Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[mauve]

I honestly can't remember if any of the trolls became God Tiers.

...although I don't remember if the alpha kids went god tier either, actually.

[Flarecobra]

I will say this: That last drawing has got a ton of junk in the trunk, if you get my meaning. Even for a SBAHJ-style thing.

[Arcanum]

Hahaha so in an effort to save the multiverse from Lord English John creates the exact circumstances in a new timeline that create Lord English? Hahahaha we're near the end of the fuckin' story and it's still such a depressing slog through complete lack of character agency.

But like, more importantly: Why weren't any of the trolls involved in the fight? So the eight kids say "We're gonna take on Caliborn" and Terezi and Karkat and Kanaya and (eww) Vriska are just like "K y'alls have fun!"

I suppose we will find out why the Trolls didn't come along soon. I could make up a bunch of silly theories but meh.

It also has the soul of Gamzee, if we take the purple portion of clay going into the Cal-figure to be him. Or at least half of Gamzee's soul, given that the other half of his clay body is still beneath stage on the next page.

Oh dang you're right, I missed that. That probably explains LE's Vast Honk upon being born into a universe.

I honestly can't remember if any of the trolls became God Tiers.

...although I don't remember if the alpha kids went god tier either, actually.

Vriska and Aradia are the only ones, although Aradia is still out in the void (or the Furthest Ring? Whatever it's called) or by the Green Sun.

And the alpha kids went god tier after their Trickster High wore out and they woke up in their tombs on Derse/Prospit which were then obliterated by I forget what, causing them to ascend.

Oh god how do I remember so much of this shit. I know I was re-reading Homestuck a few months ago, but I stopped when I hit Act 6, so I haven't read that in like a year. Why does my brain remember the most useless shit.

[POS Industries]

Did Hussie really just make a big deal about shit we mostly already knew five years ago?

[Aldurin]

Seems that way. I guess it's a catchup tool for people that didn't figure it out and don't discuss homestuck with anyone at all.

I will say for some reason I liked the whole "jerking around the fans of the comic" touches that have aged past the rotten stage to the point where it's close to becoming as good as Magicka's "Not a Vampire" joke.

[Arcanum]

He sort of was, but at the same time he wasn't? Maybe?

Pretty sure the MSPA Reader was heading towards the stump not because of the "revelations," but because of the over-the-top presentation of the "revelations" that we already knew about. That's how I'm looking at it, at least.

Although I did like seeing Cal's journey nicely summarized in chronological order.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Did Hussie really just make a big deal about shit we mostly already knew five years ago?

To SICK FUCKING BEATS.

[Solid Snake]

There are many problems I have with Homestuck right now, but the biggest one I have personally is that we've long past eclipsed the point where the protagonists are supposed to have some sort of plan and some sort of agency in defeating The Big Menace that's kept them down for most the plot, and yet Homestuck's premise right now seems to be "How depressing has this been? LET'S MAKE THINGS EVEN MORE HOPELESS SOMEHOW," repeat forever and eternity. Even the solutions that take us years to get to somehow only make things worse!! INCREDIBLE

Andrew: You don't win extra credits as an author by presenting your heroes with the worst possible situation ad nauseum, as if like, heroes are judged solely by the odds stacked against them

[Dracorion]

Okay that may have been the least offensive way to summarize Vriska's return, and didn't erase the adorable thing Vriska and Meenah had going on, and there were some cute panels to boot.

[Solid Snake]

Goddamn it Hussie
STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME LIKE VRISKA

IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN
NO MATTER HOW MUCH CUTE ARTWORK YOU PRODUCE

[Arcanum]

These two flashes are the best summaries in the entire story. Way better than the shitty walls of text used back in the day.

[POS Industries]

I would have preferred a proper narrative flow where we see these events unfold in a natural manner, but that's clearly too much to ask at this point.

It was a nice flash but it really is just everything I hate about how Homestuck is now.

[Solid Snake]

It was a nice flash but it really is just everything I hate about how Homestuck is now.

Please tell me you've turned a complete one-eighty and are now aggravated at how Andrew's written Vriska into the Mary Sue who Magically Fixes Everything I always knew Andrew was writing her as

[POS Industries]

Please tell me you've turned a complete one-eighty and are now aggravated at how Andrew's written Vriska into the Mary Sue who Magically Fixes Everything I always knew Andrew was writing her as
Well, that is kind of all the worst parts of how Vriska was used in the first place, but it's not the thing that really bugs me.

I just hate all the time skips and retcons and wasting four years on a timeline that was retconned out of existence and now everything is presented in expositional walls of text and montage flashes. It's just so, so bad.

I miss actually seeing these character interactions take place. I can't believe there was more dialogue when none of these people had ever met each other in person.

[rpgdemon]

I hope that you like it when characters in stories talk to one another, because there's an awful lot of that to come. Please stand by patiently and enthusiastically as my fake teens sit around bullshitting to the bitter end. Then a bunch of cool stuff will happen, and that will be that!

Sounds like we might be seeing more character interaction doing actually new stuff. I'm fine with the timeskip/montage, since it pretty much gets the point across. "Here's how things were different because Vriska was here, but you don't need to watch it happen for the umpteenth time"

[Solid Snake]

Sounds like we might be seeing more character interaction doing actually new stuff. I'm fine with the timeskip/montage, since it pretty much gets the point across. "Here's how things were different because Vriska was here, but you don't need to watch it happen for the umpteenth time"

But like, isn't the Alpha Version of events infinitely more important for us to see than all those doomed timelines we spent ages dissecting every nuance of?

[Bard The 5th LW]

While I don't really care much for "Act 6: Vriska version", Karkat and Dave are fucking adorable oh my god.

[mauve]

So everything's better except that Tavros is still dead?

[Malek]

Tavrosprite won't self-destruct this time though, so he's technically not dead now.

[rpgdemon]

But like, isn't the Alpha Version of events infinitely more important for us to see than all those doomed timelines we spent ages dissecting every nuance of?

We wouldn't be able to see the consequence of John's actions if we skipped over the bad stuff and just showed the good. It'd be like, "Okay, sure, whatever? Things are okay for like 500 pages? What kind of story is this?" It'd be crazy boring, and wouldn't have any sort of meaning attached to it, since we wouldn't actually know what the heroes triumphed over. It would be a hollow victory, and a boring narrative.

Here's the thing: I'm not going to convince you it doesn't suck, since you've already decided that it does, and you seem read the comic to look for reinforcement of that belief. I will say that some of the things you're proposing would be objectively worse from a storytelling point of view, regardless of what the trappings of the story actually are. You don't write a story about how great everything is going, you put your protagonists into a tree and throw rocks at them. It's important that things are bad for them over the course of the story, or else there's no reason to continue reading, or for them to continue their journey. If everything is great on page 2, why even have a page 500?

[Bard The 5th LW]

We wouldn't be able to see the consequence of John's actions if we skipped over the bad stuff and just showed the good. It'd be like, "Okay, sure, whatever? Things are okay for like 500 pages? What kind of story is this?" It'd be crazy boring, and wouldn't have any sort of meaning attached to it, since we wouldn't actually know what the heroes triumphed over. It would be a hollow victory, and a boring narrative.

Here's the thing: I'm not going to convince you it doesn't suck, since you've already decided that it does, and you seem read the comic to look for reinforcement of that belief. I will say that some of the things you're proposing would be objectively worse from a storytelling point of view, regardless of what the trappings of the story actually are. You don't write a story about how great everything is going, you put your protagonists into a tree and throw rocks at them. It's important that things are bad for them over the course of the story, or else there's no reason to continue reading, or for them to continue their journey. If everything is great on page 2, why even have a page 500?

You're making the fundamental mistake of assuming that the author doesn't control the story every step of the way.

Like, let's be real here. Andrew Hussie has literally just undone about FOUR YEARS of actual story. Literally, the characters and events we've been following since the start of Act 6 (way back in 2011) now do not matter AT ALL.

Why do you think he did this? What purpose does it serve to the story or the character development of anyone? Odds are, he did it for one of two reasons:

1.) He literally had no clue how to write himself out of the plot he had written up until that point.
2.) He's just WAY too up his own ass about how meta/subversive his story is towards normal storytelling devices.

There are a MILLION ways he could've written the story to have Vriska survive, inject interesting narrative/conflict, and NOT have insulted his readers for giving a shit about his comic for four years.

e: Like, Snake is most certainly NOT complaining about things going wrong for the main characters, Snake is complaining about the story dragging itself out and wasting time. If you think Snake's complaints are that "Something bad happened to the protagonists!" then I don't think you're reading the same comic.

