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Arsenic Lupin posted:Has somebody pointed out already that Lord English's coat is Vriskas, with a flashing border? Yep. In fact, during the whole 'Skull Island Treasure Hunt' thing, so many people were pointing it out ('OMG, Lord English takes trophies from his victims, he's going to kill ghost-Vriska!!!!') that there's a weird little flash where Kurloz picks up the discarded coat, presumably to give it to Lord English.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 06:10 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 18:39 |
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I think, on Nth viewing of the flash and the stills, what hits me hardest is that there's forgiveness in the Homestuck afterlife. Eridan did terrible things, and yet there are Feferi, Sollux, and Aradia waiting to greet him, and that's *living* Sollux and Aradia, the trolls who were left alone to mourn.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 06:45 |
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I think, on Nth viewing of the flash and the stills, what hits me hardest is that there's forgiveness in the Homestuck afterlife. Eridan did terrible things, and yet there are Feferi, Sollux, and Aradia waiting to greet him, and that's *living* Sollux and Aradia, the trolls who were left alone to mourn. There was no Kanaya there, though. Maybe Feferi's just particularly forgiving.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:25 |
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A good poster posted:There was no Kanaya there, though. Maybe Feferi's just particularly forgiving. We've seen no evidence that Kanaya has ever actually died, have we? I mean, she must have - her dreamself killed by Jack, and in the alt timelines where all the trolls were slaughtered... But we've never actually seen a Kanaya ghost.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:28 |
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GlyphGryph posted:We've seen no evidence that Kanaya has ever actually died, have we? Kanaya is secretly gamzee.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:33 |
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GlyphGryph posted:We've seen no evidence that Kanaya has ever actually died, have we? All those Kanayas actually came back as vampires.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:37 |
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Kanaya was vaporized in the pre-retcon timeline, although admittedly that would've been harder to draw here. The forgiveness thing was definitely there. I think Eridan and Feferi, Equius and Nepeta, Dave and Jade, Jake and Jane, and of course Vriska and Terezi, they're all cases where two dead characters had unfinished business with each other, cases where one or both characters wanted to say they're sorry. We're left to imagine how those conversations went down and what became of those ghosts but it's definitely got a hopeful tone to it. I was sort of hoping Vriska and Terezi's meetup was going to end with all the other pre-retcon ghosts gathering in one spot (which would hopefully not then be immediately annihilated), and I'm holding out hope that there might be a follow-up to this Flash that at least hints at these ghost characters having happy endings. It would've been nice to see Kanaya but I think showing her and pre-retcon Rose meeting in the afterlife might've taken away from Rosesprite feeling sad she didn't meet Kanaya after dying but before being sprited. It's already kind of weird showing Equius and Nepeta meeting, since both the pre and post retcon Nepetas and Equiuses don't appear to have met prior to ARquiusprite meeting Davepeta or Fefeta. Beta timeline? Lost dream-bubble memory? Dolash fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:40 |
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I've been hearing a lot of interesting words about how the pre-scratch troll session went down, but I don't remember any of that actually being in the comic. Can someone give a quick rundown on what we know actually happened in that session? It would be much appreciated.
Davinci fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ? Jul 28, 2015 07:48 |
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So the Omega-pause has begun then huh?
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 08:57 |
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I have to admit Kid Vriska and Kidrezi were cute. But yeah basically Fister Roboto posted:This is why I still read this dumb gay comic.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:01 |
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God Tiers are really hosed up. If the person who dies on their quest bed goes to the afterlife as a ghost, that makes god tiers these weird game constructs that inherit all the living memories of a dead character posthumously. To the god tier there is a seamless transition from one body to the next, but to the original character they have to look on from the afterlife and watch themselves get replaced by this superpowered doppelganger. It's like that teleporter conundrum about destroying and replacing yourself each time, except all the versions of yourself you destroy go to the afterlife and could potentially meet up as ghosts. Makes it even weirder if the god tier also dies. Imagine meeting up with your own pre-god tier self in the afterlife and talking to them. "I guess committing suicide on this slab really wasn't worth it, huh?"
