Homestuck

Homestuck ##Webcomic

by Andrew Hussie

It's a story about some kids who are friends over the internet. They decide to play a game together. There are major consequences.

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Webcomic, LGBT

10003 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 13, 2016

About the author

Andrew Hussie is the creator of MS Paint Adventures, a collection of webcomics that includes Homestuck, as well as of several other webcomics, books, and videos.

Reviews

[Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) · Rating 5 out of 5]

modern day ulysses

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

After spending roughly about two years listening to friends talk incessantly in mysterious lingo about strangely named characters and places, and having had the premise of Homestuck explained to me more times than I can recount, I ended up being rather thoroughly "spoiled," so to speak, on many broad terms. I knew that it was a trippy combination of literature, visuals, animation, and sound. I knew that despite its mundane and unassuming beginning, it expanded to fill an overwhelmingly complex creation mythology involving a video game. In short, while I did not for a long time have any desire to read it, I developed a basic, and purely academic understanding and appreciation for this mysterious webcomic. Webcomics have always been of interest to me, ever since reading Scott McCloud's lesser known book Reinventing Comics, which, amongst many other things, hypothesizes on the influence that the Internet, with all its possibilities for new formats and media, might have on future storytellers. And boy, oh boy, does Homestuck (and MSPA in general) take advantage of everything the Internet has to offer–from the hilarious and the awful, the vulgar and the sacred, the humorous and heart-wrenching. I could talk all day about the formal construction (and deconstruction) of Homestuck, and indeed many already have. I knew many facts about Homestuck before I started reading it, and thought that would be enough to appreciate its formal contributions to the Internet Age of storytelling.

But to concentrate merely on the format of a comic is to miss out on another supremely important thing: the story. I have finally caught up to this Behemoth of a webcomic. I do not choose my words in vain, for a Behemoth it is–it is a savage and hyperbolic work that, like the mysterious beast of the Bible, cannot be easily snared by the pigeonholes of genre and medium. But unlike some experimental work that eschew story and character development for the sake of merely exploring interesting structure, Homestuck has a lot of heart.

And what exactly is it saying? For all the crazy and far-fetched situations, a lot of the interactions between the kids and trolls seemed to me like a surprisingly accurate portrayal of how young teens would probably act, if provided with various superpowers, plenty of weapons, left without adult supervision, and given the opportunity to create a universe. The petty bickering, the compulsive swearing, the hormone-induced awkwardness, and the sense of disorientation in unknown environments is something straight out of my middle school observations. Friendships thrive or falter over time while juvenile attempts at romance make matters more complicated. Overall, the story continually emphasizes how relationships, both positive and negative, are absolutely necessary for surviving the hard path to maturity. Those who refuse to cooperate and who alienate themselves, whether out of arrogance, anger, or selfishness, risk destruction for themselves as well as for their compatriots.

And a whole lot of this is mostly conveyed through literally watching kids talk to each other. Being this dialogue-heavy could easily become a tiresome crutch for other visually-heavy mediums, but it succeeds brilliantly here. Homestuck is one of the two best comics I know (the other one being Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell ) at developing the elusive thing called voice. The ways in which characters speak, banter, argue with, and insult one another with various levels of sincerity help define and distinguish their relationships with each other early on, with each character's vocabulary, speech patterns and mannerisms doing a wonderful job of revealing the nature of the characters even before their names, genders, or appearances are revealed. The struggle to communicate and understand one another, despite culture barriers and conflicts in personality, is a message that has an interesting context in an extremely digitized age such as the one we live in today, where we may become close friends with people who live halfway across the world while knowing nothing of the people we live right next to.

So will (or should) everyone enjoy Homestuck? Asking that question is like asking if everyone will enjoy The Odyssey Of course it's not everyone's cup of tea. But that doesn't mean everyone can't learn something from it. True, it's long and it's eclectic and impossible to discuss in public without sounding like you're speaking a foreign language. True, members of the fandom can be haughty, exclusive, immature, and borderline cultlike. I'm not trying to evangelize it to everyone, but rather to briefly explain a bit of its literary and personal significance in layman's terms. Whatever your preferences are, there is value I heartily concur with the words of Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim series creator): "It's well-written and thoughtful. It has things to say. It's not for everyone, but it's as well worth your time as any other comic I can think of." At the very least, even if you steadfastly dislike it for whatever reason, you can still, as I did at first, simply appreciate it on its experimental nature and contribution to modern storytelling, in the same way that people who dislike Mondrian and James Joyce can still appreciate their contributions to art and literature respectively. People's tastes vary greatly, and some may begrudge its massive religious following, but if you ask me, any work as, witty, creative, emotionally complex, and lovingly crafted as Homestuck, which by the way has been made available to the general public for absolutely no charge, deserves the deluge of the attention and kudos that it already has.

[natalie]

It's done
We're free.....................

[Avery Follett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utter bullshit

[Sol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I give Homestuck one star because I cannot, in good conscience, recommend that any person, past or future, read it. It's longer than the Bible, has reams of obnoxious 133t5p34k, and ruined North American anime conventions for half a decade. Yes, it was funny as hell, endlessly inventive, did things no other webcomic had or ever would again, and the music was great. But to actually suggest to a human being that they sit down and read 8000 pages of this is insane. It was the ultimate "you had to be there" phenomenon, straddling the edge of the early 00s edgy and anonymous internet, and the 10s woke real name internet. Actually reading the comic was really only half of the experience. If you read it now, you're merely sampling the soil that nurtured a bizarre and embarrassing craze among internet addicted teens from roughly 2012-2016. If you can't go to your local con and see the human mass of greasy teens in grey makeup, there's really no point to reading it. The best thing I can say about Homestuck is that without it, Undertale would not exist. If one does want to read it, this unofficial archive is the best way to do so.

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

No.

