24/04/2016 23:55:52 ¶ ●

stormingtheivory:

> hueynomure:

> > stormingtheivory:

> > > hueynomure:

> > > > stormingtheivory:

> > > > > hueynomure:

> > > > > > stormingtheivory:

> > > > > > > optimisticduelist:

> > > > > > > > stormingtheivory:

> > > > > > > > > > I MUST PUT DOWN THE TOYS AND WAYS OF A CHILD. AND CONFRONT THE BIG THINGS OF BECOMING A HUGE MAN. BY DUELING THE SUPREME BEAST OF MY LEGEND LAND, HIS SERPENTINE EMINENCE, YOGURTBONER HIMSELF. I’M ABOUT TO GO FIGHT HIM NOW, SO THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU WILL EVER HEAR MY EXCELLENT VOICE.
> > > > > > > > > > I WILL DUEL AND CRUSH MY SLITHERING SEXUAL SNAKE BOSS, TO FINISH WHAT I STARTED WHEN I STEPPED MY METAL FOOT INTO THIS CHILDREN’S FARCE. I WILL DO THAT BECAUSE I WANT TO, AND WHEN THAT IS SAID AND DONE, AND YOU SEE ME AT THE PEAK OF A MOUNTAIN OF TROPHIES, RESTING ON MY THRONE OF PRIZES, I WANT TO GET TO TELL YOU THAT I DID WHAT I WANTED TO DO. SO IF YOU REMEMBER JUST ONE THING I SAY, OF SO MANY GREAT THINGS SAID BY ME, THEN PLEASE REMEMBER THIS.
> > > > > > > > > > I WANTED TO PLAY A GAME.

> > > > > > > > > In case this wasn’t abundantly clear to everyone by now, the reason that Homestuck ends with BOTH John reaching for the door out of reality AND Caliborn destroying his clock is because both represent the characters getting, in the end, exactly what they wanted.

> > > > > > > > > Paradoxically.

> > > > > > > > I’d started to grasp this but something kind of threw a wrench into that interpretation for me!
> > > > > > > > Mainly, that caliborn and calliope exist in the new universe the kids presumably escape to, so the kids are still kind of bound to causality. Like are the kids doomed to die before calliope and caliborn end up leaving? Do they just find some new planet to terraform or live in and kinda fuck off and leave Earth for them?
> > > > > > > > I guess it’s meant to be an open question but i dunno something about them still being linked to the whole causality cycle still kind of makes me ?????

> > > > > > > They actually almost certainly aren’t.

> > > > > > > I mean you could I think read it that way potentially… but I think most of the evidence in the comic suggests that Caliborn and Calliope never find the Earth that we see everyone move to at the end of the comic.

> > > > > > > Everything that Caliborn and Calliope experience happens in the ALPHA TIMELINE. The Alpha Timeline is two timelines back from what we experience in the ending though. First, John fucks it up by jumping away and not coming back, which allows Aranea to steal the Ring of Orbs Nofold, which allows the first split into [s]Game Over. Then, John, Roxy, and Terezi say fuck this bullshit and rework the timeline again so that Vriska is there, which we have quite a bit of evidence shouldn’t have been the case at all.

> > > > > > > The Alpha Timeline is the one in which the ultimate weapon is charged by absorbing the kids and Lord English is created.

> > > > > > > It’s a paradox, not dissimilar to the creation of the Alpha kids in fact–they’re actually created in an alternate timeline.

> > > > > > > So what we see in the ending is, in fact, the circle closing, the mobius reaching around to bring about Lord English’s end, tidying up his existence as a bug that lacks cause through a weapon that never existed.

> > > > > > > The ending we see is of the kids breaking out of that loop entirely.

> > > > > > If I remember well, doomed timelines are created when someone changes an event in the past to have a different outcome; Game Over was retconned by John+Terezi, but what about this supposed Alpha Timeline ‘fucked up’ by John? I mean, what makes you think there was a splitting at all? Also, that would meam that one can retcon a doomed timeline into… another ‘doomed’ timeline? Why should that be a thing, given Paradox Space’s ‘self-correcting’ nature? I’m a bit confused.

