#i just want to see jade with turtle plush

[ryllen]

there's no wrong answer

PS: +strips that are worth it to put through google translate image feature on phone if you like trejay too much (like me), or if you are interested enough to get fueled some more by more adorable (& funny) stuff than i can make [ 1, 2, 3 ]

[ramshackle-ramblings]

Happy Birthday, Jade and Floyd!

In which Mouse makes some decisions, and Floyd makes a declaration

Sam had gotten in a new collection of articulated metal keychains, mostly of various animals, and Mouse was looking over the offerings. They were spinning the rack, watching the light reflect off the enameled metal, when one in particular caught their eye.

It was a red goldfish, fins hinged so they flapped lazily as the display spun. Mouse picked it up with a little giggle. Riddle might not be pleased with the thought, but it wasn’t his birthday coming up.

They spun the rack again, looking over the keychains more carefully this time.

---

“I’m going into town for a bit, there’s a new little garden store I want to check out,” Mouse slid on their shoes and picked up their keys off the table by the door.

“Wait, I wanna come, too!” Alise cried, rolling off the couch and bouncing to the door, shoving her feet into her boots and jamming the laces into them.

“You can take the time to tie your shoes,” Mouse sighed.

---

“This place is cute,” Mouse said when they entered. “A little more ‘gift shop’ than ‘garden store’, though.”

The little shop was full of garden-themed things - lots of pretty glass vases, throw blankets with herbs and flowers printed on them, windchimes, books on the language of flowers - but very few actual gardening items. Mouse found a pretty pair of gloves, pink with a ditzy print of white flowers and green leaves, but nothing else of particular use.

“Oh, this is neat,” Alise said, taking a hanging glass ball off its hook. It was a little terrarium, with some kind of moss with the tiniest of purple flowers. “I’m gonna get it.”

“You’re getting a living thing?” Mouse asked with disbelief.

“Not for me,” Alise assured them. “For Jade.”

---

“Why are we in this toy store again?” Mouse asked. Not that they minded, really. They were currently hugging their way through a wall of stuffed animals.

“Floyd,” Alise answered simply, clacking a magnetic building toy together and shaking her head.

“Ah, of course,” Mouse said like that made sense, picking up a stuffed broccoli wearing a chef’s hat.

Alise gave up on toys and wandered over to the books. Maybe there would be something interesting on the shelves.

A book with a plain brown cover caught her eye. It said “My Adventure Book” in a curly type, and every letter was a different color. The copies of the books on the shelf all had a ribbon around them to keep them closed, but the display copy was open.

She picked it up and paged through it. Every pair of pages was a picture and some lines for taking notes on one side, and the other side was a scratch off. Some of the ones in the display copy had been scratched off, and each one was some kind of “adventure”, things like challenging the reader to learn card tricks, or building a pillow fort. Yeah, this was perfect.

Alise picked up a copy of the book, and found Mouse with several plush mushrooms arranged in front of them, looking at each one thoughtfully. They eventually decided on the one with white spots on its red cap.

---

The Mostro Lounge was festive, but tasteful. Swags of tulle and twinkling strings of lights decorated the room for the tweels birthday.

“Happy birthday!” Mouse cried, handing each of them a box.

Floyd immediately shook his, and the clinking, rattling sound that came from it stopped him almost as fast. “Did I just break it?” he asked, starting to look upset.

“Open it and see!” Mouse urged him. “You, too,” they said to Jade.

Floyd made quick work of the wrapping paper, and tore the tape holding the cardboard box inside open. He looked into the box, worried that it was just going to be pieces of whatever Mouse had bought him. It wasn’t broken, it was just a box of keychains.

He pulled out the first one, an enameled crocodile whose legs wiggled when you shook it. Then a sea turtle, with floppy fins. A crab who’s claws waggled. A slow smile started on Floyd’s face. An otter whose head and tail waggled. A seagull with flapping wings.

“Sweetfish, you got me everyone!”

“Everyone I could find,” they told him.

Hands full of small metal friends, Floyd wrapped one arm around Mouse in a sideways hug.

“What’d you get?” he asked Jade. “It won’t be as good.”

“Indeed,” Jade chuckled. “I got a fly agaric. A very squishy fly agaric.” 

“Do you like it?” Mouse asked.