[Phaeton Miles Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking hate this bitch

[Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

********/5
-
"You have a feeling it's going to be a long day."
-
[It IS going to be a long day if you endeavor to read this whole thing. This review will be quite lengthy, and each act description contains spoilers ]
-
Overall Summary: It spans too vastly to be summarized. On the surface, Homestuck is a simple, silly web comic. When you delve into it, it's filled with complex stories, deep themes, strong characters, and excellent plotting. It's split into "acts" of varying lengths;
-
Act 1: 247 pages, read in 1 day, 11-13-14. It's the 13th birthday of John Egbert. While participating in silly antics, he navigates the beta of a new computer game called Sburb with the help of his fellow "Beta Kid", Rose Lalonde. The game eventually transports him into a world far from Earth. A surprisingly slow start, though essential for set up- countless rules of the world and the game are introduced.
-
Act 2: 511 pages, read in 3 days, spread between 11-14-14 and 11-30-14 . We meet Dave Strider, the third Beta kid, who tries to steal his bro's copy of Sburb so that he can save Rose from a meteor epidemic sparked by John entering the game. Meanwhile, Rose and a mysterious "exile" try to guide John through the strange world he has been sent to. More momentum, but also more confusion.
-
Act 3: 395 pages, read in 3 days, spread between 12-1-14 and 12-16-14. Jade Harley is introduced, the fourth and final Beta Kid. She has a way of knowing and understanding nearly everything. While the other Beta kids continue their tasks from Act 2, Jade is miles ahead of them, setting future processes into motion. She doesn't yet have a copy of Sburb, but she is aware that it is going to change their lives. Rose enters the game world, or "session", like John.
-
Intermission 1: 204 pages, read in 3 days, 12-17-14 to 12-19-14 . Chronicles a gang called the Midnight Crew in their attack on another gang- The Felt. It seems unrelated to the story prior, but rest assured, it's connected.
-
Act 4: 641 pages, read in 6 days, spread between 12-19-14 and 1-6-15. It's back to the Betas, and things grow even more complex for them. The session planets Derse and Prospit are introduced, as well as their histories and the four "exiles" that come from them. The trolls make their first appearance, and more game concepts are introduced. Ectobiology and time shenanigans. All I have to say. Dave enters the session, and the Betas all work to help Jade do the same, as they've discovered that the end of world has come and with the game.
-
Act 5 Act 1: 636 pages, read in 4 days, 1-7-15 to 1-10-15. 12 alien "trolls" are introduced- Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Karkat, Nepeta, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Eridan and Feferi. It shows their lives and their session of Sburb, which transported them to their own session world and destroyed their home planet. They beat the game, with the help of their own exiles (the Midnight Crew and Felt), creating Earth in the process. It is a session from the very world they created that throws a wrench in their victory, forcing them to try and fix things.
-
Act 5 Act 2: 1483 pages, read in 8 days, 1-10-15 to 1-17-15. The trolls and Beta Kids work together, trying (and failing) to prevent the creation of the brutal and nearly unbeatable villain Jack Noir, who was able to enter the Trolls' completed session and wreak havoc. Things went downhill after that mission failed. An omniscient figure called Doc Scratch eventually enacted a reset of the game intended to erase the Beta Kids from existence and replace them with a new set of characters. They of escape their fate, even reaching their individual god tiers; ending up safe, but separated. MANY characters are killed in this act, ending in the climactic and truly epic [S] Cascade.
-
Intermission 2: 2 pages, read 5 minutes, 1-17-15. Lord English.
-
Act 6 Act 1: 182 pages, read in 2 days, 1-17-15 to 1-18-15. Even though it didn’t succeed in erasing the Betas, the Scratch succeeded in creating a new set of four internet friends, known as the Alpha Kids. They are different, younger versions of the Beta Kid's guardians. Jane Crocker (John's counterpart) and Jake English (Jade's) are introduced, and their lives on Earth are normal as can be. Instead of the trolls, they talk to other aliens known by the chat names "UU" and "uu", and they anticipate the alpha of a new computer game, Sburb. Refreshing after all of that action, though a little perplexing.
-
Intermission 3: 125 pages, read in 1 day, 1-18-15. We return to the Beta Kids and the Trolls, who have been split up. John and Jade are alone on a ship, unable to contact the others. Terezi, Karkat, Kanaya, Gamzee, Dave and Rose are on a meteor (Sollux and Aradia chose to leave). The groups plan to meet up in the session that will be created by the Alpha Kids- in three long, long years.
-
Act 6 Act 2: 247 pages, read in 2 days, 1-18-15 to 1-19-15. Roxy Lalonde (Rose's counterpart) and Dirk Stirder (Dave's) are introduced. They have difficulties enacting the session, but eventually, Jane is able to enter it. They have all already seen Derse and Prospit, moving quicker than the Betas did.
-
Intermission 4: 153 pages, read in 1 day, 1-19-15. Explanations are given, stir craziness ensues; brought to you by the ship and the meteor crews.
-
Act 6 Act 3: 443 pages, read in 10 days, 1-19-15 to 1-28-15. Entering the session is now life-or-death for Roxy and Dirk. They fend off attacks from the evil troll empress “Her Imperious Condescension”, Jake navigates a dream bubble (a form of the afterlife where ghosts and dreaming people can interact), and Jane explores the strange world of the session. Cherubs and “siblings” UU (Calliope) and uu (Caliborn) are seen more, and Calliope is "killed" by her brother. All of the Alphas besides Jake are killed, though not unconditionally...
-
Intermission 5: 175 pages, read in 4 days, 1-28-15 to 1-31-15. The dancestors are met- Damara, Rufioh, Mituna, Kankri, Meulin, Porrim, Latula, Aranea, Horuss, Cronus, and Meenah. They are related to the main 12 trolls in a way similar to how the Alphas are related to the Betas, and just like the two groups of kids, they have their own complex relationships. Interaction ensue.
-
Act 6 Act 4: 3 pages, read in 1 day, 1-31-15. The Alphas have entered the session, those who died living on cleanly due to their dream selves.
-
Intermission 6: 72 pages, read in 2 days, 1-31-15 to 2-1-15. Caliborn, rejoicing in the death of his sister, travels through a barren wasteland of a session and tries to figure out his completely doomed session for himself.
-
