Webcomic / Nightfall

Nightfall is a MS Paint Adventures fan comic written by TheNeonWerewolf. Set shortly after Homestuck ends, the kids have successfully beaten Sburb and created a new universe, and are free to live out the rest of their lives in peace - until one day, Vriska Serket shows up at John's doorstep. Suddenly, the kids have to deal with all kinds of new and unknown threats, including a pair of incompetent government spies dedicated to hunting down aliens like Vriska and a mysterious teleporting ninja whose body count is growing bigger every day.

The original run ran from February 25, 2012, to January 26, 2017. After being cancelled for nearly seven years, the comic was suddenly un-cancelled on December 27, 2023 with a update that nightfall was 8ack. The comic is currently updating again.

The first forum thread could originally be found here, and the final (and only surviving) thread can be found here.

Not to be confused with the other works named Nightfall.

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Nightfall contains examples of:

• A God Am I: Nero proclaims himself as a god.
• Agent Mulder: Gary to Kate's Agent Scully.
• Agent Scully: Kate to Gary's Agent Mulder.
• Almost Kiss: John and Vriska, interrupted by Future Dave.
• Ambiguously Evil: Several:
  • Kurloz and Gamzee may be good now, or they may be up to something.
  • Doc Scratch seems to be recreated as a disco-like omniscient who types in Rainbow, suggesting a personality shift, but Terezi doesn't trust him, and his motives are obscure.
  • Sylja has never spoken, and her sister jokes that she may be the most dangerous of them all. Sylja also has been manipulating Vriska through her nightmares, and seems to have some connection to a previous member of their species, The Dreamer, who caused a rebellion and upheaval by manipulating people to follow their dreams, she's spoken of as evil, by characters who are looking to discredit her, and she's said to have been trying to free the people.
• An Arm and a Leg: Hades has only one arm his father removed the other.
• Art Evolution: As the comic progresses, the art style becomes noticeably more refined. For example, compare this panel to this panel.
• Art Shift: From Homestuck. Unlike most fancomics, which modify assets from the source material, Nightfall's art is all original, giving it a rather distinct if not unfamilar style.
  • Also, within the story, we have this sequence.
• Ascended Meme: Derping Vriska (and other character's) eyes is a running gag in the forum threads. And then one day...
  • Neon: I'm shocked no one has edited Vriska's face◊ into a derp face yet. So I did it myself.◊
• Ax-Crazy: Cristyle
• Battle Aura: Hades right here.◊
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Cristyle says so about Kurloz and to Sylja.
  CRISTYLE: "I would ask what you want to talk about, but you have never said a single word since the day you were born. That is definitely an unnerving thing about you. Man, imagine if you turned out to be the most horrifying one of us all. What’s the phrase humans say? It’s always the quiet ones."
• Big Bad: Nero
• Blasphemous Boast: Gamzee gives one to Nero after he proclaims himself a god.
  Gamzee: "YOU AIN’T NO MOTHERFUCKING GOD. there was only two mirthful messiahs AND THEY ARE BOTH FUCKING GONE or maybe they arent i finally realize ALL ALONG IT WAS ME. and also motherfucking me. AND NOW. and motherfucking now. FOR THE FIRST TIME. i’m completely in control. let me tell you its the most bitchtits ninjalacious thing i ever had the miraculous joy of experiencing. AND YOU EXPECT ME TO ALL UP AND HAND MY FATE OFF TO ANOTHER FALSE GOD?"
• Blatant Lies: Vriska refuses to admit she met Liz before, although both of them know she did.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Gary apparently graduated from Harvard with an honors degree.
• Cat Folk: Terlock
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gary's grip on reality is... rather tenuous
• Creepy Long Fingers: All Ninja's have large hands and long claw/fingers.
• Crush Blush: Vriska
• Cutting the Knot: Terlock and Hades need to break into John's house, and Hades teleports in. Terlock cannot do that, and begins debating the means to get inside, ruling out teleportation, and calling in someone to do it for him. He asks Hades to see if the window can be open, Hades puts his fist through it.
