So I guess we are now on the road to Jane finally flipping the fuck out and fucking shit up?

These recent updates have been mostly a downer.

>>70983
Yeah this is pretty obviously leading somewhere. Can't say I know where though.
Right now I mostly hope Hussie manages to keep the narrative in one place long enough for us to see what Jane's brewing in that alchemiter.

Yeah, I'm seriously lost as to where all this is going. So there's going to be a battle tomorrow, the same day the rest of the Kids and Trolls show up. None of the B2 kids have tier'd yet, but Calliope has more or less confirmed fo sho that they will and Caliborn stated that Jake wouldn't fight him until after he was a god tier. Meanwhile, the Condesce wants to strike a deal with Roxy to help her deal with English, which Callie seems to think is a good idea. She has also given her the means to escape, which leads me to believe that she won't be the one they'll fight either.

Jack's no threat anymore, what with 4-8 god tiers, trolls and PM. So what exactly is happening? Is Yaldabaoth up to something? Will Gamzee reunite Lil' Cal with Callie's juju, thus fucking shit up?

>>70983
That's bladekindeyewear's theory. He is wrong. That isn't gonna happen.

>>70979
What is suddenly happening to the artstyle since a few updates? The lines looks thicker, but it looks really better than usal.

>>70983
It seemed something like that could easily happen up until she thew off the tiaratop, but I think at this point she's at least as likely to find a way to direct all her frustrations toward her actual enemies.

>>70986
Yeah. While s/he has got a point with the whole Rose-Jade role switch thing, I feel that s/he's grasping for straws with the whole Jane = Bard of Doom thing.

>>70989
No, he does not have a point. Rose consorted with horror terrors and Jade did not. If she had she would have been grimdark as well. Nobody else is ever going grimdark because they know better than to talk to horror terrors.

>>70990
Fefeta confirmed for grimdark.

>>70990
...the point was that, for most of their session (and earlier, I guess), both Rose and Jade were behaving directly opposite of their roles. While Rose's grimdarkness and talking to the Horrorterrors was the logical conclusion of her taking the wrong path, it wasn't the single cause of her switching her role. If they hadn't been around to assist with her corruption, she would simply have turned to someone else (like, say, Scratch) and gone through a very similar process.

Jade spent a lot of time watching the clouds of Skaia, gaining knowledge of the future and using that information to, among other things, set in motion the whole timey wimey ball that was Liv Tyler's journey. She used her Vision (which is a Seer thing) to see the future (also a Seer thing) and used that to mess with Time (which is a Time thing). Therefore one could say that her role, at the time, was very much that of a Seer of Time. After losing her dreamself and entering the game, she quickly lost patience with the non-linear chats with the trolls, tried (and rejected) a pair of goggles which allowed her to see (yeah, Seer thing again) the whole Incinisphere, and picked up frog breeding. After ascending she became a fully realized Witch of Space.

Rose, on the other hand, should have been acting like a Seer of Light, using her vision, insight and knowledge to guide others toward a fortuitous future. Instead she picked up magic (which caused several characters to call her a witch) and went around destroying stuff. Since the source of this magic was the Horrorterrors and they have a relationship with the aspect of Void, she was causing destruction/change/whatever Witches do through Void. She was later tricked into abusing the vision of the Cueball (basically getting the answers handed to you, which is like the most un-Seer-like thing possible), stared right into the Void and went grimdark because of it. Jade is a Witch, and so far she's shrunk objects, teleported, run through a wall and increased the velocity of the battleship; basically, she is able to manipulate all aspects of Space. Likewise, Rose was able to manipulate the power of the Void freely, including levitation and flight, picking large objects apart, creating rain and thunder, releasing great energy blasts and setting things on fire (since Void can be anything, her wands basically allowed her to do, well, anything). So for most of the game, her role was that of a Witch of Void. Upon ascending, she became a fully realized Seer of Light.

>>70990
Eh, it's not as simple as "is they grimdark y/n."

If you were around back before Act 5, you'd know that most of the fandom at the time was /shocked/ when they learned that the eccentric girl who saw the future in her sleep was the "witch" and the kickass goth with the magic wands was the "seer."

