A recent interview with Hussie has helped me make sense of something I never understood before.
Namely: why does Homestuck choose
to go out on such an ambiguous note? After all, this caused significant
backlash and rifts within the fandom.(True, an Epilogue is promised,
following certain lingering plot threads, and we got a renewed reminder of that
recently. Still, for the duration of the time from Homestuck’s ending and the
Epilogue’s release—a good two years already—ambiguity is a big part of the
experience of the finale, and it may well stay ambiguous. So what’s the deal?)For a while I chalked it up to necessity—his
time severely constrained by other problems, Hussie chose to focus on the broad
themes of the story, rather than address every detail. I
still think there’s truth in that, but what I’ve realized is that there’s a
much larger purpose at work, too. Hussie knew exactly what he was doing.The goal of Homestuck’s ambiguous ending is to bring fans into the same space as its
characters, and recognize in their own lives its most essential themes.Homestuck is a Gnostic myth that casts its audience as its heroes.
Tag: epilogue
I can’t believe the Epilogue is going to be Live Action and Hussie is Dirk Strider himself.
happy 10/25 everybuddy, it was a fun one
do you plan on talking about john and how he feels at the endgame? everyone in homestuck had issues or losses at the beginning that they managed to gain by the end. john already had everything going for him. a dad, a life, a bright future. everything was taken away from him. yet he continues to just cover his issues up, not having a coping mechanism like all the other kids. he never experienced having to fight or kill, to see the death of a family member. there are still issues he must overcome
i def want to talk about it, but I kinda feel like there’s only so much to say until we see how, exactly, John’s issues manifest/potentially even resolve themselves in the epilogue.
The story isn’t over, and John–like Vriska, Terezi, the ghosts, and Gamzee–is an area of the story I don’t really feel I have a hard grasp on without having the context of the epilogue, since I’m not 100% certain what Homestuck is trying to say.
Your new video talked about a secretive epilogue project that was being worked on, and I had two questions about it: is it an epilogue for Homestuck (wasn’t 100% sure of that) and what website did you find that info on? I’ve never heard of this project before so I was very curious when you mentioned it! Thank you for your time and I love your work :D
It is an epilogue for Homestuck, yes.
The news post I was quoting was originally posted on the mspa website. Even now, Andrew posts little updates–you can see VIZ doing the same on the new Homestuck website, too.
The old news posts got removed, traditionally, but there’s a fan archive that hosts all of Hussie’s old news posts from back then. Here’s a link to the Epilogue announcement news update I was referring to.
Do you think there’s a chance of anyone dying in the epilogue?
Possibly Caliborn (There might be a worse fate in store for him, stuck in a black hole for eternity), maybe Gamzee (he might get revived), maybe Arquis (There’s a chance Davepeta could snatch his components outta LE)
I think everyone else will be fine. Maybe more than fine, if my guess is correct and Jane turns out to be the savior of the dreaming dead all along.
Hey. Okay this question is a bit stupid but are you waiting for Dirk and Jake to get married in the homestuck 2019 calendar? Because I’m praying. Please delete this is there’s too much cringe.
1) theres no such thing as too much cringe
2) plz, im waiting for viz and hussie to announce a full on homestuck anime and to see them get married there.
im kinda joking but also not even, really?
i dont talk about it much but a homestuck anime is one of the few things weird and unexpected enough i can imagine when i wonder what hussie meant when he said he wanted to do something “unexpected” and “outside the confines of the comic” with VIZ media.
i’ve said it before: homestuck’s story is not over. i think its pretty likely the epilogue at least will contain major elements of dirkjake and vrisrezi–probably dirkjake, definitely vrisrezi–and i am not convinced we’ll never see these characters again past that.
i don’t like to speculate this “wildly” about homestuck’s events, i just also don’t consider the somewhat cynical view that the adventure is well and truly “over” to be fact. seems to me its all speculation.
So considering your most recent video about the portal and I wonder, do you think hiveswap is secretly the epilogue we were promised?
No. Hussie’s news post was very clear:
The Epilogue is in active development, and Hussie is working with Viz Media on it. We can expect more info on what it is sometime this year, though of course, there’s always the possibility things will be delayed somewhat. Still, it’s coming.
