Fanfic / 496 Reasons

Your journey has yet to truly begin, all of you.

You see, the main purpose of Sburb and Sgrub, not within this reality but in a higher plane, is to tell a story. One of aging and growing old, and of overcoming and finding true friendship. In this multiverse, that story in this quartet of sessions specifically is one of love.

-Opening to Cueballsprite's speach towards the end of the prologue.

496 Reasons Why Multidating is More Complicated than it Seems is a Lighter and Softer...ish Homestuck Crack Fic by Great Pikmin Fan, originally published on Valentine's Day of 2013.

The jist is this: A contrived series of events involving a Parody Sue known as Bororo Sierda getting upset over not being able to date her crush, Gamzee, has both of the two troll sessions and the two human sessions meeting up on a meteor that's taking nearly six years to fly through the Furthest Ring. Shipping is supposed to ensue, between each possible combination of the thirty-two players, hence the title.

According to Pikmin Fan, there will be a sort-of spinoff dubbed OT32 Shenanigans, a collection of unrelated stories regarding the group of 32 as a Happily Married polygamous set. It is also said to be a preview of sorts to "alter egoes" present in 496, as characters who are supposed to represent them will appear as relatives.

The Cherubim are left absent, and in fact it's implied that their entire race doesn't exist in the AU.

In October of 2015, Great Pikmin Fan announced that the story is effectively discontinued, due to a combination of not liking the exact direction he ended up taking the story and his loss of interest in Homestuck canon due to what he percieved as Seasonal Rot. On Valentine's Day of 2016, GPF posted a final update: One last "regular" pairing chapter, followed by a Time Skip to what would have been the setting after the pairing chapters proper dealing with a sillier, light hearted "final battle" that celebrates everything he had written so far.

This fan fic provides examples of:

