Mar 9, 2019
Regarding Horrorterrors
Because my brain would not let go of the word, you get to suffer one of my mis-readings as well.
Behold, the Horrortenors!
(Pavalanzarrerasmingo?)
seen from Canada
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from Netherlands
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina
seen from Germany
Regarding Horrorterrors
Because my brain would not let go of the word, you get to suffer one of my mis-readings as well.
Behold, the Horrortenors!
(Pavalanzarrerasmingo?)
Act 2 (345-357)
So on with Mission Creep!
Page 345 ==>
345. Just what the world needed: gangsta marionettes.
346-348. So there is something to this SYLLADEX naming game, if he can turn it from a DAMP TOWEL into a TOWEL to make it fit.
349. "You CLEAN (2+2+1+1+2 = 8) up the juice" — uh, what? Did he just sylladize a verb to absorb the juice into the same slot as the towel? Doesn't that make it a DAMP TOWEL again? I mean, I can accept just makin' shit up to move the story along, but previously these Sylly things have at least appeared to work on some sorta consistent nounish basis.
Either that or learning to Adult in this universe involves learning how to use your language creatively to escape the limitations of one's abstractions. And why limit yourself to one language? If you don't have a free slot for your TOWEL (8), maybe you have one for LA TOALLA (12 -> 2) or LA SERVIETTE (17 -> 7).
350. Window. Fan. Dangling Betas. Here's the windup…..*
[*Citizens of the World, pls substitute your own favo(u)rite local sportsball phrases for the following brief USian bezball metaphor.]
351. ...and the pitch. Ball One. "The crisis is easily averted. You can't imagine it will ever resurface later in any way, shape, or form. That beta is as good as yours, forever."
352. "You wonder if he is anywhere near as smooth with his sylladex as you are. Probably not. It's probably not even humanly possi…" Another pitch on the way and iiiiit's…
353. ….a STRIKE!
Caw caw, motherfucker.
This is a suspiciously well-aimed random plot diversion. Since the atmospheric scenery-framing crows in one of my other obsessions ended up being Significant (and also brought bad luck), I'm gonna speculate on very little evidence that this RAMBUNCTIOUS CROW is meddling at the behest of some other Plot Force to be Reckoned With.
But Dave, if you have Verbs at your disposal, why don't you just FLIP THE BIRD (2+2+1+2+2+2+1+2+1+2+2 = 19 % 10 = 9)?
354. Oh, see, now that's thinking on your feet. Or cheating. Or cheating on your feet? He can use a verb with the correct hash to launch the corresponding stored object? Katana vs. Crow looks very badass, and could be very effective, but since Dave still doesn't have the beta when John needs it later… I think not.
355. "You accidentally launch your NINJA SWORD." Smooth, Dave, very smooth. Or woulda been if youda done it on purpose. But there you go: blade, bird and beta, gone in one fowl swipe.
Getting (or keeping) hands on this wee piece of software seems to be the Bêta Noire for these kids, doesn't it?
356. It's an embarrassing story, yo.
The very model of sardonic hipster nonchalance
357. Say goodbye to all of this, Dave. "Goodbye, all of this!"
But wait — OH SNAP! It's a super-fugly wizard in extreme close-up. Guess we're whiplashing back to our favorite watery tart, our beleaguered Rose.
Yonward we go!
SCOOOOORE!
I has one! I never expected to have twenty (20) people following along with this lil long-past-the-heyday Homestuck liveblog, but iz pleasing me, thank you all very much — @pretentiousmysterioso & @shazirathoftheunderdark, and the ones who came along early via @homestuck-scribbles (tyvm!), and the new ones trickling in now.
To the new faces/avatars, nice to meetcha! I’m enjoying checking out your blogs in return; I’m not following everyone back cos I’m avoiding HS spoilers, but glad to have you here! I hope you’re enjoying the ride so far — or watching me enjoy the ride? However that works. Loving all my likey lurkers, I often am one; but if ever yer feeling less lurky, I welcome feedback on what you think of the blog so far, and (non-spoilery) asks & chat messages about HS or whatever else.
