Homestuck: Act 6 Intermission 5

Act 6 Intermission 5 of Homestuck is a part of Act 6 and the current act. It does not yet have a known title.

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 * HS 7827 The act opens with a view of year three on the meteor. Karkat pesters Dave on what appears to be a wrist-mounted crab-shaped communication device.
 * HS 7830 After getting no response from Dave, Karkat continues talking and says that they have a problem: the B2 Skaia is visible, indicating that they will be arriving there in the next few hours, and they still aren't ready to face what awaits them in the new session, let alone stop the meteor. He then turns his attention to Terezi, who is lying on the floor asleep, pantsless, and clutching a bottle of Faygo.
 * HS 7835 Dave answers Karkat who tells him they need to hold an intervention, with Dave mistaking it as being for Rose's alleged alcoholism. Karkat corrects him, explaining how they need to have a talk about Terezi's relationship with Gamzee, but Dave believes Terezi should be free to make her own choices. They continue to discuss about how Dave ended up breaking up with Terezi and how Gamzee eventually became more distant and eventually ended his moirallegiance with Karkat. Karkat begins to wonder what will happen to them all when everything is over and if he and Dave will continue to be friends and how John and Jade will feel about him. Dave reassures Karkat about their friendship and claims that John and Jade would likely want to be friends with him. Terezi begins to awaken.
 * HS 7838 Karkat wakes up Terezi with one of Gamzee's horns. In the cherub session, Caliborn asks Andrew Hussie to give him more information about the game. He has unlocked several new planets and acquired some new minions with numbered, color-coded hats. Hussie advises him to give his new leprechauns henchmen mobster names. On LOMAX, the battleship lies next to the ruins of Jake's house.
 * HS 7841 Jaspersprite and Nannasprite begin exploring around the battleship as Davesprite attempts to wake up John. Davesprite decides to let John sleep while wondering to himself where Jade went, suspecting her of getting away from him, Davesprite continues talking about how no one deserves to have to deal with himself and continuing his belief he isn't as good as the "real" Dave. He continues to wonder about John's ring but decides he should have asked earlier and decides to leave John a note before flying off to be alone.
 * HS 7846 In the cherub session, Caliborn has unlocked more leprechauns gnomes minions and complains to Hussie about how useless their powers are. Hussie tells him that he has to use their various powers together to make them more useful. Meanwhile, John is still asleep.
 * HS 7848 Out in the Furthest Ring, the cracks created by have begun to encircle the Green Sun.
 * HS 7849 John is seen looking at the destruction from within a dream bubble. Aranea, Meenah, Tavros, Vriska, Aradia, and Sollux are nearby on a pirate ship bearing Mindfang's symbol, and they call John over.
 * HS 7853 Vriska greets John and informs him of the progress of her treasure hunt. has taken their bait and pursued them across the Ring, but they have learned that the treasure was very close to their starting location and have traveled in a circle to get there. John greets the rest of Vriska's crew and is introduced to Aradia and Sollux, who have been recruited by Vriska because their powers will be useful once she has the treasure. Sollux explains his unique status and bemoans the fact that his corpse is sharing a sprite with Eridan. He and Vriska get into an argument over whether doomed timeline ghosts should be treated as real people or mere copies of their alpha timeline equivalents.
 * HS 7856 Vriska reveals that several thousand ghosts are in ships slightly ahead of theirs, drawing 's fire in order to fill out the maps. She is accomplishing this feat by mind controlling some of them, with Aranea's help, while the rest are simply drawn to the controlled group. Aranea and Vriska have bonded really well, and Meenah laments that while she does like Feferi, her royal blood induces murderous urges directed at anyone sharing her blood color. Under his breath, John says that "".
 * HS 7858 Tavros overhears the comment and tries to call John out. Aranea remarks that all species would invariably seem alien to each other (while implying that there are more species throughout paradox space apart from humans, trolls, and cherubs). This reminds her that she was in the middle of telling a story about the cherubs, and she decides to start over while the others display varying degrees of vexation.
