Every time you guys talk about Homestuck my brain does some free association and I think about Homestar then I think about Strongbad. I miss Strongbad.
Can someone actually tell me what the fuck Homestuck is?
Homestuck is a multimedia hybrid webcomic/animation/fiction log noted for it's extremely rapid update pace and difficulty to follow story with mindbending cronology. Let me give you a short summary.
Four kids (prankster John Egbert, hipster Dave Strider, goth-ish Rose LaLonde and wierdo Jade Harley) are friends who met over the internet in a world not unlike ours, save for the inclusion of game abstractions like inventories and leveling up. The four are best friends despite massive geological separation; John lives in a California suburb with his caring father, Dave in Houston with his puppet obsessed rapping roof-ninja Bro, Rose in upstate New York engaged in passive-aggressive warfare with her Mom, and Jade on a lost island in the Pacific with her dead Grampa and her dog, which for reasons unknown has god-like powers.
On the day the story starts, it is John's birthday. He and his friends are awaiting the beta of a game called SBURB. It arrives, and each player installs it in turn; it allows you to manipulate the houses of your fellow players and place objects inside, not unlike the Sims. Using objects around their house, including the ashes of John's deceased grandmother, a crow that annoyed Dave, Rose's dead pet cat, and Jade's dog Bec, they create guides that lead them through the gameworld. However, in classic fashion, each player is sucked into the gameworld, taking their houses with them. There, they learn they must build their houses up as towers to each mystical gates while under attack by monsters. They learn they are part of a mythology involving two warring kingdoms, and that Earth has already been destroyed by meteors upon their exit, and now they must fulfill a higher purpose as heroes of aspect; John controls wind, Dave can travel through time, Rose becomes a seer and Jade can manipulate space. Shenanigans occur; Dave becomes his own spirit guide through time travel, Rose writes a GameFAQs, John creates himself, his friends and their guardians as babies and sends them back in time to become themselves. It's all very silly.
So they start playing this game, adventuring across Spore-like miniature planets doing quests and ascending to god-like immortal powers. However, their game is falling apart at the seams, because something has gone terribly wrong; a random NPC was accidentally gifted with incredible power and is now tearing the world apart, preventing them from winning. At the same time, the kids are being pestered by Trolls in their chat clients.
The Trolls are eventually revealed to be actual aliens, not from another planet, but from another universe. The trolls are 12 kids not unlike the 4 kids we know, but from a brutal, totalitarian society. Their most notable feature is that they have a very weird sense of romance, involving four different sorts of romance. They also have a caste system based on the colour of their blood. Their leader, Karkat, is a mutant with the same sort of red blood as humans, and the rest occupy a rainbow spectrum. It's kinda crazy.
The purpose of the game is revealed; it is essentially the reproductive system of cosmos, destroying life in one universe and creating the next. The trolls won their game and created our universe, but were prevented from claiming the ultimate prize, which is moving into our universe and ruling it as gods, because at the very end of their game the NPC of godlike power, Jack Noir, showed up at the final room and destroyed it, forcing them to squat in the shattered remains of their game and essentially wait for death, which is taking it's toll on their psyches.
However, they have discovered the kids through time shenanigans and, as they exist outside of the flow of time in our universe, can talk to them at any time. They start antogonistically, blaming them for the events that lead to them losing. However, the trolls and kids quickly become friends, and they hatch a plan which, through stable time loops, both cause and solve all their problems, allowing them to escape from their respective games while resetting the human game from scratch to try again. This plan is hatched with the manipulations of Doc Scratch, the right hand man of a terrible demon known as Lord English whose machinations are ultimately responsible for all the problems of both the kid's and troll's universes. They must wait three long years to make it to the new reset universe, but surely they can hold it together until then?
The reset changes the initial conditions of our universe. In the new, reset human universe, the kids and their guardians have swapped places, so we've got 15 year old versions of John's grandmother, Jade's grandfather, Rose's Mom and Dave's Bro running around. These are Jane Crocker, Jake English, Roxy Lalonde and Dirk Strider, respectively. The story almost seems to start over, but things are quickly revealed to have already gone off the rails; the Troll's empress, a terrible alien dictator, has also escaped to Earth and is lying in wait to take over. Not only that, we soon find out that Roxy and Dirk actually live far into the future, after the alien takeover; they are talking to Jane and Jake through a system not unlike the troll's time-hopping chat system. These kids also have a version of SBURB called SBURB Alpha, and so they start their game up in much the same way. However, their game is quite broken and the worlds they are supposed to adventure in are quite dead. Hope is not lost, however, as the original kids and trolls are coming to help and are bringing the tools needed to breath live back into their game. However,Jack Noir has also escaped, the Lord English is hot on all their heels...
