#ive just been drowning in the new patch and story and weeping

[delicteflowr]

I know I’ve been a bit MIA outta nowhere once again but works been draininf, been fighting a nasty cold and playing FFXIV religiously for the Eden raids and such.

So I share my gal Ophilia :> Here she is.

[thewebcomicsreview]

hussie said a thing abt the epilogues reddit. com/r/homestuck/comments/cuywff/the_homestuck_epilogues_bridges_and_offramps_new/

I also think many of the negative feelings the story creates isn’t just an urgent prompt for the reader to imagine different ideas, or ways to resolve the new narrative dilemmas. It’s also an opportunity for people to discuss any of the difficult content critically, and for fandom in general to continue developing the tools for processing the negative emotions art can generate. Sorting that out has to be a communal experience, and it’s an important part of the cycle between creating and criticizing art. I think not only can creators develop their skills to create better things by practicing and taking certain risks, fandom is something which can develop better skills as well. Skills like critical discussion, dealing constructively with negative feelings resulting from the media they consume, interacting with each other in more meaningful ways, and trying to understand different points of view outside of the factions within fandom that can become very hardened over time. Fandoms everywhere tend to get bad reputations for various reasons, maybe justifiably. But I don’t see why it can’t be an objective to try to improve fandom, just as creators can improve their work. And I think this can only happen if now and then fandoms are seriously challenged, by being encouraged to think about complex ideas, and made to feel difficult emotions. I believe when art creates certain kinds of negative feelings in people, it can lead to some of the most transformative experiences art has to offer. But it helps to be receptive to this idea for these experiences to have a positive net effect on your life, and your relationship with art.

Christ, he’s gone full Lennon. Imagine a good ending. I wonder if you can.

So, I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the most transformative art has ever been for me was a comic that actually started on the Homestuck forums

Prequel - Or - Making The Cat Cry: The Adventure - is a comic written by Kazared loosely based on the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It’s about a Khajiit girl named Katia who moves to OblivionLand to make a new life for herself, and the comic spent years building Katia up to bigger and bigger heights so that every time she crashed she crashed harder than ever before. The second time she relapses into alcoholism is where a lot of readers give up on the comic for being misery porn.

There’s a point where she she’s solved all her problems and even gets to join the mages guild - her lifelong dream - only for the woman running the Kvatch mage guild to mild control her into giving up all her stuff, including the stuff important to Katia’s only friend.  Katia is left naked on the streets literally digging through trash in the vain hope of trying to find a solution to at least one of her problems. And what she finds is a bottle of beer.

Twice already in this comic Katia hit a really bad patch and started drinking again. The comic has twice made us root for Katia to succeed, only to jump cut to her waking up in a stranger’s bed with no memory of what happened. 

She wanders into an empty church (OBVIOUS SYMBOLISM ALERT), and alternates between trying to find some supplies and fantasizing about everything magically getting fixed, which slowly morphs into fantasizing about drinking while getting increasingly furious at barrels for not having clothes in them.

One thing. You wanted one thing and you were too much of a fucking idiot to realize it was hopeless and pointless and bound to ruin everything. Stuck on some childish idea that you could be anything, do anything, and just be some selfish bitch that’s never happy with what she has. Fuck, you don’t even know what you’re mad at anymore, you just hate yourself and everything you ever ruined for yourself and everyone and want to stop thinking about what a worthless mindless thoughtless imbecile you are. You just want to stop fucking thinking about it.

You drop onto the chapel floor and just cry. You cry and cry because you’re stupid and easy and can’t fix anything no matter how hard you try. You cry because your best is worse than everyone else’s average. You cry because your parents never loved you and you’re a disappointment to everyone, even yourself. You cry because all you wanted was to be someone and that’s never going to happen. And when that’s done, you cry a little more because you’re ashamed of being such a crybaby.

You try to get all the emotions out, try to clear your mind and maybe, just maybe feel ready to tackle the night ahead of you, feel as though this is the time you finally turn things around. But no matter how hard you try, how hard you weep and bawl and try to get it all out, you’re still just a fuckup. No matter what you try, that knowledge is still there, gripping onto your every thought and reminding you that things are never going to change.

You’re not strong. You’re not a hero. You’re not even worthy of the name Katia Managan. You’re sad and angry and nothing makes sense, but you know this is probably the clearest your head is going to get.

Someday, things are going to get better. Someday, you are going to fight and persevere and everything will feel great. You think.But for now, you know what you have to do.

And at the very least, there is no way you could possibly make yourself feel any worse.

Katia, for the first time, manages to avoid drowning drinking. She overcomes her issues. And you know what happens next?

She accidentally sets the church on fire, because this is still Prequel. She passes out from smoke inhalation, and then there’s….

this, and then she wakes up and reflects on her managing to stay on the wagon.

Honestly, you just feel… kind of numb.

You fucked up. You lost everything you earned, were discarded by the people you looked up to most, gave away the package you were supposed to be delivering to pay your friend back, completely lost control of your powers, and after passing out naked in a church have probably ruined any chance you might have had at a good reputation in Kvatch. You were a wreck last night when this was all happening, but now… you guess it just feels like you’ve run out of sad. You’re just confused.

Personally, I think this stuff is way darker than anything that happens in the Homestuck Epilogues, which is mostly just over-the-top Warhammer 40k grimderp. This shit got to me, man. And around the time this is happening in the comic, I lost my job. And as the storyline continued past this point, I kept applying for jobs and getting turned down, and it started to really wear on me, I felt I had no useful skills, since my old job was supporting software that only that company used because they made it. Much like Katia got into great positions only to fail, I walked out of interviews thinking I’d aced it only to get turned down, while Katia kept making two-steps-forward-one-step-back advances and not really getting any closer to solving any of her issues. And one day, about six weeks into joblessless and starting to get into serious depression over it, I got two “Thanks but no thanks” calls from places I was feeling good about back to back, and I was just done. 10am and I was going to go into my room and lie down on the floor all day but first Prequel updated so I guess I’ll check it real quick oh hey a flash

This puzzle took me like 20 tries, I’m no good at them. Aggy ran out of inspiring dialogue and started looping. And if you’re not in the right mindset, in the right place, this probably doesn’t seem like much. But right there, a month and a half into unemployment, doing that stupid fucking jumping jumpy peg thing while a ghost cheered me on was life-changing. I was so fucking jazzed when I got it, I was fired up! I was so fired up I tabled my “lie on the floor all day in despair” plan, and started applying for a bunch of jobs. A few of those jobs called me back. One hired me. I still work there now. I always liked webcomics but Aggy Extrapolate is the reason I make them. Because good art is powerful. Good art changes lives, maybe even saves them. And it doesn’t need to be happy to do it, Katia still hasn’t succeeded at her goals (in part because Prequel updates at a rate Dresden Codak would make fun of).

What the hell did the Homestuck Epilogues do, by comparison? What’s the positive net effect on my life, or my interaction with art? “Sometimes things you like are bad”? Shit, man, I already knew that, I’m into wrestling. How is “John recognizes Terezi’s jizz on his dad’s car” supposed to make me a better person, exactly? Do you really think the problem with fandoms is that they’re not angry enough? Are you high, Andrew Hussie?