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autumnblogs · 4 years

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Day 13: Double Mobius Reacharound

https://homestuck.com/story/2073

Of all the characters in Homestuck, Sollux’s self-hatred is probably the most exaggerated, exacerbated no doubt by his role in the death of his girlfriend and his psychic brain. I like him, he’s an alright guy, and I wish I had more to say about him to be honest. I guess if there was one thing I was going to say about him, I think I said it already - Sollux serves as a mirror image of Dave, and Sollux’s decision to bow out early probably foreshadows the way that Dave will eventually decide that fighting is not for him.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/2082

How does Paradox Space know which angel to use? This is a bit of an odd moment. Maybe I’m missing the refrance, but I’ve never quite understood why Terezi reacts this way, with all of the additional periods. Sollux seems quizzical, but Terezi doesn’t react.

Also, this is the first in a serious of lines I’m going to be examining in relation to Aradia. Keep that on the back of your thinkpan.

https://homestuck.com/story/2085

Sollux and Aradia have a very sweet, tragic little relationship, and even though it doesn’t last into the longterm, I’ve always enjoyed these two together.

https://homestuck.com/story/2101

Whether retroactively, or intentionally, the sensual scantily clad fairies in Tavros’ room are a lot more noticeable on re-reads. Tavros has a pretty unassuming demeanor, and I’m not here to trash him pointlessly, but I think that Tavros has some pretty troubling patterns of behavior that can go unexamined because of the fact that he’s a victim. More on that as we go.

https://homestuck.com/story/2112

Far from a passing fancy, Tavros’ interest in animals does seem to be genuine. I wonder if he had a little farm with a bunch of these critters. We never get to see much of his other Fiduspawn if he has any.

https://homestuck.com/story/2114

Karkat and Tavros both do this, which I think is interesting because of the fact that they have opposite relationships with sleep and dreaming - Tavros spends most of his time in game asleep and dreaming of Prospit, Karkat has horrible insomnia.

https://homestuck.com/story/2122

Our very first conversation with Vriska has her tune in pretty much entirely to bully Tavros. The interesting thing is, while Vriska’s treatment of Tavros is pretty objectively bad, the way that she harasses him is actually pretty closely in line with the way that other trolls treat their friends, mutual aggression and nastiness. Vriska’s aggression isn’t addressed at someone who’s responding in kind though - Tavros is gentle where other trolls are vicious, deferential where other trolls are assertive. It’s this contrast that makes the shamefulness of Vriska’s behavior obvious to pretty much everyone but her.

https://homestuck.com/story/2123

Gamzee and Tavros are a ship tease that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but one of the things I think is interesting is the way Gamzee’s language goes from extremely lackadaisical and chill to kind of energetically violent around Tavros. Most of the time, Gamzee’s pretty laidback, but there’s a lot of language relating to murder in Gamzee’s enthusiasm here.

https://homestuck.com/story/2127

While Terezi’s Dragon doesn’t really have much of a choice in terms of its relative absence from her life, the sparse communication between the two and emotional distance is, I think, a parallel with Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/2128

Because of the fact that we don’t get as much of a look into the Trolls’ home lives, it’s less easy to narrow down what their “finer” anxieties are, but it’s clear that they follow the same pattern of having their sleeping selves wake up as a result of internal synthesis of some kind - confronting their subconscious anxieties, and consciously accepting a part of their reality that they’ve been deliberately shutting out.

There’s probably a number of things that were instrumental to waking up for Terezi, not the least of which is accepting that Vriska is not the friend that Terezi thought she was - waking up to the fact that she was being used by an abuser in a co-dependent relationship. Coming to terms with her blindness could represent growth into a healthier sense of self, one where she finds validation internally and in healthy friend and family relationships. All that being said, her relationship with Vriska is still her most important relationship, and realizing that a problem exists is only the first step in solving it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2134

Time to stop being cagey about it, I guess. I have long viewed Aradia’s story as being one that is about surviving depression, which I say as a depression survivor. I relate heavily to the language that Homestuck uses to describe Aradia’s lack of passion and lack of enjoyment of things that she used to enjoy - especially the way that she lashes out destructively to try and alleviate her boredom and frustration.

https://homestuck.com/story/2137

On an unrelated note, Aradia has the Crosbytop. I believe I’m starting to remember how it got into her hands.

https://homestuck.com/story/2139

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that Kanaya’s language directly mirrors Karkat’s from when he was harassing Jade, but their sentiment is almost precisely the opposite. She borrows another Karkatism almost immediately. So pretty much from the word go, we’re clued into the fact that Kanaya and Karkat have some relationship with each other that goes beyond the purely familiar, in the same way that Dave and John’s tendency to mirror each other’s language helps us to understand their friendship.

