>>56116 Thank you for your high quality post.

>>56128 I had more... >Triva: The stunt sword may have been intended as John’s weapon “Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular”. Titular can have a dual meaning here: “holding or constituting a purely formal position or title without any real authority.” Or “relating to or denoted by a title.” Both are applicable for being “Stuck” at Home in Homestuck. John’s games collection includes “Caper Havers”, a Team Special Olympics comic. I think it’s a parody of Sherlock Holmes, as it stars a couple of overly-verbose men and their dog solving “capers”. It has an egg-laying ghost at one point. Some similarity to Colonel Sassacre's text. “wreck of hesperus” means very untidy. “fix your wagon” means to bring about a person’s downfall Colonel Sassacre talks about pranking a lazy part-black man > Commentary The start date was always meant to be significant, and because the “Stable release” was on 04/13/2009, the story was about four thirteen-year-old kids. Would they be adults if it was delayed a week? Would there be 5 kids if HS got delayed a month? The mouse cursor which moves a cake on John’s behalf was a holdover from the Beta version and was quickly phased out. Trolls had not been conceived this early on, but their design would be inspired by Little Monsters. Hussie had already planned for there to be a 3-day delay of the Sburb beta delivery in story before starting HS; and coincidentally his first attempt at HS, the BETA, lasted for only 3 days. Pesterchum is named as such because chat clients are “botherment engines”. Hussie used some of his personal chatlogs for only two of the pesterlogs. The handle “tentacleTherapist” is explicitly a reference to hentai. Hussie describes it as the “snarky, off-color senses of humor” that 13-year-olds typically have. John throwing the present wrap in fire was Andrew’s idea. So even at this stage some of the commands were Hussie’s. Hussie mentions that in the title card, the sun may come to retroactively represent Vriska meddling in John’s life, among other things. Given the title card discusses feelings of absence, it makes me wonder if Hussie intended Conheir to be the “endgame” after all. All the kids know an instrument; this was intended to play a bigger role in the story. They were also originally all going to have telescopes and use them to look at each other’s planets, Skaia, prospit, etc. So Hussie had these ideas in mind at act 1. The phernalia registry could store nearly anything, allowing the player to get around the size limits of the captchalogue cards. However, this feature was basically forgotten. > News 22 April 2009 Andrew has made a sound credits page listing the music contributions. 29 May 2009 Hussie thanks Andrew Huo & Gabe Nezovic for making Rose’s Violin music. These are noteworthy to me because Hussie was treating the music team better than he later would.

So I'm still in Act 5, as the longtime fans probably would expect, but I sure didn't. The other Acts were short enough that I could get through them in a day or two (barring life obligations at least), but this one is a beefy motherfucker. I'm at the part where Gamzee goes nuts and starts murdering people, Feferi is dead by fish boy, Kanaya is... maybe dead? And Equius and the cat shipper are probably dead too. Sollux is probably gonna be dead soon. Oh, and Tavros. Motherfucking called that one, for real. I'm actually pretty sad, not really for Feferi because I didn't care about her much but I'm surprisingly more sad about the others, even if they hadn't gotten much to them (save Kanaya). It's sad to know there won't be any more silly conversations between them about dumb shit. Hope Terezi makes it and I assume Aradia will be back because shenanigans. Although given the existing time and universe bullshit, the other characters might still come back. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the ones I like. I figured something would happen to Gamzee after the ICP stuff, but I didn't think he'd go crazy on everyone. I kinda just figured he'd either kill himself or accidentally cause someone else to get hurt. I should've known better but damn. On another note, I've been liking the dynamics between the trolls that have been talking to the kids, their weird little friendships are fun. Especially Vriska and John, just because she's such a hot and cold character. She's a bitch to everyone and John, but slightly nicer to him in a way that feels different to when she was trying to bone Tavros. Curious to see what happens next. And I really hope some of the stuff that's kinda been waiting in the background gets developed further, I've been curious to know what's been up with John's dad and Rose's mom, for example. >>56116 >>56129 That's a lot of good writing. I think the writing on its own is indicative of 2009 culture, since it's pretty irreverent in a way modern writing doesn't tend to be. Not just things like saying 'retarded' but the irony jokes and pop culture references. I appreciate the trivia and details, I probably wouldn't have caught some of them since I'm reading it so far in the future. That music note is ominous, though. I've gleaned that Hussie became a less fun guy over time to put it lightly, it's a shame he got so much worse.

