Comments On [S] Collide

Comments on [S] Collide

Better late than never, I suppose. This ended up taking me longer than I thought. Plus I procrastinated on posting it. >_<

So, a bunch of battles take place:

The Condesce vs John, Roxy, Rose, and Kanaya (+ Jasprose, Nanna, and Jane)

The Felt vs Jake (+ Jane and undead army)

Cans vs Arquius (+ Dad)

Clover vs Karkat

Jack English vs Spades Slick vs Dave, Terezi, and Dirk

Bec Noir vs PM vs Jade

Yaldabaoth vs Caliborn

Hussie vs Vriska

Lord English vs the Ghost Army (including Meenah, Tavros, Aradia, and Davepeta)

The Fraymotifs are awesome! I love the Zazzerpan tornado callback from [S] Enter, and also Kanaya reading a book and applying lipstick while the others attack!

I’m guessing Kanaya never bought any Fraymotifs, or she would have used them. (They are insanely expensive, and I think Vriska and Terezi were the only ones who earned tons of boondollars. Plus Kanaya was focused on frog breeding.)

Roxy’s Void attacks are glorious. I have no words.

Wait, when and how did Die get his doll back?

Arquius attacks Cans by summoning robo-horses and bashing him repeatedly with the fridge containing Gamzee.  Hilarious yet ominous!

Cans does his fourth wall-breaking attack by punching everyone out of the panel and onto LOFAF.  Remember, Karkat was last here in Echidna’s lair, and he woke up when LE did the Rainbow Death Laser on his dream self. So now he can battle! ...With Clover. XD

So Crowbar kills Jake, and apparently the Condesce kills Rose and Kanaya, because Jane does the Lifey Thing on all three of them.

John uses the Fear No Anvil hammer! Nice callback!

It looks like Nannasprite attacks the Condesce with heavy objects from John’s house? But it doesn’t seem to affect Condy, and instead hurts John and Roxy?

Jake. Jake what are you doing. XD

Casey’s undead army! Hooray! I can mark that on my bingo card!

Dirk uses a Zilly Santa weapon!

When Dirk dies, Terezi and Dave use an amazing Fraymotif. From what I can tell... Terezi does the Mindy Thing, and envisions (at least) four alternate paths.

Then Dave selects the most favorable path’s timeline? Or he merges the most favorable choices into one timeline? It results in there being three splintered, living Dirks who then seem to merge.

And Slick somehow has two cuestaffs, one in staff form, another in gun form? I’m guessing the Slicks merged, too, then. So a timeline merger makes the most sense. Either way, nice callback to Slick riding the horse hitcher!

Dad is so powerful and strong, he intimidates Cans and Arquius! That really says something!

The battle between the dogs makes a nice parallel to a Cherub mating ritual, with PM as the Cherub heroine.

Interesting, though, how PM has a red background, while Jack has a green one.

Glimpse of Yaldabaoth’s face:

Vriska vs Hussie. This is hilarious and ridiculous! Also I guess this is a Problem Sleuth allusion? (And also looks like Caliborn’s art style, haha!)

As the interlude of “Eternity, Served Cold” (song from [S] Caliborn: Enter) plays, Alt!Calliope approaches the Green Sun, the processional cracks in Paradox Space are nearly complete, Lord English faces the ghost army, and Caliborn defeats his denizen and obtains the house juju and God Tier clock. This is... incredibly ominous, to say the least.

Also, the God Tier clock is stopped dead center with the Time symbol, I suppose indicating Caliborn’s earned immortality?

Serenity brings hope to the heroes! (I assume this is Serenity flying to different locations, rather than multiple fireflies?) Interesting how it first focuses on her body spiral, especially because [S] Caliborn: Enter ended on the red sun spiral right before this part of the song could begin. (Post on this here.)

Another callback!

The Mayor and Serenity reuniting is so adorable and heartwarming! :’) <3  (They’ve been separated since sometime before Year 2 of the meteor journey)

Tavros’ lance is made of Fiduspawn host plush bears, haha! (Apparently he had this weapon in [S] Make her pay.)

Aradia uses her Time spell while she, Meenah, and Tavros attack Lord English. Hehe, I love Aradia, and also I love all these callbacks!

Looking at it closely, it looks like Aradia makes Time for them, freezing LE in time, like she did before with Bec Noir. Meanwhile Meenah attacks very similarly to Dirk’s soul destroying spell; she must be stealing his Life force. (Shouldn’t it be cyan, though, like Jane’s Lifey Thing? Although, actually, Feferi’s Life powers are fuchsia, too. I suppose the color depends on the Life player’s color.)

Then it looks like LE tries to speed up the time Aradia made? Or otherwise do some sort of Timey Thing that resembles Dave’s record being scratched and then repaired. And then he breaks free.

Okay, this looks familiar, like a callback. But I can’t place where it’s from. This is bugging me!

