Hey, so, I just realized something amusing about Undyne's house.
Remember her hot fridge? The refrigerator that heats food instead of chilling it, because Undyne hates cold food? I remember laughing at that because it completely defeats the purpose of a fridge, which is to slow the spoiling of food. But I just remembered; monster food doesn't spoil. So, to monsters, a fridge would only be used to chill food because you want it cold, which Undyne doesn't.
I think act 6 & 7 work WAYYYYYY better when they're not broken up by frequent months-long breaks
A6I4 and 5 pull this huge switcheroo on the story, and when you're constantly given time to forget minor plot details, like Aranea dooming everyone by stealing the ring or the Condesce attempting to compel the kids to make LE's universe, it's hard to keep track of exactly what the switcheroo is accomplishing
It's way easier to follow when you can take the whole thing as a whole
I still have some niggling criticisms but the basic gist of the ending I'm down with
-I think the sprite^2s are kinda stupid. It's a funny joke at first but it outstayed it's welcome
-I think the final showdown between Vriska and English is pointlessly unclear visually. I'm not even sure that the house juju actually *does* anything to him, beyond just freeing everyone from his curse. There's a lot of shockwaves flying around but their source and purpose are unclear for no real reason. Did LE and Vriska get swallowed by the black hole? Did only LE? Did anything actually happen at all? It doesn't read well even on repeated viewings.
-Vriska coming back is a weird narrative choice. I don't think it's a problem that Vriska continues to be a major player in act 6 like some people, but there's some weird implications about how they apparently needed her alive to succeed. Act 6 isn't shy about calling her out as a monster, and even doofy ol' John admits that after spending time with her he hates her. Why make it so this awful person is the crux of everything, and without her everyone's lives turn to shit? I like the idea that Terezi gets to go without feeling guilty about killing her friend, which enables her to stand up to Gamzee and Aranea. That part's fine. But things like Vriska preventing Rose's drinking problem is a lot weirder. I guess there's something to be said for a girl to be the one to ruin LE's plans, but there's tons of cool girls in homestuck, such that I don't really think the ending needed this weird message of "everyone is powerless without the help of this megalomaniacal murderer." Maybe Terezi and Vriska's moirailship is supposed to be a bigger deal than I'm giving it credit for, and Terezi is mellowing Vriska out and helping her to be more of a team player?
-I'm not really sure what Gamzee's deal is supposed to be in the retjohned timeline. Vriska says that he's important to the timeline and that they should just dump the fridge in the ocean and let paradox space sort things out, buuuuuut the whole point of the retjohns is that it doesn't matter what paradox space wants to happen, the timeline can be changed without being doomed. And besides, they don't even enter the right universe in the end, so Gamzee's incapable of raising/mentoring Caliborn anyway. I guess those are all details Vriska's not privy to though
The big thing that makes the whole thing feel confusing and disjointed is that you never actually get to see the original alpha timeline past A6I1
A6I2, 3, and part of 4 are all a doomed timeline, and 4 and 5 are the retjohned timeline
We only get told about what will happen in the alpha, about what the condesce's plans are and what caliborn foresees happening
But none of that actually ends up happening
If it weren't for the fact the story kept using that terminology, I would really wonder how useful it would be to think of anything as the "alpha" or "doomed" timelines after the retjonhs take effect.
Like, the "doomed" timeline where Aranea steals the ring is retconned out because John changed the story, so in a way it's as much in the alpha timeline as the post retjohn timeline, especially given that John (and Roxy) came from that timeline.
I guess basically what I'm trying to say I would say we didn't see those events because it was never going to happen that way; things would have gone off the rails if John had not suddenly appeared on the meteor and punched Vriska in the face.
