Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 132: Leadership Doubt and Feline Boisterousness

Introduction

< Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 6 of 12

Pages 7635-7671

Rose represents my reaction to all Homestuck fandom drama from this year.

Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. I have less than 500 pages left of Homestuck to go through. 500 pages may sound like a lot, but it’s quite a small portion compared to Homestuck’s full page count, which slightly exceeds 8000.

Anyway, we left off at Calliope getting revived by an increasingly saccharine Roxy. Now, a lengthy scrolling panel with denizen sound effects showing Echidna in person (but not her face) takes us to Kanaya and Karkat, having finished their meeting with Echidna. It’s quite a fun and detailed panel giving a good sense of scale for Echidna’s monstrous size, drawn by an external artist.

For Kanaya, the denizen meeting was brief and successful, but Karkat is still befuddled at the purpose of his presence. Kanaya says she and Echidna talked about Karkat but is reluctant to explain what they talked about, which is some withholding that Karkat isn’t too happy about. With Karkat lost on what he stands for or what his purpose is, the two discuss their aspects, and we start to learn new things about them—some directly, some indirectly. This conversation in general features us learning a lot of new things about the Alternian trolls’ session.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 105: Cagey, Smirk-Tortured Info-Morsels

Introduction

< Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 >

Pages 6278-6299, 6324-6342

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1, Part 1 of 5

I think this is somehow my first time ever naming a post after a Karkat line????

Also, yay for new Homestuck posts three days in a row.

I’ve been bored out of my mind the past few weeks and it probably shows with the ridiculous amount of content I’ve been outputting lately. Enjoy this post during this stream of rapid activity, which might continue even after the spring semester resumes due to staying at home all day.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1 of Homestuck, or A6A6I1 for short, begins with a dramatic flash that does insanely cool things with Homestuck’s website (which was preserved on the move away from Flash!!!!!). The flash uses a song called “Gold Pilot” which is a HUGE fan favorite among the comic’s soundtrack (and honestly a little overrated in my opinion), in a way that interestingly matches with the song’s original intent as a theme for Becquerel instead of the Psiioniic or however I’m supposed to spell it, and features Grimbark Jade piloting the trolls’ meteor into a Reckoning portal so she can do cool plot stuff.

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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’s Homestuck Commentary Part 69: A Series of Faux Cat Mysteries

Introduction

Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 4 of 6

Pages 4470-4516 (MSPA: 6370-6416)

This post is now a week too late to be the anniversary special. I guess it’s still sort of the de facto anniversary special? 

We now switch focus over to Roxy and the first interesting bit we get is her examining her collection of dead cats. The narration says about one of them:

The biggest one has been around for as long as you remember, encased in that glass-like material. You’ve considered giving it a name, but it always struck you as a little morbid to name a dead cat. 

Yet another subversion of a longstanding motif in the comic; in this case, different people giving animals different names of different genders. In this case I guess it’s only fair that happens because the cat has already gotten two names. Besides, it’s yet another recurring thing that’s gotten a bit stale. That motif happens again later on with Serenity the firefly, but in that case it’s a somewhat more unexpected thing to happen.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 68: Dream Decapitations and Smug Brain Clones

Introduction

Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 3 of 6

Pages 4538-4568 (MSPA: 6438-6468)

My anniversary special post is coming up next, either on Sunday or on Tuesday. Are you ready?

We now switch focus to Dirk’s dream self, and the big thing I notice here is that all but a few items are tinted red: the ones that aren’t are the rocket board, Minihoof, the Dersite newspaper, Cal, and Dirk himself. My guess as to why that is is because the colored objects are items specific to the dream world, not just projections of his own possessions. The deal with the apparently “real” version of Cal in his dream self’s room is never explained, which is a bit of a plot hole: we don’t know if it’s empty or full, let alone what happens with it, and I can only assume it isn’t a projection because of its coloring.

As for the other objects being colored, Minihoof is probably colored because it’s a living being, the Dersite magazine is obvious, and I’m not sure about the rocket board. I do recall that he later uses it to travel to Roxy’s home and decapitate himself and all that and…

Wait a minute. I think I know why it’s colored like that. I’m pretty sure his dream self uses that thing in the Unite Synchronization sequences as well to pick up Roxy and Jane, and it’s definitely distinct from the waking world rocket board. With that in mind, maybe the board is colored because of its use in that sequence and how it’s taken to the real world in Jake’s island? My bet is that the waking and dreaming world rocket boards are one and the same, with the dream one making it to Dirk’s room with a reckoning portal and becoming the waking one.

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