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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Contempt for the characters and contempt for the fanbase are not mutually exclusive concepts, if anything they feed into each other pretty readily. That’s what I felt, yeah. Contempt for the characters now, who they were back then, contempt for the setting, the fandom now, the fandom as they used to be; just resounding lack of love for anything that went into this or preceded it, under some bizarre cover that this is how life goes or that half the weird loving fetishes were necessary save for character assassination and crude appeal.
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Apr 23, 2019 19:41
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Yes, but philosopher dude speaking on Twitter was explicitly saying that he was talking about real life and the nature of real life. Aysha is a woman Strange days when I'm at odds with both Arsenic Lupin AND Android Blues, but who says we all have to be one way all our lives?  I don't read contempt into this at all, beyond the standard fare of Homestuck the work regarding its readership somewhat adversarially. Both paths read as an absurdist nightmare, one with the goal of perpetuating the story's telling, and one with the goal of bringing character arcs to a sense of closure not had in the narrative proper. It could only ever come from a place of genuine love for the characters and story, I feel. Plom Bar fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 19:45
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Black August posted:That’s what I felt, yeah. Contempt for the characters now, who they were back then, contempt for the setting, the fandom now, the fandom as they used to be; just resounding lack of love for anything that went into this or preceded it, under some bizarre cover that this is how life goes or that half the weird loving fetishes were necessary save for character assassination and crude appeal. Ever heard the expression "Murder your darlings?"
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Apr 23, 2019 19:53
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Can't say we weren't warned.quote:ROSE: First Dave tells me human beings don't have "arcs", and now you're telling me the culmination of an epic doesn't require a messianic archetype to return from the dead, thereby providing the key to everyone's salvation? Bongo Bill posted:Ever heard the expression "Murder your darlings?" Oh, whoops, re misgendering Aysha. Sorry! Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 19:55
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Whew, done! Man, I liked this! I feel invested! I feel like I did in the Good Old Days, tracking metatextual moves and Weird Plot poo poo and what have you. drat if it didn't make me feel legitimately nostalgic and bring me right back to where I was five, ten years ago. And what's more, unlike the actual ending of Homestuck, I don't feel like I'm really waiting on anything to bring this all together and tie it off. If this is the last update (I'm not sure of the schedule of this thing), I'm perfectly content with where it's gotten. And if there's more in the postscripts, that's cool too. Maybe this is a result of the long period of cooling, of disinvestment - having long ago assumed I was finished with Homestuck, I don't have any expectations any more about what this epilogue needs to do to bring the whole thing to an official Satisfacory conclusion. It actually does feel like fanfiction (in a lot of ways, and it's interesting and effective how that's leveraged in a narrative way) in that we're kind of just banging the action figures together now to see what they do and despite the claimed difference between Meat and Candy, it's all really dessert. We're just feeling out all the loose ends and possibilities and implications and having a time with them, and at some point it'll stop. Framing this as fan fiction really did a lot to unburden it from obligation, or at least unburden me (mileage probably varies). I have lots of thoughts that're just going to dribble out as I go. I'm going to go back and read what everyone's been posting. I deliberately did not want my expectations coloured at all, and I think that helps. I look forward to discovering everyone hates it and has very incisive critiques and I have destroyed my limited credibility with this gormless rube's take. Certainly there's a lot of weird poo poo - Jesus, everything with Gamzee. And Gamzee and Jane, eugh. And Jane being a fascist feels weird, but it sort of fits with the unreality of the fanfiction world, that everyone is becoming a strange self-caricature. Or John was just imagining that's what was happening, because he has Designated Protagonist PTSD? There's a lot of wild poo poo in here that's easier to skim over when you're blasting ahead. So yeah. Gonna wind back the clock and see what you all've been saying.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:01
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Bongo Bill posted:Ever heard the expression "Murder your darlings?" Did you miss where I said a few posts ago “this story has no darlings to begin with” and it refers to content overall not just characters But yeah the fetish stuff had zero reason to be there besides crass titillation and to be demeaning
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Apr 23, 2019 20:01
