Monthly Archives: March 2019

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 8 Rewritten: Mayorly Foreshadowification Station

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Introduction / Schedule (outdated)

< Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 >

Pages 666-758 (MSPA: 2566-2658)

Act 2, Part 5 of 5

Link to old version

My rewritten posts lately have alternated between me making a new post title and me keeping the old one. I’m keeping the old one here again.

Random thing about the community reread that isn’t worth putting in its entire separate post: I decided to join in again yesterday to reread John and Roxy’s first conversation, at the end of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1. It’s just as funny and heartening as I remember it being and is one of many things recently that made remember that they are the best ship in the comic. Look forward to me praising that ship in future posts, probably.

You are now the Wayward Vagabond.

The final portion of Act 2 is a stretch of pages focusing on the Wayward Vagabond. On this page, the book commentary explains that although Hussie already had rough ideas for this character’s story role, he decided to improvise and have fun with this arc, letting readers drive the story a bit more than before. You probably know that when John was commanded by WV, he was blocked off from being commanded by readers; playing as WV for the first time gives us a fresh start and a bit of a return to the old days. This “fresh start” idea is done even stronger in the Midnight Crew intermission, which I already covered in my rewritten posts because I skipped to that part after finishing Act 1. Once I finish Act 3, I’ll do a post recapping the intermission before I go to Act 4.

> WV: Retri…

Got em already.

No arm shenanigans here; just quickly getting this joke out of the way before any nonsense can happen. Probably meant to get readers at the time to think, “hm maybe I should be creative for once instead of reiterating the same old commands again”.

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Why SERIOUS SONIC LORE ANALYSIS is a fantastic video (Followup Post)

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Why is “Star Light Zone” all green and gray? The answer isn’t quite what you think.

This post is a followup to a blog post I made from last year, reviewing hbomberguy’s video “SERIOUS SONIC LORE ANALYSIS“.

Last night, I was in bed thinking about another Sonic related video that’s more grounded in reality and how it ties in to hbomb’s overanalysis of Sonic the Hedgehog (the first game). That video is “Square Trees?!” – A Critique of Sonic Art Styles Throughout the Series” by Triple-Q; I had seen it before watching SERIOUS SONIC LORE ANALYSIS.

The section of Square Trees that relates to SERIOUS SONIC LORE ANALYSIS is that on Sonic 1, starting from this timestamp. At that point, Q discusses how every zone after Green Hill looks kind of boring and monochrome. When I first saw that video, the point in that section that struck me the most was the description of Star Light Zone (shown above), whose name would suggest something awesome and spacey but is instead murky green and gray.

The most logical thing to deduce from this simplistic zone design is that the developers didn’t put too much thought into designing the levels. This is especially clear when you compare it to the next few classic Sonic games. Sonic 2, CD, and 3&K all have delightful level design; Sonic 2’s Chemical Plant Zone is one of the best designed levels in any video game I have ever played, if not the best. Many zones in the next few share similar elements to Sonic 1’s but look a lot more lively and colorful, or just have much more of their own personalities. CD’s Tidal Tempest is a version of Labyrinth that doesn’t look like ass, while 3&K’s Lava Reef is a gorgeous spin on the lava theme set by 1’s Marble. Also on the topic of CD, Stardust Speedway is what Star Light was probably always meant to be: jumpy design, iconic music, and a way cooler sounding name. Sonic 1’s bland zones are best seen as predecessors to similar but more lively zones, am I right?


That idea is cool and all and makes sense, but doesn’t stop hbomb from analyzing the game how he wants; reading too much into it, if you will.

Before we go on, I’ll note the following. As I said in my prior post about SERIOUS SONIC LORE ANALYSIS, hbomberguy and Patricia Taxxon both taught me that there is nothing wrong with reading too much into things. It can lead to mind-blowing analysis if done right. It’s just that if done poorly, reading too much into things will make you look like a doofus. In my most recent Homestuck posts I can proudly say there’s a few points where I read “too much” into things. And a few points where I read just the “right amount” into things, so that I could decipher Hussie’s mind and predict his book commentary almost verbatim.

OK, back to where I was.

As the game progresses, Sonic 1’s art styles evolve from vibrant nature all the way to robotic dystopia. If you compare each of the zones, the general trend is that they become more robotic looking as you go through the game. I established prior that aside from the ending zones, the robotic appearance is probably just a result of overly simple design. But hbomb takes full advantage of the monochromatic appearance of the game’s zones and draws a conclusion that I already discussed in my prior post about his video.

