cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Sept 5, 2016 0:53:08 GMT
Okay I'm back and caught up with / following canwc now. Can proudly claim to understand the deal with it. I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you, and good night. Yesssssss. You should also listen to the soundtrack.
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Post by Gab on Sept 5, 2016 5:28:21 GMT
I was, because Cool and New Homestuck was what got me interested enough to check it all out. Then I kinda stopped. Maybe I'll go back to it again some time though.
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Post by sasuke on Sept 6, 2016 22:29:08 GMT
Am I the only one feeling uber nostalgic looking back at my old stuff on my computer (from 7th grade) . I feel like crying ;;_; I was so obsessed with HS back then. i get nostalgic when i hear old hs music from act 1-5. and a little sad. homestuck may have gone a bit down hill after act 5 culminating a disastrous ending, but jfc acts 2-5 were amazing and no one can tell me otherwise.
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Post by Gab on Sept 7, 2016 4:24:36 GMT
I get different pangs of nostalgia for different periods of MSPA. I definitely have some strong feelings for act 5. I can even pinpoint the crux of nostalgia somehow at Kanaya Return to the Core. Maybe that wistful music and the quiet but somber state of things in that flash rams home how it feels like this is the exact last moment of peace and downtime we get for a long time before everything goes shithive bananas for a while. I even have nostalgia for Act 6, since I was there for the whole thing serially. I almost feel like I have nostalgia for the more recent parts, even Collide somehow?? It almost feels like that was a long time ago already and so much has happened since then, maybe because my own impressions and opinions have adjusted radically in only a few months, but I guess that still doesn't really count as "nostalgia."
But I also feel that way for Problem Sleuth, which incredibly enough is why I came into MSPA in the first place. I look more kindly on that story now than when I first read it thanks to my fanaticism, but I still greatly enjoyed the first half of it back then. It's what won me over on MSPA to begin with, before Homestuck would blow my brains all over the wall and make me its slave forever.
EDIT: Random question: What does everything think the chances are of a 10/25 Thing happening?
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dldracorex
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Post by dldracorex on Sept 7, 2016 4:56:29 GMT
Random question: What does everything think the chances are of a 10/25 Thing happening? I would say that there is a relatively high chance that SOMETHING both relevant and official will happen on 10/25.
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cookiefonster
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Post by cookiefonster on Sept 7, 2016 17:47:35 GMT
I get different pangs of nostalgia for different periods of MSPA. I definitely have some strong feelings for act 5. I can even pinpoint the crux of nostalgia somehow at Kanaya Return to the Core. Maybe that wistful music and the quiet but somber state of things in that flash rams home how it feels like this is the exact last moment of peace and downtime we get for a long time before everything goes shithive bananas for a while. I even have nostalgia for Act 6, since I was there for the whole thing serially. I almost feel like I have nostalgia for the more recent parts, even Collide somehow?? It almost feels like that was a long time ago already and so much has happened since then, maybe because my own impressions and opinions have adjusted radically in only a few months, but I guess that still doesn't really count as "nostalgia." But I also feel that way for Problem Sleuth, which incredibly enough is why I came into MSPA in the first place. I look more kindly on that story now than when I first read it thanks to my fanaticism, but I still greatly enjoyed the first half of it back then. It's what won me over on MSPA to begin with, before Homestuck would blow my brains all over the wall and make me its slave forever. EDIT: Random question: What does everything think the chances are of a 10/25 Thing happening? I estimate a 90% chance for any sort of thing. 80% chance it'll have something to do with the epilogue.
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Post by obsidalicious on Sept 7, 2016 22:47:16 GMT
What are the odds for it just being Hussie saying "I'm still alive and working on stuff. Get hyped for a thing that I won't describe, for a later date I won't reveal"?
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Post by melonlord on Sept 8, 2016 2:51:51 GMT
So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled?
I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though.
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Post by Piono on Sept 8, 2016 3:22:28 GMT
She had the potential to be a great character, and honestly she did make things more interesting.
If her character development had actually been handled well at all she would have been great.
That being said, I still like her, and have no idea why. She's not quite my favorite, but close.
