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> Recall tonal juxtapositions.

Andrew Hussie is an undeniable master of the emotional whipkind abstratus.


  • In Act 3, we have the animation of Rose: Fast forward to now, which presents a depressing montage of how Rose found Jaspers dead. And then you notice a little horseshoe in the corner at the end...
  • The End of Act 4 flash has this in spades! After the completely hilarious Con Air reenactment, we get Jack decimating The Battlefield and destroying Prospit. Even within in the flash, there's a moment where Squiddles hug a random sailor. Followed by Jade's dream self dying saving John from the wreckage of Prospit impacting Skaia. Later, Grandpa Harley recovers Dream!Jade's corpse and brings her back to his battleship. On one page, you see him crying. On the next, you see that he's already stuffed and mounted her into a goofy pose. Cue the Spit Take.
  • Tavros sadly lamenting that one of his friends isn't real and that he's lonely is really sad...and then it cuts to Vriska on the computer messing with him and shouting "Wheeeee!" and it becomes impossible to take the scene seriously.
  • Karkat's tears of red liquid sorrow are somewhat spoiled by the honking Juggalo in the background. Goddammit, Gamzee.
    • Not to mention Jack Noir's comforting words of "there there you goddamn blubbering pansy".
    • Chillingly averted when it happens again. R.I.P Feferi.
  • [S] Make her pay. It starts with the severely-injured Vriska blinding Terezi in retribution (using her own Lusus, no less!) Then we cut to the trolls adventuring happily, including one of the few scenes of Vriska and Tavros interacting as friends, with Tavros happily flying around... just before Aradia arrives out of nowhere and delivers a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Vriska to complete the Cycle of Revenge. And finally, in the very last frames, we have Vriska's dreamself snapping awake and receiving a bitchslap from Terezi, which is played for laughs given the brutal sort of revenge extracted at every other step in the cycle.
  • John arriving back at his house at the start of Act 5 Act 2, goofing around telling imps off... and then things take a turn for the serious.
    • And in the middle of that conversation the mood gets flipped again with Rose calling John "our leader".
    • And then she does this. Yikes.
  • This update. The whiplash is so heavy it can break your neck.
  • And then, immediately following the Jade: Enter flash, you see that Bro is dead by his own sword. Not two pages later? You see the newly christened Bec Noir donning his shades and gloves, to gut-wrenchingly hilarious effect.
  • Taken to extreme levels with the pages that happen after [S] John: Enter village. After a fun and happy time talking to all the salamanders and John being excited to get to the next part of his quest, he is stabbed in the chest by Bec Noir. Immediately afterwards, John ascends to the God Tiers in one of the most of the comic.
  • "BOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO Woof :'(" Even Jade can't keep a straight face talking to Jadesprite.
  • [S] WAKE: Hell yes, the music is MeGaLoVania! HELL NO, Bec Noir killed dream-Feferi, dream-Nepeta, and all of Derse! Hell yeah, Aradia ascended to god-tier and froze Bec in time! SWEET JEGUS, VRISKA KILLED TAVROS! and then...
  • Eridan going absolutely apeshit, killing Feferi and Kanaya right after critically wounding Sollux ended a weekend of bloodshed with this.
    • And the SBAHJ reference here has a similar effect.
    • Though for some, the mood fails to whip and just detours into Dude, Not Funny!.
    • And if that didn't do it for you, then we get to examine Terezi's investigative methods.
  • On this page, Karkat kissing Kanaya manages to be very sad while Terezi kissing Tavros manages to be very funny at the same time despite the fact that they're both essentially doing the same thing.
    • Probably due to the faces.
  • Karkat gives some emotional final words to John, knowing he might be dead soon. John immediately messages Karkat back but gets his louder angrier past self who promptly gets super mad at him for interrupting his backwards time march.
  • Seek the Highb100d starts out with pretty kickass/cute music, but as you progress, the music progressively changes into dark, ominous, clowny musi
  • GAMZEE: ENGAGE MURDER MODE is this. It's hilarious, especially due to Equius' facial reaction two or three panes later, but he's also STRANGLING EQUIUS.
    • Then afterwards, when Nepeta bursts out of the vent to attack him, he turns around SBAHJ style before breaking her wrist and slashing his face to mock her.
    • Pretty much anything involving Gamzee after he went homicidal.
  • After a long string of WHAM Panels involving multiple Troll deaths and Sanity Slippage we immediately switch to John and WV's Flying Car Shenanigans. BEEP.
