#I am not going to be your room clearer if you arent at least going to be my friend

[vermin-fangs]

I ended up quitting that game because of all the unsolicited fucking livestreaming, though. I don't want strangers talking to me because you are showing me on twitch without my permission

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 13 - Candy Page 23

==>

This is going well, despite all the weirdness... it might not be so bad by the time I get to the end of all this.  Maybe my stomach can stop clenching as much from the Meat poisoning.

Then again, that’s what I thought when I was up to four-fifths through Meat and thought things were going to be resolved before the end.

So.

Anyway.  Reading.

In fact, all she did was tip her head at him and blink a few times, her long eyelashes catching the light, making her eyes look like mirrors. It was disconcerting for reasons that he couldn’t put his finger on. It’s not like Roxy had ever been argumentative, exactly. He just seems to remember someone from his youth who was somewhat more contrarian in spirit than this person he’s married to now.

God damnit... hypnotized, basically dead Roxy is worst Roxy.  I need that fucking explanation soon.

If she doesn’t get upset after what he’s about to pull today, then...

John doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Gosh that’s horrible.  I wish I didn’t have to go back to Meat if I ever wanted any more Real Roxy again... please, PLEASE, if NOTHING ELSE gets fixed in this stupid fucking Candy arc, PLEASE HAVE ROXY BACK TO NORMAL BEFORE THE END

That... that would be just the fucking icing on the cake, wouldn’t it?  I was already upset about Dirk not getting his due.  I was traumatized over how Jane, Jade, and Rose were left.  But ROXY was fine.  Roxy, pretty much my favorite character next to maybe Jade, or a good number of the others.  If this timeline gives me an alternate cliffhanger to lean on that spares the others to leave HER to shit, then I’d basically be left with nothing to stand on!  It’d be fucking worthless almost.

My stomach isn’t clenching YET, but I’m starting to fill with dread.

JOHN: harry anderson, don’t tell your mother but... JOHN: we’re getting a new addition to the family today!

Pfffff

serious kidnapping

And who said John was just a blank slate with no will of his own?? Fuck you, Dirk.  You knew about this timeline and you STILL said it.

Dave and Jade materialize behind everyone, he in a pressed red suit, she in a glittering Space dress. They’re both holding gifts wrapped in spare printer paper.

Look, you two looking cute is just rubbing salt in the wound of the relationship you fucked over, Jade.  You should have waited to make sure Dave and Karkat FINALLY ACCEPTED THEIR FUCKING RELATIONSHIP before moving in and potentially pushing one of them out, WHICH HAPPENED.

Oooh, smart human babby Tavvy.  ...He isn’t going to want to leave his family situation, is he.  John’s off the mark isn’t he.

Dave ruffles Harry Anderson’s hair. It’s nice that Dave is so woke and great with kids, but that really does invite the question of why he and Jade don’t have any yet. There’s still something sad and wistful about Dave at the moment, as he pointedly avoids letting Jade take his hand while they’re led into the game room.

GAAAAHHHHH

Could we at least BE ALLOWED TO PRETEND THERE’S A POSSIBLE FUTURE WHERE THESE PEOPLE’S RELATIONSHIPS ARENT THOROUGHLY FUCKING MESSED UP?????

I KNOW THESE CHARACTERS ARE MESSED UP BUT YOU HAVE TO AT LEAST GIVE US HOPE

AND WHERE’S THE HAPPY POTENTIAL PAIRING FOR JADE??? IT SEEMS LIKE THERE’S NO POTENTIAL FOR REAL MUTUAL HAPPINESS FOR HER BESIDES JADE X COMA!!!!!!!!!!

X(

God damn it Jane can be creepy.

She gained his affection the same way she gains everyone’s affection: she fucking bought it.

UUuuuuuuggghhhhh

...pff stars vs enemies of the state

John, stop making this so stranger-danger.

JOHN: are you ACTUALLY happy about it? JOHN: about... everything going on here? TAVROS: I suppose,,, TAVROS: My mother tends to get displeased when i’m unhappy, so,,,

uuuugughghghuhh

TAVROS: It just seems like a thing that would eventually happen to me, does it not?

