#read sburb refresh

[yikes-strikes-again]

YEEEEEEESSSSSS TIM AND BROOK SWEEP

[thewebcomicsreview]

Hate to tell you this, but the HSBC update just got updated.

I get that they wanted to keep the Hell Arc confined to page 666, and it'll make the archival experience pretty cool, but hard refreshing the site didn't let me see the update to the page due to cache bullshit, I had to use a different browser. So let's liveblog now before it breaks again:

Looks like we're back to Tavros. I guess it makes sense that the first path to update would the one where they could reuse the talksprites.

So, as directly stated by Davepeta, Vriska is trapped in a time loop, where Tavros doesn't remember anything that happened the previous day, just like in the movie Groundhog Day. That Davepeta called out the movie explicitly in-universe as the reference makes me wonder if events will follow the rough plot of that movie. It's clearly what Davepeta wants to happen, but...Vriska....

Anyway, Vriska offers to let Tavros decide what to do today, for the first time. It took two whole years for her to try that, but she is the Thief of Light and not letting anyone else decide what to do is literally her cosmic role and stuff, so I guess that tracks. And what Tavros wants to do is....play a game.

Last update I said that Vriska saying she's done some things wrong while shrugging and laughing is the ultimate distillation of Vriska, but her having won everything and being miserable about it is also the ultimate distillation of Vriska. She's a woman of contrasts, that Vriskers.

The use of the phrase "session" here outs this line as having Deeper Meanings. Having SBURB sessions over and over so we can play forever is literally Dirk's plan, and most of the fandom is assuming a Candy session is coming.

So, even though they're talking about playing FLARP (the troll DnD game, which is apparently PvP), this is also an argument over whether or not Homestuck should continue. You can't really "win" if the game keeps going, but that doesn't mean you're stuck doing the same thing over and over.

I know Vriska is Problematique, but I'm still taken aback by her 2000s kid usage of "gay" as a general-purpose insult, and not just because trolls don't have a concept of "straight" or "gay". Apparently she doesn't even know what it means and learned the word from Da-

Oh, it was just to set up this line for people to screenshot. Alright. Fine.

brb, gotta go post this in the hard to use reaction images channel on the discord and have someone complain it's easy to use.

Tavros accuses Vriska of projecting her own fears onto him, and then gets into a tangent about being a "soft" female fairy and Vriska takes him up on playing this new "game for girls" and he panics and changes the subject. There's a...lot....going on there.

Vriska starts to have an actual breakthrough, when suddenly Aradiabot appears. Wait, is this where Aradia and Ult!Dave went?

We fade to black and I thought that was it, but apparently not. This being a visual novel makes it feel like a much bigger update than it is, and also kind of makes you read each line a bit more carefully. It's a good way of having multiple meaty (or, um, candy-y) updates in a short stretch of time, and that's kind of an important part of the "feel" of Homestuck that no one can really replicate.

Oh, I do not care for this talksprite.

The downside of this format is that it's harder to liveblog, I think, but basically Aradia is complaining about the Vriska Cycle of "Do bad thing, self-flagellate to be redeemed, repeat".

Vriska justifies it because she has to take action and set people straight and stuff, and if this conversation/game isn't leading to the return of "(Vriska)", the OG timeline Vriska who died and got a ton of character growth before post-retcon Vriska stole her girlfriend, then what is it building towards?

A lot of these lines make good single-panel memes. Yes, Vriska, you are the problem in nearly every situation, even (especially) when you're also the solution.

Aradia sa- oh for fuck's sake this is unreadable, guys. Anyway she says that getting into a routine leads to stagnation and slow death, which, mood, but also is about Homestuck itself as much as it is about Vriska.

Jesus Christ, how long is this update? This page is a full on Pesterquest game when the other five routes are finished.

