THE HOMESTUCK EPILOGUES: Meat, Candy, & the "Death of the Author" 

Yes my opinions on the Epilogues have evolved over the past couple of years. I probably wouldn't make the video nearly the same way, these days lol.

Barack Obama is my favorite Homestuck character.

I personally feel like having nothing but 3 years of fanon didnt do the epilogue a whole lot of favors. I recently finished my reread a couple of days before the epilogue came out, and when you're fresh done with homestuck, the epilogue works a lot better.

VRISKA: ...you don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero. DIRK: Well, I don't have to be a bad guy to be a villain.

How dare you not even mention Swifer Eggmop, the TRUE most important character.

pain (/pān/) noun 1. Homestuck Epilogues

I've decided that the Epilogues don't exist and it was all just a fever dream :)

I think there's another message here. that there will be no more homestuck because the only happy ending for the kids is a nebulous "Non-narrative" that exists unwritten because it can only exist without a writer. that their lives after Sburb and the rest of Homestuck are entirely meant to be their own. that is to say, the events "After" homestuck entirely exist beyond both Hussy's authorship and the community's fanon. The only Happy ending to homestuck is where they are no longer part of a story, with their lives existing as boring, practically mundane "Normality"

I just wanna throw in, I don't think dirk's suicide has anything to do with him becoming his ultimate self. I think he'd already achieved it and upon sensing that john didn't make the decision to go fight lord english thanks to his narrative powers he killed himself to either sorta consolidate his power or to escape a world where he's losing control or can't achieve his goal whatever that may be

As someone who spends a lot--maybe too much time--analyzing homestuck, reading and rereading it; and having recently reread Homestuck for the 4th or 5th time, I thought the Epilogues were a perfect fit for homestuck. They're weird, uncomfortable, amazing, tragic and open-ended.

I mean what else do you expect from leaving kids who were basically left without parents before the age of 18 alone to run a world after theirs was a game of life and death for 3 years?

There's a ton of stuff the authors seemed to forget in the epilogues. All the sprites except Davepeta, the characters being able to combine their powers in fraymotifs, John being able to de-materialize into air, etc. Also, there was a big sense of retreating ground, narratively speaking. Like, yeah you can justify Dirk going back to his flaws within the story's events, but from an outer perspective, it came off as the authors lazily rehashing themes they already covered before.

I would have loved a Homestuck epilogue that felt like a mix of Bojack Horseman and Devilman, if that makes any sense. But what we got felt more like a teen trying to be edgy than an actually mature story.

I get that there is substance in what was written in a meta way and "because they're unsatisfying/unhappy that makes them complex/good" but i think the difference was, for me at least, Homestuck was enjoyable to read (and importantly WATCH) and still addressed interesting ideas and concepts. Here perhaps the same is true for the latter but these aren't enjoyable to read. Yes there might be reasons why characters are not acting like they did or 'should' and maybe it makes more sense but it's not ENJOYABLE like the main comic is. Given you can just count these as non canon and move on but if you read them they still exist: you know that they exist and you know what happens. For me at least, it's hard to just forget that something happened or pretend it doesn't exist. Given some of the ideas/meta concepts of the epilogue are enjoyable to me/interesting but only after you remove them from nearly the whole work or very very specific parts of it. To me at least , it's pretty apparent that Hussie had little to actually do with this or just doesn't care anymore and that's why other writers did the majority of the work. Yes, it has the same ideas and some of the HS magic, but unlike the comic, it's not fun. Not to mention the lack of any kind of art or panels/flashes (i know it's separate from the comic but it makes it such a slog; imagine Homestuck without any art or animation). I just really don't know how to feel after finishing both, i liked candy more just for the more interesting circumstances the characters found themselves in and for not ruining certain characters as badly as meat did. I know people hate the happy ending of Act 7 but i think it was great, especially now. Hopefully someone finds this rant interesting or would like to talk it out. I think the video is good i just don't agree fully on the quality of the work (it's good because it's not good i think was your main idea or one of them).

