Nightmare Fuel / Homestuck

"Let'S bE TAngLe bUdDiES..."

> Peruse bad dream catalysts.

honk. HONK. honk. HONK. HONK. HONK.

This has got to be the stupidest thing you've ever done! You're never going to get to sleep now! Say, wasn't that doll a few feet to the left a minute ago...?

Due to the constantly updating nature of Homestuck, all spoilers are left unmarked.

Remember, this page is for describing general sources of Nightmare Fuel.

Now divided into helpful categories. Never before has organization been terrifying. Paradox Space currently has no examples, but for the future, they should be added on a new Nightmare Fuel subpage for that and not here.

For examples from The Homestuck Epilogues, go here.

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Part One

Act 1 and Act 2

• The whole idea of Sburb: The fact that a seemingly harmless game can basically ruin your entire perception of the universe, religion, and the laws of physics while simultaneously destroying everything and everyone you love on your home planet. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it but keep trudging on.
• Act 2's opener is initially relieving; John somehow survived and his home intact. But relief quickly turns to confusion as John's neighborhood is gone. Suddenly his house is in some type of empty void, and John himself momentarily appears stuck in time. Soon, we see eyes peek from the shadows, and the only accompaniment is silence. Everything you thought you know about Homestuck is gone, and John's world is only going to get darker from here.
• [S] Dave: Retrieve dead bird. After the reader presses the next arrow, they're treated to the lovely image of the red and yellow, apocalyptic sky being reflected by Dave's glasses as he stares emotionlessly, without a clue as to what this means, or even that he should be remotely concerned. But at least we have his goofiness to lighten the mood.
• The moment readers realized that Cal isn't a normal puppet. * There's a good reason why Lil' Cal was the header picture for the Demonic Dummy page, and used to also be on the Webcomics sub-page of Nightmare Fuel. As one person on the forums described, marionettes are already creepy, firmly in the Uncanny Valley. Lil' Cal lives in the Uncanny Laurentian Abyss (animated GIF link for reference◊). Hussie took this to eleven by making Lord English basically a giant demonic Cal.

Act 3

• Just about the entirety of Dave's Bro's room, what with Li'l Cal moving around seemingly on his own, Bro's comic crossing Muppet Babies (1984) with Saw, and the "Grisly puppet snuff film" going on.
• Jade's Grandpa is finally introduced... only it's not him, but his stuffed corpse. Jade rather cheerfully acts like he's still alive. Even worse, the fan theory that Jade was the one who stuffed him has been confirmed.

Act 4

• The Bad Future. John is killed by his denizen, Jade is killed by the meteor hurdling towards her island and Dave and Rose are left in a doomed session, forever unable to finish the game, with Dave's only companion being a sprite made from Lil' Cal. During the discussion that ensues when Dave decides to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, Rose questions what will happen to her when he does so; the only two options she can think of are that she'll either be erased from existence entirely or be left alone in a dead world for the rest of her days, and she can't even decide which fate sounds worse.
• The reason Jack is so evil? The Black Queen made him wear a bunch of silly outfits. There is literally no other reason for it. This man killed his ruler, stole her powers, went on a murderous rampage and tried to destroy an entire universe... all because his boss made him wear a bunch of silly outfits. In any other universe this would be hilarious. But in this case, It's presented in a completely serious light and makes Jack one of the most heartless and cruel villains out there.
• The part in [S] Jack: Ascend where the Black Queen's finger is seen twitching on the ground AFTER her body had been destroyed.
• John captchalogues Casey the Salamander before he blasts off on his jetpack. ...So what happens to her when he dies in the alternate timeline?
  • Jade's death showed us that when a character with a sylladex dies, their inventory empties. Instead of being locked inside a sylladex card, she would just have been killed by the Denizen. Not a brilliant upside, but still, better than being in limbo forever.
  • Considering we know that it's possible for a living being to be captchalogued, what if someone were to punch said captchalogue card?
  • Dream Jade didn't have a sylladex. The ring was on her finger. Eternal limbo still applies.
  • Dreamselves don't have sylladexes. John at that point wasn't even a dreamself anyways.
• Dave walks into his room and finds his own brutally murdered corpse. and then casually tosses it out the window... And then spends a good ten minutes staring at the blood on his hands.
• In the Act 4 finale, right after Jack started his rampage, there is one moment, just one moment, when he looks absolutely terrifying. Well hello there.◊
  • Also in the Act 4 Finale, when Dream Jade is flying over to Dream John's tower, Dream Jade sees the shadow of Jack flying over Prospit. Not only would that be a little creepy, it is horrifying to readers who know what's going to happen next.
  • Really, Jack's rampage is absolutely terrifying to watch. Everybody knew he was powerful, but not anywhere near this powerful. An entire army: Gone. A planet with thousands of people: Ripped apart. Hordes of battleships: Broken in two.

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Part Two

Act 5 Act 1

• Terezi's behavior in her live-action role playing is pretty chilling. She casually knifes one of the toys she claims to be her friends, and has hung dozens more of them out her windows and around her hive. Worse is that, apparently, that's pretty much how the real Alternian law enforcement system works.
• Tavros eventually gets robotic legs that let him walk! And to get them, he just needed to have his legs chainsawed off without anaesthetic, while he was asleep. And with the would-be builder of said legs just standing there and watching, from what's been shown, that's potentially even creepier.
• Tavros plays Fiduspawn, wherein one hatches face-hugging insects that impregnate plushies to create animals. It's even more disturbing than it sounds.
• As of these updates from here on, Vriska. What's scarier than setting up an unwinnable game of extreme live-action roleplay, taunting Tavros for not being able to get out of her constructed death trap, then using mind control to brainwash him into jumping off a cliff to his doom, all the while laughing maniacally?
• Also on the note of Vriska: "Arrivederci, Megido." She uses Sollux (Aradia's boyfriend) to kill Aradia.
• Vriska's lusus. She eats trolls, and forces Vriska to become a serial killer in order to feed her, lest Vriska be eaten herself.
• Feferi's lusus eats other lusii. Her voice itself kills trolls and if she ever preformed her "Vast Glub", every troll below Feferi on the hemospectrum would die. She does.
  • Oh Feferi, what are you bringing to your Lus... oh... oh god.
  • Look what the Vast Glub did to Sollux. He's bleeding from every orifice.
• The Imperial Drones, who collect filial pails from the trolls, and kill them if they can't provide.* Eridan and Vriska reminisce about their FLARPing days. What makes it terrifying? The fact that Vriska is using mind-control to force trolls to commit suicide, just like she attepted to do to Tavros, over and over again. We've been told that she's a serial killer before, but this is the first time the full impact of it hits you. Not to mention the fact that the entire scene is in silhouette.
• Vriska at the beginning of [S] Make her pay. She's missing an eye and an arm, the stump for said arm is visibly dripping blood, and she is pissed the fuck off.

