#to be fair the first day I also had no idea the pesterlogs were a thing

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-10-31

THE SPOOKTOBER SPOOKD8 IS HERE!  Time to blog it and hope to the lord of bones that it heavily features the 12-foot Home Depot Skeleton!  Continuing from last time.

Will John remember that he should be off protecting the other kids from running off?  Or will he search for Vrissy finally, now that he’s spent a literal DAY staring at his house burning down?

> (==>)

This is the last Blood tie with your childhood and the past you were clinging to like a man-child, finally cut.  Your psyche is no longer allowed to be....

....Housetrapped.

Now get your Breathy ass over to your more adult responsibilities.  Or do something as irresponsible as usual, but more forward focused and thus singularly impressive.

> (==>)

I LITERALLY GASPED

I knew I was a fatally addicted Homestuck fanboy despite the trauma but I didn’t know I was THAT much of a just-over-thirty-year-old fanboy, I literally GASPED out loud.  To finally have the joy and confidence for the future that comes with JOHN and KARKAT together IN PERSON and interacting with a common goal.

What a dramatic, perfect shot.  This IS Karkat right?  That’s what the visuals and my heart and soul said

> (==>)

THEY’RE CLOSE FRIENDS

CLOSE ENOUGH FOR THAT

KARKAT HAS COME SO FAR

Karkat and John conversations are some of the strongest in Homestuck, I ship them as FRIENDS so hard

It brings to mind something I mentioned in the Breath, Blood, and the Flow of Reality explanation/theorypost, which was holy shit SEVEN YEARS AGO wow

I didn’t always understand the appeal of John as a character, ranking him in the middle of my liked characters list. But after a while, I suddenly noticed how enjoyable he was for the things his conversations did to others, making his pesterlogs some of the most enjoyable to read. I wrote the following two years ago, in a character rankings thread, back when we knew jack shit about the import of classes and roles:

“I didn’t really see why I should think John was such an amazing character until I realized his consistent effect on the other party. He’s goofy and doesn’t really understand anything, but he understands just enough about his friends and others to make cutting, hilarious, almost unintentional insights that can change people for the better, even if he’s off the mark. It’s not what he says himself, but what he brings about in others that makes him so great to read. I mean, if you wall him off from everyone else… he kind of fails.

That’s why I take issue with the complaint of protagonist syndrome, here. John is very little by himself, but enhances all the characters around him immensely. Imagine if John were doomed to stay the least powerful and/or game-advancing of the kids and trolls combined; notice how little that would do to the story, or his beneficial role in it.”

John cut himself off from EVERYONE for YEARS in the Candy timeline.  He tried to be close to people and just ended up distancing himself from it.  He tried to keep himself tied down by his old home and memories of the version of Dad he lost, and all sorts of childish stuff.  But that tie is cut, and the bonds he’s forged need to be grasped to bring him out to exercise his maturity, because Breath is futile without real BLOOD.

> (==>)

Awesome shot.

KARKAT: ROUGH DAY, HUH.

(that was supposed to skip to 2:26 when you click but I couldnt embed it that way -- I haven’t metal geared i just seen clips and super best friends & know some memes)

So many scars.  I used to even ship Jane and Karkat a little so they could just be aghast together at everyone’s shenanigans and level criticism at them together, but to think Jane’s fought and hurt Karkat THIS much...

(And yeah, his blood color is shown through his eyes now at this age, that’s correct.)

> (==>)

Oh my fucking god, going from that to Sprite mode that abruptly.  XD

This is great.

JOHN: karkat? JOHN: what are you doing here? KARKAT: IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU TOO.

Hah, SO close that Karkat’s immediately critical of NOT being greeted warmly.  :)

JOHN: this isn't a battlefield, it's just... KARKAT: THE OBLITERATED, SMOLDERING HUSK OF YOUR FORMER HOME. JOHN: well, yeah. KARKAT: WHICH WAS DESTROYED AS COLLATERAL IN AN ONGOING MILITARY CONFLICT. JOHN: oh all right, fine. JOHN: it just feels weird to call it that. JOHN: i guess i'm used to thinking of home as somewhere far away from all that war stuff.

Yeah John, the burning down from a bomb that was meant for you and ALL of your friends’ children is supposed to shatter you out of that illusion.

I’d continue criticizing, but Karkat’s about to do it for me:

KARKAT: JESUS *CHRIST* JOHN. KARKAT: I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO LIST ALL THE WAYS IN WHICH THAT CONSTITUTES A SHORT-SIGHTED AND PUKE-WORTHILY IGNORANT THING TO SAY TO ME, PERSONALLY. KARKAT: AND FRANKLY I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BOTHER, THANKS TO THE COUNTLESS FIRES I HAVE BEEN PUTTING OUT ALL DAY, THE ONE PRESENTLY CONSUMING YOUR HIVE NOTWITHSTANDING. KARKAT: YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE THINGS GO A BIT MORE SMOOTHLY? JUST A FRACTION? KARKAT: IF YOU HADN'T JUST DECIDED TO WANDER OFF THE INSTANT SHIT STARTED HAPPENING. JOHN: jeez, i'm sorry karkat. JOHN: i had no idea how much time had passed. JOHN: i must have gotten a bit distracted by my house being blown up.

A BIT DISTRACTED.  You empty-headed irresponsible guardian.