“I do,” he answered sincerely. “It will take pride of place on my bed.”

They smiled, extricating themselves from Floyd to give him a quick hug.

“New Shrimoy, look!” Floyd said, jiggling a keychain up and down. “It’s you!”

Alise laughed, setting her presents for the boys down on the table, to admire the wriggling keychain collection with Floyd.

“Is one of those for me?” Jade asked her with a sly smile.

“One is,” she agreed. “Don’t shake it.”

He chuckled and checked the tags on both presents before asking, “Am I the ‘Left Twin’ or the ‘Right Twin’?”

She grinned at him as his hand hovered over first one box and then the other, looking for some sign from her.

“You’re the Right Twin,” she said finally.

“I see,” he said, picking up his present. 

“Oh, Alise, it’s lovely!” He held the terrarium ball up, turning it around and admiring the tiny world within.

Floyd slid his present over and tore the paper off. He looked at the book, and then looked at Alise curiously. He flipped it open halfway, and flipped through a few pages, then went back to the beginning to read the first few pages that explained how to use the book.

“We’re gonna do these together,” he declared.

“Maybe some of them.”

“All of them. It’s my birthday, and I said so.”

[blaperile]

Hiveswap Episode 1 Reaction Part 5: Hallway to attic + Retrieving flashlight!

Day 5 of playing Hiveswap!

Last time we just finished examining the hallway just outside Joey's room and were planning on moving on, let's see what exciting new places we find today! I wonder if we're going to find some more interesting tidbits about what happened to Ms. Claire, and more information about Grandpa and Mom! Also maybe something about who Jude's mother is (seeing as I assume Ms. Claire died before he was born).

Starting at 7:20 PM now.

Heh, is it just me or did the animation of the jewelery chest opening play again when our game loaded?

Let's first try going to the attic, because we know we can't advance there yet prior to having the flashlight.

Oooh, that's a prety small hallway! A big difference from the two previous rooms, hehe.

I like that we can now see the crutches and those other things from a different perspective. I wonder what will happen if we try examining it.

Also, there's a light switch button there, but looks like we can't switch this one off, unlike the one in Joey's room, hehe.

Aha, so that's what that mess is! Just a bunch of stuff that needs to be moved to the attic but hasn't ben moved yet.

Oh dear... we can befriend the caterpillar doll? Do I even want to know what that does. 0_0

Ah, so it's a doll related to her veteriniarian interests! Makes sense. But yeah, there's not much practicing you can do on a plush toy like that. :P

Okay, "befriending" it doesn't do much special, other than walking us over to it, hehe.

Cherub Key && Caterpillar doll ==> Ahahaha, yeah this isn't a doll appropriate for storing an item in it (though the Puppy Surprise is creepy enough to be holding items too :o ).

Pffff, both the caterpillar AND the slinky are sitting comfortably in a pretty awkward position and not moving anywhere, haha.

Cherub Key && slinky ==> Oh??? That's pretty weird. Does the key attract metal for some reason? Hmmm... mysterious.

What the frick are all those things at the top of the stairs? What's that weird giant pillar thingy in the corner? And what's with that white doll with the green and red eye? I find that pretty suspicious, considering what the pairing of red and green means in Homestuck and Hiveswap...

It also kind of reminds me of that very early concept art of a First Guardian-like axolotl that I haven't thought about in ages. Does it have anything to do with that, for some reason?

And what's that pink thing? Is that another Puppy Surprise? 0_0

Also, looks like there's some old cleaning material there. Someone probably made the noble intention at some point to clean there, and then decided not to or forgot about it. :P

...Maybe Mom did that. Considering her odd cleaning behaviour in Homestuck, that wouldn't surprise me, haha.

Ha, okay. The description for that pile of junk is exactly the same as for the junk downstairs.

So, I bet we're probably not capable of entering the attic door yet, as long as we don't have the flashlight. Let's see...

Huh, so Grandpa spends a lot of time up here (when he's home), tending to his artifacts. I guess it's kind of like the attic in Jade's home, keeping his most valuable and weird possessions up there?

The question is where he got the mysterious portal from that Joey will be using to go to Alternia though. Did he find it on his travels somewhere?

