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bisexual-medal-alex · 5 years ago

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HOMESTUCK 2: WHAT IS THE POINT

So Homestuck 2 has been out for around a quarter of a year now and despite my reluctance I have been keeping up with it and reading the main updates as they’re coming out. I’ll admit that there’s things that I like such as the new kids, Davekat and Roxy. But it’s not clicking with me the original Homestuck did and there’s a lot of in story reasons (and some meta reasons too) but there’s a big fundamental flaw of this project that everything wrong about this story revolves around, at least in my eyes. I’m having a hard time understanding what the point of Homestuck 2 is.

That is to say I’m having a hard time just grasping what’s at stake and why I should feel invested in it. On the surface I have a basic comprehension of the plot; Dirk gets so high on his own ego that he basically kidnaps and brainwashes Rose so that he can give the story a villain. And also Terezi joins him for whatever reason, a bunch of good guys and a ghost from another timeline are traveling to stop them and in an alternate timeline Jane is making a fascist takeover of their home while all of this is happening. That’s the basic summary of the story without trying to untangle all of the alternate timeline bullshit that is quite honestly harder to follow than anything in the original comic.

Don’t get me wrong Homestuck Classic is dense and hard to follow if you’re not paying attention. But I do feel like it had a point or at least a narrative structure that enhanced the story. Homestuck was ultimately a story about kids playing a game and it used adventure game tropes and conventions to not only make the world more cohesive but also to comment on said tropes and conventions. All of the kids struggled to meet the expectations thrown on them by the game, they all handled it in different ways from passively accepting their lack of agency to trying to wildly rebel against their fate and even then in some weird twist it always turned out that even their rebellion was predetermined by some higher power. I feel like the point of the original Homestuck beyond just being a silly story making fun of video games was a commentary on growing up and feeling like you have no control over anything in your life. Whether or not the ending was a satisfying way to end such a ambitious narrative like that is another debate entirely but for all of its faults the original Homestuck has a purpose.

Hell I’ll even go so far as to say I understood the point of the Epilogues and what they were trying to do. It was trying to be a commentary on the metafictional implications of continuing a story past “happily ever after” using the framework of a dark fan fiction. It makes sense to do it like this, trying to build on the themes of agency and choice that the original Homestuck started and having the characters feel lost and without purpose now that the “story” is over so while they’re still trying to settle into adulthood there’s also the existential threat of ceasing to exist without a plotline. And again like the original Homestuck they’re dealing with this existential stress in different ways either trying to live peacefully and explore their own identity or trying to be as disruptive as possible in an attempt to stay relevant. It’s supposed to be a story about how happy endings don’t exist and life still continues even after you close the book.

Putting aside for a moment whether or not the Epilogues succeeded in conveying those themes well, I think Homestuck 2, being a direct continuation of the Epilogues, is trying to build on those themes. The trouble is, again just speaking personally, I don’t understand how it’s trying to do it and it just seems pointless at best and like overly indulgent naval-gazing at worst. It comes down to A. Dirk’s role as the “bad guy” and B. How disconnected the story feels.

So in the Epilogues one version of Dirk becomes so self-absorbed after tapping into his highest potential that his god-tier powers grant him that he’s able to assume control of the narrative and as a result he decides that the best way to take advantage of this new power is to give the story a point by becoming a villain himself. I can accept all of that especially knowing that of all the human kids in the original Homestuck he was the most emotionally unstable and he always seemed to be stuck in his own ego. He always had that kind of narcissistic self-loathing where he hated himself but he also saw himself as the only person who could save the day and y’know despite fans not wanting Dirk to become a self proclaimed “bad guy” I can see why he was in a position where he would look at the possibility of ceasing to exist, see it as a problem to fix himself and think that the best way to do it would be to just embrace his most toxic personality traits and step into a new villainous role to drive the “plot” forward.

With aaaaaaaaallllllllll of that being said I do not understand his plan or why he’s doing any of the things he’s doing. I don’t understand why he needed to kidnap Rose and turn her into a hollow metal husk of her former self, I don’t understand why he roped Terezi along for the ride, I don’t understand why he’s taking a spaceship out into the middle of space, I don’t understand why he wants to play Spore and create two competing races of aliens on an uninhabited planet. I can guess and hypothesize why he’s doing these things, like maybe he took Rose and manipulated her into going along with his plans just so he’d have an intellectual equal and Terezi is in the best position to stop him so convincing her to come along is a good way to ensure she can’t help the heroes and frankly the whole alien thing coupled with the brief re-opening of the suggestion box feels like he’s trying to relive the glory days of Sburb like a middle aged dad trying to live vicariously through his son making him join the sports club even though he might not have any interest in doing so.

But I don’t understand the core drive behind any of these things and it feels like a hollow attempt to keep the story going even though it feels like everyone involved has already moved on. Maybe that is the point and I’m drastically overthinking Dirk’s role as a villain, he’s just doing all of this because he’s bored and doesn’t know how to continue the story in any meaningful way. It still makes the story feel hollow and it’s Hussie trying to be tongue-in-cheek about the fact that he wants to keep writing Homestuck but he doesn’t have any ideas on what to do with it.

Which is pretty obvious when you look at the B plot involving Jane becoming a fascist and having to deal with an uprising against her rule over Earth C. Hussie really wrote himself into a corner with the Epilogues focusing on two timelines; it might seem like an arbitrary choice to have a story where literary infinite possibilities coexist but then only focus on two of said possibilities but it did work in context of the Epilogues because it showed how profoundly your life can change just from making one choice over the other and it worked with the meta-narrative about stories and the theme of whether or not the characters have control over their lives now that they’re free from the “story”. But now the writers have to deal with the fallout of that decision and manage not only the plot with Dirk dicking around in space and a bunch of the characters coming to stop him, now they have to deal with the story of Jane holding onto her empire in TWO different timelines (well only if you’re paying for it but we’ll get to that).

I know Homestuck is famous for juggling multiple plot lines at once but the thing about that is that all of those plot lines were important for the overall story and that’s not the vibe I get here. It’s honestly not that interesting and feels like a distraction from what the story should be about. Nobody in this side of the story except maybe original flavor Vriska is aware of what’s going on in the other side of the story and the stakes are much less personal. I care more about Dave, Karkat, Roxy, Kanaya and Calliope/Jade trying to rescuer Rose and stop Dirk than I do Vriska dragging Gamzee’s corpse with a bunch of teenagers while Jane gets turned into a Donald Trump analogue.

And like honestly the fact that there’s updates hidden behind a paywall really bugs me. I understand that with the nature of crowdfunding you need some substantial incentives to get people to donate, I’m not shitting on crowdfunding as a way to fund your story and truthfully I don’t see anything wrong with having some bonus content exclusive to those who are willing to pay a little extra (trying my best not to sound like an EA or Activision executive here). But with a story like Homestuck, where the reader has been conditioned into seeing every update with every innocuous detail as something important that will later advance the story, having some updates be exclusive to backers feels wrong because you’re either saying that said updates aren’t going to impact the story so they’re just pointless fluff or you’re keeping critical story details hidden from people that can’t afford it so they’re missing out and really neither of those possibilities are a good look for your story.

And really the fact that Homestuck 2 used the Epilogues as it’s foundation is not a good idea because that’s a really rocky foundation. I know I spent a good chunk of this essay actually defending the Epilogues and their themes in a way but just because I think a story has some hidden depth like that doesn’t mean I think it’s good. It’s still needlessly grim with a lot of poorly handled character development the excuse from the creators of this being just a possible canon outcome for the series feels like a cop-out since this may as well be the main canon since nothing else for the series featuring these characters is advancing their story (unless you count Pesterquest which to be blunt feels like an extended apology for the Epilogues). Truthfully I don’t know if the Epilogues or HS2 have anything more profound to say about continuing a story past the happy ending than Into The Woods or a straight-to-DVD Disney sequel (not that I’m comparing an award-winning Broadway play to a Disney sequel in terms of quality I’m just saying I get more enjoyment and intellectual stimulation from the meta-narrative of Lion King 1 1/2 than Homestuck at this point).

Maybe I’m being too harsh to judge Homestuck 2 when it seems to have only barely just gotten started. It’s going to continue whether or not I enjoy it or not and maybe over time it will validate itself. But right now to me personally it just feels like a hollow imitation of what we used to enjoy about Homestuck.

#homestuck #homestuck 2 #homestuck 2 beyond canon #upd8 #randomguywords

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bladekindeyewear · 6 years ago

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Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue part... one..??

Alright, let’s do this. As I’ve said, the page after this one is all I’ve seen, I’m diving in unspoiled. Also I gather from some of the non-spoilery chatter I’ve heard from my friends -- one of which warned me this sort of thing was coming a couple weeks ago, and I believed them (but didn’t want to) -- that this first epilogue-upd8 may not be the only epilogue-upd8, which isn’t surprising either given how Andrew works.

Alright, let’s go. Hope my stomach can take it!

So, Page 1, the mock-AO3 page that’s the only thing I’ve seen before posting this. The content warning is EXCELLENT, and gives me hope that this will be the usual Hussie-caliber and more humorous than heartwrenching. :)

It also makes some serious sense that there would be multiple epilogues; from the sound of the summary, this one might focus more on John and then leave ample opportunity to discuss the others.

Let’s click page 2 -- oh, or contents: “Prologue”, this being a chapter list for this is another way to do it. Clicking Prologue.......

Okay wow, this is novel format for the moment. Good chance it won’t stay that way.

These first two paragraphs are well-written and ominous, sure -- describing stuff we pretty much already knew was happening, in different words -- but even though the writing isn’t really pretentious, there’s still a good chance Andrew *views* it as pretentious enough to find cutting away to art-style instead hilarious. Onto the third paragraph...

Music and Calliopes the other Calliope is conducting, yeah... Oh, there’s a garbage disposal reference. In regards to a black hole. Like the one I kind of pointed to during Dave’s intro sequence in the Third Scratch theory and stuff in all those big theories. The ones I was, er, wrong about... ahem. Moving on.

“Your name is John Egbert, and you have just had a terrible, deeply pretentious nightmare.”

Pfffffffff :D

I love you Andrew Hussie. Reading on...

YES I see chat colors. Chat colors!!! I need chat colors. Reading reading reading let me get down to them let me

Absolutely nothing of note has ever happened here in the entire history of the planet, which you would know, because you created it.

Baahahahahah. :D

Okay yes I’m at the phone-sterlog.

Uh oh.

I am reading elevated levels of angst compared to usual pesterlogs in this log. Which is to say, virtually any at all, really. THAT doesn’t bode well for the outcome/overall tone of this epilogue. :X --Not to say it isn’t *appropriate*, given they still haven’t fixed/resewn Paradox Space together, but... yeah, *future feels* are popping up on the radar, that’s what I’m worried about. I loved the tone of the snapchats and the feeling that everything was going to be fine, especially given how the ending “not being what I expected” shook me a fair bit, but to look forward to when that may end... D:

Yeah, Rose having some serious visions about some unfinished business they need to get around to instead of just fucking around and living their lives makes sense. :X --or at least some timeline version of them. I’m imagining they’re living varied, excellent lives in a whole TON of timelines of promise that commit our imaginings of their potential futures to virtual canon, really, with the main thread that ties off Caliborn’s stage play almost irrelevant in comparison... that was kind of the whole point of the Ending of homestuck earlier, of that final anime flash, the fact that the victory and planet and *lives* they won meant a whole lot more than whatever Lord English’s irrelevant machinations were.

So... returning to the tail end of that main thread and seeing how *serious* it might be....... yeah. Kinda mildly panic-inducing. :XXX

You move the phone away from your ear and assume an expression you haven’t practiced in years. It is the look of a man who actually has something to do.

Okay that was good.

Ah, he’s twenty-three now!

Let’s click the next link. ==>

Fuck let’s not recount Rose’s substance abuse.

Oh, cool. Er, “cool”. Rose is getting some of Rosejaspersprite^2′s awareness of all her alternate-timeline doomed selves and their lives. No wonder she’s worried about the substance abuse she technically mostly *avoided* in this timeline.

Light explicitly relating to knowledge, good. That’s a nice aspect tidbit to have reiterated.

ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess? ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.” ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is... ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate.

ooh. oooooh. holy shit.

okay NO, BOOTS/BKEW. DON’T GET FUCKING EXCITED.

DON’T get excited.

It only SOUNDS like she’s learned to recontextualize the whole adventure in the rich context of the classpect system, that’s just your wild fanfic-y theoryimagination talking. Shoosh. (Even though she IS very, very, *very* clearly referencing the Light/Void dichotomy with the above quote.) Just... tamp down your hopes, Boots. Leave it at MILD hope. Like cool porridge.

Reading on.

Alright, yeah, this universe exists beyond the timespan of the Green Sun’s influence. Unsurprising, since it was heavily implied. And she doesn’t have access to her expanded Green Sun powerset while *in* such a universe, which was also heavily implied by alt!Calliope or her denizen or I forget the exact conversation where it said she’d have to make the final journey without Green Sun powers or whatever. That’s cool. (Though having it spelled out more explicitly than usual does make it more awkward to have her use her powers for humorous purposes on MXRP in the future.)

OOOH DAVE KARKAT AND JADE ARE IN A PERPLEXING SOCIAL ARRANGEMENT YESSSSS :D

Best news. Okay reading on.

ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English.

Yeah I guess.

Again, the way the ending sort of put it was that..... our heroes did have to defeat Lord English eventually? Or set right some prior stuff like doing the stage play? But that part of the point of this whole story -- the Ultimate Reward -- was that it didn’t really matter, because they had earned nigh-infinite branching timelines of promise in a brand new universe where they could go YEARS AND YEARS living their lives in many of the ways they wished, richly enjoying themselves and starting civilizations that would last billions of years, loving and living and experiencing, only “needing” to go finally check off these other responsibilities in a single timeline of promise at the end of an extended period of vacation they chose with no particular urgency. Branching years-and-years of essentially heaven as long as they EVENTUALLY fulfilled that particular endpoint, and they knew it. More or less.

