#like. maybe it was just. but doc scratch/lord english needed her dead so he took matters into his own hands

[red-elric]

its gotta mean something that disc two of homestuck was fucked up by terezi and had to be repaired by doc scratch and then disc (cartridge) three was fucked up by caliborn and had to be repaired by john right. like ahdjsh the discs mean so many things. disc two being literally scratched like the record scratch and healed by DOC scratch and also the corruption being caused by terezi while she was talking herself into blaming vriska for everything and murdering her and how she was kind of WRONG about a lot of it but also just the fact that events between disc two's repair and the insertion of disc three were all coming up in lord english's favor. doc scratch repaired the disc and it was always going to benefit his master's plan. but then also the hubris of caliborn fucking up the third disc when things were already going his way, as one more abstraction in how he brings about his own undoing. and also just the fact that it was JOHN, ALONE, who was able to repair the problem there. it was his quest and his power used to retcon the game over, and like. realistically, aranea caused the timeline to be doomed when she manipulated things to come back to life, that was it. getting the ring back probably would have fixed everything, even without vriska, even with rose and terezi both being somewhat out of comission. but terezi did the same thing again and let herself get carried away about vriska, this time in the opposite direction, and meddled until there was a stable timeline with vriska alive in it. undoing what she did when disc two was scratched in a much more active way than john probably would have left to his own devices (because john definitely doesnt have the same regrets about vriska as terezi does). and maybe it even means something the way act seven and end of act six felt cheap and unresolved, though it probably doesnt bc [obligatory hussie hates the fans]. idk tho just thinking

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Bonus re: Diamonds, Dames and Dads, Part 2

Ooooh! Diamonds, Dames and Dads Part 2, huh?

So Dad was looking for a Dame, hammered Diamonds into partnering up with him, and they went to find PS. This is gonna be so great.

I can't imagine what to imagine about PS living in Midnight City.

---

Page 15

So broody. Such melancholy. :P

Really, Diamonds Droog is really made for the private eye business it seems. All he needs is an office.

... Actually, heh, that means DD from the B2 session got one up on him. He took over Jack's position as arch bureaucratic, after all.

Don't think I didn't spot DD smoking almost right underneath the "no smoking" sign. Pretty sure Dad's going to have some stern words to say about that just about now.

---

Page 16

Hah! Things appearing out of nowhere is indeed so Problem Sleuth like. But in this case, we could blame Doc Scratch for all of it. He's just messing with DD here. :P

The sass that comes out of Dad, my lord. It's no wonder John (and Jane to a lesser extent) turned out so sassy at times.

All this 2nd-person talk while we're on Alternia reminds me of the Paradox Space story focusing on Crowbar. Wish we could've seen the ending to that.

---

Page 17

He was really in a rut there, wasn't he?

Though what would he have gone to PS' office for, in that hypothetical situation? In reality, he had someone to find. But why would he have flashed some cash for the PI otherwise?

---

Page 18

Wow, fish eye lens perspective.

This banter is so pedantic. :P

Oooooh, so they went to this hotel for someone DD was looking for!! Can't think of anyone but CD or HB that it could be, though.

And in exchange Diamonds would help find Jane.

But why does it seem like Diamonds was reluctant about finding this place?

And did Dad stop the elevator early to sneak up on the place via the staircase?

---

Page 19

Oh, never mind. Shenanigans were involved.

The two of them will probably get caught up in this ruckus.

---

Page 21

Okay no. Noodle incident was noodly.

---

Page 22

So they went to the roof? What for? Is the apartment they need right below here and they're gonna scale down onto the balcony?

And yes, Dad focuses on the fakeyness of the landscape just like John would have in his place. Reminds me of John observing Homosuck, and the observations he made about Earth C's sky, in the epilogues.

---

Page 23

Hah, DD acknowledges that his time on Alternia seems like it could've been an endless repetition of the same time shit. And yet it's a role he seems born for.

Wut?? Spades Slick is there??? How?? I-

...

Or is it a figment of Diamonds' imagination? Does maybe the shape of Dad's figure remind him of SS, and he's slipped into an imagination spot?

Because Dad didn't look at Slick. And now he's gone silent. Maybe it's because DD didn't really look at Slick at all, but straight at Dad, who wasn't standing behind him but in front of him?