That thing just brings up so many questions to my mind. I mean, Dammek's probably got a similar portal in his hive, and where did he get it from? Is it the same portal, brought to Earth by The Condesce centuries later? And did The Condesce then make sure it ended up with Grandpa for Joey to use?

Is it all part of some grand scheme of Doc Scratch and Lord English? If so, why? What big importance would it have for Joey to go to Alternia and for Dammek to go to Earth?

This is all clearly taking place after the Summoner's rebellion, which was, as far as we know, the last event in Alternia's history to have a major impact on the rest of its timeline, so what other important thing could Joey's presence on Alternia possibly influence?

Same thing with Dammek, there's not really anything important that needs to happen on Earth before Sburb takes place, right? Skaianet is already founded, and Grandpa will soon find the technology in the Frog Temple to start developing Sburb, so I'm not sure what importance Dammek could play on Earth.

That's all some really big questions, and I'm curious to see if we'll find answers to them in this game!

Oh jeez I kind of went on a tangent, didn't I? xD

Let's get back to the situation at hand.

Okay, so the attic door is locked. Which means we'll have to find a key somewhere! God what is it with all the keys in this house. :mspa:

Uh oh, we're peering through the keyhole.

OOOOOOOOOH, it's this little sequence that we've seen in trailers! With some mysterious music to accompany it. Our first glance at the mysterious portal!

But... what I find really curious is Joey's reaction! It looks like she doesn't recognize the portal! What's up with that?? Has she never been up there before? Or is the portal a recent addition to the attic (but like plainWonder says, that would be weird seeing as the Cherub Key has been here for years).

Also, how the fuck did this giant portal get up in the attic?!

Wait... this is Grandpa we're talking about, the person who also got a giant spaceship into the Medium and who is an alternate version of Jake who had a Fetch Modus that allowed him to captchalogue humongous things. Nevermind. xD

Oh boy, Joey's talking to Jude again! I guess she'll probably ask him if he knows where the key is. But I wonder if she's also going to ask something about what that thing is in there? And more interestingly, if Jude knows something more about it?

Haha, so Jude knew the attic door was locked. I love Joey's deadpan comment about it.

Oooooooooooooooh, nice! So there's some specific dialog of Jude because we don't have the flashlight yet! Hahaha, so he'll only tell us where the key is after we retrieve the flashlight.

The question is though, is it technically possible to already find the key and enter the attic (and by extension the Cherub portal) before we even retrieve the flashlight?

I wonder if it's perhaps in the basement? That would be the perfect excuse to have us go all the way through the entire house, haha.

....Or wait, maybe the key is in the tree hut! And then Jude could send the key to Joey with that pidgeon we've seen in trailers and concept art! I could see that happening too.

Cherub Key && Attic Door => WELP. We quickly closed that narration because it looks like we weren't supposed to read that yet, 'cause it gave away something about the location of the attic key. :(

Alright, let's try to forget that and move on.

Moving back to the previous hallway (again that animation of the jewelery box opening. Maybe the hallway really is spooky and the jewelery chest is haunted! :mspa:).

And now, moving to the T-junction and see what's there!

Ooooooh, we're looking at the hallway from a different perspective! It gives a different view at the statue and the Sufferer doll, plus some new things! Apparently Jude's room was right there, very close to Joey's, haha.

But... that Lord English castle though. Grandpa/Jake, why do you always need to have this stuff that so creepily resembles Lord English things. 0_0

I like that you can see more of those monsters flying through that window outside.

And oh hey, there are the stairs to go down, along with the infamous family portraits we've seen a lot of teases of!

I wonder if we can enter Jude's room and/or the door next to it? It could be that we can't go into certain rooms of their house, like the bathroom. Seeing as the bathroom always seems to be a room we can't enter in the homes of Homestuck, while we can only enter them in the homes of Homestuck boys.

Well, I guess both a boy and a girl live here, but seeing as Joey's the main character I'm betting we can't enter the bathroom. :mspa:

Other than that, oh god, plainWonder has a point! There are a few pink turtle figures there, as a reference to the Turtle consorts in Homestuck! Plus they also seem to be some sort of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, hahahahaha.

...

I wonder if it's a coincidence that such a turtle figure is lying down just outside the Lord English castle, what with how Caliborn once killed a Turtle consort in Homestuck. :P

I find it interesting how there seems to be a crown on top of Lord English's head, even though he's never been depicted with a crown before. Though I guess he IS a lord, haha.

