#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]

I have dishonored my ancestors beyond comprehension with this frivolous accessory.

(page 1349-1358; LOWAS walkaround)

JOHN EGBERT IS BACK. HE’S HERE!!!! Damn it is good to see him. His goofy face and glasses and his cool green slime suit appearing on my screen at the start of Act 4 was such a pleasure and a delight. To be honest I would’ve loved a day or two between the end of the Intermission and the start of Act 4. I am so excited to see John again as well as getting a bunch of new land and lore to explore that it’s super hard to concentrate on both things. The end of the intermission is pretty huge too so one thing at a time.

End Intermission

Beneath the barcode scanner door to English’s vault is a bunker of the kind WV and PM have flown to Jade’s island, complete with a command terminal and some similar establishing shots. For sure this is the bunker that Slick (then the Scurrilous Straggler) hung out in when he first arrived in this wasteland, sending commands to a Sburb player who brought about the apocalypse on this pink and green planet. Slick had a similar city building instinct to WV and succeeded in building this town – it’s uncertain whether he used the bunker’s homing function, but that may be how he met up with the rest of the Midnight Crew and Snowman. The Felt’s species and origin remain unknown. For some reason, Lord English – who still has not been seen now the intermission has ended – wanted to cut off this communication. The terminal allows for communication through time (interesting, considering Slick’s distaste for time based powers) so possibly English was researching this as a way to enhance his or his gang’s own powers?

Slick’s command terminal has twelve windows, in place of WV’s four. On page 1355, we see a Creature of some description – a sprite in the same style as the kids, with pale gray skin, yellow eyes and horns, fangs, and a black shirt with a gray symbol. Behind them floats a pincered, crablike sprite(?). They have a gray cruxite dowel and two black captchalogue cards, and there are purple clouds in the window behind them in the same twelve-square pattern as the monitor.

Barring any major twists I think this is probably carcinoGeneticist, a troll Jade talked to on page 859. They write in gray text, with text color often matching cruxite and/or shirt symbol, and the ‘carcino-’ prefix can refer to either crabs or the astrological sign Cancer, which is their shirt symbol. That’s my star sign also so I’m pretty excited about this little guy, even if he sounded like a jackass while trolling Jade and looks really angry with those fangs.

It seems like Trollslum is another intermission in the Midnight Crew MS Paint Adventure that the beta kids are reading? And therefore possibly a future intermission for actual Homestuck? I’m not sure but these pages set up a fun parallel for carcinoGeneticist and John Egbert, in addition to the ‘weird scientist’ format of both their chumhandles. This intermission did a pretty good job of introducing the Felt and giving them distinct appearances and powers despite their large numbers, so I can imagine a future intermission doing this with twelve trolls, and I’m curious what type of genre the story would slip into for them.

ACT 4

We are dropped into Act 4 with no time to prepare; I have been asking for it, but when the moment came I was not prepared. John has passed through the First Gate, which has portaled him down to the Land of Wind and Shade (!), a planet (!!) ‘where the constellations dance beneath the clouds’ (p.885) (!!!) populated by yellow salamanders (!!!!) who have an extensive mail system (!!!!!) which we the reader get to walk around in and explore (!!!!!!). This mirrors ‘YOU THERE. BOY’ (p.253) where we also get to take over as John after he enters a new area of Sburb.

As previously established John Egbert has probably spent his whole life in western Washington, primarily the suburbs. We don’t know if his family even took vacations. This could be the first other place John has ever been, and it is mystical and magical, glowing blue mushrooms and trees (which look kind of like cruxite!!) surrounding him like some sort of bioluminescent cave video game level. After the day John’s had this place is kind of peaceful when he can find a quiet spot away from the imps. What an absolute dream come true to come to a land this beautiful and get to hang out with such cool, friendly locals. I’m personally delighted by all the visuals on this page, and I’m excited for John to keep exploring LOWAS just so I can see more of it.

John in this panel acts very confused and uncertain about his situation, relying on Nanna’s guidance a lot more than he did while in his house, and nervous around the salamanders (personally, I would be thrilled to meet a secret wizard and behold his robes). That’s definitely a John trait but we don’t get to see so much of his whimsy, stubbornness, problem solving, movie recreations, etc, probably because of the format, which makes me glad this is a single panel. I loved playing through this but wouldn’t want the whole story told in this format.

I’m very grateful for the map linked below the panel, to make sure I’ve explored every corner. I did not 100% Gate 1 because combat is fairly slow and not especially engaging, but the concept is super cool and the programming is impressive. Compared to a video game it feels clunky to play (I got trapped in an endless loop of ejecting and re-captchaloguing items in my sylladex), but as part of a webcomic it’s honestly radical. I feel like I’ve read enough other webcomics at this point to understand how far this is pushing beyond what other authors are doing, and how efficiently this is giving miles of exposition where other comics might take weeks to deliver all this lore (or a handful of wall-of-text comics that readers would complain about).

