Tag Archives: aranea serket

Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 116: What the Fuck Happened Here?

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 >

[S] GAME OVER and the rest of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3

Pages 6901-6920

^ This image is how I feel about Karkat wearing short sleeves.

Time to finally analyze [S] GAME OVER, a flash that came out on October 25, 2014, the third anniversary of [S] Cascade. As the title may suggest, the flash consists of most of Homestuck’s living main cast either dying or getting critically wounded, so that they may soon be replaced with post-retcon versions of themselves. This retcon character replacement is a very controversial move and for many people weighs down Act 6 in its entirety. I’ve always been bothered by it myself, but a major goal of mine in these posts is to see if it’s really that bad in retrospect.

A cool detail in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s version of this flash is that the browser interface switches color schemes along with the website’s background.

Game Over alternates between taking place in Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 (John fighting Caliborn) and Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3 (everyone else in the alpha session fighting each other). The flash begins on an incredibly silly note, with a callback to John’s mental breakdown when he discovered his father wasn’t a clown, and his further mental breakdown when he discovered Betty Crocker made Fruit Gushers. The callback is very fitting, because John has mental breakdowns over the absolute stupidest things.

The manga drawings surrounding John clearly indicate that they’re his principal source of anger at Caliborn, which is both amusing and fitting. Honestly, it makes more sense to be angry about those drawings than whatever impact he had on the kids’ story as Lord English, because as Dave said in A6A6I1, he’s responsible in some ass backwards way for them all existing.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 114: The Rim of the Great Divide

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 >

Pages 6750-6852

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 4 of 4

God, it would have been so much cooler to go on hiatus for six months after this post, not before.

Kept you waiting, huh?

… er, not to imply I’m at all familiar with Metal Gear Solid aside from one or two memes.

Anyway, uh… where were we? Brain Ghost Dirk’s fakeness meter is increasing because ripping the soul out of Aranea’s body is apparently decreasing the power of Jake’s hope field. There’s probably a message to be taken from Aranea artificially hacking the game and how Jake hasn’t truly unlocked his hope powers, but I don’t really feel like writing a giant paragraph about it, because (1) I’ve already said plenty about Aranea in the last few posts and (2) I honestly kind of want to get this post out of the way, because it’s mostly action scenes and is the very last part before the PERFECT point to pause this post series. (MONTHS LATER EDIT: or rather, what would have been the perfect point to pause this post series)

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 113: Brain Ghost Realitification Station

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 >

Pages 6682-6749

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 3 of 4

This is the second last post featuring content released before the Gigapause, which is when I first read Homestuck.

Friendly reminder that among my creative projects, my current priority is making 8-bit covers of the entire soundtrack of Sonic Robo Blast 2 v2.2, which means my Homestuck post series is currently something I do every now and then when I want a break from that.

Also, friendly reminder that I’ve firmly divorced the masterwork that is Homestuck from the bloated mess that is Homestuck^2, so don’t expect me to talk about the latter in this post series unless it somehow becomes good. As for Pesterquest, there isn’t a whole lot I have to say about it because basically the whole thing played it as safe as possible. It’s really a shame this recent Homestuck media hasn’t been very remarkable after the horrifying yet incredibly cathartic epilogues, but that sure isn’t going to stop me from writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about Homestuck. I don’t think of it as “Homestuck 1” or even “the original Homestuck”, I just think of it as “Homestuck”.

A third friendly reminder that I soon hope to no longer use homestuck.com for my Homestuck posts, instead some offline archive or fanmade way to read the comic as originally intended. At some point, I should really get around to editing my old posts to include pages from homestuck.com because the MSPA domain has been somewhat unstable lately.

Anyway, where were we? Looks like I left off right before a panel with Gamzee restraining an aggravated Jane in a geometrically improbable position.

JANE: GET YOUR PAWS OFF ME YOU SHITFUCKING SHITFUCKER AUGH FUCK SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK FUCK.
GAMZEE: honk.
JANE: YOU SCURRILOUS FUCKSHITTING CAD. UNHAND ME SO I MAY RESURRECT MY ACCOMPLICE AT ONCE.
GAMZEE: honk honk.
JANE: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME THIS TIME YOU DETESTABLE POO ROGERING CHARLATAN.
GAMZEE: honk.
JANE: I DO NOT WANT TO BUY ANYMORE OF YOUR POTIONS. I ALREADY BOUGHT ALL THE USELESS SLOP I COULD EVER WANT FROM YOU, AND MADE A KILLING ON REDISTRIBUTION.
GAMZEE: HONK.
JANE: YOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL TACTICS LEAVE MUCH TO BE DESIRED. YOU ARE A DEPLORABLE BUSINESSMAN AND AN EVEN SHITTIER CLOWN. GET OFF ME.
GAMZEE: …
JANE: DID YOU JUST TOUCH MY BOOB. DON’T TOUCH MY BOOB YOU FUCKFACED DUNG HUFFING TOILET GUZZLING IDIOT QUIPSTER SHITPECKER DICKLARK.
GAMZEE: :o)

Hussie has always had a knack for writing humorously verbose insults, and it’s interesting that he’s doing it with Jane of all characters. A6A6I2 has been consistently putting a more comedic light than before on Crockertier Jane, and she’s a fairly understandable choice for someone to plug vocabulary jokes into. Jane’s always been high up on the scale of character vocabulary, not quite as high as Rose or Dirk but still up there. Reading these insults she gives Gamzee, most of the non-profane words are surprisingly in-character for Jane.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 112: Grandfatherly Saiyanification Station

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 >

Pages 6606-6681

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 2 of 4

It’s over 6000!

