@zenosanalytic’s and @lilietsblog’s responses to my meta are absolutely awesome and make a lot of great points. You should go read them if you haven’t seen them yet. @zenosanalytic‘s is especially ballin.

But they do seem to miss what I was actually talking about, which is specifically the idea of the characters exiting the comic and the Juju being used as a canon-ending mechanism and the entire point of the ending being that the characters are freed from canon and Homestuck itself was the author of their misery. And maybe I didn’t make it clear enough that that’s what I was arguing against because I did focus a lot on free will and the power of choices.

Honestly, I like the concept of the endings y’all describe. And I choose to interpret Act 7 that way, myself – not as an escape from canon, but a tentatively happy ending within the very boundaries of it. I find it the most satisfying out of a couple unsatisfying options.

@zenosanalytic​‘s post especially really did make me think a lot about free will within Paradox Space to the point where it kind of wrapped my brain around in a pretzel. Is it still free will if only one of a million version of a choice you make are valid? If nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine Johns combine Dirk and Jane to make kids, but the one John who made the combination that HAD to happen, because it had already happened, is the one counted as “canon”  by Skaia, is that REALLY free will?  I honestly don’t have the answer and it’s going to occupy my thoughts all day thinking about it.

But the interpretation of causality and time loops and inevitability you describe doesn’t paint canon as an enemy at all. So the characters ‘escaping’ from canon makes even less sense than them ‘escaping’ from Paradox Space itself, the ending that I wanted to see. Or thought I did. Mind might be changed on this now. You’re right – the characters did make choices that lead up to this ending. I never thought they didn’t. But they specifically never chose to LEAVE THE COMIC, or did anything aiming towards leaving the comic, leaving canon. In the version you propose, canon is a friend, not an enemy.

I would love it, of course, if someone explained to me how the new universe is supposedly outside of LE’s reach, though? Or out of the reach of Calliope’s black hole? The frogs still exist within Paradox Space. As we saw, Skaia just becomes the lilypad of a successful frog, and therefore the kids’ universe is located in the same place that the alpha session was, orbiting the Green Sun. Or the black hole, I guess?

(I still really HATE the ‘everyone lives on Earth happily in Earth C’ ending, like, a lot, because I feel that if that was the ending we were aiming for, I’d have liked to have seen some actual, like, discussion of that. Amongst the characters. “What are you looking forward to in the new universe, Dirk?” “Well, I’ve never played soccer!” “Oh, that’s cool!” Some concept that the characters were actually working towards this ending instead of just inveitably falling into it. And maybe not so much time spent on a mega-boss they never even see, much less fight. And some actual definitive payoff for characters like Terezi, Jane, Jake, Meenah, and the sprites, instead of their arcs and issues just kind of falling off the comic. And like, dealing with massive fucking plot holes like the Masterpiece, which either breaks the comic completely or makes the happy ending actually kind of a bullshit ending. But I hate it a lot, a lot, a LOT less than the popular ‘they escaped from the comic’ theory going around, which is specifically where my meta was aiming.)