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Perhaps the most telling feature of the epilogues is that Vriska got several chapters of screen time and NO ONE is talking about her at ALL.Black August posted:But yeah the fetish stuff had zero reason to be there besides crass titillation and to be demeaning Imma go out on a limb here and posit that titillation probably wasn't the intention Plom Bar fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 20:03
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Plom Bar posted:Perhaps the most telling feature of the epilogues is that Vriska got several chapters of screen time and NO ONE is talking about her at ALL. the fact that a 16 year old vriska can beat the living poo poo out of a 40 year old gamzee pretty much settles the power level debate that people were having like eight years ago
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Apr 23, 2019 20:12
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I feel a lot of pity for the alternate Rose, Dave, Jade, Jane, Jake, Roxy and Dirk that Canon John gathered up to defeat Lord English. John himself knows he's doing a bad thing when he plucks them from the timeline to die horribly in battle, he has to uncomfortably offload his responsibility on to Rose's instructions and ultimately the ineffable requirements of Canon, the thing he's always implicitly appealing to without directly addressing while also hating and also also not able to live happily without. But yeah, those alternates. They die horribly and viscerally. It's actually kind of shocking after how the Caliborn's Masterpiece fight was handled in the usual anticlimax joke way, another climactic battle skimmed over, for the story to actually grind out a brutal and blood-soaked fight to the death. You really feel the meat in the Meat timeline there, it almost feels scolding when juxtaposed with Vriska's audience-surrogate hunger to see what happens next. I wanted to spend more time in that icon with John and the duplicates, see him forced to get to know them. He deliberately stood apart from them after gathering them for the final battle because he's very familiar with having to abandon expendable duplicates of his friends at this point, but having to spend some kind of undefined eternity with them I feel might've been interesting too. Really force the issue. Calliope pulling the dying Jade into the black hole is probably the thing that feels most suspect about her. Not that Dirk's quiet encouragement for that Jade to live was particularly kind or well-intentioned, and in a greater good sense it may have been necessary for Calliope to do everything else, but it's another case of using an alternate person - an innocent by Calliope's code - as a means to an end. I guess the timer's not completely run out on that Jade, if her body is retrievable then Jane may be able to revive her. That feels like the kind of consideration Dead Calliope has for loose ends and I hope it happens. What even happened to the Dirk, Roxy, Jake and Jane from the Caliborn's Masterpiece battle? They survived, so far as we know, but they're also sort of nowhere in particular. I think I might enjoy if they could just pop back up in the post-script. It'd be nice if it's possible for a version of Dirk to not be a complete piece of poo poo, even if that seems to be the nature of his Ultimate Self - maybe an offshoot of his can avoid becoming that. Also Davepeta is a hero and I'm glad they still exist and it's genuinely novel that the One True Original Dave From The Actual Start Of The Story is still around. Like every Dave after him worried about if they're the true alpha canon relevant Dave but maybe that question isn't as important as they think.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:16
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Er, poo poo. I was thinking of a different saying. I've forgotten it. This is very embarrassing. What I mean is, fictional characters suffering is more likely to indicate that the author likes the character than hates them.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:16
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Continuing my re-read and I got to this quote:quote:TG: well maybe i never wanted to be a knight of time And I'm thinking that's basically his Ultimate Self.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:23
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Reading contempt into the authors' motivation is a bit strange considering they specifically placed the epilogues in a 'tales of dubious authenticity' section on the website. Like they predicted that after three years people would have their expectations stepped on and granted readers the permission to dismiss or 'decanonize' the whole thing if they so desired. That's a far more gentlehanded approach than most sequels give their original stories. Also, it's possible to critique elements of a fanbase -- especially reactionary plotlines like 'abusive villain gets chance to explain how sad his backstory is, gets sympathy + the girl' -- without condemning the whole community.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:28
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Scrree posted:they specifically placed the epilogues in a 'tales of dubious authenticity' section on the website.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:32
