Tag Archives: jane crocker

Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 70: A Friendship Permanently Ruined

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Introduction

< Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 5 of 6

Pages 4569-4594 (MSPA: 6469-6494)

Jane’s conversation with Dirk’s responder about Sburb (i.e. stuff that matters) looks like this:

but her conversation with Roxy about teen drama shit looks like this:

(click to zoom in)

I think this difference says a lot about the alpha kids’ story arc, and how much time they waste on stuff that isn’t Sburb. I don’t even have much to say about the short pesterlog, other than that Jane is noticeably enthusiastic about starting up the game and more than ready to begin, and I think her entering the game could’ve easily progressed smoothly from here on out.

However—and this is a tangent that isn’t so much saying stuff about the short pesterlog—I imagine the progression of events might be too straightforward if Jane didn’t start getting bugged by other people. In the beta kids’ arc, getting John into the game was an interesting storyline because it was our first time seeing that happen, not to mention we didn’t even know he would be transported to another dimension. In the trolls’ arc that stuff is all kind of fast forwarded through, while in the alpha kids’ arc it’s interrupted by relationship drama. I think the story probably would’ve progressed interestingly enough without that happening since plot twists regarding starting the game have already happened in the form of things blowing up. Then again I can kind of see why Jane entering would keep getting delayed like that. Act 6 Act 2 isn’t really in any position to conclude yet; for one thing we still haven’t heard from Jake at all in this act, let alone see him make progress on his bunny mission.

Anyway let’s get on with the long pesterlog.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 67: Meet the Rad Dude with Rad Shades

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Introduction

< Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 2 of 6

Pages 4437-4469, 4517-4537 (MSPA: 6337-6369, 6417-6437)

And a rad title refrance.

NOTE: My next few posts for Act 6 Act 2 will be divided as follows:   

  • One post for the rest of Dirk’s half of the selection screen (might be a shorter post than usual?)
  • One post for Roxy’s half of the selection screen
  • Two posts for the rest of the sub-act

I’m not sure if I’ll keep going with the every Sunday schedule or do something a bit faster. I keep forgetting that I stopped being able to maintain a steady posting schedule months ago, when I had that big school project in April and May. But I still feel tempted to say how often I’ll release posts regardless.  

You’ve clearly got some time to kill before your bffsy gets back from her emergency. Might as well do some casual reading. 

Rather than going through sylladex mishaps while waiting for Roxy to get back to her, Jane decides to read some books instead, presumably because she’s so “mature”. Seriously, everything she’s done so far has come off as unbelievably childish. The only thing that prevents her from reaching Vriska levels of immaturity is feeling bad about leaving her dad in suspense.

But there’s nothing casual about hoisting even an abridged Sassacre’s up to your lap, so forget that. There’s always GAME GRL. But the articles are all a bit vapid, and in your view, somewhat demeaning to female gamers, and women in general. You and Ro-Lal are convinced the whole thing is just written by the same odious d-bags who write GAME BRO. Which is exactly what makes it GOOD 4 THE ELL YOU ELLZ, her words. 

It’s clear that Game Grl is a completely satirical magazine, perhaps even more so than Game Bro considering how sexist it supposedly is. Its purported intended audience is gamer girls, but its actual intended audience is the same sorts of people who enjoy stuff like South Park.* This brings to mind the whole thing of layers of irony, which itself brings to mind Dave. With that in mind I have a new headcanon: in the scratched universe Dave is the creator of all those satirical gaming magazines.

* Roxy would probably fall into both categories (i.e. be motherfuckin’ both things).

Alright, it’s finally time for Detective Pony. Before we begin, I’d like to note something: for the sake of this post series, I’ll consider the fanmade full version of Detective Pony to be canon. Even though I consider it to be canon regardless.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 66: The Miracle of Another New Beginning

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Introduction

< Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 1 of 6

Pages 4391-4436 (MSPA: 6291-6336)

NOTE: The first 30 or so pages covered in this post are technically between Act 6 Intermission 1 and Act 6 Act 2, but it makes the most sense to consider those pages part of the latter act.

NOTE 2 (8/25/2016): Happy birthday, Andrew Hussie!

You are Jane Crocker again. 

And once again, you have woken up on the moon of Prospit, without any recollection of how you fell asleep. You think you were going outside to get the mail? You can’t remember.

Here’s a bit of dream self weirdness in action. Waking up in the dream world and taking a while to remember stuff that happened is one of the defining motifs of dream bubbles, but not of dreams in Prospit or Derse. Jade’s dreams never worked that way at all, with her essentially sleeping on and off in sort of a dual state of existence, sometimes forgetting that she’s even asleep. But in fairness, Jade has always been a special case in that regard.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 63: Dirk’s Ironic Robot Company

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Introduction

< Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 >

Act 6 Act 1, Part 4 of 4

Pages 4227-4284 (MSPA: 6127-6184)

In a callback to a scene in the trolls’ arc, Jake discovers a grumbling giant version of Karkat’s lusus. Presumably the callback is there to make it extra obvious those are the trolls’ lusii—this isn’t the only time such a thing is done.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 62: The Housetrapped Heiress

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Introduction

< Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 >

Act 6 Act 1, Part 3 of 4

Pages 4195-4226 (MSPA: 6095-6126)

NOTE: This will be my last post before leaving for my next vacation, from which I’ll return on August 6. After that I’ll go back to regular posting, hopefully at a less sluggish rate than previously.

