I've been reading Burning Down The House the past few days and absolutely love it! I first read it alongside a friend who got all the way up to the game section after the wedding, and have been rereading it more closely on my own, currently at page 228.
I love the idea of exploring if the kids actually needed to guide Earth C from the start, it sets it apart from not just the epilogues, but even the credits sequence, giving it full fresh start which it takes great advantage of. Seeing them explore old 7/11s and need to think about agriculture, basically just, having them take their responsibility as gods somewhat seriously rather than just fucking off. Don't get me wrong, I think the fucking off in official post-canon is very in character, but I also like what BDTH does of seeing them try their best. And still fuck up lol.
I was a bit worried seeing that Jane is the primary character given that, to be blunt, she is by far my least favorite of the main homestuck cast. I think BDTH does a really great job or presenting her in a different, more compelling light, but one that doesn't feel out of character. It feels like a genuine possibility that Jane could be this way. In general, the character writing is spot on. The first convo between Rose and Kanaya had me thinking it lacked the rosemary sauce, but I was, so so wrong this is some of the best rosemary writing I've seen in fancomics.
I am very sad that Davepeta dies tho. Like, the acknowledgement of Jade and Davepeta's relationship, but then they die anyway? Cruel. Tho i suppose technically they're fighting English until the final moment the dream bubble enters the black hole, so, could be alive in there? The number one thing the comic could do to earn points with me specifically is for Davepeta to come back somehow and still be relevant lol
While I'm not there yet in my reread, I also love how John's exploration of gender begins, and I love how Jade talks about being trans. it all feels very real and genuine and it's great.
My one complaint is that the lack of original music is felt pretty clearly? While I do really like both of the animations for the energy they have and the art, the songs felt a bit out of place, personally.
Overall tho, I'm enjoying BDTH a lot and I can't wait to dig into it more!
Going back to read a bit more but, i forgot to mention that I love how the fight with Caliborn is done, with the like, scanned looking pages. It's really cool and I thought the art and paneling was really skilled, it was able to live up to the promise of a visual representation of a fight with Lord English which is, something that official post canon has deliberately denied us
(got high, just gonna type impressions as i read)
Ahhhh i love this comic so much.... seeing aradia and sollux interact with the rest of the gang is so good, and the dave and karkat dialogue feels very true to character it's very funny.
dave and araida's interactions especially i love. The "maybe love is real" and "have you heard of bones" bits are very funny. comic that is making me go hehehe
I love how this explores Jane and Terezi's realtionship. like, that's a relationship i'd never thought of before, but it feels quite natural in this, they play off of each other in very interesting ways and it's just... compelling!
playing on Jane's detective interest here really endears me a lot more to her :>
oooooh the rosemary proposal scene is so cute, but also a bit bittersweet...
the panel all the different versions of rose is my favorite so far
oh i would love to talk about music choice here. you're totally right, a lot of my reticence to get original music made is that i really just didn't have a lot of vectors for that at the time the comic started. but i also think a lot about pop music needledrops in general, when it works, when it doesn't, what grey area exists between the two, and the power of the jukebox musical. i love mamma mia and i love baz luhrmann's moulin rouge, both jukebox musicals that get really blunt with their music choices. mamma mia is written around justifying the needledrops, since mamma mia is a big excuse for a bunch of movie stars to get together and sing abba songs. it's a delight.
but more than that, one of my favorite needledrops in any story is the something stupid montage from better call saul season 4. breaking bad and better call saul have a real tendency to pick really blunt needledrops. (crystal blue persuasion, big rock candy mountain, dlz, something stupid, smoke on the water) and i think this really works in their favor, but on the other side of that line, there's also the risk of suicide squadding yourself, where you're needledropping in lieu of having something interesting to do there instead.
and a lot of my specific pop music needledrops are with this same very blunt intent, this sense of muddying the facetious/sincerity waters with the feeling of "oh my god, she really went for it". it's like picking don't stop believing for karaoke to me.
SHAPED OR MOLDED FORMS appear to have been formed from a plastic material through directly applied force.
ABSTRACT FORMS are of uncertain origin.
Ohh, that's honestly really fair. seeing it as a jukebox musical kinda changes my perspective. I haven't seen mamma mia, but I looooove Moulin Rogue. And honestly, since making the first post, I've gone back and watched [S] Get This Over With like, multiple times and i do sorta love how on the nose the music is and it's gotten stuck in my head a bit. I think I've come to the point of quite liking the music choice there :>
Finished the Jane: Wake Up walkaround, which was really great! I loved the talk sprites for all the different characters, and there's a lot to look at that sorta reflects on or informs us about this Jane. I... don't think I quite understand who this Jane is? Or where? Some sort of... dream space? Like, there's trolls around, they're all enrolled in some academy, CrockerCorp seems to be in power in some form, there was a fire at some point, aaaand. Yeah i don't quite know what to do with all that yet. Hopefully I will find out! Overall fun lil walkaround.
Hmm. The flowers Jade is tending to are repeated from the walkaround. I've also noticed the repeated cyan, pink, and yellow colors everywhere. Again, don't know what it means yet, but it's been observed.