Homestuck epilogue
Apr. 26th, 2019 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuranaThoughts on the epilogue:
It’s an extremely painful read. If you care about the characters (and why would you still be here, if you don’t?) you will be hurt by this
It’s funny
It’s clever
It’s weird
Whatever you were expecting, this will surprise you in pleasant and unpleasant ways
To put this another way: this is as homestuck as it could possibly get and exactly the kind of epilogue, you would expect from a work like Homestuck
Now for the spoiler stuff
Full disclosure: I read Meat first
I absolutely love that this is something I have to clarify. It’s genius how meat>candy and candy>meat are two completely different experiences. And maybe that is why I’m predisposed toward liking the epilogue. Meat felt vicious and was painful, but also very satisfying as a piece of Homestuck writing. This is exactly what I’m here for.
The moment when Dirk takes over the narrative and basically looks at the reader and tells them that they don’t matter is brilliant and gave me a feeling of vertigo I haven’t experienced for a long time. I don’t know how else to describe it but, ‚it was horrible but in a good way?‘ This feeling of having the narrative pulled out from under you and this story that you understood one way is actually something completely different.
Dirk saying transphobic things does not make the story or it’s authors transphobic. Dirk is the villain of the story. He says all kinds of horrible edge-lordy things about the other characters. Of course we will aggressively dismissive of Roxy and Calliope. Or to put it another way: Yes I know it’s problematic, that’s because it’s supposed to be a problem. That’s where conflict in stories comes from.
I actually do think Dirk’s development is perfectly consistent with what we know about his character. It’s obviously not a good one, it’s a character giving into his worst impulses and hating himself for it. But those impulses were always there (same for Jane and somewhat for Jake). It’s not pleasant or comfortable that a character we like might fail to overcome his demons, but that doesn’t make it out of character.
That is probably another reason why I like this. I’m very much of the opinion that media can be uncomfortable without being therefore bad. That stories are a good and healthy way to explore painful experiences. Seeing a friend giving into their worst impulses is such a painful experience. Hell, seeing people we like turning into crypto fascist is something many of us actually did experience in the last years. Why shouldn’t this be explored in the stories we consume?
I get why people are angry. As I said, this was a painful read and especially with candy it sometimes feels like a deliberate put down of the people who wanted a happy ending. ‚Oh, you want the kids to grow up and have families? Well, here you go even the ghosts come back and it’s all terrible. Have a shitty redemption arc for Gamzee while we’re at it.‘ But I think there is more to it. The idea that all that happens in candy seems to be unreal and off in some way comes mostly from John. And John is not kind of depressed which colors his view of the world. John isn’t a well person and he is not really equipped to deal with ‚normal life‘. He grew up being the hero of a universe spanning epic battle, of course staying home and getting married and raising a kid is not how he thinks life should be. I think his final conversation with Roxy is really central to that. Because Rose and Roxy can actually adjust to their new ‚meaningless’ lifes and they are happy. Because that’s what ‚real life‘ is about. You grow older, and sometimes friends turn out to be assholes, and sometimes people get together for bad reasons, and sometimes they break up, and sometimes they stay in unhealthy relationships, and sometimes you don’t get closure, and sometimes the find happiness in small things like dancing around in your kitchen wearing only your underwear. There is pain in that but also joy. You don’t get one without the other. Things just happen, often they are painful and not narratively satisfying and the challenge of life is to deal with that: Find happiness in the face to the endless meaningless abyss.
It’s an extremely painful read. If you care about the characters (and why would you still be here, if you don’t?) you will be hurt by this
It’s funny
It’s clever
It’s weird
Whatever you were expecting, this will surprise you in pleasant and unpleasant ways
To put this another way: this is as homestuck as it could possibly get and exactly the kind of epilogue, you would expect from a work like Homestuck
Now for the spoiler stuff
Full disclosure: I read Meat first
I absolutely love that this is something I have to clarify. It’s genius how meat>candy and candy>meat are two completely different experiences. And maybe that is why I’m predisposed toward liking the epilogue. Meat felt vicious and was painful, but also very satisfying as a piece of Homestuck writing. This is exactly what I’m here for.
The moment when Dirk takes over the narrative and basically looks at the reader and tells them that they don’t matter is brilliant and gave me a feeling of vertigo I haven’t experienced for a long time. I don’t know how else to describe it but, ‚it was horrible but in a good way?‘ This feeling of having the narrative pulled out from under you and this story that you understood one way is actually something completely different.
Dirk saying transphobic things does not make the story or it’s authors transphobic. Dirk is the villain of the story. He says all kinds of horrible edge-lordy things about the other characters. Of course we will aggressively dismissive of Roxy and Calliope. Or to put it another way: Yes I know it’s problematic, that’s because it’s supposed to be a problem. That’s where conflict in stories comes from.
I actually do think Dirk’s development is perfectly consistent with what we know about his character. It’s obviously not a good one, it’s a character giving into his worst impulses and hating himself for it. But those impulses were always there (same for Jane and somewhat for Jake). It’s not pleasant or comfortable that a character we like might fail to overcome his demons, but that doesn’t make it out of character.
That is probably another reason why I like this. I’m very much of the opinion that media can be uncomfortable without being therefore bad. That stories are a good and healthy way to explore painful experiences. Seeing a friend giving into their worst impulses is such a painful experience. Hell, seeing people we like turning into crypto fascist is something many of us actually did experience in the last years. Why shouldn’t this be explored in the stories we consume?
I get why people are angry. As I said, this was a painful read and especially with candy it sometimes feels like a deliberate put down of the people who wanted a happy ending. ‚Oh, you want the kids to grow up and have families? Well, here you go even the ghosts come back and it’s all terrible. Have a shitty redemption arc for Gamzee while we’re at it.‘ But I think there is more to it. The idea that all that happens in candy seems to be unreal and off in some way comes mostly from John. And John is not kind of depressed which colors his view of the world. John isn’t a well person and he is not really equipped to deal with ‚normal life‘. He grew up being the hero of a universe spanning epic battle, of course staying home and getting married and raising a kid is not how he thinks life should be. I think his final conversation with Roxy is really central to that. Because Rose and Roxy can actually adjust to their new ‚meaningless’ lifes and they are happy. Because that’s what ‚real life‘ is about. You grow older, and sometimes friends turn out to be assholes, and sometimes people get together for bad reasons, and sometimes they break up, and sometimes they stay in unhealthy relationships, and sometimes you don’t get closure, and sometimes the find happiness in small things like dancing around in your kitchen wearing only your underwear. There is pain in that but also joy. You don’t get one without the other. Things just happen, often they are painful and not narratively satisfying and the challenge of life is to deal with that: Find happiness in the face to the endless meaningless abyss.