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:10 |
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A good poster posted:There was no Kanaya there, though. Maybe Feferi's just particularly forgiving. Kanaya already got closure with Eridan, in that she chainsawed him in half.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:22 |
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I'm honestly just kind of surprised that Aradia showed back up. Has she come to watch Vriska get blown the gently caress out by Lord English? no, because vriska will win
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:30 |
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Davinci posted:I've been hearing a lot of interesting words about how the pre-scratch tell session went down, but I don't remember any of that actually being in the comic. Can someone give a quick rundown on what we know actually happened in that session? It would be much appreciated. I'm in the process of compiling this and I'm going to warn you that this poo poo is LONG.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:35 |
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I cant believe that homestuck's been going long enough that by the time it finishes, Flash will be a dead medium.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 09:53 |
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SynthOrange posted:I cant believe that homestuck's been going long enough that by the time it finishes, Flash will be a dead medium. hail satan
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 10:01 |
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Davinci posted:I've been hearing a lot of interesting words about how the pre-scratch tell session went down, but I don't remember any of that actually being in the comic. Can someone give a quick rundown on what we know actually happened in that session? It would be much appreciated. Okay here we go All of this is gleaned from Aranea's exposition booth at the end of each installment of OpenBound, taking place in Act 6 Intermission 3. The session was unsuccessful largely because most of the Beforan trolls were too wrapped up in their own drama to get down to business. Meenah attempted to galvanize everyone's aggression by stoking these interpersonal fires in the hopes of rallying them into something like a successful session. As part of this, she'd push Damara's buttons by rubbing her face in the fact that her matesprit Rufioh was secretly seeing Horuss on the side, to the point where Damara snapped completely, paralyzed Rufioh, and killed Meenah. Horuss constructed a robot horse body for Rufioh, and Aranea managed to get Meenah to her quest bed in time to allow her to Ascend. From that point on, Damara dedicated herself to using her time powers to sabotage what meager efforts the group managed, only aiding the group in preparing for the scratch. We know that by this time, she was an agent of Lord English. Cronus was initially very enthusiastic about becoming a hero, creating a very Harry Potter-esque mythos about himself, featuring him as Harry and English as Voldemort. However, something knocked the wind out of his sails, and he became disillusioned with what he believed was his destiny (it is implied that Damara had something to do with this) so he became a full time creepy rear end in a top hat and eventually Human Otherkin. Meanwhile, Kurloz and Meulin were seeing each other and had fallen asleep together when the former had a nightmare so terrible that he screamed until Meulin went permanently deaf. Afterwards, he took an oath of silence, sewing his mouth shut and committing himself to the Mirthful Messiahs religion, ultimately making both himself and Meulin servants of English. Mituna was originally a powerful psychic that would warn the others of various impending dooms before they arrived, until one incident where he exerted his abilities so much that it left him mentally incapacitated. Whatever it was he did, it had something to do with Kurloz, who was the only one with him at the time. Kankri tried to unite everyone with his social justice blather, but because he's kind of an rear end in a top hat about it all, he was largely unsuccessful, though Porrim did what she could to keep him out of trouble. For her part, Porrim initially rejected the role of caretaker to the Mother Grub, but came around after the session had started, believing that there was some value in the work provided she chose it for herself. She eventually passed on her insights to Kanaya. And that leaves Latula, who lost her sense of smell, and also had weird unresolved romantic feelings for Kankri, which he shared, but they never went that deep into it because she committed herself to Mituna. They were unsuccessful, so they initiated the scratch. At the advice of Echidna, Meenah arranged for everyone to die just before the Scratch took hold so that their souls could continue to exist in the furthest ring. Aaaaaand I think that's the extent of what's known about the Beforan session.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 10:38 |
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Rooreelooo posted:God Tiers are really hosed up. If the person who dies on their quest bed goes to the afterlife as a ghost, that makes god tiers these weird game constructs that inherit all the living memories of a dead character posthumously. To the god tier there is a seamless transition from one body to the next, but to the original character they have to look on from the afterlife and watch themselves get replaced by this superpowered doppelganger. It's like that teleporter conundrum about destroying and replacing yourself each time, except all the versions of yourself you destroy go to the afterlife and could potentially meet up as ghosts. It's worse then this. We see Karkat's dream self in the flash, so this is true of any dream self that dies as well.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 10:39 |
