prank #39 | video

[ghostytrainer]

[John is seated on a piano bench, though he's facing away from the piano at the moment, using the instrument as sort of a backrest instead. In his lap sits a small stack of papers and the look on his face clearly says that he is all business today.]

[Brace yourselves.]

So I'm not sure why none of us thought to clear this up sooner, but it's come to my attention that there are a few things concerning the people from my universe that really should be addressed to avoid further confusion. Mainly: alternate universe selves, who's related to who, and how a sixteen year old can be a grandparent.

I have mentioned it to a few people already but basically it all boils down to something called ectobiology. To put it as simply as I can, ectobiology is the science of exploiting time loops to create babies out of paradox ghost slime. None of us were born in the typical human sense of the word, I created us all in a lab and then we went back in time on meteors and crash landed on Earth. And it's all thanks to a game called SBURB which I'm not going to go into too much detail about because it's really only marginally relevant and I will be here all day if I try to explain it.

Anyway...thanks to ectobiology, we have two family trees to deal with here:

[At that, he holds up two of the papers in his lap.]



Sorry, I'm not the best artist but hopefully you get the idea here. Jane Crocker and Jake English's slime was combined to create Jade Harley and yours truly, John Egbert; Roxy Lalonde and Dirk Strider's slime was combined to make Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider. So if you were wondering why in the world Jake and I look so similar, there's your answer. Technically he's my dad. Jane, Jake, Roxy, and Dirk don't have any ectoparents since I cloned them from their own adult selves. With me so far?

[He pauses.]

Good, because here's where it gets kind of weird. See, in order for the paradox clone babies to make it to Earth, they have to go through these portals surrounding a place called Skaia.

[He sets the two family trees down on the piano behind him so that he can hold up a third drawing.]



Skaia is this giant blue ball of creative energy that has a whole bunch of clouds that you can see the future in. In order to protect itself from damage by meteors, it has a whole bunch of these portal things, which it uses to redirect the meteors to the player's home planet. In this case: Earth. Since Skaia exists in a place outside of Earth's timeline, it can send the meteors to any point in time that it wants. Now...like any other video games, sometimes you fuck up catastrophically when playing SBURB and you are forced to restart the game. But since SBURB isn't so much a video game as it is your entire existence, the consequences of a reset have a little more impact. When you reset a game of SBURB, you reset your entire universe, and the meteors get redirected. Don't ask me why this is, I have no idea, that's something Rose could answer better than me since she's the one who actually researched that part. We haven't even reset the game from my perspective yet. But that's beside the point, point is: there are two different iterations of our universe and the main difference between them is which set of kids ends up as the players and which set ends up as the guardians of said players.

[The picture of Skaia joins the family trees on the piano as John holds up the very last piece of paper, which is thankfully void of any "art".]



I think the timeline pretty much speaks for itself. There are two possible versions of all eight of us: a teenage SBURB player and an adult guardian. This is why Jane sometimes calls me poppop instead of John and why there are two different Dirks here. Genetically speaking, we are the same people, but personality wise there can be some wild variance because of how we were raised. So for you more psychological types out there, we are basically walking examples of nature vs. nurture.

[He sets down the last piece of paper.]

Most of you probably don't care about any of this but I know there were a few people who were confused so I figured it would be best to clear it up now in case more of us show up. I probably missed a few things in this explanation but I was trying to keep it as short and simple as possible. So if you have any questions, feel free to ask. If I can't answer it, hopefully someone else from my universe can.

Comments

Video;

[tentacletrainer]

[[She can't help the little chinhanding going on at the psychological terms. Yeah, it would be weird if he didn't pick up on it a little considering how much time they spend around each other - even before the game and the trip to Johto and everything - but still.

Chinhands.]]

A very straightforward explanation, John. Nicely done.

Video;

[ghostytrainer]

[Rose, plz.]

Oh good. I was a little worried that my explanation might be even more confusing than the concept itself.

[Video]

[hoperaider]

[Stares.

Stares.

ohgod]

WAIT, wait, let me see if I've got this straight.

[Because he can totally dig being Jade and John's dad, HOWEVER....]

