A few weeks ago, I examined the implications of Rose’s mysterious “W,”. In the latest update, we’re presented with a similarly cryptic monosyllable from a Lalonde. But since this utterance has three times as many letters, it must be three times as complex. So I set to work.
[snipped for length]
Stunning (and entirely serious) revelations after the cut.
This covers most of the important stuff, yeah. I’d have liked to see at least something on the very obvious allusion to the Domain Name Service, which when coupled with Roxy yields a void DNS lookup (perhaps related to John’s recent problems with a series of tubes filled with enormous amounts of material). Given the massive importance of sugar to this update, it’s surely also crucial that ‘sup’ repeats seven times - practically slapping us in the face with the coded sense of ‘s(even)up’, i.e. 7Up, the popular soft drink whose erstwhile mascot Cool Spot was a cool red dude with shades trapped in a computer game alongside near-identical copies of himself. But overall, a solid work of criticism offering some substantive advances in the field.
Some great points! You did forget to mention that Cool Spot had a sequel, Spot Goes To Hollywood, which is a reference to Dirk’s Bro’s career in the post-scratch universe). Other than that oversight, though, it’s a spot-on (heh) analysis.
I actually totally missed the Domain Name Service connection, but in retrospect, it’s incredibly obvious. Especially in light of today’s update, which confirms all of these theories with one extremely significant phrase: Mega Man.
John does indeed clear the series of tubes, because his planet isn’t something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. But you know what is a big truck? Truck Joe, a Mega Man enemy. And just as the series of tubes was weak to the sound of John playing the organ, Truck Joes are weak to Noise Crush, an attack that Mega Man gets by beating Shade Man. As I’ll explain in more detail later, John is designed to be analogous to the Mega Man character Wind Man. So once you put these facts together, we can clearly see that the Land of Wind and Shade is cleaned by the noises of Wind [Man] and Shade [Man]. Hussieeee!!
Domain Name Service theory: validated. And although today’s update doesn’t totally confirm my Dinas Powys/Didcot, Newbury and Southampton prediction regarding Caledfwlch and Lord English, it does offer significant support of it. If you spell “Mega Man” without the empty space (in other words, if you remove the Void), you get “Megaman,” which is a German company that makes LED lighting products. “LED” is the station code for Ledbury railway station, which is a stop on the Worcester to Hereford line of the First Great Western railway. Yes, another reference to British rail travel. As the name suggests, this line runs east to west, unlike the two DNS lines. In other words, it, liked Caledfwleflwfch, follows the X axis instead of the Y. X as in Mega Man X (which, not coincidentally, takes place in 21XX). The first Mega Man X game was released in 1997, the same year as… Cool Spot. It’s all connected.
The completely serious revelations that should be taken completely seriously by everyone and are what I literally believe and are by no means a joke continue after the cut.
But wait: we can use this update to take the theory even further. If Roxy is the space in the phrase “Mega Man,” what are the other letters? Well, they’re obviously the other seven human players. The first four are from the beta session, and the second three (plus the void) are from the alpha session. How did I figure this out? It’s as simple as looking at the classes and aspects of the players.
“Mega” corresponds to the third letters of the beta kids’ aspects: ti[m]e, br[e]ath, li[g]ht, sp[a]ce. “Man” is a bit trickier; you get it sequentially through the alpha kids’ classes: [m]aid, p[a]ge, (ro[g]ue, but this one’s left out because Roxy is the space), pri[n]ce.
So, “Mega Man” is saved from being “MegaMagn” by virtue of Roxy’s void powers. But let’s think more about what could have been. Ro[g]ue. The used letter would have been g, the third letter in the word. G3. Like dns, it’s completely obvious what this refers to.
The WLWR Class G3 steam locomotive, which ran on the Waterford, Limerick, and Western Railway line. A railway line not in Britain, but in Ireland, which ran, you guessed it, east to west. Lest we forget, Ireland is home to leprechauns. Even more proof that Lord English, leader of the leprechauns, will be stabbed by Caledfwlchfwcwlwwwwwwwwwwwwflw.