Act 6 Act 5: 415 pages, read in 7 days, spread between 2-1-15 and 2-15-15. Things move tediously in the session. Socially, the group is falling apart. When Caliborn and Calliope (posthumously) cause the group to go into "trickster mode", things become even worse. After they escape trickster, Jane, Jake, Roxy and Dirk god tier- but Jane, as well as Jade (at the very end of the three year journey), is possessed by Her Imperious Condescension (HIC) moments later.
-
Intermission 7: 309 pages, read in 2 days, 2-15-15 to 2-16-15. The three year wait is days from ending, but everybody is falling apart. Dream bubbles, abusive relationships, and drinking problems are observed- meanwhile, Caliborn navigates his dead session.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 1: 36 pages, read in 1 day, 2-20-15. Bored, Caliborn begins his retelling of the story thus far.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1: 196 pages, read in 2 days, 2-20-15 to 2-21-15. It's been three years, but minutes after reuniting, everyone gets re-separated by HIC and (possessed) Jade. Jane kidnaps Jake, Roxy is imprisoned on Derse, and Dirk is out of reach. Rose and Terezi are on one planet, Kanaya and Karkat on another, and Dave is on a third. John tumbles randomly around space due to something that happened in a dream bubbles with power hungry Aranea.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 2: 56 pages, read in 1 day, 2-21-15. Caliborn's crappy retelling continues, this time with randomly teleporting John dropping in.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2: 322 pages, read in 1 day, 2-21-15. Events spiral indescribably downwards. By the end, Aranea has brought herself back to life and screwed things up endlessly; Gamzee is beating the crap out of Terezi; Rose, Karkat and Kanaya are going to hurt Gamzee; Jack Noir is prepared to kill Dave over the now dead body of Jade; and HIC has arrived to wreak hell upon all.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 3: 48.5 pages, read in 1 day, 2-21-15. Caliborn's crappy retelling leads into actually plot relevant stuff, with [S] Game Over. The effects of the situations we were left off on are deadly- all of the characters but Caliborn, Jack Noir, PM, John, Roxy, Dirk and HIC have been seen dead.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3: 19.5, read in day, 2-21-15. The aftermath is seen. Hearts are broken. The usual...
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 4: 23 pages, read in 1 day, 2-21-15. Caliborn tries (and fails) to gain our sympathy.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4: 465 pages, read in 2 days, 2-21-15 to 2-22-15. [S] Game Over's occurrence has turned this timeline into a doomed one. Terezi gives John a list of instructions, putting his random teleportation to good use by fixing everything up. The consequences of his every move have yet to be seen, but they are set to be gigantic.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 5: 40 pages, read as updated Caliborn's final segment is revealed. As the story prepares to reach its finale, he talks about many events to come in the future, before disappearing into the time loop that leads to him becoming the villain Lord English.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5: 635 pages, read as updated The major result of John's changes, among other things, is that Vriska's death was altered. Now she's alive and back in action, organizing the other characters and planning the upcoming final battle. Meanwhile, the characters catch up with their friends and family, working things out and getting to know each other. After a lot of waiting around, the groups are sent to their battle positions.
-
Act 6 Act 6 Act 6: 40 pages, read as updated The final battles occur, culminating in the incredible collaboration called [S] Collide. Roxy, John, Rose, and Kanaya defeat HIC. Dirk, Dave, and Terezi defeat the various Jack Noirs. Jade tries to keep PM and Bec Noir from battling it out, but ultimately fails, and Bec Noir is dethroned by PM. Jake defeats the Felt and their comrades. Vriska and her ghost army struggled to defeat Lord English, but are still in the process when the act ends. Everyone heals, and takes in the aftermath of the culmination of their efforts.
-
Act 7: 2 pages, read as updated In an [S] frame oddly resembling and anime, Lord English is defeated by the "secret weapon". The kids have won the game, and their new universe's frog is created. The door of the Homestuck symbol is opened by John, as images of their lives in this peaceful new world are seen. The curtain closes for the last time.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you hear the word Homestuck, what do you think of? Candy corn horned, gray skinned kids? Being forever trapped in your house? A fandom that has scared you with their buckets and bike horns?
Cast all of your previous "knowledge" of this comic aside and start reading. After being "pestered" (haha, get it fellow Homestucks?) by some friends to start reading Homestuck, I finally got around to it, and two tries later, I'm caught up with the latest update 11/19/14. I am so glad that they wanted me to read this and I'm so glad that I stuck with it. Homestuck is a unique webcomic due to the fact that it isn't just words and pictures. It's walls of text, flash animations, minigames, panels within panels, it's a whole different experience. While the first and second acts are quite dry and seem to move at a snails pace at times, things pick up and then in a blink of an eye you are stuck in a fictional world and are attached to these kids. Andrew Hussie really knows how to write from a teenage perspective, and the internal struggles the characters have as they are growing up, really adds another layer to this ever complex story. People will tell you to "just keep reading" which is exactly what I did. I got to a point where I didn't just keep reading to see what the fuss was, not to see when it got good, I kept reading because I wanted to. Because I got attached to these characters and fell in love with the story. In my opinion, if you aren't reading it because you want to by Act 3 or Act 4, I'd stop. Homestuck is a monster, but something about slaying that monster feels so rewarding. Something about calling my friends saying "I reached the Gigapause" made me feel like I climbed Mount Everest. It's tough. My eyes would hurt, I'd get frustrated at the constant bickering between some characters, and I cried when some of them died, but it was great. No, Homestuck is not for everyone, I never said it was, but if you can try it, it might be one of the best things you read. If you do choose to start reading, welcome aboard, good luck, and I warned you about the stairs bro.

