cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Apr 21, 2016 1:27:23 GMT
I've thought about the retcon and it may attempt to return the theme of getting through stuff in convoluted ways, but this one really seems kinda forcing in the Aranea problem as if the existing stuff wasn't enough of a substantial challenge.
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Post by melonlord on Apr 21, 2016 2:06:31 GMT
I don't know. I mean, I kinda ambivalent about the ending in general. Like, I can accept this ending as the true ending with the epilouge only really serving as a way to let us know what happened to the kids after they went through the door. I guess, I just don't think Hussie is going to pull a conclusive ending like everyone is expecting he will. Epilogues aren't really places for that to happen, yknow? I feel like, if he really wanted the kind of conclusive ending that the rest of the fandom wants, he would've just...done it? It's not like he was low on time or didn't have the capabilities. He just...chose not to have it end that way. If that does happen, I'll be pleasantly surprised, but...on the other hand, I have this feeling that what we got is how Hussie really wanted the last note of the comic to be, with the epilogue as more of the final bow on top. One could make the argument that, if he wanted to pull a shitty twist and have the story messed up in some way, the perfect time for it would be during a "peaceful" epilogue, when everybody thinks the comic is over and have their guards down. ...yeah I'm basically grasping at straws here. It ends how it ends, I guess. There's going to be no shortage of fan endings, anyway.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 21, 2016 2:27:30 GMT
I think my main problem with the retcon, as things stand now, is that much more interesting things could've been done with it. Not much changed, and what did change didn't make things more compelling.
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Post by Arashi500 on Apr 21, 2016 7:17:56 GMT
I actually find the viewpoint that if you look at it as the Pre-Retcon characters arcs having been de-railed and the Post-Retcon arcs being the "intended" ones (whether that means intended by Hussie or by Paradox Space/Skaia I dunno.) kinda interesting, if not very satisfying... I wonder if that is how someone reading it archivally for the first time now that it's finished will think of it?
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 21, 2016 10:19:48 GMT
The way post-retcon Vriska was written is one of the few things that give me hope for a bait-and-switch. There's almost no way the ending in which she succeeds can be the "real ending" of Homestuck. EDIT: I actually wouldn't mind if Terezi ended up with a better version of Vriska though. Like if Griska didn't actually double-die, and was brought back to life with the ring, or if they find a way to restore Vriska's memories so that she's not a bad guy anymore. That might actually be a fitting "punishment", to have her personality "diluted" by that of a "loser" (from her perspective). And if she just broke down and starting crying and apologizing afterwards, it might actually be a powerful scene. (S) Vriska: R3M3MB3R? Eh, I didn't like (Vriska)'s character arc ether. She's still a better character than Vriska though. Vriska is honestly a terrible character; she has all the bad qualities of Act 5 Vriska but lacks all the qualities that made Act 5 Vriska good (her personality is different for an example. Less outgoing and doesn't exaggerate her words as much). Vriska shouldn't of existed, honestly. Bringing Vriska back like that was the worst thing the retcon did. And I never cared for Vrisrezi and I've always found it just... meh... JohnVris, Karezi and Daverezi are better ships imo. Vriska has had far better conversations with John and he's the only person she's truly opened up to. So I'd rather Vrisrezi not happen to be honest, simply because I've never cared about it?
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thecrystalship
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Post by thecrystalship on Apr 21, 2016 15:25:10 GMT
And I never cared for Vrisrezi and I've always found it just... meh... JohnVris, Karezi and Daverezi are better ships imo. Vriska has had far better conversations with John and he's the only person she's truly opened up to. So I'd rather Vrisrezi not happen to be honest, simply because I've never cared about it? I would literally cry tears of joy if Spider8reath were brought back, but that's one thing even I'm not optimistic enough to hope for.
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cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Apr 21, 2016 15:57:21 GMT
The way post-retcon Vriska was written is one of the few things that give me hope for a bait-and-switch. There's almost no way the ending in which she succeeds can be the "real ending" of Homestuck. EDIT: I actually wouldn't mind if Terezi ended up with a better version of Vriska though. Like if Griska didn't actually double-die, and was brought back to life with the ring, or if they find a way to restore Vriska's memories so that she's not a bad guy anymore. That might actually be a fitting "punishment", to have her personality "diluted" by that of a "loser" (from her perspective). And if she just broke down and starting crying and apologizing afterwards, it might actually be a powerful scene. (S) Vriska: R3M3MB3R? Bringing Vriska back like that was the worst thing the retcon did. The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death?
