#I think dirk would not like this one bc people would (for once) take Jake seriously and think it was a cry for help

[helmbarte]

They’re gross

[im-a-leo]

i can’t stop imagining Jake or Jade having someone stay over and they find out about this new routine.

for example, Jake invites Dirk to stay over for the night, right?

let’s say it’s Earth C. Jade and Jake are sharing a version of Jade’s old home bc like?? c’mon. let them enjoy the idea of what it could’ve been if they got to grow up with a sibling!! they deserve it!! let them have a little island to venture to that everyone can visit via transportalizers!!

let’s say that’s the vibe.

anyway. it’s 9am.

Dirk only fell asleep about two hours ago bc he stayed up tinkering on some new project that Jade wanted his help with.

Jake passed out a while ago. he’s taking up most of the shitty twin bed, which Dirk would totally flame him for sleeping on if Dirk actually made a habit of sleeping in beds. honestly, he’s lucky if he passes out at his desk. he might’ve done exactly that on Jake’s desk if Jake weren’t annoyingly persistent about “you should rest” and “strider, i swear if you don’t stop murmuring about nonsense, that gosh-darned device is going to take a swift tumble out the window.”

it’s a random day on a random week. they have no plans, except for the one where Dirk plans to instantly get back to work after asking Jade’s opinion on some stuff.

everything’s going fine.

or at least, it was. it’s all going good until a wailing siren has him waking up in a panic.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Dirk’s eyes are open before the first beep has finished. by the second, he’s got a weapon in hand and ready to destroy something. by the third, he notices a small, round shooting range board has descended from an open panel in the ceiling that he didn’t notice before. it doesn’t take four for him to decide he wants the whole thing destroyed. his ears are ringing and he can feel the beginnings of a migraine setting in.

his mind is racing, trying to figure out why in the ever-loving fuck that Jake would have screeching targets hidden in his ceiling. before he can even begin to parse the situation, there’s a blur of movement beside him.

BEEP! BEEP! B— POP!

Dirk jolts as a sudden hole appears in the dead center of the target. as if being defeated, the alarm wanes out into a pathetic whirling as it powers down. slowly, the target board disappears back into the ceiling.

beside him, there’s a familiar grumbling. Dirk can feel the mattress shift as Jake pulls the covers back up to his chin.

“…friggin’ alarms. must’ve forgot to turn the buggers off…”

Dirk blinks. once, twice, and then, he thinks to himself, “fuck it. i’m not awake enough for this shit.” with that decided, Dirk decides to pass out and deal with it later.

EXTRA:

when he decides to ask about it, Jake just laughs. he tells him, “oh! that’s the new alarms that Jade and i installed! sorry about the rude awakening. i’d meant to turn them off before you came by!”

for a minute, Dirk probably considers trying to explain to Jake why most people wouldn’t think about combining guns with alarm clocks.

but then again… Dirk can’t say anything for what’s “normal”. he doesn’t even own an alarm clock. he can’t see the point. he’s rarely ever asleep in the first place. if he needs to be awake, then he’d rather find some other way of waking up rather than blaring noises in his ears.

in the end, Dirk probably disagrees with the noise, but he does agree to the idea of the target practice. he has some opinions on how to improve it.

he doesn’t bother to tell anyone about the alarms. he’ll let them find out on their own.

broke: Jake English would have that alarm clock that when the alarm goes off, a target board will come up and you have a little laser gun. if you shoot the target, the alarm would go off.

woke: Jake has that same alarm, but he uses an actual pistol to shoot it. Jade created it and they’ve installed extra target boards, so it will automatically reset for the next morning.

bespoke: Jade and Jake have installed a system where every morning, a target board will descend from a randomly chosen point in their respective rooms/outside the window. the target board will sound out a blaring alarm until they’ve hit the bullseye. they’ve both gotten very good at shooting the targets with their eyes closed and promptly falling back asleep. it only works about 50% of the time, so they keep setting more alarms. they keep forgetting to tell visitors about this.

[radramblog]

What happened to Dirk in Homestuck^2?

Why am I doing this to myself.

I memed a little yesterday when I was posting that article around social medias about Homestuck jokes, because once again we are in lockdown and I am therefore Stuck at Home. Canned laughter goes here. But there’s a topic related to the comic- or more specifically, its aborted sequel, Homestuck^2, that I’m interested in delving into a little bit. I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers as much as possible, but considering said comic takes place not only after the events of the massive sprawl that is Homestuck but also the more linear but still messy Epilogues, some amount of sus shit is inevitable.

Anyway. Much maligned is what the Epilogues and 2 did to everyone’s favourite decapitation target, Dirk Strider, and I have a theory as to why it happened this way.

To begin with, let’s summarise what and who Dirk is through the course of the comics. Fair warning from me, though, it’s been a while since I read through this.

Dirk Strider is a teenager who grew up in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, completely devoid of physical contact with other people and only really ever gets to talk to 3 other people, only one of whom is in anything remotely resembling a relatable situation. He struggles with self-identity, having created numerous robots including an artificial intelligence based on his own brain, aka Lil’ Hal. He’s somewhat of a control freak, and a bit of a cold aloof asshole, but means well, and is pretty gay. NBD. The kinda guy to set up a plan meticulously and thoroughly, not informing any of the moving parts even if said parts are his friends, and often involving some form of self-sacrifice.

Throughout the comic he further reckons with self-identity problems and his own self-loathing including entering a relationship with Jake which doesn’t go well and he eventually breaks off since he knows his overbearing and manipulative behaviour is Not Cool and Pretty Toxic but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Eventually he reaches the God Tier as a Prince of Heart, gaining the power to literally annihilate souls, which he never actually uses since he gets yeeted into deep (Paradox) space and then everything goes to shit. Except none of that happens because of the Retcon (aside from the God Tier bit) and we don’t actually see how that shit progressed in the canon timeline. I think. Dirk’s arc, as it were, doesn’t really come full circle- while he does assist in Dave’s character…growth? he really isn’t the focus of that conversation. This immediately precedes the action climax and there isn’t literally any dialogue after that so that’s what we’re left with.

I like Dirk in Homestuck a lot. It’s hard not to, considering the flashes heavily featuring him (Unite/Synchronise and Prince of Heart: Rise Up) are genuinely excellent, along with many of his music themes being absolute bangers. He gets to interact with Caliborn a lot, with a pretty great banter, there, and the whole splintered personality thing is a really interesting hook for a character. I think he’s my favourite of the Alpha kids, a controversial pick considering I know everyone loves Roxy so much. I think, I’m not as in tune with the fandom as that statement implies I am.

And then the Epilogues/Homestuck 2 came.

Now I read the Meat half of the epilogues first, but that’s more interesting, so we’ll tackle Candy first (this is going to get real confusing for those who haven’t read this comic, huh).

In Candy, Dirk almost immediately kills himself, citing the irrelevance of the timeline as cause, an act considered by whatever mechanism governs God Tier deaths to be Just because he hates himself (and also bc of things we’ll get into), so it actually sticks. This isn’t super relevant for the discussion, but that’s just kinda so unbelievably fucked up? Entirely? I’d imagine if you read Candy first you might get entirely turned off by this, which I’m sure a lot of people did.