KARKAT: NOT WANTING TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS, BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS A PROBLEM THAT YOU OF ALL PEOPLE WERE UNIQUELY AND MAGICALLY EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH. JOHN: huh? KARKAT: YOU KNOW. KARKAT: WITH YOUR SHOOSH THING. JOHN: my shoosh thing. KARKAT: YOUR SHOOSH THING. KARKAT: THE GUSTY NONSENSE? THE GIFT OF GAS?? KARKAT: YOUR SBURB ALLOCATED BLOW JOB??? JOHN: uh. KARKAT: THE SUPERNATURAL COMMUNION YOU HAVE WITH ALL THINGS WINDY, YOU ASS!! JOHN: oh right, that. JOHN: that would have let me put the fire out, maybe. JOHN: i don't think there's anything in my skillset that would have unexploded my house though. KARKAT: THAT'S FAIR.

Mhmm.  Many of the characters in Candy AND Meat are currently in a situation where due to either years of unpractice in a worshipful society that discourages it by fueling their insecurities or inability to due to confinement in a years-long space trip has caused them to AVOID using their powers for the main beginning stretch of our new story.  People have complained about them outright “forgetting” to use their powers, and they’re right, to an extent, but it’s story-justified.  They’re almost all physically or psychologically prevented from doing so!  But those walls are coming down, starting now.  They’re going to come back into their own.  And we’re bound to see a LOT MORE of these literal Gods using their abilities to shape the fabric of reality as the story progresses.

JOHN: i suppose i'll add one more notch to the daily tally of crazy stuff that happened which i just have to accept as my life now.

It was all already happening, you just refused TO accept it until now.

JOHN: so... JOHN: what else happened while i was caught up watching the symbolic representation of my former life get consumed in a giant fire ball? KARKAT: OH BOY. WHERE TO START. KARKAT: SO FIRST OFF, IN HINDSIGHT, TODAY WAS PRETTY OBVIOUSLY JUST ONE HUGE BAITED TRAP. KARKAT: I SAY "IN HINDSIGHT", BUT FORTUNATELY IT WAS ALSO EXTREMELY APPARENT EVEN IN FORESIGHT TO THOSE OF US WHO SPENT A FEW SECONDS THINKING ABOUT IT. JOHN: ...right. KARKAT: OH COME ON EGBERT, SERIOUSLY? KARKAT: KIDNAPPING A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE, ONLY TO LET US KNOW PRECISELY WHERE AND ON WHAT OCCASION THEY WOULD BE MOST ACCESSIBLE FOR A RESCUE ATTEMPT? KARKAT: HAVING THAT OCCASION BE NONE OTHER THAN THE CORPSE PARTY OF A HIGHLY NOTEWORTHY POLITICAL FIGURE, WHOSE CASKET MIGHT AS WELL HAVE HAD A GIANT "KICK ME" SIGN DAUBED ON IT? KARKAT: THERE WAS BASICALLY NO WAY IT WASN'T A FRONT FOR SOMETHING HUGE. AND IT WAS! KARKAT: WE HAPPEN TO BE SITTING IN FRONT OF ONE FACET OF THAT HUGENESS AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Wait.  Oh, God.

Someone brought up the possibility that Gamzee might still be revivable by Jane, and I speculated that she’s deliberately CHOOSING not to because she actually doesn’t like him that much or has some semblance of fucking sense left in her.

But what if she PLANNED to have a public funeral for him, and then revive him SOON AFTER to turn him into a Christ-like resurrecting figure?  D:

JOHN: well, when you put it like that... JOHN: i guess we all got pranked pretty hard, huh. KARKAT: THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOUR SHITTY NERD PRANKS JOHN. KARKAT: FRANKLY I'M INSULTED THAT YOU THINK SUCH A WORD IS EVEN REMOTELY APPOSITE TO THE PRESENT SITUATION. KARKAT: OTHER THAN TO DESCRIBE THE WAY I AM PERSONALLY BEING "PRANKED" BY REALITY IN HAVING TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO YOU.

Pretty much.  Get serious, John, actual people are dying by the--

--oh right, he was like this through the apocalypse and death of everyone on Earth.

I guess this is in character.  Paradox Space made sure to choose someone empty-headed and disconnected from reality enough to withstand this shit easily.  He really is a Breath player.

KARKAT: IT TURNS OUT THAT WE DIDN'T NEED TO PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO THE RESCUING YIFFY PART OF THE OPERATION. KARKAT: SHE BASICALLY RESCUED HERSELF WHEN ALL WAS SAID AND DONE. KARKAT: AND TOOK CARE OF KICKING GAMZEE'S CORPSEBOX OVER WHILE SHE WAS AT IT, IN A STUNNING DISPLAY OF EFFICIENCY WHICH THE REST OF US CAN ONLY ASPIRE TO.

Excellent, yeah.

JOHN: it sounds like she'd be a pretty welcome addition to your ranks then. KARKAT: SHE'S A CHILD, YOU MORON.

Yeah, you’re fucking grown up now, John.  Stop thinking of the kids as the ones who have to rise up when the adults aren’t all doomed or dead.

KARKAT: THE VRISKAS, PLURAL. JOHN: shit. KARKAT: THEY'VE BOTH BEEN CAPTURED. JOHN: shiiiiiiiit. KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: GREAT WORK KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM, BY THE WAY! KARKAT: YOU LITERALLY HAD ONLY ONE JOB, AND YOU MESSED IT UP IN THE EQUALLY SINGULAR WAY IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DO. JOHN: urgh, i know, i know. ):

At least he messed that part up while he was TRYING to watch them, and not when he wandered off and watched his house burn for a whole day instead of protecting the remaining kids.

