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Because no-one know anything about how it was supposed to work.
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Sep 2, 2023 09:55
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Sekenr posted:I read the short story and it was pleasant to read, however what concerns the punchline that Ianthe is merging with Naberius - so what? Why should I or her or anyone give a poo poo? What does it really change in principle or in terms of book plot? Really bringing me back to some of the latter-day Homestuck arguments about consequences, stakes, and the ability to give a poo poo. I get your meaning about the stakes of death as they stand in-universe, in the story, but I think with how metatextually-aware the whole story's been written that those are the wrong stakes to worry about. Whether someone is technically dead or alive within the story is less significant than their struggle for control over and place in the narrative. Jod wants to be the sole author of what is and is not true in this world, Harrow lobotomized herself and the narrative in an effort to fight that prewritten fate, Gideon's most heroic and destined feature is being our everyman reluctant protagonist perspective character, Ianthe's most fundamentally Vriska-like feature is her resentment over not being the protagonist and her attempts to usurp the story. The supporting cast from the first book are welcome back as ghosts because being dead doesn't have to stop them from being supporting cast, something played with in the second book with the fan-fiction turn at the coffee shop. The loss of Nona as a perspective is far more painful to the reader than her factual death (if she could be understood to live or die). For Ianthe, discovering that her character and identity is "contaminated" by Naberius is probably the worst blow struck to her so far. It's not wrong to care about and pay attention to the ground rules a story sets out about things like life and death. It does help to ground things like our expectations and our understanding of events. The tension of danger and the significance of loss. In this case though I think the real mechanisms governing these things are different than the ones presented on the surface. Of course, your mileage will vary. I just thought it was an interesting perspective you shared and wanted to share mine, because I've definitely been there before.
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Sep 2, 2023 17:35
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Dolash posted:Really bringing me back to some of the latter-day Homestuck arguments about consequences, stakes, and the ability to give a poo poo. [spoiler]I get your meaning about the stakes of death as they stand in-universe, in the story, but I think with how metatextually-aware the whole story's been written that those are the wrong stakes to worry about.
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Sep 2, 2023 18:07
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Is there's a cliff's notes summary of Homestuck I can read in 5 minutes or less
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Sep 2, 2023 18:58
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FuturePastNow posted:Is there's a cliff's notes summary of Homestuck I can read in 5 minutes or less 8000 pages, 1.2 million words, multiple Flash animations, original music, several interactive Flash games, communication primarily by '90s-era chatlogs, and a ravening fandom. The plot eats itself several times, including once where a character goes back in time and rewrites multiple panels of the existing comic. The whole thing is insanely self-referential. Originally, four kids play a videogame that ends the universe, and then try to survive that. Long-term, eight kids, twenty-four trolls (gray alien beings, roll with it), and some supporting characters try to create and influence new universes; some of them are much more successful than others. The plot is way, way too big to fit into a five-minute summary, but fundamentally a lot of people die, some of them come back anyway, repeatedly, many long conversations happen over chat. There are multiple sequential Big Bads, each of whom our characters think they can defeat and end the whole thing. The main thing to take away is that Homestuck is meta as *gently caress*. It is constantly breaking the fourth wall, constantly referring to and parodying popular culture, constantly responding to the audience. Originally, it began as a choose-your-own-adventure where the readers voted on what would happen next, but that didn't last long. There is no way to summarize the plot, seriously. Just say that it's a comic that is about itself, about identity (not just gender/race/etc identity, but "if there are 37 copies of me, which one is real?"), about 8000 pages . "Let me tell you about Homestuck" is a teens meme because people would thrust themselves on you and start explaining and civilizations would rise and fall before the explanation was complete. e: Dolash's and my avatars are from Homestuck. edit edit: My avatar shows two characters who are arguing about whether the guy in the red suit is responsible for the actions of an alt-universe version of himself. That version started off as an alternate-timeline split, merged with a bird with a sword stuck through it, then popped back into the main timeline. That's Homestuck. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 2, 2023 |
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Sep 2, 2023 19:15
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Why is it called Homestuck Is it because they are stuck at home Does the whole thing take place in a single bedroom
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Sep 2, 2023 20:12
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I feel like Homestuck was incredibly of its time socially, technologically, and culturally. It's like a full solar eclipse, the people who were there will never forget it, but descriptions make it sound dumber the longer they go on. "You had to be there at that time" I never read Homestuck but someone had worked up a host 5-10 years ago and I could see how I would have liked it, but that time had passed.
