#Jane and the alphas are all 26 by the time jane actually comes to calliope 14 to respond to Schlatt suddenly having a heart attack there

[lalunearts]

I'm in the middle of writing homestuck fanfiction(maybe animatics) with dsmp characters. Anyway Jane crocker and Tubbo Underscore were both raised by the condesnce on Earth(or as i call it Calamity 4). Jane, who was 23 left when tubbo was almost 15, and tubbo joined the lmanburg army on Calliope 14, and started being nervous when he saw a lot of similaritys in the mental state of Wilbur and Jane during pogtopia.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, Ch 22-26 [Epilogue 5]

/So a lot of heavy shit has happened, though worse is yet to come (I’ve been warned of an onscreen sexual assault in chapter 32).

Everyone’s been having babies and funerals! It’s a busy time.

(note: csa mention in chapter 23, though it does not occur in the narrative)

Chapter 22

This is another John-Terezi text convo chapter. There’s been a three-year timeskip. And... it’s raining ghosts now.

So I guess that’s what became of the whole ghosts in the Furthest Ring thing?

We also learn that, on top of the breeding restrictions, trolls are banned from rising beyond certain levels in government. Jane is, we learn, pretty much running the government behind the scenes, because what makes fascist movements tick is one evil person, obviously.

Karkat’s the one with a backbone at least...

JOHN: and karkat...

JOHN: he’s gone completely off the grid!

JOHN: at first we all assumed that the reason he ran away was because he got fed up with his shitty poly relationship.

JOHN: which was probably part of it, honestly. but now i keep seeing his face on all the resistance posters!

JOHN: i think they may have actually put him in charge?

TEREZI: H3H

TEREZI: 1 4LW4YS KN3W H3 H4D 1T 1N H1M

This situation is only exacerbated by the ghosts. So that means characters who were very definitely dead in the main storyline can show up.

Gamzee has been apparently spreading this religion of ‘redemption arcs’ by ‘making out with people’, and doing some kind of milk-based ‘baptism’. John, meanwhile, asks about the ethics of kidnapping baby Tavros from his horrific parents...

We get to bare witness to Gamzee ‘redeeming’ the ghosts of Feferi and Eridan. Which involves Eridan going on about Feferi’s feet and Gamzee mashing their faces together to make them ‘kiss and make up’.

Jane, it seems, is going full Condesce in more ways than one:

Just then, a dark shadow passes over the park. The crowd falls silent as they raise their heads to watch a drone ship pass by overhead. Its design is insect-like, splitting into many jagged branches, each decked out with weapons and cameras. It’s completely silent, and encased in armor with a bright red finish, smooth and seamless. It’s often cited by Jane as the crown jewel of Crockercorp’s various military contracts with the government.

...including literally building her spaceships, and sending them out over the Troll kingdom.

So we’re basically going to have the Holocaust allegory in here I guess? Fucking hell.

chapter 23

We get more words towards Roxy’s steady character dissolution...

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.

Back when they were dating, John thought she was acting a little off. Not quite in a bad way, but perhaps a little too “in love,” too fast. At least she still seemed like herself most of the time. But since the wedding, every year that goes by, she seems to become just a little more conciliatory. Not just toward him but toward life in general. She indulges Harry Anderson liberally and almost thoughtlessly. She doesn’t care that her best friend is slowly turning into an executive overseeing the corporate arm up the puppet ass of a ruthless dictatorship. She still thinks Gamzee is being sincere about all this “redemption” bullshit, even though he’s been casting an increasingly dark and hungry shadow behind Jane: a malicious royal vizier to her burgeoning imperial persona.

So John’s going to do something, and hopes that it will make things feel ‘real’ again... which is to say obviously what he talked about with Terezi, kidnapping/rescuing Tavros Crocker. Well-intentioned, but... I do not anticipate this going well.

We learn a little such as... Jane’s planning to outlaw human and troll marriage, which would retroactively hit Rose and Kanaya. Which I guess is the final straw for them. (Frankly it should be well past the final straw for all of them. They should all be with Karkat by this point!)

Also Jane and Jake are in ‘auspistice counselling’. We witness a loud row, in front of Tavros...

TAVROS: It’s fine,,, my parents are kismeses after all,,,

like, fuck.......

It’s a birthday party for Harry Anderson (John and Roxy’s kid), and Jane’s gift is, well, a fucking imperial drone!

sometimes I picture V’s gleeful face as we see the next thing she’s got for us... and now you lick the clown’s armpit... jane’s making the Holocaust but for fictional space aliens...

