Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 90: Tsundere Vacillation Station

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

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

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

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.

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

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. Although when I initially wrote this post, it was still possible to view this cutscene if you made extra sure Flash was enabled, there is now no way to view the scene on homestuck.com. In fact, I highly advise that you don’t use homestuck.com to read Homestuck. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is the new definitive way to read Homestuck, preserving all of Homestuck’s content (yes, even the flashes) in an offline format.

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

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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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 84: Cherubic Gloats and Confused Glances

Introduction

Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 10 of 11

Pages 5137-5237 (MSPA: 7037-7137)

But no coconut guns, sadly.
If there were any, you’d better believe they can fire in spurts.

Lucky coincidence: today is the first anniversary of Homestuck’s migration from MSPA to homestuck.com!

I made this GIF myself, please appreciate it.
Why didn’t I think of making my own GIFs for these posts sooner? There’s plenty of non-[S] Flash pages I could have done that with.

Once again, last post ended with Calliope and this post starts with Caliborn. This selection screen gives us teasers of what he looks like. It leaves out just enough not to outright confirm that he is Lord English.

undyingUmbrage [uu] began jeering uranianUmbra [UU] 
uu: HEY. 
uu: I WOuLD LIKE TO PLAY A GAME. 
uu: IT’S CALLED “BOND WITH AN IDIOT SISTER OVER SOME BuLLSHIT SHARED INTERESTS BEFORE SHE DIES FOREVER.” 
uu: DOES THAT SOuND FuN. 
uu: HERE’S A GOOD PART OF THE STORY I THINK. 
uu: YOu MuST KNOW THE ONE I MEAN. 
uu: LET’S TALK ABOuT IT TOGETHER. 
uu: SHARE SOME THEORIES. 
uu: DO SOME FAN GIRLING. 
uu: PRODuCE SOME. 
uu: “FAN ART.” 

We got more than enough story told through Calliope speculating already, so it’s only fair that now we get a big dump of Caliborn’s speculation. Both cherubs’ speculation is surprisingly reliable and accurate; you’ll never fully understand how much those two have in common unless you dig deep into the stuff they say. Or if you have a realization that you were in denial about being a fan of something. I mean, purely hypothetically of course. It’s not like I was ever in denial about liking something people like to trash on, haha what are you talking about!!!!!

(I was in denial about liking something people like to trash on. Let’s not dwell on it, OK?)

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 83: A Cherubic Reminisce on the Fun of Fun Things

Introduction

Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 9 of 11 (yes 11 not 10, at least 95% sure of this)

Pages 5085-5136 (MSPA: 6985-7036)

I will watch K-On before this post series is finished. Mark my words.

EDIT (7/9/2019): Yui Hirasawa is best girl and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.

3/2/2019: Every post up to number 59 (end of Act 5) now has homestuck.com page numbers alongside the MSPA numbers. Only about 20 posts to go! I also just did the same with my Problem Sleuth posts.

3/5/2019: Post 5 rewritten is still in progress! Tentative date for it is March 8. I’m over halfway done and have been doing it at a relaxed pace. A few more rewritten posts this month too. More tentative dates: April 6 for post 84, April 13 for post 85 plus something secret.

NOTE TO PEOPLE READING THESE POSTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: Yes, rewritten Homestuck posts were a thing I did at one point. It was a fun experiment, but I didn’t get past Act 4 before losing motivation. I suggest you keep going with reading these posts instead of getting distracted by the rewrites, but it’s up to you.

Good time for us to be reminded that CotL exists.

We saw those same chess pieces earlier in the cherubs’ chess game, so this poster entices the mystery of who those two really are. (We don’t know they’re cherubs yet, shhhhhhh!)

Now that we’re done with the character select screen, it’s time to see what Roxy is up to, again.

