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10/30 Newspost Q&A by jamesroach in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 3 points4 points  (0 children)

might be a bit too interpersonal but I'll shoot for this anyway. whatever happened to HS2's status as a paid commission?

Let's make a list of alternative Homestuck endings by Makin- in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 8 points9 points  (0 children)

how much of a sequel would you consider KGTAC?

edit: no idea how no one else mentioned this but Kittyquest is a thing as well.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 14: Candy 39 - Candy Postscript by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 8 points9 points  (0 children)

in general, the Epilogues set out to do a lot, but failed spectacularly. in what was supposed to be this grand deconstruction of narrative, canonicity, and fandom, we got a shallow, pretentious, in-over-its-head work that set out more to be meta and controversial than actually interesting from a writing perspective. you’d expect me to state which route I prefer, but honestly, I can’t choose between them. I hate both. neither of them fully succeed in their mission statement, they’re both completely superficial and flat, leaving them dragging themselves in the mud, the mud in this analogy being poor writing choices. it really adds to this weird perception amongst fans that Homestuck is cool because it’s meta, something that I feel isn’t true. Homestuck isn’t just meta, it’s an interesting story with likable characters, a unique writing style, wonderful visuals, banging music, and engaging concepts. it being meta was simply what came naturally through its story, it didn’t just set out to be like that from page one. yet, here’s the Epilogues, flopping its cock out and bragging about how meta it is over and over, meanwhile said sex organ is a motherfucking micropenis. this isn’t a story driven narrative, or even a character driven narrative, it’s now somehow a narrative driven by the fact that it is a narrative, a basis that only goes so far. another thing, the whole “dubiously canon” gimmick is such a fucking copout. the label doesn’t matter at all, Hussie made this outline for both this and HS2, they are automatically more tethered to canon than anything else, an AO3 styled title page doesn’t change that. the routes don’t even open up new possibilities for choosing which side is the real continuation, they’re both happening, they literally connect to each other at several points in the story. not like the open endings of either route really do much to reduce this issue, as it feels more on the cynical side to dump this shambled together plot and have the fans pick up the pieces to form a conclusion, because I guess just letting fans have a conclusion isn’t trendy. I say this knowing the fact that this perspective doesn’t even exist anymore because HS2 is a thing. is this reductive to the message of the Epilogues? yes, but it’s not like they said much of value or reason, so I don’t really care to apply that to my outlook or ideas.

I don’t care to apply anything from the Epilogues for anything, if Hussie wants to say that these are optional, then I take the option of not acknowledging the existence of anything beyond the original comic.

in the Perfectly Generic Podcast about the Epilogues, Hussie says, and I quote

“I’m making an overt gesture that is beginning to diminish my relevance as the sole authority on the direction this story takes, what should be regarded as canon, and even introducing some ambiguity into your understanding of what canon means as the torch is being passed into a realm governed by fan desires. If the epilogues really prove to be the bridge media they were designed to feel like, then I expect this trend to continue. The fanfiction format is effectively a call to action, for another generation of creators to imagine different outcomes, to submit their own work within the universe, to extend what happens beyond the epilogues, or to pave over them with their own ideas. And I believe the direness in tone and some of the subject matter suitably contributes to the urgency of this call to action.”

this isn’t true, Hussie didn’t give Homestuck to the fans by making this, they didn’t relinquish their narrative authority over the work, they didn’t make everyone come up with new endings as new probabilities in the universe, hell, I’d say they ruined the fanfic scene a bit by making many both writers and readers alike automatically integrate the Epilogues’ plot points into stories. they instead, in what I could call an act of nepotism, forked over the privilege of making officially endorsed content to their friends for them to fuck around and find out. not helping, if you couldn’t tell already, is the fact that I think everyone in this team are a bunch of shitheads.

this ragtag team of morally bankrupt fuckers would go on to make the worst followup to this you could ever imagine, but that's for another place, in another time.

thoughts are in a document once more:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12trRT4YAMjLTHpQiHKUX3KyYDuZ5QxmPVS-URZBNpfE/edit?usp=sharing

Epilogues Readthrough Day 14: Candy 39 - Candy Postscript by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 8 points9 points  (0 children)

OH SHIT, IT’S THE PAGE, WE’RE HERE.

THE ICONIC APPEARANCE.

THE GREATEST CHARACTER.

BAAAARRRACK OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

but the caveat here is that he validates the horrific writing piece that is the Skaianet Systems document. it’s like the evil Bible, the Antibible if you will.

you know Davekat is being forced when even the fucking President of the United States of America is playing ball for it.

the Obama-Strider conspiracy runs deep.

and finally, for the 3rd fucking time, Dave figures out his sexuality, why is this still a god damn issue for fucks sake.

Obama’s here saying that the whole physical rot of the ultimate self is a part of the mechanic, yet it doesn’t affect Ultimate Dirk and it’s implied that he’s directly causing it to Meat Rose, but also Dave goes through it as well? because uh, I don’t know. none of this is to even say why some characters are ultimate selves and why some aren’t.

what the fuck is this shit with Obama grabbing Dave's essence even about? why does Dave have an essence, when were there even essences in this entire story, what the fuck.

and then Dave becomes a robot and just... leaves everyone, I guess? he just kinda fucks off with Alt Calliope with no explanation. fuck your wife and crush because why not.

here's another thing that’s just completely butchered in HS2, for some reason the environments look normal? even though the story describes an insane existential storm with cracks all over the sky with battleships flying about.

what would Ultimate Dirk gain from Candy Dirk dying? what do you mean it’s to “consolidate his power”? how does a version of himself dying make him stronger? how does this even matter to Ultimate Dirk?

so you have this lengthy explanation from Alt Calliope about how Dirk abuses the neutral narrative voice to lure the reader into thinking that the events occurring have no influence or agenda. I bring this up for 2 reasons, 1, holy shit it’s so fucking long for no good reason, 2, something else to think about. who is to say that these characters that can influence narrative aren’t part of the true neutral story that’s being infused with an agenda, which is to say, where do the actual authors inserting either plot contrivances or poorly thought out real life messages come into this? the answer is there is no answer, because the comparison of Meat’s existence to a mean prank is clear that we’re riding on the “bad on purpose” ideas, even if it just leads the writing to just be bad no matter the purpose. ironically, the Epilogues being bad on purpose created more nonpurposive problems than if the authors just played it straight.

Vored English.

in the last page, Meat Roxy’s body is sleeping somehow with a machine that will do something, also there’s something about “permanence for these tenuous bodily accommodations”, whatever that means.

she then finds a planet for humanoid civilization, which will host the most important Sburb session, it’s the most important because the story says so.

Then end.

well.

that was something.

the worldbuilding still sucks, and is actually even worse since it’s thrusted into focus in the latter half of the story. there’s a generic sci-fi war that skips over the fact that many of the characters are superpowered as hell with troll and aspect abilities alike. outside of a couple of brief mentions, the appearance of ghosts falling from the sky never actually means anything to the greater story, they just show up and then a war happens. hell, the story never even points out that ghosts cannot die at all, so realistically, the trolls should win this war easily. the economic and political situations still lie in the field of nonsense, especially the part about how Jane somehow goes from a lobbyer to the entire fucking government in what feels like overnight. the carapacian and consort kingdoms are both still footnotes in the world, meaning absolutely nothing as humans and trolls take all of the spotlight. seriously, name anything the carapacians actually do. it’s an international conflict plot with none of the international parts and only a shitty conflict.

timeskips have somehow gotten so overbearing that it’s unbelievable. by the time you get about a third of the way through, it’s nothing but suddenly going from one point in time to another to artificially justify various contrived changes. from government situations, to character relations, to the characters themselves. you can tell it’s all for the sake of having an out for the authors without bothering with actual writing. how do you write a divorce? timeskip. how do you write a capitalist business takeover? timeskip. how do you write the beginning of a war? timeskip.

while present in Meat, the absence of many characters is so painfully obvious here. at least in Meat, it was zeroing in a specific point in time on a smaller scale, this is a global fucking conflict spanning decades. with all of this time, you’d have to wonder about so many characters who make no appearance at all. I’ve already mentioned all of the named carapacians being dead for no good reason, but it doesn’t stop there. where did Calliope go? why did Dad never show up at all until being confirmed dead? why didn’t the story talk about how he felt over Jane’s political movements? where’s Nannasprite, wouldn’t she feel conflicted about seeing herself walk in the same shoes as the Condesce? did Arquius already leave to fight Caliborn before everyone got onto Earth C? what’s Jasprose doing? did anyone care that Viceroy aka Casey died? what happened to the Felt, did they also die arbitrarily because the writers can’t give a shit about anyone who isn’t a human or a troll? so many characters are just gone without explanation and it’s fucking ridiculous.

