#parallel mspfa

[hanahakizombie]

my boy lucas... ♥️♥️♥️ technically this is the sfw version? ig? because the original has a sex joke on the bottom instead of the mwa!!! text? anyways he's technically a homestuck oc but not really because hes just an alternate version of one of my pre-existing characters lol

also i hope the alt text is ok? im not used to writing that stuff. i see a lot of people on here put really hefty image ids on posts but i cant write that and i think my thing gets the point across just fine????? its not much to look at anyways plus i doubt anyone is gonna see this at all

[localnerdcase]

hey, quick word of advice for anyone making a mspa inspired reader-command comic, don't just do what the command says.

early homestuck (, jailbreak and problem sleuth) operate under "fuck you" logic.

take problem sleuth for example:

a misguided mspfa artist would decide to render this panel in excruciating detail, but it's kept simple because, hey, the last two adventures weren't anything major, why would this one be any different?

just looking at it, what do you see? okay, if you've read problem sleuth, you know what's really happening in this picture and what's behind it.

but if you took it at face value and just wrote it as is, you would turn up with "a detective is in his office. a gun is sitting on his desk, next to it is a phone. behind it is a window and a chair. there is a safe on the wall." [citation needed]

this hypothetical parallel universe problem sleuth is quickly forgotten about in the history of the person who made it and in mspfa history.

...but nothing in the room works the way you think it would, see that window on the door? it's actually a piece of paper attached to the door, also the door is locked. see that safe? it's fake, and there's a clown painting behind it. that window? it's a portal to another dimension.

and this information isn't given to the audience at first, all they know at first is that this is a detective story, and the description "You are one of the top Problem Sleuths in the city. Solicitations for your service are numerous in quantity. Compensation, adequate. It is a balmy summer evening. You are feeling particularly hard boiled tonight." before the 'what will you do?' prompt.

go and read the first 10 pages of problem sleuth right now, here's a link: (https://www.homestuck.com/problem-sleuth), it's also in the unofficial homestuck collection.

a summary of what you (hopefully) just read: "get the gun" "there is no gun in here (there's a key where the gun was in the artwork)" "get the key" "why? the door isn't locked" "open the door" "you can't" "punch the door" "why would that work? the door's locked" "get the key" "you got the gun".

this is also done to simpler effect in homestuck's intermission: "be spades slick" "you are now hearts boxcars" [sic].

early homestuck had slightly less of this effect done, because of the more story-focused writing homestuck as a whole had, and even ditched the reader commands because of it.

if you want story from the start, just write the comic yourself. if you want reader commands from the start, take a more comedic tone.

when problem sleuth became more complex later on, it was because the logic was starting to layer onto itself, and more named ("named") characters were being added and continued to exist. also hussie is a huge nerd who can keep track of these sort of things.

but back to the main point, don't just do what the reader's command says, the readers are expecting you to do something funny or interesting with your command, if you just do what they say in a simple or uncreative way, they're not going to humor you.

problem sleuth's "puzzles" are bizarre, surreal and abstract at times (best described as "weird"), but they still are puzzles with solutions, BUT, those puzzles' solutions are made by the audience, more like the readers are "breaking" the logic presented to them by the story.

if you have only one solution to a problem, you're better off making an actual game, just writing the story yourself in accordance with the character's arcs, or leaving it up to a poll.

-a guy who has written exactly one mspfa and barely reads them anymore.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

Edgestuck Chainbound

This is another Fanadventure I’m excited to get to, mainly because I’ve heard a lot of good things from people whose opinion I respect, and that makes me interested to stick around for maybe longer than I usually would. At least, that’s what happens when I hear good things about a story from people whose opinions I respect.

And already we’re off to a good start, with an intro that DEFINITELY makes me intrigued to know just what the heck is going on here. Who is this person? Why are they chained to the wall? Why, despite this, do they claim that “everything is going according to plan?” Also, this is some GOOD sequencing and parallelism happen from Pages 16-17…the cut from happy, blue skies to terrifying red with destroyed structures, going from the bleaker narration of our main character to a dialogue-only page, and of course, having the title drop of the overall body of work on page 16, and giving us the title of this individual section on Page 17. This is one of the (many other different) things I think that the MSPFA format is really good at—paralleling two distinct pages and allowing both to have their own character whilst linking them symbolically together. It’s good stuff happening here, is my point.