D:

Oh wow, callback to Dirkbro abuse.  THAT’S gonna set John off.

Oh wow, Tavros knows his situation is bad enough that he’s willing to GO for it. All he’s worried about is the security.  YEAH John!!  Do your Breathy thing and get him out of here!!!

Tavros takes in a sharp breath before spinning on his heel and stumbling toward his closet. John catches the ghost of a smile on his face before he turns and that’s all it takes to turn the pounding of his heart from terrified to thrilled.

AAaaaaAAAAAH THIS IS ADORABLE SOMEHOW

She twitches her dog-ears and raises her face. Her mouth is a neutral line, but her eyes are burning furiously.

OH NOOOOOOO

FUCK, Jade don’t stop it!!! She’s... she’s gonna put her foot down and stop this just so everything can be all candy-coated and good on the SURFACE without hurting people OPENLY even if she and Jane and all the others are DEEPLY hurting everyone else under the surface!!!! D:

JOHN: jade, i don’t know where you’ve been these past few years, but i don’t think things CAN get any worse!

Yes exactly

JOHN: but there isn’t one, because everyone’s been all... brainwashed by marriage, or whatever the hell happened over the last few years that made things be this way!

Hmmmmmm

JOHN: well, you’re nothing like the jade i used to know either!

D:

Alright, huge blowup. Let’s air out some feelings.

JANE: I let go! I was actually RELIEVED to hear he died!!! ROXY: uhh ROXY: janey wut

HAhahahaah YES let’s get all that dirty laundry OUT IN THE OPEN

......Okay that didn’t end as well as expected.  Or... well I guess I KNEW it wouldn’t end well, but I’d hoped otherwise.

==>

Wait, so Terezi and John’s conversation is “in the dream bubbles”? Is that just because he’s talking to her while she’s skirting the edge of the storm in the Void rocketways, or because John’s from a somehow doomed/irrelevant/side timeline?

(Why does Terezi always have to be dying.  She figured herself out and how awesome she is.  Stop dying.  And I don’t mean like the sad walking off in Meat, though I guess that kind of counts.)

JOHN: if she cared about you as much as you care about her, she wouldn’t have fucked off like this forever.

YES JOHN

LAY

ON

THE

TRUTH

(Ghost!Vriska is the only one who really deserves to matter anymore.  This “alpha” Vriska just sank deeper into her problems and delusions beyond being able to really redeem herself or recognize them.  That diatribe she gave her ghost self was horrible back when.)

Wait, wait hold on

JOHN: if she cared about you as much as you care about her, she wouldn’t have fucked off like this forever. JOHN: driving you crazy with doubt and uncertainty, making you chase her through infinite nothingness until you almost starve to death... JOHN: she would have at least given you the courtesy of closure!

Is... is Andrew talking about the comic here and his relationship with the readers

is this some sort of apology for not giving this closure, like, as if he were the vriska that launched himself into the sun over his own artistic ideals or

hmm

JADE: doomed is not a word i would use to describe the condition of those on this world. JADE: even if my work is unsuccessful, the stakes for everyone here have nothing to do with the issue of mortality. JADE: to frame the matter that way would be misleading. JADE: to the extent that it is my naturally endowed duty to defend the innocent from wanton acts of destruction, from degradation and dissolution, JADE: it is also my duty to tell the truth to those i protect. JADE: and the simplest statement of truth for all of you to know is this: JADE: we are the lucky ones.

Calliope lets out a long, thin sigh from between the teeth of Jade’s corpse. It’s more for effect than anything, as corpses don’t actually need to breathe.

JADE: we are the ones fortunate enough to live in a reality that is beyond the influence of the prince.

Geez, it’s like escape from Lord English’s influence all over again.

They won only for everything to just fucking start over, everything they struggled to stop?  That sucks!!!  >:(

Anyway, still reading... god damnit Terezi don’t fly off and die for no fucking reason.

