sincerelywasserious - Tumblr blog

[sincerelywasserious]

Gamer Grandma Gits Gud!

(page 419-421)

7/30/2009 Wheel Spin: Captchalogue Lore Verdict: INCORRECT

7/31/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: EXTREMELY INCORRECT - true answer: Grandparent Good :)

There's an absolutely overwhelming amount of stuff in only three pages and LOADS to say, so I'm going to bullet point this to keep this as brief as possible because I try to write these posts within the timeframe of a single Mountain Goats album.

Rose + Dave

Those notification bubbles above the computer really exist, in Sburb at the very least! Rose knows that Dave is wearing those stupid shades confirmed.

The command is 'Rose: Pester John.' and Rose only half obeys this - she pesters, but it isn't John. Always cool to see characters push against commands, and to have expectations subverted for the reader.

Dave acknowledges that his bro might be taking puppet irony too far, and it's Rose he chooses to tell this to, explicitly saying 'don't tell John.'

Dave's bro's ventriloquist rap doll haunts him in his dreams?? This is definitely a normal sibling dynamic and definitely not something that's going to end up being super important given the general theme of the characters having dolls in their house.

What are Dave's bro's websites and are they anything like Dave's? Does Rose think Dave's bro is cooler than he is? Is this a sticking point in their friendship?

'I suspect he is preoccupied with the fact that he just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.' Fucking insane thing for Rose to say. No wonder Dave has no idea what to make of it.

John + Nanna

Nannasprite is the coolest ever. Lots of her wisdom clearly comes from being a game NPC, but she dispenses it in such a grandmotherly fashion.

Nannasprite is also the most powerful character because she never has to retrieve her arms. She has one all the time, while everyone else is sometimes drawn without them.

Very interesting dynamic that John doesn't remember his nan from before she died, and is essentially getting to know her for the first time in gamesprite form.

Absolutely hilarious bit that Nannasprite pretends not to know what a computer is.

Dad + Imps

The imps on p.421 are both clown themed and have the same bodies, but different color schemes. One is a shale imp exactly like the one John thought - the other could be a different flavor of imp who drops different loot?

John is 'a fine young man just like [his] father' according to Nanna. I sure would love to know what Dad was like when he was young.

With the new knowledge of the strife portfolio, can we assume Dad uses both cakekind and broomkind? Possibly other fatherly household objects too?

Dad was kidnapped by 'the forces of darkness,' which doesn't sound very good. The imps seem like really low level enemies though, and not deserving of this title. Who do they work for? In D&D, imps are very low level fiends who serve devils and archdevils, and I believe this comes from Christian mythology. But imps aren't typically evil in and of themselves, just mischievous lackeys, so something bigger is happening.

The Lore!!!!

The Medium - makes me think of an artistic medium, as in a type/category of art or the material used to create art, or of a medium/middle between light and darkness or good and evil.

The Incipisphere - from incipient, 'beginning to happen or develop' + sphere, a uniform three-dimensional round shape. This is interesting, because the place is 'untouched by the flow of time' but also has just come into being with the beta release of Sburb and also 'somewhat paradoxically, almost has' existed apart from it. This works because I too have had older relatives tell me confusing stories that don't make logical sense.

John is not inside a computer or digital space, the computer served as a portal to a different physical space (which is also a ring of pure void). Computer (or fiction in general) as portal to another world is a common metaphor that is being made literal here.

Sburb probably dictates how much gamesprites know and how much they're allowed to tell the player. To what extent is Nannasprite 'pre-programmed' and to what extent is she making her own decisions? Is the lore she gives John completely reliable?

[sincerelywasserious]

Finally had some time to catch up and TG NAME

We love Dave strider on this blog

[sincerelywasserious]

So TT’s name is rose lalonde. Huh

[sincerelywasserious]

was chatting with some other readers about the possible significance of color in Homestuck, which is mostly black and white. exceptions so far include:

the design on John's shirt

the Sburb poster on John's door

John's calendar

the outside world as seen through John's window

GAMEBRO magazine

the yellow stars and moons on John's magic chest and magician's hat

John's captchlogue cards and strife specibus

the covers of John's books (Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery and Harry Anderson's Wise Guy by Mike Caveny)

John's smoke pellets and blood capsules

John's computer screen

several of the games in John's CD rack

the vividly psychelic harlequin paintings in the hallway and living room

the fire in the fireplace

some of us were speculating that it might signify escapism; John is titularly stuck at home, seeing a more vivid world through both his literal window and the figurative window of his internet-connected computer. everything connected to the game he's hoping to play--the poster, the magazine, his calendar (featuring the game logo)--is a spot of color, as are the gaming abstractions in his ordinary life, as well as things associated with magic. the harlequin paintings might also signify another world, but apparently not one John wants to escape into- that's more his dad's thing, I guess.

