Author Archives: cookiefonster

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 92: Quirk Resignation and Clown Vomit

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Introduction

< Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 >

Act 6 Act 4 + Act 6 Intermission 4

Pages 5438-5511 (MSPA: 7338-7411)

The whole Caliborn/Hussie arc is a lot more metafictional than I remembered.

I always forget how good of a song Even in Death is, holy shit.

Time to begin Act 6 Act 4 of Homestuck! Unlike Act 6’s prior sub-acts, this one consists of a single flash. I think most people agree that it’s a good change of page for the alpha kids’ Medium exploration to be condensed into one flash, rather than another few hundred pages of dilly-dallying and romance drama. As with the trolls’ arc, we don’t really need to see the alpha kids’ usual game progression (or in this case, lack thereof) all over again. A montage showing us a few scenes of the alpha kids exploring their planets and their Jack Noir counting his days in jail is all that is needed.

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My Homestuck post schedule for the next few months

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For the first time in almost three years, I’ve been outputting a steady weekly-ish stream of new Homestuck blog posts! Posts that aren’t rewrites of old posts, that is. And I am extremely proud of myself for regaining that old motivation.

School is starting next week for me. It’s going to be my third and final year as an undergraduate student, after which I’ll probably get a full-time job (I have a part-time job on campus this fall semester and probably also spring). As I said in an earlier post, with school coming up I feel it’s a good time to bring back my schedule of new Homestuck posts every Friday morning (but probably earlier). I’m going to continue this schedule until the end of Act 6 Intermission 5, then probably put my Homestuck post series on a short hiatus just like Hussie did after he finished Act 6 Intermission 5. I already know exactly how I’ll divide my Homestuck posts for these next few acts and I have planned dates for each of those posts. My plans are as follows:

  • 08/16/2019 – Part 92 (A6A4 + A6I4) (done!)
  • 08/23/2019 – Part 93 (A6A5 part 1)
  • 08/19/2019 – Part 93 (A6A5 part 1) (released early!)
  • 08/23/2019 – Part 11 rewritten (Act 3 part 3)
  • 08/30/2019 – Part 94 (A6A5 part 2) (released two days early!)
  • 09/06/2019 – Part 95 (A6A5 part 3)
  • 09/13/2019 – Part 96 (A6A5 part 4)
  • 09/20/2019 – Part 97 (A6A5 part 5, the trickster section)
  • 09/27/2019 – Part 98 (A6A5 part 6, the split screen section)
  • 10/04/2019 – Part 99 (A6I5 part 1)
  • 10/11/2019 – Part 100 (A6I5 part 2)
  • 10/18/2019 – Part 101 (A6I5 part 3)
  • 10/25/2019 – Part 102 (A6I5 part 4)
  • 11/01/2019 – Part 103 (A6I5 part 5)

Obviously, these plans are subject to change. Not the act divisions, those are finalized and I know exactly which pages each post will start and end at. But the dates are most certainly subject to change. It does feel good though having an estimated date for when I’ll finish Act 6 Intermission 5. It also feels crazy that post 100 isn’t too far away. Obviously my 100th post has to be something special, and I think it’s good enough for number 100 to be the part where Aranea tells us about Caliborn’s backstory.

9/1/2019: “New posts every Friday morning” has evolved from a posting schedule to a deadline, one that I’ve consistently been early for in the past few weeks. I think at this point you can reasonably expect new posts to come out once a week, maybe? Or maybe every Wednesday, I don’t know. I finished post 95 today and I’ll probably make some revisions the next few days and release it, unless I turn out to be REALLY busy with schoolwork.

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 91: Drunken Smooches and Costume Parties

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Introduction

< Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 6 of 6

Pages 5399-5437 (MSPA: 7499-7537)

Featuring the best psycheout in all of Homestuck.

If only John and Vriska knew how much their friends nearby miss them…

You reach the end of the game to find an intriguing convergence of outrageous personalities. You are just dying to see what these heavyweights of badittude have to say to each other, but somehow you discover within yourself the superhuman restraint to hit pause. 