---

Page 24

.... Wuuuuuut. Those pointy nails... Is it Lord English??

I.

Did DD mistook Dad for Slick, and didn't notice LE was already up here with them?

That white revolver could be Scratch'.

Don't think it's Snowman. She's kind of technically already dead at this point. Unless there can be more than one of her, and it's this timeline's version of Snowman?

---

Page 25

Woooooooooow!!!

So...

Hold on.

So DD went looking for this timeline's version of SS, but it seems... It seems that maybe he hooked up with Snowman? Or maybe DD and Dad walked right into one of the no doubt many occassions SS and Snowman have faced off on a rooftop. And Snowman knocked Dad out.

Yooooooooooo.

... Wait.

If that's really Scratch' gun, it only has one bullet. They should make damn sure it doesn't end up in Snowman, since that'd end (this timeline's version of) the universe!

[blaperile]

Homestuck Meat Epilogue - Reactions Page 40-43

Page 40:

Hopy shit!!!

THAT was not what I was expecting Jade to say!

I was getting so worried when Dirk was describing Jade's state, that she was going to overexert herself and that her body would immediately collapse or that she'd accidentally hurt someone.

It seems like the experience she had has triggered something within her. I wonder though, seeing as the description is deliberately vague... is it just the Game Over Jade whose memories she's accessed, or also her other selves? As in, has she begun tapping into her ultimate self, similarly to what Rose has been going through?

It was exactly for that latter reason that I feared her body was going to collapse and not be capable of handling it.

Oh man though, so she REALIZES what's going on with Dirk. That's spectacular!!! But how come she realizes it? Does she hear his narration now? Or is it because of being used as a vessel by Alternate Calliope that the latter passed on some information to her (or just the awareness)?

I definitely didn't expect this first move against Dirk to originate with her though, my shortlist was basically Dave, Roxy, Kanaya and Terezi. Because Roxy seems to tbe invulnerable to his messing, Dave realized SOMEONE was toying with him, Kanaya just lost Rose because of Dirk, and Terezi knows Dirk has the power of narration now.

So, it wasn't any of them, but Jade instead! Very interesting.

But still, she IS in the room right now with 2 of those 4 people, AKA Roxy and Kanaya, so that's really really good! The only thing I'm afraid of is, Dirk pulled quite the number on Kanaya's state of mind so it might be hard to get her along in the resistance against Dirk? And who even knows if Roxy will believe that her dear old friend needs to be stopped and will be willing to assist in it.

Hopefully they'll get in touch with Dave soon.

And then, as for Terezi, we'll first have to wait and see what Dirk's got planned for her.

Page 41:

......WOOOAAAAH!!!

Okay, even though that was a short page and we've basically been listening to Dirk talk almost this ENTIRE Epilogue, this is EXACTLY the kind of info dump we needed.

I'm still trying to process what he just said here...

So he KNOWS he can be seen as a villain here, and basically EXPECTS to be stopped at some point. But along the way, he'll try to execute his plans anyway and try to get done what he believes needs to be done?

Holy shit.

That's... so like Dirk, and also... so much like Doc Scratch / Lord English?

I mean, think about it, the masterminds taking control of the narration and/or the events that take place, ensuring that over a long timespan their plans will be executed and while at the same time basically seeding the opposition that will eventually stop them!

Woah, now we know for sure where THAT part of their genetics came from!

I mean, obviously Caliborn is no fool himself, but this is exactly the kind of mastermind thing that fits Dirk most.

Also, the part of the text here where Dirk claims that he's afraid of not existing, that fits so well with his conversation with the Auto-Responder just prior to becoming Arquiusprite, where the latter claimed that he was afraid to not exist.

And... did Dirk just confirm exactly how he's going to be stopped by the end of this Epilogue? That Dave will cut off his head and cause a Just death?

Dang.

So the entire time in this Epilogue, where Dirk had a running gag with Dave telling him that the solution to every problem to decapitate him wasn't just a morbid joke referring to what happened in [S] Collide, no... he was giving him hints how to stop him for good.

Fucking hell!

