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Sandbox / Homestuck Reactions

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Something big just happened? YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

> Respond to the story's events.

Homestuck is a work of over 8000 pages, and the audience has been along for quite a ride. These tropes include some of the many reactions.

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    Wham Episode 
> Appraise shocking developments.

You cannot hope to defeat Homestuck in a wham-off. It is simply the best there is. We are all completely blown away by these stunning revelations.

Most works get one or two wham episodes to set the tone, or shock the fanbase. Homestuck had so many that it was the first TV Tropes page to have its own subpage. That does not stop any wham episode from being any less wham-y.

Note: Please organize Wham Episodes by which Act they are in, so we can make a more chronological list. Also, be careful what you add; Hussie likes to subvert this trope.

Act 1:

  • The Webcomic/homestuck series Homestuck first seemed like a lighthearted Affectionate Parody of Sim-type games. Then the main character's house gets hit by a meteor, and the plot gets started.
    • The meteor's first appearance itself is something of a Wham Episode, given that it comes out of nowhere and it's on a collision course with John's house.

Act 2:

Act 3:

  • Parodied with [S] John: Examine your dad's room. The reveal that John's dad has a boringly normal room and profession shocks him, but the audience is underwhelmed.
    • Shortly after, this tropes is parodied again (and then subverted) when John realizes that Betty Crocker made his favorite snack, Fruit Gushers. He starts having a mental breakdown, but stops when he realizes that it's a stupid thing to get upset over.
    • Played with even more on. We learn that this is actually an incredibly reasonable thing to be upset about, but for completely different reasons than what John was thinking.
  • [S] Jade: Retrieve package. The first appearance of Becquerel, who is not a normal dog.
  • [S] Enter, where Dave installs his server copy, Rose creates Jaspersprite and enters the Medium. Right after the animation, we see that John's entrance to the Medium ended up creating a planet.

Intermission 1:

  • This update and the pages following it, right up to the end of the intermission, which reveal that the events of the intermission are canon after all, Spades Slick and presumably the other members of the Midnight Crew are exiles like WV, PM and AR, and marks the first physical appearance of the troll race, who, as we finally see, are literal trolls.

Act 4:

  • The Flash Forward in Act 4 to a Bad Future where John and Jade are dead and the game is now Unwinnable without them.
  • Jack: Ascend. It's revealed that what was written on Rose's wall is a code that in turn translates to a DNA sequence. Jack meanwhile gets sick of the Black Queen forcing him into silly outfits, and uses Jade's gift to kill her and take her ring for himself.
  • [S] Descend, Jack kills everyone in the Battlefield and starts The Reckoning, Bec is created using the DNA code from Rose's walls, Jack destroys Prospit and sends its moon on a collision course with Skaia, dream Jade manages to wake up dream John in the nick of time but dies herself, and Rose blows up her gate.

Act 5 Act 1:

  • The 07/20/10 update, a.k.a. the last update before a week-long hiatus, a.k.a. the THE GREAT ROBOSMOOCH OF 2011 update, was explicitly meant to be this (and was an overwhelming success):
    And now that you have all been sufficiently nonplussed... See you in a week! I'll be back on the 27th.
  • Karkat essentially taking a Blood Oath with Jack Noir.
  • [S] Make her pay. Vriska mindcontrols Terezi via dual-proxy into staring into the sun until she goes blind. Much later, Aradia finds Vriska on LOMAT and brutally maims her, her imminent death only postponed by Aradia's abscondment.
  • The series of updates starting with Aradia: Skip to the End.
  • The true enormity and weight of the purpose of Sburb/Sgrub are smashed into the readers face with the force of a ton of bricks with the simple words "...int0 the universe we created"

Act 5 Act 2:

  • [S] Jade: Enter: Vriska puts John to sleep at a crucial moment, Bec prototypes himself in order to save Jade, then blows up the meteor heading towards her island (while unintentionally killing everybody else on Earth with the aftershock), Jade enters the medium, Jack Noir obtains Bec's powers and kills Bro and severely wounds Davesprite, it's revealed that the demon terrorizing the troll's session is Bec Noir, having crossed the universes through the Scratch, and destroyed their version of Prospit.
    • Thief: tear into Page and everything that follows, as Vriska reveals she is responsible for the creation of Bec Noir.
  • John takes his legendary nap. Which immediately gets him killed by Bec Noir, leading to his ascension to God Tier.
    • [S] John: Rise Up in its entity. It begins with John dying and a tearful WV entering the titular command as he begs John to Please Wake Up... then proceeds to his resurrection and ascension to the God Tiers. And then we zoom back out to see that, from WV's perspective, John is still dead, with his screen shifting to an ominous view of Bec Noir glaring straight at him through the screen before it fades to static.
  • [S]: Wake. It's revealed that Aradia does have a dreamself, sleeping on a Quest Bed in the core of Derse, and her soulbot exploding was a result of her ascending to God Tiers. About an hour later (in-universe time), Tavros finally challenges Vriska and she kills him.
  • Kanaya chatting with Jade, informing her Bilious Slick, the Genesis Frog Jade must breed, literally is the new universe- and that by extension, the troll version of Bilious Slick was the kids' universe.
  • The series of updates starting with Kanaya: Return to the core. Eridan reveals that he's joining Jack Noir, then proceeds to blind Sollux with "science", kill Feferi, doom the troll race to extinction, and then kill Kanaya. Gamzee goes on a killing spree, taking out Equius and Nepeta.
  • This series of updates, where Karkat reveals that the reason why the kids session is barren is due to a flaw inherent to their universe. This was due to a mistake he made while creating said universe. The continuation count as well, as it's revealed that Jack only killed the trolls to prevent them from banishing him as well, and that his true target was Bilious Slick.
  • Gamzee revealing that he created Lil' Cal and paved the way for Jack Noir's rise.
  • This update shows the trolls' session is actually the second session their world has been through. The original session was played by the pre-scratch versions of the ancestors of "our" trolls, and "our" trolls take on the roles that the pre-scratch versions of their ancestors had. Alternia was also vastly different, with trolls being a peaceful race. When the original twelve players (our trolls pre-scratch ancestors) were unable to win, unknowingly due to a glitch where they weren't spawned in their own session, they struck a deal and scratched their universe, in exchange for the players being properly prepared for the next game. Doc Scratch came into play to uphold this bargain, and manipulated Alternia into becoming a Death World, and the troll species into becoming sociopathic warmongers. The roles of ancestors and players was reversed, with our trolls now playing and the original twelve being ancestors. To top it all off, one of the original twelve players, The Sufferer, somehow had visions of the original Alternia, which led to his attempted rebellion.
  • For the EOA, [S] Cascade:
    • Jack makes his trip from the Kids's session, to Earth, and finally into the Troll session, killing most of the Earth exiles along the way. He also badly maims WV by ripping the Uranium out of his stomach.
      • PM ascends by putting on the Queen's Ring and chases Jack into the Troll Session, accompanied by Serenity and carrying WV's body.
    • Spades Slick kills Snowman, resulting in the destruction of the Trolls' universe.
    • Derse's moon floats in the Furthest Ring, unable to find the Green Sun. Dave and Rose find Quest Beds in the center of Derse's moon, and go God Tier when the Tumor explodes, creating the Green Sun.
      • S u c k e r s .
    • Jade ascends to her God Tiers, merging with Jadesprite in the process.
      • Jade finds that her ascension grants her the ability to control the size of objects. She promptly uses this power to shrink down every planet in the kids' session, in effect packing up her entire session and taking it with her.
    • Jade breaks out of the Medium by breaking the fourth wall, just as the session is Scratched.
    • Sollux pilots the meteor the trolls are on, to the Green Sun, while blind, and then bleeds to death.

