Homestuck

MillerCross · 2011-09-15 20:59:17

Oh, well, that's something inherent to every fandom and their jackassery, and that's not something you can empirically prove beyond making more than one liveblog.

All I'm saying is that you should try to make the liveblog less based on making a point and more based on you reading the work and giving your opinions.

Nova · 2011-09-15 21:05:12

That's what the liveblog is about though.

It's just something I'm pointing out as I go.

Marioguy128 · 2011-09-15 23:54:03

Ah Homestuck. I used to check on it regularly, but the godawful fandom (For the sake of everyone's sanity, don't go into the MSPA thread on Tvtropes. Ugh.) and recent developments in the comic itself have made me rather detached from the comic.

When I first stumbled upon this comic, I kind of went through the pages and stopped reading it. I came back later, but it was kind of hard to get through Act 1. Not to mention that the art made me want to stab my eyes out.

The pseudo interactive pages I don't really see as pointless. Dunno why though. Though one page I got immediately annoyed afterwards when playing through said ~~page turned out to be pointless for reasons I'll elaborate on once you get to that point.~~

lee4hmz · 2011-09-15 23:58:28

I didn't have much trouble with Act 1 myself, since I got most of the references to RPG and adventure games (especially the old DOS-based point-and-click ones), but if you said it was slow and confusing, I'd have to agree.

Really, not much in Homestuck makes sense until after Hivebent, when the trolls enter the picture and the loose ends start getting tidied up. That said, I did like the scenes where we were introduced to the Wanderers; the sense of confusion and isolation actually kind of worked there.

Nova · 2011-09-16 00:09:28

I didn't have much trouble with Act 1 myself, since I got most of the references to RPG and adventure games (especially the old DOS-based point-and-click ones), but if you said it was slow and confusing, I'd have to agree.

Oh, I get them.

I just find them pointless.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 00:26:05

I don't see how they're pointless when the point of the story at this point is to be a deliberate parody of said concepts. Yeah, the thing changes and it isn't that anymore, but that doesn't retroactively makes the original intention invalid, just unfullfilled.

Nova · 2011-09-16 00:41:35

When applied to the story as a whole, it does not make it invalid, but it is pointless. Mostly because the entire rest of the story does not follow this pattern- so everything that comes after does not follow this, meaning that none of it will have any actual bearing on anything to do with the story.

Thus, the point of it? To parody the old point-and-click adventures. So part 1 sets a tone, then Part 2 says "No fuck that" and moves on to something else entirely, leaving the parody part of it just... sitting there.

It's not invalid, but when it's not being fulfilled, it's pointless, because... well, the entire point of it is to be fulfilled. If it's just ignored and/or it has no bearing on it all, then it's pointless, because it has no point.

If it's set up to do X, it does X for twenty seconds, then immediately veers off and forgets about X entirely, then X is pointless.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 00:51:46

It bears mentioning that Homestuck wasn't intended to go in the direction is going. Yes, it sucks that the new acts invalidate the old intentions and purposes the story had but it doesn't make them pointless within the context in which they were created. (Which was to parody for parody's sake, not to create a big complex plot)

I see it like Ulysses' chapters. They change in writing style and POVs, and they tend to be relatively ineffectual on the main plot of Bloom's day, but that does not make them pointless to themselves, if that makes sense.

Forzare · 2011-09-16 00:52:57

Plus, that's just kind of a problem with the medium.

If you're writing a book, and you decide that you want to change the intention of the story, you can go back and edit and make it all fit.

With a webcomic, you can't really do that so much.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 00:54:48

Somewhat tangential: why do people consider Homestuck a webcomic? It has more text than pictures, and that's not even getting into all the interactivity, music, etc.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 00:56:44

Because it's still, at its base, still images with words.

Also, the interactivity does not drive or change the plot. And the music can arguably be added to comics too (Watchmen sorta does this via adding lyrics and singing characters to it, implying that you should either be listening to that song to get the feel of the scene or that you should at least have it playing in your head.

Forzare · 2011-09-16 00:57:12

Webcomic is easy to say and I'm not sure what else to call it.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 00:59:23

^^Well, yeah, but the words aren't in the images, and after act five, it's more "words with some images above them."

^I'm just not a label person, I guess. To me, Homestuck is Homestuck.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 01:02:57

Well, yeah, but the words aren't in the images

I'd say that comics are just the combination of images with words in order to create a visual story. It doesn't matter where you put the words and the images. Way I see it, at least.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 01:04:00

Yeah, but Act Five and later really seem more like webnovels with occasional illustrations to me.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 01:05:27

I was gonna make a point on how one act doesn't really change the nature of the work and revisit the Ulysses comparison, but I really didn't feel like it.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 01:08:12

That's true, but that's the current status quo. And it was headed in that direction long before that.

This is all kinda rooted from my belief that the concept of media as discrete categories is obsolete.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 01:11:52

OK, I guess I'll have to revisit Ulysses. (Even though I feel kinda bad comparing Homestuck with, well, Ulysses)

That's true, but that's the current status quo. And it was headed in that direction long before that.

Think of it like this. Remember that chapter that was told in Newspaper clippings? Welp, yes the book goes in that direction and it's deliberate, but it's just one aspect of the story that doesn't affect the others. You wouldn't go and tell people that Ulysses is a story told through newspaper clippings just because that's the chapter you're in.

Anyway, I think we should move this to another thread, because derailing liveblogs is baaaaaaaad, mkay?

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 01:12:56

Yeah, okay. Sorry about the hijack, Cygan.

snowbull · 2011-09-16 08:09:01

Another thing- Act 1 was right on the heels of Problem Sleuth, which was mostly pointless, zanyness. Entertaining, but the plot and characters were barely there. I think Act 1 exists more for the serial readers of the time, so they could be transitioned away from wanting Problem Sleuth 2.0 and into what Homestuck would actually be. Generally I think the archival readers have it better, though there are some arcs that might be better to serial readers, like events around January this year.

AHR · 2011-09-16 09:01:55

I know that Hussie claims to be writing for the archive, but I think it's pretty obvious this is meant more as a...period sort of thing. Don't know how to explain it. Opposite of a classic.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 09:03:15

As in, "He writes based on whims and stuff"?

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 09:04:49

^^^I'd have to disagree with that last point. Starting to read Homestuck now is extremely difficult.

AHR · 2011-09-16 09:06:45

JC: No. That is not what I mean.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 09:08:07

Do you mean that it's meant to be read as it's released, rather than, say, a few years after its conclusion?

AHR · 2011-09-16 09:08:51

Yeah. That. There we go.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 09:15:02

I don't see how is that in particular...

I mean, is it because it's too contextual?

AHR · 2011-09-16 09:21:10

It's the pacing, I find.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-16 09:21:48

I'd say just because it's really, really long.

MillerCross · 2011-09-16 09:27:35

Ah.

Well, I'd definetly say that indeed, part of the...erm...slow pacing doesn't feel so hard when you don't have to read it continously, but truth be told, I don't think that length really detracts from the thing. If you like it, you keep reading, if you don't, you move onto something else.

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