Archive of Our Own

Foreword Written Circa 2021

FOREWORD:

Hi, my name is Funk McLovin. This project needs some introduction, but I'll get straight to the point.

I'd like to state this plain from the top: This is not Homestuck. This re-write takes elements from Homestuck and makes a new story. Elements like characterization, game mechanics, and even plot points, have been changed drastically. While it's impossible to avoid comparison to the original, this is worth stating. This is something else, meant to co-exist with Homestuck. So if you're about to comment "Dave doesn't talk like that" or "that's not how it really happened," then... We know.

Second, this re-write falls short of the original in several ways which are worth disclosing. First, art. By nature of being a web comic, Homestuck is more interactable than this version, and that's unavoidable. Second, scale. Homestuck is a fat piece of fiction, clocking in as large as the other most famous work of cult fiction, the Bible. Unlike with the art, though, this shortcoming was on purpose. Homestuck didn't need to be that long.

Finally, this re-write uses characters that someone else owns. As such, I'd like to direct you to Homestuck.com where the original work can be read for free and credit Andrew Hussie for creating these characters. If you've listened to this re-write's companion podcast, you know we're pretty critical of the famous Huss, but we wouldn't have a write to re if he hadn't decided to do something after Problem Sleuth.

Overall, if you're looking for a summary of Homestuck, this isn't it. If you're looking for a canon-compliant fanwork, this isn't it. But if you're looking for something that takes the frazzled, beleaguered draft that sits gathering dust on Homestuck.com and turns it into something with more intentionality, wit, and collaboration than the original, then this is it.

This project began to continue the mantra put forth by Hussie which he has failed to deliver on- Homestuck is in the hands of the fans.

Even if we have to take it.

Act 6 Chapters 1+2 Written October 2023

CHAPTER 1

[NOTE: Feferi interactions based on this]

A young woman stands in her bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2021, is this young woman's birthday. Though it was twenty years ago she was given life, it is only today he will truly become a woman. At least- One would hope.

What might the name of this young "woman" be?

Your name, of course, is Jane Crocker. A robust name. A plain, serviceable name. One given to you by your robust, plain, and serviceable father.

A father who can presently be detected in the Crocker home's kitchen by both sound and scent- The unmistakeable aura of baking.

Perhaps a more run-of-the-mill girl-turned-woman such as yourself would savor the sweet aroma of baked goods, but sadly, as fate would have it, the normally quite pleasant smell of Birthday Cake is fouled by your father's baking incompetence.

As such, you remain confined between the four walls of your very familiar room, walls festooned with posters of your various objects of amorous affection.

Truthfully, it's been a while since you'd been in this room. You moved out into the dormitories of Northern Illinois University two years prior, but now, in the spring break of your sophomore year, you've returned to your old house in Washington to visit.

In spite of your dad's promises to turn this room into his "rec room," he's kept it pristine and immaculite for you. You suspect it's empty nest syndrome, which both warms your heart and makes you cringe. It's a unique sensation that your beloved, yet embarrassing father often inspires- A feeling you call "cringe-tentedness."

You look towards your walls. On them, depicted in photos and posters, are several men who you admired over the years. Your father probably thinks these are your childhood crushes, but that's not true. Truthfully, you're not sure WHY you admire these guys so much and frankly, thinking about that mystery reason makes you apprehensive. Naturally, you do what's normal when faced with cognitive dissonance: Shove the feeling down into your feet and hope it never comes up again until you're dead.

Anyway. The guys on the wall. There are some seriously weird choices here. There's a tiny photo of Tobias Funke, who you now understand was not a cool and collected man but in fact kind of a bozo. Still, you keep the photo on the wall because your grandma arranged a meeting with David Cross when you were younger where he signed the picture.

With disgust, you do what's long overdue, tearing the photo from the wall and shredding it. Fithy Hollywood liberals...

Your gaze falls to the next man-specimen: Ron Swanson. Oh, hell yes. Now THAT'S a man. Not only is Ron Swanson the diluted essence of libertarianism; his actor, Nick Offerman (of whom this poster is also signed) is a certified man's man in his own right. You sigh. How you wish you could abscond into the woods, giving up your namesake and living a simple life, cutting wood and making chairs.

But you quickly suppress that wish. Because obviously, you're a GIRL, and that's not something GIRLS should want to do. You surmise that it's correct and normal to be ashamed of this.

You turn towards your computer desk. An ancient magazine sits neglected underneath the keyboard, a copy of GameGrl magazine, the 2019 issue, and the last issue you were sent by mail.

Against all odds, and perhaps just to procrastinate going downstairs, you lift the dusty pages and open them, to an old review of Sburb, the first and only title published by the Betty Crocker Corporation's gaming devision. Or at least- It would have been. Sburb never left Alpha and in spite of the aggressive marketing Crockercorp did and the game being nearly completed by its devs, Sburb never saw the light of day.