  • Be Jack Noir. Readers should really have expected that the only way that the author could balance out a string of over 2 dozen pages of high-octane awesome would be with following it up with a swift kick to the teeth.
  • And then, without warning, Jack: Trophy Binge.
  • We have one of the saddest scenes in Homestuck thus far, with Rose learning of her mother's death, immediately blaming it on herself, going dark, and flying away to fight Jack. Then, out of nowhere, we have a hilariously nonsensical Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff-themed self-insert.
  • Done in a SINGLE PANEL mid-flash in [S] All: Behold glory of Zillyhoo.. From laughter to horror and shock.
  • John saying goodbye to his friends as they deliver an important package to Derse. Such encouraging images counter-pointed with how Grimdark the situation has become according to Jade's pesterlog.
  • [S] Seer: Descend.
  • Oh man - Rose and John vs. Jack! This is gonna be awes-... ...John?, wait, did Rose blow herself up in a reckless and futile attempt to take out Bec Noir?
  • Aww, Dave... Haha, slick move, Dave!
  • Terezi decides to fulfill her destiny as a Legislacerator and kill Vriska for everything she's done that was mostly done by Gamzee and Eridan. Horror ensues when she finds a page from Mindfang's journal held down by Nepeta's stolen claw and falls into the Trickster Room with flash-stepping Gamzee. She then dismisses it as one of "Spidertroll's" tricks, finds a record cover and asks, "WHO'S THIS DOUCHEBAG?" Then she finds her FLARP costume and reunites with her best scalemate, only to have it switched out with Lil Cal by Gamzee from her tightly clutching hands.
  • Yay, Rose didn't blow herself up! Rose?
  • Oh my god, Terezi just killed Vriska! ...Pffffffhahaha Gamzee what are you doing.
  • Aaaaaawwwwwwww-- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • You see Slick smashing his 1001st clock. Then you look at the narrow fenestrated wall.
  • No! Vriska's dea- Nic Cage! Get out of there!
  • Bec Noir kills alpha!Dave before Jade's eyes. Then, when she's cradling his corpse, Noir looks absolutely heartbroken due to his Achilles' Heel.
    • And later makes a "bawwwww" face and looks adorable when she's about to revive Dave on Derse through a kiss.
    • The look on Jade's face while Jack's making that face is also an example. It pretty much looks like "would you mind not staring at me while I'm trying to kiss my friend back to life?"
  • The gravity of Davesprite and Jadesprite's conversation is somewhat spoiled by Unreal Air coming in for a landing on Skaia in background.
  • This conversation between Gamzee and Dave is simultaneously absolutely terrifying and absolutely hilarious. On the one hand, we're seeing the exact moment where Gamzee loses it and turns into a mass-murdering psychopath... and on the other hand, Dave has no idea whether Gamzee is serious or not and is going all Deadpan Snarker on him. Not to mention that after all this (which also contained some serious plot revelations), it ended with:
  • Doc Scratch's prisoner is revealed to be Aradia (or someone who looks just like her), their fight starts out funny, with the mood whiplash starting around here.
  • This page providing background fo the tale of the Signless:
    Doc Scratch: Once, in this very universe, you could say, Alternia was home to a peaceful race. Trollkind had never known the corrupting influence in their evolution which led them to perpetual war and violence.
    Doc Scratch: That is to say, they had never known me.
    • As are the stories of his adoptive mother, the Dolorosa, and his girlfriend, the Disciple.
    • Andrew's shenanigans in the banner during this don't help.
  • Here, the Sufferer is tortured with hot irons and held against an iron jut for his defiance. Upon closer inspection, he’s the Memetic Mutation Pantskat, come to life.
  • GO, HANDMAID, GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH CRAP.
    • And immediately after, Hussie SNOPS the page layout so that it looks like it was ripped from Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. He was indeed snaping wrong.
  • SHOOOOOOSH!!!
  • Courtyard Droll kills Jade, and then dances jauntily.
  • The White Queen and King reunite for all of 10 seconds before being slaughtered by Bec Noir.
    • Nearly all of Cascade. Bec is sad about Jade's death and destroys the kids' universe in the next cut (in his future, but still...); the King and Queen reunite before getting slaughtered along with all exiles except PM; the trolls' universe is destroyed while Jade ascends; the Green Sun is created, but the trolls escape from their universe and PM confronts Bec. And, of course, the Grimdark Act 5 Part 2 ends with Jade and John escaping the Scratch with most of their session in tow and Rose and Dave ascending right out of the Green Sun.
