Cascade (Reading Homestuck, Episode 98)

[@FrostyMac]

It’s actually remarkable how well y’all understood the whole thing lmao

[@sinceritynature202]

I laughed when you said that Dave's hood looked stupid...... that was the first reaction of the fandom at the time, lol!!! I remember it. People called him condom head

[@ShadeBoi]

@Quagsouls I fucking told you.

[@mrfrikki0]

You can now watch [s] rex duodecim angelus.

[@ОлегВысоков-л8й]

Yeah, right!

[@seandun7083]

You did pretty good for the first time watching it. I definitely didn't catch they were making the green sun not exploding it the first time. If you remember though, when Dave asked how big it was Rise replied "about twice the mass of our universe" since it was created by the death of two universe. It's just a prank bro. There seem to be alternate quest beds in the heart of the moons of Derse and Prospit as seen first by Aradia and now Dave and Rose. These ones don't require a living dream self. When Rose asked Scratch if she would ever ascend, he replied something along the lines of "it's a 50/50 chance since you have two methods available". About the bunny, we haven't yet met Jade's pen pal... About English's emergency, remember that the genetic code for doc scratch came in 6 parts. (Without capitalization/typing quirks) "tick tock break heads honk honk". Also, I have heard that the song that plays there, English, is a musical palindrome meaning it's about the same forwards and backwards. And of course there was a month long hiatus immediately before this. Presumably this was partially because it took a lot of work, but that also meant it came out on October 25th (10/25 = 1025 = 413 + 612) because of course. Congrats, you are about half way there!

[@szkraft220]

Really good reaction! I wasnt sharp enough at the time of watching Cascade to understand that was The Green Sun being created and Doc Scratch was using lies by omission this whole time when talking to Rose. So good job on that also love much you guys stuck to THE MOIVE, that was funny

[@quantumanubis6072]

the video "after us" is a really good animation about the ancestors and "the sufferer's final sermon" is also a good fanmade speech done by a professional voice actor

[@comradestewart4218]

I have waited for this moment sense y'all started

[@altarudragonspirit4016]

50:05 It will be a neat thing to keep in mind for whenever you guys get to watch Act 7, that the trolls universe is blue and the humans universe is red 58:02 I don't think you noticed that the events of Homestuck were being played out in reverse through the fourth wall, but otherwise you guys were surprisingly on point

[@MaladaptiveDaydreamerr]

Clubs Deuce is the true villain of this story.

[@TheYarheeguy]

Yep, the reaction I expected for Jade's god tier transformation, she has become the Ultimate Lifeform. A little sad that I didn’t see your reaction of you looking at my image for the first time, but happy that you showed it at a great time to show it. Overall happy and enjoyed your reaction overall Also here is some voice suggestions for the new kids, not naming them and maybe not in order of appearance, but I feel these voices fit very well for them Donald Trump Steve Irwin Drunk Raiden from MGR Cait wait for you guys to read act 6, its going to literally be a lot.

[@ОлегВысоков-л8й]

Hahah! This voices are perfect! XDDD

[@ShadeBoi]

Got a few voices waiting in my back pocket to use, thinking I'll just use 4 of those. I'd rather not go with obvious voices. Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't obvious for Jade, was it?

[@TheYarheeguy]

@@ShadeBoi Not really, just much of a colossal coincidence that wasn't caught on at all by anyone. I didn't even consider the similarities between Jade and Shadow until you guys brought it up. but hay, I don't mind what voices you choose for the new characters,

[@Kirbita22]

@@ShadeBoi i think your random ass voice choices are part of the charm of this series and would love to see you continue to assign completely disconnected voices to every new character you see

[@deblob123456789]

Video length is a combination of the numbers 134. Very sneaky

[@Kirbita22]

wait. did youtube delete my insane long ass comment where I dug up credits for every artist that contributed to the flashes in this video. If so im gonna cry that took me like 2 hours and i didnt save it anywhere. rip

[@altarudragonspirit4016]

5:51 Not sure if you noticed, but all of the ancestors have titles that are 8 letters long; it also might be a stretch, but if you count the 'The ' part as part of the title, then they are all 12 characters in length, lol 34:05 This is the frame of the comic that insipred the Pantskat meme; it's just a frame in which Karkat is so far in the background, you can't tell where his pants start and end

[@ОлегВысоков-л8й]

Great episode! I think you just HAVE to show [S]Cascade, [S] Intermission 2 and [S] ACT 6 to other crew members. It would be just great to see their reactions to it!) Perhaps in the beginning of the next episode? ...Please :3

[@guillermostreiger2307]

Im gonna get to be down bad in real time?

[@ShadeBoi]

suppose you are, yeah.