Now to expand on something I mentioned earlier, which will reveal a new aspect of what Homestuck holds. All of the beta kids have a corresponding Mega Man robot master based on their aspect: John is Wind Man, Dave is Time Man, Jade is Galaxy Man, and Rose is Bright Man. I could spend hours explaining every single parallel and similarity, but that’s a post for another day. The most important point is that there are no robot masters that could conceivably match up with the aspects of heart, life, and hope. Void, though…
Roxy is Shadow Man. And the connections go beyond just shadow=void. Think about it: Shadow Man dresses in dark blue; as a ninja, he’s quite roguish; and he’s weak to the attack Centaur Arrow, a clear reference to the other Void players, the Zahaaks and their love of horses and archery.
But the most significant parallel of all is that Shadow Man is not actually from Earth as the rest of the robot masters are. “Little is known about this mysterious robot, who is rumored of being a deactivated robot created by an extraterrestrial civilization and discovered by Dr. Wily, who remodeled and reprogrammed him. The metal body of Shadow Man does not match any material found on Earth.” (source) This is just what Roxy’s situation will be when she enters the new timeline with John. She’ll be partially of the Mega Man reality (via her connection with John), and yet simultaneously foreign to it.
Let’s go back to the other alpha kids. They don’t belong in the same universe as the beta kids (and of Roxy as well). But we know that if they are to succeed, they will have to join forces with the other five humans, and enter into their reality. They’ll have to perform a crossover, if you will. And yes, there are no robot masters that match up with the aspects of heart, life, and hope. But the Mega Man universe had a very significant crossover that might explain some things…
Yes, it’s true. Dirk, Jane, and Jake are, and have always been, allusions to the Worlds Collide storyline from the Sonic the Hedgehog comic. The similarities are astounding, if you think about it. In fact, I sincerely believe that all of Homestuck is a reference to Worlds Collide. And this is where it gets really interesting.
Roxy mentioned Mega Man when she and John were in a realm outside of canon. Practically outside of the comic itself. On a planet not in the Medium. And this is how Homestuck will end.
Outside of the comic. In a different medium.
The finale of Homestuck will not take place on mspaintadventures.com. Instead, it will be included in the Worlds Unite comic series, the sequel to Worlds Collide, which is due to be published by Archie Comics in spring of 2015. Homestuck has always been about pushing the limits of the webcomic medium, both in its plot and its presentation. What could be a more fitting culmination of this grand experiment than breaking out of the medium altogether? Making the virtual world and the real world unite, if you will.
“[A]n even bigger event is on the horizon” indeed.
A few weeks ago, I examined the implications of Rose’s mysterious “W,”. In the latest update, we’re presented with a similarly cryptic monosyllable from a Lalonde. But since this utterance has three times as many letters, it must be three times as complex. So I set to work.
By now, everybody’s figured out that “sup” is an obvious reference to the sup squark, which is the sfermion counterpart to the up quark predicted by supersymmetry theory. And sure, it’s pretty clever. Squarks are “shadow particles,” which ties into Roxy’s void theme. There’s the standard numerology shenanigans: sup squarks (and all sfermions, for that matter) have a spin value of 0, as opposed to fermions, which have a spin of ½, or, in other words, .5 spin. 0, ½, .5. 1025. Child’s play. Plus, the callback to Problem Sleuth is cute. But it all just feels too easy. There’s gotta be more going on here.
And then it hit me. All of the dozens of referencestoadvancedsupersymmetrytheory scattered throughout the comic have been leading up to this moment. The sup squark’s superpartner is, naturally, the up quark. And the up quark’s counterpart in the first generation subset of matter is the down quark. (I’m sure I don’t have to explain how this corresponds to the alpha and beta sessions, and how the electron and the electron neutrino fit into this analogy.) Down. We have to flip it downways.
“sup” becomes “dns.”