  • Jane answers Lalonde, the teenage Hard-Drinking Party Girl, with a hilarious conversation, until the audience learns recent attempts were made on Jane's life. Oh, Crap!.
  • After the relatively benign beginning of Act 6, what with shenanigans and such, it's revealed that Jake's dreamself is dead.
  • In story: Jake concludes an epic confrontation with a giant beast. Then he accidentally shoots Tinkerbull.
  • [S] Jane: Get mail.
    • The updates following that.
    • A main character has possibly just died, but god forbid we run out of green curtain cloth.
  • PM is about to face off with Jack, it looks like an epic battle is about to begin, and what does the viewer see? A heart over Jack's head, and a spade over PM's. Awwwww.
    • And then Jack leaves, and Serenity begs PM to help WV. And then we see that Sollux is dead, and while Karkat is crying Gamzee just seems to be staring into space, ruining the moment again.
      • And then we find out Gamzee was actually looking at the undead Sollux floating above them with Aradia, Rose, and Dave.
  • Karkat's breakdown is hilarious...until you go to the hidden part with Nicolas Cage's Nightmare Face and horribly distorted voice. Not to mention that the face appears to be a green skull with a familiar rainbow patter under his chin, raising all sorts of disturbing possibilities.
    • AND YOU...GOT ONE
  • Originally, the strife with Becquerel was to jaunty sci-fi music, called Mutiny, fitting for the space adventures and warpy whooshy stuff we see, followed by a joyful and cute, 8 bit victory tune. When the artist of Mutiny got into a fight with Hussie and leftnote , this was replaced with Unbreakable Union a MUCH darker track with Tribal drums and increasingly intense piano and synth effects. The victory music was left unchanged.
  • After receiving the revelation that Karkat accidentally gave the entire human universe cancer and gave the kids the bad luck that accidentally gave Jack Noir the ring, we get another SBAHJ in-joke:
    PCG: JACK WAS THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF THE DISEASE ALL ALONG.
    PCG: NOIR IS THE CANCER.
    PCG: IT'S HIM.
  • Dream!Jane's Alive! Squee! Oh NO... Jack's about to rekill! Oh, Crap!! Wait...The White Queen rescues Jane!
  • We find out that the Condesce has taken over the world and Dirk and Roxy are living in a post-apocalyptic future under her rule... then we go straight into the intermission, where Andrew is nursing Spades Slick back to health and feeding him lusus milk.
  • Andrew Hussie finally stands up against Lord English. Of course it'd be a lot more badass if his gun was loaded.
  • Jane meets Gamzee in her land, and her reation is hilarious. Then, he sells her potions. Potions made of the blood of his friends.
  • DD: Ascend More Casually. Highlights include Ms Paint mourning Hussie's death, John and Gamzee kissing, Vriska clocking Hussie like a rag doll, and DD putting on the Black Queen's ring after taking it easy with coffee, music, ring spinning, and Grey Lady porn.
    • Followed by "unleashing the awesome powers of the ring" by... becoming invisible, then snarking that that's a pointless power, then...
    DD: Use Red Miles.
  • After making Dirk draw very tame and hilarious "pornography", it's revealed that uu murdered UU and is going Laughing Mad about it.
  • Jane: See Roxy in danger, then perform Running Gag, then meet Dirk in danger, then see Jake, then crush on him.
  • UU shows Roxy a drawing, then The Reveal begins.
  • During Calliope's reveal, we see that she and uu share the same body and they live on a planet ready to get destroyed by their sun. After The Reveal, we get uu drawing his ridiculously, pathetically horrible scribbles of the deaths and KOs of the Alpha Kids, while mocking both them and Calliope's fondness for them.
    • We are also treated to the revelations that they live in a building on the meteor that Rose, Dave, and the Trolls took to the Alpha universe — meaning that they are in the same universe in the future — and that the planet they collided with is infested with shitty jpeg Statues of Liberty.
  • In the middle of the awesome Dirk: Synchronize, Dirk takes a stop to give Meenah a high-five.
  • After the epic events of Dirk: Unite, the B2 kids enter the Medium together. And then someone else enters too, and Lord English unleashes his terrifying powers for the first time.
  • Right in the middle of Caliborn: Enter, one of the most Terrifying Flashes yet, we learn that the godtier Page outfit includes speedoes.
    • What do we cut to after said terrifying flash? Meenah grinning and running down a flight of stairs like a doofus past a giant golden statue of herself.
