#helltier

[abundantchewtoys]

Beyond Canon, re: p666.1, 666.2

So, I want to comment.

The fact that the "session" Vriska has begun is no S***b at all but a therapy session in the hyperbolic helltier chamber. Hilarious.

It's cool how the page is basically Homestuck: The Visual Novel. The talksprites & dialogue do the heavy lifting, the background & music's there for the ambiance.

Upon seeing the time skip, Blaperile had the good idea that she might be in here for 6 to 8 years. Bringing Vriska closer in age to the other Meat timeline kids. At least, near the start of their journey to Deltritus. Plus, most of them are functionally immortal.

In a lot of ways, Vriska was left lagging behind. Her insistence on going out to fight Lord English meant that her own personal timeline has been so short until now compared to the rest. Terezi went out to search for her for years upon years, while for her, less than a week passed on Candy Earth? Crazy.

I was wondering what introspection could be forced upon Vriska, that would feel earned. I mean, the post-retcon version of her already did much of this on and off screen, it could've ended up feeling repetitive somehow. But no.

No, this feels right so far.

She spends the first two years (???) trying and failing to move forward with Tavros (and Davepeta). I would've assumed she only had those two locations to explore in all that time (Tavros' hive's terrain and her own). Until she started venting there.

Seems everything in Helltier Alternia is available to her. It probably just never stops feeling fake. Which reminds me a lot of the (revised) ending to qntm's Ra.

SCROLL TO THE NEXT ARROWS TO AVOID SPOILERS ========> . . . . . . . . In which the characters end up on a simulated version of Earth with the story's self-proclaimed protagonist swearing up and down she can feel the difference. And nothing what the people in here do matters as none of it's real. . . . . . . . . <================ END SPOILERS

So, what are the people in the hyberbolic chamber, truly?

Tavros & Aradiabot seem like self-aware versions of their past selves, like unawakend dream selves. Tavros even felt more confident than I've remembered him ever seeing. Hope this isn't because this was his pre-paralysis self.

I kind of wonder if the sprites are standing in for themselves in the chamber. Aka that Vriska hung out with GCATavrosprite-as-his-past-self all this time? Not sure though.

Aradiabot, you ask? Well we know that Alpha Aradia has been travelling to all sorts of alternate timelines and is very much much older than she looks. So she could've gone and filled in for Aradiabot here, too. She used to be her own sprite, after all!

But that doesn't feel entirely satisfactory, either. It kind of feels nicer to imagine Vriska's been engaging with "meta Tavros" and "meta Aradia". Aka, an amalgam of who've they've been in the story, to the people reading Homestuck. Very much a function of the Point, but also very much the character themselves as well.

In other news, how many times will Vriska end up 'dying' in the chamber, on screen? I mean, in the last part she went to lie on her quest bed. Not a lot of sleep happens on those! At least, not for long.

It's hilarious that Davepeta seems to have been designated Vriska's "handler" but has no real experience to help her along. I mean, that's most of the sprites in a nutshell, but still. If the chamber's supposed to give her growth, you'd have thought she'd be given a better helper.

Then again, the sprites might be constructs of the chamber too. Vriska might really be in here alone and the chamber just has her own psyche to work with. She's internalized she's a badass who doesn't need help.

And now she's slowly unlearning things. By now, she's learned to ask other people what they want to do. The prompt "What will you do?" was never about her, it was about the others.

It's going to be interesting to see what she has to confront in the Mindfang path, though. It would be wild to get talksprites for Mindfang or Spidermomsprite! But if it's about her toxically near-religious obediance to Alternia's obsession with ancestors… Yeah I can see her talking with a version of pre-retcon Vriska. Or Aranea. We don't know if she ever did meet a version of her dancestor post-retcon.

Loved how the page went and took in a larger part of the page, like during [S] Cascade. And the branching paths evoke the paths we got to choose from during the time the cartridge was corrupted.

Yeah, on rereading the text, I think Tavros & Aradiabot are elements of the chamber trying to guide Vriska along.

If she'd only contemplated what WORDS could've been better than the ones she said already, instead of jumping to ACTIONS (hers or Tavros'), it wouldn't have taken two years for her to get there with Tavros.

But that's the road she had to travel: Apologies -> Revenge -> Actually sitting down & sorting it out with the other party.

Now for her to unlearn all her other unhealthy coping strategies! Yeah she's going to be here for a while.

Neat bit, that bit about projecting though. It's true, underneath all the bluster, she was just a kid trying to find the best way to deal with the world she was given. And then, when she thought she found it, she put everyone in the same box with her.

And hey, Tavros' reaction (pointing) at realizing she might be projecting… Was that a reference to the Turnabout fangame?

Him proposing they could be projects for one another… Imagine them as moirails, dear god.

Tavros can very much pretend to be blue as he is now (as a sprite).

It's interesting to (re)learn how much Vriska was obsessed with trying to patch things up with Aradia. While Aradia was like "whatever, bye", lol.

