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Browsin' the wiki, doot d- Hey, I recognise that face OH MY GOOOOOOD  http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Cheerfulbear_-_PLAY_ME What could it meannnn??? Also the questions answered were pretty good, a few gems like "DO GOD-TIER PLAYERS' BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS STOP?". Not just, "Do they stop ageing?", but the implied inclusion of their biological functions. "Well how ELSE are they going to repopulate the Earth??" 
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Jun 19, 2012 01:06
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Nate RFB posted:Also Roxy may be the best human character in Homestuck. Maybe even better than Dave. Seriously. It's not fair to judge Jane and Jake in this act when they have to share the limelight with Roxy.
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Jun 19, 2012 01:10
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starfish prime posted:Well count me in as someone who thought that Hussie could do no wrong until Act 6 began. I mean, theoretically the act *should* be interesting, but the new kids aren't interesting enough to justify the abandonment of the characters that we've spend thousands of panels getting to know. I mean there have been some really awesome moments in Act 6 (penis ouija, LE shooting up Hussie, and now the UU reveal) but some parts, like the Aranea-pink-moon-reunion, are just downright awful, especially when some character lectures us about things which have already been established. Yeah this pretty much sums it up. I don't mind reading 1,000-2,000 word blocks of text, but the characters who put out blocks of text before this act were actually engaging. Aranea and UU/uu? Boring and unengaging, even if they did have their respective moments. I'm ready for the story to wrap up or for Hussie to write as concisely as he did in the beginning, but man oh man it just keeps going. I'm an archive reader, if that's any perspective. This act is just so...clunky. starfish prime posted:Oh and Jane is the biggest flop of a character that Hussie has ever produced. Yep. But on the other hand we got Roxy in this act, so that may make up for some of it.
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Jun 19, 2012 01:30
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Cabbit posted:Seriously. It's not fair to judge Jane and Jake in this act when they have to share the limelight with Roxy. This, in complete earnest. Roxy's quality is just so out, and almost brutal, that she outshines every character she's with. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it means people don't notice the more subtle stuff that Jake and Jane have to them. It doesn't help that Jake's most outward and obvious traits, that by no means are the entirety of his character but are the first things you'll notice, are largely things John had turned up to eleven. EDIT: I feel like expanding on this. Perhaps because of the nature of the medium, or the fanbase (my bet is on the fanbase), every character sort of gets simplified to their most obvious, and largely superficial, characteristics. In B2, we have: Roxy's drunkenness and typos. Jake's love of bad movies and, to a lesser extent, ADVENTURE! Dirk's, for lack of a better word, 'coolkiditude' and robotics. They also made up a love of anime. And Jane doesn't really have any. 'Baker', maybe? None of these are really the extent of the character, but to a lot of the fanbase they're all that matters for their purposes of finding funny lines and making silly fanstuff. We already had John's love of bad movies, and Dave's coolkiditude, so those sort of fade because the fanbase already had subjects for those. Roxy stands head and shoulders above the other B2 kids because her most obvious aspects are new and endearing, not stuff we've seen before. After this sort of fanbase simplification, Roxy stands out as the best because the resulting character is new, and very distinct. This happened to other characters too, mostly trolls. Karkat being ANGRY ALL THE TIME (and later, the papping), Dave's own coolkiditude, Eridan's romantic failures, and so on. The characters get simplified into easy characters to make jokes about. Roxy's the newest and most obvious one, but she's far from the first, or the worst. Sollux got the worst, the fandom turns him into an angry nerd as far as I can tell solely because he is a nerd, and got angry that one time. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jun 19, 2012 |
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Jun 19, 2012 01:31
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pumpinglemma posted:So far, Act Six Act N has been about the same length as Act N. Considering the length of Act 5 - and that right now the kids seem to be set to arrive in Act Six Act Five Act One - I really doubt we're already halfway through Act 6. After Cascade I'm pretty sure Hussie can pull off a satisfying ending given enough buildup. Yeah but do you really think that Act 6 Part 5 is going to match the length of Act 5 proper? That would mean that Act 6 comprises half the comic, and it's going to go on for two more years or some poo poo. I think that Cascade is also supposed to be the big action climax of the comic, isn't that what he said? Or did I misinterpret him?
