#lovely rain today and exactly the right amount of cool and windy to get the smell of it in my room

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: May 10

"The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” by Death Cab for Cutie

[voyageviolet]

Just for the hell of it, I’m going to post the responses I’ve been writing for the Great Homestuck Reread.

DAY 1

I could have sworn I wrote something for this day, but apparently no??? Weird.

DAY 2, PAGES 127-247

Favorite Panel: John: Scold TT

This one's just cute to me.

Favorite Pesterlog: John: Answer chums.

Rose is being high-and-mighty about the FAQs while John panics about impending doom; meanwhile Dave is talking to himself about planet fucking Jupiter. These kids are a disaster.

Favorite Flash: S: John: Take a bite of the apple.

There's not a lot of competition for "favorite flash" in these pages, but I do think it's a great way for the story to really get started with a sense of urgency.

Missed Moments: Not much, but is that oil on Rose's wall? And I've never noticed John's shirt changing color.

Today's Question - Is Act 1 actually bad or are people just not giving it a chance?

I think Act 1 is great, but I didn't the first time I read it. It takes a while to get past the initial "What the fuck am I reading" response, what with the captchaloging and the cruxtruding and the other fake words. I started reading and gave up twice before I finally buckled down and decided, "I am going to find out what the deal is with the candy corn horns I'm seeing everywhere if it kills me." But if you decide to just relax and enjoy the ride, Act 1 is a lot of fun. It's just frustrating for the people who've been sold on Homestuck being this great epic adventure to have to get through the kids screwing around in the beginning.

DAY 3, PAGES 248-384

Favorite Panel: Dave's little gasp here. ~SO COOL~

Favorite Pesterlog: And here we have the first example of two of the gayest kids in Homestuck calling each other gay. These two are so much alike in their mostly-playfully-adversarial ways; they crack me up.

Favorite Flash: [S] YOU THERE. BOY. I'm the kind of RPG gamer that walks around and talks to every NPC and checks every little corner for items or info, so the walkaround flashes are always especially fun for me.

Missed Moments: -In the [S] YOU THERE. BOY. flash, WV knows who John Cusack is, as if he's some kind of universal constant.

-When I first read Homestuck, I didn't expect this quote to be referenced again: "You wonder if this rain will ever let up. It's driven since the month began, perhaps long enough to forget its purpose. It no longer even knows to assuage fire. Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton. "

-And for something I missed this time around: Does anyone know what songs used to be on the [S] on page 338? There's still "Harlequin" and "John do the windy thing," but some have been removed, probably for copyright reasons. (If you're not sure what I mean, click the four corner buttons on that page.)

Today's Question - Who was truly at fault in the Rose/Mom pseudo-imaginary feud?

I talked a bit about this yesterday, but to simplify: It's Mom's fault, simply due to the fact that she's the parent. It's the parent's responsibility to engage with their child in a way that the child can understand and appreciate. Mom reacted to Rose in an overbearing way that had more to do with her own feelings than her child's feelings. For example, when young Rose asked her mom to have a funeral for her cat, she wasn't asking for an elaborate permanent monument; she was asking for help saying goodbye to a friend and coping with that loss. In spite of what I assume to be her best intentions, Mom failed to provide that. Their house is filled with this sort of elaborate expression of affection that completely fails to provide any real emotional connection.

Let me state for the record that Roxy is one of my favorite characters in Homestuck, but she's the version of the character who managed to pull herself together and support the people she cares about. For whatever reason, Mom is the version who didn't.

DAY 4, 385-509

Favorite Panel: ==> I forgot about this one, but John flying around the room with the pogo and the shaving cream is still hilarious.

Favorite Pesterlog: Dave: Pester Rose. The first crack in the cool kid's facade.

Favorite Flash: [S] Rose: Youth roll right out the front door. This is SO dramatic, what with the "empty suicide threat" and the "ironic negligence," and yet it's presented in such a cartoonish "lol whatever" manner. I wish we got more detail about their relationship at some point in the story - something like Dave's introspection and his interaction with Dirk - because this flash presents a pretty bleak picture.

Missed Moments: -From page 404's commentary: "Also, I like how WV is now helping out with the Con Air references through his terminal commands. He shows a striking ability to adapt to and participate in running gags. He is the type of guy who just "gets it", you know?" I definitely didn't pick up on this before. It's hard to pinpoint the places where the commands stop being authorial input and start being characters' input.

-424's commentary: "Judging by the commands, WV is just as caught up in the story as John is. Let's agree this is adorable." Definitely adorable, but I wonder, does WV know at this point that this is the story he was already caught up in?

-447: "There's the PUPPET CHEST he stores LIL' CAL in when he takes him out on gigs." BRO TAKES LIL CAL ON GIGS. LIKE GIGS IN PUBLIC? THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE WHO'S NOT A TRAPPED 13 YEAR OLD WOULD EVER ENTERTAIN THE IDEA THAT VENTRILOQUIST RAPPING COULD BE COOL. BRO WOULD GET DESTROYED ONSTAGE.

