More like homeSUCK.

>>53591 More like HomeSWEET! Also that didn't take long to get deleted. Fuck me. >You are temporarily blocked from posting for violating /co/ 1 - Off-Topic, Comics/Cartoons Only If it's not a comic or cartoon what is it then? Fucking mods and jannies are such fags. Did Hussie sleep with their mum or something?

>>53588 Stop trying to make Homestuck a thing again! It's not gonna happen.

Alas, 8chan will never be a place to thrive.

I'm making another one. Gimme a bit.

>>53604 It's up and can be searched. Go hard or go home, as they say.

Thanks for taking up the slack. We'll see what happens. Also how did I never notice that on the second page the shirt winces at "Zoosmell Pooplord" as well? If I'm already noticing new things then this'll be a lot of fun.

>page 82 It's funny how mundane the title card is. With the text as well painting a lonely picture it makes me wonder what, at this point, Homestuck was to Hussie, and when it changed.

>not making bard quest instead what are you a homo

let me try reading through rose's walkthrough this time to finally understand how the fuck alchemizing codes works

the thread on half chan /co/ hit bump limit so i guess i will post here. I have got to say that the CAPTCHALOGUE system is a pretty interesting mechanic.

>>53830 What page of the webcomic are you at?

>>53833 page 30, I'm reading during short breaks

>>53833 Haven’t even started yet I’m employed.

Suppose I have nothing better to do, so I've finished Act 1. Never read any of Homestuck, but it's... interesting? Very wordy. Sburb kinda just reminds me of The Sims, but with more annoying mechanics, at least so far. Already getting to Act 2, and so far I like John's fucked up blue stand thing.

>>53890 >Sburb kinda just reminds me of The Sims, but with more annoying mechanics That's the point. Sburb is a Sims parody.

>>53830 yeah making the inventory system of games a sort of minigame itself was cool

>>53830 CAPTCHALOGUE is a cool system that I wish more was done with.

Remembering what Homestuck was and seeing what it became never fails to sadden me more each time. How do you go from the fun of Problem Sleuth to what became of this fun little start to a comic? I just don't understand.

>>54037 he let the fandom take over the story and also his dad died mid-comic or something

>>54037 Ultimately the biggest issue is that it was made complicated, not complex.

is it okay to occasionally post the panels we're talking about in our post? anyway I always thought the notes were such a nice touch. very sweet of his dad to do

>>53593 >Did Hussie sleep with their mum or something? hussie fucked us all over in some way so probably

>>54091 No problem with that! Feel free to post as many as you like.

>>54091 Being at Act 5 in my own reading, it's depressing to remember all of the little details in Act 1 that disappeared.

>>54122 awesome, I'll keep posting my thoughts as I re-read here and there then >>54130 there was so much introductions to things that just kinda get dropped. likewise, I'm surprised to notice so much setup for things I never noticed before such as jade loving furry art and then becoming a doggirl herself

>>54156 >spoiler Even if it was somewhat set up, it was such a missed opportunity. You can tell that Hussie was setting something up for players to do in relation to Jade when he introduced Equius as a closet case horsefucker and Nepeta as a cat girl. He even mentions that Nepeta has been consistently trying to talk to Jade in Alterniabound, but nothing happens. Instead, it's Karkat, Terezi, and Vriska all the time.

I'm doing this in the only way that's acceptable. (Not sure if Flash will work, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.)

>>54230 I KNEEL

>>54240 Unfortunately it doesn't seem that Flash works. I've got the player so I can just open the swf file manually which does work, but it's not the same. Oh well, I tried.

>>54243 Just use the Homestuck Collection, Bro.

>>54263 I am now (and have in the past), but that doesn't work on Windows XP. I just thought it'd be fun to use my old XP laptop.

>>53951 Yeah, in retrospect, that seems more obvious now. Started Act 2 and I think Jade's already my favorite. She's silly but in a not annoying way.

>>54230 I wish someone would stitch all of the comic pages and flash files into one big flash file.

>>54327 That'd be nice, but keep in mind the site is/was fully integrated with the comics. Sometimes stuff would happen in the site banenr or elsewhere. How would you integrate that into this theoretical flash file?

>>54339 You could replicate the webpage, and the user could have the comic fill the screen or see it within the webpage. Whenever there's a change to the webpage while the user is zoomed in, a notification sound will play.

>>54348 Now that's some forward thinking. Wish I had some technical expertise so I could help with that.

I never liked Jade.

>>54446 I don't blame you. Jade didn't have enough time as an independent character before she had to become reactive to the Trolls.

>>54448 It's not just that. What was there had no draw. With John, Rose and Dave right from the first ten pages they were in you already had a feel for them and had something to work with. She was always kind of "there" when she wasn't literally asleep and thus irrelevant.

>>54230 >chessmaster 10th edition The game looks good.

I'm about two weeks behind, but I'm going to start reading. I'll read the BETA version first, since I never read that before.

>>54869 Okay Just finished ACT 1. Must have taken me 3, maybe 4 hours to finish reading, not including diversions in-between. Longer than I remember. Its interesting seeing the BETA and early pages of homestuck after so long; there's some stuff I didn't remember or notice when i first read Act 1. I'll have to do a quick retrospective on it later. Anyone else still doing this? Have you been posting your progress on cuckchan?

I remember thinking this was the coolest shit. I never read a webcomic with motion and music before I still think it's the coolest shit

>>54893 >spoiler dumbass jannies moved the thread to /trash/ where it died last I saw

>>55350 >4chan jannies move a thread about reading a comic to trash for it to die Jesus, how embarrassing.

There's a mod to add Hussie's blogposts below the comic, if you want a more authentic experience. Imagine being so butter-soft that you make a slur-removal mod.

I'm not sure if I should stop reading. The further in I get the more I start feeling a painful form of nostalgia. It's comforting but it also really stings and now I'm looking at things both digital and material I've accumulated over the decade-plus since I first found Homestuck and wonder what it was all for. I know this sounds melodramatic but I'm just wondering how much of what I do digitally, where I go, what I saved and archived, is about trying to lock myself in that time. Now I'm looking at all this data and wondering if it's only there to keep me chained to a time that has gone, to let myself at least fake being who I was then, and certain things that I only have because they allow a sense of comfort. But the comfort is hollow and it isn't half as nourishing as the feeling I had, it would have had, at the time the media represents. Not exactly what I was expecting to get out of this...

>>55430 I think you just need to, as the kinder say, touch grass. Ironic to say on an imageboard of all places I know, and I’m not even sure how much time you spend in doors anyway, but I feel like it would do you some good to find a nice walking track to go through. Hopefully you don’t live in Detroit.

>>55430 You know, I stumbled on this image the other day. Surprisingly appropriate.

>>55437 Sorry if that all sounded a lot more depressing than I perhaps meant it to. I guess what I'm trying to get at is more about whether I like, for example, a song or do I like having that song? Do I enjoy the way that song makes me feel now or do I enjoy (though it's not really enjoyment at all) thinking of the way that song made me feel then? Is it a memory of an enjoyment, you know? >>55451 Very fitting, yeah. Really sweet picture as well.

