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I guess I have to agree that I feel a lot less invested in the characters than I was before. Hussie himself made reference in the comic to something about how too much meta messes with people's ability to give a poo poo about anything. Part of it comes from a sense that there's simply so many plot elements now (and so many new ones, too, like this whole Aranea diversion) that they no longer fit together with any grace or sense. Descend and Cascade were great examples of lots of complicated plot threads coming together to produce smooth, natural results. Things feel so frayed at the moment, how will Hussie ever pull everything together for a finale? Maybe if there was more progress on any of the long-boiling character arcs. Nate RFB has a good point that this death feels pointless, and the amount of narrative work Hussie would have to do to convince us she's dead for realsies (Jane revives her and she dies again, doesn't God-tier revive again, then her dream bubble ghost is double-killed by Lord English and lastly John loses his retcon power or discovers he can't change Jade dying) that it saps all the tension out of the story entirely. There's this terrible sense that we're all just waiting to see how it ends, already. Maybe stuff like this that feels like an anticlimax or a detour will make more sense once it's all written out and can be read at once instead of drip-fed.
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Sep 14, 2013 21:50
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I'd say this is less important for Jade's arc and these events are more important for establishing the changes in Aranea's character. Hussie has done an excellent job relying that she is completely and utterly villainous whatever her claimed intentions may be.
A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Sep 14, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 21:56
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Honestly, now that I think of it, I think it's clear that the whole point is that Aranea's meddling is ruining the story. The DBZ powerup sequence was an example of the sort of fake drama that the comic usually mocks, so for that reason it's probably still mockery. It's still revealing some important facts, like some more of Jane's robo-personality and some more of what Jake would be capable of if he attains his potential. But mostly we've swerved into "If Homestuck worked the way Aranea thinks it does" - which is to say, a story in which characters' powers matter more than their character. And that's why John is going to retcon it. For all that he's a huge goober, there's two things he understands better than anybody else: cheating doesn't work in a game that's about growing up, and what someone can do is much less important than who they are. We know this plan is doomed to failure, so the sooner it gets put behind us, the better. I'm already feeling pretty blue-balled for want of meaningful character interaction.
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Sep 14, 2013 21:58
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Right now I just want to see how bad of a clusterfuck can this really get. Dirk, the three(!) Noirs, and PM aren't even here yet. One thing that always seemed kind of strange to me was that at first glance, it did not seem like there was a way for the cast to actually confront LE. I mean, he's never been Already Here in any of the human character's sessions or universes, so they'd have to go out of their way to like the furthest ring to actually confront him. But all of that may change if Aranea's actions upset the timeline enough. Basically, this could be the start of the climax as we know it.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:03
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Well I still do like most of the characters. If this thing ever stopped being interesting to me I'd just stop reading honestly. Then again it's probably that I never become super attached at anything in particular so it's hard to really disappoint me or feel too cynical about stuff. I like a lot of other comics, and I just check those when Homestuck is going slow (which it isn't now, things have been happening for a good while). Basically I sort of don't understand all of these reactions.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:08
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On one hand, it's nice that something is actually happening, but I agree that I'm not as invested in Homestuck as I used to be. I actually like the idea of the retcons, Arenea loving poo poo up and what have you, but since Act 6 started there have been a lot of cool ideas that had conclusions I wasn't really satisfied with. (Like the 10,000 anticlimaxes there has been) That being said, I'm withholding judgement until I see how this goes.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:09
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However these events proceed it's inevitably going to end with John teleporting in à la The Colonel from Monty Python to declare that the plot is far too silly, retcon everything so that Roxy gets the ring instead of Aranea, and then Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 begins.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:13
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There wouldn't be a point to give John retcon powers if he never actually retcons something (besides retconning a retcon), so yeah this is as good a time as any for him to swoop in and take charge of things for once. Oh my god we're pinning our hopes on John Egbert 
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Sep 14, 2013 22:18
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Cabbit posted:I'm still laughing at you. The whole 'I don't care/the characters aren't compelling/etc/etc' folk are always the sort who keep rabidly following despite their own vehemence. Something something, sunk costs fallacy.  Everything is just so dumb now, I just want to see the ending.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:23
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Cabbit posted:I'm still laughing at you. The whole 'I don't care/the characters aren't compelling/etc/etc' folk are always the sort who keep rabidly following despite their own vehemence. It's still funny and all that, just...it needs to start winding down, because as far as the actual story is concerned, Hussie got lost up his rear end. That's all.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:24
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It's pretty reasonable to feel impatient when there's nothing happening with respect to the part of the story that's worth caring about (the characters).
