laurenthefluteLeader of The ReturnersAustinRegistered Userregular
Excuse me guys I know we are Homestucking and that is important but I have had an absolutely miserable week and then this happened and it is going to be ok because goatmom is here
(at least I hope it is going to be ok but anyway I'm a huge dork, if that was ever in question)
Game Over was never the alpha timeline, remember? Aranea knocked everything into a doomed offshoot as soon as she claimed the life ring. She was convinced she could use her powers to "heal" the timeline and make a new alpha, because lord english defined what the alpha timeline was, and she thought that by creating something new and separate, she could free everyone from him.
And it was a good idea, but she lacked the ability to do it. But John didn't.
The John from that timeline, the doomed one, claimed mastery over the retjohn skills. As a result, John from every other timeline was killed off, merging every instance of john into one entity that could hop around the timeline at will, and drag in elements from doomed offshoots as necessary
the john that we stick with is the john form a doomed timeline. It didn't follow the prescribed rules of how Lord English dictated the "story" should go, which meant everyone was supposed to slowly die off before that strand of reality faded into obscurity. But John forced the issue, and replaced Alpha John, who died during the 3 year journey. And he decided that in the alpha timeline, vriska doesn't die. which has a cascade of effects that turns the entire story into a paradox. Because if Vriska doesn't die, Gamzee doesn't get to roam free. And if Gamzee doesn't get to roam free, he doesn't get to raise Caliborn. If Caliborn doesn't get raised, he doesn't win his dead session and become the Lord of Time, and doesn't set into motion the chain of events that drive the entire story. The claymation never happens because John's rendered Lord English non-canon. His influence is erased from the universe, which happens literally when Calliope obliterates the green sun. Vriska opening the juju was a formality, John used the weapon to destory LE the second he touched it.
Unlike time travel, retcon powers are allowed to generate time paradoxes. Karkat talks in the lab in act 4 about how the Ultimate Riddle is about predestination and inevitability, because since everything is a time loop, if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to at every given moment, nothing could have happened the way it's supposed to. That sort of predestination is Lord English's primary weapon, and it's the weapon that the homestuck juju made john immune to. that's why Collide ends with the window behind the curtains fading to static, because this timeline is no longer the "canon" story set out by Lord English, but a new canon willed into existence by John.
and then from there you can obviously map a whole bunch of thematic stuff about john growing up and learning how to self-determinate and etc. but logistically, that's what happened at the end of homestuck. John made Lord English non-canon, and his non-canon sister obliterated the part of paradox space that he'd operated in to erase his influence from ever having existed.
That has the kind of feeling that - well basically I'm sure Andrew (who is completely embedded in the story) would be like "yeah, obviously" and to a more casual reader it's like wait what
Game Over was never the alpha timeline, remember? Aranea knocked everything into a doomed offshoot as soon as she claimed the life ring. She was convinced she could use her powers to "heal" the timeline and make a new alpha, because lord english defined what the alpha timeline was, and she thought that by creating something new and separate, she could free everyone from him.
And it was a good idea, but she lacked the ability to do it. But John didn't.
The John from that timeline, the doomed one, claimed mastery over the retjohn skills. As a result, John from every other timeline was killed off, merging every instance of john into one entity that could hop around the timeline at will, and drag in elements from doomed offshoots as necessary
the john that we stick with is the john form a doomed timeline. It didn't follow the prescribed rules of how Lord English dictated the "story" should go, which meant everyone was supposed to slowly die off before that strand of reality faded into obscurity. But John forced the issue, and replaced Alpha John, who died during the 3 year journey. And he decided that in the alpha timeline, vriska doesn't die. which has a cascade of effects that turns the entire story into a paradox. Because if Vriska doesn't die, Gamzee doesn't get to roam free. And if Gamzee doesn't get to roam free, he doesn't get to raise Caliborn. If Caliborn doesn't get raised, he doesn't win his dead session and become the Lord of Time, and doesn't set into motion the chain of events that drive the entire story. The claymation never happens because John's rendered Lord English non-canon. His influence is erased from the universe, which happens literally when Calliope obliterates the green sun. Vriska opening the juju was a formality, John used the weapon to destory LE the second he touched it.