Coming back to this after a few years, I am still firm in my belief that the epilogues were terrible. This is not because they are not happy, but rather because they draw more and more on increasingly vague meta concepts that do no directly affect the characters from their own perspective. Their actions are not driven by any comprehensible force or motive that springs from their own character, but rather invisible cosmic forces that that author is decreeing exist but who's properties we have no way of discerning untill the author directly tells us about them. Because we cant observe Canonicity within the story its impossible to make predictions or logical inferences about what the consequences of any given action the character take will be untill the story tells us what effects it will have. Its true, homestuck operated along similar lines at times, but the cosmic rules it ran off of were tributes to conventions in video games, and so they were understandable to us and many fans were able to stay a step ahead of the story. The Canonicity system has no frame of reference we can draw from to clue us in to how it works, and the way its revealed to work is often so abstract and loosely defined that it doesn't really tell us much. Even worse the powers available to those who are able to manipulate Canonicity are so open ended that we are still left in the dark as to what Dirk and Calliope can actually DO with them. If Dirk can control the thoughts of others on a mass scale and manipulate the story itself then he should be pretty much omnipotent, however he doesn't act in this manner. Rather than draw clear limits as to what he can and cant do with this though its left vague. Vague powers are okay normally, but something on the scale of nigh omnipotence must have clear boundaries or else the audience is left wondering why Dirk doesn't just use Canonicity to get exactly what he wants at any given time. Beyond God Tier stuff: This is another problem. When John gained cannon altering powers it was because he came into contact with an artifact that bestowed those powers on him. Why does Dirk, who hasnt come into contact with anything like that suddenly have powers beyond God tier? Wouldn't achievement of the ultimate self be the logical conclusion of a God Tier of Heart, and thus be within God Tier powers? Again the author has given us a highly counterintuitive answer to something that fit in fine with the worldbuilding up till this point. Janes slide into evil is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in a story, and I have watched the Room. She goes from the Jane we know to an generic evil overlord who tortures children with electrical shocks in an absurdly short period of time, with almost all her character changes happening off screen. The entire Revolution plotline seems to completely forgets that the Kids have god tier powers, and the people of the universe know that they do. Instead we see the Kids treating generic human soldiers armed with guns as a threat. One side of the conflict has almost the entire caste of God Tiers fighting for it actively, while the other side has only Jane, who does not take to the field personally, and yet Janes faction is inexplicably winning. This again leaves the audience completely in the dark as to what any of the powers the Kids have actually mean in a practical sense, and it completely destroys the stakes of the conflict. I could go on, but there is just to much to cover. Above all however is the screen time issue so I will end on that. Homestuck's cast is massive and wiring a story about it would normally be a challenge, which is why when the Epilogues STARTED by splitting into two timelines and DOUBLING the caste I knew we were in for a bad time. Regardless of how high brow Hussie is trying to be story telling has practical constraints that must be respected, and the Epilogues completely abandoned these. What we got was a blurry rushed snapshot vision of what is happening in an already crammed narrative. At the end of the day it all just fails to come together into anything worth reading.

I don't think I'll ever like the epilogues. But at least with this video I can understand why they are the way they are. I think my biggest concern was that they were so different for no good reason. It's comforting to know that there is a purpose to it, even if I don't personally enjoy it.

I love the idea that these are just two timelines of earth c. That validates then at stories but doesn’t mean they are the only options. In theory we got these two because we needed to see the timeline where John went and killed lord English. And we got the candy timeline as well because it tied into the meat time line. There are therefore dozens other timelines were no choices by John has to be made. This makes me feel much better about who mean these epilogues often felt. And as someone that usually struggles not to treat creations of the authers as canon, this concept is a huge weight off my mind.

Quick additional pinned comment. I feel like a lot of people are thrown off by my introductory statement and assume the rest of the video will be me positing that the epilogue is terrible. I'm not doing that. Please watch the entire thing before jumping to a conclusion.

I love the epilogues. I reread the entire comic about a year ago, and so I didn't go in with any nostalgia goggles. It felt like quintessential Homestuck to me. It made me laugh. It made me cry. And it made me think.

Tried both paths and I just couldn’t get through either, it was just awkward to read.