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Sep 14, 2013 22:27
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So one here likes Caliborn? He's one of my favorite characters, now.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:33
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OK, I didn't see "Serkets cheat and break the god-tier clock" coming. Looks like it'll be a long ride from here watching as Aranea breaks the story as utterly as she possibly can until the narrator steps in to say "this is stupid" and reverts it all back. After all, Doc Scratch held narrative control during Vriskatime, and Caliborn has narrative control now. The ultimate meta will be if Aranea is expecting Caliborn to do that, and has a trick in mind to deal with it.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:34
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I've actually been pretty okay with most of Act 6, but I can sympathize with a lot of people's frustrations. I'm trying to hold off on judgement on this particular plot until we see where it goes.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:35
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Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:So one here likes Caliborn? He's one of my favorite characters, now. He's boring and his quirk is a pain in the rear end to read. As far as new additions in Act 6 goes, he's one of the better ones though (because most of the others are even worse.)
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Sep 14, 2013 22:38
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I guess, for me, Homestuck could go on for a while still and I wouldn't mind. I'm curious to see what happens, and I still enjoy seeing a lot of the characters. But I guess I'm not heavily invested in them, I'm not dying to see the next update, and I don't really see that as being bad thing.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:40
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Cabbit posted:
But poo poo didn't make sense before! It was already messed up is the problem! We're adding complication to a story that so far has been 98% complication 1.5% Pointless close ups .5% resolution.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:45
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Dolash posted:I guess I have to agree that I feel a lot less invested in the characters than I was before. Hussie himself made reference in the comic to something about how too much meta messes with people's ability to give a poo poo about anything. Part of it comes from a sense that there's simply so many plot elements now (and so many new ones, too, like this whole Aranea diversion) that they no longer fit together with any grace or sense. Descend and Cascade were great examples of lots of complicated plot threads coming together to produce smooth, natural results. Things feel so frayed at the moment, how will Hussie ever pull everything together for a finale? This post encompasses my feelings towards Homestuck for the last year or so.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:51
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Okay, I gotta admit that Dave's mouth closeup is the best so far.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:07
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Ok now Dave and Rose are kicking into gear. Can't wait to see how Aranea brutally murders them and cheats them into dying heroic deaths.  (I really just want Aranea to murder everyone at this point, she has to make up for a lot of Vriskatimes to get on her predecessor's level and this is how she'll do it)
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Sep 14, 2013 23:08
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I dunno, I'm still digging it. I do think it's worth noting that we've had 60(!) pages over the past week(!) and most of them have been devoted to the goofy Jake power-up sequence. This was silly, and I thought it was funny, though I understand if it isn't everyone's cup of tea humor-wise. But more to the point: that is an huge number of pages in a very short amount of time, and if you go back and read that sequence and it takes like ten minutes. A decompressed print comic could have spread this amount of content over a month or two - any other webcomic would have taken a couple of weeks over several full-page installments. So, even though from the ground level it might feel like a lost of wasted time, from the macro perspective it's just the very start of a plot twist in the final act of a very, very, very long story. Now, if you're just tired of the characters and story at this point, I totally get that - I only started reading during the pause before Cascade, so that probably effects my perspective as well. You could persuasively argue that tossing in another twist and another major villain this late in the game is overcomplicating things, especially for longtime readers. But for my money, the jokes are still funny, and I still like the characters, and the themes - adolescence as agoraphobia as a videogame as media fandom - are rich and interesting enough that I'd be happy to see Hussie riff on them basically forever. It'll end eventually, and if Hussie sticks the landing that's awesome, and if he doesn't... well, it's been a hell of a ride, anyway. But either way, I'm in no hurry to see him get there. EDIT: ...and, update! So yeah, I still find Dave's creepy projection of his emotional issues onto the poor Mayor and also the presence of puppet butts to both be really funny. So no complaints here. Indie Rocktopus fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Sep 14, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 23:10
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Every time Rose comes back I'm reminded how much I missed her.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:15
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Hussie, my man, please invest in a better web host.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:24
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Nate RFB posted:Hussie, my man, please invest in a better web host. This entire sequence is the result of the SEA hack as part of their plan to burn down the Internet by causing Tumblr to spontaneously combust. Hussie hasn't been in control of the comic for days.  Farewell, sweet Dave. Your ignominious death will be retroactively rendered heroic.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:29
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Bongo Bill posted:But mostly we've swerved into "If Homestuck worked the way Aranea thinks it does" - which is to say, a story in which characters' powers matter more than their character. Aranea and certain rather vocal theorists.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:34
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Dave, dude, stop it. Stop kissing the Mayor. He is clearly not OK with this.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:34
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JT Jag posted:This is kind of dumb. Of course it's dumb. Clocks are for telling time, not making complex moral judgement calls! 