KARKAT: JANE'S PLAN FOR THIS CONFLICT HAS THUS FAR CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF KIDNAPPING VARIOUS HIGH PROFILE CHILDREN. KARKAT: IT'S BIZARRE. KARKAT: AS THOUGH WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR OF ATTRITION, WHERE THE MAIN RESOURCE BEING UTILIZED IS THE OFFSPRING OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. KARKAT: IF IT WASN'T ONE OF THE CORE TENETS OF HER FASCISTIC PHILOSOPHY, I'D BE TEMPTED TO SAY THAT CURBING REPRODUCTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA, IF ONLY TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF FUCKSHIT NONSENSE FROM HAPPENING.

Leave it to Karkat to point out the blatant absurdity of Homestuck’s nonsense in any given situation.

JOHN: wait. JOHN: wait a minute. JOHN: you said that both vriskas have been captured, right? KARKAT: EXCUSE ME WHILE I WEEP FOR JOY AT THE REVELATION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR ONCE. JOHN: okay, well putting that emotional outburst aside for a moment. JOHN: how is that even possible? JOHN: doesn't vriska, the original vriska, still have her magic alien mind control powers? JOHN: it seems like it should be basically impossible for anyone to kidnap her. KARKAT: YOU'VE STUMBLED ASS BACKWARDS ACROSS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF THIS UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT.

...Is Karkat going to put two and two together and realize that Vriska must have been intentionally captured of her own free will for some sort of ploy?

KARKAT: YOU ARE CORRECT, IN THAT WITH HER CASTE-TYPICAL, *COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT MAGICAL* PSYCHOMANIPULATIVE ABILITIES, STAYING OUT OF CROCKER'S REACH SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRIVIAL FOR SERKET PRIME. KARKAT: EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT SAID ABILITIES ARE NOT NEARLY AS POTENT ON HUMANS AS THEY ARE ON FELLOW TROLLS, THEY STILL OUGHT TO HAVE TIPPED ANY ALTERCATION SQUARELY IN HER FAVOR. KARKAT: BUT SOMEHOW, IT DIDN'T! KARKAT: INSTEAD, THINGS APPEAR TO HAVE GONE GLOBES UP IN CLASSIC VRISKITE FASHION, AND NOW ONE OF THE MOST UNEXPECTED AND UNWANTED BUT NEVERTHELESS USEFUL WEAPONS IN OUR ARSENAL IS DOING TIME IN CROCKERJAIL. KARKAT: THAT'S ABOUT ALL WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO GLEAN FROM TAPPING INTO THE BATTERBITCH AIRWAVES, WHICH IS A FANCY TERM FOR EAVESDROPPING ON THOSE OF HER AGENTS WHO TALK A LITTLE TOO LOUDLY IN SEMI-PUBLIC SPACES. JOHN: jeez. JOHN: i really screwed that up, didn't i.

Guh.  I guess Karkat is underestimating Vriska a bit or just assuming the worst out of a habit of assuming the worst of everything.  (Or, if he has his suspicions, he’s not telling John.)

KARKAT: HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, AND WITH THE RECOGNITION THAT I AM CHOOSING TO NURSE YOUR BRUISED FEELINGS DURING A PLANET WIDE CONFLICT FOR THE FATE OF MY SPECIES, KARKAT: IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO EXPEDITE YOUR GETTING THE FUCK OVER IT? JOHN: i... hm.

Yeah, use your shoosh-paps from Karkat wisely, John.  You needed them.

JOHN: i don't really know? JOHN: this all feels wrong, karkat. JOHN: no offense, but when you're around, it's usually a lot... KARKAT: A LOT WHAT? JOHN: a lot funnier. KARKAT: FUNNIER. JOHN: how to put this. JOHN: normally listening to you go on and on about how much we've fucked everything up is just very funny! JOHN: but now it's just not the same. JOHN: maybe it's part of what's going on with this entire reality? i don't know. JOHN: once upon a time i would have put down your ability to pull a silly rant out of your butt as a fundamental law of physics or something. JOHN: remember back when we first knew each other? JOHN: it felt like all you ever said to me was how much you thought i was screwing up and being a useless asshole. JOHN: and once i realized that you were also just a dumb kid who didn't know what was going on, i started to kind of enjoy it. JOHN: but now it's like... the only one who's still a dumb kid is me, and everyone else has something big and important going on that i just don't understand.

Mhmm, Karkat has every reason to be mad.  And everything really, REALLY close to you that you care about is in danger from the very things he’s mad about.  Karkat is RIGHT for once with every angry seemingly-exaggerated-but-not word, and that’s throwing you.

JOHN: i thought that i finally got what was going on with this whole war and everything. i wanted to be useful! JOHN: i guess i got a little too wrapped up in the feeling of something finally happening again. JOHN: and then watching it all blow up in my face, kind of literally now that i think about it...

...you think maybe something that happens to be A WAR is actually a big farking deal that you should be serious about??

JOHN: it's hard not to feel even more dejected about the situation than i was before. JOHN: and now even the patented karkat vant rant has lost all its sparkle.

IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.

JOHN: maybe if you had like, painstakingly itemized a list of all the things wrong with my plan in a comically overdone fashion or something. KARKAT: I CONSIDERED IT, BUT HONESTLY THERE WAS SO MUCH WRONG THAT I CONCLUDED THAT THE BEST THING FOR EVERYONE WOULD BE TO NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN. JOHN: oh. okay.

