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homespork-review · 5 years

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Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 2)

FAILURE ARTIST: We don’t get much time to mourn with Dave because the comic flashes to a weird wizard statue. This statue is ZAZZERPAN THE LEARNED. Wizards are another recurring theme in Homestuck. Andrew Hussie once artfully defaced this cheesy book called Wizardology (warning: lots of really offensive humor). Anyway, Rose hates the giant statue and the other wizard paraphernalia her mother collects and believes her mother does this only to spite her. On a platform is a bronzed vacuum (with a place to put alcoholic beverages) that Rose gave her as an ironic present. On the couch there’s a life-sized princess doll that Rose has attached a Cthulhu-type head to. All these things set up Rose’s troubled relationship with her mother. Rose believes her mother is taunting her and Rose taunts her back.

BRIGHT: This scene also establishes that some things (the Cthulhu doll for one) are too big to be captchalogued.

CHEL: Actually, that was noted with the harlequin doll earlier but we forgot to mention that.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose goes to the kitchen. On the fridge is a crude picture of her late cat Jaspers, who turns out to be more than a family pet. There’s more signs of this cold war between mother and daughter on the fridge.

CHEL: Also, numerous liquor bottles in the kitchen and comically exaggerated displays of wealth, such as a fifteen-thousand-dollar picture frame.

FAILURE ARTIST: After fussing with the fridge, Rose tries to leave the kitchen only to run into her mother. She tries escaping but lands comically in some wizard statuettes.

CHEL: Mom Lalonde is mopping the floor, with no water in the bucket, holding a martini in her other hand. The woman clearly has a problem. Again, this is an issue with the portrayal of the parents; this is pretty funny, but were a real mother behaving this way, it would seriously mess up the kid, and whether we’re supposed to take it as Rule of Funny or not later becomes inconsistent.

BRIGHT: I think a lot of the humour here is supposed to come from the implication that Mom Lalonde actually is a loving if clueless (and drunk) parent, and Rose is reading her badly. On the other hand, something is clearly very wrong, and while Mom Lalonde may indeed be loving the situation is definitely having an impact on Rose.

TIER: Say whatever you want, but when putting on the late game Cerebus Retcon goggles there are probably non-humorous questions to be asked about how screwy Mom Lalonde is as a parental unit if her daughter has ended up interpreting most of her actions as mocking or backhanded towards herself. Like, kids don't just decide that.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 3

CHEL: Back to Dave, he’s chatting with GG and they’re being adorable. GG comments about her birthday present to John, the green box we saw in the car earlier, and…

GG: no!!!!!!! GG: he will not open it GG: he will lose it!!! TG: oh TG: uh TG: wow sorry to hear that i guess? GG: no its good actually! GG: because he will find it again later when he really needs it GG: which of course is why i sent it in the first place! TG: see like TG: i never get how you know these things GG: i dont know GG: i just know that i know!

I think here is when we start to get inklings of the kids’ unusual abilities - I mean, unusual in the context of the weird world they live in. A bit more is established about GG’s home life and Dave’s attitudes, too:

GG: i have to feed bec which is always a bit of an undertaking TG: man TG: if i were you i would just take that fucking devilbeast out behind the woodshed and blow its head off GG: heheheh! GG: i dont think i could if i tried!!! TG: yeah TG: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok GG: ._. GG: yes i guess an encounter with him is almost certain GG: it is usually........ GG: intense!!! TG: well yeah isnt it always with family TG: but he sounds like a total badass

“Intense” in a world where attacking your father with a hammer isn’t worthy of comment sounds worrying. We’ll see how that goes.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave has the tiniest of smiles here and in Hussie’s annotation he says that one pixel created Dave/GG. Whether or not their connection is romantic, Dave obviously feels great affection for her.

CHEL: Interactions between all four of the kids are really sweet, honestly. Dialogue and character interactions are one of the strongest points of the comic overall. Personally I have a soft spot for the OT4.

TIER: In my unprofessional opinion, the beta humans are by far the most functioning and tight knit group of the various groups within the comic, for what that's worth considering the overall dysfunction junction. They're sweet to one another is what I'm saying.

