A cat named Jaspers is already dead once the story starts. Dave accidentally sends a katana through a crow, killing it. A cat named Frigglish (Jaspers from another timeline) accidentally gets smashed by a book. Bec Noir, half human half dog, gets his arm chopped off and punched into the ground. (Does not die, though.)
Sort of. In a conversation that happens during Act 6 Act 5, Caliborn admits to Jane that he had been watching her, as well as her friends, through several monitors. He had already been doing so for a while at this point in the story. He does this mostly offscreen, but it is briefly shown at multiple points both before and after this conversation.
One of the main protagonists, Dave, is subject to physical and psychological abuse from his legal guardian. This is played for slapstick at first but looked at much more seriously later on.
One of the trolls, Vriska, has an extremely abusive parent" who threatens to kill her unless she brings her other trolls to kill. This is only related in text and not shown.
There are two highly abusive relationships, both involving a character from the Makara family being abusively manipulative toward someone. One of these leads to physical retaliation by the VICTIM, but this is still domestic violence.
a few characters are abused mentally, the most notable and obvious being Dave (who is also abused physically. It is shown). The abuse is referenced to be sexual at times (at least) twice. The abuse includes: Lack of food/water in the house Dangerous items (ie weapons) lying around in the house There is a fight scene shown between Dave and his Bro, (the abuser) It is referenced that Bro uses Dave in his puppet p**n There are many instances where Bro pranks" Dave or uses mind games on him Dave does talk about it to an alternate universe version of Bro (who is not abusive, at least not in the same way at all, and is the same age as him), and his realizarion and recovery of the abuse is shown in this conversation.
Rose's mother is an alcoholic (and can be perceived as negletful)
I'm not sure if any drugs that exist in real life are used, a character named Gamzee regularly ingests sopor slime", a slime that one is meant to submerge themselves in as a calming agent during sleep. You are not supposed to eat it, and Gamzee gets high off it. Also, the brief "trickster mode" arc can be interpreted as a reference to drugs or alcohol, especially since the characters who go through it experience what is essentially a hangover afterwards.
Later in the story, one of the main protagonists, Rose Lalonde, develops a reliance on alcohol in order to soothe her nerves. This is stopped in an alternate/corrected timeline. Her mother was also said to be an alcoholic. Roxy Lalonde was consistently drunk for a good while when she was first introduced.
The trolls' lusii, intelligent animals that raised them, all end up dead. These include a ram, a bull, a cyclops, a crab, a cat (which is its own section but still), a grub/queen bee type thing, a dragon, a spider, a centaur, a seahorse, and a huge tentacle monster type thing. Some aren't shown, but mentioned. A crow is also stabbed with a sword.
A singular panel of a troll with his bruised animal caretaker is shown with the implication he is abused by this troll, though this is later clarified to be accidental bruising when both are introduced.
I mean technically? But they're sentient and it's not for the entertainment but rather to develop the plot. They are also not necessarily dogs, they just are part dog?
All of the Lusii die at the beginning of Hivebent, Dave kills a crow (which later gets prototyped into his sprite and eventually Davesprite) and Jaspers the Cat is dead at the very beginning.
A cat named Jaspers is already dead once the story starts. Dave accidentally sends a katana through a crow, killing it. A cat named Frigglish (Jaspers from another timeline) accidentally gets smashed by a book. Bec Noir, half human half dog, gets his arm chopped off and punched into the ground. (Does not die, though.)
The character Terezi's lusus (An animal acting as a guardian for a specific alien species) is a dragon, and dies soon after hatching. However, it is seen having returned as a sprite (basically a ghost that assists and provides hints to their assigned character)
In act 3, Jades house has a trophy of a shark in her father's trophy room. It's a cut photo just stuck onto the wall. The same image appears in multiple room, being different sizes in each room. But it's only really noticable in the first room unless your looking for it.
For bugs: There are cartoony fireflies and wormy grubs. And a photograph of a rhino beetle larva on the cover of a magazine.
For snakes: An alien race that, as part of a mating ritual, turn into enormous cosmic snakes and fight each other. The transformation itself is not seen.
HOMESTUCK SPOILERS A 19 year old character, Meenah, dates and kisses Vriska, who is 13. (Page 7351) It is also implied that Dave's guardian sexually abuses him.
No one is directly beaten up by a bully (thinking like punching and kicking) but I would argue that if a bully is the direct cause (with malocious intent) of someones physical pain and longterm effects of that then kinda yeah someone is beaten up by a bully
There's a part where the character Jack Noir cuts his palm to show the character Karkat they have the same blood colour.
There's also a part where the character Gamzee drags a large set of claws across his face in a fit of insanity, leaving prominent scars for the rest of the comic.
Tavro's legs are broken intensely by Vriska controlling him to jump off a cliff. He's paralyzed from the waist down and his legs are shown in angles they should not be in.