So, first time reader anon back- finally got to the beginning of Act 5. So far, Jade is my favorite character. Her cryptic bullshit and bubbly personality hits me in a way the other characters don't. Second would be Rose, mostly because I like her design. Wizards are cool. The storytelling of this thing is very convoluted. So they destroyed the Earth but then also John did some mumbo jumbo to create their baby versions and sent them back to when Earth wasn't destroyed? And Jade's taxidermy grandpa is alive for some reason now even though he was dead before? And that's not even getting to whatever the fuck is going on with Jack Noir and all that. Despite the confusion, though, I'm enjoying myself. I have heard after this point, it starts to decline in quality. Is this true?

>>55776 >spoiler Time Travel. Simple as that. >I have heard after this point, it starts to decline in quality. Is this true? The comic begins to decline sharply in quality from Act 6 onwards. The second half of Act 5, on the other hand, is the apex and the best part of the entire comic. Don't listen to the people who say the comic falls apart when the Trolls are fully introduced. They're just people memeing because they hate the Tumblri fans who attracted the comic and influenced the trajectory of it, who were largely attracted by the Trolls. However, none of that has anything to do with the quality of Act 5 itself.

Meant to get this done sooner, but I have a job. Using the Unoffical Homestuck collection for this RIP. I’ve added two mods : >Social Links (Adds Hussie’s blog posts) >Homestuck Commentary (Adds Hussie’s commentary from the books) I decided to read it on my tv screen this time around. The images were slightly off, but it was mostly fine. I may need to switch back to old-fashioned approach for future acts. >Homestuck BETA It’s striking how almost every page is either a flash, animated gif, or otherwise interactive, accompanied with sound. Nothing special compared with later stuff, but it does stand out when compared with the first few pages of Act 1 in Homestuck proper, even if shoddy. I also like the blue outline around the textboxes. You can tell he was experimenting with making the story more interactive. For example, one command has you click and drag a cake off the textboxes. I like the animations and sound here, but overall, the clickable pages are awkward, and it wasn’t a good idea to have them on each page. The Beta only lasted for 3 days and was 8 pages long, reaching up to John retrieving his fake arms. It’s clear to see why Hussie decided this wasn’t feasible and stopped using flash outside relatively rarer animations & games. He only posted 2 pages per day after all. Overall, this appeared to be a constructive learning experience for Hussie, as his later approaches to interactive elements worked a lot better. For instance, it was during this ‘Beta’ that he decided to add sound controls/replay buttons to the flash sections. Its also funny how the introductory text is missing “only” from “it is today he will be given a name!”. >Commentary The only commentary for this was “Yes!!!”. Not sure if this was from the actual book. >Blog posts >7 April 2009 The news section shows the past blogposts that had been made at the time the viewed page was posted, which in the case of this one includes a post made while Hussie was finishing up the Problem Sleuth Epilogue. Remember when epilogues didn’t involve dog genitals? Ah, those were the days. This may also be the first time Hussie ever mentions Homestuck, albeit discretely. He states how he plans to incorporate Flash and sound into his next project and made the ‘title screen’ for Problem Sleuth as a learning exercise. He seems pretty enthusiastic about it. The music in this flash was made by Mark Hadley, who apparently also directed one of those slenderman games, and may be the same guy as pic 5. Later in the same day, Hussie announced the conclusion of Problem Sleuth. >8 April 2009 Hussie mentions “Lecravian”, whose been making Problem Sleuth ‘tribute’ videos. It’s interesting to see one of Hussie’s earlier, pre-Homestuck fan content. Lecravian would later make videos for Homestuck up till act 3. >9 April 2009 Hussie thanks readers for “he great response to that request!”. I didn’t see any requests prior to this, but I can gather it’s a request for help on Homestuck. >10 April 2009 Hussie introduces Homestuck BETA as just “Homestuck”. >11 April 2009 Hussie adds small sound control and replay icons to the flashes. These “chores” likely contributed to his decision to change approaches, but Hussie was optimistic at the time the pace would speed up. >12 April 2009 Hussie gets around to posting Problem Sleuth related art for a donation he forgot to get around to. I guess >we should have seen his handling of Hiveswap coming. Speaking of unfeasible, it took me a lot longer than it should have to write/revise all this for 8 pages. I mean, viviziepop of all people announced a cartoon before I got this out.I’ll have to be terser in future and probably not analysis every single blog post. >>55776 >Act 5 Well, I'm definitely way behind schedule. >I have heard after this point, it starts to decline in quality. Is this true? I believe the overall consensus is it starts to decline around Act 6, but people who hate trolls would probably say it dips in quality during the first half of Act 5 and gets better again in the second half.

>>55777 >>55791 Ok, good to know on the decline thing. I've actually been liking what little we've seen of the trolls so far, though the human kids are more fun. I'm gonna have to wrap my head around the time travel shit as it goes, I guess.

>>55795 Act 5 is genuinely very good. Again, the people who are throwing shit at it is more out of hatred for the fans and how they've changed comic and its fandom culture. All those "fans" came from Tumblr and the comic drew their interest only due the Trolls and everything associated with their Alien culture. Things like how it gave them a canvas to do stuff as "fan characters" like "Trollsonas", a common phrase among this group of fans was "Skip to Act 5" "Skip to the Trolls" which became a meme phrase in the fandom, because in general this group of annoying people genuinely only cared about the Trolls and even suggested that the first 4 Acts were filler just as a way to excuse their behavior of not reading them. The "true fans" hated this new group with all their soul, to this day they are still salty about it for understandable reasons. Since it was this group that made the Webcomic explode in popularity, Hussie decided that he had to focus on pander to them and their culture specifically. "These fans ruined the comic!" And you can imagine the whole discourse. Keep in mind that before Act 5, the webcomic was basically a niche thing that only a specific group of people, who followed Hussie's other works, knew about. And suddenly, in the middle of Act 5, the fandom exploded and became the second-largest fandom on the entire internet, only behind My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, back in the day in mid 2010 Internet Culture, in those days when being a Brony was still some relevant shit that everyone was talking about. However, none of that phenomenon affected Act 5 much. Because to begin with, Hussie already had most of the story of Act 5 planned and at least written an outlet for it, while all this was happening. Now Act 6 isn't a total shitshow or anything like that, to tell you something my two favorite characters from the entire webcomic are both introduced in Act 6 and they are fun as hell. Act 6 is worth to read, but hard to finish if you ask me. The main problem is that Act 6 is when the story loses focus and becomes a collection of never-ending side stories, with the promise that it will all eventually lead to some big conclusion. By the time that conclusion arrives, it feels like most of the plots introduced so long ago don't even matter anymore because Act 6 literally lasts half of the entire comic. And it also doesn't help that this is where Hussie starts doing all sorts of things for commenting on his fans and their culture. Act 6 spends time doing things like "trolling fans and making fun of them!!" and all those parts for someone who wasn't there back in the day, is a huge "?????????" because you don't even understand what Hussie is supposed to be referencing to, since whatever he's referencing isn't even still around. Like a bunch of unnecessary inside-jokes lost to time, and these tend to be the parts that fans who were there from the beginning of Act 1 tend to hate the most about Act 6, because they feel like Hussie is spending all his time talking to "fans" who actually skipped the first 4 Acts instead of talking to the people who were always there from the start for him. But again, saying that Trolls are a problem is just blame shifting to me. Hope this gives you all the context you need.