I interpreted the shockwave as symbolic of LE losing his control over the narrative and therefore his inevitability
regarding vriska, I think that something that's easy to miss about the post-retjohn timeline is her growth as a person. Like she was still a horrible moster up until she got doofed but the vriska we see on the meteor and in the run-up to Collide is very different because of one fundamental change:
she stops being so shellfish selfish
post-retjohn vriska is all about keeping the team together and giving them the best chance to win a victory that she will never enjoy. She consigns herself to oblivion by standing against LE and doesn't even tell anyone that she's doing it. It's a far cry from the vriska who played sgrub and who was obsessed with being recognized as the best
it's easy for us to see the differences between the timelines and identify the effect that vriska had on things, but the effects that things had on vriska aren't as immediately noticeable. Like we think a lot about how she kept terezi from falling into a gross clown depression but the way that terezi helped her mellow out goes largely unnoticed
I wonder if the story might have benefited from spending more time exploring how she changed while on the meteor. At the same time though, homestuck was already pretty long in the tooth without adding more meteor shenanigans and more vriska time
I think act 6 & 7 work WAYYYYYY better when they're not broken up by frequent months-long breaks
A6I4 and 5 pull this huge switcheroo on the story, and when you're constantly given time to forget minor plot details, like Aranea dooming everyone by stealing the ring or the Condesce attempting to compel the kids to make LE's universe, it's hard to keep track of exactly what the switcheroo is accomplishing
It's way easier to follow when you can take the whole thing as a whole
I still have some niggling criticisms but the basic gist of the ending I'm down with
-I think the sprite^2s are kinda stupid. It's a funny joke at first but it outstayed it's welcome
-I think the final showdown between Vriska and English is pointlessly unclear visually. I'm not even sure that the house juju actually *does* anything to him, beyond just freeing everyone from his curse. There's a lot of shockwaves flying around but their source and purpose are unclear for no real reason. Did LE and Vriska get swallowed by the black hole? Did only LE? Did anything actually happen at all? It doesn't read well even on repeated viewings.
-Vriska coming back is a weird narrative choice. I don't think it's a problem that Vriska continues to be a major player in act 6 like some people, but there's some weird implications about how they apparently needed her alive to succeed. Act 6 isn't shy about calling her out as a monster, and even doofy ol' John admits that after spending time with her he hates her. Why make it so this awful person is the crux of everything, and without her everyone's lives turn to shit? I like the idea that Terezi gets to go without feeling guilty about killing her friend, which enables her to stand up to Gamzee and Aranea. That part's fine. But things like Vriska preventing Rose's drinking problem is a lot weirder. I guess there's something to be said for a girl to be the one to ruin LE's plans, but there's tons of cool girls in homestuck, such that I don't really think the ending needed this weird message of "everyone is powerless without the help of this megalomaniacal murderer." Maybe Terezi and Vriska's moirailship is supposed to be a bigger deal than I'm giving it credit for, and Terezi is mellowing Vriska out and helping her to be more of a team player?
-I'm not really sure what Gamzee's deal is supposed to be in the retjohned timeline. Vriska says that he's important to the timeline and that they should just dump the fridge in the ocean and let paradox space sort things out, buuuuuut the whole point of the retjohns is that it doesn't matter what paradox space wants to happen, the timeline can be changed without being doomed. And besides, they don't even enter the right universe in the end, so Gamzee's incapable of raising/mentoring Caliborn anyway. I guess those are all details Vriska's not privy to though
My main issue is
That Hussie not only brought back the older, more obnoxious version of Vriska, but had her bully the living shit out of the original and some other members of the team, with zero consequences.
I would have much preferred that the older Vriska were the one to set up the whole plan. Having the shittier version of Vriska be the one to save the day felt like the opposite of a character arc.
Her shitty treatment of people also made it a lot less satisfying to see her come out on top of English.
I interpreted the shockwave as symbolic of LE losing his control over the narrative and therefore his inevitability
regarding vriska, I think that something that's easy to miss about the post-retjohn timeline is her growth as a person. Like she was still a horrible moster up until she got doofed but the vriska we see on the meteor and in the run-up to Collide is very different because of one fundamental change:
she stops being so shellfish selfish
post-retjohn vriska is all about keeping the team together and giving them the best chance to win a victory that she will never enjoy. She consigns herself to oblivion by standing against LE and doesn't even tell anyone that she's doing it. It's a far cry from the vriska who played sgrub and who was obsessed with being recognized as the best
it's easy for us to see the differences between the timelines and identify the effect that vriska had on things, but the effects that things had on vriska aren't as immediately noticeable. Like we think a lot about how she kept terezi from falling into a gross clown depression but the way that terezi helped her mellow out goes largely unnoticed
I wonder if the story might have benefited from spending more time exploring how she changed while on the meteor. At the same time though, homestuck was already pretty long in the tooth without adding more meteor shenanigans and more vriska time
Hmm it's not an angle I'd really considered but yeah ok, I can see that. HS is partly about triumphing over the worst versions of yourself, and Vriska offers plenty of material there, and her figuring out that sometimes you don't have to make sure everybody knows you're the best would be a nice companion piece to her conversation with John on the meteor prior to the Terezi confrontation.