Meat is where the, well, meat of post-canon Dirk is. You see, a concept very quickly introduced in the tail end of the original comic is the Ultimate Self, an idea where you somehow encompass every different timeline iteration or alternate version of yourself. This was pretty clearly tacked on to make it so characters whose arcs all happened in the retcon timeline could have their not getting an actual arc explained away, but it didn’t land then and it sure doesn’t land for me now. Anyway, in Meat, Dirk becomes his ultimate self, making him near-omniscient and able to control the fabric of the story himself- for much of this story, he is the narrator. And he uses this power to fuck with all his friends really distressingly without their knowledge (or consent), including breaking up a marriage, in order to further his own goals which largely appear to be just keep the story going so to not fade out of relevance. It’s a plot that makes no sense with his previous characterisation, but I guess now that he’s the Ultimate Self he’s a different person? But I liked old Dirk, and I don’t like New Dirk. He’s a villain now, but he made a much better anti-hero.

But this would be fine if he (or the epilogues, or Homestuck^2) were written well. But they aren’t. Dirk’s dialogue is long, painfully drawn out, with tangents that tend to amount to pure wank, misused literary references and pointless metaphors that go on and on, filling the screen with a bright orange screed that hurts to look at as much as it does to comprehend. It’s not fun. And we’ve seen Dirk communicate before, obviously, the story of Homestuck is built around chatlogs, but it wasn’t like this. He was sarcastic, dryly witty, blunt at times. Even when he was literally talking to a different version of himself it didn’t get that masturbatory.

I was so confused about what the hell happened to Dirk, because I had no idea what the hell someone writing this character was thinking when they turned him into this. And then, the 21st page of Homestuck^2 dropped.

And it all came together.

What Ultimate Dirk and Terezi are referring to is Pony Pals: Detective Pony, a children’s book about some girls who hang out with ponies and solve a mystery. It’s a real book, buy it for your 5-year-old.

Except they’re not referring to that, they’re referring to the Homestuck Canon version of Detective Pony- a birthday gift from Dirk to Jane, heavily edited and to be much more obscene and eventually developing into it’s own story, stated to be “tough, emotionally draining, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible”.

Except the quote “Remember Longcat, Jane?” and references to philosophy, dead languages, and ancient earth culture aren’t referring to the three pages of the Dirk-edited Detective Pony we see in the actual comic itself. That quote doesn’t appear there.

That image is from Detective Pony, by Sonnetstuck- the 40,000 word fanfiction from 2014 that serves as a completed version of Jane’s copy of the book. An expansion of what we see in canon. And it’s a tough, emotionally draining read, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible.

It’s a very good fanfiction.

In the later bits of Detective Pony, we can start to see the origins of what would become Ultimate Dirk’s signature style of writing. Long blocks of rambling text, orange dripping down the page, references to philosophy and history and language that go on and on. And it probably does look familiar to those who read the Epilogues and ^2. 

But there are a couple of key differences here. First of all, it’s just better written? The way these rambles circle back on themselves is so excellent, the absolute absurdity of this being written on top of a pony book for little girls, the humour (beyond some of the more immature stuff), it’s just a really well-written piece of fiction. Hell, you don’t even need to be familiar with the character of Dirk to enjoy it. It’s a harrowing piece, but it’s also self-aware- because it’s not supposed to be tough, draining, cathartic etc. just for Jane- it’s clearly that for Dirk himself.

The second part is, of course, that this is a fanfiction. It’s not canon, it’s not official, this is by someone who really likes Dirk for people who really like Dirk. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so if you bounce off it (and I’m sure a lot did), then you don’t have to keep reading it, it’s fine, thanks for playing. As much as Homestuck^2 tried to doll itself up as “dubiously canon” it’s still the official continuation of the story, and that means if it’s as difficult to get into as Detective Pony, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of people.

The other part of it is that Detective Pony’s exploration of Dirk’s character is, well, in character. When the man himself steps in as a character in his own book, the explorations of what he is as an author, who he is as a person, make perfect sense for what we see of him at the start of the comic. He is that manipulative, blunt person, and he is aware of his faults. He’s the kind of person to hide a lamentation on his own failings inside an impenetrable maze of a story layered on top of a book about fucking ponies. Ultimate Dirk does not act like Dirk, outside of the “manipulator” angle, something that Dirk was aware of and trying to improve in the comic. But I guess people don’t have arcs, right?

It’s so interesting to see the seeds of Homestuck^2 laden within Detective Pony- because the meta angle that and the epilogues take is also represented in said fanfiction. While the nature of canon is a facet of the work, the idea of authors and narrators fighting for control of a story, different ideas in mind for the characters, one being more personally connected to them than the other, it’s all there. When I wrote about Fallout 4 in the past, I mentioned being worried that Bethesda took the wrong lessons from Skyrim- seeing something successful and trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. I think Homestuck^2 is an extreme example of this- the writers of the comic saw Sonnetstuck’s masterwork and thought, yeah that’s great, we can do that. But they just can’t. And with the comic crashed and burning, the probably won’t ever get a chance to. Dirk is forever stuck as this amalgamation of himself that looks nothing like any individual version of him ever did.

At least we will still have Detective Pony, and many other excellent fanworks, for actually good Dirk content. I admittedly haven’t looked into much fanfic written during/post-epilogues, and I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll see- I can only hope the fanbase didn’t take the same wrong lessons as the official team did.

[chezforshire]

Since i literally cannot work on something without blabbing abt it im gonna ramble a bit abt the earth c kids au i have

Rn im doodlin rosemary and davekats kids. Idk yet who gets saddle with a child first but both couples go through dealing with the strilondes fear of becoming their guardians. Karks has his reservations too. Thinks he's too much of an asshole to really rear a kid and being a parent is like being a leader, sorta. Some loser wriggler hangs onto your every word and you try your best to guide em where they should go. Previous experiences have shown him to have failed in that regard so imagine his trepidation over having to do that for longer than a few weeks.

Kan's prolly the only one of em who has her head about with the whole child rearing business bc well she was hatched for this shit ya know

Anyway the kid rosemary has is a maryam descendant and rose just goes 'well, she's sorta ur kid genetically speaking and we're married so she's my kid too ig so... we should raise her????' And they do and she's sweet and smart and terrifying in that she keeps alluding to murdering you if you so much as look at her or her parents wrong. Her name is Astrea Maryam-Lalonde and she loves her moms a whole damn lot and she thinks theyre the absolute shit. She's fascinated with fashion as is the Maryam staple though she only cares abt her appearance if she's being seen by people outside of family. When she's at home she just wears ratty tshirts and shorts or sweatpants that have more than a few holes in it. This makes Kanaya sigh with exasperation and just say 'like mother like daughter' as Rose flops on the couch next to their daughter in clothes under the same state.

