A lord is eternally bound to there domain, but I believe Caliborn was willing to accept this. He made his mark and gave us a good show, his role in the story was taken by Dirk(perhaps on Cal's behalf?).
So from what i understood now is that caliborn is in a loop one wich when he dies will restart for him until he becomes lord english and die Am i getting this right?
you probably dont care at all but does anyone know a tool to log back into an Instagram account? I was dumb lost my account password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me.
me before the video: nobody will ever understand homestuck I'm not even sure hussie understands it me after the video: I actully understand most of it now.....how....how did you....
I am under no illusions that I understand most of Homestuck yet :P I'm just providing the best insight I can, but its all a work in progress! I'm learning more stuff all the time :3
The worst part of Paradox Space is how all doomed timelines fade from existence. It's pretty disturbing. In a reality where there is a confirmed afterlife (rustbloods can communicate with ghosts), suddenly ceasing to exist is even scarier than it would be in a reality where that's simply what happens to the dead anyway.
Phesheya Bhembe A lot of the players shown in Homestuck get a special version of the afterlife thanks to Feferi, living as ghosts in the dream bubbles far from their original universe. I think it's implied with the sequence of events just before Dave goes back in time and becomes Davesprite that a doomed timeline blinks out of existence at some point after whatever decision made it a doomed timeline. Therefore, this would erase the normal ghosts of anyone in that timeline as well, since they stay in their own timelines instead of going to the dreambubbles like our human and troll players.
Aradia could control the ghosts of Vriska's victims, so probably. Or maybe those sort of ghosts are just, like, a sort of imprint left when a psychic troll dies. Who know?
Once the next Homestuck Explained Video is done (on God Tier), I'll start doing videos specifically about the Beta session and move chronologically from there. The rough layout for the video series is here: (i.imgur.com/MUUmsQ1.png)
It’s really hard to put all the time shenanigans into a linear plot, but that might make it more confusing. But anyway, I believe the first to happen would be Caliborn’s session, then the Alpha Trolls scratched their session, the Beta Trolls play Sgrub, the new universe is created which is our universe, and Bec Noir comes out of the new universe (as well as bringing a copy of Sburb that goes back in time for Aradia to find later), then- Ok there’s a lot of stuff that happens at the same time, and the time loops all connect but it’s hard to explain!!!!! Let me start over. Alpha trolls scratch their session while Caliborn and Calliope message the Alpha kids The Beta Trolls lose their session while the Beta Kids try to scratch their session They unite and go to the Alpha session while Caliborn kills Calliope and eventually becomes Lord English The Alphas meet up with the Betas and you know what happens with Collide and stuff. Then after they have lived in their new universe frog for multiple years they go to fight Caliborn and the Betas are sucked into the House Juju and then Caliborn, Arquius, and 1/2 Gamzee are sucked into Cal. Roxy vanishes Cal to the void and then Gamzee’s past self takes him out of the void and places him in Dave’s dream tower, closing the circle. Cal goes to the veil, and lands on Earth with Bro. The original Cal would be Dirk’s from the Alpha timeline, it is empty. He drops it in the ocean for Cal to find in the very far future. Cal holds onto it until being sucked into it. Bro has the demon filled Cal, and it is with Dave all through out his childhood. It eventually gets ripped up, fixed, and stolen by Jack. Sent back in time with Aradiabot and Sburb, Aradia finds both and gives Sburb to Sollux and Cal to Kanaya, and Cal eventually ends up with Gamzee, who recently became sober. The puppet manipulates Gamzee into turning evil like the future self held in the puppet. Gamzee keeps Cal until he gives it to Jack Noir who gains LE’s powers. Lord Jack dies, the cycle ends. That was only Cal’s timeline tho! There’s a lot more that is pretty easy to understand once you read the comic enough times.
It's not so much the main goal as it's an inevitable fact of causality. The list of Protagonist goals by the end is. 1. Do stuff we know is going to create Lord English 2. Go blow him up (hopefully) 3. Once this mess of a time loop is complete, get out of it and create something of our own.
Interesting, I never actually dug into the whole yaldabaoth lore but in retrospect it does make sense. I'd always assumed he was just a rogue sentience within the genetic code of sburb, seeking to Break free from his creator just as the heroes seek to break free of him
Yaldabaoth is the false god of the homestuck reality, but also the most powerful internally. Caliborn had to kill him to take his spot, as there can only be one Demiurge at any given time.
These videos never fail to blow my mind. I'm a big fan of things like philosophy, and as a result, the stories told within the story of Homestuck, yet these sorts of analyses are ones I would've never thought of myself. Thank you OD, for this series
I love how ridiculously in depth Homestuck is, I can't believe someone made this. I wonder what cosmic being willed time to lead to the moment where Hussie will come up with it.
every time I watch one of these videos I'm like "I already understand this but sure I'll watch it anyway" and by the end of it you've explained something I didnt even realize needed explaining. gj
This is beautiful and by far the concisest explanation I can imagine for Homestuck's time shenanigans. Other than Dave's. It is only half the story, though, and I hope your next video or another one soon goes into detail on how the wills of the protagonists eventually overcome (or at least escape from) LE's. I've got my own interpretations there, as one of about five people on the internet who unironically enjoyed Act 7, but I am very interested to see yours. EDIT: I see that chart now. Well, The Retcon and The Ending are both on there, so I'll look forward to seeing them eventually.
This is gonna be quite the journey. I'd skip to the end if I could, but between Roleplay, my fairly unique view of, and yeah--actually liking the ending--my reading of Homestuck is different enough that its worth explaining how I get there. No rush. Homestuck isn't going anywhere soon :3
but my question is-- if there were a freestanding version of Sburb--as in, one that fell into the hands of someone NOT created by or born in the game itself (such as the 8 kids, the 24 trolls, fedorafreak, etc.), would Lord English play a role or part in that player's/players' session?