Intermission 2:

  • Lord English bursts out of Scratch's puppet body, shattering his cueball and basically killing him in the process. A very good host indeed.

Act 6 Act 1:

Act 6 Intermission 1:

  • The fact that the trip to the new session will take three years for the protagonists is surprising.

Act 6 Act 2:

  • Alpha Jack attempts to kill Jane's dreamself, under orders from the new Queen of Derse, who is actually Her Imperious Condescension. She's in the game.
  • Jake blacks out and sees a blue girl. It's not who you think.
  • There are Dersite exiles on Earth.
  • Roxy couldn't have put it any better.
    • Remember the girl Jake saw? Another meets Roxy, and she is NOT friendly.
  • Another Ophiuchus troll?
  • [S] Jane: Enter. GCat sabotages the prototyping of Jane's kernelsprite, and her totem is revealed to be a tree bearing no fruit. Somehow she still enters the Medium with the unprototyped sprite, but before she disappears Jane sees that the meteor heading towards her house is actually the Battleship Condescension. A Time Skip reveals that years in the future (but not many), this Earth isn't ravaged by meteors, but instead completely flooded by oceans. Jane's town will be replaced by a series of red Condesce-style towers, while Jake's island will be mostly submerged and a new Gl'bgolyb is shown around the barely visible Frog Temple and volcano. Meanwhile a large amount of Imperial Crocker Drones are about to attack Roxy and Dirk on a city-sized sprawl of buildings and an isolated skyscraper rooftop, respectively. In other words, Roxy and Dirk have been living in the future all along.

Act 6 Intermission 2:

Act 6 Act 3:

  • Jane finally enters the game! Her planet is... Land of Crypts and Helium. All of her Salamander Consorts are dead, because she arrived MILLIONS of years late. Hemera, the only living thing left on the planet, instructed them to build their own crypts while they slowly died. The Alpha Kids are no longer "Heroes" to the Consorts, they're "Nobles" - something they associate with tragedy. The writing in the stone doesn't make the other Kids' survival prospects look good either. And then she meets God Tier Gamzee Makara. With Aradia's music box time machines. He prototypes her sprite with the dead bodies of Vriska and Tavros, creating the personality-confused merging that is Tavrisprite...who immediately explodes out of pure self-hatred.
  • Pretty much everything following Jake: Regain consciousness. After falling unconscious, Jake relives a memory from his birthday where he spoke with Dirk. In the exposition laden conversation that follows:
    • Dirk reveals to Jake that he and Roxy are from the future, that UU gave them the chat client that lets them contact Jane and Jake in the past, and that they are the last humans (as far as they know) on Earth in the future.
    • The Condesce brought the Frightening Fauna to Earth, including the new Gl'bgolyb.
    • Grandma English was killed by the Condesce, who then exploded her house. Jake found her body and cremated her, keeping the ashes.
    • The Condesce was able to unlock her full psychic potential after years of experimentation, allowing her to use all of the troll psychic abilities seen in the comic so far.
    • Grandma English purposely named herself after Lord English to insult the Condesce. The most surprising thing is that she seemed to know what English looks like.
    • Post-Scratch Mom and Bro (Rose and Dave) knew Roxy and Dirk were coming in the future and set up their houses for them to live in. They then vanished after fighting Guy Fieri and the Insane Clown Posse; Fieri was responsible for the deaths of five billion people, while the ICP both became President Evil.
    • And then the Condesce kills them both. With help from a mind-controlled GCat.
  • Post-Scratch DD has the Black Queen's ring, and decides to put it on, while Eddie Morton's Midnight Crew plays in the background. Turns out that the Red Miles attack isn't exclusive to Bec Noir.
  • Caliborn has killed Calliope's dreamself, with some help from Jack. Also, their version of Skaia is entirely blackened.
  • Why do pre-Scratch trolls exist as ghosts when the Scratch should've wiped them out completely? Meenah blew them all up with their session's tumor, before their universe could reset.
  • The Red Miles currently destroying the B2 universe? That's Jack Noir too. Every single version of the B universe is contained inside the Genesis Frog that Jack murdered at the Critical Moment.
  • UU's reveal. So shocking that there is an author's note specifically asking not to reveal her true appearance, complete with a fake image. Her true name is Calliope, she is heavily implied to have a Split Personality with undyingUmbrage, she is the Muse of Space, she has been cosplaying as a troll this whole time, she is actually a Cherub (whatever that is), and she looks like a Fun Size Lord English. The last part pretty much broke the fandom.
  • Calliope and her brother live on the Trolls and Kids' meteor. Also, the surface of the planet the meteor is on is covered in crappy jpeg Statues of Liberty, much like the ones that would be used in Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Oh, and just to top it off, their sun is a red super giant near its death.
  • After several days without updates we get a character select screen...where Jane and Roxy suddenly die and Dirk and Jake get knocked unconscious. Also, Dirk couldn't kiss Jane's corpse before being knocked out and no-one could kiss Roxy, so their Dream Selves are screwed. And all this is narrated by undyingUmbrage, with a laugh like Lil' Cal and Doc Scratch.
    • Just to ensure there is no ambiguity, we get this page. Yep, Roxy and Jane are definitely dead, and Dirk is definitely KO'd.
  • The above situation is resolved when Dirk wakes up and Portal Cuts his own head. Which turns out to be a Thanatos Gambit Stable Time Loop that ends with Roxy, Dirk, and Jane being corpsesmooched and then meeting up with Jake on his island. Dirk's robots and Auto-Responder (now naming itself Lil' Hal) then send everyone into the Medium.
  • [S] Caliborn: Enter. UndyingUmbrage- real name Caliborn- takes control of Calliope's body, unchains himself by ripping off his foot with his teeth, attaches a robotic leg and unveils his Cane-turned-Machine Gun weapon- the spitting image of Lord English, who is traveling through Paradox Space destroying dream bubbles and breaking reality on a small scale. To bring the HSQ to an all-time high for Homestuck (as if that didn't already happen on a regular basis), because the cherubs' cruxtruder releases both his and Calliope's kernelsprites at the same time, they self-prototype and create a black hole which sucks in his planet and the dying red sun, the latter in the splitting image of the symbol that's been haunting Calliope for years.