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 21, 2016 15:58:44 GMT
And I never cared for Vrisrezi and I've always found it just... meh... JohnVris, Karezi and Daverezi are better ships imo. Vriska has had far better conversations with John and he's the only person she's truly opened up to. So I'd rather Vrisrezi not happen to be honest, simply because I've never cared about it? I would literally cry tears of joy if Spider8reath were brought back, but that's one thing even I'm not optimistic enough to hope for. John<>Vris would make me real happy, but it was never anything I needed.
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Post by therationaldove on Apr 21, 2016 16:31:52 GMT
Bringing Vriska back like that was the worst thing the retcon did. The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death? I don't really know? Like, I feel like most people would say "just have him not leave the ring behind" which would then take Aranea out of the picture, while still allowing for the character development to take place on screen. But I also feel like that's too straightforward for something like a retcon. John could've just used time-travel artifacts to accomplish something that simple. If it were me, I would've done something a bit more extreme. I would've had John use his retcon powers to go to different doomed timelines and collect various doomed version of the characters we have seen to then bring them together as the new Alpha characters. Not only would that add to the meta-ness of retconning, but it could also tie into the idea that all versions of a character matter. There is no such thing as "alpha". Alpha is a construct create by the game, and by having doomed versions become the "alpha" versions, it flies in the face of the rules of the game. And, I would still keep Vriska's resurrection as a big part of the retcon, because then her inability to move past her flaws can be further contrasted by a cast of characters who were eliminated because they made the "wrong" choices. That may be a hell of a lot more complex, but I think that it would maybe make the retcon seem more legitimate, because these characters who originally failed and died because of that fialure are allowed to move past it because they are being given that second chance.
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 21, 2016 21:18:19 GMT
Bringing Vriska back like that was the worst thing the retcon did. The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death? I personally think that bringing Vriska back could've worked if it was done very differently. Like I said earlier, it would've been much better for Terezi if the Retcon actually allowed her to make the right decision, and had her knock out Vriska instead on John doing it. If the Retcon was actually kept secret by not having John come barreling through, then Vriska wouldn't know that everything was redone just for her, so she wouldn't have that same ego boost, and instead having her best friend confront her so might serve as a proper wake up call and begin Vriska's much needed development in the right direction. Fast forward 3 years, to where the Meteor Crew comes in well adjusted and ready to go, as an actual team, rather that as Supreme Overlord of Awesomeness Vriska and her Posse of Somewhat Competent Yes-Men, then I would be a lot happier with the Retcon.
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cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Apr 21, 2016 21:51:53 GMT
The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death? I personally think that bringing Vriska back could've worked if it was done very differently. Like I said earlier, it would've been much better for Terezi if the Retcon actually allowed her to make the right decision, and had her knock out Vriska instead on John doing it. If the Retcon was actually kept secret by not having John come barreling through, then Vriska wouldn't know that everything was redone just for her, so she wouldn't have that same ego boost, and instead having her best friend confront her so might serve as a proper wake up call and begin Vriska's much needed development in the right direction. Fast forward 3 years, to where the Meteor Crew comes in well adjusted and ready to go, as an actual team, rather that as Supreme Overlord of Awesomeness Vriska and her Posse of Somewhat Competent Yes-Men, then I would be a lot happier with the Retcon. Even then, it has the same issue of rendering much of Act 6 a waste of time that is the biggest problem with the retcon.
