#i love the lalondes can you tell

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

TT: I went to the store with my mom and said I wanted the lesbian candle. TT: She looked at me and said, and I quote; MOM: u have enouhg lesbian shit already how bout getitng a gf for once thag's pretty lesiban to me TT: During pride month, too. Like, Mom???

TT: Can you guys stop rebubbling my worst moment ever?

[homuku]

finally did this

[cucumber-icepop]

Rosemary Month Day 9: Rain

I want to say "another quick sketch" but this actually took me like 40 minutes. Rose loves the rain, Kanaya doesn't really like it that much.

[chimericalconfinement]

i know i said im inactive but here's a roxy because they're silly

[yaoirotic]

okay fine I’ll post more doodles.

[tricycleclownfreak]

Rose is so right jade does look good in green

[thewertsearch]

I guess everyone is reacting to their parents' deaths in this arc. Dave's relationship with Bro has always been a little... complicated, so this should be a very interesting conversation.

TG: oh my fucking god […] TG: we just got done talking and agreed it would be awesome if you didnt bother me for a while […] GC: OH GC: TH4TS R1GHT GC: 1 FORGOT! TG: it was five seconds ago

Girl, get your damn timelines in order!

GC: D1D YOU LOV3 H1M D4V3? TG: no

I believe you.

There's something about the Strider brothers which I noticed a while ago, but haven't had the opportunity to talk about. This is the perfect moment to discuss it, though, because it explains a lot about why Dave is the way he is.

So - let's talk about the Strife fights.

When John first attacked his father with a hammer, I decided to roll with the assumption that this fight was symbolic, rather than literal. John loves his dad, and it can be safely assumed that he doesn't want to kill the guy.

Instead, this scene serves as a stand in for the familial strife between father and son. John finds his father's parenting style to be mildly frustrating, and their interactions sometimes feel like a fight to him.

Likewise, Rose (probably) isn’t actually going for Mom with those needles. Instead, their fight represents Mom’s 'ironic' negligence, and the gifts that Rose refuses to believe are from the heart. The Lalonde relationship is clearly more fraught than the Egbert one, but I don't think Rose actually wants to skewer Ms Lalonde.

Jade doesn't really fight her Grandpa, but their Strife clearly demonstrated how deeply in-denial she is - not about his death, but about the fact that her life isn't normal. She's desperately trying to have the same childhood that John and Rose are describing, but she can't, because she doesn't have a parent to bicker with.

Now, I'm sure you've guessed where I'm going with this. What, exactly, did Dave's Strife scenes represent?

Well...

...first of all, it's worth noting that Dave is the only Player to explicitly describe the events of his Strife to a third party. We've never heard John reminiscing about bludgeoning Dad, but Dave's constantly complaining about getting beaten up by puppets.

And - rather more worryingly - Dave is the only Player to retain his Strife injuries, even after this ostensibly 'metaphorical' fight is over.

In fact, one of those Strife injuries still marks him to this day.

The point I am obviously dancing around is that I don't think Dave's Strife was a metaphor at all. Unlike his friends, there's no pretense to these fights. They're literal. Dave's brother routinely attacked him.

Odds are, this was Bro's way of 'preparing' Dave for the game he surely knew was coming - but you don't need me to tell you that he took it way too far. The guy might have been Dave's assigned Guardian, but he really shouldn't have been raising anyone.

[tgcg]

fond regards

… OKAY? AND WHO IS SAYING THAT? WHAT THE FUCK?

I -- ACTUALLY, WHO THE HELL JUST TOLD ME THIS INFORMATION? I'M COMPLETELY ALONE RIGHT NOW. ARE YOU SEEING THAT?

ARE YOU WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW? BASK IN THIS OVERWHELMING PRESENCE OF NEGATIVE SPACE. THE ABSOLUTE ABSENCE OF AIR SURROUNDING ME.

THERE IS FUCK ALL. NOT A THING.

NOT EVEN SOME KIND OF SEATING APPARATUS FOR ME TO STAGE THIS INTERVENTION FOR YOU ON. I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO "RAW DOG" IT OR WHATEVER THE FUCK DAVE WOULD DESCRIBE THIS AS.

I -- I MEAN… FIRST OF ALL. SHIT.

THANKS, I GUESS… FOR DOING THAT?

LOVING ME.

WHATEVER YOUR VERSION OF "LOVE" IS.

OKAY, ENOUGH BULLSHIT.

… LOOK. I DON'T KNOW WHO IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS RECEIVING THIS MESSAGE. NOR THROUGH WHAT KIND OF TENTH-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE PROCESSING PLATFORM OR WHATEVER-THE-SHIT DEVICE IT IS BEING DELIVERED.

