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WOKEN VOID

Woken Void is the closest of these “future-200 favourites” fanadventures to the big hundo-deluxe (a thing people say I am sure), with 198 favourites. I guess technically they might never actually make it over that 200-favourite threshold, which also goes for literally any other Fanadventures that I’ve talked about in this strange mini-series of mine. But whatever, I’ve committed to this, and so I’m going to do it. I posted about it on an update that got people liking and commenting “Let’s Go!!!!!!!!” I can’t quit now. So I guess, existential crisis about what I’m even doing here even though I’ve pretty much exhausted the 200 Favourites Gravy Train I was riding for a while aside, it’s time to read WOKEN VOID.

Actually, hang on, let’s examine that existential crisis I was just having. What exactly was I trying to do with that original post? I think a lot of reactions were PROBABLY because I was going to, like, review the NEW hits, the most recent hits that everybody is abuzz about. And, like…

Well, a lot of my reviews have come from the assumption that a lot of these fanadventures were, by and large, popular, if not now, then probably back in their day. And I reached that conclusion by going, huh, the site emphasizes this threshold that most fanadventures will never ever come close to clearing, so any Fanadventures that do clear it must have had a significant impact or word of mouth, or enough people clicking on it and seeing something that they like. But I think…I think that’s not quite easy to quantify when you go below that threshold? Like, can I really assume this MSPFA, WOKEN VOID, was popular in it’s heyday? Can I really assume ANY of the MSPFAs beyond the MSPFAs we’re still talking about NOW were popular in their heyday? I guess it doesn’t have to be in their heyday, it’s just has to be at least crossing that threshold where atleast 200 people click on the webcomic, looked at it, and thought “yeah I want to get updated on this.” That’s all this threshold really means.

Okay I’m stalling a bit on this but I want to say, like…I’m wrestling with the possibility that…I don’t know. Something about reviewing things that I’m not personally into, that haven’t crossed that threshold of popularity, that I don’t think the authors would like, want me to talk about being lukewarm when literally the entire basis of this mini-series is literally just “these are SO CLOSE to the finish line of being labeled popular.” Because, like I said, I only started this mini-series because it was, like…me trying to get ahead of those comments on the original post when I said I ended the fanadventure! And I am very grateful to everybody who said well-wishes on those posts and suggested new fanadventures for me to review. I am very grateful that the response from the MSPFA community has been a positive one to this blog. That’s such a relief to me, personally. But like, now I’m starting to question what I set out to do, but I don’t want to delete the blogposts I’ve already made on those MSPFAs…AUGH!!!!!!!!

And now this post has basically become like. All about the Blog itself, and not about the MSPFA. Which is, you know, decent. Got good art, as always. It’s about Trolls, it’s not really clicking with me, you know the song and dance. But yeah…I guess…what I’m saying is that I don’t think I have to worry about MSPFAs like, blind-siding me? I think what I’m saying is that I don’t…really want to continue this mini-series. But I will definitely review new Fanadventures that cross that threshold, somehow. So…yeah.

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SBURB 2

“If SBURB is so good, why isn’t there a SBURB 2,” outcried the community during 2019. Okay nobody actually was saying that except as a joke, but that’s what this Fanadventure proports to be. A Sequel to SBURB. Wow. Just imagine it. Okay you probably know the deal by now, it’s on the brink of crossing that all important 200 favourites threshold by now, that’s why I’m covering it, 194 favourites, yada-yada-yada. You also know the drill pertaining to something called “SBURB 2” that came out in 2019, after the Epilogues. Yes, that’s right, it’s time for another HOMESTUCK CONTINUATION! But this time…this time…it’s dealing with the next generation of HEROES!!!!!!!!

It's so interesting that before the Epilogues came out, the idea of “What if there was another SBURB session played on Earth C” was like. Barely even a thing. Only one time, ONE TIME, did I come across an Earth C SBURBventure (413 AC, if you’re curious). But, like, once the Epilogues Drops, this is like, one of the big things on everybody’s minds? I guess because what was previously thought to be a completed story has just revealed new layers, new mutations of itself. In addition to, you know, The Epilogues being a story that definitely wants a response, so what better form but to respond to it in kind? What better way to frame your story, give it more heft and punch, than by focusing on the Next Generation of heroes, ALA classic literary giant Warrior Cats? Sounds good enough for me. And you know, that’s kind of my estimation of this fanadventure. Good Enough. It’s there. Pretty good fanadventure, all things considered (the “things” in this case being all the other Fanadventures that didn’t really vibe with me). I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite, or anything…but pretty solid little MSPFA we’ve got here. I’ve got literally nothing else to say.

