I feel sort of attacked right now. Both over freaking out over 413 in the past and then having nothing happen, and also that’s exactly how I react to my own birthday.
Also hey folks, I guess I’m liveblogging this dumb comic that I love. <3
I’m sure I’m going to regret it but I got SO EXCITED when I saw my favorite fish princess in the character list!
John didn’t speak to Rose (at least in any significant form) long enough that he lost the ability to handle how she talks. That’s so fucking depressing.
I really dig this. As somebody who really, really didn’t like Act 7 and the fact that the characters progressed to post-plot happiness without the conflict with Lord English actually being resolved, this is so exciting. Up until today, Lord English’s defeat wasn’t really necessary for the ending to be legitimate. But now that it is today, Lord English actually needs to be defeated, or Earth C isn’t legitimate.
And it really tickles me that the “today” refers to the characters as well as the readers. It’s such a cheap trick, to sync up dates like this, but it works out so well in Homestuck,
I am trying to not do a line-by-line commentary like the old days but, yes. Yes. This is exactly what I am reading Homestuck for.
Man, after all those times we said the Adventure Zone is like Homestuck, now we get to say Homestuck is like the Adventure Zone.
Aw, shit, you guys. Rose became Woke.
So there’s been an air of unreality through this whole thing, and not in the way that Rose was describing a page ago. I was nervous that it’s like, the last season of a show that got stretched out too long and missed the chance for a satisfying finale. When the best writers had left or checked out. But this seems weird to me in a way that isn’t “Oh shit, Andrew Hussie really is done with Homestuck but also stringing us along anyway.”
Because the cherub meat/candy dichotomy is Meaningful, and that dichotomy is the choice that’s being offered to John, but also Callie and Roxy have been living together for years, so Callie really ought to know what humans eat. The rest of the page goes hard on the fact that it’s a Metaphor, but what a weird, offputting image to end on.
I don’t have time to read it now, but please blacklist upd8 if you don’t want to see Epilogue(s) spoilers, since I will be liveblogging it tonight.
Also again I am COMPLETELY unprepared for this, emotionally. And I saw Us yesterday so I’m already on edge!
Okay so I’m going to start reading the Epilogues. At least some of them.
Initially, I was going to say I was going to start with Candy because it sounds like it will be the shorter, lighter one. You know, I was expecting it to be the like, bad ending. How some games have a fuck up state, where you picked the wrong option and everyone dies or something and the game makes you go back. I’m pretty sure that’s wrong (maybe not everyone dying? everyone might die), but I’ll go with my first instinct anyway. Even though I was warned not to.
I’m really suspicious of Roxy and Calliope at the beginning of Candy. It makes me sure that they knew that John wasn’t coming back. But I also question why they wouldn’t agree with Rose that Lord English needs to be fought, properly.
This is a muse of space thing, right? Earth C has been outside of canon, but it’s also been building towards this decision, and Calliope must have felt that.
I do not trust this Callie. I do not trust her at all. “I have such big plans for you” is not a thing you just say. And she offered him the candy/meat choice, and then pulls this? Nope. Rose explained to John what meat entailed. She gave him the information he needed to make that choice. And then Callie/Roxy present the candy option like it’s “Oh just stay home!” and then when he makes it we find out that they have plans?
So this is either 1. there’s a lot of doomed Calliope in our Callie, or 2. something is influencing Callie. I think her calling him the bard is a tell.
But also it makes perfect sense for her to want to rescue the person who raised her, and it does look like they had a good relationship from what we saw (IIRC).
But also now I’m pretty sure this is building towards Caliborn’s masterpiece. I don’t know where it fits in the timeline, but why rescue The Bard unless he needs to be free to become part of LE?
Who else went to the page to see if John got added???
I’m pretty sure the transformation from words alternating caps to letters alternating caps is manipulative. I think Gamzee did the same thing when Terezi stabbed him, right before he killed her. The following stuff is also hella manipulative, but I think even the return of that quirk is.
It is super fucked up that John called Terezi to let her know her abusive ex is back. I know in this timeline she and Gamzee weren’t actually in an abusive relationship! But it’s still fucked up. And I’m not sure that Terezi doesn’t know about Game Over, right?
Do you know what you’re saying, man???
I love Dirk so fucking much and this is exactly why I read Homestuck. This dialogue is what I live for.
