Webcomic / Hoofstuck

Pinkie Pie has invented a new game that can alter the fabric of reality and threatens to destroy all of Equestria. Does nopony but Twilight think this is a bad idea?

— MS Paint Fan Adventures description

Hoofstuck is a crossover Fan Webcomic between My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Homestuck that was driven by reader suggestions. The first forum thread is here, the second here.

Pinkie Pie has come up with some new gadgets for playing a mysterious and dangerous game called SBALE. A whole lot of horsing around ensues, with the story jumping around to follow various characters scattered across town and beyond, in the past, present and future.

The story is set in a version of the Friendship Is Magic universe that includes some of Homestuck's in-universe game mechanics, such as fetch modi. It is written with the intention that being familiar with Homestuck is not required to follow along. It does, however, contain many references to its source materials and their predecessors, as well as the Friendship Is Magic fandom.

The comic ran from November 2011 to May 2013 before going on hiatus. The next year, it was declared cancelled due to its projected size, with the author summarizing the remainder of the story in a forum post and on the last page of the comic itself. ^note The summary is about 10,000 words, just to give you an idea.

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This comic contains examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Love Lock challenged the Batterqueen to a bake-off, claiming that if the latter won, she'd let her conquer Equestria.
• Acceptable Breaks from Canon: For a while, this page stated that it "was added prior to the airing of "Putting Your Hoof Down," in which Fluttershy dumps a cartload of garbage on Bon-Bon's head."
• Alternate Universe: Golden Harvest explains the existence of these, mentioning how some alternate timelines and universes are different from others: some are offshoots of an existing timeline, while others are wholly separate. For example, the canon universe is a separate one (Golden Harvest is convinced that the events of "Keep Calm and Flutter On" could never have worked out in their universe) while the timeline where Fluttershy goes mad in her imagination and kills everyone is an offshoot.
• Alternative Number System: Equestrians used to have base 4 and base 8 counting systems.
• Anachronic Order: The story often jumps around the timeline.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Or Hippomorphic, rather.
  • Skaia itself appears as a pony. A rather adorable one, in fact.
  • The various player planets have personifications too, and attend Medium High where they vie for Skaia-sempai's attention in a multi-genre anime pastiche. (Golden Harvest has declared that reality "EXTREMELY hypoparenthetical".)
• Art Shift:
  • When Fluttershy enters her imagination and becomes Fluttersleuth.
  • When the Crusaders ask Pinkie about things at the Sugarcube Corner, the page turns into a crayon-illustrated "Ask a Pony" tumblr layout.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When trying to call Rainbow Dash and forewarn her, Twilight gets temporarily sidelined by the glee of discovering that the Sbale console actually knows how to spell every word she's using.
• Being Watched: Twilight comments on this, unaware that Rarity is spying on her, while Celestia spies on Rarity, and Derpy Hooves apparently watches Celestia over her computer.
• Berserk Button: Skaia does NOT appreciate being called a child.
• Beyond the Impossible: It is revealed in a flashback that in a fit of panic, Fluttershy accidentally captchalogued herself. Again.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: For the sake of immersiveness, Pinkie Pie decides to stop doing this until the end of the story. However, she hints that other ponies will break the wall in her place.
• The Cameo: Ponified versions of the four Homestuck Kids appear in Twilight's Imagine Spot.
• Cast Full of Gay: To the point that one command suggests that Sparkler is Ponyville's sole adult heterosexual mare (although there are a few more). The UST is clearly present between Rainbow Dash and Applejack, Twilight admits having a tentative relationship with Colgate, and Fluttershy is analysing her growing attraction to Rarity after befriending her, although she may just be confused since Rarity is her first real friend. (Rarity is confirmed as heterosexual.)
• Characterization Marches On: Sort of. A number of the fanon used in the comic is at odds with episodes of the show that happened later.
• Charm Person: Sparkler casts this on Rarity to get her talking about Prospit.
• Clone Angst: Pinkie's dream self has a mind of its own, which it thinks will disappear when she wakes up. She claims this doesn't bother her, but she's lying.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • Pinkie Pie is convinced that Bon-Bon is actually evil, and that certain ponies are out to get her now that she's been named heiress of Sugarcube Corner.
  • Lyra also has theories she wishes to share with the readers, but the narrative seems to be deliberately trying to ignore her.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: After a shouted line about baby-making from Rainbow Dash, Sparkler covers Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle's... eyes.
• Culture Clash: According to Golden Rule, while both she and Applejack are fiercely dedicated traditionalists, the farm pony's simply not cut out for being a princess of Prospit. In her opinion, she belongs on Derse instead; thus, she's extremely dismissive of her potential.