Act 5 Act 2

• Bro used his horrifying fetish puppet Li'l Cal to feed baby Dave. No wonder Dave grew up to be such a jaded guy.
• The second half of [S] Jade: Wake Up, wherein Jade meets the Elder Gods in her dreams. Even disregarding the Horrorterrors, the flashing lights and loud blaring noises in that sequence might be too overwhelming for some to bear, to the point that Feferi's Lusus saying "Let's be tangle buddies" in that unearthly whisper almost feels like a relief. What's worse, apparently The Squiddles are actually the human's perception of the Horrorterrors. With the Squiddles being the Squiddles, this might take away some of the Horrorterrors' scariness but think about it; your favorite children's show could very well be the human perception of a freakin' Eldritch Abomination. And you would never even know.
• Feferi gives a Nightmare Face in this panel that comes right out of nowhere and comes with the sudden revelation she's some sort of eyeless spirit haunting Jade's nightmares.
  CC: Because, stupid.
  CC: I'M D------EAD!
• Jade asking Becsprite if he can talk now. The result is Bec's already creepy Eyeless Face staring at you dead-on and flashing shades of green, yellow, black, and white, with the spritelog containing a bunch of boxes of similarly-flashing static. Jade's reaction is basically "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOT DOING THAT AGAIN."
• Vriska mind-controlling Tavros to write messages. In her own blood. Commanding him to kill her. Gets worse when he can't do it and the blood color changes to Tavros' brown.
• [S]: Wake. Feferi and Nepeta's dream selves are hacked apart by Bec Noir at the beginning, and at the end, Vriska goes over to Tavros, grabs his lance, impales him through the heart, and drops him off a balcony.
• Doc Scratch's first and only message to Karkat is Paranoia Fuel incarnate: Don't turn your back on the body. All of the corpses in the room remain as they were. There is clearly nothing to be concerned about whatsoever.
• Karkat finally gets in touch with Gamzee only to learn that the chillest motherfuckin troll has flipped his motherfuckin shit.
  You have never been so scared in your entire life.
• A healthy helping of Paranoia Fuel during one of Karkat's memo sessions, right as he's nearly breaking down at Past Eridan (who's just absconded after killing Feferi). It turns out the insane murderer stalking him has been reading the memos, in the past and future, and knows where he was, where he is, and where he will be.
  FTC: HONK.
  CCG: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
  FTC: i'm in your future, best friend.
  FTC: I KNOW WHERE YOU MOTHERFUCKING ARE.
  FTC: and what you'll motherfuckin do.
• Although Terezi crying over Tavros is sad enough, it goes From Bad to Worse. That little purple text at the bottom of the page....
• The 2/6 flash has you play as Equius and Nepeta as they hunted throughout the empty, lonely halls of the meteor by a killer clown. It starts funny, but soon turns absolutely terrifying. The first version had a glitch that caused you to get stuck outside the map unable to move while all three characters' themes played simultaneously. The loud, discordant combination, combined with your immobility, is an unintentional source of Nightmare Fuel.
• Gamzee reacts to Nepeta's attack by snatching her out of the air, breaking her wrist, and slowly dragging her claws across his own face. While grinning maniacally.
• WV has a nightmare where he is visited by a familiar-looking animal spirit and watches in terror as he appears to become Jack Noir and slaughters dozens of carapace people as the Prospitian moon descends onto the battlefield. Also a Call-Back to here.
• To go from a calm dinner to being stalked by Jack Noir without seeing what happens next is terrifying. It's probably no coincidence that the wine stains look like blood stains... Next time they're shown, they're dead. There's also some Fridge Horror. On the page that said they were "at ease"? They aren't being stalked...Jack already killed them.
• The flash animation "Seer: Ask" sees an ominous crescendo of monsters and aliens shoot past the camera along with harsh light, all culminating in Rose seeing her mother's corpse. Add in the fact this was an action brought about by a creepy old man with an interest in watching little girls, this whole sequence can't help but awaken any fears you may have of losing a loved one, being watched, or otherworldly influence. The lack of sound in the flash makes it even disturbing.
• Terezi comes and finds a note with Nepeta's stolen claw and decides to check it. It's a trap. She's in Gamzee's clutches now. And then she just keeps screwing around in that Trickster Room while Gamzee instantaneously repositions Lil' Cal at various moments. Then she finds her Neophyte Redglare costume and happily reunites with her favorite dragon plush: "It has been too long, old friend. You vow never to let him out of your scent agai-" And Gamzee switches the dragon with Cal.
• At one point in Mindfang's journal, she rapes a completely innocent slave (who's implied to be Kanaya's ancestor, the Dolorosa) by mind controlling her into unbuttoning her (Mindfang's) coat and making out with her. Terrifying enough on its own, but what really pushes it into Nightmare Fuel territory is the fact that Mindfang made absolutely sure to only lightly manipul8 the slave. The result? The poor slave being absolutely terrified at the fact that she can't tell how much of her actions are mind control and how much are her own. And Mindfang finds this to be very amusing.
• In [S] Flip, Terezi passes by the decapitated bodies of Eridan, Equius, Nepeta, Feferi and Tavros all suspended in tubes. Gamzee has their heads sitting on a table while he acts as a judge. Not to mention the creepy glitching present in that flash.
• So Gamzee and Dave finally talk. It's disturbing for a number of reasons. First, the image of Gamzee flashstepping as he moves around Tavros' corpse, with his blood around his mouth, heavily implying he's tasting it and/or making out with it. Second, Dave is now partly responsible for Gamzee sobering up, thanks to making him doubt his religion when linking him to the Miracles music video. Harsher in Hindsight, much? Third, it's revealed that Gamzee is responsible for Dave's nightmares of Lil' Cal and John's writing on the wall, adding a touch of Paranoia Fuel to the situation. For bonus points Gamzee claims that Lil' Cal is telling him to kill everyone and is his only friend now that Tavros is dead. Finally, the "inside source" that Dave claims sent him the ICP video ahead of time? It's Betty Crocker, who according to Nannasprite is a Humanoid Abomination. And that's just the tip of the iceberg here. Also the implication that he willed Cal into existence with his hate. On purpose. From another dimension.
• Then there's how Doc Scratch punishes an unruly Handmaid. He suspends her breathing privileges by teleporting her on top of a spaceship. The whole way he's imprisoning her is extremely icky, especially considering his already questionable conversations with some of the others and the way he intends to turn the poor kid into a Tyke-Bomb. Reading between the lines of what he says about her, his goal is to make the Handmaid want to die so much that she'll do anything to end her life.
• The fate of the Ψiioniic. He's sold into slavery to the Empress, wired into her flagship, and used as a living battery.
  • Even worse when you consider that the Empress is using her Life powers to keep him from dying until she feels like she doesn't need him anymore. Poor guy is going to be her helmsman for a loooong time.
• The scene in the EOA5 flash in which Spades Slick shoots Snowman through the heart. Said heart is seen in excruciating detail shortly after. This happens about six minutes in.
• The Tumor exploding and creating the Green Sun. Immensely shocking, incredibly terrifying, and the ominous music that was paired with it only serves to make it all the more chilling. The silence that came before said explosion only makes it worse. Two entire universes being destroyed.
• Bec Noir murdering most of the beloved and adorable Exiles. Bonus points for the gruesome close-up of him decapitating Writ Keeper.

