#anyways the positives of living alone still greatly outweigh the negatives for me. particularly when youre still able to see friends often

[felidthing]

one of the downsides of living alone is everything getting dirty when you get sick. congrats youre better now figure out where the hell to start fixing everything else

[swordstrider]

Epilogue Thoughts

Well, throughout the clusterfuck of meme reblogs, it’s finally time for me to pull up a velvet cushioned chair and discuss the “tales of dubious authenticity”. As such, there will naturally be spoilers pertaining to both the meat and candy routes, although I’ll focus more on meat, since I actually read a hell of a lot more there than I did with candy. Continue under the cut if you wish.

Since it’s the shortest possible spiel I have to offer, I’ll get the candy route out of the way first. My read-through of the epilogues began with this one, although I only lasted through eight chapters before promptly giving up. The reason for this, is, well... The candy route is just a mess, as it is 100% likely supposed to be. What I had expected from it was what some in the fandom have naturally ascribed to Homestuck’s candy metaphor; Fluff, romance, friendship, happiness, low plot, and so on.

However, it’s clear to me that candy itself extends into something more... sour, if you will, and I suppose it should have been blatant from the get-go, what with trickster mode being apparent in the comic. I only have remnants of memories from those few chapters, as well as commentary from fans which I took into account, and it’s naturally fucking insane. I don’t think I necessarily have to prattle too long on the matter, but, wow. It really does seem like the next edition of trickster mode, and that’s just too far for me, for various reasons. Although I didn’t spend much time preoccupied with the candy route, I’m essentially summarizing it as maximum craziness to a very disturbing degree, and as such, I’m not going to involve myself any further with it. As far as I’m concerned, it never “really” happened from my own point of view, despite it being an option likely disposed to... some potentially canon element to it? I don’t even know anymore. All I can truly attribute to this particular route is a metaphorical, sugarcoated mess on my lawn that I never really wanted in the first place, let alone anticipated.

Moving on to the meat route, there’s naturally a fucking lot that I can talk about here. I suppose you could say... this one will be the real meat of this post. Haha, funny.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, I continued onward with this route a bit after clawing my way through barely eight chapters of the candy route. I did it this way since, if I remember correctly, this particular order was recommended by V, or someone else involved with the production of the epilogues. I think such an order was... an okay choice? I didn’t feel particularly affected by it in hindsight, but I feel as though the upgraded prose and general non-wackiness made me feel somewhat better after the sinister experience of the candy route.

I’ll progress by listing the things that I enjoyed or liked about the meat route first.

1) As I mentioned before, I’m quite sure the prose and convoluted narrative were toned up quite a lot here, along with being linear and not feeling like a mess beyond rectifying. It’s more comprehensible, in spite of about forty six chapters worth of content and so many details to catch on to. There seems to be some sort of purpose within this route, rather than the capricious nature of its complement, which is something I can respect. It still feels sort of unstable, since there’s just so much shit to grasp, but I guess I’ll let that one slide.

2) Just like Homestuck was about honesty when inspecting the struggles, conflicts, and inner workings of teenagers, I feel as though the meat route did nicely in continuing that pattern. The characters clearly still continue having conflict through their adult years, and this is especially shown throughout Terezi and John, as well as the drifting relationship of Rose and Roxy, and the isolated state that Rose and Kanaya were in with each other; Likely being so entangled with their relationship that they distanced from others slowly, yet surely. I have no experience in the range of my early twenties yet, but I have heard other people comment that this captures the particular stage well. I feel like it does, too, since individuals can naturally go through general conflicts such as distance/isolation, mental illnesses, physical or emotional ailments, and so on during any stage of their life, whether it be as a young child, a teenager, or an adult. The depictions of John’s depression felt very, very realistic, and, on a more personable level for me, relatable. The numbing of emotions, the isolation from others, his self loathing, all just... very much captured what depression is really like, in a sense. Not everyone’s experience with depression is the same, but this felt very... close to me. It feels like the first time I’ve ever seen a character depicted with such an authentic struggle with depression, and even a character with such a genuine, visible struggle as a whole. I can’t put into words how reality-based this felt. The sheer fact that even in the epilogues, the honesty that life is difficult and filled with conflict is an amazing expansion to Homestuck’s already in-depth examination of such a thing itself.

