ooh my god this was supposed to be a quick doodle i don’t know what happened and now i’m super embarrassed by the level of dedication that went into this but anyway……. it´s happeing
- Rings are thrown in volcano. This kickstarts the production of the new Genesis Frog.
- With the conditions for the new universe met by Echidna, the new tadpole begins to take root in the kid’s original Skaia, as shrunk, held, and then released by Jade. It travels to the center of the hole that John carved out when he extracted The Tumor, which was stopping the kid’s genesis frog from taking root. The Frog emerges, fully grown, and creates a complete new universe.
- Alt Calliope, meanwhile, destroys the Cherub’s Green Sun, and uses it’s power to create a massive, massive black hole, to destroy the old universe into the void, along with herself.
- Vriska, during the fight, deploys Caliborn’s juju, and opens it up. This creates a stable time loop that releases the kids, when they were captured by Caliborn, allowing their beings not to be tied to this universe. This switches the door they are standing in front of to the door to the new universe.
- John opens the door- through his touching the handle, everyone from their session was transported to the new Universe. Yes, everyone. Your favs are fine. (Gamzee might be there too).
- Once in the new Universe, Jade deploys Roxy’s Earth, which was the culmination of their plan- to terraform and live on that with their friends and the carapaces.
- When Lord English attacks the Juju, the door opens- on the other side. Lord English is now trapped inside.
- Using the power of the Green Sun, Alt Calliope destroys the old universe. She and everything else is gone. However, Caliborn destroying the clock means he is unkillable- and the juju is indestructible. So in the old universe, sealed in his own juju, exists Lord English. Forever quarantined to the unknowing void, floating through space.
- The last thing we see, when the kids enter, is an unprototyped kernelsprite, which signifies the circular nature of Homestuck- the “new game plus” if you will. That SBURB will return, somehow, to this new universe, and it will all begin again, eventually.
and that’s my thoughts on the matter thanks to @purplebloodedmajesty for setting this out and talking to me abt it
homestuck was the reason i joined tumblr, actually. i had seen a bunch of act 5 fanart on deviantart, read the comic, read a bunch of tumblr user jumpingjacktrash’s fanfiction, and decided the only proper way to express my feelings was to join tumblr and post my own fanart. back in…. 2011?
the fandom is so diverse! on deviantart, i was exposed to some really great artists, but they had a sort of limited range of styles. homestuck fanartists, by contrast, reimagined characters in this breadth of styles that i had never really considered before, overflowing with freedom and inspiration. i grew exponentially as an artist, being involved here!
among all the other ships i drew, my 15 min of tumblr fame was definitely in response to stridercest porn works. to this day, i still find the striders to be the most emotionally riveting characters in the homestuck narrative, though many other characters also have super compelling stories. i met so many people through fanart and discourse, some who have been incredibly important in my life (holla @ u piyo). i’m still meeting new people because of homestuck.
seeing so many people on my dash post nostalgic homestuck art has brought back the feelings i had back when we were all waiting for 10/25. the mania when cascade came out. the wild rides through marchingbandstuck, cities in dust, and so many other huge, beautiful fan projects. the three days straight that i cried through all my physics classes after reading strider’s edge. the hype over the game kickstarter.
i’ve probably lost at least 5 years of my life in stress, excitement, and angst over this webcomic. wouldn’t trade it for anything.
thank you all for being part of this experience for me!
Whilst talking to a friend I was suddenly struck by a realization that I think explains the precise nature of how Lord English was defeated. I’ve already spoken a little about how the destruction of the Green Sun should not have depleted his Clockwork Majyyks, and therefore shouldn’t have made him any more invulnerable. Here is my take on what I think happened, and how it explains not only the ending, but the entire plot of Homestuck (seriously).
I’ve already spoken a fair bit in the past about Homestuck’s underlying themes in relation to the comic’s name. At first, when taken literally, “Homestuck” appears to be named for only a very small portion of Act 1, when John is literally “stuck in his home”. He is able to leave later on, so he’s no longer home-stuck, right? Now, my take has always been that this depends on your definition of “home”. Homestuck is a story about people leaving behind “homes” of various scope. John leaves his house, yes, but then he leaves his universe, his session, and ultimately his fundamental reality behind. He becomes unstuck from canon itself. From what more is there left to become “unstuck”?
