How would you re-do the retcon?

what about it exactly sucks? seems like a weird thing to assume that most people believe without explaining why.

add more vriska.

@capmics mainly because it seems to remove a lot of characterisation and arcs and is overall kinda cheap for the most part? it messes up a lot of character stuff and its just really glossed over like 'yeah that happened now". at least how i remember it

i dont know how i would go about doing it but it would have to be to make vriska Lose somehow. to make her less relevant because thats all she wants as a thief of light and AS VRISKA she is desperately clawing at relevancy the entire goddamn comic and the whole point is that SHE DOES NOT GET IT. and i have nothing against vriska. i love vriska. but it bothers me that SHES the one who fixes everything, SHE makes the plans that go and succeed WITHOUT A HITCH and thats just. thats not her! she loses! shes a modern retelling of the classic tale of hubris and the heroes in those tales always fail in one way or another. the missing piece that would fix the timeline is NOT vriska. it never has been.

yeah i actually really like the retcon arc i don't think i'd change much of it, i just think it would be nice to see more of the events on the meteor/golden ship trips. vriskagram is an excellent flash, but a bit more elsewhere, may have been nice, possibly some bonus comic material there

I would have made it so that after June uses her retcon powers to stop Vriska from dying she goes and gets a couple alternate Vriskas to bring into the main timeline too just to be safe.

i would do the retcon exactly the same because it is good. if i did have to change anything i would add another vriska or two like slothArmy

i think i should clarify my thoughts on the retcon

i do not think it is wholly bad, i really like some parts of it but for me its the fact that it erases parts of vriska's arc, and that certain aspects of it just feel.. idk cheap? i feel like from what i remember it glossed over a lot of things and was like "yea that happened now"

i will admit its possible that im just repeating what ive heard (and i have seen a LOT of people despising the retcon) and not forming an actual opinion on it based on what actually goes on in it but i definitely know i dont like some parts of it

i dont really know how i feel about the retcon as a whole and i dont like how fast it feels to go through everything

if this thread becomes just me questioning my thoughts on the retcon arc i swear to gog

no no no, you are right, there are definitely parts of the retcon that feel cheap, and it's also very obvious that hussie was playing favorites when it came to reviving vriska, because apparently that just kind of.. fixed everything? with little to no consequences, new or otherwise? there was a whole slew of characters that were killed off, and they couldn't have brought back, like, one more? i mean, yeah, tavros and i guess equius and nepeta were brought back, KIND OF??? but i mean, like... you couldn't have brought back feferi? or even eridan?? i'm sure all twelve eridan fans would've been happy campers if that happened. but i guess not. i guess hussie could only afford to bring one character back legitimately, budget was so tight, only one silly goofball girl could be brought back.

okay, enough striderisms, you get what i'm saying.

I think they could have improved the retcon by going back and killing Eridan even more. It's true.

You keep saying the retcon "removes" or "erases" things.

It doesn't.

re: OP

What is it precisely that you feel the Retcon "glosses over" or "cheapens"? Use more exact terms, please.

re: glitchyspeedrunner

It's not "favoritism" to bring back Vriska and not Feferi. Vriska is a real character (in fact, she's the main character), and Feferi isn't. Vriska has always been important to the plot, and making an accusation of "favoritism" is a little ridiculous because at the end of the day, it's Hussie's comic and they got to decide, ultimately, how the story played out.

noooo you guys why didnt they bring back the minor character who only existed for flavor or the explicit villain why would hussie do this.... lmfao get real

My three big problems with the retcon are as follows:

1. Time travel is for creating problems, not fixing them. I think one of the Back to the Future guys said that, or something. It's really hard to hold suspension of disbelief in a time travel story once you get to a point where time travel can be done at-will and history can be altered. Even if you show the problematic results of trying to do this, I'm almost never in a place where I can't just ask "why are you stopping? keep trying" when the hero inevitably gives up. When it DOES work, it feels cheap, because you basically could've just ignored the entire rest of the plot for this, in a lot of cases. Game Over un-happening makes the parts of it that DID happen feel like cheap shock value. In addition, we're now largely following a group of protagonists who experienced a totally-different three year journey from the ones we saw in game over, meaning our ability to relate to them and understand them as a collection of their experiences is massively hampered. "But ultimate selves" yeah okay man meet me when that actually matters.