There's no indication Fedorafreak was made by the game, he seems to be just some dude. And probably not! Lord English's story is pretty specific. Sburb's game design doesn't intrinsically include him, he just co-opts it for his own purposes. There's a larger paradox space outside of his existential domain-- and the kids enter that wider space at the end of Act 7!
having not read the comic, you're my go-to for Sburb info, so thanks for replying! I've been playing with the idea of a Sburb RP/RPG with my friends, and was thinking about how "necessary" LE would be.
Ok.... So i had to reverse the video a lot of times to fully undersdand its meaning. AND THIS ladies and gentlemen is why i LOVE Homestuck (and HSE) }:) I just cannot get enough Homestuck it is just too good. I Love your work OD please keep it up
The Benevolent Archive Personally, I regard it as really good worldbuilding. It's not that odd for RPGs to mix these kinds of ideas into their fantasy settings, and Homestuck references RPG tropes as much as anything else--which I'm sure we'll be talking about sooner or later. So like. This feels about as inherently occult as final fantasy or kingdom hearts to me, I guess. I don't begrudge anyone what they believe, but that's not really where I'm coming from with this series. Just wanna be clear about that for my own sake :p thanks for the comment!
I'd compare it to the RPG Xenogears (also an explicitly Gnostic Hero's Journey). There was at least one semi-famous-for-five-minutes internet personality who took the religious imagery therein as actual religious scripture, but the only reason anyone noticed is he ran the fanwiki and kind of outed himself in the midst of also being a weirdo about Silent Hill 4. The Internet, everybody. Another point of comparison might be Neon Genesis Evangelion, which mixes Gnostic, Kabbalistic, mainline Christian, Freudian, and Jungian imagery and ideas in a similarly hard-to-parse way as Homestuck does. Although that fandom is old enough that most of the weirdos have moved on, and as far as I can tell even when it was current they were mostly just sexually overinterested in the emotionally damaged 14 year olds.
Although I love this series and support it to continue, I think it has deviated from it's initial purpose (to make homestuck underatanddable to a wider audience by aimple explaination). The explanation given here might be a bit much for the wider audience. As a homestuck though, this is great.
Thanks for the message! You could well be right--I was a little worried about this video to begin with because the Alpha Timeline is so expansive as a concept, but also so abstract and kinda hard to present visually. Hopefully, it won't be so bad as to turn non-fans off on its own, though--having this explained here should hopefully make it way easier to revisit the subject later on.
It is interesting how karma is presented as the emergent result of conflicting or coinciding intentions. Although karma is more comonly associated with the abstract/notional hemisphere of aspects (specifically Light based on assesments made by TexTalks) , but the interpersonal conflicts from which it manifests are more associated with the concrete/material hemisphere, in which conceptual nuance and obstructions to the fulfilment of desire form.
I’ve recently been reading a comic on MSPFA and I am triggered by the inaccuracies due to it being created years ago before Homestuck ended. I needed this :3
Gote the Capricunt The beginning half of Hexane. I finally got to the more interesting part and all the inaccuracies went past my head. The story really improved the more you read, so honestly the little inaccuracies don’t really bug me anymore. The only real big stuff that was wrong was the whole speaking to denizens thing and how the time player is yellow and not red.
Gote the Capricunt I gotta day I love the fan comics people make! Everyone is so creative. How to know if your comic/game/media is great: It breaks the souls of your fans.
I only have one disagreement with this and it's that John gained canon altering powers meaning that it is in fact possible for an alpha timeline to fail However John used his powers to change the canon Pretty well everything else I believe is correct
actually if i am mistaken that was because of Aranea. she 'healed' the alpha timeline to stick with her version of it, which ended catastrophically and would have created an immense paradox. to prevent this, john managed to gain retcon powers, power beyond the limits of the narrative. something even lord english was helpless against. its why he killed Hussie, the narrator, to prevent him from writing his defeat. john i think managed ot change the timeline to one that lead to lord english's demise in the end.
I'm pretty sure that actually Aranea's timeline healing was the the thing that caused John to gain his retcon powers \learn to use them through his choice, allowing him to rewrite the timeline. In this sense, Aranea won!
7:36 *you quit that.* Anyways homestucks use of parallels has always been one of my favorite things about the comic so I'm losing my mind rn thinking there's an actual meta reason why it fits so well into the narrative jsjdhdjhgf
"whistles" So, basically, everything has to happen a certain way - even if that way is extremely unpleasant - because that's the only way to Earn Your Happy Ending? And Doomed Timelines are, in essence, what happens when everything goes wrong forever (like the alt universe that The Flash made in The Flashpoint Paradox?)?
Breaking it down in shortform: ->The Alpha Trolls' session was pre-infected with a glitch that serves as LE's calling card. The glitch means the trolls have to scratch, since one of its consequences is that the ectobiology was performed by Karkat, post-scratch. Without LE's influence, neither the Alpha Trolls nor their Beta counterparts would exist. The Alpha Trolls' session is also indirectly influenced by LE through at least two agents--Kurloz and Damara, both of who basically worship him. ->That leads to the creation of Alternia, which LE has direct control over and manipulates through Scratch and the Felt (plus a bunch of other underlings.) ->Alternia, of course, leads to the creation of Earth, which leads to the creation of Alpha Earth, which leads to the creation of LE himself. LE influences Beta Earth primarily through Lil Cal and the Batterwitch. Also through Gamzee, who manipulates the Beta kids early in their lives and basically causes their session to go haywire in the first place. It's not so much that LE directly created every individual universe in the story, but more that without his influence manipulating the events of the story, none of those universes would exist. Calliope, Caliborn, Vriska and John are all characters who explicitly reference this fact, and three of them (including Caliborn himself!) hold Caliborn personally responsible.