Terezi's eyes are burned out when she is forced to stare at the Alternian sun. Vriska loses her left arm and eye to an explosion. Spades Slick has a cigarette holder / lance stabbed into his eye by Snowman. All of these are depicted on-screen. Vriska and Spades Slick's injuries are shown with canon-typical levels of gore, while Terezi's mutilation is muted somewhat as a result of cutting between her staring at the sun and her dreamself waking up on Prospit.
The harlequin doll in the first act has a glass shard slice through one of its eyes. The doll is then prototyped, rendering the eye with a scar through it, and causing all Carapacians with a prototyping ring to display the same mutilation. These include the Black Queen, the White Queen, Bec Noir and the Peregrine Mendicant / Parcel Mistress. The doll's mutilation is played for laughs. The Carapacians' mutilations are implied to happen instantaneously, when the ring is put on, and are not depicted graphically; the scar appears, but the damage that causes it is not shown.
the “gore” really is not that bad, i’m INCREDIBLY squeamish about gore and all there is in this is…a lot of unrealistic and colorful blood. there’s a lot of blood sometimes and a lot of fighting but it’s mostly harmless
All the kids die, in multiple different timelines even. Death is treated very lightly in this, and although the majority come back in a form of god tier, a good portion only live on as spirits (which in turn, die as well).
Yes, two characters sacrifice themselves to unleash The Green Sun, they needed a sort of a massive bomb to do that, and not to mention, the sun itself.
The vast majority of major characters die. Some do so multiple times, even. But between alternate timelines, dreamselves, and god tiers, death is often treated as more of an inconvenience than a tragedy.
Trolls and Carapacians, who are aliens, often die. The first Intermission involves the Midnight Crew killing a mob of leprechauns, who are carapacian-like aliens. Calliope, who is a cherub, also dies.
Nearly all the parents and guardian figures die at various points throughout the series. The trolls' lusii (animal caretakers, serving in a parental role) are all implied to have died prior to the trolls entering the game, and it is further implied that the sprites which were prototyped with their lusii later vanished or died at some point during the trolls' session. Exactly one parent (Dad Crocker) makes it through to the end alive.
While the series does treat death lightly, these deaths are all taken quite seriously and they are perceived as understandably traumatic for the children; discovering her mother's death is the tipping point for Rose, who becomes temporarily corrupted by eldritch creatures taking advantage of her being overwhelmed by her grief and distress. The majority of these deaths happen off-screen and the exact details are only implied, but the bodies are shown afterwards.
A Harlequin doll gifted to the protagonist has its eye and arm destroyed very early in the comic by said protagonist. A character plays a pretend court of law with her plushies and often destroys them. Other stuffed toys also get destroyed.
The sprites are not ghosts, but visually resemble a cartoon ghost and are often produced using the artifacts of the deceased.
A character is introduced as deceased, but continues to communicate with the living as a ghost. While she is dead, her interactions reveal a fascination with the macabre/dead things/ghosts, but she pretends that she herself is still alive. She later inhabits a physical body.
Many characters die in Homestuck, but are able to be reached by the living through dream bubbles, which is a sort of afterlife built on memory. The deceased appear no different than the living other than having whited out eyes. However, seeing as they are built out of memory and have no physical form, they may technically be ghosts.
The movie Ghostbusters is referenced, like, a lot.
There are a handful of minor jump scares at the end of animations. It is not a major or repeated theme, and most of the scares are meant to be a startling but humorous image. Still, readers should be aware.
1. John's house is full of clown statues, due to his father mistakenly believing he likes them (John actually admires practical jokers, not clowns).
2. The heroes' enemies take on the appearance of objects used for prototyping." Since a clown doll is used for prototyping, many of the monsters in the comic have clown-like or harlequin-like features.
3. There is a troll religion that worships "the Mirthful Messiahs" and look and behave like a cross between serial killers and juggalos (real-world fans of the Insane Clown Posse). Clown imagery is thus used CONSTANTLY as a source of fear and terror, and characters spend significant time being pursued by a murderous clown.
4. An alternate version of the actual Insane Clown Posse appear as bit villains.
If you're not afraid of clowns already, Homestuck will MAKE you afraid of them.
Several, most notably Rose (by lovecraftian horrors, and with some lucidity), Jade and Jane (by a major villain), and Jack in the B2 session (by another villain) (this is a particularly disturbing one, with gore, blood, and self-mutilation.) A puppet is also possessed by the main villain.
Yes, but there was nothing graphic during Homestuck. There's very graphic/detailed vomiting in the Epilogues, though.
There's cartoon vomit on page 3074.
terezi pyrope is a lawyer, but is shown to be weak and incompetent (purely at upholding the law) because of her misaligned belief that justice is what's legal. her ancestor further emphasizes this theme.
