Homestuck/Tropes A-C

>LAND OF ART AND CANVASES

As far as you can see, this Land is littered with all the colors of the rainbow. Gigantic white boards splattered with various pigments make up the pathway beneath you, and tropes beginning with A, B, and C can be seen admiring the scenery here and there. You hope you don't fall in any WET PAINT; you just alchemized this DAPPER OUTFIT and it wouldn't do to have it stained.

==>

"<"
 * Accidental Innuendo: Invoked in-universe, from Karkat's POV when John sends him and the others a letter in a bucket. Played with even a bit more before, as Jade chastises John and tells him to "throw [a bucket] through my mysterious portal"
 * Rose's chumHandle: tentacleTherapist.
 * Added Alliterative Appeal: "A SCURRILOUS STRAGGLER eyes impromptu desert skirmish."
 * Adults Are Useless: Played With. Each kid has a guardian (Dad, Mom, Bro, and Becquerel -- who's a dog), but they all do their own cryptic things, and rarely interact with or help the kids. Each of them have done awesome stuff before. Bro sliced a city sized meteor in half, Dad caused chaos after being captured, and other miscellaneous actions. While they do help out a lot in helping the kids survive, we didn't get to see them do a whole lot in terms of assisting in the game itself before they all died.
 * All Just a Dream: Here, Doc Scratch reveals that, from the coin flip onwards, he had actually been describing a doomed alternate timeline in which Terezi let Vriska carry out her plan, and that, in the alpha timeline, Terezi had foreseen that outcome and stabbed Vriska to avoid it.
 * Always Someone Better: Dirk giving Jake the skinny on the 25th century.

""This is it. You have no choice but to wage a fierce rooftop battle. This is totally going to happen now, and could in no way conceivably be interrupted by a sudden shift in our attention.""
 * Affably Evil: Eridan (who is loosely based on a wannabe supervillain) wants to commit mass genocide of all land-dwellers, yet his shameless flirting, creepiness, and flamboyance have made him the entire fandom's Butt Monkey.
 * Affectionate Parody: Many. In an out-of-universe example, Evil Plan the Webcomic spent all of April Fools' taking readers' comments and posting Homestuck-style .gifs and pages, making direct reference to several Homestuck jokes.
 * After the End: The Reckoning initiates a meteor storm that reduces all host planets it affects to a desolate wasteland to be populated by Exiles from the game years in the future (but not many).
 * The immediate aftermath of the game has reduced fedorafreak to living on his own refiltered urine, and he logs his hellish struggle on his PDA (pay attention to the messages in the Serious Business application in the background).
 * In the B2 universe, Dirk and Roxy live years in the future (but not many) in a world submerged underwater, ruled openly by the Condesce.
 * Jane's planet (Land of Crypts and Helium) when she arrives and implied for the other B2 universe kids from the point of view of denziens.
 * Air Jousting: Featured here.
 * Alchemy Is Magic: A machine called an alchemiter makes various objects based on codes punched into punchcards. John explains a part of the logic behind it with this update.
 * Alien Blood: The troll hemospectrum contains a wide variance of colors, but they are all dull and muted. Karkat's bright red blood is an anomaly.
 * Fantastic Racism / Fantastic Caste System / Law of Chromatic Superiority: The trolls' caste system is based on blood color, with the "cool" colors (as in purple, blue, and green, known as "highbloods") at the top and warm colors (yellow, orange/brown, red, known as "lowbloods", or "rust bloods") at the bottom. Trolls can use the color gray (their skin color) as a form of blood-anonymity, but it raises a few eyebrows. Trolls in the low blood castes tend to have psychic powers, however, they're far more susceptible to psychic attacks. The high blood castes tend to be almost completely immune to psychic attacks, but far more prone to mental instability and insanity. In terms of mental stability, only the three green bloods (Terezi squeaking by as teal) are shown to be more or less normal in terms of mental problems.
 * Three of the storyline trolls have special blood: There's Karkat's mutant candy-red which isn't even on the hemospectrum; Feferi has the most highly-ranked shade of purple of any living troll, making her the future Empress. Kanaya's blood is pretty rare as well, and she comes with a number of exceptions to general troll rules. It's possible they and their ancestors are the only trolls of their blood colors on account of being created with ectobiology rather then being born the usual way.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience The zodiac signs on the troll's shirts (along with their text color) match the color of their blood, with the exception of Karkat.
 * Chromatic Arrangement / Rainbow Motif: How the trolls are arrayed in the Kids' trollslum, and how we arrange them on character pages as well. Karkat is technically below Aradia or off the spectrum entirely depending on which view you take.
 * Alien Geometries: The final form of Skaia is certainly non-euclidean.
 * The Furthest Ring does odd things with both space and time. The longer you're in there, the more indirect your path becomes. The further you travel, the more backwards your timeline becomes.
 * Alien Invasion: In the future of the Post-Scratch Universe, The Condesce outright invades Earth.
 * Aliens Speaking English: Every character known yet seems to speak English. In the case of game constructs (Carapaces, Consorts, Denizens, etc.) it seems that a session is able to load the language (much in the same fashion as Quest Beds / Cocoons) from the players. In the case of Trolls, it's revealed that English is actually Trollish with a different alphabet, since the Trolls created the universe Earth exists in. And other characters, like Doc Scratch, or the Horrorterrors, are omniscient enough that it explains away the language.
 * All Lowercase Letters: Jade, John, Dave, and quite a few trolls type (and speak!) like this, but they have different styles; see the dossier for more detail.
 * Alliterative Name: Used several times for the characters' screen names: tentacleTherapist, gardenGnostic, gutsyGumshoe, timaeusTestified, apocalypseArisen, cuttlefishCuller, uranianUmbra, and undyingUmbrage.
 * Jack Noir becomes the Sovereign Slayer in the kids' universe, and the Scurrilous Straggler / Spades Slick in the trolls'.
 * Draconian Dignitary / Diamonds Droog.
 * All of Them: Used by various characters, though mostly Vriska.
 * All the Myriad Ways: Time powers for Aradia and Dave work in one of two ways. Either they go back in time and attempt to change something, or correct the errors of their teammates, which dooms that entire timeline into oblivion., or they were always meant to go back in time.
 * Alternate Self: Dreamselves, doomed timeline doubles, and Scratch counterparts.
 * Alternative Calendar: Alternians measure time in "solar sweeps" rather than years; one solar sweep, at least as far as age is concerned, is equal to two and one-sixth years. (And two solar sweeps equals four and one-third years!)
 * All Trolls Are Different: They're basically grey people with orange horns, they act as literal internet trolls, and they're the previous players of Sburb who created the human universe.
 * All Your Powers Combined: What's in the box (Weapons, at least).
 * Aluminum Christmas Trees: Plenty of fans think Gamzee's "wicked elixir" is fake, but Faygo is actually a thing that exists. Thing is, it's only brewed in the Midwest (specifically, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois).
 * Many of those same fans don't pick up that Gamzee is a Juggalo.
 * Alt Text: The banners in Act 5's Doc Scratch arc starting here.
 * Alternate Universe: There are three universes relevant to the plot. And Sburb/Sgrub takes place in another alternate universe for each session.
 * The first universe is the Kids's universe, containing Earth and humanity. It's eventually revealed that this universe was created by the Trolls in their Session.
 * The second universe is the Troll's universe, containing Alternia and the Troll race. It's eventually revealed that this universe was actually reset by an earlier Scratch, making it an Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe.
 * The third universe is when the Kids do their own Scratch, resetting their universe. This universe also contains Earth and humanity, but things have changed a bit, and troll influences are a bit heavier.
 * This universe's version of Sburb, the Sburb Alpha, is depicted with a horizontally-flipped logo coloured red to demonstrate its creation by Betty Crocker Corp. The universe itself is associated with green, which serves as an inversion from the pre-Scratch universe, which was associated with red and the Sburb logo was green.
 * Earth itself is more of less the same. However, there are a few differences:
 * Humans have or plan to have a Mars colony during 2011. Technology levels seem to be mostly the same however
 * A few celebrities have vastly different lives, like Harry Anderson and Guy Fieri.
 * There are populations of Lusii on Jake's island.
 * Also, there's a live-action, feature-length Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff movie, and a Complacency of the Learned novel series.
 * The Condesce reveals herself to Earth on the day of Jane's entry, then systematically dismantles civilization and eventually floods the planet. Dirk and Roxy live in the far distant future on the Earth, contemporaneously with the Exiles from their session, and seemingly form a small phalanx of La Résistance.
 * There's also UU and uu's unknown Universe.
 * Always Night: Almost every panel of Alternia is shown during the night, because the trolls cannot stand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN. The exception are panels featuring Kanaya, who is one of the few trolls who can stand the sun. she's an Alternian Vampire. It's complicated. The one daytime panel not featuring Kanaya.
 * Amazing Technicolor Babies: When trolls are grubs their eyes and bodies are their blood colors. Once they pupate, their skin and eye colors become the same between all trolls, however they fill in with blood pigment as the trolls get older. The twelve main trolls are still young enough for their eyes to be gray.
 * Ambidextrous Sprite: A plot point in the Midnight Crew intermission, but exhibited throughout. "DAMMIT. Your sprite was flipped the wrong way." Especially visible with the trolls Kanaya, Sollux, and Vriska.
 * Ambiguous Situation: The death of Vriska: was it just, heroic, or were they simply prevented from reviving by a cosmic accident? Hussie weighed in to confirm that he wanted this particular scene to spark debates in the fandom.
 * Anachronic Order: The entire storyline is fraught with flashbacks, flashforwards, different universes (which exist in separate timelines altogether rather than the past, present, or future), and everything in between. Good luck figuring out anything. The Intermission and Act Five take this even farther.
 * This might help.
 * And Now for Someone Completely Different: The comic tends to change POV at extremely inappropriate times.


