… until I finish my Homestuck posts. I only have 11 Homestuck posts left, and I should be able to finish them well within the end of this year. Once I finish those posts, a huge weight will be lifted off my back, and I can move on to other insanely ambitious projects that no normal person would ever think of doing!
That’s all, bye.
< Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 >
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 3 of 12
Pages 7502-7514 (not in order)
This is the sort of bullshit that happens when you turn your back on the body.
As the Homestuck franchise continues to collapse in on itself due to yet another storm of fandom drama, Homestuck itself is here to stay, waiting to be read or reread by anyone who just wants to enjoy a good webcomic by Andrew Hussie. As for me, I just want to get my Homestuck blog post series done, and then I never have to think about Homestuck again! Of course, that doesn’t mean I will never think about Homestuck again, just that I will never have any reason to. I have only 11 posts left. Only 11 posts. ONLY 11 POSTS!!! And I’ll finish what I wanted to for the rewritten posts… oh, I don’t know, some other time.
Continuing from the last post, it’s time to go over the bottom half of the eight-way select screen: Roxy/Dave/Rose, Kanaya/Karkat/Vriska, Arquiusprite/Vriska/Terezi/Dave, and John/Jake. I think I’ll start with Kanaya/Karkat/Vriska, starting the post with a conversation consisting solely of trolls just like last time.
Ah, the two trolls whose zodiac symbols are fancy-looking M’s.
It’s been forever since they last conversed!
This is honestly one of the weirder conversations in the selection screen. It’s not much of a long-awaited reunion or new strong relationship between two characters, but rather like, “OK, this exists I guess”. I feel like I can mostly skim through this conversation and pick out interesting bits here and there.
First, Vriska talks about how wildly enthusiastic all the humans are to have their reunions, setting this conversation as one largely about comparing humans and trolls. Vriska brings up Rose as an especially good example, because her long-awaited motherly reunion has washed away her usual dry and aloof demeanor.
Continue reading< Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 >
Season 2, Episodes 10-12
I didn’t get this post done in time a week ago, so I decided to push it back a week (plus a few hours), making this the first time my MLP posts skipped a week. This may happen sometimes as I prioritize finishing my Homestuck posts (only twelve left!) over making my MLP posts. The good news is, once I finish my Homestuck post series, I never have to think about Homestuck again!!!
Posts about a different work of media aside, we’re now at the first of several points where the episode numbering of my MLP review posts might get a little confusing, because the release order differs from the production order. In this case, Hearth’s Warming Eve was moved ahead a few slots to be released around Christmas. I’ve decided to do these posts in release order, because that’s what most unofficial mirrors of the show do, and I must admit I’ve been using those to watch the show. An advantage of this order is that the season 3 episodes “Just for Sidekicks” and “Games Ponies Play”, which take place at the same time, are side by side.
With those little clarifications out of the way, let’s begin!
Season 2 Episode 10: Secret of My Excess
In five words: Spike’s dragon greed causes havoc.
Premise: As he gets lots of birthday presents, Spike gets carried away with greed and turns into a ferocious, gigantic dragon. (Er, not to imply he wasn’t previously a dragon.)
Detailed run-through:
As previously promised, I’m going to compare Spike’s and Rainbow Dash’s episodes before I start this run-through. Both these characters have personality traits in common, specifically high self-image and tendency to embarrass themselves. Rainbow Dash’s episodes are a frequent source of second-hand embarrassment for me, but when Spike gets up to antics with questionable morality, I more often think, “come on, you’re better than this”. I’m not sure where that difference comes from; both characters in their episodes tend to have personality traits exaggerated or contrived. Maybe it’s because Spike’s personality isn’t portrayed quite as consistently as Rainbow Dash’s? It takes quite a long time—until season 6, I’d say—for the show to start being kinder to Spike, making his episodes before then a bit of a mess. This is easily one of the more tolerable ones, but then you have “uh, what?” episodes like Spike at Your Service. Although I’m generally defendant of Spike’s character, I won’t deny that his episodes tend to be weird.