Rose phrases it pretty explicitly, though. John’s powers are the only thing that can warp people through canon like that without restriction, so he was always to be involved, but... *he* needs to defeat him? Does that mean alone?

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday. ROSE: I’m sure we all did. That is, even those of us without visions. JOHN: i was doing my best not to think about it. i guess we can’t put it off any longer then? ROSE: Now is the time. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. If the decision isn’t made soon, it will be too late. The issue will no longer matter. JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return? ROSE: Today. JOHN: wow. JOHN: ok then.

Ouch.

That’s slightly more abrupt than the picture of branching bliss I just painted.

JOHN: fine? ROSE: Of course everything is fine here. ROSE: We’re outside of canon now. JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though? JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening? ROSE: Of course it’s happening. ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon. JOHN: oh. ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all. ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.

Well okay then. I was wondering why she used the word “canon”. They literally DID escape the narrative literally as *well* as figuratively with that Juju, then, Neverending Story style.

Also, Light being highly tied to canon and Rose having spent so much time outside of it... yeah, I can understand the headaches more, too.

Alright, reading on, it seems Andrew is using Rose to more explicitly explain how he intends all the non-canon stuff he’s presented to us to “matter”, for those who didn’t quite get or fully believe the implied explanation from context towards the end of the story.

Heh, so the idea is that the urgency comes from “it’s been too fucking long since the story ended, and this epilogue needs to come out when an epilogue would still matter to anyone”. That’s kind of brilliant.

ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally. ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C. ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.

Closing threads closing threads CLOSING THREADS :D !!!!!!

FUCK is this epilogue going to be mostly devoted to TYING UP LOOSE ENDS and clarifying stuff??? :D Like the HUNDREDS OF LOOSE ENDS that were left unanswered because the ending tried to paint it all as sidelined/irrelevant regardless of the fact that they hadn’t been answered/fulfilled, which had previously pretty much traumatized me around Homestuck’s end because I was (1) so used to Andrew expertly tying up almost every loose end eventually and (2) was a theorycrafter with explicit investment in the idea that Classes, Aspects, and most of these loose ends actually DID matter??? :D

Sign me the fuck up!!! :DDDD

...I know it’s doubtfully going to be anything close to all I hoped for, but still. Answers, contextualization, and John tying up loose threads. Like that final frog warped in front of Jade as a child. That’s good, that’s VERY good. I’m excited instead of nauseous. :D

--and yeah, reading on, Rose makes more explicit what I said earlier that the justification Andrew’s painting for this is “we have to wrap up all these loose ends before everyone forgets about Homestuck.” That is hilarious.

Okay, so the juju is a big plothole. Heheh. We’ve heard it called that earlier.

...Oh. Oh huh.

Rose is pretty much explicitly talking about the stage play consisting of a bunch of non-canon ALTERNATE VERSIONS of themselves that mean the original versions of them living happily in the new universe won’t actually die. Holy shit. I mean we theorized that for a TIME with some of them but THOSE loose ends (like Roxy still having her mask on) were closed up toward the end... So instead, having it put THIS way (preserving our ideas of them living full lives post-victory), and not only that but having John DO all this stuff RIGHT NOW to fix things retroactively with some really well-written contextual clarification we’re bound to get to help with the closure... god DAMN. This is really good. This is going to make a LOT of people feel a whole lot better about Homestuck. Like me. :D

...Pff, some other girl is getting punched by John in the face again. :D Don’t worry, Rose isn’t saying that this is the Vriska punch at the beginning of the whole Retcon arc and that this epilogue somehow happened in the middle. (I hope.)

...Yeah Rose implies heavily that John is gonna die his heroic death if he does this? Or it’s meant to make us THINK she’s implying that. Yeah. And she feels pretty fucking horrible about what she’s asking John to go through regardless, so. (Yeah, everyone looked pretty genuinely dead but a few at the end of the stage play, but it was pretty uncertain.) Either way, she’s acting like John isn’t going to “come back”, even if he lives through this.

Stupid feels.

Clicking the next link. ==>

Hiiii roxy and callie!!! :D

Yes how polite of them.

“Ultimate self”? Yeah, a sort of synthesizing of all the offshoots of her Heart and Mind, pulling it all together and realizing the full person she is and sum of her whole experience across all timelines, pasts and futures. Yeesh. Pretty uncomfortable for someone who ain’t a hypersprite.

...Roxy and Rose aren’t as close? Is it because of the substance abuse, because of the Light/Void dichotomy literally-or-metaphorically distancing them (with how disparaging Rose just was about anything that isn’t relevant), or something else?

Ah, Kanaya hogged her until she got “sick”, that explains some of it too.

A bell tower? (DOOONNNNGGG)

Fffff interpersonal relationship mildangst. Fuck

You and all your friends have dispositions affected by your classes and aspects. You think you know what that means in your case. But what about her? You can only speculate. Void is a place where things sink and disappear. Where they linger forever, but cease to exist. You aren’t actually sure if your feelings for Roxy ever really faded, or if they just grew numb with time and distance. Is it the same for her?

Holy fucking shit. What a big middle finger to everyone who told me aspects didn’t matter to their personalities. :D

...Though, I think he has it kind of backwards, since he still doesn’t totally understand all this business. It’s easy for those in canon, introduced to this subject, to think that the classes and aspects affect their dispositions, to an extent where the reality (at least I contend) is that it was their natural dispositions in the first place that the classes and aspects were actually describing. The power that was latent in their very personalities and tendencies to action all along.

Reading... Ah, yeah, a choice. Was pretty sure this terminology would be important earlier. It depends on what SORT of choice this is though... see, so far, Rose hasn’t given John a lot of really EXPLICIT motivation to go through with this, other than some mumbo-jumbo that would supposedly be “bad”. And it doesn’t even address the black hole in his nightmares. And here, we have Roxy and others explicitly encouraging him with regard to the fact that he can choose NOT to do this if he wants to.

The main question it brings up (to the future of this epilogue, how it’s going to be considered afterward, etc) is if this is the sort of Choice that John would always say yes to -- in which case it’s more canon than anything else -- or if he will end up being on the fence enough for a Terezi-style Mind-split. Because this would be the PERFECT out to have him “die” in canon. See, if he’s on the fence ENOUGH about going, then he creates two timelines that even both potentially have promise within the confines of this universe (since universes hold more than one timeline of promise, according to one of the Calliopes I think)-- One where he lives here, happily ever after with everyone, and another where he completes his Heroic death in canon to fix everything. It would let Andrew kill John in this epilogue while still letting him live out eternity with everyone else outside “canon”.

He’d get to have his John-death and keep him too! Seems plausible enough.

Anyway. Reading... it looks like they know more about this decision that Rose has told them, including the consequences Rose might have been dreading. And likely know that IF John might die doing this, that it won’t be in a way that he regrets.

Oh wow, that whole Meat or Candy sequence is GREAT. Silly to the core, and yet perfectly emphasizing the debate that... well, I mean, think about what Andrew’s been telling us all along.

He keeps TRYING to tell us that non-canon stuff is fine. Trying to use that huge ending sequence of Homestuck to try and tell us that the fact that everyone is FREE from this story and its confines, free for everyone to imagine COUNTLESS ways things played out afterward for ALL these lovable characters in carefree futures, is almost MORE important than any of these stupid loose ends. But some of us were really cut by that ending, the insistence that the actual final battle “didn’t matter” and that this escaped-from-canon existence was the true victory. But if Andrew just upped and drew a bunch of bonus pages to start explaining more story, THAT would cheapen the escape-from-canon ending he wanted even as it satisfied those of us who wanted ends tied up, who wanted questions answered. He had to find a very careful, very well done way to give us BOTH. To write out the real “ending” of “canon” for those of us who needed it, without compromising the ESCAPE from the very necessity of it that was the essential point he WANTED to make with Homestuck’s story from the very beginning. To carefully keep the endless branches of post-victory possibility and play intact while still, separately and with explicit hedging and qualifications, give us the potential results of one last canon thread to tie up the lingering questions that he so dearly wants us to recognize still “don’t matter” as much in the vast scheme of things.

And he’s doing it. And it’s WORKING.

Holy SHIT.

I am excited for Homestuck. I am excited for Homestuck for the first time in years, and my nausea is gone.

I’m not going to start theorizing again; that’s over. But I’m definitely going to keep reading as the new Epilogue chapters come out, and do so with a spring in my step.

To Be Continued. :D

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots

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ardenttheories · 5 years ago

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Weird notes and thoughts on Pesterquest: Volume 6, under the cut because this shit got long.

GAMZEE

Gamzee calls the Reader “sister”? Several times, in fact.

The Rage symbol is hidden in Gamzee’s pie.

Gamzee “moves on marianette strings” and his eyes flash as he stands up, which indicates that the movement is controlled by someone else (additionally that refusing to eat pie immediately loses him his free will?)

Either Gamzee is being funded by someone/something, or we’re literally just seeing troll Amazon in action.

The reader is a colossal dumbass for leaving a raging highblood to see “what would happen” in the future (although maybe if they’d stuck around they would’ve seen much sooner what was going to happen)

Gamzee, when raging, doesn’t want to see himself; he goes out of his way to destroy every reflective surface

When raging, Gamzee always scars his face. He does it here, too - which seems odd. Either he did it himself, or Kanaya did it - either way, it must be symbolic.

(Amended to the above, maybe the slash represents the Bardic Split - which we see fully when half of Gamzee is sucked up into Lil Cal. Slashed face = full Rage Bard)

The Reader mentions that they feel like they’ve seen everything as if someone else did it, so we’ve got that same odd instance of Reader remembering other timelines - which means there isn’t one “Alpha” Reader, and that all outcomes merge back into the Reader eventually.

Someone “spoke to Gamzee” about the truth of the world. If he thinks the Reader is going to “meet him soon”, maybe he means someone in the Dreambubbles? Like LE?

Considering this is a timeline where Gamzee goes off the wall and kills everyone (or so it seems, since he’s yet to be stopped), could this allude to the honk HONK timeline? Can’t remember if they ever entered the game or not. It’d be a nice touch if so!

The pie is definitely NOT something you’re meant to eat, and I’d assume the initial nausea is Reader’s body trying to reject it before the effects kick in. Now we know what it’s like, there’s literally no surprise that Gamzee eats the pie all the time. It really does dampen him - but with a much stronger, more immediate effect.

(Amended to the above, if Gamzee is easily influenced to Split as soon as he stops eating the pie, then consistently eating is key. Explains why even refusing to eat once hashes him out.)

“Someone wants you to forget. Forget all of your friends and past adventures”. So, Reader is likely still very much under Doc Scratch’s control? Or if not Doc Scratch, then something else (maybe just the narrative) - but interesting to note how it doesn’t work while Reader is high.

The sopor slime really must block out any and all attempts from outside influences to control the mental flow of the consuming character.

Trying to go to the Friendsim timeline causes something very wrong to occur; Reader is literally blocked out from it, and managing to do it seems to fuck everything up for a split second. I have no idea what the T-posing alien was for, though.

VRISKA

“You step on a weird bug and you don’t even care” that’s a reference but I can’t for the life of me remember it. EDIT: FOUND IT. Page 797 of Homestuck, titled “Jade: Lose interest in fauna and never speak of it again”, the narrative details her being a majestic beast and ends with “you eat a weird bug and don’t even care”.

The Reader is still being forced to make new friends. Even when their feelings are very much against this - and I assume they are still struggling with that concept of doing things with no meaning - their narrative is forcing them to do it.

Vriska trans.

Vriska steals Reader’s luck. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it, I think, but I’m assuming that’s what it is. I’m also assuming this is why the Reader can’t speak out against her at first, and all of our options are just one box; she’s stealing their narrative importance, too, and the only good outcomes are ones that favour her and her ego/character.

Vriska deciding not to rag on Reader for up-chucking is oddly kind of her, but at the same time you’re getting this really heavy handed sense that she’s a lonely girl - the same one we got in her conversations with John in actual Homestuck. Feels like this might replicate that sort of friendship? Where she ends up opening up to John prior to going after Jack Noir about her life and how much she dislikes it.

On top of that, she seems genuinely upset when the Reader leaves. Vriska wants friends but has no idea how to make them, although that doesn’t admittedly excuse her actions towards Kanaya - though it does show more about how conflicted she is as a person.

Reader can just open up the game client at will. Reader if you ever touch the close window button I will destroy you.

Reader really dislikes having a name. It’s not a comfortable facet of their being, despite having shown they own one - likely because they’re just meant to be a vessel for our whims, and therefore shouldn’t have a name.

More implications that the Reader is living multiple canons at once that then merge together into a singular Reader at the end, since here they already know Vriska’s name before being told (which they do, in one route).

Like with the humans, Vriska can’t actually control the Reader. More hints to Reader being human? Or just to Vriska’s inability to control something that isn’t Alternian?

This Reader is, in fact, the Reader from the comic - the Land of Stumps and Dismay is clearly referenced.

Boldir appearing is so fucking sad. Poor Reader. In a more genuine sense, though, Pesterquest seems to be trying to say here that this offshoot of Homestuck isn’t fake unless we see it as such - and that, I assume, something good (and perhaps will) come of it. The Reader has complete freedom to do as they please, even if they’re still a puppet on strings for the moment - if they can remember, then they can fix it.

