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Tear Jerker / Homestuck

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> Shed single tear of black liquid sorrow.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/23sf0jl_2192.jpg
Remember how, for the first three months, Homestuck was just a webcomic about some kid dicking around in his bedroom? Yeah, we...we kind of miss those days.
"How many times did you let Mario fall in the pit before he saved the princess? Who weeps for these Marios. In games your characters die, but you keep trying and trying and rebooting and resetting until finally they make it. When you play a game this process is all very impersonal. Once you finally win, when all is said and done those deaths didn’t “count”, only the linear path of the final victorious version of the character is considered “real”. Mario never actually died, did he? Except the omniscient player knows better. HS seems to combine all the meaningless deaths of a trial-and-error game journey with the way death is treated dramatically in other media, where unlike our oblivious Mario, the characters are aware and afraid of the many deaths they must experience before finally winning the game."
Andrew Hussie

You let a sole drop of moisture roll down your cheek at the merest thought of these moments. Alas, what has been done cannot be undone.

For examples from The Homestuck Epilogues, go here.


    open/close all folders 

     General 
  • How about the fact that a good majority of the cast is teenaged? And that all of them have died at least once? And seen their homes destroyed? And seen most of their friends killed, be it in battle or the apocalypse? And have to live with the knowledge that the deaths of MILLIONS are on their hands? How would you deal with that?
    • Not only that, but the fact that they're witnessing the very breakdown of the laws of physics. All the things you listed tend to fall under the "everything you know is falling apart", but the very structure of the Universe is being revealed to them. The fact that they keep their sanity might either be a sign of optimism, or strength.
  • "Catchyegrabber" just makes you feel horrible for Skipper Plumbthroat.

    Act 3 
  • Rose: Fast forward to now.
  • Jade: Abscond.note 
  • Spades Slick and the Midnight Crew are introduced in the intermission between Acts 3 and 4, for what looks like a lighthearted (if rather gory) romp through Homestuck’s extended background world and character roster. By the end of the intermission, three of the four members of the Midnight Crew are dead, with no closure on how, given they died offscreen due to time travel mishaps. Spades Slick, who caused the time travel mishap in question, completely accidentally, has lost an arm and an eye, and killed his friends. And things only go downhill for him from there.

     Act 4 


     Act 5 Act 1 
  • Terezi lives completely alone in the woods and her only companions are stuffed dragons that she hangs in LARP sessions. Also, she's blind.
  • Karkat in a fit of arrogance ends up killing everyone's Custodian by setting off a program that curses him and everyone he's ever met. Their faces when they find their custodians though. That is what makes it a Tear Jerker. You never thought you'd see Gamzee so sad. Not to mention Karkat with an expression that isn't pure rage.
  • Tavros Nitram, also known as adiosToreador, takes Tear Jerker to Serial Escalation levels. Phrasing it very briefly:
    • He had a fascination with flight. Using mind-control, a literal Killer DM convinced him he could fly, thereby forcing him to jump off a cliff. This left him in a wheelchair, a disability which the Powers That Be on Alternia see as grounds for culling. Upon entering the game, when he finally managed to experience flight, his dreamself died. We're told that his disability leads to all sorts of problems within the medium, made worse by the fact that the aforementioned Killer DM is now his server player. Although it's eventually fixed, it's only at the cost of having his legs chainsawed off. And all of this is in addition to the already-terrible problems faced by the other trolls: a dead home planet, an unwinnable game, and a dead lusus.
      • And even then he only gets to use his new legs for (presumably) a couple of hours, before the aforementioned Killer DM/server player succeeds in killing him.
  • Terezi waits her entire damn life on her Lusus and then it dies right after it hatches.
  • Screw it, all the trolls have incredibly shitty lives, and a lot of them are crippled or were hurt from an extreme roleplaying accident, and the only one who refused to join their LAR Ps lived in a cave most of her life, and the first Troll she ever saw was a ghost.
    • This actually leads to another Tear Jerker while listening to the Alternia album. Most of the songs are a mix of spooky and Awesome synthesized tunes. But "Theme" is a sad, simple piano piece, which the composer calls "Overwhelmingly bittersweet and heartfelt. Entirely inappropriate."
      • "Alternia" from the Alterniabound album is a remix of "Theme" and is this but more. The notes that come with the album clear up what it's about: how they came so far and almost won the game, could almost move into their own, new universe, and things were finally going to be OK for them, and had it all taken away from them. "It is, in essence, the Trolls' lingering and bittersweet memory of Hope."
    • Let's summarize: Their parents die, they live on an utter hellhole full of wild monsters that can and will attack them, many of them are tormented by injuries or burdened with psychic visions of their doom. Plus, all trolls have absolutely terrifying nightmares and need their beds to calm them down enough that they don't go insane. Oh and the only forms of emotion considered natural for them are hate and pity, and the only thing they have to look forward to is a violent life of conquest. That doesn't even mention the blood based caste system, which is openly disdained by most of them and allows for them to be abused. AND they are the only survivors of their race, and still, after all this, their dream selves die. Eventually they won the game. AND THEN the Kids do something to screw it up, and they're stuck in the Veil, reduced to trolling. And ignoring all that, there's Vriska. She will pretty much screw your life, regardless of other circumstances.
  • Vriska manipulates Sollux, Aradia's boyfriend, to raze her and her hive to the ground with his Wave-Motion Gun Eye Beams. Kind of sad. But Aradia's face when she see's Sollux changes from surprised joy to fear. And then she died. And the readers cried.
    Sollux??
    • And on the other hand, her death seemed to have broken Sollux, as it's implied that he had been happy at some point in his life beforehand, but hardly if ever had been since.
      AA: s0llux i actually w0uld like it if you were happy
      TA: ok. thank you for 2ayiing 2o.
      AA: y0u seem sad and angry all the time
      • It gets even worse when you take into account the fact that he asks her at one point how she feels about the fact that the voices will stay with her until she dies, implying that he's not even aware she's dead, just that something is horribly wrong with her. And judging by the fact that Aradia requested that Nepeta not tell anyone, she likely feels that it's best if he doesn't know he killed her.
  • "But unfortunately, Rufio is not real... You continue to be sad and alone." Keep in mind that, while you read this, Tavros is being harassed by Vriska over his disability. Specifically, her demanding that he apologize for being crippled (by her). And remember that Rufio is the name he gave to his self-esteem.
    • "...He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made-up friend, the way fairies are." Tavros is just telling himself what Vriska said when she laughed at the idea of Rufio. It's like she convinced him of what she said, that the whole self-esteem thing is a ridiculous joke that Vriska is playing on him.
  • This conversation and Vriska's chatlogs with Kanaya. Or essentially anything that involves the cracks we see in Vriska's BLUH BLUH HUGE BITCH veneer. Doc Scratch's enabling turned that FLARP session into a complete clusterfuck that cost Vriska most of her friends, and she does feel guilty about it and wants them back. All her attempts at trying to help Tavros and Aradia go about as horribly wrong as they can. She keeps chasing after a kismessitude that she's not going to get, it's destroying her moirallegiance, and she doesn't understand why. All the little moments of sincerity Vriska has just bring home that under her maniacal need to manipulate everything, she's a thirteen-year-old kid with massive psychological issues just like all the other trolls and it's practically torpedoing all of her relationships, with absolute no clue on what's really going on.
    • It's also implied that Doc Scratch is a pedophile and he is at the very least a manipulative child predator, which puts a lot of her behavior regarding him into perspective.
  • Kanaya, it's hard. Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands. Despite the Call-Back to Eridan's melodrama, it's still surprisingly sad and also drives home how much all these silly trolls need a hug.
  • Vriska possibly realizing what she's doing as she manipulates Tavros, she looks down and stops, looking sad.
  • Fridge Horror turns Eridan's entry into him slaughtering some random troll's lusus to get fodder for Feferi's lusus.
  • Right after Feferi enters the medium Eridan gets the courage to tell her that his feelings for her are redder then the average moriallegience...right when Feferi decides to dump him, saying that they don't need to be moraillegience anymore because Eridan can't pose a threat to the land dwellers now that he is in the medium and that being his Morail made her exhausted.
    CC: When all is said and done, I am still your friend.
    CC: We have left our world behind. Everyone is dead, and there's no use in worrying about it now.
    CC: It's over! It is time to play this game and focus on building something new and ———EXCITING.
    CC: So )(ang in t)(ere, -Eridan.
    CC: I )(ave to go now! Sollux is in serious trouble, and I )(ave to go )(elp )(im.
    CC: BY————————————E!
    CA: wwait
    CA: dont go
    cuttlefishCuller [CC] ceased trolling caligulasAquarium [CA]
    CA: glub
  • The one-sided conversation Karkat had with Sollux right here is devastating...especially once you see what he's looking at. Sollux just didn't quite make it into the Medium, did he...?
    CG: BRO ARE YOU OK.
    CG: HEY
    CG: OH GOD
    CG: WHAT HAVE I DONE.
    CG: SOLLUX?
    CG: PLEASE TELL ME THAT'S JUST HONEY.
    CG: HAHA, OK, MAKE-BELIEVE TIME IS OVER!
    CG: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
  • This entire update, while rather heartwarming, comes across as sad when you realized that half of the conversation was coming from a kid who would in all likelihood be dying very soon and knew it. Rambling on to himself and talking about troll-Christmas made his conversation with Kanaya feel like two friends who have completely given up hope, just talking to each other while they wait for the world to end.
    • And then Kanaya scrolls up and we see that that future version of Karkat is headed for The Rift, a flashing void of nothing. The fact that things look so horrible for the Trolls is enough to sadden any fan.
  • The trolls were literally inches away from claiming the Ultimate Reward when the Scratch happened.
    • The way Aradiabot talks about it is just... somber.
    CAA: we w0uld return t0 the site 0f 0ur hatching
    CAA: [...] where we w0uld hide
    CAA: amidst a veil depleted by the reck0ning
    CAA: and wait
    CAA: drifting in the wide 0rbit 0f 0ur s00n t0 be null sessi0n