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YOURS, MINE and OURS

YOURS, MINE, and OURS is another MSPFA that’s just on the verge of having 200 favourites (it has 194 favourites as of writing this review) and honestly that’s so surprising to me. Wait, let me back up here. YOURS, MINE and OURS is yet another response to the epilogues, as we are in 2019 yet again. It is specifically the “Halloween Special” and technical sequel to the EXTREMELY EXCELLENT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED original response to the Epilogues, “JADE ROUTE.” If you haven’t read that, go read that. It’s, very well done and so good. Unfortunately, it does not quite qualify for this readthrough journey, as it is on another site than MSPFA and has no official mirror on MSPFA. Okay now you know why I am so surprised this thing hasn’t crossed that threshold, because it’s SO high quality and I saw a lot of people talking about in 2019? I just. Thought it was apart of everybody’s consciousness around that time, but maybe people weren’t interested in like, yet another Davekat spinoff or something.

But listen. Throw out all expectations, except for the expectation that you will get jumpscared. Again, it’s a Halloween special, and again, I don’t really like Jumpscares, but I understand why the jumpscares are there. Just. Don’t have audio and you’ll basically do FINE with the Jumpscares, they’re the same level of jumpscare as like. Sburb.exe. So, yeah, if you read that and did okay with those Jumpscares, you’ll do fine with the jumpscares in this comic as well.

Okay where was I? I’m getting off track a lot during this review, but basically, oh right, I was talking about how you should throw away the expectations of it being another Davekat centric MSPFA. Because, this is not about wish fulfillment. This is about twisting the Dave/Karkat ship so far into an unrecognizable state from it’s fandom incarnation. This is about exploring the horrifying idea of like, “what if somebody basically got addicted to Ecto-Biology, so that they wouldn’t have to face that their less-immortal partner was going to die pretty near in the future?” Yeah. That’s the hook. That’s the Premise. OBAMAA DAVEKAT and JOHN DAVEKAT are our two central protagonists, as they look for their Father and try to explore the messed-up manor they were raised in, and we recoil in horror at all the grandiose whimsical macabre children on display. It’s a vibe unique to anything else on MSPFA, I’ll tell you that much. So why not give it a spin this Holiday Season? You might like what you see…

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STUCK IN PAST

I am now officially done with all the Fanadventures that have recently gotten 200 favourites, or that I just didn’t get to in my initial readthrough. BUT! The problem with this journey is that there’s always going to be MSPFAs that cross that 200 favourites threshold. So, I’ll cover those Fanadventures that are, “On the Edge” as it were, to crossing that aforementioned threshold, as all of them have at least 190 favourites and are below that crucial number. So, by covering them *now*, if and when they later become valid for this journey, I’ll have already done them! Simple as, as Easy does. Or whatever that expression is.

The first of these is a Fanadventure from 2018, known as “STUCK IN THE PAST.” Apparently, this one is about a boy who can remember another timeline which has people in it that don’t exist in the current timeline? Which sounds really interesting as a premise to a Fanadventure. Also, this fanadventure recently upd8ed, which is probably why it’s so close to the threshold! Neat.

Okay so this is a very compelling and competent execution of the premise and that’s really all I have to say on the matter. Honestly. It’s just. A really well told story so far! It’s also got cool characterization patterns like, the repeated motif of how somebody takes care of flowers, that I always like to see in MSPFAs. I really enjoy this one and I think others would too, maybe…yeah sure I’d recommend this to people. I guess I’m doing that right now.

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MOBIUSTUCK

You know, I’m actually kind of surprised it took all the way until basically the end of the year to get around to like, a Sonic-Based Fanadventure. You would’ve thought that, with the kind of cultural impact that Sonic has had on the internet and gaming and internet-discourse about gaming, there would be more of a Prescence of Sonic-based Fanadventures on MSPFA. But nope, this is the only one of it’s kind (that I can remember reading, at least).

I guess…did I talk about any Fanadventures that was based off of like, other properties playing SBURB? Because it’s one of those again. Except, it’s not really, because it’s not like, how you would think it is. No, instead, all the main Sonic the Hedgehog cast have been transformed into KIDS, to better fit the strict adherence to structure that must have been all the rage back in 2013. Like, why can’t it be Sonic the Hedgehog looking into this new “SBURB” thing that every mobian is talking about?