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Plom Bar posted:Aaaaaand I think that's the extent of what's known about the Beforan session. You forgot the throwaway mention that their Prospit moon vanished in ~*mysterious circumstances*~ which fans think was caused by Mituna, and would also mean there's a chance for the rest of the living trolls to god tier.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 10:47 |
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I feel like it's all but certain that Damara was repeatedly doubling back in time to throw a wrench in the works whenever her teammates started to get things right in the A1 session, which is super depressing when you think about it. Alternate timeline where, by some miracle of science or magic, Cronus isn't a toolbag? Rewrite that. Kankri becomes a half-decent leader? Ha ha, nope. Latula regains her sense of smell, thereby resolving all her personal issues instantly and forever? No way! This isn't stated anywhere in the comic of course but, when you have the session's Time player actively working to gently caress things up and make everyone static and useless, I feel like that's how she would do it. Imagine being doomed to be a pointless douche because a time traveller keeps going back and erasing all your teachable moments. A cruel, gnostic fate.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 10:52 |
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I think Kankri pointed out to Latula privately that she was faking the lack of smell thing. Maybe I read into it wrong, but it fed well into what Karkat talked about with her cultivating a rad persona because she was unhappy with herself.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 11:03 |
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Nah, she was faking not being bothered by it, but he could tell that it really did bother her, is what went down. She really was anosmic! She just didn't feel like it should upset her because she was tough and cool and it was silly, but it actually did a little and Kankri recounts an anecdote about noticing this.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 11:05 |
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Plom Bar posted:Aaaaaand I think that's the extent of what's known about the Beforan session. Man their session was all kinds of hosed up and I love it. Thanks a bunch for clearing all that up.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 11:08 |
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Android Blues posted:Nah, she was faking not being bothered by it, but he could tell that it really did bother her, is what went down. She really was anosmic! She just didn't feel like it should upset her because she was tough and cool and it was silly, but it actually did a little and Kankri recounts an anecdote about noticing this. i think porrim also suggests at one point that latulas BADICAL GAMER GRRL schtick is entirely bullshit. i guess pyropes are just congenitally incapable of copping to their feelings until its too late. e. latula gets credit for H1T M3 UP TOP, P4YCH3CK! so i guess some good came of her at least.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 11:22 |
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Android Blues posted:Imagine being doomed to be a pointless douche because a time traveller keeps going back and erasing all your teachable moments. A cruel, gnostic fate. This was a great parallel between the Beforan and Alternian sessions. Damara reversed it whenever anyone did anything right, and Aradia reversed it whenever anyone did anything wrong. In both cases, it led to stagnated characters. With the Alternians, as soon as this pressure was removed (Aradiabot explodes and stops fixing things) all their self-destructive, murderous, unexplored tendencies came out and half the team died. With the Beforans, everyone died before this pressure was removed, so the characters stayed stagnant. Only an outside influence (the meteor crew) was about to jump start any changes.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 15:05 |
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Android Blues posted:I feel like it's all but certain that Damara was repeatedly doubling back in time to throw a wrench in the works whenever her teammates started to get things right in the A1 session, which is super depressing when you think about it. Alternate timeline where, by some miracle of science or magic, Cronus isn't a toolbag? Rewrite that. Kankri becomes a half-decent leader? Ha ha, nope. Latula regains her sense of smell, thereby resolving all her personal issues instantly and forever? No way! That is literally what happened. It is spelled out in the narrative.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 15:20 |
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It's a few updates back, but I don't recall seeing anyone bringing this up:quote:DIRK: For years thereafter, his followers would carve stone busts of him in his memory, capturing the piercing glare of his final expression. That sounds oddly familiar... Can't help wonder if there's an implication that Problem Sleuth & Co are infact some kind of carapacians living on some part of a post-scratch earth...all though most of that is flooded, so probably not. Maybe Problem Sleuth (the comic) is the result of a successful Sburb session? Wasn't the endgame/purpose of the exiles (onto of assisting a player) to rebuild their society on the seed planet? (Honestly it's probably just a fun nod back to PS and little more. ) On a similar note, how come we never saw any other Prospit agents other then the original set? Did they just never really get off their asses before prospit got wrecked / got killed off screen by Derse agents?