 * HS 7861 Aranea begins telling the story of the cherubs, focusing on one in particular: an adult female with a benevolent personality. The female cherub has predominated over her brother and now searches for an adult male to mate with. She follows the "scent" of a notably violent male who leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake and eventually locates him near a black hole, where they will begin the violent duel that serves as their mating ritual. The winner will claim the other's territory as their own, while the loser must retreat and give birth to the new child. (The canon fan trolls make their cameo appearance in this update, appearing on one page and then immediately dying on the next.)
 * HS 7869 The cherubs meet, turn into giant serpents, and begin their duel. After several sweeps of combat, the female cherub proves victorious and fertilizes the male. He leaves to locate a dead planet suitable for depositing his egg and finds far future Earth, where he leaves the egg and then vanishes back into paradox space (possibly to lay more eggs on other dead planets). From this egg, Calliope and Caliborn will be born. Gamzee finds the egg and Aranea changes the story's focus to its villain, Caliborn.
 * HS 7877 As Feferi and Nepeta's ghosts return to the afterlife and begin donning pirate costumes, Meenah attempts to leave to use the bathroom, so Aranea decides to wait until she returns so everyone can hear the tale in its entirety. John briefly comments on the strangeness of ghosts having to pee and asks Aranea to continue the story. She decides to instead have a brief intermission to allow her listeners to process the new revelations. Meenah complains because this means that Aranea will just tell another story-within-a-story, but allows it once Aranea calls the intermission an "interfishin".
 * HS 7881 While Meenah uses the bathroom, the other trolls produce musical instruments and begin playing "". Meenah returns and informs them that Sollux has fallen down the stairs, then goes below deck again when she notices what the others are doing.
 * HS 7882 Aranea continues the story, noting how cherub hatching and raising works. She notes that the difficult task of raising this creature was undertaken by multiple acolytes as we see visuals of Gamzee doing so alongside the text. He uses an extra codpiece as a cherub diaper.
 * HS 7890 The cherubs are left chained inside their room, and their story jumps ahead to Caliborn's entry and his meeting with Yaldabaoth. Caliborn is offered The Choice : he can either take the martyr's path by dying, with the promise that his sacrifice will let him later contribute to the end of a great evil, or he can take the conqueror's path and attempt to take over and destroy multiple planets. Once this is done, he will unlock his true land and have one final challenge - face Yaldabaoth in combat and win. If Caliborn succeeds, he will be given unconditional immortality and unlimited power to destroy anything he wants.
 * HS 7898 After Caliborn chooses to take the path of the conqueror, Skaia turns into a solid sphere and explodes, scattering fifteen new planets across the Medium. The leftover Skaian matter turns into a black hole that sucks up three of the planets (specifically the seventh, eleventh and fourteenth planets), leaving only twelve for Caliborn to conquer. He begins his quest: on each planet, he must crush all resistance and defeat the powerful underling that rules the world, then retrieve a bomb inside the planet's core and use the force from the bomb's detonation to push the subjugated world into the black hole. He has to skip the eighth planet initially, returning to destroy it after he has sunk the others. After sinking his eighth planet, his original dead planet becomes his true land, where he and his minions must prepare to face Yaldabaoth.
 * HS 7906 Aranea begins to talk about the leprechauns, the species that are members of. John is confused by the sudden addition of leprechauns to the story, but Aranea is fascinated by the species and launches into a lengthy discussion of the leprechaun romance system, which uses nine "charms" instead of four quadrants. The lecture is fortunately cut off by Vriska before Aranea can begin talking about how leprechauns reproduce.
 * HS 7908 Vriska tells Aranea how much she has helped her get in touch with her inner storyteller, and proceeds to hug her. However, Vriska and Meenah silently make a series of disparaging gestures and high-five behind Aranea's back. Aranea scowls at the insincerity.
 * HS 7915 On the meteor, a surprised Karkat notices that Terezi is no longer blind.
 * HS 7917 Terezi reveals to Karkat that Aranea healed her eyes nearly one year earlier, but she immediately regretted the decision and has been hiding it from the others. She even considered re-blinding herself, but decided not to because it wouldn't be the same. Karkat says that he knows about Terezi and Gamzee's kismesissitude and she expresses a desire to end the relationship, as it has given her nothing but severe self-loathing and an addiction to Faygo. Specifically, she wants to end it herself, as she would feel pathetic if Gamzee ditched her. She and Dave then criticize Karkat for sitting backwards in a chair throughout the entire conversation, causing him to throw a tantrum.
