Months ago, I wrote:

Editx2: ((In fact, let me just go ahead and predict that UU is a Whore of Speech.  ))

Prediction fail.    But I was right that she'd be an undiscovered class.

Not to mention an undiscovered species.

Okay.  Wild theorizing time.  Tossing shit out there.  She looks like a cross between Lord English, Doc Scratch, and the Felt.  Her name is Calliope, which starts with Cal.  Calmasis also starts with Cal, so this is probably uu's name.  Lord English looks like Cal; I think Cal was probably used in his prototyping.  We also have this:

TG: then what kinda alien are you
TG: wait dont tell me youre ACUTALLY from urnanus??
UU: heehee. no.
UU: that jUst happened to be a planet from yoUr system i thoUght was lovely.
UU: i was particUlarly strUck by its UniqUe rotation.
UU: it has very nice...
UU: bollocks, what's the word.
UU: the term that refers to a ball's topspin?
TG: ???

The word she is looking for is "English," which is a word used in pool to mean a ball's topspin.  I learned this a long time ago when I was figuring out how Lord English's name is connected with Doc Scratch (also a pool term) and the Felt (who are pool-themed).  Now why in the world wouldn't UU be able to remember this word?

So it looks moderately likely to me that uu is Lord English.  Lord might even be his title: Lord of Time.  That would fit with Lord English being a time-traveling monster (as well as, possibly, the Twelfth Doctor).  Okay, good! 

Edited to add a groaner: if uu is in fact Lord English, no wonder he likes playing games with twists.

Last edited by satyreyes (06-18-2012 12:04:01 AM)

Which also reminds me that there's also Lil' Cal, which Dirk adores to no end.

Strangely enough, uu really doesn't like Lil' Cal. I wonder if the fact that the puppet is named that way meant that maybe it is actually a weapon against uu, or maybe the Cherubs in general. :|a

I think I was supposed to type out some theories here but then I started to ship Calliope and Roxy.


In other news, based on the newest update (and by newest I mean the one page right after the grand reveal of Calliope's adorable face), Calliope's/uu's room is a mess. Worse than Vriska even.

And I think Hussie is about to thoroughly joss or completely complicate the notion that Calliope and uu have some multiple personality body sharing going on.

Last edited by Malacoda (06-19-2012 01:40:31 AM)

Well, it took [sacrificing his own life], but it appears that Dirk has finally made out with everyone. 

Hiraku wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

Well, it took [sacrificing his own life], but it appears that Dirk has finally made out with everyone. 

I was just thinking..... if Caliborn is Lord English (I'm really basing this off of the fact that Caliborn chewed off one leg, just like how Lord English only has one leg), does that mean that Lord English truly is, in fact, unbeatable? o_o Assuming the two Cherubs come from a distant future, only to come back in time to basically kill everybody. If this is the case, I think this might mean that there's no real way to wipe Lord English out of existence unless you can somehow sever the time loop that he established for himself to... in a way perpetually existing.

Interesting point!  Thinking about how stable time loops work, I think the answer is that Lord English could still be killed.  I'll be able to illustrate better if I take the case of John, where we know more of the facts.

John's birth is the result of a stable time loop.  He was "born" (cloned) in an ectobiology lab, shipped to Earth by meteorite, and raised by Dad until installing Sburb and entering the Medium, eventually coming to an ectobiology lab where he clones his own past self.  The effect (John's birth) is eventually its own cause; that's what defines a stable time loop.

Now, does that mean that John can't die?  Not at all!  It just means that John can't die before cloning himself (at least, not in the alpha timeline).  After he's cloned himself, the time loop is stable and he can die without causing any temporal paradoxes.

It seems very probable to me that many of the things Lord English does as his adult demon self are aimed at making sure he comes into existence in the first place, via Calliope and Caliborn and Doc Scratch, and therefore via the kids as well.  So yes, he's in a stable time loop.  But once he has guaranteed that he will come into existence, he can be killed without causing a paradox.  Of course, that doesn't mean it will be easy. 