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 24, 2016 13:19:41 GMT
The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death? I don't really know? Like, I feel like most people would say "just have him not leave the ring behind" which would then take Aranea out of the picture, while still allowing for the character development to take place on screen. But I also feel like that's too straightforward for something like a retcon. John could've just used time-travel artifacts to accomplish something that simple. If it were me, I would've done something a bit more extreme. I would've had John use his retcon powers to go to different doomed timelines and collect various doomed version of the characters we have seen to then bring them together as the new Alpha characters. Not only would that add to the meta-ness of retconning, but it could also tie into the idea that all versions of a character matter. There is no such thing as "alpha". Alpha is a construct create by the game, and by having doomed versions become the "alpha" versions, it flies in the face of the rules of the game. And, I would still keep Vriska's resurrection as a big part of the retcon, because then her inability to move past her flaws can be further contrasted by a cast of characters who were eliminated because they made the "wrong" choices. That may be a hell of a lot more complex, but I think that it would maybe make the retcon seem more legitimate, because these characters who originally failed and died because of that fialure are allowed to move past it because they are being given that second chance. That actually sounds pretty cool. I think I would have preferred it if the retcon did a lot more than just solve issues and actually did a lot of mind-blowing. I never agreed with Vriska bringing brought back. It just completely ruins the end of her arc in act 5 and honestly one of the best Homestuck moments.
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Post by therationaldove on Apr 24, 2016 18:30:18 GMT
I don't really know? Like, I feel like most people would say "just have him not leave the ring behind" which would then take Aranea out of the picture, while still allowing for the character development to take place on screen. But I also feel like that's too straightforward for something like a retcon. John could've just used time-travel artifacts to accomplish something that simple. If it were me, I would've done something a bit more extreme. I would've had John use his retcon powers to go to different doomed timelines and collect various doomed version of the characters we have seen to then bring them together as the new Alpha characters. Not only would that add to the meta-ness of retconning, but it could also tie into the idea that all versions of a character matter. There is no such thing as "alpha". Alpha is a construct create by the game, and by having doomed versions become the "alpha" versions, it flies in the face of the rules of the game. And, I would still keep Vriska's resurrection as a big part of the retcon, because then her inability to move past her flaws can be further contrasted by a cast of characters who were eliminated because they made the "wrong" choices. That may be a hell of a lot more complex, but I think that it would maybe make the retcon seem more legitimate, because these characters who originally failed and died because of that fialure are allowed to move past it because they are being given that second chance. That actually sounds pretty cool. I think I would have preferred it if the retcon did a lot more than just solve issues and actually did a lot of mind-blowing. I never agreed with Vriska bringing brought back. It just completely ruins the end of her arc in act 5 and honestly one of the best Homestuck moments. Yeah. I suppose that is true...I also think that what I suggested could also give a way for the living trolls to God-Tier.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 25, 2016 1:20:09 GMT
I never agreed with Vriska bringing brought back. It just completely ruins the end of her arc in act 5 and honestly one of the best Homestuck moments. To be fair, just hanging around with her in the afterlife did that. Well, I don't know if it completely ruins it, but I thought that stuff undercut that moment by quite a bit already, even before the retcon.
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 25, 2016 4:29:14 GMT
I never agreed with Vriska bringing brought back. It just completely ruins the end of her arc in act 5 and honestly one of the best Homestuck moments. To be fair, just hanging around with her in the afterlife did that. Well, I don't know if it completely ruins it, but I thought that stuff undercut that moment by quite a bit already, even before the retcon. I'm unsure if you meant that small epilogue with her at the very end of act 5, or her being brought back in act 6 in general. I you mean the later, I agree there also. :\
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 25, 2016 4:32:17 GMT
To be fair, just hanging around with her in the afterlife did that. Well, I don't know if it completely ruins it, but I thought that stuff undercut that moment by quite a bit already, even before the retcon. I'm unsure if you meant that small epilogue with her at the very end of act 5, or her being brought back in act 6 in general. I you mean the later, I agree there also. :\ Yeah, the latter. It also felt like....Hussie softened her up? Like she was a full blown sociopath before she kicked it, and in the afterlife she was more just a really big bitch. That bothered me, for multiple reasons.
