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Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) Dibs! I'll hop on this within the week. 03:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Act 1

Trying to read from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about Homestuck while simultaneously remembering a pointless amount of information about it.

Lead

• can we get slightly more context for what MSPA is? Something like "the MSPA website" or "under Hussie's MSPA banner" or whatever would work.

• should the trolls not be at least mentioned in the lead? They're a huge part of the story; it feels odd to leave them out.

• "consistent of" – should be "consisting of"

• "to supplement its structure" the meaning of this phrase isn't really clear to me. Honestly I don't love this paragraph in general. It feels kind of like it's leaving out a major thing, which is that HS was directly inspired by old-school point & click adventure games, hence the game commands (and on closer inspection that isn't mentioned anywhere in the rest of the article, which to me is a big omission – here are some sources that mention it: Wired, Kotaku).

• I think for smoothness' sake you can probably omit the "at over...words" phrase and just go with "complex and nonlinear plot, considerable length, and intensely devoted fan community"

• Speaking of, can we mention the soundtrack there as well? And I think we can probably mention the fan contributions in this paragraph first; it flows from the devoted fan community.

• For the rare reader who isn't familiar with the English canon, can we mention that Ulysses is a famously genre-busting modernist novel? (ie, some context to the comparison)

• "Compacities" isn't a word, you might be thinking of "capacities"?

• It feels weird that the original run is the last thing we get in the lead, shouldn't that be in the first paragraph?

• In the infobox, can we swap ((event date and age)) for straight ((end date))? Event date gives us "aged 7", which is just weird phrasing for a piece of media.

• Lead fixed. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖

Synopsis

• Trying to read from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about Homestuck, I think the plot summary needs to be reworked, a lot. There are game details that are mentioned and never referred to again and names just dropped in without context, and yet we're missing major plot details like the cherubs, the guardians (which informs the setup of the post-scratch universe so imo they're relevant), Doc Scartch, even going god tier. You're at 518 words for a synopsis of a comic that's 800,000 words; that's less than the 750 we allot to a 2-hour film. I think you can afford to be a little more expansive about the plot while also being more sparing about intricate details.

• Can we please remove the Obama picture? It makes no sense, contextually. He's not mentioned in the synopsis at all or anywhere else in the article.

  I added context.. that good?

• We can trim references to game constructs like the Incipisphere and Skaia, as they are not mentioned later in the synopsis, and it'll save words that can be spent elsewhere.

  Done.

• We should mention why we've highlighted these 4 trolls in particular? Maybe mention that they become "patrons" of sorts to the kids?

  Done.

• …who have unsuccessfully played a version of the game before" – trim to "who played a failed session of Sburb" or "whose own session of Sburb was a failure" (and let's also add context for the harassment – they think the kids' session is pre-doomed because of something the kids did)

  Fixed

• "are not human at all, but" – extraneous, we can replace that whole phrase with "actually" and then lose the following "actually"

  Fixed; legacy plot descriptions.

• "As the trolls gradually become more important to the story" – extraneous. The following clause "the narrative shifts to a side story" makes that clear enough without having to explain it again.

  Fixed; legacy plot descriptions.

• Can the sentence describing the troll session be reworded? Right now it (unintentionally) reads like the side story stops with the trolls entering Sburb. There's room to expand on the fact that the troll story also includes the present day and ends with most of the trolls dying to infighting.

  Added more context and more Vriska.

• "The trolls' arc concludes with them winning their game only to be stopped by Jack Noir and originally creating the humans' doomed universe." Awkward phrasing, and let's get some context on Jack Noir, who hasn't been mentioned previously. We can also use this as an opportunity to contextualize where the trolls have been the whole time they're hassling the humans.

  Partially done. I'll work on the Jack Noir part tomorrow.

• "As the story returns..." again, extraneous.

  Removed.

• I think we need to get Lord English into the synopsis a little earlier, given his endgame importance. We have enough words to discuss the events of Cascade briefly; I think it's worth doing since it basically caps off what acts 1-5 have been building to and reveals LE as the true endgame antagonist.

  I've added more info on Caliborn. I'm going to finish the LE work tomorrow.