More clarity on the Reader; their memories are, indeed, locked away. Not gone entirely, but repressed by Doc Scratch for the purpose of the story. On top of that, Reader was definitely being used to set Act 2 of Hiveswap in place. Vibes well with the announcement of Act 2′s trailer.

This story is for the Reader - and always has been. It doesn’t belong to “them” - which I assume means Doc Scratch and Dirk, perhaps? This isn’t their story. It’s ours. “What will you do?” Vibes well with Homestuck^2′s fanonicity.

Oof. Doc Scratch returns to knock Reader down. Reader, supposedly, is only relevant because Doc Scratch says they are - as an observer, as a vessel for the story. The story can go on without Reader (although I highly suspect that it can’t, since Doc Scratch mentions “the really important bits” would survive without them - e.g. Meat could go on, but Candy couldn’t, and Pesterquest is a mix of both.)

Did Doc Scratch really just call Reader “darling”? And more references to the Reader and little girls. I’m starting to get a fairly female-vibe here when combined with Gamzee’s prior references to the Reader as “sister”. Which is ironic when you consider that the women in Homestuck tend to be the ones that carry the plot along, and the men tend to be the hands that enact it out.

Doc Scratch isn’t “the one doing this”, whatever that means. I’m assuming something along the lines of “are you controlling the narrative? Are you making this happen?” But he clearly is, I think, unless the strings we saw don’t belong to him. Or he could be refering to something else entirely, or going a bit meta (thereby saying no, he isn’t doing it, but Hussie is). Might need to think on that more.

What is the scratchy voice that screams “fix this”? Hopefully this means in the next few volumes, Reader is going to start remembering more and trying to fix the timeline - or at least stop it from being one heaving big paradox.

Vriska is really not happy about having to feed her lusus. I know it’s gone over in Homestuck, but it’s way more evident here; she does not want to do this. I think it’s sad, too, that she feels betrayed and hurt when Reader doesn’t turn around. Maybe she knows how bad it looks and knows that the Reader standing up to her makes her seem the villain? That Reader’s suddenly the hero trying to stop the big baddy from killing the innocent trolls that she doesn’t even want to kill?

Oh. Huh yeah that’s exactly what she thinks, I just didn’t read far enough before typing. I wonder how often this has happened? Or if she’s just adamantly aware that every time she feeds someone to her lusus, she’s being a bad guy - while being a victim at the same time, and struggling between the two views.

Poor Vriska. Her sobbing at the end fucking hurts. How many friends has she had to feed to her beast of a mother?

Vriska’s lusus talks to her constantly. That’s got to be hell, going through your life knowing that your mother is demanding more food from people you actually, genuinely like if you want to not be eaten by her as well.

Vriska turned on Terezi after the revenge thing because “that’s what you do to backstabbers”. I wonder if she even wanted to, then, or if she did it because she felt betrayed and hurt and that was how she dealt with being betrayed by someone who knew that she did what she did because she couldn’t not do it?

Her being down that Terezi doesn’t care anymore makes a lot of sense as to why she tried to use Kanaya to get back in with Karkat and Terezi. I think, more than anything, Vriska hates being ignored. She can handle being hated so long as there are still people there - but when they leave, and people always leave, then she’s left on her own to deal with a life she really does not enjoy.

Vriska’s concept of love is horrifically skewed by her perception of herself and of romance as dictated by Mindfang’s journal. She thinks there’s this person she has to be and she struggles deeply with it. Quite literally, tables in player handbooks that tell her who she is and what she has to do.

She’s not content with Kanaya because she thinks Kanaya sees her as something broken that needs to be fixed - which isn’t wrong, because Kanaya is trying to change her for the better, without wholly knowing what’s going on and making a lot of misconceptions because Vriska doesn’t know how to talk to her about the truth - and therefore she sees a lot of what Kanaya does as just another person wanting something from her.

I’m assuming the other “she” she mentions is Terezi - aka Terezi is the only person who cuts through the self doubt and the self hatred and these concepts of who she should be (and the voice of her lusus literally telling her she’s not good enough, on top of ther own doubts). Which would explain why Terezi’s betrayal hurts her so much.

Reader pointing out that Vriska let her guard down around Terezi only to be betrayed and force her to put up a stronger guard? That shit hurtes. Case in point, though; Vriska sets up this guard around her because she can’t afford not to (because she’ll either get hurt or end up having to feed the troll to her lusus anyway).

Vriska can save her friends by feeding her lusus enough trolls - so, more death to keep the people she likes alive. Though she mentions Karkat in line with this? Did Karkat ever meet Vriska IRL?

Schoolfeeds indoctrinate the trolls with the idea that they have to kill everyone below them so they’re more viciously okay with killing any species out in space - which are naturally lower than them in status by warrant of “not being Alternians”.

Vriska wants to be like Mindfang literally right after mentioning how Mindfang joined the Summoner’s rebellion? She really wants to change what Alternia is like. I’d go so far as to say she gives 0 fucks about the hemospectrum in truth. Seems like she wants a better world for everyone, though - not just herself.

Oof. Vriska’s self image is likely severely fucked up by her lusus. Must really fuck a 13 year old girl up to be told you’re fatter than your mom and you have to bring her more kids to feed her. Especially when you’re dying and she refuses to stop even then.

You’re looking at a survivor. At someone who did nothing wrong. FUCK that hits hard. I love the comments about Dave, Rose, and Jade, too - and the specific exclusion of John. That ramps up my “all the kids suffered prior to the game, gained what they wanted after the game - except John, who is an inversion of that” theory for his Classpect.

Reader’s taking control of the narrative! I repeat! Reader’s TAKING CONTROL OF THE NARRATIVE! Now this bodes well to future volumes, and makes me wonder if this is the first step to the Reader fixing everything.

#pesterquest spoilers #long post//#ardenttheories

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theorynexus · 5 years ago

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We now begin 51, which will likely take us to an entirely different perspective. Thanks, Monty Python!

On a random note, though...

Man, this is fricking crazy, from a dramatic irony perspective. I do appreciate that Homestuck is written such that that spreads from not only the author’s possession, but to that of the audience via rereads. As... macabre as this particular example is.

Finally, Dorothy is gone, and all that is left is the Witch (and her little dog too)?

Well, maybe not even that. Certainly, Bec’s powers are muted, and I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if his instincts are too; on the other hand,they could be strongly contributing to this. This sequence strongly reminds me of the sequence wherein Jade’s destiny to become fused with him was first alluded to. “You eat a weird bug, and don’t even care,” and whatnot. Certainly,

Words slough from the busy mind like a useless dead membrane as a more visceral sapience takes over. Something simpler is in charge now, a force untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright, that farcical yoke the bipedal tow. It now drives you through the midnight brush ... as you and your new friend must claim the night with piercing howls moonward.

seems reminiscent to me of all of her thoughts of her former existence fading as she is beckoned by the call-- not of a moon, but of another reflection of the light of the sun: the Void-y remains that come with its demise. Obviously her “new friend” in this case would seem to refer both to Bec (who is a part of her, now, thus explaining the uniform motion) and through allusion, to the Alt!Calliope that her other version of herself had already befriended, who would be the one beckoning in the first place. It should also be said that shoes could be taken as a symbol of civilization, in this case, beyond just the obvious symbolism that is being pointed out to the viewer. Regardless, whether this similarity was intended or not doesn’t actually matter. It’s just that this scene vaguely made me think of that.

What irony, considering this is coming from the one who just bewitched the Seer (which, I would just like to say, is honestly some nice narrative symmetry, considering this is almost exactly like what Doc Scratch did before him [not that I don’t still feel disgust toward him, even if this might turn out in Rose’s favor, in the long run]). Oh, yes, and by the way... very nice confirmation of the fact that the Green Sun Black Hole is Void-oriented. I appreciate that coming from an in-story source. (Even if you don’t connect emptiness with Void, which you should, the fact that the Ocean is connected with it is almost indisputable. That’s part of the reason why Rose’s quest was to bring life to the dead ocean by Playing the Rain. It was about using her inner Light to counteract her tendencies toward its equal opposite.)

Which is part of the reason why Alt!Calliope and Jade get along so well, and why there’s a connection between them, I’m sure. (Both of their lifestyles/life histories emphasized thematically their inner Space orientation. [This may also be why Kanaya lived in them middle of a desert, with no one but her Virgin Mother Grub to directly keep he company.])

Yes, way to downplay one of the core Aspects of reality just because it doesn’t necessarily always function in the way that perception would suggest it does. This doesn’t make it illusory, nor does it invalidate the continuum aspect of it: that it is intrinsically relevant to how life persists and interacts with the world itself demonstrates the importance of this part of Time. It’s like suggesting an iceberg is an illusion just because you can’t see the depths hidden away below the surface (Void hides it from your eyes [read: Light is blocked]). Gah, you are so bloody irksome and pride-projecting in your demeanor just because you managed to pick something up that the Trolls basically illuminated to the Beta Kids way back when they were all 13. Congratulations.

Fool. (Oh, and I would argue that time continuing to be relevant conceptually, despite its non-linearity, helps to emphasize its importance as a pillar of reality. That it is an existence persisting independent of its consequent internal signifiers [entropy, {temporal} causality, direction] allows for it to play the very important role of acting as a medium for general interaction and consequence; particularly, it allows for the persistence and simultaneous activity of all possible states of being within its domain [e.g.: reality or the meta-narrative Existence within the context of MSPA, or whatever set of other works which would necessarily include all relevantly connected miscellany] which are additionally allowed for via the logical intermingling it has with the other Aspects. In other words: Time is one of the two necessary present architectonic forces that undergird the Narrative. Your suggesting that it is given disproportionate attention and that loneliness is therefore an illusion is just the sort of insulting, crass, and perspective-locked claptrap that I’d expect from someone who’s so enthusiastically embraced a departure from humanity, and who thus has lost mooring in the solid, political existence which sapient, physically-connected beings dwell in by nature. I suspect that your distraction and loss of perspective will eventually come back to haunt you. ) Yes, I realize that the Ultimate Self is a timeless construct, but this does not mean time is irrelevant to it or the limited forms it girds itself with when connecting to physicality. (On a random note: I do appreciate his decision to call Aspects ideas.)

Along with the creepiness with regards to Dirk pushing thoughts into Jade’s head (which is honestly par for the course in Homestuck, and at least he’s mostly trying to remind her of something he believes she already knows, so it’s somwhat benevolent), we get this interesting snippet. Seems he wants to foreshadow difficulties between Dave, Jade, and Karkat in the future. I suppose the only logical question is whether Jade will break their hearts in turn. Love is hard. It’s hard and everybody (with actual experience) understands.

Ha ha, “How much of Homestuck was actually illusion seen in the perspective of the characters involved, a la the kids’ rooms before Gamzee’s Chucklevoodoo curses were disrupted,” ha ha. On a more important note: I very much appreciate Dirk’s well-arranged metaphors relating to time, to Calliope’s Muse-inspired-powered Spatial-influential music. Dirk is indeed quite bad at distracting hyper-focused people with thoughts he thinks they will reasonably find seem similar to thoughts she might have.

Hey, man, don’t give up. Your breaking from the narrative of trying to help her is making it seem like your nervousness is throwing you off, meaning we won’t know if your attempts to help her had any chance to succeed in general! Way to go, “hero!”

“Time is an illusion,” you say? Yet here’s your narration, there’s Jade. Oh! There she goes, persisting to fly off into the dead sun, just as linear time would demand of her! What’s wrong? Couldn’t make the time to properly put your thoughts together or try until you got it right? Gasp! My word! It’s almost like Time is pretty fricking important to the narrative and reality of the story!

HEEHEEHAHAHAHA!!! Serves you right, getting spooked like that, you incompetent, over-confident knave!

... Now, let’s see how the rest of this goes, now that I have a better handle on my humours.

You’re dealing with the Grim Reaper, inspirer of great woe and terror, as well as happy children drawings and stories everywhere. Obviously, you were overmatched. Perhaps you should have tried focusing on Jade initially, rather than John? That might have given you a little bit more time. I am reminded of a group of trolls who didn’t properly think through their attempts to mock and cajole those they perceived to be the artificers of their downfall. Perhaps this will turn out as well.

Demiourgos, your pride showeth. Your composure runneth down and streaketh thine face like free-flowing ichor. Hubris, doth it become thee? Thou reflecteth thine flaws, and by thy own hand. Revealeth thou not the weakness of thine breast with Rage-filled uproar? A lion in thine face we see, but at this flickering of that glamour, a snake in masquerade is spotted. Foul wretch, I pity thee: for it is truly painful to behold the disheartening of the ambitious, and the glorious in the midst of downfall. What do you fear? What compels such panic into one normally so serene?

I suppose I should have known. A mechanist always fears uncontrollable variables. (I do wonder if his fear is truly warranted, though. Certainly, things aren’t as bad as they could be, but there is much to be depressed about in these outcomes as they have emerged so far, you know?)

And thus, a new star was born? Well, we’ll see. I certainly do appreciate the physics of black hole mechanics being involved, though I am not 100% sure that this is accurate to how such an ultra-massive construct would actually work. I know super-massive black holes effect objects differently than normal ones, when they approach the event horizon, so it seems rather reasonable to guess that one the mass of multiple universes would behave a bit differently from either. I do not know, however. ... All in all, a pretty great page, I guess. It was nice to see the Narrator lose control so badly. A bit sad that the consequences of that were as they were, but I knew that this would likely be the case, regardless. I wonder when John and Terezi will be back in focus~ ... P.S.: I am pretty sure that subtle interference with the narrative is the normal role of a Muse, and that her Mastery over Jade in particular makes a great deal of sense, given who Jade is. I wonder what has compelled her to speak in such a manner that her voice is actually visible in the text, rather than subtly bending it to her will as presumably has been the case over the course of Homestuck, generally. Could it be that she did this specifically to teach the Narrator a lesson? Shall we ever find out?