• Alternate Universe: Exaggerated in that this isn't even a doomed timeline or a strange new world created by Sburb itself (and the tenth pairing confirms this). It's an entirely new iteration of the entire multiverse of Homestuck, and this is supported by the fact that all sessions seen freely interacting with one-another, there are changes before the games start, a doomed Aradia calling Duplicate Meulin "neither offshoot nor alpha," and the Green Sun's creation occurs in the story.
• Angels, Devils and Squid: Implied with the planets. We have Eridan, in Land of Wrath and Angels; Cronus, in Land of Wrath and Demons; and Dirk, with Land of Heat and Lifelesses. The latter in question have only been seen by their cloaks, but the implications is that they are not friendly at the least.
• Angst? What Angst?: Bororo kills all eight of the human players' guardians right in front of them, and there is yet to be any reaction so far. Invoked so that the angst isn't what immediatley takes up the plot, and as a slight nod to Homestuck's use of this.
• Arc Number: 496, for obvious reasons.
• Ascended Extra: The pre-scratch trolls in general, especially Meulin, if the fact that she's the only character tagged, her ace duplicate, and the fact that she's working directly under Nepeta for her strange shipping plan are any indications.
• Author Appeal: Hanksprite's existance, as the author is an open fan of King of the Hill. Jane was supposed to have a human Hanksprite (whereas Meulin had a Troll Hank Hill poster prototyped with a first guardian cow), but then GPF got the idea for the meteor duplication and decided to make the alts into the sprites.
• Body Horror: Hordamsprite (Jane's sprite), Creemisprite (Jake's sprite), Karrlasprite (Roxy's sprite), and Ruanozsprite (Dirk's sprite). All of them are hybrids of three trolls (just two in Hordamsprite's case), the duplicates from Duplicate Meulin's timeclone set.
• Butt-Monkey: Jane has been getting the short end of the stick. Jake turns out to be really bad at being her server player, and shortly after Roxy flirts with her she sees her deliberately kissing Kanaya for shock value.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The fact that Feferi's strife with (an entry-item replica of) her ancestor took place on the roof.
  • invokedThe entry order of the trolls was based on an error of this page, where Equius and Aradia's orders were swapped. It was a legitimate mistake by Pikmin Fan, (unlike how the B1 order is completely switched around) but he decided to just roll with it.
  • invokedWord of God says at the end of Jane/Rufioh that the pre-scratch troll's planets (as well as the theming behind the now-non-void post-scratch human session) sharing one theme was a nod to the walkaround's brief glimpses at their presumed lands. Mituna's planet specifically had the "acid" part based on the red-colored "water" seen in the first part of Act 6 Intermission 3, even though he thinks that it could be Sollux's planet instead.
• Crack Fic: Invoked and slightly acknowledged in the AN, with the backstory being out-there. There was at one point a plan where instead of having the players from one game go to another and repeat three times, they all meetup in B2 at once, however the lack of thinking about how to pull this off without God Tiering any of the main characters stopped this.
• Crack Pairing: Invoked.
  • Even outside of the premise of the fan fic, there are things like Bro/Dad.
  • Averted with the very first pairing as it is relatively popular, which actually surprised the author. The fifth pairing, Karkat/Terezi, is also fairly popular.
  • invokedThe first and currently only confirmed blackrom relationship (which is set to turn red later on as stated by Word of God; the pairings will all end up flushed) was revealed in a flashback in Jane/Rufioh: Karkat and Damara. Two characters who's only clear interaction was the latter smiling micheviously at the former while he slept, until Terezi basically told her to back off.
  • One thing to note is that the popularity of the pairing (or how much Pikmin Fan himself likes it) has almost nothing to do with the chapter's length. Jane/Rufioh is the longest pairing so far and confirmed to be the longest for a while and it is full of more legitimate development than the chapters before it (bar Kankri/Meulin), in spite of making no sense and both Jane/Roxy and Karkat/Terezi preceeding it, the latter couples having decent followings. All chapters with Jake in them have been confirmed to be enlongated by an excerpt of his comic.
• Dead Fic: Fan announced its death ahead of time, but the story will conclude on its third anniversary. To make up for it, it will have one last "regular" update followed by a silly ending, then he will explain how the story was intended to end.
• Dramatic Irony: The human's ectobiology section, where it's misunderstood and gotten backwards.
• Driven to Suicide: Ruanozsprite. They somehow know they have served what they were fated to do, and they explode so that they can live individually in the afterlife.
• Everyone Is Bi: The author actually added a disclaimer to the prologue elaborating that this is not how it works in canon.
• Excuse Plot: The backstory has been more-or-less admitted as this.
• First-Episode Spoiler: The prologue is far from a retelling of the events of each session, as just about everything that was covered is a major plot moment. "Meenah: Talk to the frog" lampshades this. It begins with the pre-scratch trolls all dead, and until it's revealed that those are time clones it was lightly implied that they might stay dead. And that's only the first act. The other acts involve all of the guardians dying, exposition on the antagonist of the chapter, everyone misunderstanding the ectobiology of the human session, etc.
• Follow the Leader: This is a heavily warped, Act 6-newcomer inclusive, single-verse take on the premise of Flushed by Stripe. The author admits so at the beginning.
• Foregone Conclusion: In what is implied to be an attempt to not have anyone stop reading mid-fic, upon Bororo's introduction it is mentioned that she will die before the prologue ends.
• For Want Of A Nail: The cheribum session does not exist, altering countless details. Alternia was guarded not by Doc Scratch, but a another first guardian who was still seemingly training the planet for SGRUB, not for Lord English's arrival. Post-scratch Earth is nigh-identical to pre-scratch, aside from Jade/Jake's island. Roxy and Dirk are not sent into the future by the meteors (otherwise they would be obliterated by the spacetime cracks left by Bororo), the Condesce is only in her original universe, and the Alternian Cycle of Revenge doesn't happen due to a different first guardian. But....
  • In Spite of a Nail:
    • Pretty much everyone's base personality is eventually left unchanged, otherwise that would defeat the entire purpose of this.
    • The B2 players still have to deal with their sprites being horrible combinations of dead trolls. The trolls themselves, meanwhile, still have a habit of everyone protoyping their lusii, with the Leijons being two exceptions.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Latula's new planet, according to chapter 1's closing AN, is Land of Thought and Stairs, or LOTAS. "TAS" can also mean "Tool Assisted Speedrun."
  • Cronus's new planet is Land of Wrath and Demons, or LOWAD. "Wads" are the names of custom-made Doom levels. In this story, Cronus (like most of the A1 trolls at first) fails on his planet. Meaning Cronus sucks at doom, which indicates some ties with him and either Mituna or Sollux.
  • Dirk's new planet is Land of Heat and Lifelesses, or LOHAL.