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I think I missed that label. It's not on the Homestuck.com landing page, and it's not on https://www.homestuck.com/epilogues . It's under the "Read" option, that shows the Search and Log. That page has a little summary for each of the MSPA stories.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:50
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I do get them saying "it's labelled tales of dubious authenticity", but on the other hand, it's posted on homestuck dot com, and it's called The Homestuck Epilogues, so personally I don't buy it being canon and not-canon at the same time (and yes I realise how that sounds about this particular story). I agree with the sentiment that this wasn't an epilogue, but a bridge to something else. Homestuck was a lot of unconventional things narratively during the body of its story, but I was kind of hoping for the epilogue to be an ending to that story and not feel so much like the leadin to Homestuck 2 Electric Boogaloo, let along it's unrelentingly put-through-the-wringer tone. Mechanically it was well written, it was a lot easier to follow that a good chunk of Homestuck, and it's definitely a story, but it isn't the story I was looking for here. It feels like a bunch of sadstuck writers decided to get together to write the saddest sadstuck story, and then published it as the end to all of homestuck, and then to their surprise, not everyone loved that. The authors' responses leaning into that whole 'you're not getting it' thing isn't a great look either. To me, Candy in particular felt like it was just relentlessly depressing; any attempt at trying to have anything nice or happy gets shot down. Fits that 'sadstuck' tone, sure, but I never read that sort of thing in the first place.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:50
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Dolash posted:Calliope pulling the dying Jade into the black hole is probably the thing that feels most suspect about her. Not that Dirk's quiet encouragement for that Jade to live was particularly kind or well-intentioned, and in a greater good sense it may have been necessary for Calliope to do everything else, but it's another case of using an alternate person - an innocent by Calliope's code - as a means to an end. I guess the timer's not completely run out on that Jade, if her body is retrievable then Jane may be able to revive her. That feels like the kind of consideration Dead Calliope has for loose ends and I hope it happens. That Jade's body is currently being piloted by Dead Calliope (freshly powered-up after consuming LE) and has blasted off with Davebot and Aradia to follow Dirk. So yeah, gonna be kinda hard to retrieve until Callie is willing to give up the body, which she most definitely will not do until Dirk is stopped somehow.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:52
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Candy is the one with the happy ending, though.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:52
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cathead posted:That Jade's body is currently being piloted by Dead Calliope (freshly powered-up after consuming LE) and has blasted off with Davebot and Aradia to follow Dirk. So yeah, gonna be kinda hard to retrieve until Callie is willing to give up the body, which she most definitely will not do until Dirk is stopped somehow. Oh sure, she's got a lot still going on. And that bit about how they won't be back seems pretty definitive, though there are other Janes out there (probably easier to reach, less fascistic ones). The body could be destroyed during conflicts to come. Lots of possibilities. I'm just noting that if Calliope is trying to keep to a higher standard about not making people means to ends the way Dirk does, then she does owe a debt here - she already had to deliberately block this Jade's revival once in order to use her as a vessel, which is even more direct exploitation than the initial takeover.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:56
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Tunzie posted:I do get them saying "it's labelled tales of dubious authenticity", but on the other hand, it's posted on homestuck dot com, and it's called The Homestuck Epilogues, so personally I don't buy it being canon and not-canon at the same time (and yes I realise how that sounds about this particular story). Thing is, Hussie signed off on this and collaborated heavily with them, so it's not like he wasn't cool with the direction of this. I think it's a little dismissive to write it all off as purely misery porn when there really is quite a lot to unpack from both sides that tie in heavily to the themes of Homestuck overall. There's also, as Rand Brittan just mentioned, somewhat happy endings by the end of Candy for at least some characters, and half of them are immortal anyway so who's to say they couldn't further work poo poo out in the future. So to that end I can kind of understand the authors reacting a bit negatively when they went out of their way to give people who didn't want to engage with the work an out, but just get lambasted anyway because people don't want to fully engage with it. I don't want to fully dismiss people's feelings on it though, its just it's gotta be one way or the other and I think either way there are gonna be people who aren't happy.