Heheh.

KARKAT: IF WE'RE BEING HONEST, YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN, JOHN. KARKAT: CALLING IT A PLAN WOULD IMPLY THAT IT WAS A STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF STEPS DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE A GOAL. KARKAT: WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH WAS A CONVOLUTED MESS WHICH STILL SOMEHOW INVOLVED DOING FUCKALL. KARKAT: AND I USE CONVOLUTED HERE IN THE SAME WAY THAT I WOULD TO DESCRIBE THE FRENZIED DRAWSTICK SCRIBBLES OF A SQUALLING HUMAN INFANT.

All Breath and no Blood?  All concept and influence and ephemeral accomplishments and no physical impact or results?

Karkat has been fighting this whole time with physical results in mind.  He NEEDS to tie that ephemeral shit down, and once added to his plan, once Breath sweeps the tide of actual sentiment of people, inspires them, you have an actual victory in reach instead of just more attrition.

KARKAT: I APPRECIATE THAT YOU SEEM TO HAVE DUG YOUR PAN OUT OF YOUR OWN CHUTE THE FEW MICROMETERS NECESSARY TO NOTICE THE PRECISE DEGREE TO WHICH THE WORLD IS BEING JUDICIOUSLY BATFUCKED RIGHT NOW.

Really need to dig yourself out more than that, John, yeah.

KARKAT: AS HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE, THAT'S A FEAT WHICH NO SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF DOING!

(Which is why your plan of attack needs more Breath!)

KARKAT: BUT NOTICING THE PROBLEM AND MAKING MEANINGFUL PROGRESS TOWARDS SOLVING IT ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. KARKAT: THE NEXT TIME YOU GET THE IMPULSE TO "LEND A HAND", YOU'D BE BETTER OFF CANNING IT FOR FIVE MINUTES AND LISTENING TO THOSE OF US WHO'VE BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE IT A LOT LONGER THAN YOU HAVE. KARKAT: THIS ISN'T AN EXERCISE BEING CONDUCTED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO PROVE YOUR PERSONAL DEGREE OF MORAL RECTITUDE. KARKAT: AND IF IT WAS, YOU WOULD HAVE ALREADY FAILED MISERABLY! SO DO YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE A FAVOR AND STOP TREATING IT LIKE ONE. JOHN: well... all right. if you say so karkat.

Phew.  Let’s hope he takes Karkat’s gift of a worldbound, arms-in-the-dirt sense of responsibility (Blood) and runs with it.

KARKAT: I DO SAY SO, EMPHATICALLY AND AT GREAT VOLUME. KARKAT: AND NOW THAT MY OBLIGATION TO CATECHIZE YOU ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR OWN LIFE IS FULFILLED, I HAVE A WAR TO GET BACK TO. JOHN: wait, hold on. KARKAT: OH MY GOD WHAT NOW.

--is it gonna be a hug?

> (==>)

JOHN.  Put it together.

JOHN: you can't be leaving already. JOHN: there's... so much we still need to talk about!

No, not that!!

...well, yes, I’m all for more of you two talking but.  This ain’t just about you two.

KARKAT: WHAT MORE COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE FOR US TO DISCUSS?? KARKAT: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME YOU JUST HAD ANOTHER EMOTION THAT WE NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DISSECT. JOHN: no, that's not what i'm talking about at all. JOHN: karkat, we still haven't spoken about *you*! KARKAT: ABOUT ME? JOHN: yes. KARKAT: ABOUT *ME*? JOHN: about you. KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME. JOHN: well... JOHN: you know, how you feel! KARKAT: HOW I FEEL. JOHN: or just... JOHN: argh, i don't know!

This was more of an intervention than a feelings jam, John.  I’m not sure John’s in the condition right now to Breathily inspire Karkat somehow and help his war with an idea and drive he didn’t have before -- like he SHOULD eventually -- but I suppose we’re about to see.

JOHN: it's just been so long since we've seen each other. JOHN: all sorts of things have happened in that time, and it doesn't feel right to just not even mention any of it! KARKAT: LIKE WHAT?? JOHN: oh, i don't know karkat, literally anything! JOHN: i mean, look at you. JOHN: you are decked out in a tight body suit and have an eyepatch and everything. there is simply no way there isn't something to discuss there.

You talked with him plenty while NOT in person, though.

> (==>)

Such MOOD.  What a good image.

JOHN: or like, forget the eyepatch, we don't have to talk about the eyepatch. JOHN: i feel as though my point still stands? JOHN: there is basically a bottomless well full of stuff to go through. JOHN: i mean we kind of glossed over it when you brought her up earlier, but what about yiffy? JOHN: this might not come across so easily due to human troll cultural boundaries, but her existing is kind of a big deal?? JOHN: i feel like somehow i missed the part where we all sit around and talk about how strange it is that two of our friends went off and had a secret child without any of us knowing! JOHN: is it too much to ask that we have that part now, karkat?

That’s fair.  And they DO need to talk about it!  But this is sort of like in the Game -- there’s important shit to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it.  You’re going to do a lot of talking, but you won’t be able to do all you want with certain people separated from you by the circumstances of how this war is dividing your responsibilities.