>>56133 I'm glad to see your progress, which would you say is your favorite ship so far?

>>56149 Probably John/Vriska for the reasons I've mentioned so far. It's clear she has this soft spot for him despite his humanity (in both meanings of the word). I think she respects that he's willing to occasionally push back against her while also still trying to understand her and be respectful towards her when most people are immediately hostile to her for good reasons or are like Tavros and go along with what she wants while clearly not liking it. If it's not clear, I like Vriska a lot- she's not my favorite character, but I like how complicated she is. Both her and John are probably in the top five for me.

>>56152 So your favorite is still Jade?

>>56153 Yeah, think if I was gonna rank them right now, it'd be: >Jade >John >Vriska >Karkat >Dave

My apologies for posting twice in a row, but I figured was warranted since I've just hit the page right before Cascade. I know that's significant in some way, I just don't exactly know how other than it's a really long ass animation that signals the end of Act 5, I think. To kind of sum up my overall thoughts on it right now, I think I can see why people liked the other Acts more- the earlier acts are more whimsical and silly as the kids try to figure out the game, what their abilities are, and what they need to be doing while Act 5 ramps up the stakes significantly while introducing a bunch of new characters that vary in importance and overall personality. I do like the trolls inclusion into the plot but at the same time, I can understand how their individual traits and the quirks around how they speak could get annoying. I think Act 5 is good on the most part and builds up well from the previous acts, though I do wish that earlier on, they interspersed more moments with the kids instead of teasing them before going back to troll plot. I like the bit just before where I'm at with the story told in the header as Cue Ball Man (I actually forgot what his name was too, whoops) monologues about lore. Act 5 has been on the whole, more creative in how it tells the story of the comic. I think it's probably pretty obvious but I think I like Act 5 the best, then maybe Act 3 after that, since it was fun seeing the game get explained but before everything got more serious. Midnight Crew was real fun, too. I like how that came back around eventually. I'm kind of disappointed that the Gamzee murder rampage gets resolved so simply, though I'm getting the sense that his blood type is just kind of like that- berserkers who're chill until they suddenly get into a rage. I'm sad Vriska died, but I like the way they wrapped up her story with the alternate dead John, I think it fits. Given that it's supposed to be like 20 minutes long, I'll probably wait until later to actually watch Cascade. I'll post my thoughts after, since it seems like it's a big deal, especially after hearing how fans crashed multiple sites just to watch it. One more note is that I kind of wish I'd read this back in the day, when it was still being made. I would've hated being associated with the weird asshole tumblr part of the fandom, but I think little grub me would've liked it a lot. Hope the rest of you guys that are reading along are having fun reading these unfiltered streams of consciousness.

>>56175 Congratulations! Once you reach the start of Act 6, you’ll have literally read half of all of Homestuck, Act 6 makes up the other half. I’m glad to hear your overall opinion was that Act 5 is the best. As I said, it’s the peak of the comic in terms of everything it achieves narratively.

>>56176 Before I read Homestuck, I got the sense that most people either really liked the first four Acts and hated Act 5 or they loved Act 5 most. I get why it's like that but Act 5 feels like a proper evolution of the comic, utilizing a lot more of the time traveling conversations with the kids and trolls, having set ups from previous Acts finally get paid off or have a new, additional pay off, and stuff like that. I will say I'm worried now about how Act 6 will go. Everything I've read leads me to think it's not as good, though the degree of badness seems to be in question. Assuming time-space fuckery doesn't bring Jade or Vriska back, at least they'll be dead and not present for any bad writing or possible character assassination.

>>56179 I won't say anything because, I'm not going to spoil anything. Go ahead, I'll wait for your thoughts on Cascade.

>>56180 I'll watch it as soon as I get back from the movies. Shouldn't be more than three hours. Actually, I've been wondering, has Homestuck been translated into any other languages? It'd be an incredibly difficult feat, but I'd be curious to know if it has. I'll leave that as a question to maybe be answered when I get back and read the replies.

>>56182 There are several fan translations into different languages, though their quality varies. I don’t know enough about the subject to say how many of these translations are actually complete. The only one I know for sure is the Russian translation, which was among the first to be finished, so yes there is a thing that offers all of Homestuck in Russian.

