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Glazius posted:But it notably doesn't affect ghosts. Game Over Terezi still exists and meets Game Over Vriska. And Typheus has just detonated LOWAS with no fanfare once before.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:25
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WAR FOOT posted:Is it, though? If the complaint is that Hussie is a bad writer and did not live up to the expectations of the majority of readers, then it doesn't matter that it's something it's not, in Hussie's eyes. Death of the Author is a thing, and the most widely accepted way to view a text.. Mark Twain wrote at the start of Huckleberry Finn that he did not believe the book was worthy of any literary critique, and that it contained no hidden viewpoints/motifs. The fact that the literary community at large disagrees on both points means that if Mark Twain's intent was to write a text that adhered to these directives, it failed. There's a difference, I feel, between finding a different interpretation of the text and just hating the text because it does not conform to pre-conceived view. A lot of the complaints just read like "Where are all the cliches I'd promised myself?" over and over.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:26
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MonsieurChoc posted:There's a difference, I feel, between finding a different interpretation of the text and just hating the text because it does not conform to pre-conceived view. yea this
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Apr 14, 2016 00:27
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I really hope that the reason Terezi wasn't in the ending is because she's going to star in Homestuck act 8 where she goes on a quest with the remaining sprites to find Vriska.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:29
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I am happy to debate interpretations of the text if you want to, and the fact that a view was pre-conceived is not necessarily the reason that non-conformity to it can be a negative or a disappointment. If Homestuck was as much a journey and a live, collaborative event between an author and an active community as it was a narrative, then its ending failed by dividing that community. It's almost impossible to get everyone to like something, true, but no other big climax or leap in the comic provoked such a negative response over the raw content. There is nothing that says Homestuck had to end this particular way, so by choosing an ending that was bound to alienate a large portion of the readership Hussie has at least failed to deliver on that community engagement that the comic was previously known for. I do not agree with the notion that a more comprehensive, effective ending wasn't possible. What's strange is Hussie has demonstrated the ability to write epilogues, interactive flash formats that are well-suited to covering a lot of characters and a lot of ground in a fairly succinct way, enough hints about what the remaining plot would cover to construct a fairly clear plot arc, and enough effort in the ending he did make to produce something significant if he waned to. All the pieces were there. That he failed to put them together suggests either that he was too burned out to deliver the ending he might've normally or that somehow he thought the artistic merit of the open, ambiguous ending outweighed everything else despite never taking that tack earlier in the comic. Changing course like this so late in the comic's run will naturally catch people off-guard, and the late-stage hurdles that suggest Hussie is strained or not producing the way he did before only worsen the impression that this ending was a misstep.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:30
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MonsieurChoc posted:There's a difference, I feel, between finding a different interpretation of the text and just hating the text because it does not conform to pre-conceived view. I think that is because, right now, people are certainly over-emotional about what was the end of, to many, a journey of years. There's nothing wrong with that, either. People are allowed to become heavily invested in fiction! I'm sure, as time passes, more structured critiques will emerge, and some people who were frothing with rage might rewatch and say 'hmm, I still don't like it, but it wasn't near BvS levels of wet fart'. My point though, is... Hm. Well, look at it like this. The text engaged in the platonic concept of the characters quite often, yes? I'd say that if the majority of fans are looking for said "cliches" or closure, then the platonic idea of Homestuck is more aligned to their viewpoint than yours - Or, with Death of the Author, Hussies. Either way, I don't think posting a comic that boils down to  'wow you whiny pissbabies why even exist if you hate everything' is somewhat disingenuous if your desired outcome is to discourage this type of behavior.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:33
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Dolash posted:I am happy to debate interpretations of the text if you want to, and the fact that a view was pre-conceived is not necessarily the reason that non-conformity to it can be a negative or a disappointment. Yeah. For all that's been said about homestuck being an 'experimental' or 'nonconventional' narrative, it still followed its own patterns and internal logic. The ending (unless it's an actual Psycheout), diverges heavily from everything that came before. This would have been a satisfying ending for a different story.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:33
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i hope the epilogue is an alive meenah walking up up to an alive aranea's exposition booth and then she tells us about what happened to everyone
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Apr 14, 2016 00:34
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:I really hope that the reason Terezi wasn't in the ending is because she's going to star in Homestuck act 8 where she goes on a quest with the remaining sprites to find Vriska. Stuck Trek 3: the Search for Vrispock