EOA 5 [S] Cascade

• Jack's Red Miles attack, which is reminiscent of blood, and can be seen as the universe itself succumbing to cancer.
• The closeups of Jack's face in the EoA5 video. ^note  Seen at 3:10 and 3:38 here.
• The scene in the EOA5 flash in which Spades Slick shoots Snowman through the heart. Said heart is seen in excruciating detail shortly after. This happens about six minutes in.
• Doc Scratch's last words: "S u c k e r s ."
• The Tumor exploding and creating the Green Sun. Immensely shocking, incredibly terrifying, and the ominous music that was paired with it only serves to make it all the more chilling. The silence that came before said explosion only makes it worse.
  • Two entire universes being destroyed.
• Bec Noir murdering most of the Exiles. Bonus points for the gruesome close-up of him decapitating Writ Keeper.

Intermission 2

• Lord English's formal introduction in Intermission 2. Complete with honking, and the same sort of sarcophagus previously seen in Jade's house.
  • The transformation is also riddled with Body Horror.

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Part Three

Act 6 Act 1

• When Jane checks her instant messenger, BettyBother, which spams her desktop with Betty Crocker ads. Each of them flashes for a split second, each of them saying things like 'OBEY', 'CEASE REPRODUCTION', 'SUBMIT', 'STAY ASLEEP', and 'CONSUME'. God, Jane, what the hell is this program?!
• The fact Dirk made an AI copy of his own brain and trapped it in a pair of sunglasses is horrifying to imagine from the AI's perspective. Imagine that you are a thirteen-year-old tech genius who decides to make a computer program indistinguishable from yourself, with all your thought processes and memories. You make it, and switch it on. Suddenly, bam; you are a pair of glasses, and who's this douchebag pretending to be you? The horrifying nature of his existence only makes this more clear.
• John's corpse is stuffed and in front of the fireplace. Sure, other dead people got the treatment as well, but this is John. An alternate reality John, but John all the same. And then Jane accidentally tears his arm off, then later he's decapitated by the bunny Bro built for Jane. And it wasn't so much the fact that his stuffed body is getting more and more mutilated that's creepy. What is creepy is just how the actual decapitation plays out. At first, Poppop's body just simply begins to shake slightly, which isn't too creepy. Then his neck bulges up and outward, his head now slightly lopsided. Then, the bunny's blade emerges from his neck, and he manages to take it off with one clean slice! To top it off, the thing was actually sleeping inside of his body.

Act 6 Intermission 1

• We see the remains of the universe as a mangled cloud (body fluids, blood?) with only a single arm left in the Troll's Skaia; all Celestial Body mind you.

Act 6 Act 2

• The A-R's line in this pester log is just unsettling.
  • I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
• G-Cat traps Roxy in the void. Turns out there's no horrorterrors. Something else is there. And what a "something else" she is.
• The Condesce's utter devastation of Earth, turning it into a flooded wasteland. Not to mention the end, with the Condesce herself walking toward the viewer while issuing subliminal commands.

Act 6 Intermission 2

• When Dave is making coffee, Rose mentions that it tends to develop an "unctuous film on the surface". We later see the coffee, and... the surface of the coffee looks like the blood of several of the troll corpses Gamzee has been collecting.