I always assumed that the puppet thing was exclusively online, but it sounds like Bro's life may be weirder than I ever realized - which is pretty fucking weird to begin with.

Today's Question - Is WV really just a one note joke character? No, I don't think he is. Every character in Homestuck is a joke to some degree, but that doesn't make them flat. WV has an emotional journey and narrative development that starts with his his silly obsession with eating green things, evolves through flashbacks of his rebellion against a corrupt monarchy and his friendship with PM&co, and ends with him starting (what seems to be) an egalitarian democracy on new Earth. He also serves to explain to the audience what happened to the old, now abandoned Earth without resorting to boring exposition.

Plus he's adorable and everyone loves him, so there's that.

Bonus Question - WHAT'S YOUR POGO MINIGAME HIGH SCORE???? Yeah I can't say I spent much time on that, but I did enjoy the song.

DAY 5, PAGES 510-644

Didn't get time to respond to this yesterday, oops. I'll make this quick.

Favorite Panel: Vaulthalla, baby.

Favorite Pesterlog: Rose: Answer Dave. Still love these kids, and the fact that Rose makes up a poem on the spot is pretty impressive.

Favorite Flash: Well, there's only the one, so...

Missed Moments: None this time.

Today's Question - Which of the items in your house would you combine to make a cool weapon? I'm gonna be a dumb nerd and admit that I'd like to see what I could make with some anime figures. I've always thought that umbrellakind was kind of fun, so why not mix animu figures with that. Like, a Sailor Moon figma with an umbrella could make a cute cheesy magical girl wand. I also have an old biting pear statue that I'm sure could make some interesting things.

DAY 6, PAGES 645-759

Favorite Panel: Democracy. The deadpan faux-seriousness combined with WV's cuteness is just delightful.

*Favorite Pesterlog: * There really weren't any of note in this section. This day's all about WV.

Favorite Flash: WV: Ascend. I've always found the longer flash videos a bit confusing; there are so many things happening at once. Damn if they aren't fascinating, though.

Missed Moments: -Page 721: "All of the chess moves were copied exactly from a famous game played by Bobby Fischer. I forget which one exactly, but it was super famous among dudes who bone tight up on their chess." Never would've guessed that. For some reason, it never even occurred to me that these would be valid chess moves rather than WV just throwing things around. -"The station's terminal is meant to "control" the client player of the kid whose house once existed where that station is. So WV's station, which was in Rose's location, gives commands to John, because John is Rose's client player, and she commands his game similarly. And the apple station commands Jade, because she'll be John's client player, etc. Did you realize this?" NOPE

Today's Question - What would WV's classpect be? Mayor of Can? I dunno, I've never spent much time on classpect theorizing. It's too complicated and too heavily based on speculation for me.

DAY 7, PAGES 760-885

Favorite Panel: Jade's holographic computer. Her life is ridiculous and otherworldly. Seeing the crazy things that are a mundane part of her reality is pretty great.

Favorite Pesterlog: A rare Jade-Rose pesterlog. Best appreciate these when you can.

Favorite Flash: [S] Rose: Ascend. There are a lot of fight scenes in this section, but this one is the most fun, and the one involving the least amount of child abuse.

Missed Moments: -"I wonder which troll named her Farmstink? Do trolls even have farms? Maybe they call them musclebeast pastures." It never even occurred to me that it was the trolls typing in names. I just thought of it as reader input.

-"With the (playable!) FRESHJAMZ playlist, we are provided with the implication that these are all songs produced by the kids collaboratively. Their icons indicate who was involved with the songs. Just another sign earlier in the story that these kids have some musical talent and this is the sort of thing they do with their spare time." I don't think I ever noticed everyone's icons next to songs, or if I did I didn't put it together that they were the ones making this music.

-"It's almost as if Bro is training him to face the last boss. Or it would be if last boss had the slightest thing to do with this creepy puppet, which of course is preposterous." Never connected those dots.

Today's Question - Is early Jade a good character? Why or why not?

Yes, on the grounds that she is precious and delightful.

More seriously, though, I think she's as good of a character as any of the kids, but she doesn't get as much narrative attention or development as I'd like towards the end of the comic. Early Jade, though, is arguably in the most fucked up situation out of all of the kids: Her grandfather took her to a deserted island and died when she was very young, leading Jade to assume he committed suicide, and leaving her with the responsibility of emptying out his innards to taxidermy his body (?!?). Ok, there's no way that last part ever could have been played straight, but the point remains that Jade has had to grow up in a pretty bleak and lonely situation, but she remains unfailingly positive and friendly. She's never had any hope of leaving her island and interacting with the rest of her planet before the game destroys it, but by watching the clouds on Prospit and by enjoying her friendships, she stays happy and hopeful. I can't see that as anything but impressive.