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Post by obsidalicious on Sept 8, 2016 3:36:11 GMT
So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled? I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though. I agree with the many others who say that her Death in Act 5 would've been a good place for her to stop being a character. However, given that she is a Thief of Light, I'm also okay that she forced herself back into relevance after that. My problem was how all that extra screen time got so squandered. It kind of felt like Hussie was putting the in-universe rules above the rules of Stroy telling; like he knew that Vriska would have to get more screen time as per her title, but didn't actually have anything for her to do so she was just lumped into Meenah's arc, while continuing to spout the same old Vriska-isms in lieu of actual character development. The retcon could've fixed all of that. Hussie could easily have reinforced the idea of Ghost Stagnation to explain ghost!Vriska's lack of proper meaning and given her a fresh new arc in the Post Retcon. Instead, one Vriska was quickly (too quickly, I might say) thrown away, and the other Vriska just continued being Vriska, but now serving as a walking pile of Plot Convenience, to hurriedly 'solve' all the problems of the retconning. And once again, her Title makes it somewhat appropriate that she'd serve as the Plot Convenience that made everything happen, but it still felt really rushed and cheap, like the rest of the Retcon. So, in all, If I understand what Hussie was trying to do with Vriska correctly, then I like the idea, but I just don't think it was executed well enough in many areas and she just came across as a nuisance to the flow of the story. Maybe that was supposed to be the point, but if it was, that doesn't excuse it for making the story less enjoyable to me.
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Post by ashercrane on Sept 8, 2016 3:36:34 GMT
I'm not sure what I think about it. Honestly, I don't think the way she was handled with respect to the retcon was necessarily the best, because I don't feel like there needed to be a separate needy, dependent Vriska, who had changed so much, she didn't even seem like Vriska anymore. I can see how Vriska did change between here death and what we saw of her after the retcon, even if the changes were fairly subtle, but I don't feel like (Vriska) needed to exist.
However, I did like Vriska as a character, and am glad she stayed relevant through to the end.
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dldracorex
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Post by dldracorex on Sept 8, 2016 3:47:33 GMT
So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled? I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though. Oh! Oh! I have something interesting to say about Vriska. Just some food for thought, really. I do not know if anyone has brought this up before, but at one point Calliope implies that two heroes with opposite aspects (say, for example, Light and Void) and "different enough" classes, specifically "one active and the other passive", presumably an active/passive pair (say, for example, Thief and Rogue), they may end up with similar powers. Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, was, according to Dirk, the true leader of the Alpha kids, and successfully held them together while they were self-destructing and their relationships were devolving. The main change to the post-retcon timeline was the revival of Vriska, the Thief of Light, and thus the holder of the exact opposite title to Roxy Lalonde's. And what did she do on the meteor?
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Post by ashercrane on Sept 8, 2016 3:50:39 GMT
So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled? I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though. Oh! Oh! I have something interesting to say about Vriska. Just some food for thought, really. I do not know if anyone has brought this up before, but at one point Calliope implies that two heroes with opposite aspects (say, for example, Light and Void) and "different enough" classes, specifically "one active and the other passive", presumably an active/passive pair (say, for example, Thief and Rogue), they may end up with similar powers. Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, was, according to Dirk, the true leader of the Alpha kids, and successfully held them together while they were self-destructing and their relationships were devolving. The main change to the post-retcon timeline was the revival of Vriska, the Thief of Light, and thus the holder of the exact opposite title to Roxy Lalonde's. And what did she do on the meteor? Well, you do have a point there. Vriska kept Terezi from her problems, Rose from her drinking, and inadvertantly got Dave and Karkat together (However you view that).
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dldracorex
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Post by dldracorex on Sept 8, 2016 3:57:12 GMT
Oh! Oh! I have something interesting to say about Vriska. Just some food for thought, really. I do not know if anyone has brought this up before, but at one point Calliope implies that two heroes with opposite aspects (say, for example, Light and Void) and "different enough" classes, specifically "one active and the other passive", presumably an active/passive pair (say, for example, Thief and Rogue), they may end up with similar powers. Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, was, according to Dirk, the true leader of the Alpha kids, and successfully held them together while they were self-destructing and their relationships were devolving. The main change to the post-retcon timeline was the revival of Vriska, the Thief of Light, and thus the holder of the exact opposite title to Roxy Lalonde's. And what did she do on the meteor? Well, you do have a point there. Vriska kept Terezi from her problems, Rose from her drinking, and inadvertantly got Dave and Karkat together (However you view that). She also stopped the doomed relationships with Gamzee from happening.
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Post by butternutpumpkin on Sept 8, 2016 7:34:38 GMT
She had the potential to be a great character, and honestly she did make things more interesting. If her character development had actually been handled well at all she would have been great. That being said, I still like her, and have no idea why. She's not quite my favorite, but close. Basically this. Although I thought she was a great character throughout Act 5 and I liked where her character arc went there. I do definitely feel that her character should have went in a different direction during act 6. To me it just seemed like Hussie didn't know what to do with her anymore and was just chucking her in for fanservice, because people wanted her back.