[rpgdemon]

There are many problems I have with Homestuck right now, but the biggest one I have personally is that we've long past eclipsed the point where the protagonists are supposed to have some sort of plan and some sort of agency in defeating The Big Menace that's kept them down for most the plot, and yet Homestuck's premise right now seems to be "How depressing has this been? LET'S MAKE THINGS EVEN MORE HOPELESS SOMEHOW," repeat forever and eternity. Even the solutions that take us years to get to somehow only make things worse!! INCREDIBLE

Andrew: You don't win extra credits as an author by presenting your heroes with the worst possible situation ad nauseum, as if like, heroes are judged solely by the odds stacked against them

Ahem.

[Bard The 5th LW]

There are many problems I have with Homestuck right now, but the biggest one I have personally is that we've long past eclipsed the point where the protagonists are supposed to have some sort of plan and some sort of agency in defeating The Big Menace that's kept them down for most the plot, and yet Homestuck's premise right now seems to be "How depressing has this been? LET'S MAKE THINGS EVEN MORE HOPELESS SOMEHOW," repeat forever and eternity. Even the solutions that take us years to get to somehow only make things worse!! INCREDIBLE

Andrew: You don't win extra credits as an author by presenting your heroes with the worst possible situation ad nauseum, as if like, heroes are judged solely by the odds stacked against them

I apologize to Snake if I'm misrepresenting his argument, but it seems clear to me that the problem he has is that Hussie could've very easily ended Homestuck like 3 years ago if he didn't just KEEP throwing more and more shit onto the conflict pile and ultimately render all that shit pointless anyways.

And like, its a problem I have with Homestuck! I loved the comic once upon a time, and I still enjoy it from time to time, because Hussie is pretty fantastic at some things (like writing character-to-character interactions for example). But there's a point where every story ought to just end for its own good and I think Homestuck passed that point around the midway point of Act 6, if not at the BEGINNING of Act 6. At this point, I primarily follow it because I'm curious as to how/when it'll end.

[Aldurin]

I think it would have gone better if he had held off on the video game kickstarter until he was actually done with homestuck. Currently he's clearly stretched himself too thin between multiple things and can only resort to horse wordplay as a coping mechanism.

[Solid Snake]

It's kind of funny to have two people misrepresent aspects of your argument in two different ways. (I guess Bard was closer than RPG, somewhat?)

The point I'm trying to make isn't that bad things keep happening to the characters; I like a good tragic narrative as much as anyone else. I usually like my tragedies to be a result of protagonist agency, however. The Red Wedding works in Game of Thrones because it's not just an objectively shitty event but it's also an objectively shitty event that appears initially to come at you out of left field, but then you meditate on the circumstances and the politics of the world and you're like "Shit, [Dead Characters] totally fucked up and had it coming."

By contrast, everything the trolls and the kids seem to do ends up only creating the very circumstances they're trapped in and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it, even now, near presumably the very end of the story, except create the very circumstances they're desperate to avoid. We're nearing the end and no one -- least of all John, the guy who just caused this retcon, seems to have the slightest clue what he's doing or why he's doing it. It's not as if even Terezi, seer though she is, was like "Oh, by having John retcon everything I'm actually just engineering the circumstances in which Lord English will come into existence and threaten everything!"

I guess my hope for Homestuck was like, at one point or another the kids and trolls would sufficiently master the 'rules of the game,' for lack of a better way to put it, to give themselves a chance of earning their victory as a result of a coordinated strategy? Or, alternatively, that the kids and trolls would utterly fail, but at least that failure would stem from something I could wag my finger at and say "It's because they did X or Y or Z."

Where this finally ties in with Bard's point is that, no, the narrative absolutely shouldn't drag on for years and years on end if the kids and trolls aren't making any progress. "The kids and trolls, in an effort to avoid the consequences of a doomed timeline where everyone dies, have John use his newfound powers to retcon everything, only to realize they've created the exact circumstances that led to Lord English's rise to power" is not only the exact same twist we've seen before (but with Jack Noir the first time, when it was at least better written), but it's something you can easily, easily, as Andrew Hussie, establish in maybe 20% the total content.

I want to spend time with the kids and trolls as they're learning how to actually take charge and resolve these seemingly impossible issues with seemingly insurmountable odds. We don't need to spend years watching them get kicked in the teeth, only to finally get to the 'good part' where they're going to finally enact a plan, succeed or fail, and then just have that confrontation span all of a single flash or a mere pittance of updates. That's the *important* part of the story.

EDIT: Then there's the entirely separate yet equally valid grievance that we just spent years following versions of the characters who themselves aren't 'real' anymore, insofar as their newfound retconned selves are actually completely different characters with completely different relationships, aspirations, and mentalities, none of which we've actually even seen so far.

EDIT 2: Like, you know the really easy way Hussie could've written this to give the protagonists a shred of agency and actually make this whole subplot interesting? Have Terezi, John and Roxy know that retconning is going to lead to a timeline with the 'birth' of Lord English, but have them talk it over and realize they miss their dead friends so much in this timeline that they're willing to do that anyway. Sacrificing entire universes to selfishly revive those they love and preserve the friendships that are important to them, costs to others be damned -- is there any more prototypical a choice for teenagers to make? It gives those characters sufficient agency that I'm like, okay, everything we just witnessed these past couple years actually is important because it's about those three characters -- explaining a difficult decision they made, rendering them less than perfect but all too human.

That's good shit.

You know what's NOT good shit? "Oops! We just so happened to stumble ass-backwards into that very nightmarish situation we were trying to avoid, without having the SLIGHTEST GODDAMN CLUE what we were up to!"

That kind of Deus Ex Machina stuff works maybe like once or twice, but eventually it just starts to feel like a really lazy plot device that strips the characters of any actual role in the story aside from being dopes.

[Loyal]

The thing that bugs me about the recent plot direction (besides, y'know, the plot direction) is that the one person who'd remember anything of what happened in the last four years realtime - that being John - has spent those four years being as utterly unimportant as possible while still being relevant to the plot. Other characters don't remember anything because of the cosmic retcon, and John doesn't remember anything because he was never fucking there for any of it.

Of course, the other issue is that, as mentioned, we are now skipping over the "new" timeline with montages and shit, so as much of a waste of time the last four years have been, we also aren't going to see any of what happened since the retcon - plot advances, characterizations, dialogue, ANYTHING - until it catches up roughly with where we left off in the old timeline. Not even with the most pivotal change, Vriska. Yeah, she's an awful person and a blight on decency, but she was actually pretty entertaining when she's just shooting the shit, and we don't get even that.

There legitimately does not seem to be much of a reason to read Homestuck proper anymore, until it reaches its eventual conclusion with the heat death of the universe, since if you're interested in fan-wank what-ifs, the fans do it better, and if you're interested in the characters interacting with each other, the fans are the only ones doing it at all.

[rpgdemon]

EDIT 2: Like, you know the really easy way Hussie could've written this to give the protagonists a shred of agency and actually make this whole subplot interesting? Have Terezi, John and Roxy know that retconning is going to lead to a timeline with the 'birth' of Lord English, but have them talk it over and realize they miss their dead friends so much in this timeline that they're willing to do that anyway. Sacrificing entire universes to selfishly revive those they love and preserve the friendships that are important to them, costs to others be damned -- is there any more prototypical a choice for teenagers to make? It gives those characters sufficient agency that I'm like, okay, everything we just witnessed these past couple years actually is important because it's about those three characters -- explaining a difficult decision they made, rendering them less than perfect but all too human.

Okay, that would have been a lot more interesting. And also still play into what Hussie is (I think) trying to play up which is the whole concept of free choice/fate in a universe where you CAN technically do anything, but you'll doom your entire universe to a slow death if you do the wrong anything.

I mean, that's why I'm kind of okay with how it's been going down, though. The Great Question or whatever it's called, that we've been dancing around, IS pretty much, "Is it free choice if the choice is death for the universe, or do this other thing" and I think this latest sort of "WELP, Retcon power made the bad guy" is still sort of playing into that. And, to me, that's the whole motif of the story, which is why I'm okay with what's going on. To me, it's never been about character agency, it's always been about "What even IS character agency, when there are infinite timelines, and anytime they make the wrong choice, they're in a dead one?"