[Shaelynn Mccullough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Homestuck ruined my life. If you're in the mood to sell your soul to hussie then this is perfect for you. it's filled with heart breaking "stuff" and honestly you'll cry and be really pissed off at hussie and his weird horse thing he's got going on. Even though you may have your life ruined by homestuck, you wont regret your decision to read it. once you read homestuck you're a changed man (no matter what gender pronouns you use). homestuck is like a drug that you can never get off of, but you don't really want to either so it works.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

CW: blood, description of injuries, violence, death, child death, death of a parent, animal death, war, murder, ableism/ableist slurs, homophobia, alcohol, alcohol abuse/alcoholism, drug use, underage drinking, adult/minor relationship, child abuse, emotional abuse, jokes about sexual assault
Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Do you ever feel like you're just a character in a video game being played by a bunch of 13-year-olds with deeply complex and difficult to explain relationship systems?
Because same.

Like in Homestuck (and in real life), you have free will. So you are free to choose whatever way you'd like to read this review. There is no recommended reading order. Your options are:
- The Good
- The Bad
- The Actually Funny After A Decade
- How To Read: A Guide by Someone Who Read Homestuck for the First Time in 2023
- (Not reading at all because oh my god it is 2023 why am I reading this NOW?)

THE GOOD:

Anyone who hasn't read this comic is going to think I'm insane when I say the highest strength of Homestuck is its writing of romance.
While I wasn't attached to every relationship portrayed, I was surprised by how invested I was in some of them by the end - especially Dave and Karkat and Rose and Kanaya. Even when I didn't love the characters by themselves, the relationships were often very well written.
Even anthropologically (oh god, I really am analyzing this comic, aren't I?) the way romance is created among trolls and other non-humans is so interesting. There's such a depth to it that, in a way, mimics queerness when compared to hetcomp-type relationships, veering on things like queer-platonic partnerships and many non-standard but still reproductive couplings. Shockingly, many of the lore dumps were kind of engaging? That's definitely atypical for most writing!
I have no idea how this happened, but somehow by the end Dave?! of all people was my favorite character? I cannot explain myself and you should shame me for it. But he was given such an interesting, deeply personal character arc that really honed in on his queerness. He had some really beautiful lines and his exploration of his feelings about how one can love someone without being in love with them.
There's also so much about finding ones' own identity even in the shadow of another person, sometimes even in the shadow of ones' self.

Another thing I love is that Hussie fully utilized his medium. Weird page placement, moving pieces and parts, interactives - all the benefits of using a webpage to tell a story! The whole story is crazy and chaotic and it's an excellent puzzle to noodle out.

Yes, I do plan on reading the academic analysis of this comic in the near future.

THE BAD:

Oh god. This story is..... It is from Tumblr in 2009. It's kind of racist, it's kind of homophobic, it's definitely very ableist. It uses a bunch of slurs that are no longer appropriate at all. There are a lot of female characters, but it took over 800 pages for two of them to interact. There are some kind of uncomfy relationships, including one that features an underage character and an over-18 character.

Also dear lord there are TOO MANY CHARACTERS. They were not all necessary, I swear.

THE ACTUALLY FUNNY AFTER A DECADE:

I did laugh, like, a bunch of times. While most of the jokes were a bit too intense and ongoing, or on subjects that are definitely not funny, most of the characters had at least a handful of great one-liners. The physical comedy with the Wayward Vagabond is also very fun!

HOW-TO READ HOMESTUCK (imo):

- Genuinely - you do not need to remember everyone's PesterLog handles. I never figured it out and I did just fine.
- Skimming is your friend
- Don't expect anything. ANYTHING at all.
- The Wiki is your friend.
- This is actually very fun and if you're not enjoying it, you should stop. Like unhinged but a good time the majority of the time!
- It will take you a LONG time. It's okay to take breaks! And if you forget what's happening, there's always a recap somewhere, waiting for you.

[Jared Wech · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read the entire comic and i still have no idea whats going on.

[nikki | ཐི༏ཋྀ​​݁ ₊ ݁ .]

⋆˚｡⋆ * currently reading * ⋆ ｡˚⋆

in this for the long haul 🤓

[Ulrike · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHY IS HOMESTUCK ON GOODREADS AKLSJDLKSJF

anyway i love homestuck i read the entirety of it in 2 weeks after it finished

(spoilers probably)

look i just really love it here are some pros:
- i love the characters, they're incredibly interesting and fun and diverse and DIFFERENT from each other and just different in general and
- i love rose and nepeta a lot ok
- i love the plot. the stupid, completely nonsensical plot that i still dont entirely understand. i love the whole concept of sburb. i absolutely ADORE the aspects of the game: the god tiers, the player's lands, probably some other stuff
- i love the tricksters a lot, i LOVE the messed up paradoxical family trees, i love the messed up paradoxical time line (time lines...)
- i LOVE the lgbt representation. its just so lovely to have same gender love and attraction being treated by the trolls as something completely normal, like it should be. the kids' respective ways-of-being-gay were also so wonderful and important - rose and it all just being totally normal and typical to her, dave and his whole coming out arc, dirk and jake's realistic relationship (and end of relationship). also the rosemary wedding really just. made me so happy
- im just so in love with all the characters
- ALSO the character designs, and the costumes & outfits
- THE REPRESENTATION FOR DISABILITIES etc - terezi being blind, tavros in a wheelchair, deaf meulin, etc etc
- the character arcs and development

cons:
-gamzee

yeah i just really love homestuck i know its the year of our lord 2017 but listen. i just love me some good old-fashioned homestuck

EDIT: just reread it, two years after i read it for the first time (and two years after it ended) and wow :) i know its the year of our lord 2018 but i love homestuck so much

[Zhao · Rating 1 out of 5]

hussie you stole my fucking life and money and you have the nerve to make "friendship simulators"

[Jaymz · Rating 4 out of 5]

homestuck is one of the most important works of art of the 2010s.

yeah, laugh it up. but seriously. hear me out on this.

in the 90s, as the internet became a more widespread thing, a lot of literary theorists spent time imagining "hyperfiction", a theoretical genre "characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction.". well... here it is! thats homestuck! this is it! literature has tried this sort of thing before, with examples including house of leaves, or a goosebumps choose your own adventure story, maybe pale fire, but, heres the thing, those are still hampered by the format of being a physical book. homestuck is, in my opinion, the first major, most important example of the hyperfiction we were promised. outside of the endlessly self-referential metanarrative available on homestuck dot com, bulks of the story are available on other, unrelated sites, like a deviantart account for a character, or actual posts (incorporated into the story itself) made on social media platforms, like snapchat or vine. these are the purely canonical offshoots, spread about in a way that is literally impossible for physical-form media. as noble as the quest is to release homestuck in a physical format, i find the task quixotic and arguably "missing the point", apart from a much-needed permanent archival purpose.

you can even make an argument that, given the influence the fandom has on the direction of many parts of the storyline, all of the fan work is technically "part of the story". this is not just applying to very early parts where hussie called on a forum to direct the story themselves, but from all the media ever made about the thing. homestuckcallouts on tumblr, the disappointed and angry reactions of those poor schlubs who paid a boatload of money to have their fantrolls appear in 2 panels before dying. in the narrative itself, the author quite often reacts to the trends and conversations the fans are having about the work itself, in my opinion culminating in a rather obtuse metaphor for his views on the fanbase, where one characters body inhabits two minds - a cheerful and talented enthusiast of the story so far, and a spiteful and hateful complainer who ends up being the central antagonist of the whole story.

andrew hussie famously recruited hundreds of fans to work on homestuck with their art, their music, flash comics, whatever else needed to be done - this is a collaborative work. collaboration and fandom is baked into the core of homestuck. as a matter of fact, the "dubiously canon" sequel has creative control urspured from the original author almost completely, and its literally the work of fans, with some minor guidence. nothing else has come close to this level of interaction for a major work, except maybe the decentralized SCP Foundation short stories. this is an entirely new sort of fiction that only the internet can pull off, and i havent seen it replicated yet. homestuck is a benchmark for both collaborative fiction and hyperfiction, and an important part of internet history. hell, i would even argue that the way the homestuck fandom functioned at the time, warts and all, served as a template for fandoms in general, and how fandom conversations tend to play out over time on social media platforms as the decade went on. its that influential in my eyes, never forget how omnipresent the thing was on, like, tumblr in 2012. good god.

