Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 126: CLAYMATION REVELATIONIFICATION STATION.

Introduction

< Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 >

Act 6 Act 6 Act 5

Pages 7409-7448

Because “CLAYMATION REVELATION STATION” wasn’t spicy enough.

Since I’m bored out of my mind, semester finished and all, there’s no better time than now to start the last leg of my Homestuck blog post series! Not to mention that I have all the rest of the season 1 posts for a different post series queued and ready to release… Before we begin, let me quickly recap what all is left in my Homestuck posts:

  • Act 6 Act 6 Act 5: 1 post (126)
  • Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5: 12 posts (127-138; last one covers everything post-Omegapause before [S] Collide)
  • [S] Collide and following pages: 1 post (139)
  • Act 7 and credits: 1 post (140)

I had said in earlier posts that I planned to immediately follow the ending of my Homestuck posts with a full-out epilogues analysis in the same style, but I don’t really feel like doing so anymore. My Homestuck blog post series has been going on for five and a half years already, and I’d rather give it a clear-cut ending than continue with its further media. I already made quite a few posts talking about the epilogues anyway, including my epilogues review post. And there’s no way I would ever want to do blog posts analyzing the absolute trainwreck that is Homestuck^2. If I keep a reasonable pace of about five Homestuck posts every month, I’ll finish this post series around the middle of August! It’s going to feel so amazing finishing these posts, but to get that feeling, I actually have to, you know, finish these posts.

Now, let’s begin Act 6 Act 6 Act 5, or as it’s better known, Caliborn’s Masterpiece.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 5 of Homestuck begins with a flash, featuring Caliborn’s crudely drawn curtains fading into the same design pasted on somewhat more realistic-looking curtains. This shows how far Caliborn has come as an artist while retaining at least some of his roots and his bizarre sense of humor… which is to say, Hussie’s bizarre sense of humor.

Speaking of Hussie’s bizarre sense of humor, I’ve been meaning to play Psycholonials, which will perhaps allow me to put a brand new layer of analysis on my Homestuck posts.

The curtains open to reveal a stage that parallels Calliope’s stage in the dream bubbles, with a purple spiral drawn with Caliborn’s old jagged art style instead of a smooth, artistic yellow spiral. Well, the purple spiral is artistic too, just in a different way. There isn’t much of a story behind the stages, and I don’t think there needs to be; they’re both just suitable places for each of the cherubs to tell stories.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 8 Rewritten: Mayorly Foreshadowification Station

Introduction / Schedule (outdated)

Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 >

Pages 666-758 (MSPA: 2566-2658)

Act 2, Part 5 of 5

Link to old version

My rewritten posts lately have alternated between me making a new post title and me keeping the old one. I’m keeping the old one here again.

Random thing about the community reread that isn’t worth putting in its entire separate post: I decided to join in again yesterday to reread John and Roxy’s first conversation, at the end of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1. It’s just as funny and heartening as I remember it being and is one of many things recently that made remember that they are the best ship in the comic. Look forward to me praising that ship in future posts, probably.

You are now the Wayward Vagabond.

The final portion of Act 2 is a stretch of pages focusing on the Wayward Vagabond. On this page, the book commentary explains that although Hussie already had rough ideas for this character’s story role, he decided to improvise and have fun with this arc, letting readers drive the story a bit more than before. You probably know that when John was commanded by WV, he was blocked off from being commanded by readers; playing as WV for the first time gives us a fresh start and a bit of a return to the old days. This “fresh start” idea is done even stronger in the Midnight Crew intermission, which I already covered in my rewritten posts because I skipped to that part after finishing Act 1. Once I finish Act 3, I’ll do a post recapping the intermission before I go to Act 4.

> WV: Retri…

Got em already.

No arm shenanigans here; just quickly getting this joke out of the way before any nonsense can happen. Probably meant to get readers at the time to think, “hm maybe I should be creative for once instead of reiterating the same old commands again”.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 80: Two Refreshing Changes of Pace

Introduction

Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 >

Act 6 Act 3, Part 6

Pages 4932-4962 (MSPA: 6832-6862)

I’m back.

