how well would you say homestuck's holding up overall reading it all at once? the experience seems pretty different from reading it as it updated, for better or worse
it is pretty enjoyable sometimes but i dont feel that enthused about it i guess? like its ok but im not "a homestuck" now and i probably wouldnt recommend it to other people. but i think thats just because the style of storytelling doesnt fully click with me, rather than because im reading it in large chunks
it feels kind of tiring to read, i guess maybe because of how complicated it is and how it jumps back and forth between different plot threads and timelines constantly and how slowly the plot(s?) seem(s?) to advance. i think the parts that drag the most are when new characters are being introduced & the old characters get basically abandoned for a while
there are certain parts of the comic where a lot of cool stuff happens pretty quickly & i think those would be really fun to read as they updated (if the update schedule was reasonable) 4 example in act 5 act 2 when a few of the trolls go bonkers and start doing a lot of murders, that was good. but im pretty sure if i tried to read it back in the day i wouldve lost interest during one of the parts thats just slow worldbuilding/character dev as setup for later cool stuff
one thing thats bad about reading it now is there are a lot of parts that seem to be deliberately confusing or vague to fuel speculation, like for ex4ample, i mentioned earlier i dont really get whats happening in the big epic flash animations a lot of the time. it would be fun if i could read fan theories about those but thats impossible now, ill just get spoilers
also the parts where u play a little flash game were probably a lot more fun for update-readers since the whole fanbase would have time to play it and look for cool secrets and stuff. for me they were kinda annoying because i wanted to move on with the story but i didnt want to miss anything important so i felt like i had to spend a lot of time exploring them thoroughly. it seems like the last few ive encountered had definite endings though, whereas some of the early ones didnt (i think?) so i wasnt sure when to stop playing them & that made things worse
ive still got 3000+ pages to read but overall....... i think kid radd is better :honeydew:
how well would you say homestuck's holding up overall reading it all at once? the experience seems pretty different from reading it as it updated, for better or worse
it is pretty enjoyable sometimes but i dont feel that enthused about it i guess? like its ok but im not "a homestuck" now and i probably wouldnt recommend it to other people. but i think thats just because the style of storytelling doesnt fully click with me, rather than because im reading it in large chunks
it feels kind of tiring to read, i guess maybe because of how complicated it is and how it jumps back and forth between different plot threads and timelines constantly and how slowly the plot(s?) seem(s?) to advance. i think the parts that drag the most are when new characters are being introduced & the old characters get basically abandoned for a while
there are certain parts of the comic where a lot of cool stuff happens pretty quickly & i think those would be really fun to read as they updated (if the update schedule was reasonable) 4 example in act 5 act 2 when a few of the trolls go bonkers and start doing a lot of murders, that was good. but im pretty sure if i tried to read it back in the day i wouldve lost interest during one of the parts thats just slow worldbuilding/character dev as setup for later cool stuff
one thing thats bad about reading it now is there are a lot of parts that seem to be deliberately confusing or vague to fuel speculation, like for ex4ample, i mentioned earlier i dont really get whats happening in the big epic flash animations a lot of the time. it would be fun if i could read fan theories about those but thats impossible now, ill just get spoilers
also the parts where u play a little flash game were probably a lot more fun for update-readers since the whole fanbase would have time to play it and look for cool secrets and stuff. for me they were kinda annoying because i wanted to move on with the story but i didnt want to miss anything important so i felt like i had to spend a lot of time exploring them thoroughly. it seems like the last few ive encountered had definite endings though, whereas some of the early ones didnt (i think?) so i wasnt sure when to stop playing them & that made things worse
ive still got 3000+ pages to read but overall....... i think kid radd is better :honeydew:
to add to this, i think the way character development is done is kinda both the best and worst part of this comic.... like im on act 6 act 5 now and im starting to really like the new kids & im actually getting into the whole romance drama thing going on between them, even though when they were introduced i was like "ugh time for 500 pages of conversations between ppl i dont care about" but also i dont know if i would like them as much if there wasnt so much time and effort spent on building up their personalities......
like when its focusing on characters i dont care about its a huge slog to read (obviously....) but it seems i usually start to care about em eventually & then it gets pretty good. i guess participating in a super enthusiastic fandom helps u get more into the characters so thats probably another big disadvantage to reading it after its over
ending thoughts
i felt like it didnt really tie everything up that well but the animation was really pretty and it was cute. it was very nice 2 see everyone who survived being happy in the new universe!!!
those were my immediate feelings after watching it but now im reading fan reactions & i guess its tru that the ending kinda sucks. but i think i dont mind because i usually didnt get that invested in the mysteries of the story. i was too busy reading to think about them that much so i would usually just go "oh i guess this is either unimportant or will make sense later" and forget about em. so i cant even think of many things that i care about the answers to which werent addressed by the ending (the main one is "what exactly happened to lord english" but w/e im just going to assume he was perma killed by house magic)
oh i guess another thing i didnt think of until reading fanthoughts is its sad that it seems like they didnt manage to stop the whole life cycle of sburb sessions and universe creations and stuff (i dont know how to describe it??). they just won their session and went to a new universe but its not rly clear that theres anything special about the new universe that would prevent ppl from playing the meteor death video game and ruining everything :((
i really liked the characters a lot in the end even though their introductions were the most tedious parts of the comic for me. near the end before all the actiony shit goes down theres a fairly long section thats just nothing but all the characters having personal conversations with each other & i loved it..... i have mixed feelings about the home stuck experience over all but i am glad i met all these new fictional friends!! (i wish nepeta had a bigger role tho.....)