I also think Dirk's stint as the narrator is very much in character for him. He's always been keen on manipulating things from the background, and he even told Jane as much when they were talking about who would lead their session. And he completely takes control of their entrance into the session, leaving everyone with nothing to do except follow him and do what he says. Now he's just doing that on a much larger scale. I base this also on his classpect. The aspect of Heart (just going off what I read on the Extended Zodiac) seems more focused on the self and the soul, and we know that Princes are destroyers of and through their aspect. We can see Dirk attempting to rip Aranea's and Lord English-possessed Jack Noir's souls from their bodies in the comic, but I think the Meat epilogue is all an example of Dirk destroying the self, most likely through his self. And I think, in this case, "self" can refer to a character's narrative agency. In achieving his Ultimate Self, Dirk gains greater awareness of his own narrative agency, and uses the power he gains from it to destroy the other's narrative agency to fit his own designs. You can see that fairly clearly in how he manipulates Jake after he retakes control of the Meat epilogue from Alt Calliope. Alt Calliope's influence allows Jake to feel a sense of independence, but Dirk comes back and completely quashes any hope that Jake could act on any impulses that contradict Dirk. Not to mention how he manipulates Rose and Kanaya. And if his conversation with Rose is anything to go by, I don't think he really cares how any of them really feel as people. They're all just pawns in his selfish game.

Hearing the epilogies explained like this, they're kind of genius. They fit well into Hussy's tendency to pay with narrative tropes, and dive off the 4th wall deep end into meta narrative. Over all the epilogues seem like they were meant to be chaotic trash as if to say, "Be careful what you wish for. Don't ask for the continuation of a finished story, especially when the author already dragged it out way too long. Happily ever after is a boring follow up to a chaotic adventure story; it'll have to be destroyed to make a new conflict."

Me:Suffer Later=> [You will start suffering from the fact that this may or may not be 100% canon]

i really loved the epilogues as i read them. to me, they resembled a lot of real life as you have said. being a kid whos just out of high school and is in the process of gaining distance from her friends, john's existing depressive state really hit home for me. friends getting married and making questionable choices in life is all just a part of it and it goes to show that the homestuck characters would still be prone to all that. they are indeed, imperfect, and i think thats what a lot of people were unable to realize going into their read of the epilogues. i hadnt felt as much of insight into the characters, their mindsets and their relationships with one another until now. remember roxy being distant and overly generous as roses mom?we see that happen as johns wife. you also mentioned dirks overcontrolling attitude and self hatred being well represented here. and the passivity of dave and karkats feelings for each other. i dont think the characters are out of character at all! it was bittersweet, but it goes to show how you always have aspects of yourself to work on. anyway, im rambling, but all in all the epilogues could not have been more realistic to me. its just as homestuck as homestuck could get.

as a Dirk kinnie the epilogues hurted

I'm not angry that he didn't go for a happy ending. I mean, that's on him, it's his story and he can do what he likes with it. I just didn't really like the (to me) downright palpable contempt with which the Epilogues seem to hold the fanbase. Opting for a downer ending out of artistic vision and thematic appropriateness is fine and dandy, preferable even. Defiling characters, undoing arcs, and viciously abusing them out of _metafictional spite is not._ It just didn't fit in with the rest of the story with how downright _mean_ the stories got. Homestuck begins with the offhanded extinction of the human race, so it has its dark moments, but it was never _cruel_ or _spiteful._ And 'spite' really is the perfect word for the overall tone of the Epilogues. Beloved characters are destroyed in every way for no reason outside of the author having a nihilistic tantrum. And they didn't end on so much as a sour note as a raspberry and flip of the bird to the fans who've spent an actual *decade* of their lives following and supporting the series. It's kind of like having an old friend reveal that they hate you and have been stealing from you and talking shit behind your back for years.

like I know that the Obama thing was weird but can we remember that other shit happened in homestuck the comic? Like Guy fieri being part of Dirk and Roxy's post apocalyptic future?