If you missed anything you’re interested in, you can check out [Act 1] & [Act 2] in chronological order.
I’m really enjoying Homestuck so far, and continue to have to restrain myself from sneaking ahead when I’m short on time or energy to write about what I’m reading. I also know I’ve got many miles to go yet. Mysterioso and I had a fun conversation about my Lord of the Rings comparison a ways back, concluding that Act 1 is like getting the hobbits out of their comfortable lives and into Bree, and Act 2 is getting to Rivendell and getting their bearings on what they’re facing, and Act 3 and beyond is where their actions start to make a tangible difference. So I know what I’m reacting to now is small in scale, comparatively, and yet crucial to the knowing and shaping of the characters, so I remain committed to not skimming over or summarizing too much, cos I’m having fun figuring out what I think along the way, while the scale IS small.
I’m also determined to carry this blog all the way through to the ending, 7000+ pages away, however long it takes me to get there. I know better than to promise continuous updates — life loves to throw promises like that in our faces — but if I have any control at all over my ability to do so, I’ll always pick up where I left off after whatever Pauses come my way. That’s a commitment, Myster, and you and Myss can hold me to it, k?
Act 2 (385-390)
"And even meanerwhile..." heh, Hussie sounds like me. Or I guess I sound like him. Or we both in-derp-endently developed a similar way with the English manglage.
Page 385 - JOHN, PURSUE ADVERSARY INTO THAT ROOM.
385. More oily sludge — what the heck are these little terrors up to while John's not looking? Can't worry about it now, that might be Rose in the chat!
386. Hopes dashed — no Rose Red, only Red Text. [Hope they never have a Red Wedding.]
Longish Pesterlog, cos it's Dave; what's important here? Dave doesn't yet have the game, and isn't admitting to having lost the sword; swords are indeed awesome; Dave is genre savvy and believes John about monsters and being in another dimension; John has to be curt with him again to ask for actual advice; Dave thinks John needs to "weaponize his sylladex" (is that what Dave was doing with verbs?); Bro is a mindfucker, and has a favorite creepy ventriloquist's dummy named Cal.
And Dave avers that "john egbert blows". And John may be a dork, but he's a confident dork (and doesn't take Dave too seriously).
387. John retrieves Data Structures for Assholes to learn about weaponizing (things other than his asshole, one hopes). And despite Vagga telling him to "STAY WARY OF THESE FOES", John is not, himself, genre savvy enough to see the icky Jes-Tar Baby right in front of him which is...chewing on the ectobedding? twivering in fear? jiggling in antici—?
I thought John felt compelled by this inner voice? Can he not see the Tar Baby somehow? [And I know "retarded" was once a choice insult for thirteen-year olds who didn't want to be mistaken for babies, but it's been so successfully removed from my particular online communisphere in the last ten years that it's really jarring to see it here. I get the storytelling context and am not offended, just commenting on how what's acceptable changes as a person (and society) grows up.]
Ack, John's in danger but we're back to Rollin' Rose…!
388. Ah, now the STRIFE, full of irony and spite (if only we were dealing with the Fae, where iron and spit are excellent weapons…).
The music is sweet/sad, underneath all the chiptunification — is it…. wait! ::goes back to Rose's intro:: yes, it IS close kin to Rose's violin piece. Anyone want to fill me in on what this piece is called?
And wait again — does this mean John's STRIFE music was the same as his piano refrain?
(I'm sorry, this probably seems a silly thing to miss to those more musically sensitive or more familiar with HS music — I love music of all kinds, but it takes it a while to sink into my brain. I have a "Getting To Know" playlist that I use to collect new music with a favorable first impression, for the express purpose of repeating the new stuff often enough for it to become "my music" and migrate to other playlists, or to devolve to "meh music" and get deleted. Add in the fact that in Homestuck's case I'm focused on noticing all the animation's visual details, thinking through and writing my reactions, and...yeah, on first exposure the music fades to a backdrop of impressions for me, not a melody contained in my soul and instantly identifiable [yet!].)