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Sep 2, 2023 20:13
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sebmojo posted:Why is it called Homestuck It starts that way actually, and also it's a pun on Earthbound
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Sep 2, 2023 20:17
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StumblyWumbly posted:I feel like Homestuck was incredibly of its time socially, technologically, and culturally. It's like a full solar eclipse, the people who were there will never forget it, but descriptions make it sound dumber the longer they go on.
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Sep 2, 2023 20:27
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I spent a lot of my early 20s being irritated by Homestuck fans both online and IRL ("Your name is Dave?! I'm going to put your number in my phone under Dave Strider!") It was personally quite devastating when I was finally convinced to read it just after it ended and it turned out to actually be pretty good.
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Sep 2, 2023 20:30
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The Locked Tomb Podcast had an in depth episode on this topic, if you're up for an hour and a half of discussions and explanations. Very informative, I knew basically nothing going in. About 4 months ago.
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Sep 2, 2023 20:33
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My kid tried hard to get me into Homestuck. I quickly identified it as a trap for people with a lot of time on their hands.
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Sep 2, 2023 21:01
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(Unwanted Guest) I think that what’s going to bring down Ianthe is her personality merging with Babs, who she doesn’t respect at all. She’s going to realize she’s got loser in her soul and try to get that poo poo out of there.
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Sep 2, 2023 21:40
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Lesser detail from the play, but I suspect Ianthe is wrong about Coronabeth being a terrible swordswoman Gideon (admittedly perhaps biased due to horniness) seemed at least somewhat impressed during their brief clash And when Babs interrupted them and flipped out, the thing he emphasized was "I won't tell her". My read is that she'd actually been training very seriously for a while (either trained by Babs or with his swordmaster) but they deemed it deathly important to conceal this from Ianthe and/or their parents
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Sep 3, 2023 01:00
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Coronabeth and Ianthe have an unhealthy relationship, even on the scale of Ianthe relationships.
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Sep 3, 2023 05:07
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thinking about relative swordsmanship skill makes me retroactively disappointed we didn't get an Ortus vs Magnus duel in HtN Although I did like Pal making the effort to uphold Magnus's honor and reputation as a Cavalier, of all things, in the play
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Sep 3, 2023 06:48
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PupsOfWar posted:Lesser detail from the play, but I suspect Ianthe is wrong about Coronabeth being a terrible swordswoman the big thing imo is I get the vibe that coronabeth wants to get eaten by Ianthe, so she's taken it as seriously as anyone practicing to be a cavalier. this is the last thing anyone else wants of course. but nabs can't say no to her...
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Sep 3, 2023 06:58
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neongrey posted:the big thing imo is I get the vibe that coronabeth wants to get eaten by Ianthe, so she's taken it as seriously as anyone practicing to be a cavalier. this is the last thing anyone else wants of course. but nabs can't say no to her... Prior to the events of the first novel, nobody knew that cavaliers get eaten. It was primarily a social position, unless you were in the Cohort. Coronabeth was just looking for something, anything to establish her as having worth on her own terms.
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Sep 3, 2023 16:14
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My feel on the Ianthe-Coronabeth relationship: Coronabeth feels like she owes Ianthe a lot because Ianthe has been covering for her lack of necromancy and (IIRC) Coronabeth almost killed Ianthe in the womb. Ianthe views Coronabeth as a child, she feels a bond to her, she won't abide any insult to Coronabeth, and Ianthe also thinks Corona is incompetent on a deep level and so she really doesn't want her off on her own. Coronabeth has built a lot of that "she's secretly horrible" into her, and it is only because of Extremely Special Circumstances that Coronabeth has gone off on her own and is becoming her own person, although she doesn't see the bad parts of her relationship with Ianthe.