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 15:37 |
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Rooreelooo posted:God Tiers are really hosed up. If the person who dies on their quest bed goes to the afterlife as a ghost, that makes god tiers these weird game constructs that inherit all the living memories of a dead character posthumously. To the god tier there is a seamless transition from one body to the next, but to the original character they have to look on from the afterlife and watch themselves get replaced by this superpowered doppelganger. It's like that teleporter conundrum about destroying and replacing yourself each time, except all the versions of yourself you destroy go to the afterlife and could potentially meet up as ghosts. The struggle of whether the current living Alpha version of a character deserves the title of the Real, Definitive Version of Me has really been brought to the forefront in the latest updates, but it's been a running theme from almost the beginning. Dave and Dirk have both spent a long time dealing with the fact that their current existence is heavily indebted to the legacy of other versions of themselves, and much of their personal growth as of late has been coming around to the idea that all those other you's, even if you don't remember being them, are still as much a part of what makes you you as what you do remember. It's interesting though that their two most important alternate selves, AR and Davesprite, have moved on from living in the shadows on their Alphas and have dived headfirst into the opportunities of their fresh new identities. However I've believed for a while, and still do, that for most if not all characters any sense of final resolution will come from a (literal or figurative) convergence of all alternate/beta/splinter/etc. selves into a single identity, and an acceptance of what that means (i.e. owning up to the faults/shortcomings/consequences of everything you're responsible for in the whole of Paradox Space). I'm particularly interested to see how this would play out with Caliborn (who has put all his stock into an overpowered self-insert that he fully expects to become), Calliope (who has put all her stock into a version of herself she knows she'll never get to be), and Vriska (Vriska).
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 15:53 |
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Oxyclean posted:(Regarding Ben Stiller) It's also funny thinking how he probably pulled out a Blue Steel
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 15:57 |
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Voxx posted:It's also funny thinking how he probably pulled out a Blue Steel If he'd only managed a Magnum this whole situation could have been avoided.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 16:09 |
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Android Blues posted:Nah, she was faking not being bothered by it, but he could tell that it really did bother her, is what went down. She really was anosmic! She just didn't feel like it should upset her because she was tough and cool and it was silly, but it actually did a little and Kankri recounts an anecdote about noticing this. Is that seriously the reading you got from that? It seemed to me that she didn't actually feel bad about not smelling things, but Kankri insisted she must have so hard that she gave in. He bullied her into feeling bad about herself. quote:LATULA: h3y! Kankri's whole thing is that he sees and rants over problems that aren't there, to the detriment of actual bad things that he ignores (Porrim pointing out that troll culture was still misogynistic despite appearing 'matriarchal' on the surface, which Kankri dismisses in favour of "more glaring issues", Kankri calling Mituna 'problematic' for being visibly mentally disabled instead of defending him, etc). If you go back and play that Alterniabound, the anecdote you're talking about is at the end of a long period of him being creepy at Latula and venting his romantic frustrations under the guise of listing things he 'admires' about her that he might not have admired if they weren't platonic friends. Dude sucks. The Sezza fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ? Jul 28, 2015 16:10 |
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The Sezza posted:
Aranea chalked it up to her resenting Mother Grub duties, and if Feminism was as important to Porrim as she indicated in the dream bubbles, I would have expected it to figure more in the Dolorosa's character.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 16:57 |
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Bell_ posted:I was completely wrong about Latula's nose, but beyond Porrim's words what evidence was there Beforan troll culture was misogynistic? You mean the Dolorosa who abandoned her duties to the Mother Grub and took part in a large-scale revolution alongside the Sufferer?