AND FRANKLY I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF A FUCKING WEEK ALREADY TO BE DEALING WITH SOME POSSIBLY HIGHER LEVEL OF BEING THAT JUST "LOVES ME".

I WAS FLYING WAY PAST THE THRESHOLD FOR BEING ABLE TO GIVE A FUCK ABOUT EXISTENTIALISM BY TUESDAY AT THE LATEST.

SO SURE, THIS MIGHT AS WELL HAPPEN.

BUT IF YOU'RE STILL LISTENING TO ME RIGHT NOW: I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THIS IS WHAT YOU'D CALL A "PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP", ASSUMING YOUR UNIVERSE HAS ANY CAPACITY FOR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS BEYOND BASELESS QUOTE-ENQUOTE "LOVE" OF THOROUGHLY UNLOVABLE INDIVIDUALS. HONESTLY, NOT A GOOD SIGN THAT YOU CHOSE ME OF ALL PEOPLE TO HEAR THIS, BY THE WAY! THIS IS NOT A GREAT LOOK FOR YOUR SUPPOSED NTH-DIMENSIONAL GODLINESS!

THE FIRST THING A TROLL WOULD FEEL TOWARDS YOU RIGHT NOW IS PITY. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT.

AND THERE'S NOTHING PARASOCIAL ABOUT THAT WHATSOEVER, BECAUSE APPARENTLY WE'RE NOW MUTUALLY AWARE OF EACH OTHER.

I LEARNED ALL ABOUT PARASOCIAL BULLSHIT FROM ROSE WHEN I WAS TELLING HER ABOUT TROLL WILL SMITH, SO I'VE BEGRUDGINGLY BECOME KIND OF A MASTER ON THE TOPIC.

WAIT, FUCK. DOES THAT MEAN YOU AREN'T BEING PARASOCIAL TOWARDS ME ANYMORE? HOW MUCH DO I HAVE TO TALK TO YOU BEFORE IT STARTS JUST BEING A REGULAR RELATIONSHIP? WHAT ARE THE BOUNDARIES HERE.

DON'T GET THE WRONG IDEA BY THE WAY. I DON'T HAVE A PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH TROLL WILL SMITH OR ANYTHING. THAT WAS JUST A CLASSIC LALONDE "MASSIVE ILLOGICAL REACH IN CONJECTURE THAT IS COMPLETELY OFF-BASE AND GENERALLY ONLY DONE TO MAKE FUN OF YOU IN A SNIDE AND INSUFFERABLE WAY, INEVITABLY LEADING INTO AN HOUR-LONG DIATRIBE ON PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO FUCK WITH YOU".

SHE JUST DOESN'T GET IT. HE'S COOL AS FUCK AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT! THE AMOUNT OF BULLSHIT THE DERSE HUMANS CAN EXTRAPOLATE FROM THE SIMPLEST OF SPONGEDEAD NOTIONS IS MIND-BOGGLING TO ME. IT'S AS INCREDIBLE AS IT IS MONUMENTALLY FUCKING AGGRAVATING.

ANYWAYS, SINCE WE'RE APPARENTLY IN THE REALM OF SHARING COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED SENTIMENTS WITH PEOPLE WHO POSSIBLY DON'T EVEN EXIST, I HAVE SOME ADVICE FOR YOU: IMPROVE YOUR STANDARDS. MAYBE LOOKING INSIDE YOUR OWN DIMENSION WOULD BE A GOOD START. AND I'D SUGGEST SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T WASTE HIS TIME TALKING TO THIN FUCKING AIR IN VAST WHITE EXPANSES LIKE THIS ONE.

JUST A THOUGHT.

JEGUS, TALKING TO NOTHING IS HARD. I FEEL LIKE I'M JUST SPUTTERING COMPLETE INANE GARBAGE IN CIRCLES LIKE A DELIRIOUS WRIGGLER HERE. IS THIS HOW DAVE FEELS ALL THE TIME? THIS IS HORRIBLE.

WHERE'S THE EXIT?