When I got to the end of Openbound Part 3 in the last post, I already knew that the walkaround ended right before Meenah could talk to Vriska, John, and Tavros but I was still a bit disappointed to remember it cut off right there. But upon further consideration, I think it’s fair to cut things off here and resume this arc with something other than a walkaround because we’ve been overdosed with walkaround content this whole intermission. You probably know that Homestuck doesn’t have any more full walkaround games after Openbound. I’ll discuss this point at the end of this post, where I recap Act 6 Intermission 3.

There is a whole world of fucking around going on with the meteor crew during the second year of their voyage, and it would be a criminal act of negligence to end this intermission without at least having a peek at their tomfoolery. A weaker person would just want to see what happens with Meenah and Vriska right away. Thank goodness you are a player with a strong sense of responsibility and discipline.

Every scene on the meteor so far in Act 6 has been hilarious, so I’m totally down for checking out what those characters are up to even though we’ve already seen plenty of it in this intermission so far.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 90: Tsundere Vacillation Station

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Introduction

< Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 5 of 6

Page 5398 (MSPA: 7298) [Openbound: Part 3]

In which I definitely don’t underhandedly vent about school projects.

This post is extremely long. In fact, it’s my longest Homestuck post yet! Hope you enjoy.

Here’s my plan for the next few acts:

  • Act 6 Act 4 + Act 6 Intermission 4 – 1 post
  • Act 6 Act 5 – 6 posts
  • Act 6 Intermission 5 – 5 posts

I estimate that I’ll reach the end of Act 6 Intermission 5 around November 1, give or take a week. After that, we’ll see what comes next.

Time to start the third and final part of Openbound, where we meet the last three Beforan trolls!

The chest next to Rufioh has some Fiduspawn cards, which brings back long-gone memories.

First off is Rufioh Nitram, the homage character to Dante Basco. He’s alright I guess, which is way more than can be said about most of the other Beforan trolls.

Meenah’s conversation with him doesn’t waste much time establishing absurd archetypes. Rufioh says he had wings since birth and never ascended to god tier, then starts to bemoan how people think he’s braver than he actually is. Right after that, Rufioh dives into his backstory which is WAY darker than anything else we saw with the alpha trolls.

MEENAH: alright so you never god tiered but i still dont get somefin
MEENAH: didnt you have a totally fuckin stupid robot body at some point or did i just imagine that
MEENAH: that whole period of time in our session was reel foggy to me i guess because i was dead for a while there
 #maybe i got the ghost madness #could SWEAR you was a metal horse tho
RUFIOH: yeaaah…
RUFIOH: no, the robot body was def1n1tely a th1ng… 1 k1nd of blocked that out of my memory too, haha… that was… that sh*t was someth1ng else, yo! crazy…
RUFIOH: 1’m sure you remember how all that started… back when damara and 1 were st1ll dat1ng… r1ng any bells?
MEENAH: yeah
MEENAH: fuckin megido
MEENAH: do we really need to rehash that ancient bullshit drama
 #bull #lol #wait… #why dont you ever do bull puns? #FAIL
RUFIOH: no, no… heh, just say1ng 1s all… 1t was that whole th1ng… anyway, that’s when horuss was k1nd of mack1ng on me, remember… and 1 wasn’t all about to vac1llate w1th h1m and her cause 1 knew how she was… d*mn, so jealous… so f***1ng crazy…
RUFIOH: so she made me a cr*pple, remember?
MEENAH: tag that shit homie
 #abaloneism
RUFIOH: d*mn, yeah… 1 mean, she busted me up… couldn’t move a muscle… well, could st1ll flap my w1ngs well enough, haha…

And you thought Vriska was a HUGE 8ITCH, huh???