I'm actually gonna leave it here for now, since any further comments I make about the synopsis are probably gonna hinge on changes that you make re: the above. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @PMC: I've done about three-fourths of this.
  The lead has been updated per your specifications, and I am halfway done re-writing the synopsis. I'm thinking of adding something at the end of the "In the post-scratch version of Earth..." paragraph like "Meanwhile, Andrew Hussie's author insert is killed by Lord English, a purportedly-invincible villain threatening all of reality.
  I'm not too keen on adding info about Doc Scratch in the synopsis since honestly he's just a proxy for LE anyways and would only complicate the summary. Same goes for describing the events of Cascade beyond "Kids do the scratch thing", but I could imagine including something about John and Jade literally breaking the fourth wall (but that would necessitate explaining how the trolls, Rose, and Dave left through the Lovecraftian horror that is the Furthest Ring). Please, let me know what you think. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• You're right about getting more into Cascade in detail, it's too much. I think on balance over-explaining the 4th wall/furthest ring thing is probably too much, journey through dimensions is probably enough for the casual reader. Not sure we need the reference to Hussie's self-insert, since it isn't mentioned elsewhere in the synopsis. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:42, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Act 2

I think we're definitely starting to get there. The lead looks good, and the synopsis is better overall, but there's still some awkward phrasing in places. You're still only at 614 words; you have room to get wordier. Writing a really good synopsis is a trick of getting as much meaning as you can from not only the exact words you use, but what plot points and characters you highlight, and where you mention them (and also what to cheat and gloss over without losing the reader). A good rule of thumb is that if you mention something, you want it to be something that comes up more than once (hence why we cut out Skaia but need to add more Jack Noir and LE). We basically want everything to be a Chekhov's gun - if we mention it, we're firing it a few paragraphs later. With regards to Homestuck, one of the most important themes is the cyclical nature of the narrative and the law of unintended consequences, and we can demonstrate that to the reader subtextually without ever actually saying a word about it if we write the synopsis right.

• I think you can cheat around having the Sgrub footnote by just leaving out the word Sgrub and saying "led this group to play their own session of the game". The uninformed reader won't really care why the troll name is slightly different, and the informed reader already knows.

• We should mention Jack Noir earlier; he fucks around with the kids session a lot sooner than I thought. Probably early in the second paragraph? "A seemingly-invincible villain known as Jack Noir ruthlessly attacks the players and their allies throughout the session." That sets up Jack Noir, so when he appears and attacks the trolls, we already have context for his role in the story.

• "After winning their game and about to claim their prize of a new universe, the trolls are suddenly attacked by an unbeatable Jack Noir who forces them into hiding." This doesn't quite flow, and it still doesn't fix the context problem of Jack Noir (which makes getting him in earlier more important). Assuming that we are mentioning him earlier, I would write it something like, "The trolls win their session and a new universe–the universe the kids inhabit–is created. Before they can claim their prize, they are attacked by Jack Noir and forced into hiding, where they begin to troll the kids via a chat program." (Only two sentences, but it packs in a lot of useful background information in for the reader: why the trolls even care about these humans, why they're so sour to start off, and how they're contacting the kids in the first place).

• "previously mentioned unbeatable Jack Noir." You should never need to say "previously mentioned" in any synopsis. If something is memorable, that phrase is redundant, and if it isn't, you need to fix the earlier prose. In this particular case, if we explain Jack Noir in the second paragraph, with the second mention in para 3, the reveal that the players accidentally created Jack actually becomes a fantastic wham line - our first example of unintended consequences/cyclical narrative. (I would reword it though, you can't really "bring about" a person. Maybe "accidentally empowering Jack Noir from a minor adversary to an invincible monster.")

• Arguably, the trolls didn't kill each other out of fear, especially not Gamzee. And you've got more filler words in "but that is not before". What about... "Rising tensions among the trolls eventually boils over, and some begin to attack and kill others; half the group dies before Karkat manages to restore order." This phrasing lets us cheat and not mention their individual motives, but still tells us enough about Murderstuck to get us by.