You know it's funny, because as someone who enjoys the Epilogues, that partially makes me the villain of them. I am the observer of canon that Dirk and Rose think are essential to be in the eye of and well, I certainly want them to be. If canon is important to me, then it must be important to the characters who wish to continue existing. Dirk is fairly morally justified, faced with potential nonexistence he chooses to push his friends into the bare minimum idea of conflict that barely qualifies him as the narrative's new villain. And I forced him to do it, because if he instead chooses to live a saccharine peaceful life I forget about him and he "fades into the oblivion of obscurity". Aside from his cruelty towards Jake, Dirk holds a true understanding of his friends and they get to be theirselves under his thumb, because he DOES care for who they really are. My interpretation is that Dirk is a tragic villain, choosing to put himself in a position of hatred and suffering to protect his friends from an ultimate end... which is perfectly in character with Dirk in Homestuck proper. Calliope meanwhile is a hypocrite who under the guise of escaping suffering tears free will from the characters and forces them into conflicts that amuse her cruel cherubic standards of storytelling, without regard for how the people involved would truly act. And the story outright tells us everywhere that isn't under the control of Dirk is under the thumb of Calliope. Sure, Dirk is committing evil for the sheer purpose of evil, but would you rather be yourself in a world rules by Saturday Morning Cartoon conflicts, or a slave meant to play the part of a puppet in a world ruled by a truly sadistic God figure? The choice is clear, at least to me.

Actually reddit was the most excepting of the epilogues because they were putting actual research and there are reasons for the characters being out of character because there not really ofc remember some of the characters lived in isolated lands so they would be kinda screwed up a little and Jane well she was brain washed by the condense also there is a lot of things that get resolved so yeah the only reason people kinda disliked it because they didn’t really do that much research on the characters Edit: also hussie said that dirk was his most self insert character he ever wrote so one of the splinters could be Andrew Hussie himself....... I don’t need to keep going further than this.

In addition, we should also read Umberto Eco's "Six Walks in the Fictional Woods" to learn more about the "Model Author" and Model Reader" and how there are SEVERAL different types of authors which are different from the narrator!

I'm not sure I agree that Calliope (the dead one, that is) was masterminding the narrative in Candy. While she has her moments of direct interference and encouragement, she's pretty big on the free will thing. Not to mention she makes it a point to Aradia that she isn't interfering with the matters in this universe beyond giving it liminal canonicity. Her living counterpart starts a whirlwind of undue redemptions, but that's her encouraging things as a character, not a narrator. It's hinted that John might be unconsciously pushing the narrative in a "and then everyone lived happily ever after" way, but he has limited influence, and no less than two character call that BS. Indeed, if we accept that the events in Candy are the result of another narrator run amok, then both Rose and Roxy's speeches to John about how they like this world and are here as the result of their own choices are total bunk, which I, frankly, have trouble accepting. Not to mention I have trouble imagining either John or Calliope thinking the Jane-Jake-Gamzee love triangle is a happy ending. To me, the Candy timeline's downfall is not an aggressive narrator, but the fact it now lacks a (active) narrator and narrative to keep the wheels from coming off. Unrestrained, the characters behave in highly unexpected ways, but that's because they're very off people who now don't have a unified goal to keep their dysfunctions in check. Yes, there is some narrative shenanigans, but only to the point where people get a very temporary initial "happy ending." What I love about Candy is how it then shows just how quickly free will can both destroy and perfect that.

when you dont feel like reading the epilogues so youre just watching all the spoiler filled videos about them

It makes one wonder what's to come next. If these are to be the conclusion of Homestuck, then one must wonder what form will the next story take. Dirk mentioned a new game of Sburb. He called it specifically "the most important". I wonder if we'll get some kind of Homestuck sequel which will feature this new game in it's entirety establishing a new Canon.

also Obama is confirmed precedent of hope

i'll like to point out that Dirk had alredy achiever ultimate status before his suicide in tha candy route

"Homestuck Virgins" LOL

The homestuck epilogues are like schrodinger's cat. Except the cat is always dead.