[@guillermostreiger2307]

@@ShadeBoi ah shit i missed it

[@ShadeBoi]

@@guillermostreiger2307 this is so sad

[@guillermostreiger2307]

Ooooh

[@Alexcmlindquist]

53:13 CHAOS... CONTROL!

[@ОлегВысоков-л8й]

Oh Hell Yeah! Let's go! :D

[@Kirbita22]

ok time to start copypasting Hussie Words from the aftermath of cascade. i'll cut out some stuff here and there because oh god he talks so much, but below i'll put the addresses to put into the collection for the full post. my own notes will be placed in brackets when i think they're needed From /tumblr/about-eoa5-part-2 [part 1 regards the publishing of the thing itself, and i've already copied part of it in my history lesson post about cascade re: how hard it was to actually put together] *The tumor was a bomb that physically contained both our universe (red side) and the troll universe (blue side). It was counting down to the “simultaneous” destruction of both universes. On detonation, it did not destroy the green sun as intended. It created it.* I believe some people thought they were witnessing the destruction of the sun when the bomb went off. (...) The fact that this misapprehension was somewhat common probably speaks to how cemented the mission to destroy the sun had become as a critical plot point. And maybe also, to how well Scratch deceived everyone on the subject. All of act 5, and to some extent all of Homestuck, has been the result of a very, very long con by Doc Scratch. His power source, and the source that fueled all this calamity in many other ways, was always going to be created in this way, by combined efforts of the kids and the trolls to save reality. Part of his job was to make sure that happened. That was the secret part of his job. The other part, openly stated, was to pave the way for the entrance of his master, which is triggered on the destruction of the troll universe, as illustrated by this virus. It turns out that doing these two things is one and the same. No green sun without the death of a universe. No Lord English either. You may retrace his conversations in light of this new fact. He says he never lies, and while he’s certainly deceptive, I think you are hard pressed to find him saying something that is absolutely untrue. (...) He says things often arranged like this: “And it is certainly true that The Tumor you will deliver to its location has enough power to destroy it completely.” (...) There’s also this tidbit. “TT: It is nearly twice the mass of our universe.” Because it is literally comprised of the detonated mass of two dead universes. And so on. (...) *Time and space do not work comprehensibly in the furthest ring.* How can the sun just have been created, when it was there all along, fueling Bec and Doc Scratch for ages, and more recently, Bec Noir, Jadesprite, etc? See above. (...) Aradia’s chronology is also worth noting. She is not actually witnessing the birth of the sun, as this (remember, nonlinear) animation seems to illustrate. When she flew inside Jack to escape, the sun was already there waiting for her. Every time we have seen Aradia hanging out in front of the sun, or hanging out with Sollux’s (half-)ghost, that was well after the sun was created. (...) at the time, we’re meant to believe [Rose and Dave] will arrive in the moon they are piloting, ready to crash kamikaze style into the sun and blow it up. There’s little reason to question this. But it turns out all along, she was waiting for them to COME OUT of the sun! As freshly minted god tiers. (...) --- [Hussie talks a lot about what happened with the carapacians plotwise in part 3 and the beginning of part 4 which I'm omitting here because it doesn't seem like you need clarification on any of it, but it's interesting if you want to hear him talk about the narrative loops Cascade is closing and his thought process.] --- From /tumblr/about-eoa5-part-4 : When [Rose] died, this eliminated one of the ways she could reach god tier, the only way we knew of explicitly at the time. This is by having a waking self and a dream self, both alive. When the waking self dies on the quest bed located somewhere on the planet, the player’s dream self takes over permanently, assumes god tier status, and wakes up on the battlefield, while the waking self’s corpse lies dead on the quest bed thereafter. This is how John reached god tier, and how Jade did as well. (Sort of.) Dave and Rose only had one life left. They’d both been killed by Jack, and then revived as their dream selves. They only had the other means of reaching god tier, which we knew little about. We only had Aradia’s example to speculate from. It turns out, the other way involves another set of quest beds in the core of the moons of Prospit and Derse. Reaching god tier involves using the only life you have left, and dying on that quest bed. Then, rather than waking up as a god tier on the Battlefield, the dead body simply resurrects automatically, transforming then and there. (...) Aradia was always a special case, since she was dead long before entering the session (...) so she always only had the one ascension method available to her, by the death of her dream self, which had been sleeping on its quest bed all long. It was not in the core of the moon though. The moon only had five towers, because she was never a living player, and didn’t “belong” with the rest of the players on her team of Derse dreamers. So her dream self was sequestered away from the others, in the core of Derse. She reached god tier when Jack destroyed Derse. We also can’t be sure that’s all there is to this method. Is it a simple matter of dying on the bed, or is more required? In the only two examples we have of this, Aradia and Dave+Rose, they die spectacularly in an explosion of green fire. Is that among the requirements? This is inconclusive. (...) After examining all that, Jade’s ascension is simple in comparison. Her dream self died, but she brought it back to life by prototyping the stuffed corpse in her grandpa’s lab, making Jadesprite. So, she did in fact have a living dream self, so option #1 was available. This had the side effect of turbo charging her god tier state. She not only has the Witch of Space powers and immortality, she merged with the sprite, which was imbued with Bec’s powers. She now has the abilities of a god tier player, a sprite, and a first guardian all in one. (...) *The 4th wall* First of all, she didn’t actually conjure the 4th wall out of thin air. Remember when Karkat told her to turn the wall off [page 3252], and then draw it [3253]? He was asking her to captchalogue an undamaged copy using her Pictionary modus, for this exact purpose. The eventual getaway. So she had it on standby, waiting for the right time to use it. [There's a lot of words about Lord English's coat which was hanging off the other side of the wall until he retrieved it in the intermission. He gets very OOOOHH YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO THAT about it since this was posted before the intermission] What’s waiting for them on the other side, beside a big ugly coat? Recall the setup I had with the two 4th walls facing each other, separated by one yard [4033]. They will break through the wall on the right, traveling nearly the speed of light, and presumably, break through the wall on the left to enter another reality. If you were thorough during Seer: Descend, you might have caught this excerpt on a bookshelf. “Though we adore Him we shall never enjoy His beauteous Croak. We spill our blood on acres of black and white so they may cross the yellow yard. At last in Skaia’s reflection through broken glass He may find the pond in which He’s meant to squat.” The yellow yard, regarding my self indulgent spiel about the degree of author intervention to expect [3658. this is the reason i asked if you actually read the jpeg'd bullshit], very simply refers to the physical distance between the two 4th walls the heroes will pass through, to escape from a doomed reality into one of promise. The heroes will coexist with me, the author, for the span of three feet, and while traveling very quickly, for the duration of thee nanoseconds. This was always my tongue in cheek way of quantifiably demonstrating the absolute minimum degree of influence an author insert can have on the story, while not having none. It’s essentially a gag, but serving a practical purpose in the story, and a very concrete, understandable mechanism by which they may hop between realities. I am also pretending that my personal interaction with Doc Scratch doesn’t count as influencing the story directly. It’s influencing the way the story is told, which after all, is what authors tend to do.

