#homestuck version 2.0

[homestuckv20]

Read the webcomic here!

[loriache]

for the ask game, go start a war: C, I, W

ask game

wow, you drama fiend! OK.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will

Ho-hoh. This is actually rather difficult. I’m a multishipper and I can usually find a take on any ship that I’d enjoy at least theoretically. Especially within dungeon meshi; I might have to reach further back.

Oooh I know. This won’t mean anything to you, but JC (purple guy, older martial brother of the MC) and LXC (older brother of the ML) from MDZS. Using initials so this doesn’t show up in searches. People ship them and it’s the most blatant pair the spares I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t read anything with that pairing in even in the background. I’ve tried it from authors I enjoyed other fic by to see if I can make it work for me, but I just can’t. It’d be just like JC’s parents 2.0… actually, I could really go for it if it WAS like that. Cycles and repeating your parents’ mistakes and toxicity and the cycle of abuse - but everything I’ve seen is all nice and about ~healing~…. Bleh. Boring and ooc.

But I guess I came up with a version I would like, so you see why this question is hard for me!!

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

I’m going to take this to mean disliking a fandom I had previously liked, since that’s more interesting. Which is pretty rare! I usually curate my fandom experience extremely ruthlessly to prevent being annoyed by stuff. Even homestuck, I wouldn’t say I ever really stopped liking it, though I was embarrassed that I’d liked it for a bit.

I’d say probably Voltron: I was never really into it but I had lightly enjoyed the first few seasons, and more than the show going downhill, it was really the fandom that made me sour on it before it ended. Lots of popular stuff that felt very ooc and pretty immature and lots of fighting, that sort of thing.

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom

Ending with an easy one! Coffee shop and similar low-stakes modern aus, especially if they’re used as an excuse to shoehorn characters into various tropey professions without seriously thinking about what those characters would be doing in a modern setting. It’s like incorrect quotes to me (hate those too). They wouldn’t do that. Why don’t you think about what they WOULD do instead?

Also if there are magic/vampires/monsters etc and you get rid of them….. why? You hate me. I’m reading fantasy for a reason!

Also soulmate aus. I hate the idea of love beginning with the assumption that this person should matter to you or should have a certain role in your life - and when I start thinking about the wider implications of a world like that it just sounds like a nightmare!

And, boring and obvious answer, but a/b/o - the biological essentialism just gives me the ick.

Any of those could be done extremely well or handled interestingly and I’d enjoy them but in general that’s rare and if I see the tag I’ll steer clear.

ask game

[deathbyautopilot]

We Control the Narrative - On Website Eugenics, Homestuck, and Your Problematic Favs

I entered the digital realm at about 10 years old, just barely witnessing the shift from the web to apps. I played Runescape on a dusty old desktop fitted with Windows XP and would browse through the open forums for games I would never play. But as much as I try to remember the endless dotcom online world and its endless whimsy, works like Kate Wagner’s 404 Page Not Found expose just how far gone that era truly is. For two decades now, the internet has been gradually appropriated by a powerful few, corralling an expansive and free userbase into an easily controlled market.

The shift from the open web to centralized apps has gradually stripped the individual user of the “thrill of the hunt” that characterized the Web 2.0 era. Kate Wagner reflected on the fleeting memories of the open internet, and that nostalgic experience of stumbling upon a single customized site that silently broke down the boundaries of the digital realm. Any website on any page of your search results could yield a treasure trove of groundbreaking new knowledge, media, and community. Sometimes this was finding a new online game, like how it felt to log in to Club Penguin for the first time. But more often than that, it was entire networks of individuals and media that would defy all expectations for what art, and the internet, can be.

This quote pulled from internet historian Olia Lialina summarizes the landscape best:

“It was a web of sudden connections and personal links. Pages were built on the edge of tomorrow, full of hope for a faster connection and a more powerful computer.”

But in a post-iPhone world, the shift towards streamlined and prescribed apps neglected the web into obsolescence. Maximalism gave way to minimalism, UIs gradually deteriorated, urging you to download their new app or subtly manipulating the content that browsers would expose users to. As a 90s kid, Wagner watched this happen in the fall of MySpace, where personal archives were purged simply because it was not profitable to keep them around. For me, it was the fall of Adobe Flash, and the creative media that it took away.

Adobe Flash and I go way back, spanning from Elementary school lunches in the computer lap playing Cool Math Games with all my classmates to late-night exploration on the family laptop. One of my most memorable internet experiences came in the months after I discovered Homestuck, a multi-media webcomic that dominated niche digital communities since its debut in 2009.

Having started only 2 years after the iPhone came out, Homestuck is a legend of early Web 2.0, with a rich and expansive digital narrative that the Atlantic dubbed “a story that could only be told online”. By blending IM chatlogs as dialogue, GIFs as panels, flash media, fully animated videos with complete soundtracks, and a one-of-a-kind narrative, this interactive site would draw in millions of users with each update and bridge the divide between forums, personal blogs, and social networks like Twitter and Tumblr.

I will always remember the day that Act 6 of the series came to a climax with the flash video [S] Collide (April 6th 2016, the best day of my 13 year-old, internet-dwelling life), and of course, July of the next year when it was announced that Adobe Flash would die by the end of 2020.

When Flash went down all those years later — while Homestuck was still being updated on this same site — the new owner of the series’ publishing and printing rights Viz Media made little effort to preserve the 8000+ page time capsule. This prompted fans of the series to come together to compile the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, an optimized, offline version of the original site, even offering language filters to correct its less tasteful writing choices. This was an invaluable act, but it also represents a process of corporate neglect, and the ongoing cleansing of any media online that is deemed unworthy of preservation. Wagner compared this to a series of minor Libraries of Alexandria being burned to the ground, and rich personal narratives being buried beneath a controlled legacy of human history.

“The artifacts of internet life are personal—that is, not professionally or historically notable—and therefore worthless.”

Homestuck fans are split between those who recognize it as a postmodern masterpiece comparable to Ulysses, and those who would be happy to see it left in the rubble of the old web. I understand the desire to leave the unfavourable behind us, but accepting the latter narrative gives in to what Wagner called “Website Eugenics”; A process of devaluing the maximalist, often personalized and gaudy, or in some way flawed in favour of the minimalist, rigid professional class standards being set for the contemporary web. In the case of “dated” media, either cringey personal blogs from middle school or crass lowbrow humour, they will be posited as a damper on material history, when in fact it is deeply human.

