Tag Archives: re-read

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 21: Down the Chitinous Windhole

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Introduction

< Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 1 of 7

Pages 1989-2070 (MSPA: 3889-3970)

Elsewhere in paradox space, we examine another planet, forgotten by time.

After nearly two thousand pages mostly covering the adventures of our quartet of nerdy teenagers, we pause our adventure for a stretch of about 600 pages dedicated to thoroughly getting to know what Homestuck is best known for: the trolls. This part of Homestuck is sometimes called the troll intermission, because like the Midnight Crew intermission, it focuses on an entirely different cast of characters from those four kids. Like I said in my first intermission post, some people skip the trolls’ arc, or skip all the way to the trolls’ arc, which, needless to say, are both bad ideas.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 20: Enjoy Your Nap While It Lasts

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Introduction

< Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 >

Act 4, Part 6 of 6

Pages 1909-1988 (MSPA: 3809-3888)

Once again I use this same picture later in this post but it’s SUCH a perfect heartwrenching panel.

This may or may not be a Vriska thing. Wait, who am I kidding, it totally is.

Last post we went through the origin story of our heroes, and some other stuff. This post yet again opens up with AR’s past self, stopping to notice a meteor carrying the frog temple, because Dersites have this thing against frogs. He goes to see a time capsule and a computer screen in which we can see baby Nanna raised by Colonel Sassacre, who investigates an explosion outside his house. It’s a crater with baby Grandpa who shoots the Colonel with his gun, the kids thereafter raised by their dog Halley and Betty Crocker. Thirteen years later teenage Grandpa leaves his adoptive sister behind. Then DD appears as AR? watches, coming to throw away the wizard book and the Sburb betas next to the time capsule and into it respectively, and uses the MEOW code book with the machine. There’s a plot loop tied together: we now know the whole story of how Jade got Dave’s Sburb discs. It’s a pretty enjoyably convoluted sequence fueled mostly by mishaps and random choices, but unlike the paths of other objects that go through complicated journeys, this one doesn’t seem to have much relation to the forces of causing the events destined to occur.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 19: Protagonist Origination Station

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Introduction

< Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 >

Act 4, Part 5 of 6

Pages 1777-1908 (MSPA: 3677-3808)

 I use this same picture later in this post but it’s such a great panel that I’ll use it as a title picture.

I’ve seen people comment that this guy looks like some weirdo from Adventure Time.*

* If you’re wondering, about 3-4 years ago I followed that show, but then I quit, and from what I hear about it, it really got kind of weird. There’s stuff about the punky vampire girl not wanting to be a vampire anymore??? Sounds like she’s a character with complications and stuff, which ties in with the fact that I’ve seen people compare her to Vriska.

Last post we went over a whole bunch of stuff, like angry guys killing their bosses because of stupid clothes and girls throwing F1 keys at guys with 3-D glasses and demonic puppets miraculously landing on lightning-fast rocket boards and that sort of stuff. Now we get to watch AR? rocking it out on Bro’s rocket board through an asteroid belt. PM? is also up to stuff, getting ready to board a shuttle to the battlefield to find the white king. Then a clone of Clubs Deuce in a ridiculous outfit known as the Courtyard Droll appears and steals the magic ring. I really like how this bozo’s debut is played out, making a dramatic entrance starting with the tip of his crazy hat as he creeps up and steals a ring. He’s really short and could be sneaky, if only he didn’t love crazy hats so much. Nonetheless, he succeeds in stealing the ring. He gets a message from the Draconian Dignitary to give him that ring. In that message, the titles of the other three Derse agents are all revealed, specifically the ones whose acronyms are the same as those of the Midnight Crew. Speaking of the Midnight Crew, this message shows us how each of the quartet of Derse agents is given a different task to do, just like what the Midnight Crew does. This is done even more systematically with the alpha kids’ Derse agents, where each is assigned to kill a kid; funnily enough, the Droll is the only one of those agents who succeeds at his job. Just then, Jade, after over 100 pages without her, has her dream self make a dramatic entrance, beating up the Droll, taking the ring, and putting it on, even though it doesn’t do anything to humans.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 18: Snooping Nerds and Dream Dancers

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Introduction

< Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 >

Act 4, Part 4 of 6

Pages 1660-1776 (MSPA: 3560-3676)

He was that close.

Last post we saw how Davesprite came to be, ending with the two Daves chatting and John blasting off despite Dave asking him not to. Now, John has a flashback to Act 1, where he is delighted to get the bunny from Con Air from Dave, and we get to read the letter Dave sent with it. He talks about how ridiculous it is that John unironically likes that horrendous movie, but his sincere naiveté is what’s cool about him. John remembers getting this letter and reconsiders blasting off to his seventh gate. He talks to Dave about how he came to his senses and remembered how Dave does care about him.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 17: Coolkid Duplication Station

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Introduction

< Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 >

Act 4, Part 3 of 6

Pages 1578-1659 (MSPA: 3478-3559)

Rose kicking ass.