This scene from [S] Game Over is the only similar reference I can think of, but it’s too different:

Ghost Army attacks! And also Shrek with his son Eridan ...who does not have ghost eyes? Hahaha, what even?! (Hello there, god tier Sollux and Latula ghosts! Nice to have sprites of Mage, Doom, and Mind garb!)

Davepeta! Undertale reference! THIS. IS. THE GREATEST. THING. EVER! I love this so much I am giddy!

I mean, Heart+Time basically IS Determination! So perfect! Also Davepeta has 33 HP, with reference to Nepeta’s number and how Davepeta uses the B33 emote.

A pink dream bubble next to a shrinking green bubble. More foreshadowing of the Green Sun’s destruction and the creation of a Pink Sun?

I’m really worried for Jane. I hope she’s not dead. We barely got to see her fight, and her showdown with the Condesce happened offscreen. This isn’t right.

Heir of Grief is such a lovely song! As is the sequence with the Beta Kids.

On LOTAK, Gamzee’s still in the fridge and crying. I never thought I’d say this, but... I... actually feel bad for him. :(

Love Crowbar’s stunned reaction to Jake defeating the felt. Also, victory for Karkat! He defeated the smallest, yet MOST DIFFICULT Felt member! Also Clover’s so kinky! XD (More on Karkat and Clover here.)

Jade auspisticizes Bec Noir and PM! But PM is so furious, she overcomes her Bec loyalty instincts and KO’s Jade, favoring her goal (Breath) over her bond (Blood).

That look of defeat on both Dirk and Dave... They know what must be done. :c

I am reminded of Dirk’s “shoulder to shoulder and to shoulder” line. Also Dave breaks Dirk’s Unbreakable Katana. For the first time since his death on LOFAF, Dave time travels to create stable time loops.

I already commented on the black hole with 2/3 of LOTAK and Gamzee, which is incredibly ominous.

PM slices off Bec Noir’s arm, KO’s him, and take the ring! This is not the first time a Jack has lost an arm to a kismesis who’s a queen.

Roxy takes down the Condesce?! Doesn’t Condy have an conditional mortality curse that her killer should inherit? Or was that transfer unique from the Handmaid to the Condesce? I guess it’s unclear. I’m incredibly skeptical of Condy being dead for good, though, considering her curse and how Terezi survived impalement (at least for a while).

It feels like Jane really got shafted in this upd8. She didn’t have much action or screen time, and basically her battle with the Condesce happened off-screen. If anyone should have taken down the Batterwitch, it should’ve been the heiress to Crockercorp. I guess we’ll have to see if Condy’s certainly dead.

That ending, though... That eerie ringing sound, the screen freezing and going static...

The clockwork mechanism being completely still and then fading to black on a white background... This is incredibly ominous. Not to mention those curtains didn’t close. (Compare Collide’s act closing to Cascade’s. In Cascade, the window curtains, though shredded, still closed.)

Some follow-up questions:

Where did Sollux go?

What happened to DD and CD?

How is it the comic went straight from A6A6I5 to A6A6A6 with no curtains closing to indicate the Intermission’s end?

But yeah, I am left with the strong impression this is a false victory. Lord English isn’t defeated, anyway, after all.

Wonderful flash, though! Major applause to everyone involved with making it! Looking toward to, yet incredibly uneasy and anxious about the upcoming finale.

Special thanks @hzapping for showing me how to make animated GIFs (ended up in the Clover post) and for helping me locate a bunch of reference links.

I love how Roxy removes her tie and turns it into a mask. XD

Happy 5th anniversary of 2X3PRONG DAY!

(Which might also be the Cherubs’ birthday? Happy birthday, Calliope? Could this is a be a birthday celebration dinner?)

Waaah! I recently hit 413 followers! This is so awesome! Thank you, everyone! ^_^

As a thank-you, have a low-quality selfie of me dressed as Roxy!

Remember how Dave entertained the idea of becoming a paleontologist?

DAVE: dead things are actually pretty rad DAVE: i feel like if i was legitmately into all this then more should have come of the interest [...] DAVE: maybe i could have really developed this interest DAVE: maybe i could have been something cool as a result [...] DAVE: i could have been a paleontologist DAVE: instead of what i became [...] DAVE: that would have been the dopeness!

Looks like he’s gone into a similar field---archaeology!

He’s searching for and excavating cultural artifacts (of JPEG artifact Liberties). That’s a new level of irony, too: recovering remnants of an ancient civilization created by his older (i.e. future) self from a parallel universe. It’s both figurative and literal layers upon layers of irony, which is so Dave. He’s combining his passions, and it’s beautiful. :’)

[S] Jasper: Mental breakdown.

My reaction to the finale of Homestuck.

Essentially, the stages of grief (excluding acceptance). In no particular order.