#Homestuck Spoilers #Homestuck Epilogue #Unreliable Narrator #Homestuck Theory #Homestuck Liveblog #Homestuck Aspects #Aspect Theorization #Alt!Calliope #The Narrator #Jade Harley #Green Sun Black Hole #Time Aspect

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thaumaturtles · 6 years ago

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Epilogue Thoughts

So, I finished the epilogues at around 11 AM on 4/21 and spent the better part of today mulling over it internally. Overall, I think I liked ‘em. Don’t get me wrong, they were brutal and tragic and ripped my heart out, but this is my garbage and I’m allowed to enjoy it. I was planning on liveblogging the epilogues but constantly pausing to jot down my feelings detracted from the overall experience. This is probably gonna be pretty scattershot, since I have neither the ability nor the desire to order my thoughts properly. Now, without any further preamble, let’s get into it.

Jane

A lot of people said they didn’t like the treatment of Jane in the epilogues, and, fair enough, she was pretty awful and Crocker stans have every right to be pissed. But to anyone saying it came out of left field or didn’t make sense, I’d have to disagree (for the most part). Jane was brainwashed by the Condesce for the first 16 years of her life, and we see the effects of this when she goes Crockertier. She’d almost certainly have baked-in presumptions about how trolls were “meant to be” (ie super violent) even before she was consciously aware that trolls as a race existed. Jane was also always really in denial about having been brainwashed by the Condesce and I can definitely see adult Jane flat-out refusing to do any self-analysis and just assume there are no remaining effects of the brainwashing and she’s “totally cured” now or whatever. Jane’s also not super progressive? Like the conversation where she discovers Dirk has a crush on Jake and that Jake might even reciprocate was pretty uncomfortable to experience, and she starts a business on Earth C even though there’s no real need for corporations in a world with infinite resources. This shows that she’s still stuck in the belief that capitalism is inherently good/necessary for no reason other than “it’s what i grew up with.” All in all I could totally see Jane as someone who’d grow up to become xenophobic and have this colonizer mentality of “I have to regulate the Other because they’re not capable of functioning without me”

As for the non-consensual/rapey stuff... I’m actually not gonna touch that shit with a six-foot pole. The narrative is very explicit in the fact that Jane is an abusive partner and what she’s doing Is Bad, but like if she’s your favourite character you probably aren’t going to be all gung ho about seeing her do all the things that she did, which were admittedly very upsetting to read. I completely understand if you couldn’t read past those parts because they were pretty rough.

The Epilogues do get pretty unpleasant to read though :/

The Epilogues are highly antagonistic towards Homestuck’s readers. This is a fact. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to interpretation, but it is at the very least not a new thing. Listen to Kate Mitchell of the Perfectly Generic Podcast and YouTuber OptimisticDuelist for more in-depth analysis than I could possibly provide on this, but one of Lord English’s greatest weapons is his ability to get people not to care about Homestuck, or even better, to revile it. That’s what the aspect of Rage represents: Plot Contrivance. As Karkat says,

THERE ARE OUTCOMES THAT ARE EVEN WORSE THAN THE COMPLETE ANNIHILATION OF EXISTENCE ITSELF. FORCES MORE DAMAGING TO THE INTEGRITY OF REALITY THAN THOSE CAPABLE OF TURNING IMAGINATION INTO PURE VOID. THEY ARE FORCES WHICH IF HANDLED RECKLESSLY WILL NULLIFY THE BASIC ABILITY OF INTELLIGENT BEINGS IN ALL REAL AND HYPOTHETICAL PLANES OF EXISTENCE TO GIVE A SHIT.

This is repeated, by Hussie himself no less, later on during his smug self-insert, found here. After Hussie dies and loses control of the narrative, LE is free to try his hardest to get you, the reader, not to give a shit. Rose, in the Epilogue’s Prologue, says that if people stop caring about Homestuck, reality as they know it will break apart, which is exactly in line with LE’s plans. So the fact that the Epilogues are very hostile towards the reader is basically par for the course. That said, I can see how it kinda sounds like I’m being all “oh it’s SUPPOSED to be shitty you wouldn’t underSTAND,” but that’s. literally what’s happening. and there’s evidence for it in the text.

Of course, in the past, when the narrative would pull things like this it would be under the guise of, say, Homosuck, which is very obviously meant to be bad and is presented in a fun, satirical way. The Epilogues, on the other hand, are downright upsetting. They’re presented in a much grittier light, which can obfuscate to what degree it’s Actually A Joke, if it even is a joke in any capacity. The fact that they’re tragic, though, should not be seen as evidence that they’re bad.

Some stuff I Liked

Both routes had some really top-notch interactions in them. A lot of folks seem to be overlooking how genuinely good the writing was. I said the phrase, “they’ve still got it” ALOUD to myself once or twice because the dialogue really did have that good ole Homestuck Charm. The Dave/Karkat/Jade interactions early on in Candy (before everything went to shit) were pretty great, as was basically everything that came out of English’s mouth. I dunno who the Antiquities Consultant was, but they did an excellent job at mirroring Jake’s usual speech pattern. I find that a lot of people, when writing Jake, just kinda throw in as many random old-timey words as possible and as a result it feels kinda disjointed, but the writing team for the epilogues managed to make him feel very... would light be a good way to put it? Sort of airheaded I guess. Just very goofy idk

We got to see Rosemary and they were married and raised a kid and it was the best! Rose was really well-written, as was Kanaya; I really loved seeing those personalities balance each other out again. It was nice to see them be good parents in the Candy-verse. The Vriska they raised was such a fucking scamp too! It was nice to see a Vriska who had a positive home environment but still had that same spunk

Also, Dave. Just, all of Dave. He was really solidly written throughout the whole thing. I fucking love his interest in the economy holy shit. I got to hear Dave Strider say the phrase “neoliberal austerity measures.” That’s the best. “Economically Aware Anti-capitalist Dave” is rivaled only by “Karkat (True Leftism)”. I’ve seen a few complaints that Dave’s interest in the economy was also OOC, but for one thing he’s an adult and can cultivate new interests if he likes, and for another Dave is a pretty clever kid, and very numerically-minded. (Is that a term? I mean he’s good at maths and such). Don’t forget, not only did he manage to accumulate all the wealth on LOCAH in the span of three days by taking over their stock markets, but he also used the hash map modus in his day to day life, showing that he was able to do calculations in his head as quick as breathing. As shown here, the hash map modus is pretty complex and requires you to come up with a word that has the same value as the thing you wanna use in order to use it. That’s not easy to do on a dime and yet he uses it in his rooftop battles with Bro. All of this is to say, he’d certainly learn to be very good at economics if he wasn’t already. It just suits him.

Oh and I also love that Dave still makes SBaHJ and Karkat has a bunch of sockpuppet accounts he uses to defend Dave’s honour. it’s very cute.

Karkat also had some lines in the epilogues damn. I hadn’t realized how starved I was of VantasRage until I read a few of his rants. Also we finally got to see Badass Rebel Leader Karkat and he’s just as great as we all knew he’d be

The davekat kiss in Meat was great too. It was very gratifying to see after all the narrative cockblocking that went down in Candy.

John realizing in the Candy universe that he isn’t responsible for everything and that they’re all still just people with their own autonomy was good. Much as I have problems with the Candy universe on a whole I liked this specifically.

Also, roxygen! I love roxy/callie as much as the next guy but John and Roxy were very cute near the end of the comic and I liked seeing them grow up and have a kid. John names his son after the guy from Night Court because he’s a massive dweeb. Love it.

We got some great Terezi writing as well. The johnrezi at the end of Meat was nicely written and made me feel a whole host of emotions despite me not even having shipped them that hard beforehand.

OH MY GOD THE OBAMA SHIT. I almost forgot to put this in because I was focused on other stuff but my word the whole Obama Situation was beautiful I loved every second of it. It was so over-the-top in the best way and it simultaneously carried airs of being So Serious And Important To The Narrative and being just the dumbest load of crap. I loved it so much

Also, I was very happy with Roxy and Callie coming out. Roxy talking about how he’d already come out as dating an alien with a green skull for a head and how it felt like maybe he was being “selfish” by also wanting to come out as trans was a great illustration of something that already-out LGB people often feel when realizing they don’t identify with their assigned gender. Additionally, Calliope coming to terms with the fact that they don’t have to identify as female just to further differentiate themselves from Caliborn was great. It really helped to show how far they’d come from just being Caliborn’s foil into being their own person. However, this leads into:

Some stuff I didn’t like

Speaking of Roxy and Callie’s transition, Dirk also came out. As a transphobe. Which was disappointing, to say the least. He made a point of misgendering Roxy as often as possible and was pretty dismissive towards NB people when he learned about Calliope’s identity. (You could make an argument that Dirk is being thoughtless by misgendering Roxy and not intentionally malicious, but I don’t see Dirk as the kind of guy who slips up very often. He’s very careful with language.) I always headcanoned Dirk as trans, as I’m sure most people did, so having him just up and become transphobic was kind of the worst. I intend to talk about Epilogue!Dirk a lot more in a later post but yeah. Not a fan.

EDIT: I’ve thought about the Dirk thing a little more and he does eventually start calling Roxy by the correct pronouns, albeit in kind of a “see see look at how openminded im being youre such a manly dudely stud bro” way. Dirk’s initial discomfort with Roxy and Callie’s identity more comes from his own egotistical belief that he should have already known about it than it does from genuine animosity. That aside, he does still say “She probably would have loved being a “they” when she was a teen,” which sorta rubs me the wrong way. I might just be being oversensitive though.

Also, in the Meat universe, Rose and Kanaya split up! I’m very upset about that. Ultimate Power be damned, I want happy, married lesbians! It sucks that we either have Rosemary OR Davekat but not both

On the topic of davekat, Jade really got done dirty by both Epilogues, huh? She was used as a narrative device in one and was an intrusive presence in the lives of Dave and Karkat in the other. TBH I was never a fan of davekatjade for a lot of reasons but I would have preferred they be in a happy poly relationship than what actually happened in Candy.

Actually, the only two polyamorous relationships in the Epilogues both turned out awfully. I doubt any of the writing staff had anything against poly people; I’m sure it was just a coincidence but either way it’s pretty unfortunate. I have a bit to say about this but this is running too long as is.

Gamzee

Fucking Gamzee.

Unanswered Questions

Will there be any further updates? I sure hope there will, because the ending was not very satisfying and creates more questions than it answers. I can sort of see where it might be going but they left way too much up in the air and it feels very much like it’s unfinished. V has referred to it as “the whole thing” on twitter, so it might be finished for good, but i really hope it isn’t

Why did Rose say the session they’re creating will be the most important session of SBURB ever played? Why couldn’t they play it on Earth C? Surely Earth C’s inhabitants would be more used to seeing alien life forms and would know the basics of SBURB, thus making it more likely for them to survive it. Why go to the trouble of seeding a whole new planet? I’m curious.

Can a character be said to be “Out Of Character” if the character’s own creator wrote those actions? What if they passed on the actual writing to someone else but still had to verify it themselves? What does OOC even mean? Does it mean “this doesn’t fit my headcanon” or “there is no evidence for this” or “the author wouldn’t write them like this”? If it’s the last one, can an author merely saying “this interpretation is correct” absolve ANY action from being deemed OOC? I like that I’m being made to think about this kind of thing now

To what degree is each universe truly “Canon”? I’m aware that Candy lost its canon-ness when John decided not to fight LE, but the two universes are intrinsically linked: we see characters from one universe travel to another and it’s implied that Terezi has spoken to both Johns. How canon is Meat, even? Are either of them even still bound by the need to be part of the Alpha Timeline anymore, since Lord English has been created? What does anything mean?

Final Musings

I understand completely if you don’t like the epilogues. Maybe you think they’re too dark. Maybe you just don’t agree with portrayals of the characters. Maybe you hate that they gave jade a fucking tail when she never had one in the main comic. There certainly were bits of it that I wasn’t a fan of, but there are also parts I really wanna go draw fanart of right now. I like the Epilogues, but if I write fanfic or make dumb joke posts about Earth C, I’m probably gonna ignore large swaths of it (such as, I’ll probably keep both John and Dirk alive, and make them kiss a lot)

There has been a great deal of vitriol directed specifically at Hussie about the epilogues despite the fact that other people worked on them. It’s difficult to take these criticisms in good faith when so many people are blaming solely Hussie. I’m aware that he had total control over actual plot elements and wrote a bit of dialogue, but the bulk of the actual text was written by V. Another thing I’ve noticed is that people’s attitudes towards the epilogues are very much like the general attitude towards Act 7 when it first came out. I’ll admit, I left the Homestuck fandom in like 2014 and didn’t return until mid-2017, but people’s Jimmies were definitely still Rustled even then. There was a general atmosphere of “I hate Hussie, and you should too! The ending was bad and no one asked for it!” but as time went on, and people started analyzing the ending and making meta posts about it, everyone sort of grew acclimated to the ending. Suddenly, the general consensus was that Homestuck was Good Again Finally and the ending was Amazing and The Fandom Loved It. I feel like maybe that sort of thing’s gonna happen again with the Epilogues. I really hope that, as it continues to update (if it does), everyone will sort of chill out about it

#homestuck #homestuck analysis #epilogues #epilogue spoilers #tw rape mention #i really felt roxy's hesitance to come out because i also feel like this sometimes? i'm not too sure what i really id as #and any degree of introspection makes me feel pretty guilty #like im already bi why do i need to be genderweird too #that was a lil too personal so i didnt put it in the main post #also im definitely gonna make more posts about this im not even close to being done talking #long post

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akireiha · 6 years ago

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Wow finally finished the epilogues

Well that was something and a half...