2. Vriska Serket is for creating problems, not fixing them. This is just generally an issue I have with the writing post-Act 5 in general. Vriska is at her best when she fucking sucks. Even if she's trying to be good, even if not everything is her fault, the fact that she just keeps making everything worse is why she's compelling. There is nothing interesting about the ways she makes things better in act 6. She does not feel like someone who would draft a working plan for Collide that doesn't go awry, she doesn't feel like someone who would get everyone on the same page, and she super doesn't feel like someone who would...randomly force Rose to stop drinking booze. It's only here in Act 2 of Beyond Canon where I feel like any particular growth has happened where it makes sense for Vriska to be in-control and for that control to be well-utilized, and even that I can't be totally sure of.

3. That fuckass lilypad dialogue section went on for like a million hours

and so, we never met forum user Deep Dive Devin ever again.. because somehow, ultimate self never ended up mattering ever again. what was it all about!

re: mobiancruxtruder

1. The Retcon is not "time travel" in the typical sense. It's more on the end of meta-narrative fuckery that dominates a lot of Homestuck even before the Retcon. In the same way that the intermissions taking over the narrative in Act 6 invites you to consider the role of an intermission within a story and what it is and can be, and the Epilogues invite you to consider what an epilogue is and what it should or can be with reference to the original narrative, I would say that the Retcon invites the reader to consider similar sorts of questions. Also, Ultimate Selves have "mattered" for some time now that's why I'm confused.

2. You seem to me to not have a very firm grasp on Vriska as a character, I would advise you to consider her motivations and actions more. I, personally, think it's perfectly within Vriska's character to get Rose to stop drinking. She cares very deeply for the people around her, and that's actually at the core of her story and why she does the things that she does.

3. Too bad, get to reading, friend.

@vriskazone

1. A distinction without a difference. John isn't time traveling as Homestuck defines it, ie. affected by the Green Sun, but anyone who engages with fiction would say that's what it is.

"Ultimate selves" are simply a weak recuperation, is the point. They didn't make everyone remember all the shit that happened just because a couple of them brought it up, ergo it doesn't alleviate the frustration of switching out most of the cast for versions of themselves that experienced a significantly -different three years which the audience was largely not privy to.

2. I am not talking about Vriska's motives, I am talking about what role is most interesting for her. You can do basically-anything to mangle an action as being "in-character", especially during this unseen timeskip where the character dynamics changing can simply be imagined by the audience. I am saying that this is a lame direction for the character to go. And no, I don't think that her alleging caring about people means that she'd be able to just, on-the-spot see Rose drinking from a bottle and instantly slap that shit out of her hand as if trolls even understand what alcohol is.

3. "Just be content with being bored 4head"

re: mobiancruxtruder

1. If John is not time-traveling as Homestuck defines it, why should we then consider that definition as irrelevant? I think that it's important, when criticizing a story, to take the story at what it says and does rather than imposing an exterior framework onto it, which can limit your perception of the narrative.

2. I just think that arguing about what role is "most interesting" for Vriska to play within a story is pointless because, a) Homestuck seems very interested in characters (and especially Vriska) breaking out of the roles assigned to them by the narrative (see: Dave's struggle with being the "hero" of the narrative), and b) she is, unfortunately for some, the main character, and contains multitudes. On the subject of that particular scene with Rose, I think it's important to note that the context in which we encounter that scene is within a montage of the three-year meteor voyage. We don't have any real context for how Vriska has grown over the course of those years except for her character after arriving in the alpha session, which would seem to indicate that she's taken on a leadership/mediation role amongst the other characters.

3. So you think reading is boring? Very interesting.

There's no use arguing with "suspension of disbelief"heads. They do not have an interest in picking up what Homestuck is putting down when it does stuff like this on purpose.

I'd add a few extra lilypad dialogues and leave the existing A6A6I5 entirely unchanged. Maybe find a place to squeeze in an Obama mention to seed the running bit in the Epilogues that pays off in Candy? But I'm entirely satisfied with A6A6I5 as it exists.

(Oh, except that my unpopular opinion is that I don't like Moonsetter. I'd leave that flash's visuals the same but swap out the BGM for something else with a similarly chill mood. Lancer, maybe?)