Monthly Archives: February 2019

When my next few Homestuck posts (83-85?) are coming, for real this time plus later posts.

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I have a concrete plan for my remaining Act 6 Act 3 posts.

A few days ago, I started working on post number 83! The community reread isn’t anywhere close to that part of the comic yet, but one day I decided on impulse to work on that post so that happened. Here’s a bullet list of my plans for the next few posts:

  • Post 83 is centered around Calliope, with her name reveal, visual reveal, and pages where she explores her room. It’s coming around March 2, give or take a few days. Probably the next thing I’ll do after that is go back to rewriting old posts. Post 5 rewritten hasn’t been started yet.
  • Post 84 starts at the character selection screen narrated by Caliborn and ends before [S] Dirk: Unite. It probably won’t be very long.
  • Post 85 is the final bit of Act 6 Act 3: from the Unite Synchronization flashes up to the ending flash, [S] Caliborn: Enter. I might release it sooner than 4/13, though it’s not set in stone yet. I will say I have something special related to my blog posts planned for that day!

Act 6 Intermission 3 will be divided like so:

  • Post 86 – Openbound Part 1 (the walkaround page, nothing else)
  • Post 87 – Stretch of regular pages (John’s mental breakdown about Con Air, Davesprite, and then everything)
  • Post 88 – Openbound Part 2
  • Post 89 – More regular pages (John fights Jack Noir and reunites with Vriska)
  • Post 90 – Openbound Part 3
  • Post 91 – Last bit of regular pages (Rose’s drunk date, Ministrife)

and after that:

  • Post 92 – Act 6 Act 4 + Intermission 4, one flash and a short sequence of Caliborn pages respectively
  • everything after that is mostly up in the air, but I’d like post 100 to be something special. Maybe the end of A6I5 or the start of Homosuck? We’ll see.

This project is more ambitious now than ever before and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 4 Rewritten: Haunting Voices and Coolkid Mishaps

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Introduction

< Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 >

Act 2, Part 1 of 5

Pages 248-357 (MSPA: 2148-2257)

Link to old version

Keeping this post’s title the same as before. Couldn’t think of a better one.
Also, just warning you: this post is HUGE.

Before we begin Act 2, I’m going to talk about John, then talk about Rose. It’s a longstanding tradition for me to talk at length about characters when they are first introduced, but it’s a little difficult to do with the first two main characters this early on so I’ll talk about them now instead.

I love John Egbert. Have I ever said that? He is a protagonist done right and is the best character other than Caliborn. In many works of media, the protagonist is the main focus but the one people love the most is a wacky side character or someone else in the main group. But in this comic, none of the other three kids I think have quite the same charm as John. Almost every protagonist of the comic’s story arcs (John, Spades Slick, Karkat, Roxy, Meenah) has a distinct kind of charm to them. In Roxy’s case, she wasn’t the original protagonist of her group, but retroactively became the true protagonist because she was the one that turned out to have the most “protagonist charm”. I relate to John a lot; he is extremely honest and doesn’t believe in anything that’s too weird, confusing, or depressing, whether it be complex romance*, Rose’s interest in dark things, or impending inevitable doom. Naturally enough, John is airheaded a lot of the time, but maybe a bit less than you’d think. If you see him lying about something, usually he’s lying to himself, denying something he doesn’t want to be true.

* His later romantic dynamic with Roxy is not complex at all! Just a girl who is as pure-hearted and silly as he is. If Karkat’s explanation is anything to go by, same goes with Terezi blackways.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 14 Rewritten: Hate Waltz of Misunderstooding

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Introduction

< Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 >

Intermission, Part 2 of 2

Pages 1265-1357 (MSPA: 3165-3257)

Link to old version

Hold still, Slick.

Keep in mind that after this post, I’ll stop jumping around with my rewritten posts and go back to the start of Act 2. Those Act 2 posts should probably be quick and easy!

2/24/2019: I’ve been working hard on post 4 rewritten! It’s quite the doozy. Also I have now updated the page numbers to homestuck.com numbering up to post 50.

The Inaugural Death of Mister Seven is good, go read it.
I hope it gets continued at some point…

Crowbar’s alive again. And a whole bunch of other stuff is different. 

You forgot this gang almost seems halfway competent when he’s running the show. 

When Spades Slick makes it to a timeline where Crowbar is alive, the Midnight Crew and Felt are putting up a decent fight! The contrast between the Midnight Crew kicking the Felt’s asses and the giant gunfight with Crowbar around is super well executed. I’m glad the story took some time to flesh out Crowbar’s character when we revisit Slick and the Felt much later on; the story strongly benefits from this change.