[Bard The 5th LW]

Like, I was kinda under the impression John's retcon power was meant to NOT make the bad guy? Like, if Hussie wanted to use the 'Time travel makes the villain through a doomed timeline' thing again then there's no real reason he couldn't have left out the retcon thing and just used Dave or Aradia instead?

[Malek]

To be fair, it's not this retcon that causes it, it's when they decide to go teleport into Caliborn's house and punch him in the face that causes it.

[POS Industries]

To be fair, it's not this retcon that causes it, it's when they decide to go teleport into Caliborn's house and punch him in the face that causes it.
But the retcon presumably leads to those events, so the retcon does cause it.

[Malek]

It's not really a direct cause though, doing the retcon did not force them to make that choice, it's just a choice they weren't given pre-retcon because most of them died.

[Loyal]

Which is just pedantry, really. And again ties into the lack of agency. If any course of action you can take, up to and including dying and doing nothing forever, or permanently breaking the stable time loop of inevitability, leads to the same outcome regardless... what is the point of the character actions? Or even the story?

What we are seeing is that not only have the last four years meant nothing, but so too has the one action designed, narratively and explicitly, to give the characters an out from their awful destinies. It has all meant nothing because everything is STILL going according to the cosmic narrative.

[rpgdemon]

I might be looking at it wrong, but I don't think that this is the end result of their actions, this time around.

Hear me out: John has multiple times in the past been shown to go back to things that we have seen and change how that went down. We have ALSO seen John go back to a point where he zapped himself to previously, and zap himself out of there. It's also been shown that, when John does something, it remains canonically true in the past, and always has been true. So this happened in the timeline that was averted, and continues happening now because at some point John made it happen, and it will continue happening until he un-makes it.

I'm pretty sure that all of that is setting the scene for John to go back to where they lost and do ~something~ there.

Like, if Future John goes to fight Caliborn and fails, that becomes the current canon. If John zaps to Future John, the whole thing gets rewritten. Essentially, we have all the time between now, and whenever they all decided to storm the castle, for John to zap to that point and change what's going on.

---------- Post added at 04:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 PM ----------

That said, why is Arquius still a thing. Did Vriska just go and throw his head in there a second time for kicks, or...?

[Solid Snake]

This update is depressing for confirming Vriska as so fucking Awful Mary Sue I want to punch her.
...If she's not a human woman it's okay to want to want to punch her, right? If anything women are the dominant gender in their society so I feel this is an appropriate emotion to have.

[POS Industries]

That said, why is Arquius still a thing. Did Vriska just go and throw his head in there a second time for kicks, or...?
If I had to guess, since gaining access to Aradia's time travel devices, she probably already knows how all this works out and leads up to the creation of Lord English, so she's making sure it happens in order to defeat him herself because she's learned absolutely goddamn nothing.

[Solid Snake]

If I had to guess, since gaining access to Aradia's time travel devices, she probably already knows how all this works out and leads up to the creation of Lord English, so she's making sure it happens in order to defeat him herself because she's learned absolutely goddamn nothing.

You've actually brought up my best case scenario ending for this story, given the corner Andrew's written himself into, which involves new-leader Vriska condemning her team to failure by being too prideful in desiring a heroic conclusion that was never meant for her. Lord English wins, the moral of the story is futility...that's the best-case scenario now simply because Andrew's committed himself to that depressing theme so many times that it wouldn't make any sense for him to suddenly abandon ship.

That's not going to happen, of course, because Vriska's going to randomly stumble into the correct answer by virtue of being the very incarnation of some bizarro-world Mary Sue.

[Loyal]

VRISKA: Terezi, please. Let's not 8icker in front of the party.
VRISKA: We need to 8e showing solidarity here!
TEREZI: W3 DO?
VRISKA: Yes. We are equally important to the party as its overarching executives. The ones with the most experience in the department of guile and ruthlessness.
VRISKA: I may project my voice louder than you, and 8orrow the spotlight for a little longer, 8ut you were always the soul of Team Scourge!
VRISKA: I couldn't 8e doing this without you. I wouldn't even want to!
TEREZI: 4W
TEREZI: Y34H, OK
TEREZI: YOU'R3 R1GHT... 1'M B3H1ND YOU 4LL TH3 W4Y!

What in the fuck even is this?

[Arcanum]

Yeah, seriously, who the fuck are these people?

[POS Industries]

Karkat was the only vaguely recognizable voice in the whole thing.

[Solid Snake]

Karkat was the only vaguely recognizable voice in the whole thing.

You know, if Karkat just snapped, went on some kind of rampage, killed everyone else, took on Lord English, crushed Lord English, and became basically God or Satan...

...it'd certainly be out of character...

...But I wouldn't mind?

[rpgdemon]

Yeah, while I still think the plot is fine, given the trappings and motifs that have been played up, I think the blatant mischaracterization has lost me.

The ONLY way I see this being at all in character for Vriska, and not just her being a Mary Sue, is if she IS actually fucking everyone over for glory again.

[Aldurin]

I'm more bothered by the multiple instances of "hey guys this character is cool look at us talking about how cool this character is" instead of, you know, have the character do things to establish that they're cool.

It's pushing it to the point that it wouldn't be unreasonable if the Mayor turned out to be a huge asshole, with Dave and Karkat covering it up for shits and giggles.

[Solid Snake]

This was a nice moment, though.
I still really like Rose and Roxy, and if Rose not becoming an alcoholic leads her to act more like herself, I guess that's the one and only upside of Vriska being alive again.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

It kind of struck me that a lot of people in that conversation either admitted straight up that they were tuning Vriska out or had someone else point it out I'd be forever amused if, Terezi aside, they had all just sort of learned to deal with Vriska's nature by nodding along, being somewhat noncommittal and complimenting her.

[Flarecobra]

Ok, I admit. That was adorable.


EDIT: ...wow, Vriska actually admitted she deserved to be punched out.

[Solid Snake]

What boggles my mind here is, I've been dying for a three-way Dave / Karkat / John talkin' session for ages...

And they're talking about troll romance, which should be golden...

But...

None of them sound like themselves?!?!?!?

(Like I guess John maybe kind of sort of does? But even his pseudo-blackrom Terezi crush feels forced as fuck)

---------- Post added at 01:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 AM ----------

You could pretty much just take the conversation I just had with POS on NPF Chat, copy-paste it here, lock the thread, dig a shallow grave and bury Homestuck in it

[Solid Snake]

If there's one thing and ONLY ONE THING I can appreciate about this otherwise objectively atrocious update, it's that Andrew Hussie hasn't changed, in that he's still writing Vriska as the single worst person to ever be written into any kind of fictional medium, and I still hate her with the searing passion of a thousand suns

[mauve]

I want Tavrosprite to stab the everloving shit out of Vriska.

I don't care if it dooms the timeline.

[Arcanum]

This conversation seems like exactly the kind of thing that could provide motivation in a critical moment for a Page to unleash his full potential. I'm guessing Vriska is up to her old shenanigans of creating the same final boss they are trying to stop.

[Solid Snake]

(...and I actually love[d] all three of those characters so that is really saying something.)

This conversation seems like exactly the kind of thing that could provide motivation in a critical moment for a Page to unleash his full potential. I'm guessing Vriska is up to her old shenanigans of creating the same final boss they are trying to stop.

Y'all just haven't realized yet that Vriska is actually humanity's collective final boss, and we all have to destroy both her and Andrew Hussie to win the game.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

The only thing really bothering me is why Snake keeps doing this to himself.

[rpgdemon]

Y'all just haven't realized yet that Vriska is actually humanity's collective final boss, and we all have to destroy both her and Andrew Hussie to win the game.

I know it's a joke, but talking about destroying real people to "win a game", whose crime is that they made a creative choice you didn't like, is scary close to crazy frothing trollfan/gamergate rhetoric, and really not a funny joke at all.

[Arcanum]

I know it's a joke, but talking about destroying real people to "win a game", whose crime is that they made a creative choice you didn't like, is scary close to crazy frothing trollfan/gamergate rhetoric, and really not a funny joke at all.

I think you're taking that remark a bit too seriously.

[rpgdemon]

I said I got that it's a joke. I just think such jokes are in poor taste given the current state of DEATH THREATS FOR EVERYONE that are not jokes.

[Solid Snake]

So like, I finally feel I have a grasp on one of the MANY, MANY, MANY things that annoy the crap out of me about modern Homestuck.

