Assorted things make a post

[red_eft]

1. omg I love the AO3 kudos system. So much, I cannot even say. It's made Yuletide much more enjoyable for me because I don't have to worry so much about thinking up something insightful to say. Kanata's post basically sums it up for me. I still haven't finished going through the archive, but I have saved a bunch to my new (to me, anyway) Kindle (bweee!).

2. I've started reading Homestuck. You guys, what is this I don't even. I mean, I'm enjoying it, but what the hell. Would reading Problem Sleuth first make things any less confusing? I started reading that a long time ago but got distracted and wandered off.

3. My brother started watching X-Files over my shoulder and got into it, so we're starting again from the beginning. We're now in season 2, which has more ridiculous episodes than I remembered. (Why did the aliens make the animals invisible, again?)
However, I can actually recognize Krychek now, so maybe I'll be able to figure out what the hell is up with him this time around. Additionally, oh man, I ship MSR so hard it's ridiculous. Normally, I can't get into canon pairings, but apparently I have a button labeled "PARTNERS" that is very easily pushed. (This button lead to me having a brief moment of shipping Lassie/Jules on Psych, which is something considering that I don't really like Lassiter all that much.)
Also: Dear scientists, here is a tip: never name anything the Icarus project. Ever. Why would you do that? (more names to avoid: Sisyphus, Achilles. Others?)
Also also: is it weird that I find it kind of hot when Scully does autopsies? That's weird, right?

4. Here is a delicious recipe for carrot soup that I've been making a lot this winter. I recommend the second set of spices, and sour cream as the dairy. I also skip the cashews, because they're expensive and I'm cheap.

Comments

[eisen]

1. I keep getting kudos on old stuff lately and I'm simultaneously elated (people like my stuff!) and bewildered (they're doing it anonymously! does that mean they don't want people to know they like my stuff?). I will never stop preferring comments, but the quick hit is nice.

2. Reading PS does make some things less confusing, yes. How much less confusing seems to vary between readers, though. (It helps put a lot of the structural conceits underlying the narrative into a clearer perspective, at least.) I would recommend it with that caveat in mind - I don't think anyone's ever gotten more confused about HS by reading PS too, but you never know. It really depends on what's bewildering you about it!

Personally - and this is the inverse of the problem I had in a few later parts - I always found the early stuff too easy to understand and had to fight my attention span to keep from wandering off, but it gets pretty complicated as the story goes on and having the structural/medium awareness of just ... how Hussie tells a story to go off of that reading PS can provide is a big help in organizing your brain to effectively process the data getting thrown at you.

[vass]

For what it's worth, whenever I give kudos anonymously, it's either because I can't be bothered logging in or because I don't realise I'm logged out.

[eisen]

I'm sure that there are plenty of kudos given that way, but I also know that there are/were people deliberately logging out to leave kudos so the kudos they left couldn't be traced back to them, so - the fact that they're anonymous makes it impossible to tell which is which, and years of fandom-seasoned paranoia does the rest.

However, any good word is still a good word, even if the potential behind-the-scenes weirdness might get to me, so I'm still happy to get any sort of compliment period, given my usual lack of any comments whatsoever.

[ratcreature]

Many people don't have an AO3 account yet, I guess, what with it being in beta, and the invitation needed, so they can't log in to kudo.

[eisen]

Yeah, I mean, I've given up expecting comments on any of my "older" stuff, so it's like - I'm getting kudos! People are reading my fic and they like it! That is awesome, not gonna lie.

[red_eft]

Hmmm, when you say structural conceits, are you talking about the command format? I've played a fair bit of IF (although most of these commands would be rejected by any interpreter I've seen, but given the rules of the universe I'm not going to quibble) and I get that he originally was getting the commands from reader suggestions (although not so much on Homestuck).
I'm just not finding myself terribly caught up in Problem Sleuth? and yet the idea of MOAR KNOWLEDGE appeals to my completest side. But it's also like 22 chapters, and that's a lot of backreading. On the bright side, having read more Homestuck I find myself, if not less confused, at least more willing to embrace the confusion. (Rose and her knitting needles of doom! <3)

[eisen]

I meant more the excessive metafictionality and paradox-baiting; the (sometimes literal) fourth wall-breaking and heavy sense of irony and deliberately flat characterization is ... a lot to get dosed with, I suspect, and in my case reading PS helped me appreciate just how much better Hussie got at handling those things in Homestuck (like, for example, learning to appreciate that at least John could sometimes be a compelling character in his own right, rather than a blankly pleasant prop for Hussie to throw things at and call it cool).

PS is just plain not as compelling as Homestuck, but it's a useful tool for unpacking Hussie's narrative methods and characterization quirks - that's what I used it for, and it gave me a lot of helpful perspective on Homestuck's plot that way.