#charming is equivalent to heroic and wanky equivalent to just

[loki-zen]

So, given you're first-reading Homestuck now, in 2021... What's it like, aesthetically? Does it feel familiar somehow, because it's been very influential? Or does it feel fresh and bold, like it did when it was coming out? (Or, I should say, fresh and bold as an extension of the way Problem Sleuth was. Also, you DID read Problem Sleuth first... Right?) What's it LIKE to read Homestuck for the first time in 2021?

Both. It feels both fresh and bold and familiar, and perhaps the former in more substantive ways than the latter?

I did read Problem Sleuth, albeit some time ago. I think as you suggest having some idea of at least the concept behind PS is necessary context as it’s that format Homestuck is riffing on. (Interestingly, coming to it well after the fact, I’m aware that there was at some point some element of audience input Problem Sleuth style, or at least the ambiguous appearance thereof - but I don’t know they stopped pretending that that was a thing, other than that it’s I think fairly early.)

But like, at no point did ‘Problem Sleuth style audience participation webcomic’ become like, a genre.

So even from the start, what you’re looking at is a webcomic based on a subversion of a format established in a single webcomic, which is itself an homage to a kind of video game. That remains pretty unique! As does ‘a story in which much of the action takes place inside a video game’, both in general and especially like.. not as an excuse to have a Narnia that doesn’t really matter, an ephemeral realm to hero’s journey in in let’s say a kid’s movie, probably written by someone who at least affects not to play a lot of video games. Instead you’ve got a setting whose logic and world building is clearly heavily video game inspired, but treated seriously as a setting and designed for narrative fiction (which distinguishes it from eg a tie-in novel, which I find invariably hit problems stemming from the source material not being designed for the format).

It felt familiar only really inasmuch as Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett (or if you’re a normie, idk, Friends?) will feel ‘familiar’ to anyone from circles that have incorporated their distinctive idioms into their idea of what being witty sounds like. I think I am pretty good at totally blanking out stuff about fandoms I’m not in that I come across too so that probably helps.

But like. Nah, it’s still structurally incredibly novel. Who else is doing that shit?

And not just structurally even! It may be 2021, but I’d still struggle to name anything with an even number of male and female characters! It’s also rare to see something not pink-ghettoed with that many interesting and distinct and important female characters, or something where the narrative seems not to especially favour boy-girl romances over Not That that isn’t like specifically Gay Fiction.

This is kinda ramble bc not 100% on what’s meant by ‘aesthetic’ but yeah

If you meant visually then.. idk I probably don’t read enough webcomics. It’s visually very good I think. One of the ways in which it’s a lot better crafted than you’d think / than it is in other ways is in incorporating a lot of Cute Tricks for visual storytelling this complex.

Like, Jack’s not the only one who likes trophies - Hussite makes an active habit of getting characters visually altered by their escapades in ways that later helps you keep track of what the fuck is going on. (Eg Gamzee’s facial scarring tells us that a given iteration of him that might pop up, oh idk anywhere, has some sort of chronological continuity back to killing Nepeta and by extension the whole Murderstuck debacle.)

However as soon as it gets into animations, I think they look good but the visual storytelling becomes kinda shitty, in my view. I watched it with someone who seems to be able to follow the events in them, but hell, I can usually follow them if I go back and watch them after I know what is meant to be happening in them. They’re way too quick, and what’s happening is often too high concept to unambiguously depict visually.

As to what it’s like, overall…

I think definitely different than reading it at the time.

I think there’s a lot of stuff in Act 6 that’s way more forgivable when you know you can freely click next all the way to the end. Act 6 kinda benefits from being binged really, so as to enable one to fly past the cruft.

There are definitely times when I feel like I’m interacting with a piece of Actual Important Art Maybe, something scholars will wank about in decades to come, and times when I feel like I’ve poured way too much time and attention into a shitty vanity project webcomic. Maybe both those feelings are true.

I feel like the tantrum he throws in Act 6 might play differently to me as a writer and ex (Terribly Modern) theatre type idk. it’s relatable in ways that might help the god tier death clock of content consumption stop with the needle on ‘charming’ rather than ‘wanky’ for me personally.