JOHN: i mean, maybe it just doesn't mean that much to you. KARKAT: JOHN. JOHN: which is a little strange, given that it ties in to the whole conflict that you had with jade and dave. JOHN: oh god we have to talk about dave. KARKAT: JOHN. KARKAT: FUCKING HELL! KARKAT: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT DAVE. JOHN: no, this is what i mean, karkat. JOHN: we need to talk about dave! KARKAT: HAHA! LIKE SHIT WE DO!! KARKAT: I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW THIS IS EVEN A RELEVANT TOPIC OF CONVERSATION. JOHN: oh come on. JOHN: there's no way you aren't feeling kind of messed up about him, right?

THIS is fair.  Karkat does need to talk about this with somebody.  Whether John is the right somebody... I guess he is where Dave is concerned.  And he has to talk to Jade eventually, too.

JOHN: i know i am. JOHN: whenever i think about how things ended between you two... JOHN: especially now that he's... JOHN: ugh, i'm sorry. i'm SO sorry karkat. sorry doesn't even begin to cover it. JOHN: this whole thing feels so impossibly sad. JOHN: all i'm trying to say is... JOHN: it's not healthy to bottle these feelings up and not acknowledge them. JOHN: even if you aren't feeling anything right now, and i don't for a moment believe that's true, *i* need to talk about dave! JOHN: so can we please just talk about dave for a moment. KARKAT: NNNNGNGNGGGGGGGUUUUUUGUUGHHHHHHHH FINE.

It’s difficult to live in a Daveless world.

KARKAT: IF IT WILL GET YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THIS TOPIC FOR EVEN A BRIEF MOMENT, THEN FINE. KARKAT: REGARDLESS OF HOW POINTLESS AN EXERCISE I CONSIDER IT TO BE, I WILL DISCUSS WITH YOU MY "FEELINGS" ABOUT DAVE. JOHN: okay. JOHN: thank you. KARKAT: ARE YOU PREPARED TO BE INUNDATED WITH NONE OTHER THAN AN UNINTERRUPTED SPATE OF HARD, UNEMBELLISHED DATA VIS A VIS MY SWEEPS-SUPPRESSED, BISCUITFELT EMOTIONS ON THE DAVE SITUATION?? KARKAT: WELL HERE GOES.

--it’s not gonna be short, or cut away, is it?  --actually it could just switch to a very sad sunset-like vista of the two sitting there, and one poignant line from him followed by a long, hanging pause.

> (==>)

KARKAT: *DEEP BREATH*

A giant expletive isn’t it.

The best sendoff you could give him.

> (==>)

Holy shit.  It really IS a rant!

KARKAT: YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I REALLY FEEL ABOUT DAVE? KARKAT: HOW I FEEL IS THAT I WISH THAT EVERYONE WOULD STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME ABOUT HIM!!! KARKAT: ALRIGHT, SO HE AND JADE GOT HUMAN MARRIED!! BIG DEAL!!! KARKAT: DO PEOPLE FORGET THAT I WAS THERE?? I FEEL LIKE EVERYONE IS FORGETTING THAT I WAS LITERALLY INVITED TO THE OCCASION. KARKAT: I'VE EVEN COME TO EXPECT THIS KIND OF AMNESIAC BEHAVIOR FROM EVERYONE ELSE, SINCE I ADMIT THAT I DIDN'T EXACTLY STICK AROUND OR ACTUALLY SHOW MY FACE FOR MOST OF THE ORDEAL, BUT YOU EGBERT SHOULD HAVE NO FUCKING EXCUSE! JOHN: wait, karkat, that's not what i KARKAT: SO YEAH! THAT WHOLE THING HAPPENED, AND I CAME TO TERMS WITH WHATEVER THERE WAS TO COME TO TERMS WITH, WHICH WAS FUCKING *NOTHING*, AND THEN I GOT ON WITH THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE WORLD FROM CRUMBLING! KARKAT: WHICH, NOW THAT WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, IS *STILL FUCKING HAPPENING*! KARKAT: I AM UTTERLY APPALLED THAT THIS IS AN INFO MORSEL I KEEP HAVING TO SPOONFEED DOWN YOUR WINDCHUTE EVERY FIVE SECONDS, JOHN, I REALLY AM. KARKAT: I MEAN HOLY SHIT, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THIS! KARKAT: AND ONE THING I CAN SAY WITH ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD CERTAINTY IS THAT IF DAVE WERE HERE, HE WOULD SAY THE SAME THING!!

Okay he dealt with it by keeping his hands in the dirt working on hard-fighting responsibilities, yeah, as a Blood player might.  But the way he’s ranting about it seems a little-

KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHERE *IS* DAVE?? JOHN: um. KARKAT: I FEEL LIKE IF ANYONE COULD HAVE PREVENTED TODAY FROM DEVOLVING INTO A HEADLESS CLUSTERFUCK, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN... OKAY, MAYBE NOT HIM, BUT AT LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE HELPED DRAG YOU OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSIVE FUGUE A LITTLE SOONER! JOHN: (oh shit.)

Oh SHIT

> (==>)

Oh no... oh no, they’re BOTH about to let it out together.

They’re gonna have to cry it out.  Finally, onscreen.  THIS is why they weren’t showing us, why they were saving it.  It felt so awkward at the time but it’s because it has to culminate in these two, some of the closest to Dave since CHILDHOOD, get to show us the effect on everyone in a microcosm.