I remember a time back when Hussie was on the Tumblrs and whatnot when he kind of shrugged off the notion of shipping, like he acknowledged that it existed and didn't seem terribly bothered by it but at the same time his storytelling efforts were directed elsewhere and shipping was just like, an expected byproduct of writing great kids with chemistry.

But now?

Now it's goddamn SHIPPING: THE WEBCOMIC
(Wherein the only substance is goddamn ships, SHIPS, SHIPS)

I get it, I was 16 once too. But god fucking damn Andrew, you've now written literally every character into the story into a gushing shipper who literally can't stop shipping themselves out every three seconds. I'd expect this kind of behavior out of Nepeta, who had that very much as a character trait of hers from the beginning.

But you know how to write interesting romances? It's all in the subtext. The little unexpected moments of spontaneous human connection. Those moments when you're like "Oh yeah, s/he's really cool. We just spent a lot of time together and s/he gets my sense of humor and I want to see him/her even more."
It sure as hell doesn't look like every single character, regardless of their personalities otherwise, ruining a goddamn REUNION WITH FRIENDS YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IN YEARS with constant plans and shenanigans of pairing each other off every which direction

You know when John and Rose are just goofin' off and she's messin' with him while he's exploring the oil planet? That works SO MUCH BETTER AS A ROMANCE EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE THEM AS A COUPLE YOU GUYS, because it is natural and delightfully charming dialogue that SHOWS AND DOES NOT TELL YOU THERE IS ROMANTIC COMPATIBILITY

[Solid Snake]

GODDAMMIT

CAN WE HAVE SINGLE CONVERSATION

A SINGLE FUCKING CONVERSATION

WITHOUT SHIPPING

AND WITHOUT THE CHARACTERS JUST COMMENTING ON HOW HOT OTHER CHARACTERS ARE

AS IF THAT'S WHAT THEIR COLLECTIVE CHARACTERIZATIONS HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT? ACTUAL PERSONALITIES? NOPE EVERYONE JUST WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH EVERYONE ELSE

A UNIVERSE WITH ACTUAL MYTHOLOGY AND PLACES TO EXPLORE AND A FINAL BOSS TO DEFEAT AND AN EMPRESS OUT THERE AND JACK NOIR DOIN' SHIT SOMEWHERE NO WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE CARE ABOUT THAT

AT THIS RATE ANDREW YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST FUCKING START DRAWING RULE 34 PORNOGRAPHY OF ALL THE CHARACTERS IN AN ORGY I MEAN, WHY EVEN BOTHER STOPPING HALFWAY, THAT'S CLEARLY WHAT YOU WANT YOUR ONCE INTERESTING WEBCOMIC TO DESCEND TO

[Krylo]

Obnoxiously huge text

http://i.imgur.com/G66AAY3.gif

[Bum Bill Bee]

And now its time to call Snake a puritan commie papist jihadist monster because he clearly doesn't agree with free love and wild raunchy sex for everyone. I mean jeez, next thing you know, he'll be saying sleevless shirts are dirty degrading mind destroying porn that must be crushed.


KIDDING! :P

[Solid Snake]

I'm Jack Noirin' this shitty webcomic up and none of y'alls can calm me down, not even Krylo

[synkr0nized]

lol I'm still reading this comic.

Why are you doing this?


Also nice tantrum font-ing.

[Solid Snake]

Why are you doing this?


Also nice tantrum font-ing.

I am choosing to genuinely believe that you are sincerely complimenting my exceptional taste in tantrum fonts.

Also, the answer to your question is: Because I hate myself.

Really, that should be the default assumption of the answer to every question related to any decision Solid Snake makes

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

There's another thing bothering me now: Why is Snake doing this to us?

[Loyal]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT? ACTUAL PERSONALITIES? NOPE EVERYONE JUST WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH EVERYONE ELSE
To be fair, they are teenagers faced with the very real possibility (at least on the human side) of dying as virgins.

[Fenris]

yeah I'm just gonna bring that font size down to anything other than whoafuckhuge

alternatively put the whoafuckhuge text behind a swap tag fo realsies.

[Solid Snake]

My rant :(

Without the gargantuan font it's ruined

[Revising Ocelot]

What's with MGS-reference users and their penchant for masochism?

[Flarecobra]

Well, it could always be worse. (http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6nolbGUMc1r4g1j1o1_500.jpg)

[Solid Snake]

JOHN: vriska, wait.
VRISKA: ????????
JOHN: before you go on, i just wanted to say...
JOHN: i'm really impressed with your strategic analysis so far!
JOHN: you really seem to be all over this. i wouldn't even know where to begin figuring all this stuff out.
JOHN: anyway, i'm glad we have you back on our side!
VRISKA: Aww, thanks John!
JOHN: just thought i'd say!
JOHN: i didn't want you to go through all this stuff for us, thinking it was going unappreciated.
JOHN: anyway, please continue!


Someone
Someone please
Stab me with a fucking knife repeatedly until I collapse in an ocean of my own blood and vomit

[Loyal]

Full disclosure: I haven't actually read an update since the "Solidarity" (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?p=1251643#post1251643) bit, because of all the enormous sins Hussie has committed as a storyteller, to so miserably lose your way with your own characters' identities was somehow the one that crossed the line. It appears to be a decision that continues being good. I can't stay away from the thread, though.

Stab me with a fucking knife repeatedly until I collapse in an ocean of my own blood and vomitI always knew that you, yourself, were secretly always a Homestuck character.

Almost like...

...a certain character...

...Of a cerulean persu8sion?
http://i.imgur.com/gaRPtCd.png. (http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005022)

[Solid Snake]

Seriously though, what the FUCK is up with all the subservience to Vriska from every character that isn't Vriska?

...It's certainly destroyed any semblance of Karkat and Terezi's character development.

Like for fuck's sake, just keep bending over and kissing her toes, all the formerly interesting characters!!!!!

[Flarecobra]

Well, she's always been the one that's been planning and plotting..

[Solid Snake]

...Please tell me she's gone forever somehow.

[Arcanum]

We are obviously now going to follow Vriska on her adventures through Paradox Space as she does her best to break up the relationship between her ghost-self and Meenah so that she can re-create the plan to kill Lord English. We will never see any of the kids again until the very end of Homestuck where we will get a 30 second flash summary of what they were doing and then Homestuck will end with Hussie laughing maniacally.

[Flarecobra]

The sad thing? I'd be entirely ok with that. Because it'd mean Homestuck ended.

EDIT: Can you believe this one thread is like, a full quarter of this whole subforum?

[Flarecobra]

Meow meow motherfuckers.

[Flarecobra]

And that is why you need to invest at least a little in defense.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Well, I'd like to announce that I've caught up with Homestuck, after reading it for less than two months! Aaaaaaaand, its a little underwhelming actually.

And I'm not quite sure what Snake was raging over, since it looks like we've avoided being too shipping centered, and too Vriska centered.

Then again, I only read like two of those eight choose your path things. That must be where the rage fuel was.

[Arcanum]

Well, I'd like to announce that I've caught up with Homestuck

Then again, I only read like two of those eight choose your path things.

So you're not caught up. ::V:

[Bum Bill Bee]

I wouldn't be if all those conversations were linear :P

[Flarecobra]

What the flying fuck just happened?

[Bum Bill Bee]

What the flying fuck just happened?

My reaction to about 81% of what goes on in all of MSPaint Adventures (yes, I've read the other 3 series)

Jasprosesprite is a chatty little thing isn't she?

[Menarker]

Jasprosesprite seem to lack any sort of censors to warn her about things not to do or say. =P
Either that, or she has them and doesn't give a shit.

[Flarecobra]

So basically, she's a cat.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

The last lines of this update killed me. I am dead.

[Bum Bill Bee]

I'm sensing an upcoming double Vriska cat fight! Who's with me?

[Bum Bill Bee]

oooh ooh, they did another one of those cutesy victory dances! I haven't seen one of those in a long time!


On another note: has anyone ever bought any of the Homestuck print books? I'm just really really curious as to how they'd put in all that text and how they'd do the animations?

[Axl]

On another note: has anyone ever bought any of the Homestuck print books? I'm just really really curious as to how they'd put in all that text and how they'd do the animations?

I had some for awhile and it ain't terrible. The animations generally get some key frames shown but every page has the end part of the url [/?s=6&p=009600 for example] on the top corners so you can go see it in it's native habitat.