Dave loves the shit out of her ofc bc he's a great uncle but also bc she loves drawing a whole buncha shit. Most of the time she draws people so she could slap some sick as shit dresses she designes on them. Dave talks abt SBaHJ w her and she's just That sounds Highly Stupid where can I see it and so they spend an afternoon just talking abt it and she genuinely finds it funny and wonders more than once if one day she could make her own comic. Though hers, no offence to Dave, would be much more serious and plot heavy and maybe gay and has romance bc seriously she's a Maryam-Lalonde have you seen their library? And Dave encourages her abt it and has become her editor/soundboard/ whatever the fuck when she has ideas for stories and makes quick drawings abt it.

Im not set on how davekat gets their kid yet but it's an ectogoop hybrid of the two of them. His name is Kagang Vantas for now bc Dave still hasn't gotten around to marrying Karkat wc is fine bc it's not like it means much to either of them but he does playfully call him husband every now and then. Anyway, the little dude is a human/troll hybrid and don't ask me any questions abt that yet im working on it. He's a bit of a brat but is a nice kid. He's a little hard of hearing so he doesn't always notice his voice but that's fine bc Dirk teaches him sign and makes him some hearing aids that he asks to have customized to look sick as shit when he grows up. He's got a lotta energy and spends a lot of his time playing outside w John, Jade and Jake. He's really attentive too and picks up on tiny details rly fast which makes him pretty great at handling upset ppl. He rly likes music just like Dave and that spurs the god into buying even better acoustics every year so his son can feel the vibrations much better. Contrary to Dave, however, Kagang rly likes classical music mostly bc Rose spent a whole lot of time playing her violin for both him and Astrea. He picks up the instrument too when he grows up and Rose is all too happy teaching him.

Dirk is apprehensive arnd the kid given what he knows of who he can become w Dave but he truly deeply loves the kid. He's distant for a few years and Kagang inevitably thinks it's his fault bc Dave and Karkat are both vry rejection-sensitive people and sadly that got passed down to the kid but dw it takes one to know one so the dads know how to get him through it. Dave talks abt it w Dirk and Dirk is floored bc jesus i was trying to make sure the kid wouldn't feel bad arnd me and fuck whatever i do its just a fuck up huh and Dave just shooshes him and goes bro dude dirkles it's fine you can still work on it. Now u know what's up and why u can work to make a better relationship. I know u love the shit outta my little dude but sometimes that ain't enough. Ya gotta show it through words and actions now come on let's hang out w Kagang and u can slowly mend that bridge. And he does and fuck he /can/ be a good person, these past few years has thought him that, and by fuck will he make sure that his nephew knows that he loves him and cares for him and thinks he's the shit

One can say Kagang and Astrea have a moirailgance but it's a lot more like siblingship rly. They poke fun at each other, mess w each other, would hide a body for the other all that shit. It's a lot like Dave and Rose but w a lot less layers of cool and aloofness to hide the fact that Dork+Dork equals Mega Dork.

[atalana]

Alright, I’ve just spent 17 hours absorbing the epilogue, and in true Dirk Strider fashion, I have Thoughts.

I had plenty of responses I’ve been considering to this, about two hours ago I was honestly thinking of just dropping in with a fuckin one liner like “So Dirk Three wrote the epilogue” (Dirk Three kinda did write the epilogue, and I’ll explain that too), but we’re on the fucking essay train now and no one’s getting off it any time soon so it’s time to dive into this fucker and get it all off my chest.

Under the cut you will find essays on Dirk, cherubs, ultimate selves, both major Dirk fics (Detective Pony and Theatre of Coolty), a bunch of story bullshit, and my severe love for all Homestuck characters

(But very little criticism of the epilogue, I am no longer about that life)

So the prologue is important here. It’s the main bit of accurate information we have, not tainted by an unreliable narrator. (Well, it is, but less so). The prologue tells us that, with the characters outside of canon, they are becoming their ultimate selves, particularly the characters most susceptible to such knowledge, like seers, or heart players.

Now Homestuck wrestles a lot with the idea of the ultimate self. It is, as defined by the text, the true thing a person is, an amalgamation of every possible version of themselves. It is not a viable human being, because that’s not how human beings work. It basically amounts to Hussie’s character rules, like, there are some ways that these characters will be always, some things they’re prone to, things they like, decisions they’re likely to make, but who the person is within that is subject to extreme change depending on circumstance. The four people who embody this narrative most clearly are Vriska, Terezi, Davepeta, and Dirk.

I’m still not 100% sure on why the ultimate selves outside of canon thing is, but my best guess would be this - within the story, there’s a definite timeline, right? Like, these are the things that are written down, this is what you can see, the word of god (loaded phrase, thanks Dirk), the things that you look at when trying to apply death of the author (even more loaded phrase, thanks Hussie, also thanks Calliope). There’s more than one timeline, sure, but that’s the point, everyone is who they are within that timeline, affected by what happened to make them who they became. Outside of canon is, well, outside of the story. They’re not affected by the story here, they’re just characters. This is a fanfiction site. And what does fanfic do best? It takes the characters, takes who they are, pulls them out of the story, and shoves them in wherever it likes, to become whoever it is they become. And thus who the character is exactly becomes murky and confusing if you’re trying to jam them all into one thing, and it all gives Rose Lalonde a headache. Ultimate selves.

Davepeta liked their ultimate self, it helped two kids who were otherwise struggling with unsatisfying ultimate selves to become a better whole.

Vriska took the proactive approach, by which I mean bullying her other selves into letting her become the ultimate Vriska, which was ultimately useless and gave her no ultimate self at all

Terezi saw her ultimate self, and is still processing what that means for her (but also Terezi is still in canon, so she’s immune to epilogue bullshit)

And Dirk, god, poor Dirk. Dirk was terrified of it. Because he could see his ultimate self and he knew that’s not the kind of person he wanted to become. (And this is where I start using the Theatre of Coolty numbers because there’s no other way to get through this, if you haven’t read/seen it you 100% should, but as a general note, Dirk One is the main Dirk we know, Dirk Two is Brain Ghost Dirk, Dirk Three is “Trickster Dirk” but actually revealed later to be Hussie, Dirk Four is Hal)

Because here’s the thing. Dirk’s ultimate self is him, but it’s also Hal. It’s also BGD. It’s also Bro. And Dirk One was never as bad as he thought he was, but he surrounded himself with copies of himself, so he knew how bad he could be, and tried everything he could to avoid it. We have actual canon confirmation on multiple occasions that Dirk would so much rather kill himself than become the kind of person capable of hurting his friends. Which only got worse after he met Dave and realised Bro existed, like, that just doubled his resolve to Never Be That Person.

(Hey, fun hypothetical, if you kill yourself to stop yourself becoming a bad person because you know it’s inevitable but you’re too good a person to want to go through with it, is it heroic or just? Because I would like to have a lengthy discussion with the god tier clock!)