  Golden Rule: I have nothing to live for but finding my people the best princesses to represent them, even with the apparently necessary inclusion of the Heir.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Which she gives to her daughter then and there: Vinyl Scratch believed she couldn't give her adopted daughter the life she deserved.
• A Death in the Limelight: Poor Candy Mane...
  • There's also a fakeout one for Rarity, though she survives it.
• Death by Childbirth: Apple Bloom reveals this to be her mother's fate. However, she isn't actually sure of what that means.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Flashback to Applejack's barn at the start is orange-tinted, which Applejack finds very odd. Odd to the point that she's relieved to see it's normally colored when she checks on it immediately afterward.
• Distant Finale: There's a flash forward in which the ponies were successful in SBALE, and they may have even saved Equestria from being destroyed. Rarity has gone God Tier and it is apparently considered politically correct to pretend the element bearers were all Earth Ponies. However, it's later revealed that this is only a "hypoparenthetical" timeline and may not actually happen.
• Downer Ending: When Twilight interrupts her tale about the Batterqueen, Pinkie Pie idly thinks that it's just as well, as she cut her off at a good part, while it's implied that the full story doesn't end quite so happily.
• Drama Queen: "MY DESTINY IS ROCKS?!"^note In a giant font size to get the point across! Of course, this is Rarity we're talking about here.
• Easter Egg: The fifth character selection option on this page. It's clearly visible on an older browser though.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Rainbow Dash was actually adopted by Scootaloo's parents. However, their father believes that Rainbow Dash came from Chrysaor, the rainbow pony god, which is why he insists that Dash is his niece and that his wife and other daughter follow suit.
• Funny Background Event: During Pinkie Pie's retelling of the meeting between Love Lock and the Batterqueen, one member of the queen's retinue wanders off and becomes a crazy bee lady, in response to a suggestion from the forum. Complete with honey stall and derpy eyes.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • This page has DESU, which stands for Daredevil Equestrian Salvation Unit.
  • Rainbow Dash's land is the Land Of Youth And Longing.
  • Pinkie Pie's Land of Frosting and Treasure is LOFAT (low-fat).
• Gesundheit:
  RD: Look, Twah, I know you love your magic and all, but there must be a better place to practice your long distance tellykismesis.
  RD: Gesundheit.
• Gilligan Cut: As Twilight Sparkle talks about how Rarity wouldn't risk Equestria being destroyed for an adventure we cut to Rarity watching Twilight with her own SBALE console. Which then cuts to Celestia watching Rarity. Which then cuts to Derpy watching Celestia.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The Batterqueen.
  • Golden Rule is a 'compromise' based off of this: a 'wicked good queen'. As a result, she has anger issues, and difficulty restraining herself when she knows that snapping really isn't a good idea. Apparently Skaia isn't familiar with the concept of The High Queen.
• Good News, Bad News: The 'both news are the same' variant to dream!Pinkie and sleuth!Fluttershy.
  Pinkie Pie:"Now the good news is, I think I found the fifth member of the Midnight Crew!"
  Fluttershy:"...oh?"
  Pinkie Pie:"The bad news is, I think I found the fifth member of the Midnight Crew..."
• Happily Adopted: It looks like the Mane Six all came from meteors. It's less than clear if other ponies also were made in the SBALE session.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Pinkie Pie is confused over whether or not she should say everypony when talking to the reader.
  Hi everypony! Or wait a second, not everypony! Everyhuman? No, that sounds dumb. You guess you could say everyman, but why would you greet anypony with an old morality play? That's like the opposite of a party.
• Hope Spot: Pinkie uses her Pinkie Sense and a bit of logical extrapolation to prove that, no matter how bad the Reckoning gets, nopony is going to die. Three pages later, Candy Mane is killed by a meteor.
  • Twilight realizes they could save most of Ponyville's population by evacuating them in their houses before entering the Medium. They have only a few minutes left before the meteors, no time to organise an evacuation.
• I Call Her "Vera": Applejack has names for all her trees, and she's none too pleased when something happens to Martin. Or RD cracking up at learning his name, for that matter.
• Imagine Spot: Twilight has access to a transcribed copy of Rose's FAQ. Like Kanaya in Homestuck canon, Twilight Sparkle imagines the Homestuck Kids as her own species.
• Innocent Inaccurate: None of the Cutie Mark Crusaders know where babies come from. Apple Bloom guesses that you need some essence of life, and surmises it involves "vomiting into a bucket or something", much to the others' disgust.
  • "vomiting into a bucket or something" is the Homestuck fandom's general consensus on what troll reproduction might possibly be like.
• Innocent Innuendo: While in Voice Mode and unable to see what's going on, Twilight hears AJ joke about playing a prank on Rainbow Dash. As the only skills she attributes to AJ off the top of her head are bucking and lassoing, trying to equate those to prank-pulling results in some interesting mental images.
• Insane Troll Logic: According to Pinkie, Bon-Bon's reasons for wanting her dead includes "Bon-Bon doesn't know who Rarity is" and "Twilight snubbed Lyra back in Canterlot".
