Homestuck/Tropes V-Z

>LAND OF VINES AND ZINC

With all the foliage around you can barely see the first Gate above you. The tropes beginning with V, W, X, Y, and Z thrive on the fine metals buried underground, and use it for all sorts of constructions.

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"color: TG: we have cotton candy dumpass GC: >8O"
 * Verbal Tic: Everyone's typing style is exactly indicative of how they talk. While this is most notable for trolls, it still applies for humans as well; Dave is rambling, Rose is precise, Jade is energetic, etc.
 * As detailed on their individual entries, the trolls all have unique typing quirks. These also seem to reflect how they actually speak, such as Kanaya Carefully Enunciating Every Word or 2ollux 2peakiing wiith a lii2p, but it also seems like they use the tics on purpose, as evidenced by Eridan and Feferi typing normally when they have a serious conversation.
 * These also change to reflect the troll's emotional state, as s0llux begins to type like aradia 0nce he is blinded by eridan and kn0cked t00thless by karkat, AND GAMZEE begins alternating caps WITH EVERY OTHER LINE once he runs out of sopor slime AND GOES ALL Ax Crazy.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Sburb lets the server player alter the client player's actual physical environment. The potential for cruelty is clear, though the most of the kids and trolls don't deliberately abuse their power... and then there's Vriska, who builds a labyrinth of stairs for her wheelchair-using client.
 * FLARP also has considerable cruelty potential if the clouder is abusive enough, which is directly tied to why Vriska's client is in a wheelchair in the first place.
 * Plus in game, players can rip imps in two by the dozen if they feel like it.
 * Just for an idea of FLARP's cruelty potential, Vriska used to use it to keep her lusus fed.
 * Video Game Caring Potential: Naturally, there's plenty of room for this, too.
 * The physical ramifications are unclear: In Sburb, you can apparently help someone swing a held weapon, but not carry him from place to place by an object he's sitting on. However, in Sgrub, you can pick someone up by his wheelchair and shake him abusively.
 * Which of course was done by Vriska to her client, notice a pattern?
 * Viewers Are Geniuses: There is a lot of material to keep up with.
 * Viking Funeral: "The SAFE was slain in battle. A great flaming nautical pyre carries it off to VAULTHALLA."
 * Villain Episode: The Midnight Crew intermission, sort of. The Midnight Crew are alternate universe versions of the villains.
 * Later on, we have the sequence beginning here, which provides us with a glimpse of what the human sessions' Derse agents are up to.
 * And there's the section where Doc Scratch takes over narration.
 * Villain Protagonist: The Midnight Crew in the intermission.
 * Villain World: It's increasingly implied the Alpha universe is this.
 * Villainous Harlequin: The various agents of Derse... at first.
 * Virtual Paper Doll: The game's alchemy system allows for the creation of a wide array of sweet outfits, which the kids invariably experiment with during each round of item-crafting. Interestingly, the trolls don't engage in this behavior, aside from Kanaya, but her interest in fashion came from before she entered the game.
 * Visual Pun: This is what happens when WV presses "Tab".
 * CAPS LOCK unLOCKs a CAPSule.
 * Snoop. (why hello, Mythology Gag)
 * Tavros' ghost holding 'sick fires' while talking to a Doomed Dave ghost and Aradia.
 * Probably unintentional, but Tavros is a paraplegic, meaning he is always sitting down. His sign is Taurus, the bull, and he also has bull horns. So that makes Tavros a... Sitting Bull? Also counts at a Stealth Pun.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Rose and Dave, along with many of the troll-troll relationships (especially those involving Karkat). John and Karkat develop into this in a bizarre from-both-directions way, and Rose and Kanaya maintain some pretty snarky banter as well.
 * Void Between the Worlds: The Furthest Ring functions as this.
 * Wackyland: The Land of Tents and Mirth. It's a shame that none of the sprites in the trolls' session were prototyped with a harlequin doll like in the kids' session, because then that planet would have some very fitting enemies.
 * Walkthrough: In-universe on GameFAQs, of Sburb Beta, by tentacleTherapist (Rose).
 * Which ends up helping the Trolls.
 * Wall of Text: The conversations between characters start off fairly brief, sporadic, and uncommon, but quickly increase in length and frequency. By the Hivebent chapter and onwards, large text dumps are commonplace, for better or worse.
 * Never mind Spinneret's journal.
 * Watsonian Versus Doylist: The fandom often invokes literary tropes like Plot Armor and the like, trying to predict where the plot will go next. They often fail.
 * We Have Those, Too: Constant comparison between the humans and trolls leads to a bit of these.

