Although I was trying to pay close attention, there were some things that flew past my head until I read Hussie's recaps.
I suddenly get why people called it the "Ulysses of the Internet" now. The sheer density of Act 4 really blew my mind wide open.
I realize a huge part of this was Hussie trying to get all the pre-requisite exposition out of the way before he went any further, so I trust that it will be somewhat less confusing from now on.
I realize a huge part of this was Hussie trying to get all the pre-requisite exposition out of the way before he went any further, so I trust that it will be somewhat less confusing from now on.
Act Five is overall more linear than Acts Two through Four, but shit's still nanners, and Act Six is just ludicrous despite dealing with things that mostly are all happening at the same time and pace.
Which is not to say that the developments with the Exiles and Dave's time nonsense are not a baptism of fire, but it does not *get* easier so much as it *seems* easier. You get used to the multiple plotlines and multiplying versions of the same characters because you are prepared for them.
Karkat immediately either subverts or pre-empts and denies every running intro gag right off the bat with his characteristic anti-panache; and Gamzee acts like a dolt, eats psychoactive slime and stares at his Fetch Modus like a Christmas tree. PROGRESS.
Sollux and Karkat's friendship feels weirdly familiar to me, in that I know people sort of but not quite like that but I can easily imagine two people being like that and not batting an eye at it.
It's kind of funny in hindsight that the most well-adjusted troll is the one that literally lives in a cave in the forest and starts all of her discussions with cat roleplay.
AG: I don't see how we're supposed to 8e 8ecoming friends if you recoil from my olive 8ranch like I'm twitching a mummified 8ovine phallus in your direction.
But of course it was your unpleasant, simplistic temperament that made you so easy to control.
Vicious and predictable, like an insect.
If you turn a swarm of wasps on a crowd, the outcome is certain.
It takes no skilled strategist to understand this. You were in fact a waste of my talents.
A primitive expedient.
AG: Blech. What a sno8. You're worse than my meddley meddler meddlefriend.
I wonder why they waste their camaraderie on you. I'll never understand it.
AG: I thought you said you would 8e 8rief????????
I'll say one last thing.
Though the magnitude of the ensuing destruction resulting directly from your actions will be neither possible or necessary for you to fathom, there nevertheless ought to be a silver lining.
The only question is whether you will live long enough to see it.
It's interesting to note how Kanaya is the first person that Vriska has been legitimately non-hostile toward so far. They have a peculiar relationship.
I think I'm the only person on the planet who didn't find the typing quirks frustrating in the slightest... with the possible exception of Sollux, whose typing style is actually pretty easy to follow once you expect it, but is a bit out of left field in some respects.
The interesting thing about what happens when Aradia summons the spirits is that Vriska really is scared and perhaps even remorseful, but her anger at being forced to feel those emotions—emotions that she consciously or unconsciously ignores all the time—only makes her more violent and vindictive. And of course our mysterious white-text friend knows this and uses it to his advantage, as he uses everything to his advantage.
It's actually really sad and horrible on way more levels than are immediately apparent.
You know, Vriska is a really unpleasant, nasty person in many, many ways, but the more layers you peel back, the sadder it all becomes. She has some really good reasons to be fucked up, personally and culturally, and it makes her sympathetic and monstrous all at once. I mean, this conversation—
AA: ive never th0ught ab0ut revenge at all
AG: 8ut why not!
AG: I killed you!!!!!!!!
AA: i d0nt care
AG: AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!
AG: You're so infuri8ing! Why c8n't you just h8 me? It would 8e a lot easier th8t way.
AG: Or at least feel 8othered or annoyed or S8METHING! God!!!!!!!!
AG: May8e I sh8uld just rip my he8rt out of my chest and pound it to a 8loody pulp here on my desk with my sup8r strong ro8ot arm.
AG: Look at that, more nasty 8lue 8lood all over me. Why not! Might as well op8n the floodg8s and p8nt my whole hive with this oh so envia8le cerulean SWILL.