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: LoRaF-tan has one.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Lampshaded in Rarity's walkaround.
• Interface Screw: Starting with this page, most of the page is upside-down for a couple of pages. Luckily, most of the text is not.
• I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Played for Laughs in Rarity's Flashback when we see her with '80s Hair and plenty of Mane Decs.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Like Homestuck, the story jumps around between various times, places, and characters, feeding the reader pieces of information that won't make sense until much later.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: In this story, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo are cousins, likely a nod to fandom theories that they were related. It turns out that they're actually siblings by adoption, see Family Relationship Switcheroo above.
• Malaproper: When excited, Derpy Hooves tends to have trouble with her tenses or use the wrong word while still getting her point across.
• Meaningful Name: The White Queen gets named Golden Rule "because she's going to get what's coming to her". ^note The Golden Rule is "do unto others what you would have them do unto you".
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Pinkie Pie claims in this page that Pink would be her middle name if it wasn't already her first name.
  • A bit earlier, in this page, Pinkie claims that hysterical is her middle name, though she quickly says it isn't.
• Missing Time: Sparkler apparently has a problem with blackouts, though she acts unconcerned about it.
• Monkey Morality Pose: The Flower Trio here. In the same picture, The Scream.
• Mythology Gag/Shout-Out: Has its own page here.
• Never Say That Again: Twilight doesn't appreciate being asked to play a 'wicked trumpet solo'.
• "Not So Different" Remark: While reading Rose's incomplete account of her adventures, Twilight draws a lot of parallels between them. This insight concerns her, as she's not reminded of her present self, but of the mare she was before arriving in Ponyville.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Carrot Top (aka Golden Harvest) deliberately messed up the banner during "Swarm Of The Century" just to make Twilight think that she was just a simpleton. In actuality, she's extremely clever.
• One-Word Title
• Orwellian Retcon: The author claims to have removed several of Lyra's appearances in the past in retaliation for appearing in another Homestuck crossover. Derpy's and Ponet's names were also retroactively changed to Bubblecup and Goldenlight, respectively.
  • Other edits were made for consistency and less confusion.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Filly!Dash's griffon disguise, which was immediately seen through.
• Pokémon Speak: Cloud Kicker only says her first name. Turns out she's actually speaking a different language — Cloud.
• Politically Correct History: A statue of the Mane 6 in the future shows them without horns and wings (except for Rainbow Dash, who is an exception as she's depicted flying).
• Power Gives You Wings: Possible Future Rarity seems to have wings; it's likely that this is the result of going God Tier.
• Pride: Discussed when Pinkie Pie first talks about the Batterqueen. Apple Bloom comments on Love Lock's hubris on making such a risky bet and says she's acting just like the Batterqueen. Pinkie tells her that when you succeed in taking that sort of gamble, you're called 'confident', but if you fail, it's called pride, though it's all the same thing.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: As in Homestuck canon, but the twist is that Rarity awakened on Prospit before SBALE starts — or even before the Mane Six first met each other.
• Punny Name: Ember and Nth Degree Dash — aka Em Dash and En Dash.
• Recursive Canon: In Homestuck, Dirk Strider has a picture of Rainbow Dash in his house. Here, Rainbow Dash has a picture of Dirk Strider in her house.
• Rule of Funny: Pinkie Pie has a modus with this name, where she keeps all her toys. Which are inside a Lyra plushie for some reason.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Fluttershy would like to see Angel hook up with Darla Bunny, but he hasn't shown any interest yet.
  • Scootaloo also briefly supports the idea of Rainbow Dash getting together with Big Macintosh, but reconsiders when she hears him ask if she's ready for a filly.
• Sickly Green Glow: Seen when Sparkler convinces Rarity to tell her about her dreams.
• Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: As Golden Rule knows her death is already preordained, she figures it's fine to call out and insult her goddess-creator over not being able to decide if Dash or Twilight should be the third princess of Prospit.
• Sole Survivor: The time-traveling Mare-Do-Well!Rainbow Dash makes comments implying she may be one from a Bad Future.
• Stalker without a Crush: Medley, in regards to Rainbow Dash. Complete with taped-together photos and elaborate plans for the future and how they'll be the best of friends.
• Stating the Simple Solution: After Applejack enacts a plan to get a crate out of a tree, one of the suggestions reminds her that she could've just bucked it.
• Stealth Pun: Pinkie's land, the Land of Frosting and Treasure. Generally, everything looks very delicious, but Pinkie doesn't need to worry about her weight, because it's LoFaT!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  Rainbow Dash: ...not that you believe in sea ponies or anything. You're not a baby.
  
