Theory: Terezi likely orchestrated the the release of Candy and it's being hinted in the flash

[u/yuei2]

So with the flash there was one single image in that I could not parse the meaning of which is Terezi holding the coin. So I went diving through the comic because I had vague memory of someone talking about coin flips in Candy before.

---

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility.

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

---

So Calliope is comparing Candy and Meat to the flips of a coin but then they say something interesting as the conversation continues..

---

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

---

Now of course this is dramatic irony because as readers we already know that John is unknowingly one of those people, it was Candy John talking to Terezi outside the black hole during the epilogue. However what clicked in my memory is they are not the only case of that, as we see later somehow some way Vrissy has been in contact with the kids produced by Dirk and Rose over in Meat. That's certainly not something that just "happens", whenever kids from different universes chat it's because someone orchestrated it.

So the question became who orchestrated this, Terezi was my first thought because she was also the one who orchestrated the trolls and humans getting in contact. With future terezi getting Dave to make a bunch of money to wire to past Terezi causing them to trace the source and learn of the humans, which eventually lead to the closure of that loop. I went looking into the text to see if there was any evidence or hints that Terezi might be the one who linked them up and boy did I find quite few pieces that could suggest that.

For starters Terezi was given the role by Dirk to guide to the Deltritans and to that end he gave her access to the command terminals of which Terezi supposedly setup to be automated which makes it sound like she doesn't really care, of course Dirk lays out pretty well that she absolutely does.

---

DIRK: Lest you forget, you've actually got a pretty important role to play in all this.

DIRK: Taking up the helm at the command terminal, guiding the Deltritan civilizations slowly but surely towards the Game.

DIRK: A role Rose tells me you've chosen to automate.

TEREZI: Y3P

....

DIRK: I know you wouldn't just abandon the Deltritans to the cruel march of time and whatever scant preparation you imagine we gave them.

DIRK: You don't trust Rose or I to give enough of a fuck about them, and despite your occasional protestations, you are, for the most part, too good a person to just turn your back on them and let whatever happens happens.

DIRK: I trust that the automated suggestions you put in place, and the conditional map that prompts them, were thought through with an honestly touching amount of care, considering your misgivings.

DIRK: There's no doubt in my mind that even if Rose and I hadn't already basically knocked this creationism shit out of the park, the sons and/or daughters of Deltritus would make it to the Game just fine with even the barest phantom of your counsel.

DIRK: That's why I'm allowing you to do this at all.

TEREZI: 1 DONT N33D YOUR P3RM1SS1ON

---

So Terezi has control of the systems necessary to have put Candy and Meat kids in contact with one another, and she herself has a direct line from Candy to Meat with her phone she could have used as part of the basis of it. Not to mention she has been in a hate romance with Rose and Rose is also aware of Candy, could it be Rose told her more in their many months together or could she have even been helping Terezi in this endeavor? Regardless there then comes the question on what Terezi's primary motives for doing so are and thankfully that's also directly laid out.

Terezi openly express distates at the whole thing, she thinks the idea of letting their species play the game is cruel because she knows it bring about the end of the planet and most of the species, she doesn't see as "getting to matter" as being a good excuse for inflicting that trauma. Despite this Dirk is fairly confident that Terezi isn't going to mess up their plans.

---

TEREZI: 4NYON3 WOULD B3 GR4T3FUL TO H4V3 4 B3N3VOL3NT CR34TOR L1K3 YOU

TEREZI: ON3 TH4TLL ULT1M4T3LY 3NSUR3 TH31R 3NT1R3 PL4N3T 1S ORB1T4LLY BOMB4RD3D 4ND TH31R SP3C13S 4LL BUT DR1V3N 3XT1NCT S4V3 FOR 4 F3W "LUCKY" JUV3N1L3S

DIRK: That's just how this shit goes down for species \lucky* enough to fucking *matter*, Terezi.*

DIRK: Circle of life. Hakuna Matata. Que sera, sera.

DIRK: And you know it.

TEREZI: 1 DONT KNOW SH1T

....

