Pesterquest: Analysis & Theories (Patreon)

It is that wonderful time of the year again, where the WP Team have devised yet another game to feed the ravenous Fanbase. Pesterquest has only been out for a few weeks at this point, and it's already a Meta-Bending piece of media with quite a lot of implications and ramifications, for both the Homestuck story at large, and the future of the franchise at large.

So what do you say we take a fun little game like this a bit too seriously? Impressions, analysis, theories, reader be warned, there are obvious spoilers for Pesterquest beyond this point, and some Epilogues Spoilers too! But I guess you already knew that if you clicked on a post called 'Pesterquest Theories and Analysis' so why do I even bother?

Okay so let's get this out of the way first. Pesterquest is fucking gorgeous. Friendsim was lovely as well, but the artstyle was more visibly all over the place until the very end, where things started to normalize a bit. That's not me throwing shade at Friendsim or saying it looked bad, though, different art styles is something that has happened in Homestuck since the very beginning, but Friendsim started much more simple than it ended up becoming thanks to the Fandom reaction, and addition of new members to the team as it went on. Friendsim has a more solid style going on for it, and it's fun to re-visit our precious children and their homes back before any of the awful SBURB shit they go through happened.

With that out of the way, let me tackle the biggest elephant in the room that many have been wondering since the first volume- Man, what the Fuck? MSPA Reader is already critically modifying EVERYTHING from the very beginning, the very FIRST thing they do the instant they arrive to the Earth is prevent SBURB from happening at all, which by extension invalidates everything else that happens in the entirety of the comic! It's a blank slate, a fresh start, and a Paradoxical one at that. Retcon powers are being used to alter the Timeline, thankfully, making it so that loops do not need to be closed, because otherwise this would've immediately become a Doomed Timeline.

Without SBURB, after all, the Kids aren't even born. Furthermore, without them, the Trolls would've been able to claim their reward- Nay, without SBURB, the Universe Caliborn and Calliope are born in don't exist, meaning Lord English wouldn't have been there to corrupt the Beforus Session, and the first batch of Alpha Trolls may have been able to claim their reward instead. Everything in Homestuck is intertwined on a fundamental level, and MSPA Reader has removed one of the pillars that support and link the entire series in one swift series of dumb hijinks. Retcon powers save the day in this sense. Outside of canon, outside of loops, outside of other influences, the 'base' of the Homestuck Universe- That is, the three Universes, the characters, the Scratch, Skaia, the Incipisphere, it all still exists as if all Loops had been completed, the Setting remains unaltered, while the Timeline is entirely modified.

We're in a Non-SBURB AU territory with practically no consequenes, everyone.

So what does this exactly mean for the Kids?

Well, to begin with, the MSPA Reader is serving as a source of introspection for the Kids early. They made John have an existential crisis, they made Rose have to face the idea of actually liking Wizards, they made Dave begin to dwell on their sexuality... All three of these were Bad Endings, yes, but if we're going with how things happened in Friendsim, Timelines are just going to be intertwined- And even if they showcase a bad scenario regarding these things, the potential to bring these up in more amiable terms still exists.

They also work as a fix-it potential for their lives. Even though so far with all their lying and messing around they haven't managed to do much, they have still shown exactly what their purpose is this far back in the story. Help Dave out of his shitty home life, to get a decent meal and potentially meet his friends. Help Rose with her neglected home situation and aid Roxy with her alcoholism. Hell, one of the first things they do when John mentions his shenanigans with Dad is worry he was in a shitty, abusive situation, before he calmed them down about it.

That's really all MSPA Reader is right now, really. A Fix-It Fic Self Insert.

They were a reader, literally THE Reader of the Webcomic, manipulated by Scratch, dissatisfied with the direction of the story and the treatment of the characters, who found the Ultimate Gimmick McGuffin and managed to warp into Canon, in order to befriend and help these characters reach a 'better ending', or explore 'different routes'. Completely outside of any consequence, able to reunite the Kids, and able to hop through Scratched Universes and to different Realities entirely, one doesn't even need to worry about thinks like 'Kanaya and Rose won't be able to meet now', because they could literally just get all the Trolls and Kids together without having to fight for their lives or spend 3 years alone or what have you.

Of course, while I am not too worried about the ramifications their actions have on the Timeline, and I am very interested to explore the characters through different circumstances and see what things we get up to, there are a few big questions raised by the set-up of Pesterquest and the current state of the MSPA Reader.

The first thing that I thought of when I saw the trailer, and that hasn't been explained at all is... Well. Why the hell is the Juju just... There? 

For all we know, the entire Timeline of the Juju is spent locked in the Juju Chest, before Vriska uses it against Lord English, and then presumably disappears entirely. Is it left floating through the Nothingness of the Void again to just 'loop' and 'be used' again? Or is it something else? Honestly though, this is the question I am the least interested in.

Jujus are Authorial McGuffins. They are not items that make sense within Homestuck proper. They are plot devices. And that's literally what it's doing here- It's just the way we get MSPA Reader into the Homestuck Canon, and able to alter things at will. There's really no other reason for it to be there other than Plot Reasons, and as cheap as that may sound, consider that the Ring of Life is literally a Ring HUSSIE himself pulled out of nowhere to give to Vriska, the Authorial Favorite Character, in an attempt to bring her back to the Spotlight. Meta-moves like this have always happened, and they're just. Part of what Homestuck is. A weird, silly, convoluted Meta Story that gets weirdly deep and relatable a lot of the time.

The Juju is there because it's the convenient way to kickstart the story, and while there may be an Answer, there's more pressing issues than finding out that detail.

Namely what happened the the Reader themself after touching the Juju.