Things I liked about it:

Any Karkat convo (honestly he's perhaps the best written character in the epilogues)

John coming to terms with his depression in Candy

John and Jake chatting in Candy

Roxygen on every level

The kids :D (omg they were so cute)

Rose and Kanaya in both timelines

Terezi, (un)surprisingly?

(Vriska), VERY SURPRISINGLY (it's a shame her part in Meat isn't big [where is this story progressing to???.. Me liking Vriska....])

The canon, non-canon, outside canon meta elements

Calliope and alt!Calliope

The return of dream team Sollux and Aradia

Davepeta for the five seconds they were in Meat

Obama, just Obama man

Johnrezi (very cute, I want more)

Roxy's musings about gender and new gender presentation in Meat

Things I absolutely fucking disliked about the thing:

The whole concept of the "Ultimate Self", whatever the fuck that means (Why do some of them achieve this and some don't? Why is their physical god-tiered body unable to sustain their power but a few scraps of metal can? What DOES IT EVEN MEAN ANYWAY AND WHY NOBODY BOTHERED TO EXPLAIN IT!?!?!?)

The absolute brutal character assasination of Dirk (to me his whole character arc in homestuck was about being different from his abusive Bro counterpart and also from the other two known princes who were bad. Oh and also overcoming his controling tendencies, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING JAKE, and trying his best to be morally good and NOT SHITTY even when wanting to HELP his friends and idk but all of this char. development seemes very cheap and meaningless when you read the epilogues, like he LEARNED NOTHING

Jane's pretty bad too, considering her whole Crockertier!Jane and Trickster!Jane charades were ultimeately about corrupting her through outside forces so she would act like a dick and not something she would do on her own because she has SOME mental restrictions and hangups, ESPECIALLY REGARDING JAKE (the most in character and funny interaction of hers was "Silence, clown!")

Offf the treatment in both timelines of my boy, my man Jake English really did strike a nerve with me >:( (at one point in Candy I actually cried like, why is he given the absolute worst treatment AND outcomes in both timelines?)

Gamzee (this one doesn't even need explaining)

Idk but it felt like the whole chit-chat emotional convos were almost entirely gone (with some exceptions) and like no one cared that much about anyone in both timelines, which makes me very sad :(

Like, the kids didn't even build some kind of idk support system for the elements that can go extremely apeshit (*cough cough Dirk or John for that matter cough*)

The lamest LE battle of all time

Calliope and Jade get kinda forgotten about in the second parts of both timelines which is v lame

I'm on the fence about the whole thing - I don't hate it but I can't say I enjoyed it all that much either, which for something homestuck-related is weird but oh well. I feel like I'm screaming into the void but I had a lot to get off my chest.

#hs #homestuck epilogue #spoilers #kinda personal?#idk anymore #whatever

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vivaciousarcanist · 6 years ago