The chatlogs y'know, get put into boxes - their native habitat. If you imagesearch 'homestuck book' there's some of examples. Every page has author commentary on the bottom which is pretty neat.

[Bum Bill Bee]

I had some for awhile and it ain't terrible. The animations generally get some key frames shown but every page has the end part of the url [/?s=6&p=009600 for example] on the top corners so you can go see it in it's native habitat.

The chatlogs y'know, get put into boxes - their native habitat. If you imagesearch 'homestuck book' there's some of examples. Every page has author commentary on the bottom which is pretty neat.

Okay, thats cool!

I remeber seeing the author commnetaries on the Dr. Mcninja printed books, its always a nice touch.

[Flarecobra]

Holy shit.

It's the Return of Nanna!

[Arcanum]

VRISKA: Contrary to your lazy fakey "happy" shit, I've ACTUALLY GROWN AS A PERSON.

This is the most hilarious thing I've read in all of Homestuck

[rpgdemon]

Man, I am actually feeling really bad for this iteration of Vriska.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

If Snake were to post a really long thing about how terrible Vriska is I'd agree with it.

[mauve]

Ugh...

So Vriska's big character flaws that made her a bad person were A) that she was a cruel jerk who always had to have her own way and B) she viciously bullied those who had any sort of self esteem issues.

And now she's the grand hero who A) is a cruel jerk who has to have her own way and B) still viciously bullies everyone who has any sort of self esteem issues, but that's okay because she didn't go off on her own to fight Jack. A decision, I might add, that wasn't really hers to make. She just got knocked out by Future John. There was literally no thought or effort on her part to make herself a better person or contribute to her new role as hero/war strategist. And now she's going off on her own again. The one thing that doomed the entirety of the last timeline.

I fail to see how this contributed to any kind of character development leading her to become a "better" person in any way.


I am also annoyed that she still gets away with the bullying: It has, in fact, increased to include Jake and Ghost Vriska.

[rpgdemon]

I don't think you're supposed to like the blatantly evil one.

[Arhra]

Why it's almost as if she's being set up for some sort of comeuppance.

Except first Meenah is going to say she liked the old Vriska more.

Oh and maybe Vriska will end up dying for everyone's sins instead.

[Bum Bill Bee]

I don't think you're supposed to like the blatantly evil one.

So I was wrong for laughing at Bunbun being a complete asshole 24-7 for years and years on Sluggy Freelance?

Dagnabbit!

[mauve]

Likeable evil characters are totally great. But I don't find Vriska even vaguely likeable.

[Amake]

It seems her character development is mostly just gaining the ability to project her flaws on other people (and other selves) and call them out on her own bullshit in the least self-aware, most self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, self-involved and judgmental way possible.

Well, in five years she might look back on this conversation and realize which of her she was talking about and feel ashamed, if she had any chance of living that long. . .

[Bum Bill Bee]

Likeable evil characters are totally great. But I don't find Vriska even vaguely likeable.

Somehow her bullying and superior attitude is reminding me of Guy, from Two Guys and Guy.

[Loyal]

Why it's almost as if she's being set up for some sort of comeuppance.
Isn't this already like the entirety of acts four through six, though?

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

So in creating the circumstances under which original Vriska gets her comeuppance Hussie has created a new Vriska.

[POS Industries]

So in creating the circumstances under which original Vriska gets her comeuppance Hussie has created a new Vriska.
I kinda hope this means that the Vriska who did finally get her comeuppance has to go give - ̗̀new ̖́- Vriska her comeuppance.

Because - ̗̀new ̖́- Vriska hasn't learned a goddamn thing.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Oh no, new Vriska's learned a lot of shit. One of those things is that the universe will practically unmake itself to make her relevant again.

Taking this into consideration, her assertion that old Vriska is an idiot for not doing anything is totally reasonable: The universe literally revolves around her.

[Amake]

2x character moment combo! And none of them even involve - ̗̀new ̖́- Vriska even though she's standing just off screen and has to hate every moment of it. So weird. But beside that anomaly, bittersweet.

[Bum Bill Bee]

<shrug>

I guess I'm not quite understanding the Vriska haters.

Bunbun from Sluggy freelnace
Richard from Looking For Group
Lothar from Exterminatus Now
Guy from Two Guys and Guy
Belkar rom Looking for Group
Black Mage from this place

those are all guys that are a bigger or just as big series-wide focal point,
have a knack for avoiding punishment
are just as or more damaging
are just as flat or flatter

and I've still liked them, and thats not even getting into other mediums

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

<shrug>

I guess I'm not quite understanding the Vriska haters.

Bunbun from Sluggy freelnace
Richard from Looking For Group
Lothar from Exterminatus Now
Guy from Two Guys and Guy
Belkar rom Looking for Group
Black Mage from this place

those are all guys that are a bigger or just as big series-wide focal point,
have a knack for avoiding punishment
are just as or more damaging
are just as flat or flatter

and I've still liked them, and thats not even getting into other mediums

The ones that I'm familiar with from that list are monsters, but they're too fantastical. For most of the audience there's no way to empathize with a person who just had their orphanage burned down and all the orphans bones being used to form a chair that's shaped like a dick.

Contrast, a lot of the audience absolutely can empathize with being yelled at and talked down to by someone who you think doesn't know what they're talking about, who is blatantly ignoring their own shortcomings and lying to your face about having learned from their mistakes in order to make you feel worse. It's the same reason people hate Umbridge more than Voldemort a fair amount of the time. One is magical wizard genocide man, and the other is just a more fantastical version of that really really horrible authority figure that abused you.

[POS Industries]

Did my man just say BLACK MAGE of all people never got punishment?

The guy who was tricked into learning a spell that makes him, and only him regardless of who casts it, vomit up his own organs? THAT Black Mage?

[Bum Bill Bee]

Did my man just say BLACK MAGE of all people never got punishment?

The guy who was tricked into learning a spell that makes him, and only him regardless of who casts it, vomit up his own organs? THAT Black Mage?

He got punished lots.

With Belkar (and for the matter Vriska too) it kinda zig zagged.

But the others, heck yeah they avoided punishment.

[Flarecobra]

Did my man just say BLACK MAGE of all people never got punishment?

The guy who was tricked into learning a spell that makes him, and only him regardless of who casts it, vomit up his own organs? THAT Black Mage?

Let us not forget all the times he was hammered into paste.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

SO. A subject that I think has come up in these threads and certainly has all over the place in the Homestuck Fandom is: What the fuck happened with the pauses and why the fuck is the Homestuck game still not out.

Here's why: https://web.archive.org/web/20150704220422/http://ipgd.tumblr.com/post/123230861032/im-sure-that-everyone-has-noticed-by-now-that-the

Delicious exerts follow.

you may remember that what pumpkin announced that the game studio “the odd gentlemen” was originally attached to develop the game, and you may also remember that they quietly moved to in house development in 2014. what they didn’t tell you: the reason they did this was that odd gentlemen stole kickstarter money and spent it on king’s quest.


according to the timeline in the doc i got, WP gave 788k to TOG in 2012 to develop hiveswap. they then proceeded to do next to nothing, completely blowing off the dev schedule that they agreed to. (the game was supposed to be done by oct 2014. instead, that was when WP ended up having to switch to in house development and start from scratch.) the doc included a detailed rundown of everything TOG actually did. in summary:

“Over 8 months of development, TOG produced exactly one “playable build”. It is a single room, involving one character, no animation, and almost no other key features. Virtually nothing works properly. It was submitted in February of 2014, and no improvements or additional versions were submitted beyond that date.”

a link to it was included in the doc. it’s… probably the worst thing i’ve ever seen in my life?? if you try to click on ANYTHING, joey runs into a bookcase and flies into the air and the demo gets stuck. the only thing that distinguishes it from an out-of-the-box adventure creator demo is its very subpar models and the fact it is unplayably bugged.

why am i posting this? well, king’s quest was developed with stolen money, so it’s probably in your best interest to know this before you buy it. all things considered, it’s a miracle that hiveswap is doing as well as it is – at this point, i think hiveswap has moved past this fiasco and isn’t in any danger of falling through. it’s uh, pretty late, but from what i’ve seen, they’re well on their way to an Actual Game that may be Actually Good despite getting jerked around by a circus of incompetent clowns for 8 months.

at this point, i’m not sure what to DO about this. what pumpkin is bound by the settlement they had to sign if they wanted to get any of the money back at all, so there’s not much that they themselves can do to retrieve the money TOG stole from us. i actually tried messaging sierra, the company that licensed KQ to TOG, but they don’t seem to care that KQ was made with stolen money. maybe activision might want to know. in any case, it’s important that this info get out there so people know what they’re dealing with when buying something from the odd gentlemen.


