When I made this comic, the Wikipedia page for “woodlouse” had a really long “common names” section. In early 2023, somebody pruned the section with the reasoning that Wikipedia “isn’t Urban Dictionary” and most of the names were “unsourcable”, but the older version of the article is still accessible here.
Here’s the list taken from that version of the article:
armadillo bug
billy baker (South Somerset)
billy button (Dorset)
boat-builder (Newfoundland, Canada)
butcher boy or butchy boy (Australia, mostly around Melbourne)
carpenter or cafner (Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada)
Actually, I kind of think a fantasy epic that is entirely the "small town lads who brought down the Dark Lord and came back" having to deal with a Shire-stand-in that doesn't really believe them would be a great book. If LotR is WWI, this is Pat Barker's Regeneration
Not only were there fuckloads of snake cults, but you just know most of them were opposed to one another on doctrinal differences. Like early Christianity with (slightly) more bloodshed.
"We are the Holy Brotherhood of Divine Set. Not to be confused with the Sacred Brotherhood of Holy Set, from whom we split 120 years ago, over the right to attend Temple Rites with wet hair on holy days. Which we've since abolished."
I've read like one Conan book in my entire life, One of the later ones from the 80's, where Conan briefly becomes the king of a small kingdom, and the B plot is that he has to put down a snake cult that was started because some random ass kid found some relic in a swamp and got possessed.
Like that should give you an idea how easy it is for snake cults to spring up in the Conanverse, you can just be walking along and find some piece of crap on the ground and boom! Snake cult.
Now a black-robed figure scurried through the midnight streets, ducking from doorway to doorway, and reached a grim and forbidding portal. No mere doorway got that grim without effort, one felt. It looked as though the architect had been called in and given specific instructions. We want something eldritch in dark oak, he'd been told. So put an unpleasant gargoyle thing over the archway, give it a slam like the footfall of a giant and make it clear to everyone, in fact, that this isn't the kind of door that goes 'ding-dong' when you press the bell.
The figure rapped a complex code on the dark woodwork. A tiny barred hatch opened and one suspicious eye peered out.
"'The significant owl hoots in the night,'" said the visitor, trying to wring the rainwater out of its robe,
"'Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men,'"intoned a voice on the other side of the grille.
"'Hooray, horray for the spinster's sister's daughter,'" countered the dripping figure.
"'To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height.'"
""Yet verily, the rose is within the thorn.'"
"'The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy,'" said the voice behind the door.
There was a pause, broken only by the sound of the rain. Then the visitor said, "What?"
"'The good mother makes bean soup for the ernnt boy.'"
There was another, longer pause. Then the damp figure said, "Are you sure the ill-built tower doesn't tremble mightily at a butterfly's passage?"
"Nope. Bean soup it is. I'm sorry."
The rain hissed down relentlessly in the embarrassed silence.
"What about the caged whale?" said the soaking visitor, trying to squeeze into what little shelter the dread portal offered.
"What about it?"
"It should know nothing of the mighty deeps, if you must know."
"Oh, the caged whale. You want the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night. Three doors down."
"Who're you, then?"
"We're the Illuminated and Ancient Brethren of Ee."
"I thought you met over in Treacle Street," said the damp man, after a while.
"Yeah, well. You know how it is. The fretwork club have the room Tuesdays. There was a bit of a mix-up."
"Oh? Well, thanks anyway."
"My pleasure." The little door slammed shut.
The robed figure glared at it for a moment, and then splashed further down the street.
It can be fun to feel exceptional—to be the loophole woman, to have a whole power thing, to be an honorary man. But if you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven’t made any progress.
Aranea firmly believed that she could prevent the birth of Lord English and consequently also turn that doomed line into Alpha, that is, she trusted her abilities so much that she ended up overestimating herself and being widely surpassed and his grand plan ended up failing at the last minute, as we are told is typical of bearers of the light aspect.
However, do you at least believe that this thought from Aranea is a valid confirmation that in theory it is possible to overcome Lord English's control over the narrative?
Yes, in fact, I think it's kind of a clue that the way to do so is in fact using the powers of a Sylph! Just, a Sylph of Mind, not a Sylph of Light. And luckily for us, we have one on the team!
Now, Aranea is a terrrrrrrrible judge of character, so that's what makes her an unreliable narrator, but she's usually trustworthy when talking about factual events or tenets of reality, so I think we can trust her well enough when she says that Sylphs can "heal" and "nurture". In fact, I don't even think she's fundamentally wrong in her belief that a Sylph would be able to heal an offshoot reality into becoming the new alpha, or that this wouldn't be within her capabilities. Her main problem wasn't necessarily an incompatible aspect, although Light is definitely not the aspect best suited for the role, but the fact that she tried to do it alone despite not having the aspect suited for the job.
Time and Space are the two Big Deal Aspects, the ones whose fundamental rules everyone and everything else is beholden to. Even John - whose aspect represents freedom, escape, and choices - can't outrun Time - the retcon timeline that he creates is explicitly accounted for by LE, as it directly leads to his creation. Fundamentally, the entirety of the Alpha Timeline is tied to Lord English's creation - Caliborn is born on Earth C in the far future, and Lord English's meddling starts in Alternia's distant past. Aranea was never able to grasp the totality of his involvement (no character ever was), and so, was never able to hatch an actual plan to combat him, even if her aspect was up to snuff, or even if she brought along teammates that could shore up what she was lacking in.
In fact, as Caliborn outright says, he represents a force of inevitability. All events transpire in his favor, and consist of his being. He literally says out loud that he's responsible for everything that ever happens. Failure Is The Only Option: the timeline is doomed if all time loops don't close, and the biggest time loop of all is Lord English's existence within the story, which - via Lil Cal, Doc Scratch, and Caliborn - pretty much encompasses the entirety of the story's chronology. That's why this:
So.
How do you turn a situation like this around?
The way I see it, the requirements for creating a True Happy Ending are as follows:
1. The original alpha timeline cannot be disturbed or salvaged. It MUST exist exactly the way that it does, meaning all alpha!characters must perish within it. However, there is space in the unspoken, offscreen parts for the alpha!characters to still matter... but in order to keep Time stable, the alpha timeline must fundamentally not be changed.
2. Everyone has to make it to the end, alive and fully realized. And by "everyone" I do exclude the dancestors, they're the villains of the story tbh.
3. This new timeline must somehow result in a new universe. Let's call this new universe Universe D. A timeline is also doomed if it cannot continue to propogate reality.
