Whelp, time to... go back to exactly what I was doin' before this upd8 happened. 8U Fancy things must be drawn and cosplays and fanfics must be made.
I'm happier with him taking his time to make an epilogue, with the pressure stress over, than, say, a flashforward John going to Can Town Elementary with his son Caliborn Slick Egbert-Lalonde-Pyrope.
I think I'm going to have to watch that a few more times to have an opinion on what just happened, and I have to get up for work in the morning. Damn. It has, however, been a wonderful ride.
Spoiler i think it's retcon rules. with regular retcons, a thing happens and it doesn't work with other things so they pretend it never happened and it's still the canon timeline. english exists for [reason] but [reason] also has nothing to do with his existence because retcon.
Incidentally, I'm holding out hope on the epilogue giving resolution to all those unfinished character arcs. Terezi's and Karkat's in particular, and the further repercussions of Game Over. (And maybe the "ultimate selves" thing. I thought for sure we were going to get a thing where alternate versions all got combined into one.)
Something that's been percolating in my head over the last week: What if reason Homestuck ended like it did is because the question at the heart of it isn't "How did they win?" but "Who are these people" and "What makes these people who they are?" Seen from that perspective, stuff like the Game Over retcon makes sense: It's not a matter of one answer being true or false or better or worse, but about how other people's presence (Virska) in their lives affected everything about who they became. Likewise with both versions of Calliope: It about how her having human friends affects her and changes who she became. With that in mind, the ending of Homestuck is not about the victory, but about "Okay, here's this moment, now how did all of them get here and how does who they are affect that?" Or, as Homestuck itself would put it: Who're these douchebags?
I am honestly fine with loose ends not being finished and not every storyline being neatly closed. And for things to just kind of be a confusing mess that we all must struggle to come up with an explanation for. I don't need endings. Endings aren't even real things that exist! It's like beginnings. We could argue about where Homestuck's plot truly began but could we find that genesis? Really? No. We'd just be pointing out arbitrary starting points based upon rules we've made up. To me it is just a very natural and fine thing to just not tie these things all neatly up. That Homestuck is dealing with a horrible mess of a multiverse and a massive retcon of an entire alpha timeline just makes that feel all the more fitting with how shit hasn't been sorted out all the way. How are you going to? The universe is massive! But then one of my favorite authors has never provided proper endings to her stories like. Ever. Another's work doesn't even really have anything that can be called an ending and others are also messy in many regards to ending.
Another relevant post I just saw on Tumblr: shatterstag everybody is acting just like an old school upd8 and its making me so happy to just see my dash filled with people crying and being confused messes asexualmew Lmao this truly is the essence of reading homestuck, isn’t it? Not the, “everything is so great, let’s meme everything” reactions, but the, “wtf nooooo I hate homestuck why am I even read this comic??? Also let’s meme everything and feel a lot of emotions loudly”
The work in question being Finnegan's Wake which literally does not have an ending. It just ends right back into the beginning of the book and it is the most beautiful thing EVER.
Apparently there will be an epilogue! Eventually. It's not high priority for Hussie but check the newspost!
@TheMockingCrows why is THAT what sets me off crying? nothing else has gotten to me, and now... this was it. goodbye, homestuck. you'll always be in my heart.
Spoiler someone on my dash pointed out:i believe all aspects except doom are there. they didn't bring doom to the new world.