 * HS 7919 Dave and Karkat continue arguing over the chair, with Dave accusing Karkat of being a communist for stealing public furniture for his own use. Karkat returns the topic of conversation to Terezi's issues, noting how many of her problems seem to be rooted in a lack of self-esteem. She says that she won't be very useful during the battle against Jack, and when Karkat brings up her Mind powers she dismisses them as merely giving her the illusion of controlling fate. She brings up Vriska's death and how she still feels guilty about killing her, even if doing so really was demanded by paradox space. The speaker crab suddenly latches onto her toe and Dave denies having any control over it.
 * HS 7922 Caliborn has conquered the 6th planet, gaining and . On the eighth planet (which is confirmed not to provide a minion), Caliborn speaks at length with  and decides he is highly intelligent and to give him important duties later on. Meanwhile,  tries to get in a star-heart-horseshoe relationship with Caliborn while Lil Seb tries to get into a heart-clover relationship with.
 * HS 7923 The circle of cracks in paradox space around the Green Sun is completed, and the pirate crew arrives at their destination: an island with a green skull-shaped cave entrance.
 * HS 7925 As Vriska's crew enters the cave, John asks Aradia if she believes Vriska's methods are ethical. She says that in her opinion, the morally questionable acts are necessary for stopping, an action she views as cosmic housekeeping rather than the defeat of an evil force. John asks what she hopes to get out of the conflict and is disturbed to learn that she wants to see "".
 * HS 7931 John runs over to the others as Aranea begins to tell one last tale before they reach the treasure. She tells of two rings, the Rings of Life and Void, which look identical but possess different powers and origins. The Ring of Void has the power to let its wearer "vanish into the void" (indicating that it is the same ring Roxy used to escape from prison), while the Ring of Life is capable of bringing any ghost that wears it back to life. Before Aranea can retell a fable about the rings, Vriska realizes that the Ring of Life is the ring Hussie used when he proposed to her.
 * HS 7937 Vriska lets out an enraged scream while two Cronus ghosts under her mind control "slampora" into each other.
 * HS 7940 Vriska reveals that she knew John and Tavros were fighting over the ring Hussie attempted to give her, and demands Tavros tell her where it is. After Tavros reveals he doesn't know, Vriska demands that after recovering the weapon, Tavros lead her back to the location where he lost the ring. He refuses, saying that Vriska's meanness has made him reconsider helping her, and flies away. Sollux, not wanting to be upstaged by Tavros in terms of confidence, decides that helping Vriska was a mistake, and also leaves with Feferi and Nepeta in tow.
 * HS 7947 John reveals that he is in possession of the ring, but says that as its owner he must choose the most responsible way to use it, even if that means not giving it to Vriska. He decides that it's time for him to wake up and tells Vriska that while they can still be friends, after observing her actions and the other trolls' reactions to them he is concerned that she may too dangerous to resurrect. Vriska is upset and angry but tells John to stay a bit longer so he can see what the treasure is.
 * HS 7951 Vriska points to the treasure's location - a flaming X at the bottom of a cliff - and explains its backstory: once found a weapon he could only use once and proceeded to do so. The weapon could then only be used one more time, to defeat him, so he hid it away inside the Furthest Ring. Vriska justifies leading the ghosts to their death by arguing that their continued existence was the only obstacle preventing the treasure from being found, and that the horrorterrors probably intended to use them as bait anyway, and once she uses the weapon and ends 's threat forever, her actions will be vindicated after they lead to a reality where universes are no longer threatened with annihilation. She also tries to explain that she's only ever tried to do what was right, in the only way she knew how: "" She jumps down to the X.
 * HS 7955 On the meteor, Rose sits in the middle of Can Town with a book while Kanaya watches her silently.
 * HS 7956 Kanaya attempts to tell Rose that the meteor is about to arrive in the new session, but the heavily intoxicated Rose says that she is busy serving as the Mayor's assistant and documenting the layout of Can Town so that it can be taken apart and rebuilt on the new planet they will create. She rambles about their "duty" as the last members of their species to keep democracy alive while an annoyed Kanaya rolls her eyes.