This is the lion share of the pertinent details but I would still recommend checking the link out to see the full thing.

So.
Goddamn. and fuck., basically.

[rpgdemon]

What are the odds that they're all gone next panel?

[Bum Bill Bee]

Holy Heckballs! This is by far the damn funniest exchange those two have ever had in the entire history of this comic! :D


Even funnier than the time she dressed up as Wendy.

[Arhra]

This is amazing. That grubs's all grown up.

Don't screw it up, Hussie.

[Flarecobra]

Mmm. Cannon Fodder.

And why is it Tavros dancing/air guitaring so damn adorable?

[Bum Bill Bee]

I rather agree with Jasprosesprite's reaction :/

[rpgdemon]

Ugh.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Huh. Two seperate character threads in one update?

And I'm seriously wondering what Jake was doing in the background?

[Flarecobra]

Huh. The grist flowing onto The Battlefield was actually kind of pretty.

[Revising Ocelot]

Hussie has disappeared so far up his arse that's he coming out the other end, and is reaching around to go up his arse again.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

This is the least up the ass thing imaginable and is entirely pisstaking.

God Bless Hussie.

[Revising Ocelot]

Maybe if he hadn't done this kind of update about 7 or 8 times over the course of the comic, where he proclaims it's the greatest thing ever and to bow before him. I get that the intention is your post, but to me it's coming across as old tired donkey.

Also, the pattern of a few weeks of updates followed by a few MONTHS of nothing is also old, considering he's about to do it again for yet another time. Never mind before and during the first "megapause", the one for a whole year, he was saying he'd finish the whole comic in one go after the pause. Yeah yeah Kickstarter publishers taking the money and running, but he shouldn't have done the KS so far in advance of the comics end when he knew he would need to pause for A WHOLE YEAR. The end result is not really different than the average schedule-slipping enthusiast who starts procrastinating, even if Hussie has probably not procrastinated at all in the duration of the comic. Stretched thin, instead. I liken it to Telltale Games with TftB, pushed back and back while Game of Thrones and all those other things start to get developed.

[Flarecobra]

They have a hummingbird now. They cannot lose.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Aw man.

That is some pure heartwarming movie magic that just went on.

[Arcanum]

Wow. It's happening. It's actually happening. New updates, and an end in sight. I'm having a hard time believing this is real, and waiting for the "april fools, there's another gigapause coming!" announcement.

Here's the quote from the MSPA front page news blog thing:

EOA6 - 99%

Here is the plan. Starting today, there will be 6 days of updates (about 125 total pages). Then a brief pause. Then on 4/6, I'll post the END OF ACT 6 animation.

That should immediately be followed by 7 days of updates (about 40 total pages), ending with an update on 4/13, the 7th anniversary of Homestuck. That update will contain ACT 7 in its entirety.

The current 125 page stretch was drawn by a few guest artists. Gina Chacon, Mallory Dyer, and Adrienne Garcia (all artists for WP). The panels they did are very good, and I think make for a nice runway leading up to the final animations. Of course there are a lot of other great contributing artists to all that content as well. Thanks for the patience during the Omegapause. I hope you enjoy the conclusion to Homestuck.

[mauve]

I've honestly forgotten half of what's happened. I forgot all about the katana, I couldn't remember if Regular Callie or Alternate... Past.. Future... Whatever Callie is with Jade, and I don't remember Spades Slick having a cyborg eye or why Jack is not a dog-man. Is that a different Jack? Is Post Maiden or whatver her name was still alive? I'm so confused.

[Arcanum]

Going off my memory which remembers the dumbest things:

The katana belonged to bro, Roxy got a hold of it, used it as a gravestone for dirk or bro or maybe just everyone who died in general before John retconned everything? Stuff happened now she's got it back. It's just a regular sword, albeit a really really good sword.

The Callie with Jade is the one from another time who beat her brother (forget his name, guy who becomes Lord English). But since she wasn't from the alpha timeline, she was doomed to die, and Jade is talking to her ghost. I don't think we know what she's planning.

Spades Slick (Jack from the Troll session) broke into Scratch's (was that his name? Cue-ball head guy who was LE's precursor) apartment right before LE emerged. LE shot him up a bunch, Slick escaped through the fourth wall, and Hussie nursed him back to health and gave him cyborg enhancements. Stuff happened and he got LE's cane somehow? Now he's here and I forget how.

The crazy LE-Energy-Jack with the crowbar is the Jack from this current session, who got powered up with LE's magic somehow. I think it involved Lil Cal? I don't remember.

Dog-bird-Jack and the Dog-bird-Post Maiden are still alive and on their way to the current session as well. The note tied to Jade's finger in one of the new updates is referencing them. Jade's obviously the best one to deal with them since they are part Bec and will instantly love Jade and want to protect/obey her.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Oooooh hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! This is gonna be so very epic! The expressions and poses look really...funky, and I'm loving it!

I think the fight I'm looking forward to the most is Jake vs the Felt. I like the Felt.

Its also a great surprise that we get to see Caliborn face off with his worm god thing, Yasobadeth (or whatever), and the Spades Slick vs Jack English is a surprise too.

so. Friggin. Excited.

[Menarker]

Flash is up. 18 minutes long geez. Intense fights to be sure though.

[Solid Snake]

Hahaha after all that buildup, Vriska ended up not accomplishing much herself.
...I approve, Andrew. That was fun.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Hahaha after all that buildup, Vriska ended up not accomplishing much herself.
...I approve, Andrew. That was fun.

You seem to be asserting that there was a lot of Vriska-only build up, but after the part where she was making the plans, her focus is pretty equal with everyone else's, and she didn't even get any speaking lines in the recent updates leading up to Collide. So, yeah, I don't know what youre on about, Snake.


Anyways, those were all some very incredible fights, and very much fitting to the series as a whole.



Am I the only one who was surprised at the sudden Undertale reference?

[Solid Snake]

So, yeah, I don't know what youre on about, Snake.

...So I can't even compliment Homestuck without getting some snarky criticism. There's just no winning here.
I was just admiring the fact that Andrew had Vriska talkin' trash about how incredible she was going to be in orchestrating her role in the final conflict, only for her to end up distracted by the author's self-insert stalking her. I mean, given Andrew's massive crush for her I certainly was expecting him to play it straight and have Vriska kick someone's ass, so he showed admirable restraint in removing her from making a tangible impact.

...So far, at least. I still fear that in the next update(s) she'll be the one to kill the one remaining Lord English through the power of luck or something.

[mauve]

Am I the only one who was surprised at the sudden Undertale reference?

I haven't watched it yet, but considering Undertale referenced Homestuck and that Undertale's creator did a ton of Homestuck's music, it doesn't surprise me that there'd be something there. What does it reference, out of curiosity?

[Bum Bill Bee]

Aw, Vriska's always bragging, why would it turn out different results now? :P

But yeah, she might still do in Lord English, either that or an "Alll Our Powers Combined" thing.



@ Mauve Mage- Ah that's right, can't believe I forgot that considering how much I listen to the Homestuck Music. Anyways, it was just a 5 second reference to how an Undertale fight would look.

[Flarecobra]

So that's the Condence, Jack Noir, Spades Slick, Lord Jack, and The Felt down for the count. Along with god-knows trolls and maybe Dirk.

Also, the Shrek cameo. :P

[Solid Snake]

Aw, Vriska's always bragging, why would it turn out different results now? :P


Actually, the results of Vriska's bragging have turned out different this time; that's what's so surprising.
Usually, Vriska brags and brags and then Andrew proves her bragging right on the money as completely and utterly 'justified.' Not ethically justified, mind you, but certainly pragmatically justified with her grotesque winning streak.

...Which is why I really shouldn't be surprised when she ditches 'fighting' Andrew's self-insert just long enough to casually meander into the Lord English fight, kill Lord English with a single tap, then have whichever ghost trolls remain in existence erect golden statues in her honor.
Won't change the fact that this flash kicked ass, though.

[mauve]

Crapdammit, fine. I watched the flash cartoon and I'm forced to admit that it's pretty cool. There goes my two years of finely-crafted indifference tinged with slight disdain for Homestuck.

nah but seriously way to go Roxy and Post Maiden.