[@Kirbita22]

PART TWO: From /tumblr/le-factoids posted after the intermission went up [only the most interesting/relevant questions included, read the whole post for more information if needed] *Is Scratch literally Lord English? Or has LE completely replaced him? How much of Scratch’s cognizance/personality/being is still in LE?* Well, here’s what the story told us. Scratch said he had to die for LE to be brought into this universe. Now we have seen why explicitly. Scratch doesn’t lie, when it comes to simple statements of fact. He only excludes details and clarification. So, he is now dead. LE has officially replaced him, albeit traveled back in time to coexist with him, presumably continuing to utilize him as an employee, in all the ways we know about, and maybe others we don’t. They’re separate entities. Though because they share the same body more or less, and essentially the same origin, they share properties. Both have the powers of a first guardian (though Scratch said outright LE was more powerful than him). Both have “Cal genes,” whatever the hell that means. In LE’s case, the resemblance is obvious. They share an interest in the ladies (Scratch takes a shining to younger ones while LE ropes more mature females into service. [eugh to literally all of this] Reasoning? Scratch is a young LE!) They appear to have opposite demeanors though. Scratch is calm, calculating, manipulative. English is brutal, angry, and out to wreak havoc on a universe without any particular desire for subtlety. Their appearances reflect the differences. Is LE omniscient like Scratch? There’s evidence that he’s a strong tactician and adept with time travel, but its unclear whether he maintains the omniscience post-transformation. Consider that Scratch’s omniscience was closely tied to the other half of his genetic makeup, a magic cueball which had all the answers to everything concealed within. When LE transformed, he kept all the Cal properties (magnified them actually), but dropped the cueball aspect. In fact, his cueball head exploded outright. This was “the break” Scratch referred to once or twice. A literal description of LE’s emergence, as well as reference to the pool term, where the cueball scatters all the other balls, and the game begins. *T1CK T0CK BR8K H34DS honk HONK.* This is not a question, but some notes anyway. This string of genetic code letters is probably the most clear and present foreshadowing of LE’s transformation. It is practically a brief sentence describing the process, in order, culminating in LE’s vast honk. I think this one clue got some people speculating, correctly, that LE would emerge in some way from Scratch, involving his head breaking open. Probably a minority theory, but it was out there, because the clues were there. Revelations in a story are shocking in proportion to how little groundwork was laid for that development, and how obscured the clues were, if they even existed at all. It would have been more startling if LE turned out to be some ridiculous preexisting character, like Maplehoof or Charles Dutton or whatever, but the shock value would come with no credible basis in the narrative. So big reveals like this always come with sort of a balancing act of establishing clues to make the event credible and premeditated, while obscuring/misdirecting so as not to totally blow it. No matter how well you disguise it, if the clues are there, some will guess it. Personally, I feel like the shock value is not so much stored in the fact that Scratch = LE, but in the sudden, disturbing nature and presentation of the transformation itself. And hey, if the Scratch = LE tidbit happened to catch you way off guard, I’ll consider it a bonus. *Why’s LE honking like Gamzee???* If you’re prepared to be very literal, you might believe LE’s honking is a symptom of Gamzee’s influence in some way, due to time shenanigans or what have you. Examined logically, it’s the other way around. On LE’s arrival, he releases the vast honk Gamzee’s religion foretold. LE has always been around influencing troll culture from the start, and it seems he was always the embodiment of the mirthful messiahs the highbloods worshiped, since he was really two beings, Doc Scratch and LE, both “mirthful” puppet-based entities, in their own ways. Gamzee’s honking, the humorous brutality of the subjugglators and their dark spiritual beliefs, all could be traced to LE. The vast honk clip was actually a heavily modified sound clip of a bike horn, like one of Gamzee’s, slowed way down. First a small honk from the squeeze, then a big one from the unsqueeze. Sounds a lot like the noise the tripods made in War of the Worlds, which has me convinced those were made from slowed down bike horns too. *So LE is the Hulk in suspenders with a Cal skull for a head……… really????