Act 6 Intermission 3:

  • In Part 1 of the Intermission game:
    • While the revelation that Caliborn will become Lord English isn't particularly shocking, the mentioning that Calliope is dead is. Furthermore, her soul lies within one of the Dreambubbles. English is coming for her.
    • Also: Hussie is Only Mostly Dead, and was not killed in Lord English's dreambubble massacre.
  • In Part 2 of the Intermission game, we get a lot more of Lord English's backstory all at once:
    • (a) Cronus fought him with magic in his youth, forcing him to split his soul into several pieces, which are, presumably, Lil Cal and the Felt's Jujus.
    • (b) Kurloz received such a nightmarish vision of Lord English that he accidentally deafened his matesprit, chewed out his tongue, sewed his mouth shut, and took a vow of silence until...
    • (c) He received a codpiece in the dreambubbles from said matesprit, Meulin, after indoctrinating her their whole lives into his Cherub-worshipping cult, and then handed the codpiece over to his fellow servant, Gamzee, completing his quest to assemble the latter's signature attire.
      • This also implies that Gamzee went Godtier before becoming marooned on the Troll Asteroid.
  • Vriska and the Alpha-Timeline John finally meet face-to-face. On a lesser note, Tavros is planning to propose to Vriska.
    • Then, Vriska reveals that she's been hunting down a weapon hidden in the Furthest Ring that could possibly take down Lord English. Maps within the Furthest Ring are normally incomprehensible, but it turns out that when Lord English started trashing the dream bubbles, it started causing things to appear on the map.
  • In the third portion of the intermission game, Gamzee reveals that he's been in a blackrom relationship with Terezi and asks Rose not to tell Karkat or he'll want to kill him.
  • On the anniversary of Alterniabound and Cascade, we have a kiss. Between Kanaya and Rose.
  • And finally, intended for Halloween, but delayed by server downtime due to tropical storm Sandy, just about every single person in the dreambubble show up for a costume party and to watch Vriska and Meenah strife over who's plan gets the backing of an army of dreambubble ghosts.
    • Also: John somehow managed to take Tavros's ring with him back to his realself. And it's glowing.

Act 6 Act 4:

  • The Act's opening shows off Jake's planet (Land of Mounds and Xenon), Roxy's planet (Land of Pyramids and Neon), and Dirk's planet (Land of Tombs and Krypton). Then, the unexpected happens: the Act just ends.

Act 6 Intermission 4:

  • The story shifts to Caliborn's perspective as he arrives on his barren planet. Shit just got real.
    • Roxy tries contacting him in order to get Calliope back in control. Too bad it doesn't work.
    • Gamzee shows up yet again on Caliborn's planet. How does Caliborn respond? He just shoots the shit out of Gamzee. To make things more suprising, Gamzee's God Tier wings fall off during the gunfire - signifying that his God Tier appearance was just a costume.
    • And what was Gamzee attempting to be a guide for? It's a tower that appears to either produce or relay the narrative of MSPA.
    • It turns out that Gamzee, at the moment, can't die because he's a clown. Gamzee then gives Caliborn an outlet to get things the viewport working, as well as Crowbar's crowbar. The one that can break Jujus. Uh-oh.
    • And now we find that Caliborn's session is a dead session, which is even worse than the Alpha kids' void session.
    • And he can fully observe the Alpha's void session despite the void blacking it out thanks to a special signal. By the end of the Intermission, he's ready to make contact with the Alpha Session's iteration of Jack Noir.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1:

  • GCat drops Roxy onto Derse following her attempt at involvement in one of the comic's worst romantic quandaries. Who's waiting for her there, smiling upon her unconscious body? Someone who should remind readers that she is a much greater problem for the Alpha session than teen angst: the Condesce.
  • Serenity probably contains Calliope's soul, since Calliope now manifests in Roxy's dreams in the image of Serenity.
    • In this dream, Calliope leads Roxy into not only her memories from her "own" universe, but also into her subconscious memories of being Mom in the preceding B1 universe.
    • Calliope then appears to lead her outside of any known setting in Homestuck. Most of what is in this realm that isn't Roxy or Calliope appears as if it were drawn in paint and crayon, like in Calliope's art, since it is, in fact, a heavily isolated bubble influenced by Calliope's imagination. Though before she tells Roxy this, the reader just sees everything as an almost unprecedented Mind Screw.
      • And Calliope's revelation to Roxy while in this bubble is enormous: She is not the ultimate anti-English weapon the troll army is looking for, and yet she is that weapon. That is, her doomed (though nigh omnipotent) self from an offshoot timeline is the weapon.
  • Lil Cal winks. He winks. Why? Because, as Caliborn's description of his relationship with his new juju and best friend suggests, Cal will be, is, and has always been filled with Caliborn's soul.
  • Jane fuses the jujus, and we get this. What.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 2:

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 X2 Combo:

  • And then it's all over with the command GO BACK TO ACT 6 ACT 5 ACT 1. Jane looks tweaked out of her mind, but before the reader can see more, Caliborn expresses his displeasure with Hussie's decision to end A6A5A2. After knocking the site around with the crowbar again and having a heated debate with Hussie over Trickster Mode's evils, Caliborn and Gamzee engage ACT 6 ACT 5 ACT 1 x2 COMBO, a new viewing mode featuring two panels on each page. And what do these first double-panels show? That all four Alpha kids have somehow ended up on their Quest Crypts.
  • Alpha Jack Noir becomes Jack English, thanks to a little gift from Gamzee.
  • Jack English and the Condesce then simultaneously kill all four of the Alpha players by blowing up the moons with a Lord English Mouth Laser and a psionic Optiic Bla2t, respectively, allowing them, naturally, to ascend to God Tier.
  • Jack attempts to kill Jane and Jake, but Jade appears and banishes Jack to the void, and thus the Beta Heroes finally begin their arrival...
    • An arrival that will be impeded by the fact that the Condesce, with the Tavros/Vriska powers of animal communion and manipulation that work on GCat, makes Jade go GRIMBARK and, with Jade's and the Tiaratop's help, turns Jane Crockerdark. Jade banishes Dirk to the void, and the two variously eldritch-throed ex-heroes carry Roxy and Jake to the Condesce, who ends the whole act with a lipstick mark.

Act 6 Intermission 5

  • Gamzee is responsible (partially, at least) for Caliborn's rise to power. From the moment of his birth.
  • We finally learn why Terezi has been keeping her hood down for most of Act 6: once again, she can SEE. (And once again, the expression on Karkat's face perfectly mirrors the reader's).
  • The ring that Hussie tried to propose to Vriska with, the ring that is presumably the one John now has, can actually bring anyone back from the dead, and it has a twin: the ring that Roxy lost.
  • Caliborn's treasure that he hid away from anyone who could use it against him is a transparent, intangible Sburb House logo. Sounds fair enough, right? Well, when John reaches into the logo, he's able to literally get his hands into any point in Homestuck. Small wonder Caliborn locked it away.
    • All seems well at first, until John blurs and disappears ominously.
  • Spades Slick and a revived Felt are headed straight for the B2 session for an almost certain meetup of all three major incarnations of Jack Noir.
  • John not only has his hand poking around the comic, but his whole, waking body teleports to various points along the comic's timeline as an effect of the logo juju, including the sixth sub-intermission, where he and Caliborn lock eyes so that we have the first in-person encounter between a juvenile cherub (in its natural form) and a human.
  • The meteor group finally arrives in the new session! Unfortunately, the meteor itself misses contact with a planet altogether, and Karkat realizes that the group has no real way of slowing the meteor down when it comes into collision with something, meaning that the people on it will die. Just as Dave starts to come up with a couple of solutions, Grimbark!Jade shows up. She dumps them all (except for Gamzee) on LOMAX in front of John, who's doing nothing in particular but goofing around until that point.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 1

  • The introduction to the Act, while amusing, does note that not only did Caliborn achieve the Godtier status, he ascended the whole Echeladder. A little later, he decides to put the narrative cartridge in in order for the story to progress, but he first jams it with Special Stardust, which leads to a much more shocking turn of events.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1

