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As much as I love some of the alpha kids, their inclusion contributed to a lot of snarl in Homestuck. Act 5 dragged on setting up their session, and Act 6 got bloated as hell because we had to now alternate between the original characters while also introducing and developing these four new kids. I think in one of his Q&As Hussie mentioned the alpha kids being thought up midway through the early acts, and it definitely shows.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:36
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| # ? May 26, 2024 13:38 |
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I honestly wish Jane had flat out died when her mailbox exploded. That plus completely excising the Dirk/Jake quasi-romance, along with never even making a single loving alpha troll, would probably have gotten rid of, I dunno, 3000 pages? Maybe even more?
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Apr 15, 2015 23:57
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Honestly everything in Act 6 is kinda pointless now since John retconned it all. I mean, some poo poo would have happened the same, but it's still annoying to see literal years of updates rendered moot or at least questionable. I'm waiting on Intermission 5 before really judging it, but that's definitely a thing that bugs me.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:00
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The most chilling possibility is that thanks to the retcon, penis ouija never happened.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:04
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Rorus Raz posted:Honestly everything in Act 6 is kinda pointless now since John retconned it all. I mean, some poo poo would have happened the same, but it's still annoying to see literal years of updates rendered moot or at least questionable. John did not retcon much of act 6, since he was only able to intentionally return to situations that Terezi remembered, and she was not there for most of act 6. Everything up to the start of 6.6 was virtually untouched except for intermissions.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:37
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i think the big question there is one john even raised, which is whether ghost vriska still exists
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Apr 16, 2015 00:39
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GunnerJ posted:The most chilling possibility is that thanks to the retcon, penis ouija never happened. I'd like to think that any universe where Karkat and Dave meet up will inevitably have penis ouija in it.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:54
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Apr 16, 2015 00:58
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GeneX posted:I honestly wish Jane had flat out died when her mailbox exploded. I actually like Jane, but other than becoming an incredibly boring evil robot she doesn't really get to do anything. Just look at the claymation fight with Caliborn: Jake did the hope-splosion, Dirk sealed his soul away, Roxy banished the evil puppet into the void, and Jane just kind of stood there after getting her rear end kicked.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:59
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AriadneThread posted:i think the big question there is one john even raised, which is whether ghost vriska still exists I don't think so. So far, of the two Thieves we've seen, Vriska and Meenah, they have not had any additional ghosts unlike everyone else. It is like Thieves don't get dead-alternate-selves. Vriska posted:VRISKA: One time in an altern8te reality, I came pretty close to killing him apparently. Based on this we could possibly infer that Thieves get to... steal? the experiences of their dead-Beta selves. So there is a possibility that new-Alpha Vriska has the memories and experiences of old-Alpha Vriska. life_source fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 01:00
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And now, some amusing update reactions from Tumblr:quote:Just gonna get this out of the way. You know these three characters trapped in the puppet together? They're an adoptive Father, his Son, and a Swole Ghost. It's a Holy Trinity. quote:okay but out of all the things homosuck cleared up now I just want to know quote:IT’S NEPETA quote:
quote:You know, with the new update introducing claymation, we now know that the reason it took so long was because there was a medium he had yet to apply.
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Apr 16, 2015 01:35
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Lord English is part Equius? Please let this be foreshadowing somehow:
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Apr 16, 2015 01:35
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Bongo Bill posted:John did not retcon much of act 6, since he was only able to intentionally return to situations that Terezi remembered, and she was not there for most of act 6. Everything up to the start of 6.6 was virtually untouched except for intermissions. While a lot of major plot beats would likely still happen, you can't say "oh, everything happened the same way" when a major character is added to one setting and one is removed from the other (two if you count Davesprite). Like I said, we haven't really seen how the post retcon timeline works now, but it still doesn't sit right with me.