• Jerkass: John seems to be this to the trolls, since he appears to piss off most of them. While his grudge with Horuss has been given a source that probably originated from Horuss's fault, Latula seems to be interested in hearing about things that piss him off, Feferi is a little annoyed when he suggests picking his own sleeping quarters to be with his friends, and when Nepeta finds out she has to bunk with him her reaction is a dead-serious "Oh, son of a bitch."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bororo advertizes herself as this, but not in those words. It's pretty far from the truth, parodying fan fiction that averts Show, Don't Tell.
• Karmic Death: Bororo's death. She gets killed by the tumor blowing up, and just as in canon it uses the masses of the human and troll universes to make the Green Sun. Bororo destroyed but the human and troll universes with the same attack Lord English uses to destroy dreambubbles. Basically, Bororo got killed by the same things she destroyed.
• The Lancer: Nepeta to Duplicate Meulin. Nepeta in turn also has Roxy and Meulin apparantly acting under her, with a mysterious additional two people.
• Meaningful Name: Bororo Sierda is a corruption of the Spanish words for "bull" and "shit," with the first letters changed to match the initials for such.
• Mood Whiplash: All over the place.
  • Regarding the prologue: You wouldn't think a series supposed to be of mostly fluff ficlets would begin with Meenah finding the dead bodies of almost every A1 session player and that same beginning act would end revealing that those were... "duplicates," not "offshoots," that were trapped in the Frog Temple and were then blown up by Meenah prototyping the tumor into Bororo's kernelsprite in fear of having to starve to death in the temple. Then there's Bororo pretty much showing the post-scratch human player's dead guardian's bodies to them, and killing the guardians of the pre-sctatch human players right in front of them. And then there's the Prospit dreaming B2 kids' sprites (Roxy and Dirk's sprites are less unnerving, the former specifically less than the latter).
  • Jane/Rufioh takes a grimmer turn after Jane figures out Rufioh was cheating on Damara, and then the subject of the pairing itself is briefly skipped when it's implied that something's happening with Jane's dreamself.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Towards the end of Prologue Act Three, Karkat calls Dave Reddy McCoolshades.
  • Near the end, when Cueballsprite says that the trip from the B2 session to the B1 session will take three hours, Karkat asks if that's even possible, another nod to SJAHJ.
  • Jade's save of John (and by extension, Rose) at the beginning of Prologue Act Three contains references to Total Drama World Tour (landing in Tijuana and using fireworks)^note This is currently listed here and not under Shout-Out because of the existance — and planned remake starting Halloween — of Total Drama World Tour Rewrite by the same author, although it is not known if the fireworks part would be used there as well., and by extent Kids Fit the Trolls (Jade throwing something and using it as a boomerang, when that something would otherwise be improbable to be used as such).
  • In another reference to SJAHJ, there's the Maryam's association with cows. (Not Jade's, though. Yet.) Porrim's planet is even called the Land of Milk and Frogs.
  • Yet another SJAHJ nod, this isn't the first time Hank Hill has influenced a tyiran-texted character. (Jaka there, Meenah in this story.)
  • Jane/Rufioh contains a number of references to Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals. Designated door-knocker Nepeta, Karkat being the "only one who isn't a geek," and the use of "alliance." Rufioh's land (which was revealed earlier in the prologue) is even called the "Land of Sand and Hurricanes."
• Naked People Are Funny: As of Karkat/Terezi, Horuss appears to be a closest nudist of some sort, having gone around naked (offscreen for now) until John and Jade forced him to go around in a Modesty Towel until he gets his clothes back on.
• No Antagonist: At least, this is what it appears to be. The closest thing the story has to an antagonist is killed in the prologue.
• Nobody Can Die: Out of the game players, even the dreamselves stay alive in this. This is to limit (yet not completely remove) dream bubble exploration, and give a slightly more isolated feel. And because it's been hinted that they will be pivotal to the plot later on.
