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turboshitnerd:

For the record I don’t think Hussie’s reasons for writing anything are inscrutable at all. He basically just writes whatever he thinks is interesting and funny. The fact that what he thinks is interesting and funny sometimes lines up with good taste and good ideas and sometimes very much doesn’t is really pretty normal for writers in general, honestly. Especially privileged writers

#i added this to my post as an edit but then i noticed you liked that post already so i just put this in its own post

I guess what I mean is that he has such a strange sense of humor that some of the things he writes as “jokes” might as well be good, serious writing from my perspective.  E.g. I could be making this up, but I seem to remember him describing the “K8LL M8″ scene as “hilarious” at some point, and that confusing even the most staunch “Homestuck is for the lulz”-type posters on the forum.

The more I paid attention to Hussie’s description of his own work, the more I got the sense that anything in it that didn’t strike me as funny was probably intended as “””dark humor””” or something.  Which at a certain point becomes kind of like inventing the theory of relativity ironically.  If an event in the story moves people to tears, then it has the power to move people to tears, even if it was actually “just a joke” in some obscure or macabre way.

typicalacademic:

nostalgebraist:

xhxhxhx:

Huh, I remember really liking Vriska. Maybe I am evil? Probably I am evil. Probably. 

(Definitely I am evil. Definitely.)

I mean.  She’s not necessarily unlikable?  (Especially since she mellows out a lot in A5A2, to the point that it can be startling to go back and look at how awful she is in many parts of A5A1.)  I liked her in some ways.

For me personally it’s that she has a number of traits that set me off, like her perception that she’s more of a “main character” than other people – that she’s more powerful and more important, her joys are truer and her sorrows more worthy of sympathetic tears, and that all these things are somehow connected.  The comic itself encourages this in uncritical readers, by making her a fairly central character, having her beat up on less central ones with legitimate failings (Tavros), and playing her dramatic scenes relatively straight (conversations late in A5A2).

I’ve usually preferred to read this as satirical, but at this point I’ve just had too much of Vriska, Vriska fans, and the various Vriskas of other fictional works and of the real world, to have much tolerance for her even when the narrative is presenting her in a bad light.  (She’s at center stage either way.)

I don’t want to start a Vriska debate or anything, but I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’re making between the uncritical perception that Vriska’s more of a main character than others vs. the statement that she’s fairly central. She’s central because she really is powerful and involved in everything, and she makes herself powerful and involves herself in everything because she’s a massive egotist.
Obviously when she’s beating up on Tavros, you’d have to be fairly uncritical to think that’s supposed to be a positive portrayal of her. But when she has conversations late in A5A2, those seemed to me to truly be dramatic because the story has been set up (she has so set it up) such that what happens to Vriska and what she does actually matter. (I’m thinking of [S]: Flip, for example.)

When I talk about the perception that she’s “more of a main character” here I’m thinking less of drama that results from her influence and more of drama that simply treats her problems as relatively serious and emotionally potent, compared to those of the rest of the cast.  For instance, all of the tearjerking stuff late in A5A2 – there is no reason that one should be especially sad about Vriska-related events simply because Vriska is an influential character.

(Tavros’ personal arc hit me a lot harder emotionally, but that isn’t at all “reflected” in the way the story presents him – there is none of the same maudlin tearjerking stuff when tragic things happen to Tavros.)

(via typicalacademic)

xhxhxhx.tumblr.com →

xhxhxhx:

Huh, I remember really liking Vriska. Maybe I am evil? Probably I am evil. Probably. 

(Definitely I am evil. Definitely.)

I mean.  She’s not necessarily unlikable?  (Especially since she mellows out a lot in A5A2, to the point that it can be startling to go back and look at how awful she is in many parts of A5A1.)  I liked her in some ways.

For me personally it’s that she has a number of traits that set me off, like her perception that she’s more of a “main character” than other people – that she’s more powerful and more important, her joys are truer and her sorrows more worthy of sympathetic tears, and that all these things are somehow connected.  The comic itself encourages this in uncritical readers, by making her a fairly central character, having her beat up on less central ones with legitimate failings (Tavros), and playing her dramatic scenes relatively straight (conversations late in A5A2).

I’ve usually preferred to read this as satirical, but at this point I’ve just had too much of Vriska, Vriska fans, and the various Vriskas of other fictional works and of the real world, to have much tolerance for her even when the narrative is presenting her in a bad light.  (She’s at center stage either way.)

aphorisms

1.  You do not, in fact, have to listen to Vriska.

2.  Statistics say that, on average, not listening to Vriska makes you happier, healthier and more successful!

3.  Vriska’s claims that she is working in your own best interest do not, in fact, invalidate aphorism #2.

One of the many reasons I will probably never get through another Homestuck re-read: I would have so much less tolerance for Vriska’s bullshit than I did in 2011.  (Not that I had much tolerance for it in 2011, but back then I was like “well it’s a complicated story and she’s an interesting case etc. etc.” and now I think I’d just be like “I will DESTROY you”)

autisticstevonnie:

deudly:

jadedgardengnostic:

I’ve been thinking about homestuck in the context of it basically being a new media classic and thinking about some kid in high school 70 years from now having to memorize and recite a monologue from it or something

I just feel like Andrew Hussie is similar to a modern day Shakespeare in that he has this great writing style but it’s full of stupidity and dick jokes, yet if homestuck ever really becomes a Well Known Classic people will ignore that and look at the genius writing and act like its something to be studied, not laughed at and that’s hilarious to me

#Pfffffffft#People auditioning with monologues from Homestuck#Like you get into the room and they’re like ‘Whenever you’re ready’#And you like take a deep breath and scream HELLO WORTHLESS HUMAN#And then snooty English teachers being like alright class for your assignment you have to analyze John’s aversion to harlequins#Kids staying up late at night because it’s such a pain they have to read Homestuck#Those students who tried to use Sparknotes but found out that just describing the intricacies of the plot was 20 pages long#EVERYONE SKIPPING THE INTERMISSION#And teachers expecting people to read Act 5 overnight even though it’s like hundreds of pages long#All the slang that will now be obsolete and incomprehensible so the students dread reading Dave’s pesterlogs#Fantastic (themusicbeckons)

this is literally the worst possible future

(via maxknightley)

wh … what

(h/t turboshitnerd)