• In paragraph 4, you mention "the kids and their ancestors", but we haven't mentioned their ancestors, so the reader is going to be confused. We need to mention them earlier, even if only briefly. Maybe in paragraph one, at the end? "Each kid is assisted by an associated relative, known as an ancestor, who were drawn into the game with the kids."

• That being said, "they and their ancestors switch places" isn't super clear to a reader who knows nothing about the mechanics of ectobiology-cloned babies flying to Earth on meteors sent from the Furthest Ring. It begs the question of how "switching places" turns a bunch of adults into kids? "Executing the Scratch resets the kids' universe where versions of themselves become ancestors to a new group of players, who are versions of their own ancestors." It makes it a little more clear that the switching isn't physical. The rest of the paragraph as written from "as a result" is a pretty solid, concise explanation of rest of the Act 6 setup. Maybe "journey through dimensions" to make it clear where the beta kids/trolls are coming from?

• Interestingly, I don't actually think we need the detail about Dirk and Roxy being from Jake and Jane's future - it's never mentioned again in the synopsis, and it doesn't wind up playing that much of a role in the greater plot. I think we can cut it out entirely and just merge the remaining sentences about the cherubs into para 4. (We also need to briefly explain that the cherubs are also aliens). We could also expand on the alpha kids' session just slightly, enough to mention that it's a complete disaster.

• We need to mention Lord English earlier. For the whole synopsis, Jack Noir is the largest threat, and now suddenly some other guy is the real villain. It's confusing. I know you think it'd be too complicated, but I think we can set up LE as early as para 2, if we mention Doc Scratch as his precursor/servant. "As they play, the trolls are manipulated by an enigmatic figure called Doc Scratch, who serves an even more mysterious master." Then in para 4 something like, "unknown to the kids, performing the Scratch also enables the arrival of Doc Scratch's master, Lord English, an even more powerful villain whose existence threatens all of reality." Bam, now we're back to cyclicality and unintended consequences.

• Speaking of that, since we have the cherubs in the synopsis, we should talk about how Caliborn manipulates his session to empower himself to become Lord English, because that gives us another example of the narrative turning in on itself.

• Para 6 is awkward as written. The first sentence has "finally" twice. At this stage, we shouldn't be introducing new characters like HIC unless they're going to be super relevant later, so she either needs to come out entirely or we need to talk about her earlier. (My reluctant vote is yank her - as much as I stan a trash queen, it would take too much detail to get into her role in the story). "Matters complicate further" is filler - in a well-written synopsis, the reader will understand that things are complicated without you saying so.

• We can probably combine para 6 and 7. Although we mentioned Vriska's death earlier, it doesn't say it was at Terezi's hands, so we're now introducing new details to the reader at the last second. I think we can reword. Lord English fighting the ghost army is deeply badass, but since ghosts have never before been mentioned, it's another "wait, what?" problem. We gotta either remove the ghosts or find a way to pack in the dream bubble ghost army earlier.

Sorry to be such a hard-ass about this. Writing a good synopsis of anything is a fairly particular skill, and writing a good synopsis of something as stupidly long and annoyingly complicated as Homestuck is a brutal test of that skill. Hopefully what I'm getting at with my requested changes makes sense - when it's all said and done, a reader who has never so much as looked at page 1 of HS should be able to feel like they understand the broad contours of the story and its themes. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:39, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: I'm ready for a Act 2 Part 2 lol. There is a fair bit that repeats itself that I am sure you will be able to point out to me, but I wanted to get your thoughts on the new synopsis.
I also sidestepped the ancestors thing by just doing some word swaps with the phrase "guardian" to oversimply it (yes, I know not all ancestors == guardians, but I think people will get that they swapped with their literal ancestors now). I also introduced Doc Scratch using how the kids found out about the Scratch (since he guides Rose through the process) and also introduced Lord English in the same vein.
HIC is added earlier in the second-to-last paragraph since I felt not enough was going to be said about the Alpha kids otherwise, and I couldn't find room to mention any other detail of their session (HIC being there is the only thing I found noteworthy besides it being a void session, but checkoff's gun led me to say then we should mention HIC now and then again later). The new paragraph 5 and six are incredibly weak probably, but I think at least it ends in a stronger place (by mentioning Caliborn in the end becoming Lord English). The ghost thing is fixed, and no mention of Andrew Hussie's death is made.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:48, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The cheat with the guardian/ancestor is good. I'm moving my comment about the Obama pic down since I'm not sure you saw it from where I accidentally marooned it in Act 1: I still think the image fails GA criteria 6b, in that Obama isn't discussed anywhere in the text of the article. Yes, the Obama presidency is kind of a background hum to Homestuck, but it really has nothing to do with the story itself. If HS had taken place during the Clinton years, we'd have Dave making cracks about saxophones and sex scandals, but the story of Homestuck would be the same. Obama's not a character in HS, which is the subject of the synopsis. He briefly appears as a joke character in the Epilogues, but we aren't summarizing the Epilogues here. The article should be clear for a reader who doesn't have all the background knowledge that a longtime fan does.

