by @marathemara

We were all expecting the end of Act 6 to be something huge. Everyone was gearing up for the final showdown with all of Homestuck’s important villains, and the week of posts leading up to it only heightened the tension. But what we ended up with was so much bigger and more awesome than we expected that it was kind of overwhelming. In this post, I’m going to sort through everything that happened to help us all get a clearer sense of what went down, and point out some of the coolest stuff that happened.

First, let’s talk music. All of the music from the eighteen minutes of [S] Collide can be found in its own album on Homestuck’s Bandcamp page. At first blush I heard themes from SBURBan Jungle, Showtime, Crustacean, Killed by Br8k Spider, and Rex Duodecim Angelus. Members of the /r/homestuck subreddit picked out even more themes. The music in this flash remixes everything from everywhere and it is beautiful.



Now on to the storylines. There are lots of them, and they’re all intercut in ways that might be confusing. I’m gonna tease them apart to give a clearer picture of what’s happening in each place.

Land of Colours and Mayhem

Caliborn fights Yaldabaoth, armed with the Juju Breaker. He does a lot of dodging blue eye lasers, which reminded me of Undertale boss battles (but according to @ohthewhomanity may not have been a deliberate reference to Undertale, because you don’t dodge blue lasers). Caliborn is victorious, and barely stops to wipe the denizen blood off his face before walking out along the Yaldabaoth-shaped path to a platform that holds the grandfather clock that later appears in the Felt mansion, as well as the red treasure chest. Caliborn opens the chest. We don’t see what’s inside, but it has to be the house juju.

Land of Mounds and Xenon

Jake attacks a menacing semicircle of Felt. His Zillyguns don’t harm Doze, and he’s knocked off-guard by Stitch wielding a tailor’s dummy. He shoots Sawbuck and begins time traveling. (Parts of this sequence may be visible during Jasprose’s argument with Davepeta a little earlier.) Cans attacks ARquius, who does a lot of dodging and counterattacks by stampeding a herd of robot horses at Cans. Cans punches Jake, and pretty much everyone else, out of frame and onto LOFAF. He then punches Jake, ARquius, and most of the Felt back to LOMAX. Clover and Ms. Paint stay behind on LOFAF. Jake is tossed around by several copies of Eggs and Biscuits, and eventually falls out of the melee to land at Crowbar’s feet. Crowbar, sans crowbar, attacks Jake with a machine gun.

Jane, Jasprose, and a Nannasprite appear through a Fenestrated Pane. Jane brings Jake back to life, and Nannasprite creates piles of cookies, which Jake and the Felt take a break to eat. After the fight resumes, Casey/Bubbles von Salamancer drives her army of skeletons into the fray, causing more confusion than damage. Eventually, Jake beats up all the Felt who are still on LOMAX, and climbs atop a pile of their dead or unconscious green torsos to celebrate. Crowbar drops his cigarette in surprise.

The Furthest Ring

The Ghost Army, with Meenah, Old Alpha Tavros, and Karkat at the head, stare down Lord English. Davepeta watches from above with Aradia and Sollux. (These may be the Old Alpha Aradia and Sollux, since Sollux is still wearing his pirate eyepatches.) Karkat charges ahead first, much to everyone’s surprise. Lord English is also taken aback; the look on his face is along the lines of “wtf is this insect doing? Shouldn’t it know to be afraid of me?” Karkat is defeated by Lord English and wakes up on LOFAF.

Vriska watches all of this from a safe distance, sitting on the red treasure chest. Hussie jumps out at her from behind a rock and starts boasting about all the characters he plans to kill in this video. Vriska doesn’t buy it, and they fight.

After another long, tense staredown with the army, Lord English takes off his coat and begins punching and breathing fire at ghosts. Meenah and Tavros distract him briefly with their attacks, and Aradia joins in the fight, choking Lord English with her archaeologist whip and repeatedly freezing him in time so the others can get shots in. Lord English eventually shrugs them off and destroys the ghost army. Davepeta attacks Lord English, who has trouble hitting them. Explicit visual parallels are drawn to Undertale boss battles, with Davepeta as the player’s soul and Lord English vomiting pool balls at them. Finally one pool ball makes contact, and Davepeta is knocked away. Lord English roars triumphantly.

Land of Frost and Frogs

Karkat wakes up and finds his way to the surface, where Jake and the Felt have just arrived. Karkat attacks Clover with his sickles but can’t hit him. Jake and most of the Felt leave, and Karkat continues to fight Clover while Ms. Paint, the Mayor, and Calliope look on. Karkat and Clover fight their way into the forest, and Clover humiliates Karkat by knocking him down and dancing on his back. Karkat sees Serenity fly by and is inspired to get up and fight back, finally tying Clover’s limbs together and throwing him to the ground. Clover starts to feel hearts, stars, and horseshoes for Karkat.

Land of Tombs and Krypton

Spades Slick and Jack English fight each other in the air and on the roof of one of the towers. The Striders attack Slick, and Terezi takes on Jack English. The Jacks shake our heroes off a few times so they can fight each other, but each time the Striders and Terezi regroup and attack again. Jack English shoots Dirk with his gold machine gun, and Dave and Terezi perform a Mind/Time fraymotif to bring him back. They continue their fraymotif to deal damage to the Jacks, and then Dave and Dirk begin a Time/Heart fraymotif to attack Jack English. This makes JE angry more than it does anything else. Slick briefly gains control of the gold machine gun and struggles to wield both it and the cuestaff he took from Lord English.

The fight is interrupted when Cans punches ARquius into the scene, causing Jane’s refrigerator (with Gamzee inside) to land on Slick. After Cans and ARquius (and the fridge) leave, the Jacks gain the upper hand, but Dave sees Serenity and is inspired.