[weirdmageddon]

dave saw how jade reacted to the impaled crow and thought “oh shit shes sensitive to seeing death”

and because he cares about her took care of these in advance from then on; he thought to himself “ok i will keep that in mind so she doesnt basically flip the fuck out”

and then she saw a dead doomed dave, one he hadn’t intended on her being able to see

and that was the one she messaged him about

but the entire time dave was having that conversation with her he knew that in a little while that when hunting for frogs jack would appear and they’d battle and she’d wind up accidentally shooting him to death and have to kiss his corpse to wake him up on derse.

and he can’t tell her that because if he did, he Knows she would prevent it from happening, dragging them into a doomed timeline because its not supposed to go any other way

and he was probably thinking “oh my fucking god. poor jade” especially because seeing him dead was the reason she messaged him like that all freaked out

which is why he said that really cryptic but causality-free thing to her in advance

right after that conversation with dave, jade created jadesprite in the hopes that she’d have becs powers and could go fight jack which quickly deteriorated but yeah this

“anyone you loved” and follows that sentence up by refering to dave specifically.. WAHHHHHH

also i wanna analyze that:

i know love can mean different things, whether friendship or romantic but its clear that she thinks fondly of him at the very least if she felt the need to namedrop dave specifically

as for another person she loves and was killed by jack, there was her brother john (a platonic/friendship/familial love of course) but i dont think she saw jack kill john up-close because her dream self was dead at that point so she couldnt see it happen in the clouds from where she was on lofaf. jade was awake on lofaf when the incinisphere lit up with the quest bed ascension twinklies, and she didn’t even have the spectagoggles yet when john ascended so she couldnt see his corpse anyway. john’s corpse was on lowas and his dream self on skaia became god tier. so jade didn’t see john die directly.

that conversation she had with jadesprite also happened before jade saw dad egbert and mom lalonde killed by jack through her goggles. that means what she said was before rose was killed, because rose was killed after jade informed her of jack’s murder of her mom and dad egbert and she went grimdark. and i dont think jade harbors any affection towards dave’s bro who she saw dead through the goggles enough to consider him someone she loves…she was sad on dave’s behalf though

who else was there at that point in the story she “loved” and was killed by jack besides dave, then? just something i noticed on a reread

and that event was the key reason why dave stopped time traveling. he couldnt handle being burdened with acting casual about his impending death AND while knowing his death will be at jade’s own hands in front of her in person, and that she will have to kiss his corpse without explanation or clarification from dave’s part. he knows she’s sensitive to even seeing dead bodies just through some goggles, so the body of her best friend / someone she “loves” and first live person she meets in like a decade killed accidentally from her own gun would be so much worse for her

[nutzworth]

was on twitter (oops) and theres a ton of people going apeshit over kanaya in the upd8 (hs:bc upd8) right obviously and i saw one (1) post about "still hating hs2. jade would not fucking do this" and like. huff.

fosmf if youre there and youve read the hsbc update tell me your thoughts on this. im so curious

in MY opinion, i really like jade in postcanon in general. OBVIOUSLY, the stuff with davekat SUCKS + IS WEIRD + outb of character (i doubt jade would cross boundaries in such a weird way? like a girl can take a hint esp for the people she loves.) but in the update it goes over jade and why she did what she did and like a cute little summary of the yiffy situation. i never really hated yiffy? and i hate yiffy even less with the update. narration + backstory with reasoning did its job.

SUMMARY, AS I SEE IT: jade was dating around mortals but came to the conclusion that they dont want HER, they want to say they dated the GOD OF SPACE. they wanted clout and she hated it. and i dont know. i think she went a little crazy cus of it. she was like I am truly alone in this world. Im cursed to be alone. Im doomed because of my aspect. How can i fix this. solution: HAVE A BABY. and it needs to be one of her god friends. she cant have a baby with a random mortal. john and dave are boys; they cant bear children. she cant have a baby with roxy or jane because she doesnt know them well. that leaves: rose lalonde so jade has a baby with rose lalonde and keeps it a secret. she talks to jane, and this is fine because its largely professional, and she makes sure yiffany (the baby) doesnt become a celebrity. yiffy is normal. yiffy is a normal kid and she has a normal life. jade needs her to have a normal life. jade needs to feel that connection with normality that she never had, jade needs to make sure yiffy doesnt go through the same damn thing she did. and she keeps it a secret. she bonded with rose. if kanaya finds out, thatll tear all three of them apart. jade craves the company. jade craves friendship and closeness. but of course, shes a space player and shes doomed. so they find out. and yiffy gets on the news. and everything is torn

ANYWAY: i think thats so cool. i think thats a great explanation. i think jade WOULD do that is the thing. its a logical train of thought and she makes some stupid mistakes and bad decisions but overall its rational. if i was in her situation i would probably do the same thing. yiffany longstocking is like jade harleys' my love mine all mine by mitski you get me. jade harley yearns for the closeness and having a baby can fill that. what other option did she have? she was crazy

interested to hear other peoples thoughts on this. i may just be biased because i love jade harley