You gaze onto the page and read the old review by "Babypink Princess:"

"SBURB is this game that seems, like, totally cool!
I'm lucky enough to have a copy of the alpha sitting on my desk and WOWIE I'm excited to play it~

Naturally, as a certified gamer girl (TM Betty Crocker Co.) I'm like, TOTALLY hyped to play this one, ladies. I'm not like the other girls who like to play house and I think the simulation genre should expand because The Sims is WAAAY boring.

I haven't actually played the game yet? Because the Alpha is just sort of like, not able to be played? Haha, Betty Crocker actually just paid GameGrl to endorse the game since it's going to be TOTALLY great so there's not actually anything to see yet. But! Once it is, I bet it's going to be amaze-balls~!

I give it 5 out of 5 pink ribbons~"

You squint your eyes behind round frames. So this glitter-encrusted bimbo didn't even PLAY the game yet? What a fraud! You doubt her real name is even "Babypink Princess!" You discard the magazine in the wastepaper basket and sit down to your once-trusty computer, ideally to see if it's still capable of logging into Pesterchum to speak to your friends and, if you're lucky, rake in some much-needed birthday attention.

You open Pesterchum, an application that you and your friends use to communicate, surveying the land for any chums to pester.

Drat. Only one name is illuminated as "online" in the client window: tipsyGnostalgic. With an unread message, to boot! This tipsyGnostalgic character is one of your many online stalker weirdos. With nothing else to do, you decide to wind them up.

==
TG: jaaaney cakes
TG: i kno ur there lmao
BE: What is it now?
BE: Did you not get banned from Pesterchum after your last pathetic attempt to "troll" me?
TG: lmao
TG: u think i can be held down by the man
TG: me l33t haxxor tipsygnostalgic
BE: Eyeroll.
BE: What do you want?
BE: Besides to disparage my grandmother.
TG: ugh dont even get me STARTED on the batterwitch
TG: u talk about trollin shes like
TG: the queen of the trolls
TG: but thats not what i wanted to clue u in on
TG: i got u a birdthay gift! :D
TG: *birthday
BE: Right.
BE: Is it another year-long subscription to GameGrl magazine?
BE: I will admit, that was one of your better attempts to troll me.
TG: LOL
TG: no
TG: its gonna arrive in da mail soon
BE: The mail?
BE: How did you get my address?
TG: l33t
TG: haxxor
BE: Right...
BE: As if I would open anything from the likes of you.
TG: whateva
TG: later janey
==

You roll your eyes. What a load of shit. This TG person has been on your ass since you were eighteen, but people badgering you about your status as an heiress to the largest multimedia and baking company in the USA is nothing new. Maybe you pegged TG wrong and they're actually a huge fan!

You peek out the window curiously, which gives you a good view of the immense, long drive up from the Crocker Mansion gate to the roundabout where your father's car collection is proudly displayed. The immaculate lawn sways in the breeze as Mister Henderson, the family groundskeeper mows lazily. Missus Gunther, the florist, glares daggers at him for spraying grass trimmings onto her hydrangeas. The sun shines down on the estate's high fences, a cloud swimming across a baby-blue sky. A normal day.

Once you snap out of your trance, you look down the lane towards the mailbox. In the distance, you see the flag is up and it makes your heart thud, a thudding which is brought to a halt when you realize that to access the arrived mail, you'll have to pass your father in the kitchen. Fuck.

There's nothing for it. You've spent all the time up in your room you can stand. You open the bedroom door and no sooner have you crossed the threshhold than your father's voice booms from downstairs.

"Pumpkin!" he calls jovially. You feel cringe-tented. You don't get his whole "model father" schtick, but it's nice to hear that voice after so long not seeing him. He's a good father, though misguided, and the way he sucks on a pipe and speaks in that stentorian voice for every passing comment has grown nostalgic. You're happy to finally be free of the nest but also happy to be back.

"Yes, daddy?" you return politely, hoping he just heard you come out and wanted to greet you.

"C'mon down to the kitchen. I hear it's a big day for a special girl!"

You feel like you're twelve again. Still- The mail can wait until after a little visiting, even though you're excited for Roxy's gift. You stride down the marble staircase in the foyer and enter the Crocker estate's gargantuan kitchen.

"There she is!" Before you can squawk a protest, your father grabs you around the shoulders and kisses your cheeks. Ah, the famous dad-hug. How many of these have you suffered in all your life? Too many to count, but it's been so long that you can't help but hug back.

"Hi, daddy," you say, squirming from his grasp.

"My god, you're an entire adult now, dear," he says, clapping you on the back. "They grow up so fast... It's hard to imagine a beautiful dame like yourself getting put in my care."