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After Act 4, we began Act 5 Act 1, otherwise known as Hivebent. We were introduced to 12 trolls from a planet called Alternia, which resides in another universe. We followed these trolls as they played their own 12 player session of Sburb (or to them, Sgrub) to completion. A whole bunch of stuff happened along the way. In completing the game, they created a universe - our universe, home to Earth and our four heroes. But they were denied entry into the new universe due to an encounter with an indestructible demon. This demon was the four-times-prototyped Jack Noir from the kids' session, forced into the trolls' session due to a spacetime rift the kids would later cause, called a scratch. The trolls fled to the veil, discovered the existence of the kids, and began trolling them. Then Act 5 Act 2 started. Through a Trollian viewport, we see John moments before the scratch is initiated, wearing his god tier Heir of Breath suit, in the Land of Heat and Clockwork (LOHAC), about to put in motion a plan he, the other kids, and the trolls all helped orchestrate to cause the scratch. This is the first conversation Karkat ever has with John, and the last John has with Karkat, pre-scratch. Karkat proceeds to troll John backwards through his timeline. John knows increasingly little, while Karkat gradually begins to understand more. EVENTS FROM KARKAT'S PERSPECTIVE 10:25 (10 hours, 25 minutes) before some CRITICAL MOMENT, Jack arrives and destroys the gateway to the new universe. Aradia transports all the trolls to the veil to hide. Her army of doomed duplicates takes on Jack. They are all destroyed. The trolls find a computer lab in the veil, and stay there for most of the time remaining before the CRITICAL MOMENT, to occur at 00:00. 06:12 before CRITICAL MOMENT, Jack destroys Prospit. Shortly before this, Kanaya chainsawed off Tavros's legs to replace them with robotic legs supplied by Equius. At the sight of this, Karkat faints, and for the first time, his dream self wakes up on Prospit. He is awake for only a moment before he sees Jack, and finally recognizes him as Jack Noir, rather than the heretofore unidentified demon. Jack then kills him and all the other Prospit dreamers in the process of destroying the planet. Karkat remains asleep for an hour, until 05:12:30 before CRITICAL MOMENT, exactly half way through countdown. While sleeping post-dream death, he dreams of horrorterrors in the Furthest Ring, an experience anyone will have if sleeping after dream death. On waking up, he orders everyone not to sleep. He also wakes up to news that the humans were discovered. Neither he nor the other trolls understand the significance of the humans right away. They were discovered when Terezi was wired 413 boonbonds from Dave, on her future instruction. She urges Karkat to take a closer look at them. He dismisses them as irrelevant. It's not until later he makes the connection between the Jack Noir in the kids' session, and the one hunting them down, recognizing them to be the same Jack, therefore placing the kids at fault for the current predicament. He then conceives of the plan to troll the humans, as a futile form of payback, and urges his team to follow suit with a compelling speech. He isolates John as the primary target of his hatred after watching him grow up. He is sure John is fated to be his kismesis, a romantic partner specific to troll culture, centered around rivalry and loathing. In his first conversation with John in the Heir suit on LOHAC, he professes these feelings clumsily. John cannot reciprocate. The awkward exchange causes Karkat to trap himself into continuing backwards on John's timeline, and the trolling continues in reverse fashion until John's first conversation with Karkat. By then, Karkat has explained many things to John along his journey, things about the game, about his role as an ectobiologist, and about their shared chief adversary, Jack Noir. In John's first conversation with Karkat, Karkat needs to get in touch with Jade. It's at this point on Karkat's timeline he has finally understood enough that he knows he must begin making plans with the kids for their mutual benefit. Karkat attempts to get in touch with Jade, who continues to ignore him in a particular timeframe due to his persistent previous harassment of her in years prior. He leaves a message to her months in the past, telling her she needs to get in touch with him when her robot explodes. Her robot later finally does explode when her dream self is killed in the impact of Prospit's moon on the battlefield. When she wakes up, she remembers the message, and contacts him. But she contacts him at a point in his timeline where he is not yet interested in hearing from her. He argues with her, and is interrupted by his future self in a memo, from a time where he is trying to contact her. He and his future self argue, and Jade mediates between the two and becomes angry and frustrated, and ceases the correspondence. By this point, the biggest meteor yet is approaching quickly, and she must enter the medium to escape. She requires John's assistance. He must recover the server disc, install it, and rescue her. EVENTS FROM JOHN'S PERSPECTIVE John sleeps on bro's rocket board, flying along with the meteors of the reckoning. He lands back on his planet, the Land of Wind and Shade (LOWAS). His dream self had awoken after dream Jade pushed him to safety from the blast of Prospit's moon. His dream self now exists on the battlefield, awake whenever John sleeps. He wanders the battlefield with his robot bunny, who he would later name Liv Tyler. He sees his dad and Rose's mom, and runs to meet them. But he wakes up before reaching them, and his dream self disappears. The ring he was carrying falls into a ravine below, later to be recovered by WV?, before his exile to post apocalypse Earth. Vriska was responsible for waking him up. Upon discovering John, she takes an interest in his advancement, and uses her abilities to help him progress and set up critical events along his timeline. The only effect her abilities have on humans is to wake them up or put them to sleep. In this case, she woke him up so he would be able to receive the server disc about to come out of a parcel pyxis. The disc had been deposited into the pipeline by PM some time ago. She and John continue to converse, and he befriends her, oblivious to the true nature of her schemes. She functions as his "patron troll", a troll who is particularly focused on helping one of the kids, like Terezi is with Dave, and Kanaya is with Rose. John returns to his house, and installs the server. But not before touching base with Rose, who is committed to cracking open the secrets of the game through dark magic, and Dave who is from the future, having time traveled extensively over the course of the 24 hour reckoning period. John also encounters nanna, who gives him a pendant granting him the ability to summon her. She conjures a ghost bed for him, and cooks for him with a ghost oven. He floats on his bed high above LOWAS while he connects to Jade. Jade, who had woken up in her bed at the foot of the hill, returns to her house to find John setting up the equipment. John deploys the alchemiter and lathe in her greenhouse, and the cruxtruder in front of her fireplace. He opens the cruxtruder and discovers there are 10 minutes and 25 seconds until impact. They discuss what to prototype with, if anything. Rose warns him of the danger of failing to prototype, which would not allow the battlefield to heal, evolve to its final form, and grow the Tumor inside, which is critical to her plan to destroy the Green Sun. John resolves to prototype with the blue doll, missing an arm and an eye, to deliberately disable Jack. But Vriska puts him to sleep before he can. Becquerel then prototypes himself to destroy the meteor and save Jade. As he sleeps, John's ghost bed crashes into an oil ocean below. He loses his computer with the server disc in it, and nanna's pendant. He hops to a small island. He notices the ocean is on fire over the horizon, and the fire is approaching. He talks to Rose, who informs him Jade entered while he slept, and is safe. She tells him about a quest he'll need to go on later, to recover the Tumor from the battlefield and bring it to her. He then talks to Karkat, who is speaking to him for only the second time from Karkat's perspective. Karkat explains exactly what the kids did that made him decide to troll them. He blames Jade for prototyping Bec, creating Bec Noir who is now terrorizing the trolls' session, while blaming John for allowing it to happen. Meanwhile, the fire is approaching his island, and has turned green due to Bec Noir's transformation, taking place during a duel with bro and Davesprite elsewhere on LOWAS. John is contacted by Vriska, who admits to putting him in this position to challenge him, to realize his potential as the Heir of Breath. She also admits to deliberately playing a role in the creation of Bec Noir, wanting to be involved in his rise just as she also plans to be the one to kill him. She explains that regardless of her actions leading to his rise, his existence in the troll session is immutable. Due to the nature of paradox space, that outcome could not be changed with different actions. The only consequence of different actions would be an offshoot timeline, in which all participants would be doomed. As the fire surrounds him, she encourages him to use his abilities, and with some coaxing from WV who commands him from his station, he does the Windy Thing. The Breeze surrounds LOWAS and puts out the fire completely, and blows John to a larger landmass, just outside a village. The Breeze also clears the clouds from the sky, but they return shortly, as the spell over the planet must be broken by other means. By unlocking this ability, he reaches the top of the echeladder and becomes the Heir Transparent. Vriska then informs him the only thing left to do is reach the god tier, which is done by sleeping on his Quest Bed which is nearby. She tells him to ask the locals about it. He does, and finds the Quest Bed beyond the village. He sits in the bed but isn't tired. Vriska gives him the choice of whether he would like her to put him to sleep. He agrees. While he sleeps, Jack Noir finds him and stabs him through the chest, killing him. WV watches his death on the monitor and commands him to rise up. WV sees nothing except fireflies gather around John's body, while the Quest Bed glows. After the spectacle, there is no change. John's body remains motionless, and the monitor shuts off. WV believes John has died. And he is right. But on the battlefield, his dream self appears lying on a corresponding Quest Bed. His dream self slowly takes on the signs of the wound inflicted on his real self, as it rises. His dream self then takes over as his real self, with all wounds healed, as the fully realized Heir of Breath. WV?, pre-exile, watches this happen on the battlefield. He remembers this moment long after his exile, without understanding what transpired. But on Earth, WV believes he has just witnessed the end of John's quest. WV is still in possession of the ring, and has accidentally locked himself in the station, and there is not enough power to unlock it. The only source of power is a lump of uranium which he ate hours ago. So he waits. John now wanders the battlefield, poised to complete the objective he was given by Rose. EVENTS FROM ROSE'S PERSPECTIVE Rose uses her dark magic to search for ways to subvert the usual course of the game and overcome the futility of the situation, with assistance from her patron troll Kanaya, counsel from the gods of the Furthest Ring, and information provided by Doc Scratch. Kanaya begins trolling Rose suspecting her to be the author of the GameFAQ guide she read on Alternia, a figure she grew up idolizing. But she becomes disappointed with her due to a series of miscues resulting from her sporadic, nonlinear trolling. She continues conversing with her nonlinearly, engaging in a feud of snarky one-upmanship, gradually befriending her. She eventually realizes Rose is the true author of the guide when she watches her destroy the gate above her house with magic. She then continues helping her in a more linear fashion, uncovering the secrets of the game, and sharing her own extensive knowledge of the game with her. Ultimately, as Kanaya begins to understand the true nature of Rose's plan, she becomes afraid Rose is dangerous. She is especially unnerved by the fact that soon on Rose's timeline, her viewport goes dark, and she can no longer be monitored. But she acknowledges she can do nothing to stop her. So she trains Eridan to become a powerful white wizard of hope to challenge her, as a joke. A particular target of Rose's investigation is the Green Sun. She rips apart underground ruins to retrieve information on it, and is further informed by Doc Scratch on the subject. The Green Sun is a huge star nearly twice the mass of the universe. It resides somewhere in the Furthest Ring, and serves as the power source to all first guardians. Bec was Earth's first guardian, and when he became prototyped, Jack inherited all his powers, which are supplied by the Green Sun. Doc Scratch is the first guardian of Alternia. Doc Scratch, like Bec, is a virtually omnipotent being, with all the same powers. Unlike Bec, he is an intelligent host to those powers, and is therefore also omniscient. His job is to pave the way for the arrival of his employer, an indestructible time traveling demon called Lord English. Lord English can only enter a universe upon its death, at which point he travels back in time to an earlier point in the universe's lifespan to assume leadership of his gang of mobsters called The Felt. His machinations, like Scratch's, are in part designed to bring about his own future entrance. Before the trolls began their session, Scratch took measures to both pave the way for English to arrive, as well as contribute to his own creation. First guardians have circuitous self-fulfilling origins, much like the players of Sburb. Bec was created in a lab through ectobiology by merging the ghost slime image of grandpa's dog Harley with Rose's MEOW code. Scratch had a similar but yet unknown origin. Scratch manipulated several members of the trolls' party into playing Sburb (Sgrub) in the first place. Notably, he manipulated Vriska into killing Aradia, who as a ghost became the primary orchestrator of the session. He was also used as something of a pawn himself, by Terezi, in exacting revenge against Vriska, causing her to lose an eye and an arm. This was another key moment in a critical cycle of revenge, leading to Terezi's blindness and awakening, Vriska's eventual death by Aradia's retaliation, and then Vriska's resurrection to the god tier as the Thief of Light. Having done everything he needs to do, Scratch tells Rose he wishes to die. Thus the destruction of the Green Sun is to their mutual benefit, and Rose forms a plan. While she gave the short version of the plan to John, telling him he'd need to recover the Tumor, she tells the full plan to Dave. The Tumor at the center of the battlefield is in fact a very powerful bomb, capable of destroying the Green Sun. She will go to sleep, and John will bring it to her dream self. Meanwhile, Dave is to go to sleep and listen to the gods, who will tell him how to find the sun. He will make a map, and Rose will plot a course there and destroy the Green Sun in a suicide mission. Ideally, this will negate all of Jack's powers, reducing him to mortal status again. EVENTS FROM DAVE'S PERSPECTIVE After entering the gate above his apartment, Dave begins exploring LOHAC under the guidance of his patron troll, Terezi. Her fascination with him was prompted by the money wire from his future self, which alerted her to the existence of the humans in the first place. She watched him grow up with his bro, and made some observations about humanity through his upbringing. She then committed to helping him, in part due to her rivalry with Vriska, who sought to make sure the human she favored, John, would outpace Dave. Over the course of the adventures she coordinates for him, Dave experiences about 3 days chronologically due to looping through time, and fulfilling the requirements of various time loops. The key objective is to make enough money for him to be able to wire it to her in the first place, completing the time loop that started it all. The sum of money vastly exceeds what is typically gathered in a session, and it must be accumulated by manipulating the LOHAC Stock Exchange using time travel. Along the way, Dave and Terezi befriend each other, trading comics and perpetrating financial capers. In the early going, Terezi leads him into a pot of soup prepared by his crocodile consorts, for no particular reason other than it needed to happen on his timeline. Doubtful of the need for her help, he nearly quit, but received assurance from his future self, and continued exploring. He goes underground and discovers gold ruins. Before entering, he's interrupted by Karkat who uses a memo to warn both him and John about their involvement with Terezi and Vriska, telling them the scourge sisters are partaking in a dangerous game of rivalry fueled flirtation which has gotten both him and John killed at least once each. Karkat speaks from a time in which he's aware of a plan developing which may lead to the kids and trolls meeting each other, and does not look forward to the results of the gathering if these trends continue. John and Dave disregard his advice. Dave proceeds into the ruins and finds a legendary sword, Caledfwlch, lodged in a block of gold. He breaks it to retrieve it, and is told by Davesprite that the sword is critical to his personal quest as the Knight of Time. Terezi then tells him he is about to fall asleep, without knowing Vriska was behind this nap as well. Dave goes to sleep, and Davesprite defends him from a horde of powerful monsters. Before Dave wakes up, Davesprite leaves to find bro. He does, and joins him in battle against Jack. When Jade enters, Jack transforms into Bec Noir and defeats both of them. Bro is slain by his own sword, and the body is discovered by Dave later, who can't bring himself to retrieve the sword. While sleeping in the ruins, Dave's dream self wakes up again on Derse's moon. Following Rose's advice, he looks into the sky and takes off his shades. He gets his first glimpse of the gods. He then wakes up from hearing a gunshot fired by Jade as she battles an imp and quickly teleports away, the first of three times he sees her in this manner. He sees her again in the LOHACSE, and again while visiting Jade's planet. He then goes on to make all the money needed, to buy all the fraymotifs, which are powerful battle techniques purchased from consorts, and to reach the top of his echeladder. But he still wanted to know why he would never be able to reach John's level. To satisfy his curiosity, Terezi gives him a choice somewhere in the middle of his timeline, a choice to be decided by a coin flip. He could assign the outcome of the flip to mean he would either be shown now, or later. The outcome of the flip, which Terezi did not even look at, was a constant. Two realities are created by his two possible decisions. The decision to be shown now creates a doomed reality, wherein Dave becomes doomed. The decision to wait simply continues the alpha reality, and Dave remains the alpha Dave. Doomed Dave follows Terezi's instructions, given to him before the flip. He is to go back in time, leaving his doomed timeline, and sleep on his Quest Bed, and if he has what it takes to reach his god tier, he will. Alpha Dave, after waiting some time, was instructed to go to the bed to find sleeping Dave, and kill him, thus allowing him to face the true gravity of the decision. Dave doesn't go through with it, and decides to end his collaboration with Terezi for the time being. Later, doomed Dave wakes up, gets out of bed, and is immediately killed by Jack. 03:14 before the CRITICAL MOMENT, Terezi watches, and is upset by her involvement in his death. She runs off deeper into the lab. Dave travels to Jade's planet, the Land of Frost and Frogs (LOFAF). While standing in the snow, he sees Jade appear briefly while fighting an imp, just as he did before in the ruins. He contacts her, and she mentions she has lost track of John. Dave tells her John's busy, without mentioning he was in the process of rising to the god tier. He says John can no longer be her server player, and they would have to make other plans. Dave tells her to deploy the intellibeam laserstation in his apartment. The device allows very complex captcha codes for certain items, like a Sburb disc, to be read which couldn't otherwise be read by the human eye. He then creates a copy of his own server disc, and uses it to connect as Jade's server player. He becomes the server player for both Rose and Jade, though past Dave would stay concerned with Rose's connection, while he, as future Dave, would concern himself with Jade's connection. He deploys a new alchemiter and helps her upgrade it. With his massive reserve of grist accumulated in his travels and his more advanced torrenting capabilities, he allows Jade to alchemize some sophisticated equipment right away. A bit later, she contacts him again after learning of his dead bro, and dead doomed self. He assured her the dead Dave was just a doomed copy, and he would be fine. She decides Jack needs to be stopped, and they should come up with a better plan than Rose's suicide mission to stop him. He suggests the idea is futile, but lets her know she'd come to her own decision regardless, and he'd be available to talk later if needed. EVENTS FROM JADE'S PERSPECTIVE When Jade's dream self is killed, her robot explodes, destroying her room, causing her to fall. Bec transports her bed to break her fall. She falls asleep. Now dream dead, she has a dream in a bubble blown by a god in the Furthest Ring, and meets Feferi there. Feferi, a Derse dreamer, went to sleep to convince the gods to establish dream bubbles where they can meet while asleep, as long as their dream selves are dead. While she is asleep, 04:13 before the CRITICAL MOMENT, Jack destroys the trolls' Derse, killing her and all the Derse dreamers. She, along with all the other trolls and Jade, would then only dream in the Furthest Ring, where she met Jade and attempted to show her the gods were harmless. But Jade sees through the bubble and catches a glimpse of the gods. She wakes up with a headache, scared of what she saw, and resolves to stay awake. Feferi messages her, and introduces herself as the one from the dream. It is the second time they have spoken. The first time was long ago, from Jade's perspective. Jade realizes her robot has exploded, causing her to remember that was her cue to message Karkat. She does, and the aforementioned confusion takes place in the memo with past and future Karkat. Past Karkat berates her, while future Karkat defends her. She reprimands both of them for arguing with each other, who are the same person separated by only 3 hours. Dave enters the memo and mocks future Karkat for his flirtation with Jade after the lecture he gave to John and Dave on the subject. Jade ends the conversation, and is in no particular hurry to get back to him about the important matter he wanted to discuss. The meteor impact is imminent. John connects with her, and helps her prepare for entry. She makes her entry item from the pre-punched card. A tree sprouts from the alchemiter, and a green Bec-shaped pinata dangles from a branch. A green blindfold appears over her eyes, which she cannot remove. She attempts to strike the pinata with the butt of the rifle, which does no damage. Instead it releases a burst of energy, causing the greenhouse to explode, and Jade to fly out and fall. While falling, she takes a shot in the dark with her rifle. By this point, Bec has prototyped himself to become Becsprite, and has destroyed the meteor with a massive green energy blast, releasing a huge shockwave spreading over the surface of the Earth, destroying much of what hadn't been already by the meteor storm of the reckoning. Becsprite then appears in front of her bullet, and redirects it into the head of the pinata, destroying it. Jade, her house, and a large part of her island including the volcano, are all transported into the medium, on LOFAF. She falls through the snow of LOFAF, now unblindfolded. Becsprite again breaks her fall with a bed, and again she falls asleep. She has a recollection of sitting on her bed back on Earth some time ago, working on John's present. It's then that Feferi contacts her the first time. Jade believes she is trolling her like the others, but she only means to reassure her what happened wasn't her fault, as well as inform her of her plan to establish the dream bubbles. But soon, both realize this is not a memory, but a dream they are currently sharing, with the memory as a stage. Feferi meets Jade in her room and compliments her on her work on the bunny. Feferi also claims to be dead. Jade wakes up again, just as agitated as the first time she woke up. She gets out of bed and realizes her lunchtop is still in the destroyed greenhouse. She begins her ascent, but is interrupted by an encounter with an imp, which takes her on a trans-incipisphere journey, visiting many locations and passing by three instances of Dave, including a future Dave who ends up helping her later. The imp is finally killed by Becsprite. PM from post-apocalypse Earth, just after discovering her station and en route to the frog ruins, tries to issue commands to Jade through the terminal. Becsprite is alert to these commands, and protectively destroys PM's terminal. Jade returns and finds her computer undamaged. Future Dave contacts her after seeing her out in the snow. He then becomes her server player, and sets up her equipment after most of it was destroyed/transported before entry. As she prepares to alchemize new items, she is contacted by her "fairy god troll", a distinction which does not necessarily have anything to do with being a kid's patron troll. Tavros seeks permission from her to commune with Bec again. The first time he did it was when she was very young, and playing with her grandpa's flintlock pistols. She accidentally fired the gun at her self. Tavros communed with Bec to get him to transport the gun and the bullet away from her, and toward her grandpa who was picnicking with the blue doll, killing him. Tavros mistook him for an intruder, but regardless, Jade is upset by the revelation. He digs himself into a deeper hole by professing flushed feelings for her awkwardly, while making bold claims of high self esteem and confidence granted from his new robot legs. Put off by this, she is not particularly receptive to his plan to commune with Becsprite to take on Jack Noir, and ends the conversation. Vriska, who was reading the conversation, mocks Tavros for his false show of confidence. She continues to take jabs at him, calling him a coward, unable to do the one thing she asked which would have given him real confidence. She refers to the incident preceding her resurrection to the god tier. After she was nearly beaten to death by Aradia, Tavros finds her, believing her to be dead. He attempts to bring her back to life with a kiss. But having woken up on Prospit after the beating, Vriska's dream self is able to control his mind. She makes him choke himself, simply to prevent the kiss to avoid the standard resurrection process, which would prohibit god tier ascension. She does not wish to control him completely, intending to leave the following decisions to him, to make him stronger. Instead, she merely controls his hand to write messages to himself using her blood. She instructs him to take her to her Quest Cocoon, and to kill her on the sacrificial slab before she bleeds to death. He hesitates, and she continues to insist, while her dream self gradually takes on the same wounds inflicted on her real self, causing her demands to become more desperate. The more desperate she gets, the more terrified Tavros he becomes, and he finally flees without killing her. She eventually dies, and is resurrected on the battlefield as the Thief of Light. Still holding this against him, she berates him for his newfound attitude, and regards his plan to influence the kids' timeline as a cheap imitation of her tactics. She brags about the ways she has manipulated events on their timeline so far, by practicing her abilities on Jade repeatedly, causing her to fall asleep frequently. She describes ways in which she has inserted her agenda into existing events, tipping off agents to the whereabouts of the MEOW code book, and other such incidents which contributed to the rise of Jack Noir, so she could claim responsibility for his existence, before taking him on herself. Tavros becomes angry with her incessant mockery and the extent of her treachery, and decides to seek her out to challenge her. She waits for him somewhere in the lab. After the conversation with Tavros, Jade alchemizes a number of items. One of which is a legendary rifle, Ahab's Crosshairs, supplied by Eridan. Eridan, now believing himself to be a powerful wizard, feels he's surpassed the need for the weapon, and gives it to Jade to fuel the rivalry he mistakenly assumes she has with Rose, as payback for Rose's early dismissal of his black advances. Jade recognizes it as one of the weapons she included with the bunny for John. The weapons were provided by her penpal, who she accidentally revealed to be her grandson from the future. The pen pal swore her to secrecy on the matter, so she did the same with Eridan, though he admitted this would be the last time he talked to any human regardless. Realizing the new rifle would serve as a sort of heirloom to her grandson, she decided to discard it outside her house, and allow it to reach her grandson eventually however it may. Eridan then blew up her Johnnytop. Another item she created was a pair of junior compu-sooth spectagoggles, allowing her to see anything in the incipisphere at the present moment. She saw John as the Heir of Breath on the battlefield, Rose on LOHAC talking to Doc Scratch, Davesprite's pendant covered in blood nearby bro's dead body, and a slain doomed Dave. She contacts Dave to make sure he's alright. She then comes up with a plan to take on Jack Noir. She contacts Tavros again to talk about the plan he proposed, but he has left to take on Vriska. She has only one idea left. She goes up to her grandpa's lab, summons Becsprite, and tosses in her dead dream self, which her grandpa had retrieved from the battlefield and stuffed many years ago. Becsprite becomes Jadesprite. But dream Jade is not pleased by the transformation. She freaks out, and releases the typical first guardian pyrotechnics. The lab plummets, crushing the column and greenhouse below. It bounces away from the house, rolling into large snowball, and settling near a green stump. The two Jades sit in a state of dismay amidst the rubble of the lab, in the glow of a damaged 4th wall. As the clock ticks down to the CRITICAL EVENT, the most important character in Homestuck sits and watches this pandemonium ensue. And then, the second most important character in Homestuck positions a shitty drawing of himself in front of a typewriter and writes this recap. I think this typewriter is running out of ribbon ink. Thank God, that white ink is such a pain in the ass to read. Almost as much as these recaps are to write.

