MS Paint Adventures thread

[Belial]

Spoiler:

What? I thought Doc Scratch was exposed as a liar ages ago.

Speaking of, my main worry is where the hell those quest beds came from. They seem "naturally" to be on the kids' planets; Bec Noir wouldn't have done it and probably couldn't have; it also looked like they were there before PM and Jade attained their powers. So who put them there? Is all the kids going god-tier part of Scratch's plan somehow? Whether he's actually an out-and-out liar or a "But you never asked me right~" liar, I don't think it's a good idea to trust any information we got from him ever, including his intentions.

Spoiler:

What I'm gathering is that those questbeds were in the heart of Derse, just like Aradia's was. The wiki seems to imply that (at least) the Derse dreamers have secondary quest-beds in their moon's "Crypt" that allows a dream-self to ascend

In other news, gah, could he please pick a blogging service and stay there?

[ameretrifle]

Spoiler:

What I'm gathering is that those questbeds were in the heart of Derse, just like Aradia's was. The wiki seems to imply that (at least) the Derse dreamers have secondary quest-beds in their moon's "Crypt" that allows a dream-self to ascend

Oh, hmm, that could work...

In other news, gah, could he please pick a blogging service and stay there?

Spoiler:

TROLL HUSSIE LAUGHS AT YOUR CONSTERNATION

LAUGHS LIKE THE CRUEL GOD HE IS

...ahem. XD

[Jorpho]

If even Jorpho is impressed with the most recent update, than that means that Hussie had to have done something incredibly right in the EoA!

Impressed? No, I'm merely, um, not... less unhappy. Yes, that's it.

If he'd managed to put something together that made complete expositive sense on the first viewing, then I would have been completely blown away. Unfortunately, I can't recall the last time Hussie made a Flash animation about which I could say that.

Hence my comment. I'm waiting to see if he's going to be able to come up with a cohesive explanation that can be read in a reasonable amount of time.

[P.S. My jumbo-sized Problem Sleuth "End Pose" print arrived recently and I am most pleased with it. ]

[ameretrifle]

I kinda understand you there-- I'm less "woo thrilled!" than just a lot more content. Curmudgeon-five?

Also, it may interest you to know that he's on his third expository post on tumblr. And counting. XD

(If anyone who doesn't tumblr is curious:
http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11938555890/about-eoa5-part-1
http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11941710181/about-eoa5-part-2
http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11960418585/about-eoa5-part-3)

[Jorpho]

It's a little reminiscent of a modern "artist" who makes an elaborate and aesthetically pleasing canvas and then stands next to it frantically gesticulating about how the profound geometrical concordances express man's longing for extant synchronicity in his ancestral spectrum. But only a little.

[The Great Hippo]

I'd say it's more like a book where lots of crazy shit is happening that you don't understand, but it's a fun story anyway so you read through it, then you later read through it again and again attempting to grasp what the fuck was happening, and with each rereading, more pieces begin to click together. I excuse a lot of this because of the medium (as an online webcomic, I can read at my leisure, and return to parts that didn't quite make sense for a quick read through with relative ease).

It reminds me a bit of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently book, actually.

Though I do agree, I think that the flash could have been vastly improved if he had done a bit more work making some of the conclusions it paints more intuitive. I had to watch it twice before I realized that

Spoiler:

they CREATED the Green Sun

[Game_boy]

He is reluctant to put text in Flashes and you can see why.

Even though he put in

Spoiler:

"draw, spades" and "suckers"

, they didn't really help the first time viewer to see that

Spoiler:

snowman literally was the blue universe and that the green sun was being created.

I don't think more text would help the flow, and I don't think he could have done more with the art to show it, except by making the Flash like half an hour and losing all pace.

[The Great Hippo]

More context would have helped, honestly.

A few art pages before the flash could have gone a long way to settle confusion. For instance:

Spoiler:

A few sequential art pages showing us that Dave and Rose had arrived at Horrorterror central, and found no green sun to destroy, and were still frantically looking for it. Though this would risk spoiling the surprise of no john you ARE THE GREEN SUN that he wanted to create.

Also just a few brief reminders of details the reader needed to know to properly digest the whole thing in one sitting would have helped.

Still, I think it was pretty great, I'm just rattling off ways it would have worked better for me.

[Belial]

Even though he put in

Spoiler:

"draw, spades" and "suckers"

, they didn't really help the first time viewer to see that

Spoiler:

snowman literally was the blue universe and that the green sun was being created.