The more that we accept a narrative of some digital remnants being of value, and others being a poor reflection of our popular culture, the more that we allow an oppressive power dynamic to play out. Everything, even your cringey middle school Myspace or Tumblr blog, or a webcomic that was drawn in MS paint, deserves to be preserved. If the select few get to control the narrative of the majority, we slowly lose these beautiful connections between ourselves, our media, and our ongoing futures. Internet historians, archivists, and cultural commentators like Kate Wagner are doing what they know combats this agenda; revel in the legacy of the early web, retain all that you can, and do it authentically.

[spacexxcoward]

the dsmp deserves a version of fergalicious to truly make it homestuck 2.0

which character(s).

I DONT KNOW YOU KNOW HOMESTUCK BETTER THAN ME BUT I AGREE

[disworl]

“Anbroids 2.0″ - Malcom Brown (Homestuck Vol. 9)

I liked it, but with much less known tracks from Vol. 9 incoming, it had to get the axe.

While it’s close to blowing the 500k Youtube requirement, “Anbroids 2.0” by Malcom Brown off of Homestuck Vol. 9 is still in the clear, so I’m putting it here as an early favourite of mine. With a very synthetic Strider sound, the track’s got a nice bouncy melody that serves as a fuller-realized version of the original “Anbroids” in the flash. Perfect for a rap-off.

[staggbones]

Version 2.0 updated??!! Check it out?!!

==>

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Just finished Homestuck? Here's what to do next.

A tumblr repost of something I just made for the Homestuck Reddit. 

The Reddit version is going to be the one I update. It may get reposted by a HS Reddit Admin if they want to use it. 

EDIT: Reddit version has been taken down and will be replaced this weekend.

Put in any further recommendations in the comments below and I may add them to the main post.

Problem Sleuth - The MS Paint Adventure that Hussie completed before Homestuck. It's 1000 pages, and the only actually high effort adventure he made before his colossal webcomic.

Homestuck but in its original format

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection - This is the go to for all original Homestuck content. They reworked all the flashes so you can see them in their original crisp HD rather than compressed Youtube or the really awful VIZ flashes. Also has the in-comic videogames as they originally were!!!

Contains lost music and other media by the original teams that worked on Homestuck. Look at it, it's worth your time, especially if you want to do a reread.

Homestuck.net is a fandom archive of all sorts of HS stuff, full of official resources and fan content and lost Homestuck media.

Followup material

The Homestuck Epilogues - "Post-canon" splinter that takes place after the main timeline. Written by members of WhatPumpkin. Be warned - this is not a serious work and if you expect it to be an amazing sequel to Homestuck, you'll be disappointed. It's also, rightfully, got a million content warnings.

Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon - Comic sequel to the Homestuck Epilogues. Was put on indefinite hiatus last year.

Homestuck Patreon Content - There was some content posted on the Homestuck Patreon which is available on homestuck.net. 

Supplementary official content

Paradox space - A bunch of comics made by creators like KC Green and Zack Morrison which were posted 3-5 times a week between 13th April 2014 and 13th April 2015. Comes in hardback, but is out of print and extremely pricey to get second hand.

Vrisky 8usiness - A comic about Vriska getting her robot arm by Andrew Hussie that was only posted in the hardback version of Paradox Space 2, which is now too overpriced to buy.

The VIZ Collection - VIZ Media printed books of Homestuck acts 1-5 (finishing a little before Cascade) which contains page-by-page commentary from Andrew Hussie.

The VIZ Collection Commentary - if you just want the commentary from Hussie and don't want to shell £300 on books.

Homestuck 2.0 - Was originally going to be a Youtube video series hosted by Dante Basco. Was cancelled abruptly before it took off, but this video is still fun to watch. "Step on my neck tadpole mom!"

Video games

Hiveswap - A point-and-click visual novel which follows Joey Claire, the neglected daughter of Grandpa Harley, as she finds herself in Alternia long before the events of Sburb. A prequel to Homestuck which has 2 parts right now and is unfortunately on hold again.

Friendsim - A "friendship" simulator where you play as MSPA Reader and meet all the trolls from Hiveswap act 2, perhaps having some timeline fuckery and existential crises along the way. Can be played separately from reading epilogues/HS^2.

Pesterquest - A followup to Friendsim where you befriend the main 20 kids from Homestuck itself. WARNING: This one does contain HS Epilogue and HS^2 spoilers.

Official Music

Official Bandcamp - Official way to buy high quality HS Music. Used to have the albums split up properly, was condensed some time after the VIZ Takeover for unknown reasons.

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection - Once again this contains all of the music.

Unofficial Team Music

The Baby is You - Toby Fox creates something utterly insane.

STRIIFE/Strife 2 - Unofficial Homestuck album by former Homestuck musician Tensei

Let me know if any more exists outside of LOFAM.

The Homestuck Fan Musicians/Land of Fans and Music

The LOFAM collection - Dozens of albums and hundreds of songs. The four LOFAM albums are of their highest quality. LOFAM was a major recruitment pool for the official Homestuck music team. You should absolutely give it a listen, especially their latest major release, LOFAM 4.

Cool and New Music Team - A collection of shitposty music made to honor the SBAHJ-style fan story Cool and New Webcomic. Some of it is actually good.

"Let's Read Homestuck" - Voice acted video version of Homestuck

VOXUS/Let's Read Homestuck - Currently ends at some point before the Retcon. Still ongoing. Fully voice acted with different actors for each character, as well as tons of effort to make it entertaining to watch.

Some significant fan content

[s] Rex Duodecim Angulus - An epic 8-minute collaborative fan animation of the Trolls defeating their Black King.

A Brief History of Homestuck - 2 hour long video by Sarah Z explaining the massive fan hype of Homestuck, its history over the past 12 years, and some investigative work into what happened with Hiveswap.

Homestuck Sent Me a Legal Threat, and Then it Got Worse - The followup video where Sarah does further investigation into WhatPumpkin's downfall after they threatened to sue her for the first video.

You can't fight the Homestuck - A Rite of Passage.

Octopimp Collection - Octopimp was a Homestuck fan who voice acted a bunch of fan comics drawn by other artists. It's old as hell, but very fun.