KARKAT: NOT ONLY THAT, BUT MAYBE WITH BOTH OF US HERE WE COULD HAVE DISPENSED WITH THIS ENTIRE SORRY TOPIC ONCE AND FOR ALL, IF ONLY FOR YOUR BENEFIT! KARKAT: OH HI DAVE, JOHN SEEMS TO BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE UNSPOKEN HISTORY BETWEEN US IS OF SUFFICIENT IMPORT THAT WE NEED TO HASH IT OUT THIS VERY SECOND IN FRONT OF THE BLASTED REMAINS OF HIS HOME! KARKAT: yo karkat that does seem to be a strange thing for my best friend john to be concerned about given that he has spent the past five years wallowing in the depths of deepest divorce fever KARKAT: and especially since jade and i have meanwhile been working as part of your resistance with no complaints, but sure, we can brofist each other and arrange our limbs in an unambiguously platonic way KARKAT: a way which is also flawlessly calculated to communicate to everyone present that here are two guys who are totally and unequivocally over each other JOHN: (oh god. you don't...)

Talk about John’s comment about Karkat’s rants not being hilarious in a situation.  THIS situation really tugs it out of them.  :(

KARKAT: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA DAVE, AND WITH THAT MAYBE THAT WAY WE CAN WASH OUR TOUCH STUMPS OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL AND NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK OF IT AGAIN! KARKAT: WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, JOHN? KARKAT: WOULD THAT SATISFY YOUR CRAVING FOR CATHARSIS ON THE SUBJECT OF DAVE?? KARKAT: WELL WHY DON'T WE TRY IT THEN. KARKAT: IN FACT, WHY DON'T YOU CALL DAVE AND GET HIM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! JOHN: (oh my god...)

> (==>)

These visuals are ON POINT.  This entire sequence since Karkat showed up is masterfully done.

KARKAT: MAYBE WE SHOULD GET JADE TO COME AS WELL! JOHN: ): KARKAT: FUCK, WHY NOT INVITE FUCKING EVERYONE!!! KARKAT: WHY NOT PRESS "PAUSE" ON THE RACE WAR FOR A MOMENT AND HAVE ONE HUGE FEELINGS JAM LAWNMEAL WHERE WE ALL PUBLICLY EXPATIATE OUR VARIOUS CONVOLUTED EMOTIONS. KARKAT: FORGET PEACE TALKS, GET FUCKING *CROCKER* TO COME! KARKAT: MAYBE THE SIGHT OF A DAVEKAT RECONCILIATION IS THE SECRET KEY TO UNLOCKING THE PART OF HER BRAIN THAT STOPS HER FROM BEING A GENOCIDAL RACIST BITCH!!! KARKAT: HOW COULD WE HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN SO BLIND!!!!!! KARKAT: IF GAMZEE WASN'T DEAD, YOU COULD HAVE INVITED HIM AS WELL! KARKAT: HAHAHA, THAT'S OKAY, WE STILL HAVE A VERITABLE MENAGERIE OF PEOPLE WE KNOW WHO AREN'T DEAD. JOHN: ))))): KARKAT: ALL OF WHOM I AM SURE WILL BE SIMPLY DELIGHTED TO ATTEND WHAT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN EARTH C'S BULLSHIT HISTORY. KARKAT: IF THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES, EGBERT, THEN I AM PREPARED TO DO IT! KARKAT: DON'T THINK THAT I WON'T!! KARKAT: IF JUST FOR AN *INSTANT* IT WILL GET EVERYONE OFF MY CASE ABOUT THIS, I WILL STAND UP WITH DAVE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE ***FUCKING WORLD*** AND SOLEMNLY VOW THAT I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT!!!! JOHN: KARKAT!!!!

That last bit with John.  I can HEAR the rawness in his voice as he shouts that last bit... he’s about to burst into tears.  And Karkat is going to have to with him.  And they’ll cry it out together, as they should.

> (==>)

JOHN: ugh, fuck, this is just too much! JOHN: i thought you KNEW! KARKAT: KNEW WHAT??? JOHN: dave's GONE, karkat! JOHN: he's... JOHN: he's dead.

Let’s see it happen.

> (==>)

Just body language, the blow of the words...

JOHN: i didn't mean for you to find out like this at all, i thought... JOHN: i mean, i only heard about it yesterday, but i was convinced someone would have told you already! JOHN: apparently one minute he was there, and the next... JOHN: none of us even know how it happened, and it doesn't make any sense that he's dead, but he is. JOHN: he is dead and he's not coming back. KARKAT: JOHN: talk to me karkat, please. JOHN: please talk to me karkat. KARKAT: KARKAT: HE...

Jade and Rose were on a different part of this battlefield, they didn’t have the ability, time, and/or heart to break the news--

> (==>)

KARKAT: HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE?

aaaaAAAA

What a fucking expression, wow.

And what a regret RoboDave has to have for abandoning everyone without so much as a farewell letter.  To think that ditching them like that was IN his Ultimate Soul is going to eat away at him.  He may be linked to all of his self of selves, but he’s still an individual with individual regrets.

This was a damned good update.  See y’all next time.

(It may be the new meds I’m on, but between this and the thorough love I see put into the unofficial archive, I’m suddenly reminded that despite all the drama, I fucking LOVE Homestuck.  Even its current incarnation.)

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 1: The Note Dawdling Tension Plays (Part 1)

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

CHEL: Here we see the first page, and are introduced to our protagonist, ZOOSMELL POOPLORD! Sorry, I mean John Egbert. The joke names used as a running gag, and also the actual names which end up applied to the characters, were the suggestions of the players of the original forum game.