Next up is a flash where we meet the mysterious Snowman (8).

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 13 Rewritten: Avenging the Fallen Casino

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Introduction

< Part 12.2 | Part 13 | Part 14 >

Intermission, Part 1 of 2

Pages 1154-1264 (MSPA: 3054-3164)

Link to old version

It’s time to start Act 2!

Just kidding.

OK so here’s the deal. In the Homestuck community reread, we’re doing the first half of the Midnight Crew intermission today. Partway through reading the intermission, I suddenly realized just how good it is. So good that I decided to skip to the intermission in my rewritten blog posts and slog through Act 2 later. Yes you read that right: I’m not skipping the intermission, but skipping to the intermission.

Act 2 was a little boring at parts, but Act 3 was a lot more fun and enjoyable and ended with an AMAZING flash. The intermission though, I’m suddenly in love with everything about it so I’ll jump right in and blog about it, this time doing this story arc the justice it deserves. This post will cover the first half of the intermission and next post will cover the second half.

Your name is SPADES SLICK.

If there’s any doubt that Homestuck is best experienced reread over and over, the intermission shatters that doubt. The first time reading it, it’s kind of weird and confusing, a complete departure from the first three acts. But the more you reread it, the better it somehow becomes.

Our new protagonist is Spades Slick, leader of the Midnight Crew. His introduction page goes like so:

Your name is SPADES SLICK. You are the leader of a notoriously vicious gang of mobsters called the MIDNIGHT CREW. A rival gang known as THE FELT recently knocked over one of your favorite casinos. Your long quest of revenge has finally taken you through the front door of the mansion belonging to their loathsome boss, LORD ENGLISH. 

Your subordinates, CLUBS DEUCE, DIAMONDS DROOG, and HEARTS BOXCARS have been dispatched to various locations throughout the mansion to begin carrying out your mission. Your objective is to locate and crack English’s SECRET VAULT, and plunder its mysteries. 

That’s the business end of it. The pleasure will be painting this ugly house red with the blood of those miserable green motherfuckers.

The new setting is introduced masterfully. Every detail of everything is something that’s never even been hinted at before. Well OK, we did meet the Midnight Crew as characters in Hussie’s in-universe webcomic but that doesn’t count, because this time the setting is nothing like the old comic. Everything is colored green and based on stock images, with a whole new set of enemies and a mention of what seems to be the final boss of this arc. The premise is all based around the destruction of a casino; since Slick is an iteration of Jack Noir, he’ll stop at nothing to get revenge. Is it any wonder that this guy is such a fan favorite?

Yeah I know, blah blah blah, the intermission seems to be unrelated to the main storyline at first but it actually is related. I’ll go over this arc and its connection to the acts as I go along. Also Slick characterizes Jack Noir, blah blah blah, I’ll go over this characterization as I go along too. Don’t have time for nonsense.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 3 Rewritten: Immersive Simulation Gone Apocalyptic

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Introduction

< Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 >

Act 1, Part 3 of 3

Pages 138-247 (MSPA: 2038-2147)

Link to old version

Coming up with new names for these posts is pretty fun.
Spoiler: “Down the Chitinous Windhole” will not be renamed.

Welcome aboard to the wonderful, mysterious world of SBURB! Come join as I play the role of a first-time reader, fallen into the trap of confusion that catches many readers of Act 1.

The first thing we see of the game is Rose viewing John’s house, with symbols and icons related to captchalogue cards, seemingly used for moving and adding things to John’s house. “Wait a minute,” the reader thinks, “this isn’t your usual video game.” Is Rose able to edit a digital recreation of John’s house? Or is this a real live camera, able to edit things from afar?

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Rough schedule for the rewritten Homestuck posts!

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Rewriting my old Homestuck posts is super fun, like holy shit, how can something possibly be so much fun. It’s enthralling that I’m just starting to make my remastered deluxe edition of my post series into a reality.

Post 3 rewritten is coming out tomorrow, 2/18!

And I’ve decided that up to post 27, rewrites of my posts will (probably) be coming out every two to three days! Alongside that, my plan for the remaining Act 6 Act 3 posts is intact, that hasn’t changed.

