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Tollymain posted:I was just messing around just now with a friend, and we realized that a lot of the impact of the bloodier troll scenes is lost due to the colors. It looks really hosed up when you 'shop that stuff red. The asteroid is a freaking charnelhouse. The only time the blood color thing is more effective with different colors is also during the 'k8ll m8' scene. Vriska is making Tavros write the words over and over in her blood so much that at some point his finger is rubbed raw and the words turn brown as his finger starts bleeding. I mean, jeez.
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Nov 10, 2011 05:56
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I think I found out why I like Homestuck so much. It's because it started out innocent enough with "a tale about a boy and his friends and a game they play together", which is easily delivered in the first few acts, and then people started dying, and then grimdark happened, and then Horrorstuck happened, and then almost all of the Exiles were offed, and then... What's amazing was that it still retained a little of "kids and fun" in between the killing and the other heavy poo poo. Where the hell did "kids and fun" come from anyway? I sometimes see that phrase in the comments section to some of the heavier pieces of fanart on the Skaia imageboard.
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Nov 10, 2011 06:27
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dumb brunette posted:I remember doing this was really common on the MSPA forums during that entire sequence. People kept arguing that Vriska wasn't that badly hurt and she couldn't be feeling that much pain as her dreamself, and somebody did those photoshops. The one I remember clearest is "KILL ME" written on her forehead, it was pretty chilling to see in red blood. I'd hate to dredge up something that was played out on the MSPA forums here by doing this, but I wanted to see how the death of Spidermom would be affected by red blood. 
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Nov 10, 2011 07:18
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It's like the Kool-Aid man hosed up busting through a wall.
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Nov 10, 2011 07:26
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Well Manicured Man posted:It reminds me of cartoons like "Samurai Jack" where the bad guys were giant monsters or robots, so their "blood" was always radioactive green or black and they could show as much bloody carnage as he wanted as long as there wasn't any "human" blood shown. Quite a few action cartoons from my childhood did this if I remember correctly. iirc there's an episode of the 60s Batman where the climactic fight takes place in a pasta sauce factory
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Nov 10, 2011 08:04
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Level Slide posted:I think I found out why I like Homestuck so much. It's because it started out innocent enough with "a tale about a boy and his friends and a game they play together", which is easily delivered in the first few acts, and then people started dying, ... Agreed. It developed incredibly well. I was totally shocked when he started killing characters cause I didn't think it was that kind of webcomic.
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Nov 10, 2011 09:03
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Level Slide posted:What's amazing was that it still retained a little of "kids and fun" in between the killing and the other heavy poo poo. Where the hell did "kids and fun" come from anyway? I sometimes see that phrase in the comments section to some of the heavier pieces of fanart on the Skaia imageboard. I'm pretty sure someone asked Andrew to sum up what Homestuck was about, and he responded with "kids and fun."
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Nov 10, 2011 09:06
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Mortal Sword posted:It's funny, I had actually joked about looking forward to eventually making Book 24: Cascade... Did anyone see the thread on wizard paper in GBS? (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3446579) I hope they somehow manage to print off pamphlets/books using it in a few years. Homestuck Vol 24! 
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Nov 10, 2011 11:20
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Okay, I just watched [S] Cascade for the third time, and while I think I got it, it'd be cool if there was a summary I could read somewhere.
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Nov 10, 2011 22:33
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Hussie has key points on his tumblr :- http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/ http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11938555890/about-eoa5-part-1 http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11941710181/about-eoa5-part-2 http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11960418585/about-eoa5-part-3 http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11975241895/about-eoa5-part-4
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Nov 10, 2011 22:36
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gowb posted:Okay, I just watched [S] Cascade for the third time, and while I think I got it, it'd be cool if there was a summary I could read somewhere. Check the NEWS feed right under the comic on the main page. e: or the person above me
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Nov 10, 2011 22:36
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gowb posted:Okay, I just watched [S] Cascade for the third time, and while I think I got it, it'd be cool if there was a summary I could read somewhere. Wait, you were at [S] Jade: Enter a day ago... 
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Nov 10, 2011 22:39
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Walliard posted:Wait, you were at [S] Jade: Enter a day ago... Yeah...I kinda beasted it. I'm not sure how I feel about it overall, but it is certainly engaging once you get past the hump of not knowing what the gently caress.
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Nov 10, 2011 22:41
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gowb posted:I'm not sure how I feel about it overall, but it is certainly engaging once you get past the hump of not knowing what the gently caress. Probably one of the most apt descriptions of Homestuck I've ever seen.