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The One Guy
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Post by The One Guy on Sept 8, 2016 14:00:34 GMT
I never liked Vriska, even after she opened herself up to John, but I recognized her as a good character ... up until the retcon. To be honest, even if I felt her deth was the proper end of her arc, I didn't mind her continuing activity in the dream bubbles, as it came off as something like a character in a sequal: Already haveing gone through the development in the original, but back for more (that said, her character development in the dream bubbles wasn't as well done as what was before her death). But then the retcon came arround and suddenly it's like the story not only forgot all of her character development (from both before and after her death), but it also forgot that there was anything wrong with who she was at all!
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Post by Gab on Sept 8, 2016 14:47:24 GMT
What are the odds for it just being Hussie saying "I'm still alive and working on stuff. Get hyped for a thing that I won't describe, for a later date I won't reveal"? Honestly I wouldn't bet against it. And you know you'll get hype anyway. But maybe he wouldn't want to end up doing that twice in a row. (I mean discounting that we got vol. 10 of course) And hopefully, if the stars are right, something will actually be announcement worthy, even if maybe nothing ends up coming out on that exact day. So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled? I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though. Well I thought announcement theorizing was going alright but hey maybe we can talk about this now that time has passed, without things going berserk. Let's see! Personally, I think her character was finally resolved as being ultimately, decisively, and truly Not A Good Person by the end. That's quite apparent in her actions as her post-retcon self, who from her perspective was saved by divine intervention because she was apparently needed in the endgame, which is all she needed to hear. From then on she had zero hesitation in her plans and goals, and was all too eager to ditch her "friends" to go play hero in the bigger, more important battle. And in the end, that's all that mattered to her as a person. Doing something important, and being validated for it. Who needs morals or self-awareness when you can charge blindly ahead and justify yourself by taking out the biggest villain you can find? Bottom line, she may have played the role of a hero instead of a villain, but the only real difference between them is she wasn't interested in large-scale destruction. And if you ask me, her 'nice' pre-retcon self only adds more fuel to that supposition. She too ends up abandoning every aspect of her former life to run away with another sociopath who stroked her ego and validated her actions. She didn't really become any less needy or overbearing, and never faces the music for the people she hurt until SHE ends up getting hurt. She's obviously less of a tool and much closer to being genuinely happy, but she hasn't actually learned anything or progressed as a person in morality or maturity. Technically she doesn't even do that when she reconciles with Terezi, though I would say that's because they just didn't have the time. Which is what was so sad and kind of infuriating about Vriska's arc, especially if you wanted to see her do the right thing. That feeling I think was what got me so addicted during act 5! What she needed to do to settle her shit and be a better person was insultingly obvious, and sometimes just boiled down to being around the right person (her interactions with John seemed to have an incredible effect on her; too bad that didn't last.) She would sometimes move closer to that ideal, sometimes farther away, and you know if things could have been different she might have actually found the true meaning of this troll disease called friendship. I'm not really a writer, and am not great at pointing out age-old themes in stories, so I'm sure I could be missing something here that a literary expert would see and appreciate. Either way, personally I think she makes a great study case for the anti-hero. Literally a person interested in being a hero by the textbook definition of the word, it's basest qualifications, while having the morality of someone much more suited to villainy. Her participation throughout the story fits that theme I think. And the fact her arc ends on what seems to be a unsatisfactory note I think cements she was never really as important to the story as many people thought she was, helped by the fact that the actual villain himself was never really in the focus of the plot either. She was determined to be important, and succeeded, entering and leaving the bubble of narrative awareness as her relentless pursuit of acknowledgement followed the path of whatever the nearest impressive thing to do was going. A very nonstandard, kind of forward approach to character/plot development, among the many nonstandard approaches Homestuck takes as a story. It's more interesting that way. Oh! Oh! I have something interesting to say about Vriska. Just some food for thought, really. I do not know if anyone has brought this up before, but at one point Calliope implies that two heroes with opposite aspects (say, for example, Light and Void) and "different enough" classes, specifically "one active and the other passive", presumably an active/passive pair (say, for example, Thief and Rogue), they may end up with similar powers. Roxy Lalonde, the Rogue of Void, was, according to Dirk, the true leader of the Alpha kids, and successfully