So it is basically like any game out there? I mean, we are given a quest: get stronger to reach the end, ''the end'' is Lord English, and whatever happens, if Lord English doesn't exist, the game doesn't end, and that's why the time-line is doomed, like a programming error.
I think there are a couple of things wrong with this explanation. I'm of the opinion that the Alpha timeline split into two equally valid timelines. One is the timeline Caliborn hails from, and the other is what leads to the Ultimate Victory, which is the escape from Paradox Space. I think that the group does manage to escape because the final portal we see at the very end of Act 7 has no outer circle. This is important because all other portals we see in the entire comic are bounded by the outer circle of the spirograph, which means they are bound inside of Paradox Space, but the unbounded spirograph is a link to the Outside. Also it fits with the theme of the work. Hussie said that there is nothing new in Paradox Space, which is an incredibly postmodern worldview. The Ultimate Goal of a postmodernist artist is to create something truly New and Original. It fits with the theme that Paradox Space, being entirely derivative, is able to beget something truly unique as the sum of its derivativeness.
To continue, Homestuck is a work that is largely derivative, both of itself and other works, but is greater than the sum of its parts. It cannot be reduced to a Shakespearean or biblical story. It cannot be explained in any other terms but itself because it is so unique. The traditional narrative structure is two dimensional. It can be plotted on a graph of x=time and y=narrative importance, and the narrative is a function of the two variables. Homestuck is a 3D narrative, requiring a z axis of simultaneity, and there is no relationship between any of the three variables.
The alpha timeline split into two timelines because of John's timeline defying retcon powers, that are not originally supposed to exist in the alpha timeline. Also, the exact way this power works does not make sense.
Now things about things anyone has theories on what outside sessions are like since the information about null and void sessions can just come from one universe (the kids).
Why do you insist that the ouroboros is originally from never ending story? The ouroboros is originally from ancient Egypt, and spread to the rest of the Mediterranean. It can be found in hermeticism, gnosticism, alchemy, and kabbalah mysticism. In all of these practices, the ouroboros signifies infinity, complete oneness, or lack of finality. Thats why its one the never ending story book, because it MEANS never ending. Not "do as you will". In homestuck, the ouroboros represents sburb's creation cycle of universes. While Hussie may be making references to pop culture, I think I thought through it more than that. He is very maticulous when it comes to symbolism.
Hey OD! Very interesting video once again I was wondering, since you always seem to reference such works, if you had a list of books or references relative to narrative structures, and stories, amongst other things? If so, would you care to share? :) Or maybe point out the most "important" books that are out there on the subject of narration? Anyway thanks! Do keep up with the videos!
I see no reason to assume the first principle. There are a number of characters who definitely do not get what they want in any form. They're background characters, but they're still enough to conclude that this is not a fundamental trait of reality. The really important thing to realize, though, is that self consistency is not unique. Take the Beforus timeline. If it derives from any universe impacted by LE it does so through an information destroying filter since the Beforan trolls did not have communication like the Beta kids did with their parent universe. There is thus a fully self consistent timeline in which they, unlike the version we know, did create their own paradox clones and thus were not predestined to fail and initiate a scratch. They bred a frog and eventually one of those frogs players did not enter the next frog, which since the information of history was erased by this failure to move on satisfies their own prerequisites and closes the loop. This is /also/ an alpha timeline. It satisfies all the principles. Caliborn is not the grandfather. He can't be: he never breeds a frog. He's the guy who was best man at grandfather's wedding. If you kill him your timeline is doomed, but a different timeline in which someone who coincidentally has your genetics and (perfectly natural) false memories goes back in time to murder his grandfather's friend in a stable time loop isn't doomed. Andrew Hussie once said that all fantrolls are canon, especially the really weird ones. That wasn't just him being a troll, it was also a subtle hint about reality in paradox space. Being true creates a new level of trollishness. He is the guy who conceived of Dirk and Dave Strider after all.
You have Got to do some Homestuck utena video. Like just think of utena in the context of like sburb. If the power of revolution can be taken literally, couldn't it just be to create a new world where things go the victors way? At the end utena died, ascended, and made a new world as the movie world but since she was being stabbed to death a million times, it was a janky world. So ohtori is all fucked up now. New session is a doomed one, so they escape and make a new world again
How long will it be before the video released specifically on sweet bro and hella jeff, using shitty text to speech programs and lots of playing with audio settings?
Now here is a interesting question is the alpha timeline subserviant to Caliborn (Lord English) because he is a Lord of time, because the game made him a lord of time due to time shinanrgans
It is the same thing. The classpect is what you are, you are born with it, and everything causes everything in any point of time, especially if you will become a really powerful Lord of Time.
I've always had one part of the timeline that I never quite understood, and it is the existence of the Cherubs before the retcon. During the events of GO we are explained that the alpha timeline inevitably results in the death of our main cast of characters, though if you think about it, this alpha timeline doesn't result in the birth of Caliborn and Calliope since Earth C never got to travel to another universe, much less was Gamzee there to raise the pair. If we take all of that into consideration, then why is it considered the Alpha Timeline even though it doesn't result in the creation of LE and the victory over Sburb? Or are the people within other universes oblivious to the effects of the retcon mechanics in universes other than theirs? Suposedly, the retcon main characteristic is that it is an effect totally alien to the main flow of events in the Alpha timeline, so saying Caliborn's Birth and thus the retcon were already something taken into consideration in the main timeline is an entire contradiction. I hope you answer, this has been my biggest doubt since i finished reading the comic. :)
It is because game over timeline is not the alpha. It is a doomed timeline. It was doomed from the moment the stardust appeared, everyone's memories were erased, and Aranea entered the session. There was the old alpha, in which universe c is created, controlled by the Condesce by (at least partially) LE's plan. We just never seen it, because in the doomed timeline, happened the thing that was not part of the alpha, but could change it - John mastered the retcon power.