I love how this fanadventure currently is utilizing the fact that OG Homestuck did not even remotely care about creating a linear timeline (atleast, in Parts 1-2). In this fanadventure, there’s like, massive jumps from the prologue to the beginning of the adventure, then another jump to when our protagonist enters the session, and then a jump back three years later, all in a few short panels of each other. It’s very…refreshing to see that kind of approach taken? I’m trying to think about other Fanadventures that I’ve read recently from this project that take that same kind of “the timeline is under my control and I will show what’s relevant and not what comes next” approach, and I can’t think of any at the moment. Anyways, it’s neat and I like that it adds that texture and makes me think that, wow, this author wants to do something here and wants to tell something very specific.

I guess I should be more specific about what part specifically this fanadventure reminds me of, and that part is 100% Act 5 Act 1, because that one ALSO just jumps over the timeline willy nilly and can only DO those truncating stunts because it assumes (correctly, in my opinion) that by the time you’ve gotten to this point, you’ve “got” it already. And, while that assumption can’t really be made in the same way for a fanadventure that might be somebody’s first fanadventure, I do think that is roughly true for anybody getting in Edgestuck Chainbound. You *know* how Act 1s and SBURBventures typically go, and you’ve read Homestuck. You’ll be able to get your footing within the tangled timeline hops throughout the story. It’s *also* like Act 5 Act 1 because of the whiff of inevitable tragedy and the spectacle of a friend group falling over coats the entirety of this Fanadventure.

Anyways yes, in case it wasn’t obvious, I am having a really good time with this Fanadventure. I am going to put it down now, but I *will* be back because. Oh boy. This kind of speedy, fast moving paced rollercoaster is a little bit my jam? Never staying in one place for any one time, showcasing just how toxic some internet friend groups can become…it’s all peak. I would, too, highly recommend checking out Edgestuck Chainbound. It’s some good stuff.

[oni-tengu]

okay this idea kicked my ass and i wanted to do all 12 beta trolls but i got this far and i was DONEEE. anyway.

kind of an excuse to draw them how i'd style them, kind of got away from me when i started to fantasize an AU for them lol. basically how it'd be if i made a homestuck earth C spinoff /MSPFA

info about the AU below (gamzee w scars at the bottom)

this is very self indulgent so read at ur own risk hahah

its all the kids, calliope, beta trolls and dancestors n its one of those "what if trolls lived on earth from the beginning" things so not TECHNICALLY earth c but maybe it is??

the trolls as a species migrated to earth before the beta trolls were "born" and a lot of their history got muddled so theyre not really 100% aware that they have any ties to the ancestors EX) signless. theyre still relatively new to earth though so its still in the age where theyre trying to integrate humans and trolls together in society n humans dont know much about trolls and their culture etc

overall it parallels canon but i get to choose the ships and everyone's alive (: dancestors n beta trolls live with their respective "relative" and the beta trolls' lusii. the larger and more dangerous lusus, like vriska's spider-mom is a tarantula sized lusus, feferi's is able to fit in a 20 gallon tank, and gamzee's is more like...human sized. ETC.

the humans have altered relationships to each other, and their parents aren't ecto-clones or whatever the fuck but just. people. parents. bro sucks n dave goes to live with dirk n his dad at 12 y/o. some are half-siblings, some are cousins, some are step-siblings, etc.

calliope i haven't totally figured out, except that she's the dominant sibling and caliborn is just in the back of her head but she doesn't let him come out. also callie and roxy r dating <3 (:

my bias is toward karkat and the alphas basically, so i mostly focused on them but my style is ALSO very slice-of-life so everyone gets a little drama (: there's some dave + karkat and karkat + gamzee drama 4 sure mhmm

beta humans and trolls are 3 years younger than alphas, alphas are three years younger than dancestors. so when john is 13, jane is 16, and dancestors are 19.

