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I feel the same about Act 6 really. Or rather, I feel that way about the bits that aren't the intermissions. I get what it was trying to do, and showing how the scratch worked was interesting, but I realised pretty early in I was mostly skimming through to the intermissions that gave attention to the cast of the first five acts again. Other moments where the comic slowed down didn't seem quite as bad as Act 6 did. It might be that I just don't like a good chunk of the characters, though. Dirk is just not very interesting. He's wordy but not in the way Dave, Karkat or Rose are wordy, where what they're saying is actually funny and their verbosity becomes part of the joke. Dirk just feels like he doesn't shut up. The same with Jake. I only really like Roxy and the cherubs. With Act 5, at least the bunch it introduced were pretty endearing and funny, even if some were ultimately expendable. It didn't feel like a chore following these guys, but a fair few had also been present for a long while before that. Then of course it worked to loop right back in with the four humans and it was a pretty satisfying ride to Cascade. It actually gave that moment a lot of weight, to me. I still enjoy the thing as a whole, and look forward to seeing the conclusion, but those first few acts of Act 6 were rough...
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Mar 10, 2014 11:37
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I think the issue is that Hussie chose the alpha kids to have an "inert" theme—they couldn't do anything by virtue of their thematics. Their entire purpose in the game is to wait to be bailed out by the actual heroes. I think he shows off this theme is a great way, but it's not very interesting for the reader I guess.
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Mar 10, 2014 12:04
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He probably could have kept the whole inert theme while easily making it take half as long.
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Mar 10, 2014 12:55
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I think the theme about Homestuck that makes it both brilliant and fascinating (at least in this respect) is that Hussie is making points about how characters actually develop as opposed to how they develop in stories. This is why he's constantly setting up character points only to either not follow up on them (Vriska's many epiphanies) or to have the actual development take place offscreen.
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Mar 10, 2014 15:15
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 When will my reflection show who I am inside?
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Mar 10, 2014 15:24
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Rand Brittain posted:I think the theme about Homestuck that makes it both brilliant and fascinating (at least in this respect) is that Hussie is making points about how characters actually develop as opposed to how they develop in stories. This is why he's constantly setting up character points only to either not follow up on them (Vriska's many epiphanies) or to have the actual development take place offscreen. Honestly if only seems like that started happening on purpose around Chapter 5.2. Earlier dropped Arcs just seem to be collateral damage of him constantly introducing new threats and new narrative strings without tying up the olds ones. Like so many things in MSPA it seems like something that happened organically and Hussie started to just run with it. And while interesting because it breaks the mold, it makes for piss-poor characterization and incoherent narrative writing. Almost as if there's a reasons stories do that in the first place... RickoniX posted:
Now this is beautiful. EDIT: VVVVVVVVV Act 1 and 2 are slow but they're loving the opening and immediate set up. Slow openings and build up are fine. What's not fine is how Act 5 comes at the end of a big story changing event after the plot built up speed and just slams on the breaks. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 16:12
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JT Jag posted:The comic was going at a breakneck pact up until 5.1, so that was another point where the comic slowed down, but I think Act 5 worked overall, and no matter what you think about the trolls it did help to expand the fanbase. Not sure if you can say the same about Act 6. I imagine you're not counting acts 1 and 2 in this? Those were basically all loving around with reader commands while the comic was deciding the direction it was going to go to.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:38
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YF-23 posted:I imagine you're not counting acts 1 and 2 in this? Those were basically all loving around with reader commands while the comic was deciding the direction it was going to go to. Yeah, but compared to Acts 5 and 6 they are mercifully short.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:41
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JT Jag posted:The comic was going at a breakneck pact up until 5.1, Perhaps you and I were reading different comics, but Acts 1-3 are slow as hell. Act 1 and 2 are essentially just Fetch Modus jokes while John stumbles in and around the game, and the bulk of Act 3's action takes place entirely in [S]Enter.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:46
