2021-06-06 6:59:11 ¶ ●

When you consider the ways in which Lord English is obviously descended from Mobster Kingpin as a character, it’s a little interesting that the Problem Sleuth never touches on the idea of the Kingpin as an alt-author character? Or even just Problem Sleuth as a whole on a metanarrative level; beyond it kind of just being a beta version of Homestuck, the Kingpin’s particular method of keeping the other characters in miniature houses and watching them through electronic windows (retroactively fourth walls) screams storyteller-villain. Problem Sleuth also has Imagination in its arsenal, which allows characters from the “real world” to shape the “imaginary world” through will alone, which is arguably a stronger, or at least more explicit, metafictional mechanic than anything appearing in Homestuck before the last few sub-acts.