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Sep 3, 2023 16:24
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After being separated, Coronabeth seems absolutely desperate to bond with someone else to re-create that dynamic. It seems like psychological counseling must be lostech in Locked Tomb, because that poor human desperately needs therapy to make up for a lifetime of Ianthe.
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Sep 3, 2023 17:35
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Coronabeth strikes me as a person who has a lot of empathy but no actual principles. She's always going to be amazingly nice to anybody she's in the room with, but she's also doomed to wind up feeling the same empathy for her enemies if she ever winds up in a room with them. Which is, in fact, exactly what happens! She winds up being accepted as a member of Blood of Eden, and Unjust Hope is convinced that she's sincere about this and shocked when she goes back to Ianthe. She's able to make Unjust Hope believe that she's sincere because, well, she is. She's sincere about accepting Blood of Eden as being people who have reasons for doing what they're doing, and she's also sincere about believing her sister has good reasons for doing what she's doing, and so when she winds up in a room with both of them... ...she winds up passionately believing that it's possible for everybody to kiss and make up, because she has no real understanding of the massive systemic issues that make it impossible for this to happen, and also of the fact that many of the people who would have to make it happen will have to die first instead. So everybody else in the room is just looking at her like she's insane because she's running on the mental level of Friendship is Magic and trying to broker peace between Israel and Palestine.
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Sep 3, 2023 18:59
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I think a lot about Babs (probably more than Muir intended anyone to!) and put him in a category of "guys who get a bad rap from the narration but really didn't do all that much wrong". The other person in there is Colum, although I think Gideon developed sort of a Bro-y outlook on Colum by the end. Babs is annoying in a Small Private College Jock way, but during the period when Gideon is interacting with him, we're unaware of just how toxic the relationship between the Twins is and how loving awful it would be to be stuck in the middle of it - maintaining the ruse, trying to mediate between them somehow while being the galaxy's thirdest of third wheels. My boy can't even catch a break in death - body passed around like a volleyball, dunked on all the time, nobody really thinking about him other than Pal, whose whole job is overthinking obscure things His big villain moment was challenging a wounded Cam for her keys, which I think he would normally not have done (unsporting!) and just did because the key thing had caused such problems amongst his charges. And Cam could probably have taken him anyway. It's like...essentially, Coronabeth is Ianthe's real cavalier, but Babs is Coronabeth's cavalier, but in addition to being a fake necromancer Corona doesn't really reciprocate that bond, so ultimately he is nobody's Cav at all tl;dr the whole Third is real hosed up! Ianthe dunking on Pal for codependence was...valid, but also an all-time "pot, meet kettle" moment. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 19:01
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I’m honestly surprised there isn’t a big homestick/locked tomb AU out there. Maybe the time has simply passed…
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Sep 3, 2023 20:04
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MonsieurChoc posted:I’m honestly surprised there isn’t a big homestick/locked tomb AU out there. 
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Sep 3, 2023 20:29
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Did you do that? If so, wild applause. Rand Brittain posted:she's running on the mental level of Friendship is Magic and trying to broker peace between Israel and Palestine.
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Sep 3, 2023 20:41
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If anyone is interested in what Homestuck is about but are unsure about actually reading because it's a) kind of an undertaking and b)maybe you're not that interested in actually reading it yourself, I highly recommend the Homestuck Made This World podcast. It's hosted by two media scholars, one of whom read it live and the other is reading it for the first time, and they go through and recontextualize it historically, based on what was going on in pop culture and the internet as it was being written. GtN is name dropped a couple times and one episode points out bits of HS writing that probably, most definitely inspired HtN. One of their patreon bonus eps also goes over the fanfic Tamsyn is most famous for writing. One of the hosts is a goon and uses the old HS threads as sort of an anchor for what was going on in parts of the fandom as things were happening. It's a great podcast and I'd highly recommend it, if I haven't already done so in this very thread. Edit: speaking of which, I would be very interested in Michael's take on Unwanted Guest, given that he specializes in Shakespearean literature Happy Landfill fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 22:49
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I'm not sure if you've mentioned it but it was definitely mentioned on that interview episode noted. I might check it out tbh, if I run out of backlog again.
