Homestuck post series hiatus (a.k.a. Cookie Fonster Says Stuff About His Homestuck Commentary 1)

TL;DR: I’m making a post in my Homestuck post series on January 3, then I’m pausing my Homestuck blog post series for at most three months to see what it’s like without dedicating so much time to that post series, followed by perhaps a less intensive schedule, I’m not sure.

If you’ve noticed I’ve put my latest (read: only) blog post series on hiatus for the past week because of vacation. This isn’t entirely true: I realized at the last minute that I could bring my school-provided laptop there (which I did) but I still didn’t bother working on the post series, instead using that stretch of time to focus on my other projects. I’ve thought about this whole post series which has all these long wordy paragraphs and stuff, and I’ve been thinking, it’s probably a pretty awful use of my time with all my school stuff. I’m not sure how much of an effect it’s had on my grades and stuff but I know for a fact I’ve taken a good amount of energy working on this post series. I think I’ll put my post series on temporary pause to see, how will I go about different without doing this post series?

For as long as I can remember I’ve had an affinity for doing really big projects for fun. I doubt I’m the only person who came up with countless ideas for big ambitious projects as a kid but hardly finished any of them. It’s been this way for a pretty long time, but in the past year or so I’ve figured out how to actually follow through with some of these projects. For the past few months I’ve been juggling three big projects: my large number website, my Homestuck commentary post series, and a read-aloud of a ball-bustingly hilarious edit of Detective Pony. The first one I am making efforts to focus more on, the second I feel like I’ve been working on too much, and the third is an odd case since I can only work on it on my desktop computer, the one I generally use for spare time stuff; as a consequence of this, it usually doesn’t intermingle with whatever homework I have to do like the other two projects do.

Homestuck is a fairly popular topic to write about, so I’m not even sure how much of my commentary is that original and insightful. But I’ve seen a few commentaries of the webcomic—rereads, first reads, and otherwise—and they’re all really fun to read and often make you think, wow how didn’t I catch that? or whoa that’s a pretty interesting way to think of this thing. That’s why I started my post series, so I could do similar commentary and potentially realize things and stuff like that. It’s been pretty fun writing these posts—there’s no point in denying that. I like saying whatever I have to say about stuff in Homestuck, but despite how much I like writing these blog posts, I think it’s worth going on a pause for the reasons I listed in the first paragraph.

This announcement begs the question: how long will the pause last? Even though I said above that it’ll last at most 3 months I feel like the length could use some elaboration. I really honestly can’t make any promises on how long the pause will last (might only be a week or two), other than that I don’t plan on permanently shutting off the blog post series at this point. I already have plenty of ideas for stuff to say about later parts of Homestuck, especially the more recent content, and given that it would be a shame (for me at least) to shut the whole series down. I’ve decided that I won’t pause this post series for more than three months. But there’s another point I could elaborate on.

After the pause is over, will I return to my regular twice-weekly posting schedule? The answer: I don’t know. The post schedule I followed for a few months worked pretty nicely. Typically I would release a post, write the next post soon after, then spend the remaining time before my designated release time revising the post. Unless I somehow couldn’t find enough time to work on my posts, that schedule worked pretty well for me. It would make sense that I would spend less time working on the post series after I finished the pause, but that would require deviating from a satisfying schedule. Maybe I could try being less awful at time management and only work on it after finishing daily homework or something? I really don’t know, just throwing around ideas here.

I will make one more Homestuck post before starting the pause. Right now it’s winter break and I only have tiny amounts of school stuff to do. Vacation’s almost over and I don’t know how much time I’ll be spending out of the house through the rest of break (ends January 3 for me), but I’ll probably have enough time to work on another blog post which will be posted on the last day of break. It’s worth doing so because I could already try my hand at my new posting style which I talked about in my latest Homestuck post.

That’s about all I have to say. At some point after my next post, I’ll eventually make another announcement after I’ve decided more stuff about the future of this post series.

Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 27: Memo Madness and Universe Failure

Introduction

Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 7 of 7

Pages 2543-2625 (MSPA: 4443-4525)

Supposed to be serious one-person business but ended up becoming a barrel of laughs.