JOHN: then what DID you want?! TEREZI: L3TS S4Y... TEREZI: 1 JUST W4NT3D TO G1V3 YOU TH3 COURT3SY OF CLOSUR3

Fuck.  Yeah, let’s just keep fucking over Terezi, another one of my favorite characters.  Yes she lives and goes to fuck off somewhere in Meat with the villain of the week, but FUCK, couldn’t we get a SLIGHTLY clearer picture of her potential happiness than just THAT?????

It’s like the whole purpose of these epilogues was just to remind us that these characters were too fucked up to ever be happy!!!!

Couldn’t we have at least been left to IMAGINE OTHERWISE?!?????

JADE: not until i am able to deal with the prince myself. ARADIA: and when will that be

The meteor is passing beyond the fall of night. Dead-Jade, standing half in light, half in darkness, looks up at the sky.

JADE: not soon enough.

Ahh.  I’m getting an idea of the Postscript’s circumstances, then.  That was alt!Callie in this black-hole-powered Jade body going from THIS Candy timeline to go chase after Dirk and help stop him like everyone else, giving her a more powerful card to play than just the adult Jade she was having guide the others. (Maybe she could have that adult Jade FUCKING WAKE UP AND ABLE TO HELP instead of keeping her in a coma. That would be a pretty fucking nice change of pace.  Too bad we have to just IMAGINE IT without any reassurance that she’ll be awake or okay for YEARS TO COME, HUH.)

Also that means that resistance fighting is gonna break out with artillery and stuff because Jane is apparently a dunpass in both timelines.  Fuck.

==>

Swifer, can you stop swifing?

KARKAT: HOW THE HELL DO YOU TWO TOLERATE EACH OTHER? KANAYA: Quite Thoroughly Enthusiastically And Often

Pffffff :D

...Oh my God MEENAH landed here???  All ring-of-lifeways from the other timeline?  I guess the Furthest Ring was outside the scope of those timeilnes so she could’ve fallen in any of them... huh.  Heck, maybe the same Terezi who experienced those conversations eventually met the John from the Meat side of the timeline too.  And she said John smelled younger than she thought he was, oh my GOD, it WAS that.  It was that exactly.  The Terezi we’re hearing was the same across both Epilogue-halves.  That’s actually fucking fantastic!!!

MEENAH: capisces?

Fuck that pun

(Also Meenah is talking about how they lost, but she was knocked away before she saw the conclusion of the fight, so.)

...Holy SHIT Meenah is really taking to this!!! This is adorable.  :D

==>

John’s having some canon/existential ditherthoughts, hm.

He’s been contemplating this melodramatically for maybe ten minutes when the sky rips opens above him and flashes violent waves of red and green across the landscape.

Hm.  So do the black hole wormholes have some tie to the cherubic portal device from Hiveswap?

It’s his father’s car.

Mhmm, that confirms all of it, really.  Same Terezi in both stories.

A vast cry of sorts.  :(

Heading out for a while; gonna start from Page 27 in the next post.  I feel pretty good, somehow.  The way these two timelines tied together with Terezi outside them makes it feel like it all may have ultimately meant something.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

if you were around for the pre-end-of-mh days you might remember times i like to talk to myself extensively, pointlessly, and dumbassedly about my own thoughts, which go nowhere and solve nothing. literally ignore me, talking about bring me the spider cup, i wanna prank crimmins natcho. my proclivity towards trying to figure out mysteries is matched only by my total inability to do so.

firstly i was like ok, this doesn’t necessarily mean eno knows who this guy is, which i think is true but unlikely. he’s probably met him before and while i think it would be funny if this is all some roundabout unnecessary revenge scheme by someone who considers eno his rival, i’d think it was more likely eno was kind of in a position like wallace where maybe they just worked in the same place. (sidenote: he is so clearly evil how do people share an office with him. please fix this mess jerry)

becoz the thing is it was a bit strange eno said he couldnt take a client via a social workers request with the reasoning that he’d left that life behind him? because he is a therapist now after all. but it would make more sense if he used to maybe be associated with / work for a company like that. i dont even know anything about privatised versions of social work but maybe it could work like that. and maybe he worked with crimcrom because sure, maybe crimmins just murdered his way into head of a company or other unsavory methods, and/or maybe also he has actual experience in the field. because maybe he was working at the same place as eno?