4. Calliope/Caliborn cannot play the game only with each other. There's a heavy implication that Calliope/Caliborn are not discrete, and are actually one person with extreme bifurcation, and even share a single dreamself, meaning they're doomed to a single-player session no matter what if their session only has the two of them in it.
5. Hal has to become a Real Boy.
6. MSPA Reader must facilitate this outcome, the same way Hussie interfered with the original story. But where Hussie was ultimately a pawn to be disposed of when he outlived his usefulness, MSPA Reader must be acting in explicit defiance of LE. This is why I think a true HS fix-it fic can only work as an ARG.
Since I HIGHLY doubt I will ever be able to make this, I'll just write up the idea I've been noodling on and explain it here. I think I figured out how I'd solve this conundrum, and I think it would be the correct way.
The story would begin with a tumblr blog doing a Let's Read of Homestuck, elucidating many of the points I've made on this blog about Homestuck's themes and pointing out classpect stuff and endgame ships, to serve as kind of a primer/refresher for the audience, and make sure everyone is up to speed on what actually happens in Homestuck.
This blog would be named watershipRubricator and would would type like Hal does, if he didn't make computer jokes and sometimes used rabbit-themed turns of phrase (hopping mad, etc.) or puns and emoticons like this: =:]
However, after he reached the end of Homestuck, the blog would KEEP GOING. They would start to detail and transcribe conversations between the alpha!characters that don't actually exist, as if they're readable pages in the comic. These largely take the form of little vignettes, as the alpha characters realize how badly they've been played, how hopeless their situation is. They reflect on what they would've done differently, discuss their classpects and arcs, and some of them allude to leaving messages behind or otherwise trying to save others from their own fate.
At this time, WR would put a link to a neocities website in the description. A major theme of this ARG/fix-it fic is the utilization of fan spaces and fanwork, so the neocities page is deliberately designed to look like a 2000's throwback fansite dedicated to Homestuck, but there would actually be a bunch of standard ARG hidden things in the code.
Now, something I wanted to make sure of with this project was, with the exception of the Tumblr making regular updates and serving to give hints when people got stuck on puzzles, the ARG would otherwise have everything already completed at time of release, so anyone who wants to can play it from start to finish - you don't have to be there in realtime, and there are no timed events.
The neocities website would make reference to WR's sister having written an incomplete MSPFA, which they've stolen from her and uploaded to MSPFA unlisted.
The MSPFA would ape the format of regular Homestuck hardcore, though the art is drawn in a style suspiciously similar to Calliope's. All "next page" arrows are also rendered like so: => . Did you ever notice how Calliope never got a full, proper introduction page in Homestuck? We fix that here.
Your name is CALLIOPE. As previously mentioned, today is your birthday, which is a day of great cosmic significance! It is a day, you believe, that will spell great blessings upon the whole of existence, of which there is much to celebrate.
Equally celebratory, and somewhat related to that topic, are your INTERESTS. You have a great love for THE ARTS - it hardly matters to you which kind, you love them all! That being said, you are a MASTER SEAMSTRESS, especially for your ELABORATE COSPLAYS. You are also a terrible fan of HEROIC EPICS, especially when they involve INTERSPECIES ROMANCE, your most favourite of all being the tale of the twenty heroes - eight humans, twelve trolls - who fought against great adversity, only to meet an uncertain (but almost certainly tragic) fate. You have long entertained yourself by WRITING FANFIC and DRAWING FANART of your favourite characters, as well as your SELF-INSERT OC, Callie Ohpeee. You have COMPOSED A FEW FAN TUNES as well. You also have an interest in CELESTIAL BODIES and ASTROLOGY, and you like to believe that a grand and beautiful destiny for all creatures is WRITTEN IN THE STARS. In fact, you believe that MAGIC IS ALL AROUND YOU, and you like to muse that it just needs a little space to make itself evident.
Most of your time is spent in ABJECT LONELINESS, though you can sometimes pass the time by chatting with your BROTHER, who got into contact with you roughly two units ago. Your cheersign is uranianUmbra [UU] and you type with a gregarioUs tone in your favoUrite coloUr. It also happens to be the color of your own blood. How serendipitous!
You have known for a very long time that today, you would begin PLAYING A GAME, and that this game will supposedly result in the creation of an ENTIRELY NEW UNIVERSE. You hope to finally make some new friends once you have a universe to call your very own!
Speaking of, it looks like your game partner is messaging you now.
She is then messaged by someone who types like Doc Scratch: no username, white text.
??????????? began clearing uranianUmbra [UU]
Hello, Calliope.
I suppose today is the day we finally do this bitch.
UU: why, hello there, brother mine.
UU: i don't sUppose yoU'll finally tell me yoUr name, now that we're aboUt to embark on oUr grand qUest.
UU: and will yoU dispense with that white text already? it makes reading yoUr words so Unnecessarily difficUlt.
You could try turning on dark mode.
UU: this chat client has a dark mode?
No.
UU: :u
I'm here to go over the plan with you one last time.
UU: don't think i didn't notice yoU dodging my first qUestion.
We're aiming for a null session. That means you aren't prototyping your kernelsprite.
UU: yes, yes, i know!
UU: we have been over this many times, thoUgh yoU still refUse to tell me WHY we mUst initiate an Unviable session.
That's true. I HAVE remained opaque and inscrutable this entire time, haven't I?
UU: qUite!!!!!!!!!!!
That must be really hard for you.
Anyway, I need a bit more time to get everything set up.
Why don't you take one last look at your surroundings? Really drink it all in.
After all, today is the day that everything changes forever.
UU: i see that yoU remain steadfast in yoUr dedication to yanking my chain!
I can yank other things.
I'm chock-full of perfectly yankable anatomical features.
Shall I list them for you?
UU: please ensUre that my chain is the only thing yoU yank, actUally.
Suit yourself.
Oh, and just so you don't think I've forgotten.
I got you a birthday present.
UU: oh! thank yoU!
UU: erm...
UU: where is it?
Look outside.
=>
[It is out the window, far beyond the range of Calliope's chain.]
UU: that's well oUt of my reach.
Whoops.
UU: yoU've sent things to my exact coordinates before. don't pretend this was an accident.
You could say that you are...
House trapped.
And that it is time to initiate...
A prison escape.
You could call such a sojourn...
A muse adventure.
But yeah, later.
??????????? ceased clearing uranianUmbra [UU]
All very mysterious! It can be assumed that this Calliope seems to have never known Caliborn, and, what's more, the narration mentions that she's never felt sleepy before in her life when she goes to look at her sarswapagus. While the identity of white text guy is pretty obvious, the other mysteries continue to compile, as Calliope has been chained to this room all her life, and the chain is attached to the wall via some digitized apparatus that is currently switched to "on".