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Apr 16, 2015 01:36
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Rorus Raz posted:And EVERYTHING that happens once the kids land in session 2 is pretty much undone So, very little of consequence then.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:01
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Two things: First of all, check it. There's a lot of foreshadowing that happened here right under our noses, including the knowledge that the cueball is LE's only weakness, that he would die surrounded by horses as he was birthed, and that somehow Jack figures into everything. Second of all, I'm still not totally sold that everything that got retjohnned is going to stay retjohnned at this point. Consider Hussie's conversation with Caliborn about Trickster Mode, how undoing mistakes robs people of necessary growth and experience, even if those experiences are traumatic. Think of what Terezi had to go through as the result of her decision to kill Vriska, and the experience of dating and subsequently being dumped by Dave after hate-dating Gamzee, which she also tries to prevent in the other things she has John do. She no longer experiences these trials, and now no longer has to live with the guilt of killing what was once her best friend. That is essentially everything Hussie (the character) stated is wrong with Caliborn's character in the first place, and I can't see Hussie (the author) pulling a 180 on that for Terezi. I think that at some point, it's going to become clear that John needs to undo at least some of the changes that he did, much like he undid his interruption of Dave and Jade as she threatened the mayor. The implications of this is that John's power, while seeming like a deus ex machina to the extreme, will ultimately prove to be detrimental to the larger goals, and thus another solution will need to be found. Just my thoughts.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:06
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We're pretty much in the same place except for a few changes. John, Roxy, and Davesprite are dead. Everyone else is still alive. Jade and Jane are being kept asleep and Jane's tiaratop, if the kids have a lick of sense between them, has been destroyed. Terezi is blind and happy, Rose is not a drunk, and Vriska is alive. Basically everything has been shaken up to improve the heroes' chances.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:10
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:
simply amazing
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Apr 16, 2015 02:11
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Ariong posted:We're pretty much in the same place except for a few changes. John, Roxy, and Davesprite are dead. Everyone else is still alive. Jade and Jane are being kept asleep and Jane's tiaratop, if the kids have a lick of sense between them, has been destroyed. Terezi is blind and happy, Rose is not a drunk, and Vriska is alive. Basically everything has been shaken up to improve the heroes' chances. you didn't actually read plom's post did you
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Apr 16, 2015 02:16
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SyntheticPolygon posted:It also just occurred to me that "the most important character in Homestuck" page really was in reference to the Cal that Gamzee was holding since it is not only LE but several other characters combined into one terrifying puppet creature. Specifically, it shows the right side of Gamzee (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005119). Which, is also, coincidentally, the side that is :o( when he is cut in half. ( Also, the mirthful messiahs were always both him :o) )
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Apr 16, 2015 02:17
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Plom Bar posted:Second of all, I'm still not totally sold that everything that got retjohnned is going to stay retjohnned at this point. Consider Hussie's conversation with Caliborn about Trickster Mode, how undoing mistakes robs people of necessary growth and experience, even if those experiences are traumatic. Think of what Terezi had to go through as the result of her decision to kill Vriska, and the experience of dating and subsequently being dumped by Dave after hate-dating Gamzee, which she also tries to prevent in the other things she has John do. She no longer experiences these trials, and now no longer has to live with the guilt of killing what was once her best friend. That is essentially everything Hussie (the character) stated is wrong with Caliborn's character in the first place, and I can't see Hussie (the author) pulling a 180 on that for Terezi. That wasn't "growth" that Terezi experienced. It was a VH1 Behind the Music spiral of red sugar drinks and bad clown relationships, culminating in a tearful murderous mental breakdown. The only growth that occurred was at the last moment, as she was about to drop dead, when she realized that she could in fact do something and that she was not the lovely failure she imagined herself to be. Which led to the outcome you just described: all of the above never happening.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:18
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Adversity doesn't automatically build character.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:20
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Also, John screwing around with Dave was just that - him screwing around without really knowing what he was doing. The big retcon was him acting on Terezi's, the Seer of Mind, input.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:25
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Mazerunner posted:you didn't actually read plom's post did you It wasn't meant to be a response to Plom Bar, I didn't actually see their post until after I made mine.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:34
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:
That's a reference I didn't expect to pop up 10 years later. edit: Okay, 5.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:48
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Plom Bar posted:Two things: That whole sequence was so funny.
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Apr 16, 2015 02:59
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paranoid randroid posted:That wasn't "growth" that Terezi experienced. It was a VH1 Behind the Music spiral of red sugar drinks and bad clown relationships, culminating in a tearful murderous mental breakdown. The only growth that occurred was at the last moment, as she was about to drop dead, when she realized that she could in fact do something and that she was not the lovely failure she imagined herself to be. Which led to the outcome you just described: all of the above never happening. The only reason growth didn't come out of it is because it never had the chance to. The act of tying her scarf around her eyes, I suspect, was symbolic of the growth that follows the catharsis of hitting one's lowest point. But then Aranea ruined everything by stealing the Ring of Life, an act which both she and Meenah acknowledge as "not supposed to happen". On that note, every time a deviation from the "correct" sequence of events occurs, the characters all feel it and acknowledge it in some way, first seen when John was killed by his denizen, and notably seen when John interrupted Dave and Jade, and when John stopped Terezi from killing Vriska. GeneX posted:Adversity doesn't automatically build character. Sure it does. Not always positively, but all of us are the sum total of our successes and failures, each of which played a pivotal role in shaping how we approach and react to situations. paranoid randroid posted:Also, John screwing around with Dave was just that - him screwing around without really knowing what he was doing. The big retcon was him acting on Terezi's, the Seer of Mind, input. Right. She had him write the message "you don't need him", which could have referred to Karkat, Dave, or Gamzee. Yes, John supplemented his own addenda, but he was prompted to do that by the initial instruction.
