Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 125: Vriska the Bus Driver No Longer

Introduction

< Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 8 of 8

Pages 7359-7408

I came up with this post’s title months ago, so please appreciate it.

Just a reminder, don’t expect more Homestuck posts for probably the next few months. I have a real life too! Not to mention ambitious projects unrelated to these posts.

It’s time for John to read the final instruction on Terezi’s scarf. He has the following to say about it:

JOHN: uh, wow.
JOHN: not sure what to expect for this one.
JOHN: alright, here goes.

I can imagine how confused John is. He’s far too thick-headed to have any idea who Terezi wanted him to stop her from killing. Obviously it can’t be Vriska, right? As far as John knows, Vriska and Terezi hardly knew or cared about each another. I never stopped to think about how long it took for him to learn that Terezi killed Vriska—he didn’t know that until he was about to stop that event from happening!

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 124: The Honk That Changed the World

Introduction

< Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 7 of 8

Pages 7284-7358

Poor John remains eternally oblivious to how crucial that honk is.

Second last post of A6A6I4! After my next post, I’ll go on another pause (probably my last pause) as I finish my final college semester before I graduate.

Picking up where we left off, John continues his retcon journey and encounters Dragonsprite, Terezi’s lusus sprite.

DRAGONSPRITE: sniff sniff
DRAGONSPRITE: sniff sniff sniff sniff

JOHN: (hey, would you quit it!)
JOHN: (i’m trying to keep a low profile here.)

Spritelogs with the trolls’ sprites probably weren’t high on the list of things people expected to return in A6A6I4, but they return here. John’s statement about trying to keep a low profile doesn’t refer to hiding his presence from Terezi entirely, but rather returning the favor with some subtle retcon pranks of his own.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 123: Tales of an Empress’s Neutralization

Introduction

< Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 6 of 8

Pages 7226-7283

Analyzing Homestuck is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
(Just kidding, it isn’t.)

Only two posts left of A6A6I4 after this! I’ll probably finish A6A6I4 before this month ends, then put my Homestuck posts on what will hopefully be my last hiatus before I finish them.

Just like my last post, this one begins with a Vriska/Meenah dream bubble scene. This time, it’s somewhat more morbid in tone, taking place in what looks to be the same dream bubble that the Openbound games started in. But just like last time, I’m going to sidestep the fact that Hussie forgot all about their age difference.

MEENAH: BOOM
MEENAH: there goes another one
VRISKA: Wow, yeah.
MEENAH: dude sure is busy today
VRISKA: I’ve got to hand it to him.
VRISKA: As far as indestructi8le, reality-destroying monsters go, he really is tireless.
VRISKA: Even though on some level I can tell he’s pro8a8ly a complete moron, his dedic8tion and persistence is actually pretty admira8le.

MEENAH: holla

This is exactly what I keep saying about Caliborn. He’s dedicated so much energy into improving his art skills and becoming as powerful as can be, and as Lord English it’s on some level admirable how relentless he is in his quest to kill his sister.

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

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’s Homestuck Reflections Part 121: sup

Introduction

< Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 4 of 8

Pages 7100-7162

Yes, “sup”. That’s what I’ve chosen to title this post.

Sorry this post took so long! Schoolwork has been ramping up this semester, so don’t rule out the possibility of me continuing to be slow.

It’s so weird to process that John completed his planet quest at long last.

The Pipeorgankind flash is followed by a callback to the Myststuck games, with John exploring his newly cleared planet that he warped into the middle of nowhere. The fireflies are no longer confined by the fourth wall and now fly about through the screen’s space, which is quite a charming sight.

All the old setpieces from LOWAS, like the Parcel Pyxis and the salamander village, are still there, which must be a strangely nostalgic sight for John. Not an unwelcome one, though, because he still has plenty more adventures to go through.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 120: The Part Where I Keep Getting Distracted Thinking About Fireflies by Owl City

Introduction

< Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 3 of 8

Pages 7059-7099

You would not believe your ghosts
if 120 Homestuck posts
were written by cookiefonster

(120 is pronounced “one twenty”)

Before we begin, have an obligatory plug of my 8-bit cover of Fireflies. Also an obligatory statement that this post includes the oil retcon scene.

Alright, let’s begin this post!

