#mspfa 200

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

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…

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

SBURB.EXE

SBURB.EXE is the big one of the year, and what a big one for the year to have. SBURB.EXE is a masterclass in how to write a SBURBventure, and how to do it in a crowdpleasing way.

First off, Veri knows his stuff. This is a webcomic written by somebody who is passionate about the early parts of Homestuck and knows exactly how they tick and how they are paced. This is by a master of the format. This is by somebody who knows that meters make everything better, the more complicated and characterizing the modus the better, and character designs should be iconic and not like, fashionable or whatever. It’s somebody who knows the rules and knows how to break them for peak comedy.

But it’s not just bread and butter SBURBventure action, though it does get the This is by somebody who also really likes Creepypasta and wants to add THAT flavour onto it, giving it that little extra spice. Maybe…too much spice? Going to stop my flowing praise here and say that, atleast for me, I don’t especially like the Jumpscares in the comic? Still, at least it warns you on the first page that Jumpscares *are* coming (unlike a certain Reddit-based SBURBventure…grumble grumble mumble…). And, if you basically mute your computer when you view every upd8, you should be able to get through them just fine. And yes, I know *why* there are jumpscares, but still. Wish they weren’t there. That’s all I’m saying.

Anyways, where was I in recommending/reviewing/selling people on this comic? Oh right, the characterization. The characterization is SO GOOD. Every single character is an archetype of a type of person that you would be able to see on the internet back in 2012 (which is when the comic takes place). And it’s not just that the characters have good dynamics and bounce off each other, but it’s also that each character has like. An arc? To go through? Like, there’s depth there, it’s not just “haha wacky fun times with the Creepy Girl who likes Creepypasta.” NO. That Creepypasta interest seems to stem from a desire to be seen as more “mature” than maybe Abby actually is, and that drives much of her actions throughout the narrative and ultimately is why the session goes off the rails the way it does (or at least, this is implied to be the cause). Kiki is also “what is Nepeta was a main character” core and I mean that in the best possible way. There’s just so many iconic characters from this comic it’s insane. Vast Error who? Wait no actually Vast Error’s still good at characterization even if SBURB.EXE exists, and they can (and should) co-exist because they are both doing very different things.

ANYWAYS. Is that it? Did I go over everything? Masterclass, not just bread and butter, Jumpscare warnings, Characterization, comedy and humor, funniest MSPFA doing it today, your favourite MSPFA author’s favourite SBURBVENTURE…I think that’s everything! Oh, right, the music also slaps so hard, but honestly that pretty much applies to literally any MSPFA with like, a soundteam? Just in general, Music is good, I think. Also, I can’t think of a way to end this review, besides just saying GO OUT AND READ THIS MASTERPIECE.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

THE TAPESTRY

We’re here.

We’re finally here. I have long awaited this moment. Welcome to one of the Best Sburbventure in the history of the Site. Welcome.

TO THE TAPESTRY.

The Tapestry’s main success, I think, is not retreading old ground. It is truly a successor to Homestuck in every sense of the word. It wants to tell it’s own story, and most importantly, it wants to build on the themes and motifs contained within Homestuck whilst also somehow upping the ante considerably.

First, I guess I should talk about the Art. Now, I know I have previously said in the past that Art doesn’t really matter, and that pretty much all of these comics have a competent artstyle. BUT. Sometimes, the art DOES matter. In this case, it matters a LOT. Monckat’s style of this hyper-detailed, lopsided whimsy does A LOT of selling one on the size and scope of the story, which is important. There are moments in this fanadventure (that I won’t spoil, btw) that ABSOLUTELY hit as hard as they do thanks to the artstyle.

But it’s not just Art. It’s also. Worldbuilding. Oh so much worldbuilding, oh so intricately. Make no mistake: this is very much Sci-Fi, and it revels in the tropes that come with that. The Fanspecies and the world that they occupy feel fully realized, with real history that actually feeds back into the conflict of the comic.

Not only that, but there are two things that a comic like this really needs to get me interested: Interesting Character, and Good Bits. For Interesting Characters, the characters are compelling enough that they want me to see what happens to them, but the REAL stand-out for this is basically the Good Bits. There are so many good, interesting bits, and they all feedback into the story and plot and worlbuilding and ARGH it’s just SO GOOD.

To say anything more would be spoilers, though. You have to check out this story for yourself, because wow. It is. REALLY good. If you want a crash course in how to make your story feel like it’s not just remaking Homestuck again, but actually is taking ideas from Homestuck and running with them…if you like conspiracy stories…if you like the sense of being on the bottom and slowly unraveling just how far up this chain of diaster and dread goes…if you like the creeping feeling of the game corrupting your world around you, as more and more elements from Homestuck are added into Act 2…you should check this comic out. Do it even if you don’t like those things. It’s really that good.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

The Crow Strider AU

Here it is. The big one of 2021. I could even say that it is one of the big ones of the modern fandom of MSPFA, period. It is the one that casts a shadow over any ongoing continuation, and that is because it is what I consider to be the pinnacle, the peak of continuations. Not to suggest that I like it or anything, because I don’t really. Like it? My opinion to it ranges from “neutral” to “off-putting.”