This is where I should probably clarify that I am no means a “Sonic Fan.” I mean, I like him, I don’t dislike the games (but I’ve never really played any of them to really know if I do or do not like the games), but like…my main interaction with Sonic actually was like, reading the Sonic the Hedgehog comics back as a child, and then in 2020 (or 2021, I can’t remember) finding the Blog “Thanks Ken Penders” and reading that. I’m not invested in claiming an identity as a “Sonic Fan,” is my ultimate point I’m trying to make here, so this SBURBventure really is not aimed at me. Still, it’s pretty good, I guess.

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HOMESICK

So I have no idea how to actually start to introduce this webcomic so I’ll just say what I believe the premise is, which is “what if a blood cell played SBURB?” I…think that’s the premise. This is a fanadventure that only recently *just* crossed the threshold of favourites to be on the “main” list, with 200 favourites on the dot. It’s also from 2013. I think all the previous facts are just neat.

Like. The premise is just, so out there. “What if a bunch of like, organic…organisms…like Estrogen and Red Blood Cells and stuff played SBURB” is like, kind of a weird premise? Which makes me all the more interested that this was in 2013. This feels like the kind of stuff you could see TODAY, when people are trying to figure out the limits of the structure of the SBURBventure and testing out different permutations of it.

Okay so I’m really glad people actually, like, found this and favourited it enough to be on the list, because, gosh darnit I have to leave the fanadventure and I want to keep reading MORE!!!!!!!! It’s competently made and I’m interested in where you could possibly send this premise that I want more……..so I guess that’s a recommendation from me?

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HACKBENT

Now, for the big reason why I wanted to do this “going back and recollecting all the fanadventures that I hadn’t yet covered in my original journey.” The year is 2013, the big hits of the fandom are still GuideStuck and Heinoustuck, and the juggernaut that Vast Error would become is still a tiny little sapling, wandering around playing with Darts. HACKBENT is the one glaring ominious at my original journey, so glaring I made a small post about it back in the halcyon days when nobody really cared because I had only just started getting to the real heavy-hitters of MSPFA. So, let’s do it. Let’s fix this glaring hole. Let’s read HACKBENT. Which apparently was created by a person who now works at DREAMWORKS???????? Crazy.

Alright, already I’m noticing a couple of tropes that gained traction afterwards, but I guess started here (or was added to the Homestuck Formula by this comic). Mainly, mysterious narrator intro that tells us that, hey, hold on to your hats. We’re not just going to do Act 1 of Homestuck. It’s gonna be a totally different thing. Then immediately after that, the comic THROWS you into a Pesterlog without any warning. “You’re here to see Trolls, Let’s get you straight to the trolls” the comic seems to be saying. Okay so the comic’s like, paced weirdly so far, but I’m kind of getting into it? Mainly because like, wow, there’s so many favourites here and it’s so early in MSPFA’s career as a website that there must be SOMETHING here worth remembering and capturing. But the weird pacing is like, all over the place. Obviously shadowy, mysterious narrator, then immediately pesterlog with two characters that you don’t anything about, then an introduction, check the computer, and suddenly we’re the other character from the initial conversation. It’s…a bit all-over the place, in a way that even Homestuck’s early acts weren’t like (trust me, I checked) and even, like, the other contemporary (relative to this comic’s initial posting, at least) comics aren’t like. Like, Guidestuck mainly stuck to one character at a time. That’s the main formula for most MSPFAs, you stick with one character until you get far enough into their introduction that you introduce another character, and so on and so forth. I guess this is a different way of doing it, and you know what, now that I type this out, this kind of pace of like “introducing characters rapid-fire” is EXACTLY the pace of Homestuck Act 5 Act 1, without the framing around that act of course. So I mean, who am I to complain. If you want to get your audience to meet all your characters and get to the “good stuff” of your comic, this is a pretty nice way of doing things.

You know, I wouldn’t be shocked if HACKBENT was like, around when Vast Error started conceptualizing it’s characters. I’m seeing so many character concepts that would later show up in Vast Error, and reading Hackbent is like the missing piece of the puzzle. “Aha!” I’m saying to myself. “So this must be what all the fanadventures were like back then, before Vast Error rose to prominence.” I mean, I know what they were like back then, I’ve read them. But you know what I mean. Like I said, it’s the missing puzzle piece.

