#you consider hs2 canon? go away

[dave-shit-kat]

One of the many problems with Homestuck is the target audience. I often tell people that I don't think kids younger than 15 should read the comic and I always get crazy looks for that.

Yes, I know the fandom (right now) has many kids. Yes, I've read the comic; I know its themes, contents and how they're presented. And the problems lie on that specifically.

Because Homestuck isn't and never wanted to be a fucking pedagogy example, it takes many liberties with what it narrates and how. While I agree that some themes can be treated in any media, and while I agree that adult jokes can be made in kids' medias, we have to keep in mind that certain things have to be treated properly when talking to younger audiences, and that adult jokes have to be made with a structure that doesn't allow the kid to understand what the joke acutally means (also, you can't base an entire show on adult jokes only, or having them too often, or it won't be an age appropriate show anymore). Basically; people who have in mind a target age STUDY the fucking targeted age; something Homestuck never did.

So the result is a colorful and silly and dumb webcomic, that seems appealing to unsupervised 11 year olds (I've met them in the fandom, I'm not inventing anything), that also have read a comic that talks about racism, sex, rape, pedophilia, incest, totalitarism, and things like that. As I said, you CAN have kids medias that treat those topics, but the situation with Homestuck is much more similar to the situation with Hazbin Hotel; where the media is shown as colorful and silly and funny, more inclined towards edgy kids' type of humor, yet not having kids in mind as the target audience, and so allowing way too many adult topics to be treated in the media itself, while expecting the audience to be mature enough to get it.

As I said and as I repeat myself: yes, Homestuck is dumb, but not for this reason good for kids. And when someone on TikTok dared to tell me "Oh, but these topics and details fly over children's heads" I got mad. HOW does that make it ok!? An adult joke made in 40 episodes of a kid show is one thing; a webcomic with 8k pages FULL of that stuff is another thing. Just because the themes are treated non-seriously, doesn't make stuff like, I don't know, RICK AND MORTY ok for kids.

SUMMARY: Keep kids away from Homestuck.

[davekat-sucks]

i saw some draw humanstuck art today and drew meenah white, every single comment under the post was everyone saying “whitestck”, “white meenah scares me..” and someone even said “they whitewashed her..” you can’t white wash an alien with gray skin..

these are the same kind of hypocrites that when you ask them what the hell even makes meenah, the fucking alien, "black coded" they will then reveal their own racism through their very own reasoning, because they associate, for example, meenahs aggressiveness with black people, instead of associating it to the canon fact that all female trolls are aggressive and that hic was a violent genocidal conqueror of planets.

or another one ive seen, that Gamzee is "black coded" because the "coding" was he was portrayed as an, and I quote, "impossible to understand, dirty, drug-addled, ugly, stupid teen with an absent father and a religious devotion to rap/hip hop. Impossible to take seriously, until he becomes a violently abusive murderer because he got his drugs taken away"

but no, the real issue is the artist depicting the troll called sea hitler or the troll parodying ICP, two white rappers, as white... make it make fucking sense

id ask these people if they are americans and if they also believe that trolls speaking english makes them american in the first place, and if they say yes to both, then that also shows they are hypocrites again by their own logic

because, honestly and from what all of this tells me, not only some americans are racist enough to connect all these traits to a skin color, turning them into racial stereotypes, but also self-centered enough to miss that theyre doing exactly what "Americentrism" describes. judging an entire different culture, a planet of fucking ALIENS, as if its the USA, and centering everything around america and their issues as if their standards are the only valid interpretation of the story and characters.

and because all of this disgusting mindset is even encouraged by the current writer teams too, reminder that the hicu writers revealed that they made earth c to be literally just texas as an entire planet.

Pretty much. They say it is racist that Meenah is stereotyped black-coded. But if you headcanon them as anything else, it's racist still. At this point, what the fuck do these people want?! But yeah, most Westerners are self centered assholes. Why else they even go after stuff like anime/manga/video games and try to change the stuff there? Because they can't accept cultural differences that aren't United States. They can't accept some places have different moral standards than others. Technically, it was WHATPUMPKIN, not HICU, that made Earth C's flag just similar to Texas's. But it is still a point that James Roach and HICU do not want retcon or get rid of it. They want to """respect"""" the people who had worked on it. But considering the team behind it, why the fuck would you give them any benefit of the doubt?! TELL ME! James Roach and HICU were better off doing a hard ass reboot and wiped everything the previous team had made, out of existence. It is better than building on top of or dragging along the damage made within HS2/Beyond Canon. Because it just reminds people of the horrible past and the people behind it. Some may even think James Roach and HICU continuing to go along with it, means they technically still support people like Andrew Hussie and Kate Mitchell. And not just business standpoint, like they support them in beliefs and ideology.