>>55796 That's very helpful, thanks. I remember before any of the exoduses, way back in the day, always seeing the errant post from the Homestuck General on the front page of /co/ and getting glimpses of this stuff, though it never stuck around in my mind because I was focused on other things, like reading threads complaining about shipping. It seems like a monkey's paw situation, where you get more people who like the thing you like, but they like it for worse reasons. Unfortunately that's the standard these days. And from what I've been reading about the fandom as of late, it doesn't sound like things are much better. I hope the meta fanbase commentary is at least easy to brush past.

>>55796 Act 6 had some alright ideas, but overall it was a shitshow.

>>55776 how is your reading, going?

>>55958 Still not too far into Act 5 for real life reasons. I'll see how far I get tonight, hopefully I can make some headway. So far, I don't dislike the trolls, but I'm not real fond of any of them yet. I guess Sollux is alright.

Ok, Part 1 of Act 5 is done. Figure I should give my thoughts on the trolls so far. Anyone else actually reading through? I feel somewhat bad being the most active poster in the thread. >Karkat Idiot. Tryhard. Fun character. Probably my favorite even though I feel like despite being billed as a hero, he doesn't really seem to do that much yet. >Sollux He reads like the kind of guy who posts on /v/. Probably near the top of the list. >Feferi She seems like diet Jade right now- quirky but without the future sight powers. She's okay. The shipping stuff is weird, but it could be worse, probably. >Eridan I like him as a character because he's interesting in how stupid he is while also being self-aware about his stupidity, but I think I would beat him with a rock if he was a real person. >Aradia I don't know if I like her or not. Her personality is Jade's future sight but without any of the fun bits. She's not really bad, just kind of there. >Vriska This bitch is just Azula, but if she was convinced she should try to help Zuko find the Avatar rather than impeding him and fucking him over at every turn. Except she's still fucking him over anyway. >Kanaya This is Rose but if she was a troll and possibly gay. I like her anyway. >Tavros I just know this guy is gonna die horribly. He's nice and I like how he bounces off the other characters, but I can see the flags from a mile away. >Gamzee I like him for no good reason other than he's chill. >The fish girl one whose name I forgot She's done basically nothing outside of friendzone Eridan so I have no real opinion on her. >Terezi I'm wondering if her blindness will actually be a detriment at any point, since it seems like she's been able to make up for it pretty easily. Other than that, she's okay, I guess. >Equius He's entertaining but I would beat him with rocks as well. His taste in porn and fetishes is shit. Besides all that, I'm simultaneously engaged while being a little annoyed. While I didn't expect them to go over each of the trolls' journeys through Sgrub in their entirety, I would've liked a bit more detail for their game in a similar vein to what we got for the kids. But thinking about it, that would rehash a lot of the same stuff the kids went through, so maybe not. I'm still confused on some of the background stuff, though I can push it aside for the moment. Now to Act 2 to see how that goes.

>>55975 >Anyone else actually reading through? I feel somewhat bad being the most active poster in the thread I'm sorry to say that's because there was never much sincerity in the "Homestuck Read-Along" /co/ threads which got you here, to begin with. The OPs just wanted an excuse to have Homestuck Threads on /co/ and not have them deleted, a mere smokescreen. Ironically, that alone reinforces the (mostly not-so-accurate) stereotype of why /co/ Jannies were so insistent on deleting Homestuck Threads due the simple fact that these always devolved into a general not so on-topic. The thing could have been an actually genuine and good activity if the OPs had put effort on their part, putting in their comments and small reviews of what they were reading about the comic and encouraging others to read with this, but they were a bunch of lazy pussies who didn't do it. The one who made this particular thread where we are talking, Verb, actually got called out by an anon here because the idiot was pretending he totally knew some shit, saying something like "PlS BiTcH I'Ve kNoWn 8ChOn sIncE fOrEvEr aNd i tOtAlLy uNdErStOoD WhAt yOu'rE ReFeReNcInG AnD I Am sO CoOl tHaT I DoN'T PlAn tO UsE 8cHoM NoW ThAt iT'S A HoNeYpOt lIkE 4cHaN, hOpEfUlLy aNoNs eVeNtUaLlY JuSt mIgRaTe tO ZzZ SiNcE I'M An iMpOrTaNt bEiNg wHo pRoTeCtS HiS IdEnTiTy aNd tHaT'S WhY I DoN'T UsE ThEsE ThInGs" and then the anon called out how little sense he was making, because it was obvious that the only reason his /co/ Halfchan thread wasn't deleted was because he bought a premium 4chan account. After being easily exposed as someone who gave his money to 4chan, the guy never used his nickname again. Now, with the recent announcement of a Homestuck Animated Pilot that might lead to a Web Cartoon, it seems that Homestuck is no longer "secretly banned" on /co/, so no one needs the Read-Along to make Threads on 4chan's /co/ anymore. At least for now (only time will tell how long it will last). Regardless of the not-very-sincere circumstances (which again, was more the fault of the OPs who expected the other anons to do all the work while they didn’t, more than anything else), I'm grateful that Verb made this thread here on 8chan even though the dude was pretending to be the "I am too cool for school" guy. Thanks to his actions, he got you and a couple of other anons to actually read the comic and you come leave your comments here. Maybe it's like four people total who ended up reading the comic through all this, but hey, that's something. So, let me know what your personal thoughts on the comic are and the fact that you leave them here. It's something of very worth that I enjoy reading. So again, thank you very much for your genuine interest, I appreciate it. The irony is that I think the original threads would have been more sincere and had much more of an on-topic activity if the "secret ban" of Homestuck had never been a thing on /co/ in the first place, because again, it never made much sense. Even the most spammy threads before being deleted had more /co/ than any Death Battle Thread. Now some comments about your post: 1) You got Feferi and Nepeta mixed up. You still don't know this yes because spoiler, but the fact that this happened to you now will be pretty funny considering something that happens very later in the story. Nepeta is the name of the shipping-obsessed catgirl. Feferi is the Fishgirl whom friendzoned Eridan. I don't blame you, though, given how incredibly irrelevant Feferi is. 2) I find the comparison between Vriska and Azula very funny. It shows that you are a native /co/ resident. Anyway, keep going, I'll always give you some feedback in general, even if I don't have much to say back. Just watching your opinion of the comic evolve is enough of a interesting thing to me.

>>55975 I think Azula’s VA made a Vriska vocaroo once. >>55983 I’m still reading it. Just need time.

>>55983 Oh, you're welcome, I guess. And thanks for the well-wishes. I was considering quitting the read along because of real life things but the curiosity of wondering what the deal with Homestuck was won out. And I wanted to give it a fair shake because those old threads on half/co/ didn't come from nowhere- there had to be something of merit at some point for people to be willing to post so much and so frequently about it, even if it was just 'I want to fuck [insert kid/troll/sprite here]'. I didn't know about all that context of the Read-Along threads. If it's not obvious, I haven't been back to the old /co/ in years. Left with the anons in the GG exodus and never really looked back, but I was always hoping some people would find there way here to post, even if they'd go back. It's been nice to discuss this weird webcomic with you guys, especially to see how your perspectives differ as existing fans. >You got Feferi and Nepeta mixed up. Shit. It's been a little hard to keep track of names for me. I'll say that I like Feferi's design quite a bit, it's just a shame she doesn't really seem to have any relevance other than to help fill out the zodiac signs. I got to the bit where you can play the little game controlling Karkat and some of the other trolls. I think I explored as much as was available, but just to be sure, you can only really control Karkat, Vriska, and Terezi (besides the few that you can control for a single conversation of dialogue or for imminent spoilers), right? >>56001 Post what you think of it so far when you get the chance, I want to know your thoughts.