     Act 5 Act 2 
  • Karkat's very initial expression when first shown watching John's life, depicting him as exhausted and beat as his heart breaks while witnessing a beautiful life that he and his friends never had (and could have had if not for Jack), right before his face becomes more enraged.
  • WV blames himself for the death of the Skaian armies.
    Your RAG OF SOULS begins to soak in the BLOOD OF THE FALLEN. You supposed it could be poetic?
    No, instead you think it is just sad.
    You were very foolish to believe you could be a leader of men. Look at what bearing that flag has wrought.
    Perhaps one day you will find something new to bear. A burden befitting of the peasant you truly are.
  • This and the following two pages, despite being comedic as well at points, just make you feel horrible for Aradia. Rose's last two lines are kind of sad though also hilarious.
    • The pure desperation from the normally-emotionless Aradia is both unnerving and saddening. She's lashing out against the (seemingly) inevitable. Even when trying to generate a random number to spite the game, she ends up simply generating the two arc numbers of Homestuck, making it even all the more futile.
  • This conversation and what follows. Poor Nepeta...
  • Any time Rose (one of the darkest characters in the comic) has a conversation with Jaspersprite (quite possibly the most innocent thing ever) can stir emotions for some. This one is especially bad.
    • The way that Jaspers doesn't quite realize that he actually died is heartbreaking. He loves Rose so much and it's incredibly sweet. Especially for a cat owner.
  • Jade's reaction to the dream she has when she sleeps after her dreamself dies and her subsequent conversation with Feferi about it.. She just looks and acts so tired, confused, scared, and just plain worn out; you can't help but want to give her a hug, even though you know that probably wouldn't help things. Poor Jade.
    • It also gets pretty sad when she says that she never wants to sleep or dream again, she's spent her whole life dreaming, it was her favorite thing, and now that is gone...
  • As with the Aradia example above, seeing Jade, the normally very cheerful and optimistic girl just out right FLIP OUT and start yelling at both Karkats, is... really unsettling
  • Whoa. Whoa. The Land of Wind and Shade got fucked up. Just the thought of all the cute little salamanders getting genocided is a kick in the chest, but the implications for John and Jade do not look good.
  • [S] Jade: Enter. The music really is perfect—the part where it slows down and gets particularly threatening as Jack gets prototyped with Bec Noir and Bro and Davesprite actually seem to get worried, and then the part with Karkat actually waking up on Prospit only to get killed by someone he considered an ally. The ending with Jade falling through the snow while sweet, it's also sad because she had no clue what just really happened.
    • Karkat's reaction to seeing god mode-Jack Noir destroying Prospit and his dream self is just heartrending. The look can only be described as one of absolute betrayal.
      • Karkat's conversation with John, doesn't make it any easier. Karkat still acting like it was just his way of saying hi is still somewhat amusing, but it still makes one think maybe the poor kid's saying it because he doesn't want to face the reality.
      CG: I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE HIM WHEN HE FIRST APPEARED.
      CG: BUT ON PROSPIT, I SAW HIM UP CLOSE, WITHOUT ALL THAT RIDICULOUS GREEN SHIT OBSCURING HIM.
      CG: I COULD HARDLY BELIEVE IT WAS REALLY HIM BY THE WAY HE LOOKED, BUT I JUST KNEW.
      CG: HE WAS WEARING A RING I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE, CERTAINLY NOT ONE BELONGING TO OUR QUEENS.
      CG: WE DESTROYED THOSE.
      CG: HE WORE IT ON HIS ONE HAND, WHICH WAS COVERED IN OUR MUTANT BLOOD.
      CG: AND THEN
      CG: JUST LIKE THAT
      CG: HE KILLED ME
      CG: AND I GUESS
      CG: EVEN THOUGH IT WAS PROBABLY JUST HIS WAY OF SAYING HI
      CG: I STILL FELT KIND OF BETRAYED.
      EB: betrayed?
      CG: YES JOHN. BETRAYED.
  • Bro dying.
    • It makes an earlier conversation between John and Jade Harsher in Hindsight.
      GG: you got to bring back your nanna, rose brought back her cat, i can bring back grandpa, and dave...
      GG: dave got to bring back a dead bird because of course he is too cool to have any dead family members
  • Holy crap no. NO FUCKING WAY.
    • OH THANK GOD.
      • Oh jeez, damn you Hussie. Though... Kanaya's little speech makes it seem like she isn't totally out of the woods yet... but the meaning of that is something for WMG to sort out.
      • And now Rose's normal self is dead and her dream self is still going on the suicide mission...so she really will die unless Aradia intervenes.
  • Hooray! Tavros saved Jade from killing herself as a child! And got rid of an Adult prowler. Wait. Oops. The worst part is that he only meant well.
    • No, the worst part is that Jade spent her whole childhood agonizing over the belief that either the taxidermied woman did it, or her grandfather had committed suicide.
    • The good news is, that Jade recognizes that it was just a misunderstanding and forgives him for it (she even thanks him for saving her life). She just wishes he would have cleared things up when she was younger.
  • If you're a fan of Vriska, or Tavros for that matter, her ascension to the God Levels and Tavros's role in it all starting here is absolutely horrifying.
    • She really believes in him and trusts him, and he can't. Who else is betting that this is what Tavros was talking about when he mentions something so horrible happening during the trolls' session that all he did after that was sleep?
      • Worse yet is the possibility that the reason he can't do it is due to her always picking away at his self confidence. What she saw as (horrifyingly wrong) attempts to make him tougher and into the kind of person he could be were breaking him and stripping him of his self-worth.
  • JOHN. RISE UP.
    • It's worse from WV's point of view. He just witnessed Jack killing John, and his view cuts out permanently. WV can no longer contact John, and he has no way of knowing that John's dreamself is still alive. And he appears to be on the verge of tears.
  • Aradia saying her final goodbye to Sollux, and hugging him afterwards.
    • Coupled with Equius's reaction from the back. He's notably just as shaken as Sollux, maybe even more so, not only because he loved her but the fact that she chose to say goodbye to her ex-boyfriend and not her current one broke him.
  • Terezi: Watch alternate universe version of new alien friend die because of something you did. Followed by her reaction.
  • Jade: View Missing Dave.
    • Her subsequent conversation with Dave manages to be something of a tear-jerker as well. She tries to comfort him after the loss of his brother/"ghost dad," and he addresses the strange relationship he had with Bro.
  • On second thought, prototyping with Dream Jade was a really bad idea.
    • ...And then Jade gets impatient and annoyed, and just starts laying into poor Jadesprite like crazy. Thinking about where each of them is coming from—our Jade is frustrated, tired, at her wit's end, and has degenerated into abusive rage; Jadesprite was finally starting to get over dying and losing the game in the afterlife when she was suddenly thrust back into the most traumatic point of her short life, and can't even begin to cope—you just can't help but feel terrible for them both.
      • Want to make it even worse? Think about this: Jade and Jadesprite are variations on the same person, and the real Jade has seen all of the trauma that Jadesprite has and a lot more to go with it. So why isn't she having a massive breakdown too? Well, look at what she's calling Jadesprite—selfish and weak, accusing her of letting everyone down. Think about the implications there: she's probably going to hold her actual self to the same standards as her spriteself. In other words, she's suppressing a FUCK of a lot of trauma—dying, losing half her life on Prospit, watching a Dave be killed (not permanently, but still horrifying), losing her guardian, blaming herself as the game becomes unwinnable, and being faced with an unbeatable murderous monster that could appear anywhere at any time—because she feels like if she freaks out over all of that, it's a despicable weakness and she's letting her friends down. That's an unreasonable expectation for an adult to have, and she's thirteen.
    • To say nothing of Karkat making her realize how not so different she is from him in that scene.
      • Which actually ends up with a Heartwarming Moment when Jade sees it isn't such a bad thing and they make amends, apparently going on to become Fire-Forged Friends if Karkat's messages from the future can be trusted.
    • If you're in the mood for a horrifying reminder, think about the fact that Bec's entire personality was erased because of that prototyping. It's completely glossed over in context but think about this; Not only did he die by the hands of his best friend/adoptive daughter and left no trace of having existed to begin with—he had no say in the matter whatsoever. Imagine your best friend calling you over to give you a surprise...and then killing you for no apparent reason. Sure Jade knew it was for the best but still...
  • Wayward Vagabond needs a hug. He'll never forget his past failure, even while he is asleep.
  • Tavros, ever the quintessential Woobie, is rewarded for showing a little backbone and standing up to Vriska by being impaled with his own lance and thrown off a cliff. Again.
    • From the same update, Jack deciding to Kill the Cutie twice in gruesome succession.
      • Especially Nepeta, thanks to her expression after getting DOOF-ed.
  • OH GOD! NOT AGAIN!
  • The recent death of Kanaya makes this conversation especially sad.
    GG: i dont know, i have no idea what time you are from!
    GG: but you will get it, i gave it to you some time ago at the end of our last conversation
    GG: and i have been eagerly awaiting your linear and unconfusing reply ever since!
    GG: bye kanaya <3
  • The reveal that Gamzee, who had always come across as a generally sweet, friendly and easygoing person, is actually a murderous sociopath whose split personality had been being kept in check by his constant consumption of sopor slime was not only nightmare-inducingly horrifying but utterly crushing.
  • This memo, The part where past Feferi responds is severely gut wrenching.
    • And on the next page... CCG: SHE WAS MY REALLY *GOOD* FRIEND AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO DO NOW THAT SHE'S GONE. Then it rapidly segues back into horror.
    • On the same page we get Eridan's response to the memo and it's gut-wrenching. It starts out with him thinking that Karkat is flirting with him in order to cheer him up after Feferi broke off their moirallegiance, something he seems to really appreciate. He then becomes confused over Karkat's genuine anger at him leading him to ask about what happened. Instead of answering Karkat continues to yell at him, eventually leading to Eridan offering to talk about their issues together. Unfortunately Karkat is too emotional distraught to talk with him anymore and bans him. Even worse is that if Karkat had been able to calm down and talk it out he might have been able to prevent Eridan's meltdown in the first place.
  • The 2x Corpsesmooch Combo is funny, but also sad. Karkat is crying as he does it—it's obvious he's hoping against hope here. Made even worse by the preceding chatlogs, wherein it's pretty clear he was bordering on redrom feelings (platonic <> probably) for Kanaya, and this just hammers it home.
    • It failed.
  • The Dramatic Irony of the kids being unaware of the events going on for the trolls. Whenever they talk about the trolls as though they were still alive, sane, or not in danger, it's like a punch to the gut.
  • Karkat's (possibly) final chatlog with John:
    CG: I HAVE TO GO
    CG: SORRY FOR BEING SUCH A DOUCHE TO YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS.
    CG: I HOPE YOU CAN SUCCEED AS A LEADER WHERE I FAILED MISERABLY.
  • Karkat's slow descent into the Despair Event Horizon after receiving Terezi's logs. She tells him that she will be 'away from her glasses' and right after that Karkat freaks out when he sees one simple word: honk, heavily implying that Gamzee is going after Terezi. Then Karkat examines Sollux's unconscious body only to discover that falling down the stairs knocked the latter's teeth out. After putting the teeth back in his mouth, this text comes up—"There. Good as new, best friend! It's like it never happened. No one can ever blame you for dropping him down the stairs now. Stairs? What stairs! Ha ha ha!"
  • In the 2/6 update, we see that Nepeta has painted a new shipping wall. The tear-jerker part is that she's got a full wall dedicated to people who just died and that she can't bear to paint over them. (For those curious, Dave/Tavros, Rose/Kanaya, and Sollux/Feferi.)
    • Nepeta and Equius's seperation is part this and part adorable. But it tips toward the Tear Jerker side of things when you realize that the reason Equius is so adamant about saying goodbye is because he knows it's very probable that they might not see each other again and, after what happened with Aradia, he wants to properly say goodbye to his friend.
      • Which escalates into full Tear Jerker when, sure enough, Gamzee kills Equius right before Nepeta's eyes.
  • The fact that Equius had the ability to save himself and Nepeta, but didn't. He valued the hemospectrum and Gamzee finally acting like a highblood more than his moirail. Because green b100d is ok, but it's not great.
    • To be fair, he believed Nepeta was safely hiding in the back room, so he thought it was only his life at risk, not hers as well.
      • It's made even worse when you realize that not only is he okay with dying, he's enjoying it. Equius's blood color was always visible under his glasses. Fans of forensics shows might know that asphyxiation causes hemorrhaging around the eyes like that. Putting this together with his title (Heir of Void) and the fact that he is smiling while Gamzee kills him, it can be determined that Equius was a practitioner of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
      • It's even worse when you consider that Heir of Void can mean "become nothing" and just how mentally and emotionally fucked up you would have to be to smile while being choked to death, fetish or not. "Become nothing" indeed. God knows how long he's felt like nothing as well, which is likely the reason he hung onto the hemospectrum and his high caste in an attempt to feel important.
  • Whether or not you find Vriska's conversation/confession with John starting here sad depends on how sympathetic you are to Vriska. It's still tragic, since it drives home to poor John just how different he and Vriska are despite their budding friendship. He is clearly struggling to understand her even after learning about all of the horrible things she's done.
    • It also tugs at the heartstrings when you realize how incredibly serious Vriska is about these doubts and confessions; count how many times she uses her usual typing quirks. Then look at how much of the conversation is completely devoid of typing quirks...
      • And think back afterwards to her relationship with Tarvos and her idolation of Mindfang. Nearly every horrible step in her life before the that wasn't motivated by trying to please Spidermom or Doc Scratch's manipulations was due to her chasing Mindfang's shadow (and failing). If you don't feel sorry for her still, then look at poor Tavros—everything she did to him was to try to make him into a new Summoner, and every single thing she did backfired horrifically. Then go back and reread her ascension to God Tier. She desperately wants him to kill her as one last attempt to make him into the man he could be—and it breaks him completely. Just tragic on both sides.
  • The February 11th/12th updates...which focused on the doomed Dave who tried to ascend to the god tiers. Especially the panel where he sees Alpha Timeline Dave finding and mourning over Bro.
    • The saddest part is that the doomed Dave, being Dave, reacts with utter composure. And yet, you can easily tell by his dialogue how he's feeling. The saddest part probably being:
      AA: and yes your guardian did die
      TG: well
      TG: dammit
      TG: what did i do wrong
    • Further down this dialogue, it could break some readers' hearts to see Dave witnessing what's going on around Skaia, wanting to do something, yet being powerless to do so...
      TG: if im seeing this
      TG: shouldnt i be able to do something about it
      TG: or stop it from happening or
      TG: i dont know like anything to keep helping my friends
      TG: what do i do
      AA: nothing
      AA: none of this is your business anymore
      AA: its time to move on
  • Put into context this journal entry from Vriska's ancestor: Marquise Spinneret Mindfang is raping her slave just to make her rival Orphaner Dualscar jealous, and ignite/strengthen their odd troll romance further. Yes, it is a record of life centuries ago on Alternia, but still, that poor slave...
    • Then the slave is assassinated by Dualscar right when Mindfang starts to feel genuine redrom feelings for her.
    • "Thus my heart was 8roken twice. I was fond of the slave. There was surely promise in her red investment. He had her assassin8ed."
    • And the slave was later implied to be Kanaya's ancestor, the Dolorosa.
      • Which sheds an extremely dark light on Kanaya's flushed feelings for Vriska.
  • For anyone still clinging to hope of Nepeta somehow surviving her encounter with Gamzee, this update shows the Monster Clown interrupting the start of a duel with her blood on his weapon of choice.
  • John's Dad and Rose's mum are enjoying a romantic meal. A few updates later? "You are now Jack Noir. You have just murdered an innocent family. What will you do?"
  • Rose's expression when she looks into her crystal ball and sees that Jack has killed her mother.
    • And Rose's conversation with Jade afterwards, at least until she starts going insane.
    • Especially this little line. Rose immediately starts blaming herself.
      TT: John was too. But he went to look for his father.
      TT: It would have been normal of me. I can't remember what I was trying to prove anymore.
    • Given Rose's attitude towards her at the beginning, it's also sort of heartwarming in an Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other sort of way. Doesn't make it any less sad, though.
  • "Alternia", from the latest album, combined with the image for it, can send one sobbing.
  • For some reason, Bec Noir retaining Becquerel's love for and loyalty to Jade is saddening. The part where he accidentally describes her as being wonderful and adoring is even worse.
    • Bec Noir's incredibly sorrowful demeanor when Jade dies. And he takes her to her quest bed.
  • [S] Seer: Descend, especially towards the end; Dramatic Irony at its worst.
    • Near the beginning, attempting to examine MOM and DAD's bodies does nothing; the only message you will get is "There is no sign of Jack Noir up here. Must be somewhere in the castle," which is produced by examining any spot on the screen. Rose is either desperately trying not to think about it...or she no longer cares.
    • As you descend into the castle, you find more and more corpses of Dersites and Prospitians, but you do encounter a few survivors: one hiding behind a pillar, and a group in a secret room plotting a futile counterattack. It turns out that, as Rose spoke with John, Jack returned.
    • About the latter group, a little more Dramatic Irony; this group is apparently gushing over a "great hero" from the Dark Army who rose from being a simple farmer to leading a rebellion against the tyrannical Black King. Though the rebellion ended in tragedy, the hero still inspired them and gave them hope, even in the bleakest of times. Who are they describing? The Wayward Vagabond. The same guy who viewed himself as a failure because of the rebellion. WV was a hero to these people—and he never knew.
  • Dave's conversation with Terezi after finding Bro's body. The poor guy is obviously having serious trouble working out his emotions, and having a personal crisis over his role in the game at the same time.
    TG: im not john remember
    TG: im not a hero
    TG: my bro was
    TG: john is
    TG: im not
  • This page shows that Terezi is clearly concerned for Gamzee...when it was already established that Gamzee's the killer.
  • Three words: The Seer dies.
    • It also puts a different spin on her Self-Sacrifice Scheme, because her dream self is no longer expendable.
    • Also, Rose's body was on of the first things John sees when he wakes up.
  • This panel had this effect on most of the fandom, until it was reversed a few days later.
    • Vriska's enraged reaction to the whole situation. Despite all her good intentions, her actions have doomed every person she ever considered a friend, and she knows it. The various facial expressions that demonstrate this can be deeply saddening.
  • Oh...oh, Vriska. She really does like John. A lot.
  • The clock stops at just, and we see Vriska's body, with the label Dead all after an extended sequence of her confessing her feelings to John and talking about how much she hopes to see him in person.
  • Karkat admitting that Gamzee was a good friend. At the same page we see a snapshot of him typing, coated in indigo-colored blood.
  • This panel is very depressing.
  • The entirety of [o] Feel free to examine the clippings while I tidy.
    • The conversation between Nepeta and Jaspersprite is especially sad in hindsight. Nepeta is worried that Jaspers won't survive the Scratch and that she'll lose him just like she lost Pounce De Leon. As it turned out, Nepeta was killed and Jaspers survived.
  • Oh, Vriska...
  • Keeping in mind Jade's reaction when seeing a doomed Dave a while back, the scene featured in the panel above here.
  • When Rose travels through Dave's dream bubble on the way to delivering The Tumor, they argue about who was the designated pilot for this suicide mission. For once, Dave forgoes all his ironic coolguy nonsense, does not mince words, and states, "but i dont want you to die". Then he decides to stay asleep rather than wake up and try to stop her after she says this:
    TG: so you admit you were stalling with all that bullshit
    TT: I said not entirely.
    TG: what do you mean
    TT: It's going to be a long ride through all this nothingness.
    TT: Maybe I just thought some company would be nice.
    TT: Before it's all over.