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

HS2's themes are fuckin wack crap cuz like... idk it all starts with the epilogues, right? the thing that the epilogues are trying to say is that all conflict that the characters face within the narrative is there because the audience cast their gaze upon this story and demanded entertainment. something has to happen on the stage to keep us watching, thus, it is the audience's fault that the characters suffer. but that's bullshit for so many reasons. for one thing, it ignores the role of the author. audience demand doesn't force an author's hands to write... that's a decision that the author made. we could've lived with nothing at all.

and conflict comes in many flavors. some stories hardly have any conflict at all. the whole iyashikei genre exists, like, I think we're well past understanding that cynicism, tragedy, and destruction are not the only forces that can drive a narrative. "conflict" is not the only reason for a story to be told. once again, stories tell us as much about the author as their audience. the kind of story an author deems worthy of telling is just as relevant to consider as the kind of story an audience deems worthy of attention.

and even in conflict driven stories... it matters what the conflict is, who wins, how, and why. as a simple example, when the conflict is a battle between good and evil, good wins, it does so by way of the power of friendship, and the reason it is presented this way is to promote the idea that you should be kind and help others... that's a story with a purpose. obviously this is like, children's cartoon level simple, and a story can be written to say different or more complex things, but I should always be able to ask those questions and come up with an answer.

if, as an author, Hussie wanted to accuse his audience of being culpable in the suffering of his characters, he would at least have to present the reader with a meaningful choice. and at first glance, it would almost seem like he did. meat and candy, even by their naming convention, seem as though they are giving you the option to consume a light or dark tale. but even in the names, there is a seed of judgement. Hussie has described the concept of a narrative containing both "meat" and "candy" in terms of story content, wherein meat is anything heavy in terms of plot or drama, and candy is anything that provides levity as a counterbalance, such as jokes or feel good fluff. these categories are already identified as "substance" vs. "a lack of substance" which places value on the cynical, dark route as being more truthful... conflating cynicism with realism.

and already I can see making a case for the idea that neither route is legitimate, because no story should subsist on just one or the other... both need to be at play for the story to be balanced. and you could even argue that the lampooning of the epilogues' legitimacy was the point... that they were supposed to be outside of canon and regarded as illegitimate all along. but then not only does that negate the author's ability to let the audience choose the kind of story they're participating in, but the story itself doesn't play by its own rules.

does candy truly read like some fluffy pandering fanservice filler, the way one might expect it to? and is meat totally devoid of any levity, while focusing only on plot machinations and/or the characters' dramatic downward spiral? I would argue that, even though the consensus seems to be that both routes are equally dismal, neither even gets dark enough to live up to that end of the bargain either. the execution is messy... the concept doesn't hold up.

and what of the initial concept? that the audience's observation of a story forces the characters to enact a conflict for the sake of our entertainment? is that really what's going on here? from the initial pitch, you could already tell that the answer was no. nobody asked for this. and so we cast our apparently destructive audience gaze onto Homestuck 2.

but there, we find another curveball. the story is... almost becoming self aware? in that it casts a character in the role of the author, and also identifies him firmly as the villain. but see, this is still a blame shift. and maybe that would've been less obvious if Andrew Hussie had not introduced himself as a character inside of his own web comic throughout the original narrative. the true author is already here.

the villain of homestuck was never the audience, and it was never a fictional character. if we're really shattering the 4th wall... if we're really ceasing our suspension of disbelief, pulling back the curtain, and acknowledging that these characters are fabricated, manipulated entities with real people behind the wheel, then there is only one conclusion we can possibly come to. the author has control over the narrative... no one else. and the things the author chooses to say with the platform they've made for themselves? those things are on them. what are we to understand about the author, as his audience?

this is why people are looking past the story entirely and engaging with the creative team, for better or for worse. if you break your story enough, it won't work anymore. and when the audience finds it in shambles, completely unusable as a story... you know, the thing it was intended to be? they might actually look to the people who broke it and ask them why they did that. it was a nice story. it performed several functions that people actually enjoyed. was dismantling it like this really the most fulfilling thing they could've done with it?

and I'll tell you another thing. part of why people take it so personally is because, just like how Andrew Hussie, the homestuck character, was a stand-in for Andrew Hussie, the human being... many of the characters in homestuck were stand-ins for us. John Egbert was for people who had an obsessive nerdy interest in movies, Rose was for people who wrote fanfiction, Nepeta was for people who ship characters a lot, she and Terezi were for people who RP, and also... Dave was for people who were trying to act cooler than they felt, Jade was for people who were lonely, Kanaya was for people who wanted to help people and be accepted, Vriska was for people who were hard to love and felt judged for that.