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Jun 19, 2012 01:40
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I am loving all the wordiness of this act because I really like post scratch humans so much more than the pre scratch. The thought of ten more trolls being introduced is just incredibly exciting, I just cant wait. I really dislike the first few acts and the Intermission. I can understand where you are coming from if these new kids aren't clicking with you but Homestuck (World Of Warcraft) isn't dieing just yet.
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Jun 19, 2012 01:47
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starfish prime posted:I think that Cascade is also supposed to be the big action climax of the comic, isn't that what he said? Or did I misinterpret him? That's what he said way back when. Hussie is altering the deal; pray he does not alter it any further. Cabbit posted:Seriously. It's not fair to judge Jane and Jake in this act when they have to share the limelight with Roxy. Maybe if the other three kids weren't tired rehashes of their pre-Scratch ectodescendants Roxy might have some competition. As it is she already wins by default simply because she's the only genuinely original character of the bunch.
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Jun 19, 2012 01:50
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One problem with Jane and Jake for me is that they don't talk like real people. They seem very hard to read, and there "they talk all old-timey and such" shtick gets old after the first couple of pesterlogs. All of the new characters, with one or two exceptions, all speak really heavy-handedly and complexly, with none of the breeziness of John or Jade. Exemplifying this problem is the fact that hussie has stopped having separate recaps or journals where he or the players can infodump, preferring to get them to dispense information via chatlog. It feels more unnatural and boring than them just writing stuff down, and makes readers feel like they're being forced to read things that they already know instead of being able to skip a recap. Act six seems really planned out, which is a mixed blessing.
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Jun 19, 2012 01:58
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Gabriel Pope posted:That's what he said way back when. Hussie is altering the deal; pray he does not alter it any further. Hussie's already gone way overbudget time-wise for all his predictions so far, so I just kinda laugh when he says he expects X to be done by Y time, but that's fine with me because I enjoy the ride overall.  Can't say I disagree with the Act 6 criticisms, though. It has been very, very slow for me most of the way. I care the most about the four original kids, then the trolls; these new kids and especially the new trolls and UU/uu just aren't doing it for me. Roxy is funny but she seems to lack depth and has few, if any, flaws right now. Maybe I'm just missing something, but she comes across a little too good, whereas other characters (save for the less-developed trolls) each have flaws that they try to overcome, flaws which are woven into their personalities. Maybe we'll see these sorts of things develop in the new kids over time. After Cascade, I was so incredibly pumped to see what happened next to all these badass god-tier superstars that I've grown to really like over the course of a year (I began reading about a year before), only to eventually realize I'd barely see them do anything for a good long while. Act 6 has always been, in my mind, more or less a speed bump to seeing the real heroes doing more cool stuff. It's not bad or anything, but definitely not the kind of break from the action I wanted at that point in the story. But hey, there have been some good moments so far to make up for this pacing issue, but overall, Act 6 is nowhere near as quotable as, say, the John-Dave logs from as early as Act 1. One thing Act 6 HAS done, however, that I really, REALLY like, is spawn some incredibly awesome music. That alone is why I don't mind if things take a lot longer than expected; it gives us more time to get more great music! Sometimes I feel like I get more out of the soundtrack than the actual story. Speaking of which oh my god, Volume 9 continues to be amazing. I can't believe I didn't list Noirscape as a "must buy" when I first heard it, because it's incredible. Crystalmethequins, too. A lot of others have grown on me almost immediately. There's too many good ones to list and I have a feeling even more will wind up proving themselves pretty soon. Everyone did a fantastic job on this production. Buff Skeleton fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jun 19, 2012 |
