History Homestuck / TropesAToL

** You fail miserably.

* CycleOfRevenge: Many, most notably the one between Vriska and Terezi, which led to 4 of the trolls being crippled or worse by the end of it.

** Some of the trolls are nods and parodies of various fandoms and internet subcultures: Kanaya for ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''; Gamzee for the Music/InsaneClownPosse; Nepeta and Equius for [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Furries]] (Terezi to a lesser extent with dragons, though she is mostly enthralled by [[LawProcedural courtroom dramas]]); Sollux for hackers; Vriska for [=LARPers=]; and possibly Eridan for hipsters and ''Franchise/HarryPotter''.

%%* BeamSpam: [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003260 Sentryworm.]]

%%* {{BFG}}: Holy ''[[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005064 shit.]]''

%%** Foreshadowed [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=006456 here]] and played out [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007150 here]], though [[ProphecyTwist not exactly in the manner implied.]]
%%** And again [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007321 here]], with possibly the most awkward build-up imaginable beforehand. [[TrollingCreator Probably on purpose.]]

%%* BigShutUp: [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007426 Here.]]

%%** In a meta-joke, from [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004387 here]] to [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004974 here]].

%%* CoolCar: [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005318 BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP]]

** [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004901 The Uranium Imps]], thanks to gaining Bec's powers through his prototyping, are much tougher and more dangerous than regular Imps. The one that Jade encounters casually teleports away from all her attacks, and only goes down when Becsprite steps in.

** Once John & Jade learn the "gift of gab," we're treated to [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=006195 our first Dialoglog]], a log for dialogue.

* DisasterDominoes: Equius punches a robot through a wall for "judging" him. The robot's head falls and activates the Catentative Doomsday Dice Cascader... which fails... but becomes dislodged and causes a piece of Equius' hive to break off and fall, killing his lusus and grievously wounding Vriska's. The whole thing starts [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004128 here]] and goes on for about ten pages.

%%* DrosteImage: [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/index.php?s=6&p=005097 Here.]]

%%** [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005599 Dave]], [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005600 that's not]] [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005601 how you]] [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005602 do it]].

%%* FightWoosh: [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002292 Here]].

%%* ForcefulKiss: Featured quite humorously [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004280 here]].

* IncrediblyLamePun: Quite a few puns are groan worthy.
-->'''CC:''' I )(ave... w)(at was it? Orca vu?\\
'''GG:''' XO\\
'''GG:''' feferi that one was a stretch even by your fish punnery standards

-->''[[InWhichATropeIsDescribed Wherein]] Numerous Vigilantes Confront Peril; [[FaceHeelTurn One of Them Betrays the Others]]; [[FakeDefector (But it Turns Out to be Part of The Plan All Along)]]; [[LoveDodecahedron Several]] [[TheChick Attractive Female Leads]] [[WillTheyOrWontThey Provide Romantic Tension]]; [[SignatureHeadgear Four Major Characters Wear Unusual Hats]]; [[TheReveal One Holds Plot-Critical Secret]]; [[StuffBlowingUp 47 On-Screen Explosions]], [[KarmicDeath One Resulting in Demise of]] [[TheDragon Key Adversary]]; [[{{Narm}} 6 to 20 Lines that could be Construed as Humorous]];'' [[LongTitle etc.]]

* CityOnTheWater; There are a number of these (although we only see the one) in the future of Alpha Timeline Earth [[FloodedFutureWorld after the Condesce floods the planet]], where Roxy and the timeline's Exile population live. Unlike the shiny high-tech version of this trope you usually see in science fiction, these are ugly blocks of prefab housing stated to be basically floating slums, since the well-being of her subjects isn't terribly high on the Condesce's list of priorities.

* ContinuityNod: You notice there aren't any examples of ContinuityNod on the trope page. "Outrageous," you yourself independently think, "''Homestuck'' loves continuity than I love my wife!" First of all, "ex-wife", and second of all, reading every single pointless self-reference in ''Homestuck'' is a task only someone with extreme determination and unemployment could undergo.\\\

* FreudWasRight:
-->'''TG:''' i just want your professional take on how many things in my dream symbolize dicks
-->'''TT:''' We've already established that all of your dreams are packed with enough homoerotic symbolism to lift Freudian theory from the ashes of discreditation.
* FridgeBrilliance:

* TheFunInFuneral: Trolls don't have funerals, so when Aradia hears of them, she thinks of them as a "human corpse party" and is eager to try them out.