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Nov 10, 2011 22:43
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Walliard posted:Wait, you were at [S] Jade: Enter a day ago... Sleep? Who needs it when you have a fantastic webcomic to marathon?
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Nov 10, 2011 22:45
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To be honest, I skimmed a lot of the more boring stuff like the rap battles and the longer chatlogs. They didn't really add anything, weren't funny, and dragged on far too long. With the revelation that this is basically a first draft, they are forgivable. I realize ya'll had this discussion a bunch of pages ago so I don't want to rehash it too much. I slept though! I mostly just read during work, which is a student job that involves nothing more than sitting around and scanning people's student IDs every now and then. And at home, confusing my girlfriend with the epic video game music that came from my corner every now and then. I'm reading Andrew Hussie's explanation of the end movie now, and wow, everything I thought was completely wrong. I think that is a big weakness of this story. While rewarding, it would have been impossible to understand without this summary. I do not think it is good to "trick" your audience like that. I do not think it is good at all. But again to be fair, this is an unfinished first draft, so I can't be too harsh. It is also entertaining, regardless of whether it is comprehensible or not. And I guess that's all I have to say about that.
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Nov 10, 2011 22:52
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gowb posted:To be honest, I skimmed a lot of the more boring stuff like the rap battles and the longer chatlogs. They didn't really add anything, weren't funny, and dragged on far too long. With the revelation that this is basically a first draft, they are forgivable. I realize ya'll had this discussion a bunch of pages ago so I don't want to rehash it too much. It was all completely understandable if you didn't skip half the text of act 5
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Nov 10, 2011 23:01
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On my first read (it was early in act 5.2 I think) I also skimmed many of the longer chat logs. That was a mistake, since it hugely contributed to my not knowing what the gently caress was going on. I'll admit though, even after careful re-reads and following threads like this it can still be pretty confusing at points.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:03
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gowb posted:To be honest, I skimmed a lot of the more boring stuff like the rap battles and the longer chatlogs. They didn't really add anything, weren't funny, and dragged on far too long. With the revelation that this is basically a first draft, they are forgivable. I realize ya'll had this discussion a bunch of pages ago so I don't want to rehash it too much. No offense, but I think a lot of your understanding issues are as much your own fault as his. Certainly, Homestuck isn't the easiest to understand thing in the world, and there was also some intentional misdirection, but you probably missed some pretty important things by skimming the longer chatlogs. EoA5 was overall fairly easy to understand. It took a few extra viewings, but that's fairly normal considering how fast Hussie's flashes tend to move. It is a first draft, and it shows, but that doesn't mean everything you miss is necessarily the story's fault.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:04
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King of Solomon posted:No offense, but I think a lot of your understanding issues are as much your own fault as his. Certainly, Homestuck isn't the easiest to understand thing in the world, and there was also some intentional misdirection, but you probably missed some pretty important things by skimming the longer chatlogs. I was talking about the intentional misdirection. I don't like that. I think it is a cop-out.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:06
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gowb posted:I was talking about the intentional misdirection. I don't like that. I think it is a cop-out. ...Really? That's silly. Intentional misdirection is perfectly normal- even a good thing- when telling a story. The important thing is to distinguish the way Hussie handles it from the way a really bad story does. Hussie misdirects you, but he also- and this is critical- puts the clues for the truth in there, too. In a bad story, the hints aren't there.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:10
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King of Solomon posted:...Really? That's silly. Intentional misdirection is perfectly normal- even a good thing- when telling a story. The important thing is to distinguish the way Hussie handles it from the way a really bad story does. Hussie misdirects you, but he also- and this is critical- puts the clues for the truth in there, too. In a bad story, the hints aren't there. That's true, I guess. When I said SKIM, I mean SKIM, though! I didn't NOT read the chatlogs. I read every single one. I simply skimmed for the important parts. I caught everything that was possible to catch, and still would not have picked up the parts that Hussie summarizes in his blog. I believe it would be impossible to - at least, I would significantly doubt anyone who said they picked up the whole story before seeing it summarized by the author, and I think that qualifies as poor storytelling.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:12
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From what I remember, Hussie doesn't do that much planning ahead when he writes, so he shows you the red herrings and the truth at the same time and doesn't decide which is which until later on (sometimes much, much later on). Which I think is a pretty cool way of doing things.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:13