John awkwardly finds an excuse to be alone with Tavros, to convince him to run away. The kid dialogue is convincingly naive.

The possibility of child sexual abuse (by Gamzee) is raised, but it’s made clear this isn’t the case: what ever else Gamzee is in this version, he doesn’t rape children. However, that the situation is overall abusive in just about every other way is more than clear. Tavros, on his part, seems to be very keen to leave once he’s convinced John can escape Jane’s security.

I have a feeling the imperial drone may become relevant again shortly.

Jade, however, witnesses what John’s trying to do. She insists it will just make everything worse... (also Jake has an ‘execution dance off show’ because yeah...)

Whatever weird character corrosion has hit them is finally raised...

JOHN: if there was another way we would have found it by now!!!

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!

JOHN: it’s like everyone just talks past each other all the time!

JADE: john...

JOHN: i’m the only one who ever seems to realize that something...

JOHN: that something’s WRONG!

Tavros sadly can’t get a word in edgewise as they start having a go at each other - John calling out everything that’s wrong, the way Jade forced a relationship on Dave and Karkat, and... and the noise is loud enough that Jane arrives on the scene.

John finally has a go at her with all the latent awfulness that’s been building up to this point. The fascism, the way she’s treated Jake, the Gamzee thing... the narration has put us very much on his side, centred his perspective, but his friends won’t hear it. And his windy powers destroy the room. So that’s something.

John runs away.

Comment: the mostly strict John viewpoint makes me wonder if there’s any degree of unreliable narration. All the same, most of the stuff is pretty undeniable.

chapter 24

This one begins with an interesting exchange:

JADE [alt-Calliope]: the timelines are interacting again.

ARADIA: ooh do you hear anything interesting

SOLLUX: don’t be s0 n0sy aradia.

To me the implication is that a lot of the ‘arrivals’ in this timeline - alt-Calliope in Jade’s body, the ghosts - are as a result of things that might be happening in the Meat story.

Through alt-Calliope’s eyes, we see Terezi and John’s conversation. Terezi is lost, in more ways than one, in the dreaming void searching for Vriska. She’s also experiencing derealisation... John, apparently in a mood for dropping harsh challenges, tells her point blank that Vriska is either dead, or, not worth her time for leaving her in doubt for so long.

alt-Calliope explains that what is at stake is not the destruction of this universe - but those of them here are ‘the lucky ones’, who live ‘beyond the reach of the prince’. She doesn’t bother to explain what is at stake.

Meanwhile, John and Terezi talk depression. There’s some really vital Terezi dialogue here...

JOHN: please. please come home.

TEREZI: TH3N WH4T

JOHN: umm, i dunno.

JOHN: we hang out and stuff?

TEREZI: JOHN YOU ST1LL DONT G3T 1T

TEREZI: 34RTH C 1S *NOT* MY HOM3

JOHN: do you really miss alternia that bad?

TEREZI: 1 D1D FOR 4 LONG T1M3

TEREZI: MOR3 TH4N K4RK4T 4ND K4N4Y4 D1D 4T L34ST

TEREZI: BUT 1 H4V3 NO 1D34 4NYMOR3

TEREZI: 4LT3RN14, VR1SK4, SGRUB

TEREZI: 1M SO CONFUS3D 4BOUT WH4T 1 W4NT

TEREZI: UGH, 1 THOUGHT TH4T NOT K1LL1NG H3R WOULD M4K3 M3 F33L B3TT3R

TEREZI: BUT 1NST34D 1TS L1K3 1 R3TCONN3D 4 HUG3 CHUNK OUT OF MY SOUL

TEREZI: 1 3R4S3D 4N 4CT1ON OF R3GR3T 4ND GR13F...  