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Apr 14, 2016 00:35
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WAR FOOT posted:i hope the epilogue is an alive meenah walking up up to an alive aranea's exposition booth and then she tells us about what happened to everyone and at the end meenah clocks aranea right in the gabber for game over
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Apr 14, 2016 00:37
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8-Bit Scholar posted:So wait, I'm not quite clear, who is responsible for the game Sburb? Like, who created it? How/why does it have the power to unmake and remake the universe? That one really is, even without appeal to postmodern sillyness, outside the story. It's like asking every story about Zeus turning into an animal and loving a human woman to explain why the gods are around, they just are. Tengames posted:Havent read homestuck in 2+years, having more fun reading reactions to the ending then I did watching it. Graduation projects can be pretty great, here's Temmie's. WAR FOOT posted:i'm sorry, it's an inappropriate time First, that critique misses the fractal nature of that curve - there should be mini climaxes and denouements throughout. A notable example of this in Homestuck is Cascade. Usually you don't see them as much in the denouement, but hey, that's a reasonable experiment to try, and Homestuck did, because... Second, it places the climax at the wrong point - the climax is actually at Game Over through John playing his planet as a giant pipe organ. Everything after is denoument. Based on this, it misses that John was the one who achieved his full potential, he was the one to defeat Caliborn/Lord English's bullshit destruction of the story, he was, in short, the main character. The story of John and the kids was never fundamentally Vs Lord English, it was Vs Bullshit Shenanigans. These two stories overlapped, sure, but we only saw parts of Lord English's story because only those parts were relevant to our story. Third it totally misunderstands Vriska's arc - she's the one who wants and gets relevance in the other, 'greater' story. The version of her that gives up basically stops being Vriska and tries to be someone else, live for someone else, give up her own identity... that's not growth! I have no idea how they can be so right in the opening (people are unsatisfied because Homestuck didn't follow the expected narrative conventions) but then get every single detail wrong. Edit: Also discussing a plan and showing the execution in montage is a thing that happens pretty frequently... Keiya fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 00:38
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No you see with the ending Hussie deliberately avoided using preconceived notions of "something that doesn't suck."
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Apr 14, 2016 00:40
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WAR FOOT posted:i hope the epilogue is an alive meenah walking up up to an alive aranea's exposition booth and then she tells us about what happened to everyone The very last thing I saw in homestuck before quitting was seeing that exposition booth at the end of a very long flash game segment with a poo poo ton of new characters and endless talking, and going "gently caress this, I'm tired of reading all this poo poo". Now I've seen the ending and wish i could have the endless pile of words just to explain it to me.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:41
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man im sorry but the exposition booth was funny as poo poo
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Apr 14, 2016 00:45
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There was the exposition booth, but those guys ended up doing nothing. as homestuck said, everything you've been doing has been a collosal waste of time.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:49
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Aranea in general was a great character with a satisfying ending to her story, and enough development before her heel turn that it felt both fitting and genuinely bad to see her Turn Eviltm.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:50
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as a dude who paid real, actual money so that people on the internet will listen to me, i identify strongly with the Worse Serket
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Apr 14, 2016 00:51
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I really, really liked the idea that her upbringing in an idyllic utopia was the only thing making her even resemble a good person and that as soon as she got a prolonged whiff of some hosed up violent nonsense, she went Full Vriska. It's at once hilarious and tragic.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:53
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paranoid randroid posted:man im sorry but the exposition booth was funny as poo poo i didn't even check it, i had just spent several days trying to catch up reading on it since i had gone half a year or more and after that incredibly long flash i had just resorted to skimming through stuff and was sick of it. Trying to binge read homestuck was a mistake.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:56