God, there’s so much I can write on the subject of Dirk’s ultimate self. Because you can see every version of him inside there, there’s Bro in his possessiveness, Hal in his need to fuck with people for no real reason, BGD in his hyper critical nature (beyond what is normal for all Dirks), Dirk One in his desire to never let anyone hurt him again. (God, the “I’ll never let you break my heart again” line hurt so much, because like… I can feel Dirk One in that line, but it’s delivered by ultimate Dirk, and ultimate Dirk isn’t the kind of person who would have even been heartbroken by Jake’s actions. Dirk One poured his soul into that relationship and Jake responded by ignoring him, and like, this isn’t a dig on Jake, because that did make Dirk very intense and hard to deal with, but as Calliope so beautifully put, the children left alone are those who most despair at being ignored. And every version of Dirk was so very alone.)

When sending initial thoughts to my friend, I wrote “Ultidirk is Dirk One but without the compassion or empathy and with an apparently infinite supply of horse tranquilizers”. Which was mostly a joke, but does get down to the core of the problem. Dirk One and Ultidirk aren’t really that different, when it comes down to it. But there’s one crucial element that makes all the difference. Dirk One’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t have to deal with that problem, at any cost”. Ultidirk’s life philosophy is “This is a me problem, so I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem. And it turns out that without basic human empathy and morality holding him back, Ultidirk will just… fucking declare himself God, and use that alongside his powers of manipulation to just write a new story in which he is the villain. Very little changes in the scale of things.

(The other main difference is that Dirk One is scared to exist, whereas every other Dirk is scared to not exist, that’s the stuff, good callback, etc etc, that line fucking killed me, and also killed whatever remnant of Dirk One was still lurking inside Ultidirk and god I want to hug him)

(I also want to extract him from Ultidirk and bring him on an Ultidirk murdering quest bc he would be 100% down for that without a second’s hesitation but that’s a bit hard to do)

Now you may be wondering why I brought up Theatre of Coolty if I was only gonna refer to Dirk One as Dirk One and not touch on any of the others. Well, it’s true, saying Dirk Two and Dirk Four when I have simple three letter names for both of them is a bit ridiculous. But then we get to Dirk Three.

Now here’s the thing about Theatre of Coolty. Dirk One appears in Homestuck, as alpha Dirk, in Dirk’s usual shirt with the orange hat. Dirk Two appears in Homestuck, as brain ghost Dirk in god tier pyjamas. Dirk Four appears in Homestuck as Hal, and he wears a red hat because he’s Dirk in a different colour scheme, also because the sprite Hussie eventually made for him based on fanon had a red hat, all’s sorted there.

But Dirk Three? Trickster Dirk? Never appeared in Homestuck. They tried, but it was still Dirk One. Dirk is immune to cherubic influence (remember this point too, it’s important), because his concept of self is so present (and also because he’s depressed as fuck, but that doesn’t necessarily exclude you, it’s just the presence of both at once). And who does Dirk Three turn out to be? Well, they said it from the start, Theatre of Coolty is about the presence or absence of god, who definitely will show up at some point. Dirk Three is Hussie in a Dirk costume, Dirk Three is God, Dirk Three is The Author.

Dirk Three is Ultidirk. Congrats, all four Dirks have officially shown up in Homestuck, to whatever extent this counts as Homestuck, an extent which has been thoroughly documented by its own existence bc this is Homestuck (kinda) and you gotta lean into the bullshit or you’ll drown in it.

So yes, this was penned by Dirk Three. Who is also Lord English in two different metaphorical ways now (The trickster element, and also the fact that the epilogues insist on making Jane a second Condesce, which in this analogy puts Dave as himself and Dirk as, you guessed it, Cherub Master of All. Which is additionally insulting as fuck because Dirk grew up in that apocalypse and would never contribute to recreating it, if Jane ever was inclined to, which she isn’t, but you know).

And LE’s major force of opposition? Adult Calliope. (Also, like, Vriska, but symbolically it’s the other cherub.)

Which brings me to the main point of this essay, and that is that all of this? It’s a cherub fic. And we knew this, from the moment we were offered that choice. Meat or Candy? Well, neither of them are sustainable food sources for humans, not with the meat uncooked like that. They’re not satisfying endings for us either. But it’s all cherubs eat. (Well, that and special stardust, but that was Caliborn’s intermission. This is Calliope’s offering.)

Which again feeds back into the AO3 metaphor because from their introduction, Caliborn and Calliope have been fandom inserts, representing all of us, for better or worse. They read the story, come up with the theories, they write the fanfic.

And Calliope’s trying so hard. But she’s not human. She doesn’t get it, not on a way that connects with the characters, only with the text. Cherubs spend their lifetime alone. Cherubs only have black romance. Cherubs think trickster mode is an acceptable way to solve problems.

And, as Dirk pointed out back when he was still himself, everyone getting married and having a bunch of babies for no reason doesn’t solve shit.

Without a solid timeline, everyone became susceptible to becoming their ultimate selves. Ultidirk is a dick with the powers of actual capital g God, and none of the remorse of Dirk One, so he took control of the narrative. And so Calliope, the fanfic author, the one with the power to write a new story (with the exception of Dirk, as previously mentioned, he’s immune to cherub bullshit, and John and Terezi, who are still in canon), tried to help everyone realise their full potential.

But she made them selfish. She made them solitary. She doesn’t understand how humans work, so they became parodies of themselves. In meat, there’s a plot, but it’s insubstantial, because no one is truly themselves, facing a Dirk who lost himself years ago. In candy, it’s fluff with, again, no substance. It’s trickster mode calmed down. Everyone gets married and has babies, but it makes no sense, and everyone’s miserable.

And John Dirk and Terezi are the only ones who see it, because they’re the ones who haven’t been given to Calliope. But what’s the point, when they’ve lost their power over the story? What’s the point of gaining power if you’re not yourself anymore? (And one way or another, they all die in the end.)

The rest of them… Well, they do the things the narrative implied they would do, but usually in the worst possible way.

(Aradia and Sollux have been canon neutral since 2011 and they like it that way)

And now we go back to Detective Pony, like everyone and their mother have analysed already. Because yeah, these two things have so much in common, but also, some really crucial differences.

Both are stories in which Dirk takes control of the narrative, in which he is fought for control by another author figure, in which he considers his own role in the story, what he’s created, who’s got the authority (I still love that pun so much), and eventually forces the characters to come to the conclusion that he needs to be defeated, because at the end of the day Dirk is still hopelessly suicidal and like most problems the kids have, this is never addressed outside of ironic bullshit. (Not to him anyway, it’s kinda addressed in candy but I think if you’re talking about someone’s suicidal tendencies at their funeral it’s too fucking late).

But Detective Pony is ultimately a heavily veiled love letter to his friends. Detective Pony is Dirk exploring what he fears becoming, it’s him learning to let go, and eventually he relinquishes control of the book to the characters in it (as does Jeanne Betancourt).

Meat is Dirk’s notice of ownership over his friends. It’s him glorifying having become that thing he used to fear, it’s holding even tighter to everything he fears losing, and ultimately neither he nor Calliope trust the characters enough to pull back. They’re both obsessed with it, in both iterations, this battle between the two of them, even though it was never supposed to be about either of them.