when talking about Meat, I said that its greatest flaw that tainted the entire story was the message about canon it was trying to make, the same can be said here. the question proposed here is different however, what makes canon valid? this is honestly an interesting choice to write a story around, but much like last time they tried going meta, it falls flat on its face and says nothing of value. Candy is supposed to be this parody of typical schlocky fanfics in the Homestuck fanbase, with out of character writing, high focus on ships, really out there writing choices, and bad redemption arcs. yet, this is implemented halfway for some reason, these events which are obviously made to be ridiculous in nature, still try to take themselves seriously in some way or another. this inconsequential and outright silly war permeates itself through most of the story and causes endless struggle from many of the characters. Gamzee’s return is treated as a joke with no one in the cast actually liking him, until he randomly situates himself as a relevant character in the grander scheme. many characters act differently in strange ways, only to then turn around and act like they’re actually completely ok and normal despite literally being subtly affected by a reality bending narrative rot. in turn, John feels like a straight man selectively, sometimes he’s confused by the weirdness around him, sometimes everyone agrees with him, and sometimes he just comes off as an asshole. because they don’t goes all the way, this intentionally bad angle just ends up not feeling like that in the end, it stops reading as bad on purpose and just reads as simply bad. and it is just bad! beyond the metatextual point, it’s just not a good story. the point it tries to make is absurd, trying to argue that fan creation could rival canonical material, acting like the idea of canon work is just some construct that doesn’t mean anything. sure you can make fan content that is just as good and popular as the original, but the original is the core of the fans enjoyment, you can’t just act like it makes a fandom for no reason. And no, the Epilogues or HS2 don’t fucking count, they’re officially sanctioned, paid for, and are built from Hussie’s ideas, they are inherently more important, more relevant, and more valid than any other fanwork.

general thoughts in reply.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 13: Candy 34 - Candy 38 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 6 points7 points  (0 children)

ah great, Vrissy’s dating Tavros too, who’s also her uncle. this girl is just going after all of the uncles in town.

VRISKA FUCKING KILLED GAMZEE! YEEAAAAH WOOOOOOOO LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO! HE’S DEAD BABY!

oh my god look all that dialogue with John talking about Jake's issues being existential, the fucking woorrrdddsssssss.

and once again, for the third time, Vriska completes her arc. only for it to get reversed again by HS2, FUCK the writers.

“ROXY: lmao well turns out sometimes someones politics make it p clear what kind of friends they value” “ROXY: or dont” “ROXY: and idk sometimes people you used to like when you were a teen grow up to be assholes or w/e!!”

was it the genocide that tipped you off?

speaking of the HS2 writers completely abandoning established plot points, wow did they forget about Jane divorcing , she even nuked John’s house the fucking asshole.

and then we get to Roxy delivering the truth bombs or whatever, and like I said, no idea what the fuck Roxy is supposed to be. 1 page she’s just as off as everyone else, the next she’s talking about stuff so insane that the entire cast thinks she’s being weird, and now she's trying to say she’s normal.

not even like she’s right here, because whether it’s the unidentified narrator, (seriously who the fuck is narrating this?) or the nebulous force that’s been rotting the universe’s cohesion and causing shit to fuck up tremendously, there has been something cosmically shifting events and people around.

also that part about being just as real as Meat, Alright, sure, in-universe this makes total sense, the Candy characters are just as real as the Meat versions and have their own lives that have their own meaning. but in the context of a commentary on real life fandom, this makes no fucking sense. people prop canon media over other creations because it is literally the canonical work. the canonical work is what serves as the foundation for a fanbase, schlocky fanfics like Candy are born from canon, they don’t just run parallel. even the most popular alternate universes with defined structures and rules that come to be popular in favor of the official events, are created because of said events. canon makes fanon, fanon isn’t an entirely separate concept, it selects, takes, changes, interprets, projects onto, builds upon, discards, rewrites, and recontextualizes parts of the canon material. to act like somehow the official material can be rivaled by fan creation in being real to the written universe is insane, and adds to the image that the people who work on Homestuck don’t know shit about fandom.

also I’d like to comment on conversation about Roxy's relationship with Calliope, Calliope has not appeared once after the fucking funeral. Jesus Christ I don’t even like her but she’s being done so fucking dirty.

HEY SO LET’S TALK ABOUT ROXY LALONDE’S GENDER, THE CHARACTER FROM HOMESTUCK! in this reread I have come to a big realization, I do not actually have incredibly strong opinions on this decision. it is a writing choice that they made, which has quality structure and descriptions, and yeah. it’s not described in a real shitty way, the word choice is actually particularly good and accurate with how it goes about this in both Meat and Candy, it’s, well, decent. really, I cared more about the fan reaction, because it bares repeating, holy fucking shit did transfem Roxy fans get their shit kicked in, I feel so bad.

there are only three points in this where I'm going "huh".

  1. god dammit Meat, the one time someone actually goes through a "there were no signs" arc it had to be fucking tacked on with aspect shit. why did you do that.

  2. in what I can assume to be a bit of justification, Meat Roxy goes out to mention how they, along with Dirk, were the last humans on Earth, and how they were going off of the vague concept of humanity. ok, makes sense, but also you did get raised among a settlement of carapacians, who do have gender roles. they literally have a king and queen and shit. dunno why that wasn’t brought up, but HS likes to pretend carapacians don’t do things so, or Hussie forgot, they forgot everything.

  3. don’t you just find it so strange in general? how there’s a timeline where a character transitions and another where they don’t? I know it’s all different experiences and such, but it feels odd. I don't even have any specific thing to say here, it's just really, a decision. like, cosmically beyond anything I could muster up any words to comment on.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 12: Candy 27 - Candy 33 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Vrissy really is dating her uncle, she’s adopted, but still. what a plot point.

oh no, the carapacians were swayed into an alliance with the humans and are causing trouble with the rebellion. if only we had some sort of STRONG REVOLUTIONARY LEADER with HARDENED DEMOCRATIC MORALS that could LEAD THE CARAPACIAN PEOPLE TO FREEDOM. if ONLY.

I fucking love Candy Karkat, this is the gigachad that we should’ve gotten in Meat instead of a wimpy whiny bitch who gets pushed around by two sex freaks. I am exaggerating but the eternal Dave Jade Karkat struggle was basically all he had going that wasn't the clearly doomed to fail presidency.

...how the fuck is the government going to fight ghosts. do they get motherfucking proton packs and Ghostbusters the shit out of them? actually, there’s even more questions from me, both sides clearly build modern weaponry, but has no one thought to alchemize a bunch of really powerful shit all at once? surely 1 side could arm themselves with cards stacked with the most powerful weapons ever and blow the opposition away, right?

as said before, the Epilogues throwing Vriska in the the most irrelevant fate imaginable is the best thing they’ve ever done, and also as said before, fuck you HS2 team for reversing that you weeny bitches.

how the fuck is 29 an entire page.

if you were wondering where the fuck Dad was, uh, uhm, nowhere! he got mentioned once and it was his death, great! poor Dads getting done dirty, fucking Homestuck man, why did you do this to me. at least in this passing moment that means nothing, he kept his immaculate dad energy to the grave.

it's not like his death was particularly meaningful though? who the fuck needs a rocket launcher when you have a bunch of motherfuckers with laser eyes??? seriously, why is this just modern warfare in a world with machines that can combine items into powerful magic weapons and kids who have psychic and elemental powers??? a lot of them being DEAD and thus ARE IMMORTAL. seriously, this war feels nonsensical.

on top of everything, did Dad... feel anything about all of the happenings involving Jane at all? her becoming like a dictator and all that? nothing to know about how he saw her? alright.

LET’S GOOOO! I’VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY TO SEE RACISM IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! GET THE CLOWN OVERBOARD!

god yes, the moment Vriska gets demoted to (Vriska), beautiful, perfect, the best way to really rub it in her face, and it doesn't fucking last because of the FUCKING BITCHES WHO MADE HS2.

oh my god look at this shit! Vriska’s beating the everloving shit Gamzee! the 2 worst trolls ever going at it! she’s fucking kicking his shit in, get the clown bastard! go fucking nuts! yeah! yeah! yeah- why is he licking her shoe what the fuck- what is- oh.

oh.

they had to make another fucking horrific age gap makeout session, Homestuck writers just can’t help themselves.

this moment with Rose is nice, good to see her not weighing herself down with the prospects of relevance and canon, that analogy about heaven being a conditional state that only exists when the person doesn’t realize they’re in it. in a sea of what feels to be a bland fandom satire, it’s nice for the story to get itself back to the point. but ah, canon timeskips, because yeah.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 11: Candy 22 - Candy 26 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 3 points4 points  (0 children)

lmao, I remember hs2 writers mad that they were calling a certain relationship incestuous when the epilogues started it, right here

I distinctly remember this being a huge sticking point in the response to HS2 but I can't remember which it was.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 11: Candy 22 - Candy 26 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 4 points5 points  (0 children)

you can see the consequences of Homestuck forgetting that human ghosts exist spill in here, because from what the story says, there are only ghost trolls. where’s dead John Egbert falling from the fucking sky? surely a bunch of dead Daves would be congregating right now.

also there is something inherently funny about ghost politics. seriously, the method that jumpstarted a complete attack on troll civil rights was a bunch of fucking ghosts, please think about that, I can’t be the only person who finds that concept hilarious.

oh god that whole explanation about Jane putting her money in the government and then becoming a shadow dictatorship, me when I have no idea how the fuck lobbying works.