Oh, okay. That's it. Vriska levels and we get a bunch of fire-themed pun ranks for her, of which Skinner's Bane is the best

[theragnarokd]

[i deny anything to do with this. dirk writing fanfiction, modern no sburb au, rated T so far, lots of self loathing and judginess]

It was the end of the evening shift. He did a lot of closing nowadays, night blurring into dawn: there wasn’t anyone to drag him out. Not anymore. On the counter, there was a finished drink, the customer’s name written on it in sharpie. His coworker must have ducked out just before calling out their name. He picks it up. It’s not until he calls out the name that it registers: “Enkidu!” From the back of the coffee shop, a familiar figure approaches, and Gilgamesh’s heart clenched. For a desperate moment, he dared to hope.

Dirk exhales, rereading the paragraphs for typos. Then he saves it into the folder titled Oubliette, and opens a different text file. His SBaHJ reverse-mpreg vore isn’t going to write itself, and Dirk can’t disappoint his readership.

Even as the thought forms, his inbox dings. His heart speeds up at the view of the sweetest words known to man or machine:

[AO3] Comment on SBaHJ: the Romeomance

Of course he immediately opens the notification.

centaursTesticle left the following comment:

My admiration, as always, is yours. I would be happy to read more in this GRIPPING tale

Dirk permits himself a small smile. This guy has been commenting on Dirk’s fics, first in a binge and now on every new installment he updated. Dirk mentally fist-bumps him before opening his WIP folder, where the relevant fic document lives. It’s a good day.

It is not a good night.

Dirk should go the fuck to sleep. Or at least to shower. He washed the dishes earlier and his shirt has more unmentionable fluids on it than his latest fic update, which is saying something.

Instead, he goes to Romeomance’s page and hits refresh.

Not even a tick on the visit count.

This is stupid. Dirk is being a useless idiot. If people can’t appreciate his subtle satire and how it corresponds with the tone of the original comics and movies, that’s on them, and not on him.

There’s a newer fanfic than his with twice the hitcount, not even looking at kudos.

Well, so what? People like what they like. As long as Dirk is happy with the stuff he writes – and while he’s always aware of places he could improve, he rather is happy with it – what does it matter what response some other person’s fic gets?

The title is a lower-case quote from a song that was in the top 40s ten years ago. The tags include Enemies to Lovers, Only One Bed, and Slow Burn. (The fic isn’t even 10K, and it’s marked as complete, so Dirk is a teensy bit skeptical of how slow that burn is.)

Dirk clicks in. Maybe he can learn a thing or two.

The first two paragraphs make a fairly clever allusion to the famous stairs monologue. It’s a surprisingly fresh outlook on a piece of canon that’s been worn to palimpsest and back by fanon. It could be a good fic. Dirk might enjoy it. Better, Dirk might learn how to write something that isn’t worthless drivel–

He closes the tab.

This would be an excellent time to go shower.

He opens the tab again. He reads through the story grimly, marking how the dialogue sounds lively and not like two finger puppets squeaking at one another. Yes, okay, it’s a stylistic choice for Dirk. That, and he can’t fucking write dialogue to save his life.

By the time Dirk reaches the author’s notes at the end, the only argument he can make against deleting all his own fic is that it can serve as a cautionary tale.

The end notes thank two beta readers. Dirk runs his fics past Roxy when he can swing it, but for the most part, he hasn’t managed to attract a beta reader in years. Maybe that’s why everything he writes gargles balls.

There’s also a link to the author’s entry in the Every Little Bid Helps fanfic auction. Dirk clicks on the link mostly out of self preservation: if he rereads this fic, he really will orphan his account. That would be sad for that centaursTesticle guy, wouldn’t it? Think of the testicles. The centaur ones.

