Backstory: I fell out of the Homestuck fandom before the end of act 6 and never read the end of the comic at the time when it concluded. It was only a few months ago that I decided, “hey, I should actually finish reading Homestuck”. Which naturally meant that I started over from the very beginning and spent like a solid month and a half plowing through the comic. Once I finished, I was so excited to realize that there was more “official” content after that! I dove right into the Epilogues and then read straight through Homestuck^2, and I absolutely loved them as their own things that were informed by but different from Homestuck proper. So I got back into the fandom, excited to read everyone’s thoughts and theories and fics about the post-canon stuff…
only to learn that everyone fucking hated the Epilogues to the point where there’s almost no one willing to meaningfully engage with post-canon content on any level other than “Epilogues bad, and here are all the reasons why”.
Like, I understand the criticisms. I even share a lot of the same criticisms! But I really enjoyed the Epilogues and Homestuck^2 overall despite their flaws, and I wish I could talk about them without feeling like I’m drowning in a deluge of negativity.
But hey, I guess I should be the change I want to see in the world and just start writing about them myself.
I have a 5000 word research paper due in two days, so I can’t voraciously read the epilogue upd8s except in little five-minute breaks here and there. It’s killing me, but in the meantime if you want some music that perfectly evokes the sense of sad/ scared/ dreamy/ nostalgia that I’m feeling (reading the candy path here, little by little), I highly recommend you listen to Paper ForestbyEmmy the Great.
I mean, look at these lyrics…
You’re not unlucky, you’re just not very smart These things will never leave you - they’re as close as you can get To a blueprint for the future - but you can call it fate It’s like these days I have to write down almost every thought I’ve held So scared I am becoming of forgetting how it felt And these fears they will unravel me one day But still I am afraid
But I’m blessed - Just to be, more or less - Standing in the afterglow of rapture with the words the rapture left Oh blessed - Just to be, more or less - Standing in the afterglow of rapture with the words the rapture left
Now you’re blessed amongst all women Now a man who’s very good He tells you how you feel until your life is understood And he leads you through it arm in arm as though There was a map to guide the way Now you write because you love him, now you write because he’s kind You write so much, you look up and you wrote yourself behind And you’re standing in a labyrinth of paper and the map has been erased
But you’re blessed - Just to be, more or less - Standing in the afterglow of rapture with the words the rapture left Are you blessed? Just to be, more or less? Now you’re standing in the afterglow of rapture, but there is no rapture left
Oh come, and we will celebrate the things that make us real The things that break us open, and the things that make us feel Like these accidental meetings up and partings of the way Are not so much our choice but in the blood of how we’re made It’s like the way I have to write down almost everything I see So that the record does obscure the thing the record used to be And I know I’m not unlucky I was just born this way
But I’m blessed
Now a paper forest grows up in the supermarket aisles The baby born with teeth looks at its mother and it smiles And we all fall down Like wind blows through the paper forest And a paper forest grows up in the supermarket aisles The baby born with teeth looks at its mother and smiles And we all fall down As wind blows through the paper forest.s And a paper forest grows up in the supermarket aisle Alarm clock fingers turn they’re counting seconds like they’re miles And you say, “wake up now, ‘cause I can see no paper forest.”
Hmm. This is definitely more gorey than it was in my head. Nonetheless, if you think I don’t want my son’s lifeless corpse to come BUSTIN out of that wallet then you’re DEAD WRONG.