Game over was so much fun I honestly thought when it got to the last timeline it was too controlled & over too quickly & vriska had too much control over things Gamzee antics for 5 years though of the same game over shit gets old though that’s why I’m making a AU with a bard of void & some cool stuff just animating in Huss’s style is fucking hard people say oh just draw ur own style but I’m like naaa I want it to look good and accurate to how the book was & have that same feel I draw like every day but still find it so hard to replicate I really wanna make a homestuck AU that’s much darker & focuses on a lot of fun things the book did while making some cool references to problem sleuth too but yeah good video
4:31" Even if they escap into the alpha timeline" And Davesprite?And John? And doomed Rose?Without forget that everyone die one day or another(exept if we choose earth C fr arrival point,but anyway a lot of no-doomed person die) P-S:with all this inevitability stuff,Caliborn should be God of Doom. after all ,rules ,death and inevitability bow in front of him.
Yo... Did u read the epilogues... Pls... Also love these videos they really helo when my hands and eyes are busy and cant look at hs content and i just come here to listem
Very interesting. I would hesitate to state that no one's will can ever be permanently overridden by another is an inevitable law, or at least if it is it is one that applys only to the players. The point of everyone getting what they want in the end is a fantastic point. I wonder, have you ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis? He illistrates this idea and argues for it very well.
I haven't, but it's on my list now! You raise a good point, also--figuring out whether AURYN's principle applies to "regular" characters is part of what I'm excited to see in Hiveswap. Thanks for the comment! :)
optimistic Duelist yes, that is a big thing I have been wondering about. I was surprised to see that non players would be getting aspects at all. The question is though if these are basically just horoscopes for them or if they can actually manifest powers. Are aspects just the domain of the God's or are they a sort of twelve sided Force of the Homestuck universe? Or do Joey and her brother have the ability to acess the powers because of their close relation to the actual paradox clones. And if that is true then the possibility of the kids in Universe C having demigod children is thrown wide open.
umm no LE is the reason why the troll exists which caused the humans they completed the loop remember time loops can end and they have do something that started the loop. LE had almost no influence on the beta session
Because of Doc Scratch's influence on the players of the troll session, the Beta session was created. He willed certain things to go certain ways, which lead to the ultimate failure of the troll's session. Not to mention the presence of the Cal doll in the Beta session, which was a full vessel for Lord English's soul. Because of Lord English's essence in the doll, it is implied that Dave's brother became obsessed with making Dave "stronger", that in turn created Dave's views on heroism and set up his quest, which so on allowed Dave to create the only weapon that could kill LE, Caldefwch. It also caused Dave to save Rose despite his impending demise and go with her to blow up the Green Sun, which in fact created it instead. The Green Sun powers all first guardians AND Lord English, so he indirectly had great influence on all of the universes, which falls into his role as the Lord of Time. Time HAS to allow him to be reborn as he commands it, no matter how many universes it takes.
The alpha timeline is Caliborn's domain but also his prison. His ascent and reign are inevitable, but so is his demise.
A lord is eternally bound to there domain, but I believe Caliborn was willing to accept this. He made his mark and gave us a good show, his role in the story was taken by Dirk(perhaps on Cal's behalf?).
congratulations, cal, you played yourself
So from what i understood now is that caliborn is in a loop one wich when he dies will restart for him until he becomes lord english and die
Am i getting this right?
you probably dont care at all but does anyone know a tool to log back into an Instagram account?
I was dumb lost my account password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me.
@Owen Walter Instablaster :)
me before the video: nobody will ever understand homestuck I'm not even sure hussie understands it
me after the video: I actully understand most of it now.....how....how did you....
I am under no illusions that I understand most of Homestuck yet :P I'm just providing the best insight I can, but its all a work in progress! I'm learning more stuff all the time :3
The worst part of Paradox Space is how all doomed timelines fade from existence. It's pretty disturbing. In a reality where there is a confirmed afterlife (rustbloods can communicate with ghosts), suddenly ceasing to exist is even scarier than it would be in a reality where that's simply what happens to the dead anyway.
Do none players go to an afterlife?
Phesheya Bhembe
A lot of the players shown in Homestuck get a special version of the afterlife thanks to Feferi, living as ghosts in the dream bubbles far from their original universe.
I think it's implied with the sequence of events just before Dave goes back in time and becomes Davesprite that a doomed timeline blinks out of existence at some point after whatever decision made it a doomed timeline. Therefore, this would erase the normal ghosts of anyone in that timeline as well, since they stay in their own timelines instead of going to the dreambubbles like our human and troll players.
I asked about those who don't play. People like parents.
Aradia could control the ghosts of Vriska's victims, so probably.
Or maybe those sort of ghosts are just, like, a sort of imprint left when a psychic troll dies. Who know?
Phesheya Bhembe
They probably get an afterlife equivalent to what trolls get, wandering around as ghosts or something.
It's good to see that there are still people discussing Homestuck nowadays
It never dies does it...
@@thisis_303 somehow it has actually die now.
@@elcalabozodelandroide2 nah
How long until we get the 7 hour long full homestuck timeline so I can actually understand what the fuck is going on
Once the next Homestuck Explained Video is done (on God Tier), I'll start doing videos specifically about the Beta session and move chronologically from there. The rough layout for the video series is here: (i.imgur.com/MUUmsQ1.png)
That layout is on par with the convoluted complexity of Homestuck's timeline, lol
Aidan Wagner true
piggylox I don't think it is even possible to understand homestuck all the way
It’s really hard to put all the time shenanigans into a linear plot, but that might make it more confusing.
