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Perhaps an argument for the concept of the whole forming the narrative, Platonic concept, but more as a generalist measure than the specifics of characterization? Post-Retcon Dave is part of the Ur-Dave, and it informs us about him, but doesn't define him. I feel this was more Davesprite's line of reasoning. It's a bit like the idea that free will is an illusion, and if another human were to be raised exactly in my circumstances to my parents, they would turn out the same as me. Plugging all that data into a supercomputer will determine that I will soon hit post on a wanky post on a dying internet forum about a webcomic with a bad ending, but still offers little in the way of the individual. We can assume from the gaggle of Daves we saw that he will act aloof, but we cannot predict the specific nuances.
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Nov 6, 2016 16:14
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| # ? May 31, 2024 19:56 |
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Cat Mattress posted:Meteorghazi "THE GREAT THING ABOuT BEING A MASTER CLASS IS YOu CAN JuST WALK uP TO WHATEVER DISGuSTING FEMALE YOu WANT JuST HuG HER." "IT WAS JuST SARSWAPOGuS TALK"
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Nov 6, 2016 17:22
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now it's time to play 'trump or caliborn' someone get the chatlog with jane
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Nov 6, 2016 17:36
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The problem with the whole "all characters are just parts of a larger whole" thing is that the story tries to have it's cake and eat it too; and by that I mean it tries to play up the tragedy of alternate selves dying while simultaneously treating it like it's no big deal. For example, the first time we see Lord English blasting ghosts in the furthest ring, which is pretty horrifying because he's hurting thousands upon thousands of people. Except it turns out no one gives a gently caress about those ghosts and if they're just fragments of a larger whole why does it matter if they're destroyed, so that sort of dampens the horror of watching them die. Another example, Rose dies in Roxy's arms and her death is played for drama. But then Roxy just jumps to a new and meets a new Rose, and also the Roxy of this timeline is murdered by Jane but who cares about how Jane cares about killing her friend (because Jane doesn't matter no matter what timeline we're in). One final example (of many) is Davesprite and his whole, well, everything. Davesprite is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, portrayed as a different character than Dave. He has his one problems and psychological issues that are separate from the other Dave. And how are these issues resolved? At the last minute in the story his personality is changed through magic and then he spouts of some bullshit philosophy which contradicts everything his character has previously been about and then dies (or maybe he doesn't, either way he's out of the story forever). So yeah, the multiple selves being parts of a greater whole thing is an interesting idea, but it doesn't feel earned with the way the story is written.
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Nov 6, 2016 17:58
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The problem with it is that it's dumb af.
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Nov 6, 2016 18:00
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Man, I wish 
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Nov 6, 2016 18:15
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tangentially related: tensei is running an indigogo campaign for a second strife album + stretch goal for an unrelated noir-genre album
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Nov 6, 2016 18:53
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Since I now basically treat this as an offshoot Undertale thread, Toby's music is now being covered by MGS3 composer Norihiko Hibono, of all people. The genre? Jazz so smooth a fly couldn't stick to it.
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Nov 6, 2016 19:38
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:The problem with the whole "all characters are just parts of a larger whole" thing is that the story tries to have it's cake and eat it too; and by that I mean it tries to play up the tragedy of alternate selves dying while simultaneously treating it like it's no big deal. I think maybe you're reading "greater whole" differently from how the story is delivering it. The idea is that all of a character's alternate selves are connected on a level that can be tapped into with sufficient Mind/Heart/sprite squared powers, and that each of a character's alternate selves tells you, the reader, something important about that character. There isn't a vast, literal MegaDave that any individual dead Dave dying chips a little bit of hit points off, nor is the implication that alternate selves "don't matter". Rather the story suggests that each person can only be fully understood by looking at what they'd do in a variety of circumstances, and that iterations of the same person across timelines are linked in a way that is impossible to access without special abilities. Terezi is capable of remembering her pre-retcon self's life by using her Mind powers in a moment of apotheosis, and Davepeta and Jasprose can access the memories and experiences of all iterations of their component characters thanks to their enhanced sprite powers. It's implied, between some of the stuff Davepeta says and the provenance of Brain Ghost Dirk, that Heart powers (since it's the aspect of the self) can perform a similar role as well. And long before this idea was explicitly introduced, we had the Sufferer and Alpha Rose, both the adult alternate selves of Seer players, having visions from their alternate lives that informed their rebellions against the Condesce. So even the slightly more trippy "cosmic connection" stuff has been around for a while in the story. It isn't any more complex than that though. It's purely shared access to a subconscious level of experience, and information for the reader (or in-story observer) about the character's nature when taken as a whole. It doesn't mean that alternate selves dying matters any less than it already did. It also doesn't mean that Davesprite isn't meant to be his own character - it's just that he's also a version of Dave, just like AR is a version of Dirk despite being in many ways very different from him. Similarly, Davesprite's transformation into Davepeta mirrors AR's into Arquius. They are both able to escape their self-loathing and existential doubt by shedding the "Dave/Dirk" identity almost entirely. "Being Dave" becomes one small part of Davepeta's total identity, and this satisfies the entity that used to be Davesprite's doubt and anxiety about their role as the left over, third wheel, "spare" Dave who all his friends don't like quite as much, because they're no longer invested in being that person. That may not be a conclusion to the Davesprite arc that satisfies you personally, and I could see why, but it is a legitimate conclusion. I think the core issue here is "if they're just fragments of a larger whole, why does it matter if they're destroyed?" And my answer would be, I guess I don't see any reason why it shouldn't matter. "Fragments" is probably an inapt way of talking about it. They're whole, individual people, who just so happen to share a cosmic connection with other whole, individual versions of themselves. The "whole" isn't one massive entity, it's a network. And each member of that network can be very distinct! They're just...cut from the same cloth.