the epilogues controversy is so chaotic and polarized and even to this day i blur the lines of real opinions in the fandom by seeing it as though everyone likes them because that's essentially 99.9% of the feedback/content i see they hit me really, really, REALLY hard, and they basically took away a good majority of my enjoyment and love for homestuck - i couldn't stand anything about them from the structure to the characters to the story to some of the more disgusting topics the only saving grace for me here is that the epilogues can be considered non canon and are "dubious" at best, but the mere fact that they even exist and have a hussie seal of authenticity slapped onto them still irks me and basically ruined og homestuck to the point that i can't even re-read it i'll be honest, i'm one of those fuckers that just wanted a happy chill ending and i still want that, even though it's not "realistic" and can take away from more mature themes or w/e, but i've just endured so much shit in my life, homestuck was my first big thing and my most important coping mechanism, and homestuck is already filled with so much angst, so seeing all the characters just sort of suffer and eat shit and die and go crazy and whatnot as an ultimatum at the end rly fucked with me and killed my passion - i'm just sick of depression and angst and sadness, so this kind of "conclusion" turned me off immediately regardless, i'm chilling in my own world and i have my own canon ending in my head, which is likely the entire point of the epilogues existing aside from to stand as two shit endings lmao

15:09 Not only emotions, but identity and uniqueness. And by his control of the narrative, he suppresses the thoughts and actions of others by his. You could say that he "hacked" the collective super-Ego of humanity.

Gonna have to say. I am in love with the epilogue

I think that something important to remember when thinking about the epilogues is what Phemiec put to song what seems like so long ago now, in her song "An Apology". Despite it being about Vriska in particular, I think it applies to most of the controversial figures in Homestuck, and especially in the epilogues: "Am I villain or victim? Why can't I be neither or both?" Pretty much every character both did heinous things and had heinous things done to them, and usually at an age when they were young and impressionable. It's a tragedy. There's a reason why Gamzee is played up so negatively in Candy, and it's because it was trying very hard to discredit the idea that he was ever redeemable. Ultimately, I think it's okay to both acknowledge that people had genuine intentions, pure motivations, or real "Freudian excuses" for their actions as WELL as condemn them for those same actions. People can do good and bad things, but the good things don't necessarily make the bad things any better and the good things shouldn't be made worse by the bad things.

"You'll find that neither of [the epilogues] are really that good. (...) Calliope's method doesn't really help either. It's just fluff without cause. (...) The only point at which the Candy timeline even remotely begins to resemble what we think we know is when it unravels." I feel like you are contradicting yourself here. The epilogues are good BECAUSE they are aware of the flaws of the narrative structures they are based on. They know, just like you said, that a human can't survive on raw meat or candy alone. They know that the "everyone gets married and has kids" format that can be found in so many fanfictions is without substance, that it's "fluff without a cause". That's WHY Candy unravels. That's WHY everything falls apart. The writing is aware of all the flaws you are pointing out and subverts them, and pretty ingeniously at that imho. That, to me, is the opposite of "not that good". "Everything is too sober and too real." Gotta respectfully disagree. I found the problems addressed in especially Candy refreshing in how grounded and sober they are. I found myself drawn in by the realism. The kids in the Homestuck comic always were struggling with mundane teenager problems, but mostly it was about. You know. Saving the world. Having to deal with looking at lots of dead versions of yourself. Living in a robot body. I loved it, but I couldn't necessarily relate to neither (mostly because I already was in my 20s when Homestuck was regularly updated). What I CAN relate to are problems like "what if one of your oldest friends turns out to be a racist douchebag" or "what do you do when political stakes come between you and those close to you" or "what if you have gender issues, but could never really explore them" or "what if I am really in love with someone and I wanna marry them and have kids with them, but interpersonal problems don't just. Cease to exist just cuz we got married." And in a way, I even felt the epilogues were. Wholesome? In how they addressed so many problems the characters had and talked about them in detail, as opposed to the more comical way Homestuck used to deal with even more traumatizing matters. I think the epilogues shine a light on what to me always was an unrealistically sugarcoated ending that [S] ACT 7 and the snapchat credits depicted (i.e. the last thing we knew about Jake and Dirk was that they had a really messy breakup, but suddenly they're bros playing soccer. The last thing we knew about Jade and Dave was that they had a big fight over Jade being heartbroken by Dave's alternate self and Dave not being able to deal with that, and suddenly they're having picnics in the sunshine, with nothing in between.) To me, the ending [S] ACT 7 and the snapchat credits depicted was what the fans wanted, or what many thought they wanted. Everyone wants happy endings for characters they've spent so much time with. But as you said in your previous video about Homestuck, that's not what Homestuck is about. It's about how the path of life is sometimes meandering, unclear and arduous, and the kids continuing to try and deal with that fact. In that, the epilogues are much more in line with what we already know about Homestuck than the original "ending" was.