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Jun 19, 2012 02:02
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Some of the Felt look gnarly and skull-like, so I can buy them being Cherubim. Maybe they're a sort of sister race to the trolls, native to the green moon possibly, like the various lusii. Calliope and uu have different blood colors that correspond to troll castes, just as the various lusii species do. That makes it interesting that they all have "mutant" red blood. If they are estranged neighbors of the trolls, it might fit into the question I raised about Calliope never contacting trolls despite being fans. Just makin up plot threads here: The Cherubs are a race from A1 Alternia's moon, all but culled due to their danger to tolls. Calliope and uu escaped somehow, and started their session. Something goes wrong, and the A1 trolls unwittingly enter it, explaining why they weren't born in them own session, according to Doc Scratch's exposition dump to the Handmaid. A2 is sort of an act of vengeance on the whole troll race, with some Cherubs somehow escaping, the notice of the troll's genocidal empire. Life-or-death games like the insane game of billiards that results in the creation of Lord English is the normal method of Cherub Romance. Maybe they are the powers that be that designed Sburb, unable to conceive of creation through means other than a game that kills everyone. Anyway, I kind of get the sense of a theme of evolution from the violent Cherubim to the increasingly less-violent trolls and humans.
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Jun 19, 2012 02:02
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Zoolooman posted:Are you disagreein'? :> Hahaha, it's more like I think that phrase somehow captures something essential about the nature of Homestuck. Good job, Zoolooman, you should write taglines.
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Jun 19, 2012 02:03
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Waffnuffly posted:Roxy is funny but she seems to lack depth and has few, if any, flaws right now. Maybe I'm just missing something, but she comes across a little too good, whereas other characters (save for the less-developed trolls) each have flaws that they try to overcome, flaws which are woven into their personalities. What, you mean besides being an alcoholic? Generally though I don't think of "flaws" in characters because it feels too judgemental.
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Jun 19, 2012 02:15
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The Bign posted:What, you mean besides being an alcoholic? Generally though I don't think of "flaws" in characters because it feels too judgemental. I dunno if I'd call that a character flaw per se. I'm not really good at literary analysis, but compare Roxy with Dave. Dave has a cool exterior and likes to play up how little he gives a poo poo, but clearly harbors some serious insecurity issues that he has to grapple with (and stuff like seeing his dead Bro comes to mind). When he breaks down or loses his cool, it's really obvious to us readers. Meanwhile, Roxy is basically good at everything and has a good heart, but her only downside is her vice. She drinks a lot for someone her age, but that seems more like a tragic consequence of living in a post-apocalyptic waterworld artificial chess community with carapace people instead of other human beings, in a house that was pre-stocked to bursting with booze before she was even ectobiologically "born." She knows how lovely her reality is, and only has one other human on earth to talk to (via the internet), plus two others from different times. That would drive anyone to drink. I'm sure someone else can point out these differences much more eloquently than me if I'm not totally off base here.
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Jun 19, 2012 02:41
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Dr Christmas posted:Some of the Felt look gnarly and skull-like, so I can buy them being Cherubim. Maybe they're a sort of sister race to the trolls, native to the green moon possibly, like the various lusii. Calliope and uu have different blood colors that correspond to troll castes, just as the various lusii species do. That makes it interesting that they all have "mutant" red blood. If they are estranged neighbors of the trolls, it might fit into the question I raised about Calliope never contacting trolls despite being fans. The problem with this is that Calliope stated the cherubim never had a home planet. I guess living on a moon would technically still fit that, but given the rest of what she said - that they never met except to mate - I don't really think it'd make sense.