Or maybe it’s just a correlated variable that I’m picking up. Maybe this is just what webcomics in general were like back in 2013. Back before MSPFA really had it’s own vernacular and language, and thus whatever MSPFAs were there were either borrowing from Homestuck’s vernacular or from other works. Whatever. Maybe I’m overthinking this too hard. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that this is very evocative to me and I’m struggling to I guess get a clear picture of where this fits in on the “impacting MSPFA” timeline. Because, like, to sort of quote a cliché, “they don’t make MSPFAs like these anymore.” Because, like, I feel like recently there’s this, almost obessive fascination with OG Homestuck, as people are rediscovering that, hey, Homestuck isn’t all that bad. But back in 2013, people weren’t quite in the “Homestuck sucks” phase that the fandom would later find itself mired in, but people weren’t like, obbessed over the structure and trying to recreate it. It’s more like, “how can we make Homestuck into a model that’s more traditional, more accessible to the general public, more like the other webcomics one might read on the internet?” HACKBENT is very accessible, and wears its heart on its sleeve. You don’t have to guess what archetype each character is, because it’s easy to tell-the pompous one, the conjoined one, the one that’s a ticking time bomb, the dirty one, etc. idk. It’s interesting to see how a niche community grows, is I guess my ultimate point here in this paragraph. I feel like I’m not quite communicating that point as effectively as I might like, but…I’ll stop now.

Okay so Hackbent is fascinating to me in like, pacing and what it wants to do, because it’s so unlike what the other big fanadventures were like at the time (with the exception of Guidestuck, but even then, Guidestuck had a much slower pace to it’s sequence of events, from what I can remember at least), and yet what it’s trying to do would be emulated many more times in the coming years. In Other Words, I really recommend this fanadventure, and I enjoyed it overall! Give it a try.

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MeteorStuck

We’re back in 2019 with this one, and you know what that means—wish fulfillment! Catharsis! Everything a healthy, growing fanbase indulges in every once and a while. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of that wish fulfillment and catharsis is centered around two characters, namely Jade and Nepeta. I guess these two are just the ones that get the short end of the stick within Homestuck, and therefore have the most “I wish…” statements about them. I wish she didn’t die, I wish she wasn’t asleep for most of the story, etc. you get it. Just, something I’ve noticed.

I guess another theme for wish fulfillment is “I wish that the Act 6 Intermissions went differently.” Exile Dads AU had this too, where they started with the point in Act 6 Intermission 1 before the 3 year time-skip happened, and this AU’s premise is centered all around the idea that, well, what if Jade and John *could* go on the ship and hang out with their friends for 3 long years? Idk, what *IF* they could go on the ship and hang out with their friends for 3 long years? I guess it’s not a question that keeps me up at night, or one that I would want to actively pursue. The entire text of Homestuck is defined by a lot of characters’ loneliness and characters just…not being able to meet up with one another, due to various different reasons. I just don’t see how you could make this an entire comic. Idk, maybe I’m just grouchy this morning for some reason. I slept well…anyways, yeah, not really getting this one, but you know what I will say. I think it’s neat that this comic, which has not upd8ed for like, literally 4 years, has gotten new favourites? I think that’s neat, that this community can do that, can go back into the past and go “oh! Here's a thing that I really like and am going to express that I really like it, even though there’s no conceivable way that this could come back.” I think that’s really nice and I like that aspect a lot.

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Hivebain't

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Homestuck Act 5 Act 1 is fascinating to me, on like, a structural level (shocker). It’s just so…all over the place, narratively, jumping all over the trolls session timeline to best illustrate what it’s trying to showcase about the trolls. Also, it’s mission statement of “what if you got to sympathize with people you might never think to sympathize with. What if we took all these losers and made you care about them, and then told you it was all a tragedy all along,” is quite something. Well, what if we took Hivebent, but made it into a Homestuck Act 1 AU? At least, that’s what I’m expecting, but I am curious about the approach this will take. Will it be, simply, “Hivebent but it’s Act 1 of Homestuck,” or will it take the non-lineral narrative that Homestuck Act 5 Act 1 presents us with and uses that to build a different story out of those constituent parts? Only time will tell…and me reading this.

Okay so this comic has taken the option of “What if Homestuck Act 1 was Hivebent” and that’s kind of…boring to me? I mean, it still stands out by virtue of being (by my own journey, anyways) the first of its kind to start it’s “Homestuck but Different” story HERE, but…yeah. A little disappointing. I’m kinda not feeling it, maybe because you get burnt out after so many of these fanadventures. Which doesn’t matter to most MSPFA readers, since, you know, you get to pick and choose which fanadventures you follow, and obviously you get to thus set how many “What if Homestuck Act 1 but different” you view, but yeah. I’m feeling kinda burnt-out on this project. It’s interesting, but…it’s not…I don’t know what I’m saying. Just. Yeah.

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Genocide Route

Every once a while there will come along a Homestuck AU that really gets it. Or atleast, intrigues the viewer on where they might be going. And also…

MWAHAAHAHA… YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD SEEN THE LAST OF HEINOUSTUCK? WELL…I mean…technically you are correct about that one, this isn’t a continuation or a revamp or a reboot of Heinoustuck. But it contains the essence of Heinoustuck.