Ok, watched Cascade, I'm maybe two or three pages into Act 6. I don't think I entirely get everything, but to try and sum it up: John does the Scratch, Jade is dead but then Jack puts her on her bed and it lets her go God mode while merging her with her sprite. The remaining trolls and kids are able to cross into the new universe and Jack... doesn't seem to be there at the moment? Also the bigger big bad is here now. I like that Jade finally got to do something halfway important other than the attempted frog breeding. Kinda annoyed that she had to be brought back for that, but I do like the detail of Jack saving her because of the Bec in him. I liked the bit with Sollux using his powers to bring the other trolls through, feels like he finally got something to do as well, at least besides nearly dying to Eridan earlier. The animation was very nice, I liked the trick with the flash window expanding and contracting like it did. Music wasn't bad but I think there's been better pieces of music in previous animations. I can see why people were so excited for it considering it was the end of Act 5 and I imagine they were waiting on pins and needles to see if everyone would make it or if there would be even more massacring to go around. RIP to the wanderers, other than the mail lady who became Jack but white and... I guess she just kinda exists now. And if I'm getting it right here for the new kids, Jane is John's grandma and Jake is Jade's grandpa, and the other two will be Rose's mom and Dave's bro, I assume? And then time space bullshit will send them through to the old universe, that or things will just repeat themselves like poetry.

>>56184 Oh, also that's super interesting to know. Russians always seemed autistic like that to be able to finish a project as daunting as translating Homestuck. I'll have to look and see how far any of the other translations have gone.

>>56194 Hearing your opinion of the notoriously long Act 6 as you blast through it will be a fever dream lol

>>56194 Hoping to get around to reading the series again after hearing your thoughts as a first-time reader. Back when it was getting written where you're at is basically where I stopped, it felt like instead of trying to finish up the story Hussie continued to add more characters, threads, and ultimately way too much to keep track of for either a casual reader or himself.

>Years in the future, but not many... I remember this being its whole intermission, as opposed to two pages. It may be that my brain has conflated this with a section of the story that will come later. The exiles, as they will come to be known, are quite underrated in my opinion given how much they do to elevate the story. More so than even the meteor, these couple of pages create a sense of intrigue. If you showed someone this before anything else in the comic, they’d probably be interested. I suspect that the pilot of the adaptation will end with this scene. Either that, or copious amounts of uncensored gay troll sex. >News: The news for these couple of pages is gives a lot of insight into what Hussie was thinking while making Homestuck up till this point. Since this post is much shorter than my previous ones anyway, I may as well post the whole thing. I should probably try formatting my posts better as well. >7 June 2009 >Hey, so looks like we're through "ACT 1". And I didn't even know there would be "acts" until a few days ago! How about that! >Though aside from that, this is the point I've been pushing to get to in the story since I started. It took longer than I thought it would. I thought it might take about one month, but it turned out to be more like two. And by "this point in the story", I guess I mean "the beginning". Really everything that's happened so far probably serves as more of a prologue than a first chapter. >So we are just getting started! There is surely some fun stuff to come. This may have been where Hussie began to consider doing away with user suggestions. >Glancing backwards, I can't help but monitor my progress. 55 days, 247 pages (with 295 images). That's a little more than 5 images per day, which is almost the exact pace I set with Problem Sleuth over the course of a year. I was very surprised to learn this! Mostly because many of these Homestuck pages are a lot more detailed and labor intensive, especially with the Flash animations mixed in there. I will decide this statistical analysis yields good news! To be fair, most of them still use “sprites” that are clicked and dragged around. Still, when you do something for a year, like Hussie did with Problem Sleuth, you’d probably get more efficient at it. >It also helps that I'm starting to get the hang of Flash. The most recent animation was much easier than any of its predecessors, and hardly felt like it took any time at all. I am THIS CLOSE to actually looking forward to doing the next one. We’ll see there’s a lot more of them to come. Judging by how long it takes me to draw, I can only imagine how look the original flash animations took. Even ones as relatively simplistic as these. >Commentary > "Not many" unsurprisingly turns out to be 413 years. Which I guess is a lot. But it isn't much at all compared to the lifespan of the Earth, or the universe. That's why we hear it frequently in reference to the post-apocalypse timeframe. We're being prepared for the real magnitudes this story deals with later. I also liked these commentaries from earlier regarding Act 1: >It's reasonable to argue watching a kid wander around the various rooms of his house, engaging in inventory-based slapstick isn't exactly a roller coaster ride as far as entertainment goes. But it all feels pretty necessary to me, for a lot of reasons. Getting to know the layout of the house which is relevant for more outlandish shenanigans later, getting to know the rules of the game, and so on. Besides, much of what characterized MSPA stories is this gradual sense of liftoff from truly mundane initial circumstances. It's hard to achieve that without first establishing the mundane! >There are quite a lot of miscellaneous items floating around, resulting from a well-stocked environment ripe for messing with. The appearance is that all of this crap is trivial fodder for these hijinks. However, if you examine each one, you'd be hard pressed to find any that don't have some sort of significance later in the story. Often the significance is profound, as is the case with the broken glass, and to a greater extent, the red box.