* Yes, really. I think his appearance is not what most were expecting, nor what some desired, but this is a consequence of hype factor alone. It’s inevitable, keeping a mystery such as this dangling out there for almost two years. People start to get attached to what they envision. There is no creative advantage at all to hype. When hype is significant, you can only hope to meet it at best, or more likely fall short. I felt pretty fortunate that by and large the hype surrounding EOA5 was met for most people. I’m doubtful it was surpassed for many, by much, considering the two month pause caused people to guess SOMETHING big was coming. Now imagine instead of a two month delay, there was none at all! Bam, 13 minute animation out of nowhere. The difference in reader perception in such a case is so extreme, it can’t even be communicated. Conclusion: hype sux. This is exactly how I pictured LE looking before I even made the Felt intermission. I think if I revealed him then, practically everyone would say, yeah that’s about right. Just a nasty, monstrous looking mob boss with some gaudy accoutrements. In time, as the mystique surrounding him accumulates, people get other ideas. I think some wanted a more suave motherfucker to bust onto the scene, someone perhaps sleek, dapper. This doesn’t fit the concept at all, nor suits anything we knew about him previously. Doc Scratch is his smooth, well mannered counterpart. He already fills that role. LE as Scratch 2 is a really boring idea to me. LE as a big, no-nonsense brute, functioning as Mr. Hyde to Scratch’s Dr. Jekyll, is much more interesting. (Hey, there’s another bullet point for the reference slurry, if you’re taking notes, re: Jekyll/Hyde.) So instead of some elegant dude too dashing for words who exploded from the screen of the yaoiest anime you ever saw, he looks a bit like this and this and maybe some of this and a smidgeon of this and oh yeah some of this and a whole fuckload of this and just a pinch of this, ok wait maybe not that last thing. [im not describing all those images, go to the post if you're curious] --- [This following ask is taken from a post not yet unlocked to you because it's from after the following pages to the one you stopped out, but i thought you would appreciate it and it's spoiler free:] *what’s the sweet bro and hella jeff moive plot?* I don’t know, but I think plot is probably the wrong word. Opening the film with a ten minute montage of bro falling down some stairs would probably be the conservative approach. Just some really solid stage setting, established in classical film making tradition to butter up the critics. It also clearly sets up a strong antagonist for the moive, stairs. It is a foe which is never bested, for you see, the film is an American tragedy. Other than that, probably lots of profane non sequitur and hug bumps issued by Wilson and Stiller, who will have been heavily coached in their acting to achieve a sort of rigid, surrealistic demeanor just off the mark of any heretofore observed human behavior. Like the uncanny valley of mannerism. Lace heavily with artifacts, visual and audible, and don’t be surprised if at some point a 20 minute clip of a completely different movie is inserted, uncut, flipped vertically, and tortured with various Photoshop filters. Finally, the climax will be the stunning resolution to a series of dilemmas not previously introduced in the film, all of which center around the inability of either character to perform simple motor functions. Then we see oversaturated low quality footage of Tony Hawk doing grinds while the credits roll, which contain not a single word which isn’t “fuck.” Also, I think Geromy would be this guy. [the image is of donald glover in a yellow shirt]

[@ShadeBoi]

I'd watch SBaHJ: the Moive