> > > > > > It’s somewhat thematically satisfying, but ‘mechanically’ wobbly.

> > > > > Let’s be real, ALL the time mechanics are wobbly as shit.
> > > > > But basically John seems to be able, by virtue of his weird fucked up canon breaking powers, to uh… break… canon, basically. That seems to be specifically what the powers are meant to do.
> > > > > memory-of-amalgamy also pointed out to me earlier that Doc Scratch quite explicitly defines the Alpha Timeline as the timeline that leads to his simultaneous creation and destruction that he has dominion over so it’s probably worth reassessing kind of everything that we think we know about timelines tbh.
> > > > > But basically I just think there’s way more evidence to support this idea than there is for any other interpretation of the ending. Lots of little stuff like the fact that Calliope seems to have a copy of Rose’s book from the original meteor timeline, the fact that Vriska isn’t supposed to be there at all, the fact that it lines up perfectly with all the Gnostic symbolism I’ve been babbling about for literally four years now… it just fits way better than assuming that things still follow some loop and it’s way way more satisfying that way.

> > > > *writes and deletes parts of this message, coming up with objections and taking them down sistematically…*

> > > > Ok, I’m pretty convinced of the general idea, I’m just not sure about what event caused the splitting that generates the Alpha Timeline which ‘ends’ with Lil Cal possession. It’s hinted that John has his uber-teleport powers (unless Caliborn is off target, which may be the case, but on the other hand John is the only one who seems able to reach him), so he already touched the SBURB-juju; problem is, this means he has already become a canon-breaking entity and I’m not sure how did he split the timeline while uncontrollably zapping around, since all his appearences seems to happen in the Game Over timeline.

> > > In talking it over with @memory-of-amalgamy and @hexmeridian the consensus we’ve come to is that John teleported away, left the ring, and FAILED TO COME BACK FOR IT.

> > > It’s not so much anything he did, it’s the fact that he failed spectacularly to occupy his required role within the narrative.

> > Wasn’t that the cause of the Game Over timeline itself? I mean, Aranea being able to snatch the ring was the significant event that initiated the clusterfuck. As I see this, for this to be a consistent theory there need to be two splitting events.

> > In the Game Over timeline, John loses track of the Ring of Life, so Aranea takes control. This causes the final [S]; then John faces his denizen, acquires control over the zapping, and ends up in cahoots with Terezi to alter the timeline, so the first splitting event occurs; he also retcons the Ring’s disappearence, picking it up before Gamzee can, so the Game Over timeline ends doomed and, above all, reoccupied his ‘required role’.

> > In the Escape timeline, John keeps Vriska alive while his native alternate self (if that makes sense) exploded under Jade’s watch, leading to Collide and the ending.

> > So the question is: what event produced the third, ‘Alpha’ timeline? I think John is the only one who can make major retcons in the endgame, but we have no reason to believe he splitted the timeline again (I don’t think there is another timeline where he remembered to pick up the Ring before leaving it to Gamzee, as it would be a matter of chance and LUCK DO3SNT 4CTU4LLY M4TT3R in Paradox Space); I may even say that retcon!John might be unable to be split into multiple timelines (it would also be consistent with Typheus’ “there will be only one of you alive”), so unless I critically missed the point of your last post, my doubts remain uncleared…

> Yeah it sounds like maybe you’re misunderstanding?

> There are two splitting events:

> First, John loses the ring

> Second, John and Terezi rework the timeline

> It’s the INITIAL timeline, where John was supposed to not lose the ring but also supposed to not bring Vriska back to life via shenanigans, in which Lord English is created.

> From the moment Gamzee touches the ring, Lord English is reduced to a force without cause, a paradox.

So what you’re saying is that the Homestuck ending as it exists now is a modified version of a timeline that never existed?

I wonder what we should call this hypothetical timeline-that-never-was.