"Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular."
Much of Homestuck's character interaction centers around isolation. These characters interact over thousands of words and hundreds of pages and never seem to meet face to face. As the interview says, the kid's interactions mirror what it's like to have friendships online, where the people you trust and love talking to are never seen in person. The characters spend a large portion of the story either literately or metaphorically "stuck at home"; they never really get a chance to go out and meet each other.
As for chatlogs, well, if it's not for you it's not for you, but I don't find them particularly timecube-y. Clever dialog is definitely one of Homestuck's selling points; characters like Dave, Karkat and Vriska are infinitely quotable in my opinion.
The website is confusing. I can't tell if I'm looking at homestuck or another comic.
This is Problem Sleuth. It's shorter, sillier, has no overarching plot and no walls of text. It's just a silly send-up of adventure games. If you enjoy it and find it funny, you'll probably love Homestuck. If you don't, well, you probably won't.
Because I don't have degree in English I don't want to get into deep argument about the quality of Homestuck's dialogue. But I'd like to state that I'm quite fond of if. In my option the dialogue holds the best humorous parts of the comic as well as being primary tool of building and exploring characters and especially their relationships.
This is Problem Sleuth. It's shorter, sillier, has no overarching plot and no walls of text. It's just a silly send-up of adventure games. If you enjoy it and find it funny, you'll probably love Homestuck. If you don't, well, you probably won't.
Essentially what open_sketchbook here is saying is that Problem Sleuth is kinda like Homestuck without Homestuck's best qualities; interesting story, deep characters and worldbuilding. Personally I feel that suggesting Problem Sleuth as a starting point for Homestuck is not only illogical, but outright a bad idea. It's not even that short.
If I were forced to recommend something kinda like Homestuck, but not Homestuck I would cheat and suggest The first intermission. It's in a way connected to the main story, but I feel that it should work as a stand alone thing. It's also relatively short and has no chatlogs.
But the biggest problem about suggesting anyone to read Homestuck is that there is no other real way to go to it than just read it and it means that one has to start with the quite horrible first act. And I can just give my gentleman's promise that it gets better later.
Problem Sleuth, however, has the same sense of humour and quirky language in a smaller package, which is why I recommend it. Moreover, it preps people for the way Act 1 is told, which will help them get through it and to the fun bits with trolls and exiles and stuff.
Problem Sleuth, however, has the same sense of humour and quirky language in a smaller package, which is why I recommend it.
Except PS lacks the dialogue based humor, which I find to be the funniest brand of humor in Homestuck. Also same thing could be said of the intermission and it's even smaller package.
Don't do it all at once. If you feel you are starting to get confused, stop and pick it up again the next day. And whatever you do, don't stop until the start of Act 4. (it's really not that long, the first three arcs are short, it's probably about a quarter of the story at this point) Act 3 is about when all the long-term parts of the story really start happening; the first three acts are essentially like the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring in that it's a long-form introduction to the world and the elements of the story.
I remember a long time ago back when Yuko was reading it, reading up to when the meteors started falling. I read about the first 100 the other day during some down time. It's alright, so far.
It sounds like the story requires that you cut it a lot of slack and just go along with the idea that things happen for basically no reason.
It can feel that way when the time shit first starts happening but after a while you start to understand the internal logic. If there is one thing Homestuck is incredible at, it's teaching you to really think about time travel. I cannot have conversations about time travel with friends who have not read Homestuck anymore.
You know that bit at the end of Bill and Ted where they go back in time and set things up to make it easier for themselves?
Homestuck is a story where there are multiple opposing sides, all of whom have that capability.
Sooo, something happened that I didn't expect to happen. I am currently reading all of Homestuck and kinda enjoying it a lot. The reason I am doing so is for research because *dundundun* I have a job working on animation for the Hiveswap game. Learning all about troll stuff, and all the craziness of this world. It's intimidating because the fans can get so intense!
My friend Angela made most of that anime! Fun story, I recommended her to Andrew for the job, because I knew her through Sparkler! She is so freakin' good!
Comments
Much of Homestuck's character interaction centers around isolation. These characters interact over thousands of words and hundreds of pages and never seem to meet face to face. As the interview says, the kid's interactions mirror what it's like to have friendships online, where the people you trust and love talking to are never seen in person. The characters spend a large portion of the story either literately or metaphorically "stuck at home"; they never really get a chance to go out and meet each other.
As for chatlogs, well, if it's not for you it's not for you, but I don't find them particularly timecube-y. Clever dialog is definitely one of Homestuck's selling points; characters like Dave, Karkat and Vriska are infinitely quotable in my opinion. http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6
That URL is the start of Homestuck. However, you might want to "test the waters" so to speak with another of the adventures.
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4
This is Problem Sleuth. It's shorter, sillier, has no overarching plot and no walls of text. It's just a silly send-up of adventure games. If you enjoy it and find it funny, you'll probably love Homestuck. If you don't, well, you probably won't.
If I were forced to recommend something kinda like Homestuck, but not Homestuck I would cheat and suggest The first intermission. It's in a way connected to the main story, but I feel that it should work as a stand alone thing. It's also relatively short and has no chatlogs.
But the biggest problem about suggesting anyone to read Homestuck is that there is no other real way to go to it than just read it and it means that one has to start with the quite horrible first act. And I can just give my gentleman's promise that it gets better later.
Wish me luck, folks.
Also, lol, love the link in the article's Reception section to effort justification.
You know that bit at the end of Bill and Ted where they go back in time and set things up to make it easier for themselves?
Homestuck is a story where there are multiple opposing sides, all of whom have that capability.
Isn't it all time-travel? So is this actually the end? Or just page N of a big loop?
Also, it became the anime it always wanted to be.
Check it out!