Time shenanigans
At the beginning of this post, I wanted to say "Thank you! ♥" to my great friend AND proofreader for this blog - Grace ♥ You're the best luv ♥
I LOVE talking about time shenanigans. It's my favorite complicated Homestuck concept that 90% of people don't understand even after approximately 100 pages of explaining. It's the thing you start to understand on your read no 3 and never FULLY grasp. There have been many MANY instances of time travel and different timeline creation and you know I enjoy overanalyzing stuff that's not even worth it.
In Homestuck, there are technically thousands of hundreds of timelines. A timeline is divided into two or more when a person is presented with a choice. When they decide, new timelines are created - each corresponding to the other possible outcomes.
This is a prime example of how it works. Terezi flips a coin. There are obviously only two possible outcomes since there are only two sides of the coin. If the coin falls the scratched side up, Dave waits for a while, then goes back in time where he finds another version of himself sleeping on the quest bed.|
Whilst if the coin fell the other side up, Dave would immediately go back in time, and go to sleep on the quest bed, being the version of himself that the other timeline Dave will encounter after he goes back as well. Still following? Me neither, let's continue.
Coin tossing is the easiest way to explain time shenanigans, but they're called "shenanigans" for a reason. They aren't actually that simple.
In [S] Flip, it's used again, but no additional timelines are created. Vriska, having "all the luck" knew, that no matter what, the toss would work out to her favor. There was no other way it could land, that's what Vriska's powers are about. In every timeline where that toss happened, the outcome was the same.
However, after that two new timelines were created through other means. In one of them, Terezi lets Vriska go, and that results in the death of everybody else. Through her seer powers, Terezi could see that happening and in another timeline, she saw no other way of preventing that other than killing her (see: my murder post). That's how, in one timeline Vriska lived, resulting in the deaths of her friends, and in the other one she's dead.
The most important instance of timeline creation is most definitely Terezi's retcon. John, after getting instructions from her in the doomed timeline, he went back and changed the course of events that should've happened, to make the timeline successful. That's how the two major ones are created:
pre-retcon and post-retcon.
In post-retcon Vriska is alive, Terezi's relationships with Dave and Karkat are changed, and Gamzee is no longer a threat.
Another big timeline split happens in the Homestuck epilogue. At the end of the prologue, John makes a choice: Meat or candy? That's how the book splits into two different timelines. This little, seemingly unimportant choice lead to completely contrasting events.
Other time shenanigans include things like the Paradox babies, all of the versions of Dave in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, the Exiles' interference with beta kids, and even "Trollian's" timeline feature.
Alpha and Beta timelines are also completely separate and distinct. We get a new set of characters, a
new story, a new game session, everything. We also call it the "post-scratch" timeline since we got to see it after The Scratch of timeline β.
Every little choice made creates new timelines, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of timelines in Homestuck, and all of them hold some sort of relevance for the story ([S] Collide ghost army for example). We cannot possibly explore all of them.
So many weird things happen when it comes to the concept of time in Homestuck. To be honest it's probably just some jibber-jabber that shouldn't be taken that seriously and only the basic knowledge of how it works is enough to understand the rest of the story. What I really love about it is the complexity of everything that happens, every single event that altered the timelines somehow, it simply cannot be put onto one timeline.
Whatever's happening here, I'm intrigued.
I LOVE talking about time shenanigans. It's my favorite complicated Homestuck concept that 90% of people don't understand even after approximately 100 pages of explaining. It's the thing you start to understand on your read no 3 and never FULLY grasp. There have been many MANY instances of time travel and different timeline creation and you know I enjoy overanalyzing stuff that's not even worth it.
In Homestuck, there are technically thousands of hundreds of timelines. A timeline is divided into two or more when a person is presented with a choice. When they decide, new timelines are created - each corresponding to the other possible outcomes.
Whilst if the coin fell the other side up, Dave would immediately go back in time, and go to sleep on the quest bed, being the version of himself that the other timeline Dave will encounter after he goes back as well. Still following? Me neither, let's continue.
Coin tossing is the easiest way to explain time shenanigans, but they're called "shenanigans" for a reason. They aren't actually that simple.
In [S] Flip, it's used again, but no additional timelines are created. Vriska, having "all the luck" knew, that no matter what, the toss would work out to her favor. There was no other way it could land, that's what Vriska's powers are about. In every timeline where that toss happened, the outcome was the same.
watch it in bigger view
(it's supposed to be glitchy like that!)
(it's supposed to be glitchy like that!)
However, after that two new timelines were created through other means. In one of them, Terezi lets Vriska go, and that results in the death of everybody else. Through her seer powers, Terezi could see that happening and in another timeline, she saw no other way of preventing that other than killing her (see: my murder post). That's how, in one timeline Vriska lived, resulting in the deaths of her friends, and in the other one she's dead.
The most important instance of timeline creation is most definitely Terezi's retcon. John, after getting instructions from her in the doomed timeline, he went back and changed the course of events that should've happened, to make the timeline successful. That's how the two major ones are created:
pre-retcon and post-retcon.
In post-retcon Vriska is alive, Terezi's relationships with Dave and Karkat are changed, and Gamzee is no longer a threat.
 |
| John's retcon powers |
Another big timeline split happens in the Homestuck epilogue. At the end of the prologue, John makes a choice: Meat or candy? That's how the book splits into two different timelines. This little, seemingly unimportant choice lead to completely contrasting events.
Other time shenanigans include things like the Paradox babies, all of the versions of Dave in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, the Exiles' interference with beta kids, and even "Trollian's" timeline feature.
Alpha and Beta timelines are also completely separate and distinct. We get a new set of characters, a
new story, a new game session, everything. We also call it the "post-scratch" timeline since we got to see it after The Scratch of timeline β.
Every little choice made creates new timelines, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of timelines in Homestuck, and all of them hold some sort of relevance for the story ([S] Collide ghost army for example). We cannot possibly explore all of them.
So many weird things happen when it comes to the concept of time in Homestuck. To be honest it's probably just some jibber-jabber that shouldn't be taken that seriously and only the basic knowledge of how it works is enough to understand the rest of the story. What I really love about it is the complexity of everything that happens, every single event that altered the timelines somehow, it simply cannot be put onto one timeline.
Whatever's happening here, I'm intrigued.
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