ITT: Homestuck^2 Beyond Pumpkin edition

[PilotBlackSmith]

Homestuck^2 is a shonen battle tournament anime in earth C between the gods where they fight to see who's strongest

its beautifully animated by studio TRIGGER and everyone gets to do all the cool shit they coudnt do before and go even further beyond

[AKpen]

I wouldn't completely hate that.

[_DASHFLAME_]

I've had an idea for what a game for Homestuck would be like, This idea would require tons of funding & resources & people & time though, but I'd still wanna put it on the table. The game would essentially be a video game copy of Sburb. It would essentially start out with the characters riding down on the meteors as babies, you would then get asked a bunch of questions from a first guardian such as "how many people are playing?" "Is your species trolls or humans?" questions like that. those questions would determine things like the species & the amount of people. Then you would get the first character in their house & they start the game, they then have a certain amount of time (like 3 minutes) to get everything set up such as prototyping the kernelsprite & creating the artifact required to enter the medium. They would then get a randomized Planet such as Land of Souls & Silence (LOSAS), or if a player is really lucky Land of Grist & Boonbucks. The point is that these planets are randomized for each playthrough. One player would definitely get a planet with frogs in order to create the Genesis frog. They then would get a Planet quest & 7 rings to travel through. The goal would be to kill the Black King as that is the main goal in Sburb, but I think that something could happen that could completely through the game for a loop. Such as how Jack completely took over the Beta kids session. maybe an external force takes over the session & the new goal is to destroy the external force. Permadeath will be a feature for certain things to happen such as god tier or reviving them through their dream self. If a playthrough can't be one, then they would have the option to scratch the game in order for a new chance at winning. This would obviously replace the kids with their guardians. Players wouldn't be able to take to each other normally, it would require certain circumstances such as a sprite being present, or them talking in a dream bubble, or having to text each other, until they get the gift of gab. They would be able to unlock God tier badges on their Kiddy Camper Handysash in order to get stronger in the game. Jujus would definitely be in the game. when a session is completely unbeatable, then the playthrough is over, & they would have to start a new game, answer First Guardian questions, & create a new session to try to win. it would essentially be a Rouge-Lite. what do you guys think about this idea?

[lavendersiren]

I've had an idea for what a game for Homestuck would be like...
[ textwall here ]
...what do you guys think about this idea?

I think you're best off trying to join the team for The Genesis Project, since they're making a sburblike that seems to have promise.

The future that everyone wants is out there for the taking. It is the age of the fanwork in this fandom now. HS^2 imo is best taken as a slight distraction rather than something substantial. That which lies beyond the end is for the fandom to decide.

That being said, I've got my stuff to work on, hoping to carve out a route of my own from what's been given. No idea what I wanna do, considering I'm not exactly all that much invested in the characters (more the mechanics of the game than anything), but hopefully the desires of others can guide my path.
There are thousands of directions that can be taken and thousands of fans out there, many with the skills to make their ideas reality. Waiting for officially created content seems counterproductive at this point when there's so many other channels to get content from.

[Rob]

Start with the Meat timeline. Don't address Candy at all, leave that to the fans.

Make the primary form of interaction a forum that the Omega kids created in order to solve Dirk's version of Sburb. Assign a writer to each Omega kid and have them interact with fans in threads. Mix up direct replies with panels and chatlogs. Make the narrative flow be determined through the interaction of fans and a weak outline that is tweaked by good ideas that percolate through interactions with the fans. (You know, like that one webcomic)

Forum culture absolutely rocks and HS dies when the forum dies.

[TantamountTurnabout]

Just to be dumb and indulgent if i got to redo H2:
Double down on the Meat / Candy as the two main reasons people write fanfiction (Gritty Plot and Comfortable Fluff). Put all the gritty conflict of both into Meat , and then filling Candy with Fluff. Domestic stuff, cute little romance things, give some characters more space to be comfortable, grow, reach some catharsis Go To Therapy. Have a dichotomy between characters that are Powerful but Miserable, and characters that are Happy but Complacent, and then conclude by Forcing The Two Worlds To Collide. Meat characters furious and frustrated that they were forced through so much suffering while their Candy counterparts apparently never had to struggle. Candy characters frustrated by how maladjusted and resistant to empathy or growth their Meat counterparts had become. Forced to either reconcile their differences or annihilate each other. One timeline where conflict is forever relegated to the past, and the other where resolution or peace feels like an impossible future.
It's sort of a broad stroke, I've got more ideas for minutea but that would just break down to me making bullet point fanfiction, and I'm probably wordy enough as is.

