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yeah that specifically is what I mean and I think it's neat Trying to think of other pieces of media that have gone whole-hog on that concept, "this is what you said you wanted and here's why you're wrong"- for some reason I feel like The Simpsons did a short joke along those lines but I can't recall exactly, I might just be thinking of the spin-off sketch episode that steamed hams comes from
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Apr 25, 2019 10:40
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Complaining about contempt for the fanbase was like ten pages ago, now we're all too busy pledging our allegiance to God Queen Aranea. you fools are finally catching up to me
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Apr 25, 2019 11:05
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It's awful egotistical of some folks to assume a guy spent 3 years working with a creative team to make a novel-length work whose sole purpose is to spite them specifically.
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Apr 25, 2019 11:07
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I've been continuing my re-read. I just reached Meenahquest. Penius Ouija remains one of the funniest loving things ever. Meenah owns. I'm glad she finally got to hang out with Shouty, the best Vantas. Man, John was such an rear end in a top hat on his birthday. Just raging so hard he fell asleep in his driveway.
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Apr 25, 2019 11:11
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Plom Bar posted:It's awful egotistical of some folks to assume a guy spent 3 years working with a creative team to make a novel-length work whose sole purpose is to spite them specifically. Reminder that this is the same “a guy” who took $20,000 from a pair of fans to add their OCs to the story long enough to kill them the next panel. I don’t claim it’s 100% spite but there’s always been various levels and intensities of jabbing at the reader (generally and, sometimes, specifically) as far back as the very first “He’s already got arms, stupid!” of Prison Break. Hussie may be many things but “unwilling to call out the fanbase in text form” has never really been one of them  (Also not remotely the “sole purpose” lol)
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Apr 25, 2019 11:46
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:Reminder that this is the same “a guy” who took $20,000 from a pair of fans to add their OCs to the story long enough to kill them the next panel. I don’t claim it’s 100% spite but there’s always been various levels and intensities of jabbing at the reader (generally and, sometimes, specifically) as far back as the very first “He’s already got arms, stupid!” of Prison Break. Hussie may be many things but “unwilling to call out the fanbase in text form” has never really been one of them The terms of the $10,000 Kickstarter reward were spelled out clearly and the money was freely given, not "taken". As for the rest, if I'm not talking about you then I'm not talking about you.
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Apr 25, 2019 12:49
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I was not able to make it through this.
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Apr 25, 2019 13:19
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I read Candy and Meat one chapter at a time, alternating, which I think helped dissolve the difference between them (they're interrelated anyway so you might as well). The Candy timeline being "bad" or a series of gently caress yous or something though, I think it's more that it's a bit of a deconstruction of wishing for a happily ever after. The real conflict in the Candy timeline is how each character handles being excluded from The Plot. We see a lot of it through John's lense, especially early on, which sets a tone of suspicion about the very idea (especially since every previous time this has happened, the timeline in question was destroyed somehow). He goes so far as to maintain an emotional affair with the very notion of plot relevance via Terezi. Dirk goes so far as refusing to participate in such a timeline, but for the most part the rest of the cast are just living out a particular instance of their lives. People make mistakes, have regrets, hurt each other, evolve into complicated versions of themselves who feel like maybe they're not their best selves - that maybe things could have, or should have gone another way. Leveraging popular fan theories or desires and showing them not turning out quite as happily as either the fans or the characters themselves hoped is a way to reinforce in the reader's mind the idea that maybe this whole timeline is wrong, as John suspects. The scene before the war starts with Rose and John, where she takes a moment to explain that she's truly happy despite how the world's turned out simply for having the opportunity to live a full life - with all the highs and lows that implies - that's the happy ending. It's the opportunity to have their own story and see where it takes them without getting coopted by the needs of some higher canonical purpose. Maybe it turns out some people, when left to their own devices, will be assholes (at least in this particular incarnation), or will have regrets, but that's what it means to live. You can't write off the world in front of you because maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the multiverse. John's decades-long arc of coming to understand and accept this feels like the main plot of Candy, with the series of conversations he has with Rose, Jake, and finally reconciling with Roxy as the climax. He's finally ready to start living for his friends, family, and himself rather than in service to some higher causal necessity - that's a tough journey for someone who was basically traumatized by his protagonism. It's also a way to encourage us to just let the Candy universe exist and the characters in it to live their lives. And lets be real, despite the name, Candy needed to be about something to be worth grinding 40+ chapters over. Eternal bliss would've been way more boring and indulgent. I am rather interested in Davebot though. That whole Obama thing really does feel like a trap laid by Dirk, especially considering what happened to Meat Rose. Whether or not Davebot helps or opposes Dirk, though, it's basically a hijacking of the Candy Dave to serve as a vessel for the Ultimate Dave to go do plot relevant stuff, which is probably going to hurt Jade and Karkat. It's even a little funny that after all Candy John's angst about getting to participate in the plot again, when the brief window of relevance gets opened it's Dave (who never seemed existentially bothered about the Candy timeline) who got the call.