Jane and I have...? And ohmygod Roxy and Dirk have...?

[can't]

[Video]

[ghostytrainer]

Jake, are you...

[No. No, okay John must be misunderstanding here. There's no way Jake is THAT oblivious. Not catching on to Rose and Dave being a product of Roxy and Dirk is one thing but...]

[Really now, who ELSE would have been John and Jade's mom I mean really now.]

No okay, you tell me. What do you think you don't have straight here?

[Video]

[shippingmath]

Ectobiology, Jake. Not sex. So no.

[WHAT IS HIS LIFE.]

Not that I can speak for Bro.

[Video]

[moveslikestrider]

Dude. No.

There was no slipping anyone the sausage.

Can't we just leave this at 'we're related' and fly right past the subject? This seems like an awesome idea. In no way will we be returning to the topic. Ever.

[Voice]

[matini]

[John has successfully caught Mom's interest. Voice, though, because of reasons.]

Interesting. That explains quite a bit, and why the Scratch is important. I assume, then, that this is also true for the trolls' session of SBURB.

[Voice]

[ghostytrainer]

Well Dave and Rose have both mentioned meeting dead ghost teen ancestor trolls from before the scratch on their journey to the new session, so I can only assume so. I mean I would imagine the concept itself holds true across all sessions ever played, but it sounds like yes: the trolls had to scratch too.

[video]

[paladinlost]

...How can twins be born in different years? Barring some very precise timing on New Year's Eve, of course.

[He has to concentrate on the small details, because thinking about the rest of it would kill his brain.]

[video]

[ghostytrainer]

Well that's where the meteor thing comes into play. We were cloned at the exact same time and from the exact same batch of goo, but our meteors landed in different years. Jade landed in December, and I didn't land until April of the following year.

So, technically we're twins but we don't have the same birthday. Rose and Dave are a day apart too.

[It's okay, Cecil. You're probably not the only one.]

[papshooshing]

[ clap.

clap.

clap. ]

[ghostytrainer]

Why thank you. Not a half bad explanation for someone who's ages behind, huh?

[video]

[razputin]

[Raz was listening, Johnbro, from his training. Hey, he's gotta get his team up to speed. And he's really interested - reeeeally interested.]
So... there's another you out there - a 'guardian'? Do these two timelines interact at all, or wouldn't you have learned of it if you weren't here?
[He's gonna ask all the hard questions, also the easy ones.]

[video]

[ghostytrainer]

Well there was at some point, but according to Jane he's dead. If the same pattern holds true as it did in my iteration, Poppop John was probably crushed by Jane's meteor when she landed. Because that's kind of a thing I accidentally did to Nanna Jane.

[Oops.]

But no, normally they don't interact. Scratching a session means total reset, so you're SUPPOSED to stop existing at that point and you lose all your memories. But I guess we kind of break the rules. I'm kind of way behind on all this stuff and haven't experienced it myself yet. Rose and Dave have been filling in the gaps since they're from further in the future than I am. So...yeah, I would have learned about eventually if I hadn't been brought here.

video

[onelevelmeaner]

[What.

What is this. This is all terrible. Well maybe not all of it. He didn't really pay attention to it all. Definitely pings him when it gets to the twin stuff.]

So what you're saying is that your world is full of idiots that don't know what twins really, truly are. Let me tell you what we're not — clones.

[That is all he caught from all of that.]

video

[onelevelnicer]

Wow! I feel so cheated by this. It really sort of belittles the special bond that twins have.

video

[islandshore]

...

Wait.

[Give him a second. This is all mind boggling. John, what are you...?]

This is... interesting. Interesting and more than a little confusing.

video

[ghostytrainer]

[He is Superman, Riku.]

Ahaaa...yeah I kind of had a feeling it might be. Which parts are you lost on?

[video]

[brokenmemories]

[Wow.]

[Just when she thought Homestuck chars' world wouldn't get any stranger.]

.......Well, this explains the similarity between you and Jake, [Really. After that whole explanation, that's the thing you say?]

[video]

[ghostytrainer]

[Oh it only gets weirder from here.]