You roll your eyes.

"You make it sound like a movie," you grumble. "I wasn't some baby left mysteriously at a nunnery! I was just... Adopted to be the heiress to a baking conglomerate."

Your dad turns away, opening the oven, a wash of heat enveloping the room.

"Let's not talk about that, eh, sweetpea?" he says awkwardly. Your father doesn't enjoy talking about his lineage. You have a deep sympathy for him on that front.

His mother- your grandmother- is the famous Betty Crocker, the CEO and mascot of the Betty Crocker Corporation, the world's largest baking conglomerate, the company with far and away the highest net worth of any enterprise across the globe. And in spite of being Betty's only son, your father Jonathan had been passed over for his rightful inheritance by your grandma due to, in her words, "His shit-tier baking." To make matters worse, she selected you, an orphan, to inherit the company instead, and to make matters worst, she forced him to raise you as a single father.

"Right, let's not," you agree gingerly. It's not like you want to re-hash all that. In spite of your harrowing origins, your father has never shown you anything but deep, deep love.

"So!" he says, readjusting the conversation. "Your grandma will be visiting today."

Your eyes widen. Your father seems to understand what he just said, keeping his back turned to you, fussing with the cookies.

"What?!" you say, incredulous. "I told you I would prefer to keep this visit between you and I!"

"I... I know, honey," he says, turning back to you. "But she found out, and you know how she insists..."

You DO know how stubborn your grandma can be. Through your life, she was practically your mother, visiting every week and demanding progress reports on your baking tutelage and cotillion classes from you and your dad, grooming you into the heiress you have become. Though you like who you are, you are resentful of the gauntlet she forced you through. In spite of you knowing on a logical level that your father isn't at fault, you feel your anger flare up at him for caving to that witch's whims.

"Well I know how much of a pushover YOU can be, certainly," you hiss bitterly. "I was hoping to get some quality time with my father, but it's clear that he doesn't even want to bother."

This hurts your dad more than you intended.

"N-now hold on!" he says, bristling. You steamroll him, mostly just because you know you can.

"And don't bother with the cake, daddy," you say, eyeing his pastries. "If I wanted to eat what you bake, I'd go to the grocery store and buy something in a box."

You sigh bitterly, slinking away, though you still feel a pang of disappointment. You and your father's relationship isn't usually full of strife, but... You can't help but remain angry. He's a single father by necessity, forced into accepting the responsibility of a daughter without the comfort of a spouse of his own. He might be the most earnest man in the world, but you can't help but feel a distance from him.

If only he would stand up for you.

You exit the double-doored entrance to your home, suppressing those thoughts in favor of the imminent mailbox. Once you reach the drive's end and check, the box reveals- Yes! Not one, but TWO packages. One is small and red and the other is a plain brown envelope, haphazardly posted. The former is from your friend Dirk, the other from Roxy, aka tipsyGnostalgic.

With your spoils you head inside and place the remaining mail on the foyer table for your dad to peruse later on. You pause in the foyer a moment, quirking a brow. It appears dad has placed something in front of the fireplace.

You approach, looking above it to see the smiling face of your grandpa, in a room-sized realist painting inside a golden, opulent frame, under which is a glass case which contains his taxidermized remains. You think it's a bit macabre, but your grandmother insists that your father display grandpa here, eyes peacefully closed. You don't remember him very well- he passed away when you were young- but all the memories you have of him were warm and kind, something that makes you nostalgic, like there is a kinship between you that can't be explained.

For now, you rush upstairs to report the present status. To your delight, you see another chum is online, Dirk Strider. His orange text undermines his dark, grounded speaking style, but you know deep down he isn't as haughty as he thinks.