 * HS 7958 Kanaya is furious because Rose had promised that she would be sober when the meteor arrived in the session. She says that Rose is the smartest one on the meteor and her intelligence is greatly needed, but her addiction has resulted in her neglecting her responsibilities; as a result, they have made no progress on finding a way to make a new matriorb and the auspisticism she started with Gamzee and Terezi fell apart. Rose acknowledges the criticism but asks Kanaya to help document Can Town; enraged, Kanaya kicks over some of the cans and Rose mourns the destroyed "Bubbles Von Salamancer Memorial Library".
 * HS 7961 Rose worriedly asks if Kanaya will break up with her. Kanaya frustratedly shouts "NO".
 * HS 7965 Caliborn talks to Hussie yet again as he prepares to conquer the 12th planet. Hussie is angry that Caliborn keeps demanding spoilers but proceeds to give him information on, , and . Caliborn doesn't understand why he needs to be his tailor, saying that he will wear his suspenders for the rest of his life. Hussie tells him to hurry up and conquer the planet, accidentally revealing that the next minion is named . The various members of  appear to be in many complex relationships.
 * HS 7966 Kurloz picks up Vriska's discarded pirate overcoat.
 * HS 7967 Vriska and her crew walk down a Yaldabaoth-shaped path. Meenah quietly tells John to come over to her.
 * HS 7968 Meenah says that, now that she knows that John has the Ring of Life, it is inevitable that she will one day steal it from him, resurrect herself and enslave everyone in the real world. However, she doesn't actually want to do any of that because she would miss her friends too much. She begins to cry while mentioning all the things she likes about Aranea and Vriska, including their stories, then grabs John and shakes him until he promises to never let her get the ring. Meenah hugs him and thanks him.
 * HS 7973 John runs over to Vriska and Aranea, and the pillar of Yaldabaoth's head starts descending, at which point Meenah and Aradia float down. At the bottom, Caliborn's Juju chest comes up through the hole.
 * HS 7974 Vriska explains that the treasure is a powerful juju that was given to as a boon for killing Yaldabaoth. She opens the chest, but the juju is not shown (though Vriska's confused reaction is); instead, the story shifts focus to Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer, who is standing next to the battleship on LOMAX.
 * HS 7978 Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer's journey begins with a lively jig, and Hussie dismisses the earlier statement that Salamanders only live for a few days, confirming that this is indeed the same one.
 * HS 7979 The Viceroy proceeds to cast a spell that summons an army of skeletal consorts. Hussie speculates that the army will be used later in the story to help the heroes. Vriska attempts to interrupt the subplot, but Hussie dismisses her and continues to focus on the Viceroy, who is trying to give one of the skeletons a name.
 * HS 7981 The skeleton is named Bonebone, and Hussie states that each will be named individually. Vriska gets enraged as Hussie taunts her about giving up her one chance at becoming relevant again. She shifts the plot focus back to herself through sheer force of will and tactlessly dumps the treasure (an intangible, transparent Sburb symbol) on the ground. She screams at Hussie while yelling the rest of the information she knows about the weapon: it was turned intangible when used it, Aradia was brought along because she can use her powers to levitate it, and it will supposedly reactivate in 's presence. After telling Hussie to "", she falls onto the ground. Everyone else expresses confusion at her outburst towards, from their perspective, nobody. Aradia, however, continues to silently grin.
 * HS 7992 John decides to ignore Vriska's outburst and wonders what would happen if he tried to touch the Sburb symbol. He reaches his arm through the symbol, causing several copies of his hand to emerge from portals above him. He pulls his hand out after inadvertently jabbing it on the sharp end of Vriska's horn, then reaches back in and his arm appears near what is revealed to be the Homestuck title card. HS 1982 (Copies) HS 2104 (of) HS 2134 (his) HS 2231 (arm) HS 2408 (appear) HS 2538 (in) HS 2640 (multiple) HS 2725 (locations) HS 2822 (throughout) HS 2894 (time) HS 2969 (and) HS 2987 (space,) HS 3034 (indicated) HS 3098 (by) HS 3171 (their) HS 3208 (appearance) HS 3261 (in) HS 3355 (several) HS 3485 (previous) HS 3678 (scenes) HS 3782 (from) HS 3831 (the) HS 3948 (story.) HS 4076 (Accordingly,) HS 4181 (every) HS 4335 (previous) HS 4502 (image) HS 4629 (that) HS 4922 (is) HS 5027 (shown) HS 5197 (in) HS 5379 (this) HS 5589 (update) HS 5684 (has) HS 5784 (been) HS 5876 (replaced) HS 5910 (by) HS 5970 (a) HS 5993 (version) HS 6054 (altered) HS 6158 (to) HS 6312 (include) HS 6503 (John's) HS 6626 (arm) HS 6731 (reaching) HS 6858 (through) HS 6987 (a) HS 7122 (portal) HS 7254 (somewhere) HS 7354 (in) HS 7515 (the) HS 7850 (scene.)
