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raecaw · 6 months ago

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hi okay i was meant to sleep like an hour ago this is going to be so fucking incoherent you have been warned

first off the timeline divide in the epilogues into meat and candy is so fucking interesting to me because its like. its so clearly a reference to the meat/candy binary of storycrafting that hussie talks about in the [s] descend author commentary iirc - meat as action heavy content that drives the plot forward, and candy as lighter less heavy content (usually focused on shipping which matches with the candy timeline being represented with the sucker juju or whatever the fuck its called). caliborn is meat calliope is candy this is simple this is basic.

*BUT* - if you look at calliope and caliborns roles in the narrative of homestuck itself theres some really interesting shit there right - caliborn is the meat. he drives the plot forward he wants nothing but action he literally tries to steal the narrative and recreate it in his own image. calliope is the candy the focus on shipping. in universe shes explicitly written to be a fandom stand in, especially obvious in how she draws fanart of the kids right. caliborn = meat = canon (also side note i cant fit anywhere else - the meat timeline is the one where john kills lord english, which has to happen to preserve the timeline, arguably making it the 'canon' timeline). calliope = candy = fandom. obviously the two timelines are representative of those two binaries, and alt calliope controls the candy timeline (which has a much heavier focus on shipping/fan kids/relationship drama/generally the type of shit you see in fanon content) but theres no caliborn right? hes dead.

enter dirk. unfortunately one of the most interesting fucking characters in this entire shit heap i hate it here. hes clearly the caliborn stand in for post canon - he controls the meat timeline, he and alt calliope keep trying to kill each other, he hijacks control of the narrative homosuck style and arguably pushes his friends and family to act out of character to 'fix' the narrative (second side tangent here but to me thats why everyones so. gestures vaguely at post canon. not themselves yk. theyre either in the fanon timeline or the 'canon' timeline thats being hijacked and controlled just like homosuck i swear theres a reason theyre like that guys- (<voice of a guy desperate for post canon to have anymeaning)). not to mention all the connections dirk already has to caliborn theyre basically splinters in law at this point

so everything lines up pretty well so far right. candy is the fanon timeline, the focus on shipping and interpersonal drama as established in the meat/candy storycraft binary, controlled by the character written as a stand in for fans. meat is the canon timeline, the focus on action and conflict, controlled by (a stand in for) caliborn. its all normal and great and fantastic if you just ignore the burning trash heap that is the actual content of post canon.

and then the dirkjohn propaganda kicks in /hj

but fr though this doesnt even have to be in a shipping way its just. jesus fucking christ these two have so many parallels its insane.

winding it back to og homestuck for a moment - john arguably *is* homestuck right. hes the audience surrogate, the first character we meet and the last we see, the guy that gets retcon powers and literally rewrites the entire narrative around him - literally leaving his mark permanently on the rest of the comic (the arms and oil retcons on the early pages). john as homestuck is i think a fairly common reading and also makes the rest of my argument work so lets just accept it and move on okay <3 okay. also, the way he becomes the narrative is incredibly heir of breath coded - he literally inherits/becomes the narrative, and the narrative changes around him to protect him (all ways heir interacts with aspect), and he does all of this almost without realising it. he never wants the narrative, and he barely uses it once he has it - honestly, hes pretty detatched from it, just kinda... breezing through yk. breath coded behaviour

so. johns homestuck - or homestuck proper at least. and what does john do in the epilogues?

...he either dies or becomes a depressed repressed mess going through a midlife crisis that basically just drifts through life doing fuck all. yyeah. homestuck aint doing too great in post canon (Which. checks out). him dying in meat specifically though is really fucking interesting to me, *because*-

i think. ult dirk is post canon. or at least, he is to post canon what john was to homestuck. he literally kills john (homestuck) and takes his place as the bearer of the narrative - and hes entirely fucking aware of what hes doing (yet another fun parallel between them - john never has to face himself (not even an alternate self - one of very few characters in the comic to not have one), and if you consider him the narrative then he never has to face the narrative. dirk *constantly* has to face himself, which means if he is post canon, hes constantly aware of it. theres also potentially smth here with heirs being a passive class while princes are active but i could be wrong ive never cared about +/- alignments LMAO). dirk's also the narrative in an incredibly prince coded way - he destroys the narrative, and he destroys *through* the narrative. he kills the very thing he wants to become more than anything because thats the only way he *can* become it.