  • Part two of the A6I3 game: after an extremely silly signed conversation, Meulin goes on a quest to find and give to Kurloz Gamzee's purple god tier cod-piece. Cue The Reveal: Kurloz takes control of Meulin's thoughts and speaks with her mind-to-mind in praise of Lord English, then does his part by slipping into a hidden place in the dreambubble to give the codpiece to Gamzee. Speak to Meulin again and the two will go right back to silly signs...though Meulin does claim that she feels a little strange...
  • John and Jack are in the midst of an epic climactic skirmish, with the Heir of Breath nearly bringing the finishing blow to the Sovereign Slayer... And then they both stop to find that Rose has been watching them both.
  • After Rose gives Kanaya The Big Damn Kiss, complete with Lens Flare, she promptly passes out from drunkenness and slides down a flight of stairs, leaving behind a shoe.
    • Doubly jarring since immediately before that, Gamzee's nightmare-inducing honks had been making an appearance. Meaning that it jerked from "scary" to "heartwarming" to "funny" within a handful of posts.
  • Gamzee appears before Caliborn. Cue Mass "Oh, Crap!" from the audience. Then Caliborn nonchalantly guns him down. Cue epileptic laughter from the audience.
  • Hussie describes the absolute horror of a session that Caliborn is about to go through, so what does he do? Stick a piece of Candy Corn in his teeth and poses stupidly.
  • After Dirk and Lil Hal have a depressingly existential conversation, the former agrees to uphold his promise to prototype the latter... Only to find that Gamzee beat him to the punch with Equuis, leaving the pair staring blankly at each other for four panels, while Gamzee honks like a gleeful idiot in the background.
  • Jane returns to her home breaking into fits of tears after everything reminds her of her (presumably) dead father. Then she gets a time-displaced letter from Calliope, causing her to openly sob. Then the Condesce contacts her speaking like a cross between WV and Meenah, complete with sassy pink glittery text.
    • While Jane is alchemizing the Jujus, Gamzee appears out of nowhere to watch.
    • Jane combines both suckers, and reluctantly licks them to recieve their power. That's when this happens.
  • After Jane and Jake recruit Roxy into tricksterdom, Roxy decides to include Fefetasprite into their ADVENTURE. What should foreshadow like another forced abduction becomes heartwarming between her and Erisolsprite.
  • After a calm time of the Post-Scratch Kids talking about their feelings and realizing their problems, we have Alpha Jack get a gift from Gamzee with Lil Cal inside. Followed by him sawing his left leg off saw-style, cutting out his eyes, and implanting Lil Cals eyes into his own sockets. (Not to mention they now look like Lord English's eyes.) Finally breaking out of prison, obliterating Prospit and its moon in the process.
  • In the Awesome Moment of Crowning sequence for the new Godtiers, the awesome-looking costumes are shown in close detail... And then there's get a close-up of Jake's speedo.
    • And then we are reminded that Jack is still there.
      • And then we go back to the speedo, after Jade shows up and warps Jack away.
      • And then the Condesce hijacks Jade, who helps her hijack Jane via Tiaratop, which leads to Dirk's own exile to the Furthest Ring and Roxy and Jake's capture. And then the act ends with the Condesce happily smoking a cigar while swimming in her mountains of riches.
  • At the end of Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 2, we get a closeup of John's drooling sleepy-face. The page right after, we see that LE has been hard at work ruining Paradox Space in an eerily circular fashion.
  • Gamzee caring for toddler Calliope? Heartwarming. Gamzee having to put up with toddler Caliborn? Hilarious!
  • A rather sweet moment between the Serkets is quickly undermined by Vriska and Meenah making fun of Aranea and high-fiving. Then, as we're being treated to Aranea's unamused expression, we cut away to the shocking reveal of Terezi with healed eyes.
  • Then there's the intervention, which spins between heartwarming, hilarious, and sad so quickly even Joss Whedon would get dizzy.
  • Aradia's shocking declaration of wanting to see everything break about is met with a Face Palm by John.
    oh my god, you are all so insane!
  • One page, Vriska is dramatically leaping into the volcano's crater after delivering a speech about what she believes in. The next... well, words can't really do it justice.
  • In the midst of Meenah's confession to John, Aradia stands nearby, still smiling.
  • After John gets sucked into the treasure, Vriska looks on in shock - only for the tension of the moment to be completely ruined by Meenah being seconds too late to imaple John again, to her disdain.
  • After Grimbark!Jade shows up to confront her old friends (while Gamzee watches, nonetheless), Dave and Karkat make ridiculous-looking Oh, Crap! frowns.