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Sep 4, 2023 01:40
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Sep 4, 2023 05:11
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Oh, God, I'm going to explain quadrants. Shoot me now. A central Homestuck concept, one that parasitized Homestuck fandom, is troll relationship "quadrants": the trolls divide romantic (not necessarily erotic) relationships into four distinct classes. The one that's specifically relevant to Locked Tomb is "kismesis", represented by a deck-of-cards spade. Two people who are in a kismesis relationship hate* each other, but they also want to make each other better so that they can hate each other more. People in a kismesis sharpen each other's blades, make each other stronger so they can tear each other down again. The trolls consider kismesis an erotic romantic relationship. Gideon and Harrow are in a classic Homestuck kismesis. They are constantly snapping at each other. Harrow's notes to Gideon are condescending. Gideon's interior dialogue has a lot to say about Harrow, much of it unflattering. But when the chips are down, they trust each other to be at the top of their respective skills. I have a very bad memory, but I don't recall Gideon or Harrow ever dismissing the other's competence as swordsman or necromancer. Yes, enemies-to-friends and enemies-to-lovers are all over Western (at least) culture. The specific case of "I hate you therefore I will make you stronger" is a Homestuck thing. Reading the Locked Tomb through Homestuck goggles, Gideon/Harrow is the type specimen of a kismesis, with the erotic part sublimated but undeniable. * extended meaning of "hate" specific to Homestuck, aka "it's all more complicated".
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Sep 4, 2023 17:03
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Yeah I remember the line from Harrow being in that discussion, the "at least I had your full attention" one. Ah, lore.
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Sep 4, 2023 17:12
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It's also directly referenced in Nona. Because kismesis is represented by the spades suit of a standard card deck, it turns ||Gideons line to Pyrrha "You're the one that spaded my mum" into a really dumb Homestuck pun.|| edit: gently caress this isn't discord
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Sep 4, 2023 18:14
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thunderdome winner
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Chernobyl Princess posted:It's also directly referenced in Nona. Because kismesis is represented by the spades suit of a standard card deck, it turns ||Gideons line to Pyrrha "You're the one that spaded my mum" into a really dumb Homestuck pun.|| I really think that's just parallel slang to "plowed" but who even knows
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Sep 4, 2023 18:26
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Reclaimer posted:I really think that's just parallel slang to "plowed" but who even knows It's Muir, so it's probably intentional.
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Sep 4, 2023 18:50
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And just as a further bit of setting flavor, the Ninth probably doesn't use plows. From what little we've seen, it's just skeletons doing all the planting work by hand so they probably only break soil with, well, spades. So "plowed" probably isn't even really in Gideon's personal lexicon.
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Sep 4, 2023 19:56
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Happy Landfill posted:One of the hosts is a goon and uses the old HS threads as sort of an anchor for what was going on in parts of the fandom as things were happening. My old posts are meant to stay buried! 
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Sep 4, 2023 19:59
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That's a kiwi phrase, spade work is paying attention to someone so they will gently caress you. Could well be a kismesis reference too though.
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Sep 4, 2023 20:11
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disposablewords posted:And just as a further bit of setting flavor, the Ninth probably doesn't use plows. From what little we've seen, it's just skeletons doing all the planting work by hand so they probably only break soil with, well, spades. So "plowed" probably isn't even really in Gideon's personal lexicon. God knows Gideon can't possibly make references to things she has no way of knowing about from twenty-first century popular culture.
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Sep 4, 2023 20:12
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Gideon is constantly talking about being paid (wouldn't do it if you paid me) when afaict the houses don't have money.
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Sep 4, 2023 20:15
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Happy Landfill posted:Edit: speaking of which, I would be very interested in Michael's take on Unwanted Guest, given that he specializes in Shakespearean literature Yeah I want them to do a TLT series sometime in 2024
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Sep 4, 2023 20:26
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sebmojo posted:Gideon is constantly talking about being paid (wouldn't do it if you paid me) when afaict the houses don't have money. I think the Houses use money. We hear hear about cost and expense often enough in a money sort of way. We just don't learn anything about how their money works because our protagonists are from the Ninth, and the Ninth is terminally broke. tl;dr John is not cool enough to invent a moneyless society
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Sep 4, 2023 20:44
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