Talking it over with plainWonder here, we were debating if further up in this Epilogue there are going to be some more callbacks to earlier moments from Homestuck, that will turn out to have been (retroactive?) foreshadowing for stuff that's yet to happen, similarly to how Dave(peta)sprite flew up to the sun like a piece of garbage.

And let's not forget, Terezi listening to John bleed while she smells him die! Holy shit I can't believe I forgot to react to that part on that earlier page, because god DAMN that was an insane callback I can't believe actually came true after all this time.

Anyway, I really needed this page. It helps to at least get a better grasp on, yes, this is still Dirk and this fits with his personality, and he knows exactly what he's doing and that he will be stopped.

And actually, it also fits very much with what happened with [S] Dirk: Synchronize and [S] Dirk: Unite where he pulled of a great masterful plan to "fix" everything, and didn't even hesitate to sacrifice his own real self to accomplish it. And now again, he's doing the same thing, though in how far what he's doing is actually needed to "fix" things this time around will remain to be seen...

And yet, there's still so much unclear. Like, what the heck is Dirk actually planning to do here?? And if he's leaving Earth behind, how will anyone follow him? Is he "just" going into space with that ship o Jake's, or is he actually leaving the reality behind (because how would he even do that first of all, and how would anyone even be capable of following without John's retconning powers?)?

Lastly, I just want to mention that I really like he gave a sneaky compliment to Dave there: "Who could wield such control over people’s choices and the course of events without ultimately becoming the enemy of anyone who notices? Maybe only a stronger person than I could manage to pull it off. Someone like Dave."

Page 42:

Holy SHIT this is an epic series of pages!

God you wouldn't BELIEVE how hard I was cheering here when Kanaya regained her sanity and started thinking clearly again. I'm so happy that she truly realizes now what's going on, and Roxy as well.

It's unfortunate that Jade couldn't give all the information in time. I mean, she did manage to give some hints that Dirk was feeding Kanaya thoughts, but she couldn't explain that he was actually controlling their every action.

But this is good, this is a really good start.

And okay, it's unfortunate that Jade has fallen away again. But at least I do trust Alternate Calliope much more as a narrator now than I trust Dirk.

In general, she doesn't actually seem to influence anyone into doing something they wouldn't want to do anyway. Okay, maybe she let herself go with Jane's obsession with the Sucker, I'll give you that. But other than that, she seems to be doing fine?

And being the very definition of passive, she probably won't directly address Roxy or Kanaya here and tell them exactly what's going on or what they should do. They'll unfortunately have to find out for themselves and do something about it.

So, we did get a bit more of a hint as to what Dirk is going to do exactly:

"Who’s doing the thinking, and who’s having the thoughts?

The more you study the question, the more it seems all concrete forms of accountability go up in smoke. Her original thoughts were never that important, and the significance of the idea that she was the one authoring them was always a bit overrated. My mission is to someday clear this all up for everyone. Remove the ambiguity, suck the mud out of the water. It’ll be a lot better that way, trust me."

Does that mean he's going to look for Andrew Hussie??? The guy who wrote Homestuck and was controlling the narration for so long?

I mean, CAN he even do that? Is that guy even still around? Last we saw of him he was in the Furthest Ring, right where Lord English was wreaking havoc.

To go back to my earlier theory, did Aradia round up a bunch of survivors in the Furthest Ring, and is Andrew among them? Is Dirk going THERE? And how is he going to reach it from Earth?

For that matter, how did Terezi reach it in the first place? Did John zap her there? Or can they actually "exit" the Genesis Frog into the Incipisphere by going to the very boundaries of the universe, and can Dirk go to the Furthest Ring that way?

Or, like plainWonder is suggesting to me here, was Andrew's original home on some weird ass planet in Universe C? And that Dirk's headed to there now?

Okay, there should be nobody left there anymore seeing as Andrew's dead and probably still lying around there somewhere, Spades Slick, The Felt, Authour II, and Ms. Paint all went through those Fenestrated Walls into Doc Scratch's appartment and then the clock to go into the Furthest Ring.

...

Hmmm

There's a bunch of possibilities here.

Maybe Dirk's going to look for Andrew's typewriter and/or computer in his castle, that we saw him use sometimes during Homestuck.

Or he's going to retrieve Andrew's corpse for whatever reason.