==
TT: Jane. A happy birthday to you. You are now the penultimate drinking age.
BE: Indeed! Hoo hoo! I suppose next year I will be able to have booze!
TT: Too true, sister.
TT: I was going to craft some elaborate joke about how the age of twenty means you beat child pregnancy, but that's passe and barely is worth mentioning.
TT: Have you obtained my gifts?
TT: Embarrassing as earnest emotion is, I'm excited to get your reaction to 'em. It wasn't easy arranging what I did to get the gift to you.
BE: Yes! I haven't opened the package, however.
TT: Do it, senorita. You won't regret that shit.
TT: Did you get anything else?
TT: I heard on the grapevine you might have.
BE: How cryptic!
BE: I haven't opened anything yet.
TT: No rush. Though one wonders why you don't just tear those bad boys open like they're naughty christmas elfs rather than wasting any more moments of our precious time.
BE: Right! As we are both bigshots in our own rights.
TT: The biggest of shots. Like a grapeshot from a fucking revolutionary war cannon.
BE: Hoo hoo!
BE: But you're right, Dirk, I am the birthday person.
TT: Right. The "birthday person."
TT: If I were more psychologically-minded I'd probably read all up into that.
TT: Paging Dr. Freud.
BE: Oh hush! You always react so strangely to the most innocuous statements.
BE: I AM the birthday person!
TT: Right.
TT: But no one says that shit, Jane. I've literally never heard "birthday person" in my life.
TT: Your brain is a fascinating place, J-Dawg. I'd love to get a scan of it sometime.
BE: Fine! I'm the birthday GIRL.
BE: GIRL GIRL GIRL. It's what I'm stuck as, forever! Happy?
TT: I'm never happy.
BE: And keep those confounded brain-scanning doohickeys away from my cranium, you!
TT: Lol. That'll be my gift next year.
TT: Your brain in computer code.
BE: Hoo hoo! Not a chance. My ticker is staying up in my noggin.
TT: Fair 'nuff.
TT: Your female, girl-brain.
TT: The brain of a person who is definitely a woman.
BE: Okay, now you're being obstinate. :B
BE: I'm going to open my gifts, now!
==

As always, speaking with Dirk, you feel a bit frazzled. You have a long history of friendly needling and you know he doesn't mean anything malicious by his lighthearted antagonism, but something about his words today feel uniquely pointed.

You shake your head, staring at the words "Birthday Person" on screen that you'd typed. No time for introspection! It's your birthday, and "person" or "girl," you've got presents to cash in on.

You decide to open Dirk's gift first. It's not gift-wrapped, but a package is a package and it inspires the giddy glee any other birthday gift would. You tear the bitch open and within is...

A grubby-looking rabbit-shaped robot? You lift it from the box, blinking in confusion, before noticing a small leaflet underneath. You pick it up and your eyes go wide with shock.

"Dear Jane,

Enjoy this little buddy I crafted. He'll do any little thing you ask, and best of all he doesn't need to be paid. He's also got some sick sword skills.

-Dirk"

Your hands shudder. Your body wracks with a soft, mushy gratitude. You immediately forget your and Dirk's earlier conversation, typing with firm keystrokes, tears stinging the back of your eyes.

==
BE: Dirk! I... I don't know what to say.
TT: I assume this is about the gift and not about your obscure gender references.
BE: A real robot!
BE: I've so oft dreamed of someone to take care of things for me!
BE: Well... One that wasn't a maid that I had to house, pay, or give vacation days to!
BE: God, this must've cost a fortune!
TT: It didn't. It was made from scratch.
TT: Still. It is one-of-a-kind. The rabbit is build around an actual stuffed rabbit, so he's cuddly under all that metal plating.
BE: The price is irrelevant!
BE: Even though that's absolute hogwash! He's wonderful. I can just sense the care you put into him, darling. I love it. :)
TT: You're welcome, Jane. I'm happy you like the dirty rabbit.
BE: Underplay it all you like, Dirk!
BE: You did a nice, thoughtful thing.
BE: Now deal with the consequences.
TT: Gah. My irony-poisoned mind... Recoiling... From actual emotion...
TT: You have to cut that shit out before I explode from pent-up sentimentality, sis.
BE: Hoo hoo! Thank you, Dirk.
TT: Here, let me get out my dictionary to figure out a good thing to say in response to thanks.
TT: You're... "Welcome?"
TT: Am I saying that right? I've never expressed gratitude before.
BE: Hoo hoo!!
TT: In other news, what about those other gifts.
BE: Right....
==

Dirk is right! Better open THAT gift, too. You wonder what the surprise is, but you're not holding your breath.

Inside the neatly posted envelope is a much more self-evident gift: A copy of Sburb. You blink. How... Odd. It was sweet of Roxy to gift you this game, but you don't see the point of a years-old unreleased game alpha.

On the cover of the box is a simple graphic: A red house with four segments, like a windowpane, with a smaller box cut from the top-left square. Above this insignia, the game's title in stylish red letters: SBURB.

You flip the box over, searching for features, but curiously, the glossy back has nothing, just a blank white expanse with a strange spirograph in the bottom-left corner. Odd, yet completely dull.

You open the box. Inside are two envelopes clearly containing a CD-ROM each. What is this? 2009? On the first disc is printed "Client," and on the second "Server." You peek inside for instructions, but all that falls out are two leaflets, equally inscrutable. On the first,

"INSTRUCTIONS:

Connectez-vous aux clients via des serveurs pour compléter une chaîne.

Betty Crocker n'assume aucune responsabilité pour les conséquences du jeu SBURB."

The second note:

"LMAO sry i could only get a french copy of the game. no worries the game has language selection but yeah :)"

The latter note is clearly from Roxy. You're still not sure WHY she got you this game, but you figure it's the thought that counts. Not that you can tell what the hell Roxy is thinking, either.

