LOSHIT

Caliborn’s comic continues. When we last saw it, Homosuck was a savage takedown of Homestuck. Nothing happened, the foolish story hero died, and the author laughed at you for reading it. But now, the satire has softened and become simple wish-fulfilment. The new story arc invites us to watch and admire the Alpha Male as he gains a following of servile females and accomplishes his quest with ease.

John has just discovered the theft of his Ring of Life when he canon-hops into Homosuck. He becomes a rogue element which Caliborn can’t remove.

John is disgusted at the sight of Bogus Dave and his bogus bitches. He follows them into the Land of Someone’s Handicrafts I Took, whose creatures are cutouts from the Ed Emberley book that Caliborn found in his studio.

John stops Bogus Dave and Bogus Rose from kissing, so Caliborn buries him in a pile of Bogus Daves. John swears to kill Caliborn.

The ring’s thief is Vriska’s dancestor Aranea. After hearing John say that he had the ring that could bring a ghost to life, Aranea hatched a plan. Even though she is a ghost in the Furthest Ring, her cobalt mindjack power reaches into the session. She directs Gamzee to take the ring, fall asleep with it, and hand it over in his dream.

When Aranea puts on the ring, she comes alive. She wakes Gamzee and follows him to the waking world. She is now on the Prospitian battleship parked on Lomax. Though she has no immediate use for the juggalo, she keeps him subdued because she can’t handle his filthy mouth.

Aranea’s return to life dismays her pirate ghost buddies. Meenah phones Aranea, demanding to know why she has deserted them and given up on the plan to confront the big bad with the house-shaped hole.

Aranea explains that she is thinking big. She wants to be the goddess of a multiverse in which the Lord of Time never hatched. Meenah objects that any new timeline that undoes the events of the alpha timeline is doomed, but Aranea is unshakeable in her chutzpah. A skilled Sylph of Light such as herself should be able to undoom a timeline and set Paradox Space on a new course.

Meenah doesn’t like where this is leading, so she warns Karkat.

Aranea’s departure makes Meenah and Vriska less confident in their house juju plan. They can’t maintain a mindjacked ghost army without her. What’s more, when Vriska sees in Aranea’s power play the same hubris and mistakes that got Vriska killed, she begins to doubt her own judgement and motives. After some introspection, they decide to shelve the mission.

To avert Lrd English’s creation, Aranea must stop this Sburb session from spawning the universe in which he will be born. The Condesce and the players must be kept from performing the Ultimate Alchemy.

For freedom of movement, Aranea mindjacks some Damara Megido ghosts and harnesses their burgundy telekinesis. Just as her psychic power reaches all the way out to the Furthest Ring, theirs reaches all the way back into the Medium. They lift up the battleship and fly it away.

Jane is nearby, building up the house on Lomax. She sees the ship leave, follows it, and finds it ditched in the streets of Derse. She summons Jade.

Aranea’s ace in the hole is Jake, the Page of Hope. She recognized his untapped potential when they met in a dream bubble. Her theory is that Jake cannot manifest his power due to an accumulation of brain damage and emotional trauma. As a mind reader, she can see these injuries, and as a Sylph, she can heal them all at once. She enters his jail cell and lays hands on him.

Jake’s full power bursts out of him in an aura of brilliant light, smashing buildings and emanating angels as it expands. At the centre of the hope field he floats, unseeing, unhearing, bellowing cornball non sequiturs at inhuman volume. Jane cannot get through to him and Jade cannot teleport him away.

In the confusion, Roxy goes voidy and slips out of her cell. Flying closer, she witnesses a standoff between Condy’s servants and the smug Aranea, who claims to be invincible while she wears the Ring of Life. Dad Crocker remains in his cell.

Jade solves the problem of Jake destroying Dersite property by teleporting Derse instead. She switches the locations of Derse and her own planet.

Jake, Jade, Jane, Aranea, and Roxy are now above the Forge next to Jade’s tall house on Lofaf. The hope field is visible to Karkat and Kanaya in the forest below. Karkat alerts Dave, who is still on Lohac. Dave relays what he knows to Rose, who is still on Lolar.

Jade tries to break the hope field with Green Sun energy, but is overpowered. Her green fire is forced downward and makes a crater where it meets the ground. The crater fills with lava from the erupting Forge.

Jade cannot believe what is happening. Her First Guardian power is supposed to be unrivaled. But soon her power is extinguished. The hope field sends her flying. She lands on the other side of the lake of lava, unconscious and no longer grimbark.