I think Homestuck is the future of webcomics. I don't like it because it's rough and unpolished, but the way it uses flash to make sequential art interactive will be the only thing we call a "webcomic" and things like Penny Arcade and xkcd will be called "comics that happen to be online".
I think Homestuck is the future of webcomics. I don't like it because it's rough and unpolished, but the way it uses flash to make sequential art interactive will be the only thing we call a "webcomic" and things like Penny Arcade and xkcd will be called "comics that happen to be online".
In this scenario where does the line between "webcomic" and "comic that happen to be online" lie? Any use of animation/music? Then Penny Arcade would still be webcomic. (At least it used to be.) Just because some works use the medium more, doesn't make more traditional comics with pictures and speech bubbles any less valid.
I think Homestuck is the future of webcomics. I don't like it because it's rough and unpolished, but the way it uses flash to make sequential art interactive will be the only thing we call a "webcomic" and things like Penny Arcade and xkcd will be called "comics that happen to be online".
I think Homestuck is the future of webcomics. I don't like it because it's rough and unpolished, but the way it uses flash to make sequential art interactive will be the only thing we call a "webcomic" and things like Penny Arcade and xkcd will be called "comics that happen to be online".
As a cashier, I just want to throw in that cash is a huge pain in the ass and I hate you if you use it. 9 times out if 10, it's some semi-crazy person who thinks credit cards are evil beings that jump out of your wallet and force you to buy stupid shit.
As a cashier, I just want to throw in that cash is a huge pain in the ass and I hate you if you use it. 9 times out if 10, it's some semi-crazy person who thinks credit cards are evil beings that jump out of your wallet and force you to buy stupid shit.
Speaking as someone who turned 18 well before check cards existed: boo freaking hoo.
As a cashier, I just want to throw in that cash is a huge pain in the ass and I hate you if you use it. 9 times out if 10, it's some semi-crazy person who thinks credit cards are evil beings that jump out of your wallet and force you to buy stupid shit.
Speaking as someone who turned 18 well before check cards existed: boo freaking hoo.
Speaking as someone who was 18 around 2003: boo freeking hoo as well. Now checks...fuck checks. >_<
As a cashier, I just want to throw in that cash is a huge pain in the ass and I hate you if you use it. 9 times out if 10, it's some semi-crazy person who thinks credit cards are evil beings that jump out of your wallet and force you to buy stupid shit.
Speaking as someone who turned 18 well before check cards existed: boo freaking hoo.
Speaking as someone who was 18 around 2003: boo freeking hoo as well. Now checks...fuck checks. >_<</p>
As someone who turned 18 in 2003 as well, boo hook to your boo hook.
As a cashier, I just want to throw in that cash is a huge pain in the ass and I hate you if you use it. 9 times out if 10, it's some semi-crazy person who thinks credit cards are evil beings that jump out of your wallet and force you to buy stupid shit.
Speaking as someone who turned 18 well before check cards existed: boo freaking hoo.
Speaking as someone who was 18 around 2003: boo freeking hoo as well. Now checks...fuck checks. >_<</p>
no, no, you've got it all wrong. I'm STILL waiting for my Wells Fargo wagon.
I paid for groceries with a chec. well before debit cards were taken in any stores. It was slow but nobody noticed because we weren't in such a pointless hurry all the time back then. I prefer the sedateness to the current convenience. And your bank didn't know where you were every second of the day, to boot. I was a clerk in a supermarket, too. Wasn't so bad. Now it's rush rush every second frantic panic to hurry up and be done regardless of whether you have plans or not. Bad culture change is bad.
I'm home for the week before uni starts up again. I live in the sticks; < 4000 people, >=70 churches. I was in the grocery store for two things and was utterly flabbergasted when I saw three different people (all old) paying with checks.
Fuck checks. They're for rent because it costs money otherwise and nothing else.
When I worked retail 99.9% of people paying with checks were over the age of 60 (probably even older) and they were often bewildered when we ran the check through the machine and handed it back to them.
C'mon, Jared, you should know better [than to play Marvel Avengers Alliance
To be fair, Avengers Alliance is at least actually a game, in the sense that Final Fantasy is actually a game. Not the greatest one, or even a particularly good one, but it's actually a game by the casual definition.