Perhaps hbomb’s dystopian Sonic 1 analysis was inspired by Sonic CD’s bad future zones? Or perhaps it wasn’t. Either way, the cool thing is that he never talks about other Sonic games in this video (aside from a few offhand jokes) and nor does he need to. He masterfully interpreted Sonic 1 as a standalone game, without saying “oh it’s the first game, the next few do it better” or “Sonic has had a rocky history ever since its transition to 3D” or such clichés.

Man writing about Sonic is pretty fun. Maybe I should do it more often; I’ve been thinking of writing about Sonic CD, the weirdest of the classic games. In a parallel universe, I’m probably working on blog posts about Sonic every day and maybe on occasion some weird webcomic called Homestuck. My next post about the weird webcomic called Homestuck probably won’t take that long to make, which is why I don’t feel guilty about making a blog post on something unrelated. See my schedule for more information.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 7 Rewritten: What Sword?

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Introduction / Schedule (outdated)

< Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 >

Pages 562-665 (MSPA: 2462-2565)

Act 2, Part 4 of 5

Link to old version

Haha… haha… ha ha … ha …….

Dave explores the rest of his living room and here’s where the creepiness factor escalates. It all starts with this moment:

> Dave: Take expensive ninja sword.

What sword?

This page is a shockingly simple way to establish the day-to-day nature of Dave’s home life.

As I said in my first rewritten post, early Homestuck has a habit of revisiting the running gags of the prior adventures and giving them a new context. Every instance of the “what pumpkin?” gag in Homestuck has some broader reason behind it, sometimes involving technology. This instance of the gag is a character establishing moment for Dave’s bro.

When I got these pages in my old posts, I was nothing short of creeped out. Maybe it’s because two pages in a row show Bro flash stepping and moving stuff around, subverting all expectations in the process.

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mspaintadventures.com is currently down

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Remember to check my schedule post for when I’ll release my next Homestuck posts!

Also, as of 3/27/2019 MSPA is up again.

Homestuck, Problem Sleuth, and some miscellany were all hosted on mspaintadventures.com until April 2018. After that point, they were moved to homestuck.com and any URLs on mspaintadventures.com would redirect to their corresponding homestuck.com pages. 

Today the mspaintadventures.com domain went down. I trust Viz Media (or Hussie himself?) to fix this issue soon, but for now this creates lots of dead links which is of course bad news.

Thankfully, MSPA being down doesn’t affect my blog posts very much. Most of the images in my Homestuck* posts before April 2018 are hosted on cdn.mspaintadventures.com, which is still up and running. Exceptions are screencaps from flashes, which I either took from readmspa.org or grabbed myself. The only thing that is now broken would be links to pages in Homestuck*, which I didn’t do all that often. As such, I won’t bother with changing those links unless MSPA is still down after let’s say a week.

I don’t know why MSPA itself is down but the CDN subdomain is intact, but it’s certainly better than everything being down. I asked /r/homestuck about this situation; hopefully someone there will have an answer. 

* Here, “Homestuck” is shorthand for “Homestuck and Problem Sleuth”.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 6 Rewritten: Imp Madness and Can Openers

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Introduction / Schedule <- outdated

< Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 >

Act 2, Part 3 of 5

Pages 429-561 (MSPA: 2329-2461)

Link to old version

Again, I don’t have any good ideas for a new post title so I’m using the old one.
I considered “The Can Opener Dilemma” but then I realized that’s just a discount version of the old title.

My week without writing Homestuck posts was pretty nice, now back to business. I worked on some cool projects, but not the ones I originally intended to work on. And read some books. And also wrote this post over the course of one weekend.

Oh God dammit, that’s just what you need. More baked goods.

“thats classic john though he doesnt get pissed about anything except for the absolute dumbest shit” —Dave Strider

Where we left off, John was punched cold in the face by the revelation that he is not going to save the world. This massive twist caused John to go full circle, all the way back to freaking out just because he’s a little overexposed to baked goods. Whenever John has a mental breakdown or is upset by something, he finds something mundane and takes out all his anger on it.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate what Rose is sitting on.
Let’s also take a moment to appreciate Rose in general.