And, is the helltier rung thing a real thing? Cause we saw godtiers physically represented as platforms! This seems more like Vriska's finally truly scaling her echeladder.

Like she skipped a few steps in growing as a S***b player, which seems just so like her.

Real on the nose that she spends all this years. Stuck. In her old home. Bent. To return to her hive each time.

Aradiabot's spiel about incremental change & the danger of cycles reminds me of the song. "I'm going around, not in circles but in spirographs." It's the difference between getting stuck in this chamber vs. the dreambubbles, too, I guess.

Waiting to see if this all really will end up with a Scourge Sister fond reunion!

[r0semultiverse]

I think the Mindfang Journal upd8 would save me today ngl

Save me Homestuck Beyond Canon upd8

[relaxxattack]

followed back during mcyt days and when u became mainly homestuck i was like LETS GOO!!!(shout out to that one mcyt classpect masterpost u used to have, i loved it) as for discussion questions, what do you like/dislike most about hs^2? i havent read the epilogues/anything relating to them so i always like hearing what ppl that have actually read them have to say about them

OH MY GOD THE CLASSPECTING……. i still stand by ctom as knight of blood forever and ever i was literally always right about that

as for hs2 hmmmmm. it’s so strangely hit or miss because a lot of the plot points are very intentionally inflammatory, and yet a lot of the like… conceptual playground is actually extremely interesting when you really dig into it?

favorite parts: john’s derealization and divorce, the most recent extrapolation on candy jade and rose, the first two vriska helltier chapters

least favorites: epilogue davekat, transmasc roxy, everything gamzee related, the Original Yiffy Upd8, ultimate dirk

i’ve honestly been meaning to do an epilogues reread because i think i’ve gotten over the shock enough by now to really dig into the more interesting thematic stuff

[ender--slime]

ughhhh vriska helltier is so good because you have like. a real genuine apology from vriska. not one where she’s groveling, just. a real apology. and tavros and aradia don’t accept it, because they don’t need to. the sentiment is nice but it doesn’t mean much to them. and then they send her on her way with well wishes. just a really great closing of that chapter ugghhhhh

[samstarium]

all the levels. ALL of them.

i realized i never did this for the first helltier upd8 to include vriska's echeladdder, so let's start now. but we won't talk about the tiers YET.

what's going on with the candle?

vriska's helltier echeladder interface is... weird, to say the least. often characters will be surrounded by items used to achieve said tier (john and the ectobabies, jane and the hat, etc) but we've never seen that candle before. not pertaining to vriska or anyone else, for that matter, although she does have her fire associations.

candles don't really show up that much, now that i'm thinking about it. given its diminished form in the second "level" upd8 of helltier, it seems like it burns down as vriska advances up the ladder, and as time passes. so logically we should expect to see it further burnt out by the next upd8.

the candle works as a reference two ways: as a manner of keeping time (a physical manifestation of life force, and the use of things like candle clocks), and as a symbol for the light aspect. fairly straightforward for that second one; illuminating important things and keeping people out of the dark is what candles are made to do.

ty aradia for this very applicable quote from the first "level" upd8

so........ something something, light motif and representation of vriska's growth? idk.

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions page 666 up to and including "flarp manual" path)

Woah, I didn't even have the time to write down my reaction the initial update before the second update of this page already arrived, hahaha

I'm a big, big fan of where this is going.

After Vriska's first initial conversation with Erisolsprite and Davepetasprite^2 upon arriving in "hell" I already had kind of high hopes of the potential where this was going, and it's definitely exceeding it.

She's making up with Tavros and Aradia, the conversations are glorious, and I'm not even mad that these Tavros and Aradia aren't actually really there. That may even be the BEST part.

It's providing Vriska some real and amazing character development, while not even giving her the "reward" of it ACTUALLY improving her relationship with them.

This shows Vriska what her relationship with Tavros COULD have been if she hadn't done all those awful things to him. But in "real life", she DID do all those things to him, and now he's gone (his pre-retcon self at least), and his post-retcon self is stuck as a Sprite.

So I really hope that in the future we get to have a "real" conversation between this grown Vriska and Gcatavrosprite, I'm very interested how that will turn out.

I find it hilarious that the way for Vriska to get past the Tavros "stage" was for her to finally listen to him and what he wanted to do… which was basically what he was already trying to say to her the first day she got there, but she just wouldn't listen and repeated the same mistake she made all those years ago, trying to make Tavros "braver" and stand up to her, and be more like herself. But it was never what he really needed.

Man, the 2 Pages (Tavros and Jake) sure have been having some amazing scenes these past few updates.

Also "based on the rules of gay, we both have to shut up and game" may be one of the best quotes Beyond Canon has delivered us so far, hahahaha.

The way Tavros could get under Vriska's skin in this update was brilliant.

I absolutely love all these references and callbacks to early Hivebent, what with Tavros not fitting in his recuperacoon, cavalreapers, flarping, etc.

And at the end, the visual callbacks to Vriska's fight with Aradia and her ascension to God Tier (with her instead now climbing her helltier echeladder, I LOVE IT!)

