Tag Archives: dream sequences

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 50: Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? + Canterlot Boutique

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Introduction

< Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 >

Season 5, Episodes 13-14

Just like with my Homestuck posts, 50 is a fun number to reach because I’m halfway to 100 posts. It’s also a nice point to reflect on how much bigger this project became than I first envisioned, because of a little something called Cookiefonster’s Law: It always becomes more ambitious than you expect, even when you take into account Cookiefonster’s Law.

(Yeah, this law is just a riff on Hofstadter’s Law. Still, it heavily applies to every creative project I ever do.)

Season 5 Episode 13: Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?

In five words: Luna’s self-blame infects dreams.

Premise: The Mane 6 have to help fight a monster who has been haunting Luna’s dreams called the Tantabus. Callbacks and dream shenanigans ensue.

Detailed run-through:

This episode starts off right away with anime battle shenanigans that turn out to be one of Luna’s dreams. A blob of grayish darkness called the Tantabus turns Luna into Nightmare Moon, the Mane 6 defeat her with magic rainbow beams, and Luna wakes up in a panic.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 44: Bloom & Gloom

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Introduction

< Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 >

Season 5, Episode 4

Warning you now: this review is even longer than the last one (believe me, I didn’t plan that). It’s slightly longer than that of The Best Night Ever, for reference.

Season 5 Episode 4: Bloom & Gloom

You know the drill. Cutie Mark Crusaders episode, spoilers for the big thing that happens midway through season 5.

In five words: Nightmares tease Crusaders’ running mystery.

Premise: Apple Bloom has a cyclical series of dreams where she earns her cutie mark, and nightmarish things happen each time. Luna eventually comes in to alleviate her worries.

Detailed run-through:

Over time, the Crusaders’ clubhouse has gradually gotten more decorations.

The first Cutie Mark Crusaders episode of season 5 begins with these three being exactly the same goofy kids I remembered. Apple Bloom hosts a meeting and does a roll call that the other two point out are unnecessary, demonstrating the trio’s endearing flavor of pseudo-formality that shows they have high dreams but don’t know what they’re doing. And this brings me to something I recall thinking when I first watched several Cutie Mark Crusaders episodes in the last season: are these three ever going to get their cutie marks? Season 5 has several episodes that build up this mystery before giving it a glorious resolution in an episode I plan on going through in extreme depth, like Magical Mystery Cure levels of depth if not more.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 38: For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils + Leap of Faith

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Introduction

< Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 >

Season 4, Episodes 19-20

If you know how much I like Sweetie Belle, you won’t be surprised to know my review of For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils is going to be a long one. Not a record breaker, but it’s up there.

Also, greetings from Spain! As of this post’s publication, I am in there right now, though I had written it a few weeks prior. This is unrelated to MLP, but I have taken it upon myself to learn Spanish since a month before the trip, and I’m having a lot more fun learning it than I would have thought. I may publish a blog post about learning the language in the future.

Season 4 Episode 19: For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils

In five words: Sweetie Belle nearly ruins Rarity.

Premise: Jealous of all the attention her sister Rarity is getting over her, Sweetie Belle destroys the crucial stitch in her sister’s dress for Sapphire Shores, but then she has a dream where Princess Luna shows her what would happen if she doesn’t turn back.

Detailed run-through:

Before I begin, I need to make something loud and clear: This episode is not called “For Whom the Sweetie Bell Toils”. You have no idea how much it drives me crazy when people get the name of this episode wrong. I swear there are some people who know how to spell Sweetie Belle’s name correctly but not the name of this episode, and it annoys me so much.

I love Sweetie Belle so much. She’s just such an appealing character.

Anyway, now that I’m done complaining about something extremely minor that no one cares about, it’s time for me to dive into this episode and pick apart an extremely minor detail that no one cares about!

This episode starts with Glasses Rarity (remember, she’s Rarity but wearing glasses) preparing dresses for Sapphire Shores’ concert, while Sweetie Belle is extremely excited to help out and immediately brings out any materials that Rarity so much as considers using. The second material Rarity mentions is sequins, and Sweetie Belle grabs a bowl of them only to clumsily slip, and some of the sequins land on her tongue. Rarity then uses magic to lift them off, apparently not at all worried that some of them may have Sweetie Belle’s germs due to landing on her tongue. Does she trust that Sweetie Belle keeps proper hygiene? Does she know magic spells that can instantly cleanse any object of others’ germs? There’s lots of possibilities, but it would probably be more relevant to talk about how eager Sweetie Belle is to help with making dresses. She’s so determined to make Rarity proud and be even a fraction as good at making dresses as she is, and her desperation to be in the spotlight reaches a breaking point early into this episode.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 24: Magic Duel + Sleepless in Ponyville

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Introduction

< Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 >

Season 3, Episodes 5-6

Pointless trivia: I worked on my review of Magic Duel entirely within my own house, whereas I worked on my review of Sleepless in Ponyville entirely within a hotel room at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Pandemic restrictions or not, I’m happy to report I had a great time at MAGFest 2022 (though as of this post’s publication, it already ended a few weeks ago).

Season 3 Episode 5: Magic Duel

In five words: Boast Busters’ much better sequel.

Premise: After getting brutally owned in Boast Busters, Trixie returns to Ponyville with a desire for revenge and a special magical amulet.