This beginning of this episode tells us that this is going to be another one of those episodes focused on Spike’s self-admiration. Spike walks in on Twilight Sparkle reshelving her books and holds a fire ruby gem that is supposedly his birthday present to himself. Spike’s self-image is either endearing or obnoxious depending on the circumstances, and in this episode it’s the pivot of the friendship lesson, so it’s naturally going to be a little obnoxious.
Continue reading< Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 >
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 2 of 12
Pages 7486-7501 (not in order)
This is my last Homestuck post whose number is a perfect power!
128 is a power of 2, but sadly it isn’t a power of 4 or of 8.
It’s time to go through the top half of the eight-way conversation select screen, which is the first of several character selection screens in A6A6I5. I made a GIF of hovering over each selection option shown above. The select screen consists of eight conversations and is accompanied by some text narrated from the reader’s perspective, humorously discussing free will and helpfully providing eight links that turn purple when you’ve clicked on them so you know when you’re done with the conversations.
You are confronted with an especially empowering CHARACTER SELECTION MENU. Eight choices???????? Free will has done it again. It has caused you to feel alarmed and anxious. But maybe, just maybe, slightly excited as well. You cautiously click on a batch of teens to discover your true feelings.
Eight possible options is actually KIND OF A LOT, now that you think about it. It may be easy to forget to click some of them. To make absolutely sure you’ve clicked on all teen batches before proceeding, you check to see if all the links below are purple first. If any of them are blue, it means you didn’t read those, and you probably should before continuing. Wow, free will sure is a lot of responsibility and hard work.
This passage reads to me like Hussie saying he’s doing this select screen for the sake of fans, since he knows they wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t get some time to read hearty reunion conversations between all their favorite fictional teens. These conversations have quite a lot of fanservice in them, and late Homestuck has received a fair amount of criticism for having too much fanservice. As usual, I’ll see for myself whether all this is as bad as people say!
Now, which order will I go through the conversations in? Linear order would be super boring. How about I do an order where I deliberately consider what would flow the best in these posts? That’s what I’ve done in prior selection screens, so I’ll do that again. I think Terezi and Vriska’s conversation is a good place to start, since I had analyzed their pre-retcon selves plenty in A6A6I4.
Continue reading< Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 >
Season 2, Episodes 8-9
Season 2 Episode 8: The Mysterious Mare Do Well
In five words: Being heroic bites back, apparently?
Premise: After Rainbow Dash gets a little too egotistical about her heroic stunts, a mysterious figure starts beating her to the punch again and again, much to her aggravation.
Detailed run-through:
Before I go through this episode in depth, I’m going to say something about Rainbow Dash.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “Rainbow Dash” is basically synonymous with “second-hand embarrassment”. When I watch almost any episode focusing on her, I get some form of second-hand embarrassment. Sometimes, the embarrassment feels believable or realistic, or reminds me of an embarrassing situation I got myself into. But other times, it feels like the episode is too mean-spirited towards Rainbow Dash or exaggerates her character too much. Now don’t get me wrong, Rainbow Dash is a great character. All the Mane 6 are great characters! It’s just that Rainbow Dash is the right degree of relatable that I am easily embarrassed at the things she does, and yes, I know she’s a fictional horse, but do you think there’s a rule saying that you can’t be embarrassed by a fictional horse? If I’m being completely honest with myself, Rainbow Dash is at least as relatable to me as Twilight Sparkle is.
This scene may well have been inspired by brony cosplayers.
This episode starts with a meeting of Rainbow Dash’s fan club, which Scootaloo appears to be the president of. Why the leader of a fan club is typically called the “president”, I cannot say. But I can say that this scene firmly establishes Scootaloo’s idolization of Rainbow Dash, which gradually blossoms into a sister-like relationship. It’s worth noting that Snips and Snails are part of the fan club, which makes a lot of sense—just as they had blindly latched onto worshipping Trixie in season 1, here they’re doing the same with Rainbow Dash.
Continue reading< Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 >
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 1 of 12
Pages 7449-7485
A6A6I5 has so many painfully boring panels, so I figured I’d have fun with the title pictures whenever I get the chance.