because honestly if i was going to take a very vague guess of where the social work is involved here, its that if youre going to do terrible dangerous medical experiments on people, you take people who have connections without the wealth/time/stability to investigate or else just people who wont be missed at all. people whose debilitating struggles and unstable situations you actually have documentation of. and it does seem like everyone with someone missing was relying on kent and co. to find them, because they couldnt themselves, because their sibling/whomever had been targeted for that exact reason, that their family/friends wouldnt have the means to find them. probably this has been going on for a while and most people are just killed and those who arent are kinda just chucked out somewhere to be found by whoever

anyways, the thing with eno, the idea he was working with/for a company earlier is a bit confusing too because its confusing that kent and yumi were killed but eno wasnt? theres the chance that the attempt simply failed, but i had thought that maybe because eno wasnt the semi-public face of the effort like kent was or an official worker like yumi, maybe nobody who put the hit out knew he was even involved. but since im guessing we’re guessing crimmins was directly/indirectly involved in the Day Of Murder and he knows about eno, thats not true……but then its a bit fuzzier why eno wasnt killed if he wasnt just helping out as a friend but sort of associated with his work, like yumi was. maybe it was part of a longer con, like as might be made clearer soonish. because unfortunately i really doubt crim would show his hand like this if he wasnt secure in everything favoring his schemes currently

it also makes sense that eno had been in a position like yumi’s because im also assuming eno thinks its his own files that someone had got hold of. cuz if yumi and kent had the same papers, surely eno did too. and if he was just keeping them to himself it would be one thing but if he was using them with his work like yumi was, then maybe it happened like he said it did only with his file/company in place of yumi’s. which makes sense coz of why he is so uncomfortable and why he was so surprised about it. probably he didnt suppose it had happened until kip said it did, and he suspects it was on his end that it happened but doesnt want to say it because its unpleasant and because he doesnt want to say it to kip.

i was hoping that gayness would be the wrench in the gears aka kip wasnt supposed to learn of the link between kents files and wallaces, but maybe he actually absolutely was? it would make sense why crimmins was so keen to make sure wallace got kip to work with him. because unless it is remarkably nuanced i doubt part of his plan involves trying to get wallace to directly harm anyone, cuz obvs he wouldnt, he is just motivated to not get fired and hopefully do good work. but it seems like a safe guess that kip would see wallaces papers even though kip really should be getting paid for this, and maybe crimmins was assuming that kip had already seen kents file? because if he had worked with eno and gotten his files, he would basically know what must be in kents files. and it apparently wasnt a secret that the files had made it out of the fire with kip

but its a hell of a con because its like, it seemed like a bonus that kip realized the coincidence, because why would crimmins want kip to suspect that wallace is somehow connected with the scheme that kent was investigating / his family and yumi were killed for? but apparently he could guess that kip would meet with eno about it, because i guess he’s tracking one or both of them. speaking of, im hoping that kip hasnt just gotten jumped. im sure its a concern on the best of days that eno told him to be safe, but it seems ominous

just like it seemed ominous when kip told wallace he trusts eno more than anyone. wallace sure learned a lot in those couple of days, namely: he already knows where kip lives exactly and who with and that they are good friends (not sure how coincidental it is that they live in the exact same building, maybe its just convenient), who kip’s ex-boyfriend is and where he works and who he works with and that he and kip have Strong Feelings for each other, who kip’s therapist is and that he sees him once a week and is a old and close friend whom kip trusts above all others, and i’m sure wallace has been able to pick up that kip has a dead brother and theres a story behind it and its a touchy subject. i mean, that’s mostly completely irrelevant info to put into a report, but maybe not if it was relevant to mention that he was working with kip since after all his boss had told him to. but probably crimmins was guessing that if wallace was making headway at all, he had got hold of kip. and since apparently he has eyes on people, that helps too. fix it jerry

