Tag Archives: dave strider

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 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 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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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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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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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 81: Oceanic Eyes and Bowmanian Montages

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Introduction

< Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 7 of possibly 10 (or 11)

Pages 4963-5028 (MSPA: 6863-6928)

12/16/2018: Next post is still in the works! Will probably post tomorrow morning, even if I somehow manage to finish tonight. I was a little busy today.

I love Caliborn.

I was originally going to make a long blog post to explain my sudden return to Homestuck posts, but I’ll keep things simple instead.

Long story short: the reason why I’m suddenly making Homestuck posts again is because since winter break started a few days ago, I’ve had a lot of downtime and still will for a few more days, so I seized the opportunity to spew out posts. After that, probably back to hiatus.

Jane’s conversation with Calliope ended with a wham line (“the true meaning of…” “beauty?” “horror.”), which is a perfect transition to the other cherub who is better and cooler in every way imaginable.

uu: HELLO DIRK. 
uu: GuESS WHAT I WANT TO PLAY. 
uu: THAT’S RIGHT. 
uu: A GAME. 
TT: Not now. 
uu: DIRK I WANT TO PLAY A GAME. 
uu: DIRK. 
uu: HELLO DIRK. 
uu: LET’S PLAY A GAME. 
TT: I’m busy. 
uu: DIRK I DON’T THINK YOu uNDERSTAND. 
uu: I WANT TO PLAY A FuCKING GAME WITH YOu. 
uu: I WOuLD LIKE YOu TO DRAW ME SOME PORNOGRAPHY. 
TT: Man, does it look like he can draw anything for you right now? 
uu: WHO CARES. 
uu: I AM NOT TALKING TO YOu. 

Caliborn tries to bug Dirk to play a game of drawing hot spicy porn, but the responder tells him he’s busy fighting drones. It’s not too surprising that Caliborn immediately waves off Dirk’s responder as an artificial robot. And says something about red herrings? I almost want to say the cherubs’ interactions with the responder are a bit of unexplored territory, but maybe it doesn’t need to be elaborated on much; the auto-responder only decided he was his own separate being the day the events of Act 6 began.

Going on, the responder remembers what happened a year prior, and then suggests that Caliborn contact Dirk in the past, which he does.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 73: A Reminisce on Romance Weirdness

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Introduction

< Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 >

Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 2 of 3

Pages 4709-4740 (MSPA: 6609-6640)

NOTE: I’m not going to discuss those aromantic John headcanons because I don’t really care to. Actually no, I changed my mind and discussed such headcanons in this post a few years later.

Picking up from where we left off, Kanaya is about to leave the lab when all of a sudden…

KANAYA: Augh 
KANAYA: Why Does That Always Happen 
KARKAT: EVERYBODY OUT OF THE GODDAMN WAY. 
KARKAT: I GOT A LAB FULL OF HUMANS, A MOUTH FULL OF YELLING, AND A TORTURED PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE FULL OF TOTALLY HYSTERICAL EMOTIONS AND UNAIRED GRIEVANCES AT PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY. 
DAVE: karkat is broken guys 

Karkat’s sudden entrance is done via a 2x callback combo, and Dave completely lampshades how bizarre that is.

Karkat and Dave immediately start arguing about stuff and dear god the insults they trade are killing me. Unlike prior cases of characters trading insults (one-sided or not), this scene is just too hilarious to be any sort of setup for character development. Despite that, the comic does a good job developing their dynamic later on; before you think I switched my stance entirely I’m only talking about before the retcon. I have to say I think I’m kind of doing an alright job not moaning too much about stuff.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 72: Gray and Purple Plot Dumps

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Introduction

< Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 >

Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 1 of 3

Pages 4667-4708 (MSPA: 6567-6608)

Delicious plot dumps if I say so myself.

EDIT (12/14/2016): Shit, I forgot to rant about how weird illogical the supposed retconned version of the penis fight scene was. Better luck next time I guess.

EDIT (10/5/2019): After a really good streak for over 30 posts, this is where my Homestuck posts start reading like garbly nonsense again—makes sense because this is where my posting schedule started to slow WAY down. I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote about half the stuff I said in this post, so I didn’t even bother making many edits to it, just so you’re warned.

Hold still, Slick.

After a terrifying montage of the world turning into a flooded alien queen wasteland, suddenly Hussie is trying to feed Spades Slick lusus milk. I must say, this sudden mood switch makes for a surprisingly good transition device.

Amidst all this hilarity, if you stop to pay attention to things a whole bunch of stuff is happening. First off, Hussie is cosplaying yet again, this time as an interpretation of what Calliope might look like. He presumably rescued Slick from the destruction of the trolls’ universe, and gave him some robotic upgrades. The deal with Slick is that the comic consistently refuses to kill him off*, and now Hussie displays a comical obsession with keeping him alive, full out making fun of this recurring motif. I swear to god if he doesn’t turn up alive once again after being killed off in the stupidest way possible…**

Oh, and Aurthour is alive again too somehow? As with Minihoof that’s yet another weird inexplicable horse thing.

* I knowwwwww 😦

** That sentence can also be read as Slick turning up alive in the stupidest way possible, which is semi-intentional. But getting more stupid that self-insert shenanigans requires a bit of creativity.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 65: Karkat Freakouts Ad Infinitum

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Introduction

< Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 >

Act 6 Intermission 1, Part 2 of 2

Pages 4346-4390 (MSPA: 6246-6290)

alternate post title: Don’t Turn Your Back on the Juggalo

As promised, I’ll go right ahead and discuss the thing of kids and trolls meeting.

The very notion of all these characters here meeting in person marks a transition in the beta kids’ storyline, one that applies to John and Jade as well. After leveling up and earning Gift of Gab, all four beta kids no longer receive commands and are only occasionally playable or narrated. This is because in the whole first half of Act 6, the beta kids’ sections are not so much about getting through the game as they are about checking up on their new daily life in the three-year intermezzo between the old and new sessions, often with discussions of plot stuff to keep the story interesting.

I have mixed feelings regarding this narrative transition. After arrival in the new session, I think it would have been ideal for the kids and trolls’ story to return to being more like getting through a video game, but Act 6 Act 6, the subdivision where that stuff happens, ended up being kind of a mess instead. Not counting Caliborn’s narration interludes, it starts off with everyone really confused about what’s going on, and instead of having the characters work through it all, things get even more messed up to the point of the survivors having to fix the whole timeline. And after that happens, the versions of the kids who do get all the stuff done are from a different timeline (with only a few exceptions), different from the ones we followed for all of Act 6, while the original versions are shafted off to irrelevance. Even disregarding that disparity, a lot of stuff in the retconned session is glossed over (things like planet quests and denizen meetings), and at times it seems just too orderly. I think all this is a result of the story trying too hard to get through events in an even more convoluted way than previously, to the point of destroying certain major story points.

But just for the sake of things, I’ll comment on this whole kid/troll meeting sequence for what it is, without acknowledging that the retcon is a thing. As I’ve done in the past, this lack of retcon discussion will be a self-challenge of sorts, something I’ll see how easily I can stick to.

Alright, let’s begin.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 59: The Jumbo Act Five Finale

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Introduction

< Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 >

Act 5 Act 2, Part 32 of 32 + Intermission 2

Pages 4084-4112 (MSPA: 5984-6012)

This is my final post about Act 5, which ends right around the halfway point of Homestuck (unless the upcoming epilogue shifts this point’s position significantly). Needless to say, this is a major milestone point for this post series. I’m pretty proud of myself for making it this far in such a massive project, and not just because that means I can finally dissect Act 6; also because reaching such a major point, with a 13-minute dramatic animation that has left me floored every time I watched it (except maybe in my first read, when it was just plain confusing), seems like something I’d only get to in the far future. Now, nearly ten months after starting this post series, it is the far future, right here in front of my eyes, not a point I dreamt of reaching early in my other projects but abandoned long before getting there. If I had made this post series a few years ago I probably would have forgotten it by now, but I haven’t forgotten it at all. So, you know, it’s kind of cool that I made it this far.

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