In a lot of ways, the Flash didn't match my expectations!  I thought uu would turn out to be Calmasis, but he's someone called Caliborn instead.  Still a Cal, but not the Cal I expected.  That's interesting to me.  Maybe Calmasis in Rose's book just represents a generic cherub name, meant to represent Calliope and Caliborn together.  Or maybe Calmasis is someone else.

Here's what I don't get.  Caliborn has red cheeks, like Lord English.  We just saw Caliborn lose a leg, like Lord English, and lose a tooth, like Lord English.  All signs obviously point to Caliborn becoming Lord English.  But we saw Lord English pop out of Doc Scratch.  And Doc Scratch didn't come from Caliborn either; he was the result of cloning Lil' Cal along with a cue ball.  So how on Earth can Caliborn be connected to Lord English?

I really, really don't know, so I have to come up with a crazy theory.  I always come up with these and they're always wrong, but I have to try anyway, or else I feel like I'm not playing along.  Here is my theory.

Near the end of the Flash, we saw Caliborn's kernel absorb his entire planet, apparently including Caliborn himself.  But kernels don't just absorb stuff passively; they turn into kernelsprites when prototyped, and then, if the player enters the Medium, the kernel part splits for Derse and Prospit, leaving behind sprites like John's Nannasprite.  My crazy theory is that Lil' Cal is Caliborn's sprite.  If so, it makes sense that Lil' Cal resembles Caliborn -- since Caliborn was part of its prototyping -- and in turn it makes sense that Doc Scratch and Lord English resemble Caliborn.

I like this theory a lot.  The problem is that Lil' Cal already kind of has an origin story, involving Gamzee, Dave, a hoverboard, and a stable time loop.  But this can't possibly be the whole story, because it doesn't explain anything about why Lil' Cal looks like a cherub or Lord English.  So the Lil' Cal story must be incomplete, and my theory might fill in the blanks?

satyreyes wrote:

Here's what I don't get.  Caliborn has red cheeks, like Lord English.  We just saw Caliborn lose a leg, like Lord English, and lose a tooth, like Lord English.  All signs obviously point to Caliborn becoming Lord English.  But we saw Lord English pop out of Doc Scratch.  And Doc Scratch didn't come from Caliborn either; he was the result of cloning Lil' Cal along with a cue ball.  So how on Earth can Caliborn be connected to Lord English?

Pardon me if I seem crazy, but didn't Calliope have Doc Scratch's holster in her room, noting that they share that strife specibi of pistolkind? Is it possible that Calliope and Doc Scratch may be connected, as Caliborn and Lord English are, considering that both Calliope and Doc Scratch each carried/"hosted" the other in some way?

Saito Hoshikawa wrote:

Pardon me if I seem crazy, but didn't Calliope have Doc Scratch's holster in her room, noting that they share that strife specibi of pistolkind? Is it possible that Calliope and Doc Scratch may be connected, as Caliborn and Lord English are, considering that both Calliope and Doc Scratch each carried/"hosted" the other in some way?

Mmm, good connection!  Yes, Caliborn and LE each transform and subvert a host body in order to come into existence, so it's very natural to guess that Calliope and Doc Scratch have some kind of literal or metaphorical relationship.

This actually helps me understand the relationship between Lil' Cal and Lord English.  When you alchemize two items together, like Lil' Cal and a cue ball, the resulting item has qualities of both of the inputs.  Assuming that Lil' Cal is closely tied to either Caliborn or the uu/UU duo, one of the qualities of the resulting item should be that there is a host who gives rise to a monster.  (Assuming that Caliborn actually is a monster.   We're still taking a lot on faith here.)

On repeated rewatch and after consulting with a friend, I do need to retract for now my theory about Lil' Cal being Caliborn's sprite.  Caliborn's meteor definitely went white and entered the Medium before it reached the kernel, so presumably Caliborn was not prototyped.  My friend has a different guess about what happened, which I find plausible and fascinating.  In his theory, the Cruxtruder was shared by Calliope and Caliborn, just like they share their bodies.  When it was opened, Calliope's and Caliborn's kernels were released simultaneously, and tried to prototype each other.  This created a paradox that resulted in both of them turning into a black hole.