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Jun 19, 2012 02:50
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I actually like Jane. There's nothing particularly crazy about her, but that's fine. There are some hidden bits of info about her personality if you read into the chat logs in A6A2, like how she's slowly starting to doubt if she really knows how things are in the world. In Act 6 Act 3, she seems to be a lot more casual about things instead of "well I know this and you're wrong!" like she was in A6A1. It's just that there are no obvious quirks about her, so she tends to get blown off. One thing I like is how she's actually searching for her dad this time around, instead of John's "oh no Nanna told me dad was kidnapped! oh well I will forget about this until Act 4". The passages show that, despite her dad grounding her, she genuinely cares about him and loved being around him in her teen years and it's pretty cute. I never got that with John and dad, much less Dave, Rose and the others. I can see Jane being one of the types of characters that'll snap sometime down the line. She's not oblivious like John/Jake and she's on the track to seeing and learning some pretty bad stuff, like Dad's eventual death, the truth behind Betty Crocker, what Sburb's actual purpose is, Roxy and Dirk's lives and maybe Dirk's dreamself dying in front of her eyes. She's already gone through some weird poo poo, like entering Sburb, blowing it with Jake and remembering her dreamself getting shanked by Jack. Just need to add a few more tragic events and you've got yourself a teenage girl ready to go nuts. Her little chat with Jake shows that she can easily get pissed off, so I don't think it's impossible for her to have a freak out over everything that's happened to her. Hussie better have Nannasprite talk to Jane, if only to completely gently caress with Jane's head. The constant steam of "WHAT THE HELL" (along with the occasional memory from B1 popping up) coming from Jane would be great. 
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Jun 19, 2012 03:00
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Unfortunately such a dialoglog would be unreadable thanks to their identical speech colours. But hey I'd be happy if it happened. Maybe we could get a Roxy/jaspersprite log? I think that would be pretty amazing.
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Jun 19, 2012 03:16
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Waffnuffly posted:I dunno if I'd call that a character flaw per se. I'm not really good at literary analysis, but compare Roxy with Dave. Dave has a cool exterior and likes to play up how little he gives a poo poo, but clearly harbors some serious insecurity issues that he has to grapple with (and stuff like seeing his dead Bro comes to mind). When he breaks down or loses his cool, it's really obvious to us readers.
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Jun 19, 2012 03:22
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Waffnuffly posted:She drinks a lot for someone her age, but that seems more like a tragic consequence of living in a post-apocalyptic waterworld artificial chess community with carapace people instead of other human beings, in a house that was pre-stocked to bursting with booze before she was even ectobiologically "born." I suppose in B1 adult Roxy was also a raging alcoholic as a tragic consequence of being some kind of incredibly wealthy super-scientist? Roxy doesn't have any single defining flaw the way some other characters do, but she's not exactly perfect; she's had her fuckups, like killing Jaspers and blowing up Jane's compuner (*puter). Also I'm pretty sure she's setting up all of Jake's entry equipment in an abandoned ruin, although it's par for the course for the server player to completely gently caress everything up anyhow.
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Jun 19, 2012 03:44
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I think Roxy's flaws are still there, they're just understated to the point where I can't find them, by way of being drowned out even harder by her blatant awesome than she does to every ohter B2 kid. I think she's more like Jade before dreamself death than any other B1 kid - she's big, awesome, and hasn't really been in a position where her flaws shine through her being Just Plain Better than everyone else. The main difference is that she's a different kind of 'better' than Jade; Jade was much more knowledgeable and better prepared than every other kid, and seemed to be operating on a higher level than everybody else. Whereas Roxy is just exemplary of the reason why most people started reading Homestuck, she's a funny character with a funny way of typing. Basically, Roxy isn't a 'kid v.2'. Roxy is a 'troll v.2'. She's Terezi, with science and spelling mistakes in place of justice and leet-speak.
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Jun 19, 2012 03:56
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Honestly they're just all terrible by virtue of not being Vriska. Admit it.