held them together while they were self-destructing and their relationships were devolving. The main change to the post-retcon timeline was the revival of Vriska, the Thief of Light, and thus the holder of the exact opposite title to Roxy Lalonde's. And what did she do on the meteor? I don't know about that. Leadership qualities don't really have a lot to do with classpect roles, I think that's down more to the individual (who is more than their class/aspect, and why I don't like to use that as justification for things) and the circumstances. John makes a great friendleader to his group of players even though among them he's the least qualified to be in charge because, ironically, that makes a certain amount of sense. All his friends are more independent and intelligent than him, yet he, the most innocent and deceptively perceptive of them all, is the one perfectly fit to rally them under one cause. I wouldn't give Vriska credit for uniting them or influencing their lives very much at all, aside from Terezi's. She took the charge for a while once they were in the B2 session, but as an aggressive competitive gamer that's what she does. That said, it's certainly very interesting (and I never noticed) that she and Roxy have complementary classes in opposing aspects. Too bad I don't really recall them interacting in any significant way. Basically this. Although I thought she was a great character throughout Act 5 and I liked where her character arc went there. I do definitely feel that her character should have went in a different direction during act 6. To me it just seemed like Hussie didn't know what to do with her anymore and was just chucking her in for fanservice, because people wanted her back. Wouldn't giving her a more redemptive arc be much more fanservicey though? It wouldn't make sense to end her arc then and there with the dreambubble system clearly established by that point. And she died doing (or trying to anyway) what would ultimately define her: leaving her friends to do something more important. It does make sense that once she would die, she wouldn't have learned anything and keep on with that train of thought. It would also make sense that she would end up flocking toward where other ghosts are coalescing, as well as being in the direction of whatever the most plot-relevant stuff is. Kind of like she always used to do?
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dldracorex
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Post by dldracorex on Sept 8, 2016 16:25:42 GMT
I never liked Vriska, even after she opened herself up to John, but I recognized her as a good character ... up until the retcon. To be honest, even if I felt her deth was the proper end of her arc, I didn't mind her continuing activity in the dream bubbles, as it came off as something like a character in a sequal: Already haveing gone through the development in the original, but back for more (that said, her character development in the dream bubbles wasn't as well done as what was before her death). But then the retcon came arround and suddenly it's like the story not only forgot all of her character development (from both before and after her death), but it also forgot that there was anything wrong with who she was at all! Last I checked, the biggest piece of character development she had before her death was "Oh gog, killing Tavros was wrong." Post-retcon, she did not kill anymore of her friends, and one of her first actions was to bring Tavros back. Personally, I think her character was finally resolved as being ultimately, decisively, and truly Not A Good Person by the end. That's quite apparent in her actions as her post-retcon self, who from her perspective was saved by divine intervention because she was apparently needed in the endgame, which is all she needed to hear. From then on she had zero hesitation in her plans and goals, and was all too eager to ditch her "friends" to go play hero in the bigger, more important battle. And in the end, that's all that mattered to her as a person. Doing something important, and being validated for it. Who needs morals or self-awareness when you can charge blindly ahead and justify yourself by taking out the biggest villain you can find? Bottom line, she may have played the role of a hero instead of a villain, but the only real difference between them is she wasn't interested in large-scale destruction. I mean, a lot of people are arguing that the kids suck for not going out of their way to take down Lord English. Vriska left them, possibly never to return, and fully knowing that she might not come back, even though she was happy and had reconciled with Terezi, in order to try to take down Lord English. And before anyone argues that she just wanted to do it for the glory, I would like to point out that in the doomed timeline where she fought Jack, Vriska was extremely distressed to learn that Jack had killed Terezi and Karkat. You know, because she actually cared about them.
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Post by ashercrane on Sept 8, 2016 16:46:46 GMT
And Vriska pointedly did not call attention to what she was foing either. I just reread it, and when John asked what her part was, she just basically said "I'm going to go fight LE, and this is how. But don't worry about it. You have your own stuff to worry about." I mean she actually straight up told him not to worry about what she was doing. This seems to me to be at least a bit more mature than the Vriska who was so anxious to be in the spotlight she created her own villain.
Especially since, as mentioned above, neither she, nor even us as the audience didn't and still don't know if she actually survived.
