wakraya:

John’s retcon powers are very important from a Meta standpoint because it’s a pivotal moment in the development of the characters as Humans. During all of the comic, there’s two kinds of Timelines. There’s the Alpha, which is preset to favor Lord English and close all time loops so that He may come into being, and then there’s the rest. Doomed Timelines, offshots that end up fading out, irrelevant. People in these Timelines usually die and pop into the Bubbles as ghosts because Feferi told the Horrorterrors to not let their Souls just go to whatever realm of the Dead Homestuck has, and just keep them around projected in the Bubbles for a while.

In a sense, the Ghosts are the first characters in Homestuck to demonstrate Free Will. Characters who should, by all means, be dead and irrelevant, aren’t brought back into the Alpha Timeline, but outside of it. Vriska, Meenah, the two of them try to keep on doing things, become relevant to the story again, even though it should not be feasible.

In a similar way, when John sticks along with them and gets to the Juju, he gains the power to change the story. And not just that. He zaps out to the background of the website. He zaps inside of a movie. He zaps to the story Caliborn, who at that moment is the ‘author’ of the story, is telling. He zaps to beat Caliborn up. And he zaps to go back in time at Terezi’s behest.

It’s the Freedom, the fact the Heir of Breath acquires the ability to give the middle finger to the plot and warp away from his destroyed timeline and to a place where everything is okay again. To undo Deaths. John could have undone literally every Death in the comic, but he understands the ramifications of some of those undoings might be a bit too big and troublesome for him alone, and instead just sticks to the command of the Seer of Mind, someone who should by all means know the outcome of personal choices and decisions like murdering Vriska.

In the context of the story, John is too worried about the effect his powers might have in the Timeline to fuck with it too much and trusts Terezi, while Terezi’s unhealthy hyperfixation on the person she wants Vriska to be for her lead her to tell John to bring back one of the least deserving characters in the entire story.

On a Meta Sense, John is the first character to, not realize his free will and rebel against the story, but accidentally break the rules of the story. by the time they are all reunited in the Frog Platform, it’s a free for all. They’re not bound to the Alpha Timeline, and they aren’t Doomed. John, the Juju, the retcon, has shifted their existence from following the plot of a Webcomic, to being their own characters. This is further implied with Dave pretty literally telling Rose they aren’t characters, but real people, and thus have no character Arcs, and Rose’s utter inability to predict something like Jasprose coming into being. Once they’re out of the Alpha, the powers that allow her to see the Alpha become a liability. It confuses her to not be able to predict something that seems to important, and thus calls it irrelevant- When in reality, it’s just their own Timeline that has deviated from what Skaia would understand as ‘important’, and thus can’t be predicted.

Condy doesn’t come back even with the conditional mortality curse. There’s two Nannasprites. One of the Adults survive. The Striders make amends. John lightly reassures Jake, who then defeats most of the Felt by himself. Karkat gets to feel important after taking down the luckiest Leprechaun, and at the same time stay off of harm because, well. Clover. The Matriorb is generated incredibly easy and with no side effects to be seen. Jane and Jade’s mind control is reverted without even trying.

The fights in Collide and the lead-up to Act 7 work as a climatic, cathartic final battle, but at this point, the only stakes is the happiness of the characters. They go through the door to the new Universe, and the only one who looks back is Terezi- Still hyperfixated on Vriska. Everyone else steps forward. They abandon the Session, don’t even question the collapsing Universe they’re leaving behind. The conductor’s baton is raised one last time, and the curtains on the story close, while the characters, now BEYOND this story, this narrative, continue to live on. In the Snapchats, in art, in fanfictions, in roleplays, in their own little pocket of reality.

This coincides very well with the use of the Juju itself in the comic. John gets this ability after touching the House Juju. The item that trapped the 4 Beta Kids in the first place before Lord English was born, and the artifact used in the end. It signals the loop of the story. The Beginning, and the End. The rise of Lord English and his fall, the story itself, the plot, the Alpha Timeline. John literally reaches through this artifact to earn freedom from the Timeline. He’s no longer Homestuck.

TL;DR: On a meta sense, the Retcon is the device through which John, and eventually, everyone else alive in the Session, manage to break free from the story, unwittingly or not. John beats up the asshole that’s caused the doomed Game Over Timeline, makes a friend happy bringing someone they want back, and prevents the destruction from happening by pocketing the Ring, thus preventing Aranea from ever appearing in the Timeline and creating the perfect playground for them to break free of the rules that have shackled them for so long and reach the End. It breaks fate, and makes the characters into people.