[tipsygnostalgy]

"It was never that serious," said Rose Lalonde calmly. — a deranged rant on update rose + philosophy

now that rose has officially hopped onto the "nothing matters" track of things i'm inclined to believe faux-absurdism is a sleeping agent in the strilondian neuroticism paradigm moreso than a real plot point but yeah anyway i have mixed feelings

on one hand i can definitely see why people don't like her / think she's ooc. the classic process of "cause major change in a character" goes inciting incident -> development -> big blowout moment demonstrating the change (appropriated + bastardized from mr freytag himself), and in my personal opinion the comic jumped the gun on this one? we get the inciting incident (candy timeline's irrelevancy) and both irl timeline and character arcwise are plunged straight into the blowout with very little time in between. there's a tiny hint with the light symbol playing a role (more on this later) but for the most part it feels sudden and unjustified if you're insane about rose + understand sufficient epilogues metaphilosophy + and are coded specifically to like this type of shit you Get Exactly What's Going On and fucking dig it. if you don't, you think they've put her through a meat grinder and i can see both

on the OTHER. dear god i'm sucking on the sweet teats of knowledge and absurdism like a baby at the bath. her swapping her constant need of "why" to "why not" and both rose's constant struggle with Light mixing with the irrelevancy of candy and coalescing in one big idgaf war except.

except on the third hand it's worth mentioning that she's also half-assing absurdism so bad that it gets pathetic. her last line "I knew you would forgive me anyway" actually solidifies this arc as one big tantrum that they plan on developing into Not A Thing (hopefully) because she doesn't tell kanaya "I knew it wouldn't matter." the forgiveness is what she focuses on. the forgiveness matters. kanaya still matters to her whether this dumbass light player is consciously aware of this or not and i think ironically KANAYA knows this better than she does which is part of her saying she refuses to mediate this one. on a rosemary level this is jaw-dropping on a character level BOOOO

MAKE HER ABSURDIST! make her sit there and do things not for the sake of kanaya but literally only to do them. make her sit there and genuinely believe the only obligation in reality is to live it. dirk fails at being a true absurdist too he starts injecting meaning into life like there's motherfucking nothing and rose actually acknowledging there's zero meaning whatsoever but living anyway and in that process learning to love life (juxtaposes jake's adventurer) would juxtapose her to him but NOOOOOO she has to sit there and go Well there's no meaning to Life. It was Never that serious. Fuck you. but then refuse to kill herself (thereby proving camus right once again) then now what. now What. Ohhhh "nothing" matters cool then die. dirk's suicide was meaningful because he broke that formula okay he went There's no meaning to life? Ok. then immediately hung himself he DEVOURED that sequence he subverted absurdism back into existentialism which is cool but ROSE COULD PERPENDICULAR THAT!

[laurasauras]

rose lalonde. that's it, that's the question.

isn't it just! god i love rose.

it's that she's one of those girls who pretends she has it all together, who thinks she's worth more because she is witty and can come up with brilliant burns exactly on cue, but she's also the girl who pretended her cat could talk to her and who would pretend to have a magnetic W as a mustache and is 13 and was probably making potions in the mud with a stick last week.

she's as cool and calm as a forest pond, and you know there are depths there but you assume those depths are things like "can commune with gods (really)" and "maybe she's telling the truth when she says she's read proust". and then you're 14 and so is she and you're finding out that the depths are "she learned how to cope with being bored and isolated and doomed from a mother she maybe shouldn't have forgiven".

and oh, i have all the pity in the world for momlonde. how awful to be put on this planet to raise a child who will end the world before creating a new one? how could you make friends under those circumstances, knowing they would all die because of what the universe has planned for your little girl? how could you sleep at night knowing that at the very least she'll be traumatised, but it's much more likely that she'll just be dead.

but rose didn't know any of that.

rose just knew that her mother wasn't around, not even to make sure she had the capacity to feed herself, let alone making sure that she was.

she knew that if she screamed that she wanted to kill herself or jammed needles in a (dead) powerpoint, her mother wouldn't talk to her, but she might be given a pony or something.

she knew that the only time her mother was around was when she was drunk, and when she was drunk she would be able to tell rose that she loved her and that she was perfect, and maybe she was merry or maybe she was crying but whatever it was, it was fucking hard to trust. because being sober next to a drunk person's sincerity is unbearable. you know that if they weren't drunk they wouldn't be crying or saying all of that, so it doesn't fucking count. and if you were so perfect and loved, then why would she even need to drink. you're 10 years old and you're supposed to be the centre of your mother's whole life, but you're not and you never have been. you're just the inconvenient kid she remembers when her breath stinks and she can't pronounce your name anymore.