He had already established that, though. Like, way back in the intermission. He said it with words.

[Game_boy]

He had already established that, though. Like, way back in the intermission. He said it with words.

Spoiler:

He established that killing Snowman would end the blue universe, but not that she actually was the blue universe (in the same way that the frog is the red universe).

[Jorpho]

For those of you not keeping score, Part 4 of the explanation is up, and the next page will be up on 11/11.

I find myself still not yet ready to give up, though this nonsense about dream selves dying on quest beds in planetary cores is starting to strain credibility.

[Game_boy]

I find myself still not yet ready to give up, though this nonsense about dream selves dying on quest beds in planetary cores is starting to strain credibility.

How do you deal with other forms of media? 99% of that is unforeshadowed deus ex machina plot, especially fantasy/sci-fi genre content. HS is much less than that, but I agree the locations of questbeds are one of those things.

When people start screwing with the characters is what I find unacceptable.

Let's look at what he managed to avoid in this Flash: events happening exactly as forecast, OR something completely different happening rendering most of the exposition in the last act and a half irrelevant.

[The Great Hippo]

Yeah, for me, one of the hallmarks of a consistent, good author is their ability to maintain the relevancy of events; i.e., I don't feel my time has been wasted when I discover that everything that happened prior somehow plays into everything that's happened now. But if everyone that's happened now invalidates what's happened prior, then I get pissy.

Part of the fascination with this story for me is the idea of building a language and context with your readers that becomes far more intricate with every passing stage--for instance, show any of these flashes to someone unfamiliar with the story and they'll just go 'buh'? You can't even explain a lot of the more dramatic moments in this narrative without an incredibly long conversation first; that's because the narrative has taken steps to build up an entire context which, without, absolutely nothing makes sense. Most stories do this to some degree, but the enormity of HS's reliance on this trope really interests me.

Also, if Lord British turns out to be Inspector Pickle or Mobster Kingpin, I'm going to flip a car.

[Game_boy]

Spoiler:

Doc Scratch is an excellent host.

[IronicalVitriol]

Spoiler:

Doc Scratch is an excellent host.

Spoiler:

Don't turn your back on the body

[cephalopod9]

Spoiler:

Doc Scratch is an excellent host.

Spoiler:

Don't turn your back on the bodies

Spoiler:

or bleed on the suits

[Game_boy]

He said on his Formspring that he doesn't even write anything down when planning because he doesn't do specific details in advance.

That can't be true.

[Triangle_Man]

Spoiler:

Doc Scratch was Lord English all along.

I am fairly speechless right now...

[Magnanimous]

So the Wiki says that Lord English comes from the pool term "english" and an Ultima reference to Lord British... But is there any relation to the Fourth Doctor? Because the overcoat looks awfully like a certain multicolored scarf, and being a Time Lord would explain the Lord part.

[cephalopod9]

... So that was terrifying.

Spoiler:

Doc Scratch was Lord English all along.

I am fairly speechless right now...

Spoiler:

I was inadvertently right.
And he does seem to be embodying the pool-cue metaphor/imagery.

This is a complicated story.

[Jorpho]

But...

Spoiler:

If both universes are destroyed, wouldn't that have taken Doc Scratch along with them?

And isn't Bec the equivalent of Doc Scratch? Wouldn't something happen to him too?

Dangit, now I'M thinking about this too hard.

[Belial]

Spoiler:

both universes were destroyed, I'm not especially convinced that both Mediums were.

[Game_boy]

Sbahj comic

Hussie's Twitter: "sorry, the halloween comic was late"

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetb ... id=037.jpg

[Triangle_Man]

Spoiler:

Back when the Gaurdianswap theories first came about, I remember shooting them down because I thought that the concept was too stupid to persue for the Kid's Scratched session, even after we saw a similar thing happen with the Troll's session.

Tonight, I am here to deliver this simple message.

Well Fuck Me and My Inability to See the Future.

Hopefully this stupid concept can be taken in an awesome direction.

[Game_boy]

Spoiler:

The simple act of making "John" a girl already means he plans to subvert expectations despite the obvious format.

And this Flash made me appreciate Homestuck Anthem finally.