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thecrystalship
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Post by thecrystalship on Apr 25, 2016 18:58:46 GMT
Yeah, the latter. It also felt like....Hussie softened her up? Like she was a full blown sociopath before she kicked it, and in the afterlife she was more just a really big bitch. That bothered me, for multiple reasons. She was always soft on the inside. If anything, she has borderline personality disorder, not full-blown sociopathy or narcissism, although they can obviously be co-morbid. EDIT: Vriska's arc is actually very realistic and fairly compelling, to the point where I think she must be based on somebody or something from Hussie's life. The only problem now is that there's no pay-off. Griska never got to prove that her philosophy was correct, that you don't need to be a hero to be a good person.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 26, 2016 0:19:57 GMT
Yeah, the latter. It also felt like....Hussie softened her up? Like she was a full blown sociopath before she kicked it, and in the afterlife she was more just a really big bitch. That bothered me, for multiple reasons. She was always soft on the inside. If anything, she has borderline personality disorder, not full-blown sociopathy or narcissism, although they can obviously be co-morbid. Nah. Act 5 Vriska could've never apologized to anyone the way she did Tavros after their sprite explosion. She was never without her potentially softer side, but after she died she was softened considerably and her behavior was framed differently. She's almost (if not) an anti-villain before then, but after that Hussie tried to make the shift from that to pure anti-hero and it just didn't work out. Which bothered me. Not only did Vriska's arc come to a satisfying conclusion with her death and interaction with doomed!John, it was refreshing that Hussie didn't try to make it out like her friends should have to put up with her bull crap and change her with the power of friendship by the end of the story. Some people are just toxic and if they can change at all, long before they do they'll make you waste years of your time and energy hoping they will, and nobody should have to do that. Plus, it's a disservice to people's issues (and Vriska's are...unique) to portray them as something that can just be fixed or changed so conclusively. I'll admit that the dream bubble stuff is sort an interesting way around some of the usual problems with that....but it still comes across too similarly, and the fact that Vriska already softened to a considerable degree before that whole thing even really got started makes it feel even cheaper.
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thecrystalship
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Post by thecrystalship on Apr 26, 2016 1:55:53 GMT
Which bothered me. Not only did Vriska's arc come to a satisfying conclusion with her death and interaction with doomed!John, it was refreshing that Hussie didn't try to make it out like her friends should have to put up with her bull crap and change her with the power of friendship by the end of the story. Some people are just toxic and if they can change at all, long before they do they'll make you waste years of your time and energy hoping they will, and nobody should have to do that. Plus, it's a disservice to people's issues (and Vriska's are...unique) to portray them as something that can just be fixed or changed so conclusively. I'll admit that the dream bubble stuff is sort an interesting way around some of the usual problems with that....but it still comes across too similarly, and the fact that Vriska already softened to a considerable degree before that whole thing even really got started makes it feel even cheaper. The word "toxic" almost triggers me now, it's just become queer code for "this person should be shunned from the community and shouldn't succeed in life because of their mistakes". Whatever. I agree that this arc sucks balls. "The movie better sure as hell make up for this, I'm telling you right now."
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 26, 2016 3:45:36 GMT
Which bothered me. Not only did Vriska's arc come to a satisfying conclusion with her death and interaction with doomed!John, it was refreshing that Hussie didn't try to make it out like her friends should have to put up with her bull crap and change her with the power of friendship by the end of the story. Some people are just toxic and if they can change at all, long before they do they'll make you waste years of your time and energy hoping they will, and nobody should have to do that. Plus, it's a disservice to people's issues (and Vriska's are...unique) to portray them as something that can just be fixed or changed so conclusively. I'll admit that the dream bubble stuff is sort an interesting way around some of the usual problems with that....but it still comes across too similarly, and the fact that Vriska already softened to a considerable degree before that whole thing even really got started makes it feel even cheaper. The word "toxic" almost triggers me now, it's just become queer code for "this person should be shunned from the community and shouldn't succeed in life because of their mistakes". Toxic is useful for me because it's a word I can use to describe a person who is never going to stop stealing money from me, or cheating on me, or emotionally and/or physically abusing me even if I've put up with it for years. Waiting or hoping for someone like that to change would only drag out my suffering, ruin my life and waste my time, so why not remove them from my life if I can safely do so? Even if a person like that wants to change, (like Vriska might have) they might never be able to or even figure out how to, and there's no reason you or I or anyone else should have to hurt while they learn.