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Apr 25, 2019 16:28
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Dolash posted:I am rather interested in Davebot though. That whole Obama thing really does feel like a trap laid by Dirk, especially considering what happened to Meat Rose. Whether or not Davebot helps or opposes Dirk, though, it's basically a hijacking of the Candy Dave to serve as a vessel for the Ultimate Dave to go do plot relevant stuff, which is probably going to hurt Jade and Karkat. It's even a little funny that after all Candy John's angst about getting to participate in the plot again, when the brief window of relevance gets opened it's Dave (who never seemed existentially bothered about the Candy timeline) who got the call. yeah if it's not a trap by dirk, it was written in such a way to make us at least suspicious that it's a trap -- given the whole discussion about how the obama thing was this ridiculous fantasy of dave's and how it completely lines up with how dirk would exploit such a fantasy.
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Apr 25, 2019 17:11
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I do enjoy that it could either be a complete fabrication by Dirk meant to fool Dave by exploiting his love for Obama in order to get Ultimate Dave to manifest in a form Dirk can control... or it could legitimately be the legacy of Obama left behind for Dave, where Obama has been manipulated by Dirk in order to get Ultimate Dave to manifest in a form Dirk can control. Like whether or not Obama did all that stuff his hologram claims is completely separate from whether this is a trap or not, which is neat. Also I hope Davebot can make it home despite the promise that the two timelines will never meet again, troubled marriage or not it'd be tragic if he just up and abandoned Jade without an explanation. Maybe a Dave fully integrated with all his alternate selves can finally cut the Gordian Jade-Karkat-Dave Knot.
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Apr 25, 2019 17:23
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You know what weirdly obvious thing I haven't seen anyone talking about yet? The fact that humanity is going to get totally wiped out in the coming war. I mean for fucks sake humans are squishy little fleshy bags of bones that live for a 120 years tops (and by the time we get to that age we're basically invalids) and trolls are giant insects who can live for millions of years and a lot of them have super powers. It's going to be a very one sided fight. Space Cadet Omoly fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 17:59
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I'm a slow reader these days, even for a homestuck story, so I'm doing five chapters of each alternating and I'm only on chapter 20 of both stories. Plus a lot of Homestuck is just a vague memory at this point but the story does a pretty good job filling in what happened. I had completely forgotten alternate Calliope was a thing or what she even did. The epilogue, however, the most Homestuck thing in years. Homestuck was always a little edgy and weird at its best, but this is kind of a worldly 2019 perspective. That's something I find kind of interesting, because Hussie is an imperfect person who's writing a continuing story that always has to be at his current perspective and it's changed a whole lot. Like, Homestuck started at a place where the internet was just a few nerds and their injokes and their little communities and chatlogs. It was a celebration of how exciting the possibilities of the internet were, and what new things we might be able to do if we experimented with formats. Homestuck's villain originally was the comical carapacian outsiders like Jack Noir and the Queen or Lord English in his original ominous form, nothing like any kind of real life worry. When it became clear that the internet empowers some toxic elements, we were getting characters like Gamzee, Eridan and eventually Caliborn, but Caliborn especially is a still kind of whimsical and a stupid child. Now Hussie's put basically the character most like himself as the biggest villain, and without any really tongue in cheek to it or whimsy. I see some of the 2019 disillusionment in this format as well. The internet's not exciting anymore. Whoever has the most money and can sell the most data makes the rules. It's kind of fitting that the 2019 homestuck is just a text story and not the big flash production it was. But on the other hand, it is kind of supportive of people's own fanfiction in a way - if the last official entry of Homestuck is a fanfic, then why not make your own. I'll have to finish reading this and go back to the conversation. I'm just saying that I kind of like this so far.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:29
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I remember vaguely that some of the Dancestors were basically just internet trope/fandoms and there was a huge flash walkabout adventure that showed them all off.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:54
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I am rereading Meat, and that poo poo is *tight*. Lands every beat.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:55
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:You know what weirdly obvious thing I haven't seen anyone talking about yet? The fact that humanity is going to get totally wiped out in the coming war. The fear of that is what powers Jane's actions in both timelines. The feeling like humanity needs to strike first before the trolls reach a critical mass eats away at Jane because without positive intervention, she has too much of the Condesce's worldview baked into her thinking. The question was never whether the trolls really were inherently dangerous and destined to "revert" to a warlike state, just the classic fear a hegemonic demographic has of losing power to anyone else and imagining whatever rationalization they'll need to prevent that - which is perhaps a timely political theme, if you want to think 2019 Homestuck. The single biggest danger of the war in the Candy timeline is probably Karkat dying but the trolls winning - clearing the way for Meenah to become the Condesce again. Jane causing the trolls to become what she feared through her own prejudices and turning the war into a battle between two images of the Condesce is a fitting doom-through-inaction for this world if its heroes cannot overcome their ennui. I don't know if we'll see it, but an ending where John and Roxy decide to get involved and stop the war (particularly leveraging their connections to Jane and Karkat directly) now that they're fully committed to this timeline would be a good way to wrap up that particular arc. Oh also I guess an immortal god-tier Vriska also lives here now so I guess she'll probably strive to make herself very important to this world at some point. Edit: Actually it's neat knowing all the ghosts that got sucked into the black hole get dropped into the Candy universe. Does that mean that cool pre-retcon Vriska and Terezi are also here? I kinda hope all the pre-retcon ghosts get dumped in this reality (or choose to believe that's what happened, if not addressed), since I never could quite let go of the original versions of those characters. Dolash fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 19:33