[metroid-fusion]

i am literally insane about this homestuck fancomic website

after just having read sburb done quick, pay dat rent, ior, the grapple comic, hypnagogia AND fearn0t, i have just started reading the tapestry. cause everyone on the planet talks about it. i have done this instead of reading EITHER of the other ones i said i was gonna read (sburb refresh and desynced) (also i was gonna read hexane but the flashes arent working ... ?? i hope ruffle spontaneously fixes so i can keep reading it but until that happens im stalled on that)

i WILL keep u updatied with my thoughts on the tapestry

[jadedharleys]

jumbled thoughts upon rereading hivebent for like the 5th time

i reread (aka. watched all of the corresponding lets read homestuck videos while sewing scalemates) all of hivebent today and. ive read it myself three times and watched it on lrhs twice now and. there is just something about it more so than any other acts that lrhs has done that lends it soooooooo well to the audio format. i guess its the sheer volume of the story that is told purely through the chatlogs and memos and the nonchronology that is a bit easy to lose track of when reading yourself?

whatever. it just refreshed my Emotions about the trolls and their relationships and their session. karkat my babygirl with issues he is such a little bitch but he deserves the softest comfiest bed with so many plushies... aradia my sweetheart she makes me soooooooo sad when you see her at different moments going from happy and friendly to dead and spooky and nihilistic to her shift to murdery robot mode...

feferi talking to kanaya about both of their knowledge of sburb before going in!!! feferi being so tired of keeping eridan in check and god shes just a kid they all are!!!!!

karkats descent into whatever the hell that is. madness. selfkismeisitude. sleep deprived emoboy fuckassery. god he is so sillay i remembered that he is like the number one troll of all time (one of two i knew existed before i read homestuck lol) for good reason!!!

just. the whole thing is so well written. it plays with itself. one of my rereads was via my print copy of it and hussie talks about how the format of hivebent only works because it follows the established structure of the first few acts of homestuck. it makes fun of its own format and shitty structure and unfolds in such a cool way. and the characters holy fuck the characters weve already seen them but every single one is so richly characterized--even the flatter ones are immediately appealing and/or intriguing!!! theyre all so unique and distinct and yet the web of their relationships is so complex and yet casual.

like. the friendships and relationships make sense and theyre all connected in different amounts that makes putting them all in a story so cool. its like inviting all your friendgroups and the friendgroups on the outskirts of those ones that circle back to your own into a big discord server and then your one weird nerdy friend says ok guy2 iit2 tiime two play the game that wiil blow up the planet that my giirlfriiend 2aiid we 2hould play for game niight.

speaking of aradia holy SHIT the end of hivebent is so cool like. it doesnt come to a clean chronological end. we end up with karkats yelling from all up and down the timeline and start feeling like something doesnt work out. and aradia has already told us this but its looking a bit worrying! and then aradia comes in with her whole monologue and holy shit. i get chills. every. single. time. like whether or not you already know that the "twist" is that they created our universe it still hits like one. houuuugh.

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

webcomics i am reading right now:

i'll put em under a cut actually for your sake :)

- aurora (it's red osp's comic how could i not. it's great)

- the glass scientists (i actually heard a recommendation for this one from osp too. hahah)

- i've been trying to read burning down the house, sburb: refresh, guidestuck (and guidestuck^2), hackbent, the crow strider au comic, vast error, karkat goes to a convention, mr tamborine man, and i think that's it in terms of homestuck fancomics (some of these i am more committed to than othets tbh)

- crow timeeeeee

- i kinda just finished where witchy is right now but hopefully the story will update more soon because omg i love it

- i have not started parallax yet but.... it looks fun

- namesake i also have not started but like. y'know. it's another secondlina thing.

- also haven't started clown corps but. clowns.

- just started nevermore and it's GREAT

- never satisfied i have also not made much headway on but like it's also fun

- paper teeth <3 so good for pathetic women representation

- nobody else here reads toymaker but it's fun. i like it

- laika's comet <3

- sunflowers and lavender is so cuteeeee

- high class homos reminds me of this one short film with the prince and the princess and there's like a beetle guy..? you know the one? anyways it reminds me of that so i like

- boyfriends. DON'T COME AFTER ME I AM IN MY YEARNING HOURS

- hello, hello has cute werewolf/sorcerer plot and i love the characters

- just started bugtopia and. the spider mom is like half homestuck flashbacks (but she's a good mom) and half thinking that maybe she's a milf. or like a msemlf (mother someone else might like to fuck)

- wait since hs^2 is updating. that means i am STILL READING HOMESTUCK. i am perhaps. stuck.