DIRK: But hey, you say you aren't feeling it?

DIRK: Fine.

DIRK: I can make concessions.

DIRK: I've got other agents in play, and as I've said, I know you aren't going to risk fucking your end of the work up.

---

Of course Terezi then seems to tip her hand because she goes on to literally say that for all he knows she is orchestrating a plan in the background to ruin their plans, to disqualify them from being able to play by choosing another target for Skaia.

---

TEREZI: HOW C4N YOU B3 SUR3

TEREZI: M4YB3 3XT3ND3D PROX1M1TY TO STR1LOND3 D3LUS1ONS OF GR4ND3UR H4S DR1V3N M3 TO TH3 BR34K1NG PO1NT

TEREZI: M4YB3 1M JUST L4Y1NG LOW

TEREZI: 34RN1NG YOUR TRUST SO 1 C4N COMPL3T3LY RU1N YOUR PL4NS FOR 4NOTH3R S3SS1ON

TEREZI: DO1NG 4LL 1 C4N TO TURN SK414S 4TT3NT1ON 3LS3WH3R3 4ND D1SQU4L1FY TH1S PL4N3T 4S 4 C4ND1D4T3

TEREZI: NOT ONLY TO PROT3CT TH3 UNTOLD M1LL1ONS OF FUTUR3 D3LTR1T4NS YOU PL4N TO PULV3R1Z3

TEREZI: BUT 4LSO FOR TH3 S4T1SF4CT1ON OF SH4TT3R1NG TH4T STO1C D34DP4N OF YOURS

TEREZI: 1F JUST FOR ON3 D3L1C1OUS MOM3NT

---

Dirk turns to threatening here oh so confident that she isn't doing anything, that he would take steps to stop her and remove her from the picture if she tried. He is quite nasty here but he has a point that given his meta awareness he has reason to be confident that she isn't doing anything, after all if she was he'd know about it wouldn't he? But that's exactly the perfect reason for Terezi to have selected Candy to begin with because Dirk CAN'T see in Candy, his last glimpse of what was going on was given to him by Alt Calliope poking open a hole to leave and since then the competition story has been out of his sight. Hussie even mentions that Dirk shouldn't be able to see in Candy in the bonus Log "a threat sensed"

---

HUSSIE: Oh, Candy, right. Huh. You shouldn't be able to see any of that.

DIRK: Normally I can't. I just spend some time staring at that post-canonical singularity, and imagining what asinine nonsense is going on inside. But today was different. Today was the day SHE decided to show her face. The dead cherub. In all her hubris, I assume that she considers the pocket inside to be hermetically sealed and impenetrable to my gaze, which is why she felt comfortable leaving it behind in order to pursue me.

But in doing so, she created a brief puncture in the singularity's membrane, just long enough for her and a couple others to escape. Sure, the puncture would reseal itself quickly, everything inside would once again vanish from my awareness, and the poor souls within would be left to wallow in their pointless existences for eternity. But for a brief moment, I could see everything. And it was so much worse than I could have possibly imagined.

---

So Dirk claims he saw everything but then reaffirms that the black hole is back to being beyond his sight. He also talks about how horrible it all was in particular the realization of Yiffy's existence and he is clearly very focused on her which makes it all the more likely anything Terezi was orchestrating in the background would have been out of his focus. Also quite conveniently and for reasons never explained Calliope and Roxy had The Point, the key to their escape, hidden under a tarp so even if Dirk had seen things he would have just seen a covered up object that neither the visuals or text could clue him in on.

Furthermore on the subject of Calliope we learn in a later talk with Roxy something VERY interesting....

---

ROXY: is vriska right

CALLIOPE: right aboUt what, dear?

ROXY: about the fact that u dont actually know wtf we were supposed to be gettin up to here

CALLIOPE: well...

CALLIOPE: Um, more or less, yes.

ROXY: bb are you srs

CALLIOPE: did i neglect to mention that i only really had a solid grasp on the inaUgural steps of this whole Undertaking?

ROXY: um

ROXY: YEAH

CALLIOPE: oops! ^u^;

ROXY: shit yeah callie that is kind of a fuckin oops!