  Applejack: Y'all can trust me, Rainbow — element o' honesty and all that! Definitely not hiding any secret thoughts about you or anything!
• Take That!: The CMC had at some point attempted to make toy ponies. Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash remark on how shoddy and inaccurate the results are.
  • Pinkie Pie also mentions that in a certain line of toys, they only used five molds for a really long time, with all the other ponies being recolors. More molds appeared around the time of Cadance's wedding, which she laughs at: "Celestia and Luna do raise the sun and moon. And yet they couldn't start making alicorns until some measly princess of the Crystal Empire got married? Pfffff!"
  • "Not that this random cloud is your house, you mean. Confusing the two would be like thinking your house was actually all of Cloudsdale."^note an official trading card
• The Talk: Played with. Apple Bloom asks Pinkie Pie where foals come from. Pinkie's answer? They come from rocks.
  Sweetie Belle: Well, Rarity does say that there can sometimes be interesting things inside of rocks, I guess.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  • Rainbow Dash, when trying to figure out how to captchalogue Pokey Pierce.
    But even if you went and found a sack or something, you'd bet it'd be pretty tough to get Pokey in the sack.
    ...omigoshomigosh you are going to forget you ever even thought that.
  • Fluttersleuth contemplates a wall painting in her imagination zone:
    You'd guess Pinkie Pie did this, it wouldn't be the first time she's appeared in your fantasies, and... meep!
    ...that last bit sounded a lot better in your head.
  • "It was one of my biggest boners yet. Uhh... from the Old Zebrican Bon, meaning 'Clone,' of course!"
• Theme Naming: Rainbow Dash's adopted parents are Nth Degree Dash and Ember Dash — or, as Rainbow nicknames them, En-Dash and Em-Dash.
• Title Drop: When explaining her invention to Applejack, Pinkie Pie mentions Friendship is Magic — same font and all.
• Ungrateful Bastard: How Golden Rule comes across to Skaia, complaining about having Applejack for an heir and insulting her own goddess-creator over it.
• Unreliable Narrator: Twilight has some concerns that Rose may have been this, but still treats her account as a repository of information about SBALE.
• Unstoppable Rage: Fluttershy shows some signs of a mysterious, bloodthirsty rage — first when meeting Angel Bunny, and again in a bad timeline, after facing an Eldritch Abomination that caused her to Go Mad from the Revelation.
• Visible Silence: LoSaD's ponification, who appears to be living in a Cosmic Horror Story, uses a lot of ellipses in her speech.
• We Gotta Stop Meeting Like This: After Rainbow Dash crash-lands onto Applejack:

  Rainbow Dash: Applejack!
  Applejack: Whoof! And hello to y'all as well, Rainbow. We really gotta stop meetin' like this.

  • Becomes a Brick Joke later:
    Applejack: ...Rainbow, remember what I said earlier about us not meetin' like—
• We Have Reserves: Golden Rule has this attitude towards her followers, viewing them as nothing more than chess pieces, with only herself, the King, and her Princesses being irreplacable.
• With Due Respect: Rarity uses this when rebuffing the Queen of Prospit.
• You're Not My Father: Golden Rule lays it on a little too thick with Rarity, who becomes deeply uncomfortable with how she speaks of her subjects and her insistence on hearing the message her mother recorded. When Golden Rule pulls out the 'practically family' line, this is her response.

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