But this growth was never explicitly shown, unless you count dream-bubble Vriska, which would have no reason to influence ret-John Vriska. So - if that was the aim, it didn't really stick the landing. Agreed that more Vriska-meteor time might actually have helped this situation even though everyone was sick of her by then.
It's weird cause HS never shied away from presenting character interaction instead of boss fights, until the end when it jettisoned what I'm starting to think might have been vital thematic character discussions in favour of, well, boss fights.
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
Yeah, basically.
That conversation made me legitimately angry.
Mostly because it.... didn't really go anywhere narratively useful.
Had the original Vriska at some point retaliated and driven home how insufferable she used to be, or some other introspective point, and grilled ret-conned Vriska about parts of herself that she doesn't want to talk about.
Like, oh I don't know, the fact that Vriska's cunning plans and combat skills are the only reason people actually tolerate her incredibly shitty behavior.
But instead it goes absolutely nowhere. It's just abusive, mean-spirited fluff.
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
her alternate self represents a part of her that never grew up, who couldn't handle losing, who fell apart when she realized people didn't think she was the coolest
who among us wouldn't want a chance to rip into the parts of ourselves we hate the most?
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
her alternate self represents a part of her that never grew up, who couldn't handle losing, who fell apart when she realized people didn't think she was the coolest
who among us wouldn't want a chance to rip into the parts of ourselves we hate the most?
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
her alternate self represents a part of her that never grew up, who couldn't handle losing, who fell apart when she realized people didn't think she was the coolest
who among us wouldn't want a chance to rip into the parts of ourselves we hate the most?
Well, sort of?
Neither of them are grown up, though. And the "alternate" self is in the stage of actually going through change and some form of transitional growth after what happened to her.
The version who was created from the retcon hasn't really grown at all from where the original was when Terezi killed her.
It's hard to feel like Vriska changes or improved as a person all that much from her time on the meteor when the last thing she does before the ending is rip into her alternate self with some of the nastiest, most vicious language this side of caliborn
her alternate self represents a part of her that never grew up, who couldn't handle losing, who fell apart when she realized people didn't think she was the coolest
who among us wouldn't want a chance to rip into the parts of ourselves we hate the most?
Well, sort of?
Neither of them are grown up, though. And the "alternate" self is in the stage of actually going through change and some form of transitional growth after what happened to her.
The version who was created from the retcon hasn't really grown at all from where the original was when Terezi killed her.
i think stagnation is just kinda what happens when you're a ghost
look at the beforans, most of them had been there for billions of years from their perspective and they were still the same stupid shitty teenagers they were in life
If we're looking at two different possible points of stagnation with that conversation, I know which of those two represent a person I'd never want to know and would be horrified at the prospect of becoming.
i think the most generous way you can read it is they needed vriska for a very specific purpose, because they needed to win a fight they weren't supposed to be able to win, and who better to help out with that then the #1 powergaming cheater in paradox space
and once she'd served her purpose she needed to be removed from the equation, which even she seems to have recognized, and she recuses herself to the furthest ring to fight lord english, and may or may not die killing him
the juju didn't do fuckin' anything but throw out a shockwave
the black hole expanded and swallowed up lord english, the shockwave that's approaching the juju as the door opens is the ground collapsing as it sucks into the black hole
If we're looking at two different possible points of stagnation with that conversation, I know which of those two represent a person I'd never want to know and would be horrified at the prospect of becoming.