DNS is a common abbreviation for 3,5-dinitrosalicyclic acid, a simple if somewhat obscure aromatic compound. DNS is a vital hint to the what the future of Homestuck holds, and, luckily, I’m here to decipher it for you. Stunning (and entirely serious) revelations after the cut.
3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid is primarily used to test for the presence of reducing sugars in urine and blood. If sugar is present, the yellow DNS reacts with it to form dark brown 3-amino-5-nitrosalicylic acid.
Now, why does this color change happen? It’s because unlike DNS, 3-amino-5-nitrosalicylic acid strongly absorbs light with a wavelength of 540 nanometers. This is what 540nm light looks like:
Look familiar? It should. It’s almost identical to the color of the Green Sun (and, therefore, the first guardians). Compare.
Most recently, the Green Sun has shown up on top of Lord English’s golden staff, and, correspondingly, as the laser sight on his assault rifle. The similarity in color is particularly noticeable in this panel:
The staff is, as you’ll recall, currently being held by robo Spades Slick.
Time to put the pieces together. When a solution of DNS reacts with sugar, 540nm wavelength bright green light is absorbed and therefore neutralized. By the way, note how similar the color of the .5% sugar/DNS solution above is to that of Crowbar’s juju breaker, which has similar neutralizing propreties.
So, with her “sup” comment, Roxy is hinting that sugar can counteract the power of the green sun, and work as a kind of juju breaker to it. The hints have been there from the very beginning. Cake is one of the first items that was weaponized in the comic, and it has been a constant presence ever since. John’s Dad seems to recognize its power most of all. He uses cakes in his battles with imps; during [S]Descend, while on Grandpa’s battleship, Rose’s mom is holding her gun and he holds a cake; and just to be safe, he carries a cake recipe at all times in his wallet. The most important ingredient in this recipe: 1 ½ cups sugar. (Another clear quantum mechanics reference, since 1 ½ is the cumulative spin value of a lepton and a photon.)
Now the picture’s starting to become clear. Robo-Spades will, at some point, show up wielding Lord English’s scepter. He’ll attempt to attack someone with it, but at the last second, Jane’s dad will jump in and auto-pastry it. The temerity of this shenanigan will instantly deplete SS’s prankster’s gambit, causing it to explode from the sudden stress, much like Kanaya’s Flighty Broads And Their Snarky Horeshitometer did earlier. The blast from such an exceptional prank will be so powerful that the metaphorical game construct of the meter will manifest in the physical world of the comic, destroying the scepter, and possibly even Spades Slick himself (a nice inversion of John’s Dad’s death by Jack Noir’s hand). This will also be an appropriate callback to Problem Sleuth, where sugar was the primary means of attacking Demonhead Mobster Kingpin.
Destroying LE’s scepter will have significant consequences, which I’ll soon explain. But first, you might be thinking that I’m stretching things too far. That I’m seeing patterns that aren’t actually there. Well, rest assured, I have more proof.
Recall the association between sugar and 540nm light. If you take that particular shade of green and invert the color, you get this:
Ring a bell?
That’s right, it’s the color of TaB. The soda that has… no sugar in it. That just can’t be a coincidence.
If you still don’t believe me, consider this. Roxy’s dns comment refers not only to the Green Sun itself, but also indirectly to Bec, one of the first guardians who draws his power from it. Bec takes his name from Henri Becquerel, the French physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, along with Marie and Pierre Curie, in recognition of their work on radioactivity. Keep that information in mind.
With your doubts laid to rest, let’s move on. Now that Jane’s Dad has destroyed the Green Sun-topped scepter, the Green Sun itself will also be destroyed, following the laws of supersymmetry that have already been discussed. Once this happens, God Cat will lose his first guardian powers. Without them, he’ll be useless to the Condesce, who will release him from her control. How ironic that a cake, an emblem of the Condesce’s Betty Crocker empire, will come back to haunt her like this.