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Post by mementovivere on Sept 8, 2016 16:52:15 GMT
I never liked Vriska, even after she opened herself up to John, but I recognized her as a good character ... up until the retcon. To be honest, even if I felt her deth was the proper end of her arc, I didn't mind her continuing activity in the dream bubbles, as it came off as something like a character in a sequal: Already haveing gone through the development in the original, but back for more (that said, her character development in the dream bubbles wasn't as well done as what was before her death). But then the retcon came arround and suddenly it's like the story not only forgot all of her character development (from both before and after her death), but it also forgot that there was anything wrong with who she was at all! See, people say that the story acts like there's nothing wrong with Vriska post-retcon, but I disagree. She's pretty clearly a terrible person by the story's standards, exaggeratedly so. The reason people think she's a terrible person post-retcon is not because people are outsmarting the story or because the story is trying to say she's a good person... it's because the story is ACTIVELY TRYING TO SHOW YOU that she's gone back to being terrible, and Hussie went out of his way to give near-constant examples of her bullying people, callously disregarding the wellbeing of others, or asserting her will by force. All of those look like bad things to you because they are! BUT, the fact that she also happens to successfully steer the session towards victory does not negate the fact that she's also a shitty person. In real life, there are actually a LOT of people that are huge assholes but are still otherwise pretty good at what they do (and sometimes knowing they're good at what they do is WHY they're assoles). Vriska has ALWAYS been characterized as being very good at "winning" the game by force, and Hussie's described her title as that of a "born cheater", so it's not surprising that that's what she brings to the table. Does that mean being an asshole is therefore a good thing to be emulated? No way. Was it good character development for Vriska? Not at all, it's pretty clearly a regression to her old shit! But it worked, insofar as it helped them beat a bunch of bad guys and shoot a tadpole out of a volcano. She's still an asshole though, and those facts don't necessarily negate or contradict each other. As Rose said: ROSE: She really is quite an extravagant bitch. ROXY: lmao ROSE: But it turns out people like that tend to have some convenient assets. ROSE: Such as, the sheer force of personality to keep a bunch of idiots from falling apart. ROSE: Don't get me wrong. It's quite annoying. ROSE: But... useful. Sometimes assholes ARE also effective people. I've met plenty, and y'know what, sometimes results are results. It may not be idealistic, but it's realistic! But ideally, one should try to be an effective leader WITHOUT being an asshole. In a traditional narrative, that would probably be the message. And maybe that's still a lesson we'll see in the future! But the ending we got is NOT a traditional narrative, which leads me to...
Some stuff about the meta nature of the ending, and what might follow. Now that we've had a few months to digest the ending and the story as a whole, I think the slightly more realistic (?) and un-developed portrayal of the characters post-retcon is part of the point: John fucking with the story DID disrupt the way the story was "supposed" to go, it DID disrupt their traditional character arcs, and I think Rose's frustration that none of it makes sense and Dave's line about "we don't have arcs, we're just people" isn't irony so much as it is an acknowledgement of that change. I think the "original story" is probably what happened in the timeline before Aranea came and messed everything up, the thing Meenah refers to as "the legit chain of events" when telling Aranea not to go through with her crazy plan. (As an aside, I just realized that Aranea's plan actually DID work, even if she only helped start off the chain of events... she wanted overwrite the "legit chain of events" with a new alpha timeline where a Condesce-free universe gets created but Lord English does NOT get created, and that's basically what happened even if it wasn't in way she intended. So, go Aranea? That's a light player for you.) But as a result of John's changes, the neat traditional narrative we were building towards pretty clearly did not happen. It's basically what would have happened if you took any traditional story, gave a character within it the power to rewrite the story, and let them go nuts. If Jay Gatsby got the ability to change things, The Great Gatsby would probably be a really different story! And it probably would have fucked up everyone's character development, even if it resulted in an ostensibly happier ending. Some characters regressed completely (such as Terezi, or Vriska and Tavrosprite going back to their old unhealthy dynamic) while others developed in ways that were completely unexpected (such as the whole DaveKat situation, or Rose's alcoholism arc getting nipped in the bud before it could even begin). It's an interesting thing to do from a storytelling perspective, and Hussie has said that Homestuck has always been a way