and when you're 14 and she's dead and you're staring at the code you found while trying to make apple juice for someone who is your family (but you can't express your love for him), you remember being 4 and standing in her high heels, your ankles barely poking out of the toe of the shoe. and now they fit pretty damn well.

you're on a journey you can't speed up, knowing that at the end of all this bullshit that doesn't matter the people closest to you might be hurt, might be dead, and the air smells just a little bit doomed ... and in that golden window after two drinks but before five, your mom was charming and funny and beautiful, and she could actually say what she felt. if you're going on your first date with a woman who might make the meaningless tedium worth it, maybe you could use a little of that.

BUT ROSE ISN'T JUST HER TRAUMA!

Rose Is The Flame I Am Drawn To. She Makes Me Feel More Alive Just By Glancing At Me. I Am Bewitched By Her Intelligence And Electrified By Her Humour And Devoted To Her, Just Her, Everything That She Is

rose acts like shes a princess and like the rest of us should feel grateful that she even notices we exist but when you get down to it no one carries a bit like her. she matches me every goddamn step no matter what and she gets what its like to care without making some kind of deal about it

rose is just kind of a dork. it's funny how everyone thinks she's scary. okay, so in a battle between chuck norris and rose lalonde, chuck is going home crying about his kicked nuts and his mommy issues, but just because rose is badass doesn't mean she isn't also the kind of girl who snorts milk through her nose laughing at me pretending to be a walrus with breadsticks. last week. we are 40.

(dear god i'm sorry about the inaccuracy of those text colours, it hurts me too)

so yeah. rose lalonde. that's it, that's the answer.

[mysoulusesumbrellasinthesun]

I have decided that the Lalondes are Maori and furthermore I am more correct about this than anyone has ever been.

My evidence:

Rose

Engaged in a battle with her mother of who can say the most eloquent (and longest) karakia because she always hated saying them so now tries to continuously one up her mother by being slightly more precise with hers. Dinner is always an hour late because of this.

Despises the insistence of motherhood in Maori folklore (especially ones her mother teaches her) and finds them to be incredibly stifling.

She hates doing kapa haka and hates that women cannot do a full haka, so she puts on a one woman performance herself when she is young during a “ridiculous” matariki celebration her mother was putting on, and did a male haka by herself. Mom found this extremely adorable and insists on playing the video every Matariki, which Rose hates.

Her favorite nursery rhyme growing up was “One Day a Taniwha”

Rose loves taniwha, though she acts like she doesn’t.

On the meteor she wishes she had actually learned about her culture with her mother when she had the chance instead of only engaging with it ironically and feels very separate from the others on the meteor because of it.

After she is on the meteor towards the end of homestuck I think she reconciles her heritage with her lack of motherliness in the idea of women less as mothers but as powerful dangerous people (a la the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-pō, who kills Maui with her thighs)

She is so annoyed with the lack of taking care of the land when they reach Earth C. She did not really consider Papatuanuku as her mother before but she realizes now after seeing how all the other kids and especially some of the trolls behave, acting like the land is something to be used and discarded she gets extremely annoyed. She, Roxy, and Jade bond over this.

Her mother gave her a Koru pounamu to celebrate her becoming a woman on her first period. She resentented it and refused to wear it, but eventually accepted it and passed it down to Roxy who was overjoyed to receive it.

She instead wears a Hei Tiki pounamu necklace Dave gave to her as a wedding present. She acts aloof about it but anyone who knows her can tell she is deeply moved by the gift. She keeps it on at all times.

Roxy

There is an inherent horror to looking all around you to see that Tangaroa has drowned his mother.

The idea that The Condesce, a colonizer, took over the world and left Roxy stranded on a tiny piece of land with almost none of her people or culture left, and she can never sail out on a waka like her ancestors or a sailboat like the ancestors of her ancestors to see other places, trapped in a tiny select space. It’s a horror I can’t really describe.

Roxy desperately wants to know what tribe she comes from and who she descends from, to find that little bit of her family. She is very quiet on the day she finds out she was produced from herself. 

Roxy misses Papatuanuku, she misses her chance to meet both her mothers before they died. She messages Dirk about this while drunk but he does not fully get it.

As a trans woman, finds the women in Maori mythology and culture to be aspirational figures of power and motherhood.

She thanks the appropriate gods for any food she can scavenge for in her apocalypse but never really has the time to learn a full karakia.