This last part of the trolls’ arc kicks off with Karkat starting a memo system for the trolls to read, but not respond to. He rambles about the stupidity of time travel, but the other trolls from the past and future respond anyway to talk about how stupid the his memos are. Even Equius, who never laughs, remarks this:

CCT: D –> Do you realize that here in the future, this bulletin has come to be regarded as something of a joke 
CCT: D –> A lengthy piece of comedy, often quoted amongst ourselves in private moments of levity

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 26: Seadwweller Drama and Meta Madness

Introduction

Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 6 of 7

Pages 2407-2542 (MSPA: 4307-4442)

NOTE: I recently updated some of my old posts. Mostly some little tweaks, adding some extra information and opinions of stuff, and adding more labels to the posts.

NOTE 2: Going on vacation, so no posts next week. Next post will be Friday around noon, and next post will be either next Sunday or Wednesday depending on when I get back.

(excessively long evil gloat omitted)

Rule of thumb: if it doesn’t say the scene will abruptly switch, it will switch.
If it says it might abruptly switch, it won’t.
Same goes for any recurring gag.

Time to meet the last two trolls in a 2x transition combo. Both have their names given to us, then have a character establishing moment. First Eridan kills someone’s giant whale lusus with his harpoon gun, riding his seahorse lusus like a boss. Then Feferi catches the dead lusus with her net and feeds it to her giant tentacle monster lusus, Gl’bgolyb. Feferi’s moment is establishing because it’s her response to being asked to do something adorable; I think that may establish her odd view of the world, where everything is a lot more positive in her mind than it really is. I love the way that monster is given a sense of scale, with a giant whale lusus dwarfing the size of a troll, which itself is DWARFED by Glb’golyb (am I the only one who reads the name phonetically rather than as “glub glub”?) which I’ve seen estimated to be about 20-30 miles in length. Then we learn the interests of each of those trolls, and that’s where I’ll say stuff about both of them.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 25: March of the Quadrants

Introduction

< Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 5 of 7

Pages 2323-2406 (MSPA: 4223-4306)

Why was her introduction delayed so long?

Nine trolls down, three to go. After a fair amount of time getting to know some lunatic trolls we’ve never heard from before, we finally get to know the one who has a thing for Rose.

Kanaya Maryam is strongly emphasized in her introduction page to be an unusual troll in many ways. She enjoys the rays of the sun, has a taste in fashion, has a rare blood caste, has an exceptionally rare mother grub lusus, enjoys odd literature just like Rose, and also has knowledge of stuff through dreams just like Jade. Going by her introduction page—which uses the phrase “you are one of the few of your kind” five times—she’s essentially a combination of the two human girls (while Karkat might be thought of as a combination of the two boys). It’s worth noting that her introduction is much later than that of each of the other trolls we heard from in Acts 3 and 4. I think this might have been done to establish her as a troll who is very much unlike most of the others. Her status as such is interesting because while at this point it’s very heavily emphasized, I’m not sure how relevant it is to her role in the story. The big thing about her is her affiliation with motherhood, tying directly in with her role as a space player, and her supposed role in reviving the troll race. She also gets a distinctive honor of being part of one of very few pairings (Kanaya/Rose) that has stayed sturdy for a long time and continues to be that way; it seems like nobody can stay mad at the fact that those two are together. That relationship is noted for its strength, how it stays in place through hardships and through retcons. Also, I said two posts ago that she’s portrayed as one of the few sensible trolls as shown in a conversation with Vriska, not to mention humorous in her own subtly scornful way. Overall, she’s definitely one of the more likable trolls.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 24: Robot Kisses and Blood Alliances

Introduction

Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 4 of 7

Pages 2238-2322 (MSPA: 4138-4222)

I usually think “ew” at kissy scenes, but this one’s hilarity given its context is so much of a redeeming factor that I’ll use it as a title picture. Also, it’s a very infamous scene.

This picture doesn’t correspond with the very beginning of the post.
But Doc Scratch standing here character introduction-style fits pretty well for starting one of these posts.
EDIT: Now I have another panel as a title picture but I’ll still stick with having this as the first non-title one.