ok. thats why i think homestuck is one of the most important works of art of the 2010s. what about the story itself?

i liked it! its got a lot of charm points, but there are some serious flaws.

the main selling point for me as a reader started off with the overly complicated, silly mechanics of the "game". by the end, these have developed into a gorgeous magic system that works wonderfully well because it influences the narrative, character arcs (aspects equalling directions, etc), and a general sense of "inevitability" that springs up because the Rules are so set in stone and logical, if purposely a little esoteric in actual function. i cant tell you if the author had any idea how giving, say, terezi the "seer of mind" role would shape what she does at the end of her story arc, but the logic it goes through gives at least an illusion of control.

which brings me to a major issue with homestuck as a whole - the complexity often leads to a very confused storyline. some of this is clearly intentional, and imo once theres a set end-goal in mind, the story, though still complicated, really streamlines and becomes more followable. but in act 4, 5, and early act 6, it can be genuinely hard to keep up with where the hell you are in the timeline(s), who is doing what and why, etc. these failings are to me NOT intentional. its an enormous project, yeah, and i think the story slipped out of hussies control for a while - and i think as a result the fan collaborations became a little more prominent as it went along, just as a way for everyone to reign the thing and make it more manageable.

the character writing is a mixed bag, leaning to the positive. i think there are a lot of issues early on, but once the story has progressed and everyone kind of sinks into their roles a little better, the writing comes off as easier, and theres more of a "point" to what everyone is talking about, even if the gang does tend to discuss the minutia of their complicated feelings about whatever, and whoever, a little too often.

i also find a lot of the more "timely" references to be some of the lowpoints of the story. early dave is obnoxious in 2020 in a way i dont remember him being reading it in 2012. very dated ideas on irony, cool-ness, etc. i think the lowpoint, and best example of this, of the whole story for me was the writing on the minigames where meenah walks around and talks to her game companions, who are all obnoxious references to various types of people who existed online in 2013. kankaris "sjw" talk is dated and cringe-worthy even by the standards of the day, and megido is kind of... racist. whatever. who cares. the callout already exists on homestuckcallouts dot tumblr dot com. i dont actually care. im sure the writer was under a lot of pressure to pump content out and had to just shit something out really fast. not my problem, no one liked those 11 characters anyways. i dont necessarily think that a character has to be even well-written in particular to be likeable, after all my favorite troll is Equius by a mile (one of the most bizarre characters ever concieved), but sometimes it just feels a little forced, so the fans have more characters to draw. look, this one is rufio from hook! remember what tavros said 2000 panels ago?!

there are a lot of brilliant ideas in this thing, like actually cool, very funny, and clever, as well as directly progressing the narrative and character interactions. the best example might be the troll romance squares thing. this sort of thing is homestuck at its best - a wildly amusing, weird, and super memorable and arguably deep web of ideas and mechanics that can shift vastly over time while the same general baseline "rules" remain the same.

homestuck is a vast, sweeping epic of a story that genuinely feels like one. its not just the investment of time the reader puts into it over the course of taking on a project this massive, but the stakes are actually high, people "die", quite often, and partially because of how complex the narrative is, its very difficult to figure out whats actually going to happen next at times. GOD, what i wouldnt give to go back in time and watch people react when half the trolls got wiped (for the first time) again. this is a very unique example of fiction to this day, fulfilling the theoretical idea of a "hyperfiction", and though it still has an (earned) reputation among many outsiders for being weird or unapproachable, i feel as though homestuck is genuinely worthy of a larger critical evaluation, because it does so much in its own unique way, and had such a profound influence on a vast body of work that came after it.

this is one of the most important pieces of media to come out of the last 10-odd years, and i think its reputation as "low culture" has stopped a lot of critics from giving the work serious consideration. i hope that will change in time, and that my opinion here isnt a long-term aberration.

[Elinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

THAT WAS FUCKING EPIC.

Actual footage of yours truly right now.
So that was... quite something. Something quite epic. And silly. And fun. And I loved it very very much. I love so many of the characters. So. Many. I'm not going to say ALL OF THEM because Eridan. But, yeah, a LOT of them. I love how stupid and silly it was. I love how epic it was. Full of action and silly jokes and fun and emotion and... And right now I feel a bit empty that it's over. Even though it's not completly over, since I still have the epilogues and Homestuck^2 and PesterQuest and so on. But, yeah. Epic.

[Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the middle third or so of its run time I was thinking this might be one of the most brilliant things I'd ever read (checking readmspa.org/stats/ I guess that would have been around Act 4 until some time before A6A5I5). For one thing the collective storytelling with the audience in the first third that sets things up is pretty unprecedented, at least in how far and how deep Hussie and the fans were able to run with it, letting it organically grow into this bizarre and intricate world and cast of characters and Sburb game rules with this super particular but rich set of internal idioms, recurring jokes and beats and modes of presentation. It has this purity of creativity that vaguely reminds me of the proto-LARPing I used to orchestrate at recess in elementary school based on NES games I was playing. And behind that Hussie seems to be puppeteering with this huge thicket of strings, connecting plot points across tens and then hundreds and then thousands of pages in ways that look like they must have been planned (but I understand he claims most of them mostly weren't). And the music and the fan art alone are worth the price of admission. Or at least it seemed like it back in the glory days. Back then I felt like I was discovering something almost as huge as when I'd originally discovered anime in general in high school.

In the end it pulls a Lost/X-Files/Evangelion thing, does a nose-dive into its own complexity, falls through the thick forest of its dangling threads, and drops out the bottom pretty much missing them all. (Disclaimer: I've never actually seen Lost so I don't know what I'm talking about there.) (I haven't watched the new X-files seasons either.)

That's the shitty thing about long-running serials like this and why I try to be leery of them. The most amazing mid-story experiences and feelings can be and often are retroactively ruined by inadequate endings (that reveal the crazy mastermind-looking narrative pyrotechnics to have been based on smoke and mirrors).