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:You know what weirdly obvious thing I haven't seen anyone talking about yet? The fact that humanity is going to get totally wiped out in the coming war. I think the humans outnumber the trolls a lot, though, what with the reproduction laws and years of an anti-troll fascist having the levers of power and probably a lot of propaganda? Mind you a lot of trolls have superpowers, and I'm pretty sure they've got the stronger set of Sburb players too, so I'd still give them the win, but it's not all that one sided, at least as long as it doesn't drag on a long time.
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Apr 25, 2019 19:39
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Dolash posted:I don't know if we'll see it, but an ending where John and Roxy decide to get involved and stop the war (particularly leveraging their connections to Jane and Karkat directly) now that they're fully committed to this timeline would be a good way to wrap up that particular arc. Yeah, uh, is there really anything that Jane could do if John entered the war? The dude can drill a hole through a planet. If he actually figured his poo poo out he would go Old Testament in her rear end. And Roxy could also probably just end the war by teleporting next to Jane and suckerpunching her Egbert-style. There's no way Vriska is going to remain in Candy and be irrelevant. She's got a line to Terezi, she won't just sit there while TZ is standing in the middle of the Dirkpocalypse. Pre-retcon Vriska and Terezi almost certainly got blasted by Lord English.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:10
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Some of the God Tier powers are wonderfully unbalanced. Like now that Jane has done the Lifey thing, she can't self rez anymore. So being Maid of Life gives her poo poo all to do beyond general God Tier powers John on the flip side is a cosmic tornado of dork
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Apr 25, 2019 20:13
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I don't see John going Biblical on anybody, but I could see him using the windy thing to separate the combatants and force them to talk it out. Admittedly, Jane is the one in the wrong, but coming to a peaceful conclusion probably depends on a negotiated conclusion over a violent overthrow. Something about how Meenah's the #2 in the rebellion and could easily turn the trolls down that darker path if Karkat's not around feels important, like a conclusion where Karkat indeed dies and Jane is talked into reviving him to bring about peace could work.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:21
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If the trolls win the war it would (wrongly) validate what Jane and her sympathizers have been saying about trolls' inherent danger to humanity. Radical anti-troll parties would sweep ensuing elections, and a human resurgence would not be far behind. On the other hand, if the humans win the war (conceivably possible by virtue of superior military technology and, one presumes, land holding), any troll not already part of the rebellion would almost certainly shore up, and a second war within a generation would be inevitable. A decisive victory for either side would land the planet into a second war.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:27
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I thought it'd be a bummer that I'd bounce off the finale to what was a very formative work for a decent chunk of my life, but the fact is this is all coming 3 years since I last seriously thought about the story and even longer when I consider how loving cold I was on most of Act 6. It just feels weird because it means there will never be what I consider at least a personal sense of closure, it just is over and that's that. Which happens all the time to works people grew up with or grew attached to, it just feels egregious for me given how much of an emotional and mental sink that story was for a time. It's a chapter I can only help but look back on with a "well, I guess that happened" and move on.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:42
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Dolash posted:The fear of that is what powers Jane's actions in both timelines. The feeling like humanity needs to strike first before the trolls reach a critical mass eats away at Jane because without positive intervention, she has too much of the Condesce's worldview baked into her thinking. The question was never whether the trolls really were inherently dangerous and destined to "revert" to a warlike state, just the classic fear a hegemonic demographic has of losing power to anyone else and imagining whatever rationalization they'll need to prevent that - which is perhaps a timely political theme, if you want to think 2019 Homestuck. Yeah, that's the irony of the war: It's completely unnecessary and was started by the side with the highest chance of losing and suffering the most. All Jane had to do was just not be racist and everything would have been fine like it had been for the past 5,000 years but she didn't. I think Pre-retcon Terezi and Vriska got blasted, but pre-retcon Tavros survived cause he got sucked into the black-hole along with Davepeta (I think). Dolash posted:I don't see John going Biblical on anybody, but I could see him using the windy thing to separate the combatants and force them to talk it out. Admittedly, Jane is the one in the wrong, but coming to a peaceful conclusion probably depends on a negotiated conclusion over a violent overthrow. Something about how Meenah's the #2 in the rebellion and could easily turn the trolls down that darker path if Karkat's not around feels important, like a conclusion where Karkat indeed dies and Jane is talked into reviving him to bring about peace could work. Darkest timeline option: Karkat dies, Meenah and Vriska (the old school one, not the baby one) team up and start bringing out the worst in each other and that's how the full genocide of humanity begins.