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If Hussie does feel pressed by fan reaction to make some kind of epilogue, I hope there isn't some equivalent to the ME3 extended DLC where they added a somewhat petulant "bad end" if you shot the hologram. It's already kind of spoiled knowing that Hussie didn't think one was needed and only added that he'd consider making one when the reactions started rolling in, if he went so far to signal "here it is, you babies" in an actual epilogue it'd poison the whole thing as insincere. Or hell, have the "exposition booth" just fall over when you try to interact with it, cue Dogsong, Homestuck undercuts itself with an ironic joke to evade its own dramatic implications one last time. There's also no guarantee that a follow-up epilogue would be good. I'm really leery about the theory that the John and friends who retconned in to fight Caliborn and then get imprisoned and fight Lord English are just Some Other Version Of The Characters, because it utterly disconnects the story of the kids from Lord English and the dream bubbles such that there's no reason we should've ever bothered with them. In the least generous interpretation, Hussie being burned out and throwing up this ending to harvest theories to use as an actual ending would be the saddest, a final degeneration of the previously lively give-and-take between the author and the audience. Edit: Aranea was one of the few characters who completed a full and coherent arc complete with her death, and her never returning was the right call. If more characters could've ended like that it would've reduced the bloat immensely and probably helped the ending a lot, the mistake with bringing them back and reintegrating them with the story is signalling to the audience that they matter at all. An ending that deliberately said "Surprise, they don't actually matter, fill in the blanks on your own" is inevitably going to rub people the wrong way. Dolash fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 00:56
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Android Blues posted:I really, really liked the idea that her upbringing in an idyllic utopia was the only thing making her even resemble a good person and that as soon as she got a prolonged whiff of some hosed up violent nonsense, she went Full Vriska. It's at once hilarious and tragic. i thought a nice counterpoint between Aranea and Vriska was how Aranea wanted to establish herself as a benevolent dictator over creation, contrasting with Vriska saying something like "yeah thats the kind of poo poo bad guys do" paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 00:57
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Yeah but I bet Beforus Ancestor Serket was like, the troll equivalent of Gary Gygax (but not Troll Gary Gygax) or something equally underwhelming. It took death and cross-universal contamination to Unleash the Beast, and I don't think Aranea ever talks in detail about her ancestor, so the original ur-Vriska was probably really dull if even Windfang won't open up the gossip about her
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Apr 14, 2016 01:03
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oh you edited your post! Well anyway it's really funny to me to think of pre-Scratch Vriska just growing up on Beforus, designing board games, and being incredibly unremarkable. paranoid randroid posted:i thought a nice counterpoint between Aranea and Vriska was how Aranea wanted to establish herself as a benevolent dictator over creation, contrasting with Vriska saying something like "yeah thats the kind of poo poo bad guys do" For sure, although to be fair, Vriska would attempt to disingenuously psychologically undermine anyone who tried to Steal Her Spotlight like that.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:06
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I can't believe Vriska and John got married in the end
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Apr 14, 2016 01:08
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Controversial: I was never really feeling John/Roxy. It felt a bit too much like "just let's match these characters together, Roxy was unlucky in love so let's have her find a boyfriend, and the hero isn't matched up at the end of the story so let's give him someone to crush on". But then I guess it also wasn't ultimately canon, so...
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Apr 14, 2016 01:14
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I think that the choice of the ending song to be in the style of an Indian ragas song with tabla and sitar isn't a coincidence. Thoughts?
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Apr 14, 2016 01:16
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Dolash posted:If Homestuck was as much a journey and a live, collaborative event between an author and an active community as it was a narrative, then its ending failed by dividing that community. It's almost impossible to get everyone to like something, true, but no other big climax or leap in the comic provoked such a negative response over the raw content. There is nothing that says Homestuck had to end this particular way, so by choosing an ending that was bound to alienate a large portion of the readership Hussie has at least failed to deliver on that community engagement that the comic was previously known for. This assumes that the reactions in this thread are necessarily representative of the reactions of the readership writ large, which by my observation, hasn't been the case for some time. Remember, you're posting in forums that think the first Avengers movie was bad and The Amazing Spider-Man was good. Not saying these are wrong opinions, just that they run very contrary to what the public at large thinks.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:23
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paranoid randroid posted:as a dude who paid real, actual money so that people on the internet will listen to me, i identify strongly with the Worse Serket quote:Yeah but I bet Beforus Ancestor Serket was like, the troll equivalent of Gary Gygax (but not Troll Gary Gygax) or something equally underwhelming. It took death and cross-universal contamination to Unleash the Beast, and I don't think Aranea ever talks in detail about her ancestor, so the original ur-Vriska was probably really dull if even Windfang won't open up the gossip about her If Aranea was as impressionable regarding her Ancestor then as Vriska was on Alternia, it makes sense she'd follow that model, even if she had some shellfish thoughts on the inside. Also, I think Vriska's remarks on ruling the ultimate reward wasn't pointed at Aranea (whom I suspect she might not have known much about until Meenah filled her in) but the Trolls' original ambitions Karkat laid bare in the first page of Act 5 Part 2. Oh yeah, and where all of Vriska's sources dreambubble hopping? That was pretty suspicious to me but oh well HS is over! Bell_ fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 01:23