Oh, you know Jake too, Misaki? Hehe, small world. But yeah, the family resemblance is pretty strong huh?

video;

[timelymaid]

[ PINGED. Also saw the convo with Mom, so... ]

We were a scratched session, yes! Apparently in the original-original session - haha, there are rather a lot, aren't there? - we were the ancestors, much like Jake was Jade's grandfather and in a sense still is.

Although I really couldn't venture a guess as to which of our then-descendants now-ancestors we donated genetic material to via ectobiology! I do know Aranea's suspicions of her own origins, but that's it.

video;

[ghostytrainer]

I think only Karkat would know that for sure who begat who since he was your session's ectobiologist. We talked about it once, but he wouldn't tell me the specific details because of how much more complicated the troll genetic relations and mating process is.

[Plus he's Karkat.]

Who's Aranea though? One of your teen ancestor trolls?

[Video]

[moveslikestrider]

[After all of that crap.]

Like Aradia said, yeah. The troll session was scratched too. Their winning session was the rebooted one.

[Video]

[ghostytrainer]

Hm...do you know why they scratched by any chance? I'm just curious. I kind of got the feeling that it was like a last minute thing that you typically try to avoid having to do.

[Video]

[otherfathering]

[He's just looking at the screen, really quite confused. THIS IS NOT HOW FAMILIES ARE MEANT TO WORK, RIGHT?! Sorry, he works on basic families, but he's willing to learn.

He doesn't really understand, but he's really trying. One thing pops out more than anything...]

Rose is a mom?

[Not dissappointed, just a shock.]

[Video]

[ghostytrainer]

Only in the alternate timeline! And only in the adoptive sense. [A beat.] Actually, not even in that sense. Because she would have been long dead by the time Roxy landed.

[video]

[when_turks_fly]

[ When this particular feed is activated in response to John's broadcast, there is no immediate or near-immediate verbal response. It's simply video and of Valeria in particular, only she doesn't seem to be focused upon the camera at all if the slightly off capture angle is any indication. She's leaning back in her chair with the Gear in hand and her gaze is rather distant, as though she's completely unaware her Gear is recording. That's probably because she isn't as there are more than a few things on her heart and mind at the moment, enough to completely distract her from that blinking red light.

From the initial broadcast to the various conversations had in turn, she's observed just about all there is to observe and it's... well, it's something. Enough to have her knitting her brows just slightly and not entirely out of confusion. She thinks she understands well enough. Sort of. It's just... she's felt increasingly off as she's gone through the various conversations, enough that pending questions are dead in her throat, her curiosity swept to the way side by that strangely tight feeling in her chest. She doesn't understand it. Blames it on her feeling every inch out of place because that's simply, suddenly how she feels. Like she walked into the middle of some big family unit she has no business being involved with, like she maybe just... traipsed right into the middle of something else she shouldn't have and added a third wheel to it, like she should just step back if not turn on her heel outright and walk away. She isn't sure. About the only thing she is sure of at the moment is that she doesn't like these feelings, that she could've done without them and --

And now, now she notices that the feed is actively running. Her finger must have slipped for that annoying little red button to be blinking the way it is. Of course it slipped. That isn't difficult to determine. How she could be so careless is another matter entirely, but she'll have plenty of time to think that over after she's wiped that entirely out-of-place distant look from her face provided she cares to come back to it. She's quick to shift just so and straighten, quick to draw a smile expertly across her face. She'll leave no room for questions, if she can help it, and she thinks there's quite a lot she can do to help it. She simply does. ]

Your talents know no bounds, John. If you'll excuse me.

[ And that's really all the warning she'll give before she pushes herself up from the table at which she was seated and simply... walks off, the camera still rolling. ]

[video] /finally crawls over to this thread now that that other one is mostly done

[ghostytrainer]

[John gives the screen a rather confused look. Why did she just walk off...]

Uhm...Valeria? Hello? You okay?

[Video]

[searsblindly]

Hey, John! What am I exactly looking at? [8D She wants to see if he'll accidentally explain it again so she can call him out for being an ableist fuck.]

[Video]

[ghostytrainer]

A bunch of stuff you likely already knew about. Actually, it's probably better that you can't see it. These drawings are pretty awful.

[Wow. Jerk.]