pesterquest 9.0 nepeta boongaloo

[ThePungeonMaster]

yeah i agree that tavros gathering the army is a huge cop-out. that didn't use a pre-established macguffin or anything.

GODDAMNIT I JUST WANT HOMESTUCK TO BE A GOOD STORY THAT IS WRITTEN WELL WHY MUST IT ALWAYS RETURN TO METATEXTUAL FUCKERY

A story can't be ambitious and good at the same time. For something to be good, it has to be formulaic and familiar to an extent. Formulaic because by then the authors know what works, and familar so you know what to expect and your expectations that can be satisfied. I guess a good, well written Homestuck could have been possible at the time, but it wouldn't be Homestuck as I know it and it wouldn't be "Homestuck, except with minor differences."

I'm so glad that a lot of people are trying to make the next Homestuck.

I'm going to have to disagree with the idea that "A story can't be good and ambitious at the same time." I'd say ambition is what makes a story, it's what makes it unique, and uniqueness and novelty are part of what makes a product high quality: Doing the same shit over and over and following the same tired formulas doesn't make those formulas better; it makes them worse. Certainty it's harder to make a story that is both revolutionary and good, but it's far from impossible. I mean, shit, Homestuck was pretty revolutionary in how it defined what could be done with storytelling on the internet and the capabilities of hypertext fiction, and I think we can all agree that Homestuck is pretty solid. But I do see where you're coming from. HS^2 is definitely trying to carve out it's own identity, and I don't necessarily think it's bad. Operative word being "necessarily". A story like HS^2 can make metatextual fuckery work if done correctly, but as it stands it's being done very incorrectly. There's a metric shit-ton of potential in HS^2 premise, as I've said ad nauseum; The whole "giving the story back to the fans" thing they promised could give this whole deal of what constitutes and does not constitute cannon some payoff, but the writing team seems hellbent in doing as little as possible to that end. I've heard rumors that legal troubles are gumming up the works, and I'm sure that the people who have been part of the Homestuck community for years have a vested interest in making the continuation of the story appeal to all types of fans, but until they make good on their promises, HS^2 will be neither truly good nor revolutionary.

[calamityCons]

A story can't be ambitious and good at the same time. For something to be good, it has to be formulaic and familiar to an extent. Formulaic because by then the authors know what works, and familar so you know what to expect and your expectations that can be satisfied.

Things can be ambitious and break convention and reach outside the boundaries of narrative expectation and STILL BE GOOD. Undertale did that. Off did that. One Shot did that. Space Funeral did that. Doki Doki Literature Club did that. Cave Story did that. Yume Nikki did that. Death Strandinng did that. Spec Ops: The Line did that. Puella Magi Madoka Magica did that. I can continue in this vein rattling off other examples of deconstructive media and stories that break out of familiar concepts with good twists and powerful meta breaking occurrences.

The point is, Homestuck is really bungling itself and trying to use meta and canon and narrative contrivances to excuse bad writing.

[egg]

A story can't be ambitious and good at the same time. For something to be good, it has to be formulaic and familiar to an extent. Formulaic because by then the authors know what works, and familar so you know what to expect and your expectations that can be satisfied. I guess a good, well written Homestuck could have been possible at the time, but it wouldn't be Homestuck as I know it and it wouldn't be "Homestuck, except with minor differences."

I'm so glad that a lot of people are trying to make the next Homestuck.

Some of the best stories ever told were told because the author decided they needed to go above and beyond (Such as most revolutionary movies, like Back to the Future, the first Avengers and Infinity War/Endgame, or friggin' Star Wars for example, with many other lesser known examples out there in the wild, some even mentioned in this very thread). Some of the worst, too, but that's because too much ambition is only bad if you're a beginner or incompetent.

[thorondraco]

A story can't be ambitious and good at the same time. For something to be good, it has to be formulaic and familiar to an extent. Formulaic because by then the authors know what works, and familar so you know what to expect and your expectations that can be satisfied.

Things can be ambitious and break convention and reach outside the boundaries of narrative expectation and STILL BE GOOD. Undertale did that. Off did that. One Shot did that. Space Funeral did that. Doki Doki Literature Club did that. Cave Story did that. Yume Nikki did that. Death Strandinng did that. Spec Ops: The Line did that. Puella Magi Madoka Magica did that. I can continue in this vein rattling off other examples of deconstructive media and stories that break out of familiar concepts with good twists and powerful meta breaking occurrences.

The point is, Homestuck is really bungling itself and trying to use meta and canon and narrative contrivances to excuse bad writing.

Honestly it kinda always has? Let's face it homestuck by nature has always had a crudeness to it. From its art, to its humor (if its softened a bit over time), to its storytelling. Homestuck^2 is in itself a bit crudely made though a bit more refined too. A different hand, several hands, make it.

As for the meta stuff i think you have to look at it a different way. Rather than it being fourth wall breaking stuff for the sake of it like a lot of shows, the Meta stuff is actually lore stuff at the same time.

Meta in homestuck is how their universe Works. Their reality is structured by the aspects, and both the practical parts of those aspects, and the metatextual parts of those aspects. Space is both the concept of a continuous area of expanse, AND of the stage the story takes place in for example. When they are talking about what is or isn't canon, they are talking about how homestuck's reality works as well as the concept of what is or isn't traditionally canon in stories.