BRIGHT: Homestuck does start out strongly in several ways. It immediately establishes the protagonist and location. It sets the tone it will use, one based heavily on a text adventure computer game. It introduces the reader to the inventory system...

And here the first feature of Homestuck becomes apparent: although a hugely popular and widely known webcomic, it is very slow to get going. The new reader who arrives on the recommendation of others ends up scratching their head and wondering if they’re in the right place.

TIER: In ancient times (so somewhere in 2014/15) I actually attempted to read Homestuck to see what the occasional weird noises the name caused were going on about. I'm very certain that I didn't even make it to meeting any of the other kids I was so bored.

CHEL: Same here. It took me two or three attempts to get to that point. The problem is that the intro is left over from its days as a forum game, in which no one was expecting it to lead into the epic story it became. It worked great for that format, but less well now. And here we start on our first counts.

GET ON WITH IT!: 1 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 2

How Not to Write a Novel lists multiple errors which could be said to apply here:

The Waiting Room - wherein the story is too long delayed Here the writer churns out endless scenes establishing background information with no main story in sight. On chapter 3, the reader still has no idea why it’s important to know about [the background info, in this case how badly John fails at using technology]. By chapter 7, the reader would be having strong suspicions that it isn’t important, were a reader ever to make it as far as chapter 7. Zeno’s Manuscript - in which irrelevant detail delays narrative momentum Any scene can be killed by description of every meaningless component of whatever action the character undertakes. As in Zeno’s Paradox, in which an arrow never reaches its target because it must always travel half the remaining distance, the reader begins to feel as if the end is further and further away.

A comic about a kid failing to master a video game inventory system is mildly amusing once, but not when it drags on this long, and it’s not particularly fitting for an epic adventure involving the fate of universes. Well, that’s not quite fair; introduction to mundane life and slow revelation of the magical goings-on works fine for books like the Harry Potter series. But, to take Philosopher’s Stone as an example, multiple different odd things happen over the course of Uncle Vernon’s regular boring day, increasing in scale until it’s very clear something strange is going on, and establishing multiple aspects of the wizarding world, e.g. owls, their fashion, the existence and disappearance of a mysterious villain, the fact that the wizarding world is supposed to be secret.

John fucking about with his sylladex and putting up movie posters for page after page doesn’t tell us anything new. Failing to use the sylladex once would be enough to get the point that magical video game inventories are a thing in this world and John’s not very good at using them across, and then we really ought to move on, and we can already see the posters on his walls so we don’t need to see him hanging more. Possibly we could have needed the latter in a purely text format where we couldn’t see the walls, or in a comic without text description at the bottom where attention would need to be drawn to them on-panel. Admittedly, it does establish him picking up the hammer, which becomes relevant, but we don’t need a full page each for both the action of him picking up the hammer and the action of him hanging the poster.

… Who hangs a poster with nails, anyway? His walls must be in a hell of a state.

For that matter, that’s another HNTWAN entry or two:

The Second Argument in the Laundromat - a scene which occurs twice NEVER use two scenes to establish the same thing. We do not, under any circumstances, want a series of scenes in which the hero goes to job interviews but fails to get the job, or has a series of unsuccessful dates to illustrate bad luck in love. This works in the movies, where three scenes can pass in thirty seconds, but not in a novel. The Redundant Tautology - wherein the author repeats himself If you have made a point in one way, resist the temptation to reinforce it by making it again. Do not reexpress it in more flowery terms, and do not have the character reaffirm it in dialogue […] This point is worth repeating; don’t reiterate. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 4

Additionally, people with a lower tolerance for “lovable clumsy dork” characters are going to come to hate John before the comic’s even started, though it’s probably best that people who are going to hate the main character learn that quickly so they can leave. I can understand not wanting to lose the forum game which originally spawned the comic, the other people involved would probably not be pleased, but perhaps it would be better saved as a side story and trimmed down when the comic proper was released. At least they could be compressed down by showing multiple failures and multiple poster-hanging actions on single pages.

One other minor gripe might be the neologisms, such as “sylladex” meaning inventory. I found it fairly easy to pick up and it does make the tone and narration nicely distinctive, but it’s a level of extra complication. How Not to Write a Novel has a couple points on excessively baroque wordplay - do you guys think it’s worth giving it a point for that?

BRIGHT: Possibly not in this case - wordplay is a feature of HS and this one is at least made fairly clear. There are plenty of offenders later on as I recall though...

CHEL: Okay, seems fair. In this case it is more of a feature than a bug. It does establish the narrative voice and add to the video game theme. However, the movie posters also bring up an addition to our third count.

Plus, a black president? Now you’ve seen everything! WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 1

A reference to the song “White Suburb Impressionism”, by IAMX…

"IAMX - 'White Suburb Impressionism" (Watch on YouTube)

… this count goes up whenever characters behave in a way which suggests they’re, well, white and suburban (or wealthier), despite any attempts to present them otherwise. This would have passed without comment, but Hussie later tried to claim he’d always intended the kids to be “aracial”, so any reader could project themselves or their preferred headcanons onto the kids. As we’ll show you, we don’t believe him, or at least don’t believe he succeeded. That would probably be difficult to pull off, anyway. Race affects a lot more than features on a stylised sprite.

FAILURE ARTIST: Now, I can’t quite put my finger on it but John’s and Dave’s opinion on black presidents in movies (that it’s a gimmick ruined by Obama’s election) feels like something that would only come out of a white mouth i.e. Andrew Hussie’s. Not the most egregious case of implied whiteness but still worth noting.

