Chapter Text
The Knight's Duty
or
WHEREIN A KNIGHT OF TIME
CONFRONTS THE META-NARRATIVE
NATURE OF TEXT AND FINDS THE WHOLE
CONCEPT SOMEWHAT BIZARRE; MULTIPLE
PEOPLE ASSUME THAT HE IS IN A FLUSHED
RELATIONSHIP DESPITE HIS MANY REFUTATIONS;
A FOREST IN AUSTRALIA IS EXPLORED AND NUMEROUS
WILD BEASTS OVERCOME; TWO CHARACTERS WHO ARE
ECTO-BIOLOGICALLY RELATED ARE BOTH INTOLERABLY
SMUG EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY APPEAR ON THE PAGE; A
BELOVED CHARACTER’S ASS IS ON TELEVISION MUCH TO HIS CHAGRIN
(BUT SECRETLY HE LIKES THE ATTENTION); EVERYONE THINKS THAT
INTELLIBEAM LASERSTATIONS ARE INCREDIBLY STUPID AND A WASTE OF BOTH GRIST AND SPACE; A
VAINGLORIOUS SPOTLIGHT-HOG BRIEFLY APPEARS AND IS SUMMARILY DISMISSED; AN UNNECESSARY AMOUNT
OF DESCRIPTION IS SPENT ON SUNSETS DESPITE THEIR TOTAL LACK OF RELEVANCE TO THE PLOT; SOMEHOW QUILL WROTE AN ENTIRE FANFIC WITHOUT DIRECTLY
INCLUDING NEPETA WHICH DEMONSTRATES A STUNNING AMOUNT OF RESTRAINT; TOO MANY HUMAN BORTHDAYS; (AT LEAST ONE OF WHICH IS HAPPY); A FANCY PARTY IS ATTENDED AND MOSTLY ENJOYED; …
Don't skip this! This fanfic has some context, without which it probably won't make a lick of sense. Normally, I'm not the sort of person who would want to take up an entire chapter with this kind of thing, but I don't want people going in with the wrong expectations and I know I don't always read authors notes. So, uh, sorry? I'll keep it brief!
I wrote this story for my friend cloudsjam's birthday. She got me into Homestuck last year as a way to get through lockdown, and is a huge, huge fan of the Strider boys, so I figured it'd be nice to write a Strider-heavy fic. Unfortunately, because the internet is a cursed and horrible place, while reading some Homestuck fanfic I stumbled my way into a few Epilogues spoilers—enough to make me not really want to read the Epilogues immediately, but also enough to give me a sense of the themes and ideas behind them. These intrigued me. I adore metafiction, and when I learned that the Epilogues were at their core going to be about the relationship between canon and non-canon, and that they were formatted like an AO3 fic, I knew two things: firstly, I am probably going to geek out like crazy when I read them; and secondly, I wanted to have a go at that first.
So this fic is my take on the themes and ideas I've seen in Epilogues spoilers. I've written it all up and I'm getting it posted now before reading the Epilogues, because I'm a little bit worried that if I read the Epilogues first I would have given up entirely (I am sure they probably deal with these themes much better than I have!) That said, having shared this with friends who have read the Epilogues, they've recommended tagging this accordingly: I've seen enough stuff that this fic could reasonably spoil someone on the Epilogues (at least for the things I'm already spoiled on!) even though I haven't read them myself at the time of posting. So, please, if you haven't read the Homestuck Epilogues, turn back now.
Also, as a quick and fun aside, I actually had the first draft of this fic printed as my friend's birthday present! I commissioned Amy to draw the cover and figured I would share that here. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