You might even call it…possessed…by Heinoustuck… MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!

Yes, we’re back in the familiar, and if I’m being honest with myself, slightly comfortable in the most dreadful way possible territory of THE HORROR AU. October, Pumpkins, Strange Prose stylings, the works. I also feel like this review/note taking session has really gone off the rails so I’ll just put this here: I really like how this MSPFA takes the “Take Arms from Chest” and makes it more explicit that Jane can’t actually use her arms until she opens up the magic chest to receive the fake arms. That’s an interesting direction to take that gag in and I like how it says “Following Jane's new ability to reach for things, you have unlocked CAPTCHALOGUE!” That’s good Homestuckian prose right there, is my point. Like, this Fanadventure GETS why Act 1 works, on a level, which is that it’s the pure, unadulterated joy of just bungling around your house with a vague goal in mind and leveling up using obscure meters and game mechanics. It’s good, is my point. I keep saying that, but whatever. Very curious to see where this one goes.

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SOVEREIGNSTUCK

I’ve heard about this one, vaguely. I think I saw it when it had just started, but for one reason or another, I just didn’t keep up with it. Though now I am curious about what it is, and that’s ultimately why I started this whole thing in the first place—because I was very curious about the MSPFAs of yesteryear and tomorrow. That’s a very poetical phrasing but you know what I mean. What I mean is that it’s time to read Sovereign Stuck.

OH! It’s an Earth C comic. Well then. Also this might not be the comic I was thinking of, because I don’t remember these panels being in my initial readthrough of this comic…they are very stunning, like, with this kind of pointillism filter over everything, and very rich colors, which all in all make for a very intriguing, compelling start. Like, seriously, these opening panels are absolutely dynamically interesting, visually speaking, and VERY well photo-mashed. Oh, wait no those panels must have been added later because now we’re back to familiar territory, at least for me. (although I must say, I do like starting off a fanadventure with somebody struggling to get out of bed—it’s relatable).

It's interesting to get back with one of these more anime inspired, ensemble-cast fanadventures that are more towards the Desynced or Vast Error side of things. Techincally you could make the case for AUTOPRAXIS being one of these more ambitious MSPFAs, but I see AUTOPRAXIS as more interested in wanting to explore the spaces left unexplored from Homestuck rather than, for example, trying to make a more traditional webcomic structure around Homestuck’s main “gameplay” loop, such as it is. I don’t think that last sentence made entire sense but I can’t think of another way to phrase it so I’m just going to move on. Suffice it to say, very interesting to come back to this and immediately be grabbed, once again, by the idea that my personal tastes do not lean this way in the slightest.

Like, I know that there’s been a lot of heart and passion poured into this webcomic, I can feel that, but it’s why I’m ultimately saddened to say that…yeah, I’m just not getting it.

I think ultimately, for these large, (usually troll) focused casts of more traditional webcomic leanings whilst still recognizably a “SBURBVENTURE,” it is basically determined whether or not you’ll click with one is whether or not you grew up with that one as YOUR SBURBVENTURE. Like how people who are just getting into a band will probably like the album that introduced them to that band the best. Like, it’s the new generation of fans who don’t know anything about Crossmound when it was at it’s peak (or Desynced or Vast Error to that matter), but SOVEREIGNSTUCK is their “Big One”. It’s probably a lot easier to dive in and get invested when you’re already following the lead-up and the roll-out of the initial stages of the comic and can get hyped about the things you WILL see, rather than coming later when the dust has settled and you already have your own “Big One” that you will be comparing this comic to. Or maybe I’m just talking nonsense and nothing that I just said made any sense, I don’t entirely know. What I do know is that you should check this one out, because it seems good, it’s just not for me.

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> s33k the highb100d.

Finally, we come to the last Fanadventure of the 2024 (so far) Fanadventures, and what better way to end it off than with a HOMESTUCK AU that’s not “Act 1 but Different,” but is instead that other old chestnut, “What if Gamzee *hadn’t* killed Nepeta????????” This is like, classic wish fulfillment. Probably one of the bigger wish fulfilment plotlines, if I’m being honest, since the root of that wish fulfillment was seen within the haunted halls of “ALTERNATIVE MEWNIVERSE.” Also this is the second-highest favourited fanadventure (as of writing this), behind Home-Skillet. So yeah, I’d say the theme is popular.