Teaches the carapacians kapa haka, they aren’t very good at it but they do make up for it with enthusiasm

When she enters the session she insists on hongi (sharing breath) with each of her friends. It goes like this:

Dirk: Has been preparing for this for years. Has the whole technique down. Confident cool guy swagger, but not too much, he doesn’t look like he’s trying too hard either. He and Roxy bump their heads together and fall over. This looks ridiculous.

Jake: Roxy explains and leans in to do a hongi with him but he kisses her on both cheeks like he is french. Roxy thinks this is hilarious.

Jane: Needs at least 6 tries to get it right but keeps on insisting on doing it again so she can participate in Roxy’s culture appropriately, and then a couple more times because she keeps failing on purpose to make Roxy laugh. They are both in a fit of giggles by the time she has worked it out and it becomes their standard greeting.

Hal: Is a computer, but Roxy does hold the nose bridge of the glasses up to her face like they are doing a hongi which Hal does appreciate.

Calliope: Gets it right first try!

Goes somewhat crazy hanging out in nature on Earth C. (Where is Roxy? In The Mud. Of course.)

I cannot express in words as well, the sheer euphoria Roxy feels standing on the ground on Earth C. 

[fursectomy]

“you may not like the rosemary cheating plotline but its in character.”

okay. okay. listen. rose and kanaya having a fucked up imperfect relationship? i get that. they were 13 or 14 when they started dating it’s impossible not to have shit go down.

rose sleeping w jade bc she finds it inevitable and also wants to help her friend and knows kanaya will forgive her bc shes lost in the bigger picture. sure. if youre into the whole “alt self” deal then sure.

i dont think rose being that detached is fully in character to ME and im not a fan of the world of the epilouges but sure in the context of the narrative (which i personally dont like) it can make sense.

everything kanaya has said and done in reaction. yeah. can’t argue with that.

jade wanting a child because shes lonely and that fills some kind of hole in her? sure.

but you look me in the eyes. and tell me its in character for jade to name her child yiffany longstocking lalonde harley and hide her for 15 years.

homestuck is undeniably absurd and silly. you can try your best to argue that can explain yiffy. but come the fuck on. if you want your story to have funny moments and serious moments that ACTUALLY pull at the heart strings.

you have to maintain SOME level of suspense of disbelief. and this is a bridge too far. how can you not be taken out of the moment by this.

look me in the eyes and tell me that there is something beautiful and profound about jade seeing her daughter, YIFFY, as all she has.

her bundle of joy— furry sex. bc she was born of furry sex. yes my sweet little girl who i love and cherish. yiffany longstocking. my furry daughter. sex. my furry sex daughter.

what a beautiful name for a baby girl.

LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT JADE WOULD SERIOUSLY NAME HER CHILD FURRY SEX. AND THAT YOU CAN TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY.

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 3, Part 2/3 (p. 892-1026)

Read the previous post here.

The second third of Act 3 introduces yet another new character: the Peregrine Mendicant.

PM is obsessed with the sanctity of the postal service in the same way WV is obsessed with democracy. The exiles hold dear symbols of their lost civilization while they're stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They cling to the desperate hope that society can one day be rebuilt as long as the memory of these institutions are kept alive.

Also, "brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade"? I didn't realize these chess people were so Christian.

The fact that Mom Lalonde has her own secret littlespace in the lab is something that I never see anyone talk about. Can we please talk more about this grown woman who knows the world is going to end in her lifetime, who drinks every day to distract herself from that cursed knowledge, and also has this whole secret setup where she can hide away and pretend to be a little kid with no responsibilities?

This was probably all beyond Hussie's capabilities as a writer, so of course this is never elaborated on. What a hack. Maybe I'll write a fanfic about this myself one of these days.

Jade falls asleep in the foyer where Grandpa Harley's remains are and we get this unnecessary "psycheout" where instead of transitioning to Dave's POV, the next page immediately follows with Jade's "strife" with her dead grandpa. It's another lame interactive page like the one where she plays the flute (which I didn't mention last post because it's a waste of time).

Hussie "trolling" the reader is a character trait that he unfortunately leans into more and more as time passes.

It also would've been nice if it were better acknowledged that Jade has essentially raised herself for most of her life. What kind of strain would that put on a child's development? Obviously a lot if she's having imaginary arguments with her dead grandfather.

If Jade had been written as someone who was socially stunted from being raised without an adult human presence (she was raised by a fucking dog, remember?), and uses excessive positivity both because she literally doesn't know how to interact with others, and also as a mask to hide the stress she's under from experiencing constant visions of doomsday, perhaps she would've been a good character.

But, oh no, this is just another silly flash, you guys! Grandpa Harley is just a lifeless prop that Jade pretends is still alive because she's a manic pixie silly girl! No deeper meaning here.