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Post by Neptz on Apr 26, 2016 13:46:54 GMT
Which bothered me. Not only did Vriska's arc come to a satisfying conclusion with her death and interaction with doomed!John, it was refreshing that Hussie didn't try to make it out like her friends should have to put up with her bull crap and change her with the power of friendship by the end of the story. Some people are just toxic and if they can change at all, long before they do they'll make you waste years of your time and energy hoping they will, and nobody should have to do that. Plus, it's a disservice to people's issues (and Vriska's are...unique) to portray them as something that can just be fixed or changed so conclusively. I'll admit that the dream bubble stuff is sort an interesting way around some of the usual problems with that....but it still comes across too similarly, and the fact that Vriska already softened to a considerable degree before that whole thing even really got started makes it feel even cheaper. The word "toxic" almost triggers me now, it's just become queer code for "this person should be shunned from the community and shouldn't succeed in life because of their mistakes". Whatever. I agree that this arc sucks balls. "The movie better sure as hell make up for this, I'm telling you right now." Same here, but instead of 'toxic' it's 'edgy' instead. People use it to describe just about anything that isn't happiness and peace instead of just cringy stuff that's dark.
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 26, 2016 14:11:03 GMT
She was always soft on the inside. If anything, she has borderline personality disorder, not full-blown sociopathy or narcissism, although they can obviously be co-morbid. Nah. Act 5 Vriska could've never apologized to anyone the way she did Tavros after their sprite explosion. She was never without her potentially softer side, but after she died she was softened considerably and her behavior was framed differently. She's almost (if not) an anti-villain before then, but after that Hussie tried to make the shift from that to pure anti-hero and it just didn't work out. Which bothered me. Not only did Vriska's arc come to a satisfying conclusion with her death and interaction with doomed!John, it was refreshing that Hussie didn't try to make it out like her friends should have to put up with her bull crap and change her with the power of friendship by the end of the story. Some people are just toxic and if they can change at all, long before they do they'll make you waste years of your time and energy hoping they will, and nobody should have to do that. Plus, it's a disservice to people's issues (and Vriska's are...unique) to portray them as something that can just be fixed or changed so conclusively. I'll admit that the dream bubble stuff is sort an interesting way around some of the usual problems with that....but it still comes across too similarly, and the fact that Vriska already softened to a considerable degree before that whole thing even really got started makes it feel even cheaper. I agree here. I didn't like the way Vriska was handled in act 6 at all. What I didn't like was that I was expecting her morals to change but her personality to still be the same, but instead we got the opposite. Vriska's personality ended up changing more than her morals, which.... I thought was odd? I was expecting her to at least change her morals with the whole 'being the best' thing since it seemed like that was what she wanted to change the most after dealing with Bec.
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Post by therationaldove on May 3, 2016 17:03:59 GMT
It's intersting how much Vriska comes up in any controversial Homestuck discussion.
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Post by Gab on May 7, 2016 18:06:07 GMT
Okay I finally bit the bullet and decided to come here cuz I wanna talk about retcon stuff. I see to start with a lot of people are talking about why they don't like the ending, which really has a lot to do with how the characters are treated. That's fair, I guess. This is a quarantine thread, it would be the place I'd put it. I don't think I'll comment on any of that just now though, I'm more interested in the mechanics of the retcon itself right now. So I have a pretty wild theory about what the retcon juju actually is, so bear with me here. What is it then, exactly? It is the unlimited creative potential of Sburb/Skaia. As a prize of a dead session, it makes sense to me because the game really has nothing else to offer, it can only repackage what it already has as something the player can use. If Skaia can't nurture a frog into a universe, or even scratch the session with all that power, it can at least cram it all into an artifact that might still get some use one day. The fact only one player has ever even managed to succeed and get the prize certainly makes this harder to verify, but like I said, I think it's a fairly logical deduction. But more specifically, how does this jive with how we see it used? Well, for me it solves the question of why it seems to have two completely different properties when we see it in action. Much like how one's class and greater personality affect how they interpret and interact with their aspect, and indeed how an entire Sburb session is modified by and reacts to the players, the Retcon responds differently depending who tries to use it. When Caliborn uses it, it responds by simply sucking up four combatants. On the surface level this seems to speak to Caliborn's lack of creativity, but perhaps there is more to it than