This panel is PACKED with exposition, from the long distance John and Nanna conversations, and the insights from salamanders. Just like ‘[S] Enter’, this feels like a way to move the story on as quickly as possible. Some of the expository lines do feel clunky, but when it’s paired with the cool visuals and presented in such a novel way, it doesn’t bother me, and I’m sure I’ll reference this page loads just like Nannasprite’s previous exposition. Here are some of the most important things we learn, in my opinion:

John is definitely the Heir of Breath. The Heir’s arrival has long been prophesized among LOWAS’ indigenous creatures; the ‘wind’ in the land’s name presumably links to the ‘breath’ in John’s title.

‘Amphibious and reptilian life forms play a special role in your quest, John.’ ‘Underlings’ (presumably imps, ogres, etc) will deface any frog iconography they come across.

‘The Slumbering One’, who was awake and is now asleep, once cast a spell on the land’s fireflies to trap them within the clouds, much like the trapped firefly WV already rescued from a nugget of amber (p.749).

‘The Slumbering One’ also ‘commissioned’ the underlings (hired them? had them created?) and caused some sort of environmental damage using ‘sludge’, which the salamanders are not happy about.

The mail system is an extremely important part of life on LOWAS to the point of being sacred.

The Second Gate is ‘hidden somewhere in the Land’, although it also might be visible above John’s house (p.251), so there could be multiple possible routes for progression(?)

Jaspersprite’s prototyping has affected the imps on John’s land, who have tentacle, princess and cat characteristics, as well as the imps Rose will fight.

Nannasprite knows that Rose has entered the Medium (and what she looks like).

And most important of all, one salamander essentially gives John a major game quest:

‘The spell I'm sure you've heard from a reliable source cannot be broken unless The Slumbering One is first woken up, and then slain. Then the Breeze will again flow through the Pipes and the Fireflies will be released and allowed to go home. But I do not envy the adventurers who will presumably take on this responsibility!’

Clicking John gives the command ‘I am told your name is John. Is that correct?’, which is closer to the Wayward Vagabond’s ‘BOY WHO IS JOHN. DO AS I SAY’ (p.253) than to the regular player’s ‘John: Action’ command format. So this could indicate that a different future construct is talking to John – possibly the Peregrine Mendicant, because this land is very focused on the mail.

And I LOVE the mail system; it might be my favorite thing about this land. I personally looked in a whole bunch of parcel pyxis, and found several rocks, a shoe, a couple of minitablets, a chunk of amber (firefly not included), a cool frog, and best of all, a jar of bugs. I will guard this jar of bugs with my whole life. The carved minitablets moving through the pipes as a system of trade is very fun worldbuilding.

I guess my one issue with this page is the writing of some of the salamanders. Conceptually they’re great, and I love how their distinct personalities and roles within the culture come through – some are really communicative, while others are unhelpful, some have jobs in the society like mushroom farming, some are entrepreneurial (I would sell my suit to a salamander for 1 Boondollar if it was allowed) and some are outcasts (Crumplehat dishonoring their ancestors). Genuinely I think Hussie did a great job quickly showing a diverse society and hinting at its power structures and politics, but they are SO annoyingly selfconscious about making a fantasy society and it kind of makes me want to punch them? Like I’m okay with some nods to the audience and medium but ‘'GLUB' can basically mean anything I want it to mean. It's really cool having a bullshit language’ and ‘Maybe elders or something like that. Man I don't know. Also, isn't it funny how I'm sort of taking your existence here in stride? I'm treating it like it's no big deal’ do cross a line for me. Like it or not, this isn’t an ironic salamander society for a one off gag, this is a legitimate salamander society that’s going to form an important part of the story. That story isn’t going to be everyone’s thing but being all desperate pick-me about it isn’t going to make people take this story seriously who otherwise wouldn’t.

Anyway to finish on a positive note, getting to look up through the telescope and see John’s house feels very jarring, but also very cool. To see the primary location of the first three acts from a totally different vantage point feels like a point of no return for the story, and maybe John as a character. Hey if things get bad enough down here this kid’s gonna WISH he was homestuck.

[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

[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]

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.

[hom3stuck-d41ly]

==>

You enter the bathroom. There's a damp towel on the floor you can probably use for this crisis. You stop to pay a little respect to one of your BRO'S boys up there. Hey lil' man. How's it hangin'?

> Dave: Captchalogue damp towel.

[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