Jump to:

– MEAT

– CANDY

The Homestuck Epilogues are a response to Homestuck exploring probable post-canon events and philosophical ramifications using the device of metatextual prose (of a caliber arguably on-par with the high-quality animation of Act 7). They are “canon” insofar as they are officially-produced, officially-endorsed, and distributed on the official site; insofar as they are fundamentally a separate story, they are “not quite canon” and one can still interpret/enjoy Homestuck without them.

So are they, then, truly an epilogue? This paradox is only the surface– the Epilogues are like a post-modern riddle, begetting layers upon layers of great Questions the further you read. Some Questions come explicitly, spoken by characters or narration, with many answers given or none at all. Some Questions, perhaps the most haunting ones, are only provoked by the phantoms of emotion– where you feel impassible grief, flaming outrage, indignant mirth, deep discomfort, you’d best take heed! for your body’s reactions are the surest way to know when you’re in the presence of everlasting mysteries.

In the interest of pursuing.. what you could call “a conceptual foothold” from which to better view the “textual landscape” of this tri-authored work, I figured I’d compile a rough summary. It’s marked by my own biases in what I chose to include or leave out of the outline, but if you want to take the outline and adjust it to your own standards for any purpose, you’re more than welcome to. I’ve included links to each page for convenience; they preface each entry.

PROLOGUE

1: John, age 23, dreams in anime and receives a phone call from an ill Rose. He leaves to visit her.

2: Rose is having visions. John needs to go back and defeat Lord English. She tells him of the pillars of canon.

3: John visits Roxy and Calliope. Roxy discusses friends growing distant. Calliope gives John the Choice.

MEAT

Epilogue One:

1: John eats meat and decides to go defeat Lord English. He says goodbye to Roxy and Calliope, and writes letters for his friends.

2: Dave and Karkat watch TV. Jane is running for president. Dave convinces Karkat to run against her. Dirk, on RUMBLE IN DA PUMPKIN PATCH, calls Dave.

3: John arrives in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2. He punches Aranea, takes her Ring of Life, and shoves Gamzee back in the fridge.

4: John arrives in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1, alongside two other Retcon Johns. He zaps Jade away, and recruits Dave for the Lord English fight.

5: Dirk, on phone with Dave, explains showmanship and being a good villain. They talk politics, of Jane and Jake and Karkat. Rose calls Dirk.

6: In John’s backyard, one week before Act 1 began, the seven kids and adult John discuss Lord English battle plans.

7: Rose and Dirk, on the phone, talk about ascension. Rose is suffering from it, Dirk is adapting to it. Dirk asks her to come to his workshop soon.

8: In… who even knows where, it’s time for John, Rose, Dave, Jade, Jane, Jake, Roxy, and Dirk to become Caliborn’s Masterpiece.

Epilogue Two:

9: In the Masterpiece, Caliborn deploys the juju. It absorbs John, Rose, Dave, and Jade.

10: Jane reacts to Karkat’s presidential running. She needs Jake, arranges to meet him.

11: Heroes in the juju barely hear each other. John is depressed.

12: Dave, Karkat, and Jade discuss campaign plans. Jade proposes a sexual relationship and draws a shipping grid.

13: At the end of time, Vriska deploys the juju but is unable to see what happens. She falls into the black hole (see Candy 28). John, Rose, Dave, and Jade are released.

Epilogue Three:

14: Jane tries to seduce Jake. It doesn’t go well. He leaves. Jane calls Dirk, who can’t talk, as Rose is in his workshop.

15: The Lord English battle. Rose and Jade die. Meenah and Davepeta join the fight. John is mortally wounded. Dave dies. Davepeta drags Lord English through the black hole (see Meat postscript).

16: In Dirk’s workshop, he and Rose discuss philosophy, predictions, the curse of knowledge. Rose loses herself more. Dirk gains.

17: Dirk narrates directly to the reader, on “I” and on “You-ness.” Dirk starts getting the plot down to fucking business.

Epilogue Four:

18: John, drifting in the abyss, finds his Dad’s wallet.

19: Jade pitches the Karkat question to Roxy and Calliope. She learns of the two’s nonbinary identities, as does Dirk. They talk about gender. Jade collapses.