• Non-Indicative Name: The pairing names do not seem to be wholly focused to the couple in its title later, and the fact that it has been confirmed that everyone will get together with everyone else implies that this will not happen until future chapters. The notes at the end of year one lampshade it, saying that in spite of having seven pairing chapters, none of the couples have actually hooked up.
• Nosebleed: This was Roxy's reaction to accidentally finding Dave's Bro and John' Dad post-sex in a Battlefield bed through the trollian viewports. Believe it or not, this partially kickstarts the romance plot.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The state of the sessions is never described as "glitched," even though it's clear that Bororo not supposed to be in existance would logically mean she is either a glitch in a way or an Eldritch Abomination.
• Off the Rails: Somehow, Bororo's existance makes three, possibly four, sessions this.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Rose killing her denizen, and being implied (based on Jade's reaction) to be the first and only B1 kid to successfully do this before their planets get wiped out in the scratch.
  TT: The following is to the concern of everyone.
  TT: I have achieved a mass ascendancy to our overarching task to win this game.
  TT: Meet me at my house.
  TT: I will be serving fish.
  TT: And lots of it.
• Parody Sue: Bororo is a pretty blatant example. Although rather than the stereotypical "perfect sparkly" character that usually fits the trope, her design is implicitley a parody of Original Character types commonly seen in the Homestuck and Total Drama fandoms: Her appearance is flat-out stated to be a copy of Jade and Karkat's, she is something of a self-insert parody (having interests supposedly nearly identical to the author's), she has a psychopathic crush on Gamzee, her "quirk" is typing in a completely normal style, she is stated (by herself) as the "nice but can be really mean if you make her angry" type but really comes off as a jerk throughout, frequently antagonizes all the "bad" characters such as Meenah, and can't feel and doesn't know well about (a jab at the fandom misconceptions of such) any quadrant except flushed. Her trolltag is even "plotDevice."
  Your name is BORORO SIERDA, and EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU IS AWFUL.
  • Relationship Sue: She strives to be this, to Gamzee. It doesn't work out.
• Plot Armor: Given to the 32 game players and their dreamselves. One of the more glaring examples is how Skaia copied the Frog Temple meteor that housed the pre-scratch trolls, because as revealed by a doomed Rose, Bororo apparantly screws up the game that much.
• Polyamory: See the title. Interestingly, the polygamy is implied to kick in on the very second pairing. (The first two both involve Roxy.)
• Rotating Protagonist: The pairings are implied to work by flip-flopping between whoever's centered around at the time, and due to the randomized order of the pairing list this could happen frequently. The prologue itself does this: Acts 1 and 2 follow the trolls in the order of their session, yet at the end they go to post-scratch Earth and so when Act 3 comes along it's focused completely on the B1 kids, briefly skipping over the troll's storyline for that segment.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: This is revealed to be Kankri's motivation, after experiencing nightmares about his life on Alternia.
• Shower of Awkward: In Prologue Act Four, Karkat accidentally sees Jake's grandmother in the shower. His resulting scream apparantly sounds like Hank Hill's.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Bororo, the main antagonist of the prologue. She loves to consider herself nice and lovable, even though just about everyone hates her.
• Spiritual Successor: To Total Drama World Tour Rewrite, as both stories involve teens stuck on a lenthy trip and polygamy plays a role in both storylines.
• Stable Time Loop: Mostly averted, with two notable exceptions so far:
  • The creation of Beforus's first guardian. It was created in a lab in the Moon Frog Temple, eventually prototyped itself in Meulin's kernelsprite after her lusus failed to show up, was prototyped again with a Hank Hill poster by Meenah in order to make it comprehensible, and as Hanksprite it set up the trolls' place on the Frog Temple meteor and on the ride into the A2 session, which also leads to its own creation shortly after from the perspective of the parties on that meteor.
  • The entire "shipping all the ships" plot was started by Duplicate Meulin telling Nepeta words of encouragement, both from observing the dream bubbles aaaaand... by seeing what is heavily implied to be the same meteor trip that Nepeta would later take said words to practace and try to ship all the ships on.