For a girl who doesn’t feel too many emotions, Aradia can be pretty sassy.

https://homestuck.com/story/2144

I have a friend who’s a bit of a Vriska kinnie (and feel like I’m pretty Vriska-esque myself), and one of the things that we both do that I’m seeing in Vriska here is fill dead air with chatter. I could be reading into it a little, but I think it should be a clue that Vriska is an intensely anxious kind of character.

https://homestuck.com/story/2145

In a parallel to Sollux’s introduction, we can’t immediately be Vriska. We couldn’t be Sollux because he was too busy stewing in his own self-criticism. There’s a push and pull going on between Vriska’s narcissism and her over-the-top self-deprecation.

https://homestuck.com/story/2150

I might be pulling this out of my ass, but I feel like there’s a case to be made for Aradia and Vriska actually being pretty strong parallels to each other - the only two trolls to get the tiger, faciliitators of destiny, devil-may-care grave-robbers. I don’t actually have a fully formed thought to really draw the two together, but I feel like there’s really something there. The way that Aradia puts Sollux to sleep here in order to ensure that the Right Disasters befall him is parallel to the way that Vriska puts people to sleep at clever points to make sure that Jack is created, and so on and so forth.

Maybe in the same way that Sollux serves as a parallel to Dave and helps us to understand what the right decision is for Dave, Aradia parallels Vriska and helps us to understand that roughly the same things are good for the two of them. Much later, (Vriska) basically chooses the same path of staying out of harm’s way and trying to enjoy the rest of her relatively eternal existence.

https://homestuck.com/story/2161

As soon as Karkat talks about Kanaya with anyone else, he further reinforces there is a friendship between the two of them.

Another quick note, as long as we’re here, I’ve kind of been putting this off, but I suppose with the one and only use of “autistic” as an insult in the comic, it’s finally time for me to bring this up:

Homestuck has a pretty problematic relationship with victims of abuse and people suffering from mental and physical disabilities. While on the one hand like, almost all of Homestuck’s main characters are disabled and abuse sufferers in some way or another, there are a lot of ways in which it’s not so charitable to them.

Some of it is stuff like this - early Homestuck uses the word retarded a lot as an insult, and has this single instance of autistic - all in all, that kind of language is problematic but in and of itself, not too egregious - Homestuck is a product of its time in that respect.

Stuff that I take issue with is more subtle - mostly stuff surrounding Jake and Tavros. I’ll have more to say on it later, but I wanted to find a good natural time to bring it up, and now seemed like a fine time.

https://homestuck.com/story/2162

Nepeta and Equius give us some information that helps grow our understanding of troll culture. We’ve already had some conversation about whose blood is better than whose from Sollux, but Equius starts to help us understand that some trolls take blood color extremely seriously.

These kids may not replicate the social anxieties of earthlings 1:1 but they still have plenty of things to be anxious about. The more I read Hiveswap the more I become convinced that most of these characters were never people we were meant to become terribly invested in - a lot of the function of the trolls, from a narrative perspective, is to give us parallels to the human main characters and insight into their lives, as well as to give us exposition on just how Sburb works exactly. And then most of them are pretty promptly killed off or put on a bus once their purpose is served (or in order to serve their purpose!)

Back to the subject of the social anxieties that the trolls have to deal with, Alternia is all about hierarchy baby.

https://homestuck.com/story/2173

Vriska may be a born cheater, but I’ve always sort of gotten the impression, based on the killer nature of FLARPING which is alluded to plenty in other situations, that if she’s cheating here, it may be the kind of cheating that is encouraged.

Between that and the way that Tavros and Aradia were discussing the “True Spirit of Flarping,” I can’t help but remember a description of the way propaganda works from some time ago. Propaganda doesn’t usually follow the story arc we are accustomed to, where we start with a character or characters who do not yet possess the tools or abilities they need to succeed, grow to overcome their weakness, and then overcome the problem that they couldn’t before.

Propaganda, instead, introduces us to characters who are already strong, facing enemies who are weak, or problems who are easy. They are strong because they are the heroes! Their enemies are weak. And the function of it is to intimidate the enemies of the person putting out the propaganda, and to rile up aggressive sentiment in those who are on the side of the propagandist.

We’ve already talked about how, in Homestuck “roleplaying” in both its more figurative and literal uses, is a way in which characters act out society’s expectations for them. In that way, I can’t help but view FLARPING as something of a propaganda tool itself, and one that’s pretty integral to Vriska’s way of thinking throughout the comic.

You’re either someone who is strong, or someone who is weak, and if you’re strong, you’re one of the victors, if you’re weak, you’re one of the losers, and you deserve whatever the victors decide what to do with you.

What I guess I’m building up to here is that there are real world societies that Troll Culture seems like an exaggerated parody of - particularly the more militaristic aspects of the Romans, and the Spartans. I’m going to wait for another time to write down all my thoughts about them, because this is turning into a bit of an essay, but suffice to say, it’s probably going to coincide with the one about Patriarchy whenever I get around to it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2175

There’s an interesting thing going on here between the way that Tavros is drawn (nearly identical to his imagine spot about flying around on Prospit), and the way that his erratic behavior isn’t actually all that different from the way characters normally do absurd and dangerous things here.