Act 6 Act 3

• Absolutely everything about the Land of Crypts and Helium. It used to be lush and filled with consorts... until their holy writings suddenly changed to reflect that their heroes would all sacrifice themselves and their "lights would be snuffed out" save for one, after which the Salamanders stopped farming and instead started digging their own graves. One tablet, carved by a Salamander, details how, because of his obsessive optimism, he thought the idea of building his own mausoleum and slowly starving to death sounded like "a blast" to him.
• From practically the start of Act 6 Act 3, Gamzee is already on Jane's planet. In the God Tiers. Selling the blood of his friends to her. And the worst part? He actually filled the fridge he was standing on with something... the dead bodies of Tavros and Vriska. It goes From Bad to Worse when he decided to prototype them right in front of a horrified Jane. And the results are just as horrifying as you'd expect.
• Everything about the Earth after the Batterwitch takes over. She tries to make human society more like troll society, in the process wreaking havoc so devastating that Dirk and Roxy are the only humans left alive.
• The B2 incarnation of Rose kills Guy Fieri by stabbing him in the eyes with knitting needles.
• How about Calliope fearing she may never wake up until someone else calls her brother by her name? To experience an involuntary Deep Sleep while someone plays Grand Theft Me with your body? Yeah, that also doubles as Paranoia Fuel.
• Right in the middle of Dirk being awesome, he cuts off his own head.
• A dreambubble and all the souls within - all the dead dreamselves and doomed timeline offshoots like the Beta-timeline John and felt Dave, and the godtier trolls that aren't Vriska and Aradia - have been obliterated, along with an unknown amount horrorterrors and possibly some of the very fabric of paradox space itself. All by Lord English himself with one single mouth-beam. No one is safe. Just to clarify, a bunch of people died. All those people's ghosts then went to the afterlife. Lord English entered a pocket in between existing universes, instantly teleported to the afterlife all the ghosts were chilling in, and blasted the entire place out of existence. As in, there's now a crack in the multiverse where that part of the afterlife used to be. A crack that's implied to be growing.
  • Another thing that's become apperant. All those people are considered Doomed. This doesn't mean that you die for good, oh no, that would be too easy, as they'll still be around in the afterlife. Being Doomed means that you get erased from existance!
  • When even Jack is shocked by destruction that wide scale, you know there's a problem.
    • It's arguably even worse than that. Jack doesn't look shocked. He looks terrified. That's right, even the "stab-happy planet-exploding asshole" is terrified. In addition, the destruction is so bad that PM sets aside her Roaring Rampage of Revenge at least long enough to share a glance with him.
  • And you thought Caliborn was scary just as he appeared on-screen? The rest of his Reveal puts it up to eleven. He doesn't follow up his previous Saw references by cutting off his leg. He GNAWS it off, crudely fitting a robot leg on the fresh wound and spitting out the tooth that's in the same position as LE's golden tooth. Then, we see a familiar object-duality weapon: LE's cane-gun, except in black. Finally, his Cruxtruder's kernelsprite turns into a black hole that sucks in his planet and the meteor before it could enter the game, and all he can do the whole time is grin or smug in glee and contentedness. Oh, and not to mention that the red sun and the aforementioned black hole together look like Giygas!?
    • Also, the combination of the Red sun and the Black Hole spiral looks EXACTLY like the image that Calliope was afraid of.

Act 6 Intermission 3

• Gamzee's ancestor, Kurloz, chewed out his own tongue and sewed his lips shut as part of a vow of silence to keep Lord English's secrets. He's not only helping Gamzee, but mind controlling his former matesprit into assisting him.
  • Most of the talksprites are at a 45 degree angle to show that they are facing each other. Kurloz, however, is looking directly at the reader.
• Kurloz's introduction first depicts him as a quiet mime who Meulin can actually communicate with. If you talk to him as her, he asks for a codpiece which can be found in one of the chests. Fair enough. When you bring it to him, it's revealed that he's been controlling Meulin's mind, and that he's working together with Gamzee to ensured Lord English's success. The music during this doesn't help, nor does the sudden black text box with all-caps purple text that is shaped like bones.
  • If, while playing as Kurloz, you move towards Meenah, Kurloz addresses the player directly and says there's no reason for him to talk to her.
• At the end of one of her conversations with Rufioh, Damara says (in fake troll Japanese) that, in raising a ghost army to defeat Lord English, Meenah and whoever joins her is only "delaying the inevitable". The end of their time is near. (Oh, and she threatens to "bring the devil to consume [Horuss's] soul".)
• Rose and Kanaya walk down a corridor on a date. Then, Rose hears noise.

Act 6 Act 4

• All of the new lands look even more ominous than LOCAH. LOMAX has massive, terraced burial mounds with red Stonehenge replicas and hordes of undead, walking skeletons of unprototyped minions all over, along with two massive canyons filled with glowing Xenon that encircle the entire planet. LOPAN, though it lacks visible monsters, features ominously-lit pyramids and a dark sky lit by unnatural, glowing, neon-colored wisps. But LOTAK takes the cake in Nightmare Fuel, with its presumably toxic atmosphere, violent and massive lightning storms, undead giclopses, towering dark-green tombs, and a statue of its conspicuous, stoically menacing Denizen, Yaldabaoth.

Act 6 Intermission 4

• Caliborn's "Land," if the opening panels of Act 6 Intermission 4 leave no guesses.
  • To elaborate: Because he could only deploy the cruxtruder when acting as his own server (and not the usually required totem lathe and alchemiter), it could only have been the kernelsprite black hole alone that got him into the session. It's likely too difficult and terrifying to comprehend how it could do that, but the real terror comes when you realize that his whole session has been glitched beyond belief and recognition, and inevitably in his favor. What does this have to do with his Land? Because you realize all of this when these updates confirm to you that during the entry sequence in [S] Caliborn: Enter, it wasn't just the meteor that entered. The entire planet entered.
• Caliborn has the ~ATH manual. Think about that.
• A friendly clown wants to be Caliborn's guide. What will Caliborn do? Answer: Shoot the shit out of God-Tier Gamzee. In both options.
  • While Gamzee getting shot to hell turning into a Overly Long Gag is pretty funny, the rage symbol in the preloaders getting increasingly covered in bullet holes and troll blood is still creepy as hell.
  • Roxy's comment that dying is a great way to sober up also presents slight concern here.
  • And what was Gamzee trying to be his guide for? A tower that produces this Intermission's narrative, and given that its light is a red version of the MSPA logo, it's likely that it also produces the whole comic's narrative. This tower might just be MSPA itself. Caliborn has now seen the source of his most unwelcome and out-of-character thoughts. The consequences of his retaliation against the tower should be obvious.
    • Turns out it's just a relay tower for MSPA, but just imagine what will happen if Caliborn unlocks everything on it.
    • He doesn't even have to go as far as unlocking anything. He has Crowbar's crowbar now. What does he do? He smacks Gamzee and the tower with it. And when the tower is damaged by Crowbar's crowbar, shit gets real.
    • After Hussie locks his narrative prompt, Caliborn tries the keys on the console screen's slot. What does he unlock? A feed of B2 Jack Noir, and likely also communication with him. He laughs as he realizes what this means for both of them: that Jack has just received his Get Out of Jail Free card, and that Caliborn now has someone who can carry out his will in the session. And just as this happens, Gamzee, standing up with blood all over him, is looking directly at the Fourth Wall, perhaps as a knowing Aside Glance.
    • His will indeed.
• The planet we're seeing isn't Caliborn's actual land. It's Earth. And though Hussie dismisses this fact as an untwist when he reveals it, Caliborn thinks differently. Hussie further reveals that in order for Caliborn to get to his actual land, he's going to have to face Yaldabaoth in the core. Why is Yaldabaoth now revealed to not be aspect-specific like the other Denizens likely are? Because according to Hussie, "He is the deadliest, most challenging denizen of all. He very rarely appears in game sessions, and is usually designated for the most naturally gifted warriors." Yaldabaoth's version of The Choice for Caliborn, should he accept the Denizen's terms, would result in his entrance into a "dead session," where "victory and defeat...are dictated by totally different terms." In other words, Dirk and especially Caliborn are going to having a hard time soon.
  • Yaldabaoth is the evil Creator of the Universe in Gnostic mythology, and the true name of Yahweh. Caliborn is going to kill God.
• Gamzee is in Caliborn's session. Made a little Nightmare Retardant with the rather soothing elevator music playing while Caliborn guns him down for a few panels straight, and then some, but it turns out that even after all those bullets, Gamzee STILL wasn't dead! He was alive long enough to keep crawling across the ground with his blood being splattered all over the place, all the way to give Caliborn a power hub. As he hands Caliborn the item, he's jittering and shaking and it's hard to watch.
  • In the huge cast herd of dead characters before the end of Act 6 Intermission 3, there is actually only one Gamzee. The living one.
  • Worse yet is that whoever the mysterious voice (Hussie?) that is communicating with Caliborn, is basically saying that there are no timelines where Gamzee has been seen dead. That's right, in all timelines, Gamzee has been fucking things up.
  Andrew Hussie: It means crazy clowns just won't die for some reason. In adventures such as yours, they tend to linger long past their welcome.
  Andrew Hussie: They linger and linger and linger, and just when you think you're totally fed up with their bullshit and you can't take another second of it, they just linger some more.
  Andrew Hussie: And you never know what they're up to, and they're always scheming in the shadows, and it's quite possible that whatever master plan they're hatching just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense at all.
  Andrew Hussie: But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how stupid the clown's schemes are, or how sick of him everybody is.
  Andrew Hussie: He just. Won't. Die.
• When Caliborn attacks the website with the Time Magic Stopping Crowbar, it makes a loud clanking noise that may provide a shock to anyone who was unprepared.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1