Oh man plainWonder just made an amazing remark: it seems like the two pillars on this castle were first coloured in gold, but it largely wore off on one of the sides, so that there's only one truely gold coloured pillar left. Just like Lord English's golden tooth.

And what's with that box with colourful... pins? For a second I thought they were just the B1 Kid colours, but it seems like there's more colours there, haha.

Finally, that dragon painting between the two doors. It looks awfully familiar to me? Could it be that something like that appeared in The Inaugural Death of Mister Seven? Or am I thinking of something else here...

Huh, strangely we've now got TWO options when examining the statue! On the other side of the hallway we had only one option. Now we can also "use", but apparently that just triggers another comment about how Joey doesn't like using the darts as ammo seeing as she doesn't like guns, hehe.

Pfffff, welp. We can't even examine the Lord English castle. I was actually hoping she'd give a funny remark about that, haha.

Let's examine the weird dragon painting.

So okay, according to plainWonder we've seen it before in concept art and there were some theories about a hidden meaning to it? I don't remember that.

But in any case, he does have a point that the lowest one looks a little bit like an axolotl, and that the right one kind of looks like it has antlers!

Also, the left one kind of looks like it has a Lord English-like scarf plus green wings? The plot thickens. :P

...Huh. It's kind of weird that Joey specifically remarks the eye of the lowest dragon as seemingly following her. To me, it looks like the eyes of the upper two dragons also seem to be staring in the same direction.

Does it have a symbolic meaning?

Or... maybe Jude's room is right behind this painting and it turns out that Jude carved a hole in the wall so he could remove that eye and peek through it to keep an eye on the hallway for suspicious things, and whenever Joey feels like that eye is following her it's actually just Jude looking through it. xD

Huh, when we zoomed back out on the rest of the room, those colorful pins seemed to flicker for a second? I wonder what their deal is?

Also, that closet to the left of the door seems to have a kind of weird S-like shape, haha.

And uh, what's with that shark figure and skull onthat shelf? Especially, what's with that eyepatch on the skull. xD

I'm suddenly thinking of all those one-eyed people in Homestuck. Though I believe Vriska's the only one to have ever worn an eyepatch? I doubt this is supposed to be a reference to any of them. :mspa:

plainWonder's got a good point that this door, right next to Jude's room, might be the hall closet where Joey's flashlight is! So let's wait a bit before we examine that and let's first examine everything else we can before opening it (also, I bet we probably can't go downstairs before we retrieve the flashlight?).

A... lite brite? I've literally never heard about that before. But it [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite-Brite"]IS real[/url] and looks like something fun!

OOOOOOOOOOH, by using the "Lite" option we can let Joey make her symbol on the lite brite! I wonder if we try it again if she can also make some other symbols?

Also, cue "you waste exactly four minutes on this tomfoolery". :mspa:

Pressing Lite again, she makes a Tesseract symbol!!! :O I love how it's exactly like the Bec symbol we all know, except with eyes and a mouth, haha. That's so cool. I wonder if she'll also make Jude's symbol and Mom's symbol? :O

N'AWWWWWWWW, she made herself, Jude and Tesseract. That is incredibly cute.

Also, I should mention that I really like how you can slowly see the board change as she makes a new design, and how the pins on the floor also change when she makes a new design.

Ahahaha, next up is the Cherub spiral symbol! She obviously made it because of the pattern on her key, but I can't help but feel nervous with that Lord English castle right there. :P

Also, this just helped me to notice that that Lord English castle doesn't have any red cheeks.

Okay, looks like that's all for the patterns on this lite brite!

Cherub Key && Lite Brite ==> HMMMMMMMMM, that's really mysterious. I find it strange that she "knows" she's seen it before, but can't exactly say when it has happened. Could it have been in her dreams? Like, has she been having some mysterious dreams (no, I'm not necessarily suggesting she's a Sburb player just yet :P). Also, her "in your mind's eye" immediately made me think of Terezi.

JOEY CONFIRMED FOR HERO OF MIND. :mspa:

Tap shoes && Lite Brite ==> PFFFFFFFFFFFFFF, I love how it suddenly seems to be turning into a running gag that if Joey tapdances she'd fall off stairs, just like it already was in the stairway to the attic.