[POS Industries]

I'd gotten so out of habit of checking for updates that I forgot to check for updates even after I'd known they were there.

New animation was okay. Too over-reliant on still artwork and reused music/assets but it did its job and was entertaining. At least its ending within our lifetimes.

[Solid Snake]

It's abundantly clear that Andrew's gotten a bit sick of making the kind of otherworldly effort he made in previous eras of Homestuck. The percentages of the content that he's outsourcing to his fans has increased, it's taking longer and longer to get the comparatively few updates we're getting, less and less of the flash content is truly 'animated' and we no longer have stuff like playable 'video game' content.

Given where it's all headed, I'm glad Andrew's pulling the plug now and he appears to have resisted the urge to exponentially expand the scope of the story that he's given into in the past, which is also a good thing.

[rpgdemon]

I think part of it is that he's just spread too thin to make it all himself. He wants to finish the comic, but he also has a video game to produce now, which originally wasn't supposed to take up too much of his time because he hired another company to produce it, but they supposedly stole half the budget and ran off to make King's Quest, which is why he is now also running a game studio.

[Bum Bill Bee]

lol, I never even played any of the interactive game segments :P


Hell, I didn't even start reading until early 2015, so I've totally missed out on "dur Gold-in Ayge of Humstuk".

[Solid Snake]

Oh God he's really going to do it, isn't he
He's really going to ruin that lovely flash by having Vriska save the day and destroy Lord English somehow
DAMN YOU TO HELL FOR SOMEHOW MANAGING TO GET MY HOPES UP AGAIN AFTER ALL THIS TIME, HUSSIE

[Bum Bill Bee]

You know what I'm surprised by? The Jack who used to be Bec Noir surviving. Especially since he's the Jack who's by far caused the most damage. Somehow I was thinking that if there was a Jack who survived it would be the Spades Slick one.

[Flarecobra]

Oh no, family reunion... this may not end well.

[POS Industries]

That was an ending, I guess.

[Arhra]

Gamzee's never getting out of that fridge, is he?

[Arcanum]

The animation was really cool. But seriously, that's it? I feel like there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up still. Although I can't really remember what any of those are thanks to the lack of steady updates for, what, two or three years now?

[Flarecobra]

I admit, I rather liked the animation. For some reason, it kind of reminded me of the 70s animation style, with a modern smoothness.


The animation was really cool. But seriously, that's it? I feel like there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up still. Although I can't really remember what any of those are thanks to the lack of steady updates for, what, two or three years now?

From the news section: "If you're curious about whether there will be anything resembling an epilogue to this ending, yes, I've been thinking about that for some time. It'll take a while to produce though, whatever specific form it ends up taking."

[Premmy]

Ding Dong the witch is dead.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Yay, Homestuck is now officially 1% complete....






PSYCHE!



Although I wouldn't be surprised if A.H. made a sequel series years later.

[Solid Snake]

Yeah so, I have no idea what happened there.
I guess a new Earth was created? Somehow?

[Bum Bill Bee]

I'm pretty sure that vague plans for creating a new Earth had been mentioned earlier. ie, right after the retcon and right before Vriska was making plans for everyone.

[Solid Snake]

I guess I just don't understand...anything else that happened, then. It's like LOST's finale in an eerie sense...it answers a couple important questions I had, neglects the others and purposely chooses to be vague about resolving just about everything else for some esoteric reason.

Also, the 'heroes solve the conundrum presented by the villains' unwinnable scenario once and for all' part was...very, very short. I wish Andrew divided his time a bit better so we had more details near the end and less of the constant repetition of the heroes getting nowhere through retcons and destroyed universes and all that jazz earlier on.

I kind of figured in a relational storyline like this would've ended with a lengthy Pesterchum session? I care about the characters at this point more than the rules and mechanics of the Homestuck game (which I hold Andrew accountable for if only because that's where he put so much of his own emphasis on developing as the story progressed) so I am disappointed that I didn't actually hear people like Karkat and John and Roxy proffer their thoughts on everything that happened. I know the old adage is "Show, don't tell," but Andrew, you've given the characters such lovely moments of 'dialogue' that the chat sessions practically constitutes your way of showing things to us...why give that up now?

And, like...how did Vriska being back actually change anything? She couldn't have done everything she ended up doing in this flash as a ghost, even though she was part of the ghost army? Where was Terezi? Did she even make the jump to the new world or did I completely miss her? Did the door John open lead to the new universe, and therefore Caliborn's confrontation with the heroes happen in a failed timeline...or did the door John open lead to fighting Caliborn / English, and the Beta Kids showed up and were 'unlocked' by Vriska to destroy (mortal) Lord English and...I dunno, I've heard these two completely different theories attempting to even explain what we actually saw, there.

What the heck happens to Gamzee, anyway? And does Aradia, who once declared an intention to live through it all, purposefully choose death as opposed to rendezvousing with her friends to go to the other world?!? Was there any purpose to anything she was doing when she was 'alive?'

Are Dave and Karkat a couple? Are Dave and Jade a couple? I know what you're saying: They're just teenagers, Snake! That's not what the story is about!!! But that is what the story was about, because Andrew dedicated a goddamn ludicrous amount of time to it. If you never played shipping up to the extent you did, Andrew, we'd all agree that the kids were just kids and we'd view it as irrelevant, as we did in most of the first few acts of the story. But you can't pull a LOST and invest us in an exorbitant amount of ~*emotions*~ over all these nooks and crannies and then refuse to provide any closure. That's what LOST did. That's why LOST aggravated so many people.
Give me a goddamn "ten years in the future" spiel if you must so you can justify them being old enough to have paired off, just give me some finality.

How does the troll race recover, anyway? Does the troll race recover? If the troll race does recover, will it still be as violent as it was in Hivebent or will a new troll society evolve? Will the kids and trolls become mythological gods and goddesses to the carapace residents of that world, or do they have another role to play there? How is this even a goddamn 'creation myth' if the roles of the characters within their new creation isn't even adequately explored? Are the kids still effectively immortal, or do the rules change after the game? Were their clocks destroyed or do they still exist out there? Do they age normally or do they stop aging at a certain point? If they keep aging, will they eventually force themselves to die Just or Heroic deaths to escape the prison of living?

Do the kids have children? If so, how do humans subsequently reproduce or...continue to exist? There'd be an insufficient human population there even if no one was related to repopulate humanity. So is humanity just doomed? Do the carapaces effectively replace humans as the dominant species? Or is this going to be a world full of troll descendants?

What was the whole purpose of the game, anyway? Who created it, who advertised for it, how did it come to existence, why was it timed to impact the kids at the moments of their lives that it did? Do the kids and trolls expect Homestuck to occur again in the new world they've created, or will the cycle now stop with Lord English out of the equation?

Why did Lord English call himself Lord English?

Is Roxy even dating John, Andrew? IS SHE EVEN INTERESTED IN JOHN?!?

Man ironies of ironies, I think Andrew ultimately pulled his final "Eff you, Snake" number not with anything involving Vriska whatsoever, but rather by deceiving me into the expectation of a lengthy post-flash video epilogue exploring all this. Andrew, you're supposed to be a goddamn master of over-explaining the shit out of everything! And don't give me "It'll come in three years," shit, I am not waiting more years on end for resolution when a few Pesterchum sessions and some very basic images could resolve most of this.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Yyyyyeah, looks like you're just overthinking all that.


Me, I'm just thinking: Vriska gets the superweapon to make Lord English go kablewy, the Sburbs game does its You're Winner, and everybody lives happily ever after on new earth (even if everyone didn't get shown) and whatever relationships they do is left totally up to the reader, the end.

[Solid Snake]

The 'Superweapon' is in the form of that 'prison' the four Beta kids were trapped in by Caliborn during that fight sequence from that flash that I barely even remember now. I'm just wondering whether it releases the four 'real' Beta kids after English or if it's doomed failed-timeline versions of them.

But I hate what you've just described, namely the phenomenon in fictional endings where, after meticulously describing everything that's happened up until the ending, the author is then just like: "HOW IT ENDS IS UP TO YOUR IMAGINATIONZ." That's the kind of ending that makes me just think that the author is really fuckin' lazy and has no intention to commit to a vision or a theme to explain where it was all headed. Even if I then headcanon'd my own 'imaginary' ending, the ending would have no canonical merit.