• Roxy gets dropped onto Derse by GCat, and is found by the Condesce...
• Roxy's first time in the dreambubbles as a "dead" dreamer gets off to a pretty creepy start. The memory projection of her room's power mysteriously goes out, and Calliope's subsequent cheer to her (at first) consists only of a series of ellipses instead of the content of the expected memory of the message.
  • Roxy's bubble is uncomfortably close to one of LE's paradox space cracks.
  • When Roxy figures out that Calliope is not trying to be eerily silent and is, in fact, communicating with her in the image of Serenity, she learns from her that LE is following the army of the Meenah-Vriska-Aranea alliance straight to Calliope's soul. The consequences of potential miscommunication between these two and a troll who has already been extremely hostile to her would be devastating.
  • The image of the Condesce flashing in the window where Mom Lalonde's silhouette was in Act 1 makes for a good jump-scare.
  • The very image of Roxy exiting her home, shaped like the Beta Sburb logo, can be quite a Mind Screw.
• The realm that Calliope eventually leads Roxy to in her dream is unlike any previously seen in Homestuck, with its most prominent feature being an unsettling white spiral drawn unconventionally, with a paint tool.
  • And who awaits Roxy at the bottom of the spiral? Only Calliope, in her true form, which the reader would usually welcome with warm familiarity... except for the fact that death has given her Black Eyes of Evil.
• This update explains why Lil' Cal is so creepy, and why it's a Demonic Dummy. The update establishes that:
  • Li'l Cal brings misery and death to any universe he goes to,
  • Caliborn is the one who put a curse on Li'l Cal,
  • Because of that, Caliborn can sense Li'l Cal in later stages of his "life"- essentially making him a Horcrux, and the big one:
  • All those who look into his eyes are staring into Caliborn's soul. Helpfully accompanied by a closeup of those eyes (meaning that now includes the readers) that features Li'l Cal WINKING and a panel of Gamzee looking into them and looking freaked out.
  • And, see the Act 6 Act 5 Act 1x2 folder, we now know what it can make you do.
• The Condesce contacts Jane through her Tiaratop. Made slightly Nightmare Retardant since it's been revealed that the Condesce speaks just like Meenah, all ghetto, but there's the fact that her influence is still strong on Jane and it almost fried her mind... and she's already broken enough.
  • If the Condesce speaking just like Meenah is Nightmare Retardant for you, you haven't thought it through clearly enough. Meenah is fairly scary already despite being from the kinder, gentler Beforus timeline.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 2

• Jane's Trickster Mode, as seen in [S] Jane: Engage, possibly rivals Lil Cal for depth in the Uncanny Valley.
  • And after the not-too-scary intro to A6A5A2 (with a possible exception for one's knowledge of the extent of her power), Jane heads off to LOMAX. Why? Take a wild guess.
    • When she does get Jake cornered, she not only fits the definition of "Obsessive-type Yandere" to a T, but she is also now in a somewhat familiar situation where she's cornering a Page on a cliff.
    • She then kicks him in the bulge, thus knocking him off the cliff, though like Gamzee did after the page this calls back to, he survives, if only to become infected with Trickster Mode himself. Ladies and gentlemen, we are fucked.
    • Jake's Trickster form would actually be less frightening than Jane's would it not be for two crucial elements: the combination of suspenders, bowtie, cheek swirls, and color scheme featuring red and green (these make his visual similarities to Caliborn and LE stronger than ever) and the image on his shirt, which appears to bear the stylized likeness of Lil Cal.
    • The two of them are scariest combined, and it's not so much due to their flagrant irresponsibility in their decision to marry and procreate as it is because they want to add to it a cultish polygamous arrangement by abducting Roxy, turning her Trickster, and making her Jake's "co-bride."
    • They find Roxy with Trickster magic that is demonstrated in three of the creepiest non-sound flashes in the comic, which feature the change of the Tricksters' pupils and irises into the same spiral Caliborn's eyes showed in the subact opening. It gets the worst in the transition animation featuring Jake, since he is shown to have Lil Cal's eye design. After using this power and playing the most terrifying (and incorrect) game of Marco Polo ever, Jake smashes a pumpkin (which has been called "The What Pumpkin" by some fans due to the mysterious question mark seen on it) onto Roxy's head while wearing the worst smile of any Trickster so far.
    • Even CD (freakin' CD!) looks terrified when that happens.
    • And then Trickster Roxy proceeds to one-up Jake with how terrifying her smile is.
    • This Tumblr post shows very well how terrifying trickster mode is.
  You see your friend. She seems so very different. So happy. So colorful. So disturbingly joyful. She goes over to you and begins spouting things you don’t seem to understand.She grabs onto you and yells even more bizarre things, laughing. Her suddenly-colored eyes gleaming your face. She kicks you. You begin to fall. But you begin to feel different. So joyful. So jubilant and ecstatic, you just want to dance. You’re losing control of yourself, and you know it. It’s too late.
• When confronted with the tricksters, Dirk completely loses his cool. Fucking Dirk fucking loses his fucking cool. He even threatens them with his sword, although it's clear he's scared shitless and couldn't go through with it.