CHEL: Dave talks to John, who mentions the creepy trails around his house and how he thinks he’s seen monsters, which we the audience have definitely seen; creepy little black imps with fangs and, oddly, jester outfits. They bear a striking resemblance to the Wayward Vagabond, in fact. Dave makes fun, but at least pretends not to disbelieve him, and urges him to keep his hammer at the ready. Dave can’t find his Bro, but can find “Lil Cal”, implying Bro is nearby.

TG: lil cal is the shit EB: that's fine, you are entitled to your opinion, i am just saying that being a white guy who is a rapper with a ventriloquist doll is not cool by any stretch of the imagination or by any definition of word cool, ironic or otherwise. that's all i'm saying. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 5

Would a non-white rapping ventriloquist be any cooler? I’m struggling to see how. Ventriloquism, by definition, sucks the cool out of any other aspect of the thing. And now I’m picturing Carlton from Fresh Prince trying to rap with a ventriloquist’s doll.

BRIGHT: Back at the Lalonde residence, Rose attempts to ‘Youth Roll’ out of the front door, but her escape route is blocked by her mother, who appears with martini glass in hand. Time for our second Strife of the comic! (And can I say that I really like the music for this one?)

As with John’s strife with his dad, this strife tells us a lot about Rose’s relationship with her mother. John had the AGGRIEVE and ABJURE options; Rose also gets AGGRESS (PASSIVE) and ABSTAIN. It’s pretty telling that one of these options is an EMPTY SUICIDE THREAT, and ‘Abstain’ has Rose fending off her mother’s insistent offer of the martini glass.

FAILURE ARTIST: I liked the EMPTY SUICIDE THREAT at the time but now I think it deserves an ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?

BRIGHT: Mom Lalonde may be intended as loving-but-clueless, but she’s offering her thirteen year old daughter alcohol, over Rose’s protests, and something is clearly very wrong if suicide threats are a normal part of life. (Something similar will come up in the future, but in that context it isn’t played for laughs.)

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 4

On a lighter note, ‘Abjure’ has her mother offering her A BEAUTIFUL PONY. Rose reacts in the moment like this is terrible, but does later pat the pony’s nose.

At any rate, the strife ends when Mom Lalonde apparently gets bored and decides to do some dusting. This takes all the fun out of using the front door, so Rose goes around the back to make her break for the generator.

Meanwhile, John is trying to read up on weaponizing sylladexes (sylladices?), but is being nagged by a voice to turn around — which he finally does, just in time for a monster to ram into him so hard it turns the panel pixelated. Strife time!

John’s bout with the Shale Imp kicks off with the monster threatening the Con Air bunny. John’s efforts to defend it are intercut with Rose’s progress out of the house and through the rain to the mausoleum. I think this interplay works quite nicely — it keeps both things moving without letting the reader get impatient -- but your mileage may vary.

The imp aggravates John by punching the bunny in the belly and waving it at him. John attacks the imp and breaks his hammer, then attacks it with the handle and gets knocked flat. Finally he weaponises his sylladex and chucks his inventory at it until it explodes into a shower of grist.

PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX!!!!!! Now why couldn’t he put the bunny back in the box?

Because he’d set it as his strifekind, it turns out.

In true video game style, defeating the imp causes John to level up! In Homestuck, this is done by ascending one’s echeladder, a series of player levels with whimsical, old-fashioned names. John climbs two rungs, from Greentike to Plucky Tot, and earns 125 Boondollars.

Note how efficient this is: In one panel we can see that the echeladder is a levelling system, that Boondollars are in-Game currency, and that levelling up has increased John’s amount of grist and how much of it he can carry. He’s also got a new kind of grist called ‘Shale’. Hussie does take an extra panel to clarify the grist capacity expansion, but that makes sense as it’s a small part of the original panel. Compare this to the dozens of panels we’ve had laying out how sylladexes work. These panels are much more information-dense, and the comic flows better for it.

CHEL: Exactly what “grist” is and what it does beyond allowing changes to the house, why those changes are needed, and what “boondollars” are for hasn’t been explained yet, but will be soon, and it’s clear they’re something to do with the game so it’s not outright confusing.

BRIGHT: John spends the next few panels sorting his strife specibus out, and stashes the bunny in there for safekeeping. There’s something amiss, but he can’t quite put his finger on it...

Meanwhile, Rose has reached the mausoleum and prepares to activate the generator. The taxidermied corpse of her beloved pet lies in state, dressed in a tiny suit. A sad fate for an animal who should have peacefully decomposed in a flowerbed. Rose kicks it off the pedestal to make room for the laptop.