Perhaps you will take this spare moment to contemplate the Nannasprite’s strange tale. 

Yeah, still have no idea how Rose heard every word of Nannasprite’s story just like John did. I guess it’s not an important detail; sprites do whatever the story wants them to.

It may also behoove you to record your thoughts on these developments in your GameFaqs walkthrough/journal. It can be hard finding time to update it. In fact, you’re not even sure where you found the time to write what’s already there!

I think it makes perfect sense in Homestuck’s world that Rose can write massive walls of text no matter what constraints she’s facing. By questioning Rose’s ability to write this much, this passage is breaking some form of the fourth wall. If I had to choose one form of fourth wall it’s breaking, it would be the second fourth wall. This system of various fourth walls isn’t actually that complicated; the only important parts are the first fourth wall (the media vs. the audience) and the second fourth wall (the kids as playable characters vs. the kids as regular people).

For more rambles: starting in Act 3, I will discuss how villains in Homestuck connect to and break the first fourth wall based on a snippet of Hussie’s book commentary. As for the second fourth wall, Rose’s character is all about screwing with that wall. Now the third fourth wall (the wall between paradox space and Hussiespace), Jade is the only character other than Hussie’s self-insert that’s connected to it at all.

… What’s that look on your face? Are you telling me there’s another character with mind control powers who also messes with multiple fourth walls? One that has a contentious relationship with Hussie’s self-insert (and pretty much everyone for that matter)? Haha, you. Let’s talk about her another time, OK? I’d rather focus on important characters.

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New schedule for Homestuck posts! + miscellaneous rambling + other updates

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I’ve finally decided on a schedule for my Homestuck posts again! If I’m going to commit to it for a good stretch of time again, I might as well have a proper schedule. This new schedule is: new Homestuck posts every Friday morning. These new posts could be either rewrites of old posts or new posts and I have a full out plan for the next month, followed by a rough plan after that.

The schedule isn’t exactly “new”; it’s a pattern I’ve been following for the past few weeks. I just decided to make it an official schedule.

Here’s my current schedule in calendar form. Dates italicized are not Fridays and deviate from the schedule. I’ll also use this schedule to give progress updates.

02/25/2019 – Part 4 rewritten [done!]
03/01/2019 – Part 83 [done!]
03/08/2019 – Part 5 rewritten [done!]
03/15/2019 – (schedule announcement) [YOU ARE HERE]
03/22/2019 – Part 6 rewritten
03/29/2019 – Part 7 rewritten

04/03/2019 – Part 8 rewritten*
04/06/2019 – Part 84 <- OUTDATED, now shifted ahead
03/18/2019 – Part 6 rewritten [done!]
03/22/2019 – Part 7 rewritten [done!, delayed one day]
03/29/2019 – Part 8 rewritten [done!]
04/05/2019 – Part 84
04/12/2019 – Part 85** <- shifted ahead again
04/02/2019 – Part 84 [done!]
04/06/2019 – Part 85 [possibly later?]
04/13/2019 – Secret mystery project
04/19/2019 – Part 85

* Part 8 rewritten covers WV’s portion of Act 2; Part 84 covers mostly Caliborn gloating and Dirk confusing everyone. Both probably won’t take all that long so I moved them around like this. EDIT: I changed things up anyway.

** Part 85 was originally going to be for 4/13 but I moved it ahead a day so as not to overwhelm myself with releases. 

After my project for 4/13 is released, the weekly posts are a bit more up in the air. I’ll probably decide on a whim whether each weekly post is a brand new post or a rewrite of an old one. I like this idea because if I hit a roadblock on a new Homestuck post I’ll rewrite an old post instead, and vice versa. It’s just like the days when I worked on both Homestuck and Problem Sleuth posts; maybe if I’m feeling up to it one of my weekly posts might even be a Problem Sleuth post? Don’t count on anything yet, just know that bringing back Problem Sleuth posts is a distinct possibility.

Everything below this text is either rambling or other random updates (or both). This post is going to me my dumping ground for such updates for a while.

4/20/2019: nope never mind fuck everything back to hiatus for a long time probably

4/19/2019: Part 9 rewritten is out! And apparently the entire rest of the epilogue is coming tomorrow???? I have a burning suspicion V is hiding something and that isn’t quite all of it, but I’ve prepared for the worst and taken measures to avoid spoilers; I’m way too busy this weekend to read any Homestuck stuff, especially of this length. Maybe I could finish post 85 for real this time next Friday, as I blissfully avoid spoilers through next week. Yes you read that right: part 85 is planned for 4/26.