i think the most generous way you can read it is they needed vriska for a very specific purpose, because they needed to win a fight they weren't supposed to be able to win, and who better to help out with that then the #1 powergaming cheater in paradox space
and once she'd served her purpose she needed to be removed from the equation, which even she seems to have recognized, and she recuses herself to the furthest ring to fight lord english, and may or may not die killing him
I feel like she definitely gets pulled into the black hole with him
i think the most generous way you can read it is they needed vriska for a very specific purpose, because they needed to win a fight they weren't supposed to be able to win, and who better to help out with that then the #1 powergaming cheater in paradox space
and once she'd served her purpose she needed to be removed from the equation, which even she seems to have recognized, and she recuses herself to the furthest ring to fight lord english, and may or may not die killing him
I feel like she definitely gets pulled into the black hole with him
it's the only fitting end for her story arc
i think that's probably right, but that goes back to what i was saying about that scene being weirdly confusing visually
why not, y'know, show both of them falling into the black hole, instead of a bunch of dust clouds and then a fissure rushing toward the house and she's just not standing in front of it anymore for some reason
just to be clear, I wasn't trying to argue that vriska isn't still a huge jerk
I just think the whole "the comic says that vriska was actually the best and she gets a trophy at the end" thing is dumb when what she actually gets is oblivion
like the act 7 flash isn't clear about what happens to her but she definitely isn't shown to have made it through the door into the new universe with everyone else
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Saw someone dressed as aradia today at some 4th of July deal. Seems like a random place for that kind of thing. My wife who only knows of homestuck because of me actually pointed it out.
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Remember her hot fridge? The refrigerator that heats food instead of chilling it, because Undyne hates cold food? I remember laughing at that because it completely defeats the purpose of a fridge, which is to slow the spoiling of food. But I just remembered; monster food doesn't spoil. So, to monsters, a fridge would only be used to chill food because you want it cold, which Undyne doesn't.
The hot fridge is actually practical! Who knew?
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completing the trilogy of revisits
WELL SHIT
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I just wanted to say I really liked Voidlight on Volume 10.
aranea just stole the life ring, john's unstuck in canon
i'm almost out of homestuck to tell ashley about
http://www.audioentropy.com/
A6I4 and 5 pull this huge switcheroo on the story, and when you're constantly given time to forget minor plot details, like Aranea dooming everyone by stealing the ring or the Condesce attempting to compel the kids to make LE's universe, it's hard to keep track of exactly what the switcheroo is accomplishing
It's way easier to follow when you can take the whole thing as a whole
I still have some niggling criticisms but the basic gist of the ending I'm down with
-I think the sprite^2s are kinda stupid. It's a funny joke at first but it outstayed it's welcome
-I think the final showdown between Vriska and English is pointlessly unclear visually. I'm not even sure that the house juju actually *does* anything to him, beyond just freeing everyone from his curse. There's a lot of shockwaves flying around but their source and purpose are unclear for no real reason. Did LE and Vriska get swallowed by the black hole? Did only LE? Did anything actually happen at all? It doesn't read well even on repeated viewings.
-Vriska coming back is a weird narrative choice. I don't think it's a problem that Vriska continues to be a major player in act 6 like some people, but there's some weird implications about how they apparently needed her alive to succeed. Act 6 isn't shy about calling her out as a monster, and even doofy ol' John admits that after spending time with her he hates her. Why make it so this awful person is the crux of everything, and without her everyone's lives turn to shit? I like the idea that Terezi gets to go without feeling guilty about killing her friend, which enables her to stand up to Gamzee and Aranea. That part's fine. But things like Vriska preventing Rose's drinking problem is a lot weirder. I guess there's something to be said for a girl to be the one to ruin LE's plans, but there's tons of cool girls in homestuck, such that I don't really think the ending needed this weird message of "everyone is powerless without the help of this megalomaniacal murderer." Maybe Terezi and Vriska's moirailship is supposed to be a bigger deal than I'm giving it credit for, and Terezi is mellowing Vriska out and helping her to be more of a team player?
-I'm not really sure what Gamzee's deal is supposed to be in the retjohned timeline. Vriska says that he's important to the timeline and that they should just dump the fridge in the ocean and let paradox space sort things out, buuuuuut the whole point of the retjohns is that it doesn't matter what paradox space wants to happen, the timeline can be changed without being doomed. And besides, they don't even enter the right universe in the end, so Gamzee's incapable of raising/mentoring Caliborn anyway. I guess those are all details Vriska's not privy to though
http://www.audioentropy.com/
A6I2, 3, and part of 4 are all a doomed timeline, and 4 and 5 are the retjohned timeline
We only get told about what will happen in the alpha, about what the condesce's plans are and what caliborn foresees happening
But none of that actually ends up happening
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Like, the "doomed" timeline where Aranea steals the ring is retconned out because John changed the story, so in a way it's as much in the alpha timeline as the post retjohn timeline, especially given that John (and Roxy) came from that timeline.
