Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 31: Shipping Grids and Massive Walkarounds

Introduction

Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 >

Act 5 Act 2, Part 4 of 32

Pages 2784-2792 (MSPA: 4684-4692)

Pictured above: why this post covers only nine pages.

Welcome to post 31 of this whole big project. Honestly this is just filler text to make the gap between the title picture and the following picture less weird.

I wonder if this picture was deliberately meant to give an M.C. Escher vibe or if it’s just weirdness arising from visual callbacks (in this case calling back to the view up from Terezi’s hive).
Also, we can infer from John’s lack of panic sitting up here that he doesn’t have any fear of heights. Come to think of it, pretty much nobody in Homestuck seems to have fear of heights.

— ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG] — 

EB: hey vriska!
EB: ok, i still cannot find my nanna up here, so now i am just installing this game.
EB: what are you up to?
AG: John! What the hell. There are so many things wrong with what you just said.
AG: First of all, who told you you could just hassle me without warning like this? That’s not how this works!
EB: why not? you guys do it all the time.
AG: Yes, 8ecause we are trolling you! Those are the rules. We get to 8ug you any time we feel like, and you have to sit there and t8ke it like a chump.
EB: bluh…
AG: I am too 8usy to 8e fielding your nonsense at the drop of one of your a8surd human hats. I have a ridiculous num8er of irons in the fire. You will speak to me only when I am ready to contact you, is that clear????????
EB: that’s dumb. i’m going to talk to you whenever i want! 

Here, John is giving Vriska a status update out of his own will. I thought up some reasons last post as to why John feels the need to keep in touch with Vriska, and it’s still pretty interesting, especially because John is contacting Vriska rather than the other way around.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 30: Coolkid Phenomination Station

Introduction

Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 >

Act 5 Act 2, Part 3 of 32

Pages 2733-2783 (MSPA: 4633-4683)

The pages I’m covering today don’t actually start with this picture, but I’ve decided to start doing what I’ll call “title pictures” for these posts. So here’s a picture of Dave in some building in a baseball shirt or something. I’ve seen drawings of the beta kids where Dave is inexplicably wearing this outfit while the rest are in their starting clothes.

Last time Rose did a bunch of stuff and so did Kanaya. Now it’s time for Dave to do a bunch of stuff. OK, not quite. First John and Vriska have to do stuff. Man, why do characters do stuff so much?

Where were we? John just emptied his sylladex.

AG: This is the most ridiculous pile of useless crap I have ever seen.
AG: Why did you pick up all this junk???????? Rocks, mushrooms, shoes…….. 

AG: Jegus, John.
EB: jegus?
AG: Yes. Jegus!
EB: how do you know about jegus? do you even know what that is?
AG: I have no idea! It’s something Terezi has 8een saying non stop for some reason.
AG: It is weirdly infectious.
AG: What is it, some sort of human profanity?
EB: no. well, yeah kind of.
EB: it is a misspelling of an adult male bearded human, who was magic. 

I remember reading this bit in my first read-through. Now think of the fact that I’m taking note of this. That’s how much I skimmed stuff in my first read-through. John’s last line is of particular note because it sounds like something a troll would say.

Also, this right here is proof against the misconception that Jegus is a troll word. For some reason it’s really popular among fans to make all the trolls Jegus-spewing machines. Dave is technically the one who came up with the term through a misspelling in a conversation with Terezi and the other trolls started using it as well. Let it sink in. Dave coined the word so many fans think is a troll catchphrase.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 29: Crazy Destruction and Laptop Reunions

Introduction

< Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 >


Act 5 Act 2, Part 2 of 32


Pages 2684-2731 (MSPA: 4584-4631)


NOTE: I said my blog hiatus would probably last longer than this, but I’ve finished all homework and I have some spare time now, so I figured, why not release a post right now? Next post will probably be 1-2 weeks from now.

Background turtles are sweating like there’s no tomorrow.

We see what Rose is up to, and what’s the first thing she does? She destroys a turtle temple, which is kind of a character establishing moment, except that we already were introduced to her long ago so maybe it’s more of a mission establishing moment? I don’t know, it still has the same feel as a character establishing moment. But it reveals a new trait in Rose, her exceptional perseverance and desire for relevance. Dave once said that she did this crazy destruction stuff “because shes rose”.

This is the first time a character is represented in an alert bubble by a symbol against a non-white background; this gradually becomes more and more common as the story progresses.*

* As Homestuck went on, alert bubbles have progressed like so: (1) bubbles with “…” in them -> (2) bubbles with their character’s face -> (3) characters’ symbols against a white background -> (4) characters’ symbols as they appear on the shirt (this includes aspect symbols). That progression is pretty gradual, with each slowly overtaking its predecessor.

GA: Okay This Will Probably Strike You As An Odd Moment For Me To Mention This 
GA: But Actually 
GA: There Are Not Many Moments Ive Observed On Your Timeline Which Wouldnt Qualify As Odd 
GA: And Somehow 
GA: Your Idle Moments Seem To Invite Interruption The Least 
GA: And This Is A Difficult Topic For Me To Broach 
GA: For Reasons That You Probably Wont Understand 
TT: You’re rambling again, Kanaya. 

Rose’s line here is a definite indicator of a friendship going on between them.

GA: Okay Sorry 
GA: Ive Just Been Meaning To Say 
GA: That I Read Your Instructional Guide

Why didn’t she mention this sooner? That should logically be the first thing she tells her, but I guess she was too occupied with finding the deal with her or something.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 28: The Egbert-Serket Chronicles

Introduction

Part 27 | Part 28Part 29 >

Act 5 Act 2, Part 1 of 32

Pages 2626-2682 (MSPA: 4526-4582)

NOTE: I’m starting a new posting style where I do more commenting as I go and quoting everything I have to say something about rather than these wordy paragraphs and occasional quotes. I also renamed the blog post series to a somewhat more fitting title.

You finally found him. After hours of searching.
No.
SWEEPS of searching.

The opening flash of Act 5 Act 2 is absolutely brilliant. We just got done learning all about how incredibly messed up troll civilization is, and now we go back to the kids’ universe, recapping John’s life, and it seems so magical and beautiful. The scenes with John and his father are so adorably heartwarming, especially baby John riding his pogo and bruising his leg, and his dad walking over to him. He learns to cook and play piano, is taught the ways of pranking, talks to Jade for the first time, gets a green slime shirt, and then starts playing Sburb and goes through some stuff we already saw, until we see where we last saw waking John, riding a rocket board through the Veil. Karkat falls in hate with him, thinking he’s his true destined kismesis (note the spade shirt), which I didn’t realize until now is special for him because he said a little while ago that his standards are too high to have a worthy black partner, barring himself.

Note the early sneak peek of the god tier outfit.

We get to see Karkat’s first time speaking to a human in their famous “first conversation”. I find it interesting how their first conversation is not shown near the end of the kids’ arc, rather at the start of the kids’ portion of Act 5. Maybe this is done for dramatic irony, because John says multiple times that he thinks his first conversation with Karkat will be legendary, but we know how it really goes.

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