"HAPPY APRIL 13TH, 2009 EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 * Webcomic Time: An anniversary update page made it clear that not even a day has passed since the beginning of the comic. It's still April 13th. Although 13 days later than April 1st is April 14th. Which would fit with the first pesterlog occurring at 4.13PM in John's timezone, and the approximate number of hours between then and Dave's medium entry... Webcomic Time still definitely applies though.
 * The Trolls to a lesser extent, as we are treated to 25 days' worth of events over the course of 3 months.
 * Lampshaded again in the Christmas Eve 2010 update by Jade, and again on the 25th.

"Jade(paraphrased): Is today John's birthday? Magic 8 ball: Not exactly."
 * Part of the illusion of more time passing comes from the numerous flashbacks, that the story is being told non-linearly, and lots of Time Travel.
 * And, of course, once we get into the Medium, linear time in general matters a whole lot less.
 * Lampshaded when Jade is testing the magic 8 ball; though it also turned out to be foreshadowing about the Kid's nature as clones.

""We decide to listen to that track, close our eyes, and imagine what might have been.""
 * Act Five Act Two takes place over the course of around 24 hours (the span of the Reckoning) on the kids' end and ten hours on the trolls'. It came out over the course of more than a year, from 9/19/10 to 10/25/11.
 * Wham! Episode: The end of each act delivers a pretty big wham, even if you know something's coming. The beginning of the next act usually does too. And there are lots of others in the middle. Has the honor of being the first work to get its own Wham Episode page.
 * Wham! Line: Many, see the section on the Wham! Line page. Hussie weighs in on this trope here
 * What Could Have Been: After it became apparent that doing the adventure entirely in Flash would be impractical, Andrew considered scrapping the Homestuck concept entirely and making a Flash-free Midnight Crew adventure.
 * In-story, the trolls' famous ancestors were what "our" trolls would've been had if they A) weren't so darn human (Vriska says that working together isn't natural and what probably messed up their session so badly) and B) weren't screwed over by a reality warping game: Vriska's ancestor Marquise Mindfang was a pirate queen, Eridan's ruled the seas, Gamzee's was Subjugglator and Grand Highblood, Terezi's was a brilliant young legislacerator, Feferi's was the empress of all trolldom, etc.
 * Also, this page.

"CG: IT'S REALLY WEIRD. CG: THIS HUMAN EMOTION YOU CALL FRIENDSHIP. EB: friendship isn't an emotion fucknuts."
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Andrew likes this trope. For instance:
 * YOU SAID PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX!!!!!!
 * Terezi's entire mock trial. We'll leave it at that.
 * MOST SHOCKING TWIST YET.
 * Wait, this is a BULL PENIS CANE?
 * Gamzee: ENGAGE HERO MODE.
 * All: BEHOLD GLORY OF ZILLYHOO.
 * "You seriously never thought you would live to see this achievement unlocked. It almost feels like cheating." It's for introducing actual face-to-face dialogue, without any gimmicks attached.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The trolls are each associated with a zodiac sign. The kids each have an element. Everyone has a DNA pair. And none of it matters.
 * A good amount of these do have symbolic significance. For example, the Cruxite Artifacts of each kid represent their individual departures, both into the Medium and from their old ways of life. In John's case, the apple represents the abandonment of innocence in favor of knowledge (additionally, knowledge and deep thought are associated with Air). For Rose, the bottle represents a leap of faith (appropriately, she jumped off a waterfall to retrieve it), and as a symbol of trusting the people around you. Traditionally, bottles are also used to christen new vessels at sea, tying it into her classical element as well.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to the Prospitans who accompanied WQ into exile? All we know is that they seemingly died, though Ms. Paint at least has shown up in Andrew's study.
 * What happened to the Troll session's White Queen? All we know is her ring was destroyed.
 * What Is This Thing You Call Friendship

