#s169

Echidna's Palace looks suspiciously like Jade's foyer - although, I think it's probably more accurate to say that the foyer looks like the palace. Kanaya and Jade both lived in houses derived from the Frog Temple, which explains this resemblance, as well as Jade's Prospit-themed bedroom.

We still haven't learned why Sburb provides these houses, though. Are we about to?

PCG: OH GOD, HE'S STILL FOLLOWING YOU?

Yeesh. That’s got to be at least a little unnerving. We know his protective instincts are powerful, but are we quite sure that they're inviolable?

?GG: its ok though. as long as he is tailing me like a lost puppy, at least hes not killing anybody

Only because he’s running out of victims, Jade! He’s already killed the other three Players, and their Dream Selves have either fled the session or attained immortality.

I honestly think that the main reason he's tailing you is that he's at a bit of a loose end. You know, after killing all your friends.

PCG: DON'T TRUST HIM JADE, I'M TELLING YOU. HE IS A STAB HAPPY PLANET EXPLODING ASSHOLE.

PCG: REMEMBER WHAT HE DID TO DAVE? […] ?GG: […] im kind of starting to think that was just his way of saying hi ?GG: my dog used to fetch my bullets too! ?GG: i really think he believes he is my dog, on some level

That is an indescribably fucked-up way to parse Dave’s murder.

...and to make matters worse, I’m pretty sure you’re 100% correct.

PCG: DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON THE PUPPY. ?GG: dont worry, im keeping my eye on him ?GG: aaaaaa no no no, bad jack, bad!!!!!!

LMAO

As well as a veritable mountain of bodies. I wonder if any of the Ring's new ghosts will be meeting their own corpses?

TA: so then, we made it 0ut here alright. AA: yes AA: well AA: they made it AA: your body will arrive with them

Sounds like the next time Sollux awakens will also be the last.

Honestly, dying shouldn’t present too much of a problem for Sollux, specifically. It’s not as if he’ll cease to exist – he’ll simply return to the Bubbles for good, allowing him to reconnect with his ex as they organize the afterlife.

Plus, he can travel freely between the Bubbles, which is apparently a rare perk. His Doom aspect might even grant him other death-related privileges that we're not yet aware of.

TA: SHIT, it's s0 bright, how can y0u stand it here? AA: you can see the sun?

Why wouldn’t he be able to see it, though? Is it invisible to Aradia, or did she think it should be invisible to Sollux?

Do you need to be a God Tier to see it, or something? That might present a problem to the surviving trolls, since their entire plan hinges on their ability to see it exploding from a distance, and their last remaining God Tier just got skewered.

TA: yeah, i can see it. TA: but.. TA: it lo0ks 2d. TA: O_0

Wait, how and when did he lose an eye?

I guess that’s on-brand for him, at least – and, in fact, it might be the last ‘on-brand’ thing he ever does, since he’s planning on retiring the duality shtick.

Also...

Ok, the kids' universe didn't have a final frog - which means it doesn't inject Sburb into a universe, or anything like that.

...man, this frog is really discombobulating me. Karkat and Kanaya are talking like they were looking for the same frog as Jade – or, at least, a similarly Sburb-approved specimen that they didn't have any control over. The Players don't get to choose the final strands of their universe's genome - they have to find them.

PCG: THE RECKONING HAD STARTED. PCG: WE HAD TO KILL THE KING.

It's always about killing, with these kids.

Alternia has a lot to answer for, and now we can add the kids' faulty universe to its long list of crimes.

FGA: Understood But This Was A Matter That Really Did Require Your Attention PCG: YEAH I KNOW, BUT MAYBE I WAS SICK TO FUCKING DEATH OF MUDDLING AROUND WITH FROGS AND THEIR CACOPHONOUS GODDAMN RIBBITS AND MIXING THEIR SLIME AND SHIT. PCG: I'M NOT AN ECTO SCIENTIST NO MATTER HOW MANY GRUBS WHO TURNED OUT TO BE US THE GAME MADE ME ACCIDENTALLY MAKE.

You were also an exhausted, stressed-out child who had no idea what he was doing. None of the Players asked to be put in this situation, and any mistakes Karkat made in shouldering the mantle of creation as a thirteen-year-old are more than understandable.

Now, I’m not saying Gamzee’s definitely flirting here – but I am saying that if Gamzee was to flirt, this would be exactly the kind of shit he’d say.

TC: GoD DaAaAaAaAaAaAaMn. YoU ArE DeAlIn sOmE HeArTy rEpRoAcH ToNiGhT. TC: FlYiNg fUcKiN HiGh, MaN. TC: HiGhEr tHaN A LaUgHsAsSiN Up oN ThE MoThErFuCkIn gRiEf tRaPeZe. TC: HiGhEr tHaN A SuBjUgGlAtOr gEtTiN HiS WeEp oN FoR ThE VaSt hOnK I BeLiEvE In tO CoMe.

We have an almost immediate reference to subjugglation. I'm willing to bet that Gamzee is an amnesiac ghost - and it seems his memories are returning a lot faster than John’s.

Well, Gamzee? Are you proud of what you’re starting to recall, or ashamed?