 * John's arm is shown reaching into a total of 52 past scenes, which are arranged over four pages with thirteen scenes on each.
 * While the original [S] Wake has been retconned, Nepeta's dream death lacks John's arm during its brief showing in Cascade, in addition to the scenes flashing past as seen in the Fenestrated Plane at the end of the Flash. Also not retconned are AR inspecting the car and John waving off the Dersite battleship in HS 6927 ([S] Terry: Fast Forward to Liv.)
 * HS 8008 John turns blurry and the dream bubble begins to shake. As Vriska warns him to pull his hand out, and as Meenah throws her trident at him, John vanishes in a flash of white. The trident lands harmlessly on the ground.
 * HS 8011 Caliborn contacts Hussie yet again to complain about and ' annoying powers. Though Caliborn does not want further clarification of their abilities, Hussie provides it anyway and accidentally calls them both by their future names. Hussie begins to complain about Vriska's rejection of his love and how he should be allowed to ignore her efforts to become relevant again in favor of watching Bubbles name skeletons for hours. Caliborn angrily ends the conversation and Hussie wonders what Spades Slick is doing.
 * HS 8012 The story switches focus to Spades Slick, and he proceeds to stare off at the green Act 6 curtains (among them, HS 6718 (END OF YEAR 3), likely END OF YEAR 4, and a mysterious black circle between the latter and Act 6 Act 6) in the distance as the sun sets.
 * HS 8014 Slick examines Hussie's body and takes the horns as a trophy. He then examines the gold machine gun which used to kill Hussie and apparently left behind. In Slick's robotic grasp, the machine gun transforms into its innocuous double, the Golden Cuestaff.
 * HS 8018 As Slick starts searching for, he comes across Ms. Paint and proceeds to stomp the horns to pieces out of embarrassment. After entering Hussie's horse-plagued mansion, he starts talking to her and expresses anger at having struck her, and tries to ask her out. Hussie begins to interject but then says his girl troubles shouldn't be interfering, and officially declares their ship to be canon. Ms. Paint begins to lead Slick to the location of his personal belongings.
 * HS 8022 Ms. Paint retrieves the box of Slick's items from a pantry and hands it to him. Slick puts on his hat, then notices that 's voodoo doll is also in the box. He pulls out all the pins (except for 's), resurrecting, and announces that he is their new leader. The members of notice that Slick has the Cuestaff and agree that he is now their boss. Slick asks Ms. Paint to be the new 8-ball member.
 * HS 8027 Slick consults with as to where a good hideout is.  leads the group past the Yellow Yard and through the fifth wall into 's apartment, now located in the core of the Green Sun.
 * HS 8030 After learning where the apartment is located and noticing the solar plasma surrounding it, Slick decides that hiding out inside a sun isn't a viable proposition, so explains that  installed an emergency exit in his suite to allow the gang to escape in events like this. Slick gets annoyed with  and attempts to lead instead but ends up in the room with the wolf head, causing him to reluctantly let  lead again.
 * HS 8036 leads  to 's study. Some of the members get distracted by a pool table and start to play table stickball  pool table stickball, a game they made up based on their hats. Slick tells them to stop playing and continue following him.
 * HS 8037 explains that the grandfather clock in 's study is the exit and the front must be pried open to escape. Slick decides to punch the clock instead and it works, opening the secret exit. Realizing that some of the gangsters are too big to fit inside the clock, Slick orders everyone except himself to get inside ' oven.