Or he's going to take those Fenestrated Walls into Doc Scratch's appartment... which should now be inside the Black Hole??? Is he going to take it to Alternate Calliope or something? Or maybe the appartment still exists within the Green Sun due to spacetime shenanigans, and he's going to take the same route that Spades Slick took into the Furthest Ring and go to Aradia that way?

Or Dirk is planning something else entirely of course and I could be entirely wrong!

I'm getting more and more excited to find out!

It's interesting how Dirk mentioned that "a bunch of them" will be leaving the planet to go after him. So, definitely not everyone. Just Kanaya, Roxy, Dave and...????

Also, Dirk states he's already gone. What does that mean then for the offer he gave Terezi to come along with him? Did she accept or refuse off-screen then?

Page 43:

God DAMN the awesome string of pages continues!!!!

First of all, I'm so glad that Roxy and Kanaya went to Dave and Karkat, those were exactly the right persons to contact for this.

There were a lot of really precious good moments on this page: Dave and Karkat's adorable interaction with each other, Roxy being "his dad" now, DAVE SLIPPING INTO HIS OEDIPUS AGAIN, Dave being so worried about John, and Karkat assuming the role of leader again!!!

This page is such a goldmine.

I'm so glad Karkat's taking up the role of leader again, by himself and without any urging. It makes sense, all other people who have assumed leader-like roles before are on the other ship (Dirk, John, Rose, Terezi sorta)

And so if I read correctly, it seems like starting from the next page we'll be going back to more regular narration? So Alternate Calliope will completely omit her "personality", to make the narration as objective as possible.

What I don't entirely understand is the things she said about swapping "speaker". First I thought she meant she'd leave Jade's body and take over someone else's, but perhaps instead it means she will attribute the "you-ness" to other characters?

So that we'll "be" Dave, Roxy, Karkat, or Kanaya at different points, or not?

And the implications from the narration seem to be that John's corpse, and by extension Terezi, are indeed on Dirk's ship, alas. :(

I wonder if we're now going to continue from solely their perspective and their chase of Dirk, or if we're still going to see some things from Dirk's perspective.

Plus, is anyone else going to join this crew? Jane's probably going to stay behind seeing as she's now the president, but what about Jake and the other Calliope?

Also, I wonder, did Squarewave go along with Dirk or did he merely bring some stuff on board and then leave again?

I'm worried about what Alternate Calliope's implying here, that John's role seems to be done. Are we really going to see nothing more of him in this entire Epilogue?

It's so hard to believe, kind of, with how crucial he's always been to the plot of Homestuck.

On the other hand, perhaps it's now truly the time for his friends to shine. Maybe at the very end of the Epilogue he'll turn out to be capable of being revived by Jane after all? That would be nice.

And else, well, I'm already curious what the Candy Epilogue will have in store for him. :P

Man, these pages really were a breath of fresh air after the last few heavy ones. Finally a bit of clarity to Dirk's actions, and finally some signs of hope! :D

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p17-18 reaction

I've realized how page 15 ended with the command "Close your eyes" and page 16 started with Rose talking with her eyes closed. :p

Rose talked about how she'd wake up after looking the demon on her chest into the eyes. She then proceeded to look Dirk straight in the eyes and fall under the spell or whatever it was.

If Dirk truly started influencing Rose and it wasn't just the narration being overly dramatic, then I think it started as she talked about caring about the pieces on the board.

I'm not as sold on the idea that Dirk could be turning into the post-victory end boss anymore. I mean, it's certainly plausible. It could even be that the remaining Reload B2 kids (minus Dirk himself) team up with John against him.

But I think the last paragraph on page 16 could also be interpreted differently. Maybe part of ascending to his ultimate self, for a Prince of Heart, is to "destroy" the boundaries that exist on what he sees as his "self". In that he learns how much of his qualities and flaws exist in other people too. If he can see into his heart, he might learn empathy and become a better person.

Okay, the last sentence seemed to show Dirk take over the narration, but it could also be the visual cue that the narration switched from 3rd person to Dirk's POV, if only for that sentence. It could also be taken to point towards Dirk's growing self-awareness: he's becoming aware of the fact he's a fictional character. In that case, what would it take for John to come to this understanding? To "understand what it all means"?