who do these writers think they're messing with?

and I just want to make it clear that I'm not condoning any kind of harassment of them, or anything like that. ultimately, my point here is that we are not our effigies. and in the same way that an author can't blame shift onto a fictional character, a person cannot claim the direction of a fictional story as a reason to do real harm.

but homestuck was always unique in that it spoke very directly to its audience. when Hussie added real pieces of us to his fake people, he had a powerful vehicle for the messages that he wanted us to hear. lots of stories have characters that are written to be relatable, but you'd be hard pressed to find ones that feel quite so specific as the cast of homestuck. to our era. to our humor. to the values of people growing up in our online cultural circumstances.

if this specific author is going to choose to act like a villain, at least in the small-scale context of this comic, then what is that setting us up to be? maybe nothing so presumptuous as a hero... maybe just like, Dave of Guy, y'know? but Dave made normal a pretty heroic thing to be... I think it's up to us to just be normal and have normal fun, in spite of the shit show. regular old homestuck already said all the valuable stuff it was gonna. for my part, I'm just gonna take that and run off with it. ignoring HS2 doesn't make it go away, but paying attention to it doesn't make it good either... so I guess whatever.

that's the themes. the themes are just a big "so what" shrug. most complicated way to say "who cares" I've ever seen.

This is a really good analysis

[thewebcomicsreview]

Baby I like you but saying this last update is Act 5 great is very much a slip on judgement. Every update so far has been some attempt at correcting some slip on writing from that past updates. The problems with the Child is that you have to first accept that these old characters are mockeries of their old selves. Jade, Rose, Kanaya, Vriska and Jane are pretty much one.dimensional at this point. And the Child herself is not interesting, she is pretty much not even compared to one troll.

I like you too, babe, but hear me out. The gimmick of this Yiffy character is that absolutely everyone, even characters we’re supposed to find likable like Vrissy, considers her to be just this disgusting awful embarrassment, even though she’s actually never done anything wrong in her entire life and I’ve only known her one chapter but if anything happened to her I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself and other such memes. 

But it can be difficult to square the circle of “Yiffy has done nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve the heaps of bullshit thrown at her” and “Some of the characters (specifically Vrissy) who throw those heaps are still likable protagonists”.

Most examples I can think of leave it a little vague why people hate the character in question, like Boxbot in Gunnerkrigg Court. Boxbot’s whole thing is that he’s “terrible”, but we never see exactly what’s so bad about what he does. If he, liked, shanked cats, then he wouldn’t be sympathetic, but if he never did anything wrong then everyone’s just bullying him. Best to leave it vague, which works fine because Boxbot is a running gag and not a protagonist. 

So now we’ve got this character who’s comically sympathetic, who’s been kept away from her family her whole life because her parents are ashamed of her, and is introduced chained up in a cage being fed mac and cheese in a dog bowl and then getting electrocuted so hard she passes out. 

And we cut to another protagonist, Vrissy, declaring that Yiffy’s existence is “vomit worthy”. That’s a mean thing to say about poor dear sweet innocent Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley. It’s also clearly going to be a point of conflict between the two. Vrissy has already referred to Yiffy as her sister, but finds her disgusting. I know a character arc when I see one! I also know that, as a living breathing symbol of Rose’s infidelity (and one who’s actually related to Rose, and thus arguably Rose’s “real” daughter), Yiffy probably isn’t going to get a warm reception from Kanaya, either, and if we’re going that far then probably Tavros and Harry are probably not going to be buddy-buddy with the weird kid either. All the sessions in Homestuck starred friendships, but Yiffy isn’t in the friend group. She’s probably getting there eventually, but not at first. It’s a unique dynamic for a set of kids to be Three Friends and the Weird One. 

But if Yiffy’s done nothing wrong, and Vrissy’s objection to her is “your backstory grosses me out”, how do you make Vrissy not just this awful 8itch who’s hating on Yiffy for stupid reasons? How do we square “Yiffy did nothing wrong” with “It’s totally understandable that Vrissy hates and is disgusted by Yiffy before they’ve even met”

Homestuck went with a solution that’s incredibly brilliant and gutsy, both despite and because of how stupid it is. They gave this character a stupid name and an enragingly stupid backstory, and then waited an unusually long time to elaborate. It wasn’t that they made a mistake that got everyone furiously mad and are now backtracking, they got everyone furiously mad on purpose so that the “Everyone hates Yiffy” setup would even apply to the audience. How can we judge Vrissy for hating Yiffy, when we live in glass houses and complain about Jade’s dog dick? They got us all mad to make it easier for us to buy in to all the characters in the comic thinking Yiffy’s a disgusting mistake. That’s honestly amazing.