Karkalicious - A short, absolutely legendary video where Karkat sings about how much people want to suck his dick. You're welcome.

Cool and New Webcomic - A shitpost version of Homestuck, with many twists and turns. Has many flashes, a dedicated fanbase and tons of fan music.

Act Omega - A fan continuation diverging just after act 7 which uses flash animations. Notable for its high quality art.

Double Death of the Author- A fan continuation diverging just after John does the Windy Thing. A fix-it fic by someone who didn't like the retcon. Notable for being, well, complete.

A 143 page fan comic of Hiveswap act 2 made for the Hiveswap Comics Contest.

Fan Communities

The Homestuck Discord - a 20,000 member discord full of Homestuck fans.

MS Paint Fan Adventures - a website where you can make your own Homestuck fanventures, which has thousands and thousands of fanstories on it!

And that's it for now.

[thefloatingstone]

What are the Deltarune takes? o.o

Ack! Sorry I asked and then bounced. We were hit with a bad storm that knocked out my wifi for like a whole day!

Anyway, people did in fact want to know my bad Deltarune takes as I haven't had any contact with the fandom as a whole's opinions yet, so here we go!

Let's start with what my friend tells me is tumblr's new favourite, Spamton.

I do not like Spamton.

I don't DISLIKE Spamton necessarily, but I don't reallylike him. (his music fucking slaps tho)

I liked him when you first meet him and he's just kind of a silly dude, but the more he talked and the more things he said the more he just genuinely unnerved me. I find the dude incomprehensibly creepy. And not in a 👀 way. In a "hmm. Don't like that." way.

All I can imagine when I read him talking is fucking SHODAN.

I don't like it.

His song when you fight him the first time is genuinely in my top 3 of the chapter tho. And his very first fight is the first fight in ANY of Toby Fox's games where I managed to end the fight without taking a single hit. His NEO form is also the first highly difficult fight I managed to beat. (I need to go back and do Jevil since Seam said if I defeat him in any save file the darkshard will appear in my chapter 2 save file.)

So that's it for Spamton. Dude's creepy.

-

I've really REALLY grown attached to Susie. I think she's my favourite character in this whole thing. I replayed Chapter 1 to get ready for chapter 2 and yeah. I love Susie so fucking muchhhhhh!!! I think when I played chapter 1 the first time it was during the Hell Year for me, and I was really nervous and like weirdly uneasy about "a new maybe-Undertale" game and what it would mean for the original that Susie's mean-girl personality was genuinely intimidating. But now knowing what her character arc is in chapter 1, I was much more on board with her in chapter 2 and she's so greatttttt aaaaaaa

I took every opportunity to be nice to her.

she's my fwend

*weeps*

-

Ralsei is suuuuuuuper fucking Sus in this chapter.

I've been pretty open that I was really disappointed when at the end of chapter 1 it's revealed he's not a fluffy little spider boy but instead Asriel version 2.0. But he is acting REALLY suspicious throughout this entire chapter. Not like he's evil or anything like that, but like he knows a LOT more than anything he says, and he's purposefully being vague and trying to manipulate Kris and Susie's actions and decisions because "they have to make the choices themselves but it's super important they make the RIGHT decisions so I'm just gonna gently nudge and manipulate them and withhold critical information and generally just be incredibly untrustworthy."

I have never agreed with Susie more.

-

Noelle is.... ok.

She's a really passive and meek girl who got introduced to the friend group late when Kris, Susie, Ralsei, and Lancer had just bonded into a unit. So having her introduced after this but not too long after this makes her feel like a bit of an intruder, but I have a very strong feeling this might actually be on purpose which I'll get to later.

The date was ok. I liked the part where I told Susie to eat moss to impress Noelle.

-

Queen is a difficult character for me because I can't actually figure out what her personality is.

Ok so she's "teh lol random XD" and she's basically one of the less plot crucial Homestuck trolls, but I can't really figure out who she is? Other than She friggen imprints on any unsupervised children she finds and decides to adopt them faster than friggen Batman, I don't really know.... anything about her as a person.

She's funny I guess, but jokes and shitposts are not a personality.

So I don't really know what to make of her.

-

I was so happy to see Lancer was along for the ride! I had a very genuine concern that he might not show up in chapter 2 at all since the end of chapter 1 ends with everything in the dark world turning into real world items. So part of me was rather unsure whether that dark world and the characters even still existed. But chapter 1 overall had a very strange and slightly off-putting undertone where everything and all the characters in the over world had a rather unpleasantness to them which I couldn't really figure out. I genuinely thought it was a plot point that was going to lead to something, but after Chapter 2 I'm not thinking perhaps Toby was going through something when he was making chapter 1 which might be why it had a strange off putting undertone to it.

So yeah, my point is I was very very happy to see lancer 1: still existed XDDD and 2: was gonna be along for the ride to a smaller degree.

I didn't think of checking him in my inventory as I played tho, so I might need to replay to see if he has unique dialogue as you play. I did think Toby leading you to use him to solve a puzzle was REALLY well done. You put something in your inventory which seems weird, so you check your items to see what it is only to find it gone, so you think "oh it must be under key items" and go there, only to see Lancer say he ate it. And then right after this is when you need to use Lancer to solve a puzzle, and you've just been reminded that he's there. I genuinely thought this was a brilliant bit of game direction.

I also really really REALLY like the concept of the little castle town that you're building as you play. I love this so much.

-

But now I wanna talk about the character I find most interesting in this game; Kris.

Honestly I like Kris as an individual character a lot more in chapter 2 than chapter 1 where they still felt like an extension of the player. After replaying chapter 1 and playing chapter 2 I really enjoy them as a character on their own more.

There's a continuous theme in chapter 2 of Kris getting pushed aside, first by their family and the town in chapter 1, and now in chapter 2 even by the friends, they made in chapter 1. Which introducing Noelle into the plot feeds into on purpose. So again, it's not that I dislike her but not exactly a recipe for me to like her that much. I just notice Kris' friends pushing them aside more and more, completely by accident, as they get more wrapped up in each other.