[AsherCrane]

Snap

No, no, I'm actually curious now, keep going.

[TantamountTurnabout]

No, no, I'm actually curious now, keep going.

now ya'll know who to blame for these oncoming walls of text.

Okay so meat's left mostly intact. Biggest change is bringing the war from candy over to meat. UltDirk's manipulation escalates conflicts between parties, going from tension to altercations to all out war. It fits ultdirk's plans as a form of distraction for his escape, and fits his preference for grittier, Meatier stories. Wouldn't take much (Dirk manipulation or not) for a peace talk or armistice to break down, further cementing the troll and human factions against each other. Neither side is a monolith, with trolls and humans fighting for and against their respective sides. The humans, led by Jade, have greater resources and technology whereas the trolls, led by Karkat, have greater tactics, flexible strategies, and are generally stronger individual fighters.

Karkat is finally in a position of leadership, and he's Good at it. He has a complete understanding of the soldiers he leads and uses their strengths and weaknesses to their greatest effect, turning a diverse group of ragtag tacticians, specialists, and warriors, into a powerful front. It's everything he dreamed of as a teen, and uses everything he learned over his adventure, and it's Horrible. He's finally actualizing what he felt he was always Meant For and it's miserable. He can't help but thrill at every victory and genuinely enjoy the people he works and fights alongside, and take pride in what he's accomplished, and he hates himself for it. He feels guilty for feeling good, seeing everything that it's cost, but unable to do anything but keep fighting. There's too much at stake, to many lives, to just give up or stop, just because it's making him Feel Bad.
Dave fights alongside Karkat, but his time powers are reduced to only working for combat, so he's helpless to do anything to change the key events which lead to war. His powers make him a dominating force on the battlefield, but that just makes him feel worse. He has all this power to fight and kill these soldiers who can't even get a scratch on him, and no power to save them. People who lived on the planet he worked so hard to create, he had worked so hard to give them happiness and now he was killing them like ants. UltDirk buried those concerns, instead having him focus on his combat abilities and techniques (Dirk thinks fighting is cool, and sees this influence as an extension of Bro/his training, to make Dave cool and badass). UD had also been pushing Dave and Karkat together throughout the story and while they did both wanted to be together, it felt wrong to pursue it with their growing responsibilities and the raising stakes of the conflict (ironically by trying to get them together, all dirk did was push them further apart). UltDirk leaves about halfway through, and devoid of his influence Dave is crushed by the weight of his positions, and just, drops off the map. He wanders from the battlefield, alone, to grapple with his trauma, eventually winding up in the Obama cave, and gets to turn into a robot, in case that was important for later.
Jade is similarly a major asset to Karkat's forces, and losing her to Cherub Possession is a major blow. Possessed Jade similarly battles with the prince (letting a few seconds of introspection for the characters he's been controlling) until he completes his plans and just Takes off for space. AltCalliope sees this as victory, with The Prince no longer interfering, the events of this planet can continue "naturally" ; she isn't particularly invested in Peace, just that whatever happens happens. Jade, on the other hand, has had to watch her friends be pit against each other, destroy everything they worked so hard to accomplish, knowing now who or what was responsible but being unable to do anything to help. Jade is Pissed. She Soul-Grabs AltC demanding she help fix this, and take UltDirk Down. AltC argues this would only make things worse; if Dirk isn't around, then his actions no longer matter to the story, they aren't relevant, they aren't True, hunting him down would make him Matter again, and give him power (Living well is the best revenge and all that). There was a problem but now it's gone. Jade figuratively rips her a new one. She criticizes AltC's hypocrisy, her willingness to interfere as it suits her mood yet belief that she's being "objective". Jade is emotional and furious but, to AltC's irritation, she's also Right.
Kanaya is preoccupied with tending to her ailing wife, trying desperately to find some sort of answer or cure to her mysterious fragility. She scours through books and resources of medicine and magic. Karkat asks for her help in the resistance, but she turns him away. She knows she's putting off something important, she knows that the mother grub, and trollkind could be at stake, but she can't bring herself to leave Rose's side (in no small part due to ult dirk's desire to keep rose ready for when he needs her, and keep kanaya out of the way).
Terezi returns to Earth on the brink of war, her friends turned against each other and acting like their worst selves. She runs into Roxy who's been struggling with everything going on herself. Immune to Dirk's snooping and manipulation, she's been trying to bridge the two factions, reconcile the differences, get So Close to an understanding, only to have it crumble beneath her (I like an extension of her powers being that we don't see the narrative from her point of view, so we'll have seen her in the periphery or interacting in all these other stories, but this is the first time she gets to actually express herself). It seems so obvious to her that there are peaceful solutions, that its what everyone really wants, but for some reason they keep refusing, doubling down, escalating. Terezi agrees that it's weird. When she's alone, however, UltDirk tries manipulating her into believing that it makes sense, that this conflict was inevitable, that they'll start killing each other for ideology, revenge, and survival, just like when they were on the meteor. That there's nothing for her here on this planet, nothing left of the friends she knew, no hope or future. Terezi mysteriously disappears from the story.
After grabbing Rose to put into a robot, Dirks' plans are complete. He aims to find a new planet to start a new story with a better writer (him) in charge. Even without his influence, EarthC remains at war. In his absence we characters open to more introspection, but in too deep to stop anything now. Until a series of unlikely events and decisions lead the key players to convene in the same location. Jane, Karkat, Jake, Roxy, anyone else I'm forgetting, all find themselves together away from the battlefield, and come upon a message left for them by Terezi. It reveals that after dirk had attempted to manipulate her she had realized what had been happening and took action. She set up the series of events which would lead them together in this place, instead of forcing people to do what she wanted, she led them with the decisions she believed they would make (Contrasting with UltDirk by having people do what he Thinks They Should by instead working with what she knows about them as individuals). The message explains everything she knew about Dirks' machinations and all the evidence she had to support it. She knew that she wouldn't be able to reach them while he was still around, so she had to leave this whole scenario behind for after he left (with Terezi herself stowing away on board!). Everyone there has plenty of reason to want to kill each other, but the realization of what's happened leaves them more collectively pissed at Dirk to bother with the war. Jade busts in like "HEY GUYS YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT DIRK DID" and they're like no we just found out and she's like oh okay.
A hasty ceasefire is drafted, both factions using the desperately time to regroup and resupply. It's peace, but only in that it's an Absence of War. Tensions remain. The truth of the war, of UltDirk's interference and manipulation, is held a top secret. The heads of each side reconvene to discuss the terms of their treaties, but their real intention is how they plan to pursue UltDirk. They decide who stays (to preserve the balance of power and prevent their own faction from re-instigating combat) and who boards a ship in pursuit of Dirk (To personally punch his shitty anime glasses trough his skull), choosing among themselves and several of their most trusted (oc) operatives. They're able to follow his trail, but he does have a several month long head start, so wherever he's going, he'll have time to do whatever it is he's planning without interference for some time.
rocket takes of pshooo end of meat