Jade and Calliope commence their storytelling session for real, wielding pens in their respective text colors. Jade tells the two stories about John as promised in their last scene.

JADE: im starting to remember the things she told me so vividly now
JADE: its amazing what a creative project can do to get your mind turning
CALLIOPE: ^u^


I know exactly what Jade is talking about regarding creative projects. These posts have gotten my mind turning about many matters, Homestuck and otherwise, definitely not to an excessive or distracting degree or anything.

CALLIOPE: what shall i draw first?
JADE: the land of wind and shade!
JADE: that is where the story starts
CALLIOPE: i see.
CALLIOPE: which story, exactly?
CALLIOPE: her story, or yoUrs?
JADE: hmmm
JADE: both, as a matter of fact
JADE: my story began with a tragedy on lowas, which led to meeting her in the first place
JADE: and then, she used my memory of that tragedy as a starting point for her story, which turned out to be related
CALLIOPE: ooh, fascinating!
CALLIOPE: (i love stories)
JADE: (i know)


All three voiced cherub characters in Homestuck—I consider the regular and god tier Calliope separate characters—display a strong affinity for circumstantial simultaneity. In their many stories, they frequently tie together seemingly distant events using common points; in this case, the stories about pre-retcon John and post-retcon John are tied together using their visitations to LOWAS.

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Cookie Fonster’s Homestuck Reflections Part 119: Denizen Persuasion and Footwear Theft

Introduction

< Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 >

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4, Part 2 of 8

Pages 7007-7058

“H3R SHO3S W3R3 R3D, SP4RKLY, 4ND D3L1C1OUS. 1 4M ONLY FL3SH 4ND BLOOD”
—Terezi Pyrope, 2014

The secondary storyline of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4 focuses on Jade and Calliope (later also Jane) sharing stories in dream bubbles, feeding readers hints before the grand reveal that concludes the act, by which I obviously mean the sub-sub-intermission.

Oh yeah, the trollsona stuff is a thing too. I’ll talk about all that when the characters themselves discuss trollsonas, whenever that is, I forget when. For now I’ll discuss Jade and Calliope’s conversation about their childhoods.

… actually, I have very little to say about this scene so far. It’s just Jade and Calliope saying stuff we already knew about their upbringings.

JADE: when i was a kid i grew up with plants all around me
JADE: but i was very lucky… i guess i took all the nice things about my life on this island for granted
JADE: i even had my own garden where i grew flowers and vegetables and fruits and such
JADE: that is all i ever ate, the things i grew myself
CALLIOPE: ooh!
JADE: but i will admit to having developed a taste for meat since becoming a dog <_<;
CALLIOPE: meat is very good.
CALLIOPE: for all the complaints i might have aboUt my childhood, near exclUsive sUbsistance Upon raw flesh is not one.
CALLIOPE: bUt then, i am sUre that comes with the territory of being a monster. heh.


I do want to say that I’ve always been a sucker for scenes in any media (such as the one above) where characters talk about food. Food is just such a joy to talk about—if you have a conversation with someone about food, chances are you’ll learn a lot of interesting things about that person you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. At least that’s true for me, not sure about you. Food is only rarely talked about in Homestuck, which means the occasional times characters do talk about food tend to be very charming.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 108: Blindness Reinstigation Station

Introduction

< Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 >

Pages 6397-6446

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1, Part 4 of 5

This post’s title picture was originally going to be Terezi putting on her newly alchemized blindfold, but I feel a strange sense of obligation to use this one instead, much like I did in the posts featuring the Equius/Aradia and imagined Jade/Jadesprite kissing scenes.

Picking up from where we left off, it’s time for the middle part of the glitched selection screen, which is now the only open option. I find it amusing that the story’s glitches in this case make it more linear rather than less, as the page’s narration points out.

KANAYA: Why Would You Do That!
KANAYA: I Do Not Understand Why You Needed To Impale My Friend To Demonstrate Your Resurrection Abilities!
KANAYA: I Believed You!
KANAYA: It Was Pointless And Cruel And Does Not Advance My Willingness To Cooperate With You At All!
KANAYA: Furthermore It Did Not Prove That You Can Use Said Abilities To Harm Me!
KANAYA: I Believe That Assertion Was Based On A Fallacious Theory About My Constitution!
KANAYA: In Actuality One Could Easily Kill Me With Any Number Of Conventional Methods!
KANAYA: Im Sure You Could Chop My Head Off Or Burn Me Alive Or Crush Me To Death And I Would Die Just Fine!

