Tag Archives: act 3

Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Homestuck Part 12.2: Where Making This Transpire

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Introduction

< Part 12.1 | Part 12.2 | Part 13 >

Pages 1100-1153

Act 3, Part 5 of 5

Link to old version

Finishing Act 3 in my rewritten posts was long overdue.

Been a while, hasn’t it?

I figured with me going back and continuing on reformatting my posts before I moved this blog from Blogger to WordPress, now would be a good time to resume my rewritten Homestuck posts, or at least finally finish Act 3 of those, especially as I’m taking yet another break from my regular Homesuck posts. And especially considering my next regular Homestuck post would be number 122, which is 12.2 without the decimal point.

Anyway, I’m going to pick up where I left off like nothing ever happened. Where were we?

Time to be the Aimless Renegade, who is a very well-loved character by those who remember he exists. He’s one of the few characters who is killed off for real as the story goes on, with no resurrection or alternate self relevance and therefore no screen time in the increasingly controversial sub-acts of Act 6. His per-exile obsession is law and justice, which is played out very humorously as exile obsessions tend to be.

… Yeah, I must sadly admit I don’t have a lot to say about AR’s subplot so far. We learn that he harbors the Dersite hatred towards frogs and that Grandpa Harley had this absurd collection of guns and ammo that AR has been making use of. Grandpa Harley has absurd collections of everything though, which I suppose comes as a result of combining his status as a guardian with his status as a page with his fully realized potential.

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Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Homestuck Part 12.1: Scrawlings in Puddles of Sloppy Discharge

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Introduction

< Part 11 | Part 12.1 | Part 12.2 >

Pages 1052-1099 (MSPA: 2952-2999)

Act 3, Part 4 of 5

Link to old version

This post (which I wrote on and off over the past few weeks) was originally going to cover the last ~100 pages of Act 3, but yesterday I decided to split the post in half because it was getting long. I also renamed my rewritten post series from “Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Rewritten” to “Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Homestuck”; the last ~50 pages of Act 3 will be covered in Cookie Fonster Re-Critiques Homestuck Part 12.2.

Picking up from where we left off, John Egbert is commanded to alchemize in a 1980’s time-lapse montage. The narration declines the “1980’s time-lapse montage” part of the command because Hussie didn’t feel it was worth making John’s per-character alchemy binge into a flash, which I think was a good decision. All four beta kids get their own alchemy binge during the first five acts, and each one brings about a delightful mix of extremely plot-relevant items and inconsequential nonsense and everything in between.

First off, John tries alchemizing “pogo || hammer” instead of “pogo && hammer” and makes a hammer-shaped pogo ride. This is a clever integration of computer science technicalities to make alchemy work in Homestuck without inevitably running into captcha cards with too many or too few holes. Here’s the book commentary on this page:

You people don’t even know what the && and || operators mean, do you? Why don’t you learn computers you dorks! Although to be fair, technically the single & and | bitwise operators are what perform the described functions. So now who’s the dork. Me. I went with the logical operators (&&,||) instead because they are more recognizable and frequently used from a pure coding perspective. So it’s this weird case where I dumbed it down for the sake of people who ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO PROGRAM. Good grief.

I like this commentary because it shows how much care Hussie put into balancing technical accuracy and general accessibility when writing Homestuck’s early acts. The mix of accuracy and accessibility sets Homestuck apart from Problem Sleuth, a story based fully upon technical accuracy (to its own set of rules, that is).

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 11 Rewritten: Magical Dreams and Retroactive Clowns

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Introduction / Schedule

< Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12.1 >

Pages 952-1051 (MSPA: 2852-2951)

Act 3, Part 3 of 5

Link to old version

Right now my priority for this blog is my main Homestuck post series I started in 2015 where I’m currently on Act 6 Act 5; this post is a bit of a divergence from the plan I’ve laid out. I finished my newest post a few days ahead of schedule, so I decided to do a rewritten post to release on Friday instead. I mostly did it as a bit of a breather from the absurd romance drama I sped through.

Who’s this guy?

At the curb of Act 3’s halfway point, it’s time for us to meet Spades Slick’s lookalike.

Spades Slick?

Got a nice ring to it.

But you know your own name. And that damn well ain’t your name.

Jack Noir’s naming is done a bit differently from other characters. He doesn’t have a naming box; rather, he’s meta-aware of Hussie’s fingers typing his name. The book commentary here is worth reading:

Jack at this stage is the villain. Villains in Homestuck tend to be meta-villains. That is, they exist much closer to the surface of the story’s meta-bubble, and often interact with the way it’s told. For instance, Jack Noir is the original owner of the 4th wall. (See next page.) As a universal bureaucratic game construct, he can keep tabs on everything going on in the session, including just outside the story.