 * As of right now it can change between any of 25 important characters, and will occasionally switch to minor characters for a few pages. It once showed the POV of a hat.
 * The Midnight Crew has to take the cake for this. They have a chapter's worth of story, but have nothing to do with Homestuck. You're meant to think so, anyways.
 * Act 6 is in the same veins of the Intermission or Hivebent. It was however well predicted by the fans and Andrew has said it was meant to be obvious that the story would come around to the Post-Scratch Kids eventually.
 * Animal Motifs: Quite a bit, seeing as the Trolls are partially inspired by the Western Zodiac. Most of these are represented through their horns (Tavros = Bull, Aradia = Ram etc) while others show it through their actions (Karkat = Crab = Crabby, Vriska = Spider/Scorpion = Unpleasantness etc).
 * The kids have this as well though it's more subtle, shown mostly again with their hair. John is a jester, Dave a crow, Rose a cat, and Jade a dog. Dirk has a gull motif as well, but none of the other Post-Scratch Kids continue the theme, except possibly Jane with rabbits.
 * Animation Bump: Most panels have some sort of animation to them, but it's also used shamelessly in terms of Sound Pages (Marked with an [S] ). In addition to usually having great sound, later ones tend to have a dramatically different art style - compare John's first STRIFE page with [S]  Cascade and you'd think they were two different comics.
 * Anime Hair: Only hairstyles as such, nearly any hair color in comic is only black or white, but there are some pretty ridiculous hairdos. Karkat and John (Who have Shonen Hair) aren't as bad, but Gamzee's hair is just a mess. And then the Empress's hair is just insane
 * Annoying Laugh: Calsprite has one.
 * Antiquated Linguistics: Hussie loves using obscure vocabulary.
 * Anticlimax: Most of the flashes usually have some action; [S 3x Showdown Combo] appeared to set up a three-way fight between the murderous trolls God-Tier Munchkin Vriska, "White Scientist" Eridan, and Monster Clown sober Gamzee; then quickly averted it as Kanaya came Back From the Dead and kicked all their asses.
 * Due to Hussie biting off more than he could chew, the battle between Rose and Jack comes in Avalon-like summary form from Doc Scratch.
 * Gamzee and Karkat's Final Battle looks to be an epic fight--until the conflict is resolved through The Power of Friendship.
 * Anyone Can Die: Especially since, because of dreamselves and weird time shit, they can die more then once. All the trolls have died at least once. Bro, Mom, Dad, Tavros, Feferi, Equius, Eridan, Nepeta, and Vriska are permanently dead. Probably.
 * Only troll that has been shown to not die on or off screen is Gamzee, though it's possible that in some timeline he did die in some way.
 * Later lampshaded on this page
 * Plot Armor: Only happens to the more Out of Focus and minor characters though, aside from Vriska (who's character arc was built around her eventual demise).
 * Gorn: The only troll whose murder wasn't witnessed on screen was Nepeta's, and some of the stuff that happens with the corpses of the dead trolls later falls straight into Dead Baby Comedy.
 * Apocalypse How: Lots.
 * A Class 3a variant (Dominant Species Extinction) occurred during the Vast Glub, which killed every troll in the galaxy from psychic backlash, save for the Empress.
 * Class 6 (Planetary Extinction) results as part of the Reckoning. The hours leading up to the end go up the scale prior to it.
 * This was downgraded to a Class 4 (Extinction of higher lifeforms) during the Post-Scratch Human session due to the machinations of the Condesce. She later alterniaforms the flooded Earth and colonizes it.
 * Class X-4 (Universal Destruction) happens as a result of Lord English's machinations. Both the Beta Human Universe and the Troll Universe are destroyed, by Jack Noir and Spades Slick respectively, acting as Lord English's pawns.
 * Class X-5 (Multiversal Destruction) is the aim of Derse, although why exactly hasn't really been explained.
 * Class Z (Total Destruction of Reality) has been hinted at, due to the unknown entity killing the Horrorterrors.
 * Apocalypse Maiden: Mysterious troll apocalypseArisen / Aradia Megido sure seems to qualify. Most, if not all of the trolls think the kids are this.
 * Apocalyptic Memo Page: Due to the nature of time in Homestuck, Karkat's final memo actually gets viewed by the people it most affects before it even happens.
 * Rose's Game FAQs walkthrough for Sburb.
 * Fedorafreak's Serious Business messages would qualify as well.
 * Arc Number: "04/13", the date the comic began, has appeared quite a number times throughout the story, in obvious and obscure fashions. A compilation of the various instances can be found here. The trolls have their own arc number, 612, detailed in the act that began on June 12. A third number has been introduced, which is the sum of the first two: 1025. Its first major appearance was the release date of Alterniabound, October 25. A fourth number, for the post-Scratch session, appears to be 11/11/11, the date of the start of Act 6.
 * Lampshaded and parodied by John here
 * Several of the Homestuck album prices are variations on various arc numbers.
 * On Day 612, the 16th of December 2010 (12/16 backwards is 61/21), Hussie released the video of John ascending.
 * 11/11/11, aka 2x3PRONG DAY. Also extends to 11/11, 111, or simply just 11.
 * And with 4 Kids, 4 Trolls, and 3 Carapaces, 11 people escaped the Troll and Beta Human sessions (ignoring Jade's bringing of their lands, as apparently that was preordained in its own way).
 * Also has a minor bit of retroactive meaning; MSPA became the longest webcomic on record on 2/11/11
 * Arc Words: Lots, as part of Andrew Hussie's policy of self-references.
 * "Ascend" and its variations.
 * "He is already here."
 * "Scratch": Used at various times to mean a Negative Space Wedgie, a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, the scratched side of Terezi's coin, and the scratched record on Dave's shirt, mirrored by disc 2 of Homestuck (not of Sburb or Sgrub), after Terezi tries to play it on a turntable, causing the game to glitch up briefly.
 * "Make her pay." and "Luck doesn't actually matter." are minor examples.
 * "See you soon!"
 * Red Miles
 * Listing all of them would be impossible.
 * Armor Piercing Question: "Have you ever looked into the sky without your shades?"
 * Also counts for the trolls, as Karkat constantly gets questioned about his blood colour.
 * John asking after Vriska is this to Jade.
 * Arson Murder and Jaywalking: "Slick, I can tolerate many things from a guest. Curt manners. Egregious womanizing. Murdering the help. Casual arson. Even atrocious candy bowl etiquette. But it is the desecration of a priceless timepiece where I must draw the line. I'm afraid I must now insist that you take your beating quite personally."
 * Art Evolution: The author's skill with flash has improved quite a lot since he started. Compare this early page with this one. Regular updates have the same sprite style since the beginning, and the "hero mode" drawings have a consistent style, although they appear much more often later in the comic. The author admits this is still well within his talent and he prefers the simpler style, though this has changed somewhat.
 * Also inverted in terms of Hussie's skill - drawing the high-detail cover for the "Heir Transparent" album in fact took him more time than it would have before he started the comic, simply because he just doesn't do that kind of stuff lately.
 * He has an art team who make drawings for the flash cartoons, sometimes in different (he'll say better) styles.
 * It finally struck static pages itself, as Andrew is experimenting with more realistic art. This is the first example of it, which becomes more fine-tuned later.
 * He's also used Earthbound-style sprites, though those are the work of the art team.
 * The non-sound pages seem to be getting kicked up a notch as well.
 * Even if you compare instances of the normal sprite style, you can tell that he's constantly improving there. Compare John's design to, say, Jade or any of the trolls, or even John's original attire to his most recent two outfits; the newer work is generally considerably more refined and eyepleasing. Even among the trolls this becomes evident - compare Karkat to pretty much every other troll.
 * Artifact of Doom: The Thorns of Oglogoth are described as doom artifacts.
 * Art Major Physics: Kanaya kicked Gamzee in the bone bulge, causing his hat, glasses, and shoes to be blown off. Then she punched Vriska and chainsawed Eridan in half before the glasses started descending on her face. AT A CONSTANT VELOCITY.
 * Art Shift: The comic tended to shift into more traditionally drawn panels for suitably epic scenes, although by Act 5, half the pages are done in this style. It also switches into a more scribbled and sloppy style for silly or childish panels.
 * Starting from Act 2 and becoming the standard by Act 5, art contributions are being made, creating constant shifts between art. A major one found in this page has a style reminiscent of Earthbound.
 * Following that page, Andrew introduced some new styles into the main comic pages, including Earthbound-like sprites and more detailed styles in the traditionally drawn panels. See here and here, for instance.
 * Real Life people are usually represented using Photoshopped photos of themselves. When the Insane Clown Posse faces off against Alpha Dave, though, they're drawn in both the normal and Hero Mode styles.
 * Ascended Meme: On the forums, due to the community's general personality, many forum polls had "WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE" as a non-sequitur choice. Shortly after this happened, Worcestershire sauce got a mention in the comic. There are many other examples, as Andrew Hussie incorporates speculation into the comic.
 * Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff was appropriated from a minor side project so the kids could engage in this in-story.
 * One of the more popular Alternate Universe Fics was Troll Cops, depicting Terezi and Sollux as... well, troll cops. Come the Alterniabound album, we are treated to two slightly different versions a Trollcops theme song.
 * FedoraFreak alchemized a "tall pant" outfit in a shoutout to the Pantskat meme. Pantskat is also alluded to in this conversation with Karkat and Jade. The image of the tortured Sufferer is also a reference, as he is described as wearing a set of "Righteous Leggings", with which the Disciple absconds after the Sufferer's death. Seen again at the end of his mental breakdown in A6I1.
 * "Double pistols and a wink", a memetic pose widely associated with Jake. On the other hand, an earlier line from Jake was the source of the meme, so it could just be Call Back.
 * The ship name for the Jane/Roxy ship is "Cotton Candy". Check out these images briefly seen in the second [S Ride].
 * Astronomic Zoom: All the time.
 * As You Know: Future Dave and Future Rose's review of the events leading up to their appearance.
 * A few of the Troll conversations, since, unlike the kids, we don't see everything they do after starting the game.
 * Ask a Stupid Question: Jade inquiring about all the rambunctious crows invading Dave's room.