Whoa... how did I miss that?! Those are awesome descriptions, Anthiena! But how come Anthy is redacted?

satyreyes wrote:

Oh my God there's an update.  Is there ever an update.  And it is.  Amazing.

I don't even know what to say.  It's like playing Homestuck Ancestors: The Colbert Report: Tumblr Edition: The Hundred-Thousand-Word Self-Parody.  Go see.

I know, right???

And, I love all the pre-scratch Trolls, so much! I love Kankri the most! Now that I've seen him talk, I'm beginning to wonder if his proselytizing nature is the reason why his post-scratch self was executed :| Not necessarily because of the fact that he's rust-blood (That, too), but also because no one can stand listening to him going on.... and on.... and on.... and on..... Karkat took it well. In fact, I think to quell Karkat's inner-rage, just put him in the same room with Kankri.

Hiraku wrote:

Whoa... how did I miss that?! Those are awesome descriptions, Anthiena! But how come Anthy is redacted?

Because she is a Helmsman. :3

Aine Silveria wrote:

Does it make sense eventually? Or am I trying too hard? (I just finished Act 5 Act 1? Whatever that means. In the course of 24 hours. >> )

You marathoned the trolls in 24 hours?  Pretty amazing

Does it all make sense eventually?  The most honest answer I can come up with is that:

A) The jury is still out on that, but
B) Hussie keeps turning nonsense into sense through amazing alchemy that gives me faith in his storytelling.

Every few updates, I understand more.  Sometimes new questions get raised, but old ones do get answered.  I can at least promise that you're not reading the webcomic equivalent of Lost; Hussie isn't just throwing stuff on his website that he thinks looks cool and dramatic without any intention of ever explaining it.  There is a master plan.  Even if that master plan sometimes involves Mobius double reacharounds and breaking the fourth and possibly fifth walls.

Anyway, whether you read on or not, that epic Homestuck binge qualifies you as a fan as far as I'm concerned.  Welcome to the club. 

Aine Silveria wrote:

Is this me, still trying to dislike it, or is it really all that I said to anyone else?

Hee, I really have no idea!  I would say that all we can really do is judge it on its own terms, but the thing is that it's not really like any other work of art I've ever seen.  PBS has a web series that recently compared Homestuck to James Joyce's Ulysses, and while that is misguided in... a lot of ways... it's at least true that Homestuck is born original and it's almost impossible to find the right standard to judge it by.  So all I do is say "The story is amazing, and it's told in a way utterly its own, and I'm enjoying the fuck out of it."

Jarring.  Yes, certainly -- often on purpose.  To take an obvious example, watching Vriska and Tavros interact makes me profoundly uncomfortable, and it's meant to.  And it's jarring in other ways too -- with Hussie periodically showing up in his own story... and you're just passing the point where Homestuck got big in a big way, so you can look forward to all kinds of meta-commentary on the absurd (and absurdly amazing) Homestuck fandom within the narrative.  As I say, I've never seen any other work of art like this, and it's as bizarre as it is beautiful.

A huge cast.  Absolutely.  It will stabilize for a little while where you're at, now that Karkat's crew is in play, but it's not done growing.  The story is currently up to Act 6 Intermission 3, out of a promised seven acts, and we're still meeting new faces.  It seems impossible that so many individuals' stories can coexist in the same overall narrative without just creating a big jumble of chaos, but somehow Hussie juggles it all.  It's all tied together by the shared experiences of the individuals, and by the story's consistent themes and even recurring in-jokes.  (How many times have we been told about stairs?  All of the times.  All of them.)  You're right to think that repeated readthroughs will teach you a lot, but even if you only read forward and never back, Hussie usually contextualizes events just enough to remind you who these characters are and why we care about their stories.

So I dunno.  Homestuck amazes me.  I have no idea whether it's "good" in some kind of abstract critical sense.  I don't know whether you ought to like it or whether it's even important whether you like it.  But I like it, for whatever mysterious reasons, and it amazes me.  So here I am.