AG: 8ecause clearly it's up to me to feel em8tions for the 8oth of us, you misera8le soulless witch!
AA: 0_0
AG: I h88888888 you!
AG: H8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 haaaaaaaate!
AG: I only regret killing you cause it m8de you so 8ORING!!!!!!!!
AA: s0rry
AG: I don't want to 8e on the red team. ::::(
AG: It's full of jerks who just think I'm a 8ig jerk.
AA: they need y0u th0ugh
AA: and its where y0u need t0 be
AA: karkat will be in t0uch with y0u s00n
AG: Oh god, I can't w8 for THAT convers8tion.
AA: als0 if its any c0ns0lati0n
AA: the teams are meaningless anyway
AG: What? Why would that 8e consol8tion? It's more vague spooky nonsense!
AG: Fuck you for me trying to help you.
AG: Fuck the 8lue team, fuck your conniving, fuck Equius's dou8ledealing and the stupid muscle8east he rode in on, and fuck you for s8ving my life.
AG: FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!
—is just all kinds of uncomfortable. I can't not hear her screaming the words at a more and more hysterical timbre and it's just, well... 0_0
So Aradia just literally did what Vriska was talking about (although she does get Vriska back in similarly graphic terms) and then started snogging Equius.
And enter CA, one of the best examples of negative character development that I can think of.
I wonder when I should post my grand index of silly accent head-canon—of which Eridan is probably the oddest simply because it is literally confirmed in canon that his accent is weird in his introduction. He even comments on it later. I find that rather amusing for some reason.
Aradia strikes me as a much better person than she seems to think she is.
Maybe I'm way off base, but I see Aradia as someone who wants what's best for her friends, but she's frighteningly pragmatic about the fact that she can't save all of them, and about manipulating them for their own good.
Also, she's walking proof that, to paraphrase John's words, "Friendship isn't an emotion, numbnuts." Even while she's completely emotionless, she still shows through her actions that she cares for the others, particularly Sollux. But she comes across creepy since she can only express that care in an emotionless way.
I think about her quite a bit because she's my favorite troll.
^ I wouldn't disagree, although I think that it's less that she's devoid of emotion per se than divorced from it by no longer having a body (that is actually hers) and, more subtly, by trauma: She was horribly betrayed by someone who she really cared about but who she knows was not at all cognisant of that action. She has dissociated from who she used to be, but that residual desire to help those she loves is still there. But that separation from the part of her that understands emotional suffering and the fear of death means that she is willing to do things to others and let things happen to them that someone with functioning emotions and a normal moral compass never would. She is, as you say, frighteningly pragmatic. But despite this she is not selfish, or sadistic, or ultimately devoid of compassion. That is not who she is.
And that's what makes her slow, subtle reconnection with that supposedly dead part of her that can feel things so marvellous. It's beautiful character writing.
Kanaya learning from and vicariously falling for Rose before she even enters the session that will create the latter's universe is a really elegant demonstration of the idea/assertion that the greater omniverse "eats paradoxes for breakfast." There's also something interesting about how Rose uses the same method to transmit her signal as Doc Scratch uses to run the ~ATH code that will allow Lord English to enter the ruins of the troll universe.
And that's what makes her slow, subtle reconnection with that supposedly dead part of her that can feel things so marvellous. It's beautiful character writing.
Her resurrection during [S] Wake (and the accompanying power guitar) always gave me chills because of that.
I'm not sure what to say about this stretch, really, other than that I find it interesting how Eridan's most sympathetic moments early in his involvement in the story ultimately set the stage for his worst behaviour later.
Comments
[Enter: Doc Scratch, harbinger of doom.]
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Also, she's walking proof that, to paraphrase John's words, "Friendship isn't an emotion, numbnuts." Even while she's completely emotionless, she still shows through her actions that she cares for the others, particularly Sollux. But she comes across creepy since she can only express that care in an emotionless way.
I think about her quite a bit because she's my favorite troll.