CHEL: The point of the joke here is not 100% clear, and that’ll be a thing which comes up later as well. See, I agree that’s Dave’s opinion, but I thought the point was that John genuinely didn’t know there was a black president at the time of writing because he’s already been established to be not exactly a genius and so far he’s been focused on movies and video games instead of real life. Maybe I’m underestimating him, though, since admittedly not very much of him has been shown at this point and it’s been a while since I read the whole thing. I’m not going to start using the ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY count here, though, because here Hussie clearly was trying to be funny. It just isn’t clear to me what about it was supposed to be funny. That’s probably my autism talking, though. Jokes are hard. I agree that it sounds like a white kid’s opinion either way - even the dimmest black American kid would know Obama existed, and so most likely would non-black people of colour.

Anyway! Things pick up a bit when John, under the username ectoBiologist, starts chatting to the second character to be introduced, currently known as turntechGodhead, though the second topic of conversation is a reference to a 1989 movie which, as time goes on, will be familiar to fewer and fewer readers. Luckily, the writer realises this, and the content of the conversation makes the reference sufficiently clear without falling into As You Know dialogue.

FAILURE ARTIST: Namely, their conversation is about a scene where - pardon me for being gross but it’s in the comic - a character accidentally ingests urine instead of apple juice. John and TG are surprised the character knew it was urine but I find it weird that someone with working smell would not know what it is. Urine has a distinct odor.

CHEL: Well, be fair. According to the drawings, the characters in question don’t have noses!

FAILURE ARTIST: On a more pertinent note, this conversation is an edited version of one Hussie and a friend had. Perhaps Hussie was TG? TG is practically an Author Avatar for Hussie. Sure, Hussie literally appears in the comic later, but TG seems to fit his true personality better. We’ll see how that affects things for better or for worse.

BRIGHT: This is also the reader’s introduction to the Pesterlog. This is one of those things that seems like it should be out of place in a webcomic - it’s just a page of two people talking to each other in chatlog format, with no other information - but the Pesterlogs actually work surprisingly well.

FAILURE ARTIST: When I first read Homestuck, I didn’t know you had to click on the Pesterlog to open it. I just sat around wondering what amazing conversations they were having. I’m not the only one I think who made that mistake.

CHEL: Yeah, I think I briefly had the same problem, but I don’t remember for sure. Possibly more attention could be drawn to the button.

TIER: I would've probably ended up in the same boat if the friends that recommended I read Homestuck didn't specifically tell me not to accidentally overlook them!

CHEL: That’s not exactly a writing error, so I’m not sure it falls under our jurisdiction, but it’s a point that ought to be brought up. The Pesterlogs do work well once the reader actually sees them, anyway. It’s actually pretty interesting to see how much information can be conveyed in a conversation without falling into As You Know Bob. Let’s check what points are introduced in this first one, for example:

- John really loves what he got for his birthday, a Little Monsters poster. From this we know he’s not spoiled (this is how you do it, Meyer) and easily entertained, and likely has a good home life, as he’s so happy and grateful about a gift from his dad.

-turntechGodhead has apple juice in his closet. This establishes his odd home life, and gets explained in more detail later.

- Some things about the personalities of both kids. John is enthusiastic and a joker, TG is mellower, sarcastic, rambles a bit, and at least plays at being cool.

- John really wants to play the SBURB Beta, a game mentioned earlier which is late being released. TG is less keen, again trying to be cool about it.

- Said game got “slammed” by critics, despite the fact that we learned earlier from John’s SBURB-logo calendar that this game has been hyped to hell and back and must be popular, with merchandise and reviews being released before even the beta version of the game is out. Something weird is going on; someone really wants a lot of people to play this game.

Not bad considering a total lack of body language reference or narration. Das Sporking’s seen authors using traditional narration do worse!

FAILURE ARTIST: The (adult) critics of Game Bro get into shenanigans that prevent them from playing the game they reviewed. Perhaps there’s something in the game that prevents itself from being played by adults, just like how adults can’t pilot Evangelions in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

CHEL: Not sure. Doesn’t one of Dad’s online friends play it, or at least get caught up in it, later on? Though that part’s obviously supposed to be a joke… Maybe instead it’s a built-in way to stop anyone who might be listened to warning others what it does?

As established earlier, said beta is late; this is a reference to the originally planned launch date of the comic, three days before it actually ended up being released. Also, there’s a pun you may have missed in the background. The programming files on John’s desktop include the phrase “^CAKE”. The ^ symbol is called a carot. Get used to noticing those. It’s pretty amazing how many references, self-references, puns, and recurring themes are worked in, and people such as revolutionaryduelist have made semi-careers picking them all out. We won’t bother with all of them or we’ll be here all century, but we’ll pick up on any obvious ones.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie majored in computer science so there’s lot of computer science in-jokes in the beginning.

BRIGHT: Something I just noticed: One of the other files on John’s desktop is ‘TYPHEUS’. It even has a Denizen icon! Probably something that has been brought up plenty of times before, but still nifty on a reread.

CHEL: Typheus and Denizens will come up later in the comic.

TIER: When he feels like it, Hussie is immensely good at foreshadowing later events in pretty subtle but solid ways. It's stuff like this that makes times when he does fumble look worse than they probably are in comparison.

[bladekindeyewear]

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