#based on stormclouds gathering on the horizon line from the scott omalley interview

[homestuckhomestuckhomestuck]

Narrator handoff in HS: 

Rules:

1) Narrators are usually “omniscient.” (Possible rule, doc scratch: This only means they are aware of what happens in their own “Alpha timelines,” their birth and their death.) However, omniscience has a particular definition in Homestuck. It means they have an awareness of “the narrative,” the story of Homestuck, and the characters within it, including any Homestuck character’s thoughts, reasoning, and any event at any time that would be relevant within the scope of their narrative control. They are also aware of the audience. They are still vulnerable to the rules of Homestuck, though, which means they can’t see into “void” aspected characters as easily, or other “dark spots,” ie, extremely off the wall hypothetical OOC possibilities of character choices. They also can be distracted by what they are actually doing in story. (ex. AH, Epilogue!Dirk)

2) Narrators are always characters. In Homestuck, exposition is a plot mechanic. (This is only questionable as a rule if the “Choose your character!!!” pages in the A6A6 intermissions count as “narration,” or can’t count as “pre-programmed narration.”) 

3),“Narration” is expositions and commands (“TT: Deploy Totem Lathe.”) (ex. AH’s “one yard” rant) 

4) Narrators can “interfere with [canon?] events.” Narrators can influence characters through narration, which all characters subliminally sense as “a voice in their head,” often mistaking the narration for their own thoughts. However, since a narrator in Homestuck is always a character themselves, even though a narrator may be aware of the character’s natural thought process, the narrator could selectively twist, persuade, or state with conviction to change what a character does/develops, and make it happen within the story. This is called “interference.” (A narrator’s power between “canon” and “post-canon” seems largely based on whatever “AH” would define, so still questioning if there’s even a difference.) 

5) Neutral narration is not referred to as “interference.”

6) Narrators can influence anything told to the audience under the span of their “narrative control,” in a literal sense, even if it is in different time periods or order, as long as it is while they are narrating. (This means following a narrator’s timeline also affects how to read the events they are narrating. ex. AH DOTA)

7) Characters can act according to their own reasoning and events continue to happen even if a narrator isn’t “narrating” it to the audience, including the narrator themself. (Spelled out in Caliborn sections, it was like an exhaustive tutorial in Homestuck "narrator” rules.) This also means that a narrator can leave a lingering (plot affecting) effect on the character, even if they go back to being uninfluenced. 

8) There are different levels of “mastery over the narrative.” This is maybe the most odd-meta Homestuck gets about narrator rules, the more “mastery” a narrator has over the narrative, the more omniscient (able to sense the entire story, as opposed to watching it on a screen) they seem to get, and the more easily they can do longer stretches of actually telling the story to the audience without characters noticing they’re being influenced and fighting them. Also may to be narration-skill based. (ex. AH and Caliborn, Caliborn’s progression, epilogue!Dirk/muse-Calliope.) 

9) “The narrative” includes being able to change story format and style, site formatting and style, music, etc, which may be different from a character’s “confining reality” ie, the story of Homestuck in it’s entirety. (hypothetical, b/c clear distinctions made between John’s retcon ability, vs Caliborn and Dirk’s narration. Using meta reasoning, retcons are only made reasonable a plot mechanic because of John’s character, and in a meta way, allowed possibly because John is the MC. John’s MC status ensures a lot of things are “likely” to happen to him, other plot affecting aspects are personality of the character, classpect, themes, etc. Also, retcons and narration are different abilities, that affect characters and each other differently on different levels. This is totally intentional a distinction. (See: the whole Caliborn vs John incidents.)

10) Considering rules 6 and 7, characters can fight against narration, but “winning” is a more character-specific question of negotiation, classpect, character, themes, build up, etc. 

Note: most of these narrator rules come from Caliborn and AH during Act 6. Some come from Doc Scratch. Act 6 AH in retrospect spells out narrator rules every time he does something. (“You aren’t supposed to be able to contact me [Caliborn].” “[Vriska] had her chance to be important.” ie Narrator still has to stick to the rule that characters must be alive to be important. He also knew he would be turned down because that would be too much interference in plot by AH, the ‘creator of Homestuck.’ Meta. “I didn’t merely write Homestuck, blah blah blah, I’m omniscient.” “[Gamzee] doesn’t die in any timeline I’m personally aware of.” Gamzee dies during a John retcon-caused storyline/event and during a Caliborn-narrated storyline/event.  Zero narration every time John has a span of retcon, but Caliborn continues to speak in the narratives during the span of John retcons, even if AH doesn’t, similar to the doomed timeline “losing contact” mechanic,  though it’s not clear if he’s aware of retcon storyline events.) Epilogue!Dirk and Muse-Calliope only reinforce the mechanics all the way at the end of their specific routes. 

For unclear reasons, Epilogue!Dirk has a lot of parallels with Caliborn, including the part where Caliborn can interact with the narrative during John retcons but AH can’t.