But oh man, those heady early days on Alternia meeting the troll kids (p=003889). Or back when Dave and Terezi were gaming the lohac stock market (p=004637). Or even walking around talking to the teenage troll ancestors (p=007163). And I don't know... if I could go back in time would I tell my 2014 self, wait no I guess I read most of it back in 2013, no wonder I couldn't even remember what half the main conflicts were by the time Hussie got around to finishing it, would I tell myself that I shouldn't bother reading this because it's not going to fulfill the insane promise it looks like it has? Knowing the ending makes starting that long journey difficult to recommend to anyone now, but I can't regret having had those experiences then. And maybe it's even still worth reading for newcomers just for getting the feeling of that middle story. Although really, because Homestuck is such a participatory work, the true experience (that I was only ever really looking in on from a distant orbit) required being part of the fandom in its heyday, and that community has scattered to the winds now, so trying to read the leftover artifact without them might have something of the aspect of walking through an ancient, deserted shrine. If you do, skim the first third as much as possible, enjoy the middle, and maybe go ahead and quit when things start looking doubtful and getting stale toward the end. So many of these panels and dialogs are still goddamn funny. This music is still goddamn good.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I even begin? Very few things ever move me to tears, but Homestuck has done it time and again. Andrew Hussie is a literary genius. There is something in every character for every reader to relate to. He understands his targeted teen audience. Understanding the authorial intent really makes one think about the story on a deeper level. Speaking of levels, there are many. The whole story is buried in countless levels of irony. Even to the point of making fun of itself. The fourth wall is broken constantly. A nonlinear narrative in combination with all of the hypertext makes for a train wreck of a story. There are times where characters become self aware that they are in a story, (in particular, in a story within the story) and even times when a character will take over the narration. There are parallel distinctive plot lines, dream immersions, and other stories in the main plot galore. Everything required to have textbook nonlinear narrative. In that sense it can be compared to such things as Homer's Iliad, and James Joyce's Ulysses. I guess that's what happens when a plot outgrows its story.

[Ben Heinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first introduced to this webcomic by a girl in highschool who I dated for a year, and I read it because I wanted to get closer to her, but my appreciation for the comic eventually outlasted our relationship and ever since Homestuck ended several years ago, I still find myself thinking about the collective adventure that it represented to me and so many others who were my age when it was being updated. What do I have to say about Homestuck? Well, it's one of the most impressive cultural achievements to have emerged from the internet. That such a lengthy, byzantine, experimental webcomic could accrue the following it eventually found without any publishers involved (only a man, a computer, and a forum) is impressive. It keeps me faithful that our current age isn't entirely dominated by a select-few cultural gatekeepers like some cynics suggest.

Homestuck represents everything that the earlier internet stood for, especially in an aesthetic sense: from the eclectic rooms of the characters whose interests are as strange and diverse as a randomly-selected Wikipedia page, to the colorful, manically-animated gif panels which remind one of a glittery early myspace profile. Images are taken and manipulated into the scenery to act as movie-posters, skyscrapers in monochromatic metropolises, distant ruins, and the skies married to great alien landscapes. And Andrew Hussie paints this internet-collage as a stage for his characters to enact their great drama.

All the characters in Homestuck are teenagers, like the fanbase, except for a few adult characters who are almost always faceless and mute, much like the adult characters in Peanuts (Charlie Brown). This leads one to an interesting and acceptable comparison between Homestuck and Peanuts: that they are both about children or teenagers solving problems among themselves, living their lives without the influence of adults, and engaging in dramas which replicate the trials of adulthood. This is a popular trope in media: the world of kids as separate from the world of adults, or as a reality that is parallel with the separate adult reality. Lord of the Flies, The Chronicles of Narnia, the original Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius film, I even sense it a little in Thomas Pynchon’s novel Against the Day (specifically the sections with the Chums of Chance, who are not entirely children or even teenagers but still live in a childlike drama of their own, living out the adventures of children’s dime-novels and operating with a mock-bureaucratic efficiency much like boy-scouts. All the while, they are swiftly carried in their airship above the heads of the people on Earth).

Act One of Homestuck is officially titled “The Note Desolation Plays” and it’s a fitting title for the reality of the webcomic. Homestuck begins with the four central characters alone in their rooms, connected only through the Pesterchum chat-client on their computers. We’re introduced to each of these characters one at a time and over the course of the first half of Part 1 (which comprises the first four acts of the comic as well as an intermission). It is especially apparent in this first section that the characters are desperately alone. Aside from the faceless guardians, their computers are their only means of social interaction: John lives in some kind of desolate suburbs with his father, Rose lives in a large Frank-Lloyd-Wright-style home with her mother in a stormy New-York-state forest near a laboratory, Dave lives in a high-rise apartment in a hellish city with his older brother, and Jade lives on a remote desert pacific island with her dog Bec. What all these places have in common is that they are inhospitable. Beyond each of the homes, nothing exists for the kids. Even when they leave their rooms to explore their houses or apartments (except for Jade who seems to feel relatively at home on her island), the kids act like they are entering unknown territory. Their rooms are their only homes. It is no coincidence that upon the formal introduction of each character in Homestuck, one of the first things the character does is examine their room. The initial state of the kids is that they are literally “home-stuck,” they are stuck in their homes and so their only escape is, not through the front door, but through their computers.

This was and continues to be a relatable situation for kids and teenagers growing up in the U.S. The generation that read Homestuck was the same generation that grew up with parents who were terrified of white vans and predators. Elementary schools ran “stranger danger” campaigns and repeatedly ground it into the heads of children that the world just wasn’t safe. And so, with their neighborhoods now foreign and the urban sprawl reaching across the towns of the U.S., the internet was the only frontier for these children. The internet tore down the barrier of space, delivering the long-tail social interaction demanded by the growing market. And that is what Homestuck is really about. It is about this new form of socialization. When John first initiates the end of the world with his beta copy of Sburb (fittingly titled, since this game is what replaces the face-to-face socialization kids in the past would have experienced with their friends on the streets of their suburbs) it is not difficult to imagine that what John is really initiating is the complex process of growing up: destroying the alien world of his childhood and building a new one (the task in Sburb is literally to create a new universe). In all of this, the children are unaided. Sure, you could say that the guardians do play minor roles here-and-there (and yes, I know that the kids are technically genetic clones and the guardians are really the beta and the alpha kids respectively according to which version of the universe we’re talking about) but the point is that all the kids are working towards the same goal, and while there are many different opinions of the goal and many different relationships formed and worlds explored and treasures gained and lost and discovered, powers and levels obtained, Homestuck begins with the initiation of this goal and ends when it is complete. When John takes a bite of the apple to officially enter the game, he is forsaking his innocence to make the age-old fall to adulthood. And yes, it is a fall: he is entering a world with real danger and real friends and enemies, and he leaves behind the walled-garden, everything he once knew.