4/13/2019: The big day!!!

4/12/2019: Wrote up thoughts on V’s tweets.

4/7/2019: Just had a big discussion on hopes and worries for the Homestuck epilogue, as well as all the stuff vfromhomestuck has been teasing. I am now more cautious and nervous about it than ever before; maybe I’ll write a blog post about my epilogue fears. Also I just ordered a copy of Homestuck Book 3 (Act 4).

4/6/2019: That one anime I mentioned is an absolute blast to watch, holy shit.

4/5/2019: Made a longer announcement post. The most important part I haven’t said in this post yet: I will make a point of going through Act 5 Act 1 without book commentary.

4/3/2019 (my birthday!): Yeah, I think I’m going to delay post 85 to 4/19 for the time being. I am very busy watching a certain anime; one that will let me fully grasp the notion that fun things are fun. Please note that I don’t normally watch anime; please also note that “weeb” is a stupid word that should not exist.

4/2/2019 [2]: Maybe it’ll be a bit too tight of a squeeze to both release part 85 before 4/13 and get what I wanted to done for the 4/13 project. Or maybe it won’t be too tight, we’ll see what happens. I estimate a 25% chance that part 85 will be delayed, either to before or after 4/13. If it’s delayed to after 4/13, it’ll come out on let’s say 4/19, sticking to my plan of posts on Fridays.

4/2/2019: Part 84 is out! Hopefully soon enough I can start part 85; it may be a tight squeeze!

3/29/2019: Part 8 rewritten is now out! I’m pushing posts 84 and 85 ahead a bit, to encourage myself to work on my 4/13 project after that. I’ll start 84 this weekend; it probably won’t take long.

3/26/2019: Part 8 rewritten is already close to done! Which is good, gives me more time to work on my 4/13 project and maybe other things. Keep in mind that by 4/13, I plan to be finished with Act 6 Act 3 in my normal posts and Act 2 in my rewritten posts and not start the next acts until after that date.

Also on this topic, my next rewritten posts will be four posts for Act 3, an intermission recap post, and then I won’t start Act 4 until I have a physical copy of the book. This is because that act is where flashes and pesterlogs get long and Homestuck Companion (browser extension I’ve been using) isn’t totally convenient for reading long commentary.

To my knowledge, Homestuck Companion is the best way to digitally read Homestuck. You can read with book commentary if you want and it contains some handy notes about broken links and removed content. Also makes pesterlogs only openable with right CTRL key, fixing an annoyance I had with writing these posts.

3/18/2019: Part 6 rewritten is now out!  On Monday instead of Friday. I think it’s polished enough already. Other posts have been pushed forward so the weekly Friday posts are still intact, they didn’t go anywhere. Actually the weekly Friday posts are now more intact than they were before; previously there were some off-schedule but now those are moved to Fridays.

Why am I so awful at sticking to a schedule? Either I’m way too fast or way too slow. But I’ll try to stick to Fridays anyway; Part 7 rewritten is scheduled for this Friday.

3/17/2019: Part 6 rewritten is finished already, oops. The good news is, by “finished” I simply mean I got to the last page of that post’s stretch of pages, which means I’ll have plenty of time the next few days to revise and polish it.

3/16/2019: Today I worked a bit more on the 4/13 project! Not much so far but I roughly know how I’ll go about the whole thing.

3/15/2019: Here’s some miscellaneous rambling. The more I look at any of my old Homestuck posts before Part 80, the more I want to rewrite or make updated versions of all of them. Almost all of those posts have some major revisions I want to make, which makes me not want to cut that project short at just rewriting the first 27 posts. I don’t want to get too carried away, so I’ll just say: we’ll see what happens after I finish Part 27 rewritten.

An additional benefit to working on new posts and rewrites of old posts in tandem is that after Act 6 Act 3, I’ll have to go through the Openbound trilogy. You know, the long and rambly walkaround games featuring the pre-scratch trolls. I have no idea how long it’ll take me to write those posts, so it’s good to have some other blog post content to output alongside that.