* GoofyPrintUnderwear: Terezi, [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/5934 here.]]

%%* GrandFinale: Act 6 Act 6, to Act 6 and Homestuck as a whole

* GrimReaper: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] by [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/4349 Terezi and Dave]].

* HarderThanHard: Doomed sessions are eventually described like this, with dead sessions described as playing on extreme difficulty.
** Dead sessions aren't just HarderThanHard. They're a complete departure from the standard rules of the game.

** Terezi is talked into letting Aranea heal her eyes, when her blindness is a major part of her persona and isn't even a handicap to her due to being able to see in other ways. She considers it a big mistake the instant her vision is healed, and it severely damages her confidence and self-esteem. Luckily, John retconning the timeline undoes this for the new alpha-timeline Terezi.

* TheHerosBirthday: It was John's thirteenth birthday when the adventure began, and it remains his birthday until the end of Act 5.
** And during his three year travel in the Act 6 intermissions, the narration always cuts to John in one year intervals, meaning it's always his birthday when we see him. The second time it's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]].

--> '''TT:''' My perception of the future has been informed by other sources.\\

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: A fair number of deaths occur this way.

* InventoryManagementPuzzle: Part of the humor of early acts was the increasingly ridiculous Fetch Modi that characters have to deal with. This recurs briefly at the start of Act 5 and Act 6 before fading again. Earlier ones take after data structures such as Stack, Array, and Tree. Later modi shy away from this to be more in line with a character's theme, such as 8Ball for Vriska, Ouija for Aradia, Recipe for Jane[[labelnote:note]]Her previous modus, [[http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Sylladex#Fibonacci_Heap Fibonacci Heap]], is a nod to the earlier Fetch Modi.[[/labelnote]].
** And then we have Jake's Fetch Modus, Puzzle, which acts much like a classic inventory puzzle in that objects captchalogued will be of various sizes, and they must be organized to maximize space efficiency.

* IsometricProjection: Part of early acts, though it faded over time.
* ItMakesSenseInContext: ''Homestuck'' usually makes sense in context (emphasis on ''[[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext usually]]''). Showing nearly any panel outside of that context however...

** Since Robo Jack had no way to get to the final battle, he spontaneously develops a "rocket ass."

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: [[WordOfGod Hussie]] has described Homestuck in its current form as "a webcomic that is also a puzzle".

* KitschCollection: Quite a few cast members collect bizarre, mostly useless items.

* Letters2Numbers: Many of the trolls do this as part of their typing quirks, usually in a way that fits into some sort of NumerologicalMotif. Terezi, though, deserves special mention, since with as many as three letters constantly numberised, turquoise color and all-caps [=H3R=] [=T3XT=] [=C4N=] [=B3=] [=N1GH=] [=UNR34D4BL3=]. Mituna's text is deliberately as difficult to read as possible [=W17H=] [=3V3N=] [=M0R3=] [=L3773R5=] [=R3PL4C3D=] [=1N=] [=4LL=] [=C4P5=]. Making this worse is his tendency to use made-up lingo or devolving into angrish at times.

** During [S] Wake, when Tavros and Vriska face off, he holds up the decapitated head of one of Vriska's dolls and makes a throat slitting gesture, she replies by holding up HIS SEVERED LEGS AND TORSO and making a waist cutting gesture. In [=AlterniaBound=], you can find Tavros' severed legs while playing as Vriska.

** One of the more popular {{Alternate Universe Fic}}s was ''FanFic/TrollCops'', depicting Terezi and Sollux as... well, [[TheyFightCrime troll cops]]. Come the Alterniabound album, we are treated to [[http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/trollcops two slightly]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KowW2vV5qBQ different]] versions a Trollcops theme song.