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I'm just gonna expound my thoughts on this a little bit rather than continue making pot shots at other people's posts because that's sort of a dickish way to carry on a conversation. I feel as though viewing Act 6 as an "Act" in and of itself is mistaken. I started to realize, right around the tail end of A6A5, that Act 6 has been a parallel retelling of Acts 1-5. All the beats of Acts 1-5 repeat themselves in Acts 6.1-6.5, but with slightly different variants on each, while the story proper continues in the intermissions, occasionally getting spliced into the "main" Act 6 acts. This all culminates in Act 6.6, where we are now, where Caliborn begins his own parallel retelling of Acts 1-5, and now we're seeing a sort of photocopy-of-a-photocopy phenomenon where the quality of the reproduction is visibly reduced. And meanwhile, the story proper continues to play out in the intermissions between the sub acts, but things are steadily getting increasingly disjointed and off the rails. It's safe to assume that this is intentional. So, yes. Act 6 brought the story to a grinding halt, and I understand that this is would be frustrating, but I think it was done very much by design. It's all building up to Act6.6.6, when poo poo will hit a state of Peak Real. I'm very interested in seeing what happens then. So I tolerate the sluggish pace of Act 6, if only because I sincerely believe it is building up to something amazing.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:16
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By having the design of A6 to be a retelling of the story so far, we get A6A6, which leads to A6A6A6, which leads to A6A6A6A6, which leads ... to A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6, and so on. The story will move asymptotically closer to A7 but never reach it. In short, it's a stupid design.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:32
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Personally I'm a huge follower of the .a6a6a6a6... = 7 group. edit: But actually I think the chapter titling scheme Homestuck has followed thus far is pretty dumb even if it does play into the narrative.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:34
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Cat Mattress posted:By having the design of A6 to be a retelling of the story so far, we get A6A6, which leads to A6A6A6, which leads to A6A6A6A6, which leads ... to A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6A6, and so on. The story will move asymptotically closer to A7 but never reach it. I'd be sincerely surprised if it went further than A6A6A6 because of the symbolic significance of the number 666. That said, it could be that elements of the story would be trapped in such a loop while our heroes figure out a way out, something that Calliope hinted at with Jane and Aranea hinted at with Jake.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:37
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I think, as an archive reader, Cascade works best if you consider it not the middle of the story, but the end of first movie in a trilogy. Let's compare to original Star Wars, since it's something that basically everyone has seen: - A New Hope ends with the rebels scoring a major victory over the empire. Things are really looking up. - Empire Strikes Back, as the dark middle movie, is almost a draw for the protagonists. Luke doesn't turn to the dark side, but they lose Han and the rebellion is scattered. - Return of the Jedi is the 'everyone gets their poo poo together' movie. The rebellion regroups and takes down another Death Star. Han is rescued. Old grudges are settled. So let's put Homestuck in the same framework: - Acts 1-5.2 are Movie 1: A problem is presented, all the initial characters are introduced, and some minor victories (survival of the scratch) are secured. Things seem pretty good. - Act 6-6.5 are Movie 2, the dark middle movie: It starts with Lord English being 'born', showing us that problems are far from over. Lots of bad things happen to the protagonists. They're scattered, new obstacles are presented, and things get gory. The big new threat, the Batterwitch, rises to the fore, and totally puts one over on the combined group. At best, the movie ends with things at a draw: plans aren't working for the Batterwitch, but they're equally not working for the protagonists. poo poo is hosed. - Act 6.6-7 will be (hopefully) Movie 3: Old grudges are settled, the protagonists regroup and take down another villain, etc. Ideally, we get to see some hints of a shiny new future for the humans and trolls. The problem is that we don't have the last third of the story, so it all seems to be going nowhere.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:44
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Dolash posted:As it stands John's understanding of the main villain of Homestuck basically boils down to "he's that rear end in a top hat writing badly drawn incest fanfiction of my friends". Still waiting for the final twist to be "the real hero and villain is the fans."
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Mar 10, 2014 19:11
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In the most meta ending ever, the heroes defeat Andrew Hussie by trash-talking him until he gets fed up and stops doing the comic. With no more pages being produced, the characters are no longer forced into a narrative of failure and potentially have, off screen, in the mind of the audience, a chance at a happy life.