Let’s remind ourselves what the “treasure” juju does. I mean, obviously we know that Caliborn initially used it to seal the souls of the beta kids, and then later Vriska deployed it against Lord English. But what else does it do? John put his hand through it and it became distributed throughout the canon of Homestuck. This is an ability with a very specific scope; he is distributed not throughout reality, but throughout Homestuck itself. There’s a reason why it is shaped like the Homestuck logo; the ultimate weapon is a gateway to Homestuck.
Lord English cannot be destroyed by conventional means, he can only be defeated by the exploitation of glitches in Paradox Space. So far, the glitches in Paradox Space we have seen have taken a very specific form also; metacanonical altering. Caliborn jams sparkle dust in the game cartridge, and .jpeg artifacts appear across the comic. John sticks his hand in the the juju, he gains the ability to use a retcon glitch. This is how one “glitches” Paradox Space, they interact with the narrative itself; with Homestuck itself. The juju allows one to do this, and this is why it’s so powerful.
Here’s my hypothesis. The weapon/treasure juju does not have three different abilities, it has one. We’ve been seeing it as 1. being able to trap four souls, 2. being able to impart retcon abilities, and 3. having an offensive ability to be used against Lord English. In reality, these are all one ability! The ability to act as a gateway to the Homestuck canon!
Caliborn did not seal the four kids within the juju! He sealed them within Homestuck. This is why the comic is called “Homestuck”! The kids are literally trapped within the narrative by the power of the juju. But, this power is also how Lord English is eventually defeated! Here is what happens in the [S] Act 7 flash.
Vriska activates the juju, it grows big and the kid’s symbols flash on its surface.
The symbol on the victory platform flips around, and turns white, the same colour and size as the juju. A door appears on its surface.
A door also appears on the side of the juju facing Lord English! This is not a coincidence. There are two doors here, one leading one way, and one leading the other way.
Homestuck is ending. By that expanding convention of the Kids, John in particular, escaping their bonds, then there is one more bond for them to break, one more door for them to pass. They need to leave the comic itself.
This is what the white juju with the door represents! The door on the Kid’s side leads out of Homestuck, whereas the door on English’s side leads in.
The kids will get to live on in a happy life beyond the narrative, possibly in the extracanon epilogue, the Paradox Space comic, not to mention fanworks. English will not. Caliborn gaining his power is shown at the moment of his defeat because his timeline is cyclical, marked by two circumstancially simultaneous events; his birth and his defeat. Similarly, the kids leaving Homestuck and Lord English “entering” it are two circumstantially simultaneous events orchestrated by the juju. Lord English has become trapped within Homestuck. While the comic may end for the kids, and they can move on, English is forever trapped within a loop of destruction, held by the bounds of canon.
The reason the juju flashes with the kids colours is because it is preparing to release them, but not to fight English, it is preparing to release them from Homestuck itself, by the comic’s ending.
This is why the comic had to end right after this moment, because otherwise the kids would not have escaped and English would have more canon scope throughout which to dominate.
This is why the juju is white, this is why the Act 7 curtains are white. White is the colour of Homestuck itself, as shown in the text for the logo displayed in the flash in act 1. The white curtains close on the comic, the white juju acts as the gateway into canon.
Perhaps the Green Sun had influence that reached beyond the canon (Paradox Space comic)? If this was the case, the English can no longer use it to access anything outside the canon, because Calliope destroyed it.
This is what Homestuck means. The clue was hidden in the name all along. This was a story about four kids who had literally been trapped inside their own story, and escaped it, trapping their unkillable villain inside it as it ended, meaning that he could spread his destruction no further. Of course Lord English can no longer cause harm within Homestuck, if Homestuck itself has ended! What an appropriate way to defeat an undefeatable villain in a comic where fourth wall breaking and metacanonical interactions with the main narrative are such an integral plot device.
Here is Hussie, deciding to kill off Lord English the only way he can; by ending his own comic. If the ending seemed abrupt to you, this is why.
That magnificent bastard.
OOH
okay, this is a really excellent bridge between the two camps of ‘how deep and clever to subvert everyone’s expectations like that, we can’t complain,’ and ‘what an incredibly shitty and unsatisfying bullshit ending to just drop every important bit of plot on the ground and walk off, we’re going to complain about everything’.
the curtain falls and the lights go out not because we actually reached the end of the play, but because the actors found the exit door backstage. and also, probably, the theater’s on fire.
i guess we can all go sit in the camp of ‘this was clever as fuck and i’m mad as fuck’ now.
