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Post by alleywaycreeper on Apr 15, 2016 21:04:05 GMT
We don't see anything else hurt him because no other weapon lands such a blow. For all we know, Dirk's sword could've done the same amount of damage. Yes. I know. That's why, as I said, "it's not hard fact." But that still doesn't change the fact that, with the information we have, it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion that the characters are speaking the truth. You can speak the truth and be wrong. I never said I thought Condy or Hussie were lying, because that wouldn't make any sense. Look, I just don't see why I should believe it unless I see it so...yeah. But in any case, even if the Cueball totally was Lord English's weakness, the original point was that the Juju....somehow....destroyed his clockwork majyyks because for a moment it looked a little like a Cueball and....no. And that was the point I wanted to get at anyway. |
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 15, 2016 21:09:28 GMT
So how many of you have read the Reddit post which gives this Imgur gallery regarding why people hate the ending? I have. And it's a solid piece of analysis based on accepting the premise that Homestuck is meant to be a "heroic story" in the first place, which I absolutely do not, so it's hard to see how it's relevant to anything I have to say. It's like if you pick up Catch-22 expecting Watership Down and then post an angry review to Amazon complaining about how Catch-22 totally does not have enough rabbits, without considering why in the name of Cthulhu anyone would expect Catch-22 to have rabbits in the first place. Then what type of story is it? A Story about Growing Up? It's pretty crappy on that front too, since a large deal of character problems were just magicked away with no consequences, while a variety of other personal problems still exist and were never addressed. Maybe it's a story about Creating a Universe and Living Happily Ever After? Well, they left the Big Bad alive, as far as we saw, so the "Happily Ever After with no Complications" is very questionable. Was the story always about the mysteries and puzzles it presents? Well, so many of them are not only unanswered, but are fully unanswerable with the supplied information, so people trying to solve them aren't going to get very far. Oh dear sweet horrorterrors. Not only did Andrew know what he was doing with the ending, he saw this range of reactions coming from way back and answered them in the damned text.My edits in bold to clarify the epiphany that just jumped out at me: Plot holes do not exist. The concept is a very human one. It is the product of your story writing again. You have come up with expectations about my story about these kids, making emotional demands of it, and in particular, of those in possession of it. Your demands are based on a feeling of entitlement to the facts, which is very childish. You can never know all of the facts. Only I can. And since it's impossible for me to reveal all facts to you, it is my discretion alone that decides which facts will be revealed in the finite time we have. If I do not volunteer information you deem critical to your reading satisfaction, it possibly means that I am a scoundrel, but it does not mean that I am failing to tell the particular story I am trying to tell. How is it impossible to reveal all the facts? Besides, I think you're missing the point here. We're not just complaining that a few questions went unanswered, we're A) Complaining that a lot of questions went unanswered and B) how entire Arcs and Themes and Setups were just entirely squandered and dropped. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 15, 2016 21:09:41 GMT
Oh dear sweet horrorterrors. Not only did Andrew know what he was doing with the ending, he saw this range of reactions coming from way back and answered them in the damned text.My edits in bold to clarify the epiphany that just jumped out at me: Plot holes do not exist. The concept is a very human one. It is the product of your story writing again. You have come up with expectations about my story about these kids, making emotional demands of it, and in particular, of those in possession of it. Your demands are based on a feeling of entitlement to the facts, which is very childish. You can never know all of the facts. Only I can. And since it's impossible for me to reveal all facts to you, it is my discretion alone that decides which facts will be revealed in the finite time we have. If I do not volunteer information you deem critical to your reading satisfaction, it possibly means that I am a scoundrel, but it does not mean that I am failing to tell the particular story I am trying to tell. Where/in what context did he say these? I ask out of curiosity. Scratch says it to Rose. Page 005529. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 15, 2016 21:22:48 GMT
I have. And it's a solid piece of analysis based on accepting the premise that Homestuck is meant to be a "heroic story" in the first place, which I absolutely do not, so it's hard to see how it's relevant to anything I have to say. It's like if you pick up Catch-22 expecting Watership Down and then post an angry review to Amazon complaining about how Catch-22 totally does not have enough rabbits, without considering why in the name of Cthulhu anyone would expect Catch-22 to have rabbits in the first place. Then what type of story is it? A Story about Growing Up? It's pretty crappy on that front too, since a large deal of character problems were just magicked away with no consequences, while a variety of other personal problems still exist and were never addressed. Maybe it's a story about Creating a Universe and Living Happily Ever After? Well, they left the Big Bad alive, as far as we saw, so the "Happily Ever After with no Complications" is very questionable. --- To my mind, it is all of these kinds of stories to some extent and a deconstruction of them that takes them apart, looks at how they work, and points up their flaws as ways of talking about real lives. I don't see any character problem magicked away with no consequence. I see many warnings that that is a terrible idea. I see realistic levels of progress on some character problems, and realistic levels of not making progress on others that are actually really damned hard, without losing hope for fixing them. And leaving the Big Bad alive but absolutely unable to escape his prison ? You don't see the moral step forward there, for kids who have been traumatised by so much death and violence, over just killing him ? --- Was the story always about the mysteries and puzzles it presents? Well, so many of them are not only unanswered, but are fully unanswerable with the supplied information, so people trying to solve them aren't going to get very far. --- As I