Webcomic / Guidestuck

"Four familiar friends play a failed session of SBURB, but they don't know it at the time."

Guidestuck is a Homestuck fan Adventure by scarvenrot. The story starts with Bec Harley and his friends, Quinn Egbert, Jaspers Lalonde and Cal Strider, preparing to play the OMEGA prototype copy of SBURB.

Unknown to them, this is a failed timeline and they are all going to die.

Can be read here.

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Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Squarewave is this to Cal.
  • Cal himself is one to Bec, which makes him viewing Square as this a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
• Absent-Minded Professor: Colt Forrest Lalonde's occupation.
• All There in the Manual: Information about the characters (both seen or not yet seen) is in scarvenrot's tumblr on the Guidestuck tag.
• Alternate Universe: To Andrew Hussie's Homestuck, natch.
• The Aloner: Bec, due to living in the island and only having his dog, Jade, for company.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Jaspers sees his father as overbearing, and despises being treated like a child.
• Ambiguous Gender: Cal is genderfluid, and prefers male pronouns, but his biological sex is deliberately ambiguous.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: All the main human characters are based on various animals and inanimate objects of Homestuck, and vice versa.
• Big Fancy House: Bec lives in an expensive underground island mansion.
• Bizarro Universe: Any object, pet, or lusus that in Homestuck were prototyped into Sprites are now the characters of this story. The reverse is also true as far as we've seen. Certain other figures from the Alpha timeline, like Maplehoof (and potentially the as-of-yet unseen Grandpa Harley) have also been repurposed.
• Book Dumb: Justified with Bec, as living on a island most of his life, never went to school, no one else there to teach and had to learn by himself, with Jasper's help.
• Butt-Monkey: From Scarvenrot's Tumblr: Cal would throw/drag his Dave puppet down stairs in fits of jealousy/annoyance/for no reason at all, but it will bite him in the ass when Dave gets prototyped.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them
• Cassandra Truth: TA/Wyvern tried to warn Bec not to download Sburg and not to trust GT/Stheno, but Bec brushes off her warnings and blocks her. Justified as Bec had never spoken to or knew TA/Wyvern until her warning.
• Cat Girl: Pounce De Leijon.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bec.
• Disappeared Dad: Bec hadn't seen his (Grand)Pop in years and thinks he is probably dead.
• Doting Parent: Colt Forrest Lalonde is just as dadly as Dad Egbert in the Alpha timeline.
• Expy:
  • Bec suspects his Pop to be one of James Bond due to the James Bond like gadgets and vehicles.
  • Jaspers suspects Bec's grandfather to have been Hugh Hefner of this verse.
  • Sweet Puppy is Playboy except with puppies.
• Embarrassing Pyjamas: Jaspers wears an appropriately cat-themed version of these (and a onesie to boot!) to bed, much to his chagrin.
• Feigning Intelligence: Jaspers likes to think of himself as the mature and intelligent one, but in actuality, he's a goofy kid that doesn't always know what he is talking about. He's also nowhere near as good at navigating social situations as he thinks he is.
• G.I.R.L.: Bec's friend, GT/Stheno. Except GT is female, just not human.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Jaspers' dad is devastated at the thought of Jaspers wanting to run away from home.
  • Jaspers goes into this when he accidentally kills Jade.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Bec with his not-quite-puppy-not-quite-adult dog, Jade. Averted with Jaspers who has a cat, Rose.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Cal loves playing princess RPs with Quinn, plays with puppets and is jealous of Quinn's doll collection.
• Jerkass: Jaspers used to bully Bec online for his poor reading compehension, typing and gaming skills when they were eleven.
  • Jaspers towards his dad, all the damn time.
• Jerkass Realization: When the online community called Jaspers out on his bullying, Jaspers realized what a horrible person he was. Jaspers then changed all the names of his online accounts and befriended Bec. Bec doesn't know Jaspers was the guy that bullied him.
• Kitsch Collection: Quinn collects fine china dolls, her favorite are harlequins and Victorian ladies.
• Lonely Doll Girl: The genderfluid Cal is this by Word of God.
  • And it shows when we finally meet him.
  Anyway, it's perfectly NORMAL to think of your dolls as having EMOTIONS. And even if it isn't, you really don't give a shit when you're ALONE.
• Keet: Cal Strider.
• Metaphorgotten: Kind of; Bec's (admittedly sarcastic) metaphor about Jade's death and Jaspers' (as far as he knows) careless reaction to it eventually stops being a metaphor and quickly devolves into a Shaped Like Itself rant.
  CC: like if somebody killed your mom and then brought her back to life i dont think youd be like
  CC: oh yeah no everythings cool now its not like i just tried to pry my bed off of the floor to save her and got her blood all over my hands or anything
  CC: nah man were okay
• Nephewism: Cal is being raised by his cousin, Liv.
• Nerd Glasses: Squarewave wears these.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: TA warns Bec to not play SBURB because it will kill them all. Bec ignores the warnings and burns a copy of the game anyways.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Squarewave gets very touchy-feely with Cal and will hug him, stand uncomfortably close to him, and touch his hair/face, even though he claims he would never invade Cal's space without his permission. When called out on this, he claims he just can't help it.
• Parents as People: Colt Lalonde tries to be a good, understanding dad to Jaspers, but Jaspers doesn't quite understand his dad.
• Please Wake Up: Bec tries to wake up Jade after she is accidentally crushed by Jaspers.
• Precious Puppy: Bec's puppy, Jade.
• Security Blanket: Quinn's personal favorite doll is the ragdoll, John. She even calls him her "brother".
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Jaspers likes to be dapper and wears suits.
• Ship Tease: Jaspers and Quinn are implied to be an item already and Cal has a not-so-secret crush on Bec.
  • Official Couple: a couple of scenes show that Bec's grandpa and Quinn's mom were an item in the past.
• The Smurfette Principle: In appearance, the Kids' group have 3 guys and 1 girl, but Cal is genderfluid.
• Stalker with a Crush: Pounce De Leijon appears to be one to Jaspers. The fact that her screen name is felicitousStalking and the way she talks imply that this is part of her general personality.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Inverted; all Colt Lalonde wants is for his son to be happy.
• When He Smiles: Bec has a really cute smile, but he rarely shows it.
• You Are Fat: Unintentional example when Cal draws an inaccurate picture of Bec; when Bec tries to tell Cal that he's stout and stocky, Cal accuses him of being chubby.
  • Big Beautiful Man: Cal's crush on him is in no way swarted by this.