Things read lately

[sholio]

So I read this summary of the new Homestuck epilogue and ... wow, okay, that is definitely a thing that exists in the world. I'm glad I didn't attempt to read the actual epilogue itself with my very own eyeballs (fortunately I'd already been warned away) and also somewhat selfishly glad that Homestuck isn't really a thing I'm still into, because that is a seriously sucky thing for a canon to do to you. Poor Homestuck fans.

I guess it's not that much of a shock that it ended on a note of pure disaster, because the author has clearly always enjoyed trolling his readers, but back in the day, the comic also had a lot of touching and heartfelt and genuinely epic moments, and now it's ... that. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a series torpedoed so thoroughly by its own creator, as opposed to being brought down by stupid editorial decisions and the like.

On a happier note, I have also read the next two Taltos books over the last week or two. Mini book reports follow:

Athyra: I really loved this! The outside POV on Vlad is fantastic, as is getting to see more of the day-to-day lives of Teckla and of Dragaerans outside the city, and I loved Savn and his sister. I really can't get over how much I adore Vlad and his general inability not to get attached to people even when he's trying to use them for his own ends. I was not expecting the book to end on such a downer note, though.

Orca: This wasn't a bad book, and it had some good character beats and a bit of thinky stuff, but I didn't really find the plot that engaging (there's only so much you can get into a plot about bankers and loan fraud). That sure was a pile of revelations that fell on our heads in the last chapter, though, wasn't it?

I don't know how I feel about Keira being Sethra. That is one damn big reveal and it comes a little too close to the ~your entire life is a giant conspiracy!~ thing that some canons do, which I'm not fond of (see also: River Song's life story). I also find Sethra, as a character, extremely difficult to get a handle on, so that doesn't help.

This does suggest that Morrolan having god blood is going to be important somehow in the future. I mean, I didn't think it was going to be dropped entirely as a plot thread, but if Sethra and the goddess set the whole thing up on purpose, there's got to be a reason for that.

And as if that wasn't enough, there's a sudden!surprise!baby!

I do love the unreliable-narrator aspect of this book, with neither Vlad nor Kiera/Sethra tipping their hand entirely to either each other or the reader (or, in Sethra's case, to Cawti either). I also love how many things become suddenly important in retrospect, like the opening lines about disguises, or Kiera preferring to write letters rather than making psychic contact, even the irony of Cawti talking about Kiera not telling her everything when those Cawti-Kiera interludes are also concealing something really huge.

Comments

[yhlee]

i am not a homestuck reader and i don't care about spoilers. dare i ask what happened?

[sholio]

The extremely short summary is that there are now multiple timelines which all involve different flavors of Worst Possible Endings - most of the cast are either evil for no reason, dead in the trolliest ways possible, or trapped in incredibly fucked-up relationships with people who are terrible for them and being horrendous parents and/or wildly OOC in various other ways.

In fairness, the entire comic was, at times, an exercise in trolling its readership, but it sounds like the creator pretty much just dropped a piano on the characterization of every single character, on purpose.

[yhlee]

omg wow, that takes balls.

...dare i ask how the fandom is reacting?? like, is this a fandom that expects to roll with this kidn of thing, or are people mad/traumatized/???

[sholio]

I've seen a couple of personal reactions from people who are upset, annoyed, and resolving to ignore the epilogue, which isn't actually THAT hard in this fandom because it's one of the ones where there's a lot of extra-canonical canon anyway, and I think that's really the only thing you can do. The fandom as a whole was always a flaming dumpster fire and probably isn't any less of one now.

[rachelmanija]

Um, wow. Oh dear.

[sholio]

I can't even really do justice to it. I'm just going to grab a random sentence out of the summary to give you an idea:

Also 16-year-old Vriska fucks 40-year-old Gamzee and is so embarrassed about it that she kills him.

Now imagine that the epilogue consists of 200,000 words of this kind of thing happening. Which as far as I can tell is basically what it's like.

[rachelmanija]

Whaaaat? I mean all I know is they are both main characters but even so...

[sholio]

Knowing any more about them doesn't really help.

[sheron]

most of the cast are either evil for no reason, dead in the trolliest ways possible, or trapped in incredibly fucked-up relationships with people who are terrible for them and being horrendous parents and/or wildly OOC in various other ways

D:

[rachelmanija]

I found Orca kind of dull as a book but I have to hand it to that one for the completely OMGWTFBBQ spoiler. I'm still kind of "bzuh?" about it to tell you the truth.

I really love Athyra but yeah, very very dark ending.

[sholio]

Yeah, as a book Orca didn't engage me all that much, though looking back on it I keep thinking of things I really enjoyed (the old lady and Vlad's bickering with her; Vlad carrying an injured Loiosh under his cloak). But the plot was just kind of meh for me.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that reveal. It was ... a lot. And it recontextualizes a bunch of things.