>>56217 Was it a long while to release as well as being lengthy? I know the anon who's been replying to me the most has said it makes up half of the comic. >>56234 I haven't been going back to read the blogs Hussie was writing at the times of the previous Acts release, and I'm wondering if I should. These details are interesting. >>56238 Right now, I'm willing to give past-Hussie some slack since the new characters were already technically around, and because the way the story has been progressing felt like he was gonna focus on the new universe and its cast anyway. But I'm cautiously optimistic. I haven't read much, I'm at the beginning of Jake's intro, but we'll see how things go. None of the characters are especially standing out but Jake mentioning John and Jade raised some eyebrows for me.

>>56243 I've been using the NewsSocial mode, which adds the latest newsposts to the end of each page. You can find mods for the UHC here: https://github.com/GiovanH/unofficial-homestuck-collection/wiki/Third-Party-Mods Some mods are worse than others...

>>56251 I get why some people would want to take the slurs out but it's like taking the slurs out of Huckleberry Finn, even if you dislike them, they're a window into a not too distant past. They show how kids talked back then and it makes their dialogue feel more realistic, because kids say fucked up shit. But that aside, thanks for the mod links. I'll give them a look and maybe after I finish the rest of the comic, I'll go back and power through everything while reading the news posts and commentary.

>>56251 The pettiness of oversensitive faggots never ceases to amaze me

>>56270 and then they want to gaslight you into thinking you're the crazy one and there's no weird effort by a certain group of people to change everything to fit their preferences.

>>56266 >it's like taking the slurs out of Huckleberry Finn Most of it is pretty tame anyway. I say “most” purely as a disclaimer, since I recall no examples of any slurs even half as XTreme as what imageboard users say on a regular basis.

Got to the end of Act 6 Part 1. Sorry if anyone was waiting on my thoughts about it. So far, I'm kind of ambivalent on the new kids. I can't say I dislike them, but I don't especially like any of them either, though considering there's probably like 49 more parts to this Act, I'm sure there will be more time to give them more character. I do like their dynamics well enough and the set up of Jake having somehow been able to talk to Jade pre-Scratch (or so I assume) is an interesting new thread in the tapestry of this weird story. I do appreciate Hussie not completely blueballing me by having the OG kids appear for the intermission (so far, at least), because much as I liked when the perspective finally shifted to the trolls, there was a part of me going 'ok, but can I get a crumb of info on John and the others?' until they finally did. I'm curious how things will progress with the other threads left to be wrapped up, along with the new ones being established, but it's a promising enough start.

Apropos of nothing but way back during Homestuck's heyday I read a mini-fanfic where Karkat and Nepeta wake up inside a crate and both struggle in vain to get out while trying not to panic while they attempt to piece together how they even got there. They noticed some movement and realize the crate is being loaded somewhere, but nothing beyond that, and rightfully panic as whatever the crate's being loaded onto begins moving. Cut to the final line, where the adult troll who captured them congratulates himself for picking such a pair of fine specimens and celebrates another successful shipping. Made me laugh when I chanced upon it, but I never managed to find it again. Couldn't even remember the title, sadly.

>>56290 Keep going! We are reading you.

