Missed Opportunities Thread

[Darth_Energon]

I'll start: actually seeing different players from Earth sessions show up in dream bubbles. SBURB had a mass release and I think it would be interesting to see how other people went through it. Yeah I get that it's explained that dream bubbles made specifically for the kids/trolls sessions but it could be way more interesting if it was all sessions.

[BrobyDDark]

Any other human or Troll players at all. The whole fate angle kinda ruins any potential rival groups that coulda shown up. Would be interesting to see a group of Human assholes acting as player killers, effectively forming a clan like in most mmos.

[livingNingyo]

Feferi playing a bigger role for the Dream Bubbles is another and is instead passed onto Aradia.

Characters to expand on in Murderstuck like Gamzee, Vriska, and Eridan would be another before Kanaya stopped everything. I am not sure if they could keep any alive during Rose and Dave joining them. But I think it would have been interesting if villains like Gamzee and Eridan do try to talk to them and explain the actions of why they did. Causing more conflict inside the the human kids will see both the good and bad of the trolls they meet.

[JakeMorph]

connecting the dead cherub to the Stiller shades in some way is a big one for me. Andrew jokes that they're the same ones from problem sleuth which were involved in a lot of whacky plot shit involving creation gods and black holes, and dirk reinforces their cosmic importance and connection to the plot of ps by telling that story about how stiller was a revolutionary parallel to the signless on post-scratch earth and that people made busts in his image after his death. having the alternate calliope just wear the shades would have tied a lot of fun little loose thematic threads together for me, even if the story never bothered to explain how they came into her possession.

[gutza1]

I would have liked Feferi to come back to life using her Witch of Life powers and then have an epic duel with the Condesce, with her becoming the Empress of the trolls upon the Condesce's defeat. Her character arc would revolve around her accepting her duties as the Empress and trying to rebuild the troll race.

[egg]

The entire rest of the game - not having a character who's really focused on playing the game, but not a tryhard like Vriska, making an attempt to connect the rest of the game to the whole teen drama that's going on.

[BrobyDDark]

Jujus and their creation. In fact, Cherubs and their "culture" (using the word loosely, here, 'cause all Cherubs are introverts that avoid their own kind) are largely unexplained.

[egg]

Everything about the Pre-Scratch trolls. Not making custom lands for the pre-scratch trolls and instead just reusing the post-scratch trolls' lands.

[thorondraco]

Jujus and their creation. In fact, Cherubs and their "culture" (using the word loosely, here, 'cause all Cherubs are introverts that avoid their own kind) are largely unexplained.

That has always made me question how they could have a homeworld to begin with. And also suspicious that the 'legendary weapons' are all clown themed. Except for the katana.

I think a major thing we will see in Homestuck^2 is a lot of these missed opportunities visited. If we are going into crazy meta stuff, we are likely going to learn about the origins of paradox space and all that. How it came to be, who are its true masters, who made sburb and so on. And hopefully give characters left by the wayside some focus too.

Feferi and Nepeta deserve to live proper and not be forced to live inside wartorn black holes as ghosts, just to keep existing.

[Dream Muttman]

The three years wait was a big missed opportunity. The intermissions set on the meteor could've gone into their actual living situation as a callback to each character's original introduction, for one. Seeing their rooms and what their ways of passing time are, it felt essential in acts 1-3 and act 5 act 1 because it was.

The other big missed opportunity there was making John and Jade's trip shorter so they could interact with the alpha kids. John should've arrived during Jane's introduction and Jade during Jake's. Davesprite could've gone to the future and gotten Dirk and Roxy together in one place.

[BrobyDDark]

The Guardians, as characters. We don't see them in dream-bubbles, and they don't do or say much. We know Bro Strider is somehow an exceedingly extraordinary asshole, but we don't see how that plays into him as a character rather than a FORCE. Bro especially is much more of a force than the other 3. He just shows up to Dirk over Dave, then fucks off until his services are needed again, then he gets killed off unceremoniously (like the other Guardians) and the next time we see him talked about in length it's "Yeah Bro was a fucking weirdo asshole who beat the shit outta me constantly and was honestly abusive with the weird mindgames."