-->''[[InWhichATropeIsDescribed Wherein]] [[TheyFightCrime Numerous Vigilantes Confront Peril]]; [[FaceHeelTurn One of Them Betrays the Others]]; [[FakeDefector (But it Turns Out to be Part of The Plan All Along)]]; [[LoveDodecahedron Several]] [[TheChick Attractive Female Leads]] [[WillTheyOrWontThey Provide Romantic Tension]]; [[SignatureHeadgear Four Major Characters Wear Unusual Hats]]; [[TheReveal One Holds Plot-Critical Secret]]; [[StuffBlowingUp 47 On-Screen Explosions]], [[KarmicDeath One Resulting in Demise of]] [[TheDragon Key Adversary]]; [[{{Narm}} 6 to 20 Lines that could be Construed as Humorous]];'' [[LongTitle etc.]]

** Vriska and Eridan both had the most powerful examples of their respective [[WeaponOfChoice kind abstrata]] before they even started Sgrub.

** Also [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/7024 referenced by Terezi]] very aptly after [[KillEmAll [S] GAME OVER]].

* KillEmAll: Spades Slick forces Lord English's Time Vault open, releasing a wave of temporal energy that kills every character who appeared in the Intermission besides Slick and the Snowman. Soon after that, the Snowman rips Spade's arm off and leaves him to bleed to death in the fault as the Intermission ends. ([[UnexplainedRecovery Although Slick later gets a robot arm and escapes to the Moon, somehow]].)

*** It's later revealed that between intermissions Dave did date Terezi offscreen, but when she [[EverybodyKnewAlready "secretly"]] became Gamzee's kismesis, Dave quietly stopped seeing her, mostly (he says) because he can't wrap his head around the idea of "black romance," and would have no idea how to behave because he can't tell whether something is "fucked up but normal for trolls" or "fucked up because it's just plain fucked up."

* LuminescentBlush: Played with in that so far, it's only the ''trolls'' who have had this, meaning that [[AlienBlood it's anything but red.]]

** Rose's GameFAQ's all but confirms this about Sburb itself; Earth and all life on it will be destroyed, no matter what, once the game is booted. The only control any individual has in the matter is whether they'll run the game themselves and attempt to survive.

** [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/1487 Here,]] "A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. It is really convenient."

** [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/1658 This conversation]] from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' explains the abortion of ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'''s nacho party arc.
** Discussed in Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 with the Alternian arc of Homosuck, which was foreshadowed (and partially seen in at least one timeline) but scrapped by Caliborn.

* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Feferi's cuttlefish come in bright shades of red, orange, yellow, lime, green, light blue, dark blue, purple, violet, and magenta -- notably including all of the colors of the troll [[AlienBlood Hemospectrum]], excepting only Karkat and the Sufferer's mutant bright red

** The payable segments often include a variety of openable chests containing a variety of objects with no in-game purpose but which serve as call-backs to earlier parts of the story, such as various characters' weapons, Terezi's dragon plushes, one of Feferi's cuttlefish, Spades Slick's scotty dogs,

* DeathIsASadThing: All of the beta kids, except Jade, either witness the deaths of their guardians or are forced to stumble upon their corpses; they all have the same stunned reaction, as none of them (sans Rose) has ever seen death before. Davesprite may also have witnessed John's death in the doomed timeline where he was tricked into encountering his denizen far too early.

** Earth after [[ApocalypseHow The Reckoning.]] After getting bombarded with thousands of meteors, and a WorldWreckingWave of First Guardian Power, Earth has turned into an irradiated, scorched wasteland with just some Exiles scraping by among the ashes of human civilization. Oh, and the oceans have ''evaporated''. And the fact that it doesn't rain constantly means the planet is still hot enough to keep them in steam form.

*** Land of Light and Rain: While the sky is blue, the clouds, ocean, and ever-present rain are streaked with cyan, pink, and yellow.

* AlternateUniverse: There are five universes relevant to the plot. And Sburb/Sgrub takes place in another alternate universe for each session.
** The first universe is the Kids's universe, containing Earth and humanity. It's eventually revealed that this universe was created by the Trolls in their Session.
** The second universe is the Troll's universe, containing Alternia and the Troll race.
** The third universe is revealed to the readers by Doc Scratch. The troll's universe was actually reset by an earlier [[ResetButton Scratch]], making it an Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, with the Trolls' ancestors as players.
** The fourth universe is when the Kids do their own Scratch, resetting their universe. This universe also contains Earth and humanity, but things have changed a bit, and troll influences are a bit heavier. This universe's version of Sburb, the Sburb Alpha, is depicted with a horizontally-flipped logo colored red to demonstrate its creation by Betty Crocker Corp. The universe itself is associated with green, which serves as an inversion from the pre-Scratch universe, which was associated with red and the Sburb logo was green. Earth itself is more of less the same. However, there are a few differences:
*** Humans have or plan to have a Mars colony during 2011. Technology levels seem to be mostly the same however
*** A few celebrities have [[RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman vastly different lives]], like Harry Anderson and Guy Fieri.