im not thinking that its ominous that kip trusts eno so much because he shouldnt or because eno has been lying all along or something—like, if eno suspects himself for being involved in something now, im supposing he hadnt thought so before or hadnt considered it mattered because everything about how everything happened was moot because nobody was going to be continuing the matter and everyone was leading totally different lives. and as for currently, its not like i think eno is like, having the past catch up with him aka he’s betrayed kip or anyones trust before. i mean maybe eno has some totally unrelated dark secret that can be held over him, but even then i doubt that it would be anything where he would be forced to do something to endanger kip to protect himself. rather, i’d guess he might be given more of a non-choice in which he has to do something that will endanger kip because the threat is of causing kip immediate harm. what seems worst is that crimmins is really showing his hand early here maybe, or anyways, he thinks that theres no possible way for eno to prevent whatever crim wants to have happen. which is like, bad

and if he knows how much kip trusts eno, which he probably does, thats bad too…

if wallaces only purpose though was to show kip the files he had, that also has to mean rousing kip’s suspicion…..also, if kip had known about kents files before he’d seen wallace’s, wouldnt he potentially be immediately suspicious enough of wallace to cut off ties with him? maybe that doesn’t matter idk. b/c tbh it seems like theres only so much you can do w/ wallace while preserving his “unwitting involvement in an evil scheme” status, you cant ask him to do anything non-job related. unless his reports are doubling as surveillance or something. but he wouldnt do anything he thought was harmful or over his bounds. even asking him to get kip involved was weird, but at least crim seemed to accurately count on wallace caring too much abt his job to object with stuff rather than simply doing what he had to to keep it

like, clearly something about kip is important to crim’s schemes but how could i guess what. because im guessing we dont have enough information yet, but even if you gave me the info we have now and told me to fill in the blanks however i wanted, i couldnt come up with anything. im really really dumb as hell and not creative enough to take the ventures required to come up with accurate theories. but ok, medical experiments, it could just be anti-monster, but it could also be pro-human which happens to be anti-monster aka more exploitative. cuz it doesnt seem like theyre “Kill All Monsters” as much as “its fine if monsters die but if theyre alive we’ll just dump them somewhere because we just literally assign them no value unless somehow they’re useful towards whatever’s going on here.”

coz kip has two powers: 1) he’s a beloved semipublic figure, and 2) ice and he’s cold

and he has one majorly exploitable weakness in that he’s very afraid for his surrogate family, generally more scared than the average person of being murdered horribly, and knows he has good reasons for that and also trauma

but it seems like if crim wanted to get hold of kip by threatening his loved ones, he could do that at any time? why would wallace need to be involved at all; he wouldnt. why does he need to tip kip off about his own schemes. why did he need to wait five years? why has there been this five year gap? simply development of the mystery scheme? or is it because kip has moved back to c and/or because kip is a semi-public figure again

coz reading between the lines but im supposing that kip had earnestly and strongly intended to follow in kent’s footsteps but was presumably discouraged from this when his family was murdered. but even tho he only told wallace about moving back to c because roy and molly missed it, in the intervention that gets sprung on him and other hints, it sounds like kip still considers himself dedicated to helping people like kent did, which is what his sjw blog is, but he’s majorly aware of the danger of that and unwilling to get anyone killed this time, which is a major limitation, seeing as that happened to him before and everyone is disappeared all the time w/o repercussion. except the repercussion of one tiny group of people who look into it and get murdered, except for eno

but also kip must not have been doing any Helping The Public stuff before he moved to C, because when he says he has to help wallace to justify having thrown so much away, and considering how he’d lost so much in the fire, presumably what he’s thrown away is his life with pascal. im guessing he couldnt have made roy and molly split from him even if he tried, but pascal apparently could be parted from. for like a week, but whatever. he’d been dating pascal before the fire, but if he hadnt been involved in any position of openly helping monsters before the fire and hadnt before moving back to C, that explains why he tried to convince pascal not to go with them.