hope my three posts about specific "unanswered" illustrate, I firmly believe that almost every puzzle of significance in the story is solvable from what we have right now. This does, I will admit, involve believing a number of puzzles are not of significance where other people clearly think otherwise. --- How is it impossible to reveal all the facts? --- Because life is finite. --- Besides, I think you're missing the point here. We're not just complaining that a few questions went unanswered, we're A) Complaining that a lot of questions went unanswered and B) how entire Arcs and Themes and Setups were just entirely squandered and dropped. --- I'm not missing the point that you are saying that. I am saying I disagree that you saying that is an accurate description of Homestuck, and I remain to be presented with an argument to convince me of something significant being squandered or dropped, rather than that Hussie is doing everything short of reaching out of the computer, grabbing our lapels, and screaming "Oi! The point of this story is that some of these things you think are significant really are not at some levels and investing in them emotionally as if they were can be bad for you" in our ears directly. Dave can be happy when he gives up worrying about being a hero. (Including just getting on and doing the necessary heroic stuff without fretting about it being heroic stuff.) Vriska is never satisfied except for the version of her that stops trying to be a hero. John does not fret, in general, he just cheerily does what's there to do. Thematic coherence and success there could not be clearer or tighter, to my eyes. |
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 15, 2016 21:50:02 GMT
To my mind, it is all of these kinds of stories to some extent and a deconstruction of them that takes them apart, looks at how they work, and points up their flaws as ways of talking about real lives. I don't see any character problem magicked away with no consequence. I see many warnings that that is a terrible idea. I see realistic levels of progress on some character problems, and realistic levels of not making progress on others that are actually really damned hard, without losing hope for fixing them. And leaving the Big Bad alive but absolutely unable to escape his prison ? You don't see the moral step forward there, for kids who have been traumatised by so much death and violence, over just killing him ? Did you miss the Retcon? And saying that existing problems get solved off screen isn't a satisfactory answer to many. A lot of people read Homestuck for the Characters, and to just say "Oh those two are on shitty terms now, but whatever, they'll maybe get over it offscreen or something" is hardly what people were looking for. Also, we don't know that Lord English was trapped in the Black Hole, that's just one of the many guesses people have made. Even if he was, you're forgetting how Lord English works: Lil Cal's essence still exists in the Void and is capable of reemerging somewhere at some point and making another iteration of him. And I don't think these kids are Traumatised by Death. So Kurloz taking Vriska's Jacket. What's the Clue in Act 7 that answers that? What about the supposed Glitch in reality that was alt!Calliope's only way of existing? We're not talking about Life, we're talking about a Webcomic, which certainly is finite, and can be fully explained. The reason we think that these things are significant is for the very simple reason that Hussie made them seem important. People can talk about Homestuck subverting story telling rules until the cows come home, but story telling rules exist for a reason, and while some can be subverted well, Introducing major elements and doing nothing with them is not one of them. You say that we are Unreasonably Emotionally invested in them, but are we? Is it Unreasonable to assume that an element that Hussie deliberately Introduces is going to actually mean something? In some other story you may have a point, but Hussie has built a reputation for making every little detail mean something and come together, and now you're saying that Hussie's whole vision was to lead us on into believing that all these details mean something, just to make a lesson about not expecting basic story telling rules? |
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fowlj
Greentike
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Post by fowlj on Apr 15, 2016 22:04:47 GMT
Oh dear sweet horrorterrors. Not only did Andrew know what he was doing with the ending, he saw this range of reactions coming from way back and answered them in the damned text.I'm not necessarily opposed to the ending personally (though I have my issues with it), but I've seen more than one person coming at it from this angle, saying that it's a problem of expectations and that the story Andrew was writing might not be the story that a particular person wanted it to be, and you very well might be right about that. But...The problem with addressing people's complaints in that way is that it kind of misses the point a little bit - Nobody, absolutely nobody, is under the impression that Andrew did not end the story the way he wanted to end the story, like by some bizarre and hilarious accident he uploaded the wrong 9 minute anime sequence, because he's gotta have so many of those lying around right? They know that this is what he intended. The question is whether that created a satisfying conclusion to the story, independent of his intent. The people upset by the ending aren't coming from a place of not understanding the story (even if were true that they did not), they are coming from a place of being personally dissatisfied with its conclusion, and what Andrew meant (and what he had his characters say on his behalf) has no bearing on that. And, of course, that dissatisfaction ultimately has no impact on the way the story went, and, if you are correct, the way it was going for a long time, but its existence and apparent scope suggest perhaps that the story's message wasn't quite as clear as you make it out to be, at least not for a large portion of the readerbase. I think the shift in tone (real or imagined) felt abrupt, even if it was not, as though it was something introduced in the very late stages of a story that otherwise seemed pretty traditional (if cleverly subversive in many of its own ways), and that it was probably damaging to the narrative overall, even if only due to misinterpretation. |
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thecrystalship
Mr. Snoozyprince Mcsleepypants
sushi guro
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Post by thecrystalship on Apr 15, 2016 23:00:51 GMT
I like the implication that Hussie's attitude about his own story mirrors that of the most irredeemable villain in the comic, yeah that makes a lot of sense.