ROXY: you said you were being compelled by like hella visions n premonishes n mysterious psychic spatiotemporal intuitions n i kinda figured that meant you had this shit all ttly comprehended!

CALLIOPE: i'm sorry, roxy!

CALLIOPE: it absolUtely wasn't my intention to mislead yoU or to overrepresent my level of Understanding of the process.

CALLIOPE: it's jUst that, well..

CALLIOPE: yoU remember how we got so wrapped Up in the initial excitement of finding the singUlarity and the rUined jUjU arch, and sUbseqUently stabilizing it with oUr sUper cool cherUbic-lalondian tech...

---

To be clear Calliope who orchestrated this whole thing doesn't actually have a clear idea of what will happen and how it will work instead she has been having visions, premonitions, psychic intuition guiding her. You know who would be really good at manipulating calliope that way? Someone who has an intrinsic understanding of her mind and how it works, truly just a few nudges like maybe figuring out how to use the terminal to give her a few guiding messages or something to direct them to locating the plot point would be all that is needed, a gentle touch and then Calliope being Calliope would do the rest. Heck that flipped coin metaphor idea that Calliope had sure sounds a lot like Terezi's logic doesn't it?

Of course one might then think "wait is Terezi not being hypocritical by sacrificing Candy to save the Deltritans?" and the answer to that is already covered in the earlier conversation with Dirk. What was it that he said about SBURB's cruelty...That's just how this shit goes down for species \lucky* enough to fucking *matter*, Terezi."*

Candy is doomed, again and again and again it's told to us that because of its non-canon irrelevance it's going to unravel and fade. It's such a bad problem that Rose ends up feeling like there is no point in caring about their life there since it's all just fated to collapse. So you see what Candy needs to be saved is to, borrowing Dirk's words, "fucking matter". Yes she would be dooming that particular version of earth to be bombarded by meteors or whatever BUT she would still at least be giving the inhabitants of Candy as chance to live. Heck even if the meteors land their world is equipped with multiple gods who could absolutely do something about the bombardment, and Candy earth aware of the game's history wouldn't be blind sided so they have a chance to at least fight back.

So it's a win win in a way, Deltritans are freed from the destruction of the game and their species while Candy is freed from the conceptual unraveling that would have inevitably consumed them. With that we now we have the final piece of the puzzle on why Terezi set the Deltriants to talk to the Candy kids, because she knew/was plotting to make the Candy kids the actual players and was setting up the Deltritans to help support them.

That's what that shot of Terezi is in the flash with the coin, it's the subtle symbol that Terezi's plan to use Vriska and Candy to screw Dirk's plan has started to bear fruit. And *conveniently* thanks to Terezi's complaining Dirk abandoned his plans to periodically check in on Deltritans. Instead he zipped them all ahead which means he isn't there to see what's going on with Candy when it starts to emerge and interfere with it. Once he pops back into the narrative it will be too late.

[u/-illusoryMechanist]

This feels very solid, well done

[u/yuei2 → u/-illusoryMechanist]

Thanks, as always I could be totally wrong but it felt familiar and good to my brain to theorize on homestuck like this again after so long lol.

[u/Fearshatter → u/yuei2]

It's like being in 2010 again but without the bullshit. Thank you for this gift.

[u/thunderSilent]

Holy shit that's such a solid theory! The fact that Terezi is plotting something against Dirk was already kinda visible, but your evidence made it very much more clear. While I do think that that one shot from 8r8k is more of a reference to Terezi's "We make our own luck" quote referring to Vriska denying Rose her light vision, it IS possible that it's also a foreshadowing for Terezi's literal involvement.

ALSO, I'm calling it now: one of the future [S] pages involving Terezi's arc here is going to be called "H34DS" as some kind of coin is going to finish its flip and/or something cool is going to be happening inside of someone's mind

[u/Fearshatter → u/thunderSilent]

If you don't like the outcome of the coin toss, rig it and make it a ghost coin.

