Policy

-----------------------------------------------------------

I woke up with this strange craving to play through Homestuck to completion this time after having the jingle of one of the songs pervade my sleep. So I'm making a decision to enter this rabbit hole again.

I read Homestuck about 6 years ago to around page mark 4000 or so. I believe this was roughly far enough in the story that I met the highly charismatic and quite lore complex Trolls but I believe I had stopped due to the investigation intermission I was on wearing me down. Now I've decided to try carving through this Text again so I figured I would give a small reflection on it.

For one, I want to start off by settling that Homestuck is actually more of a game than even most Kinetic Visual Novels. You see while a majority of the text does function as a Kinetic Visual Novel, there are various hyperlinks you can click on throughout the journey that meander you into nonsense. For example when speaking about Betty Crocker's aroma on the reread you can click a link that takes you to the Betty Crocker wikipedia page.

Most of the links tend more substantial than just this. But regardless it reveals the first cultural button that Homestuck is pushing on, the idea that its own text is embedded in relation to a lot of texts around it which are themselves constantly moving. This process of change of evolution is reflected in the massive amount of fan content and the fact that there has been more and more fan participation in the story. Up until now, we usually think about the effects of fan participation as an audience as something hostile and oppressive, one of the most notable examples being the re utilization of death threats that Hideki Anno recycled into End of Evangelion. By comparison, perhaps in part due to the playful and immature tone of the work, Homestuck's fan participation for a long time remained frenzied but relatively warm. Originally I was under the impression that Homestuck's fandom didnt have a whole lot of controversy and that Andrew Hussie was mostly ok, but upon reading a couple articles I realized that there is litigations going on, and the Hussie quite frankly sees himself as a reluctant cult leader now. I think the intelligence with which he speaks about it here is telling:

“The content vacuum created by a cryptid leader results in overwhelming conditions of parasociality, and the projections of personality, morality, and biographical data onto the blank-slate leader can get ludicrous, and often pretty spiteful. Then again, depending on the atmosphere of any given moment in fandom, there may be at least as many simps projecting absurd deification fantasies on the leader.”

source

What I find so impressive about this is how it seems to show something that I picked up in what I read and am aware of when it comes to Homestuck itself: This terminally online lingo is culturally accepted and then utilized in order to tell a more immediately accurate story. While it keeps hands off with just simple teenaged irc interactions early on, people saying 'thats boring bro', it slowly billows out more and more into niche internet slang and technologized thinking especially once the trolls become involved.

It's particularly for these later parts of the story I'm interested in reading to, and in particular want to prime myself for some of the spinoff content: Psycholonials, HiveSwap. Along with the late game embedded in the work itself Alterniabound. But I will say that the humor and direction of early homestuck does actually amuse me.

One of the most startlingly effective things about how Homestuck functions is that it will spend a lot of time with its characters fumbling around to figure out what to do. Characters will stand around jamming items into each other and getting confused with how their own interaction systems (called Capchalogues). I always thought these meandering moments were really entertaining as they call back to not knowing what to do in a point and click game. On top of that the rich mess of the environments and rooms of most of the characters is relatable, having shit just littered all over the floor and constantly sorting through it is how a lot of people online including myself tend to live, but also shows a skill in environmental storytelling that backs up a lot of the more dialogue heavy portions of the game. I was complaining recently how most visual novels tend to perform description through internal monologue, so the lack of focus on internal monologue here is going to help my reading a lot.

I think a lot of people on here are critical of this for being only either 'technically a game' or plastering it in a teenaged nostalgia about how they played it, but will probably never play it again. Honestly I can't help but find both of these approaches somewhat uncritical and tedious. While there's no impression on people to do anything I think referencing the text via nostalgia from what I understand of it does it a huge disservice to the primary themes of change and hyper-subjectivity. While perhaps rereading the whole thing is untenable for most depending on life circumstance, flipping the book back to your favourite moments or scenes or quotations does a lot to keep you tethered to the identity with a work, rather than just throwing it on like a hat when it suits you. For example, i'll throw on random episodes of MLP to help keep my memory with the main work sharpened. On whether or not its a game point, I just find this so frankly ridiculous. The failstate is not finishing the damn thing which a LOT of people have done. Also visual novels by their digital design are games, so this is also a game.