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Nov 6, 2016 19:44
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Oxxidation posted:Since I now basically treat this as an offshoot Undertale thread, Toby's music is now being covered by MGS3 composer Norihiko Hibono, of all people. amazing
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Nov 6, 2016 19:50
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Oxxidation posted:Since I now basically treat this as an offshoot Undertale thread, Toby's music is now being covered by MGS3 composer Norihiko Hibono, of all people. this is so good, I love it
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Nov 6, 2016 19:54
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take that @Kojima_Hideo
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Nov 6, 2016 20:13
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Android Blues posted:I think maybe you're reading "greater whole" differently from how the story is delivering it. Not really. Look, I understand the philosophy the story was going for (people are shaped by their experiences and will act diffrently depending on what envoriment they're placed in) for I just don't think it was delivered in a way that feels organic to the story or earned. And to further explain why I feel that way I'm going to to talk about a story where that philosophy does feel organic to the story and earned: Undertale (perhaps you've heard of it). In Undertale there's also a lot of timeline shenanigans, but by not having the characters from different timelines exist as separate beings but rather simply having the experiences from previous timelines be subconsciously (and sometimes consiously) remembered by the people in the current time lines it makes the idea that yes these people are the same beings and part of a greater whole feel more natural. Also, in Homestuck what determines an alpha timeline is And speaking of Undertale... Oxxidation posted:Since I now basically treat this as an offshoot Undertale thread, Toby's music is now being covered by MGS3 composer Norihiko Hibono, of all people. This is amazing. Space Cadet Omoly fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 21:00
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What does it mean to "earn" a theme, narratively?
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Nov 6, 2016 21:04
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Also, in Homestuck what determines an alpha timeline is The alpha timeline is the timeline that has to occur to prevent a time paradox. That's pretty much it, it's actually very consistent throughout the story. Lord English manipulates this by tying his existence and eventual birth to a bunch of minute, highly specific events along the entire timeline, such that almost any deviation from the path he has chosen causes a time paradox and therefore a doomed offshoot timeline. If some deviation from the path means he's never created, the events he has seeded in the past - like L'il Cal influencing Gamzee, or Jack English getting possessed - suddenly retroactively have no reason to have happened, so causality collapses under its own weight. The whole concept of the alpha timeline is only relevant thanks to the paradox potential inherent in time loops. Breaking a stable loop creates a doomed offshoot timeline, because breaking a loop breaks casuality, and Lord English abuses this by making sure his whole existence is the result of dozens of stable time loops. I'm pretty sure this is 100% consistent throughout the comic and is the sole source of doomed "beta" timelines.
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Nov 6, 2016 21:40
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Plom Bar posted:What does it mean to "earn" a theme, narratively? I'm glad you asked Plom Bar! See, a story has two ways of conveying themes: directly and indirectly. Themes are supported directly by the things the characters say (often through heroic speeches or soliloquies) and are supported indirectly by the unstated things in the story such as character actions and plot progression. When the things the characters claim are happening thematically don't match up with how things in the story are actually progressing those themes often feel forced or "unearned". This was a real problem with kids shows in the mid to late 90's which often preached messages of working together and pacifism while simultaneously having the characters solve all of their problems through force and violence. Another more recent and more specific example of an unearned theme comes from the hit movie Suicide Squad. Suicide Squad is a movie about a bunch of assholes and murders doing assholish and murderous things. But then, about halfway through the movie, they have the characters start trying to force the theme of "the importance of friendships and found families" which doesn't really work because these jerks just met and in the small amount time they've spent together they've treated each other like poo poo. Of course, while an unearned theme is often a sign of bad or lazy writing it's also sometimes done on purpose. Sometimes when direct themes and indirect themes don't match up it's because the author is conveying something else entirely and trusting the audience to be smart enough to figure out what that something is. Arguably that's what happened in Homestuck, but because of the way it's written it's hard to be sure.