  • Roxy kissing Dirk and making him become a trickster has horrifying implications.

  • Arquiusprite then hits him with a Breaking Speech.
• Hussie's intended EoA flash for A6A5A2 features a picture of a Zilly Santa cycling through various garish Trickster colors with a slow zoom on its nose, set to a minor-key, distorted version of the "Trickster Bells" song. Enjoy it here! In the panel that follows, as Hussie attempts to return the story "to the safety of ACT 6 ACT 5 ACT 1," we see post-Trickster Jane shivering and looking disheveled and completely terrified. She seems to be on her Quest Crypt, and this surely means her death would come soon in the act.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 x 2

• In the Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 x2 Combo, Alpha!Jack receives a pumpkin from Gamzee with Lil Cal inside. Upon looking into his eyes, Jack proceeds to stab his eyes out, saw off his leg, and cause a massive explosion on Prospit. In the end, we get this lovely image.
  • "Jack English" and the Condesce then proceed to commence a x2 Optic Blast/Mouth Laser Combo for their respective target moons. We see that Jack has gained from Cal actual pool ball eyes, but the extent to which both Big Bads' jaws open (Condy's for her worst Slasher Smile, Jack's for an enraged Nightmare Face) is probably the worst part of this sequence...
  • Until, of course, the newly ascendant Jane and Jake look directly at the positively monstrous, creepypasta-esque face of Jack.
• So Jade comes, she's banished Jack to the Furthest Ring, and all the gags with Jake's crotch are hilarious, right? Well, guess who decided to spring a twofold trap on the whole session's ass? Hint: Her name begins with ")(er" and ends with "Condescension." She makes Jade go GrimBARK, and under the Condesce's control, Jade makes Jane go Crockerdark after zapping the Tiaratop onto her head. Grimbark Jade then punches out Dirk and banishes HIM to the Furthest Ring, while Jane punches Jake in the solar plexus. They then carry Roxy and Jake Derse-ward, where the Condesce awaits with her Slasher Smile and the declaration that they are "suckas." And then the act mercifully ends.

Act 6 Intermission 5

• LE has formed a very ominous crescent of cracks in spacetime around the Green Sun.
• Much of the Cherub mating and development cycle that Arenea describes is creepy in and of itself. However, the pinnacle of the creepiness comes when the egg that would become Calliope/Caliborn is laid. Gamzee is standing above, watching. Even worse is that, apparently, Cherubs were not meant to play Sburb, and it's likely that the clown introduced the game to the Cherub in the first place. And if that's the case, then Gamzee is responsible for everything bad in the series. No wonder he is called the most important character in Homestuck.
• The horrific giant that is Caliborn and Dirk's Denizen. No joke, that image could blind you if you looked at it too long.^note and we mean that literally; the thing's head is so bright that staring at it too long can cause you physical pain The noises it's making don't help one bit.
• The cracks in spacetime have completed an even more ominous circle around the Green Sun.
• In this flash, Kurloz slowly walks up to Vriska's abandoned pirate coat, simply takes it, and gradually leaves the scene while "Blackest Heart (With Honks)" plays in the background. The flash ends with a startling HONK and an image of the ":o)" emoticon with a stitched mouth. While a truly sinister purpose can't be definitely ascertained, the design of the coat points to its transformation into the infamous Cairo Overcoat.
• Aww look! Casey's back! Oh! And now she's doing a silly dance! Just like HB in the first intermission! Oh and now she's got a magic scepter! Now what's she gonna do with tha—OH MY GOD ZOMBIE CONSORTS!
  • Bubbles and to a lesser extent the zombies are adorable, though. It's saying something that by this point in the story, a necromancer and a bunch of zombies represent a brief, lighthearted respite from the real grimdarkness.
• As the meteor passes LOTAK, Jade's BARKs can be heard even before she appears to the crew in a violent flash and display of flames. Grimbarkness is now scarier in that it doesn't make her a mere wild Wolf Man but instead apparently leaves her mental faculties and memories mostly intact, possibly making it harder to turn her back and even making her responsible for her actions in a manner relevant to the judgment of her next death.