Dirkjake isn’t one of my precious ships but jfc dude, ouch.
Also if everything is about to end, why bother cancelling things, you giant drama queen?
I love Homestuck, and I love Rosemary so very very much.
I also seriously fucking love Davekat I didn’t even have any reactions, just sat there reading it and feeling at home.
I’m really excited for this to be a new meme.
hahahahaha what the entire FUCK.
Like okay all the mentions of politics without any explanation were a bit suspicious. Clearly building to something. But. I was not expecting genocidal Jane. I don’t even know what to do with that. Much less what to do with centrist-in-the-face-of-fascism Dave.
You guys weren’t kidding
Fuck Jane and also apparently fuck Dirk? but this is really sweet somehow. Like under everything they’re still friends who trust each other. Dirk is a massive asshole and they’re both apparently genocidal, but there’s something left of the people we cared about way back when.
This epilogue sure does involve a lot of women hitting on/borderline sexually assaulting guys who are in relationships with other guys. I mean, Jake sounds poly and Dirk did just fuck off on them, but still. It’s happened twice, and like Dirk being decapitated, that’s sort of a lot.
SIR. You are literally GODS. What is happening in this world???
I love these guys so much. Also Swifer. My new fave.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I hate this. I mean I like Vriska and I’m excited to see her again, but my girls. :(
If you aren’t truly heroic or truly villainous don’t you like…not die?? You just come right back?
You know all those rumors about how the End of Evangelion was Hideaki Anno’s hate letter to his shitty fandom? Because in End of Evangelion, you felt like you were getting what you wanted, but what you really got was the end of the world and all the character development in the original series going to shit?
Yeah.
Y’all didn’t tell me it got this real and now I’m real upset. I feel so called out right now. I came here to have a good time, and I knew I wasn’t going to because I saw the discourse, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.
Uuuuugh I hate this so much you guys. So. Much. I haven’t spoiled myself completely but I know Dirk is Not Good and it is such a colossal disappointment because Dave getting to bond with a version of his abuser who loved him unconditionally and was just good was so meaningful, and it should be awesome that Dave gets to go talk to Dirk, who is gay and confident in his gayness. And yet.
I hate Jane so fucking much.
Wait a second. Were the commands missing this whole time? This is the first time I noticed one. Everything else was just normal prose, right?
Also he’s gonna kill himself and I am not okay with that. And I’m super not okay with Ascend being used like that.
Okay so once I found out that the epilogues were the length of a very long novel I started reading on my phone, so I don’t have pics for this, but man.
I was not expecting to think that Dave and Karkat deserve better than Jade? I was not expecting her to be the bad point in that relationship.
I mean she also deserves better than that relationship, she deserves partners who love her and are happy with her, and not ones who are with her because they’re too repressed or scared or whatever to break up with her. But wow is she ever selfish and willingly obtuse in this relationship!
Rose and Dave are both abused kids. I don’t think there’s any argument here. Rose may have only been emotionally abused, but she was the daughter of a passive aggressive alcoholic. I know a lot of people want to say Dave was abused, because the abuse was physical (and at least semi-sexual with the fact that he involved Dave in videos for his porn site), and Rose was neglected because we never see Mom hit Rose or say anything rude to her. And Dave dealt with and talked about his abuse at Bro’s hands, but Rose isn’t willing to talk about it at all.
Personally, I don’t think you need to look past the Candy page 20 to see how emotionally abusive Mom must have been.
A dead teen Jade has just shown up out of a hole in the sky, and Jane can’t resurrect her. Everybody is terrified and in a form of mourning, and what does Roxy do? Laugh and suggest a funeral. Because they’re all together again! Just like old times!
Remember when Dirk killed himself in a horrifying manner that traumatized random passersby? They all got together after that and it made Roxy so happy!
Roxy doesn’t give a shit about how either of you feel, it’s getting in the way of her being with her friends. Who cares that one is a fascist who is actively oppressing the others? It’s just politics!
See, abuse doesn’t have to be hateful or sadistic. It doesn’t have to be violent. It doesn’t have to be evil and it doesn’t even have to be mean. It can be as simple as an adult insisting that their child’s feelings don’t matter, that they’re misunderstanding things, including their own emotions, that they should only ever express their emotions in a way that the adult wants. Abuse can be not caring about your kids, except in the way that they benefit you.
Mom always wanted what was best for Rose, just like Roxy wants what’s best for her friends, but what does she do when Karkat has a rage meltdown? Support his girlfriend, who is freaking out, and their other friends? Recognize that multiple people disagree with her idea and respectfully back down?
Of course not! Roxy wants her funeral.
Can you even imagine how horrifying Mom must have acted when Rose’s beloved cat shows up dead, and she forces Rose to hold a funeral?
And Roxy didn’t even need to be drunk for what she did here.
Oh thank god. This was getting absolutely insufferable. And I had been wondering if Aradia would show up, considering her love for corpse parties. At least for an Alternian troll it’s reasonable and not gross and narcissistic.
I love Sollux so much. I hope he doesn’t start arguing that the American civil war was about states’ rights.
NEVER STOP BEING LIKE THIS, ARADIA! And also please don’t claim that women who wear short skirts were asking for it.
God there’s a huge wall of pink and I’m so sick of Roxy being a shitty person I don’t think I can bear to read it.
Alt!Calliope is metal as fuck, I love her so much.
And then we cut from her entrance to John’s kid’s birthday party. S i g h.
I hear non-Hussie writers are saying that this wasn’t written so they could harvest the anguish of fans but seriously, what other explanation is there?
So I knew I was going to regret it, but I didn’t think I’d regret it this much.
Guys I can’t even with this shit. I’m pretty sure the Epilogue is trying to retroactively ruin Homestuck for me. Jane is stepping up her genocide, and Roxy is like No it’s fine she’s my BFF!
There is a lot more heterosexuality in the Epilogue than I was expecting and honestly that’s like 60% of my difficulty reading the damn thing.
I’ve just read all these damn stories so many times. I thought Homestuck was better than that. Because for so long, it was.
Jeez, John! She’s calling you because she wants to talk to someone before she dies. It’s not all about you!
Did Kanaya just turn tolerate into a euphemism for fucking? What a goddamn queen.
I LOVE MEENAH AND KARKAT SO MUCH. I’m pretty sure her being here is going to spell disaster for our Calliope, since it seems unlikely that we can have two rings of life in the same universe at the same time for long, but man I just want a thousand pages of dialogue between them.
Booooo for all these canon confirmations of physical traits. I miss the days when everyone had whatever body you imagined them with.
I mean this isn’t “canon” but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t mean that over in Meat Karkat’s height will be whatever the reader imagines.
I love the juxtaposition of Karkat being so incapable of talking to Dave that he literally runs away, and John calling him cool because of how he does it.
Lil Cal, right? She might call him “it” because he’s a puppet, but I can’t think of anyone or anything else that would fit this. I mean except Caliborn, which seems really unlikely. But Lil Cal has been around forever/outside of linear time, and he’s necessary for Caliborn’s masterpiece. And the Wiki suggests that he was on Earth C for Gamzee to dig up and give to Caliborn, soooo. Lil Cal.
Another thing I love about Homestuck. John has an idea, and then it’s reflected in the text itself. And then Earth C!(Vriska) has to put up with being put in a group with ghost!(Vriska). The most important Vriska is now secondary to some shitty teenager.
God the fourth wall breaking here is the best.
I think Vriska’s previous conversation was too heterosexual for me to realize that she’s using some of (Vriska’s) quirk and Kanaya’s. That’s so fucking adorable.
I am so proud of Rose, and so glad that she’s happy. Even if she had to become unimportant to canon to become so.
Oh man, those abused child feels.
JFC I can’t believe someone still hasn’t taken Roxy to task over the fact that her friend is genocidal and that actually is literally evil, and saying it isn’t evil makes Roxy a shitty person too. And also John being willing to let all that slide makes him a shitty person too?? Why is this not a thing?
I have absolutely warmed to this epilogue, but I am really uncomfortable that the protagonist isn’t treating the genocide as seriously as he should be, and outside of pages and pages back, none of the characters seem concerned. Not to say that in order to believe that the writers are good people they need to make a morality play, but couple that with the Condesce on Earth history that got released as a teaser that blamed Jewish people for the Holocaust and I’m really disinclined to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, y’know?
No lie, I’m skipping a lot of this because I don’t care about Roxy finding herself if she’s not finding herself to be a person who finds genocide evil.