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dldracorex
Jade Sylph
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Post by dldracorex on Apr 15, 2016 23:30:46 GMT
I have. And it's a solid piece of analysis based on accepting the premise that Homestuck is meant to be a "heroic story" in the first place, which I absolutely do not, so it's hard to see how it's relevant to anything I have to say. It's like if you pick up Catch-22 expecting Watership Down and then post an angry review to Amazon complaining about how Catch-22 totally does not have enough rabbits, without considering why in the name of Cthulhu anyone would expect Catch-22 to have rabbits in the first place. Then what type of story is it? A Story about Growing Up? It's pretty crappy on that front too, since a large deal of character problems were just magicked away with no consequences, while a variety of other personal problems still exist and were never addressed. Maybe it's a story about Creating a Universe and Living Happily Ever After? Well, they left the Big Bad alive, as far as we saw, so the "Happily Ever After with no Complications" is very questionable. Was the story always about the mysteries and puzzles it presents? Well, so many of them are not only unanswered, but are fully unanswerable with the supplied information, so people trying to solve them aren't going to get very far. I believe it was something like a "creation myth about kids in houses," if I remember correctly. |
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dldracorex
Jade Sylph
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Post by dldracorex on Apr 15, 2016 23:36:32 GMT
The reason we think that these things are significant is for the very simple reason that Hussie made them seem important. People can talk about Homestuck subverting story telling rules until the cows come home, but story telling rules exist for a reason, and while some can be subverted well, Introducing major elements and doing nothing with them is not one of them. You say that we are Unreasonably Emotionally invested in them, but are we? Is it Unreasonable to assume that an element that Hussie deliberately Introduces is going to actually mean something? In some other story you may have a point, but Hussie has built a reputation for making every little detail mean something and come together, and now you're saying that Hussie's whole vision was to lead us on into believing that all these details mean something, just to make a lesson about not expecting basic story telling rules? You only think Hussie makes every little detail means something and come together. In reality, you have simply forgotten a bunch of details from earlier in the comic, both because of time, and because back then you were not looking for them. Hussie seeded the narrative with things he could use later as retroactive foreshadowing, and only used some. You only remember those because they eventually mattered again. Remember Barber's Best Friend? |
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Post by melonlord on Apr 16, 2016 0:00:09 GMT
The reason we think that these things are significant is for the very simple reason that Hussie made them seem important. People can talk about Homestuck subverting story telling rules until the cows come home, but story telling rules exist for a reason, and while some can be subverted well, Introducing major elements and doing nothing with them is not one of them. You say that we are Unreasonably Emotionally invested in them, but are we? Is it Unreasonable to assume that an element that Hussie deliberately Introduces is going to actually mean something? In some other story you may have a point, but Hussie has built a reputation for making every little detail mean something and come together, and now you're saying that Hussie's whole vision was to lead us on into believing that all these details mean something, just to make a lesson about not expecting basic story telling rules? You only think Hussie makes every little detail means something and come together. In reality, you have simply forgotten a bunch of details from earlier in the comic, both because of time, and because back then you were not looking for them. Hussie seeded the narrative with things he could use later as retroactive foreshadowing, and only used some. You only remember those because they eventually mattered again. Remember Barber's Best Friend? Barber's Best Friend was a joke, and was never treated as anything but. Things like the sprites^2, LE's weakness being cueballs, the Masterpiece, Condy's immortality curse, the mindy thing, and Calliope, as well as more abstract things like Caliborn's (admittedly slight) character development or Vriska's regression, were given significant narrative weight. If you spend time in a story setting something up, it is generally assumed that it is for a reason or payoff, otherwise you have wasted the reader's time. Barber's Best Friend was abandoned after the alchemy session because it had no further significance. If he didn't plan to do anything with the plot threads I mentioned, he should have abandoned them as well. |
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 16, 2016 0:02:00 GMT
The reason we think that these things are significant is for the very simple reason that Hussie made them seem important. People can talk about Homestuck subverting story telling rules until the cows come home, but story telling rules exist for a reason, and while some can be subverted well, Introducing major elements and doing nothing with them is not one of them. You say that we are Unreasonably Emotionally invested in them, but are we? Is it Unreasonable to assume that an element that Hussie deliberately Introduces is going to actually mean something? In some other story you may have a point, but Hussie has built a reputation for making every little detail mean something and come together, and now you're saying that Hussie's whole vision was to lead us on into believing that all these details mean something, just to make a lesson about not expecting basic story telling rules? You only think Hussie makes every little detail means something and come together. In reality, you have simply forgotten a bunch of details from earlier in the comic, both because of time, and because back then you were not looking for them. Hussie seeded the narrative with things he could use later as retroactive foreshadowing, and only used some. You only remember those because they eventually mattered again. Remember Barber's Best Friend? The expectations for Barber's Best Friend weren't nearly as high as some of this other stuff. Yeah, it would've been cool if it'd been used at some point, but I don't think you'll ever find someone claiming that the plot is incomplete without it. It already had a feasible purpose as is: Just one of the many products of John's Alchemiter Experiments, and to show the audience what sort of nonsense we could expect from it. But the stuff I'm complaining about isn't so much things with a known origin, but no use(although there are some of those), but more to do with the stuff that had a purpose, but it's origin/cause was not explained e.g. the Final Frog etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that leaving those open is more egregious than minor chekov guns. It'd be like if in Lord of the Rings, Aragorn just turned up with the Army of the Dead with no explanation, promised to explain later, then the story ended, and we're just left to sit there and say "Okay, I guess it's open ended and up to us to explain a major plot event." |
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soeroah
Mr. Snoozyprince Mcsleepypants
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Post by soeroah on Apr 16, 2016 0:59:19 GMT
Eh, since Dave said "we dont have character arcs were human beings" I kinda figured Hussie was going to go for a more "realistic" ending- one which most people will experience in life; they don't get all the information, not everyone has a satisfying "character arc" and things don't end at some specific point in life before death just because you achieve a difficult goal; there's more to do and plenty of time to learn and experience in the future.