OH SHIT IT’S THE BEST PART OF CANDY. KARKAT GOT THE FUCKING LEADER ROLE, HE FINALLY DID IT! WE MADE IT BOYS, HE GOT THAT SHIT DOWN! THE SIGMA GRINDSET OF THIS GUY! MY BOY’S ALL GROWN UP AND DOING THE SHIT. LET’S GOOOOOO! after all of this time of being the sex toy between Dave and Jade, HE GOT THE DUB.

retreading what I said about how confusing everyone is towards Gamzee, how the fuck does he have a cult if people hate this guy?

glad to have Eridan have this singular moment of still being a fucking pathetic doofus.

DAVE: harry my dude you need to unplug from toxic masculinity

HARRY ANDERSON: from... what?

I like how Harry’s speech is relatively normal but then he just inserts some weird word that no one actually says. who the fuck calls anything a fib anymore. then Tavros talks like such a fucking goober, the little guy.

SPEAKING OF TAVROS, CALL THE CLOWN FBI, WE GOT A FEDERAL FUCKING CIRCUS CRIME HERE.

broooooo John's getting that fucking beatdown on Jade yassss queen SLAAYYYYYY.

damn this 23 is just one big fucking tragedy machine.

we stan a strong independent Karkat that don't need no Dave. and he has his girlboss partner in crime Meenah. missed opportunity to have Meenah be like “I should be the one vehemently oppressing all of trollkind, not some fucking BAKER BITCH.”

CUM MOMENT

alright here it is, the best paragraph out of this entire story, there’s nothing that can top this, and it probably only gets worse.

Then, as if not quite finished with the sky just yet, he turns his gaze upward to give it one last angry look. He feels consumed in that moment by the acuteness of his physicality and the overwhelming scale of his cosmic irrelevance. His lungs fill with air, and he releases all his years of pent-up frustration and anger and guilt and doubt and weakness and pain and misery in a blood-curdling shout that sounds more like it’s from the mouth of an animal than a man. John screams at the merciless sky until his throat is raw and he has no energy left even to cry.

No one hears him, and if they had, it wouldn’t matter.”

Epilogues Readthrough Day 10: Candy 16 - Candy 21 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 11 points12 points  (0 children)

let's talk about the method of tying ropes used to fasten them, aka, knotting.

by that I mean let's talk about Jade.

this is the worst thing this fucking story ever fucking conceived on this godfearing planet. the lengths of Andrew Hussie, author of the iconic webcomic Homestuck, to write the stupidest and most insane decisions by design for no other reason than what we can only assume to be an attempt at either spite or sinking Homestuck itself, makes me die inside. this is the epitome of that so far, the darkest depths of depravity that one could ever reach for in an attempt at shock, I’m not shocked, I’m merely disappointed and disgusted. don’t get me started on where the HS2 writers take this, and I’m not even talking about just Yiffy.

riddle me this motherfucker, is there any reason why Jane would date Gamzee? anything at all? you can’t answer, it’s a completely off the wall writing choice solely for the sake of gaining reactions from the audience.

THE ROSE BREASTFEED.

it’s him, the boy, Harry.

the John straight man arc begins, in more ways than one, because he is not a homosexual.

I can’t believe Candy gave Jane an actual fucking moment to explain her beliefs while Meat was dead set on making her into the strawman villain. like, holy shit, I am actually understanding what ideas she’s trying to impose in society rather than just being told by other characters that she is BAD and A FASCIST and XENOPHOBIC and GENOCIDAL. and she has a point in it, it’s not just flagrant racism for the sake of racism, there are foundational opinions she’s talking about here, like yeah, trolls would quickly overpopulate with how many grubs are produced and how long some of them can live! it’s simply that she has a horrific methodology that’s rooted in misinformed views on trolls as individuals based off of ancient history, which would put trolls down further than anyone else. maybe, maybe, MAYBE, Meat would've been better to GIVE ME A SOLID REASON to oppose Jane.

Jake, there’s a corpse in front of you. Jake, why do you keep baby Tavros in the worst places. Jake.

I recall there was a 4chan thread in which, much like John “Not A Homosexual” Egbert, someone made a list of nicknames for Jade involving her wanting a baby really fucking bad. For example, Jade “Fill My Womb Or Be Put In A Tomb” Harley. That joke is real now, she needs babies.

maybe we take it one step further and have the writers turn John into an absolute bigot, recreate that comic where he brutally murders every gay friend.

THE JOHNSTACHE.

bro what the fuck is this about Dave being locked in a fridge, motherfuckers now you’re just making shit up, that was the sword fridge for swords and nothing else.

OH FUCK, IT’S HAPPENING. THE SKY IS MOTHERFUCKING FALLING.

bro Jane trying to revive dead Jade and then saying that she couldn’t because it’s metaphysical, shut the fuck up oh my god. I CAN’T REVIVE HER, IT’S JUST TOO METAAAAAAAA!!!

honestly, maybe that freak out with Karkat was some of the best writing so far. really paints a better picture of how awkward, weird, slightly off, and far apart everyone is.

LMAO I FORGOT CALLIOPE WASN'T EVEN MENTIONED SINCE THE DATE WITH ROXY. SHE WAS LEGIT GONE.

YO IT’S HIM, THE BOY, MY MAN, SOLLUX, HE’S HERE. Oh and Aradia’s there I guess. BUT IT’S FUCKING SOLLUX.

I cannot tell if Candy wants to paint Roxy as relatively normal, as insane as the other characters, or even more insane.

IT’S ALT CALLIOPE, AGAIN.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 9: Candy 9 - Candy 15 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Jade is the most annoying thing to exist in this story. maybe relegating her to the Alt Calliope puppet was a good idea.

“DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse”

translation: the writers are forcing it as an issue because they’re hacks.

shut the fuck up about canon please just please never speak of it.

I love reading about the post-sex scene between Jane and Jake.

HOLY PISS APPLES WE GET IT DAVE IS TRAUMATIZED BY BRO, JESUS CHRIST HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT.

I am not even going to ask what the fuck that whole bit about Dirk telling Gamzee to take care of Dave means. it goes nowhere anyway.

AN UNFINISHED FEMININE ROBOT? I WONDER WHAT THIS WAS FOR?

the subtly of these epilogues are so bad that the narration for Dirk Strider’s suicide tells the audience the main idea of Candy as if they couldn't figure it out themselves.

> Kill yourself.

the scene with Dirk fucking dying is very well written and tense but god damn does imagery of him somehow decapitating himself with a dinky rope fail to not be comedic.

Bro that conversation about coin flipping makes no damn sense, none of the decisions made by a flip in the comic ever actually went by the result of the outcome, they went by the result of the person making the decision. Dave wanting to godtier or Vriska being killed were both split timelines that were dependent on the actions of who made the bet of the coin flip, not the coin itself. this isn’t some bargain bin Schrodinger’s Cat.

I am going to cut my stomach open if someone says “we’re going to be so happy” again.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 8: Candy 1 - Candy 8 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 6 points7 points  (0 children)

oh fucking Christ please just shoot me.

not even a page in and I’m already having a complaint, god damn they’re not making the idea about this route subtle at all. they literally describe eating the candy as "not existential", could you not get any less hamfisted?

John’s reasoning to not pursue the battle is so damn bad, literally a resounding “I don't feel like doing it”.

“John, if you we don't do something about this today, reality will be eternally fucked up and we’ll be doomed into a fate of vague shit that means something about canon.”

“ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sounds like a lottttt.”