(There's a bunch of holes and left over characters but this is just like, the big plot ideas that come to mind.)
(Also sorry it's sorted by character and not chronologically just, twist your brain into a pretzel until it fits ok)

MEANWHILE IN CANDY

[TantamountTurnabout]

MEANWHILE IN CANDY

everything is fine actually. Like this one would be a big departure from the Meat epilogue, completely rebuilt from ground up, no drama, just twee and nice. The format would probably be a series of vignette's of the characters lives, as they grow up together, settle down, just do whatever they want to do. The stakes are low and the times are nice. Redemption arcs but unironically. Even minor characters get space and time to work through their issues, find their place. This is meant to be that very fluff domestic AU what if everything was just fine kind of fanfic. While the low stakes make it less exciting than meat, I'd bet the 'where are they now' tour of other characters would make it easy enough to sit through anyway.

Keep the John and Roxy marriage, but not in the weird immediate way. They have a lot in common through both being a little outside of canon (john with his Powers roxy with her Void Powers) but not really hung up on a lot of the major stuff they've been through. They spend some time together, Calliope is weird about it and suggests marriage immediately and they sort of laugh it off, but really why not? It's not like divorce doesn't exist, and they do care about each other. Kind of works like two best friends getting married, but they do get close over time. I'd love it if Roxy's around a lot more in Candy, so we get more of her thoughts and perspective, as a contrast to Meat, where her powers have protected but isolated her. Also I think it would be cool to see more of their respective gender journeys first hand! Fun shenanigans with Roxy sort of exploring her gender stuff with John being open-minded but basically completely clueless. "so...john....... i dont think im a girl." 'oh okay thats cool. i think that could be cool.' "yeah im still figuring it out but i think-' "wait does that make you a boy? Does that make us gay married?? I still wanna be married Roxy does that make me gay???' It would be fun to see him have to engage with learning something new like that (since he tended to let complicated stuff fly over his head, and lgbt stuff can be a complex and funny thing to grapple with for the first time), and I think a pretty good opportunity to introduce some of his own gender stuff too! (i'm not saying you Gotta do June Egbert but June Egbert would be Very Fun bc they are a Goofball and their journey would be A Delight)(June complaining to Roxy because she's gotta do all this name change paperwork and Roxy went through Three Genders without having to deal with it and he just bops her on the noggin).