I’m by no means excusing what Vriska is doing here, but I think that between the fact that Tavros already wants to fly anyway, and the fact that again, characters do this kind of self-destructive thing in Homestuck all the time anyway, although to less of an exaggerated degree, Andrew is drawing a parallel between the narrative prompts from the Exiles, Vriska’s manipulations, and the intrusive thoughts that we already have on our own anyway.

Vriska manipulates Tavros the way that Doc Scratch manipulates her, although considerably clumsier, by getting him to do what he already wants to anyway.

https://homestuck.com/story/2177

That’s really all there is to say on the matter.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

In the same way that Bro manipulates Dave by imposing an idea of what it means to be a man on him - someone who can be beaten within an inch of his life, or beat someone else to within an inch of his life without batting an eye - Vriska tries to manipulate Tavros throughout his arc, and this kind of so-called “tough love” is just the start of it.

There’s a lot of supplementary material that delves deeper into Vriska’s rationale for her mistreatment of Tavros, but she makes it clear herself as we go through the comic that she at least justifies her mistreatment of Tavros by telling herself that the purpose of it is to toughen him up (so he can be one of the strong people, a winner who gets the girl.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2178

As he often is about what’s going on with other people when he’s distracted from thinking about himself by his own agitation, Karkat is probably right about Vriska - girls like her are a dime a dozen in the upper classes, and that’s the point. The point of troll society is to produce people like Vriska amongst the highbloods.

https://homestuck.com/story/2195

Let’s dig into Vriska’s self-stylization as an apocalypse buff for a second because it’s not something I think gets talked about a lot.

Apocalypticism is, in my estimation, kind of a form of generational narcissism. There are doomsayers in every generation, who claim that this is it - this new catastrophe, this new social situation, is the most important thing in the world to ever happen. The end is here. All of world history culminates in this.

I don’t mean to downplay the actual existential threats of our generation of course; climate change, late capitalism, that sort of thing. But I think Vriska’s Apocalypse Buffery fits pretty well into her need to be the most important person in Paradox Space all the time.

On another note, Luck in Homestuck is very closely related with a few concepts like Agency in Homestuck through the Aspect of Light. Terezi will later assert that luck doesn’t matter at all. What’s up with that?

Maybe Luck and Karma are two sides of the same coin (ha!) Both of them are pieces in the puzzle of Theodicy, that is to say, the metaphysics question of why there is bad in the world.

Someone like Vriska (at the beginning of her arc) would say that it’s happenstance - bad things and good things can happen to bad and good people, there’s no greater meaning behind it. Vriska has a hard time taking responsibility for her own actions - her locus of control is external, for the most part.

Terezi on the other hand mostly attributes everything to a person’s actions, hence the need to punish bad people, and reward good ones. Terezi would say that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Her locus of control is internal.

Maybe the answer is both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/2202

Just as Vriska’s introduction is through a conversation with her victim, so Doc Scratch’s introduction is through a conversation with his victim. Or at least, his most immediate victim.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

https://homestuck.com/story/2204

Kanaya pretty well sums up here what I was getting at when talking about Terezi and Vriska’s different locuses of control.

There’s no real good or bad luck here. Good luck for someone is bad luck for someone else, often enough. What “good luck” means to Vriska is that events go down the way that she personally wants them to.

And so, by seizing control and power in situations where she is helpless, the Thief of Light ensures that she always has all the luck.

Kanaya might not be right, by the way, not 100%. I’m not a stoic. You can’t just magically wish away suffering by deciding that actually, you’re 0k with it, anymore than Aradia can. Like I said, the truth probably lies somewhere between Luck and Karma.

https://homestuck.com/story/2207

While the terrifying violent monitor and the emotionally abusive manipulator are bifurcated, Vriska has a lot of the same emotional responses to her guardians as Dave does to his singular guardian - notice the similar, self-soothing language that Vriska’s narrative employs compared to the way that Dave self-sooths when trying to convince himself that the way Bro treats him is just fine and normal.

https://homestuck.com/story/2211

Equius to me is a super interesting character, because on the one hand, he’s a joke character Andrew uses to antagonize the audience by being gross but Andrew also uses him to say the quiet part loud - Homestuck is already, to begin with, a pretty lewd webcomic full of horny characters whose emotional hangups and destructive relationships with societal norms sabotage their chances at happiness. That’s all Equius is. His entire function from start to finish, aside from a source of ribald humor, is to draw attention to the fact that everyone in this comic is looking for comfort in someone else’s body, comfort from the way that unrealistic societal expectations and their attempts to live up to them don’t match up to what’s inside of their heart. Equius is a parody of Homestuck inside of Homestuck. Absurdly overpowered, ridiculously horny, all twisted up inside.

https://homestuck.com/story/2220

The language here that Equius uses - degenerate - is evocative of the sorts of right-wing authoritarian hate mongers that Equius’ ideology stands in for. Equius, of course, has doubts about said ideology, which he starts to express through transgressive relationships pretty much as soon as we meet him, like the one with Aradia. The fact that he can’t make sense of the warring ideas inside of him almost literally kills him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2221

Except that what kills him literally is a shitty clown.