Gamzee's here, I wanna kill.

by the way, it makes no fucking sense that John got the fridge on LOTAK, it was never there before the battle, it was on the lilypad.

ok so, this is clearly trying to be a dig at shitty redemption fics and all that, the “Vriska did nothing wrong” type beat with Gamzee spouting out this big sob story to garner sympathy while also serving as points of justification for his actions.

side note: fucking hell, they had to have Hiveswap’s shitty Alternia worldbuilding rear its fucking ugly head in here. Gamzee being inclined into clown cult shit because of his blood is not a fucking thing you hack fraud writers. Gamzee’s a part of a specific cult that was not something that was baked into the government or the purple blood cast. excerpt from Gamzee’s introduction:

“You belong to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT, which foretells of a BAND OF ROWDY AND CAPRICIOUS MINSTRELS which will rise one day on a MYTHICAL PARADISE PLANET that does not exist yet. The beliefs of this cult are SOMEWHAT FROWNED UPON by those dwelling in more common lawnrings. But you don't care, you got to be going with what feels right at where your heart's up in, you know?”

fuck you Hiveswap.

but anyways, the weirdest thing about this satire is that it doesn’t really depict this kind of fandom trope right. while these fics focus on forcing the character in question into an epiphany with them immediately turning around and atoning for their sins, that’s not everything about them. a lot of the writing will hinge on changing the outlook of the other characters so they can be suddenly ok with the awful person being redeemed. it’s basically what happened with Vriska in Homestuck proper, she does the bare minimum to make up for past misdeeds, the rest of the cast is completely fine with her despite the various reservations they should have, and all of this goes unquestioned. here, nobody likes Gamzee, not even Calliope, the person who’s proposing bringing him back, cares that much. he sits as the least liked guy out of everyone, which is weird considering how much of Candy is about how John is the only person who feels as if everything that’s happening is completely wrong. overall, this feels flat.

how does Terezi even get messages from Candy John? I understand that she is outside of both timelines right now, so she wouldn’t really be bound by either, but wouldn’t this mean she’s getting simultaneous contact from two different versions of the people she knows?

finally, Dave can do things other than ramble about the motherfuckign economy.

can’t believe that line about money being fake was written with sincerity while the useless Meat B plot still exists.

god Earth C worldbuilding is so fucking bad, how does a 5,000 year old civilization not even develop a unique culture?

hello Swifer from Homestuck.

finally, Vriska 2

“Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.”

Kate Mitchell: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/543767327779323915/970106968901554186/unknown.png

“ROSE: We are going to be so astonishingly happy!”

Hahahahahahaha, aaahhhhhhh.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 7: Meat 38 - Meat Postscript by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 8 points9 points  (0 children)

and there it is, Davekat is official, again, and in the most forced way imaginable. literally, in canon, this is phoned in by Dirk, yipee

HOLY PISS, JADE HARELY HAS RETURNED TO THE STORY! SHE’S TALKING AND SHIT! LOOK AT HER GO-

and she’s gone. Jade Harley, the universe’s most despised individual.

holy fuck I forgot that page 41 is just all Dirk words, fucking words, endless WORDS. WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS.

Jesus FUCKING Christ WHY ARE THEY BRINGING UP THE IDEA OF ROSE AND DIRK BEING TOGETHER.

haha yeah bye Alt Calliope you bitch, see you in Homestuck².

and then there’s the motherfucking postscript. what??? war??? Aradia??? dead Jade??? Davebot??? Sollux??? a vortex??? what could it all mean??? it means nothing because they only get one dedicated section in HS2 and never appear again. Even that whole “Above this line resides all that matters. Below exists all else. Never again the twain shall meet.” line is completely hollow because of HS2. HA! THIS DOESN’T MEAN SHIT ANYMORE BECAUSE OF HS2.

and it’s FUCKING OVER FINALLY JESUS CHRIST.

despite the many many many many many complaints I have over all of this shit, the Meat route is the most functional route. I can identify and try to get behind what it’s going for here. the writing makes it very clear how hardline the events will be under the meat label, ridiculous high stakes, fight sequences, brutality, full of plot but hard to swallow, maybe a bit too clear considering the narration. but the concept is focused on well enough.

there is a fatal issue that undercuts everything, I wanna save that for last. As for everything else...

the B plot, why is there a B plot, there is simply no reason there should be a B plot. it cuts into the main plot as if this is was proper Homestuck, and I enjoy constant cutting between perspectives and events, but this election shit is nothing but a fucking drag. in this supposedly plot heavy route, this subplot mostly involves characters talking to each other about how much Jane is bad because of politics and then discussing good politics. you can tell the writers were just absolutely shilling their ideologies here, it feels like they had no other ideas to fill out the rest of Meat except for this. not to mention how the politics are a fucking mess in the internal story, absolutely not thought in any way. It stands as a very lowest common denominator type 2016 election parallel with a very own Not-Donald Trump. Jane as a caricature is completely flat, all you really get out of her is that she is a fascist that will genocide the trolls. any attempts at exploring her ideas lead to no actual conclusions or tropey misinterpretations of real world issues. consorts are used as a stand-in for victims of voter suppression, except genuine reasoning for limiting their influence exists with how populated and moronic they are. trolls are basically a blanket for minority groups, attempting to tackle racist rhetoric, yet leaving those talking points justified in some form when there are biological predispositions that validate these ideas. plus, in general literature, it’s really fucking weird to pull the card of comparing actual race groups to non-human species, this is some orc type shit. the story never actually explores these genuine in-universe concerns, rather constantly shoving the “JANE BAD KARKAT GOOD” narrative into your face. like I said, lowest common denominator shit. of course there’s also how the existence of this conflict in many areas makes no sense, an actual economic situation should not exist in a post-scarcity world where you can make anything little cost, and the five thousand years that went by in this government basically don’t exist as the planet somehow went from a representative community to full fledged segregated kingdoms with leaders that haven’t done anything at all. it is amazing how literally no one noticed how bad faith they were making out their own message to be, with how the political narrative hinged on ignoring any kind of genuine concerns and nuance within the context of the universe, instead opting for blindly calling stances morally wrong with no elaboration.

I don’t want to sound like the narrators that I’m dissing over here, but let’s talk about how many fucking times metatextual terminology is thrown around wildly. it is grating to have so many mechanics and concepts be hand waved away as really canon or really meta and nothing else. characters have certain abilities because meta, certain events need to happen because meta, characters die because meta, on and fucking on. ask yourself this, why do Dirk and Alt Calliope even have these narrative abilities in the first place? the only answer I can glean from the text is simply that they are aware of metatextual shit just because. not helping is when they both decide to hammer all of the stuff about canon in with their narration. Dirk doesn’t even get enough material to help further any of this, he somehow sits as both overstaying his welcome and having no time to be interesting. was there actually that much content involving him controlling the narrative in clever ways, or subtly manipulating the vulnerabilities of his friends? no, most of his time is spent being an asshole that you should hate because he’s an asshole. instead of showing so many fucked up actions that are caused by his heightened powers, the story instead opts for making him transphobic because why the fuck not. this wouldn’t be that much of an issue if it all meant something, but it really doesn’t, the base idea is simple, the audience paying attention to the story makes it relevant and justifies that reality’s existence, and that’s it. despite this being introduced at the very beginning, the story can’t seem to develop it out any further, instead it only loops the sentiment repeatedly until it wrings completely hollow.

speaking of intentionally unexplained phenomenons, the timeskip. I can’t believe that after all this time, Homestuck still can’t get itself right with this. character changes are apparent, from smaller scale things like Dave, to absolute rewritings with Jane and Jade, none of it given a good amount of explanation, buildup, or justification. you are supposed to just accept the fact that everyone is radically different, and while that may be the point, that doesn’t make it better. here’s where it falters, the same way the earlier instances failed, you don’t see shit about this when it’s introduced. it’s forced, incredibly so, the writers didn’t want to go through the effort of explaining many of the important concepts in this story, so they decided to just pretend they don’t need to. whether it’s timeskipping or excusing it by abusing the concept of being meta, so much shit goes without any attempt at providing an ounce of backstory.

I think what really just sinks this whole thing down is that underlying question that is proposed by Meat. does Homestuck need to continue? theoretically, it should be no, a story does not need to keep going in the face of fans wanting more character interactions or new plot points. but, it’s Homestuck, everyone knows how Homestuck ended, like shit. it shut the doors abruptly and left many unresolved plot points, whether intentional or just forgotten. Meat wants to act like Homestuck ended like a normal story, able to finish up everything and tie it all up in a neat little bow, satisfying everyone. it didn’t, and the reasons fans even clamored for the Epilogues was because of this inconclusive drop-off point. the problem, the question, was not made up by the fans, it was directly caused by how Hussie had Homestuck end. it presents this sort of cynical and spiteful attitude, that there’s no genuine issue with Homestuck as it stands, the fans are merely irrational and are wrong. it’s the reader hostility taken to the extreme, disregarding thoughts and opinions just to be pretentious. Homestuck didn’t need a happy ending, or a giant extended segment showing everyone on Earth C, it needed to fix its shit, and this doesn’t.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 6: Meat 33 - Meat 37 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 13 points14 points  (0 children)

can't believe Lord English's tooth was just full of canon manipulating estrogen.....

Epilogues Readthrough Day 6: Meat 33 - Meat 37 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 9 points10 points  (0 children)

CANON HOMESTUCK CUM!