Though Jack Noir is a meta-villain, there are limits to this, possibly tied to his personality. It could be the scope of his ambition never includes messing with the story itself. His desire for power lies entirely within fictional parameters. Later, there are much more flagrant meta-villains, in Doc Scratch and Lord English. They live on the surface of the meta-bubble, and at times badly puncture it. All iterations of Lord English in total basically represent the ultimate meta-villain. Though it takes a very long time for this to become apparent, and for it to be revealed exactly what this means.

I think it’s fair to assume this villain foreshadowing and easing in was intentional. Act 3 is filled to the brim with hints at the trolls’ backstory, the alpha kids, and (much more subtly) the cherubs. Jack Noir’s higher degree of meta awareness than the beta kids is a subtle but useful way to ease readers into the times villains start taking over the narration. On the topic of characters taking over narration, if you somehow haven’t read Detective Pony *****PLEASE DO SO IMMEDIATELY*****, then come back here.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 10 Rewritten: Scene Hops and Father Revelations

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Introduction

< Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 >

Pages 836-951 (MSPA: 2736-2851)

Act 3, Part 2 of 5

Link to old version

Previously on Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Rewritten:

See you next time as we frantically switch back and forth between a whole bunch of different characters like the Easter Bunny running late for his annual job of delivering candy and eggs to the world’s children, this time during an actually fitting time of year. I wish I could say I had planned my post schedule to make the Easter joke work, but nope, just an incredibly lucky coincidence.

*clears throat*
*puts on pretentious narrator voice*

The day is June 5, 2019, and the Easter Bunny is displeased. He got so distracted reading and rereading the Homestuck Epilogues that he’s now over a month late for his annual job of delivering candy and eggs to the world’s children!!! So late, in fact, that a monkey took over Easter this year and delivered yummy bananas instead. Kids all around the world now eagerly await the Easter Monkey next year, much to the Easter Bunny’s contempt. The Easter Bunny shall exert revenge on this frisky little monkey by, um…

by…

writing more blog posts about Homestuck?

In this blog post, I am the Easter Bunny. It’s me. And I am going to announce that I think I’m now ready to resume my Homestuck blog post series. Maybe not on a custom web domain just yet, that’ll have to be in the future. I’ll just dive right in, conveniently avoiding the fact that I’m procrastinating on the post with the Unite Synchronization flashes and Caliborn: Enter.

PLEASE WATCH THIS YOU WON’T REGRET IT

It’s time for Dave’s guardian strife! And it’s not interactive this time. Rather, it’s a full-out flash of Bro Strider flash-stepping and puppeting Lil’ Cal, who ends the flash flailing his legs over Dave.

My reaction to this flash when I got to it in my original Homestuck post series really sticks out in my head and probably happened because it hadn’t been all that long since the grand Dave/Dirk reunion update. I was floored and breathless at how aggressive adult Dirk is. Is there a word for standing with an open mouth and breath held while watching something tense and aggressive? If there isn’t, then that’s one more reason to hate the English language.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 9 Rewritten: Air for Eclectic Fursuits

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Introduction / Schedule <- still using, for now

< Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 >

Pages 759-835 (MSPA: 2659-2735)

Act 3, Part 1 of 5

Link to old version

A few days (feels like a few months) later edit:
I am really fucking glad I made this post BEFORE the epilogues came out. Dear god Jade, what happened to you.

Augh…

I so badly wanted to finish Act 6 Act 3 in my classic posts before 4/13. That didn’t work out, so I wanted to finish it at least before I started Act 3 in my rewritten posts. But I can’t help myself from dwelling on the past more. Maybe it’s best that way, actually. Act 3 is light on dialogue and won’t make me sad to reread considering the nostalgic content in the epilogues so far, definitely not as much as Act 1 or 2. And this post focuses on Jade, who we haven’t heard from in the epilogues yet, so it all works out. The bit that’s left of Act 6 Act 3 is two big flashes, one last pesterlog, and a WHOPPER flash. As much as I love those three flashes, I don’t think I have the investment to dissect them right now, especially not without the readmspa.org storyboards handy. I’ll figure something out later, OK?

Oh who am I kidding. Nobody gives a crap which posts I prioritize. But I know for sure that there’s lots of people who give a crap about my posts in general, even if they don’t say as much. Come out, come out wherever you are!

Enough of me being an idiot. Let’s get on with this post.

Before Act 3 proper starts, we take a look inside the old copy of Sassacre’s, where old lady Jane wrote a note for her grandson.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 12: Where Making This Transpire

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Introduction

< Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 >

Act 3, Part 4 of 4

Pages 1052-1153 (MSPA: 2952-3053)

Link to rewritten version part 1 / part 2

It’s like fucking Christmas up in here.

Last time, we literally examined the world of Jade’s dreams. This time, we’re going to round out act 3 of Homestuck with lots of stuff falling into place. First off, John alchemizes a bunch of things out of his possessions, a pattern that happens with all the kids, and which Jade doesn’t subvert. I’ll list the most notable things he makes: a green Wise Guy suit, Spy Kids-style computer glasses, several hammer weapons, ghost arms to lift bigger objects at long range, and a Cosbytop. I really like the alchemizing system, and how weird combinations can make awesome things; my favorite combination is fake arm + Nanna’s ectoplasm + Dad’s PDA = the remote ghost gauntlet (the arm which he can control from afar). I should also note that we don’t actually go through John first using each of the alchemy devices in order with captchalogue cards and cruxite dowels and all that nonsense; rather, he’s just repeatedly commanded to combine a few items and bam, he does so. Unlike in Act 1, at this point we take much less time to dwell on John using the captchalogue mechanics. I think the main point of the captchalogue stuff may have been to put readers in the right mindset to feel comfortable with the regular usage of the Sburb interface.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 11: Magical Dreams and Clown Therapy

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Introduction

< Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 >

Pages 952-1051 (MSPA: 2852-2951)

Act 3, Part 3 of 4

Link to rewritten version

Who’s this guy?

At the curb of act 3’s halfway point, we meet the main villain of the first half of Homestuck. He looks like the Problem Sleuth extra Spades Slick, but he is actually Derse’s archagent, Jack Noir. He has great trouble dealing with John’s extra-strong father, and his fourth wall was stolen some time ago. We learn parts of what’s been going on at the kingdom: after Mr. Egbert was kidnapped, the queen made everyone dress like clowns, and Jack Noir can’t stand that. Is there any specific reason for him hating clowns like there is for all Dersites having an intense aversion to frogs? It really doesn’t look like it, though it does become extremely relevant to the plot when Jack flips out and fucks shit up. Maybe it’s like John’s hatred of Betty Crocker—hating it for no good reason. A lot of stuff in real life looks to me like hating stuff for no good reason—I often hear people talking about how much they hate things I know about but don’t really have an opinion about.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 10: Scene Hops and Father Revelations

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Introduction

< Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 >

Pages 836-951 (MSPA: 2736-2851)

Act 3, Part 2 of 4

Link to rewritten version

Pictured above: why Dave is so damn angsty about his upbringing.

Last time we got a partial tour of Jade’s bizarre house. This time, we switch perspective to Dave battling his brother. I practically lost my breath watching that flash in which Dave strifes his brother, this time around. The guy teleports around at lightning speed like a ninja using Lil’ Cal to fuck with Dave, and the flash ends with a loop of Lil’ Cal slobbering over Dave while his guardian’s elusive silhouette flashes around. In my first two reads through I didn’t have this reaction. Maybe it had to do with the recent update in which Dave vented out all his frustration to Dirk about his upbringing? But yeah. Dave has pretty much the most fucked up guardian ever.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 9: Harley in Technoland

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Introduction

< Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 >

Pages 759-835 (MSPA: 2659-2735)

Act 3, Part 1 of 4

Link to rewritten version

A silly girl naps by her flowers…

Two acts down, lots to go. Technically four acts, but acts 5 and 6 are both very long and have many subdivisions. So where are we now? In a brief interlude between acts 2 and 3, we get to read a note to John from his grandmother inside the Colonel Sassacre book. In it, there is very much written about the game he and his friends will play. You may wonder, how does Nanna know all this? One might surmise that she has some sort of foresight like Jade. However, it’s later revealed that she wrote the note after the became a sprite, and the book got sent through time. Nanna introduces several terms before we learn what they mean, and more significantly, it has the first hints of the class/aspect title system which fans love to theorize about. She mentions the four kids’ god tier titles without saying which one is which; typically, readers will guess that the Heir of Breath is John, the Seer of Light is Jade, the Knight of Time is Dave, and the Witch of Space is Rose. As it turns out, Rose’s and Jade’s titles are the other way around. Nanna also says that the book will travel through time somehow, marking the comic’s first mention of time travel. On to the start of Act 3 proper.

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