Seeing as she has no way forward, the MSPFA abruptly ends.
But that's not where the story ends. On the Neocities website is a page titled "Flip Off Switch". Pressing the switch causes a shitty PNG of a middle finger to appear, alongside deep fried text explaining that you have been flipped off. However, checking the filename for the middle finger will yield the link to a new unlisted MSPFA, where Calliope has been inexplicably freed from the wall and has retrieved her gift. I haven't planned this out enough to know what the gift is, so that's not really important. What's important is, Calliope and her brother explicitly say that neither of them unlocked her from the wall, a signal to the audience that their progress through the ARG, and the actions they take, explicitly affect the story being told. What's also important is, White Text Guy is "running late" (something that will become a pattern for him), so Calliope will be playing alone for a while. From here, White Text Guy drops some of the mystery:
He explains that they need to initiate a void session because a regular session wouldn't work for them anyway - neither of them were created via ectobiology, so there never was a chance at a winnable viable session, et cetera. Therefore:
That brings us to the second question I choose to answer, “what am i to do once i enter, dear sweet brother whom i love more than life itself?”
UU: :u
To which the answer is, isn’t it obvious?
A void session can’t be won without external interference.
UU: so we're inviting external forces into oUr session? how?
Dunno.
That's your job, not mine.
UU: bUt i'm only hearing aboUt this for the first time!
You'll be fine.
You don't need to do anything you weren't already going to do.
Don't you trust me?
UU: not even as far as i coUld throw yoU!
You break my mysterious, dubiously extant heart, you know that, sis?
But seriously, I have to go.
Take care.
UU: yes, see yoU later. ^u^
This is where my planning gets very loose. So, Calliope falls asleep somehow, which once more seems like the end of the MSPFA. However, something from this leg of the MSPFA would correspond to a puzzle on the neocities site, which would in turn provide the reader with an AO3 link to an AU fanfiction where Calliope's trollsona, Callie, meets Rose, Nepeta, and Jake at a tea party that's obviously a reference both to the tea party in A6A6A6, and also, very directly, Alice in Wonderland (book version) - Nepeta is Alice, Rose is the Cheshire Cat, Jake is the Mad Hatter... and Calliope is the Sleeping Dormouse. It becomes pretty obvious here that Calliope is having a dream in the dream bubbles, but it isn't very obvious what version of Rose, Nepeta, and Jake she's talking to. This isn't helped by the fact that Nepeta finds their tea party very familiar, and Rose is acting odd - calm, patient, and wise beyond her years. She alludes to there being a "plan," and shushes Jake before he's able to say Calliope's name (remember, saying a cherub's name wakes them up). Also Jake is acting like a total lunatic, as he proceeds to have a fight with Brain Ghost Dirk, but the fic is written from Calliope's POV, so she can't perceive him.
JAKE: Oh look at this, these tarts certainly look very scrumptious, too bad you dont exist or else perhaps i would serve you up a round of them.
JAKE: More tea for you miss nepeta? How about you miss rose? And you too of course, miss she-who-mustnt-be-named. And NOT you!
CALLIE: i have a fUll cUp at the moment, so -
JAKE: And how do you like your tea? Milk or sugar?
CALLIE: well, i woUldn't be opposed to some sU -
JAKE: Ha! You like your tea without additives you say? Perhaps because you know good and well that you cant add fake milk or unreal sugar to nonexistent tea!
ROSE: More empirically provable words have never been spoken.
JAKE: Oh and whats this? Some delightful little quiches? Sweet or savory? How about NONE!
JAKE: Because that is what you get when you dont exist is none quiches.
NEPETA: :33 < i am convinced you are sane jake
NEPETA: :33 < you really do not n33d to k33p proving it!
JAKE: Yes well. Thats good!
So yeah, anyway, Rose tells Calliope that she must venture out on a journey, and that Nepeta and Jake will prove integral to it, much to their surprise. Rose, however, will stay behind, making reference to Peter Pan by saying she will keep the light on in the window, like Mrs. Darling did, waiting for her children to return.
This fic would be the first in a series. It becomes pretty obvious that each one is a riff on a common type of AU - coffeeshop, high school, etc. - and each time, they meet some of the other characters, who have varying degrees of awareness that they're in Calliope's dreams, which are slowly revealed to be little pocket dimensions, like she created for herself in canon. For example, Aradia fully realizes what's going on and is playing along:
CALLIE: of coUrse, love. in that case, i will go ahead and have my UsUal.
ARADIA: ok
ARADIA: consider it on the house
ARADIA: because i dont know how to use a cash register
ARADIA: or a coffee machine
CALLIE: Um...........
CALLIE: i hope yoU are able to figUre it oUt! ^u^
ARADIA: me too
ARADIA: i cant afford to get fired
ARADIA: i think i owe student loans :D
Sollux also seems to be fully aware, and he's actually our first real hint as to which version of these characters we're dealing with, as he's horrified to discover that Jake doesn't seem to realize that he's dead:
SOLLUX: n0 y0u idi0t, bef0re y0u started dreaming, what's the last thing y0u remember!
JAKE: Um... its finding myself in a terrible raucous and jumping betwixt a foxy blue spider girl alien and my friend jane who had been turned into a frightful evil robot lady.
JAKE: I suppose i was impaled with a blade and severely wounded and this is all one transitory dream as my body heals.
SOLLUX: 0h my g0d, y0u d0n't even realize.
JAKE: Realize what?
SOLLUX: i can't fucking d0 this, i'm n0t fucking str0ng en0ugh, i'm demanding t0 speak with my manager.
He turns to the back and shouts.
SOLLUX: ED, get the fuck 0ut here and put me 0ut of my misery, i'm seri0us this time.
And Eridan has no fucking idea what's going on.
ERIDAN: can you keep it dowwn sol i got important managerial duties to be attendin to
ERIDAN: or at least i think i do
ERIDAN: i dont remember purchasin this establishment or hirin you for that matter but its fine wwhatevver
ERIDAN: oh hey jake
SOLLUX: actually, why did i d0 this, n0w i have t0 deal with TW0 idi0ts instead 0f 0ne.
And mostly these idiots just get into hijinks.
ERIDAN: im sayin shes got a skull like demeanor about her
CALLIE: i do not have a skull-like demeanor!
ERIDAN: and a serpents tongue too look at it
CALLIE: i do not!!!!!!!!!!!