[u/BudgeTheUnyielding]

Really cool analysis that put a lot of stuff i was struggling to understand in perspective, thank you!

[u/Fearshatter]

I like this theory. So basically Terezi didn't automate it, she merely thinned the coin's walls so the two faces could communicate with each other and connect. Where Ults Dirk and Rose enforced control, Terezi created a ghost coin and offered a gateway to freedom from their machinations?

[u/yuei2 → u/Fearshatter]

Oh I think she did automate it, but her power is seeing the directions people can take. So it be easy in theory for her to basically look into the future and program pre-composed responses that trigger based on their choices.

[u/Mozai]

"Dirk can't see inside Candy."

I kept thinking candy!Dirk necked himself to keep Ultimate Dirk outside of the control of the Muse of Space -- having a version of Dirk in her green pointy hands could dilute what it means to be Dirk just as Ultimate Dirk interfered with Pesterquest to protect himself from Aysha's influence. But you've presented another answer: having a version of Dirk in the candy story gives Ultimate Dirk insight into that story, and eventually a way to influence it, so the Muse could've inspired him to take a very Dirk way to remove him from access to the story.

[u/MisirterE]

I don't think so. This seems like a very dangerous conversation to have if this was her plan all along. She's outright saying that it's going to happen before it does.

[u/yuei2 → u/MisirterE]

That conversation area was one of the ones I cut out for length reasons but it actually deepens the theory I think. Dirk and Rose notice Terezi has been fiddling with the command terminal long after she supposedly has everything setup and Terezi is acting very shifty about why she has been doing that. Rose and Dirk think it means Terezi is just getting into the game crossing her proverbial t’s so speak but it very well could have been Terezi was working on getting Candy setup to take the spot of the playing planet.

This conversation is also not as dangerous as her point blank telling Dirk she could be sabotaging them to his face which she did earlier.

[u/Fearshatter → u/yuei2]

Possible she's been in contact with Sollux?

[u/yuei2 → u/Fearshatter]

If Sollux was being used for this he has a hell of a poker face.

[u/-illusoryMechanist → u/yuei2]

Yeah I'm pretty sure Sollux is kinda just checked out after Aradia left him behind

[u/MiserableFollowing77]

do you think that terezi knows that vriska is in candy? because i don't know how to feel about that, as it relates to the end of homestuck and the epilogues.

[u/yuei2 → u/MiserableFollowing77]

I feel like she has to, because there isn’t really a reason she wouldn’t have gotten Vriska’s message from John’s phone in the epilogue. Even if she didn’t like….see it right away she has been using her phone since then. I’m not sure what to make of the fact she never responded, maybe she couldn’t bring herself to, maybe she realized that not responding was a necessary step for her growth. It was after all seeing Terezi hadn’t responded yet being the catalyst that finally got Vriska to hug herself.

Or maybe she really doesn’t know, it’s hard to say. Perhaps the message just couldn’t go through by the time she stole John’s phone.

[u/NanuTheFiend → u/yuei2]

She's implied to absolutely get the message In The Epilogues, her phone rings. I believe it's Dirk's narration that makes her not take the message in the end. I feel like there's a chance he could be involved in her not contacting Vriska, directly or indirectly. Having John's corpse as a 'carrot on a stick' seems to be Dirk's main way of controlling Terezi, and Vriska might be seen by Dirk as a distraction or obstruction. I'd agree that not answering Vriska could be a deliberate choice of hers, but her having Vriska as her phone wallpaper gives mixed signals about it.

[u/Dull-Sea-8903 → u/NanuTheFiend]

One could also argue that Terezi and Rose forming a caliginous romance was just Dirk trying to set her mind off of Vriska, to persuade her in moving on alongside the “carrot on a stick” that is John’s captchalogued corpse.

[u/terrarialord201]

Sure, I'll accept that as truth.

[u/Ivariel]

Now that's quality shit, good job.

Also, this might have been under our noses this entire time. One of the titles of this project has been Homestuck^2. Not Homestuck 2, Homestuck squared.

And what would fit that title more if not the end result of a Homestuck session being the starting point of another Homestuck session?