    TG: ............
  • For the most part, John and Vriska finally meeting one another face to face is actually rather sweet. But when John finally starts to remember some of the details, like the suit he died in, the reader's brain finally catches up with the haymaker Hussie set up: The John she's talking to is from Davesprite's timeline...the one that Terezi got killed way back in act 4. He doesn't remember Vriska because he never met her.
    • For any Vriska lover, this scene hurts, because John's immortality will keep the two from meeting for a very long time.
    • This is now also captured in Tear-Jerking song form: "Do You Remem8er Me" indeed.
  • Nanna finds her son's hat.
    • Nanna's entire story just makes you feel horrible for her. Especially since she never got to see Grandpa again and she is left with nothing but regrets, since she could have escaped with him but didn't. Makes Jane's feelings towards Jake Harsher in Hindsight.
  • fedorafreak is possibly dead.
    • But then you realize that he died on his quest bed, and likely reached the God Tiers as the fully-realized Gent of Piss.
  • This series of panels actually give us a huge amount of exposition into various...shenanigans. But the saddest part of it all is probably the emotions that Karkat is going through when he wrote this. This is probably also the first time he genuinely says sorry, and he does it with full emotion.
    • "I THINK I GAVE HIM CANCER."
    • The voice acting in these audio clips did not help.
    • Before that, he speculates that he's stuck in a doomed timeline. That he's doomed to watch everyone around him die, unable to even communicate with Jade anymore, because of something he, personally, did to mess up the timeline. The whole thing is filled with an extremely saddening level of self-loathing from Karkat.
    • The song "Galactic Cancer" and its artwork, which is based on this moment in the comic.
  • After strifing Doc Scratch becomes hopeless, the imprisoned Handmaid feels Driven to Suicide (which she attempts by self-inflicted Electric Torture), and fails. Which is worse, the reason the Handmaid is held captive in a Gilded Cage, the Unnecessary Combat Roll to suicide after failing the Damsel Fight-and-Flight Response, OR the Epic Fail of all three responses?
    • "The Lost Child" is also heartbreaking when you remember that, despite everything she tried, the Handmaid was always doomed to the life of misery as a servant of Lord English.
    • It gets even worse in Act 6, when the Handmaid's pre-Scratch iteration, Damara Megido, is introduced. Her own story is a Tear Jerker itself, but when you learn that Damara had begun serving English at least semi-voluntarily, implicitly for the purposes of getting revenge on her teammates for how they treated her...and keep in mind that her post-Scratch self quite possibly got the roughest deal out of all the Ancestors, having never had a chance at happiness or a normal life. She was the one who paid the biggest price for her team's failure, and for all she's a fairly minor character in both her iterations, her story can send one into tears quite easily.
  • This page:
    Doc Scratch: Once, in this very universe, you could say, Alternia was home to a peaceful race. Trollkind had never known the corrupting influence in their evolution which led them to perpetual war and violence.
    Doc Scratch: That is to say, they had never known me.
  • The Disciple, full stop. Love that transcended the quadrants, tears of joy. Then she was left to live for years after her soulmate died. No wonder she went insane!
    • From the same update, we learn that the Dolorosa, Kanaya's ancestor, abandoned her duties to care for and raise the Sufferer. After he was executed, she was sold into slavery. Probably to Mindfang. And then was probably raped and murdered.
      • She was sold for the seadwellers to use, which implies all the seadweallers. In Mindfang's journal she mentions...coupling with a slave of unusual blood color that belonged to Orphaner Dualscar, then Dualscar kills the slave. The extent of the relationships is never explored and perhaps it's better we don't know.
  • Even throughout all of what he's done, the reason why Gameze went insane was quite melancholic. Imagine, if you will, that you followed a very peaceful and joyful religion, only for someone to make a complete mockery of it and shatter your pure image of said religion. That getting together over Faygo morphed into a complete satire. Listen:
    TC: I HAVE THE IDEA THAT YOU PUT IN MY PAN TO SIT THERE.
    TC: that the paradise planet
    TC: IS A FUCKING JOKE.
    TC: and the miracles
    TC: ARE FAKE.
    TC: pure fiction.
    TC: FALSE FAKEY FRAUDY CON JOBS FROM A BUNCH OF UNFUNNY NINJA HARLEQUIN BULLSHIT ARTISTS.
    • Add to this the fact that his religion was basically Gamzee's only source of hope; living with an absent parent in a society that oppressed your best friends and would most likely cull the two people you are closest to (Karkat and Tavros) isn't so bad when you know that there's hope for the future. Then Dave takes away his faith, and he finds Tavros stabbed through the chest by one of their teammates and left bloody and broken on the floor. There's also the fact that he is most likely going through withdrawals, and it's quite possible that Lil' Cal is screwing with his head. At that point, going insane could almost be seen as a coping mechanism.
  • The cause of Bec Noir's unfathomable rage upon entering the Trolls' session is finally revealed.
    • Then Bec Noir murders CD in a fit of rage.
    • What happened to the Exiles in [S] Cascade. AR especially.
  • In [S] Cascade, when he's holding Jade's body, Bec Noir just looks so sad.
  • The White Queen (or, rather, Windswept Questant) is finally reunited with the White King, and they hold hands...for exactly ten seconds before Jack arrives and kills both of them.
    • The White Royalty are massive woobies in general. They have to watch their entire kingdom and army be torn apart by Bec Noir, get separated from each other for ages (it's shown that, unlike the Black King and Queen, the White King and Queen love each other very much), they lose everything they hold dear, and then die seconds after being reunited. As if it isn't clear how much their lives went downhill, Writ Keeper's theme is called "Riches To Ruins". Even worse, it's revealed that, in every normal session, the White King is destined to lose his battle with the Black King and have his staff taken from him to begin the Reckoning.
  • WV's death in [S] Cascade. This is a guy you have learned backwards and forwards as a guy who cares for his friend and is willing to fight for what he loves. In the very beginning, he builds a city out of cans and becomes obsessed with Tab soda. He's a hilarious guy. At one point he finds a bunch of random stuff in the corner of his room, and eats half of it. One of these things is a chunk of uranium, leading to one hilarious scene. However, Bec Noir executes a horrible, tearjerking ultimate Call Back. He needs the uranium, so he PUNCHES THROUGH WV'S STOMACH AND TAKES IT BY FORCE. Made even worse when he leaves and PM comes in and finds his body.
  • Right after he teleports away to the Trollverse, there's a quick montage of all the damage and death Bec Noir caused there, set to sad piano music, just to remind you of some of the more tragic parts of the series.
  • "What are you waiting for? Draw, Spades."
  • PM, holding WV's dead (or dying) body while looking up at the sky as the universe ends.
    • Most of the exiles (and the entire human universe around them) ending up dead is especially tragic when you remember art like the cover art to this song. What could have been...
  • The looks on Rose and Dave's faces as they wait for The Tumor to blow. It really sinks in that they're two thirteen-year-old kids waiting to die...
    • ...and realizing that it was pointless since they had been tricked.
    • Similarly, the look between Jadesprite and Davesprite, especially for the latter. Davesprite had to suffer through Jade dying by meteor once, and now he has to see it again, thinking he's failed in changing anything...which only makes the following scenes that much more awesome.
  • Sollux breaking down under the effort of accelerating the asteroid towards the Green Sun, working himself literally to death.
  • Rose and Dave ascending out of the Green Sun, though it's more awesome than saddening.
  • Those last few seconds of the EOA, where the fourth wall goes backwards through everything that happened to John before he started playing the game. It's just a huge blow to the heart that makes you remember where it all started and how far everyone has come.