#homestuck #recap #andrew hussie #long post #sorry if this crashes anyone's browser

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hs-analyzing-and-theorizing · 3 years ago

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Oh yeah I agree with this to the point that I wanna rant about it, lmk op if you want me to move my rant to it’s own post BUT

I honestly feel like almost everything Vriska does would make things worse or don’t really add up, I’ll go by each issue:

Gamzee, firstly I have no clue how she could have chained him up and get him to fan her at the start there like huh???? and then second I’m left wondering how in lord e’s name did Kurloz not do anything about Vriska if she was so in the way of Gamzee, like by all rights his powers should work on her and he could use that to get the rest of the mentor gang to turn on her (Also this ties into Hussie slowly forgetting the character of Gamzee that he wrote at the start).

Davekat, I have my doubts that Terezi spending her time with Vris would get these two stop fighting over her, honestly I feel like it’s more likely Vris just ends up in the augments as well due to feeling like Terezi owes her, her time (Like Dave & Karkat). Best outcome for davekat is that the pair team up in some way to get Vris out of the way, but then go right back to fighting.

Rose, I honestly think that Vris shaming Rose out of drinking is more likely to just end with Rose hiding said drinking, not getting over it. Hoenstly Rose needed something like a loving intervention not Vris throwing a cup out of her hands and then walking off

Jade, I honestly don’t know she’d turn up the chance to fight someone with Bec’s powers whom she already dislikes, like I guess putting Jade to sleep could happen but like I think it’s also liekly she’d fight Jade.

The Sprites, I’m not sure why sho brought the people she did back and honestly I think the most likely for her to actually help are mainly Tav out of guilt.

What I would have preferred, bring back all of the trolls (Like why did witch of life feferi only bring back mayor? like could no one really bring the bodies over to her? and don’t say the beheading would make impossible she heals a guy who’s all chest was hallow), I think with a mix of all of the trolls most of the problems could be fixed, like Tav could deal with Gam, Nepeta helps Dave & Karkat, anyone else really to help Rose and Tav once again to help jade. The spites could be whatever from there, even just the precon dead trolls.

what, in your opinion, would you say is one of the WORST moments in homestuck?

The return of vriska flash since it implied that all the emotional and trauma issues the kids and trolls faced on the meteor were somehow a moot point with vriska being around. Id be less bitter about it too if wed actually gotten narrative development where we see how vriska being around helped instead of having to just assume it because the flash said so, hurr durr.

#retcon #the retcon #long post

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wakraya · 7 years ago

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My problem with the "we're real people we don't have arcs" line is that they do in the post retcon timeline? However brief they are they still exist, but they are all solved by vriska. Rose still got drunk, dave still doesn't want to time travel, karkat struggles with his position of leadership and relationships, and terezi still gets into a black relationship with gamzee. Instead of trying to fix their flaws on their own they're done by vriska. 1/

Vriska knocks the drink out of rose’s hand, vriska captures gamzee before his and terezi’s relationship goes bad, vriska takes the role of leader from karkat and distracts terezi from dave leaving karkat not having to worry if she and dave are a thing and pursues dave, dave gets karkat who he can talk to about some of his issues. Someone else fixing everyone’s flaws doesn’t feel genuine. 2/

Sure vriska doesn’t fix every problem but the ones she did fix were ones we have seen characters struggle with for years. It still cheats us out of any resolution that many fans have been waiting for years. It also begs the question of how serious are these flaws if you can just knock a drink out of a hand to stop them. 3/3

———————————————————————————————————–

See, here’s where I have an opinion that differs drastically from the Fandom’s, and that is, I think most of Vriska’s involvement post-retcon is ultimately useless to the characters, and nothing she does actually fixes anything.

You see, Vriska is a very special brand of attention whore, she just LOVES being the center of attention, regardless of what it is. She wants to be the one to defeat the Villain, and so creates him, she wants to face English herself, she’s in the most literal sense, as her role indicates, stealing the spotlight from the story at any chance she gets. But while the focus shifts to her constantly? She doesn’t actually do shit.

Let me explain: I’ve heard this argument, that Vriska’s involvement was a Deux Ex Machina that just solved every single problem the people on the Meteor had and thus made them less relatable, but that’s just not true. Let’s go one by one:

Rose and her drinking addiction, what many people don’t get about this interaction is that Vriska doesn’t give a FUCK if Rose is an alcoholic or not. What she doesn’t want is a useless Seer. We only see her smacking the drink off her hand once, but by the descriptions by Karkat and Dave and the attitude Kanaya has towards her, it’s obvious that Vriska has been bossing them around for three entire years, which means at any moment she’s seen Rose fall into alcoholism, she’s stopped her, to keep a valuable asset for the fight that was to come. Now the thing to have in mind is that Rose getting drunk so often is bad, very bad for her. But she doesn’t just drink for the sake of it. She starts drinking because she’s nervous to go out with Kanaya. And she keeps drinking to mask the underlying fear of growing up. Her Development, her Mother, Rose has a TON of issues she masks with the alcohol, and we see it when we get to the Session and she fails to foresee the creation of Rosesprite and Jasprose. Rose struggles with her powers and her role in the group, and while the alcoholism is gone, her problems with her growth aren’t. That being said, post-credits, it seems marrying Kanaya and taking care of Grubs left her happy and complacent. But Vriska had nothing to do about that.

Terezi on the other hand is better off without Vriska than with her. Game Over Terezi had regrets about killing Vriska, and it fucked her up in the long run, getting together with Gamzee, fixing her eyesight, and eventually, leading her to forcing John to fix what she’d done. However, the catharsis of not having to kill Vriska doesn’t come without a cost. They become Moirails- And this Moirailship is absolutely one-sided. Vriska uses Terezi to feel better about herself, while Terezi dwells in the thoughts of this other Terezi that planned the trip back in time for John and did all the cool shit. She sticks with Vriska even though their relationship is toxic, to the point to bring herself to fight, she uses her powers to experience the catharsis of a version of herself who got together with the Vriska she wants. Terezi’s regrets about killing Vriska were the thought of changing her, of making her a better person. But post-Retcon? She’s more cocky than ever. She thinks she’s the center of the Universe! Terezi wants (Vriska) to be healthy and happy. But all she’s getting is an even worse Spiderbitch. And even though she knows it, she goes back into the broken Furthest Ring to try and get her.

Kanaya is happier with Rose being more healthy and not drunk all of the time, however with her complicated relationship with Vriska, things have turned around. Initially, Kanaya had red feelings for Vriska, but was stuck in a Moirailship with her, and eventually caught her making out with Tavros, which made her fall off with the jadeblood. And now that she’s back alive? It’s hard to say if Vriska’s red-flirting with Kanaya or just trying to get her attention, but she’s heavily getting on her nerves. Kanaya dislikes Vriska and feels nothing for her anymore, but now it’s her who wants the jadeblood, too, to pay her attention.

Gamzee, well. I mean. Vriska’s making his life impossible in the meteor and she ends up stuffing him in the fridge, but this is very much well deserved. Fuck the clown.

Karkat may not have Quadrant Issues with Terezi anymore post-retcon, but his leadership issues are shining more than ever. Vriska has replaced him at his job, she’s taken the spotlight and thrown him off the stage entirely. He mellows down and hangs out with Dave, but the way he acts when he falls asleep and leads the charge towards English? Echidna’s words about keeping him safe? The fight with Clover? Karkat wanted action, he wanted to be useful to his friends and actually lead them as a leader, even though he’s not really good at that and his eager, initial charges seem to only harm him in the longer run. Thankfully Dave and the Mayor seem to support him through it.

Dave, well… His catharsis comes later with Dirk and Vriska has nothing to do with any development he has or stops having. It’s obvious he dislikes Vriska too, though, and I bet along with the other things they have in common, seeing Karkat’s position of leadership fall upon Vriska aided get their relationship going. See, that’s the thing- Dave and Karkat, much like Kanaya and Rose, are happy together and show how happy they are together, but they don’t have their issues resolved. On Karkat’s side it’s the Leadership, on Dave’s it’s the Fighting itself. Confidence the Spiderbitch herself does nothing aid with.

And finally we get to the Session, where Vriska finally shines and puts Jade and Jane to sleep. Now that is the only thing she helps with, and yet, was it truly necessary on her part? You see, it did speed things up and left Condy without two immensely valuable assets, but even if she hadn’t done this, the Kids would’ve in the long run defeated Jade and Jane themselves.

Now this isn’t explicitly canon, so take it with a grain of salt, but when Artist Caliborn sees his future on the screen and describes the Masterpiece, he explicitly states that he’s surprised by the Kids appearing in a retconny John flash. He also has the ring that Calliope gets to resurrect. That makes me think Artist Caliborn is not the Alpha Caliborn that will later become Lord English, tying with my thoughts that with the Retcon, by the end, we’re not even following the ‘Alpha Timeline’, since the Alpha Timeline is that which favors Lord English, and the point of the Retcon and finishing the game is to escape the clutches of Paradox Space and the Alpha Timeline. So thematically, this makes a lot of sense. And so if the Vriska is 8ack Timeline is not the Alpha, the most likely outcome is that the Alpha Timeline where the Kids have won and regrouped to take down Caliborn is one in which Vriska wasn’t brought back. Which means even then, against all odds, they won.

But even if she did help take those two down, okay, a small win for Vriska. Compared to what she does later it’s nothing at all, right? She makes up the entire plan to win the session, and she faces Lord English herself to defeat him! She ends up stealing the Spotlight! Except… That’s all she does. She inserts herself there, at the very front of the story… And does absolutely zilch for anyone but herself.

The plan she makes is an absolute failure, and going against everything she’s planned is what ends up happening in the Session. The Felt is the least troublesome bunch? They end up time-warping around, being extremely meddlesome and manage to kill Jake once and cause a bunch of mayhem around, have to be taken on by Jake, Karkat, Dad, and the Skeleton Army to stop them from messing everything up. The Healer can’t fall, if Jane falls they’re done for! And yet Jane falls and they still push through. If Jade wakes up it could jeopardise the entire mission, she must be kept asleep at all costs- But she wakes up anyway, and Condy is too busy in Derse to notice her and put her back under her control. The people she disregards the most seem to be the ones that ended up doing the most shit in the fight, because she’s an asshole. Vriska is an absolute and utter, self-centered asshole, and her entire existence from the Retcon onwards is to be there in the middle of everything without regard of what’s actually favorable and what isn’t.

She doesn’t even STICK with the gang to help them win the Session, instead she heads to the Furthest Ring… Where she finds (Vriska) and abuses her psychologically. (Vriska) is the antithesis of all Vriska is. (Vriska) is a Vriska that actually came to terms with the fact she’d done wrong, that she had paid the ultime price for her transgressions… And that, in death, had slowly realized the futility of trying to change things, that she was no longer relevant. This irks Vriska. (Vriska) has stopped acting like a Thief of Light. (Vriska) is no longer trying to seek the Spotlight, and she can simply not comprehend something like this.

Then she goes on to try and rebuild the Ghost Army to take English down- And again, she does nothing. Tavros, to rub it in her face, has built the army himself, and now proceeds to gift it to Meenah to rub it in. Tavros becoming subservient willingly to Meenah is the ultimate Fuck You to the Spider Troll. She wants to be relevant, she SHOULD BE THE ONE to lead the army! But Meenah and Karkat team up to lead the charge, while Vriska stays with the Juju.

Juju that (Vriska) and the previous Ghost Army found. Juju that Aradia carried along and guarded.

When the climax of Act 7 happens and she opens the crate? That’s it. That’s her moment. She steps in front of the army during the next charge, after Karkat charged in first, after Meenah attacked English first, after part of the army is already dead, after Davepeta had their chance to fight English. She steps in, as if she owned the place, and uses the weapon.

True to herself, Vriska works to benefit only herself towards the end of the comic, and if it helps anyone else at all, it’s only tangential casualty.