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Part Four

Act 6 Act 6

• While the terribleness of his control of "the narrative" is distracting you, it's easy to forget that Caliborn rises to God-tier just before the events of A6A6.
• One five word sentence, and suddenly a pinprick of fear and anxiety: John Egbert has gone missing.
  • "This is quite possibly the most unsettling thing in I’ve seen in Homestuck. It is incredibly powerful, and it invokes a feeling of emptiness and panic. In all 6,000 pages of Homestuck there has never been a time where you have truly lost track of someone. They are never lost, because somehow the narrator always manages to find them again. The line “John Egbert has gone missing” is the realization that you are no longer in control."
  • On top of that, of all the planets, LOLAR is covered in fairy dust, which hinders Rose and presumably Terezi's communication with the others.
• Grimbark Jade has Roxy in her clutches. Under the control of the Batterwitch, she orders Roxy (who can create things out of nothingness due to her God Tier powers) to make the Matriorb so a new race of trolls can be born. And if Roxy refuses?
  JADE: if you dont i am going to kill you
  JADE: seeing as you are a god tier it is very likely you will come back to life
  JADE: so i can just keep killing you over and over a different way each time
  JADE: maybe i will disembowel you a few times
  JADE: i will not even need to use my sharp doggy teeth!
  JADE: i will just snap my fingers and your delicious guts will teleport outside your body
  • Not only that, but she also implies that she would eat Roxy's entrails upon removal.
• As it turns out, Jane's powers involve bringing people back to life, albeit once only per person. How does Jade order her to demonstrate this? By killing Karkat.
  • Jade also claims, though somewhat in jest, that Jane scares even her to an extent.
• We finally get to see what Jane and Jake were talking about, and it's not pretty. She plans to forcibly marry him, have dozens of babies with him, and make him the in name only co-head of the Crocker Empire, and bluntly tells him that she would gladly kill him if he wasn't so hot. Rather understandably, Jake is in tears at that point.
• Gamzee has the Ring of Life, and he's planning to give it to someone in the dream bubbles.
  • It turns out that he's been under mind control when trying to obtain the ring, by Aranea of all people. She then addresses him as her subordinate.
  • Followed up by the revelation that she wants to make the Alpha session fail, erase the Cherub session from existence, and become the benevolent goddess of the new timeline.
• Aranea's next step in her plan? Heal Jake's mind so that he reaches his full potential as Page. Why is that scary? Does this face and these lights look benevolent to you?
  • The resulting "Hopesplosion" begins to release angels. As in, the terrifying, Nigh-Invulnerable angels of Eridan's land.
  • It overpowers Jade enough that she is knocked out, which initially sounds like good news given that she was under mind control... Of course, then it becomes apparent that the resulting energy explosion strongly resembles the image that Calliope feared from a different angle. This could end badly...
  • It seems like a relief at first to finally see Jade uncorrupted after taking a massive hit from Jake's hope powers, until you realize that Jade's lying in the exact same position she was in after being initially killed by the shaving cream bomb explosion just before [S] Cascade. Hopefully, the "KO'd" floating above her really does mean she was just knocked out.
    • Yeah... about that...
• Terezi is basically slaughtering Gamzee, and all he does is just take it with the most oblivious smile.
  • Keep in mind he's under mind control right now, which brings up another terrifying thought. He's in incredible pain and not even allowed to express it.
  • And then you have these friendly, looking faces.
• As it turns out, being a God Tier Prince of Heart lets Dirk do much more than we thought... like ripping souls out of bodies.
  • While most will agree that Aranea deserves it, it's pretty unnerving to see her screaming in agony as her soul is torn from her body.
• When he's inadvertently freed from Aranea's control, Gamzee unleashes a Nightmare Face of the highest caliber.
  • And then he starts mercilessly beating the shit out of Terezi—which apparently causes everything to start glitching out of whack.
    • Perhaps the worst part of this whole scene is the number of people that just stand there and watch as Gamzee smashes her face into the ground or suplexes her. Rose begins debating with herself over whether or not this is just normal for trolls, thinking that she might interrupt something intimate if she intervenes, while Jake, who hadn't been able to witness the lead-up to this, assumes that Terezi did something to deserve the assault. It's uncomfortably similar to people who actually do shut out any abuse they witness, thinking that they can't jump in without knowing the full history, or that it just isn't serious enough to be concerned over.
• Karkat getting mad, about to seemingly go all apeshit on Gamzee, the two about to fight it out... Then, in the words of Aranea...
  ARANEA: Oh shit.
• Caliborn looks pretty sure that he can defeat John on this page.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3

• The entirety of [S]: Game Over which includes the deaths of:
  • Karkat (stabbed thrice by Gamzee and thrown in lava)
  • Kanaya (vaporized by the Condesce's psionic blasts)
  • Dave (double stabbed by PM and Bec Noir while defending Jade, confirmed heroic death)
  • Jake (telekinetically stabbed with Dirk's katana by Aranea while defending a comatose Jane, confirmed heroic death)
  • Jane (telekinetically stabbed by the sword still embedded in Jake's torso, confirmed just death)
  • Gamzee (bisected vertically by Kanaya, up from the groin)
  • The grievous injuring of Rose (stabbed by The Condesce's 2x3dent before being teleported away by Roxy) and Terezi (telekinetically stabbed by Aranea with her own cane blade, being thrown into the distance, and then pulling the blade out of her own chest!). Even worse in that they both don't survive these injuries.
  • Gamzee's nightmarish face when the GAME OVER screen first switches to ACT 6 ACT 6 INTERMISSION 3.
  • The Condesce going to town on LOFAF with the psionic blasts while sporting a killer Nightmare Face before levitating Aranea over to her so she can proceed to choke her.
  • Aranea smashing LOLAR into LOFAF with her telekinesis and the Condesce doing the same to LOCAH into LOHAC, possibly killing the Mayor in the process
  • Aranea also looks as though she's gone totally insane. The only saving grace is that the Condesce seems to be ready to finally murder the little creep.
    • And sure enough, in the next scene she does put Aranea down; specifically by snapping her neck with the flick of a wrist, then hurling her corpse into the fire below.
  • And finally, John giving such a furious beatdown to Caliborn. Seeing the kindest and friendliest character in the entire comic go that berserk is just terrifying.
• The second 10/25 update isn't much better. First the Condesce steals the Life Ring and snaps Aranea's neck, killing her. Even if she had it coming, it couldn't have been a pleasant way to die. When John teleports to the now decimated area where it all happened, he wonders what happened... and the game starts glitching again.
• Look at Gamzee's face when Kanaya cuts him in half. One half is still smiling maniacally, the other frowns.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4

• Not much happens here, but the degree of utter Scenery Gorn Must be seen to be believed. There's something viscerally disturbing about the whole thing. Look back over pretty much all of Homestuck, and think of all the settings and places that the story has gone and realize that they've all been utterly ruined. Literally the entire setting has been shattered, and nowhere is safe anymore.
• The glitching's getting worse. Way worse. So, so much worse. In fact, John reveals later that it's gotten so bad that even his wind powers aren't enough to fix it.
• This... THING, is John's Denizen, with a face covered almost entirely with glitches. The accompanying noises of this page does not make it any better.
• Later, John comes dangerously close to drowning in oil.
• After playing The Breeze, John walks around LOWAS in a callback to Mystuck, and it would be a nice nostalgia trip, except for the fact that the planet is practically empty, except for a few fireflies. No salamanders, no underlings, no nothing except the sound of the wind and a creepy Roxy.
• The cracks in paradox space have been getting even worse.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 5