The problems with the Child is that you have to first accept that these old characters are mockeries of their old selves. Jade, Rose, Kanaya, Vriska and Jane are pretty much one.dimensional at this point.

This is literally a plot point, though (well, not for Vriska, but Vriska hasn’t been out of character in HS2 yet). The Jade and Rose who sired this cursed child aren’t the real Jade and Rose, and we’ve been told this explicitly. The real Jade just broke out of mind control, and the real Rose is mindslaved by Dirk. Yiffy’s parents are non-canon, and not only are they non-canon but the fact that they’re out-of-character is something that’s also been commented on and explained. Why should we give a shit about whether they act like the real versions? 

They’re no more the “real” version of the characters than Summerteen Romance was. These characters are mockeries of their old selves. And who gives a shit? This story isn’t about Candy Jade and Candy Rose. They don’t matter, except as backstory for Vrissy and Yiffy. It’s exactly the same thing as the Bro being a fucked up and terrible adult Dirk, except in this case we meet the “Guardian” version last after meeting the kid version and they get lines.

The main characters of Candy are Vrissy, Tavros, Harry, and Yiffy. Maaaaybe Vriska sneaks her way in since that’s her whole shtick, but that’s it. Everything else is backstory. I would not be at all shocked if Candyland disappeared and everyone but the new kids all died (especially since Calliope explicitly said the planet would eventually dissolve without her). It’s not about them any more.

[megamannt125]

After thinking about it I’m convinced the real “Death” of Homestuck was not the ending or the epilogues or homestuck 2 but [s] Game Over.

Every single major issue with the IP occurred immediately following that.

Let’s take a look back:

-At the point of [s] Game Over, Homestuck is at a slog with constant hiatuses as the story progresses slower than ever

-If the story continued in this timeline, it could likely still be going TODAY because it was still setting up plot-lines and story arcs (some of which are still unresolved)

-Hussie was also simultaneously trying to make a video game, a video game that also had a turbulent development cycle. It’s my “hypothesis” that at this point Hussie understood that Homestuck needed to end. Soon. Thus, [s] Game Over

-Immediately after Game Over Homestuck undertook one of its biggest retcons in its entire history, years and years of character development and story was wiped away in only a few months. Major characters like Terezi and Vriska whose character arcs were a prominent part of the story up until now (Vriska’s death and redemption, Terezi coping with her decision leading to her healingher eyes) had their development wiped away. 0 Consequence for Vriska’s actions, 0 pay-off for Terezi’s trauma. They later tried to rectify this with Terezi: Remem8er, to imply that even retcons can create ghosts (which basically contradicts the entire premise of the retcon ability as NOT being normal time travel that creates doomed timelines). As if to say “Look guys, those characters are still here!!! And they’re in LOVE!!! Just forget about them now, alright??”

-What was this major retcon FOR? It had 1 purpose: Revive Vriska. No matter how you feel about the character, you should agree that this is arguably one of the worst narrative decisions in their entire series. Not only was Vriska’s entire character arc scrubbed away and she had no repercussions for her actions, but the way she would be used is even worse.

-Vriska’s entire purpose of being re-introduced was to speedrun all the years that were retcon’d and ensure that Everything Bad that ever happened Didn’t Happen. Hussie realized he had written himself into a hole and didn’t want to climb out (which would’ve resulted in satisfying payoff) So he just erased the hole. So with Vriska, we get a short flash that montages all the shit she’s stopped from happening and then boom, we’re getting ready for the final battle. What???

-I, like many people felt unsatisfied with how Homestuck ended. In retrospect I don’t feel this is necessarily because of HOW it ended but moreso the lead up to that. Nothing felt earned. Nothing felt gained. Nothing mattered. Hussie pressed the fast forward button to get it over with. That’s not even considering all the plot strings left completely unanswered that remained unanswered until the Epilogues glossed over them in a few paragraphs.

-So how did this happen? In my opinion, this is entirely because of Hiveswap. After all that’s happened, I can safely say I feel like I wish that Kickstarter never happened. Not only did it put enormous pressure on Hussie (who was ALREADY working on Homestuck stuff CONSTANTLY) but as a result took away from the main comic. I can’t really BLAME Hussie for wanting to get it over with quick. He had many more obligations now. And if certain leaks regarding the funding of the game and the studio they hired are true, it makes it even worse. Does the finished product justify all of this? Hardly, especially considering we haven’t even SEEN the finished product yet. I loved Hiveswap Act 1, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the characters and the soundtrack and getting to dive into the Homestuck world again, but its ramifications for the history of the franchise are a deep wound.