"Inhabitant- "Look at this! Another Cherished Idol profaned! Such sacrilege has become commonplace with the recent glut of the Underlings. It would bring a tear to my eye if I were not so clearly fit to be tied with these hyperactive mannerisms and severe attention deficit oh my god look a bug.""
 * Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: The inhabitants of the Land of Wind and Shade seem to have this, as evidenced by this bit of text:

"G"
 * Author Appeal: For one, glasses. Seriously, over half the main cast wears glasses of some kind.
 * Amongst other things, clouds, superpowers, and intricate plots are things Andrew enjoys.
 * Author Avatar: Andrew Hussie: Engage in highly indulgent self-insertion into story. He shows up for recaps, and also when the fanbase is particularly riled up about something to troll them and make references to The Neverending Story.
 * Dave is also Andrew's avatar to a very minor extent, but not directly. His dialogue is easiest for Andrew to write, often parrots what Andrew believes, and early on used borrowed actual quotes from Andrew's own IM conversations.
 * Bro's Alpha Universe counterpart is also Andrew's avatar, but to a much greater extent than Dave. He and Andrew seem to have similar ideas about irony, and they've both performed MSTings of actual books by writing in them.
 * Author Catchphrase: BLUH

""$""
 * You've gained all the levels. All of them.
 * THIS IS STUPID.
 * YES. FUCK YES. HELL FUCKING YES.
 * BOOYEAH!
 * That's really all there is to say on the matter.
 * " in the , but not many..."
 * Be the other guy"
 * You cannot hope to beat  in a -off.
 * [He/She] is simply the best there is.
 * ALL THE (NOUN)S. All of them.
 * Oh nooooo
 * "Irons in the Fire"
 * Who's this douche bag?
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: The royals on both sides are entitled to enchanted regalia which grant them powers from the players' prototypings. Then Jack Noir gets a promotion, breaking up the regular order of the SBURB session.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Many of the alchemizations.
 * Awesome Moment of Crowning:
 * Jack Noir gets TWO. Here and here. PM gets one as well.
 * Warweary Villein's unification of the pawns
 * God Tier ascensions intentionally invoke this too, as the entire Incipisphere glows when someone ascends via a Quest Bed. The ones hidden in the moons of Derse and Prospit do not invoke this however.
 * Ax Crazy / Hair Trigger Temper: Trolls are basically an Ax Crazy species, but most of the high bloods fall into fits of rage constantly. Feferi is the only exception to this, as Gamzee goes insane later on. Even the lower blooded trolls are not beyond this, as the fits of rage from Kanaya showcase. Aradia also rages occasionally, but these occurred while she was in a robot fueled by blue blood.
 * Baby Planets: All of the celestial bodies located throughout the Incipisphere.
 * Badass Boast: "You're done with dying."
 * Another one:

""Since you are reading this, chances are you have already installed this game on your computer. If this is true, like many others, you have just participated in bringing about the end of the world. But don't beat yourself up about it.""
 * "The Prince is awake. Your shit is wrecked."
 * Badass Cape: Eridan. Though Your Mileage May Vary on how much badassery the cape actually connotes. This is Eridan, after all.
 * Badass Longcoat: Vriska's ancestor Mindfang and eventually Vriska herself, in the doomed timeline.
 * As well as Lord English's coat, which even by itself is pretty badass.
 * Nepeta also has a pretty nice longcoat, but it's a little more cute than badass. Most of the time anyway.
 * Bad Future: The future where John listens to Terezi about taking on the Denizen early. He dies and Jade never enters the game, leaving it unwinnable to Dave and Rose.
 * Bad News in A Good Way:

"[[color:green:1 4M UNF4Z3D BY YOUR HUM4N BLUHS
 * Bait and Switch: Here, after heavy anticipation of Jade's first appearance.
 * Again when it seems like Doc Scratch is expecting the Big Bad Lord English, but Spades Slick arrives at his door instead. Of course being omniscient, Scratch knew this already. He was just messing with you. Hee hee. Haa haa. Hoo hoo.
 * And again here, when Grimdark Rose and God-Tier John confront Bec Noir over the not yet cold bodies of their murdered parents. Much is made of John's reaction to the news, and the stage is set for an epic two-on-one battle with much dynamic music, badass poses, the title card 'Round 1', then -- Bec shows John his stabs and the music cuts out dramatically. What follows is apparently not so much a battle as a tactical nuke.
 * Bait and Switch Comment: Dirk unveiling his idea for an AI replica of his own brain.

L1ST3N TH3 UN1V3RS3 W1LL 34T P4R4DOX3S FOR BR34KF4ST

GT: Does that mean I'll have to deal with two dirks? ]]

$"

""You stop being the other guy in time for us to see that you have just finished quickly and cleanly subduing the..."
 * Band Land: The meaning of the "Melody" in the Land of Quartz and Melody was not apparent until this panel, where it was shown to have giant insides of music boxes.
 * The Land of Heat and Clockwork also applies to a limited extent.
 * Bar Code Tattoo: The citizens and former citizens of both Derse and Prospit have checkered tattoos on their wrists.
 * Batman Can Breathe in Space: In the medium's space, at least. It's possible that the Incipisphere has a breatheable atmosphere.
 * Space is apparently so breathable that the cast decides that space is a more comfortable environment to raise cloned frogs than the planet. Mainly because, far from being cold, space is warmer than the planet below.
 * Averted when Doc Scratch takes away The Handmaid's "breathing privileges.
 * Batman Gambit: The White Queen actually pulls off a rather impressive one. Her abdication and plan to have Parcel Mistress deliver both crowns to Jack ends up giving John the cyborg bunny, in the end giving the players an edge against Jack. She wasn't planning to turn the tides of the war between the black and white pieces, she knew white winning was impossible. Note that her actions and PM's did not at all affect Jack's rise to power or his inevitable gain of the White King's Scepter (he would've killed the White King anyway even without PM's arrival on Skaia). "Conceding ground can supply the only remaining advantage. The final hope for victory lies in patience and planning" had nothing to do with helping the white side - the advantage was intended for the players in their fight against the Black King, who is now Jack!
 * This might fall under Xanatos Roulette instead, as it depended on the genocidal Jack Noir keeping his word even when it didn't benefit him; however, the White Queen might have known it would work due to a Stable Time Loop.
 * Battle Discretion Shot: Parodied in this scene, wherein we cut away from Jack Noir killing a regulator to a Pawn that Jack Noir killed previously using a knife. And then we cut back (too early) to see that Jack Noir isn't actually finished killing the regulator, let alone cleaning up the copious amounts of blood.

"Jack."

"Jack, the man is dead. Stop that.""

"Andrew: There was only one sure thing I knew when starting HS. That was that this thing would go batshit insane in ways I couldn't begin to imagine. In fact, it was practically the mission statement."
 * Battle Trophy: Jack Noir keeps these.
 * Beam O War: Eridan and Sollux engage in this twice.
 * Beam Spam: Sentryworm.
 * The Bechdel Test: The pair of kids with the fewest pesterlogs between them is Rose and Jade (granted, they aren't a server-client pair and neither of them is protagonist-in-chief John). Once the trolls come along, though, it passes very easily. Rose's conversations with Kanaya are primarily about gaining respect for each other as friends, and the only conversations primarily concerning romance just involve John, Dave, Karkat or Vriska.
 * While Jane and Roxy have more than a few conversations about Jake and Dirk, there's also Roxy trying to convince Jane about the truth about Betty Crocker and to not take part in Sburb.
 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: It's hinted at in a clever, connect-the-dots sort of way just before the Scratch that Betty Crocker may have actually been Her Imperious Condescension, the troll empress and Feferi's ancestor...and then it's all but spelled out in 20-point boldface afterwards.
 * Benevolent Architecture: Parodied. S and C are found setting up a room with two rows of chest-high crates before a gunfight breaks out. Very thoughtful of them.
 * Better Than It Sounds: Subverted In Universe. The way John describes his favorite movies makes them sound really stupid, but since his taste in movies is horrible it winds up being about right.
 * Beyond the Impossible: Yes. Everything just flipping its shit further and further off the handle.

"Andrew on Twitter: ok i quit putting stuff on the internet forever because THE INTERNET CAN'T HANDLE ME"
 * The AlterniaBound update was a meta instance of this. When uploaded to the main site, it crashed it. What wasn't expected, however, was it crashing the mirror site Hussie uploaded it to.

"Andrew on Twitter: (after Newgrounds went down) well that didn't work"
 * Andrew considers Homestuck to be just a warm-up for something else. Dear god.
 * October 25th, 2011. The day Homestuck broke the internet. Again.
 * More specifically: Hussie chose to host the flash on Newgrounds, in anticipation of the high amount of traffic. Newgrounds crashed within three minutes of the upload. So he put the flash up for download on Megaupload. That proceeded to crash as well. A GT One who is MORE MACHINE THAN MAN... started for everyone who couldn't watch it because of all the crashing? Crashed. And then, later that day on Tumblr, when everyone began blogging about the flash all at once... well, take a wild guess.