One of my favorite early scenes in Homestuck is when John first enters his father’s room. This comes after Sburb has begun and John’s house is transplanted into the world of the game. He enters the room and is shocked to discover that it is quite a boring room, not the harlequin nightmare that he expected. This is important because John’s understanding of his father before was that his dad was obsessed with harlequins: the entire house was decorated with harlequins and harlequin pictures and for his birthday John’s dad got him a massive stuffed harlequin. John was under the impression that his father was a harlequin fanatic. And when he finally enters his dad’s room and finds it devoid of harlequins, he rethinks his entire childhood. John realizes that his father thought that HE was obsessed with harlequins. His father had created this world for John that was replete with harlequins to please his son. John realizes in that scene, sitting among briefcases and boring businessman shoes, that everything he thought he knew about his father was wrong. Like a kid finding out that Santa isn’t real. The childhood illusion is toppled, and the kid grows up a little more. And this is just one of many small childhood illusions that are toppled over the course of the next nearly 8000 pages of content, most aren’t nearly as clear-cut as this one, but they are all important to the people that the characters eventually become.

Homestuck’s design is grand, even if it was first begun under the guise of an audience-participatory RPG, but is it a perfect work of art? Hardly. A lot of the dialog is sloppy and later in the comic the character development starts to become cumbersome and corny and really the whole thing falls apart and loses its charm. Approximately 40% of the comic is filler, which is a lot, and there are so many red herring that by the end, you are left with more questions than you think the author hoped you would have. That said, it is still an important work of art and it defined an entire generation of social outcasts. The first four or five acts are all steeped heavily in nostalgia for me, so I acknowledge that I am not an impartial judge, but by God I can’t find another multimedia extravaganza of the scope that Homestuck had.

There is a brief flash segment in act 1 where John leaves his house to get his copy of Sburb from the mailbox, and in that small flash segment there is a serene breeze and the sound of chimes and a pipe being blown upon and you recognize that the deep tone is the note desolation plays. The sun shines down from the clear sky and John’s dad is not home and there is no one on the street. As the title “Homestuck” appears next to the sun, the reader can feel it in their spine that there is a tempest about to come crashing through the suburbs and that it will leave no survivors.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

TL;DR: without the mild spoilers: there are good things here, but they just aren't worth it.

I'll start with the positive. There is a kind of inventive magic to Homestuck. It innovates imaginatively and beautifully in just the way its story is told. The characters (the human ones) are well thought out and interesting. The storyline concept in itself, as well, is also pretty interesting. At points Homestuck is unpredictable and utterly hilarious. Sometimes, very rarely, it's moving. It's a bizarre multi-media journey that has captivated a lot of people. But saying "it's not for everyone" is a massive understatement.

The first problem is that the creator, Andrew Hussie, might just have genuine contempt for his readers. During Homestuck's run, and within the comic itself, he is vocal about making decisions for the sole purpose of frustrating and annoying you, the audience. At first this seems like a joke. As the story progresses it becomes clear that it is not. Hussie purposely inserts overly long-winded irrelevant sections attempting to annoy us, teases us by building up plot-irrelevant character arcs for people who suddenly and pointlessly die, and otherwise makes decisions for the sole purpose of making his story a pain to get through. He does this...for the lulz, I guess? What matters is that an entire portion of the fandom finds it somehow endearing. And he was feeding on them while creating this. So, like any enabled behavior, it gets worse as it goes on.

The second problem is the trolls, a subset of characters introduced later on in the comic who are aggressively one dimensional. Aside from one fairly obvious exception, each of the trolls has a single defining personality trait exaggerated to occasionally comical, but also sometimes creepy or perverse levels. These terrible, obnoxious characters receive horrific amounts of page-time despite the fact that they are incapable of genuine growth or change. Hussie's response to introducing far too many of them is to introduce more.

And that is the number one problem with Homestuck: it's utterly excessive. There are too many characters. Too many storylines. Too much irrelevant detail. Conversations that are too long. And, frankly, too much of everything. By the sixth act the entire thing has become a strange hot mess of plot lines being continuously introduced and cut short with no resolution by sudden character death (?) (because simplifying it to just "death" would of course be too simple for Homestuck). The pacing is all over the place, with entire "acts"(each long enough to begin and resolve any normal story) meandering along with nothing important happening until everything changes instantly, and there is no end to the sheer weird chaos taking place. Even keeping track of what is going on in Homestuck requires a far more than casual level of interest, which is why its entire fanbase is composed of diehards. No one else has the energy for this.

I ultimately consider my time spent reading Homestuck a mistake. There were some joys, but they were deliberately placed few and far between by an author who entertains himself by flipping off the audience. In my massive time commitment spent on Homestuck, I could have read or watched at least twenty or thirty comics/books/tv shows that were real genuine heartfelt masterpieces (I'm serious. Homestuck is L O N G.) Instead, I sat around learning about the mating habits of trolls. I can't get back the hours I wasted on this pretentious convoluted borderline-abusive dickery, but I can warn people: just stay away. It really isn't worth it.

[Andrei Stoian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romanian review: Sunt LIBER, în sfârșit!
Cartea aceasta- dacă poate fi numită carte- mi-a testat răbdarea prin cele peste 8000 de pagini, în principal din cauza numărului mare de fillere. Nici nu vă puteți imagina cât de multe pagini a pierdut autorul și cu câte evenimente atât de inutile.
Am sentimente mixte față de această carte, pentru că, deși a fost foarte amuzantă și complexă, m-am atașat de personaje și au existat multe momente epice care au făcut ca timpul dedicat lecturii ei să merite, prima jumătate mi s-a părut mult mai bună decât a doua, iar finalul a fost puțin dezamăgitor.
Dacă povestea pornește de la o intrigă destul de simplă: patru copii încep să joace un joc online. Ea devine mult, mult, muuuult mai complicată și mai interesantă, iar încercarea de a rezuma acțiunea cărții este relativ nebunească.
Pot garanta că este cea mai ciudată carte pe care am citit-o vreodată. Este nevoie de un singur exemplu pentru a argumenta asta: autorul este în același timp personaj (până aici totul pare normal) și se omoară în propria sa carte... Iar faptul că autorul se omoară în propria sa carte este unul din cele mai normale evenimente care au loc . Despre actul 2 al actului 5 al actului 6 (da, cam așa este împărțită cartea) nici măcar nu am să mai pomenesc.
Personajele mele preferate sunt John și Karkat, deși nu este o alegere foarte ușoară.
În momentul de față, îmi doresc atât de mult să existe un sistem de notare cu jumătăți de stele deoarece 4 stele mi se par prea multe, iar 3 prea puține. 3.5 stele ar fi fost nota perfectă, iar oferindu-i 3 stele simt că o nedreptățesc, deși am destul de multe motive pentru care am ales acest rating.