We're happy to go along with the story, meet these Kids, help them out, because we know them, we've followed them for so long, and getting to see new things about them, exploring new possibilities, improving their home life any way we can... It's good. It's good to be able to make characters we're invested in happy, specially in the face of the Epilogues. And that seemed to be the original drive we saw behind the MSPA Reader. Get some answers, find a better ending for them! But the moment they're warped to canon? Their memory is gone.

Worse yet. Their Friend-making drive is back.

I do not think that Scratch is behind any of this. It would make no sense. On Friendsim, yeah, he manipulates the MSPA Reader as a 'test run' of a Human on Alternia, and to set some series of events leading to Act 2. But not only is Earth beyond his influence, MSPA Reader's actions directly oppose those of Doc Scratch. In cutting off from the loop of SBURB, Lord English would become a non-issue, and this is not what Doc Scratch wants.

This is also not the work of Meat Dirk. There are references to the Epilogues in Pesterquest, and the entire story started precisely because of wanting to change this 'ending', so of course there are going to be nods to it that could make people believe this is yet another sequence of events being altered for some nefarious purpose in the future. But, when the game glitches during the Prologue, the error message that flashes on-screen has a secret code, that hints at Epilogues Dirk having realized someone is messing with the Timeline. It feels as though he's caught by surprise, and reaching that far back to mess with a Retconned Timeline seems like a bit too much even for him.

Someone is manipulating the Reader, though. There's no doubt about it, they're being pushed towards a specific path for some reason, and until we know that reason, we can only speculate.

And really, I have three culprits in mind.

The first is the MSPA Reader themself. Or rather, an 'Ultimate Version' of them, or just their overall subconscious perhaps. The locked-away memories, calling them to keep going and befriending them. Not letting them know everything, to keep the element of surprise, but sparking that need to aid them and just enough knowledge to let them accomplish their task. Not my favorite idea but, a possibility nontheless.

The second is Us. Which in a way ties into the idea of the MSPA Reader themself being the one nudging them to go with it. The Fandom are the ones that were largely unsatisfied with the Epilogues. As much as I personally did enjoy them, they did end in both a cliffhanger, and with a lot of characters in very bad situations. We're the ones clamoring for more, the ones wanting the characters to be healthy and get better. And that's exactly what MSPA Reader is helping us do. A mixture of the individual 'character' that is the MSPA Reader, and the will of the Fandom.

My favorite, however, is the idea that Calliope is doing this. Not Alt Calliope, but our Calliope. After being faced with Alt Calliope in both Meat and Candy routes, they become reclusive and fearful. And as an embodiment of the Good Side of the Fandom, they are very likely to want the 'characters' of Homestuck to live good and healthy lives. Writing Fanfiction that ripples through the fabric of Paradox Space, and setting these self-insert events about helping them work their issues from an early age, without dealing with SBURB bullshit, it just... Feels very Calliope.

Alternatively you could always think Hussie has a hand in this, but I would much prefer any of the above options- Three different manifestations of the Fandom, with a will so strong they push the story in a different direction, try to help the characters overcome that which haunts them.

So, in this strange, self-insert story where we're trying to help the characters, where are things going to go next?

First of all there's the issue with MSPA Reader's Amnesia. They can only remembered scattered feelings and words from Friendsim- And as much as I'd like this to not be the case through the entire game, I feel like it's going to keep going until the very end, or until the last few episodes. They may remember some more as they go on, but they won't get the full picture until the end. The game's advertised as referencing Friendsim and the Epilogues, but not needing to read either to enjoy it- So I'd imagine the Amnesia will continue to keep it as an 'entry point' to the series rather than a full 'sequel', until the finale.

Which leaves the issue of how they're going to get to the Trolls and the Alphas if they can't remember them! They have already stated thinking the four Beta Kids are the only four they've gotta go after, and if they don't remember anything in the Jade route, it'd be hard to actually go beyond this, right? Except, well, there's a few ways.

The Frog Temple has a device that warps things back and forth between the Scratched iterations of the Universe. Given Jade's the last one, and a rather long route, I could see them getting to know about Jake, Jade's penpal, and deciding to visit him. Similarly, Karkat sending a message to Jade during Act 3 was out very first introduction to the Trolls. Having them troll Jade and thus giving the MSPA Reader awareness of yet more teens to bother would solve the issue without needing them to remember everything, and visiting Alternia would certainly help jog their memory.

Another thing we're going to tackle, likely, is the fact the MSPA Reader is not Human. We were led to believe they were and were just being depicted simplistically through the entirety of Friendsim, because no Troll has actually seen a Human before. But now all the Humans just. Say they look vaguely person-like, and like a friend. The idea of them being a Carapace or some sort of Homunculus created by Doc Scratch as a 'vessel' is more probable than ever, but whether they'll have a big dramatic reveal, or just play it out like a dumb little factoid, we can only wait and see.

One thing I am certain of, sadly, and it is that I don't think the MSPA Reader is going to come out of this adventure... Unscathed. 

As fun as it would be to see them live together with the Kids and the Trolls and just have fun, my Seer of Doom powers tell me that there's going to be a Final Sacrifice. Reuniting them, helping them, showing us a healthier set of Timelines for them to meet it and not deal with the Epilogues, a new, fresh start, while the Timeline doesn't seem to be collapsing and the Meteors have stopped, Retcon Powers do come at a price. What the price is, we don't know yet, but Karma is likely to come back crashing on the MSPA Reader. And having them warp back and become the Jailbreak Protagonist- Or better yet, become the actual logo on the Homestuck website, being trapped in the meta-fabric of the site, would be a bittersweet end full of shenanigans like when we found out the Friendsim Protagonist was literally the MSPA Reader from the Webcomic.

But maybe I'm wrong and being a pessimist. Maybe we do get our Happily Ever After, after all.

We can only hope, and wait.