-The feelings that people feel about the Epilogues and Homestuck 2 are just remnants of these issues. People were SO unsatisfied with the ending that Hussie and his team knew that no matter what they did with the Epilogues someone would be upset, and at this point Hussie was ready to retire. He’d been drawing panels every single day, all day, for 10 years. Hence, the Candy Meat thing. Some people like shipping and drama and characters, here’s Candy. Here’s Meat for the plot/lore people.

-Don’t get me wrong, that’s not all the issues. The Epilogues and Homestuck 2 are well written from a technical view, but very poorly written from a narrative point of view. No one enjoys this meta nonsense. Things like trying to make “canon” a narrative tool. “Beyond Canon”? Really. It’s an official sequel. It’s canon. I don’t think there’s a single person that enjoys the meta. Anyways, not to continue re-regurgitating things about HS2 and the Epilogues that have already been said recently, this post is mainly about Homestuck

-So what is the takeaway here? Homestuck would be a better comic if Hiveswap never existed.

[brothfan1997]

do u think john and june can coexist?

siiiiggghhh ok this is a complicated question and as a tme person i dont know if i can fully speak to the nuances of this conversation. my first point is just that i think the energy people put into this issue would be better directed not at other fans but at the actual writers of hs2 who have put exactly zero effort into representing her (i do not read hs2) in the source material thus far. [putting this under a cut because i have Problems and wrote like 700 words about this]

the intangible nature of “canon” is like, literally an entire aspect of the plot heavily explored in homestuck proper. canonization can be given and taken away freely within the actual confines of the story, as a narrative device, and this concept is intricately intertwined with the relationship between Homestuck and its audience. the main characters are observed by an outside audience even within the story, and interactions from observers have the power to make changes in-universe, in a literal sense (readers picking actions), a meta sense (andrew hussie and the MSPA reader as actual characters), and just textually, when the main character, one J. Egbert, leaves the narrative and becomes an character outside of the author’s control with the power to alter reality. if i was going by a strict interpretation of the actual plot of homestuck, technically nothing andrew hussie says has any bearing on any character that has retcon powers. but im not going to do that, because that is kind of dumb.

i think these are the sort of mental backflips the hs2 team are doing to justify their avoidance of the issue of actually canonizing june. because from my point of view, right now, she is not canon. she is not mentioned once, in any of the source material. again, this is a fault of the writers, but lets ignore that, and assume that she is canon by toblerone law, as im guessing that this is what this ask is actually trying to get at. people argue that oh, shes canon in this timeline and not others, which tbh i think is another transphobic backflip, using the plot mechanics of homestuck to justify ignoring a characters transition. making content for the hs2 cast on earth C that features a cis john is absolutely transphobic; john and june cannot coexist on earth C. 

HOWEVER: the thing is that june isnt a real person, existing as a conscious being at only one fixed point in time. shes a character in a story, one that has existed for almost 12 years, and that character can be consumed and interpreted at any point in her journey. every version, every moment of this character exists at the same time, and i dont think its a disservice to junes character to interpret and make content for her as she is, pre-transition, in homestuck proper. there are certainly ways to do it wrong, and there are certainly people who do it to be hateful, but i dont think this issue is completely black and white. at the end of the day, homestuck is a self contained story, and (when it comes to, like, making act 5 fanart) nobody is obligated to reimagine the original material based on second hand information from a ~dubiously canon~ sequel (i think that whole thing is bullshit for other reasons that i wont go into. take responsibility for the writing choices you make). 

i think this is a really unique situation of having a character transition AFTER the actual story takes place, which really hasnt been represented in media before at all. i would really like to see the hs2 writers do a good job, and i would love for the homestuck fandom to interact with the characters in a way that is respectful to their future journeys, because it is so so so important to respect people that see themselves in those journeys. i really think the most important thing to consider with june discourse is just... is that person being transphobic? are their headcanons motivated by transphobia? is this person trying to erase a canon identity or are they just exploring a character as they have been represented. anyway. i love june egbert and i just think we should hold writers to the same level of accountability as we hold the fans. i do think this is a really important conversation to have tho especially as we have more trans representation in media so please let me know if you have any thoughts on anything ive said here :-)

[yoitscro]

First thought: Homestuck^2 should've just been called Beyond Canon, and more people should call it that. 

The 2 was put on for chuckles; HS trending the day it was announced with it being a sequel spoke enough about how such a thing shant be underestimated, and why Homestuck is ABSOLUTELY more than just our small twitter crowd (and the scrap of us still on tumblr). I say that because remembering the Beyond Canon part slightly reassures me about the fact that this is a fanwork that will do some weird shit, and things I don't agree with, but isn't something that I have to subscribe to enjoying all the way with how I engage with Homestuck.