With that in mind, I’d like to point out that my posts covering early Act 5 Act 2 are starting to feel a bit dated too. Dated as in they don’t totally reflect my current views or the way I now intend to analyze Homestuck. But I won’t rewrite/remaster those posts right after I’m done with rewriting the first 27. Once that batch is done, I’ll definitely go back to making new Homestuck posts. It’s just that right now, as the community reread is going on, I can’t resist indulging in the past.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 2 Rewritten: The Fatherly Miniboss

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Introduction

< Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 >

Act 1, Part 2 of 3

Pages 47-137 (MSPA: 1947-2037)

Link to old version

Most of the title pictures for these rewritten posts are probably going to be the same as the old versions. 
Most of the titles for these rewritten posts are probably not going to be the same as the old versions. 

NOTE: This is still not a restart of my Homestuck post series. I’m only rewriting my first 27 posts to better match them with my current quality standards. Post 83 is planned for late March!

Also, my first 27 posts now list the new homestuck.com page numbers as well as the old MSPA page numbers. Hope I’ll do the rest soon enough.

John leaves his room, and here’s our first impression of his father. A slightly crazy guy that likes comedians, pranks, and clowns. This is where I stop having the impression Hussie just came up with things right off the bat and expanded upon them later; I’m almost certain he always intended for these clowns to become a plot point. Either that, or he decided the harlequin doll was a fun idea to put in the sprite and it naturally progressed into something big from there. I can tell Hussie had too much fun writing the scene with Gamzee where it turned out everything tied together.

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Rewritten old Homestuck posts – this is just the beginning!

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While participating in the community reread, I realized that it would be awesome if I did more rewrites of my old Homestuck posts, similar to my rewrite of my first post.

I’ve decided that I will rewrite all of my first 27 Homestuck posts. This would be all of my posts up to the end of the trolls’ arc, right before I revamped the style of those posts. I’m probably going to do the rewritten old posts in tandem with the new posts covering the rest of Act 6 Act 3 and beyond.

When will this project start? Well technically, it’s already started, so maybe I should ask: when will it resume? I’m not totally sure, but a rough idea is when the community reread gets to the start of Act 5 Act 2. Though who knows, maybe I’ll be bored one day and just suddenly type up a new rewritten post; that’s how I resumed this entire project anyway.

EDIT: I got bored one day and just suddenly typed up a new rewritten post! Rewrite of post 2 coming 2/16; definitely stay tuned for more.

I feel like rewriting these old posts is a good idea because it’ll help make the deluxe/ultimate edition of my Homestuck post series into a bit more of a reality than it was when I first conceived of it. Also, I updated my introduction post to include the rewritten posts.

When my next few Homestuck posts (83-85?) are coming

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I’m participating (a bit behind schedule) in the Homestuck community reread, leading up to the comic’s tenth anniversary. I’ve been discussing it a bit on the Homestuck + Hiveswap Discord server and I might participate in the Reddit threads later on too.

I made a decision on my blog posts related to that: my next Homestuck reread blog post will come out a little after the reread reaches the page I left off on. The post featuring [S] Caliborn: Enter is tentatively planned for 4/13, though it’s possible I’d end up doing the start of Openbound then instead, which wouldn’t be ideal because Caliborn: Enter is an important flash and turning point. We’ll see what’ll happen I suppose.

This means that Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 83: [no title yet] is planned to come out in March, and maybe part 84 too depending how I divide the comic up.

Looking forward to seeing what’s in store for Homestuck’s tenth anniversary!!!

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 1 Rewritten: Bedroom Screwaround Session, Rewritten

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< Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 >

Act 1, Part 1 of 3

Pages 1-46 (MSPA: 1901-1946)

NOTE: This is not a restart of my Homestuck post series. It’s just an experiment where I try going through the beginning of the comic in the style of my most recent Homestuck posts. My next Homestuck post (EDIT: that isn’t a rewrite) will continue where I left off at Act 6 Act 3. 

I made this almost a month ago and was originally going to release this alongside some other stuff, but I kind of abandoned the other stuff so enjoy this on its own instead. I feel like it’s in the spirit of the /r/homestuck community reread that’s going on right now.

“Bedroom Screwaround Session, Remastered” is already taken, god damn it.

Homestuck’s starting page… everyone who’s been invested in the comic knows how it goes. “A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name! What will the name of this young man be?” The beginning of Homestuck builds off the intro of the prior MS Paint Adventures, by introducing a protagonist in a simple setting, but quite a bit more elaborate than prior.

I would go into more detail about this opening page, but the beginning of the comic is kind of hard to talk about without comparing it to later parts so I think I’ll go sparse on commentating on all the useless nonsense. Not to mention that way too many Homestuck analyses similar to this one start strong by dissecting this simple first page and then fall off.

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