Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 23: Unpleasant Blueblood Avenue

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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.
2025 EDIT: Since then, I’ve decided to embrace my unusual pronunciation of her name. It just feels right to me, screw the haters.

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

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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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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 21: Down the Chitinous Windhole

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Introduction

< Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 >

Act 5 Act 1, Part 1 of 7

Pages 1989-2070 (MSPA: 3889-3970)

Elsewhere in paradox space, we examine another planet, forgotten by time.

After nearly two thousand pages mostly covering the adventures of our quartet of nerdy teenagers, we pause our adventure for a stretch of about 600 pages dedicated to thoroughly getting to know what Homestuck is best known for: the trolls. This part of Homestuck is sometimes called the troll intermission, because like the Midnight Crew intermission, it focuses on an entirely different cast of characters from those four kids. Like I said in my first intermission post, some people skip the trolls’ arc, or skip all the way to the trolls’ arc, which, needless to say, are both bad ideas.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 20: Enjoy Your Nap While It Lasts

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Introduction

< Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 >

Act 4, Part 6 of 6

Pages 1909-1988 (MSPA: 3809-3888)

Once again I use this same picture later in this post but it’s SUCH a perfect heartwrenching panel.

This may or may not be a Vriska thing. Wait, who am I kidding, it totally is.

Last post we went through the origin story of our heroes, and some other stuff. This post yet again opens up with AR’s past self, stopping to notice a meteor carrying the frog temple, because Dersites have this thing against frogs. He goes to see a time capsule and a computer screen in which we can see baby Nanna raised by Colonel Sassacre, who investigates an explosion outside his house. It’s a crater with baby Grandpa who shoots the Colonel with his gun, the kids thereafter raised by their dog Halley and Betty Crocker. Thirteen years later teenage Grandpa leaves his adoptive sister behind. Then DD appears as AR? watches, coming to throw away the wizard book and the Sburb betas next to the time capsule and into it respectively, and uses the MEOW code book with the machine. There’s a plot loop tied together: we now know the whole story of how Jade got Dave’s Sburb discs. It’s a pretty enjoyably convoluted sequence fueled mostly by mishaps and random choices, but unlike the paths of other objects that go through complicated journeys, this one doesn’t seem to have much relation to the forces of causing the events destined to occur.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 19: Protagonist Origination Station

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Introduction

< Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 >

Act 4, Part 5 of 6

Pages 1777-1908 (MSPA: 3677-3808)

 I use this same picture later in this post but it’s such a great panel that I’ll use it as a title picture.

I’ve seen people comment that this guy looks like some weirdo from Adventure Time.*

* If you’re wondering, about 3-4 years ago I followed that show, but then I quit, and from what I hear about it, it really got kind of weird. There’s stuff about the punky vampire girl not wanting to be a vampire anymore??? Sounds like she’s a character with complications and stuff, which ties in with the fact that I’ve seen people compare her to Vriska.

Last post we went over a whole bunch of stuff, like angry guys killing their bosses because of stupid clothes and girls throwing F1 keys at guys with 3-D glasses and demonic puppets miraculously landing on lightning-fast rocket boards and that sort of stuff. Now we get to watch AR? rocking it out on Bro’s rocket board through an asteroid belt. PM? is also up to stuff, getting ready to board a shuttle to the battlefield to find the white king. Then a clone of Clubs Deuce in a ridiculous outfit known as the Courtyard Droll appears and steals the magic ring. I really like how this bozo’s debut is played out, making a dramatic entrance starting with the tip of his crazy hat as he creeps up and steals a ring. He’s really short and could be sneaky, if only he didn’t love crazy hats so much. Nonetheless, he succeeds in stealing the ring. He gets a message from the Draconian Dignitary to give him that ring. In that message, the titles of the other three Derse agents are all revealed, specifically the ones whose acronyms are the same as those of the Midnight Crew. Speaking of the Midnight Crew, this message shows us how each of the quartet of Derse agents is given a different task to do, just like what the Midnight Crew does. This is done even more systematically with the alpha kids’ Derse agents, where each is assigned to kill a kid; funnily enough, the Droll is the only one of those agents who succeeds at his job. Just then, Jade, after over 100 pages without her, has her dream self make a dramatic entrance, beating up the Droll, taking the ring, and putting it on, even though it doesn’t do anything to humans.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 18: Snooping Nerds and Dream Dancers

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Introduction

< Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 >

Act 4, Part 4 of 6

Pages 1660-1776 (MSPA: 3560-3676)

He was that close.