I'm down to two brain cells now.

I'm a little late to this, but. I loved the Epilogues, and they served a very important purpose: They cleaned the slate. Homestuck's biggest problem was its bloat- too many characters, too many details, too little purpose for any of them. This was, of course, in some ways a major strength too (especially early on); Hussie was amazing at leaving dangling threads that he could pick up on and expand later in such a way it seemed like he'd always had a plan when in fact a lot of it was made up on the spot. But as the comic drew to a close, that meant all the threads that didn't get picked up on were... just hanging there. The Epilogues cut everything unimportant off. It's a reset, of sorts- we have a clearly defined core cast, a clear villain, a clear mission... and we no longer have to worry if alt-ghost-Nepeta #413-B will come back as some Chekhov's Gun. (And also yes they were absolutely a commentary on how stories are told and the difference between "canon" and "fanon" and how both can sometimes fall out of line with the "true" essence of a story.)

I love the epilogues, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. Edit: to clarify, I don't mean to imply Nezumi didn't like them. I want to express solidarity towards fellow Epilogue lovers who - like me - might feel a bit lonely right now; and to say that, unlike Nezumi, I found them enjoyable on my first read.

Oh my god. You are one of my favorite creators and it just so happens that you made a homestuck video at the exact time im autisming about the whole series

I mean, when I read the epilogues, hearing about Gamzee already got me to the edge, so when I fully read it without anything good in mind, well, I liked some things so it became like "hey this is actually more than a pain in the ass!"

Thanks for this video! I was really confused about a lot of elements regarding the epilogues, but know I really get it now! Great vid!

I have mixed feelings about epilogues. I love the way they were written, the plot is great and I don't think anyone was out of character BUT I love almost everyone in Homestuck. I grew up with them, they made me realize lots of things (my sexuality, for example, I life in a really homophobic country so I didn't know it was okay to not be straight), basically, I treat them as my friends/babies/whatever. So I wanted to see a happy ending and it was not it. Like goddamit, they all needed therapist, not another plot twist. So even though I'm not satisfied with how it went I'm really impressed with how it was done.

I actually really enjoyed the epilogues. They seemed to do a really good job of reframing the characters, bringing out flaws and skills for each character that I hadn't really noticed reading through the main story as a teenager (and I'm also fond of meta-fiction so it had that going for it). One thing I found quite interesting though was how it handled mental illness and deteriorating health in the Rose and John plots. I'd always felt Homestuck proper was a little off in both matters and I feel locking the audience into the characters more mature adult perspectives did a lot to improve that. I read meat first and so when I returned to Candy I did so with the knowledge that John suffered from at least some form of depression, I think that helped a lot of the stuff in Candy to make sense, since rather than seeing an actual metaphysical lack of purpose we're seeing a man who, due to his own mental issues, finds the parts of his life he expected to help him don't work any more and feels trapped in a world where no one else seems to notice the problem... Any way that's just my thoughts. Really good video keep up the great work.

I just finished homestuck and tried to read the epilogues... but they just made me uncomfortable! I think the epilogues are meant from the old fans who have grown up over the past 10 years, a lot of the topics presented bleed with very mature themes which are nearly impossible for a kid to understand if they haven’t personally experienced it or are old enough to have a mind for it. I think I have to be okay with being confused and creeped out for now. That’s just my take on it though.

I love this 0u0 idk, after all this time the best picture the epilogues painted for me was that whatever story i had in my head before reading them is just as real as either of them, and has really inspired me to create!

Meanwhile the final line of the candy epilogue: "Are my fucking pantaloons ready yet?"

And the final parts of candy happens after Gamzee "Dies" so. Crashed straight to Non-Cannon.

I enjoyed the epilogues because I guess I didn't go into it with the same mindset of most of the fandom

Nice video! I love the Homestuck Epilogues for many of the reasons stated here. They're so fascinating to me. Kinda disappointed that we may never get the entirety of Homestuck^2, but I'm cool with what we got. Even if we don't get the rest of the differently canoned sequel, there's still a bunch of differently canoned fanfics to write and read. Plus totally new and original stuff, haha.

I really liked the epilogues, they were a complete mindfuck and such an amazing clusterfuck of new ideas. The only thing i disliked was the amount of sexual interactions and innuendos, those made me extremely uncomfortable but they were hilarious to say

luved ur use of symphony impossible to play's vers of serenade!! probably my fave track in homestuck, despite it not being in any flashes

One of the mid roll ads... the first was for meat, the second for KitKat... I’m scared...

i love the epilogues for all the reasons you mentioned in the video! i love how morally grey the characters are, i love the narratives and the depressing atmosphere!

Meat is tough and bitter Candy is sweet but grows sickly

Damn, Dirk went and got himself INFINITELY traumatized

i dunno, I kind of liked the epilogues. felt super cathartic and heavy. I just wanna know if/when the epilogues will continue, since they're timestamped and the story feels incomplete. I want resolution! the worst they could do is leave it unresolved as-is

Great video essay, I feel like you made many great points! Also, I feel like I'm one of the few people who like the epilogues and HS2

This was much better criticism and analyses of the epilogues than any of the condemnations i've seen from homestuck fans on reddit, which all disheartened me for the appreciation i found for the epilogues. I really liked seeing the characters' continued struggles and changes

This is going to sound weird but I kinda disagree with the characters seeming too real. Something about them just seems off, in a realistic and canon sense. I can't seem to name why.

I'm currently reading the Epilogues and I'm in the Meat route rn (yeah, HS newcomer here). Frankly, with their reputation, I was expecting myself to not like it at all. But so far (I'm at page 28), I jut mildly dislike it because it's a bit of a mixed bag. Generally, it's a bit boring, there's moments who are funny, there are moments who feel pretty awkward, there are moments that I've already forgotten, some bullshit here and an absence of explanations for some other things. I don't hate it with all my guts, but damn, for all his bragging and his talk about us being non-specific and not mattering, Dirk definitely doesn't know how to keep me invested (you know, the thing who is essential if you want to matter again). Not sure if Callie knows how to do it either, I'll guess we'll see when we'll be on the Candy side of things.

I had no idea these existed until I found this videos dn honestly I wasn’t interested in reading them so this was pretty darn handy

I loved your thoughts on the Epilogues, good video! (sidenote; the sound effects such as the static white noise and some screaming were much louder than your voice, which made me jump in my seat every time because i had to turn the volume up to hear you)

act 1 was the pinnacle of homestuck

When this video mentions "Going outside of canon" and then you realise than Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon is a thing

i think maybe i was a little unpressed because i waited 3 years for something , and it was more like a fanfiction then homestuck , after a few moments i realized 'i should have expected this' and got over myself.

Well i enjoyed it, not really sure why apparently every single person in the fandom who read it hated it so much though

Thank you for the summary. I REALLY don't want to read the epilogues. Lol

I really liked the epilogues, and just like with Act 7, the more I think about them the more I find to like about them. I think it's fallacious and (frankly) narcissistic to assume that because something is not to a person's taste, that is therefore "bad on purpose", which is a sentiment I've seen from a lot of people. Yes, there is definitely an element to the writing, especially in Candy, that invites the reader to question the reality of the situation and circumstances, but this in itself is part of a ruse. The reader doubts the authenticity of the events because John is doubting the authenticity of the events, and the narrative framing is meant to be empathetic to John's point of view. By the end of Candy, however, John (and by extension, the reader) is clued in by Rose, Jake, and especially Roxy that his perception of the Candy reality as vapid and unreal was incorrect, or at least existentially incorrect. Rose puts it best when she says that it may all be ephemeral noise, but even so, with her family and with a cause to fight for and believe in, she is happy, and she wouldn't trade that feeling for all the "truth" in Paradox Space. Both Meat and Candy deliver exactly what their labels promise, but neither accomplishes this without some element of the other. Meat is full of action that drives the plot forward, but by the end, much of that action is directly tied to relationship drama and romantic angst. Candy provides a lot of relationship fluff and brings many characters' arcs to completion and even happy endings, but by the end, the catalyst is an escalating global conflict, which just about anyone would classify as "meaty" storytelling. I don't think it's the story that anyone was expecting, but that doesn't make it an objectively bad story.