 * BFG: Holy shit.
 * BFH: The Telescopic Sassacrusher is too big for John to use on his own. And then there's Fear No Anvil, which in its natural size is too big even for the gauntlets. Inverted, however, with The Bunny's weapons, which, while insanely powerful, are too small for the kids to use.
 * BFS: All of Dave's swords are significantly longer than he is tall in the standard art style. While more proportional in the various art shifts, they still fall under this trope.
 * Big Bad Ensemble: Jack Noir, Doc Scratch and Lord English, The Condence, and the Black King.
 * Big Bad: Now that Jack has met his match (his exact match: PM with WV's ring, making her as powerful as him) and Scratch is dead, Lord English has taken the title.
 * Additionally, in a normal Sburb session the Black King serves this purpose, but was ousted brutally by Jack in the kids' session.
 * Big Good: The White King, until he abdicated to a postal worker. Skaia may also count.
 * Big Fancy House: Rose/Soxy and Jade/Jake reside in sprawling high-tech pads. The villainous equivalent would be Lord English's jade mansion.
 * Big Stupid Doodoo Head:


 * John's Game FAQs entry reads, "dave probably won't read any of this because he's sort of this great big whopping stupid horse butt. whatever."
 * Big Yes: "YES. HELL YES. HELL FUCKING YES."
 * Bilingual Bonus: Used in an interesting way. The troll alphabet is actually the Daedric Alphabet from The Elder Scrolls, rotated 180 degrees. The first name suggestion translates as "Turdodor Fuckball." The "real" name, however, translates as "Trollplanet", which is obviously just a joke since the real name is "Alternia". The attempted insulting name for Karkat translates as "Bulgereek Nookstain". During their fight scenes, the word "GRIEF" appears instead of the kids' STRIFE. Much later, we discover that the name of the Fluorcite Octet's ultimate attack translates as "Ancestral Awakening."
 * With the introduction of "Caledfwlch", it is suddenly a good time to be able to speak Welsh (it's the Welsh name for Excalibur, and pronounced "Caledvoolch").

"Serenity: Help, my friend is stuck inside the big can building. You must hurry. He's not very bright and he doesn't understand when I blink. Are you watching me? Oh no, don't blink me, you don't understand blinking either. How do you people even exchange ideas without luminous rear ends?"
 * Starting from this page Serenity narrates WV's dream in morse code, and it is not gibberish- actually it's a Call Back to this scene with Jade. And a bug is involved in both of them.
 * Serenity's giant help message roughly translates to this:

"You could possibly read the story ten times and not catch them all. Nothing is safe from reuse. The thing is a litany of a thousand refrains, visual, verbal and conceptual. "
 * Bizarrchitecture: The players houses are built up basically by copy-pasting bits of the architecture they already have.
 * Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Trolls reproduce by donating two samples of genetic material to the Mother Grub, with one sample coming from a loving pair and the other coming from arch-enemies. This works just as well between same-gender couples as it does between mixed-gender couples, rendering sexual preference meaningless to the entire species. They must be able to provide at least one set of buckets, or they will be killed. Among other things, this also means buckets are sex toys to trolls.
 * Exactly how bizarre is unclear due to Rule of Funny, Call a Rabbit A Smeerp and Teasing Creator.
 * Black Comedy: Homestuck has many examples of this, often accompanied by Mood Whiplash.
 * Black Screen of Death: To be exact, the variant that has slice marks showing up on the (generally red, not black) screen, but nothing else; generally used for faster animation.
 * Black Shirt: Modern-day TV personalities (mostly shitty rappers) who answer directly to the Condense, paving the way for her ascension.
 * Bland Name Product: Played straight with Gamebro magazine and the chat client Pesterchum.
 * "Green Slime Ghost".
 * Averted with Betty Crocker brand baked goods, Terezi's Crayola chalk, Tab soda, and Faygo soda.
 * Blatant Lies: Doc Scratch claims he advised Rose not to use the magic cue ball.
 * This was only to set up a joke, though: He warned her about stares. 8^y
 * Block Puzzle: In Terezi's room in the interactive GT And another who is a computer program you made hahahahahahaha. segment. Mercilessly lampshaded, as Terezi complains bitterly about the pointlessness of putting such a simple block puzzle here.
 * Bloody Hilarious: The Felt's Headquarters by the time Spades is through with it.
 * Blue and Orange Morality: Troll society takes killing relatively easily. Childhood on Alternia begins with a series of dangerous trials designed to off the weakest of them; once the survivors pass, they're introduced to an essentially lawless society where everyone has to fend for themselves, compassion is weakness and your frienemies are likely to stab you in the back. Arbitrary cullings are commonplace. They don't seem to have a huge problem with murder in its own right, just when it happens to someone they actually like, in which case it's okay to get bloody revenge on their fallen friend's behalf. Trolls who would qualify as dangerous sociopaths and serial killers on Earth are just thought of as huge tools, except for Terezi, who is well-liked (possibly because unlike Vriska, who kills indiscriminately, Terezi has a set of rules she follows). The actions of Vriska are more understandable given the culture she grew up in--and it's implied she isn't nearly the worst out there, just the worst given characterization.
 * Trolls are so inherently violent that being someone's Morality Pet is an integral part of their culture.
 * When Rose tries to ask if the Horrorterrors are evil, she "goes off the deep end in every way".
 * It is first implied then later outright stated to be due to Doc Scratch's meddling. The pre-scratch version of Troll culture was too soft and the players failed hard at the game (because they were too weak and unprepared), so Doc Scratch (on Lord English's orders) manipulated their culture to bring about a brutal, violent, prepared group of teens the second time around.
 * Bluh Bluh Bluh
 * Body Motifs: Missing eyes and missing arms recur in tandem, sometimes justified, sometimes not.
 * Bond One Liner: Spades Slick attempts one here (complete with an emoticon-based Glasses Pull), but even he admits it was terrible.
 * Bootstrapped Theme: Sburban Jungle and the drumline from Upward Movement (Dave Owns) are more or less the main themes at this point.
 * Breaking The Fifth Wall: Just a small example of how postmodern this is.
 * Breaking Bad News Gently: Dirk dropping the bomb that he's from the future. Jake debates sitting down for this news, then realize he's already sitting. "Maybe I should stand up."
 * Brick Joke: out-of continuity meta-trolling page, from here to here.
 * During [S] Wake, when Tavros and Vriska face off, he holds up the decapitated head of one of Vriska's dolls and makes a throat slitting gesture, she replies by holding up HIS SEVERED LEGS AND TORSO and making a waist cutting gesture.
 * Which, in case people didn't know, is a joke originally featured in TT: That's a super joke. in which you can find Tavros' severed legs in a chest in a part of the lab only accessible while playing Vriska.
 * Dave alchemizes an Unreal Air skateboard in late act 4. It promptly floats away to Skaia. Over a year later, late in act 5, it is finally seen about to land on the Battlefield.
 * Meta-ish-example. When Hussie talked about Jack Noir's transformation into Bec Noir, he mentioned that while the tentacles vanished Jack could still manifest them. This didn't come up until the end of Act 5.
 * You probably forgot about that pallet of shaving cream, didn't you? It returns with a bang right before [S] Cascade.
 * Jade's pumpkins have been disappearing her whole life. So when we see WV steal one with a teleporter, mystery solved, right? Except that only explains one pumpkin. A few thousand panels later in Act 6, we finally find out what Jake has been stealing the rest of her pumpkins, and her intense efforts to grow pumpkins that she can use have created some kind of super-pumpkins that have completely overgrown his version of the island.
 * "You will however contemplate bleating like a goat for IRONICALLY HUMOROUS purposes at a later date." Nearly 4000 pages later...
 * Here is probably the longest running Brick Joke in the comic: John metions his peanut allergy here. The Alpha Courtyard Droll used Jake's peanut allergy to kill his dreamself here.
 * Colonel Sassacre breaks even this record when the book big enough to kill a cat, 4468 pages later, finally does.
 * Broken Bridge: John comes across one here. As the pesterlog on that page notes, the only way to the Denizen's palace on the other side is through the Seventh Gate.
 * Buffy Speak: The planet-wide hurricane John creates, and his powers in general, are called "the windy thing."
 * Eggy-Looking Base.
 * The red, swingy, flippy, flappy dealie on the mailbox.
 * But Thou Must: One of the inhabitants of the Land of Wind and Shade asks John to sell him his dapper suit. At many other such choices in the segment there are two buttons to click, "Yes" and "No", but this time "No" is the only option.
 * When the friendly clown offers to be Jane's guide, your choices are "No" and "fuck no." When he starts offering potions for sale, she ends up buying some regardless of which option you choose.
 * In LiveStream, the choices when Gamzee asks Karkat to sleep on his horn pile are "No" and "Hell No".
 * But What About the Astronauts: When the trolls' home planet is destroyed, all the trolls elsewhere in the galaxy are killed by The Vast Glub.
 * Call Back / Continuity Nod: Almost every single page is in some way a call back to another. From his former formspring:

"$
 * There's even an in-universe explanation, a phenomenon called circumstantial simultaneity.
 * And at one point it is implied to be the entire point of the game/comic.
 * Call Forward: "TROLLING ME FROM THE FUTURE, HOW JUVENILE CAN YOU GET" - oh, you are so right there, Karkat. You would never do such a thing.
 * Doc Scratch to Terezi: I'm not going to tell you my name. But if you wish, you may refer to me as Mr. Vanilla Milkshake. It is perfectly in keeping with a habit which you will develop in the future.
 * Calling Me a Logarithm: Jake entreating Dirk not to make any more slime appear over his head.

$

$"

""If you are going to adopt a new regular outfit, you'd prefer something a little comfier and less ostentatious, and if possible, in less flagrant violation of copyright laws.""
 * Calling Your Attacks: In WV's dream, he kills dozens of carapace people using an attack that is named with a blue Final Fantasy window. Jack does the same, using Red Miles to destroy the kids' universe.
 * "Adagio Redshift!"
 * Came Back Strong: This is exactly how the Quest Beds and the God Tiers work. Just ask all four of the kids, Aradia, and Vriska, who have by now taken the plunge.
 * Also Kanaya's revival as a Rainbow Drinker. Before, Eridan with his science wands one hit killed her. After, she returned the favor.
 * In [S] Roxy: Sleepwalk it seems that Karkat either achieved God Tier or a beta-timeline version did and then died a heroic/just death.
 * CamelCase: Every pesterChum or Trollian handle.
 * The Cameo: The Parcel Mistress has a letter addressed to a Dr. David Brinner at one point. Harry Anderson and Guy Fieri make an appearance in Act 6 in which they live vastly different lives.
 * Canon Immigrant: The Midnight Crew was originally a four-man Psycho Rangers group created for a a donation request during Problem Sleuth that spent most of their time having non-canonical skirmishes with the main characters. However, in Homestuck they actually play a more relevant role in the plot.
 * Can't Believe I Said That: Jake asking Jane point-blank if she's interested in him. It's not pretty.
 * Can't Catch Up: Since John is the first human to enter the medium as well as the first to ascend to the God Tier, he is the most powerful of the kids. Jade, who entered last, struggles to kill a single imp.
 * Turned upside-down with Jade merging with (Jade+Bec)sprite and becoming the single most powerful entity in the kids' universe.
 * Captain Ersatz: Averted with Grampa Harley's Iron Man suit, but the Iron Lass suit somewhat plays with it, and references it during Jade's crafting frenzy.

"Chekhov's Literally Every Single Story Detail plays a key role in the future as well. Keep an eye out for it."
 * Cassandra Truth: Post-Scratch George Washington had prophetic dreams of the Insane Clown Posse being installed as Presidents, and tried to amend the Constitution to exclude "unruly jesters", but everyone assumed that he was high on the colonial cannabis.
 * Cast of Snowflakes: Everyone but the Pawn Armies are distinctly different. Even the three main Exiles, who are all Pawns, have slight differences that differentiate them from each other outside of their wardrobe; AR is taller and squatter than WV, for example.
 * Catch a Falling Star: After being thrown out a window by Rose, Lil' Cal is rescued by a passing hoverboard. Dave too, when he gets pecked off tower by his own kernelsprite at the beginning of the 5/31 update.
 * Nannasprite catches John by telekinetically moving his bed after pranking him off the side of his house.
 * Cats Are Magic: Rose, who is arguably the most magical of the four kids, prototyped her dead cat Jasper to her kernelsprite, and also made a genetic sequence using the letters MEOW (instead of the typical GCAT) which can be spliced with other DNA to create godlike entities.
 * Celestial Body: Bilious Slick, who contains/is an entire universe.
 * Cerebus Retcon: Several. Some examples include Jade's narcolepsy (Vriska testing her psychic powers), Karkat's arguments with his time shifted selves (creating a sense of extreme self-loathing), and Gamzee's clown honks (becomes Nightmare Fuel after he snaps).
 * Cerebus Syndrome: It used to be a comic about some kid trying to get to his computer to play a game, then shit gets real and it turns out the game destroys entire planets. As of the Act 4 finale and the reveal of the Big Bad, there's a lot more bloodshed, and some of the characters may be going mentally unhinged from the stress. Though despite its descent into complex drama, it has managed to retain its humour value.
 * Despite any Cerebus Syndrome, it still remains relentlessly lighthearted.
 * Chainsaw Good: Kanaya's weapon of choice, though it also doubles as lipstick (carrying over an old Problem Sleuth joke). She's used it for combat, but also for trimming shrubbery. Other applications include amputating Tavros' legs and killing Eridan with one clean strike.
 * Character Class System: The titles of Sburb players amount to this, each generally defining the player's aptitude and intended role in Sburb - the Knight class (Dave and Karkat) is obviously combat-oriented, and the Seer class (Rose and Terezi) is intended as a support role to guide the other players according to Doc Scratch.
 * Charge Into Combat Cut: This is fairly commonplace in Homestuck, although the author is always kind enough to cut back to the fight in time for it to begin... eventually.
 * Chekhov's Armoury: Very many things. This comic is big on continuity. Will someone make a separate page like the Harry Potter one to carry all of this stuff?
 * Ashes to Crashes: John topples the SACRED URN, spilling his Grandma's ashes. The work is nothing if not Genre Savvy: "In retrospect, upon mulling cinematic tropes regarding ash-filled urns, this outcome was a virtual certainty."
 * Chekhov's Boomerang: Grandma Nanna's ashes end up Tier 2 prototyping John's sprite when the urn falls off of the mantle again.
 * John's bunny goes from Overly Long Gag to Killer Rabbit.
 * Chekhov's Gag: Almost every update contains some sort of Call Back joke. It would take far too much effort to list them all.
 * Remember the sarcophagi and mummies Jade's Grandpa collected that creeped her out? Watch the second intermission. Yeah. They'll scare the crap out of you too.
 * John's hatred of Betty Crocker.
 * Chekhov's Gift: The stuffed bunny from Con Air. Thanks to weird time shit, John receives the same bunny three times over. Dave sends him the original as an ironic birthday present. It goes back in time with baby Rose, grows ratty over the years, and is then given to John again after Rose repairs it with knitting. This version of the bunny is sent back in time with baby Jade. She eventually upgrades it into the autonomous and heavily-armed robobunny that allows Jack Noir to overthrow the Black Queen and devastate the Medium-- but also protects John from Jack at a critical moment. Which was why she made it for him in the first place.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Remember Rose's Silken Wizardbeard Yarn (with Magical Properties)? It seems like alchemizer trash only good for making something cooler, but it shows up again over 2000 strips later when Rose uses it to knock out Dave and take his place on a suicide mission.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Gamzee, according the the narrator on the January 1st update, is "the most important character in Homestuck" despite seeming like a minor character at first. (The seriousness of this statement is, however, debatable.)
 * Gamzee manages to create the a large portion of the code that created Doc Scratch and made the doll that spawned Jack's hatred for harlequin clothes. He's practically the indirect cause of a lot of the bad things in the comic. On the other hand, when "the most important character" regarded the new beginning, Cal was sitting in Gamzee's lap while he chatted with Doc Scratch about the same event, so it's hard to say who this referred to even if serious.
 * Fedorafreak also appears to be one, having only appeared in one conversation before (one that didn't even have a pesterlog devoted to it) but is has been recently revealed that he is playing the game and ended up dying on a Quest Bed.
 * 'Betty Crocker. Twice over.
 * Chekhov's Skill: John's dubiously obtained "Fear No Anvil" hammer. It's shown in the John: Enter Village flash to freeze even the ludicrously unhittable Uranium imps, implying the same could be said of timestopping powers on any Green Sun-powered being. With John's real body dead, we're left to believe that this is a red herring...but then, the long-discounted Aradia manifests herself as the Maid of Time and freezes the rampaging Jack dead in his tracks.
 * Chekhovs Juice: This is not a trope, but it damn well should be.
 * This line from Homestuck Book 2 sums it up:


 * Chess Motifs: The conflict between the light and dark kingdoms is represented with chess imagery. Wayward Vagabond also plays a game of chess by himself to pass the time. Black wins, foreshadowing the fact that the Dark Kingdom will win the battle.
 * Turns to blackjack motifs starting in Act 4. Also turns to pool for a bit with The Felt, a pool-themed gang.
 * Chest Burster: Full body-burst, as an Alien/Pokémon parody, and used on a plush toy. Complete with a face hugger coming out of a suspiciously pokeball-like egg. No, really.
 * The Chosen One(s): "A realm where four will gather, the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space, and together they will Ascend." Apparently, players who successfully make it to the Medium are Chosen. Turns out they're chosen because the game creates them.
 * Christmas Episode (although it's April 13th): Very much played for laughs in conjunction with Webcomic Time with John and Jade's alchemizing bonanzas. Jade's was accompanied by Homestuck For The Holidays, the (unofficial) Homestuck Christmas album!
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: While not all the trolls seem to be guilty of this, there are a few who can be seen as continually double-crossing. Vriska in particular is known for being a backstabber.
 * "Business as usual for blue bloods."
 * Cliff Hanger: A bunch of them at any given time.
 * Clone Degeneration: The mutated paradox clones created from Jaspers' Paradox imprint ghosts.
 * To elaborate, Paradox clones are clones of themselves, through stable time loops. Mom and Rose attempted to paradox clone Jaspers the cat, but since Jaspers was not born through any such stable time loop (at least as far as we've seen), two failed paradox clones were produced.
 * Cluster F Bomb: The introduction of Gamzee, and more generally anything he says.
 * Skipper Plumbthroat unleashes an epic one in the Christmas album song "The Squiddies Save Christmas".
 * Dave is generous with his fuck supply. As is Vriska. And Karkat's foul mouth rubs off on Jade gradually.
 * Nyan Karkat.
 * Oddly enough, since the actual meaning of the F-word relates to human reproductive methods, and the trolls' methods are vastly different, the word shouldn't mean anything to them. Then again...
 * Colony Drop: Jack dropped Prospit's moon on Skaia, creating a massive crater.
 * The meteor set to land on Jade's island is about half the diameter of the moon. So massive, just the crown fire from the blast required to destroy it was enough to wipe off whatever was left of Earth's civilization.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Most of the characters have a corresponding color assigned to them. Of the kids, John is blue, Rose is purple, Dave is red and Jade is green. Oddly, John and Jade wear shirts displaying each others' colors. The trolls also have their own unique colors displayed in their chats and clothing, which correspond to their blood colors (except for Karkat, who keeps his blood color anonymous).
 * In ] case, it's more like Color Coded For Your Inconvenience - ] The annoyance of this is repeatedly lampshaded.
 * Combinatorial Explosion: Hoo boy. The alchemy system ostensibly allows any object to be combined with any other object to create a new one, and there's at least two methods of combination (perhaps as many as there are logical operators). As lampshaded here, the number of possible objects (over 280 trillion) suddenly doesn't seem so big when you realize that it's supposed to allow any possible object, excluding "key" items like Sburb discs.
 * Although since the game controls time, it's entirely possible that it knows everything the players will try to make, meaning it only has to prepare for a few hundred combinations.
 * Of course, then we learn about the Intellibeam Laserstation, and that there are apparently codes unreadable by players. Meaning that the vast majority of objects not used commonly by players could simply be laserstation captcha codes, which for all we know have additional characters not seen in normal codes and perhaps not even percievable to anything but the Laserstation, i.e. the Sburb disc or a pumpkin, for some reason.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: "There is also a CAN OF PEANUTS on the desk. Ha ha, oh DAD. You won't be falling for THAT one again any time soon. A severe peanut allergy is a terrible affliction to cope with." "There is also a SPRING-MOUNTED POGO-RIDE, which has been responsible for more than one painful injury, and has provided you with years of lament.", "this is my green slime ghost pogo ride, in all its glory. in my childhood, it was hours of fun, and hundreds of painful injuries.". Falling down stares as a runnin gag. Jack Noir showing people his stabs.
 * Conditioned to Accept Horror: The trolls live in a brutally Social Darwinist Crapsack World where, had SGRUB not taken place and destroyed the planet, most of them would've probably been culled for being disabled (Terezi and Tavros) or low-blooded mutants (Karkat). Daylight brings rainbow (blood)-drinkers, the undead, while they sleep in a tub of tranquilizers to make sure they don't get intensely brutal nightmares of blood and carnage. And this was all directly caused by a devil figure living on an unnatural moon.
 * In "[S] Jade Wake Up", Jade meets Feferi and they both meet the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors. Jade is disturbed while Feferi thinks they're nothing to be scared of since the creature that is effectively her foster mother was an Eldritch Abomination too.
 * Convection Schmonvection: The Land Of Heat And Clockwork. Not only is the entire place running with magma but the only platforms appear to be metal gears, which would either melt, or conduct the heat right to the people on them (Conduction Shmonduction?). Justified, as the game wouldn't want to make itself unbeatable by killing all the players that touch one of the planets.
 * According to Word of God, this is apparently literally true. Either in the Medium, or in the Homestuck universe in general.
 * Cool Car: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
 * Cooldown Hug: Good Moirails.
 * Cool Old Guy: Post-scratch!Dave. Let's do some math here. According to the Huss, Bro is about the same age as himself, which means his birthday is sometime in the late 70's (and by extension, Post-scratch!Dave's too). Presidents Jay and Dope have been elected in 2024, and they had "several terms" before being killed by Dave, implying 12 years at the very least. So at the age of around 60, maybe even more, Dave kills two of the worst tyrants in human history and then ascends on one of the shittiest skateboards ever made. Subverted in that he was probably just as badass as a younger adult, just not as engaged in ass-whooping.
 * Same goes for Grandpa Harley.
 * Cool Old Lady: Post-scratch!Rose, for the same reason as above.
 * Grandma English.
 * Those examples are all subversions though, as they were most likely just as badass when they were younger adults. We just don't see any of it.
 * Cool Sword: Any sword that Dave gets is, inevitably, going to be one of these. But his most recent acquisition is worthy of mention, considering that it's Caledfwlch - mythologically, one of King Arthur's swords and one of his most cherished possessions. Dave and Davesprite are aware that it is an inherently cool sword, and that it's Welsh somehow but don't know the reference. Davesprite considers it to be Awesome but Impractical, considering that Dave already has Caledscratch - which is Caledfwlch but better - as well as several other weapons that qualify as Disk One Nukes.