"TG: and hey you might even be able to help your past dream self wake up sooner without all that fuss you went through TT: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about."
 * Trolls consider friendship a disease. They also use the same word for "friend" as "enemy."
 * Which leads inevitably to the question of how seriously one should take that statement, since it was said in a conversation between two trolls; if we assume that the statement is true, then it couldn't have been made in the first place because trolls wouldn't understand the distinction.
 * Where It All Began: After the Scratch, the story is visibly shown rewinding, back to the first panel of John's introduction, and then a fade to white. No surprise, considering the nature of the Scratch. The beginning of the next Act is then very similar to Act 1, with the first panel extremely similar to John's introduction.
 * Which Me?: As lampshaded by Rose & Dave...


 * While Rome Burns: While the city is being destroyed by a meteor shower, Dave and his bro head up to the roof of their high rise to have an epic showdown for no apparent reason beyond Rule of Cool. Still, given how Genre Savvy they are, and their love of irony, they're probably aware of it. Earlier, Rose plays a haunting violin refrain during the countdown to the destruction of John's house. The game sarcastically compliments the player's time management skills. Dave also seems perfectly fine continuing to update his web comic, even though shit is getting pretty damn real, and the fact that the Internet is basically gone.
 * Almost everybody who is faced with a countdown timer at any point wastes some of that countdown doing something silly, but the all-time, unsurpassable king-- no you hate kings --mayor of this trope is Wayward Vagabond, who wastes four hours playing with his cans during a countdown and then scrambles around with the fear of death in him during the last four minutes and thirteen seconds.
 * Wild Card: uranianUmbra has described the Bard class as this, known for their "dramatic story-altering inflUence" and how bards have frequently either brought their party to success or utterly ruined them. Seeing the effect Gamzee, the sole Bard character seen thus far, has had on the game, it's hard to refute it.
 * Widget Series: Definitely counts as a W(H)AT, aka Weird (Humourous) American Thing.
 * With Friends Like These...: The reason why John is so skeptical of Karkat's claim that they're destined to be friends, idiot.

"TT: Dude, I'm sitting here with my stylus ready to go. Do you want me to draw you some porn or not. uu: OH YES. uu: YOu WILL DRAW ME MY PORNOGRAPHY, DIRK HuMAN STRIDER. uu: I WILL HAVE MY POuND OF SMuT. TT: ... TT: I'm waiting."
 * Won't Take Yes for An Answer: uu requesting Dirk draw porn for him:

""You can't wait to find out what amazing items this new supply of grist will be just barely insufficient to produce.""
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: After the Empress takes over Beta-2 Earth on 3-11 she does everything possible to make humanity more like trolls, with disastrous results -- lusii don't care for baby humans (although some find them tasty); human blood isn't easily recolored with chemicals; because she thinks human reproduction is disgusting she sends subliminal messages to stop procreating, but it seems humans can't simply do whatever trolls do with buckets (especially if their nemesis is watching) -- and when she tried to recreate the troll race they were instantly killed by her pet horrorterror. Ultimately The Empress was just really, desperately lonely for her own kind.
 * Word of God: Frequently, on his formspring.
 * Andrew: "Anyone who doesn't like [Vriska's] outfit is the dumbest kind of terrible."
 * Word of Dante: A lot of people are taking the inclusion of "The Thirteenth Hour", the theme for UU, the hypothetical Ophiuchus troll, on the Alternia album as a reason to persist with the theory that he/she exists.
 * And they're absolutely right--At least to the extent that she exists.
 * In fact, at least half of the things the fans, particularly the fantroll community, take as canon about troll society either comes from fanfics or is made up out of whole cloth.
 * As said on Andrew's previous formspring, the trunk of dad's car contains 10 crates of shaving cream, but nobody ever found them.
 * Apparently someone eventually did.
 * The Worf Effect: It took a monumental effort by three characters to defeat two of the Giant Mooks. Since then, everybody is allowed to take these things down with ease to prove how strong they are (even Rose, who first took one down when she logically shouldn't have been much stronger than anyone else the first time they fought the giants). Especially powerful characters even get to kill gianter mooks.
 * This begins applying to actual characters in the second part of Act 5. To wit:
 * Dave's Bro is, to quote Dave, "a crazy hard dude" who can flash step so quickly you end up fighting the after-image and could fight triple-prototyped Jack Noir to a standstill. He is the most active of the Guardians in combat and seems to be the most competent. Once Jack becomes Bec-Noir, he kills Bro in practically a single stroke.
 * Equius is initially portrayed as pretty much the strongest of the trolls; his trip through Hivebent is shown as being almost effortless, even as a lowest-level player. He can ruin dudes in one punch, strongjump through gates without having to build his hive, and protects Nepeta almost without trying. When Equius confronts Gamzee, Gamzee uses several methods both physical and mental to dominate Equius completely, in order to show just how dangerous Gamzee is off the sopor slime. Then again, he wanted to die at the hands of a troll of higher blood than him, so he didn't even fight as he let Gamzee strangle him. In fact, he was smiling the whole time.
 * Sollux possesses telekinetic powers so potent, particularly from his eye-beams, that he doesn't even need to bother with a Strife Specibus, because his teek powers will always be better; he uses them to fling meteors at the Black King during the Hivebent Reckoning, after all, and he fought Eridan to a standstill in a one-on-one duel while Eridan was wielding his best-in-class weapon. Kanaya is also no slouch in the fightin' department, and famously uses a chainsaw as her primary weapon. Once Eridan obtained the White Wand of Science, Eridan KO'd and blinded Sollux, crippling his eye-beam powers (among other things) and killed Kanaya outright without even taking a scratch, and required one shot each to accomplish this.
 * A World Half Full: The human population has been reduced to single figures, the destruction of sentient species is apparently standard multiversal policy, and those that remain seem doomed to failure... but hey, that's no reason to stop trying, right? In fact, Homestuck in general (much like one of its key inspirations) has a habit of taking very dark concepts and portraying them in a lighter, more whimsical style.
 * World Limited to the Plot: The world outside of the main characters' lives appears almost desolate. None of them seem to have any other friends apart from themselves and characters on the periphery of their interpersonal interactions (their guardians) appear almost vacant and robotic. And they're not really very affected by Earth's imminent and unavoidable destruction either. On the other hand, there are cases where we do have a glimpse outside the plot, with current events like how Barack Obama is the president, and other people completely irrelevant to the plot, like the Serious Business and GameFAQs users, are still shown to actually exist, even if they are never shown. We also see maps of the entire planet, and the plot does, in fact, make an impact in places irrelevant to the main characters.
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: You slay them all with your RAPIER WIT.
 * Wrecked Weapon: Dave's CHEAP PIECE OF SHIT katana. Lil' Cal probably counts too.
 * Dave's specibus is less Sword than PIECE OF SHIT. When he discovers Caledfwlch, he identifies it as a LEGENDARY PIECE OF SHIT before he breaks it in the retrieval attempt. Apparently resigned to this, he later tries to claim his brother's sword by breaking it in half.
 * Every bow Equius picks up, too.
 * Write Back to the Future: Jade transporting her birthday present to "MR MAYOR!♥" in the future.
 * Writing Around Trademarks: Averted, especially with Betty Crocker.
 * X Meets Y: Homestuck was conceived as Earthbound meets Spore and The Sims. According to Andrew, this is still a good description.
 * Yin-Yang Bomb THE TUMOR, in a literal sense. In addition, the actual reaction taking place is the simultaneous destruction of two universes. The reaction actually creates the Green Sun, which was earlier said to mass at 'two universes.
 * You All Look Familiar: The Salamanders in the Land of Wind and Shade, except for the mushroom farmer, Crumplehat, and the secret wizard. Also applies to all incipisphere inhabitants in different sessions.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Or at least you can't break Stable Time Loops.
 * Fate is a slightly odd thing: on the one hand, stable time loops conspire to weave the outcomes of actions into the very structure of the game so that things "always had to happen this way". But on the other hand, these things still come about from people making (apparently) free will decisions. Kanaya highlights this a couple of times in Act 5 conversations with Aradia and Vriska. So ultimately fate may be one huge Batman Gambit.
 * Of course, if you do fight fate, it spawns an alternate timeline and proceeds to kill off everyone.
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One: The Kids and Trolls cannot save their sessions, the plan to destroy the Green Sun ends up creating it, and Bec Noir isn't dead. But the Kids (and the remaining Trolls) do manage to escape their sessions, all four Kids plus Aradia are God Tier, and Noir now has someone who can potentially take him down in PM. So "Stage Three" of Lord English's plan may still be thwartable.
 * You Have Researched Talking: Actual face-to-face conversation without any gimmicks (flash videos, dream bubbles, etc.) requires an ACHIEVEMENT BADGE to unlock.
 * Not weird enough? This achievement badge can only be achieved by getting into the God Tiers and then earning another rank beyond.
 * You Require More Vespene Gas: You need BUILD GRIST to edit rooms and build things in Sburb. Making items often requires other types of grist (such as SHALE, TAR and MERCURY). Counting the slots in the inventory, there's likely to be thirty-six types of resources.


