We begin Act Five of Homestuck with Rose’s FAQ. She reveals that the gods she’s been talking to on Derse confirm what the trolls have been saying, which is that the humans are eventually going to fail. Rose had assumed that there would be more people from Earth playing Sburb, and I’m guessing that the revelation that everyone on Earth has died has not done great things for her sanity. Rose declares that she will not be playing by the rules anymore, and she is sealing this FAQ in a server floating in the Farthest Ring for the gods to disperse as they wish. Her name is signed in a rainbow-y, cracked font, and the page ends with pictures of the gods from the Farthest Ring, who look suitably Lovecraftian. Yikes.
Hours in the future, the Warweary Villein becomes the Wayward Vagabond. Hours in the past, he recalls the corpse-strewn battlefield. John looks down at Dream!Jade’s corpse and removes the ring from her hand. Up in the clouds, he sees his destination. Hours in the future, the Post Mistress becomes the Peregrine Mendicant. In the past, the Post Mistress brings the collateral to Jack Noir and receives the package in return. She curtly gives the package to John and walks away. She just had to destroy the infrastructure of two kingdoms in order to deliver her package. That’s pretty harsh.
John opens the package. Inside are two notes from two very different people: Jade and a person who says things like “gadzooks” unironically while offering weapons for John’s use. Jade tells John about how much she’s looking forward to playing with him on Prospit when he wakes up and that she was psychic because she could see things through the clouds. John sheds a tear because Jade just up and died — and my heart, guys, if Jade is for real dead, I cannot take it. A prototyped Jack Noir interrupts John’s mourning and demands the ring he took from Jade. A cyborg-stuffed rabbit wielding one of John’s hammers, a broken sword, and a jetpack challenge Noir. Check. Is this the weapon the second person was talking about?
Hours in the future, the Authority Regulator becomes the Aimless Renegade. In the past, the Regulator flees the Temple and dispatches satellites from a laboratory in the Veil. He pokes a sleeping John. John continues to sleep as an ominous rumbling signals that the laboratory meteor is in flight. The Regulator straps John to his rocket ride with caution tape and sends him off to safety. Jack Noir retreats. What is probably Jade’s grandpa collects her body and flies off while Rose’s mom and John’s dad wave. Jade’s grandpa… stuffs and mounts Dream!Jade on a stand, as is family tradition. That’s still the weirdest effing family tradition.
The White Queen mourns and sets her ship through a portal. Hours in the future, she becomes a Windswept Questant and must walk alone. Years in the future, she finds her flying egg and installs a key to repair it. Farther along in the future, after she has crowned the Mendicant, the Vagabond gives her the ring he’s kept safe for so long. John sees this happening in one of Prospit’s clouds. In another cloud, he sees a Dark Laboratory with a long-lost fourth wall and a preserved-according-to-family-tradition Dream!Jade. The fourth wall isn’t turned on, but if it was, this is what we would see. Well played, Hussie. It’s another recap!
He explains the items that went with each kid thusly, which is great because I was really losing track of who went with what, where, and when.
[A]ll eight of them would travel with an object or animal. John with his Sassacre book — which would become the much older-looking family heirloom stored in Dad’s safe — with Nannasprite’s inscription to John on it. Rose with the dirty bunny Dave gave John for his birthday. Dave with the pony, Maplehoof. Jade with the knit-repaired bunny Rose got John for his birthday, which Rose cherished since “birth.” Nanna with Dad’s dirty hat. Mom with Mutini (Meowgon). Grandpa with two flintlock pistols, which older Grandpa left behind for him in the lab (which would eventually both wind up in Jade’s room). And bro with Dream Cal, which would later be fitted with a new personalized shirt and would become real Cal, the same doll that would haunt Dave’s waking life and, consequently, his dreams.
So Cal is kind of the same deal as the kids are: a paradox clone? Or just a walking paradox? That’s pretty weird and kind of unsettling. Anyway, the recounting here makes that seem more important than I initially thought. And John’s bunny has made the trip of regifting about… five times. Dave to John, then John to Rose, then Rose to John, then John to Jade, then Jade to John.
Elsewhere in paradox space, we examine another planet: something in weird alien letters a different thing in weird alien letters, transcribed as Alternia. This is the trolls’ homeworld! We meet carcinoGeneticist (CG), whose offline handle is actually Karkat Vantas! Things CG has done previously: yelled at several people and bonded with John over the insanity of paradox clones. Nice to meet you, Karkat. It is “the 12th bilunar perigee of the 6th dark season’s equinox,” i.e. his wriggling day, i.e. his birthday. He’s lived six sweeps, which is equivalent to thirteen Earth years.
…These are all thirteen-year-olds. Did I forget to mention that? Anything and everything can be held accountable to being, literally, thirteen years old. Hahahahahahaahahaahahh wow. I feel kind of bad now about having been kind of judgmental of their life choices. There’s puberty and hormones and a whole mess of junk to handle, even when you don’t include the bit about their whole world getting destroyed and having no adults around.
Karkat’s interests include terrible romcoms, which he should be embarrassed about but isn’t, and being terrible at computer programming, which means that his specialty is computer viruses. He eventually wants to join the Threshecutioners, which sounds cool and ominous and exciting. He owns posters of romcoms with candy-corn-colored horns photoshopped on the actors’ heads, and somehow nothing is funnier than a be-horned Will Smith looking out charmingly over what, in another world, would be the movie Hitch. Additionally, it’s revealed that this is before Sburb, which makes this all make a lot more sense.
In Karkat’s room is a purple cocoon filled with green soporific slime, which apparently helps trolls stop having visions of blood and carnage every night. Yikes. His house from the outside looks like something from Dr. Seuss, if maybe a little more structurally sound. Karkat designed and possibly built it himself. Inside his house, he speaks to a troll with the username terminallyCapricious (TC).They insult each other in the beautiful troll disease known as friendship. TC believes in miracles and sounds kind of high.
Cutting to TC’s perspective, we find out that his name is Gamzee Makara. He is, somehow, a fan of Insane Clown Posse before they even exist. His room is a mess, strewn with Faygo, juggling clubs, and car horns. He and Karkat are best friends. Gamzee eats sopor slime pies, which trolls are apparently not supposed to eat, and I gotta wonder if that’s why he sounds so high. After accidentally tossing a Faygo bottle out into the ocean, he talks to gallowsCalibrator (GC), who suggests that they play a game. Odds on it being Sburb, go.
‘Till next time!