@littlewhitemouse Yes! Yes, that's exactly it! If bits of the ending we have were cut up and rearranged around the bits which I feel should have been in there it would have been great!
You really don't owe it to anyone to finish the fic. It might be best to just set the whole thing aside for a time. Talk to people you're working with and say you need some time to yourself. Don't bother with the thing at all. Look back at it again later and think about if you really actually feel you can write the thing.
So what you're saying is Spoiler: IM 50RRY It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all. (but for real, take care of yourself first. if you don't want to think about homestuck right now, you don't have to. you don't owe it to anyone)
For what it's worth, I still think he planned all this. He left Act 7 up as it is, then added an edit, "Oh, and if you're wondering about an epilogue... it might happen... not a huge priority... but keep watching for news." This wouldn't be the first time he's gleefully dicked with the fandom's emotions.
Hrmmmm. Makaras will definitely have to be tricksters of some sort. Which ups my trickster count to...Eight??? Nine? It's a big fucking number ok. And like five of those are psychopomps too. EDIT: Trickster mode will have to be added to mythstuck in some fashion too. AWW YEAH.
I already had to abandon it almost completely for a year because of family stress and moving home. I don't want to leave it too much longer :( I think I owe it to myself too. Significant amounts of it are written, it just needs the bits to be tied together and proofreading done. (The fic in question is Hivefled, if anyone's familiar. It's a non-SGrub AU so the canon doesn't really bear much on it, but just thinking about the comic at all is painful right now.) @Inkblot Here's hoping!
Personally, I suspect he wanted to get Homestuck to a state he could call "done" so he can actually take a break. And taking a break and then doing the ending would've made the really long pauses even longer. As it is, he barely got this ending done in time.
Yeah but still. If it's painful to even think about Homestuck how are you going to pull together a Homestuck fic? It sucks to have to let things sit after you already have, but still it might be best. Like maybe a week or so at the most?
Someone observed: "I’m glad Aradia finally got to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart."
plot bunny biting me, and now I want to reread the entire thing so I can see if it'd be thematically and plot-consistent. (as much as such a thing CAN be.) waaaaah I don't have TIME
Wait waIT YOU'RE RIGHT HE'S NOT DEAD HE'S oh fuck. Me too. I very strongly disagree. That's not stereotypical, that's real. Okay, so in classical works tragedy means a story in which the protagonist brings about his own downfall, and a comedy means what we today describe as satire. Gamzee is consistently equated with both. He's both fucking himself and not, because the circumstances that lead to his downfall are definitely his own concrete actions, aka. killing people and choosing an allegiance to the guy who comes with Bad Shit warnings plastered all over him and repeatedly beats him to a literal bloody pulp, but his circumstances are never quite under his control. It's a way of both condemning doing bad things even if you're in a bad place and recognizing that no one wants to be in bad places. And now I'm thinking about Trailerstuck again. Fuck, I love that fic to pieces.
And actually that's why I both love Gamzee and think his ending is perfectly acceptable. He didn't deserve the treatment he got, but that doesn't give him an excuse to be bad or worse to other people. Mmm complicated characters.
I like how there's no Act 8 because the only way for Vriska to win was to steal the spotlight from Gamzee and Aranea, drive this shit home, and be kept out of the victory prize.
Fuck it let's mythstuck. I've decided to actually start working on it. I GUESS. First bits are prayers. Behold. I guess. Prayer 1 Sovereign of Rams, Shepherdess of Stars and Fate, Wielder of the Thorns, you, o, Guide of the Soon-to-Dream carry on your great work, turning time and bringing ends. Give us over to the Shepherdess of the Dreaming and let our Time be swift. Take this, our gift, as you do your work and let our Time be swift. Prayer 2 Fates and Ancestral Lusii Six Hundred and Twelve in all Custodians of this world and all worlds The Queenly Beasts of Purest White Please look upon us favorably Please guard us mercifully Bear your pearly fangs at She The Great Witch, the Demoness Cover our tracks and cloy our scent as we hide Rear up and hiss as we fight O, Custodians, send her back Send her back to the Green Moon Tormenting us no more Tormented herself Prayer 3 I bow down, prostrating myself, to Empress. I bow down, prostrating myself, to Fate. I bow down, prostrating myself, to Lusii. I bow down, prostrating myself, to Ancestors. Here I burn these offerings, sending up the smokes. I sing, for protection from Time, to Fate. I sing, for protection from Time, to Lusii. I sing, for protection from Time, to Ancestors. Each of the three are crafted to ward off the Handmaid and her death bringing ways. Though all trolls even across the two empires are pretty damn well terrified of her their exact ways of warding her off vary. The first is an example of a prayer offered up by Handmaidist trolls, who are pretty poorly regarded. Kind of like how we view Satanists generally. Very negative sort of thing. The other two are examples of non-handmaidist trolls praying for protection. It is of note that the last one makes very specific mention of the Empress and mentions her above even Fate. Fate being a very big thing for trolls in general. Among the imperial troll cultures and imperial trollish religion the Empress basically takes the forefront of everything. She's basically the one considered to be in charge of making sure that Fate plays out as it is supposed to. Not all trolls are all that big on that shit though. Another thing of note where the Empress is concerned, given her role as the one who makes sure Fate runs as it should she is in some contexts considered the greatest servant. All trolls are servants to the Empire first and Fate second to varying degrees and it is the Empress who has the hardest job of them all. She is also the one who takes the brunt of things if shit goes south. A sort of sacrifice for the good of the species as a whole. An idea which plays into the trolls penchant for regicide, or whatever the fuck the queen variant of regicide is. Indeed, in some more nationalistic trolls the idea that pretty awful Empresses who were assassinated by an angry populace are vindicated through their deaths. And thus the Empress actually did no wrong because she is incapable of doing wrong. She is Empress after all and has the rarest of blood. Just Fate sucks and deemed that we needed a dead Empress to pay for your sins of being absolutely fucking awful adherents to your caste roles. And by contrast the Handmaid who is understood to be a burgundy blooded troll and thus the lowest of the low is considered an Empress in her own right by some. She plays are sort of dark pair to the Empress of the Alternian or Beforan Empires in these belief systems. While the Empress rules over the living trolls and the society, the Handmaid rules over the dead and Time. Though like the Empress she too is often thought as being the grandest and most bound of servants even in these cases. She is often not the sole person dealing with the dead though, there being as many as three Shepherdesses of Time. She is however the most principle of these though. Assuming the Handmaid is an Empress of course. Many imperial religion believing trolls view her as the servant of the White Demon of the Green Moon. One who is punished for her failures to end lives as any proper master does his slave. Though in all cases she is viewed as being a necessity to reality.
