probably going to just summarize my thoughts whenever i hit what is in my mind a notable checkpoint
see y’all uhhh…soonish i guess? probably end of act 1
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alright let me get into stage voice ahem
Act 1: The Note Desolation Plays
Spoilers through all of Act 1
so! it is really weird coming back to act 1 after having read the comic fully! not to say it feels like a different thing entirely but there’s a lot of focus on things that are mostly or entirely dropped down the line
act 1 itself does not have much to say about it though? there’s a lot of stuff that will have implications long-term but i can’t really comment on that without spoiling anybody
the shenanigans are fun, john is a great character, i enjoy the escalation of stakes near the end, idk there’s not much to say about it? it’s good setup but it’s all setup
Zusammenfassung
ive read homestuck up to the meteorite, is this before or after or is that the prologue or what
Summary
meteorite is end of act 1!
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so how many acts are there? 25?
if you count sub-acts as their own ones i think close to that
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got to another good pausing point (page 309) but dont have much to say
i’ve learned i’m kinda bad at just expressing my own thoughts on things without someone to bounce off of
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i would offer but also i havent read past act 1 so i feel like i would be really bad at it
okay but thats a good book you should read it
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Act 1 homestuck spoilers
I don’t know how to start this but it feels like there’s a tension between the story being funny (which it is) and having like a coherent plot.
The sylladex is confusing as a mechanic that (as far as i can tell) exists in the “real world” when compared to the videogame world, and yet based on John’s ineptitude it can really only be assumed that he got it recently or hasn’t made use of it (or that in-story John is being controlled by some force that is unfailiar with things)
I don’t think he’s supposed to be strictly a vessel for the reader either; there are attempts to characterize him with things like his love of old movies & their posters and his dialogue; though it’s hard to say if he’s impulsive per se despite a lot of his actions showing that (particularly if he didn’t gain the sylladex like right at the moment the story starts which is decently likely given it’s empty? maybe it’s like a rite of passage? I’d probably be less hung up about this if it were just a normal inventory system tbh
maybe I am thinking too highly of him & he is supposed to be not that smart due to his age? though there’s a good bit of lampshading & 4th wall-breaking which kind of makes it difficult to get invested in
(It also makes them kind of dance around like whether or not they actually want to talk about the father like iirc a lot of the parents aren’t great; some more explicitly so but as is you can either interperet his actions as like a lighthearted misunderstanding; son who hates his parents etc. or as a distant parent & maybe more); like generally the amount of malice John holds to him is unclear; he does take the PDA & install sburb which kind of implies he just doesn’t care about his father all that much? and again maybe i’m expecting too much from a 13 year old in terms of honest communication with his father who seems well-intentioned at least (though he also is always smoking & given the time period i can’t tell if this is “normal character trait” “serious character flaw” “satire of existing characters” or some combination of those (the latter is probably a part of it due to the sheer amount of pipes)
The music is kind of hit-or-miss at the moment (besides sburban jungle but also i’m more familiar with that song anyways)
and then when they start playing sburb it’s confusing because the most sensible (if i can call it that) explanation is that TT (really hate how they have two names like 
i’m taking notes to remember this sort of thing) is (well technically i think the most sensible explanation is that john is already in a simulation and needs to download sburb to work as like a “port” but that doesn’t gel with later information) just has control over the real world through the game. somehow? and also the game UI?? like you’re still supposed to progress through the game is the thing which i suppose isn’t unheard of for sandbox-y stuff
The main alternative is that John logs in and is just in a VR replica of his own house for whatever reason (though this also is not really what the newspaper article described and also not really how they’re dealing with it) but at that point it’s crazy that they’re talking about it like it’s a game??? like even limited to a range around the player & requiring their permission this should be like more significant. Maybe they just live in a world where things like this happen but it’s still taking place in 2009.