3) The relationships are yet another point I’d like to make here, particularly Dave/Karkat and John/Terezi. Dave and Karkat still have this romantic bond, even if they were cagey when admitting it for a bit. They still love each other just as much, joke around with each other, support each other, feel good with each other, understand each other, and are happy with each other. That’s a lot of fucking “each other”s, but I’ll be damned if I can’t get the point across. It’s made very clear cut that they’re still very much in love, even in spite of growing political tensions and other conflicts. As for John and Terezi, it’s shown that they have this very unique bond that no other characters quite have with each other. Sure, they joke around and poke fun at each other, but most of all, they have this deep, innate connection in sort of relating to each other, in a way. They both had experiences with numbness, sadness, depression, and their own forms of trauma, and they were able to discuss some of this with each other on a very vulnerable level during that time. They discussed things that were important to them. Their relationship is also another thing that feels very authentic; Two young adults emotionally supporting each other and just having hope that the other has their back, especially in such trying, traumatic times. This particular bond was so strong that it even went into a romantic area, which also feels realistic, because couples supporting each other, especially under such dismal circumstances, is really fucking important. Although their former forms of communication were essentially two people having fun with each other and just fucking around with each other, this showed us that John and Terezi can reach such a wonderfully vulnerable point, to the area that they just connect so much that they’re in love with each other, whether it be redrom or blackrom.

4) As for the closing positive note on the meat route, I loved alternate Calliope’s role in this. She takes on this role that is to be expected of a fully fledged Muse of Space, what with taking command over the story in lieu of Dirk, at some points. She’s become a true conductor yet again, and she’s putting one of her sole hobbies, storytelling, to work just like before, although in a more expansive way. I think it was quite creative, having her narrate many areas of the story and involving herself in efforts to protect others as much as she could.

And now, I come to the areas in the meat route that I didn’t particularly enjoy or like. 

1) For starters, I do really dislike this whole “horny Jade” concept that’s enacted in this route. I realize this is because of her dog hormones, but I find it... very perturbing and disgusting that she’s forcing herself in the midst of Dave and Karkat’s relationship, likely just wanting it to deteriorate so they can provide her with... services, and such. It’s especially horrid when you consider how uncomfortable Dave and Karkat respectively seem to be when she brings such awkward topics up. They stutter, flee, and whatnot, yet she still continues, as if none of it is a blatant warning sign. I don’t really know how hormones or even dog hormones work, but... I’d appreciate a sense of social awareness for her if possible, at least down the road. It feels... off of Jade to be doing such a thing, when, even if not the most selfless of people, she is generally quite courteous and respectful of others and their boundaries. Perhaps the hormones are the cause of her seemingly nonexistent cognizance of their discomfort around her during these times, but it still... unsettles me. I suppose we’ll have to find out later, if they happen to expand upon the topic.