Much like many of the other “What if Nepeta Kills Gamzee instead” Fanadventures, it knows what you want to see and sends you directly to the action. But like, writing that out in that last sentence, I realized, how else are they gonna do it. Are they gonna, like, go through the stations of canon all the way up to Act 5, and there’s no changes? That sounds terrible. Better to just start your station of canon at the part where you’ve changed it. Anyways.

Well, I mean, I thought this was wish fulfillment, and it might be providing that niche to some, but so far (and by so far I mean. Literally all the parts that are there right now) it’s just. A Fight Scene? Which, if you’ve been following this blog at all, you’ll know that I am slightly skeptical towards the inclusion of in any Fanadventure, but that’s just my personal taste. It is kinda…brutal? Not that brutal, but kind of. Also apparently this fanadventure has been already written out yet if the description of “not spoiling the ending” is any indication, which makes me think that probably Nepeta’s going to sacrifice herself to save Equius, which would not. Entirely be the direction that I would think the wish fulfillment would go in. But that’s merely speculation on something that I’m not exactly “tuned-into” at the start of. Anyways this is probably the most competent one of these fanadventures I’ve seen, so…yeah.

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MY MOIRAIL IS A RAINBOW DRINKER

Hey, you know what we haven’t had in a long time? A Trollventure. Also, a fanadventure that stars a vampire. I don’t know if I have *ever* had a fanadventure on here that stars a Fanadventure, but I know with certainly this one does, because the title told me. The opening panel told me that apparently this comic contains grim themes, nudity, and gore, and that I should follow The Simpsons’ rule of “do not follow the examples of the characters on screen.” Luckily for me and the sake of this review, this fanadventure only has like, 26 pages, so I don’t think it’s gotten to any of the real scary parts. But who knows. I will, once I start reading this, so let’s not stall any longer.

The Spectre of Twilight will never leave us as a culture, will it? Who could’ve predicted that one day, 9/11 would set off a chain of events that not only included Shades of Grey and people misinterpreting Pete Wentz lyrics forever, but this specific adventure. I don’t know where I’m going with this paragraph so I’m just going to stop while I’m behind. I will say that reading first person prose is, again, an experience, mainly because, again, we do second person prose around these parts, even though it is the conventional thing to do basically everywhere else. Cool to note, which is why I noted it.

Okay so I have to ask one simple character design question: why is this character not wearing pants? I don’t mean from a Watsonian perspective, my complaint is specifically of the doylanian variety. Why are they not wearing pants. I get that this is an edgy, nsfw fanadventure but I feel kinda uncomfortable with how the artist is drawing our leading lady? Like, in a very overtly sexualized way I don’t often seen in Fanadventures, like she’s a piece of meat. Seriously, this comic is obsessed with showing her underwear for the whole world to see. Again. Very uncomfortable reading this.

Oh wait no this is not our leading lady, well she is but it turns out there’s a cooler, edgier protagonist just waiting in the wings, and he wants to be a Rainbow Drinker too. Gasp! How shocking! You know I thought that I would have seen the last of the 2000s era gamer comic machismo but that’s kinda the vibes I’m getting from this comic? And also yeah that’s basically the end of this comic. I’m…I’m not gonna say it wasn’t interesting, or different from the usual Fanadventures that I have read on this blog…and I won’t say that there’s not competent pacing…but also, I will say that there might be some…issues that the comic might have to work out.

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GRAVEKICKERS

GRAVEKICKERS is another entry in the “Homestuck Act 1 but it’s MY AU so I get to write it.” The enduring popularity of this concept never ceases to amaze me. Think of how much the world has changed since Heinoustuck first started all those years ago…think about how much the FANDOM has changed since then. We’ve had Vast Error, Bilious, KGTAC, SBURB.EXE, and now AutoPraxis…and yet, this one desire to redo Homestuck Act 1 1:1 except it’s different keeps happening. Perhaps the incomprehensible scale of Homestuck is a challenge to some; can I pull it off. Perhaps it is an easy tool to practice writing, a familiar structure. I have no idea but I have, over the course of this blog, offered up some guesses on why this could be the case. Anyways I have nothing really to say about Gravekickers; it’s another one of those and it's fine, really, but I’m not vibing with it. Second Verse, Same as the Verse. You get it.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

HOMESKILLET

HOMESKILLET. Another MSPFA I’ve heard a lot about, but then again, besides a couple of the MSPFAs I’ve reviewed in 2024, I’ve basically heard of all these MSPFAs? Which makes sense; again, these are the cream of the crop of 2024, if you will, the MSPFAs that were the fastest growing out of all other MSPFAs I’ve looked at because they’ve had the least amount of time to “prove” themselves or attract an audience. Not to say other MSPFAs haven’t proven themselves to me that they should be at least 200 favourites of more (to me), but these are the ones that are making waves. And since HOMESKILLET comes from the dynamic mind behind one of the BIGGEST Fanadventure ever, KARKAT GOES TO A CONVENTION, and was even purposed once upon a time as the “Act 2” of that Fanadventure…yeah, I’d say that it made some waves.