Jack English chokes Dirk with the Juju Breaker. Slick sees his chance and chokes JE with the cuestaff. Dirk and Dave share a look; Dirk nods, Dave grits his teeth and charges, beheading Dirk and both Jacks in a single stroke. He then does massive amounts of fancy time travel to catch Dirk’s head and body and hopefully move himself, Dirk, and Terezi off the planet before Jack English’s head explodes, vaporizing most of LOTAK.

Derse

John, Rose, Roxy, and Kanaya make the first move against the Condesce. John fights using the Breeze; Rose, the Quills of Echidna; Kanaya, her chainsaw; Roxy, Fistkind. The Condesce is able to block most of their single attacks. John, Rose, and Roxy use a Breath/Light/Void fraymotif (named “Screaming Wizard Vortex” by art collaborator @rah-bop) to create a wizard statue and drop it on the Condesce. The fraymotif also creates a book, probably from the Complacency of the Learned series, which Kanaya reads briefly. John and Rose also perform a Fraymotif, but it doesn’t seem to do much. Roxy starts creating collections of Perfectly Generic Objects shaped like fists, larger cubes, and Maplehoof and throws them at the Condesce. John, Rose, and Kanaya are amazed.

Jane, Jasprose, and a Nannasprite show up and heal people. Jasprose and Nanna stay to help fight. Jasprose has her own needlewands. Roxy builds a fort of Perfectly Generic Objects around Rose and Kanaya to protect them. Jasprose leaves to help Jane, and Nanna drops a series of household appliances on the Condesce. These are followed by Jane’s fridge, when ARquius and Cans show up briefly. John sees Serenity and is inspired.

The Condesce chokes Jane, then tosses her aside and attacks John, Rose, and Kanaya. Roxy takes the opportunity to sneak around behind the Condesce and impale her on Bro Strider’s katana. The Condesce coughs up blood and collapses.

This is what’s happening on each of the planets. There are also four groups of characters who move between locations, which is cool because their movements tie together what would otherwise just be a frenetic series of jump cuts and make the intertwined narratives that much less confusing. Here’s what’s going on with them.



The Becs

PM and Bec Noir duel on Prospit, and appear to be evenly matched. Jade tries to intervene but is knocked down. The Becs teleport to a series of other locations, and when they return, Jade is nervous about fighting them. Suddenly, she sees Serenity drift by and is inspired. She confronts the Becs, who are confused but go back to fighting. Jade follows them to planet after planet, jumping in between their blades and having the time of her life playing with her dogs again. PM finally gets fed up and punches Jade, knocking her to the ground on LOFAF. She then catches Bec Noir off-guard, cutting off his sword arm and taking the Black Queen’s ring with it. Bec Noir transforms back into an ordinary Jack Noir, and PM punches him, knocking him to the ground beside Jade.

Serenity

Serenity drifts around the Incipisphere, bringing hope and joy to those who see her (John, Jade, Dave, and Karkat). John sees Calliope’s spiral reflected in her exoskeleton; Dave sees stars, which reflect in his sunglasses. Serenity returns to the Mayor, who is overjoyed to have his friend back.

Jane

Jane, accompanied by Jasprose and the Nannasprites, travels to Derse and LOMAX to heal her allies. She fights the Felt briefly on LOMAX, but returns to Derse to fight the Condesce, who chokes her and tosses her aside.

Cans

Cans discovers on LOMAX that ARquius is very hard to hit. ARquius attacks him with robot horses, as well as by dropping Jane’s fridge (with Gamzee inside) on him. Cans starts punching ARquius to various places, dropping the fridge on the Condesce and Slick in the process. Gamzee is occasionally shown rattling around inside the fridge, and at one point is seen crying for unknown reasons.

Cans and ARquius chase each other around outside the other fight scenes for a while and eventually return to Derse, where Dad Crocker has just punched his way out of prison. Dad attacks Cans with a birthday cake, an armload of cream pies, and then his own fists. He finishes by punching Cans into a wall, amazing ARquius with his STRONGness.

This flash is a masterpiece of teamwork (and that includes the nineteen guest artists listed on the Homestuck art credits page), but there’s also an appearance by one character who doesn’t interact with anyone else: God Tier Calliope, staring up at the Green Sun as if preparing herself for whatever it is she needs to do.

And that’s what happened. It’s still an overwhelming amount of stuff–[S] Collide is longer than even [S] Cascade–but hopefully this essay has organized it in a way that makes it easier to process. The End of Act 6 hasn’t tied up very many loose ends–in fact, it may have created as many as it resolved. What happened to Jane after the Condesce threw her aside? What about Davepeta? Did Dave, Dirk, and Terezi get off LOTAK before it blew up? Does Serenity’s cameo mean anything for the future? What will the Prospitian Monarch be like now that she no longer has an enemy? When will Lord English finally be defeated? Will there be any dreambubble ghosts left by the end of the act? What is Calliope going to do with the Green Sun? And what even is anybody’s fate? In twenty minutes of fighting, no one was explicitly labeled DEAD.



Fortunately, at time of writing, we have another week in which to find out all of these things. Until then, I’d totally be happy if Homestuck ended this way. Seeing fraymotifs come back, and characters like Casey and Serenity who we thought we’d left behind for good, and all the awesome places plus everybody working together–this is what [S] Game Over would’ve been if everyone had been a little more prepared. Instead of being reactive and working alone, nearly everyone here is in perfectly coordinated teams, and more often than not, the good guys attack first. Everyone is on top of their abilities, and their teammates’ abilities, and working together to do things none of them could have done alone.

This is the climax of Homestuck. The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. This is the moment where we see what everyone is capable of, and what being in the Game has pushed them to achieve. Everything in this story has led up to this moment. And I love it.