This information has gone ignored partly because there isn’t really a good, centralized community source from which to get clear info on Homestuck/Hiveswap. Tumblr is great for creative fandom purposes but not really excellent at transmitting key facts to the fandom.
And partly because the fandom is still operating under the salt-fueled mass delusion that Homestuck as a vibrant IP is somehow “over”, despite the fact that Hussie’s statement makes it pretty clear that all that seems to have “ended” with [S] Credits is the comic, and we’re not even sure about that much.
Both of these are problems I’m trying to correct. I have no idea what the Epilogue is, but it isn’t Hiveswap. Which just means theres more things to look forward to on the horizon.
do you think theres actually going to be an epilogue? like theres supposed to be, right?
Yeah, I don’t have any doubt about it and I think it’s really, really weird and annoying that the regular fandom line has sort of turned into this self-assured, smug skepticism about it. It makes literally no sense to me.
There are like, three plot lines all set to converge on The Masterpiece and the clash between Vriska and LE in the Void–Terezi finding Vriska, the fates of the Alpha and Beta kids, and the ghosts in the Void. Hussie already literally said there’d be an epilogue, and delays aside, he’s never said something was going to happen in Homestuck and then not delivered at all.
There’s no real reason to doubt the epilogues existence, and from my vantage point it’s honestly the likeliest thing delaying Hiveswap at this point, since he said himself he’d withhold releasing the game until this “other project” was ready as well. And since Hiveswap itself looks excellent and is already fleshing out Homestuck’s lore, I just don’t have a reason to doubt the quality of either the game or whatever the hell the epilogue will be.
Hey, saw your article today. The stuff about the gnostic creation myth was sweet, and the parallels to homestuck proper are cool. Do you have any thoughts to the entry item in the alpha session, the hanging cherb? Thanks for the cool video.
I’m glad you liked it! As for the Alphas’ cruxite item–the Caliborn piñata– I do think there’s some interesting subtext to it, but I also feel it’s pretty obvious, so I’m not sure I’ll be adding much that people don’t already know.
I feel like there’ll be more explicit stuff to say after the Epilogue, but basically, the cruxite artifacts seem to imply something of the impact on reality each character has. Jade gets Bec’s pinata, and choosing to kill Bec pretty much grants her absurd levels of power.
Dave’s impact comes by accepting the direction of others and playing ball with their suggestions as well as with the passage of Time. Rose’s destruction of the bottle symbolizes how she smashes her Sburb session in search of truth.
The Alphas don’t get distinct items, but only the one they all take on together–the Caliborn pinata. And so, they are relatively fruitless and unimpactful for most of the narrative.
Their biggest contribution to the story is unarguably killing Caliborn and turning him into Lord English, and so serving as the “Alpha” to his existence as a Yaldabaoth.
That’s foreshadowed as early as their entry. I think there’s more to say there, but I don’t like to speculate, so I’ll just say I won’t be surprised if we see that event again whenever the epilogue happens.
Fun fact: we can acknowledge that Vriska abused Terezi when their relationship was flushed, and simultaneously acknowledge that they are both healthier and happier together in a pale relationship than they ever would be apart, given the circumstances of their universe.
obviously, the two are individuals, but so much of their characterization is tied together, if you try to logically explain half of the story without explaining the other, you don’t even have half of the understanding
(Terezi) and (Vriska), too, are important to the understanding of Terezi and Vriska’s endgame relationship.
(click through for what essentially amounts to an essay on their relationship status throughout chronology, and my own thoughts)
I don’t have much to add to this–just that I’d never read Terezi and Vriska as being flushed that early on before, and it’s an interesting reading since I think the feelings are definitely there, if repressed.
Unsure how I feel about Vriska and Terezi’s moirallegiance being healthy, too, but I’m genuinely not sure how the comic is aiming to present that and suspect I won’t until the Epilogue and Terezi finding Vriska in the bubbles. Guess we’ll see!
Either way this was an interesting read and I’m in a vrisrezi mood and jesus fuck i’d never seen that kiss panel so that exists. Vrisrezi is gay
Flying through Storytelling 