Now that GCat is free of the batterwitch’s influence, he will, naturally, befriend Roxy. Because Roxy and cats is a Thing. Before we continue, let’s go back to dns. This combination of letters has two other important meanings, both of them related to British trains.
Know what else is Welsh? That’s right, the name of Caledfwlch. And what else is English? Right, Lord English! Roxy’s dns therefore also contains a hint that Lord English will be stabbed with Caledflweltwch.
Everything’s starting to come together now. Another color parallel comes into play here: GCat is white. The exact same shade of white as Caledfwlweftewch! Surely not a coincidence.
The word “white” has five letters. The same as the number of squares in the SBURB logo. But the logo also has a triangle. Triangles have three corners and three sides. 3+3=6. There are six letters in “God Cat.” But that phrase also has a space in it. An empty space. Empty is a synonym for void. Roxy is a void player! And “Roxy” is an anagram of “X or Y,” evoking a Cartesian coordinate system. The implication is that we need to choose between vertical and horizontal progression. Both the DN&S railway line and the Glamorgan line (which includes the DNS railway station) run from north to south. It would seem, then, that the correct answer to the “X or Y” question is Y, the vertical axis, which corresponds to north/south on a map.
But not so fast. Remember, “sup.” The sup squark, which differs from the up quark by ½ spin. We need to flip this problem turnways by half a spin too. The answer, then, is in fact not Y. It’s X. Horizontal movement. The blade of the Welsh Caledfwlchwfcwhfwchfwlflwfwwfch doesn’t follow the north-south Glamorgan line, but instead takes a sharp right turn and plunges into the bright green English countryside.
And that’s what’s up, Roxy. That’s sup.
**UPDATE: after considering some new data, I’ve produced more completely serious analysis on this subject! Click here to read it!
It’s the first letter of her next word, “what,” yes. But it’s also the fulfillment of an obligation, the settling of a debt. Remember the magnetic W?
Let’s look back at where it came from. On page 2266, Rose examined at her refrigerator, “whose surfaces have customarily served as the battlefield for a chilly siege of PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE one-upmanship.”
(Lest we forget, the item Rose used to alchemize one of her most iconic outfits was originally a gift from her mother.)
Later, Rose uses her umbrella. Due to sylladex shenanigans, everything else she’s carrying falls out of her inventory.
Rose leaves the magnet behind on the busted transformer:
It’s just a stupid magnet. And yet, 1410 pages later, she has it again:
She alchemizes it with one of her mother’s bottles of vodka. Apparently, Rose went back to transformer by her house after entering the session and retrieved the W from it.
So: Rose’s mother gave her the W. Rose took it, lost it, retrieved it, and combined it with alcohol, something closely associated with her mother (and something else of hers which Rose herself would later adopt as her own).
And now, on page 8877, the circle is finally completed. Rose probably lost track of the magnet itself ages ago, but she still has the letter. So a Lalonde mother once again gives her daughter a W. And Rose, three years and 6607 pages later, returns what she took. Maybe she decided it was worth more than 12 cents after all. The economy and whatnot. Maybe she forgot to sew the plastic shut, and this was the next best thing. Maybe it was a coup de grace of one-upsmanship. Or maybe it was, after all this time, a sincere gesture of appreciation and gratitude to her mother.
Taking the W left an “unsightly void” in the pack. But, tragically, returning the W required the eternal loss of the Seer’s sight, and left the Void emptier than ever.
sorry for not posting art lately. im going to start adding image descriptors to my drawings btw so tell me if im doing it wrong.
[image descriptions: There are two drawings, the first one is line art and the second one is colored in. The digital drawing is of Roxy Lalonde from Homestuck. She’s in the middle of the picture while a spiral is behind her. Shes facing forward and holding a trickster lollipop in her right hand. Roxy is a black girl with curly short hair, her eyes have spirals in them, her nails are painted, and her expression is happy. She’s wearing a long scarf with stripes, a t-shirt with a cat in the middle, striped tights, striped arm warmers, a short skirt, and converse shoes. end ID]
