#kid radd

[recordcrash]

Long ago, I started maintaining a fiction recommendation list at the Homestuck Discord, after the original comic ended in 2016. We were all desperately looking for more stories like it, because with that awful ending, it hardly felt like we had finished anything. [...]

There’s an interesting disconnect between it and this blog. I’ve reviewed some of its featured works upon reread, but the vast majority remains untouched, to the point I highly doubt many of you know it exists. This post will bridge that gap: I’m going to write at least one short review per work in every category of the list.

Read the full post here.

[juney-blues]

[rfkannen-art]

[sweetpeauserboxes]

[id: a white userbox with a pastel blue border and pastel blue text that reads “this user loves kid radd.” on the left is an image of kid radd. /end id]

[interstellarbozo]

WHY WOULD RADD DO THIS!1!

[accuratejaney]

It had to happen.

The original site for the webcomic is down, but there's a mirror here: https://www.bgreco.net/kidradd/index.htm

[angelofthemornings]

I am lying prone on the ground thinking about how much I love webcomics. webtoon don't interact

[hzrnvm]

KID RADD AVATAR?

KID RADD AVATAR HELL YEAH!!!! IM BOGEYING WOOOO!!!

[incorrect-mossvale-quotes]

(The group is splitting up to investigate an area)

Louis: Just be careful, okay?

Victor: Am I ever not?

(Later...)

Victor: Jeez, hasn't anyone ever heard of rhetorical questions?

Reese: Gotta say, I wasn't expecting everyone to immediately yell "YES!"

Imogene: Including me, and I barely know the guy.

[thebibliomancer]

Earth X #X

What the hell does #X mean??

Well, it means the end. The end of Earth… X. There’s two sequel series after this.

Mar-Vell gets the cover to the last issue. And thank goodness for lens flares because I’m fairly sure he’s very casual Friday.

Earth X. It’s hard to summarize the previous 13 (because #0) issues.

Long story short, the Earth is an egg. All superpowers and mutation are because the Celestials manipulated human evolution to make them guardians of the egg.

The mass mutation of Earth’s population has kicked off 200 years early because Black Bolt set off a terrigen bomb.

A psychic kid called the Skull rose as a Celestial failsafe to control the aggressive and unruly mutated population but Captain America killed him.

So the Celestials landed on Earth to wipe out all life before it threatens the egg but Black Bolt sacrifices himself to shout really loudly into space for Galactus.

Celestials vs Galactus.

Kind of a lose/lose situation for humanity.

The Earth X X issue is double sized. There’s a lot to cover but the subplots have mostly dried up.

Here’s one I’ll get out of the way early.

Reed Richards suddenly remembers that he promised Medusa that he’d help find her missing son.

God. I had completely forgotten about that. It was almost an inciting subplot that got the Inhumans bumping into Reed. But anyway, since Reed got Black Bolt killed, he feels obligated to duck out mid-plot resolution and reunite Medusa and her son.

Who was the new Black Knight all along.

Cool to wrap that up.

But back to the headlining fight.

According to New Watcher Aaron Stack, Galactus is tougher than one Celestial but might get overwhelmed by a Host of them.

And he keeps tinkering with his Galactus machines instead of punching giant space gods.

Luckily, Galactus gets some backup.

Namor toots as he pleases to summon sea monsters to attack the Celestials in the name of ancient-er Atlantis and for the dinosaurs.

He gets smacked aside.

Silver Surfers Norrin Radd and Shalla-Bal attack the Celestials to buy some time. And Shalla-Bal gets blowed up. Dangit, she’d only just been introduced last issue.

Loki brings an army from Hel, after convincing them that death is fake and that their entire identity was imposed on them.

(That’s why he shanked himself last time.)

They buy some time until the Celestials convince them death is real and they drop dead from it.

And during this, Galactus makes some big moves of his own.

I can practically HEAR this panel.

Like a static-y reverbish BWOOOOOOOOM!

Anyway, the Celestials eventually decide “fuck this actually” or however space gods would phrase it. They fuck off back into space.

Which just leaves the problem that now Galactus hunters and there’s a tasty planet right here.

Or whoever new Galactus this is.

Reed Richards turned Galactus into a star. The running narration implied that someone else has filled the vacated role.

Which has all to do with the tiers of mutation discussed in the previous issue.