 * HS 8041 Slick takes the oven, which becomes a thirteen of stars playing card. He then sets the mansion on fire.
 * HS 8043 After Slick exits through the grandfather clock, he is shown to be inside the server that contains and activates the ~ATH program to summon . He then looks up, where he sees Skaia in the post-scratch kids' Incipisphere. Calling it the "jackpot", he proceeds to fly towards it using a built-in rocket. The other Jack and Dirk Strider can be seen still floating in the Furthest Ring.
 * HS 8051 On the battleship, John turns blurry and vanishes just like his dream bubble self did. He appears atop a building in the 2422 ruins of B1 Earth and witnesses the Skyship Base flying overhead, then gets zapped again. He next appears on the Land of Wind and Shade and watches his past self walk by, then vanishes once more just as his past self begins to notice him.
 * HS 2148 (The original "Years in the future, but not many..." page) is now retconned to include John standing atop the building, and HS 3295 ("John: Search for your father's car.") now has the top of John's head slightly visible behind some rocks.
 * HS 8066 John jumps to the cue ball blowing up in Vriska's face, to which he reacts awkwardly, and then to the scene of Jake kissing Dirk's head, which he seems disgusted by.
 * HS 4167 (The original " ======> " page) is now retconned to include John standing just behind Vriska, and HS 7150 (" ==> ") now has John's glow barely visible behind the volcano. HS 4478 ([S] Make her pay.) was not retconned.
 * HS 8078 John appears next to the wiggler Signless in the arms of the Dolorosa, who hisses loudly at him; at the Strife between Dirk's Bro and Presidents Jay and Dope, to which he rolls his eyes; and in the film Con Air being watched by himself on his fifteenth birthday. The power of Nicolas Cage's acting renders him tearful.
 * Further retcons involving John's glow are applied to pages HS 5957 (" [o] ==> "), HS 6766 (" ==> ") and HS 7180 (" [A6I3] ==> ") (interestingly, the filename of the last one ends in "retconheir", rather than just "retcon" as all the others do, as a pun on Con Air).
 * HS 8092 Caliborn conquers the fifteenth planet and unlocks and . He is now on the eighth planet, which is ruled by the Black Queen, and intends to overthrow her with the help of his session's Jack Noir, then find a way to get rid of Jack once his usefulness is over. Caliborn realizes that Hussie isn't responding to his messages and throws down his caltop in anger. John suddenly appears next to Caliborn, who turns to look at the new arrival.
 * HS 8096 Caliborn and John engage in an intense staredown that ends with punching John out of the panel.
 * HS 8105 John appears on a blank page and briefly serves as the reader's mouse cursor before vanishing again.
 * The page showing John vanishing lacks the "Go Back" and "Start Over" links below the panel.
 * HS 8107 John appears on LOMAX in the present. He picks up the 4th wall, which has already been crashed through.

Trivia

 * Each of Caliborn's appearances in this intermission are treated as their own intermissions within the intermission; his first appearance is HS 7839 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 1), his second is HS 7846 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 2), his third is HS 7922 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 3), his fourth is HS 7965 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 4), his fifth is HS 8011 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 5), and his sixth is HS 8093 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 6). As they have only lasted for one page each (with the exception of A6I5I6), they are probably intended to be as meaningless and absurd as the "Act Act Acts" from Act 6 Act 5, especially since they lack the end/beginning of act/intermission curtains.
 * After Jade appeared without John in A6A5, there was a joke among the fandom that John would turn up after everything had happened with Starbucks wondering what happened, a parody of the meme "showing up 15 minutes late with Starbucks". When John first appeared in the intermission a cup of Starbucks was located on the table next to him, and it was in fact the 16th page of the intermission, thus making him "15 pages late".
 * Until Vriska interrupts her, Aranea's segments of cherub exposition consist of eight pages per update.
 * The star-heart-horseshoe relationship in Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 3 is a reference to the safe code in Problem Sleuth.
 * The update which took place on Easter Sunday of 2013 (Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 4) included the line "", finding eggs being a reference to the holiday.
 * All of the Flashes set in the treasure cave do interesting things if the replay button is clicked; for a description of what each Flash does, see the list of Flash pages.
 * Spades Slick says that "" HS 8029 (here). This may be a dead Nepeta joke.