But anyway, I believe the first to happen would be Caliborn’s session, then the Alpha Trolls scratched their session, the Beta Trolls play Sgrub, the new universe is created which is our universe, and Bec Noir comes out of the new universe (as well as bringing a copy of Sburb that goes back in time for Aradia to find later), then-
Ok there’s a lot of stuff that happens at the same time, and the time loops all connect but it’s hard to explain!!!!!
Let me start over.
Alpha trolls scratch their session while Caliborn and Calliope message the Alpha kids
The Beta Trolls lose their session while the Beta Kids try to scratch their session
They unite and go to the Alpha session while Caliborn kills Calliope and eventually becomes Lord English
The Alphas meet up with the Betas and you know what happens with Collide and stuff.
Then after they have lived in their new universe frog for multiple years they go to fight Caliborn and the Betas are sucked into the House Juju and then Caliborn, Arquius, and 1/2 Gamzee are sucked into Cal. Roxy vanishes Cal to the void and then Gamzee’s past self takes him out of the void and places him in Dave’s dream tower, closing the circle.
Cal goes to the veil, and lands on Earth with Bro. The original Cal would be Dirk’s from the Alpha timeline, it is empty. He drops it in the ocean for Cal to find in the very far future. Cal holds onto it until being sucked into it.
Bro has the demon filled Cal, and it is with Dave all through out his childhood. It eventually gets ripped up, fixed, and stolen by Jack. Sent back in time with Aradiabot and Sburb, Aradia finds both and gives Sburb to Sollux and Cal to Kanaya, and Cal eventually ends up with Gamzee, who recently became sober. The puppet manipulates Gamzee into turning evil like the future self held in the puppet. Gamzee keeps Cal until he gives it to Jack Noir who gains LE’s powers. Lord Jack dies, the cycle ends.
That was only Cal’s timeline tho! There’s a lot more that is pretty easy to understand once you read the comic enough times.
possibly the only story where the goal is to cause the genocidal main antagonist to exist
i mean, he was already there
It's not so much the main goal as it's an inevitable fact of causality. The list of Protagonist goals by the end is.
1. Do stuff we know is going to create Lord English
2. Go blow him up (hopefully)
3. Once this mess of a time loop is complete, get out of it and create something of our own.
nerdorama009 and killing him allows him to exist.
bloodstone ore and his creation allowed him to be defeated.
Homestuck is fun.
nerdorama009 time travel: this is why it's so hard
Interesting, I never actually dug into the whole yaldabaoth lore but in retrospect it does make sense. I'd always assumed he was just a rogue sentience within the genetic code of sburb, seeking to Break free from his creator just as the heroes seek to break free of him
Yaldabaoth is the false god of the homestuck reality, but also the most powerful internally. Caliborn had to kill him to take his spot, as there can only be one Demiurge at any given time.
These videos never fail to blow my mind. I'm a big fan of things like philosophy, and as a result, the stories told within the story of Homestuck, yet these sorts of analyses are ones I would've never thought of myself. Thank you OD, for this series
It's been my pleasure, and will continue to be! Hope you continue to enjoy :D
I love how ridiculously in depth Homestuck is, I can't believe someone made this. I wonder what cosmic being willed time to lead to the moment where Hussie will come up with it.
It came at the expense of plot structure though. The story became a big mess when it comes to its most basic and important aspects
every time I watch one of these videos I'm like "I already understand this but sure I'll watch it anyway" and by the end of it you've explained something I didnt even realize needed explaining. gj
Same, I thought I understood Knights and Pages and Sylphs etc. but NOPE
I always loved how time was handled in homestuck.
This is beautiful and by far the concisest explanation I can imagine for Homestuck's time shenanigans. Other than Dave's.
It is only half the story, though, and I hope your next video or another one soon goes into detail on how the wills of the protagonists eventually overcome (or at least escape from) LE's. I've got my own interpretations there, as one of about five people on the internet who unironically enjoyed Act 7, but I am very interested to see yours.
EDIT: I see that chart now. Well, The Retcon and The Ending are both on there, so I'll look forward to seeing them eventually.
This is gonna be quite the journey. I'd skip to the end if I could, but between Roleplay, my fairly unique view of, and yeah--actually liking the ending--my reading of Homestuck is different enough that its worth explaining how I get there.
No rush. Homestuck isn't going anywhere soon :3
but my question is--
if there were a freestanding version of Sburb--as in, one that fell into the hands of someone NOT created by or born in the game itself (such as the 8 kids, the 24 trolls, fedorafreak, etc.), would Lord English play a role or part in that player's/players' session?
There's no indication Fedorafreak was made by the game, he seems to be just some dude. And probably not! Lord English's story is pretty specific. Sburb's game design doesn't intrinsically include him, he just co-opts it for his own purposes. There's a larger paradox space outside of his existential domain-- and the kids enter that wider space at the end of Act 7!
having not read the comic, you're my go-to for Sburb info, so thanks for replying! I've been playing with the idea of a Sburb RP/RPG with my friends, and was thinking about how "necessary" LE would be.
I wonder how the other lords might be effecting Homestuck(lord of mind, doom, etc), or if it's possible for a better new lord of time to rise.
wait..... a homestuck video in w018?! Yea! THE FANDOM IS STILL ALIVE!!!
insert joke about how w018 isn't a real year
@@Pablo360able i'd rather have the year w018 than this
Ok.... So i had to reverse the video a lot of times to fully undersdand its meaning. AND THIS ladies and gentlemen is why i LOVE Homestuck (and HSE) }:)
I just cannot get enough Homestuck it is just too good. I Love your work OD please keep it up
Thi makes so much more sense omg now I see why the characters kept dying over and over
>"Do what thou wilt"
>Synchronicity
>Gnosticism
I always knew this shit was occultism.