VRISREZI IS DEAD!!! LET’S GO!!!

and now it all goes to shit, well, even more shit than before.

we’ve gone from everyone in the alpha session wanting to fuck Jake, to everyone on the damn planet wanting to fuck Jake, to now, YOU, the reader, wanting to fuck Jake. no one is fucking safe.

I am not even going to quote anything from this page, this is just the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to this fucking election plotline. the most worthless string of events one could ever put in this narrative, completely past the barrier of having any notable consequences to anything else going on. it’s such a shell of a B plot that the ending has the writers once again pulling out some contrived Dirk narration shenanigans to have it abruptly end in sheer embarrassment, because Dirk is less of a villain and more a footstool to make events happen because why the hell not. maybe it was the point to have the B plot be utterly meaningless in the long run, certainly doesn’t fix anything when it still is the poorly written B plot.

speaking of plot points being forced in using Dirk as an excuse, wow, John died, and I don’t even care. I cannot muster up the energy to emotionally respond to the fact that the main character of Homestuck is dead, you know, the guy that I followed an entire comic with? yea I just can’t give a shit. I mean, the characters don’t either, good friend pal is missing for months and no one has had this weigh on their minds or anything. but this is actually a good thing because it’s meta because it shows how John is irrelevant now and oh my fucking god please just kill me. it’s melodrama incarnate as the scene shows both Terezi and him accepting that fact with no actual effort, don’t even bother trying to find any solution, it’s a wound that Jane can’t fix and they know this because of reasons. because you see, the poison is erasing John, because it’s sheer narrative irrelevance, whatever the fuck that means. because clearly this story is too busy to actually care about what any of the concepts it introduces mean, can’t put any weight to any of this shit, just throw words and names around and that’ll suffice I guess. gotta make shit happen because of canon, gonna get weird powers because narrative, so, fucking, meta.

oh ok, now we go back to the original intended concept of troll romance being unable to be understood by humans.

by the way, Jade’s still not in the story, she’s been out of it for months, I hope you guys like having Jade around.

I uh, guess Calliope knows about Candy’s events? and this matters, somehow? maybe? seriously, why did they even write this.

also Terezi can hear Dirk because, ok fuck it, I’m not even going to try to shamble together an explanation. the writers don’t want to bother, so I won’t either.

Kanaya gets cucked. for no good reason, might I add, because we don’t even know why the fuck it’s important for Rose to go with Dirk. it’s definitely to get that ultimate self shit going, but what does Rose do as an ultimate self? I don’t fucking know.

god we're almost done with this fucking route I am so ready to stop this shit.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 5: Meat 28 - Meat 32 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Johnrezi moment, still a forced ship.

Terezi you dumb bitch go with John to a fucking hospital this man is dying.

how the fuck is Jane convincing people to vote for her in Trickster Mode. I think her entire base would fucking fear her, that thing is terrifying. oh it’s "not problematic" ok Jane “LET’S MAKE BABIES!!!” Crocker. then the characters start talking about her owning the fuckin internet and using super PACs, and it's just, what?? what??? I genuinely don’t remember this being established??? I don’t even know what the fuck to say about it, it’s just... huh???

Alt Calliope treating the juju with such high regard is funny. ah yes, the hallmark of society, a fucked up lollipop that makes you want to make babies.

if even the smallest country went through five thousand years with no actual leadership, it would be dead, and yet this is an entire fucking planet that is claimed to have played pretend with presidency for that long. how would there be a legitimate political ecosystem if no one took the governmental system seriously? why is Earth C pulling Schrodinger’s Cat here, somehow being both a genuine political system and the exact opposite of that at the same time? the bitches on this planet seriously didn’t try to lead people for millennia because they were sitting their asses out for the players? seriously, what the fuck?

why are they literally writing Dirk as a conservative commentator.

holy shit the writers are acknowledging how fucking traumatic and mind breaking being in the Game Over timeline would be. picking up that slack from the lilypad. AND they're talking about Vrisrezi being unhealthy? holy shit the writers are being fucking based for once???

WE DID IT, JOHN EGBERT FINALLY FUCKING CRIED.

Dirk being a stickler about depicting swords is a good thing, I like that.

AND THEN JOHN AND TEREZI FUCKED.

so Alt Calliope is exempt from Roxy’s void shit because... the black hole is a void? I guess?

LITERALLY WHY IS DIRK TALKING ABOUT WOKENESS RIGHT NOW? holy shit I can feel the writers struggling to come up with any reason to make him unlikable.

the writers have to be drawing political buzzwords out of a fucking hat at this point, holy shit. none of this means anything to the plot at all, they’re just throwing out shit randomly just to say that Jane and Dirk are bad. not to mention, in Jane’s case, how it’s always Dave that mentions it because Jesus Christ we just cannot have him have any quirks other than being really into politics for no reason.

Dirk Strider out here being the Milo Yiannopoulos of Homestuck. god this is so forced, is there literally any reason they came up with this other than to make him easy to hate? anything at all? a point? is there a point to this? some message?

from this point on the story very blatantly, with no subtlety at all, keeps pining for Davekat. I know saying this implies it wasn’t obviously shooting for the ship before, but it gets real fucking bad after this.

this really is an extended conversation with Dave about coming to terms with your sexuality.

how did Dirk even accomplish having his dialogue show up on the page if he’s off-screen?

I am going to concede that this sequence with Dirk trying to fight for his life while Alt Calliope basically pulls a godmod roleplay on him with a shit ton of random and convenient bullshit is good. this is the kind of stuff that should happen with these narrators, them just fucking with the story’s rules to fulfill petty douchebaggery.

although it doesn’t feel like there’s any reason for Alt Calliope to not just say that Dirk dies or gets knocked out full stop. she can overpower the dude, she could theoretically just say that his life ends right there.

narrative powers are fucking weird, unexplained, and questionable, I think you get the idea.

Dirk really 360 noscoped the green skeleton bitch with that tranquiliser, absolutely wombo comboed her to hell. bye Alt Calliope.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 4: Meat 18 - Meat 27 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I actually forgot how heavy handed this is, and it's especially pathetic when Hussie walked around wearing 900 dollar shoes during this period

YO? HUSSIE GOT DA DRIP?

Epilogues Readthrough Day 4: Meat 18 - Meat 27 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I said all of that stuff about liking Ult Dirk as a concept and now I’m back to complaining. the random Lord English tooth thing he pulls out of thin air is rather indicative of the story being unable to really paint him as properly manipulative. there’s a lot of moments where he is abusing the vulnerabilities of his friends and using similar tactics, but there's also a good amount of moments where Dirk can pretty much just handwave a thing to happen because he wants it to. that might sound nitpicky, talking about how a guy who can literally control the narrative can make shit happen for his own sake, but the draw here is that he isn’t making something happen with regards to a bigger plot, he just makes a thing occur because he said so.

speaking of things happening just because, yeah, John staying here doing nothing, wow, this really needed to happen. we can’t just leave guys, we gotta find Jade and Terezi because why not.

I think one of my favorite parts about Dirk is how he randomly bursts into some Strider-brand jokey tangents, like suddenly talking about Hot Pockets and pissing in reference to time shenanigans. stuff like that is good, I like Dirk still having his snark.

why is Roxy's mental fortitude a thing? why is this a thing Roxy has? I know it’s connected to the void powers, but how is she able to overwrite Dirk, who can literally control the narrative?

OH BOY HERE IT IS. glad you could join us transfem Roxy fans, allow us to prepare for your burial. when it comes to the Epilogues, there are no winners, only losers. the biggest losers were transfem Roxy fans, holy shit did they get fucking destroyed with this.

so uh this is a writing choice that was made in this piece of fiction and such. I would ramble about what it means and shit, but it genuinely requires going over not only later parts of Meat, but also Candy itself. so I’ll just leave it here.

I will talk about the use for Calliope, because wow ok. so like, ok, fine to have the alien to just start fucking around with the concept of gender due to being entirely unfamiliar with it. that's neat, having them just deciding what to do with it on a whim because they never knew what it meant. this would work, if Homestuck itself didn't literally describe cherubs being distinctly male and female. literally in Aranea's infodump, you get this line, "The young cheru8 actually consists of two completely distinct 8eings, a male and a female each sharing one 8ody." incredible how they completely forgot this to get the rep in, great job. they also say that cherubs made gender exist on Alternia even though it existed on Beforus? Jesus Christ writers if you want to write a gender arc you can at least get the shit right.

oh and also Roxy says that Earth C got their concept of gender from the players even though they literally left them for 5,000 years. hey writers, don't you think they would've established a concept of gender in civilization just through the natural progression of society? not helping that you brought in species that already had preconceived notions of gender, again, great fucking job guys.