Homestuck Mini(?)-Post: In Defense of Act 6 Act 1

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This isn’t really a mini-post at all; it’s pretty much a full blown essay. My Homestuck posts are still on a short pause, but I have an announcement post planned for Friday!

Late in Act 4 I fell behind in the Homestuck community reread and made my own blog posts instead. But in the past few days, when the reread went through Act 6 Act 1, I decided to join in again and share my thoughts.

It’s no secret that the early Act 6 acts with the alpha kids are polarizing. Some people like those acts, some people can’t stand them. Rereading the first of those acts, my feelings are more positive than negative but I do have some issues. What follows is a rundown of my thoughts on this act; skip to the end if you want it briefly summarized.

Note in advance: I still stand by most of what I said in my Act 6 Act 1 posts from 2016 (Part 60 / Part 61 / Part 62 / Part 63). Feel free to refer back to those for more detail. 

INTRO

Overall, Act 6 Act 1 is a remix of Act 1 done a bit more in the style of Act 5 Act 2. While Homestuck itself opened with a single introductory page, Act 6 opens with a big flash teasing our four new heroes and their new alien friend; I absolutely love that flash and it still gives me chills. After Jane and Jake are introduced we get a character select screen, where you can start with Jane or start with Jake. This time I started with Jane, then did Jake.

SELECTION SCREEN: JANE

Jane’s half of the selection screen is a bit like John exploring his bedroom, but without any of the captchalogue nonsense and modernized in many other ways. A whole different kind of nonsense is shown in Jane’s half: she is shown to be badly brainwashed by the Condesce, who has led her to believe Betty Crocker is just a friendly company that makes super awesome technology and the hyped up game of Sburb.

Jane has three pesterlogs in her selection screen:

  • One with Jake which is mostly filler and some hints at plot stuff. Kind of boring and reads way better from Jake’s perspective.
  • One with Calliope which is also mostly filler and some hints at plot stuff. Again a little boring but it works because it’s a brand new character’s debut.
  • One with Roxy which is incredibly fun and hilarious, setting us up for a brand new character readers will surely be excited to meet and with some actually exciting plot stuff. Is it any wonder Roxy is everyone’s waifu?

General thoughts on these pesterlogs: My biggest issue with the Act 6 Act 1 pesterlogs is that they tend to start with a bunch of general nonsense, setting the rough tone of the characters’ personalities. It wasn’t really much of a problem that the Act 1 pesterlogs were short; the characters were set up in a perfectly fine and enjoyable way. And this is a case where if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

SELECTION SCREEN: JAKE

Jake’s half of the selection screen is more interesting than Jane’s (who would have guessed?). We get a much more subdued and lonely spin on Jade’s magical home life and it’s surprisingly well done. The narration also doesn’t take long to establish how the bunny mission goes from Jake’s perspective, which also works really well. I’m pretty happy the story gets that arc out of the way early on; it only makes sense to do it now rather than pretending it’s a big mystery.

Jake has four pesterlogs in his selection screen:

  • One with Calliope which gets a lot of nonsense out of the way fast and has more plot hints. Still does get kind of rambly though.
  • One with Dirk, no wait, his auto-responder. Probably the most stupidly rambly of them all, mostly tolerable because the whole pesterlog is pretty much a ruse.
  • One with Jane that we already saw from Jane’s perspective. As I said before, it reads better from Jake’s perspective because the rambly opening seems a bit less out of place and it’s a little more enticing seeing Jane vaguely describe mysteries from Jake’s perspective rather than her own perspective.
  • A second one with Dirk’s responder. This time it’s actually useful to the plot and interesting to read. It also shows some parallels between Dave’s relationship with Bro and Jake’s relationships with Dirk’s splinters.

In this short reread, I wanted to see if Act 6 Act 1 read better from Jane’s perspective first instead of Jake’s perspective. Now I know that the answer is Jake. Jake’s pages give Act 6 a strong start with some plot stuff tying back to earlier acts and ruses involving Dirk; Jane’s pages are more laid back and seem harmless after reading Jake’s. If you start with Jane, you’re more likely to think “oh my god this is so boring” in her half.

General thoughts on the guardian traits: A lot of what we learn about the alpha kids and their ancestors is extrapolations from the beta kids’ guardians and their traits. Act 6 Act 1 is weird in that regard, both in Jane and Jake’s parts; it’s loaded up with early installment weirdness. In those pages, the author chooses guardian and beta kid traits to call back to, and some of them work while others don’t. If you want specific examples, just reread the act yourself. I don’t want this post to get even more rambly than it already is.