I think what’s going on here is interesting, because if you want to read Equius as like, Homestuck in a nutshell, Equius’ ideological hangups are co-morbid with his sexual hangups, and resolving one set would probably go a long way toward resolving the other set. Equius is, for lack of a better term, a deviant. The sorts of things that excite him (here, viscerally) don’t match up with his idea of how troll society is supposed to be.

Equius and Gamzee are confronting each other with a different vision for what Troll Society is supposed to be like.

https://homestuck.com/story/2222

In stark contrast to the shallow and insincere hostility of Trolls who are actually friends with each other, Vriska and Equius maintain a veneer of social grace as they mutually plan to backstab each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2237

Vriska is pretty clearly projecting here, but she’s also 100% right. I guess when you know somebody, you know them. Or it could be happenstance.

Her view of redemption is also transactional. “I will make things the way they were before, and things can go back to being the way that they were,” she seems to say. It’s a very legalistic view of it, and while it might have a place in a justice system, even the extremely legalistic Terezi can tell that that wouldn’t actually fix anything. Maybe the physical and emotional damage could be repaired in theory, but if the actors in the situation don’t change themselves in fundamental ways, this is all just going to recur in the future.

Forgiveness isn’t something an abuser can earn - nobody has the right to claim that they have restored a relationship that they destroyed in the first place by demonstrating token repentance.

https://homestuck.com/story/2238

If Andrew already had in mind that Equius should in some way be a part of the gestalt of souls that is Lord English, he’s foreshadowing it early here by comparing Equius’ voyeuristic habits to Scratch’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/2244

I’ll lay my cards on the table and say I think that Doc Scratch can present the facts 100% and still be dishonest. I’m a compatibilist - I think that Free Will and Accountability are compatible with the idea of a deterministic universe. Doc Scratch doesn’t have to talk anyone into anything, but the material conditions that led everyone to the decisions that they chose to make were orchestrated by Lord English. Scratch may not be making any decisions here that effect the outcomes, sure, but the game was rigged in his favor from the start.

Again, I’m not excusing Vriska’s actions here. But for the same reason that we wouldn’t blame Tavros for jumping off of a cliff just because trying to fly is something he already wanted to do to begin with, I think it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Doc Scratch is at least partially responsible for creating this little monster.

Vriska’s complicated. Let’s move on so this whole post doesn’t turn into more Vriskourse. That’s the last thing anyone needs.

https://homestuck.com/story/2258

You know you’re going to anyway.

I guess what intrigues me so much about this section is the gradation between manipulation and coercion.

https://homestuck.com/story/2263

Vriska might be a born cheater, but Doc Scratch is a sore loser.

She’s pretty easy to root for when she’s against him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2269

Man, Act 5 Act 1 is just absolutely lousy with conversation about choice and luck.

https://homestuck.com/story/2276

Part of what creates ambiguity in terms of how much Vriska’s choices are her nature versus the conditions that shaped it is on display here in her conversation with Aradia.

Vriska doesn’t really know how to interact with people positively, like, at all. Nobody’s ever taught her. She doesn’t know what it means to be a friend to someone. She doesn’t know what it means to help someone. She doesn’t know how to be loved or forgiven.

Is this like the scorpion and the frog? Or does she have free will? (I’ll give you a hint, it’s the second one.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2280

This whole sequence is just a delight. The trolls are really just such disaster people, and if I can be excused, it’s easy to put more emotional distance between myself and say, Equius, than it is between myself and Vriska and Terezi. Like I said, Equius says the quiet part out loud, so there’s really nothing much to analyze there.

Aradia’s inability to control the ribbits is part of a general mood of a lack of control that she has as a character. Vriska’s lack of control causes her to rage at the heavens and lash out at the people around her. Aradia is just 0k with it, and neither is a healthy coping strategy. The result is that the two of them break a lot of shit.

https://homestuck.com/story/2305

For the first time in his life, Karkat is not alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/2319

I could really be mistaken here, but the way this whole sequence is presented here really feels, on an archival reread, to be telling me, “You do not need to care about these characters.” Certainly they serve a function in the story, but with the exception of a few of them (literally only a third of them), they serve as tools in an authorial toolbox to help flesh out the setting - not so unlike the Carapacians actually, but with a lot more personality.

https://homestuck.com/story/2323

Kanaya is threefold one of the few of her kind, making her extra special. While she is closest with Rose, she’s a clear parallel to Jade, who if memory serves, suffered frequent accustations of being a Mary Sue early on. Kanaya’s level of specialness (in terms of combined rare factors) outcompetes even Jade’s. Probably a part of the playfully antagonistic style of Homestuck in general.

https://homestuck.com/story/2338

It slipped my mind earlier that the honey on Sollux’s hands was being directly juxtaposed with Dave’s blood on his own hands, and here Kanaya’s. All three of them are, to some extent or another, contemplating their mortality. As Kanaya said just a few panels ago though, death is confusing without the finality. Just another way that Homestuck plays with the nomenclature of endings and beginnings and intermissions and brings into question the usefulness of those categories.

https://homestuck.com/story/2343

I have always enjoyed the dynamic that Kanaya and Eridan share with each other, and I wish there were more conversations of her just dunking on him.