One of the enemies (I forget who. It might have been Queen or even Spamton) make fun of them for it. As does a save point. Like "aaaawwww, did your friends all ditch you?" And when you're alone with Noelle after Susie runs off with Ralsei, she mostly asks you about Susie. Just like all the people in town in chapter 1 mostly talked to you to hear how Asriel is doing.

So when you find out Kris had slashed Toriel's tires at the end of the chapter I was like "oh yeah. yup. that'll happen."

I don't see it as spooky scary Chara possessing Frisk. I see it as Kris being a very troubled kid who really really needs some help but they are continuously overlooked, forgotten about, not considered etc etc.

Kris also obviously has massive issues with fitting into Monster society. They show a lot of discomfort about being a human among monsters and shows to try and avoid any reminder of other human beings, which is also a running theme in the game. You hear about them in chapter 1 asking about when they'll grow horns and how Toriel had to buy Kris little fake ones to make them feel better. You see in chapter 2 Kris has been googling how they can learn to use magic like the other monsters can (and sadly only getting results on being a magician). You see Toriel had checked out a library book multiple times on how to take care of a human child and when kris pages through it and gets to a photo of other humans they quickly slam the book shut.

Kris has a feeling of "not belonging". Which is why I think them making friends with Susie, who is also a complete outcast is so great. Especially since Kris is seen as the one who "has it together" more than Susie does when I think the reality is, Kris is a lot more troubled than Susie is.

This is why I like Susie a lot, I like her friendship with Kris and Lancer, I think Susie, Kris (and Lancer) have a LOT more synergy than with Ralsei who is basically the babysitter trying to herd a group of cats, and I think that's why the introduction of Noelle as a main character is rather sad, because just as Kris manages to develop a friend group removed from Asriel, Ralsei is shown to basically be Asriel 2.0 and Noelle comes in and starts turning Susie's attention away from Kris Which gives the impression that Kris is basically just there as a bandaid for Susie while she goes through her character growth. and once she becomes a better adjusted person she'll move on from him to a new friend group in time.

Kris is her "training wheels" until she can form other, stronger, closer relationships and friendships with other people. Then she won't need Kris any more. And will probably move on without even realising Kris is getting left behind. I think Kris is aware of this, and it hurts them as is obvious by the save points in theanymore game when Susie runs off with Ralsei so she can bully him into teaching her healing magic.

I knew when she did that, that that is what she was doing. It was too convenient timing with her suddenly getting the idea to learn healing magic and then basically forcing Kris to shoo so she can ask Ralsei to teach her in private because she feels embarrassed asking in front of Kris. But the save points during this section makes it clear that Kris' feelings are a little hurt.

My friend said she's picturing Kris as wingmanning Noelle and Susie's relationship and I 100% agree, except I saw it more as gently encouraging her and Noelle to get closer to each other because Kris has this belief that Susie will ditch him eventually anyway, just like Asriel did. and Asgore did.

And Lancer is as well. Lancer is obvious BFFs with Susie, but Lancer is also branching out and making friends with all of Kris' growing social circle too. He's made friends with Queen, he's been nice to Berdly who is almost definitely gonna become a party member in the future. He's making friends with the new dark world characters who join your town from the computer. Lancer has always been more Susie's friend than Kris' friend, but it's just an added relationship slowly moving past Kris.

This is also why I think it's super important that Susie said she'd walk Kris home at the end of the game. I think (and I hope but I do believe this is gonna be the case) that the longer Susie spends with kris, the more she's gonna notice everything is not actually ok. And if the story goes the way I think it will, It'll be good to see her completely reject this "I'm just your training friend until you can make real friends" idea and punch some sense into Kris. This is also why I like that she stood up to the kids making fun of Kris behind their back in the overworld.

Susie is proving to actually NOTICE. And to actually LISTEN.

This is also seen after beating Spamton NEO although this might be me reading too much into things. But after you leave, Susie asks Kris if they're ok. You have the option to say no which I took. Kris has a meltdown at Susie which we only hear from Susie's side, but then RALSEI fucking bumps her out of the way to be all "hey hey~ It's ok Kris! Everything will be ok~ Just take deep breaths~!"

And Susie's little side-eye squinty glare of suspicion as she just stays silent before breaking the awkwardness and lightly calling Kris a dumbass for trying to do stupid shit on their own without her help. (ie fight Spamton).

And then she breaks the tension by smashing a fuck ton of pots in the next room.

-

This is also why the tire slashing, and the reveal that kris is the person creating the dark fountains wasn't even a twist for me. I didn't know what Kris was doing when they climbed out the bathroom window, but Toriel calling the police because the tires were slashed made me go "oh yeah. There it is."

And I had pretty much become convinced Kris was the knight around the middle of the chapter. I can't remember what it was that made it clear to me. I don't think it was any individual moment or thing that made me realise it. I think it was a suspicion I've had since the end of chapter 1, and the further I went along in chapter 2 the more convinced I was of this.

-

Anyway. Those are my Deltarune Chapter 2 thoughts before the fandom has a chance of swaying my opinions or thoughts on any of these things.

I hope you guys enjoyed???

Also....

I loled at this part because all I could think was "I wonder how angry this made people."

Beautiful.

[charlesoberonn]

Undertale is the antithesis of Homestuck.

Fact.

Undertale’s fandom is the 2.0 version of Homestuck’s fandom?

Unfortunately yes.

I'm gonna need you to substantiate and elaborate on both claims, Anon.

[m39]

Homestuck^2 Update: April 2020 (part 2)

Good fucking GOD Hussie! Can’t you and your crew give me a break?! Two days ago I just posted a long ass text about Epilogues that took me a few weeks to make! Come on man!!

…

groan

Fine I’ll talk about it.

So, what shall we start with?

Hmm…

How about John’s mustache. Cause now we know when he fucking shaved it:

[*] John’s mustache (2019-2034) [*]

And speaking of John:

Cute.

Also we see how Candy versions of Rose and Kanaya look like:

It’s pretty funny and adorable at the same time how Rose spots a new pseudo-commando haircut and Kanaya is using lipstick in the color of her waifu’s trademark color. Homestuck’s trademark silliness everybody!

Also also:

Maybe not as cute as her Meat counterpart but looks like a total badass.

One last thing:

O_o

Okay look. Asides from the fact that Jade had a wonderful idea to call someone… Yiffy but... Who in the flying fuck is Yiffy?!