anyways, uh, see ive lost track of what i was saying. that, while kip is so afraid for the safety of those too close to him, he can also be pressured into a riskier position. but thats by his friends and himself. but maybe if he’s going to be given false information he thinks is from eno, he could do other risky things too. cuz i doubt theres any real protection, as if kent and yumi and eno werent trying to be safe. im guessing kip’s just trying to keep his head down and his cards close to his chest. its frustrating because technically he was right to be immediately suspicious of wallace to the point of associating him with the death of his family and being afraid of helping wallace, but not because wallace’s personal intentions arent good. but still its going to be really awkward if kip gets an idea of what wallace is associated with. cuz its an extremely delicate process that would allow wallace to figure out what was going on and break the news to kip and have kip trust him, so delicate that i doubt it exists and anyways the odds are not in its favor. but its frustrating because i want people to not be friends and not feel betrayed by their bosses and each other and even better, to be friends working together to resolve murders and an evil scheme

anyways. what does crim need from kip. stuff he knows? i doubt he’s trying to corrupt kip’s blog, or otherwise exploit the fact that kip’s probably a trusted community figure. for starters, crim’s already been getting away completely with abduction, murder, arson, etc, for years. unless theres some new Phase of the plan that requires something new. but again, it seems like a big ol coincidence that kip and co moved to C five months before wallace was moved into their exact building with the goal of getting involved with kip, tho wallace obviously doesnt know about all that stuff yet. why does it matter that kips in C. did crim not know where he was prior? did he need kip to be involved in the public sphere so that he could catch hold of him by sending out a social worker too naive and earnest to focus on the suspicious evilness of his new boss? did he just not need kip yet???

it seems strange to consider that crim could like, blackmail or threaten either kip or eno longterm. like, is he about to make a move here. because yeah they both have reasons to be extremely protective of people, which can be leveraged. but like wallace, i dunno how far they could be pushed with doing anything obviously harmful, or doing anything for anyone so obviously evilly motivated. or how long such a chokehold could be maintained. eno being threatened with kip’s wellbeing and being pressured into manipulating kip in one way or another is one thing, and even then how could he be threatened more than once. how could he be expected not to do something to warn someone if the pressing is let up for even a moment? is the point to abduct eno maybe and make kip feel even more afraid, because that would probably admittedly be super effective, but i imagine kip would just withdraw completely from things like being involved with wallace, blogging, etc. but to try to coerce kip into doing something by threatening multiple people is trickier, and what could kip do?

the thing is that i could see kip as being targeted for the ice thing, because thats another coincidence, that he has a really strong ability that seems pretty unusual even for monsters. like, freezing freshly brewed hot tea in a few seconds is really something. and i’m supposing he survived the fire by freezing himself / ice protection, which is really really something. and maybe the fact that he’s also an sjw who’s always scared that someones going to get hurt or killed is just a way to get to him. coz maybe, even probably, kip wasnt supposed to survive the fire, but just be another casualty because crim and co do not give a shit about bothering to spare any monsters life. but the fact that he did, using ice, and that he had his brothers files, all probably wasnt a secret. i mean, the surviving and the files part definitely wasnt, but just knowing the place was on fire and he survived ok probs implies that he had the ability to protect himself somehow, and thats a really impressive ability

so like maybe whatever traits theyre looking for makes kip the ideal target. maybe for once they felt like they couldnt just steal him away normally, but idk why they wouldnt. for example if crim just wanted to kidnap kip, maybe he just has. but that seems like wallace wouldnt need to be involved and eno wouldnt need to be involved and why wait til he’s in C? he doesnt need flushing out to be stolen off the street; he travels to B at least once a week on a schedule and he walks to work.

again, probably theres necessary info we dont even have that will fill in a missing piece here, but even now im too stupid to expand on the stuff we know to imagine up something that would fill in that blank. im too horrible at reading/understanding peoples motivations to even fully Get basic interactions sometimes, and im too uncreative to even come up with stuff like say, guess what crim’s trying to develop over there. maybe theres something about moving from development to initiation that needs kip’s particular involvement (??how??). but why has there been five years of them having been left alone in D, maybe, although how do we even know that

idk all i know is im stupid and i dont like that everyone is going to be even more miserable and endangered and mysteries are a trial for me because i want to die and dont want to have to deal with dying on a cliffhanger, i’ll be an angry ghost. ive probably forgotten a tangent or two i wanted to touch on and that makes me an angry pre-ghost. w/e