The fact is, I hear a lot about how I should read homestuck but a lot less rather why or what it means to the person in particular. Perhaps this short circuited nature is exactly what Hussie is referencing here and has a right to do so. Eventually people will 'wake up' from the cult and disavow from it etc. But the glamour of the music has also pierced out to me, with Toby Fox even having apparently done the music for certain parts. I'm excited to hear that music in its original format all other things aside.

That's why I plan to reread and actually finish Homestuck this time. I figured I'd leave a note here going in on my previous impressions and positive feelings towards the work. If it's somewhat dry and unspecific in relating to character dialogue I would understand, I really remember really liking Dirk Strider and his awesome sunglasses. A lot of people say I'm like a femme Dirk Strider sometimes so that makes sense. I also really like Nepeta's whole catgirl aesthetic is cute and her desire for roleplay is so fun.

Anyway I learned also that if you have any interest in playing the game now, the browser version is a bit busted and the sound no longer works. So it's best to download it from here. If all goes well expect another write up down the chute here soon.

i have attempted to read homestuck on multiple occasions and never gotten past the absolute massive slog that is its first act. just some of the most horrible pacing ive ever seen

that being said, everytime i learn more and more about homestuck the more i wish i was capable of getting past it cuz this sounds like the greatest piece of writing in history. whats that? theres an extended sequence near the end that exists for hussie to make fun of disabled people? one of the characters fucks a dog? tell me more, please

April 13th, 2023, I begin rereading Homestuck, to honor it's 14th birthday, and to add to some of the nostalgia I've been reliving over the past few months.
May 16th, 2023. I had made it just past "[S] GAME OVER." the previous day, and I was fucking ready to go. I would spend the next several hours (albeit with a bit of a break midway through) reading over 1,200 pages, finishing up the webcomic just over a month after I started.

After Homestuck ended in 2016, I spent the next several years sort of forgetting about it, only looking back on it through unfortunate events that made it's way outside of the fandom and into my vision. This would eventually lead me to believe that I hated Homestuck, for some strange influence. I would hear these terrible stories, watch the similar reactions of others, the disgust from all of them, and I wanted to make sure I was nowhere near it. Any sight of the story or characters I came across over the years made me believe it was all a bunch of "terrible memories" or something that I would never look back on, pushing away something I had loved so much, I didn't want to be associated with any of it.

But this year was different. I gave up on that heavy belligerence toward the series, and I gave it another try, despite my assumed hatred, and by God I loved it just as much as younger me did.

Homestuck provides such a high fantasy world, dragons, aliens, supernatural death powers, so much miraculous bullshit, and pulls it off magically, with a cast of characters that I find amazingly enjoyable to read and voice. I started the first 2 acts through the website, before learning of the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, an archive made to preserve some of the other features and side pages that the original mspaintadventures website held, as well as keep some of the fucking awesome Flash Player tricks that the old webcomic had that just can't be replicated through the site's YouTube redirects. So many chilling moments, seeing the animations interact both within and out of the panel that was supposed to be surrounding them.
That's the first thing I love Homestuck for, it's innovative use of the Adobe Flash Player. So much of the story loses its magic without it, including interactive pages, the aforementioned sort of "boundary breaking" animations for the real big moments, even a few flash games allowing the reader to take control of certain characters. I believe this is one of the things that makes Homestuck so special, in a format that you wouldn't really expect so much from.
Accompanying all of the [S] pages signifying each flash animation is some amazing music as well. Cascade, Carne Vale, all of the tracks in [S] Collide, and obviously the works of the big name, Toby Fox, every song, somehow with so many different genres present, fits in with every situation they're used in, and can really add so much more to the feeling of the page.