With my Psycholonials review post finished, now I can finally get on with the true home stretch of my Homestuck blog post series! It’s time to dive right in and analyze the final act of Homestuck that’s of substantial length: the polarizing Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, or A6A6I5 for short.
Whether you love or hate Vriska, you can’t deny that her getting down to business with fully alive eyes is a satisfying shot.
Or maybe you can deny that?
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5 begins with a flash called Vriskagram. Technically, the flash is called [S] ACT 6 ACT 6 INTERMISSION 5, but everyone calls it Vriskagram because, well…
I love how the V in the Vriskagram logo is based on Vriska’s horns.
Yep, this is another instance of late Homestuck parodying social media of its time. In my Psycholonials review post, I talked at length about how the story explores the danger and perils of social media; Homestuck, in contrast, incorporates parodies of social media websites just for the hell of it. This light satire of social media is a fun motif, I must admit.
Continue reading< Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 >
Season 2, Episodes 5-7
Season 2 Episode 5: Sisterhooves Social
In five words: Sibling frustration reaches breaking point.
Premise: When Sweetie Belle asks Rarity to go with her to the [insert episode’s title here], Rarity refuses and Sweetie Belle decides she wants to be Applejack’s sister instead.
Detailed run-through:
This episode begins with a scene that perfectly demonstrates the premise of its first half: Sweetie Belle clumsily attempting to do nice things for her big sister. To start off, Rarity waves up from pleasant food dreams to the smell of smoke, which leads her to see Sweetie Belle about to prepare breakfast in bed for her. Sweetie Belle starts this show as well-meaning but clumsy and not very good at anything; among the three Cutie Mark Crusaders, I’d say she has the strongest character development as the show progresses. But then again, she’s my favorite of the Crusaders in general.
Rarity’s parents make their first (and only voiced) appearance in this episode, and all I can think about is how unlike every other member of the Mane 6, Rarity didn’t get an episode going in depth on her relationship with her parents. We just know them as parents who embarrass their elder daughter regularly and have far lower standards for food than her, while seeming to get along perfectly well with their younger daughter. They’re supposed to be Sweetie Belle’s regular caretakers until Rarity basically supersedes that role, meaning we don’t even get more scenes of Sweetie Belle interacting with their parents. Rarity’s parents just say they’re going on vacation for a week, leaving Sweetie Belle to stay with Rarity, and that’s all we hear from them.
Rarity having a “parent episode” so to speak would have been GLORIOUS! And yet, she just… didn’t get one, I guess. Ah well, not everything is perfect. The blueprint for a potential Rarity parent episode is there though, with an uptight elder daughter and ridiculously laid-back parents. I’m sure fans have written decent stories of their own about Rarity’s relationship with her parents. Or Sweetie Belle’s relationship with her parents, for that matter.
Continue reading
The title screen of Psycholonials, put for the sake of having at least one image in this post.
If you don’t know what Psycholonials is, it’s a visual novel released sequentially in February through April 2021 by Andrew Hussie, the creator of the legendary webcomic Problem Sleuth.
… what, are you telling me that there’s another webcomic Hussie wrote after Problem Sleuth that’s much more famous? OK, fine, I’ll drop the act. I’ve accepted long ago that I can never escape Homestuck and that it’ll always be with me, as the visual novel reminds readers near the start. This review will contain spoilers for Psycholonials, so read at your own risk!
Comparison to Homestuck
Where do I begin with Psycholonials? It’s the first work of fiction written entirely by Andrew Hussie since Homestuck ended in 2016, and it’s far shorter than Homestuck, which I find relieving. Not because I didn’t enjoy Psycholonials—quite the opposite! It’s more that Hussie intended for Homestuck to run for only a year at first, and it spiraled WAY out of control as he expanded Homestuck and started various side projects related to it, making the comic instead run for seven years. Hussie had long promised Homestuck to be merely a precursor to later works to come, and with Psycholonials, he’s fulfilling that promise at long last.