I mean, if it was all leading up to an ending that's not even really an 'ending' insofar as it answers literally nothing, what was even the point? I could have just typed out "They all lived happily ever after, THE END" and saved Andrew a heck of lot of time with his endgame flashes.

[Bum Bill Bee]

The 'Superweapon' is in the form of that 'prison' the four Beta kids were trapped in by Caliborn during that fight sequence from that flash that I barely even remember now. I'm just wondering whether it releases the four 'real' Beta kids after English or if it's doomed failed-timeline versions of them.


Ah yeah, that Claymation video Caliborn made, me, I'm thinking that the trapped failed- timeline Beta kids had been metabolized to become the energy of the weapon....so using it just doomed them.


I'm okay with ambiguous endings now and then *cough*Jormungand*cough* but I guess we'll just wait and see if Huss does an Epilouge.

[rpgdemon]

Is an epilouge related to the classic sneaky-stabby RPG class the rouge?

[Bum Bill Bee]

okay, some random thoughts:

Im glad that they didn't do any pesterchum chats at all in the very last bits, I think it helped make it beautiful and artsy. But then that would make it necessary to show a lot more than he did. I'm hoping the kernel sprites survived at the end, but maybe thats not how suburbs works? Or maybe it is, since we saw Derse and Prospit people on new earth.

I wonder why the defeat of Lord English was treated as such a formality at this point, and why no one seemed to care where Vriska was, not even John or Terezi? I wonder if the deaths of Vriska, Aradia and the troll ghost army were somehow required for Lord English's destruction? I wonder if Vriska's desire to beat the strongest boss outweighed her desire to survive at the end? I wonder why Lord English was just doing a lot of standing around? I wonder where Sollux is, he just randomly dropped out of focus again.

I still wonder why the BecNoir Jack got to survive but not Spades Slick? I wonder why Slick was sometimes attacking Dave, Dirk and Terezi, except they got in his way? I wonder if the glimpses of Caliborn somehow indicate that he changed his masterplan so he won't get beat? Probably not.

I would think that Terezi got to be on new earth with everyone else, Dave and Karkat are 100% totally a couple. I think Jade has just turned asexual (has she ever been shippable with anyone but Dave?), and a John x Roxy relationship might be sorta interesting....it would've made the fight with Condy a double date at least.


So fine, yeah Snake, I do think and ponder about stuff, but I'm satisfied enough with wha twe got.


Now to wait and see how Dr Mcninja and Order of the Stick wrap up...

[rpgdemon]

You don't "turn" asexual, anymore than you "turn" gay.

[Arcanum]

And, like...how did Vriska being back actually change anything? She couldn't have done everything she ended up doing in this flash as a ghost, even though she was part of the ghost army?

Bringing Vriska back is mainly to stop things from fucking up and ending up with everyone dead at the hands of the Condesce and Gamzee. Terezi getting her sight back, Rose spiraling into alcoholism, and all the other stuff that happened that led to that outcome was changed by bringing Vriska back. That put everyone in a position where they could actually fight the final battle and have a chance of winning (instead of dying horribly like we saw before John got retcon powers).

Did the door John open lead to the new universe, and therefore Caliborn's confrontation with the heroes happen in a failed timeline...or did the door John open lead to fighting Caliborn / English, and the Beta Kids showed up and were 'unlocked' by Vriska to destroy (mortal) Lord English and...I dunno, I've heard these two completely different theories attempting to even explain what we actually saw, there.

The door John opens leads to their new universe. All those shots of them being happy and playing around and can town being a thing seemed to be flash-forwards. At least that's my interpretation of it (and I agree with you that leaving this story up to the reader's interpretation is dumb as hell).

The kids that showed up to fight Caliborn had to be either from a doomed timeline, or a retcon timeline. It's really dumb that we never saw how they ended up there.

What the heck happens to Gamzee, anyway?

He was on the planet that got sucked into the blackhole created when LE Jack's head exploded. This is most likely how he ends up on Caliborn's planet. (I can't take credit for that one, saw someone on reddit say that in response to that exact question).

Are Dave and Karkat a couple? Are Dave and Jade a couple? I know what you're saying: They're just teenagers, Snake! That's not what the story is about!!! But that is what the story was about, because Andrew dedicated a goddamn ludicrous amount of time to it. If you never played shipping up to the extent you did, Andrew, we'd all agree that the kids were just kids and we'd view it as irrelevant, as we did in most of the first few acts of the story. But you can't pull a LOST and invest us in an exorbitant amount of ~*emotions*~ over all these nooks and crannies and then refuse to provide any closure. That's what LOST did. That's why LOST aggravated so many people.
Give me a goddamn "ten years in the future" spiel if you must so you can justify them being old enough to have paired off, just give me some finality.

Yeah this "left up to the reader" stuff can work for some things, but definitely not for homestuck. I think Hussie was trying to please everyone, leaving ships open to interpretation and to be argued over. But in the end everyone is upset because we wanted actual closure.

How does the troll race recover, anyway? Does the troll race recover?

I mean, they have the egg. Isn't that's all that's needed? Get a mother grub, throw in some troll slurry, boom new trolls. Even if they lost the egg, couldn't Roxy just void-magic up a new one?

If the troll race does recover, will it still be as violent as it was in Hivebent or will a new troll society evolve?

They were violent because of their caste/hierarchy system and tyrannical empresses hellbent on conquering everything, as a direct result of the previous troll timeline initiating a Scratch so that SBURB could be won by the new timeline. If I recall the previous trolls weren't as hyper violent, and that's why they couldn't win? So raise some trolls without that hyperviolent conquest-focused attitude and they will be just fine.

Will the kids and trolls become mythological gods and goddesses to the carapace residents of that world, or do they have another role to play there? How is this even a goddamn 'creation myth' if the roles of the characters within their new creation isn't even adequately explored? Are the kids still effectively immortal, or do the rules change after the game? Were their clocks destroyed or do they still exist out there? Do they age normally or do they stop aging at a certain point? If they keep aging, will they eventually force themselves to die Just or Heroic deaths to escape the prison of living?

Do the kids have children? If so, how do humans subsequently reproduce or...continue to exist? There'd be an insufficient human population there even if no one was related to repopulate humanity. So is humanity just doomed? Do the carapaces effectively replace humans as the dominant species? Or is this going to be a world full of troll descendants?

Yeah I've got nothing for these and they are all valid questions that should've been answered. I fully expect none of them to be answered in the epilogue that we'll get three years from now.

One thing I will point out, the door John opened doesn't lead to their new world, it leads to a new universe. That new earth was just an old earth Jade had shrunk down for them to live in in the new universe. So while they might be having fun times goofing off with carapace creatures on that world, there could be countless other lifeforms in their universe. Which brings me to this:

What was the whole purpose of the game, anyway? Who created it, who advertised for it, how did it come to existence, why was it timed to impact the kids at the moments of their lives that it did? Do the kids and trolls expect Homestuck to occur again in the new world they've created, or will the cycle now stop with Lord English out of the equation?

The point of SBURB is to create new Universes, since every universe is technically a Bilious Slick created by a sburb session. It came into existent through weird time paradox stuff. Frog ruins from a SBURB session gets sent to a world via meteors, someone on that world in the past examines those ruins and discovers the hieroglyphs can be turned into code, which creates SBURB. People on that planet play SBURB creating numerous doomed sessions and potentially the one prime session that was the result of those frog ruins being sent into the past in the first place.

It is entirely possible another SBURB could happen, but who knows if it will happen to their world, or one of the countless worlds in their new universe.

Why did Lord English call himself Lord English?

Because he's a Lord of Time and he was infatuated with Jake English so he named himself after Jake but kept his title. This was covered some time in Act 6.

[Bum Bill Bee]

But did anyone else see the Volume 10 music album come out? (https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/)

I actually didn't think it was that good. Lots of remixes (which is something that Andrew's been doing since the beginning. Seriously, look at Vol 1-4), a few like Beatup grated my ears, nothing really stood out as being good.

But what did the rest of you think of it? You think this is kinda gonna set us up for the supposedly upcoming epilogue video thats supposed to explain things that Act 7 didn't?

[Arcanum]

Might give it a listen next time I'm playing Overwatch, but not really feeling inclined to go out of my way to listen to it (which is how I felt about the last couple of albums).

Epilogue probably won't happen until the game is out.

[Bum Bill Bee]

The Game I keep hearing about would be Hiveswap, yes?