what is now weird is that i know trolls are a-coming, so when the single images of trolls appeared, i knew what they were from the fan art i have seen cross my dash. but when homestuck was originally published image-by-image, the readers did not know wft those images were. were they 'real'? were they part of the 'game'? i, too, am fucked by time travel. fuck. i fucking hate time travel and now i'm fucking doing it
my gold standard for effortless world creation is nail gaiman's sandman. 'cause that universe is seriously weird and he just gets you to believe in it. homestuck is coming close--bronze level right now. there are enough jarring irritating things like the gratuitous time travel riffs and game inventory systems that take me out of the suspension of disbelief. still, bronze level is really damn good.
Really? I found Sandman kind of disjointed and it seemed like it was too busy cramming as much mythology as possible in to really focus on anything (same problem I had with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though not as bad). Homestuck brings me into its world far better. That's all personal taste, of course.
the time travel doesn't fully pay off in postmodern/theory/commentary-on-fiction-as-a-concept terms until really close to the end. like it's still unfolding in what he's posting now, and we've been informed this is the home stretch. ps i'm just too lazy to use my shift key, it makes my fingers tired :P
So I got back to reading this. I'm now in the troll story on Alternia. And I'm bored. The trolls are boring.
No, ok, people like all sorts of different things and if stupid alien teenagers arent your thing thats okay. But karkat? Seriously? No?
I'm surprised somebody can find the trolls boring, because aside from Sollux and Kanaya, they all have bizarre, larger than life personalities (at least compared to the humans). Like, if they went to a human school or had a human job, they would immediately stand out. At least that's how it seems to me.
i am legitimately surprised at your reaction, and wondering if you have met lawyertroll yet, since that moment was the moment I knew I loved this comic.
I'll push on a little bit. Pretty much all I've met are assholes and a fic composed completely of assholes doesn't have a lot of dramatic tension for me.
I promise, at least four of them aren't assholes. (Lawyertroll is not one of the not-assholes but they are, at least, hilarious and less assish than some of their comrades.)
@rigorist I understand because it sounds like you're right about where I was when I thew my hands up in despair and refused to read any more until @Elaienar would read it with me to get me through the boring. @BDP anon For me, at least, it wasn't because they weren't human. It was largely because of their introductions... everything had just started getting serious, when suddenly we were back to square one! At least, that's how it felt to me at the time. Later on I was able to appreciate it, but right then I was frustrated and bored and just wanted to know what was happening with the four kids I already knew.
It doesn't help that they're all adolescents. Adolescent drama is distinct from adult drama, and even when played out against the background of the apocalypse, it's still adolescent drama. Kids are dumb, news at 11.