NEPETA: :33 < wow so much is happening right now
Aradia has been watching through the window.
ARADIA: :D
Again, this is where my planning really starts to break down, but a few beats are for sure being hit:
- There are regular references to characters seeing Lil Sebastian out in the bubbles - in fact, Calliope is chasing after him when she stumbles across the tea party.
- The core gang of Calliope, Nepeta, and Jake is always introduced as "four people", except the fourth one "doesn't exist".
One of them was Nepeta, who was an advice columnist for the local newspaper, and one of them was Jake, whose actual employment status was perpetually in question, but money never seemed to be an issue for him, and Callie never felt the need to pry. The fourth person did not exist, but a seat had been pulled up for him, regardless.
- It becomes more and more obvious that they're talking to the GAME OVER timeline's characters, the ones that were rendered (irrelevant) by the retcon. For example, when they meet Terezi and Vriska, Vriska is described as having braids and tattoos and piercings, and she's also a lot nicer than alpha!Vriska.
- John and Dirk show up at one point and surprise everyone by still being alive - John still has his retcon powers, in fact, though he doesn't have full control over them.
- Roxy is conspicuously absent, with characters constantly mentioning that they haven't seen her around. At this time, Gamzee is also missing. I don't actually have a plan for her but I know she's doin' some sneaky Rogue of Void shit.
- Brain Ghost Dirk's presence starts to grow once Terezi is in the mix, because she can actually see him.
- The black hole fully exists, and it seems only the (irrelevant) characters have somehow managed to escape its all-consuming pull.
- Some of the post-canon stories WR was discussing on the Tumblr start to have crossover with the AO3 fics - things like Tavros actually escaping from the black hole (and by that I mean he runs away screaming and crying), or some of the (irrelevant) characters mentioning they met alpha!Terezi as she was searching the Furthest Ring for Vriska, or Davepeta completing a sentence that Nepeta starts. Cross-referencing these two texts provides clues for how to move forward on the neocities site, which is good, because...
LE interrupts the festivities. He cuts in halfway through the last of the AO3 fics to directly address the audience - he tells them he knows what it is that they're trying to do, that he's accounted for their useless struggling. He taunts the reader for having hope and thinking a happy ending is even possible and shuts down the fanfic.
Piecing together the stuff on the Tumblr blog with the AO3 fics provides the next leg of the MSPFA.
Now, this is where my planning fully disappears, and I only have some messy notes.
First, I want GAME OVER!Condy to show up to be a final boss. This is actually why White Text Guy has been typing like Doc Scratch - he knows the fact that he's typing like her old employer/slavemaster would make her balk at the mere sight of him, and it afforded his and Calliope's conversations some privacy. When it stops mattering, he switches to typing in candy red, his favorite color.
Second, obviously, White Text Guy, Lil Sebastian, WR, and Brain Ghost Dirk are all secretly Hal, at different points along his timeline. Also, he gets the name Dell when the characters decide to make him Real.
I also want the dancestors to show up to try and hijack Calliope's session, somehow. Maybe via Condy using burgundy psionics to hire them as a ghost army. Either way: antagonists, though I also want them to experience catharsis, realize what shitheads they are, and willingly give up the new universe and turn on LE. (They get reincarnated into the new universe as wigglers with no memories, like, clean slate for them, a chance to try again.)
It turns out being (irrelevant) is vital to their ability to reach a happy ending; they're free from the karma that usually chews up doomed characters and shackles the alpha timeline, though they still have to find some way to legitimize and stabilize their timeline in order for it to usurp the actual alpha timeline.
I don't know exactly how everybody gets revived, but a few things are almost certainly involved: the creation of a juju, Nepeta's ability to separate souls that get combined, and Ultimate Selfhood.
At some point, Calliope sees that Derse's moon has no towers on it, which confuses her greatly, since this clearly isn't a single-player session, but there's only one tower on Prospit. It turns out that Dell - like Aradia - by virtue of his not-quite-real existence prior to the game, doesn't actually have a tower; his dreamself has instead been comatose on his sacrificial slab the entire time. When it's destroyed by Condy during the boss fight, he Ascends... after she's already been defeated. This is both the moment he enters the Medium as well as the moment he becomes Real. He truly was LATE AS FUCK.
At some point, there's a reveal that Caliborn, while he was in the dreamself, was accidentally killed by a meteor that MSPA Reader launched, this being why Calliope grew up never knowing him. His soul is probably included in the LE/Condy posse.
Kanaya heals the black hole, and Calliope confronts the Caliborn that constitutes LE, as the climax to her arc; using the power of friendship, she eats his soul and this gives her wings, god tier, and full, true predomination.
Anyway, the characters all reach god tier/ultimate selfhood, figure out their emotional issues, and are able to claim the Ultimate Reward, finally able to have a happy ending in Universe D.
And this is the last twist in the ARG - the final MSPFA is of Dell receiving an intro.
Your name is Dell Strider. You used to be a COMPUTERIZED PAIR OF SUNGLASSES, and then you were a ROBOT BUNNY, and for a while, you were a DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. But now you are a REAL BOY, who is ALSO A BUNNY, and you intend to stay that way.
You are pleased to find that you have retained your SUPERCOMPUTER INTELLECT throughout your various incarnations, and you primarily use that intellect to MEDDLE IN OTHER PEOPLES' BEESWAX. You like to PLAY GAMES, especially ROLE PLAYING GAMES. To you, reality is pretty much the most elaborate role playing game of all. You like to lay out elaborate schemes that rely on SUBTLE MANIPULATION and CASCADING CONSEQUENCES, and then you LIKE TO WATCH as your machinations bear fruit. You suppose that this makes you KIND OF A CREEP, but you do it with such airy grace that people tend not to mind. You are a DEDICATED REALIST, and have nothing but scorn for the concepts of destiny or fortune. Reality, you believe, is something that is DELIBERATELY FORGED, piece by piece and choice by choice.
You are blessed by a life full of FRIENDS, SIBLINGS, AND/OR UNWITTING PAWNS, and you love them all, even if your primary form of interaction with them is TROLLING THE EVER-LOVING SHIT out of them. Your clearsign is watershipRubricator [WR] and you type with a condescending tone in your favorite color. Recently, it became the color of your blood. You wouldn't have had it any other way.
You just got done with playing a game that resulted in the CREATION OF AN ENTIRELY NEW UNIVERSE, and now you are taking some time to figure yourself out. There is also ONE MORE THING THAT YOU MUST DO FIRST.
It looks like your old game partner is messaging you. Just as you knew she would.