** The fifth universe is created at the end of the comic as a result of beating Sburb. There's no counterpart to Earth or Alternia, but when John and co. create this universe, they bring over the Post-Scratch Earth and re-populate it, until the sun they settle behind burns the planet billions of years in the future. From then on, the only inhabitants are a Cherub child who will grow into a time traveling villain who will retroactively claim responsibility for all the evils done throughout the six universe adventure.

* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: When trolls are grubs their eyes and bodies are their blood colors. Once they pupate, their skin and eye colors become the same between all trolls, however they fill in with blood pigment as the trolls get older. The twelve main trolls are still young enough for their eyes to be uniformly gray-and-yellow.

** A Class 3a variant (Dominant Species Extinction) occurred during the Vast Glub, which killed every troll in the galaxy from psychic backlash, save for the Empress.
** A Class 4 (Extinction of higher lifeforms) happens during the Post-Scratch Human session due to the machinations of Betty Crocker's global takeover and eugenics campaign. She later alterniaforms the flooded Earth and colonizes it.
** Class 6 (Planetary Extinction) results as part of the Reckoning. The hours leading up to the end go up the scale prior to it.
** A Class X (Planetary Annihilation) is brought about by Caliborn in [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/5261 this]] update, culminating in him creating a large black hole.

** Class Z (Total Destruction of Reality) has been hinted at, due to the unknown entity killing the Horrorterrors.

** Rose's Website/GameFAQs walkthrough for ''Sburb''.
** [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/3955 Fedorafreak's Serious Business messages]] would qualify as well.
** During the trolls' session, Aradia keeps her own log titled [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/2590 the r0ad t0 the und0ing]] which documents the various doomed timelines and eventual disastrous end different versions of her encounter.
* ArcNumber: "04/13", the date the comic began, has appeared quite a number times throughout the story, in obvious and obscure fashions. A compilation of the various instances can be found [[http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/413 here.]] The trolls have their own arc number, 612, detailed in the act that began on June 12. A third number has been introduced, which is the sum of the first two: 1025. Its first major appearance was the release date of [[SuddenVideogameMoment Alterniabound]], October 25. A fourth number, for the post-Scratch session, appears to be 11/11/11, the date of the start of Act 6.
** Lampshaded and parodied by John [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/2880 here]]

-->"''[[{{Narrator}} You]] [[RunningGag stop being the other guy]] in time for us to see that you have just finished quickly and cleanly subduing the...''"
-->"''Jack.''"
-->"''Jack, the man is dead. Stop that.''"

* {{BFS}}:
** All of Dave's swords are significantly longer than he is tall in the standard art style. While more proportional in the various {{art shift}}s, they still fall under this trope.
%%** The Telescopic Sassacrusher is too big for John to use on his own. And then there's Fear No Anvil, which in its natural size is too big even for the gauntlets. Inverted, however, with The Bunny's weapons, which, while insanely powerful, are ''too small'' for the kids to use.

%%* BigYes: "YES. HELL YES. HELL [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] YES."

%%** Eggy-Looking Base
* BunnyEarsLawyer: {{Inverted|Trope}} in troll society, where [[MonsterClown clowns]] are in charge of repression. {{Justified|Trope}} in act 6, where [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/5571 The Condesce complains]] about how "proper dudes" assigned for the job in Derse get [[SeriousBusiness distracted by damaged hats]].

%%* ChargeIntoCombatCut: This is fairly commonplace, although the author is always kind enough to cut back to the fight in time for it to begin... eventually.