But Detective Pony has an original story, with a timeline. It even has a second solid story for Dirk to come from, since Homestuck itself explicitly states when and why Dirk made it. When Detective Pony sits down to analyse which version of the text is better, it has that substance to fall back on. Jeanne Betancourt’s version is boring but kind. Dirk’s is interesting but cruel. And because the characters are all solid people, not their hazy ultimate selves, they have agency too, and can decide their own fate.

When Dirk analyses whose version is better in the epilogue, his whole reasoning is that neither is good. The characters rarely have any agency. Even the few moments, between Roxy’s void powers and Dave’s ability to stand up to Bro (which, by the way, so proud of him, how many people do you know who, in a situation where their childhood guardian and abuser literally became god and tried to thought influence them into doing something they kinda wanted to do already, would have the mental resilience to say “no, this isn’t me, stop that” and stand by that? Dave is the strongest goddamn character in this whole comic, holy shit), are only hints of who they were as real characters in the story. Dirk takes control, in one version, because he’s lost himself to Ultidirk, who’s overly concerned with how stories are supposed to be written, and tries to wrestle Homestuck into a shape he finds interesting. In the other, Dirk kills himself before he can hurt anyone. (And before anyone gets on my case about Dirk’s reasoning being he’s lost his purpose, his purpose was always protecting his friends.)

But Calliope’s not helping them either, just piling them full of romance and fluff and selfish parodies of themselves and thinking that’ll work out. Giving the villains “redemption” without ever actually letting them redeem themselves. Explaining all about their tragic backstories without doing anything with it. To bring back a very old quote, it’s like when Mario gets the star. He wins, but he’s denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.

Just with less happiness, more death, and a bunch of weirdly political teen drama. And then when Calliope gets distracted by Ultidirk and gives up, everything unravels completely, but it also lets them live a life which does let some of the characters be happy, in a weird roundabout way. It’s dysfunctional as fuck, but these characters care so much for each other, not even being in a weird self melting fanon bubble could erase that completely. (And then things get buck fucking wild because this is still Homestuck we’re talking about)

(Though seriously, I could have done without the Jane is a fascist thing, she deserves better than that. Like what was the point of decrockertiering her if she was just gonna go right back to that? Also I love Dave but he barely has a leg to stand on in most of those political arguments anyway given how he completely destroyed LoHaC’s economy and once accused Karkat of communism for captchaloguing a chair. And while I’m complaining, Jake English is still not being allowed to consent to fucking anything.)

I’m not sure why this was written. I’m not sure why a lot of things in Homestuck were written, honestly. It’s certainly not a satisfying ending, but I don’t think it was supposed to be. It’s not disappointing either, and it’s definitely interesting, with all of Homestuck’s trademark humor.

When I first wrote this halfway through candy, I’d written the following as an ending:

“But if we’re going to triple kill the author, I think this is just ultimately validating everyone’s own interpretation of the ending. You can’t write everyone’s fanfic at once. You can’t be a cherub, or a god, we don’t write fic about people’s ultimate selves. What you can do is provide a timeline for them to exist in, and a better one, where they have a chance to be the people they have the potential to be. And just to be happy, in a way that feels real.”

But honestly, now? I think the point was just to fuck with us, and also do a fuckton of exposition about canon and the nature of reality

So fuck it, let’s end on a relevant Dirk quote

[clonerightsagenda]

The epilogues look terrible and I don’t want to spend my time reading them... but I love + trust your judgement and your takes on things. Could you summarize them? (No pressure if you don’t want to)

OK, it’s been a few weeks since i read it, but I will do my best.NOTE: This is probably not comprehensive and definitely not objective. As a supplement, I did some poking around, and the MSPA wiki has some bullet points. I also eventually found another  summary on tumblr, albeit by someone who also didn’t like it, so it is probably biased as well. 

ANOTHER NOTE: Those content warnings weren’t a joke. Below are references to sexual content, assault, suicide, sexism, transphobia, character death, and probably some other stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED:

In the prologue, Rose summons John to inform him that he needs to defeat Lord English right now, or they will all experience terrible consequences. These are mostly meta consequences you can interpret as ‘if we don’t produce new Homestuck content on its 10th anniversary, everyone will give up on this franchise for real, and also canon doesn’t seem stable when the big bad never got beaten’. John goes to visit Roxy and Calliope before he leaves and is given the option to eat either meet or candy. This represents a choice he is supposed to make, and that choice creates two timelines.

In MEAT, John travels back in time and gathers three 16 year old versions of his friends. They confront Caliborn in the battle he represented in his Masterpiece and are sucked into the house juju. Vriska activates it, but not before being pulled into the black hole. Rose and Jade die immediately, with Rose’s body being destroyed and Jade’s falling into the black hole, because why should women get to fight the story’s biggest misogynist. Dave lands a solid hit on English before having his head bitten off Mami from PMMM style. John gets chomped on as well and a gold tooth ends up embedded in his chest. Davepeta appears and drags the wounded LE into the black hole. John finds his father’s wallet, retrieves his car, and slumps inside. Terezi appears, in bad shape after a long time wandering the ring. She seems confused at his state (explained because in CANDY she has been texting that version of him for years). She removes the tooth from his chest and they have sex.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dave and Karkat have avoided talking about being a relationship for seven years, while Jade harasses them about becoming a threesome. This is explicitly tied to her abandonment issues but also she is referred to as a slut so like. Don’t love that. Jane is running for president, and Dave thinks this is terrible because she’s a woman fascist and doesn’t understand the economy and Karkat should run instead. Other shit is happening but I lost track. Rose is ill because she’s becoming her ‘Ultimate Self’ and seeing all timelines. Dirk claims he’s overcome the same problem and offers to help her but ends up controlling her and revealing he is the one actually writing this narrative.  There is a bit where the narration starts addressing the reader directly and then turns orange which I admit is genuinely cool and might have been interesting if done with characters I didn’t actually care about.

Dirk amps up controlling the narrative, directly forcing people to do and think certain things. (For example, he sequesters Rose away in his workshop and tells Kanaya via narration she believes Rose is better off with him, and she uncomfortably agrees without understanding why she thinks that.) He supports Jane’s bid for the presidency, even though she wants to crack down on trolls because they are naturally violent and reproduce too fast. Everyone tries to get Jake’s endorsement because he’s popular, which includes Jane attempting to seduce him in a very uncomfortable scene.Then Jade slips into a nice coma, because it’s not Homestuck without Jade losing her agency, and alt!Calliope starts using her as an avatar to take control of the narrative away from Dirk. They have some back and forth arguments before he is pushed out which, again, is genuinely clever but would be more enjoyable without all the edgy bullshit. Dirk eventually tricks alt!Callie and sedates Jade, taking back control of the story. Jane wins the presidency. Also at some point Meat!Roxy and Callie ID as nonbinary and start using they/them, and narrator!Dirk freaks out about it and misgenders them a lot, which is character assassination bc everyone knows Dirk is a trans icon. Anyway. Dave and Karkat have an awkward talk about their relationship where they keep dancing around things and Dirk tries to force Dave to kiss him. Dave gets frustrated because he’s aware someone is trying to make him do something (like with the Aimless Renegade), and eventually yells at Dirk to get out of his head before kissing Karkat. Terezi brings John back to Earth, and he begins to fade, since apparently LE’s tooth was poisoned with something more powerful than god tier that makes you irrelevant. Possibly a meta commentary on the hero or story not being needed once the big bad is gone. Terezi is sad about this and listens to him bleed while she smells him die. Then Dirk contacts her via narration and implies he can help her. She gets a text (later revealed to be Vriska). Dirk gets a spaceship from Jake after forcing him via narration to grovel about how much he loves him and then rejecting him and flying away with Rose and Terezi in tow. Jade wakes up long enough to tell everyone Dirk’s gone bad before she gets repossessed and starts pointing in his direction, prompting everyone to give chase. 