What follows is a conversation between him and Calliope, where Calliope is sending him all the art he requested for a secret project, and she asks about it. He explains that he's about to make them "Real", which confuses her; he explains by asking a question: "when does a fanfic become as canon as the canon work?"
If you've been reading this blog, then you know, it's when the audience believes it to be.
But it goes a little deeper than that here. This adventure would not be possible without the audience's intervention and participation. After all, for this bizarre timeline to exist at all without being inherently doomed by Caliborn's death - pay attention now - someone had to Scratch his session.
Yeah, this Calliope is from Universe C2.
And the story has made clear that the alpha!alpha kids who were stranded on LOMAC ended up going to Yaldabaoth - Jane revived him, and Dirk spoke to him. And Yaldabaoth basically told them "tough shit" and offered two kinds of mercy kill, so, it couldn't be them.
And even at his best, John needs guidance to use his retcon powers well, so he couldn't just zap his way into LOCAM at the exact right time to do the Scratch, even if he did know to do so.
Nobody else can reach LOCAM because navigation of the Furthest Ring is basically impossible; it's already stretching it that Calliope's Muse of Space powers + Aradia + Sollux + Rose can create a breadcrumb trail of subspaces to guide them back to Calliope's session.
So the task falls to you. You and... Jasprosesprite^2, who has been in hibernation, a sleeping princess, waiting for you to wake her up. She dies in the energy blast, which is the identity of the Rose at the tea party, the one who seems to know more than she should.
In other words, this entire universe only exists due to MSPA Reader's intervention. It only exists because you allowed it to exist.
But how did you get called into it in the first place?
hope makes (potentialy) fake things real also applies to your theory and series of essays.
when did you start getting the overall concept?
Yeah, that's why I've continued banging on lol. If I never write a fix it fic then this will be my next best thing.
So, you can kind of tell from my URL, but I started Homestuck as an Eridan fan. No deep reason behind it, I just liked his design, because I was like... actually ten years old during HS's original run? And I was posting about it back then (I dug up some old forum posts during Act 6) and literally everything about the comic went over my head, as it did for most people.
I've always been pretty fandom-averse, and Homestuck's fandom was infamously Awful (was there, can confirm), so I didn't stick around and basically forgot all about it until a couple years ago.
And then a couple years ago, in a totallg unrelated server, I met an Eridan superfan who pretty much talked about him at every opportunity, to the point he became kind of a meme. And, interest piqued, I decided to revisit my childhood and take a look through Eridan's chatlogs and stuff... and realized that this person was basically entirely wrong about Eridan LOL. But they were really deeply invested in their personal interpretation, and there wasn't anyone else I had in my life to talk about how I noticed that Eridan is like... not even casteist really? So I made this blog and got into Homestuck RP.
Which uh, yeah, I am still deeply fandom-averse, but I like me a spot of RP. You might have seen me around, though I tend not to stick around for long lol. Anyway.
As I got into the weeds of RP, and started looking around at the other characters, I started realizing something. Everyone was wrong about every character basically 100% of the time???
People played Feferi and Kanaya as Nice Girls when they're both mean as fuck. They treated Rose as genuinely neglected and traumatized when that was basically something she completely made up so she could feel more special (and is partially why Dave, the actually traumatized and abused kid on his team, felt awkward talking to her about his legitimate abuse). Nepeta didn't have her hemoequality anarchosocialist bent, people simply did not understand Gamzee's drama, everyone shits on Cronus all the time even though I'd honestly say that several dancestors are just as bad as he is, if not worse. So on and so on and so on.
I've always been a bit of a canon purist (in my other fandoms, i almost exclusively write canon-compliant genfic lol), and the more I cited my sources, the more I actually Read Homestuck, the more I was like... hold up, everything in here is insanely watertight. People clown on Homestuck all the time to say that it's poorly written or poorly thought out, and consistently, over and over, that was not what I was seeing. Characters were written very subtly and very consistently, with strong individual voices and very traceable motivations. Themes carried through and were consistent from scene to scene, act to act. Hussie's ability to cram exposition into the story in ways that didn't make you feel like you were reading exposition was masterful - like, genuinely, some of the best I've ever seen. Like my actual opinion of Hussie is that as a writer, they're a fucking genius. James Joyce or David Foster Wallace levels, easily.
I also got my hands on the book commentary, which slowly solidified these opinions, because hot fucking damn Hussie loves to talk shop about themes and metanarrative and symbolism. Nothing in Homestuck is a fucking accident, you guys, none of it. "I warned you about the stairs" is literally a reference to Alice in Wonderland (the book).
And here again being an Eridan fan helped me unlock the secrets of Homestuck. At this time I still believed that the ending got shitty because Hussie got mad at the audience and decided to pick up his ball and go home. But this was seeming increasingly like a Bad Take, because here Hussie was in the book commentaries, written after the ending of Homestuck, not only talking in depth with fondness about all this insane symbolism and shit he'd put in, but also, crucially...
He hadn't given up the act.
He was still playing the CHARACTER of Andrew Hussie, the biased idiot who gets shot and killed by LE in-universe. What was more, he was explaining the bit, one moment academically positing that his character "fell in love" with Vriska as a symbolic gesture of an author lavishing particularly plot-shaking characters with attention, the next moment shitting on Tavros and completely taking Vriska's side.
A really noticeable - like REALLY noticeable - facet of character!Hussie's bias is his dislike of Eridan so great that he literally seems incapable of noticing pale EriKar moments, to a comedic degree. Like this man can YAP, dude, his commentary is incredibly dense, he has like paragraphs and paragraphs to say about nearly every page. And yet he would go COMPLETELY SILENT when Eridan showed up to do his thing. Like, there are instances where his commentary goes:
AH: haha look at eridan hes so shitty and has no friends and nobody cares about him
karkat: hey eridan my good friend whom i care about
AH: ...
There's a bit in Returniabound where Eridan starts talking about a prophecy handed to him by the angels, and Hussie goes "something important is happening! wait, false alarm LOL, eridan is just talking 🥱" and a part where he points out how Karkat is doing that thing where he compartmentalizes past/future versions of people as a coping mechanism, telling past!Gamzee that future!Gamzee's murder spree "barely has anything to do with [him]", only to say nothing when LITERALLY A PAGE LATER Karkat tells Eridan "you are dead to me. past you, future you, and ugly scarfneck douchebag hipster you. oh wait, i forgot, all of the yous are that you". Like it is EGREGIOUS.
And this was odd to me, because why keep up the charade if the game was not still afoot?