THE FOREBODING DREAM

The next big thing that happens is a pesterlog between Jane and Jake, where she recounts a foreboding dream where Prospitians gathered around holding a funeral for Jake’s dream self. The surprise factor in this scene, as well as the message it gives, is worth analyzing.

A player’s dream self being dead in advance isn’t normally something that just happens. You can’t do that, you just can’t. Prospit and Derse both follow strict rules which are always followed without questioning. What factor could have possibly caused these rules to be thrown out the window?

I bet many readers did not expect the Condesce to be behind these rules getting broken. Jack Noir is the one carapacian who isn’t afraid to break rules, but is always held in check by the black queen. With the queen usurped, everything breaks loose; for more discussion on this topic, check out this post.

Jane thinks the dream was supposed to warn her of something, but she wasn’t sure what. It’s our very first clue to readers that things are going to go even more off the rails than ever before.

SETTING THE STAGE ON JAKE’S ISLAND

As Jake explores his island, everything we knew about Jade’s home life is beautifully subverted. His house was destroyed, with only his room and the small area below remaining; his island is a dark forested area, filled with replications of the trolls’ lusii. I think these scenes are a highlight of this act: it puts a new twist on Jade’s magical life on an island and brings back the lusii in a magnificently unusal way. 

Jake’s following conversation with Roxy is pretty cool too; a decent mix of character stuff and plot stuff. Roxy’s use of troll terminology is a subtle hint that she lives in the future, which I kind of wish was done more often rather than coming across as early installment weirdness here.

JANE’S FINAL(?) MOMENTS

Jane and Jake both have robot pseudo-guardians that I consider to count as Dirk’s splinters. Jake has Brobot who does much more later on. Jane has Lil’ Sebastian who creates a mess in the house. Jane’s conversation with Dirk (finally, the actual Dirk!) is super fun and balances characterization with plot discussion, plus a quick look into Dave’s adult self; a very strong start for Dirk’s character.

Jane’s echo of the nonsense where John (with Rose’s help) messes up his house is quite an oddity. The antics in the early acts were just the kids playing Sburb, but the antics in this act are Jane making a fool of herself trying to leave her home. It’s a much more literal interpretation of the title “Homestuck” than before.

The end of this act is super interesting to me. It’s an echo of the end of Act 1 in a way as direct as possible: a surprise explosion that, to our knowledge, would kill our new hero. In both cases, we have no idea how the victim could possibly have survived.

The Hussiebot interlude following this act is just as hilarious as I remember it being but I’d count it more as Act 6 Intermission 1 so I won’t talk about it here.

Strong points: Three of the four protagonists are engaging to read and follow.* The twists upon the early acts are surprising and subvert many expectations. And lots of cool mysteries are teased.

Weak points: The pesterlogs spend too much time with lengthy greetings and closings. Some of the guardian callbacks are forced and then left in the dust due to early installment weirdness. One of the four protagonists is not that engaging to read and follow.

* This also holds for the beta kids in the first two acts. Jade in the early acts is kind of a shit character.

Overall: Act 6 Act 1 isn’t as bad as people say but is certainly flawed in its presentation. I can understand people’s annoyances with it, but the positive aspects often aren’t appreciated.

One-week hiatus for Homestuck posts

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I’m pausing Homestuck posts for about a week (spring break week to be specific), just to work on other stuff during this time. In the mean time for this blog, I’ll work on adding the homestuck.com page numbers to the rest of my posts and I may or may not work on my secret 4/13 project as well. As of today, I’ve done it up to post 66 and will do the rest tomorrow.

Funny that in spring break 2016 I tried to speed up Homestuck posts but this year (2019) I just decided to put them on hiatus instead. Don’t be too surprised if I change my mind and pump out a Homestuck post anyway, it’s just that there’s some other things I’d like to work on over the next week.

While these posts are paused, I’ll remind you guys that much of the content in my old posts, even those after the end of Act 5 Act 1, is outdated and does not reflect my current views. I definitely have plans to update those posts (as new posts, not editing the old ones), but I’m not sure how I’ll go about it after the first 27 posts. Well OK, how I go about is obvious, it’s more a question of when I’ll do it and what blog posts to prioritize.

