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ok. which of your fantrolls is the most evil

i think the answer is obvious

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coming back to you from the AU where trolls drink alcohol

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silly girl puts clothes on wrong way round

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finally. the ant AU hemera droupling

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cosplaying their marvel rivals mains

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I kind of see UltSelves as also somewhat of a parody of long running comics, and is meant to be kind of like. The mascotification of a character. Like if you think of spiderman each person might have their own specific idea of which spiderman they like the most, but for the most part if youve read a lot of spiderman comics the details of what happened to which spiderman is probably going to blur together somewhat! For UltDirk specifically, its kind of like how it's probably easy to forget which chat logs were Hal vs BGD vs Dirk, or if you've been in the fanbase long enough, even fanfic lines. Hell, Detective Pony started as a fanwork and was referenced in the comic itself thus retroactively making those words Canon Dirk Words. It's both an expansion of a character by including all possible interpretations and aspects of a self, but also a simplification by overexaggerating key features down to gimmicks like UltDirk taking on the Kamina fit that bro strider originally was just vaguely ripping off.

i understand what you're saying but this is also just a list of reasons why the ultimate self concept fits dirk in a way that fundamentally does not work the same way for any other character

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hiveswap is such a great bit of homestuck worldbuilding like Jake is such a legendarily deadbeat dad that he hired a babysitter who doesn't even show up

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wait is the thing about the Rings of Life and Void being the same ring bouncing back and forth through the timeline like a subtle clue at the Thief of Life and the Rogue of Void being mirror images of the same person. did all the other manifestationheads already pick up on this one

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i think i could become a big Ultimate Roxy guy. there are ideas cooking in my mind with this one. like the fact that the Ultimate Roxy would have to be some kind of Cosmic Mother but by slaying the Condesce they basically already cast off the role of Cosmic Mother before they could be caught up in its gravity... how would Meenah play into this... much to consider

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i find ult selves especially compelling in fanfic that explores the alternate Potential selves, especially the prospective possible Junes, and how those could contribute to a larger self. but within the text of the comic, the ultself is only really relevant and interesting when applied to like, maybe 5 characters max.

i enjoyed the first few godfeels fics (havent gotten around to the later ones) and how they played with what June as a concept is. mostly its just a fun exercise in playing persona legos, for me at least. i see it as a culmination in the fascination and obsession the larger fanbase of homestuck has for alt!selves, especially on various roleplaying websites of fame, the names of which escape me currently.

the ult!self thus being an attempt on a fans part to try and distill a character out of all those disparate interpretations (and ultimately, Different characters altogether) into a cohesive unified Guy. which appeals to the desire to have a "Canonical" guy. the most True and Real Version of the Guy. i totally get not enjoying or understanding the appeal honestly.

this is interesting + makes sense i've just never been huge into fanfiction so i guess i've never seen this version of it or never noticed it when i've seen it. personally i kind of feel that the ulterior philosophy behind the Ultimate Self is that any old version of a character can be the Canonical guy because everyone is a culmination of what came before but i can see the potential in the ultimate self as an exploration of possibly future/alternate paths as well. even if that would usually just be an alt timeline conceit and doesn't really need the ultimate self to back it up

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im fully prepared to be wrong about this HICU have subverted my expectations before and im sure theres a way they could pull this off that remains compelling i just think at this stage to have hs2 culminate in the merging of the two volumes of the epilogues would be basically the same as if it ended with dirk finding and pushing a magical button that's like, "hey hs2 is canon now, it's in the same continuity as the original homestuck and now you have to take it seriously". like that's not the point and it's never been the point... the point is that being "canon" shouldn't have to be a prerequisite for you taking something seriously. volume meat and candy being set in different continuities isn't an obstacle the characters/the story has to overcome it's an obstacle that YOU the READER have to overcome

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swimz mentioned ult jake who is a good example cus there are pretty much two jake alternates (old man jake and teen jake) and the beyond canon version of jake is basically already a combination of the tendencies of both of them. so what more does an ult jake bring to the table? people love to dress him in lord english themed stuff which i think is great cus it carries the implication that the ultimate jake represents the very platonic ideal of The Grandpa (concept introduced in a bit more detail here) and therefore contains some elements of lord english but i genuinely don't know if ultjake posters are actually doing that or just using the lord english stuff as esthetic garnish. i've never read any of the ultjake stuff

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Its because people just dont like the ‘split universes/narratives’ gimmick, think it hurts the pacing, and are hoping for a narrative reason to drop it

well they're gay. wait this is literally the exact same thing as a sonic comic thing i was thinking about this morning where one of the writers said he wanted to merge two alternate universes because he didn't sense there was enough of a difference between the two. BRO YOU ARE THE WRITER YOU CAN MAKE THE TWO UNIVERSES MORE DIFFERENT

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I think it makes sense from a loose thematic angle, while it certainly possible it's hard to tell a good story without a media conflict and more mundane character interplay. the idea of merging the two elements feels very in line with the meta aspects of homestuck and the commentary it makes on writing.

you are going to have to be a bit more specific about these thematic angles and meta aspects and commentaries because i don't see what you mean. exactly like i said in my post the thematic metanarrative angle homestuck has been taking since act 6 is that different versions of a character are all already fundamentally the same character and the reader needs to be able to look beyond petty concerns like "they live in different universes" to be able to observe the overarching ultimate version of the character. what does it say about the story's conviction in that message if it ultimately decides the universal barrier really is holding the characters' arcs back and gets rid of it altogether

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i am surprised when people frequently seem to act like the meat and candy earths being combined or colliding at some point is a foregone conclusion like idk if ive asked this before but what leads people to think this. isn't the point of the philosophy of the ultimate self that both earths can contribute to each other without having to ever literally interact

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i feel like karkat is actually one of the characters i have never seen someone attempt an Ultimate Version of. who among you has the balls to attempt to reconcile candyass yaoi softboy karkat and meaty muscles rebel leader karkat

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i think ultimate selves will become relevant again in a big way later down the line in hs2 when the meat and candy versions of the characters have largely managed to distinguish themselves from each other by exploring very different aspects of their personalities but so far other than like dave and karkat most of the characters have not really been able to do this