  • The next flash (opener for this sub-act) starts out normal, picking back up with Jade driving the meteor into Skaia before restoring the B1 session's planets into the B2 session. The video starts to break up due to the Special Stardust clogging the cartridge, and Jade can briefly be seen attacking John. Jane can briefly be seen with GCat staring at a monitor, and then the video abruptly stops before the narrative prompts the viewer to look at the aftermath of the event. Afterward, the characters who were once briefly united have been separated on several different planets, with noticable Laser-Guided Amnesia resulting from the glitching in the story. The Interface Screw garbles the text so bad that Dave can't even understand what Rose is saying (even though she's sober) and vice-versa. And most frighteningly, John is nowhere to be found.
  • Jade kicking WV into lava never really ends up happening. How? John effectively erases it and much of the conversation leading up to it simply by zapping into a "repeat" of the narrative arc. Yet the narrative's events return to their original course in the arc's third/first iteration when a second John briefly appears and zaps him out just before Dave and Jade notice him. This not only means that John has the potential to dangerously alter the narrative with his power, but that in his future, he will control and use it to patrol the narrative for errant appearances of himself.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2

  • Gamzee steals the Ring of Life from John, but, surprisingly, not to ensure his own immortality; instead, he gives it to Aranea in the bubbles, and it appears that he's been acting as her servant for a long time.
    • She then uses him to teleport directly into the Alpha session.
    • Her ultimate plan? To create a doomed timeline where the session never bears fruit and the cherubs are never born, heal it, and shape it a new alpha timeline.
  • Aranea's first step in this plan after her resurrection is to "heal" Jake's mind so that he reaches his full potential as Page of Hope. In the resulting final form, he creates a legion of angels, destroys a significant portion of Derse, No Sells Jade even at the extreme limits of her power, and cures her of the grimbark state.
    • And Jake was still getting more powerful when Jane killed him.
    • And then Aranea, in order to prevent Jade from being forced back into grimbarkness, crushes her with her house-tower. She even demonstrates the true extent of her Light powers by rigging the clock to register it as a "Just" death.
  • After Jade's apparent death, Jane goes down in order to recover her body to heal her. Then Gamzee shows up out of absolutely nowhere, about to land on Jane. Aranea doesn't appreciate Roxy trying to stop her plan, so she puts her to sleep. With Brain Ghost Dirk behind her, sword drawn.
  • Calliope's first appearance in a long time features her secret area being intruded upon by someone. That someone happens to be Jade.
  • As Brain Ghost Dirk recognizes Aranea's obvious trap of offering her ring arm to him, he decides to put down his sword and rip her soul out of her body with the full power of a Prince of Heart instead.
  • Jake's Hope Field is fading, and Brain Ghost Dirk along with it. Aranea's control over Gamzee is dissolving as Terezi screams for him to fight back. Rose is trying to wake Roxy from her slumber, just after meeting her for a second time. And to top it all off, Jane throws her Skaia fork at Jake, which skewers him straight in the heart.
    • After those events, Aranea keeps her soul due to Brain Ghost Dirk disappearing upon the death of Jake, only to be set upon by an angry Jane. However, even after Aranea puts her to sleep, the Tiaratop controls Jane and makes her tackle Aranea!
    • Meanwhile, Gamzee snaps out of his mind control and (in his original quirk!) pleads Terezi to stop. At this, Terezi becomes paralyzed with remorse. Unfortunalely, this causes Gamzee to lose himself in rage and punch Terezi.
  • Lava has started raining down on Skaia since Jane's fork fell into LOFAF's lava, and amidst all the chaos happening, Her Imperious Condescension herself enters the fray. And then the intermission ends.
    • And the day after this cliffhanger, Hussie begins the Gigapause, meaning the the story is left at a cliffhanger until Hussie can finish the rest of Homestuck (this was later changed to the rest Homestuck being posted serially just like it previously was).

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3

  • At the end of a long state-of-affairs post that Andrew Hussie made nearly a whole year after the Gigapause began, he mentioned that before the end of Homestuck, there will be an event that he is dubbing as "The Rapture". Based on the description, it sounds as though this event will be the biggest Wham Episode in the history of the comic, and it will have significant repercussions on the remainder of the series. Holy Shit.
    We are slowly building to a particular moment I foresee on the horizon. It's not just characterized by the end of the story, though that should be a factor. It's more than that. Things I have planned, and some other things we'll say may be fortuitously aligned. Invisible pieces of a heinous machine all snapping together, mechanically congealing with a grim sense of purpose. I'm tentatively branding to this moment as The Rapture, and it will be more than you can bear. More than anyone can. And everyone won't.
    • And then it presumably comes to pass in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3/[S] GAME OVER: Almost everybody dies. Karkat? Gets stabbed by Gamzee and thrown into the lava. Gamzee? Chainsawed in half by Kanaya. Kanaya? Gets vaporized by the Condesce's eye beams. Dave? Dies on top of Jade's corpse after trying and failing to defend himself from PM and Bec Noir (Heroic God Tier death). Jake? Takes a hit for Jane (Heroic God Tier death). Jane? Gets stabbed by the same weapon that kills Jake - with Jake still impaled on it. (Just God Tier death.) Rose? Tries to attack the Condesce for killing Kanaya, gets shanked by her trident and is rescued by Roxy, but dies shortly after (Heroic God Tier Death). Holy fuck. Intercut with John beating up Caliborn, before getting zapped away. In addition, Terezi is forced by Aranea to stab herself, but it is later revealed that she survives.
    • Followed up by a second, smaller update, which sees the Condesce yank the Ring of Life off of Aranea's finger and then snap her neck, killing her in a "Just" fashion.
    • To put it into perspective, by this point, only the following characters haven't been killed: John, Caliborn, Roxy, Terezi, Dirk, WV (although he was on LOHAC, so he may be dead), GCAT, the Sprites, Casey, PM, Bec Noir, alpha White Queen, alpha DD & CD, Jack English, Spades Slick and the Felt (plus Ms. Paint), Dad Crocker, and the Condesce.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4

  • Jade met an alternate version of Calliope that defeated her brother and ascended to god tier - meaning she could be the doomed Calliope who is theorized to be able to defeat Lord English. Apparently she told Jade many stories, one of which being the story of how in her universe John died.
    • And then we discover the following:
      • 1) This isn't Alpha Jade, but one from a doomed timeline.
      • 2) John and Typheus make a bargain that involved killing John of that timeline, implying possibly even every alternate John in every timeline was also killed.
      • 3) GAME OVER and everything seen in the Alpha session onwards takes place in a doomed timeline.
  • Remember all the arms that appeared when John stuck it through the artifact. He did it again by using his powers to zap away ALL THE OIL ON LOWAS, leaving oil blotches to prove his mastery. IT KEEPS HAPPENING!
  • John has finally mastered his Reality Warper powers, and in doing so can finally complete the quest of his planet that was set up for him over three years ago. He finally completes his quest and finishes it off by playing the magnificent Pipeorgankind on the gigantic pipe organ in Typheus' fortress to "play the breeze." This succeeds in not only engulfing his planet and the rest of the continuity of Homestuck in wind, but also manages to BLAST the faulty Homestuck Cartridge out of Caliborn's player and blow the candy corn and special stardust out! Suffice it to say that Pipeorgankind became a fan favorite after that flash.
  • Jane joins Calliope and Jade in telling the story of that Jade's alternate timeline. Jade and Jane were still brainwashed by the Batterwitch, but Jade suddenly disappeared before she could scatter the heroes, allowing for them to plan a counterattack. However, during an attempt at a jailbreak, Roxy intercepts Jane's trident to protect Rose, dying a heroic death, and most likely fulfilling the requirement's of The Choice Nyx presented to Roxy.
  • A double Whammy with John's final retcon as part of Terezi's plan. First, there was a hero in in Dream!Jade and Dream!Jane's timeline who led the heroes against the Condescension, someone who died earlier but was saved by John's Retcons. This leads directly into the second Wham. John saved Vriska from getting killed! "All bets are off" indeed.
  • After getting done with Terezi's laundry list of changes to make to the timeline (with the exception of handing her the wallet that he lost), he returns to Roxy with the Ring Of Life. Then he warps with her in tow... along with the entire planet of LOWAS.
  • To end Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4; the Jade and Jane currently talking to Calliope aren't dead, they're asleep. Who put them to sleep? A now very much alive Vriska, who because of John's retconning was never killed by Terezi.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 5

