Was A. Claire confirmed actually dead, or is it possible she's just gone? I'm wondering if they're going to go the Never Found A Body route and find her on Alternia... Would probably undermine the "dealing with loss" message, though.
Was it confirmed that A. Claire is actually dead? Joey does use the word "died" when speaking of her, but we know nothing of the circumstances, and it's been theorised it was a Never Found The Body situation because there is no taxidermied corpse in the house. I have mixed feelings about the theory; there are a lot of hints which would make it make sense, but it'd undermine the "dealing with loss" message.
okay but now a part of me wants to draw that reunion I just I feel like there is so much potential for awkward and that amuses me
There are an awful lot of little hints that she may have got to Alternia, whether or not she died there. The portal has apparently been there for a long time, and Jude knows what it does and tells Joey "I can't lose you too", which implies that someone has gone through it before. Pa Harley has a globe of Alternia, and Dammek appears to have some strangely Earth-like technology. There's also a theory from Tumblr's spoopyspoony which is probably not true but seems weirdly plausible...
I mean, I will say I have been going on the assumption Pa has been to Alternia before, but I would point out that Jude is younger than Joey, and if he knew what it did because their mom went through it, shouldn't Joey know too? especially given that their mom is said to have died "10 or 11 years ago", and Jude is believed to be between 10 and 13, meaning he'd be like, 3 at most when A. Claire went missing. it seems vaguely more plausible to me that someone told Jude what it does, not that he knows their mom went through it, and doesn't want Joey to go through it just because it's his sister and he doesn't want her stranded on an alien planet, and/or that his comment is just about how in general, their mom is gone, and he doesn't want to lose the only other family member he has left who's really ever around. I now wonder if Doc Scratch can communicate across dimensions. although if he did tell Jude about the portal, I guess he could've also told Jude if their mom went through the portal--but either way, someone would need to tell Jude that, and I'm not sure why they would or who would've done that. if Doc Scratch is the one who did this and for some reason his end was to get someone to go in the portal, and he was banking on the mom thing getting someone to go through the portal, I feel like Joey might've been a better bet? I do enjoy the theory about Elwurd, though it seems really unlikely.
No, I don't think he witnessed it directly, but he has the blueprints for the portal in his treehouse, so he's certainly worked out what it does, and he may or may not have figured out from discrepancies in what he was told happened to his mother or from some hint she left that something weird was going on there. Doc Scratch is the voice of the hint function, but I don't know if he's supposed to be talking to the characters or the player. However, he ignores you if you click it while playing as Jude or Xefros, and responds politely to Joey, which would fit with his usual M.O. Also, the shipping invoice in the attic has the words "Where is that dadblasted gadzooks KEY?!" scrawled on it, which implies someone took the key away and Pa Harley was looking for it. Did A. Claire secretly take the key for her own use, or secretly give it to Joey?
I kind of want her to have taken the key for some reason linking to Pa having Nefarious Purposes but I know that is probably highly improbable
I don't know. Homestuck did have a theme of guardians not being what the children thought they were, and Joey is definitely seeing her mother through rose-coloured glasses because she's not there to prove herself not amazing, and possibly because anything would look good in comparison to Joey's view of Pa. It's quite plausible her view of her parents will be shaken up. Pa probably doesn't have nefarious purposes, but Claire herself...
Should this be moved to the Hiveswap thread, or is it relevant here? Sorry, I've kind of been rambling on. Also there are at least two groups involved in the background. The monsters seem to have actively been trying to stop Joey getting to Alternia, as they cut the power and in the Game Over scene eat her; if whoever's behind them wanted her to go through the portal, they probably wouldn't have picked that method. Doc Scratch, meanwhile, seems to want her on Alternia, as he secures her connection and, while he's said nothing helpful so far, will be serving as the hint function in future installments. Doc Scratch doesn't do things just for the hell of it, so her presence there is probably tied to SGrub. Wakraya's theory on Tumblr is that the monsters and the cult which probably is behind them are linked to the horrorterrors, who would want to prevent Doc Scratch's plans from going through, and they do have the same colour scheme of black outsides and glowing green insides.
I suspect that Jude has a decent working idea of what the portal does, or at least understands the blueprints enough to get that it transports things (and probably people) from one place to another and he doesn't know where Joey would end up since he has no clue where the other end is. "I don't want to lose you too" could pretty easily be a result of one of his pigeons having died, the other one having fled, and the third being in the dubious safety of Joey's sylladex. Hm. Possibly? But on the other hand, the monsters' actions seem to have driven Joey directly into a situation where she had to go near the portal - they forced her to flee to the attic for safety, after all. That she gets eaten in one timeline isn't quite enough to convince me that Scratch couldn't have sent them; he seems pretty likely, to me, to pick a method that's going to be hazardous and be smugly confident in his omniscience and knowing that things will turn out how he wants them to.
I don't know, just releasing monsters doesn't seem like a very Scratch-esque thing to do, regardless. Bit unsubtle.
It's not subtle, no. But on the other hand, he's never really been quite as subtle as he likes to play himself as either. The most 'subtle' he's been has been getting people to take poorly-hidden bait, and that's when he was in a position where he could talk to them and have them actually listen for a minute. Joey's right in the era where "don't talk to strangers on the internet!" was going pretty strong - even if Scratch sent her an email, she'd be more likely to consider it to be weird spam; she'd probably ignore or try to block a rando with white text trying to IM her. Frankly, I'm not sure he can talk cross-universe unless it's to someone who's already in the Medium. And I don't know if he'd be interested in trying to talk to Joey when he can just herd her into doing what he wants.
I think he is talking to Joey, though; he's the voice of the hint function. And if he can't talk to another universe, how would he be able to release monsters in one? Plus, the colour scheme is off from his usual; black and green instead of white and green.
The Troll Call cards' text is white and could be talking to either Joey or the viewer, but it really doesn't sound like Scratch's use of language at all, so that's probably coincidence...
The monsters also seem to be focusing exclusively on Joey. The snake monster is certainly capable of getting up the tree, because it swarms up the wall and clings to the ceiling seconds later, but it chases Jude up the tree and then goes after Joey instead, and when she gets out of its way it goes to cut the power instead of going to eat him. The monsters don't bother the dog at all, even though its butt is sticking right out of the doghouse so if they were hungry it would be an easy target, only kill Frohike and attack Byers when they try to get into the house, and let Langly fly off without following. The flying monsters could easily reach Jude, but don't. One could argue they don't know he's there, but even though they have no eyes a flying monster perceived Joey's flashlight in the kitchen battle and yet they ignore his lantern flashing, and I can't imagine one can talk quietly into a 1990s toy-grade walkie-talkie and be heard. This isn't taking place in the Medium, so there's only the one timeline accessible, so Scratch wouldn't want to risk Joey's death if he needed her. I still think their objective was to keep her out of the attic.
You're right that they are focusing pretty hard on Joey. It'd be easy for the flying monsters to even accidentally get into the treehouse, but none of them go after Jude. I'm not sure their objective was to keep her out of the attic, though - I think they were supposed to chase her to the one safe place she could find with a door that'd lock. And it seems unlikely to me that her and Jude's rooms have locking doors, so that leaves just the attic in terms of places we know she can reasonably get to.
I don't know, the big monster in the quadruple fight seems to be trying to block her off from the stairs.
That's a thought. They're all apparently from the same source, but a) how much free will do they have and b) how do we know no one's made a "fake" one?
According to the wiki, "Elwurd" is West Frisian for "participant". Did that meaning come before the obvious one or after in her creation process and does it signify she's participating in the rebellion?