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Apr 23, 2019 20:59
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cathead posted:Thing is, Hussie signed off on this and collaborated heavily with them, so it's not like he wasn't cool with the direction of this. I know Hussie signed off on it, I was including him in the list of authors who decided to write this. I don't feel like there's all that much to unpack, and I don't think this is a case of not engaging with the work and that with some thought I'll come around on it. The metatextual stuff, the canon/non-canon, that's all part of what Homestuck's been, I agree. I don't think it's felt this unrelentingly negative and depressing, though. Their immortality and 'but what happens after?' is immaterial to what this story is. I don't feel like Candy has a happy ending, except maybe in relation to the rest of the Candy text, but I don't think that says much. Most characters are not happy. There's still a war going on. People have been terrible to each other, and at best are only just at the end starting to turn that ship around. There's a scene or two I might go as far as 'bittersweet' for, but happy? I'm not feeling it. It's okay if some people like it, really. I didn't. Doesn't mean I didn't 'fully engage' with it.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:17
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I think homestuck fans can get hosed.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:21
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Well that's kind of my point, I've spent the last 3 days reading all sorts of different interpretations of the work and discussing it with people and learning lots of things I didn't realize on my first read through, so to me it definitely feels like there's a lot there? But then I hear from some people and they say "nope there really wasn't it was just terrible poo poo happening to the characters" and so it's like  I don't know what to say to that. I realize that "fully engage with the work" sounds kind of patronizing but I don't know how else to describe the fact that people say there's not much there when I (and other people) really feel that there is. I guess that's part of why it's so divisive in the first place.I guess it just depends on what sort of way you interacted with the comic proper in the past and how much you are looking for something really conclusive for the story/characters. Like I would have definitely PREFERRED something less negative and harsh on the characters for an epilogue, but I still get what they're going for here, it's been fun picking it apart (which is part of what drew me into HS in the first place) so it still wound up working for me.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:33
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I get wanting a story to be a different story, but it's a pretty limiting way to approach fiction.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:35
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Dolash posted:Oh sure, she's got a lot still going on. And that bit about how they won't be back seems pretty definitive, though there are other Janes out there (probably easier to reach, less fascistic ones). The body could be destroyed during conflicts to come. Lots of possibilities. I'm just noting that if Calliope is trying to keep to a higher standard about not making people means to ends the way Dirk does, then she does owe a debt here - she already had to deliberately block this Jade's revival once in order to use her as a vessel, which is even more direct exploitation than the initial takeover.
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Apr 23, 2019 21:51
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I always thought it was weird that Lord English is this sort of Azathoth Idiot-King cosmic horror, when really neither he nor Caliborn seem to have what it takes to bend the entire universe around themselves. Sure, there's an insane bull-headed determination there, but what the x-factor was that put them over the top and set them up with Doc Scratch and all the time loops they need, that wasn't clear to me. The common factor being that they have some of Dirk in them, and that the Ultimate version of Dirk is basically a Pontypool mind virus of narcissism that wants to enfold the entire narrative universe explains that quite neatly. Certainly explains what Caliborn saw in him. I used to get mad that the thing the characters should be fighting isn't really Lord English, it's Sburb, it's the whole cosmological system of universal creation and destruction they're trapped within. Caliborn is an idiot and dangerous, but a symptom of whatever forces or systems enabled him. The problem here is whoever's making the timeline bend around him, and the answer wasn't Sburb - it's just straight up the author. The writer is making this true. And Dirk, to his credit, does identify this and calls out that whatever hand of fate has controlled the flow of the narrative has made him and his friends pawns. I actually welcomed Dirk's intervention at first! Finally someone was attacking the real source of their problems. But he doesn't want to break that system, he just wants to be the one in charge, to feed his narcissism and his revulsion at anyone else controlling his destiny. I guess the story needs someone like Calliope to be a more trusted caretaker for the responsibility of narrative voice, though I found myself wishing others would start operating on that level. It feels like Dirk deliberately interfered with Rose to prevent her from making the same realizations and possibly contesting his grip on narrative power, which is a pity - Rose has sort of been trapped as the Expository Advisor Companion the same way John has been as the Designated Protagonist, and it would be nice to see her escape the bonds of her role and exercise some autonomy at last. I kept hoping for a face-turn where she'd be playing Dirk until her own ascension then pull a fast one on him. This is starting to wander. Dirk being the not-so-secret carrier of narrative ill-intent in this universe is intriguing and does a lot to suggest, in a subtle way, the story is more the product of the characters than just of them being trapped in narrative roles. Elephant Parade posted:It's also possible that Jade, like John, is turbodead thanks to Calliborn's weird narrative poison. Ah right, I'd forgotten about Jane characterizing the thing preventing her from reviving teen Jade as being like a metaphysical poison. But I'd thought the weird shard of unreality that'd struck her was different than the poisoned tooth that bit John? And anyway, I suspect Canon John may not stay dead regardless, Dirk's malign influence feels partly responsible there and Terezi seems to be holding out some hope. Dolash fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 21:55
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Dolash posted:I always thought it was weird that Lord English is this sort of Azathoth Idiot-King cosmic horror, when really neither he nor Caliborn seem to have what it takes to bend the entire universe around themselves. Sure, there's an insane bull-headed determination there, but what the x-factor was that put them over the top and set them up with Doc Scratch and all the time loops they need, that wasn't clear to me. No, no Gods, no narrators, only then can anyone truly be free. Also, I have no idea if this story is going to continue, but if it does it's kind of neat how siblings Caliborn and Calliope are now in the bodies of two other siblings John and Jade. Wonder how that will play out (probably with one of them eating the other one, my money is on Jade/Calliope).