From what I saw on the Internet, some people think that’s Jade’s daughter. If that’s true, then oh this poor girl. Someone else thinks that’s the name of her pet, like some kinda Bec 2.0. Or it’s the name of her… lover (I saw this option on Twitter), which will send every fucking DaveJade shippers into a fucking frenzy mode (and me pissing myself out of complete and utter hilariousity) if this will be the right answer. Personally I believe that Yiffy is Jade’s pet but who knows.

And that’s it. Hope you had a happy 4/13 and see you next time.

Bye!

[blaperile]

Homestuck Candy Epilogue - Reactions Pages 40 - 41 (END OF CANDY EPILOGUE?!)

Page 40:

Oh man, this was another really cool page.

I like how Alternate Calliope demonstrated the danger of Dirk, and kind of of unreliable narrators in general.

So, does this mean that we can consider the Meat path to first SEEM like a speakerless story and then retroactively turning out to have a speaker all along, while the Candy path remains a speakerless story in its entirety?

So when we look back at the Prologue, the Candy path keeps it speakerless while the Meat path makes it retroactively have Dirk as a speaker?

It's interesting to consider Homestuck as a whole in this light. Andrew Hussie is the narrator of the majority of the story and is kind of the speaker of it, but overall he keeps the narration mostly neutral and without an identity, so it can be considered sort of speakerless?

Except when he's fucking with people, especially with Caliborn. :P

How about Doc Scratch though? He was narrator for a while, but in his case it didn't really seem like he was putting thoughts into people's minds, was he? He was seemingly narrating just for us what was actually happening without his influence.

He did have his own agenda, but he wasn't really pushing it through his narration, was he?

I think we CAN count the Exiles however. They had the power to put thoughts into other people's minds, subtly or otherwise.

I like how Aradia is now on the receiving end of cryptic behaviour.

Anyway, oh man, confirmation that Lord English is coming!!! And even a feather of Davepetasprite^2 has arrived!!! The question is again, will they arrive together or separately?

The implications seem to be that this final confrontation with Lord English won't be an incredibly big deal anymore. Seems like Alternate Calliope will be able to handle him just fine.

The real endgame will be in the Meat reality, that seems to be for sure.

It's interesting how, from the post-scriptum, the implications seem to be that Alternate Calliope, Aradia and Davebot will be the only ones from this reality to cross over to the other one. Which is ironic because the former two aren't even home to this reality, while Davebot might not even be confined to one specific reality anymore.

abundantChewtoys just raised a good point to me, will Davepetasprite^2 even be able to cross the Black Hole now that Davebot has tapped into his ultimate self? Or have they just become absorbed into Davebot now?

Page 41:

WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

HOLY SHIT

Okay, this took me entirely by surprise, I did NOT expect this to be the end of the Candy path!!

We didn't get to see Lord English's arrival and confrontation with Alternate Calliope. We didn't get to see whether or not Terezi responded to Vriska's message. We didn't get to see Jade's reaction to Dave's death. We didn't get to see the result of Karkat's rebellion against Jane.

I... holy shit!!!

And now, this entire page... so Dirk, Rosebot, and Terezi (presumably, considering the mention of the ruby slippers and what we know from the Meat path) have been on this ship for YEARS, and headed for... a new planet??? One that will get to play SBURB in many thousands of years??? THE MOST IMPORTANT SESSION EVER???

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

What... does this mean?

What are they going to do on this planet? Are they going to somehow timetravel into the far future? What IS this session?

I mean... it's not Obama's session, right? xD

He did somehow encounter (a version of) Dirk in his session, okay, but...

Whaaaaaat?

It also can't be about Caliborn's session, seeing as that transpired on Earth.

So something ENTIRELY new.

But... how is it important? Does Andrew Hussie come from there? xD

And... how will this involve Alternate Calliope's confrontation with Dirk? And all the other travellers from Meat Earth who were chasing Dirk?

And which fucking Gamzee is the one that would find Calliope and Caliborn in the far future? Is it a revived Candy Gamzee or a Meat Gamzee we never saw?

Does this mean that, in whatever form this narrative will continue, Candy Earth will be left open-ended? Does this mean this is the end of the narrative significance of John and Vriska????

That feels so hard to believe, considering they were two of the most important characters in Homestuck uptil this point.

To be honest, John's body IS probably somewhere on this ship, right? So it's still hypothetically possible for him to revived at a later point... maybe?

Holy shit, this leaves SO many questions.

Now I'm left wondering... is there more out there already? Has new material been published? Is Homestuck 2.0 actually a thing and has it happened?

Or if not, is there anything planned for the near future?

I was lucky enough not to be spoiled about any of these Epilogues or anything that might have come after, but then again it’s also a disadvantage... because I don't know if anything came after. xD

Open question, if anyone's reading this: what do we do now??

If we don't get a response we'll probably start looking/searching around a bit to see if we find something.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Candy 29-36

Things are finally happening with Alltie, ok cool

holy fuck Jane the words coming out of your mouth is a real nasty shock

but again I witnessed your descent this entire time so I can’t say I’m really that surprised

Gamzee here asking if she might sound a bit xenophobic is actually pretty cunning coming from him, and not the stupid comment it sounds like, he’s riling her up like he’s got her wrapped around his codpiece, which, he kinda does tbh

he’s actually doing a very good job of fanning the flames and honestly probably doing exactly what Dirk would have doing had he been in his position, minus boinking her of course

Oh she finally gets rid of him though, far too little too late though

Love how the last thing on Gamzee’s mind is just more selfish junk though

though if he’s not immediately killed by her security detail he’s just gonna go on his own murderous rampage again, that what he do after all

oof, oh boy here comes the genocide though

let’s see how Vriska isn’t coping with earth C tho yeah?

Oh wow John just nonchalantly putting brackets over Vriska like that lol

“JOHN: i got everything i wanted. everyone got what they—

JOHN: what i thought they wanted.”