Homestuck 2 is not the canon continuation. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, is an OFFICIAL continuation.

Not having it on such an important stool and as the only content we all are only allowed to digest should come from both people who obsessively dislike it, and people who defensively support it. If a character says they kick babies then I can say, hey that's weird, maybe not great writing, but I can pretend they don't in my content, and i dont have to send threats or call people cishet white men for it! and, it's an absolutely great thing that we were all encouraged to create our own ideas without anyone who's influenced us to do so squinting their eyes when we actually go through with it. Glad I don't have to put this story up to the expectations of being a sequel to a 11 year, worldwide IP that's shooketh the internet landscape since it's merely optional, Death of the Author persists, and ideas aren't just dominated and revolved around the perspective of a 1% in this entire fanbase.

That said.

As an OFFICIAL continuation versus a canon one, HS2 is ok. It certainly has that fanfiction vibe, and a story it wants to tell. I can't really tell what that story is since we have like, 10 sub plots rn though. There's not a real a clear indicator on where the focus of main conflict is that connects all these stories together.

I thought that the prose in replacement of Vriska's battle was jarring, but not teeerribly surprising for the format HS2 is going for. It's more so using drawings to compliment text versus Homestuck's usual of panels being side by side with visual importance, or even itself being the one compliment. It sorta feels weird tho that it brought old fans back in with art just for them to get sneered at when they get a bit upset that there won't be main staples of art known to progress the story forward. 

Also people who mock people for “having to read homestuck” knowing there’s language barriers and struggling focus from those who’ve been use to something that was never so dense, are ridiculous.

Personally this could be solved by knowing how old flashes worked, having way more artists on the team, maybe even an art director if not already, and noting that we're not asking for the next Cascade. Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rose Ride sure was, and Homestuck’s animation is absolutely not the same as a 12-24 framed 12 minute cartoon. That, or just snuff the illustrative art as a whole since it's very clear on where the focus is.

I’m sure you’re not here trying to see my opinions on how the outer workings are though, versus plot.

Uuuuh, let's see. Yiffy's still a name I don't care to use until I eventually get tired of any of my art that do not show up in tags. This is fine and not as offensive as people are saying it is. Minors who want to cosplay this character don't have to call themselves this character. Not wanting to be one letter away from accidentally entering a very NSFW space of twitter is fine. Also the lot of people call Tavros, Tavvy.

I hope Kanaya's anger at being cucked is actually seen versus being implied through fan guesses and another character having to say she was.

Roxy needs to be more of an involved character. Where are they during all this?

Jane should have a mention of her relations to HIC being a main/bad influence on her current parallels to Alternian dictatorship.

The PRE-RETCON GROUP should have a fun one-shot update for fans who like them, since they oughta be around if they fell through the ghost hole. Most of them. The sprites that aren't Jasprosesprite should also show up too, since they're around.

Aaaaaand I think we should be extra careful going into the future when it comes to the alien rebellion. It's weird that a lot of the writers are white and toy around with concepts that can be a not so great parallel to racism. Currently not great timing rn! If the characters are going to remain aracial, but with them still doing not much to reference other non-white earth cultures or getting new hair cuts that have different textures (looking at you, Rose), we shant make the species with actual biological benefits a racism commentary. the xeno joke at least had a play on words. If any writer has happened upon this then a, please don't get mad at me again haha, and b, consider having more black writers or directional assistance on your squad. You know who they are.

In the future. I casually want the ghost from the Dream Bubbles to be shown since it's a big elephant in the room to not have a single one of them in the bg despite a load of them appearing from the ghost whole. Don't gotta give them speaking lines, especially the dancestors. I personally don't know if I want that right now.

I also hope in the future that we don't get HS content that is only going to revolve around HS2, if it's optional enough to engage with without being the only option. That's why PQ could ended a bit better for me, and why I hope it's not the main thing that's keeping Hiveswap on the backburner. I don't think it's farfetched to consider that multiple HS content could come from more than just one team; to relieve work load, but to also strengthen the idea that Homestuck can be a various amount of perspectives when it comes to the ideas fans have. The most dedicated fans leading the direction of the story is not just a handful of them. If anything, at least acknowledge the massive ass fan projects going on once in awhile to showcase the different avenues.

"Hey Cro, you sure have bitched about this alot. Do you have anything good to say? Why don't you stop reading if you hate it so much!"

Not every comment needs to be golden, love. Again, some of these decisions I eck at, but ultimately they're just words on a computer that I'm not holding anyone at gun point to do, and I'm curious to see how the story handles itself going forward, since again, it's just a fanwork. Sometimes I wish to not only see where the plot goes, but to see a writer's craft in action.