this. Because rather than simply defeating four foes and being done with it, it specifically comes with the drawback that they can be released. This I think jive's with Caliborn's mentality about jujus, which is what he thinks the Retcon is, and what he expects of it. Something that in a way is almost elegant in its simplicity. And exactly as he would have it, it becomes an important piece in the mythos of himself, as a fabled weakness of his, a treasure to be sought and used against him one day. On the other hand, when John 'uses' it by sticking his arm inside, it does something totally different with him. John, a kind of flighty directionless kid who must lead his friends to victory, is given a power very similar to a Scratch, but personalized for him. And since he wasn't really looking for anything special and didn't know what would happen, he has no ability to control this power at first. Only when he knows what he needs to do can he begin to master it. There's more to it than being able to shape reality, though. Specifically, it seems he can only jump to past moments of the story, or into other 'stories' like the movie Con Air, or Homosuck. Perhaps this is because to Sburb, telling a story and creating a universe are very intertwined. And maybe also because it needed to find some kind of way to limit John's power. Also, and perhaps interrelated to this, it could be the Retcon doubles as some kind of access to the 'blanc space,' a realm that could be summarized as "completely outside everything else," given John's ability to teleport there, bring things there and take them out. It would also be a pretty handy place for Caliborn to stick his captives. It was even represented as a hole in its first appearance, being literally a transparent item in the panels. I don't really know what to make of the end house yet, though. That still pretty much boggles me. And now to respond to some posts. We know that there's a pre-retcon version of Caliborn and a post-retcon version of Caliborn, because we've seen at least one conversation where Caliborn had a pre-retcon conversation which differed from his post-retcon conversation. And we've seen John appear as far back as EoA1, right behind his own past self, but not creating a whole new timeline. Sometimes small divergences can happen that don't mean anything more. Like Troublemaker brought up in the first post, Doc Scratch must have never had the opportunity to hold conversations with Gamzee or the reader in the post-retcon timeline, but he still achieves everything he wanted to. Or like the oil and arms that are everywhere but that no one ever seems to see. I think one of the things I'm annoyed with is that we never saw the outcome of the game being completed pre-retcon. I really wanted to see what would have happened if it got completed. It could have worked, since all deaths would have been prevented if Aranea didn't get the ring. Plus if the glitches weren't happening that would have helped the characters a lot. The Masterpiece may have happened in that timeline, but it never got addressed. You know, this makes me wonder about the power of that silly cartridge Caliborn had. If it could effect reality in a tangible way for the heroes, that's... well, horrifying. It's like he'd been given access to a universe frog, but even scarier. What would have happened if he decided to smash that thing into a million pieces??? Caliborn always gets the most broken OP jujus. I firmly believed this to be The Point, up til the moment Act 7 ended and the retcon was revealed as The Only Way Out, Exactly The Way It Went. Now I'm so confused. The style and theme of HS was utterly reversed in its final moments. Readers like me are punished, like LE, for being "stuck in the story." Which, as I said... Just tastes like poison. Please, someone, tell me I'm wrong. If it makes you feel any better, I think you're wrong. But I don't know exactly how to phrase what I'm thinking here. It's like... as if the retcon is overpowered, and solves things 'too easily', and people would have preferred a solution which requires more mindbending time loops and other difficulties to solve the same problems. But I think events as they are are still quite complex, when looked at overall. It still involves changing timelines, and getting the retcon, learning to use it, and then applying it intelligently all took a lot of work. Does that make any sense? What I'm trying to say is, while in some ways the retcon does kind of cut through to the path of victory in a big way, the journey was still a complex, convoluted one the whole way through. People look at the retcon like it makes the story do a whole 180, but I don't think this is the case. I think it's just more of the story, which should be looked at the way any of the rest of it was told, instead of isolating it so much. Anyway Retcon stuff: I think another thing that bothers me about the Retcon is the fact that it's not. It's presented in the story as some sort of total Timeline overwriter that's far reaching and complete enough to be a retcon from the reader's perspective in many situations, but it's obviously not a full retcon as the F.R. is unaffected. Now I know that we, the audience, were the ones who called it a retcon, and that there's good reason for the F.R. to go unaffected, but I do feel that, if there was a way to make it work, an actual, proper retcon would be ideal for Homestuck. Not in the actual literal sense of overwriting pages and thus screwing with archival readers, but with all the meta and 4th wall breaking Homestuck does, a device that transcends the story's internal mechanics and affects