• Dead Fic: In the later months of the comic's run, updates were further and further between, until eventually in January 2017, the comic was cancelled entirely.
  • No longer the case as of December 2023 the comic started updating again and the author intends to finish.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rose, Terlock, Dave, Dirk and Kanaya. Kate's a fan of comedies, so she invokes this.
• The Dragon: Terlock
• Dramatic Irony: During Future!Dave's conversation about each of the main Shinobi and their abilities, and what goes wrong in the future, no one is aware that Cristyle is listening to the entire thing as Jade's dog. However, the audience has been given enough evidence to know this.
• The Exile: Hades's entire reason for attacking is to regain his honor and be un-exiled.
• Eye Scream: Hades had his eye removed by his father as part of his banishment.
• Facepalm of Doom: Liz got one.
• Flat "What":
  TERLOCK: I find it appropriate to mention.
  TERLOCK: Despite being in no particular rush to do so.
  TERLOCK: I am working on a plan to help you out.
  HADES: What.
• Forceful Kiss: Vriska to John.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Vriska is able to pass off her alien appearance as a costume (though she still dresses as a pir8), while Rose, at Kanaya's prompting, actually dresses up as Vriska for reasons she is keeping to herself.
• Funny Background Event: Liz noticing the main cast and staring at them for most of this page.
• Halloween Episode: One of the story arcs revolves around this.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Vriska's reason (well, one of her reasons, anyway) for coming to live on Earth rather than staying with the trolls.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Gary sees one between John, Rose and Vriska. Rose later confirms that she and John are just friends and the author notes that while all ships bar John and Vriska are ambiguous, John and Rose aren't canon in the fic.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Kankri has one here.
• Just Friends: Subverted, Gary and implicitly Vriska think that John and Rose may have some feelings for each other, but Rose lays it down clearly that they do not.
  Rose: Vriska, I know there is tension right now between us, but please do not be jealous of my friendship with John, it’s honestly nothing more than that.
• Land Down Under: Jake's gone to Australia, Dave thinks it's this trope.
  Dave: of course he's gone to australia everyone lives in a jungles and rides around in kangaroo pouches and every night they all gather in packs and hunt crocodiles.
  Jane: Well, none of that is true, first of all. Second of all, there are a lot of things better than that.
• La Résistance: Terezi organizes one with Karkat, Latula, Kurloz and Nepeta to overthrow Meenah, because Meenah asked her to, because her queenly duties are boring her.
• Last of His Kind: Terezi points out that Kanaya and Porrim, are the only Jade Bloods. Even the new generation of trolls born lacks the blood color the Mother Grub's had her biology altered which is likely a factor in this.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Rose and Vriska get into an argument in the Ninja's base and split up, Liz goes with Vriska and Sylja leads Rose away. They take different routes… and proceed to end up in the together again.
• Lipstick Mark: John.
• Macabre Moth Motif: In this case Death and Aggression. The Mothergrub, a giant moth, represents the survival of the Troll species as it breeds the grubs. It slowly starts becoming more and more mutated and violent the cause seems to be some Shinobi's device. The mother grub becomes hostile to Kanaya and refuses to eat, putting the troll species in jeopardy.
• Mythology Gag: It's made by a fan of Homestuck, based directly after the hypothetical ending of Homestuck. Of course there are tons of these.
• Never Found the Body: Meenah's body was never recovered after she was impaled and tossed off her tower. Kankri's pronounced her dead, but Aranea is still looking for her.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Kate and Gary's sprite forms are designed to look like the ones used in Homestuck proper, while all the other sprites are new ones created by the author.