BINGO! That’s what’s wrong, that’s what been wrong this whole time

John’s been unintentionally influencing the people around him to do what he thinks they want to do, not what they actually want to do, so they’ve all been slowly warped over time by John’s perceptions of them, and the more John’s react to their changes, the more changes happen to them and their personalities

like some kind of butterfly effect

Jane starts out neutral but says something ignorant about trolls, innocently even, john gets the thought “wow, that was kind of xenophobic, i wonder if she wants to dislike trolls?” and upon thinking that, instead of being an innocent ignorance that could have been cleared up, now it’s actually true because John thinks its true

and then just, that, over and over again, each time the warp and the contrast increasing until we get this basically, everyone just a horrendously skewed version of themselves with traits that John honed in and accepted about them from assumptions about them

so, yeah in a way, this is all kind of John’s fault just not the way he imagined

“JOHN: whatever i did, or didn’t do, just... destroyed reality’s ability to, like, substantiate itself, or whatever.

JOHN: like there’s a bug in the operating system of whatever force in this world that regulates cause and effect.”

Yeah that bug is probably called that house cursor thing, in a story, a bug in the system is called a plot hole, referring to it as a bug when referencing software probably makes sense since in the sburb game sense it probably IS just a cursor that “dropped” out of someone’s game window when it shouldn’t have, like a glitch

oh godammnit can someone just kill the clown? Vriska can you just kill Gamzee please

why all the weirdly specific wrestling moves though, I can’t even follow cuz I don’t even know what’s happening or what all these terms mean

oh.

uh..

no thanks, I’m retconning that from my brain if you please

oh wait, Candy is unhinged from truth pillar right

so varying levels of essentialness and relevance is Candy? hmm less so and less so over time

the way Rose is talking though, it makes it seem like the canon story of Homestuck just isn’t a happy one

and well, from her perspective it isn’t, Meat is technically so far the canon one to her

but remember This Rose could never see past the Candy or the Meat, she was blinded to everything else except it, even now she’s blind to anything outside of her current story, she can’t even tell things are fake anymore, John is unfortunately not so lucky

so a third route where things can be both satisfying and true is still possible, maybe not from here, not from now, but out there somewhere its still possible

So it’s not like we all have to give up on Homestuck quite yet

wow I really should have actually read these epilogues sooner, it’s really not as horrible as everyone was making it out to be, because it’s making it abundantly clear that it’s not a binary choice between Meat or Candy

it’s just that any other possible route simply doesn’t exist yet, and may not exist until something changes in canon itself (hint, probably pesterquest mc)

in it’s current state, all Homestuck has is Meat or Candy

but that doesn’t mean the story of Homestuck as it is now can’t change or be retconned further

I’m still ignoring all references to the clown from here on out

“candy-coated shithole of an approximation of what a paradise planet might look like to certain individuals.”

yeah that’s a good way to describe Earth C lol

“JAKE: Do you think ive ruined my whole entire life and all of my relationships and especially the most important relationship in ones life, the divine and unbreakable bond between a man and his son?

JOHN: haha.

JOHN: um.“

wow lol I think John is actually getting whiplash from the amount of “oh god why are all of my friends living out all of my emotional problems I never got closure for like some sort of sick puppet show”

“ John wonders if everything being out of his control would make him feel better. Even if he weren’t presently stuck sucking on this bitter cosmic red pill, he can’t imagine being particularly happy with this worldstate. Maybe it just would’ve made it all the more soul-crushing. “

It’s weird because like, the answer, yet again, to the question “Should I have control total control over everything or I should not have any control over anything” is always going to be “no, wrong question, both are wrong, the real answer is you should have some control to effects things, and not just YOU, everyone should have control over their own destinies”

we need to get the cursor juju, blend it into a milkshake and have everyone take part in a big old toast to it and then have them all come together and rewrite homestuck together

Get Ultimate John, Jade, Dave and Rose to all sit down and make a roadmap for their own story and have that be Homestuck 2.0 and live in that forever

and like, everyone get’s to decide what happens in their own stories and where’d theyd like to be except Lord English, he unquestioningly evil and can’t be convincingly “undone” I think because all of his shittyness has to come back to some person, and i think that’s likely to be Caliborn or Gamzee at the end of the day

heh, Caliborn and Gamzee = Calamzee, almost sounds like a corrupted word for Calamity

Anyway, yeah all it took at the end for John to finally dip into the illusion is a big old blast of HopeChange from Jake English

and so obviously I’m going to address the use of the word Change here in this context

it’s capitalized, and obviously used in Reference to Jake’s overall Classpect

which seems to be implying a connection to Witch as a Change Class

but Hope in it’s nature is already a natural catalyst of a Changing force itself, it was once the power to make fake things real in Homestuck proper, and of course one off hand word in connection to Witch is simply not enough to overthrow a larger pile of evidence in a different direction which is that Knight and Page are the obvious class pairing (looking at you “more magical Witch” Sylph, now you got a real competition! lol)

Now taken that with everything we know about “real” and “fake” when it comes to the epilogues

and that the idea of Canon has been associated with that white glow of satisfaction overall

Jake English is probably once again more key to what would be a satisfying canon story than anything else, same with the cursor Juju

maybe the Juju then doesn’t need to be key either, maybe the key is just everyone spreading their own powers over eachother and using that as the medium to write the story again

I’m getting really hung up on the idea of the characters themselves deciding to fix the problems in their existence by going back into canon and writing out their own personally satisfying arc conclusions overtop of their origin stories and having genuine conversation about things when their stories overlap with eachother and taking the time to respect and help manifest eachother’s wishes as well as their own, like a grand cosmic god version of just living life and being friends would have done in the first place, no canon adjusting powers needed

Anyway, Almost done with Candy now, just got a few more pages to go

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck Candy p40+Postscriptum

So, the odds are better than even that Dave might break up with Jade now.

In that sense, she'll finally have "caught up" with her Game Over self, who got together with Davesprite, only for him to break off the relationship after less than 3 years. :(

---

Page 40

Wow nelly.

Hahah, Aradia is so very patient with Alt Calliope, it's funny! She just sees so much of her Aradiabot personality in her!

She's also still quite morbid and cheerful, hahah. Just like how Kanaya liked sunlight, Aradia has a very cheerful variant on gothiness, due to how Alternia's default mode is all dark and gloomy. :D

It was very interesting - and yes, uncharacteristically forthcoming of her - to hear Alt Calliope's explanation of the danger Dirk poses. He's influencing the way canon is told, coloring it imperceptibly, changing the experiences of the characters AND the readers without them knowing it. Changing the message, a hidden agenda.