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Apr 25, 2019 20:49
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Plom Bar posted:If the trolls win the war it would (wrongly) validate what Jane and her sympathizers have been saying about trolls' inherent danger to humanity. Radical anti-troll parties would sweep ensuing elections, and a human resurgence would not be far behind. Again, darkest timeline option: There can't be a second world war if one side gets completely wiped out permanently (And the smart money is not on humanity coming out on top).
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Apr 25, 2019 20:51
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I know the kids (uh, adults now I guess) are being kind of slow to act right now, but I really don't think theres any chance of them letting either side get genocided. They're literal Gods. They created the entire civilisation. Them getting involved should be enough to stop things from getting that far and even sadsack John would step in before things get to that. If worse comes to worse Jake can shake his booty on TV and tell everyone to stop fighting and they'd probably do it. The man has his talents.
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Apr 25, 2019 21:05
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Nephthys posted:I know the kids (uh, adults now I guess) are being kind of slow to act right now, but I really don't think theres any chance of them letting either side get genocided. They're literal Gods. They created the entire civilisation. Them getting involved should be enough to stop things from getting that far and even sadsack John would step in before things get to that. Did you forget that Gods can be killed just like everybody else? There might not have been many just or heroic ways to die during their civilian lives, but they coming war is going to be filled with such opportunities. I half suspect that our God Queen Aranea (hallowed be her name) allowed this war to happen so as to eliminate the false Gods that might threaten her eternal reign in a way that won't raise suspicion of her true plans (all glory to her).
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Apr 25, 2019 21:40
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Saying they can be killed like anyone else is underestimating them considerably imo. God Tier players are ridiculously strong even just in personal combat and they're probably even more badass as adults than they were as kids. John was going toe to toe with Bec Noir at one point and Jake solo'd the entire Felt with his bare hands.
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Apr 25, 2019 22:44
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Act 6 flows so much better on re-read. The soundtrack remains loving amazing.
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Apr 25, 2019 23:54
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Yeah, that's the irony of the war: It's completely unnecessary and was started by the side with the highest chance of losing and suffering the most. All Jane had to do was just not be racist and everything would have been fine like it had been for the past 5,000 years but she didn't. I think Tavros specifically got annihilated by Lord English, so his successful character arc ended with vaporization
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Apr 26, 2019 00:18
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Nephthys posted:Saying they can be killed like anyone else is underestimating them considerably imo. God Tier players are ridiculously strong even just in personal combat and they're probably even more badass as adults than they were as kids. John was going toe to toe with Bec Noir at one point and Jake solo'd the entire Felt with his bare hands. Yeah, the war's mostly been in the background of the story, but just having Rose, Dave, and Jade on the side of the revolution should make it pretty much a done deal if it's down to raw power. John's overwhelmed by ennui and while Roxy isn't willing to face what Jane's become, she doesn't seem to actively support her either. Jake's a passive supporter of the revolution. It's really just Jane and the inertial power of government and capital, and she's not really the most personally powerful or most effective leader. I can only assume the war hasn't already ended because the God-tiers are holding back to keep it from devolving into a clash of the titans that destroys the whole world. Edit: Also yeah Tavros is the one who explicitly died. Pre-retcon Vriska and Terezi have a nice, decently ambiguous sendoff so you're probably free to imagine whatever. Davepeta also seems ambiguous because they weren't dying when they dragged Lord English into the black hole, whatever falls into the black hole ends up in the Candy universe, and we saw the aftermath of Dead Calliope killing Lord English (and finding one feather from Davepeta). I would also like to believe that Davepeta can retire to the Candy universe and enjoy their hard-earned retirement. Dolash fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 26, 2019 |
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Apr 26, 2019 00:24
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I might be misremembering, but was there some sort of statement after Game Over stating that the more God Tiers are gathered, the easier it is for their deaths to be Heroic or Just?