John discovers what’s wrong when a bucket of water perched atop his door lands on his head. The culprit behind this sudden dousing?

"[S] WHAT THIS IS SO OUTRAGEOUS (HD)" (Watch on YouTube)

Apparently the sprite has a sense of humour.

Next up is a pesterlog between Rose and Dave. There are hints that all is not well in the Strider residence.

TG: hey TG: dont tell john this but i think he might have been right about the puppets TG: theyre sort of starting to freak me out a little TT: You're referring to your brother's collection? TG: i mean dont get me wrong i think its cool and all TG: the semi-ironic puppet thing or whatever TG: or semi-semi ironic TG: man i dont even know TG: im just starting to think some of this shit is going a little far and its kind of fucked up TT: I've seen his websites. TT: I like them. TG: haha yeah well YOU WOULD TG: oh man i wish lil cal wouldnt look at me like that TG: with those dead eyes jesus TG: sometimes i dream that hes real and hes talking to me and i wake up in a cold sweat and basically flip the fuck out

Well, not so much hints as flashing neon signs. Dave’s gone very quickly from insisting that everything his brother does is cool and Lil Cal is awesome, to admitting that he has nightmares about Lil Cal and is freaked out by his brother’s ‘semi-ironic puppet thing’. We don’t know much about Bro’s websites yet, but we do know that Rose has a morbid streak, and Dave is clearly disturbed by the content.

Dave leaves to find his brother’s copy of the game, and we return to John, who, to quote Rose, has ‘just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.’

And yes, that is indeed John’s dead Nanna, returned to help him on his journey through The Medium and beyond -- or at least, she claims she is. John has to take her word for it, as he doesn’t remember her at all. According to his Dad, John was pretty young when she died. Speaking of his Dad, he’s been kidnapped by the forces invading John’s home.

Nannasprite gives John the background of the game and what’s going on. His house is now in the Medium. This place was created by the game software, but is physically independent of it -- and no, he’s not inside a computer. The Medium floats in the Incipisphere, a place outside the normal flow of time in the kids’ universe. Above the Medium is the realm of Skaia.

According to Nannasprite:

Legend holds that Skaia exists as a dormant crucible of unlimited creative potential. What does this mean, you ask? I'm afraid my lips are sealed about that, dear! Hoo hoo!

Nannasprite is somewhat like a tutorial assistant for the game -- she helps guide John and provides information, although she’s somewhat cryptic.

We are getting a lot of new words here, but Hussie is defining them pretty well as we go, so I don’t think it merits a point.

At any rate, Skaia is defended by the forces of light, while forces of darkness plot its destruction. These two forces exist in an endless stalemate on a stage at the centre of Skaia until a player with a prototyped Kernelsprite enters the Medium. Then the prototyped Kernelsprite splits, with one Kernel carrying the prototyping information up to a kingdom basked in light, and another Kernel carrying it down to the kingdom of darkness. Each kingdom has four Spires, and when the Kernel reaches one, it propagates the prototyping information to the kingdom’s forces.

This is why the imps were dressed as jesters: John prototyped his Kernel with the harlequin doll, and whatever the other players prototype with will influence what forms the soldiers take. When the first Kernels reach the spires, the battlefield gets bigger and the war begins for real.

Oh, right -- and the forces of light are always destined to lose.

So what’s the point? Apparently, that’s for John to find out. For now, though, he needs to head towards Skaia, going through the first of seven Gates. The first Gate is situated directly above John’s house, but the others are going to be harder to reach. We now find out what all that Build Grist is for: To get to the Gate, they need to build the house higher to reach it. And then they can rescue John’s Dad, solve the ultimate riddle, and save the Earth from destruction!

...or not.

Nope, according to Nannasprite, Earth is doomed. Done for. Kaput. There is nothing they can do to save it.

John is pretty bummed about this. He isn’t cheered by Nanna’s assurance that he has a much more important purpose than saving the planet, although she fails to elaborate on that point and instead floats off to make cookies.

CHEL: I think here we earn another couple of points.

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 2 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 11 Failing the Turing Test - wherein the character has no reactions whatsoever While the emotional lives of characters should not be described in their every tiny wrinkle, characters must have emotional lives. When someone boos them off a stage, they should experience chagrin. When they fall from a tenth-storey window, they should feel alarm. The writer should not count on dialogue like “Yikes!” to get the point across.