Okay, having gotten that out of the way, I think we can consider the following comments to be...

Act 2 Act 2

• I may be being pedantic, but the first sentence of para 2 is a run-on. If not grammatically, then spiritually. It will read much smoother if you find a way to split up Jack Noir and the troll explanation into different sentences.

• You still have that tendency to use filler-y phrases. "and their contact with one another reveals..." You can trim that - you've just explained that they develop a relationship with the humans. Contact is implied.

• "explores the nature of troll society manipulated by the enigmatic Doc Scratch" is awkward. You need...something in there to split up the clauses, or you need to put Doc Scratch in his own sentence. Also, as written, you don't actually make it obvious that Doc Scratch is a character. For all an uninformed reader knows, Doc Scratch is a game mechanic that manipulates the game (which will be extra confusing when they read about the Scratch two sentences down) Describing him as doing something (anything) should make that obvious, which IMO is all the more reason to plop him in a separate sentence. (I also think you need to mention that DS serves LE, if possible, to tie him in)

• the way this clause "but will also inadvertently summon his even more powerful master" follows "the kids learn" makes it seem like they also learn about LE beforehand, which isn't the case. You can split it into two sentences, or toss in a semicolon. (Also, I am being pedantic here, but LE isn't Jack Noir's master, that I recall - the B2 kids' Jack winds up as an LE minion, but that's a different Jack).

• "Executing the Scratch resets the kids' universe where versions of themselves become guardians to a new group of players, who are versions of their own ancestors." the "where" in this sentence is awkward. Try just "universe, and versions..." - it should work fine like that.

• I realized the dashes in para 4 are inconsistent with the ones I suggested in like para 2 or whatever. I had to look this up, but WP:DASH says we can use either one, we just have to pick one. Whichever we pick, the longer ones go unspaced, and the shorter ones get spaced (so technically both the uses we have right now are mildly wrong, lol).

• I think we should de-link "cherubs", Callie & Caliborn are really only cherubs in name only, and the average reader will be more confused on following that link rather than less.

• Not a hill I'm gonna die on, but arguably the Crocker naming is more detail than the reader needs, even in a footnote - the whole HIC-is-Betty-Crocker thing is great in-comic but it's not really relevant to the synopsis.

• "Caliborn resents them all as well as their friendship with one another" - you could simplify this to "Caliborn resents the group's tight friendship" or something similar.

• "With the post-scratch kids entering their session, the two cherubs play their own version of Sburb in a session that sees Caliborn cheating to win by having his sister assassinated." I have zero complaints I just want to highlight that this is an excellent summary, all killer no filler.

• "the later whom" - probably a typo for "the latter of whom"?

• "Under her guidance," pedantic, but since you've just mentioned two 'hers', only one of whom has a conventionally-female name, you might want to clarify that it's TZ.

• "preventing events leading to the plan's failure from occurring" this feels awkward than it needs to be and you have "preventing" twice in one sentence. Try... "With Terezi's guidance, John retcons key events in the narrative, particularly Vriska's death, setting up a timeline with a clear path to victory."