English review: I’m FREE, at last!
This book—if it can even be called a book—tested my patience through more than 8,000 pages, mainly because of the sheer number of fillers. You can’t imagine how much time the author wasted on utterly pointless events.
I have mixed feelings about this book. While it was incredibly funny and complex, I grew attached to the characters, and there were many epic moments that made the reading time worthwhile. Still, I felt the first half was much better than the second, and the ending was a bit disappointing.
The story starts with a relatively simple premise: four kids begin playing an online game. It then becomes far, far, faaaaaar more complicated and interesting, to the point where trying to summarize the plot feels borderline insane.
I can guarantee this is the weirdest book I’ve ever read. One example is enough to prove it: the author is a character in the story (so far, so normal), and he kills himself in his own book. And the fact that the author kills himself is one of the most normal events in the story . I won’t even mention Act 2 of Act 5 of Act 6 (yes, that’s how the book is structured).
My favorite characters are John and Karkat, though it wasn’t an easy choice.
Right now, I desperately wish there was a half-star rating system because 4 stars feels too generous, but 3 stars feels too harsh. 3.5 stars would’ve been the perfect score, but giving it 3 stars feels unfair, even though I have plenty of reasons for my rating.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally my favorite webcomic on the internet. I've been reading it since 2009 and through tumblr I've met many other homestucks and forged a lot of great friendships. It's not only the webcomic that's AMAZING, there's so much more: The community is so full of talented people who share their fanart, theories about the plot, fanfiction, cosplays, &c. I'd recommend it to ANYONE, it's SO GOOD, with a huge variety of characters it's impossible not to see yourself in at least one of them.

[Thibaut Nicodème · Rating 5 out of 5]

I split my review in four parts which you can find on my blog, the Snark Theater. Although they're more a discussion than a review.

Also let's just say that I may be biased. In case my succession of Homestuck icons was not enough of an indication.

[Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no idea this was on goodreads. Hilarious. I read the last few chapters as they posted. I have tried to read it again and failed. Homestuck took up years of my life. I give it three stars. I give it infinite stars.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me tell you

about Homestuck

[Peyton LastName · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story for anyone who wants to be angry for seven years.

5 out of 5 dead kids.

[Celia Añó · Rating 5 out of 5]

Homestuck comienza en el cumpleaños de un chico y da la casualidad que he acabado la relectura en mi cumpleaños. Es la segunda vez que lo leo y a pesar de todo su caos, sigue siendo esa historia inolvidable que me cambió la vida unos años atrás.


Dejo aquí el enlace de la traducción al castellano, que es una obra de arte: https://mspfa.com/?s=657&p=1

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tl;dr: Homestuck good. Go check it out. At least watch idk maybe “[S] Make her pay” and decide for yourself.
---
I finally did it, after all these years!!

I 1st found Homestuck in my teen years and followed the comic as it was releasing back then. Still made it through over 5k pages but dropped it, then restarted in late 2019 since Flash will be gone soon and there has yet to be an official preservation of it.
From all the fiction I've read in my life, Homestuck is what resonated with me the most, as well as one of the very few works that secured a place forever in my heart. It really impacted me and I still cherish the time spent in its fandom during its prime.


But enough introspection.
Homestuck starts off as a funny story about 4 kids playing a videogame that affects their world, and now they must save it, or themselves, somehow. And then becomes so so much more than that. By the time you reach Cascade you’re deep within a fantastical epic tale like no other. And I mean that literally, because Homestuck exists under a unique form that would not exist without the Internet. It is presented to you as Flash animations, minigames, gifs, and, most importantly, chat logs. Crafted not only by Andrew Hussie, but also an excellent team of great musicians, and another, more hidden in the shadows, of great artists. And back in the day, the forums would even have a say in some aspects of the adventure!

It mimics the style of text adventures of old, and is imbued with references to the 90s nerd culture (2000s and 2010s too but less and later on), as well as a lot of self-referential humour. It has a very wide cast of characters, so you’ll definitively end up resonating with at least someone, idolize another, hate that one asshole, and love many.
Despite all the tragedy, Homestuck never lets you dwell too much on the sad moments. A bit infuriating at times, but it helps keeping the humorous nature of it. After all, you’re there to have a good time!

The plot has its ups and downs. I sincerely think that the prime of the Homestuck experience is until shortly after the Scratch? With the peak at Cascade for sure. Arc 6 is where you start having a lull. There are way too many characters introduced that end up being not very important. Too many irons in the fire, a bunch of things end up getting overlooked or never looked into, despite the initial impression that they’d be important. My least favourite arcs are also in there too. It’s a bit of a jumbled mess overall but it still had some amazing moments. I’d say it was simply overall less good than before.

Towards the very end it stopped really feeling like Homestuck imo, with the more cute cartoony styles in the last Flashes. The ending felt a bit anticlimactic too, like nothing was really at stake anymore (really think the Condesce died a bit too easily). And while they deserved a happy ending it felt a bit… like it wasn’t the culmination I expected. And also there’s one certain girl who didn’t get that much of a happy ending (why did she have to be so lonely, she did so much!) as well as come other incongruities that may or may not be explored in the non-canon content. I shall discover that myself soon enough.

EDIT: forgot to add but extra points are given because of the best time shenanigans I've ever seen (would be an offence to even try and compare Doctor Who to Homestuck) and the most insane shipping and canon and canonically-hypothesised ships.

[Yongyoon · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's definitely creative and requires knowledge in programming and games (Sims, adventure games, Earthbound) to fully appreciate it. However, that's all the credit I can give it. It's a 3.0/10 for me, for having extremely slow pacing, annoying protagonists, and overly self-indulgent narratives that aren't as clever as the author thinks they are. I came in with high expectations and none of the narrative skips and twists actually surprised me and I could fully understand what the story was giving me from the get-go. This was a disappointment.