The Benevolent Archive Personally, I regard it as really good worldbuilding. It's not that odd for RPGs to mix these kinds of ideas into their fantasy settings, and Homestuck references RPG tropes as much as anything else--which I'm sure we'll be talking about sooner or later.
So like. This feels about as inherently occult as final fantasy or kingdom hearts to me, I guess. I don't begrudge anyone what they believe, but that's not really where I'm coming from with this series. Just wanna be clear about that for my own sake :p thanks for the comment!
I'd compare it to the RPG Xenogears (also an explicitly Gnostic Hero's Journey). There was at least one semi-famous-for-five-minutes internet personality who took the religious imagery therein as actual religious scripture, but the only reason anyone noticed is he ran the fanwiki and kind of outed himself in the midst of also being a weirdo about Silent Hill 4.
The Internet, everybody.
Another point of comparison might be Neon Genesis Evangelion, which mixes Gnostic, Kabbalistic, mainline Christian, Freudian, and Jungian imagery and ideas in a similarly hard-to-parse way as Homestuck does. Although that fandom is old enough that most of the weirdos have moved on, and as far as I can tell even when it was current they were mostly just sexually overinterested in the emotionally damaged 14 year olds.
What if every character in Homestuck is just hussie fighting himself or teaming with himself to try and become the best huss
Stumbled upon your channel recently, and I love the content you’re making. Makes me want to read homestuck again!
Although I love this series and support it to continue, I think it has deviated from it's initial purpose (to make homestuck underatanddable to a wider audience by aimple explaination). The explanation given here might be a bit much for the wider audience. As a homestuck though, this is great.
Thanks for the message! You could well be right--I was a little worried about this video to begin with because the Alpha Timeline is so expansive as a concept, but also so abstract and kinda hard to present visually. Hopefully, it won't be so bad as to turn non-fans off on its own, though--having this explained here should hopefully make it way easier to revisit the subject later on.
Such a complicated story! Can't wait to read it again.
Fantastic work as usual, OD! These videos remind me of how much I adore homestuck :D
It is interesting how karma is presented as the emergent result of conflicting or coinciding intentions. Although karma is more comonly associated with the abstract/notional hemisphere of aspects (specifically Light based on assesments made by TexTalks) , but the interpersonal conflicts from which it manifests are more associated with the concrete/material hemisphere, in which conceptual nuance and obstructions to the fulfilment of desire form.
I’ve recently been reading a comic on MSPFA and I am triggered by the inaccuracies due to it being created years ago before Homestuck ended.
I needed this :3
KitKatPotato Which one?
Gote the Capricunt The beginning half of Hexane. I finally got to the more interesting part and all the inaccuracies went past my head. The story really improved the more you read, so honestly the little inaccuracies don’t really bug me anymore.
The only real big stuff that was wrong was the whole speaking to denizens thing and how the time player is yellow and not red.
Yeah.
Gote the Capricunt I gotta day I love the fan comics people make! Everyone is so creative.
How to know if your comic/game/media is great: It breaks the souls of your fans.
Every video you upload gives me life
I CAME AS FAST AS I COULD
is that a reference, to
the baby is you
:3
Ezra of course
All the way from london? DAAAMNNN
*THATS WHAT SHE SAID*
@@__-wc5zn That's why she got dumped
Ooooh. This is going to be fun
A grand showing! Loved your thoughts!
I've come as fast as I could
I'm having a baby and the baby is you
Hishi Lohac hello mother
All the way from london? DAAAMNNN
this youtube channel is criminally underrated
Great video! Also, nice Utena music! Utena and Homestuck are two very interesting things.
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE IT
I only have one disagreement with this and it's that John gained canon altering powers meaning that it is in fact possible for an alpha timeline to fail
However John used his powers to change the canon
Pretty well everything else I believe is correct
Possible, but it is the one and only power that can alter the alpha timeline.
actually if i am mistaken that was because of Aranea. she 'healed' the alpha timeline to stick with her version of it, which ended catastrophically and would have created an immense paradox.
to prevent this, john managed to gain retcon powers, power beyond the limits of the narrative. something even lord english was helpless against. its why he killed Hussie, the narrator, to prevent him from writing his defeat.
john i think managed ot change the timeline to one that lead to lord english's demise in the end.
I'm pretty sure that actually Aranea's timeline healing was the the thing that caused John to gain his retcon powers \learn to use them through his choice, allowing him to rewrite the timeline. In this sense, Aranea won!
Never stop, man, these are amazing.
1:14 minutes in and I'm already crying about vrisrezi. I can tell this video's gonna be good
7:36 *you quit that.*
Anyways homestucks use of parallels has always been one of my favorite things about the comic so I'm losing my mind rn thinking there's an actual meta reason why it fits so well into the narrative jsjdhdjhgf
Amazing video! Thank you for making it :D
This hurt my head a lot
Coffe Owl Kokichi?
This is an awesome video, i love hearing these explanations and discussions.
"whistles"
So, basically, everything has to happen a certain way - even if that way is extremely unpleasant - because that's the only way to Earn Your Happy Ending? And Doomed Timelines are, in essence, what happens when everything goes wrong forever (like the alt universe that The Flash made in The Flashpoint Paradox?)?
I have no idea whats going on
Excuse me for asking, but when did Lord English create the universe? :l
Breaking it down in shortform:
->The Alpha Trolls' session was pre-infected with a glitch that serves as LE's calling card. The glitch means the trolls have to scratch, since one of its consequences is that the ectobiology was performed by Karkat, post-scratch. Without LE's influence, neither the Alpha Trolls nor their Beta counterparts would exist. The Alpha Trolls' session is also indirectly influenced by LE through at least two agents--Kurloz and Damara, both of who basically worship him.