>>56008 The history of 4chan's /co/ and Homestuck is long and complicated. But just to summarize recent events; For the past eight years (since some time after the original webcomic officially ended and reached its conclusion), if you made any Homestuck threads on 4chan, they would be immediately deleted and exterminated as soon as a Mod noticed them. The only exceptions were when we were allowed to have ONE thread in /co/, and that was when there were "updates" to any material from what we can call the "Homestuck Expanded Universe" which is universally hated by almost everybody and mostly considered just literal trash (because it is). First there were the Homestuck Epilogues in 2019, a horrible sequel that ruined the story and the characters. We had a thread with the announcement, another two with its updates, and then one when the whole thing was posted. Later in 2019, Homestuck^2 was announced and began publishing, a Homestuck sequel webcomic that continued the Epilogues’ story, which has been incredibly boring, tedious, and slow as fuck. The Mods only let us have ONE Homestuck Thread every time HS^2 had an update, basically a thread a month if we were lucky. In addition to this, we were allowed to have a thread every time Pesterquest had an update, a Homestuck visual novel game that published all its chapters from September 4, 2019, to April 1 2020. Then, at the end of 2020, Homestuck^2 entered an INDEFINITE HIATUS because the entire team working on the project abandoned it. They couldn’t stand the constant criticism and harassment they received because basically everyone hated this sequel (because again, it was incredibly bad) and everybody just wanted it to die and be deleted, blaming them for the horrible story and writing. It turns out that Hussie ceasing to be involved with Homestuck and passing on his story to a bunch of Tumblr fans was a horrible idea — who would have thought. This sequel webcomic that everyone hated went on hiatus for 3 FULL YEARS and finally came back, rebranding as Homestuck: Beyond Canon, as a form of damage control to pretend this was never sold as "Homestuck 2." And we went back to the structure of only being allowed to have ONE thread each time HS:BC had an update. Ignoring those instances, during those 8 years, from time to time, especially starting in 2021, the Mods were sort of "compassionate" and let us have a Homestuck Thread once every two months or something like that, even though there was no new content — like throwing a bone to calm us down (and the desperation to have threads increased during the 3year limbo, as you might imagine). Some anon would try to make another thread, and it would get deleted. And that’s what it’s been like these past 8 years of trying to be a Homestuck fan on 4chan’s /co/ while watching the franchise we loved get butchered in front of us until it became something every single type of fan just hated. Now, with the announcement of a Homestuck Animated Pilot, the purge has calmed down... for now... >I got to the bit where you can play the little game controlling Karkat and some of the other trolls. I think I explored as much as was available, but just to be sure, you can only really control Karkat, Vriska, and Terezi (besides the few that you can control for a single conversation of dialogue or for imminent spoilers), right? Yeah. If you search online, there are plenty of guides/videos for the minigames to make sure you've seen all the dialogue before moving on to the next page.

she makes him smile

>>56012 That sounds really complex and silly. Are the half/co/ mods just that stupidly retarded about Homestuck that they have to be biased? I'd say they should've just let there be a constant general thread like there was when the comic was still going, at least then they wouldn't seem so overtly biased. Good to know about the little games. I should've known there would be guides with how old this thing is now. Speaking of which, I haven't gotten that far since yesterday, just to the bit where Jade fights her first enemy and even though Karkat explained how Bec got kinda sorta merged with Jack, I don't quite follow it other than Bec is real OP and somehow that leaked into Jack or something. I may need to take more time with each page to make sure I'm not reading so fast that I'm missing details. Also man, Vriska is a cunt but I kind of like her dynamic with John. I think I'm starting to get why people have been so ship-crazy with the characters. >>56019 Their dynamic is really fun too. Gives me brother and sister vibes.

>>55975 >at act 5 already Fuck

John is said to be fascinated by impending apocalypse films. Does this ever get expanded upon? Despite ostensibly causing an apocalypse, I don't recall ever dwelling on apocalypses or films about them much.

>>56044 It's not a race, go at whatever pace you like. The only thing that matters is posting what thoughts you have on whatever part you're at.

>>56044 hahahajhahahahhahhaha

>>53596 >Stop trying to make Homestuck a thing again! It's not gonna happen. >the Homestuck Pilot animation by Vivziepop in question

>>56070 That post was made quite a while ago, before that announcement. Even so, those kinds of comments never served any purpose. >>56040 >Are the half/co/ mods just that stupidly retarded about Homestuck that they have to be biased? It was always very unnecessary. There’s some background history and context to why things were like that, but having this treatment continue for more than a decade is simply too excessive. By the way, if it hasn’t been abundantly clear already from everything I’ve said, and from all the context you’ve seen about the fandom: if you eventually manage to finish the webcomic and reach its original ending, after that, stay as far away from the "Expanded Universe" as you can, lol. The less you read or check of the Epilogues and everything related, the better. None of it is worth shit, and most of it wasn’t even written by Hussie. But well, that’s already getting ahead of you. I mean, you’re not even that close to starting Act 6, and like I said, that part makes up half of the entire webcomic, lmao.

>>56070 it's a famous movie quote reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pubd-spHN-0

>>56040 >Vriska is a cunt but I kind of like her dynamic with John. I think I'm starting to get why people have been so ship-crazy with the characters. Imagine Vriska with an Australian accent. I was going to wait until I reached Act 5 myself to bring this up, but apparently this was “divisive” among the “fans” read: tumblr land whales. I could sort of get not liking it because Vriska is a huge bitch, but by the same token, these people should have made a stink over a whole host of other ships which they did not. Most egregiously being with Tavros, as this is substantially worse considering Vriska actively enjoys abusing the guy. I get the feeling they just wanted John in a yaoi ship. It feels hypocritical to talk about shipping so much, considering I hate what tumblr shippers did to the comic, but I do think some relationships in stories are better than others. Typically these happen to be ones which fat terminally online liberal women had no part in whatsoever. I get the impression John + Vriska flirting was Hussie’s own idea, which is probably why they have better chemistry than the “fanservice” read: forced crackships that would come later. Hussie himself of course would later gain the inclinations of those fat tumblr women… That’s the irony of it. Most of the ships these ship-crazy people actually liked were trash, and the ones that actually had good chemistry were divisive for no other reason than they conflicted with said garbage

>>56072 I've heard bits and pieces here and there about Homestuck 2 or Beyond Canon or whatever the hell that's called and even before I decided to read Homestuck, I was disgusted at it for what I've heard about Jade and her weird ass 'daughter'. Every thing I've read about Hussie post-Homestuck makes me think he's got some hateboner for his own work and feels like he has to tarnish it as much as possible. The only things I'm curious about are the games like Pesterquest or Hiveswap or whatever. Are they bad, too? >>56074 That's surprising to me. You'd think tumblr girls would be all into Vriska/John, but maybe it was the lack of gay throwing them into a fury. I can tell for a fact if Vriska was a guy, they'd be slobbering over him. I think, on the subject of shipping, only the ones that have good interactions and chemistry are the ones I enjoy. Vriska/John, Dave/Nepeta (or whichever one he keeps exchanging art with, I keep getting these bitches confused with each other), and I could see Jade/Karkat if he got his head out of his ass and she calmed down enough to be willing to listen to him.

>>56075 >Are they bad, too? Yes. Don't bother, just pretend they don't exist too.