Good Things:

The Art. Again, please have more artists. It'd help so much, especially since the main one is also double timing for VE. That said, HS2 sticks out to me because of the way the color composition is used. Aside from hair and other tiny things, I haven't seen black used a lot, which makes colors pop. It's really nice to look at. I hope we get more sharper styles of character in the future, since it builds on nostalgia and makes the trolls feel much less like they're from Repiton, but I can deal with it for the most part. I also like that one panel where the omega kids and vriska are talking in the dark room, and based on where they're standing, the text aligns. Tasty as hell.

Meat and Candy still do hold neat logic in the direction the stories go. Candy, while it could be more tasteless in some areas, is chaotic and too much of a good thing. Meat is having something a little more straightforward, though I'm not sure quite yet where it's going. I always found Candy to be the part of the epilogue that actually entertained me the most, from how much of a surreal Robot Chicken skit at 3am it felt. Sometimes the jokes slapped real nice and made me wonder, going in, how is this monkeys paw gonna play out and, hopefully, make people laugh or smirk like they got a good roast at themself?

The slightly episodic feel of each update is what I wanted from the Epilogues, so it's interesting to see that play out when it comes to switching different perspectives.

The bonus updates get points for featuring characters that a lot of us have been wanting to see for ages.

Hopefully this isn't unpopular, but I think the tension of Yiffy's introduction was nicely composed and written (ignoring some of the things I wish for Jane). It leaves you with enough want to see what'll happen next time. You could also say that despite her growling and making a lot of noise, it's not actually bad writing: I see it as the audience being forced to see her in the same perspective that Jane see's her; a dog. Upon no context we're seeing the same thing while knowing things are obviously off, and once we see this character in a new environment where their personality shines, it'll have a bigger impact her own character being humanized. So I like that.

Okay, I think that's all I got. I improv wrote most of this; hopefully I won't be taken out of context since I don’t think that HS2′s writing should ultimately be a judgement of the writers as people, nor treated as if they should hold the same unhealthy work environment that Andrew forced himself to do when writing the og comic. And I'm still like, donating to the patreon and everything, lol.

[runs away]

edit: i was going to put the cw as another positive thing for the comic...but...yeaaaah.

[homestuckexamination]

The reason part of the epilogues rub me the wrong way is they just said fuck You to every canon gay couple except for davekat and even they only get one timeline, like hm maybe having rose cheat in both timelines, vrisrezi having one member assumed dead in either, dirkjake having dirk Like That and just giving up on Jake because reasons, or just having dirk straight up dead, Callieroxy isn’t a thing for like, no reason? Legit Callie just tailgates Roxy when the implication was they were together

As a follow up to my previous ask about the epilogues and hs2, I do think they make use some interesting concepts, I just don’t particularly enjoy how they went about all of it, some of it just feels so spiteful to me, like oh HAHAHA you thought we were gonna have ANY of our pre existing gay characters stay together!!! Sike bitch!!! Oh you wanted Roxy to be a trans girl? Welp too fucking bad sucks to be you!!! You hced Dirk as trans? He’s transphobic now!!!! Haha!!! Isn’t this so meta!!!

I mean, there’s an assumption of ill will to begin with there, like, “Oh you wanted Roxy to be a trans girl” specifically irks me majorly because I know for a fact of part of the Team that identifies with transmasc Roxy, and to imply that they’re doing this entirely to spite us personally is to erase the identities and experiences of the Team behind all of this.

You cannot assume like, intersectionality, it doesn’t work like that, people that are part of the community don’t always accept all of it, so it’s good to be critical of stuff like this as it’s presented. At the same time however, just equating bad things happening to the characters to be a specific jab at the community because they were queer, is also very loaded, considering like, everyone in Homestuck right now, is, so any damage done to any character is going to affect a section of the community, and of course any confirmed headcanon is going to piss off the side of the Fandom that had DIFFERENT headcanons of them.

There’s definitely a talk to be had about the Epilogues and HS^2 regarding Queer Themes, but to focus exclusively on the damage to these relationships ignores about some things that put it into context. Heterosexual relationships suffer just the same. Death, suffering and bad choices happen to practically every single character. And yet, even when things go wrong in the relationships, it doesn’t mean that the feelings aren’t there. Dirk is still pinning after Jake, and so is Jake thinking about him and miserable, in this complex tango they’ve been dancing for years. RoseMary split in Meat, yes, but it was an outside influence pulling them apart. The root of Meat’s conflict is the romantic attachment between these two leading to their eventual reunion, the voyage to recover Rose is inherently a sapphic love story. To bash down on Roxy for not being a trans woman is to disparage the genuine feelings conveyed by Roxy, in both Epilogues Timeline and in the Pesterquest Route, feelings that I feel resonate with a lot of people and that are ultimately very important to understand.