You install the game, watching boredly as it loads. You were never big on gaming, yourself, not since you were younger. You used to a lot with your friends, and there's something that even you have to admit is nostalgic about this. A smile dawns on you, but it doesn't last but a moment.

From downstairs, you hear a voice.

"JAAAAAANEY!" it cries. It's a woman's voice, one that makes your blood run absolutely frigid.

==
BE: Oh, speak of the devil...
BE: I'll be right back. Don't start without me.
==

Arguing with your friends will have to wait. Now, you have to deal with HER.

You take a slow, deep breath to ground yourself steady, pausing before you stand up. Before you can exhale, the shrill voice makes a refrain.

"JAAAAAAAAY-NEEEEEEEE!"

You hasten, popping open the door to your room, hustling to the foyer, leaning on the balcony to view the figure below: Bethany Diane Vanderbilt Rockefeller Egbert-Crocker, your grandmother.

"I'm here, ma'am!" you chirp, forcing a smile onto your face. All you manage is a grimace, which seems to be enough for Nana.

"DAH-ling, look at how you've GROWN!" she says, holding her arms out, a mink stole dangling from her shoulders, her hip cocked to one side. Your grimace deepens. She speaks like a radio announcer from the 20s with the same volume, but even in her advanced age, she looks fit as could be.

"Oh, ah, thank you," you say, walking down the stairs. As soon as you're within reach, she grabs you by the shoulders like a doll and wrenches you inward to kiss the air near your cheeks.

As usual, she's covered head-to-end with finements, from the stole around her shoulders to the ankle-length, form-fitting dress, complete with gloves that crawl up to her shoulders. How she moves around is beyond you. Magazines call her glamorous, but you think she looks like an upholstered carseat.

"Most of that growing is HORIZONTAL, naturally," she says, prodding you in the stomach. You bristle, but repress your rage in favor of a polite, girlish laugh that makes your skin burn.

"Oh! Haw-haw, Nana, I really MUST watch my diet!" you titter, your voice hollow, packed only with the feminine glitter you force into it.

She casually pats her face with foundation powder from a compact in her gargantuan purse. She does this compulsively, often regardless of decency. She's known to get the tan powder all over food on occassion.

"Hush," she says dismissively, likely sensing your insincerity. "Where's that son of mine?" Your face breaks and you can no longer hold your faux-smile.

"Kitchen," you say dejectedly. You really hate setting Nana upon your father when he's baking, but you also don't want to talk with her more than you have to.

As she strides away, she toussles your hair condescendingly, her heels clacking on the marble floor. You don't know why she even bothers with heels- Without them, she's over seven feet tall, an abnormally sized lady without her floppy hats and jet-black boots.

"Jonathan," you hear from the kitchen. You shift closer, unable to help your curiosity, eavesdropping. "What in the name of the gods above are you doing in this kitchen?"

"Mother," your dad says, voice stilted. Years of being the disappointing son of Betty Crocker has rendered your dad a nub, and his voice is a practiced, submissive monotone. "I was making some things for Jane's birthd-"

"Well stop it," Nana says bitterly. "Honestly, if she wanted to eat baking like that, she might as well go to the supermarket."

You cringe. Hearing your words echoed by Nana feels just awful.

"Yes, mother," Dad says, and you hear the garbage can lid open, something sliding in.

Your dad isn't a bad baker by any stretch of the imagination, but he could best be described as a "hobbyist." His issue is that his cakes were always compared to his mother's and yours, and you share your Nana's skill at baking. He always took more after Poppop.

"Honestly, if your father, bless his ever-loving heart, were here to see those crass confections you insist on foisting on my precious heiress, he would puke in his mouth!" she says. Your eyes roll. God, not this again. She always brings up your Poppop like this, as a weapon against others. She clearly loved your grandfather dearly, but the way she shamelessly uses his passing against your father makes you a little sick.

"Dad always liked my cookies, ma, I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"Your father- god rest his pure, spotless, effervescent soul- was being polite. You should be ashamed to be named after my Johnny. You're good at two things, Jonathan, do you know what they are?"

Your father can be heard taking a long breath.

"Raising daughters and driving cars," he says, referring to Nana's frequent chauffer requests. He sounds particularly dejected today, reciting his raison d'etre as if it were written on his DNA.

"Now just stay out of our way, today, Jonathan," says nana, huffing haughtily. "I'm going to tell her our little family secret and I don't need your carcass fouling it up."

Your eyes go wide. By now, your back is flat against the wall next to the ajar door to the kitchen, listening raptly. Family secrets? The curiosity bone in your head is vibrating.

"Mother, are you sure?" says your dad, a twinge of nervousness in his voice.