Brief confusion and feeling “bummed out” by the news that one’s entire planet is doomed does not count as an adequate reaction. I’d expect more fear, more concern. As pointed out before, doesn’t John have any friends other than Dave, Rose, and GG? His Dad has friends, wouldn’t he be concerned for them on Dad’s behalf? If nothing else, more curiosity about this “more important” business?

BRIGHT: Now, I could actually buy this in some circumstances — John is a teenager, doesn’t seem to have close connections outside those we see on screen, and he’s been having one hell of a weird day. I wouldn’t be surprised if grasping the scope of destruction was simply beyond him at this point. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s only been a few hours since life went to hell in a handbasket — not to mention, he’s in an active combat zone. There’s a lot going on, and if he was to shove it out of his mind while he dealt with the immediate crisis, I could see that as pretty realistic.

Of course, that would depend on him actually reacting at some later point, when he had a chance to slow down and it could sink in. As it stands...well, if that does happen, we never see it.

CHEL: Does this also count as “Oh, Don’t Mind Him” for the How Not To score?

BRIGHT: I think so, yes.

CHEL: Then here it goes!

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 12 Oh, Don’t Mind Him - where a character’s problems remain unexplored In real life, people are riddled with chronic problems that are not addressed for long periods of time, if ever. But in fiction, all problems are just the opening chords of a song. If there is a brother who has a problem with alcohol, a child who has lost her dog, or even someone whose car has simply broken down, the reader will worry about those people and expect the author to do something about it.

Technically, this could count for seven billion or so points, minus any people who successfully entered their own game sessions, but we don’t want to get out of hand here and it really only counts as one big problem.

However! I am very fond of this idea in theory. The obvious option would be that the purpose of the game is to save the player’s homeworld. We’ve all seen the “save the homeworld” idea in scifi and fantasy before. Here, the homeworld is beyond saving, but there is another option, and exploring that is the storyline. The forces of light cannot have a traditional victory; the protagonists must find a victory on the terms they have. It’s not a theme one sees often, and I like it.

FAILURE ARTIST: John and the other Beta Kids’ lack of angst of the destruction of their planet doesn’t stick out as much here as it will later when almost everything else is milked for angst.

CHEL: I’m not really sure the planet being destroyed is a great basis for a Rule-of-Funny-based story if that was what he was going for, to be honest. “Billions died, lol!”

#homestuck #let's read homestuck #homestuck meta #homespork #homestuck reread #homestuck review #sporking #literary critique

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blitzrereadshomestuck · 7 years

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Return of the Mad Dash Bash

Rose: Refuse to acknowledge the absurd tea set.

Oh look, im bringing this up from the dead because why not? Going to try getting pretty far during this post. Maybe even the end of act 3.

(Note: We dont get that far obviously, but that should happen in like 2-4 more posts.)

You successfully disregard the TEA SET because it's stupid and shouldn't be in a place like this. You probe further into the lab.

Good thing mom didnt/couldnt hear this.

Looks like a little girl's room. This all strikes you as a bit odd. No time for messing around in here though.

HEEEYYY look at what we found here! Its funny looking at this after mom/roxy was mentioned in hiveswap. God i kinda feel bad for her, especially before she become responsible for Rose and all. Back then she was just a 20something with a dirnking problem.

cant relate though.

Rose: Wear the scarf. Be the Rider.

Ok, maybe you'll do a LITTLE messing around.

OH NONONONO, we are doing this properly!

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=pony

youtube

OH GOD YES! YES YES MUTINI IS HERE FINALLY! God i fucking love Mutini so much <3<3

You are suddenly feeling apprehensive about entering your father's room. With all the scamperin' around it almost slipped your mind how much you hate his hideous clowns. No use putting it off any longer. There is only one thing left to do. Give me a 'D'. Give me an 'E'. Give me an 'S'. Give me a 'C'...

And were back to John and his deep seeded issues with his image of his father. Poor boy :(

but that can take a moment, aperently..

oh my god that little ‘ooff’ face jade has is adorable. (No im not overexagerating for effect, let me have my emotions). That might just be because of the mouth making it look like she still has a smirk.