Continuing from where we left off, John finds his dad’s car, and then talks to Terezi who, like I said in the last post, he always has had an enjoyable dynamic with. Right away they snark at each other:

GC: JOHN DONT M4K3 FUN OF MY H4ND1C4P 
EB: which one, the blindness or the leetspeak. 
GC: 1 4M S3NS1T1VE 4BOUT BOTH 

[…]

GC: B3FOR3 YOU K33P TYP1NG MOR3 STUP1D O’S 1N TH4T WORD 
GC: JUST L1ST3N 4ND DO WH4T 1 S4Y 
GC: YOU KNOW YOUR3 GO1NG TO 3V3NTU4LLY 4NYW4Y 
GC: B3C4US3 YOUR3 4 N1C3 GUY 4ND K1ND OF 4 TOT4L W33N13 PUSHOV3R 

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 16: Paradox Eggs and Alchemy Bacon

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Introduction

< Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 >

Act 4, Part 2 of 6

Pages 1455-1577 (MSPA: 3355-3477)

Link to rewritten version (unfinished)

This title picture matches even better with the post title than I thought it would.
Look at that little egg on the alchemiter. Better still, the cruxite dowel to the left of the egg looks kind of like bacon.

Once a dutiful lawyer, always a dutiful lawyer.

Time to start the exiles’ backstories. Before becoming an exile, the Renegade was an authority regulator (noted AR?) and the Mendicant was a parcel mistress (PM?). AR? is hanging around LOWAS and finds John’s dad’s car sitting there parked illegally, marking the scene with caution tape, and giving the owner a ticket. He loots the green package and John’s server copy of Sburb from the car. PM? is also walking around there, and sees AR? with the green package.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 15: Ditzy Dreamers and Exile Cookouts

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Introduction

< Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 >

Act 4, Part 1 of 6

Pages 1358-1454 (MSPA: 3258-3354)

Link to rewritten version

Can’t think of a caption other than “The Land of Wind and Shade”, which would be redundant.

Act 4 of Homestuck, like a few other acts, opens up with a minigame. In this game, John explores his planet, a cloudy blue world named the Land of Wind and Shade, fights imps, gathers information about his denizen and the imps and stuff from salamanders, somehow talks to Nannasprite from afar, and like in the game where he explores his house, has a voice in his head give him commands, but the voice is definitely someone different from the Vagabond. It is very similar to the game very early in Act 2, but instead of exploring his house, he explores the planet he entered. This minigame really is rather complicated, with features such as sylladex access and sending objects through a mail system and multiple attack methods and a button to talk to Nannasprite and so on. Hussie has said that this game is somewhat experimental and that it probably could’ve been presented in a more effective way (which is what the famous YouTube series Let’s Read Homestuck does).

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 14: A Slick in Time Kills Nine

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Introduction

< Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 >

Intermission, Part 2 of 2

Pages 1265-1357 (MSPA: 3165-3257)

Link to rewritten version

HUGE BITCH
BLUH BLUH

Continuing from where we left off, Spades Slick jumps to a timeline where Crowbar, the Felt’s least stupid guy, is alive. His subordinates are battling three Felt members. Then Snowman (8) makes her debut in the intermission’s only sound page. She teleports to Slick and stabs him in the eye, talking onscreen as she does that, the most incredible ability of any character in this intermission so far. We learn that if you kill her you destroy the universe (reference to the 8-ball in pool), which is why everyone stops shooting their guns when she’s around. There’s a few interesting things about Snowman’s debut flash. First, she is shown to be a somewhat mystical lady, being able to teleport by phasing through existence. I think we are to assume Doc Scratch gave her that ability, given that he made it so that if you kill her you destroy the universe, but it seems a little weird for him to just give her abilities like that. Carapacians generally aren’t able to teleport around like that. Also, Slick lets Snowman stab his eye like that. What’s that about?

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 13: Convoluted Mobster Battle Station

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Introduction

< Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 >

Intermission, Part 1 of 2

Pages 1154-1264 (MSPA: 3054-3164)

Link to rewritten version

Your name is SPADES SLICK.

I’ve gone through the first three acts of Homestuck, now it’s time for the intermission. Before I read Homestuck, I already knew that it had an intermission, because someone on an online forum gave me a rundown of how long each act is, and said that the intermission is his favorite part because it’s so badass. But I sure as hell wasn’t expecting it to be about a completely different cast of characters. And that’s exactly why so many readers skip the intermission, something considered heresy in the Homestuck fandom. For similar reasons, it’s not unheard of for readers to either skip over the trolls’ arc or to skip straight to the trolls’ arc. Just about every fan of Homestuck knows that these are all bad ideas. I didn’t skip any act (the intermission or otherwise) on my first read through, though I’m almost certain that I did accidentally skip over some pages throughout Homestuck when finding the page number I was on. For example, I believe I accidentally skipped the important flash [S] Jade: Enter, but I didn’t understand much of the story anyway because I skimmed everything on my first read. It’s well-known that the intermission first doesn’t seem important to the plot but actually is important, which is the main reason why it’s bad to skip it. It’s really entertaining and action-packed anyway. I’ve seen readers comment that they like how the Midnight Crew gets straight to business and kills a bunch of green morons rather than four teenagers dragging ass on their adventure.

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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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