[cephalopod9]

Spoiler:

but if John switched place with his Nana, then what happened to his father?
Did Jade's grandfather shoot her this time? Betty Crocker is good now?
They're 15 now? Are Dave's Bro and Rose's Mom going to be the same age?
This is challenging to think about.

[Belial]

Spoiler:

The age thing isn't but so weird. The trolls' ancestors ended up temporally disjointed from each other when they were NPCs (with Tavros' ancestor happening many many years after Karkat's), but were presumably synchronized in age when they were players. So yeah, bro is probably the same age.

[ameretrifle]

Spoiler:

16, I think. I don't remember why I expected that, but I swear I did.

This has been foreshadowed for a while; we learned from the conversation with Aradiacestor what happens after a scratch, and we learned from Act 5 that Hussie is perfectly willing to drop everything and chase after new characters for a while. >_> <_< Though he seems to be blowing through them much more quickly than he did the trolls at first, which is excellent both for pacing's sake and because we've been introduced to them a little already; there's going to be a lot of differences, but the basic connection is already down. There are also a lot fewer of them! This should go much more smoothly hopefully.

Anyway, for most of the finicky details (where the kids/new guardians fit in, etc), we pretty much have to wait and see...

The simple act of making "John" a girl already means he plans to subvert expectations despite the obvious format.

I don't really understand what you mean by this?

[Triangle_Man]

Spoiler:

Well, we can pretty much assume that the J who powered up the Bunny is in fact Jake English from the scratched session.

We also know exactly why he refers to Jade as his Grandmother; due to the Kid/Guardian Swaps that have occurred at this point in the story, Jade is Jake's Grandmother in the reset universe. So he wasn't from the future like we assumed here.

Also, I am okay with the current pacing. It's fast, but cutting back on the shenanigans as much as possible is probably a good thing as it avoids having the story get diverted to new characters and away from the four core kids for months on end (such as with the Trolls).

And it will be interesting to how the new kid players fit in with the rest of the plot.

And I wonder if Earth's 'Doc Scratch' is now Jake's Guardian instead of Bec...

[Game_boy]

Spoiler:

The simple act of making "John" a girl already means he plans to subvert expectations despite the obvious format.

I don't really understand what you mean by this?

Spoiler:

Yeah it's Nanna I don't know what I was thinking.

--

Spoiler:

Someone's name will end in SCRATCH because it is seven letters like ENGLISH and CROCKER and 4+7=11

[Magnanimous]

Spoiler:

I'm very much enjoying Act 6 so far.

In public, you and your DAD made quite the pair. Everyone could tell by a glance that you were your father's daughter, sired from his loins directly and genetically, through what was undoubtedly a natural process of human procreation involving a man and a woman. People would definitely nod and say, "Yep, that little lady sure did emerge from a womb on account of that gentleman's awesome virility."

[Game_boy]

Spoiler:

Since then, the author has been steadily updating PROBLEM SLEUTH 2, which you have been following avidly. You are happy that he stayed in that lane, and stuck with a time-tested formula. If he went in a different direction, you probably would have found it really disappointing.

Hussie knows man. He knows.

[Magnanimous]

I love how there's already so much new fanart.

Spoiler:

[Triangle_Man]

I minor news, Andrew Hussie has finally gone to Olive Garden.

[Game_boy]

I minor news, Andrew Hussie has finally gone to Olive Garden.

We need fanart of this.

And maybe a 20-track album.

[Triangle_Man]

I don't like this Earth anymore.

Tis' a scary place...

[Not A Raptor]

I don't like this Earth anymore.

Tis' a scary place...

You were supposed to STAY ASLEEP.

[Game_boy]

Is Olive Garden really that bad?

[SecondTalon]

No? Yes? I don't understand the question. It's mass-marketed "Italian" food whose redeeming quality is the same of all chain restaurants - it's edible, sometimes even tasty depending on your likes and dislikes, and you know that if you go into one in Florida it's going to be the same thing as what you had in Washington and Maine. But like all chains, if you're wanting Italian there's far better places out there.

If you want zero surprises because you're just hungry and don't want to have to deal with some restaurant you've never been in before's crazy bullshit because you're in a new city and for all you know the local good Italian joints require that you carry a tuba with you and you're not looking for a meal that will leave you with fond memories years later, you just want to not be hungry and pasta sounds alright, then Olive Garden may not be a bad idea.

[Game_boy]

OK. I was wondering to what degree Andrew was making it sound worse than it was in his most recent blog.

Thanks.