#weird time shit

[girldraki]

we KNOW this sounds like an insult and we dont mean it that way but stg reading that triggered parts of our brain that had otherwise lain dormant since our homestuck phase. What are you even doing mainsite

[sburbian-sage]

I was in a two player session and my space coplayer killed themself. I need a way out, but I don’t know how?

You’re a Time Player, so that opens doors for you. If you’re not, then the game already messed up critically and you’re hopeless.

The best bet for you getting out is to just complete the Session yourself. It will be hard, but it’s not impossible. There’s actually a lot of Players that had to solo a Session (and one cult that does it habitually but we don’t talk about them). Luckily there’s a few things to make that trial a bit more bearable.

I don’t mean to be tasteless but the first thing you should do is investigate the nature of your Coplayer’s death. It might be fruitless, but with Time Shenanigans, you never know. This may actually be a Future version of your Coplayer, or a Doomed self that hasn’t been introduced yet. There’s always the chance that you can save them, and if not, gain some extra help.

There’s also the matter of Doomed Timelines. I haven’t really got the hang of advanced Time stuff like that down, but there should be a way to collaborate with Doomed Timelines and Doomed Selves that haven’t been executed yet. Getting an outright solution from them is highly implausible, but you could certainly glean some squeeze from insight from the experience.

But for the most part, you may have to work on your lonesome. You’re a Time Player, so you can probably just comb through your Coplayer’s Land for a couple of weeks by going back and looping around until you locate it. Possibly even forming several posses composed of yourself from various points of time. Just be aware that every You you see is another loop. If their Land is lousy with copies of yourself, then buckle in.

Other than that, I’m not entirely sure of what to do. Echidna might be able to help, but she also might outright reject you. You’re in one of those tricky situations where there’s no easy how-to to share. All I can give you is a couple of places to start, and my hopes that you can make it out alive.

[betweengenesisfrogs]

I am curious as to what you think the promised-epilogue might eventually bring to the table in terms of making Homestuck felt more 'complete.' I know that I was underwhelmed by Act 7, but my opinion of it improved with the arrival of the Credits and the subsequent Snapchats; the implication that the story wasn't really over yet. Thoughts?

Ooh, now that is a damn good question! And definitely oneI’ve thought about quite a lot. I’m in total agreement that the Creditssequence and other snapchats brought the character arcs and sense of the kids’future to a much more satisfying place, on the whole. I think it *could* endthere reasonably enough…but you’re right, the Credits seem to drop hints thatthere’s more to be told.

I’m pretty sure an epilogue *is* happening, because Hussieand What Pumpkin friends seem to have indicated so, because of the hints in thecredits, and ‘cause the way Hussie talks these days is pretty classic “I’mworking on something” Hussie talk. Who knows when it’ll happen, but I do thinkit’ll happen at some point. Maybe 10/25? Maybe 11/11? As ever, I’ll just give abig shrug and wait and see. I’ve got a lot going on right now and the wholecarcass of Homestuck to pore over in the meantime, English-like, so I’m prettypatient.

But! Let’s answer your question! What do I think thepossible content epilogue might be like? Like I said, I think the Creditssequence drops some big hints. On the whole I think the Epilogue will be prettyfocused. Not as big as some have suggested. Maybe just one animation, orsomething like that. I think it’ll probably center around the two big lingeringtopics at the end of Homestuck: the weird timeline shit that John is involvedin, and Terezi’s search for Vriska.

We saw that John was dissatisfied at the end of Homestuck(probably paralleling reader dissatisfaction, or just dissatisfaction with theend of the adventure/narrative.) He had this adventure, but he doesn’t know howto move on from it; he’s growing apart from his friends, and he doesn’t knowhow to process the father and other things that he’s lost. Meanwhile Caliborncomes along taunting him (in a very retro John way), and finally he loses it,smashing the phone screen, implying that John is ready to THROW DOWN withCaliborn, and that this will all lead to the god tier kids going up againstCaliborn as we saw in the Masterpiece. I’m hardly the first to come up withthis, of course; this was the subject of a lot of discussion once the Creditscame out.

It’s unclear whether the kids that accompany the John willbe the same ones from the Credits timeline (maybe he goes back and picks upfriends from a different timeline?) but that John probably will be, or at leasthe’ll set the whole thing in motion.

We also saw, much to the relief of those concerned that plotthread had been dropped, that Terezi is still thinking a lot about Vriska, andnot terribly long after their arrival on Earth C, went out looking for her in theFurthest Ring, and is pretty damn committed to the search.

So I could see the Epilogue going something like:

John reawakens his Retcon powers to go back and do battlewith Caliborn. Alternatively, he hops back in time to encourage another versionof him and his friends to do said battle in his place (maybe the ones from thetimeline he took the ring from?) We see the events of the Masterpiece takeplace, and four kids are sucked into the House Juju.

Circumstantially simultaneously, we see Terezi searching forVriska, and finding her somewhere in the destroyed region of space. Maybefinding her just after the weapon has been deployed and she’s attempted tosacrifice herself in the blast. (Since the Furthest Ring has tangled up,subjectively retroactive spacetime, after all—see all the Green Sun and GnosticStuff.