Unlike time travel, retcon powers are allowed to generate time paradoxes. Karkat talks in the lab in act 4 about how the Ultimate Riddle is about predestination and inevitability, because since everything is a time loop, if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to at every given moment, nothing could have happened the way it's supposed to. That sort of predestination is Lord English's primary weapon, and it's the weapon that the homestuck juju made john immune to. that's why Collide ends with the window behind the curtains fading to static, because this timeline is no longer the "canon" story set out by Lord English, but a new canon willed into existence by John.
and then from there you can obviously map a whole bunch of thematic stuff about john growing up and learning how to self-determinate and etc. but logistically, that's what happened at the end of homestuck. John made Lord English non-canon, and his non-canon sister obliterated the part of paradox space that he'd operated in to erase his influence from ever having existed.
i know the fandom is doing this a lot, but you don't have to tie yourself in knots to justify the ending. It can just...be a disappointment. Don't let a bad ending affect your mental mood.
Because, in the end, we still have smuppets and that's all that really matters.
i know the fandom is doing this a lot, but you don't have to tie yourself in knots to justify the ending. It can just...be a disappointment. Don't let a bad ending affect your mental mood.
Because, in the end, we still have smuppets and that's all that really matters.
i know the fandom is doing this a lot, but you don't have to tie yourself in knots to justify the ending. It can just...be a disappointment. Don't let a bad ending affect your mental mood.
Because, in the end, we still have smuppets and that's all that really matters.
Similarly, it's okay to like the ending.
And it's also okay to come around on something you used to not like after stewing on it
It's still not my ideal ending but I'm more okay with it now that I've refreshed myself more on A6A6
Though I still do stand by my statement that the story would've been better served by having more moments of dialogue punctuated by cool animation for the ending instead of just a big wordless animation
both cherubs carve out weird little pocket dimensions with stages on them that depict different versions of the story, situated in weird little spirals
caliborn's shows the claymation, the "lord english canon"
calliope's shows the retjohnned version of homestuck, the "john canon" that the alt-calliope and john worked together to create by deleting LE from the story
Oh hey, something I Just noticed about the ending.
The final page shows white curtains instead of red.
Just like the changed SBurb door at the end of their final session.
act 7 having white curtains has actually been hinted at since all the way back when disc 2 got discovered
Spoilers!
Maybe even a little earlier if you count Seer: Descend where Rose reaches a white model of Skaia after going through six green curtains (five of which are already open when she transports to that room).
Speaking of which oh geeze Rose replying with "There is no sign of Jack up here. Must be somewhere in the castle." upon checking her mom's corpse is chilling.
Oh hey, something I Just noticed about the ending.
The final page shows white curtains instead of red.
Just like the changed SBurb door at the end of their final session.
act 7 having white curtains has actually been hinted at since all the way back when disc 2 got discovered
Spoilers!
Maybe even a little earlier if you count Seer: Descend where Rose reaches a white model of Skaia after going through six green curtains (five of which are already open when she transports to that room).
Speaking of which oh geeze Rose replying with "There is no sign of Jack up here. Must be somewhere in the castle." upon checking her mom's corpse is chilling.
It's a really great touch
It's so small but it instantly tells you everything about her mental state and I love it
Oh hey, something I Just noticed about the ending.
The final page shows white curtains instead of red.
Just like the changed SBurb door at the end of their final session.
act 7 having white curtains has actually been hinted at since all the way back when disc 2 got discovered
Spoilers!
Maybe even a little earlier if you count Seer: Descend where Rose reaches a white model of Skaia after going through six green curtains (five of which are already open when she transports to that room).
Speaking of which oh geeze Rose replying with "There is no sign of Jack up here. Must be somewhere in the castle." upon checking her mom's corpse is chilling.
Well, actually
She says that when interacting with anything at all in the starting room.
That's one of my all time favorite pages, too.