As for Dirk taking over the other people somehow, growing perhaps a hivemind... Eh. We've had confirmation that Jake looked into his eyes without a problem. Granted, that may have been before Dirk ascended to the god tiers.

Now, next page could stay with Dirk, but I hope it switches back to John. I expect him to undergo some dream sequence before awakening, hopefully still alive. And I hope Terezi will be there when he wakes up. Though it will be sad to see her reaction, if she's learned about Vriska.

==>

AAHHHHHHH he really took over the narration!!! ... Pony Pals Epilogue?

Well then. I... Okay, I wonder whether he'll stick to narrating proceedings on Earth C, or how far his self awareness has grown. DOES he know what Doc Scratch knew, Lord English... Reload Dirk?

"None of my friends have noticed it yet, but you have." He's acknowledging us, the readers. Dear god.

"Anyone paying attention could have guessed by now who’s really telling this story." ... Andrew Hussie? Does Dirk want to wrestle control of his life from the author?

"I’ve caught you leering at some pretty personal moments. Are you having fun being a voyeur?" I came to read a story and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now. Also, I feel I'm being compared to Caliborn in this.

"Knowing their thoughts are transcribed by a third party, does it fill you with a sense of unease, of sickness, sensing that the observations made of their mental interiors may be tainted?" So, Dirk is calling us out on reading their story, as well as indicating to us that what we read about them, even their personal feelings, can be removed from the truth. But, it's not as if HE's going to want to be our narrator, right? Plus, his own POV is still not 'the' truth.

"I am specific. I have a name, an agenda, a vision. I am a monolith of concentrated narrative authority, relaying events to you, and swaying them as I see fit. Whereas you are pointedly nonspecific. You are the generalized, impotent witness to all this." Dirk is self agrandizing himself and describing the MSPA Reader here. He's actually started sounding a lot like Lil Hal, now that he's so convinced of his intellectual prowess. That's not a great evolution.

"I even have the ability to decide what “you” actually means. I can take the “you-ness” away from you, and put it inside another passive mark, such as John Egbert." Does he mean, like, right now, he can decide he's aiming this narration at John? Or... is it what's Blaperile telling me now, that this is supposed to indicate Dirk was the narrator for the entire epilogue up till now? If that's so, everything said in the narration, including the prompts, has just become that much more unreliable.

"So what makes John so special? The answer is something I’m sure you’ve suspected all along but would rather not face, which is: probably nothing. He isn’t special. He’s quite ordinary, I assure you. Boring, even, and getting less interesting by the minute as he’s forced to confront his absolute lack of heroic purpose except as a pawn to be manipulated by a fatalistic reality." Dear god, is John going to have to fight for control of the narration? As for the first thing Dirk says: well, it's true that John is supposed to represent the everyman, the guy that things happen to instead of that he makes them happen, the audience avatar. Now, if John learns about this fact, he might decide to do something against it, snap out of his stupor.

"Anyone can be endowed with this you-ness, if I think it achieves a certain goal." So, will we switch to other you's later on still, narrator guy?

"Even if the objective is merely to demonstrate the gambit’s potential, to reveal the effortlessness behind it. To make a show of who matters and who doesn’t, and even if they do matter, for how long and for what purpose, as dictated solely by the allocation of this faculty. You-ness can be stripped from the lowly Egbert just as easily as it was given, and then bestowed upon the mighty Serket, but even then only long enough to dismiss the vainglorious spotlight hog from the narrative forever. Good riddance." Note that he's saying the "you-ness" is not meant to imply importance to the story. He's saying the effect is used for show. But then this still IS a story, and showing events is part of telling a story. It's like he's trying to convince us he has control over the story, but his control is PART of the story, so yeah, he still hasn't escaped.

... Good to see Homestuck can still become even more meta, after all this time.

"No, in truth, the time has come to make my presence known in order to start bringing my plans to fruition. It’s time to get down to fucking business.

John needs to wake up." Wow. It's time for Dirk's masterpiece then, taking the biggest control he can ever have, weaving the biggest scheme. To what end, then?

Simply to confront John - in Dirk's eyes, a random character in the story, if one with a lot of focus inside the story - with his existence as a fictional character? Will he guide John to Andrew Hussie's ghost?