"When I'm a spineless man-thing like you, Jonathan, THEN I'll ask you if I care about how sure you think I am. Until then, hush up and go to your room."

Ouch. Being told to go to his room in his own home, as an adult. That must sting. You hurry away from the door before your dad catches you eavesdropping, sitting in the foyer sofa nonchalantly, examining your nails.

"Jane?" says your dad.

"Yes, Daddy?" you say, clearing your throat furtively. To your surprise, he looks surprisingly earnest.

"I... I love you, you know that, right?" he says solemnly, one foot on the stair, turned to face you. You swallow, nodding. You don't have to think about it. Of course you love your dad. He cared for you all his life, you owe him everything, he's your whole world. Your confidant, friend, and father.

"Of course I do, daddy, even if I-"

Again, to your shock, dad's expression changes radically.

"Sweetie, look out!" he cries, holding out a hand.

As you swivel in your seat to look behind you, you see the floating corpse of your poppop, hear a caterwauling scream from your Nana, and you promptly feel the body slam into yours, forcing you to pass out.

CHAPTER 2

Your name is Roxy Lalonde.

The sun shines outside in rays. A cloud drifts lazily across the New England sky as the smell of the sea drifts by your cozy bedroom window. It's the atmosphere you most enjoy, holding a martini in one hand and a cat in the other, or perhaps enjoying a conversation with one of your many buds.

Okay, that's a lie. You have like, four buds, tops, one of them being your sister, Rosalyn. Right now she's AWOL, giving you some much-needed space to yourself.

Still, you have bigger fish to fry than the sunshine and your sis, namely, corresponding with a certain friend of yours who is having a birthday! Sadly, as you are in a completely different time zone, she's probably not up yet.

"CONDY THING" Written 4/7/2023

Your name is... What the fuck is your name again?

You've had so many names. So many. You've only been alive for 2612 sweeps which isn't much compared to your boss, but you've lived many lifetimes compared to other mortals.

When you were born, you were Meenah Piexes. A few sweeps later when the man on the moon told you to kill every Mother Grub, you were the Butcher Bitch. When you killed your ancestor and ascended to the throne, you were the Empress. Eventually, you were Her Imperious Condescension.

Now? You're Betty Crocker.

Your name is... Betty Crocker.

What a stupid fucking name. Like most names of yours, you didn't pick it.

Right now, you're on a planet known as Earth, pretending to be one of the natives, ape things called "humans." Up until recently, you were on another planet, also known as Earth, but this is a whole new planet.

Your boss has explained this several times to you, but you don't really listen to him unless he has direct orders any more. As you understand it, you were born on Alternia which was part of one universe, then you went to Earth in a new universe, and now there's another Earth in a new universe after that.

Or maybe it's the old universe but re-done?

You also forget why you're pretending to be a human. On the last Earth, you were also pretending to be a human named Betty Crocker, using your influence as the CEO of the most successful baking company to set things into motion for your boss.

Now you're doing the same thing. Again. Seems kind of pointless.

The sweep, you're told, is 1952. You arrived on New-Earth from the ashes of old Earth thirty sweeps ago in 1921. Well- They don't call them "sweeps" here, they're called "years." Your boss says you have to call them years to blend in, something you rarely do.

1952 is a big year for you, says your boss. You're going to have a baby. Or you're going to pretend to have one, more accurately. You can't actually get human-pregnant and the idea repulses you, but your boss says it's important and you have to do what he says, so you've had a balloon shoved up your shirt for every public appearance for the last nine months. Boss says today you get to take it out.

You're lounging on your sofa in the den of your warm parlor, the pregnancy prosthetic (balloon) bobbing gently on the coffee table, leaning back, brushing your nearly nine feet of waving jet-black hair with a brush the size of a tennis racket. You love your massive hair even though your boss says it makes you "stand out unnecessarily."

You wonder what happened to old Earth. Last you saw, it was destroyed by a shower of meteors, something you spied from the window of the ship you escaped on with your long-suffering assistant. Kind of sad. Sad is an emotion that you only feel as a faint flutter these days. You've lived through so much that emotions are in short supply in general, each one moving you about as much as a summer's breeze moves the oak tree in your back yard.

In your back yard, the oak tree's leaves sway as if fanning itself of the summer heat. You sigh. What a boring life. Waiting for your boss to order you around, pretending to be pregnant, heading an up-and-coming baking empire...

The telephone rings. You drift to it, your oceanic hair grazing the fancy carpet underfoot. Your eyes focus on the noble oak tree, feeling kinship with its unmoving mass, its leaves sprawling like your thick, lovely hair.

"M'yellow?" you say, bored. You already know who it is.

"Miss Crocker," says a voice on the other line. It's your boss. "Today ends your pregnancy. Congratulations. It's a boy."