Also of note in this little conversation is the way that Kanaya and John mirror each other’s language. This is an example though where they could not possibly be mirroring it the way that Dave and John might be when they’re talking about Bec, or the way that she and Karkat might be. They have, it seems, the same penchant for mischief.

https://homestuck.com/story/2345

Like her counterparts from Universe B, Kanaya’s preoccupation with relationships and personal contact is made manifest through her Squiddle Lunchtop.

https://homestuck.com/story/2350

Both of the main Pages in Homestuck are characters whose primary usefulness is seen through their ability to make friends and broker alliances. I suspect that being a Page in Sburb is to some extent a bit like being an ADC in League of Legends.

The ADC or Attack Damage Carry, if you’re not familiar with the nomenclature, is a character who starts the game weak, and remains vulnerable throughout such that the whole team has to play babysitter. If you think that sounds unappealing to play, you’d be right - it can be pretty hard to find someone willing to play ADC, especially with the popularity of high-risk high-reward Asassins (not so unlike a thief!) who are their direct counter.

In spite of their relative vlunerability, the ADC has absolutely dominated the meta of League of Legends for the past ten years for the simple reason that there is absolutely no substitute when it comes to controlling objectives.

Maybe Pages are a little bit like that. Frustrating to be one, frustrating to have one around, but extremely rewarding to invest in. It’s too bad nobody can be arsed to give them the emotional support they need to flourish. Too bad they have such... intractible character flaws.

https://homestuck.com/story/2356

Kanaya’s inability to stop mothering people sabotages her chance at winning Vriska’s affection - no doubt because Vriska has misread the situation as Kanaya being her romantic rival for Tavros’s attention. For the better, I guess, since Rosemary is my shit.

Trolls sure are weird.

https://homestuck.com/story/2369

Vriska has already figured out the point of Sburb, and perhaps the ultimate riddle, although she clearly hasn’t figured out the ramifications of it yet.

In any case, it should be clear how she has interpreted Sburb’s directive - authenticate your own existence through reproduction.

Being a winner, having self-worth, being able to justify your own existence means being strong enough, smart enough, pretty enough to shape the rest of existence in your own image.

She’s missing a critical detail, and its absence means she has it completely backwards.

https://homestuck.com/story/2370

We already know what is on the other side of the portal. Vriska is making herself out to be the final boss.

The final boss and the treasure are the same thing, in her mind.

The struggle is the objective.

The fighting is the point.

https://homestuck.com/story/2374

Just wanted to take a second to say that this whole sequence is so unnerving and horrible that I was sure she was going to murder, violate, and/or eat him, not necessarily in that order, the first time I read through this.

The sad reality is, this is the fucked up courtship ritual of a girl who has no idea how to be intimate with other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2391

And that’s where we’ll pause for the night, having finished nearly 300 pages as promised.

Hope I wasn’t getting too lazy there at the end.

I’m enjoying my weekend.

Hope that yinz enjoy yours once it rolls around.

For now, Alive and Not Sober, Cam signing off.

#commentary #liveblogging #luck #choice

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lotarclasspects · 5 years

Text

The Homestuck Epilogue and Analysis of the Text as a Whole (brief)

EPILOGUE SPOILERS AHEAD

As many of you in this fandom have recently born witness to: The Epilogue is finally here. It begins with a prologue, with John being disillusioned from the world and Rose telling him that him going back is essential. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to the idea of things which, viewed from the lens of the greater story, are not necessarily measured in terms of one person’s moral stand point of “Good” or “Bad”, rather Essential and Inessential. This is the axis upon which Vriska turns, this is the path of events which Rose can see, and this is the stage upon which the conflict of our two Narrators comes to pass.

To understand the Epilogue, we must first, briefly, summarise some of the core themes of Homestuck. These, in short being: The Agency of the Characters, The Narrative itself as the Villian, and the meaning of Freedom.

We will begin with the meaning of Freedom. What it means to be Home Stuck. Homestuck is not named simply as a joke about the start of the story, but its name rings true as an abstract way of representing the main objective of its characters. To win, and be at peace in the new Universe. For you see, much like Problem Sleuth, they only leave the house at the very end. But this only makes sense if you understand the Symbols because as Rose Lalonde, Seer of Light, One who Understands the Narrative’s Focus, explains: “The symbols holdall the power”. As you are probably all aware, the entire story focuses on the fates of the characters as they toil through the Alpha Timeline. As we later learn, this “timeline” is not the one which leads to the most fortuitous outcome, nor is it one which allows all characters to have equal relevance or fulfillment. It is simply an extremely specific series of events which allows the main villian of the Text, Lord English, to exist, take pleasure in his wanton destruction, and then die and be reborn all in a circuitous loop. Sure, the kids “Stop” Lord English in the end, but their Victory is more defined by their escape from their terrible, dire, and tragic situation. They enter their “Roles” by way of Sburb, which is symbolised by a House. A human house, a troll house, it doesn’t matter. It ends with them escaping through the door never to be truly seen in the comic again. They finally leave The House, and by House I mean the Narrative, which for the purposes of this examination is essentially interchangeable with Lord English himself, because in truth that’s what he represents.

