Something very complicated happened, and a lot of people had to draw pictures to illustrate it, but actually, in one of several possible ways, it must add up to nothing happening.
OK.
mercurialmalcontent said: I am trying unsuccessfully to figure out what you’re getting at here.
The update and recent newsposts read like open mockery of a part of his fanbase to me - “why didn’t you tell everyone it was me you were making fun of” seems like an odd response to being mocked - I feel Hussie’s frustration with the fandom has been at least partially responsible for the comic’s newly sour take on internet friends and the internet in general
None of this is me calling him anything less than a jerk for being mean - he is lumping in genuinely awful people with folks whose only crime is not being able to draw or write real good, because that’s the thematic deal he’s got going with Cal & Cal. On the other hand, having seen a fair chunk of what the fandom at its worst is like, I also sympathize with his frustrations
The root of it is still “boo hoo I got popular”, which is not a good look
It’s funny – I agree with what you say about his frustration with his fandom, but my main response to this (and earlier stuff in the same vein) was that it reflects a growing detachment from the material he’s drawing on
In particular, there’s been a shift in comedic style from “representing a type [with some exaggeration]” to “putting self-mocking words in a type’s mouth.”
Like, actual RPers talk like Nepeta and Terezi (to a first approximation); actual “SJWs” don’t talk like Kankri and actual female-character-ignoring slash writers don’t talk like Caliborn. There’s been a long debate on the internet about whether it’s a bad thing that slash “ignores female characters”; one could depict this naturalistically by having a slash-writing character who gets chewed out by another character for ignoring female characters. Instead, like a stock figure in a political cartoon, Caliborn says explicitly the things his critics might accuse him of thinking or saying implicitly.
It’s like the difference between writing a character who is a parody of Aaron Diaz and actually talks like Diaz, and writing a character who talks like the Diaz parody from Mary Cagle’s comic. (But who lives in an ongoing serial and not a four-panel political cartoon.)
The reason I think this reflects a growing detachment is that writing the latter sort of character requires much less familiarity with the people you’re parodying – all you need to know is what’s supposed to be “wrong” with them. I could easily believe that Hussie’s never read Homestuck slash in his life and is basing Caliborn’s monologue on some blog post criticizing Homestuck slash. I’m no longer convinced he’s actually met these people.
Okay one more post because I totally didn’t realize a momentous historical event had occurred and that deserves an exception to self-discipline:
Yes Hussie, I get the joke, you are making fun of a thing that the internet has been mocking relentlessly for years, nice job, very creative, you get all the backpats, I only wish you were integrating that with good character work like you used to instead of giving us a bad-political-cartoon-level crude parody figure a la Kankri et al
Wait, so the cherubs reproduce like flatworms but they can still be categorized as “male” and “female”? Huh?
Earlier today the update looked like this.
Now it looks like this.
Why would anyone correct such a serendipitous mistake?
god dammit
that was my favorite line in at least the last several months of homestuck