The fenestrated wall showing what the alpha kids are up to is a nice touch, matching with the whole fourth wall visual metaphor. It seems like a transition device more than anything, but I have to wonder if this is what the wall would’ve actually shown if it was turned on, just like with Hussie’s self-insert scenes.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 82: Order and Chaos, Reprsented by Chess

Introduction

Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 8 of 10 finally I have an actual number oh my god (it might be 11)

Pages 5029-5084 (MSPA: 6929-6984) (partially not in order)

NOTE: This will probably be my last post for a while because I’m getting ready for vacation soon. It’s been a fun ride the past few days, even if parts of this post I feel are a bit weak.

The title represents an analogy I am proud of devising.

alternate post title: Harleyberts in Derserland

(OK this title sucks ass, I’m just including it because a few of my posts (123) had Alice in Wonderland themed titles and this part of the comic has a few references to Wonderland too…)

(oh whatever)

So many details of what the cherubs look like are omitted.

After the emotional montage of the bunny, we get to see Calliope and Caliborn playing a game of chess, seemingly over the past few days. Calliope checkmates her brother …

Still not sure what these prankster meters actually mean.
Though I know this isn’t the last time we’ll be seeing them…

… or rather, she would have if it weren’t for Caliborn’s shittiest twist yet.

Turns out Caliborn disguised the king as the queen, and vice versa. He explains the following:

uu: HEY! I DIDN’T BREAK ANY RuLES. 
uu: I MERELY ASKED IF YOu WOuLD AGREE. TO ME SWAPPING THE START POSITIONS OF THE KING AND QuEEN. 
uu: AND YOu DID AGREE. 
uu: BuT THEN I DIDN’T ACTuALLY DO IT. 
uu: WHEN DID I SAY I WOuLD? NEVER. 
uu: I WAS ONLY GAuGING YOuR WILLINGNESS TO MAKE THE EXCEPTION. 
uu: I THEN WENT ABOuT DECORATING MY KING AND QuEEN WITH NICE LITTLE HATS. 
uu: WHICH IS *ALSO* NOT AGAINST THE RuLES. 

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 81: Oceanic Eyes and Bowmanian Montages

Introduction

Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 7 of possibly 10 (or 11)

Pages 4963-5028 (MSPA: 6863-6928)

12/16/2018: Next post is still in the works! Will probably post tomorrow morning, even if I somehow manage to finish tonight. I was a little busy today.

I love Caliborn.

I was originally going to make a long blog post to explain my sudden return to Homestuck posts, but I’ll keep things simple instead.

Long story short: the reason why I’m suddenly making Homestuck posts again is because since winter break started a few days ago, I’ve had a lot of downtime and still will for a few more days, so I seized the opportunity to spew out posts. After that, probably back to hiatus.

Jane’s conversation with Calliope ended with a wham line (“the true meaning of…” “beauty?” “horror.”), which is a perfect transition to the other cherub who is better and cooler in every way imaginable.

uu: HELLO DIRK. 
uu: GuESS WHAT I WANT TO PLAY. 
uu: THAT’S RIGHT. 
uu: A GAME. 
TT: Not now. 
uu: DIRK I WANT TO PLAY A GAME. 
uu: DIRK. 
uu: HELLO DIRK. 
uu: LET’S PLAY A GAME. 
TT: I’m busy. 
uu: DIRK I DON’T THINK YOu uNDERSTAND. 
uu: I WANT TO PLAY A FuCKING GAME WITH YOu. 
uu: I WOuLD LIKE YOu TO DRAW ME SOME PORNOGRAPHY. 
TT: Man, does it look like he can draw anything for you right now? 
uu: WHO CARES. 
uu: I AM NOT TALKING TO YOu. 

Caliborn tries to bug Dirk to play a game of drawing hot spicy porn, but the responder tells him he’s busy fighting drones. It’s not too surprising that Caliborn immediately waves off Dirk’s responder as an artificial robot. And says something about red herrings? I almost want to say the cherubs’ interactions with the responder are a bit of unexplored territory, but maybe it doesn’t need to be elaborated on much; the auto-responder only decided he was his own separate being the day the events of Act 6 began.

Going on, the responder remembers what happened a year prior, and then suggests that Caliborn contact Dirk in the past, which he does.

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