- i have so many other comics bookmarked and pages open with rec lists too. help

[highly-opinionated-nerd]

Read in 2023:

Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians (~525-456 BCE), by Aeschylus- his works were surprisingly fun to read!

Strip Tease (1993), by Carl Hiassen- I grew up in Central Florida, so of course I’m a fan of Hiaasen’s. My first time reading one of his adult works- I enjoyed it! There was only one glaring moment of ‘female character poorly written by a man’, for the most part it was fine, haha

The Bacchae and Other Plays (484-406 BCE), by Euripides- the Bacchae was my favorite, because the women-hating man got ripped to shreds at the end! But they were all interesting I have many thoughts about all of it

Ven Polypheme novels 1-3 (2014), by Elizabeth Haydon- absolutely delightful, love the world building and the way she talks about magic.

Homestuck (200-2016)- my 4th or 5th reread I think? and I still haven’t read Rose’s sburb walkthrough. This is so lame but I got great entertainment from reading out loud to myself, using character voices.

Ouran High School Host Club (2002), by Bisco Hatori- also one of many rereads. It’s one of the first manga I ever read. My family moved states when I was in high school, and the library where we ended up didn’t have the last couple volumes for me to finish the series...so I bought the box set, haha! No idea where I got the money for that at age 16. I kept catching myself smiling while reading. I’m still madly in love with Mori.

Tiger, Tiger (2018-present), by Petra Erika Nordlund- I used to read a ton of webcomics all the time, but I stopped for some reason. Most of the ones I’d been following ended and I never bothered to start new ones, I guess. While I was in the process of moving and all my books were packed seemed like a good time to start a new one. And I was not disappointed. The art? Awe-inspiring. The story? Delightful. There are a lot of really good names, too. If you’re insane about names, like me, just know, there’s a dude named Rakkatak. Highly, highly recommend.

Treasure Island (1883), by Robert Louis Stevenson- quick read, and highly enjoyable! GOD I love pirate stories. Treasure PLANET has long been a favorite of mine, but this was my first time reading the original. The line towards the end ‘I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him’ will stick with me as a succinct summary of the differences between the two tellings, I think.

Shadow Raiders (2012), a novel by Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes- I picked this one up at a book sale because it had a dragon on the cover. It is a completely unnecessary 700 pages long, and it doesn’t even end at the end, it’s part of a series! It took a long time to get into it, but the part in the middle where the two main story lines converged and there was a big battle was very compelling. Then it got slow again immediately after. I like the concept and worldbuilding, I have mixed feelings about the storytelling, and I have serious doubt that the characters were written to their fullest potential. Not sure if I’m gonna go looking for the rest of the series, hmmmm

Sakana (2010-present), by Mad Rupert- longtime favorite webcomic started updating again after a long hiatus, so I did a reread so I’d be refreshed and ready for new pages. God, I love Sakana, Sakana is so good

Metamorphoses (8 CE), by Ovid- took a little bit of a hiatus in the middle of this one but I finished it! I still have a hard time believing that this work is considered a comedy- there’s a lot of individual tragedies on parade here if you ask me. But it was an interesting read, I liked it

Holes (1998), by Louis Sachar- first reread in (checks watch) 16 years. I’ve thought about this book a lot ever since first reading it in fifth grade. I saw it at Target one day and it was in my basket before I could even blink. I still love it, I couldn’t put it down. Finished it in like 3 sittings.

Wayne Family Adventures vol. 1 (2021), by CRC Payne and Starbite- love, love, love the art style and all the colors. The individual episodes themselves were very short but still highly entertaining, fun quick read.

Darth Bane trilogy (2006-2009), by Drew Karpyshyn- to say I was obsessed with reading Star Wars books as a kid would be a grave understatement. Before I had a personality, I had Star Wars. Now that I’m an adult and building up my own book collection, I’ve been slowly bringing a few back into my life. The Bane books truly captured my imagination when I was younger, and I still love them so unbelievably much. I could go on all day about outwardly opposing philosophies and Force specialties and the way wielding power changes and harms you and, and, and... not quite done yet, so this series’ll be finished up in 2024!