2) Then, there’s my... sort of antithesis to my second positive, if you will. While I did particularly enjoy the realism that this route had to offer, it feels a little too unhappy, dismal, hopeless, what have you with your dejected adjectives and the like. Certainly there are some good things, such as Dave/Karkat and John/Terezi bonds, but I feel as though, at this point, the negative state of the meat route’s narrative outweighs the positives greatly. Jane is likely a new threat to Earth C’s society, seeing as she’s this Condesce-inspired fascist and a xenophobe now in office with likely unwell schemes of her own, John is very likely dead for good and died on a very depressing note due to his mental state, Dirk is in his Ultimate Self mode and seems to have quite the advantage at the moment along with Rose as his hostage, Terezi is still depressed and conflicted, Dave and Karkat wallowed in losing the election by nearly consuming alcohol, but also by going back to their typical shut-in lives, nobody knows about John and never seemed to have supported him, aided him, or cared for him much at all in the beginning and the end, Davepetasprite^2 died, and... overall, everything is looking extremely grim. Not to say that I don’t invite conflicts, challenges, and the like to be apparent in media that I like, but it feels... empty. Hopeless. Like nothing is left, nothing is redeemable. It just felt... Too depressing, too poignant, and angsty for me. Naturally, nobody is going to resolve issues such as these overnight, and not everyone or everything in a story will necessarily be happy and perfect in the end, but this feels like such an overdrive to me. Especially since I’m going through a very troubling time in my life at the moment, it makes me feel bitter; Like none of this can be ameliorated whatsoever, and the story is doomed to be depressing and dismal forever. I simply hope it will end on a slightly better note than this in finality, even though not every single problem will be solved right away, and isn’t bound to be solved in the end. I just want some sort of hope for all of these characters.

3) I’m not sure I’d consider this a negative due to reformed views I’ve had from other posts, but... Man. Dirk, y’know? I’ll include my original thoughts and post-reform thoughts here anyway. Initially, I thought this particular Dirk was extremely OOC; Only inserted into the narrative just for last minute villain perks, or some shit like that. It felt like such a shell of Dirk’s former self in the sense that I thought this development came completely out of nowhere for no discernible reason. I thought that it was a complete oxymoron, since Dirk’s arc was supposed to detail a young man with self-loathing issues attempting to cope with his toxic alternates; To, perhaps, create a new slate for himself even in the wake of his flaws and the actions of his other iterations of himself. But I realize now that Dirk is likely undergoing a very advanced and more self-restrained form of this so called Ultimate Self. This means his original self is sort of merging consciousness with that of his alternate selves, such as Lil’ Hal, Bro Strider, ARquiusprite, and a potential sliver of Caliborn, since ARquiusprite was a part of that particular soul. These conditions considered, it very well would make for an actual villain of himself, an intimidatingly cognizant and even powerful one, too. I suppose that, as fan speculation detailed, Dirk’s Ultimate Self is not necessarily going to be the most courteous, amicable being ever. Quite the contrary, in fact. And his mannerisms begin to make sense when considering the Dave/Karkat segment Dirk had, along with his odd commentary on gender discussion. Seems very Caliborn-esque, although it may be a combination of others, too, since his consciousness is merged with multiple Dirk splinters.

4) And for my final negative, I’m going to discuss Roxy’s gender identity. A very welcome surprise, I’d say, because I also said trans rights. Anyway, my essential issue with this topic is how it’s treated within the narrative and within dialogue. It almost feels like this sort of joke from the producers of the epilogue, in a sense. Maybe the shitty “Check Your Privilege Dave” joke is still nagging at me, but I just have this odd... feeling that this isn’t being treated seriously, especially with how Terezi seems to instantaneously point the pronoun change out almost in this shitty method of humor, and how Roxy is experimenting with pronouns quite often and comes off as hesitant when they first come out as nonbinary. I’m going to take this judgement with a huge grain of salt for now, because it’s not outright offensive, and seems to have well intentions. I suppose I could easily be being a pedantic fuck, looking too hard into things and having too much apprehension. Although, if it is a joke, I’d be very disappointed to learn so, seeing as V affirmed that the crew consisted of LGBT+ people who intended to make the reading experience safe and open for the community. Still, I’m going to presume I’m being just a bit too skeptical for the moment.

That’s pretty much all of the points that stand out to me for now. I’m honestly unsure of how this epilogue will turn out or where it will go for the most part, but I’m certain there will be a continuation at some point, perhaps even with a third choice that may combine both meat and candy in a healthy way somehow, or maybe avoid both concepts altogether. Either way, I hope things turn out okay in the end, or at least that the epilogue will end on some sort of happy note, even if some conflicts and issues are still ongoing. 