they also have awareness of SBURB/SGRUB and have dream selves. literally i just wanted derse and prospit lol but if i had to make logic for it, maybe its just that this IS earth C and the reason the trolls left alternia was bc SGRUB blew it up. i dont know. dont look at me im doing my best.

thats all i wanna share thanks for coming to ted talk

here's gamzee with scars just bc this was an alternate i made i guess

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

Its interesting how themes I've always consider to be obvious are missed by others. The carapacians are parental figures to the players, while consorts are the babyish creatures the players can cuddle and coo over like baby dolls or plush animals.

Dave clinging to the mayor is also an extention of Dave's desire for a genuine parental figure, while still fearing the power a figure like that would have over him, so he treats WV like a consort or toy or even at times like a pet. It plays into the themes of the strider's strained relationship with fatherhood and the forced "brother" substitution to any true familial patriarch roles.

All while June latched onto Casey and Seb (seb being a pseudo consort) as she is the one character with a solid parental figure (who, when she was latching onto Casey, was not yet dead) and June is more inclined towards something cute she can play with and coo over.

You actually made me realize all 3 of 4 beta kids had carapacians who could be considered like parental figures to them. For Karkat too, Jack was basically his father figure that had more of a Bro parallel to it, but yah, go read Exile Meteor Dads on mspfa

[clonerightsagenda]

The final part of the Vriska arc commentary! Let's go.

Terezi and Vriska's conversation was a big ticket item and something we never got actual resolution on in canon, so I knew I wanted to do it right. I totally scrapped a first draft of this conversation and gutted my second one pretty hard before I was happy with anything.

Vriska has mellowed out at this point, because it's been a long time for her. However, time is weird out in the bubbles. If she'd fully lived thousands of years, someone she knew for thirteen of them shouldn't be a big deal. But bubble time is more stasis than much else, so even if she's chilled out in many ways, when Terezi shows up it brings a lot of stuff back to the surface. I kept hitting walls until I let Vriska get a little angry - I've found often character interactions go more smoothly if I let them get mad at each other.

VRISKA: You're the one who set the terms. You're the one who hemmed us into two 8inary options. VRISKA: Heads or scratch, stay or go. VRISKA: I might have agreed to those terms, 8ut you offered me the deal. VRISKA: Are you telling me, Seer, that you REALLY couldn't find any other way????????

TEREZI: 1 H4D TH3 CH4NC3 TEREZI: 1 4LMOST TOOK 1T TEREZI: 1 W4NT3D TO R3WR1T3 TH3 UN1V3RS3 FOR YOU TEREZI: BUT 1TS NOT 4LL 4BOUT YOU VR1SK4 TEREZI: 1T C4NT B3 4LL 4BOUT YOU

The spectre of the retcon hangs over a lot of Terezi's scenes, especially BAA and this one. We as readers know that in canon, postretcon Terezi remains miserable. This Terezi doesn't know that, but she has come to the conclusion that we have to live with the decisions we have made. Our mistakes define us as much as as our good choices. As she says, if we change that, we're not saving ourselves, we're saving someone else, and that's a big risk to take with everybody's lives. Canon GO!Terezi takes it, but I felt that considering she felt her judgment was so untrustworthy, and she regretted her past overindulgences in trying to puppeteer others, she wouldn't be willing to change so much for so many. As Vriska acknowledges, that act wouldn't have saved her. It would have spared some other iteration, and we've seen that this just makes Vriska dig deeper into her bad behavior.

VRISKA: May8e I should 8e thanking you. TEREZI: TH4NK1NG M3? TEREZI: FOR K1LL1NG YOU? VRISKA: Weird, huh?