TEREZI: 4ND JUST TURN3D 1T 1NTO SOM3TH1NG 1 C4NT STOP CH4S1NG 4FT3R

TEREZI: M4YB3 WH4T 1 D1D W4S N3CESS4RY TO S4V3 3V3RYON3 3LS3

TEREZI: BUT 1T SUR3 D1DNT S4VE M3

oh terezi....

terezi is giving up. she tells john she texted, echoing his words, to ‘give him the courtesy of closure’. and that she’s going to let herself die, alone in the Furthest Ring.

this is the ‘sweet fluffy’ branch huh

chapter 25

finally an update on what’s going on with Karkat!

he’s been somehow appointed ‘Commander’ of the rebellion, with good old Swifer Eggmop as one of his comrades! I’m so glad Swifer is having a role. Karkat is not all that pleased about the successes of his rebellion:

KARKAT: SO FAR ALL THIS “TROLL REBELLION” HAS AMOUNTED TO IS A WHOLE LOT OF DICK ALL, WITH AN ADDITIONAL SIDE SERVING OF JACK SQUAT, FOLLOWED UP BY A FINAL COURSE OF GETTING TO WATCH OUR TOP ANALYST, CLIPER BORDEN, BEING FORCED TO DANCE TO AVOID LIFE IMPRISONMENT IN A LABOR CAMP ON LIVE TELEVISION AND MAKING A COMPLETE ASS OF HIMSELF.

It’s all a weird mix of surreal and grimdark, much like the Alpha kids’ backstory in Homestuck proper. There’s hard labour camps... making cake; a ‘pastry-based shadow dictatorship’.

Rose and Kanaya are at least involved somewhat in the troll rebellion, and transport of the Mother Grub has been arranged.

Anyway, Karkat’s typically grumpy internal monologue is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Meenah from another dimension. A living Meenah - equipped with a Ring of Life. John asks if she got it from Calliope, but Meenah insists she did not. (Possibly she got it from Andrew Hussie himself? I’d have to watch Cascade again probably...)

Meenah, it seems, is fresh from battling Lord English - apparently without success. But her massive army of ghosts arrives with her... and she’s willing for Karkat to take charge and order her around, as long as he does it with a suitably commanderly demeanour. Does this mean the rebellion now stands more of a chance? Meenah is ruthless (she was the Condesce in another life), though capricious... Karkat is honest and direct and angry about the right things, but rather prone to getting lost in it.

Also he still won’t text Dave, and won’t let Rose talk to him about it.

chapter 26

Back to John, who’s thinking about messaging Terezi again - presumably in the hope that she is not, in fact, dead?

He’s getting a good old mope on about the seeming fakeness, non-’canonicity’ of life on Earth C. But after some ‘melodramatic contemplating’ in this vein, he’s interrupted by his dad’s car.

I’m going to be very curious if the Meat route explains how all this stuff got into the Earth C universe.

Unfortunately, what John finds in the car is... not his dad, but a bit of Terezi’s blood. From which he concludes... he’s never going to see her again, there was never even a possibility of it.

Feeling derealisation more than ever, John just screams a lot.

Damn lol, this story is making me care about John Egbert of all people!

epilogue 5

This is the episode where the whole idyll comes crashing down. Things aren’t ok, things weren’t going to be ok, trying to pretend things were ok just made everyone miserable.

I am sufficiently depressed that that rather appeals as a narrative - much more than a ‘happily ever after’ ending. But it’s not over yet.

Hopefully there’s yet hope for the characters I like to find some manner of escape from this latest hell, develop out of the worst selves they’ve built... Roxy, at least, I hope can change, stop being this non-person...

[blaperile]

Homestuck^2 - Reactions Pages 22 - 32

Page 22:

Of course, if we get so many classic elements from the earlier days from Homestuck again, the fetch modi can't be forgotten! :D

Awesome.

What does the "MSPA Modus" do though :P

Like abundantChewtoys said to me, too bad it doesn't mean we now see an inventory somewhere on the website here. xD

Page 23:

Dirk's being Dirk again. Serious McSerious. Not even Terezi's silly commands can get through to him. :P

Page 24:

Omfg, Dirk's got this very panel lying over there on his desk.

This reminds me a lot of Doc Scratch's ATH scrapbook in which he kept a bunch of Homestuck panels. Seeing as Doc Scratch was partly Dirk Strider, maybe we shouldn't be surprised he's doing a similar thing, haha.

He's also got a paper version of himself lying around... Interestingly, it appears to be his ordinary Prince of Heart outfit, not the new updated version, though he IS sporting his shiny new orange shades.

Page 25:

Pffff, a drawing of himself and Jake.

And hey, in his drawing style like those old drawings he made for Caliborn! I like how his style stayed the same.

Also, I admire how the paper is depicted here. Looks so realistic!

...Considering how mean Dirk was treating Jake in the Epilogue, he's just gonna throw this into that incinerator-type thrash can, isn't he?

Page 26:

Yeah, called it. :/

Huh, what's the deal with the other drawings lying around? Are they future panels? Characters we haven't been introduced to yet? "Spoilers" if you will?