Lord English is the main villian of homestuck, but what he represents is a core theme of understanding the story. Lord English’s character design is essentially made to be a charicature of Andrew Hussie himself, the worst, most vulgar and horrible parts of his prior works. Gamzee, shitty clowns, Equius: Horses, Dirk, the narcissism and stuckupishness of his own narration, and Caliborn. The “Tortured Artist” who complains that “Internet Teens” don’t understand his “Masterpiece”. Sound familiar? But he also represents the Narrative itself. The awful cycle which the characters are subjected to suffer in. the Lord of Time itself is a classpect which means “One who Controls Time, One who controls Others with Time, and One who controls Endings, the wrapping up of plot threads, and Certainty” Which is exactly what the Alpha Timeline is. Lord English is representative of a DM, or storyteller who insists that everything must be done THEIR way, who is rigid and controlling about what they WANT to happen being what HAS to happen and any deviation of the sort will either be not allowed or punished. Therefore, the villian representing this shows a core theme and belief of the story. That controllers and rigid authoritarian storytellers are something evil. Theyre the bad guys here. On the flip side, The Rigid Authour’s nemesis in the end is the Muse of Space, Calliope. Someone who “Inspires others with her Creations, Inspires Creation, or Is inspired By creation, expansion, worldbuilding, and co-operation.” She is a caricature of the Fandom. Who desires collaboration and working together. This is a core element of SBURB, that a good session (Which in and of itself borrows themes from both GAMES and STORIES) can only happen from a collaboration and understanding between individuals. This is a core element of the Epilogue.

Now, to understand how this all ties into the Epilogue, it first needs to be understood how fucking Meta homestuck is, and WHY the Narrative is the villian. It’s because, for a story to happen, the characters must suffer. Endure drama, heartache, weird adventures. Because otherwise there would be no story. Kevin from Home Alone gets left behind every year. If he was a real child, he’d probably need therapy about that in his older years, but Kevin is not allowed to have a happy, non abandoned christmas, because then they wouldn’t be able to make any more Home Alone’s. So Kevin has to suffer for the Narrative to continue in its existence. Precisely the fact why Homestuck ended where we couldn’t see them walk through the door. If we were to see that, then they wouldn’t truly be free of the narrative because the sole ability for us to be able to witness that would mean they’re still trapped. This is why the credits are in the format of Snap Chat. It allows the audience to have a small window into their lives whilst showing they’ve truly escaped and are allowed to live like real people.

But here again comes our problem. For the Epilogue to exist as a compelling story, the characters would have to experience conflict for that to happen. But the Epilogue does something interesting. It formats it in the style of a Fan Fiction. Because whilst Homestuck plays with the ideas of how restricting a story would be if the characters were real people, the Epilogue plays with the idea of what is, and is not Real to a story in the first place. What can be considered “ Canon”, and does that really matter. In the Meat and Candy halves, as referenced by Dave later on in the Candy section, when you flip a coin, in the short instant before it falls the two offshoots of the result of that perfectly equal choice come to exist. This was the nature of Calliope asking John which he wanted to pick. By doing so, she gave the opportunity for an alternate version of himself to live where he would die and so forth. The John who ate the Meat may have died but by doing so allowed all of creation to continue. Even though he didn’t get what he thought he wanted, he died in a relationship with terezi after his life had meaning again. Candy john got what he wanted. A relationship with Roxy. He got to live. But these things, in the end were not what he’d hoped them to be. His other self got to be with terezi. The same is true for the other characters. Karkat lost the presidency in Meat, but in Candy he proved he’d make an excellent leader. In Meat, Davekat became canon, but in Candy dave lived to be romantically unfilfilled but he got to meet Obama and achieve an ultimate catharsis of the self.