This is also making me realize that I haven't been trying to avoid spoilers for the series in particular - I mean, not that I'm seeking them out, but I did read a bit of fanfic (not just yours), and the like. I should maybe be more careful about it, because I hadn't hit spoilers for either of the major reveals in this book, but this has made me realize that this series does have some big twists that are more fun if you don't see them coming.

[rachelmanija]

That was the biggest twist that I've hit, IMO, but there's definitely more stuff coming up that I wouldn't want to be spoiled for.

Would love links to any fic you enjoyed!

[ambyr]

My favorite thing about Orca is that, having read it, you can go back and read every previous book and see the reveal glaringly signposted. I like it when authors play fair, when their twists are properly forshadowed.

[sholio]

Oooh, really? I'll have to go back and look for that! I hadn't realized that it was signposted at all - it completely took me by surprise.

I am currently a couple of chapters into Dragon and am realizing that aside from Loiosh (okay, and Kragar) I think Morrolan is the other character whose interactions with Vlad I enjoy the most, especially early on when they're still actively driving each other bonkers. Every conversation of theirs is basically comedy gold.

[sovay]

the new Homestuck epilogue

I had thought Homestuck ended years ago, so I guess I am even more out of the loop than I thought.

[sholio]

It did! So basically it came back with an epilogue to the original epilogue, years later. Which in many at least some canons would be good news, but not in this case.

[sovay]

So basically it came back with an epilogue to the original epilogue, years later.

Just to joss itself? That's an interesting artistic decision.

[yhlee]

i admit i found the kiera = sethra lavode reveal to be too wtf and it was probably around then that i started drifting away from the vlad books, although i think it was a later development where i gave up.

[sholio]

Yeah, I am kind of "..... ?" about that reveal, still. It recontextualizes everything in such a weird way.

[yhlee]

i've definitely heard that it's hinted if you go back and reread the earlier books with that knowledge, but to be honest, it's a lot of books and i have other things i want to read...

[aroberuka]

i read homestuck for the first time last year and this was not enough time for me to get over it so watching all this unfold has certainly been A Thing :|

on the plus side thank you for that link bc that's the first time i see someone even do so much as acknowledge jane instead of focusing entirely on dirk, and the op has some theories/explanations re the candy side of things that actually make the whole thing a bit easier to digest.

[sholio]

Awwww, I'm sorry you got this dumped on you in your shiny new fandom. :/ It's such a weird choice to make, on every level.

I think reading the summary was a lot easier for me to take than actually trying to deal with the text itself.

[aroberuka]

the prologue (bc yes, of course, the epilogue has a prologue, why wouldn't it) was both short and pretty interesting so i let myself be lulled into a sense of false security, and then it was like

"sir? sir this is my brand new favourite friendship you're carrying, sir, sir i'm not done with it yet could you please put it b--oh, oh one of them's dead and the other one is both a domestic abuser & a fascist dictator now, okay then :|"

at least the whole thing has been explicitly framed as dubiously canon so there's that.

[schneefink]

I haven't followed Homestuck in years but I'm still sad about how terrible the ending sounds. I have some very good memories of reading Homestuck, it had some great characters and storylines and great CMOAs, [S]Cascade in particular was a fantastic experience, and I'm sad that I can't rec it to others anymore and barely want to reread the good parts. There was some very good fic as well, and art, and vids (fortunately I usually managed to keep out of the wanky parts of fandom.)

[sholio]

Yeah, that's the frustrating thing about it - there were some parts that were really fantastic! And parts that weren't ... but a lot of canons are like that, and the good parts were really good. It's really sad that he seems to have decided to burn everything down for no apparent reason.

[alessandriana]

...wow. Is Hussie okay? Like, sincere question. He's always been a troll but not, I didn't think, quite that much of a troll. I think I'll let Homestuck have ended on Act 7.


*shields eyes from Taltos spoilers* I'm on the 4th book and enjoying it!

[sholio]

Oh wonderful, I'm so happy you're enjoying! :D Book 4 is Taltos, right? (If I'm counting correctly.) That was one of my faves.

ETA: I kind of wondered the same thing. It does feel like the kind of "BURN IT AAAALLL" mood that creators get into when they're going through something rough. Though most people don't devote months of intensive effort to actually burning it all.

[alessandriana]

Yup, Taltos! I just finished it and quite enjoyed it. It's nice finally getting some more of the backstory between him, Morrolan & Aliera. (Also, hilariously, I realized on reading it that one of my favorite h/c re-reads had gotten its title from a sentence in the last chapter. :p)

Yeah... I mean, Hussie has always been insanely prolific, so 200k is probably not as much effort for him as it is for normal people, but still. :| If that's the case, I hope things get better for him...?