This post opens with another flashback. First, Aradia and Terezi discuss what happened to Tavros, and how they’re all done with gaming and putting up with Vriska. Terezi advises Aradia not to do anything in retaliation because it’ll end badly, but her voices urge her otherwise. She summons ghosts to haunt Vriska, who proceeds to talk to Doc Scratch. It’s amusing how easily Scratch gets her to do stuff. He outright tells her, “Aren’t you going to kill her?” Scratch reveals more about himself: how he oversees events and nudges them in the right direction, and how he’s almost omniscient but has gaps in his knowledge existing by design. Vriska does what she is asked and kills Aradia in the most fucked up way imaginable: mind-controlling her boyfriend into eating some mind honey and blasting her to death (though the scene cuts before her death is shown). I’ve seen some people argue that Vriska probably didn’t mean it when she referred to Sollux as Aradia’s boyfriend, but I doubt it. I think it’s more likely that Hussie decided to make Aradia’s own boyfriend be the one controlled into killing her, in order to make the scene sting extra hard, twofold (wink wink). Twofold because it’s Sollux—a guy who beats himself up about a lot of stuff—who killed her against his will.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 23: Unpleasant Blueblood Avenue

Introduction

< Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 3 of 7

Pages 2155-2237 (MSPA: 4055-4137)

I used to read this troll’s name as /nuh-peeta/.
Then I watched all these YouTube videos and for some reason NOBODY said her name like that.

Six trolls down, six to go. Next in line for us to meet is the trolls’ furry. Nepeta Leijon is somewhat infamous among the trolls because of her general irrelevance to the storyline. Fans love to joke about her because of that, throwing around theories with various degrees of facetiousness regarding potential connections between her and Lord English or whatever else. I think she gets the least screen time and least plot relevance of the trolls. I would have stopped here to give a summary of what she’s like if not for recent updates in which Jasprosesprite^2 noted her irrelevance in-story and brought her back as a sprite, which simultaneously backfired and, uh, “forwardfired”, when she combined with Davesprite to create a giddy androgynous being who believes themselves (themself?) to be the perfect thing to take on Lord English. Although Nepeta’s introduction pages emphasize her hunting prowess with her cave walls depicting paintings in blood, most fans remember her for her affiliation with cats and her zeal for shipping, which of course are all her dancestor Meulin cares about. Cats are understandable because she pretty much is a cat, but shipping is a little weirder; it’s something towards which people are naturally inclined because the purpose of life is to reproduce and shipping characters transparently relates to that.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 22: Psychic Snaps and Computer Explosions

Introduction

Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 2 of 7

Pages 2071-2154 (MSPA: 3971-4054)

It’s that 3-D glasses guy again.

The fourth character in the list of trolls for us to meet is that dude who always wears 3-D glasses for some reason. Like I said when I got to his first appearance back in Act 4, Sollux Captor is one of the most memorable characters in Homestuck. His glasses, teeth, and paired horns give him a memorable appearance; he has powers ranging from visions of doom to eye beams and object levitation; he heavily symbolizes Homestuck’s theme of duality and bifurcation; he is the best friend of the trolls’ protagonist, and has been in relationships with both a very plot-relevant character and with a character with even more tangential treatment than him despite her important assigned role in troll society; and he has certainly done his share of things to the comic’s plot. But despite his numerous gimmicks, Sollux is merely a supporting character. Andrew Hussie specifically made him be a secondary character, while I feel like he could be so much more, like there’s an empty spot for him on the character tier ladder right up there with Karkat and Vriska. And despite all the stuff I said, he’s still an enjoyable character nonetheless. As grouchy as he tends to be, he is very well-meaning, trying his best to avoid the awful things that he doesn’t know are fated to happen.* He puts the game in teams so that there’s a chance of some team winning and thus saving the world like Aradia purported, tries to shut off Sgrub when she reveals that the game will not save the world like she implied, and heavily disapproves of the idea of feeding ghosts to Lord English. Not to mention that he’s humorous at times, with dialogue somewhat like that of Dave. When he becomes blind and his mind mutations shut off like a brain tumor unintentionally removed by force, it’s almost like a happy ending for him. I wonder if he’s still into programming, if that’s something you can even do in dream bubbles.

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