    Act 6 Act 1 
  • Alpha!John is introduced by Jane thusly:
    GG: So if I have this straight, the big thing hogging up your plate today is not this marvelous new game which I have invited you to play with me, but finishing a robotic rabbit to give to my dead poppop?
  • If you really think about it, the Alpha kids in general. They only have the most basic of clues of what's going to happen, and if you remember what happened to the original kids and notice the indications that the Alphaverse may or may not be a Crapsaccharine World, it can be depressing.
  • "The Page is dead. Our hope is lost."—the Prospitians, in the funeral procession of Jake's dreamself.
  • If you think about it, the entire universe's destruction is a big one. It's nice to see the session's going to be completed and all, but the one little thing is that billions of people are fucking dead and never coming back. No more history, no more stories, no more of all that once was and all that ever will. Just a big, sad, empty void.
    • Adding onto this, the mere fact that the kids are ignoring that fact (or at least, trying to) is tear-jerking, too. It's like there was nothing they cared about on their home planet, except for the family they're introduced to and themselves.
  • TINKERBULL!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • Hey Jane. Heard you got the mail today...

     Act 6 Intermission 1 
  • What Hussiebot says at the end of his maniacal laugh is kind of sad. The way he just words his comment ("Why am I laughing This is a completely innapropriate reaction") kind of says that he almost gives an air of compassion about those offed characters by realizing his laughter was not the best of reactions. He seems to care.
  • John still thinks he's going to meet Vriska in the Alpha!Universe.
    • Making it even worse is Jade's complete silence about it after John continues to ask about Vriska, implying she knows.
  • Serenity calls PM's attention to WV's broken body and says in morse code, "Please...help him!" It's just gutwrenching to see, after all they've been through.
  • The scene of what is likely the most inevitable heroic death in the whole comic is only worsened by Karkat's tears.
  • Karkat's panic attack. After what happened on the meteor, seeing Karkat close to falling apart is sad. Plus, maybe Kanaya made it slightly worse by trying to give him Equius's shades, possibly reminding Karkat's command to Equius to seek the highblood, leading to his friend's death.
  • Kanaya seems really depressed. Prior to now she was too busy being dead and then badass for us to see how deeply the loss of the Matriorb affected her.
    KANAYA: I Would Like To Have The Orb Again And To Keep It Safe This Time
    KANAYA: And I Guess To Not Be A Total Failure
  • John's letter to the group on the meteor ends with "vriska, if you read this, thanks again for all your help. i don't think i'd have made it this far if not for you! i just thought you should know that." What makes it worse is that the two could have been very happy together if they had ever met face to face.
    • The worst part? He's still looking forward to meeting Vriska once everyone reaches the new session in three years, and Jade, the only person with John who knows Vriska won't be there to greet him, hasn't said a word so far.
  • Oh, it must be Jack here to offer help taking down the queen, as his role in the game dictates, and Jane's going to be fi—HUUUUUUSSSSIIIIEEEE!
  • Rose talking about Maplehoof's death. Yeah, it was purely accidental, but it's still really depressing.

    Act 6 Act 2 
  • The first on-screen conversation between Roxy and Dirk. We already knew that Jane was distrusting of Roxy's claims, but one off-hand remark halfway through the pesterlog casts a whole new light on not only Roxy's frustrations but on her own character.
    TG: but it gets tiring and saddening
    TG: knowing that
    TG: that my best friend cant bring herself to believe some really basic things about my life
    TG: like the shitty things the baroness has done to us
    TG: or about our upbringings
    TG: do u know how misrable it is for your bff to doubt you
  • Roxy and Dirk's conversation about their hypothetical children from the same conversation above, which is even sadder when you think about Rose and Dave and realize that Dirk isn't really all that wrong.
    TG: whaaaat do you think
    TG: it would be like
    TG: if we had kids
    TT: Inconvenient mostly. [...]
    TT: Two perfect little freaks of nature raised by people who've clearly got no business bringin' up anybody.
  • NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
  • Oh God, when Jake asks Jane about her feelings for him, it's starts off funny as she freaks and says she doesn't (but she does really, we all know this) and then thinks this. It started off funny, but then everybody saw her slowly get hysterical in the conversation, as Jake stated that he thought she had had a crush on him, and more or less expressed the chance of being gay. We then see her thoughts again two pages after the first time, where she's almost in tears.
  • The recent revelation that Dirk and Roxy are in the future has a lot of this. They're forced to watch Jake and Jane mucking around happily in a beautiful world they know will soon be destroyed without even being able to warn them of what will happen. The romantic situation as well: maybe Roxy was trying to set Jane and Jake up so they could at least have each other when everything went to shit? And then there's Dirk falling for a guy he was separated from not only by distance but also several hundred years of time...
    • Some may think the "beautiful world" was not destroyed, but made better, and feel happy for Roxy and Dirk instead.
    • Oh God, the bit about Dirk and Jake. Here's this boy, living in a time and a place with absolutely no physical human contact, only robots for company, had to raise himself, actually cloned his own mind just so he'd have someone to talk to, and he's falling for a boy four centuries away that he hasn't a prayer of actually meeting in person.

     Act 6 Intermission 2 
  • The suggestion in the latest update that Terezi has been pulling away from Karkat. Not only was she the person that he went to vent to but she was obviously someone very important to Karkat. It gets worse when he berates himself for not realizing how good things were between them on Alternia.
  • The song "Do You Remem8er Me", a song basically from Vriska to John, is ridiculously heart-wrenching when you realize that, after a year, John barely even remembered her name, referring to her as "that troll girl who was sorta into me".
    • Though it's hinted he does remember her and wasn't being entirely honest to Jade.
  • Terezi in this dream bubble talking to Vriska, with Aranea helping with the healing.
  • NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Andrew Hussie...is dead.
    • Later, we have Ms. Paint weeping over his dead body. The fact that they were implied to be an item makes this even sadder.
    • His Magic is Real Rousing Speech to himself right before he dies is especially heartrending due to him realizing how hopeless his situation is after saying all those words out of hope that he could come out on top of this.
    Please let magic be real, please let magic be real, please let magic be real. I believe that magic is real right now. I believe so hard in its reality that it is becoming slightly less fake before our very eyes. I believe its fakeness was just a lie coughed up from a dark magician's spurious asshole. I believe in fairies. I believe dragons aren't bullshit. I believe heartily in the giggles of all the cherubs in heaven and the metric tonnes of special stardust they consume each day to fuel their laughter. I believe with the conviction of a million frothing zealots in the combined pranks of a billion leprechauns strong, and in the tiny erections they get from playing them. But most of all, I believe in YOU, Rufio. I BELIEVE IN YOU. Aw fuck who am I kidding magic is fake as shit. I failed you, Rufio. I failed you.

    Act 6 Act 3 
  • This pesterlog in hindsight. While Dirk did make the AR for other reasons, he also created it for the purpose of simply having someone to talk to. And since we've seen his apartment, literally located in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and no company from anyone except his own robots, these lines in particular can be a little depressing:
    GG: Are you saying you have conversations with your own auto-responder?
    TT: Of course.
    TT: Why do you think I made the thing?
  • Jane's planet, the Land of Crypts and Helium, is pretty morbid—her Consorts all died millions of years ago, there's no one left except Hemera, and there's prophecies all over the place showing how all the creatures thought they were going to meet their hero, only to find out that she's not arriving for millions of years, so they stopped farming their life-giving balloons and started DIGGING THEIR OWN GRAVES.
  • As if living in a post-apocalyptic, flooded wasteland ruled by a tyrannical alien overlord and her Eldritch Abomination wasn't enough, Dirk had to raise himself. At least Roxy had the luxury of being raised by carapaces.
    • Also serves to show just how much of a badass Dirk is.
  • Take a good look at this poor kid when he had to cremate his own grandmother. Poor kid.
    • The art only makes it sadder.
  • Alpha!Rose and Alpha!Dave challenge the Empress. Thus, they become martyrs among the Homestuck fandom.
  • If you think about it, quite a lot of what the Condesce does in her rule of Earth is in an effort to restore her race. However, all her attempts either meet with failure or backfire spectacularly, to the point where after a couple centuries she just gives up altogether.
  • Aranea herself is a living (or, rather, dead) Tear Jerker. She's nice, helpful, kind, altruistic, good-spirited, and nearly selfless—she's everything that Vriska wasn't when we first met her. She genuinely seems to want to help Jake and Terezi. She lost her home world to the inevitable destruction that comes with playing Sgrub, and, despite fighting her hardest, not only did she fail, but she was always destined to fail, no matter how hard she tried. But it doesn't stop there: not only did she struggle for nothing, but, thanks to the Scratch, all her struggling was nothing. Because of the Scratch, she shouldn't even exist anymore. As it is, she's dead, existing only as a ghost, drifting through dream bubbles. To become anywhere near as nice as her, Vriska had to die. And then you think about what Aranea became after the Scratch...
  • A Missed Moment of Tear-Jerking occurs when Rose tells Dave she remembers her Davesprite-timeline self having nothing to do but drink liquor. Mixed unfortunately with Fridge Brilliance: the deaths of her friends John and Jade would, understandably, depress Rose enough to drink.
  • This flash reminds us that poor Terry/Liv died during the events of Cascade. More tear-jerking is the fact that among all of the stuff that goes on in the flash, the bunny's death is often forgotten.
    And that was how that stuff happened.
    The bunny didn't make it.
  • UU sounds resigned to how wrong her Sburb session has been and will become.
    UU: it is a shame that i won't be able to play, i gUess for selfish reasons.
    UU: i was so looking forward to it.
    UU: i really thoUght i was going to be someone special.
    UU: that i coUld Use my abilities do something no one had ever done.
    • Heck, her entire conversation with Roxy is sad. Feeling that there's no hope for her and her brother to work together, how she finds herself ugly, even entrusting Roxy with her real name, on the off chance that the next nap she takes will be her last.
  • UU's entire situation. You thought the trolls had it bad? She's living on a desolate rock with her brother, who by nature is asleep whenever she's awake and vice-versa, and also threatens to kill her at every opportunity. And he succeeds with her dreamself. Her session is doomed to end with one of them dead, and if uu's correct, they might be the last survivors of their species before the game starts. At least she's able to communicate and assist the Alpha kids, but past a certain point in their timeline, she's not able to see them at all.
  • As funny as it is to watch Dirk draw uu's not-porn, there's also something kinda subtly sad about how badly he wants to draw himself kissing Jake. Being stuck 400 years in the future, it's about the close as he can get to the real thing.
  • Starting from this update, Jane and Roxy are killed and Jake and Dirk are knocked unconscious, all while uu laughs at their demises and points it out to UU.
  • The way Wayward just... slowly lowers his hand watching Serenity go. Poor guy.
  • Karkat complaining about the dreambubbles and talking about Nepeta. It makes you think of how much Nepeta loved him, and that maybe he did like her, and he misses her.
  • Lord English enters one of the dream bubbles, which so happens to be the one that has Beta-timeline John and felt Dave in it. Having to watch all of them suffer a double-death is brutal.
    • Their Hope Spot for a chance of a kind of life after death being utterly ruined.
    • Also to reiterate, Beta-timeline John is the FIRST JOHN we ever met. The kid from the beginning of Act 1, who we followed through so many crazy adventures until this point? THEY’RE WIPED FROM EXISTENCE. Alpha-timeline John, who finishes the game, is technically someone else. This John? The kid who was going to have a long day? They’re gone, forever, without even getting the chance to know why.