>>54230 >>54243 >>54265 You could use a fan mirror of Homestuck (homestuck.kici.moe) which actively uses Ruffle to run all of the Flash programmed sections. Even then, that site still goes down from time to time.

>>56008 >I want to know your thoughts. You asked anon... >>55791 After another delay, my Act 1 thoughts: >ACT 1 It sets up a good premise and ends on an engaging cliff-hanger. It’s interesting to see various HS concepts in their infancy here, what was planned, what was written as Hussie went along, and what got forgotten. Hussie’s narration and humor is appealing, the sylladex is an interesting mechanic, and the shenanigans are fun. I understand some being bored if they don’t like “quests” threads. I suppose one downside of reader input is many pages are spent on messing around that could be spend on character development. For instance, we’ve yet to see John’s stated paranormal lore fondness. Still, I think part of the experience is seeing HS find its legs. I didn’t need to read a quest to enjoy it the first time. Interestingly, the WRITING somewhat resembles a SCREENPLAY script. I imagine old-school adventure games narration copied screenplays. Characters are introduced well, especially given reader commands were still being taken at the time, and the designs are simple while distinct. Environment design is good too, if shoddy. Chatlogs are a good way of keeping characters a mystery and facilitating dialog. Flashes, while sparser than in the Beta, are used to great effect. Although there’s only a few music tracks here, they deserve special attention. Most iconic is of course Sburban jungle, but they’re all good and set the atmosphere nicely for each flash. If I had to pick a “worst”, it would be Rose’s violin but only because I didn’t remember it. For all his faults, Hussie makes a mean loading screen. The early pages all play up the “game medium” aspect especially, and there’s a bit deciding on how abstract the inventory system is for instance. John at first doesn’t know what captchalogging is but later talks with Dave about messing around with his Sylladex, and later still finds packaged expansion cards, suggesting they’re tangible products According to the commentary, he’s as new to the mechanics as the readers are, referencing the gameplay/story integration employed by videogame tutorials. Readers also influenced character personalities a little; for example, John wearing a silly disguise prompts Rose to comment he’s done so before. Thankfully they weren’t completely nuts at the time. I relate to John’s struggles with programming; except I find it immensely irritating One difficulty in re-reading HS is you take various things for granted. For instance, I’m not weird out that Dad is faceless and saying nothing, and I can’t recall if I was when first-reading. It’s not much different from the parents in Charlie Brown though. The only 2009 culture that stands out to me is The Dark Knight sculptures, for those unaware, this is a prequel to Bravo Nolan’s Magnum Opus: The Dark Knight Rises, and Obama. I associate John’s films more with HS than with 2009, as I’d only heard of Deep Impact of prior to reading. If only folks foresaw the consequences of Obama’s actions back then, petrol would be the least of their worries. Given how instrumental Obama was in the rise of globohomo faggotry that tumblr was perfused with, his mention here is almost like a harbinger of doom to come... There are also seedlings of more grandiose ideas Hussie was planning, so it seems he was always intending for some epic stuff to come later. The commentary suggests he was at least aware of Skaia, Derse/Prospit, player planets, etc, and he touched on some lofty ideas in Problem Sleuth after all. I do wonder though whether the melancholic feel of Windchime Foley ended up being an appropriate introduction given the next few acts.

>>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.

>ACT 2 – RAISE OF THE CONDUCTOR’S BATON With how suddenly the plot has escalated in Act 2, and how much stuff goes on in it, Act 1 being the “prologue” makes sense. Every aspect of HS is elevated in this Act: length, artwork, music, concepts, stakes, narrative, characters, animated gifs, flash animations & interactive flashes, and the complexity & content in said flashes. Everything’s raised to a higher level, like John’s house except that was only slightly raised. Regarding page count: >Act 1: 247 pages >Act 2: 511 pages The GameFAQs deserve more credit than they are given, I think. They’re a neat bit of ‘framing narrative’ to explain Sburb. I suppose the pesterlogs are a framing narrative element as well, and to an extent the whole comic as an “videogame”. They also show us more of Rose’s character and approach to learning Sburb. Half of the “dated” humor in this act can be found in Rose ‘s dialog, funnily enough. Teenage girls were, and some still are, snarky in ways deemed problematic by other teenage girls or 40-year-old women with the mental acumen of one. Rose’s dynamic with her guardian mirror’s that of John’s, but the specifics are different enough that it doesn’t feel like a retread of it. She also mirror’s Dave a bit with all the one-upmanship, or I suppose Dave mirrors her. I wonder if this influenced Hussie’s decision to make them siblings. John gets a bit of development here as well, with references to his Dad’s secret room, and meteors being involved in his past. Most importantly, he gets to reference Con Air. Dave sorta inverts a few established “tropes”. His introductory page is written very differently, and he’s not initially bothered by his bro’s weird puppet obsession. There’s also him slicing the invalid name in half, of course. His limp bizkit talk is dorky, but I suppose that’s the joke. Sweet Bro & Hela Jeff is introduced, but I’ll discuss that more in the commentary section. Its hard to talk about Jade in this Act since she’s supposed to be mysterious at this stage, but I already know what her deal is having read the comic before. She has good chemistry with the other characters, and her influencing Rose to play Sburb by hinting it could revive Jasper’s is interesting. When I first read HS I thought WV’s introduction revealed that he was behind all the user commands. This was quickly revealed to not be the case. I mentioned before >>56239 how the exiles elevated the story **. In addition to the narrative, the panel composition improves significantly with WV’s panels. As a side note, I feel Nannasprite also deserves appreciation as our introduction to the more grandiose side of HS. Most “commands” in this whole act were made by Hussie through either WV or the forward arrows, making him very useful narratively but also a prelude to the eventual discarding of user suggestions entirely. WV’s influence is dispersed throughout the act, culminating in his segment at the end, in which Hussie ironically gives back full control to the readers again. Despite this, there’s still a fair bit of Foreshadowing. Again, it’s worth noting how much of cool stuff has some narrative ties to exiles. A pertinent example being temporal shenanigans. Nonlinear storytelling, either via in-universe time-travel or just the narrative itself, lend quite well to “reveals”, which HS makes such liberal use of it could be identified as a core HS trait. Music is good as usual. They get a lot of millage remixing Harlequin. Another iconic song is “Upward Movement.” These two are the most memorable songs of HS for me probably from frequent reuse, but Skaia’s theme is also notable, as is the theme of the final flash. For a long while, there wasn’t much of Hussie’s autistic game mechanics, but in the later half this gets explored again, mostly with the punch card system and the Strife Specibus. The code appearing on the card’s back being something the cards always had suggests they are directly tied to Sburb. I think it is implied later that Sylladexes are produced by Skaianet, but that may just be a fan theory. We also see the Strife Portfolio can store more than one Specibus. Imps apparently also have Strife cards which they drop upon defeat. John has substantially less screw-ups with his sylladex, and it was especially satisfying to see John discover a means of mass-creating cards made after they were an issue for so long, almost as though it were my own inventory that got expanded. This sense of progression is one of the things that make you feel like you’re playing vidya. Another similarly to vidya is how the ogre is built up to as a pretty big guy for you deal only to become fodder later in the story. I mentioned elevation and escalation earlier, and with that in mind, I think this commentary snippet summarises it nicely: >This Flash is often cited as a critical point of demarcation, which upon crossing, Homestuck ceases being merely an odd little story, and starts being a thing that ruins your life and that of everyone you ever meet. >TRIVA In the walkaround flash, you can disrupt John’s walking animation while moving around if you click somewhere and press the arrow key to that same direction, making it look like he’s sliding. Dave’s Phat Beat Machine had several easter egg tracks that were removed from the website but re-added in the UHC. Hussie planned the kids to be in a sort of virtual band, a la The Gorillaz. This didn’t quite pan out. One musician, Bill Bolin, would leave the project over unprofessionalism on Hussie’s part, and his music was removed from it. “Skaia Dreams remix” is one of his tracks. In the imp strife flash, while the controls only mention WASD for movement, you can also use the mouse. The GPS coords to Jade’s Island is based on a specific place found in google maps where there is a small mysterious geometric shape in the ocean. The items WV’s floor, oil, chalk, amber, & uranium, each represents the first four known types of grist (where oil = shale). They similarly represent the kids' four planets. Hussie also planned that these four substances would serve as various contaminants on the kid’s planets, but this never quite came to fruition beyond John's planet.

