fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1773 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1773 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 055 secrets from Secret Submission Post #253.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

See, I think he's a good writer on one level. The man is extremely fucking good at playing around with words, and his dialogue makes me laugh.

But he's mediocre at characterization - he's good when he wants to be, but he has a tendency to play favorites and his waxing and waning affection for certain characters/groups of characters becomes really evident as the comic develops. And he's piss-poor at plotting. So much is just asspulls. It was better about this before the troll arc began, but now it's just MURDER!! And then suddenly there's ANCESTORS!! And then suddenly there's MORE MURDER!! And then suddenly there's A CRITICAL REVELATION YOU QUIT GIVING A SHIT ABOUT TWO HUNDRED PANELS AGO!!

I feel like Homestuck is the kind of story that needs multiple drafts in order to create a coherent product, and it really suffers from its format as a serially updated webcomic. A lot of the stuff in the comic (and a lot of what ends up on his Formspring/Tumblr, which is a testament to the fact that he really failed at incorporating important thematic stuff into the comic proper) could be better elaborated on, and a lot of the characterization issues resolved, with a few good revisions and rewrites.

And this is why I want to write that review :) Dear sir or madam, I would dearly love to go into more depth and converse with you about Homestuck and my own thoughts on it in conjunction with yours. But although I may reveal myself when the review is written to the people here interested in reading it, for now I wish to keep down low.

Homestuck seems to divide people into camps - the people who love it and refuse to hear a word against it; the people who hate it and refuse to even hear about it; the people who enjoy it and are reasonable about it; and the people who hate it and are reasonable about it. Sadly most people seem to fall into the former categories than the later ones, including several people I know. And as the updates are still coming, I will admit that I don't want to be the person picking out the flaws as I see them while they're simply enjoying the update. No need to rain on their parade.

With a review I'd like to just be honest. People who really hate Homestuck won't read it and the people who think it's absolutely perfect will disregard me as a hater who wishes he could be Hussie. That's all fine. As long as one or two people could read it and it really makes them think, I'll be happy.

If you're interested in having some thoughtful discussion while safely under the veil of anon, there's two Homestuck anon memes floating around LJ.

captchalogue's anon meme and

mspanonmeme are both available venues for discussion. It is with trepidation that I recommend them, as they're both ~~kind of~~ great stinking cesspits, but there's a few folks floating around who will enjoy a good meaty discourse. (I happen to be one of 'em.)

You know, it's always been sort of on my list of Things I'd Like To Get Around To Doing Eventually to write... well, not exactly a review of Homestuck, but something more like a prospective reader's guide to Homestuck. Something that would take inventory of a lot of the storytelling and thematic issues, alongside things like art style, accessibility of the humor, social justice peeves, disability accessibility (them twitchy GIFs, mang), the author's attitude toward his work and fans, and so on as a way for non-readers to more objectively assess whether it would be worth their while to read this damn comic that's swallowed the Internet. As I continue to dawdle, though, and as benchmark updates for the comic whiz by (so long, EOA5!), the more I'm convinced that the list would consist mostly of IT'S LONG AS BALLS, SERIOUSLY IF YOU DON'T HAVE A MONTH OF YOUR LIFE TO SET ASIDE TO READ THIS THING DON'T BOTHER BECAUSE IT IS LONG AS BALLS :Y

Well, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor, OP, and I hope to see your review pop up somewhere around the 'Net soon!

oh my god the twitchy gifs

I really want to go and smack Hussie for not putting epilepsy trigger warnings in his website

when you start reading the comic it's not obvious that those sorts of animations will pop out in the next panel

I can't agree with you more about the multiple draft and how he suffered from being an ongoing project element. The other thing about Homestuck that stood out to me that isn't his fault but has made Homestuck notorious, is that it has one of the most misleading fandoms I've ever seen. Usually with fandoms people would get into shipping wars and "my interpretation is closer", but people don't usually end up insisting that they are the only people understanding Hussie's version of canon. Throw in 12 pansexual aliens with 4 way romance, and a fandom that's more obsessed about their version being "the only true canon", I can safely say that I was utterly confused by Homestuck until I blocked the fandom out completely.

With Hussie himself, I think his usage of media is utterly brilliant, his words-play and one-liners are good, overall script is average, characterisation varies greatly as he's competent of juggling four characters but he was falling apart with 16+, he has the potential of making good plot but he needs to clear it out a bit, and the pacing is just inexcusably atrocious.

The way he behaves, now here's the thing I don't know how I feel about. I like to read his creating thoughts and process even though I don't always agree with how he handles a story, and I found that by the middle of Act 5 I stopped caring about the characters because Hussie trolls so much that it felt like whatever happens is just his way of being an intentional fuckwit. Then again, with the vocal entitled fans that Homestuck has, I don't know if there are any other ways to communicate with the fanbase.

I agree to an extent - I'm a strong reader and I find it kind of embarrassing that I have to rely so often (and heavily) on his summaries to understand things that are going on (mostly in the longer flashes, and I tend to chalk this up to the lack of verbal communication that goes on during these, but if you're going to make a long flash to delve into your story more, and you aren't going to use language, then it's a good idea to ensure your audience will be able to follow without too much difficulty).

The occasional struggle to follow along closely aside, I don't see a problem with his characterisation in particular. Hussie has stated he's had all of the plot figured out from the beginning so I think his lack of... care given to some characters isn't so much because he's grown bored of them or what have you - I think he's just following what he planned out from the beginning, and for those of us who are slowly reading as he updates what he's had in his head the whole time, we tend to grow attached to characters and feel differently when they die than he probably does. Ask any of my friends how I reacted to the Lord-English-coming-out-of-Scratch's-dead-body-like-a snake-nut-tin fiasco; I flipped the right fuck out. But Hussie even explained that that's how he envisioned Lord English - and everything about the EoA5 and intermission - from the beginning. This is how he's envisioned everything. And the plot probably flows well in his mind because he knows things we don't - and I agree that this is something that writers need to overcome, Hussie included. So regarding the plot flaws, I see where you're coming from. I do think he's okay with characterisation though.

I think Hussie's biggest downfall, with the kind of story he's going for, is the time he takes putting pages out. If HS was a book that we could all sit down and read in one go without pauses in between material, I think it would be easier to follow. It would flow better. Thinking of all the books I've read, many of them would have a few of the same "plot issues" you bring up if they were divided into clusters of pages given to us every week or so.

[ SECRET POST #1773 ]

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OP

Re: OP

not op

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