 * One-upped with the Royal Deringer he gets when entering God Tier.
 * Cosmic Horror Story: While it had elements of this for a while, it becomes a pretty major part of the story as of [S Jade: Wake up.] Warning: may cause gibbering.
 * Cosmic Retcon: Even though it's stated that the protagonists are unnamed until their thirteenth birthday, flashbacks seem to indicate that a character's name is applied retroactively.
 * Cosplay: Invoked for shenanigans by Vriska and Tavros. This seems to be something of a theme for Vriska, as she later takes issue with John's peppy green outfit, and smoothly pressures him into cosplaying as her.
 * Later we find out Terezi has her own set too.
 * Couldn't Find a Pen: Except, in this case, Vriska uses Mind Control to make someone else write a message in her blood, since she's not telepathic. They get in an argument, and the color being used starts to change.
 * Crapsack World: The Trolls' home planet of Alternia. In regards to a particular paraplegic troll: "One day you hope to prove yourself worthy of recruitment into the halls of the dreaded imperial CAVALREAPERS. Assuming you are not slated for culling first on account of your disability. Or really any other arbitrary reason." Most of this is because of troll culture.
 * Not to mention Alternia is home to countless extremely dangerous animals and hordes of undead. Troll culture comes off sounding like one of the Warhammer40000 examples this wiki has on every page.
 * After Sgrub, the world is mostly dead and populated with mobsters, time-traveling ruffians, and generally unpleasant universe-consuming demons, in addition to the few monsters that survived. But hey, at least the trolls are gone.
 * Crap Saccharine World: Despite its seeming morality, there are a number of hints that something is wrong with the Post-Scratch Earth.
 * The future, where the Condesce has alterniaformed the planet and rules openly, graduates to a full Crapsack.
 * The post-scratch session itself isn't any better. Since the kids are doomed to not prototype before entry, the session is unwinnable, and the mythology of the lands has changed to reflect this. The players are no longer Heroes but more tragic Nobles, and all of the lands are long dead with the construction of grand tombs as the last act of their consorts' civilizations. Only the Denizens remain.
 * Crazy Cultural Comparison: Common buckets are, due to how Trolls reproduce, basically akin to porn stashes in Alternian culture, and leaving one exposed is a major faux pas.
 * Crazy Prepared: John's Dad, apparently. Take this page from 5-2. The man keeps a spare car in his wallet.
 * Creation Myth: Word of God says that this is one of things Homestuck was supposed to be from the start. Universes are created when people play Sburb/Sgrub, and the new universe is based on the players and their actions. The trolls "created" our universe, and the constellations of the Zodiac represent them, not the other way around.
 * Creator Breakdown: Mocked.
 * He also makes it clear that certain storyline events are NOT the result of this.
 * Creepy Doll: Lil' Cal. He can simply appear with no explanation as to how he got there, sometimes displacing whatever was there originally, although this is usually just Bro messing with Dave. Usually. His eyes don't help either. Cal's creepiness was further amped up when it was revealed that crossing him with a magic cue ball created Doc Scratch and that Cal was created by Gamzee's rage powers to terrify Dave after Dave showed Gamzee the AlterniaBound "Miracles" video.
 * Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Subverted. Karkat thinks he's going to have to apologize to Vriska in order to get her to join the Red Team. When he finds out that Vriska's been kicked off the Blue Team, he instantly rescinds his apology, and apologizes to himself for even making it in the first place.
 * Cryptic Conversation: The Trolls refusal to be helpful or coherent at all (even to past versions of themselves) tends to result in Self Fulfilling Prophecy.
 * Culture Justifies Anything: Vriska's defense for killing Tavros and feeding all those young trolls to her lusus.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Dave's fight with his brother didn't go very well. At all. Implied for John's battle with the Denizen in the Bad Future, and Dave's battle with the Draconian dignitary in an alternate past.
 * Sollux predicts that this is how he will die, being blinded immediately prior or during. He may have been partially right about that, although it's not clear what event he was talking about.
 * Aradia vs. Vriska, from the former to the latter-- the most brutal sequence yet.
 * Vriska used it to enter God Tier.
 * Davesprite and Bro (and Cal) vs. Jack looks like a pretty even battle, until Becquerel is prototyped which causes Jack to gain Bec's powers. Jack then proceeds to easily kill Bro and heavily wound Davesprite.
 * The much-anticipated fight between Vriska and Tavros. Tavros charges...and Vriska slaps him, disarms him, rams his own lance through his chest, and THROWS HIM OFF A CLIFF.
 * Redglare verses Mindfang the first time around. She has her lusus, Pyralspite, set fire to all of Mindfang's fleet. Then Pyralspite's eyes cost Mindfang her vision 8-fold and Redglare slices off one of her arms.
 * Kanaya versus Eridan. One-sided? Yes. One Hit Kill? Also yes. Richly deserved? Ooooh yes.
 * She also nut shots Gamzee so hard he flies out of his shoes, hat and glasses.
 * And punches Vriska so hard she knocks a pupil our of place and flies across the room.
 * John and Rose vs. Jack! With his new Wind powers and Warhammer of Zillyhoo, John is ready to fight! Round O-and he's been stabbed through the chest.
 * Dream Jade mugs the Courtyard Droll before he knows what's going on.
 * Jake getting hilariously beaten by the Brobot.
 * B-2 Dave vs. Presidents Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J: 2xDECAPITATION COMBO.
 * B-2 Rose vs. Chaplain Fieri: 2xEYESTAB COMBO.
 * The Empress vs. B-2 Dave and Rose: 3x3DENT/SORDSTAB COMBO.
 * Curse Cut Short: "Insufferable Pri--" *CHOP*
 * Cut His Heart Out With a Spoon: Jack Noir finally gets tired of Dad's busy fists. "Here, (flicks switchblade) stick this in your pipe and bleed to death slowly."
 * Spades Slick casing an all-green mansion belonging to Lord English. He looks forward to "painting this ugly house red with the blood of those miserable green motherfuckers."
 * I anyone tried to steal Boxcar's set of wax lips, he "would eat their eyeballs and deliver an angry lecture into their empty sockets."
 * Cute Kitten:
 * You fail miserably.
 * Cute Monster Race: They have pointier teeth and horns (which are fairly large when they reach adulthood) but aside from that they're pretty much human. Subverted for some of the Ancestors; few would define the Grand Highblood as cute.
 * Cycle of Revenge: "Make her pay." Vriska cripples Tavros. Aradia tries to avenge him by sending ghosts to haunt Vriska. Vriska kills Aradia. Terezi attempts to kill Vriska by exposing to Doc Scratch the source of her knowledge, prompting him to blow off her left arm and eye. Vriska blinds Terezi. A truce is called and the cycle seems to end there, until Aradia regains her emotions and beats Vriska to a pulp in revenge for her murder. And then Terezi's dream self slaps Vriska's. What's strange is that this seems like perfectly normal behavior to trolls. Getting revenge and backstabbing is a large part of troll society.
 * It's been pretty well settled by Terezi killing Vriska.

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