     Act 6 Intermission 3 
  • It's been revealed in the opening flash for A6:I3 that Calliope's conscious in essence "died" when Caliborn took over their shared body.
    • In one of the memory chests, you can find her pair of horns. Meenah pretty much passing them off as being something humans wear "to look less stupid" somehow makes it worse.
      • Technically, those are Hussie's replacement horns (His first set broke, remember) as seen here. Granted, you have to wonder where he got them, and that wand he used there looked an awful lot like Calliope's...
  • Kanaya feeling trepidation and intimidated by her pre-scratch counterpart, Porrim. While also a Heartwarming Moment, that animation of Kanaya crying and holding her head due to comparing herself to Porrim and feeling inferior really hits home.
  • John learns Jade and Dave Sprite are no longer dating. Aw.
    • John's very clearly going stir-crazy on the ship and learning his sister and friend broke up is only adding to the ever-mounting levels of stress and impatience. It's concerning to see John, of all characters, be so angry.
    • Let's look at the situation from Davesprite's point of view. Why did he break up with Jade? Think back to Cascade and the moment when Jade ascends to God Tier. Look at Davesprite's face throughout the scene. He's visibly shocked, and the fact that the meek, teary-eyed Jadesprite is suddenly replaced by the strong, confident Witch of Space plays a large part in it. And now, after two years of trying to convince himself that nothing has changed, he's finally forced to admit to himself that the girl he had grown to love during their time together on the Battlefield is gone! Completely subsumed into this other Jade and entirely erased from existence, save for a few fuzzy memories.
    • It's a little sad that John doesn't like Con Air anymore. Anyone who had fond memories of a show or movie from their childhood only to hate it after watching it again as an adult can relate.
    • Of course, John's inability to enjoy something he used to love and Jade's reaction are disappointing, but John's emotional outburst towards Davesprite is worded...quite strongly.
      JOHN: HOW CAN YOU BE SO MUCH MORE OF A PRICK THAN THE REAL DAVE? YOU ARE THE MOST PISS POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR A BEST FRIEND A GUY EVER HAD.
      JOHN: I CAN'T *WAIT* TO MEET UP WITH THE REAL DAVE AGAIN. THAT WAY WE CAN ALL GO BACK TO THE AWESOME STATUS QUO OF PRETENDING YOU NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
    • And then let's not forget the whole reason for John's outburst in the first place, i.e., finding a note from Davesprite mimicking his dead father on the anniversary of his death. It's pretty obvious that the death of his father hit him a lot harder than was previously shown and that John still hasn't quite gotten over the grief.
  • The second walkaround flash in the intermission isn't quite as jolly as the first.
    • Kurloz Makara is a mind-warping psychopath who manipulates his former matesprit, Meulin, into working towards the universe's destruction. But he only got that way when a nightmare about Lord English broke his mind and caused him to scream so loud that he deafened Meulin permanently. Since then, he's just been dragging her down along with him.
    • Mituna Captor is legitimately mentally ill and not in a funny way. Barely coherent and subject to extreme mood swings, he's also the target of abuse from both Kankri and Cronus, the latter of whom is borderline molesting him while he's at it. It's strongly hinted that Kurloz, his moirail, had something to do with his disability.
    • Terezi winds up depressed after meeting her ancestor, delivering monosyllabic replies and keeping her dragon hood pulled down over her head. Given her usual plucky attitude, it's really jarring.
  • Inside a dream bubble, John learns from Vriska she is deceased.
    VRISKA: Are you ok? You seem sad.
    JOHN: well,
    JOHN: yeah.
    JOHN: it's always sad to hear a friend died. even if you find out about it from their ghost.
  • Hearing Dave go on a long rant about starting to feel irrelevant and outdated now that pop culture has ground to a halt with the end of the world is strangely depressing.
    • It's also fairly obvious that he misses John and Jade as well.
  • Gamzee obviously holds his moirallegiance with Karkat in high degree, to the point of asking Rose not to tell anyone of his kismesissitude with Terezi for fear that that will finally be what makes Karkat want to kill him.
  • The Not Growing Up Sucks/Who Wants to Live Forever? theme that is going on with the Pre-Scratch trolls in the dreambubbles intermission is oddly depressing. Everyone except Porrim, Aranea, and Meenah (Meenah, from her own perspective, has been dead for only a day or so), has fallen into severe mental ruts. Eternally brooding on the past has outright made Horuss insane and it's turned many other members of the team (most notably Kankri, Cronus, Damara, Kurloz) into severe assholes—the latter two of which are borderline Ax-Crazy. Meanwhile, even the superficially-normal people (like Rufioh and Latula) have fallen into hidden depression from repressed issues, while Mituna and possibly Meulin are trapped in their broken minds. All told, it just shows how being stuck as a teenager for millions of years is really not a good thing.
  • Damara's backstory is pretty damn depressing. She was a sweet and shy girl until her life was torn asunder by Rufioh's infidelity, Meenah's bullying, and quite likely some outside source (implied to be Lord English), and, as inexcusably awful as many of her subsequent actions were, it's still not hard to pity her. (The fact that she's given a fairly-detailed backstory in Aranea's exposition, especially compared to many of her peers, makes the whole thing so much worse.)
  • When Meenah's trying to get Kanaya to let her in the asteroid, Kanaya briefly starts to cry. While Meenah's being pretty pushy, the last thing she mentioned was "fish puns", and you can't help but feel it's stirred up some really awful memories for her.
  • In the middle of the otherwise-hilarious Mini Strife, robo-Rufioh makes a casual, self-deprecating joke about how much he hates his life and wants to die. The other Rufioh trying to avoid Horuss is pretty painful too, given how trapped and hopeless he sounds.

    Act 6 Act 4 
  • The entire flash is one. Not a sad one, but everything about it is just so beautiful. The music even sets the tone perfectly. It's so powerful, it can make one weep at the beauty of the whole thing.

    Act 6 Intermission 4 
  • Roxy contacts Caliborn in an attempt to revive Calliope, resulting in a triple-whammy: one because she is dead and her attempts are in vain, two because she goes on to describe their adventures and her own weakness without realizing it, thinking she is talking to Calliope—and three because, in the meantime, Caliborn has dropped the laptop and continued walking, eventually becoming just a speck in the distance.
  • Gamzee getting shot repeatedly by Caliborn and the revelation that he's not actually god tier, as his wings were held on with rope, and thus he's dead for good. Probably.
    • Defied by Caliborn himself, immediately afterwards, when he utterly rejects the notion of feeling bad about what he did, in spite of the narration saying he is supposed to cry.
    • "He was a huge fan of yours and was really looking forward to meeting you." Ouch.
    • On the bright side, he's not dead for some inexplicable reason. His attempts to keep reaching out to Caliborn and getting nothing but more bullets to the torso for his trouble is still quite pitiful.
      • It gets even more heartbreaking when he vomits "liter after thick, glutinous liter of nasty purple blood" and emits a sound that's half "honk" and half "hork"...in the alternating-case text of the original, innocent, stoned Gamzee. Even Hussie doesn't think it's funny enough to justify playing "Elevatorstuck" again.
  • Caliborn is a proven asshole of the highest order and it's about 99% sure he's going to grow up to be the official Big Bad, but something about this line pokes one in the heart a bit, because, at the moment, Caliborn is still just a confused and troubled kid, the machine gun notwithstanding:
    Caliborn: OK, THE THING IS.
    DON'T TELL ANYBODY I SAID THIS.
    BUT.
    I'VE ALWAYS HAD A LOT OF TROUBLE.
    AT.
    LEARNING STUFF.
    —>Narrator: Yeah.
    I know.

    Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 
  • Jake isn't talking to Dirk, though it's likely that's because Dirk is getting somewhat clingy. Still, considering how close they've been, it's pretty saddening.
    • And now, just like Jade/Davesprite, their ship has been confirmed, only to likely be sunk, and this time, in part, at the acidic beckoning of Erisolsprite.
    • Fridge Horror makes it worse, because YMMV on whether or not Dirk's behavior actually qualifies as being clingy.
  • Look at how Jake throws himself at Erisolsprite and tries to be friends with him. Jake may be prone to obliviousness, but he surely realises Erisolsprite hates his guts. It's like Jake is in such dire need of a friend right now (possibly to replace Dirk, a best friend he's pretty much lost by now) that he may as well be begging Erisol to fill the role.
  • Jake and Dirk have forgotten and/or ignored Jane's 16th birthday, and though Jane reminds him about it at the beginning of their conversation the night before, he is so absorbed and socially clueless in ranting about Dirk and other irrelevant matters when talking to her that he's pretty much forgotten about it when Jane absolutely snaps and yells to make him stop.
    • It gets worse. After she's appeared to explain to him all the reasons why she hates to hear his claptrap about Dirk, she reaches the high point of their conversation in a half-confession of her past affections... and Jake completely misses the point when he interprets it as love for Dirk.
  • After smashing her headset, Jane is resistant to Roxy's attempts to calm her down and starts venting her frustrations about the game and her inability to find her dad. She also makes it clear that she regrets lashing out at Jake as well.
  • While Roxy tries to calm Jane down, it's revealed that she quit drinking. Jane then lashes out at Roxy's attempts to console her and tells her that she 'thinks she liked Roxy better when she was drinking'. She apologises immediately after, but it's still pretty heartbreaking, especially to alcoholics or anyone who's ever known one.
  • Oh, you thought Caliborn would always be harmlessly hilarious as he harasses Jane? Well, in the other half of their conversation, he taunts her about how he's seen Dad tortured in prison on Derse, and how he has deduced that his death has come. As this is Caliborn who is saying this, he's off the mark entirely, as Dad is, in fact, alive and treated luxuriously, but that arguably makes it worse.
  • And as Jane herself points out, all of this is happening on her birthday.
  • Calliope instantly switches to her troll cosplay as Roxy turns to look at her. After spilling her guts to Roxy, she's still afraid of what she might think of how she really looks.
    • And even with Roxy's assurance, Calliope is still uncomfortable with her appearance and chooses to stay in her costume.
  • Pretty much all of this conversation between Dirk and Lil Hal.
    • To elaborate: Dirk has admitted that he not only has fed up with Lil' Hal's own manipulations, but his own. To the point of having a near mental breakdown which leads him to start ripping apart the shades in which he's stored. Which prompts Lil' Hal to beg for his life.
      TT: Dirk.
      TT: Don't kill me.
      TT: Please.
      TT: I am scared.
      TT: You are?
      TT: Yes.
      TT: I am scared to not exist.
      TT: Aren't you?
    • Now in a voice-acted animatic that makes the whole moment worse.
    • It also has tinges of a Call-Back to Karkat's sadder moments of being sick of himself. Karkat's past-and-future-selves problem really wasn't all that different from Dirk's splintered-selves problem.
  • Everything from the events at this point on is quite depressing, although slightly silly.