->That leads to the creation of Alternia, which LE has direct control over and manipulates through Scratch and the Felt (plus a bunch of other underlings.)
->Alternia, of course, leads to the creation of Earth, which leads to the creation of Alpha Earth, which leads to the creation of LE himself. LE influences Beta Earth primarily through Lil Cal and the Batterwitch. Also through Gamzee, who manipulates the Beta kids early in their lives and basically causes their session to go haywire in the first place.
It's not so much that LE directly created every individual universe in the story, but more that without his influence manipulating the events of the story, none of those universes would exist. Calliope, Caliborn, Vriska and John are all characters who explicitly reference this fact, and three of them (including Caliborn himself!) hold Caliborn personally responsible.
dude ive read ur fics theyre so good
So it is basically like any game out there? I mean, we are given a quest: get stronger to reach the end, ''the end'' is Lord English, and whatever happens, if Lord English doesn't exist, the game doesn't end, and that's why the time-line is doomed, like a programming error.
so homestuck realy has a deeper lore
I think there are a couple of things wrong with this explanation. I'm of the opinion that the Alpha timeline split into two equally valid timelines. One is the timeline Caliborn hails from, and the other is what leads to the Ultimate Victory, which is the escape from Paradox Space. I think that the group does manage to escape because the final portal we see at the very end of Act 7 has no outer circle. This is important because all other portals we see in the entire comic are bounded by the outer circle of the spirograph, which means they are bound inside of Paradox Space, but the unbounded spirograph is a link to the Outside.
Also it fits with the theme of the work. Hussie said that there is nothing new in Paradox Space, which is an incredibly postmodern worldview. The Ultimate Goal of a postmodernist artist is to create something truly New and Original. It fits with the theme that Paradox Space, being entirely derivative, is able to beget something truly unique as the sum of its derivativeness.
To continue, Homestuck is a work that is largely derivative, both of itself and other works, but is greater than the sum of its parts. It cannot be reduced to a Shakespearean or biblical story. It cannot be explained in any other terms but itself because it is so unique.
The traditional narrative structure is two dimensional. It can be plotted on a graph of x=time and y=narrative importance, and the narrative is a function of the two variables. Homestuck is a 3D narrative, requiring a z axis of simultaneity, and there is no relationship between any of the three variables.
The alpha timeline split into two timelines because of John's timeline defying retcon powers, that are not originally supposed to exist in the alpha timeline. Also, the exact way this power works does not make sense.
It's the same timeline
Now things about things anyone has theories on what outside sessions are like since the information about null and void sessions can just come from one universe (the kids).
Why do you insist that the ouroboros is originally from never ending story? The ouroboros is originally from ancient Egypt, and spread to the rest of the Mediterranean. It can be found in hermeticism, gnosticism, alchemy, and kabbalah mysticism. In all of these practices, the ouroboros signifies infinity, complete oneness, or lack of finality. Thats why its one the never ending story book, because it MEANS never ending. Not "do as you will". In homestuck, the ouroboros represents sburb's creation cycle of universes. While Hussie may be making references to pop culture, I think I thought through it more than that. He is very maticulous when it comes to symbolism.
Good job. Loved the video
Hey OD! Very interesting video once again
I was wondering, since you always seem to reference such works, if you had a list of books or references relative to narrative structures, and stories, amongst other things? If so, would you care to share? :) Or maybe point out the most "important" books that are out there on the subject of narration? Anyway thanks! Do keep up with the videos!
I see no reason to assume the first principle. There are a number of characters who definitely do not get what they want in any form. They're background characters, but they're still enough to conclude that this is not a fundamental trait of reality.
The really important thing to realize, though, is that self consistency is not unique. Take the Beforus timeline. If it derives from any universe impacted by LE it does so through an information destroying filter since the Beforan trolls did not have communication like the Beta kids did with their parent universe. There is thus a fully self consistent timeline in which they, unlike the version we know, did create their own paradox clones and thus were not predestined to fail and initiate a scratch. They bred a frog and eventually one of those frogs players did not enter the next frog, which since the information of history was erased by this failure to move on satisfies their own prerequisites and closes the loop. This is /also/ an alpha timeline. It satisfies all the principles.
Caliborn is not the grandfather. He can't be: he never breeds a frog. He's the guy who was best man at grandfather's wedding. If you kill him your timeline is doomed, but a different timeline in which someone who coincidentally has your genetics and (perfectly natural) false memories goes back in time to murder his grandfather's friend in a stable time loop isn't doomed.
Andrew Hussie once said that all fantrolls are canon, especially the really weird ones. That wasn't just him being a troll, it was also a subtle hint about reality in paradox space. Being true creates a new level of trollishness. He is the guy who conceived of Dirk and Dave Strider after all.
god homestuck, my brain just wants to explod3 rn
You have Got to do some Homestuck utena video. Like just think of utena in the context of like sburb. If the power of revolution can be taken literally, couldn't it just be to create a new world where things go the victors way? At the end utena died, ascended, and made a new world as the movie world but since she was being stabbed to death a million times, it was a janky world. So ohtori is all fucked up now. New session is a doomed one, so they escape and make a new world again
I have a question wich is the alpha and beta trolls karkats group or kankris group i looked it up but no one gave me a straight answer
How long will it be before the video released specifically on sweet bro and hella jeff, using shitty text to speech programs and lots of playing with audio settings?
Now here is a interesting question is the alpha timeline subserviant to Caliborn (Lord English) because he is a Lord of time, because the game made him a lord of time due to time shinanrgans
It is the same thing. The classpect is what you are, you are born with it, and everything causes everything in any point of time, especially if you will become a really powerful Lord of Time.
love what you do keep up the good work X3
I CAME AS SOON AS I HEARD
I've always had one part of the timeline that I never quite understood, and it is the existence of the Cherubs before the retcon. During the events of GO we are explained that the alpha timeline inevitably results in the death of our main cast of characters, though if you think about it, this alpha timeline doesn't result in the birth of Caliborn and Calliope since Earth C never got to travel to another universe, much less was Gamzee there to raise the pair.