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Apr 16, 2015 03:09
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Plom Bar posted:Two things: Trickster Mode ended with the growth and experience the Alpha kids went through just before hitting God Tier as they were challenged to deal with their issues, since their relationships seemed stagnant up to that time. John may need to undo some of his changes, but Terezi and others will find other trials to overcome, bolstered by strengths they didn't know they had thanks to John's meddling, which was to save Terezi as much as her scourge sister.
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Apr 16, 2015 03:26
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Plom Bar posted:Right. She had him write the message "you don't need him", which could have referred to Karkat, Dave, or Gamzee. Yes, John supplemented his own addenda, but he was prompted to do that by the initial instruction. Yes, and as such its enormously distinct from previous instances of the story getting hosed with. When Terezi killed John, she was doing it for a laugh to see if she could. When John interrupted Dave and Jade, he was ineffectually dorking around with his new powers. The big retcon, by comparison, is a result of Terezi living up to her role as the Seer of Mind, finding a way to guide people carefully between opportunities for failure based on her ability to extrapolate the outcomes of their actions. She discards her doubts about her abilities, embraces her role, and empowers someone to fix the situation. This is now the "correct" sequence of events.
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Apr 16, 2015 03:27
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paranoid randroid posted:Yes, and as such its enormously distinct from previous instances of the story getting hosed with. When Terezi killed John, she was doing it for a laugh to see if she could. When John interrupted Dave and Jade, he was ineffectually dorking around with his new powers. The big retcon, by comparison, is a result of Terezi living up to her role as the Seer of Mind, finding a way to guide people carefully between opportunities for failure based on her ability to extrapolate the outcomes of their actions. She discards her doubts about her abilities, embraces her role, and empowers someone to fix the situation. This is now the "correct" sequence of events. But her version of "fixing the situation" is undoing what she perceives to be her mistake, rather than owning up to having made the mistake and accepting its consequences. The only change necessary to avoid the clusterfuck that was Game Over was to prevent Aranea from getting the Ring of Life. Undoing Vriska's death, while seeming to be advantageous NOW, I think will ultimately prove to be detrimental, and thus needing to be undone. I mean, juxtaposing Vriska's resurrection with her budding romance with Meenah had to have been done with intention, to clue us in that maybe what Terezi thinks is best isn't what's actually best for Vriska, and by extension, everyone else. Also, it gives an out for the incredible deus ex machina that is John's retcon powers, which most seem to agree would not be a satisfying end.
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Apr 16, 2015 03:36
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The real problem with the retcon plan being a scheme by Terezi to help herself grow up a bit is that it ended not with Terezi figuring out another way of handling Vriska, but with John just showing up and punching her.
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Apr 16, 2015 03:50
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GunnerJ posted:The real problem with the retcon plan being a scheme by Terezi to help herself grow up a bit is that it ended not with Terezi figuring out another way of handling Vriska, but with John just showing up and punching her. Subtlety
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Apr 16, 2015 03:50
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Blackheart posted:That whole sequence was so funny. I still giggle at "Who am I kidding, magic is fake as poo poo"
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Apr 16, 2015 03:53
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GunnerJ posted:The real problem with the retcon plan being a scheme by Terezi to help herself grow up a bit is that it ended not with Terezi figuring out another way of handling Vriska, but with John just showing up and punching her. except that was hilarious so I'm 100% ok with how it turned out.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:04
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Plom Bar posted:But her version of "fixing the situation" is undoing what she perceives to be her mistake, rather than owning up to having made the mistake and accepting its consequences. The only change necessary to avoid the clusterfuck that was Game Over was to prevent Aranea from getting the Ring of Life. Undoing Vriska's death, while seeming to be advantageous NOW, I think will ultimately prove to be detrimental, and thus needing to be undone. In fact, learning from beta/retconned versions of themselves are how we were able to get to this point! Beta John Ghost told Vriska Ghost his choice was a necessary thing-where was the personal growth Alpha John got from that? Davesprite went back in time to undo prototyping Cal. Alpha Dave might have been cheated out of the personal growth he'd get from a doomed session with Jade dead, but he got his own share of experiences. I'd say Terezi grew more retroactively through Act V than she did in Act VI all the way up to her epiphany before her demise. You don't have to learn from your mistakes alone. edit: GunnerJ posted:The real problem with the retcon plan being a scheme by Terezi to help herself grow up a bit is that it ended not with Terezi figuring out another way of handling Vriska, but with John just showing up and punching her. Bell_ fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 04:05
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Incidentally I really hope that Vriska isn't the leader that's been getting hinted at. Because while I am Vriskapologist Prime, even I can't think of a way to make that not be bullshit. She's not leadership material.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:07
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Ammat The Ankh posted:except that was hilarious so I'm 100% ok with how it turned out. Sure. It makes for a great gag but a poor retroactive self-improvement plan based on overcoming one's most damaging mistake. I'm not saying one is necessarily preferable to the other.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:10
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Bell_ posted:I disagree that the only necessary change would be to prevent Aranea from getting the Ring of Life. The kids were unable or unwilling to directly deal with Jane and Jade even before bringing their powers into the picture, not to mention the Batterwitch herself-a problem close to what Terezi faced when dealing with Vriska herself. Aranea's involvement is what fast-forwarded the whole scenario to its bloody end. Without an alive Aranea, Jake doesn't go Further Beyond, doesn't attract everyone to LOFAF, doesn't kill Jade, doesn't spur Dave to protect Jade's body from the Becs, and everyone lives to fight another day.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:27
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paranoid randroid posted:Incidentally I really hope that Vriska isn't the leader that's been getting hinted at. Because while I am Vriskapologist Prime, even I can't think of a way to make that not be bullshit. She's not leadership material. I don't know, I mean she is the Thief of (spot)Light.