And when I started looking at Homestuck on THAT level. With the idea in hand that the narration itself was designed to fuck with me. That the story itself was trying to trick me. Suddenly, it all started making sense.
Hussie's joking-but-not-actually struggle for dominance over the narrative with Caliborn's multiple incarnations. The fact that you can actually figure out the classpects and endgame ships, even though characters never do + the beyond canon team seemingly was never told outright what they were. The constant references characters make to being sabotaged or set up or part of a conspiracy that they never quite seem to overcome. Why John got so comphetted in the ending, or why DaveKat became canon (HINT: who in the story has been explicitly shown as treating women as rewards for their male protagonist, and liking DaveKat, who is also coincidentally the guy who says he has commandeered the narrative?).
And then I started looking into the bunny, and then realized Hal was also kind of the bunny, and then realized Hal and Dirk were discrete entities, and then realized oh my fucking god, Hal is the actual key to Homestuck, and nobody but me has realized this.
"You two can be the family you were always meant to be, free from the sins of generations past, if you let me do what needs doing."
Scarlet Hollow Episode 5 releases in February, on Friday the Thirteenth. The day before Valentine's.
A huge shout out to our friends at SmallBu for animating this trailer!
Fruits of today's livestream! Tony presented me with a Chapter 1 scenario and then challenged me to come up with Chapter 2 and 3 designs that would branch from it.
What if you went down unarmed and just told the Princess everything, and you managed to work together against the Narrator to get her out of the cabin earlier than any other route?
Similar to The Stranger, which would be its sister chapter, you are able to glean that she changes based on perception, where your own actions shape her. But instead of that going out of control like it does in The Stranger, you can try to work together to make her something that can tear the Narrator from your mind and free you both.
That leads to either The Horde or The Singularity, the latter of which is a fusion Princess with The Stranger. (Chat requested I draw her chibi form too, probably to torment me lmao)
Many of the Chapter 3 princesses are meant to have echoes of the Shifting Mound, and I would say this one certainly does XD
This would also mean we would want to add a standalone Chapter 3 for The Stranger. So what if the Voice of the Contrarian was able to help you "put her back the way she was?"
So you accidentally implode the cabin with you inside, everything goes dark, and you die. Waking to Chapter 3: The Cabin.
The whole cabin is Princesses now!
We aren't doing any more DLC for Slay the Princess, so these will remain as sketches :] But these were so fun!! I didn't know if I was going to be able to ideate a whole Princess line live and get anything good out of it, so I am happy with these.
Once the VOD is up, you can see our design/idea process in real time >:3
dunno if u still talk classpect stuff but in the off chance u do, mind talkin abt the knight of blood? i feel like i understand the class and aspect on their own and how they apply to karkat but im kinda shaky on the general arc and powers and what karkat’s specific fulfillment of it would be. if u don’t do these anymore then tell us about 2 characters u would’ve liked to see interact more!
Blood is about bonds and relationships, but perhaps more esoterically, destiny and fate. Now, the concepts of destiny and fate are very strange in a work like Homestuck, which places so much emphasis on choices and free will (which are ideas represented by Breath, Blood's yin-yang opposite), which is why I recommend everyone go watch Serendipity, Karkat's favorite movie, which basically serves as Homestuck's thesis on how the concept of fate ties into its greater cosmology.
The fundamental concept of how fate works in Homestuck is tied into its ideas regarding selfhood, and how selfhood influences choices. As Aranea explains to Terezi, while anybody can theoretically make any choice at any time, they're ultimately fundamentally limited by the kinds of choices they WOULD make. The concept of Ultimate Selfhood further reinforces the idea that every character has a fundamental "them-ness" that is immutable and eternal, preferences included.
Naturally, this means that whilst any character possesses the innate freedom to do anything, certain choices will result in more or less favorable outcomes. Kanaya can give up on making clothing, but this would obviously be bad for her emotionally, because she loves fashion. John could become an accountant, but this would be a miserable outcome for a guy who is probably not doing well in math class. Dave and Karkat can have a throuple with the Mayor, but this doesn't mean they're particularly healthy or good for each other.
This is the first way that Serendipity raises the conversation on destiny vs. free will.
Jonathan: Where did you find this place?
Sara: I first came in because of the name. Serendipity. It's one of my favorite words.
Jonathan: It is? Why?
Sara: 'Cause it's such a nice sound for what it means: a fortunate accident. Except I don't really believe in accidents. I think fate's behind everything.
Jonathan: Oh, you do? Fate's behind everything?
Sara: I think so.
Jonathan: Everything's predestined? We don't have any choice at all?
Sara: No, I think we make our own decisions. I just think that fate sends us little signs, and it's how we read the signs that determines whether we're happy or not.
Jonathan: Little signals. Fortunate accidents. Lucky discoveries.
There are, ultimately, "right answers" for how the characters should end up. If you pay close enough attention, you can genuinely figure out who their soul mates are, how their character arcs "should" conclude, what their powersets would be if unlocked all the way.
But then, if there is such a thing as a "correct" way to be, then why are freedom of choice (Breath) and the karma of choices (Mind) aspects of equal importance?
Well, here's what Serendipity has to say about that.
Eve: Sara, you know, it's a wonderful thought. The idea that all of life, that every event, is all part of some master plan designed to lead us to our universal soul mate. But if that's really true, then what's the point of living? Of making decisions? Hell, why should we even get up in the morning?
Sara: For the cake?
Eve: No, not for the cake. It's so that you make mistakes. Mistakes like this trip. And if you're smart enough, you learn from your mistakes. You figure it out - you think - you realize that life isn't some elaborate stage play with directions for the actors. Life's a mess, Sara, it's - it's chaos personified.
Sara: I have to give it all up now, don't I.
[...]
Eve: It's not giving up, it's growing up.
This sentiment is, in fact, echoed by Hussie himself, as the Narrative Prompt:
Anyway, sometimes when Mario's running sideways he gets a star that makes him magic and invincible.
OH. YOU MEAN HE BECOMES TRICKSTER MARIO.
Yes, but less stupid.
So for a while he becomes flashy and hyperactive and nothing's challenging anymore.
He just starts barreling over mushrooms and leaping over pits as fast as he can, then gets to the end and jumps on the flagpole and that's it. Mario "wins".
But the point is, he didn't really win. That magic star was actually devastating to his development as a human being.
WHY.
Because he skipped over many critical trials on his spiritual journey.
Mario NEEDS to stomp on all those mushrooms. He NEEDS to bonk those bricks with his head, for the sake of his personal growth.