But the thing is, these choices, in a sense ARE perfectly equal. There is no evidence in the Narrative, that one is inherently more Canon than the other, because it is directly stated that they both exist outside of Canon. If both exist outside of Canon but are not Fanon are they both True? Or is truth relative. I believe that the Epilogue was a way of seeing what reality would bring to these characters, whilst filling out two different paths. One where they got something and one where they didn’t. And this also comes to the sub plot of the battle of the two narrators. As Calliope mentions in Candy, when it becomes obvious that the speaker had an agenda you begin to wonder whether it simply came to light who the speaker was or if they had been using their subtle passive influence all along. We barely even notice in Meat, because Dirk’s typing quirk is identical to the quirk used by Andrew Hussie himself. Whether he is simply an alternate version of Dirk Strider in canon... up for debate. But this also begs the question. If the stories are outside of Canon, and the Authour can change, then who is the executive on saying what happens and doesnt? The Epilogues are explorations. Not closures, but exploring what would happen in situations. It offers the idea that anyone could narrate about a series of events happening outside of canon,and it would be just as feasible and valuable as anything else outside of Canon. Therefore... Your fan fictions have just as much narrative Truth as those, and if those had some truth at all then do yours also? Or if your own stories are false then so are they. These are not meant to be taken as the “missing link” of the end of Homestuck, but simply filling a gap where a prior hole has already been filled. The end of the story seemed to have the characters so briefly meet but here it was FILLED TO THE BRIM with dialogues. So take of it what you will, because in the end, what it meant by “Above the Line, All is true and below it is all things which are insignificant” means that literally whatever you imagine could happen has an equal chance of happening in another “Outside of Canon” timeline. But what it meant by “The Important and the Unimportant will never again meet” is that Homestuck itself will never explore these things. That was it. What happens next... Is up to all of you.

-The Knight of Breath

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #Epilogue #upd8 #Homestuck Analysis #Homestuck theory #homestuck epilogue theory

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blaperile · 4 years

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Homestuck Candy Epilogue - Reactions Pages 13 - 16

Page 13:

Holy SHIT. I totally agree with Dave, this feels like straight out of a horror movie.

What the FUCK is Gamzee doing over there? Does Calliope have anything to do with this, seeing as he was sticking by her side all the time, earlier?

I mean, jesus, didn't Dave come straight from John to here? He couldn't have been far behind Gamzee, who was only just there at John and Roxy's date.

And man, what the hell happened to Dirk? From what Gamzee's saying it seems like he might have left this reality behind somehow. Did he go to the same place wherever Meat Dirk is also headed to?

It seems like Gamzee is on some deep shit again, somehow. How does he know about the stuff with the black hole and what's behind it? Did Dirk tell him about all that? Or did Calliope? Or does Gamzee know it from somewhere else?

Welp, so there's the robot Dirk had been building for Rose.

And of COURSE it ends with a note to Dave. When is Dirk/Bro ever NOT about notes?

The question is... what's in it? Does he explain something? Or... is he asking Dave to also come to where he's gone?

You know, I was almost expecting Dave to find Dirk's dead body in here, but apparently not.

This page just goes to show much of an impact Dirk/Bro keeps on having on Dave. It's like he's left a splinter behind in Dave's mind, like he has his own Brain Ghost Dirk just like Jake or something.

Page 14:

..........WELP.

THAT....SURE JUST HAPPENED.

Looks like he went for the suicide after all. :(

And of course, no way for him to go out but with a decapitation...

I just wonder... what is this last act of relevance he meant? Is he "transferring" his soul to his Meat version, or something?

Or is he trying to set someone (Dave?) in this reality on a path of relevance due to his suicide and/or the note he left behind?

I wonder what even is in the note... did he explain why he'd commit suicide? Or is it about something else?

abundantChewtoys has a good point about the similarity to where Meat Dirk ascended the tower, and Alternate Calliope was trying to slow him down. And where it seemed like he was going to shoot Karkat... but instead he shot Jade.

A pivotal moment where it seemed like a murder was going to take place but it wasn't. And now it was a suicide.

What intrigues me the most here is that Dirk became "you" in here... the first character in the Candy Epilogue to become that.

Is someone (Calliope???) pulling strings on Dirk here or is this really entirely his choice?

Man, I wonder what the rest of this Epilogue is even going to be like... everyone's going to be totally shook by his suicide, right?

Especially Dave... this won't be good on him at all. He's going through such difficult times right now, and felt he needed Dirk to get out of it, and now Dirk's gone...

I wonder what Dave's first reaction is going to be... is he going to try to use his Time powers to undo Dirk's death? Is he going to be STOPPED from doing that, through narration?

You know... what with how Candy Dirk considering his existence in an unessential timeline completely pointless and committing suicide provides a very interesting perspective on what this means for other versions of Dirk...

First of all, pre-retcon Dirk. He knew he lost, and then just let himself be taken in by the glitches, and was seemingly killed by that. Kinda in that regard.

Next... let's talk about Bro. More specifically... the Bro from DAVESPRITE'S timeline.

Remember how Davesprite mentioned that he never saw Bro again during the 4 months that doomed timeline lasted? What if Bro realized he was in a doomed timeline and also committed suicide over there?

Heck, even Brobot counts. He killed himself to take out his uranium heart, to help Jake out.

Dirk's really got suicide down to a science. He had no problem to kill his real self to awaken his dream self to save his friends.

And when they were on the God Tier crypts, I believe Dirk mentioned something about how he had no problems to commit suicide, but simply didn't want to kill Roxy.

Jesus christ, this guy...

Page 15:

Wow.... WOW.... That was a rollercoaster of emtions.

First of all, I wasn't expecting that we'd be skipping straight to the funeral, but now on second thought I guess it made sense.

It's still left unclear now what exactly was in Dirk's note. From the little they mentioned, it seemed like it was a bunch of words that didn't seem to make sense.

