Bard of Long-Winded Fic

It might not just be Adventure games.  It might very easily have a lot to do with age, as well.  Homestuck was initially made for fans of Problem Sleuth, and Problem Sleuth is a bit more clearly about older games.  But both comics have a large crossover appeal: you can like PS’s absurdism, and you can like Homestuck’s characterization, plotting, use of new media, or hell, its RPG jokes (which aren’t very surprising.  I went into this for a bit before deciding I was diverging, but RPGs are practically the children of Adventure games, it’s no surprise they look so much like their parent that you could mistake them the way large portions of Homestuck’s readership seem to have accidentally done).

The trouble comes when you hit a note that was clearly meant for that initial audience, the one that knows old games, and like a Shakespeare comedy scene lost to accents and time, it just becomes so much pointless jabbering.  I wonder about the movie Airplane!: a classic, but also a parody about the disaster movie trend at the time.  How many jokes are we missing if we’re not familiar with the Interstate film series?  Are they bigger than we think?  Is Airplane a better film if you understand the parody, or should it be considered a better film by the sheer merit of having become an absurdist classic even by those of us that don’t get the joke?  Now, mind that true timelessness is essentially impossible.  In due time, like Shakespeare, Airplane! will be eroded into an artifact that only 20th century scholars and “beer thrown in face” enthusiasts will appreciate.  Thankfully, Airplane lampooned much of the film industry, and that is still within our frame-of-reference.  But it would appear Adventure games have a much smaller frame of reference, from 1976 to 1996.  So what about Homestuck, and its teenaged audience, who never picked up a controller before Pokemon Ruby and have at best only sort of heard of Myst?

As someone once said: “Why should I care about a comic that goes on for hundreds of terrible pages, accomplishing nothing, just because ‘it gets better later’?” and I thought, “You shouldn’t, but I don’t see it as terrible, and certainly not as accomplishing nothing, and I don’t understand why others not only do, but go out of their way to advertise their favourite comic so terribly.  They must really hate that act, but I don’t know why.”

Maybe this question of Adventure games, years, and intended audience is the answer.  Maybe you can’t “get” Problem Sleuth and early Homestuck if you haven’t played older games.  Maybe a gun turning into a key isn’t as funny if you haven’t dug through your inventory in Ultima VII, trying to find the one ring you need in a copy of three dozen identical others?  Maybe sylladex shenanigans aren’t as funny to someone who hasn’t seen their inventory e x p l o d e out of their pants in Planetfall because Steve Meretzky honest-to-god thought that would be realistic?  What if not having those experiences kills the joke entirely?

Like my paraphrased complaintant went on to say, a weak opening essentially kills the entire product.  So the question becomes, by whose standards do we judge weakness?  Is Homestuck weak because its early sections haven’t achieved Airplane!'s crossover appeal, or should it be judged primarily (certainly not only) in the hands of an audience that can understand the joke?

For anyone still reading along: a comparison, that comes to mind when I think of these things.  Compare any of the older livebloggers that have read this comic, and their reactions to Act 1, to Land of Boredom and Confusion’s.  Compare WTF Is Homestuck or Mousa’s ascerbic comments, or take comments from gamers like Descent into Homestuck or Treestuck, and compare them to LOBAC, who is only distinct from those others by being a 16 year old… and an Adventure Gamer.  And watch how those other livebloggers, in such a hurry to get on to “the good acts,” will trip over themselves to evacuate Act 1, before they become interested enough to talk in detail, while LOBAC is already in the ball pit… and along with the joke.

16 years of wiigii darn comics experience.

I think my primary reaction to the gigapause is one of delivery - why finish the entire comic at once when there are still subacts and one full act that could each be released on completion - even if they are just one page, or SBaHJ (actually, he probably will update SBaHJ).  It would probably roll better on the audience side then "Oh hey, remember Homestuck?" come October 25th, 2014 / April 13th 2014 / November 11th 3011 / Never. 

For anyone looking for something to do during the Gigapause, may I recommend reading Livebloggers?  Watching someone else read Homestuck, making their guesses, mistakes and setting themself up for hilarious falls down narrative stairs is an excellent exercise, also the Liveblog thread on the forums is rapidly turning into some kind of fanventure I guess.

In the meantime, this is the time for fanworks.  Creators, cons, consumers and community will be what carries the fandom through to the final superupdate.  I've seen lots of posts talking about people wanting to stay in the fandom after Homestuck ends... well, we are very nearly there, with the daily updates that had carried the fandom having been replaced with the usual traditional medium delay, and then done.  One big up date, Volume 10 released on Bandcamp, done.  So on our end, this is the trial run for the post-Homestuck fandom.

So, if there are any major fandom events or contests for creators, artists, readers, writers, viewers, cosplayers, photographers, fanventurers, rpers, etc, etc, keep it loud.  I know Land of Fans and Music 3 comes out in a few weeks, once they've got the art straightened out.  I'll be sure to reblog that once it comes out.  Maybe if the fanmusic community can keep up the content (I have no doubt they can keep up the quality) there might be a LOFAM 4, but in the meantime, I will see you all in 3011.

Unless a Liveblogger is being entertaining.

Which they will be.