Homestuck

Today we are the Aimless Renegade (AR). A black caprician wrapped in caution tape. You've chosen this old ruin as your stronghold. Not just 1 but 2 different aircraft have crashed nearby and armed rouges are approaching you. You let loose your whole ammo clip but can't seem to land a shot.

It's pointed out that AR’s gun is magazine fed and that they don’t know a damn thing about guns. We get to see a bit of the inside of the ruins. There are hieroglyphs which AR says are Illegal. These mostly just show frog stuff. The ruins are also stocked with several crates of ammo and weapons. The icon on the side suggesting this is the weapons stash Jade's Grandpa had hidden.

The Wayward Vagabond (WV) believes he is a mayor. The Peregrine Mendicant (PM) Believes they are a Postal Worker. Now AR believes he is a Judge, with bullets/shells as his jury. 2 trespassers have entered his “crime scene”. They had been investigating the illegal monument. They were calling it a stronghold before, it seems they are changing delusions. The jury decides the trespassers are guilty and should get blown up with an RPG launcher. Also in the ruins is a jammed moving platform. It seems Jade's advanced bass is stuck in it, though it’s now ancient and ruined.

Speaking of Jade, in present times she places the package next to the harpoon. She called it “Time Bait”. She knew that WV would in the future use the apperifer to try and get the harpoon. WV instead got the package. She now just needs to figure out how to get to the ruin entrance at the centre of the lake. Back to the future, PM and WV are hiding behind a rock while some nutjob up in the ruins is firing a gun at them. PM has received the package from WV, with some drawings from Jade as instructions. PM apparently needs to get back to their ship, or metal fruit. But, AR is now shooting rockets at them, and blowing stuff up.

WV manages to distract AR by lobbing a can of Tab. This is somehow related to a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic, but I'll ignore that. PM manages to complete their mission. The instructions had them use the device in their ship. Apparently this is a Sendifer to deliver the package to Jade's past self.

To reiterate, John had sent this package to Jade month before the present time. Since Jade lives on an island in the middle of the Pacific, the package had to be air dropped to her months later. Jade, without opening the letter, wrote a bunch of instructions. She then manipulated the distant future so that a guy thinking he was the mayor would get the package. He was using a device that retrieves things from any place at any past or present time. The instructions told that guy to hand off the package to a stranger who believed they were a postal worker. Then instructed that postal worker to use their own device. This was a device to send the package back to the very distant past. Pretty much Jade sent a package to her own past self.

We see toddler Jade riding Bec around the fields. Her grandfather “hunts” a butterfly with a blunderbuss. What was in the package, a blue version of John Ghost slime tee shirt. I think it was conveniently on sale at the time . Also pumpkin seeds, and another of John's letters. John mentions in this letter that Jade is the reason John met Dave and Rose. The seeds are because her pumpkins kept disappearing but he told her to grow more and never lose hope. Another beautifully sincere letter from John. You gotta admire just how vulnerable and open he is with his friends. Paradoxically, Jade has no idea who John even is as a toddler. But from this moment she decides to get into gardening and mentions she thinks blue is a pretty colour. It’s very much the bootstrap paradox.

Odd angle, but think back to Jade's room. It's a combination of the interests of all her friends. She knows the outcome of sending herself that gift would in some way make her who she is. She loves her friends so much she actually set a linchpin event into her own past to let her friends define who she is. She could have put anything she wanted in that package but chose not to open it. We all fantasise about the idea of, what would we tell our past selves, what advice, or item should we give them. She had the real opportunity to do that, and chose to send John's simple gifts. There's a certain beauty in that