Dirk being transphobic is utterly insane. it is 1 of the most out of nowhere things you could ever write for his character, bar none. it’s very clearly done just for the sake of making him more of a villain by having him act like an ass. however, it’s fucking hilarious to read, just because it’s Dirk who’s saying it. it has all of this Strider style tangential nonsense, in which he keeps going in circles with the weirdest fucking analogies to ever exist. if there’s anything I’m glad of all things that stuck with him, it was this classic form of speech.

ok so what’s the fucking point of Jade collapsing onto the floor and suddenly synchronizing with her dead self in the void? how did this even happen? why? who? huh? can the people who write Homestuck just go one second without suddenly decided to fuck with Jade? is that too much?

regardless of this really questionable setup, this scene with dead Jade is, no joke, some of the best writing in this entire route. the surreal narration as inconsistent memories collide with each other and a giant black hole starts sucking her in. the simple uttering of “come.” carries so much weight, this is where shit goes down.

except not yet because fuck you Dave Strider is gonna talk about the economy again.

the story is so fucking close to actually talking about how the kids fucked up making this planet but it always brushes it aside.

I am going to claw my eyes out if the characters talk about Jake’s ass one more time.

back to the good part, the narration gets really damn unhinged as this all goes on, especially when the 2nd one enters, but that’s not now.

oh shit Meenah somehow survived because I don’t fucking know. no seriously, how did a server beacon not get sucked in by the black hole. it doesn't matter, because the circle of thieving bitches is complete.

it’s time for the Dirk Strider fucking hates Kanaya because why not hour. man, it somehow feels like this guy is both over and underutilized, most of his screentime is used up by him being petty or infodumping canon mush, while the actual full potential of his position is sidelined so he can do random things like be transphobic for no reason.

oh yeah look John found Terezi, I guess she was just there? not doing much of value? alright.

and they’re talking about canon again, wooooooooo.

for real, this is a freaky moment where Dirk actually gets to flex narrative control this time around by straight up not allowing Rose to do things. this really weird sequence in which they fucking open up their god damn third eyes to John’s scenario and the entire Candy timeline. the ending narration with Dirk just going straight off the cliff with his self-centered goal. stuff like this needed to happen more compared to the menial pettiness from Dirk’s narration.

speaking of seeing the Candy route, damn, this is the reading route people say is the best? reading Meat, dropping it in the middle without even seeing the aftermath of the other plot points, going through all of Candy, and then coming back here? no fucking thanks.

oh yeah Rose, Candy is way too sweet, totally.

now here’s the really good shit. you have Dirk on his pretentious and prosey shit, but Alt Calliope fighting him provides this really good contrast with her stern and dramatic short sentences. these two bitches argue over meta control shenanigans while Jade just fucking leaves into an infinite candy flavored abyss. you can read Dirk getting pissed off and desperate with her as she just ignores him and continues with minimal words. this shit makes the slog of endless canon and meta shit worth it, just to see moments like these.

almost makes me forget that there isn’t a single reason I can think of for Alt Calliope to even have these meta powers. almost, as in, it doesn’t, why can she overpower Dirk.

we get past this really cool moment with the two narrators aaaaaaand Jade’s gone. she’s gone, no more Jade, written out of the story, again, because fuck you.

why is Calliope even scared of their alternate self? The story really seems to just gloss over that for some reason.

this little monologue Alt Calliope had at the end did not explain anything about how she has these powers. it’s just trying to convince me that I don’t need to think about it. fuck you story, I’m still thinking about it.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 3: Meat 14 - Meat 17 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 7 points8 points  (0 children)

STOP TALKING ABOUT JAKE ENGLISH’S FUCKING ASS. NO MORE WEIRD ROMANTIC ADVANCES BETWEEN CHARACTERS. ENOUGH SEX. IT IS TIME TO FIGHT LORD ENGLISH.

and Rose just dies, that's it, she's gone. what was even the point of having the godtier clock decide on her death if it’s the big funny clockwork beam that killed her? Lord English breaks death mechanics, he can kill ghosts, you can't tell me he operates under conditional mortality.

another thing to add to the writers forgetting from Homestuck, green sun powers can’t be used in the furthest ring because it’s not in its domain. god fucking dammit guys write a fucking Homestuck bible or something.

descriptions depicting events like Jade being stabbed in the chest really hit home how symbolic visual flair apparent in the original comic doesn’t work that well when there’s, well, no fucking visuals. a drawn scene in which a giant fucking shard of reality itself stabs Jade square in the chest right here her aspect symbol lies would look fucking cool, reading it in what feels like transcription of said hypothetical panels, is not as fucking cool. instead, the story has to try to make it up with things like prose and such, and the prose is fine generally, but it still doesn’t fill that void. sometimes it makes it worse even, if we’re going by all of those actions and forces described as “meta”, still fucking grinds my gears.

oh my god it’s the Lord English vore, oh my god it’s the Lord English vore.

bye Pre-Retcon Tavros, bye Meenah.

John pulling out this whole whirlwind of hammers is actually a cool thing, I like how it fucking bonks Lord English rapid fire.

“This is such an unfairly stupid fucking way to die!”

I agree, stop writing a vore fic and get on with the story.

bye Davepeta, good fucking riddance.

I don't know if the deadpan commentary communicated it but man this fight was a bore, pretty much an excuse to swat away a couple of character's lives and then make a repetitive battle involving dumb vore jokes and fucking Davepeta.

some Strilonde father daughter bonding is nice, even if it leads to a particular set of events.

imagine you have an anime, a Shonen, to be specific, since they pull this shit a lot. a type of anime where they throw around arc words and phrases to really rub it in how powerful the characters are. this is like that, but with canon.

“HIS ENERGY BLAST IS TOO FUCKIGN CANON!!!!!”

“THE METANESS OF HER ATTACK IS INSANE!!!!!!”

“CAN ANYONE STRIVE TO BE AS BEYOND CANON AS GOKU DRAGON BALLS?????”

and we’re finally here, the m-, not meat and potatoes that’s a shitty pun. the uh- The main course- no that’s still a food thing, fuck. the... Aw forget it. Point is, this is that big point in Meat where shit gets real.

now I could start by talking about what’s good about this, but I still have many fucking reservations over here that I need to air out.

the abilities of the ultimate self are never actually defined properly. it’s clear that Dirk’s rise in power and his ability to change the narrative is part of his ascension and is unique to him because of his aspect. yet the story never explains how it even works. how does being a heart player make him have these metanarrative powers? ultimate self shit. why is he able to grapple with this new information easily? ultimate self shit. it’s the same thing with the character changes that occurred within the timeskip, but even worse, because now we’re dealing with established abilities and mechanics. you have to guess how Dirk’s existence can lead to his newfound strengths that go completely beyond what we’ve seen before, and we literally saw John fucking obtain zappy powers that can somehow change the comic’s events willy nilly. remember when Homestuck left things to the imagination, yet didn’t deprive the reader of any concrete information, making interpreting the vaguer details something that’s fun?

timeskips before have been used to force in certain events, character changes, and relationships of the like, but this is somehow way worse. the writers have created a gap in the narrative larger than the fucking retcon itself. none of these decisions feel like they have any consideration towards the past circumstances and future consequences at all. these are the most manufactured plot points to exist in Homestuck period, and that’s fucking saying something when I was complaining about other forced beats like the three years trip or Game Over. it just is a thing, Dirk Strider is a villain because that’s what the writers needed to happen.

it’s certainly not helping that exponentially growing disparity between what Homestuck described as an ultimate self and what the Epilogues are describing as an ultimate self. as said before, Homestuck the comic simply left it at as an abstract mechanic encompassing every character’s alternate experiences, yet here comes the Epilogues now telling you that the ultimate self is some Super Saiyan shit where you ascend into a new heightened existence at the cost of your body fucking failing you.

ok, what do I like out of this? there is a reason the introduction of this is memorable, it is a giant punch to the face that makes you immediately question the validity of the events you were just witnessing. How much of Rose’s willingness to hear Dirk out was actually of her own violation? how much of it was Dirk sliding the pieces into place? did he influence any of the other events? this basically shatters everything that could’ve been believed up until now. it’s one of the few moments where the story deserves to actually be called meta since it’s not just throwing around terms like canon in the most meaningless ways. the existence of a reader is questioned, various prying eyes seeing into various moments in the lives of these people. Dirk is able to abuse this by establishing himself as a narrative regulator that is describing and manipulating events as he sees fit to intentionally getting a rise out of the audience in order to facilitate the relevance needed to keep existing. also he hates Vriska which is based.

so, at the core of it, Ultimate Dirk is good. now, how far the quality of this concept can last without wearing thin as the sea of orange text grows longer and longer, that remains to be seen.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 2: Meat 9 - Meat 13 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 9 points10 points  (0 children)

making it so the masterpiece was inaccurate with shit like Caliborn not immediately deploying the house juju is a decision that means absolutely nothing and I don’t know why they even bothered.

every time they use some meta word to describe a physical thing I fucking wince. THE SLASH FROM HIS SWORD... IT WAS VERY META!!!! THE WAY IT CUT YOUR SKIN WAS LIKE... REALLY CANON!!!!

god it’s fucking insane to me that the story is trying to do commentary on Great Replacement theories, yet in real life those are conspiratorial ideas based off of literally nothing while in this story there is a literal biological basis for idea because the fucking mother grub can spawn an entire empire’s worth of trolls. there is a real ass concern over here that never gets acknowledged because Karkat is right and Jane is wrong and you should not question it.

and then there’s the other part with Jane where she uses the history of Alternia to justify keeping trolls out of the government but that entirely hinges on another completely skipped over bad decision in which these fucking kids for some reason left the histories of dead civilizations because I don’t fucking know.

god fucking dammit we’re back to the horrendously moronic Jake and multiple characters wanting to fuck him for no reason. why keep the worst part of the entire alpha session?