By using the star, he is denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.
There is inherent value to making mistakes, to false starts, to stumbling off your path, to taking detours and stalling in place and dating the wrong person. It's through these mistakes that we learn, we grow, we mature, we become kinder, we become able to discern good from bad, right from wrong. We discover what matters to us, what's right for us, what's good for us. What it is that's worth fighting for, and what it is we ought to let go.
And what Blood represents is the promise that there is also something beautiful waiting for you at the end of that journey. That true happy endings can exist, that true love/hate can exist, that the world can be a better place. And this is why the concept of destiny is so foundationally tied to relationships with other people. In the same way a universe can't be created without at least two players, we can't reach the happy ending alone. It's a group effort. It has to be.
These themes are reflected in the personality traits held by Blood players - the innate sense they have that destiny exists gives them a tendency to be bossy, controlling, holier-than-thou, mother-knows-best types; the emphasis on bonds and relationships gives Blood players an innate interest in other peoples' beeswax, and their driving sense of fate tends to make them self-important - but not selfISH. Blood players feel a great deal of responsibility, not just for themselves and their own actions, but for everybody around them. Karkat blames himself for his team killing each other, and indeed, every bad thing that ever happens, and Kankri feels compelled to provide his team with "spiritual guidance".
Now, as for the Knight side of things, it's a little easier to explain. Knights represent the most typical "heroic" character arc, especially some of the earliest two steps in the Monomyth: The Call to Adventure and The Refusal of the Call. Knights often have some great destiny promised to them - Karkat is the Second Coming of Troll Jesus, prophesied to bring equality and forgiveness among all bloodlines, and Dave is cosmically destined to defeat Lord English.
To go with how straightforward their archetype is, their relationship to their aspect is also one of the most straightforward in the series. Knights wield their aspect like a weapon or a tool, as Aradia tells Dave, and more than that, are actually innately drawn to their aspect: I think I've proven by now that Karkat's love of romcoms is tied directly into Blood and what Blood represents; Dave's love for rap and fossils and shit like that is innately tied to being a Time player. Even Latula gets in on this one a little, since she innately understands karma as a result of being a Mind player.
However, the crux of the Knight arc is insecurity: some deep anxiety, imposter syndrome, and/or self-loathing type feelings make the Knight, for whatever reason, feel like they can't measure up to the ideal hero they're supposedly destined to become. This leads to them deliberately trying to distance themselves from their true self - in other words, their aspect. Dave pretends to be a disaffected cool guy who doesn't give a fuck, and it's actually a running gag that he'll say "ain't nobody got time to read allat" only to reveal that he has read and retained all of it, and will even chastise people for not doing so (Time governs minutiae and details). Latula pretends to be a happy-go-lucky idiot who likes and is friends with everybody, especially the team's shittiest members, opposite Mind's cunning, sense of justice, and judgement. And Karkat becomes irresponsible, dismissive of others, and insistent that he doesn't like or need his friends, but we all know how he really feels.
And the problem is, taken to its extreme, that Refusal of the Call becomes the Knight's whole drama. Latula completely refuses to enact consequences on anybody on her team, Dave at one point tries to give up on fighting LE and even to give up on time travelling, and Karkat decides to completely defer his leadership duties and responsibilities to Vriska, and winds up being completely out of the loop.
And this is a HUGE problem, because Knights are also leaders. "Leader" is one of the themes that ties them together with Maids, in fact. Knights are steadying hands, guiding forces, and their straightforward relationship with their aspect means that they can very easily bring it to heel. When they choose to lay their weapon down, whoever wants to pick it up can run roughshod with it unapposed. With their team's Mind (karma, consequences, judgement, reality) player doing nothing to help the situation, the Dancestors end up on the worst possible route. With the Knight of Time giving up against Lord English, control of time is ceded completely to his authority. And with the Knight of Blood - destiny, bonds, fate, and friendship - choosing to no longer fight for their happy ending?
KARKAT: I AM ENTIRELY AND SINGULARLY BAFFLED THAT IT COULD STILL EVEN *OCCUR* TO ANYONE TO ENTERTAIN THE NOTION THAT I MIGHT STILL BE PLAYING *ANY* ROLE EVEN WITHIN SNIFFING ORBIT OF A LEADERSHIP POSITION OF THIS RIDICULOUS PARTY.
KARKAT: WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I DID *ANYTHING* OF A LEADER-LIKE NATURE, WITHOUT BEING TRUMPED BY VRISKA'S MACHIAVELLIAN LIMELIGHT GLUTTONY?
KARKAT: OR FOR THAT MATTER, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THERE WAS ACTUALLY ANYTHING LEADERY *TO* DO, THAT DIDN'T INVOLVE SNUGGLING UP ON THE COUCH TO WATCH "GOOD LUCK CHUCK" FOR THE FIVE HUNDREDTH TIME?!
KARKAT: I HAVE SERIOUSLY JUST BEEN ASSUMING HER COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF ALL LEADERSHIP DUTIES WAS SOME FAIT ACCOMPLI SHIT FOR THREE SOLID YEARS, AND HAVE SINCE BEEN ENJOYING THE PEACE AND QUIET OF ZERO RESPONSIBILITIES, WHICH IS WHY QUITE FRANKLY, I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO KEEP MY BLOOD PRESSURE DOWN, AND NOW RESEMBLE THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF PEACE AND FUCKING TRANQUILITY WHICH PRESENTLY BASKS BEFORE YOU IN A STATE OF FROTHING, EUPHORIA-HOBBLED TURDVANA!!!!!!!!
There's a point where the characters discuss the topic of "who should open the door to the Ultimate Reward", with characters naming Karkat without really being able to elucidate why. It feels appropriate to them, and they weakly justify it as it originally being him who would've claimed the Universe B reward, if he hadn't been interrupted.
But here's why: Karkat would have sealed their fates. I think it's enormously important that he DIDN'T claim the Ultimate Reward, extra evidence that the shitty trajectory they all wind up on is something that can - and must - be overturned.
Breath players are easily swayed - and by the yin-yang nature of aspects, that makes Blood players uniquely resilient to outside interference. Karkat mentions that "warrior spirit" strikes him as an intrinsic value to Blood, and he's right - a core component of Blood is a staunch and unshakeable understanding of righteousness - Blood does, after all, govern as close to an objectively "good" future as it gets.