• The good guys, using John's powers, teleport directly to Caliborn. Awesome right? They're gonna kick his ass? Well, apparently he doesn't "EVEN GIVE THEM A CHANCE." Whatever it may be, something very bad is about to happen.
  • Caliborn's new Juju has the ability to STEAL SOULS, which he promptly used on the pre-Scratch kids, leaving the post-Scratch kids at Caliborn's mercy. Luckily, it only works on four people before becoming a gap in reality.
• The intro flash to A6A6A5 straddles the line between ridiculous and creepy, with fart noises and other unholy sounds before eventually devolving into clanking piano that is very disconcerting to watch and listen to. Even more terrifying than that is where this entire Act appears to be located at. A purple colored swirl made out of Caliborns trade mark straight lines. The exact opposite of Calliope's yellow and detailed swirl.
• If Caliborn's prophecy ends up coming to pass, then at some point Dirk will seal away his soul (along with Arquiusprite and one half of Gamzee's body) into the Lil' Cal puppet, allowing Caliborn to spread his influence across paradox space. In Caliborn's own words:
  THE PUPPET'S ESSENCE WILL FLOP AND FLUTTER THROUGH THE SHADOWS FOR ETERNITY. SURFACING IN THE NIGHTMARES OF THE UNSUSPECTING. WEASELING ITS WAY INTO THE HEARTS OF YUCKY SHITTY CHILDREN. AND WHEN ITS INFILTRATION IN THAT UNIVERSE HAS TAKEN HOLD, THE SEED WILL HAVE BEEN PLANTED. AND IT WILL PAVE THE WAY FOR MY EMERGENCE, TO WREAK MY BADNESS. FROM UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE. EACH ONE WILL FALL. AND EACH TIME I WILL GET STRONGER.
• As it turns out, Lord English is comprised of not just Caliborn, but also Arquiusprite and one of Gamzee's halves. That's four (or three and a half) personalities in one body. It's not hard to imagine this being a And I Must Scream scenario for at least two of them, and their last remainders of sanity being slowly hacked away while trapped for so long inside Lil'Cal before returning as the Omnicidal Maniac Lord English.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5

• Before the Intermission begins we get the "Mental Breakdown" flash, where you realize that Lord English was already there. The whole time, he was already there...as Lil' Cal. This carries boatloads of Fridge Horror.
• God-Tier Calliope. She's a good guy of course, but the way she speaks and acts in general is such a frightening contrast from the friendly and cheerful Calliope we've come to know.
  CALLIOPE: so i became strong, and killed my brother.
  CALLIOPE: i wore him down. i ate his soul. i dressed my words in his blood to hear victory every time i spoke.
• This update consists of a very long scrolling page to show just how huge a Denizen is... and is accompanied by heavy breathing.
• Jasprosesprite^2 disappearing Cheshire Cat-style.
• While talking about his upbringing, Dave talks about how all his life he could feel something evil within Lil' Cal and he theorizes that spending 30 years with Bro may have influenced him. This just adds more to the already existing Fridge Horror.
• It's more than a little disturbing that Jasprosesprite^2 has no qualms about carrying dear sweet precious Nepeta's head around and kissing it before prototyping it into Nepetasprite.
• Guess what? Nepetasprite ends up Tier 2 prototyped not long after her introduction! The only problem that it's with Davesprite. There's something rather unsettling about the combination of a human, crow and troll (with said human and troll being the opposite gender to one another) flashing different colours that comes with a pair of Wolverine Claws.
• Those cracks in Paradox space? The ones that seem to be getting larger? That's because Lord English is blitzing through the Dream Bubbles. Either he's getting frustrated that he can't find Calliope, or he's currently fighting God Tier!Calliope. And we're not sure how far God Tier!Calliope is willing to go.
• Lord English's dramatic entrance, ending with this terrifying panel.
• Even though we've seen him before, Yaldaboath's appearance as Caliborn prepares to fight him is also quite terrifying. Rather than having a head, his body seems to cut off where his head should be and emit pure light from there.
  • [S] Collide has shown Yaldaboath's head, which was glowing before.
  • In one Freeze-Frame Bonus, you can see ol' Sunhead's face. It's actually pretty creepy looking.
• Continuing the trend set by English and Yaldabaoth, Bec Noir gets one final nightmarish panel before Collide. Even now that there's threats on par and above him in terms of danger now, he still looks downright terrifying with how he's moving.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 6 / [S] Collide.

• In [S] Collide, PM overrides Bec's loyalty just because she's that ticked off at Jack, punches Jade in the face and slices off Jack's arm, depowering him and promptly knocking him out too. She then grabs the Black Queen's ring and screams furiously. While this was probably just a declaration of victory (she is a living chess piece, after all), you'd be forgiven in thinking that the desire for vengeance has driven our dear Prospitian Monarch off the deep end.
• Dave ends up having to behead Dirk (again) to kill Union Jack and Slick. And to make it even more horrifying, Union Jack's head explodes after being severed, obliterating the planet they were on (though fortunately, Dave, Terezi and Dirk's body were able to get away just in time).
• The ending of the animation is strangely ominous. Right after cutting to a shot of John, Rose, and Kanaya after Roxy kills the Condesce, the screen doesn't fade to gray to confirm closure on the battle like the two fights shown just earlier. Rather, the animation begins to zoom out to the window mechanism similar to the one seen at the end of [S] Cascade while the animation fades to static. Meanwhile, a creepy and mysterious ambiance plays in the background, seemingly getting louder before abruptly stopping as the mechanism becomes a silhouette against a plain white background.

Act 7 and Credits

• At the end of the animation, we see the beginning of Caliborn's ascent into becoming Lord English. But with all the swirling lights and with Caliborn's jaw agape, he's possibly screaming. Guess power comes at a price.
  • Either that, or he's letting out a triumphant Mighty Roar. Which is even worse.
• The credits are mostly sweet and funny, but the fact it ends on John receiving a dare from Caliborn, complete with his "MAGIC RAINBOW EYES" and standing next to Gamzee, to come to his "DARK CARNIVAL" puts a very dark note on the ending and makes it very possible we're watching the prelude to the masterpiece.
• There's a brief shot of a Nepeta ghost being sucked into Alt!Calliope's black hole.

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> Go back

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HONK.

honk.

HONK. Do:

honk. :o)