And in the conversation between Calliope and Roxy where Roxy noted that both herself (Void) and her mother (Light) caused screens and cameras to black out, Calliope's explanation suggested that Mom-Rose causing blackouts - and by extention, grimdark rose's weird elderitch shit in general - had more to do with Rose's class and aspect /specifically/ being perverted somehow, rather than grimdarkness just being a generic status effect being conferred onto anyone who gets too personal with calamari demons. This is pretty much the main reason I think Boot's aspect inversion theory isn't /complete/ bullshit, although I think he's too enthusiastic about trying to apply it to characters who aren't Rose.

Regardless, I still think Boot's theory that Jane's gonna go evil is pretty much bullshit. Condy is definitely trying to manipulate her, but it seems that Condy wants to work WITH the other kids to achieve her goals, not against them.

>>70992
>>70993
Stop talking about it. Just stop. That guy is a frothing lunatic. His theory is wrong. You are wrong. Nobody likes that theory. Stop.

>>70994
Say what you will. I've said that exact thing about Rose since forever, and Jade underwent a similar process, albeit not as severe and broken when her sole way of viewing the Skaian clouds died horribly.

But yeah. Jane's not gonna go evil anytime soon. That's just stupid, and it doesn't even make sense (I mean why the hell would she become a Bard?)

>>70994
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. How do YOU interpret Calliope's statements about how and when heroes with very different titles can have the same abilities?

Titles are easily justified to mean ANYTHING, how is it not clear by now? Even behavior that seems the complete opposite of a hero's role is explainable by Hussie as being part of the character's struggle to mature and realize their true role. It is way more organic a process than just "oh here is a simple pattern so by baby level logics this must mean this will occur to this character".

And for story's sake I hope Jane is alchemizing the juju or at least a clean, Condy-free device.

There's a theory floating around that the U/u jujus make the wishing amulet from Neverending Story when out together. It looks like an actual ouroboros, so if this doesn't happen, Hussie will miss out on a real sweet reference-callback-symbol 2x combo.

>>70997
But a wishing amulet would be magic, and we all know magic is fake as shit.

What does the Condesce want with poor sweet Fefeta?

>>70999
Well, Feferi was the heir to the Condesce's throne. Depending how dying then being resurrected as an amalgam kernelsprite affects the laws, she might still be the person who's going to succeed the Condesce as troll empress.

>>70999
I think the Condesce is talking about Jane here. She apparently refers to her as the heiress.

>>71000
Condesce won't stand for other tyrian bloods. Meenah had to force down her immediate instinct to fight Feferi in the bubbles, and the Condesce is basically an unchecked adult Meenah. Fefetasprite is doomed.

>>71001
Also true, as Jane is heir to the Betty Crocker corporation. So there are two heirs to the Condesce at that little Birthday Party.

alchemy going down!
. . . aaaaand what the dandy fuck

...?!

how why what bwuh

Is hussie celebrating April Fool's day early or

I don't want this to be canon

this isn't the reality I wanted

Well ain't that disturbing

I think we can agree this is at least as bad as going grimdark.

>>71019
That reaction shot was the very best part of this whole ordeal. Gamzee being flabbergasted by events at hand means even though it all seems ridiculous, shit is going down.

Admittedly, it might be that the shit that's going down is horseshit, but it is still going down.

Trickster Jane has cherub swirls on her cheeks.

And I have no idea what the fuck is going to happen next.

Wait, yes I do. We'll cut away to something else.

remember the drawing callie made of trickster roxy licking the pop?

Gamzee what the hell are you doing here?

can this not be what happens

>>71027
And for that matter, her color choices for Dirk's picture were pretty Trickster-mode-y, too.

>>71023
going grimdark wasn't bad. it wasn't good. it was just fucking nothing. grimdarkness was of no point or consequence whatsoever.

>tumblr having conniptions because trickster Jane looks like a white girl

>>71032
This was pretty much doomed to happen, yea.

>>71023
>>71031
This is nothing like going grimdark, she is probably just more powerful or this is fake

>>71032
shouldn't they be celebrating? i mean, trickster mode colours are all messed up. that's the entire point. if she has light skin in trickster mode, doesn't that mean she probably doesn't have that skin colour normally?