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Mar 10, 2014 19:21
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/10/5490210/namco-high-studio-shiftylook-is-shutting-its-doors shiftylook is shutting down quote:Namco High on ShiftyLook.com: Purchase available via Crunchyroll through March 28, 2014; servers shut down (no longer able to play) on June 30, 2014
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Mar 10, 2014 19:24
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Isn't the whole game just a hosted flash file? Do you think it's likely that someone could rip it from the site for people who still wanted to play it? I guess just a text dump would serve pretty much the same purpose, as long as the right images were thrown in as well. Edit: Not requesting anyone here do it of course. I was just wondering if it was possible, since this kinda thing usually ends up floating around in one form or another as 
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Mar 10, 2014 19:55
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Bobulus posted:In the most meta ending ever, the heroes defeat Andrew Hussie by trash-talking him until he gets fed up and stops doing the comic. With no more pages being produced, the characters are no longer forced into a narrative of failure and potentially have, off screen, in the mind of the audience, a chance at a happy life. Truly it is the Spec-Ops: The Line of webcomics. Regarding homestuck's length though, let's all just remember this page and the associated meme in fondness: quote:Do you realize this adventure is nearing 5000 panels? And now we have to watch you flounder around in a jail cell for god knows how long? Exactly how many panels do you want this to go on for? Over 9000? Nobody wants that. Nobody even wants to hear the phrase "over 9000." CJacobs fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 19:55
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CJacobs posted:Truly it is the Spec-Ops: The Line of webcomics. ???? I didn't play that, but I thought it was more hallucination and less fourth-wall breaking.
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Mar 10, 2014 20:54
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Bobulus posted:???? I didn't play that, but I thought it was more hallucination and less fourth-wall breaking. The joke I was making is that in Spec-Ops one of the acceptable "endings" the developers offered to interviewers dissatisfied with the ACTUAL ending was to just stop playing and pretend the game really ends there. Hence, if in-comic-universe-Hussie stops making the comic in-universe-everyone-else can just live happily ever after with no narrative to doom them over and over. ______/ 
CJacobs fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 21:04
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What a strange webcomic. The only winning move is not to read.
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Mar 10, 2014 21:33
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CJacobs posted:The joke I was making is that in Spec-Ops one of the acceptable "endings" the developers offered to interviewers dissatisfied with the ACTUAL ending was to just stop playing and pretend the game really ends there. Hence, if in-comic-universe-Hussie stops making the comic in-universe-everyone-else can just live happily ever after with no narrative to doom them over and over. Cat Mattress posted:What a strange webcomic. The only winning move is not to read. Finally, you've achieved enlightenment. Welcome to the Gigapause, gentlemen. Homestuck already ended. We didn't.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:05
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Can't wait for Problem Sleuth 2! Any day now...
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Mar 10, 2014 23:18
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Does anyone else remember the "13 years" meme?
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Mar 10, 2014 23:19
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The single biggest problem for Homestuck, structurally, is there just doesn't seem to be room for the trolls and the post-scratch kids. We've all noticed how jostling to fit them all has given the actual main characters very little time to shine, and as bad as the momentum stop was with Hivebent at least it worked itself out by Cascade whereas this current drag is probably never getting entirely fixed. The trolls were too popular and too fun, and Hussie couldn't resist expanding on them, while the post-scratch kids were too important to the whole guardian and coming-of-age story for Hussie to cut either. If anything he's doubled down by messing around with the pre-scratch trolls when the comic was already struggling with pacing and bringing back dead characters when they'd already gracefully exited the story. That's exactly the kind of problem you'd want to fix with major editing before a story goes live, especially since once it goes live people fixate on the individual parts they like even if they're detrimental to the story overall. See: whatever troll you like, probably.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:05
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Dolash posted:The single biggest problem for Homestuck, structurally, is there just doesn't seem to be room for the trolls and the post-scratch kids. Eh, I feel like you could fit in some of the trolls. Like 4 or so. Some of them act as pretty good foils for the original kids. John and Karkat for obvious reasons, Terezi for Rose (Both are analytical, constantly trying to deduce what others are thinking but where as Rose is kind of detached and smarmy, Terezi is aggressive and in your face), etc. The problem is the pattern breaks down around Jade, but what pattern didn't! It was kind of her gimmick! EDIT: Actually Vriska kind of fits as a anti-thesis for Jade. All plans, all schemes, (thinks she) knows more than the rest, a Weirdo. Jade's just trying to make things better and is a nice person while Vriska is...well Spider8itch. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 02:16
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The glorious thing is that allows space for Equius to still hang out as Dave's foil.
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Mar 11, 2014 02:46
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King of Solomon posted:The glorious thing is that allows space for Equius to still hang out as Dave's foil. Yeah he works wonders in that spot. He's a big ol pervert just like the Dude Dave looks up to but he doesn't hide it under a layer of irony. And Dave is all about helping Jade out all the time, while Equius begrudgingly works for Vriska. VVV Tavros works as a Character since he kind of originally existed to be a punching bag/set up for Funnier characters (Dave and Jade) to showcase their humor and then morphed into a punching bag for more antagonistic characters to showcase their messed up actions. The only problem with Tavros is the problem with most of the characters. He eventually showed back up after he gracefully left the story well after his whole arc was over and done with. I actually really like Tavros's part in HS. I just kinda wish he stayed dead since all he's done since then is be a completely different character with no real goal or interesting point in the narrative. Though the same could be said about a lot of the trolls. Not Fef though, she didn't do anything before, during, or after dying. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 02:54
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If your rewrite hasn't got Tavros in it throw it in the garbage and start over.