Unlike what we learned prior about the Beforan trolls’ backstory, this is WAY worse than the Alternian trolls’ backstory. Tavros was only paralyzed from the legs down and Vriska even had the courtesy to make him some sick flying equipment. Damara paralyzed Rufioh’s entire body save for his wings, all because of romantic jealousy.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 89: Return of the Egbert-Serket Chronicles

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Introduction

< Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 4 of 6

Pages 5309-5397 (MSPA: 7209-7297)

I hope you like lengthy rants about Vriska.

July 2019 has been the most productive month for this post series in a very long time! School starts again in a few weeks and it’ll probably slow down my posting speed just a tad. During fall semester I’ll probably go back to releasing Homestuck posts every Friday morning.

Rufio, is that you???

After, what… another hour? Another hour of bumbling through the afterlife with very little to show for your efforts, you decide to pause the game again. You can only spend so long powering through the dead troll equivalent of an unpleasant high school reunion without making a trip to the load gaper, or fixing yourself a little snack from the hunger trunk. 

Just like last time, Openbound Part 2 is followed by a pause page that was most useful for serial readers at the time. But this time, the pause page has a small teaser of what will come next: Rufioh standing next to Meenah, with wings that suggest he’s a god tier. This teaser probably got readers excited for two things: meeting the homage character to Dante Basco, and Meenah finally finding someone useful for her army.

There’s definitely someone else we should be checking in with right now. Someone we are all desperate for an update on. And that someone is…

THIS GUY! 

This is the guy who you are now being.

The sudden focus on the beta kids’ Jack Noir is an interesting surprise. I can tell Hussie felt bad for neglecting this once mighty villain for so long and decided to remedy that. And my god, what a glorious remedy it is (at least according to my memory).

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 88: Greaser Grillings and Ghostly GIFs

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Introduction

< Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 3 of 6

Page 5308 (MSPA: 7208) [Openbound: Part 2]

“i hate all of my friends so fucking much”
—Meenah Peixes, 2012

Openbound Part 2 starts with Meenah inside Karkat’s private memories. I’ll cut to the chase and get right into all the characters she meets.

The first troll Meenah meets in Openbound Part 2 is the legendarily despised Cronus Ampora.

So you thought Vriska in the trolls’ arc was bad, huh?

The first three new characters we met in Openbound Part 1 were kind of weird, but this FUCKING guy blows everything out of the water. Just look at him! Through even a cursory glance, you can already tell he’s an ugly asshole who absolutely nobody can stand on any level and has literally no redeeming qualities. It doesn’t help that he has a trace of Vriska’s typing quirk, with capital B’s replaced by 8’s.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 87: The Mental Breakdown to End All Mental Breakdowns

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Introduction

< Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 2 of 6

Pages 5264-5307 (MSPA: 7164-7207)

Alternate post title: Con Air – It’s No Masterpiece
Alternate post title 2: John Egbert Dissects Con Air
Alternate post title 3: Ghost Butt Speculation Station

Five years and one day ago, I started reading Homestuck for the first time. I can’t believe I’m still obsessed with it after all this time. Enjoy this post as a five-year celebration of sorts! I wrote the whole thing on vacation, then made a few revisions at home.

September 18 will be the fourth anniversary of my Homestuck blog post series. I think it would be fun to get to the end of Homestuck’s fourth year on that day, but that’s 900 pages away so it probably won’t be possible unless I REALLY pick up the pace.

You pause your adventure through the afterlife because you’ve been at it for way too long already. You’ll get back to this in a little while. You just know more of your dead loser friends are lurking in this area. You can feel their lameness emanating from beyond the grave. You can also feel it emanating from within the grave, which is good, because that’s where you are. The grave. 

The page that immediately follows Openbound Part 1 tells readers that we’ll be getting back to meeting the Beforan trolls in not too long. Another bit that was most useful for serial readers at the time.

What we REALLY need to do is see what John’s been up to. It almost feels like it’s been a year since we saw him. Hell, it’s probably his birthday again. When is it ever NOT John’s birthday???

Um, I’m pretty sure November 2016 was way more than just a year ago.