There is a final scene that will make more sense later, so I’ll add it later.

CANDY

John decides not to go fight LE. Roxy is delighted, and they began dating. Calliope tells John it is time to let Gamzee out of the fridge. Gamzee pops out and claims he is redeemed in a long speech making fun of sloppy redemption arcs. He then proceeds to be terrible for the rest of the story.Candy essentially satirizes Harry Potter epilogue style fics. Jane marries Jake (it’s implied she essentially roofies him with the trickster lollipop) and has Gamzee on the side. They have a son named Tavros. John and Roxy have a son named Harry. Rose and Kanaya adopt a troll clone of Vriska and name her Vriska. Jade, Karkat, and Dave are all dating, but Dave and Karkat are miserable. Dirk kills himself when he realizes the timeline went off kilter. Jade’s corpse from the Meat timeline crashes to earth, and in the middle of the funeral (which was genuinely a good scene) she sits up, possessed by alt!Calliope. Alt!Callie sequesters herself on the old meteor, now landed, and explains to Aradia and Sollux that this timeline is a dead end and she is protecting it from the influence of the prince. She also, in a parallel to Dirk’s reveal in Meat, talks about how every narrator has an agenda even if the text is formatted to make you not realize that.Jane becomes a fascist dictator and begins oppressing trolls. Karkat eventually get sick of being in a trio and runs off to be a resistance leader, including getting a sick eye patch (reference to Summer Teen Romance). Meenah stole the Ring of Life from Meat John and lands in the session; she and Karkat begin dating. Other ghosts begin falling from the sky as well, and Gamzee converts them to his redemption religion.John feels like something is really off.  His only solace is texting Terezi a lot, and he seems closer to her than he is to his wife. He and Roxy break up for a while and then (non-romantically) reconcile. Jake eventually leaves Jane and takes Tavros with him. Jade and Dave become rebels as well, then Dave meets a hologram of Obama, who helps him attain his ultimate self, putting his soul in a new robot body. 

Oh, also Vriska falls out of the sky, has hatesex with Gamzee, kills him, and then talks with Rose and Kanaya’s Vriska about how she loves Terezi. Then she texts her, as seen in the Meat timeline. Isn’t Vriska 13 and Gamzee an adult at this point? Probably. There’s a lot of questionable age stuff in this.

I’m sure I missed some details. Can you tell I’m losing steam.

Anyway, the two last chapters of each section reference the other storyline. At the end of Meat, Lord English’s body falls out of the sky, and alt!Callie (still in Jade’s body) devours it, becoming powerful enough to battle Dirk. Candy!Davebot arrives and he and Aradia jump into the black hole in pursuit.At the end of Candy, Dirk’s ship nears a new planet where he intends a new game of SBURB to be played. Rose is in a robot body serving as his handmaid essentially, and Terezi’s also on board.  

TAKEAWAYS:

There are a lot of different interpretations of the epilogue. A mockery of the two extremes of fanfic. Andrew Hussie continuing the theme of ‘all authors are tyrants by nature’ and using his self-insert to display how he hates his own story but also can’t stop telling it. Dirk trying to create conflict by making himself a villain because otherwise they’ll lose relevance and disappear. Musing on how being arbitrarily labeled 'grown up’ when you’re not ready (aka handed godhood by a game that doesn’t understand people) can fuck you up, and there is no single winning screen in life. Just a big old meta experiment on unreliable narrators. I can see where some of this is coming from, but frankly, I found it disturbingly sexist (even if it is intended to be so for effect). A lot of the sex and violence felt over the top and graphic just to be #ow the edge rather than serving any narrative purpose. Also, authors can do what they want with their texts, and they’re allowed to write tragedies, but after Hussie’s self-insert informs Caliborn that the most important stories are about friendship and teamwork and the fandom (that I’ve seen anyway) really responding to the bonds between characters, it felt cruel. That’s my feeling. Not everyone shares it. But hey, I’ve got my solution.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[thelifetimechannel]