Ah yeah, the cat's characteristic recalcitrance. I can't dunk on Rose too much here because I'm sure a lot of us tried to incorporate our pets in make-believe scenarios when we were kids.

I love the kitten playing with Rose's scarf off to the side.

The reason Rose wants to play Sburb is to resurrect Jaspers so he can follow up on his "secret." But... it's not like he can actually speak. You're telling me the whole reason she wants to bring back Jaspers is so he can follow up on the time he meowed in her ear nine years ago? And people really want to frame Rose as the most "serious" out of the kids.

Again, none of this seems worth ending the world for. Rose, you were like four years old here. It's time to move on. I know that "meow" actually ends up being somewhat important later, but Rose isn't aware of it at this point so it comes across as her being obsessed with something really silly.

Rose mentioned before that the funeral was held because of her request. So was it Rose who wanted a funeral for Jaspers, or was it Mom? Maybe both. I think it's very in-character for Mom to be torn up about the cat's death, so she wanted the funeral to have all the pomp and circumstance she believed he deserved.

The fact that the appearifier was already programmed to the moment before Jaspers's death means that Mom was trying to clone him through ectobiology. She really loved that cat. Rose is unable to realize this because she still views her mother as a callous and passive-aggressive bitch.

In what is perhaps the eeriest flash in the whole comic, we see a time lapse of Jaspers's body being recovered, his funeral, and the sequence of events leading to his body's reappearance on the transportalizer platform. "Chorale for Jaspers" is a strange track. The combination of the dreary organ and those sad, ethereal meows makes for an disquieting tune.

Coming off the heels of that somber flash is this overly dramatic flash where John has a mental breakdown after finding out how boring his dad really is. This so-called "reveal" that Dad Egbert is just a normal guy and not an undercover clown is like... no shit? Who in their right mind actually thought that he was a clown before this point? John's misconceptions made no sense to begin with and this payoff is equally underwhelming. At least this running gag is finally put to rest now.

I'd love to write this off as just another lame joke if not for the narrative weight attached to it. Yes, this load of shit is actually a pivotal moment for John's development.

Okay, I stand corrected. Dad Egbert is definitely not "just a normal guy" if he's able to hold that safe over his head.

He's also able to overpower the strongest Derse goon who was carrying a much larger safe. This dude is jacked.

Every panel we've seen so far suggests that everything related to the sylladex is flat like a card (especially with such terminology like captchalogue "card" and strife "deck"). Blowing into them suggests there's some kind of exterior housing and a hollow space inside where dust collects.

I get that Hussie is using this as an excuse to make this old video game joke, but if they're completely flat like say a TurboGrafx-16 game card, you wouldn't blow on those at all.

Trust me, I'm like one of the 10 people who grew up with a TG-16 instead of a Nintendo.

The admission that John's freakout over the Gushers is "stupid" suggests that his earlier mental breakdown was not "stupid." Uh huh...

Jade has a robot that her consciousness inhabits while she's dreaming on Prospit. Because at this point, why the fuck not? It's not like she builds anything else later on so might as well make this invention really complex. This is one last gasp at reminding the reader that, hey, remember this girl likes to invent stuff???

"guys'es"? That's a weird typo. John's username is "ghostyTrickster" in the past. According to the Formspring, Hussie noticed that the kids' usernames except John's all share the letters of DNA nucleobases, so this is him to backtrack and say "oh, his username used to fit the pattern until he changed it."

And like... it's stupid because TT, TG, and GG only correspond to two of the four nucleobases: thymine and guanine. That's hardly even notable, so why try to establish that pattern anyway?

The trolls came about later to complete the full set of nucleobase combinations. He created twelve whole new characters to complete a pattern that was half-formed and wasn't even intentional to begin with. Incredible.

John doesn't seem terribly concerned that the fire has reached Rose's house. This can be read as either a bumbling attempt at matching her sarcasm, or him taking her statement at face value and thinking she really is pleased that her house is on fire. Knowing John, the latter is more likely.

John refers to Bro beating up Dave in a very flippant manner. We can take this as evidence that Dave and Bro's strifes aren't actually that concerning. But if we're meant to take Dave's domestic situation seriously, then holy shit what the fuck is John's problem??

You know, for all the people who say John and Dave have such a strong friendship, John's been acting like a real dick to Dave so far. He insults him in his chats with Rose, ignores his messages, throws shade at him in his portion of the GameFAQs guide, and makes light of his distress. The only nice thing he's done for Dave so far is give him the Ben Stiller sunglasses for his birthday, and even that was an admittedly shitty gift that he assumed Dave would only appreciate "ironically."

