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sub_dividedThis is a webcomic I started reading thanks to persistent fanart bombing by vikki. It's 4,107 pages and 326,796 words long (so far). That's half as long as Atlas Shrugged, only counting page titles and captions.
So yeah, don't start this one unless you want to read the War and Peace of webcomics.
Granted, the majority of those words show up in chat logs, which are how the characters talk to each other because duh. How else would they communicate while playing a computer game with their geographically dispersed friends, each of whom will eventually (spoiler)preside over a separate, custom-built planet?
Though there is some gimmickry involved, let me just say that the fact that every player has a unique and distinguishable chat-writing style is really pretty impressive. Also, it makes sense to me that (spoiler)the trolls speak the way they type, because trolls - at least the high-caste ones - are raised with a lot of physical space separating them due to their passionately destructive natures, and so the primary way they communicate with each other is through text over the internet. (Well, and also the trolls in the story are the equivalent of troll nerds.)
If I had to sum up the comic, I'd say it is about creation and destruction. The reality-altering computer game the characters are playing revolves around building - building up another player's physical space and building up your own stats - but with greater power comes greater ability to break stuff, and that's without counting all the meteors and falling rocks and ticking time bombs and insane homicidal maniacs who now and again will randomly - except that nothing is random in a comic which revolves around prophecies (of doom), time travel (proving you are already doomed), alternate universes (which are doomed), and (spoiler)malevolent omniscient aliens who reside outside the flow of time - destroy all the stuff you just built with your awesome godlike powers. At which point, the cycle repeats...
BTW if you are reading this comic, the end of Act 4 is a good resting point as Act 5 is twice again as long as all of the proceeding acts put together. It's also the point where the comic becomes much darker, following the pacing of the Harry Potter books (or, if you like, ICP's Dark Carnival).
Speaking of dark themes, it was always clear that this comic was gonna deal in some way with depression, but I really wasn't expecting (spoiler) to read in-comic chat logs about it! Pretty brave of the author, I think.
So yeah, don't start this one unless you want to read the War and Peace of webcomics.
Granted, the majority of those words show up in chat logs, which are how the characters talk to each other because duh. How else would they communicate while playing a computer game with their geographically dispersed friends, each of whom will eventually (spoiler)preside over a separate, custom-built planet?
Though there is some gimmickry involved, let me just say that the fact that every player has a unique and distinguishable chat-writing style is really pretty impressive. Also, it makes sense to me that (spoiler)the trolls speak the way they type, because trolls - at least the high-caste ones - are raised with a lot of physical space separating them due to their passionately destructive natures, and so the primary way they communicate with each other is through text over the internet. (Well, and also the trolls in the story are the equivalent of troll nerds.)
If I had to sum up the comic, I'd say it is about creation and destruction. The reality-altering computer game the characters are playing revolves around building - building up another player's physical space and building up your own stats - but with greater power comes greater ability to break stuff, and that's without counting all the meteors and falling rocks and ticking time bombs and insane homicidal maniacs who now and again will randomly - except that nothing is random in a comic which revolves around prophecies (of doom), time travel (proving you are already doomed), alternate universes (which are doomed), and (spoiler)malevolent omniscient aliens who reside outside the flow of time - destroy all the stuff you just built with your awesome godlike powers. At which point, the cycle repeats...
BTW if you are reading this comic, the end of Act 4 is a good resting point as Act 5 is twice again as long as all of the proceeding acts put together. It's also the point where the comic becomes much darker, following the pacing of the Harry Potter books (or, if you like, ICP's Dark Carnival).
Speaking of dark themes, it was always clear that this comic was gonna deal in some way with depression, but I really wasn't expecting (spoiler) to read in-comic chat logs about it! Pretty brave of the author, I think.
making my way over from tumblrrrr
Date: 2011-11-09 03:18 am (UTC)ahhh. that makes sense. i hadn't really thought of what the characters go through as depression, had been characterizing it with all these other words (exhaustion, sadness, grief, hopelessness), but of course all these things are kind of symptomatic of depression.
which logs were you thinking about re: your above comment? it's been a while since i read most of act 5 (i'm in a re-read right now, but have only just gotten into act 4), and it's hard for me to remember! i feel like dave's and terezi's logs around the bro incident were some of the most heartbreaking for me. also vriska's and john's.
repost for missing words, sorry!
Date: 2011-11-09 04:01 am (UTC)Also Rose and John (when they joke about it to lighten the mood), and Jade and Karkat (right after the Jade robot explodes). Also, all conversations about or involving Aradia, but that goes without saying. I think the other trolls like to bring up Sollux's mood swings when they talk to him, too, but he always tells them off for trying to reduce him to just that one thing.
Which Vriska and John conversation, the one they have in the dream bubble before John remembers who Vriska is? That one was sad... *tear*
I think, considering everything that happens to the characters, you could definitely say it's grief or exhaustion or hopeless that brings them down. And those f@ucking nightmares sent by the f@ucking elder spirits... though maybe trolls are used to these, since they have to emerse themselves in vats of tranquilizes just to sleep soundly at night. (Ugh, sad. Moving on.)
I think Jade is a clearer case, because she changes all at once after her dream self (which in some ways is her real self) dies, and she's exposed to the dark dreams of the elder gods for the first time. Then later Jadesprite (created at that moment) pops up and is inconsolable, basically removing the ambiguity, I think.
Re: repost for missing words, sorry!
Date: 2011-11-09 04:24 am (UTC)and ARADIA also yeah! going back, every single conversation she has with sollux is just unbearably sad.
i love that you spell it all out haha, because i really haven't been able to do that for myself previous to now! i would just inexplicably burst into tears (when aradia comes back to life? cried like a baby! lol... and ditto when jade makes jadesprite and it's just like ten pages of inconsolable crying) and then wonder why.
oh man. these kids. :( :(
they have all been through so much. :(
Re: repost for missing words, sorry!
Date: 2011-11-09 07:20 pm (UTC)For instance, although you could say that many of the characters in this webcomic are depressed (according to the DSM-IV), they are all depressed in different ways; they're not all struggling with the same things and the ways they cope (or don't cope) are different. See: Dave's ironic detachment vs. Rose's sarcasm vs. Jade's disavowal of her depressed self.
The only person missing here is John, who started out being self-hating and actually, the best troll of all (via his "I welcome your abuse, I think it is interesting, please tell me more :D" tactic), and then at some point turned into a shoujo heroine! I'm not sure when that happened o_O.
Aradia is SO SAD. Actually it worries me that Sollux has started to talk like her. I know it's supposed to be because he lost his teeth, blah blah, but the fact that his Prospit dream self died and only his Derse dream self is left is worrying, if you see them as a metaphor for his up and down moods.