Tier 1 - everyone has different powers. Ex: Earth right now.

Tier 2 - homogenization of powers into shapeshifting. Ex: the Skrulls or Reed Richards

And revealed this issue Tier 3 - completely malleable in body, mind, and will. Incredibly powerful but constrained by how observers identify them. Ex: the Asgardians.

This Galactus has become Galactus because he believes he’s Galactus and is believed to be Galactus.

But originally his name was

Franklin Richards.

Franklin who has connections to Galactus and has been said to be destined to be the last survivor of this universe the way Galactus was of the previous.

(I don’t know whether all that stuff predates Earth X or was inspired by it. Possible tally marks.)

And Franklin whose name Black Bolt shouted into space, which drew Galactus to Earth to his confusion.

Reed can’t acknowledge Galactus is Franklin, not without leaving the universe without it’s counter to Celestials over-population. But he does suggest that Galactus is known for relocating the populations of the planets he eats. And since Franklactus is influenced by how he is viewed, the universe has a kinder Galactus now.

There’s no planet to relocate Inhumanity to so Galactus just slurps the Celestial embryo right out of Earth and flies off into space with it.

So the day is saved but damn that’s a sad and lonely existence for Franklin.

He doesn’t even get some Radd company because the Silver Surfer is staying on Earth.

Back on the Moon, Aaron Stack gets tired of Uatu’s blah blah blah.

He finds where the old Watcher is hiding, since he has only appeared on a screen. He throws Uatu’s prior dismissal of good and evil and says that evil is “to do nothing in the face of need.”

Then he unplugs Uatu from the observation equipment so that on top of being blind, he also can’t hear anything from Earth. A Watcher with nothing to observe.

“He doesn’t have the right to watch. He took my face.”

Aaron really held that grudge.

So now we get into the epilogues and sequel hooks for Universe X.

Now that he knows that the terrigen mist caused the mass mutation of humanity, Reed has some ideas on how to fix it.

But he’s getting some pushback. There are people who want to keep their cool new superpowers. And T’Challa thinks the mass mutation gave the animal spirits of Wakanda anthro bodies and he won’t endorse a plan that could reverse that.

Peter and May have repaired their relationship. May has been helping Peter get back in shape.

Cop Luke Cage is still after Peter to join the police but Peter laughs off the idea of becoming a cop.

The circus guys that became the new X-Men are going to stick around as X-Men.

I cannot fathom why these guys were given so much focus for the minimal impact they had on the plot. I could not tell you what their personalities or even powers are.

I also don’t understand why Circus Daredevil got so much attention.

Earth X still has its mysteries.

After being given some massive foreshadowing that he’d play a role, Mar-Vell finally shows up when the plot is done!

He assures Reed he’ll be huge in the sequel.

“There’s a lot that’s about to happen, Reed. I’m coming back. I’m coming back to save everyone. And they’re not going to like it.”

????

Reed asks him to clarify but Mar-Vell refuses.

He does find the time to imply he’s going to be born from Perfect Humans Adam Warlock and Her though.

Why? God knows.

Mar-Vell also suggests that the dream he kept giving Bruce was a big brain move to indirectly get Loki aware that the Asgardians are fiction so he’d shank himself, go to Hel, and recruit the inhabitants to help fight the Celestials.

That’s… either very big brain or a complete asspull.

Captain America is still sad he had to murder a child.

Aaron Stack decides he’s going to be the Watchman instead of the Watcher. Sounds like more of an active role and I dunno maybe he likes Alan Moore.

Luna finishes her transformation into a beautiful butterfly lady so she’s ready for her arranged marriage to Black Knight/the Prince. But he has no interest in her.

Oof, that’s rough.

And Reed finishes converting his old vibranium beacon towers into giant devices to siphon and burn the terrigen out of the atmosphere so things can eventually be normal.

He calls them Human Torches because even Reed Richards has his sentimental side.

So that’s Earth X.

I don’t love everything it does but it makes a decent stab at tying everything in Marvel up in a big Celestial-shaped bow. I can appreciate how fleshed out the setting is, how there’s still stuff going on that we don’t know, and how it’s tightly plotted so that a lot of what seems to be random weirdness plays into the resolution.

I like how many prominent heroes go from depressed and beaten down by the past to getting their groove back. Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Peter Parker all start in a bad place and find their heroism again.