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I honestly think she's one of the most tragic characters in Homestuck. Here we go, Aranea effortpost incoming. Imagine, in your formative years, you knew what everyone was thinking about you at all times. When you were being lied to, when people didn't like you, and, in general, all you want to do is is talk to them. Not a fun job, especially when society dictates they listen, even when their mind is screaming 'shut up already'. Aranea's only friend was someone who lived a literal planet away - Someone whose thoughts she could not overhear, and who, while they were fairly domineering and arrogant, always seemed straight-up with her. Aranea is often portrayed in fan media as quite bookish, which makes a lot of sense. In an existence like that, escapism would be a reasonable coping mechanism. Coupled with the fact that she wanted a grand adventure, something she could not have on Beforus, as Beforus seemed much more like Troll Earth than Alternia. So, she obtains what no other escapist character really does: Her escape, and her grand adventure. She absolutely immersed herself in every aspect of the game, and the narrative. I can only imagine what it must begin to be like as your paradise begins to stall out, and the group finally agrees that, actually, this isn't going to work. There is no chance for success, and the only option is mass suicide, to even survive in some form. Then, Aranea is selected as the troll who has to go and learn how to destroy this dream she always wanted, because nobody else could be bothered, and then, nobody wanted to listen to her explanation, either. She just had to tell Meenah to tell them what to do.We don't see any Doomed Araneas, and this is probably because the instances of her from those timelines probably held on to their prize as bitterly as possible. After they scratched the session, she was the only one that didn't really give up, as per se. She amassed knowledge, and refined her skills in the "8illions of sweeps" she was isolated. She was the first to discover that Calliope might be the key to an ultimate victory over the forces that had conspired to end her adventure. She didn't just dick around, enjoying teenage drama until the end of time. It still took Meenah's arrival to galvanize her, but I've always felt it was ambiguous if she was reluctant to begin, or waiting for her only friend. I think Meenah's interactions with Vriska are what played a critical part in Aranea becoming a 'bad guy'. When they first meet, they're at each other's throats. Meenah is constantly referring to Aranea as the 'original recipe Serket', as if she is the more valuable of the two. Aranea is more than happy to assist with their plan, and, without her, the team would've never found English's JuJu in the first place. Sure, it came at a steep price, but without it, we wouldn't have had the ending we did. All through this, Vriska is telling Aranea about Mindfang, and how she had the life of adventure that Aranea had always craved. Not only that, but Mindfang had a semi-successful relationship with the troll Aranea stated is the "most handsome", and that Mindfang was the more sexually confident of the two when with the Dolorosa, when compared to Aranea's own blushing refusal to even talk about her time with the Maryam. I think the moment that turns Aranea from assistant to actor is this series of pages (And one more but I ran out of words in that statement.). Here, we see how Meenah's affections have switched from Aranea to Vriska, and how the impatient friend has become someone whose respect she needs to win back. Remember, she's an empath. She knows exactly what is occurring behind her back. At first, she is happy, because she THINKS people are finally listening to her. Really, they should. Even if she's long-winded, she is the healer of knowledge. She certainly seems to know more than anyone in the comic. So, she resolves to become a troll of action, like Vriska. She is genuinely surprised when Meenah and Vriska are against her actions in the leadup to Game Over. She completely failed to realize that they wouldn't go down well, due to Meenah and Vriska's mounting apathy. Aranea, while an empath, isn't some sort of time-empath who can sense the potential feelings resulting from each action she takes. She has a chance to go back, and take off the ring, but the call to adventure is too loud. Following that, every character she meets starts by telling her to shut up. I'm not saying that she wasn't being a dick, but she still follows some of the traditional heroic conventions of trying to engage in dialogue first. Despite being egotistically centered around herself, the endgame of her plan was still morally 'good'. She was the only character portrayed as a villain that was, ultimately, trying to do the right thing. Eridan wanted to betray his friends for a chance at personal survival, and Gamzee murdered his because of a death cult. Condy pillaged, tortured and murdered at the directives of her boss, when her initial concerns had been more personal power. Lord English just wanted to see it all burn, and the Jacks were just stab-happy. The events that lead up to Game Over, and the flash itself, show that while she is incredibly competent, she is completely unprepared to deal with the pile-up of plans hitting snags. She's good at the initial plan, but cannot improvise. She dies, after, in her eyes, trying to save the day, and for one last time, being told to shut up by everyone around her, as she has endured her entire life. Yeah, I think Aranea's one of the better written characters in Homestuck, and I'm glad she was in it. I was a little sad that even Eridan got a semi-redemptive panel in Remem8er, when his goals were so shallow and short-sighted, and Aranea vanished after falling into fire - Especially when we were told the only way to kill a ghost for good is Lord English. Dolash posted:Edit: Aranea was one of the few characters who completed a full and coherent arc complete with her death, and her never returning was the right call. If more characters could've ended like that it would've reduced the bloat immensely and probably helped the ending a lot, the mistake with bringing them back and reintegrating them with the story is signalling to the audience that they matter at all. An ending that deliberately said "Surprise, they don't actually matter, fill in the blanks on your own" is inevitably going to rub people the wrong way. I both agree and disagree. Aranea had a satisfactory arc, but remains the only teen-aged character in the comic to be written out, really. If there had been a trend of characters leaving upon death (Eridan, Equius, Vriska, Nepeta), then it would have felt more poignant and final. Given that it's Homestuck, though, and everyone comes back and hangs around, it clashed. Clawtopsy fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 01:24