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Jun 19, 2012 04:21
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I think if anything, Jane is being set up as the most "normal" kid and all the really crazy poo poo is catching up with her really quick. We started off seeing she has a very good relationship with her guardian compared to the other kids, she doesn't really have many hangups and above all she seems like the one most accustomed to average living. Her ambitions and interests are very even-leveled and unexaggerated. But then suddenly all the weird poo poo her friends have been spouting out turns out to be VERY true, a bunch of explosions happen, Tavrisprite happens and this situation on Derse is going to probably get worse. It's pretty obvious that she's basically just being set up to get, like, broken, for lack of a better term. I can see her being the one to really comment on how hosed up and vicious the cycle of Sburb really is.
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Jun 19, 2012 04:22
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Fister Roboto posted:Honestly they're just all terrible by virtue of not being Vriska. Admit it. Equius wasn't Vriska, and he was amazing. Act 6 should have just been Vriska, Equius, and introducing the new friend... ROXY. Actually now that I thought of it that's going to be the plot of my next fanfiction epic and it will be so much better than Homestuck. Because it focuses on the characters that MATTER.
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Jun 19, 2012 04:34
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CidGregor posted:Oh man what is with all this READING it's like, a book or something! Who has time for that poo poo anymore? A couple thousand words at a time, gently caress! Actually unabridged The Stand is literally my favorite book of all time. Nice strawman though, brah. Also, I'm currently as we speak are reading ASOIAF, one of the most overly written series in existence. So I'm no stranger to lots of loving words. I complain about the length because it could've been posted more digestibly (1500+ words a page is much more taxing to read than 1500 words over 3 pages) and the words didn't add anything of value. It was telling me things I already knew, in between Jane talking about Jake or Dirk talking about Jake or UU explaining that she couldn't explain the rules and that gosh gee whiz I'm currently having problems with my bro because we are both trolls, totes!
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Jun 19, 2012 04:43
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is such a negative point? Furthermore how does snipping the pesterlogs apart into more pages solve ANYthing? The length of the pesterlog would be the same regardless. Exactly what is gained by having to click the 'next' button and the 'show pesterlog' button again instead of scrolling down slightly?
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Lord of Laughton posted:Unfortunately such a dialoglog would be unreadable thanks to their identical speech colours. Give Nannasprite John's color and everything will be fine. quote:I think if anything, Jane is being set up as the most "normal" kid and all the really crazy poo poo is catching up with her really quick. Jane's really the only character that has something to lose from playing Sburb and, unlike John, isn't oblivious about what's going on. She can also easily go from "aww shucks! :B" to "gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress GODDAMNIT" in a matter of moments, as seen with her chats with Jake. She's already had some very weird stuff happen to her. Just let her know about the nature of Sburb, the cosmic feud she's a pawn in, and maybe meeting John and friends, and she's set to give a speech that'll be something like "I went from having fun at the Dadly Depot with my dad to seeing my dad dead, meeting a teenage version of Poppop and a jester ghost version of an alternate version of myself from another universe, learning that my world was destroyed, met a strange demon clown, learned that the company I loved was evil and ruined Dirk and Roxy's lives, saw an aboination be made in front of my eyes, saw (whatever will happen at Derse), did bullshit and pointless puzzles, and most importantly, I'm a part of some dumbass cosmic struggle that I do not care one bit about! gently caress YOU SBURB AND WHOEVER MADE YOU!".