>COMMENTARY >Prototyping has some basis in Platonic philosophy. Kernels contain the symbolic, essential essence of what they’ve been prototyped with People say Homestuck has gnostic themes, but I wonder if its more just general Platonic themes. While there are several uses of terms and names from it, these seem to be just surface level. > Dave never really exercises his habit of raving about obscure bands, and his interest in photography and dead things fell by the wayside. Various kid interests are forgotten. I suppose their hobbies serve as optional narrative influences rather than traits that must all be explored, except for Rose’s which all are. >Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff began as mockery of someone else’s comic and was put in HS to be an in-universe meme the kids could reference. Hussie also identifies Dave as self-insert, albeit only in his humor. Dirk is apparently an even more of one. Making OptimisticDuelist’s weird obsession with him creepier. >Hussie nearly did a Midnight Crew adventure instead but later had the idea to do a more casual, sporadically updated adventure in parallel with HS. Ultimately it didn’t occur. But the midnight crew intermissions to come are sort of like this. >Dave's one-pixel-smile there means that there are literally more than ten thousand drawings on the internet of Dave and Jade kissing. There is some “ship-teasing” between the two later. I wonder if that was Hussie’s idea, or just “fanservice”. In theory, canonization of ships doesn’t have to suck, and rarely a tumblrina’s bpd-addled brain will stumble upon a ship that constitutes decent writing, but in practice most are bad. Particularly those from tumblr, and exponentially so when canonised as “fanservice”. I think, to some degree, a ‘ship’ must be the author’s intent to be a good. At least there must have already been some canonical attraction between characters. >The "health vial" gauge is an inversion of game convention in that, with each hit, the entire gauge itself would move, withdrawing from the stationary gel blob signifying player vitality. Hence "gel viscosity" was a health upgrade. Do health upgrades provide superhuman durability? I always found it lame how god-tiers seemed to be glass cannons. Also, Man Grit gets increased upon level ups, and considering John’s Dad can lift a safe, maybe developing superhuman is possible? >The "Medium" has mystical properties for sustaining player life. It is not quite a vacuum, but not necessarily a field of breathable atmosphere. In the same sense, it magically powers houses severed from the electrical grid. I always wondered about this. >"COMPLETE BULLSHIT" is Hussie’s take on anything that aggregates content competing for your attention. Like Facebook, reddit, twitter, 4chan, tumblr. Sadly, in the competition for Andrew’s attention, tumblr won. >Hussie made some shitty Saw/Muppet Babies comics years back in a forum game "dueling" another artist who was larping as Jigsaw on a quest for Muppet Babies porn. He adapted this comic to function as another one of bro's strange, unsettling hobbies. And that’s where “smuppets” come from! >The design of each exile’s station is always related to the player's entry object. The station's terminal is meant to "control" the client player of the kid whose house once existed where that station is. So WV's station, which was in Rose's location, gives commands to John, because John is Rose's client player >NEWS >28 July 2009 Hussie, being the ethnic jew that he is, mentions he is working on Homesuck merch for sale. >10 August 2009 Hussie announces Homestuck songs are available to purchase on Bandcamp. Being the ethnic jew that he is, Hussie ultimately decided selling them was the best way to go. Supposedly this was to support the artists, but from what I’ve heard Hussie underpaid them all. Maybe he only did so later? Hussie also mentions a wider “MSPA music project” Being in the future, we know this refers to the albums having a wider range of songs not used in the comic, most of which I have yet to listen to. Also likely referring to the “virtual bands” Hussie had planned. I should reiterate that the musicians do all deserve appreciation. Not to downplay the comic itself, but I think half the success of Homestuck was due to the music. >12 August 2009 In a brazen display of unbridled semitic genetics, Hussie brings his shekel-harvesting scheme to fruition, and announces a Merch Store. He does a sort of ARG thing where t-shirt orders include little prints containing some deepest lore yet to be revealed in the comic. ''That's 2 acts down. At this rate, I should catch up to you guys in about-' >Act 6 Act 3 ...A year

I haven't actually gotten that much further in the comic, though to be fair, that's partially because there were... three? Games in a row that I was going through thoroughly to exhaust the dialogue. And I've been a little lazy. Sorry about that. But now that all the Beforus trolls have been introduced, I figured I'd give me thoughts on them like I did the others. Forgive me if I fuck up the names again, it's a lot of names to remember. I've noticed that the new trolls seem to be thinly veiled commentary on certain things and while I get the intent, the new trolls aren't quite as interesting as the old ones. >Kankri A tumblrina but not a woman. Hussie writes him as sufficiently insufferable, and I think the intent is to comment on people who focus way too hard on policing how others speak and act and come off as annoying. It's funny how he is so disliked by his peers while Karkat, despite being brushed off by some of his fellow trolls, was at least liked by most of them. And I enjoy that Karkat hates listening to Kankri's bullshit. >Latula I guess she's meant to parody the stronk female characters from media of the time? Cool, laidback, very into extreeeeme hobbies. I suppose I like her well enough. >Aranea She's Vriska if Vriska wasn't crazy or raised by a fucked up lusus, so I like her. It doesn't hurt that she has a very appealing design. Her back and forth with Meenah is fun, her serious personality compliments Meenah's well. >Meenah She feels like more Vriska in spirit than Aranea. A little troublemaker who seems to take joy in poking and prodding people, though unlike Vriska (or what Vriska wanted to believe of herself), Meenah just does things for the hell of it. I do like her, though. >Mituna Pure autism. I feel bad for him, cause I don't think he's bad, but he's dogshit at talking to people. I'd be curious to know how he got with Latula. >Cronus I thought Eridan was bad enough but god damn. This guy is just a male feminist. I hate him. >Damara I need to go back with that setting on the UHC that translates her dialogue, I'm curious to know if she's as horny and rude as implied. Having her bf stolen by the resident horsefucker must've been rough. >Rufio It's funny how some of the trolls are so different from their counterparts in the OG universe and some are not. He comes across as Tavros if Tavros decided to get into cosplay. And if Vriska wasn't around to paralyze him. >Horuss Despite having just as shitty fetishes as his OG counterpart, I don't like him any less or more. The gag with his emoticons is funny. And it's a shame he's fucking himself up by going from being constantly aggressive to being constantly positive and pushing down his negative emotions. >Porrim I guess she's supposed to be the token feminist? Funny that she's also the one that sleeps around the most of the new trolls. I like her design, but I have a disdain for feminists that makes me lean towards not liking that part of her. I like her back and forth with Kankri over the sweater, though. >Kurloz Him being mute is interesting, at least when he actually is. I was hoping he'd be chill, but it seems like all the clownbloods are nuts. Guess it is how it is. >Meulin I would like her significantly more without the reaction image gimmick. Hussie really picked the absolute worst images for her to use, too. Other than that, she's cute. I liked the conversation she had with Kurloz, them sharing images to communicate. Overall, I think I'd say I like their designs but I prefer the OG trolls on the whole. On the story up to this point, I actually do like that Rose made a move on Kanaya, I like their romantic chemistry. Gamzee talking about being in a black romance with Terezi feels like it comes out of nowhere or that maybe he's misinterpreting things. Whatever the case, I do not trust his juggalo ass. John's freakout over the time it's been taking for them to move into the new universe is understandable, but something about it feels off. I wish it'd been built up more in the previous intermissions, but I do understand that the time between intermissions is quite spread out, so it's possible he's had this building up for a while. And I'm annoyed Jade and Dave don't really have much going on, but there's not really much for them to do at the moment. The Vriska/John/Tavros plot makes me very worried, although I think the rivalry of John and Tavros is funny. Vriska meddling more with our big bad is in character, but I'm getting nervous about where it'll lead. Can't say much else until I read more, but those are my thoughts right now. >>56626 Sorry to be so late, but I hope you enjoy your readthrough, even if it's a little bittersweet. I didn't know that about Hussie, but that would explain a lot. >>56645 >>56646 I really appreciate your posts. You've gone into such detail and put context to things I didn't even know there was context for. I wouldn't have known about the SBaJ stuff or why smuppets were smuppets for sure, I just assumed Hussie was parodying random stuff he probably saw on Deviantart. It feels like even outside of the more obvious story beats, there was a lot of thought put into the Acts on the whole, even if not all the details amounted to anything. Don't feel too bad about being behind, I've been going at a pretty quick pace and have less detailed posts outside of first thoughts.