3/11/2019: All my Homestuck and Problem Sleuth now have both homestuck.com and MSPA page numbers! I even fixed a few mistakes in those numbers.

3/11/2019 (2): I fell behind on the community reread near the end of Act 4, so now I’m skipping all the way to Act 6 Act 1 which is where it’s at too. I may or may not write down a small post covering my feelings about the early alpha kid acts in the next few days.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 5 Rewritten: The Crutch of Cinematic Troglodytes

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Introduction

< Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 >

Act 2, Part 2 of 5

Pages 358-428 (MSPA: 2258-2328)

Link to old version

I was originally going to call this post “Grandmotherly Expositation Station (ft. wizards)”.
Then I was going to call this post “The Motherly Miniboss (who hates wizards)”.
But now I’ve settled on an actually good title. I need to name more posts after Dave lines.

Let’s be real here, the content covered in this post has far more focus on Rose than grandmotherly expositation. And all title pictures prior to this were from scenes focused on John so I wanted to change things up.

Another note: I’ll be referencing the old version of this post quite a bit in this one, because I’ve realized many new things related to what I talked about in that post.

What’s the first thing we see when Rose enters her living room? An enormous wizard statue. I touched upon the kids’ pattern of guardian interests in my rewrite of post 3 and I’ll go over this pattern more as we go along.

Just look at that mystical gaze. To peer into those aloof, glassen eyes is to arrest the curiosity of any mortal. To behold the wisdom concealed in the furrows of that venerable face is to know the ceaseless joys of bewonderment itself. Any man so fortunate as to catch askance his merry twinkle or twitch of whisker shall surely have all his dreams fulfilled.

You find this grisly abomination utterly detestable.

If you read this narration closely enough, it comes across as an inversion of the narration’s ridiculously dark and gloomy descriptions of the Horrorterrors (1, 2, 3). And if you read it that way, at a glance it seems like Rose just loves dark things and hates bright and sunny things. This interpretation isn’t even close to true: as I established at the start of my rewrite of post 4, what Rose has an affinity for is the complex and unknowable, which includes the Horrorterrors just as much as it includes wizards. I like how this passage still makes sense knowing that Rose likes wizards but dislikes the way her mother uses wizards to spite her, which as you know is all in her head; it’s something of a red herring for the story to imply she hates wizards.

Also on this topic, in the old version of this post I was confused about why Rose understood her friends’ inner motives and feelings but not her mother’s love of wizards. I even speculated that her mother formed a void (haha epic classpect speculation) in Rose’s knowledge. I think I know why now: Rose can easily pick apart anything complicated but won’t accept anything simple and straightforward.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 83: A Cherubic Reminisce on the Fun of Fun Things

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Introduction

< Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 9 of 11 (yes 11 not 10, at least 95% sure of this)

Pages 5085-5136 (MSPA: 6985-7036)

I will watch K-On before this post series is finished. Mark my words.

EDIT (7/9/2019): Yui Hirasawa is best girl and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.

3/2/2019: Every post up to number 59 (end of Act 5) now has homestuck.com page numbers alongside the MSPA numbers. Only about 20 posts to go! I also just did the same with my Problem Sleuth posts.

3/5/2019: Post 5 rewritten is still in progress! Tentative date for it is March 8. I’m over halfway done and have been doing it at a relaxed pace. A few more rewritten posts this month too. More tentative dates: April 6 for post 84, April 13 for post 85 plus something secret.

NOTE TO PEOPLE READING THESE POSTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: Yes, rewritten Homestuck posts were a thing I did at one point. It was a fun experiment, but I didn’t get past Act 4 before losing motivation. I suggest you keep going with reading these posts instead of getting distracted by the rewrites, but it’s up to you.

Good time for us to be reminded that CotL exists.

We saw those same chess pieces earlier in the cherubs’ chess game, so this poster entices the mystery of who those two really are. (We don’t know they’re cherubs yet, shhhhhhh!)

Now that we’re done with the character select screen, it’s time to see what Roxy is up to, again.

The fenestrated wall showing what the alpha kids are up to is a nice touch, matching with the whole fourth wall visual metaphor. It seems like a transition device more than anything, but I have to wonder if this is what the wall would’ve actually shown if it was turned on, just like with Hussie’s self-insert scenes.

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