It’s unclear to the degree with which John can interact with the game as a client like does he see the arrow or just things moving around & either way why isn’t he at least slightly surprised about this like even being a fan of the game (though he doesn’t seem to know how it works based on other dialogue) he does not care about anything that is going on. Maybe this is supposed to be a sign that he trusts TT or that he’s really zoned out
And then the meteor??? I vaguely recall more details of the future which is that the meteor is independent of the game actually which doesn’t really explain why everybody was panicking
he also says a slur which is like??? that’s a choice.
Rose’s PoV is only more confusing as to what the in-game structure is because presumably this (and other quotes) implies she is aware if somebody else’s presence; which could only really be the audience (or else this is her hiding it for general purposesTM? though also given the intention to have John connect simultaneously in reverse presumably she’d know that he might see it??
Maybe I’m looking this exclusively as a webcomic instead of a webcomic trying to be an adventure game with all the various inputs directed at the DM (andrew hussie) as opposed to the characters and/or simply being set-dressing; with the suggesions even sometimes being denied & we are then to a point supposed to be controlling these characters; though the simultaneous perspectives makes it odd given that they do then necessarily have personalities outside of when you’re controlling them?
I do think it’s interesting that they just have a meteor come in but also not much else was happening so
the art is nice too i guess
(I’m probably taking this too seriously)
Having read mistyx’s post about act 1: Yea it is probably a lot of setup (though i’m honestly surprised they haven’t introduced the trolls (minor spoiler for later acts if you don’t know like. anything.) yet
I might’ve been too harsh on John; but there’s probably more to be done with him & I do like Rose better as a character so far. Arguably john’s posessions say a lot more about him than a lot else (like otherwise he’s arugably impulsive, somewhat quick to anger (at least when talking with his friends? maybe not the best way to describe it maybe he’s just a little bit irony poisoned); arguably a bit silly but also he is in a silly world & he takes most things seriously (idk what the deal with the 52-card pickup was but he can arguably be described as a prankster; what with his intention on stealing his dad’s PDA (upon-reread…)). He does seem to be passively apathetic?
in terms of the “UI” (i forgot to talk about this earlier) i remember my first time reading i was a bit confused on what was interactable but now i’m not really; i do think the animations are fun (particularly the confrontation with john’s father)
I don’t know if i have a favorite joke; maybe when john walks out & there’s the portrait with the same disguise on
Up to p.309 spoilers
first real gameplay hype!!
it’s me boy i’m the kernel sprite speaking to you inside your mind. we have cowboy times & space, leave the girl we don’t need here da-da-da your free will is an illusion (canon)
(I think the secretly future desert person voice inside john’s head is funny)
It seems like the meteorites are actually caused by the game which. makes it confusing that they seem to be happening at frequency like this is a beta release; maybe they live in a populated city('s suburbs) or maybe it’s somehow a hype new thing to play the beta release specifically. maybe i’m going about it the wrong way and it’s concentrated to within a specific city? though then the forum release makes less sense idk.
I don’t really have much else to say; I think it’s interesting that Rose decides to write a guide to help save people in this situation; I don’t know what that really says but.
I have been reading btw; currently at start of episode 3
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#georgestayslosing #fuckgeorge
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Summary
okay i want to clarify a few things - a lot of it is just Things Just Work Like That in the homestuck world sometimes you gotta suspend your disbelief (i.e. john not having the sylladex beforehand - he literally did not have a name until he turned 13 canonically [though it’s unclear if it was retroactively given at that point - homestuck is weird]).
john is distinctly intended to be a different character than the reader - this is hinted at in early act 2 but its not really properly clarified until later that the commands given are at least some degree of diegetic. on that note most of the early commands were genuinely things that people submitted in a choose-your-own-adventure kind of style so that explains a good bit about that
also he says a slur because hes a 13 year old on the internet in 2009 people were just like that back then i think
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i forgot how funny the intermission was
Maybe I should join in on this
(I won’t, I have better uses of my time)