  • All three updates of this act, also called "Caliborn's Masterpiece", is this:
    • Part 1 (posted on the 6th anniversary of Homestuck): Calliborn upgrades from shitty drawing to somewhat less shitty claymation as he begins to tell a story about a future point in time that he saw on his planet's monitors, before he got his Cairo Overcoat, but after he got his flashing eyes. He drops two bombshells: 1. he has the Ring of Void and 2. the Kids from both post-Scratch and pre-Scratch have teamed up and warped in using John's powers in order to try to defeat him then and there. This doesn't look pretty.
    • Part 2: The functions of Caliborn's boon from Yaldabaoth are explained. First, it traps four souls into its windows, which he promptly uses on the pre-Scratch kids, leaving Caliborn to defeat the post-Scratch kids. Then, it becomes a gap in reality, the effects of which have already been demonstrated by John, which is a very big liability to Caliborn, hence why he hid it in the the depths of Paradox Space using the Ring of Void. Also, Jake awakens his hope powers again in response to the sight of Caliborn beating up Dirk.
    • Part 3: Jake defeats Caliborn with his hope powers, inspiring him to later steal his name as Lord English. Then, while Arquiusprite pins him down, Dirk steals Caliborn's, Gamzee's and Arquiusprite's souls...and seals them into Lil' Cal and banishes the dummy into the Void, allowing it to manifest in the nightmares of children for Lord English to appear in their universe. Yep, that's right, Dirk and the post-Scratch kids essentially created Lord English.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5

  • Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5 opens with Vriska going through assorted images of her time on the meteor, revealing that a lot of the bad stuff that happened in the three years? Gone. John's retconning not only brought Vriska back to life, but because she was there, she actually kept most of the problems encountered by the group from even happening. Including Terezi rekindling her friendship with her (and never entering a blackrom with Gamzee), Vriska stopping Rose from becoming The Alcoholic, and being the one to prototype the Alpha Kids' Sprites, starting with Tavros being prototyped by himself as Jane's Sprite.
  • Something begins to warp Calliope's personal recluse, and she along with Jade and Jane decide to travel down the yellow spiral after it undulates into a path. They end up at a place Jade recognises, only for Jane to suddenly spring awake due to Arquisprite finishing his hacking of the Tiaratop. Jaspersprite accidentally prototypes Rosesprite with himself in a bout of happines, creating the humanoid Jasprosesprite^2. Sudddenly, the story goes back to Jade and Calliope's dream bubble, which is starting to become surrounded with reality cracks, where the culprit of the warping, God Tier!Calliope appears to them and beckons them forward, her text as red as Caliborn's blood.
  • After the alternate Calliope instructs the alpha Calliope to "live", she disappears and the memory of Echidna's lair fades along with her, leaving Calliope alone in a dark void. Except she isn't alone. She has a guest in the form of Roxy, who slips the very Ring of Life that John recovered onto Calliope's finger. The latter actually smiles (this being the same person who was terrified of being rejected based on her appearance, mind you), before Roxy takes her hand and warps away with her in tow. Ladies and gentlemen, she's back.
  • With Calliope's help, Roxy manages to tap into the essence of Alternia itself as she dives into the hammerspace of nonexistence in her latest attempt to conjure a matriorb...and she succeeds, to the duo's utter elation.
  • Post-Retcon Vriska and Meenah are wandering LOMAT thinking of what to do as they look to recover the ghost army. They then find that it's under new management. Management that is named Tavros Nitram (well, the version of him that abandoned the Dead Vriska anyway).

Act 6 Act 6 Act 6

    Wham Line 
> Further appraise verbal revelations.

Oh Jegus, how can simple words be so plot-twisting?