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Sep 14, 2013 23:36
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Dave going back in time and preventing Aranea from "healing" Jake would be pretty much the one satisfying resolution to all this horseshit. Of course, that would make him doomed, and Hussie brought up his issues with time travel recently, so who knows. On the other hand, his relationship with Jade is awfully strong. This could be the thing that pushes him into dooming himself again. Pet theory: Aranea probably can't heal a whole doomed timeline, but maybe she can heal one doomed person's fate. So there would be three Daves running around.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:41
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Something not yet talked about, I don't think: Assuming John doesn't just retcon Aranea's whole stunt, when she inevitably fucks up healing the timeline and it's doomed, at what point do they change the timeline? When Dave went back after the first doomed timeline, he fixed it by convincing John to not go into the portal prematurely. So what would happen to stop Aranea on the alpha timeline? I'm probably under-thinking it, but it doesn't really seem like there's any way to fix the timeline conventionally that would actually happen. Sure, Dave could stop it easily, but he wouldn't do that. I guess it's what's making it seem all the more obvious that a retcon is in order (or that her plan will actually work, which it won't). Unless Meenah convinces Aranea to not do it in a strikingly similar fashion to Dave talking John out of his gently caress up.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:58
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You laugh now, but in the end, Cascade will have just been the halfway point.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:05
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lotus circle posted:Ok now Dave and Rose are kicking into gear. Can't wait to see how Aranea brutally murders them and cheats them into dying heroic deaths. Wait, we don't actually know how Dave's powers would work as a dead godtier. Could he time travel back from the dead? Since God tier powers can work even after being dead.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:12
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So is the deal that andrew hussie is terrified of emotional investment or is it just that he really wants to hammer the theme that ~much like homestuck, growing up is meandering and anticlimactic~ and pat himself on the back for interjecting a major theme of the comic into the structure of the comic? It's a mystery. Knowing that these events are going to probably be resolved in the least satisfying possible manner makes me less happy wiht how they're going, even if i'm enjoying each individual update immensely. It's a shame.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:17
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Burkion posted:Dave, dude, stop it. Stop kissing the Mayor. It cracks me up on how confused / awkward the mayor looks every time Dave gets all affectionate with him. Yet he doesn't try to get away or anything, he's just not very bright.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:17
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To folks going off about Villainous Aranea, how would YOU deal with grim bark Jade who could sniff your butt anywhere in the incipisphere? And a follow-up: besides maybe HIC, why would she even need to kill anyone else? Jane can always be held in place by The Damara Army and who else is opposing her? Vvvvvv the gently caress she would be, Green Skull monster tearing that poo poo up and Aradia's anticipating poo poo getting wrecked. Beforus trolls aren't crazy about paying the price of Oblivion. Bell_ fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 00:31
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Bell_ posted:To folks going off about Villainous Aranea, how would YOU deal with grim bark Jade who could sniff your butt anywhere in the incipisphere? She would've been perfectly safe if she'd just stayed in the afterlife.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:33
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Just throw her a loving steak or whatever, and she'd stay distracted for a while.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:38
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Looper posted:You laugh now, but in the end, Cascade will have just been the halfway point. It was definitely the climax, because everything since then has been a steady downward slide.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:50
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Bell_ posted:To folks going off about Villainous Aranea, how would YOU deal with grim bark Jade who could sniff your butt anywhere in the incipisphere? And a follow-up: besides maybe HIC, why would she even need to kill anyone else? Jane can always be held in place by The Damara Army and who else is opposing her? Well, as a billions-of-years-old re-lifed ghost who knows everything about everything, she's probably in on the villain's handbook and knows that if somebody has even the slightest chance of stopping her at some point, they will. As a Serket who Always Knows Best and has difficulty grasping what the whole point of Sburb/Sgrub is, she'd have no problem with killing everybody she needs to if that is the simplest way to make sure she wins / is proven right / gets to Be The Hero. The real loose end is why HIC hasn't simply mind-controlled Aranea by now. Surely there's a reason for that beyond "it would be inconvenient to how Aranea thinks this is supposed to go", and it wouldn't be very satisfying if Aranea is simply incapable of being mind-controlled just 'cuz. If the Ring of Life prevents it (because mind control is anti-life  ), then you'd think the Thief of Life would be the ideal person to deal with that wrinkle too.
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Sep 15, 2013 00:50
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Oh, I definitely don't see her lasting into the next intermission. But most of the criticism I've seen stems from attributes Vriska may very well monopolize. I'm sure at some point shell grow a mustache and twirl it, but the most objectively thing I've seen her do so far was done against ghosts and while there is not a Ruth to be found in her inventory I haven't seen any unintentional or unnecessary damage committed since her return to the living.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:00
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The close-ups of mouths schtick is beginning to reach its frightening, but the only logical, conclusion.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:03
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