#pleasssesee tell me the images are in the right order

[roastedbeefed]

Ughhh thinking about the pre-retcon timeline

Honestly I feel like that fit so much better with everyone’s character arcs, as much as vriskagram warms my heart, dirk, rose, terezi, vriska, karkat and even gamzee got better arcs

(Below this is just me spewing nonsense bc I gotta type this out or I’ll go wild)

Dave is the clear winner of the retcon timeline, he gets his cathartic conversation (which I love, don’t get me wrong) and even dirk gets some kinda of closure with Dave, but not really with anyone else

Pre-retcon vriska was honestly really fun and interesting to see grow and change, and (s) remember is just so cathartic to see; I’m not a vriska Stan so that’s all I really have to say about her haha

Terezi’s journey is also great pre retcon, her thing with Dave, her and karkat’s friendship, the pain from killing vriska despite feeling so sure that she did the right thing, the regret from getting her vision back and feeling like she lost a part of herself, not sure how to get it back; it hurts to read but terezi feeling like she needs to brave everything by herself leading to her having to watch karkat die is just ughhhh ouchie ouch but I feel like it just makes so much narrative sense!

Even with rose, although it was pretty painful to watch her fall into substance abuse, it makes sense why she would, and the fact that no one really knows what to do about it makes more sense than “vriska is here problem solved!” I mean pre-retcon roses final conversation with Roxy? Ouchhhh I got a lot to say about it but I’ll cut myself off

Dirk gets the Dave reunion post retcon, but I feel like we get much more emphasis on his like of control in the other timeline, watching him travel alone through space as everything else falls apart; his “I failed” line is so earnest but incorrect that it’s a little pathetic, but in a good way! Dirk tries so hard to be “aloof cool guy who’s got it all together” and then proceeding to fall apart and later tell Jane that he’s “actually a horrible person and completely manipulative”, but both situations put all the control on him! No matter whether he thinks he’s good or bad, dirk makes it 100% his fault, but after Game Over?

Dirk is just a kid, this situation was so out of his hands, and he dies not even acknowledging this, but the readers finally get the most blatant example of “dirk has never known what he’s doing and he’s not to blame, he’s a kid in a terrible circumstance”

I feel like karkat got done the greatest disservice; his whole relationship with gamzee (who I won’t get into too much but I personally believe that watching gamzee slowly lose himself and become a pawn for the game (bard moment) is a lot more compelling than tossing him in a fridge) is completely thrown out in favor of Cool Vriska Moment, thus ruining karkat’s whole relationship with blood

This conversation is just so painful because as nice as it is to know that karkat is going to have some great role in organizing earth C (oh wait that never happened hm), the fact that karkat talks about being so useless like he didn’t lead his session to (almost) victory after spending his whole life afraid of his blood color being found out is just ughhhhh bc yeah! Post retcon, karkat doesn’t do much of anything other than embarrass himself when he’s not just saying something funny; he gets his speech at the end, but it’s entirely alone, which is weird for the “friendship was the real hero all along!“ guy

Pre-retcon karkat DID put everything on the line! For gamzee and then for terezi! But I guess non of that matters now! And ughhhh terezi I wish we acknowledged their relationship more and how it really didn’t work because of their separate circumstances and issues, but they still mean a lot to each other! That one conversation between the two of them when karkat tries to talk her up is just a real show of his growth, after being too aggressive and controlling, and then coming to the realization that maybe his emotions are a lot different than what he was taught they should be, all coming together to karkat just wanting to help someone he cares deeply about as they’re struggling

When he managed to outrun kanaya in a fit to save terezi? Ultimately failing since circumstances still would not let him win? (Think him reaching for the final reward!) like I said, it’s painful but I feel like it’s so much more compelling than turning karkat into a little weasel that no one could possibly like unless they’re Dave

And karkat’s relationship with Dave! I got so invested seeing the two of them go from fake rivals to “kinda friends I guess” to “hey are we still going to be friends after all of this” vriskagram was so cathartic since I still saw these moments as an extension of pre-retcon, but it gets a bit less impactful since we don’t have as much of karkat’s growth from an obsessive kid to someone who’s grown and learned a lot about themselves

Karkat and kanaya’s friendship is always incredible no matter the timeline I won’t be convince otherwise thank you

#pleasssesee tell me the images are in the right order #homestuck #karkat vantas #rose lalonde #terezi pyrope #dirk strider #Dave strider #that was pretty much everyone I spent a lot of time talking about #beef writes #pre-retcon