Jane leaves her room and examines her hallway, which is quite different from John’s without any clowns or anything.

Just one of your dad’s bland HALLWAY DOUCHEBAGS. Another example of his cornball dad tastes, which make you roll your eyes and shrug. Still, it’s preferable to how it used to be.

Years ago he would work really hard to mimic your interests throughout the household. Gaudy paintings of sitcom legends covering the walls, hideous detective figurines littered everywhere. You think it’s better that he embrace his own interests rather than try to pander to yours.

This description of how Jane’s relationship with her father progressed away from a mirror of John’s life seems to me like another “what could have been” sort of thing: in this case, what John’s relationship with his father would have become if he kept living a normal life for a few more years. And maybe what it would’ve become if not for Gamzee doing the whole clown doll thing. Oh, and that’s another thing that’s better off in the scratched universe. Even during Dad’s mimicking interests phase, this time around at least it’s mimicking a real interest of his child’s.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 61: Your Mail Man Is a Dumbass

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Introduction

< Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 >

Act 6 Act 1, Part 2 of 4

Pages 4122-4162 (MSPA: 6022-6062)

NOTE: My two week blog pause will actually only be one week, specifically the first week of August. More on that here.

NOTE 2: Act 6 Act 1 will be divided into four posts instead of three because a week is more than enough time to wait for a post, assuming there are people who care about this blog post series. The next two Homestuck posts will both most likely be relatively short, which I think works better than making one extra long post that’ll take quite a while to make.

Now that I finished Jake’s half of the selection screen, it’s time to do Jane’s half.

Earlier this morning you thought you heard the mail truck, even though the mail never comes in the morning. But just to be sure, you rushed downstairs to check, even though due to recent events, you are FORBIDDEN FROM LEAVING THE HOUSE. Alas, it was not there, and you sort of spaced out at the sky with a goofy grin on your face for no great reason, and then you were caught red handed by your guardian. Then you got in trouble. 

This description of the stuff Jane did in Act 6’s opening makes it seem a lot more ridiculous than the “breath of fresh air” feel it had earlier. It also establishes that Jane is homestu—I mean locked inside her house.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 60: Bedroom Screwaround Session, Remastered

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Introduction

< Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 >

Act 6 Act 1, Part 1 of 4

Pages 4113-4121, 4163-4194 (MSPA: 6013-6021, 6063-6094)

So remastered, in fact, that SBaHJ is now a moive.

NOTE: Tomorrow marks my two-year anniversary of first reading Homestuck. (actually I was wrong, I released this post exactly on the anniversary)

NOTE FOR THOSE READING THESE POSTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: Warning you know, my early Act 6 posts are extremely rambly and weird, and I have no idea what I was talking about in them half the time. If you want to go to the part where the posts stop being absurdly rambly, then feel free to skip to part 80, a post that I released after going on hiatus for almost two years. Trust me, the posts are a lot better from there on.

Before I start Act 6, I’d like to talk about the alpha kids in general, just as I opened Act 5 by talking about the trolls.

Like the trolls, the alpha kids are a group of characters who didn’t exist from the start. However, unlike the trolls, they haven’t grown to become part of the comic’s premise. This may be because it takes quite a long time for them to be introduced and thus their existence is a major spoiler, or simply because the trolls have such a special appeal. When I was early in my first read of Homestuck, I accidentally found out early that there was a character named Jane, who I thought was some kind of fifth kid who shows up a lot later (which is half-true). I think this goes to show that the alpha kids are not as distinct and special as the trolls, especially when the beta kids have always been a group of four main characters. But despite that, the alpha kids are most certainly not simply a repeat of the beta kids. Even though they’re all young versions of existing characters (the guardians), they are still very much their own characters, since we only saw what the guardians are like from the kids’ often distorted perspectives. You can’t map each alpha kid to a beta kid without ignoring other major similarities between them; this second group of four kids is definitely its own group of characters, with a lot of new things about them that make their story a tale with a much more complex premise than the beta kids’ story. This brings me to the second part of my Act 6 introduction.

Act 6 starts off with the players of the kids’ post-scratch session. The Scratch was stated to reboot the conditions of the kids’ universe for a more ideal session. This applies not only to the story’s plot, but to its narrative as well. Act 6 Act 1 is not just Act 1 with a different set of main characters; it’s a remastered version of Act 1. While Act 1 starts off in a rather generic setting and builds up from there, Act 6 Act 1 immediately gives us a very colorful premise. In the scratched universe, Sburb is released by a company which clues already suggest is owned by an evil alien queen, rather than a seemingly generic mysterious technology company; Jane is the heiress to that company, and doesn’t know anything about what she’s getting into—not even whose company she will inherit—but we certainly do. There’s also a lot of other parts that refine what the beginning of the comic was like; I’ll go over them as I go. For now, you should know that the theme of remastering the beginning of the comic also applies to the post series, hence the title of this post. I will analyze Act 6 Act 1 the way I retrospectively wish I went over Act 1 when I started this big project.

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