Detailed run-through:

The intro portion of this episode teases viewers with loose hints of a familiar face. A hooded figure goes to a shop to obtain a dangerous magical amulet, and while she’s denied it at first, she gets it after giving the shopkeeper a big bag of money. Trixie is a fan favorite character, so it makes sense that her return would start off subtle.

After this, we get a scene of Twilight Sparkle practicing her magic skills much like she did at the start of Boast Busters, showing that she’s sharpened her magic prowess since then. She uses a magic spell to levitate Fluttershy’s animals in a gentle looping formation, keeping them calm and happy despite Fluttershy’s extreme nervousness. Again like Boast Busters, this scene shows that Twilight takes great pride in her magic skills. Twilight then mentions Celestia hired her for the entertainment in an upcoming special event. She’s clearly referring to magic tricks here, and that was the one thing Trixie thought she was so good at.

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The Obligatory Psycholonials Review Post

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The title screen of Psycholonials, put for the sake of having at least one image in this post.

If you don’t know what Psycholonials is, it’s a visual novel released sequentially in February through April 2021 by Andrew Hussie, the creator of the legendary webcomic Problem Sleuth.

… what, are you telling me that there’s another webcomic Hussie wrote after Problem Sleuth that’s much more famous? OK, fine, I’ll drop the act. I’ve accepted long ago that I can never escape Homestuck and that it’ll always be with me, as the visual novel reminds readers near the start. This review will contain spoilers for Psycholonials, so read at your own risk!

Comparison to Homestuck

Where do I begin with Psycholonials? It’s the first work of fiction written entirely by Andrew Hussie since Homestuck ended in 2016, and it’s far shorter than Homestuck, which I find relieving. Not because I didn’t enjoy Psycholonials—quite the opposite! It’s more that Hussie intended for Homestuck to run for only a year at first, and it spiraled WAY out of control as he expanded Homestuck and started various side projects related to it, making the comic instead run for seven years. Hussie had long promised Homestuck to be merely a precursor to later works to come, and with Psycholonials, he’s fulfilling that promise at long last.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 122: Chalk Outlines and Reunion Interceptions

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Introduction

< Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 5 of 8

Pages 7163-7225

“W3 M4K3 OUR OWN LUCK 4ND YOU’R3 4BOUT TO PROV3 TH4T”
—Terezi Pyrope, 2014

I would say not to expect the rest of my A6A6I4 posts to come out quickly, but not even I can predict my own work ethic. For me, motivation comes and goes like the wind.

I can tell that few things give Hussie more joy than joking about juggalos.

Time for the first of several Meenah/Vriska scenes in A6A6I4! Better known as “scenes where Hussie forgets about Meenah and Vriska’s significant age difference and then awkwardly backpedals in A6A6I5”. It’s a shame the author ended up forgetting something so significant, because this is quite a fun scene giving insight into both of these characters in a more casual setting than adventurous quests to take down Lord English.

VRISKA: Hey Meenah.
VRISKA: Any idea where we are now?
MEENAH: iunno
VRISKA: Do you think…
VRISKA: This could 8e the “Dark Carnival”??
MEENAH: nah
MEENAH: that shit aint real
MEENAH: its a made up religious belief pimped out by trash clowns
VRISKA: Are you sure?
MEENAH: shell yes
MEENAH: be fake as shit
MEENAH: of course the religious beliefs themselves are real
MEENAH: makin it convenient for anyone who wanna exploit those delusions for her own badass objectives
MEENAH: like pulling in clams hand over flipper and ruthlessly subjugating the general public
MEENAH: i mean
MEENAH: not that id ever bother with a dope scheme like that
MEENAH: just saying

Meenah is contrasting herself against the Condesce when she says she wouldn’t ever bother with using clowns for public subjugation. Clown nonsense is so prevalent in Homestuck that I can’t blame Meenah for not wanting to get involved in it. Perhaps Meenah’s apathy towards clowns is because Kurloz, her group’s resident clown, is nothing more than a pious servant of indecipherable juggalo schemes that relate to Lord English tangentially at best.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 111: Extremist Blueblood Relevance Delusions

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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).

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 7 Rewritten: What Sword?

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

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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 35: Backwards Logic and Nightmare Faces

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Introduction

< Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 >

Act 5 Act 2, Part 8 of 32

Pages 2942-2996 (MSPA: 4842-4896)

Continuing the exile arc, WV recognizes the Bec-shaped base, and only then does he remember that he had previously met the boy he commanded a while back. How come he only recognizes John now? PM recognized both John and Jade when she saw them on her command screen.

John sees WV? in the dream he told Rose about and then wakes up and does stuff we already saw. WV returns to commanding John as he promised way back in Act 2.

The whole scene is one of those moments where exile commands are shown on scenes we’ve already seen; such things are often meant to show us that exiles were behind certain things we’ve already seen, which reminds me of how Vriska is behind some stuff that happened in the kids’ session. I don’t think John mentioned having the exile voice return in his conversation with Rose, which makes sense because John couldn’t “hear” the voice.

John doesn’t listen to WV’s commands so he presses caps lock despite the narration telling him not to, locking him in the command station. Here’s an exile thing I’d like to discuss. When exiles give commands, apparently they’re sent to both characters and their own narrative prompts. The mechanics behind this are kind of a meta thing and aren’t really explained that clearly.

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