Of course, the return of the look-and-feel of the Alterniabound-like talksprites and conversations is also absolutely great (plus the fact that we even got a Sprite Mode of her in this outfit at the end with the helltier echeladder is also a nice bonus).

I'm very curious just what the rest of her stay here will be.

Originally, I was pretty much convinced she'd stay at least 6 years here (because 666) and possibly even 8 years (because Vriska). But I'm kinda shocked that already in year 2, she's making this kind of progress.

So if she's really going to stay so long here, what else is going to take her so long?

Once we got to see Aradiabot I wondered if it meant Vriska was going to see Terezi next (so that in this "flarping book" path she'd get to see all of her old flarping partners). But she didn't, not in this path anyway.

But if I think about it, perhaps it would be even better if she never gets to see (a fake) Terezi during her stay here?

Aradia's dialogue here that some people would be willing to be friends with Vriska even if she's "useless", instantly makes me think of Terezi.

If there's one person who truly cares a lot about Vriska, it's Terezi.

I mean, Terezi even sacrificed her comfortable life on Earth C to go out there for a long time and search for Vriska. Sure right now she's ended up with Dirk and trying to save John's life, but it doesn't mean she wouldn't still want to find Vriska.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole helltier will eventually end up with Vriska also wanting to find Terezi. And dear god, I'm so looking forward to an eventual reunion.

But anyway, that raises the question of what else will be happening in [S] Begin Session. If the "flarping manual" path is about reconciling with Aradia and Tavros, what will the other paths be about? What other conversational partners will she have?

The feather path seems like a giveaway that it will be Vriska talking to Davepetasprite^2 again.

There's Mindfang's journal, which I'm sure will be about Vriska's introspection of how she practically based her entire personality around her ancestor's journal. But the question is, who will she talk to about it?

It would be very interesting if she talks to (a fake) Aranea here, who is pretty much the best possible substitution for Mindfang for her to talk to.

But what will that be like? I don't think this post-retcon version of Vriska ever met Aranea, right? It was only ever her pre-retcon version that encountered her.

So if she really does meet Aranea here, that ought to be interesting.

I'm curious about the cueball path. I mean, that will probably be about Doc Scratch's manipulation of her, but who could she talk to about that? I'd be down for (a fake) Doc Scratch to return here, but I kinda doubt it. But I'm not really sure who else would be a good conversational partner for her about that. Maybe Arquiusprite???

Then we have the 8-ball path, which is the object most closely associated with Vriska herself. I'd love it if she gets confronted with (a fake version of) her pre-retcon self who already went on a huge path of character development and this Vriska didn't want to believe/face it.

[corvineglare]

how did you rip the sprites from the hs2 hyperbolic helltier updates past the first chapter, it just gives me the first one

i ran into that problem when i tried to get the ch2 assets and to avoid it i just download from an incognito tab now. idk specifically why it happens but thats what works for me

[dash-n-step]

this entire helltier quest is just going to end with Vriska realizing she needs to go after Terezi, just like everyone already knew, isnt it

"You really think there's someone out there who will deal with me"

I'm paraphrasing cause I don't remember the exact line but

[samstarium]

it continues in helltier!! but vriska's getting better about starting to understand, even if intrinsically the light player in her is focused on the known, and not overly concerned with anything not directly affecting her or the plot (more on that in another post, probably).

how does she actually come to the conclusion to pass the first "level" and move on? by playing a game of pretend with tavros. literally a game based on constructs that only have meaning because the people in the game say they have meaning. vriska cares that tavros doesn't care who won because SHE has ascribed a certain kind of meaning to the experience, and doesn't understand that her perspective isn't universal. that's exactly what she thinks of the candy timeline, too.

she's still hung up on "real", like it's an instrinic fact that everything is either real or not, correct or wrong, canon or not. even though the sentiment is viewed through the lens of mind, terezi is completely correct. reality isn't "happening" to people. it's something we make "every moment with every thought".

on realness and the hope aspect

honestly i feel like a lot of ppl missed the point and just blindly agreed w/ vriska on the candy timeline's "fakeness". like. hmm (rambles)

this post from fefairys is a nice way of putting it: homestuck doesn't like to say things are just one way. if anything the john + vris convo is just a summary of the entire point of the epilogues: both scenarios are equally possible and equally real, bc to the ppl who live them, they r real. maybe one is the technically "right" timeline, but they both exist concretely, because what goes on in one affects the other.

vriska is partially right, but so is john. the timeline is wrong, but it's not fake.

that's the power of hope! not that sort of hope, i mean this hope. the one that has the ability to believe so hard in something, it becomes real. like an imaginary version of your ex-boyfriend. or an alternate timeline. where rage cries out against implausible things, pushing it back with force, hope imagines things so hard they warp reality around them just to exist (think adam from good omens). it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be held up by enough people believing in it.

the characters of the candy timeline believe that they are real, and so they are. you could make the same argument for the score of doomed timelines that riddle much of regular homestuck honestly. im a bit jumbled but yea. food for thought