Certainly it makes a lot of people feel sour and that rules of storytelling were broken, but I felt from at least that point that Homestuck was going to be a bit of a statement against such rules. Maybe that's why I am okay with the ending? I'd prepared for it, and even if I wished it went differently, I can still respect and appreciate the meta-commentary. He avoided the cliche of a happy ending by giving readers a life-like experience, where they wouldn't get all the information, where some things that sounded important wouldn't pay off, where some characters seem to get things handed to them on a silver platter despite being assholes.
I still think he actually has things planned out that he could make a canon, coherent timeline out of the thing, but I think he wants a period of reflection before that.
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 16, 2016 1:23:18 GMT
Eh, since Dave said "we dont have character arcs were human beings" I kinda figured Hussie was going to go for a more "realistic" ending- one which most people will experience in life; they don't get all the information, not everyone has a satisfying "character arc" and things don't end at some specific point in life before death just because you achieve a difficult goal; there's more to do and plenty of time to learn and experience in the future. Certainly it makes a lot of people feel sour and that rules of storytelling were broken, but I felt from at least that point that Homestuck was going to be a bit of a statement against such rules. Maybe that's why I am okay with the ending? I'd prepared for it, and even if I wished it went differently, I can still respect and appreciate the meta-commentary. He avoided the cliche of a happy ending by giving readers a life-like experience, where they wouldn't get all the information, where some things that sounded important wouldn't pay off, where some characters seem to get things handed to them on a silver platter despite being assholes. I still think he actually has things planned out that he could make a canon, coherent timeline out of the thing, but I think he wants a period of reflection before that. There in lies the problem, the bit I bolded. If the story had been that subversive and realistic from the start, that would've been fine. But 95% of Homestuck is not that. I don't think anyone was invested in Homestuck for it's sombre realism or its complete breakdown of storytelling conventions. With more time, Hussie may have been able to successfully pull of such a transition between these two forms, but it was too abrupt and happened way too close to the end. This ending would be entirely acceptable, even good, on another story, but on Homestuck, I kinda feel like it's just dismissing its own legacy as that story that's really good at managing and solving its own convolution. It's like if J.K. Rowling said "Y'know, not everything has to involve magic" and ended Harry Potter with a literal fist fist between Harry and Voldemort. Plenty of stories can and should end with a fist fight, but a story built on magic really isn't one of them. |
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imglasses
Your shit is wrecked
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Post by imglasses on Apr 16, 2016 1:30:03 GMT
My opinion on the cue ball weakness:
I don't think it can literally kill Lord English directly in the form of a sword. We heard from Jade, who heard from the Condesce, who heard from someone else, that the cue ball is Lord English's "weakness", which certainly leaves room for ambiguity. I think the cue ball is Lord English's weakness because, when it was a part of the god tier clock, it was what decided whether his death would be heroic, just, or neither. The cue ball originated from the clock, and its omniscience was used to evaluate the context of the death and decide what kind of death it was. As the mechanism that causes the clock to judge Caliborn, it is his weakness in that it has the ability to make his death permanent. However, by itself, it's just an omniscient ball. The Condesce only heard (probably from Doc Scratch, who would intentionally mislead her) that the cue ball was LE's "weakness", and she made an incorrect assumption that the cue ball could just be combined with a sword and used as a direct weapon.