for him to fuck around and improve as an artist and writer. But I also think there's an argument to be made that the whole "meta shit leading to the deconstruction and derailing of a traditional narrative and traditional arcs" thing wasn't as effective as it could have been. Ideally, there would be divergent character arcs that STILL made a sort of internal sense and were still satisfying in their own regard. Ultimately people DO want a traditional story and traditional arcs, and a lot of people probably would have felt better about the end of the story if Aranea had never changed anything and things had just gone in a more straightforward, less meta direction. There's a reason a lot of people just plain don't like postmodern writing, because they want things to be straightforward and understandable and relatable. HOWEVER, it is my hope that the epilogue touches on this, and possibly even presents us with a look at what the pre-Aranea timeline would have looked like, or at least something similar. If it DOES do that successfully, I think Homestuck could still end up being a great metanarrative story instead of a story that starts out great but then experiments a little too much and fizzles out a bit at the end. There are some things that make me think it will--Caliborn's Masterpiece, for one thing (which "TAKES PLACE IN A FUTURE MOMENT. LONG BEYOND WHEN WE, YOU, OR I HAVE ANY BUSINESS SEEING WHAT HAPPENS", ie beyond the expected but fake 'end' of the story) as well as this conversation between Hussie and Caliborn: "You can't just force them to settle all their issues with insane psychotropic game powerups. They have to face all those issues themselves, or they will never learn and grow as people. WHO CARES?? Well, you don't. But human beings do. The journey itself is more important than the destination. The struggle is what builds character and teaches us about ourselves and about life." This seems like near-blatant foreshadowing for what we see happening later: John's retcon changes forced people to settle their issues with insane game powerups, with more focus on the destination (winning Sburb) than the journey (character arcs). If we eventually get a look at what might have happened if both Aranea and John HADN'T tried to change shit, complete with the humans going and kicking Caliborn's ass per the Masterpiece, maybe we'll get to have our cake and eat it too. And thanks to the established rules of all the changed timelines sticking around in the furthest ring (see: Vriska and (Vriska) interacting) then it's totally possible for those two completely different timelines (aka storylines) to coexist. But we'll see!
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The One Guy
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Post by The One Guy on Sept 8, 2016 17:15:11 GMT
mementovivere, that actually makes a surprising amount of sense...
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Post by Blaperile on Sept 8, 2016 17:27:40 GMT
So I realize that using this question to stir up the discussion thread is akin to using a tactical nuke to kill a mosquito, but what are you guys' final thoughts on Vriska's character and how she was handled? I'm pretty torn on her myself; I think she was a fascinating character, but I have some serious misgivings about where her development went post-retcon. I'm curious to see what you guys think, though. I honestly really love Vriska as a character. It's amazing to see how polarizing she really is to the fandom, with half of people loving her and half of people hating her. I especially love how that polarizing became more physical after we ended up with two different Vriskas and one ended up getting a lot of hate from the fandom and one a lot more love (though of course there are people who think the opposite of it), while in-comic they received pretty much the opposite reactions from the other characters. So honestly, I really like her. There's not many fictional characters that can make me feel so many emotions at once. She's not my favorite character in Homestuck and honestly there are quite some characters above her, but I do think she's one of the best written characters in the story, on about the same level as Dave and Terezi.
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Post by obsidalicious on Sept 8, 2016 21:43:26 GMT
I especially love how that polarizing became more physical after we ended up with two different Vriskas and one ended up getting a lot of hate from the fandom and one a lot more love (though of course there are people who think the opposite of it), while in-comic they received pretty much the opposite reactions from the other characters. Did anyone actually "love" Griska though? There were people who had a touch of pity for her. There are people who felt she was a slightly less shitty person if only because she was unlikely to kill anymore people. But I don't really recall anyone actually liking Griska. Especially not if you're trying to compare her to her polarisation in the Fandom: Griska is most definitely not a manifestation of the parts of Vriska people liked. She really just served to demonstrate how psychologically fragile she is, to show us how much she relies on ego and power to be a person who actually accomplishes things. Which is a fact that really didn't need to be pointed out to us.