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Apr 23, 2019 22:20
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:No, no Gods, no narrators, only then can anyone truly be free. I hadn't considered that Caliborn still exists within dead John, which is quite the terrifying proposition even if a supercharged Dead Calliope is going to deal with him also. Though yeah, I would hold out hope for their respective hosts' restoration in that case. And while I agree in principle about No Gods, No Masters, No Narrators, in practice both Dirk and Calliope have laid out pretty clearly that there really isn't such a thing as a truly nonpartisan storyteller. Someone was telling the story before Dirk took over, presumably Hussie (distinct from actual Andrew Hussie, rather his in-universe authorial equivalent), and now that this layer of causality has been breached there's no going back. Toothpaste not going back into the tube and all that. Calliope can try to pretend like she's impartial, but that's just a choice she's making, and one she's been willing to break in her conflict with Dirk. I think Rose deserves a chance, if only to give her some more agency rather than just Dirk's kidnapping victim and so she can actually be the smart, plan-having character the narrative's always forcing her to act as. She seems like maybe an acceptable compromise between Dirk's narcissistic vantage and Calliope's fair but alien and detached one - at least, long enough to see The Story out and end Canon and Truth as a thing. It's just a vaguely speculative feeling, though.
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Apr 23, 2019 22:38
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Dolash posted:Someone was telling the story before Dirk took over, presumably Hussie (distinct from actual Andrew Hussie, rather his in-universe authorial equivalent),
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Apr 23, 2019 22:56
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Dolash posted:I hadn't considered that Caliborn still exists within dead John, which is quite the terrifying proposition even if a supercharged Dead Calliope is going to deal with him also. Though yeah, I would hold out hope for their respective hosts' restoration in that case. As of now I stand be my full freedom idea (like Caliborn pointed out a million years ago, characters don't need people narrating their thoughts they can just make their own choices without some cosmic force leading them around) your idea sounds neat too and it would be interesting to see how that would go if the story is ever continued.
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Apr 23, 2019 22:59
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The way I see it playing out is that Rose, with her abilities naturally tied to seeing all possible outcomes and seeing which of those outcomes provide the most fortune (as she puts it, the essential outcomes), has likely been onto Dirk from the very beginning, and is no more his thrall than just a really, really good performer. As the barriers between her selves began to dissolve, she could conceivably have been given access to many visions of the future and what actions she would need to take to ensure their passing. The key clue is that she consulted with Roxy before consulting with John, with Roxy stating that they had moreorless fallen out of touch with Rose and that the renewal of contact was a surprise. Contacting them wouldn't strike Dirk as out of the ordinary, but it it would the foundation for John splitting the timeline with his Meat/Candy decision. By creating a timeline in which he doesn't fulfill his obligation of taking on Lord English in the final battle, John creates a means through which the dead cherub can claim a psychic vessel, namely the dead Jade that ends up in Candy. This confounds Dirk's plans in a number of ways, forcing his hand and ultimately setting up his defeat at the dead cherub's hands far in the future. If the story were to continue, I would expect that Dirk would, at some point, gain the upper hand and put alt-Calliope out of play, at which point he'd reassert control of the narrative (signified by it turning orange again), only to encounter black narrative text, which reveals itself in a lavender shade as Rose springs her trap. That's just one hypothesis. Not one I'm hanging my hat on or anything.
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Apr 23, 2019 23:21
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I like that hypothesis a lot, and it also makes use of Roxy's void powers hiding him from the narrative (which I'd hoped would be more relevant) and explains why they'd casually suggest to John he actually has a choice then present him with the meat and candy to make it happen. Risks of hat-hanging aside, it's a good read.
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Apr 23, 2019 23:33
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 I feel that hypothesising about things is navel-gazing at this point. If they announce there is more information to come it serves a point, if this Is It, The End, then we are writing our own fanfiction.
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Apr 24, 2019 00:16
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Death Bot posted:It is emotionally challenging but I don't think it's mean spirited. There's a lot of good under that difficulty, in a way that is like, intentionally reflective of real adulthood, but fed through the absurd metaphysical style of homestuck. It's hard and sad and I get people not liking it because of that, but I liked it a lot I HAVE A PHILOSOPHY DEGREE,
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Apr 24, 2019 00:17
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Clawtopsy posted:I feel that hypothesising about things is navel-gazing at this point. If they announce there is more information to come it serves a point, if this Is It, The End, then we are writing our own fanfiction. I get that we have a difference of opinion on whether fanfiction is inherently bad, but there is a difference between analysis and fic. Analysis says "what's there that I haven't spotted?", while fanfiction says "I want to make more of this thing!"