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 16, 2016 1:49:57 GMT
My opinion on the cue ball weakness: I don't think it can literally kill Lord English directly in the form of a sword. We heard from Jade, who heard from the Condesce, who heard from someone else, that the cue ball is Lord English's "weakness", which certainly leaves room for ambiguity. I think the cue ball is Lord English's weakness because, when it was a part of the god tier clock, it was what decided whether his death would be heroic, just, or neither. The cue ball originated from the clock, and its omniscience was used to evaluate the context of the death and decide what kind of death it was. As the mechanism that causes the clock to judge Caliborn, it is his weakness in that it has the ability to make his death permanent. However, by itself, it's just an omniscient ball. The Condesce only heard (probably from Doc Scratch, who would intentionally mislead her) that the cue ball was LE's "weakness", and she made an incorrect assumption that the cue ball could just be combined with a sword and used as a direct weapon. Yeah, it seems to me that the way it works is that when a god tier dies, the Cue Ball deliberates on the nature of the death, and then if it deems them ressurectable, the rest of the clock then uses it's imbued Clockwork Magyks to restore their life. What Caliborn did was absorb those Clockwork Magyks from his clock, so that he didn't need to rely on an external entity to keep him alive. So I don't see how the Cue Ball would kill him. It could deem him worthy of a Just Death, but you'd still need to actually extract the Clockwork Magyks from him, and then kill him. And if smoking crater formally known as LoTaK is anything to go by, Union Jack certainly still had a lot of those Magyks in him as he died. |
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 16, 2016 1:54:05 GMT
It gave us the origin of the cue ball as the clock pendulum, which explains why the cue ball as an alchemical component made something capable of interfering with LE immortality (Dave beheading Lord Jack) and of breaking the unbreakable katana, which otherwise made sense thematically but not mechanically. I suspect this also connects on to the cueball's use as bullet in killing Snowman. It also gave us the origin of Caliborn's particular immortality in literally ingesting the majyks of the clock, which makes sense of why he would be vulnerable to another component of the same clock. Come to think of it, we do now have both the beginning and the end of the unbreakable katana's timeline. Neat. ...You just blew my mind. Holy shit. This makes a surprising amount of sense! I got to agree with Strawhat Luffy. Rules are there for a reason. It makes better storytelling. I honestly think Homestuck would have had a far better final if story rules were obeyed and all the rules in that image were followed. I mean, look what happened as a result of the comic disobeying story telling; it made the comic go in a bad direction and leaving many fans unsatisfied. This is why it's easier to just obey the rules of storytelling, because not doing so is very risky. Homestuck has always broken standard storytelling rules. Suddenly following them in the end would just not have fit with the rest of the story, in my eyes. To me, storytelling is and will always be subjective no matter how you look at it. It wasn't awesome. He didn't pull any twists. He spoiled the plot before the omegapause and played it straight. No strings attached. No surprises. Nothing. Personally, before these updates I didn't see many people predicting Dad fighting Cans and surviving the endgame, B1 Jack surviving, Spades Slick dying, the B2 end door being linked to the Plot Hole juju, Karkat fighting Clover, Lord Noir's head turning into a black hole to explain the presence of Yaldabaoth and Gamzee and the crowbar on Earth, the return of Fraymotifs, or Vriska and Andrew's battle, to name a few things. To me, those were definitely surprises. Also, you're saying Andrew played it straight, but how is that true? There were enough hints starting in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4 all the way uptil Act 7 that things aren't as they seem, to suggest that these Kids don't simply claim the reward and live happily ever after in Universe C. It's just the most "simple" way of intrepreting the events that took place, but there are many hints to there being something more to it, like Terezi's absence in the future events on Earth, the link between the door and the Plot Hole juju, the second John that visited Typheus, the Ringless GO Kids, and Terezi's remem8ering, for example. I can't speak for everyone, but when a lot of people meant 'surprises', they meant something more mind blowing than Dad being involved in the fight and Spades dying. Yes, those events you listed were surprising, but they're not what the majority were talking about when they mean that they were expecting a plot twist. They weren't plot twists. They were surprises. They didn't affect the plot that much. A lot of people, including myself, were expecting something on the lines of Vriska's plan failing. We were expecting something big, because Homestuck has always done things like this. Heck, a lot of us weren't even expecting such a happy ending because of the fact that Homestuck has done a lot of terrible stuff in the past and can even get very heartbreaking. The plan shouldn't have gone well, because that meant that we were literally spoiled with how Homestuck was going to end 6 or so months ago. We just didn't believe it because this is freaking Homestuck we're talking about, the web comic that used to have a lot of mind blowing twists and things not going according to plan. We're talking about a comic that had Cascade, Jade: Enter and Dirk: Reunite Synchronization. And yes, those stuff like Terezi not appearing in the future could be a concern, but at the same time they weren't addressed. Something like Terezi not appearing in the future could have been that something bad happened to her, but at the same time the animator could have just forgotten to put her in. Vriska might not have died and she could be living in the future; the animator could have just forgotten her. All of those could be simple mistakes that the ending forgot to address. And even if Vriska did die, she died being a hero, which is something that shouldn't have happened to this version of her. Vriska literally became the protagonist in the end. The plot changed a lot just so she could come back, her presence ended up preventing a lot of problems that the pre-retcon characters had, she came up with the endgame plan that ended up working, everyone obeyed her without question, and she defeated the big bad and may have died in the process which is real protagonist material. But at the same time her character arc went backwards. . And as for the rule breaking argument which comes up constantly in defense, yes that has happened in the past and Homestuck has done a lot of rule breaking. But please note that it never made plans go well ether. Nothing in