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Post by princessfeffie on May 20, 2017 22:11:26 GMT
im rereading hs again so heres a thread for collecting some thoughts without spamming anywhere else c:
feel free to respond/argue stuff, bc im planning to post quite a bit of meta stuff here!
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axolotlSushi
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Post by axolotlSushi on May 20, 2017 22:14:47 GMT
Coolio! I fully support you in your re-reading efforts. I'm thinking of doing one myself, actually...  |
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Post by Gab on May 20, 2017 23:11:29 GMT
Maybe we could do like a group reread.
That'd probably be a lot of work though. But discussing it should be fun. Count me in :B
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axolotlSushi
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Hi, my name is That Bastard
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Post by axolotlSushi on May 20, 2017 23:13:37 GMT
Maybe we could do like a group reread. That'd probably be a lot of work though. But discussing it should be fun. Count me in :B That actually sounds really cool, though... Like, we could arrange a time and date- hell, even a pesterchum memo?  |
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Post by princessfeffie on May 20, 2017 23:21:44 GMT
Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you. Plus, a black president??? Now you've seen everything!
You see the view of your yard from your window.
Hanging from the tree is your TIRE SWING. In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, HE CAN HARDLY BE CONSIDERED A TERRIBLY PROPER GENTLEMAN AT ALL.
You clumsily mishandle the SACRED URN. Ash is everywhere.
In retrospect, upon mulling cinematic tropes regarding ash-filled urns, this outcome was a virtual certainty.
johns actually a rly interesting character right from act 1! hes the first character introduced and the one we first learn about the ways the homestuck world works like fetch modii n sburb with, u can view him as a 'tutorial character' of sorts and the way he views the world n how it relates to that is rly interesting! he has a pretty rigid way he expects things to happen based on his own internal presumptions and movie-style cliches - leading to stuff like the breakdown when he realizes dad's a normal businessman - which is pretty much the opposite of his path of Breath and freedom, and something he has to grow from in the course of the comic! his arc fits rly well into what becomes the main theme of homestuck, Ascension and escape of a confining material reality, and rereading act 1 with this in mind makes the retcon seem an even better conclusion to his arc, with john literally rewriting the alpha timeline to escape lord english, a personification of restriction and control in himself. iirc his quest with typheus and the oil is even canonically referred to as a 'final victory over his confining reality' or such? he takes a third option, literally in the sense of finding a way to remove the oil without drowning or failing his quest, and metaphorically in escaping what the alpha timeline has imposed - john egbert grows a lot in homestuck and hes a far more interesting character than ppl tend to think! Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.
this is more meaningful than it originally sounds on reread too! the central theme of homestuck - and the centre of the gnostic references through the comic too - is the idea of being trapped in a confining material reality and escape from it - the characters are stuck in a sense which possibly borders on the titular :DDD
You decide to consult with the Colonel's bottomless wisdom. Good grief this thing is huge. It could kill a cat if you dropped it.
OH GOSH >u>;; TG: is it there
TG: plz say yes
TG: maybe you can play with TT shes been pestering me all day about it
TG: shes mackin on me so hard all the time i start to feel embarrassed for her
TG: i mean not that i can blame her or anything
this is an interesting bit of foreshadowing for dave's act 6 arc! even in the early acts he's written as insecure and prone to rambling when his friends aren't there, and here he seems to switch right back to jokes abt how Straight and Masculine and getting all the girls he is as a defense once he realizes john can see him acting clingy- EB: yes, it is understandable because you are really attractive. i am attracted to you.
and then john does this john's friendships with dave and rose and later roxy are super sweet, john sees past the facades and doesn't believe their insecurities at all, and is in general a really grounding force to characters with lower self esteem - optimism through stalwart skepticism is a defect not everyone is lucky enough to be cursed with c:
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Post by princessfeffie on May 21, 2017 14:46:33 GMT
You play the prankster's favorite card game, even though you are alone in the room, thus rendering it an especially foolish version of Solitaire.
SO STUPID. Look at this mess.
The peanut gallery over there sure is getting a kick out of it. You are allergic to their scorn.
john's actually pretty self-deprecating internally! the prospit kids have issues with perfectionism and holding themselves to high internal standards the way the derse kids have issues with self-sacrifice and needing to be responsible for saving everything, n all these kids have a lot to grow from :'c
It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.aaaah, this is one of my fav pages from early hs! it's such a lovely introduction to the gnostic references in homestuck; the inherent feeling of lack and confinement in john's material reality, and later Ascent to find knowledge and meaning and ultimately escape back to divine origins.
when sburb is introduced, skaia is essentially an analogue to the gnostic concept of pleroma, the 'region of light' and fullness of godly power - or as it's described in homestuck, a source of unlimited creative potential. in gnostic mythology, sophia, the feminine personification of wisdom and last emanation of god, falls from pleroma in her desire to know the unknowable fullness of god, and results in the creation of YOGURTBONER yaldabaoth or the demiurge. believing itself alone, the demiurge creates the imperfect and cruel material reality in which mankind is trapped. remaining in humans however is the divine spark of pleroma, and the central belief of gnosticism was that by achieving gnosis or mystical knowledge of the divine, humans may be guided by sophia back to pleroma and escape from their confining reality. achieving godtiers, escaping lord english, and the whole theme of Ascent are parallels to this in homestuck, and later rose is a parallel to sophia herself!