But out of everything I love Homestuck for, I think my favorite is just the sentimental value I hold towards it. About 8 or 9 years ago, I had moved to a new place, new school, didn't know anybody. I would soon start talking to somebody, I wanna say maybe a year later, and they would introduce me to Homestuck. That was, I believe, one of the first interactions I had with one of my now best friends of nearly a decade. I don't want to associate this comic with such bad memories anymore, I want to associate it with the things, and especially the people, that I love now. Homestuck brought me into a group that I was proud to be a part of for so long, I enjoyed being there for the long waits between pages, getting so excited with every new batch dropped, and being there on the day of the end, seeing it all culminate in its highest quality of animation yet, and one of the coolest and most satisfying motherfucking endings I have still ever seen to this day. I enjoyed watching it grow while it was still ongoing, the fan content created by other talented people so passionate about the story.
I still enjoy the company that Homestuck has allowed me to be around for so many years, and I feel things would be so unbelievably different had I never once found out about it all that time ago. I fucking love this series, and while I regret being so spiteful towards it for so long, I'm also somewhat glad that allowed me to re-experience it all for what felt like the first time again, 7 long years after I had abandoned it.

...but damn I do kinda wish my zodiac troll got a bit more screen time, preferably outside of that weird little fusion near the end.

This is pretty funny being on backloggd. I seriously don't see any difference between it and a visual novel, if anything it has MORE interactivity so it feels more justified in being called a video game.

Homestuck is one of my favorite pieces of art ever. I am rereading it currently and all of the magic is still there. I love the world, I love the story, I love the music, the presentation, the art style. It's all very cash money.

Homestuck comes with a lot of baggage for past, present, and future readers. Whenever Homestuck gets brought up now I can't help but see that the discussion of it is never actually about Homestuck. It's about the fans, it's about the kickstarter, it's about Andrew Hussie's financial woes. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about any of that. I also don't feel embarrassed about liking Homestuck, which I think is a feeling a lot of would be readers and past readers have a hard time coping with.

But Homestuck at it's core is just a rootin tootin good read.

My favorite aspect is the character to character interactions and the exponential nature of the narrative. At the start you really just have John. Then in Act 2 you throw in Rose. Keep reading and now there is Dave and Jade. And all of these characters are wholly unique and lovable, but then there's also the relationships between each set of characters. A Jade + Rose conversation is vastly different to a Dave + John conversation. They are very nuanced and enjoyable characters in themselves, the combination of two individual kids. Their conversations are so believable, they have their own inside jokes, it rules.

Then you hit Act 5 and 12 more characters are introduced and it's absolutely bananas. The characters are also introduced with a meticulous set of cultural differences. The way the narrative expertly juggles all of this is just such a joy.

I'd be writing forever if I tried to go into every little piece of Homestuck that I think makes it special. It rips ass.

There is a gallon of milk. you bring it along as you decide to start a trip with your friends. During the trip your car breaks and you and your friends are forced to reach the destination in other ways. The trip becomes significantly longer, your friends start to show tiredness and problems. Some of your friends start dating and then break up. Others do mistakes to each other that can hardly be forgiven and they’ll never speak again. Others start thinking about their problems. Others come out as transgender and/or queer. others reflect on their action. At one point, you all arrive at your destination, your lives forever changed. You open your backpack only to find the milk that traveled with you this whole time, you offer it to your friends before you all separate. You pour the milk. As you and your friends drink it, you come to a realisation. The milk is expired.

Homestuck is like the trip, because it united people and characters and changed them forever. Homestuck is like the milk, because it expired very quickly, and very badly.

Due to its significance, its rich art variety and characters and internet context, I recommend it to anyone to read it at least once.

this shit is so good on some aspects, SO GOOD it's actually bad. It's like reverse nanar

im scared about this existing out there

i hate knowing what homestuck is, i hate to know how bad it is
i hate to know how good it is