Continue reading< Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 >
Season 2, Episodes 3-4
Season 2 Episode 3: Lesson Zero
In five words: Twilight undergoes hilarious mental breakdown.
Premise: Twilight Sparkle realizes the deadline for her weekly letter to Celestia is imminent and causes havoc (and hilarity) trying to find, then make a friendship problem.
Detailed run-through:
Spike probably hears the word “checklist” so often that it sometimes doesn’t even seem like a word anymore.
This episode starts with Twilight Sparkle reminding us about her comical obsession with checklists by reviewing her checklist for items needed to create a checklist, then starting her checklist of things she has to get done today with making a checklist of things she has to get done today, which is confusingly recursive. This obsession reminder leads to a groan from Spike and sets the stage for this episode’s focus: Twilight Sparkle’s obsession with order and detail going complete bonkers.
Derpy Hooves is here!!!!!
This episode is where the show’s theme song is updated for the first time, both visually and musically. The instrumentation has been adjusted to be a little more punchy (especially in the intro), and the vocals have been re-recorded. As for the visuals, only the scene above has changed, most notably adding a train with a certain fan favorite background pony inside the roof and replacing the random background stallion with Big Macintosh—a heartwarming testament to the fans and a logical, obvious replacement respectively. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are briefly seen together in the back of the train, which is again a logical addition.
Worth noting that this episode is the first one where unicorns’ magic has a consistent look, with a different color for each unicorn.
Between magic colors and the updated theme song, this episode is the first one that FEELS like season 2.
Twilight Sparkle’s signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder increase as she goes to Sugarcube Corner and picks up a box of twelve cupcakes from Mrs. Cake, except it turns out to be thirteen, and the frosting isn’t spread 100% evenly. You could argue it’s weird that Twilight’s character is exaggerated just for the sake of this episode, but I couldn’t care less in this case because this episode is so hilarious. She resolves the situation by leaving an equally tiny bit of frosting on each cupcake. Most of the frosting ended up on Spike, who comically washes himself using his tongue with a sort of tornado formation, which is perfectly in line with this episode’s sense of humor.
Continue readingMy classic Homestuck blog post series, the one I’ve been writing on and off since 2015, is on the verge of completion. I have only 14 posts left (start of A6A6I5 to the Snapchat credits), which is maybe more like the verge of the verge of completion, but it still truly feels like the final stretch! I’m greatly looking forward to the day I finish my Homestuck post series and the triumphant feeling of completion that it will surely bring… but what does that mean for my rewritten posts?
I had originally planned to end my rewritten Homestuck posts with the end of Act 5 Act 1 (the trolls’ arc), but I decided a few days ago that it would be better to finish those with the end of Act 4 instead. I’ve chosen this earlier cutoff point because I’m not motivated enough to finish my rewritten posts all the way up to Act 5 Act 1, but I still want to finish those at a natural cutoff point. I’ve been sitting on my next rewritten post (Act 4, part 2 of 6) since early March, and I’d love to finish rewriting my Act 4 posts before I’m finished with my Homestuck post series as a whole. Four and a half rewritten posts doesn’t seem like a tall order alongside the fourteen classic posts I’ve yet to write (after I write my Psycholonials review post, I have only one chapter before I’ve finished playing/reading it).
I had long wanted my rewritten posts to effectively supersede my original Homestuck posts, but now I think that if someone were to subject themselves to reading my Homestuck posts in comic order, it would be most interesting to start with the original posts and see my writing style and opinions on Homestuck evolve over time. As such, I’m not as fond of the idea of rewriting my Homestuck posts as I used to be, but I still want to give them a proper cutoff point rather than abruptly ending partway through Act 4.
For real, though, I want to finish my Homestuck post series as soon as I can so that I never have to think about Homestuck again! Even though I know deep down that I’ll never truly be free from Homestuck, it will be very liberating when I’m done with this ambitious project that I’ve willfully subjected myself to and could cancel at any time but have merely chosen not to. I can finish my Homestuck posts, and I will finish my Homestuck posts, much unlike what I thought during my nearly two years of hiatus through most of 2017 and 2018.
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