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Mar 11, 2014 05:43
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quote:I just kinda wish he stayed dead This is my problem with Homestuck. Hussie has barely ever killed characters off permanently for good despite killing them all the drat time and it's super annoying. He even put it into the narrative that [YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER HERE] can get killed like three times before they're actually dead and then made it so death is required to move on in the game for some of 'em. I just don't get it.
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Mar 11, 2014 13:22
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Fefeta is still permanently dead forever, though.
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Mar 11, 2014 14:01
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Hence the 'barely', there are in fact a few outliers; but that doesn't change the fact that I have to keep track of how many times a character has died so I can know when they're dead for real and feel emotions or whatever!
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Mar 11, 2014 14:13
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Cat Mattress posted:Fefeta is still permanently dead forever, though. Honestly, Nepeta and Feferi are still basically "Fefeta", an amalgamation of two aimless background characters whose character arcs have evaporated and have become self-aware cutesy background filler. It wouldn't be surprising if they don't speak or pursue their individual interests or even appear separately for the rest of the comic, assuming their next appearance isn't them getting blown away by Lord English. The best compromise might've been if Hivebent had been an actually-separate side-story from Homestuck, and the trolls' presence in the main comic was kept down to an Exile-like set of short-lived side characters. Only a few trolls ever ended up mattering to the main story anyway, and a separate Hivebent could've been as indulgent and meandering as everyone wanted.
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Mar 11, 2014 15:20
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I think the conversation has gone in at least two circles by this point; I know Hivebent as a side story and the unfortunate nature of Feferi and Nepeta being combined into a character where the whole is significantly less than the sum of its parts have been brought up in the last couple of weeks, at the very least.
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Mar 13, 2014 18:20
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frozentreasure posted:I think the conversation has gone in at least two circles by this point; I know Hivebent as a side story and the unfortunate nature of Feferi and Nepeta being combined into a character where the whole is significantly less than the sum of its parts have been brought up in the last couple of weeks, at the very least. It's hard to talk about a webcomic that hasn't been updated for months, especially if you're used to a much faster update speed. Here's something that kinda confuses me: what exactly is Rage? I think that one might be the least understood aspect, in no small part because Gamzee is such an hard-to-pin-down character.
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Mar 13, 2014 21:01
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Act 6 is responsible for a lot of Homestuck's issues. Hussie explained that, at some point, he got the idea of a guardian session and started laying down the framework for that. This is why Act 5 was so much longer than every other act, as it had to explain more about how the game worked and establish the possibility for resetting sburb and all that jazz (on top of catering to the popularity of the trolls). Homestuck had to stretch and contort itself to accommodate this idea Hussie had, and you can argue it suffers for that. The "three separate works" thing is an okay explanation that Hussie was all too eager to latch onto, but stuff like Return of the Jedi don't suddenly introduce a bunch of new characters that don't even interact with the main cast until the epilogue. I can't say if I truly dislike it, as there are many parts of Act 6 I like, but I see it as an area of legitimate criticism to throw another bunch of characters on the grill when we've already been invested in another gaggle of them for years now.
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Mar 18, 2014 03:11
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I find it hard to believe that the fanbase's rabid troll boner affected Hussie's story plans much.
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Mar 18, 2014 05:24
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WAMPA_STOMPA posted:I find it hard to believe that the fanbase's rabid troll boner affected Hussie's story plans much. I can easily believe it affected his plans for merchandise, though.
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Mar 18, 2014 05:28
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It probably wasn't because they were popular, just the same reason the rest of us started liking them - because they're fun, and probably as much fun to write as to read about. It's almost a pity Hussie had all these ideas for them in the middle of another story he was writing, since if he'd started Hivebent as a standalone thing after Homestuck it might've really thrived. Writers can get a little tired of what they're working on and suddenly find themselves writing some new, interesting story instead. That's usually the point where you do some editing and save the best parts for a later work, but Homestuck's first draft problem raises its ugly head again.
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Mar 18, 2014 06:48
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