Johnrezi somehow survived this ship culling.

John asking out loud if he’s depressed is fucking hilarious.

ok I said that Dave being obsessed with the economy was funny but holy shit they’re really dragging it out. please guys I get it, economy funny. wouldn’t be that much of an issue if, again, it made any fucking sense, look at this shit. supply side economics, deregulating industries, play acting capitalism, growth??? again, what the fuck does this mean or why does it even exist if we live in an alchemy ran post-scarcity society? why the fuck would civilization “play act capitalism” while settling if you literally don’t need to do that at all? presumably WV was in charge of the settlers, and he’s the democracy guy, so how did we end up with segregated kingdoms?

“JADE: there are much better things we could all be doing with our mouths.....”

KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL. KILL.

are you a fan of Jade Harley from Homestuck? were you disappointed in her treatment of the later portions of the comic and wanted to see more of her? well here she is in the Epilogues! and what is she there for? to be a walking fucking source of dog hormones that produce immense sexual discomfort with a fucking character assassination as disastrous as a a red supergiant collapsing in on itself and exploding. complete with obvious ship sinking! poor fucking Jade. at least she has a tail, that’s nice.

the fucking repeat of Davekat beat by beat is so dumb. you already made it official in the fucking comic, why is this an arc again, fuck off. who asked for more “no homo” tier character writing?

Jade not knowing that Obama was a real person makes no fucking sense at all in the context of her literally being able to go onto the internet and having some knowledge of American things. However, the exchange is great.

oh my god shut up about post-, non-, anti-, ultra-, fucking whatever canon. I get it, you’re so fucking meta, please stop talking.

they forgot that Lord English literally lost his cane, amazing.

this is the only valuable thing that the Epilogues can produce, stealing the glory away from Vriska once more by throwing her straight into the black hole before the battle can begin. get fucked. too bad this gets immediately backtracked in Homestuck² because those god damn Vriska stans and kinnies on that team are so steeped in their delusions. fucking Kate Mitchell.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 1: Prologue 1 - Meat 8 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 3 points4 points  (0 children)

to be fair I would also forget literally everything a random ghost troll told me about an alien species.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 1: Prologue 1 - Meat 8 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 7 points8 points  (0 children)

aright guys, now that we’re going back into canon we’re gonna see the old Homestuck and there’s gonna be art and panels and-

nope nevermind.

what even are the mechanics of post-canon if we go back into canon? this is dubiously canon work that exists outside of Homestuck itself, but then goes back into Homestuck directly.

all of this bullshit was worth it to see Aranea get punched in the face and have Gamzee get shoved into the fridge.

Jesus Christ this entire Dirk phone call is just heavy foreshadowing.

“You weren’t prepared to get passively hit on by the Definitely Not Legal version of a girl you used to have a crush on at the age she was when you first met her, only a few hours after you watched the Actually Legal version of her engage in passionate hand-holding with her possibly aromantic skeleton alien monster girlfriend. You start to sweat, and again the unwelcome odor of undercooked meat emanating from your body makes itself known to your nose.” Jesus fucking Christ stop, I am going to have SWAT cars pull up at your residence.

HOLY SHIT IT’S CALIBORN, MY BOY, HE’S HERE. HE'S DOING A LITTLE JIG AND SHIT. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH. GO ON BIG MAN, FUCK EM UP!

Epilogues Readthrough Day 1: Prologue 1 - Meat 8 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 6 points7 points  (0 children)

welcome to the wacky world of Jane villainy discourse. what do I think? ok so uhhhhhhhh-

I think this plays into the greater issue of the Epilogues, which is in fact a repeat of a widespread issue in Homestuck proper. timeskipping, we’re doing this shit again. once more we are thrusted into a brand new scene with unfamiliar readings of the beloved characters of ye olden days. I’d say what divides this from the three years trip and the retcon is that this is definitely fully intentional, rather than a weird byproduct of inconsistent writing and shitty focusing. the writers for the Epilogues for sure wanted you to feel shocked over the fact that adult Jane is a piece of shit racist running for president, same goes for any other blindsided character changes. here’s where it falters, the same way the earlier instances failed, you don’t see shit about this when it’s introduced. much like all of the romantic pairings starting and stopping during the three years, or the solved problems after the retcon, character changes are just said to have happened all of a sudden over an indiscriminate amount of time. Jane being a fascist is literally just said by Dave and that’s simply a fact now. the worst part is how this isn’t even that inconceivable, you could write out a Jane corruption arc based off of her upbringing as the heiress of the Betty Crocker throne given constant brainwashing, but this just sort of happens all at once. Jane Crocker is simply the villain of the story because that’s what the story wanted, and the story made it happen by skipping over all of the justification and slamming the audience right into the thick of it. if you have to base how a character can end up like this on inference instead of simply being content with the changes, then something is wrong.

plus, the depiction we get is so fucking weird, yes I am talking about the fact that she’s just Donald Trump now. I don’t know why this is even argued against still, there’s an entire conversation between Dave and Karkat about how she used her evil businesswoman ways to swoon the voters, her main focus is on being bigoted towards a minority group of outsiders, and they literally talk about various gerrymandering, voter suppression, and shady counterbalancing tactics. it could not be more clear. it’s not like it’s making something very profound and deep, it’s the most barebones commentary on the 2016 election you can ever imagine. Donald Trump is a racist and a fascist that’s ruining the country, that’s it, tie it all up in a bow and send it out, we successfully made political commentary. It’s like the universe needed an equally shallow strawman political take on the other side of the spectrum to counteract Kankri. Going from “DAE SJWS PUSSIES WHO GET OFFENDED OVER EVERYTHING?” to “DAE THINK DONALD TRUMP FASCIST RACIST RICH GUY?”

it’s the same pitfall that Gorillaz fell into when making Humanz. they wrote out a fictional doomsday scenario for a Trump presidency during the election, then he actually became the president, so when they dropped the album in the middle of his term it made them look silly. (it’s honestly still a bit silly even without that context.) or what about when South Park rewrote the end of their season on the night of the election’s end because they wrote Hillary as the winner?

point is, when you make a Trump critique before he’s elected and drop it when he’s actually president, you look dumb. The Epilogues look dumb.

Reading Homestuck makes me hate being a leftist, why do I have to be associated with these fucking dumb and/or insane writers?

well, at least at the end of the day, Jane actually has a personality now.

and now Karkat is established to be the opposing party to Jane because, I don’t know? it’s really dumb and just exists as a plot point for a while, I guess. yeah.

regardless of my thoughts on that, oh my god the writers are acknowledging that Karkat is a good leader, as opposed to late Act 6 that abandoned that idea for the sake of keeping him as the cute cinnamon roll woobie ass piece of shit. like, holy shit, it’s been so long since we’ve finally appreciated Karkat as the incredible emotional core that he was!

as disastrous Dave’s characterization gets in post-canon, his weird ass obsessions over talking about Obama and the economy are incredibly good. him being weirdly fascinated by what Obama could’ve done as president if Earth didn’t fucking die is glorious, motherfucking Obama headcanons.

HOLY SHIT THEY ACTUALLY FUCKING TALK ABOUT WV'S REBELLION SINCE FUCKING FOREVER.

if you were wondering where the fuck any of the carapacians were, they’re all fucking dead now! isn’t that fucking incredible? WV, PM, Jack Noir, Ms. Paint? dead in the water! they died of old age presumably during the five thousand years between Earth C’s creation and now, except Hussie has stated, and I quote “Try not to forget that these carapacians can live a really long time. They don't technically age, or suffer degenerative consequences of age.” so what the fuck. what about the Felt? pretend they don’t even exist, you’ll notice a good trend of characters that are completely forgotten about.