the title made me think hussie passed away holy shit-

I love your videos so much ..I remember seeing the epilogues I was soooo excited missing homestuck comic and drove right in innocent minded...BIG mistake ..then I went straight into meat another big mistake..let's just say I cried.. But you make honestuck and now the epilogues more clear witch is hard

What the actual fuck is happening this is going way to far even for homestuck standards

Fully automated luxury polyamorous space-time communism.

I saw the thumbnail of this video in a dream lol

beautiful

I see you used the best Homestuck track, Trepidation. Good on you.

Holy shit was the epilogues really just 3 years ago? It feels so much more ancient

Man you have to fix the static noise being 10x louder than anything before and after it. It made watching this a real struggle.

It was when Viska was smoking weed that I thought "huh, this story is a little different"

I loved the epilogues so much I bought the book version

I actually really liked the Epilogues, even on the surface level. I even bought a print copy.

good jokes! keep up the good work

An overall fair and respectable assessment and thoughts about the epilogues I'd say. To me, these epilogues are actually completely understandable and aligned with what Homestuck had left behind. They're realistic and grounded visions of events that supposedly have happened in a universe that is outside of canon and so basically they're like...sort of spin-offs, but I don't think it's an exactly correct way of putting it. The epilogues are just, showing what the world in which our heroes have grown up and living their lives would or could look like. And these Epilogues are not here to bring any closure to the missing ends of Homestuck, if anything it's a continuation picking up on the strings left behind and pulling further into a new direction, which is what UltDirk basically goes on to do through the meat timeline and what UltCalliope tries to interfere with, it's a power struggle over a narrative of a story that's going out of the rails no matter what. And throughout the mess it's brutally real, and mature with what it goes on to develop. It's a tough read for those that wanted a sensible closure to an already overbearing story in a "satisfying" manner. I personally appreciate and like what the epilogues have actually brought and how much they diverge from expected outcomes, it's not what was wanted but what was necessary, essential and truthful, imo.

Nobody: Jake:Twerk on tv

I personally think of the epilogues as twisted fan fiction.

i have never been more confused jumping into homestuck^2 and then realizing the epilogues are a thing and then reading those to make sense of the current situation, but still be utterly confused 2 hours into reading

I still wish we had gotten a continuation of the snapd8 storyline. It got cut off when it seemed to be going somewhere

*Confused screaming*

What's the name of the anime esque animation in the video?

Homestucks epilogues aren't made by fully by hussie

Funny that the Prince of Heart would be the main instrument in Hussie's distorting and severing of Homestuck from its original roots. It is deliberately awful, like a sophisticated SBAHJ. I mean ffs, it's in shitty fanfic format for a reason. On an absurd meta level though, in typical Hussie style, it's brilliant. He knew the move would break the hearts of many who loved Homestuck, and my guess is he did it so he could just pass the reins to the fans and finally sever himself from the monster he created since he's now too different from the person that originally envisioned it and loved it.

So I watched this video because I wasn't planning on reading the Epilogue, but I wanted to have a basic outline of what happens. I don't know, should I read the Epilogue? I kinda don't want to but I feel like I'll be seriously missing out if I don't. I like having the story just end at Act 7. Well, I like stories that have an open ending really. It leaves the reader to imagine what happens next in their own minds. I guess I'm just looking for another opinion. Should I read the Epilogue?

Maybe I was just too dumb to catch all of that mess, uhhhhhh anyways time for a reread

Does this interpretation changes with the Homestuck 2 comic?