And that's why LE, who has always been in control of the narrative, must crush him. Karkat's arc is functionally one of being pummelled into accepting irrelevance and giving up on the future. This is actually an enormously difficult task - even in the Game Over timeline, he remains defiant to the end. This is why LE's grand plan involves Vriska's revival. Post-Retcon Karkat outright states that a huge contributing factor to his surrender is that she's spent the past three years relentlessly stealing his leader-y spotlight. To the very end, LE has not stopped using Terezi and Vriska as pawns through which he manipulates the rest of reality.
But even then, it doesn't work all the way.
KARKAT: I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO EARN THE RIGHT TO INHERIT THIS UNIVERSE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.
KARKAT: NOT JUST GET DRAGGED INTO IT ON THE LOOSE FABRIC OF EVERYONE'S FUCKING PAJAMAS.
KARKAT: IT ALSO FEELS IMPORTANT TO JUST
KARKAT: I DON'T KNOW
KARKAT: STAND THERE WITH MY FRIENDS.
KARKAT: THEY'RE RISKING THEIR LIVES, AND THEY MAY BE MORE SUPERNATURALLY RESILIENT OR WHATEVER, BUT HEY.
KARKAT: I SHOULD BE RISKING MINE TOO.
KARKAT: TO AT LEAST SHOW I'M THERE WITH THEM.
KARKAT: AND WHO KNOWS, MAYBE A MOMENT WILL PRESENT ITSELF...
KARKAT: WHERE I CAN DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT.
KARKAT: LIKE NUDGE SOMEONE OUT OF THE WAY OF A RANDOM FLAMING FUCKBALL JUST IN TIME.
KARKAT: OR SOME OTHER SMALL THING ACTUALLY WITHIN MY ABILITY.
KARKAT: MAYBE I'LL DIE IN THE PROCESS OF SAVING SOMEONE MORE CRUCIAL TO VICTORY?
KARKAT: IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A PART OF THIS, SO BE IT.
KARKAT: I'M IN.
KANAYA: Thats Why Youre Our Leader Karkat
KARKAT: I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING LEADER!!!
KANAYA: Statements Like That Are Also Why Youre Our Leader
Karkat is the weakest fighter on his team, but everyone - from the casteists to the humans - naturally defer to him, despite their constant mockery. They do this because it's pretty fucking transparent that, in spite of all his bluster, he cares so fucking much about them. Of course Blood players are the weakest - they represent the fundamental truth that we can't go it alone. Of course their powers aren't obvious - happy endings only arrive at the end. The Blood player's job is to hold fast as a bulwark, a last stand, a figure of absolute conviction that a happy ending is coming, if only we can hold out and care for each other. If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
So yeah, I dunno, I guess the obvious "good ending" to his arc would be the obvious, figuring out that that's what his aspect means, taking leadership back, becoming the team combat strategist (the position Vriska usurped), and setting everyone up for success.
Something present throughout Homestuck is this counterbalancing duality between childlike idealism and adult-like cynicism. There's this idea that many characters start out with naïve beliefs about heroism, destiny, et cetera, and that these beliefs are flimsy and weak and substanceless. Characters often abandon these ideals over the course of "growing up", opting instead for bleak and cynical nihilism, often represented by the outright shirking of tropes and story conventions.
But...
Is that fine? Is it really okay to say, well, happy endings are lame and for losers anyways, and being a hero sucks and who cares, and why does it matter if we all stop fighting evil?
Is it really okay to just give up on a better future, and being better versions of ourselves?
Is it really okay to stop trying?
Jonathan: Maybe this is all just one big maze designed to lead us right back to where we started.
It isn't wrong to be idealistic, to have faith, to have hope, and to wish for a better future. The same way it isn't wrong to enjoy happy endings, or to ultimately adhere to the Standard Heroic Tropes. They became codified as tropes for a reason. It turns out that self-improvement really is a lot like returning with the elixir. But it's also not wrong to be cynical, realistic, and pragmatic. To recognize that words are cheap and idealism with no substance or plan is practically worthless. It's cynical to say that you have to roll your sleeves up, and prepare to put in some gruelling work, to the point where the end goal stops seeming worth it.
But it'd idealism again to insist on seeing that end goal anyway, and believing that it WILL be worth it.
You need both. That's what maturity is. That's the core of Blood.
when you say hussie is keeping to homestuck’s artistic integrity by having lord english/caliborn fully take over and permanently as an author then what’s the deeper point?
Like could the characters have prevented this? is it a metaphor for how a work is ultimately viewed through the eyes of its readers? If so, why Caliborn chosen as the reader proxy specifically?
The point is, now it's your turn.
One of the most common takes regarding Homestuck's ending that I get to hear constantly is, "I like the ending because we don't always get to have happy endings/real people don't have arcs/sometimes life isn't about getting what you want". And every time I hear this from someone, I want to grab them by the shoulders and scream "Betty, no! You're falling for LE's Evil Joker Trick!" and also, remind them in excruciating detail that the ending is literally one where EVERYBODY dies miserably. Like literally, TPK, rocks fall everyone dies, LE wins and dances on everybody's grave. It's not even a bittersweet ending, it's just bitter.
But it's like that because YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO SWALLOW IT.
A running thread through Homestuck is the idea of Hope, which Hussie states in the book commentaries is the power to turn something fake real by believing in it. He alludes to Hope being "framed as the most fundamentally powerful aspect" as a result of this basic property. Vriska's luck? Only as real as she believes it to be. Tavros's self-confidence? Same thing. Fake things can become real things if you believe in them.
Classpects are a solvable problem. Character arc resolutions are a solvable problem. Each characters' soul mates in red, black, and pale are solvable problems. You can genuinely just figure these out by reading carefully. The ingredients for a true happy ending are all right there, within the canon text.
Consider Peter Pan, which Homestuck references near-constantly. Consider how it started life as a stage play. In it, Tinkerbell is poisoned, but she can be saved by children believing in fairies. There are no children nearby, so Peter turns to the audience and tells them, you can save her if you believe.
Do you believe?
Consider how the comic primarily references the book versions of Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, etc., but still utilizes the RUBY slippers, and includes "purple" as part of the Cheshire Cat aesthetic. Consider how the comic references the movie Hook more than base Peter Pan, when the former can basically be considered a canon extension fanfic.
Q: At what point does fanfic become as canon as the real thing?
A: When you, the audience, believe it does.
That's the power YOU have. You can decide to stare LE, his fascism, his misogyny, his predator tendencies, right in his stupid rainbow eyes, and tell him, no, the version of Homestuck that's real to me is the one where happy endings are real, where soul mates find each other, where everyone gets to live, grow, learn, and become kind.
Lest we forget, MSPA Reader is also a character in Homestuck...
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