>>56001 >I think Azula’s VA made a Vriska vocaroo once. Here they are. I remember listening to these years ago before AI voice cloning was a thing, but I suppose that's impossible to prove now.

>>56646 God, I miss the simplicity of these times. I want to go back.

how many pages can you bookmark in the UHC? I want to bookmark any page on classpects, and also pages with really nice art I might have fun redrawing

So, I reached the end of Act 6 Act 5. I was gonna post earlier, but I actually couldn't think of how I wanted to word things and then I kept reading because things were interesting and, uh, here we are. Condesce, I expected to speak more like Rose or Kanaya, so I like that she really is just Meenah but older and more overtly evil. But given that she's so much like Meenah, I have a feeling that'll be her downfall- her lack of caring about anything that furthers her goals, along with her childishness. I'm curious as to where Gamzee is gonna fit into this, 'cause I can't exactly get what his motivations are with throwing the dead trolls into the new kids' sprites and working with Caliborn, though I but the latter thing is gonna be a ruse or something. The trickster mode stuff being used to resolve the character conflicts with the new kids was good, I liked the detail of Drik being so cool that he's barely affected by it. I'm glad the romantic troubles are mostly resolved too, though I'm wondering how Jake will be able to make things up to Jane and Dirk before the end of the act. I really like that even though Calliope has been built up to be an intelligent kid who wants to help her friends, that she was still able to make a mistake in sending the jujus, since she likely assumed that if they were good for her and her brother, they'd help Jane as much. Poor kid. Speaking of her and her brother, I don't think I really talked about him, but I like the relationship between him and the narrator. His reluctance to rely on Gamzee and the narrator but clear desire for being spoonfed everything he wants to know about the game is funny. The whole gay bit with him and Jake was great. I'm a little annoyed that the moment Jade finally gets to do something, she gets mind controlled by the Condesce/Tavros and Vriska(?). Come on, man, throw me a bone. I just hope it doesn't last long, but I have a bad feeling it will. Another thing I should note is I'm liking the creativity of the page layouts. Everything right after the Trickster Mode segment was neat, and the occasions where Hussie has the page elements get knocked around are really interesting ways to make the comic more immersive. I guess I don't really have much else to say, I really should just take notes as I read, but at this point, I feel like I'm just gonna keep being lazy and going off memory. Last thing I'll say is I took the apparently official zodiac quiz and I'm a Vriskakin. I couldn't be more pleased. >>56728 I can't seem to find anything on that, so I assume it's unlimited? I suppose just go and bookmark as much as you like.

I think about the gamebro review a lot more than I have any right to do the fact he was inches away from his own game session. the hat rating system. the shout out to his boy dennis

So, uh, me again. So.... I think I finished the comic? I got to the Act 7 video, which I'm assuming is the end? Yet again, I am confused, but that seems to be a consistent thing with me and this comic. So, is Vriska dead? Is it meant to be an implied thing like with Jet in Avatar or is it just meant to be intentionally unclear because it's Vriska? What exactly happened with Lord English? Vriska opened the box, the logo came out and did a thing with a door, and... I guess he's just gone? Outside of these questions, I feel a sense of emptiness. Sure, the final few animations for things were really nice. I liked seeing those that were left get mostly happy endings. It was really cute seeing Jane's dad hug John. I kinda wish there had been more pages to really flesh things out a little more, though. I'll sum up how I fel about Act 6 on the whole first and then the entire comic, cause that's easier for me to parse out. I think if I had to rank the Acts again, I'd still rank Act 5 as my favorite. It fleshed the comic out in some really nice ways and to me felt like the peak of things. Act 6 isn't *bad*, but I kinda feel as though something was missing. I liked the new characters, I liked the overall plot, however, there were parts I was less fond of. Everything with Vriska was not so good. I liked ghost Vriska getting development, even if her new design was fucking awful, but bringing the 'old' Vriska back just so she can cuck ghost Vriska and insert herself back in the plot sucked, and shit, I could give a whole rant on that alone, but I won't because I think I need another post for that. Aranea going nuts and then getting killed never to be seen again sucked. Jade getting basically nothing to do in the final stretch other than being mind controlled, dead, then retconned back to life and knocked out so she could follow the alt-Callie to the Green Sun and... do nothing, and *then* do nothing in the final big clusterfuck of fights besides trying to placate Bec Noir and White Noir and then getting her ass handed to her was absolute garbage, though that could be because I like Jade quite a bit. It felt like while Hussie probably had an overall idea of how he wanted things to play out and set up certain ideas well, that he didn't have any idea what certain characters should do, as evident with Karkat. Yeah, he's not a godtier, but they could've given him something other than beating one of the leprechauns. Shit, even if he'd sat the final fight out, that would've been fine with me as long as they made that his choice. Bro just kinda ends up existing by the end of things, and I feel bad cause I like him, but if Hussie had no idea what to do with him or some of the other characters, I think he should've killed them off or shoved them into a box somewhere to sit out the final bits. Despite all that, I think it was good- I liked everything with Caliborn and Callie, I liked the new characters and their relationships with the old characters, I liked the overall pace of things. It's just those other parts I took issue with. Far as the comic goes on a whole, I think I liked it. The way that flash animations, .gifs, videos, and music along with other pieces of art were integrated in made it a blast to read, even in the parts I wasn't as fond of. The music gets bonus points because there aren't a lot of webcomics that have original music and it was actually very good. The character designs are simplistic for most of the cast, but memorable enough to stick in your mind, which ain't easy to do. If I had to make a complaint, the amount of fake-outs got real annoying after a while, and no, joking about it doesn't make it better. And I wish there weren't so many times where something cool is stated or implied to happen off-screen but you don't actually get to see it. I guess for fun, I'll give my final character ranking: >Jade >John >Roxy >Vriska >Karkat Uhhh, guess that's it. Thanks for reading along with me this whole time, even if you were just reading my posts and thinking about how dumb they were. At this point, I have no interest in the Epilogues or Homosuck 2, since the general consensus seems to be that they're dogshit continuations. If you guys have any good fan stuff to recommend, I'd be grateful. wonk

>>56866 >So.... I think I finished the comic? Have you been doing anything other than reading homosuck these past few weeks?