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Post by princessfeffie on May 29, 2017 15:57:34 GMT
kinda forgot abt this but shello again! c:  we see john being saved by literal Breath and air very early on here! again, this is going to fit into his arc a lot - from obliviously carried along by his aspect to finally mastering it to escape completely from his confinement in the form of the alpha timeline and lord english. this is how i interpret achieving godtier as a concept in general: gaining enough wisdom in and personal growth through your aspect to use it to make a final victory over your confining reality, and a pretty direct analogue to gnosis! |
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Post by princessfeffie on May 29, 2017 16:24:16 GMT
You're not usually into chick-flicks, but Matthew McConaughey's cool charisma could salvage any heap of smoldering wreckage.
This is your "McConaughey Wall", a casual shrine to an amazing actor. The film above that one is a lot better, you think.
TG: your gross man-bro crush on matt macconahay is an unsavory thing to behold 'john egbert is straight'
altho rly there is a lot to be said wrt john and sexuality!! for a boy whose original issues relate to unexamined/repressed emotions and expecting reality to conform to expectations it's easy to expect there'll be friction with how his ideas about romance and love mesh with the real thing, and it gets even more blatant later on when karkat tells him he ships him with rose - one of his first lines in person to rose is even 'karkat says we're meant to get married', despite later seeming incredibly uncomfortable with the idea in a log with jade. he takes what's 'meant to' happen to heart, suppressing the idea of considering what he actually wants, and again this is something he grows from - which, if we ever do get more postcanon content, would make john exploring the idea of liking boys a v interesting arc to see 
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Post by princessfeffie on May 29, 2017 16:31:14 GMT
 incredibly blessed image  |
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Post by Gab on May 30, 2017 3:28:23 GMT
The "John isn't straight" angle isn't something I've heard seriously before. In fact people seem to take issue with it sometimes (when crack ships break the rule). You do raise a pretty good point there though.
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Post by staircaseofkneecaps on May 30, 2017 15:17:25 GMT
Yeah John seems the type to really go with the flow, go to college, get a cubicle job, become an adult, then just die. Like if it weren't for his fate with sburb he'd be a completely average person.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 6, 2017 0:08:05 GMT
Can only one person post in this thread? I just started a re-read as well. www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002078> TT: None progress much further than this point. So others got to this point as well in the game. At least before stopping to post. Does this mean that a single universe might actually spawn multiple dis-connected sessions? That someone else, somewhere, might have entered into a different Skaia? Ha!: EB: and what is that clock counting down to? TT: I've been looking at the GameFAQ walkthroughs to figure some of this stuff out. TT: Hold while I read further. EB: ok. TT: All of these walkthroughs are extremely short. In 9 seconds, she checks out all the walkthroughs. That's ... incredibly focused, like knowing exactly where to look and not wasting any time. She's already demonstrating seer-knowledge |
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Post by keybounce on Oct 6, 2017 17:01:38 GMT
The award for advance planning despite the lack of appearance goes to Hussie for www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002774Here, in act 3, before Rose enters, we see a full 8 planets in the Skaia session. |
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The One Guy
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 6, 2017 17:10:54 GMT
The award for advance planning despite the lack of appearance goes to Hussie for www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002774Here, in act 3, before Rose enters, we see a full 8 planets in the Skaia session. There's been a lot of discussion about this before, but I remain unconvinced it was intentional. I feel likely it was likely intended as just some other session and just became an interesting coincidence, or perhaps even retroactive foreshadowing after the combined B2 session was designed. |
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 6, 2017 18:19:29 GMT
The award for advance planning despite the lack of appearance goes to Hussie for www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002774Here, in act 3, before Rose enters, we see a full 8 planets in the Skaia session. There's been a lot of discussion about this before, but I remain unconvinced it was intentional. I feel likely it was likely intended as just some other session and just became an interesting coincidence, or perhaps even retroactive foreshadowing after the combined B2 session was designed. Didn't Hussie say he came up with the Alpha session (not the whole thing, but that it existed) around this point in the story? I swear he said that somewhere. |
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The One Guy
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 6, 2017 18:28:43 GMT
There's been a lot of discussion about this before, but I remain unconvinced it was intentional. I feel likely it was likely intended as just some other session and just became an interesting coincidence, or perhaps even retroactive foreshadowing after the combined B2 session was designed. Didn't Hussie say he came up with the Alpha session (not the whole thing, but that it existed) around this point in the story? I swear he said that somewhere. I forget where it was, but I do believe you're right. However, we don't know when exactly he came up with the specific idea of the Beta kids taking their planets into the session. I'll conceede that it's possible he knew at this point, but the main reason I believe that screen is not a reference to that is because it doesn't make sense for the device Rose is looking at to display the post-scratch session. |
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Post by Gab on Oct 7, 2017 14:05:39 GMT
I tried looking around for him commenting on the 8-player session depicted in the terminal, but couldn't find anything. As such, take what I say with a grain of salt, but I recall it being broken down in this way.
The ectobiology stuff at the end of Act 4 began life drawing comparisons in the appearance of John and Jade, and Rose and Dave. That gained traction when the lab was explored in Act 3. (Rose found Mutie before seeing the session terminal)
If I had to stake a guess in it, I would say the idea of an eight player session wasn't formed until seeing the kids and their guardians as babies together, born at virtually the same time. Though that's still well after we see the terminal. Though Jade's penpal is first mentioned in early Act 4... Regardless, I'm pretty sure Andrew refers to it as a bit of intentional foreshadowing, most likely for an idea that hadn't been completely formed yet. And if it had turned out to go another way, then the foreshadowing could have been dismissed as irrelevant, like a red herring, as sometimes happens in the story.
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