Jokes aside, “when is it ever not John’s birthday” is a damn good question. It’s incredibly disorienting whenever a part of Homestuck doesn’t take place on his birthday. I like to assume Harry Anderson Egbert was also born April 13, because of how much of the Candy Epilogue takes place on his birthday. But an alternate date I’ve seen people throw around is March 16 (3/16) because there are three “omega kids” from the epilogues and they’re 16 years old at the end of the story. Or maybe 15, it’s kind of unclear.

It is indeed John’s birthday; his fifteenth, in fact. To celebrate, we’re treated to an enormous zoom-in to the Prospitian battleship he and Jade have been living in. Act 6 Intermission 3 has quite a few lengthy art sequences, only befitting of an act that experiments HARD with storytelling style.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 86: Oh God, It’s Those Characters

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Introduction

< Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 >

Act 6 Intermission 3, Part 1 of 6

Page 5263 (MSPA: 7163) [Openbound: Part 1]

Welcome to eternal hell, as the saying goes.
Also, this is my first Homestuck post to only cover one page.

Time to begin Act 6 Intermission 3 of Homestuck! This act is unusual because most of its content is in three walkaround games focused primarily on Meenah and her Beforan friends. Those walkarounds are collectively referred to as Openbound; individually as Openbound Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3; and they’re one of the most polarizing parts of the comic. Many people hate Openbound with a passion, and it is my goal to see if it is really as bad as people say.

These walkarounds are interspersed with regular pages focusing on the beta kids, plus a flash at the end called Ministrife. I’ve said this before, but to reiterate, each walkaround game will take up an entire blog post; the intermittent pages will also take up one blog post each, including the pages after Openbound Part 3. This means Act 6 Intermission 3 will be divided into six posts total.

When I first read Homestuck, Openbound was two years old.
Now it’s almost seven. And everyone thinks it’s called Meenahquest now.

The Openbound loading screen gives me immense nostalgia. When I first read this part in 2014, I remember waiting ten minutes or more for it to load. Now it barely takes ten seconds. Oh, how the times have changed.

Openbound Part 1 starts with a little Flash cutscene where Meenah Peixes watches the Furthest Ring’s destruction and runs downstairs in excitement. After this cutscene, the rest of the walkaround is programmed in HTML5. At the time when I wrote this post (July 2019), Flash was a year away from dying full but it was still possible to view the cutscene on homestuck.com if you made extra sure Flash was enabled. Then Flash died for real and the glorious Unofficial Homestuck Collection was created, which Hussie himself even endorsed until he changed his mind and bullied the developers into ending this project in a huge shitshow I won’t get into here. Not until late 2025 did homestuck.com finally become usable again with all the flashes and walkarounds working correctly, thanks to the masterful work of Kohi. So anything I had previously written here is irrelevant now.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 85: The Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit

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Introduction

< Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 11 of 11 HOLY FUCK I’M FINISHED WITH THIS ACT

Pages 5238-5262 (MSPA: 7138-7162)

I did it. I finally did it.

OK guys, it’s time. IT’S TIME. To finally finish commentating on Act 6 Act 3, the part of Homestuck this post series has been stuck on for almost three years now. Are you MOTHERFUCKERS ready for me to finally stop chickening out from dissecting enormous flashes?

I know this will make me sound like an idiot, but I’m really really looking forward to dissecting the Openbound trilogy of walkaround games where we get to know the Beforan trolls. So why not finally finish going through the last part of Homestuck I have left before those? We’re doing it, man. We’re making this happen.

Red Miles look stunning, no matter the circumstance.

[S] Dirk: Synchronize is a whole two minutes of Dirk being fucking awesome. The moment he wakes up, he cuts to the chase and starts doing awesome stuff.

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Next Homestuck post coming soon!

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My final Act 6 Act 3 post, to be specific. Covering the last part of Act 6 Act 3. It’ll come out at most three days from now (July 4). After that, it’ll be Beforus troll time.

I’m also thinking of writing a second post about Roxy in the Homestuck Epilogues, this time about the Candy Epilogue and her strange loyalty to Gamzee’s cult.