* ChekhovsGift: The stuffed bunny from ''Film/ConAir''. Thanks to weird time shit, John receives the same bunny three times over. Dave sends him the original as an ironic birthday present. It goes back in time with baby Rose, grows ratty over the years, and is then given to John ''again'' after Rose repairs it with knitting. ''This'' version of the bunny is sent back in time with baby Jade. She eventually upgrades it into the autonomous and heavily-armed robobunny that allows Jack Noir to overthrow the Black Queen and devastate the Medium-- but ''also'' protects John from Jack at a critical moment. Which was why she made it for him in the first place.

** In a more true to the sense of the trope, when John touches the Weapon in Act 6, his arm is shown in many panels from previous parts of the story. All the panels were edited to show his arm in the original panel, adding a retroactive ChekhovsGun for future readers.
*** As John begins to alter the past further, new choices appear in old pages. These new choices are protected by a password system, so that new readers can't just skip ahead.

** John and Rose find Noir by their dead parents bodies, take out their weapons, a big Round 1 appears on the top of the screen, suitably awesome music starts to play -- only to stop when Noir stabs John through the chest. ''Again.''
** A later update begins as a CallBack to Jack's ascension by playing "Black"...and then Draconian Dignitary makes a RecordNeedleScratch, abruptly ending the flash.

* DeaderThanDead:
** There are varying levels of Deader Than Dead. A player can die once normally and revive as their dreamself. If a god-tier player dies a just or heroic death they lose their immortality.
** Lord English demonstrates that even in Homestuck, the worst kind of DeaderThanDead, the CessationOfExistence, IS possible, and that not even those in the afterlife are safe.
*** Those caught in a Scratch have the same fate; Meenah managed to avoid this for her team via LoopholeAbuse.
* DeadlyDeferredConversation: Vriska messages John, telling him they'll talk more when they actually meet up in person, right before Terezi confronts and kills her.

** If they die in the real world while their dream self is still alive, any player can be revived once by a kiss.

** Dying as your dream self while on the Quest Bed sarcophagus in the center of your respective moon (even if only one version of you remains) not only revives you but makes you a God Tier.
** Time travel allows deaths to be reversed, although it tends to create doomed timelines; and any duplicates created by unstable time loops are doomed. There's ways around this, though, like prototyping yourself, and methods of time travel apparently exist which bypass these restrictions entirely.

** Any God Tier automatically resurrects if their death was neither just nor heroic.

** Felt member Die carries a voodoo doll that lets anyone who has it shift to a timeline where given people are alive or dead by adding or removing pins, though it's (apparently) limited to affecting people it has pins for.
** It's also possible to produce clones or alternate versions by various means (including scratching a session to hard-reset it), but these aren't the same people as the original. Any of the core "session" characters (like the respective kings and queens, or their underlings like Jack Noir) is guaranteed to continuously reappear in new copies like this as long as the game is still played anywhere.
** Even if all other methods fail and someone actually stays dead, they continue to exist as a ghost who can interact with the living under a wide variety of situations (and can often use telekinesis or robots to affect the physical world directly.) And only one character (the BigBad) is capable of killing ghosts permanently. When he ''does'', most people have massive numbers of alternative ghosts on account of dying in different timelines. Of course, the true cost of being in the bubbles is becoming StaticCharacter and losing the possibility of growth (only (Vriska) and Tavros have managed to greatly change).

** The united trolls & humans plan to be sent at near light-speed on their asteroid to the new B2 session in a single push. When Karkat objects that they can't stay ahead of a pursuing Jack, [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/4385 Rose shuts him up]] by mentioning "Troll UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton," which is well and good except for two problems:

** Quite a bit, seeing as the Trolls are partially inspired by the Western Zodiac. Most of these are represented through their horns (Tavros = Bull, Aradia = Ram etc) while others show it through their actions (Karkat = Crab = [[GrumpyBear Crabby]], Vriska = Spider/Scorpion = [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Unpleasantness]] etc).
** Certain trolls (most notably Nepeta, Feferi and Equius, and their pre-scratch counterparts) have an extreme affinity for their respective animal motifs, and try to incorporate puns and related metaphors for cats, fish and horses respectively into their speech.
** The kids have this as well: Dave is associated with crows, Rose with cats, and Jade is a dog. Dirk has a gull motif as well and Roxy is associated with cats like her pre-Scratch counterpart.