ROSE: And it's been hanging over our heads the whole time. JAKE: Hold on a tick! JAKE: I may be a newcomer to all this cosmic mythology but i recall being informed that skaia was one of the good guys. ROSE: Informed by who? JAKE: Well... by our sprites and some of the carvings in the ruins and things like that. HALSPRITE: Everyone knows we game guides are completely trustworthy. DIRK: Wait, are you working for an even bigger bad? HALSPRITE: No. But there are certain things I can't say, or have to be party to. HALSPRITE: We've been over this, remember? HALSPRITE: My ectoplasm is still sore from your Emperor Palpatine tantrum. KANAYA: Skaia Controls The Narrative We Are Privy To KANAYA: Especially For Prospit Heroes Who Gain Glimpses In The Clouds During The Eclipse KANAYA: I Thought Those Images Were Random KANAYA: But JADE: but its pretty suspicious that it kept so much of the bad stuff from me! JADE: i might not have been so eager to play otherwise JADE: even if its not like we ever had a choice :/ JADE: and the other calliope said she had a hand in choosing those images soooo DAVE: i thought skaia "sees and knows" and couldnt do jack shit DAVE: howd we get from there to here JADE: we didnt know until today that skaia had a "cherub behind the curtain" :o CALLIOPE: after her speech i'm not sUre whether skaia reflects her will entirely or is only inspired by it. CALLIOPE: bUt it is not a neUtral actor. CALLIOPE: and she admitted to having a hand in the rUles of the game that broUght Us here. ROSE: Feferi mentioned the gods might have had something to do with it as well. ROSE: Aradia, do you know anything about that? ARADIA: i suspected something like it ARADIA: it made sense, considering derse dreamers role as emissaries to the noble circle and each incipispheres presence nestled within the furthest ring ARADIA: how they struck that deal or what it involved i dont know though DIRK: The point is, this game didn't come out of nowhere. DIRK: Someone had to make it. KANAYA: So To Clarify KANAYA: If The Other Cherub Is Skaia You Wish To Depose Her KANAYA: But If She Is The Consciousness Guiding Skaia You Would Replace Her Instead CALLIOPE: hold on. CALLIOPE: i don't trUst myself with that kind of responsibility. JANE: I'm not sure anyone should be! JAKE: Yes its like galadriel getting the ring! JOHN: if you don't make yourself the person in charge, but skaia has like... what did you call it? JOHN: a consciousness? JOHN: could you give it a conscience? KARKAT: HOLD UP. KARKAT: I KNOW ROSE ALREADY CAME TO ME PEDDLING THIS LATEST HERESY BUT I THINK IT OUGHT TO AT LEAST COME TO A VOTE. KARKAT: THIS COULD HAVE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES, AND THE DOOR IS RIGHT THERE. KARKAT: IF ANYONE DOESN'T WANT TO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR THIS, SPEAK NOW. JANE: Could we get a description of what this plan actually /is/? ROSE: We'll need to work the details out. KARKAT: SHE WANTS TO MEDDLE WITH THE GENESIS FROG'S DNA. KARKAT: LIKE THAT WENT SO WELL LAST TIME. DAVE: the tadpoles already flown the coop on that one DAVE: unless you want to send john all the way back to our breeding session JOHN: oh come on, i can't be the solution to EVERYONE'S problems. ROSE: I wasn't going to suggest that. ROSE: Once we have a better grasp of what we want to change, we have someone with an even better skillset for reshaping reality to our liking. CALLIOPE: my other self got Us into this mess. CALLIOPE: i don't know how exactly bUt it's only fitting i get Us oUt of it. ROXY: soooo ROXY: we need 2 come up w/ a world we like ARADIA: without breaking too much ARADIA: this system works for what its designed to do ARADIA: you cant abolish it entirely without some kind of replacement SOLLUX: she's saying maybe d0n't torch the place with0ut at least reading the manual. ROXY: so we gotta reverse engineer it ROXY: sounds like a plan 2 me JAKE: I could take another look at those carvings... JANE: /clears throat/ JANE: I think Karkat is right, we should have a show of hands. JANE: Everyone in favor of pursuing this? ROXY: this game sux ass ROXY: if i can stop more doomed ppl gettin axed just bc they were in the wrong place then im gonna do it ROXY: count me in DAVE: wait i thought english was the guy behind most of our doomed timelines DAVE: with his alpha timeline forcing everyone to make one set of decisions DAVE: didnt we beat him and get rid of that JAKE: I think its fair to say calliope did! CALLIOPE: ^U^ ARADIA: its true that his influence generated far more fruitless offshots than would exist otherwise ARADIA: and constricted our paths to prioritize a single narrative ARADIA: but timeline dooming is always a mechanism available to players ARADIA: and the game sets up certain loops on its own ROSE: Lord English isn't the one who sent meteors to destroy our planet. JOHN: no he isn't. JOHN: and that's not fair, that is not what any of us signed up for. JOHN: i've been rewriting rules all day, and this sounds like a great one to get rid of. JOHN: i'll help you guys out. DAVE: well then DAVE: might as well go two for two TEREZI: SK414S T4ST3S 4R3 DR4CON14N 3V3N FOR M3 TEREZI: WH4T K1ND OF JUST1C3 SO W4NTONLY T4RG3TS 1NNOC3NTS TEREZI: 1 WOULDNT M1ND T4K1NG 1T DOWN 4 P3G JADE: i dont know how long ill have my first guardian powers back, but im willing to use them JADE: no one should be treated like pawns no matter what your justification is ROSE: My anti-authoritarian streak is already common knowledge. ROSE: I guess they were right warning you away from dreamers from the wrong side of the tracks. ROSE: Derse is a hotbed for radicalism. DIRK: It must run in the family. DIRK: Why do away with a good tradition? HALSPRITE: There's no way I'd turn down an opportunity to fuck with a fundamental component of the universe. KANAYA: Creation Is Under My Jurisdiction KANAYA: But Creation Pursued At Any Cost Can Be Just As Destructive As Intentional Violence KANAYA: Maybe I Can Put My Inclinations To Pacify Dangerous Forces To Good Use JAKE: Im through with being shoved around! JAKE: If this will help some other people out there in the multiverse who might get saddled with all this games expectations then i think its our duty to try. JANE: What kind of Empress would I be if I didn't try to secure the best possible future for whoever comes after us? JANE: Besides, I've sat back in the face of tyranny long enough. NANNASPRITE: I have too. DAVESPRITE: my programming wont allow me to participate in this DAVESPRITE: nah im just fucking with you lets kill the suffering orb ARADIA: ive spent a long time doing things because they had to be done ARADIA: to fulfill some time loop or the will of the game ARADIA: it would be nice to make a momentous decision on my own for once CALLIOPE: my other self said i woUld never be a proper mUse, bUt i take issUe with her methods. CALLIOPE: i think it's proper to set them right. SOLLUX: i feel like i'm c0ming into this discussi0n missing a lot of c0ntext but if it means we'll get a move 0n, sure. SOLLUX: sgrub 0r skaia or whatever cosmic f0rce we're ganging up on can suck my bulge. TEREZI: COM3 ON K4RK4T YOU KNOW YOU W4NT TO KARKAT: I GUESS MY REVOLUTIONARY ANCESTOR WOULD BE ASHAMED OF ME OTHERWISE. KARKAT: EVEN IF HE WAS KIND OF A JACKASS. KARKAT: AND THIS GAME HAS BEEN PRETTY TERRIBLE. KARKAT: LET'S JUST TRY NOT TO GET ANYONE KILLED THIS TIME. KARKAT: OK, WE'VE ALL GOT OUR HANDS UP NOW. KARKAT: THIS STIRRING SHOW OF CAMARADERIE WILL MOVE THE HEAVENS. KARKAT: "LOOK, THEY HAVE THEIR HANDS RAISED! WE WERE WRONG. GIVE THEM WHATEVER THEY ASK FOR, AND PASS ME THE TISSUES." KARKAT: GOOD JOB TEAM. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY WITH YOURSELVES.

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[sombytaco]

Homestuck Pool Party Headcanons

John: Canonballs in IMMEDIATELY, he is yelling and he is fucking excited move out of the way this boy is coming through!! Also, because he has a breath aspect I am 413% certain that he can stay underwater for indefinite amounts of time and you can bet your ass he’s going around grabbing people’s feet to freak them out. He and Terezi have a contest to see who can make the most people jump, I will not say who wins I will only say that it is unfortunate for everyone involved. He and Dave are an unstoppable chicken team, they have never lost and will do Whatever It Takes to make sure that remains true.

Dave: Is just chillin, he cares more about keeping his shades dry than swimming around. He will go hard as hell in Marco Polo tho, if you thought he was too cool to jump at the nearest person faster than the speed of light you were wrong buddy he will do what it takes to WIN. Also, when he is the Marco he will (unfairly) target Karkat. This is frustrating. “I’m not even being that loud” Karkat protests for the umpteenth time Dave tags him. “Bullshit” everyone else says, but there’s still a rule that Dave can’t tag Karkat more than five times in a row because really Dave we know you love hearing him yell but Enough Please.