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Nov 6, 2016 21:58
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Secretary Serket killed the poo poo out of Vinnce Foster
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Nov 6, 2016 22:06
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Android Blues posted:Similarly, Davesprite's transformation into Davepeta mirrors AR's into Arquius. They are both able to escape their self-loathing and existential doubt by shedding the "Dave/Dirk" identity almost entirely. "Being Dave" becomes one small part of Davepeta's total identity, and this satisfies the entity that used to be Davesprite's doubt and anxiety about their role as the left over, third wheel, "spare" Dave who all his friends don't like quite as much, because they're no longer invested in being that person. That may not be a conclusion to the Davesprite arc that satisfies you personally, and I could see why, but it is a legitimate conclusion. I don't know how much I agree with this sentiment. A conclusion carries the promise of a narrative resting point. This feels like it's trying to paint what happened to Davesprite as anything more than a find-and-replace text alteration of 'Davesprite Issues' with 'There Are No Davesprite Issues'. Insofar as the idea you're putting forward of the whole is concerned, it's also stating that the final actions that occur to the individual 'Davepeta' outweigh Dave's total identity. It seems fairly self-defeating to claim that the concept of the ur-character matters if adding another element functionally neuters previous, significant swathes of what makes up the ur. This refers to both Davesprite's woes about relevance, and Dave's woes about heroism and Dead Daves. They played such a significant role in informing the character prior to the retcon, to the point Dave died rather than violate his self-imposed Time Heroics embargo that for them not to be of concern (Or, at least, significantly reduced concern) to Davesprite and post-Retcon Dave cheapens the whole narrative character. I can understand what Hussie was working towards, but I feel the end result was too disparate to reconcile with what you're deeming the case. Basically GunnerJ posted:The problem with it is that it's dumb af.
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Nov 6, 2016 22:06
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What Android Blues is saying actually does resolve something that's been bugging me since the big retcon and why one of my predictions made at the time didn't come to fruition. Any time there's been a deviation from the "alpha" timeline, regardless of the cause, some one always acknowledges it in some way, usually in terms of what's "supposed" to happen. This notably occurs when John interrupts a confrontation between Grimbark Jade and Dave, later when Aranea steals the ring of life and sets in motion the events leading to Game Over, and again when John prevents Terezi from killing Vriska, which lead me to conclude, at the time, that the retcon would eventually be undone. But now it would seem that such a feeling is just a natural byproduct of timeline alteration, not necessarily the creation of a paradoxical (i.e. doomed) timeline.
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Nov 6, 2016 22:08
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Emo bird Dave needed to go once post-Retcon Dave reached his own final emo form. I mean, that would just be redundant.
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Nov 6, 2016 22:10
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Spellman posted:Emo bird Dave needed to go once post-Retcon Dave reached his own final emo form. I mean, that would just be redundant. hmmm, checks out 
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Nov 6, 2016 22:21
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http://mspfanventures.com/?s=9041&p=168
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Nov 7, 2016 06:10
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lol
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Nov 7, 2016 06:18
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BKEW seems to have settled down. That's good.
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Nov 7, 2016 06:41
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 (but funny)
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Nov 7, 2016 23:26
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So this is happening. I get the distinct feeling Bro Strider would be all over this.
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Nov 8, 2016 22:37
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time for you guys and gals to determine if we're on the alpha earth or not e: nvm noticed it's only one clown in bizarre facepaint not two
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Nov 8, 2016 23:00
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Welp, looks like Caliborn is the new president of the United States. Don't blame me, I voted for Equius.
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Nov 9, 2016 10:14
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Vriska actually the worst character in MSPA, confirmed by facts.
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Nov 9, 2016 10:32
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Congrats Nepeta for making america great again
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Nov 9, 2016 10:32
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Welp, looks like Caliborn is the new president of the United States. If this means you voted third party then I absolutely do blame you
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Nov 9, 2016 10:50
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Plom Bar posted:If this means you voted third party then I absolutely do blame you For the record: It was a joke, I didn't vote third party.
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Nov 9, 2016 11:01
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Sorry, my sense of humor is presently AWOL
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Nov 9, 2016 11:11
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so who in this thread is gonna have to rereg i wanted a serket win but didnt toxx for it Plom Bar posted:If this means you voted third party then I absolutely do blame you in glorious australia i can vote third party AND major party 
Clawtopsy fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Nov 9, 2016 |
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Nov 9, 2016 12:04
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Clawtopsy posted:in glorious australia i can vote third party AND major party That's honestly a pretty sensible way to do it.
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Nov 9, 2016 12:14
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Clawtopsy posted:so who in this thread is gonna have to rereg Me lol But having to give Lowtax 10 dollars is the least consequence of this to me
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Nov 9, 2016 12:20
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Regy Rusty posted:Me lol Good news! You can donate to RAINN instead of being banned.
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Nov 9, 2016 13:51
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Aww they're way too good to us.  I donated to RAINN as part of the drive earlier but I'll happily do it again. I actually think I'll also throw Lowtax another 10 though because I like this place, dead as it is, and I'd still be up overall considering the price of account upgrades I might have bought back at some point. Thanks Clawtopsy
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Nov 9, 2016 13:56
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Regy Rusty posted:Thanks Clawtopsy 
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Nov 9, 2016 14:37
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| # ? May 31, 2024 19:56 |
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I am so loving happy that America actually picked the good candidate for once
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Nov 9, 2016 15:10
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