#But I do feel like John stayed decently rigid throughout the comic

[beardisable]

REAL!!! REAL SHIT!!!

Understanding this is I feel a prelude to understanding the end of homestuck itself tbh... Like I can't say I know for sure if the type of ending we got was planned from the beginning or if it came about on account of how difficult it became to finish. But I've seen so many analysis/opinions of the ending like "oh this is bad" "this is nothing, lazy" "nobody besides x got a good arc" "it was unsatisfying" "they left before the epic boss fight???" etc etc. And those complaints and criticisms are valid from the pov of an audience reading a story and idc if people feel them. But I also so strongly feel that they've missed the whole point...

They left! They got the fuck out! The surviving characters saw the regimented story structure/heroes journey for what it is and fucking left!!! They don't owe us shit, they don't need to complete satisfying arcs for some kind of end goal. They don't need to complete the game properly or 100% it for our lore satisfaction. The thing they always wanted to do was get out and live peacefully with their families and friends! Like Dave said, real people don't have arcs. And to themselves they are real people!!!

They completed the "requirements" of the game in a more convoluted and circuitous way than expected(based on how it parallels the growing up process, could reflect for instance how in reality people take a longer time getting through school, or pursue alternate education, trade school, get a job immediately, do something else than a conventional job to aquire money, leave their family early... Etc ways people subvert the expected growing up process in different ways) and got the fuck out!!(free to live a life they want with their chosen family and in their chosen ways. But which based on beyond Canon will still be influenced by their upbringing and instilled values) and they deserved to fr!

Idk I guess you can make the case that this theme is not conveyed properly thought out the comic, and yeah maybe... But tbh imo you cannot properly understand homestuck unless you read it about 3 times at the very least, and intentionally seek out authors notes like this and background context to this decade+ old work. And yeah you could say that makes the comic bad or unfriendly to readers ig. But idk imo some media is just more that you can get one one read/watch/playthrough... And it IS supposed to imitate a video game with splitting timelines and game overs and different endings after all

OK idk yeah I had thoughts here they are

If someone wants to add on to this/reflect off my thoughts to continue ily, but also disclaimer that I Do enjoy Beyond Canon and am fascinated by its developments and how it adds to this theme, despite how it kind of breaks the ending(well it is still presented as just one of a possible way to continue and not the ultimate Canon so imo it doesn't break it any more than any other fanadventures do) and do not wish to engage in unnecessary bullshit discourse, criticism and discussion is fine

this is one is important as fuck i see so many people not understand this and it drives me crazy

"Sburb ruins, mythic challenges, and personal quests generally tend to come off as shallow busywork, stage props, or set pieces in a spurious Hero's Journey. Rose either faintly glimpses this truth at this early stage, or she's just hitting her rebellious teen stride. Either way, she doesn't take the surface value of the quest seriously at all, and only wants to smash it apart and loot the secrets. My sense is that the average reader reacts to this impulse unfavorably. Because readers watch the formula play out so often, they are trained heavily to respect the journey of the hero, to anticipate and crave its fulfillment, to see it as something verging on contractual in their relationship with a story. So a gut-response to this recklessness is like, "ROSE, NO! STOP THAT! You simply must complete your quest and play the rain!" What comes with this view is the feeling that her evolution as a character is only being delayed for a bit while she gets some anti-narrative foolishness out of her system, and then we'll get down to business and watch her do her quest, play a whole BUNCH of rain, and reap the narrative satisfaction. There's just one problem: she never does that. This candy-coated Kiddie Kwest is at no point ever taken seriously by Rose or the narrative itself, nor should it be.

When trying to parse character arcs, we look out for certain beacons. So when we hear "play the rain," we're like, ah, GOT IT. That's Rose's arc. Once she finally gets over this destructive teen bullshit, she can wise up, play the rain, and her arc will be finished. Wrong. This is almost a red herring arc. Her quest on this planet, its patronizing presentation, its intrinsic shallowness, is a mirage surrounding her that represents a fully regimented series of milestones for achievement and personal growth, much as society dubiously presents to young people in many forms. The true arc-within-the-arc is actually an upside-down version of what it appears to be. What Rose is doing now, which seems to be misguided recklessness taking her further away from the truth of herself, is actually better seen as a good start to her real journey: breaching the mirage of regimented growth, exposing it for the charade it is, and pulling the truth out of it. The real conflict in her arc comes not from the fact that she refuses to take it seriously, by destroying it and taking shortcuts. It's the opposite. It's that, upon trashing her planet, she continues to have this nagging sense that she should be taking this quest seriously, much like how a young adult may have a nagging sense of guilt that they aren't "being an adult right" by the time they approach adulthood. And this nagging, unanswerable guilt arises from the truth that the regimentation of adulthood is completely fake. It was always a mirage. Learning this, making peace with it, is part of the growing process for many, and it is for her too." -Andrew Hussie

intrinsically queer as fuck, too, btw