  • In John's first conversation with Nannasprite, the audience and John learn that Homestuck will not be about saving the world, because it is absolutely doomed.
    JOHN: and then after that, we solve this ultimate riddle thing and save earth from destruction!!!
    NANNASPRITE: Oh no, I'm afraid not!
    NANNASPRITE: Your planet is done for, dear! There is nothing you can do about that!
  • Rose reveals that the vandalism in John's room has existed long before John and the audience first noticed it. This seriously casts doubt on John's mental state and the audience's perception of events.
    TT: Your posters have looked like that ever since I first saw your room.
  • The Snowman's powers were undisclosed for a time, and assumed to be just as situational and silly as the powers of other members of the Felt. When she finally appears in person, the narration gives us an idea of the scale of her power. "Everyone always ceases gunplay when Snowman's around. If you kill her you destroy the universe."
  • This line from Dave reveals that the Flash Forward to four months is a Bad Future where two of the main characters have died.
    TG: what else is there to know
    TG: we lost
    TG: cant finish the game with a dead heir and witch
  • The line to John from Karkat points to how things went south in the kids' session.
    EB: ok, well you keep saying how doomed we are and how all this bad stuff happens sooner, but you never say why!
    EB: what happens in our game that's different from yours that makes things go so badly?
    CG: JACK NOIR.
  • Courtesy of Aradia Megido, the ultimate purpose of Sburb and the end goal of the comic as a whole: to create a new universe.
    AA: banished fr0m the universe we left behind
    AA: and yet in being denied the ultimate reward
    AA: we w0uld be barred fr0m entry
    AA: int0 the universe we created.
  • In the first "Alterniabound" ("Past Karkat: Wake Up") Equius gives us a shocking revelation about Sprites: that they can be killed.
    EQUIUS: Aurthor is dead.
    EQUIUS: And so is his ghost.
  • Dave listens to the Horrorterrors, and finds out something more powerful than them is hunting them.
    TG: im pretty sure it was
    TG: like
    TT: ?
    TG: a plea for help
  • And then Rose reveals the identity of her informant:
    TG: what you mean a troll
    TT: No.
    TT: It's a man who exists in another universe.
    TT: He wants to die.
  • A pretty big one came buried under lots of text here, where we learn that Jade's mysterious penpal is somehow her grandson.
    GG: because he said hes my grandson
  • In the middle of an entirely unrelated incident, the focus cuts to Gamzee Makara, an entirely irrelevant joke character, staring at his computer, as the narration describes him as the most important character in Homestuck. This entirely changes the adueince's perspective on Gamzee, who (again) had no significant role in the plot.
    "While a timer counts down with no particular clock stepping forward to claim it...The most important character in Homestuck fondly regards the miracle of a new beginning."
  • One word shattered the expectations of fans used to Plot Armor: DEAD. Alongside the brutal image of Tavros's bleeding body, it set the tone for the slaughter of troll characters that would come up. It also overlaps with Unsound Effect.
  • Kanaya informs Jade on the importance of the Genesis Frog, by explaining that the frog is literally an entire universe, and that creating the frog will result in a universe for Jade to nurture.
    GA: He Is Not Responsible For Just One Aspect Of The Universe You Create
    GA: He's Responsible For All Of Them
    GA: Bilious Slick Is Your Universe
  • With this line from Eridan, everything goes to hell as he goes from being a jerk to a coward willing to align with a genocidal demon at the cost of his own friends.
    CA: fight him
    CA: are you fuckin nuts
    CA: i slaughtered enough angels to knoww my limits and wwhere i stand against the lord of all angels they prophesized
    CA: of course im not gonna fight him i stand no chance in hell against that guy
    CA: im goin to join him
  • "Don't turn your back on the body" is an intentional wham line meant on Doc Scratch's part to make Karkat paranoid and nervous around the corpses that now litter his surroundings.
  • Gamzee may have been called "the most important character in Homestuck, but that didn't stop him from spending most of Act 5 stoned out his mind and too concerned with his pile of bicycle horns get on anyone's bad side. And then ...
    TC: shut up.
    • Just before that, "TC: honk."/"TC: HONK." is a much more subtle one. The fact that he isn't using his typical Typing Quirk is the first indication that something is not right with him.
  • Rose's rage over her mother's death and failed attempt to understand the incomprehensible Gods of the Furthest Ring result in her being overtaken by darkness, as revealed in an overly verbose and kind of silly paragraph from right before we see Grimdark!Rose.
    "You slip into the fabled blackdeath trance of the woegothics, quaking all the while in the bloodeldritch throes of the broodfester tongues. You advise the members of your Complacency not to be alarmed, as they chronicle the event in tomes bound in the tanned, writhing flesh of a tortured hellscholar, with runes stroked in the black tears bled from the corruption-weary eyes of fifty thousand imaginary occultists. But they fail to not be alarmed. This is because, as is now painfully obvious to anyone with a brain, you have basically gone completely off the deep end in every way. You have officially gone grimdark."
  • Perhaps the most meta example in the story occurs in the aftermath of [S] Flip (edited for clarity):
    The disk is too badly damaged. You can no longer play Homestuck.
    You are forced to quit. You will not be able to resume playing unless you can repair the scratch in the disk.
    You will need to seek the service of someone who is capable of fixing a scratch.
    A scratch doctor, if you will.
  • "Pardon me while I let Jack inside."
  • Doc Scratch gets a few of these during his intermission. Sorted by date:
    • 5/25/11: "The duel ends. The Seer dies. The Slayer departs. The Heir comes back to life."
    • 5/31/11: "With as little fanfare, he seized the opportunity to follow the Thief's trail quickly before it dissipated, and destroyed their hideout in the veil."
    • 6/8/11: "What sort of story would this be, with our Knight and Seer made to stay cadavers? Certainly not one the alpha timeline would allow. And not one she'd allow either."
    • 6/19/11: "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO KILL HER."
  • When Dreambubble John finally begins to remember the Awful Truth:
    GT: This was not the suit i was wearing when i died.
  • Davesprite explains to Jade his second encounter with Hephaestus:
    DAVESPRITE: see it turns out
    DAVESPRITE: i had no idea how the denizens worked at all
  • From Nannasprite, on the identity of her adopted mother, Betty Crocker:
    pipefan413: She knew the baroness was not human! :B
  • Karkat apologizes:
    PCG: I GAVE YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE CANCER, JADE.
  • Betty Crocker: @turntechGodhead Please enjoy. Mr. Strider. http://tinyurl.com/MoThErFuCkInMiRaClEs
  • We find out why Gamzee is "the most important character in Homestuck":
    TC: AND I WENT AND MADE YOUR UNIVERSE...
    TC: terminal. Bo)
    • And then (much later) we find that "the most important character" mentioned in that scene isn't actually Gamzee...
  • Quoth Doc Scratch about an early set of Alternians: "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. That is to say, they had never known me."
    • A little later, same conversation:"The heroes chose to accept this bargain, and scratched their session."
    • A little later, same conversation: "But in addition to losing their memories of everything that had happened before the scratch, there was another catch for the failed heroes. In the new reality, they would not serve as the heroes."
    • And a final one from Scratch, probably the biggest of all, at the EOA5 flash, right before all the kids' plans come to a head and the universe is reset:
    S u c k e r s.
  • Lord English finally makes his first appearance:
    GIRL.
    YOU THERE. GIRL.
    GIRL, QUIT ALL THIS SCURRYING AROUND.
    DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN ESCAPE ME BEFORE I ARRIVE?
    HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO OUTRUN ME
    WHEN I AM ALREADY HERE?
  • uranianUmbra [UU] began cheering gutsyGumshoe [GG] at 11:17
  • In an otherwise silly and hilarious conversation with a 15-year-old drunk:
    GG: I believe SOMEBODY doesn't want me to play.
    GG: How else do you explain the recent attempts on my life?
  • "The Page is dead. Our hope is lost."
  • When John asks how long it will take him and Jade to cross the Yellow Yard and arrive in the new session:
    GG: i would say
    GG: if i keep our speed constant...
    GG: we should arrive in about three years
  • "You say it's all fair game now that the kingdom's under new management. The new boss ain't opposed to taking some shrewd tactical shortcuts."
  • In a conversation with Dirk Strider, Roxy drops this conversational bomb, about her "upbringin"
    TG: like
    TG: do u know how misrable it is for your bff to doubt you
    TG: when you tell her your mom is dead
  • In a dream bubble, Terezi has a chat with Vriska. Only to learn something unexpected.
    GC: VR1SK4
    GC: YOU SOUND R34LLY D1FF3R3NT
    GC: WH4T H4PP3N3D TO YOU OUT H3R3?
    AG: Sorry for the ruse.
    AG: Though it isn't as far from the truth as it possi8ly could 8e, I am not who you think I am.
  • With this line from Roxy, humanity's fate is made significantly less ambiguous:
    TT: There are no humans either. They all went extinct.
    TT: Roxy and I are the only ones left, as far as we know.
  • Caliborn's "shitty twist":
    uu: I ALREADY KILLED HER!!!!!
  • The prelude to one of the most shocking revelations in Act 6.
    UU: oh bUgger. this is so embarrassing to have to admit.
    UU: i am sorry for saying things which may have reasonably led yoU to believe this.
    UU: probably way too many things. u_u;
    UU: bUt i am not actUally a troll.
  • "But the fact that he's a slob was never exactly breaking news to anyone. Neither is the fact that you both share a body."
  • Parodied while John and Jade are watching Con Air:
    JOHN: jade...
    JADE: hm?
    JOHN: i think i just realized something.
    JADE: what?
    JOHN: THIS MOVIE FUCKING SUCKS!!!
  • Kurloz' lines after he gets the codpiece from Meulin:
    EXCELLENT WORK, MY MAGE
    IT MUST BE DELIVERED TO THE BARD OF RAGE AT ONCE, SO THAT HE MAY CONTINUE OUR LORDS MIRTHFUL MOTHER FUCKIN WORK
    LONG LIVE THE ANGEL OF DOUBLE DEATH
  • Caliborn does it again.
    uu: THAT SACCHARINE TRAMP IS SUCH A GONER. SHE'S NEVER COMING BACK.
    uu: JUST LIKE YOUR DAPPER HUMAN GUARDIAN.
  • Caliborn talks to Jake about his session, and eventually reveals that he has a new Juju. What is this, you ask?
    GT: So whats this juju he gave you?
    uu: SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL.
    uu: A WONDERFUL LITTLE FALSE MAN.
    uu: THE THING IS. I UNDERSTAND HIM MORE NOW.
    uu: BEFORE I THOUGHT HE WAS A CURSED VESSEL OF MISFORTUNE. WHICH SEEMED EERILY EMPTY TO ME.
    uu: HE WAS HOLLOW. NOT YET FILLED WITH BAD JUJU.
    uu: AND LOOKING IN HIS EYES NOW. I SEE. THAT I WAS RIGHT. ALMOST.
    uu: HE IS EMPTY RIGHT NOW. BUT A JUJU FOLLOWS A LONG AND WINDING PATH ON ITS ETERNAL JOURNEY.
    uu: AND HE WILL NOT BE EMPTY FOREVER.
    uu: SOMEWHERE ALONG HIS JOURNEY.
    uu: IN SOME WAY I DON'T UNDERSTAND YET.
    uu: HE WILL STOP BEING EMPTY.
    uu: AND HIS CURSE WILL COME TO LIFE.
    uu: AND WHEREVER HE GOES. TO WHATEVER UNIVERSE OR PLANE OF REALITY.
    uu: ALL WHO EXIST THERE. WILL EXPERIENCE NOTHING BUT MISERY AND DEATH.
    • The cherry on top:
    uu: AND ALL THOSE ALONG THE WAY.
    uu: WHO HE DEEMS WORTHY.
    uu: OF ACCEPTING INTO HIS CUSTODY.
    uu: IF THEY SHOULD DARE TO FONDLY GAZE.
    uu: INTO HIS SPARKLING BABY BLUES.
    uu: THEY WILL BE PEERING THROUGH THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WINDOWS.
    uu: INTO MY HIDEOUS SOUL.
  • Probably the weirdest Wham Line in the entirety of Homestuck follows the Trickster sequence.
    GO BACK TO ACT 6 ACT 5 ACT 1
  • In the midst of the long-anticipated meeting between Jade and the Alpha Kids, this command lets the readers know that everything is about to go very, very wrong:
    )(IC: Spring trap x2 combo.
  • In a dreambubble, John asks Aradia what she really wants.
    i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart
  • The Troll's meteor is about to crash. How could it get any worse? Well...
    BARK
  • John Egbert has gone missing.
  • John Egbert's ring has gone missing.
    • And then, we see its new bearer is not meant to be the clown who steals it, but a master nobody could see coming:
      ARANEA: Rise, my 8ard.
    • And THEN:
      ARANEA: I'm going to take over this session.
      ARANEA: And then I am going to make sure it never 8ears fruit.
    • AND THEN:
      TALLY HO
    • AND FUCKING THEN:
      ARANEA:8ut the moment she wakes up, she will simply 8ecome possessed again.
      ARANEA: Again, I am very sorry.
      ARANEA: 8ut it must 8e done.
      "dead."
    • And after all of the above, the most painful word in HS history:
      Just
  • Keeping the above in mind, there's this:
    JADE: hi!
  • Jane to Jake as the hope field dies:
    JANE: Forgive me, Jake.
  • Gamzee gets one right after Jake's death - not so much because of what he says, but how he says it (and the fact that he's saying it):
    GAMZEE: TeReZi...
    GAMZEE: wHoA.
    GAMZEE: PlEaSe StOp.
    GAMZEE: YoU'rE mOtHeRfUcKiN...
    GAMZEE: hUrTiNg Me. :o(
    • Which is then followed up by...
    GAMZEE: HONK
  • Jade, when talking about the stories that the alternate Calliope told her:
    JADE: so she went on to tell another story
    JADE: not one about your brother
    JADE: but one about mine
    CALLIOPE: it already soUnds like a mUch more pleasant story.
    JADE: well
    JADE: not exactly...
    JADE: this is the story about how he died
    • A little earlier than that, we find out how Jade knew Calliope; they conversed in a dream once. And...
    JADE: you were a god tier!
    • Shortly after, Jade drops another bombshell:
    JADE: a transition to a story about MY brother... who was stuck in a doomed timeline too
    JADE: i think ill mess it up if i try to match what she said word for word
    JADE: she had a really fanciful way of putting things
    CALLIOPE: there's no need to try to recite what she said.
    CALLIOPE: jUst tell the story in yoUr own voice, as yoU have already been doing!
    CALLIOPE: it will be more fUn that way.
    JADE: ok
    JADE: so the bottom line was
    JADE: almost all our friends had died
    JADE: and johns only hope was to return to his planet, and attempt to complete his personal quest
  • One of Terezi's last instructions to John:
    KNOCK H3R OUT! YOU C4N'T L3T M3 K1LL H3R
  • A bombshell at the end of A6A6I4:
    JADE: we were never dead at all
    JADE: weve been asleep!
  • A bit of a jolt comes at the Lalondes and Dave's conversation partway through in A6A6I5, due to who says it.
    VRISKA: Assuming you 8other going to see her at all. Couldn't really 8lame you if you didn't though.
    ROSE: I probably won't.
    ROSESPRITE: Won't what?
  • When John asks Vriska why she won't be here with everyone else to take on the main threats in the session, here's what Vriska says:
    VRISKA: I'm traveling to the furthest ring to go kill Lord English.
    • Notably, this was right before the first week-pause in A6A6I5.
  • When Jaspers begins to react to everyone being happy about Jane's rescue:
    JASPERSPRITE: Purr purr purr...
    JASPERSPRITE: All the humans being so close together and happy and friendly purr purr.
    JASPERSPRITE: Its making me really excited and happy too and making me feel like i want to be a part of everything!
    JASPERSPRITE: Purr purr and get close to a nearby person and be happy at them with my body purrrr...
    ROSESPRITE: Jaspers, what are you...
    JASPERSPRITE: I cant help it rose i want to cuddle im feeling so pleased and friendly! :3 :3 :3
    ROSESPRITE: Jaspers, no,
    ROSESPRITE: No, don't!
    • And then came Jasprosesprite^2, not only the first sprite fusion, but technically the first third-tier one to boot, too.
  • Doubling with Wham Shot, as the text happens to be Caliborn's red.
    CALLIOPE: welcome back, jade.
  • Doubling as a Wham Shot, but in [S] Act 7, we get this final message from Sburb after the gang enters the new universe:
    "Thanks for Playing"