20: The other Jade plummets towards the black hole. Alt!Calliope makes her move.

21: Karkat and Dave watch the miracle of natural troll birth. Kanaya agrees with them about Jane. Kanaya finds out Rose is with Dirk.

22: John encounters Meenah in the abyss. She steals the Ring and leaves (see Candy 25).

23: Kanaya knows Dirk is up to something. She plans to come to him.

24: John sees Terezi in the abyss.

25: As Rose becomes an apparition of Light, she and Dirk discuss philosophy 101. Rose discovers the narrative layer, sees events depicted elsewhere– John in the abyss, the entire Candy timeline.

26: Dirk tries to stop other!Jade from falling through the black hole. Alt!Calliope wins the push-and-pull (see Candy 19).

27: Jade wakes up with Roxy and Calliope, only to become a vessel for Alt!Calliope, who gains the lead as new narrator. Dirk interjects about katanas, his voice fades.

Epilogue Five:

28: John and Terezi are happy to see each other. John thinks Terezi is cute. They find Dad’s car in his wallet and station themselves within. John drives through the abyss.

29: Jane grows dependent on Trickster Mode. Dirk tries to give her a pep talk, while discreetly working on a backup plan of his own involving a red rifle.

30: On a hike to Jake’s mansion, Dave and Karkat pitch their presidential plans, winning Jake’s favour.

31: John and Terezi have a Real Conversation. John tells her of the Game Over timeline. Terezi tells him she Remem8ers. She patches up his wound, and the two have a Moment.

32: Roxy calls Dave, worried about the tranced Jade. Dave worries about Jake’s political speech. Roxy asks Dave about Coming Out. Dirk flips out over all this gender talk in his story and makes his move. He shoots Jade with a tranquilizer, neutralizing Alt!Calliope’s influence.

Epilogue Six:

33: John and Terezi have a post-coital talk on the hood of the car. She gives up on finding Vriska. John zaps her home (see Candy 26 for car).

34: Jake gives his political speech. The narrator nudges his thoughts towards Dirk, tipping the scales and giving him a bad case of stage fright and worry.

35: John and Terezi arrive on Earth C. John doesn’t make it much further. He gives dying words about dying words. Dirk nudges Terezi to captchalogue John’s corpse.

36: Jane sweeps the election. Terezi meets Roxy in the hospital with comatose Jade. The two catch up. After Roxy leaves, Terezi is fed up with Dirk’s narration, and he offers a place for her in his radical escape from Earth C. Her and John.

37: At Dirk’s workshop, he half-assedly packs Rose’s things. Kanaya is on her way, and fucking pissed, but Dirk’s narration nudges her in a different direction. She calls Rose and says everything is okay. Dirk allows Kanaya to have an antidote for Jade.

Epilogue Seven:

38: Dave and Karkat grieve their presidential campaign. Dirk’s narration tries its best to nudge them towards finally kissing. Dave reacts badly to, as he recognizes it, his Bro’s shadow shaping his brain. Dave kisses Karkat– but of his own volition.

39: Dirk stops by Jake’s mansion and asks for a spaceship to get off the planet. Jake wants to come. Dirk brutally denies him.

40: Kanaya arrives at the hospital with Jade’s antidote. She and Roxy watch as Jade comes to, shouting the truest statement ever spoken: “DIRK STRIDER HAS TO BE STOPPED.”

41: Dirk gives one last soliloquy, talking about his villainy, solipsism, and his inevitable Just Death.

42: Jade tells Roxy and Kanaya about Dirk. Dirk lets go of his narrative hold. Kanaya connects the dots and flips the fuck out. Jade slips into another trance so Alt!Calliope can return. Kanaya goes fetal, sobbing. Alt!Calliope assures us that all is not lost.

Epilogue Eight:

43: Roxy and Kanaya take the tranced Jade to Dave and Karkat’s hive and discuss plans. Jade, in her trance, gives hints as to what direction they need. The protagonists head out, and Alt!Calliope winds the narration down.