[cherub-investigation0802]

say would you recommend me mspfa’s? im planning to read crossmound, freeroam and sburb refresh

[just-jammin]

you are being awfully self deprecating with your blog name and tag use. you’re not genuinely annoying, and there’s nothing wrong with changing up the tags you use. i would say that yt kinda isn’t an sm, find something new to be excited about! or try drawing a single line, idk.

eh, the title was a recent change after an anon told me to stop promoting my incomplete AuraStone Aura Fusion Generator

but the tags, well, came back from when i first met the Chaos Fam in 2020; they were supposed to be my shitpost tags, but they bled in to my everyday textposts

annnnnd now i think there’s a fuckton of posts with those two tags that it might take a long time to edit them all to remove them

but hey, at least browsing through my archive is slightly easier—

[californiannostalgia]

3 Cool Homestuck Resources I Recently Discovered (2022 Edition)

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This 1-hour video uploaded by Playhead North on Youtube, who read the entirety of Homestuck in 9 days and proceeded to 1) create a Homestuck Reaction Image Pack (top 50 or so) available for download and 2) review and react to Homestuck in a way that only someone who has read Homestuck will create media

This ongoing Homestuck podcast that I was recommended from the above 1-hour Reaction Image Pack video, created by a Homestuck enthusiast (who has been there from the very first page of Homestuck and is attempting to recount his real-time experience of the comic with copious background research into internet culture and forums) and a new reader of Homestuck (who gives refreshing insight into how Homestuck rewires our expectations of media and storytelling), which makes for really cool meta 

(EDIT: content warning for the limit of perspective in white male academia, they can sometimes be very frustrating to listen to)

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This ingenious long-time project of turning SBURB into a playable DnD game, where the DM is Skaia and your players are destroying and creating worlds

(RPGStuck’s community has a Discord and a Reddit, and I swear I never even knew Old Reddit was a thing that existed until I saw how their site looks like something straight out of Homestuck)

All 3 resources are really cool and interesting fan creations, check them out!

[greetingsfromuranus]

am reading sburb: refresh this shvoriejiu9gjrzgfmidxlgjnjrnkdngjrdgiren jxdusiochfsuvkifsa its sooooo fucking good i love it <33333333333

[ardenttheories]

You know....I've been re-reading Homestuck and my god those first 4 and a half acts are so damn refreshing with how fun they are and for the most part still hold up but in retrospect there are so many red flags for the dumbster fire it would become. In a lot of ways HS2 kinda does feel like a natural progression of what HS ended up as.

Honestly, Acts 1-4&1/2 still focus on a lot of world buildup. At that point, they’re very much still playing a general, ordinary game of SBURB, prior to any true plot fuckery being introduced; it’s easy to consume and enjoyable to read because it focuses very heavily on character development. At that point it’s still light hearted and fun because we’re learning the characters, and that’s where we form our connections (it’s also why it’s so easy to get dramatically attached to them in these early moments - very good writing practice, admittedly). 

They’re... definitely not perfect. There’s still some bullshit fuckery, but I’m not sure it’s the same as HS2. Looking back at something like Game Over, which I’ve mentioned before, there’s some wild differences in how and why they hit so hard - still enough of a point of focus on characters and how they interact with each other in genuine degrees than “writing this for the sake of causing pain”.

That said, shit like how often Vriska gets her development reset, or Eridan being villainised for no fucking reason, or the terrible treatmeant of the Alpha trolls and even some of the better Beta trolls - it definitely points to the suggestion of something like HS2, but I don’t think it ever really hits that mark. Not in the way that HS2 takes characters that are already developed and finished and content, and then just. Fucks with them in ridiculous ways. 

Even Eridan still got a slightly good deal at the end of it, with a vague form of redemption outside of the weird shit he got involved in regarding Shrek. It’s wildly different to the way the HS2 writers outright laugh at the concept of redemption with Gamzee, and make us regret having ever wanted it. 

I don’t think it’s a natural progression, essentially. It was present in Homestuck in a very bare form, but in a lot of ways Homestuck still handled things significantly better. It was still enjoyable, engaging, and was aware of what the fandom liked and wanted to see without taunting us for it, or claiming us stupid for it. 

If you had any specific examples in mind relating to how you saw the natural progression, please do share! I’m going off of only what I specifically remember; you might have read something I’ve completely forgotten about.

[metroid-fusion]

man i should really go back n read hexane. my list is like. sburb refresh because i liked sdq. desynced. hexane

[gamesnared]

Upd8!

I've had 3 playtests with 2 iterations of Gamesnared with a group of close friends and MAN have I learned a lot. Here's the big changes I've made from the Masks framework:

Influence has been replaced with Bonds, which track how player characters and main NPCs feel about each other. This is sort of inspired by Fellowship's bonds system AND the Links system from Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined. Bonds can be tapped to improve rolls related to characters, but need to be refreshed before they can be used again. Definitely not balanced or fully implemented yet, but it feels fun in play!

A new stat called Echelon, which represents the characters' power level in game. EVERYONE in homestuck gets good at fighting things like imps and ogres, the real conflict usually comes from other people. PCs will use Echelon when fighting NPC type characters, but other stats when fighting sapient, individual characters.

A new move called Go On a Quest. It's meant to cover those scenes where we cut back to a character and they're in the middle of some wild Sburb shenanigans, but we don't see exactly what happened in between. Dave failed this roll and ended up in a soup cauldron. Rose rolled real good on this once and rode an Ogre down a waterfall. We didn't see how exactly they got into those positions but we saw what sort of position they were in when we looked back.

I'm going to run another playtest with this second iteration of the Masks system, then I'm REALLY going to tear into it. Reading Interstitial (along with a few choice homestuck tabletop threads on twitter) has given me a very good idea of where I want to go next with the game. My last hurdle is the structure of an actual campaign though. How do I facilitate and encourage the wild plotlines of Homestuck? Should I leave it to GM discretion, or mechanize it with ticking clocks or dice pools? I think I'll reread Fiasco and see if I can use anything from there.

So that's the upd8. It's chugging along, going pretty well. Nowhere near done yet but I can see it taking shape.

I'm left only with one nagging doubt. How do I share this with people when it's shareable? Currently, maybe 4 people have read this blog, tops. Homestuck isn't exactly at its peak and I'm basically a nobody on the internet on all platforms. I guess another step to this project as it approaches playability is to research how to build interest and spread the word! I'm not looking to make money on this game but I want people to know it exists. It's like fan art, I want other fans to see it just cuz I hope it brings them joy.

[thepersephonecabin]

And another thing:

I dont understand why people are surprised that everything in the epilogues got fucked up i mean?

If i watched the apocalyptic destruction of my own and several other universes, watched all my friends and family die sometimes more than once with varying permanence, and been forced into a survival game where you would have to fight for your fucking life against insane odds all by the time i was 16 then of course the effects of that trauma is going to get played out in my adulthood. They experienced abuse, isolation, death, were forced into situations where self-harm and suicide was the literal only way out, worked for years with only the distant promise of having a home again only to find out it was all pointless because of how minor fuckups can cause sburb can become completely unwinnable. I would be more concerned if the characters were all suddenly okay than to have things go off the rails like this.

I understand if you wanted an escape from reality with the epilogues and thats a totally reasonable response, but we all saw and read the content warnings and power struggles, splintering friend groups, rushing into relationships romantic and sexual with people would shouldn't, depression, self-isolation, suicide, illness and disability, infidelity, seeing yourself recover somewhat healthily or repeat the mistakes of your abusers and become the "villain" are all super realistic reactions to the massive amounts of fucked up shit the characters went through in canon that real survivors go through every day and i should know because im one of them

Its like how a lot of people hated the harry potter epilogue because it was so divorced from the trauma harry ron and hermione had gone through in the series and we never got to see them work through it, just skipped ahead to the happy ending. To me the homestuck epilogues are the antithesis of that.