>>56329 Ah, sorry for the wait, then. I realized the Parts are a little shorter for Act 6 despite how long it seems to be, so I figured I'd wait a bit before giving any thoughts. Here's the only Homestuck related image I had saved before I started reading it, for fun. I got to Part 3 (or just before it, I suppose). My feelings on the new kids have not really changed much, though I'll say I'm not really feeling the focus on their romantic endeavors. Jane not having the guts to tell Jake how she feels is frustrating, and not even getting to Dirk's confession after the build up is equally frustrating. It's worse knowing the romance will probably get drawn out with how long Act 6 seems to be. I kind of just wish Hussie had shoved Jake with one of the other new kids as soon as it was brought up. I like the concept of Roxy managing to use the 4th wall monitors to travel around, that could lead to some interesting developments. And I like some of the small details that got changed in the new universe, like the Tinkerbulls and dragons being a normal thing on Earth now. It's a cute way to indicate the dead trolls effect on everything despite their deaths. The intermissions for this Act are a lot more interesting to me, though that's because they're following established characters... mostly. I've been dogging the new kids but the new trolls are interesting. Especially Aranea, but maybe that's bias since I like Vriska. I think it's fun that her desire to be more adventurous may have affected the original universe and partially caused Vriska to be how she was. Can't say much on Meenah, but I think it's interesting that she's already dead. The meta bits with Hussie are fun. Dude needs to back off, though, Vriska is my wife. I won't say much about the big bad because we've been shown jack and shit about him other than him being an ugly fuck and sending Hussie to the shadow realm. All in all, I'm enjoying myself so far despite that minor complaint earlier. Also, I've been spoilering things as best as I can remember to just in case anyone else is reading for the first time, but I'd like to know if I'm overdoing it. If most of the thread is oldstucks, I can just leave it unspoiled if that would be easier to read.

>>56336 >Vriska is my Wife Based. Everybody loves Vriska.

>>56336 can someone explain the "grab2 diick2" meme I see around?

>>56366 I think it's just a joke using Sollux's typing quirk to say something stupid. Unless there's something more to it that I'm not getting.

Ok, so I'm at the end of Part 3 or Act 6. I think the new kids are growing on me a little more now that the plot is starting to progress. They're nowhere near my top favorites but they're not bad. Favorite of the new ones is probably Jake, but that shouldn't be surprising with what I like about the original kids. The reveal of who, or I suppose, what Calliope and her brother are did catch me off guard. I feel like every time I expect a certain thing, I get surprised by something completely different. She might be one of my favorites already, mostly because I like that archetype of the naive, cute, good-natured girl who only wants to see more of the world. I assume they're some kind of proto version of the big bad, probably caused by the kids somehow? I was going to ask if he actually killed off the other characters, but my assumption at this point is yes, but most of them will get better. Jade has to be alive in some capacity to get a dog dick in the post-canon stuff, right? Kill me. I'm most curious to see how this new session of Sburb will work out now that Caliborn is in the mix and whether the two Jacks will make things worse or better. Sorry for a final spoiler, but I couldn't figure out where to put this but I kinda don't want any more Vriska cameos. I like her quite a bit but I liked the idea of her finally learning her lesson now that she's dead and can have time to reflect in an environment where she's not in any danger. I liked the interaction with her and Tavros, I shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't even have the balls or the heart? Whichever, to be mad at Vriska for killing him. Good stuff. Hope everyone else that's been reading along is enjoying themselves.

>>56442 >I kinda don't want any more Vriska cameos Trust me, you really don't.

>>56012 I can't remember if I'm the guy who made that comment about fans raping the corpse of Homestuck or not. Might have been me. All I remember from that thread is that it was started by that one hypno-fetish fag who wanted to wear Hussie's skin like a suit.

>>56336 Did you know Hussie married a tumblrite Vriska cosplayer? Shit was hilarious, and I'm pretty sure that she was partially involved in the destruction of the webcomic. It's fun in a melancholic way to read your thoughts on Homestuck as you read it. It reminds me of when I read it myself for the first time, and the feeling of watching something I loved it sink further into a pit of mud from which it never emerged. I started reading Homestuck again myself recently, but I stopped around Act 3 because I knew I was soon going to reach the peak. I think I'll try and pick up where I left off, so that you aren't alone in this experience.

>>56471 You don't want anymore appearances of any characters, believe me.