• The Noseless: Like in Homestuck both sprite and "hero" mode renderings, bar Dad, are drawn without noses, and like Homestuck it's just a stylistic choice as Kate is drawn with one here.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: This strip and the ones following it suggest that John knows more about Vriska's intentions than he's letting on.
  • Gamzee seems to be a clueless stoner, but Terezi says that they're keeping an eye on him. Kurloz also seems harmless, but Cristyle notes that he and Gamzee are probably threats. They also happen upon Cristyle's ship and figure out the frame-up, with Gamzee showing he's perfectly in control of his mental facilities.
• Oblivious to Love: Ah, good old John...
• Obviously Evil: Here
  CRISTYLE: There are these two trolls obsessed with clowns that are so blatantly evil but they keep around anyway for some reason,
• Open Sesame: Made fun of, when the guard, Shawn, won't let Gary in because he's an idiot, but relents when Kate goes into an extended metaphor as to why Gary can only be insulted by her. She concludes by mocking him with the phrase.
  KATE: Anyway, open says me.
  SHAWN: You mean open sesame?
  KATE: Pronounce it slowly.
  SHAWN: Open, Says-a-me. HOLY SHIT.
  SHAWN: I NEVER NOTICED THAT.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: John.
• Scars Are Forever: Gamzee still has the facial scars from when he slashed his face with Nepeta's claws, and Tavros still moves about on robotic legs from when Kanaya cut him in half.
• Shout-Out: Numerous shout-outs to Doctor Who, Kate's a fan, Rose is a fan, and the future Dave has the iconic Scarf. ^note A crack in time has also appeared, but the creator apparently has not seen series 5 yet, so the validity of this as one of these is up for debate.
  • Rose's Wizardfic is one to Neon Genesis Evangelion, with Baptist and Claudius taking the place of Shinji and Kaworu respectively, fighting with loud opera music, and finally Baptist dispatching Claudius in the way Shinji kills Kaworu.
  • Cristyle quotes from Azula during her speech to Sylja.
  • We’ve got no clues about the perp. We don’t even have a sus, because the sec with a mo’s got a perf al.◊,
    • There are several other references to Hiimdaisy, such as here (Bonus points for a Fate/stay night reference).
  • Liz references Artemis Fowl.
  LIZ: Please, please, please, please,please,please,please, please?
  VRISKA: Did you 8eg like a pathetic little wriggler eight times just for me?
  LIZ: Maybe.
  LIZ: You’re kind of obsessed with that number, it reminds me of this character I read about in a book once who was a teenage super genius, and started out as a villain but became a hero. But the process of becoming a hero was so mentally taxing he developed a complex that made him obsessed with the number-
  VRISKA: LIZ!
  LIZ: What?
  VRISKA: You can come, god, whatever, just stop ram8ling on a8out stuff no8ody cares a8out.
  • When a robotic troll attacks Kate, he references Guerren Langan. Kate lampshades it immediately afterwards.
• Sleep Cute: Here.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Vriska gets hit by a couple of these, most recently Rose gave her a rather epic one.
• They Would Cut You Up: As an alien, Vriska can't go out in public for fear of this.
• This Is a Drill: Tavros's lance is a drill, just like in the anime's he's fond of, Gamzee needed to borrow it... for some reason.
• Underestimating Badassery: Cristyle underestimates Meenah when she ambushes her, so she switches tactics.
• Unexplained Recovery: Everybody appears to be alive, regardless of their status in the comic. Lampshaded by the narration.
  • Averted with Bec and Jadesprite, merging with Jade seems to have been permanent. Though Bec's presence is occasionally felt by Jade.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Cherubs and Exiles are nowhere to be seen, and Word of God is that they will remain unless a specific role can be thought up for them. Though DD has an Expy in Terlock, and Jack Noir has been referenced in regards to Hades' maiming. Nero uses an Illusion of Caliborn is used to subdue Gamzee.
• Wolverine Claws: Shinobi naturally have these in the finger-claw variety.
• The Worf Effect: Dave and Rose are curbstomped mere seconds after engaging Hades.

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