I’m getting so close to the Gigapause, which is kind of scary to think about. I’ve been working more on music stuff lately than this post series, which is why my posting schedule hasn’t been too fast lately despite being done with finals.

Picking up from where we left off, Jane notices Jake’s hope field and has a villain-to-villain confrontation with Aranea, which as I said in my last post is a good indicator that this timeline is going way off the rails.

Still in his prison cell, Jane’s father watches the scene in stern fatherly confusion. This is the point where it starts becoming clear that Hussie is having a lot of fun throwing in humorous callbacks and early act throwbacks into all these action scenes, which further implies a burnout on writing Homestuck the way he had done shortly prior. I could complain about how the retcon that follows made so many story events arguably pointless, but I’ve come to accept that it’s more fun to analyze Homestuck in a matter-of-fact fashion.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 111: Extremist Blueblood Relevance Delusions

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 >

Pages 6531-6605

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 1 of 4

I’m so close to the Gigapause now, I can almost smell it!

Sorry it took so long for this post to come out! I started it shortly after the last one, but I’ve been busy with finishing my classes the past few weeks. I now have one final exam and one project left for the semester, so I finished this post after doing one of my exams.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2 of Homestuck opens with Crockertier Jane revealing herself to be the one who’s been building the alpha kids’ houses. This is a pretty cool usage of Act 6 Act 6’s motif of having our heroes hack their way through the final necessities of creating the new universe. It’s an odd choice for this intermission’s first scene given the nonstop action scenes that follow, but it makes sense to get this information out of the way before we dive into the meat (or at least, an extremely foolish attempt at generating meat).

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 101: Faygo Degradation and Chair Tantrums

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 >

Pages 6015-6054

Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 3 of 5 (not to be confused with Mr. 305)

My Homestuck blog post series officially has a Pitbull reference now. I have no idea why I just did that.

The first thing we see when we check back in on the meteor crew is THIS horrifying panel. Terezi reveals that her eyes are regular seeing troll eyes once more, which is an image that feels INCREDIBLY wrong, and rightfully so. Her eyes are pulsing red as if she isn’t used to not wearing her dragon hood, her mouth is in a weird frown, and there are heavy bags under her eyes that tell us what shape Terezi is in right now.

Karkat’s facial expression tells us more than words ever could. Sometimes the guy just mirrors readers’ reactions to story events SO WELL.

This panel, man. Terezi is surrounded by these horrible bottles of Faygo and clown horns, but she’s still carrying a scalemate plush to remind us that she’s the same Terezi Pyrope we’ve followed since Act 4.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 100: Antagonist Origination Station

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 >

Pages 5947-6014

Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 2 of 5

Imagine a gigantic balloon shaped like the number 100 filling your screen right now.

Well, I did it. After four long years, I’ve reached the 100th installment of my Homestuck post series (which will hopefully not be my last Homestuck post of 2019) on the first anniversary of this post series’ resurrection. I worked on this post sort of on and off over the course of a month, because I know well that with my Homestuck posts I’m either absurdly fast or absurdly slow. I’m rather pleased with what material my 100th post turned out to cover: Aranea’s explanation of Lord English’s backstory, a villain we’ve known about since the Midnight Crew intermission.

I must say, having these posts’ numbers in the triple digits now is really goddamn weird. It now officially feels like this is a project I’ve gotten way too carried away with—not that it didn’t before, but this is just the nail in the coffin for me getting carried away. If I keep doing about 50 pages per post, this means that I’ll reach the end of Homestuck around post 140; realistically, probably quite a few more posts than that. The end of Homestuck won’t be the end of this post series though—I will continue with the epilogues, and IF IT BECOMES ACTUALLY GOOD, Homestuck^2 as well. Again speaking realistically, I estimate that I will reach the end of Homestuck in these posts in early 2021, which is a weird date to consider, almost like I’m a Hollywood studio announcing the release date for a movie or something. In any case, 100 posts is one HELL of a milestone.

POST-COMPLETION UPDATE: After reaching the end of Homestuck, I no longer have plans to make blog posts going through the epilogues—no not out of dislike for the epilogues, but rather because I feel like I’ve already said everything I wanted to about them in other posts. Also, Homestuck^2 never happened.

… Alright, let’s stop rambling and get on with Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 100!!!

A fitting image for my 100th post if I say so myself.

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 2 is immediately followed by a scene showing us what John is up to. He’s sleeping on the couch, dreaming in a bubble amidst the cracks in paradox space formed by Lord English to complete an enormous circle of stupidity, which I mean both literally and figuratively. This image humorously calls back to Caliborn’s approximation of a circle with a mess of lines, showing that some things about him just never change.

Continue reading →

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →