Oxyclean posted:

I disagree. It was pretty dumb and did the "you can't change time" in my least favourite way. It's one thing for predetermination to gently caress over time powers, but having a literal force of nature go "no gently caress you" feels dumb. Doesn't the protagonist literally wonder if their powers are causing the storm in the first or second episode? Having no narrative swerve on that just kinda bugged me, partly because the whole "you cant change time/ there are consequences for changing time" is so cliche, and almost acknowledging made me expect them to go a different way. Why did the protagonist get time powers at all if they weren't supposed to use them?

Classtoise posted:

My biggest regret is I made ham at 11:45pm on a tuesday night for absolutely nothing

Black August posted:

I just find it amazing that he made such a visually stunning ending that was worse than if he had just looped time back to the first page. Even that would have been more accepted.

Hell, right now I'll come up with a better crappy open ending with that exact idea. Time loops back to the first page. But it's the 4/10 flash beta page from 7 years ago. We come total full loop back to the very first red herring as Hussie explains that the 4/10 beta timeline is the actual, true timeline that all of paradox space just got reset to, and now we all get to imagine how thing go differently and make up our own Homestucks. The end, no moral.

Tollymain posted:

there is no such thing as a time for ham that is

bad

GeneX posted:

E: Can we all agree that Cascade was the real end of this story?

Grapplejack posted:

this blog posted:

anyway its p hilarious that the end of homestuck actually did just end up being exactly the same as the lazy “idk i guess the kids & the trolls all end up back on earth in the new universe somehow” premise everyone slapped onto their college au fanfictions in 2012

Oxxidation posted:

I'm okay with stories if they're able to follow through on their ideas and what they're about. Homestuck couldn't do that, because Homestuck, in the end, wasn't about anything.

Dolash posted:

Gonna agree that LiS also had a garbage last episode. The arthouse explanation is unsatisfying if you were drawn in by mundane elements like character and a grounded mystery, in basically the same way that Homestuck got us invested in the relationships and development of its protagonists then threw that away for the sake of an answer-nothing open ending.

I'd also like to add that while there's a lot of good discussion to be had about why this ending does and does not work, or what's going on, or what happened next in the story, the high level of backlash does suggest that the ending's not working well as a piece of media. Popularity is not the only metric of artistic merit, but considering how much enthusiasm Homestuck managed to raise over the years this reaction has at least failed to satisfy that audience.

It will probably hurt the reception of the game, especially since many feeling burned by the ending are among those who bought the game at the height of their excitement, and Hussie's next work will be dogged by skeptics and fans-turned-critics who don't want to risk being invested in something he writes if it will similarly fall apart. Your mileage may vary but it hasn't had the overall impact they might've hoped for.

Also I guess Sprites do survive past the end of the game since ARquiusprite was there to help fight Caliborn. So while they didn't appear (like Terezi, I think?) the various sprites could've survived to the new world too. Or not, who knows? It appears Hussie may not have bothered to decide on that rather than that being an intentional mystery.

Saradiart posted:

I thought it was 0k.

But then again, I thought Dark Tower ended in the only way that made sense

Roger Explosion posted:

The best time is Vriskatime.™

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

The real question is this: is the ending bad enough that people will stop spending money on merchandise?

I'm not actually being sarcastic. I know I didn't like the ending, but the business person in me also knows that I'm just one person without much disposable income. Did the kind of people who buy stuff from We Love Fine like the ending? Because they just put out like 50 t-shirts based on that ending.

GeneX posted:

It's a shame that Lord English is actually the combination of a clown, a pair of glasses, a circus strongman, and a rude alien child.

SHISHKABOB posted:

Is homestuck over yet.

Zoolooman posted:

By the by, not only did John and the 7 other god tiers get retconned in from somewhere in paradox space without on-screen explanation to fight Caliborn, Cal's use of the juju against them created...

LIKE A HOLE. A GAP, IN THE TEETH OF MY STORY. THAT NOW EXISTS, AS A DANGEROUS LIABILITY TO ME PERSONALLY. IT CAN ONLY EVER BE USED AS A WEAPON AGAINST ME, FROM NOW ON. SUCH IS WHAT YOLOBROTH, THE GREAT LEWD SNAKE, WILL TELL ME ABOUT THE JUJU WHEN WE MEET. SO AFTER USING IT, IT MADE ME NERVOUS.

...a literal plot hole in Caliborn's personal story. I'm not kidding when I feel very confident that the total lack of explanation around this is intentional. They're retconned in. The weapon Cal used becomes a plot hole. And that plot hole defeats LE off screen.

Where the 8 that fought Caliborn came from is no more explained than where god tier Calliope came from. Somewhere in paradox space they sourced, and to there they go.

Fantasy Tripe posted:

I really like the plot hole weapon idea because it fits in with my theory of how things went down. I don't think the kids ever actually confront Caliborn or LE, I think John's retcon powers save them from the causality and visions and prophecy junk that was tying them all into having to show up for Caliborn's Masterpiece just for the sake of his personal timeline making sense.

The aspect of Act7 that's been confusing me the most is the importance placed on Caliborn destroying his clock. It's the method used to gain his immortality sure, but why does that deserve to be show while the fight with LE doesn't? If I understand everything correctly, despite time and space being wonky in Paradox Space Caliborn's personal timeline is the furthest advanced in the alpha timeline, Lord English's current status is still in the relative past due to time travel. I think Caliborn breaking the clock is where the alpha timeline is both created and destroyed, and John taking the kids to the new universe rather than to fight Caliborn is how they beat him. With them not showing up, his timeline that is now fated to happen is impossible and thus it all collapses, combined AltCalliope destroying the Green Sun, Paradox Space and all the timeloops and reacharounds all shatter, with the kids escaping to the new universe just in time.

This sounded a lot more coherent before typing it out, but I love the idea of the final fights not just being off screen, but being straight up nullified, the screen whiting out because Caliborn was in control of the story and that is where his story ends. We don't need to see the kids being free because being inaccessible by the narration is WHY they're free now.

MonsieurChoc posted:

The Dark Tower's ending hurt Stephen King as much as it hurt us, if not more, and that what makes it work.

Ammat The Ankh posted:

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it was impossible for Homestuck to have a satisfying conclusion at this point. Too many characters have been introduced to give them all a real resolution, too many plot threads and subplots to give each one a denouement, and too much background mythology to wrap up.

Hussie wrote himself into a place where his only options were to create another whole act trying to tie up every loose end without boring the reader, or to do the narrative equivalent of "K THNX BYE".

People in this thread have been saying for possibly years now that the immeasurable unfulfilled story fragments would make the comic impossible to end, and they were right.

Ammat The Ankh posted:

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it was impossible for Homestuck to have a satisfying conclusion at this point. Too many characters have been introduced to give them all a real resolution, too many plot threads and subplots to give each one a denouement, and too much background mythology to wrap up.

Hussie wrote himself into a place where his only options were to create another whole act trying to tie up every loose end without boring the reader, or to do the narrative equivalent of "K THNX BYE".

People in this thread have been saying for possibly years now that the immeasurable unfulfilled story fragments would make the comic impossible to end, and they were right.

Blackheart posted:

At this point not even the waifu chart could help.

Ammat The Ankh posted:

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it was impossible for Homestuck to have a satisfying conclusion at this point. Too many characters have been introduced to give them all a real resolution, too many plot threads and subplots to give each one a denouement, and too much background mythology to wrap up.

Hussie wrote himself into a place where his only options were to create another whole act trying to tie up every loose end without boring the reader, or to do the narrative equivalent of "K THNX BYE".

People in this thread have been saying for possibly years now that the immeasurable unfulfilled story fragments would make the comic impossible to end, and they were right.

KoB posted:

I skimmed twitter and it seems like people are fine? This thread is overreacting.

Ending wasnt good but I wouldnt call it bad either.

Ammat The Ankh posted:

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it was impossible for Homestuck to have a satisfying conclusion at this point. Too many characters have been introduced to give them all a real resolution, too many plot threads and subplots to give each one a denouement, and too much background mythology to wrap up.

Hussie wrote himself into a place where his only options were to create another whole act trying to tie up every loose end without boring the reader, or to do the narrative equivalent of "K THNX BYE".

People in this thread have been saying for possibly years now that the immeasurable unfulfilled story fragments would make the comic impossible to end, and they were right.

Fantasy Tripe posted:

I really like the plot hole weapon idea because it fits in with my theory of how things went down. I don't think the kids ever actually confront Caliborn or LE, I think John's retcon powers save them from the causality and visions and prophecy junk that was tying them all into having to show up for Caliborn's Masterpiece just for the sake of his personal timeline making sense.

The aspect of Act7 that's been confusing me the most is the importance placed on Caliborn destroying his clock. It's the method used to gain his immortality sure, but why does that deserve to be show while the fight with LE doesn't? If I understand everything correctly, despite time and space being wonky in Paradox Space Caliborn's personal timeline is the furthest advanced in the alpha timeline, Lord English's current status is still in the relative past due to time travel. I think Caliborn breaking the clock is where the alpha timeline is both created and destroyed, and John taking the kids to the new universe rather than to fight Caliborn is how they beat him. With them not showing up, his timeline that is now fated to happen is impossible and thus it all collapses, combined AltCalliope destroying the Green Sun, Paradox Space and all the timeloops and reacharounds all shatter, with the kids escaping to the new universe just in time.

This sounded a lot more coherent before typing it out, but I love the idea of the final fights not just being off screen, but being straight up nullified, the screen whiting out because Caliborn was in control of the story and that is where his story ends. We don't need to see the kids being free because being inaccessible by the narration is WHY they're free now.

Blackheart posted:

At this point not even the waifu chart could help.

thanks alot assbag posted:

Yeah, I think you're right about all this. The clock destroying confused me too, but that makes sense.

I also think of the green sun itself being all of the creative energy that Homestuck draws from. Didn't someone once describe it as a "well of potential"? Calliope basically shuts off the supply, so Homestuck ends. The kids get to the door just in time to get into a new universe that isn't red/green but white, so it's untainted by either Caliborn or Calliope.

Freak Futanari posted:

the waifu chart will save us. it's the last bastion of hope.

Slime posted:

what about the blue universe, who was that tainted by

was it vriska