Homestuck has gone smoothly like Act 7 did. What plan in Homestuck has gone well in the past? Rose and Dave made a plan to destroy the Green Sun, but instead they ended up creating it. Vriska had a plan to defeat Jack Noir but instead got stabbed and died. Jade and John made a plan to make Jade's sprite extremely wimpy so Jack Noir could get defeated easily, but Vriska did the bluh bluh huge bitch thing and made John go to sleep, hence forcing Bec to fuse with the sprite. Homestuck used to break rules when they're were appropriate, not break them for the sake of it. It never broke rules for the sake of taking an easy route out of problems (see retcon). It has always chosen the difficult and more bind blowing source of action. And one thing Homestuck has done a lot in the past is getting characters out of tight situations and watching Hussie being a genius at it, and the fact that none of that has happened is very not like Homestuck at all. I was expecting the retcon idea to not go well at all and it will completely fail (like the Masterpiece actually occurring in the post-retcon timeline), because not only does Homestuck not make plans go well, problems should be dealt with rather than magically erased and Hussie even stated this in the comic (I think it was trickster mode?) . Every time I look at the latest events that has happened in the comic, all I see is the comic going 'fuck it'. This isn't the Homestuck I know. It's people over at tumblr taking over the narrative. You can't change what a fiction used to do towards the end. If the story used to be known for trolling, you can't suddenly change that and make everything sunshine and roses. The fact is that because of Homestuck's history and Hussie being known as a troll, a lot of people were expecting the ending to not go down so well. Anyway, I certainly don't hate the comic now or anything. Acts 1-5 is actually my favourite fictional story and a lot of the characters go on my favourite fictional waifu characters list. Do I think the comic went downhill with Act 6? Yes. Do I think character arcs got weird and a lot even went backwards throughout Act 6? Yes. I try to ignore that and look at there arcs in Act 5. Especially Vriska's. Am I disappointed with how character relationships turned out? Definitely yes. I still believe that the pairings that became endgame are shallow in comparison to the old ships. However that doesn't change the fact that I do love the first half of the comic and the first few intermissions of Act 6 and I will definitely read it over and over again to a certain point. And yes I do miss the days of 2012 when I first joined the fandom, and the fandom was still really active and the troll lovers were gone. And I will probably eventually do that God Tier Jade cosplay that I've been meaning to do. Only cosplayed as Vriska so far. |
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cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Apr 16, 2016 2:01:35 GMT
I was expecting the retcon idea to not go well at all and it will completely fail (like the Masterpiece actually occurring in the post-retcon timeline), because not only does Homestuck not make plans go well, problems should be dealt with rather than magically erased and Hussie even stated this in the comic (I think it was trickster mode?). Every time I look at the latest events that has happened in the comic, all I see is the comic going 'fuck it'. I was really truly anticipating some negative side effect of the retcon. But there is none! It's just la la perfection when it shouldn't be. Dammit I should've added that to my epilogue bingo card (see the endgame bingo thread), but the "something pre-retcon is relevant" square might be kind of equivalent to that. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 16, 2016 2:17:20 GMT
A lot of people, including myself, were expecting something on the lines of Vriska's plan failing. We were expecting something big, because Homestuck has always done things like this. Heck, a lot of us weren't even expecting such a happy ending because of the fact that Homestuck has done a lot of terrible stuff in the past and can even get very heartbreaking. The plan shouldn't have gone well, because that meant that we were literally spoiled with how Homestuck was going to end 6 or so months ago. We just didn't believe it because this is freaking Homestuck we're talking about, the web comic that used to have a lot of mind blowing twists and things not going according to plan. We're talking about a comic that had Cascade, Jade: Enter and Dirk: Reunite Synchronization. (...) And as for the rule breaking argument which comes up constantly in defense, yes that has happened in the past and Homestuck has done a lot of rule breaking. But please note that it never made plans go well either. I am genuinely confused and I hope I can say this without risking sounding hostile; it sounds very much to me like what you are saying is the plan for the endgame going more or less well was entirely unexpected and not like anything before in Homestuck, and I am not quite seeing how that in and of itself is not a clever twist. The kind of twist that relies on everything before and can only be used once, and hence the end is the best place for it. Myself, I am inclined to think it works because it has all the kids finally working together, using their powers creatively (yay fraymotifs), being smart and trusting one another (particularly Dirk and Dave). Smarts, dedication and tactical skill lead it to succeed despite, rather than because of, Vriska's pretty terrible overall strategy. (That and, I suppose, a little luck with whom Cans punches where when, but that again is something people work with in the moment.) Fwiw, I incline to see Synchronize-Unite as an example of something working exactly as planned. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 16, 2016 2:24:49 GMT
There in lies the problem, the bit I bolded. If the story had been that subversive and realistic from the start, that would've been fine. But 95% of Homestuck is not that. I don't think anyone was invested in Homestuck for it's sombre realism or its complete breakdown of storytelling conventions. With more time, Hussie may have been able to successfully pull of such a transition between these two forms, but it was too abrupt and happened way too close to the end. There's another major difference in perspective, then. To my mind, the point at which Homestuck starts unambiguously flagging that it is going to be about subverting the conventions of the genres it is playing with is Nannasprite telling John about how the forces of light are destined to lose without exception (driven home when that loss turns out to be necessary for the heroes' very existence) and then that he isn't going to be able to save Earth, way back at the start of Act 2. (pages 002324-002327). Of course, that the kids do actually have Earth with them to save at the end subverts that. |
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Post by obsidalicious on Apr 16, 2016 2:28:16 GMT