Kanaya’s rant at Jane for killing Karkat as a demonstration features an amusing expansion upon her standard typing quirk: just as each word starts with exactly one capital letter, each sentence ends with exactly one exclamation point.

KARKAT: (whoa, kanaya)
KARKAT: (could you maybe not give the psycho fork girl any more ideas???)
KANAYA: I Am Not Scared Of You!
KANAYA: None Of Us Are!
KARKAT: (i kind of am)
KANAYA: Karkat Shut Up!
KANAYA: If This Treacherous Despot Serving Turncoat Seeks Compliance From Me Then She Will Have To Pry It From My Mutilated Lifeless Cadaver!
KARKAT: (oh no oh god oh no oh god)

Karkat interjects a few times with his immediately recognizable flavor of utter panic, just like how he was in Murderstuck when his friends started killing each other. His fear of Jane is more extreme than even his reaction to Gamzee when he turned evil, probably because he had thought for sure he was done with watching his friends die horribly.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 103: Mobster Reformation with Additional Throwbacks

Introduction

< Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 >

Pages 6111-6242 (I think I’m going to stop listing the MSPA page numbers, just makes it more cluttered and I already forgot to do so the last few posts)

Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 5 of 5

John’s triumphant face represents me finishing my posts for part 3 of Homestuck.

I’m officially putting my Homestuck post series back in the swing of things once again! The reason why has to do with two circumstances: (1) the coronavirus pandemic that’s affecting the entire world and causing so much to go on lockdown and forcing everyone to be homest-*gets shot* and (2) me finishing a musical project and getting burnt out on making musical stuff, which led me to get back into this project that isn’t about making music. The first 40% or so of this post I wrote back in January of this year, but the rest I wrote just yesterday over the course of a few hours because I was kind of bored. Right now I’m in an extended spring break, and the rest of this spring semester will be all online classes which is still difficult for me to even process.

Anyway, now that I’m done with Part 3 of Homestuck (A6A1 to A6I5), I’m going to roughly list out my plans for Part 4 of Homestuck:

  • A6A6A1: 1 post
  • A6A6I1: 5 posts
  • A6A6A2: 1 post
  • A6A6I2: 4 posts
  • most of the rest of A6A6: up in the air
  • [S] Collide and following pages: 1 post
  • Act 7 and credits: 1 post

I’ll also go ahead and confess that I’m really, really looking forward to covering a certain part of A6A6I1 that introduces us to a certain token heterosexual romance (John/Roxy if it wasn’t obvious). I’m very glad I didn’t get to that part before the epilogues dropped.

I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE I HATE PUPPET PEOPLE.

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 5 starts off with a humorous callback to a memorable scene from the Midnight Crew intermission, where Hearts Boxcars was swamped with clones of Eggs and Biscuits (which is how he ended up spending the majority of the intermission). It’s also a humorous way to demonstrate Caliborn’s ever-changing names for the Felt’s species.

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Cookie Fonster Dissects Homestuck Part 102: The Great Metafictional Nostalgia Trip

Introduction

< Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 >

Pages 6055-6110

Act 6 Intermission 5, Part 4 of 5 (probably not 6)

I’ll only split Act 6 Intermission 5 into six parts if I feel I absolutely have to, like if the next post becomes insanely huge. Really don’t want to ruin my Pitbull pun from my last post.

This is my first Homestuck post of 2020!!! As I’ve said on Twitter, I intend on releasing posts regularly (on my usual once to twice a week basis) throughout at least the first half of the year, and boy am I excited to get back in the swing of things. I’ve estimated that I’ll reach Caliborn’s Masterpiece (a significant landmark point) in May or June, which means I’ll be able to make lots of progress on my Homestuck posts this year. And if I get bored of those, maybe I’ll even resume my rewritten post series.

KANAYA: …
KANAYA: …
KANAYA: …
KANAYA: …
KANAYA: …

Picking up from where we left off, we’re about to see what everyone’s favorite lesbian couple is up to in the meteor.

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