I just replayed it, and it still holds up really well.
i know the fandom is doing this a lot, but you don't have to tie yourself in knots to justify the ending. It can just...be a disappointment. Don't let a bad ending affect your mental mood.
Because, in the end, we still have smuppets and that's all that really matters.
Similarly, it's okay to like the ending.
And it's also okay to come around on something you used to not like after stewing on it
It's still not my ideal ending but I'm more okay with it now that I've refreshed myself more on A6A6
Though I still do stand by my statement that the story would've been better served by having more moments of dialogue punctuated by cool animation for the ending instead of just a big wordless animation
I like the idea of what the ending is supposed to represent as explained by you
But the execution of it is complete and utter garbage
Hussie has not allowed anything to stand in the way of his creativity. Traditional story structure, brevity, clarity, internal logic, narrative convenience, he is willing to sacrifice all of it for whatever whim struck him in the moment. There are literally over a dozen ways to bring people back from the dead in Homestuck, and he kept adding new ones even through the last chapter. There are parallel dimensions, time travel, direct author intervention, literal fourth wall breaking, and so on. A cast of hundreds of characters, all of them with their own complex interpersonal relationships.
It was always a fools hope to believe that he would tie even a tiny fractions of the story threads together at the end. It was so easy to imagine how complex and fascination a final showdown in the style of Problem Sleuth would be when drawn on such an incredibly rich canvas, and the years ofbuildup only added to that. In the end it is very hard not to see the end of Homestuck as a failure, because one of the reasons I looked at the comic so generously was the belief that Hussie's mad genious would somehow let it all make sense in the end. Some of the weird story fragments would be tied up, character arcs would be completed.
Homestuck was always about the characters, and the ending almost completely ignores them. The ending was tidy and neat, when the rest of Homestuck was exactly the opposite. Where we envisioned a showdown of epic proportions, what we got was Vriska showing up and saving the day. Game over, the end.
It is so easy to see how this was the only realistic way Homestuck could end. It finally collapsed under its own weight, where no satisfying ending could be found anymore. That's why it feels like a failure. It wasn't the epic finale that what is arguably one of the most ambitious and insane creative project ever undertaken deserved. It was a bullet in the back of its head.
Posts
dave was ahead of the irony curb
(at least I hope it is going to be ok but anyway I'm a huge dork, if that was ever in question)
i get the ending now
http://www.audioentropy.com/
And it was a good idea, but she lacked the ability to do it. But John didn't.
The John from that timeline, the doomed one, claimed mastery over the retjohn skills. As a result, John from every other timeline was killed off, merging every instance of john into one entity that could hop around the timeline at will, and drag in elements from doomed offshoots as necessary
the john that we stick with is the john form a doomed timeline. It didn't follow the prescribed rules of how Lord English dictated the "story" should go, which meant everyone was supposed to slowly die off before that strand of reality faded into obscurity. But John forced the issue, and replaced Alpha John, who died during the 3 year journey. And he decided that in the alpha timeline, vriska doesn't die. which has a cascade of effects that turns the entire story into a paradox. Because if Vriska doesn't die, Gamzee doesn't get to roam free. And if Gamzee doesn't get to roam free, he doesn't get to raise Caliborn. If Caliborn doesn't get raised, he doesn't win his dead session and become the Lord of Time, and doesn't set into motion the chain of events that drive the entire story. The claymation never happens because John's rendered Lord English non-canon. His influence is erased from the universe, which happens literally when Calliope obliterates the green sun. Vriska opening the juju was a formality, John used the weapon to destory LE the second he touched it.
Unlike time travel, retcon powers are allowed to generate time paradoxes. Karkat talks in the lab in act 4 about how the Ultimate Riddle is about predestination and inevitability, because since everything is a time loop, if you don't do exactly what you're supposed to at every given moment, nothing could have happened the way it's supposed to. That sort of predestination is Lord English's primary weapon, and it's the weapon that the homestuck juju made john immune to. that's why Collide ends with the window behind the curtains fading to static, because this timeline is no longer the "canon" story set out by Lord English, but a new canon willed into existence by John.
and then from there you can obviously map a whole bunch of thematic stuff about john growing up and learning how to self-determinate and etc. but logistically, that's what happened at the end of homestuck. John made Lord English non-canon, and his non-canon sister obliterated the part of paradox space that he'd operated in to erase his influence from ever having existed.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
'course it still should've been wayyyyyy more explicit about like, any of that
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I think you're actually right
Finally.
more specifically,
that at one point, googling "formspring" returned Formspring's actual homepage as only the second result
the first, was the MSPA formspring
Tumblr | Twitter PSN: misterdapper Av by Satellite_09
baller
Because, in the end, we still have smuppets and that's all that really matters.
For example: Hussie nor MSPA show up in the formspring search results for me. Now, consider what this means about Google's view of yourself...
http://www.audioentropy.com/
D4V3 1S TH1S YOU?
WHY DID ROSE GROW UP WITH THE BUNNY FROM CON AIR
Tumblr | Twitter PSN: misterdapper Av by Satellite_09
WE WILL PROBABLY LEARN THE ANSWER THE NEXT TIME WE RECORD
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Similarly, it's okay to like the ending.
Tumblr | Twitter PSN: misterdapper Av by Satellite_09
had to put the bunny back in the plot
And it's also okay to come around on something you used to not like after stewing on it
It's still not my ideal ending but I'm more okay with it now that I've refreshed myself more on A6A6
Though I still do stand by my statement that the story would've been better served by having more moments of dialogue punctuated by cool animation for the ending instead of just a big wordless animation
http://www.audioentropy.com/
caliborn's shows the claymation, the "lord english canon"
calliope's shows the retjohnned version of homestuck, the "john canon" that the alt-calliope and john worked together to create by deleting LE from the story
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Just like the changed SBurb door at the end of their final session.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Spoilers!
Speaking of which oh geeze Rose replying with "There is no sign of Jack up here. Must be somewhere in the castle." upon checking her mom's corpse is chilling.
It's a really great touch
It's so small but it instantly tells you everything about her mental state and I love it
http://www.audioentropy.com/
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Well, actually
That's one of my all time favorite pages, too.
I just replayed it, and it still holds up really well.
I like the idea of what the ending is supposed to represent as explained by you
But the execution of it is complete and utter garbage
Hussie has not allowed anything to stand in the way of his creativity. Traditional story structure, brevity, clarity, internal logic, narrative convenience, he is willing to sacrifice all of it for whatever whim struck him in the moment. There are literally over a dozen ways to bring people back from the dead in Homestuck, and he kept adding new ones even through the last chapter. There are parallel dimensions, time travel, direct author intervention, literal fourth wall breaking, and so on. A cast of hundreds of characters, all of them with their own complex interpersonal relationships.
It was always a fools hope to believe that he would tie even a tiny fractions of the story threads together at the end. It was so easy to imagine how complex and fascination a final showdown in the style of Problem Sleuth would be when drawn on such an incredibly rich canvas, and the years ofbuildup only added to that. In the end it is very hard not to see the end of Homestuck as a failure, because one of the reasons I looked at the comic so generously was the belief that Hussie's mad genious would somehow let it all make sense in the end. Some of the weird story fragments would be tied up, character arcs would be completed.
Homestuck was always about the characters, and the ending almost completely ignores them. The ending was tidy and neat, when the rest of Homestuck was exactly the opposite. Where we envisioned a showdown of epic proportions, what we got was Vriska showing up and saving the day. Game over, the end.
It is so easy to see how this was the only realistic way Homestuck could end. It finally collapsed under its own weight, where no satisfying ending could be found anymore. That's why it feels like a failure. It wasn't the epic finale that what is arguably one of the most ambitious and insane creative project ever undertaken deserved. It was a bullet in the back of its head.
I've grown to love Homestuck for the gargantuan mess that it is.
All I wanted out of the ending was a fun resolution for the main cast and to see the bad guy get taken down. I'm pretty happy with what we got.