But I guess he DID try telling them about what was going on in his mind, and why he did it?

Secondly, it seems like Gamzee also attempted to tell them... but Gamzee being Gamzee, probably nobody actually understood anything of what he was trying to say.

Still, it seems like Gamzee's been set on some kind of path by Dirk.... The path to the future, where he'd find Calliope/Caliborn? Which I find curious, seeing as at first it almost seemed like Calliope was setting him upon some kind of path!

Speaking of the devil... where in the dickens is Calliope? Pretty much everyone of the characters had dialogue, or was at least mentioned as being at the funeral, in this page, except for Calliope.

Yeah, there's literally no way Calliope isn't up to something, right?

I'd honestly be surprised at this point if she ISN'T the narrator here.

But if she is... why does she seem to be pushing John and Roxy towards each other, and away from her? Is she also planning on doing something drastic? Like, leave this place in the same way Meat Dirk did (not Candy Dirk)?

And if she is, did she actively push Dirk into committing suicide here? Why the heck would she do that???

Or is she just going ALL the way into her "fanfic" persona, writing stories about these characters she loves without involving herself for some reason?

I bet we're going to get some insight into that soon.

Anyway, let's go back a little. I'm happy to see Dave's doing relatively fine, despite everything that's happened, and that he seems to have found his footing with Jade and Karkat. He held Jade's hand in the church, and he was seemingly about to kiss Karkat outside the church.

That's a relief, I feared he was going to be totally derailed by this event.

Also, I actually wasn't expecting John to offer to retcon this event. I had really only been thinking about Dave's powers.

But it makes sense Dave took this decision. It was Dirk's choice and Dave wants to respect it, and that's very noble of him.

It's curious that John is now failing to use his retcon powers. I mean, he did manage to do it earlier in the Candy path, to retrieve Gamzee!

Is it that he's losing the power because of the fact that weeks have gone by since the timeline split from the Meat path? Or... is the narrator simply preventing him from retconning this event?

By the way, this page is an interesting parallel for page 15 of the Meat path. That was also an incredibly long page, in that case it was for the fight against Lord English.

Page 16:

...Oh man, this page is giving me a weird feeling. TIMESKIPS. TIMESKIPS EVERYWHERE. MIXED FEELINGS ALSO EVERYWHERE.

Let's start with the straight-forward part. John and Terezi continue being amazing in their conversations. And I love how Terezi's almost spelling it out for John that she feels like John is her kismesis and it's still going way over his head. xD

She continues being out there... alone. Or so we would think!

It's hinting that Terezi is alone out there, still looking for Vriska in an alternate version of the Furthest Ring compared to what we saw in the Meat timeline... but is it???

We've never seen MULTIPLE versions of the Furthest Ring, only just one. And it's not like Meat and Candy seem to represent two different possible ways for the single timeline to go, it's being hinted that these do co-exist. Meat Dirk and Meat Rose had a look right into the Candy timeline, and Candy Dirk's hinted at John picking the other choice as well.

So what's the deal? IS there both a Meat Terezi and Candy Terezi or is there just one? Is there something this Terezi isn't telling us?

Is this the same Terezi as in the Meat timeline, further down her path where she's already lost John and gone with Meat Dirk? Or what is going on?

ARE we ever going to see more of Terezi here in the Candy path, or is it going to be limited to her interactions with John? That we can only take her word and won't find out what she's actually experiencing, that she isn't hiding something?

So that it's left up to us to decide if this there is only one Terezi, or actually a separate Meat Terezi and Candy Terezi?

Anyway, so John and Roxy are having a baby!!! :O

I already had a feeling that was going down as soon as the timeskip was mentioned, the fact the wedding already happened, and that John truly felt like an adult now.

On one hand I'm so happy about that... on the other hand it still feels a bit wrong. I'm not going to repeat everything I said about the previous page, but it's almost like Calliope is kind of pushing John and Roxy towards each other and completely ruling herself out.

Especially with what Terezi mentioned on this very page, how it seems that things are going so fast between John and Roxy. That makes me even more suspicious that she's explicitly saying it.

I mean, especially with Calliope ruling herself out of the equation, this probably would have happened in a natural way between John and Roxy, but maybe not this fast.

Same thing actually with Dave and Karkat! Like John mentions here, they still seem to be figuring things out, whereas in the Meat timeline Dirk basically forced them together sooner.

It's heartwarming to see that Terezi's gotten back somewhat in touch with Dave and Karkat. After everything they've been through together, they deserve that.

On the other hand... the situation with Jade. That's pretty sad to see that things aren't working out that well with Dave and Karkat there. :(

Also, do I even want to acknowledge what the FUCK that was about Jane and Jake with Gamzee? xD

Let's... let's just assume Jane wanted to try a threesome or something for kicks... Okay I'm going to completely stop thinking about this now. xD

#Homestuck #The Homestuck Epilogues #Candy #reaction #Dirk #Gamzee #Dave #Calliope #Terezi

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