>>56866 >So.... I think I finished the comic? I got to the Act 7 video, which I'm assuming is the end? Did you see the little extra flash after Act 7 and make it to "Credits"? Credits would be the actual canon ending of the original story.

>>56884 I did, and then I was sent back to the very first page, so my assumption is that I finished it, unless Hussie has some secret extra page I missed.

>>56866 Congrats on finishing anon. You could start searching for acceptable fanfiction and fancomics in an attempt to chase after that bit of magic you felt at the peak of the webcomic. I'm not sure if I'd call any of the fanworks I've enjoyed recommendation material, not that I remember many of them off the top of my head. I just recently read a fancomic called 'Karkat goes to a Convention', which wasn't half bad starting off. In terms of fanfiction, the only one I remember was called 'Herding Cats', which was about Nepeta shipping all the trolls and making sure all their quadrants are filled. The fanfiction quickly devolved into utter degeneracy, but I still remember it after all these years, which I guess says something about it. You also have the option of waiting for the pilot episode of the Homestuck cartoon to release in about 10 days. Theoretically. https://youtu.be/Yl5x8jpiOsg?feature=shared

>>56866 The fact that Dave or Rose aren't in your final character ranking exemplifies one of several reasons why Act 6 is bad; many established characters are character-assassinated, never actualize, or otherwise undergoing lame-ification to varying degrees. Perhaps all of them do. To this day, I'm still not sure to what extent it was intentional expectation-subversion by Hussie, and to what extent it was inadequacy on his part.

>>56889 >the pilot I was hoping someone here could stream it on CyTube, since that sounds like fun.

>>56889 I probably will watch the pilot, but all the meta stuff surrounding it and Homestuck as of late has soured me on any future official media, so I'm expecting the worst. Thanks for the fanfic recommendations, though, I might give Herding Cats a look. Tried checking AO3 for fics, but it seems to be a mess of mostly AUs or porn of trolls I don't give a shit about. Gamzee sure gets a lot of reader inserts for some reason. >>56905 I actually really like both of them, but yeah, they don't get much for Act 6. Most of Dave's stuff is angsting about meeting Dirk because of Bro and that's interesting, but it's not really very substantive since it gets easily resolved by Dirk and Dave hanging out before the final showdown with the Jacks. And Rose goes through a similar thing with Roxy, though it's more that she worries about her own inadequacies (i.e., being an alcoholic). There really isn't enough for either of them to do because Act 6 has to set up not only the new kids but all the new trolls and Callie/Caliborn. I do quite like the new kids, but even with Act 6 being as long as it was, I think they either needed to add another Act or make it longer to give the existing characters more substantive plots. That or, like I said, kill them off or make them unable to get involved with the plot for some reason so at least there'd be some justification for them being more flat. Vriska, my sweet angel, how they massacred you...

>>56866 >So, is Vriska dead? Is it meant to be an implied thing like with Jet in Avatar or is it just meant to be intentionally unclear because it's Vriska? >What exactly happened with Lord English? Vriska opened the box, the logo came out and did a thing with a door, and... I guess he's just gone? Homestuck's ending was rushed. That's it. There's all sorts of retarded autistic drama behind the scenes that contributed to this someone else can post because I have no energy to compile it all. In any case, it seems to me the retcon was not planned far back. But then again, John's temporal powers were established well before Game Over, so maybe Hussie deliberately wrote himself into a corner to retcon it. He didn't do a good job in any case. >I liked ghost Vriska getting development I feel like I'm the only guy on earth who did not like these. To the extent I foolishly was happy when the retcon happened, apart from the implied davecrap shite. She just sorta became a weeny loser, which I suppose is because she absorbed Tavros' weeny loserness when they were merged? The inverse also being why he suddenly got confident. Which I guess is deep because she's seeing things from his perspective, and its good she learned to stop being an attention whore, but I don't know. She just kinda... stops being mean immediately without needing to learn anything. I guess learning John didn't trust her was one thing, but I don't recall her changing her behavior until after the merge, meaning again its mostly just that which caused it. Her whole ghost arc just seemed kinda meandering, from what I recall anyway. I don't remember anything about her romance with the other fish troll, which is perhaps the most damning criticism of all. But regardless of this, what is in consensus is that the retcon was a mistake, and indeed despite my foolish optimism I have learned this to be the case. In theory, Hussie could have brought Vriska back to the narrative and written something better than what actually happened, but knowing only what did happen in this timeline, I can only conclude it would have been better if her story ended with that backstab.

>>56945 It's like, up to the part where Aranea goes batshit and most of the cast dies, it's not too bad. I liked John and Roxy bonding for that little time afterward and the idea of Terezi being able to help John go through the past and alter things to change the end result was interesting, but the execution of that left something to be desired. I know about the Hiveswap stuff and how money from that was used on the final bits of Act 6, but I'll have to look up the details myself on why it all went down like that. Honestly, (Vriska) changing was definitely rushed, but it felt good at the time because all I wanted for her was to see her happy and preferably not trying to force herself back into relevance through shenanigans. They really could've written that better, in a way that has her truly owning up to her being a 8ad 8itch. She became a weenie, but it was nice seeing her happy. Her relationship with Meenah was pretty surface level, to be sure, though. They basically just looked at each other, said 'oh you're kinda like me, that's pretty cool' and started making out. But even if they were gonna implode at some point anyway, the way it was handled was shit. Far as the retcon goes, I would've been fine with it had it led to some sort of change for Vriska- after all, she was on the meteor with everyone else for that three year period now, no one to fight, no one to really bully unless you count Terezi, and she would've gone through much of the same stuff everyone else did with the bubbles and the shit that happened once they got to the new universe. It felt like Hussie had a boner for her, but he could only sustain it if she stayed stagnant and never changed.

She should have been happy with John. The way I see it, if you're going to have characters hook up at the end, which regardless of Hussie making fun of "endgame ships" he did so all the same, you could either: Build upon what you've already established between Between characters A and B Or try starting from scratch with character C Hussie clearly choose the later in this case, but I personally think the former would be a better option. I suppose I'm biased though.

>>56886 >Unless Hussie has some secret extra page I missed. Nah, that's what I meant. You've essentially read the whole story, congratulations! And as you already know, everything that came out after Credits doesn't count.

>>56989 It's funny, a part of me almost wants to read the Epilogues out of morbid curiosity, but on the other hand, I'd rather not have the happy ending tarnished by hamfisted drama or out of nowhere retcons.

>>56889 >Sept 27th Wait, is that in US time or AUS time? The production studio is in Australia.