it on an external level is right up Homestuck's alley. But instead what we got out of this incredibly meta story is a device, touted as some sort of extreme reality/narrative breaker, that ended up just being a slight spin on the already existing and mundane Time Travel and Scratch phenomena. Well, technically the story itself did call it the retcon. But I don't know if it was ever touted as an extreme reality/narrative breaker. But even so, I think it does do what you claim it didn't. It does indeed transcend the mechanics of the story and affect it on many levels. And at the same time, you're right in that it's really not much more dramatic than time travel or the scratch. And when you get right down to it, aren't those pretty close to being the same thing anyway? Doesn't time travel in most stories entail BIG CHANGES to the narrative and reality at large? And isn't the scratch an even bigger, more extreme application of that in Homestuck? There's really not all that much for it to go from there. I'd say in some ways it's less 'powerful' than the scratch by virtue of the scale of the changes caused by it. But in this same way, it is also more useful. Functionally, it hits a middle ground between time travel and scratching. One effects a relatively small time change, which would be doomed to failure due to the influence of the alpha timeline, but the extra power boost allows one to override that, like the scratch does, but without the cost of rewriting an enormous portion of time. The ability to apply this power with surgical precision is a huge get, and putting it not only in the hands of our heroes but quite possibly in the hands of the one least equipped to make use of them I think not only has interesting and amusing ramifications for the concept at large, but is compelling storytelling. The worse thing about that is, that more or less was the main thing about the retcon. Here's a curious question for all of you. What do you think would've made a better thing to retcon than Vriska's death? Interesting question. Hmmmm... Okay, here's something. What if John used his power to prevent Gamzee from snapping and going on his rampage, by like giving him a lifetime supply of Faygo and sopor slime pies? It would be interesting to see how that reality played out. It's intersting how much Vriska comes up in any controversial Homestuck discussion. It is pretty much her purpose for existing.
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Post by melonlord on May 7, 2016 20:43:20 GMT
I firmly believed this to be The Point, up til the moment Act 7 ended and the retcon was revealed as The Only Way Out, Exactly The Way It Went. Now I'm so confused. The style and theme of HS was utterly reversed in its final moments. Readers like me are punished, like LE, for being "stuck in the story." Which, as I said... Just tastes like poison. Please, someone, tell me I'm wrong. If it makes you feel any better, I think you're wrong. But I don't know exactly how to phrase what I'm thinking here. It's like... as if the retcon is overpowered, and solves things 'too easily', and people would have preferred a solution which requires more mindbending time loops and other difficulties to solve the same problems. But I think events as they are are still quite complex, when looked at overall. It still involves changing timelines, and getting the retcon, learning to use it, and then applying it intelligently all took a lot of work. Does that make any sense?
What I'm trying to say is, while in some ways the retcon does kind of cut through to the path of victory in a big way, the journey was still a complex, convoluted one the whole way through. People look at the retcon like it makes the story do a whole 180, but I don't think this is the case. I think it's just more of the story, which should be looked at the way any of the rest of it was told, instead of isolating it so much.
I think the largest problem I have with it is that, the way it turned out, the retcon felt like cheating. It's not that it wasn't complex enough mechanics-wise, it's that it doesn't feel like the heroes truly paid for their victory. The "cost" that was paid (retjohn! Roxy and John's deaths) didn't feel like it meant anything; the heroes didn't care once the replacements showed up, and then we got that "all selves are connected" speech from Davepeta that undercut it further. Many of the heroes had their issues either erased (Rose, Kanaya) or ignored (Jake, Terezi, Karkat, Vriska), rather than facing them as they started to in the GO! timeline. This flies in the face of some earlier Homestuck themes, which emphasized growing up and dealing with one's problems rather than using magic to solve them. It's kind of difficult to get the right wording, but I think I can summarize it like this: it doesn't feel like they overcame a massive boss with overwhelming odds against them. It feels like they got crushed on the first attempt (Game Over), so then someone used a gameshark to make the boss way easier, and they just beat that instead (the post-retcon). In both cases, they skipped/fucked up the sidequests (character development/self actualization) that would have made the boss beatable, but in the post retcon that stuff ended up not mattering anyway. This is obviously subjective, and a lot of people felt like the heroes did plenty to earn their victory (or feel like they didn't need to "earn" it because homestuck is too cool for your storytelling rules or whatever). But, for me, it's hard to feel satisfied by it when it doesn't feel like a true, hard fought battle.
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