So why, then, call it the pinnacle of Homestuck Continuations? Because it is the pure embodiment of Candy. Pure, candy coating, sickly sweet, fluffy candy. Do you want a story? Do you want anything of substance in your webcomic about your blorpos being happy? Probably not, because if you wanted substance, you would go to the original work. The Crow Strider AU is all about Wish Fulfillment, and also about making everybody happy. This webcomic wants to be all things to all people (see: the wishy-washy way it executes June Egbert, by just going “here’s June. But also John is here as well still! June is not going to do anything important past this point, but she exists!”).

But can I begrudge The Crow Strider AU? No. In fact, I would say it’s baffling decisions to get everybody into a “happy ending” makes it art more than anything, art that I for one feel inadequate to dissect to any level of standard. And also, it being a pure embodiment of what the Candy route symbolized is a pretty nice thing to have laying around. I could never truly *hate* The Crow Strider AU.

I’m feeling…kind of unsatisfied with this review, actually. I feel like I’m saying all the wrong things, communicating myself in a less-than-stellar way. I think that The Crow Strider AU is a compelling piece of fandom detritus that is compelling because of what it says about the broader Homestuck Fandom and what that fandom wants out of it’s source text, and all the contradictions between the two. That is what I fully think about the Crow Strider AU, as simply put as I can muster today, because I am feeling rather inadequate today for writing out sentences in an easily understood manner, so I am just going to just stop this review entirely now.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

Regionlocked

Regionlocked already has me going “oh this going to be different, isn’t it?” from the very first page. It’s not often that somebody decides to make what looks like an old timey comic strip (like Pogo or Krazy Kat) be the first impression, but the authors involved seem to want that effect to be the very first thing you see, and to be honest, I’m kind of into it? Oh, I’m getting “the beginning of Doc Scratch’s intermission” vibes from this…and those are GOOD vibes to have. Very excited and interested to see exactly what I’ve gotten myself into this time…

Oh okay I think I know what’s going on here. It seems like, from the massive “other authors” list, that this is one of those “exquisite corpses,” ala another webcomic we sadly won’t touch on this main journey through MSPFA, BIKE STUNTS (or to pick a more contemporary example, CHAINED). Basically, one author does a sequence, and then another author (as indicated by the strange character icon in the lower left) picks up the story and does whatever they want with it until it’s the next author’s turn, and so on. At least, that’s what I *think* is happening here. I love exquisite corpses, personally, and wish there were more collaborations of that nature on the site…Wait no I skipped ahead to the next character and the icon hasn’t changed. Huh. Ignore what I said, probably. I have no idea what’s going on in this comic actually.

OHHHHHHHHHH Okay the comic at the beginning is like. the chatroom that they all spend time in. That’s…a really neat way to showcase talking, I’ve got to say. I wonder why nobody else has used this technique before? Probably because it’s really esoteric, but come on. This is MSPFA. If not here, then where else will people appreciate an esoteric framing device? Nowhere, that’s where. Also I love how it seems like there’s a bit of a delay on the chatroom’s messages, just like in real life chatrooms! That’s a little small detail that I never see replicated in other FANADVENTURES, so I’m glad *somebody* also noticed that and added it to their fanadventure. Neat!

But other than the cool technical display of a new way to visualize what’s happening in dialogue boxes, I’m not that…into this fanadventure. I mean, it’s okay, it’s competently done, but it doesn’t grip me. It doesn’t feel like it’s about anything besides “hey a bunch of people play sburb :3” and that’s OKAY sometimes, but…I don’t know…it’s not compelling, to me, is my point.

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

FUTURE PLANS...

Okay so basically first of all, thank you all for the well-wishes and congratulations for me reaching my planned end of this project. Well, I guess I should "end" in quotation marks because basically, I did want to do all the cool projects that came out this year. However, I wanted to wait and see what projects I would have to cover, since, you know. The year's not over. The Fanadventures of 2024 are still producing content, and therefore I wouldn't conceivably know when the cutoff point WAS, since I could get through all the material they've done up to this point and they could make a new page.

Then I realized that's a terrible, stupid way of thinking about this. If they make a new page and I don't like their project, I can just. Not read it. Like I've done with all the rest of the Webcomics I haven't been vibing with. But if the webcomic comes out with a new page and I *do* like it, I can. Read it? Like with all the other MSPFAs I *do* read???????? So what was even the problem in the first place. I don't know, but basically, we're doing this, we're making this happen, 2024 is back on the menu.

I also went back and checked out what other projects have made it past that threshold, and turns out, there are a couple surprising ones, including Fanadventures that started out in *2013*. Yeah, you heard right, all the way back in that time. So they've been added to the list, including one major exclusion to my major journey that I actually did want to read, except when I searched it up, it...wasn't there, for some reason? Probably did the search wrong because it's back up now, and that means HACKBENT IS BACK ON THE MENU. I keep saying that today I have no idea why but it's my feeling right now I guess.