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Post by mementovivere on Sept 8, 2016 22:26:52 GMT
I especially love how that polarizing became more physical after we ended up with two different Vriskas and one ended up getting a lot of hate from the fandom and one a lot more love (though of course there are people who think the opposite of it), while in-comic they received pretty much the opposite reactions from the other characters. Did anyone actually "love" Griska though? There were people who had a touch of pity for her. There are people who felt she was a slightly less shitty person if only because she was unlikely to kill anymore people. But I don't really recall anyone actually liking Griska. Especially not if you're trying to compare her to her polarisation in the Fandom: Griska is most definitely not a manifestation of the parts of Vriska people liked. She really just served to demonstrate how psychologically fragile she is, to show us how much she relies on ego and power to be a person who actually accomplishes things. Which is a fact that really didn't need to be pointed out to us. I liked her a lot. I don't think she's really an embodiment of the traits people liked about the "original Vriska", but she did develop into someone fairly unique and a bit more emotionally mature. She was a Vriska with a bit more kindness and humility, who after seeing Aranea in action seemed to have finally internalized how much of her old behavior was "immature, egomaniacal 8ullshit", and really started questioning her own judgment and whether she was just repeating the same patterns as before. She also seemed like a happier Vriska by the end (before the breakup, anyway) who realized a lot of personal fulfillment can come from spending time with people you care about, exploring and discovering and imagining, rather than trampling anyone standing in the way of her ambitions and greatness. As she said, "I actually feel happy and good a8out my life for the first time in... may8e forever?? Like, ACTUALLY good a8out my life in a way that feels real, instead of forced." Alive Vriska insisted she was being delusional and narcissistic, but that's not the way it came across to me, and she really did seem genuinely excited to spend her days exploring the dreambubbles with Meenah. I found her pretty likable, personally. GRANTED, she also had plenty of unique flaws, like obsessing over Meenah's approval and being content to sit back and watch while the world crumbled around her. My hope was for her to find a happy, healthy medium: that after running into Terezi in Remem8er, she would be encouraged to still fight for her friends and do what's right, but she'd still keep her newfound humility and kindness and growth intact. That didn't really happen, but maaaaybe we'll see some more of her in the epilogue. I hope so, at least.
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Post by Gab on Sept 9, 2016 15:31:17 GMT
I mean, a lot of people are arguing that the kids suck for not going out of their way to take down Lord English. Vriska left them, possibly never to return, and fully knowing that she might not come back, even though she was happy and had reconciled with Terezi, in order to try to take down Lord English. And before anyone argues that she just wanted to do it for the glory, I would like to point out that in the doomed timeline where she fought Jack, Vriska was extremely distressed to learn that Jack had killed Terezi and Karkat. You know, because she actually cared about them. This is a pretty good point actually. And not that it wasn't a noble moment for her. But like with everything she does, it wasn't actually about doing the right thing, it was about what her actions meant and what people (or she) would think of her(self) for it. While in that moment she was prepared to face Jack and more-or-less for the right reasons, like I said before, she refused to back down when Terezi warned her she would fail. She had no faith or trust in her friend, and in the moment was sucked into their stupid ongoing rivalry, too preoccupied with playing games and acting all badass to be sensible at all. In fairness maybe Terezi could have been a little better in her part herself, but at least in the moment she knew she was dealing with a life-or-death situation. Vriska was more concerned with her ego. I think that's even more apparent in the case of English. Her various speeches about the subject stink of that mentality. Like when she tells the others that the purpose of creating a new universe is to allow life to flourish freely instead of conquering it like the trolls wanted to do, she was just going through the expected motions. Acting out the role of the hero without having the actual mentality of one. And let's not forget that before she went to fight English she first payed a visit to absolutely eviscerate her passive alternate self. Which admittedly COULD be seen as her being disgusted with herself for losing the motivation to take action in favor of indulging her ego in more pointless floundering ways, but the sheer vitriol and lack of self-awareness is really something here. And really, I think Vriska at this point was far less attached to her friends after spending 3 years at rest with them, compared to above, when she was fighting to earn that opportunity. It probably felt a lot easier to leave them behind for at least a little while, if not forever. It just seems to me that in this case she never learned to value the opinions of the people around her. Now that we've had a few months to digest the ending and the story as a whole, I think the slightly more realistic (?) and un-developed portrayal of the characters post-retcon is part of the point: John fucking with the story DID disrupt the way the story was "supposed" to go, it DID disrupt their traditional character arcs, and I think Rose's frustration that none of it makes sense and Dave's line about "we don't have arcs, we're just people" isn't irony so much as it is an acknowledgement of that change. I think the "original story" is probably what happened in the timeline before Aranea came and messed everything up, the thing Meenah refers to as "the legit chain of events" when telling Aranea not to go through with her crazy plan. (As an aside, I just realized that Aranea's plan actually DID work, even if she only helped start off the chain of events... she wanted overwrite the "legit chain of events" with a new alpha timeline where a Condesce-free universe gets created but