i rather like this. edit: Spoiler: the text b/c that's actually really small oops Dear Andrew do you take some sort of perverse pleasure in alternating between making Vriska do immensely unlikeable things and then say things that betray a reasonably human personality underneath? Because some of my friends are getting whiplash. The whiplash phenomenon is not limited to your perception of Vriska. It is a defining feature of the reading experience, especially lately. It's not a bad thing, in my view. One of the reasons you get on a roller coaster is because the experience is not exactly a gentle one. They build them in amusement parks, because that is where people go to be amused. Vriska is not designed to be either definitively likable or hateable. Sometimes when you read a story, a character does something which you will take as a message from the author about how you are supposed to feel about that character. When they later do something at odds with that message, it can either be regarded as out of character, or character development, depending on both the reader's perception, and the author's execution. In this case, everything she does, good or bad, is meant to provide a more complete picture of her as a character, and more thorough context for her actions. Once upon a time, a lot of it seemed purely despicable. But I don't believe either extreme, despicable or sympathetic, is 100% suitable anymore. What exists is a portrait that has complexities, as any character given a lot of time in the limelight should have. That having been provided, which side she falls on is up to the reader.
i'm gonna stop spamming the thread after this one, but here's a thing i did not realize and now that i know it's kinda super fucked up: i assumed it was momentum. the rest of the answer to this is a big rambly thing about how hussie draws fucked up things a lot, and has lots of links to references he made in the comic or other fucked up things he wrote. but aside from that, what the hell, gamzee.
i'm sorry, i lied, THIS is the last one because i laughed at the karkat one given everything that's been said and done:
So it's come up with a lot of people that a big complaint people have with the ending part of Homestuck has to do with the retcon. Namely that we didn't get to see the characters as we originally knew them. Honestly, that was one of the parts I found most interesting. Especially when Calliope gave her talk about the aspect of Space and how that relates to self. One of my favorite bits of Homestuck since I learned of it being a thing has been that there is no one version of the characters. You have a lot of doomed selves which are entirely sentient individuals. You have the selves in scratched versions of the universes. You have the combined sprite people. You have the retcon timeline following Game Over. You might even have a "rewound" set of the surviving set and a "joined" version of the dead set depending on how you interpret the ending and what happens in it and after it. I didn't feel particularly jarred by the retcon when it happened. Though when I thought about it for a bit the first time I did feel a bit sad. We never got to see that Rose work through her alcoholism. We never got to see that Terezi get a chance to really accept shit. We never got to see that Karkat and Dave and Jake and so on grow. But after thinking about it some in a way I did get to see that. The retcon versions of these characters are still the same people. They just also happen to not be the same people! And I was attached to the versions of these people that I knew. In a way I did get to see what I wanted. It was just that I wasn't looking at it from the right perspective. I was too attached to a far too small conception of "self". To be able to actually see that in a piece of media and a piece of western produced media at that was wonderful. Like legitimately wonderful. I got to see Anatta and the concept of a True Buddha-self portrayed accurately in spirit. If not in exact details. Perhaps this wasn't at all Hussie's intention and it probably wasn't. But I'm grateful to him all the same. Because, wow, look. There's my conception of self. There is my understanding of it's reality. Portrayed as a normal thing that is just part of way reality is whether you particularly like it or not. And it just means a lot to get to see myself. A whole lot.
@swirlingflight Yes, and... that in what I see as jumping to conclusions not a whole lot makes sense. There are better explanations in this thread now. I see Vriska's presence in the endgame not as a reward but a necessity. It seemed like the point of the retcon, other than saving Terezi from her black-and-white morality, was that even if Vriska is really a terrible person who more than likely deserves to die she's a necessary player. That's not really a hopeful message but... I think it works. And if Vriska had gained the memories of her dead self and actually realized how vulnerable she was I'm not sure she would have acted the way she did, which is as if she had nothing to lose.
This post has crossed my dash twice this morning. I like it! (Edit: I totally didn't realise that was @BlackholeKG 's blog until the second time around, nice work!) I also think it's more likely that Hussie deliberately cut a bunch of plot-threads short because that's what happens when your characters end the story from the inside, before it has the chance to play out the way good stories do, than that he just dropped the chainsaw(s) accidentally or because he couldn't deal with them any more. Either way, it's pretty fun reading all the things people are writing about how the ending worked, or didn't work, or worked by not-working.
Ayy glad you liked. It's true that a lot of plot threads were cut short in a manner that wasn't particularly satisfying to the reader. I'm thinking maybe the epilogue will fix that, by providing a space to explore those things whilst not being within the actual scope of Homestuck itself, and therefore not screwing up the significance of the end of homestuck/juju effect to defeat Lord English, if I got that right.
...So if you end the story with English trapped inside it forever, but you want to keep communicating with your readers in the same language, it's a good thing you have English outside the story too, right? I don't know, I've seen a lot of speculation about reasons for Jake's name being English, here's some more.
So are you saying that homestuck went absolutely pear-shaped and there was no other way around it, we had to just decapitate it
If anyone lives in the Portland (OR) area, they should come to Portlandstuck tomorrow for the big 413 send off jamboree. There's actually two locations - Directors park and the Park blocks (a block and half away), so if you don't see anyone at one location, just try the other. It officially starts at 1pm, but many will be there by noon. I'll be there in my redglare cosplay (see icon)
Obviously, Lord English cannot be defeated in Homestuck... But nobody said ANYTHING about the sequel. Hussie did always say that Homestuck was an origin story after all. :P
Just saying, I really like BlackHole's idea that they defeated Lord English by trapping him in Canon.. It fit so goddamned well with all the other meta, weirdness and themes of homestuck http://mizushimo.tumblr.com/post/142856944158/how-lord-englishs-defeat-was-achieved
I'm rereading Act 1 and remembering why Rose is my favorite "*fucks shit up* I HAVE THIS UNDER CONTROL" is my favorite archetype
also it's a god damn shame that AR and Terezi never got to fight crimes together ONCE forget the retcon, this is the worst thing about Homestuck
I've been trying to set up a cosmetics business a la geekchiccosmetics.com and I'm wondering if a) it's too late for anyone to be interested in a Homestuck line and b) if Hussie's rules about selling only 2D fan artworks preclude my trying. Anyone's thoughts? The game coming out may solve the first issue but there's still the second.