Postscript:

44: Inside the black hole, Alt!Calliope in Jade’s body consumes Lord English. She summons a vortex, out of which flies Davebot. Alt!Calliope!Jade flies into the vortex. Davebot invites Aradia along; they’re going to discuss plans. They fly, and the vortex closes– never again shall that which matters meet that which doesn’t.

CANDY

Epilogue One:

1: John eats candy and decides to stay on Earth C. Calliope tells him, if he wants this world to turn over a new leaf, he needs to save Gamzee.

2: John returns to Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5 and lets Gamzee out of the fridge. Back in the present, Gamzee begins his apologetic “redemption arc.” Roxy and Calliope love it, but John’s disgust leads him to message Terezi.

3: Dirk, noticing something strange happening to the canon, has an existential crisis. He calls Jane and tells her to cancel her presidential campaign.

Epilogue Two:

4: Rose awakens in a hospital bed, Kanaya by her side. Rose feels better than she has in years. The two bond strongly again.

5: Jade, Dave, and Karkat riff over John’s increased socializing, hypocrisy, flirting, and Jane’s abandoned presidential campaign.

6: Jane visits Jake. The two bond over politics and a distant Dirk. They get drunk together, and Jake dodges a come-on.

7: John spends time with Roxy, Calliope, and Gamzee in a Carapacian city. Roxy invites John to a cafe for a sort-of date, whereupon Gamzee intrudes and offers to be John’s wingman.

8: In the troll brooding caverns, Rose and Kanaya discuss politics and troll reproduction. Swifer joins them to watch the miracle of a grub’s birth: the second coming of Vriska.

9: Jade coerces Dave and Karkat to go outside and have a date, which fails miserably.

10: On a proper date with Roxy, John seeks counsel from Terezi. Roxy tries to broach the topic of gender. Dave arrives in a Jade-induced panic, seeking counsel from John.

11: Dave talks to John about gayness, Jade, Karkat, social philosophy, and gayness. John fears he did not help with Dave’s problems.

12: Jake awakens from an alcoholic Trickster haze to find he has been having sex with Jane. Jake finds he would prefer profound abnegation over breaking Jane’s heart.

13: Dave now seeks counsel from Dirk at his workshop, but instead he finds a useless Gamzee, a female bot-in-progress, and an ominous note.

Epilogue Three:

14: Dirk, unable or unwilling to live in a timeline so removed from the grand design of canon, takes his own life, deeming his death Just.

15: At Dirk’s funeral, Roxy and Dave give eulogies. Rose is about to give hers when Gamzee takes the stage instead. Few can bear to listen to his speech. Dave has a natural emotional reaction to the circumstances, and John considers using his retcon powers only to find they no longer work. Roxy proposes to John.

Epilogue Four:

16: As time passes, John messages Terezi. He tells her about his wedding– Jake and Jane are a Thing now, as are Jade Dave and Karkat– and about Roxy’s pregnancy. Later, they talk about Gamzee’s.. addition to the Jake and Jane relationship, and about Jade’s.. contributions to Dave and Karkat’s social dynamics.

17: Rose and Kanaya spend time with their adopted Vriska. Roxy and John are naming their child Harry Anderson. John freaks out a little over the ambiguity of what happened to Lord English. He messages Terezi again.

18: Jane, purportedly disengaged from politics, pontificates to Gamzee about equity. Then they fuck. Jake, in the same room, gets grossed out and takes his child Tavros out of there, calling Jade for emotional support.

19: Jade, Dave, and Karkat discuss their friends’ dysfunctional romances, skirting the topic of their own. And then a Jade falls out of the sky, straight from Meat 26.

20: They take the Jade to Jane, where everyone has met up. Jane cannot revive her, as she’s not exactly dead. Roxy proposes holding a funeral. The subject of politics comes up, and the trolls lash out at Jane’s fascist views.

21: At the alt!Jade’s funeral, Roxy gives a eulogy and Calliope gives symbolism until things are interrupted by the arrival of Aradia and Sollux. The funeral sort of resumes, until tensions boil over. Roxy goes into labour. The Jade corpse wakes up: alt!Calliope has chosen this vessel and risen to protect the world.