Does she solve some problems? Yeah she does, to advance her own agenda. But she ignores the root of most of them, and disregards a ton of other issues and some of the characters entirely as if they were useless. All Vriska wants is to shine. And in the end? I seriously hope she’s dead and re-dead with Lord English in that cozy pocket of a Black Hole torn in the middle of Paradox Space.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Spoilers #Vriska Serket #Vriscourse #Retcon #LONG Post

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isroselalondebisexual · 7 years ago

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What about ASPECT trollswaps? So Rose Serket, John Nitram, Dave Megido, and Jade Maryam *Jade Maryam the Jade blood wow*

Heehee! Jade Jade sounds fun ^_^

Rose Serket, raised with moderate wealth and a piece of shit spider lusus. I think Rose would start out killing other trolls for her, but hate it, and would resent being forced into doing someone else’s dirty work. I think it would… probably eventually result in Rose killing her lusus, to be entirely honest. She can kill people on her own just fine, she doesn’t need Spidermom to protect her, she doesn’t want Spidermom around telling her what to do and forcing her to kill people who she doesn’t know and who very very likely don’t deserve to die just to feed some lazy spider who’s too awful to go get her own food. Definitely a traumatized girl, as it goes. Angry, resentful of the world and life in general, puts out a “cool n deadly” persona that is also “i’m smarter than you, I’m tougher than you, I’m cold and aloof and untouchable, don’t fuck with me” when in reality it’s mostly just constructed out of her trying to find a sense of control in the world, and not wanting to have to deal with people being mean to her. She’s moirails with Jade, who tries her hardest to gentle Rose down and remind her that she’s just a kid, that life’s not fair and that cruelty should never be the norm. Rose starts out resenting her, resenting her “help” that Rose is certain Jade is giving with disdain, but Jade is no quitter and Rose wants to be loved, wants that assurance that she’s valuable and there is kindness in this life for her, and the two of them end up with an incredibly strong moirallegiance in which they help and love each other, despite a hard and rocky start. They tell stories of how it was difficult, but worth it. She’s still the Seer of Light, so her role is still to foresee the most fortuitous outcome, which she throws herself into full-throttle, converting her anger and resentment with the world to the relentless pursuit of the Light, of making things go RIGHT for once, seizing the control that her role allows and delighting in the way that she can now affect her reality, things are no longer being done to her, but she’s got the power to change the timeline with her sight and her actions and her words. Probably wants to solve all the puzzles and treasure maps on her own, and grows frustrated when she can’t just magically foresee the solution. The solution is “ask your friends for help you dumbass” and so she must begrudgingly ring up John or Jade or Dave to come help her with this goddamned treasure map, pirates are stupid anyways, who came up with the theme for this planet it’s dumb why are there compasses in the sky that doesn’t even make sense grumble grumble. A pissy, ready-to-stab-things-with-needles kind of girl, a bit of a know it all and a bit of a showoff, untrusting of other people’s intentions but ultimately brought around by the love of her sweet moirail and eventual-alien-soulmate-Kanaya. So, pretty close to canon Rose, just angrier and with a different origin story.

John Nitram, a soft, relatively poor boy with a lusus who thinks the world of him and encourages him to do his best, but be careful around danger. John’s probably gonna end up a little more skittish than we know him to be, less likely to walk into situations assuming they’ll all work out. His lusus has always loved and taken care of him, but Fairybulldad is a prey animal and that means you don’t really fight your way out of things, you either run or you bring the situation down away from danger. He jokes around, compliments people easily, is quick to laugh, just in general he likes it when the air around him is kept light and friendly, and will work to keep it that way with his own breezy and friendly demeanor. He and Dave are the greatest bros to ever bro, and everyone keeps wondering when the two of them are finally going to just GO PALE already, it’s so obvious to everyone except the two of them. Mutual pale pining? Mutual pale pining. Defo. John probably gets a huge kick out of being able to commune with animals, and will DEFINITELY make them do stupid shit for kicks. Dave has had so many birds fly in through his window at random, inconvenient times. So many. Curse you Nitram!! John laughs it off and to be fair, Dave does really like birds. John also has like, a million friends that he can just sorta cuddle with at any given time. All the meowbeasts and barkbeasts love him. All of them. Is very likely scared of Rose, who is a very cold midblood and like, constantly furious. Danger that way lies. Jade keeps telling him she’s actually a sweetie deep down and John isn’t quite sure if he believes her, so he and Rose have a relatively distant friendship until the Game happens and John gets to interact with her regularly and he finds out that yeah, she is really cool, and she’s FIERCELY loving of her friends, she’s just really really really fucking intense basically all the time always. The two end up hitting it off, just, later in their lives than they did in canon. As Heir of Breath, his role is still one who must embody freedom, freedom from the shackles of their old society, freedom from the restrictions placed on the various castes, and freedom from his own neuroses, which are as multitudinous as ever. Naturally, he cannot accomplish this when acting on his own, and the four of them must still work together to bring out their own best qualities, and each others’.

Dave Megido, lowest financial station but with a cool Kangaramdad who does, by all known accounts, love his child. Probably has a sort of “time is money” kind of outlook and a “spend it while you have it” motto for finances, the fanciest thing he owns is his camera and he loves it to bits and pieces and he takes pictures of everything, starts up a whole series that’s just about documenting beauty in the day to day life of himself and his neighbors. He’s got a HUGE warmblood following, people like him who enjoy seeing great things in little moments that he’s somehow managed to capture on film. He loves it because Dave, as always, Craves That Mineral Validation, and also it’s his own way of fighting back against the system. He doesn’t really think there’s a whole lot he can do, but he CAN do this, and it’s what he likes and it’s how he does it. Has a super big fucking huge giant pale crush on John who always takes the time out of his night to make Dave smile and remind him of how important his friendship is to John and Dave looooooves him he’s the beeeeeeest. The two of them grow up not too far from each other so they hang out regularly and play around and are children together and Kangaramdad and Fairbulldad get along well and it’s GREAT. Dave has a somewhat-normal childhood, as much as “normal” can possibly be on a planet that repeatedly and constantly tells you that your life means nothing and you’re going to die soon anyway. Probably maintains his fascination with death and dead things, probably still has a “dead things in jars” collection, and it’s very likely because he lives in a society that really requires Dave to reconcile with the concept of death and think about it often. It’s always right there, looming behind the corner, and he can ignore it and be scared of it or he, being a child, can engage with it in a frankly weird, but ultimately progressive way. As Knight of Time, his job is to protect the alpha timeline and foster its happening, so he still winds up seeing his own dead body a lot and he still has to be VERY METICULOUS in the time loops he creates, and it’s nasty and awful but he has John around. Tbeh, I think Dave might just forgo his planet’s quest entirely and hang out on John’s planet. Do some puzzles, crack some jokes, like they usually do, only this time in a weird magic Game that is apparently birthing a new universe. He and Rose very likely poke a lot of fun at each other, sorta nudging at “how far can I push” but also “ahaha, I am aloof and unbothered, you cannot rattle MY bones” so it’s just this weird, vaguely antagonistic friendship where they both REALLY like each other and are glad to be friends but sometimes they just can’t resist being little shits. He and Jade are also good friends, Jade making sure Dave is okay and checking in pretty regularly and Dave sending her things he knows will brighten her day and making sure she feels like one of the cool kids too, because she is cool, he thinks she’s so cool and really looks up to her as a person and as a friend and is really glad that he knows her. Eventually Dave meets a surly alien named Karkat and falls ass over heels in love with him and it’s DUMB and JOHN HELP WHAT SHOULD HE DO and oh god is he pitch for Karkat??? Flush???? Should someone come mediate them??? Is he pale for Karkat??? What’s going on he’s feeling so many things for this awful, stupid, beautiful dumb hilarious compassionate-yet-selfish boy John help Dave’s going to die of alien-gay. John pats his shoulder and smirks at him, and then proceeds to relentlessly tease him for his crush on an alien.

Jade Maryam, raised middle class out in the middle of FUCKING NOWHERE (again), with a lusus who loves her. Probably ends up pretty well adjusted, all things considered. She has to fight off zombies, so that’s something, but she gardens and she does her sciency stuff and she’s awake on Prospit and friends with the chess people, so really her upbringing is nigh-identical to that of canon, but this time with a guardian of pretty high intelligence, compared to all her friends’ custodians, instead of a magic dog. The violence of Alternian society probably makes her a little more prone to physical violence as a response to her anger, and she likely has like a million and five rifles, but ultimately I can’t see a whole hell of a lot of difference between Jade Maryam and Jade Harley. Still the Witch of Space, whose job is to bring about the new world and alter the whole of the universe for the good of the people residing within it. Good pals with her friends, dating Rose in pale and acting as something of an anchor for them all, the reliable, solid member that they can all fall back on. Idk if I’ve talked about this often but I associate all of the kids with certain elements and I’ve always pegged Jade for earth. She’s grounded, solid, and focused on growth, and I love her

#Rose Lalonde #John Egbert #Dave Strider #Jade Harley #Rose Serket #John Nitram #Dave Megido #Jade Maryam #answers #trollswap #trollstuck #Homestuck #homestuck meta #analysis

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dustward · 6 years ago

Text

Alright here’s me shouting into the void with some of my thoughts on the Homestuck Epilogues. Spoiler warning.

It’s finished. I actually feel closure after ten years (closer to eight in my case). I felt a lot of the same emotions here that I felt with the ongoing webcomic. I laughed, my heart hurt, I was enthralled, excited, bewildered. However, there was one clear difference here compared to everything that came before - these characters, they were no longer kids. They behaved as adults that didn’t realize they were adults, and honestly, that’s more real than I think we’re giving these two tales credit for.

Meat, Candy, it doesn’t matter which route, they both mattered in the end. They showed us sides to these characters we’d never had the chance to experience beforehand. A non-canon/doomed timeline? Those always ended before they really began. Not this time. I’m not here to defend or attack anything in particular. I do wish they didn’t go as far as they did with the, uh, romantic engagements we’ll call it, but that’s as far as I’ll speak on that matter.

I tried reading both Meat and Candy side by side, though once I got close to the end (page 37 or so?) I went all in on Meat and then finished up Candy accordingly. My favorites before going into this, to give an indication of which parts hurt the most, were: Roxy, Kanaya, Dave, Terezi, Jade, Karkat, and Rose. Shipping wise, it was always Rose/Kanaya, and John/Roxy. Oof, I know. Let’s cover two particular characters in this post.

John’s dead. Homestuck was his story, and this story is finished. That’s fine, that makes sense. He was never a favorite, but he held things together nicely, and it’s sad to see him go. I always wondered what was going on with him and Terezi toward the end, and now I know. Would it have worked out with Roxy? Now I know. Did he die a hero? I’d say so. He was their leader after all, and as their leader, he succeeded in keeping the story from falling apart. Except when he didn’t in Candy.

It hurts to see him having just let time pass by like that. Would’ve been nicer if we just jumped right into the action a few weeks after creating the universe, but I suppose this is keeping in line with any major time/story shift, hitting the fast forward button to age up the characters as necessary (like when we started Act 6 with everyone being 16 to account for the 3 years later).

For once we got an offshoot timeline that didn’t end right away. There was plenty of time for our cast to register the fact that things had somehow gone wrong but didn’t die so soon as to not have to live with it. John had a unique perspective on this with his retcon powers giving him an idea of the bigger picture, and I really appreciated his coming to terms with this as he discussed it with Roxy toward the end.

The conversation he had with Terezi at the car was also one of the most real moments we’ve been allowed to see for John. Sadly, they were the last fleeting moments. Maybe. They leave room for him to come back, I guess as a supporting character? I feel like he’d excel in that role, so here’s hoping he gets a second chance at happiness. Does any happiness achieved in Candy count, seeing as it’s non-canon? Yes, it damn well does. Their actions and emotions are as real as they were in the canon route. It proves, at least in John’s case, that he’s perfectly capable of screwing up but also owning up to it. It helps that time doesn’t have to be measured in years or even decades for them, so that they can learn these lessons and maybe even live centuries or longer to become better people.

Suppose I’d better cover my feelings on the whole JohnRoxy thing. I was never much for shipping. That was one of the few times I did, but not just because it looked nice. They were actually a rarepair for me back before Act 6 Act 3 was even finished!.. I always had this idea in my head “wouldn’t it be nice? I think they’d suit each other well..” Then they actually met, and that was one of the happiest upd8s I’d ever read through (keeping in mind I only caught up after Act 6 started). It was wild to think a rarepair could become one of the major ships not just for John and Roxy, but for the series in general. To see it realized makes me regret wanting it so badly in the first place.

I don’t say this to discount how things ended up for them in Candy. They have a real chance at happiness with their son Harry, and it really could become everything I ever wanted it to be. I’m kinda weird in how I view characters, though.. I always try to appreciate and respect them once I feel a connection. I try to treat them as the individuals they are. If you don’t know where I’m getting at with this, it’s about the path Roxy took in Meat.

I remember when Act 7 concluded and it seemed like Roxy/Calliope was the inevitable outcome I felt a bit betrayed and robbed. I realize now that was selfish of me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Callie’s presence the same way I have with all Space players. I just.. had a pov that I wanted the story to follow. A headcanon, I guess, and it was hard to accept that it wasn’t meant to be. Mostly because it seemed like both John and Roxy were all on board for that outcome? And Candy kinda proves that to be true? But for a character to be an individual, they can’t just want one outcome. They have to want many things, many different and conflicting things. They have to choose for themselves the path they wish to walk. That’s what makes them feel real.

It was really surprising to see Roxy choose the path of non-binary, and eventually asking to be called him. I was never good with discussing the subject, but I’m happy to say I went from seeing gender as a two way street in my youth to seeing it as an endless field with just as many, endless paths to take. In some ways, I can even relate, but I’d like to cut myself off there. I don’t know enough on the topic. I feel like I wouldn’t do it justice.

The point is that I had no idea Roxy had this kind of agency, and having learned it, I realize how stupid I was to want them to be shoved down a particular path, to a particular person. While my old, forgotten wish to see the JohnRoxy ship set sail came true in Candy, I feel happiest for Roxy in the Meat route, and I have hopes that they can become the best person they can be there, having been given the time and space to figure things out for themselves.

#dusty text #homestuck spoilers #long post #the epilogues

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