Then again, the part where that happens was just sucking the fun outta the early chapters. Like, in the early parts, we definitely saw how the Facade of Bro being this loving manly figure in Dave's life was breaking and Dave was seeing how much of a weird abusive asshole he was, culminating in Bro a.) Kicking Dave's ass in a fight I wish we saw more of and b.) Cutting a meteor in half because fuck you he's Bro Strider. Some banter, or a bit more time with the Guardians would have been great. Yet, it would have made Homestuck inherently different than how it is now, not that I can say it would be better or worse.

As an add-on, the Guardians and their abilities are largely unshown. We know they're unstoppable bad-asses until the Lord of all Murderhobos shows up to rip them from our beloved protagonists, but the only one we see fuck shit up in length is...Bro. But my god does he fuck shit up.

[Bahinchut]

Union Jack couldve been an interesting villain and a window into how Lord English thinks and acts. Obviously we have Caliborn, but even before his masterpiece it was clear they weren't exactly the same person per se. That, and what his purpose actually was. Obviously he was meant to destroy prospits moon so the kids could ascend, but wasn't that the condesce's plan? Why would English willingly go along with that? And how much exactly is he English?

[gutza1]

I wish John and Jade could have met up with the meteor crew instead of staying on their own for three entire years. Also, damn, couldn't Jade and Sollux just alchemized some kind of FTL drive to make their journey faster?

[egg]

The Guardians

I really agree with this! What I think really makes Homestuck special for me is that it makes seriousness out of comedy. Hussie will introduce one concept that seems a little silly at first, and then construct that into its own world, but very little of that was done with the guardians themselves, only their effects on each of the children. We don't really see how any of them think - perhaps Bro could've been doing all that without really realizing he was being abusive, that he was doing the best thing he could have thought of to do to Dave. We don't know why they are connected to Skaianet or how they came to be, just that they are. And so forth. This really shows in other parts of the comic too - the lusii are just kind of brushed over and then stop being characters by the time we catch back up to the 'present day' in Act 5 Act 2, characters like Nepeta end up feeling like jokes that stopped being useful when shit gets real in Murderstuck, and so forth. The whole serious atmosphere of the latter ends of Act 6 and especially the Epilogue sort of lack that flair of 'wow this was funny but now it's raw and that's kind of impressive' that I loved about Acts 1-5.

[PilotBlackSmith]

when I was in the early acts I tought the guardians were previous sburb players, which explained how they could beat enemies and were so strong despite apparently just being normal adults
Bro literally moves at fucking lightspeed and Dad, Grandpa and Mom apparently managed to beat a fuckton of enemies VERY easily and I didn't knew about the troll session fuckery at that point

[BrobyDDark]

when I was in the early acts I tought the guardians were previous sburb players, which explained how they could beat enemies and were so strong despite apparently just being normal adults
Bro literally moves at fucking lightspeed and Dad, Grandpa and Mom apparently managed to beat a fuckton of enemies VERY easily and I didn't knew about the troll session fuckery at that point

Bro that'd be a dank fanventure

[Leddy]

We've still got next to no information on the Lime caste.

There's such cool potential there... and even on that it's STILL possible to draw it out. Not as much of a missed opportunity yet, please give us more info on them.

[BrobyDDark]

Game theory: Lime bloods have the ability to craft JuJus or otherwise have some form of Cherub Magicks

[Dream Muttman]

Game theory: Lime bloods have the ability to craft JuJus or otherwise have some form of Cherub Magicks

I'm more partial to the "anti-chucklevoodoo" or "psionic pacification" theories, personally.

[thorondraco]

We've still got next to no information on the Lime caste.

There's such cool potential there... and even on that it's STILL possible to draw it out. Not as much of a missed opportunity yet, please give us more info on them.

Just realized that it seems like the eldritch lusus is the reason we don't see any Limes. Not that they aren't born at all, but because they are killed the moment they are born or even before. Doc mentions something like using it as a weapon against casts.

Meaning if there is an active limeblood on Alternia, something might be keeping him from being attacked by the Eldrithc Lusus.