Page 27:

Pffff, same thing with the panel containing the panel itself.

The dialog here intrigues me. More meta of course about how Homestuck has worked traditionally, not always visually showing everything that happens and sometimes just doing it through dialog. But also an interesting reference to how the Epilogues dropped the visuals entirely.

I wonder if there's going to be more experiments with that during Homestuck^2.

Page 28:

Welp! I didn't expect this page to immediately be panel-less.

It actually kind of reminds me of my project "Homestuck From The Perspective Of" on Mspfanventures where I put pages from Homestuck, but basically from the perspective of a particular character. And sometimes that means it's also without any panel, because it's just text.

Anyway, I like that it's explicitly called out that this command prompt is just like those of the Exiles, and that they really just are tools with the ability to psychically influence people.

Actually, now that I think about it, it makes sense how aware Terezi is of Dirk's involvement. It's kind of like how she was perfectly aware when Snowman talked to her as her Exile, and started communicating back with her.

And just what was Terezi about to uncover? Another soulbot? For himself? For Terezi? For John? For someone else entirely?

Page 29:

Oh my god, Dirk wasn't kidding in the narration that Terezi made him do all sorts of silly stuff.

Hahaha, I hadn't even realized yet that thing was a TAB watering can.

The way the Jade and Dave entry artefacts are impaled... I wonder if it's supposed to be a reference to the Game Over timeline where Dave died on top of Jade after being impaled... I hope it's not foreshadowing of events to come, at least.

I wonder if there's any meaning to his wall scribblings! I mean, it's clear that Terezi made him do it, it's written in her quirk. But it's formulated in the exact same way as the good old genetic codes. You can even identify a real word in it, "N31GH".

Is that going to come up again at some point?

What should we understand from Rose's dialog here? Does it mean that whatever is about to happen next could be neither identified as "good" or "bad" and so she can't really identify it as either? Wheter they'll be lucky or not?

Page 30:

Oh wow, I thought her having a migraine was kind of a joke, and a funny reference to her headaches at the start of the Epilogues.

But no, it seems that there's a voice inside her telling her that all this is wrong. And that's really good to know.

So, they've determined that this planet has got Sburban technology! I assume that to be a Frog Temple, or could they be talking about something else?

I really like Dirk's narration here. It's a cool callback to the earlier days of Homestuck, where he did mention that he felt like he was drowning in all these versions of himself.

It's good for him that he found a way to be happy with himself, but... it's unfortunate that it went like this. :/

Page 31:

Oh man, what kind of games is Dirk referring to?

Page 32:

Wooooooah, that's a really cool panel.

So that's what the new planet looks like! Looks very Earth-like, with a lot of land and oceans.

OH BOY, I saw the command for the next page: "CHAPTER 1. Ghostflusters"

...What the fuck does that mean though? xD

Ghostflusters... that's clearly a reference to Ghostbusters. But... what's going to happen that has to do with GHOSTS? I mean, all ghosts we know of ended up in the Candy timeline, right?

So as far as I'm aware, there aren't any real ghosts around here that could show up... right?

Or are we moving over to the other ship now, and that they're playing some kind of Ghostbusters Earth-C rip-off. I guess that's a possibility. :P

....OH WOW. I only just noticed the watermark at the bottom of the panel: "to be continued..."

Does that mean we're now switching perspectives to someone else? Is it time for Dave, Roxy, Karkat, Kanaya and Alternate Calliope now?

Or suddenly a time skip to the players of this new SBURB session?

In any case, looks like Homestuck^2 won't be working with Acts but with Chapters! And then I guess the past 32 pages were like the Prologue!

So yeah, this Prologue was a LOT like the old Homestuck we were used to... combined with elements from the Epilogues. We'll see in how far this will continue now that we're moving to the first chapter.

And just who the actual "main characters" of this story are going to be! Will the passengers on the OTHER ship be the true main characters of this story? Or will it be Dirk, Rose and Terezi? Or all of them?

Or will it be none of them and instead the players of the new SBURB session?

And I'm still wondering... will some of our "old" main characters show up after all, who have been seemingly written out of relevance for now? Especially John and Vriska, but also people like Meenah, Jane, Jake and Alpha Calliope.

And I assume the actual Jade will show up at SOME point in this story, I guess it mostly depends on when Alternate Calliope is ready to let her go... I hope for Jade that she wasn't suppressed during this entire 3-year trip.