At this point, as mentioned above, Vriska has chilled the fuck out considerably. She's aware of the way her behavior was shaped by her situation and is somewhat grateful to be away from the circumstances that made her act the way she did. Most of this happens offscreen, because it happens over a long period of time, and all of team dreaming dead is classified as secondary/minor character-wise. Hopefully her slow transition is believable. A lot of it simply came from being out of the environment that built her for thousands and thousands of years. After that long, it'd be weird if you *didn't* figure out some stuff about yourself. Her new attitude is something she can pass on to Terezi, who expresses anxiety about living without her sister there. I wanted to give that relationship some closure and express how important and formative it was to both of them, but at times Terezi in particular took it to some codependent extremes. Being able to exist without Vriska is something she needs to learn before they can meet again on an even footing.

I did want to get in at least one Vriska and Kanaya conversation, since they had that loose end going on. Don't have much to say about that re: Vriska's arc, but I did think it was worth touching on. As a side note, I was in Chicago for ALA during this update. Gill posted 'we're going to hit 2000 pages with this one' and I reblogged it going i think the mcfuck not since we were at 1200. She'd mixed up some numbers, but the thing is, I had left her unattended and while her drawing 800 pages of Vriska seemed unlikely, I couldn't rule it out.

VRISKA:  W8key w8key!!!!!!!! <33333333

I really liked the idea of having Vriska's dialog in the actual command prompt. Her psychic command is so powerful it's escaping the text box. It's fitting, too, because directly after this update Dave "wakes up" and then helps John "wake up" Calliope. As I mentioned before, all that stuff could've been lumped together into one flash, but I quickly decided not to do that.

On page 1213 Gill only has six 3s for the heart. Apparently the mspfa discord decided that's because she gave one each to Kanaya and Terezi. That's how we cover up our errors here folks. With style.

On page 1214 Vriska's literally stealing Lord English's light from Terezi and Kanaya which is a nice touch, I think.

On 1215 we can see Terezi's eyes starting to go, while Kanaya sensibly covers her face (and is more resistant to light damage in general.) Terezi's first blinding was done by Vriska and, despite it being done with negative intent, Terezi ended up associating it positively with their relationship. Her losing that blindness represented her failure to see justice as "blind". When she tried to do something because it was "right" even when it went against her heart, it destroyed her. This reblinding doesn't mean Terezi can be impartial again. You can't and shouldn't dispense justice that way. But it rebuilds her connection with her sister, and the last thing she ever sees is the last good thing Vriska Serket ever did.

Vriska's clock hits heroic and then explodes. The heroic/just thing is kinda pointless because she's already dead AND we've been told English can override that, but it was a nice touch and parallel, considering her initial death was a Just ruling followed by the clock being damaged.

So, about that sendoff. I've mentioned before that I dislike the heroic sacrifice trope. Ironically, in a juxtaposition I hadn't thought about until just now, Dave bitches about it at length in a conversation a few updates before this scene. I greenlit this one for a few reasons. First, it's not a redemption through death. Vriska doesn't suck up until this point and then this action alone is supposed to balance the scales. She's bettered herself as a person up to this point. Also, we've made it pretty clear by now that all the dreaming dead are on the way out, one way or another. Vriska isn't being singled out to die. She's being singled out to get a particularly dramatic exit because of her weight in the story. Even so, I felt bad about it. Still, as I talk about more extensively over here, I can't see an alternative that works. And maybe we're used to Homestuck not killing anyone for keeps, but sometimes stuff hurts, and it's supposed to. It says a lot for me that I actually felt bad about it, tbh. I really warmed up to her in the end. Even in the land of eternal children, she did grow up, and although TLC has no canon stance on what happens to the double-dead, and I haven't really developed an opinion, I like to think that one day after Terezi has a few more thousand years under her belt they'll meet up and she can tell her all about it.

There's probably more that could be said but this has been Very Long so I'm gonna leave it there.

[hanahakizombie]

toes - glass animals

mathew my mutant baby i want to feed u pancakes and tea

[hanahakizombie]

"i am the one who is evil"

[hanahakizombie]

coughs ..

COUGHS.

such a small number... but also so big ... im very thankful to whoever is reading parallel xoxo ♥️♥️ im glad people like it. :D

[hanahakizombie]

species swap of the parallel gold session cast!!!

mathew / lucas / lio ===> mathew / luikis / leo

luikis is a burgundy blood btw

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

Homestuck: Subscript

I promised you more “Homestuck^2 Sucks, I Think I Could Do Better” fanadventures. I guess the last one I reviewed wasn’t *really* one of those, but it certainly was boosted by the zeitgeist turning INTO that kind of attitude.

