12th birthday that day as well. This year the celebration was reportedly a lot more limited and tight-knit to avoid extraneous incident, especially since Heir of Time Korosian President Thoren Emit has been rather stressed due to trial prep reasons, having had to call in practically every temporic remaining that still practices law (there's not that many in this post-reckoning era). Regardless, it was reportedly an enjoyable occasion. At Gene's Garden, The Fallen had arrived, though there was no enchanted food set out for them, due to their sister Brae Emit being unavailable. Her whereabouts have been unknown for at least a week now, and I'm kinda worried to be honest. Nobody knows where she went off to, and its not like her to abandon family and friends like this. I just hope she returns home safe and sound eventually.

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This week’s known market stands in Desertia Town:

DTA train ticket stand

Katie’s potion stand (Not available to plitlanders due to regulations, available to all others however)

shinyjiggly pokesnacks stand (also has a Unity Village location!)

Hunting Shop - Longbow (50 gp) - Trap, bear (2 gp) - Fishhook (1 sp)

Bardic College shop - Potter's Tools (10 gp) - Weaver's Tools (1 gp) - Bagpipes (30 gp) - Roar Cord (15 gp) - Musical instrument, masterwork (100 gp) - Shawn (2 gp) - Lyre (30 gp) - Musical instrument, common (5 gp) - Three-Dragon Ante Set (1 gp) - Dulcimer (25 gp)

That should do it for this week. I did some debug on the current playable section and got a scene assembled most of the way. Hopefully I can get more slapped together and draw the currently needed assets. Its a drag how slow my progress has been though. There's so much I need to cover and things keep happening. I can't give up though, people are counting on me here. Seeya later! https://letssosl.boards.net/thread/459/charcherry-weekly-issue-222

[jackhasfallenx2]

Oh boy i sure hope my pockets arent suddenly replaced with a Captchalogue!

[squadron-of-damned]

enough aa. what about.... karkat vantas, eridan ampora, roxy lalonde (pre and post scratch)?

you always send so many 😰

Karkat Vantas:

First impression: He not nice and shouty

Impression now: Boy, could you care any less? For your own health, please care a little less.

Favorite moment: I WOULD THROW IT INTO LAVA BUT THAT WOULD BE A WASTE OF MELTING.

Idea for a story: Nepeta jumpscare builds a pile/nest around him and he has five cozy minutes for once.

Unpopular opinion: While he writes just in all caps, he is very hard to read, because all caps are hard on the eyes.

Favorite relationship: Karkat & Sollux whatever that was

Favorite headcanon: There are precisely two trolls in the post-scratch crew who know how to cook: Tavros and Karkat.

Eridan Ampora:

First impression: Ew, that is a lot of slime and a lot of issues.

Impression now: That is so much slime and so much issues (affectionate)!

Favorite moment: "killin all those angels is so fuckin hard" "You're not supposed to kill them!" "noww i gotta and im gonna be good at it!"

Idea for a story: A slight AU where he is around post-5xShowdown and helps to kill the )(IC. Actually he has a good plan how to execute that, because he made so much research and preparations from when he was planning to help Feferi take the throne?

Unpopular opinion: His ultimate spiral into the killing-spree was due to his isolation (term loosely applied), which is as much everyone else's fault as his own. And it explains it, it doesn't excuse it.

Favorite relationship: I really like the pre-canon Eridan <3< Vriska in the special flavour of a potential/corrent kismesis going like that blinking meme "fishfuck, that's more than kind of fucked up."

Favorite headcanon: His Fetch Modus is Tide Wave and he has an entire sea captchalogued.

Roxy Lalonde

First impression: What fucked up mind games are you playing?

Impression now: Actually the most normal person in this entire webcomics. Maybe second to Dad.

Favorite moment: A mother always doest the best for her child *pulls out an assault rifle*

Idea for a story: Noirscape thing where she is both the washed up drinking sleuth and the femme fatal. And, quite possibly, also the heist mastermind.

Unpopular opinion: She wasn't a good Mom, but she was a nice Mom.

Favorite relationship: Her and Jake were good sillies.

Favorite headcanon: Pre-scratch she had a shitton of PhD's. Post-scratch she had all that knowledge but no uni to get a PhD at.

[tranquilspot]

John: Take PDA.

You snag your DAD'S PDA. Maybe later you'll switch the background image to something hilarious as a prank. Besides, it may come in handy later.

As long as it's harmless, I'm game. What's up y'all, we're back at it again :D

The motivation is back, and I have bits of future commentary/reaction already in mind. The early acts are slow, rightfully so in order to put several story elements into place. Doesn't mean it's not interesting, just that I'm eager to reach certain parts of the webcomic, which is mainly what refilled my motivation gauge haha

Your spare CAPTCHALOGUE CARD is forced out of the SYLLADEX, and consequently integrated with the deck. You now have five cards to work with.

At last! More room in is head/sylladex.

John: Take package.

This RED PACKAGE is addressed to you.

Speaking of package, I'm expecting one today or this weekend. The HS 2024 calendar to be exact! And boy oh boy, it took its sweet time. It was stuck at customs ><' and I had to pay (again!) to let it through. Quite costly but it'll all be worth it in the end, I'm glad to be able to own a physical HS calendar again. If you want it, sadly it isn't available no more as a physical one, but you can donated any amount and download its digital version.

John: Take envelope.

You got the SBURB BETA!!!

Yayy~ This planet imminent doom is getting closer everyone! Oh! I remember that this night I dream people was queuing to test a simulation. It was a game. I think I dreamt of it this because I catched up with the Animator vs Animation /Animation vs Minecraft haha. Go check Alan Becker's awesome stick figures videos if you haven't already! On that note, let's end the shot-outs and continue with Homestuck proper.

—> John: Exit kitchen