(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized uranium shortage.)
The post that went up on Monday night/Tuesday morning was actually pretty much done last Saturday. In the week since then, enough has happened, and enough questions have been raised, that I’m actually rather interested in this act, even if Hussie is likely to resolve quite a few of the mysteries raised in pretty short order, and even if his writing in this act hasn’t quite been up to snuff (even though the clunky writing is intentional, these kids seem even more alien than the trolls).
I’m interested in whether there’s any relationship between the post-Scratch Crockercorp, the pre-Scratch Betty Crocker, and (as seems very likely) the pre-Scratch Condesce. I’m interested in to what extent this universe is lighter than we’re used to, and to what extent it’s ultimately darker, and what its ultimate relationship is to the one we’re used to. I’m even a little interested in who’s targeting Jane and why. I’m certainly interested – and this is not quite so complimentary to Hussie – in just getting to the game, or at least back to the characters we’re already familiar with.
But perhaps most of all, I’m interested in the apparent confirmation and appearance of the long-rumored fan obsession, the “thirteenth troll”.
While ultimately rooted in the zodiac, and speculated on by fans even before our proper introduction to the trolls, the existence of a thirteenth troll became ultimately rather unlikely as time went on and we learned more about the trolls, and right now I’m not sure how it’s even possible. She claims that she herself played the game, but there’s no evidence that it is possible for there to be anything other than an even number of players, indicating that whoever she is, there’s another troll that she played with. That doesn’t even address the question of what session she comes from, or what it was like; it’s very unlikely it’s one that we’re familiar with. Somehow she knows how this session will go, yet claims to have “sync[ed] Up these conversations with yoU on the same day that i begin playing as well”, or in other words, she hasn’t even played herself yet. And then there’s her association with what appears to be an exile’s terminal at the start of the act…
Then there is what she says. She refers to “the legendary octet of mUtUal progenitoriety”, and refers to the titles of the kids we’re familiar with by name, indicating that this final session will consist of not only these four post-Scratch kids, but also the four kids who have already played the game to this point. And beyond that, she also foreshadows the ending of all of Homestuck, claiming that together they will “heal a great breach in paradox space”:
UU: and while the emerald eye of this storm is fixed in the abyss forever
UU: today yoU are poised to escape its scowl once and for all.
UU: by skaias gUiding light, yoU may leave behind its tUrning arms of bright coloUrs and mayhem, and secUre peace for yoUr cosmic progeny for all dUration.
In other words, while “uranianUmbra” is rather dense with the purple prose, the gist of what will happen is clear: this unified session will ultimately break the cycle of misfortune caused by the game and the enemy, and ensure that however many universes may follow, they won’t have to go through what everyone in Homestuck has gone through. It also suggests where she herself may come from: a future session, one after everything both groups of kids achieve in this one has made them legends in every subsequent universe. (Which in turn, suggests whatever everyone does, it won’t do away with the game entirely, and her remark about the “emerald eye” suggests the Green Sun won’t actually get destroyed either.)
I’m a bit surprised, not only that Hussie would include a thirteenth troll, but that he would allow her to drop, in her words, such “casual spoilers” about what is to come in this act. He let so much information slip here that it’s not even that hard to figure out what Act 7, Homestuck‘s epilogue, is likely to consist of. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that much about UU will remain a mystery throughout Act 6, and getting a proper introduction to her, however brief, will be the ultimate goal of Act 7.