    Wham Shot 
> Comprehend revelatory visual data packets.

Homestuck also has plenty of surprises that are confined to fleeting moments.

  • Bec jumping into Jade's kernelsprite. And then, if the implications hadn't hit you yet, Jack Noir undergoing his final transformation.
  • Calliope's true face. It's so much of a spoiler, that author provided a fake image and asked people not to spoil the twist.
  • Caliborn ripping out his leg and replacing it with a robotic one, in the exact same place as Lord English's peg leg. And if that doesn't convince you that he's Lord English's past self, then he spits out a tooth, in the same place as Lord English's golden tooth, and brings out his cane/assault rifle.
  • Terezi with seeing eyes.
  • This update brings us four in short succession. First Gamzee has the Ring of Life. Then, he's actually being mind-controlled. Then, the mind-controller turns out to be Aranea Serket. Then, she puts the ring on and is brought back to life.
  • [S]: GAME OVER looks like it's gonna be epic and darkly humorous...and then Gamzee stabs Karkat and drops him in lava.
  • The update following the A6A6I5 flash zooms into a Skaian cloud showing some of the kids and trolls on the endgame platform.
  • [S]: Collide has several.
    • Dad Crocker punching his way out of prison.
    • Aradia timestopping Lord English. And then strangling him with her whip.
    • Union Jack restraining Dirk, followed by Spades Slick restraining Union Jack—what follows is Dave having to cut all three of their heads off.
    • And then Union Jack's head nukes the planet they were on (after they escape, fortunately).
    • PM punching Jade in the face to keep her from interfering with her vengeance on Bec Noir and then slicing Bec Noir's arm off, defeating him for good.
    • At the end, the Condesce is suddenly impaled through the back by Bro's sword. As she falls dead, we see who killed her: Roxy.
  • From [S]: Act 7.
    • The larval Genesis Frog bursting out of the forge and metamorphosing into a new universe.
    • Calliope conjuring a black hole to destroy the Green Sun.
    • WV and PM constructing a real version of Can Town.
    • "Thanks for Playing" (doubles as a Wham Line).
    • Lord English's eyes stop cycling and his expression becomes one of legitimate fear when he realizes the treasure juju is about to be used on him.

    Mood Whiplash 
> 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" D'awww.
    • 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 Awesome Moments 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, and John's happy face either makes you say Dude, Not Funny! or what a Funny Moment.
  • [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:
    They both then proceeded to have one of the best rap-offs in the history of paradox space.
  • 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 is both a Tear Jerker and a Heartwarming Moment:
    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.
  • 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! PFFT...HAHAHAHAHAHA!
  • 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. Seriously.
    • 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 triumphantly 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 Nightmare Fuel like another forced abduction becomes a Heartwarming Moment 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 heartwarming 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. The scene we left off at? With Condy and Aranea and Jake and Jane and Dave and Rose and Kanaya and Gamzee and all those guys? Only one or two of them are left alive by the end.
  • 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, the mood flips to Heartwarming as 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.

    Funny Aneurysm Moment 
> Comprehend initially funny sitatutions that later turn grimdark.

Homestuck is so full of these, it's getting to the point that laughing at anything is a dicey proposition. Not that that will stop us.

  • The throwaway line about the Sassacre tome being large enough to kill a cat becomes a bit somber when it turns out that the book is actually what killed Jaspers.
  • Can Town counts. Wayward Vagabond pretending to be adored by a bunch of citizen cans becomes a lot less funny once we learn he once led a rebel army only to see it wiped out by Jack Noir, with him being the only survivor. The hints that it is his way of dealing with the trauma only make it worse.
  • Tavros trolling Dave pathetically. He ends up blocking Dave. Later, we find out that Tavros is pretty much a walking Tear Jerker. What was initially a Funny Moment turned out to be caused by Tavros' total lack of self-confidence.
    • Hell, Tavros Nitram is one of the best examples of this. Prior to Act 5, he was only ever drawn from the waist up, leading to an in-joke in the community that he was in a wheel chair. Well, Act 5 comes around, and guess what...
    • Made even more painful by the fact that his first physical appearances shows him leaping around Prospit.
  • At first it is merely said that "You [Sollux] do not under any circumstance eat the MIND HONEY. The consequences are highly unpleasant." At this point, you [the reader] might even get a little chuckle out of it; at that point in the narrative, we have seen many characters dislike things for weird reasons that don't seem so bad. Then Sollux accidentally ingests a bit and destroys his hive (home) with Eye Beams, because those are the aforementioned "consequences". You might find this pretty funny, really. Though it might be horrifying, because of the Eye Beams. That depends on your interpretation - at this point. But ultimately we find out that at one point in the past, he was forced to do this and it killed his beloved Aradia. The benign, understated, almost wry way the topic was introduced contrasts heavily with its sobering actual meaning.
  • The humor within this scene is spoiled in hindsight of Act 5 Act 2, when Equius does smile... by being strangled to death.
    • Gamzee's Hero Mode shot. A CMoA until it was remade into Murder Mode. The original is just as disturbing by association now.
  • Dave trolls Gamzee by showing him a video of the Insane Clown Posse, claiming that they are the "Mirthful Messiahs" of his religion, leading to a particularly amusing scene. Then we find out that his religion was really the only thing that kept him from falling off the deep end, and he becomes Ax-Crazy as a result of Dave's mockery.
    • Everyone who thought that Gamzee's background honks were hilarious are regretting every giggle because of this, since it's his Madness Mantra.
    • Let's just say that pretty much any joke relating to Gamzee before he went crazy and started killing people is a potential example.
    • It gets worse when you consider that for the B2 kids the ICP were The Quisling for the Condesce.
  • Jade notes that Dave didn't prototype his Kernelsprite with a dead relative because he was "too cool" to have a family member die. Under a hundred pages later, Bro is Killed Off for Real.
  • This strip made Rose's "empty suicide attempt" in this flash seem much less funny. The strip immediately following it mitigated this somewhat.
    • Speaking of empty suicide threats... Not to mention, pretty much any interaction Doc Scratch has ever had with any of the kids or trolls just got a billion times creepier in retrospect.
  • One of the ongoing jokes, the flammability of shaving cream, takes a considerably dark turn in the 10/25/11 updates, when CD uses Dad's shaving cream hooked up to a bomb to kill Jade's realself. However, in the following flash, it's revealed that Jade can still go God Tier with her dream self turned into a sprite, so she comes back to life.
  • John's enmity towards Betty Crocker seems silly at first. Then it turns out that Betty Crocker is an evil alien empress who has massacred hundreds of planets, working for a Humanoid Abomination, and in an alternate timeline her corporation has branched into virtually everything, and is brainwashing humanity. "The heinous batterwitch has her gnarled claws in everything", indeed.
  • Dave's Hilariously Abusive Childhood at the hands of Bro (including but not limited to unnervingly sexual puppets left everywhere, swords that regularly fall out of the fridge or cabinets, and regular fights with Dave that send him falling down the stairs) may have become this now that we've met Bro's Alpha universe counterpart Dirk and not only is he a really nice guy deep down, if every bit as weird as Bro always was, but he's very wary at even the idea of having children because he's convinced he would be a terrible parent. During a deep talk the two have in LOTAK, Dave eventually reveals that he resents his brother through and through for simply not giving a shit about him, and Dirk finally gets a chance to be the brother Dave wished he had.
  • This◊ picture Calliope for Roxy is kind of heartwarming. Until the Trickster Mode shenanigans: The lollipop Roxy's holding in the picture is the trickster juju lollipop, and Trickster!Roxy looks exactly like Calliope's art. Then it gets kind of creepy.
  • Pretty much any mention of Bill Cosby in the comic becomes this, given real life events.
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