Last post we saw how Davesprite came to be, ending with the two Daves chatting and John blasting off despite Dave asking him not to. Now, John has a flashback to Act 1, where he is delighted to get the bunny from Con Air from Dave, and we get to read the letter Dave sent with it. He talks about how ridiculous it is that John unironically likes that horrendous movie, but his sincere naiveté is what’s cool about him. John remembers getting this letter and reconsiders blasting off to his seventh gate. He talks to Dave about how he came to his senses and remembered how Dave does care about him.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 17: Coolkid Duplication Station

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Introduction

< Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 >

Act 4, Part 3 of 6

Pages 1578-1659 (MSPA: 3478-3559)

Rose kicking ass.

Continuing from where we left off, John finds his dad’s car, and then talks to Terezi who, like I said in the last post, he always has had an enjoyable dynamic with. Right away they snark at each other:

GC: JOHN DONT M4K3 FUN OF MY H4ND1C4P 
EB: which one, the blindness or the leetspeak. 
GC: 1 4M S3NS1T1VE 4BOUT BOTH 

[…]

GC: B3FOR3 YOU K33P TYP1NG MOR3 STUP1D O’S 1N TH4T WORD 
GC: JUST L1ST3N 4ND DO WH4T 1 S4Y 
GC: YOU KNOW YOUR3 GO1NG TO 3V3NTU4LLY 4NYW4Y 
GC: B3C4US3 YOUR3 4 N1C3 GUY 4ND K1ND OF 4 TOT4L W33N13 PUSHOV3R 

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 16: Paradox Eggs and Alchemy Bacon

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Introduction

< Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 >

Act 4, Part 2 of 6

Pages 1455-1577 (MSPA: 3355-3477)

Link to rewritten version (unfinished)

This title picture matches even better with the post title than I thought it would.
Look at that little egg on the alchemiter. Better still, the cruxite dowel to the left of the egg looks kind of like bacon.

Once a dutiful lawyer, always a dutiful lawyer.

Time to start the exiles’ backstories. Before becoming an exile, the Renegade was an authority regulator (noted AR?) and the Mendicant was a parcel mistress (PM?). AR? is hanging around LOWAS and finds John’s dad’s car sitting there parked illegally, marking the scene with caution tape, and giving the owner a ticket. He loots the green package and John’s server copy of Sburb from the car. PM? is also walking around there, and sees AR? with the green package.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 15: Ditzy Dreamers and Exile Cookouts

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Introduction

< Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 >

Act 4, Part 1 of 6

Pages 1358-1454 (MSPA: 3258-3354)

Link to rewritten version

Can’t think of a caption other than “The Land of Wind and Shade”, which would be redundant.

Act 4 of Homestuck, like a few other acts, opens up with a minigame. In this game, John explores his planet, a cloudy blue world named the Land of Wind and Shade, fights imps, gathers information about his denizen and the imps and stuff from salamanders, somehow talks to Nannasprite from afar, and like in the game where he explores his house, has a voice in his head give him commands, but the voice is definitely someone different from the Vagabond. It is very similar to the game very early in Act 2, but instead of exploring his house, he explores the planet he entered. This minigame really is rather complicated, with features such as sylladex access and sending objects through a mail system and multiple attack methods and a button to talk to Nannasprite and so on. Hussie has said that this game is somewhat experimental and that it probably could’ve been presented in a more effective way (which is what the famous YouTube series Let’s Read Homestuck does).

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