Aranea has neutralized Jade for the moment, but cannot risk her waking up and being possessed again by Condy’s bronze animal communion. With some ghostly help, Aranea pushes Jade’s house over, snapping it off at the blue beauties floor. The house comes down across the lake of lava, shearing into many pieces as it falls, and flattens the Witch of Space where she lies.

Jade’s death is judged just.

Jane flies to Jade’s body, intending to resurrect her, but gets tackled by Gamzee on the way.

Aranea stays with the Daughters of Eclectica and addresses the invisible Roxy, who wants to take back the Ring of Life to give to Callie. Finding Calliope had once been Aranea’s plan too. But now that her plan has changed, she can’t have the Rogue of Void contesting the ring. She puts Roxy to sleep.

Next, Jake’s bomb-as-shit hope power does something Aranea did not expect. Jake believes in Brain Ghost Dirk so hard that the imitation Dirk becomes flesh and blood. He stands before Aranea, sword out and swearing vengeance. But, slice and stab as he may, the Prince of Heart can’t get his blows to stick. Every wound on Aranea’s body disappears in seconds. To defeat her, he must separate the ring from her body.

Aranea holds out her arm to goad Brain Ghost Dirk into chopping it off, but he senses a trap and lays down his sword. Taking a different tack, BGD exhibits a power we have not seen from the original Dirk. He shoots a pink arcing energy from his hands which attaches to Aranea and starts to rip her soul from her body.

Dave arrives to find Jade dead with her feet sticking out from under the house. Gamzee is riding Jane like a mechanical bull. Jane cannot do the lifey thing while the scurrilous fuckshitting cad has his paws on her. But Terezi has also made her way here since vowing to hunt down the clown. She kicks Gamzee off Jane’s back and onto the chunk of house floating in lava.

Terezi’s fury deepens when she realizes Aranea is here too. Back when he was her kismesis, Gamzee pulled Terezi into a spiral of self-loathing and then abandoned her. In her poisoned state, she allowed Aranea to restore her eyesight. She now believes that Aranea and Gamzee worked together to manipulate her. She stabs Gamzee repeatedly, getting more and more enraged at his placid refusal to fight, speak, or even die. The beatdown works its way back over the lake of lava, hopping from house piece to house piece.

Once the Maid of Life tears her eyes away from the spectacle and remembers that she wanted to resurrect Jade, she learns that another situation developed while her back was turned. The chess dogs have arrived. They instantly forgot the reason for their three-year chase when they saw their Bec-master Jade. The Sovereign Slayer pulled Jade’s body from the house, while the Prospitian Monarch warded Dave off with her sword drawn.

Dave’s cajoling isn’t working, so Jane shoots a resurrection beam from afar. It misses, and the dogs misinterpret the beam as hostile. Jane is forced to deploy a distraction. She summons GCat, hoping to get the dogs to drop Jade and chase the cat instead. It mostly works. The only problem is that they don’t drop Jade.

Rose arrives to see Dave flying off after the dogs. The chase enters the forest, buzzing over Karkat and Kanaya’s heads as they run in the opposite direction. In a Skaian cloud vision, we see the dogs flying to Jade’s quest bed.

Jake’s hope field is flagging, keeping his tulpa from finishing the job on Aranea’s soul. Brain Ghost Dirk’s fakeness vial starts working its way back into its gel. Rose airlifts Roxy to a safe distance.

When the hope field ebbs to a low point, Jane senses an opportunity. She lobs her culling fork and impales Jake square in the chest. The field pops, Brain Ghost Dirk vanishes, and Jake falls dead on the house piece next to Terezi.

The shock of Aranea’s soul snapping back into her body interrupts her mind control of Gamzee. He becomes aware of his situation and fights back for the first time.

Jane continues her attack, lunging at Aranea now. Aranea puts Jane to sleep, thinking that will be the end of it. But Jane’s tiaratop corruption keeps her moving robotically while she snores. The unconscious heiress tackles Aranea, choking, punching, and piggybacking on her like a mechanical bullrider. Aranea eyes the katana left there by Brain Ghost Dirk.

Special Stardust drifts in and starts to gum up the scene.

Jake’s death is judged neither just nor heroic. He comes back to life. He and Rose watch, unsure whether to intervene, as Gamzee savages Terezi with punches, knees to the face, headslams, and backbreaking suplexes. Finally, when Gamzee has Terezi dangling over the lava, Rose shoots a spell which misses and sends Jake flying instead.

Kanaya and Karkat pick their way through the green fire to the shore of the lava lake. They draw their weapons. But their arrival is overshadowed by that of the troll everyone fears, Her Imperious Condescension.

Aranea finally understands that she has fucked up big time.

The dream where Jade meets Calliope is in the Act 6-6-4 synopsis. Your unimpatience has been appreciated.