[sincerelywasserious]

TT REVEAL THIS ISNNOT A DRILL

Does this mean will get a TG reveal at some point👀

[sincerelywasserious]

Im sure that’s fine actually

At least we won’t get 10 pages of modus fuckery now hopefully

[sincerelywasserious]

NEW CHARACTER LORE and man is it bleak. It seems like not all our friends have great home lives with TT’s mother apparently drinking a lot and maybe even sprinkling a bit of verbal abuse too boot.

[sincerelywasserious]

New update! So we’re getting even more into the mechanics of sburb now but still no elaboration on what the object of this whole game is. We also see that TT doesn’t know what the aim of the game is either. Now diving into what we see, TT says that the alchemy we’ve seen reference too is based around a punch card system. I’m guessing that the punch cards are like the first computer programs which used cards with holes in them to convey ones and zeros. We also saw two new things in the phernalia registry, the punch designix which I’m betting will make new punch cards, and the pre punched card which is the only thing we’ve see so far that costs grist and is in the registry. It also costs a new type of purple grist which we haven’t seen yet.

[sincerelywasserious]

SBURB Interface Button Names - weird choice but ok

Heres the approximate breakdown I could glean from google:

SELECT - self explanatory: pick or choose

REVISE - examine and make changes to something

DEPLOY - utilize or arrange for deliberate purpose

Now we get into the weird ones.

Looking up phernalia only brings us paraphernalia. Theres two definitions for this that could make sense:

euipment, apparatus or furnishing used or necessary for particular activities

personal belongings

Next we have registry which is a place where records are kept. However for computers specifically its where information is recorded about software settings.

In all we can guess:

PHERNALIA REGISTRY - a record of items necessary for the game (the activity we are doing). What the items are is unclear.

For grist the first definition is grain which... doesnt make sense for the game, especially when the image for it kinda looks like Gushers if Im being honest (which is weird in itself). Some better options are:

useful ideas or material

(as in the idiom 'grist to the mill') anything that can be used to your advantage

It comes from Old English meaning 'grind' so potentially material that the PLAYER grinds for that they can then use.

A cache is a hidden store of things or computer memory which stores information temporarily for quick access.

Combine it and we get:

GRIST CACHE - useful material stored to quickly use for advantages

Atheneum auto corrects to athenAeum and I dont know if it was deliberate on Hussies part to remove the 'A'. Regardless, this one has a more straightforward definition: institution for the promotion of literary or scientific learning, i.e. a library.

EXPLORE ATHENEUM - explore library (of what? - that is the question)

Most people know alchemy but for the sake of completion: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination. Excursus also has a simple-ish meaning: further detailed descussion of a topic normally in an appendix.

Together, finally, we have:

ALCHEMY EXCURSUS - (potentially) appendix of magical processes to transform, create or combine things

Doing all this research makes me SO curious to see everything in action as we progress in SBURB, especially since we the readers are blind to the actual use of these buttons.

[sincerelywasserious]

Wow things are actually getting started. So yeah it seems like we got the full suite of sims abilities. We also got a peak at other things in the phernalia registry like the Cruxtruder which sounds like a cross between Cru(???) and extruder so it extrudes cru what ever that is. There’s also the alchemiter which I’m guessing is connected to the alchemy excursus though I don’t know what either of them do. There was also an arrow in the phernalia registry so there might be more stuff? I’m excited to see how this progresses.

[sincerelywasserious]

So sburb is just real life sims. Which is normal in this world i guess

[sincerelywasserious]

I wonder if you could have a sylladexkind where you just launch your inventory at people

[sincerelywasserious]

Lmao I think this is hussie saying we shouldn’t think to deep about the modi

[sincerelywasserious]

Seeing this post triggered something in me. The double letter combinations felt familiar but I couldn’t place it till now. They remind me of the base pairs in dna. There are four types of proteins that make up dna, adenine (a), cytosine (c), guanine (g), and thymine (t). These are what dna is made of but they never come individually and dna is actually made up of pairs of these proteins so you get things like AC, AG and TG👀. the abbreviations follow this pattern but it’s Interesting that they only use guanine and thymine and not the adenine and cytosine. This makes me wonder if we’ll get four other characters that use only adenine and cytosine. Or maybe there’ll be twelve other characters and we’ll get the full suite. Idk what this all means and it might not even be intentional but I thought it was interesting.

when your friends don't invite you to the matching username party :(

Now that we've seen all of John's friends talk at least a little bit, I wanted to deep dive into their usernames, and see what they might be able to tell us about the characters we don't know yet. For sure I've seen some weird usernames in my time on sites like MSN Messenger, but these seem especially weird, and not like words most kids would use.

