Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 134: The Ultimate Strider Feelings Jam

Introduction

< Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 8 of 12

Pages 7733-7765

This post is dedicated entirely to one of the most touching scenes in all of Homestuck, if not THE most touching.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Contrary to what I said last post, I ended up also publishing this one while on vacation. I won’t work on more Homestuck posts for the rest of my vacation (until August 1), but rather get on the grind to finish reformatting my old posts from May to September 2019. Those posts have had messed up formatting on this site for almost two years, and fixing them is long overdue.

It’s time to go over the ninth selection of the fake character select screen: Dave and Dirk, round 2. This section will take up the entirety of this post since it’s (1) a very long scene and (2) one of the most emotional scenes in all of Homestuck. When you hover over the first option of the fake select screen, you see Dave and Dirk back where they began: sitting side by side, ready to have their reunion at long last. It’s the exact same image we saw in the second fake select screen, which is thematically fitting.

I love how happy Rose looks fantasizing about shoving a pillow in Jasprose’s face.

Aside from Dave and Dirk, most of the groups of characters listed in the select screen are no longer in the same place, so the fake select screen has developed an interesting system for who to show in which section:

  • The six-way conversation shows whichever characters are presently on the frog platform.
  • Vriska/Meenah shows Meenah having Condesce-esque (Condesque) fantasies while the Vriskas face off.
  • Roxy/Calliope round 1 shows the frog platform zoomed out.
  • The four-way conversation shows the frog platform characters, but drawn more crudely.
  • Roxy shows Roxy (obviously).
  • Jasprose/Jane at first showed Jane, but now it shows Jasprose.
  • Roxy/Calliope round 2 shows Calliope.
  • Dave/Dirk round 2 (in the next select screen) shows Dave and Dirk but drawn more crudely.
  • Roxy/Kanaya is the last option, and the fake select screen ends after their conversation.

This system of showing characters has gotten a little cumbersome, but it’s still very fun and adds a lot of visual humor to A6A6I5. But enough humor now: time for some extreme FEELS.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 7 Rewritten: What Sword?

Introduction / Schedule (outdated)

Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 >

Pages 562-665 (MSPA: 2462-2565)

Act 2, Part 4 of 5


Link to old version

Haha… haha… ha ha … ha …….

Dave explores the rest of his living room and here’s where the creepiness factor escalates. It all starts with this moment:

> Dave: Take expensive ninja sword.

What sword?

This page is a shockingly simple way to establish the day-to-day nature of Dave’s home life.

As I said in my first rewritten post, early Homestuck has a habit of revisiting the running gags of the prior adventures and giving them a new context. Every instance of the “what pumpkin?” gag in Homestuck has some broader reason behind it, sometimes involving technology. This instance of the gag is a character establishing moment for Dave’s bro.

When I got these pages in my old posts, I was nothing short of creeped out. Maybe it’s because two pages in a row show Bro flash stepping and moving stuff around, subverting all expectations in the process.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 7: Land of Swords and Smuppets

Introduction

< Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 >

Pages 562-665 (MSPA: 2462-2565)

Act 2, Part 4 of 5

Link to rewritten version

NOTE: Posted this one early because I’m gone for the weekend.

Just another title picture I guess. All of said pictures were added when I was on post 30-some.

A bit of a stretch to call this a “kitchen”.

Last time, we focused mainly on John as he sees the mess that was made of his house, and Dave as we get a glimpse of his brother’s stuff. Now, Dave examines the rest of his living room, which has, well, a lot of things in it. Swords, turntables, Game Bro magazines, Xbox equipment, nunchucks, skateboards, baseball caps, power cords, creepy comics, shurikens, fireworks, and most prominently, those fucking puppets. His brother flash-steps around the room and moves objects at a whim, in a way that’s more than a little unsettling. And then we go to the kitchen which is filled with dangerous stuff, and no actual food anywhere—something that’s played for laughs at this point, but much later what TV Tropes calls “Cerebus syndrome” kicks in and Dave portrays his old home life as legitimately unsettling when he vents out all his frustration about his upbringing. One thing of note is that Dave seems to know the Scrabble letter point values by heart—why is that? He isn’t portrayed as a nerd who would know that kind of stuff like John is (though he does have a nerdy side). Maybe his brother would challenge him to intense Scrabble competitions every week? Maybe those Scrabble competitions were intended to train Dave to be an expert at his fetch modus, which would make sense given the other insane training his brother is known to do, like sword fighting. It’s pretty amusing to imagine Dave playing Scrabble against his brother, who I like to think is nightmarishly adept at that game. Maybe the guy slaps his tiles onto the board at his ultra ninja speed and kicks little Dave’s ass every time they play with his obscure words calibrated to get the best possible combinations of triple score squares. That might make sense given that Dirk has a florid vocabulary, like Rose. Anyway, maybe it isn’t too far-fetched to know all the Scrabble point values; I only play Scrabble once every few months or so, but I could probably list out all the letter values with at most two or three mistakes. Then again I’m into memorizing stuff.

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