Tag Archives: homestuck

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.

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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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? First-time readers don’t tend to notice how similar he looks to Jack Noir, but that becomes obvious in a reread.

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 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!!!