There's also a weird pattern - all three of John's friends only use words beginning with T and G in their screen names. We have TT, TG and GG, so if they were doing a bit together we'd expect John to be GT, but instead he's EB - not even close. Could this be a sign that he feels disconnected from the friend group, not fully part of things, doubting that they want him around? Is it possible that the other three are all each other's 'real life' friends while John only talks to them online? Did John not want to be GT, or did nobody ever tell him there was a theme? Was he GT before, but then got mad at his friends one day and change it to spite them? Or is there another GT we have yet to meet?

Discussion of all four known chumhandles under the cut - only ~1k words :)

ectoBiologist - As discussed in my in depth John thoughts, the strict definition of this is 'someone who studies outside/external biology', which could relate to a huge variety of very niche fields - but, knowing John, almost certainly refers to the biology of ectoplasm, slime, and ghosts, a field which doesn't exist in reality but which John might consider himself a pioneer of.

As a sidenote, if John was GT, he might go in a different direction with his username. We know from TT that John regularly wears disguises while talking to her / interacting with his dad / just in daily life, and that he's into comedy and pranks (NOT clowns). Reflecting those, I came up with guisecladTrouper as a chumhandle that would fit the modifierTypeofguy pattern, as well as the letters. If anyone has any other GT ideas for John, I'd love to hear them!

turntechGodhead - TurnTech is a Chinese company founded in 2001 that makes scientific and educational software. This probably isn't the reference, but you never know; this kid could be really into science, happen to own a piece of software from this company, and have liked the word. I also think it could be short for 'turntable technology', which can be a few different hobbies - records/DJing, railroads, or sculpture/ceramics/metalwork. DJing fits his vibe but I think it'd be so cool if he was a train guy. 'Turn' relates to shaping or forming as well as changing direction, so he could be someone who develops his own technology.

This also fits really well with 'godhead', which is the true or essential nature of God in several major world religions. So this could be a suggestion of a guy with delusions of grandeur and a massively inflated ego, or, it could be someone who takes on the role of a god himself - some kind of creator. I really think this kid is going to be into invention, metalworking, and engineering. Built his own computer from scratch type of guy. I bet he owns a soldering iron and uses it for fun.

tentacleTherapist - Lots of living things have tentacles, including snails, squid, jellyfish, coral, moss animals, caecilians, the star-nosed mole, some carnivorous plants, Squidward, and mind flayers. Tentacles are generally associated with sea creatures, horror media, or both. Therapist, meanwhile, is a person who helps to heal someone's physical or psychological problems. The words sound really good when said together, but don't have an obvious link.

One idea is that she's someone who either lives near water or owns weird pets - a tank of snails or jellyfish seems reasonable - perhaps caring for or rehabilitating them from the wild. But the idea of her being into cosmic horror creates a fascinating parallel between her username and John's. John is a biologist; he studies, analyzes and understands academically, while TT is a therapist; she rehabilitates and understands emotionally. John works with ghosts and slime, while TT works with aliens and deep sea horror. It's delightful to me that they might have bonded by nerding out over paranormal lore, an interest probably neither of them shares with many people around them.

gardenGnostic - I keep reading this as a shortening of 'common or garden gnostic' as in 'your average, everyday gnostic' which, out of all the four usernames, might be the wildest one for a 13 year old to be. Much like 'godhead', 'gnostic' carries a very strong religious theme, especially with the capital letter - I know it's the syntax, but the words could be this way round for a reason. I'm definitely going to do some background reading on Gnosticism as we get to know this character to see how well it fits.

The first word could also be referencing the Garden of Eden, the original sin and the tree of knowledge; the combination indicating a character with a drive for spiritual knowledge and self-understanding above all else. In a more literal sense, I'm imagining someone who spends a lot of time outdoors and who would think nothing of a few injuries from the Slimer pogo ride in the yard. This chumhandle is also only a few letters away from 'garden gnome', which makes me think of someone who enjoys the ornamental, decorative, and whimsical.

Just as John and TT's usernames are a pair with similar themes, TG and GG's handles also match up. (Sidenote: does this mean these are the pairs of 'best friends'? Feels weird considering TT is the only one of the three who didn't wish John a happy birthday). Both TG and GG have chumhandles strongly related to religion, creation, and origins, with TG representing the mechanical and technical side of things, and GG representing the natural and environmental side.

So, that's our four chums! The most interesting thing to me is how well these pairs of usernames work together, despite John being outside of the letter pattern. Both these things feel very intentional and not like I'm reaching; they definitely mean Something in the themes, but it's too soon to say what. I'm so impatient to see more of these characters and learn anything concrete about them at all.

If you've made it this far, here's a quick poll!

[sincerelywasserious]

NEW CHARACTER AND MORE TG WERE SO BACK

[sincerelywasserious]

Fell behind a bit but we’re back

[sincerelywasserious]

Also more video game mechanics in the real world. Thought this seems more like an abstraction of John just strifing with his dad.