• "Caliborn claiming the power of his session" this is gonna be less clear to the unknowing reader, maybe "Caliborn winning his session and becoming Lord English"? (Although come to think of it I think that necessitates making note that he can time-travel, when you first mention him)

• "with the remaining" - you already have "with" earlier on in the sentence, so it's wonky. Try reading the sentence as though all the other clauses were super short: "The comic ends with Lord English, Caliborn, and with the kids." See what I mean?

That about does it for the synopsis, I think; I'll get rolling on the rest of the article once you get a chance to deal with the comments above. Cheers! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:50, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: I think(?) this is done? Let me know if I missed anything. Also, I mourn the loss of Obama.
The only significant deviation I made was adding a description of the Cherubs in the notes section. I have a general rule that all notes sections have to have at least two notes in it. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Act 3

Synopsis looks good! I made a few minor tweaks, but overall I think we're over the biggest hill and on to the rest of the content. Sorry about killing your Obama dreams. I like the footnote for the cherubs - come to think of it, maybe one that briefly describes the trolls would be worth including too? Anyway, let's move on to style & development.

• Not a hill to die on, but I wonder if "nominally" is the right word? And should we not also include the numerous flash animations and walkabout games? I see they get mentioned later but since we're describing what the comic consists of, we should do that all at once. (Actually, see my last paragraph)

• Since the text discusses the formatting of the panels, I think we can justify a screenshot of a random page under NFCC

• Citations ought to be to specific pages in journal articles where possible for ease of verification, not the entire article, which is 17 pages long and rather dense

• I feel like there's a lot we can expand on from the Veale essay in order to meet the "Broad coverage" criteria. The single sentence introduces an interesting idea, but leaves out a lot of detail about what, exactly, HS does with its weird multimedia bullshit, and why it does it.

• On the topic of "Broad coverage", I just noticed there's sources on the talk page and in the further reading section that aren't cited in the article – are they being excluded for a reason? (you may also be interested in this open-access book, https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/x346d608w, which, based on a super-basic Ctrl+F search, mentions HS and the fandom a few times)

• Speaking of "broad coverage", it feels like we're missing a discussion of the actual art of Homestuck. The two CBR sources already linked in the article discuss it briefly, this student newspaper article mentions the art shifts, and searching "art style homestuck" brings up more hits that I haven't gone through in depth yet.

• Harping on coverage again, I noticed that the Viz acquisition, the published books, and Hussie's commentary in them aren't mentioned anywhere. This seems like relevant information, and I came across sources that mention it when I searched for the art style stuff, so it should be in the article.

• "previous adventures" – can we clarify that this means previous MSPA stories, whether that means rearranging the para or just rewriting this sentence a little?

• Para 2 sentence 3, can it be rearranged to mention the other MSPA stories first? It's clearer to the reader to mention other stories, then say that there were differences from those stories.

Broadly speaking, this entire section feels disorganized. Each paragraph should have a single overall thought, and each one should flow logically into the next, but the content here is all over the place. Para 1: the comic's composition. Para 2: comparing one in-story element to real-world games, comparisons with previous Hussie works, back to composition. Para 3: stray short paragraph about the HS Beta. Para 4: back again to the composition of the comic by way of fan contributions, then hiatuses in the same para. Para 5: the release of the end of the comic and its length overall. You see what I mean?

To be honest, having reached this point, I'm not sure continuing this review is a good idea. I didn't have an issue with the amount of work the synopsis needed; I kind of expected that given how complex Homestuck is and how difficult writing a good synopsis can be. Like I said above, I expected that to be the biggest hill. But looking at this section (and again without having yet gone deeply into the rest of the article), it feels like there are enough issues with organization and coverage that in my opinion, this will not pass the GAC without a lot more work. I think it might be best to stop here and come back at a later date once it's been worked on some more. If you think I'm being unfair, I'm totally happy for you to ask for a third opinion to look at my comments to see if I'm being unreasonable, or if you'd prefer someone else to take over the review entirely. I'm sorry to do this - I know you've worked hard on the article, and I hope you don't feel as though I'm not recognizing that. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PMC: I'm still game for this review! This is a lot of fun, and the article has never looked better! If you want, we can take an Intermission while I work on the improvements you mentioned here. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:29, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Based on our further discussion, I'm going to fail this one out so you can come back fresh on a new review. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:37, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]