I guess I should explain what I mean by “Homestuck^2 Sucks, I Think I Could Do Better” moniker I just made up for this block(?) of reviews. It’s basically like the attitude of “the concept of a sequel to Homestuck is a good idea, I want to do that and see a continuation, except I’m not feeling satisfied by the content that HS^2 is currently putting out, so instead of doing that kind of story, I’m gonna make my OWN story that’s going to be satisfying and bring catharsis and tidy conclusions to everybody’s character arcs and be it’s own grand narrative and it’s gonna be cool.” Which, I mean I guess more power to you? That kind of method can certainly pay out some dividends if you know what you’re doing (see Burning Down The House, a MSPFA that I will sadly not getting to in this journey because it is, in fact, on a different site). But you kinda need to know what you’re doing, because HS^2 was. Competent. Not good, not bad, just, competently done, in my opinion, and doesn’t really deserve all the hate it got, and still continues to get to this day?

You know, I’ve never gotten the choose your own character stuff being used in Fanadventures. This fanadventure employs it here, since there are so many blorpos to catch up on and check in with. But like. The whole thing with a “choose your own character to hang out with” is. It’s a sham? Like, it’s supposed to be like this big thing about having freedom and agency to check out which conversation, atleast, that’s the stated reason in the OG comic. The *actual* reason is to parallel how the commands in the First Part of Homestuck were supposed to also give freedom and agency to the reader, but really was just Hussie controlling where the story went all along. It also paints anything that happens in the choose-your-own-character portions like, kind of irrelevant, because you have the option to just skip past all the conversations and move on, which means that the plot *should* be able to withstand that reader’s choice. All this to say is that I don’t understand it when Fanadventures employ this method of storytelling structure besides just the idea that, because Homestuck did it, well, it must be good to do in our comic too. I guess it could be that choose-your-own-character techniques in fanadventures could be serving the purpose of chunking various scenes that would otherwise be hard to transition between? But I can’t think of any other reasons…wow that was a lot of words about Choose-Your-Own-Character mechanics in Fanadventures.

I’m not vibing with this one. Mainly because I see no need to get catharis in seeing a happy ending for any of the Homestuck Characters. I mean, would I like them to get a happy ending by HSBC? Sure, but what I would really like most of all is to get a good story out of it. Like, I would say that I don’t quite think that the fandom overall turning Jake English into the party-guy extraordinare was a good call in any sense of the word, and that being in The Homestuck Epilogues is something that I do slightly dislike about it. But I wouldn’t say that Jake English standing up and yelling that he does not want to be treated like a piece of meat is a compelling response to what The Homestuck Epilogues *did* to Jake English, you know what I’m saying? I think the reason why somebody would think that would be an appropriate way to start an arc is because…well, it’s annoying to identify the problem in someone and not immediately go, “they should immediately have this realization and take steps to change this.” Because that doesn’t exactly make a compelling, gripping story? And makes it seem like the realization comes out of nowhere? I don’t get the build-up to it.

So yeah, I wouldn’t say that this one is…compelling to me, to say the least. But I guess it was interesting enough to type out a bunch of words analyzing exactly why it wasn’t compelling to me, so. Take that as you will.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

REALLY! FUCKED UP ENTRY

I think a large part of the modern construction of SBURBventures is the feeling of like, everybody knows about SBURB’s mechanics inside and out by now. There’s a sense of like, there being a solid foundation from the audience to be able to grasp and understand the core conceit of why, for example, everything is on fire in the first panel of this fanadventure, and thus we don’t need to spend any time on it. RFUE is very much of the mindset that you need to get rid of everything that is unnecessary, that includes Introductions to the characters, introduction to the setting, and introduction to the mechanics. “Come on,” it seems to say. “You already know what’s going on. We don’t need to explain anything. You know why you are here, and why you are here is to watch a bunch of people mess up the SBURB entry sequence and fail around like idiots, while meteors fall overhead.” It’s Touys, and it’s touys being done at such a rapid pace that there is room for nothing else. It’s a very…Time-Aspecty driven story, if that makes sense? Only dialogue and jokes and entry sequences, back-to-back to back, at least at first.