389. Okay... MOM performs ironic, obligatory STRIFE, like obligatory ironic housework? (where the irony is obligatory, not the work.) And now she's not an obstacle anymore? Bizarre.
390. The readers are lobbing experimental stupid absurdities again: "Rose: First, be the pony. Second, trample Mom." Predictably, Rose says "nah." (But gives the Prancing Pony a name and a pat anyway, because there's still a kid under all that refusing to be a kid.)
Next up, JOHN TURN AROUND!!!!! — see? Danger!!
For the record, Captain Marvel rocks.
Look out, Thanos.
Act 2 (307-320)
River in the rain... sometimes at night you look like a long white train Winding your way away somewhere. River, I love you, don't you care? If you're on the run, winding some place, just tryin' to find the sun; Whether the sunshine, whether the rain, River, I love you just the same.
But sometimes in a time of trouble When you're out of hand And your muddy bubbles Roll across my floor Carry away the things I treasure Hell, there ain't ain't no way to measure Why I love you more Than I did the day before
River in the rain... sometimes at night you look like a long white train Winding your way away from me. River... I've never seen the sea.
307 - [S] ==>
307. For John it was wind, for Rose it is rain.
I love the image of the rain as strings between earth and sky, a mystic monstrous mega-harp, or a legion of abstruse violins. And the symphony we all fear to hear played.
308. Confront mother in hall? No, we're changing channels apparently. Yep, we'll just keep changing up the narrative devices here. And this… this must be the fabled Dave.
309. Oh dude, you are like, trying so very hard to be cool. You are, like, totally trying.
310. Mister Insufferable Pri has a katana, and he's not afraid to use it, even on his own text-entry game abstractions.
311. Dave Strider. Cool to meet you. Cool? Cool. Nice sparkle in the glasses there. So cool name, dude — you of the Rivendell Striders, or…? No? OK, that's cool too.
312. Dave's room: a much more active mess than Rose's genteel clutter. Cables and equipment everywhere, many projects in progress. Mattress on floor, and makeshift cinder-block furniture — low on money or low on priority? I'll venture a guess at low moneys, but that Dave will claim that boring mainstream furniture is only a priority for suckers. Can't make much out of the posters and things on the walls yet, just Snoop and the swords.
Thumbs up on the amateur darkroom — that's an art we're losing to camera phones and photoshop. A fascination for dead things is neat too; clearly his bro-guardian is more tolerant of this collection than most parents would be. And of course he lives much of his life online.
313. To arms!
Nah.
Okay, I do like him. He'll talk your ear off with long-winded and mostly irrelevant wit, but he can throw a good laconic strike too.
314. "Dave: Get the damn beta and save your friend's life!" Except we've apparently jumped back in time a bit to give us a chance to get to know Dave, so he knows none of that yet.
So Dave has two copies AND his bro has two? And he loses both of them by the time he talks to John about it? This should be interesting….
315. First the arms joke, now the "X like a Y" bit, then we'll get a bit of Dave's music, and eventually his own [S] moment of atmospheric emptiness, with either earth or fire? Just, yknow, pattern recognition.
I like how much disdain the simple animation conveys. And the dramatic irony of his comment about meteors which will probably never happen.
316. He stores up ideas for future ironies. When he may not have a future. (Or may have more than one.) Isn't that ironic, don’t you think?
317. Yes, he must go into the closet so he can have the apple juice conversation with John. And the blue box was his gift from John — the Stiller shades?
318. Nailed it! Rather like a toddler using a foam mallet on a nail the size of a PEZ dispenser in one of those little toy wooden workbenches, but nailed it nonetheless. For my next prediction, the command "Dave: Take box." will lead to inventory shenanigans that will reveal the esoteric intricacies of his chosen fetch modus.