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Apr 16, 2015 04:59
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Rorus Raz posted:John is dead for a good chunk of the trip to the new session, Vriska is alive on the entire trip, and presumably Gamzee is not causing Terezi mental anguish which would change of lot of interactions on the meteor. Oh, and Roxy dies at some point because of the Nix deal. And EVERYTHING that happens once the kids land in session 2 is pretty much undone since Vriska disables Jade and Jane from the start. We have seen most of the post retcon timeline, including how roxy died, through jade and jane's storytime with Calliope. About the only thing we don't know is the interpersonal relationships of the characters on the meteor now that vriska's in the mix.
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Apr 16, 2015 05:00
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| # ? May 26, 2024 13:38 |
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I don't understand all the talk about the pacing and how Act 6 should never have happened. First of all, there's a lot of story left. It doesn't make sense to say something was a waste of time when we haven't seen the payoff. Hussie is really good at reaching back and making connections. Complaints about pacing are unfair. We are serial readers. We have had to deal with gaps, pauses, cliffhangers, and artificial barriers to reading forward in the story that disappear when you read it through the archives. Act 5 was super long, maybe as big as the previous four Acts. Act 6 is super long, maybe as big as the past five Acts. But that isn't important. The Act division is meant to guide us and tell us when the focus of the story has changed, but there's no reason for us to expect them to be equal in length or significance. It's the content of the Acts that matter, not where Hussie draws us a curtain and tells us we are moving on. I think a lot of the reason people have disliked Act 6 has been the serial reading effect. It really has taken a very long time to get through it. Not only is it very long, but it has been full of paiuses and delays. But there's tons of good content in it. There really has been a lot of great stuff in it. Caliborn is gold. Roxy is gold. Condy is gold. I really like Dirk too, and the mystery of figuring out what his personality tells us about Bro and Dave was really good. Jane and Jake are a little less interesting from a character perspective, IMO, but they aren't bad characters. Act 6 feels like it is dragging because it has been so long in the making, but the plot events have been pretty cool. It's the same thing Hussie has been doing for the whole comic. He sets up some rules and expectations for us about how the story will go, both in terms of the in-universe rules about how things are supposed to work and our own natural expectations about narrative itself, and then he breaks the rules. In the meantime, he develops characters through interpersonal drama and personal quests. Even though the whole "gimmick" of the Alpha kids is stagnation, that hasn't stopped them from becoming characters we care about. Similarly, the Beta kids and trolls have been through a lot. It just doesn't feel like it because our experience with Act 6 has been attenuated compared to earlier acts. Cascade was a major narrative climax. It was the culmination of the whole action of the first five acts. But as he always does, Hussie showed us that what we thought was a big deal was still just a prelude to the real thing. The significance of Bec Noir being subsumed into an insigificant chase scene is exactly that: the villain we thought was one of the most important forces in the universe is actually a sideshow, a distraction. The Exiles were supposed to rekindle the world, not die like chumps. The reason they died was exactly to show just how badly things are off course and how badly the basic rules of the world of Homestuck are being disturbed by the influence of Lord English. He twists the way narratives should work to serve himself. He steals happy endings from other people. He's a true villain, and his mere presence perturbs the rules of the narrative whether he intends it or not. Even with retcon powers, John and co are having a hard time beating him. Even though they can influence narrative in a similar way, they don't have his depth of malice and self-interest, so they need to do even more. Their personal flaws and strengths both limit what they can do and give them new ways to attack English. Their personalities are weapons, of a sort. It makes sense that through John, they can hone those weapons to their optimal sharpness. We've seen through the whole comic that the powers of the characters are directly related to their personal growth. It doesn't surprise or upset me that to take their strength to the next level, the heroes need to take full advantage of that fact.
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