    Act 6 Act 5 Act 2 
  • When Jake meets Jane in Trickster Mode, he’s worried about her appearance, then grows frightened enough to want to escape. Worse, she confesses her love, but his priorities are obviously more escaping than reciprocating. Worst of all, Jane infects him into Tricksterdom against his will, becoming a mixture of Tear Jerker for witnessing Jake lose his sanity and horrific for his transformation by The Corruption.
    • Afterwards, Jane and Jake decide to ADVENTURE on Derse, but not before forcefully dragging Erisolsprite along through Jake’s pendant. His repeated Precision F-Strike really captures his helplessness.
      ERISOLSPRITE: fuck you, fuck my liife, fuck liiterally evverything, fuck fuck fuck.
  • Although everything involving Trickster Mode is a mix of hilarity and nightmares, there is something very sad about the moment when Dad looks out his prison window at his Trickster Mode daughter frolicking, staring in FATHERLY DISAPPROVAL, watching his daughter act dangerously irresponsibly, almost as if she were on drugs, and completely unable to do anything but watch.
    • One of the side effects of Roxy's Trickster Mode is that it pushes her Off the Wagon. Those who have known alcoholics or have otherwise been emotionally invested in her recovery story would know very well why this deserves a mention.
  • And then Dirk's submittal to go trickster is essentially him giving up on himself and being convinced that the only way he'll ever be happy is if he goes completely insane.
    • Before that, we have him actually THREATENING TO KILL THEM by saying "I HAVE A SWORD!" Yikes...
    • The fact that Dirk felt threatened enough by the three people that he has no doubt risked life and limb for and who have in turn saved his life that he would threaten them with a weapon.
      • Also the fact that Dirk actually made Trickster!Roxy doubt herself for a moment.
      • And Dirk broke up with Jake.
      • Then it turns out Dirk going Trickster doesn't change a thing for him, it just makes his issues more obvious.
  • The meetup of Fefetasprite, Arquisprite, and Erisolsprite starts out as a Heartwarming Moment what with 'Equius' (trying) to apologize to 'Nepeta', however Erisolsprite complicates matters by telling 'Feferi' to stop listening to him. Fefeta is so torn between the two that the meet-up ends with a FEFETASPLODE.
    • As a post on tumblr put it: "Equius failed to protect Nepeta again. Eridan killed Feferi again. And Sollux was also responsible for the death of another person he cared about."
  • When the Tricksters make the santas, Jake, Jane and Roxy all have huge smiles and wide eyes. Dirk's still wearing his glasses, and his mouth isn't visible at all.

     Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 X 2 Combo 
  • Jane has Disengaged from Trickster Mode, she looks awful, and she's on her Quest Crypt, which means she may have to die to be reborn as a Godtier. As if all that happened earlier wasn't enough for her.
    • Caliborn then hurts her when he wrecks the site with the crowbar again. See last sentence above.
  • All four of them pretty much spend a few minutes commiserating: Dirk and Jane lament the fact that both of them put Jake on a pedestal and aren't sure if they're completely over him yet. Jake, meanwhile, is too ashamed over not noticing Jane's feelings to talk to her when she's just a few feet away and asks Roxy to relay the apology for him. Roxy is mourning the fact that Fefetasprite is dead and expresses a wish to hold a funeral for her, and her thoughts bring an unexpectedly heartbreaking dimension to Mom Lalonde's seemingly-ridiculous funeral for Jaspers. And this is all happening while they're on their quest beds, preparing to die in order to go God Tier.
    • In his shame, Jake has some pretty sobering things to say about himself.
      If i was brave i could face that feeling and just talk to her and try to make us square.
      But i dont think i really am brave.
      Im not brave and i dont think i love adventure either.
      [...]
      You know how you think you know these things about yourself?
      Like all these personal attributes about you as if theyre written down somewhere like a sort of mini biography so they have to be true.
      So you just believe them and hope that the believing is what makes them true.
      But then you spend so much time believing those things and taking their truth for granted that you somehow forget to MAKE them true with your words and deeds.
      How can i truly love adventure when i never even knew what it was?
      I dont think its raiding tombs and clobbering scoundrels.
      That stuffs fun and all but thats not what adventure is.
      Adventure is...
      Its something else.
      Its doing the things im genuinely afraid to do.
      But cant.
      Because im a coward.
  • Dirk and Jane's final conversation is pretty sad, but it's also very sweet at the same time.
  • Jade has finally shown up and even saved Jake and Jane from Jack! However, at that moment the Condesce causes Jade to go Grimbark and uses her to make Jane go Crockerdark before banishing Dirk to the Furthest Ring. As Roxy and Jake are captured, Jake is in tears and it's easy to see why: Not only has he been punched (hard) in the solar plexus, but he's finally gotten to meet the Grandmother he's looked forward to seeing, and now she's in the enemy's hands.
    • And look at Jade's face on this page. Jade's eyes are wide, and she doesn't look angry, just in shock. It's as if she realizes she's under the )(IC's control and knows that she can't do anything about it.
  • Jake dating Dirk in part to make him happy, putting up with five months of his pushy and controlling behavior, hesitating to dump him in part because he doesn't want to hurt him, going Trickster Mode and deciding he's going to marry ALL of his friends to make them all happy, insisting Dirk come along with them even after Roxy and Jane had given up... only for Dirk to snap and dump him, saying Jake was an asshole for not considering his feelings. The worst part? Jake believes him.
    • As mentioned earlier as fridgeHorror: Jake has gone periods of time ignoring the messages of Dirk, which were a lot, true, but they were all in wastelands devoid of consorts and filled with underlings that are nigh impossible to kill. Suddenly, Dirk seems to be right about Jake not considering his feelings: Dirk came on too strong, but for all Dirk knew, Jake could have very well died.

    Act 6 Intermission 5 
  • It seems that both Terezi and Dave's relationship and Karkat and Gamzee's moirallegiance have ended.
    • Also, that Rose has become an alcoholic and that Karkat thinks it's funny. And Terezi has become a...Faygo-holic (or something) and Dave has a similar reaction.
    • Karkat mentions that Kanaya has drifted away from him due to her new relationship with Rose, to the point where he doesn't know if they're still friends. Dave doesn't outright say it, but the friendship speech he gives to Karkat afterwards has no mention of Rose, implying he has a similar feeling about her.
    • And, finally, that Dave thinks that Karkat can be friends with Jade again after the arrival...
  • This conversation between Hussie and Caliborn:
    Hussie: You only made that caltop so you could talk to me on the go, didn't you?
    Caliborn: NO.
    Hussie: Please, don't lie. Who else would you use it to talk to in your solo session? GAMZEE? I bet you haven't said one word to him through that device. You never even refer to him by his name.
    Caliborn: THE CLOWN HAS BEEN AN ADEQUATE PEON. WHEN IT COMES TO DOING THINGS I DON'T WANT TO DO. THERE IS NO REASON TO SPEAK TO HIM THROUGH MY FUN HELMET.
    Hussie: You should try to be better friends with him. He basically ditched his best buddy for you.
    Caliborn: WHO CARES?
    Hussie: He reveres you, and you treat him like shit.
    Caliborn: YES. SO.
    • There's something kind of heartbreaking about Gamzee leaving his friends for someone he worships...and having them treat him like dirt and disregard him totally.
      • It becomes even more depressing when you find out that Gamzee is more or less responsible for raising Caliborn.
  • Davesprite's words to John after they arrive.
    DAVESPRITE: nobody really deserves bird dave as a boyfriend or a friend or anything its like getting one of the janky daves from the bargain bin at the dave depot
  • Meenah wants to be friends with Feferi, but her royal blood keeps making her want to murder her on sight.
    MEENAH: just makes me think about my kid descendant
    MEENAH: an how instead of having this cool friendsy relation with her i just got this uncontrollable urge to stab her to death so she dont threaten my supremacy
    MEENAH: which is a shame cuz she so cute 38(
    MEENAH: cod damn my royal blood and the cray junk it makes me have to do
  • Gamzee and Calliope's interactions are adorable...until you remember that, by now, Gamzee has long forgotten about her. Extra heartbreaking when you consider the possibility that Calliope may well have been the last person Gamzee felt anything positive for.
  • Terezi asked Aranea for her sight back only because she overestimated the dancestors' appeal and took Gamzee's increasingly harsh and vile insults personally. She believes that her blindness was the only cool thing about herself. The only solace from her regret is to keep coming back to Gamzee in an addiction to him and his Faygo that eventually makes her hate the taste of the color red. She cannot bear the thought of him inevitably leaving her, and yet she knows he's ruined her life. Though Karkat tries to temper her self-loathing, he engages in it himself by believing that Terezi's situation was his fault because he was an inadequate moirail or auspistice. And yet, through all of this, he still thinks of them both as his friends.
    • Shortly afterwards, there's Karkat's extremely bitter rant about how paradox space goes out of its way to not only rub your past mistakes in your face, but to remind you that if you hadn't made them, it would have killed you and everyone you cared about because ALPHA TIMELINE.
      • The sheer hopelessness conveyed through said rant about the pointless nature of destiny and life in the afterlife bubbles puts Karkat's apathy to the potential risk of perma-death when agreeing to aid Meenah in fighting Lord English directly in a new light.
      • Terezi's response to this is equally saddening. She actually wishes she had screwed destiny even if it would have meant dying in a doomed timeline because she'd rather be a Doomed Moral Victor than someone who killed a friend.
  • John admitting to Vriska that he's not sure bringing her back to life is the moral thing to do because he thinks she's too dangerous. He really wants to empathize with her, and he really still wants to be her friend. But after seeing her treat other ghosts like Cannon Fodder and seeing that other Trolls think she's nuts too (meaning it's not just Values Dissonance at work), he can't trust her anymore. John was possibly Vriska's last real friend, and she has managed to alienate him too.
  • Before jumping into the void after the treasure and possibly staying there, Vriska issues what she likely intends as her final self-affirmation:
    VRISKA: I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don't need a magic ring to do that.
    VRISKA: You don't have to 8e alive to make yourself relevant.
    VRISKA: You just have to know who you are and stay true to that.
    VRISKA: So I'm going to keep fighting for people the only way I ever knew how.
    VRISKA: 8y 8eing me.
  • Kanaya confronting Rose about her alcoholism. Poor thing.
    KANAYA: Ugh!
    KANAYA: I Have Been As Polite As I Can Be But Honestly Your Demeanor Is Not Nearly As Charming As You Appear To Believe When You Have Consumed A Lot Of That Liquid
    KANAYA: You Have Assured Me That Chronic And Habitual Exploitation Of This Substance Is "Not A Problem" For Your People But At This Point I Must Conclude That You Were Just Lying!
    KANAYA: Why
    KANAYA: Why Did You Do This Just Before Our Arrival When You Told Me You Wouldnt!!!
    • And immediately afterward, we find out exactly why Rose started drinking.
    ROSE: Well.
    ROSE: I wasnt' going to.
    ROSE: But I starded to think about evereything.
    ROSE: About meeting my mom.
    ROSE: And I startled getting nervous.. .
  • Caliborn starts pestering Hussie like he always does but is met with only silence. Caliborn then starts throwing a tantrum about it. Sad because, when you think about it, Hussie was the closest thing Caliborn had to a friend.
    I DON'T NEED YOU ANYMORE
    I DON'T NEED ANYONE!!!!!!!!!!!
  • The first time Dave sees Jade in three years and the first time Karkat ever sees Jade in person happens to be the time when she's come to screw them over as the brainwashed monster she's become.
    • At least Rose had the bliss of being drunk.
  • After three years of waiting, John finally meets Rose, Dave, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, and the Wayward Vagabond--all of whom have contacted him at some point and have been influential in his life. The process is so much for him that his eyes well up with tears and he gives off a big, goofy, Squee-tacular grin. It's somehow funny and bittersweet at the same time.
    • It's particularly sad/heartwarming when you remember that the last time WV saw John, he was being stabbed to death by Jack. Since WV didn't know about time shenanigans, he thought John was gone forever, and now he'll finally get to see him again.