Keep Harry Anderson. Keep a buncha kids around have more kids ain't nothin so settle downy and domestic as havin kids love that shit. Do some good toy story shit about him growing up. John Egbert absolutely takes Harry Anderson on a Goofy Movie trip but instead of Powerline it's Troll Hamilton. They escape the waterfall because they forgot John could fly until the last possible moment.

Dave and Karkat orbit each other in an "ironic" will they won't they sitcom romance. Dave ironically opens up a coffee shop specifically to joke about coffee shop AU's. Karkat escalates by applying for a job. Dave yes ands him and makes him a full on business partner. The coffee shop ends up being the backdrop of several character meet ups. Eventually gay chicken escalates to a full scale wedding. During his vows Dave takes off his sunglasses and expresses his feelings with complete sincerity, Karkat swears, cries, and they kiss. Oh my god give them a kid. Can you imagine these idiots as parents? Incredible. This epilogue rules.

Jane was, honestly pretty underdeveloped as a character so there's a lot of room to kind of do whatever you want with her desu. I think she kind of has the attitude of "if you want something done right you do it yourself," but in this case, instead of doing one big thing she takes that same degree of skill and ability to several things, whichever place she feels she'd be most needed. She goes from school teacher to theater directer to local government to hospital worker to mystery writer to mystery Solver. She's like a fusion of Mary Poppins and Leslie Knope. And Agatha Christie. Also Mrs. Frizzle. Just enjoying what she's doing and always ready for whatever comes next. Just imagining her old students goin like hey did you know that Ms Crocker from 10th grade english also wrote a book series and owned a joke shop and traveled the world and created a lifesaving vaccine and went to the Moon and Is God???

Jade. Hmm. I think in this setting Jade tries getting she missed growing up, but doesn't compromise the kind of life she enjoys. She has living quarters near or in the huge physics lab she works in, so she can keep working on projects (with other people! What a concept!) as long as she likes; but she also has an isolated cabin out in the wilderness, with a huge garden and no other people for miles for whenever she's nostalgic for growing up alone. Whenever she wants to see her friends she crashes on their couches or in their guest rooms. A lot of "Hey! i happened to be in the neighborhood for a conference hope you don't mind!" and no one bringing up the fact that she can teleport and in fact teleported here because they all know that she just likes visiting. She doesn't quite settle down traditionally, but she finds ways to incorporate what she likes with how she wants to live her life.

Kanaya and Rose are simply impeccable. Kanaya works with the mother grub, Rose is a renowned author. They are your independently wealthy wine aunts. What more is there to say. Since it's the Candy timeline the troll spawning is just, normal and not really an issue. Maybe since genetic material isn't harvested by threat of death the egg count is a more manageable number? Good enough. Toss in a Yiffany too why not! But instead of being a weird secret cuck thing make it like, a conversation they get to have. Maybe Jade's talking to Kanaya (the Ultimom) about thinking she has room in her life for a kid and not knowing how to feel about that, Rose and Kanaya discuss like you know we'll never have a baby together but that could still be an experience to share. Never bring up the mechanics bc honestly it's just better like that. Kanaya fretting over Rose, constantly disturbed and intrigued by human reproduction, Rose The Human Pregnancy Books Have Contradictory Opinions On Best Practice How Did Humans Ever Conceive Without Consensus. Rose has the thought that she's basically harboring a parasite inside her which is chemically mutating her body to suit her needs and thinks that's actually very spooky and cool. Does she write a pregnancy gamefaq? I will never tell. Jade raises Yiffany as a single parent (with friends help of course), handling homeschooling herself until Yiffany reads a wizard book and is like oh hell yes boarding school can i go mom can i can i can i. (Ok so she can call me mom, and kanaya could be aunt kanaya but what about Rose? She can just call me The Mother Womb. You Pull That Nonsense And You Can Call Me Divorced.