  • After Karkat gets stabbed with a trident, John treats us with a little Call-Back to this.
  • Similarily to the above instance, WV gets pushed into the lava of LOHAC. Then, right after Dave rescues him, we get this.
  • Jane's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Jake ends with a Spimpsonesque close up on her mouth with her saying "You're lucky you're so hot."
  • Jake's transformation via the Hopesplosion is terrifying at first. Then he starts belted out Hamtacular catchphrases.
  • While Brain Ghost Dirk is facing off with Aranea and Terezi is giving Gamzee a B34TDOWN, Jane decides to take the opportunity to revive Jade...only to find Jack, PM, and Dave simultaneously fighting over her corpse.
    JANE: Son of a dick.
  • Calliope's lament of her inability to help anyone starts off sad. Once Jade shows up, things take a turn for the sillier (and sweeter) in a matter of a few panels.
  • In the midst of Aranea's "ressurection" Jane tries to jump her... Only to be forced into sleep by Aranea's powers, in the goofiest-looking way possible. Even then, Jane is able to continue her assault through sheer willpower alone. While sleepwalking.
  • Gamzee becoming free of mind control leads to a brief moment where he is absolutely terrified at Terezi's behavior, leading her to believe that he's been brainwashed the whole time, causing her to have a somber My God, What Have I Done? moment. Then, he goes absolutely insane in an inexplicable fit of rage and decks her in the face in a terrifying fashion.
  • The first major flash update since the gigapause ended, [S] Game Over whiplashes harder than anything we've ever seen yet. It starts with John having a Faux Horrific breakdown over bad manga drawings by Caliborn... it just goes downhill from there. It goes from John and Caliborn having what is essentially a juvenile fight you'd see between middle schoolers, to Kanaya's unrelenting fury at Gamzee as she proceeds to chainsaw him in half vertically, which is followed up by a more simple, less detailed shot as Gamzee bleeds out. The rest of the flash then proceeds to show the deaths of many of the heroes, with only two left standing by the end. To finish off the flash, we see John mercilessly beat Caliborn to a bloody pulp and was only stopped after he got zapped away. Caliborn's shocked expression is a pretty apt reaction to this entire sequence.
  • Act 6 Act 6 Act 4 has Caliborn up to his antics as an "artist" after his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown courtesy of John, with parodies of Kickstarter and Bitcoin thrown in along the way. Then Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4 kicks in on a much more sobering note, with John floating through the Incipisphere, just looking at all of the planetary wreckage from Condy's fight with Aranea. But then, hope, as Dirk is back from the Void.
  • A little later on, John and Roxy are sat depressed together on LOPAN, contemplating whether going on is worth it thanks to Rose's death. Suddenly, Terezi comes spiraling in for a crash landing on the planet. She is not looking good. Then, she stumbles over to John... and delivers a headbutt with a resounding DOOF, leaving John with a stupid look on his face and a bloody nose.
    F1X TH1S
  • Then it immediately switches to Jade and Calliope being cute together, complete with Jade looking like a troll...until Jade begins telling a story about how John died.
  • At which point it switches back to John speaking with Terezi. He first asks why Terezi is wearing Jade's shoes, and he learns that Jade and the others are dead. When he asks why Terezi thought taking Jade's shoes was appropriate, she has this to say.
    JOHN, H3R SHO3S W3R3 R3D, SP4RKLY, 4ND D3L1C1OUS
    1 4M ONLY FL3SH 4ND BLOOD
    • She remains adamant about John fixing everything, and is unsympathetic to John's lack of control over his powers. The bickering continues until Roxy (who previously tried to play mediator) asks if John has ever seen his denizen. The fact that that question has a panel all to itself— the last panel in the update for that matter— implies that the answer to this question is VERY important.
  • Just at the end of Act 6 Act 5 Act 5 the reader is shown the horrifying revelation that Lord English has always been "already here" inside of Lil' Cal at a rapid pace (although the mood is somewhat spoiled by all the Illuminati "CONFIRMED" imagery and the MSPA Reader making a dash for the suicide stump and the gun). Right after this, Vriska leafs through the images of her trip on the meteor.
  • The "character selection screen" ends with Roxy presenting Kanaya with the new Matriorb, with the latter crying with joy and the former reassuring her that things will be fine. The very next conversation between Vriska, (Vriska) and Meenah goes straight in the other direction, as Vriska lays into (Vriska) hard enough to drive her to tears.

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