People reading the Candy path first go into the Meat path with a lot of well-earned suspicion about the narration. Meanwhile, people like us go into the Candy path expecting a narrator where there isn't one.

Calliope explained it as such, that when you can't know, you should see it as null until proven differently. So that's how we should see the Candy path, huh? Not yet speakerless until we know for sure. And even afterwards, when going into Homestuck 2, we'll still be kind of suspicious.

Though of course, a healthy dose of suspicion about supposedly "objective" stories is not unhealthy! In fact, a lot of people online would do well to learn from this.

It's a nice new duality in a long list of dualities in Homestuck. Speakerless/spoken.

Meanwhile, Lord English is coming. Calliope is going to consume his essence, we've seen as much happening. Still weird, kind of, that he's her ultimate counterpart. Since she already consumed another Caliborn, the one from her own timeline. Guess the weird duality of cherubs mandates that her counterpart be someone of equal (or similar) power, I guess. Muse of Space turned Black Hole vs Lord of Time turned Green Sun-powered scourge of Paradox Space.

Her dismissal of this timeline as spawning anything relevant, essential or true is of course begging for an exception to crop up. Does Davebot apply, now his awareness includes Meat Dave's presumably? Or John, who contacted Terezi in the blank remnants of Paradox Space?

I also wonder what the burned feather signifies, whether Davepeta survived the journey into the Candy path? Maybe not. Maybe not, since there appears to be a rule between two of the same person being around, and Davebot now includes her experiences. Vriska and (Vriska) don't share any memories, so they might be excluded from the rule.

I wonder if anything is going to be made from the fact that Lord English contains soul essences from Lil Hal, Gamzee and Equius. Will Calliope consume them too? And does Lil Hal's essence count as a connection to the Prince of Heart (who I'm glad Calliope acknowledged by his full title by the end of this page)?

---

Page 41

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The Candy path ended here!

So, (Vriska)'s conversation, and even confirmation of LE's final fate, are not due for this story after all??? But, I thought they weren't canonically important enough? :P

I suppose LE's fate is fairly sealed, with the other Postscriptum. And (Vriska)'s conversation can be alluded to by Terezi in the end, since I still believe they're the same as the Meat version.

But still...

Wow.

So, this Postscriptum shows that, for possibly an equal amount of time than passed in the Candy path, Rosebot, Dirk and Terezi have been travelling the stars. Eeeeeeeeesh. I hope it's fewer than 16 years, I really do. For one, if John gets revived he'd be terribly pissed to suddenly be so much younger than his friends.

But yeah, what is Dirk's freaking plan? He wants kids to play Sburb again? What for?? He doesn't like this end state of the game, so he thinks - screw it, let's create a new universe. Is that it?

Dear God. And of course Rosebot is on board, she's been brainwashed by Dirk. Terezi is probably just like "meh" about everything, but Dirk has plans for her anyway.

wow.

So, Candy John really ends up disappearing into obscurity, after (hopefully) making amends with Harry Anderson. He'll probably want to stick around to see his kids and descendants grow up, now.

Dear Gog. I -

I wonder how many years have passed in Meat Earth C. I wonder if Dirk will still control the narrative from here on out. Not sure, since he appeared to have given over control of Earth C to Calliope, and she's coming for him.

...

So, anyone having bet that this might in fact, finally, be fedoraFreak's session?journey

Blaperile has a point, it could be Andrew Hussie's homeworld. :P It'd explain all the horses on his land, and also him being "an orange guy". ... It also opens the door for there, finally, being a Johnsprite. :P

Also, lol at all these parallels in the postscriptum. Candy Calliope eating the Meat of LE. Meat Rosebot eating the Candy of Dirk. Davebot and Rosebot.

Dirk always acting like has an audience. Good one.

So yeah, I've seen some posts on Tumblr referring to Homestuck 2.0, containing panels that seemed to have been drawn in Hussie's art style. So I think Blaperile and I have some catching up to do on the main site, still.

And if not, we still got Hiveswap to catch up on! And some of the Kickstarter updates, I believe. Also, whatever Pesterstuck is. I heard something about a game involving the B1 kids, but further than that, I'm in the dark.

Gotta say, the epilogues did a good job rekindling interest in the Homestuck universe. But with creating enough of a gap between the people these characters have turned into, in that the next story can feel disconnected, it's own thing. At least I hope it will feel as such.

[staggbones]

A fun cast of characters, hopefully nobody gets traumatized!

[applecherry108]

first of all hooooooooolyyyy shiitttt

FUCK tungle. it took like 30 tries to log in on desktop. admittedly, i was using the wrong password at first, BUT, even when i remembered the right one it kept giving me shit. This is what i get for being L337 i guess... -_-

anyways, im only on desktop so i can add a readmore to say:

i just,,,,,hate voltron. okay? It sucked. it fucking sucked. i watched the first season and it was like, okay yeah, this has potential. and then s2 was like, okay yeah not as good but maybe s3 will pick up...

s3 didn’t pick up. it was just one long death spiral by the same idiots who fucked up the atla sequel. i hate their writing, i hate their story plots, i hate how they butcher any good ideas they have, and i especially hate their inability to have good character AND plot development happen at the same time.

I got swept up in storm of klance and that’s about it. i have soft spots for other ships but at the end of the day i don’t care. i just don.t fucking,,, care???

the fandom is a mess, the crew was a mess, everything was a fucking mess from the get go.

Like who tf is this show written for?? it has to be for like, 8-10 year olds. It has to be. Everything is just so....stupid. Nothing is ever properly explained, motivations never really given, everyone is just a 2 dimensional cardboard cutout of a trope. And that pisses me off so much bc like??? other shows aimed at young kids can still have great world building. they can have good world building and characters and overall story and still be cheesy and a lil dumb. cheesy and a lil dumb is completely fine!! but voltron is just so...godammn... BORING!! it’s like i WANT to like the characters but its just so goddamn hard when everybody is so fucking flat. by all rights, i should want to marry allura. shes everything i loved when i was little, from her color pallet to her princesshood to her white fucking hair!! i should LOVE allura but i don’t!! i kind of hate her. why?? i don’t know!! shes so...boring! and flat! and fucking PASSIVE! everything in this show lands so fucking flat holy shit.

pidge at matts “grave”? yikes, that was second hand hard to watch for like.... “oooh this is so serious!” but the buildup wasnt there...it was kind of funny tbh... and HELLA awkward...

don’t get me started on lance and hunk. bolin was my favorite look character for the first few episodes and then he got knocked to Comic Relief and had maybe two (2) importantish moments. he/they may be part of the main cast but they’re not main characters. they feel like background props to the Actual Main characters.

which brings me to keith.