And the intro seems to set-up once again that this won’t be your regular ordinary MSPFA SBURBventure, with it being like, “what if MSPA Reader, instead of reading the epilogues, read a random Fanadventure?” Which means that the actual “real” fanadventure starts on page 69, therefore proving to me, at least that this text knows how the slower moments can build up to a reveal, and is comfortable going the slower route. Apparently, according to people “in the know” (read: have read farther than me into Karkat Goes To A Convention), this is apparently somebody’s actual in-universe MSPFA? I’d be interested to see how this maps onto their character, then, and how their view of the world changes throughout Karkat Goes To A Convention. Although, splitting it off from the main text, KGTAC, means that that kind of analysis is a lot harder to get, since I could, theoretically (and in practice) not be coming into this Fanadventure with the idea of who that character is. Anyways, much to consider already.

Okay so far, this fanadventure has been…slow? Like, not like, in an uncompelling way, like there is that sense of dread that occupies every SBURBventure when you haven’t quite had the “SBURB Meteors/Threat Dejour” show up yet, (in a similar way to how dread builds in a Murder Mystery, come to think of it), but…idk. Nothing’s gripping me, so far. It’s been rather good and consistent and competent, and some of the jokes and phrasing of things are good, like refering to closing the door of a mini-fridge as causing “The COKE BOTTLES begin to go back to their original temperature,” which is like. Yeah that’s how a mini-fridge works. But it also mechanicalizes the process of opening up the fridge and closing the fridge in a very interesting way that I thought I should note down. Although, now that I think about it, that stuff is still present in Homestuck and other MSPFAs, just. Not as apparent, I guess?

I gotta say, I feel like the story wants to present itself as more…grounded, somehow. That’s probably a combination of both the vaguely slice-of-life presentation to Fred’s bumbling around the house (there’s not really *a* goal at this stage in the story, like how John basically got a goal pretty quickly of “retrieve the Sburb Beta and play it” in OG Homestuck), to the slower pace of the story and the less…extreme reactions to things from Fred. John is disgusted at his Dad’s Fanciful Harlequins, and Fred just wants cookies and Mac and Cheese and loves his Grandma. I think the story’s doing this, again, to set-up the tension and dread; we ALL KNOW, if we’ve come from reading KGTAC, what happens in these MSPFAs, and the destruction SBURB tends to set-up, so in these low-key moments of “normalcy” (for a lack of a better term), I feel a more heightened sense of dread about proceedings.

I will say, I like how there’s been a trend lately of like, emphasizing various other forms of communication besides just pesterlogs? Like, Homestuck has the characters interact with each other through the internet, and this feels like a logical extension of that. Sburb 1996, Ever After, and now Home Skillet (and also technically DEAD MEAT with its text messages) all fit into this, I think. I don’t have like, anything further to say about that, noting that it’s occurring and it’s an interesting trend.

Okay got to the windchime flash and this is exactly what I’m talking about with regards to the slower, more grounded pacing. Instead of a flash marked entirely by the absence of other people, we have noises of children and families playing in the background. Instead of having the cool wind blowing through the streets, creating a more haunting feeling, there’s birds chirping and there’s sunny lighting everywhere. Instead of a monologue about how something feels missing, there’s a monologue about responsibility and wondering what’s next, as if to say, Fred has never wanted or considered absence in this life. It’s…grounded. Slower. Anyways yeah if that sounds like up your alley you should probably check this out, I certainly liked it better than KGTAC’s opening stretch.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

REALLY! FUCKED UP ENTRY

I think a large part of the modern construction of SBURBventures is the feeling of like, everybody knows about SBURB’s mechanics inside and out by now. There’s a sense of like, there being a solid foundation from the audience to be able to grasp and understand the core conceit of why, for example, everything is on fire in the first panel of this fanadventure, and thus we don’t need to spend any time on it. RFUE is very much of the mindset that you need to get rid of everything that is unnecessary, that includes Introductions to the characters, introduction to the setting, and introduction to the mechanics. “Come on,” it seems to say. “You already know what’s going on. We don’t need to explain anything. You know why you are here, and why you are here is to watch a bunch of people mess up the SBURB entry sequence and fail around like idiots, while meteors fall overhead.” It’s Touys, and it’s touys being done at such a rapid pace that there is room for nothing else. It’s a very…Time-Aspecty driven story, if that makes sense? Only dialogue and jokes and entry sequences, back-to-back to back, at least at first.