Epilogue Five:

22: Three years later, John is messaged by Terezi at his son’s birthday party. A few weeks later, ghosts start raining onto Earth C out of the sky. Jane is a key political influencer, Karkat goes off the grid and joins the troll revolution against the bucktoothed heiress. Gamzee starts holding make-out baptisms. The government starts flying drone ships above the Troll Kingdom. And John prints out Terezi’s new selfie.

23: John plans to kidnap Jane and Jake’s child, Tavros, to save him from a dysfunctional household, during Harry Anderson’s fifth birthday party. He certainly makes a good try, but Jane finds out and tensions rise to an even worse point. John’s windy powers get the best of him, he scares everyone, and flies away.

24: Alt!Calliope meditates, viewing the interaction of timelines. John and Terezi, in such an instance of timeline interaction, bond with each other for the last time. Aradia and Sollux listen to Alt!Calliope bring up the Prince.

25: Revolutionary Karkat vents to Swifer, then Kanaya talks to him about the Mother Grub and the rebellion. Meenah arrives, from roughly after Meat 22, and joins Karkat’s army.

26: John witnesses his Dad’s car crash into the Earth, from roughly after Meat 33. It’s empty, except for remnants of shaving cream, tobacco, Terezi’s and someone else’s blood. John breaks down.

Epilogue Six:

27: Ten years later, Harry Anderson and Vriska sneak out past curfew and flirt. Aradia, Sollux, and Alt!Calliope watch this canonically inconsequential world evolve. John is the best man at Dave and Jade’s wedding, though Roxy has left him. John meets Karkat at the wedding, and the two talk break-ups and politics. John also meets Dave, and the two talk relationships. John is still deeply unhappy.

28: Karkat’s army declares war on Harry Anderson’s birthday. John watches as Vriska– from around Meat 13– crashes onto Earth C.

Epilogue Seven:

29: Alt!Calliope announces the arrival of Lord English.

30: On Jane’s flying battleship, Jake informs her that her Dad has irreparably died in a failed assassination attempt. Jane declares war on the trolls and kicks Gamzee off her ship.

31: John fills (Vriska) in on some Earth C events. Gamzee greets her, and suggests she needs moral redemption. This causes a bit of trouble.

32: (Vriska) beats the ever-loving shit out of Gamzee, only to find he loves it. They have passionate hate-sex in a bush. John, perturbed, gladly accepts the presence of Rose as a distraction.

33: Rose and daughter Vriska greet John. Rose thanks him for choosing candy, sincerely, and says goodbye to him for probably the final time. John finds peace with that.

34: Vriska chats with Harry Anderson on the phone before discovering (Vriska) and Gamzee in their bush.

35: (Vriska) cannot believe what she just did, and Gamzee makes it worse by talking, so she murders him. Vriska witnessed it all and meets (Vriska).

36: John returns home to find Jake has run away with Tavros. Jake has a good honest talk with John about being good or bad people, and he has a joyful Hope outburst. John lets Jake and Tavros move in, and Jake motivates John to make amends with Roxy.

37: (Vriska) learns, from Vriska, about legacies as taught in Earth C history books. (Vriska) realizes that John actually is important and misses Terezi. Vriska stole John’s phone, so (Vriska) sends Terezi a message.

38: John and Roxy make amends, ripping off some long-time emotional band-aids about choices, identity, and blame. Harry Anderson is happy to see his father again.

Epilogue Eight:

39: Jade and Dave, halfway across the continent on a Karkat-given mission, find more shitty liberties. Dave wanders off on his own and discovers the ruins of the Oval Office, where a transportalizer takes him to a conscious hologram of Barack Obama. Obama talks about a lot of things which are simply amazing. Dave becomes Davebot and channels the powers of his Ultimate Self.

40: Alt!Calliope tells Aradia about the divine nature of this world, safely cordoned off within the black hole. She tells her about the Prince, illustrating his destructive potential through a metaphor about metatext. She declares her intention to consume Lord English’s body and absorb his essence, gaining the power to defeat the Prince.

Postscript:

41: On the Prince’s spaceship, flying far from the canonical Earth C towards a class-M planet on which will be played a very important game of Sburb, Rosebot irons Dirk’s pantaloons out of boredom, looks at Terezi’s shoes, and wonders if she will be able to prototype her comatose body, as planned.