Bet you didn’t expect a new Homestuck blog post to come now, did you? I wrote this post on a whim in a few hours; explanation coming shortly.

In the no-nonsense spirit of the Draconian Dignitary, the character we’re currently following, I’m just going to comment on interesting things that happen in the comic and act like nothing ever happened. Weird how that was kind of a perfect place to put the post series on hiatus for almost two years.

I don’t know if I’ve said it on this blog before, but I’ve always felt that the Derse agents are an underrated part of the comic. If the trolls didn’t exist, maybe the agents could have gotten more attention; they’re just a fun quartet of four personalities. Though I guess the intermission did serve as a way to characterize those four in a completely alien setting. A bit of a shame they didn’t get much closure in the end, besides the BULLSHIT that the beta kids’ Jack was spared in the end and not the others.

Instead of painstakingly trying to comment on everything, here’s the first thing from this arc focusing on DD that I find interesting:

By now the [prince] is up to his goddamn neck in convoluted gothic architecture. He’s burrowed fuck deep in flying buttresses and purple pointy things. He even stopped by the boss’s CUBICLE OF VIGILANCE and sliced up his FENESTRATED WALLS to make searching for him harder. Cunning bastard. 

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 74: Dawn of the Other Twelve

Introduction

Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 >

Act 6 Intermission 2, Part 3 of 3

Pages 4741-4819 (MSPA: 6641-6719)

NOTE: I’m not going to pretend this isn’t just filler text again.

John wakes up in a dream bubble and oh hey it’s another 2x callback combo: to Jake waking up to see Aranea, and to Karkat getting hit in the face by a bucket.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 71: Rainbow Freefalls of Frivolous Banter

Introduction

Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 >

Act 6 Act 2, Part 6 of 6

Pages 4595-4666 (MSPA: 6495-6566)

Jack returns to kill Jane again but is interrupted by a message from DD:

Hang on. It’s this guy. Gotta answer this. He better be bearing news of murdered youngsters. 

He says the deceased child count is still sitting at zero over here. You say WHAT? He says that’s not all. You wait for him to spill the beans. 

He says one of the brats staged a little rebellion on the moon. Stuck the Brute’s head on a pike for all to see. Real black eye for the kingdom and the Condesce. Press is going nuts with it. Wait. The Brute’s dead, you say? He says yes. Dammit. He was one of your best agents. You never really cared for the guy but you admired his brutality. We all did sir, he says. 

It seems like the alpha kids are actually doing a good job going against the Derse agents, inadvertently or otherwise, since the agents’ plans are all ruined now. What’s especially crazy about this is that Jack Noir of all people is hopelessly struggling to accomplish anything.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Commentary Part 63: Dirk’s Ironic Robot Company

Introduction

Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 >

Act 6 Act 1, Part 4 of 4

Pages 4227-4284 (MSPA: 6127-6184)

In a callback to a scene in the trolls’ arc, Jake discovers a grumbling giant version of Karkat’s lusus. Presumably the callback is there to make it extra obvious those are the trolls’ lusii—this isn’t the only time such a thing is done.

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Cookie Fonster Critiques Homestuck Part 8: Mayorly Foreshadowification Station

Introduction

< Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 >

Pages 666-758 (MSPA: 2566-2658)

Act 2, Part 5 of 5

Link to rewritten version

You are now the Wayward Vagabond.

Last time, we saw Dave exploring his puppet-filled living room and John making a rad pogo hammer. Now we get to know the bizarre being commanding John. The Wayward Vagabond is given commands much like the kids are, but we see some differences between him and the kids. Aside from the obvious fact that he’s not a human, he doesn’t have a sylladex, instead picking stuff up with his bare hands. He screws around in his command station, just like how the kids all screw around in their houses. He makes a city out of cans (the eponymous Can Town), and he fantasizes about being the mayor of the town.

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