>>71035
did you not see that expression on her motherfucking face

that is not the face of someone who has received a completely harmless power upgrade

>>70997
Well well well

>>71032
but Trickster John has had peach skin this entire time... :3c

So the Juju when combined becomes a sucker of Zoloft?

>>71040
Yea, but he wasn't really canon, per se; just a fanmade sprite that got added as an easter egg on a whim. It was easier for people to ignore.

I have a feeling this will turn out very badly. As in much, much worse than grimdarkness.

>>71044
To be fair, Rose's grimdark phase wasn't actually all that...grimdark. She had basically the same personality as she did before getting pumped full of horrorterror juice.

Kind of a letdown, really.

This is not what I expected to see when I saw there was an update this morning.

But hey, if Jane's in glitch mode now, maybe that's how to kill LE? He can only be killed by glitches

does this mean there's a possibility that the alt timeline dominant calliope is trickster as well?

>>71045
But she couldn't control her anger. Despite being extremely powerful, it led to her death. It also blacked out the view of everything in her proximity.

Now we've got trickster Jane, who is so incredibly hyper and happy and silly and hysterical as one can get. She could cause some real trouble. And she's still got the sucker, which presumably hasn't lost it magic.

The animations in this flash felt very smooth.
Also wat.

All right guys, opening the books--what are the odds that the next page is going to be "THIS IS STUPID?"

>>71049
Yeah, this was probably the most fluid character animation in all of Homestuck.

>>71042
But trickster mode in general was clearly based on that original sprite.

>>71032

Outside of that, I'm not sure why people are complaining about trickster mode becoming canon [if it's not Hussie just messing around]. It's not like they were a total fandom creation.

>>71053
they were, actually. hussie had absolutely no hand in creating trickster mode. the sprite that started it all was a john sprite edited by a fan, and put into a flash as an easter egg by the fan coding the game. then fans took the concept of that design and made trickster versions of every other character in homestuck. and then hussie put it in the actual comic. he didn't create it or even help in developing it.

also trickster mode is fucking stupid so i figure that's why people are mad about its canonity

So, this is all part of some ruse by Caliborn to send her fake jujus? How did Calliope know to send Jane a gift anyways since the session was supposed to have been blacked out otherwise.

>>71061
She may not be able to see their session, but she knows how things will turn out anyway because of Rose's book.

That said, the sucker was her birthday present for Jane. She had no idea that Caliborn would give his away just as freely, but she seemed to believe that trickster mode could become useful in the future.

>>71060
>also trickster mode is fucking stupid so i figure that's why people are mad about its canonity
Don't they know that their anger only makes Hussie's bone bulge harder?

>>71060
>also trickster mode is fucking stupid
This has never ever stopped Hussie before. He does not give a single withering shit what people think about what people think his comic should or should not have.

>>71064
just because he meant to do it and doesn't care about fan reaction doesn't mean the idea is any less objectively bad, or that people reading it are somehow not allowed to hate the development for being bad.

i mean you can shoot yourself in the foot on purpose--partially to show up everybody who thinks you wouldn't really do it or are telling you not to, and partially because you think it would be a fun thing to do--but you still ultimately shot yourself in the foot.

Perhaps it's because I don't keep up with fandom business, but I'm having a hard time understanding why some are up in arms about trickster mode.

>>71066
well basically half the fandom believes that it's fucking stupid because it was just a sillly fanmade easter egg, despite it appearing in the comic proper since that flash where it first appeared
the other half basically doesn't give a shit because it's fucking homestuck
and then we've got the angry social justice tumblrers who are mad because trickster Jane has light skin and it breaks their non-racial immersion

i for one don't give a shit as long as something actually comes off of this. like, if hussie decides to deconstruct the whole notion of trickster mode, showing the severe consequences and/or the great advantages of a playerw ho is basically permanently stuck in a state of extreme sugar rush and forced happy silliness, but if it's just a gag i'll be a bit irritated

You think their racial immersion would've been broken by the fact that every human character has been referred to as little pink monkey, pale, uncool white puppet rapper, a blonde mother and daughter, etc

People still think the aracial thing is anything but lip service?

>>71039
woah that's awesome
From the neverending story wikipedia page:
"Two mythological serpents, symmetrical, bite at the other's tail. In the book, they form an oval, and are not intertwined. One serpent is white and one is black. Each has an eye to correspond to the color of the book's print, red and green. It may be noted that the film version has the two snakes in an "Infinity Knot", a kind of grief knot which looks like a more intricate variation of the figure "8" infinity symbol and another sign of ouroboros. The two snakes represent the dual nature of the two worlds, Fantasia (German: Phantásien) and Reality, but also the twin nature of their mutual creation and destruction. On the back of AURYN are the words 'Do What You Will'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story#AURYN

>>71039
added a picture to the set

AURYN is a mystical talisman in The Neverending Story. In the novel, AURYN is always spelled in capital letters and is referred to as "The Gem" and "The Glory". It is a symbol of its mistress, the Childlike Empress.

A common misconception is that AURYN is a simple magical object that grants wishes. The truth is that AURYN's power flows from the Childlike Empress and that it can only be used with her permission. The powerful amulet cannot be used against her and if she does not grant the use of it to someone they are unable to influence AURYN.
...

Bastian comes to Fantastica and meets the Empress; she asks him to help re-build Fantastica with his imagination, and he subsequently has many adventures of his own in his new world. With the help of AURYN, a medallion that links him to the Empress, that gives him power over all the inhabitants of Fantastica and grants all of the boy's wishes, Bastian explores the Desert of Colors, battles the evil witch Xayide, and meets the three Deep Thinkers.
Bastian and Atreyu become friends. However, due to Bastian's continuous wishing with the The Gem - which costs a memory each time - he begins to lose his true self, to wit, Atreyu becomes increasingly more worried about him. Xayide exploits the growing tension between the two, driving Bastian to a lust for power and eventually having himself crowned as Childlike Emperor. Atreyu leads a rebellion against Bastian, but narrowly escapes with his life. Upon pursuing Atreyu, Bastian stumbled on a colony of humans who were trapped in Fantastica - having lost all their memories as they had recklessly indulged in the power of Auryn - and realizes what has nearly become of himself.

........
Calliope as the childlike empress and Caliborn as the childlike emperor? or will one of the kids take the role of Bastian? To save the empress from a sickness, bastian had to give her a new name (he chose "moonchild"). Since names play a role in cherub magic, I wonder if this will be somehow be important?

I've never read The Neverending story but I am psyched at the prospect of more references to it

forgot to mention, everything above the "........" is just lifted from the neverending story wikipedia article

>>71070
Here is a fun Neverending Story fact:
The original hardcover version of the book is printed in two colors, one for each of the worlds it's set in.
Those colors are red and green.

>>71065
>objectively bad

sshhhhh. it's okay. everything is going to be all right. it's okay to not like things.

>>71068
i'm constantly surprised when anyone actually thinks "aracial" was an intentional thing from the beginning.

>>71068
>>71073
author intent isn't always perfectly executed and there's good evidence that people's brains are conditioned to forget things like "this character isn't white" if it's not made obvious. then again that might just be me trying to cut the author of a thing I like some slack.

speaking of the author, I think there's about a 75% chance that the [S] in question is just him razzing us.

So is the sucker anything like the mask from the mask?

So she's off her planet. wonder what comes next. maybe she's the second coming of dirk and rounds everyone up for tomorrows battle.

>>71065
And yet people will still be reading the comic like they have been sense every other bizarre and dumb thing he's added or removed. He simply does not care and it being "objectively" bad does not influence him in the least.

>>71075
Almighty sugar on high.

And there...she...GOES! And that trickster-mode is an almighty hax power that seems to make the user go into a happy-filled berserker mode.

It seems that we are close to the final stretch of the end of this comic. Does anyone else feels like this comic has been rushed? I mean I hope he isn't planning on actually ENDING this comic on April 13. It feels like there are still some plot threads that needs to be resolved that + the final battle that would take longer than 4 months(with the rate of Hussie updates nowadays) that would provide a satisfying conclusion.

>>71079
He could just end it on 4/13 then end part 7 the epilogue on 6/12.