Also, will the narration even switch back to black ink, I wonder? If it does, though, we'll still be left with the eery knowledge that what we're reading is, even in the first person, narrated by Dirk.

I'm starting to get the distinct impression that Caliborn didn't just botch his maturation process, he also bodged his god tier process. He still took control of the narration, and "expanded" his consciousness through other means (soul sludge merge), and then took control of his story in the multiverse... only for Paradox Space to still damn him in the end.

Also, didn't John speak through the narration during one of the later Homosuck Acts? When he zapped into Caliborn's room? I wonder if he'll do that again some time quick.

Lastly, I wonder if this is why the epilogues are in text format. So that this thing with the narration works even better. Guess What Pumpkin and VIZ Media are publishing this as a novel.

It's a great use of the format Homestuck exists as on the web, making use of the site's template for good color contrast.

==>

Start of Epilogue Four.

"You wake up.

JOHN: wh-what?" ... Is John going to become aware of the change in narrative 'colour' from the start? Starting to speak in dialogue with it, becoming recalcitrant? ... Is Dirk going to start filling the shoes of WV, Terezi, Karkat and all those poor souls guiding John on his story?

"You finally process the true magnitude of what has happened. The Furthest Ring has been completely destroyed. And you’re all alone." Wow. So, uh, what now? And, what of all the universes inside the sessions in the Furthest Ring? How could they have been destroyed, if Universe C is contained somewhere in there?

"Well, you’re vomiting up everything in your stomach. Rest assured, it’s pretty gross" Well, uh, at least he's now finally gotten rid of all that uncooked meat filling his stomach. Seriously, that probably wasn't being digested all that well.

How long before John acknowledges something is wrong with the narration, I wonder?

"You seriously need to get it together. You look like absolute shit right now, my man. In fact, you really should strongly consider issuing an apology for the mess you’re making." And here we have the first instance of Dirk definitely abusing his power.

"JOHN: i’m... JOHN: i’m sorry." :/ What was even the point of making him do that. Just to upset the MSPA Reader, I suppose.

This is basically: what if Lil Hal was an exile.

"Everyone’s dead." Everybody's dead, Dave.

"Well, almost everyone.

But certainly the vast majority of what qualifies as “everyone” in your current frame of reference." John himself excluded, of course. But see, this implies there are more people around, still alive. ... Then again, the narration wouldn't be lying if there were also still dreambubble ghosts. They'd still be dead, after all.

"And most of your friends—Rose, Dave, absurd Cat Dave, and hundreds of ghosts" Not starring in this list: Jade, Meenah. Of course, unreliable narrator goes without saying at this point.

", who all valiantly contributed to a victory which you’re only now beginning to question the functional necessity of." Well, Rose couldn't see "beyond the story" yet when she sent John on this mission. Care to enlighten us, oh wise and omniscient narrator?

"JOHN: functional... necessity?

JOHN: that... that doesn’t sound like something i would think." Ahhhhhh... That feels good. It took John all of two minutes to figure out something was wrong. I'm honestly quite impressed he wasn't hornswaggled on some crazy MacGuffin hunt first.

"That’s because it’s not." Huh! I'd actually thought Dirk would lead with: 'Yes, it is.' Guess he realizes the jig is up!

"You’ve finally noticed.

No, not me. You go back to ignoring the fact that I’m the voice in your head. You noticed how it hurts when you breathe." Ah. So he just goes right back to forcing John to dance to his tune. Tssh.

"On the other hand, the tooth is poisoned." Uh, how? Why? Poison? ... Yet another way in which Lord English was OP'd.

"So you’re pretty much fucked either way, and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.

JOHN: sigh.

You sigh in painful resignation, and wonder what to do next." Dirk is trying to put John's REAL thoughts into a different context. He's basically replaced the narrative, so... Yeah, this really IS a callback to Pony Pals. God damnit. Who'd have thought that would be foreshadowing THIS.

"English is dead, so you suppose you can go home, right? It’s tempting. You consider zapping back to Earth C, being done with this nightmare for good, and never breathing a word of it to anyone ever again. But you can’t yet, can you?" He can't because he won't, or because you won't let him? Does John want to ensure the safety of Universe C, first? Or will he want to check on Terezi first, potentially (we wouldn't be able to tell) nudged into it by Dirk.