Give Gamzee the redemption arc. *waits for the boos to die down* He hasn't had any developments characterwise since the meteor, and this would be an opportunity to explore his side of it. Dude was heavily self sedating and when he lost his meds had such a violent episode he killed several of his friends! How does he deal with the guilt of that, with still being alive after what he did to them. Does he hate the violent rage he's biologically instilled with, is he frustrated that he had to spend most of his life in a bleary fog just to function? Maybe he acted so horribly afterwards because he felt like a monster for what he'd done, and wanted to be hated, wanted to be hurt, or even killed for it. Put him on some decent meds, let him figure out how to be a person again. How do other characters deal with this person who was such a negative presence for them becoming something with more depth and humanity. (ya'll ever see Moonlight? And that one scene where he sees his mom again and this women made his adolescent life absolute hell and here she is now, knowing there's nothing she can do to change what's happened but now she sees and she's sorry and, what do you even do with that. Good movie.) Gamzee in art therapy, painting until the color stop looking like smears of multi-colored blood and can just look like colors again.

Keep Vriska. I love this version of Vriska stuck in a world where everything is fine and there's no drama or danger and she doesn't have any way to be important. Vriska Purgatory 2!!! Not only that, the kids and trolls have talked about everything that happened and, they've kind of realized she was less fun and cool, more manipulative and cruel than they remember. They can't really blame her because of her upbringing and how young they were but, dealing with her face to face is a huge reminder of just, how she is. She probably insults how they've gotten soft, how they settled down and sold out, but they aren't kids anymore, and these grown ass adults are comfortable enough to tell her that they honestly like their lives as they are, no matter what she thinks of it. John, the kid who was so smitten with this cool and confident girl, just looks away and sighs "I heard about Tavros." Suddenly the fact that she's a cool invincible badass isn't enough to make up for the consequences of her actions. Let her have to grapple with that. That she never really had limits and that effected how she treated people, how she thought about herself, and that she fucked up! She should do better! Maybe she tries and be better but it just, doesn't stick, doesn't work, it feels wrong or insincere and she can't keep it up. So she goes out to space in search of the one person who could call her on her bullshit, the one person she could trust to keep her feet on the ground. Goes off to search for Terezi.

Find some nice point in their lives to end on, maybe one of their kids is going to college, a bittersweet time as some things end as some begins and we look back on how lucky we are, how much fun we've had, how nice an evening it is.

And unseen, save for those who thought they glimpsed a shooting star, a ship arrives.

[TantamountTurnabout]

a ship arrives.

And That's the point at which the epilogues collide! The planet Dirk chose as the backdrop for his new narrative turns out to be Candy Earth C! He sews the seeds of conflict, confrontation, and manipulates his chosen players to come into contact with Sburb. This perfect world is now in danger, and they're unprepared for what comes next. The ship from Meat Earth C arrives, and (realizing its nature as an alternate canonline planet) seek out their Candy counterparts to get as much firepower ready as they can. They have to find and stop Dirk, detect and correct his manipulation, before the ticking clock of the sburb session comes to pass, since its inception all but ensures the planet's retroactively destined destruction.

(once again this isn't me saying "this is how it should have gone" or anything like that! It's just a pile of ideas i had when thinking about what I might do differently, things that might be fun, etc. A lot of what happens in the original story I really like, or is written really well!)

[TantamountTurnabout]

oh also leave Candy Dirk alive, have him come down from his delusions of grandeur just like candy rose recovered from her headaches and All Sight, get him some therapy. Have him exist as a harrowing reminder to UltDirk that he could have just decided to be normal and not a crazy super god and things actually would have been better for him, that he Had A Choice, and that his own actions are his own fault.
We be Drippin With Narrative all up in this fanfic.

[TantamountTurnabout]

So I just realized there was already an extremely popular homestuck adjacent property that does what I was looking for from the Meat / Candy Dichotomy that hs2 just, didn't.
Undertale. Pacifist route has you going on cute little dates with like, every side character, and getting to know and like them all through little like, individual interactions, and at the end everything's fine and you can even walk back and talk to everybody and get closure with how they're doing. No Mercy route has You becoming the grimdark big bad that everyone else has to deal with, which gives them incredible moments like the fight with Undyne or Sans that wouldn't have the same meaning or impact if the tone hadn't gotten so dark.
they coulda like, they coulda just copied undertale and done a better theming