i’m probably sullying the names of neil gaiman and sir terry pratchett and their comedic masterpiece Good Omens by associating them with homestuck in any way shape or form BUT. you know adam’s dad? his real dad, not satan? mr young? he serves the exact same narrative purpose as john’s dad (and jane’s dad) in homestuck. they have no personality beyond Suburban Dad. they look at all these outlandish, surreal events happening and they’re like *wags finger* i hope you’re staying out of trouble son. their role is fascinating because they work as a stabilizer, a paragon of normalcy against which the events of the story are highlighted and enhanced. they are, in fact, so ridiculously normal that they become a kind of supertextual force on par with fate, serendipity, or destiny. the Dads embody suburban dadness so well that they would be terrifyingly powerful in their power over the main character and the narrative if they weren’t too dadly to misuse it
@revolutionaryduelist i’ve always thought that the later discworld books (esp. going postal, night watch, thud!, and monstrous regiment) represent the greater literary achievement, but i admit that i am more easily wrapped up in homestuck. just look at how much more fanfic i’ve produced for hs.
also, there are SO many parallels between pratchett’s works and hussie’s. the ways that hussie and sir terry play with tropes, narrative
structure, and the fourth wall are different, but in the same spirit. i could go on and on and on about pratchett’s personification of narrative forces and how it serves as a precedent for homestuck’s use of mechanics like the heroic/just clock and… yeah, maybe that’s a good post for another time.
but. BUT. have you read Only You Can Save Mankind? it’s very short, and one of pratchett’s non-discworld books, but it’s severely underrated and i believe it’s one of his best. it’s also… uh… well, the premise is that the main character, johnny, receives a pirated beta testing version of a new video game (a basic shooter where ya kill the aliens), only to find that the aliens are surrendering. they’re not supposed to surrender. a few important points:
blends reality and video game more creepily than any other “video game is reeeaaal” plotline i’ve ever seen
the alien species has a ““female empowerment”“ sort-of-not-really thing going on a la alternia
johnny enters the video game through his dreams in a way disturbingly similar to dream mechanics in sburb
uses the “extra lives” mechanic of video games to explore the Hero With a Thousand Faces, etc
pokes fun at sci fi tropes w.r.t. warriorlike alien species and Matrix-esque plotlines
the best friend who gives him the video game is a hacking genius that gives me way too many sollux captor vibes
this isn’t necessarily a hs comparison but please read this line of narration about the Best Friend in question: “Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was winning.”
the friendgroup’s ridiculous conversations are extremely similar to dave arguing with the other beta kids about irony
the main character is a Highly Normal thirteen-year-old suburban boy protagonist named John(ny). i’m dying here
this was published in 1992
without spoiling anything too much, the themes in Only You Can Save Mankind have strong similarities to some of the themes in homestuck. and… okay, i’m going to succumb to my instincts and highlight a few of my favorite passages WITHOUT spoilers:
–
“We fight, and then we die. That’s how it goes.”
“Then we die gloriously!”
“There’s an important word in that sentence, and it’s not the word ‘gloriously’.”
–
“Remember what happened to the Vortiroids? And the Meggazzoids? And the Glaxoticon? Do you want to be like them?”
“Hah. They were primitive. Very low resolution.”
–
“I reckon… I reckon…”
“What?”
“Ronald McDonald is like Jesus.”
–
“Are you saying that I’ve got to go down to the shops and get takeout Jumboburgers for an entire alien spacefleet?”
“Not exactly.”
“I should think not—”
“My Chief Engineer wants a Bucket of Chicken Lumps.”
I had never read that story but I sure as hell am going to now and I absolutely see what you mean. Holy hell this is good, god….i love it
There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing: it’s the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld. It’s also the anger at the headmaster who would decide that six-year-old Terry Pratchett would never be smart enough for the 11-plus; anger at pompous critics, and at those who think serious is the opposite of funny; anger at his early American publishers who could not bring his books out successfully.
The anger is always there, an engine that drives. By the time Terry learned he had a rare, early onset form of Alzheimer’s, the targets of his fury changed: he was angry with his brain and his genetics and, more than these, furious at a country that would not permit him (or others in a similarly intolerable situation) to choose the manner and the time of their passing.
And that anger, it seems to me, is about Terry’s underlying sense of what is fair and what is not. It is that sense of fairness that underlies Terry’s work and his writing, and it’s what drove him from school to journalism to the press office of the SouthWestern Electricity Board to the position of being one of the best-loved and bestselling writers in the world.
Flying through Storytelling 