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glowing-fish posted:I think that the choice of the ending song to be in the style of an Indian ragas song with tabla and sitar isn't a coincidence. Thoughts? The Fountain did a much better job at wrapping up its atypically structured story, and everyone should watch it instead of talking about Homestuck.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:26
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When John got the beta from the mailbox at the start he looks up at the sky and sees "Homestuck" floating near the sun emblem. I wonder if the Thanks For Playing is the same thing.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:27
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Plom Bar posted:This assumes that the reactions in this thread are necessarily representative of the reactions of the readership writ large, which by my observation, hasn't been the case for some time. Remember, you're posting in forums that think the first Avengers movie was bad and The Amazing Spider-Man was good. Not saying these are wrong opinions, just that they run very contrary to what the public at large thinks. The homestuck Reddit as a whole is having the same reaction.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:28
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Tunicate posted:The homestuck Reddit as a whole is having the same reaction. As is Tumblr, and 4chan is the angriest of all! Hussie has succeeded in uniting the warring tribes.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:32
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Dolash posted:There's also no guarantee that a follow-up epilogue would be good. I'm really leery about the theory that the John and friends who retconned in to fight Caliborn and then get imprisoned and fight Lord English are just Some Other Version Of The Characters, because it utterly disconnects the story of the kids from Lord English and the dream bubbles such that there's no reason we should've ever bothered with them. An alternative 3rd option I've seen thrown out is that the red->white house flip on the lilypad coincided with Caliborn getting the juju, with the implication that it wasn't "John's Power" that causes the kids to show up for Caliborn's Masterpiece, it's them walking through the door on the lilypad.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:32
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Apr 14, 2016 01:34
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:An alternative 3rd option I've seen thrown out is that the red->white house flip on the lilypad coincided with Caliborn getting the juju, with the implication that it wasn't "John's Power" that causes the kids to show up for Caliborn's Masterpiece, it's them walking through the door on the lilypad. This doesn't make sense though, because it's only the eight kids who are present for the Masterpiece, no trolls. Someone mentioned Arquius being there earlier and that implying that the sprites survive, but rereading it, he actually appears out of nowhere midway through the battle, so it seems possible that maybe he got sucked through the black hole created by Jack English's death and was just lying in wait for his moment to battle Caliborn while the latter completed his session. That'd be neat!
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Apr 14, 2016 01:35
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Android Blues posted:This doesn't make sense though, because it's only the eight kids who are present for the Masterpiece, no trolls. It's also clear both visually and in the actual text of the masterpiece that they appeared with john's power
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Apr 14, 2016 01:37
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Ending was disappointing. Somewhere in Act 6 it really felt like the stuff that drew me to HS was lost. People liking the ending is cool. I just think it's not been that great since Cascade and Act 7 was a culmination of that disappointment.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:38
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Android Blues posted:This doesn't make sense though, because it's only the eight kids who are present for the Masterpiece, no trolls. From Caliborn's point of view, yes. I could see him completely overlooking a couple of non-god-tier weirdo-trolls. I don't think it's horrendously likely that that's the reason, but I am questioning the reason behind the color flip. 
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Apr 14, 2016 01:40
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WAR FOOT posted:As is Tumblr, and 4chan is the angriest of all! I liked your effort-post on Aranea, and agree the breaking point was that hug. At that point though, I really think she hosed off as opposed to trying to get a friend's respect back. Before the thieves got thick, Aranea and Meenah would give each other their share of good natured poo poo and have patience for their foibles. After that hug? Aranea's not the type to stick around and be somebody's Pooplord. Even Buddha's patience has its limits.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:40
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