Myself, I am inclined to think it works because it has all the kids finally working together, using their powers creatively (yay fraymotifs), being smart and trusting one another (particularly Dirk and Dave). Smarts, dedication and tactical skill lead it to succeed despite, rather than because of, Vriska's pretty terrible overall strategy. (That and, I suppose, a little luck with whom Cans punches where when, but that again is something people work with in the moment.) I myself was kinda disappointed by many of the Fraymotifs: What does Light + Breath do? Well it makes Beams of Light and Gusts of Wind obviously... Also "Being Smart and trusting one another", as they needlessly attack an ally who had no interest in trying to fight them. But there was still a twist. We weren't expecting Dirk to lop his head off. |
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 16, 2016 2:33:18 GMT
A lot of people, including myself, were expecting something on the lines of Vriska's plan failing. We were expecting something big, because Homestuck has always done things like this. Heck, a lot of us weren't even expecting such a happy ending because of the fact that Homestuck has done a lot of terrible stuff in the past and can even get very heartbreaking. The plan shouldn't have gone well, because that meant that we were literally spoiled with how Homestuck was going to end 6 or so months ago. We just didn't believe it because this is freaking Homestuck we're talking about, the web comic that used to have a lot of mind blowing twists and things not going according to plan. We're talking about a comic that had Cascade, Jade: Enter and Dirk: Reunite Synchronization. (...) And as for the rule breaking argument which comes up constantly in defense, yes that has happened in the past and Homestuck has done a lot of rule breaking. But please note that it never made plans go well either. I am genuinely confused and I hope I can say this without risking sounding hostile; it sounds very much to me like what you are saying is the plan for the endgame going more or less well was entirely unexpected and not like anything before in Homestuck, and I am not quite seeing how that in and of itself is not a clever twist. The kind of twist that relies on everything before and can only be used once, and hence the end is the best place for it. Myself, I am inclined to think it works because it has all the kids finally working together, using their powers creatively (yay fraymotifs), being smart and trusting one another (particularly Dirk and Dave). Smarts, dedication and tactical skill lead it to succeed despite, rather than because of, Vriska's pretty terrible overall strategy. (That and, I suppose, a little luck with whom Cans punches where when, but that again is something people work with in the moment.) Fwiw, I incline to see Synchronize-Unite as an example of something working exactly as planned. But guess who came up with the plan? Vriska. It was not just 'we didn't like how it happened very well', it was also because of the fact that it ruins Vriska's character arc. If the plan failed, then Vriska may have had some form of redemption finally. But instead she gets to be a badass in the final animation. And this version of her had said some very cruel stuff to other people and didn't deserve to beat Lord English. People can come with theories about how she died or didn't get the spotlight she wanted or whatever, but it doesn't change the fact that they weren't addressed in the comic and for all we know she could have made it to the future universe and received praise for being a hero. A lot of people wanted the plan to fail also because of the fact that it was Vriska who came up with it. And another reason the plan should have failed is because everything went too well in the post-retcon timeline. Gamzee got shoved in the fridge and could never do what he wanted to do, hence his character arc got broken. A lot of issues were resolved with Vriska's presence. The big baddies were defeated no problem whatsoever. Everything got served to the post-retcon characters on the silver platter. I understand what you're getting at; I really do. But I just can't see it that way and to me the comic seemed like it got really lazy (omg I was looking for the write word for such a long time. The comic got lazy. That's the bet way I can put it. Post-retcon was lazy writing). But I do respect your opinion. And as for Synchronize-Unite. What I was getting at with that was the all the Alpha kids died and it was pretty shocking. I was left wondering how they would all come back and if it was possible. Except Hussie becomes an genius and figures out a way to save everyone in a rather mind blowing way. We weren't expecting everyone to come back to life because of Dirk willing to cut off his own head and make Jake kiss his head. I wasn't using that as an example of 'a plan not going to plan', but an example of Hussie's storytelling that used to be rather mind blowing in comparision to how lazy it is now. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 16, 2016 2:36:20 GMT
To my mind, it is all of these kinds of stories to some extent and a deconstruction of them that takes them apart, looks at how they work, and points up their flaws as ways of talking about real lives. I don't see any character problem magicked away with no consequence. I see many warnings that that is a terrible idea. I see realistic levels of progress on some character problems, and realistic levels of not making progress on others that are actually really damned hard, without losing hope for fixing them. And leaving the Big Bad alive but absolutely unable to escape his prison ? You don't see the moral step forward there, for kids who have been traumatised by so much death and violence, over just killing him ? Did you miss the Retcon? --- No. What point are you trying to make here ? So Kurloz taking Vriska's Jacket. What's the Clue in Act 7 that answers that? --- That would strike me as an example of a puzzle that's not of significance, but also as one that does not need a clue to answer now because all the clues were there before it actually happened. We know from Kurloz's conversation with Gamzee during Openbound that a thing he does, one of very few things he is shown to do actively, is gather items of clothing for the big bads. We actively play him retrieving the codpiece. I see no mystery here to be answered. --- The reason we think that these things are significant is for the very simple reason that Hussie made them seem important. People can talk about Homestuck subverting story telling rules until the cows come home, but story telling rules exist for a reason, and while some can be subverted well, Introducing major elements and doing nothing with them is not one of them. You say that we are Unreasonably Emotionally invested in them, but are we? --- Small point of precision: I do not say that anyone is unreasonably emotionally invested in anything. I say it seems to me that Hussie is saying that. --- Is it Unreasonable to assume that an element that Hussie deliberately Introduces is going to actually mean something? In some other story you may have a point, but Hussie has built a reputation for making every little detail mean something and come together, and now you're saying that Hussie's whole vision was to lead us on into believing that all these details mean something, just to make a lesson about not expecting basic story telling rules? --- That a major part of his vision was to make a lesson about not blindly expecting story-telling "rules" to apply, yes. And that that message is at least a million per cent more effective for coming at the end of a story where he has already played all sorts of games with how those rules work, turning them inside out and upside down and surprising us at every step. |