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:03 |
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That always seemed like more of a class struggle to me, though the Dolorosa probably kept that spark of awareness of real social ills, the same way that the Sufferer kept the outrage at all social injustice, but had a legitimate cause to champion in his time. The impression I got was that the whole feminism angle of Beforan culture was to demonstrate that while Beforan culture seems, on the surface, to be a lot nicer and more utopic than Alternian culture, there actually were a bunch of underlying social issues there where the Alternians were better off, kind of, that showed that the society had pretty deep flaws. The feminism thing isn't just Porrim's deal, after all, Latula's whole "I can still be good at games even though I'm a girl!" is a big indicator, and I seem to recall there were some pretty big resentment bubbling beneath the surface of the whole idea of highbloods "taking care" of lowbloods.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:27 |
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I think Porrim's activism was portrayed slightly oddly, since when presented on its own (say in conversation with Meenah) it didn't seem very well-grounded but then when contrasted against Kankri her criticisms were more valid in service to making Kankri an rear end who ignores legitimate issues for pet causes. It's tough to judge since we have very little information about Beforus itself, and while Feferi was a pretty flat character it's hard to imagine she would rule in an unfair or bigoted way, unless she's not a very competent administrator and things happen under her nose. I guess I can buy her being too coddling and adopting a condescending "Highblood's burden", although that'd be miles above the Condesce, but does she seem the type to enforce gender roles? Honestly those are the characters I'd like to learn more about, the pre-Scratch ancestor versions of the original trolls. On the one hand, I'd like to believe they lived out the happier, more fulfilling versions of their life stories that they weren't able to in the scratched session, but on the other hand it's sad to imagine them then going through Armageddon. Edit: I don't know if I'd say the Alternians were better off even if Beforus was less Utopic than it might've sounded at a glance. The soft bigotry of low expectations and a paternalistic/maternalistic aristocracy still beats freaky murder-empire. Maybe an equal number of Alternian boys and girls play video games but those video games are about the conquest of actual aliens and the bottom-ranked player on the ladder is ground up and turned into a paint set. Dolash fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:31 |
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I think the idea was that there was some gender imbalance on Beforus but the thing's pointed out about it were fairly tame. And I think Porrim knew that and didn't make that big of a deal of it beyond pointing it out and defending her criticisms, compared to Kankri who take's nothing issues and blows them up to massive proportions and actively exacerbates people's personality issues.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:49 |
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Scale Model Giant posted:It's interesting though that their two most important alternate selves, AR and Davesprite, have moved on from living in the shadows on their Alphas and have dived headfirst into the opportunities of their fresh new identities. However I've believed for a while, and still do, that for most if not all characters any sense of final resolution will come from a (literal or figurative) convergence of all alternate/beta/splinter/etc. selves into a single identity, and an acceptance of what that means (i.e. owning up to the faults/shortcomings/consequences of everything you're responsible for in the whole of Paradox Space). I'm particularly interested to see how this would play out with Caliborn (who has put all his stock into an overpowered self-insert that he fully expects to become), Calliope (who has put all her stock into a version of herself she knows she'll never get to be), and Vriska (Vriska). This is a neat idea, and in fact it's already happened to some extent with the squared sprites (Jasprose and Davepeta have both mentioned how they have access to the memories of every single doomed version of the people who comprise them). It also reminds me of the denizens, who have a shared consciousness across every reality, and makes me wonder if the squared sprites will be related to the denizens in some fashion. Dolash posted:Maybe an equal number of Alternian boys and girls play video games Actually, it's heavily implied that video games are considered primarily a girl's activity in Alternian society (see e.g. Karkat's "STOP PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS").