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Yes, I know you said skim. However, people tend to miss things even when they're reading the chatlogs closely- and this isn't necessarily Hussie's fault, though it often is. Chances are, you really didn't catch everything that's possible to catch. Like I said, Homestuck is definitely a confusing story, for better or worse, but it's not like intentional misdirection is a bad thing. Homestuck could definitely stand to have some real editing, though. It's definitely a first draft, I won't disagree there. EDIT: vvv Definitely. King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Nov 10, 2011 |
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Nov 10, 2011 23:15
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It's impressive his on-the-fly storytelling works as well as it does, but you have to admit it does lead to some pretty jumbled messes occasionally. He eventually teases out most of the necessary plot points, but until then things can get confusing. e: And yeah, Cascade is a huge wodge of poo poo to figure out at first. Doesn't help that the thing is a quarter hour long and you can only skip certain chunks of it.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:17
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gowb posted:I caught everything that was possible to catch No you absolutely did not. Even if you'd read every log thoroughly you would have missed something, skimming for the important parts means there's pretty much no way you caught everything.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:25
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Seoinin posted:It's impressive his on-the-fly storytelling works as well as it does, but you have to admit it does lead to some pretty jumbled messes occasionally. He eventually teases out most of the necessary plot points, but until then things can get confusing. Agreeing with all of this. Cascade was good, and I caught most of what was up, but I had to come to the thread to get all the nuances. The exact timing of Jack's shennanigans threw me for a bit.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:27
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gowb posted:That's true, I guess. When I said SKIM, I mean SKIM, though! I didn't NOT read the chatlogs. I read every single one. I simply skimmed for the important parts. I caught everything that was possible to catch, and still would not have picked up the parts that Hussie summarizes in his blog. I believe it would be impossible to - at least, I would significantly doubt anyone who said they picked up the whole story before seeing it summarized by the author, and I think that qualifies as poor storytelling. Almost all of what he talks about in the summary is stuff that was established prior to the flash. A few bits are pretty drat obscure, like the transportation device that Jack used in WV's exile station: it was there, and you could possibly infer its relevance from the general symbolism, but it only shows up in the background a couple of times and by the time it shows up in the flash there has been nine months worth of comic since the exiles' last appearance. So it technically was there to puzzle out beforehand, but it's hard to blame a casual reader for not having picked up on it in advance. The part that you truly could not know in advance, is, of course, the big plot twist about the Green Sun's creation. It's a plot twist; it's not necessarily supposed to be known in advance, although you know that 1) Bad Things will happen as a side effect of the Tumor bomb plan and 2) Doc Scratch is not very trustworthy in spite of his dedication to literal honesty. So it's not unreasonable to expect the reader to have some sort of premonition that something's up with the whole plan. On the other hand, the exact form of the sun-creating Tumor apparatus is kind of weird, in a "what the hell is this thing doing here?" sort of sense. It is maybe a little bit of a deus ex machina, although a more specific explanation may come along in Act 6. Worse, though, what it actually does really isn't particularly clear; a lot of people misinterpreted that part of the flash. Andrew Hussie acknowledges this and attributes it to the success of the thoroughly convincing setup for the Green Sun twist, which is an artful way to avoid admitting that your animation did not do a very good job of conveying critical information to viewers.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:31
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Yeah, skimming won't net you most of the details - let alone all the subtler things that you come to appreciate if you reread everything. I've read the entire story at least three or so times now and I'm still picking up new bits and pieces of subtlety whenever I go back through a section I haven't read in a long time. Of course, it sounds like you never really got into it as much as I did, which is fine and all. I can see why you might have wanted to skim longer logs if you weren't fully invested in the characters. I was invested early on, so I wanted to know everything I could, and thus I pored over all the details pretty carefully the first time... and I STILL missed tons of MAJOR details that didn't make sense until I read these threads and reread the story itself. It's huge, it's complicated, it's uniquely presented. Any of these factors can trip you up if you aren't fully invested in understanding the story and read it really fast (it took me the better part of a week to get caught up, and I was caught up LAST OCTOBER). All of them together can be pretty crazy. But all of them together is just what I like so much about Homestuck.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:32
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Dave's hair looks like a bird.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:34
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To be fair, I sort of did the same thing a month or so ago when I started reading Homestuck. The part where the trolls come in is completely incomprehensible if you aren't familiar with them in the first place, so I skipped most of the chatlogs. Twelve new characters all at once is just too much to digest, especially with the their 4nn0y1ng typiing quir%. I'm reading through from Hivebent again now that I know all the trolls, and it's a million times better. My advice to gowb: wait a couple of weeks and start from Act 5 again. And don't feel obligated to just consume the whole thing in one glup. Relax. You'll get more out of it this way.