Lord English does NOT get created, and that's basically what happened even if it wasn't in way she intended. So, go Aranea? That's a light player for you.) Before I get into this, let me just say how fascinating it is we can even get into such deep talks about the character development to begin with. I mean, this is the successor to Problem Sleuth, and that story sure didn't have any meaningful character arcs, at least none that weren't a joke. And while Homestuck had a deeper, more serious plot in mind, and introduced the obvious potential for such things with the inclusion of pesterlogs, I somehow doubt Andrew ever plotted out something like character arcs that far back. That just happened to evolve in the story, and got rolled into the whole enchilada with everything else. Anyway, this is an interesting perspective, and I think you're probably right. Personally though, I still think this "original" timeline that takes place without the intervention of either John or Aranea is a phantom. I think the post-retcon sequence is the alpha timeline as it has always existed, and Aranea's showstopper was a doomed timeline. Much like Terezi inadvertently created a doomed timeline while having access to the full unfettered alpha. Personally, I think if Andrew went back and showed an original timeline, that would actually be sloppier writing than anything that's been accused of the story so far. It would pretty much turn the entire post-retcon event into a big embarrassing event everyone would want to sweep under the rug and pretend didn't exist, like some people do with the trickster segment. Or like how the intermission used to be treated. Or how I used to treat sbahj. Besides, it would just be contrary. Even if what he's doing with the story is unpopular, I would prefer he just went all the way with it. Flip-flopping isn't going to fix anything, so he might as well commit and go the whole nine yards, you know? But aside from that, would this original timeline really go that differently for the characters? Aside from being a somewhat obvious Pyrrhic victory due to creating the universe Lord English will be born in, and whether would they even be able to defeat all their opponents without the foresight they were afforded post-retcon, would this original timeline really have included more typical complete story arcs for all the characters that we didn't see here? I'm not so sure about that. While I like the meta explanation of their departure from typical storytelling conventions, I think they stepped away from that long before the retcon. In fact, it starts pretty much as soon as each character is introduced, when we're told straightup their interests and personality, which would be awful writing under "normal" circumstances. Transforming most of the characters into avatars of the "player"'s whimsy I think does the same thing it does to actual video game characters, make them feel less than normal. And really if you ask me, I think Homestuck tends to satirize and buck typical character development everywhere it can. Take Sburb for instance, which in theory is supposed to cultivate its players' maturity through quests and sprites and stuff, but that stops being relevant pretty much after Rose's planet (the one who most enthusiastically departed from this), and we never see anyone actually develop thanks to their preordained journey except maybe for John. In fact, I'd say meaningful character development doesn't take place at all until Act 5, especially A5A2 when the kids and trolls start to form relationships with one another. And even then, it doesn't really become a big part of the story until Act 6. Which is ironic now I think about it, because that's what everyone used to complain about. There's also the fact that moralistic stuff like that tends to be delivered in clunky, very direct ways, like the famous quote in your post, where Caliborn and Andrew stop the story dead to say "the aesop here is that humans must go through hardship to develop" before we can even see that naturally occur. Or how romance in the story is introduced through Nepeta's shipping grid and displayed through various breakups before becoming anything remotely legitimate. Like it's all being parodied before being played straight. Isn't that oddly backwards? Here's the thing about that, I think. Homestuck has definitely never been traditional. It's never approached anything the way a typical story or even webcomic would, in the interest of parodying video game format. It has also been particularly delighted to play hard ball with the plot, jumping frenetically back and forth in time, creating convoluted time loops, etc. you know how it goes. And that's just the thing. Homestuck never did things in a way that made it easy to understand, and that's exactly what brought so many people on board to begin with. People were interested in solving the Homestuck puzzle. Which is why it makes no sense to me that things would change just because the story has dragged out a few years or that it's become radically more popular. I mean, I'm sure these facts have resulted in modifications to the approach. But no story Andrew has ever told was about appealing to the lowest common denominator or doing what people wanted him to do. And I think he as an artist probably finds it more rewarding and compelling to create an ending for such a popular series that not everyone is happy with, that they all have to sit down and discuss and think about, or even just thumbs down and walk away from. I think that is the reaction he prefers than if he just wrapped everything up in a nice bow and the audience essentially goes "yep, that sure is a story that ended correctly. good work." Did anyone actually "love" Griska though? There were people who had a touch of pity for her. There are people who felt she was a slightly less shitty person if only because she was unlikely to kill anymore people. But I don't really recall anyone actually liking Griska. Especially not if you're trying to compare her to her polarisation in the Fandom: Griska is most definitely not a manifestation of the parts of Vriska people liked. She really just served to demonstrate how psychologically fragile she is, to show us how much she relies on ego and power to be a person who actually accomplishes things. Which is a fact that really didn't need to be pointed out to us. Well yes, plenty of people did. I liked her more and more the more I saw of her, personally.
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