EDIT: Do I consider any of this to be canon, including the meat route, within my own head? No, I really don’t. It’s just... a little too far gone for my tastes, but power to ya if you like it and consider it canon. It’s also sad to see that Dirk stans are hurting from this new development within him, so honestly, I give y’all a collective pat on the back. You deserve it.

[thebookofdave]

On Group Travel

Technically speaking the whole of our Australia trip when we were nineteen was group travel.  The company was called something like Oz Experience and mostly consisted of transporting fifty twenty year olds around the country via famous landmarks, bars, sexual experiences (not a lot of that for us sadly, I blame the haircuts from the sheep shearing farm) and in one memorable incident, a crashed 4x4.

In practice because there were so many people and because it was step on and step off there was seldom much of a group vibe.  There were exceptions to this, 4x4 driving on Fraser Island (including wrecking the car) was a lot of fun, we had to cook our own food and camp each night so we all got to know each other pretty well and since we had an unexpected extra night we ended up quite close by the end of it.   In the main however, we tended to meet people in the stopovers rather than on the bus journey's, the loss of 24 hours of our lives in Cheeky Monkey's in Byron Bay for example was a combination of random people in our hostel, extremely attractive bar staff, party games and Bundaburg Overproof rum.  

Still, I didn't do any group travel for a long time after that, I'd enjoyed traveling alone for all the reasons outlined in the last blog and I strongly disliked the concept of being on a routine.  I did short trips here and there as a way to see places, Canada for instance is a pain to get to some areas unless you undertake an organised tour but in the main I avoided it.

I ended up on a proper group tour the first time around because I couldn't really work out how to get to see everything I wanted to in the time period I had.  I'd always fancied seeing Morocco, it had had a certain feeling of mystery to it but it was also clear with my innate sense of direction and navigation combined with a really poor public transport system I was asking to end up in all the wrong places.  

The company I picked was called something like Explore Adventure travel, it doesn't exist anymore but it was catered towards 18-39 year olds who wanted a more cultured experience and who were in reasonably good shape.  The trip itself was only for a couple of weeks but it remains one of the best travel experiences of my life.  We saw a huge amount of the country including the Sahara and we had an excellent local tour guide.  I think it also benefited greatly from only having us staying in many of the locales, so we all ended up bonding quite quickly.  We even managed a local night club for an evening out which was... interesting.

The follow up trip to that was South America which I chose because languages are not really my forte.  I was for instance; the only man not allowed to take French GCSE as I'd bring the average school mark down.  South America was fantastic as a trip although slightly less successful as a group experience, it was three tours welded into one so some people had already been on a tour when we joined them and some people had to leave early, I particularly gelled well with an English couple so when they left it was me, one other guy in a couple and seventeen girls which sounds good on paper but in reality...  Later on however we were joined by a couple of Aussie guys who were great to hang out with and things returned to some normality but it has left me with the view that some balance in numbers is helpful.  

It was also my first experience (sadly not my last) of group illness which rocketed in Bolivia and meant a lot of people missed out on some parts of the trip.  Still the positives far outweighed the negatives and the experiences I remember were things that will stay with me, playing football with the locals in Lake Titicaca; albeit at high altitude so my pace was even worse than usual, the Inca trail and playing around on the Salt Flats.  

Interestingly when I did Central America with a group, apart from some food poisoning most people were fine.  I got ill for the first time in my life but I suspect that was due to swallowing half the water in El Salvador during the gravity falls, I should have stuck with the Irish plan of killing anything via the local rum.  

Since then I've done plenty of further travel in groups but in the vein of the previous blog here's a few things I enjoy about it and a couple of things I don't.