"Why not, you wonder? What’s the harm? You’re right, it would probably be a harmless decision, in the grand scheme of things." ... Don't tell me we'll have ANOTHER split path coming up.

"How about Jade though? She could still be out there somewhere, injured, alone, scared. And it’s your fault, isn’t it?" John turned his back on the body, so he's now unsure what happened to it. It's probably a red herring though, planted by Dirk.

... If it even IS Dirk. I mean, the narration could just as suredly still be coming from Andrew in-universe, and he'll go "tadaa! fooled you twice!" at some point...

"You decide that no matter how terrible you feel, you should look around first before you leave. You were the one who dragged her here. You owe her at least that much. Plus, there’s someone else on your mind, isn’t there?" ... I wonder if Dirk can only influence his thoughts in the Furthest Ring. Actually, I doubt it. Since, when you think about it... Jake fantasizing about Dirk is put into a different light entirely now. As were all the turns of phrases that were perhaps a little too sarcastic for the situation to warrant. I had a few times where I thought: the narration doesn't feel the same, but I put it up to the new format as well as the co-writers. Now, though...

"You proceed to wander for a long fucking time. Time passes differently here than it does for everyone else. Here, I’ll simulate it for you. I just left to go take a piss. Then I microwaved myself a hot pocket. Then I came back. In the time it took me to do that, you just spent hours drifting around the entire circumference of the black hole thinking sad-sack thoughts about the years of inaction that led you to this point, intermittently humming the Ghostbusters theme to yourself. You get so worked up about one of your GB freestyles that you almost miss it." Now Dirk's just showboating. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind hearing a couple of John's Ghostbusters freestyles.

"There. Eleven o’clock. Do you see it? It’s that tiny dot floating over there." Eleven, eh? So, what should I be betting on? Not Jade? Terezi perhaps? Or a random item from a dreambubble?

"You scramble to catch it before it drifts any closer to the event horizon. Got it. What the hell?" Huh, it's something very small? ... Not a firefly, is it? ... If so, in come the theories that it's actually Alternate Calliope.

"It feels familiar, but you want to make sure you’re not imagining it. A wallet. Your dad’s wallet. You chew your lip and press your fingers into the soft leather." What the-... Huh. Well, I was kind of hoping John would have a vision of his Dad, in his dream. This might lead up to something more! I'm reminded of Doomed John seeing a vision of his Dad in the dreambubbles.

So, the ACTUAL wallet ended up in Aradia's hands. John found it left for him on the battlefield, then CD? stole it, Liv Tyler took out the Tumor but gave it to him, CD? was killed by Bec Noir for killing Jade, and he stored the wallet into Lil' Cal. Then Lil' Cal crashed on Alternia with one of the doomed Aradiabots, leading to Aradia finding her frog temple and the Crosbytop. ... So, is there anything left of value in the wallet after all this time? A metric ton of shaving cream, a lighter with a spades symbol... Oh wait, but Spades Slick also got his hands on the Crosbytop, so did he steal the wallet back from Aradia? If so, then the wallet was last present in the B2 session... But if Aradia still had it on her, she took it with her into the Furthest Ring!

"Space is an infinitely large expanse and a wallet is a tiny, insignificant object. Sure, there have been crazier coincidences in the course of this wacky adventure you’ve been having for the past ten years, but this one feels very precisely aimed at your heart.

You take a deep breath, unfold the wallet, and open it." ... So it contains something captchalogued. Cause it sure won't be a Dad note, after all these years and having gone through all those hands, right? ... Right? Now I'm reminded of how Jake had part of his old home captchalogued.

Blaperile jokingly said: "I hope it isn't Aradia or Terezi captchalogued in there", but actually, if there's something to withstand the end of the Furthest Ring, it would be this wallet.

---

... Wow. At least Dirk's tenure as unreliable narrator is rooted in familiar grounds, Lil Hal genre influencing people. And I know I mustn't get my hopes up for ever getting more information about Dad, or seeing something from his youth... But here I am.

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Pages 17 & 18 (Epilogue 3 Page 4 & Epilogue 4 Page 1)