If we take all of that into consideration, then why is it considered the Alpha Timeline even though it doesn't result in the creation of LE and the victory over Sburb? Or are the people within other universes oblivious to the effects of the retcon mechanics in universes other than theirs?
Suposedly, the retcon main characteristic is that it is an effect totally alien to the main flow of events in the Alpha timeline, so saying Caliborn's Birth and thus the retcon were already something taken into consideration in the main timeline is an entire contradiction.
I hope you answer, this has been my biggest doubt since i finished reading the comic. :)
It is because game over timeline is not the alpha. It is a doomed timeline. It was doomed from the moment the stardust appeared, everyone's memories were erased, and Aranea entered the session.
There was the old alpha, in which universe c is created, controlled by the Condesce by (at least partially) LE's plan. We just never seen it, because in the doomed timeline, happened the thing that was not part of the alpha, but could change it - John mastered the retcon power.
Game over was so much fun I honestly thought when it got to the last timeline it was too controlled & over too quickly & vriska had too much control over things Gamzee antics for 5 years though of the same game over shit gets old though that’s why I’m making a AU with a bard of void & some cool stuff just animating in Huss’s style is fucking hard people say oh just draw ur own style but I’m like naaa I want it to look good and accurate to how the book was & have that same feel I draw like every day but still find it so hard to replicate I really wanna make a homestuck AU that’s much darker & focuses on a lot of fun things the book did while making some cool references to problem sleuth too but yeah good video
4:31" Even if they escap into the alpha timeline"
And Davesprite?And John? And doomed Rose?Without forget that everyone die one day or another(exept if we choose earth C fr arrival point,but anyway a lot of no-doomed person die)
P-S:with all this inevitability stuff,Caliborn should be God of Doom. after all ,rules ,death and inevitability bow in front of him.
5:24 which flash is this? I cant remember
In order to destroy evil, you must first create evil.
That is what Vriska thought...
this is my 4th time watching this. why do i have short term memory loss????
We literally need new hiveswap act
Wait how does do as you will relate to the other 11 aspecta
Yo... Did u read the epilogues... Pls... Also love these videos they really helo when my hands and eyes are busy and cant look at hs content and i just come here to listem
Yo~~~ This is so good! >X3
perfection
So, since I went with being an Heir of Time, my shit would be hard as fuck, wouldn't it? lol
🤯
Same dude. Same.
Wait does this mean pesterquest is a doomed timeline?
No, it's a locked timeline
Well dang, you are pretty cool! ^.^
How are the Homestucks still alive lol?
We haven't had just or heroic deaths yet.
rereading it is interesting tho
We're the beginning and the end, you cannot outrun whats already here
I see that you are also a MOTHER fan
Wouldn't have found Homestuck if not for Earthbound, probably! Love those games.
Very interesting. I would hesitate to state that no one's will can ever be permanently overridden by another is an inevitable law, or at least if it is it is one that applys only to the players.
The point of everyone getting what they want in the end is a fantastic point. I wonder, have you ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis? He illistrates this idea and argues for it very well.
I haven't, but it's on my list now! You raise a good point, also--figuring out whether AURYN's principle applies to "regular" characters is part of what I'm excited to see in Hiveswap. Thanks for the comment! :)
optimistic Duelist yes, that is a big thing I have been wondering about. I was surprised to see that non players would be getting aspects at all. The question is though if these are basically just horoscopes for them or if they can actually manifest powers. Are aspects just the domain of the God's or are they a sort of twelve sided Force of the Homestuck universe? Or do Joey and her brother have the ability to acess the powers because of their close relation to the actual paradox clones. And if that is true then the possibility of the kids in Universe C having demigod children is thrown wide open.
OH FRICK
Hey folks, overdose here
great video
haha nice a new video, i love when that happens
I miss vriska
umm no LE is the reason why the troll exists which caused the humans they completed the loop remember time loops can end and they have do something that started the loop.
LE had almost no influence on the beta session
Because of Doc Scratch's influence on the players of the troll session, the Beta session was created. He willed certain things to go certain ways, which lead to the ultimate failure of the troll's session.
Not to mention the presence of the Cal doll in the Beta session, which was a full vessel for Lord English's soul. Because of Lord English's essence in the doll, it is implied that Dave's brother became obsessed with making Dave "stronger", that in turn created Dave's views on heroism and set up his quest, which so on allowed Dave to create the only weapon that could kill LE, Caldefwch.
It also caused Dave to save Rose despite his impending demise and go with her to blow up the Green Sun, which in fact created it instead. The Green Sun powers all first guardians AND Lord English, so he indirectly had great influence on all of the universes, which falls into his role as the Lord of Time. Time HAS to allow him to be reborn as he commands it, no matter how many universes it takes.
LE had all the influence on the Beta Session
Yes
i love the things you have to say about homestuck but i hate how you pronounce it all
How hot
i wanted to like but it's 413
Are YOU How To Basic?
Nyan Knight how to basic is an idea that lives through all of us now
100% of reviews are likes!
*==>depression deactivate*
im
...what?
welcome to Homestuck, enjoy your stay
finally some canon stuff instead of your theories you try to pass up as """lore"""
There's barely any of those Hiveswap Lore videos, so I don't know what you're talking about.
But like, his hiveswap lore videos weren't responsible for the deaths and devastations of thousands of people
Mr Sam you are comparing a event in human history where tons of people died to a UA-cam video? That’s idiotic