This would be the perfect moment for the four kids to emergefrom the Juju after delivering their final blow to Caliborn and help Terezi—helpher bring Vriska back to their world, if she’s alive, or help Terezi come toterms with Vriska’s sacrifice, if she’s not. Either way, this brings both ofthose lingering plot threads to a close. In any event, the kids from the juju,which ever timeline they hail from, will be able to move on in some fashionwith John’s help. They might even be able to go rescue the stranded Alpha kids,if John has his retcon powers available. And perhaps John, too, will be readyto move on the other side of this adventure.

Hard to say which option I’d prefer when it comes to Schrödinger’sVriska. It depends strongly how you feel about Vriska as a character, and whetheryou think Terezi can help her live in a world where she isn’t the mostimportant, whether Terezi’s flawed relationship with her will ultimately bepositive, even redemptive. I expect heavy and passionate debate about thisquestion when it happens, as per usual for all things Vriska. But I leanvaguely toward Terezi being able to save her because I’m a big romantic softieat heart. Anyway, I’m going to go into the topic of Vriska and Terezi, and whyI think their relationship is very well written both before and after the Retcon,much more in a l8r post. It’ll be gr8. Just you w8. ;;;;)

That’s my Epilogue prediction! We’ll see what ultimatelyends up playing out. Hussie being Hussie, I expect there to be something inthere that comes as a complete surprise, too.  ;) For that, and many other reasons, I’mlooking forward to it. :D

[sburbian-sage]

Hello, The Prince of Time that isn't a mind player here again.

First off, thanks for the clarification and ridding my mind from all this mind stuff. Really helped me.

Second, I actually have great control over my power, and could easily explain what I do with them:

I can cause things to be done faster.

See a falling rock? I can make it reach the ground faster.

Need someone to solve that puzzle? I focus my power on them and they solve it in record time, however for them, time stayed the same, they just managed to find a solution faster then usual.

Have a needlessly complicated plan happening in motion? I can improve it and make it faster to execute, or remove entire parts from the equation and replace them with faster alternatives.

I don't destroy literal time, but rather the similar concept of an Action's time to be executed. So in "Title interpretation" terms it seems to be somewhere between Connotative to Emblematic (I guess I'll call that Sub-Aspect "Duration" for any future reference)

However, as I said before, since the concept of Duration is real close to literal time, I've been struggling with on accident or otherwise to not just execute "Halve this guy's life Duration" or "Halve the Duration until time limit for winning the session" Because on the one hand, this sounds tempting and awesome and would just be a great "Fuck Sburb, we ball" method of dealing with this time hatred shit, but on the other hand it doesn't seem... (Don't say fair, your denizen may use it against you.) like doing so will help the others in my session... and obviously no level of... as FAQ call it "Revelawesome Hammer-Hitting" will remove that ever-present possibility of just giving up and destroying this session or any subsequent session I'm in, even if I'll have a different role. It gives ability, not remove it. and I had that duration ability ever since I did my first quests.

So yeah, how do I remedy those thoughts, or at very least, ensure that I don't break down and break this session with me?

Okay so it's a little like King Crimson. And I'm correcting the record on two things. Gaining more abilities you have to consciously use was meant to make you better at consciously controlling your powers so you don't accidentally use them, not take anything away. And this concern of your will end once the session does, because you don't carry over abilities. Some guys report having minor "tricks" or remnants of their Whispers from their Native Title, but you'll probably never King Crimson again once your tenure as Prince of Time is over. Unless you mean the mindset might carry over, in which case yeah I'll help.

The main question I'm asking is, what are the negative consequences of speeding up/skipping/erasing time in this fashion? The target experiences time at the "normal" rate, even though it's actually accelerated. So if I were to take an hour to draw a map, and you erased time, it would be an hour for me from my perspective, five minutes or so for everyone else objectively, essentially. Could result in horrifying time chamber stuff if you make someone experience several decades worth of time in a few seconds (this is a great attack though), and I could see annoyance if you start "rushing" people against their will (especially sleeping, it could cause weird weather phenomenon in the Land and will probably cause some sort of desync with the dreamself). But other than that, I fail to see the problem. You think that it would be unfair to use your time-shortening powers to make the session "hurry up", but Princes are meant to bring things a conclusion. Your duty is to maintain the timeline, so it's your job to act with discretion. And I'm just taking a wild guess here, but if you have the ability to create little bubbles of sped-up time, I'm guessing that the Session is going to make this relevant. As in "the Session probably has lots of duties and quests and puzzles which take lots of time and waiting, but the Session is ending early so you might have to squeeze 2 or 4 years worth of effort into 6 months".

On the subject of fast-forwarding, I'm guessing that you can't do that on the entire Session at once, which means even if you "speed things along" you'll still have to get in the weeds. But even if you could affect the entire Session, think about it for a second. The Time player has to make sure the Alpha Timeline progresses in such a way that the Session reaches its proper conclusion, without becoming Doomed in the process. If you're fast-forwarding the Session, without you in it, you aren't doing that critical work, which means the Session goes poorly, faster. Speed things along, sure, but do it on the "smaller scale", accelerating excessively time-consuming tasks, or anything where "things getting done faster" is a good thing. It's like the hacking minigame in BioShock, where you can make the puzzle go faster, but you only fast-forward once you've actually solved the puzzle.