You scamper your heart out and bump into something. You don't know why he always insists on keeping it so dark in here. Oh look, it was one of his dumb GLOBES. These things make it awfully difficult to navigate the foyer. We get it, granddad. You like to travel around the world going on adventures and stuff! Lousy goddamn stupid globes

He could at least keep the outdated as fuck globes in storage or something. Like half of the americas is a deformed mess on the one on the left.

GRANDPA will surely have stern words for you if he catches you without your trusty RIFLE at the ready. That's just what you need, another one of his blustering mustachioed diatribes. You are rolling your eyes in advance, getting them warmed up. But ideally you can evade him altogether. All you have to do is get past the FIREPLACE and out the front door, and you will be scot-free.

Do you really think it would be that easy Jade? Even if hes dead, it would never be that easy.

hese are the manor's four DISTINGUISHED HOUSEGUESTS. They like to gather here by the FIREPLACE for TEA TIME. As well as pretty much all other times. It's all very mannerly and civilized. You know exactly what's going to happen when you try to sneak by. The FIREPLACE is going to light up and your GRANDPA'S silhouette is going to appear in front of the fire to give you a good spook. He is so predictable.

I spent a moment to think if these four dolls meant anything like symbolically. Nothing (except blue lady, because fuck blue lady) at all.

WHOOPS. You guess an encounter with him is almost certain now. But most likely not for a while. Time to see what someone else is up to. Oh, let's say... Dave.

Like I said, fuck the blue lady (maybe, vriska is probably responsible).

[S] Strife!!!

Well fuck nevermind. Oh well Another bit of Jade being adorable!

(Cant exactly get visuals for this, so just enjoy the flash youself. Cute animations all around.)

YES i am going out with this gun!!! no i will not go get a bigger one!!! no i will not take yours! I can't even lift it!!!!!! oh that is so preposterous. do you even hear what youre saying? i will be fine! this is a perfectly deadly gun and it shoots lots of incredibly deadly bullets! oh will you just stop it. i am going now. Goodbye!!!!!!!!!!!! <3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An adorable, deadly, and sourly abandoned on an island. We dont deserve jade.

OH FUCK SHIT RIGHT. PM was nealy deaded. Good to know shes ok at least.

Aww, good station sentry! Whos a good sentry <3

Truely weve wrongly forgotten about sentry. They are a good dog.

And we come back to Rose failing to ignore the weird kitten (skipping panel) and messing with a weird arcade machine (Appearifier)

You mess with the controls... Hey, Jaspers is alive!!! Or, at least he was in the past. According to the time-stamp this was almost nine years ago. You try to move the crosshairs with the joystick, but it seems to be permanently locked on a specific target. You might be able to unlock it, but you clearly don't have much time to horse around with this thing.

That probably doesnt have anything to do with anything important.

Good thing Mom is a L33T H4X0R, or Rose might have fucked this up.

You attempt to appearify Jaspers. This would surely cause a time paradox, because you can plainly see that he has not told you his SECRET yet. But it seems the machine has a safety mechanism to prevent such irresponsible appearification practices.

Rose, why the fuck would you try to fuck up ‘THAT’ Day. Isnt that day kinda important in the long run?

The PARADOX GHOST IMPRINT of Jaspers appearifies instead, and quickly settles into a mound of sludge.

(Ok to be honest this is just the tutorial for ectobiology. Ill just be skipping it on here.)

A young girl, gifted with the silent hauntings of a trusted feline’s whisper, is not left with a moment before his emediate departure. He would not come back. The next she would hear of him, he would already be dead.

[S] Rose: Fast forward to now.

A quite montage of bleak times.

IT'S JASPERS. HE'S ALIVE. Well ok, he's still dead. But his body is intact. Turns out it wasn't some kind of DISINTEGRATIFICATOR like you thought. It's more like... AN ESCAPILIZER.

yes an escapilizer, and not like just a teleporter or anything. That would be dumb.

Yey Jasper is finally back! Good think Mom taxidermied him.

.... She did do that right?

Good thing you finally got all this sorted out. You only have 10 seconds to spare. Time to stash the dead cat and amscray.

Oh yeah, immediate death and destruction. That was a thing to remember happening!

alternatively, Sweet Lassbscond.

See you guys again NEXT TIME!

#blitzrereadshomestuck #Rose Lalonde #Jade Harley #John Egbert

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