The cool thing about this approach is that, whilst we, the audience know about like. What is happening, the characters don’t. I believe they call this “Dramatic Irony.” Also I guess the audience also does not actually know what’s happen, because of the lack of anything that isn’t just “YOU’VE GOT TO GET IN THE GAME *NOW* GO GO GO GO GO.” We don’t know who Ruby is, who AG is, what Ruby’s home life is like, and that’s OKAY, because that’s not necessary for the Fanadventure to function. In a lot of ways, despite it's speedy plot, it’s almost…minimalist in that sense? Like, not like how I could describe You’re Someone as Minimalist, but like, in the way I’ve mentioned above. So we don’t have any clue on the typical things that some might say make or break a story, but the characters in the narrative don’t have any clue on the mechanics of the story they occupy, or how to actually enter the game. Idk I just thought that was a neat parallel.

I think I’ve run into this issue many times before but I’ve never really commented on it because I either didn’t notice it in time but DID notice it and just decided that it didn’t fit in the flow of my writing so I guess I should say it now. There’s a lot of gif animations in a lot of these kinds of “Playing with Touys Mode Only” MSPFAs, and that’s fine and dandy and works well…to a certain point. There’s a reason, I think, why Homestuck used Flash Animations that had like, arrows to replay the flash animation, because when you *didn’t* see an arrow, you knew that the animation you were watching was, in fact, still going. I’ve had many instances where I’d thought I’d seen the bulk of the animation, only for the animation to actually keep going and for me to only realize that it did after clicking away to the next page. It’s not, like, game-breaking or whatever, but it is a problem to note because it kind of takes away from the breakneck pace because I have to go back, thus reversing my momentum in the story, if that make sense. Pacing for MSPFAs is one of the most important things I think, and I think this only highlights it. Again, doesn’t ruin it for me, but it’s something to watch out for.

I love how Homestuck only offers a tiny piece of like, the ludocris things that one could do with a game built kind of around the notion that people will be time-traveling and could, potentially also travel across universes, and that MSPFAs are taking up the mission for these kind of ridiculous scenarios and running with them, at least in the modern, neo-classical era that we now find MSPFAs in. Idk I think it’s kind of neat. That’s the second time I’ve said this in this review so I’m going to stop taking notes now I guess, but before I go I will say that this fanadventure was really fun, and I really liked it, so…take that as you will, I guess.

[clonerightsagenda]

TLC DVD Commentary: Jade’s arc (final)

Page 715, where Jade floats in front of the green sun, is as big as we could make it, but Gill really wanted to make it as big as your computer screen. Perhaps one day we’ll break the site to our will. The cracks are intended to be more or less the color of MSPFA's background, to give the sense that the comic itself is breaking down.

Her taking one moment to touch Bec's ears is perhaps laying the pathos on a bit much. But that is the last trace of her best friend that she has. She sacrificed him too in the name of getting a more "useful" tool for herself in Jadesprite, even if that backfired. Mostly, the Green Sun subplot deals with the way Jade has built her identity around her powerset, and now she has to give it up. But she is giving up that connection to Bec too.

I still really like the effect of the Green Sun falling away and the First Guardian energy coming out "toward" the reader. It keeps everything just a little weirdly meta. Meanwhile Jade's getting a chunk of her soul ripped out which is probably not rad. You'll notice Terezi and Davesprite floating in front of the lava lake on LOHAC directly after this update. That juxtaposition is intentional, mostly because there was this weird symbolic association between Davesprite and the Red Sun and self-destruction that I didn't know what to do with, so I just kinda... picked it up and moved it over to the lava lake and then wrote in a few art parallels to try to spackle over the change. Close enough.