Okay, this is what I've been waiting for. Rose says she knew about John's defaced posters all along.

But in this page, from Rose's own viewport, the posters are fine.

Rose also says that she can "see only [...] what John can see, or has seen already" which is why she can't see into his dad's room. Taking the above page into account, it's also reasonable to assume that since John was unable to see the damaged posters until now, Rose couldn't see them either.

Basically, this whole "twist" doesn't make sense and was poorly executed.

Not content with telling us himself how amazing Jade is, Hussie has characters in the comic say it too.

Aw yeah, there he is. My boy gets his first appearance. <3

Rose spouts a bunch of psychobabble about how John has been repressed all his life and it's only by learning the truth about his father that he's able to see what was once invisible to him. Not only is this event being framed as a pivotal moment where John grows from boy to man (further represented by John earning his suit after entering his dad's room), it's also supposed to be an enlightening moment for him. All because he solved a "mystery" that any reader with a brain would've figured out from the get-go.

As seen before in instances where she's either dismissive or totally ignorant of the motives behind others' behavior, Rose only possesses a superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis. Everything points to her being a massive pseud, so her theory here should've been called out as bogus. Except this isn't actually Rose positing a theory. This is Hussie literally spelling out the explanation for John's actions. We're meant to take Rose's words here at face value, so it means that Hussie somehow thinks any of this makes sense. This is what happens when dumb writers try to write smart characters.

It's funny that Rose correctly states the reason for Dad Egbert's eccentric nature, but fails to make the same connection to her own situation, instead continuing to insist that Mom Lalonde is just being passive-aggressive. Cruel irony. You don't know your mom that well either, Rose.

The further we go into this Act, the more elements Hussie seems to throw at the wall to further bog down the plot and create the illusion of depth. Let's see how things wrap up in the final third.

Read the next post here.

[chirpingfromthebox]

If you thought that the Jocks In Jills podcast could give my MVP Lee Stecklein a shout-out without me making record of it, then you thought wrong, my friends!

from the Jock In Jills Podcast, SE01-EP19, starting at 32:34

talking about what happened after the end of Game 4 of the Finals

TESSA BONHOMME:

I do have to point this out too though. After the game we usually quickly turn our chairs around to get ready for our post-game stuff to close out the show and everything and send viewers onto whatever it is they have to watch after us, after our broadcast.

Minnesota stood there at center ice, tapped their sticks, saluted their fans, and thanked them for coming. Because after all this is the last game of the season that they’re doing here. They all went in the middle to hug—Cassie Campbell-Pascall actually pointed this out to me after—and I had noticed, who’s gonna be the one talking if anyone’s talking?

And Lee Stecklein addressed the team at center ice.

And for those who don’t understand or appreciate or know who Lee Stecklein is: that girl, let me tell you, her voice carries some serious weight. I have mad respect for her and I am long gone retired—not only as a person but as a player—and I can only tell you that whatever was said out on the ice there will be carried over in three days when they are in Boston. And I don’t know what was said, but I’m very thankful and glad that she did. Because that team was torn apart and beaten down and battered and, like, distraught after that game. And I feel like she did her due diligence there in making sure that that team was picked right back up.

CHERYL POUNDER:

You know, Kenzie [LaLonde] and I and you Tessa, have been fortunate to be in the game for a long time, and it’s interesting, you talk to different coaches, different coaches come in and out of programs, different players come in and out of programs, but anytime you ask anyone, any coach, anyone about Lee Stecklein, the word that they use is “Natural-born Leader.”

And it’s interesting because we’ve watched her be placed on the National team where they tried to get her out of retirement with someone like a Caroline Harvey. Right? And then you all of a sudden see Caroline Harvey’s game elevate. In this situation you see her aligned at the beginning when Sophie Jaques comes over. And that is a strategic coaching decision, because coaches know that she plays for others. That she plays the right way, she plays hard, she loves the game, she’s passionate, but also she’s just that leader that knows how to elevate and lifts you up.

And so a perfect voice, I would think, leading into a game 5 after a situation like that.

KENZIE LALONDE:

I've asked Ken Klee before, I did say, in the room if there needs something to be said, if a word is said, if it’s a quiet locker room and someone’s saying something, who is it?

And he just kinda said, It’s Lee. Without a doubt. Like she will always be the one to vocalize something. The room listens when Lee speaks.

And we’ll never know what was said, it’ll probably stay amongst them, but what better person to lead them through what will be one of the most challenging moments in their hockey careers.