so. dirks post canon. he and calliope had split control over the epilogues, but now hes almost completely taken over control of post canon (and im tempted to say thats commentary on how much influence the fans had on the epilogues, following the calliope = fandom reading, but im not gonna put much weight into that because i have no fucking clue how things went down behind the scenes). calliope can definitely still be read as the fandom in post canon though, which makes her hatred of ult dirk and everything hes doing even better because like. yeah! look at the fan reception to everything in post canon! we do want it dead the way she wants ult dirk dead! (also really fun in how it matches up with cherubs fighting for domination - dirk being the caliborn stand in and alt calliope being the calliope that *did* fight her brother and win). also ult dirk (canon) hating alt calliope (the fandom) lines up really fucking well with how bitter and cynical post canon was towards the homestuck fanbase but again thats probably not intentional

so. ult dirk is canon and fighting to 'fix' the narrative/continue its relevancy (could be seen as a metaphor for how capitalism insists creative properties continue on into infinity with pointless sequels < absolutely a fucking reach). alt calliope is the fandom and would Really like him to fucking stop please. john is homestuck and is just fucking dead

(side note pt 3 electric boogaloo but i dont think its a coincidence that the only surviving jegbert (the only one that can crack her egg barring any weird corpse revival bullshit) is in the candy/fanon timeline. it also might not be a coincidence that the only strider to not be ascended and/or turned into a robot is roxy (also transed gener in the meat timeline). ult dirk gets his ass kicked by the power of transsexuality real)

anyway tldr because its 2 am but post canon is just an extended metaphor for sequels killing their sources, mocking their corpses and then trying and failing to fill their roles while the fandom tries to murder them and everything after the paradox space comics was a mistake thank you and good night

ok firstly: who are you and what are you doing on my blog. secondly: thank you for this it's everything i was hoping for when i asked for you to hyperfixate on BC in my inbox.

i fully agree with this reading + appreciate the nuance that BC brings to the table. I think Hussie coined and embodied the term "suicide of the author" by explicitly turning canon over to the readers and allowing the concept of canon to become dubious. it was an extremely risky move that paid off in some ways and flopped in others. much like most other risks hussie took with hs. i find BC so compelling because it is simultaneously flogging a dead horse and creating interesting arcs and futures for beloved characters. Like thats the thing i cant say i love BC and I can't say i hate it, compelling has been the most descriptive word i can come up with for it lmao.

I want to extend and highlight the calliope/caliborn(dirk) metaphor in regards to the ultimate fate of canon. we know that cherubim have the double sided childhood where one is active while the other sleeps, and we've explicitly seen that calliope represents candy and caliborn represents meat. also i could be delusional but i feel as though there's been foreshadowing for a while that the timelines will at some point converge. there are many unanswered questions about the state of the new universe and the cracks in the sky, and i feel this is representative of the cherubim reaching maturity. at some point i think the meat universe and the candy universe may crash into each other so to speak, and perhaps one may destroy the other. again this parallels dirk and calliope's fight across both timelines.

i also heard a theory some time ago that in the meat timeline, dirk and rose on their quest to create a new session of SBURB to continue the reproductive process of the universe (lowkey a noble pursuit sans the evil controlling shit) , will create the 48 player squiddle session thus completing the giant time loop theyve been slaving under this whole time. and as we hear enough about from dave, serving time loops can be an exhausting feat of self fulfilling prophecies stacked on top of each other. It seems that the characters were under the impression that the great time loops were complete (or at least escaped from) when they created Earth C but I believe they were mistaken. What happens when the loop is truly complete? does True Free Will finally begin to take effect? Do our protagonists travel to the new universe too or are they destroyed with the old one? does the story end or does it loop back around forever and ever?

I think that the decision John made at the beginning of the epilogues had that ultimate outcome. Both decisions led to the characters escaping the time loop, but for the meat timeline it means they have to complete the time loop and for the candy timeline it means they have to escape the time loop. Is the candy timeline a doomed timeline? perhaps. but we know from Davesprite that it is possible to escape doomed timelines and enter the alpha timeline, you just have to change yourself somewhat so from a narrative perspective you're a different character from your alpha counterpart.

much to think about.

#LONG POST #beyond canon spoilers

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