"Yip de fuckin' doo da day," you say, waiting for Doc to continue. He doesn't for a moment, sighing.

"You could try to play your role a bit better, Miss Crocker," he says. When you don't respond, he sighs again. "Just stay indoors. The baby should be arriving any minute."

"What, is he comin' air mail?" you ask sarcastically, to which Doc laughs deviously. You roll your eyes. Devious laughs are the most annoying of all laughs.

"In a sense," the cagey Doctor says, the line clicking.

Your eyes scan the oak. It's been growing in that back garden since it was a sapling, you've seen it develop into the stalwart yard-defender it is. You remember Alternia, your home, the treehouses that dotted the Specific Northwest, wondering what became of them.

There's a sigh in your lungs, a remnant of atrophied emotion. So many dead worlds.

Birds chirp. Leaves rustle. Peace abounds.

In one instant, it shatters with fury, an explosion of red sending you flying back into the sofa, crumpling against it, hair in a heap like a great curtain. Outside is fire, sudden and blinding, heat shattering every window, bowing the boards on the north side of your large mansion. You stagger to your feet as the chaos subsides.

You look to your yard. The oak tree that you raised is gone, replaced by a crater the size of six or seven parking spots, as deep as you are tall. In the middle of the fresh flaming crater is a meteor the size of a basketball, straddled by... A human baby. Its hair like yours is jet black in a puffy tuft on its head, eyes a deep piercing blue.

For the first time in sweeps, you feel genuine shock, skidding down the crater to look at the mistyfying baby child who is presently screaming its head off in terrible bouts of sobbing wails. You pick it up by an arm which makes it shout all the louder, hastily making you place it in your arms awkwardly.

With distaste, you take the naked infant out of the crater and gingerly set it on the sofa. As if on cue, the phone rings again.

"How was the delivery?" asks Doc before you can respond.

"The fuck?" are the only words you speak- You feel they adequately encapsulate your emotions at present.

"That is young John, now John Crocker," says Doctor Scratch. "He is your son and heir to the Crocker conglomerate."

"Why the fuck do I need some shitty heir?" you hiss, immediately regretting having asked it.

"Because my dear," Doc explains over John's wails. "You may live forever, but Betty Crocker cannot. She must pass along her empire to an heir."

"Don't care," you say bluntly. "I'll raise the li'l shit, whatever."

This seems to please Doc. You look over to the baby, still crying in that irritating voice.

"Don't be too hard on the boy," says Doc with a smug affect, as if he knows precisely how cruel you're going to be and in fact relishes it deeply. It creeps you out. You hear a click.

Once Doc is off the line, you move to the front of the sofa, glaring at the child. Great. Gone are your carefree days of brushing your hair and watching oak trees swish around, now you have to deal with some shitting burping crying sack of human meat for the next eighteen miserable years. You knew this day was coming, but you'd put off thinking about it for so long.

"Shut up!" you yell at the child. You love telling humans to "shut up," from your terrified servants to your miserable work underlings. They all cower in fear and swiftly look away in terror, something you assume to be true of squishy weak babies, too.

The child ceases its crying. You're already forming a mental list of which servant you can appoint as this shit factory's honorary mother when you hear a sound.

"Hehe."

It's a laugh. A tiny laugh, nearly a whisper from the blue eyed baby.

"The fuck are you laughin' at, dumbass?" you demand, snarling.

"Hehe," responds John Crocker.

"Shut up!" you repeat the threat, reasoning that this baby is too young and therefore too stupid to understand that it should be utterly terrified. You bare your razor-sharp teeth and extend a clawed hand towards it.

"Hehehe!" the laughter only becomes louder as John squirms on the sofa. So helpless. So small. So stupid.

"Stop it," you say, feeling a childishness in your own voice, growling. You're really losing a rhetorical battle to an infant human, aren't you?

"Aabbbbub!" claims John. You squint at him.

"Graaah!" you make a terrifying noise, raising both clawed hands in intimidation.

John laughs again. He's no longer crying, gazing at you with unconditional happiness. You gawk at his look.

Whenever someone looks at you like that, it's because they want something. They want to sign a deal or get a raise or have their life spared, that face is a false front, a farce, an affect of calm that belies deceit. On this baby, however, the smile is carefree.

There's a pang inside of you, your long-rotted, ice-cold heart suddenly churning an emotion into your ancient veins. It hurts to feel, sending you to your knees, the sensation of emotion piercing you like a knife through your ribcage. You kneel before the sofa, unable to move, paralyzed by the loving gaze of John Crocker.

"Hebeebo," John says matter-of-factly, reaching a tiny hand forward, grabbing your lower lip, millimeters away from jaws that coul maul him to death.

He doesn't care. He loves you.