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Apr 24, 2019 00:30
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hey all, first post in the thread but i just finished the epilogue and wanna put my thoughts down. I read Meat and Candy at the same time, switched off every few chapters. honestly, I loved it. both sides of the story fit together in interesting ways, there's a load of character development, i laughed out loud at a lot of the jokes, and the ending is fulfilling in a bittersweet way. if there aren't any more updates, this seems like a perfectly suitable ending. a lot of people seem to be mad that characters had bad things happen to them, but like... it's homestuck?? the comic that starts with meteor apocalypse and goes of the rails from there? suffering is fine, it's part of the package. i found that the characters were able to grow and learn from the suffering, and a lot of what happened seemed true and honest. it reflected some of my own struggles with mental health - life sucks a lot of the time, what matters is finding meaning in it; even if the universe seems to be shouting that there isn't any meaning at all. that's the whole point. the other complaint seems to be OOC, but I don't really see it. i fuckin love Dirk as an antagonist. Like to have a character go "i'm worried about turning evil again" and then actually do it is such a ballsy move. and he owns it! he's like yeah, i'm the villain, so what, come try me. it's great! And I can buy Jane as a fascist, considering her upbringing and bad interactions with trolls. There's some very obvious OOC throughout Candy -- Gamzee -- but that seemed very deliberate, part of a broader point about shoving characters together in toxic ways. My hot take on Candy is that the narrator is John, seeing as Dirk has abdicated; at the beginning he accidentally overwrites a bunch of characters to what he wants them to do, but as time goes on his depression leads to him taking his hands off the wheels, and things unfold into chaos. I'd also buy the narrator as Hussie, having been sucked into the black hole. Or just a nonexistent narrator, as a final obtuse "gently caress you" from the story. also, LMAO JADE CANONICALLY HAS A DOG DICK HAHAHA HOLY poo poo animist fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 00:38
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I think there's some interesting analysis in the Tumblr post "Rose's Gamble". The author forgot that Lord English had already been eaten, but overall he makes some interesting points.
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Apr 24, 2019 00:45
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Here's an example of a Candy joke that doesn't land for me. it accomplishes the reinforcement of a core theme in Candy: this story is about what elements of the fanbase wants, whether the characters themselves want it or not. "You fuckers want Gamzee redeemed? Well, okay, here's how that goes, enjoy, idiots. You want Eridan and Feferi together? Welp, one of them doesn't agree, but too bad for her, this story is what you said YOU wanted, shippers" Of course, being fictional, they don't actually have agency to subvert- except that this is a universe where they are fictional characters with some degree of agency subverted by narrators all the time It's, uh, not a joke- it's not ha-ha funny so much as smell funny
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Apr 24, 2019 00:47
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animist posted:I'd also buy the narrator as Hussie, having been sucked into the black hole. Or just a nonexistent narrator, as a final obtuse "gently caress you" from the story. Never thought of that. Possible, I agree
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Apr 24, 2019 00:57
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Here is my take on that thread. "This is my existentialist worldview" is valid, but "the epilogue is what Real Life (tm) is like" is not. I have a loving chronic pain condition, I'm coping with family crises, and I nonetheless have more moments of daily joy in my life than anybody in Candy who isn't Roxy, Rose, or Kanaya. But... in Candy, John's depressed but gets over it, Karkat self-actualizes into a revolutionary leader, Kanaya fights for what she thinks is right, Rose copes with not being a messiah, Jake takes ownership of his life and saves his kid, Roxy finds meaning in being a mom... I saw a load of grace in Candy, even if getting there wasn't pretty.
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Apr 24, 2019 01:05
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animist posted:But... in Candy, John's depressed but gets over it, Karkat self-actualizes into a revolutionary leader, Kanaya fights for what she thinks is right, Rose copes with not being a messiah, Jake takes ownership of his life and saves his kid, Roxy finds meaning in being a mom... I saw a load of grace in Candy, even if getting there wasn't pretty. And Jade gets abandoned by her husband and is unable to have the child she wants! Also she never learns how to deal with her abandonment issues! To be Jade is to suffer.
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Apr 24, 2019 01:20
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