Might I also reccomend that you read The Magic Thread?

[cunninglydisguisedkeybearer]

23 pages of rambling about overly complicated timelines

so a while back i made a couple of posts verbally headwalling over the timeline of my rambling backstory headcanons series. @hoenn-hakase, alias haji, asked me about it, and offered to help me with the problem, once i explained it

said explanation took around nine hours of messaging spread out over two weeks, and by the end of it i’d figured out a solution by myself anyway

i’d been working on these timelines since i discovered the tpp tumblr community at the tail end of 2014, but this was the first time i’d put them to words, so i copypasta’d our (somewhat edited) chatlogs into a word doc for future easy searching

then, with her permission, i dumped them online, because i know at least two not-us people who’d be interested in this. i’m also linking to a spreadsheet she made, a spreadsheet i made, and a relevant quote from the chatlogs

i talked mostly about the first six runs and what happened between them. warning: it’s very obvious i used to read homestuck

[paradoxcase]

Did Jack Noir kill the white king and start the reckoning before or after he got upgraded to Bec Noir? Because I'm not sure either of those possibilities makes sense with what information we're given in Act 4.

Karkat tells John that

CG: YOUR RECKONING STARTS MUCH SOONER CG: BECAUSE OF SOME DUMB THINGS YOU'VE DONE CG: YOU COMPLETELY BLEW IT ALREADY AND YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING ANYMORE CG: WHICH ORDINARILY WOULD BE FINE CG: JUST ANOTHER BUNCH OF LOSERS TO FAIL AT THIS GAME CG: IT'S WHAT YOU DO LATER THAT CAUSES SO MUCH MORE TROUBLE THAN THAT CG: AND NOW WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT TOO.

Note that this is right after Dave goes back in time to undo Terezi killing John, and right before [S]Jack: Ascend. It seems clear that the he's talking about the series of events that lead to Jack getting Liv Tyler, killing the black queen, and taking her ring (the last kid that influenced this sequence of events was Rose, who dropped Dad Egbert's car onto LOWAS where John could not get to it), and the sequence of events that upgraded Jack Noir to Bec Noir (Jade's entry).

But is that really true? Did Jack merely getting the ring cause the reckoning to trigger?

In the doomed timeline in which John and Jade died, Dave and Rose played the game for four months without the reckoning triggering. Did [S]Jack Ascend happen in that timeline? Probably, given that it happened immediately after Dave came back and nothing happened during that short period of time to influence it. Obviously they wouldn't have gotten Bec Noir without Jade, but they also didn't get an early reckoning. This indicates that Jack did not kill the white king until after he became Bec Noir, but in that case [S]Jack: Ascend would not have caued the kids to lose.

Davesprite tells Terezi that his going back in time ultimately caused Bec Noir:

TG: alright but TG: did you guess that by trolling john to his grave TG: and making me splinter us off into an alt timeline TG: that you were basically complicit in making our timeline go the way it was supposed to go all along TG: where future me is now helping dave and we just keep playing TG: and our actions ultimately lead to the trouble youre all in now TG: thus leading you all to troll us incompetently GC: OH GC: NO >:[ GC: 1 D1DNT TH1NK OF TH4T

But arguably Davesprite could not know this, since the trolls stopped pestering him and Rose in that timeline. And would John have gone to fight his denizen without Terezi's encouragement? Unlikely. Maybe [S]Jack: Ascend just had some random chance of happening, and randomly happened in the alpha timeline but not the doomed one for some reason? Did the presence of Davesprite somehow affect [S]Jack: Ascend?

The other thing that influenced [S]Jack: Ascend was PM - she recieved a letter from Jade about the package containing Liv Tyler, and tracked it down to Jack Noir on Derse. Jack only became interested in the package because PM had been interested in the package. When did Jade send this letter? This is a PM on LOWAS, not on future earth, so how did Jade get that letter to the medium? Maybe it was answered later, but I have forgotten. If Jade did not send that letter in the doomed timeline, [S]Jack: Ascend might not have happened, but PM had already gotten and acted on the letter by the time that timeline was split.

[cunninglydisguisedkeybearer]

HEY umberfish

[zenosanalytic]

in your "Rose & Dirk" Pesterchum Inheritance post, what do you mean when you say "his agency would continue to be beholden to his Aspect" in relation to Dave hypothetically not killing Noir?

Oh, I just meant that Dave felt -and was probably right- that if he didn’t dead-end his loops at some point, then he’d be stuck dealing with loops forever. That, rather than making his own decisions as he wants, he’d be stuck playing out the decisions of future and past hims, which were themselves dictated by the necessity of maintaining Causality and avoiding Time-Paradoxes, as part of the necessity he faces of maintaining Causality and avoiding Time-Paradoxes.

EDIT 1: Kind of explains where his “the right decision is to never use it” opinion of Time Travel comes from, don’t it :p