I guess basically what I'm trying to say I would say we didn't see those events because it was never going to happen that way; things would have gone off the rails if John had not suddenly appeared on the meteor and punched Vriska in the face.
regarding vriska, I think that something that's easy to miss about the post-retjohn timeline is her growth as a person. Like she was still a horrible moster up until she got doofed but the vriska we see on the meteor and in the run-up to Collide is very different because of one fundamental change:
she stops being so shellfish selfish
post-retjohn vriska is all about keeping the team together and giving them the best chance to win a victory that she will never enjoy. She consigns herself to oblivion by standing against LE and doesn't even tell anyone that she's doing it. It's a far cry from the vriska who played sgrub and who was obsessed with being recognized as the best
it's easy for us to see the differences between the timelines and identify the effect that vriska had on things, but the effects that things had on vriska aren't as immediately noticeable. Like we think a lot about how she kept terezi from falling into a gross clown depression but the way that terezi helped her mellow out goes largely unnoticed
I wonder if the story might have benefited from spending more time exploring how she changed while on the meteor. At the same time though, homestuck was already pretty long in the tooth without adding more meteor shenanigans and more vriska time
Steam | Twitter
My main issue is
I would have much preferred that the older Vriska were the one to set up the whole plan. Having the shittier version of Vriska be the one to save the day felt like the opposite of a character arc.
Her shitty treatment of people also made it a lot less satisfying to see her come out on top of English.
But this growth was never explicitly shown, unless you count dream-bubble Vriska, which would have no reason to influence ret-John Vriska. So - if that was the aim, it didn't really stick the landing. Agreed that more Vriska-meteor time might actually have helped this situation even though everyone was sick of her by then.
It's weird cause HS never shied away from presenting character interaction instead of boss fights, until the end when it jettisoned what I'm starting to think might have been vital thematic character discussions in favour of, well, boss fights.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
That conversation made me legitimately angry.
Mostly because it.... didn't really go anywhere narratively useful.
Had the original Vriska at some point retaliated and driven home how insufferable she used to be, or some other introspective point, and grilled ret-conned Vriska about parts of herself that she doesn't want to talk about.
Like, oh I don't know, the fact that Vriska's cunning plans and combat skills are the only reason people actually tolerate her incredibly shitty behavior.
But instead it goes absolutely nowhere. It's just abusive, mean-spirited fluff.
who among us wouldn't want a chance to rip into the parts of ourselves we hate the most?
Steam | Twitter
Some of us do that on a regular basis...
Well, sort of?
The version who was created from the retcon hasn't really grown at all from where the original was when Terezi killed her.
if you say so
Steam | Twitter
Steam | Twitter
She was going through the first steps of growth, though she had stagnated after a while.
look at the beforans, most of them had been there for billions of years from their perspective and they were still the same stupid shitty teenagers they were in life
http://www.audioentropy.com/
she doesn't really seem all that changed by what happened
http://www.audioentropy.com/
and once she'd served her purpose she needed to be removed from the equation, which even she seems to have recognized, and she recuses herself to the furthest ring to fight lord english, and may or may not die killing him
http://www.audioentropy.com/
the juju didn't do fuckin' anything but throw out a shockwave
the black hole expanded and swallowed up lord english, the shockwave that's approaching the juju as the door opens is the ground collapsing as it sucks into the black hole
http://www.audioentropy.com/
listen i don't have any new homestuck to get speculate on so i just have to keep respeculating on the same old homestuck over and over forever
http://www.audioentropy.com/
it's the only fitting end for her story arc
Steam | Twitter
why not, y'know, show both of them falling into the black hole, instead of a bunch of dust clouds and then a fissure rushing toward the house and she's just not standing in front of it anymore for some reason
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I just think the whole "the comic says that vriska was actually the best and she gets a trophy at the end" thing is dumb when what she actually gets is oblivion
like the act 7 flash isn't clear about what happens to her but she definitely isn't shown to have made it through the door into the new universe with everyone else
Steam | Twitter
homestuck
Glad to hear!
Terezi putting on the blindfold was fucking sick as hell.
Dave saving the Mayor may be the funniest moment in the comic.
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