It's easy:

You have an itinerary, you get instructions every day of where you have to be, what time and there's little stress about missing a bus or being in the wrong place.  It also means you don't need to plan, everything is taken care of for you so it's pretty relaxing as an experience, you can just watch the world go by (or realistically read a book in my case).

You see a lot:

It's easy to mock being on a routine but tours are planned around the main sights of a country, if you're on a short time scale it's a really good way to view the highlights of a country.  You can always decide you want to come back at a later point.  They really cram the activities in; the downside is this means early starts and a lot of driving but I would struggle to argue I'd have seen more in the same timescales if I'd done it myself.

It's sociable:

You have a group of people, mostly around the mid twenties to mid thirties age and you'll be spending a lot of time together.  When it clicks, it really works and most of the time I've had some awesome groups of people on my tours.  It's particularly important if you're doing a long group tour and I'm fortunate that the last long tour I did, Central America, had a great group of people but NZ South Island was also excellent.  It makes evenings much more enjoyable when you have a group of people to sit around, share drinks with and play games.  Oh and people hook up of course which is always entertaining, alcohol plus spending a lot of time sharing rooms tends to mean there's a fair bit tension.  

There's a safety net:

I luckily very rarely get ill aside from coughs and colds, I suspect a lifetime of adventurous and questionable food choices abroad has helped my constitution somewhat but I've certainly seen people get pretty sick, parasites, fevers, complete collapse.  Having someone who knows the country well, has access to a group doctor and can speak the language is always a reassuring thing to have.  

It's *generally* cheaper than doing the same stuff yourself:

If the route looks to take in most of the things you wanted to see anyway at the same standard, chances are it's cheaper to do it as part of a group.  You'll have all your transport and accommodation included with the addition of a guide. There are two massive caveats with this, firstly it's all based on sharing a room so there's a premium if you're not and the second is there are always a ton of add on extras.  They're always optional but honestly, for some of the evening activities you're going to feel pretty bored if you don't go.  The backup free option for daytime is usually a hike or walk or some sort though so I guess you'd get pretty fit?

On the downsides...

When the plague hits the group...:

When I did Egypt seventeen out of twenty-one people got sick, Bolivia was about roughly the same number, China had something nasty going around which everyone got to a lesser or greater extent.  You're all in close proximity to each other so there'll probably be a bit of freshers flu anyway but any kind of illness gets exacerbated.  

There's not a lot of flexibility:

If there's anything you want to see that's not on the list it's highly unlikely you'll get a chance to see it unless it coincides with a free day.  The problem with the tight timetables is that there's rarely time to head off the beaten path:

There will be a falling out:

Most of the time it's because someone got drunk and was a bit of arse.  They're usually over the quickest and you've only got half a day or so of awkward bus ride to wait it out.  Relationship arguments are pretty bad depending how feisty the couple is but they're also mostly limited to frosty stares and stony silence.  The worst ones tend to be when someone's slept with someone else they shouldn't have, particularly if their bf/gf is also in the group and then you just need to turn up the headphones and take an interest in a book for the next few days until it all blows over.

Timekeeping can get annoying:

I appreciate the hypocrisy of saying this as a man who was an hour and a half late returning from Petra but consistently missing the return time for trips creates two issues.  Firstly, everyone will start coming back later on the basis they don't want to sit on the bus for the guilty party, secondly it starts to throw the whole timetable out of sync which means other visits get curtailed or cancelled altogether.  Most of the time in my experience people are pretty good about coming back at the appointed hour but there are some people who just seem to consistently be late for everything.

The snoring:

If you are unlucky enough to share a room with an Irishman with a broken nose, just bump him off, don't do the polite thing of believing that it's his allergies, just kill him at the start of the trip, it'll make the rest of your time so much happier.  The sole reason I now always pay the premium to have my own room.  

The sex:  

You're not paying for the Hilton, these are thin walls most of the time; headphones/ earplugs are your friend.  Unless it's you of course, in which case, just try and keep it down and hope you have a roommate who enjoys late night strolls.