If that wasn't enough, I have also decided to do a little bit of foresight and basically cover the Fanadventures that currently, RIGHT NOW, have at least 190-199 Favourites, as of writing this. Call these ones "On The Cusp" or "On the Brink" of the actual original project. There's a handful of these. Want to cover my bases and all.

There's also, so, so many other fanadventures that fall short of the 200 favourites that I, personally, really like and want other people to know about. That's not added to the spreadsheet yet (I still have somewhat of principles for what this journey should be) but I do think I should cover those EVENTUALLY, if only to abuse my platform a little bit. Speaking of which, wow, apparently you like this blog? I thought this blog wouldn't really be followed all that closely but some of you are liking practically every review/notes taking post I make on here, it's insane. Thank you. I'm also rereading this post and I just realized I sound so much like James Roach's HSBC newsposts it's kind of crazy. But anyways, yeah, those are my future plans, HOPE to have some done today but who knows. So yes, Homeskillet, Dead Meat, and AUTOPRAXIS are coming, and HACKBENT is also coming, and so is YOURS, MINE, and OURS, and many more. So stayed tuned, I guess?

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

EVERAFTER

You know, a lot of the continuations of Homestuck I have looked at thus far have sort of taken the Epilogues route and kind of…timeskipped over several events in the characters life? And I get *why*, because hey, that’s good fodder for making your characters have events in their life that impact them deeply that the audience doesn’t know about, that then the story can reveal over the course of the adventure. But. It does leave a bit of a gap, doesn’t it?

What if somebody took one of those more bread-and-butter, Neoclassical MSPFAs and applied that same kind of technique to, oh I don’t know, a Homestuck Continuation that took place after the game was won? What if that continuation was good? What if a continuation actually mentioned Pyscholonials, which in my book is like how you *know* somebody’s actually understood Homestuck? What if I didn’t ask all these leading questions so much? What would happen then?

Well, I don’t know about the last two leading questions but I *do* know that I was trying to lead the reader on to imagine that hypothetical webcomic, so that I can now reveal my cunning, dastardly trick that I KNOW of such a webcomic!!!!!!!! AND IT IS THE WEBCOMIC I AM CURRENTLY READING AND ENJOYING QUITE A LOT!!!!!!!! I don’t actually have that much to say about this one besides “it’s good and you should read it.” Like, it’s a Homestuck Continuation but told from the style of Act 1 Homestuck, and it’s being told by somebody who gets it, what more could you possibly want?

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

Adventures in the Consumption of Bread (or, better known as BREADSTUCK)

WELCOME. To something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long, long time. It’s time. For Adventures in the Consumption of Bread.

Confused? You should be. This is probably the most Lovecraftian, “aware of the fact that it’s a SBURBventure and that other SBURBventures exist” Sburbventure out there, besides all the other ones we’ll talk about I guess.

What I mean by that, is that this showcases another useful tool to make your audience be compelled to read forward: understanding just what the heck is happening in the story’s structure. I guess you’re someone did that too, but listen. This one does that too, a lot.

Listen. There’s nothing quite like the fact of a Sburbventure straight up looking you dead in the eyes and going “you’ve seen this so many times by now, even the naming gag subversion has lost it’s luster.” And speaking as somebody who’s been reading a lot of Sburbventures up to this point. That’s refreshing. Listen, if you know me, you know that I like using the word “listen” at the start of sentences, and also that I like fourth wall breaking things.

If you have me confused, that’s a different emotion from being bored, is what I’m saying, and if I’m confused and intrigued about what I’m seeing, and what to understand what it is I’m seeing, that’s going to be a compelling force for your Fanadventure.

Ah, but I hear the voices cry out from the void, WHY OH WHY IS THIS NAMED BREADSTUCK? Because. Because for some odd, inexplicable reason, TWO audience members tried to make Ellie (the main character) EAT BREAD. One is nothing. Two is a coincidence. Naming your whole fanadventure after that fact? Well. That’s. Uh. I guess a pattern? Or significant, in any case.

There’s a kind of creative flurry that only comes when you’re kind of new to the whole “making a comic thing” and I think that shines through here. I think that kind of creative flurry can be sometimes misaimed, but only if you try to limit it through like, familiar forms. If you decide, you know what, just make it inscrutable and meta and all this kind of stuff will fall into place and change the artstyle every few seconds…well. Then we have something interesting on our hands. There’s a passion in it, is what I’m saying, and if there’s anything I like on this weird review/note dump/strange trip through time blog, it’s sincerity and passion. Those things always make things interesting. (Also when the story does stabilize from the flights of fancy into something a little more coherent, like this fanadventure eventually does, it’s a joy to behold.)

Yeah in case the full page of notes wasn’t clear. I love this fanadventure dearly. Genuinely changed the game for me. Go check it out, in case you haven’t already.