[thorondraco]

I think Hussie has said that, at least for gates and alchemy, it's not that he forgot about them. He skipped over them because we already understand how they work. Alchemy exists so we don't ask "hey, where did that object come from?" when it appears out of nowhere for the first time. We know how they got those things. They used RPG money, grist. Why are their new items so similar to items they already had? Punch cards. How do they get from one planet to another without FTL technology? Gates. (Rose blew one of the gates up in an attempt to softlock SBURB.) Why do they have to build their homes up if they can fly? I can't check but it has something to with shooting a lot of grist.

I guess I'm having trouble figuring out what your issue with Homestuck is. Aside from some of the trolls and Lord English, I see the things you listed as world-building on video game mechanics and not stray plot points. For the trolls and Lord English, I kind of see it, but I think he made sure to kill off the ones he didn't want to use? I guess that counts as a resolution, even if it's often unsatisfying.

The Gamzee ending of Sollux's route was meant to illustrate that they literally don't talk, ever, unlike Tavros and Kanaya who do talk but only off-screen. We already knew that Sollux would dislike Gamzee, but lots of people who dislike Gamzee still tolerated him before SGRUB. We also get to see that Gamzee is much, much worse at dealing with rejection than Eridan is.

If I wanted to use one of Pesterquest's bad endings example of "no new information," it'd be that ending where Terezi dies on her own noose. Yes, she hangs her toys on nooses. People die when they are killed. I don't mind it, since I expect one of the beginning choices to be less informative than a later choice.

The problem is that we never see alchemy and gates used more than, like, twice outside of the first few acts. You're right; those aren't plot points. I did not think that list through. But I think I was going for a point on how they were used. The dream-bubbles were hardly used but to give Vriska a place to be and host the dancestors. There are thousands of alt-timeline trolls and kids in there that could be used to hype up Lord English or give us more background on Sburb. There are flipping horrorterrors in there, doing cryptic eldritch stuff and feeding off negative emotions! The horrorterrors were made out to be powerful (and probably malevolent) schemers doing something when they caused Rose's grimdarkness, and then they're forgotten except in passing reference. And Tavros! He just gathers a giant army in one go. We never see him start making it. He just shows up with an army. That could've been an excellent subplot!

Alchemy and grist are rarely used onscreen after Act 4. The audience never sees the houses being built or even new items being made. Everyone seems to stick with the same weapons in Act 6. Sure, the game mechanics might be used off-screen, but we never see that happening. From the audience's perspective, if we didn't see something happen in the story, it may as well have not happened.

Alchemy and most other game mechanics disappear from the story because Hussie didn't plan his webcomic enough, or he couldn't be bothered to work within the limitations he'd set for himself. Does it make sense that, like some of Pesterquest's bad ends, they're a waste of potential? Yes, because that's how Hussie wrote the story. That doesn't mean they're excused from being unsatisfying. Like I said, even if Pesterquest is going for the "everything is pointless because it's not an alpha timeline" theme, there's no reason for the writers not to use the bad endings to develop the characters. They've done this with Daraya and Equius and Lanque and several others.

And the Gamzee end doesn't give us any meaningful insight on Sollux or Gamzee. They don't like each other. Wow. It would be less redundant if they tolerated each other, because that's something we haven't seen before.

I am the big stupid. I like when things happen in-story and are not implied. I assumed more people felt like this.

(And yeah, the "terezi falls and dies" ending was a prime example of things going nowhere. There's no reason for it to be there. One could remove it from Terezi's route and it would be more or less of the same quality. Sure, it doesn't hinder the story, but it contributes nothing. I like when bad ends contribute something.)

THey have of course but a bad ending for Sollux is him dbz flying out of there. It makes sense that it wouldn't develop much more than that. Though yea gamzee coming out of nowhere?

Also i had a weird thought. We presume the horror terrors are evil and angry. What if they are mostly amoral and angry, and amora because they are so angry at some grand injustice?
What if rose learned, and ultimately forgot, what makes the horror terrors so angry, and was granted their voidy strength out of an empathy to that suffering?

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

I do think that defending bad art is one of the many things Homestuck tries to do while it's distracted by 10 other things. Caliborn's some despised loner who wants to step out of the shadow of his sister. The good/skilled/smart sister that everyone loves. Maybe he thought that killing her would improve his self-esteem, but he's still got an Andrew Hussie voice in his head pointing out his learning disability. He gains one devoted boner clown fan who provides unconditional support. Elevatorstuck plays because Caliborn is a fucking loser with no friends. Blah blah blah. He grows up and he's still bad/evil/stupid at art, but he's got worshippers and he's a force that we're forced to acknowledge, just as I was compelled to read Homestuck past when the magic died for me. He's never "defeated" on-screen in Homestuck, but the true conclusion of his arc is when he kills the inner critic who was, for some reason, squatting in his house? I'm actually kind of lost on how that happened, and English's revenge isn't satisfying except in hindsight, but that's what happened.

My self-esteem is in the gutter.

I want to discuss the other meta stories you listed, but I think you should make a new thread for that. I don't want to go even more off topic than I already have.

Some of the best stories ever told were told because the author decided they needed to go above and beyond (Such as most revolutionary movies, like Back to the Future, the first Avengers and Infinity War/Endgame, or friggin' Star Wars for example, with many other lesser known examples out there in the wild, some even mentioned in this very thread). Some of the worst, too, but that's because too much ambition is only bad if you're a beginner or incompetent.

I didn't say ambition was bad in the first place.

[PilotBlackSmith]

I cant believe Sollux said the J word

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

Okay, holy shit.