Comments
Four kids (prankster John Egbert, hipster Dave Strider, goth-ish Rose LaLonde and wierdo Jade Harley) are friends who met over the internet in a world not unlike ours, save for the inclusion of game abstractions like inventories and leveling up. The four are best friends despite massive geological separation; John lives in a California suburb with his caring father, Dave in Houston with his puppet obsessed rapping roof-ninja Bro, Rose in upstate New York engaged in passive-aggressive warfare with her Mom, and Jade on a lost island in the Pacific with her dead Grampa and her dog, which for reasons unknown has god-like powers.
On the day the story starts, it is John's birthday. He and his friends are awaiting the beta of a game called SBURB. It arrives, and each player installs it in turn; it allows you to manipulate the houses of your fellow players and place objects inside, not unlike the Sims. Using objects around their house, including the ashes of John's deceased grandmother, a crow that annoyed Dave, Rose's dead pet cat, and Jade's dog Bec, they create guides that lead them through the gameworld. However, in classic fashion, each player is sucked into the gameworld, taking their houses with them. There, they learn they must build their houses up as towers to each mystical gates while under attack by monsters. They learn they are part of a mythology involving two warring kingdoms, and that Earth has already been destroyed by meteors upon their exit, and now they must fulfill a higher purpose as heroes of aspect; John controls wind, Dave can travel through time, Rose becomes a seer and Jade can manipulate space. Shenanigans occur; Dave becomes his own spirit guide through time travel, Rose writes a GameFAQs, John creates himself, his friends and their guardians as babies and sends them back in time to become themselves. It's all very silly.
So they start playing this game, adventuring across Spore-like miniature planets doing quests and ascending to god-like immortal powers. However, their game is falling apart at the seams, because something has gone terribly wrong; a random NPC was accidentally gifted with incredible power and is now tearing the world apart, preventing them from winning. At the same time, the kids are being pestered by Trolls in their chat clients.
The Trolls are eventually revealed to be actual aliens, not from another planet, but from another universe. The trolls are 12 kids not unlike the 4 kids we know, but from a brutal, totalitarian society. Their most notable feature is that they have a very weird sense of romance, involving four different sorts of romance. They also have a caste system based on the colour of their blood. Their leader, Karkat, is a mutant with the same sort of red blood as humans, and the rest occupy a rainbow spectrum. It's kinda crazy.
The purpose of the game is revealed; it is essentially the reproductive system of cosmos, destroying life in one universe and creating the next. The trolls won their game and created our universe, but were prevented from claiming the ultimate prize, which is moving into our universe and ruling it as gods, because at the very end of their game the NPC of godlike power, Jack Noir, showed up at the final room and destroyed it, forcing them to squat in the shattered remains of their game and essentially wait for death, which is taking it's toll on their psyches.
However, they have discovered the kids through time shenanigans and, as they exist outside of the flow of time in our universe, can talk to them at any time. They start antogonistically, blaming them for the events that lead to them losing. However, the trolls and kids quickly become friends, and they hatch a plan which, through stable time loops, both cause and solve all their problems, allowing them to escape from their respective games while resetting the human game from scratch to try again. This plan is hatched with the manipulations of Doc Scratch, the right hand man of a terrible demon known as Lord English whose machinations are ultimately responsible for all the problems of both the kid's and troll's universes. They must wait three long years to make it to the new reset universe, but surely they can hold it together until then?
The reset changes the initial conditions of our universe. In the new, reset human universe, the kids and their guardians have swapped places, so we've got 15 year old versions of John's grandmother, Jade's grandfather, Rose's Mom and Dave's Bro running around. These are Jane Crocker, Jake English, Roxy Lalonde and Dirk Strider, respectively. The story almost seems to start over, but things are quickly revealed to have already gone off the rails; the Troll's empress, a terrible alien dictator, has also escaped to Earth and is lying in wait to take over. Not only that, we soon find out that Roxy and Dirk actually live far into the future, after the alien takeover; they are talking to Jane and Jake through a system not unlike the troll's time-hopping chat system. These kids also have a version of SBURB called SBURB Alpha, and so they start their game up in much the same way. However, their game is quite broken and the worlds they are supposed to adventure in are quite dead. Hope is not lost, however, as the original kids and trolls are coming to help and are bringing the tools needed to breath live back into their game. However,Jack Noir has also escaped, the Lord English is hot on all their heels...
AND THATS HOMESTUCK SO FAR.
I'll keep plugging away at my debt because the divorce was worth it!
Fuck checks. They're for rent because it costs money otherwise and nothing else.