You're crying. You feel your face, wetness on your cheek. You're crying like a baby, every emotion you haven't felt in 2612 sweeps bursting back into you, long-dormant, like an atrophied muscle forced so support your entire weight. It hurts and it's uncomfortable, but you can't deny how good it feels to have some dead part of yourself working again.

You embrace John Crocker who coos, wrapped up in your jet-black hair.

You're not a human. You're not even sure you're a troll any more. Whatever you are, whatever heartless abomination you've become, this baby from the heavens has awoken something in you. John laughs as you kiss his cheeks and you sob into his tiny chest.

From on high, your boss watches with unrestrained disgust.

"JADE ELDRITCH DREAM" Unknown Date

You stare at Feferi's face for a moment, expecting her to elaborate, but her blank smile grows only wider. What's happening? How did Feferi get inside your bedroomroom? When did you return to your island home? This all feels so strange, so surreal, so...

Dreamlike.

The word appears in your mind and the pupils of Feferi's eyes vanish in the same moment, revealing haunting white empty sockets that stare at, into, and through you without looking at all.

"I'm dead, moron!" your fellow Witch proclaims, parting her fangs to laugh. 

This jarring sentiment hits you like a baseball hits the target on a dunk tank, your bed and your floor swallowing you up like they've liquefied. Instinctively, you shut your eyes and take a deep breath, but your body you're inside betrays you, its inability to breathe revealing itself as a dissolving simulacrum.

You float down in a massive ocean of inky blackness that makes your living heart run cold, your dreaming body floating away in grains like sand diffusing in water before your eyes. You scream silently. You shoot a hand out, but your desperate motions to save yourself merely make your dissolution faster.

Eventually, you are a conscious singularity, a being of sight alone, unable to scream or cry out at all, a bodiless nothing sinking down and down through the liquid before breaching the other side, entering free fall down and away from the clinging membrane that Feferi had been inside, a spherical membrane suspended in nothingness.

Around you is blank. Even space is dotted in stars, but wherever you are now is less than void, the blackness seeming to shift and squirm from having nothing to look upon. No- The blackness IS squirming in titanic tendrils slowly unfurling and writhing in the heavens.

The scope of what you're seeing  is summarily rejected by your waking mind. It is blotted out so save your sanity. All you remember is shimmering black and maddening whispers beamed not into your ears nor your mind, but your very consciousness, like fingers probing the essence of what you are beyond even what your fragile mind can reckon. All you can do is float down, down, down.

And when you stop floating, when you reach the end of your bottomless depths, for one single moment, you are able to comprehend. All around you, body-to-body, intermingling in a cosmic dance, are beings in sizes you would count in planets. Their mouths gape and their tongues slither, their slick and color-void bodies colliding silently with such force that could snuff out suns like candles.

Your life until now seems tenuous. You briefly consider every ant you've ever crushed underfoot.

Then, beneath you, a chasm opens. A chasm the scope and breadth of the Earth, as if you're looking down at it from a space station. It widens from a sliver to a full, gargantuan sphere, slick and pearly-white. Another sphere rolls down from its edge and you realize with a terrifying jolt of life-threatening panic that what you're looking at is the single eye of some eldritch leviathan.

You wake up by leaping to your feet, standing alert upon your soft bed, sweat pouring down your entire body, breaths raking your lungs.

==
GG: um
GG: hey guys!
GG: i think we should all stay awake from now on
==

--REVENGE CYCLE OUTLINE-- Unknown Date

=Chronological Order=

1. Vriska, trying to make Tavros strong, throws him from a cliff, crippling him
2. Terezi, angry, tells Aradia
3. Aradia, enraged, sends ghosts to torment Vriska
4. Doc Scratch convinces Vriska to kill Aradia using Sollux.
5. Vriska, via Sollux, kills Aradia.
6. Vriska commissions a robot body for Aradia from Equius
(Results: Vriska is ostracized)
(Sweep passes, game begins)
7. Equius connects to Aradia
8. Aradia uses her ghost to make herself a sprite
9. Equius puts ghost into robot body
10. Aradia freaks out, leaves to fight Chronos
11. Aradia takes The Choice
12. Vriska reconnects with Tavros in-game
13. Vriska and Tavros have a moment together
14. Aradia (robot) shows up to beat the shit out of Vriska
15. Vriska goes GT
16. Tavros fails to kill Vriska at the critical moment
17. Aradia forgives Vriska, to Vriska's annoyance
(Week passes, game ends in ruin)
18. Terezi suspects Vriska will act out
19. Tavros vows to stop Vriska, gets killed
20. Vriska goes to kill Bec Noir
21. Terezi kills Vriska

TOLD IN CHUNKS: 7-17, then 1-6, then 18-21 (Or 2, 1, 3)

4/20/24 Act 5 Planning Doc