Jade gets a Meaningful Haircut partly because I wanted to fuck up a character's Brand for once. Also, her super long hair is used to visually compare her to the Empress. I'm not saying long hair is bad, and I'm sure she'll grow it out again, but it's a dramatic visual shift. Similarly, in her next major conversation with Rose, she switches outfits, and she's frequently seen out of God Tier costume for the rest of the comic. She's no longer defining herself solely by her powers, which that outfit represents. She can just be herself.

Speaking of the conversation with Rose, we had a wild time decorating Jade's battleship room. If you look carefully at her bedspread, you will notice an abomination against god. AKA, a really bad jpeg'd version of Three Wolf Moon with space textures and Harley glasses over the wolves. Gill laughed so hard she had to lie down after making it. I have a link to the saga here.

The conversation is more relevant to Rose's arc, but I really wanted to make sure she and Jade got to chat because they don't in canon, and they have one of the better dynamics of the Beta kids. Rose is more open with Jade and in turn is more perceptive about her issues. I even lampshade that maybe they weren't allowed to talk because they would have sorted too much shit out.

On to the Dave conversation. Gill decided she was going to draw him flat on the ground for no reason, which means I had to overhaul the entire beginning of the log because I figured Jade would at least comment on it. If you look at his position, it's exactly how his body drops when he dies in Beatdown. Plus, he's covered by his swarm animal, which happens when you die and God Tier. Foreshadowing. Jade's issues with trust and truth come up again, but she's done this dance enough times that she's got it down pretty well and can stay calm. She also pushes Dave to use the sword, which brings up an issue that first gets highlighted back when she's Grimbark. Jade and Dave don't communicate great. Space players tend to be straightforward; Time players can be more abstract. So when Dave was trying to express why he objected to wielding Caledfwlch, Jade dismissed it as overdramatic whining without really grasping why he was upset. She starts the comic out with knowledge no one else has, which can make you pretty stubborn about he right way to do things. At times, especially while grimbark, that shades over to arrogance, like when she refuses to back down from Jake, boasts about how much smarter she is, and then gets curbstomped. Now, she pushes Dave to take the sword anyway. She'll regret it.

As a sidenote, canonically Jade never touches a gun after shooting Dave. Perhaps that's because she got God Tier powers, but considering she also learned she indirectly shot her grandfather, I figured she'd have a hangup. Who wouldn't?

Jumping to where she regrets it. Way back when Hussie talks about the fourth wall, he tells us that "if you knew Lord English's true name you'd know horror like no human ever has". In this situation, the you of the scene has referred to Jade. Why would it horrify Jade in particular? I don't know, and I don't know how to achieve horror like no human ever has, especially since that slot may well be filled by walking into a classroom thinking there was no homework and seeing everyone else with a paper on their desk, but thinking you fucked up an important mission and may have gotten two people killed ain't great.

Jade freaks out and Rose shows up with a juicebox. See, when I plan logs it helps me to imagine the characters doing something with their hands, for whatever reason. Usually I edit that out, but for a while I kept the characters with juice boxes because it seemed like a fun juxtaposition to the carnage being dished out in the main storylines. However, I told Gill to put the characters wherever, and they ended up on Prospit... which meant they were in the thick of said carnage. That led to some later revisions where Rose talks about something bad headed their way and in the end the log got a bit more serious, so the juice boxes felt a bit too lighthearted to put in the actual text. Still, Gill drew them in.

Dave and John get back, Jade Learns An Important Lesson about communication, and we finally get to put the Betas all in one place. It's about fucking time.

We're about caught up now, my guys. Jade's last big scene that we've had so far is coming back from Echidna with Karkat. She mentions that she's feeling a lot better about giving up her powers, because she's learned she can be helpful without them and it's a relief not to have to hold herself to such high standards. She's also learning to balance honesty with a genuine desire to be encouraging. Finally, looking back at how she was sort of primed by the game to "do her part" and then prototyped to be a tool, she's deciding to determine her own story instead. Overall, she's doing pretty good. As she should be, since we're close to the end! Most of her final walkaround logs will merely be emphasizing her new, more honest and open relationships with her friends and looking to the future. :)