Did the whole "Ending on 4/13" thing actually come from Hussie, or was it just a fan theory that got so pervasive we've lost track of it?

anyone who TRULY understands homestuck knows that there is no such thing as an end

She just beat her planet quest without even realizing it, didn't she.
Makes me wonder if this whole clusterfuck did anything to her Denizen.

>>71081
Pretty sure it's just something the fandom has expected for a long time.

Speaking of the numbers, they don't seem anywhere as prevalent as they used to. They used to be all over the place, and they felt really significant and like they were leading up to something huge. Now they seem to have almost faded from the collective fandom consciousness. Hopefully Hussie did this on purpose to make their eventual significance come as a bigger surprise. I don't want all that foreshadowy build up to not have proper pay off.

>>71079
>Does anyone else feels like this comic has been rushed?

Well, that's one critique of Homestuck that you don't see too often.

Honestly, I'm expecting Homestuck to end on April 13 of NEXT year. MAYBE October 25 of this year. There's still tons of questions that need to be answered, and more questions will come up on the way to answering ones already here. Add to that all the different characters with different issues they need to reach resolutions to, and it will take quite a while for Homestuck to end if it does so in a satisfactory way.

I may seem like I'm expecting it too take way too long, but Hussie takes longer to get through stuff that anyone ever thinks it will take. I mean, back in Act 5 Act 1 most people thought Homestuck would be over by 4/13/11. There was just a lot more in the story than we could ever have seen coming, and the same is very possible now.

I think I've got it.
The Juju is the invincibility candy.

So I'm guessing that trickster mode basically super amplifies you power. Jane will spread Life wherever she goes.

what's this, i don't even...
>>71085
Hooooo! OK.
I get it now.

So it's safe to say inversion theory is disproven once in for all.

>>71088
no but dont you SEE
when jane went trickster her role was inverted
she is now the bard of doom, allowing the destruction of death by creating life, and soon she'll invite destruction THROUGH death
better go send this to that theory guy so he can rewrite it

>>71089
The sad thing is that this isn't far off from what he's actually saying.

Oh, boots. When will you learn to admit that you're not always right.

I'm thinking if Roxy doesn't kill her to sober her up, it's going to be Dad that calms down eventually. Who else would be able to handle a candy-crazed Crocker?

so it's end of act now yes?

I'm hoping we get a Spades Slick intermission.

>>71092
There's really not much for him to do other than run from WV, unless the journey to the Alpha is finally coming to an end, and he, WV, and the travellers on the meteor are going to arrive at the same place.

If that happens, I wonder what's going to happen. Will the kids finally fight Jack, will WV run him off (or maybe even kill him), or will all of them get roped into an Enemy Mine situation by realizing that Lord English is too big a threat to waste time fighting one another?

>>71093
*PM, you mean

>>71094
Sorry, yeah. My bad.

>>71093
I think that anon was referring to, well, Spades Slick. Not the murderdog but the murdercyborg.

What's up with him anyway? When was the last time we saw him? I think I remember a panel of him climbing back up to Hussie's balcony, but I don't know when that was.

...wow. Shit, man. So....does this mean Lil' Cal is a Trickster Mode cherub? We always knew there had to be a link, but I didn't think it'd be that direct. And the Squiddlies appear to be Trickster Mode horrorterrors rather than just humans interpreting horrorterrors they encounter in their dreams into cartoon characters.

Also, Gamzee appears to have gone from dumbstruck to completely fucking irritated by this turn of events. Which pleases me even more than anything else here. Gamzee was getting too smug with his "Clown who can do anything and knows more than everyone else" routine--glad to see that things can still go awry for him.

And Caliborn looks....almost in awe or respect of Jane? Has he decided on a NEW rival, in place of Jake?

what is even going on

Hussie.

Hussie, this is really silly. Stop that.

Hussie.

Hussie

Hussie.

My mind is going. I can feel it.

Welcome to Candy Kingdom!

Is this what the Horrorterrors meant when they said someone was killing them?

>>71105
pretty sure that was referring to lord english
there was quite some horrorterror collateral when he blew up that dream bubble

also i dont know how literal this update is to be taken

huss pls stop drug

Oh god Hussie is not even trying anymore