Huh, interestingly the only thing we can examine in the left corner of the hallway is the cabinet! I actually thought it would have been those other items, haha.

Are we going to look at the contents of this cabinet?

Ahahaha, okay no, we're just examining the lamp on top of it. Never mind what I said. :mspa:

Cherub Key && Lamp cabinet ==> Pffff, so now Joey's trying out the Cherub Key on this. Yes Joey, I highly doubt it fits there. xD

plainWonder does have a good point that this seems to suggest those drawers on the cabinet are locked. HMMMMMM :p

Alright, let's examine Jude's door now!

Oh, we're zooming in on the door, and the Lord English castle is still in good view! Can we NOW click on that castle? :O

...Nope, we cant'. xD

Looking at his door more closely, my eye is mostly drawn to that drawing of a black ball with wings and sharp teeth. Other than the red eyes and legs, doesn't this look suspiciously like the monsters flying around outside? I wonder if that's a coincidence or not.

Oh??? The narration is really interesting here. Jude's got a pet in there!!! My first thought was a hamster, to go with the hamster tube that seems to be exiting his room, but I find it weird that it's an animal Joey DOESN'T wants to deal with! Which is pretty remarkable, seeing as she likes animals so much!

Whatever it is, I assume it can get around with that hamster tube? So that would mean it's at least something relatively small.

Looks like the identity of this pet and the contents of Jude's room will remain a mystery for now. Perhaps until Hauntswitch?

Joey's mention of traps in Jude's room reminds me of John and Nanna's habits of putting buckets on top of the door to fall on whoever opens the door, and also of course Bro's traps for Dave in their appartment.

And there's another mention of Joey wanting to avoid an encounter with Jude's pet. Mysterious. :o

Tap shoes && Jude's door ==> So, Joey especially wants to avoid setting off the pet by tapping! Sounds like it's a pet that could be a real nuisance or even dangerous if it gets upset...

Haha, alright! We can't go downstairs without our flashlight, like I thought. I like how there's a mention about how we've already been to the attic.

Well then, let's see what's behind that door which is presumably the hallway closet (I mean, it's not like there are anymore options :P)

Okay, so it is indeed the hallway closet.

Huh, apparently it contains old belongings of Joey? I wonder what else is in there, other than the flashlight (if anything special)?

Oooooooooh, looks like the ballet shoes are in there! I kinda forgot we hadn't retrieved those yet, makes sense that they're in there! Along with some other old stuff and some clothes, it seems.

Ahhhhh, apparently we need to use our tap shoes to make that box fall! Finally we can use our tapping skills to actually make something fall, haha. xD

Also, who even put that box up there?

Tap shoes && Box ==> Ooooh, cool animation as the box falls down! So, looks like there's only 3 things in there: the flashlight, the ballet shoes, and... a bag of chips? Why is that in there? Or does it perhaps have something inside (other than chips) that is of importance to her?

HOLY MOTHER OF BATMAN we suddenly gain a lot of new items: the ballet shoes, the flashlight (without batteries GOD DANG IT so that's why I remember seeing more batteries in the concept art, haha), a bag of pet treats (oh man... are we going to use that to get Tesseract out of the dog house), and also a bunch of flippos!

Goddang that is a preposterous amount of new items and also new combinations on all the items in the rooms we've visited so far!

New conversation with Jude incoming! He's probably going to mention the location of the attic key, and maybe he'll also have an idea where we can find more batteries (my bet right now is that we'll have to take batteries out of that radio we've seen in concept art).

Pfff, so much is going on and Jude is concerned about his pogs being kept safe. xD

Kind of reminds me of the Pokémon anime where James has a ridiculous concern for keeping his crown corks safe.

Now that I'm thinking about it, Jude's formal way of speaking and talking in upper caps reminds me a bit of WV's manner of talking to John, haha!

Huh, so Jude wants Joey to head over to "the trophy room". Probably a room similar to the Grand Foyer in Jade's room, with all those trophies he had on the wall?

Alright, we're calling it a day here, at 9:35 PM.

Tomorrow, the first thing we'll do is start examining all the combinations of the pet treats, pogs, ballet shoes and powerless flashlight on the items we have encountered so far! That'll probably take up enough of our playtime tomorrow, haha.