Karkat: Is Bad At Marco Polo. He is so loud. My son. Please. Is very hesitant to get into the water at first bc he’s sensitive to the cold and would rather angrily sweat than deal with the initial shock of getting in. Dave will patiently chill nearby until Karkat is ready, or Dave decides that Karkat is ready in which he will absolutely drag him in. Karkat does not know how to swim so he won’t go past the shallow end, and considering how short he is, uh, that’s not very much of the pool. Dave has to carry him sometimes which he complains about A Lot but secretly kind of likes it whoops. Karkat and Sollux are the shittiest chicken team, Karkat is too afraid of falling in to have any sort of effective strategy and Sollux is like “Karkat just push him” and sort of plows into the other team which just leads to Karkat screeching and nothing gets done.

Roxy: LOVES SWIMMING WITH HER FRIENDS!!! Real people?? That she’s hanging out with?? And you KNOW she’s excited to wear that cute as fuck bikini she alchemized months ago ‘just in case’ ;) ;) ;). After years of knowing Jane and her silly prankster shenanigans, John will absolutely not get the drop on her no sir, he tries to grab her foot she will raise that leg and pull the boy out of the water and give him the Mom Look™. This is war. John will not win. She loves being with Jane and Roxy and her boys!! She is just full of so much love it’s incredible. She deserves this so much.

Calliope: Doesn’t know much about swimming or why humans (and trolls ish) find it so enjoyable, but Roxy is excited so she is too! Interestingly enough, cherubs Do Not Float. Roxy is waving a nervous Callie into the pool and she’s coming down the ladder and once it gets to her chin everyone expects her to do something but no, she makes it to the bottom of the pool and just walks like normal over to where Roxy is. The water level comes up to just below her nose and she has to tilt her head back to speak. “Like this?” She asks excitedly, ‘uh,,, yeah,,,like that’ everyone responds nervously, giving big smiles and thumbs up because they don’t want to disappoint her.

Jade: A master swimmer, she and Jake grew up on an island in the middle of the goddamn pacific my girl knows how to GO. No one realized how fucking ripped Jade was. Jade is ripped as heck. She’s got back and shoulder muscles like an absolute goddess and everyone is like holy shit? Jade? Have you been benching pumpkins all these years? She likes chilling with Jane and Roxy and Calliope because she has been longing for some gals to hang with forever. Not that she doesn’t love Rose, she does, it’s just, they have such differing personalities and anyways it’s kind of hard being around her and Kanaya bc they’re so cute it makes your teeth hurt.

Rose: She and Kanaya have matching floppy sun hats, they love laying out in the sun because Kanaya is a little nervous around water thanks to a certain sea-dweller *cough* eridan *cough*. Rose doesn’t mind, her swimsuits are more for show than swim anyways. She’s got some really cool and intricate goth-y ones and some nice lighthearted pastel ones, an orange and yellow fancy one-piece and a frilly lavender one. Rose has a new appreciation for sunlight but still religiously applies sunscreen because a home girl may be immortal, but fuck if she is gonna deal with any nasty sunburns after defeating the fucking embodiment of evil.

Kanaya: As previously stated, very nervous around water, but so so happy to be in the sun?? It’s not as bright as the one on Alternia which is fine because that means her troll friends can enjoy it too, but she’s literally just so happy to be around people that enjoy the sun the way she does because she’s felt wrong and different about it for years and she finally found someone that understands her ahhshshsjs. She designs all of Rose’s swimsuits and loves seeing her wear them. When it gets dark out, she likes to turn on the glow a little and all these cute little furry wingbeasts will flock to her?? “Those are moths” Rose tells her. “These are my children now” Kanaya pats Rose’s arm, they’re her children too because that’s how human marriage works she’s pretty sure

Dirk: Is so awkward oh my godddd, a little uncomfortable in his body actually? This boy might have muscle but he is all arms and legs and doesn’t know what to do with them because he’s never fuckifnfnfn been around people before. Doesn’t say “Marco” during Marco Polo, he just listens. Breath too loud? You’re tagged. Splash a little? Tagged. Move? Tagged. He’s never Marco for more than two minutes because he’s so in tune with his reflexes that no one even stands a chance. With Jake on his shoulders, they make a decent chicken team, but they’re too worried about each other to be effective. “You okay up there?” He wants to make sure. Someone is tipping Jake over oh no get him off my shoulders is he okay, oh he’s fine, yes I know how the game works Roxy, no Rose why don’t you get in the pool and do a better job before you come for me like that. Rose and Kanaya, in an extremely rare occurrence, do get in for a round of chicken. They beat Dirk and Jake almost immediately. They return to the deck. This never happened and we don’t speak of it.

Jake: Is bad at Marco Polo, he’s an amazing swimmer but he’s not…quiet. After growing up on that island, fighting and swimming, Jake is also Ripped as Heck. Dirk blushes his fucking ass off the first time he sees Jake shirtless. Jake acts all clueless like oh? What’s wrong Dirk? Is something the matter? But he knows exactly what he’s doing and if he’s subtly flexing in front of him, well. That can’t be helped. He may suck during chicken with Dirk, but with Jade on his shoulders? Hoo boy, they give Dave and John a run for their money. He is also John’s favorite to grab the feet of because his reactions are always so over the top with his phrasing. “Horsefeathers!” He grabs at his foot in panic because his first thought is it was one of the monsters from his island, then he sees it was just John who is laughing his ass off because, horse feathers? Really? “I say,” Jake huffs indignantly even though he’s smiling now. “Warn a fellow!”

Jane: Looks rockin’ in her swimsuits because she’s wearing the whole high waisted pinup style ones and?? She’s super gorgeous? Roxy makes sure to tell her that every five seconds just in case she forgets. She and Roxy make a decent chicken team, usually they’re laughing so hard by the end of it that whoever was on top can’t do anything and they fall off because they don’t care about winning they’re just having such a good time. She and Roxy take turns carrying Callie around when the water gets too deep, not that Callie needs to be above the water per se as she seems to have no trouble breathing, but it just makes everyone a little more comfortable and anyways Callie loves it.

Terezi: Killer at Marco Polo for obvious reasons, sometimes she gets tagged on purpose just to show off how quickly she can find people. The only person she’s never been able to get is John, he uses his windy powers to obscure his scent so she can’t “see” him. He is her Marco Polo white whale. One day, John, one day. She and Vriska are terrifying during chicken, Vriska will plow full speed towards the opposing team and Terezi is ready to Throw Hands. The most intense games are between them and John and Dave, both John and Terezi are on top and they fuckin battle it out so hard that Dave and even Vriska start to get nervous on the bottom.

Sollux: Says the water feels slimy. “No shit,” Karkat tells him. “It’s water you fucking shitstain.” Sollux cheats during chicken by using his psiionics to keep Karkat on his shoulders which only makes Karkat mad because he’s terrified of falling in and holy shit Sollux I don’t care what you think your powers are doing I’m gonna fall in fuck fuck fuck. “No I got you” Sollux assures him. He does not. Karkat is not got. Oh well. Sollux mostly likes chilling on inner tubes, plural. He has a blue one and a red one because he’s too tall to fit in just one. “Get a bigger inner tube” Karkat complains. “Perhaps get one of those long, recliner like ones?” Kanaya suggests. No. Sollux will use two inner tubes. He will make the sacrifice of comfort for his aesthetic.