A character is attacked with a bladed, weapon, grabs their attacker's arm, and rakes the blade across his face, to spooky effect. A second character gouges their own eyes out and replaces them with billiard balls.
there are insensitive jokes about autism, as well as autism used as an insult, but no character is explicitly autistic- or even really implied to be through coding. (at least, definitely not on purpose.)
A lot of characters are mentally ill and a lot of characters are violent. Sometimes these two things intersect, but no characters are violent because they are mentally ill.
A character creates an alternate species persona for herself and is distressed by not fitting the expectations of her actual species, due to the fact she identifies with a term for trans women and shares a body with a male character this may be interpreted as expression of her dysphoria. Another character also discusses dysphoria in the epilogue and detransitions in one route of it.
one character is trapped in a refrigerator for in indefinite amount of time. while the outside of the fridge is shown often, there's only one scene where the character is actually shown while inside it.
one character has pica. the pies he eats are made from a non-edible slime that is full of sedatives that is normally stored in large cocoon-like furniture that his species sleeps in. he eats he eats the pies because of parental neglect, his caretaker doesnt bring him food so he resorts to eating whatever he can find, and the soporific slime is the closest thing he can get
No one commits suicide in a standard manner (as a release from pain or emotional trauma). However, because resurrection is available in this world in several different ways, several characters kill their current bodies to make use of another. The imagery is still very likely to be triggering.
The majority of visuals in homestuck are still images, and during the animated scenes shakey cameras are not used, nor would they be thematically appropriate.
There are a lot of gifs with bright, flashing colors, and many of the animations have them as well. There is a way around it, though- the Accessible Homestuck Project (accessiblehomestuckproject.tumblr.com) has image descriptions for most of the comic right now (and hopefully will be all of it, eventually), so you can know exactly what's going on without being exposed to strobes.
Not at any point in the literal sense, though the birth of multiple scientifically created children is shown and the concept is arguably discussed metaphorically.
unintentionally, one character's username is shortened to "AG" and sometimes talks as her future self....which is then also shortened and accidentally becomes a slur. this is vaguely commented on briefly
Yes. Though it is quickly rectified, at some point one of the characters, John, mistakes a female character, Kanaya, for a male. This is due to the fact that they are speaking on an online medium, and have yet to properly introduce themselves.
While death is very common in Homestuck (though not always permanently - death serves a few functions in the story) and there are a lot of LGBT characters, none of the characters are killed BECAUSE of their gender and sexuality.
An alien named Caliborn repeatedly harasses and calls Jane “fat” in a variety of vulgar ways via texting, to which she responds with much annoyance. However, he claims that his insults towards her are actually his species’ way of complimenting one another.
there are black and asian caricatures, as well as ableist plotlines, jokes, and caricatures. the black caricatures are more implied through coding, but use appropriated (on the writer's part) black english. one is a reference to nicki minaj, and in an alternate timeline, was a pedophile.
Out-of-universe, the slur r****ded is used constantly and unapologetically. In-universe, some characters are subject to repeated fantastic" hate speech based on their social caste.
Two siblings who have friendly joke-flirting interactions before finding out they're related are implied to have also had a relationship in another timeline, something only confirmed in author responses and book additions. A character who word of author calls a pedophile is implied to usage footage of his child on his niche p**n site, the word sexual assault is used in book to describe a "prank" by this character towards this child. Another pedophile character also asks a young girl he is manipulating to call him her uncle. The epilogue also features an abusive sexual relationship between adopted cousins.
There are no depictions of sexual acts, but there are multiple discussions of alien biology including reproduction. Also, a vast majority of characters are teens, and they are prone to the occasional genital joke.
The alien equivalent of Peter Pan is said to be fake, though it is also said that "if you believe in something hard enough, it will be slightly less fake".
Magic has also been described as "fake as sh*t", despite many characters having magic-like abilities.
While Homestuck does not have a downer ending, it is left fairly open-ended and depending on what you expected from it and your personal definition of a happy ending you might be left feeling quite empty inside.
Specifically, Homestuck ends with the creation of a new world, which had previously been implied to be fated for destruction, continuing a cycle of universe death and creation. The final boss is defeated through unclear means and offscreen. Several characters are dead, or alive through unnatural means. Many characters exit the story without overcoming their personal struggles. Most importantly, near the end of Homestuck the entire cast gets replaced. After nearly everyone gets killed at once, the surviving characters travel to an alternate timeline where everyone is alive and the story keeps going from there.
If any of those things bother you, you might not enjoy the ending.
There are two car crashes. In the first case, no one is inside the car at the time. In the second case, the occupants are completely unharmed. Nevertheless, the car DOES crash.
A character sinks multiple times but im not sure if hes alive or not?....its a puppet. Also there is a character that is shown to fall in a pool of lava, im not sure if that counts as drowning" per se because he probably burned but...
There are instances of characters being stabbed ([S] Wake), cut (page 3191), and beaten (page 6808). Death is extremely common; every character except for one (possibly two, with that particular one its unclear) dies at least once.