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Nov 10, 2011 23:41
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Man, this ain't Gravity's Rainbow; there's a ton of poo poo you can just skim and not lose anything for having done so. Like the loving Tavros v. Gamzee rap battle - you're not missing any elusive narrative subtext by just giving it a once over and moving on. e. or I mean maybe I did miss something important, but I'll never know because jokes about the miracles music video aren't funny anymore. paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Nov 10, 2011 |
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Nov 10, 2011 23:44
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Seoinin posted:Man, this ain't Gravity's Rainbow; there's a ton of poo poo you can just skim and not lose anything for having done so. Like the loving Tavros v. Gamzee rap battle - you're not missing any elusive narrative subtext by just giving it a once over and moving on. Well, not yet. 
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Nov 10, 2011 23:47
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Gabriel Pope posted:Well, not yet. Assume everything is relevant to the plot until proven otherwise. Because you just never know.
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Nov 11, 2011 00:17
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Level Slide posted:Dave's hair looks like a bird. Does.. does this mean my argument is invalid? 
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Nov 11, 2011 00:34
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Agreeing with all of this. Cascade was good, and I caught most of what was up, but I had to come to the thread to get all the nuances. The exact timing of Jack's shennanigans threw me for a bit. The Jack-on-LOFAF to Jack-in-the-Trollcipisphere flash-forward is pretty confusing. I think that could have been handled better. But these flashes are meant to be watched and dissected multiple times. They're more supposed to be more cool and dramatic than easily understood. The actual plot developments generally get cleared up in pesterlogs later on anyway.
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Nov 11, 2011 00:47
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The only thing about Cascade that I didn't get the first time was that the tumor created the green sun, which in retrospect is silly because it's fairly obvious. I think that was more due to just the deeply rooted expectations about what the tumor was supposedly supposed to be used for. Hussie's clarifications were neat, but the only thing that he said that I don't think was exceedingly obvious was Jack's motivations. People were asking "well how did he know to go into the frog temple" or whatever which isn't something the flash could reasonably convey as it is, thus Hussie's explanation was helpful. I don't think the actual temporal logistics of where and how he moved around were that vague, however.
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Nov 11, 2011 00:53
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Omnomnomnivore posted:The Jack-on-LOFAF to Jack-in-the-Trollcipisphere flash-forward is pretty confusing. I think that could have been handled better. I think that I didn't mind that. I think the part that confused me A lot of what was going on with Rose and Jade was hard to catch, and the summary probably delves the most into abstract things like their motivations and such for that part. quote:But these flashes are meant to be watched and dissected multiple times. They're more supposed to be more cool and dramatic than easily understood. The actual plot developments generally get cleared up in pesterlogs later on anyway. Which works when they are shorter. Cascade was 15 minutes. More obsessive fans can probably devote the time and effort to watching a 15 minute flash repeatedly. It's hard to muster that now that I'm much busier and also coming off a long hiatus, especially since I stay pretty far away from the community outside here (because   )
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Nov 11, 2011 01:17
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Sometimes I think that the convoluted nature of Homestuck's plot is another exploitation of the Internet as a medium - someone reading the comic right now will already have access to various communities like this where the narrative can be discussed and picked at pretty thoroughly (okay, more like the characters and their romantic entanglements). If you're going to write a work thoroughly dependent on the capabilities of the Internet, why not include the audience's ability to engage in high-speed communication and collaboration as part of those capabilities? But it's probably more likely that Andrew Hussie just likes to think up complicated plots for fun and enjoys long-form improvisation. He's pretty good at the improv, actually.
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Nov 11, 2011 02:06
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Seoinin posted:It's impressive his on-the-fly storytelling works as well as it does, but you have to admit it does lead to some pretty jumbled messes occasionally. He eventually teases out most of the necessary plot points, but until then things can get confusing. One of the things I find most fascinating about Homestuck is that Hussie cannot change earlier parts of the story, because he posts panels as soon as he finishes them. He has to work with what he's already written. I assume that a lot of the "foreshadowing" is actually retrieval and repurposing of earlier elements. It's like Tim Gunn from Project Runway told him, "Andrew, make it work" and he totally took it to heart. How old is Hussie, anyway? I'm guessing mid to late 20's, judging by John's taste in movies and snacks--his childhood favorites seem more like someone who was born in 1986 (like me) than 1996. The other three kids don't really seem to have as much interest in media that exists in our world (the one that you and I and Hussie live in). Rose's knockoff Lovecraft, Dave's Smuppets, and Jade's Squiddles are all Hussie's creations, but John's movies exist so I'm assuming Hussie has given John some of his actual favorites. I mean, do kids even eat Gushers anymore? They were the poo poo in the early 90s, but John wouldn't hit prime childhood snack age until the early 2000s.
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