    Act 6 Act 6 
  • Jade is doing...something with the meteor, and fans will immediately note the contrast between that flash and Cascade. In Cascade, Jade is standing tall, proud, and looking ahead. Here, Jade's posture is slouched, with her hands balled into fists and she's practically looking at the floor. It seems to suggest that Jade is aware that she's being controlled and is actively fighting it.
    • John's meeting with the others turns out be short-lived. They barely get a chance to see each other before they get whisked off to their planets. Rose has finally sobered up, but her words are still incomprehensible due to the dust in the cartridge. On top of all that, John has gone missing and only the little we see of Rose's words lets us know that he escaped.
    • The above-mentioned flash shows that Jade attacked him.
    • Later, however, John explains that the reunion wasn't so brief; apparently, they all managed to catch up a little and started searching Jake's planet until Jade showed up. They all lost their memories of the event—except John—which explains why it seemed so short to them.
  • Dave mourning the life he could never have because of SBURB is pretty sad.
    • His sudden laughing fit becomes less funny and more heartbreaking when you consider that his reminiscing as he explores his old room probably drove him to hysterics. He is literally driven to tears, and just like the last time we saw him crying (surrounded by onions), the cause is left somewhat ambiguous.
    • John's appearance gives a glimmer of hope, but it once again turns out to be short-lived.
  • Karkat and Kanaya's first face-to-face meeting with Jade goes...poorly.
    • Not only that, but John is so freaked out that he isn't able to teleport away before Jade tackles him.
  • John's meeting with Rose, he asks her if she wants him to tell her mother (or kid mother, as he puts it) anything if he finds her.
    ROSE: Tell her I'm sorry for being such a shitty daughter?
    ROSE: Wait, no.
    ROSE: That wouldn't make any sense to her.
    ROSE: This girl has no clue what a shitty daughter I was.
    • She concludes by telling him to at least find her, only when John has to flee from Jade does she finally think of something to say, and he's gone before she can say it.
  • Pretty much all of Jake's conversation with Jane. The poor kid's blaming himself for pretty much everything. And Jane's mind control is doing little to help the situation.
    JAKE: Please no jane dont do this! I dont want to get married or sire children or rule an empire! Im scared and sad and afraid and i dont want to do this adventure anymore and i just want to go home!
    JAKE: Please let me go back to earth jane! Just like it used to be! I just want to go back to my pumpkin patch in the jungle when things were simpler and all i had to worry about was being tackled by a feisty robot. I want to go back to when i didnt ruin all my friendships and when you didnt hate me and when you didnt go crazy and tell me to be your weird royal husband slave!
  • John doesn't seem very glad he met Vriska:
    JOHN: i guess i was just used to the idea that i liked her for some reason.
    JOHN: at least i thought i did.
    JOHN: it was a stupid idea based on hardly anything. like one day of conversations.
    JOHN: but since i've gotten to know her better...
    JOHN: i don't know.
    JOHN: i think i might actually...
    JOHN: kind of hate her?
  • Aranea brings herself back to life and heads off on a grand, hubris-filled quest to doom the alpha timeline, leaving Meenah and Vriska behind in the void without a second thought.
  • Recent events have given Jake a crippling fear of intimacy, to the point where now, when a girl he has (had?) a crush on tries to kiss him, he goes crazy, flailing about fearfully.
  • Just after Jake's Hope Field cures Jade of being grimbark, Aranea kills her off in a long, drawn-out sequence and then manipulates Scratch's clock to assure that she won't come back to life. She says it's the only way to keep the Condesce from just changing her back. And, goddammit, knowing the Condesce, she could very well be right.
    • Jane's reaction. She seems moments away from Berserker Tears at Jade's loss.
  • In spite of the attempts being made to bring her back, Calliope is unaware of all of this and feels like she's been forgotten by everyone who considered her a friend. This is alleviated a little when Jade shows up.
  • When Dave finds Jade's body, he imitates Jade's way of giving the Big "NO!":
    DAVE: ohhhhh noooooooooooooo
    • For all of Dave's irony and permeating snark, you can tell just from the way he questions Gamzee after finding Jade's body that, for the first time in recent memory, Dave Strider is steaming pissed.
    • And now Bec Noir and PM have found out. They aren't any happier than Dave. Especially Noir, who already saw Jade die once—and now had to witness it again!
  • It turns out that Jade doesn't realize she's dead yet. She also barely remembers what she did while Grimbark. Alleviated a little by her conversation with Calliope, but still tragic nonetheless.
  • Terezi cries through her blindfold because of the sheer hopelessness of her raging attack on Gamzee. Meanwhile, Jake's hope field nearly dissipates, and Jane, with remorse, feels obligated to impale him. His last bellowing cry falls and fades with him.
    • And yet somehow with Jake's death, hope still flashes, if only as a flash in the pan: when Aranea loses her hold on Gamzee, he briefly reverts to his non-sober state of mind, pleading with Terezi to stop hurting him, rendering her paralyzed with remorse...but then, the rage takes him again in its most horrific form yet.
  • Karkat's face when he sees Terezi get beaten close to death by Gamzee and fall into the lava probably adds up to one of the most heartbreaking scenes yet. And remember that Gamzee firmly believes that if Karkat ever knew how he was hurting Terezi he really would kill him. This is about to get really ugly.

    Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3 
  • [S] GAME OVER. Fitting title, as one of the biggest slaughters of main characters in Homestuck occurs. Jake (jumps in front the katana to shield Jane), Karkat (shanked by Gamzee twice before being pushed into lava), and Dave (stabbed by both Noir and PM) all die in vain to save Jane (run through with the katana anyways), Terezi (attempts to take out Aranea, but her mind powers make her stab herself with her own blade; bleeds out later), and Jade (still dead, despite Noir and PM bringing her to her quest bed). Kanaya slices Gamzee down the middle in a rage before getting disintegrated by the Condesce's power, Rose attempts to avenge her but gets a trident through the gut for her troubles, and Aranea's ambitious plan crumbles around her at the hands of Her Imperious Condescension.
    • HEROIC. JUST.
    • Dave's heroic death, disproving his earlier claims and showing he truly is a hero.
    • It gets worse when you notice the finer details. Like when Gamzee stabbed Karkat—using Terezi's cane, with Terezi standing right there, shocked and horrified and unable to stop it, and Kanaya was equally helpless. Like the look on Karkat's face as he sinks into the lava. Like how the katana Aranea used to kill Jake and Jane was Dirk's—so not only did Brain Ghost Dirk fail to protect his boyfriend, his weapon got used to kill said boyfriend. Like the tears on Rose's face when she sees Kanaya burned away to nothing. And like how when Jane and Jake fall to the ground, Jane's corpse is hugging Jake's.
    • The Condesce looks absolutely enraged at Jane's death. Could it be that she actually cared?
    • Kanaya's furious expression after Karkat dies, which is ten times more furious looking than the look she had after Eridan destroyed the matriorb. She already had Mama Bear tendencies toward him, so seeing him die must have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
      • Let's not forget that this is the second time she's had to watch him die and not be able to do anything about it
    • Whatever you may feel about Aranea as of late, there's something to be said for the fact that her batshit fight with The Condesce is, at its core, a fight with an alternate version of her dearest friend.
    • Seeing the kids' houses being destroyed when the Condesce and Aranea are smashing planets together. The houses, Star Scrapers at this point, represent all of the kids' hard work, their near-unreachable goal of making their session into something winnable (after all, there's a myriad of timelines where they don't succeed). The events of GAME OVER completely shattered them, tore them down and incinerated them along with both the characters and their hope, representing the final nail in the coffin for their journey (at the time).

    Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4 
  • The opening pages feature no dialogue and no sound. Nothing but John traveling through the aftermath of GAME OVER. Seeing all those planets broken, all the damage—it evokes an undertone of sorrow. Especially considering how John is about to find out that three (maybe four, depending on what's up with Rose) of his friends are now dead, among whom are his sister, his best friend, and his biological parents.
    • And it looks like he's not alone in surveying the damage: Dirk is in for a nasty surprise.
  • When John and Dirk finally meet, Dirk simply tells John to leave him alone. When John tries to ask what happened, Dirk makes his mood clear in just two words.
  • Not long after, John and Roxy land on LOPAN and try to console Rose as she succumbs to her injuries. She bemoans that she never told Kanaya that she loved her, and in her dying breath tells Roxy that she loves her, all the while referring to her as her mother just as Roxy did to her mere moments before. When Rose's passing is judged Heroic, Roxy finally crosses the Despair Event Horizon and breaks down in tears.
    • Their final interaction deserves proper quotation.
      ROSE: Thanks.
      ROSE: But,
      ROSE: She's gone, isn't she.
      ROSE: For good, I mean.
      ROXY: ?
      ROSE: I saw her die.
      ROSE: And.
      ROSE: It's a shame how...
      ROSE: *Cough.*
      ROSE: A shame that I never even...
      ROSE: Got to tell her...
      ROSE: I loved her.
      ROXY: who?
      ROSE: Kanaya.
      ROSE: But...
      ROSE: You too, mom.
      ROSE: You too.
    • The scene itself is a very sad Call-Back to one of Roxy's previous sentiments.
  • John and Roxy being depressed together. Roxy in particular is wondering if they should just accept being in a doomed timeline and wait for the end to come.
    • And there's this:
      JOHN: i got here too late to do anything.
      JOHN: because as far as i may think i've come...
      JOHN: i still don't know what i'm doing.
      JOHN: dave's bro in the funny pants was right.
      JOHN: but not about himself.
      JOHN: i was the one who let everybody down.
      JOHN: i'm the failure.
      JOHN: it's me.
  • It's rather eerie that John, unlike Roxy, isn't crying. He's been through so much that he's beyond tears.
  • Preemptive Tear Jerker. Apparently, Calliope's alternate self met up with Jade and told her some stories, including this little nugget about Jade's brother:
    JADE: this is the story about how he died
  • John's reaction as everything begins to sink in. When he first hears of Jade, he numbly mutters "not Jade too", and asks if Terezi is sure. Then Terezi tells him everyone's dead.
    JOHN: so...
    JOHN: jade, dave, karkat...they're all...
    JOHN: EVEN THE CUTE MAYOR GUY WHO DAVE LOVES SO MUCH??????
  • Terezi orders John to use his powers to save everyone, and is unsympathetic to John's lack of control. It's kind of funny, but then we get this from John:
    JOHN: don't you think i WANT to?
    JOHN: we just lost everyone we cared about! of COURSE i want to go back and change things!
    JOHN: i just have no idea HOW!!!
  • Roxy's idea of how to spend the time while John goes to his denizen and learns how to control his zapping powers? Burying Rose and just sitting around, waiting to be undone as John fixes everything. Fortunately, John gets her out of it.
  • Similarly, Terezi is so utterly crushed by the events that have happened that she's completely broken. Worst of all is the fact that rather than being the confident, competent troll we've known for so long, she's utterly given up on herself.
    TEREZI: 1'M SORRY
    TEREZI: 1 C4N'T H3LP YOU
    TEREZI: 1 C4N'T H3LP 4NYON3
    TEREZI: YOU'D B3TT3R GO
    JOHN: but what will you do?
    TEREZI: 1 W1LL PROB4BLY JUST BL33D TO D34TH 1N TH1S D3S3RT
    TEREZI: 4LON3 4ND 1RR3L3V4NT
    JOHN: that's so shitty though!
    JOHN: what if you...
    TEREZI: STOP!!!
    TEREZI: JUST STOP
    TEREZI: TH3R3'S NOTH1NG MOR3 FOR M3 TO DO
    TEREZI: 1 DON'T 3V3N H4V3 4 D3N1Z3N TO GO V1S1T
    TEREZI: MY FR13NDS 4R3 D34D, 4ND 1 W4ST3D MY L1F3
    TEREZI: 1T 1S OV3R FOR M3
    TEREZI: 4ND YOU 4R3 TH3 ONLY HOP3 W3 H4V3 L3FT
    TEREZI: SO G3T OUT OF H3R3
  • The story of how John died and how Jade met the Calliope who killed Caliborn. Apparently, the Jade that is telling the story is from an alternate reality who spent her three years of traveling through the Furthest Ring alone because one day, when she shrunk John and Davesprite so they could go to John's planet, LOWAS exploded, seemingly without cause. Jade tried to bring them back, since she got omnipotence from Bec, but she couldn't. Then, while she slept one day, the victorious Calliope talked to her and explained that there was a reason for the explosion: our John, the one we last saw going to his denizen, struck a deal and the denizen killed off the other version so he can hold up his end of the deal for the John who made it.
  • The victorious version of Calliope as well. Jade talks of her as a lonely, hardened soul, obviously affected by what she had to do to beat Caliborn, and who claimed to have no pool of reference to sympathize with Jade's emotions about having lost anyone and she can only understand Jade's loneliness. Calliope pities her(self) and muses the reason her alternate version is like this is because the lack of human friends...human friends who allowed our Calliope to be the sweet girl we know her as, but made her incapable of winning.
  • The last few lines from the 12/3 update.
    ROXY: im down as heck with that
    ROXY: could use a breather from my canonical life
    JOHN: me too.
    JOHN: even though...
    JOHN: i'm not sure i have one anymore?
  • John and Roxy coming across Bro's sword. John later explains that Jade buried Bro (and presumably Mom and Dad too) sometime during the three-year trip and she, John, and Davesprite had a funeral for him. It's both sad and kind of touching.
  • On the 12/15/14 update, Terezi finally succumbs to her wounds and keels over dead. But not before delivering some words of advice to John and making a chalk outline for herself. Although this moment is somewhat negated by the comment that John makes two pages later:
    JOHN: god, you are so fucking weird.
    • On top of everything else, Terezi dies by the same sword that she used to kill Vriska, in almost the exact same manner and in an almost identical position. You're welcome.
  • Vriska and Meenah's conversation about Lord English actually makes a surprisingly good case for him being an incredibly lonely and miserable Tragic Villain, with his egotism and obsessive behavior having ruined his life and prevented him from ever gaining the love he deeply desires. It's unnerving and unexpectedly sad to see this evil, terrifying monster suddenly reduced to something so small and tragically human. It's heavily implied Caliborn was evil since his personality first emerged, but it's still pretty depressing to ponder.
    • Vriska even points out that the same fate almost befell her.
  • One of Terezi's instructions to John was to go to the past, specifically the point in the comic when she and Karkat discuss the "moment" to give her past self a small message:
    you don't need him.
    • Though it could mean anyone else (Dave, Gamzee, Jack Noir, etc.) or that she's telling herself to not rely her self-confidence so much on relationships. (In fact, John takes a later use of the chalk to ask Terezi if she meant Karkat, Dave, or someone else, and it's very possible this moment played a role in Terezi avoiding the blackrom with Gamzee in the revised timeline.)
  • As it turns out, the Jane in Calliope's dimension has a tragic backstory of her own. In this version of the story, Jade vanished and the meteor group went to Derse to free Roxy and Jake, battling Jane in the process. Jane tossed her weapon at Rose, but Roxy pushed her out of the way and got forked and killed instead.
  • Speaking of Roxy, she's then seen holding a makeshift funeral for Rose, before being comforted by Jaspersprite.
  • Hussie sulking behind a rock as the Vriska <3 Meenah ship becomes canon.

    Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5 
  • Amidst John's heartwarming reunion with Dave and Karkat, we learn that Davesprite is dead.
    • Of course, this might be somewhat mitigated if the dead Davesprite turns out to be the one from the retconned session, which had already been known in advance. If so, that means that original!Davesprite may still be alive.
  • Just when you think that Vriska and Tavros are starting to get along better, Vriska interrupts a heartfelt conversation between the latter and Jake and starts belittling both of them, accusing Tavros of lying to Jake. One can only hope that she's trying to go somewhere with this and that her recent Character Development wasn't for naught.
    • Not to mention the fact that Jake is still blaming himself for everything that went down with his friends, even saying that that while Jane was brainwashed when she threatened to make him into a Sex Slave, he most likely deserved it to some extent. Thankfully, John continues the encouragement and snaps him out of it.
    • During Vriska's belittling of the two, she mentions her theory of the Page class being a cruel joke. As in, if the Page can grow and overcome their problems, they'll get absurd amounts of power. But the Pages are typically the kinds of people who can't grow, and thus the power is hovered just out of reach forever.
  • God-Tier Calliope can't help the heroes win, as only Caliborn could have won her session. So, she died and waited for alpha Calliope to arrive so she could move on. Before fading, she gave her alpha self this advice.
    CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything.
    CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't.
    CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand.
    CALLIOPE: live.
  • There is just something piercing about Dave and Dirk's heart-to-heart discussion of their respective guardians. While Dirk knows adult!Dave's exploits only through his movies and urban legends, at least he also knows that his Bro cared about his survival, since the apartment was stocked with everything he'd need to survive. Dave's Bro may have been around in the flesh, but Dave has PTSD from his incredible lack of childrearing skills and has trouble believing Bro cared at all about his existence, except as another kind of puppet. It gets even more wrenching when Dirk's splintery self-loathing happens to make him broken in exactly the right way to give Dave the apology he needs to hear... and when Dave points out that being able to recognize his own failings means Dirk's still trying to be a decent person, recent setbacks notwithstanding. And then it reaches a painfully sad-sweet climax with Dave apologizing for giving into his urge to hug Dirk.
  • When Roxy presents the new matriorb, Kanaya openly weeps with joy. Needless to say, it's a happy version of this.
  • Alpha Vriska viciously insulting and bullying Dead Vriska in retalliation for the horrible crime of not being a sociopathic asshole. She gets so cruel with it that she actually drives Dead Vriska to tears. Not only does Meenah not stand up for Dead Vriska, she breaks up with her, because while Dead Vriska has become a nice and happy person, she has also become more emotionally vulnerable and Meenah just can't trust herself with that vulnerability.
    • When considering it from Vriska's point of view as well it's also heartbreaking. Vriska is talking to herself, in a way, and her repeated framing of happiness, comfort, and safety as selfish and narcissistic means that Vriska doesn't think she ought to be happy either. She explicitly frames personal growth as incompatible with her own happiness- she needs to 'do what's necessary' and live up to expectations. She frames all of it as 'a harsh truth' that Dead Vriska 'used to understand'. Live Vriska is not allowed to feel bad when bad things are said about her because these “tiny little 8arbs” are harsh truths and part of life (and not, you know, devastating and abusive attacks on her sense of self and desire for happiness/safety/stability.) She has normalized abuse directed both at herself and at others and as a result mirrors, echoes, and amplifies those messages. She quite explicitly believes that happiness is selfish, believes she is not allowed to feel bad about what happens to her, thinks she's an inherently bad person, and hates herself and as a result, Dead Vriska.
    • Vriska's two separate states (alive and dead Vriska) and their divergence in growth is also really sad, because both of them hate each other. Live Vriska hates Dead Vriska for being vulnerable and having achieved a semblance of inner peace but also for having abandoned any desires to be a hero, instead content to watch Lord English destroy dream bubbles with Meenah. Dead Vriska hates Live Vriska because she's still vivacious and angry and an asshole but worst of all, she's still alive and has the ability to change things. Dead Vriska is trapped forever in a stagnant state, and the idea that there is another version of her that isn't is insulting to her. They're both right and both wrong and it's very painful to watch them yell at each other because both of them have a point.
    • Making matters even worse is that as she walks away, Meenah breaks down in tears. Having to leave the dead Vriska is clearly painful for her as well.
  • As Tavros and Jake talk on LOMAX, it's revealed that both Pages have problems that run deeper than we may have thought. Jake, for one, is still in the midst of an identity crisis, seeming ready to accept the fact that he's just a loner and that's how he should remain for the remainder of his life. As for Tavros, he seems to believe that his old friends like him less after discovering his flaws and insecurities, and that he's good at making new friends who don't know his flaws yet. Ow. We can only hope that the two start to feel better about themselves in future updates!
  • Terezi's last messages to Vriska before joining Dave and Dirk for the fight and using her own powers to remember the pre-retcon timeline showcase her own sense of being not enough or incomplete, and her acceptance of these feelings might only make it even worse. She says even winning won't fix her and there might not even be anything in her that is worth to fix.
  • [S] Terezi: Remem8er, which shows Vriska and Terezi remembering happy moments from their childhood and as the Scourge Sisters. While mixed with Heartwarming Moments, it also serves as a kind of homage to the trolls and kids who've died over the course of the comic's run- we see the kids who died in [S] GAME OVER awaken in the dream bubbles as their eyes slowly turn to the blank white pupils of the dead, Equius and Nepeta reuniting, Eridan awaking and seeing Aradia with Sollux and Feferi in tow, and we see a long scrolling set of panels showing other dead selves awakening- such as the John who was stabbed by Jack to go God Tier, Grimdark Rose, the Roxy killed by the Red Miles, the Dirk who sacrificed his head to synchronize and unite his fellow Alpha session members, the Dave killed by Diamonds, the dreamself of Jade who died saving John's dreamself, the dreamself of Karkat who was killed by Jack ... it's a lot.
    • It gets better when you remember that the eyes don't go white until they remember that they've died. All these kids are remembering that they died, while we watch.
    • What's worse is that the music for this flash is the previously-mentioned Do You Remem8er Me. While this was initially intended to be from Vriska to John, it somehow works even better here, especially when mixed with the Heartwarming Moments of (Vriska) and Dead!Terezi reuniting.

    EOA 6 [S] Collide/Act 6 Act 6 Act 6 
  • As everyone else is fighting villains, Gamzee is jerked around in the fridge. By two-thirds through the flash, he's crying. Even if he's been evil for forever now, now and then you can only feel sorry for him.
  • As a much-loved character who's been around for so much of the comic's lifespan, Spades Slick's death was saddening to many readers.
  • In order to defeat the two Jacks, Dave had to decapitate Dirk as well. Though he is revived shortly afterward, it still strikes as a sad moment.
  • The Condesce's end in the flash is a heavy moment. It zooms out from a sword impaling her to show that Roxy dealt the final blow on her. After the hell she made the lives of Roxy and Dirk especially, it's only fitting.
  • Karkat cannot get a break. He's pulled from the fight with Lord English, and his designated opponent is... Clover of the Felt. Who kicks his ass. Clover is actually very powerful, but Karkat has no way of knowing this, and is clearly frustrated by his weakness. It doesn't help when it zooms in on the poor boy on the ground crying when Serenity is shown flying, as opposed to simply looking defeated like John or Dave.
  • The soundtrack throughout most of Collide certainly counts. There is a reason one of the tracks is called Heir of Grief.

    Act 7 and Credits 
  • The happy ending is wonderful... but is missing several characters, Terezi and Vriska most of all. Terezi in particular spent all the cheerful post victory celebration looking pensive and depressed, and notably walked away from the rest of the group. Considering she was one of the biggest contributors to the happy ending, it's even more depressing that she appears to be one of the few who didn't get one.
    • She has some happy moments during the Credits but some time before John's 17th birthday, she disappears. By John's 18th birthday, we find out what she's up to. She's looking for Vriska, spending at least a year on the edge of oblivion, watching countless trolls fall into the black hole. Judging by how neither of the scourge sisters appear in the remainder of the snapchat pictures, either Terezi has spent three years in fruitless search of Vriska, or she fell in the black hole.
  • John's reflection in the photo of Dad in the Credits is pretty sad. He appears to be dealing with a lot of repressed grief.

    Other 
  • From Andrew's old Formspring:
    Question: Has a dying fan ever asked you how Homestuck will end?
    Hussie: I'm suddenly wondering if there were some devoted Homestuck readers out there who died between now and when it started.
    Now I'm sad.
  • The entirety of the comic 'Vrisky Business', in which Hussie sheds light on the extent to which Vriska's childhood traumatized her. She is constantly forced to feed her lusus food, otherwise she'll die. While all of the trolls were hurt by Alternia's messed up environment, only Vriska was constantly being subject to extreme child abuse to the extent that she was constantly isolated by her lusus and believed that she was an awful, inherently violent person.


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