The creative team must have been very confident it would succeed since there are SO MANY sequel hooks in the ending.

And it can’t be overstated how much of an impact Earth X had on the rest of Marvel. I tried to call out the times when something from Earth X inspired another Marvel book. And I probably missed a lot because the ideas have become common enough that I didn’t realize they originated here.

But the book never explains what the X in Earth X means so 0 out of 5 stars, bad comic.

[inthesirensandthesilences]

oh they fucked up giving me access to this website

[themaudlinmimic]

trick/treat?

TRICK, due to this being long overdue and that in and if itself being a tricky way to answer an ask. Regardless, have the SHILLS LIST, a massive collection of weird web fiction collated by an exclusive group of people who all know what homestuck is:

[mono--chromatik]

hi mono its mae and i just saw your profile now and holy shit there’s lots of asks so i thought i’d ask some questions maybe

but if you do know, what are your favorite genres in music? im a huge music nerd and i NEED to know what kind of music you like,,,

get your reading glasses on you activated my trapcard (being really autistic about music)

OKAY OKAY so generally speaking there's no specific genre I tend to stick by to some religious degree. More often than not any generated playlist from wherever I'm listening from is destined to be the least consistent thing imaginable.

To generally answer this question would be trickier than just tossing a bunch of random songs at people but I'm gonna do my damn best to keep it relevant. I am gonna add some examples so I'm putting this under a read-more to keep from making the post needlessly long for passer-byers. (Some genres may not be 100 accurate, in the examples, but they're along the same lines I think).

EDM

I don't know exactly how much this description gets the point across but like, this music sounds like industrial iron, steel and bullets, and in the good way! Can't pinpoint exactly when or why but the general sound of the genre is very nostalgic to me (and in an almost comical way every artist that I've seen fall under that genre or orbit around it happens to have an incredibly deep voice 9 times out of 10. Absolutely not a complaint. Fucking gorgeous sound. Would highly recommend listening to at night outside in a lit-up city area.

NINTENDOCORE

I proceeded to make this genre into my entire personality. Surprise surprise, a lot of the music uses 8-bit sound effects to hell and back. And y'know what? Nothing scratched the itch in my brain better than that ever did.

Tumblr only allows 10 audios per post! i just learned. I'm gonna list a bunch of MISC stuff because i'm running out of steam to type.

Prophecy of the Dragon - The Voidz

Losing Touch - Circus of Dead Squirrels

Meaningless - The Nighty Nite

I Don't Wanna Be Me - Type-O-Negative

Loose Cannon - Puzzle

So Pretty - Kid Dakota

Мрак - DenDerty

Ghost - Gouge Away

Blood and Rockets - The Claypool Lennon Delirium

Guts - MATH The Band

The Air Conditioned Nightmare - Mr Bungle

A.M 180 - Grandaddy

Happy listening ! 👍

[appendingfic]

Saw a really cool piece of trivia about Kid Radd - that the author had indicated in his universe, all depictions of living entities have a sort of level of self-awareness, but sentience only happens to video game characters because of the nature of the media - the fact their experiences change based on differing runthroughs of the same game.

And I love when Word of God explanations of media provide detail like that which ENRICH the understanding of the story

[shslivalice]

tbh i imagine a lot of my characters in a wreck-it ralph (or Kid Radd situation) a lot

like, they know they're fictional but still have things dictating them, their paths, their stories.

but the fun thing is that esp. in wir, a lot of terms are localized and would likely NOT have spread. there is no going turbo in this verse, but there IS the story of a woman who left her game and that whole branch of the storyline got corrupted and now nobody in that computer network can play a fem mage hawke, and nobody knows where the fuck she went. rumours of her helping out other people who get stuck glitched, unable to progress. a folk hero, that marian hawke.

also listen if i can ignore parts of games i dislike i can ignore a bad sequel lmfao and things can work different its just the easiest way to Explain Things.

[eleemosynecdoche]

Thinking about the old webcomic Kid Radd and how it was possibly the only work of media I've encountered which explored the prospect of reality being an emulation. Not joking, either (well, maybe a little), a key plot element is that the limitations of Kid Radd's original console hardware prevented him from being aware of a quirk in his programming, but on a then-current PC or internet server...