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Jun 19, 2012 04:45
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But the problem with Jane being the "normal" kid is we already had a normal kid - John. The Everyman Protagonist (meaning the 'normal' one compared to the other characters) only really works when they're the audience's main surrogate, receiving exposition they can share with the reader and such. It turns any neutral parts of their character into strengths by keeping the narrative around them stable and any particularly strong character moves they make are more pronounced as a result. Karkat was also a bit of an Everyman Protagonist (albeit one with an anger quirk) in Hivebent, but he was meant to contrast heavily with John and help set the different tone of the trolls' session. By the time Jane rolls around we're amped up for the big climax that Cascade and the introduction of Lord English have set up and the last thing we need is another audience surrogate but here we are. We're starting over again, in a sense, and with the scratched session being so similar to the original one it's natural to kind of want to see the story of the original characters getting tied up more than beginning a new one with a new knot of characters. As usual this might work better for you, but if you're keen to return to the trolls and original humans Jane's blandness (mostly what she shares with John) is just an irritating reminder that we're anchored here for the time being. If this were the reset kids' story alone and Hussie dedicated months of intensive screen-time to developing them like the kids had, I'm sure Jane'd be more accepted. Dolash fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jun 19, 2012 |
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Jun 19, 2012 04:49
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Also this is probably just a weird aesthetic thing to me but I'm able to stomach longer exchanges if individually it's paced quicker. Like, I'll read the same 3000 word block of text regardless, but I'd just enjoy it more if instead of over two pages, the block of text was spread over 6. I'm able to keep my attention and interest better since I'm actively reading an update over passively reading it.
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Jun 19, 2012 04:56
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Occupation posted:Also this is probably just a weird aesthetic thing to me but I'm able to stomach longer exchanges if individually it's paced quicker. Honestly this is me as well. It might be a psychological thing, like how people wouldn't eat one large cake but would gladly eat the same amount in several smaller cupcakes.
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Jun 19, 2012 05:02
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I don't think that's particularly unnatural, Occupation/Anmat. In fact I'm fairly sure it's pretty common As for Act 6 I didn't think the change in pace was all that jarring, I was definitely disappointed to not be following our NEW BADASS HEROES at first but it grew to not be a big deal for me. I agree that Jane and Jake are kind of boring, but Dirk and Roxy are cool enough to make up for it. As for the exposition, Aranea's parts kind of sucked but I thought uu/UU were fine... the only part that particularly got old to me that I recall was the chess match
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Jun 19, 2012 05:03
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We all know Jane's shtick is the snarky inner monologue character, sort of what Tavros failed to be.
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Jun 19, 2012 05:06
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Jane is setup for the brainwashing to kick in. Sleeper agent for the Condesce. She's clearly already shown signs of saying things that she clearly doesn't mean and has no idea why. (I am being only partially facetious about this.)
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Jun 19, 2012 06:07
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Jane's job is to be our everyman while John's busy playing Ghostbusters II MMORPG on a battleship in limbo with a bunch of hyperactive reptiles and sprites and his sister who is also a dog. Over the course of his adventure we got to see John develop along quite a different trajectory than the one Jane's heading down, and they clearly offer different perspectives, so who's to say that having two "everyman" characters is necessarily redundant?
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Jun 19, 2012 06:28
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Update. Calliope's room is a mess. 
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Jun 19, 2012 07:00
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I'm willing to cut Hussie some slack for Aranea. She's kinda dull on her own but her dynamic with Meenah is golden.
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Jun 19, 2012 07:00
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Well this is going to be interesting. Also, (amongst a million other things) that is totally Scratch's holster hanging up there.
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Jun 19, 2012 07:00
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Calliope's looking goddamn adorable in that panel. That smile. 
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Jun 19, 2012 07:01
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Nice, uh, steak you folks got there.
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Jun 19, 2012 07:03
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Jujubes, heh. Also, if that ~ATH book is more or less the same one we saw before, she's smaller than the rest of the cast. What was that about leprechauns?!
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Jun 19, 2012 07:04
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oh GOD that smile. She was/is sort of cute but GOD THAT SMILE  Edit: She's also chained to something. Edit 2: Is that Doc Scratch's belt/gun holster on her hat rack near the top? TOAST7312 fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jun 19, 2012 |
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Jun 19, 2012 07:04
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Hey, she has Umbrage's symbol on her shackle...
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Jun 19, 2012 07:05
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Calliope even lives in squalor like me. The similarity pile doesn't stop from getting taller.
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Jun 19, 2012 07:06
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