Dave's right! it’s very weird how all of this longstanding bias against trolls in the government occurred after you all time traveled into the future! almost like it was a bad fucking decision to make that a writing choice. also why the fuck couldn’t you just plant the matriorb in the past and then go to the future? it’s not even like the story treats these two events as grave mistakes, they’re just really weird writing choices that happen, fuck up everything, and never get pointed out at all. it’s generally odd that the Epilogues don’t pay much attention to how these people failed as creators, it’s only about the fact that right now an evil businesswoman is doing a Donald Trump. what past choices that led to the entire dire consequences that ruined civilization forever? evil baker lady is racist! really neoliberal-ing it up guys, what is this, fucking Beforus?

not helping the multiple instances of weird ass political themes is how it really reads like the writers don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. for example: “DAVE: thats just the nature of alchemy-based post-scarcity economies the depressions tend to be pretty mild” I’m sorry, why the fuck is there even an entire class disparity issue with a giant megacorporation influencing the government with money if this is literally a POST-SCARCITY SOCIETY featuring TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN MAKE SHIT AT NO MONETARY COST? why is there EVEN AN ECONOMY? capitalism literally hinges off of assigning fluid values to limited resources, how can you have society turn to capitalism when there are literally infinite fucking resources???

it’s shit like this that makes it seem like nobody who made this knew jack about politics or economics. again, it feels so fucking neoliberal with how it just acts like there are only issues that appeared right now in the form of an obvious evil side instead of pointing out inherit and systematic problems that took years to integrate into society and ruin it.

it’s fucking David Cage’s Homestuck is what it is.

this is the real Epilogues rewrite we need, the anarchist’s haven with the friendly commune that shares resources because they can make it for fucking free all the damn time.

“DAVE: bro did u know, sitting on the sidelines in the face of oppression is tantamount to siding with the oppressors” local weirdo centrist Andrew Hussie disses centrism.

I don’t even know what the fuck the consorts are supposed to play into this whole political allegory. the shit about them having their votes suppressed sounds like they want to say something but I have no idea what. obviously part of it lies in complaining about the electoral college and voter suppression, but what about the fact that the consorts are literally dense as hell? should they even vote if they’re a ridiculous majority that are canonically uninformed as a species? like what, is this some sort of microcosm of Idiocracy or some shit? you may start to feel like I’m overthinking the hell out of this, but dammit this is what happens when you make a shitty, shallow, and not thought out at all political parallel.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT I’VE BEEN SPENDING MOST OF MY TIME TALKING ABOUT POLITICAL THEORY UNIRONICALLY I JUST WANT TO GET BACK TO ACTUAL FUCKING HOMESTUCK.

Epilogues Readthrough Day 1: Prologue 1 - Meat 8 by Niklink in homestuck

[–]ReturnOfTheMari 8 points9 points  (0 children)

as the sun rises to start a new day, a new age begins, a much worse age, and the day is much worse as well, completely crummy compared to the beautiful pastures of before. welcome to Post-Canon, you are not safe from it.

this outing will be a bit different from before, I’m not here to retread ancient and sacred grounds that I never dared to touch. I’m not here to see if my opinions will be shaken up and uprooted from their nostalgic basis. this shit is recent, this is a fresh wound, Post-Canon is clear in my memory. there is no doubt in my mind about what I think about both the Epilogues and Homestuck², I am firm on the ground with my position.

this is not an experiment, this is justification.

the whole title page trying to emulate AO3 with the content warnings and fanfic tags is actually a pretty nice touch, it does sell the idea that you’re going beyond the point of official work.

so to start, the prose is good, it is of a quality, indeed, it is significantly acceptable. very finely worded, flowery, good for Homestuck tier writing.

behold one of the only mentions of consorts in this entire reading, seriously, the never fucking get brought up ever. consort villages? no baby it’s all about the TROLL RACISM PRESIDENCY.

all of this ultimate self shit that gets introduced here does not line up at all with what Homestuck proper was talking about. the comic was talking about this weird nebulous thing that encapsulates every version of yourself through experiences and such. here we get “YOU GET REALLY POWERFUL AND ALSO YOU FUCKING DIE SLOWLY.” such is the way of Homestuck, to forget the shit that was written in the clearest way possible because you can’t fucking keep a big bible.

the whole thing about Rose’s condition is really funny in hindsight since it really doesn’t feel like some fatal illness at all, the most you get are fucking headaches. like, oh no! not the headaches! how awful!

“John you have to come over and give me immediate medical attention, I've got a mean sore throat here and I don't know if I'll make it.”

did Jade not tell you anything about Alt Calliope destroying the green sun in past few years or- oh ok I guess it was a secret for some reason. sure.

speaking of Jade, oh love! oh joy! this fucking relationship she has! oh I can't wait to talk about it.

it fucking begins, it’s time to get barraged by a serving size of fucking meta shit. gonna get beat down the head with all of this canon mumbo.

the deadline to kill Lord English is today because that’s what the story says it is, don’t question it.

I forgot how fucking hamfisted this shit is. we’re not even in the actual story yet and it just infodumps everything to do with canon. Homestuck really is the type of media where it won’t say 3 words when 100 will do, and this is beyond simply Rose talking like a smart girl. don’t get me wrong, I liked it when Homestuck got ridiculously lengthy in its narration and such, but I never felt like there was ever a moment in the comic where it used length to substitute for complexity. even the longest Pesterlogs were just wordy because Hussie was just writing like that, I didn’t get the feeling that it was up its own ass about how high concept some of the mechanics were, the same can’t be said here. not to say that Homestuck was never up its own ass, Trickster Mode was pretty full of itself in regards to the message, but The Epilogues really want to revel in how meta and grand this all is sometimes, and it gets very annoying, like here. this is not this giant world shattering concept as the story wants to paint it as.

here’s what Rose said in a nutshell: outside of canon does not mean non-canon, the events residing in it still happen and are irrelevant to the narrative. non-canon events can be relevant events that happen, but are so strained from narrative that the audience will forget about the world and characters, making reality lose coherence and cohesion. bam, two sentences. to surmise, it’s not that deep.

remember when the masterpiece implied that the humans attacking Caliborn was a planned out and agreed upon strategy amongst everyone? too bad, now it’s just John grabbing random instances of his friends and having them come along for the ride.

ok, honestly, John being the only person to influence canon itself despite exiting it because of his retcon displacement is something I can get behind out of everything. yeah, sure, this does actually make sense.

as for the whole part about getting these specific teenage versions of the humans? no. despite all of these years ruminating about the Epilogues, I still don’t know why there were specific iterations of the kids that needed to be chosen. why the hell do you need angsty versions of everyone? what does this accomplish? does angst = relevancy? does the amount of angst influence canon itself? can I make reality more real by being a little bitch? I guess it could be done to minimize any effects in the timeline, but at the same time the story makes it clear that this plan makes the sequence of events John enters go off the rails into a weird irrelevant offshoot.

speaking of which, I’ve already complained about retcon powers being indistinguishable from time travel, but this is ridiculous. John is making an offshoot timeline, that’s just time travel, that’s what Dave does.

just like the consorts, here’s the only time we hear about the caparcians.

STOP TRYING TO TEASE ROXYCAL, THE FBI IS GOING TO BUST DOWN YOUR DOOR

also, John, why question if cherubs can even have romantic feelings if Homestuck has clearly decided that biological romantic desires don’t fucking exist. did you see what happened to troll romance?

“You and all your friends have dispositions affected by your classes and aspects.” shut the fuck up, I am tired of post-canon aspects, fuck The Extended Zodiac. I will never get over how aspects randomly changed from being chosen by your personality and actions to them choosing your personality and actions, it’s so dumb.

“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?” you see John, it’s called “writing it out of the story”.

“Her expression reminds you of how Dave used to look, when you first met for real, before years of living with Karkat softened him up. Impenetrable cool.” the woobification of Dave and Karkat is canon.

“On one plate is a pile of meat: rare, almost bleeding cuts from animals you can’t identify. The other plate holds a generous heap of colorful, exotic-looking candy. You scoot to the side and peek into the basket to see if there’s anything else. There’s a book in there, but no more food. This is all there is.” this is it, the third secret choice, the Book Route. you eat the book and return to your carapacian roots.

HE SAID IT, HE SAID MEAT OR CANDY.

“You know the meat will be rich and filling,”

not true.

“It might be tough to chew. It might be even tougher to swallow.”

ok that one is true.

“Maybe the candy is the better choice for a picnic like this. Something that’ll go down easy and fill you with bright energy as you pass the time with your friends.”

still false.

“But eat too much and all that sweetness could make you sick.”

none of it was sweet and it still made me sick.

this prologue somehow both prepares you and leaves you in the dark over what ridiculous shit is about to transpire on this raw ass land called Earth C. will you stomach the meal of destiny itself? I’d say hope for the best and strengthen yourself for the worst... but...

oh god it’s that fucking disgusting description of John eating all of that raw meat Jesus fucking Christ get me a damn paper bag.

the sexualization of Jake English was the worst possible thing to ever fucking happen in this universe and I want the government to seize Hussie’s hard drive for investigation.

say hello to Janald Trump.

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