• Stealth Pun: The meteor trip will last 2,145 days. Seems like an arbitrary number, doesn't it? It's a little under six years, so why not just have the trip last six years instead? While 496 is the total number of possible flushed combinations between the 32 players in general, 2,145 is the number of combinations factoring the dreamselves, including Sollux and Mituna's extra one.
• Stylistic Suck: Jake's comic.
• Surprise Incest: Hasn't happened yet, but this line implies it:
  Even though sprites cannot enter gates, KARRLASPRITE still managed to locate you [Roxy] by flying around and finding you eventually. Kinda like Smuppetsprite does with your ectoson. But you don't know that. You also won't know that he's your ectoson until long after you've swapped spit.
  • A subversion has been set with the post-scratch kids; thanks to Karkat's (or the troll's in general's) incorrect theory, everyone thinks the post-scratch kids is the group with two sibling pairs. Pikmin Fan clairifies in one of the ANs (when the subject comes up again in Jane/Rufioh) that this was intended in-story (and added a quick conversation between John and Karkat in the prologue to hint at how fallacious it was) and not a genuine misunderstanding.
  • "Meenah/Rufioh" implies that John is flattered with being an ecto-parent along with Jade and that's actually encouraging him to persuit a relationship with her. He's probably got another thing coming.
• The Stations of the Canon: Averted in the prologue. The only thing that happens similarly to canon is at the very, very beginning with Meenah moving to the moon and finding out about the game, and that quickly leads to a conversation with a new character. Every other moment similar to canon is either pretty different (John, Jade, and Rose's entries) or happens offscreen (the events of most of the sessions). The end result isn't even the same, as Rose actually manages to kill her denizen. Cetus is still alive in canon, making her the only clear example so far of someone not being Spared by the Adaptation.
• That Came Out Wrong: Jane and Jake's first on-screen pesterlog involves Jake asking Jane if she wants to put a staircase in the front or the back of her house. Mituna and his dreamselves (who were reading over Jane's shoulder) find this hilarious.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Everyone who isn't on the meteor trip. Including Bororo, thankfully.
  • Though in the closing notes to Jane/Rufioh, it's been said that there will be more occasional flashbacks to the sessions later on, especially the one in B2. Thus meaning that the new sprites and possibly even Bororo will get more screen time.
• Wham Episode: "Meenah/Rufioh." The actual interaction with the pairing is not much surprising, but towards the end it is hinted that Gamzee might still have some malice on him. What qualifies this is John and Nepeta's route to get to their rooms, and the ending. With the dream bubble still holding influence on the meteor, John and Nepeta are attacked by Mindfang (who is implied to still be alive, based on the orange eyes), she seems to have some ties with Duplicate Meulin, and by the end Aranea uses some strange game-related technology with her dreamself to create a clone of herself with Mindfang's memories and "data" in her, with said clone being passed out instantly upon creation.
• Wham Line:
  • Though the description at the top of this very page gives it away, the beginning of Prologue Act Four has a line (and a brief explanation) that actually raises a few more questions than it answers:
    Your name is JANE EGBERT, and you are the heiress to NOTHING.
    What do you expect in a multiverse where LORD ENGLISH DOES NOT EXIST?
  • Near the end of pairing six:
    Nepeta: Guys. Meulin trolled me. She said that a girl that looks like Jane started running around in a fury.
    • Keep in mind that Jane was with Nepeta at the time, and her reaction was an Oh, Crap! that closed off the chapter.

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2/14/2013 - 2/14/2014
32 game players
34 alternate selves (at least 3 active)
1 long prologue, editted loads and loads of times already
7/496 pairing chapters
0/496 actual hookups
0 boss fights engaged
0 divine beings ridden
1 dead Aradias encountered (retconned from 0 but let's keep that a secret)
0 biomes mixed
2/4 of Nepeta's accomplices revealed
Here's hoping this will all grow by at least one next year!^note Most of them didn't.

-Great Pikmin Fan's comments at the end of year one.

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