You can fault the Epilogues for being dark, bringing suffering and hurting characters, for dealing out a crude and unpleasant reality the characters have to slog through. You can, also, not think it’s going to get any better, I do believe it HAS been getting better and everything is going to look up more and more for these characters, but you can simply not believe that is the case. But to mark this suffering as erasure, like a ‘Fuck You’ to Queer People, to me, feels like shitting on the entire point of what the Epilogues ARE? The exploration of experiences regarding adulthood and growing up traumatized, as expressed by a group of queer authors. And yes I know. It’s good for things to BE good! For representation to be happy! And I look forward to seeing THAT happen in due time! But there’s a difference between a series where the Lesbian is the one that dies in the End, or where there’s Queerbaiting, and a series dealing around very hard and real topics through an inherently queer lens, by queer authors.

I don’t know, I just feel like there’s a layer of nuance that people are skipping over to cling to the superficial idea of something being problematic. The Epilogues are tough, they can hit very hard and make you feel quite bad. And I don’t think you need to find ways to twist them into making their intent problematic. Dislike them for preferring something more light-hearted, but do consider the full context of them when dealing with very negative feelings. Things can get heated and out of control easily.

(3) These relationships were never perfect to begin with, but I think what made them good was the implication that while they had their issues, they worked it out, they fought and made up, they loved each other very deeply and that was important, and to just? Throw that away for seemingly no reason. Some of is more reasonable then others but a lot of it just feels like it’s trying to elicit as much shock value and anger as possible, it doesn’t feel like it’s being made so you enjoy it anymore

Whoops answered early. And hey no, you’re right! The Epilogues deliberately lead relationships and characters down dark paths. I don’t think it’s quite ‘shock value’, however, as it’s... Showing various human ways to fuck up and various ways relationshisp can go wrong. Again. It’s deliberately dark. Hell, I defend them, but I would have LOVED it if the Epilogues were fluffy slice of life where nothing goes wrong, absolutely adored that shit!!! But it’s not what we got, and I am contextualizing the things we got, through the lens of the narrative they’re wanting to tell. And so far? I enjoy exploring darker topics, seeing characters fuck up, and the process of healing and opening up after said fuck-ups.

[davekat-sucks]

Its disgusting how Sarah Zedig still seems to think Tavros is a chaser and will defend Vriska at all costs and victim blame Tavros and somhow is still considered a "popular" respected figure in the community. I have even seen one person once say that constantly and when they finally got called out they started to say it was a "joke" even if they kept getting into arguments over it and constantly defending Vriska and people like Zedig go around and spread this fucked up interpretation and try to defend it and to this day, she still claims that Tavros is a "chaser" and she doesnt seem to realized how wrong and possibly even harmful going around claiming that stuff (and how in the past she posted tweets that sounded aggressive about

"some folks think homestuck did tavros and gamzee dirty and that this is a fatal flaw in the text; when i countenance these people, i am convinced we read two very different comics. who’s right and who’s wrong? there are degrees. i can pull out any number of quotes from andrew hussie about the importance of vriska and the weenieness of tavros, but then, authors love to say things, and there’s plenty of stories i love in ways that directly oppose to the authors’ stated intent." - Sarah Zedig on hms-no-fun, march 6th 2024

"tavros and aradia sprites looking good, but damn the boy likers out there really gotta chill the fuck out and remember what comic they're a fan of"

2. "how do you read all eight thousand pages of homestuck and come away thinking "actually men are the real victims" "

3. "i cannot imagine it has anything to do with misogyny or transphobia, internalized or otherwise. that would be ridiculous"

-Three tweets from Sarah Zedig from thirty november 2019 (remember that shes the one who wrote Terezi pesterquest route)

Im sorry if I sound mad or heated up this blog is one of the few places where it seems that people have common sense and also people on the community tend to usually not talk about the other people that are just as responsible as Kate is for the awful things that post canon brought to Homestuck and how tiring it is to hear people trying to make Vriska into an angel and try to make Tavros looks like hes an horrible person who doesnt deserve sympathy and deserves to be blamed and harassed.

This bitch would unironically agree with Kate Mitchell. Ever since Pesterquest, people have taken it too seriously as canon despite it's similar to HS2/Beyond Canon that it is dubious or locked out from the main story. Most of the members in the WhatPumpkin team are full of bad influencers. Some worse than others. I want more to acknowledge that there are some shitty people within the group.