CG: IT INVOLVES SOMETHING TO DO WITH A YELLOW LAWN RING. […]
CG: I GUESS YOUR ENTIRE ESCAPE PLAN SOMEHOW PIVOTS CRITICALLY AROUND AN UNWATERED PIECE OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY???rereading this while i was looking for something re: the yellow lawn ring somehow immediately reminded me of another line in the comic about watering lawn rings, from the second part of the Meenah walkaround:
No self respecting Alternian troll kid would dare keep a dry, unwatered lawn ring. Letting the grass outside your hive turn yellow is just begging to get yourself culled.
and obviously that second line is a callback to the first (about one and a half thousand pages later) but it strikes me as noteworthy that trolls having to water their lawns even gets so many as two references in the comic. like. huh. okay. homestuck actually is, textually, satirising the very concept of a suburb. you’re telling me the grass in troll neighbourhoods doesn’t even naturally grow like that ?!?
taking colour symbolism this seriously is a dangerous road to go down, but I can’t help but wonder…
CALLIOPE: oh dear, this can’t be good!
CALLIOPE: i’d better hide. :U
since the lawn ring is a barrier keeping people apart, is “Letting the grass outside your hive turn yellow” a warning about what happens when you let those barriers break down? after all, a yellow lawn ring looks very much like an invitation to come in, in the form of a yellow brick road.
“just begging to get yourself culled” is the paranoia that the lawn ring turning yellow means Lord English is at your door ready to kill you. the suburb/subgrub is an artifice designed to prevent interpersonal connection, and Lord English is the spectre of the homeowner’s association making sure you keep those barriers watered and well-kept