TC: MoThErFuCk iT, mOtHeRfUcKeR! TC: PuRe mAgIc iS AlL WhEn tHeRe bE HaTcHiN Of gRuBs TC: I'Ve sEeN ShIt tHaT WoUlD ShOcK YoUr lOoKsTuBs TC: I PeEpEd oN A PlAcE Of 6 tRiLlIoN HeMoS TC: AlL Up aT OnE RoCk, BlEeDiNg aS EqUaLs

lmao, I just realized that this is probably the ‘worst rap-off in Paradox Space’ that we cut away from in early Hivebent. I bet the fandom was just clamoring to hear this one.

TC: It's eAsY To sEe iF YoU SeArCh aLl yOuR FeElInS TC: ThAt pEaCe hApPeNs fIrSt, AnD MuRdEr's tHe sEqUeL

I doubt if macabre lines like this featured in the original memory, though. Has Tavros noticed that something's up yet?

TC: WhEn wE Up aNd sTaRt tO KiCk aT ThIs rEd TeAm NoIsE, TC: YoU ShOuLd mAkE YoUr wAy tO GeT YoUr hAnG On aT My hIvE. AT: oH, yES, tOTALLY, TC: We cOuLd sPlIt a tIn oF ThE PiMpEsT SnEeZe i gOt oN HaNd, BaKeD Up aLl sPeCiAl fOr yOu. TC: AnD ThEn mAyBe mAkE OuT A LiTtLe.

Oh my god, haha

Was this part of the original conversation, then? Because it really wouldn’t be too surprising if Gamzee was into the guy. Like I said, they vibe extremely well.

Hell, that might even be one of the reasons why Gamzee lost his mind when he did. He snapped around the same time that Tavros was killed; perhaps the loss of his friend and crush was what finally pushed a soporless Gamzee over the edge.

Ahahahaha, he's considering it!

AA: hey what are you doing out here! TA: 0ut where? AA: out of your bubble TA: oh, i dunn0. TA: am i not supp0sed to leave? AA: i just didnt think you could

Sollux’s dream projection can leave the Bubbles, which I didn’t expect to be that noteworthy. Aradia mentioned that it’s easier to move between Bubbles when they naturally intersect, but she never said it was impossible to leave them entirely.

By her surprise, I assume that dream projections, at least, are normally unable to exit bubblespace – so there’s something weird going on with Sollux here.

AA: i guess you must have a foot on either side AA: cant say im surprised!

Aradia seems to be saying that this unusual Dream Bubble interaction is unsurprising to her because it gels in some way with what we already know about Sollux.

Maybe he's employing some sort of Aspect ability? He's a Doom Player, and interpreting his as Aspect as death would imply that he’d have a stronger-than-normal affinity for the afterlife.

AA: i am waiting for friends to arrive [ AA: they will need my help […] AA: first AA: there will be two humans AA: they should be joining us any minute

Wait, shit - I just realized there's a really easy way for Aradia to protect the Derse dreamers from the Sun's destruction. She could simply spirit them away through time, the way I originally thought she'd escaped Perfect Jack.

Keep him away from the Genesis Tadpole, Jade. If I were you, I'd probably just captchalogue every frog in the building for their own protection.

Come to think of it, it’s high time the kids upgraded their Fetch Modi. Dad’s freakishly spacious wallet is proof that their basic inventories are barely scratching the surface of the Sylladex's true potential.

I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if you could make captcha cards whose contents can be deployed at extremely distant locations, or cards that can grab an enemy's weapons out of their hands. Let's just experiment with a bunch of alchemy combinations, and see what we come up with!

PCG: WAIT, DID HE FOLLOW YOU INTO THE PALACE TOO JUST NOW? PCG: IS THAT WHO YOU WERE YELLING AT? ?GG: he was growling at echidna and i had to tell him he was being very bad

I wonder why he didn’t attack her, then?

The trolls killed plenty of Denizens, but were powerless against Jack. That implies he’s significantly stronger than a Denizen, and should have no trouble dispatching Echidna...

...assuming, I guess, that the Denizens aren't holding back against their Players. If they are, they might actually be stronger than First Guardians, which is a scary thought.

Wait, hang on – is this Echidna's lair? Because a modern transportalizer pad feels like I'd be a little out-of-place in a mystical temple. Plus, come to think of it, I don't know why Jade would be keeping all her frogs off-site.

If we're actually in Jade’s mansion, then I’m digging its new look. It’s gone from ‘eccentric billionaire’s house’ to ‘nuclearpunk water temple full of amphibians, where a lone witch dressed in midnight works tirelessly to create a frog which will birth the universe.’

That's sick as hell, right? It could be the premise of a kickass fantasy novel, all on its own.

FGA: I Recommended [Jade] Return To Her Denizen For Advice PCG: ABOUT WHAT FGA: The Location Of The Final Frog Required To Complete The Gene Sequence FGA: One Whose Song Should Remove The Last Traces Of Dissonance From The Waveform FGA: The Creature Is Quite Elusive Remember

I’ve been working under the assumption that the Players had full control over the form their universe would take. However, the fact that there's such a thing as an 'incomplete' gene sequence seems to imply that the Players can be told their universe is wrong. In other words, there are correct and incorrect universes.

Who's doing the grading, then? What makes a universe 'dissonant'? Does Sburb have an ideal, ‘harmonious’ universe that it's measuring our frog against? If so, how does it define 'harmony'?