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:50 |
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Dolash posted:Edit: I don't know if I'd say the Alternians were better off even if Beforus was less Utopic than it might've sounded at a glance. The soft bigotry of low expectations and a paternalistic/maternalistic aristocracy still beats freaky murder-empire. Maybe an equal number of Alternian boys and girls play video games but those video games are about the conquest of actual aliens and the bottom-ranked player on the ladder is ground up and turned into a paint set. Yeah I probably didn't say that super clear. i more mean that... whatever problems Beforus had, Alternia didn't, those problems weren't an issue and that's nice. I mean, Alternia is also Hellmurder world where the weak are ground into dust as children and their entire civilisation is laser focused on subjugation of others, so... Two other minor thoughts. I just realized that, you have an entirely female blood caste who, on, Alternia at least, spend their entire lives underground with only other members of that caste. The only two in the story are both lesbians, and trolls have no concept of homo/heterosexuality so Karkat's Troll romance fiction is really missing a trick with this. Secondly, Dirk's Heart powers connect him with all the souls of the various splinters of himself. Seeing Terezi remember really makes me wish we had another Heart player who could maybe take all these alternate souls and distribute them to her allies, letting everyone get the full experience. Rohan Kishibe fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jul 28, 2015 |
# ? Jul 28, 2015 17:55 |
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Android Blues posted:Still messed up and a totally new detail to me that, while there's continuity of consciousness between dead dreamselves/realselves, they actually are individual entities that leave divergent ghosts when slain. Super messed up, really. Rooreelooo posted:God Tiers are really hosed up. If the person who dies on their quest bed goes to the afterlife as a ghost, that makes god tiers these weird game constructs that inherit all the living memories of a dead character posthumously. To the god tier there is a seamless transition from one body to the next, but to the original character they have to look on from the afterlife and watch themselves get replaced by this superpowered doppelganger. It's like that teleporter conundrum about destroying and replacing yourself each time, except all the versions of yourself you destroy go to the afterlife and could potentially meet up as ghosts. from another point of view, you could think of the quest bed ghosts as snapshot copies of the character from that point in time. continuity of consciousness is a hard concept to pin down, and we give it up for 8 hours or so every day but on the other hand is creating a version of you who is dead any less concerning than dying and creating a version of you who lives? hmmm
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 18:18 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 18:39 |
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Dolash posted:It's tough to judge since we have very little information about Beforus itself, and while Feferi was a pretty flat character it's hard to imagine she would rule in an unfair or bigoted way, unless she's not a very competent administrator and things happen under her nose. I guess I can buy her being too coddling and adopting a condescending "Highblood's burden", although that'd be miles above the Condesce, but does she seem the type to enforce gender roles? If you read Feferi's pesterlogs with Jade (particularly this one), she is actually quite rude to people despite being one of the nicest trolls, and spends most of the trolls' post-session meteor time not really giving a poo poo because she knows everything will work out. She's certainly got the attitude of a future empress, just none of the cruelty. Actually, looking at her introduction page again, the whole paragraph about her redefinition of culling seems quite in line with Beforus ideals. Granted, she's thinking about silly wildlife veterinary roleplay of cuttlefish, but this is also Homestuck. This doesn't really do anything to explain where the gender aspects come from, but then there are plenty of places with female leaders who still have rather stereotypical expectations of gender that don't necessarily come from any specific targeted ideology. I guess Porrim just likes her intersectional feminist analysis, considering she also critiques Sburb game mechanics which also seemingly spring from nowhere. Doesn't Hussie himself say in the last Openbound flash that Porrim is the good type of social justice, to contrast against Kankri? I imagine we're supposed to take Porrim's words at face value.
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# ? Jul 28, 2015 18:20 |