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Apr 26, 2019 00:26
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Dolash posted:Edit: Also yeah Tavros is the one who explicitly died. Pre-retcon Vriska and Terezi have a nice, decently ambiguous sendoff so you're probably free to imagine whatever. Davepeta also seems ambiguous because they weren't dying when they dragged Lord English into the black hole, whatever falls into the black hole ends up in the Candy universe, and we saw the aftermath of Dead Calliope killing Lord English (and finding one feather from Davepeta). I would also like to believe that Davepeta can retire to the Candy universe and enjoy their hard-earned retirement. Oh well, at least we still have Gcatavrosprite....where ever he and Jasperosesprite^2 went off to. Maybe they and Devepta can meet up and form a cat squad? Clawtopsy posted:I might be misremembering, but was there some sort of statement after Game Over stating that the more God Tiers are gathered, the easier it is for their deaths to be Heroic or Just? I think that's right? Does anyone know who said that?
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Apr 26, 2019 00:40
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Just seems like another pseudo-narrative observation - if a bunch of gods are around there's an increased chance of them coming to blows and something bad happening, while narratively their individual importance to the plot goes down (so their expendability goes up). It's like the Inverse Ninja Law.
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Apr 26, 2019 00:46
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The closer the involvement of the divine, the more likely that a character is up to something morally charged.
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Apr 26, 2019 00:50
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Dolash posted:Just seems like another pseudo-narrative observation - if a bunch of gods are around there's an increased chance of them coming to blows and something bad happening, while narratively their individual importance to the plot goes down (so their expendability goes up). It's like the Inverse Ninja Law. Or, alternatively, them coming together for a specific reason or threat that would require multiple god tiers Something something correlation causation
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Apr 26, 2019 00:51
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I think alt!Calliope catching a burning orange-and-green feather is a pretty explicit "Lord English killed them" moment
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Apr 26, 2019 00:53
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i was going to say "like we don't see explicitly the emperor die in rotj but we assume he is dead" but boyo was i wrong
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Apr 26, 2019 00:56
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Have we stopped spoilering? I'm trying out to sort out what Dirk had planned for the end of Meat before he and Calliope began fighting over canon. He planned to go off and breed the Ultimate Kids who would play the Ultimate game of Sburb and stop this bullshit for once and for all. He grabbed Rosebot. He was trying for young!Jade when Calliope intervened. He set up Davebot but didn't execute in time. (Or this only happened in Candy, where he couldn't reach Dave, or something.) As far as we can see, he was going to leave Roxy alone, maybe because her Void powers made her difficult to manipulate. He had no intention of retrieving Jake. He made no attempt to grab Jane or John. He had the opportunity but didn't try to grab Davepetasprite^2. I don't think he planned to bring any trolls. So it looks like he wanted three Strilondes, counting himself, and one Harleybert, aspects Time, Heart, Light, and Space. In unrelated news, wow, the fight over Will Dave Kiss Karkat was epic. I appreciated Dave finally grabbing the narrative and insisting on kissing Karkat under his own power.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:13
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Arsenic Lupin posted:He set up Davebot but didn't execute in time. (Or this only happened in Candy, where he couldn't reach Dave, or something.) He set up Dave to come to him.  Clawtopsy posted:I think alt!Calliope catching a burning orange-and-green feather is a pretty explicit "Lord English killed them" moment it's homestuck, it's not even over when you see a body, let alone when you don't
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Apr 26, 2019 01:18
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Clawtopsy posted:i was going to say "like we don't see explicitly the emperor die in rotj but we assume he is dead" but boyo was i wrong No one's ever really gone. Arsenic Lupin posted:Have we stopped spoilering? I assumed he was going to try to merge with all of them, like Jeff Goldblum in the fly. They'll be the ultimate family. Did he not have a Jake by the end? I thought he was mind controlling one. Who all was on his ship by the end of it?
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Apr 26, 2019 01:29
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Dirk's explicitly setting himself up as the villain of the sequel in the expectation that a hero (Dave, unless that's more misdirection) will stop him and set the next universe off on the best moral footing he can envision.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:30
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