And tbh as a 20-something who grew up with severe depression because nothing i experienced in life had the picture perfect ending of the fairytales i felt promised by the media around me i find it refreshing to have a story finally show the consequences of these kids experiencing everything they experienced in canon

[eldritch-sanctum]

Unpopular opinion about the Homestuck Epilogues:

I honestly do like how Dirk unfolded as a villain, I like the twist that he is the “Final Boss of Homestuck”, I mean someone you always thought was on YOUR side, someone beloved by fans and the protagonists alike? I guess because that is how a lot of psychopaths do wind up being-beloved by all until their dark secret is revealed, and I know I am kinda...privileged saying this because I never developed a proper bond with any of the kids, except Rose (and how the fuck was she convinced to go with Dirk? Maybe because of her condition, but why continue the cycle of Sburb?).  But I did feel bonded to John and Terezi moreso in the epilogues.

Also the realization that he is an amalgam or has always been there in some way or form, in all the other major antagonists (except the Dersite ones).  He has merged with all his other selves in power and mind, which also includes Lord English, Lil’Cal, and Doc Scratch.  Some speculate he’s become a very vile asshole due to also being connected to and influenced by them, but it’s hard to really tell at this point and might be wishful thinking, but it does kinda explain his feelings for Jake being that of utter disdain and contempt to the point of ruining him (But Caliborn did feel respect for Jake, enough to take his name?), and his obsession with masculinity (notice how when Roxy identifies as a man, he is suddenly fine with it), but one can argue that he’s always been manipulative with Jake, in fact I recall that being a huge thing about DirkxJake being a toxic relationship.  Basically saying that maybe Dirk really always has been an asshole.

I think a lot of people in fandoms still want to think of their villains as murderbabies or something, and there are villains who probably do deserve better, but it’s sometimes refreshing to be faced with a villain whose cunning comes seemingly out of left field. 

Dirk has always been sorta in touch with his other selves throughout the comic in some ways, but his character arc really drew on the horrible implications of him being linked with his other selves, even the ones he made and what it meant since it was seeded into the other mass manipulators, by himself actually, and into his puppet.

Which then brings us to the end of Meat, wherein alt Calliope uses Jade’s body to devour Lord English’s corpse in a way that got Aradia cheering.  This Calliope knew that Lord English was...more than just Caliborn but also a sweaty Void troll and an artificial version of Dirk, which is still linked with the other Dirks.  (Something worth mentioning is that Nepeta is the other Heart player).  Cherub romance and sexual style is said to be typically blackrom and said to be an attraction to a mate that reminds them of the sibling they overpowered and killed, which implies that maybe alt Calliope and Dirk could have been...a bit flirty with one another?  Does this mean eating that corpse was also a tad vore?  Dunno just food for thought. 

And then there is that last ominous line by him:

“I am already gone.”

Which echoes “He is already here”. 

Continuing the cycle of Sburb seems to imply that maybe Lord English was responsible for that, and that maybe all First Guardians really did have some link since their purpose was to perpetuate the cycle using the Green Sun.  And now Dirk just fucks off Earth C to do that.  It’s also stated that Earth C does eventually become barren and home of the Cherub players, which makes it kinda...depressing since it means they didn’t fully break the cycle, and what of the god tiers after that?

Although I did enjoy the meta stuff because last year I did go through a crisis a bit about the direction of certain fictional things but then I looked at some superhero stuff and how there are so many canons and verses and shit like that, which made me think about the fleetingness of canon.  So I do get that criticism of “what is canon anyway? lol” and the escape from canon being the only solution since canon is the “ouroboros”, the cycle in Homestuck which also prunes the broken time loops that ensure everything goes as planned.

Also I read Candy first, so that might have flavored (hehe) my perception differently than others.