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Post by mageddondreams on Apr 16, 2016 2:42:41 GMT
But guess who came up with the plan? Vriska. It was not just 'we didn't like how it happened very well', it was also because of the fact that it ruins Vriska's character arc. If the plan failed, then Vriska may have had some form of redemption finally. --- To my mind, Vriska getting any form of redemption would have been a betrayal. (Apart from the version who does, and is either double-dead or free in whitespace with pre-retcon Terezi depending on how you read the end of Remem8er.) --- But instead she gets to be a badass in the final animation. And this version of her had said some very cruel stuff to other people and didn't deserve to beat Lord English. People can come with theories about how she died or didn't get the spotlight she wanted or whatever, --- She gets to pause dramatically, warm up for the big fight, and then cut off at the moment she is about to begin, with the result left for us to deduce rather than shown us. That's absolute reverse of any scale of importance Vriska has ever wanted to glorify herself with sfaict. --- but it doesn't change the fact that they weren't addressed in the comic and for all we know she could have made it to the future universe and received praise for being a hero. --- To my mind the logic that a) she is literally standing on a piece of paradox space that is coming apart beneath her and b) all of the broken bit of paradox space is falling into the black hole precludes that. --- And as for Synchronize-Unite. What I was getting at with that was the all the Alpha kids died and it was pretty shocking. I was left wondering how they would all come back and if it was possible. Except Hussie becomes an genius and figures out a way to save everyone in a rather mind blowing way. We weren't expecting everyone to come back to life because of Dirk willing to cut off his own head and make Jake kiss his head. --- We weren't. But Dirk was. How many of us were expecting Vriska's mediocre strategy to actually achieve its goals, without involvement from Vriska, because of all the other kids being awesome enough to make it work despite its mediocrity? |
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Apr 16, 2016 2:53:55 GMT
But guess who came up with the plan? Vriska. It was not just 'we didn't like how it happened very well', it was also because of the fact that it ruins Vriska's character arc. If the plan failed, then Vriska may have had some form of redemption finally. --- To my mind, Vriska getting any form of redemption would have been a betrayal. --- But instead she gets to be a badass in the final animation. And this version of her had said some very cruel stuff to other people and didn't deserve to beat Lord English. People can come with theories about how she died or didn't get the spotlight she wanted or whatever, --- She gets to pause dramatically, warm up for the big fight, and then cut off at the moment she is about to begin, with the result left for us to deduce rather than shown us. That's absolute reverse of any scale of importance Vriska has ever wanted to glorify herself with sfaict. --- but it doesn't change the fact that they weren't addressed in the comic and for all we know she could have made it to the future universe and received praise for being a hero. --- To my mind the logic that a) she is literally standing on a piece of paradox space that is coming apart beneath her and b) all of the broken bit of paradox space is falling into the black hole precludes that. --- And as for Synchronize-Unite. What I was getting at with that was the all the Alpha kids died and it was pretty shocking. I was left wondering how they would all come back and if it was possible. Except Hussie becomes an genius and figures out a way to save everyone in a rather mind blowing way. We weren't expecting everyone to come back to life because of Dirk willing to cut off his own head and make Jake kiss his head. --- We weren't. But Dirk was. Eh. That's a matter of personal preference and opinion. Vriska was my second favourite character and I wanted her to get that redemption arc, because I didn't want everything she said to John to be a lie. I read over it again yesterday, and she actually admitted that she wanted to be the best at everything and be hero, and wanted to change that. And she said she 'used to' wanted to be the best, implying that she went out of that phase. So I find it weird how she decided to still want to be the best. If Vriska did die then, then she would have died being a hero and defeating Lord English. Sounds like main protagonist material to me, something that shouldn't have happened to her. And if you notice, a lot of scenes in that flash was left unfinished, and it wasn't just her own arc that didn't get closure. A lot of arcs were left unfinished, not just hers. And even if she didn't get the attention she wanted, I find that a shitty way for her arc to go, considering what we got out of her arc in Act 5 (which was honestly the best arc in the comic imo). Exactly. We weren't expecting that Dirk was willing to cut off his own head. It showed that he was braver than we thought he was; hence character development. |
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Post by DS Piron on Apr 16, 2016 3:00:02 GMT
No. What point are you trying to make here ? < Instead of the Kids working through the fact that a large chunk of them died, and the entire thing got FUBAR'd, John instead goes back in time, and prevents Vriska's death, and thus magically fixing everyone's problems somehow through a huge bitch who's last act before John saved her was killing Tarvos needlessly.
Thus keeping her from realizing she's not as important because she's a HUGE BITCH who makes everyone's lives miserable >(or something, sorry)< , and she gets everyone in shape, arranges a plan, and that plan pretty much sums up Collide. You might as well not see it, you already know that the kids win.
(Ideally, Game Over wouldn't happen, and the kids instead overcome their hangups and disarray, get together, come up with the plan off-screen, and then Collide happens. Meanwhile, (Vriska) becomes a better person who doesn't abuse people to advance herself, starts caring about everyfin again, and THEN leads the charge against LE and deploys the SBURB.)> |
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