 * You Taste Delicious: While we haven't seen her doing any actual licking of the characters (since the vast majority of the character interactions are through an instant messaging system), Terezi makes quite a few references to this. However, it's later subverted when we find out she's actually blind, and uses taste and smell to "see" colors. She describes a handful of the other trolls' blood as tasting/smelling like some sort of food. Examples include chocolate (Tavros), mustard (Sollux; his eyes are "appleberry blast"), grape jelly (Gamzee) and cherry (Karkat).
 * Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Jake praising his "friend" Jane's advice on his UST with Dirk.


 * Your Mind Makes It Real: The afterlife is like this, with the user able to manipulate their dream bubbles to recall past events or conjure things at will.
 * Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Buckets. Also, it's considered pretty bizarre for a troll to be raised by a member of his or her own species instead of a lusus. Inverted with the trolls wondering why incest and sexual preference is even a thing to humans.
 * Zany Scheme: Ties in with Finagle's Law in that everything bad that has happened to our heroes is ultimately the result of Lord English's meddling. Crappy Troll society? Lord English. Omnipotent, omnicidal opponent who destroys the universe? Lord English. Queen who destroys her universe upon death? Lord English. Betty Crocker from space? You'd better believe it's Lord English.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Vriska when she wears the dress Kanaya made for her.
 * Also, Aradia, all the time. Her socks are even the only thing she's wearing that isn't tattered at the hems as a ghost. Equius also wears man-stockings, but there's no skin showing between them and his shorts.
 * Zig Zagging Tropes: Though it's due in part to the reader input, Andrew Hussie plays with tropes the way Xanatos draws his plans. Trope conventions and reader expectations get twisted about often enough that one could say Andrew is Zig Zagging Zig-Zagging Trope.

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