319. Yup, esoteric intricacies. And math.
320. Aaaand back to the "apple juice", about which he seems unironically happy. And eager to tell John.
But it seems like he'd only be eager to tell John about it in reference to the Little Monsters movie, unless John regularly gets excited about the sustenance found in other people's houses. But that association apparently does not bring back the rest of the context for surprise apple juice found in a closet. Or it does, and Dave's being Socratically ironic about being clueless, knowing that John will be excited about warning him not to drink it. Going with that one. ♪ "Yeah, I really do think."
That’s it for today — back tamorro, after some Captain Movvel-izing!
Act 2 (358-369)
INTERIOR: ROSE’S MOODY MODERN MANSION OF MERETRICIOUS MAGI
Page 358 ==>
358. The Purple Princess of Prolixity and her Poison Prose are at it again. Methinx the girl doth lay it on a little thick, dothn't she? (I would know, wouldn’t I?)
359. Ah, the Death Glare, one step up from the Death Stare, which is where you end up if you do not wisely retreat at the first Glance of Doom.
360. And Rose refuses to psychoanalyze the wizard collection; refuses to believe her mother could have a deep reason for anything. Or that her reasons for doing things could have nothing to do with Rose. This is...very thirteen. (The intended irony/reverse psychology, perhaps, is that despite her aversion to everything wizardly, Rose is still toting around a Grimoire, and is apparently destined to be the Party Mage in some way, shape or form.)
361. The house has a river — a whole goddamn waterfall — flowing underneath it. Yeesh. Girl is fuckin' rich. You need to just send Dave a fuckin' desk, Rose. Or a bed frame.
On the other hand, I get the knitting now, and whatever gift she was in the process of making for John. Surrounded by expensive but meaningless (or bad-meaningful) purchasable things, Rose yearns for the cathexis of the unique and handmade; the impalpable auspices woven in between the strands of yarn that anyone can buy.
At least, amongst all these gray old men, there's one inanimate young lady of dainty fashion and delicate purple face-tendrils, sitting upon the couch. My guess-hazard for this post is... this is either a birthday present from one of Rose's friends (catering to her interests and much detested by her mother), or something Rose knitted for herself (and also much detested by her mother). Trust me, knitting a life-size squidalian doll would have been a channel days or weeks of passive aggression.
The umbrella perhaps indicates that Mom has been outside recently — although dropping a wet umbrella on the couch doesn't seem like a rich bitch move. If Rose is at all correct about her mom's spite, perhaps it's left there as a move of ironic caring, demonstrating the knowledge that Rose will soon be going out in the rain despite "common sense," and Mom's "love" and "obligation to protect" and all those other things the bad daughter who "should know better" will trample without a thought. (No, I don't know anyone who deals with narcissistic/borderline parents, why would you ever think that?)
No idea what to make of the vacuum cleaner on a pedestal, though; apparently neither do the other readers.
362. Ah, the vacuum is a passive-aggressive gift from Rose to mom, I see. Returned in kind. Ouch, this relationship.
"It never leaves the pedestal" is another one of those phrases that could have so many dimensions, psychologically, as is the fact that Rose sometimes hears the vacuum "wailing in the night".
363. Ah, it's a PRETTY PRINCESS DOLL, an equally grotesque counterpart to the HARLEQUIN DOLL of yore, and I wasn't completely right or completely wrong: it's a gift from mom rather than friends, because it originally catered to none of her interests, but altered by Rose to suit herself, because that's what a mage does with the universe they're given.
364. She captchas the UMBRELLA on one of the lower leaves of her SYLLADEX, with no commentary on why it's been left on the couch. :/
365-366. The kitchen contains more spite, in the form of chintzy enchanters, liquor bottles, and mockingly ostentatious display of extra-ordinary things.
367-369. And oh, the poker-faced grandiosity of the one-ups-woman-ship over the magnetic letters…
Didn’t get as much time as I would have liked to work on my own things today, so just one post this time, but we’ll be back at it tomorrow!
Act 2 (370-384)
If “moustache” were pronounced like “heartache” it would be a moustake.
Page 370 - Rose: Attach a W to face as a fake moustache.
370-371. Oh Rose, you adorable little creature. Your thorny facade is just as thin as Dave's ironic veneer, and you are just as lovable underneath. By all means, take the 'W' with you.
372-374. But really, taking the time to find and deposit twelve cents in exchange, and then ponder further one-upsets via velvet pillow, when your life, John's life, and potentially all human life is hanging in the balance…?
375. And the SYLLADEX rebalances with the UMBRELLA as the root. But doesn't that mean when she wants to use the umbrella, all her other stuff will fall out in the rain again?
376-380. Yup, wasted too much time, it's MOMZILLA. Do we get more STRIFE? If evasion counts, then yes. A YOUTH ROLL (which I am forcibly reminding myself is not related to an EGG ROLL or a TUNA ROLL) over counter and couch and coffee table, scattering wizards wildly.
MEANWHILE, in the past:
381. Dave patched the hole in his window with Everything Tape, but didn't clean up the shards of glass on his desk? Those things can be vicious, just ask the HARLEQUIN DOLL.
382. Well. Finally learning more about GG beyond her basic sunny personality and wow, that's a lot to digest. Firstly, it appears there's not an ounce of irony in her soul, and she completely mangles Dave’s coolness by embracing it so hard, and Dave appears unable to protest or dislike.
Secondly, her modus is migraine-inducing? Even more than STACK, TREE, or HASHMAP?
Thirdly...well, thirdly, GG either knows the future or is communicating from the future, which is super-weird when all of our time-mucking-about is happening due to SBURB/Skaia, which she hasn't touched as far as we know.
Except...I'm falling into the time's arrow trap again: one-way cause-and-effect is so deeply ingrained that this is like the fifth time I've had to remind myself that just because future events haven't happened yet for me (via the characters I'm following) doesn't mean that they aren't reaching back into their past and affecting the story right now. (I recognized that after the fact, in my earlier post about it being a while before Dave gets the ability to muck with time… the "while" doesn't matter because once he has the ability, any time period can be mucked with. But I won't go back in time to edit then-me's ignorance. :P ) [And yes, I'm spoiled for him having time powers, and no, I have zero context of when or how or why he has them.]
Fourth, "bec" is not her guardian in the sense that DAD and MOM and BRO are, but a...pet? Guard dog/devilbeast? Unkillable creature? Then maybe her equally intimidating GRANDFATHER is her guardian who collects awful oddities?
So there are a few new wrinkles to Jade's story, to add to the getting-to-know template we've variated three times now.
383. I am not sure I'm keeping up with Dave’s red-and-blue syllalect when he's not actively using the 'DEX — is he saying that because the noun PHONE and the verb TEXT MESSAGE are both coded "8" that he can text without removing his phone from the SYLLADEX?
But good idea, Dave, to bring your portable plot-loaf along, instead of being tied to the one on your desk. Try to handle yours more wisely than John handled the PDA, k?
[My friends and I have used ‘plot-loaf’ for years — it's any object that keeps the story moving, sometimes handed off from character to character. It's not the same as the MacGuffin, which is the object everybody in the story wants but which doesn't affect the story itself, or the Idiot Ball, which dictates who has to do something stupid or out-of-character to make the next bit happen; maybe the TV Tropes site has invented a name for the concept since I last visited, but I barely got out of that swamp full of quicksand alive the last time, I'm not wading back in today without an evacuation plan.]
384. But every time I think Dave knows what he's doing better than the others (and he think's he's cool), I find out otherwise (and so does he).
No one must ever know about this.