The cool thing about this approach is that, whilst we, the audience know about like. What is happening, the characters don’t. I believe they call this “Dramatic Irony.” Also I guess the audience also does not actually know what’s happen, because of the lack of anything that isn’t just “YOU’VE GOT TO GET IN THE GAME *NOW* GO GO GO GO GO.” We don’t know who Ruby is, who AG is, what Ruby’s home life is like, and that’s OKAY, because that’s not necessary for the Fanadventure to function. In a lot of ways, despite it's speedy plot, it’s almost…minimalist in that sense? Like, not like how I could describe You’re Someone as Minimalist, but like, in the way I’ve mentioned above. So we don’t have any clue on the typical things that some might say make or break a story, but the characters in the narrative don’t have any clue on the mechanics of the story they occupy, or how to actually enter the game. Idk I just thought that was a neat parallel.

I think I’ve run into this issue many times before but I’ve never really commented on it because I either didn’t notice it in time but DID notice it and just decided that it didn’t fit in the flow of my writing so I guess I should say it now. There’s a lot of gif animations in a lot of these kinds of “Playing with Touys Mode Only” MSPFAs, and that’s fine and dandy and works well…to a certain point. There’s a reason, I think, why Homestuck used Flash Animations that had like, arrows to replay the flash animation, because when you *didn’t* see an arrow, you knew that the animation you were watching was, in fact, still going. I’ve had many instances where I’d thought I’d seen the bulk of the animation, only for the animation to actually keep going and for me to only realize that it did after clicking away to the next page. It’s not, like, game-breaking or whatever, but it is a problem to note because it kind of takes away from the breakneck pace because I have to go back, thus reversing my momentum in the story, if that make sense. Pacing for MSPFAs is one of the most important things I think, and I think this only highlights it. Again, doesn’t ruin it for me, but it’s something to watch out for.

I love how Homestuck only offers a tiny piece of like, the ludocris things that one could do with a game built kind of around the notion that people will be time-traveling and could, potentially also travel across universes, and that MSPFAs are taking up the mission for these kind of ridiculous scenarios and running with them, at least in the modern, neo-classical era that we now find MSPFAs in. Idk I think it’s kind of neat. That’s the second time I’ve said this in this review so I’m going to stop taking notes now I guess, but before I go I will say that this fanadventure was really fun, and I really liked it, so…take that as you will, I guess.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

AUTOPRAXIS

Now, The Tapestry might be the reigning title of like. “You’re Favourite MSPFA Author’s Favourite MSPFA (besides the MSPFA they are working on).” But for my money? It’s probably AUTOPRAXIS.

AUTOPRAXIS is many things, and is doing many things. It is an absolute masterclass in not just the bread and butter pacing and good bits of a SBURBventure, but also in how you can play around with the mechanics of SBURB to tell a more engrossing tale. Like, do we need the guardian strife to actually be with a guardian? AUTOPRAXIS is also the most explicitly leftist text on MSPFA right now (at least, as far as I’m aware of). I have never been so aware of a MSFPA character’s wealth and status within society and how they relate to said society than when I am reading AUTOPRAXIS. It’s also an explicitly, like, no bones about it, transfemmine text that wants to explore how trans women deal with the trials and tribulations of society, and that includes Trans Women who haven’t “figured it out” yet (but they will, trust me).

Did I already mention that it’s incredibly funny as well? And that said characters are some of the most thought-out, thoughtful, interesting to read-about characters on MSPFA? And that one character, Null, has stolen my heart? No? Okay well all of that I just said is true. Also it should go without stating at this point that it’s got a rocking soundtrack and has cool Dark Souls Paratext (and other paratexts) that actually like. Matters???????? Also it’s a period piece for 2016, that totally captures that kind of special hopelessness that was happening in 2016.

I’m having a hard time describing just what makes this text so good, I guess. Like, expressing myself. I guess I could say that I am literally Geme and have never felt more seen by a character than when I see what Geme is doing? That’s a pretty good anecdote, I guess. Also it’s constantly upd8ing and despite it only having started in April, it already has 803 pages. Also, it’s doing a lot of cool things with not merely referencing Homestuck, but building on its foundations (see also my comments about being more aware of the status and social class of each character). Anyways yes if you aren’t reading this, then…you should be reading this MSPFA. Like, right now. Why the heck are you still reading this review? GO READ IT NOW. IT IS THAT GOOD.