FUCK keith.

that’s my reaction after every! new! season!! is just,, FUCK keith. god the show functioned SO WELL without him. he’s just so...idk. i also don’t care. what was his character arc anyway? it SHOULD have been about learning to love and trust others but we only get that in lip service and speed run character development (i hate the quantum abyss...so much... like yeah, who cares about SHOWING our characters mature, let’s just tell that it happened in afucking montage.) if keith were a properly developed character he shouldve remained PASSIONATE and idk, run support?? that boy SHOULD have piloted red, end of story. period. keith doesn’t need to lead he needs to learn to TRUST others and that insludes trusting other WITH HIS LIFE. i won’t rant about how we should have had black paladin lance, but keith should have never ever been black paladin. even after he “matures” he still sucks at. he’s this awful,,little,, Shiro 2.0. and I hate it. i ahte it and i hate shiro just a little bit. even though he was arguably the most likeable character, he shouldve stayed dead. or missing. or whatever. he didn’t need to come back and they didnt need to make keith a little offbrand clone of him. i ESPECIALLY hate that they aged keith up 2 years for no goddamn reason other than to make him the Adult (tm). keith’s dedication to others was gre4at, but it should have, and im failing for this word here so forgive me, climaxed? cresscendo’d? whatever. /resulted/ in him playing support. not leader. lone wolf keith doesn’t need how to lead his pack, he needed to learn to HELP his pack. to be a TEAM PLAYER. he didn’t want the responsibility of leading bc guess what?? some people hate leading!! there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be support! keith’s entire arc is a huge mess of missed opportunities and a grand illustration that he is lm’s and jds’ favorite, just like fucking mako.

i won’t rant about mako, but just know i fucking hate him and the special treatment he gets, and good LORD does keith take over mako. keith isn’t space zuko he’s space mako and it fucking SHOWS.

okay, i’m losing steam here, but like.... so apple, why tf where u voltron 24/7 if you hated it so much? because homestuck was over and i needed a new hyperfixation. and i really had to force it for vld tbh. and at the end of the day, it wasn’t so much about the show itself as the potential of klance (or sheith, up until s3). between the interviews, the coding, the fucking EVERYTHING--it really felt like it could be canon. i knew in my heart it was queer baiting but i had HOPE dammit. hope that this could be killer representation, hope that these characters would delvelopment into something incredible. again, there was so much POTENTIAL. and all of it was wasted. everything really came to a head during the fucking game show episode. it was like lm and lds giving everyone who likes lance the middle finger, really driving home that “no no, he IS just stupid. he’s the comic releif. there’s nothing deeper about him and no one will stand up for him bc they all think of him as such.” and that just....broke my heart. we were so...SO close to lance actually mattering but nope! bolin’d again! and what was his purpose in s8? why to be an accessory to allura of course!

i’ve seen a lot of people really divorce themselves from canon and live solely for fanon, esp fanon klance but like.... i can’t. i just can’t. it’s so fucking hard to work with these cardboard characters. you can only draw so much depth onto them, you know? until the very last moments they had potential, but then it all got snuffed out. but who cares about canon? why bother with it? because! we don’t have a solid consistent fanon version of them! no one sat down and delivered the ten commandments of “here’s what we agree k and l are actually like” it’s stupid and it sucks because everyone has their own little differences and its so so tiring to basically be interacting with minutely different ocs all the goddamn time. canon matters bc it gives everyone the same base to work with. like a cooking showing with the same basket ingredients, but now it’s like.... ya’ll don’t wanna use the mandatory ingredients (and why would you? those canon ingredients are like, a century egg and spoiled sardines, they’re awful.)

okay, and im at work and just came back to this and dont remember my train of thought so like... what really threw all this into sharp clarity was the recent steven universe episodes. they were so...GOOD. so fucking good. so much plot and foreshadowing coming to a head. it was such a wonderfully satisfying payoff that it made me remember what a GOOD show is like, how vld is so very very /bad/. the difference is fucking striking. where one is an intricately woven tale with excellent character development and clear story AND character arcs, that can progress AT THE SAME TIME, one is a hacked together flaming dumpster firing that constantly falls flat and doesn’t know where its going or why. and it s so BORING! like fight scenes can be amazing! they can be well coreographed and tense! and we as the audience can be anxious about the outcome! and vld just wasn’t that! it was boring repetetive action in the least exciting way. and where su set up a lot of potential, holy shit they DELIVERED on that potential. not just for rep, but for characters! for story! for plain ol simple character interactions! and then, again, two dimensional cardboard cutouts.

and now with this difference in good vs bad show so very clearly highlighted for me, i just.... i can’t, anymore, with vld. it sucks. it sucked and i can’t pretend or force a fixation with it that just isn’t there, and truthfully, probably never was. maybe that’s why i’ve been struggling to finish my fic, struggling ever since i posted the last chapter, ever since s7, which, again, that game show was really the nail in the coffin as far as holding onto any hope that this tire fire would ever pick up. like a physically feel ill trying to finishing this stupid fic bc i don’t care so hard. i don’t care and i just... really want to be over it. im sick of seeing it everywhere, im sick of the drama, of the Discourse. like all fandoms have their issues, but hold fuck does vld fandom have a massive Purity problem. like, god, let people ship whatever. who cares. die mad about it.

like homestuck, idk if i’ll ever fully ween myself off vld but i want to move on. i want to enjoy Other Things without having this lackluster weight on my shoulders. and more than anything, i want to stop feeling like im obligated to like the same shit as i did two years ago, or last year, or hell, last week! feel free to unfollow, but yeah i just.... really needed to let this out in a proper post and not in the misc tags somewhere.

[mineqishis]

comfort character list 2.0 because i left out some good ones on my first version:

-minegishi

-serizawa

-dave homestuck

-BMO from adventure time

-icarus (like the original one, not from that viddy game)

-oswald from Ibsen’s “Ghosts”

-marshall and wolfgang from animal crossing !